Rearguard Politics
Rethinking Political Leadership From the Back
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 24032304 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Lukas Slothuus (0000-0002-6773-2244, University of Sussex, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Pages | 1-27 |
| Publication date | 2026-08-11 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Historical Materialism (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1465-4466 • E-ISSN: 1569-206X |
| Publisher | Walter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE) |
| DOI | 10.1163/1569206x-bja10113 |
| OpenAlex | W7203496574 |
| Language | EN |
Which kinds of leadership are appropriate for emancipatory politics? Moving beyond a dichotomy of vanguardism and horizontalism, I advance rearguardism. Supplementing vanguardism, rearguardism involves defensive leadership and legitimation of existing movements, protecting these from attacks by dominant forces and actively propagating their struggles without co-opting or directing these from the front. I first outline vanguardism, focusing on the work of Vladimir Lenin and Rosa Luxemburg. I then reconstruct the most prominent account of rearguardism, by Boaventura de Sousa Santos, before arguing that his account is too dematerialised and confined to an epistemic realm. I therefore reformulate a different vision of rearguardism by turning to Antonio Gramsci.
Apotheosis · Leadership · Legitimation · Politics · Work (physics) · Political Economy and Marxism · Political Theology and Sovereignty · Political theory and Gramsci
| Highly cited | No |
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