Studying Historical Anarchist Movements

We present two loose, competing hypotheses regarding anarchist political opportunities. [1] First, country-specific opportunities may have assisted some anarchist movements but hindered others, with local context being the decisive factor. In this case, what explains the variations in anarchist activity per country (for example, the varied concentrations of anarchist organizations listed in the Anarchist Yellow Pages)? Opportunities that have shaped a particular movement’s development, success, and survival ought to be apparent in any analysis. Second, as an international movement—especially one intent on eliminating state borders and global capitalism—common opportunities may be larger in scale than the country-level. Opportunities may be more general than any one country and instead may be shared across national borders. This possibility suggests that country-specific opportunities are less important.

PO theory (McAdam 1996) and past studies (Williams & Lee 2008) have tended to consider objective and easily quantifiable opportunities and not the subjective opportunities that matter to participants. We argue that opportunities must be perceived as real to insiders in order to be a useful in the analysis of historical, subjective narratives, either in the present or in retrospect. Subjectivity is important in analyzing opportunity, especially in the case of movements that persist despite few or no major victories. Insider narratives about perceived opportunities can help to explain the actions of movement participants. Therefore, we examine country-level movement case studies that are built upon the arguments and analyses of anarchists themselves discussing opportunities that each movement encountered. Our approach is based upon a verstehen epistemology, and while one might assume anarchist authors would insert propagandistic claims into such histories, this is not the case—the histories appear to be realistic representations from insider perspectives.

Apart from monumental but short-lived events—like the Paris Commune (1871), Russian Revolution (February 1917), and Barcelona uprising during the Spanish Civil War (1936)—anarchism has had few concrete successes that scholars can reference as outcomes of open opportunity structures. Consequently, appreciating the narrative offered by anarchists about themselves and their movement’s history will serve as an appropriate guide to understanding anarchist movement-specific mobilization and decline. While it is still difficult to determine what “success” looks like for anarchism, we can analyze the factors that participants think has helped or hurt their movement.

Information on country-specific anarchist movement histories was collected from A-Infos (www.ainfos.ca). Billing itself as “a multi-lingual news service by, for, and about anarchists”, A-Infos has provided news articles about anarchist politics, ideas, and movement events for over a decade and a half. Initially started as a print-based news source, it went online in 1995 and by 2008 the A-Infos archives boasted over sixty-thousand news items in over a dozen languages (A-Infos 2008). [2] A-Infos is administered by people who identify with a pro-organizational, class-struggle anarchist tradition. This “capital-A anarchist” identity eschews egocentric individualist, primitivist, and arm-chair anarchisms, as well as statist anti-capitalism, liberalism, and so-called “anarcho-capitalism”. [3] This positioning places A-Infos squarely within the major Leftwing of the anarchist movement, often loosely identified as “anarcho-communist”, although that term is sometimes seen as exclusionary and inaccurate. A-Infos includes many items that address anarchist organizations and movement strategy, thus making it highly appropriate for the purposes of this study. The authors of A-Infos items are themselves anarchists, writing either on behalf of a particular organization or in a personal capacity. [4] The intended audience of A-Infos news items is also anarchists who participate in anarchist movements around the world. Items focus both on matters internal to the anarchist movement, as well as wider-societal matters of interest to anarchists. Thus, the case studies included here are sampled from a universe representing what is arguably the philosophical center of the anarchist movement.

In order to discover factors contributing to the success of country-level anarchist movements, we sought anarchist-written histories indicating perceived opportunities and barriers within a given country, especially those that were longitudinal in character. Thus, we searched the A-Infos archives for English-language articles presenting analyses and histories of country-level anarchist movements. Since we were seeking mention of factors that indicated positive or negative changes, we had to discard some country-level histories that did not discuss any discernible opportunities afforded to the movements (including Argentina, Serbia, and Turkey). These countries are unlikely to be devoid of opportunities and barriers; authors merely neglected to note such qualities. Also of interest to this study was any description of conditions external to a country’s anarchist movement that the author perceived as having an impact upon that movement. Specifically, “positive” opportunities are those factors that enhanced or aided the anarchist movement’s mobilization, while “barriers” to opportunity are factors which stymied or prevented the anarchist movement’s activities, leading to some form of decline. Opportunities were located by the grammar and context that indicated a perceived impact on the anarchist movement. For example, phrases like “success”, “influence”, “source of”, “effect”, “created”, “led to” and “a real chance to” were a few of the textual indicators for mobilizing opportunities. Negative opportunities and decline were marked by phrases like “displaced”, “anarchists were a rarity”, “the government then retained control”, or “was the end of the classical anarchist movement”. More of these phrases will be presented in the examples that follow. The opportunities and barriers were categorized organically, based upon how the particular phenomena or events were described.

We acknowledge that one weakness of our study is the broad consideration of any form of success present in the narratives. Other studies using political opportunity have had to clearly define what constitutes a successful outcome acquired via a political opportunity. Meyer (2004) identifies a variety of these movement outcomes, with dependent variables ranging from policy changes to electing candidates to office, or the creation of alternative institutions and different practices. Unfortunately, it is difficult to operationalize outcomes such as “abolition of an oppressive institution” because complete abolition is rarely achieved and some movement participants focus on the use of non-hierarchical means rather than the achievement of specific ends. Historically, anarchists have almost never been able to achieve such victories on anything but a micro-scale or short-lived basis. Opportunities are still real, though, even if the ultimate goal has never been concretely reached. Consequently, our study aims to consider the more abstract, progressive gains of anarchist movements, often manifested as a growth in participating membership, campaign victories, or increased conflict with elites. Some may view this as stretching political opportunity too thinly or a still-born definition of “success”; we consider it a necessary adaptation to the nature and statuses of anarchist movements historically.

Six movement histories from A-Infos included discussion of opportunities and thus these countries—Bolivia (IBM 2002), Czech Republic (Slaèálek 2002), Great Britain (Heath 2006), Greece (Fragos & Sotros 2005), Japan (WSM 2008), and Venezuela (Nachie 2006)—compose our analysis. In this paper we conduct a textual analysis based on the content of these A-Infos articles. When referencing a history published via A-Infos, we cite the author of the essay, not A-Infos itself. These histories are the principal data we analyze in this study and we use the histories to construct a picture of which factors have been perceived to help or hurt anarchist movements over time. In addition, secondary materials consisting of peer-reviewed journal articles and books (some of which are also authored by anarchist or “anarcho-friendly” authors) were used to supplement and further contextualize the country-based histories found in A-Infos.

While these countries derive from a convenience sample and should be considered non-representative of other country-level anarchist movements, they represent highly diverse political, economic, and cultural systems and therefore make excellent sites for theoretical comparison. For example, some countries have long-established parliamentary traditions (Great Britain), while others are recent dictatorships (Greece). Wealthy (Japan) and poor (Venezuela) countries are included, as well as those with a sizable indigenous population (Bolivia) and a recent history of state communism (Czech Republic). We believe that this sample of countries represents a varied range of political opportunities and anarchist movement histories. This variation will allow for fruitful comparisons and case studies.

Notes

[1] As we do not aim to generalize our findings, nor argue that such a goal is possible using our research design, our “hypotheses” may be better thought as general expectations given past research. We are not interested in testing or proving either, but merely expressing what we suspected to find at the outset of our research.
[2] Languages include: Chinese, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, and Turkish.

[3] A-Infos may not be as strict in its promotion of certain ideological presentations of anarchism as it claims to be. For example, the archives include materials that discuss (and sometimes promote) primitivism as well as purely philosophical anarchist analysis.
[4] Although there are presumably fewer A-Infos authors than readers, we believe it is fair to build an understanding of anarchist movement opportunities using these authors because: (1) they influence the perceptions of other anarchists, especially A-Infos readers, (2) they themselves are anarchists and active participants in the movement, and (3) they are likely more reflective participants in the movement and are good sources for well-read, well-reasoned reflection. Of course this is simply one data set and the narratives should not be taken to represent the consensus views of the anarchist movement as a whole, since these views are quite variable (as this paper demonstrates).

Political Opportunities: Potentials and Problems

Political opportunities (PO) help to create options more conducive for action, thereby helping social movement organizations to achieve goals. McAdam described four central POs that past researchers have consistently deemed relevant to social movements: (1) increased access to political participation; (2) shifts in the alignments of ruling elites or cleavages amongst elites that create space for challengers; (3) the enhanced availability and accessibility of influential elite allies; and (4) a decline in the capacity or tendency for the state to repress dissent (McAdam 1996). Do anarchists benefit from or utilize such opportunities that are either available from or interact with the state or elites? Although anarchists, almost by definition, are not interested in affecting state reform, they may indirectly benefit from state action. For example, a decrease in repression allows for overt anarchist organizing. On the other hand, increased state repression may have also encouraged anarchism by providing groups with the motivation to resist domination. Conversely, a nascent anarchist movement may be crushed by state persecution. This suggests a complex relationship between state action and the growth or decline of anarchism. In addition, increased accessibility to political participation in general can allow anarchists to ride the coattails of other movements; thus, during elections, anarchists can point out limitations in representative democracy and the indirectness of voting. Cleavages within ruling elites—although often making one faction look “better”, nicer, or electable—can create a weakened or unstable power structure that is more susceptible to attack and overthrow.


There is evidence of a connection between anarchists and these traditional POs. Williams and Lee (2008) demonstrated a positive and statistically significant relationship between the concentration of anarchist organizations per country listed in the Anarchist Yellow Pages (AYP) directory and various forms of rights and access, including civil liberties, political rights, press rights, and the level of democracy. Yet, rather than being a direct relationship, this positive association is likely mediated through other phenomena. Anarchists do not utilize political rights in a conventional activist fashion by lobbying the government or electing favorable candidates, although they likely do benefit from press rights and other civil liberties. But the correlative relationship makes more sense as a general measure of tolerance to the challenge of formal authority in a country; the greater the tolerance of dissent, the more likely a state’s strongest critics (e.g. anarchists) will overtly organize in public. Anarchist organizations are likely more willing to list themselves in the AYP—and to be “above-ground” generally—when they believe the risk level is acceptable. In this respect, the anarchist organizations listed in the AYP may be the result of a selection effect and the impact of political opportunities on the underground or clandestine anarchist movement remains unknown.


Even if anarchists do benefit from some “standard” PO’s—albeit indirectly—a number of empirical and theoretical issues prevent us from drawing any concrete conclusions about the appropriateness of a traditional PO view for the anarchist movement. First, Shantz (2003b) argued that social movement research has tended to focus on reform movements and has shied away from analysis of radical movements (such as anarchism) that seek to transform the entire foundation of social relations—especially those whose goals do not include the seizure of the state itself. In such a research milieu, it is a mistake to assume that “political opportunities” crafted to explain movements with moderate goals (e.g. policy advocacy) can adequately address the objectives of radical movements. Even radical movements like Marxism may be measured using conventional research, as the intended outcomes are clearly-articulated and are assumed to be linear. Marxism represents a mere adaptation to reform movements, as it aspires to a similar ascension to power as do other movements. But a movement such as anarchism, premised upon deliberate practices that reflect “the means are the ends” and a diffusion of power, cannot be analyzed as easily or rigidly. Thus, anarchist movements are vastly understudied and the theories available to scholars are likely to need some revision and some may not be applicable.


Second, PO theory generally takes for granted the assumption that the state is the target of protest. Yet, in actuality, Van Dyke et al. found that many movements do not just target the state. Only slightly over half of the targets in 4,654 protest events from 1968 to 1975 in the US were state targets; the remaining protests were aimed at educational institutions, “the public”, business, individuals, cultural and religious organizations, unions, and medical institutions. In fact, the government was targeted less than 50 percent of the time by the civil rights, gay and lesbian, and women’s movements (Van Dyke et al. 2004). More generally, Melucci (1996) notes that social movements of all stripes in the contemporary era, “no longer [coincide] either with the traditional forms of organization of solidarity or with the conventional channels of political representation”. He suggests moving beyond simple dichotomies such as “state” versus “civil society,” or “public” versus “private”, as well as the “reductionism” inherent in exclusively “political” analyses, in order to more fully comprehend the interrelationships among different sectors of society (pp. 3-6). Although anarchists have most notoriously and famously targeted the state, anarchism’s broad critique of authority and domination is not limited to political actors. Anarchism’s critique is not mere protest, but radical opposition to the very existence of hierarchical institutions. Thus, the movement does not simply target the state, but also many other hierarchical institutions, ranging from White supremacy and patriarchy to capitalism and militarism.


Third, although activists’ agency to exploit opportunities is implicit in PO theory, anarchists themselves do not try to actively use many of these opportunities. If open windows of opportunity are not actively exploited, do they really constitute “opportunities” for anarchists? For example, unlike other movements, anarchists do not engage in standard political activity: they are not apt to engage in letter-writing campaigns against politicians, to vote for (or against) certain candidates, or even to run for office themselves. Anarchists (obviously) do not try to lobby the state or pressure for constitutional amendments that would lead to the elimination of a constitution. Could anarchists actually “utilize” progressive politicians who claim to oppose policies and practices that anarchists also do? Ostensibly, such politicians would be elite allies; the presence of such “allies” would not seem to ultimately benefit the anarchist movement if it is opposed to negotiating or working with these allies. In fact, a central principle to anarchism is “direct action”, where one does not request or wait for others to act on their behalf. Instead of relying on representatives, one acts directly—either individually or collectively—to immediately accomplish the desired goal, without the facilitation, approval, or agency of elected elites, officials, or bosses.


Fourth, commonly-studied POs might actually be detrimental to anarchist organizing and activism, as opposed to being helpful. Increased access to elites, political space, or participation might direct activists and the public towards reformism and electoral politics, not radicalism. Rifts between elites (like Democrats and Republicans, or politicians and capitalists) might appear to undermine the anarchist claim that “all elites are similar and serve the same end”—and thus maybe do not need to be overthrown. Thus, POs could either channel rebellious energy for radical change into reformist, institutional mechanisms or undercut any popular impression that radical change is necessary. Consequently, anarchist movement activity appears paradoxical within the PO framework.


On a strictly theoretical level, there is much to criticize in the standard view of POs. Of central importance is the assumption—and perhaps leap of faith—regarding the ultimate goal of social movements. As witnessed by McAdam’s (1996) overview of the literature, many scholars have tended to assume and effectively operationalize “political opportunities” as “state opportunities” useful to influence state-based policy making. As such, movements benefit from actions and conditions in which the state is the key adversary or target. Yet, this logic conflates “political” with “state” (and, more narrowly, with elections and politicians), which is the common interpretation of “politics”, generally. Anarchists strongly criticize limiting “politics” to the domain of state officials, elected or otherwise. Instead, anarchism argues that politics is the realm of public decision making and debate, of which the state is only one component, albeit the dominant one. It is entirely possible to engage in “politics” without the reliance upon the state.[1] Also, to entrust the state with the ability to serve as final arbitrator for what constitutes human rights (or any other right), is to restrict the universality of such rights. Anarchists argue that rights are not guaranteed by the state, but by birth (Turner 2009). In this view, to rely upon the state to approve of and administer human rights is to reify the state as an essential institution for people’s everyday lives. However, many states actively attempt to restrict rights and succeed because states tend to be viewed by many citizens as the proper authority for the distribution of rights in a society.


Critics of PO theory have also alleged that to view characteristics like access, allies, and declining repression as part of an opportunity structure implies that such things are not opportunities that can come and go, but instead are quasi-permanent elements of a polity (Goodwin & Jasper 1999). Properly construed, opportunities ought to be temporal and impermanent. Opportunities should open—like windows—for a certain time, and then close, cutting off movement chances. However, certain kinds of political opportunities are permanently closed to anarchists, because of the anti-statist nature of the movement.


Additionally, “opportunities” are often measurable only in retrospect; movement actors may not actually perceive legitimate opportunities even if there is empirical evidence for them. What may be considered opportunities by social movement scholars, may have little meaning for activists. Instead, movement participants tend to continuously act for social change, regardless of whether recognizable opportunities exist—even in times of extreme repression with few political allies to be found. For example, Kurzman’s (1996) analysis of the Iranian Revolution shows that Iranians perceived great opportunities when, in actuality, the monarchy was very stable. Revolutionaries in Iran acted as if opportunities objectively existed and created a self-fulfilling prophecy for themselves and their followers.


This distinction between objective and subjective opportunities is particularly important for the anarchist movement. Most movements tend to have occasional victories with concrete, definable successes, while anarchism has rarely had victories and none that have lasted for any substantial length of time. Consequently, discussing useful objective opportunities for the anarchist movement is challenging because it is unclear which “opportunities” have or have not led to the few, short-lived anarchist rebellions. A more useful approach, and the one we develop in this paper, may be to consider anarchist mobilization through the eyes of anarchists themselves and their subjective understanding of useful opportunities. Since it is difficult to say with any certainty that a particular “opportunity” did objectively and sufficiently cause a particular outcome, we argue it is often more appropriate to consider what movement actors themselves conclude.


Most research that considers cross-national differences of protest tends to analyze the differences between countries (Kitschelt 1986), and does not look for commonalities across countries’ movements, particularly how they share common narratives that are not specific to their own society. These “common opportunities” are of major importance to internationalist-oriented movements. For example, della Porta (2008) noted the benefit that unemployed movements in all six of her case study countries (all European) received from labor unions and positive popular opinion. An internationalist movement like anarchism seems an ideal candidate to use such border-crossing common opportunities, particularly as it relates to resisting the “dominant logic” (Mulucci 1996:7) of all hierarchically organized societies, regardless of whether they constructed on capitalist, socialist, or some other economic foundation.


Regardless of an opportunity’s universality, what do movements try to achieve? Meyer’s overview of political opportunity research noted half a dozen different forms of movement outcomes, including policy changes, changes in the level of appropriations for established government programs, policy implementations, running candidates for office, creating alternative institutions, and changing actual practices (Meyer 2004). Creating alternative institutions comes closest to an actual anarchist goal, but the example of this outcome is Andrews’ (2002) study of private segregationist schools in the US South that helped to subvert school integration for White and Black students—far from an anarchist objective. The applicability of these outcomes for anarchist movements is questionable. None of these movement outcomes includes the elimination of various hierarchical institutions, a central premise of anarchism. Even “protest”, in which anarchists are involved, is usually narrowly defined as attendance at protest events and precludes the idea of resistance or rebellion.[2] For these reasons, we can see some clear weaknesses to the assumptions implicit in the PO framework, at least as it has been conceived in the existing literature.


Despite the apparent shortcomings of PO theory, a major empirical question remains: are there political opportunities that benefit the anarchist movement? We argue that anarchist movement activity has coincided with actual and perceived periods of greater freedoms, and, in times of state repression, anarchist organizing may go underground or disappear altogether. But, we can also broaden the contextual factors that foster movement activity to include cultural and economic opportunities. Although Goodwin and Jasper (1999) warn against watering down the operationalization of political opportunities to the point where anything constitutes such an opportunity, the anarchist movement suggests a unique exception to the rule. Since the anarchist movement has a strong non-interest in greater political access (of the stereotypical, state-based variety), it is prudent to expand the concept of opportunities to other forms, including those that are cultural and economic in character and to inquire about the extent to which cultural, economic, and traditionally “political” opportunities have shaped the movement in different contexts. These realms are potentially of equal importance to anarchists based on their opposition to all forms of social domination that are perpetuated in a variety of social, economic, and political domains (such as racial, gender, and sexuality-based oppression) and to capitalism. Given this widened spectrum of investigation, what are some possible factors that have aided in the mobilization of current anarchist movements.



Notes
[1] Communes and popular assemblies are frequently cited examples of this understanding of politics (McKay 2008).

[2] See Martin for the anarchist principles behind the anti-globalization movement's resistance and alternatives-creation (Martin 2007).


References

Andrews, Kenneth T. 2002. “Movement-Countermovement Dynamics and the Emergence of New Institutions: The Case of “White Flight” Schools in Mississippi”. Social Forces, 80 (3): 911-936.

della Porta, Donatella. 2008. “Protest on Unemployment: Forms and Opportunities”. Mobilization: An International Journal, 13 (3): 277-295.

Goodwin, Jeff and James M. Jasper. 1999. “Caught in a Winding, Snarling Vine: The Structural Bias of Political Process Theory”. Sociological Forum, 14 (1): 27-54.

Kurzman, Charles. 1996. “Structural Opportunity and Perceived Opportunity in Social-Movement Theory: The Iranian Revolution of 1979”. American Sociological Review, 61, February: 153-170.

Martin, Carolina. 2007. “Creating Another World, One Bit At a Time: Understanding Anti-Globalization Resistance”. Conference presentation at the American Sociological Association Annual Meetings, New York.

McAdam, Doug. 1996. “Conceptual Origins, Current Problems, Future Directions”. Pp. 23-40 in Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements: Political Opportunities, Mobilizing Structures, and Cultural Framings, edited by D. McAdam, J. D. McCarthy, and M. N. Zald. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

McKay, Iain. 2008. An Anarchist FAQ: Volume 1. Edinburgh: AK Press.

Melucci, Alberto. 1996. Challenging Codes: Collective Action in the Information Age. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Meyer, David S. 2004. “Protest and Political Opportunities”. Annual Review of Sociology, 30: 125-145.

Shantz, Jeff. 2003b. “Beyond the State: The Return to Anarchy”. disClosure: A Journal of Social Theory, 12: 87-103.

Turner, Scott. 2009. “Anarchist Theory and Human Rights”. Pp. 133-146 in New Perspectives on Anarchism, edited by N.J. Jun and S. Wahl. Lanham, MD: Lexington.

Van Dyke, Nella, Sarah A. Soule, and Verta A. Taylor. 2004. “The Targets of Social Movements: Beyond a Focus on the State”. Research in Social Movements, Conflicts and Change, 25: 27-51.

Williams, Dana M. and Matthew T. Lee. 2008. “'We Are Everywhere': An Ecological Analysis of Organizations in the Anarchist Yellow Pages”. Humanity & Society, 32, February: 45-70.

Considering Anarchist "Political Opportunities" and Anarchism's Relationship to the State

Routine social movement behaviors that petition, protest, or lobby governments to change or adopt certain laws or policies are familiar to most in modern societies. However, these now-regular patterns of movement-state interaction are premised on the assumption that movements want something from the state that states are able to give. Presumably, radical movements—anarchism being the exemplary movement we choose to focus upon in this study—have no interest in anything that states are willing to offer, nor do such movements attempt to convince states to quit and dissolve themselves through targeted lobbying efforts. What does movement activity and protest mean for such movements, under these conditions? This article answers this question from a political opportunity perspective using the case histories of country-level anarchist movement activity.

As a political tradition, anarchism dates back to the mid-nineteenth century. Influenced by the most radical currents of the Enlightenment, anarchism emerged as a revolt against the solidifying nation-state, early capitalism, and still-present influence of religious authority. Anarchists not only critiqued the centralizing and bureaucratic qualities of these institutions, but advocated the creation of horizontal, egalitarian, and cooperative institutions in their place. Even though “anarchism” literally refers to “without rule” (Gordon 2006)—and thus an opposition to all forms of domination and control by others—it has historically been summarized as simply opposition to the state (Ehrlich 1996, Joll 1964, Ward 1996). Herein, we understand anarchism’s antagonism toward authority in the sense meaningful to anarchist movements, rather than the limited, popular understanding: as a broad challenge to all forms of domination, not just that of the state.

Anarchists have never been able to rid society of the state, although not for lack of trying. Anarchism, as a radical ideology, appears to possess a near child-like naivety towards the possibility of social change. Accordingly, resistance and change are not only possible in the darkest moments of human history, but are also potentially present in everyday life. Anarchists tend to advocate seizing the opportunities within these moments and helping to encourage others toward a more liberatory future. Thus, while acknowledging the power, influence, and limitations of existing political and social structures, anarchists also implicitly emphasize the capacity for human agency.

Politically, the anarchist movement argues that opportunities always exist to resist the present social order and to create a new world. Consequently, “Revolution now!” would be an applicable anarchist slogan. Anarchism differentiates itself from other revolutionary ideologies such as Marxism by rejecting any delay in revolution. Waiting for “the people” to be ready or to trust that the state will “wither away” eventually are not seen as appropriate excuses by anarchists for inaction. In fact, state participation in the pursuit of revolution is inherently problematic. For example, the Russian anarchist Mikhail Bakunin wrote: “No state, however democratic—not even the reddest republic—can ever give the people what they really want, i.e., the free self-organization and administration of their own affairs from the bottom upward, without any interference or violence from above” (Dolgoff 1971, p. 338).

Strategy in the anarchist movement is radical and multi-faceted. Anarchism focuses on the web of relationships between not only individuals and society, but also amongst major institutions, such as the state, capitalism, military, patriarchy, White supremacy, and heterosexism. Within each relationship, people may act to create a society less encumbered by hierarchy, domination, and authority. Thus, opportunities always exist to create egalitarian, horizontal, and cooperative relationships. This article investigates the anarchist movement within these spaces and moments, both past and present. Yet, some opportunities have been more conducive to the anarchist movement and some of these moments have been more fruitfully exploited.

This article addresses the following interrelated questions. Can the theory of political opportunities (as summarized by McAdam 1996) be used—or at least re-packaged—to understand the anarchist movement? We focus on a half-dozen country case studies to better understand the varied experiences of mobilization and decline for anarchist movements throughout the world, seen through the lens of a modified political opportunity theory. What major opportunities has anarchism recently seized upon (and sometimes unintentionally benefited from) to expand its ranks and advance its goals? Our analysis of the narratives of anarchists discovers a variety of country-specific and global opportunities that assisted in the growth and decline of movements. In particular, an authoritarian or partisan Left’s success reduced anarchist opportunities, while supportive non-anarchist milieus—such as the labor and punk movements—served as fruitful grounds for inspiration, personnel recruitment, and accelerated anarchist movement mobilization. Curiously, anarchist narratives viewed increased state repression as having divergent effects on different country’s movements.

References

Dolgoff, Sam. 1971. Bakunin on Anarchy: Selected Works by the Activist-Founder of World Anarchism. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

Ehrlich, Howard J. 1996. Reinventing Anarchy, Again. Edinburgh: AK Press.

Gordon, Uri. 2006. “Research Note: Avαρχία -- What Did the Greeks Actually Say?”. Anarchist Studies, 14 (1): 84-91.

Joll, James. 1964. The Anarchists. Boston: Atlantic Monthly Press.

McAdam, Doug. 1996. “Conceptual Origins, Current Problems, Future Directions”. Pp. 23-40 in Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements: Political Opportunities, Mobilizing Structures, and Cultural Framings, edited by D. McAdam, J. D. McCarthy, and M. N. Zald. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Ward, Colin. 1996. Anarchy in Action. London: Freedom Press.

Bourdieu on anarchists and Mills on being a Wobbly

Pierre Bourdieu: "In the arguments which I develop, it seems to me that the anarchist tradition has a role to play. I consider that all who are inspired by anarchist thought, or who are close to that way of thinking, are precisely the sort of people I want to reach. Alongside others, anarchists seem to me to be particularly suitable to enter into the new international political movement which is being organized."

C. Wright Mills: "Over the last several years I have become quite aware of a certain mixture of personal and political and professional factors which have come together to determine such intellectual roles as I play, and even such intellectual and moral work as I have done and am doing. All these factors, to put it briefly, have constructed in me the ethos of the Wobbly. You’ve asked me, “What might you be?” Now I answer you: “I am a Wobbly.” I mean this spiritually and politically. In saying this I refer less to political orientation than to political ethos, and I take Wobbly to mean one thing: the opposite of bureaucrat. (I want to tell you this in order that you may understand my own values as fully as possible and hence be able to better control your understanding of my letters to you.) I am a Wobbly, personally, down deep, and for good. I am outside the whale, and I got that way through social isolation and self-help. But do you know what a Wobbly is? It’s a kind of spiritual condition. Don’t be afraid of the word, Tovarich. A Wobbly is not only a man who takes orders from himself. He’s also a man who’s often in the situation where there are no regulations to fall back upon that he hasn’t made up himself. He doesn’t like bosses— capitalistic or communistic— they are all the same to him. He wants to be, and he wants everyone else to be, his own boss at all times under all conditions and for any purposes they may want to follow up. This kind of spiritual condition, and only this, is Wobbly freedom."

What Human Nature Isn't

(From September 2003)

Actually this title is deceptive. There's a lot of things that “human nature” isn't, but there's a lot that it is, too. That's my point: human nature is a subjective thing that someone applies to selective human behaviors for their own reasons. Human beings are so complex, diverse, and creative that monolithic explanations are very tough to swallow.

Many believe that personalities and social characteristics are determined by a unique mix of “nature” and “nurture”. That is, that someone's genetic makeup is combined with their child raising and socialization experiences. Still, that is only half of an explanation. People can self-correct their behavior and tendencies in life, many times over. Men can stop cheating on their wives, bullies can stop picking on the weak, the obese can reformulate better eating and exercise patterns, and so on.

According to the political lie that is “human nature” (i.e. claims made to serve a political or ideological purpose) there are many cynical ways of viewing our behaviors: humans need strong leaders to guide them through life, children need to be strongly disciplined when growing up, people will always be at odds with people who are different than them, people are selfish and will steal from others if they can't earn something themselves, etc.

Of course, many of these “truths” can be easily refuted. Do the strong parents of families deprive their children of food? We view it as distinctly dysfunctional when parents deprive their children, not as “human nature”. When your friends get together, is there a boss who orders people to get food, drinks, a video, respectively? Such people would not retain friends, obviously, and humans easily self-organize themselves to share their resources for collective benefit.

Many would agree that, yes, the bonds of family and friends have a strong tendency towards compassionate relationships. But, what of the average stranger on the street? Scholars have pointed out repeatedly that the chances of being killed by a serial killer are so minuscule as to warrant nearly no consideration. The same goes for stranger rape and kidnappings. Think of sporting events or other large public gatherings like parties or clubs: how much violence occurs here, although you have diverse and otherwise (presumably) hostile people? When violence breaks out, it is viewed as an anomaly; most do not appreciate their leisure and free time being marred by such things.

Do people normally cut in lines with disregard for others waiting?

Instead, consider the chances that someone would stop to help someone with a flat tire or in a car accident. Or how people hold doors open for complete strangers. Or how frequently hitchhikers can get rides to go where they need to. Most people take as fact that humans have a right to food, shelter, and clothing, and will act accordingly by donating money, clothing, or food, and will openly praise those who work in such service capacities.

That said, there are many problems that humans have, including many Americans: apathy, indifference, self-centeredness, aggressiveness, brusqueness, and so forth. But, does this mean that even people who fit this description will always behave in such ways? Perhaps these problems are pathologies derived from our dog-eat-dog economic system or our disconnected form of government?

There are many times that such cynical people can break out of their socialized behaviors and act with compassion, mutual aid, solidarity, good will, honesty, and justice. In blizzards people routinely pull over to help those who go off the road in their cars. They offer their warm cars and cell phones to help others out. In flood situations, communities pull together putting in long days to sandbag dikes to protect houses and buildings from intruding water levels, with no thought of reimbursement or self-gain-- and easily self-organize themselves to get the job done. In massive power outages or after the attacks upon the World Trade Center and Pentagon in 2001 people pull together and take care of each other. They are kinder, more patient and respectful, talk to those who need consoling and a friendly ear, and give generously of themselves to help out their fellow humans.

In the case of natural (and unnatural) disasters such as these, the best potential of humans can be seen. Thus, we can have hope that “normal” behavior of a self-destructive kind is in fact the “deviant” variety, that destroys the collective human spirit, and causes paranoia, greed, megalomania, jingoism, and violence. To do so, we must pull out the roots of racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, and overcome the push to worship economic, political, and cultural authorities and “leaders”.

Humans are infinitely creative and resilient. We can conquer our darker side if we only make the effort to do so. In the process we will be confronted with systemic forces that create resistance. We must have the determination and vision to see past these obstacles. Remember that wars are created by humans and wars can be stopped by humans. We hold the power to change our lives, and in doing so to even change our world.

Jesus Made Me Do It!

[Written in 2004 during a particularly inspired moment of repulsion.]

Somewhere between the benign “what would Jesus do?” (WWJD?) crowd and goose-stepping fascists, are those who call themselves the “religious Right”... as if there were anything “right” about it, except its political orientation. These folks seem to think that the laws of religion are as flexible as the laws of gravity are to Jackie Chan movies or “The Matrix”. They utilize all sorts of religious passages, sayings, psalms, and teachings to suit their own individualistic (and sick, in my opinion) purposes.

For example, a former adviser to “President” Bush was on the radio tonight speaking about her “faith”. She responded to a question asking whether it was okay for the “President” to constantly invoke “God” and his faith in public speeches, even though many are not religious, while others are not Christian (the radio host didn't bother adding that even some Christians could do without a clown like Bush mouthing off). She stated that “our faith” (as in, her and the “President”) helps to put the country at ease during these “hard times”, and that it's good for Bush to talk about being humble, forgiving, and turning the other cheek (I know, I know!! I'm not making this up!!)

The religious Right selectively uses this rhetoric when it's convenient. For instance, it's all fine and dandy for Bush to preach forgiveness towards his errors, but there's only fire-and-brimstone for the millions of innocent Afghanis that he wrecked his flimsy will upon during that country's bombardment. Turning the other cheek? Hah, that's what Bush demanded of Afghanistan: turn your head so we can smack the other side now, too!

Far be it from me to lecture Bush on Christ, someone who (if the Bible is accurate) was undoubtedly a radical who was murdered by the State for his charismatic ability to lead a social movement against the Roman Empire (and corrupt Jewish tribal leaders). Surely Bush is aware that Christ would have resisted any aggressive despot that invades other countries, and that “turning the cheek” is not just convenient rhetoric to toss about to persuade others of your humanity.

The furor caused by “The Passion of the Christ”, the movie by Mel Gibson, only illustrates the rabidity of the religious Right to latch onto whatever medium and means it can to further pervert Christianity. Sure, “the passion” is only the last day of Jesus's life, a day allegedly filled with unspeakable brutality. But, why must one stomach long minutes of such torture on the silver screen? Aren't there more important messages to draw from the legacy of Christ? It's almost as if Gibson and the Right wants to martyr Jesus not in order to obtain a higher plane of morality, but to justify retribution for their savior's untimely demise.

In fact, the only “Jesus Freaks” who I can bear, are the Catholic Workers, who may or may not take offense to such characterization. But, I mean it in the most loving way: here are people who have taken the actual meaning of Jesus to heart, and live it day and day out. They live in poverty, sharing their homes and lives with the least fortunate of society. They speak out against violence, injustice, poverty, apathy, and moral self-righteousness. Nothing has infused me with a renewed sense of hope for the future of Christianity than hearing about Workers chastising their Bishop for not taking a stronger stance against the US war on Iraq, who instead hid behind the Church's “just war theory”.

Unlike Bush's adviser and Bush himself, the Workers do not feel themselves above literal meanings. As the Bible notes, the hypocrite is one who does not apply to him/herself standards that they demand of others. Thus if one act of violence against innocents is wrong, than all other acts of violence against the innocent is also wrong. Of course this makes perfect sense, but the Bush Mob and the Right realizes that organized religion, like all other tools of control, may be wielded over others only if the rules don't apply to them. Otherwise they couldn't justify even owning a military or police or prisons, let alone use them to bomb, invade, arrest, or incarcerate millions!

Whenever I hear Bush say “god bless you” after a speech, my mind visualizes his nose growing like Pinocchio. I imagine him crossing his fingers under the podium. I think of his inner-dialogue saying: “haha, suckers!!”. His language is a tool of control just as his “faith” is a self-delusion. Anyone can realize that playing favorites, especially with a jerk like Bush, is not in any god's best interest.

Further, why would a god (at least a kind and just one) advocate the assassination of doctors, the execution of the poor on death row (when was the last time a rich man was executed?), invasions and crusades, censorship, patriarchy and sexism, slavery, compulsory and officialized religion and prayer, or the consolidation of political and economic power? Why does the Right demand that “intelligent design” (code for “creationism”) be taught in secular schools? Why does the Right root and cheer for Israel's crimes against the Palestinian people, while simultaneously adhering to grotesque antisemitism? Why does the Right cry bloody murder when people protest clearly religious symbols and endorsements like the Ten Commandments in courthouses and “In God We Trust” on our money and Pledge of Allegiance? Why does the Right advocate “celibacy” while it is clear that such teaching does not work? Why does the Right condemn women for choosing to have children or not, but then say “too bad for you” when children are born into poverty?

The same forked-tongue is everywhere-- Jesus told me to do this: “He told me to bomb this or that country! He told me to kill that abortion doctor! He told me to molest those parishioners! He told me to keep my wife in her place! Blah blah blah!”

Then, they turn around, as Mumia Abu-Jamal notes, in the US's celebration of “MLK Day”: “Imagine the most violent nation on earth, the heir of Indian and African genocide, the only nation ever to drop an atomic bomb on a civilian population, the world's biggest arms dealer, the country that napaled over ten million people in Vietnam (to “save” it from communism), the world's biggest jailer, waving the corpse of King, calling for nonviolence!” Talk is cheap, when it dribbles out of the mouths of powerful elites.

Let's recognize this for what it is: hypocrisy.

The Anarchist DNA of Occupy

I was invited to contribute to the discussion on the #Occupy movement, from an anarchist perspective for the American Sociological Association journal, Contexts. The short essay appears in the Spring 2012 issue Other contributors to the #Occupy discussion include Ruth Milkman, Benjamin Barber, Mohammed Bamyeh, William Julius Wilson, and Deborah Gould.

Occupy has drawn inspiration from many of 2011’s insurrectionary episodes, including Egypt’s Tahrir Square, Spain’s indignatos, and Puerto Rico’s student strikes. Also important has been Latin America’s horizontalism and zapatismo. But, the most immediate inspiration for Occupy is anarchism. This should surprise only the oblivious: many activists have noticed that American youth are influenced by anarchism more than by Marxism. The first manifestation of this influence is the emphasis upon anti-authoritarianism. There are no leaders (or, more radically, everyone is a leader). Anti-authoritarianism gives Occupy a strength and resilience not enjoyed by most movements. Like a multi-headed hydra, when Occupy’s enemies attempt to chop-off one head — arrest a certain individual — others take their place. No one is in a position to order anyone else around — everyone must participate in all decisions. Corporate media simply can’t understand this paradigm and it’s frustrated by Occupy’s disavowal of spokespersons.

Occupy’s next debt to anarchism is a procedural structure and aesthetic. For OWS, direct, participatory democracy is the order of the day. Lacking official leaders, consensus-building is the only feasible option. Every General Assembly (GA) attendee must be able to accept a decision. The task is assisted by multiple working-groups that meet regularly to discuss nitty-gritty issues. Facilitation guarantees that everyone’s voice is heard, and hand-gestures visually involve everyone. These techniques have popped-up in countless post-1960s anarchist projects. The results of this process can be seen in leaflets circulated at Occupy Oakland, characterizing several of the GA decisions as anarchistic in character: rejection of government endorsements and political parties, equal treatment of GA speakers, preventing police from entering the encampment, and solidarity with striking workers and students.

The movement’s militancy derives from its name. In contrast to other movements, Occupy attempts to reclaim public space, to confront others with its presence, and to stay in the news. Its impatience with polite lobbying or voting has an anarchist flair. Historically, anarchists have encouraged citizens to seize (and decentralize) political power, peasants to occupy private estates and collectivize them, and workers to take over the means of production. Occupy plays with anarchist notions of expropriation and seizing ill-gotten property for individual and collective needs.

How does Occupy aim to accomplish such goals? Anarchists participating in the movement seek to keep it radical, pragmatic, and uncontrollable by authorities. Occupy Wall Street’s active militancy ensures this: daily protest marches and actions attempt to create constant disruption of business-as-usual, while remaining unpredictable. The movement’s prefiguration attempts to (as advocated by the Industrial Workers of the World) create a new world in the shell of the old. Occupiers provide for all their own needs. Instead of entrusting one’s life and daily requirements to corporations or the state, people do it themselves: creating sleeping arrangements, free meals, classes and workshops, a multi-thousand volume library, sanitation, first aid, and security. In this respect, the Occupy movement is utopian and practical — a better world can be created, not in the distant future, but right now.

Occupy has already enjoyed many victories, convincing countless people of the potential for radical social change. The mass media is now running stories on capitalism, social inequality, and direct democracy. Someone ought to thank Occupy for accomplishing in a few short months what sociologists have been unable to achieve over decades.