ABSTRACT
The 15M movement has endemic, structural and circumstantial roots that have been fertilised by more epidemic mechanisms of contagion. This chapter looks at the conditions of Spanish society which made possible the genesis and maintenance of the movement known as the 15M. It examines the sudden downturn in the Spanish economy in recent years, with particular emphasis on the political crisis and the rapid and drastic deterioration of the attitudes and opinions of the Spanish public towards their democratic system. The chapter analyzes all aspects of this movement's relationship with politics, highlighting the 15M's ambitions with regard to the Spanish political democratic form. It focuses on the political functioning of the movement itself. Indignados and occupy movements surged in the wave of an economic crisis that has had a devastating effect on youth precarity and unemployment. The autonomy of the individual fighting movements serves to ensure a pragmatic relationship of 15M with social reality.
