Democracy Reloaded

Abstract

This chapter presents the major contributions of the book and the question of the role pro-democracy movements can play in democratic regeneration in times of crisis. It argues that their emancipatory potential lies in critique and resignification of the meaning of democracy, and in prefigurative experimentation in democratic practice. Activists in 15-M developed shared master frames about the crisis, austerity, and democracy that enabled them to not only develop a strong collective identity, but also to effectively contest hegemonic narratives used to justify austerity politics. In this way democracy also became one core factor in enabling cross-sectoral alliances, in both form (movement practices that prefiguratively embodied a “15-M” way of manifesting democratic principles) and in content (diagnoses of deficient democracy and new imaginaries proposed to correct these deficiencies).The chapter evaluates the impact and significance of the 15-M movement, and the potential for autonomous movements to reload democracy in times of crisis.