Read more
In Democracy Reloaded, Cristina Flesher Fominaya tells the story of: Spain's Indignados or 15-M, one of the most influential social movements of recent times. In the wake of the global financial crisis and harsh austerity policies, 15-M movement activists occupied public squares across the country, mobilized millions of Spanish citizens, gave rise to new hybrid parties such as Podemos, and inspired pro-democracy movements around the world.
About the author
Cristina Flesher Fominaya is Professor of Global Studies at Aarhus University and an internationally recognized expert in European social movement and politics. She holds a PhD in Sociology from the University of California, Berkeley. She is Editor in Chief of the journal Social Movement Studies, co-founder of open access Interface Journal, author of Social Movements in a Globalized World (2nd ed) and co-editor of the Routledge Handbook of Contemporary European Social Movements (2020). She has published widely on social movements, democracy, and Spanish and European politics in English and Spanish.
Summary
In Democracy Reloaded, Cristina Flesher Fominaya tells the story of one of the most influential social movements of recent times: Spain's "Indignados" or "15-M" movement that took to the streets of Spain on May 15, 2011 with the rallying cry "Real Democracy Now! We are not commodities in the hands of bankers and politicians!" Based on access to key participants in the 15-M movement and Podemos and extensive participant observation, Flesher Fominaya tells a provocative and original story of this remarkable movement, its emergence, evolution, and impact. In so doing, she argues that in times of global economic and democratic crisis, movements organized around autonomous network logics can build and sustain strong movements in the absence of formal organizations, strong professionalized leadership, and the ability to attract external resources. Further, she challenges explanations for success that rest on the mobilizing power of social media. Through in-depth analysis of the month long occupation of Madrid's Puerta del Sol, and subsequent 15-M mobilization, Democracy Reloaded shows how the experience of the protest camp revitalized pre-existing networks, forged bonds of solidarity, and gave birth to a new movement that went on to influence public debate and the political agenda, in Spain and beyond.
Additional text
Focusing on Spain as a laboratory of interactions between contentious and institutional politics, Flesher Fominaya offers a most interesting analysis of the ways in which progressive social movements can effectively reload democracies going from prefiguration to institutional changes.
