Prefigurative Politics

Abstract

The term prefigurative politics refers to a political orientation based on the premise that the ends a social movement achieves are fundamentally shaped by the means it employs, and that movements should therefore do their best to choose means that embody or “prefigure” the kind of society they want to bring about. On one level, this commitment to means–ends consistency reflects what Weber called a “value-rational” logic of action, in which action is guided by values rather than instrumental efficiency. But a prefigurative orientation is motivated by more than a commitment to moral action in its own right; it has been pursued as an alternative to both vanguardist and structural-reformist strategies for social change. Rather than looking to a revolutionary vanguard to seize existing power structures and implement revolutionary change on behalf of the masses or to trade unions or political parties to leverage reforms within the existing system, a prefigurative approach seeks to create the new society “in the shell of the old” by developing counterhegemonic institutions and modes of interaction that embody the desired transformation. In this sense, a prefigurative strategy is based on the principle of direct action, of directly implementing the changes one seeks, rather than asking others to make the changes on one's behalf.