Stephen Breyer giurista democratico

Stephen Breyer democratic jurist - On the occasion of Breyer's retirement after twenty-eight years as Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, this essay profiles him as an atypical jurist whose approach to the Constitution is of extreme interest. Breyer has been able to display an extraordinary capacity in finding solutions far from the polarization that has characterized the last decades of the U.S. politics. As he wrote most recently in Dobbs, in a constitutional system where unelected judges have the power to check elected officials, the most powerful tool at Court's disposal is acting “with judicial modesty and humility”, guided by legal principles and not politics

Gobernanza de los macrodatos y democracia representativa

The “big data” phenomenon turns out to have a significant impact on the political-institutional sphere and on traditional channels of political representation. The latest U.S. presidential election is a clear proof. The electoral campaign which allowed Trump to get to the Presidency is just the last example showing how the use of data is changing the relationship between citizens and institutions. It would be wrong, however, thinking that the mentioned phenomenon is limited to the U.S. reality. Big data, as has been highlighted in the literature, differ from traditional data (or small data) for three main characteristics, the so-called 3Vs: volume, velocity and variety. The impact on the political institutions side is considerable, and is determined above all by the strong predictive capacity as a typical feature of big data utilization. Processing large amount of data, ends up in a close and reliable picture of what is going to happen, where the more traditional small data have always been characterized by inaccuracy and disorder. This is what data mining (i.e. the set of techniques and methodologies aimed at extracting information from large amounts of data) apply for. In a phase where the political representation circuit seems to be afflicted by an irreversible crisis, big data risks to transfigure the relationship between citizens and institutions and it is worth of a deep analysis.Summary:1. Big data and democracy. – 2. The multi-functionality of big data. – 3. Big data, populismo and representative democracy.El fenómeno de los macrodatos tiene un impacto significativo en el ámbito político-institucional y en los canales tradicionales de representación política. La última elección presidencial de los Estados Unidos es una prueba clara. La campaña electoral que permitió a Trump llegar a la Presidencia es solo el último ejemplo que muestra cómo el uso de los datos está cambiando la relación entre ciudadanos e instituciones. Sin embargo, sería erróneo pensar que el fenómeno mencionado se limita a la realidad de los Estados Unidos. Los macrodatos, como se ha destacado en la literatura, difieren de los datos tradicionales (o datos pequeños) para tres características principales, las llamadas 3V: volumen, velocidad y variedad. El impacto en el lado de las instituciones políticas es considerable, y está determinado sobre todo por la fuerte capacidad predictiva como característica típica de la utilización de los macrodatos. El procesamiento de una gran cantidad de datos termina en una imagen cercana y confiable de lo que sucederá, donde los pequeños datos más tradicionales siempre se han caracterizado por la inexactitud y el desorden. Esto es lo que se aplica a la minería de datos (es decir, el conjunto de técnicas y metodologías destinadas a extraer información de grandes cantidades de datos). En una fase en la que el circuito de representación política parece estar afectado por una crisis irreversible, los macrodatos corren el riesgo de transfigurar la relación entre ciudadanos e instituciones y merece un análisis profundo

L’insularità e la difficile strada verso l’effettività

Islands, especially when they are remote, suffer from structural disadvantages that adversely affect their development prospects. The constitutional reform consistently turns out to be built on the relationship between being an island (fact) and being in a situation of disadvantage (effect). The juridification of insularity necessarily brings a deferral to trust in the institutions that are called upon to give substance and concreteness to this renewed constitutional principle. Unfortunately, recent constitutional jurisprudence has pointed out that until now the issue of insularity has never been taken into account in the overall weighing of the financial situation of island regions