A Social Experiment in the Midst of G8 Power Creating ‘Another World’ or the Politics of Self-Indulgence?

Abstract

Popular demands for democracy frequently transcend the liberal representative model towards more radical conceptions that include greater insistence on personal autonomy, and direct participation in decision-making processes. This paper looks at the direct action protests against the G8 summit that took place in the summer of 2005 in Scotland, casting a critical eye on the concept and practice of autonomism, its transformative potential and its ability to build a movement capable of challenging the existing order of things. It argues that despite representing a truly remarkable experiment in alternative ways of relating, organizing and acting, the protests failed to have any impact on the summit, something which exemplifies the fact that the relevance of decentralized networks of small autonomous collectivities is very often confined within the ‘activist ghetto’, tenuously engaged with the wider society and blighted by a selfindulging fetishization of organizational and other principles. [Article copies available for a fee from The Transformative Studies Institute. E-mail address: Website: http://www.transformativestudies.org ©2008 by The Transformative Studies Institute. All rights reserved.]