A Political Reconsideration of Social Movements: The Case 15M Movement in Spain
Abstract
The contemporary wave of protests and occupy-style mobilisations has been very influential in different parts of the world. Yet, though the economic accounts are available, not many studies have looked at the political factors behind the social movements. Analysing the case of 15M Movement in Spain, this paper aims to explain the emergence of protest movements from a political perspective by providing a party politics account. It contends that one of the central factors behind mass protests, if not the only one, has been the crisis of representation resulting not only from the lack of voter-party congruence, but also from the failure of political parties to meet the demands of responsiveness and responsibility – the core requisite of the party government model. After all what legitimizes the party government model has been governing party’s ability to balance the demands of responsiveness and responsibility at the same time. As such, in accounting for the question of what factors brought about popular disaffection in Spain, it provides a rather neglected party politics perspective.
Keywords
References
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Details
Primary Language
English
Subjects
-
Journal Section
Research Article
Authors
Publication Date
December 16, 2019
Submission Date
May 23, 2019
Acceptance Date
August 28, 2019
Published in Issue
Year 2019 Volume: 21 Number: 3