Call of papers Capital & Class: Left-Wing Convergence?

Capital & Class

http://cnc.sagepub.com/content/current

Title: 

Left-Wing Convergence?

Publication date: 2015 (confirmed)

Guest editors: Alex Prichard (Exeter) and Owen Worth (Limerick)

In the aftermath of Occupy and the continued entrenchment of neoliberalism globally, the traditional left faces two challenges: the re-emergence of anarchism and its own failure to turn back the march of neoliberalism during the period of anarchism’s relative abeyance. With widespread disenchantment with party politics, activists on the left are increasingly looking to non-state forms of social and political agency. This ‘anarchist turn’ is taking place within the context of a continued hegemony of traditional statist forms of left wing ideology. Is this antinomy likely to be productive of new political constellations and alignments on the left or will we return to business as usual? This special issue seeks to take stock of this process and theorise and examine its potential trajectory.

Four sets of questions present themselves. First, at an ideological/analytical level, what are the broad contours of contemporary anarchism(s) and marxism(s), and what are the points of ideological and analytical divergence and convergence between them? Second, at a praxeological level, how do contemporary social relations necessitate a rethink of the traditional categories of anarchism(s) and marxism(s)? Third, at a strategic level, what are the enduring points of tension and difference that might prevent a realignment of ‘black and red’ today? A fourth set of questions relates to the plurality of the global movement. To what extent do contemporary anarchism(s) and marxism(s) reflect the concerns of white men in the relatively affluent global north?

These questions can be answered in a variety of different contexts. For the purposes of this special issue we invite contributions that approach questions such as these from the perspective of the international, broadly conceived. We seek papers that reflect on the international forces shaping ideological change and convergence, and reflections on left wing convergence that are couched in terms of transformations in global/international/transnational forces. The uprisings in response to the crisis in finance capital since 2008, alongside the revolts against state forms across North Africa and elsewhere, suggest that we are witnessing the snapping of a set of transnational and intra-national social contradictions. From debt to food prices, outsourcing to zero hour contracts, state repression, the uneven spread of the neoliberal project has resulted in like and dissimilar contradictions emerging at a global and international level. We seek papers that engage questions of ideology, praxis, strategy and diversity/pluralism in a global context. For example, to what extent is the context of US empire central to understanding the ideological tensions or global convergence between anarchism(s) and marxism(s) today? How are localised answers to questions of left-wing theory, praxis, strategy and diversity reflections, or conscious instantiations, of the wider macro, global level (or vice versa)? How are new (transnational) class compositions and convergences shaping left wing strategy? To what extent do global crises in nuclear energy and (dis)armament, environmental degradation, fiscal collapse or social conflict between right and left, demand ideological and/or strategic convergence between marxists and anarchists? How is the rise of the post-colonial state a significant variable in determining the ideological contours of the left? To what extent does European or western provincialism render the ideological differences between anarchism(s) and marxism(s) an irrelevance? How do the contradictions of modern (gender/cultural) politics intersect, become reflected in and engaged by the modern global justice movement? How are (or have) processes of global neoliberal capitalist accumulation outpaced the ideological/analytical categories of traditional left-wing theory – anarchist or marxist? Is the fall of the USSR a central contextual feature shaping contemporary left wing discourse? What is socialist internationalism in the context of the pluralisation of left-wing discourses and practices – can we really talk of a global movement? To what extent do the disparate uprisings of the last five years reflect macro or local counter-hegemonic politics? And finally, how might we understand the legacy of the global antagonism between marxism(s) and anarchism(s) in 20^th century history, and what lessons can be drawn from this history for contemporary socialist internationalism? We welcome contributions that engage these and other questions through a direct engagement – theoretical, empirical or both – with anarchism(s) and marxisms(s).

Abstracts of no more than 300 words should be submitted to the editors for review by Monday the 30^th of September, 2013. Selected authors will be notified of inclusion by the end of October 2013 at the latest. Full first drafts must be submitted by July 2014 for peer review and publication in 2015. Papers must not exceed 8000 words. Shorter discussion/debate pieces, as well as more innovative interventions, will also be considered. We particularly welcome contributions from those not historically represented in debates such as these. We also welcome collectively written pieces representing the views of activist groups or reflecting on the tensions in the lived practices of contentious politics.

If you would like to discuss your contribution further, feel free to contact the editors.

Alex Prichard (a.prichard@exeter.ac.uk) is a lecturer in International Relations at the University of Exeter and is associate editor of Anarchist Studies. He is the author of Justice, Order and Anarchy: The International Political Theory of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (Routledge, 2013) and co-editor (with Ruth Kinna, Saku Pinta and Dave Berry) of Libertarian Socialism: Politics in Black and Red (Palgrave, 2012).

Owen Worth (Owen.Worth@ul.ie) is a lecturer in International Relations at the University of Limerick and is the managing editor of Capital & Class. His most recent book is Resistance in the era of Austerity: Nationalism, the Failure of the Left and the Return to God (Zed Books, 2013) and a co-edited book with Phoebe Moore entitled Globalization and the New Semi-Peripheries (Palgrave, 2009).