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Participatory representation: an interview with Paolo Gerbaudo

For too long we have regarded participation and representation as mutually exclusive concepts. From the Squares and Beyond partnership.

Published:
beyond squares
beyond squares

Rosemary Bechler (RB): Was there anything that you found particularly thought-provoking said here today?

Paolo Gerbaudo (Paolo): One key topic of discussion, which is also feeding into a more general debate among activists is the whole issue of political ‘organisation’. On the one hand, there are people who are still defenders of horizontality; then there are NGO representatives trying to defend more organised forms of civil society; and the people who have had experience of political parties and who hope that Podemos might constitute a new format of a party that is very promising going forward. I feel that this is a debate that we really need to have.