Tracing the long-term effects of social movements: Insights from Spain’s 15-M “Indignados” movement

Abstract

Research on movement outcomes has typically divided impacts into discrete categories and prioritized short-term, easily measurable political or policy results, producing a degree of presentism and an overemphasis on “success.” Drawing on extensive secondary research on the long-term effects of Spain’s 15-M movement, this article explores both individual and collective effects in two arenas: (1) biographical consequences and (2) the effects of ideological frameworks and political culture, illustrated through the case of feminism in the 15-M movement. The biographical analysis shows how participation reshaped activists’ worldviews, skills, emotions, identities, and life trajectories, carrying over to new arenas of collective action. The cultural–ideational analysis demonstrates how feminist actors transformed internal movement practices, catalyzed a powerful resurgence of feminist mobilization, helped articulate alternative democratic imaginaries and practices grounded in care, all of which influenced subsequent movements, municipalist politics, party structures, and national legislation. Drawing on these insights, I argue that long-term, overlapping, and mutually reinforcing effects—across biographical, cultural, ideological, organizational, and institutional domains—demonstrate the need for a more holistic approach to understanding movement outcomes that overcomes the limitations of a focus on “success” or “failure.”