Occupying Political Science

The Occupy Wall Street Movement from New York to the World

E. Welty, M. Bolton, M. Nayak, C. Malone, E. Welty, M. Bolton, M. Nayak, C. Malone

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9781349447121, 9781137277398
• eBook ISBN: 9781137277404
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: European Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Occupying Political Science is a collection of critical essays by New York based scholars, researchers, and activists, which takes an unconventional look at the Occupy Wall Street movement through concepts found in the field of political science. Both normative and descriptive in its approach, Occupying Political Science seeks to understand not only the origins, logic, and prospects of the OWS movement, but also its effect on political institutions, activism, and the very way we analyze power. It does so by asking questions such as: How does OWS make us rethink the discipline of political science, and how might the political science discipline offer ways to understand and illuminate aspects of OWS? How does social location influence OWS, our efforts to understand it, and the social science that we do? Through addressing topics including social movements and non-violent resistance, surveillance and means of social control, electoral arrangements, new social media and technology, and global connections, the authors offer a unique approach that takes seriously the implications of their physical, social and disciplinary location, in New York, both in relation to Occupy Wall Street, and in their role as scholars in political science.

I N D E X

1%, 12, 34–36, 37, 40, 52, 75, 79, 90, 92, 93, 135, 144, 191, 193, 207, 213, 226, 233, 258, 264

350.org, 44

9/11, 11, 141, 239, 241, 253, 254, 255, 270n30, 277

99%, 2, 16, 17, 18, 19, 21, 34, 35, 36, 37, 40, 43, 44, 45, 47, 52, 59, 62, 63, 64, 65, 67, 68, 78, 79, 80, 82–83, 93, 102, 103, 109, 118, 135, 192, 193, 200, 203, 205, 211, 212, 213, 225, 226, 233, 250, 258, 260–261, 265

Act Up 93, 101, 173, 226

Actor–Network Theory (ANT), 164–166

Adbusters, 5, 23n6, 33, 59, 63, 64, 102, 136, 156n3

Admiral Security Services, 168

Afghanistan, 249, 261, 277

AFL-CIO, 7, 48

African Burial Ground, 11, 139

AFSCEME, 48

Agents Provocateur, 9, 108

AK Press, 45, 56n62

Alessandrini, Anthony, 255, 271n35, 273n64

Alinsky, Saul, 19, 90

American Baptist Church, 50

American Dream, 228

Anarchism, 12, 16, 28, 30, 33, 44, 45, 64, 65, 68, 69, 71, 73, 83, 116n77, 124, 231, 233, 236

Anonymous, 5, 79

Antiwar Working Group, 262, 263

Apps, Peter, 268n9, 269n22

Arab Spring, 22, 33, 35, 91, 100, 233, 247, 251–256

Architecture, 21, 27, 30, 135–161, 165, 170–176, 178, 195, 240

Archi...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Introduction: We Had a Front Row Seat to a Downtown Revolution
• One   Occupy Wall Street as a Palimpsest: Overview of a Dynamic Movement
• Two   Demands Belong to the 99%? The Conflict over Demands, Issues, and Goals in OWS
• Three   The Art of Nonviolence: The Adaptations and Improvisations of Occupy Wall Street
• Four   The FLO Consensus
• Five   This Space Is Occupied!: The Politics of Occupy Wall Street’s Expeditionary Architecture and De-gentrifying Urbanism
• Six   barricades dot net: Post-Fordist Policing in Occupied New York City
• Seven   OWS and US Electoral Politics: An Early Critical Assessment
• Eight   The Anti-Globalization Movement and OWS
• Nine   The Politics of the “Global”
• Ten   An Occupied Political Science: Concluding Reflections on Downtown Political Thinking
• Contributors
• Index