Ali Aslam is Visiting Lecturer in Politics at Mount Holyoke College.

"In an era of widespread political passivity and skepticism of the value of collective action, how can the structures of state and capital be made more democratic and more accountable to the people they impact? Through innovative readings of recent and ongoing grassroots activism-from Occupy Wall Street to Occupy Sandy, from Idle No More to Tahrir Square to Strike Debt-Ali Aslam gleans examples of how to rewire attachment to passivity and inaction throughmicropractices that generate new attachments to solidarity, sustainability, and democracy. Ordinary Democracy is essential reading for anyone concerned with revitalizing radical democracy in a neoliberalage."-Michaele L. Ferguson, author of Sharing Democracy"In Ordinary Democracy, political theorist Ali Aslam invites readers to appreciate ordinary citizens' capacity to exercise political power. Analyzing a broad array of social movements ranging from Occupy Wall Street to the Tahrir Square protests in Egypt to indigenous activism in Canada, Aslam offers us a global vision of democracy in which activists seek to both claim and critique state power. Revealing the democratic possibilities of Native AmericanRound Dancing, Islamic congregational prayer, flash mobs, poetry, documentary film, and amateur media, Ordinary Democracy shows us how democratic imaginaries are created and enacted. An erudite, inspiring, andthought-provoking book."-Cristina Beltrán, author of The Trouble with Unity: Latino Politics and the Creation of Identity

• AcknowledgmentsIntroductionChapter 1: Idleness is the ProblemChapter 2: Out of the OrdinaryChapter 3: Inspiring SolidarityChapter 4: Democracy and the StateChapter 5: Debt and SacrificeConclusionNotesWorks CitedIndex

Ali Aslam is Visiting Lecturer in Politics at Mount Holyoke College.

"In an era of widespread political passivity and skepticism of the value of collective action, how can the structures of state and capital be made more democratic and more accountable to the people they impact? Through innovative readings of recent and ongoing grassroots activism-from Occupy Wall Street to Occupy Sandy, from Idle No More to Tahrir Square to Strike Debt-Ali Aslam gleans examples of how to rewire attachment to passivity and inaction throughmicropractices that generate new attachments to solidarity, sustainability, and democracy. Ordinary Democracy is essential reading for anyone concerned with revitalizing radical democracy in a neoliberalage."-Michaele L. Ferguson, author of Sharing Democracy"In Ordinary Democracy, political theorist Ali Aslam invites readers to appreciate ordinary citizens' capacity to exercise political power. Analyzing a broad array of social movements ranging from Occupy Wall Street to the Tahrir Square protests in Egypt to indigenous activism in Canada, Aslam offers us a global vision of democracy in which activists seek to both claim and critique state power. Revealing the democratic possibilities of Native AmericanRound Dancing, Islamic congregational prayer, flash mobs, poetry, documentary film, and amateur media, Ordinary Democracy shows us how democratic imaginaries are created and enacted. An erudite, inspiring, andthought-provoking book."-Cristina Beltrán, author of The Trouble with Unity: Latino Politics and the Creation of Identity

• AcknowledgmentsIntroductionChapter 1: Idleness is the ProblemChapter 2: Out of the OrdinaryChapter 3: Inspiring SolidarityChapter 4: Democracy and the StateChapter 5: Debt and SacrificeConclusionNotesWorks CitedIndex