ABSTRACT
This chapter proposes that centering the fragility of the revolutionary situations can elaborate, expand, and renew the antisystemic movements paradigm. It extends Arrighi's line of reasoning in order to address the ways in which antisystemic movements are selectively repressed and accommodated on a world scale. The chapter proposes a series of conceptual additions to the antisystemic movement framework. It reiterates the relational nature of political contention. The chapter presents Arrighi and Silver's work on hegemony to theoretically situate antisystemic struggles in their wider historical contexts and extend Arrighi's gesture toward passive revolution. It draws on Arno Mayer's analyses of counterrevolution and incorporate right-wing movements to the analysis of antisystemic struggle. The idea of an (anti)systemic relation—the dialectical interpenetration of systemic and antisystemic—opens space to overcome the reductionist bias of the antisystemic movements paradigm, while still retaining the analytic reach of the original synoptic concepts.
