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Sasha Davis, "Replace the State: How to Change the World When Elections and Protests Fail" (U Minnesota Press, 2025)
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Dr. Sasha Davis
You rule.
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Kendall Dineen
Welcome to the New Books Network. I'm your host, Kendall Dineen and today I'm speaking with Dr. Sasha Davis, author of a new book out from the University of Minnesota Press titled Replace the how to Change the World When Elections and Protests Fail. Sasha is a professor of Environmental studies, geography and sustainability at Keene State College and his new book outlines strategies for bringing about social change by fundamentally transforming, rather than trying to change, existing decision making structures. Thanks so much for being here today, Sasha.
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Dr. Sasha Davis
Thank you so much for having me on.
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Kendall Dineen
So, to get us started, I was wondering if you could read that first full paragraph on page two. I think it does such a great job of sort of orienting your reader and now our listeners in the project of the book.
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Dr. Sasha Davis
Yeah, sure. So it says the central problem today is not that it is impossible to solve our most serious crises. It is that we keep expecting existing institutions to solve them. Institutions that are neither inclined nor equipped to do so. Too often we hear from contemporary institutions of the need for people to be resilient in the face of crises. But resilience denotes the ability of an institution, population, or person to experience a crisis or disaster and then return to functioning as they did before it occurred. The problem, of course, is that it is precisely the supposedly normal way of functioning that has created so many of our vulnerabilities to crises in the first place and likely will again. So what we need today is not resilience, but transformation of our communities and institutions to be more genuinely sustainable, inclusive, and just.
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Kendall Dineen
Thank you so much. So I'm wondering if you can tell us how you came to the project of this book.
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Dr. Sasha Davis
Yeah. I have been working on looking at the environmental and social issues associated really with US Colonial and military projects in different parts of the world, particularly in Pacific region and Asia and the Caribbean. And over the years, I started also studying the social movements that were active, kind of fighting back against some of these problems. So the environmental contamination around bombing ranges, the legacies of nuclear testing, the environmental and social consequences of building new military bases in places like Okinawa and Guahan and old bases in Vieques, Puerto Rico, these sort of things. And in that research, what I started seeing was a lot of similarities in the types of activisms that communities participated in when they had to deal with a government that was really, in those contexts, really a colonial government. It was a government that the people there really had no political sway over, at least not through the formal channels. And so a lot of the types of activism that they turned to was ones that kind of had to go outside of the normal governmental structures. And so that sort of seeing the similarities among all these different types of protests is what got me thinking about, well, how can this be seen as sort of a larger style of protest and a larger style of trying to attempt social change. And it's one that I think is going to be, or has been, I think, been gaining more traction in North America and Europe and in other places, too.
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Kendall Dineen
Thank you for that. I'm thinking it's going to be helpful for the reader to. To hear a bit of definition about. What is it that you mean precisely when you. When you say replace the state, what are you sort of getting at with that phrase?
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Dr. Sasha Davis
Yeah, what I'm getting at there is that there are, you know, different tactics that groups can use to try and make social change. You know, you can engage in elections, you can engage in kind of protests and make demands of the government. You can try and change kind of go through education and try and change cultural norms and values so that the governments will make different decisions. But the other one is that some institutions and social movements will literally take over governance. They'll say, well, you know, the current government is just not doing this in a way that's responsive to the needs of the local people and the needs of the local environment. So we are going to put this, take this into our own hands and really kind of manage it ourselves. And when I'm talking about replace the state, that's kind of what I'm referring to. It's organizations and individuals who are like, well, you know what? We actually kind of have to create our own decision making processes and put them into place and give them power or sovereignty in these locations.
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Kendall Dineen
Fantastic. Thank you. I'm wondering if we can discuss some of the other key terms, particularly that you discussed in your introduction. So I was thinking your definition of the term state was really useful for understanding how the book was proceeding. Your definition of inclusivity was also really helpful for me. But if there are other sort of key terms that you think the listeners or your readers would benefit from sort of having a good understanding of as we discuss the book, that would be fantastic.
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Dr. Sasha Davis
Yeah, I think the first key term, of course, is state. And oftentimes people will ask, how is that different from the government per se? And I kind of talk a little bit about this in the book about. It goes all the way back in early Greek philosophy and stuff about this idea that the state is sort of the more durable, long lasting institutions that govern a society. So in the case of the United States, you're talking about not just who's in the White House or who's in Congress, but the courts, the military, the police, the Internal Revenue Service, you know, all of these different parts of the bureaucracy that are more or less, you know, have a lot of continuity from one administration to another. And the way that this is often talked about is, you know, in terms of political philosophy is the. The state is like a ship and the government is like its crew. Right. The governments kind of come and go, but the state sort of endures and, you know, kind of keeps doing a lot of the same functions. And I think that's something that in this research that I've been doing, when I look at, say, the way the military operates in Okinawa or in Guahan or in Hawaii, it's like that doesn't really change whether it's a Republican or Democrat in charge. And so really this is about a tactic about replacing the state Functions, not just what one administration or the other is doing. And then in terms of the definition of inclusive, I really think this is a really important part of the way which these groups organize, because it's about the idea that everybody has a say, everybody has a political voice. The concerns of all are sort of taken into account in the decision making. And I contrast that with what kind of political decision making and citizenship looks like in the contemporary United States, where you have all sorts of people who don't have formal voting rights or are, you know, affected informally by, you know, systems of gerrymandering or voter suppression and that sort of thing. But, yeah, also people like that are under the sway of American power, like folks in Puerto Rico and Guaja and other areas, but don't have any formal access to those government institutions. So as opposed to that, these other groups are much more inclusive in a political sense as well as a social sense. And then also, most of them also strive for economic equality, too, which is also another form of inclusivity.
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Kendall Dineen
Thank you.
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Dr. Sasha Davis
And then the last couple there, in terms of power and space, those terms. Power, of course, is a slippery one. Lots of different definitions out there. But one of the things I focus on is how social movements are in some ways proto states. They are often trying to govern, they're trying to do something different. They're trying to have their will enacted in the world. And so I don't think of power as being just exclusively in the realm of states. I see how it's wielded by individuals and other organizations. And then the last key term that kind of comes up is space. I'm a geographer by training, so I think a lot about space and place and the way in which power and different social processes operate across those territory, across these larger scales. And so for me, space is very important because it's also about how. How are social movements working within places to kind of enact governance in particular real locations in the world? Not just kind of as an idea, but also how do they organize across international spaces and things like that, too.
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Kendall Dineen
Fantastic. Thank you so much. So, moving on to chapter two, you give us this really nice breakdown of seven reasons why the state won't create a more inclusive and just society. And it's a lot of information, although very accessibly sort of laid out, which I appreciated. But I'm wondering if you could give sort of a brief rundown of these reasons for our listeners.
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Dr. Sasha Davis
Yeah. You know, in that chapter, I have this whole section called 7 Reasons why Existing States Won't Create a More Inclusive, just and sustainable society. And then I go through and list and some of these are like one paragraph responses and some are a little more extensive, but really they are centered around the idea that there's a lot of inequalities that are baked into the United States, you know, state structure that make it very, very difficult to use it as a vehicle to achieve genuine inclusivity and justice and equality. Because that's not what the state was made for, right? It was designed to sort of support the people that created it and to also facilitate capital accumulation and to protect private property. And by doing so has these inequalities sort of baked into it. And so in that chapter, without kind of going through a blow by blow of all seven of these types of inequalities that are embedded in the state, some of them center on economic inequalities, like the fact that, you know, the very wealthy, of course, have an outsized influence over elections and other political processes and lobbying. Also down to, like what I just mentioned before, about the fact that there are many, many people that live within the United States or in the realm of that the US Is a formal sovereign power who have no voting rights whatsoever. Right. And so to assume that that particular structure is going to bring equality economically, politically, socially, I think is not necessarily the right direction.
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Kendall Dineen
Moving into chapter three, I really enjoyed hearing about your personal experiences that sort of informed this work throughout the book. So I'm wondering if, particularly with this chapter, you know, you're sharing your experiences, participating in a couple of different protests, and if you could sort of talk us through, like, what are the social and personal benefits that you sort of located within those experiences or developed out of those experiences. But also, where do you think protests fall short?
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Dr. Sasha Davis
So in that chapter, which is titled, you know, what Protests can do and what they can't, I'm somebody who has been involved in a lot of different protest movements, but also has become a little skeptical of the efficacy of some forms of protest, particularly ones that are making demands of the government, where you're basically trying to ask them to do something for you. And so I go into a little bit of the history of, you know, personal protests that I've been involved with. So I have, you know, part of that was to an attempt to put some descriptive narrative into the, into the book so people can kind of see the way some of these concepts I'm talking about kind of actually work in real kind of contexts. And I also started with activism quite young, when I was like 16, was involved with protests at The Nevada nuclear weapons test site and getting arrested in road blockades. So I talk about the experience of being in those road blockades. It's exciting, but also dangerous and all of that. But also, you know, questioning, well, what was the efficacy of some of these protests? Like, on one level, they develop a camaraderie among the protesters, both in terms of, like, at the event itself, but also just the idea that, okay, we're not alone, that there's many of us that sort of think this way, that are committed to having a world that's different, learning the skills of how to kind of stand up to state power and all of that. And I think that's something that still happens. I think of, like, the no Kings protests this year. I think there's something really emotionally positive about being part of those events and seeing, oh, yeah, there is actually a lot of opposition to current policies and things like that. However, where I then kind of get more critical is, well, after these protests, if the government doesn't do what you say, you know, and. And your pressure tactics haven't necessarily worked, what is your recourse? Because I think of. I look at organizations or protest movements like Occupy Wall street, et cetera, but also things like, well, no Kings is kind of something that happened after the publication of the book, but similar thinking about what happens the next day. It's like, have you changed policies? Have you changed the practices of the government? And I think oftentimes you don't. And you have to be very honest about that, because as much as I think it's really important that people are engaged in that kind of protest, because if you can imagine that nobody protested all the things that are on, that would be kind of horrible and send a very bad signal. But it's also not enough if you actually want to change what's going on in our communities, because the government is not saying, oh, well, you know, they asked us twice. I guess we'll just do this thing. That's just not what's happening, I think, particularly with the current administration, but also, honestly, on longer timescales, too.
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Kendall Dineen
Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, part one of the book is sort of setting up the problem, right, with protests and elections and then moving to part two of the book where you're getting into, well, what. What else can we do? Right. You talk about activist occupation, so I'm wondering if you can talk a bit more about that and also, like, how these movements create authority.
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Dr. Sasha Davis
Yeah. In the beginning part of the book, you know, I kind of say, well, these are the things kind of wrong with elections or are just relying on elections. I don't say don't do elections. I just say, don't just do electoral politics. And also, I don't say don't protest. I say, don't just protest. And so then in the middle part, I'm like, well, what else can you do? And that's where I draw on what a lot of these groups have been doing in these places where I've been doing research. And a lot of them rely on occupation tactics. And so, for instance, I'd give accounts of, you know, protests in Okinawa and also ones in. In South Korea and some. And in Hawaii as well, where what folks are doing is our occupations. And so I kind of delve into the details of the different ways in which protest movements use occupation of space as a tactic, because sometimes it's what is sometimes referred to as an extreme speech act. It's like, we're going to go somewhere we're not supposed to be, and we are going to make a ruckus and kind of get attention to what our demands are. And that way, it's more an extension of standard protest tactics. But there are other ones, other movements that are like, no, we're not. We have no intention of leaving. We intend to hold this space. We intend to govern this space differently according to different sets of ethics and rules. And that's where also this kind of creating authority comes from. They're like, no, we're contesting that the state should have jurisdiction over this particular area because the state is treating it very badly. It's either building a new military base that nobody wants built in Okinawa, it's building a telescope on Mauna Kea that most people don't want there, these sort of things. And so that's where occupation turns to more, what I'm referring to as replacing the state where you're taking over spaces and you're literally kind of governing them differently to make life better now in those spaces, but also to kind of, as a. To prefigure, this is the way we could do governance over larger spaces. Like, this is the way we could run all of Okinawa. This is the way we could run all of the Hawaiian Islands. And in many of those places, because there are, you know, fairly recent histories of indigenous governance, they can point to and say, you know, we have run these places differently and we can do it again. And this is sort of a microcosm of that that we hope to expand on. And so I see that as a very different use of occupation from some of the other types of groups like Occupy Wall street, et cetera.
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Kendall Dineen
Can you describe what you envision when you discuss relational governance?
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Dr. Sasha Davis
Yeah, the material in the book around relational governance is I kind of contrast different styles of governance, the relational with, you know, what I refer to more as like the imperial form of governance. Relational governance is where is when organizations are trying to manage a space and govern it in a way that takes into account kind of what the situation is in the place, both in terms of its natural environment, ecologies, as well as the human activities and needs in that environment. See what things need to happen in order to kind of govern it ethically. And then you make those decisions, and then you see what the consequences are. Then you shift and change and modulate kind of the way you govern. And so it's a form of governance that of course, has existed for millennia, you know, in, in. In many communities. But I contrast that with the colonial, more imperial form of governance, which is just, you know, we could remake everything the way we just decide in our heads. We want to make it right that the. That the world and the people in it will bend to the will of our project that we want to implement here. And relational governance is very much against that. It's a whole different form and way of kind of approaching how you govern a place and people in it. And so I've noticed that in a lot of these places, the social movements are really using a relational form of governance to push back and show the kind of faulty mindset of the imperial form that we sometimes, I think in the United States and in this day and age, think is the, quote, normal way of governing, but it's actually like over a long historical view, quite abnormal and also certainly not sustainable.
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Kendall Dineen
So getting into part three of the book, how do you recommend folks go about replacing the state in their own communities?
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Dr. Sasha Davis
Yeah, I do have, in the last chapters of the book, I really get into, okay, so these are the way other organizations are doing it in these different places. How can this also be done in my own community? And sort of more of a how to section of the book where I look at what are the strategies that seem to be successful, what are the things that don't seem to work very well. And it kind of makes some recommendations. And one of the things that I talk about is this idea of connect, claim, create, where people connect into larger groups. They claim that they have some rights to more ethically in particular places or processes that are going on in their communities. And then they create alternative processes and governance structures and decision Making structures at whatever scale to kind of implement this. And one of the things that's been really interesting is that something that I've been doing personally since the book came out a little over a month ago, this is something I've been trying to do in my own community here. I'm currently in New Hampshire, where we are trying to build that organization to essentially follow this kind of idea forward. And it's been very interesting to get to go from the writing work to the more organizing work and how do you get people together? But it's actually been pretty successful. People have been really into it, and we've been forming this group, and we're coming up with different action projects and different spaces in which to do things. And I think one of the critical points I try to make in the book is that you don't really want to wait for the huge crisis moment in your community to start the organizing process. That one of the things that has actually allowed many of the groups I look at to be successful is that there's always a core of people who have been working on this during kind of the, quote, slow times, right? When just sort of the slow violence of everyday life is sort of grinding, you know, and there are groups that are organizing, trying to come up with alternatives. And then when there's sometimes this catalyzing moment of crisis, it can be somewhat like the skeleton that a lot of the mass movement can then sort of coalesce around, and they can help drive the consensus process to have more impact at those moments. And so that's one thing that I try and talk about in the book, is you can kind of start creating these organizations now in your communities to try and make life better immediately and to promote the ethics of inclusion and sustainability and, you know, and equality and be ready for potential crises. Because we don't know exactly what crises are coming next, but we can all be pretty certain that more crises are coming. And it's really important to not try and face those as sort of atomized individuals that feel powerless or that are just asking for this political party or that to come save us. I think we need to build those organizations. So that's kind of where I've really turned my attention. And I try in the book to make the case that's a good plan for other folks and other communities as well.
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Kendall Dineen
Absolutely. Okay, so I'd love you to talk a little bit about what you would like readers to do with what they learn from reading your book.
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Dr. Sasha Davis
Well, I think kind of, like I just said, I think that's really what I hope folks get, a greater appreciation for the diversity of tactics that are available to make change. I really hope that people understand that even if the national government is one that you really find distasteful and you think it's horrible and that that's not the only place to exert power, that there's actually all sorts of things you can do in your communities and it's not just sort of window dressing on some larger political, you know, like that. The real power somehow at the national level, I kind of question that. I hope people come away with the idea that no power is more complicated than that, that the national government doesn't actually have as much control over every single space in the United States at once. That's just not how it works. You can find cracks. You can make life better. You can also leverage that to contest the larger power of the state, and you can build and confederate with other groups that are similarly minded to structure things differently. And so you know that even if you don't have the national government sort of supporting you, which I would argue has not been the case in a very, very long time, it's not just the last year or so that there are still places you can exert power. And I want folks to take away that lesson as well as the idea is, yeah, there's a way to methodically build organizations that can then kind of. That can support this larger vision moving forward.
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Kendall Dineen
Yeah. I really appreciated reading this book, especially right now and especially alongside what was happening with Nepal. It was really cool to be reading your book as I was watching that happen. Yeah. So thank you. It was sort of hope sustaining, I think, in this moment, which we can all use more of, I think. So last question. Are you working on anything now?
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Dr. Sasha Davis
A couple of things. One, like I mentioned, the organizing is kind of really where I've turned my focus. I kind of explicitly told myself I wasn't going to write anything for two to three months, and I was just going to work on organizing because it's a different set of skills, a different set of muscles, a different kind of way of spending your time, and it's been really rewarding. It's been also, of course, has its ups and downs because sometimes, you know, you send out an email, you're trying to connect people and it falls flat, especially in the middle of the summer. You're trying to get people organized, and they're all here, there and everywhere, but just kind of keeping at it, methodically doing it, I think, has been, for me, really important. To kind of show that it's not just about ideas, but that you have to put ideas into practice. So that's the central thing I'm working on. But I also, I am working on another book manuscript, currently living as a bunch of phone notes, you know, that I just kind of keep taking as I go through the day that looks at kind of different versions of creating human security. And you know that one of the central problems of this world is that almost that so many of the standard models of how we maintain security have to do with being violent towards somebody else. And that that's a model that of course, just is sort of a dead end. So it's kind of a theoretical kind of exploration of that idea. So still doing some research work and writing, but really kind of focus more on in my community here in New Hampshire, seeing what we can do to hopefully build something that can link up and become part of a larger movement. Because I think what the moment needs now is a large social movement outside of the state and outside of the current political parties. And it seems to be something that has not coalesced as quickly as I was hoping it would. And that's something that I personally and I think many other people would like to be part of and hope kind of can start coming together here in the coming months and year.
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Kendall Dineen
Yeah, I hope we'll see that as well. Well, thank you so much for being here, Sasha. I really appreciate it and really appreciated having the opportunity to read your book. It's. It's so accessible. I think it's something that I'm going to be assigning students in the future so we can discuss it and. Yeah. So thank you so much for your time.
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Dr. Sasha Davis
Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me on. It's been really a wonderful conversation. Thank you.
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Kendall Dineen
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- [27:36]
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