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The World Social Forum (WSF) is a transnational coalition that brings together social movements, NGOs, transnational networks and social associations with the purpose of seeking out alternatives to hegemonic globalization processes. Given the diversity of participants, there are a large number of positions and proposals that are often similar, but at times divergent. Since 2001, when the first version of the WSF was held in Porto Alegre, Brazil, this has become an important object of study from different disciplines in the social sciences. The majority of the existing literature has focused on the WSF's organizational structure, financial sources and its implications for global governance. However, it is unclear who the people involved in the WSF are and where They come from, both in geographic and ideological terms. The major objective of this paper is to map the movements and organizations at the WSF. With this goal in mind, the paper identifies the main actors, grievances and goals of these groups and the consequences of the actions within the Forum between 2001 and 2008. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Individuals from different countries vary significantly on the degree to which they engage in political activism. Scholars attribute these variations to different value systems rooted in larger institutional and ideological structures as well as internalized within the individual level of interactions. These effects are also mediated through the individual and their organizational affiliations in which they are embedded producing particular patterns of behaviors. This study utilizes hierarchical methods to determine individual as well as national level factors that may influence political activism. By examining variation in activism, signing petitions and engaging in protests, across 57 countries over the last three decades of the 20th century, I test not only how individual membership and volunteering for social movement and non-social movement organizations predict activism, but also the relationship with national contextual factors such as engagement with international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) and transnational social movements (TSMOs), international development aid inflow, economic development, and democratic openness. I find strong evidence that linkages to INGOs and TSMOs positively and international development aid negatively affect individual patterns of activist behavior across a wide spectrum of countries. Findings are included for cross-level interactions between organizational affiliation, international aid, and INGO and TSMO density. I conclude with a discussion of implications for world society and world systems perspectives and of possibilities for future research in the fields of organizational and international development studies. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I argue in this paper that pathways towards a decentralised, multi-level system of global democracy are already being constructed, via the progressive democratisation of power within certain sectors of the global economy. I show that the multi-level formations of power and interconnection evolving within the global economy are being directly democratised—albeit in highly uneven ways—as a result of a range of initiatives promoting worker empowerment and corporate accountability in global supply chains. Drawing on detailed empirical evidence from the global garment industry, I argue that a system of global democracy is emerging which is 'pluralist' in structure with respect to both the systems of power and interconnection being democratised, and the evolving relations of political allegiance that both drive and constrain such democratising processes. Emerging systems of democratic accountability are shown to contribute importantly to the democratic empowerment of vulnerable workers affected by the transnational exercise of corporate power, despite the significant functional weaknesses of such predominantly non-state accountability systems. I further suggest that the pluralist structure of evolving democratic practices presents significant normative and institutional challenges; of particular concern are systematic patterns of political (in)equality that I show to be associated with such pluralist pathways of democratic transformation. Despite these challenges, I conclude that a multi-level model of global democracy—consistent with the current trajectory of institutional change—could prove both institutionally feasible and normatively justifiable, therefore offering scope for optimism regarding the prospects of a global democratic agenda. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Extending a prevailing typology (Tarrow 2005), the paper conceptualizes four processes of transnational activism that operate on two levels: international and intranational. It also explores relationships between discrete processes, the four newly-conceptualized as well as the six existing. The paper then lays the groundwork for future research to use the complemented set of ten processes to revisit the causal weights of governmental complex internationalism and socioeconomic globalism on a rising tide of transnational activism over the last 100 years. The empirical portion of this scoping paper extrapolates from bioenergy and biodiversity activist sectors using global campaigns during the 1889-1945 period. These and similar sectors portray the typology that has demarcated the scope of transnational activism as standing remarkably incomplete—failing to note, let alone explain widely documented modes of activism. Due to prevailing transitology in the analysis of activist "transition" from the intra- to the inter-national level, processes that mix conventional intranational and international levels of analysis lie un-conceptualized. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on a study that aims to move the interplay between local, national and global forces in today's movements to the center of analysis. It details the constraints faced by solidarity movements. It explores the discursive and symbolic resources that solidarity movements employ. It argues that the essence of globalization lies precisely in the separation of spatial and temporal distances.

The article focuses on the two sides of the transnational social movements in North America which contest over abortion rights. The concept of transnational advocacy networks (TANs) developed by Margaret Keck and Kathryn Sikkink is discussed. Three different types of strategies available to social movements working in transnational advocacy networks including symbolic politics, leverage politics and accountability politics are explained. It emphasizes that globalization has influenced the world of social policy.

The article discusses the relationship between gender and global restructuring. It provides a review of globalization debates before the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. It presents an outline of how global restructuring involves the reorganization of local, national and global spaces as well as cultural, symbolic and identity construction sites. It addresses responses to globalization by various social movements.

Migration has become a central issue for global social movements seeking alternatives to neoliberal globalization. Many critics of globalization argue that neoliberal capitalist relations contribute to the displacement of millions of people, especially in the Global South. At the same time, Western states have opted to securitize migration, implementing risk profiling technologies in order to further exclude and marginalize migrants. It is not surprising, therefore, to find that many campaigns on behalf of migrants subsume the experience of migration within a discourse of victimage, and fail to take into account migrants’ agency in the migration process. Recent developments, ranging from the refugee protests in Australia to the Migrants Assembly at the European Social Forum in Florence, suggest the emergence of a complex politics where migrants are positioning themselves as key players in global/local political activism. By challenging the state’s prerogative to distinguish between insiders and outsiders, political movements by and in support of undocumented migrants force the matter of sovereignty to the forefront of their political strategy. This paper examines the activism of politicized migrants and their relationship with the sovereign state system. Focusing in particular on the emerging movement of undocumented migrants in Canada, this paper assesses the implications of this activism in terms of how it is reshaping the possibilities for global political identity and practice today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the politics of the social movement ?ATTAC? from a Gramscian perspective. It analyses the origins, organisational structure and political agenda of the movement in France and Germany and goes on to explore its relationship to the broader anti-globalisation movement. ATTAC is revealed as first and foremost a movement of critical, popular education. The paper employs the interrelated concepts of hegemony and ?historic bloc? to further scrutinise ATTAC’s political potential, in terms of both its rapidly expanding and diverse membership and its substantive policy positions. Acknowledging the enormous challenges faced by transnational civic opposition, the authors nonetheless conclude optimistically that ATTAC has a unifying, relatively coherent agenda among its diverse associations and as such may serve as the core movement around which transnational opposition can rally. They caution, however, that the continued success of the movement will ultimately hinge on how well ATTAC embodies Gramsci’s notion of the organic intellectual, dissolving the distinction between the ‘leaders and the led’, both locally and globally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The argument presented here is that the progressive antisystemic movements will find their greatest support in the semiperiphery. Democratic socialist parties and regimes that are coming to power in the semiperipheral countries will be the forereachers that show how the progressive transnational movements (feminism, environmentalism, labor, indigenism) can work together to democratize global governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several rationales have been advanced for attempting to ‘nix’ (abolish) rather than ‘fix’ (reform) the major institutions of global economic management. Some of these relate to the balance of forces in international political economy; some of them are derived from an understanding of the last quarter-century of global economic turbulence; some are based upon the strategies and tactics associated with international meetings; finally, others take heart from the movement against South African apartheid, and promote a similar campaign of financial sanctions to overthrow (not reform) ‘global apartheid’. What strength can be found in the analysis behind these various rationales, and what weaknesses are most obvious? Focusing mostly upon Southern African social movements, as well as state-led initiatives such as the New Partnership for Africa’s Development, we can consider the results of the nix it versus fix it strategies. Key events will be taken into consideration, such as the World Conference Against Racism, Doha WTO Ministerial Summit, Monterrey Financing for Development Conference, World Summit on Sustainable Development, World Water Forum, Cancun WTO Summit, and the last two G8 meetings. Southern Africans from both state and social movements had very different agendas, which illustrate the prospects and limitations of the pro-globalisation and the ‘deglobalisation’ discourses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work shares findings and implications from a dissertation exploring how multi-issue, transnational coalitions and structures, able to mobilize large swaths of civil society across the world, are created and sustained. It is based on over 100 semi-structured interview-conversations and participant observation at the World Social Forum in 2003 and the European Social Forums in 2002 and 2003. Processes and their constitutive mechanisms were culled from this evidence, in an inductive-deductive spiral operationalizing McAdam, Tarrow and Tilly?s most recent explanatory framework from the Dynamics of Contention. The episode of contention is identified to be that of ?globalization?, which is then broken down into ?global economic integration? and ?internationalization?. It is within the latter that this study of the social forums and the ?global movement of movements? is located, and I call this process ?the internationalization of activism?. I argue that this process is made up of three smaller processes: mobilization, scale shift, and actor constitution. Reframing the research question around these three processes, I then explored: how and why activists are mobilizing in unprecedented numbers, locales, and complex networks; how and why they are broadening their focus to include the transnational level; to what extent they are forging a single collective actor or identity; and what is the role of the World Social Forum in these processes. This study corroborated McAdam, Tarrow and Tilly?s hypotheses of robust mechanisms that constitute each of these processes, identified additional mechanisms in each, and concluded that one global collective actor is emerging around the shared demand for ?deep democracy?. Implications for scholars, activists and policymakers were then discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The mutually constitutive, two-way relationship between rights and identity politics is emerging as a critical focus of research on processes of globalization. There is scholarly consensus that over space and time law influences the identities of its subj ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the concept of ‘border thinking’, as developed by Professor Walter Mignolo. The paper begins by making reference to Sorelian forms of mythologically-inspired discourses of resistance being developed by those social movements opposing Neoliberal Economic Globalisation (NLEG). In particular, it argues that Sorelian forms of mythical discourses of resistance may be considered to act as providers of ‘certainty’ in difficult times. The paper then argues that critiques of globalised capitalism, based within non-western forms of cultural discourse, introduce new parameters to the debate over the future of globalisation that could not come from antisystemic social movements in the West. The possibility opens up therefore, for the development of a mythology of resistance to the onslaught of NLEG that is much more inclusive of previously marginalized voices than that of previous generations. Moreover, ‘border thinking’ generates the potential to create a mythical discourse that, whilst seeking to generate a sense of solidarity and common purpose between widely disparate groups, can also be highly effective in generating a celebration of ‘difference’ without having to descend into pure relativism. The paper concludes that engaging in ‘border thinking’ in this manner opens up the possibility of a dialogue between Western and non-Western movements of resistance on equal terms, thereby avoiding the Eurocentric and patriarchal biases of which Western elements of the so-called Global Justice movement (GJM) have been accused. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Globalization is a controversial term encompassing diverse shifting concepts and theories. Escobar (2004) investigates material and conceptual concerns surrounding globalization through grounding it within two major processes. The first is the ‘rise of a new U.S.-based form of imperial globality, an economic-military-ideological order that subordinates regions, peoples and economies world wide’, and the second is the ‘emergence of self-organizing social movement networks, which operate under a new logic, fostering forms of counter-hegemonic globalization’(Escobar, 2004, p.207). Appreciating the cohabitation of these processes, the often assumed unidirectional, encroaching forces of globalizing images, ideas, money, products, and people can be seen as processes creating new spaces of engagement and sites of resistance to contest the notions and materiality of globalization itself. This paper specifically harnesses the framework of ‘mediascapes’ as offered by Appadurai to ground this discussion and contextualize one contemporary global change occurring in indigenous groups. This is followed by a discussion of the emergence of a collective “indigenous” identity, the presence of this identity in technological virtual spaces, and how these spaces are being used to mobilize a social justice agenda. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Configurations of social actors networks engaged in the fight for an alternate globalization continue to vary across places. Even if global mobilisations, such as the World Social Forum, facilitate the production of transnational mobilisations and some convergences between social movements across the world, marked differences still exist between them. By analysing networks of social actors engaged against neo liberal globalisation in two countries (France and Canada) and four places (Paris, Marseille in France, Ontario and Quebec in Canada), we show that these differences are linked with key factors such as the genealogy of alter- globalization movement in each context and the way it was embedded in local political dynamics; the nature of the relationships between actors and different level of governance (local; national or supranational or international). Building on the notion of political space and the recent literature in geography, the first part of the paper will expose the three political spaces of alter-globalization movements found in Canada and France and the specific relationships each of these spaces has with global events and mobilisations. In the second part of the paper we will analyse in more details the political dynamics that explained most of these differences, considering both the history of social movements building processes till the middle of the eighties and more recent contexts of mobilizations. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper has two major concerns:1)It examines the domestic Indian context which underlies the Dalit (untouchables) Movement and its decision to create an advocacy network beyond the borders of the Indian state, this in a struggle against casteism and in defence of Dalit human rights. 2)It examines in particular the activities of the National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights (NCDHR) based in Delhi as the lead organization in the internationalization and globalization of the Dalit cause.The first part of the paper will concern itself with theoretical concerns. It initially discusses the relationship between the global and the local with a focus on the centrality of networks as a link between the global and the local. It then discusses how political opportunity structures at the domestic and international level influence the strategies of social movements advocating for human rights. Here I argue that those elements of the Dalit movement that have projected themselves internationally and globally can perhaps best be described as ?rooted cosmopolitans,? by which is meant:"People and groups who are rooted in specific national contexts, but who engage in regular activities that require their involvement in transnational networks of contacts and conflicts." (Tarrow, Della Porta, 2005, p. 237) The focus here is on the NCDHR as a human rights advocacy organization as defined by Keck and Sikkink.The second part of the paper will examine the domestic reasons within India that motivated the Dalits to take their struggle against casteism and for human rights beyond India. It examines in particular the creation of the NCDHR as a networked organization rooted in the ideas of the great Dalit leader Dr. Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar (1891-1956), a founder of the India state.The third part of the paper examines specific international and global activities of the Dalit Movement and the NCDHR against casteism and in defence of Dalit human rights at various United Nations organizations, the World Conference Against Racism and the World Social Forum. It examines in particular recent rulings by the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (now UN Human Rights Council) in favour of the Dalits and their implications for the struggle for Dalit human rights within an Indian context.A number of research methods will be used in this paper including: 1) Online research on the NCDHR and decisions of UN agencies; 2) The gathering in India of primary and secondary literature unavailable in North America; 3) Use of secondary literature in Canadian libraries; 4) In depth interviews of key leaders of the NCDHR (already conducted). ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper traces the history of enclosures and identifies responses to land and resource alienation by less-powerful groups. A range of contemporary social movements in the global South that are struggling to defend, reclaim, or recreate the commons are identified. Significantly, many contemporary struggles attempting to promote a more equitable distribution of land and resources prosecute their conflicts using methods of nonviolent action. They implement a range of tactics from across the three main methods of nonviolent action: protest and persuasion, noncooperation, and nonviolent intervention. Three specific social movement organizations are examined: Ekta Parishad (India), the Assembly of the Poor (Thailand), and the Landless Rural Workers Movement (Brazil). Finally, the implications of these social movements for promoting grassroots democracy, sustainable development, and nonviolent futures are discussed. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our survey research at the 2005 World Social Forum (WSF) in Porto Alegre examines the relationships among eighteen transnational social movements by asking participants at the WSF which movements they identify with and participate in, about the background characteristics of participants, and about the complementary and contentious relationships among the movements. Labor is one of the movements examined. And we also asked participants to identify contradictions among the movements and to suggest ways of resolving contradictions that would facilitate cooperation. We also asked specifically about North/South contradictions within the labor movement and about contradictions between the labor movement and the environmental movement. And we also asked participants their views regarding issues of anti-globalization and globalization from below. This paper reports those of our results that are germane to understanding contradictions within the global labor movement and the relationships between the labor movement and other anti-systemic movements. We will also include a discussion of how the labor movement in the United States is relating to the World Social Forum process. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the possibilities of a global labour counter-hegemonic project. Such a project appears to be a dim prospect, but the paper reflects upon what it might entail. Following a general overview, the paper focuses upon one particular aspect of the issue - the struggle to form transnational identities sufficiently strong to foster common labour based political action. The subject is pursued through the examination of a case study - the Southern Initiative on Globalization and Trade Union Rights. The case study highlights formidable, but surmountable obstacles to transnational identity formation. It raises the possibility of a global counter-hegemonic movement around labour issues. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The twentieth century has seen the rise and demise of the first generation socialist movement including state formation under its auspices (albeit as contender states to an otherwise surviving liberal West). From a theoretical point of view, two main shortcomings have plagued this experience. One was the failure to properly identify and integrate the role of a new managerial cadre in advanced industrial society, both in the context of capitalism and of state socialism. The second was the failure to understand the nature of international relations which on the whole was theorised as an epiphenomenon of the capitalist mode of production. This paper argues that in the current period, the cadre as a class or quasi-class once again appears to be on the ascendant as a social force, propelled in part by resistance to capitalist exploitation on a global scale. One way in which IR intellectuals might contribute to making this current round of socio-political development more productive and progressive is by articulating a theory which identifies the 'foreign' as the key category in understanding relations between communities occupying separate spaces and considering each other as outsiders. The recognition of difference but overcoming the foreign in a globalised world in which people are exposed to such others to an unprecedented degree, requires a fundamental redefinition of the subject matter of IR and a critique of the foreign as a form of alienation both within and between states. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past forty years, ?progressive? transnational social movements have emerged around such issues as human rights, the environment, and global justice. Simultaneously, there has been a huge increase in the number of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) active on these issues. In response, social scientists have begun theorizing about transnational mobilization and the growth of a ?global civil society,? with research revealing the dynamics of activism and its impacts in various policy arenas. Few scholars, however, have studied an equally important trend, the development of powerful transnational countermobilizations rooted in various ?conservative? ideologies and institutions. These countermobilizations have for example opposed the Kyoto Treaty, the Landmines Treaty, and the International Criminal Court--with considerable success on many issues. More fundamentally, in recent years conservative NGOs have challenged the legitimacy of civil society participation in international politics--even while actively participating themselves.My paper helps fill the empirical and theoretical gaps about transnational countermobilization by focusing on transnational activism concerning the control of Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALW). Used in conflicts and violence worldwide, such weapons are responsible for over 500,000 deaths per year, according to United Nations estimates. For over a decade, hundreds of NGOs organized in a loose transnational network known as the International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA) have worked to promote a treaty controlling SALW trade. Opposing these efforts is a transnational network of gun-rights NGOs, spearheaded by America?s National Rifle Association (NRA). My paper analyzes the strategies of these contending global networks. In particular, the paper focuses on the ways in which the NRA and its global network have sought to influence states, delegitimate the United Nations process, and attack IANSA--all with the aim of stalling or defusing efforts to control small arms. More generally, the paper examines how the two networks clash with one another as they seek to influence international policymaking. For the transnational politics literature, which has focused on ?progressive? movements, such research opens a window onto extremely powerful but little-studied ?conservative? activism on the world stage. As such, it holds promise of providing a far more accurate picture of how civil society actors contend with one another and influence global public policy. In addition, the paper contributes to social movement theory. Thus far, scholars have analyzed the role of ?countermovements? only in domestic arenas. My paper extends the literature to the international level. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper revisits and revises arguments we made in the first edition of our edited volume, Gender and Global Restructuring: Sightings, Sites and Resistances (Routledge 2000). We made the case for the centrality of gender, as relation of inequality based on social constructions of masculinity and femininity. In the post-9/11 era in which we have seen a more pronounced militarization of globalization and a concomitant discursive and analytical shift from economistic accounts of globalization to a focus on empire, we are even more convinced that the term ?global restructuring? is more useful for capturing the ever-changing dynamics of this process. More recent feminist scholarship on gender, globalization, and empire further elucidates our understanding of varying interstructurings of gender, race, nation, and sexual identities, ideologies, and practices produced through and productive of global restructuring. These offer richer ?sightings? of the relationship between gender (and related power relations) and global restructuring, while also complicating and expanding ?sites? of global restructuring, taking them beyond bounded geographical places and regions to borderland spaces and re-siting gendering in relation to colonizing, racializing, and sexualizing narratives and practices. Some of the latest scholarship on transnational feminism and feminist anti-globalization activism also raises new questions about and approaches to the issue of ?resistances? to global restructuring through a more complicated gender lens that foregrounds decolonizing and queering lenses and strategies. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The global anti-globalization (or social justice) movement presents an extraordinary challenge for mobilization. First is the problem of discovering (or constructing) a common interest among highly disparate groups of opposition to "globalization," by no means an obvious matter. Second is the problem of cooperating in pursuit of that interest when there is an overwhelming temptation to free ride on the efforts of others. And third, is the problem of coordinating a coherent collective action. This paper argues for a central role for narrative in the formation of the movement. It argues, first, that theories of social movements based on rational choice and institutional behavior, while helpful, are insufficient for solving the puzzle posed by the anti-globalization movement and, that understanding the movement requires recognizing the way in which a globalization narrative served to construct a common interest in opposing it and engage individuals in a social drama of opposition. The theory of social movement developed in the paper draws on literatures in social movement theory, theories of collective action, cognitive psychology, narrative theory, and others. Empirical evidence is drawn from primary documents of the movement. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

My paper deals with the campaign against structural adjustment programs and conditionality by the World Bank and the IMF. I argue that this campaign takes place at both the global and local level.It involves transnational networks of civil society actors, but in order to succeed, they need the suppor of local authoriites. Advocacy groups in this arena have been limited by the impermeability of IFIs to external accountability. For this reason, I suggest that the role governments play in the South should be reassessed. I take the case of Argentina as an example of the potential for a heterodox alliance between activists and state officials in the developing world. My paper discusses the case of water privatization in Buenos Aires. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Diverse processes collectively called globalization and growing transnational social movements have encouraged many to decry the fall of state sovereignty and the arrival of a world in which individuals are increasingly free from territorially demarcated political and national constraints. In this cosmopolitan world individuals consider themselves to be global citizens subject to universal human rights that are protected and governed by international organizations. The change is understood to be fueled by the process of modernization itself, predominantly education, urbanization, and economic development. Accordingly, the western, advanced industrial developed nations are understood to be the derivation for this cosmopolitanism. As modernization inevitably spreads, the phenomenon is expected to follow. In this paper I challenge this theory of inevitable cosmopolitanism. I seek to do so by disaggregating the concept into several indicators, and predicting that each of these will be sensitive to discrete independent variables other than those important to modernization theory. I provide alternative hypotheses for each cosmopolitan indicator, with the intent to shed a more nuanced light on what has been an overly simplistic, and over-determined, theory of cosmopolitanism. I test these hypotheses with data available from the World Values Survey. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The world of the academe holds different views regarding scholarship and its relationships to the centers and peripheries of various power structures, as it holds different views regarding its impact: whether it should be designed within existing political structures or structurally transformational. This paper wants to explore the impact of American feminism, as part of the American postmodern thought on equality, on a world in transition where American-backed ideologies promote uncontrolled market hegemony and an emaciated ?night-watch? state which is unable to protect its citizens and residents.This paper argues that a feminist critique of equality needs to involve a state narrative both domestically and internationally. The argument is two-fold. First, it will emphasize that equality, in any of its meanings -- formal, social, or substantive -- involves state action. From formal equality ? equality in front of the law, which means being a subject of equal rights (to men), to substantive equality ? socio-economic equality -- equality involves the state directly. The state is the one which defines its terms. Women have been more successful in terms of formal equality than substantively. This incremental dual approach has not been limited to domestic systems; it has been mirrored by theoretical distinctions between formal and substantive rights at the international level as well. (see the two conventions on human rights both at the UN and European level).Next, the paper will discuss the critical paradigm needed to compel states to guaranty substantive equality from an international point of view: the discourse on substantive human rights. Any discourse involving substantive human rights requires a discussion of the role of the state as a guarantor of those rights. The state is the entity that can ensure public education, health care, and can even design the power of the different religious establishments. Furthermore, the only current mechanisms for accountability at the international level are against the state. Recently, the international human rights discourse seems to engage more the market than the state, as if there were a choice. It seems quixotic to compel the market to end violations of substantive human rights, if that means a loss of profit, without involving the state. Absent clear regulations the market (shareholders) would not stop doing what comes natural to it: making profit. Feminism cannot afford ignoring this reality if it wants to remain a relevant theory, both domestically and internationally. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Responding to the marginalisation of feminist activism in dominant accounts and practices of the so-called ?anti-globalisation movement?, this paper describes and explains the emergence and contexts of what we are calling ?feminist anti-globalisation activism?. Part of a larger project being developed with Bice Maiguashca on the shape, nature and implications of that activism, based on fieldwork conducted at European and World Social Forum sites, what is offered here is a diachronic narrative of movement emergence. We recognise this narrative to be sketchy, partial and contested but we think it offers interesting insights into the character of contemporary feminism, North and South, as well as enriching understanding of ?the anti-globalisation movement? itself. After briefly establishing the contours of feminist anti-globalisation activism, the first part of the paper offers a broad brush account of the main structural and institutional factors that have shaped the emergence of this activism at the state, regional and global levels. We point here to the homogenising and divisive impact of economic globalisation, the constraining and facilitating role of international institutions and regimes, and the major continuities and shifts in global political norms, ideologies and frames. The second part focuses on movement predecessors of feminist anti-globalisation activism. We begin by sketching the reorientation of transnational feminist networks toward anti-globalisation politics, in large part due to the growing influence of Southern feminists, before complicating the story by outlining distinctive trajectories of feminist movement activism in the four countries visited in the course of the fieldwork: Brazil, India, France and the UK. The paper ends by discussing the tensions involved in constructing transnational movement histories: striving to reflect and nurture nascent solidarities across borders while being reflexive about our own situated perspectives and sensitive to the conflicts and contestations between different localities and between North and South. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the early 1990s the anti-sweatshop movement, as part of a broader civil society backlash against ?corporate-driven? globalization, has been challenging apparel corporations to become accountable for the impacts of their operations on labor rights, human rights, and the communities in which they produce. Using the campaign against the GAP as a case study, this paper will examine the processes through which political opportunities, mobilizing structures, and frameworks of interpretation intersected, resulting in the engagement of various stakeholders with the sweatshop problem. How and to what extent did the strategies, tactics, and frames used by the movement pose a fundamental challenge to intersubjective understandings of the societal role of corporations as the primary movement target? Anti-sweatshop activists and their corporate targets encounter each other on a contentious rhetorical terrain. By the mid-1990s the movement was successful in establishing the sweatshop as a legitimate social problem in need of remediation through the use of rhetoric that resonated with norms and values widely-held by the American public. However, until this day activists, corporations, and government actors still disagree over the precise responsibilities of apparel brands and retailers in setting and upholding labor standards in their contracted facilities throughout the world. Underpinning this contestation are differing views on the role of corporations in society with respect to their appropriate rights and duties, their public versus private nature, and their legitimate realm of action. One of the premier strategies used by activists against corporations was rhetorical entrapment; in other words leveraging statements made by corporations about their intentions to respect workers? rights as a means to hold them to account, in "word" and in "deed." Although possessing less power than their corporate opponents, the movement managed to bring corporations to take on new responsibilities for the impacts of their global operations, which previously would have been deemed outside their legitimate sphere of influence and authority. This paper will examine the stages that the GAP went through while addressing activists? claims, beginning initially with outright denial of responsibility to eventually taking a leadership role in promoting industry-wide cooperation in enhancing corporate social accountability. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the aftermath of the anti-globalisation campaigns, formal forums, such as the World Social Forum at Porto Alegre and the rolling series of the European Forums have been set up, in order that a variety of interest groups could formulate alternatives capable of challenging neoliberal hegemony. Academics have responded positively to these movements, arguing that they represent either a convergence of critical social movements, in the manner which RBJ Walker (1998) identified, or the emergence of a counter-hegemonic project (Amoore, 2005).In this paper, we provide a critique of the World and European Social Forums and argue that rather the basis of a coherent form of resistance, the various forums fail to adequately construct a viable set of principles necessary for (to use Gramsci's terms) a war of position against the current global order. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Globalization?the increased flow of capital, people, and information across borders?has made a deep imprint on the meaning of citizenship. Traditional definitions of citizenship are increasingly being challenged by a new world order. This paper traces the changing notions of transnational citizenship, taking at is starting point an analysis of transnational social movements, advocacy networks, and civil society, and examining the role played and strategies employed by these networks in the pursuit of women?s equality and national citizenship. The paper specifically attempts to address a lacunae in the plethora of literature on women and citizenship by discussing the role that speech and silence plays in women?s rights movements locally and transnationally ? illustrative discussion will include cases in the United States, India, Turkey, Bangladesh, and indigenous communities in the US. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Too often indigenous movements are lumped in with [anti-]globalization movements or the ?new social movements.? While in some respects this categorization fits, in other, more important respects it does not. Indigenous peoples have been resisting globalization and globalization-like forces for centuries in the western hemisphere, and for millennia in Africa and Eurasia. Still, the movements and forms of resistance have changed significantly over time. A key difference for indigenous movements is that they typically, but far from always, are not interested in reforming the system. Rather, they are interested in autonomy and preserving the own political-cultural space to remain different, and to maintain some degree of autonomy over their own social organization. In this latter sense they are often more serious or deeper challenges to neoliberalism than other movements. This paper explores and elaborates on these differences and their significance for our understanding of globalization and its reactions. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Democracy may be the most influential form of political and social organization in the world today, yet the present globalization era has led civil society activists to question the resilience of democratic principles such as equality, pluralism, freedom, accountability and transparency in the face of an increasingly interdependent international trade regime. According to scholars in international relations (See Falk,1999; Keohane & Nye, 2000), comparative social movement theory (See Sholte,2002; Von Rooy,2004), and contemporary democratic theory(See Dyzek, 2000; McGrew, 2002), anti-globalization activists express this frustration primarily by seeking transnational democratic reform of the supranational institutions that challenge and truncate the ability of domestic political institutions to create independent national policy agendas. Yet the organized response to globalization suggests that movement ideology and behaviour is also fuelled by a palpable frustration with traditional forms of political participation and domestic political institutions. This frustration suggests the need for a closer examination of how democratic principles shape anti-globalization activists? attitudes and behaviour, and whether this has led to any distinctive innovations in democratic theory and practice. This paper will examine the manner in which the language of democratic principles and concepts are understood and present in anti-globalization social movement activity and discourse within Canada, where innovative democratic discursive and organizational innovation blossomed early on in response to the creation of the Canada-U.S. and the North American Free Trade Agreements (CUSFTA and NAFTA?See Ayres, 1998). To assist me in this task, my investigation will draw upon some textual analysis as well as a variety of primary materials ranging from activist pamphlets, independent media sources, online web sites and personal interviews. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hakim Bey in his article "Temporary Autonomous Zones" calls for temporary camps of nomads to organize and resist State power. With the effort of States to close off un-owned lands, closing all open spaces for resistance movements, Cyberspace offers one of the last remaining spaces of nomadic resistance to sedentary state power. Using Gilles Deluezes notion of the Nomad, Guy Debord and Jean Baudrillards notion of hyperreality and Hakim Beys call for Temporary Autonomous Zones I claim that that the struggle to control code in cyberspace is weakening the envelope of the State on both sides. On one side economic globalization and international intellectual property law weakens a States power to assign property and on the other the international hacker and pirating movements are weakening the power of the State to protect property rights. This weakening of the State can radically alter the current international order. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores notions of citizenship and civil society, from classical theories of participation and civic duty, to modern permutations of social mobilization. Specifically, this paper explores the phenomenon of 'global civil society' by looking at how social movements mobilize support and engage citizens across the north-south divide. Case studies from the anti-globalization social movement will be discussed. This evidence will reveal the capacity of 'global civil society' to engage citizens in a newly conceptualized from of citizenship across and within borders. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores how strategies of transnational NGOs evolve differentially over time by using an agent-based simulation model. On one hand, it is a theoretical attempt to understand social movements and networks at a transnational level. On the other hand, this paper is also a conceptual and methodological attempt to operationalize constructivist arguments about how transnational ties and networks affect the process of identity politics and group formation. The key question I answer in this paper is what affects the evolutionary path of movement organizations that explicitly deal with globalization issue. This can be split into two analytic questions. First, it asks how the interaction between heterogeneous movement organizations and their target institutions results in different evolutionary paths for transnational movement organizations. On one hand, I investigate what factors and dimensions affect the formation of broad anti-globalization movement coalitions. Synthesizing the two questions, I argue that anti-globalization movements are horizontal self-organizing networks of heterogeneous organizations linked together by the convergence of specific identities. In this sense, movement networks can be viewed as apparatuses for the production of discourses and practices. Following from the central argument, I make two additional arguments about transnational movements that deal with globalization issues. First, I argue that the structural position in a movement network and identity position together condition the possible scope of evolutionary paths for individual movements organizations. How these notions of structural and identity position in a movement network are defined will follow later in the paper. Second, I argue that movement networks and collective identity of movements coevolve. Movement identity affects the way individual organizations choose their coalitions and build formal/informal linkages. On the other hand, the structural position of individual movement organizations also shapes the possible identities they can adopt. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The role of organised labour as expression of dissent or social resistance to neoliberal economic globalisation has attracted increasing scholarly interest. It has been argued that with the end of the Cold War and of the constraints it placed on international labour solidarity, there has emerged an environment in which organised labour is better positioned to overcome the tradition of bureaucratic national unionism and transform itself into a more internationally-oriented ?social movement unionism.? These trends are by no means limited to the global North, and indeed, writers often make reference to newly industrialising countries in the global South, such as South Korea, South Africa, and Brazil, thus making it possible to talk of labour as a part of a ?global civil society.? By examining the case of the South Korean labour movement, however, I argue that such analysis as above focuses on only one aspect of the labour movement at the expense of its larger historical context. The experience of the Korean labour movement is in fact diametrically opposed to the social movement union hypothesis. There is good reason to believe that this is not simply because of unique characteristics of the Korean case, but rather is intimately related to Korea?s status as a both a newly industrialising and a newly democratising country. Since the 1980s, the Korean labour movement has undergone a transformation from a militant and almost revolutionary movement, to being bureaucratised and co-opted into the hegemonic political system. This has been due to the seemingly contradictory but in reality often complementary processes of neoliberal globalisation and democratisation that many countries of the South have recently experienced. Despite the labour movement?s discourse of opposition neoliberal restructuring, new hegemonic ideologies of democracy, international competitiveness amidst globalisation, and particularly of ?civil society? as a legitimate sphere of action have acted to co-opt the labour movement and weaken its resistance to restructuring. Furthermore, neoliberal restructuring has accelerated since the financial crisis, and this has contributed towards increased workers? insecurity and has made resistance to neoliberal restructuring even more problematic. This insecurity has led labour to seek a role as responsible partner to government and business in pseudo-social corporatism forums, despite the fact the striking thing about Korean industrial relations is the absolute absence of prerequisites for such a system of social agreement politics. It is my hypothesis therefore that whilst global neoliberal restructuring may have a homogenising effect on national economies, we cannot assume that there will be homogenous form of social or labour resistance in the form of a ?global civil society? without considering the specific historical contexts of national labour or social movements. In the global North, labour movements may have clearly perceived neoliberalism as an attack on the status of organised labour. In the global South, however, the Korean case suggests that the simultaneous processes of democratisation and neoliberal restructuring have been a complex mixture of crisis and opportunity that has made the assumption of unified resistance to globalisation more problematic. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasingly, critiques about the gender implications of macro economic policy and the institutions that manifest such policies are being articulated and given some credence (e.g., World Development Report, 1995). As part of this work, feminist organizations are using the rubric of anti-globalization discourse and the anti-globalization movement to frame and channel their endeavors. Feminist activists are using a host of trans- and international spaces to do this work: the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil as well as Social Forums held in other parts of the world, the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas, the World Trade Organization, and the myriad of United Nations conferences. Feminist efforts can, in this way, be seen as in line with the political left’s efforts to challenge international economic processes. For feminists however, the language and framework of anti-globalization organizing also provide a way to identify and articulate the impact that neo-liberal economic restructuring has had on women and men by showing that patterns of gender-based inequities are not inevitable, but rather are the product of particular policies and decisions. As this paper will show, feminist activist and scholarly attention to globalization have grown rapidly in a short period of time, but the consequences and efficacy of this trend have been inadequately assessed. The final document of the 1995 United Nations’ IV World Conference on Women held in Beijing, China, for instance, included significant discussion of women’s poverty, labor and gendered economic inequalities, it did not generally frame these issues through a globalization lens. Yet, five years later as the nations of the world reviewed the agreements they had made in Beijing, the discussion of gender and globalization moved to center stage. Indeed, the language on globalization was among that which was most contentiously debated. This paper takes up why this shift has occurred. I examine what the gender/globalization framework means and adds to previous activism to redress gendered economic inequalities and then highlight the political strengths and weaknesses of this conceptual and practical move. The increased use of the globalization framework by women’s organizations around the world has been accompanied by a parallel process in feminist scholarly debates. Along with their activist counterparts, many scholars have adopted the discourse of globalization to frame and explain gender-based patterns of inequality (Mohanty 2003; Tickner 2001; Signs, Summer 2001 [special issue on globalization & gender]). Yet, as this paper will argue, increased attention to the nexus of gender and economic globalization has not always led to clarity about what the concept means or how specifically to take the critiques leveled and transform them into concrete policy changes. In this paper, I develop a framework for understanding how it is that feminist activists are using the globalization framework to articulate their concerns and to organize their work. In so doing, I show that this shift in rhetoric and increased activism can not be expected to automatically result in concrete policy changes. Indeed, simply increasing activism focused on gender and globalization will not, and has not, been enough to result in significant substantive change. Activists and scholars alike will have to focus more on the structural or systemic barriers to efficacy if such activism is going to articulate viable alternatives to the dominant neo-liberal globalization paradigm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most parts of the anti-globalisation movement in fact promote globalisation in its sociological sense and take part in constructing new social and political spaces. To the extent that there is a unifying adversary, it is not globalisation per se but rather the Washington consensus of economic orthodoxy and the unleashed capacity of capitalist corporations and banks to operate freely across borders and regions, creating new undemocratic and unaccountable mechanisms of global control and power. This power is being promoted and safeguarded by the Bretton Woods institutions; the WTO; and a number of other inter- and supranational conventions and bodies. I argue that the mainstream of alter-globalisation movement is right. Complex division of labour and asymmetric interdependence imply that simultaneous attempts at self-reliance - or autarchy - would lead to a major economic and thereby political catastrophe. On the other hand, it is also not possible to assume tacitly that free market forces would take care of (the remaining) world economic relations. Global governance is thus needed. Moreover, the typical idealised accounts of territorial states ignore historical realities and the problem of peace and interconnectedness of humanity. My conclusion is that critical social movements should simultaneously aim at creating conditions for (i) a global security community (desecuritization); (ii) more democratic global governance (democratization); and (iii) more viable and autonomy-enabling ways of regulating economic practices and world markets (democratic re-regulation and pluralism) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]