So unfair — I’ve always used it a lot, now it’s got a bad rep 😑

En inglés para lxs colegas internacionales que no hablan nuestras lenguas, aunque nosotrxs si las suyas… 🤷‍♀️

Democratic backsliding is not just about electoral results and institutions, but also other forms of response and resistance (or their absence).

Overly focusing on elections, ideology, and institutions may result in partial images of how democratic disputes are taking place.

-@welpita.bsky.social

@welpita.bsky.social concludes with some overarching reflections:

Approaching participatory institutions as part of regimes of social control evidences that participation can be embedded in political systems in ways that aren't easily coopted or dismantled by incoming power-holders.

Are progressive movement parties 'too little, too late'?

Chile's Frente Amplio has faced shortcomings on all fronts: mistrust from social movements, inability to dismantle clientelistic parties, incompatibility between parliamentary and mobilisation work, and compromising when advancing agendas.

Sofia Donoso examines movement parties, in particular Chile's Frente Amplio.

One of their first challenges was to transform their 'elitist' origin into a stable organization that does not renounce their horizontal roots and values, but can build mobilisation capacity and develop broad alliances.

Where the state is used to advance restrictive political projects that constrain rights and enforce inequalities, feminist activists refuse to renounce space within the state while creating paralell 'safe' spaces to regroup and strategize.

The state is patriarchal, but also a strategic asset.

Gisela Zaremberg continues with a reflection on feminist governance within the state-patriarchy.

In the context of conservatist backlash, feminist bureaucratic activists operate simultaneously within and without the state. They work as translators, intermediators, and influencers of policy agendas.

The authors conclude that regimes of social control have structuring properties that have embedded participation as part of democratic transitions and the ensuing political system, but changes over time will necessarily influence what and how participatory institutions expand.

@ernestoisunza.bsky.social, in turn, shows that in Mexico participatory institutios did not recede under Morena, but the essential difference with pre-2018 participation is the nature of participation under each regime of social control.

Adrian Gurza Lavalle continues with results from Brazil - showing that, in fact, the most public policy councils were introduced well before PT came into office.

This challenges established knoweldge that participation expanded the most under Lula and Rousseff.

@ernestoisunza.bsky.social frames the discussion by going back to O'Donnell's idea of social participation as accountability.

They compare participatory institutions, from participatory budgeting to councils and policy conferences, not across cases, but as part of regimes of social control.