Social Innovation and Democratic Leadership

Marc Parés, Sonia M. Ospina, Joan Subirats

While liberal-representative democracies tend to conform to a consensus-based post-political paradigm where there is no space for alternatives and dissensus, new forms of democracy in practice are emerging from below. This book explores new socially innovative initiatives that have appeared following the 2011 global uprisings. Initiatives that flourish not only as alternative responses to current social needs but also as new forms of democracy, a democracy that comes from below, by and for the ‘have-nots’. Combining theories of social innovation and collective leadership, this book analyzes how disadvantaged communities have addressed the effects of economic recession in two global cities: Barcelona and New York. It draws upon several socially innovative initiatives in four neighbourhoods, and offers new knowledge, ideas and tools, both to better understand how social needs could be...