Leonard Williams - Book Review: The Politics of Postanarchism

8/13/2019 Leonard Williams - Book Review: The Politics of Postanarchism

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Anar ist Developments in Cultural Studies Post-Anar ism today 2010.1

Book Review: Te Politics of Postanar ism Leonard Williams

Saul Newman, Te Politics of Postanar ism (Edinburgh: Edin-burgh University Press, 2010), 200 pp.

As we have come to expect from Saul Newman, this book is thelatest in a series of efforts to highlight and explain the anarchisttendenc ies lurking within poststructuralist though t. r ough a num -ber of works tracing the affinity of anarchism and poststructuralism(notably, From Bakunin to Lacan and Power and Politics in Poststruc- t u r a li s t T ough t ), Newman has undoubtedly emerged as one of theforemost interpreters of the links between continental philosophyand radical politics. Commi ed to revealing the ethical and politi-cal implications of rejecting foundational approaches to theory and

practice, Newmans pro ject has come to an important juncture withthis latest work. e primary challenge we confront, as well as theprimary f ocus of this book, is to think politics outside the state toexplore the constituent principles and ethical contours of a politicalspace which seeks autonomy from the order of the state (167).

Wri en with an exceptional clarity, Newmans effort to affirmanarchisms place as the very horizon of radical politics (2; originalemphasis) involves both geographic and ontological explorations.

Geographically, the concern is to locate the place that anarchism

Leonard Williams teaches political science at Manchester College in North Manchester,Indiana, USA. His primary research interests focus on both anarchism and contempo-rary political thought, with articles appearing in such journals as New Political Science ,the Journal of Political Ideologies , and the Journal for the Study of Radicalism . Heauthored American Liberalism and Ideological Chang e and co-edited Political Teory: Classic and Contemporary Readings.


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244 Leonard Williams

has in contemporary politics. At rst glance, it appears to be si-multaneously no place and a non-place. As a recurring desire forlif e without government that haunts the political imagination (1),any conception of anarchism that we might have seems to be li lemore than a spectre. As such, it lies just beyond our ken, outsidethe standard conceptions of politics rooted in power and authority,sovereignty and coercion. On a second take, moving from geogra-phy to ontology, anarchism is necessarily with us in those momen tswhenever insurrectionary challenges to authority arise. In this sense,anarchism may well be identied with the perpetual but intermi ent

spirit of revolt that has long animated any number of social and polit-ical movements from democracy tosocialism, from trade un ionismto identity politics. We have to be caref ul, though, not to conceiveof anarchism as merely the last refuge of tired radicals, ones whohave grown wea ry of the struggles f ough t by previous gene rations.Instead, we are encouraged to see its proper place and congurationas a realm marked by ethical action and utopian dreams, a realmwhere thinkers and activists seek the simultaneous realization of

equality and liberty (sometimes called equaliberty). Newmansperspective, in other words, appears as a postanar ism .What, then, is postanarchism? i s question has been the sub ject

of some debate among anarchist theorists and activists for sometime now. To some thinkers and activists, the term suggests a newf orm of anarchism that simply says goodbye to all that somewhatreminiscent of Bob Blacks work, Newmans postanarchism bidsa particularly eager goodbye to the stilted le ist heritage of thepast. To others, the term indicates that radical politics should moveto a new plane, should somehow go not only beyond le ism, butbeyond anarchism itself. Whether postanarchism is seen as the latestintellectual fad or as the successor to the mantle of radicalism, oneconfronts this book with the minimal but important goal of makingsense of the concept of postanarchism.

Newman takes up the task of explaining postanarchism in histypically capable and insightful way. Drawing on the severalstrains of poststructuralist though t as well as ideas from both the(post-)Marxist, continental, and anarchist traditions he clariesthe scope of postanarchism by engaging in any number of debateswithin contemporary political theory. You will nd sections of thework discussing many of the usual suspects dynamic theoreticalduos such as Deleuze and Gua ari, Hardt and Negri, along withLaclau and Mouff e; as well as assorted radical thinkers from Badiou


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Book Review: Te Politics of Postanarchism 245

to Bookchin, from Zerzan to iek. Rather unlike the structure of some of his previous books, though, the reader will not nd eachchapter dedicated to interpreting and critiquing a particular theorist.Instead, this work seems very much like Newmans eff ort to cometo terms with his philosophical conscience. We progress from clas-sical anarchism to postana rchism through a series of momen ts thatamoun t to a journey exploring possible paths to liberation. e goalis to describe, or (be er) to suggest, how we might emerge out of our willing subjection and psychic a achment to power. Newmansrather utopian pro ject, like that of anarchism itself, is thus to pro-

vide a point of alterity or exteriority as a way of interrogating thelimits of this [i.e., the existing] order (7).In other words, postanarchist theory endeavours to solve the ul-

timate riddle of power how to resist or revolt against it withoutreproducing its structures of domination in another form. Postan-archism, while aiming to provide a path toward genuine emanci-pation, begins by questioning the epistemological and ontologicalf oundations of the state and capitalism. In laying out this critique,postanarchism cannot depend upon the foundational ideas suppliedby essentialism and humanism the very sort of presuppositionsthat characterize not only the Enlightenmen t though t at the heart of modern radicalism, but also major strands of the anarchist traditionitself. To be utopian, in Newmans sense, does not mean realizingsome intellectually constructed blueprint of the good society; rather,it means discovering the key f eatures of the f uture society amid prac-tices of the present one. Poststructural utopianism acknowledgesthe revolutionary potential in everyday actions, in the molecularor localized forms of resistance that occur whenever and whereverpower operates (646).

What kind of politics then is anticipated by postanarchist theory?In Newmans phrase, postanarchism constitutes an anti-politics, thatis, an anti-political politics. It is a revolutionary enterprise that sus-pects representation and re jects the state. In sketching the originsof such a politics, Newman begins with a recapitulation of the argu-ments waged between Marxists and anarchists over the state, theparty, and revolution. Even post-Marxist ideas of hegemony andagonistic pluralism, though ostensibly aimed at emancipation, failto get beyond the framewo rk imposed by the political logic of statesovereignty. As a result, postanarchism seeks to conceive of a spacefor politics outside and against the state, and to see politics as an


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activity through wh ich the principle of state sovereignty is radicallyquestioned and disputed (103).

At this point, f ew anarchists would have any hesitation about sub-scribing to Newmans analysis. Few, indeed , do not relish the chanceto rehash the longstanding quarrels with Marxism in any f orm. Fromhis encounter with Marxism and post-Marxism, Newman moves toelucidate the connections that link postanarchism with contempo-rary radical thought and continental philosophy. e aim of hisreview, once again, is to situate the postanarchist approach as onethat rejects the Manichean tendencies found in classical anarchist

thought (tendencies that Newman artf ully diagnosed in Powe r and Po liti cs i n Pos t s tr uc t u r a li s t T ough t ). Where traditional anarchistsoppose the natural to the articial and the social to the political,postanarchists seek an escape from that binary opposition. eemancipatory question is not how to seize state power, as the Marx-ists would have it; nor is it simply how to abolish the state in onego, as classical anarchists would have it. Rather, the crux of thema er concerns how one should build a politics which, in its very

existence, presupposes the radical dissolution of the statist imagi-nary (11112). Postanarchism thus tries to map a new territory, aspace that lies between the social and the political while re jectingthe essentialist claims long made about both domains. In this newterrain, postanarchism rejects both the notion that emancipationis immanent within capitalist development and the idea that somespontaneous event will usher in an era of undiminished liberation.

For Newman, contemporary anarchism rightly drops a lot of thepolitical and intellectual baggage from the past. Traditional le istties with particular labour or socialist movements are o en set asidein favour of more diffuse anti-capitalist and egalitarian affinities.Enlightenment conceptions of human nature and reason drop awayin f avour of non-f oundational, poststructuralist ontologies. Skepti-cism toward meta-narratives, abandonment of essential identities,emphasis on language and discourse, and a concept of constitutivepower are the central poststructuralist insights that Newman be-lieves should now guide anarchist politics (1402). Postanarchismtakes these insights as points of departure (lines of ight, perhaps?)from the traditional categories of radical thought. Democracy nolonger connotes a stable set of parliamentary institutions nor shouldit refer to a type of collective decision making. For Newman, fol-lowing Rancire, democracy must be conceived as a politics of dis- juncture. To the extent that contemporary anarchism destabilizes


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the ontological foundations and essential identities of traditionalanarchism, so postanarchism becomes an ethics in which power iscontinually problematised, and where borders are continually con-tested (151). Dissen t and disagreemen t, then , are inevitable withinpolitical life and, presumably, within anarchism itself. In postan-archism, the emphasis is on contingency and practical innovation,rather than on unde rstanding the organic basis and the rational telos of the story of human liberation (153; original emphasis). Foun-dational principles of action drawn from revolutionary theory ormodern social science must give way to a politics rooted in localized

practices and pervasive contingencies. Just as poststructuralism is a philosophy without foundations, sopostanarchism is a politics without guarantees. We can no longerplace our bets on a proletariat becoming progressively class-con-scious or spontaneously engaging in revolutionary action. We canno longer take f or granted the inevitable demise of the capitalistmode of production through the dialectical unfolding of communistsociety. We simply cannot assume that the be er natures of hu-

man beings will be liberated, and then , expressed in such a way thatpower and domination need not be a concern any longer.

e imaginary of classical anarchism was one which opposedpure nature to corrupt convention, which sought the liberation of society from the shack les of the state. In Newman s understand ingof postanarchism, the political is the constitutive space betweensociety and the state (169; original emphasis) neither pole of thatopposition is privileged; neither can colonize or win over the other.Radical politics thus appears as a series of struggles, movementsand communities whose existence is o en fragile, whose practicesare experimental, tentative and localised and whose continuity isby no means guaranteed (170). e challenge is to develop andemploy non-authoritarian organizations in the service of such non-representative or democratic goals as equaliberty.

ere seems to me to be no question that Te Politics of Postanar- ism is essential reading f or anyone seeking to understand postanar-

chism. Its theoretical problems and concerns are expertly describedand explored. Its sources in poststructuralist thought, its affinitieswith continen tal philosophy, and its links to both classical and con-temporary anarchism are well summarized and fairly interpreted.Whatever criticisms of the book one might have do not emerge fromthe scholarship or analysis it presents, they emerge instead fromwhat the work leaves unsaid or li le explored.


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Newmans understanding of postanarchism is largely elucidatedthrough contrast. We learn, f or example, that it does not share theManichean, even reductionist assumptions of classical anarchism.We learn that postanarchism rejects both the essentialist ontologyof Enlightenment thought and the rationalist prescriptions found inthe Marxist tradition. Because of its non-f oundational, contingentnature, though, it is not surprising that Newman does not entirelysucceed when it comes to giving postanarchism any positive con-tent. We know where to nd postanarchism at work in the spacebetween society and state but we do not quite know if it could be

identied on sight. We might be able to pick it out of a line-up, butperhaps could not nd it among the crowds on the streets. Somepositive content f or postanarchism can be f ound in the ideal of equal-liberty, a key notion f or Newman; but f or the most part, the conceptis dened in straightf orward, minimalist, even self-evident terms.It just is not discussed in any signicant detail. To the extent thatpostanarchism appears as a utopianism, it would help us all to knowa bit more about the direction in which we should head.

As one absorbs Newmans arguments, it is rather easy to cometo the belief that postanarchism is now central to the emancipatorypro ject. Its ontological assumptions and theoretical tools certainlyprovide an important means f or thinking about the possibilities of radical politics. Even so, it is not entirely clear just what is to bedone as a result of taking its ontology to heart. In general, whenNewman talks about ma ers of anarchist practice, he most o en doesso in the context of making theoretical claims about the contoursof ethics, though in the concluding chapter, he tries to highlightsome concrete examples of postanarchist political activity. Even so,the best he can do is to make admi edly common gestures in thedirection of the decentralised, democratic and non-authoritarianstructures and practices involved in what is broadly termed theglobal anti-capitalist movement (168). Perhaps the next step inelucidating a postanarchist account of emancipation is to talk notonly about specic structures and practices, but to theorize abouthow it is possible f or the critical consciousness on wh ich they dependto emerge in the rst place.

Anarchism, as an anti-politics, has typically been marginalizedor kept to the outer limits of political theory. Because of this po-sition on the fringe, Newman suggests, anarchism has somethingimportant to say about the nature of the political (181). at signi-cant contribution is what makes anarchism worthy of f urther study,


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practice, and developmen t; indeed , it is what makes Newmans workinherently valuable. Even so, contemporary anarchism (whetherpost- or not) remains a largely aspirational doctrine. Perhaps say-ing something important about the political is less noteworthy thaninspiring important political work. If so, then postanarchism an-archism conceived as a contingen t radicalism must necessarily beunderstood as an anarchism-to-come.


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Leonard Williams - Book Review: The Politics of Postanarchism

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