Occupy and the constitution of anarchy. Issue 2 (13th June 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: KINNA, RUTH; PRICHARD, ALEX; SWANN, THOMAS
• Is Part Of: Global constitutionalism. Volume 8:Issue 2(2019)
• Page Start: 357
• Page End: 390
• Publication Date: 2019-06-13
• Subjects: anarchism, -- constitutionalising, -- Occupy Wall Street Movement, -- power; Constitutional law -- Periodicals; International law -- Periodicals; Human rights -- Periodicals; Democracy -- Law and legislation -- Periodicals; 342.005
• DOI: 10.1017/S204538171900008X
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2045-3817

Abstract

Abstract: This article provides the first comparative reading of the minutes of the General Assemblies of three iconic Occupy camps: Wall Street, Oakland and London. It challenges detractors who have labelled the Occupy Wall Street movement a flash-in-the-pan protest, and participant-advocates who characterised the movement anti-constitutional. Developing new research into anarchist constitutional theory, we construct a typology of anarchist constitutionalising to argue that the camps prefigured a constitutional order for a post-sovereign anarchist politics. We show that the constitutional politics of three key Occupy Wall Street camps had four main aspects: (i) declarative principles, preambles and documents; (ii) complex institutionalisation; (iii) varied democratic decision-making procedures; and (iv) explicit and implicit rule-making processes, premised on unique foundational norms. Each of these four was designed primarily to challenge and constrain different forms of global and local power, but they also provide a template for anarchistic constitutional forms that can be mimicked and linked up, as opposed to scaled up.