The Movement-Party with the Expression of Radical Democracy. The Cases of Emergence and Consolidation of Podemos in Spain and Revolución Democrática in Chile

Abstract

The financial crisis of 2008, whose worst effects were felt in developed countries, reignited the political dispute over ideological hegemony. It showed the dysfunction existing between material and immaterial goods produced by capitalist society, and the citizenry’s satisfaction with these goods in consolidated democracies. In Spain and Chile, this dysfunction originated new political movements that sought to represent the old unresolved injustices for liberal democracy, and the new tensions that emerged with and after the economic crisis. This article addresses this process through the comparative analysis of a conjunction of structural and supra-structural factors, in order to understand the emergence and consolidation of Podemos in Spain and the Democratic Revolution in Chile as movement-parties. To achieve this goal, and based on a theoretical framework focused on the premises of radical democracy and agonist pluralism and the characteristics of the party-movement, we explore the socioeconomic, cultural and institutional conditions that may explain the emergence and consolidation of this type of "political parties." Based on this analysis, it is concluded that: 1) the emergence of both parties is explained by the material conditions of inequality in both countries; 2) in their origins, the two parties can be clearly defined as movement-parties; and 3) these parties have become an alternative to traditional parties, but within the political regime they are challenging.