DOCSLIB.ORG

Prefigurative Politics: Perils and Promise Phd Dissertation

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Prefigurative Politics: Perils and Promise Phd Dissertation SCHOOL OF POLITICS AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, THE UNIVERSITY OF KENT Prefigurative Politics: Perils and Promise PhD Dissertation Juuso V.M. Miettunen 19 August 2015 102,291 Words 246 Pages Abstract. Many recent social movements have been characterised by their commitment to direct democratic decision-making procedures and leaderless, non-hierarchic organizational structures. This political tendency also implies the search for autonomy from existing political institutions and practises. Movements seek instead to embody in the political action itself the social relations, ways of collective decision-making and values that are ultimately desired for the whole society. This prefigurative approach to social change is often criticized for being naiive or marginal. This thesis argues first that this is not the case, but that prefigurative politics is misunderstood due to its differing view on questions of strategy, organisation and ultimately the possibility of fundamental societal change. The dissertation first outlines the often implicit strategy or vision of change underpinning prefigurative politics. It then identifies as the key challenge for prefigurative movements their ability to avoid reproducing oppressive forms of power, ‗power-over.‘ This understudied aspect is investigated through extensive ethnographic field research with the unemployed workers movement, MTD Lanús in Buenos Aires, and the Zapatista movement in Mexico. The thesis concludes that it seems impossible to completely avoid reproducing old forms of power. Often key individuals in the movements end up in a paradoxical position whereby, in an effort to ensure the group‘s prefigurative nature, these individuals enjoy non-prefigurative influence. The findings imply that the state and corresponding political forms and practises are not the only source of hierarchic pressures. As such, it would be more useful to view prefigurative political action as desirable, yet impossible. Juuso V.M. Miettunen Prefigurative Politics Contents Contents ....................................................................................................................................... 1 Abbreviations ............................................................................................................................... 4 Introduction ........................................................................................................................................... 1 Context ......................................................................................................................................... 2 Structure of the thesis ................................................................................................................... 7 What is at stake? ........................................................................................................................ 11 Chapter 1. Autonomism as a strategy for social change ................................................................. 13 Definitions .................................................................................................................................. 15 Social movement ......................................................................................................... 15 Prefiguration ............................................................................................................... 18 The nature of autonomous movements ...................................................................................... 20 Divisions within the ‗alter-globalization‘ movement ................................................. 20 Autonomist notions of power, revolution and revolutionary subjectivity .................. 23 Autonomism and subjectivity ..................................................................................... 25 The concept of autonomy ........................................................................................................... 26 Theory of John Holloway .......................................................................................................... 31 Open Marxism and the context of Holloway‘s theory ................................................ 32 To Change the World without Taking Power – Social change according to Holloway .................................................................................................................................... 34 Autonomism as strategy ............................................................................................................. 40 Challenges to autonomism ......................................................................................................... 42 External challenges ..................................................................................................... 42 Internal challenges ...................................................................................................... 44 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................. 49 Chapter 2. Social movement theory and Autonomism .................................................................... 50 Part 1. North American social movement theories .................................................................... 51 Resource and Opportunities ........................................................................................ 51 Political Opportunity Structures (POS) ...................................................................... 52 The ‗cultural turn‘ and framing approaches ................................................................ 53 Part 2. Prefiguration and (American) social movement theory .................................................. 55 Autonomous movements and ‗free spaces‘ ................................................................ 60 Part 3. New Social movement theory ......................................................................................... 62 Prefiguration and NSM - Critique of new social movement theory ........................... 64 Self-limiting radicalism and ‗life-style‘ politics – the ‗retreatist‘ assumption ........... 67 Part 4. Social movements and ‗success‘ .................................................................................... 69 Conclusion .................................................................................................................. 71 Chapter 3. Challenges to autonomism and the methodological approach for studying them ..... 74 Introduction ................................................................................................................. 74 Part one – tensions and challenges for prefiguring alternative social relations ......................... 75 Informal elites and the ‗Iron Law of Oligarchy‘ ......................................................... 76 Deliberative democracy and focus of group decision-making in prefigurative movements .................................................................................................................. 81 Two-phase approach to case studies .......................................................................................... 85 Part two. A methodological approach to studying autonomous movements ............................. 86 Case selection ............................................................................................................. 87 Method – strengths ...................................................................................................... 89 Part three. Challenges of the method ......................................................................................... 95 Access ......................................................................................................................... 95 Validity through reflexivity ........................................................................................ 96 Representativeness ...................................................................................................... 97 Research and power – the ethics of ethnography ........................................................ 98 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................... 102 Chapter 4. Zapatismo and the challenges of autonomism............................................................. 103 The importance of Zapatismo ................................................................................... 105 Part 1. Material and political origins of Zapatismo .................................................................. 106 Rich land, poor people .............................................................................................. 107 Land .......................................................................................................................... 107 Neoliberalism and the end of land reform ................................................................ 108 Revolution and PRI Rule .......................................................................................... 109 Past movements ........................................................................................................ 111 ‗Community in arms‘ – or, when Marcos met Moises ............................................. 115 From 1994 to current moment – changes and challenges ......................................... 117 Potential problems of prefiguring Zapatista autonomy
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Anarcho-Communists, Platformism, and Dual Power Innovation Or Travesty?
    The Anarchist Library (Mirror) Anti-Copyright Anarcho-Communists, Platformism, and Dual Power Innovation or Travesty? Lawrence Jarach Lawrence Jarach Anarcho-Communists, Platformism, and Dual Power Innovation or Travesty? www.geocities.com from Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed usa.anarchistlibraries.net power discourse is concerned with government, with how to cre- ate and maintain a set of institutions that can pull the allegiance of the governed away from the existing state. Unless the partisans of dual power have worked out a radically different understand- ing of what power is, where its legitimacy comes from, how it is Contents maintained, and — more importantly — how anarchists can possi- bly exercise it within a framework that is historically statist, the discussion of “anarchist dual power” is a mockery of the anarchist What is “anarchist dual power”? .............. 8 principle of being against government. Love & Rage and the influence and legacy of Leninism . 13 18 3 rity, a curio from anarchist history, something to titillate the trivia- minded. What made it worth rediscovering? The anarcho-communism of the Platformists is eerily similar to the authoritarian communism of various Leninist gangs. From a cursory examination of their published rhetoric, it is difficult not to conclude that they have taken the “successful” aspects of a Lenin- ist program, a Leninist vision, and Lenino-Maoist organizing, and more or less removed or modified the vocabulary of the more ob- viously statist parts. The promoters of this hybridized anarchism — should it be called anarcho-Leninism? — draw on the Platform the same way that the writers of the Platform drew on Leninism.
    [Show full text]
  • © 2008 Claudia Villegas Delgado ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
    © 2008 Claudia Villegas Delgado ALL RIGHTS RESERVED PRODUCING A ‘SPACE OF DIGNITY’. KNITTING TOGETHER SPACE AND DIGNITY IN THE EZLN REBELLION IN MEXICO by CLAUDIA VILLEGAS DELGADO A Dissertation submitted to the Graduate School-New Brunswick Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Program in Geography written under the direction of Neil Smith and approved by ________________________ ________________________ ________________________ ________________________ New Brunswick, New Jersey January, 2008 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Producing a ‘Space of Dignity’. Knitting together Space and Dignity in the EZLN Rebellion in Mexico by CLAUDIA VILLEGAS DELGADO Dissertation Director: Neil Smith I explore the production of new political, cultural and economic spaces (including the Zapatista Rebel Territory, Rebel Autonomous Municipalities, Caracoles and Juntas) constructed by the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN), an indigenous rebellion in the Mexican state of Chiapas that rose up against the government on January 1, 1994. These spaces are articulated as a symbol of and material basis for sustaining the long- term resistance begun by the EZLN to demand a ‘space of dignity’ for the indigenous peoples. Based on the major stages in the EZLN’s political practice from 1994 to 2003 —the Declarations of the Lacandona Jungle, the declaration of the Zapatista Rebel Territory, and current phase of Good Government— I discuss further how a ‘space of dignity’ can be conceptually defined, how it can be socially produced, and how it can be a means for social transformation. My approach to the Zapatista struggle sheds a light not only on the resulting relationships between space, dignity and resistance, but it looks forward to the meaning ii these concepts and relationships have for understanding the nature of the Zapatista rebellion and the contribution of this experience within the larger context of the production of space in capitalism.
    [Show full text]
  • The Marxist Vol
    The Marxist Vol. XII, No. 4, October-December 1996 On the occasion of Lenin’s 125th Birth Anniversary Marxism Of The Era Of Imperialism E M S Namboodiripad The theoretical doctrines and revolutionary practices of Vladymir Illyich Lenin (whose 125th birth anniversary was recently observed by the Marxist-Leninists throughout the world), have well been called “Marxism of the Era of imperialism.” For, not only was Lenin a loyal disciple of Marx and Engels applying in practice their theory in his own homeland, but he also further developed the theory and practices of the two founders of Marxism. EARLY THEORETICAL BATTLES Born in Tsarist Russia which was seeped in its feudal environment, he noticed that capitalism was slowly developing in his country. He fought the Narodniks who advocated the doctrine of the irrelevance and no-applicability of Marxism to Russian conditions. His first major theoretical work was the Development of Capitalism in Russia where he proved that, though in feudal environment, capitalism was rapidly developing in Russia. He thus established the truth of Marxist theory of the working class being the major political force in the development of society. Further, an alliance of peasantry under working class leadership will form the core of the revolutionary forces in the conditions of backward feudal Russia. Having thus defeated the Narodniks, he proceeded to demolish the theory of “legal Marxists” according to whom Marxism was to be applies in perfectly legal battles against capitalism. He asserted the truth that the preparation for the social transformation in Russia should be based on the sharpening class struggle culminating in the proletarian revolution.
    [Show full text]
  • La Comandantacomandanta
    LaLa ComandantaComandanta ¡Que se vayaN a la chingada los coPyrights! Producido por el BibliotekA LibeRtario de Irvine http://irvineinfoshop.wordpress.com irvineinfoshop (A) riseup.net La ley revolucionaria de mujeres Por un lado, estas En su justa lucha por la liberación de cooperativas son una nuestro pueblo, el EZLN incorpora a las forma de que las mujeres mujeres en la lucha revolucionaria sin reclamen el derecho a importar su raza, credo, color o filiación controlar sus propios política, con el único requisito de hacer medios de producción. Es suyas las demandas del pueblo explotado y su importante, sin embargo, compromiso a cumplir y hacer cumplir las comprender que la leyes y reglamentos de la revolución. creación de estos Además, tomando en cuenta la situación de la colectivos, Aunque ponen Foto: D.R. 2007 Jesús Domínguez mujer trabajadora en México, se incorporan los frutos del trabajo de sus justas demandas de igualdad y justicia regreso a las manos de quien lo produce, y estimulan la vida en la siguiente LEY REVOLUCIONARIA DE pública de las mujeres indígenas, son también un recordatorio MUJERES: de cómo a las mujeres todavía se les pide que añadan trabajo Primera.- Las mujeres, sin importar su raza, extra a sus días, para mantener a la familia. Donde la familia credo o filiación política tienen derecho a fue una vez capaz de proveerse para ella misma de lo que todos participar en la lucha revolucionaria en el necesitaban, ahora se necesita un ingreso adicional para lugar y grado que su voluntad y capacidad proporcionarse hasta lo más básico.
    [Show full text]
  • Thoughts on Libertarian Municipalism
    Thoughts on Libertarian Municipalism Murray Bookchin Age, chronic illnesses, and the summer heat oblige me to remain at home—hence I am very sorry that I cannot participate in your conference on libertarian municipalism. I would like, however— thanks to Janet Biehl, who will read these remarks—to welcome you to Vermont and to wish you well during the course of your discussions over the next three days. Some issues have recently arisen in discussions of libertarian municipalism, and I would like to offer my views on them. One of the most important involves the distinction that should be drawn between libertarian municipalism and communitarianism, a distinction that is often lost in discussions of politics. Communitarianism By communitarianism, I refer to movements and ideologies that seek to transform society by creating so-called alternative economic and living situations such as food cooperatives, health centers, schools, printing workshops, community centers, neighborhood farms, “squats,” unconventional lifestyles, and the like. Allowing for the works of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, the notable spokespersons of communitarianism have been Martin Buber, Harry Boyte, and Colin Ward, among many others. The word communitarian is often interchangeable with the word cooperative, a form of production and exchange that is attractive because the work is not only amiably collective but worker-controlled or worker-managed. At most, communitarianism seeks to gently edge social development away from privately owned enterprises—banks, corporations, supermarkets, factories, and industrial systems of agriculture —and the lifeways to which they give rise, into collectively owned enterprises and values. It does not seek to create a power center that will overthrow capitalism; it seeks rather to outbid it, outprice it, or outlast it, often by presenting a moral obstacle to the greed and evil that many find in a bourgeois economy.
    [Show full text]
  • At-Large Delegate Candidate Elections Packet
    At-Large Delegate Candidate Elections Packet Voting is Open for DSA At-Large Delegates to the 2019 National Convention! Click here to vote ​ ​ How does voting work? There are 100 open positions for at-large delegates. We encourage you to read over the candidate bios and then to rank the candidates in order of your preference. Top Choice = 1, Second choice = 2, Third choice = 3, etc. This is a Borda style election. In a Borda election you have the option to rank all of the candidates. Your votes will be weighted so that your top choice has the most weight and last choice has the least weight. Although you can, you do not have to rank all of the candidates. For example, if you only like 10 of the candidates, you can choose to only include those people 1-10 and leave out the rest. You can find more information on Borda elections here Who can vote in the At-Large Delegate election? An At-Large DSA member is any member who does not belong to a chapter and who is current on their ​ ​ dues as of May 6th 2019 (or has made arrangements for the National Office to waive their dues). Based ​ ​ on DSA’s National Constitution and Bylaws, members of Organizing Committees are also considered At-Large Members of DSA. How do I find my voting code? If you receive DSA emails, your code was emailed to you on May 13. If you have opted out of DSA emails, or if we do not have a working email associated with your membership, your voting code was sent via paper mailing on May 13.
    [Show full text]
  • Bookchin's Libertarian Municipalism
    BOOKCHIN’S LIBERTARIAN MUNICIPALISM Janet BIEHL1 ABSTRACT: The purpose of this article is to present the Libertarian Municipalism Theory developed by Murray Bookchin. The text is divided into two sections. The first section presents the main precepts of Libertarian Municipalism. The second section shows how Bookchin’s ideas reached Rojava in Syria and is influencing the political organization of the region by the Kurds. The article used the descriptive methodology and was based on the works of Murray Bookchin and field research conducted by the author over the years. KEYWORDS: Murray Bookchin. Libertarian Municipalism. Rojava. Introduction The lifelong project of the American social theorist Murray Bookchin (1921-2006) was to try to perpetuate the centuries-old revolutionary socialist tradition. Born to socialist revolutionary parents in the Bronx, New York, he joined the international Communist movement as a Young Pioneer in 1930 and trained to become a young commissar for the coming proletarian revolution. Impatient with traditional secondary education, he received a thoroughgoing education in Marxism-Leninism at the Workers School in lower Manhattan, immersing himself in dialectical materialism and the labor theory of value. But by the time Stalin’s Soviet Union formed a pact with Nazi Germany (in the sum- mer of 1939), he cut his ties with the party to join the Trotskyists, who expected World War II to end in international proletarian revolutions. When the war 1 Janet Biehl is an American political writer who is the author of numerous books and articles associated with social ecology, the body of ideas developed and publicized by Murray Bookchin.
    [Show full text]
  • Agrarian Anarchism and Authoritarian Populism: Towards a More (State-)Critical ‘Critical Agrarian Studies’
    The Journal of Peasant Studies ISSN: 0306-6150 (Print) 1743-9361 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/fjps20 Agrarian anarchism and authoritarian populism: towards a more (state-)critical ‘critical agrarian studies’ Antonio Roman-Alcalá To cite this article: Antonio Roman-Alcalá (2020): Agrarian anarchism and authoritarian populism: towards a more (state-)critical ‘critical agrarian studies’, The Journal of Peasant Studies, DOI: 10.1080/03066150.2020.1755840 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/03066150.2020.1755840 © 2020 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group Published online: 20 May 2020. Submit your article to this journal Article views: 3209 View related articles View Crossmark data Citing articles: 4 View citing articles Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=fjps20 THE JOURNAL OF PEASANT STUDIES https://doi.org/10.1080/03066150.2020.1755840 FORUM ON AUTHORITARIAN POPULISM AND THE RURAL WORLD Agrarian anarchism and authoritarian populism: towards a more (state-)critical ‘critical agrarian studies’* Antonio Roman-Alcalá International Institute of Social Studies, The Hague, Netherlands ABSTRACT KEYWORDS This paper applies an anarchist lens to agrarian politics, seeking to Anarchism; authoritarian expand and enhance inquiry in critical agrarian studies. populism; critical agrarian Anarchism’s relevance to agrarian processes is found in three studies; state theory; social general areas: (1) explicitly anarchist movements, both historical movements; populism; United States of America; and contemporary; (2) theories that emerge from and shape these moral economy movements; and (3) implicit anarchism found in values, ethics, everyday practices, and in forms of social organization – or ‘anarchistic’ elements of human social life.
    [Show full text]
  • Towards a Unified Theory Analysing Workplace Ideologies: Marxism And
    Marxism and Racial Oppression: Towards a Unified Theory Charles Post (City University of New York) Half a century ago, the revival of the womens movementsecond wave feminismforced the revolutionary left and Marxist theory to revisit the Womens Question. As historical materialists in the 1960s and 1970s grappled with the relationship between capitalism, class and gender, two fundamental positions emerged. The dominant response was dual systems theory. Beginning with the historically correct observation that male domination predates the emergence of the capitalist mode of production, these theorists argued that contemporary gender oppression could only be comprehended as the result of the interaction of two separate systemsa patriarchal system of gender domination and the capitalist mode of production. The alternative approach emerged from the debates on domestic labor and the predominantly privatized character of the social reproduction of labor-power under capitalism. In 1979, Lise Vogel synthesized an alternative unitary approach that rooted gender oppression in the tensions between the increasingly socialized character of (most) commodity production and the essentially privatized character of the social reproduction of labor-power. Today, dual-systems theory has morphed into intersectionality where distinct systems of class, gender, sexuality and race interact to shape oppression, exploitation and identity. This paper attempts to begin the construction of an outline of a unified theory of race and capitalism. The paper begins by critically examining two Marxian approaches. On one side are those like Ellen Meiksins Wood who argued that capitalism is essentially color-blind and can reproduce itself without racial or gender oppression. On the other are those like David Roediger and Elizabeth Esch who argue that only an intersectional analysis can allow historical materialists to grasp the relationship of capitalism and racial oppression.
    [Show full text]
  • A Journal for and About Social Movements Vol 12 Issue 2
    Interface A journal for and about social movements Vol 12 Issue 2 www.interfacejournal.net Interface: a journal for and about social movements Contents Volume 21 (2): i – iii (Dec 2020) Interface volume 12 issue 2 Open issue Interface: a journal for and about social movements Volume 12 issue 2 (December 2020) ISSN 2009 – 2431 Editorial Open issue Laurence Cox (pp. 1 – 4) Call for papers Call for papers volume 13 issue 2 (EN) Rising up against institutional racism in the Americas and beyond (pp. 5 - 11) Convocatoria vol. 13 no. 2 (ES) Los levantamientos contra el racismo institucional en las Américas (y más allá) (pp. 12 - 18) General pieces Kyoko Tominaga Protest journey: the practices of constructing activist identity to choose and define the right type of activism (peer-reviewed article, pp. 19 – 41) Márcio Bustamante and Bruno M. Fiuza Autonomist political culture in Brazil and the Peoples’ Global Action Oral History Project (peer-reviewed article, pp. 42 – 69) Jonathan Langdon, Kofi Larweh and Wilna Quarmyne “E yeo ngo” (Do they eat salt?) Learning in a movement from a 5 year PAR study of the Ada Songor Advocacy Forum, a social movement in Ghana (peer-reviewed article, pp. 70 – 86) Régis Coursin (FR) Le sommet du G7 dans Charlevoix, 2018: résistances et subalternités locales, de l’évènement à la longue durée (peer-reviewed article, pp. 87 – 120) Björn Herold and Margaux DeBarros “It’s not just an occupation, it’s our home!” The politics of everyday life in a long-term occupation in Cape Town and their effects on movement development (peer-reviewed article, pp.
    [Show full text]
  • Who Is Comandanta Ramona?
    Who is Comandanta Ramona? A frail, peasant woman-turned-revolutionary, has now become a role model and beacon of hope to millions of Mexican women, particularly the indigenous people of Chiapas. by Terry Wolfwood (Third World Resurgence No. 84, August 1997) TOURISTS visiting San Cristobal de las Casas, the picturesque old colonial town of the Chiapas highlands, are often besieged by street vendors selling local handicrafts. Many sellers will be offering Ramona Dolls. Cloth dolls of women dressed in local indigenous dress have always been staples of these vendors, but the Ramona Doll is a new version, a peasant woman, wearing a black balaclava or a red bandana to hide her face, carrying a gun, a baby or both. My favourite is Ramona on horseback. Comandanta Ramona of the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) is the model for these figures; the male version is of Sub-commandante Marcos. Ramona is a Tzotzil, one of the many indigenous groups that form the majority of Chiapas citizens. She is part of the Clandestine Revolutionary Indigenous Committee that directs the EZLN. Subcomandante Marcos, the leader that the Western media and the Mexican government have singled out for attention and 'stardom', speaks publicly for the EZLN as directed by this committee. The EZLN uprising on 1 January, 1994 took Mexico and the world by surprise. Nobody expected poor peasants to organise brilliant military manoeuvres, let alone organise thousands of peasants marginalised by centuries of poverty, isolation and illiteracy - at least in Spanish - into an instantly world famous liberation force that understood the effects of NAFTA on all the poor of Mexico; that NAFTA would lead to loss of their communal lands, sustainable self-sufficient agriculture and any form of self-government and cultural integrity.
    [Show full text]
  • Rethinking Property, Money and Banking
    Rethinking Property, Money and Banking: Social Ownership, Self-Management and Mutuality in the Anarchist Economy Carlota Moreno Villar ​(11063556) University of Amsterdam MSc Thesis Political Science (International Relations) Word count: ​23761 Date: June 2020 Thesis group Alternatives to Capitalism: Models of Future Society Supervisor Dr. Annette Freyberg-Inan Second Reader Dr. Paul Raekstad 1 Abstract Capitalism is a social, political and economic system embedded in history which inherently creates inequality and oppressive social relations. The main sources of inequality and oppression in capitalism are private property and the monetary system —which fuel the process of accumulation— and the racial and colonial nature of capitalism. The focus of this thesis will be on private property and money. Money and monetary policy will be analysed from a heterodox sociological and historical perspective. The aim of this thesis will be to propose economic reforms that are conducive to the development of an alternative anarchist economy, incorporating insights from heterodox economic theory and grassroots economic experiments. The thesis will argue that the fundamental values of anarchism are equality, freedom and solidarity. Further, it will propose three principles of allocation that should guide an anarchist economy. Namely, self-management, mutuality and social ownership. The economic reforms that follow these principles, and which are conducive to the development of an anarchist economy, include the introduction of complementary currencies
    [Show full text]