Anti-austerity between militant materialism and real democracy

Exploring pragmatic prefigurativism

Bibliographic Data

ID12716865
AuthorsOlatz Ribera-Almandoz (0000-0002-5261-8975, Universitat Pompeu Fabra), Nikolai Huke (0000-0002-9865-4365, Institute of Political Science, Eberhard Karls University, Tübingen, Germany), Monica Clua-Losada (0000-0002-3198-1097, Department of Political Science, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, Edinburg, TX, USA), David J Bailey (0000-0001-5132-2606, University of Birmingham), David Bailey (0000-0002-1956-0556, University of Birmingham, corresponding author)
Year2020
Volume17
Issue5
Pages766-781
Publication date2020-02-11
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueGlobalizations (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1474-7731 • E-ISSN: 1474-774X
PublisherTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/14747731.2020.1722493
OpenAlexW3005669570
LanguageEN
Citations received15
References cited37

The anti-austerity movement that emerged in the wake of the 2008 global economic crisis and 2010 Eurozone crisis, and which forms part of the ‘age of austerity’ that came after those crises, was underpinned by a set of ideas and practices that we refer to here as ‘pragmatic prefigurativism’. Whilst the anti-austerity movements typically rejected formal ideologies such as Marxism and anarchism, nevertheless pragmatic prefigurativism can be understood as a ‘left convergence’ of sorts. The paper explores the features of this pragmatic prefigurativism, comparing the anti-austerity movements in the UK and Spain. In particular, we note the role of unresponsive institutions of democracy in prompting the move towards pragmatic prefigurativism, the adoption of techniques of direct democracy and direct action as the means through which to express a voice and to refuse austerity, and the pragmatic nature of the subsequent (re)turn to political institutions when this became a possibility

Austerity · Democracy · Economic system · Economics · Epistemology · Keynesian economics · Materialism · Militant · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Positive economics · Law · Philosophy · Political and Economic history of UK and US · Populism, Right-Wing Movements · Social Policy and Reform Studies

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