This consist of my summary notes and conjectures taken at the book launch / debate entitled “What is Radical Politics today?“
The discussion features Jonathan Pugh, Doreen Massey, Saskia Sassen and David Chandler.
As a precursor I think one of the main concerns that I had was what separates Radical Geography (which I will use as a Geographer in favour of Radical Politics) and Critical Geography?
What I glean from the discussion is that this is a question best answered by perspective: radicals are, to some extent, bottom-up, their engagement with the assemblages of power is from the streets: from the grass root; radical geographies may even imply an active involvement and engagement. In contrast, critical geographies is the act of the radical who confines himself within the ivory tower and acts to critique rather than to engage. The critical geographer is distanced to some extent and relies on liberal philosophy as a main standpoint. In my field of Geography: GIS, the critical geographer might be seen as those involved in Critical GIS, often accused of rehashing theory rather than doing anything meaningful, whereas the radical geographer might be the participatory or neogeographer who, by attempting to engage people seek to challenge perspectives and change existing structures and ways of seeing.
Radical Geography as a historical narrative is often conflated with the prominence of neo-marxist ways of thinking during the 70s, and was perhaps seen as redundant after the Marxist impasse. The cultural turns in geography, however, merely gave it scope to reinvent itself within a critical framework. It is for this reason that previous literary interactions that I have had with authors such as Sassen and Massey have led me to classify them as critical geographers, not radicals. This distinction is really much of a muchness in the sense that they both argue for similar outcomes.
The basic premise of the discussion captured in this text is that people, existing as they do in networks, ought to be more engaged and more worried about the state of their society. Why therefore is a liberal response not forming to the apparent appropriation by the right of the status quo? What, therefore is radical politics today in terms of nature, character or spirit?
Doreen Massey
There is a need to take hold of the narrative of events at the moment, this has been captured byt he right and hence the narrative begins to reflect their agenda. For instance there is increasingly a belief that the major problem at the moment is the deficit and that this issue, and others, can only be resolved by public sector spending cuts. What could have been cast as the end of neoliberalism and market forces instead has made way for a rebirth, from the public sector, of neoliberal institutions. Essentially neoliberalism has become a deeply ingrained commonsense, the inherent struggle of radicalism is therefore to dislodge this. In spite of this there doesn’t seem to be occurring anywhere the construction of a radical counter narrative. It is the construction of such a narrative that will help move recent events from conceptualisation as an ‘economic crisis’ to a more substantial ‘political crisis’.
In order to move into this ‘political crisis’, we must ask- what are the potential social forces which exist to be recruited to be part of the counter-narrative? To achieve this we must figuratively ‘stand back’ and begin defining the larger crisis that exists.
Moving on from this initial ‘call to arms’, or at least call to the armoury to decide how many weapons, and of what kind, we will need; Massey highlights the ‘Green New Deal’ authored by the New Economic Forum and what the implications of thinking internationally about ‘people and planet’ are.
The UK needs to think more internationally and take responsibility for itself in terms of; Iraq and Afghanistan; climate change; the economic effects that our economy has on the global economy, particularly through the City of London. What do we get by ignoring the right in places such as Honduras or Venezuela? Do we need to exert a persuasive, even military, pressure on these places and say ‘hey, watch it!’?
Massey’s point is that we are now a global society and perhaps the liberal west has to accept a responsibility over the world, certainly Massey’s comment that the global is made locally rings through here: by marshalling the City of London we in effect marshal a subset of the global economy. Of course this can only occur if a potential of radical counter-narrative can be enacted.
David Chandler
We don’t live in a world consisted of a ‘masses’ to be called upon, or a swell of ‘social forces’ to be mobilised and fundamentally we have no real propaganda by which people could be motivated. The problem is that there is a gulf between politics, or how we see politics, and how we imagine our ability to intervene. This is essentially down to what has happened to power: In our discussion of the global, power has escaped the reaches of national politics and migrated to the global sphere. The de facto result is that states are now ‘powerless’, which therefore renders politics difficult. Some have contended that power itself has disappeared into the global flows, thus it is not even strictly managed by the interaction of states, but by their economies, and it is commerce and private industry that drives global flows more than politics and states per se. Thus when individuals try and conceptualise what power means to them in this global sense, the overwhelming opinion is that they are overwhelmed.
However, what if politics and power haven’t been divorced? Perhaps it is our experience of ourselves and our knowledge of our capacities that have diminished. Politics and power still exist as a thing we could conceive were we not now limited in our ability to capture it. The response to this is the need to create a framework for engagement and collaboration, there is however no academic solution, we cannot see the method as individuals. On this note, if we want politics to exist we have to construct, or indeed re-construct it – politics can only exist with people.
David Chandler got a lot of criticism for his opinion, and it is obvious to imagine why, the trouble is that he is probably right. In the film Examined Life, Michael Hardt notes that when he was young he spent time in Nicaragua and other such revolutionary, radical places and observed the people who were part of these leftist movements. The radicals at some point told Hardt that they would be more use being radical in America, back at home, than in Latin America, at which point Hardt realised that he and his friends has no idea how to do this – they couldn’t simply go to the mountains with a weapons cache. This is the uncertainty that Chandler picks up on, and it is the identification, like Massey that a narrative needs to be wrought that drives the possibility of a future.
Saskia Sassen
In the North, we have become consumers of our citizenship, politics and democracy. It is in the South that there exists radicalism. The question is: how do we in the North get away from merely ‘consuming’ politics? The act of consumption, particularly uncontrolled consumption has meant that previously stable meanings have become unstable. The greatest evidence of this is the transition of the state from a political entity, as it was previously, to an administrator, as it is now. This naturally begs the question: where is politics being made? Nowadays the judiciary becomes a place where politics are made, if for instance, a claim is made against human rights. Likewise politics are being made in cultural festivals.
The state today has an unstable meaning, subject to internal differentiation and conflict as well as the external influence of the global. Globalisation has given the executive branch of government more power, but has also stripped power from localities. We need to re-approach have the state is made, but how? The current disposition towards internationalism has created a global corporate economy; is it therefore possible to view the state as having capabilities commensurate with a multi-national. Internationalism can be seen as a global geography of states acting, or at least the presence of state capabilities. as such government functionaries have learnt how to work with other states’ functionaries on issues such as war – is it possible to re-gear this interaction towards working for solutions to hunger, climate change etc. To do this, a lot of politics has to be enacted that goes beyond existing political parties.
Power is also something that is changing, fundamentally ‘powerlessness’ can be seen as having an unstable meaning. Powerlessness doesn’t suggest a uniform inability to act, rather under certain conditions ‘powerlessness’ actually becomes quite complex. it is possible that under these complex conditions a ‘politics’ could be constructed. It could be that the current conditions that exist in the world, concerning economy, society and the political may have the potential for generating this complexity. If the concepts of powerlessness, politics, states etc are made then it leads that they can be unmade, but only if we definite a radical politics to remake them. This is a lot more difficult int he North than in other countries.
Jonathan Pugh
Contrary to some of the previous contributors view of the role of states, states do actually matter. people and society turn to t he state for answers during a crisis and we have seen that that is what has happened over the past economic crisis. The trouble is with radical politics, it is essentially radical philosophy which has the effect of putting you in a world of chaos. We cannot go forward if the effect of philosophical thinking to cause people to believe that they are powerless and living within global flows of power – what does that even mean?! We really have to ask is critical theory really radical politics? Instead we need to attempt to trap ethical individuals and trap the ethos of what they believe rather than getting lost in cyberspace, power and agency which can be elitist and insular.
If globalisation persists in its current form how can we ‘know’ anything, and if we don’t know anything, how can we ‘do’ anything? As noted the meaning of the ‘left’ as we see at the moment is difficult.
Jonathan also provides an an interesting overview here.
Conclusions drawn from all authors
The academic position is for analysis of, rather than participation in, radical politics. There is need for the academic to become involved in society as well as simply analysing it.
It is debatable whether there is a practical solution that is also politically meaningful, however this shouldn’t stop people from attempting to be authentic and making a new politics of integrity.
There are multiple levels at which things need to change – from the construction of narrative to organising involvement both legally (through legal channels and courts) and socially through movements. The question still remains – how do we begin to make the economy ours? It must start by accepting that politics has left the formal political approach.
Neoliberals and the right are increasingly seizing the institutions of power, we are moving away from pluralistic approaches in government to uniform conservatism. We need to define what the universal values of the left are and promote a liberal mindset that reengages politics.
