Alex Prichard

Dr Alex Prichard

Mid-Career Fellow 2023-24, Small Group Project 2017

Constitutionalising Anarchy: an Anarchist Constitutional Politics for the 21st Century

Typically, anarchy is considered the opposite of a constitutional order. This project complicates that picture. We reveal how anarchists constitutionalise, in other words, how and why they develop declarations, rules, institutions, and democratic decision-making procedures within anarchist groups to transform in the world in which they act. The research has a theoretical, empirical and practical/normative element.

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Co-producing political philosophy and social theory with grassroots constituencies: towards emergence and transformation

With Lara M. Coleman

This research group aims to radically re-think the praxis of knowledge ‘co-production’ between scholars and ‘grassroots’ collectives of citizens and activists. We aim to provide a novel account of why philosophical/theoretical innovation is vital in these settings and to challenge mainstream approaches to research ‘impact’ and the instrumentalisation of academic knowledge.

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Blog posts

'The Coming Anarchy'

Alex Prichard and Ruth Kinna are rethinking the meaning and value of anarchy in the 21st century…

The Possible Dream: Constitutionalising Anarchy

Discussions on political constitutions usually centre state institutions and processes. In doing so, theorists ignore the rich constitutional tradition of anarchism which encourages communal self-governance. Ruth Kinna and Alex Prichard explore the anarchist constitution as a theory and in practice in this contribution to the Bulletin.

Areas of interest

Political Theory International Relations Anarchism History of Political Thought Political Science

Cohort

MCF6 RRG2

Biography

Alex Prichard is Associate Professor of International Political Theory at the University of Exeter. He teaches in International Relations and anarchist political though, and has published widely on how anarchists conceptualise world order. His most recent books are Anarchism. A Very Short Introduction (OUP 2022), Anarchic Agreements: A Field Guide to Collective Organising (PM Press 2022), and a new edited translation of Proudhon’s (1861) War and Peace. On the Principle and Constitution of the Rights of Peoples (AK Press, 2022).

Biographical details correct as of 14.10.26