Storia e Politica 3/2025. Special issue

Anno XVII, Storia e Politica, n. 3/ Special issue – 2025

Annalisa Furia, Università degli Studi di Bologna, Dipartimento di Beni Culturali

ORCID: 0000-0002-2598-8700

DOI: https://doi.org/10.69087/STORIAEPOLITICA.XVII.3/Special.2025.01

DOES DEMOCRACY NEED SOLIDARITY? THE REASONS FOR A QUESTION

Keywords: solidarity, Pierre Leroux, democracy, social practices.

Is solidarity necessary to support democracy? What has been its historical role and political function in this regard? How can the particularistic, and potentially exclusionary, aspects of solidarity be reconciled with its universal aspirations? While our (even very recent) history provides evidence that solidarity can be enacted as an exclusionary and illiberal principle against variously defined “others,” the starting point of this special issue is that the question of the relationship between solidarity and democracy is politically significant and, more specifically, one that can be effectively explored by examining both its historical origins and contemporary manifestations through multiple disciplinary lenses.

Elena Irrera, Università degli Studi di Bologna, Dipartimento di Scienze Politiche e Sociali

ORCID: 0000-0001-5294-5098

DOI: https://doi.org/10.69087/STORIAEPOLITICA.XVII.3/Special.2025.02

A PROTO-SOLIDARITY? FRIENDSHIP, JUSTICE AND POLITICAL PARTICIPATION IN ARISTOTLE

Keywords: Solidarity, Friendship, Aristotle, Joint-Action

While solidarity is a modern notion, often tied to collective action for justice in plural societies, Aristotle’s civic friendship sustains justice by binding the polis through reciprocity and concord. Engaging contemporary theories of solidarity, especially Habermas’ idea of solidarity as justice’s “reverse side”, this paper highlights affinities between modern debates and Aristotelian thought. Civic philia emerges as a participatory practice where equality and shared deliberation enhance justice itself, alongside the strengthening of a sense of community. Thus, Aristotle’s ethics and politics reveal an embryonic solidarity, especially in contexts of inclusive political participation.

Elena Musiani, Università degli Studi di Bologna, Dipartimento di Storia, Culture, Civiltà, Institut des Sciences Sociales du Politique, Université Paris Nanterre

ORCID: 0000-0002-6523-8779

DOI: https://doi.org/10.69087/STORIAEPOLITICA.XVII.3/Special.2025.03

SHAPING A “NEW SOCIAL HUMAN SUBJECT”: WOMEN’S SOLIDARITY NETWORKS IN EUROPE IN THE FIRST HALF OF THE 19TH CENTURY

Keywords: Saint-Simonians; Feminism; Associazionismo; Solidarity; Freedom.

This essay aims to analyse the emergence of the first forms of women’s associations, starting with the experience of Saint-Simonian women in France in the first half of the 19th century and their connections with experiences in Great Britain. It follows a chronology that begins with the revolutions of the contemporary era in order to examine the construction of networks of relationships over the long term, with particular attention to continuities and ruptures. It analyses a solidarity that arose from collective experiences such as the first magazines, in search of expressions of individuality that sought to build increasingly universal expressions and rights.

Niall Bond, Université Lumière Lyon 2, France, Institut d’histoire des représentations et des idées dans les modernités, Sociology Department, University of Johannesburg, South Africa

ORCID: 0000-0002-9252-7883

DOI: https://doi.org/10.69087/STORIAEPOLITICA.XVII.3/Special.2025.04

EXPRESSIONS OF “SOLIDARITY” IN FRENCH AND GERMAN SOCIAL THEORY

Keywords: solidarity, mechanical, organic, normative, descriptive

The present article offers a survey of the history of the term “solidarity” from its origins in law. The word is applied normatively to evoke a utopian desideratum or descriptively to designate the mère absence of strife in classical French sociology. Evocations of solidarity are founded upon self-interest in modern “society” or an instinctive sense of common belonging in “community”. While social theorists in the wake of Durkheim attempted to lead social theory towards normative philosophy and speculation on what “solidarity” should be, taking an empirical approach, Max Weber pragmatically asks what leads people to behave as though united, uncovering a range of motivations. 

Beata Paragi, Institute of Global Studies, Corvinus University of Budapest

ORCID: 0000-0002-7432-7810

Beata Paragi, Ślęzak-Belowska, Department of Applied Economics, Krakow University of Economics: Krakow

ORCID: 0000-0002-8258-7786

DOI: https://doi.org/10.69087/STORIAEPOLITICA.XVII.3/Special.2025.05

AMBIGUITIES OF SOLIDARITY IN CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE: PROXIMITY, POLITICS OF INCLUSION AND EXCLUSION IN FORCED MIGRATION CONTEXTS*

Keywords: Central-Europe, solidarity, proximity, local aid actors, migration

The mass displacement of Ukrainian citizens triggered the activation of the EU’s Temporary Protection Directive. The warm welcome of Ukrainian forced migrants has also drawn criticism because it contrasted sharply with the treatment of non-European refugees. Earlier studies not only examined the fallacies of ’geographical proximity’ cited as a justification but also labelled the EU’s selective inclusion as hypocritical. The aim of this paper is to provide a more nuanced understanding of this selective solidarity, by laying the groundwork on the history of the borderlands of Poland and Hungary with Ukraine, arguing that reflections on the temporal dimensions of (missing) solidarity are at least as important as spatial factors determining it.