Social Europe

  • EU Forward Project
  • YouTube
  • Podcast
  • Books
  • Newsletter
  • Membership

Grassroots online support and progressive political innovation

Nicoletta Pirozzi 15th May 2019

There is a widespread sense of a crisis of representation in Europe. Can a platform for crowdfunding and volunteering support political innovation?

political innovation

Nicoletta Pirozzi

Progressives are facing the perfect storm. The aggressive and divisive narrative of nationalism and xenophobia is affecting our societies, jeopardising unity and solidarity. The distorting effect of globalisation has increased the marginalisation of the poorest and disadvantaged, disconnecting technology and labour. Faulty mechanisms of direct democracy are creating false expectations among citizens and becoming powerful tools of majoritarian populism. Increasing attempts by authoritarian and autocratic regimes to weaken our electoral processes from abroad add to the consolidated practice of Big Corporate money buying elections from within. The United States and Europe are engaged in the same battle ahead and we all need quickly to draw the same lessons—as does every other democracy which wants to survive.

Advancing progressive ideas implies, first of all, defending the quality of our democratic systems. A well-functioning democracy requires a wide range of candidates representative of the whole political spectrum and sufficient citizens’ participation in political life. What we need are more responsive candidates, more bold ideas rooted in the founding values of progressivism and broader participation crossing national and political boundaries.

In Europe, the progressive camp struggles to innovate. Traditional social-democratic parties are often still hostage to old lobbies which regulate the candidature process, while ideology is often an obstacle to the renovation of more leftist parties. Sectarianism stemming from different progressive political experiences impedes cross-party and cross-border alliances, while the burden of the past forestalls a credible vision of the future.

Innovative tools

In the US a slew of new candidates has emerged, renewing the progressive field, as the mid-term congressional elections showed. They did so defying conventional politics and mobilising their grassroots. They were able to match their political innovation with equally innovative tools, which helped mobilise the resources they needed to emerge. Tools like ActBlue, through which Democrat candidates raised more than 1.6 billion dollars in small donations during the last electoral cycle. Or CrowdPac, where any candidate considering running can test the water and see if s/he can garner the necessary support. These tools put candidates and their ideas at the centre of the democratic stage.

In Europe, as politics grows increasingly personal and trust in politics decreases across the board, a tipping point looms where parties will be empty shells with individual leaders at the top holding all the cards—a disempowerment of representative democracy in the name of personality-based democracy. This makes bottom-up candidates, truly representing their constituencies, all the more important.

At the same time, the crisis of trust in politics and parties is putting increasing pressure on financial resources. In many countries, public party financing has been severely reduced or eliminated, prompting many to look for innovative methods to finance their structures and campaigns. This opens our democracies to the risk of influence by lobbies and big corporations, or—worse—foreign intervention by governments happy to buy influence and access to Europe’s decision-making cheaply.

Emerging initiatives

The European elections offer an unprecedented occasion for collective reflection on how to defend the quality of our democratic systems. Institutional responses have focused on protecting the media landscape from foreign interference or preventing inappropriate use of personal data.

On a more grassroots level, initiatives are emerging to bring good practices from the US across the Atlantic. In Italy, Ti Candido—The Power of Democracy has established the first collective raising resources for a set of candidates for the local elections, following the example of the social Democrats who secured the election of the new group of radical progressives in the States.

ProgressiveActs has been created as the first European crowdfunding and volunteering platform providing a dedicated tool to candidates wanting to run innovative campaigns, at local, national or European level. Already more than 20 candidates from three countries are active on the platform, demonstrating the desire for innovative tools and methodologies in electoral campaigning. The progressive values they need to subscribe to in order to access the platform provide the connecting glue among the candidates. The platform ensures their independence from shady financial interests, thanks to a protected and legally compliant crowdfunding system, which permits collection of myriad small donations.

Regulatory barriers

The European political ecosystem remains very challenging for such innovative initiatives. Regulatory barriers severely inhibit scaling up across borders, while the absence of a culture of online political activism limits the long-term sustainability of the projects.
Yet the demand for innovation in politics cannot go unanswered. The European elections must be only the starting point for a wider movement to bring about change in the way democracy works in Europe—a change that can go in the direction of transparency, accountability and engagement or towards shady interests and foreign interference in our democracies.

Innovate or die is the mantra of tech geeks in Silicon Valley. The motto is beginning to apply to our political systems. If we do not get ready for the future, a harsher reality will quickly catch up with us.

Nicoletta Pirozzi
Nicoletta Pirozzi

Nicoletta Pirozzi is head of the EU programme and institutional-relations manager at the Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI), specialising in EU politics and institutions, Italian foreign policy and international security. She is president of MondoDem, a progressive foreign-policy network, and a founding member of ProgressiveActs.

Harvard University Press Advertisement

Social Europe Ad - Promoting European social policies

We need your help.

Support Social Europe for less than €5 per month and help keep our content freely accessible to everyone. Your support empowers independent publishing and drives the conversations that matter. Thank you very much!

Social Europe Membership

Click here to become a member

Most Recent Articles

u421983ae 3b0caff337bf 0 Europe’s Euro Ambition: A Risky Bid for “Exorbitant Privilege”Peter Bofinger
u4219834676b2eb11 1 Trump’s Attacks on Academia: Is the U.S. University System Itself to Blame?Bo Rothstein
u4219834677aa07d271bc7 2 Shaping the Future of Digital Work: A Bold Proposal for Platform Worker RightsValerio De Stefano
u421983462ef5c965ea38 0 Europe Must Adapt to Its Ageing WorkforceFranz Eiffe and Karel Fric
u42198346789a3f266f5e8 1 Poland’s Polarised Election Signals a Wider Crisis for Liberal DemocracyCatherine De Vries

Most Popular Articles

startupsgovernment e1744799195663 Governments Are Not StartupsMariana Mazzucato
u421986cbef 2549 4e0c b6c4 b5bb01362b52 0 American SuicideJoschka Fischer
u42198346769d6584 1580 41fe 8c7d 3b9398aa5ec5 1 Why Trump Keeps Winning: The Truth No One AdmitsBo Rothstein
u421983467 a350a084 b098 4970 9834 739dc11b73a5 1 America Is About to Become the Next BrexitJ Bradford DeLong
u4219834676ba1b3a2 b4e1 4c79 960b 6770c60533fa 1 The End of the ‘West’ and Europe’s FutureGuillaume Duval
u421983462e c2ec 4dd2 90a4 b9cfb6856465 1 The Transatlantic Alliance Is Dying—What Comes Next for Europe?Frank Hoffer
u421983467 2a24 4c75 9482 03c99ea44770 3 Trump’s Trade War Tears North America Apart – Could Canada and Mexico Turn to Europe?Malcolm Fairbrother
u4219834676e2a479 85e9 435a bf3f 59c90bfe6225 3 Why Good Business Leaders Tune Out the Trump Noise and Stay FocusedStefan Stern
u42198346 4ba7 b898 27a9d72779f7 1 Confronting the Pandemic’s Toxic Political LegacyJan-Werner Müller
u4219834676574c9 df78 4d38 939b 929d7aea0c20 2 The End of Progess? The Dire Consequences of Trump’s ReturnJoseph Stiglitz

Foundation for European Progressive Studies Advertisement

Spring Issues

The Spring issue of The Progressive Post is out!


Since President Trump’s inauguration, the US – hitherto the cornerstone of Western security – is destabilising the world order it helped to build. The US security umbrella is apparently closing on Europe, Ukraine finds itself less and less protected, and the traditional defender of free trade is now shutting the door to foreign goods, sending stock markets on a rollercoaster. How will the European Union respond to this dramatic landscape change? .


Among this issue’s highlights, we discuss European defence strategies, assess how the US president's recent announcements will impact international trade and explore the risks  and opportunities that algorithms pose for workers.


READ THE MAGAZINE

Hans Böckler Stiftung Advertisement

WSI Report

WSI Minimum Wage Report 2025

The trend towards significant nominal minimum wage increases is continuing this year. In view of falling inflation rates, this translates into a sizeable increase in purchasing power for minimum wage earners in most European countries. The background to this is the implementation of the European Minimum Wage Directive, which has led to a reorientation of minimum wage policy in many countries and is thus boosting the dynamics of minimum wages. Most EU countries are now following the reference values for adequate minimum wages enshrined in the directive, which are 60% of the median wage or 50 % of the average wage. However, for Germany, a structural increase is still necessary to make progress towards an adequate minimum wage.

DOWNLOAD HERE

S&D Group in the European Parliament advertisement

Cohesion Policy

S&D Position Paper on Cohesion Policy post-2027: a resilient future for European territorial equity”,

Cohesion Policy aims to promote harmonious development and reduce economic, social and territorial disparities between the regions of the Union, and the backwardness of the least favoured regions with a particular focus on rural areas, areas affected by industrial transition and regions suffering from severe and permanent natural or demographic handicaps, such as outermost regions, regions with very low population density, islands, cross-border and mountain regions.

READ THE FULL POSITION PAPER HERE

ETUI advertisement

HESA Magazine Cover

What kind of impact is artificial intelligence (AI) having, or likely to have, on the way we work and the conditions we work under? Discover the latest issue of HesaMag, the ETUI’s health and safety magazine, which considers this question from many angles.

DOWNLOAD HERE

Eurofound advertisement

Ageing workforce
How are minimum wage levels changing in Europe?

In a new Eurofound Talks podcast episode, host Mary McCaughey speaks with Eurofound expert Carlos Vacas Soriano about recent changes to minimum wages in Europe and their implications.

Listeners can delve into the intricacies of Europe's minimum wage dynamics and the driving factors behind these shifts. The conversation also highlights the broader effects of minimum wage changes on income inequality and gender equality.

Listen to the episode for free. Also make sure to subscribe to Eurofound Talks so you don’t miss an episode!

LISTEN NOW

Social Europe

Our Mission

Team

Article Submission

Advertisements

Membership

Social Europe Archives

Themes Archive

Politics Archive

Economy Archive

Society Archive

Ecology Archive

Miscellaneous

RSS Feed

Legal Disclosure

Privacy Policy

Copyright

Social Europe ISSN 2628-7641