Prefigurative Democracy Av Mathijs Van De Sande

Introduces the key aspects of a theoretical debate on prefigurative politics and contemporary protest movements Develops a theory of prefigurative democracy as a way of thinking critically about contemporary protest movements Engages with the work of various radical political theorists, such as Arendt, Laclau and Mouffe and (post-)anarchist theory Combines an analysis of activist practices with both state-of-the-art and canonical radical theory In 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