Sasha Davis, "Replace the State: How to Change the World When Elections and Protests Fail" (U Minnesota Press, 2025)

Oct 1, 2025

Sasha Davis, a Professor of environmental studies and author of "Replace the State," delves into how traditional governance often fails to bring about social change. He discusses the importance of direct action, highlighting successful Indigenous-led movements that challenge oppressive systems. Sasha emphasizes the need for local governance and offers strategies for activists, focusing on the effectiveness of occupation as a tool for establishing authority. His insights aim to inspire grassroots movements and foster resilience in communities seeking justice.

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INSIGHT

Resilience Isn't The Goal

Existing institutions are unlikely to solve our crises because they were not designed for genuine inclusivity and sustainability.
We need transformation of communities and institutions, not resilience that returns to a harmful status quo.

INSIGHT

State Versus Government Distinction

The state is the durable set of institutions that persist beyond individual administrations.
Replacing the state means changing those long-lasting structures, not merely electing different officials.

INSIGHT

Inequalities Are Built Into The State

Many inequalities are baked into state structures, like wealth-driven political influence and disenfranchised territories.
These structural features make the state a poor vehicle for achieving deep equality and justice.

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A practical call to action against oppression. Across the globe, millions of people have participated in protests and marches, donated to political groups, or lobbied their representatives with the aim of creating lasting social change, overturning repressive laws, or limiting environmental destruction. Yet very little seems to improve for those affected by rapacious governments. Replace the State: How to Change the World When Elections and Protests Fail (U Minnesota Press, 2025) brings new hope for social justice movements by looking to progressive campaigns that have found success by unconventional, and more direct, means. Sasha Davis, an activist and scholar of radical environmental advocacy, focuses on the strategies of movements, many of them Indigenous, that have occupied contested sites and demonstrated their effectiveness at managing or governing them. Including case studies of resistance to development on Indigenous lands in Hawai'i, nuclear testing in the Nevada desert, and the U.S. military occupation of Okinawa, he offers insight and direction for activists, students, academics, and others dedicated to protecting and improving the well-being of their communities and beyond. It would be easy to succumb to pessimism and political apathy in the face of governing institutions that are increasingly unresponsive to calls for change and repressive in response to protest, even as they violate human rights, ignore existential climate catastrophes, and concentrate power into fewer and fewer hands. Instead, Davis finds inspiration for genuine political change through social movements that are successfully "replacing the state" and taking over the day-to-day governance of threatened places. From contesting environmental abuse to reasserting Indigenous sovereignty, these social movements demonstrate how people can collectively wrest control over their communities from oppressive governments and manage them with a more egalitarian ethics of care.

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