As the second decade in the 21st century comes to an end, popular reactions to the global neoliberal order are proliferating. And they are now truly worldwide – covering a broader geo-cultural range than the assembly movements of 2011 – and mostly driven by youth who see their futures already sold out of reach. These rebellions exemplify the politics of spontaneous organisation – a politics that confirms radical democracy as the only weapon against the consumerist depolitisation of society that follows the bankruptcy of liberal institutions, especially in the Euro-American sphere. And yet, the question remains: how can these spontaneous insurrectionary gestures turn into an affirmative politics of governance?
In the five years since I introduced the notion of ‘left governmentality’, I came to doubt its political efficacy several times. My occasional attempts to elaborate on the nuances and complexities – perhaps even enigmas – of the notion have been motivated by these doubts. After all, what could left governmentality mean outside the real political terrain of our times? The very claim that there can be such a thing, which must exceed the tradition of leftist resistance, makes sense only when it is measured as a reality of governance.
Ongoing governmental politics in the wake of entrenched neoliberalism make left governmentality seem like an impossibility, at best romantic, at worst naïve. It’s given us austerity economics, the dismantling of social welfare institutions, and a media-driven selling out of democracy, all in the name of an encompassing consumer ideal. In turn these have created numerous obstacles to left governmentality: the sovereign debt crisis, racist politics in the wake of labor and refugee migration, and vehement micro-nationalisms within and across borders –
