Popular Assembly – What is it, Definition and Concept

The popular assembly is a congregation of anonymous people without positions in the Government that, faced with collective discomfort, meets to deliberate and establish a joint plan that changes certain dimensions of the social, political and economic system of a given territory, normally a country.

 

A popular assembly is a meeting of citizens whose purpose is to deliberate and organize to achieve social or economic changes in given management.

 

Although it also has another meaning, in some countries of socialist or communist inspiration, the country's legislative body is called a popular assembly. How are your ideologies?

Theoretically, they represent the common people and not the social and economic elites; the adjective "popular" indicates the character of the representation of these citizens. Thus they seek to obtain a greater legitimation.

 

Characteristics of a Popular Assembly

Popular assemblies, as deliberative and decision-making associations, have the following characteristics:

·       Citizen composition: They are created from below; they are the citizens belonging to lessons low and medium who organize and make up the assemblies.

·       Are deliberative: The debate among its attendees is one of its lines of action.

·       Arise from discomfort: The popular assemblies do not arise in periods of wellness, but they do it in periods of crisis or social injustice. They are created to act and change some aspects of the system.

·       Decision Making: In addition to denouncing socioeconomic injustices, the assemblies are also there to take action. These are usually remembered by most of the assembly.

·       They are Decentralized: The popular assemblies are highly decentralized organizations. Their territorial unit is usually the neighbourhood or district. This is due to the difficulty of coordinating a large number of people. Although there may be assemblies of greater scope.

·       Short hierarchy: Although, in principle, these organizations are based on equality, a certain leadership that directs the assembly does originate. This can arise in a planned or spontaneous way.

·       direct democracy: It is another of the principles of the popular assemblies. Each citizen represents himself, thus having a voice and a vote in deliberation and decision-making.

Popular Assembly Examples

Some examples of popular assemblies:

·       Argentina (2001-2002): In December 2001, Argentina experienced one of the worst crises in its history, the playpen. At the end of the 1990s, Argentina went through a profound crisis, unemployment and a high spent Y public deficit. Due to the great economic recession, the Government limited the operations of capital and the weekly extraction of money by the citizens. This led to the fact that starting in December 2001, the residents of the cities organized themselves to protest against the Government and the situation that had taken place, meeting in neighbourhood assemblies, debating and discussing the future of the country.

·       15 M (2011): After the global crisis of 2008, Spain, like other countries, suffered severely from the consequences, high unemployment, deficit and debt uncontrolled, cuts in the public services, etc. In this context, in May 2011, protests arose in Madrid to denounce the situation of widespread precariousness among many people in the country. These protests turned into assemblies organized by all the neighbourhoods of Madrid and other localities. Some of the measures taken by the popular assemblies affected the banking, politicians, health, education, and corruption, among many other topics. They also arose movements and parties like Podemos.

·       Soviet: Soviets were assemblies of workers and workers, and, although their origin dates back to 1905, it was not until the Russian evolution of 1917 that they took on a big weight. They deliberated on how the revolution that would overthrow tsarism and impose the regime revolutionary. As of 1922 and the constitution of the USSR, the Soviets would become one of the components of the Government. Each city had a soviet, whose elite represented their soviet in higher ones. The highest commanding soviet was the Supreme Soviet.