Interstitial revolution (or transformation) builds on the concept of prefigurative politics which has a long history in anti-capitalist thinking, going back nearly two hundred years in the anarchist tradition.
Central to the concept of interstitial revolution is the perspective of seeing the state as a complex multitude of institutions organized by a dominant power structure, but not so integrated that it controls all activities within it.
[4] Interstitial theorists suggest that within this system, radically democratic collectives (such as Worker owned cooperatives) have the opportunity to gain a foothold in the "cracks" of the capitalist state.
Erik Olin Wright points out that there may be boundaries to the growth of an interstitial movement in which the most adept strategies of collective economic and social pressure are not enough to overcome the power of capitalist hegemony.
However, he stresses that a substantial network of democratically run organizations is a key foundation to any revolution that wishes to yield a result of deepening democracy and creating the conditions for human flourishing.