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practice. Whereas the former view understands the importance of social movements primarily in
terms of their external effects on law and policy, the latter understands
the importance of social
movements primarily in terms of their internal innovations – how they organize, communicate
and act together. This, of course, is not to say that social movements are necessarily democratic,
but rather that (some) social movements (some of the time) can be democratic – and,
occasionally, can be expressions of highly democratic impulses and innovators of radically
democratic practices. Since social movements have the capacity to engage in radical democracy,
theorists of radical democracy ought to incorporate insights from outside the academy, from
movement actors and movement practices themselves. As such, this research will position social
movements as relevant contributors to ongoing debates within democratic theory. In the second
half
of the dissertation, I employ the theoretical insights of social movement practices and use
these to inform debates within democratic theory – debates that, I believe can be improved by
considering such perspectives.
The methodology of moving from the politics of social movements to normative theory –
of using the rhetoric and practices of ‘non-theorists’ as a way of building theory – is by no means
without precedent. Young’s (1990)
Justice and the Politics of Difference
was an effort to critique
purely distributive theories of justice from the perspective of social movements who viewed
justice in terms of recognition and self-determination, while offering an account of justice that
seemed to align with the concern of social movement actors actually engaged
in struggles for
justice. Similarly, Schlosberg’s (2007, 5)
Defining Environmental Justice
brings “empirical
evidence and activist definitions to the attention of theorists of justice for their serious
consideration, and…offer[s] activists and movements a theoretical overview of the positions and
demands they express.” Moving from social movements’ rhetoric and practices has helped
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enrich the theoretical debates about the nature of justice. However, the usefulness of this
methodology applies beyond justice theory.
Scholars of radical democracy have often utilized real-world examples of grassroots
democratic organizing to amend, critique, or construct democratic theory. For example,
Apostolidis (2010) utilizes interviews with immigrant meatpackers
who engaged in a sustained
campaign to democratize their union and their workplace to suggest that immigrant workers have
something to “teach America about democracy.” Coles (2005, 213-237) discusses the radically
democratic politics of the Industrial Areas Foundation – specifically, its “continual movement of
meetings and members around the various neighborhoods and institutions of an urban area”
(
ibid.
225). He uses this research to cultivate the notion that democracy is better understood as
the act of “tabling” rather than a fixed and stable “table” that we all sit around. In other words,
radical democracy is best thought of not as a single, common public space, but as a diversity of
spaces that place people in contact with different types of
people and facilitate such
conversations. Though I sympathize with this notion, (and tabling no doubt captures an
important aspect of radical democracy), it does not capture well the radically democratic
aspiration that people actually exercise power, nor does it capture the raucous and fluid forms of
democracy that characterize protests and occupations. What metaphors might emerge if the focal
point was on the unruly practices that characterized the 2011 occupations? To the extent that
radical democracy is in conflict with the state-form, we need to better conceptualize what a non-
state democracy might look like.
Others have highlighted this tension between radical democracy and the state. In an
effort to highlight the conflict – and even danger – that is involved with
the creation of certain
public spheres, Kathy Ferguson (2010) utilizes writings and speeches from Emma Goldman and
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Alexander Berkman to develop an account of the formation of the first anarchist counterpublics
in the United States. Discussing a more contemporary social movement, Michaele Ferguson’s
(2012, 137-163)
Sharing Democracy
discusses the 2006 immigrant rights protests to show how
an inter-subjective process of self-authorization can enable the active exercise of political
freedom, even among people who are not formally considered citizens by the state. I focus on
(somewhat different) forms of self-authorized action in Chapter III. Finally, both Hardt and
Negri’s (2004)
Multitude
and Maeckelbergh’s (2009)
The Will of the Many
highlight the
alterglobalization movements’
networked structure, arguing that this form of organization has
the capacity to foster a truly grassroots transnational democracy – one that enables
communication and collective action , while still fostering difference and diversity. I focus on
this set of works and ideas in Chapter IV.
Broadly speaking, my project proceeds in the same
spirit, mobilizing insights from the more anarchic contemporary social movements in order to
develop insights in democratic theory.
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