In the Street: Democratic Action, Theatricality, and Political Friendship [Hardcover]

If there is one thing that people agree about concerning the massive, leaderless, spontaneous protests that have spread across the globe over the past decade, it's that they were failures. Simply put, the protesters could not organize; nor could they formulate clear demands or bring about change. In the Street argues that in seeking to find the reasons behind these alleged failures, we are asking the wrong questions. It argues that when our analysis of such events is confined by a framework of success and failure, we blind ourselves to the working reality of democratic politics, namely the on-the-ground efforts of political actors who, in becoming political friends, demonstrate, if for a fleeting moment, that another way of being together is possible. The book develops an alternative conceptualization of democratic action through a close reading of Antonio Negri, J?rgen Habermas, and Jacques Ranci?re and the global protests of 1968 that inspired these political theorists and their work.If there is one thing that people agree about concerning the massive, leaderless, spontaneous protests that have spread across the globe over the past decade, it's that they were failures. The protesters, many claim, simply could not organize; nor could they formulate clear demands. As a result, they failed to bring about long-lasting change.In the Streetchallenges this seemingly forgone conclusion. It argues that when analyses of such events are confined to a framework of success and failure, they lose sight of the on-the-ground efforts of political actors who demonstrate, if for a fleeting moment, that another way of being together is possible. The conception of democratic action developed here helps us see that events like Occupy Wall Street, the Gezi uprising, or the weeks-long protests that took place all around the US after George Floyd's killing by the police are best understood as democratic enactments created in and through intermediating practices, which inclul#j