602
Democratic Experiments in Social Movements and Society
Abstract Submissions Closed
RC48 Social Movements, Collective Actions and Social Change (host committee)
Language: English
Session Type: Oral
Social movements and the spaces in which they organize have been studied as laboratories or schools of democracy. Porto Alegre hosted at least two important laboratories of democracy: Participatory budgeting and the World Social Forum. Participatory budgeting was meant to increase the participation of ordinary citizens in the local political system and to increase the accountability of politicians and state officials. The World Social Forum can be considered as an attempt to bring some form of participatory democracy to the transnational level. Some see it as a significant step towards democratizing globalization others see it as a highly ambivalent and fragile process. In general, scholars tend to highlight the democratic idealism in social movements. At the same time, research shows that activists often fail to turn their ideals into reality because power imbalances are not sufficiently addressed.
This session invites submissions on the following or related issues:
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What are the contemporary experiments in democratic organizing in social movements?
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How does the same/similar democratic experiment such as participatory budgeting work out in different cultural, political and socio-economic contexts around the world?
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How do democratic experiments affect the participants’ self-understanding as political subjects, how do participants engage with it and what are the barriers of effectively participating in it?
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Is democracy (only) an organizational problem or an issue of clashing cultural and political norms?
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How do organizers of (transnational) activist meetings (fail to) reconcile different political cultures and expectations of democratic organizing?
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