Contemporary anarchism within the history of anarchism is the period of the anarchist movement continuing from the end of World War II and into the present. Since the last third of the 20th century, anarchists have been involved in anti-globalisation, peace, squatter and student protest movements. Anarchists have participated in armed revolutions such as in those that created the Makhnovshchina and Revolutionary Catalonia, and anarchist political organizations such as the International Workers' Association and the Industrial Workers of the World have existed since the 20th century. Within contemporary anarchism, the anti-capitalism of classical anarchism has remained prominent.

Anarchist principles undergird contemporary radical social movements of the left. Interest in the anarchist movement developed alongside momentum in the anti-globalisation movement, whose leading activist networks were anarchist in orientation. As the movement shaped 21st century radicalism, wider embrace of anarchist principles signaled a revival of interest. Various anarchist groups, tendencies and schools of thought exist today, making it difficult to describe the contemporary anarchist movement. While theorists and activists have established "relatively stable constellations of anarchist principles", there is no consensus on which principles are core and commentators describe multiple "anarchisms" (rather than a singular "anarchism") in which common principles are shared between schools of anarchism while each group prioritizes those principles differently. Gender equality can be a common principle, although it ranks as a higher priority to anarcha-feminists than anarcho-communists.

New currents which emerged within contemporary anarchism include post-anarchism and post-left anarchism. New anarchism is a term that has been notably used by several authors to describe the most recent reinvention of the anarchist thought and practice. What distinguishes the new anarchism of today from the new anarchism of the 1960s and 1970s, or from the work of Anglo-American based authors such as Murray Bookchin, Alex Comfort, Paul Goodman, Herbert Read and Colin Ward, is its emphasis on the global perspective. Essays on new anarchism include David Graeber's "New Anarchists" and Andrej Grubačić's "Towards Another Anarchism"; other authors have criticized the term for being too vague.

Anarchists are generally committed against coercive authority in all forms, namely "all centralized and hierarchical forms of government (e.g., monarchy, representative democracy, state socialism, etc.), economic class systems (e.g., capitalism, Bolshevism, feudalism, slavery, etc.), autocratic religions (e.g., fundamentalist Islam, Roman Catholicism, etc.), patriarchy, heterosexism, white supremacy, and imperialism." Anarchist schools disagree on the methods by which these forms should be opposed. The principle of equal liberty is closer to anarchist political ethics in that it transcends both the liberal and socialist traditions. This entails that liberty and equality cannot be implemented within the state, resulting in the questioning of all forms of domination and hierarchy. Contemporary news coverage which emphasizes black bloc demonstrations has reinforced anarchism's historical association with chaos and violence; however, its publicity has also led more scholars to engage with the anarchist movement, although contemporary anarchism favours actions over academic theory.

Anarchism was influential in the counterculture of the 1960s and anarchists actively participated in the protests of 1968 involving students and workers revolts. In 1968, the International of Anarchist Federations (IAF-IFA) was founded during an international anarchist conference held in Carrara by the three existing European federations, namely the French Anarchist Federation, the Iberian Anarchist Federation and the Italian Anarchist Federation as well as the Bulgarian Anarchist Federation in French exile. In the United Kingdom during the 1970s, this was associated with the punk rock movement as exemplified by bands such as Crass (pioneers of the anarcho-punk subgenre).

The housing and employment crisis in most of Western Europe led to the formation of communes, intentional communities and squatter movements like that of Barcelona. In Denmark, squatters occupied a disused military base and declared the Freetown Christiania, an autonomous haven in central Copenhagen. The relationship between anarchism and punk as well as squatting has carried on into the 21st century. In Infinitely Demanding, Simon Critchley wrote: "There is no doubt that 60s anarchism was libertarian and linked to the sexual revolution, liberation of the erotic instincts and what Herbert Marcuse called 'nonrepressive sublimation'. Yet, contemporary anarchism can be seen as a powerful critique of the pseudo-libertarianism of contemporary neo-liberalism, where the sexual revolution has turned the culture industry into the sex industry – ask yourself, is there today anything less transgressive and more normalizing than pornography? One might say that contemporary anarchism is about responsibility, whether sexual, ecological or socio-economic; it flows from an experience of conscience about the manifold ways in which the West ravages the rest; it is an ethical outrage at the yawning inequality, impoverishment and disenfranchisment that is so palpable locally and globally."

Since the revival of anarchism in the mid-20th century, a number of new movements and schools of thought emerged, well documented in Robert Graham's Anarchism: A Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas, Volume Two: The Emergence of the New Anarchism (1939–1977). Although feminist tendencies have always been a part of the anarchist movement in the form of anarcha-feminism, they returned with vigour during the second wave of feminism in the 1960s. The American civil rights movement and the movement in opposition to the Vietnam War also contributed to the revival of North American anarchism. European anarchism of the late 20th century drew much of its strength from the labour movement and both have incorporated animal rights activism. Anarchist anthropologist David Graeber and anarchist historian Andrej Grubačić have posited a rupture between generations of anarchism, with those "who often still have not shaken the sectarian habits" of the 19th century contrasted with the younger activists who are "much more informed, among other elements, by indigenous, feminist, ecological and cultural-critical ideas" and who by the turn of the 21st century formed "by far the majority" of anarchists.

Around the turn of the 21st century, anarchism grew in popularity and influence as part of the anti-war, anti-capitalist and anti-globalisation movements. Anarchists became known for their involvement in protests against the meetings of the World Trade Organization (WTO), the Group of Eight and the World Economic Forum. Some anarchist factions at these protests engaged in rioting, property destruction and violent confrontations with police. These actions were precipitated by ad hoc, leaderless and anonymous cadres known as black blocs, although other peaceful organisational tactics pioneered in this time include affinity groups, security culture and the use of decentralised technologies such as the Internet. A significant event of this period was the 1999 Seattle WTO protests. Many commentators have stated that the Occupy Wall Street movement has roots in anarchist philosophy.