Global Activism (Rethinking Globalizations) - Softcover

Reitan, Ruth

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0415455510 ISBN 13: 9780415455510

Publisher: Routledge, 2007

Synopsis

This comprehensive study traces the transnationalization of activist networks, analyzing their changing compositions and characters and examining the roles played by the World Social Forum in this process.

About this title

About the Author

Ruth Reitan is Visiting Assistant Professor at University of Miami’s Department of International Studies, USA.

Review

Ruth Reitan seeks the core of global activism today and finds it in four key networks - the Jubilee anti-debt campaign and its offshoots, Our World is Not for Sale, Via Campesina and the Chiapas-derived People's Global Action. All four have forged significant ties, launched joint campaigns, participated in mass protests, and helped to initiate the social forum process. Impressive as her narratives are, even more striking is that her book shows that, in spite of considerable diversity, each of the four cases has followed a similar trajectory from local to global. This is a book that both activists and academics will have to read if they want to begin to answer the question at its core: "is there a global social movement?

Sidney Tarrow, Cornell University, USA

Ruth Reitan’s timely book provides an engaging and lucid analysis of what I think is the most important political development of this young century. Her explorations of some of the major transnational campaigns for global justice reveal the rich historical traditions and the vibrant networks of individuals and organizations that have shaped contemporary activism in the World Social Forums. This book contributes important new evidence and offers a theoretical perspective that will help further our collective work to advance understandings of transnational activism. It will be of great use to students, scholars, and global citizens.

Jackie Smith, University of Notre Dame, USA

Reitan’s book combines novel theoretical tools with extremely detailed and extensive empirical material to produce an original contribution to the study of transnational social movements. Drawing on insights from research on international political economy and social movements it provides a stimulating interdisciplinary argument. It is a rare pleasure to read a book that so effectively mixes a hard-nosed theoretically driven approach with a clear passion for the movements it studies.

Thomas Olesen, University of Aarhus, Denmark

Edition details

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0415455510
• ISBN 13: 9780415455510
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 352