Participatory budgeting: the challenge of the century's train 
The city of Udine has concluded in recent days his first experience of participatory budgeting: an experimental project that has developed within a few months, through district public meetings , where the city administration they have been purely technical partner and companion of the direct process. Udinese
That is not the first Italian experience of Participatory Budgeting. The processes of popular participation, parties for some time, are now also taking in Italy interesting dimensions. The fact that these
experiences to develop a system of government based on representative democracy begs the question whether and under what terms the broad wording of direct democracy can coexist in this system.
In this perspective it is good to clarify that from the beginning of modern constitutionalism, the exercise "direct" sovereignty can be resolved "in the act, whether by physical co-presence of subsidiaries - in the public square" without the participation of intermediaries that could be placed between the decision maker and the decision. At the same time
between democracy and representative government, has always drawn a sharp line of demarcation, to clarify the radical difference that separates them.
But if the concept of direct democracy, is still one of the classics (ie that of "a people gathered), it is true that in complex societies, each technique involves decision-making, still (today more than ever) a mediation . In pluralistic societies it becomes inevitable interposition between the people and the political decision, even when that decision is attributed to the same people and its "direct" expression of will. The reality shows that public opinion is formed first, and always through the mediation of parties and groups, and, above all, through the media, which often sometimes transgressed the ideology of these groups and political parties (the weakest).
For everything, when we discuss processes of participatory budgeting, it would be more accurate to use the term participatory democracy, while aware that participatory budgeting has own specific characteristics that go far beyond the meaning of the participation of institutes of constitutional referendum and popular participation.
There is no doubt however that such participatory processes are born from the need to address critical aspects of their representative democracy, for our purposes, can be summarized in a duality of factors:
1) - The extension of the principle of sussidiaretà. a sort of invitation to the State not to intervene whenever the citizens and their social groupings (family, associations and other "intermediate bodies", including local institutions) can 'go it alone'. The principle of subsidiarity has essentially started a chain of progressive de-empowerment, with highly asymmetric: in fact, the era characterized by globalization of the problems we live in an ever stronger "localization" of the solutions, which charge the responsibility of local governments to decide (but which, however, do not follow appropriate transfer of resources indispensable for farvi fronte).
Questa crescita del decisionismo istituzionale locale, avviato con l'era dell'elezione diretta dei sindaci e della dimunizione di potere dei consigli comunali, è andata sempre più coniugando una creazione di spazi di partecipazione diretta dei cittadini alle decisioni pubbliche.
Il coinvolgimento degli abitanti nelle scelte pubbliche diviene così quasi indispensabile sopratutto per ricostruire una fiducia dei cittadini nella politica, che possa darle ‘sostenibilità’ davanti alle continue crisi di legittimazione che ha attraversato nell’ultimo trentennio.
La riforma poi del Titolo V della Costituzione (2001) – con tutte le sue molteplici contraddizioni – si inserisce in questo path of subsidiarity, which seeks to enhance the autonomy of local authorities and institutions of popular participation. The new text of art. 118 prevde as new organizational models and relationships between citizens and government, based on communication and co-decision.
thus reinforcing the concept of participation highlighted the very first articles of the Constitution, in which there is a clear convergence between popular sovereignty, effective participation, substantive equality and pluralism.
2) - the crisis of the political parties. Already Charles Edwards, a lawyer and philosopher of the last century, had ruled that if a party instead of representing an ideology and strive for the common good represented the needs of a group of economic pressure, it is in fact a pressure group in disguise, and it would be for this fight, to be expelled from Parliament, to be denounced as scandalous "
The master philosopher and jurist last century, states, inter alia, that the action of the parties and the government is lawful ministers, but "to be condemned when it is determined by private interest" means the public showing of the party, as a means of connection between state and society calendar with the exclusive public function to forward the sovereign will of the people, is not consistent for Edwards, with the pollution of politics by personal and financial interests.
In this perspective there can fail to see how the pollution of politics with personal and financial interests of the party has initiated a crisis of the system, since the year 1990, has amplified the sense of mistrust and distrust of the sovereign people which has now spilled on the institutions, the core and foundation of representative democracy.
Therefore if the parties are called to fulfill a "pivotal role in the lives of our representative democracy, that's the crisis that today they live results and confounds itself in the crisis of representative democracy: the natural consequence of the need to search new solutions.
is in 60 that the issue of participation enter into the Italian political debate, are the years of works councils, school boards and experiences of participatory planning that start in the next decade, a process of regulatory standards.
The crisis of the 90s then led to the differentiation of municipal statutes, especially after the new election law of 1993 establishing the direct election of mayors, while the text of the Local Authorities Act of 2000, strengthened the role of institutions closer the citizen. Since then they have begun to form and specific instruments adapted to local socio-cultural contexts, with the goal of making participation by resource instrumental in symbolic resource.
In Italy, the knowledge of the subject of participatory budgeting took place in 1998, thanks to some university and the newly revised 'Paper'.
If it is true that, historically, the approach to the Participatory Budget was highly politicized from the outset, it is equally true that, today, the same approach seems more mature, as designed and intended as a tool for trilateral relationship between government and Citizenship and bureaucracy and, ultimately, improving urban management.
The Participatory Budget is therefore an important path in these experiments also in Italy, where the debate has developed in parallel with that of Annual Reports (instruments to measure the effects of public policies in social terms) and has found fertile ground in the understanding of its role as an instrument of political renewal / educational enrichment of direct ' self-awareness and sense of civic duty as a citizen.
The experience of Udine, and favored earlier, participation in the Network 9 ^ UR-BAL of the European project and then by the council decision to join the Network of the New Town Hall is based in particular on the idea of \u200b\u200bbringing forward the un'autoeducazione democracy, citizenship, through forms of co-decision between people and institutions regarding to new strategic investments to the area. In this sense, Udine has promoted and implemented a project - even experimental - of genuine participatory budgeting, as opposed to participatory budgeting, substantially whose approach is very different and certainly more restrictive and limiting.
This is a process of involvement of citizens that has all the characteristics to lead to a sustained and structured way in which citizens play an active role in decisions, and not involving an almost 'passive'.
In this perspective, Udine assume the role and the role of "pioneer" in the entire region, where participatory budgeting, together with the Social Report, are yet to come.
Scuola, slitta al 2010 riforma superiori 
