The Refusalist International - (Theory Redux) by Mikkel Bolt Rasmussen (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

The many mass protests that have taken place since 2011 have been characterised by an unmistakable need to challenge, overthrow and destroy the prevailing political representations without proposing new ones. The protests are not concerned with replacing the current government or leader with others, and thus getting a better version of what we already have. Instead, they refuse all leaders, including the most critical opposition leaders: these protests are about dismantling the need for leaders. More and more people are coming to the view that it is not possible to manage the many crises within the framework of the political institutions we have today.

The new protests are political acts that are neither class struggle nor the establishment of an opposition to those in power. Rasmussen argues that we should understand these protests as the emergence of a new kind of revolutionary action that is as much an anthropological as a political transformation: it is an attempt to break free from all the traditional notions of how the social context that we call society and the nation-state is organised.

Review Quotes

"Mikkel Bolt Rasmussen's argument not only provides an original account of the coherence of recent social movements but also makes an essential contribution to contemporary political debates. Today, faced with extraordinary reactionary onslaughts, we need more than ever to invent a new and productive politics of refusal."
Michael Hardt, author of 'The Subversive Seventies'

About the Author

Mikkel Bolt Rasmussen is Professor in Political Aesthetics in the Department of Arts and Cultural Studies at the University of Copenhagen.