How Social Movements Can Save Democracy

If our democracies don't improve, they may not survive. In turn, democratic innovation requires progressive social movements that champion and sustain changes to the rules by which we govern ourselves. Donatella della Porta makes clearer precisely how movement politics can fuel civic reforms to make democratic systems more worthy of that name. John Gastill, Pennsylvania State University With characteristic insight, Donatella della Porta argues we need to look at those cases where progressive social movements have democratized our institutions. No longer strangers at the gate, perhaps interested in policy outcomes, social movements have intervened into matters of procedure. They have been key protagonists in innovating democratic institutions to make them deeper, more meaningful, and more participatory. Drawing on a rich and long-standing research program, the book covers fascinating cases as diverse as crowd-sourced constitutionalism in Iceland and movement-parties in Spain and Bolivia, among others. The research is clear-eyed and nuanced, and the analysis unafraid to point to both limits and potentials. This is an extremely important and needed book by one of today's key thinkers on democracy and a poignant rejoinder to those who have responded to the democratic crisis with elitism. Gianpaolo Baiocchi, New York University This book combines two of della Porta's many intellectual interests - progressive social movements and democratic theory. She shows how, in this moment of serious threat to democracy, movements go beyond street politics to invent new and innovative performances. These, she argues, can enrich both democratic discourse and practice. An engaging read by one of Europe's leading scholars of contentious politics. Sidney Tarrow, Cornell University, author of Power in Movement