LINKAGE BETWEEN SOCIAL MOVEMENTS, ACTIVE CITIZENSHIP AND DEMOCRATIC INNOVATION

AN OVERVIEW FOR A NEW RESEARCH AGENDA

Abstract

Both social movements and democratic innovations in modern societies emerge as a reaction
to the deficits of representative democracy to provide a wider platform for inclusion of
diversity of interests and values of common people. However, both phenomena at the same
time operate on two divergent paths. While the modus operandi of social movements has
been the accumulation and expression of protest energy in regard to failing institutional
designs of democracy, innovative democratic practices seek (quasi) institutional mechanisms
to fill the gap in democratic participation by promoting democratization from below. This
tension has also been evident in scholarly research where the two disciplines have been
reluctant to engage in interdisciplinary endeavours. The lack of interaction is a reflection of a
wider separation in the literature on social movements and civil society in general (della
Porta 2014b) which emphasizes the contrast between a social movement research agenda that
emphasizes the role of conflict, grassroot contention and extra-institutional deliberation; and a civil society research agenda which favours a more structured, moderated and peaceful
platform for democratic participation based on co-optation and cooperation.
However, empirical examples demonstrate that innovative democratic practices can be
utilized by social movements as a platform for realization of their policy demands. The much
discussed case of participatory budgeting in Porto Alegre is often used as a reference point
(della Porta 2013, 182) for a democratic innovation that has been able to establish
participatory bodies which are “both effect and cause of a wider political mobilization that
enabled groups to participate who had not participated before, and, importantly, those bodies
have much wider powers than the more policy-specific bodies considered in the US cases’
(Cohen and Rogers 2003, 251). In this sense, more emphasis should be put on notions of
complementarity between the functions of social movements and democratic innovations.
While social movements serve as platforms for raising the voices against exclusion of
divergent and discontent societal groups from the political processes, innovative democratic
practices can serve as bottom-up platforms for channelling those voices into the policy
making institutional arenas.
In sum, the analysis of the literature presented in this paper raises several questions of interest
for a wider research agenda of the linkage between social movements and democratic
innovation: are there connecting points between social movements, active citizenship and
democratic innovation? How can democratic innovation contribute to participatory
democracy? Are social movements compatible with the concept of democratic innovation?
Upcoming comparative research should aim to provide comprehensive answers to some of
these questions.