''Horizontalidad'' (, horizontality or horizontalism) is a social relationship that advocates the creation, development, and maintenance of social structures for the equitable distribution of
management power. These structures and relationships function as a result of dynamic self-management, involving the continuity of participation and
exchange 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, after the
economic crisis. 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 in
London 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)".
Horizontalidad is related to the theories of
anarchist communism,
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 ecology (Bookchin), a theory about the relat ...
and
libertarian municipalism,
autonomist Marxism and
participatory economics. According to these schools of thought, horizontality seems to be a necessary factor for real freedom because it allows personal
autonomy
In developmental psychology and moral, political, and bioethical philosophy, autonomy, from , ''autonomos'', from αὐτο- ''auto-'' "self" and νόμος ''nomos'', "law", hence when combined understood to mean "one who gives oneself one's ...
within a framework of
social equality. These approaches advocate a kind of
socialist direct democracy
Direct democracy or pure democracy is a form of democracy in which the Election#Electorate, electorate decides on policy initiatives without legislator, elected representatives as proxies. This differs from the majority of currently establishe ...
and
workers' councils (''
autogestion'') or community/neighborhood councils.
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 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
A ''piquetero'' is a member of a group that has blocked a street with the purpose of demonstrating and calling attention over a particular issue or demand. The word is a neologism in the Spanish language, Spanish of Argentina, coming from ''pi ...
of
Solano, outside
Buenos Aires, Argentina, described ''horizontalidad'' as:
See also
*
Anarchism
Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not necessa ...
*
Autogestion
*
Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army
The Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army (also known as CIRCA and Clown Army) is an anti-authoritarian left-wing activist group that uses clowning and non-violent tactics to act against corporate globalisation, war, and on other issues. The gr ...
*
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 legal personality, corporate personhood in which grou ...
*
Consociationalism
*
Economic Democracy
*
General assembly (Occupy movement)
*
Kritarchy
Kritarchy, also called kritocracy, was the system of rule by Biblical judges (, ) in ancient Israel, started by Moses according to the Book of Exodus, before the establishment of a united monarchy under Saul.
Because the name is a compound of the ...
*
Libertarian Municipalism
*
Meritocracy
Meritocracy (''merit'', from Latin , and ''-cracy'', from Ancient Greek 'strength, power') is the notion of a political system in which economic goods and/or political power are vested in individual people based on talent, effort, and achiev ...
*
Multicameralism
*
Panarchism Panarchy may refer to:
* Panarchy (Dartmouth), student society at Dartmouth College
* Panarchy (ecology)
A social-ecological system consists of 'a bio-geo-physical' unit and its associated social actors and institutions. Social-ecological system ...
*
Participatory Economics
*
Pillarisation
*
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. D ...
*
Popular assembly
*
Responsible autonomy
*
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 ecology (Bookchin), a theory about the relat ...
*
Socialism
*
Symbolic interactionism
Symbolic interactionism is a sociological theory that develops from practical considerations and alludes to particular effects of communication and interaction in people to make images and normal implications, for deduction and correspondence w ...
References
External links
La ocupación de Wall Street en clave argentinaLavaca, October 1st 2011.
*
Horizontalism and the Occupy Movements By Marina Sitrin. ''
Dissent'', Spring 2012.
{{Anarchism
Self-organization
Autonomism
Anti-globalization movement