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

A 
Force More Powerful
. I would go so far as to claim that a defining feature of direct action 
compared with other forms of protest, is precisely that it does involve a force of some kind.
Direct action, as I have elaborated, means to intervene in some social space and change it 
immediately, if only temporarily. Without permission or authorization from others, direct action 
blocks roads and denies the ability of (at least some) others from moving. Direct action squats 
unused buildings and informs those that legally own the property that they no longer have access.
Direct action takes over factories and asserts ownership over the materials therein. Direct action 
occupies land and uses it for a different purpose. Direct action invades others’ meetings and 
claims a place at the table, if not overturning the table entirely.
I appreciate why Carter worries about defining direct action this way. Her approach no 
doubt makes the project of reconciling direct action and democracy more straight-forward. If 
direct action involves neither violence nor force, then direct action is compatible with liberal 
rights and the liberal democratic state. As Carter (
ibid.
33) puts it, “if direct action by one 
community flagrantly violates the rights of members of another…it is indefensible.” This is a 
convenient way to dismiss the possibility that direct action will be used for what she calls 
“illiberal causes” such as “when Israeli settlers occupy the homes and land of Palestinians” or the 
Chilean truck driver’s strike in 1972 that sought to destabilize Salvador Allende’s elected 
socialist government (
ibid
.
 
32-33). However, it is insufficient. After all, it is not just those 
advocating “illiberal causes” that violate people’s rights. All of the examples given in the above 
paragraph violate people’s rights. When protesters blocked WTO delegates from getting to their 
meetings or striking workers block scabs from getting onto the worksite, these are also rights 
violations. Direct action often, perhaps even usually, involves violating some people’s rights to 

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freedom of movement or control over private property; this is not an aberration, but a frequent 
occurrence. Does Carter mean to say that none of the above examples of direct action are 
“defensible”? If so, then I begin to wonder if her book is misnamed, as it is no longer a defense 
of direct action. Moreover, by trying to conceptualize direct action so that it is relatively 
unproblematic for liberal rights framework,
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Carter ends up watering down direct action and 
losing its distinctiveness. In trying to make direct action safe for liberal democracy, she loses 
much of what I see as the radically democratic potential of direct action. That direct action 
is
an 
enactment of power, that it 
does
typically involve a force of some kind, no doubt makes it a 
dangerous practice: it can be used in reactionary and anti-democratic ways. Without denying 
that possibility, I hope to show that we should not throw out the baby with the bathwater. Along 
with the dangerous possibilities of direct action are radically democratic ones, as well. Thus, 
rather than seeking to judge specific instances of direct action, my aim is to show how, at least in 
certain circumstances, direct action can be a vital democratic practice. If Carter moderates the 
meaning of direct action so as to make it compatible with our basic understanding of democracy, 
I take a reverse strategy: to maintain the radical meaning of direct action so as to problematize 
and call for a change in our understanding of democracy.
In the following sections, I defend both the disruptive and prefigurative dimensions of 
direct action on democratic grounds. The first conception or use of direct action has democratic 
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In my view the correct metric for evaluating whether any particular direct action is democratic has less to do with 
whether rights are violated (though, of course, serious rights violations might weigh against a direct action), and 
more to do with whether power inequalities are challenged or undone. Although I take some degree of rights 
violations to occur in many instances of direct action, I do not think that direct action has to be understood as wholly 
in opposition to rights. We might, for example, ask the question: “Do the democratizing effects of this action on the 
configuration of power in society (if any) outweigh the rights violations that resulted from this action?” Obviously, 
rights violations such as preventing freedom of movement, especially for a limited time, would be easier to justify 
than the taking someone’s life. Thus, someone who was committed to rights, I think, can still be supportive of 
certain instances of direct action. However, whereas rights are meant to be impartially applied, the power 
framework I discuss below suggests that who the person is matters. Rights violations of a WTO delegate headed to 
the meetings are more acceptable on this view than a Seattle resident heading to work, due their position in the 
relevant power hierarchy. 

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potential insofar as its challenges or upsets power relations that are incompatible with 
democracy’s requirement for relative political equality. The second conception or use of direct 
action can be defended on democratic grounds insofar as it opens up space for people to 
be(come) political actors and exercise the political freedom to shape their world. If disruptive 
direct action is about 
reconfiguring
power vertically, then prefigurative direct action is about 
creating
power horizontally.