Dr Kaan Agartan

Decolonising Radical Democracy: Reimagining Social Movements and Solidarity in the Age of Authoritarianism

The goal of the proposed research is to shed light on the limits of radical democracy in contemporary social movements. More specifically, the research aims to explore the mismatch between radical democracy as it is formulated within Eurocentric purview, and the ways it was adopted and articulated by anti-austerity and prodemocracy movements in non-European societies in the past two decades. It contends that despite its widely shared and cherished inclusive, participatory, horizontal, and egalitarian nature, the radical democratic paradigm is still locked in a set of Western epistemological assumptions, and as such may become incompatible with the needs, practices, and visions of social movements outside European contexts. To better address this phenomenon, the research agenda will include conducting comparative case studies from outside the West (particularly from Turkey and Colombia) and creating a platform for dialogue between experts on radical democracy and organisers in the field.