1988.
First published in 2020 by Polity Press
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ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-4128-7
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Della Porta, Donatella, 1956- author.
Title: How social movements can save democracy : democratic innovations from below / Donatella della Porta.
Description: Cambridge, UK ; Medford, MA : Polity, 2020. | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: “Leading political sociologist della Porta rehabilitates the role social movements have long played in fostering democracy. Bridging social movement studies and democratic theory, she investigates contemporary innovations of the progressive Left in times of crisis and reflects on the potential and limits of such alternative politics”-- Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019029694 (print) | LCCN 2019029695 (ebook) | ISBN 9781509541263 (hardback) | ISBN 9781509541270 (paperback) | ISBN 9781509541287 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Social movements--Political aspects. | Direct democracy. | Right and left (Political science)
Classification: LCC HM881 .D46 2020 (print) | LCC HM881 (ebook) | DDC 303.48/4--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019029694 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019029695
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Dedication
To Alessandro Pizzorno, amico e maestro, in memoria
Acknowledgements
This volume is based on the assumption that democratic conceptions and practices need constant innovation. In a moment in which various crises converge in challenging existing institutions, it is all the more important to reflect on what can be done in order to save democracy. Progressive social movements have historically been carriers of democratic deepening, elaborating and prefiguring alternative visions that have often then been constitutionalized in democratic institutions. In a period in which attacks on democracy come from the populist Right, research on attempts to improve democratic institutions through increased participatory and deliberative qualities is most important.
Looking at some of these attempts, with a critical view aimed also at singling out existing limits and conditions for improvement, is my purpose. In this sense, this volume can be seen as building upon and developing some of my previous contributions on related issues: first and foremost in Can Democracy Be Saved? (Polity 2013) and Social Movements in Times of Austerity: Bringing Capitalism Back into Protest Analysis (Polity 2015), but also in Movement Parties against Austerity (Polity 2017), Late Neoliberalism and its Discontents in the Economic Crisis: Comparing Social Movements in the European Periphery (Palgrave Macmillan 2016) and Social Movements and Referendums from Below: Direct Democracy in the Neoliberal Crisis (Policy 2017).
In addressing this task, I rely on a long-lasting research programme on institutional involvement by progressive social movements, carried out at the Center on Social Movement Studies (Cosmos) that I direct at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Florence. In particular, on crowd-sourced constitutionalism, referendums from below and movement parties, I have collaborated especially with my colleagues at Cosmos Lorenzo Cini, Andrea Felicetti, Francis O’Connor, Martin Portos, Anna Subirats, Hara Kouki, Lorenzo Mosca, Joseba Fernandez, Daniela Chironi and Jonas Draege, as well as with Colin Crouch, Michael Keating, Ken Roberts and Sidney Tarrow, who have been our most welcome visitors. I am also grateful for the support I received from the Hertie School of Governance and for the conversations I had during some visits to Berlin with colleagues there, among them Helmut Anheier, Christian Joerges and Claus Offe. At Hertie, I also wish to thank Stefanie Jost, who helped me in developing the project for this book. Some important stimuli also came from presentation of parts of my work at seminars and conferences, in particular at the Stein Rokkan Lecture at the Joint Sessions of the European Consortium for Political Research in Mons in 2019. Herbert Reiter has helped me greatly, improving the text through his critical but constructive reading (as well as through his patience and support while I was writing this book).
1 Democratic Innovations and Social Movements
The Great Recession that hit the world in 2008 worked as a critical juncture, nurturing socioeconomic but also political transformations. Some of the political developments during the crisis have challenged civil, political and social rights, triggering a Great Regression (Geiselberger 2017). Increasing social inequalities have spiralled, with growing mistrust in established institutions fuelling a sense of insecurity and xenophobic reaction (Streeck 2017; Bauman 2017a). While scholars are debating how much inequality democracy can withstand without breaking down (della Porta, Keating et al. 2018), resistance to the backlash is also developing, with citizens mobilizing for social justice and ‘real democracy’ (Meyer and Tarrow 2018).
This volume will focus on some innovative proposals, emerging from progressive social movements, that aim at increasing participation and deliberation in order to save democracy. Exploiting windows of opportunity offered by institutions of direct democracy, social movements have promoted referendums or infiltrated ‘from below’ referendums promoted by other actors in a more top-down fashion (della Porta, O’Connor et al. 2017a). Party systems have been dramatically shaken, with the breakdown of mainstream parties and, in some cases, an unexpected rise of movement parties on the left (della Porta, Fernández et al. 2017a), as well as right-wing populist ones. Similarly unexpected success has come to candidates that appeal to social justice and citizens’ participation within old-Left parties, among them Labour in the United Kingdom and the Democratic Party in the United States. In addressing these developments, I suggest that times of crisis are times of rapid change, presenting challenges to existing institutions but also, potentially, opening opportunities for a deepening of democracy.
This chapter will introduce the theoretical discussion on the potential innovative contributions by civic society that have indeed been addressed in democratic theory, as well
