Direct Action (from 'Encyclopedia of Citizens Media')

Direct Action Introduction The term ‘direct action’ can be traced back to labour activism and industrial sabotage of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century syndicalist movements. It refers largely to the methods employed by workers to achieve their immediate goals: such as better pay and conditions won through employee-co-ordinated sabotage. Early exponents like Émile Pouget also extended the concept to include modes of organization. However ‘direct action’ applied to more than just workers at the point of production for instance, the revolutionary syndicalist Elizabeth Gurley Flynn considered women controlling their own fertility and thus placing their interests above the needs of capitalists awaiting future supplies of workers, to be a form of direct action. Iain in The Anarchist FAQ explains the breadth of the notion: ‘basically direct action means that instead of getting someone else to act for you (e.g. a politician), you act for yourself’. As such direct action, as L. A. Kauffman’s recent study of that name, argues was a prominent feature of 1960s radicalism and become an increasingly dominant feature of contemporary movements from Occupy to Black Lives Matter. Direct action is an important category, not least for demarcating specific types of political practice such as sabotage, strike action, occupation, selective vandalism and boycott, from other, more standard, types of political behaviour like voting in elections, electoral campaigning, party political fundraising and lobbying. It is also a strong indicator of ideological orientation. Its emphasis on unmediated action makes it attractive to anti-hierarchical groups who reject dominant political structures and norms for bringing about social change. It thus has strong affinities with the more horizontal movements engaged in alternative and citizen media. April Carter, a veteran theorist of direct action, in a tract (titled Direct Action) published by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, demarcates it from both ‘symbolic action’ and ‘constitutional action’. The latter is the legitimated means for bringing about reform in accordance with the regulations stabilising a particular social order and from symbolic actions. Advocates of direct action tend to reject constitutional forms as being inadequate or inherently reactionary, whilst opponents consider direct actionists to be ill-disciplined and damaging to the social order. For both revolutionary syndicalists and more contemporary anarchists and radical ecologists, the methods of direct action provide the main means to make effective change. Direct Action and Prefiguration Direct action can be distinguished from standard political behaviours, in that the solution is not just carried out without recourse to intermediaries, but it provides an immediate practical answer, albeit often only partial or temporary. Direct action immediately prefigures, embodies or foreshadows the desired end goals. It is a synecdoche – as it represents through its action a major or small part of its wider social vision. By contrast, other political methods might have no relationship between method and goal. Symbolic actions are aimed at raising consciousness and mobilising support rather than the direct resolution of the problem. Examples would include the British housing charity Shelter, or citizens’ actions on social media, that raise the issue of homelessness. Symbolic and constitutional actions are more metaphorical: there need be no direct connection between the signifier (e.g. a torch-lit parade for the homeless) and the signified (provision of housing). Whilst such symbolic actions are a necessary feature of any campaign, raising consciousness does not in-itself house a single person who was previously vulnerable. Constitutional action relies on the intermediaries, usually the legitimate agents of the state to carry out the desired change. Electoral activity can have positive but the act of marking a ballot or putting in nomination forms, does not by itself ameliorate the problem. By contrast, a third strategy, the homeless squatting and making habitable empty buildings does provide, albeit provisionally, a solution to their problem and thus constitutes direct action. Direct Action and Civil Disobedience Michael Freeden in Ideologies and Political Theory developed the morphological approach to understanding political concepts that can be usefully applied to disentangle civil disobedience from direct action and how they overlap. Freeden explains that contested concepts have their meaning stabilised by their priority (the importance or centrality) and proximity to other concepts and their priority. Civil disobedience, although a disputed term, is usually marked by three core concepts that mutually refer: First the breaking of a law or strongly enforced custom (it needs to be non-compliant with a regulation). Second, a commitment to non-violence, in terms of the withdrawal of cooperation rather than overt confrontation. Third, it has political intent in that it seeks to change laws, customs, practices or significant social relationships. John Rawls in A Theory of Justice adds an additional characteristic: that although civil disobedience necessarily breaks law it is still faithful to the legal system, as perpetrators will acquiesce and even give themselves up for punishment. Whilst this was a significant feature of civil disobedience in American civil rights campaigns of the 1960s, many current civilly-disobedient activists are no longer as committed to handing themselves over to the authorities. This final feature of civil disobedience has moved from a core to a peripheral feature. Characteristic Direct Action Civil Disobedience Political (in widest sense) Core Core Prefigurative Core Peripheral Unmediated Core Peripheral Illegal Adjacent Core Non-violent/non-compliant Adjacent Core Accepts Punishment Absent Once core now peripheral Table 1. Characteristics of direct action and civil disobedience Direct action by contrast need not be illegal. Squatting empty residence, was not in England a criminal action until the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment Act 2012, but was still direct action. Anti-pollution campaigners who organize beach clear-ups are engaged in direct action, though there is no breech in legislation. Civil disobedience is not usually prefigurative. A protest march that refuses to move and thus blocks a busy London street to protest a war is an act of civil disobedience, but does not itself interfere with the military action it is opposing; a similar blockade outside a military establishment that prevents the movement of the materials of war would be both direct action and civil disobedience. Direct action and radical ideologies The privileged position of direct action makes it specifically attractive to radical movements that distrust intermediary structures, especially those of the state or capital. As Carl Boggs identifies, methods such as direct action, which prioritise prefigurative responses are associated with social anarchisms and heterodox Marxisms (like council communism), whilst competing revolutionary traditions, such as Leninism and other orthodox Marxisms are associated with more Jacobin instrumental approaches, where the ends justifies the means. Social democracy is positioned with constitutional methods, the development of a separate political classes and the diminution of emancipatory politics. Many writers (such as Emma Goldman, David Graeber, Uri Gordon and Stanislav Vysotsky) specifically identify anarchism as being the most sympathetic to, and engaged with, direct action regarding it as a becomes a form of praxis that applies anarchist principles in the here-and-now that can bring about immediate change in accordance with their principles more effectively and consistently than through the process of reform. Such is the proximity of direct action to anarchism, that many groups utilise the title in their self-descriptions. The anarchosyndicalist Solidarity Federation used to be called the Direct Action Movement and still use the phrase for the title of their magazine; Earth First! Issued a Direct Action Manual and Green Anarchist A Primer for Direct Action. The early years of the millennia saw the rise of the Direct Action Network focussed on local democracy and anti-capitalism. William Trautmann, who like Flynn, was a militant in the revolutionary syndicalist Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), was aware that their preference for direct action over more constitutional methods distinguished this labour grouping from the social democratic traditions of the American Federation of Labor. Prefigurative methods are not unique to direct action. The adoption of constitutional methods can foreshadow the types of representative and managerial structures of liberal democracies. Similarly, racist groups might prefigure their xenophobic goals, by launching direct assaults on minority communities in order to drive them out. However different forms of direct action can be distinguished, such that the advocacy of unmediated political action by one ideological movement should not be confused with equivalence with, or sympathy with other direct action advocates as some mistakenly infer. Clear differences are apparent as anarchism and aligned social movements give a far higher priority to prefiguration than constitutional democratic and authoritarian movements, where, for the latter, direct action is often a subsidiary or marginal tactical choice. In addition, the anarchist concept of ‘prefiguration’ is proximate to completely different principles and generates different identities to those of fascism or liberal democracy. Anarchism places it next to principles of anti-hierarchy, inclusion and social solidarity, such that ‘prefiguration’ means generating direct action that embodies co-operative, egalitarian and accessible social relationships. In authoritarian or representative democratic movements, prefiguration is understand in relation to other concepts, shifting its meaning and thus the interpretation of ‘direct action’ within that movement. For instance, a student Labour Party group in the early 2000s issued a poster with the slogan ‘take direct action: vote’. Whilst this appears contradictory to those who regard direct action in terms of immediacy and anti-hierarchy, it becomes marginally less so if what is being prefigured are the representative functions and replication of institutions of constitutional democracy. Although emphasis on direct action is a strong indicator of anti-state ideologies and often defined against constitutional action, some groupings, especially in green politics, do advocate both. Influential British environmentalist Jonathan Porritt, for instance, considers it a strength of the green movement to have a diversity of tactics, utilising direct action (though Porritt favours the description ‘civil disobedience’, though the examples he cites can fit either category) and constitutional methods. Green Party members are often involved in protests, blocking airport expansion or preventing fracking, but both tactically and in terms of legitimacy the two strategies become unstable. A prolonged environmental occupation during an election will mean the Green Party supporter has to either abandon the site to canvass for votes, or forsake the election to maintain direct action. Either ultimate legitimacy lies with the legislature or alternatively it is based on those directly impacted and their methods of response. As Porritt recognizes, the result of embracing constitutional over direct action is that distinctive institutions, norms and communicative behaviours are required that are aimed at influencing existing elites rather than the myriad, fluid activist groups. It also redefines problems and solutions in ways that prioritise the values of these dominant institutions, rather than of other political agents and ecological subjects. Environmental groups that try to marry direct action to constitutional action, reconceive direct action in a more symbolic manner. Greenpeace’s website highlight that they run a ‘political unit’ whose goal is to influence elected representatives to enact environmental legislation and business. ‘While this work rarely hits the public eye, it can be enormously influential – especially when it’s combined with Greenpeace’s other strands of work like direct actions or investigations.’ However, as engagement with business and state institutions increases, what appears to be direct action can become increasingly symbolic, leading to what Greenpeace call ‘direct communication’. These are spectacular acts, like dumping a pile of coal outside a senior politician’s house, which are designed to influence opinion-makers rather than enact immediate, prefigurative environmental change. Many groups engaged in citizen media are engaged in the more immediate, bottom-up and practical forms of direct action. However, as Julia Rone notes in her study of citizen’s media in Bulgaria, others interact with powerful economic entities and centralised political power and as a result become co-opted into, at best, symbolic enactments of dissent and, at worse, a further institutional resource for oligarchical power. Direct action and the media Direct action is often contrasted with symbolic action, with some direct actionists critical of methods that solely concentrate on the figurative. The longstanding British anarchist group Class War, who have been involved in grassroots housing campaigns, advocate for squatting as they consider it as something ‘real’ rather than ‘symbolic’. On their website they juxtapose this material action against the: ‘Marching, demonstrating, protesting, and all the other out-of-date activities of the Left have become a purely formal, symbolic activity.’ However, as Class War and other advocates of direct action are aware, symbolic action is also necessary to motivate, promote design and co-ordinate and evaluate more immediate material tactics. In addition, some communicative or symbolic activities are not just supportive of (and foundational to) direct action, but can also constitute a form of direct action itself. As Mona Baker and Bolette Blaagaard indicate in the opening of their edited collection Citizen Media and Public Spaces that graffiti is a type of citizens’ media as it performs communicative functions, but graffiti is also direct action as it directly interrupts and challenges dominate power’s control of material space and its authority to impose and maintain a linguistic order that supports its dominance. Culture jammers highlight the convergence between symbolic and direct action by disrupting the production, distribution and interpretation of signs that have particular cultural and economic value. Most major corporations have carefully constructed images that constitute a ‘brand’ which has identifiable marketable value. Advocates of direct action, as far back as the IWW’s Flynn have been aware of the material impact of symbolic interruptions, such as aggrieved hospitality workers informing potential and current customers of the actual insanitary conditions in the kitchens. As market managers are aware there can be significant negative economic outcomes as a result of effective symbolic sabotage of their brands. Further as Vicente Ordóñez argues in his recent contribution on direct action, it disrupts the symbolic order of capitalism, generating new meanings and experimental, exciting and fulfilling ways to interact with one another. The division between the merely symbolic and direct action becomes even more fluid with hacktivism. Hacktivism involves the use of electronic media to disrupt the stream of images and messages on corporate and state websites that legitimises their power. It also includes persistent, organized mass postings onto targeted web sites such it prevents traffic to and from these sites and causes significant commercial and administrative disruption. There is often a gap between, on one side, how activists view their activities and how they imagine non-participants perceive them and on the other hand, how they are actually viewed by non-participants. Activist-geographer Anthony Ince (in his doctoral study Organising Anarchy Spatial Strategy Prefiguration and the Politics of Everyday Life) provides an example of the distinction. Ince was active in the anti-capitalist protests against the G8 meeting, in Geneva in 2003. These protests were intended to directly disrupt the meeting and prevent the G8 leaders attempt to further reorganize the social and political order in their interests, and instead to enact an alternative in which the interests of the economically-oppressed and the ecologically-vulnerable were prominent. However, as Ince reports, many local people, whom the activists hoped would be supportive of the protests, simply viewed the actions as confusing, self-indulgent and paternalistic. Similarly as the audience for direct action becomes separated from the participants, the more it becomes symbolic and thus open to reinterpretation through intermediaries with their own institutional biases. Criticisms Direct action has faced a number of criticisms. Menachem Kellner in his paper ‘Democracy and Civil Disobedience’ describes how liberal constitutionalists like John Plamenatz and Sidney Hook tend to reject political action that lacks democratic legitimacy because it has violated liberal principles of consent. Following Immanuel Kant (‘On the Common Saying: “This may be true in theory but it does not apply in practice”’), free equal citizens have the ability to influence legislation through public discussion and democratic vote and thus are obligated to live under the laws, even those against their immediate interests, because they would expect others to do the same if they had been successful in drafting legislation to meet their interests. However, as Kellner points out, the Kantian conditions of such binding obligation to law are rarely met. Governments deliberately hide or misinform citizens, citizens lack equality on decision-making and some laws infringe on the future ability to make democratic decisions. Furthermore, unlike civil disobedience, not all direct action necessarily breaks the law (though the more disruptive ones tend to become proscribed if they weren’t illegal to begin with). Although a supporter of selective direct action Peter Singer (in Practical Ethics), provides some strong arguments against it on largely utilitarian grounds. Democratic procedures provide reliable forms of decision-making that overall produce best social outcomes. Direct action which necessarily places legitimacy outside of the constitutional realm, undermines these benevolent political institutions. Singer is, however, aware that selective direct action might be justified on utilitarian grounds, where democratic decision making is too slow to effectively act, or where the interests of some sentient beings are ignored or marginalised by majority-rule. It is also possible that other forms of social organization, foreshadowed by direct action, might provide better general outcomes and avoid minority-discrimination than Singer’s performed form of reformed representative democracy. Avner de-Shalit (in his article ‘Ten Commandments of How to Fail in an Environmental Campaign’) offers a range of criticisms of direct action. Amongst the most compelling are that direct action produces elitism or exclusion as it unintentionally prioritises specific agents and insular group identities. As direct action has a symbolic power which participants want amplifying, actions are chosen on the basis of gaining media attention. As mainstream media narratives tend to concentrate on particular media-friendly personalities rather than the complexities of the causes they are engaged in, it creates hierarchies of prominent activists and key spokespeople at the expense of less well-positioned practitioners and marginalises less-media friendly but more prefigurative, anti-hierarchical activities. However this seems less a criticism of direct action and symbolic action. Direct action, as de-Shalit acknowledges at the start, is primarily about immediate impacts and ‘is not principally [about…] changes … to shift public opinion through the media’. Direct action can appear elitist because it privileges certain groups in particular locations, such as the radical ecologist who without immediate responsibilities is able to dedicate protest camp for months, or workers with the unity to maintain a workplace occupation. It can also lead to group chauvinism, where one form of direct action by one particular formal or informal collective is seen to be the primary form. Constitutional democracy, by contrast, suggests critics, is much more egalitarian and accessible as it is far easier to vote that to participate in direct action. However, this risks misrepresenting direct action. Whilst some groups and tactics are in a privileged position to make effective change, no type of action and no single agent or organization is supposed to be provide the primary and universal moment of liberation. Oppressive power is diverse and so are the responses. Unlike constitutional activity that is predicated on a single core identity of the liberal citizen, direct action’s pluralism allows for different and flexible degrees of engagement and encourages distinctive, fluid identities to come to the fore. Conclusion Direct action is a contested term whose meaning changes depending in which ideology and by which other concepts it is located. It initially came to the fore in labour activism and referred to industrial sabotage of the early twentieth century syndicalist movements, but even here it extended to different subject identities, practices and locations, identifying multiple sites and forms of struggle. Whilst identifying a number of similarities with ‘civil disobedience’, in terms of them both being militant forms of collective action, direct action was distinguished by the priority it gives to unmediated, immediate and prefigurative action. These characteristics make it more attractive to particular types of anti-state and anti-capitalist ideology, rather than liberal and authoritarian political movements who place greater emphasis on constitutional and symbolic action and frame direct action as forms of irrationalism and terror. The distinctions between constitutional, symbolic and direct action are permeable, as direct action can be read symbolically and certain symbolic actions, certainly in networked media, can have direct material impacts. Although forms of direct action can reproduce hierarchy and exclusion, they do offer the opportunities for multiple forms of effective, imaginative engagement. Key Further Reading Kauffman, L. (2017) Direct Action: Protest and the reinvention of American radicalism. London: Verso. Ordóñez, V. (2018) ‘Direct Action’ in B. Franks, N. Jun and L. Williams (eds) Anarchism: a conceptual approach. London: Routledge. Salerno, S. (2014) (ed) Direct Action and Sabotage: Three classic IWW pamphlets from the 1910s, Chicago: H. Kerr and Company Key Terms anti-hierarchy, civil disobedience, constitutional action, direct action, immediacy, prefiguration, radicalism, symbolic action 8