Anarchist Studies |
Mirbeau's works provide an original and thought-provoking description of anarchist political culture. This article sets his thinking in its socio-cultural context of late nineteenth century and early twentieth century France, and argues that Mirbeau's works are worthy of greater attention. By concentrating on three 'autobiographical' novels, a model of the difficulties of anarchist politicization is constructed.
This paper argues that power (and the power of the state) is fundamentally concerned with persuasion and that this is interwoven with the production of amenable identities. In considering the techniques by which such identities are set in place, Actor-Network Theory is drawn upon. This perspective is related to such familiar treatments of power as those embodied in Gramsci's notion of hegemony, Lukes's three dimensional view and Sharp's voluntaristic formulation. The following section illustrates the processes of persuasion and identity-construction by looking at how scientists and their spokespersons attempt to attribute a particular sort of identity to ordinary people. This endeavour is tied in with an attempt to legitimate science-in-general and incorporates particular versions of the citizen, democracy and the state. Finally, I will consider some of the implications of the Actor-Network perspective for general anarchist theory and practice.
At the very time that confederal municipalism is emerging as an especially relevant, historic solution that could be applied to many of the world's most pressing problems, there is also becoming evident some serious confusion about the specific character of the confederal municipalist project. This confusion holds the possibility for undermining confederal municipalism's radical project, and actually legitimating tendencies behind some of the very problems for which confederal municipalism had seemed to promise solutions. A central aspect of the difficulty lies in dispute about the meaning of 'municipal', in confederal municipalism. By critically engaging three problematic readings of the municipal Ð the statist, urbanocentric and biocentric Ð this article endeavours to clarify the current relevance of confederal municipalism, through addressing the question, Whither the Municipality?
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