Between Populism and Radical Democracy: On the Afterlife of the Movements of the Squares

• Applicants: Privatdozent Dr. Seongcheol Kim; Professor Dr. Martin Nonhoff
• Subject Area: Political Science
• Term: since 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 469527186

This research project examines how the protest discourses of the so-called movements of the squares in six European countries were taken up and channeled into various representative offers by political parties. The “movements of the squares” are understood to refer to various protest movements that are characterized especially by collective identity-building practices of public square assemblies and occupations as well as a radical-democratic horizon aimed at re-founding democracy. When movements turn into parties or when existing parties take up movement demands, one can regularly witness partial closures of these radical-democratic horizons, be it via populist exacerbation or due to a gradual inscription into the political system. To examine this phenomenon of transition from movement to party empirically will contribute to and connect two lines of research: first, the analysis of the tension between radical democracy and populism, which comes to the fore in the movements of the squares as well as linkup attempts by parties; second, the literature on changing forms of party organization (e.g. the (re-)emergence of “movement parties”) in the aftermath of recent protest mobilizations in particular. Drawing on the discourse and hegemony analysis of the so-called Essex School, the project examines movements of the squares as well as attempts by parties to link up to them in the following countries: Germany (Pegida), France (Gilets jaunes); Greece (Aganaktismenoi); Russia (Movement “For fair elections”); Spain (Democracia Real Ya); Ukraine (Euromaidan). The research goal is a typology of parties’ “representative claims” (Saward) that bridges the different terminologies of theories of radical democracy and populism on the one hand and party and movement research on the other by conceptualizing parties’ representative offers both in terms of discourse theory and organizational forms. The preliminary thesis is that a basic distinction can be made between movement parties (e.g. CUP in Catalonia, “Social Movement” in Ukraine), alliance parties (e.g. Izquierda Unida, Syriza until 2012, Unidos Podemos since 2016), and people’s parties of a new type (Volksparteien neuen Typs; e.g. France Insoumise, Podemos) in terms of the degree of orientation toward the horizontal integration of autonomous movements or the vertical identification function of the party leadership. Horizontality and verticality are thus understood in line with recent research as two dimensions of hegemony (taking prototypical form in radical democracy and populism, respectively) and as a continuum of possibilities open to parties that seek to link up to protest movements.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants