ABSTRACT
The chapter problematizes the connection between anti-politics and the process of depoliticization, understood as the way neo-liberalism influences decision-making processes in the West in general and in Italy in particular. Neo-liberalism applied to government practices in the form of depoliticization produces repercussions on the relationship between political classes and civil society. In the context of neoliberal depoliticization, the arenas of political representation are emptied of meaning in favour of post-democratic decision-making practices which take the form of a crisis in the role of parliaments and the strengthening of governments in their new role as bearers of the interests of large international political, economic and financial organizations. In this context, even a number of the basic foundations of liberal democracies are being questioned. A depoliticized politics no longer needs popular participation, to the extent that the decision-making process tends to be transformed into the ratification of decisions taken outside the places of representation. Conflict, participation, mass political organizations weigh down the decision-making process. Big mass parties are no longer useful and give way to charismatic political leaders capable of catalyzing consensus, through light post-ideological electoral organizations. This process has a strong impact on the relationship between political classes and civil society. Anti-politics becomes the dominant social sentiment, and civil society perceives itself as increasingly distant from politics and democratic institutions. In the last section, we discuss these processes in the Italian case.
