Anti- And Alter- Globalization Movements Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

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The anti-globalization movement is a social movement that opposes neoliberal corporate-led globalization as advanced by corporations, neoclassical economists, and key global institutions such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Trade Organization (WTO). The movement asserts that the current form of globalization, which is based on economic integration through trade, investment, and financial flows, is not beneficial to the majority of the world’s population nor to the environment. Its goal is to ensure that globalization’s burden does not fall on workers, communities, the environment, women, and other more marginalized sectors of society. This movement is part of what is known as new social movements. That is, movements that are cross-class—advocate a myriad of issues rather than being one-issue specific—and transnational in terms of demands, focus, and even organizational forms. This cross-borders movement first came to light and became known by the term anti-globalization movement after staging mass demonstrations in Seattle, Washington, in 1999. However, some scholars argue that the roots of this kind of cross-border citizens’ activism against global economic trends can be found decades if not centuries earlier during European colonialism and antislavery movements. According to these scholars, there are several hundred years of movements that, with varying degrees of success, made international linkages on specific issues related to cross-borders economic integration.

The alter-globalization movement, which is a less-known term sometimes used interchangeably with anti-globalization to delineate the same thing, has a lot of commonalities with the latter. That is, both anti and alter-globalization movements emphasize a shared conception of neoliberalism as a global project harmful to the majority of the world population and the environment. The terms were coined to distinguish a current of thought and activism that is not opposed to globalization as a multidimensional and often inevitable process linking people together; rather, it is to emphasize the need for a different form of globalization whereby this process and its different composites of telecommunication leaps, global governance, and economic logic work for the benefit of the majority of the world’s population and not a minority of corporations. Many of the activists and groups involved in this movement are not necessarily against capitalism, rather they want to use to use it in a way that can enhance prosperity with better distribution of resources and opportunities. Initiatives such as fair trade, corporate codes of conduct, flexible migration laws, and free use of the Internet are examples of what this movement and its different groups work on.

For the contemporary anti-globalization and alter-globalization movements, three episodes have been seminal to putting it center stage within living-room discussions as much as academic and policy-making debates: the Seattle protests of 1999, the Genoa protests of 2001, and the antiwar demonstrations in 2003 in multiple cities. While other demonstrations targeting neoliberal global policies were organized earlier—during World Bank and IMF meetings (including Berlin in 1988 and Madrid in 1994)—and later (Washington, D.C., in 2000, G8 meetings in different European cities early in the new millennium), these three episodes were the largest and most confrontational. They stirred academic debate about the limitation of the nation-state both as an actor and as a target for contention, and the impact and potential of global civil society and transnational activism and movements. The movement adopted a discourse of unified neoliberalism as a master frame, and accordingly devised and included a cultural framing process that universalizes its shortcomings and alternatives to the movement itself.

Organizational Forms

Not only has the anti-globalization movement ushered in new concepts and cultural frames, but it also emphasized new forms of organization. Observers such as Carlos Azambuja (2003) describe the movement as:

. . . [dis]organization that has no hierarchical structure or operational center, consisting of just “us,” in whose interventions thousands of organizations come together horizontally to protest, in one way or another, the current world order. They can grow infinitely without anyone having to give up his individuality to any hierarchical structure. (1)

The movement has been conceptualized as a network. A network in this analysis is a wider concept that potentially includes social movements but also nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), professional unions, and the media. Networks make great use of information technology and are characterized by alliances forged between groups with disparate political and ideological affiliations, and by the great diversity in the backgrounds of their members. These loose horizontal forms of organization, the cross-class nature of the movement (intellectuals, students, workers, professionals), along with the diverse ideological leanings of participants and their demands (environmentalists, feminists, Marxists, anarchists, liberal-humanists) put it within the category of new social movements. Using changes in technology, innovative protest styles, information politics, and analytical advances, this movement created debates about the changing nature of contentious politics in the new millennium. The debates ranged from a post–nation-state era to global policing and the demise of political parties.

Impact

The anti-globalization movement marked a growing space for extra parliamentary politics and the rising number and diversified tactics of different movements that could be adopted and adapted by others, including the range of alliances, organizational forms, and framing dissent. The movement also gave rise to transnational or global civil society forums pioneered in the World Social Forum (WSF). The first WSF, held in 2001, convened in Porto Alegre, Brazil, with the intention to provide a counter event to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Since then the social forums have been replicated on a regional level (European and Asian Social Forums).The forum is held under the slogan “Another World Is Possible,” which summarizes the common outlook of the various participants advocating alternatives for the neoliberal model on different issues.

The WSF, which is attended by individual activists, social movement representatives, NGOs, and some leftist political parties, is meant to serve as a global rally against corporate led globalization and a meeting point where delegates can exchange experiences and coordinate and plan campaigns.

For instance, the WSF was a rallying point for worldwide dissent against the U.S. invasion of Iraq, with protests held in different cities on February 15, 2003. Hence, what came to be called the antiwar movement since 2003 is in fact an extension of the anti-globalization movement in terms of participants, tactics, and aspired universality. Thus, the emergence of antiwar movement, which was the biggest campaign and most successful mobilization attempt (in terms of size at least) of the anti-globalization movement, has marked the retreat of the latter.

Bibliography:

Azambuja, Carlos I. S. “The New Face of the Anti-globalization Movements,” 2003, www.cubdest.org/0312/cazambuje.html.
Ayres, Jeffery. “Framing Collective Action Against Neoliberalism:The Case of the ‘Anti-globalization’ Movement.” Journal of World-Systems Research (Winter 2004): 11–34.
Broad, R., ed. Global Backlash: Citizen Initiatives for a Just World Economy. Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2002.
Cavanagh, John, Jerry Mander, Sarah Anderson, Debi Barker, and Maud Barlow. Alternatives to Economic Globalization: A Better World Is Possible. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 2002.
della Porta, Donatella, and Sidney Tarrow. “After Genoa and New York:The Anti-global Movement, the Police, and Terrorism.” Items and Issues: Social Science Research Council (Winter, 2001): 9–11.
Edelman, Marc. “Social Movements: Changing Paradigms and Forms of Politics.” Annual Review of Anthropology 30 (2001): 285–317.
Keck, Margret, and Kathryn Sikkink. Activists beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics. New York: Cornell University Press, 1998.
Khagram, Sanjee, James Riker, and Kathryn Sikkink, eds. Restructuring World Politics:Transnational Social Movements, Networks, and Norms. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2002.