Ángel Calle
In looking for the principles of a new subjectivity we should take into account the crisis that we are living through, which is two-fold. On the one hand, most people feel that daily life is troublesome, fraught with insecurity and precarity, full of sources of anxiety; on the other hand, they don’t look to traditional institutions for help – the state, political parties, and trade unions. Few people rely on these institutions or expect them to express or under- stand the conflicts that this crisis produces. People feel they don’t have control over the circumstances of their lives. How do we organise in a way which enables people to regain control? We need to break from a “verti- cal” approach to organisation – that is, an approach based on delegation and on domination. We need more horizon- tality in how we organise. This new horizontality must be a foundation stone of rethinking political organisation. This implies new common goods, and open access to material and basic information at every level, from local to global. We need ways of organising in which people not only par- ticipate but also define the rules of the space in which we are interacting. This requires creating autonomous spaces in which people have real power. You have to feel this horizontality and build it into everyday life, so that it starts from the local but builds up to the glo- bal. It does not only refer to our material needs but also to our emotional needs, our psychological situation, our lan- guage. Effectively then, we are talking about not just protest but the experience of new ways of living. At the same time as we are working towards a future project, we are experi- menting with changes that bring new benefits in the present. To achieve this real involvement, it is important to engage emotionally, to build cultures based on real networks. The networking cannot therefore be done only by the internet; if the networks are to be a way of developing a new politics they need to be grounded in emotional connections.

Gemma Galdon Clavell

Any movement without a strategy runs the risk of falling into the trap of “coolness” or, worse still, irrelevance and demoralization. Moreover, lack of strategy makes it easy for movements and political causes to ritualize their actions and lose perspective of their political goals. Any strategy adopted by a social movement should be flexible and open to re-evaluation.

Gemma Galdon Clavell

When used by social movements, network structures can be very useful and innovative. However, we are yet to come up with new ways of defining or organizing key political issues like representativity and accountability, and so internal democracy has often suffered due to lack of clarity and difficulty with leading with “organic” leadership. So far, networks have worked well “when the going is good”, but have tended to fail when faced with conflict and disagreement, thus alienating participants.

Carolyn Leckie
We have learnt that it is important to apply feminist analysis and consciousness-raising to the dynamic of your own organisation as well as society at large. Gender inequality is not just about economic inferiority and institutional inequal- ity; it is about everything. Sexism and misogyny can exist in organisations whose members unanimously support formal equality. But is it a priority for today or tomorrow? In a radical organisation, failing to give it a priority may just be a symptom of underlying sexism, but faced with a challenge or a crisis it can come to the surface and be a fundamental source of weakness. Don’t be complacent. In particular, avoid mirroring the patriarchal structures of society in your organisation. “Leaders” tend to be men. More democratic, collective decision-making by flatter, grassroots structures and a zero tolerance approach to chest beating, dogmatic, long winded self styled “experts” (generally men) might help give women the time to think and contribute more than they often do at present. Such a supporting environment will contribute towards the creativ- ity and effectiveness of the organisation more generally. I sincerely believe that if the left doesn’t constantly strive to achieve this then, wherever they succeed in gaining power, they will inevitably replicate unequal, undemocratic un- equal power systems. You can’t wait for the revolution to change attitudes. It is a process that needs to be constant if a new democracy is to have the best chance. In the SSP we have a policy of a worker’s wage for parliamentarians – a wage based on the average wage. But it has not proved sufficient as a way of keeping parliamentarians accountable. Certain personalities (most likely male) are not checked by fiscal accountability on its own. Time limits for elected representatives, subservience of a parliamentary group to a thriving grassroots party, open transparent deci- sion-making by an empowered membership: all of these are ideals. But this list is not exhaustive, and it does not deal with all of the contradictions of our situation.

Mayo Fuster Morell
We must not assume that gender equality is something already won. In anti-global organisations (for example, in my experience, the Moviments de Resistencia Global of Catalunya; campaigns against the World Bank; etc), gender equality was taken for granted and this was a great error. Instead, we need to behave and organise in ways that pre- figure the gender equality that we want to see in a future society. We must especially develop a deeper awareness of the consequences of gender inequality on men and ho- mosexuals.

Mayo Fuster Morell
We need to rethink politics in a way that ensures that the “we” of social movements goes beyond activism and the or- ganisational forms which are now seen as political. Aren’t file sharing, open-editing (as in wikipedia), or squatting by non- squatters part of a wave of new politics? The participants are not generally part of political networks, but they share some principles with those of us searching for a new politics. We must create a form of politics which includes them.

Luciana Castellina
I would speak in defence of political parties, despite not belonging to or liking any existing political parties. Good movements became parties and good parties were born out of movements. Mao Tse-Tung said that parties should be bombarded by movements. Much of what he said was cata- strophic, but he had a good formula when said he said that we should ditch the old and regenerate every 10 years. It is unavoidable that when movements stabilise, they tend to ac- quire all the worst characteristics of the parties. I say “worst” because they can produce the worst forms of “leaderism” I have known, worse than that existing in political parties, where at least there are some rules to control the leadership. The importance of parties arises precisely because of the complexity, diversity and multiplicity that others have re- marked upon. The people are not homogenous: it is therefore not enough just to speak about ‘participation’ without debat- ing the kind of structures that will take account of all the dif- ferences of interest and culture. Without such structures you will simply have the lowest common denominator of combin- ing different interests. In order, by contrast, to develop a form of mediation which brings everyone forward, there needs to be a way of developing a long-term strategy. Historically, this is where political parties came in. Movements were seen as being concerned with specific issues, whereas parties were seen as capable of developing a vision of the world, an inter- pretation of history and a long-term strategy. Political parties have lost relevance because politics has lost ground. We talk a lot about the privatisation of public services, but what was really privatised is political deci- sion-making. The power lies now in commercial agree- ments, not political institutions. What is democracy now, as a result of this process?

Melissa Pomeroy
Today, people’s access to public debate is more limited than it has been for some time. There are many reasons for this: globalisation; growing inequality; the speed of change and the depoliticisation of the economy, for ex- ample. Although the return of the “agora” is impossible, the failure and growing crisis of representative institutions makes it urgent for citizens to achieve greater direct par- ticipation in economic and political decisions. I want to emphasise decisions because mere debate and consulta- tion is not enough for a new politics. The label “participatory democracy” risks becoming meaningless. Exactly because of its great political poten- tial, it has been used as a label for many different concep- tions, sometimes to legitimise existing exhausted institu- tions without really changing them, sometimes to co-opt stong social forces. As Boaventura de Souza Santos argues, these perversions of the idea can happen through new forms of “clientelism”: bureaucratisation, party instru- mentalisation, or through silence and the manipulation of participatory spaces and institutions. We need to promote a strong conception of participatory democracy that is able to open public spaces, to strengthen voices and visions so far excluded (or in the process of being excluded), and to widen the possibilities for political struggle, developing what Hilary Wainwright calls “counter power” in her book Reclaim the State. In other words, the spaces and institutions of participatory democracy should be such as to have an educative and mobilising capacity. They should be based on a concept of positive citizenship (against the nega- tive and passive kind assumed by our present political insti- tutions). Active citizenship has duties, rights and, especially, a creative aspect by which it is capable of generating new spaces, new institutions and new rules. Francisco de Oliveira describes active citizenship as involving a “full autonomy – to know how to decide, to be able to decide and to be able to make decisions be complied to”. A good test of genuinely participatory processes is whether or not participants experience a learning process, through which they develop as an individual in their social and com- munity context, through discussion and reflection What are the conditions for this? This is difficult to talk about. Person- ally, I believe that the first condition takes place at the indi- vidual level. Although I may be labeled as individualistic, I can not imagine any real change without a whole change within ourselves. But this change can only happen as a result of very varied and intense interaction and collaboration. Secondly, I think that the principles of participatory de- mocracy that I have mentioned cannot be restricted to the relationship between traditional institutions and citizens. They will only realise their full transformative potential if they are applied to every sphere of social life. I would prioritise the spheres of work and communication. Counter power and autonomy can only be supported through information, inter- action and recognition, and the opinion moulded by the “neu- tral information” flows from today’s dominant media sources does not provide a basis for this.

Joan Subirats
My first principle is based on the renewed exigency of the message of equality that has historically characterised the left. This was, and still is, the driving force of demands for social transformation. But it is true that this principle should today be complemented with other aspects that have not always been sufficiently present in the left wing tradition: individual au- tonomy, and the recognition of diversity in its broadest sense (cultural, ethnic, religious, life choices, etc.). From this triangle of values, a vision of a new citizenship worth fighting for can be projected on a global scale. I don’t think that this aspiration can be found in any particular political actor but, rather, that it should flow from a plural and heterogeneous complex of groups, collectives, institutions and persons. This brings me to my second principle: the conviction that no durable social change or transformation is possible if it is not simultaneously based on personal change and trans- formation. This represents a notable correction to the tradi- tions of the organised left that were essentially based on the possibility of ending oppression and inequality through the conquest and exercise of power by a conscious and organised vanguard. There will be no political change without economic change but neither will there be social change without personal change.

The challenge lies in how to advance in the achievement of these principles in a tenacious and efficient manner, without betraying the starting principles. This brings us to the ways of doing politics and what we understand by politics. The institutionalisation of the left has led to a radical impoverish- ment of what politics is. Politics tends to be confused with parties and institutions, and this separates many people from politics. It also separates many people and collectives that are really doing politics (since they work to transform people and communities) from politics. They feel that what they do has nothing to do with what they are told politics is. We should therefore attempt to salvage and widen the social meaning of politics by “politicising” daily life, social relations and the forms of work and co-existence. In this sense, it is very important to change the concept of political action by linking it to certain formats or rites. Everyone participates in politics and does politics depending on their conditions, realities, knowledge and previous experiences. We should therefore imagine forms of direct participation and leader- ship that empower people. We should also allow collective learning of these same practices through the deliberation and contrasting of opinions and proposals. The other challenge is how to transform the institutions without being swallowed up by them. How to maintain their transformative capacity by building alternatives (dis- sidence), directly opposing new authoritarian tendencies (resistance), and appreciating the influential capacity that exists within the institutions (incidence). It probably isn’t necessary for one person, organisation, or collective to try to do all three things simultaneously. The inherent conflict in the three dimensions is not negative either, but the chal- lenge is to make them possible and sustainable without losing connections and mixed potentials.

Dominque Cardon
I also draw upon the experience of the WSF and the organisa- tional principles enshrined in its Charter of Principles, drawn up in Porto Alegre, Brazil in April 2001. The three principles of horizontality contained in the Charter have become the ba- sic principles of the new network structure of co-ordination and the basis of many recent mobilisations and actions, for example those against the CPE [a controversial youth labour law] in France last spring. It is useful to lay them out. The first is respect for the principle of diversity. This im- plies an open forum in which everyone can participate and can value and celebrate their diversity. It also implies a consciousness of the need constantly to extend the net- works to new actors. The second principle of horizontality is that there is no centre. No one individual or organisation can speak in the name of the whole network or space. Like most network structures, WSFs do not have a decision-making centre; they do not have a spokesperson, and do not sign any text or declaration. This clause of self-limitation is one of the essential features of network organisation. There is no centre to struggle for. Actors can only speak in their own name or in the name of their organisation. Actors can only express their ideological and strategic diversity. This gener- ates many tensions in the movement – as well as causing frustration amongst journalists and other political actors who would like to be able to identify a single anti-globalisa- tion agenda, with a single voice. The third principle of horizontality is that the only decision- making process that is consistent with the openness and diversity of the movement is one based on consensus. It is the only decision-making procedure that can co-ordinate organisations with a variety of sizes, functions, internal structures, social and geographical origins. It is impossible to define criteria or create a basis for the representation of participants, or to allocate to them differential decision- making power. Each organisation, whatever its structure, past, size, social object or political position, has potentially the same weight in the decision-process of the WSF. Consensus does not mean unanimity, however. It identi- fies disagreement rather than support. The participants must continue the discussion until they agree on one com- promise and satisfy or neutralise opposition to it. In this process, consensus building appears as a very distinctive political process in which the use of time, bargaining and negotiation are central features. At its best, it produces a special culture of discussion which is less oppositional and more developed than the traditional majoritarian procedure.