ABSTRACT
From the start, 15M activists and supporters were united in their rejection of corruption, their anger and indignation at the inability of the political elites to provide honest leadership in times of crisis, and the feeling that Spanish democracy had been hijacked and degraded. The acampadas and assemblies eroded the authority of the idea of parliamentary representation as the base for democratic life. Standard set of political actions offers two ways to participate: 1) activism in and through political party membership; and 2) activism through 'participation' in the form of, for example, voting every so many years, and pressure, petitions and protests against parliament and in the streets. The theory of monitory democracy highlights how our generation's democratic politics is trapped in a long-term historic change. The proliferation of new political parties can also be interpreted under the lens of monitory democracy.
