Call for Papers
UK Political Studies Association 64th Annual International Conference
14-16 April 2014
Manchester, UK
Panel Session 5: Anarchism and Radical Democracy (http://www.psa.ac.uk/conference/2014-conference/schedule/2014-04-15)
Conference Website: http://www.psa.ac.uk/conference/2014-conference
As a result of the withdrawal of one of the panel members (Carl Levy) there is now a vacancy for one further paper presenter on the panel ‘Anarchism and Radical Democracy’ at the PSA Annual Conference ‘Rebels and Radicals’ in Manchester in April. Paper proposals are welcome on any aspect of the history, theory, or utopian possibilities of the relationship between anarchism and radical democracy, though we are particularly interested in a paper with a strong historical focus. If you would like to present on the panel please send an expression of interest to Laurence Davis (ldavis@oceanfree.net or l.davis@ucc.ie) as soon as possible, and in any case no later than 7th February.
Details of the panel are as follows:
Anarchism and Radical Democracy
Room:
Chester
Time Slot:
Tuesday 15th April 09:00 - 10:30
Panel Chair:
Dr Laurence Davis (University College Cork)
Panel Members:
Dr Laurence Davis (University College Cork)
Professor Carl Levy (Goldsmiths, University of London)
Dr Uri Gordon (Loughborough University)
Anarchism is one of the vital impulses of contemporary radical politics. A heterodox way of seeing and being in the world that provides an ideological framework for understanding and acting upon some of the most pressing problems of our times, it is currently thriving in the decentralised networks of the global Occupy and European Indignado movements, world-wide anti-austerity and anti-capitalist mobilisations, interconnected alter-globalisation struggles from Latin America to Asia and Africa and the Middle East, deep green ecological and climate justice campaigns led by small farmers and indigenous peoples in the global South, and countless experiments in co-operative production and distribution, alternative media and art, and collective living. It has also played a major part in what might be termed the on-going ‘democratisation of democracy’ by grassroots social movements, entailing a qualitative shift in the meaning of democracy away from its dominant form – in which rule by the people is practiced through achieving mass consent to be governed over – towards a more radical participatory form in which rule by the people is practiced through efforts to achieve mass self-government in all areas of life.
In this panel we explore the history, theory, and utopian possibilities of the relationship between anarchism and radical democracy. Carl Levy does so by re-examining the legacy of C. Wright Mills, in particular his engagement with participatory democracy, which was the backbone of the New Left of the 1960s before its Leninist decline. Uri Gordon, in turn, challenges the association between anarchism and democracy which has come to carry wide currency within contemporary radical movements. More specifically, his purpose is to encourage anarchists to abandon the legacy of constitutionalist sovereignty which continues to influence their thinking. Finally, Laurence Davis examines the ‘grounded utopian’ possibilities inherent in the relationship between anarchism and radical democracy, arguing that contemporary anarchist ideology offers a transformative utopian vision of democracy that is rooted in real-world possibilities, and which thus serves to propel contemporary social movements towards a utopian horizon both radical and eminently realisable.
[Cross-posted, with thanks, from RA-L]