Direct action involves achieving political goals through disruptive acts of protest. The last decade has witnessed a proliferation of this kind of disruptive activism across democratic societies. The tactics range from the familiar, such as occupations of public space as a protest against unregulated financial markets, to the innovative, such as occupations of cyber space as a means of disrupting corporate or government institutions. The relationship between direct action and democratic politics remains a matter of considerable dispute within both democratic practice and democratic theory. There is ongoing debate about the nature of this kind of activism, its moral status, and its broader role in the ebb and flow of political life.

This project aims to cast light on these debates through drawing on the deliberative turn in democratic theorizing. This might strike some as unusual, because the types of political behaviour associated with the deliberative paradigm seem to be a long way removed from the confrontational and disruptive nature of direct action. The most recent development within deliberative theorising, however, cast doubt on this assumption. The concept of a ‘deliberative system’ has been introduced to fix ideas about the important role that non-conventional modes of political behaviour can play in a deliberative democracy. There is, in fact, recognition that direct action can make important contributions to deliberative systems, but theorists have called for further research into the positive and negative impacts that direct action can have.

The aim of this project is to answer this call for further research through a book-length study of the relationship between the systemic turn in deliberative democracy and direct action. The book addresses a number of questions that, according to scholars, have yet to be resolved in the literature, including: What is a deliberative system? In what ways can direct action enhance deliberative systems? When does direct action become counter-productive as a means of addressing deficiencies in deliberative systems? How, if at all, does online or digital activism differ from conventional forms of protest in terms of its implications for deliberative systems? Are there parallels between the role of direct action and rhetoric in deliberative systems? Should the tactics and/or objectives of activists count as decisive in evaluations of their actions? What normative considerations are relevant to the response of state actors to direct action? The overarching aim of the book is to draw on some of the most recent developments in democratic theory to construct a framework that can orientate ethical evaluations of direct action.

Author bio: William Smith is assistant professor in the Department of Government and Public Administration at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. His research is in the field of contemporary political theory, with a particular focus on issues related to deliberative democracy, civil disobedience and international political thought. He is author of Civil Disobedience and Deliberative Democracy (London: Routledge, 2013) and has published in a wide range of international journals, including The Journal of Political Philosophy, Political Studies, and Politics and Society.