Ricerc@Sapienza

This chapter deals with the relationships between the depoliticization and repoliticisation dynamics concerning public actions and the framing of the collective issues and the most important phenomenon of change affecting contemporary politics and political systems, populism. Contemporary populisms can be interpreted as a consequence of the depoliticisation processes triggered by the advent of post-democracy and neoliberalism, as well as of the connected processes of globalization and Europeanization of public policies.

This introduction presents the aim of a collective effort of a book on depoliticisation and repoliticisation. The meaning of the concepts use by the authors is explained referring to two generations of academic debate in political science and sociology, and even through examples concerning the field of education policies. Depoliticisation is a key to understanding the transformations occurring in the relationships between political and non-political actors who take part in the policy processes.