‘No war’ inside peace movements: alliance building in Madrid’s pro-Palestine networks

Abstract

This article examines coalition-building within Madrid’s pro-Palestine movement since October 2023, shifting attention from cross-movement alliances to the endogenous dynamics that shape cooperation among solidarity actors. Drawing on 10 semi-structured interviews with key activists and organizers, we identify four intertwined obstacles to alliance formation: (1) path-dependent histories and social ties that reproduce long-standing factional boundaries; (2) ideological cleavages, especially around support for armed resistance; (3) strategic ambivalence towards engagement with parties and institutions; and (4) asymmetric repression and stigmatization that differentially target organizations and reconfigure incentives to collaborate. We also show how diaspora activists have acted as symbolic and relational brokers, creating ‘spaces of pragmatic convergence’ that enabled limited-purpose coordination (mass protests, cultural/pedagogical events) without forcing programmatic homogenization. We discuss implications for the durability and scope of coalitions in peace‑movement settings and outline avenues for comparative research.