Protest and Organization in the Alternative Globalization Era—NGOs, Social Movements, and Political Parties

Protest and Organization in the Alternative Globalization Era examines the development of anticorporate, prodemocracy movements over the last two decades, from the Alternative Globalization Movement and World Social Forum that ushered in the 21st century, to today's massive Arab Spring, Eurozone crisis, and Occupy Wall Street. The book locates the root causes of global recession, runaway debt, and severe social inequality that precipitated these movements within political-economic systems established decades earlier, offering a critical account of neoliberal capitalism's utter incompatibility with democratic freedom. It focuses on contests over the development of economic alternatives, social transformation, and political organization among the most prominent tendencies on the global Left, as well as the challenges they face in collectively developing new, egalitarian social institutions and democratic political programs. The result is a highly nuanced account of struggles that function as a vital counterforce to illegitimate governments and corporate power.

Heather Gautney is an assistant professor of Sociology at Fordham University and a grassroots activist. She is co-editor of Democracy, States and the Struggle for Global Justice (2009) and Implicating Empire: Globalization and Resistance in the 21st Century (2003). She is also on the editorial board of Social Text.