Chapter 23: Striving for Horizontality by Addressing Power Differentials in Radical Organizing

Social justice organizing is different from typical objects of leadership studies, because the category “leadership” is highly contentious. Activists either consider leadership to be intrinsically authoritarian, and thus reject it out of hand (Diani, 2003, pp. 105–106), or espouse notions of horizontality and anti-authoritarianism (Gordon, 2005; Heckert, 2010; Juris, 2008; Routledge, 2009; Sitrin, 2006) and therefore have a more collective view of how leadership is manifested. Horizontality is “…a flat plane for organizing [involving] …non-hierarchical relationships in which people no longer make decisions for others” (Sitrin, 2006, p. vi). Horizontality here denotes a lack of authoritarian top-down leadership thus allowing more people to be included in conversations and decisions.¹ Horizontality challenges the Europeans’ “…long history of hierarchical and highly structured government and legal systems” (Kuyek, 2011, p. 60) which can be oppressive for others (ibid, p. 61). As activists and anti-oppression advocates, “…our work for change should try wherever possible to encourage, create space for and accept leadership from other racial and cultural groups… It does mean allowing the space and time for cultural forms to emerge, to take leadership and power” (ibid.). By transforming traditional structures, a space can be created whereby oppressed people can be “for themselves” in a way that is empowering for them, instead of being relegated to the margins, or forced into the oppressive structure. It also connotes a striving for consensus and building relationships (ibid.).² Achieving non-authoritarian and egalitarian dynamics implies being mindful of hegemonic Western patterns of domination and variations in the resources that participants in a collective endeavor bring to the table. We focus here on a penal abolitionist movement, and the organization of one of its conferences, in order to examine the possibilities and limits of breaking the zero-sum game in radical organizing when organizers bring different levels of zero-sum and non-zero-sum resources to the exercise.