omniharmonicDual Power
Dual power is a strategic framework for social transformation that involves building parallel institutions and governance structures alongside — and eventually as alternatives to — existing systems. Rather than waiting for the dominant system to reform itself or attempting to seize state power, dual power practitioners create functioning alternatives that meet real needs now while prefiguring the world they want to build.
The concept has roots in revolutionary theory but has been reimagined for the 21st century as a pragmatic approach to systemic change. When existing institutions are failing — whether through democratic erosion, ecological collapse, or economic extraction — communities cannot afford to wait for reform. Dual power says: build the worker-cooperatives, community-land-trusts, mutual aid networks, and bioregional governance structures now. Let them prove their viability through practice. As the old system loses legitimacy, the new one is already functioning.
This approach connects directly to democratic-confederalism, which envisions networks of self-governing municipalities operating in parallel to nation-states. It is also the strategic logic behind the bioregional imperative — creating place-based governance and economic structures that can sustain communities through institutional breakdown. Dual power is distinct from both reformism (working within the system) and insurrectionism (destroying the system); it is constructive and prefigurative, building the new world in the shell of the old.