WHEN NEW POLITICAL PARTICIPATION MEETS TRADITIONAL POLITICS / QUANDO A NOVA PARTICIPAÇÃO POLÍTICA SE ENCONTRA COM A POLÍTICA TRADICIONAL

Abstract

This article presents and analyzes new forms of political participation and their relationship with the traditional institutions and actors of representative democracy. In spite of the creation of new forms of political participation during the last fifty years, the representative system was until now not able to interact with the new political phenomena in a profitable way. The detachment between these two realities – two distinct groups of actions, actors, organizations and institutions - constitutes important part of the permanent “crisis of democracy”. While this detachment lasts, possible political outputs are the advance of populism and the delegitimization of some classical political institutions, like Parliaments.