From Catalunya to Chile, from England to Ecuador and Bolivia, large sectors of citizens have demonstrated their ability and willingness to take to the streets. What do these very distinct situations have in common with regards to history, the composition of political forces, institutional frameworks, and social demands? The lack of capacity of the political establishment to act as an articulator of social debates and a producer of legitimate solutions to public demands.
In modern democracies, the mechanisms designed to carry out this role are political parties. Despite their infamy, and perhaps they have never been a positive thing, political parties are there to act as intermediaries, between citizens and political power. Beyond selecting candidates and seeking to win elections, many also fulfil the role of questioning interests of different sectors of society, of generating inter-subjectivities about the world and social agendas, of educating citizens about complex problems so that they become more accessible for majority consumption, and of territorially organising social sectors with similar ideas.
The reality is that, a large majority of main political parties that dominate political systems have transformed political channels, leaving to one side functions that are necessary for the functioning of our democracies. Of course, the incentives point in this direction, and nor are they a novelty: the centrality of media outlets to establish a political agenda, the scandalous increase in political campaigns that receive financing from sectors to which they later have to owe favours, the growing influence of de facto powers that diminish autonomy of political parties, and the emergence of agendas for which political parties are simply unprepared.
