The declining trust in the representative institutions of liberal democracy after the 2008 economic crisis has generated a rise in appeals to substitute the representative model in favor of a participatory democracy. Although political representation has been in crisis since its very inception, for the first time the new technologies of communication based in the Web 2.0, smartphones and social media make replacing the elites’ intermediation in decision-making a real possibility. Aiming to critically address this issue, the article uses a political theory framework to analyze the role of political participation within the main models of democracy as a first step from where to question the viability and convenience of participatory democracy nowadays. Then, the article focuses on the case of Podemos in Spain, a left-wing populist party that advocates for instruments like referendums and citizen initiatives as a solution for the Spanish political crisis. Here, the article highlights the shortcomings of Podemos’s participatory proposal, mainly focused on aggregating predetermined positions instead of addressing the dynamics that undermine the quality of political debate. Finally, we conclude that dealing with the citizens’ political disaffection requires institutional innovations designed to increase the deliberative quality of our representative democracies.

Introduction: This essay discusses three different approaches to the study of deliberation in parliaments: empirical, rhetorical and systemic. Materials and Methods: Through a critical review of the scientific literature, this work addresses some conceptual and analytical problems of the empirical-quantitative strategies aimed at measuring parliamentary deliberation, emphasizing the utility of the rhetorical and systemic approaches to grasp the agonist component of parliamentary debates and also their embeddedness within the broader political system. Results: The paper shows that deliberative dynamics within the democratic chambers cannot be reduced to a formal, closed and quantifiable debate. Hence, it proposes an alternative model for the analysis of deliberative processes in this institution. Discussion: The heterogeneous nature of parliaments recommends studying the deliberative phenomenon in different moments and instances, which includes formal debates, closed door meetings and even informal exchanges outside the plenary and committees. This view challenges the dominance of the empirical-quantitative framing of parliamentary deliberation in the scientific literature and supports a more holistic research strategy based on the combination of the empirical, rhetorical and systemic approaches.

Most of the research about participatory institutions has neglected the analysis of the role played by ideological preferences in their development. Do different political ideologies of governing parties develop different participatory processes? Our starting point is that diverse views on the core values of democracy should lead to different positions concerning the role and expected benefits of citizen participation. This article discusses two main questions. First, in case ideology matters, which is the crucial difference? Is this a matter of “right versus left” or is there a particular party family with special attentiveness to developing participatory institutions? Second, in case any difference exists, how exactly does it translate into the development of participatory institutions? Analyzing data from Spanish municipalities in the period 2003–2010, we show that the party families that had a relevant presence in local administrations in this time frame show more similarities than differences in the participatory activities implemented. However, some relevant differences are found related to the constituencies addressed and mobilized and the type of participatory processes developed.

The introduction of Education for Citizenship into the Spanish school system has given rise to a strong controversy with the Catholic Church and other conservative actors in Spanish society, who claim that the students' moral education is an exclusive realm, reserved for families. Challenging these criticisms, this article points to the reasons that justify both the substantive content of the subject and the competence of democratic government with regard to civic education.

Desde la caída del muro de Berlín hasta la llegada de la crisis económica y financiera iniciada en 2008, los partidos de la izquierda en Europa se han visto inmersos en un proceso de constante reformulación de sus programas, objetivos y estrategias. En este sentido, el hundimiento del bloque soviético produjo una fuerte crisis de identidad en los partidos comunistas y socialdemócratas: existencial para los primeros, coyuntural para los segundos. Dicha convulsión sirvió como catalizador de un cambio ideológico que también tuvo su reflejo en el ámbito de las ciencias sociales, dando lugar a trabajos que trataron de capturar l'esprit du temps. Quizás el más conocido, o al menos el más citado (aunque no siempre el más leído), fue el polémico artículo «The End of History?» (1989), publicado por Francis Fukuyama en la revista conservadora norteamericana The National Interest. El ensayo, que venía a proclamar con fundamentación filosófica el carácter inevitable de la hegemonía liberal, fue considerado «uno de los textos claves de nuestra época» por un referente progresista como The Guardian. Desde una perspectiva netamente socialdemócrata, trabajos como Derecha e izquierda (1994) de Norberto Bobbio, Más allá de la izquierda y la derecha (1994) de Anthony Giddens o Entre la modernidad y el postmaterialismo: la socialdemocracia europea al final del siglo xx (1994) de Wolfgang Merkel, respondían a la misma preocupación por entender y sistematizar qué significaba el eje clásico de orientación izquierda-derecha tras la implosión de la URSS.Lo característico de la transformación programática y estratégica que se produjo en los partidos de izquierda en los años noventa es que cristalizó en una pauta de cambio común: los partidos comunistas se refundaron; nacieron formaciones de nueva izquierda asociadas a valores postmaterialistas, como los verdes, y los partidos socialdemócratas tradicionales se rearmaron con las tesis centristas y liberales de la «Tercera

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