''Horizontalidad'' (, horizontality or horizontalism) is a social relationship that advocates the creation, development, and maintenance of social structures for the equitable distribution of
management
Management (or managing) is the administration of organizations, whether businesses, nonprofit organizations, or a Government agency, government bodies through business administration, Nonprofit studies, nonprofit management, or the political s ...
power and is a prominent concept within
anarchist
Anarchism is a political philosophy and Political movement, movement that seeks to abolish all institutions that perpetuate authority, coercion, or Social hierarchy, hierarchy, primarily targeting the state (polity), state and capitalism. A ...
thought. These structures and relationships function as a result of dynamic self-management, involving the continuity of participation and
exchange
Exchange or exchanged may refer to:
Arts, entertainment and media Film and television
* Exchange (film), or ''Deep Trap'', 2015 South Korean psychological thriller
* Exchanged (film), 2019 Peruvian fantasy comedy
* Exchange (TV program), 2021 Sou ...
between individuals to achieve the larger desired outcomes of the collective whole.
Origin
As a specific term, ''horizontalidad'' is attributed to the radical movements that sprouted in December 2001, in
Argentina
Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourt ...
, after the
economic crisis
A financial crisis is any of a broad variety of situations in which some financial assets suddenly lose a large part of their nominal value. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, many financial crises were associated with banking panics, and ma ...
. According to
Marina Sitrin, it is a new social creation. Different from many social movements of the past, it rejected political programs, opting instead to create directly democratic spaces and new social relationship.
The related term "horizontals" arose during the
anti-globalisation
The anti-globalization movement, or counter-globalization movement, is a social movement critical of economic globalization. The movement is also commonly referred to as the global justice movement, alter-globalization movement, anti-globalist m ...
European Social Forum
The European Social Forum (ESF) was a recurring conference held by members of the alter-globalization movement (also known as the Global Justice Movement). In the first few years after it started in 2002 the conference was held every year, but late ...
in
London
London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...
in 2004 to describe people organising in a style where they "aspire to an open relationship between participants, whose deliberative encounters (rather than representative status) form the basis of any decisions,"
in contrast to "verticals" who "assume the existence and legitimacy of representative structures, in which bargaining power is accrued on the basis of an electoral mandate (or any other means of selection to which the members of an organisation assent)".
According to
Paul Mason, "the power of the horizontalist movements is, first, their replicability by people who know nothing about theory, and secondly, their success in breaking down the
hierarchies
A hierarchy (from Greek: , from , 'president of sacred rites') is an arrangement of items (objects, names, values, categories, etc.) that are represented as being "above", "below", or "at the same level as" one another. Hierarchy is an importan ...
that seek to contain them. They are exposed to a montage of ideas, in a way that the structured, difficult-to-conquer knowledge of the 1970s and 1980s did not allow (...) The big question for horizontalist movements is that as long as you don't articulate against power, you're basically doing what somebody has called ''"reform by riot"'': a guy in a hoodie goes to jail for a year so that a guy in a suit can get his law through parliament".
Practice
Neka, a participant in the
unemployed workers movement of
Solano, outside
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires, controlled by the government of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Argentina. It is located on the southwest of the Río de la Plata. Buenos Aires is classified as an Alpha− glob ...
, Argentina, described ''horizontalidad'' as:
See also
*
Anarchism
Anarchism is a political philosophy and Political movement, movement that seeks to abolish all institutions that perpetuate authority, coercion, or Social hierarchy, hierarchy, primarily targeting the state (polity), state and capitalism. A ...
*
Autogestion
*
Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army
The Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army (also known as CIRCA and Clown Army) was an anti-authoritarian left-wing activist group primarily active from 2003-2005 in the United Kingdom. The Clown Army used clowning and non-violent tactics t ...
*
Corporative federalism
Corporative federalism is a system of federalism not based on the common federalist idea of relative land area or nearest spheres of influence for governance, but on fiduciary jurisdiction to corporate personhood in which groups that are consid ...
*
Consociationalism
Consociationalism ( ) is a form of democratic power sharing. Political scientists define a consociational state as one which has major internal divisions along ethnic, religious, or linguistic lines, but which remains stable due to consultation ...
*
Economic democracy
Economic democracy (sometimes called a democratic economy) is a socioeconomic philosophy that proposes to shift ownership and decision-making power from corporate shareholders and corporate managers (such as a board of directors) to a larger ...
*
General assembly (Occupy movement)
General assemblies (GA) were the primary decision making bodies of the global Occupy Movement which arose in 2011. Open to all who wished to take part, ''general assemblies'' allowed for an inclusive form of direct democracy. Such assemblies aime ...
*
Kritarchy
Kritarchy, also called kritocracy, was the system of rule by Hebrew Bible judges (, see also shophetim) in ancient Israel, started by Moses according to the Book of Exodus, before the establishment of a united monarchy under Saul.
Because the n ...
*
Libertarian Municipalism
Libertarian municipalism is a political theory that developed out of the writings of American social theorist and philosopher Murray Bookchin. It advocates for establishing direct democratic systems within municipalities, such as towns and cit ...
*
Meritocracy
Meritocracy (''merit'', from Latin , and ''-cracy'', from Ancient Greek 'strength, power') is the notion of a political system in which economic goods or political power are vested in individual people based on ability and talent, rather than ...
*
Multicameralism
In contrast to unicameralism, and bicameralism, multicameralism is the condition in which a legislature is divided into more than two deliberative assemblies, which are commonly called "chambers" or "houses". This usually includes tricameral ...
*
Panarchism
*
Participatory Economics
Participatory economics, often abbreviated parecon, is an economic system based on participatory decision making as the primary economic mechanism for allocation in society. In the system, the say in decision-making is proportional to the impa ...
*
Pillarisation
Pillarisation (a calque from the ) is the vertical separation of society into groups by religion and associated political beliefs. These societies were (and in some areas, still are) divided into two or more groups known as pillars (). The best-k ...
*
Polycentric law
Polycentric law is a theoretical legal structure in which "providers" of legal systems compete or overlap in a given jurisdiction, as opposed to monopolistic statutory law according to which there is a sole provider of law for each jurisdiction. ...
*
Popular assembly
A popular assembly (or people's assembly) is a gathering called to address issues of importance to participants. Popular assemblies tend to be freely open to participation, in contrast to elected assemblies and randomly-selected citizens' as ...
*
Responsible autonomy
Responsible Autonomy (, AR) is a centrist to centre-right political party active in Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Italy.
The party was launched as a "civic list" in support of Renzo Tondo, incumbent President of The People of Freedom in the 2013 r ...
*
Social Ecology Social ecology may refer to:
* Social ecology (academic field), the study of relationships between people and their environment, often the interdependence of people, collectives and institutions
* Social ecological model, frameworks for depicting ...
*
Socialism
Socialism is an economic ideology, economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse Economic system, economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership. It describes ...
*
Symbolic interactionism
Symbolic interactionism is a sociological theory that develops from practical considerations and alludes to humans' particular use of shared language to create common symbols and meanings, for use in both intra- and interpersonal communication.
...
References
Further reading
*
External links
La ocupación de Wall Street en clave argentinaLavaca, October 1st 2011.
* {{open access
Horizontalism and the Occupy Movements By Marina Sitrin. ''
Dissent
Dissent is an opinion, philosophy or sentiment of non-agreement or opposition to a prevailing idea or policy enforced under the authority of a government, political party or other entity or individual. A dissenting person may be referred to as ...
'', Spring 2012.
Self-organization
Autonomism
Anti-globalization movement
Management cybernetics
Anarchist terminology