Participation vs. Representation? : The Experience of the Neighborhood Assemblies of Buenos Aires, 2001-2003

Abstract

This work is based on a series of in-depth interviews conducted with present and former participants of the movement of political protest formed by the "popular" or "neighborhood" assemblies founded in Buenos Aires around the end of 2001 and the beginning of 2002. Discourses produced in exceptional times tend to be profoundly revealing of ordinary, widely shared notions. Thus, the aim of this work consists in analyzing the discourse about political representation and deliberation that constituted the axis of the aforementioned experience, which took place in the midst of a deep crisis of representation. More specifically, it seeks to analyze the discourse of assembly members about the assemblies and their practices; about representation, delegation, participation, political parties, representative democracy and direct democracy in order to apprehend their underlying conceptions of representation, its paradoxes, its potential and its limits. ; Introduction Representation in crisis. From electoral outburst to street mobilization. The assembly movement as a response to and a catalyst of the crisis. Political representation and the assemblies according to their members. Assemblies and representative institutions. Deliberation and decision-making. The arising of leaderships. Participation in the Assembly of assemblies: Representatives or delegates? Conclusions Bibliography