Structural Injustice and Prefigurative Politics

How should democratic theorists and activists respond to structural injustice? Structural injustice refers to durable patterns of suffering whose causal complexities are not easily traceable. Common answers to this question argue that political mobilization against injustice should focus on either broadening people’s sense of moral responsibility or raising consciousness of injustices. In contrast, I argue that even if citizens are aware of injustice and feel a sense of responsibility for it, they may nevertheless fail to act if they feel their actions have no effect on the world—that is, if they have a low sense of efficacy. Responses to structural injustice, therefore, should focus on developing people’s sense of efficacy. Yet we still understand little about the sources of efficacy, with political scientists often positing socioeconomic status or family background as its primary sources. In contrast, I argue that a sense of efficacy can be developed by participation in social movements that make democratic decision-making and agenda-setting central to their everyday culture. More specifically, I develop and defend a theory of “prefigurative politics” as a response to structural injustice. Prefigurative activists seek to “build the new world in the shell of the old” by constructing alternative institutions whose ordinary decision-making processes align with democratic ends. I argue that this means-ends consistency can build a sense of efficacy amongst participants. I develop this argument via case studies of the prefigurative political strategies employed by twentieth-century American labor organizations, Gay and Lesbian liberation movements, and racial and ecological justice activists. In making a case for a prefigurative politics approach, the manuscript contributes a new perspective to the growing literature in political philosophy on how to respond to large-scale, structural injustices