Evaluating Podemos’ Direct Democracy Experience through New Technologies and its Impact in Terms of Democratic Participation and Regeneration

From the deepest economic crisis the European economy has seen since the great depression, Southern Europe democracies are emerging with new social/political movements/parties. In this paper we analyse Podemos, a new Spanish political party who has born from a new grass roots activism. Podemos has introduced massive on-line direct democracy participation mechanisms to breathe new life into a socially considered decadent democracy system where citizens feel no longer represented by public institutions. Taking into account that the citizen’s response to this political initiative is being overwhelming, the Podemos study case is socially and theoretically relevant because it allows not only analyzing a unique contemporary experience of direct democracy that has no worldwide comparison but also its consequences in terms of how new technologies can better serve to democratic participation and regeneration. This paper is the final result of the research jointly conducted by two Harvard study groups.