In the case of the recent survey of the same on Italy, the negative opinion of citizens on political institutions reveals 63% of citizens who provide a negative evaluation of the government’s work and 66% who express an unfavorable opinion on the action of Parliament. The negative situation of the country is expressed by 78% of Italian citizens, compared to an EU average of 64%. Institutional distrust and concern for the economic situation appear very broad as systemic data.
If we move on to detect the satisfaction of Italians with the measures taken on the two major current issues (anti-pandemic measures, responses to the Russian-Ukrainian conflict), the situation changes, returning the image of a society divided almost in half: 41% of respondents to the Eurobarometer survey in Italy declare themselves dissatisfied with the measures taken by the government against Covid, 45% do not agree with the Italian government’s responses to the conflict in Ukraine, 47% fear the risk of an economic crisis.
A generalized distrust
The division in half of society on the main measures taken during the year by political institutions give the image of a country worn out by worries, withdrawn into itself, little motivated and inclined to look to others and to (re)generate trust and social capital.
A change of pace in this situation
Seems desirable, for an improvement in the general condition of the country system and for recovery and resilience, which cannot be only oriented towards economism, but must also take charge of the social capital and the trust of citizens, towards institutions, towards social articulations, towards the difficult reconstruction of community networks. In this sense, working on the imaginary of mutual trust is a fundamental lever for third sector entities , which have a difficult task, but within the reach of the extraordinary resources of prosociality inherent in this world.