Beyond the democratic state: anti-authoritarian interventions in democratic theory

Part II: Interventions in Democratic Theory
In Part II, I ask: How might the theoretical insights of the anti-authoritarian perspective 
intervene in democratic theory? More specifically, if we: a) adopt a view of freedom as non-
domination, b) reject sovereignty in both its individual and state forms, c) and take on a 
centrifugal logic of power, then where would that lead a corresponding account of radical 
democracy? In short, what might an anti-authoritarian model of democracy look like? 
To provide a partial answer to this question – and I will only be able to offer a partial 
answer – I focus on two distinct, but related, anarchic social movement practices: direct action 
and networked organization. My aim here is to walk a middle ground between two competing 
approaches within the literature on anti-authoritarian visions of radical democracy. On the one 
hand, some scholars abandon the more anarchic elements of anti-authoritarianism in their effort 
to present a workable vision of radical democracy. On the other hand, other scholars maintain 
the more anarchic elements of anti-authoritarianism, but do not connect these elements with the 
literature on radical democracy or defend them on democratic grounds.
Perhaps the best recent statement of the former approach is Bookchin’s vision of an anti-
authoritarian democracy. While Bookchin (2007, 91-99) explicitly rejects the moniker of 
anarchism in favor of “communalism” (due in large part to his perception that anarchism is too 
sympathetic to individualism and too critical of democracy), his proposal still draws heavily on 
aspects of anarchist thought. He traces the historical origins of communalism to the Paris 
Commune of 1871 and sees it as a vision in which “virtually autonomous local communities are 

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loosely bound in a federation” (Bookchin 2007, 99). The concrete political proposal to emerge 
out of communalism is “libertarian municipalism,” which calls for governing based on “popular 
democratic assemblies” and addressing “community affairs on a face-to-face basis [and] making 
policy decisions in a direct democracy” (
ibid.
101). While Bookchin’s vision has much in 
common with the democratic vision I endorse, he remains wedded to more traditional modes of 
decision-making. For him, the ancient Athenian 
polis
and, more recently, the New England 
townhall meeting are the prototypical democratic institutions (
ibid.
105; Biehl 1998, Ch. 3 and 
4). In short, he remains tied to the old radically democratic ideal of the face-to-face assembly, 
that I think critics of radical democracy are right to be skeptical about. The model of democracy 
I articulate differs with this vision on at least two counts: 1) I do not equate radical democracy 
with direct democracy and, in fact, argue for direct action, rather than direct democracy. 2) I 
challenge the notion that decisions must be made through formalized channels (whether they be 
direct or representative) at all. Instead, I maintain that decisions can 
emerge
through networked 
organization without ever being 
made
in unified general assemblies. In essence, I see Bookchin 
as foregrounding practices like general assemblies that are relatively easy to fold into a 
democratic framework, but neglecting practices like direct action and networks that, while 
central to anti-authoritarian movements and thinkers, are more problematic (but also, more 
interesting) for democracy. 
Other theorists who maintain a stronger attachment to these more anarchic elements, 
however, do offer a “vision of an ideal (egalitarian, non-hierarchical) society, and a strategy for 
achieving it, based on direct action and what Colin Ward has termed ‘spontaneous organization’” 
(Ackelsberg 1997, 158). This body of anarchist theorizing bears closer resemblance to the 
approach to radical democracy that I develop in the second half of the dissertation. For example, 

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Ward’s (1982) has argued for the potential for harmony to exist through complexity and for the 
viability of “topless federations.” My aim in relation to this work to is to better connect these 
concepts with democratic theory. While Bookchin develops a compelling vision of radical 
democracy, he does so by prioritizing direct democracy over anarchism. In contrast, Ward 
foregrounds anarchism, but neglects democracy. He develops a contemporary anarchist theory 
of self-organization, but does not connect his vision to democracy or democratic norms. I 
suggest that anarchic conceptions, such as direct action, “topless federations” and self-
organization, can be theorized in a democratic framework. In a sense, I build on the existing 
literature by seeking to translate the ideas of anarchists and anti-authoritarians into the language 
of democratic theory and, moreover, explain how anarchists might articulate their ideas in 
(critical) relation to the concerns of democratic theory (e.g. ‘the people,’ legitimacy, and global 
democracy). Doing so, I think, will help explain a way of theorizing a radical democracy that 
eschews many of the usual trappings of state-centric democracy, while nonetheless constituting a 
mode of action and organization that can be fairly conceptualized as democratic and defended on 
democratic grounds.
In Chapter III, “The Democratic Potential of Direct Action,” I put direct action – a 
practice in which people aim to accomplish their goals through their own activity (Sparrow n.d.) 
– in conversation with democratic theory in an effort to uncover the tensions and affinities 
between the two. Insofar as direct action involves a small segment of the 
demos 
directly 
intervening in the lives of other citizens it could well be seen as a violation of democratic 
principles and procedures. Despite this basic tension, however, there are important reasons to 
defend the democratic potential of direct action. Namely, if radical democracy is, 
fundamentally, a situation in which people have power, than practices that foster and enact 

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collective power have the potential to be democratic. I develop two forms of power that direct 
action mobilizes: disruptive power and prefigurative power. In developing accounts of these two 
forms of power, I challenge two reductions in contemporary democratic theory, one 
characteristic of mainstream communicative democrats and the other characteristic of radical 
democrats. First, because direct action is not primarily or exclusively a dialogical act, it 
necessarily upsets the tendency to reduce democracy to deliberation and communication.
Whereas voting, lobbying, or writing – and even many forms of rallying or protesting – are 
primarily oriented toward having voice, direct action is oriented toward having power. I contend 
that the disruptive power of direct action, which halts institutional processes and interrupts the 
activities of others, is democratic when it exposes, upsets, or reduces power inequalities and 
makes real the political equality upon which democracy depends. Second, I use direct action’s 
prefigurative power to challenge the reduction of democratic politics to a politics of resistance.
While direct action is most assuredly a practice that intervenes and disrupts, it is not just a 
politics that resists, but also one that creates and prefigures. I show through an analysis of the 
double-sided character of direct action a way to theorize a radical democratic politics that 
transcends resistance and is capable of articulating and building an alternative society. My goal 
in this chapter is to highlight the democratic potential of direct action, and to open the door to a 
reconsideration of the role of power in a vibrant democratic politics. I conclude the chapter by 
articulating a set of guidelines or criteria by which we might evaluate and/or amplify the 
democratic potentials of direct action. Connecting this to the previous chapter, disruptive and 
prefigurative power is democratic when it follows a centrifugal logic that spreads power and 
creates spaces for others to exercise political freedom. 

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In Chapter IV, “Network Democracy,” I show one way in which social movements have 
dispersed the power that direct action generates through the use of networks as a form of 
organization.
If direct action constitutes a core democratic practice, I theorize networks as the 
organizational framework that enables these relatively autonomous and local practices to fit 
together in a much larger, more diffuse, and more powerful whole.
Just as elections are the link 
between the practice of voting and a system of representative governance, networks are the 
mechanism that connects direct actions together into a “system” of self-governance. However, 
even though direct action is an exercise of power and even though the cumulative effect of these 
actions through political networks can be considered a form of self-governance, the result need 
not be a new form of authoritarian “rule over,” nor must this power constitute an emergent 
sovereign. In contrast, I argue that networks are a social movement practice that functions to 
both disperse power and to make self-governance possible without creating new forms of 
sovereignty. To make this argument, I first present evidence for the possibility governance 
without government through an examination of Ostrom’s (1990) work on self-governance of 
common resources. She demonstrates that self-organization and self-governance – without 
recourse to either the state or the market – is possible, in certain contexts. Her work, therefore, is 
critical for thinking through the forms that self-governance might take. However, her work also 
has serious limitations for assessing the capacity for self-governance in more diverse and diffuse 
contexts. Not only are Ostrom’s case studies of successful self-governance based on relatively 
small communities (rather than the transnational and global communities that comprise “the 
multitude”), but they are often quite homogenous. And, it is precisely the facts of difference and 
diversity that are the starting point for a range of contemporary democratic theories, and are 
generally seen as presenting problems for democratic self-governance. Through a review of this 

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literature, I outline two competing responses to the fact of pluralism. The first response seeks to 
overcome difference in order to form a unified 
demos
capable of ruling. The second response 
rejects the ideal of consensus and unanimity implicit in the first response, and proposes instead a 
vision of democracy characterized by ongoing conflict and contestation. While there is much to 
be admired in this approach, I contend that it offers little in the way of a positive prescription for 
governing – or at least acting together – in the context of ineradicable agonism. 
 
My aim in the second half of the chapter is to provide one response to this challenge, to 
see what may come from an engagement between a theory of self-governance and a theory of 
agonal democracy. The primary mechanism for fostering the goals of both – enabling self-
governance in the context of difference – is the network as a form of political organization. I 
theorize networks as valuable because they enable