ABSTRACT
Scholars are divided on the relationship between cynicism and political life. In this chapter, I describe and endorse what I call “institutional cynicism” and suggest it can feature within kinds of virtuous civic stances in democratic societies. I accept that some forms of cynicism can be as destructive and as anti-democratic as critics insist. Institutional cynicism, of the sort I describe, can make us better citizens. It turns our attention toward suboptimal aspects of the political institutions of democratic societies, teaching us things about those institutions we need to know, without necessarily leading us into fatalism or despair.
