Good politics: enhancing the quality of participation

Enhancing political participation is a central issue for current institutions, also to reverse the rising distrust in politics recorded in many countries. Moreover several studies highlight the shift from traditional forms of participation to civil society. Such phenomena support the idea that we can observe two distinct constructs in action. First the effect of political cynicism (PCY), which is the degree of mistrust towards politics. In second place the search of involvement in social activities: when adequately satisfied it is source of flow of consciousness (FC) for individuals, fostering their own wellbeing. The aim of this study is to develop a method to monitor the psychological quality of political participation. We administered to 224 political activists a questionnaire including scales for PCY and FC and eighteen items describing important features to be held by “good politicians” (as resulting from thirteen interviews to national politics experts). The factor analysis highlighted three main components: engagement, success and competence. On the basis of such factors we performed the cluster analysis that led us to describe four groups of activists: technicians, pragmatists, idealists and cynics. These groups clarify which characteristics are most desirable in political participation in order to keep the political system healthy.