Postanarchism: A politics of anti-politics

This article outlines a politics of postanarchism, which is based on a radical renewal-via poststructuralist theory-of classical anarchism's critique of statism and authority and its political ethics of egalibertarianism. I contend that while many of the theoretical categories of classical anarchism continue to be relevant today-and indeed are becoming more relevant with the collapse of competing radical projects and what might be seen as a paradigm shift from the representative politics of the party and vanguard to that of movements and decentralized networks-its humanist and rationalist epistemological framework needs to be rethought in the light of poststructuralist and postmodern theories. Here I develop an alternative understanding of anarchism based on a nonessentialist politics of autonomy.