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

IV. The Democratic Potential of Disruptive Direct Action 
Having outlined the practice of direct action within anarchist praxis, I now shift my focus 
toward its democratic potential. In this section, I argue that disruptive direct action – 
interventions on the established order that attempt to temporarily interrupt or permanently halt 
the operations of existing authorities – can bolster democracy and constitute an important 
democratic practice. First, using Iris Marion Young’s critique of Habermas, I show why 
disruptive direct actions in the context of power inequalities, help to foster democracy.
However, I argue that Young remains wedded to a communicative framework and, as a result, 
sees such disruptions in overly dialogical terms – as correctives to flawed deliberative 
institutions and ideals – rather than as (also) enactments of collective power. I then use Francis 
Fox Piven’s argument about the role disruptive or interdependent power in enabling the 
demos
to 
attain 
kratia
throughout American history, as a way of reading Jacques Ranciere’s work on the 
role of disruption and intervention as the essential democratic acts. Ultimately, I contend that 
this conception of disruptive action highlights power over communication and, as such, provides 
an alternative to the communicative politics critiqued by Dean above.
 

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125 
Young’s Critique of Habermas: Structural Inequality and Disruptive Communication 
Habermas (1996, 490) states that a “political culture that is egalitarian, divested of all 
educational privilege, and thoroughly intellectual” is the prerequisite for his theory of 
deliberative democracy. In this sense, Habermas is engaged in ideal theory and attempts to 
formulate a regulative ideal that democratic societies ought to strive for. While this is no doubt a 
worthy project, it is a mistake to take the prescriptions for civic action in an ideal society as 
wholly adequate for existing contemporary democracies. Unlike Habermas, Young attempts to 
elaborate a non-ideal theory of deliberative democracy. As Young (2000, 17) rightly points out: 
“ours is not the ideal society.” More specifically, she holds that all actually existing democracies 
are characterized by structural inequalities – “for example, inequalities of wealth, social and 
economic power, access to knowledge, status, work expectations…[that] produce or perpetuate 
institutional conditions which support domination or inhibit self-development” (
ibid.
34). In a 
truly egalitarian culture and political economy, the open exchange and debate of competing 
ideas, guided by public reason, may well foster a most ideal democracy. Indeed, the “practices 
of deliberative democracy…aim to bracket the influence of power differentials in political 
outcomes because agreement between deliberators should be reached on the basis of argument, 
rather than as a result of threat or force” (Young 2001, 672).
However, as Young has demonstrated, it is not possible to simply “bracket” power 
differentials in the context of structural inequality. When asymmetries of power characterize the 
relationship between different individuals and organizations – a condition which holds in all real-
world political communities – the mere presence of diverse discourses and means of 
communicating about them does not constitute democracy. The most well-founded and 
convincing discourses do not triumph in such a context, nor necessarily do the most popular. 

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126 
Habermas’ (1996, 306) “unforced force of the better argument” is no force at all. In inequitable 
contexts, the discourses that guide public policy are those with the most power behind them – 
whether that power is rooted in military force or financial flows. Moreover, there is certainly no 
guarantee that the decisions will reflect the interests or wishes of the citizens who participate in 
these dialogues, nor their reasoned judgments about what constitutes the strongest arguments. In 
such contexts, the normal processes of decision-making – even if they are formally democratic – 
are likely to reinforce inequalities insofar as “privileged people are able to marginalize the voices 
and issues of those less privileged” (
ibid
. 34).
22
Habermas is aware that there is a tension 
between his ideal theory, on the one hand, and the very real operations of power in the real 
world, on the other. He acknowledges that he must explain “how this procedural concept [the 
discourse approach to democracy], so freighted with idealizations, can link up with empirical 
investigations that conceive politics primarily as arena of power processes” (Habermas 1996, 
287). In my view, however, he does not carry this investigation through.
In contrast, Young has argued persuasively that disruptive actions have a role in a viable 
theory of “communicative democracy” (Young 1996, 132) and is to be commended for aiming to 
“foreground the virtues of nondeliberative political practices” (2001, 670). She argues that 
“disorderliness is an important tool of critical communication aimed at calling attention to the 
unreasonableness of others” (2000, 49). And, further, “disorderly, disruptive, annoying, or 
distracting means of communication are often necessary or effective elements in…efforts to 
engage others in debate over issues and outcomes” (