Going beyond the discussion of democratic innovations within movements and existing research on participatory institutions and social movements (which I have addressed elsewhere, see della Porta 2013; 2015b), I want to analyse in this volume some institutional outcomes of contemporary progressive movements in terms of the spreading of their participatory and deliberative conceptions and practices in constitutional processes, direct democracy and party politics. In fact, as mentioned, a main assumption in this work is that, at a time in which tensions in democracies are increasing, progressive social movements might offer important resources for reinvigorating democratic participation and deliberation. Notwithstanding that institutional democratic innovations and social movements have been mostly considered in isolation from each other, the two often interact:
Deliberative democracy and collective action have often been opposed as offering conflicting ways of constructing the common good, based on cooperative discussion on the one hand, and adversarial protest and negotiation on the other. Social movements have however shaped the inception and organization of democratic innovations to a large extent. Historically, the first wave of deliberative and participatory institutions appeared in the 1970s as a response to social movements’ claims for a greater inclusiveness of the political process. Social movements also influence the way democratic innovations work, by participating in, or on the contrary boycotting, new forms of democratic engagement. Finally, social movements’ internal democratic practices and reflections about the limits of informal decision making have inspired the field of deliberative democracy, which has, in turn, influenced collective action research. (Talpin 2015, 781)
As I am going to argue in this volume, social movements can play a key role in introducing democratic innovations (which they experiment with in their internal practices) in public institutions, by using specific institutional mechanisms, such as constitution-building, direct democratic procedures and party politics.
In each of the following three chapters, I will therefore refer to the toolkit of social movement studies in order to account for some of the democratic innovations brought about by grassroots constitutional processes, referendums from below, as well as movement parties. Social movements need to challenge existing institutions, producing cracks (or at least turning points) in the system. Research in social movement studies has indeed focused on political opportunities, looking at both the contingent availability of potential allies (their dispositions and strength) and more stable channels of access to political institutions (mainly functional and territorial divisions of power) (see della Porta and Diani 2006, ch. 7, for a review). The main assumption has been that the opening of political opportunities influences collective mobilization and its forms, as rational activists tend to invest in collective action when their effort seems worthwhile. Broadly tested from cross-national (e.g. Kriesi et al. 1995; della Porta 1995) and cross-time (e.g. Tarrow 1989) perspectives, the political opportunity approach has suggested that protest is, by and large, more frequent and less radical when stable and/or contingent channels of access to institutions by outsiders are open. In fact, even in the face of economic crises and structural weakness of the lower classes, scholars have cited the opening up of political opportunities to explain the emergence of protest as well as its success (Tarrow 2011).
In their struggles, social movements mobilize material and symbolic resources. Social movement studies have thus looked at the capacity of horizontal networks to mobilize resources, as well as at the framing processes for mobilization, in particular at the bridging of specific issues to broader themes as well as the amplification of the importance of some topics for the everyday life of the people. Frames, defined as the dominant worldviews that guide the behaviour of social movement groups, are produced by the organizational leadership, which provides the necessary ideological background within which individual activists can locate their experiences. Frame analysis thus focuses on the process of the attribution of meaning, which lies behind any conflict. In particular, within progressive movements the quality of communication has been considered as of fundamental value not only for the development of informed opinions on a specific policy, but also for the quality of democracy in general (della Porta and Diani 2006, ch. 1).
More recently, within a more dynamic perspective, research on the political context for contentious activities has moved from a consideration of opportunities as structurally given into paying attention to the ways in which protest itself can create opportunities by challenging existing routines and destabilizing elite coalitions. The concept of repertoire of contention refers to what people know they can do when they want to oppose a public decision they consider unjust or threatening (Tilly 1986, 2). Initially focusing only on the more or less stable protest as a public display of disruptive action, Charles Tilly (2008) has addressed broader contentious performances, with some historical adaptations in the various forms of contentious politics. The characteristics of protest have often been connected with contextual opportunities and constraints, with the opening of opportunities favouring moderate forms of action. Beyond adapting to a changing opportunity structure, social movements can, however, also try to create their own opportunities through ‘eventful protests’, which constitute processes during which collective experiences develop through the interactions of the different individual and collective actors who, with different roles and aims, take part in it (della Porta 2008; 2017). Some protest events have a transformative effect, as ‘events transform structures largely by constituting and empowering new groups of actors or by re-empowering existing groups in new ways’ (Sewell 1996, 271). They put in motion social processes that ‘are inherently contingent, discontinuous and open ended’ (Sewell 1996, 272). Eventful protests have cognitive, affective and relational impacts on the very movements that carry them out as they affect structures by fuelling mechanisms of social change: organizational networks develop; frames are bridged; personal links foster reciprocal trust. Some forms of action or specific campaigns have a particularly high degree of eventfulness (della Porta 2008). During these intense times, signals about the possibility of collective action are sent (Morris 2000), feelings of solidarity created, and organizational networks consolidated. In fact, as Mark Beissinger (2002, 47) reminded us, ‘not all historical eras are alike. There are times when change occurs so slowly that time seems almost frozen, though beneath the surface considerable turbulence and evolution may be silently at work. There are other times when change is so compressed, blaring, and fundamental that it is almost impossible to take its measure.’ Eventful protests might therefore transform relations through causal mechanisms such as appropriation of opportunities, the activation of networks, and the increased resonance of some frames (McAdam et al. 2001; della Porta 2017a).
This volume
In sum, this introductory chapter has addressed the role of progressive movements as the most vocal actors in denouncing the democratic malaise in contemporary society. While various normative theories have pointed towards the importance of participation and deliberation for the legitimation of democracy, the historical role of social movements in deepening democracy is well documented in the empirical social science literature. Initially considered as a pathology of democracy (or, at least, a sign of dysfunction), social movements have increasingly been understood as a central component of democratic systems. In particular, movements are critical actors capable of promoting inclusion and fostering the epistemic qualities of social and political systems. Nonetheless, scholarship has given little attention to the specific contribution of social movements to democratic innovations, defined as new ways to address the malfunctioning of democratic institutions. To fill this gap, this volume builds upon social movement studies in order to address the potential of, but also limitations on, progressive movements’ capability to innovate.
In each chapter, the theorization