The Politics of Postanarchism

This book explores the relevance of anarchism for contemporary politics. The author contends that this long neglected and almost heretical political philosophy is becoming increasingly central to radical struggles and movements today, especially in the wake of the collapse of the Marxist revolutionary projects and with the terminal decline of both social democracy and political liberalism. Here the author explores new directions for anti-authoritarian thought. Seeing anarchism as a politics of anti-politics, the author uses this paradox to formulate alternative ways of thinking about the place of the political, and the relationship between politics and ethics. Working at the intersections between anarchism and poststructuralism, the author frames a new approach to radical politics: 'postanarchism' – or anarchism without essential foundations. This original theoretical perspective – which draws upon classical anarchist thought, deconstruction, post-Marxism and psychoanalytic theory - allows for a renewed engagement with contemporary debates about future directions in radical politics. Postanarchism offers a distinct way of theorising a politics of emancipation, confronting central questions of the state domination, agency, ethics, democracy, social movements and the struggles taking place today on the terrain of globalisation.