Mathijs van de Sande – författare

In the 72 days of its existence, the Paris Commune of 1871 was a political and social laboratory where Parisians would experiment with radically democratic urban self-government. Various radical theorists and traditions have claimed the Commune as their own: from the well-known account of Karl Marx and Lenin’s State and Revolution to the anarchists Mikhail Bakunin or Peter Kropotkin, and from the council communists in Germany around the end of the Great War to the soixante-huitards in France.In Communalism as a Democratic Repertoire Gaard Kets and Mathijs van de Sande bring together historians, sociologists, political scientists, theorists, and philosophers to reconstruct how "the Commune" has continued to serve as a source of inspiration to different movements and tendencies throughout the past 150 years, and how communalist thought and practices help us reimagine what radical democracy may look like today. Divided into three parts, contributors begin by exploring how the Paris Commune shaped political debates and influenced various theoretical oeuvres as well as political practices. Part II develops communalist ideas or strategies in a contemporary context. Part III sheds light on three different contemporary communalist practices in the Middle East, Europe, North America, and Latin America.Bridging the gap between historical and theoretical accounts of "the Commune," this book will be enlightening for students of democracy and a valuable resource to scholars and activists interested in the problems and possibilities facing democracy today.

This volume traces the roots of the constructivist turn in the distinct (and competing) traditions of Continental and Anglo-American Western political thought. Divided into three thematic parts, these 13 newly commissioned essays develop the constructivist turn as a central concept. They advance the insight that there can be no democratic politics without representation; constituencies or groups exist as agents of democratic politics only insofar as they are represented.

This volume traces the roots of the constructivist turn in the distinct (and competing) traditions of Continental and Anglo-American Western political thought. Divided into three thematic parts, these 13 newly commissioned essays develop the constructivist turn as a central concept. They advance the insight that there can be no democratic politics without representation; constituencies or groups exist as agents of democratic politics only insofar as they are represented.

Introduces the key aspects of a theoretical debate on prefigurative politics and contemporary protest movementsDevelops a theory of prefigurative democracy as a way of thinking critically about contemporary protest movementsEngages with the work of various radical political theorists, such as Arendt, Laclau and Mouffe and (post-)anarchist theoryCombines an analysis of activist practices with both state-of-the-art and canonical radical theoryIn the wake of protest movements such as Occupy Wall Street and the Spanish 15-M movement, the past decade has seen an increased interest in prefigurative politics: the attempt of activists to already realise or embody their ideal of a future society within their own movements and practices. Engaging with the concept and its history, this book establishes a radical-democratic theory of prefiguration. Van de Sande builds on the work of political theorists as diverse as Hannah Arendt, Ernesto Laclau, Claude Lefort, Rosa Luxemburg, and Judith Butler to reveal the radical and representative role of protest and social movements today. He gives various accounts of how prefigurative practices and movements may continue to have political relevance long after they have ended.