Horizontalism As Strategy: A Critical Analysis of Strengths and Limitations

In the last few decades, the Alter-Globalization movement, the Arab Spring, and the Occupy movements around the world have favoured horizontalist modes of organization, typically combined with principles like de-centralization of power, anti-hierarchy, anti-institutionalism, and non-violence. As the popularity of horizontalism made it a staple of the contemporary repertoire of contention, its merits as a strategy have either been unquestioned, or entirely dismissed. Based on two years of fieldwork and ethnographic interviews with anti-authoritarian grassroots activists in Istanbul, Turkey between 2016 and 2018, this paper critically analyzes the strenghts and limitations of horizontalism as a strategy. Grounded in my empirical findings and engaging with both theoretical and empirical work on horizontality and political organization, the paper draws out the lessons learned from the past decade's experiments with horizontal organization. The aim is to reflect on ways to move beyond the binaries of the Old Left and the New Left, horizontal and vertical, and tactics and strategy, in a bid to contribute to discussions on strategies that are suitable for achieving transformative social change in our current socio-political conditions, across various political regimes.