Civil Society Mobilization and Democracy

by Santiago Sordo Ruz

June 15, 2012

Abstract

What does the recent worldwide surge in civil society mobilization tell us
about modern democracies? From well-established, longstanding democracies to
young and consolidating democratic regimes, the world experienced an important
and ongoing amount of popular upheaval in the past months. Why have these
movements not chosen institutional mechanisms to channel their demands? Do
these mechanisms even exist? Are these manifestations of popular discontent an
intrinsic trait of modern representative democracies or is this a symptom of some
deeper systemic failure? In this paper we explore possible answers to these
questions. We analyze some of the recent instances of civil society mobilization
('Los indignados' movement in Spain, the 'Occupy' movement in the US, the
student riots in Chile and the 'Movimiento por la paz con justicia y dignidad' in
Mexico) and try to unearth the dynamics of mobilization and their implications for
our modern conception of democracy and the sufficiency of its institutions.

Keywords: civil society, mobilization, protest, representative democracy

Introduction

2011 has been dubbed the year of global indignation. It all started in the last
days of 2010 with the spark that ignited what has come to be known as the Arab
spring. The immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi on December 17, 2010, the 26-year-
old street seller that set himself on fire after being humiliated by police one last
time, catalyzed the revolution that ousted so-called President Ben Ali in Tunisia
after 24 years in office 28 days later. In the months to come, the Arab world would
experience intense civil society mobilization of variegated flavor, breadth, regime
response and outcome; civil society massively took to the streets to speak out in
nearly every Arab country.
In some countries of the region, what first manifested itself as massive
popular protest quickly turned into armed conflict with disgraceful civilian tolls and
violence. In Libya, popular upheaval calling for the end of the Gaddafi regime that
dated back to 1969 was violently crushed, stirring a full-scale civil war that resulted
in the demise of the dictatorship and Gaddafis own death. In Syria, protesters took
to the streets to demand the end of nearly 5 decades of rule by the al-Assad
regime prompting the ongoing deployment of the army against opposition and
which has resulted in a series of attacks on the of civilian population that are still
awaiting international response. In Yemen, ongoing mobilization with violent stints
that included a failed assassination attempt against president Saleh has already
yielded his resignation.
In other counties, effervescent, yet less overtly violent
1
upheaval has
toppled autocrats and continues to shake long-standing authoritarian regimes.
Perhaps most outstanding among these was the Egyptian revolution where, in a
similar fashion to what happened in Tunisia, 18 days of taking to the streets and
public space appropriation, most notably Tahrir square in Cairo, brought down the
regime led by Hosni Mubarak after nearly 30 years of uninterrupted rule. In
Bahrain, pro-democracy protests that broke out across the country in demand of
greater freedom for the Shia majority under Sunni rule have been systematically
cracked down by the government but endure. In Algeria, lack of liberties,
prohibitive food prices and unemployment were among the concerns that led to
unrest in demand of reform. Lebanese protesters demanded the modification of a
political system that, in their view, perpetuates sectarian conflict through
confessionalism. In Morocco, demonstrators demanded the resignation of cabinet
members and reforms to decrease King Mohammed VIs powers resulting in a
series of reforms approved by referendum. In Jordan, food prices and inflation took
protesters to the street; the usual response of King Abdullah II, sacking his cabinet,
did little to quell unrest and mobilization demanding authentic reform has endured.
In Iraq, corruption, a bad economy and better services were among the demands
that drove protesters to the streets. Other countries like Oman, Iraq and Saudi
Arabia are also seeing their share of multifaceted civil society mobilization.
Despite its variance in intensity and outcome, the upheaval in the Arab world
shares an interesting common trait. Of all the abovementioned countries, only
Morocco and Lebanon are rated as Partially Free in Freedom Houses Freedom in
the World 2011 report. Not that rankings like Freedom Houses have any sort of
final say about the democratic performance of countries, but it certainly is an
interesting effort and reference. The rest of these countries have a Not Free rating
(see Table A below) and none of them, whether Not Free or Partially Free are
considered electoral democracies by the report. It seems clear that the Arab spring
is all about a cry for the widening freedom and access to democracy.

Table A
Freedom rating of selected to Arab countries

Country Freedom status
2

Tunisia Not free
Egypt Not free
Libya Not free
Syria Not free
Saudi Arabia Not free
Jordan Not free
Iraq Not free
Algeria Not free
Bahrain Not free
Yemen Not free
Morocco Partially free
Lebanon Partially free


1
Sadly enough, less violent but not without civilian tolls.
2
According to Freedom Houses Freedom in the World 2011 report. Ratings consider events from
January 1, 2010, through December 31, 2010.
But indignation was not restricted to the Arab world in 2011; in fact, quite on
the contrary, it went viral and it certainly feels like the Zeitgeist of the era that
begun with the subprime mortgage crisis. Reminiscent of the generalized upheaval
that the World experienced in 1968, protests erupted virtually everywhere around
the globe (see Figure A for an illustration of this point). Moreover, Indignation was
not restricted to countries with authoritarian regimes either. From well-established,
longstanding democracies to young, transitioning and consolidating democratic
regimes that may be classified at least as electoral democracies, civil society has
mobilized in the democratic world. Protests have erupted in countries like Greece,
Mexico, India, Chile, Russia, Iran, the UK and the United States, to name a very
few.

Figure A
Protest around the world
3




Unlike the demands protesters had in countries of the Arab spring, in the
case of most representative (electoral) democracies, the demands put forward by
protesters were not directly targeted against the regime, i.e., they did not seek its
removal. Rather, in countries where free elections are celebrated to elect officials
and representatives, what is sought is an expansion of substantial democracy in
the form of a broadening and defense of rights and better living standards. To put it
in other words, once a basic democratic floor has been established, protest aims at
the expansion of substantive democracy.
Civil society mobilization is desirable, if we abide buy the basic tenet of the
so-called civil society argument, a dense network of civil associations is said to
promote the stability and effectiveness of the democratic polity through both the

3
proteworldatprotest.com. The map shows countries where protests, demonstrations and rallies
have been reported by the media. The map is presented for illustrative purposes only and is not
exhaustive. Red indicates countries with the higher reported upheaval. The map corresponds to
dates from January 2, 2011 to June 15, 2012.
effects of association on citizens' habits of the heart and the ability of associations
to mobilize citizens on behalf of public causes
4
. In spite of its desirability, civil
society mobilization may also be interpreted as a manifestation of the insufficiency
of the interest representation mechanisms of modern electoral democracies. The
argument is that electoral democracy and its representation mechanisms and
institutions are supposed are supposed to constitute conflict resolution and volont
gnrale integration devices. If these institutions are in place, they should be able
to channel civil society demands. The breadth of protest in 2011 speaks not only of
discontent but also of the inadequacy and the limitations of the representation
mechanisms that are in place in modern electoral democracies.
So, what does this surge in civil society mobilization tell us about modern
democracies? Why have movements not chosen institutional mechanisms to
channel their demands? Do these mechanisms even exist? Are these
manifestations of popular discontent an intrinsic trait of modern representative
democracies or is this a symptom of some deeper systemic failure? In this paper
we explore possible answers to these questions. We analyze some of the recent
instances of civil society mobilization ('Los indignados' movement in Spain, the
'Occupy' movement in the US, the student riots in Chile and the 'Movimiento por la
paz con justicia y dignidad' in Mexico) and try to unearth the dynamics of
mobilization and their implications for our modern conception of democracy and the
sufficiency of its representation institutions.

Civil society mobilization: four instances

In this section we provide a brief sketch of the shape of the four movements
we study to reflect on the questions we have posed on the introduction
5
. The
purpose of the section is to clearly state the demands, means and outcomes of the
movements thus far. It is important to note that as we have tried to state, what
distinguishes the four cases studied in this paper is the fact that, unlike the majority
of the cases in the Arab spring, the demands of these mobilizations were not
targeted against the political regimes in place. Rather, the four cases consider
countries where, at least according to the aforementioned Freedom House report,
electoral democracies exist. The cases of the USA, Spain, Chile and Mexico
6
all
take place in, despite their many stark differences in many dimensions, countries
where fair and free elections take place.

Los indignados


4
Folley and Edwards. The Paradox of Civil Society. Journal of Democracy 7.3 (1996) 38-52.
5
We choose the USA and Spain because of their particular notoriety in the media. The choice of
the Mexican and Chilean cases has more to do with the authors personal bias should does not
make any difference in the argumentative structure of this paper.
6
Mexicos Free status was downgraded to Partially Free in the 2011 edition of the due to the
targeting of local officials by organized crime groups and the governments inability to protect
citizens rights in the face of criminal violence.

On May 15, 2011
7
, in the first of a series of protests across Spain that would
later spread throughout Europe, much like what Tunisia was for the Arab world,
Spanish citizens took to the streets under the motto No somos mercanca en
manos de politicos y banqueros (We are not commodities in the hands of
politicians and bankers) to protest against the actors which, in their view, were
responsible for the Spanish economic crisis. Spain was particularly badly hit by the
shock waves of the world financial crisis, with nearly one fifth of the population
unemployed in 2010
8
and employment conditions worsening.
The demands of the movement may be summarized by the following excerpt
from the who we are section of their website
9
:

We the unemployed, the badly paid, the outsourced, the precarious,
the young! want a change and a decent future. We are fed up with
antisocial reform, with unemployment, with banks responsible for the crisis
raising our mortgages and foreclosing our homes, with laws that limit our
freedom and benefit the powerful being imposed upon us. We hold political
and economic power as culprits of our precarious situation and demand
change.

Their specific demands revolved around 8 themes: strip politicians of their
privileges, unemployment, housing, quality public services, control over the
banking sector, fiscal reform that protects the citizenry, expansion of freedoms and
participatory democracy and military spending reduction.
Besides mass mobilization, indignados systematically resorted to public
space appropriation. Perhaps the most important example of this was what
happened in the Puerta del Sol plaza, with protesters camping or occupying the
plaza until as late as August 4. The most important achievement of the movement
has allegedly been the positioning of some of their demands in the public agenda.
Among the most significant of their points that have reached public discussion and
even consideration in Congress we find electoral reform and the issue of
nonrecourse debt
10
.

The Occupy movement: We are the 99%

Among the myriad instances of civil society mobilization that made 2011 the
year of global indignation, perhaps the most interesting case is that of the United
States. This is not to suggest that protest is unusual in that country. Nevertheless,
instances of the movement, most notably, Occupy Wall Street, was somewhat
surprising given its duration and the utilization of public space appropriation as its
banner in a country with zealous and blunt laws about private property trespassing
and public property usage. Somewhat paradoxically, New York Citys Zucotti Park,

7
Known as 15-M in Spain
8
Eurostat
9
http://www.democraciarealya.es/quienes-somos/, the translation is mine.
10
http://www.publico.es/espana/391468/el-15-m-deja-huella-en-solo-tres-meses-de-vertigo

the public space appropriated by the movement, happens to be private property
and this fact prevented police to immediately act against the occupation.
Not les paradoxical is the fact that Occupy Wall Street was started by
controversial criticized for commoditizing counterculture- Canadian magazine
Adbusters via an entry on its blog. The post invited its readers to peacefully occupy
Wall Street by asking Are you ready for a Tahrir moment?
11
on September 17,
2011. Ironically enough, the post had a powerful response and ended up becoming
a genuine civil society movement.
These two accidents perfectly aligned to bring together the discontent and
indignation that became one of the most important protest movements in the USA
since the 1999 Seattle protests against the World Trade Organization. What
started with the appropriation of the park on September 17 soon spread to almost
every major American city to become Occupy USA. Protesters gathered to voice
their indignation against the privileged 1% of the population that had sunk the
country and the World in the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.
Protesters adopted the original Adbusters proposal to demonstrate against
corporatocracy and demand democracy. In their own words, the movement is

against the corrosive power of major banks and multinational corporations
over the democratic process, and the role of Wall Street in creating an
economic collapse that has caused the greatest recession in generations.
The movement is inspired by popular uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia, and
aims to fight back against the richest 1% of people that are writing the rules
of an unfair global economy that is foreclosing on our future
12
.

Widely regarded as the American version of los indignados, the movements
achievements have also been about informing the public agenda. The most
significant issues set forth by Occupy have been income inequality and predatory
and abusive practices used by the mortgage industry and the banking system in
general
13
.

The quest for a social agreement for Chilean education

A struggle dating back to La revolucin pingina
14
of 2006, the 2011 student
protests in Chile is a mobilization that seeks the dismantlement of an education
system engineered in the days of the military dictatorship. The student led
movement demands the end of educacin municipal, a system favoring privately
owned, tuition-based schooling. In their own words the movement is

[!] brought together by the strong belief in education as an essential
component to achieve a new version of the much-desired Historical

11
http://www.adbusters.org/blogs/adbusters-blog/occupywallstreet.html
12
http://occupywallst.org/about/
13
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/03/19/447087/after-six-months-a-look-at-what-occupy-
wall-street-has-accomplished/
14
The penguin revolution in reference to the uniforms used by the middle school students of the
protest.
democratic Development Project and to overcome the outrageous inequality
gaps that we witness today. Thus, we have posed the urgent need to
recover education as a universal human and social right that must be
granted by the Constitution that must be structured around a new and high
quality National Public Education System that is free (gratuitous),
democratic and financed by the state at all levels.
The new system must be autonomous and democratic in order to be able to
avoid private interests of any kind, be it political, religious or economical,
with an internal organization capable of administrative, governance,
academic and financial self-determination. To achieve this it requires
democratic procedures as a means to grant the right to participate and
freedom of association but also the empowerment of the community for the
purpose of policymaking that is independent of the incumbent
government
15
.

As we can see, despite the fact that the movements concrete demand is the
revamping of the public education system in the country, it is against a democratic
backdrop that they demand this restructuring. In short, they want to socialize
education and to democratize it; clich aside, they are pushing for an education
system for the people (not for profit) and by the people (not by interest groups).
The movements main tactics have been mass mobilization and school occupation
but they have also allied with labor movements to go on strike.
The movement has been successful in pressuring the government to the
point of the Education Minister being removed
16
. Most importantly, it has managed
to force the government into negotiations that have produced three reform
proposals on behalf of the government so far. The proposals have been deemed
unsatisfactory by the movement so far and the struggle continues.

Peace with justice and dignity

On March 28, 2011, organized crime gang members murdered Mexican
poet Javier Sicilias 24-year-old son. The tragedy, one among more than 60,000
others that have resulted from the war on drugs that the federal government has
undertaken, prompted Sicilia, a renowned poet, to organize a movement that
united victims, their families and outraged citizens. After a series of demonstrations
in his hometown of Cuernavaca, the Movimiento por la paz con justicia y dignidad
(Peace with justice and dignity movement) was assembled following the publication
of an open letter to Mexicos politicians and criminals. Weeks later, Sicilia called for
a national march to protest the war.
The march seeks to mobilize Mexicans to speak out and demand action
from the country's government
17
. As with the cases we have analyzed thus far, the

15
http://elchileno.cl/world/nacional/1071-bases-para-un-acuerdo-social-por-la-educacion-chilena-
texto-completo.html
16
The minister was not sacked but reassigned to a different ministry.
17
http://articles.cnn.com/2011-05-05/world/mexico.poet.activist_1_mexican-publications-javier-
sicilia-poem?_s=PM:WORLD
objective of the mobilization has been to put a particular issues in the public
agenda; in this case the war on drugs and the devastating effects upon Mexican
society. The specific demands of the movement are solving the totality of murders
and disappearances in addition to the identification every victim, putting an end to
the war on drugs, the combat of corruption and impunity, the combat of the
economical roots of organized crime, emergency support of the youth and social
fabric reconstruction and an actually participatory democracy
18
.
In addition to the reactivation of investigations for over a hundred cases, the
liberation of an undisclosed number of victims and raising awareness about the
human costs of the war, the movement has achieved a rather unusual feat. On
June 23, 2011 the movement managed to meet with federal officials and the
president himself to voice not only its grief but also its demands. Unfortunately, a
year after the meeting there seems to be little improvement in the overall situation
of violence in the country and the movement has somewhat dwindled. More
recently, the movement sat with presidential candidates to express its concerns
and demands hoping to keep the movement alive into the new administration.

Civil society mobilization and democracy

Lets recall the five questions we posed in our introduction and try to shed
some light into possible answers by considering what the four cases we have
briefly presented.
What does the recent worldwide surge in civil society mobilization tell us
about modern democracies? Modern democracies have at least two common
denominators: free and fair elections and representation mechanisms. The four
movements we have briefly outlined in the previous section are quite different in
their scope, contexts, constituencies and demands, but as instances of social
movements they have all used the instrument that seems to be the only one at
hand to voice their grievances: mass mobilization
19
. Going back to the civil society
argument, civil society mobilization looks like a boon in democracy. People
associate informally, in this case- and join forces to advance a cause. In the
process, they are supposed to have experienced plurality, learned to reach
democratic decisions via the majority rue, created social capital and so forth. This
may be true, but the central argument of this paper that the fact that civil society
has to take on mass mobilization and use it as a means to voice their demands
should be regarded as a sign of the insufficiency of the institutional mechanisms
that their respective electoral, representative democracies offer.
As we have seen, the year of global indignation was an extremely active
year in terms of civil society mobilization. So much so that Time magazine chose
the protester as its 2011 person of the year. This should be regarded as an
achievement in the case of polities where achieving the institutionalization of
uncertainty in electoral outcomes and thus real political representation is an
ongoing struggle. On the other hand, what this should tell us about modern

18
http://movimientoporlapaz.mx/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/pronunciamiento-
referentesnacionalesMPJD.pdf
19
This includes public space appropriation.
democracies is that the representation side of the basic democratic formula is
failing. We should regret rather than celebrate such instances in countries where
representative democracies exist. We should celebrate the fact that in the face of
oblivion, civil society has the courage and capacity to assemble and represent itself
before officials to demand their rights and voice their grievances; we should regret
the fact that the have had to resort to mobilization and interpret this as a failure in
the representation mechanisms currently in place.
Why have these movements not chosen institutional mechanisms to channel
their demands? Do these mechanisms even exist? According to the feature article
about Time magazines person of the year, protest has been (t)he natural
continuation of politics by other means
20
. Protest seems to be the only means in
town to engage in politics for the vast majority of civil society; why else would the
public engage in the painstaking activity of mass protesting? A system where civil
society has to engage in mass mobilization so intensely and where taking to the
streets is the only rather than the last resort to voice grievances
21
should be
regarded as insufficiently democratic. Despite the existence of representational
mechanisms in the four cases we briefly analyzed, all of them chose to channel
their demands through mass mobilization instead of using institutional
mechanisms. All of them chose to represent themselves before authorities to make
their points
Finally, are these manifestations of popular discontent an intrinsic trait of
modern representative democracies or is this a symptom of some deeper systemic
failure? Disruptive mobilization and public appropriation may be regarded as forms
of civil disobedience. Civil disobedience is, by definition, an exception rather the
rule. We should see a problem where contentious law-braking becomes the norm.
Even in the case of Mexico, where mobilization was mostly non-disruptive, the very
fact that the mechanism of choice was persistently mobilization should be regarded
as a sign of the insufficiency of representation mechanisms if not of systemic
failure.
Should the 2011 protests be regarded as empirical evidence of the
insufficiency of the representative model of democracy? Perhaps it is too blunt to
assert that this signals some systemic failure in so-called political representation
but it also seems reasonable to claim that the trustee model of political
representation has not delivered its promises and is closer to a fiction than
anything else. The fact that civil society has to take to the streets and engage in
civil disobedience to forward its demands instead of channeling its grievances,
concerns and demands through a system
22
that is in place to provide exactly
should be ringing some bells.



20
http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2101745_2102132_2102373,00.html
21
Yes, some protesters may have contacted their representatives but chances are this had no
actual effect whatsoever, and yes, this is only speculation but very feasible speculation.
22
Systems with very financially onerous infrastructures, in fact.