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Successive waves of global protest since 1999 have encouraged leading contemporary political theorists to argue that politics has fundamentally changed in the last twenty years, with a new type of politics gaining momentum over elite, representative institutions. The new politics is frequently described as radical, but what does radicalism mean for the conduct of politics? Capturing the innovative practices of contemporary radicals,Routledge Handbook of Radical Politics brings together leading academics and campaigners to answer these questions and explore radicalism's meaning to their practice. In thethirty-five chapters written for this collection, they collectively develop a picture of radicalism by investigating the intersections of activism and contemporary political theory. Across their experiences, the authors articulate radicalism's critical politics and discuss how diverse movements support and sustain each other. Together, they provide a wide-ranging account of the tensions, overlaps and promise of radical politics, while utilising scholarly literatures on grassroots populism to present a novel analysis of the relationship between radicalism and populism. Routledge Handbook of Radical Politics serves as a key reference for students and scholars interested in the politics and ideas of contemporary activist movements.

This book chapter is in closed access until 29 November 2020. ; This collection introduces readers to the politics, practices and ideas of contemporary radical activist movements. The objectives are to show how radicalism is understood by activists in contemporary movements, to describe the cultures of radical activist groups and to highlight the intersections of radical activism and contemporary political theory. We ask our authors to consider three issues: (i) what is radical about the politics under discussion (ii) what are the principle concerns of the movements involved with the politics (iii) how is the politics of this activism theorised and what, if any, influences are active in the movements under discussion? Individual chapters develop these themes by bringing activist experience to bear on theoretical analysis and provide novel insights into a diverse, innovative and dynamic contemporary movement which is shaping cutting-edge political theory. The introductory analysis situates contemporary left radicalism by providing a historical overview of the concept and explores the radicalism-populism nexus.