Assistant Professor, University of Eastern Piedmont
I am a political theorist interested in the realist tradition - both its classic authors like Thucydides, Machiavelli, Hobbes and Weber, as well as its contemporary revival rekindled by Williams and Geuss. My main research interest is in the normative side of political realism, i.e. on the grounds upon which realist authors could praise or criticize both political actors and institutions, despite a broad scepticism of traditional moral norms.
I've recently developed a functionalist understanding of such realist political normativity. I argued that functions can be attributed objectively, and they can be used to ground normative judgments. Simply put, just as knives are good when they are sharp and armies are good when they are trained to fight, political institutions are good when they discharge their functions. One key political function is issuing binding collective decisions despite widespread disagreement. Institutions that fail to do so might be defended on moral grounds, but are politically undesirable. This argument also prompted a lively debate, since critics of realism replied to it and I offered some further thoughts in response.
Selected publications
2026 - Fear, Power and Superintelligence: A Realist Reframing of AI Catastrophic Risk, European Journal of Political Theory
2026 - When Realism Demands the Unfeasible: Functional Binds, Functional Prompts and the European Union, Journal of Politics
2024 - No Virtue like Resilience – Machiavelli’s realistic justification of democracy, Political Studies
2021 - The Sources of Political Normativity: The case for instrumental and epistemic normativity in political realism (with Destri, C.) Ethical Theory & Moral Practice
2020 - Political Normativity and the Functional Autonomy of Politics, European Journal of Political Theory
2019 - A Realistic Conception of Politics: Conflict, order and political realism, Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy (CRISPP Essay Prize)
Publications
Citation metrics available on Google Scholar (link) and Scopus (ID 57202004382).
Peer-reviewed journal articles
• When Realism Demands the Unfeasible: Functional Binds, Functional Prompts and the European Union. The Journal of Politics. Accepted 16 March 2026; «Just Accepted» version online, DOI 10.1086/741452.
• Fear, Power, and Superintelligence: A Realist Reframing of AI Catastrophic Risk (with Formentini). European Journal of Political Theory. Accepted 30 July 2026; forthcoming.
• An Index of Intergenerational Justice (with Galasso, Galeotti, Bellia et al.). The Journals of Gerontology, Series B, 80, Suppl. 2: S169–S179 (2025). DOI 10.1093/geronb/gbaf192.
• Does Your Vote Matter That Much? On the Ground of Electoral Duties (with Destri). Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, 28(5): 737–754 (2025).
• Moralism as a Pathology of Public Discourse: A Realist Assessment (with Destri). Topoi, 44(1): 89–100 (2025).
• From Right to Might, and Back: Functional Legitimacy as a Realist Value (with Destri). Philosophy & Social Criticism, 51(8): 1358–1377 (2025). DOI 10.1177/01914537231215729.
• No Virtue Like Resilience: Machiavelli's Realistic Justification of Democracy. Political Studies, 72(4): 1471–1490 (2024).
• A Genealogy of Politics: Vindicatory, Pragmatic, and Realist (with Prinz). European Journal of Philosophy, 32(4): 1277–1292 (2024). DOI 10.1111/ejop.12965.
• Political Normativity as Functional Normativity: A Reply to Erman and Möller. Journal of Philosophical Research, 48: 169–176 (2023). DOI 10.5840/jpr202348214.
• The Function of Solidarity and Its Normative Implications (with F. Camboni). Ethics & Global Politics, 16(3): 1–19 (2023).
• La solidarietà come funzione sociale (with F. Camboni). Rivista di estetica, 82: 30–46 (2023).
• Political Normativity and the Functional Autonomy of Politics. European Journal of Political Theory, 21(4): 627–649 (2022).
• The Sources of Political Normativity: The Case for Instrumental and Epistemic Normativity in Political Realism (with Destri). Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, 25(3): 397–413 (2022).
• Getting Real about Taxes: Offshore Tax Sheltering and Realism's Ethic of Responsibility (with Arlen). Ethics & International Affairs, 36(2): 231–258 (2022).
• A Realistic Conception of Politics: Conflict, Order and Political Realism. Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, 24(7): 977–999 (2021). DOI 10.1080/13698230.2019.1604045. — CRISPP Best Essay Prize 2022.
• Norms from Nature: Etiological Functions as Normative Standards. Phenomenology and Mind, 17: 188–197 (2020). DOI 10.13128/pam-8036.
• Cross-national Solidarity and Political Sustainability in the EU after the Crisis (with Ferrera). JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies, 57(1): 94–110 (2019).
• Solidarity, Stability and Enlightened Self-interest in the EU. Politiche Sociali, 5(3): 449–464 (2018).
• Subjectivity is Objective: Thomas Hobbes on Normative Truth. Notizie di Politeia, 34(129): 98–113 (2018).
• Verso una concezione realistica della politica. Biblioteca della Libertà, LI(216): 23–47 (2016).
Monographs
• Realtà Necessità Conflitto: Il realismo in filosofia politica. Rome: Carocci, 2020.
• E fu lo Stato: Hobbes e il dilemma che imprigiona. Milan: Mimesis, 2010.
Book chapters
• Introduzione (with Biale and Galeotti). In: Burelli, Biale, Galeotti (eds.), Un paese che invecchia. Rome: Carocci, 2025: 11–16.
• Riprodurre il futuro: un dovere realista per una società che invecchia. In: Burelli, Biale, Galeotti (eds.), Un paese che invecchia. Rome: Carocci, 2025: 49–66.
• L'etica della necessità – I quattro pilastri del realismo politico. In: Palano (ed.), Le forme della realtà. Una mappa dei realismi politici. Milan: Vita e Pensiero, 2025: 87–106.
• The Solidarity Deficit of the European Union: A Missing Functional Value (with Donati). In: Tava, Quénivet (eds.), European Solidarity: Interdisciplinary Perspectives. ECPR Press, 2023: 29–52.
• Realismo politico. In: Rosas (ed.), Manual de Filosofia Política, 3rd ed. Almedina, 2023: 213–237.
• Il moralismo e la degenerazione del dibattito pubblico contemporaneo. In: Bistagnino, Pasquali (eds.), A New Deal – Scritti per Antonella Besussi. Rome: Aracne, 2022: 61–74. DOI 10.53136/97912218029935.
• Una politica che funzioni: il monopolio del potere come funzione realista della politica. In: Petrucciani (ed.), Potere, autorità e libertà. Milan: Mimesis, 2022: 61–70.
• The Environmental Crisis and Its Injustice: An (Inevitably Short) Introduction (with Pala). In: Burelli, Pala (eds.), Rivista di Estetica, 60(75), 2020: 3–16.
• The Good and the Best: Being Realistic about Social Change. In: Ivković, Prodanović (eds.), Engaging (for) Social Change – Towards New Forms of Collective Action. Belgrade: Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory, 2019: 152–176.
• Re-Solidarizing Europe and Defusing the Crisis (with Ferrera). In: Hien, Joerges (eds.), Responses of European Economic Cultures to Europe's Crisis Politics. Robert Schuman Centre / EUI, 2018.
• No Rest for the Wicked: Political Realism and the Inevitability of Conflict. Gli Annali di LPF 2017 (WP-LPF 6/2017), Centro Einaudi: 226–247.
• Realistic Solidarity for the Real EU. REScEU Project Working Paper Series, 11: 1–31 (2016).
• Thomas Hobbes: Lex Facit Veritatem. In: Besussi (ed.), Filosofia, verità e politica. Questioni classiche, 2015: 33–46.
Edited volumes and special issues
• Un paese che invecchia (with Biale and Galeotti). Rome: Carocci, 2025.
• Political Normativity: Critical Essays on the Autonomy of the Political (with Cozzaglio, Destri, Favara). Special issue, Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, 25(3), 2022 — with Editorial, pp. 393–396.
• Ethics of the Environmental Crisis (with Pala). Special issue, Rivista di Estetica, 60(75), 2020: 1–197.
Reviews and discussions
• Solidarity, Diversity and the Future of Liberal Societies. Biblioteca della Libertà, LII(219): 109–120 (2021).
• Review of S. Bartolini, The Political. Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, 23: 483–485 (2020).
• Ingannare se stessi per fuorviare il cittadino (review of Galeotti, Political Self-Deception). Biblioteca della Libertà, LIV(224): 97–108 (2019).
• The Difference Drones (Do Not) Make (comment on Meisels). Filozofija i društvo, XXIX(1): 18–20 (2018).