Direct-Democracy as an Empty Vessel? Participation and Mobilization in New Movement Parties: The Case of Podemos and Five Stars Movement

The aim of this paper is to evaluate the participation of the membership in newly emerged movement party, i.e. the Italian Five Stars Movement and Podemos. Among the goals that these want to pursue is to improve the political participation of the “citizenship” to political parties’ activities. In particular – and following the pioneering example of the Pirates parties – those two parties rely on web direct-democracy tools to take crucial decisions, such as alliances, the party programs, expulsion of members and candidate-selections. Firstly, I evaluate the (different) concept of participation behind these two parties. From one side Five Stars Movement consider direct-democracy through internet and internet itself the very essence of its existence. From the other side Podemos adopt only “instrumentally” web direct-democracy to expand the assembly-based democracy imagined by (part) of the party’s founders. Secondly, I enquire when, under which rules and in which fields direct-democracy tolls have been used by the two parties: the research question I want to answer is whether different conceptions of direct-democracy brought the two parties in two separate pathways in terms of political participation. Thirdly, I evaluate the participation of the membership to internal consultations. Here my focus is not limited to the overall participation; rather, I look also at the changing participation according to the issues. The (partial) conclusion that I reach is that, albeit presenting different characteristics, both parties have tried to expand direct-democracy in the internal decision-making. However, the low participation in several internal consultations indicates that direct-democracy risks to be an empty vessel if not coupled with a constant political mobilization.