The Truth is Revolutionary: Mills and Turner as Theoreticians of Participatory Democracy

Critical analyses of the writings of political philosopher R.A. Turner have gained renewed attention. Turner's advocacy of participatory democracy paralleled that of American sociologist C. Wright Mills, whose own theories have experienced a revival among academics and activists as an alternative to the rise of neoliberal economic policies. Despite the international isolation of apartheid-era South Africa, it experienced social changes in the 1960s and 1970s paralleling those in North America and Western Europe. Mills' call for scholars and activists to forge a New Left rooted in sociological imagination was realised in the American civil rights and anti-war movements of the 1960s. Similarly, Rick Turner's own philosophy of radical politics, elucidated in The Eye of the Needle, found shape within the anti-apartheid resistance in 1970s South Africa. Turner went further than Mills in his practice of public sociology, fusing theory and praxis through his participation in the anti-apartheid struggle. Since Turner's death, the promise of participatory democracy appears to have foundered upon the shoals of neoliberalism and the global 'race to the bottom'. The challenge for scholars and organisers will be how to best forge a renewed programme of popular conscientisation and community self-management which can realise Turner's vision.