The increasing gap between political representatives and the citizenry has increased the focus on the mechanisms of political representation. The lack of confidence on the representative institutions has been said to increase the level of unconventional participation, boosting incentives for institutional innovations. Societies are developing faster than their institutions of government, and as a result new actors are challenging the traditional monopoly over the representation of interests held by the political parties.

Within the context of Spain, more informal actors, such as the “Mortgage Victims' Platform” (PAH), have been challenging the role of interest representation traditionally performed by the political parties.

Direct action, but also traditional participatory mechanisms of parliamentary democracy, had been organized in order to set the political agenda.

The research question explored will be therefore: ‘Under what conditions do non-elected actors become legitimate representatives whose claims need to be considered by the political parties?’