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

participation in self-management rather than remain spectators. We can organize 
millions of initiatives, more fluidly, without having to go through committees 
easily dominated by ‘specialists.’ We don’t need others to dictate what we can do.
We are not satisfied with only one voice as the centralized assembly, because it’s 
hardly better than the daily silence of capitalism. We want a 
placa
full of voices, 
of assemblies, of conversations. We’re truly interested in the weaving of 
connections between everyone, but we’d like to do so in a different way: through 
solidarity of struggles and not the homogenization of ideas (CrimethInc. 2011). 
In this vision, the direct actions of individuals and groups – the ability to “launch initiatives 
without going through a centralized” body that authorizes those actions – can contribute to the 
enactment of a collective project, without requiring consensus, agreement, or even a decision 
among all of its constituent parts. This is a model of “emergence” in action. 
I like to think about this process of coordination through the analogy of the 
flocking 
behavior of birds in the flight or the 
swarming
behavior of insects. Both of these flying masses 

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demonstrate a high degree of coordination in the absence of any centralized direction. Rather 
than being directed by a single bird or a single insect, they operate through observance of basic 
“local rules”: don’t run into or crowd your neighbor, but follow the average direction of those 
around you. The flock or the swarm operates through basic feedback, responding to the 
movement of birds around them – moving this way, moving that way, based on the actions of 
others. A network democracy in the context of an occupation operates in this same way. If one 
group is handling something – collecting and/or preparing food for the group, cleaning up trash, 
mediating disputes, planning marches, and so on – you can focus efforts elsewhere. If the group 
that is handling one of those tasks is doing a terrible job at it, then nothing prevents you from 
organizing your own efforts to do it better: if Group B, always has better food than Group A, or 
if Group 2 always organizes better marches, than Group 1, the decentralized patterns of attraction 
and repulsion will lead the group in a particular direction without the group ever having to come 
together 
as a whole
and decide which direction to take.
In this way, I want to connect the practices of direct action and networks. If the core 
civic activity of “direct democracy” is attending and (perhaps) participating in a general 
assembly, the core civic activity of “network democracy” is participating (if one wants to) in 
direct action. The self-authorized direct actions of many decentralized and non-sovereign actors 
contribute to the enactment of a collective project. Rather than making a single decision about 
the direction of the collectivity, the constituent parts of that collectively shape their shared 
direction through their initiatives and projects. In short, in networks d
ecisions emerge through 
the direct actions
. In place of the traditional conception of direct democracy, a network 
democracy enables both multiplicity and decentralization, on the one hand, and effective 

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coordination and collective action, on the other. I take this to constitute a radical alternative to 
both representative and direct democracy. Plotke (1997, 27) argues:
‘Direct’ democracy is not precluded by the scale of modern politics, but because 
of core feature of democracy as such. This is true because democratic premises 
include sufficient autonomy for individuals to develop and sustain different 
preferences, including different preferences for political involvement, and because 
democratic forms include a commitment to reaching decisions. 
In critiquing the viability of direct democracy, Plotke means to argue that, as he puts it, 
“representation is democracy.” If the alternatives are between “representative” and “direct” 
democracy, then Plotke is right: democracy cannot help but be representative. Whereas Plotke 
sees this as evidence that all is well with representative democracy, I am inclined to side with the 
anti-authoritarians in Barcelona who argue instead that this confirms that both representative and
direct democracy are, essentially, authoritarian. However, combining the practices of direct 
action with networks enables a conception of democracy that is neither representative nor direct 
(in the traditional sense).
[The] rejection of representation…does not lead movement actors to the 
unrealistic conclusion that everyone must be involved in all decisions. Instead, 
the movement is in the process of creating a democratic system that would 
potentially allow for people to be as involved as they desire at all levels of 
decision-making (Maeckelbergh 2009, 225).
Through direct action and networked organization people can participate directly in politics 
when and how they want (or not at all), focusing on whatever issues, projects, or initiatives 
motivate them.