1 Cultures of Participation in Social Movements Donatella della Porta (European University Institute) and Alice Mattoni (University of Pittsburgh) PRE-PRINT VERSION TO BE PUBLISHED AS Della Porta, D. & Mattoni, A., 2012. Cultures of Participation in Social Movements. In A. Delwiche & J. Jacobs Henderson, eds. The Participatory Cultures Handbook. London: Routledge, pp. 170–181. Available at: http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415882231/ [Accessed October 24, 2012]. Introduction Mainstream definitions of democracy stress its representative character: the institutional rules to elect representatives are considered as the main indicator for the presence or absence of democracy. From the normative point of view, this means that accountability is considered as mainly linked to electoral practices. In existing democracies, however, this type of accountability is challenged by a decline in electoral participation and, more generally, conventional forms of political participation (such as membership in political parties). Consequently, there is an increasing mistrust, not in democracy as a principle, but in the functioning of democratically representative institutions. Additionally, transformations in media systems have been said to reduce the possibilities for citizens to hold their elected officials accountable, as commercialization of media foments a personalization and spectacularization of politics. In part as a reaction to these perceived challenges to representative democratic institutions, alternative conceptions of democracy have emerged and re-emerged. As Pierre Rosanvallon’s has observed in his recent publication on Counterdemocracy, ”the idea of popular sovereignty found historical expression in two different ways. The first was the right to vote, the right of citizens to choose their own leaders. This was the most direct expression of the democratic principle. But the power to vote periodically and thus bestow legitimacy to an elected government is almost always accompanied by a wish to exercise a more permanent form of control over the government thus elected” (Rosanvallon, 2006, 12). As he notes, in the historical evolution of democracy, near to the growth of institutions of electoral accountability, there has been the consolidation of a circuit of oversight anchored outside of state institutions. In fact, the understanding of democratic experiences requires the consideration of the “functions and dysfunctions” of electoral representative institutions and the organization of distrust. In what follows, we will discuss how social movements have nurtured visions of “another democracy,” stressing its participatory quality. We shall add, however, that the meaning of participation changed in place and time, so that we can single out different cultures (plural) of participation. In particular, contemporary social movements’ participatory visions have been linked to deliberative ones, with a new emphasis on consensus building. The stress on dialogue makes conceptions and practices of communication all the more important. Different cultures of participation are also at work also with regard to the use of media in the social movement milieu, both with regard to interpersonal and intergroup communicative practices to organize mobilizations and to the development of media practices oriented towards the creation of alternative media. Participatory practices in social movements While in representative conceptions of democracy social movements remain at the margin, they acquire instead a central position in participatory conceptions. In the debate on transformations in democracy, social movements appear