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How can one subscribe to forms of ethico-religious pacifism and revolutionary communism or anarchism simultaneously, let alone conceive of their adherents as comprising the same transnational social movement? The author explores this conundrum via a playful probing of her own paradoxes related to violence and peace, dualism and non-dualistic thinking, and activist engagement along with more contemplative and quiet reflection. It experiments with expressive auto-ethnography in order to convey what living in and through these paradoxes feels like, and to access and convey other kinds of insights, (self) knowledge, and wisdom, unavailable or inadmissible by more orthodox forms of social science inquiry and writing. It embraces the postmodern relationship among authors, audiences, and texts and valorizes storytelling as deeply pedagogical, constitutive, meaningful, and meaning-making phenomena. The essay weaves together newspaper headlines, apocryphal diary entries, and dream poems into a methodologic...

This work examines how the Alter-Globalization Movement has sustained a transnational presence throughout the ongoing cycle of contention that began in the mid-1990s, even as priorities, leaders, targets, claims, and frames have continuously evolved. It traces the ‘transnational coalescence’ process between the post-Seattle, anti-neoliberal movement and anti-war concerns triggered by the 9/11 attacks and George W. Bush's war on terror, and centers on the protest wave that crested in the global day of action against war on 15 February 2003. Rather than simply an exodus—i.e. ‘spillover’ or ‘spillout’—from one movement to another, or a distinct transnational movement arising spontaneously, key bridge-building organizations have proven crucial in shifting down to harness nascent activist energies by brokering new ties and reinvigorating old ones as well as frame-extending between emerging and extant concerns, in order to scale back up as a broader transnational movement for Global Peace and Justice. Este trab...

Critical research and theorizing on facets of the Anti-/Alter-Globalization Movement (AGM) has proliferated over the last two decades. Fewer accounts, however, have been written by scholar-activist...

This work seeks to advance and synthesize leftist political and environmental theory and enhance historical and contemporary understanding of environmental activism, especially related to the movement to halt climate change. We share findings from our participatory action research (PAR) on the internal dynamics and debates among the three main climate activist networks mobilizing at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change meetings in Copenhagen in 2009, those of the reformist Climate Action Network (CAN), the more marxian-inspired Climate Justice Now! (CJN), and the autonomist and anarchistic Climate Justice Action (CJA). We elucidate how leftist reformist and especially the more radical currents are engaging with non- or anti-Western indigenous praxis to forge the contemporary transnational environmental movement. Este trabajo busca avanzar y sintetizar la teoria politica izquierdista y la medioambiental y enriquecer el entendimiento historico y contemporaneo del activismo medioambienta...

This article contributes to the ongoing activist debate over the nature and future of the World Social Forum as well as to scholarly reflection and theorization of the Forum as an open space versus a more action-oriented and partisan organization at the current stage of global struggles against neoliberalism and war. It does so by addressing whether and to what extent the WSF's organizational ethos of bounded diversity plus decentralization has fostered the creation and cross-pollination of movements at the transnational level of contention by analyzing the emergence of a global anti-war movement within the WSF. It finds that the Forums have provided a hospitable environment for movement crossovers to shift priorities, resources, frames, claims, campaign strategies, and coalitions in response to the emergent threat of war. It then addresses the more polemical critique of whether the WSF inhibits alliance-building with the most decisive anti-neoliberal and anti-imperial forces of our time, by examining the...

Clifford Bob, The Marketing of Rebellion: Insurgents, Media and International Activism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 254 pp. Richard J. F. Day, Gramsci Is Dead: Anarchist Currents in the Newest Social Movements (London: Pluto, 2005), 262 pp. Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire (New York: Penguin Press, 2004), 427 pp. Lisa Jordan and Peter van Tuijl, eds., NGO Accountability: Politics, Principles and Innovations (London: Earthscan, 2006), 288 pp. Over the past quarter-century, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and activist networks have increasingly "gone global." Between 1973 and 1993, transnational social movement organizations concerned with human rights, the environment, peace, and development more than tripled in number, rising to over 600 organizations. (1) Formerly local and national NGOs and community organizations now regularly operate transnationally: swapping information, networking, coordinating campaigns, framing claims, and locating shared targets. This is a change not only in the frequency of interactions across borders, but also in the networks' density, adaptability, complexity, and reach. Sidney Tarrow and Donatella Della Porta have called this trend "the most dramatic change we see in the world of contentious politics." (2) Transnational social movements are dynamic networks of multiple organizations and issues, forged in parallel and autonomous international summits, protest events, and via the Internet. (3) They have even created their own space, the World Social Forum (WSF), as well as a web of regional, national, local, and thematic forums modeled on the WSF's horizontal, "open space" format. Here, the movements deepen and broaden their solidarity ties and joint analyses under the strategically ambiguous slogan that "Another World Is Possible." While diverse, the networks are united in the conviction that this alternative should be forms of governance other than neoliberal globalization. Activists decry this current global (dis)order as being characterized by mounting poverty and inequality within and among societies, corporate encroachment of "the commons," environmental devastation, the feminization of poverty, the exacerbation of conflicts, and the erosion of democracy. They identify and denounce the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), and World Trade Organization (WTO) as the main institutional promoters of neoliberalism. Beyond this shared oppositional orientation, these actors have diverse--and often conflicting--demands, organizational cultures, tactics, and ultimate goals. At the most recent WSF in Nairobi, Immanuel Wallerstein spoke of a "family of movements," replete with all the affinities, identifications, and squabbles that constitute such relationships. Broadly, the movements divide between "reformist" NGOs and more "radical" direct action social movements and networks. At bottom, the feuds between these two tendencies stem from fundamentally different conceptions of existing global governance and order (as well as their place within it) and from the degree and methods of change that each pursues. Contemporary activist forums like the WSF have brought these different circles into contact with one another and thus have helped to attenuate the polemic between them. Yet tensions remain, and there is evidence that the "other superpower" is both demobilizing and fracturing along traditional leftist fault lines. But who are these new global actors? What are their points of convergence, contradiction, and outright conflict? And how do they engage with, legitimize, or challenge both the state and the international governance regimes that states have constructed? Finally, what can we learn about the nature of global governance from the movements' relatively marginal vantage points? These questions orient this essay. Each of the four books examined here offers a unique standpoint and insight into this upstart clan of nonstate (and sometimes antistate) actors that challenge the patrician families comprising global governance: those of states, intergovernmental organizations (IGOs), and transnational corporations (TNCs). …

This article examines the disturbing trend away from human rights protection and promotion in post September 11 U.S. foreign and domestic policy. It argues that human rights, both abroad and at home, are under attack and advancements of the past decades are desperately being defended in the face of the Bush administration's war on terrorism. It attempts to gauge the breadth and depth of this assault on human rights by chronicling the downplaying of rights promotion in bilateral relations and the growing debate around, and in some cases implementation of, policies advocating political assassinations, secretive military tribunals, massive detainment and breaches of the Geneva Conventions for treatment of prisoners, and the spectre of torture in interrogations.

The popular struggle for autonomy and then independence waged in Kosovo throughout the last decade is analyzed within a Strategic Nonviolent Conflict framework. The degree to which the nonviolent movement's actions lessened totalitarianism and promoted democracy is then assessed. Reasons for the perceived failures of the nonviolent tactic and the ensuing rise of a violent approach are explored. Finally, the impact that the violent phase had on the successes achieved through prior nonviolent actions is examined, followed by concluding remarks on the significance of the mass exodus of Kosovar refugees as viewed from a Strategic Nonviolent Conflict perspective.

During the 1960s strong ties of mutual support developed between the Black Panther Party and the revolutionary government of Cuba. These relations were also, however, often difficult and problematic. This paper argues that the problem stemmed from factional struggles among Cuba's leadership. One faction, lead by Ernesto “Che” Guevara, urged support for all revolutionary movements, including the Black Panther Party. Another more moderate faction wished to downplay such support as means of avoiding US reprisals. Ultimately this faction prevailed, leaving Cuban support for the Black Panther Party more rhetorical than real. While several members of the Black Panther Party and other African American radicals were granted asylum in Cuba, their political activities were severely restricted. Among this group, then, disillusionment set in as to the revolutionary sincerity of the Cuban regime.

Anti-war, or peace, movements are extremely diverse collective actors or social processes, varying in philosophical orientation, political and social aims, organizational structure, and societal and political level — local, national, and increasingly transnational — at which they operate. While post — World War II era anti-war movements may be broadly divided into pacifism, anti-militarism, anti-colonialism, and anti-nuclearism, scholars have identified at least eight traditions ebbing and flowing throughout the twentieth century, including religious pacifism, liberal internationalism, anti-conscriptionism, anti-militarism and socialist resistance to war, communist internationalism, women's or feminist anti-militarism, radical pacifism, and anti-nuclearism. The latter tendency — bridging as it does to the environmental movement — can be seen as part of a new tradition, ecological or environmental pacifism, which is manifested in transnational social movement organizations like Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth International. Keywords: globalization; non-governmental organizations (NGOs); peace; social movements and social change; war