Social movements in crisis? From the 15-M movement to the electoral shift in Spain

QUERY FORM JOURNAL: International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy VOL/ISSUE NO: 36/9/10 ARTICLE NO: 585951 ARTICLE TITLE: Social movements in crisis? From the 15-M movement to the electoral shift in Spain AUTHORS: Ibán Díaz-Parra and Jaime Jover-Báez Note to Editors: The queries listed in the table below are for the Author. Please ignore these queries. Note to Authors: During the production of your article we came across the following queries listed in the table below. Please review the queries and insert your reply or correction at the corresponding line in the PDF proof of the article which follows this query page. No. Queries Q1 Reference “Díaz-Parra (2013)”has not been included in the reference list, please provide complete publication details to include in the reference list, else confirm the deletion of text citation. Q2 Please provide complete publication details for reference AA.VV. (2007) along with author/ corporate/institute name. Q3 Please provide the volume number in the references: Aguilar and Fernández (2010), De Sousa Santos (2001), Tezanos (1984), Díaz (2013). Q4 Please provide the accessed date in references: De la Corte (2014), Europa Press (2014), Pérez (2014), Eldiario.es (2014), Lucio (2014). Q5 Please provide the page range in the references: Díaz and Candón (2014), Martínez and García (2014), Pérez (2013), Zizek (2000). Q6 Please provide the organisation name, city location and accessed date in reference: Martínez and Domingo (2014). Q7 Please provide the issue number in the reference: Tezanos (2002). Social movements in crisis? From the 15-M movement to the electoral shift in Spain Ibán Díaz-Parra Department of Urban Studies, University of Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Jaime Jover-Báez Department of Human Geography, University of Seville, Seville, Spain Abstract Purpose –Social left-wing political contestation and activism in Spain have undergone great changes over the past four years. First, there has been a shift from the 15-M movement that took over public plazas with its ambiguous claims basically related to radical democracy and rejection of institutional politics, to a new focus on social problems generated by the crisis, highlighting issues such as housing and cutbacks in social rights. Second, there has been a shift towards institutional politics in 2014. How should this recent whirlwind evolution in political contestation to status quo be understood? What is the relation between the changing material conditions of the population and the extremely shifting shape of left-wing militancy in Spain? The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach –The arguments put forward here are based on the authors’ involvement in social movements in the city of Seville between 2011 and the current time. They have been complemented with in-depth interviews of social activists who have taken part in the movements: 15-M assemblies, the housing movement, general strikes and, in more recent times, electoral initiatives (Podemos and Ganemos). The interviews were done between 2012 and 2014. The fieldwork has been complemented with an exploration of documentary sources: the manifests and writings of the various organisations that are being addressed. Findings –In the transition from 15-M assemblies to the recent shift in electoral initiatives, social protest have turned from direct democracy demands and the rejection of institutionalised politics to a progressively pragmatic and short-term position where institutions are targeted. This paper argues that the generalised impoverishment of the population, increased numbers of evictions and consistently high unemployment rates have broadened the social framework for the action of social movements. The political and ideological crisis, rooted in the majority of the population’s crumbling expectations of social progress has enabled the array of possibilities to be opened up to emancipatory politics. Originality/value –It is argued that massive deprivation provoked by the economic crisis has been a fundamental factor in the movements’new orientation, what as a consequence, and until certain extent, throws the New Social Movements discourses into crisis itself, at least with regard to its postmaterialistic nature and its opposition to institutions of the State. Keywords Social protest, New Social Movements theory, Spanish crisis Paper type Research paper Introduction: crisis and social movements The Spanish Indignados or 15-M movement is one of the most relevant milestones in the new cycle of mobilisation initiated in Europe in 2011, following the Arab Spring. 15-M refers to the group of massive mobilisations that sprang up in May 2011 as a response to strong political and economic crisis in Spain. Since then, political protest in Spain has suffered transformations at a rate never seen before. The first powerful shift took place after 2012. The 15-M movement, which had taken over public squares or plazas with its ambiguous claims related to radical democracy and rejection of International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy Vol. 36 No. 9/10, 2016 pp. 1-16 © Emerald Group Publishing Limited 0144-333X DOI 10.1108/IJSSP-09-2015-0101 Received 23 September 2015 Revised 4 January 2016 17 June 2016 Accepted 20 June 2016 The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at: www.emeraldinsight.com/0144-333X.htm 1 IJSSP 36,9/10 institutional politics, moved with a new focus towards social problems generated by the recession, highlighting issues such as housing and cutbacks in social rights. During that period two general strikes were held and one of the most influential and widely supported housing movements was born; at the same time many specific struggles against cutbacks in the welfare state (health, education and social services) began to appear. Second, from 2014 on, left-wing activism and social protest against austerity turned towards institutional politics. This had been hinted at previously, but acquired unexpected importance when the electoral projects Podemos (at the nation-state scale) and Ganemos (at the local state scale)[1] burst onto the scene. These electoral projects have vindicated the previous mobilisations and protests and have absorbed a large part of its activism. As a result, in barely four years it has driven towards pragmatic positions, seeking democratic regeneration from inside the system and putting a brake on collective dispossession. How should this recent whirlwind evolution in political opposition to the status quo be understood? Between the struggles of the 1970s and the new growing cycle of mobilisation referred to above, Spanish radical leftist activism was largely marked by similar features to movements in the rest of Europe which, to a greater or lesser extent, identify with the abundant literature on New Social Movements (NSMs). These kinds of movements have commonly focussed on identity topics as well as self-management and radical democracy aspirations, being regularly identified as post-materialistic. Early analyses of the 15-M followed this trend, linking the movement to NSMs, while main current interpretations of the electoral shift adhere to the Autonomy of the Political thesis, which shares its post-materialistic focus with NMS theory. However, the direction that the protest has taken in recent years allows for a different reading. We suggest that recent interpretations of opposition politics have not paid enough attention to material conditions as factors for understanding the recent cycle of political protest when studying the Spanish Indignados movement. We agree with NSMs theory when it states that material conditions alone cannot explain social and political mobilisation. Nevertheless, our hypothesis departs from the idea that material conditions have played a central role in recent struggles, and that therefore they are essential for understanding strategic changes in political protest; this we intend to test through a comparison with previous situations. The recession was the turning point that triggered recent changes by creating a framework of opportunity for political action. Accepting this, the proposition that changing material conditions, insecurity caused by the crisis and the threat of the crisis itself caused a sharp turn towards more concrete positions becomes plausible. Given this, it is vital to explore the relation between the changing material conditions of the population and the ever-shifting shape of left-wing activism in Spain in greater detail. For we believe that these have been fundamental factors in social and political activism’s move towards taking part in institutional politics, which is illustrated by the turn from social movements to conventional politics. In a nutshell, we seek to challenge the trend of assigning a post-materialistic character to antagonist politics in western societies, as done by some analysts and researchers (from Melucci and Laclau and Mouffe’s classic works to the most recent research on the Spanish political situation). To do so, we will focus on the current evolution of the situation in Spain and discuss how a particular socio-economic context, linked to global economic cycles, is indispensable for understanding protest struggles. The arguments put forward here are based on the authors’involvement in social movements in the city of Seville from 2011 to date. We have been activists in Seville’s 2 Social movements in crisis? social movements for nearly 15 years, participating in squatted social centres and left-wing radical unions. During 2011 both of us took part in the demonstrations, occupations of public squares and assemblies within the 15-M movement. Later on, we actively participated in general strikes, anti-austerity protests and the movement against housing evictions during 2012 and 2013. This experience has been complemented by 20 in-depth interviews carried out between 2012 and 2014 with social activists who have taken part in the aforementioned movements, as well as in new electoral initiatives after 2014 (Podemos and Ganemos). Those interviewed are mostly long-term activists, already mobilised prior to 2011 and who are still active in social or political movements; half of them were involved in the 15-M movement and are active in current electoral initiatives. This fieldwork is accompanied by a study of documentary sources: press releases, newspaper articles and the manifestos and writings of the various organisations addressed. We argue that the data show the goals and strategies of activists engaged in left-wing social protests shifting from non-conventional to conventional politics. This suggests that there is a direct connection by which material conditions are key factors for understanding the radical and rapid involvement of social movements in state politics. However, we acknowledge this study as taking an initial exploratory approach on a local scale, which does not negate the need for research and fieldwork at a state level where the arguments expressed herein can be tested. Social movements and shifting material conditions Broadly speaking, the political actor that came out of the 15-M demonstrations has tended to be identified with the NSMs theory (Estanque and Fonseca, 2014; Peña, 2013). The expression NSMs sprang up in reference to the new characteristics of political mobilisation in Europe from the 1960s and 1970s, as it was difficult to explain them from a classical Marxist perspective. Post-industrial society had by then broken down the old social hierarchies to the extent that “the materialism of the old pre-industrial, and even the industrial demands is replaced by a call to identity, to freedom and also to community. This is why the idea of the social class dissolves, whilst, to the contrary, the idea of movements grows stronger”(Touraine, 1995, p. 17). Similarly, the NSMs are, for Melucci (1989, 1999), born out of the transition from industrial society to complex, post-material society. Thus the primacy of class in the sphere of politics is questioned in favour of a set of pluralist demands, such as feminism, the defence of the rights of gay and lesbian people, environmentalism and pacifism, among others. There are at least two aspects of NSMs that might be of interest in the examination of the current situation in Spain. First, the post-materialistic character of society in which social action unfolds. Conflict in post-materialistic society does not arise out of material needs or exploitation, but out of symbolic domination and aspiration to selfdefinition as social movements, understood as cultural groups who tend to generate their own identities (Melucci, 1999). The profound changes in the capitalism of the second half of the twentieth century have, to a certain degree, relocated conflict from relations of production to the area of social reproduction (De Sousa Santos, 2001; Bourdieu, 2011; Lefebvre, 2013). In this sense, the influential project for radical democracy by Laclau and Mouffe (1985) intended to create a political space for “new” social movements by refusing the primacy of class struggle, considering it an increasingly insignificant political identity amongst the post-modern profusion of differences. Therefore, it aimed to assert the autonomy of the political as a way to escape from the economic determinism of Marxism. More recently, Dean (2015, 2016) 3 IJSSP 36,9/10 and Zizek (1999, 2000) have criticised this narrowness of choice between economy and politics, pointing out that political protest in the frame of neoliberal capitalism has to challenge the depoliticisation of economics. Second, the decoupling from the struggle to take the State power is fundamental in the majority of social movements’definitions[2]. Social movements exist within civil society and not within the framework of the State and, following Melucci (1999), they can count on “growing autonomy in relation to politi Q1 cal systems”(p. 73). This is also a remarkable trend within autonomous political practices. Autonomy refers to a model of internal organising principles based on horizontal structures, related to ideas of self-determination and self-management as well as an independence from traditional hierarchical political parties and trade unions (Holloway, 2002; Cuninghame, 2010; Flesher, 2015). However, Harvey (2013, pp. 221-223) has recently pointed out its limits, for autonomous movements usually tend to stagnate in the mid-term, especially if political parliamentarism answers a few of its claims. Nevertheless, radical autonomous projects seem incompatible with redistributive political claims. In this regard, overwhelming fetishism of the State may have led to a new type of artificial separation between the State and society, both in certain types of movement and in certain academic production: “As if the State were not a manifestation of the political capacity of society as a whole”(León, 2011, p. 4). Social movements in the context of the Spanish economic boom The neoliberal project was born out of the crisis of the 1970s and crystallised in the 1980s, rising relentlessly after the fall of the Berlin Wall. In Spain these were decades of great change. After the Transition to liberal democracy and the decline in social conflict at the end of the 1970s, the successive so-called socialist governments from 1982 on managed the deregulation of the economy in the process prior to convergence with Europe. Joining the European Economic Community in 1986 marked the total opening up of the economy and entailed the difficult industrial reconversion which eroded the power of workers’ organisations (Florido et al., 2013). In a parallel process, from 1985 on, Spain became one of the largest beneficiaries of direct foreign investment in an economy that was already extremely dependant on tourism, real estate and financial sectors (Naredo, 1998; AA.VV., 2007). The result was a post-industrial framework of rising social mobility that would soon begin to show serious shortcomings, with the proliferation of strata in highly precarious positions in the productive system (Tezanos, 1984, 2002). On the level of social mobilisation, there were major co-optation processes in workers’organisations which clearly affected trade unions and urban activism linked to labour movements, from which the main cadres then moved on to join political organisations (Pérez, 2013). In this context, the newest grassroots organisations began to move away from the tutelage of left-wing political parties and worker’s movement institutions, and gradually began to enter the world of the post-materialistic social movements that were prevailing in Europe. The movements took on a strongly ideological character at the same time that they became critical of workers’movements. The trends and common campaigns of European NSMs were nested within this framework: feminism, environmentalism, anti-fascism and squatters’movements. Some movements managed to maintain a somewhat broad base and a degree of social support, whilst others withdrew from institutional politics and descended into identity claims which resulted in them being side-lined. The squatters’movement is a good example of the nature of political mobilisation at this time. María Rodríguez, a squatters’movement activist in Seville in the 1990s, comments: “that’s what people 4 Social movements in crisis? were after at that time, we defined an identity, a different way of understanding politics compared to other perspectives”(September 2012). In this context we reach the twenty-first century with some peaks in mobilisation, such as the 2003 anti-globalisation protests, the demonstrations under the “Mayday” banner from 2005 on and, subsequently, the 2006 movement for decent housing. These protests can be interpreted as a late phase of NSMs. New technologies, horizontal types of organisation, spontaneity and other trends began to play an important role and were to be repeated in the 15-M mobilisations (Díaz and Candón, 2014). These movements are clearly linked to 15-M by political campaigns waged during the period immediately prior to the first demonstrations, including those by Juventud Sin Futuro (Youth with No Future) and No les Votes (Don’t Vote for Them). The decent housing movement began in 2006 with a series of spontaneous mass mobilisations to protest against the prohibitive price of housing which excluded large sectors of the population from the market, especially young people. However, the movement was to eventually move towards a standard representation within activism, with the quick collapse of the assemblies that had been set up in different towns and cities in the State. Aguilar and Fernández (2010) attribute this to the confining profile of student protest and its limitations; its uncoordinated and inefficient nature, while the characteristics of social movements during the post-transition cycle were more evident in general terms. Besides, within the context of the economic boom the political consequences of mobilisation were few. Ángela Lara, a housing movement activist, expresses the difficulties of social and political grassroots activism in those days as follows: “the euphoria surrounding the economy meant that speaking out against the household mortgage borrowing model was a lone critical voice in the wilderness” (February 2014). The mobilisation cycle in the framework of the political and economic crisis The first symptoms of an economic slowdown began to be felt in 2007. Figure 1 shows the collapse of the real estate and construction sector, which had been an essential pillar 700,000 600,000 500,000 400,000 300,000 200,000 100,000 02005 2006 New housing New housing stock 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 0 500 1,000 1,500 2,000 2,500 Housing price ( /m2) Source: Ministry of Public Works and Spanish Statistical Office Figure 1. Evolution of new housing and housing prices in Spain (2005-2013) 5 IJSSP 36,9/10 of the Spanish economy over the last 30 years. In 2008 income per capita in the country fell for the first time since the second half of the twentieth century. Poverty and unemployment began to rise simultaneously and housing evictions became commonplace. As a result, Spain entered an exceptional political situation. On the 15th of May 2011, a call launched over the internet triggered a set of massive demonstrations that resulted in the occupation of central squares in 60 cities across the country. An unexpected social movement, heavily influenced by the Arab Spring, had been born. One of its main features was the aspiration to radical democracy, manifested in popular assemblies, political egalitarianism and aversion to any type of delegation. Estanque and Fonseca (2014) stress the movement’s disaffection with conventional democratic institutions and its “aggregative”vision of democracy. To begin with, the understanding of public squares as meeting places that symbolised community life was reappropriated to mean spaces that represent the people and potential radical democracy. Successively, with the dismantling of the first camps, there was a wave of occupation of abandoned spaces. The squatters’movement strategy was adopted here, but without taking on its identity. Instead, the 15-M identity and the consensuses reached in it were adopted. In many cases, squatted social centres sought to carry out a similar function to that achieved in plazas during the immediately preceding period: the Madrid Hotel in the capital (Abellán et al., 2012), Valcárcel in Cadiz and the Encarnación abandoned market hall in Seville. Finally, in the face of the repression experienced by these places and in response to the demand for democracy, citizens’assemblies were decentralised in village and neighbourhood assemblies in most of the Spanish cities (Díaz and Candón, 2014). In the beginning, the 15-M may have conformed to a middle-class profile for most observers. In fact, Estanque and Fonseca (2014) describe it during this phase as the expression of middle-class radicalism. However, the perception that we have of the make-up of assemblies in Seville coincides more with the observations made by Martínez and García (2014) regarding the Madrid camp, who assign a socially heterogeneous origin to participants. At the same time, the initial assembly’s ambiguity and search for consensus was not very motivating for activists who were already mobilised, but, to the contrary, reached out to a tremendous variety of sectors among the population who were dissatisfied with the economic and political crisis that Spain was experiencing. Some of the slogans chanted during the first mobilisations and written on the banners were significant, including such things as: “We are not right wing or left wing”. The founding manifesto of the 15-M mobilisation, written by the ¡Democracia Real Ya! (Real Democracy Now!) platform describes this non-conventional, non-trade union and, from a certain perspective, non-political discourse as calling for an ethical revolution and appealing to a very general audience in a considerably ambiguous way: “We are just ordinary citizens. […] Some of us are more progressive, others more conservative. Some of us are believers, but others aren’t”(www. democraciarealya.es/manifiesto-comun/, accessed 10 May 2014). The critical discourse with parties and trade unions, which to a large extent coincides with previous NSMs campaigns, was a factor that contributed to the massive consensus around 15-M. The movement clearly expressed the rejection of the existing regime and all of its institutions and desperately sought new formulae. Assembly-ism, the rejection of delegation and the constant search for consensus meant that the large 15-M assemblies were not functional. The citizens’assemblies sometimes seemed not to be a means of achieving any particular objective, but instead being an objective in themselves. The ability to make decisions was lacking, with great 6 Social movements in crisis? assemblies continually finding themselves in gridlock when squares were first occupied, because of the refusal of representation and the reluctance to implement a quicker decision-making mechanism. These problems would not disappear with decentralisation into neighbourhood and village assemblies. The instruments of coordination were also considerably limited in their functions, and often restricted to meetings without decision-making capacity. In this respect, one of the most popular 15-M slogans was: “we’re going slowly because we’re going a long way”. There is a notable consensus as to the way that this first phase of the mobilisation cycle is read. Martín (2014) contends that the cycle of mobilisations that started in 2011 was “insurgent”in nature, in open confrontation with the political and economic powers. Civil disobedience and nonviolent resistance would be its hallmarks. He calls the movement “anti-system”, as demonstrated by the taking of public areas and squatting in abandoned buildings. Flesher (2015) argues that the 15-M was not a spontaneous uprising but the result of the evolution of autonomous activism, part of the Spanish political culture since the 1980s: concurring on democratic practices and rejection of institutional left actors. In a similar way, Estanque and Fonseca (2014) include the 15-M in the NSMs trend, putting their motivation down to their postmaterialistic values. Meanwhile Martínez and García (2014) talk of a convergence process between 15-M and long-standing social movements, especially the squatter movement, which would have a decisive effect on the movement’slibertarian tendencies. Other scholars point to the importance of the crisis in political representation as one of the main factors, and play down the importance of socio-economic factors (Rosa et al.,2013). The turnaround on material issues The transition between mobilisation first erupting and the later decentralisation to neighbourhoods was accompanied by the social consequences of the crisis being placed at the forefront. Both long-term and youth unemployment proliferated, as did forced evictions. Thus, the individual mobilised by 15-M begins to take part in general strikes, the housing movement and platforms opposing the privatisation of public services, described as mareas:“waves”or “tides”of citizenry. This change impacts on a number of key aspects. First, in certain cases, there is an aggregation of the working classes, the impoverished middle classes and direct victims of the crisis. Second, dialogue with the State starts to become an indispensable tool in the search for solutions to the specific conflicts that the movement champions. Finally, there is a strong growth of institutional organisations that link themselves to the movement: relatively consolidated platforms and left-wing trade unions. These processes, tested by the authors in the case of Seville, have similar features to those which took place in other cities and regions that have been observed, especially in Barcelona and Madrid. The case of the struggle for housing is again paradigmatic. From the time of decentralisation to neighbourhood assemblies (second half of 2011) the movement feeds off the new recruits attracted by the mobilisation cycle. Within the context of proliferation of resistance as disobedience in the face of evictions, the assemblies see themselves popularised to a certain degree. The organisation of resistance in defiance of evictions is a major qualitative leap which enables force and accumulated legitimacy to be used to fight what have come to be perceived as injustices, with practical outcomes (Díaz-Parra, 2013). Here, in some cases, there was direct continuity from 15-M; this was evident in Andalusian cities such as Granada, Cordoba or Seville. Alternatively, at the State level and in other regions of the country, especially Catalonia, movements that had passed 7 IJSSP 36,9/10 down from the previous cycle were strengthened. For example, the Plataforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca, PAH (Platform for those Affected by Mortgages) experienced significant increases in militant activism, activity and media presence. To be more specific, in Seville a network of housing advice offices underpinned by neighbourhood assemblies was set up. These sparked collective squatting in buildings belonging to banking organisations called Corralas linked to the assemblies. In Cadiz, these squatting events took place against the backdrop of the deep deterioration of urban housing in some parts of the historical city (Jover and Almisas, 2015). The spread of the Andalusian Corrala movement was complemented by a similar campaign initiated by the PAH in Catalonia. Antonio Buenavida, a housing movement activist involved in the wave of Corrala squatting, comments: Some differences can be highlighted between the so-called Okupas[3], and experiences like the Corrala, where people squat in support of some families, but as part of the express demand for the right to a house and a home. The focus is more general, and so I’m more on the side of squatting not so much as an end in itself, but as a means to an end (September 2012). The turnaround on material issues was also evident in other sectors. In the labour field, compared to the initial radical rejection of trade unions, there was convergence of the 15-M with minority and radical unions in the general strikes of 2012. For example, various neighbourhood assemblies were involved by forming pickets as well as, in many cases, calling for a strike on consumption, carrying out more territorial work than that usually implemented by trade unions. Paco Domínguez, a 15-M neighbourhood assembly activist and trade unionist, comments: The neighbourhood assemblies formed pickets. […] There was also greater collaboration with the trade unions. I thought we’d got over the initial stage, and were seeing things in a different way. That first great clash was being toned down. There was a fair bit of collaboration ( June 2014). The Sindicato Andaluz de Trabajadores (SAT ) (Andalusian Workers Union), a small regional union which had a high profile amongst the Spanish left wing, took advantage of the situation to lead the mobilisations and bring along with them not only 15-M activists but the other radical trade unions too. As a result of this coming together, the “Marches for Dignity”were organised, resulting in mass mobilisation in Madrid under the leadership of SAT’s General Secretary Diego Cañamero on 22nd March 2014. As the lawyer and SAT activist Pastora Filigrana states, convergence with radical trade unionism was the result of the way that the movement evolved: “I think the movement matured […] now it wouldn’t occur to anyone from 15-M to even think of shouting down Diego [Cañamero]; they’re happy to march behind him along the roads of Andalusia and Spain”( June 2014). This convergence between workers and people from other sectors, such as students and pensioners, is also illustrated by the so-called “tides of citizenry”opposed to cutbacks in public services, mainly in education (the “green tide”) and health (the “white tide”). Along with other mareas and collectives, such as PAH and Attac, these two tides formed a joint front against the Troika during European mobilisation talks on 1 June 2013, with a manifesto that stated: “Using the excuse of the debt crisis they have changed our Constitution without hearing our will in a referendum[4], and have imposed upon us the dismantling of public services, such as Health and Education, which are handed over to the private sector as a business opportunity”(Marea Ciudadana, 2014). The last joint action of these “tides”was to support the abovementioned “Marches for Dignity”. 8 Social movements in crisis? Melucci, A. (1989), Nomads of the Present, Temple University Press, London. Melucci, A. (1999), Acción Colectiva, Vida Cotidiana y Democracia, El Colegio de México, Mexico City. Naredo, J.M. (1998), La Burbuja Inmobiliario-financiera en la Coyuntura Económica reciente, Siglo XXI, Madrid. Nicholls, W. (2007), “The geographies of social movements”,Geography Compass, Vol. 1 No. 3, pp. 607-622. Peña, J. (2013), “Indignación en Andalucía: origen y andadura inicial del movimiento 15-M”, Revista de Estudios Transfronterizos. Si Somos Americanos, Vol. 13 No. 2, pp. 15-32. Pérez, C. (2014), “Ley Fernández aquí, ley mordaza en la prensa internacional”,Periódico Diagonal, 27 May, available at: www.diagonalperiodico.net/libertades/22962-ley-fernandez- aqui-ley-mordaza-la-prensa-internacional.html Pérez, J. (2013), “Orto y ocaso de la izquierda revolucionaria en España (1959-1994)”, in Quirosa-Cheyrouze, R. (Ed.), Las organizaciones políticas en la Transición, Biblioteca Nueva, Madrid. Romanos, E. (2014), “Evictions, petitions and escraches: contentious housing in austerity Spain”, Social Movement Studies: Journal of Social, Cultural and Political Protest, Vol. 13 No. 2, pp. 296-302. Rosa, M., Navarro, C. and Mateo, C. (2013), “Acción colectiva y participación electoral: la emergencia del movimiento 15M y su impacto en los comicios municipales andaluces”, paper presented at XI Congreso Español de Sociología, Julio 2013, Madrid. Tezanos, J.F. (1984), “Cambio Social y Modernización en la España Actual”,REIS, No. 28, pp. 19-61. Tezanos, J.F. (2002), “Desigualdad y Exclus Q7 ión Social en las Sociedades Tecnológicas”,Revista del Ministerio de Trabajo y Asuntos Sociales, Vol. 35, pp. 35-53. Touraine, A. (1995), La producción de la sociedad, UNAM, IIS/IFA, City of Mexico. Zizek, S. (1999), The Ticklish Subject, Verso, London. Zizek, S. (2000), “Class struggle or posmodernism? Yes, please!”, in Butler, J., Laclau, E. and Zizek, S. (Eds), Contingency, Hegemony, Universality,Verso,London. Further reading Díaz, I. (2013), “¿Acción social en la postmodernidad? Okupación y movimiento por la vivienda en Sevilla”,Anduli: revista andaluza de ciencias sociales, No. 12, pp. 13-35. Eldiario.es (2014), “La Justicia europea considera abusiva la ley española sobre desahucios”, 14 March, available at: www.eldiario.es/economia/Justicia-declara-abusiva-hipotecaria- espanola_0_110938979.html Lucio, L. (2014), “El Constitucional impide aplicar la ley antidesahucios esta legislatura”,El País, 15 April, available at: http://ccaa.elpais.com/ccaa/2014/04/15/andalucia/1397592013_ 183031.html Corresponding author Ibán Díaz-Parra can be contacted at: [email protected] For instructions on how to order reprints of this article, please visit our website: www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/licensing/reprints.htm Or contact us for further details: [email protected] 15 IJSSP 36,9/10