Popular assembly
A popular assembly (or people's assembly) is a gathering called to address issues of importance to participants. Assemblies tend to be freely open to participation and operate by direct democracy. Some assemblies are of people from a location, some from a given workplace, industry or educational establishment others are called to address a specific issue. The term is often used to describe gatherings that address, what participants feel are, the effects of a democratic deficit in representative democratic systems. Sometimes assemblies are created to form an alternative power structure, other times they work with other forms of  government. As a government. Ancient Greece. Athens. In Athenian democracy the Ecclesia was the assembly of all male citizens. Modern times. New England. The town meeting is the traditional governing body of the New England town, which in its traditional form is open to all adult residents to discuss and vote on the major issues of town government. It was founded in the colonial era as an outgrowth of church meetings, which then became secularized as a purely governmental meeting. Although larger towns have since moved to more representative forms of government, it is still widely practiced in smaller and  more rural communities. The similarly named town hall meeting, where politicians meet with their constituents and discuss issues, is named after and meant to resemble the town meeting. Examples. Argentine economic crisis (1999–2002). During the Argentine economic crisis (1999–2002) many Argentinian citizens started engaging and organising their actions through assemblies. After closure, the Chilvert printing press was occupied by workers who organised through an assembly. Within weeks of being reopened as a workers cooperative Chilvert printed a book called "Que son las Asembleas Populares?" or "What are the Popular Assemblies?", a collection of articles written by renowned intellectuals , Stella Calloni  and Rafael Bielsa as well as workers and participants in the assemblies. As with other workplaces, the print factory was saved from closure by the actions of a popular assembly. The military and police were blocked from entering the factory after the popular assembly of Pompeya called on barrio residents to protect the workplace. Individual police officers expressed their support for the workers and the popular assembly and successfully petitioned the judge to rescind his order to seize the factory. The assemblies movement is reported to have spiked in power rapidly and fallen from any major significance within months. It  is reported that Grigera summing up his analysis of the asambleas states Cherán (2011 - Present). The town of Cherán in Mexico saw armed citizens kick out the corrupt police, drug cartels, and mayor in 2011. Since then they have adopted a system of popular assemblies to govern the town, which is somewhat independent of the central government.