Photo used with permission of author.In the context of the on-going political-economic crisis particularly affecting southern Europe, as European citizens we have a duty to share experiences of socio-political transformation and to try and bring about a positive social transformation.
It is therefore important to understand the phenomenon that is Podemos, which has already been depicted as ‘the greatest political innovation in Europe since the end of the Cold War’ (de Sousa Santos 2014). While traditional linear historical meta-narratives of progress tend to essentialise ideas as immutable, a more genealogical conception allows us to reassess the historical transformation of ideas in the way they are (re)appropriated by different political actors, with different intentions and ends.
I offer here a brief genealogical analysis of Podemos’ ‘new politics’, from its origins to its consolidation phase, focusing on a process of vertical integration that it is undergoing, which has resulted in a highly hierarchical and centralized political formation.
