Another Democracy. Visions and Practices of Democracy in Social Movements (original) (raw)
Related papers
Movements in Times of Democratic Transition (edited by: Bert Klandermans and Cornelis van Stralen), 2015
In this chapter we review the main perspectives on democratization and then propose an analytic organization of the different roles that social movements, trade unions, advocacy networks, churches, and cycles of protest play in the dynamic, contingent, and contentious shaping of democracy. In doing this, we are of course not pleading for an exclusive focus on democratization “from below”; we are convinced that the path and speed of democratization processes are influenced by the strength and characteristics of several social and political actors. The combination of protest and consensus is in fact a main challenge for democratization processes. We suggest, however, that social movements are often important actors in all stages of democratization. In our discussion of these topics, we draw examples especially from Latin America, Southern Europe, and Eastern Europe.
HOW SOCIAL MOVEMENTS CAN SAVE DEMOCRACY Democratic Innovations from Below Polity, 2020
The birth of democracies owes much to the interventions and mobilizations of ordinary people. Yet many feel as though they have inherited democratic institutions which do not deliver for the people – that a rigid democratic process has been imposed from above, with increasing numbers of people feeling left out or left behind. In this well-researched volume, leading political sociologist Donatella della Porta rehabilitates the role social movements have long played in fostering and deepening democracy, particularly focusing on progressive movements of the Left which have sought to broaden the plurality of voices and knowledge in democratic debate. Bridging social movement studies and democratic theory, della Porta investigates contemporary innovations in times of crisis, particularly those in the direction of participatory and deliberative practices – ‘crowd-sourced constitutions’, referendums from below and movement parties – and reflects on the potential and limits of such alternative politics. In a moment in which concerns increase for the potential disruption of a Great Regression led by xenophobic movements and parties, the cases and analyses of resistance in this volume offer important material for students and scholars of political sociology, political science and social movement studies.
New Social and Political Movements and the Democratic Ideals
Dialogue and Universalism - peer reviewed academic journal of the International Society for Universal Dialogue (ISUD), 2017
In response to the political and economic crises, new political and social movements appearing in mature liberal democratic countries (such as United States, Italy or Spain) call for “real democracy” and create strategies for more participatory politics. Groups of academics together with the third sector activists around the world elaborate, test and introduce new forms of participatory mechanisms which allow bottom-up, direct decision- making. Recent massive social movements try to change the dominant, but clearly obsolete model of democracy based on elite groups of political representatives by promoting a new paradigm of inclusive citizen-centered politics. What are the ideological and philosophical bases for political activity of these movements and how their democratic ideals translate into political practice? What does it mean “real democracy”? Why direct participation of citizens in decision-making is so important for the new movements? How technological tools can be used to support participatory processes and democratization of public governance at different levels? How should the new democratic model of doing politics look like? These are several questions on which the paper will try to answer.
SOCIAL MOVEMENTS IN NEW DEMOCRACIES: SPECIALIZATION AND OWNERSHIP
2018
The restoration of democratic regimes in the Philippines and Brazil in the 1980s provided an opportunity to redefine the relationship between the state and social movements. As movements carried their advocacies into the new democratic regimes, activism became about how movements could shape nascent democratic institutions to expand and regularize movement access, while simultaneously preparing the movement itself to take part in institutional decision-making. These new opportunities and institutions thus necessitated new repertoires of contention. This dissertation seeks to add to our understanding about these processes by answering two questions: How have social movements navigated the new democratic space? and, What determines the kinds of repertoires social movement actors adopted? Through the in-depth process tracing of four social movement campaigns, which included my personal attendance at meetings, fora, and strategy sessions, as well as over eighty interviews, I make two arguments to explain how social movement actors in the Philippines and Brazil chose their repertoires. First, social movement organizations working on a given issue carve out specialized niches for themselves in terms of skills, target sector, areas of influence, and political ideology. Thus, when social movement organizations work together on a particular issue or campaign, a division of labor develops that can allow the movement to approach the issue on a variety of strategic fronts. Second, social movement organizations in democratic Philippines and Brazil emphasized framing their strategies and tactics in terms of sectoral ownership and decision via collective processes. Sectoral ownership, or framing a campaign or advocacy as being the demand of the affected sector itself, is important for social movement organizations to compete with both the state as well as other organizations as the “legitimate” representative of the people. Relatedly, collective decision-making processes are emphasized in order to provide a quasi-formal veneer to this claim of legitimate representation, as well as to act as a parallel to the democratic processes that movements urge the state to follow. Thus, the hope is that internal processes both put pressure on the state to adopt democratic policy-making processes, while simultaneously preparing social movement members to eventually participate in such state processes.
Conclusion: outlook for studying the interaction between social movements and institutions
2016
This is the last post in the blog series „Movements and Institutions“. Check out the introductory post for more information on the series and click here for all contributions. This blog series reflected on the interactions between social movements and institutions. These interactions have proven to be among the most complicated areas of social movement research, especially because causality is very hard to establish: (how) do movements influence formal political institutions – and vice versa? How to study, understand and explain the consequences of the institutionalization of social movements? The difficulties of addressing these questions are also related to definitional problems as social movements and institutions can be understood and defined in various ways. All authors contributing to this blog series highlight the importance of studying interactions between social movements from one perspective or another.
Social Movements, Mobilization and Changing Paradigms
In the years between 2010 and 2014, massive waves of social movements and demonstrations swept over one hundred major global capitals and cities. According to the study ‘world protests between 2006-2013’, over 864 protests took place in 84 countries as part of movements requiring changes (Ortiz, et al., 2013). One of the biggest movements took place in Egypt (2011) with an estimate of 17 million Egyptians taking the streets in protest against their authoritarian regime and in request for freedom, social justice, dignity and welfare. Eventually, the protests ousted President Hosni Mubarak’s after 30 years in position. The questions raised in this context are: what are social movements, what triggers their initiation, how are people mobilized into this action and can it be a political force for development? This paper titled Social Movements, Mobilization and Changing Paradigms tend to examine and illustrate, through examples from the world, how social movements are capable of contributing to creating new realities and in advancing development. In addition, this paper looks at theoretical definitions and reflect on their various dynamics, conditions, mechanisms and potential opportunities and obstacles.
Social movements and political outcomes: why both ends fail to meet
Annales Universitatis Mariae Curie-Skłodowska, sectio K – Politologia
The relationships between social movement challenges and political outcomes remain strongly under-researched in the field of social movements. Here, we use the labels "social" and "political" in a broad sense to comprise many types of challenges and many types of outcomes, such as economic and social outcomes for specific movements as well as general policy outcomes. Four theories are crucial for understanding successful mobilization of social movements: relative deprivation, resource mobilization, framing, and the theoretical figure of the opening political opportunity structure. Political outcomes, at least in democratic political systems, are usually the result of a parallelogram of different claims and means of influencing outcomes, in short, of compromises. Here, we list various forms of outcomes, from successful acceptance of movement demands to part-time successes or entire failures, and also the various strategies incumbents have in dealing with social movement challenges. Researchers usually have focused on the individual and structural conditions of the emergence of social movements but less so on the conditions of processing social movement demands and the outcomes for movements themselves, for the electorate and for policy changes. Consequently, there is little research 1 Portions of this paper were originally presented at the 12 th World Congress of the International Sociological Association, Madrid/Spain, July 1990, and never published, though there were requests for it. On reading parts of the more recent literature, the author believes that many of the analytical arguments made are still to the point today. Consequently, he wants to share them with a broader audience, adding a few comments on recent social movements and their outcomes. It is up to the audience to improve on these arguments. Paper presented to IPSA RC 21-29 Conference on "Social and Political Movements, Leaders, Education and Communication. Challenges and Expectations in the Age of Globalization", Lublin, Poland, September 11-13, 2014. EKKART ZIMMERMANN 32 available that would meet the requirements of an adequate research design in view of the numerous factors spelled out here as a theoretical control list. The idea of a response hierarchy of incumbents is suggested as a sort of a dispositional concept for further, more consolidated, research in this area. Also the notion of cycles of various sorts has to be kept in mind in order to avoid misjudging of both, the persistence of social movements over time, and their eventual successes and failures.
Social Movements, Governance and Government
This module discerns the relationship between governmentality and social movements by exploring the concepts of legal pluralism, forum shopping, decentralization and rights based approach. Each of these concepts is explained with examples to understand their implications on the linkages between governmentality and social movements.
Social Movements and Social State.pdf
Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences, 2019
Social movements, as collective entities, develop to stand up against the existing institutional status quo with a view to its reformation or radical transformation, while the degree to which they are political depends on wider socio-political factors. The diverse action that evolved through their organized mobilization marked the radical transformation of political response, but also the type of state intervention. Social movements exactly because they constitute wider socio-political undertakings that aim to bring about changes in the social, political, economic but also cultural processes, which seek to annul or sideline established standardizations, are considered one of the most readily available ways to express political and social claims; here they are understood to be dynamic interventions in institutionally and structurally complete social systems as in the case of the social state. Within the context of political mobilization and collective social action, social movements functioned at two interrelated levels: the level of expansion, but also of redefinition of social intervention processes in order to achieve the goals of the social state, and the cultural level, a symbolic promotion, in order to establish a greater degree of social justice. Mobilization of resources, collective behaviour for making claims, even contentious action and transaction with institutions and authorities, constitute views of social transformation and political process in the context of the creation and development of the social state.
Social and Political Theory of Social Movements for the Social State
Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences , 2019
Social movements, as collective entities, develop to stand up against the existing institutional status quo with a view to its reformation or radical transformation, while the degree to which they are political depends on wider socio-political factors. The diverse action that evolved through their organized mobilization marked the radical transformation of political response, but also the type of state intervention. Social movements exactly because they constitute wider socio-political undertakings that aim to bring about changes in the social, political, economic but also cultural processes, which seek to annul or sideline established standardizations, are considered one of the most readily available ways to express political and social claims; here they are understood to be dynamic interventions in institutionally and structurally complete social systems as in the case of the social state. Within the context of political mobilization and collective social action, social movements functioned at two interrelated levels: the level of expansion, but also of redefinition of social intervention processes in order to achieve the goals of the social state, and the cultural level, a symbolic promotion, in order to establish a greater degree of social justice. Mobilization of resources, collective behaviour for making claims, even contentious action and transaction with institutions and authorities, constitute views of social transformation and political process in the context of the creation and development of the social state.