Navigating the (Non)Institutionalization Dilemma: Democratic Innovations from the Spanish Indignados Movement

This paper examines bottom-up democratic innovations that emerged from the Spanish Indignados movement. Democratic innovations refer to the renewal of democratic practices on a more participative and deliberative basis. The (non)institutionalization dilemma highlights the tension between horizontal, participatory, loosely structured collective action repertoires and vertical, hierarchical, formalized practices, posing the challenge of aligning extra-institutional politics with existing political institutions. Beyond simply arguing that the (non)institutionalization dilemma was the driving force of democratic innovations in Spain, I aim to show the evolution of democratic innovations is dependent on dynamic interactions at micro, meso, and macro levels through within-case comparisons. I identify three distinct strategies that emerged throughout institutionalization processes to navigate the pitfalls of the (non)institutionalization dilemma: a mixture of assembly-based and e-democratic practices attempted by Podemos at the national level, the assembly-based strategy of Barcelona en Comù, and the e-democracy practices of Ahora Madrid. These cases offer rich insights into how different strategies emerged to navigate the (non)institutionalization dilemma and how their trajectories evolved over time according to different political levels and environments.

To analyze these three examples, I use a processual approach by focusing on the multi-dimensional interactions between different actors of contention. In that regard, I focus on the interactions among the insiders (activists engaged in institutional strategies) and outsiders (activists stayed in extra-institutional spaces), and the local-level initiatives (Ahora Madrid and Barcelona en Comù) and the national-level actors (Podemos) to understand the evolution of their innovative practices in line with co-optation/success nexus. Thus, firstly, I aim to understand the embedded dynamic mechanisms that led to democratic innovations. Secondly, I aim to show that the fate of democratic innovations is contingent since being shaped by dynamic multi-dimensional interactions among different actors, unfolding as different processes each time.