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This paper seeks an articulation between Marxist and anarchist approaches to representation in social movements. A generalised dismissal of representational politics leaves power with too many places to hide and sets unnecessary limits to political imagination. Prefigurative politics should not exclude political representation, as the exclusion can imply a class bias. The paper explores two different paths beyond strict assumptions of horizontality. Using mostly Latin American examples, a distinction is made between more classical state-centric paths and less theorised alternatives of non-state representation. Finally, the article approaches global democratisation from a non-state-centric perspective, tentatively called transnational libertarian socialism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper identifies three defining features of globalisation that have been habitually misrepresented by the anti-globalisation movement. First, that globalisation entails a universal shift towards economic liberalisatlon, rather than a selective liberalisation with particular disadvantage to the Third World. The movement also bewails the erosion of traditional economic functions in Northern governments, thus diminishing their agency in globalisation and largely absolving them of responsibility for it. Instead, the focus of protest should shift from international financial institutions (IFIS) to the state-IFI interface. Finally, the movement fails to engage with the ever-changing nature of capitalism's structural search for expanding profits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hardt and Negri's Empire has become hugely influential, not only in theorising contemporary societies, but as a guide to the politics of the Left and the anti-globalisation movement. The book's sweep and ambition is indeed huge, but is not matched by the clarity of its concepts or the credibility of the evidence presented. Neither the book's analysis of regimes of global governance and the hidden abode of production, nor its articulation of a potential agency of resistance --the multitude--are convincing. In this article, Thompson complements other critiques through the use of the tools of labour process theory to critique the political economy of Empire, and to note its unfortunate similarities to conventional theories of the knowledge economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]