Hegemony and Difference in Political Movements: Articulating Networks of Equivalence

Abstract

This article argues that in the context of the tension between Old Left reductionism and the political fragmentation associated with many postmodern and post-structuralist alternatives, one fruitful way to conceive of contemporary political movements is to imagine them as counter-hegemonic articulations of differentiated but equivalent popular struggles, a formation I call “networks of equivalence.” The article also explores the related dilemma between centralization and decentralization in debates about how those networks should be organized. In order to flesh out how such counter-hegemonic movements might look, and to suggest something of their potential, the article sketches a brief case study of a political movement in Seattle that has had some success building networks of equivalence.