The question of alternative organizing brings to the forefront the inseparability between means and ends. While alternatives are usually thought of as in opposition to the instrumental-rational bureaucratic mode of organizing, militant organizations often operate through a kind of hybrid organizational form and combine aspects of collectivist structures and processes with those of quasi-bureaucratic organizations. In this work in progress, we attempt to illuminate the organizational tensions arising from the development of what we might call a “value-based bureaucracy”. Investigating the two-year process of structuration of a grassroots’ movement, we attend to activists’ subjectivities to understand how they experience and manage these tensions, ensuring the survival of the movement.
