The Horizon of Anarchy: Anarchism and contemporary radical thought

This paper explores the relevance of anarchism for current debates in continental radical political philosophy. It argues that anarchism – as a form of politics which proposes the abolition of state power – is the unacknowledged referent for radical politics today, and that contemporary thinkers such as Alain Badiou, Jacques Ranciere and Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, amongst others, must situate their own political thought in relation to the questions posed by anarchism. In particular, radical political thought today tends to converge around three configurations – politics beyond the state, political organisation beyond the party, and political subjectivity beyond class – thus pointing to the exhaustion of Marxism-Leninism and the need for new forms of egalitarian and libertarian forms of politics. Here, I argue that anarchism provides a more consistent way of theorising radical politics today.