{rfName}
Tr

Indexed in

License and use

Citations

24

Altmetrics

Grant support

This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness under Grant CSO2015-68314-P.

Analysis of institutional authors

Consejero, FmCorresponding AuthorJanoschka, MAuthor

Share

Publications
>
Article

Transforming urban democracy through social movements: the experience of Ahora Madrid

Publicated to:Social Movement Studies. 22 (3): 343-360 - 2023-01-01 22(3), DOI: 10.1080/14742837.2022.2028615

Authors: Flesher Fominaya, Cristina; Feenstra, Ramón A

Affiliations

Abstract

Between 2015 and 2019, the Spanish capital, Madrid, was governed by the movement party Ahora Madrid, a novel political actor strongly connected to anti-austerity and pro-democracy movements gathered under the umbrella of the Indignados, or '15 M', movement. Against the background of the party's abundant hopes for regenerating urban democracy at the beginning of its term, our research asks how and to what extent Ahora Madrid translated the movement's democratizing practices and expectations into concrete policies. Based on our own qualitative research involving government actors and social movements, our empirical findings demonstrate that the democratic innovations implemented responded to diverging visions of how to achieve 'real democracy', defined by different imaginaries and traditions of collective action within 15 M. While demonstrating the steady interaction between Ahora Madrid policy makers and the social movements they came from, the findings also reveal the policy agenda divisions that posed a challenge for the broadening and deepening of urban democracy. These divisions concerned vertical versus horizontal political logics, the individual versus collective nature of political subjects, and digital versus on-site political participation and deliberation. In addition to the tensions emerging among the various ideational frameworks for collective action (i.e. the autonomous tradition, technopolitics, and the institutional left), this study identifies an apparent divorce between the two intertwined goals of the 15 M: to fight neoliberal austerity and to seek participatory democracy. The empirical findings lead to highlight the internal accounts of the consequences of social movements, especially concerning the conditions for institutionalization.

Keywords

15-m movementAhora madridNetworksNew municipalismParticipatory democracyPoliticsSocial movements outcomesSpainUrban governance

Quality index

Bibliometric impact. Analysis of the contribution and dissemination channel

The work has been published in the journal Social Movement Studies due to its progression and the good impact it has achieved in recent years, according to the agency WoS (JCR), it has become a reference in its field. In the year of publication of the work, 2023, it was in position 40/217, thus managing to position itself as a Q1 (Primer Cuartil), in the category Sociology.

From a relative perspective, and based on the normalized impact indicator calculated from the Field Citation Ratio (FCR) of the Dimensions source, it yields a value of: 10.41, which indicates that, compared to works in the same discipline and in the same year of publication, it ranks as a work cited above average. (source consulted: Dimensions Jun 2025)

Specifically, and according to different indexing agencies, this work has accumulated citations as of 2025-06-08, the following number of citations:

  • WoS: 11
  • Scopus: 13
  • OpenCitations: 4

Impact and social visibility

From the perspective of influence or social adoption, and based on metrics associated with mentions and interactions provided by agencies specializing in calculating the so-called "Alternative or Social Metrics," we can highlight as of 2025-06-08:

  • The use, from an academic perspective evidenced by the Altmetric agency indicator referring to aggregations made by the personal bibliographic manager Mendeley, gives us a total of: 27.
  • The use of this contribution in bookmarks, code forks, additions to favorite lists for recurrent reading, as well as general views, indicates that someone is using the publication as a basis for their current work. This may be a notable indicator of future more formal and academic citations. This claim is supported by the result of the "Capture" indicator, which yields a total of: 27 (PlumX).

With a more dissemination-oriented intent and targeting more general audiences, we can observe other more global scores such as:

  • The Total Score from Altmetric: 0.5.
  • The number of mentions on the social network X (formerly Twitter): 1 (Altmetric).

It is essential to present evidence supporting full alignment with institutional principles and guidelines on Open Science and the Conservation and Dissemination of Intellectual Heritage. A clear example of this is:

Leadership analysis of institutional authors

This work has been carried out with international collaboration, specifically with researchers from: Germany.

There is a significant leadership presence as some of the institution’s authors appear as the first or last signer, detailed as follows: First Author (MOTA CONSEJERO, FABIOLA) and Last Author (JANOSCHKA ., MICHAEL).

the author responsible for correspondence tasks has been MOTA CONSEJERO, FABIOLA.