Which models of democracy? Internal and external decision-making processes of Italian Social Centres in a comparative study

In this article are presented the findings of a research in progress onItalian social centres, defined as autonomous groups set up by left-wing radical activists(mainly students and unemployed youth), who occupy and/or self-manageunused buildings in the cities, where they organize political campaigns, social andcountercultural activities. In particular the research is focused on their practicesand conceptions of politics and democracy, related to both their internal decisionmakingand their external interactions with other groups and organizations withinbroader social movement decisional arenas. Two empirical cases, the main andlong lasting social centres in Catania (Sicily) – the CPO Experia and the CSA Auro– are studied and compared, proposing and applying a reworking of the analyticalframework of models of democracy within social movements: the Deliberativemodel and the Assembleary model are here conceived as the opposite poles of acontinuum in which social centres can be placed, including two intermediate mixedmodels (Deliberative/Assembleary and Assembleary/Deliberative). The results ofthe empirical research, carried out by participant observation, documents’ analysisand semi-structured interviews, show as the more radical CPO Experia adopted aDeliberative model in the internal decision-making (“inside”) and an Assemblearymodel in the external interactions (“outside”); while the more moderate CSA Aurocan be placed in the intermediate points of the continuum which correspond to themixed models. The dissimilar properties of the two social centres investigated, regardingthe main dimensions of the typology used, allow to identify the variablesthat explain possible differences in decision-making processes. In fact, the comparisonshows as the diverse models of democracy adopted by two social centresdepended on their different main ends, collective identities and political-ideologicalorientation.