DEMOS Seminar ESF Press realease

From Yearbook

PRESS RELEASE

EUROPEAN SOCIAL FORUM, Athens,Thursday 4 May 2006, Room F32, 2.30 pm

workshop

Democracy in movements. How global movements are changing politics

Speakers: Donatella Della Porta; Moses Boudourides; Marco Giugni; Angel Calle; Mario Pianta; Dieter Rucht and Isabelle Sommier Organisers: DEMOS project, Euromovements

This workshop is part of a trajectory of seminars on SOCIAL MOVEMENTS IN EUROPE: KNOWLEDGE, MEMORY, RESEARCH AND TOOLS

The issue of democracy is central in the vision and practices of global justice movements. They are changing traditional forms of political action and re-inventing democratic processes in both the internal organization of social movements and public decision-making. The workshop will present the research results of the Demos project, that has investigated the conceptions and practice of democracy of 244 organizations that have participated in the social forum processes in Italy, France, Germany, Great Britain, Spain, and Switzerland as well as at the transnational level. The studies, based on documents, web sites and questionnaires, show that internal democracy is a central issue for a multifaceted movement that incorporates socially, generationally, and ideologically heterogeneous organizations from many countries. Moreover, movements develop in a political environment in which representative models of democracy, although still dominant, are challenged by crises of legitimacy and efficiency. Social movements have supported a participatory conception of democracy, linked with the emerging interest in deliberative democracy—concerned, in particular, with the quality of communication. • Looking at general democratic values, references to participation, as well as to plurality, difference, heterogeneity as important democratic elements are present in the documents of half of our sample. Equality is mentioned by about one third of organisations, Deliberative democracy, consensual method inclusiveness and non-hierarchical decision making by about one fourth, while representative values are mentioned by just 6% of our sample. • The basic themes of activism and policy concern include democracy, alternative globalization, global justice and workers’ rights (about half of the groups mention them) as well as social justice (almost two thirds of our groups mention it). Ecological values, women’s rights, migrant rights and peace also emerge as quite relevant, being mentioned by about half of the groups. Reference to the World South emerges in about half of the groups, calling for solidarity with third world countries, but also in the half of them stressing human rights and in the one third referring to fair trade. • Half of the organizations in our sample support an associational conception of internal decision-making, based on delegation and majority principle, typical of well established, large and resourceful organizations such as parties, unions and third sector associations. A smaller group (13% of the organizations) can be classified as assembleary, since they stress the role of the assembly in a decision making process which remains tied to aggregative methods of decision making, such as voting or bargaining. In one fourth (23%) of organizations, the deliberative element comes to the fore. In particular, these organizations stress the importance of discourses and/or consensus over majoritarian decision-making. In these groups, consensus and/or deliberative democracy are explicitly mentioned as an organizational value and/or consensus is used in the decision making process. • All organizations have in common a high degree of reticularity. About 80% of our organizations mention collaboration/networking with national organizations and about the same percent with transnational organizations in their fundamental documents. Among those who mention this information, about one third (slightly more at the transnational level) points at the relevance of collaboration with groups working on other issues than themselves, but sharing the same values. Remarkable is also the presence of network organizations: in our sample this is reflected in about half of our cases being them networks/federations or ad hoc umbrella organizations. An additional indicator of the high reticularity of our movement organizations is the fact that almost half of the groups allow for collective membership. • Notwithstanding their critical position, social movement organizations interact with the institutions of representative democracy. Statements of open refusal of collaboration are rare (11.5%), while an attitude of either collaboration or democratic control is more frequent (about one third each). Relations of collaboration are more often mentioned at the national than at the supranational level (where instead relations of control prevail). • In trying to influence institutional decisions, social movement organizations use a variety of strategies. If protest is mentioned by a large majority of our groups (more than two thirds), a similarly large share mentions influencing the media, spreading alternative information and raising awareness as a main function of their groups, and almost half of the organizations mention the political education of the citizens. Although smaller, the significant number of groups mentioning political representation, advocacy, provision of services and self-help (between 11 and 22%) signal that most organizations engage in different types of activities. Even larger percents of organizations also mention lobbying (more than one third) and almost one fifth the defense of specific interests. This plural repertoire confirms the pluralistic nature of the movement, with a (somewhat pragmatic) orientation towards the use of multiple tactics.

Such results can be helpful to the organisations involved in social movements and to a more general rethinking of the spaces for democracy in Europe. A debate between researchers and activists can contribute to identify the most viable and effective ways in which movements present at the Athens European Social Forum can improve their internal democratic practices and the forms of participation and deliberation on the major policy issues addressed by European mobilisations.

DEMOS: Democracy in Europe and the Mobilisation of Society. For info: http://demos.iue.it and demos@iue.it

internet casinos sites online casino games free online casino tournament slots tips Casinos with no deposit required. online slots slots online slots on line casinos play casino games game