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

 
 
 
 

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CHAPTER FOUR 
 
NETWORK DEMOCRACY: 
COORDINATION WITHOUT CONSENSUS, ACTION WITHOUT AGREEMENT
 
I. From “The People” to “The Multitude” 
In the previous chapter, I argued for the democratic potential of direct action. Direct 
action is fundamentally an enactment of political power. My aim in this chapter is to 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 (as I argued in the previous chapter), I would like to think about networks as the 
organizational framework that enables these relatively autonomous and local practices to fit 
together in a much larger, yet still 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 can function to 
both disperse power and to make self-governance possible without creating new forms of 
sovereignty. Putting this and the previous chapter together, direct action and networked 
organization are meant as the building blocks, or the basic matter, that constitutes a non-
sovereign democracy.
Since my objective is to develop an account of democracy separated from sovereignty, 
for “the people” is a problematic lens through which to elaborate its constitutive practices. As 
Hardt and Negri (2004. 79) put it: “‘The people’ is a form of sovereignty contending to replace 

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the ruling state authority and take power…the phrase serves merely as a pretense to validate a 
ruling authority.” In other words, there is a deep connection between the concept of “the people” 
and the concept of “sovereignty.” Beyond their connection to the legitimation of state power, 
both “the people” and “the sovereign” depend on, or assume, a basic unity – and it is precisely 
this unity which the practices of direct action and networked organization are meant to resist.
[O]ne of the recurring truths of political philosophy is that only the one can rule, 
be it the monarch, the party, the people, or the individual; social subjects that are 
not unified and remain multiple cannot rule and instead must be ruled. Every 
sovereign power, in other words, necessarily forms a 
political body
of which there 
is a head that commands, limbs that obey, and organs that function together to 
support the ruler (
ibid
. 100). 
Moreover, as I discuss in more detail below, contemporary concerns about diversity and 
pluralism make unitary concepts such as “the people” deeply problematic insofar as they quash 
or gloss over the real differences that characterize the political world. In short, “the people” is a 
fallacious concept – such unity does not, in fact, exist. Partly as a result of these concerns, there 
has been a shift away from the centrality of “the people” in democratic theory and an effort to 
pluralize “the people.” Bohman (2007), for instance, has argued for a shift from “from 
demos 
to