Atomizzata o connessa? L’agire politico nella società individualizzata tra de-politicizzazione e ri-politicizzazione

Abstract

The article analyzes the relationship between social change and political change. The basic thesis is that, behind the widespread diagnosis of a political crisis a silencing "re-elaboration of the political" is happening. It’s a qualitative transformation of the places, of the actors, of the meanings of participation and, by this way, of the very definition of what is "political" that is deeply rooted in the "reinvention of the social". Social change profoundly alters the relationship between the individual and the collective sphere and transforms the role and functioning of political institutions. As a result, the forms and aims of participation are profoundly transformed. The "reinvention of the social" is a process of radical redefinition of the modalities of sociability between individuals and of the relationship between the individual and the collective sphere. The re-elaboration of the political, which finds expression in innovative practices of participation, promotes a process of re-politicization, which goes hand in hand with the process of de-politicization. Individualization does not mean atomization. It does not equate with depoliticization and it does not necessarily translate into eclipses of the public dimension and political solitude. The contribution suggests that the re-elaboration of politics is rooted in a “connected individualism”, while political solitude is expression of a “atomized individualism”.