1. Discusses highly topical issues concerning the relations between socialism and democracy.2. Presents a forceful but sympathetic critique of Marxism, arguing that it lacks a theory of politics and of the socialist state.3. Bobbio is the leading political theorist in Italy today and the volume also includes a response to Bobbio by Toni Negri.

Can democracy provide a path to socialism? Can civil rights and democratic institutions be protected and developed in a socialist society? Does our view of the nature and value of democracy affect our understanding of socialism itself? In a world with regimes which profess to be socialist, which socialism is worth defending today?

In this powerful and provocative volume, Norberto Bobbio re-examines the uneasy relation between socialism and democracy. He argues that Marxist theory has failed to provide an adequate account of the nature and role of the state in socialist society and defends the concept of representative democracy. Bobbio's arguments sparked off a lively debate in Italy; this volume includes a reply by Antonio Negri. The volume also includes an essay by Bobbio on Marxism and international relations, and his classic text on Gramsci's conception of civil society.