�When a dam bursts�: an anarchist approach to social movements Christopher Wellbrook

This thesis addresses the inability of existing approaches in the field to reach an adequate understanding of social movements. It shows existing approaches to be reliant on a civic conception of social movements (articulated as a relationship between individual and state), overly-reliant on a priori theorising and frequently foreclosing the content of social movement activity. It argues that at the heart of the problem is the presentation of the political internal to these perspectives � as a representational practice. Moreover, it is a principal contention of this thesis that social movement behaviour proves difficult to account for is because it challenges and undermines this presentation. Anarchist literature provides both the means to understand � in the form of the objections to idealisation, abstraction and determinism in political thought � as well as the foundations to address � in the objectives of a de-alientated intellectual enquiry and a unique view of the political � this issue. It also provides the outline for the development of a unique methodology to the study of social movements. It was the aim not only to establish new and better methods for documenting and analysing social movements but also seek to apply this to a particular case study, the December unrest in Greece of 2008, in an attempt to provide a richer, more holistic account of these events.