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Judith Butler’s political theory of assembly likens protest movements to alliances determined by affinities between vulnerable people. The article examines the robustness of Butler’s main theoretical underpinnings: the concept of identity that supports their conception of the body politic, their theory of sovereignty, and the constitutive function attributed to the performative. Finally, the article examines the status of Butler’s thinking as a whole, asking whether it belongs to political thought or moral philosophy.