The Limits of Consensual Model within the Squatters' Movement: Patterns of Exclusion at ZAD NDDL

Abstract

This study focuses on the decision-making processes within a social movement against an airport known as ZAD NDDL, at the end of the cycle of mobilisation. The movement in decline, with a squatted area still formally governed by the principles of horizontal prefiguration, is reaching its limits in terms of conflict resolution using the available organizational tools. Analysing patterns of exclusion within the squatters' movement is a way of understanding the inner dynamics of non-hierarchical decision-making processes where there seems to be no possibility of achieving consensus. This research is based on long-term participant observation and open-ended interviews. An analysis of the redistribution of power in relation to the tools available in non-hierarchical methods of governance shows how attempting to govern a territory horizontally can lead to excluding a group whose ideas differ from those that have become hegemonic in the given area.