ABSTRACT
The 1960s saw the rise of the extra-parliamentary Left, whose actions infused Western Europe’s debate on democracy with a new intensity. In some respects, the extra-parliamentary Left’s conception of democracy was diametrically opposed to the conception political elites were increasingly concurring on. A prime example of this was the Left’s rejection of parliamentarianism and political parties. As mass protests and suppression followed each other up in a cycle of escalating tension, political actors on all sides disputed each other’s democratic credentials. Whereas conservatives denounced the extra-parliamentary Left as ‘left-wing terrorists’, communist politicians belittled the protesters as ‘bourgeois’, and protest leaders denounced the political establishment as an authoritarian or even fascistoid clique.
