Democracy of the Squares. Visions and Practices of Democracy from Egypt to the United States

Abstract

Democracy is one of the central issues of the protest waves from Tahrir to Plaza del Sol to Zucotti Park. This is so not only because insurgent citizens decried autocratic and plutocratic or post-democratic regimes in their home countries. The epitome of these mobilisations, the occupation of squares, can be considered as a reconquering of democracy. Citizens in the streets formed an alternative demos and developed prefigurative forms of democratic self-organisation. The squares became hubs of exchange and laboratories of collective decision-making. In these processes, the respect for individual concerns was valued more than hammering out collective aspirations. In some countries, the experience of the squares has also inspired the establishment of new organisations such as neighbourhood initiatives or thematic committees. If social movements are considered as laboratories of democracy, the recent waves pose some more general questions about the relationship of associational and electoral forms of democracy. It is still open how activists define their role as citizens and as political subjects as they see fundamental wrongs in domestic regimes. Do the indignads and occupiers develop visions of democracy on a larger scale? If so, are they different from those of previous movements, such as the global justice one? And to what extent is the experience of democracy in the squares transposed to other arenas of democratic self-organisation? The panel invites papers that explore the “democracy of the squares”, preferably in a historical or cross-national comparative perspective. How are democratic forms of self-organisation developed? Which experiences do they build on and how do they diffuse from one place to another? How are differences negotiated and which kinds of exclusions are produced in democratic practices? To what extent is prefigurative politics tied to political opportunities such as electoral regimes and police repression?

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