Paper delivered at the Conference “Alternative Futures andPopular Protests,” Manchester 2014
Protests Out of the Economic Crisis. TheMovimento 5 Stelle in Italy and 15M inSpain: Two Instances of a New Politics?
Lorenzo Cini* and Eliska Drapalova*
*PhD Candidates in Political and Social Sciences
European University Institute (Florence)
1
Table of ContentsIntroduction 3
Bringing Political Economy Back In Social Movement Studies
4
Understanding the New Wave of Protests
7
Methodology 8
The Political Economy of Corruption
9
What is Political in the Current Economic Crisis in Italy and
Spain? 11
The Movimento 5 Stelle: “Away with the old politics!”
13
The 15 M: “We are not anti-system, the system is anti-us!”
17
A New Idea of Politics? 21
Concluding Remarks 23
Appendix 26
References 27
2
Introduction
The quality of democracy had been deteriorating long time before
the economic crisis struck. The implementation of austerity measures
following the crisis has only highlighted the incapacity of European
democracies to propose valid economic and political alternatives. This
generalized and univocal response has yet accelerated the perception,
among citizens, that something was going wrong in the decision-making
process of their governments. Why should the ordinary people have paid
the consequences of wild neoliberal policies in terms of cuts in public
spending to bail out a voracious banking system? To many, the austerity
measures have only proved the increasing dependence of democratic
politics on economic and financial markets in the direction of what
Lawrence Lessig (2013) called a process of institutional corruption. That
is, a process of collusion between politics and economic powers which
seems to have deteriorated the democratic governance over the last
decades. Facing such a widespread process of corruption, it is not
surprising that political protests have spread around the world precisely
in these years.
From Puerta del Sol in Madrid to Takzim Square in Istanbul and to Red
square in Moscow, a common frame seems to resonate in the words and in
the acts of the protestors: “STOP corruption! Or There isn’t enough bread
for so many chorizos!”1 These mobilizations have been spread and are
spreading around the world independently from the political orientation
of their governments (Andersen 2011). Progressive or conservative,
1 A CHORIZO is a spicy Spanish sausage, often sliced and served in a doughy sandwich. Chorizo is also slang for a swindler, cheat or corrupt person. At protests against corruption in Mariano Rajoy’s government, demonstrators have taken to waving loaves aloft and shouting: “There isn’t enough bread for so manychorizos! Chorizada is name for new ironical protest against corruption in Spain. The protesters are bringing the sausages “chorizos” to roast them on the fire in front of public institutions, the last manifestations were held in frontof the PP office, against corruption affairs involving Spanish Prime minister Mariano Rajoy.
3
authoritarian or democratic, left or right, the governments have been
accused of being part of the same political corrupt elite. It has not
been a case that the Spanish slogan “Que se ne vayan todos” (“Out with
all of them”) has echoed in many different squares and in many different
languages.
In this paper, we focus on the protests that have invested Italy and
Spain over the last few years. In the variety of their mobilizations and
claims, the “15 M” in Spain and the “Movimento 5 Stelle” mobilizations
in Italy have, indeed, all publicly denounced the corruption involving
the Italian and the Spanish political elites. By protesting against their
own political “casta,” and, more in general, the political system, all
these mobilizations have, indeed, stressed the corrupt side of power. In
our view, these movements are part of a new protest cycle against
political elites and corruption that today is widespread over the globe.
Why are these protests all occurring today? Do they carry out a new idea
of politics? Our hypothesis is that these mobilizations radically
contesting corrupt political elites implementing austerity measures in
times of crisis point not only at representing a mere political
alternative, but rather at putting forward a new conception of politics
based on the defense of common goods.2 These mobilizations have, indeed,
had a particular strength and a specific anti-corruption framing in those2 Here a clarification on the concepts of common and public goods is needed.Many authors in social science literature tend to distinguish between public andcommon—or, even better, just commons—goods (just to list a few names: Hardt andNegri 2009, Mattei 2011, Fattori 2012, Harvey 2012). The former merely depictthose social goods whose ownership belongs to the State, whereas the latterdefine those goods, leaving aside State ownership or not, that are “deemedcrucial“ to the life and livelihood of a social group (Harvey 2012: 73) [Afurther complication is, then, the distinction made by Hardt and Negri (2009)between “common“ and “commons,“ but it will not discuss in this paper]. Althoughour understanding of the concept is closer to the interpretation of common thanpublic goods, we do not emphasize too much this distinction in the paper,because we think that ordinary people are not often aware of this difference andtend to indifferently speak of common and public goods by yet meaning theconcept in the sense of common and not public goods. Likewise, weinterchangeably use both concepts in the text, by mostly meaning the concept inthe sense of common good.
4
countries where the problem of “institutional corruption” (Lessig 2013)
has been and is perceived with greater intensity. There, the target of
mobilizations has, indeed, concerned not only that or that other
political actor, but rather the political system as a whole. In a
nutshell, we hypothesize that these mobilizations constitute significant
instances of movements fostering the revitalization of an idea of
politics as public interest.
This is our principal hypothesis that we aim to test in this paper. To do
so, we employ different sources of analysis and research methods, ranging
from an investigation of some political and socio-economic data
concerning Italy and Spain to a frame analysis of the main documents and
websites of both mobilizations, to a wide collection of semi-structured
interviews with activists and leaders. Besides this introduction, the
paper is divided into the following sections: Bringing Political Economy
Back in and Understanding the New Wave of Protests shed light on some
economic mechanisms and structure as potential explaining factors at the
basis of mobilizations which have been overlooked in the “new social
movement” literature: economic crisis, neoliberal policies, and political
corruption. Then, in the next two sections, we will see how the
abovementioned mechanisms of relative deprivation and procedural
(in)justice are at the basis of the Italian and Spanish protests. The
paper ends, discussing what is the new idea of politics that these
movements have been bringing forward.
Bringing Political Economy Back In Social Movement Studies
There is a general agreement among a certain number of movement
scholars on the fact that the recent wave of mobilizations has put into
crisis the dominant theories on movement mobilizations (Tejerina et al.
2013; Perugorría and Tejerina 2013; Flesher Fominaya and Cox 2014; della
5
Porta 2013). These theories seem no longer to be effective in explaining
the factors at the basis of current mobilizations. How to explain, then,
the emergence of these mobilizations? We argue here that bringing back
political economy in the study of social movements is a first and
necessary step to be undertaken to answer this question. By calling for a
(re)turn to political economist perspectives in social movement research,
we try to make ours the appeal to bring “capitalism back in” made by a
recent and striking article by Hetland and Goodwin (2013). In that piece,
Hetland and Goodwin explain how to bring back capitalism (and political
economy) in the analyses of the “new” and “apparently” post-materialist
social movements. Our paper can be seen as a first attempt to build on
Hetland and Goodwin’s work to put forward an analysis of contemporary
mobilizations which takes seriously into account the explaining power of
economic structures and mechanisms. In particular, we look at how the
current economic crisis and dynamics of capitalism have triggered the
recent outburst of mobilizations in Italy and Spain and affected their
ways of doing and understanding politics.
Before better specifying how these mechanisms have operated, a brief
literature review on the theories of social movements is needed. Among
the first, the theory of collective behavior (Smelser 1962) viewed
movements as a collective response to the feelings of fear and anxiety
that instances of rapid social change tended to engender. Movements were
here seen as an irrational response to the dysfunctions of social
systems. Conceived also as response to this theory, McCarthy and Zald
(1973; 1977) proposed an alternative explanation based on the concept of
“resource mobilization.” According to them, rather than the emergence of
grievances, it was an increase in the availability of different types of
resources needed to initiate process of collective action that triggered
mobilizations. Movements were, thus, seen as rational actors capable of
mobilizing resources in order to pursue their own aims.
6
By contrast, the so-called “new social movement theory” (Melucci 1980,
Touraine 1981), developed in Continental Europe also as alternative to
the rationalist (and American) model of resource mobilization, stressed
the emergence of “new” cultural contradictions in late capitalist
societies as the root cause for the rise of “new” movements. Finally, the
most systematic (and up to now successful) attempt to explain the
emergence of social movements has been the political process theory
(Tilly 1978, McAdam 1982, Tarrow 1983). According to the most recent
versions of this theory—movements are held to emerge in response to the
confluence of three factors: expanding political opportunities,
established organizations, and the development of certain shared
cognitions legitimating and motivating protest activity (McAdam 1995).
The ensemble of these three factors defines what is known to be as a sort
of “trinity model:” political opportunities, mobilizing structures, and
framing processes (McAdam et al. 2001).
Apart from the collective behavior approach, the idea that all movement
theories share is that the presence of grievances by itself cannot
explain the emergence of mobilizations. Either due to a new availability
of resources or to open political opportunities and/or mobilizing
structures and/or new cultural frames, all these theories see always the
presence of a “mediating factor” between grievances and protests as the
key element explaining mobilizations. Can we sustain the same idea for
today’s protests? We are not in presence of a generalized expansion of
political opportunities. Quite the opposite, over the last decade we have
assisted to changes concerning both institutional features and informal
alignments of many political systems that have increased the power
disparity between challenging groups and established institutions. In
addition, we have not seen an increased availability of movement
resources nor the presence of strong and durable mobilizing structures.
While the only resources that have fuelled to the fire on today’s
protests seem to have been “outrage and indignation” (Perugorría and7
Tejerina 2013), the fact that the vast majority of protestors were
“newcomers” (Tejerina et al. 2013) led us to suppose that preexisting
movement organizations have not played a key role in the rise of
mobilizations.
In our opinion, it is precisely the presence of such mediating factors
that turns out to be missing today. For this reason, we are strongly
tempted to suggest that current mobilizations are mostly the direct
product of changes in specific structural conditions. Put it simply:
specific (changed) structures have produced new and radical grievances,
and the latter have triggered generalized protests. Our hypothesis is
that in situations of systemic crisis (both political and economic) the
presence of grievances might be a sufficient condition for the emergence
of movements. Or, at least, for the emergence of specific grievances
through which particular constellations of actors may shape themselves
and start mobilizations. How to explain otherwise the rise of a global
(and new) cycle of contention facing the most serious economic crisis of
our times? Social movement scholars tell us that there exist two opposing
and alternative ways through which people react and respond to an
economic crisis: either they collectively rise up against this situation
or take refuge into a solely and asocial private. The mobilizations that
today have occurred and are occurring everywhere suggest that we are in
presence of the first scenario: people have, after all, chosen the
mobilization.
We do not intend to deny the role of agency in the emergence of these
mobilizations. Yet, we see social actors as strongly conditioned and,
even, structured by this jointly combination of economic and political
factors. We do think, like Mc Adam and Rucht (1993), that “non-relational
mechanisms of diffusion” achieved through social networks, such as for
instance facebook and twitter, have played an important role of activation
in the timing, framing, and diffusion of the mobilizations within and
8
across countries. However, unlike McAdam and Rucht (1993), we believe
that the key determinant for the emergence of this global contention has
been a near-simultaneous presence of structurally similar situations
rather than a “cross-national diffusion of movement ideas.” Similar
structural conditions (institutional corruption and economic crisis), on
which similar policies have been implemented (austerity measures), have
been globally and simultaneously experienced by the vast majority of
people. We define this mechanism of global movement emergence as
“mushroom effect.” As mushrooms grow in specific field conditions after
rain occurs, so such protests arise in specific economic conditions after
austerity measures are implemented (Cini and Drapalova 2013).
Understanding the New Wave of Protests
We see the presence of two distinct but complementary mechanisms
activating common people in joining and initiating current mobilizations:
the “relative deprivation” and the “need of procedural justice” seen as
refusal of institutional corruption (Klandermans a Staggenborg 2002;
Stekelenburg a Klandermans 2010). On the one hand, people feel deprived
of their social expectations concerning their professional careers and
standards of life. On the other, people see as unjust a democratic
decisional process led by those elites who are perceived as corrupt and,
at the same time, the main responsible of the critical situation,
detaining still the power to impose economic measures that compel common
people to solve the crisis at their expense (for a detailed explanation
of both mechanisms, see Cini and Drapalova (2013)).
If we retain that current protests share, among the others, similar
demands for a more collective and transparent idea of politics by
addressing the corruption of professional politics, we also believe that
the emergence of these movements could not but occur today, in times of
economic crisis and political distrust. Political corruption is, indeed,9
less socially tolerated, to the extent that there are less resources and
benefits to be distributed and people feel deprived of their future. More
radically, we think that current protesters all over the globe see
political corruption as a process of illegitimate private expropriation
of public goods, namely those goods such as education, healthcare, water
(but even politics!) that are neither rival nor exclusive (Hardin 1979)
but belong to all. Opposing the collusion between private interests and
state actors, these mobilizations point at protecting such goods by
bringing them back to the center of political life. In other words, the
common trait of this new wave of protest is the radical denounce of a
corrupt political class accused to be unable to fulfill its constitutive
function of providing and protecting public goods as too committed to
serve powerful private interests (Mattei and Nader 2010; Mattei 2011).
Unlike other explanations that privilege the idea that it is the
“internal diversity of capitalism” determining the timing and magnitude
of current mobilizations (della Porta forthcoming, 7), we hold instead
that it is the intensity of (perceived) corruption to make the
difference. Protests have occurred sooner and have been stronger in those
countries, such as Tunisia, Spain, Egypt, the US, Russia, Greece, and
Italy, in which the rates of perceived corruption have been and still are
the highest. We do not think that the nearly-simultaneous manifestation
of these events have been by chance. The protests against the austerity
measures as main response of the governments to the crisis have been
stronger, and have had an evident anticorruption frame, in those
countries where the distrust towards political institutions, due to a
widespread idea that such institutions are corrupt, was the highest. This
is why the movements of these countries have played a pivotal role in the
global wave of contention, by showing up as a sort of “initiator
movements” determining in a crucial way frames and action forms of the
following and “spin-off” movements belonging to the same cycle (McADAM a
Rucht 1993; McAdam 1995; Meyer a Whittier 1994). 10
Our hypothesis concerning the rise of these movements is that these
protests rise up against discredited and corrupt political elites when
the latter deliberately impose the austerity package and wide
privatizations of strategic sectors as “There-Is No-Alternative (TINA)”
solution to the economic crisis. The rapid deterioration of many
individual economic situations triggers a generalized process of
indignation and outrage among citizens whose countries have immediately
enforced such measures. The feelings of outrage and indignation
constitute, indeed, a central stepping stone for the emergence of these
mobilizations (Perugorría and Tejerina 2013). However, the literature
that assumes that these protests exclusively depends on
economic/material self-interest is missing a very important and
distinctive component, the pro-democratic and justice values (on
which the principle of democratic governance is based). The arguments
that see the activist as a rational actor which is moved only by a
self-interested calculus of individual benefits does not give the
complete picture of the motivations behind any mobilization. Theperception of violation of the democratic process and, therefore, the
perception of lack of procedural justice must be another key reason
motivating common people to take to the street and manifest in favor of
equality and justice that are seen as values shared within democratic
societies.
Procedural justice refers to the perception that the process of policy
making is done accordingly to the existing rules and shared norms and it
is closely linked to the idea of impartiality to the extent that we can
talk also about procedural impartiality or ethical universalism
(Rothstein a Teorell 2005; Mungiu-Pippidi 2005). It is based on the idea
that people, when they evaluate a policy, are more concerned with the
fairness and the transparency of the processes by which decisions are
made, rather than by the results itself (Rothstein and Uslaner 2005).
11
When one perceives a process that results in the policy as procedurally
unjust, it also tends to perceive as unjust also the resulting policy.
When the people do not perceived the policies as just, then it is easier
to refuse to obey them or to exercise civil disobedience. But, how this
concept relates to democracy, corruption and to our first mechanism?
According to Warren, democratic government is based on two very important
values: inclusiveness (everybody can participate) and impartiality or
equality (everybody is treated equally) (Warren 1999). And thus
procedural justice is a crucial component for assessing quality of
democracy and for its incompatibility with corruption (Warren 2004).
Obviously institutional corruption, as Lessig and we understand it,
transgresses both rules, favoring a few at the expense of many. This is
why when citizens perceive that the government is favoring interests of a
particular group at the expense of all, then they can judge the system as
unjust and corrupted. These people are then more inclined to disobey or
protest (Holmberg S., Rothstein Bo, and Nasiritousi N. 2008).
Methodology
Our research is manly based on semi-structured interviews with
movement activists and participants conducted in Italy and Spain over the
summer and fall of 2013. We also included an extensive examination of the
available primary sources (such as movement documents and websites),
secondary literature and accessible quantitative data. Our aim was to
interpret the socio-political reality through the lenses of activists and
participants. In a general sense, qualitative “interviews may be defined
simply as a conversation with a purpose. Specifically, the purpose is to
gather information (Berg and Lune 2012: 106)”. In our interviews, we
tried to pick pieces of information regarding the social understandings,
motivations and (declared) political goals of the participants. More
specifically, we collected information concerning the collective identity
12
formation process of Movimento 5 Stelle and 15 M with particular
reference to their own vision of politics.
To this end, we conducted 25 interviews with Italian activists belonging
to the Movimento 5 Stelle (in Puglia, Sicily, Rome and several others
cities in Northern Italy) and around 20 interviews with Spanish activists
belonging to movement organizations such as Juventud sin Futuro, PAH, DRY
association and platform, and 15M committees in Barcelona, Madrid and
Murcia. Because the 15M movement is so diverse, we have tried to include
all the major associations and platforms that have called or organized
the occupation of the streets and demonstrations (DRY, PAH, Youth Without
a Future, Do Not Vote for Them!). We did not report and take into
consideration those parts of interviews where the activists did not
exhibit opinions or clearly misunderstood the question. By doing this we
tried to prevent the problems of researchers’ manipulation and biases.
Additionally, we took into account several socio-economic data available
in the most common European databases and opinion polls such as Euro-
barometer, European social survey and some national sources such as CIS
particularly the study n2029 on the political perception of 15M published
in 2012. For the data on corruption, we looked at Gallup bribe payer
index, Transparency International Corruption Perception Index, European
Commission, and national association such as Fundación Alternativas.
The Political Economy of Corruption
In this section, we aim to illustrate how the structural and
systematic state of corruption affecting European societies represents a
key condition for the origin and development of 2011 mobilizations.
Partially building on some of the most significant works by Crouch (2003)
and Lessig (2012), we hold that the state of endemic corruption affecting
so deeply the political institutions of Italy and Spain is a direct13
manifestation of specific and enduring relationships of exchange and
cooperation/collusion between political and economic actors in
contemporary capitalism. Put it otherwise, the current modality of
operation of capitalism is—for us—at the basis of peculiar political
economist dynamics producing endemic (and not conjectural) processes of
corruption within and across public institutions. This is why we think
that taking into account the political economy of corruption is an
important step to be undertaken in order to understand the outburst of
2011 protests, their goals, grievances, and, above all, their ways of
conceiving and doing politics.
Before seeing all these mechanisms at work, a conceptual clarification on
what we mean by “political economy of corruption” is needed. In general
terms, by political economy of corruption we mean those stable and
enduring relations and processes of production and reproduction of
corruption occurring within political institutions. More specifically,
the political economy of corruption is the study of those (mostly hidden
and invisible) phenomena of corruption occurring in public institutions
in their relationships of embedded-ness and (reciprocal) dependence with
key economic institutions and actors. We think that some aspects of
contemporary capitalism such as the process of financialization of the
economy and that of marketization of society have accelerated,
multiplied, facilitated, and, even, stabilized these relations of “hidden
exchange” (della Porta a Vannucci 1999) and mutual dependence. This seems
to have been precisely the case of Italy and Spain that we investigate in
the present paper.
To better situate our interpretation of the relations between corruption
and the recent emergence of political unrest in Italy and Spain, we hold
that the concept of institutional corruption coined by Thompson and
further developed by Lawrence Lessig is of paramount importance. They
understand corruption as a “political gain or benefit by a public
14
official under conditions that in general tend to promote private
interests.” Most especially, Lessig argues that the main difference
between the private and institutional corruption is precisely the
existence of conditions that in general tend to promote private interests over the common
good. In this definition, corruption is not only a result of personal
greed, but becomes de facto inbuilt into democratic institutions, diverting
them from their primary purpose. Through these analytical lenses,
corruption is no longer understood as an abnormal, deviant or even
individual phenomenon, but rather as an institutional logic of conduct
(see Table I).
Table I: the difference between the Individual and InstitutionalCorruptionIndividual corruption is Institutional corruption isPolitical PoliticalGain of benefit by a publicofficial
Gain of benefit by a publicofficial
In exchange for promoting Under conditions that in generaltend to promote
Private interests Private interestsSource: Lawrence Lessig 2012 RSC working Paper
We hypothesize that the “conditions that tend to promote institutional
corruption are the following: the process of financialization of the
economy3, liberating a huge amount of capital for speculative activities,
and the process of marketization of hitherto public sectors, importing
neoliberal market-friendly principles into the core of the political
institutions. These structural transformations have changed the relations
between politics and economy by ultimately rendering economic business
(especially financial) an indispensable actor in the process of
“autonomization” (from the rest of society) and reproduction of the
political class itself and, thus, creating the most favourable conditions
for the promotion of institutional corruption. 3 For a more detailed explanation of what process of financialization means, seeCasalini and Cini (2012).
15
The process of autonomization of politics seems to have undermined the
legitimacy of the representative democratic process, which is by now
perceived among the vast majority of citizens as corrupt. The perception
that the phenomenon of corruption has been affecting the political system
as a whole is widespread among all the European citizens; according to
recent surveys and studies (European Commission 2014a; European
Commission 2014b; European Commission 2014c), 95% of Europeans think that
corruption is present in their country and constitute one of the most
important problems of their political systems. They interpret corruption
“as inbuilt into and promoted by a political regime which undermines
democratic process,” going thus far beyond the traditional understanding
of “misuse of office for personal gain” (Klitgaard 1991). In other words,
European citizens are more and more aware that professional politics has
become a sort of impenetrable “caste” operating for its own benefits at
the expense of collective interest.
What is Political in the Current Economic Crisis in Italy and
Spain?
Economic crises have always been part of human history as droughts
and flooding. Yet, what makes the current crisis new or somehow
particular, is a hegemonic political response to it. Despite the fact
that there was no clear agreement on the causes of the economic downturn
(irresponsible financial capital, building bubble, and public deficit of
costly welfare states), the political response to the crisis was a unison
adoption of austerity measures under the surveillance of the “Troika”
(Blyth 2013). The well-known austerity package (consisting of cuts in
public spending, tax increases, flexibility of labor market, and pension
reforms) was perceived by the people as a shift of responsibilities from
the real culpable (banks and politicians) to themselves without the
16
opportunity of voicing any dissent. The implementation of these measures
has had as immediate consequence the impoverishment and downgrading of
the middle and low classes of Italy and Spain.
After almost two decades of constant economic growth, Spain entered into
a recession in the end of the 2008.4 In 2008, the housing bubble burst
and years of banks speculations with housing and large public investments
(mainly infrastructure5) in infrastructure threatened banking sector
solvency (Martínez Ibanez 2013). As a response the Spanish government
approved a crash-plan of 24 austerity measures and granted for a maximum
amount of 100,000 million euros to finance banking operations6. The
following year a growing deficit and no economic growth forced the
socialist government to revise its 2008-2011 Stability Program. This
revision, known under its quite curious name “ New sustainable Economy
Act” included more unemployment, more cuts, more privatization and less
public services.78 The era of austerity was officially installed in
Spain.
Even though the Italian problem was not its rotten banking system, but a
deep public deficit, the (already technocratic) government response was
surprisingly similar to the Spanish one. From 2011 the Monti technocratic
government implemented a series of urgent polices in order to “save Italy
from default”. This “austerity package,” contained several public
spending cuts and tax rises, including a deeply unpopular rise in the
4 The third trimmest was the second consecutive with the negative growth.5 The most famous cases are several regional airports build by local politicians(and financed with local banks) that nowadays remain unused and without airplanes. 6 The Spanish government has basically constituted itself as the guarantee of solvency of Spanish banks. 7 http://www.rtve.es/noticias/20090116/recesion-paro-deficit-publico-formula-economia-espanola-para-2009/220867.shtml8 In 2007 Spain has a superavit of 1,9% of GDP and the public depth is lower that 45% which made from Spain more balanced than the rest of OECD countries,
17
retirement age. A reform of labor contracts followed, making it easier
for firms (to hire and) to fire workers9.
The consequences of the austerity measures hit both countries hard. The
Spanish economy shrank by 3.6%GDP and unemployment grows by 1,118,600 to
4,326,500 reaching 18.83% for the first time in thirteen years (EPA
2010).10 The inability of the people to pay their credits and mortgages
has caused more than 500 eviction per day and huge firms’ mortality
between 2009 and 2011. In Italy, poverty has increased across all socio-
economic categories and in the whole territory by reaching 12% in 2012.
According to the Istat, people in severely deprived households doubled in
two years, from 6.9% in 2010 to 14.3% in 2012. The unemployment increased
especially among the younger age groups while the income of households
decreased.
However, not everybody have suffered the crisis equally. Spanish
government, while cutting the public services, guaranteed a public re-
financing and financial support totaling 100 000 million for the Spanish
banking sector and passed laws allowing mayor amnesty for large tax
evaders in the history of the country. From 2008 onwards, several banks
were rescued with public money: Caja Castilla-La Mancha (2009), CajaSur
(2010), CAM, Caixa Catalunya, Banco de Valencia and Bankia (Martínez
Ibanez 2013). Most of them had politicians in their directive board and
were financing electoral campaigns. At that time, a major corruption
scandals involving secret Swiss bank accounts and huge shrinking of
public money for party financing was being discovered (Jimenez, Villoria,
a Garcia-Quesada 2012; Quesada, Jiménez-Sanchez, a Villoria 2013;
Aguilera Klink a Naredo 2009). The nationalization of banks, which were
for years sources of speculative operations with public money and cause
of many peoples´ disgrace, was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
9 It was the first task on the ECB list send to Berlusconi government.10 http://www.rtve.es/noticias/20100129/paro-aumento-durante-2009-1118600-personas-3487-mas-2008/314898.shtml
18
In Italy, since Tangentopoli corruption had never actually really
abandoned the Italian public debate. There were continuous scandals of
illicit party finance, construction and urban abuses, misuses of European
funds at local, regional and national institutional levels and across all
parties (della Porta a Vannucci 2007). This explains why the trust in the
Italian political institutions was so low in 2013, when—as a survey has
highlighted—the best ratings were assigned to firefighters (8 from 10),
while political parties and government were at minimum (3 from 10)11.
Almost 80 percent of the voters did not feel represented, whereas only 30
percent of population declared support for the government (European
Commission 2014a).
With the previous sections we have intended to shed light on some
economic mechanisms and structure as potential explaining factors at the
basis of mobilizations which are usually overlooked in social movement
literature. We hold that the worsening of the economic crisis, the high
levels of institutional corruption, and the austerity measures have
played a pivotal role in the 2011 mobilizations in Italy and Spain. Put
it simply, we believe that political economy does explain the formation
and development of contemporary mobilizations. In the next two sections,
we will see how the abovementioned mechanisms of relative deprivation and
procedural (in)justice are at the basis of the Italian and Spanish
protests.
The Movimento 5 Stelle: “Away with the old politics!”
11 The study of Donatella della Porta (della Porta 2013) shows a high increaseof distrust in the two main institutions of representative democracy (Partiesand Parliament). In a decade, the levels of trust among those who protest sankto 8 percent for Parliament, and 14 percent in case of political parties. Thisis a tendency in line with the general Italian public opinion.
19
Widely represented in all the Italian mainstream media as the
“anti-caste movement by definition,” the Movimento Cinque Stelle (M5S)
has reached its highest peaks of consensus and mobilization during the
period of economic crisis and, in particular, after the imposition of the
austerity measures by the Monti government (2011-2012). Officially, the
Movimento Cinque Stelle was born in 2009 as an ensemble of civic lists
composed by common citizens who, sick of the widespread corruption
concerning the Italian party system, took the decision to run for local
elections to challenge the old way of doing politics. To be precise, 2009
was not the first year in which this movement had showed up in Italy.
Informal networks of activists, organized through the system of meet-
ups,”12 had, indeed, already been present since 2005, when the Italian
comedian and leading promoter of the Movimento 5 Stelle, Beppe Grillo,
had launched through his blog (www.beppegrillo.it) the idea of carrying
out an alternative form of politics based on the values of transparency,
deliberation, online and offline participation of ordinary citizens
(Grillo a Casaleggio 2011, 7–13; Biorcio a Natale 2013, 49).
Which are, then, the factors at the basis of their mass protests in
2011/2012? Feelings of social downgrading were spread among the
participants of the Movimento Cinque Stelle, who blamed the whole Italian
political elite for that. All the Cinque Stelle activists that we have
interviewed, indeed, talked of the economic crisis as the triggering
mechanism for their mobilization. Most of them were young and educated
people, some were in productive age but unemployed (long-time
unemployed). Among the activists of many "meet-ups" we met (Ragusa,
Lecce, Brindisi, Siracusa, Ragusa, Roma and Firenze), the majority were
12 The Meetup is a virtual platform that facilitates online discussions and offline group meetings on specific topics and issues. The Meetup allows members to find and join groups unified by a common interest. It is a paid service. For the activists of Movimento 5 Stelle, the Meetup is a sort of virtual agora whereeverybody can contribute independently of his/her socioeconomic condition, whereeverybody is equal bringing in its own ideas. See Biorcio and Natale (2013: 81) to better understand how the Movimento 5 Stelle has used this platform.
20
without political experience (some of them even never voted). Some older
members declared that in the past had been sympathizers of leftish
parties and labor unions but then they had left, feeling unsatisfied and
alienated of that way of doing politics. All of them generally tended to
see M5S as the last chance to change things in Italy. In Ragusa, we
interviewed, among the others, two people who were highly educated but
unemployed: Andrea (graduated with master in graphic design and comic
drawing) and Umberto (who worked as driver but in the time of interview
was long time unemployed). Both guys agreed on the fact that they started
to protest in 2011/2012 mainly for the worsening of their social and
economic conditions. In Siracusa, we spoke with a guy around 33 years
old, who worked in a factory near Augusta. He was still working at the
time of our interview, although in precarious conditions and in constant
fear of being dismissed from his job as many of his colleagues. He argued
that with the new Italian labor laws "in the morning you go to work and
you don’t know if in afternoon you will be still employed." In Lecce and
Brindisi we attended several activities and assemblies. The composition
of the movement was very diverse: from housewives and unemployed to
students and free-professionals (doctors, lawyers). However, the
recurrent topics in all these assemblies were basically the same:
economic crisis, increasing poverty and social inequality, and inadequate
responses from the Italian government. In the light of what seen and
said, we can therefore definitely argue that one of the leading factors
causing such peaks of mobilization in 2011 was precisely a generalized
feeling of (relative) deprivation.
Yet, this is not the whole story. A widespread feeling of being
undergoing an unjust political making process can be, indeed, regarded as
the second mechanism, both cognitive and affective, convincing many
people to join the Movimento 5 Stelle. The latter had since the beginning
identified the representative institutions and political representatives
of Italian democracy as the main cause of the Italian democratic deficit:21
Italian democracy was accused of being a system of “institutional
corruption” (Casaleggio and Grillo 2011: 7-15). Most of the activists in
Movimento 5 Stelle (but also della Porta and Vannucci 2007, Ginsborg
2003) regarded Italy as a society where rights, obligations or justice
were not applied to everybody with the same criteria, but depending on
whom you were. In other words, they blamed the Italian political system
to create laws ad personam (Travaglio 2010). The globally known slogan
“Out of all of them”—chanted by the 15 M in 2011 (“Que se vayan todos”)—
was already the “ante litteram” political manifesto of the 5 Stelle in
2009. Speaking of the lack of democracy of the Italian political
institutions, Federica Daga—a longtime activist and today deputy of the
Cinque Stelle—told us that “the problem of representative democracy is
the full detachment of politicians from the people.” And she added that:
The crisis of democracy comes out when there is a structuralgap between political elites and the people. The politiciandoes not pursue the public interest, but the interests of asmall group. The crisis of political representation stemsprecisely from this process.
According to many participants of the Movimento 5 Stelle meet-ups, the
best political solution to the crisis of representative democracy could
not but be considered the building of a new democratic institution,
namely “participatory democracy.”13 It is still Federica who well
explains what participatory democracy meant for them:
We want a participatory democracy. From the user of a serviceto the citizen. Democracy is participation of the people whouse a service and of the workers who produce it. Democracy isthe capacity to work and cooperate with many people. We arerecently doing the “agorà” in many squares. We go and gatherin a square and we make an assembly in order to discuss whatwe are doing as political representatives in the
13 To our question, what kind of democratic institutions do you prefigure to overcome the lack of democratic accountability of existing representative institutions, most of the activists and meet-ups participants responded explicitly participatory democracy. Though not all of them had a clear (or similar) idea of what such a democracy had to be like in concrete terms, they all clearly expressed the concern for a democracy capable of involving all and based on the idea of politics as common good.
22
institutions. To a certain extent, we are like an "occupysocial movement."
Concluding this section, we try to provide an answer to the second
question of our paper. What is the Movimento 5 Stelle asking for? What
is, in other words, its overall idea of politics? We think that all the
interviews we conducted and documents we read express a quite homogenous
point of view on how to understand (and do) politics among the Movimento
5 Stelle activists. In particular, we have identified two peculiar
features that can be considered as “common heritage” of all the 5 Stelle
activists: a common good oriented attitude and a post-ideological view of
politics.
Let us give a deeper look at each of both characteristics. The idea that
politics should be oriented at the defense of common goods has been
pointed out by all the interviews (from the rank-and-file militant to
deputy) we conducted. As the members of the Ragusa meet-up have well put
it:
Common goods are a genetic part of the 5 Stelle. We did notinvent anything from scratch. Other movements, such as theone for the “water as a common good,” had already beenbringing forward a public discourse on common goods. We havejust generalized and brought them back in the Italian publicsphere
Most of the 5 Stelle activists seemed also to share a precise definition
of what common goods are. As some students taking part in the meet-up in
Lecce told us:
Common goods are all those good of which every human being isentitled to use and share. They are things from the mostessential to the most volatile. Water, food, education,knowledge, culture. Over them there cannot be market andprivate management. Common goods are essential to the life ofevery human been.
A second element shared among all the 5 Stars activists was their view of
politics that we defined as “post-ideological.” All the activists
declared that the “time of old politics was over.” For them, the
23
distinction left-right did no longer make sense, in that all the
politicians, regardless of their formal political belonging, had
demonstrated to have more interests in common (“the belonging to the same
and corrupt system of power”) than conflicting over the past decade. This
is why all the participants in the 5 Stelle mobilizations easily agreed
on calling “Casta” the Italian political elite and “political corruption”
this “old way of doing politics.” As Luigi (Di Maio), former activist of
the Cinque Stelle and today the youngest Vice President of the Italian
Chamber, told us, speaking of what the Casta is—for him:
[the Casta] is a way of doing politics. It is an ensemble ofpeople who do politics in a certain way to defend their owninterests. The Caste today is a pachyderm that through theassociation of several political entities [the parties]prevents the young generations from having a bearing on thepolitical institutions. Today, the Caste is the guardian ofthe gates of the representative institutions aimed atimpeding the entry of social movements and civil society. Thecurrent political system points only at defending itself fromthe outside, by protecting its particular interests. Theseinterests are not only the interests of individuals, but itis a way of practicing politics. A way of governing publicresources. Measures ad hoc for a specific part of society.The Caste is a way to get and be together to maintain apolitical model based on private and not public interests.
And its political corruption:
[Corruption] is to use public offices and resources forvested interests. The private interest before the publicinterest. I come from a movement [5 Stars Movement] whichconceive the common good and the commons as its foundingprinciples. That we have to assure to the future generations.On the other side, there is “the corrupt” who uses publicpowers to achieve his privatistic goals and those of hisgroup of friends. Over the past years public affairs havebeen too much occupied by private interests. Also the way inwhich you aim to be reelected is a form of corruption.14
14 On the other hand, also the activists of the Onda Anomala share this definition of political corruption. As Fabio, one of the leaders of the student union Link, well pointed out here: “[corruption] is when you sell out your ideals and the public interest for some private interest. Corruption is the politics of the private interests. Making a privatistic use of politics. Sellingout your ideals for private interests and for gaining power. Then, you are politically corrupt.”
24
The 15 M: “We are not anti-system, the system is anti-us!”
We are ordinary people. We are like you: people, who get upevery morning to study, work or find a job, people who havefamily and friends. People, who work hard every day to providea better future for those around us. Some of us considerourselves progressive, others conservative. Some of us arebelievers, some not. Some of us have clearly definedideologies, others are apolitical, but we are all concerned andangry about the political, economic, and social outlook whichwe see around us: corruption among politicians, businessmen,bankers, leaving us helpless, without a voice (Cabal 2011, 7).
What is known as 15M or Acampada Sol was born out of a group of 60
people that spontaneously decided, after the manifestation called on 15th
May, to stay and camp on Puerta del Sol square, a very central place in
Madrid. They managed to stay for two nights, until when on 17 May evening
police evicted them. The day after a larger number of people returned to
the square and successfully managed to occupy it again by, thus,
converting Puerta del Sol in the neuralgic center of the protest. The
demonstrations on the 15th May was organized in all major cities by an
independent platform of citizens called “Democracia Real Ya!” and supported
by tens of associations and movements. Under the slogan "We are not
merchandise in hands of politicians and bankers," they intended to
protest against the political measures taken by the government after the
outbreak of the financial crisis. The call circulated through Facebook,
Twitter and other social media without any contribution from the
traditional media, unions or political parties. That day was the first
time that such a large manifestation, around 130 000 people, was
organized without the infrastructure of parties and unions. For many
people, Spain did change that day.
The movement grew exponentially in the next few days, driven by internal
dynamics and social networks. New technologies such as Facebook and
twitter played also an important role for the diffusion of information.
25
The encampment in Puerta del Sol, initially thought to be settled till
the day of elections, was prolonged till the end of August: during this
period tens of manifestations, rallies, and assemblies took place.
Totally unprepared, unions and parties looked astonished at the masses of
people chanting against them on the streets. Main-stream media rapidly
re-baptized the mobilizations Indignados (Hessel a Sampedro 2010), mainly
because they did not understand for what the mobilizations were standing
for. Other commenters preferred to downplay the mobilizations and the
participants as peroflautas15 (La Vanguardia 25/5/2011) or simply think about
them as a negative and an emotional or even naïve crowd (País 2011, 15).
This initial idea of spontaneity and nativity contrasts with the
trajectory of the movement. Although the associations and platforms
calling for the 15M were very specific in their area of actuation, they
all convened in the square to protest against those that held the power
in national, regional, and local institutions. There were tens and tens
of collectives that had called for the mobilization of 15 M, but the most
important or, at least, the most active, were a few: Democracy Real Ya
(Real Democracy Now), Juventud sin futuro (Youth sin future)16, PAH17
Another important association was !No les votes! platform (Don’t vote for
them!) which was also related to the copy-left movement and the campaign
against the law SINDE and SOPA. All these organizations were active prior
to the 15M, mainly through social media, chats, and blogs.
However, this (pre-existing) organizational infrastructure has not been
an important factor for the Spanish mobilization: neither for its rise
15 Peroflautas is a Spanish expression referring to a young person that is not working nor studying and earning the money by playing flute and begging on the streets, generally accompanied by a dog. Translated literally peroflautas mean men with flute and dog. 16 This collective was born from the university student mobilizations that protested against the reform of the higher education known as the Bologna process. 17 This movement was born in 2008 as Platform for decent housing protesting fora decent housing and vindicating something that is a right guaranteed by the Spanish constitution.
26
nor for its strength. More than half of the people present there were,
indeed, a multitude of normal citizens for whom the 15M was the truly
first direct experience with unconventional political participation (CIS
studio 2029,2012).
This corresponds with the evidence collected from the interviews. As Kike
one of the spokesperson from DRY Madrid explained:
“There are two basic profiles 15M, on the one hand a longtimeactivists who are the people who collaborated with freeSahara and the movement for decent housing that existedbefore 15M or in neighborhood associations. And then there isanother profile, that is people who have not done or have notparticipated in anything similar before and activated by 15Mevents. I would say they were 40% and 60%.”
And other activist Stephan added:“Before becoming part of DRY I was nothing, I mean, I havenever participated actively before. And now I am thespokesman of DRY. Although I was always interested inpolitics. I enjoyed reading newspapers and watching TV. I gota call from Facebook for 15M Demo, and I found it veryimportant so I went. And at the square all seemed wonderfulto me, and when it happened I felt that I wanted toparticipate in it, I joined some committees, I started tohelp in assemblies and then I came to DRY.”
The common feeling was stop complaining and acting in order to changesomething. As Stephan carried on:
“I found it an interesting and useful way to work together tochange the world. Because everyone in the square thought thatanother world was possible. And here I am, I am stillparticipating.”
But which psychological and social factors were at the basis of the
Spanish mobilizations? Our interviews seem to confirm, also for the
Spanish case, the presence of both the mechanism of relative deprivation
and that of procedural (in)justice. As for the relative deprivation
mechanism, all the Spanish activists interviewed refer to their social
27
downgrading due to the economic crisis in combination with the austerity
measures as something that weighted in the mobilization.
The vast majority of those who participated were people whohad never been activists before, but due to evictions,precarious situations and so on... they felt forced to moveto political action. We had a fresh new language. We soughtsomething completely new. We did not join political parties;ideas and feelings united us in this struggle. (Gallego PableDRY)
Stephan from DRY Barcelona:
Seeing the unemployment rate arises steadily and watchingthem (politicians), willing of privatizing the basic andstrategic sectors of the country that had not been touchedbefore, made us very pissed. What they called the middleclass, which is nothing other than the working class, wasstarting to fade as well as the purchasing power of people todecrease. The healthcare, education, pensions were beingprivatized. And no one proposed any solution, any policy. Thecrisis had become something that nobody could touch orchange. … All this influenced the young people. There was nofamily that does not have someone unemployed or evicted. Allpolitical and economic malaises were there latent, but thecrisis made them visible and, thus, we decided to take to thestreet.”
As in the case of Movimento 5 Stelle, the feeling of relative deprivation
could not explain alone why such a huge amount of common people took to
the street in 2011. The 2011 mobilizations did not involve only the most
marginalized or socially weakest groups of Spanish society, such as
precarious workers, students, and unemployed. As a survey conducted by
CIS (n 2029) in 2011 showed, the social composition of 15M was more
heterogeneous and complex: besides students and young unemployed, there
was a strong participation of employed people.
Why also these groups took to the street? To answer this question—we
think—one needs to recall the second mechanism we introduced above,
namely, the “procedural justice.” A generalized feeling of facing a
situation of procedural (in)justice has been a triggering factor for all
the mobilizations. In particular, the feeling that the Spanish political
28
system was deeply perverted, serving the economic and political elites
instead than the common people, was widespread among all the 15 M
participants. Although the economic crisis of 2008 was one of the
strongest crises, it was not the first one in the Spanish history since
the Transition. But this time, something seemed to be different. While in
1986 or 1995 were the unions leading the protest and calling for a
general strike, in 2011 the unions were one of the enemies together with
banks, and politicians.18 For the protesters, they were part of the same
corrupt and impenetrable elite, the cast. What Lessig (2012) calls
“conflicting dependence” became so evident to the 15M activists. The
somehow comic slogans, such as “There is not enough bread for so many
chorizos”, “Put your hands in the air, this is not crisis this is a
robbery!” or “Out of all of them” showed the refusal of the population to
no longer stand the Spanish political establishment. Institutional
corruption and collusion between politicians and bankers were indeed
regarded as two of the most serious malaises of Spanish society. As
clearly argued by the Spokesperson of PAH Barcelona:
[corruption] is one of the main causes of current situationbecause it leads politicians and bankers to be and do thesame [stealing]. They depend on each other. The politics isnot led by the idea of common good but by clientelism, and itis under permanent influence of banks. The government islegislating against instead that for the people. This systemis not a democracy anymore. We protested against this aswell.
Stephane (15M) provided one clear example:
Today I read that in the stadium of real Madrid there will bedone some maintenance, so it is there where they will stealfrom us a lot, they will steal from your scholarship, mysalary and my mother´s pension. This is the type ofcorruption invisible and omnipresent. Maybe since before wehad money this relation was not so clear, but now, since weare in crisis we don’t have money anymore; this is startingto be much more visible and is becoming one of the biggestproblems for our country.
18 In October 2011, the unions called for a general strike but the attendance waslow and the impact very limited.
29
The feeling of procedural injustice was, thus, one the main motivations
convincing people to mobilize.
Concluding the section on the 15M, we provide an answer to the second
question of our paper. What was the overall idea of politics expressed by
the 15 M participants? All the interviews we conducted and documents we
read seem to confirm the interpretation that we have already provided for
the Movimento 5 Stelle. As in the Italian case, both the ideas that
politics must exhibit a common good orientation and a post-ideological
nature were part of the15 M from its initial phases of mobilization.
Looking closely at the common good orientation of politics, we can
appreciate a shared perception of politics as…
“Politics should serve the common good, fundamental principlethat must be governed for the common good. ...Politics is abig thing, it is a vocation to the public, to the commongood. It is a service you do to people, politics is totallyservice-like. And the only sense is that fundament this andnot another. ..The ruling should be the service by and foryour people and look for the benefit of all. Not yours insome revolving door (revolving door), nor is for the benefitof economic hidden powers. That can be extended to the wholemovement, we share, we all agree”.(Stephane 15M Madrid)
Moving on toward the idea of post ideological politics. Many activists we
interviewed explicitly refused to use the categories Left/right,
referring to as empty of any signifier. As Claudia, from Dry Barcelona,
said: “We have divided the world between the under and the above.” Cesar from DRY
Barcelona was even more explicit:
We have never defined ourselves as left-wing movement. Well,it's because being from left or right, being socialist orliberal has by now a number of very negative connotations. …What we do is try to change the language, to unite people. Wedo not talk about left or right but about citizens, thepeople. We are neither right nor left because if we use thesecategories, we will fall into the same fallacy and createconfusion. What we do is to tell you what we stand for, whatwe want to achieve but we will never tell if we are left orright.
30
In the same vein, Kike from DRY Madrid:
One of the slogans was: “They do not represent us!” But theyunderstood it as we are against politics! This is not true,we say they do not represent us because they serve otherinterests. We voted for them and they rather defending ourvindications, care only for their personal interests and ofthe economic and financial powers. They do not representinterests of the people but of a protected and powerfulminority. There is a political crisis because this model doesnot listen and has no obligation to listen. Politicians onlylisten to the party machines and the economic and financialinterests. The fact that we vote or not, with this electoralsystem, is secondary. This system has now become a systemthat exists only to perpetuate itself.
And Stephan, from 15M Madrid, concluded by reaffirming thepolitical nature of their protests:
“The 15M is deeply political, is more political than anythingI know. We are all politicians, and we believe that all freemen should be interested in politics. What happened so far isthat people said they voted for a socialist and socialistpolicies without thinking if they make are really socialistsor benefit them. Politics is not like a football league; I'ma truly Madrid fan and I support my team. But this is notpolitics. The 15M can support ideas but not politicalparties, because if a socialists implement liberal policieshow you can trust them.”
A New Idea of Politics?
What are, therefore, all these protesters asking for? Are they strictu
sensu political protests or just a “new” apolitical (or, even, anti-
political) generalized manifestation of social rage? Many words have been
said so far on the fact that these mobilizations did not have clear and
specific demands.19 Only speaking of the left political spectrum of the
media system, from the liberal (or center-left) mainstream newspapers in
Italy and Spain, such as Repubblica and El Pais, to some more radical leftish
19 If this account is certainly true for 15 M mobilizations, it can be, in a broader sense, extended to the Movimento 5 Stelle if we mean by lack of “clear and specific demands” a lack of political credibility. A lack of political credibility has been associated, and still is, to the Movimento 5 Stelle in all its phases of mobilization.
31
magazines, such as the Italian Micro Mega and the Spanish El Publico, the
political and analytical accounts of the 15 M and Movimento 5 Stelle
mobilizations were anything but positive. Accused of being, in the best
of the cases, “apolitical” or naïve, these protests have been seen as
unable to put forward an alternative and well defined vision of politics
and/or, at least, carry out clear and concrete objectives for a
substantive political change (País 2011). If we cannot deny that some of
these remarks are legitimate and, to a certain extent, grounded, yet the
whole picture coming out from them is far from being true and can be,
even, misleading. Thus, it is precisely this misleading representation of
the protests that we aim to challenge by presenting here our
(counter)interpretation.
Even though tracing back the history of the concept of politics exceeds
the purpose of this paper (and, above all, of our academic and personal
capacities), here we want to make clear some points on the issue before
introducing our interpretation. We do not think to be incorrect if
looking back at the history of Western societies, we single out the
existence of two distinct, if anything opposite, visions of politics. On
the one hand, there is the interpretation of politics, explicitly derived
from the, to a certain extent, utopian reconstructions of the agoras in
the Greek polis—understood as a public and collective space free from
private and personal interests. Over the past two centuries, these
interpretations have been retaken and employed mostly by radical thinkers
and social movements having, in a broad sense, an anarchist orientation
(see, for instance Graeber 2009; Taibo 2013). Needless to say that, yet
significant, such visions have had a minor fortune and attention in the
contemporary theoretical and political debate of our democracies.
On the other hand, the second vision of politics has been by far the most
known and widespread, and it is, indeed, today the interpretation on
which we found our way of thinking (and acting) about politics. From
32
Machiavelli to the current liberal thinkers (and passing through authors
such as significant yet theoretically distant as Hobbes, Locke, Marx,
Weber, Schmitt, Rawls), the unifying interpretation of what the essence
or principle of politics were was conflict. Understood in different (and
somehow opposing) manners, such as the struggle between rich and poor
(Machiavelli), all against all (Hobbes), proletariat against capital
(Marx), friends versus foes (Schmitt), competition of interests (the
liberals), the common trait of all these interpretations was precisely
their antagonistic character: either—they say—the domain of politics is
seen as antagonistic or it is just not. If we look back at the history of
modern democracy, we cannot but agree with this interpretation. From the
American and French revolutions to our days, the origin and development
of democracy have been marked by a “principle of dissociation” (Marazzi
2009), historically institutionalized and embodied in the political
spectrum as “left-right” distinction. Put it simply, in this second and
most known comprehension, politics encompasses a strong divisive
connotation: politics is here the domain in which opposing ideas,
interests, and groups of interests (left and right) democratically
conflict and confront with each other. As a result, the political
institutions of representative democracy are the only legitimate sites in
which this confrontation (left vs. right) can be democratically
represented and played.
Have the most recent protests precisely put into question this vision of
politics? Are they actually carrying out a new vision of politics? Which
vision? Our parallel analysis of Movimento 5 Stelle and 15 M has
highlighted the presence of similarities in terms of political visions
between the two cases. In particular, both mobilizations seem to share
two characteristics in their understanding and practice of politics. On
the one hand, both 5 Stelle and 15M seem to have been the bears of a
common good-oriented attitude towards the political process itself; on
the other, they also seem to have internalized a post-ideological view of33
politics. Let us now examine closer each of these characteristics. What
do we mean by common good oriented attitude? What do we mean by post-
ideological nature of politics?
By common good-oriented attitude we mean a conception of politics which
does not regard the key spheres of social reproduction (such as, in
contemporary societies, goods as knowledge, education, healthcare,
environment, natural resources, and so on)—meaning, those spheres
essential to the social reproduction of human life (Fattori 2012)—as
domains that can be left in the hands of private interests, made objects
of their expropriation, or their logic of management and profit. Quite
the opposite, common good oriented attitude points to a politics aiming
to ensure the public and collective management and use of all these
goods. If common goods are essential to social reproduction, then they
cannot belong to anyone but all.
The second feature characterizing politics as common good can be
considered a sort of logical and practical corollary of the first. If
essential goods such as education and healthcare must belong to all, then
a fortiori the domain through which such goods are managed and allocated,
politics, must be rethought as “the common space” par excellence, whose
only function is to serve the interest of all. Put it otherwise, by post-
ideological nature we mean the end of the idea of politics based on the
left-right distinction. If the only “ideology” that matters is the
safeguard of public goods in and for the interest of all, then all the
outdated left-right ideologies—meaning the antagonism over the
alternative managements and allocations of such goods—can no longer play
a fundamental role. Post-ideological politics means, thus, a politics of
and for the common goods.
Concluding Remarks
34
The recent burst of protests from Tahir in Egypt to Sol in Spain
has caught many scholars unprepared, incredulous of the strength that
these mobilizations were able to produce and of the impact they were able
to have. Some regimes faltered, others took a refuge in already “armored”
institutions refusing to attend the vindications of people in the street.
The breath-taking spread of protests has induced several political
observers to ask the same question: Why and how is this all happening? In
a previous paper, we talked about the potential causes of this general
uprising and we searched for the specific mechanisms motivating common
people to actively manifest their indignation (see Cini and Drapalova
2013). We singled out two mechanisms, one cognitive (relative
deprivation) and the second more attitudinal (procedural justice),
enabling politically unskilled people to take to the streets. On the one
hand, they perceived an increasing gap between their social expectations
and the life they were actually living (relative deprivation). On the
other, they also perceived a situation of political disempowerment and
opacity in the democratic process (procedural justice).
What both Spanish and Italian mobilizations have identified as highly
problematic and, thus, aimed to reverse was precisely what we have
described as a process of “institutional corruption” involving
representative democracy. Recalling here the lessons by Lessig and
Thompson, this corruption can be seen as de facto inbuilt into democratic
institutions. Corruption is no longer understood as an abnormal, deviant
or even individual phenomenon, but rather almost as an institutional
logic of conduct. Facing this phenomenon, many people started to be aware
of being deprived of their political sovereignty. They realized that
representative institutions were no longer serving the public good, but
the interests of a few else, generally, business and economic elites. No
real democracy is, thus, possible—according to the 15M and 5 Stelle
participants—as long as there is collusion between political and economic
elites. 35
In this paper, we wanted to make one step further and connect these
motivations with the visions and practices of politics that these
mobilizations have more or less consciously carried out. We have chosen
to compare two countries that have suffered more than others the effects
of the economic crisis and that, at the same time, have conveyed wide
mobilizations of protest. We have chosen Italy and Spain to see whether
their mobilizations exhibited similar characteristics in terms of
conceptions of corruption and politics. Surprisingly or not, both
mobilizations seem to have shared a common political orientation
embodying two similar characteristics: a common good oriented attitude
and a post-ideological nature of politics. In our opinion, both these
characteristics can potentially be at the basis of a new idea of
politics.
The first characteristic shared by both mobilizations is a common good
oriented attitude. Common goods are not appropriable by the parties,
individuals, markets or state. Far from being considered as full-fledged
unitary things, common goods are always contentious and as such have to
be always commonly created, debated and agreed upon. In other words,
these mobilizations point at putting forward and stress a conception of
politics aiming to ensure the public and collective management and use of
all those goods deemed as crucial for the social reproduction of human
life. If these goods are essential for the reproduction of human life,
then—both Italian and Spanish activists put it—they cannot be property of
anybody else but the collectivity.
In our view, both mobilizations have also substantially showed a post-
ideological orientation. Both M5S and 15M activists have, indeed,
exhibited a strong refusal to have anything to do with established
political parties and labor unions. Most especially, there seems to be a
strong refusal to cooperate with leftish parties and organizations,
historically considered as political allies for the rise and impact of
36
social movements, but in today’s protests completely dismissed. The 2011
mobilizations seem, thus, to disregard all those conceptions and
practices of politics understood in the old political axes of left and
right. This brings us to share the remarks made by Barker et all. in
Marxism and Social Movements (2013) who in their introduction argue that
“this is, perhaps, the first time since 1848 when specifically Marxist
ideas are not the natural lingua franca of a rising movement” (12). This is
precisely the case of the M5S in Italy and 15M in Spain. In our opinion,
they have been expressing a “post-ideological” view of politics, meaning,
a politics which explicitly refuses to identify with left (and right)
wings ideologies. For them, the only “ideology” that matters is the
safeguard of common goods in the interest of all. If common goods such as
education and healthcare must belong to all, then a fortiori the domain
through which such goods are managed and allocated, politics, must be
rethought as “the common space” par excellence, whose only function is to
serve the interest of all. Post-ideological politics, in conclusion,
means precisely a politics of the common goods. Is this the type of
politics that all of us should try to put forward?
37
Appendix
Interview for 15M
(participants quoted in the text: 8 out of 20)
Stephane Grueso (15M activist and he was in charge of communication,author of documentary film about 15M)
Kike Castello (Spokesperson of DRY Madrid)
Antonio Zamora (Juventud sin Futuro Murcia)
Claudia (Activist of DRY and one of the organizers of acampada inBarcelona)
PAH Barcelona
PAH Madrid
Victor Egío (Juventud Sin Futuro)
Mar (Can Batlo)
Cesar (coordinator of DRY Barcelona)
Movimento 5 Stelle
(participants quoted in the text: 5 out of 25)
Luigi di Maio (Movimento 5 Stelle Activist and Vicepresident of Italian Chamber)
Movimento 5 Stelle Assembly Lecce (20 activist focus grouo)
Federica Daga (Movimento 5 Stelle Activist and Parlamentarian)
Local assemblies of Movimento 5 Stelle Lecce and Brindisi
Umberto and Andrea (Movimento 5 Stelle Activist, meet up Ragusa)
Luca (Movimento 5 Stelle Activist, meet up Siracusa)
38
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