Social Movements and Democracy

Present-day democracies are being called into question from new and different fronts: by globalization, by the fragmentation of postmodernity, by strong and exclusive collective identities. The demands of the social movements challenge democracy in as much as they call for readjustments in its decision-making processes. Yet at the same time the social movements are forms of collective action that help the democracies by keeping them in tension to respond to the challenges arising from the other fronts. The book as a whole deals with this double relationship between social movements and democracy, the movements as challengers and as "maintainers" of democracy.