Building Stronger Democracies Through Broader Participation: Can Community Organizing Meet the Challenge?

The rise of the third sector could not guard democracies against backsliding in postsocialist Eastern Europe. The nonprofit approach deprived associational life of its conflictive and political character and the large but underfunded service sector could not effectively redress the harms of capitalist transition. This allowed antidemocratic parties and movements to push back on liberal democracy and shrink the civic space. What is a new vision of civil society that engages civic organizations in politics and transforms democracy from an elitist ideal into a popular tool for people of all ranks? Community organizing, combined with a radical analysis, is one plausible answer. The article explores the possibility, necessity, and practical challenges of transformative constituency-based organizing for advancing a more substantive democracy. The case of The City Is for All, a Hungarian grassroots housing organization, presents a particular kind of organizing that became a North Star for those who believe that poor people have a strategic place in the fight to replace autocratization with egalitarian democracy.