Collaboration Between Citizen Movements and Political Parties

                  Citizen movements are important features of a political trend that arises from a deep feeling of huge injustices happening for a long time, therefore expresses and represent what the citizens would like to see improved in their countries, such as political inclusion from somebody that has been excluded from past elections, justice such as compensation for wrongful arrest and daily bullying  on mainstream media, etc. And also we all need to know what each citizen movement wants to say beyond the political area. What they are screaming to the world. They can not be ignored by voters, political parties, governments or mainstream media. This post is a summary of the book with the title above published in 2018 at   https://www.idea.int/sites/default/files/publications/collaboration-between-citizen-movements-and-political-parties.pdf

                        Over the past decade, citizen movements have become more important to political parties. In response to reduced membership and public trust, many parties are aiming to re-establish ties with broader groups in society, such as citizen movements. Conversely, many new social and protest movements have themselves transformed into political movements. Many of these newcomers reject the term 'party' and continue to refer to themselves as 'movements'. Citizen movements can be defined as 'a network of informal interactions between a plurality of individuals, engaged in a political conflict, on the basis of a shared collective identity. Establishing, nurturing and expanding links between a political party and a movement is likely to enrich the party's policy agenda and support base. What constitutes a healthy relationship between a political party and the movement? At the very least, successful collaboration consists of three elements. The first element is electoral support. The second is policy coherence, a party that legislates in line with the policy called for by the movement. The third element is social mobilization. This section describes three approaches to ensure successful cooperation between political parties and citizen movements. The organizational set-up of a new or established political party influences its relationship with the movement through: 1) an inclusive structure. 2) a representative leadership that citizens identify with. 3) the role of members and adherents in the party. Political parties and movements can facilitate collaboration with citizen movements by actively involving movement supporters in decision-making. Political movements, such as France's La Republique En Marche, have chosen to decentralize its campaigning. Podemos in Spain has an online portal that allows any supporter of the movement to debate and make policy proposals. Proposals which gather sufficient support pass to an online voting stage, the results of which are made public and are used to inform the electoral programme or organization of the party itself. More localized political movements, holding inclusive events and committee is one way to involve citizens directly. Many movements are non-hierarchical and leaderless. Political competition nevertheless requires a level of accountability achieved through accountable leaders. Successful movement-party collaboration rests on representative leadership. Leaders who in speech, image and behaviour reflect the movement's original cause can play a central role in uniting movement and party. Leaders may represent such diverse causes as the anti-establishment, or anti-corruption. Frank language or unconventional styles suggest a break with the past. Importantly, however, representatives leaders do not have to be copies of their supporters. As long as they are credible symbols for the ideals that the movement espouses, leaders can hold educational, professional or identity backgrounds different those of their supporters. Movements often resist not only the powers that be, but also the political elites in general. Electoral lists that mix long-time insiders with candidates from outside the political arena therefore lend credibility to claims of renovating politics. Most citizen movements are characterized by their open access and low engagement threshold. Not only do they usually accept participants from all walks of life, but more importantly they also choose not to pose conditions to taking part. There are not a winning ideology for movements that turn into parties, or parties that wish to establish greater social movement links. Movements often arise from single issues that are defined only loosely, or sometimes from a feeling of injustice or/and a shared value. A host of innovative methods and tools have been developed over recent years that facilitate close engagement between large groups of leaderless movements and their political offspring. This include a range of digital tools that bring political leaders and citizens into closer and easier contact but also non-digital innovations. Social media platforms are also used. The Beirut Madinati movement, for example, use Facebook and Twitter not only in its election campaign, but also to conduct polls online and gather feedback on policy issues. Many citizen movements emphasize the interaction between the online and the offline. As the mobilizing power of social media for protests has shown, political agency is increasingly dependent on the ability of the digital and non-digital to operate in tandem. Social movements often rely on digital communication to the mobilization of activists. ICT literacy and internet penetration may impact the movement. Digital communication is increasingly important to reach large groups of citizens. With many political parties having lost the trust of citizens, the relationship between these parties and citizen movements has begun to evolve. The rise of digital means of engagements brings in the potential for much more dynamic interaction with larger groups of people, which would have been far more complicated to accomplish in the pre-digital era.