Communalism as a democratic repertoire

What is “communalism” and how can it be understood as a distinctive political project? Arguably, its most prominent advocate in recent decades has been Murray Bookchin. Partially inspired by the experiences of the 1871 Paris Commune, from which he derived the term “communalism,” Bookchin presents it as a coherent political ideology encompassing “the philosophical, historical, political, and organizational components of a socialism for the twenty-first century” (Bookchin 2015, 26). However, this seems to imply that “communalism” is primarily a coherent democratic ideology that must first be articulated in theory before being implemented in practice. It also connotes an image of the political theorist as someone who prescribes political action, rather than analyzing or describing it. We propose an alternative, more descriptive understanding of “communalism” as a “democratic repertoire.” In the course of the past 150 years, this communalist repertoire has moved between and adapted to various cultural and political contexts. As a result, it has also acquired a range of different meanings and implications over time. By reading “the Commune” as the key signifier of a democratic repertoire, we gain a clearer understanding of how it has shaped—and, in turn, been continually rearticulated by—various political practices and theories from 1871 to the present.