Direct Action
The Invention of a Transnational Concept
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 9967941 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Sean Scalmer (0000-0002-1697-5457, The University of Melbourne, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2023 |
| Volume | 68 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 357-387 |
| Publication date | 2023-08-21 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | International Review of Social History (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0020-8590 • E-ISSN: 1469-512X |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s0020859023000391 |
| OpenAlex | W4386030418 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 22 |
“Direct action” emerged as a central concept in labour-movement politics in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This article traces and explains that process of invention. In doing so, it seeks to settle three currently unresolved historical problems: the problem of the meaning of direct action; the problem of its relative novelty; and the problem of its relationship to nation. The article draws upon pamphlets and newspapers published on four continents in English, French, Spanish, and German. It argues that the concept of direct action was used in several analytically distinguishable ways: categorical; performative; and strategic. While aspects of direct action were evident in many nations over several decades, French activists played a decisive and catalytic role in the development of the concept. They welded the categorical, performative, and strategic together. They assembled key performances into an agreed repertoire. And they underlined the revolutionary significance of this combination. This new assemblage was then widely taken up across the global labour movement
Action (physics · Aesthetics · Agency (philosophy · Art · Direct action · Epistemology · German · Linguistics · Literature · Meaning (existential · Novelty · Performative utterance · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Repertoire · Social science · Sociology · Communism, Protests, Social Movements · French Historical and Cultural Studies · History · Labor Movements and Unions · Law · Philosophy · Psychology · Social Psychology
Contentious Performances
Moving Politics
The Practical Revolutionaries
Syndicalism in France
Anarchism, Revolution and Reaction
The Birth of Fascist Ideology
Strike Success and Union Ideology
Jean Grave and French Anarchism
Confronting White Labourism
Revolutionary Syndicalism and Reformism in Rio de Janeiro’s Labour Movement (1906–1920)
Transnational Anarchism, Japanese Revolutionary Connections, and the Personal Politics of Exile
Revolutionary Unions and French Labor
Social movement studies’ and the nature of contemporary movements
Italian Anarchism as a Transnational Movement, 1885-1915
Beyond Comparison
British Syndicalism, 1900-14
Anarchism and Anarcho-Syndicalism in South America
Fernand Pelloutier et les origines du syndicalisme d'action directe
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2025 - 2025 (1) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |