What is the 'Occupy' movement? Is it a movement, even, or a tactic? Why are there no substantial and coherent demands, and is this an aspect itself of the desire to achieve real democracy? Are its beginnings in the call by Adbusters to 'Occupy Wall Street' on September 17th, 2011, providing the catalyst to Occupations in over 95 cities across 82 countries in the following winter? Or can we trace the movement back to the Arab Spring, or further still, to Tiananmen Square?

Wherever its origins, today the call to occupy is resounding across the globe. 2012 is the year to 'Occupy Everything', but what will this mean? Already we are seeing the use of the latest technologies to grow democracy anew and experiment with forms of social and political organisation, the awakening of a networked generation disposed to take power into their own hands, the struggle to find economic alternatives in the face of the failure of market fundamentalism, the resistance against austerity and the dominance of a global political elite intent on maintaining their grip on power, whatever the cost. From Athens to California, Glasgow to Egypt, people are re-evaluating the kind of world they want to live in, and the kind of life they want to lead. They are not appealing to their governments for change, but forming publics to be the change they want to see.

OurKingdom has explored the birth of Occupy through its Networked Society debate, on the way in which new technologies are transforming how we communicate, deliberate and organise. In this debate, OurKingdom will work with openDemocracy to document and analyse the growing Occupy movement, helping to strengthen its voice and hoping to be part of Everything.

See our page of communiques from occupations and protests around the world.

One to Another: the Occupy movement challenges the media

John Wilson 23 January 2012
The Occupy movement challenges the deflection tactics of current media circumambulations: social media and sheer numbers will eventually triumph over the current status quo.

Who got left behind? How rising inequality is affecting countries across the G20

Guppi Bola 21 January 2012
The correlation between economic growth and inequality is not as strong as many would like to believe. Combating inequality can, in fact, lift the poor out of extreme poverty, but this can happen in countries with only modest growth.

The Occupy Movement - a revolution in our sense of self

Kerry-anne Mendoza 20 January 2012
The Occupy Movement, far from having no programme, has revolutionized our sense of self. The Citizen of the World adopts a panoramic view of society and takes the interests of others all over the world to be as important as her or his self interest.

OccupyLSX, unruly politics and subversive ruliness

Alex Shankland 19 January 2012
Any social movement that challenges the state but leaves streets unsafe and refuse uncollected will rapidly lose legitimacy. The trick is to undermine power by exposing its hypocrisy and to make new rules in the process of unruly contestation.

Goodbye, year of new movements: bring on 2012 and Occupy Everything

Aaron Peters 13 January 2012
The editor of our Networked Society debate concludes the project by sharing his reflections on the last tumultuous year of global networked protest, making way for a new debate on the escalating Occupy Movement.

Act now to defend Occupy London and the right to protest

Rikki 12 January 2012
The authorities are acting swiftly to outlaw protests of the kind seen outside St Paul's. Speak out now against this - because every piece of legislation that inhibits the right to peaceful protest is a blow to our democracy.

Occupy: rediscovering the general will in hard times

Natalie Fenton and Nick Couldry 9 January 2012
Times of economic crisis call into question our systems of democracy. Today's global occupy movement is a call to reclaim the economy as a site of decision. To do so, we will need to rethink ourselves as political subjects.

Social contract theory for Occupiers: what law, culture and history tell us

C. S. Herrman 5 January 2012
No legitimate social contract can be devoid of stewardship, responsibility and duty. Recognising this allows us to assess both the historical significance of the democratic revolutionaries of our time, and the scale of the political challenge posed today by hypocrisy.

Revolt of the meritocrats

Andy Yee 3 January 2012
There was a time when privilege, social responsibility and public service went together. Could it return?

Chronicle of a non-violent protest: Jobat, Madhya Pradesh (India)

Alessandra Marino 26 December 2011
For more than three weeks over 130 people have carried out the longest occupation of government-owned land ever registered in Madhya Pradesh (a state in central India).

Fumbling for change

Austin Gerassimos Mackell 21 December 2011
If politics is “the art of the possible” then 2011 has left us, as artists, with suddenly a much larger canvas and a new palate of colours to choose from. This broadened scope requires of us a new capacity for imagination.

The Long and the Quick of Revolution

Anthony Barnett 16 December 2011

This is the Raymond Williams Annual Lecture for 2011, coinciding with the publication of a new 50th anniversary edition of Raymond Williams’ The Long Revolution by Parthian Books, for which Anthony Barnett has written the foreword, also published here this week. In the lecture, he considers the potentially revolutionary events of the past year, starting with a double-democratic crisis in the ruling order, asking why now? and what kind of revolution is under way?

We live in revolutionary times ... but what does this mean?

Anthony Barnett 16 December 2011

Encouraged by the Spanish movement for ‘Real Democracy Now!’, the Occupy network and above all the Arab Awakening, Anthony Barnett asks what revolution might actually mean in the developed democracies of the West. This is his foreword to the new edition of Raymond Williams' "The Long Revolution"

Rape and the Occupy movement

Maeve McKeown 14 December 2011
Failure to take collective responsibility for rapes at camp sites springs from the ideological tension at the heart of the Occupy movement's twin emphases on autonomy and group action as 'the 99%'. An injection of feminist politics is sorely needed.

Occupy: you can’t evict an idea

Ruth Rosen 12 December 2011
The Occupy movement has changed the national conversation in America, and challenged the rightward tilt of the political landscape with its clear message that wealth inequality is incompatible with democracy, says Ruth Rosen

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