social movements

The 2018 Mexican presidential results: between Lula, Messi and the Bolivarian Revolution

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In today’s post Dr. Valeria Guarneros-Mesa reflects on the recent electoral victory in Mexico of Andrés Manuel López Obrador. She argues that ‘AMLO’s’ victory is an important win for the Latin American left that is likely to follow a Lula-style “progressive neoliberal” agenda, rather than a revolutionary “Chavista-Bolivarian” one. Valeria also points to some of the likely frailties of AMLO’s project to redistribute wealth and battle corruption, such as the institutional embeddedness of corruption and deep-seated tendencies to “caudillista” leadership. She argues that the best hope for counter-acting these is for MORENA (the coalition led by AMLO) to maintain and strengthen ties with civil society and critical social movements.

By 10:30pm of 1 July 2018, preliminary electoral results started to indicate that Andrés Manuel López Obrador was the winner of the Mexican presidential election. AMLO, the candidate for the Together We Will Make Histoty coalition (composed of the National Regeneration Movement (MORENA), Social Encounter Party, and the Labour Party) won with almost 53% of the votes, while obtaining a majority in Congress and the Senate. Commentators have underlined the results as a historical moment for Mexican politics and its electoral democracy. The results caused moments of exhilaration and joy for a majority of the population and revived hope in Latin America’s left. But for many others, this was a moment of anguish, disappointment and concern as they envisaged the challenges that a fragmented and violent Mexico will bring, accompanied by the unfounded fear by liberal-conservatives that Mexico will become another Venezuela, another dictatorship.

The immediate comments, after the preliminary results were published, underlined the effectiveness of the electoral democratic institutions in so far as the incumbent party, PRI, and the other traditional parties, PAN and PRD, were recognising their loss and congratulating AMLO for his victory. AMLO’s presence in Mexico City’s Zocalo late that evening was accompanied by words of gratitude that were emotive and fulfilling people’s hope. AMLO’s reiteration that his government was to be ruled by three principles: ‘not lying, not stealing and not betraying the people’ seem to mark a clear distinction against the political corrupt oligarchy of the PRI, PAN and PRD. These warm words, however, did not reassure people who experienced political violence during the day of the election in cities of Jalisco and Puebla States.

AMLO is unlikely to follow Chavismo’s Bolivarian Revolution of the 21st Century. Instead, it is more likely that he follows the steps of Brazil’s Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, through redistribution of wealth, while maintaining a ‘progressive’ neoliberal economic approach that promotes global trade and finance with regards to commodities.

Two elements provide an indication to make this a credible argument (but see Financial Times for a contrary view). The first is the fact that the core of the old oligarchy that supported Salinismo began to support AMLO’s candidacy few weeks before the elections. Salinismo (1988-1994) was the presidential period in which neoliberal economic polices reached their peak and when NAFTA was signed.

These new alliances indicate that AMLO obtained their support in exchange of continuation with neoliberalism and to counter the threats that NAFTA’s dissolution cast upon the country’s current economy. His book ‘La salida’ also shows cosmetic modifications to the wave of privatisations in the education and energy sectors introduced in the post-2012 years.

The second is AMLO’s attachment to the corrupt machinery that has permeated Mexican politics. Several individuals supporting his campaign have had records of embezzlement, hence the likely assumption that these common and corrupt practices will begin to infiltrate the good intentions that AMLO’s persona insists to tackle.

The lack of transparency in selecting MORENA’s candidates for several political local posts has been one of the main criticisms against AMLO’s inability to break with clientelism and co-optation. On the one hand, this forms part of the tactics the mafia’s political system relies on and; on the other hand, it breaks with any channels of communication held with social movements that gave birth to MORENA, let alone with those that sit more on the radical spectrum of the Left and which are key to bring into account AMLO’s government and other political and economic institutions.

Civil society and its activism have been considered the main axis to counter the continuation of neoliberal politics and corruption. However, progressive critics sustain that civil society is not ready to scrutinise government. Social movements have used different repertoires of action that include fighting the Mexican state (i.e. Zapatismo and its legacies), collaborating and negotiating with it (clientelism and co-optation) and, more recently, recurring to socio-legal action to sue the state abuses against human rights of indigenous and other marginalised communities.

However, mobilisations’ multiple repertoires of action to counter the state in intermittent ways are not including mechanisms of scrutiny and oversight that the political system requires to minimise impunity, beyond the state’s own reforms to its judicial and prosecution systems. Although this type of experience from civil society is not inexistent (for example, Artículo 19 or Instituto de Acción Ciudadana para la Justicia y Democracia), it is quite fragmented and too small to counter the great machinery of state corruption.

AMLO’s administration will encounter another challenge with regards to its leadership. As all good charismatic leaders in Latin America, the figure of a single, strong ‘caudillo’ is a formula that all political leaders instinctively pursue. This has been observed from Simon Bolivar fighting Spanish colonialism, to Fidel Castro’s communism and Hugo Chavez’s Bolivarian Revolution. AMLO will be no different, especially as his leadership derives from this same understanding. The problem is that this type of leadership suffers from the Lionel Messi curse of overperformance, observed in the 2018 World Cup match Argentina vs Croatia, where the latter won by 3-0 as the whole Argentine team was relying on Messi to score.

If MORENA and its coalition are to be able to transcend, a cadre of multiple leaders must be prepared to relay AMLO. It is precisely this lack of shared leadership that has led ‘pink tide’ front-runners Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales to organise referenda to make constitutional changes that allow presidential re-elections and prolong their periods in office. Centralisation of power, while a new successor is appointed, is likely to become a tactic to which AMLO may recur to if his admnistation is not watched closely.

Finally, if AMLO’s administration is to transcend, it is because it is not left alone, the internationalisation of what is happening at the grassroots level, within and against the state, must be recognised. His administration has not only to maintain open and transparent channels of communication with social movements, civil society groups and ordinary citizens and build a shared leadership; but also, initiatives that prompt these grassroots to contribute to the broader ‘transnational social class’ -which has aimed to challenge decisions that tend to benefit the traditional neoliberal oligarchy -shall be encouraged by his administration.

If his coalition is genuinely wanting to become a motor of historical transformation, as opposed to just ‘the left of the institutionalised right’, relationships with other international Left parties, which have been more genuine to include grassroots and establish links with social movements, (i.e. Corbynism and DiEM25) have  to be consolidated, alongside the emblematic Latin American spaces created by the World Social Forum and Bolivarian Alliance for the People of Our Americas-People’s Trade Agreement. A recognition and acceptance of international groups’ criticisms against the state’s human rights abuses and violence, must be included in his government plans, which unfortunately have been a moot topic in AMLO’s campaign.

Valeria Guarneros-Meza is Reader in Politics and Public Policy, De Montfort University and a CURA member.

Book Debate: The End of Representative Politics?

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Today we publish a two part blog on Professor Simon Tormey’s book “the End of Representative Politics“. In this work Tormey argues that narratives of democratic decline are too tightly focused on representative forms of politics, and thus conceal processes of politicisation and democratisation outside the purview of representative institutions. Tormey’s opening statement in part 1 is followed by a reply by CURA’s Adrian Bua in part 2, asking Simon to expand upon the democratising potential of “post-representative” forms of politics.

Part 1: Simon Tormey on the End of Representative Politics

For nearly half a century political science has been gripped by “the crisis of democracy”. After a period in which liberal democracy seems to be in rude health with high turnouts for elections, mass political parties, and high level of interest in and knowledge about politics, citizens seem to have turned off and tuned out.

2016 gave us a partial correction of this image of apathy and indifference with the emergence of populist movements and leaders. The reinvigoration of politics as it least a talking point in many households off the back of Brexit, Trump et al. Some parties, notably the Labour Party, also bucked the trend in managing to recruit a new generation of enthusiastic young members.

Yet political scientists remain gloomy about the overall trend. Many note the lack of engagement in for example sub and supranational elections. Others note the “easy come, easy go” nature of our political affiliations, our fluctuating preferences, low boredom threshold, and the inconsistency of the manner by which we engage as participants. Many also note that populism arises not out of renewed interest in politics, but it’s opposite: frustration with mainstream politicians, technocrats, experts, representatives of all stripes.  In short we should not be sanguine about the future of democratic participation because of populism. On the contrary, populism should be a wake-up call for all of us concerning the health and well-being of our democracies.

Looking back over the relevant literature three variables have been explored by political scientists to explore the problem: the lack of civic engagement, the decadence of the political class, and the deathly grip of neoliberalism and austerity politics.   Depending on one’s intuition about the matter and reading of the relevant data, the solutions flow from the diagnosis:  increasing civic education, understanding and knowledge of political institutions; better training, payment and preparation of the political class; acknowledging the complicity of market based strategies and privatisation in the emptying out the public realm.

This is all quite persuasive at one level.  However there is something missing in this puzzle, and this is the representative function itself.  What I argued in The End of Representative Politics (polity, 2015) is that we have arrived at a moment when we need to look more closely at how representation itself works, and for whom. My reasoning is that the core elements that historically compose the representative claim:  commonality of interest, identities or ideologies is under stress as we move from societies marked by stable hierarchies, respect for tradition, for elites toward societies marked by “individualisation”, flatter or even horizontal social structures, and a consequent erosion of the traditional basis for authority, a respect for hierarchy.

Sociologists regard these developments almost invariably in negative terms.   They represent the loss of the kinds of society they grew up in and have done well in: societies in which there is a deep respect for, for example, academics and professionals we have special claim to knowledge and insight. On the other hand, what it means is a different  way of relating to politics and a different repertoire of political engagement. Henrik Bang uses the term “everyday makers” to describe the emergence of new kinds of political actor who do not wish to be represented by others, who are not satisfied by a periodic engagement with the electoral process, and with the assignment of the capacity to act to representatives.

In my own fieldwork in Spain, this sense of impatience with representation was all too evident. It’s an impatience borne by a strong belief that politics should be about individuals joining together to help themselves rather than to be passive recipients of something whether that be welfare, jobs or whatever. But what also became evident is that a mistrust of mainstream politics need not necessarily lead to apathy or indifference. Nor does it have to lead to populism, or at least the kinds of populism that we associate with Trump and Brexit.   It can lead to the development of an imaginative repertoire of new kinds of political action, initiatives which led me to describe Spain as “a political laboratory”. It’s a laboratory where citizens conduct the experiments. It is one where what was considered impossible yesterday becomes quite possible today, whether it be the creation of pop-up parties, Twitter-led citizen insurgencies, a proliferation of direct action groupings of every stripe and colour, or latterly the election of “unelectable” radical figures, notably Ada Colau and former communist Manuela Carmena.

And so we arrive full-circle.  Representative politics is not dead. It is not even dying. It is mutating and changing. With the emergence of new kinds of political subjectivity armed with new tools for individualised collective action, we are seeing “everyday makers” move from the periphery of political life to the centre. Whether the emergence of a more active citizenry and of institutions better attuned to their needs succeeds over the counterveiling forces that so preoccupy political scientists is needless to say far from a formality.

But nor can we go back.  The Golden Age of representative politics is long past.  Either we reformulate democracy in terms that are more engaging and inclusive for citizens or we can anticipate continued gains by those for whom democracy is a means to their own advancement, rather than to an improvement in how we govern ourselves.

Part 2: Reply by Adrian Bua

There is much to agree with the argument set out in Simon’s book. First, it is a refreshing departure from narratives about democratic decline that do not sufficiently recognise the importance of the politics that occur outside of the purview of traditional institutions. Second, underpinning his argument is an understanding that democracy is a highly adaptable system, shape-shifting in reflection of social balances of power. Third, The End of Representative Politics does not attempt armchair design of institutions intended to “fix” the system – the big changes the book traces do not come from blueprints, but emerge from dynamics that exist in the present. For these reasons Simon’s book is necessary reading for those thinking about how to shape a more democratic future.

In my response I ask Simon to extend his argument in one area: that of the massive challenges that democratising projects face contemporarily. In doing so, I will focus on issues related the third variable that Simon identifies in the literature – that of neoliberalism and austerity politics. Specifically, I question whether new forms of post-representative and progressive politics pose a threat to the deeply de-democratising trajectory  of contemporary capitalism. My challenge is that whilst Simon’s work is indeed refreshing in challenging ubiquitous decline narratives, it runs the danger of Pollyannaism absent a clear account of how post-representative politics can challenge the deepening and expanding capitalist system.

One way to cast this challenge is the development of plutonomy – an idea developed by Citibank in the mid noughties to reassure its equity clients that global prosperity was not threatened by widening inequality, and would not again depend on a redistributive fix akin to the post-war settlement.  A decade on, and following the global financial crash the move toward global plutonomy seems to me to be alive and well – and also seems to dwarf post-representative politics.

The democratic spaces that Simon identifies emerge at a time when the space for politics is unprecedentedly constrained by the imperative to protect appease capitalist markets. Responses to the crash by nation states and global state institutions have been designed to insulate neo-liberalism and austerity from democracy.  The increased use of coercive enforcement does point at a crumbling hegemony – neo-liberalism resorts to the hard hand of state power to protect accumulation as it can rely less on popular consent or acquiescence. In the face of a phenomenal expansion of protest movements, the austerity state has developed measures for policing and criminalizing protest. Simon would be right to argue that these are signs of a system struggling to cope and with and control new political dynamics. However, absent an alternative capable of mobilising protest and governing it seems to me that evanescence – one of the features of post-representative politics identified by Simon in his book – is all we can expect. Without moving from protest to effective proposition two outcomes seem likely: for neo-liberalism to continue on in its de-democratizing path, in zombie fashion and under the protection of the austerity state, or for it to be de-railed by authoritarian nationalism, or fascism.

Developments in Spain, described by Simon and colleagues in other work as a “political laboratory”, are indeed hopeful. Here we have an attempt by post-representative social movements to move into the representative state.  As well as the election of Ada Colau (Barcelona) and Manuela Carmena (Madrid) mentioned in Simon’s post, an impressive array of other major cities have elected administrations claiming to represent social movements. An array of policies are being implemented that advance minority rights, protect the welfare state, combat gentrification and experiment with participatory democracy. However, this politics is constrained by governance challenges linked to a hostile Spanish state that dutifully implements austerity measures, the development of policies that contradict international capital, and contemporarily, regional independentist movements that have arguably pushed social issues down the political agenda, and are being quashed in decidedly undemocratic and authoritarian fashion, by a reactionary government that mendaciously claims to be acting in protection of “democracy”.

In summary, I do not want to question the development of post-representative politics, but its ability to perform and deliver democratisation in the context briefly sketched here. Simon is right to reject nostalgia, and focus on emergent possibilities. The question I want to ask is linked to one posed by Simon at the end of the book – can post-representative politics transform their critical energy into a genuinely reforming political initiative? How can we expect radical democratic impulses of post representative politics to interact with the de-politicising, de-democratizing tendencies of increasingly authoritarian neoliberalism and, perhaps most importantly, its capacity for co-option and usurpation?

Simon Tormey is Professor and Head of the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Sydney

Adrian Bua is a researcher at the New Economics Foundation and at CURA

International Seminar on Social Movements

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In this post, Mercè Cortina-Oriol reports back the seminar on Social Movements organised by the University of Girona and Fundación Betiko.

The past 24tisrael_social_justice_protests_rabin_square_tel_aviv_29_october_2011h and 25th of November took place in Girona (Catalonia) the 1st International Seminar on Social Movements co-organized by the Area of Political Science of the University of Girona and the Betiko Foundation.

The aim of the seminar was to address the fields of social movements and collective action in the current political, social and economic context. More specifically, the framing question of the seminar was to what extent the economic and political changes of recent times, mainly -but not only- in Europe, are giving rise to new forms of collective action and social movements whose contents, identities, and resources differ from those the previous, conventional ones.

The seminar was an outstanding opportunity to congregate academics such as Bob Jessop, Jonathan Davies, Donatella Della Porta, Salvador Martí and Joan Subirats among others; political and institutional actors coming from the background of the social movements such as Miguel Urbán (Member of the European Parliament for Podemos), Xulio Ferreiro (City Mayor of A Coruña), Nacho Murgui (Deputy Mayor of Madrid City Council), Jordi Bonet (responsible for communication at Barcelona City Council), and Ricard Vilaregut (Chief Executive from Badalona City Council) among others; and activist from different European countries. The event was structured through four different sessions, each of them aiming to reflect on a particular topic: the challenges of social movements in a new era; mobilisation in the global world; from protest to institutions; and, the activist in power: has anything changed?

The seminar posited relevant questions and inspiring answers and examples around the new processes of mobilisation and the challenges for both the social movements and the new political organisations that emerged from them. Along two days, the debates brought up consistent questions with the research agenda of the Centre for Urban Research on Austerity (CURA) such as the processes of emergence of new expressions of resistance, the conditions for their emergence or for their absence, the forms that these new expressions adopt, the limits or capabilities of local governments to face the political and economic order and the imposed austerity policies, the possibilities for the development of alternatives to crisis and austerity from the local sphere, and the challenges for democracy in a context of crisis. The organisers we will soon compile and publish the interventions of the seminar. Nevertheless, and despite the relevance of all the debates, in this post I will summarise briefly those more connected with CURA’s research interests.

One of the central sessions in the seminar focused on the structural conditions for social movements and other forms of response and resistance in the new era. Professor Bob Jessop, from Lancaster University, opened the debate. In his intervention, he contemplated the threats to democracy that the current crisis brought along and contextualised the challenges of current social movements. Throughout his presentation, he stressed the need for a better understanding of the relation between the State and the capital, and the analytical opportunity that the comprehension of the State as a social relation opens for it.

In the discussion, Mercè Cortina-Oriol, from the University of the Basque Country and CURA fellow, stressed the need for examining the implication of the social in the processes of neoliberalisation and the risks of assuming the disruptive character of the social. After Cortina-Oriol, Professor Jonathan Davies, from the De Montfort University and Director of CURA, focused on the role and the capacities of both the local government and the social to respond to the challenges that austerity policies bring along. He underlined the disjuncture between normality and crisis, and the problem of assuming austerity as part of the normality. From a more theoretical approach, Carlos Prieto, from the MNCARS, defended the need for the emergence of a new political subject. Throughout his intervention, he questioned the class compromise as a transformative articulating element. For his part, Marco Aparicio, from the University of Girona, talked about the complexity of the power structures and the progressive hollowing out of the traditional spaces of decision-making. He also stressed the relevance of the discursive dimension in the processes of mobilisation, and the importance of defending social, political and economic rights.

A second debate focused on the new forms of resistance and their challenges. Donatella Della Porta, from the Scuola Normale Superiore of Firenze, opened the debate. The discussion revolved around the new processes of mobilisation since the economic crash in 2008. Della Porta presented the results of her recent research on the new cycle of mobilisation in the context of austerity, expressing the need for rethinking the social movements in times of crisis. In a context of diminished confidence in the institutions and an increased sense of grievances, she identifies new processes of identity formation and new forms of mobilisation. Comparing these with previous cycles, she observes forms of collective action that are more open and plural, where individual citizens have more space and chances to participate, and where consensus gains prominence over the logic of the delegation.

Some of the points highlighted in this regard were the tragedy that supposes the fact that critical networks often go behind those that defend the status quo, and the performative dimension of the responses to the austerity as a way of generating alternatives. This last question, addressed by Leandro Minuchin, from the University of Manchester, posit the potentialities of self-managed initiatives and solidarity networks in action for the provision of services in a context of austerity and social emergency from a communitarian basis.

Another point in this regard was the need for stressing the links among social movements, social initiatives, citizens and new alternative governments. This idea was closely related to a third central debate: the challenges for the new local governments for building alternatives to austerity. Joan Subirats framed this discussion focusing his analysis on the impact achieved by emerging parties, evaluating the case of the Barcelona City Council. He underlined the challenges of new formations such as Barcelona en Comú, a formation that, coming from a process of mobilisation, managed to win the municipal elections in 2015. Subirats highlighted the need to strengthen the sovereignties of proximity and the ability to promote popular construction from the commons, without falling into processes of systematic re-municipalisation. Instead, he advocated for searching different possible options that range from the traditional public service to the idea of co-production to ensure the universal delivery of quality services.

Adding to the third debate, the interventions by new institutional representatives bringing out the contradictions when passing from the street to the Mayor’s Office, the limitations of the institutional strategy, and the difficulties that entail the relationship with other levels of the State Administration. Other questions were related to the need to settle the political decision processes with what we could call a new type of civil servants and the need to train new officers while coexisting with the previous ones. For his part, Ricard Vilaregut brought up the limits that these new governments have at the time of breaking with the inherit clientelistic relationship that the previous governments had with some social organisations and private entities. Finally, Ismael Blanco, from the Autonomous University of Barcelona, insisted on the need for these new formations to carry out flagship policies in order to give direction and symbolic power to these new local governments.

The seminar provided an open space for actors from different background to share their experiences and perspectives, and proved the need for a common space of reflexion to move forward in the field of the alternative ways of governance under austerity.

Dr Mercè Cortina-Oriol is postdoctoral researcher of the Basque Government and CURA fellow. Form January 2017 she will be an Early Career Academic Fellow in the Department of Politics and Public Policy at the DMU.

The Spanish Elections 26J: an incomplete transformation

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In this post, Ricard Gomà reflects on the implications of the Spanish general election held on June 26, 2016. Ricard is professor of political science at the Autonomous University of Barcelona and has also had a distinguished career in Spanish and Catalan politics. He is a member of  ‘Barcelona en ​​Comú’, ​​former municipal leader of ‘Iniciativa per Catalunya’ and was the Secretary of Social Welfare (2003-2007) and Deputy Mayor of Social Action and Citizenship (2007-2011) of the City Council of Barcelona. The post was originally written in Spanish and translated by CURA’s Adrian Bua.

The Spanish general elections of the 26th June (26 J) ended a cycle that began just over two years ago. The European elections of May 2014 heralded the political expression of a new era, which has now settled . The social movement that began in Spain on the 15th March 2011 (15M – also known as the “indignados”) forged a new dynamic that questioned establishment politics, its corruption and unjust ‘austericide’.  From where I am writing, in Catalonia, this converged with the mass mobilization in favour of the right for self-determination. But the movement moved beyond the area of such reactive forms of civic protest. The 2014 European elections marked the emergence of Podemos as a device that channelled the demands and the political culture, in the broadest sense, of 15M into our formal democratic institutions. The municipal elections of the 24th May 2015 marked another major breakthrough. In those elections, the alliance between social movements, civic platforms and political parties in favour of change broke through to gain governing majorities in Spain’s major cities – including Madrid and Barcelona. This was an unprecedented victory for transformative forces. For example, in Catalonia, Ada Colau, a prominent leader of the anti-eviction movement becomes mayor of the Capital, Barcelona, shortly followed by the formation of a nationalist majority in the regional parliament.

Following these developments, delivering the end of bipartisanship in Spain stood out at the next challenge for the new political forces. They delivered on this. The general election of the 20th December (20D) and (following the political stalemate and inability to form a government) its re-run on 26J, made bipartisanship history in Spain. It is notable that this has not occurred – as in the case of many other European Countries – because of the emergence of a xenophobic right wing populism. It is because the political vehicle for change, “Unidos Podemos” with regional confluences in Catalonia, Valencia, Baleares and Galicia, has achieved more than 5 million votes and 71 parliamentary representatives, almost on a par with the Socialist Party – something that was unthinkable only two years ago. The change of scenery is remarkable because it signifies a transition from the social to the political, from the fragmented to the convergent, and because of its progressive orientation, calling for more democracy and a more open society, as a strategy for renewal and response to the crisis. It is perhaps un unparalleled development, that may also still be full of fruit to bear.

However, the results of the 26J point to more immediate concerns which we should not ignore. On the one hand, the “Partido Popular” (PP – the Spanish conservatives that have governed since 2011, despite the direct implication of prominent local and national actors in major corruption scandals that have unravelled during this time), not only keeps winning elections, but has increased its share of the vote since 20D. Moreover, the expectations of Unidos Podemos and the regional confluences to surpass the PSOE were not met, and 1 million votes were lost between 20D and 26J. I will not try here to develop explanations, but will offer two reflections on the significance of the result, and one final thought.

First, the electoral result of 26J has negated the possibility to “take heaven by assault” (i.e. “tomar el cielo por as alto”) – a popular argument that identified a historic window of opportunity to take over political power through a political and electoral tsunami. Spanish bipartisanship remains in crisis, but it has not collapsed. Achieving 71 parliamentary seats is an important milestone, but they will have to deliver their potential within a steadier and decelerated political timeframe, that has more in common with a “drizzle” than a “tsunami”. It will have to weave complex social solidarities, and work within the existing institutional framework without losing the political culture that engendered it.

Second, 26J teaches us that the old political forces also have significant resources to draw on in the realm of emotional politics. At the end of the day, their appeal to fear beat the politics of hope. Fear of change and its uncertainties trumped the discomfort generated by corruption. ‘Unidos Podemos’ and its allies did not make substantive public policy alternatives the central focus of their campaign – perhaps because they thought this terrain was too complicated. And it might have been – the decision to base the campaign on the politics of emotions might have been the correct one, although it did not deliver victory. As such, the 71 seats and the aforementioned dynamics of social alliance building, should also develop substantive policy policy agenda. In this way, credibility can be established, and support won, as a viable alternative government that can deliver a concrete transformation in people’s lives, and overcome the immorality of injustice and the indecency of corruption.

Finally, the “new municipalism” made up of a network of cities for change, must continue to demonstrate that the transformation of everyday life in cities is possible. It will also have to strengthen its symbolic dimension as a spearhead of the yet to come – of ethics and humanity as the new grammar of politics. But it will face a hostile state that implies limits, and contextual obstacles to strategies for change.  Local governments should be aware of all this: of  the game of difficulties and potentialities; the need to establish popular support to confront state hostility; and to do what is necessary continue rebuilding basic rights and hopes for the future.

Ricard Gomà is the current Director of the Institute of Regional and Metropolitan Studies of Barcelona (IERMB). He is professor in Political Science at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) and research fellow at the Institute for Government and Public Policy (IGOP). He was the Secretary of Social Welfare (2003-2007) and Deputy Mayor of Social Action and Citizenship (2007-2011) of the City Council of Barcelona, is a member of Barcelona en Comu and former municipal leader of ‘Iniciativa per Catalunya’.

This post was originally written in Spanish and translated by Adrian Bua – the original article is copied below.

Las elecciones generales del pasado 26 de junio cierran en España un ciclo que se inició hace poco más de dos años, con las elecciones europeas de mayo de 2014. Ha sido el ciclo de expresión política del cambio de época. Y no se acaba nada, más bien se asientan las bases de lo nuevo. El 15M de 2011 se fraguó una corriente social de fondo que cuestionaba las viejas formas de hacer política, sus tramas de corrupción y su austericidio injusto. Aquí en Cataluña, esa corriente coexistía con la movilización masiva por el “derecho a decidir”.  El malestar social podía haberse estancado ahí, en la esfera de la denuncia ciudadana reactiva. Pero no se quedó en eso. Las elecciones europeas de 2014 marcan la irrupción de Podemos como dispositivo de canalización política de la cultura 15M, en sentido amplio. El gran avance se produce en las elecciones municipales del 24 de mayo de 2015. En esos comicios, las candidaturas de confluencia entre movimientos ciudadanos y actores políticos del cambio consigue ya no sólo irrumpir sinó ganar en las grandes ciudades, con Barcelona y Madrid a la cabeza. Lo emergente, el conjunto de las fuerzas transformadoras consigue una victoria electoral sin precedentes. En la capital catalana, una activista antideshaucios se convierte en alcaldesa. Poco despues, se configura una amplia mayoría soberanista en el Parlamento de Cataluña. Faltaba por producirse un cambio importante: el fin del bipartidismo en España.  Pues bien, tras el 20D y su réplica el pasado 26 de junio, el bipartidismo ya es historia. Y no porque haya emergido –como en muchos paises europeos- una derecha populista y xenófoba, sinó porque el vehículo político del cambio -la suma de la coalición Unidos Podemos con las confluencias territoriales en Cataluña, País Valenciano, Baleares y Galicia- ha conseguido más de 5 millones de votos y situar 71 diputad@s en el Congreso, casi a la par con el partido socialista, algo impensable hace sólo dos años. Es extraordinario el cambio de paisaje: lo es por haber transitado de lo social a lo político; de lo fragmentado a lo confluyente. Y lo es por su orientación progresista, de más democracia en una sociedad más abierta, como respuesta a la crisis y como orientación estratégica de un  tiempo nuevo. Es un escenario quizás sin parangón; quizás también cargado de potencialidades aún por desplegar.

Pero más allá de la mirada larga, las elecciones del 26 de junio nos proporcionan también otras señales que no deberíamos ignorar. Por una parte, el PP no sólo sigue ganando elecciones sinó que incrementa el nivel de voto en relación al 20D. Por otra parte, las expectativas de Unidos Podemos y las confluencias no sólo no se cumplen, sinó que se dejan un millón de votos por el camino en sólo 6 meses. No se trata ahora de proponer posibles explicaciones, peró sí aportar algunas reflexiones a partir de los resultados; dos en concreto. Y una consideración final.

En primer lugar, el resultado del 26J da por superada la tesis de la ventana de oportunidad histórica para intentar “tomar el cielo por asalto”, a partir de una lógica de tsunami político-electoral. El régimen bipartidista sale tocado, en plena crisis, pero no hay colapso. Los 71 escaños de las fuerzas del cambio son un hito y pueden dar para mucho, pero tendrán que desplegar su potencial en un esquema de tiempos políticos ralentizados: construyendo una dinámica más cercana a la “lluvia fina” que al “tsunami”, tejiendo complicidades sociales, y trabajando en el marco institucional sin perder los elementos culturales de la nueva política. En segundo lugar, el resultado del 26J nos enseña que en el terreno de las emociones,  las fuerzas de la vieja política tienen también recursos importantes que les permiten jugar y ganar. El recurso emocional al miedo ha ganado a la sonrisa, a la esperanza. El miedo al cambio, a sus incertidumbres, se ha impuesto al malestar que genera la corrupción. Unidos Podemos y las confluencias no plantearon una campaña en el campo programático, de los contenidos, de las alternativas de política pública. Pensaron que quizás ese era un tablero demasiado complicado. Tal vez lo era. Y tal vez la opción por disputar la batalla en la política emocional, en la política del relato como estrategia fuese acertada. En todo caso no ha sido ganadora. Y por tanto los 71 escaños –y las dinámicas de articulación social que antes mencionaba- deberan tejer también un terreno de política sustantiva: ganar credibilidad y apoyo como alternativa creible de gobierno, de transformación concreta de las condiciones de vida materiales de la gente, de superación viable de injusticias inmorales y corrupciones indecentes.

Finalmente, la red de ciudades por el cambio, el nuevo municipalismo, deberá seguir demostrando que la transformación  cotidiana de las ciudades es posible, y tendrá que fortalecer su dimensión simbólica, de punta de lanza de lo nuevo, de la ética y la humanidad como gramática de la política. Pero se enfrentará a un poder estatal hostil. Y eso plantea también límites. Plantea obstáculos de fondo a las estrategias del cambio. Los gobiernos locales deberán ser conscientes de todo ello: del juego de potencialidades y dificultades; de la necesidad de fortalecer complicidades ciudadanas para hacer frente a hostilidades estatales; de lo imprescindible de seguir reconstruyendo derechos básicos y esperanzas de futuro.

Ricard Gomà es profesor de ciencias políticas en la Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona, miembro de Barcelona en Comú, ex líder municipal de ‘ Iniciativa per Catalunya ‘ en Barcelona, Secretario de Bienestar Social (2003-2007) y el vicealcalde de Acción Social y Ciudadanía (2007-2011 ) del Ayuntamiento de Barcelona.