Anarchism, Poststructuralism and the Future of Radical Politics

In the post-Marxist era—in the time defined, in other words, by the eclipse of Marxism and the state socialist projects that emerged in its name—it would seem that radical left politics is adrift in uncertain waters. It would appear that we are living, as Jacques Rancière would say, in the age of “post-politics,” where the global neo-liberal consensus is shared by the parliamentary Right and Left alike (an ideological distinction that has become, at the formal level, largely meaningless) and where the very idea of emancipation is now regarded by many as a dangerous and outdated illusion. However, this sterile space has been disrupted in recent years by the unleashing of new reactionary forces—the political emergence of the Far Right, the uncanny appearance of religious fundamentalism (and not just of the Islamic variety), as well as the aggressive and violent reassertion of the authoritarian state under the dubious pretext of “security.”