Abstract
The conflict over Catalonia’s independence shows that the political situation in Spain continues to be highly volatile, even a decade after the 2007/2008 crisis. Politicians and academics alike seem puzzled about the repressive response of the Spanish state apparatus to the Catalan referendum, wondering why a government of a democratic European state dares to suppress an independence movement so openly. A comprehensive answer to that question can be found in Nikolai Huke’s impressive book Sie repräsentieren uns nicht. Soziale Bewegungen und Krisen der Demokratie in Spanien (They don’t represent us. Social movements and crises of democracy in Spain, 2017). Going back into Spain’s tumultuous history, Huke effortlessly untangles political, economic and social transformations in order to explain how the cycle of institutional repression and democratic mobilizations has informed the country’s development, culminating in the tense political situation we witness today. Herein also lies the book’s central premise: democracy must not be seen as a static condition, but as a process forged through struggles in which social movements have been a key driving force, be it in revolutionary phases, protest events, strikes, or forms of subversion in daily struggles. The way Huke presents his arguments and findings is unique for two distinct reasons.
First, the book excels on the basis of its historical account of social struggles, which is empirically rich and detailed. While there are certainly other authors providing detailed analyses of the most recent movements (Candeias & Völpel 2014; Della Porta 2015), they don’t provide any deep historization. This is where Huke goes further and shows how confrontations between the state and oppositional forces have perpetuated social and institutional change throughout history, thereby creating the conditions for future struggles. By drawing from the past, Huke manages to explain why authoritarianism defined Spanish politics and informed social conflicts from Republican struggles against the monarchy (pp. 113f.), to regional insurgency against fascism (p. 124), to the most recent protests against the crisis management (pp. 224ff.). Most notably, he details how certain Francoist traditions have endured the transition to democracy, from the dominant position of executive and judicial institutions to the state personnel itself, including the founders of the conservative Partido Popular (pp. 112ff.), which explains its eagerness to criminalize and repress various forms of mobilization during its recent turn in government. The book does not only provide a descriptive history lesson however.
Its second main asset is the multifaceted analytical approach that Huke employs throughout. By synthesizing insights from historical materialist political economy and social movement studies, Huke arrives at a convincing theoretical framework that perceives democratic struggles as inherent to state formation, the organization of the economic realm and everyday life. Huke manages to transcend the often narrow analytical perspective of social movement studies (as detailed by Mullis 2017) and theorizes the mutual influence between social movements and their political economic context. At the same time, he also deconstructs the usual pre-occupation with fractions of capital within historical materialist political economy (also criticized by Bailey et al. 2017) and highlights the agency of marginalized groups and movements. This framework allows Huke to reveal political and economic differences among Spain’s various autonomous regions, and to explain how such differences fuelled recurring conflicts over regional independence (pp. 114ff.). Similarly, it allows Huke to disclose Spain’s uneven neoliberalisation and fragile economic specialization (p. 110), and how these eventually culminated in the recent crisis and neoliberal structural adjustment (pp. 198ff.), against the backdrop of which Spain’s resistance movements need to be understood. This ability to expose the interrelations between political, economic, and social developments, while also juxtaposing the agency of conflicting social forces, makes Huke’s framework very innovative and inspiring and allows him to conquer new theoretical grounds.
If there are any weaknesses in Huke’s book they are caused by him not extending his analytical perspective even further. His conceptualization of everyday life for instance is (necessarily) much broader than his foci on politics and the economy, hence it would have benefitted from having a sharper differentiation, such as between collective and individual actors, or between affirmative and subversive practices. Most notably, his thorough historical account comes at the expense of covering the recent mobilizations in greater detail. In contrast to what the title implies, the analysis of the 15M movement and its successors makes up a comparatively small section. Huke specifically misses an opportunity to provide a more detailed analysis and historical embedding of activist strategies, particularly their use of horizontal decision making and deliberative democracy. As it stands, Huke greatly emphasizes the role of social movements in renewing democracy to the point of implying that they inherently strive towards democratic prefiguration (p. 26). While this certainly applies to many of the most recent Spanish mobilizations, Huke’s generalization seems premature, seeing as other scholars have pointed out that these democratic ambitions, although not entirely new, have never reached such a broad appeal during previous mobilizations (Della Porta 2015; Flesher Fominaya 2017). Huke himself even adds to these observations, by pointing out how uneven the adoption of horizontal decision making has been among the 15M movement’s allies. Evidently, the question of whether social movements are willing and able to establish new political forms in the first place requires more extensive research and Huke’s theoretical framework would be perfectly suited for this task.
Overall Sie repräsentieren uns nicht provides fascinating new insights into Spain’s history, and demonstrates the importance of a political economic analysis of social movements. Huke delivers a detailed and unique explanation of how struggles for democratic representation have been a driving force in Spain’s development, besides which his analysis of the most recent movements appears almost secondary. The knowledge gained from this book enables the reader to understand the current conflict in Catalonia as well. It is therefore greatly recommended to everyone interested in democratic theory, political economy or social movements.