Mathijs van de Sande teaches political philosophy at Radboud University Nijmegen. In 2017, he obtained his PhD at the Institute of Philosophy in Leuven with a thesis on the prefigurative repertoire of recent assembly movements, such as Occupy Wall Street. His main research interests are radical democratic theory, political representation, activism and social movement theory.

• AcknowledgementsIntroduction: ‘It’s Prefigurative, So to Speak.’Chapter One: A New Society In the Shell of the Old.Chapter Two: Beginnings Without Ends.Chapter Three: From The Assembly to Council Democracy: Towards a Prefigurative Form of Government?Chapter Four: Embodiment: Prefiguration and Synecdochal Representation.Chapter Five: Sedimentation and Crystallisation: Two Metaphors for Political Change.Conclusion: What is Prefigurative Democracy?Bibliography

What do "Occupy" and other such protests really accomplish? This eloquent book disarms that question, terming them "prefigurative"—direct action that affords participants an immediate experience of freedom and unsettles prevailing social identities and alliances. Prefigurative Democracy both honors activism and engages scholars, by unexpectedly pairing Hannah Arendt with Ernesto Laclau.

Mathijs van de Sande teaches political philosophy at Radboud University Nijmegen. In 2017, he obtained his PhD at the Institute of Philosophy in Leuven with a thesis on the prefigurative repertoire of recent assembly movements, such as Occupy Wall Street. His main research interests are radical democratic theory, political representation, activism and social movement theory.

• AcknowledgementsIntroduction: ‘It’s Prefigurative, So to Speak.’Chapter One: A New Society In the Shell of the Old.Chapter Two: Beginnings Without Ends.Chapter Three: From The Assembly to Council Democracy: Towards a Prefigurative Form of Government?Chapter Four: Embodiment: Prefiguration and Synecdochal Representation.Chapter Five: Sedimentation and Crystallisation: Two Metaphors for Political Change.Conclusion: What is Prefigurative Democracy?Bibliography

What do "Occupy" and other such protests really accomplish? This eloquent book disarms that question, terming them "prefigurative"—direct action that affords participants an immediate experience of freedom and unsettles prevailing social identities and alliances. Prefigurative Democracy both honors activism and engages scholars, by unexpectedly pairing Hannah Arendt with Ernesto Laclau.

Mathijs van de Sande teaches political philosophy at Radboud University Nijmegen. In 2017, he obtained his PhD at the Institute of Philosophy in Leuven with a thesis on the prefigurative repertoire of recent assembly movements, such as Occupy Wall Street. His main research interests are radical democratic theory, political representation, activism and social movement theory.

• AcknowledgementsIntroduction: ‘It’s Prefigurative, So to Speak.’Chapter One: A New Society In the Shell of the Old.Chapter Two: Beginnings Without Ends.Chapter Three: From The Assembly to Council Democracy: Towards a Prefigurative Form of Government?Chapter Four: Embodiment: Prefiguration and Synecdochal Representation.Chapter Five: Sedimentation and Crystallisation: Two Metaphors for Political Change.Conclusion: What is Prefigurative Democracy?Bibliography

What do "Occupy" and other such protests really accomplish? This eloquent book disarms that question, terming them "prefigurative"—direct action that affords participants an immediate experience of freedom and unsettles prevailing social identities and alliances. Prefigurative Democracy both honors activism and engages scholars, by unexpectedly pairing Hannah Arendt with Ernesto Laclau.