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A first solution is to attribute the direct responsibility of these failures to a specific political
party (or to individual leaders). The result is the change of vote or preference. This is the more
likely scenario.
A second solution is to attribute the responsibility of these failures to the external conditions
in which the representatives of the people work (the world (global) causes for internal crisis
are more often considered as unavoidable causes). So it is necessary to have a redefinition of
the goals as achievable in these new contexts.
A third solution is to consider the goal in general as not achievable independently from the
specific political party or leader. This kind of attribution can be realized in particular in the
cases in which relevant changes and advances are expected with respect to the current social,
cultural, economic situation. So there could be a disappointment with respect to the possibility
of these changes. There needs to be backing of the social goals and an advancement of the
individual ones and a departure from politics and institutions and a re-evaluation of private
and individual objectives. The result is a weakening of collective goals, values, principles, of
social attainments, with clear consequences on the cooperative and interactive climate. At the
same time, given the social intrinsic nature of the environment in which humans live, there
will emerge, on the one hand, a disorientation with respect to the identity, the ends both of
the single individual and society; on the other hand the need will emerge for alternative social
infrastructures and entities, persuing collective goals (even of small communities).
A concrete example of the attribution of the responsibilities to the context is given in the
Italian political situation: the good public-opinion performance of Berlusconi's government in
these years of very serious economical and social crisis. One of the reasons for this endurance
is precisely the fact that, despite the continuous very bad trends and results, people ascribe
them to external circumstances and international factors. The government (with the help of its
quasi-monopolistic control of media and thanks to its 'activism' on the media) is able to convey
to the public the image of 'doing as much as possible!'. This is actually false (while reading
for example the data about the strong increase in tax evasion, or comparing investments in
Italy and Germany, or listening to trade unions, Confidustria, or Bank Italia analyses), but what
matters obviously is the information and the image: 'We are doing our best! Circumstances
are adverse').
On the contrary, the previous government (Prodi) was seriously affected by a trust crisis;
not only for having too high expectations, but also because there was a systematic internal
attribution of all their difficulties and partial successes. This was very much due to the contin-
uous media-communication of disagreements and fights inside government or its majority, a
weak decision style, etc. This gave the impression that they (the government and those parties)
were inadequate, that any partial success was obvious and not so much due to their ability or
commitment, while any retard or failure was definitely due to their internal limits and fragility.
13.3.1 For Italy (All'Italia)
In a recent editorial of an Italian newspaper a journalist was synthesizing the core problem of
Italy and of its crisis, with these words: '
...
. It is a collective disaster, the greater tragedy:
we are losing trust, will to fight, hope'.
Why is losing trust - especially for a country-abigtragedy? And what is the link between
will to fight and hope? Maybe, because trust is, on the one hand, the social glue of any
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