Dr G. Kets (Gaard)

Gaard Kets is an assistant professor of Political Theory, who is interested in the historical and contemporary development of democratic practices, institutions and ideas. His research aims to advance our understanding of how the workplace, sometimes referred to as the ‘last bastion of autocracy’, can be democratised.

In his interdisciplinary work, firmly based in both history and political theory, he brings together the normative and theoretical underpinnings of radical democracy with historical and empirical experiences of local self-rule. His PhD thesis examined the development of political ideas on council democracy in the German Revolution of 1918-1919. His postgraduate research focused on the development of communalist ideas and the legacy of the Paris Commune of 1871.

Gaard makes use of two central analytical tools to bridge the boundaries of both disciplines. The concept of democratic repertoires shows how historical experiences and institutions of radical democracy help us understand not only revolutionary events, but also their rearticulation in contemporary theories and practices of democratic innovation. See for example the website of his current research project, 'Vive la Commune! Communalism as Democratic Repertoire' (https://vivelacommune.org/). The second analytical framework that is central to his current work is the concept of organisational ecology, which highlights on the one hand the ‘messy’ landscape of social movements and revolutionary organisation, but on the other hand also makes the normative claim that this ‘chaos’ is actually productive for democratic progress.

• Vive la Commune! Communalism as a Democratic Repertoire