Occupy Wall Street is a Democracy Movement
By Mike Dorf The notion that Occupy Wall Street (OWS) has no demands is fueled in part by an arguably deliberate media obtuseness . Judging from the movement's core catch-phrase -- "We are the 99%" -- it is clear that the movement centers around a complaint about economic inequality There is, nonetheless, a kernel of truth to the media trope that OWS and its far-flung spinoffs remain an amorphous movement with demands no more concrete than, as my Cornell Government Department colleague Sid Tarrow puts it , "Recognize us!" I agree with Tarrow and others that it is too soon to tell whether OWS will fade away or coalesce into a more conventional political movement, and if the latter, what its central focus will be. But I also want to suggest that we may be looking at OWS through the wrong frame. Most observers take OWS to be a nascent movement within American constitutional democracy. Viewed this way, it is logical to ask what concrete policy change...