Who is responsible for democratic transformations? The different ideas of democracy and democratic co-determination between political parties and climate movements

Historically, social movements and political parties were interlinked through dynamic and conflictual relationships, especially when it comes to their ideas of democracy and the necessary pathways towards a socio-political transition. Their imaginations of how to achieve societal changes were often hard to reconcile. For the early workers’ movements, the conservative and catholic milieus until the 1930s or even 1960s, as well as the green ecological movements of the 1980s it was clear that there had to be a solid and steady strategic communication between parliamentary and extra-parliamentary organization and mobilization in order to realize a better society. When looking at the contemporary climate movements, this might have changed. For instance, the Fridays for Future mobilizations have chosen a different path, which is highly interesting from a democracy research perspective. They have declared right from the beginning to stay away from party politics. Their climate politics demands should not be dragged into a parliamentary or party-political debate, because in the movements’ perspective they are scientific or objective truths which were to be implemented without political negotiations watering them down (Moor et al., 2021). In this paper, which is based on a series of qualitative interviews with Fridays for Future activists and party politicians in Germany and Austria, I analyze how movement activists and party politicians in the field of climate politics understand parliamentary representation and politics as well as the different roles of movements and parties. Which imaginations of democracy and which logics of cooperation between institutions and extra-parliamentary mobilization do they maintain? What are the roles of parties, parliaments, and movements they imagine in the field of climate politics? Who is responsible for what? In Germany as well as in Austria the FfF-demonstrations have had a huge resonance in public discourse as well as in the party system. At the same time, activists in both countries have chosen different repertoires to voice their demands vis-à-vis the party political system. By comparing the two countries I also want to contribute to the better understanding of the factors that shape party-movement-cooperations and, more generally, how the relationships between civil society, movements, and more traditional political channels such as political parties evolve.