As authoritarianism rises globally and progressive movements face intensifying pressure, the strategic case for alliance-building has never been clearer. In this four-part series, Building Alliances, Networks & Coalitions, we hear from organisers creating a different model of how movements coordinate, build collective power, and hold together across scale. We’ll explore what their work looks like in practice, along with the successes and the challenges and how to build sufficient coherence and cohesion to achieve their goals.
If you’re interested in how to build a strategic coherence, coordinate across scale, and how networks stay accountable, then this series is for you!
26 March – From Movements to Institutions with Maria Llanos del Corral
This talk explores how the 15M movement in Spain gave rise to new political parties and citizen-led coalitions challenging corruption and political elites. We trace the shift from street mobilisation to institutional capability, focusing on participatory infrastructure such as Podemos’ early citizen circles. We reflect on the tensions between horizontality and collective leadership, and the challenges of governing within mainstream political institutions whose culture, processes, and logic often constrain these principles. Drawing on focus groups with activists and political leaders, we examine what happened after entering institutions, including the key challenges and fractures that emerged. Finally, turning to Uruguay’s Frente Amplio, we draw key learnings from this unique, long-standing example of successful alliance-building across diversity. The session invites European movements to reclaim alliance-building as a strategy of resistance, governance, and radical imagination.
Maria Llanos del Corral, a facilitator, organiser, and movement learning practitioner working at the intersection of complexity, participation, and social justice. They co-founded La Bolina, Eroles Project, and collaborate closely with the Ulex Project, supporting grassroots and political organisations to build alliances, strengthen networks, and develop participatory infrastructure. Their work focuses on emergent strategy, organisational culture, and collective leadership in complex and uncertain contexts. Currently, their practice centres on alliance-building and movement learning as responses to democratic erosion and the rise of the far right.