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They Can't Represent Us! Reinventing Democracy From Greece To Occupy
Mass protest movements in disparate places such as Greece, Argentina, and the United States ultimately share an agenda—to raise the question of what democracy should mean. These horizontalist movements, including Occupy, exercise and claim participatory democracy as the ground of revolutionary social change today.
Written by two international activist intellectuals and based on extensive interviews with movement participants in Spain, Venezuela, Argentina, across the United States, and elsewhere, this book is an expansive portrait of the assemblies, direct democracy forums, and organizational forms championed by the new movements, as well as an analytical history of direct and participatory democracy from ancient Athens to Zuccotti Park. The new movements put forward the idea that liberal democracy is not democratic, nor was it ever.
Written by two international activist intellectuals and based on extensive interviews with movement participants in Spain, Venezuela, Argentina, across the United States, and elsewhere, this book is an expansive portrait of the assemblies, direct democracy forums, and organizational forms championed by the new movements, as well as an analytical history of direct and participatory democracy from ancient Athens to Zuccotti Park. The new movements put forward the idea that liberal democracy is not democratic, nor was it ever.
- GenresPoliticsSocial Movements
256 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2014
6 people are currently reading
137 people want to read
About the author
Dario Azzellini
30 books14 followersDario Azzellini is assistant professor for sociology at the Johannes Kepler University in Linz, Austria, writer and documentary director. He holds a PhD in political science at the Goethe University in Frankfurt (Germany) and a PhD in sociology at the BUAP in Puebla (Mexico). His research and writing focuses on social and revolutionary militancy, popular power and self-administration, workers control, migration and racism, social movements and extensive case studies in Latin America. Azzellini published several books, essays and documentaries about social movements, privatization of military services, migration and racism, Italy, Mexico, Nicaragua, Colombia and Venezuela. Among them: The Business of War (Assoziation A 2002), a book about privatization of military services, translated and published in Germany, Argentina, Bolivia, France, Indonesia, Italy, Spain and Venezuela. Azzellini is co-editor of Ours to Master and to Own: Worker Control from the Commune to the Present (Haymarket 2011). With Marina Sitrin he is co-author of "Occupying Language" (Occupied Media Pamphlet 2012) and "They Can’t Represent Us. Reinventing Democracy From Greece to Occupy" (Verso 2014).
Azzellini served as Associate Editor for The International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest: 1500 to the Present (Wiley-Blackwell 2009) and was primary editor for Latin America, the Spanish Caribbean, and the new left in Italy. He serves as Associate Editor for WorkingUSA: The Journal of Labor and Society and for Cuadernos de Marte, an academic publication on the sociology of war published through the University of Buenos Aires. Azzellini also is a documentary filmmaker. His latest film is “Comuna under construction“(2010) on local self-government in Venezuela. Azzellini has been invited to conferences in Europe, North America, South America and Asia. His art projects focus on socio-political themes and have been exhibited in galleries, museums and biennales around the world.
Azzellini served as Associate Editor for The International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest: 1500 to the Present (Wiley-Blackwell 2009) and was primary editor for Latin America, the Spanish Caribbean, and the new left in Italy. He serves as Associate Editor for WorkingUSA: The Journal of Labor and Society and for Cuadernos de Marte, an academic publication on the sociology of war published through the University of Buenos Aires. Azzellini also is a documentary filmmaker. His latest film is “Comuna under construction“(2010) on local self-government in Venezuela. Azzellini has been invited to conferences in Europe, North America, South America and Asia. His art projects focus on socio-political themes and have been exhibited in galleries, museums and biennales around the world.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
July 14, 2014
Three or four years ago, it seemed like revolt was (to borrow Paul Mason's phrase) kicking off everywhere. Today, revolt continues, even if it lacks the spectacular scenery of places like Tahir, Zuccotti Park, and Puerto de Sol. "“There is a growing global movement of refusal—and simultaneously, in that refusal, a movement of creation. Millions are shouting “No!” as they manifest alternatives to what is being refused," Marina Sitrin and Dario Azzellini write in the opening pages of their new book, “They Can’t Represent Us! Reinventing Democracy From Greece To Occupy.” If you know Sitrin's ("Horizontalidad") or Azzellini's ("Ours to Master and to Own" (with Manny Ness)) previous work, then you know that you can expect "They Can't Represent Us" to be a rich, serious, and engaging read.
Sitrin and Azzellini work to identify commonalities among contemporary struggles in the U.S., Greece, Spain, Egypt, and Argentina, without collapsing a diversity of histories or experience into a single recipe or formula. Instead, in an illuminating first chapter, they identify the many strands that compose the DNA of our era of global revolt. These strands include key terms and concepts - - territory, assembly, rupture, popular power, horizontalism, autogestion, and protagonism.
As their discussion indicates, many of these concepts and practices have been bubbling up through social movements since the 1990s - - especially in Latin America and in movements like the MST (Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra) in Brazil, the 2001 Argentina uprising, indigenous movements in Bolivia, Mexico's Zapatistas, and Venezuela's Bolivarian revolution. (Some of this new way of thinking about representation, politics and social change owes a debt also to contemporary anarchist thought and post-marxists like John Holloway.) This chapter offers a clear and very useful primer on a mass politics that refuses - - much to the consternation of pundits on the left and right - - traditional means and ends.
Of course, as the book's title implies, speaking about or for these various moments of revolt poses a delicate problem for writers and activists; if they can't represent us, then surely no book or single critical voice can represent us. In other words, how can writers respect core values of diversity and singularity and yet still give us a comprehensive sense of the global nature of these revolts?
Borrowing a technique from Sitrin's earlier book on horizontalidad in Argentina, the authors use interviews with activists and participants to capture the experience of mass refusal and resistance. The book becomes a kind of collectively-authored text. This not only makes critical sense, it also makes "They Can't Represent Us!" a much more exciting experience for readers.
There's been a lot written about Occupy and other moments of "refusal" in the wake of Zuccotti Park - - Sitrin's and Azzellini's contribution is the best so far. Another world is possible!
Sitrin and Azzellini work to identify commonalities among contemporary struggles in the U.S., Greece, Spain, Egypt, and Argentina, without collapsing a diversity of histories or experience into a single recipe or formula. Instead, in an illuminating first chapter, they identify the many strands that compose the DNA of our era of global revolt. These strands include key terms and concepts - - territory, assembly, rupture, popular power, horizontalism, autogestion, and protagonism.
As their discussion indicates, many of these concepts and practices have been bubbling up through social movements since the 1990s - - especially in Latin America and in movements like the MST (Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra) in Brazil, the 2001 Argentina uprising, indigenous movements in Bolivia, Mexico's Zapatistas, and Venezuela's Bolivarian revolution. (Some of this new way of thinking about representation, politics and social change owes a debt also to contemporary anarchist thought and post-marxists like John Holloway.) This chapter offers a clear and very useful primer on a mass politics that refuses - - much to the consternation of pundits on the left and right - - traditional means and ends.
Of course, as the book's title implies, speaking about or for these various moments of revolt poses a delicate problem for writers and activists; if they can't represent us, then surely no book or single critical voice can represent us. In other words, how can writers respect core values of diversity and singularity and yet still give us a comprehensive sense of the global nature of these revolts?
Borrowing a technique from Sitrin's earlier book on horizontalidad in Argentina, the authors use interviews with activists and participants to capture the experience of mass refusal and resistance. The book becomes a kind of collectively-authored text. This not only makes critical sense, it also makes "They Can't Represent Us!" a much more exciting experience for readers.
There's been a lot written about Occupy and other moments of "refusal" in the wake of Zuccotti Park - - Sitrin's and Azzellini's contribution is the best so far. Another world is possible!
May 2, 2018
Takes a good look at 5 different popular movements that intended to move away from representative democracy and their attempts to use direct or protagonist democracy. Consisting mostly of interviews with people on the ground, with different activist backgrounds, the book succeeds in telling their stories. The different stories highlight the troubles they have all run into and the different solutions they have tried. The book serves to highlight how tough the struggle for continued freedom and increased democratic control is. It also is filled with passion from the people who are continuing to take back the power in their own lives.
The biggest downside to the book is there is some repetition and not much of a conclusion from the authors. This problem is somewhat minimized however by focusing on the most recent events first, and then returned to the longer standing fights in Argentina and Venezuela. While the authors don't provide a conclusion, they show how far some of these movements have come, while still having a lot to learn and dealing with a lot of push back from the state. It's not the most optimistic look, but the people they interviewed who are involved daily, constantly talk about how much fuller their lives feel in taking control of them.
Recommended for anyone interested in exploring democracy, revolution, worker's right struggles who want to learn what to expect when organizing.
The biggest downside to the book is there is some repetition and not much of a conclusion from the authors. This problem is somewhat minimized however by focusing on the most recent events first, and then returned to the longer standing fights in Argentina and Venezuela. While the authors don't provide a conclusion, they show how far some of these movements have come, while still having a lot to learn and dealing with a lot of push back from the state. It's not the most optimistic look, but the people they interviewed who are involved daily, constantly talk about how much fuller their lives feel in taking control of them.
Recommended for anyone interested in exploring democracy, revolution, worker's right struggles who want to learn what to expect when organizing.
May 30, 2017
Having recently gotten involved in left-wing political organizing, this book provided me with a lot of interesting insights that I hope to share with my group. I really enjoyed the authors' critique of liberal democracy, a system designed to provide capitalist exploitation with a veneer of popular legitimacy while preventing most of the population from actually exercising power. On the downside, I found many of the interview sections repetitive and had trouble getting myself to actually finish the book.
May 1, 2015
There was some good stuff in here and I really wanted to like it, but the language was too academic and theoretical for me personally.
July 16, 2025
For me this book serves as a great reminder of what happened in Greece, Spain, US, Argentina and Venezuela during their respective ruptures and subsequently, while also enlightening developments and history in Latin America broadly owing to the concepts discussed.
Would be a recommended read for those studying social movements and democracy (personally I'd be very grateful if I had discovered this book in 2019 when I took classes on those) because of both the theoretical frameworks and case studies provided especially in the form of interviews supporting the contextual narrative. I would also recommend this to people that are starting to organise things outside of institutional realms but I do think the tone of this book could deter casual readers or those not having the grasp of at least what was happening in the countries.
The absence of a conclusion does confuse me too, but I think that allows us to leave things open for interpretation and to look and learn further. This is a bit of a slow read but one that indeed enriches. I would love to look up on how these movements (and even the people involved) went on in this post-pandemic world and especially in the current right-wing shift.
Would be a recommended read for those studying social movements and democracy (personally I'd be very grateful if I had discovered this book in 2019 when I took classes on those) because of both the theoretical frameworks and case studies provided especially in the form of interviews supporting the contextual narrative. I would also recommend this to people that are starting to organise things outside of institutional realms but I do think the tone of this book could deter casual readers or those not having the grasp of at least what was happening in the countries.
The absence of a conclusion does confuse me too, but I think that allows us to leave things open for interpretation and to look and learn further. This is a bit of a slow read but one that indeed enriches. I would love to look up on how these movements (and even the people involved) went on in this post-pandemic world and especially in the current right-wing shift.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews