Complexity and Social Movements: Multitudes at the Edge of Chaos (International Library of Sociology)

Ian Welsh Graeme Chesters

ISBN 10: 0415439744 / ISBN 13: 9780415439749

Published by Taylor & Francis Group, 2006

About this Item

pp. 208.

Seller Inventory # 26333493

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Complexity and Social Movements: Multitudes at the Edge of Chaos (International Library of Sociology)
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis Group
• Publication Date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0415439744
• ISBN 13: 9780415439749
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

Fusing two key concerns of contemporary sociology: globalization and its discontents, and the 'complexity turn' in social theory, authors Chesters and Welsh utilize complexity theory to analyze the shifting constellation of social movement networks that constitute opposition to neo-liberal globalization. They explore how seemingly chaotic and highly differentiated social actors interacting globally through computer mediated communications, face-to-face gatherings and protests constitute a 'multitude' not easily grasped through established models of social and political change. Drawing upon extensive empirical research and utilizing concepts drawn from the natural and social sciences this book suggests a framework for understanding mobilization, identity formation and information flows in global social movements operating within complex societies. It suggests that this 'movement of movements' exhibits an emergent order on the edge of chaos, a turbulence that is recasting political agency in the twenty-first century.

About the Author

Graeme Chesters, Ian Welsh