Journal Article - 2017

Comparing Digital Protest Media Imaginaries: Anti-Austerity Movements in Greece, Italy & Spain

Drawing on 60 semi­-structured interviews with activists involved in anti-austerity protests, the article brings together social movement studies and communications theories to compare digital protest media imaginaries in Greece, Spain and Italy

Journal Article - 2017

Technopopulism: The Emergence of a Discursive Formation

This article argues that technopopulism is an emerging discursive formation that arises from the convergence of two preexisting discourses: populism and technolibertarianism. Whereas these discourses are historically distinct the global financial crisis and the 2011 wave of struggles precipitated the political conditions for their intersection and hybridization.

Journal Article - 2017

The Electoral Success of the Radical Left: Explaining the Least Likely Case of the Communist Party in Graz

Recently, scholars have shown a growing interest in radical left parties (RLPs). In terms of electoral success, the rise of the KPÖ Graz, the Communist Party in Austria’s second biggest city, represents perhaps the most counterintuitive case in Western Europe. This analysis shows how the party has managed to ‘own’ the issue of housing and to exploit local political opportunities in order to be electorally successful. The findings point to the importance of agency and the subnational level for RLPs, and highlight more general questions in the study of this party family.

Journal Article - 2017

Non-deliberative politics in deliberative democracy: distinct approaches for different actors

In this paper Andrea Felicetti first illustrates the main ideas of the systemic turn, explores the distinction between ‘deliberative’ and ‘non-deliberative’ politics and investigates the main arguments justifying non-deliberative politics. Then, he builds upon these arguments to shed new light on the relationship between deliberative and non-deliberative politics. He identifies three distinctive actors in deliberative systems (political institutions, empowered agents, and public space actors). Finally, he argues that deliberative democrats should adopt three different approaches (intensive, moderate, and free) in order to assess whether the use of non-deliberative politics by each of these actors is legitimate.