From movement to party: Analysis of the tensions between horizontality and oligarchy in Spanish municipalist platforms (2015–2023)

Abstract

In 2014 and 2015, dozens of ‘municipalist’ candidates gained huge success in the Spanish local elections. These movement parties, intrinsically linked to the intense mobilisations of the previous electoral cycle, adopted a horizontal organisational model in contrast to the traditional oligarchic structure. In the wake of the 2015–2023 electoral cycles, however, there has been little analysis of these experiences and the processes they adopted. This study examines four such experiences in Zaragoza, Valladolid, A Coruña and Castellón through 72 interviews and documentary analysis. The study contributes to the debate on internal democracy in political parties in three ways, demonstrating: (1) a certain inevitable distancing between movement and party with power concentrated in the latter; (2) imposition of the institutional pace and the difficulty of combining it with the logic of direct democracy; and (3) demystification of certain forms of direct democracy and the need to combine vertical and professional logics with horizontal and participatory ones.