The main cultural passages of the concept of politics.
If one stays within the framework of human society, politics is the highest and noblest invention ever conceived.
To understand the path that leads to the current weakness of politics, it is useful to go back in time to the eighth century B.C. to the time of Rome, Sparta and Athens. The inhabitants of those cities had realised that they could do without kings and had realised, but without codifying anything, that politics has the fundamental task of confining power and of bringing together, within a community (a polis, a state, etc.), the bearers of different interests with the aim of identifying a vision of the future and shared goals: all without resorting to violence.
This conception of politics brought with it the temporalisation of power and in fact the consuls in Rome had a lot of power but their office could only last for one year. In the fourth century B.C., the philosopher Aristotle (tutor of Alexander the Great) asserted that politics is about doing good. St Thomas Aquinas later adopted this view, which influenced all of Christianity.
Aristotle’s assertion, which at first glance seems obvious and positive, brings politics into an ethical realm and makes us lose sight of the fundamental insights of the Greeks and Romans.
Unfortunately, this approach is still dominant in Western culture and is precisely the cause of the extreme weakness of politics. In fact, the West accepts that politics can be an activity that can be carried out by one person for a lifetime (thus allowing the opposite of what the temporalisation of power would require), it also accepts that the same person can be the head of his party and at the same time can sit in parliament and make laws for everyone. These two customs have devastating consequences on the effectiveness of politics.
Why?
A person who is a politician by trade derives the income to support his children if he can maintain his armchair over time. To that armchair is linked the survival of his family: all this generates a visceral bond. The fact that that same person has the power to make laws for everyone leads him fatally to make laws that protect his career and prevent turnover. All this leads to the exclusion from the life of the state both of citizens with the phenomenon of abstentionism and of important social categories such as associations. An inexcusable waste of valuable energy.
In this situation, one must also bear in mind the great power of the party leadership, which, thanks to the possibility of having MPs re-elected or not, become the people to whom the elected person refers, putting the solution of citizens’ problems in second place.
In this framework, it is clear that institutions are slowly engulfing the spaces for doing politics that should be strictly for the citizenship. In this way, the citizenry is increasingly ousted from the management of the state, with very serious damage to the smooth functioning of the institutions, because at the very least, there is no organised entity capable of carrying out an effective check on the work of the institutions. The controlled and the controller eventually coincide.
A proof of this phenomenon is the common perception of the phrase “politics should take care of this problem”. Most people, hearing it, run their thoughts to the palaces of power and their occupants who should be thinking about solving the problem. No one thinks that the citizenry, organised in intermediate bodies, the parties, could discuss the problem, find solutions and ask their party’s elected representatives to commit to making laws to solve them. This does not happen because parties have never existed in this sense.
What is institutional politicity and social politicity.
1) The two types of politicalness
Schematically, we can identify two types of politicalness (we felt the need to create a neologism to summarise a number of concepts).
The first is the institutional politicalness carried out in the institutions provided for by the constitutions of the various states, such as the government and parliament, where decisions binding on all are taken.
The second is social politicalness, which is supposed to be carried out by citizens and is embodied in a set of functions and actions that act in close correlation with each other.
2) What is social politicity
By “social politicity” we mean that set of instruments, actions and functions that enables citizens to develop political ideas and visions to direct and control institutional politics in the interest of the community. Social politicity, therefore, develops when civil society has political spaces and tools at its disposal to form, debate, express its demands and proposals, participate in the elaboration of electoral programmes and the selection of candidates for elected office, and verify and evaluate the work of those elected.
It is useful to emphasise that elections are not enough to affirm that social politicity exists, because elections should be the culmination of a path of participation, confrontation and elaboration of a vision of society. Otherwise, elections are reduced to a ritual that becomes a semblance of democracy.
3) The indispensable elements of social politicity
a) An independent information system
b) An education in “Politics” for citizenship
c) The existence of political parties and/or formations, understood as free associations of citizens to participate in and contribute to political choices.
4) Why is there little social politicisation in today’s society?
Throughout the world, for historical reasons, contemporary political systems do not allow the development of social politicity, on the contrary, they compress it, since they allow the accumulation of power in the hands of the same individuals who claim to exercise both institutional politicity (as parliamentarians or members of the executive) and social politicity (in key party positions) at the same time. This accumulation of roles is the main factor that nullifies social politicity: it is therefore clear that, in order for it to flourish, there must be a clear separation between social and institutional politicity, otherwise controllers and controlled coincide, leading to a dangerous conflict of interests.
Below is a list of some critical points relating to the Italian situation.
1) It is the party leadership that selects the candidates who, once elected, feel “bound” for their political future to the parties that got them elected, thus tending to neglect the collective interest. This system of selecting the political and administrative class, which privileges the appointments, in the electoral lists, in public bodies and in participated companies, of people close to the parties and loyal to the bosses, makes the country’s ruling class asphyxiated and leads to the progressive spread of clientelism and consociativism.
2) The elected person tends to put his or her own re-election first, entering into a conflict of interest with his or her public function. This fact, human and understandable, leads to:
(a) Destruction of the function of the party because it is used as an instrument of power and personal advancement instead of as an instrument of social political development;
b) Degradation of the institutions because people organic to the party are placed in key posts, privileging loyalty rather than competence.
3) Election campaigns require large economic and media resources that are often provided by power groups who then, of course, demand a quid pro quo.
These phenomena just described favour a perverse intertwining of political power (institutional politicalness) and economic-financial, academic and media power, with a sprawling party presence in every aspect of civil life, with a general social flattening and a loss of the potential that only an intellectually free society can express.
The social polity has a vital need for profoundly renewed political forces.
In view of the above, we believe that politics cannot be equated with a common profession, that it cannot be exercised for life within institutions, and that in order to resolve the current pathologies of politics, a change of people (albeit with proven honesty and competence) is not enough, but that structural changes in the forms of politics are needed. By way of example: the impossibility of accumulating offices, a law on parties, a limit on the number of mandates, a ban on abandoning the mandate held by the voters.
Therefore, in order to overcome the pathologies highlighted, efforts must also be made to develop political and cultural action.
5) Why is it indispensable to develop social politicity?
Society’s wealth of intellectual resources runs the risk of not being valorised by the lack of social politicity so that the whole of society suffers because it is unable to think politically; therefore, it does not produce those shared visions that society sorely needs to avoid being overwhelmed by well-organised interests that do not have the general interest as their primary goal.
The many political and cultural associations, of which civil society is rich, are unable, due to a lack of regulations and adequate spaces, to relate with institutions that, while declaring themselves sensitive, are in fact deaf to social demands.
At present, all political choices are made only by the institutional sector (professional politicians and the bureaucratic apparatus) which, moving according to institutional, economic and social power relations consolidated over time, cannot develop a political vision aimed at the interest of all. This situation often leads to systemic ruptures such as political, economic, environmental crises or wars.
Society, marginalised and deprived of adequate means of participation, is left with nothing but resounding forms of protest or resigned withdrawal into its own private life.
6) What reforms for the development of social politics?
6.1) Party regulations
Status quo: Today every party is led by people who are at the same time in state institutions, creating double roles, double power, great inefficiency, little control and corruption. Electoral lists are not defined by the people, after evaluating and selecting candidates, but by the party apparatus. Finally, there is no transparency about where party funding comes from.
Objective: Those who represent a party or lead it cannot hold public elective office or government posts. The reform of the parties must introduce democracy and participation in the internal decision-making processes of the parties; they will also be given public functions so that they become associative instruments to encourage the participation of citizenship in political choices.
6.2) School reform
Status quo: schools, in general, tend to educate but not to form citizens. People tend to leave school at all levels without knowing how institutions function, without having a basic knowledge of law, without knowing how to exercise their rights, and without having the tools to understand the language of public administration.
Objective: schools must not only perform the task of educating, but must train in active citizenship with a single national programme so that each person is prepared to enter society with an awareness of his or her role: each citizen must not only know how institutions function, but must also be able to exercise his or her rights and fulfil his or her duties.
It would also be very useful to teach non-violence and, in particular, non-violent communication, which is fundamental to achieve a widespread ability to dialogue with serenity, to listen and to respect the interlocutor, learning to use social politics as a tool to compose different visions and transform them into operativeness and norms for the benefit of the community.
6.3) Media reform
Status quo: Today, most media, including public media, are controlled by power groups (political and economic) that heavily influence information. Italy ranks 41st according to the 2023 ranking of ‘Reporters sans frontières’.
Objective: A free and plural public service to foster critical thinking and awareness. To this end, it will be necessary for public information providers to be selected in a transparent manner, taking into account the pluralism of information and avoiding vested interests. In this sense, the Media Freedom Act regulation approved on 8 August 2025 by the European Union is important. The ultimate goal of the information system must be to fulfil the right to knowledge. It is not enough to make documents and data available to everyone if the conditions for their effective usability are not created. Information must accompany the evolutionary processes under the banner of our Constitution and democracy.
Particularly with regard to public service broadcasting, we believe that citizens must also have a role in controlling the management of this service in order to guarantee its independence.
7) What role for associations, committees, groups and movements
The social-political approach, envisaging the creation of political forces / parties radically different from the past that become a real bridge between citizenship and institutions, would also favour a natural evolution of the role of associations, groups, movements and committees. However, a change of mentality is needed: we must overcome prejudice towards politics and understand that politics, if structured differently, would become the ideal place for listening, evaluating and possibly implementing the proposals of civil society. These bodies could therefore in the near future make a significant contribution to social politics by collaborating, for example, in the definition of political programmes and the recommendation of candidates to be included in electoral lists. It is important for these bodies to grasp the importance and potential of social politicity and thus decide to be part of it by becoming part of an equal network that would allow for synergies and accelerate the cultural change necessary to change the forms of politics in the collective interest.
8) Final reflections.
Politics and social politicity are intimately linked to non-violent communication, because politics thanks to confrontation and listening, thanks to attention to the other, can find the best synthesis between the different visions of the various components of society. Violence is the negation of politics.
We emphasise that the development of social politicity in society could bring about a marked improvement in the functioning of institutions and society in general. Despite the fact that we are aware that social politicity is not the “solution to problems”, but the indispensable premise for their solution, since it allows us to tackle the complex problems generated by the great economic-financial powers that govern the world.
Only through the participation and civic growth of all citizens will it be possible to better govern both local and global phenomena for a future of prosperity and peace.
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