12 - Micropolitical Associations

Summary

Whether Deleuze and Guattari's concept of micropolitics can be regarded as a significant contribution to current philosophical debates around the questions of democracy and political action is the subject of considerable debate. While many interpreters (Patton 2000; Hayden 1998; Antonioli 2003; Holland 2006) emphasise the post-Marxist and radical democratic tenor of the concepts developed in Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus, others, in contrast, contest their political relevance. Critics like Todd May or Philippe Mengue consider micropolitics to be lacking in political content insofar as it tends to reduce the transformatory political processes of social interaction, decision-making and the definition of political claims and purposes to a merely anarchistic or dissolutive escapism. In light of this debate, it might be useful to review the concept of micropolitics in more detail, paying particular attention to its formative context. Thus we will begin by investigating to what extent the micropolitics promoted by Deleuze and Guattari intersects with the Foucauldian concept of power. We will then confront Deleuze's problematisation of power and resistance with theories of radical democracy and democratic becoming. We thereby want to highlight certain aspects which – for us – characterise Deleuze and Guattari's original and genuine approach to the political. Finally, we will investigate the political impact of this approach in terms of associations, understood as relational, interactive and virtual assemblages capable of subverting and transforming manifest or majoritarian structures of power.