Scholars often view the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen of 1789 as the foundation of modern human rights, asserting that these rights are universal. However, recent crises involving migrants and refugees highlight the limitations of this notion. It is time to reassess the principles underpinning Western economic and political norms. This book proposes a tradition of political universality as a counter to the juridical universalism of the Declaration. Insurgent universality focuses not on a shared humanity but on the democratic disruptions that challenge existing political and economic systems. It emphasizes a plurality of powers accessible to citizens through daily political engagement rather than through national citizenship. The text examines historical movements such as the Indignados in Spain, the Arab Spring, Occupy, the Zapatistas, the Paris Commune, the 1917 Russian peasant revolts, and the Haitian Revolution. These movements represent a common legacy of insurgent universality, marked by alternative modernities that have been suppressed or overlooked. Massimiliano Tomba analyzes the manifestos and declarations from these events as collective contributions to an alternative political theory canon, challenging established Western political thought and fostering connections between European and non-European social experiments.
