Sustaining radical politics: Organizational Structures and Networks of the Poor.

This paper undertakes an organizational analysis of villages that experiences sustained radical movements in the Telangana region of India. Focusing on organizational forms that create and sustain radical networks of the poor, the paper addresses the structural challenges faced by movements of the poor. Unlike workers in mass production, who by their location in the economic system, possess leverage, I investigate how the poor make demands of institutions over which they possess no structural power. Using the case of the Maoist armed insurgency in India, I find that areas of sustained radical networks of the poor emerged from specific organisational formations on the ground. I elaborate each of the organisational structures that emerge, tying them to the crucial aspect of relatively autonomy that appears to become central in the functioning of sustained radical movements of the poor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]