(Re-)Fugitive Democracy: Democracy from the Critical Point of Migration and Mobility
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2298/GEI2601141P UDK: 314.15:321.7 review paper
Abstract
The article aims to provide an analytical perspective for rethinking the essential concept of modern political theory, that of democracy, from a critical point of migration and mobility. In search of the perspective mentioned above, I follow the work of a group of authors featured in Minor Keywords of Political Theory: Migration as the critical standpoint, which critically reflects various keywords within the discourse of political theory and politics through the lens of migration. Sheldon Wolin’s concept of fugitive democracy is first introduced, which views democracy not as a stable form but as an unstable, temporary, fleeting moment of collective action. Wolin’s concept of fugitive democracy is expanded on by contributions from postcolonial theory, which have highlighted the influence of settler colonialism, imperialism and slavery on the development of modern democracy. From the perspective of postcolonial theory one historical example of fugitive democracy is analyzed: the Black frontline communities on the Underground Railroad in the Antebellum period in the US. Viewed from the perspective of postcolonial theory, the phenomenon of fugitivity not only has a temporal dimension, signifying temporary manifestations of collective power, but can also have a spatial dimension. Considering the spatial aspects of the phenomenon of fugitive democracy, fugitivity can mean flight, escape, departure, setting, and creating a sanctuary, a community of refuge, and an alternative way of life where it is possible to live freely. Therefore, I added the prefix (re-) to the concept of fugitive democracy to signify its spatial aspect, thus forming the new keyword, (re-)fugitive democracy. In the last section I follow the authors from Minor Keywords in their intention to rehabilitate the phenomenon of the mob and mass politics by seeing it as something immanent to democratic politics. In this process I critically examine their keyword “the mob” from Minor Keywords, adding essential theoretical layers to the authors’ analysis to accomplish their initial intention.
Keywords: (Re-)fugitive democracy, migration, mobility, the mob, sanctuary, politics of tending
Downloads
References
Aslam, Ali, David McIvor & Joel Alden Schlosser. 2019. “Democratic Theory When Democracy is Fugitive.” Democratic Theory 6 (2): 27–40. https://doi.org/10.3167/dt.2019.060204
Andrijasevic, Rutvica. 2010. Migration, Agency and Citizenship in Sex Trafficking. London/New York: Palgrave/Macmillan.
Aradau, Claudia & Jef Huysmans. 2009. “Mobilising (Global) Democracy: A Political Reading of Mobility between Universal Rights and the Mob.” Millennium: Journal of International Relations 37 (3): 583–604. https://doi.org/10.1177/0305829809103234
Arendt, Hannah. 1969. On Violence. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Publishers.
Bartels, Larry. 2015. “Facing Up to the Democratic Recession.” Journal of Democracy 26 (1): 141–155. https://doi.org/10.1353/jod.2015.0009
Brown, Wendy. 2015. Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s Stealth Revolution. New York: Zone Books.
Balibar, Etienne. 1994. Masses, Classes, Ideas. Studies on Politics and Philosophy. Before and After Marx. New York and London: Routledge.
Cohen, Jean. L. 2019. “What’s Wrong with the Normative Theory (and the Actual Practice) of Left Populism.” Constellations 26: 391–407. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8675.12427
Connerton, Paul. 2009. How Modernity Forgets. New York: Cambridge University Press
Connolly, William E. 2018. Aspirational Fascism: The Struggle for Multifaceted Democracy under Trumpism. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Coulthard, Glen Sean. 2014. Red Skin, White Masks: Rejecting the Colonial Politics of Recognition. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Crouch, Colin. 2004. Post-Democracy. Cambridge: Polity Press. De Genova, Nicholas. 2010. “The Queer Politics of Migration: Reflections on ‘Illegality’ and Incorrigibility.” Studies in Social Justice 4 (2): 101–126. https://doi.org/10.26522/ssj.v4i2.997
De Genova, Nicholas. 2017. “Introduction. The Borders of ‘Europe’ and the European Question.” In The Borders of “Europe”: Autonomy of Migration, Tactics of Bordering, ed. Nicholas de Genova, 1–35. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
De Genova, Nicholas & Martina Tazzioli, eds. 2022. “Minor Keywords of Political Theory: Migration as a Critical Perspective.” Short Symposium. Politics and Space 40 (4): 781–875. https://doi.org/10.1177/2399654420988563
De Genova, Nicholas & Martina Tazzioli, eds,. 2022. “Minor Keywords of Political Theory: Migration as a Critical Perspective.” Short Symposium. Politics and Space 40 (4): 781–875. https://doi.org/10.1177/2399654420988563
De Tocqueville, Alexis. 1848. Democracy in America. New York: Pratt, Woodford & CO.
Della Porta, Donatella. 2014. Mobilizing for Democracy: Comparing 1989 and 2011. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Gilens, Martin & Larry Page. 2014. “Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens.” Perspectives on Politics 12 (3): 564–581. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1537592714001595
Gutmann, Amy & Dennis Thompson. 2004. Why Deliberative Democracy? Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Harney, Stefano & Fred Moten. 2017. The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning and Black Study. Wivenhoe: Minor Compositions.
Haro, Lia & Romand Coles. 2019. “Reimagining Fugitive Democracy and Transformative Sanctuary with Black Frontline Communities in the Underground Railroad.” Political Theory 47 (5): 1–28. https://doi.org/10.3366/ppc.2024.0043
Huysmans, Jef, Claudia Aradau, Stephan Scheel & Martina Tazzioli. 2022. “Mobility/Movement.” In Minor Keywords of Political Theory: Migration as a Critical Perspective, eds. Nicholas De Genova & Martina Tazzioli. Short Symposium. Politics and Space 40 (4): 813–823.
Isin, Engin. 2008. “Theorising Acts of Citizenship.” In Acts of Citizenship, eds. Engin Isin & Greg Nielsen, 15–43. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Isin, Engin. 2009. “Citizenship in flux: The figure of the activist citizen.” Subjectivity 29: 367–388.
Lefor, Claude. 1988. Democracy and Political Theory. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Levitsky, Steven & Daniel Ziblatt. 2018. How Democracies Die. New York: Crown Publishing.
Mann, Michael. 2003. Incoherent Empire. London and New York: Verso.
Mann, Michael. 2005. The Dark Side of Democracy. Explaining Ethnic Cleansing. Cambridge and London: Cambridge University Press.
McNevin, Anne. 2011. Contesting Citizenship: Irregular Migrants and New Frontiers of the Political. New York: Columbia University Press.
Mezzadra, Sandro. 2011. “The gaze of Autonomy: Capitalism, Migration and Social Struggles.” In The Contested Politics of Mobility, Borderzones and Irregularity, ed. Vicki Squire, 121–142. London: Routledge.
Mezzadra, Sandro. 2016. “MLC 2015 Keynote: What’s at Stake in the Mobility of Labour? Borders, Migration, Contemporary Capitalism.” Migration, Mobility, & Displacement 2 (1): 30–43. https://doi.org/10.18357/mmd21201615466
Moten, Fred. 2017. Black and Blur, vol. 1 of Consent Not to Be a Single Being. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Moten, Fred. 2018a. Stolen Life, vol. 2 of Consent Not to Be a Single Being. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Moten, Fred. 2018b. The Universal Machine, vol. 3 of Consent Not to Be a Single Being. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Mouffe, Chantal & Ernesto Laclau. 1985. Hegemony and Socialist Strategy. Towards a Radical Democratic Politics. London: Verso.
Mouffe, Chantal. 1993. The Return of the Political. London: Verso.
Mouffe, Chantal. 1999. “Deliberative Democracy or Agonistic Pluralism?” Social Research 66 (3): 745–758.
Mouffe, Chantal. 2018. For a Left Populism. London and Brooklyn, NY: Verso.
Mounk, Yascha. 2018. The People vs. Democracy: Why Our Freedom Is in Danger and How to Save It. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Nyers, Peter. 2015. “Migrant Citizenships and Autonomous Mobilities.” Migration, Mobility, & Displacement 1 (1): 23–39. https://doi.org/10.18357/mmd11201513521
Pateman, Carol. 2014. Participation and Democratic Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Papadopoulos, Dimitris, Niamh Stephenson & Vassilis Tsianos. 2008. Escaperoutes. Control and Subversion in the Twenty-First Century. London: Pluto Press.
Papadopoulos, Dimitris & Vassilis Tsianos. 2013. “After Citizenship: Autonomy of Migration, Organizational Ontology and Mobile Commons.” Citizenship Studies 17 (2): 178–196. https://doi.org/10.1080/13621025.2013.780736
Ranciere, Jacques. 1999. Disagreement: Politics and Philosophy. Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press.
Rygiel, Kim. 2011. “Bordering Solidarities: Migrant Activism and the Politics of Movement and Camps at Calais.” Citizenship Studies 15 (1): 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/13621025.2011.534911
Roberts, Neil. 2015. Freedom as Marronage. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Runciman, David. 2018. How Democracy Ends. New York: Basic Books.
Scheel, Stephan. 2017. “The Secret Is to Look Good on Paper: Appropriating Mobility Within and Against a Machine of Illegalization.” In The Borders of “Europe”: Autonomy of Migration, Tactics of Bordering, ed. Nicholas De Genova, 37–63. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Scheel, Stephan. 2018. “Recuperation Through Crisis-talk: Apprehending the European Border Regime as a Parasitic Apparatus of Capture.” South Atlanic Quarterly 117 (2): 267–289. https://doi.org/10.1215/00382876-4374834
Scheel, Stephan. 2019. Autonomy of Migration? Appropriating Mobility Within Biometric Border Regimes. London and New York: Routledge.
Shaw, Martin. 2003. War and Genocide. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Singh, Nikhil Pal. 2017. Race and America’s Long War. Berkley: University of California Press.
Snyder, Timothy. 2018. The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America. New York: Tim Duggan Books.
Stierl, Maurice. 2019. Migrant Resistance in Contemporary Europe. London and New York: Routledge.
Stierl, Maurice, Manuela Bojadzijev, Nicholas De Genova, Julia, Eckert, Shahram Khosravi, Clara Lecadet, Federica Mazzara, Anne McNevin & Peter, Nyers. 2022. “Struggle.” In Minor Keywords of Political Theory: Migration as a Critical Perspective, eds. Nicholas De Genova & Martina Tazzioli. Short Symposium. Politics and Space 40 (4): 794–806.
Tazzioli, Martina. 2015. Spaces of Governmentality. Autonomous Migration and the Arab Uprisings. London & New York: Rowman & Littlefield International.
Tazzioli, Martina. 2020. The Making of Migration. The Biopolitics of Mobility at Europe’s Borders. London: Sage.
Tazzioli, Martina, Nicholas De Genova, Julia Eckert, Jef Huysmans & Huub van Baar. 2022. “The Mob.” In Minor Keywords of Political Theory: Migration as a Critical Perspective, eds. Nicholas De Genova & Martina Tazzioli. Short Symposium. Politics and Space 40 (4): 824–829.
Traverso, Enzo. 2021. Revolution. An Intellectual History. London and New York: Verso.
Wolin, Sheldon. 1989. The Presence of the Past. Essays on the State and the Constitution. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Wolin, Sheldon. 2001. Tocqueville Between Two Worlds. The Making of a Political and Theoretical Life. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Wolin, Sheldon. 2008. Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Wolin, Sheldon. 2016. Fugitive Democracy and Other Essays. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 Bulletin of the Institute of Ethnography SASA
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
