ABSTRACT
This chapter assesses the development of the political discourses and practices of horizontalism in contemporary social movements, and utilizes the Occupy movement as a case study of its impact on the left in the United States. It outlines the principles of horizontalism and its roots in the Zapatista National Liberation Front and the unemployed workers' recovered factories workers' movements in Argentina, and grounds these principles and practices in an analysis of local social movements Occupy Los Angeles (OLA) and Occupy Oakland (OO). The chapter discusses how the principles of horizontalism were articulated at the ground level by OLA and OO activists. Then it describes how, in the case of OLA, "leaderlessness" and the structure of the general assembly at times fell into a "tyranny of structurelessness" where the strong personalities often dominated behind the scenes. The chapter ends with reflections on the relationship between new horizontalists movements and the national security state in its historical context.
