From protests to institutions: Exploring how social movements, movement parties and citizens affect democratic quality

Since 2008, in the wake of the European financial, economic, and migration crises, mass protests have engendered new social movements and political parties. Movement-parties have gained importance across Europe by channelling new demands from the protest arena into the political arena. Offering more explicit ideological choices, and engaging social media and legacy media in new ways, they have managed to mobilize the votes of disaffected protesters and wider parts of the electorate to an extent that in countries such as Italy and Spain, they have arrived in government. This research develops a conceptual understanding of how the triple-interaction between citizens, social movements, and movement parties influences democratic quality in Europe. By placing the triple interaction between protest and institutional arenas, we theorize democratic quality as comprising the dimensions of participation, competition, and responsiveness. First, we explore whether movement parties increase democratic participation by mobilizing citizens—(extra)institutionally—who were previously disengaged from politics. We argue that their interest in embracing socioeconomic and cultural inclusiveness depends on their ideological backgrounds. Second, we focus on the relation between movement parties and the media. We contend that movement parties tend to polarise public debates on sensitive issues by delegitimising traditional sources of information at an early stage, adapting to media codes and routines once they access representative assemblies and institutionalise. We thereby examine competition instigated by movement parties and responsiveness by media institutions. Further, we argue that competition and responsiveness are contextual on movement parties’ linkages — displayed on social media — to political elites, other social movements, elite-, fringe- and tabloid-media, and competition among them. Finally, we investigate whether movement parties have increased the responsiveness of political institutions and the media including new political demands and posit that this is heavily dependent on contextual factors.