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Modern activist artists in their practices try to embody those ideal structures upon which they would like to see free society organized in the future. There are more and more artists who unite in groups without clear leaders, acting collectively and/or anonymously. Striving to overcome the framework of the field of art and reach a wide public audience, they are guided in their practice by the ideas of radical political philosophers who are close to them in spirit and proclaim a horizontal and decentralized system of governance, direct democracy, to the point of rejecting any power and state.

In the first part of this chapter, I will discuss the history and examples of the existence of a horizontal and decentralized control system in Russia and some other countries, as well as a theoretical rationale for the very idea of direct democracy. Then I will talk about modern collectives trying to apply the ideas of horizontalization and decentralization in their practice.

In the second part of the chapter, I will describe how activist artists try to build their ethics, based on the philosophy of modern anarchism, and to solve an important question – whether or not to participate in institutional and gallery activities.

In the third and final part, I will give the basic philosophical rules of activist art and speculate on whether the work of art activists corresponds to them. My conclusion is that, apart from the grass roots of the movement, from the connection with genuinely protesting and mass movements, the activity of activist artists is doomed to failure.

Purpose – This chapter uses evolutionary theory to determine if certain aspects of political thinkers’ societal visions might comport with human nature.

Design/methodology/approach – This chapter summarizes the political views of two thinkers and then applies our evolutionary understanding of altruism/cooperation to determine if their views can in any way be considered consistent with human nature.

Findings – The chapter explores the underlying commonality between individualist anarchism and anarcho-communism. There is a subtle but credible relationship between these two libertarian perspectives through the evolution of cooperation in its several manifestations. It can be said that the key tenets of Max Stirner and Peter Kropotkin are underlain by evolutionary impulses, thus rendering their claims of cooperation and sociality plausible.

Public administration has struggled to develop effective practices for fostering just and sustainable responses to social, economic, and environmental crises. In this chapter, we argue that radically democratic social movements demonstrate the potential the ideal-type of Integrative Governance holds for achieving the collaborative advantage that has remained elusive to those who study and utilize traditional governance networks. Drawing from myriad studies of social movements, we demonstrate how particular social movements prefigure the philosophy and practices of this approach. Herein we focus on movements’ ethical stance of Stewardship, politics of Radical Democracy, epistemological use of Integral Knowing, and administrative practice of Facilitative Coordination, emphasizing how they use information communication technology and one-to-one organizing tactics. These practices enable social movements to integrate across the domains of sustainability and translate radically democratic modes of association from micro- to macro-scale. Thus, they shift attention from network structures, the main focus of the governance literature, to power dynamics. These movements constitute an interconnected global phenomenon, fostering solidarity across difference and prefiguring a transformation of the global political economy. Therefore, they are nascent exemplars of Integrative Governance, a more just and effective approach to global governance.

Purpose – Movements typically have great difficulty using the mass media to spread their messages to the public, given the media's greater power to impose their frames on movement activities and goals. In this paper, we look at the impact of the political context and media strategies of protesters against the 2009 G-20 meetings in Pittsburgh on media coverage of the protests.

Methodology – We employ field observations, interviews with activists and reporters, and a content analysis of print coverage of the demonstrations by the two local daily newspapers, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

Findings – We find that protesters were relatively successful in influencing how they were portrayed in local newspaper stories and in developing a sympathetic image of their groups’ members. Specifically, we find that activist frames were present in newspaper coverage and activists were quoted as frequently as city officials.

Research implications – We argue that events such as the G-20 meetings provide protesters with opportunities to gain temporary “standing” with the media. During such times, activists can use tactics and frames to alter the balance of power in relations with the media and the state and to attract positive media coverage, particularly when activists develop strategies that are not exclusively focused on the media. We argue that a combination of political opportunities and activist media strategies enabled protest organizers to position themselves as central figures in the G-20 news story and leverage that position to build media interest, develop relationships with reporters, and influence newspaper coverage.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) states in 2018 that safeguarding “civil liberties is critical” to their official duties. The Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties within DHS, as its website explains,

reviews and assesses complaints from the public in areas such as: physical or other abuse; discrimination based on race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, gender, sexual orientation, or disability; inappropriate conditions of confinement; infringements of free speech; violation of right to due process … and any other civil rights or civil liberties violation related to a Department program or activity.

My chapter tracks the centrality of deportability in shaping the civil liberties and rights that DHS is tasked with enforcing. Over the course of the twentieth century, people on US soil saw an expanding list of civil liberties and civil rights. Important scholarship concentrates on the role of the courts, state and federal governments, advocacy groups, social movements, and foreign policy driving these constitutional and cultural changes. For instance, the scholarship illustrates that coming out of World War I, the US Supreme Court ruled that the First Amendment did not protect something the Justices labeled “irresponsible speech.” The Supreme Court soon changed course, opening up an era ever since of more robust First Amendment rights. What has not been undertaken in the literature is an examination of the relationship of deportability to the sweep of civil liberties and civil rights. Starting in the second decade of the twentieth century, federal immigration policymakers began multiplying types of immigration statuses. A century later, among many others, there is the H2A status for temporary low-wage workers, the H2B for skilled labor, and permanent residents with green cards. The deportability of each status constrains access to certain liberties and rights. Thus, in 2016, when people from the Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties within DHS act, they are not enforcing a uniform body of rights and liberties that applies equally to citizens and immigrants, or even within the large category of immigrants. Instead, they do so within a complicated matrix of liberties and rights attenuated by deportability, which has been shaped by the history of the twentieth century.

Scholars have shown many ways that social movements and democracy are deeply connected. Here, we demonstrate a previously unexplored process by which social movements alter democratic practice. Democratic movements are often experienced as insufficiently democratic by the very activists who participate in them, impelling new practices. We present examples from recent research on democratic movements and then contend that this is a common occurrence. Building on Hirschman's analysis of organizational change, we develop a theoretical account of why activists find movements for democracy disappointing and try to correct this, either by transforming the organizations they are in or creating new ones. Hirschman categorized responses to organizational challenges as Voice and Exit; we define a combination of these we call Semi-Exit as a useful extension. We then show in some detail how both disappointment and creativity have been generated in two major movement arenas: transnational activism that links social justice with environmental concerns and the Occupy Movement.