Constituent Power in the Modern World: A Brief Introduction

Department of Politics & International Relations, Rhodes University

Constituent Power in the Modern World: A Brief Introduction

A post-graduate course to be taught by Richard Pithouse in the first semester, 2015

Throughout the modern era … constituent power has been in conflict with constituted power, the fixed power of formal constitutions and central authority. Whereas constituent power opens each revolutionary process, throwing open the doors to the forces of change and the myriad desires of the multitude, constituted power closes down the revolution and brings it back to order. In each of the modern revolutions, the State rose up in opposition to the democratic and revolutionary forces and imposes a return to a constituted order, a new Thermidor, which either recuperated or repressed the constituent impulses. The conflict between active constituent power and reactive constituted power is what characterizes these revolutionary experiences.

-         From the introduction to Antonio Negri’s Insurgencies: Constituent Power and the Modern State (1999)

Territories in Resistance

“Emancipation,” argues Raúl Zibechi, “is not an objective but a way of life.” For the last half century, new and emancipatory social formations have worked to carve out their own territories in Latin America, experimenting in rural and urban settings with new forms of liberatory politics that challenge neocolonialism, neoliberalism, and the very basis of the state itself. Not limited to a single path, these “societies in movement” have adopted forms of communitarian relations that allow experimentation and innovation to flourish at a riveting pace. Blending case studies and history with social theory and analysis, Zibechi opens our eyes to the new world being born just outside our gaze. With a foreword by Dawn Paley, and an epilogue that brings Zibechi into conversation with Michael Hardt and Alvaro Reyes on the continuing revolution of everyday life in Latin America.

Dancing with Dynamite: Social Movements & States in Latin America

Dancing with Dynamite

Written by Benjamin Dangl, published by AK Press.

“Ben Dangl breaks the sound barrier, exploding many myths about Latin America that are all-too-often amplified by the corporate media in the United States.  Read this much-needed book.”—Amy Goodman, host of Democracy Now!

In the past decade, grassroots social movements played major roles in electing left-leaning governments throughout Latin America, but subsequent relations between the streets and the states remain uneasy. In Dancing with Dynamite, award-winning journalist Benjamin Dangl explores the complex ways these movements have worked with, against, and independently of national governments.

Living Learning

Click here to download the Living Learning booklet in pdf.

Living Learning

Just two days before Abahlali baseMjondolo was violently attacked in Kennedy Road, the movement was in celebratory mood as hundreds of shackdwellers crowded into the eMmause Community Hall on Heritage Day, 24th September, for the launch of a new booklet, Living Learning.

Fanonian Practices in South Africa by Nigel Gibson

South Africa has been widely heralded as an African success story in the wake of the 1994 democratic elections. But in recent years the world’s media have too often carried stark images of South African police attacking protestors or scenes of xenophobic violence. Has post-apartheid South Africa been unable to chart a course away from the all too familiar script of a postcolonial crisis, rooted in the narrow nationalism and neocolonialism that Fanon so vividly described? This is not another meditation on Fanon’s continued relevance. Instead, it is an inquiry into how Fanon, the revolutionary, might think and act in the face of contemporary social crises.

Dispersing Power: Social Movements as Anti-State Forces

Dispersing Power

by Raúl Zibechi, 2010

"Zibechi goes to Bolivia to learn. Like us, he goes with questions, questions that stretch far beyond the borders of Bolivia. How do we change the world and create a different one? How do we get rid of capitalism? How do we create a society based on dignity? What is the role of the state and what are the possibilities of changing society through anti-state movements?... the most important practical and theoretical questions that have risen from the struggles in Latin America and the world in the last fifteen years or so.... The book is beautiful, exciting, stimulating.... Do read it and also give it your friends."—John Holloway, from the Foreword

Damming the Flood: Haiti, Aristide, and the Politics of Containment

by Peter Hallward, 2008

Once the most lucrative European colony in the Caribbean, Haiti has long been one of the most divided and impoverished countries in the world. In the late 1980s a remarkable popular mobilization known as Lavalas, or “the flood,” sought to liberate the island from decades of US-backed dictatorial rule.

No Land! No House! No Vote! Voices from Symphony Way

by the Symphony Way Pavement Dwellers, 2011

'A beauty, extraordinary in every way.'
Naomi Klein, author of 'The Shock Doctrine' and 'No Logo'.

Matilda, Sarita, Jerome and Michelle talk to 3cr community radio about their time on Symphony Way and what happened when they were evicted.

Who Can Stop the Drums?: Urban Social Movements in Chávez’s Venezuela

by Sujatha Fernandes, 2010

In this vivid ethnography of social movements in the barrios, or poor shantytowns, of Caracas, Sujatha Fernandes reveals a significant dimension of political life in Venezuela since President Hugo Chávez was elected. Fernandes traces the histories of the barrios, from the guerrilla insurgency, movements against displacement, and cultural resistance of the 1960s and 1970s, through the debt crisis of the early 1980s and the neoliberal reforms that followed, to the Chávez period.