Leading sociologist Boaventura de Sousa Santos makes an impassioned case for the politicisation of the World Social Forum, arguing that its full potential as a force for social, economic and political change can be achieved only by taking a stand against neo-liberal globalization, war, famine and corruption. However, since its inception in Porto Alegre in 2001, the World Social Forum has refused to adopt political positions on world events, preferring instead to provide a platform that facilitates cooperation between diverse social movements. Through a detailed analysis of the WSF's history and organization, he demonstrates that it has always been an inherently political organization, and argues that if the WSF is able to realise its potential as an institution for a new form of politics, it will become a global power to be reckoned with in the 21st century.

How did African Americans gain the ability to apply Gandhian nonviolence during the civil rights movement? Responses generally focus on Martin Luther King’s “pilgrimage to nonviolence” or favorable social contexts and processes. This book, in contrast, highlights the role of collective learning in the Gandhian repertoire’s transnational diffusion. Collective learning shaped the invention of the Gandhian repertoire in South Africa and India as well as its transnational diffusion to the United States. In the 1920s, African Americans and their allies responded to Gandhi’s ideas and practices by reproducing stereotypes. Meaningful collective learning started with translation of the Gandhian repertoire in the 1930s and small-scale experimentation in the early 1940s. After surviving the doldrums of the McCarthy era, full implementation of the Gandhian repertoire finally occurred during the civil rights movement between 1955 and 1965. This book goes beyond existing scholarship by contributing deeper and finer insights on how transnational diffusion between social movements actually works. It highlights the contemporary relevance of Gandhian nonviolence and its successful journey across borders.

In recent years, a growing literature has focused on how to create more effective and democratic global governance mechanisms to better tackle global challenges such as health epidemics, global hunger, Internet surveillance or the consequences of climate change. Yet there is a gap in accessible published material to reflect contributions of democratic states from the global South. Among these democracies from the global South, Brazil is a popular case for teachers and researchers looking to study global governance mechanisms. This book provides students with a framework that challenges the Western-centred views on questions of how to democratise global governance processes, arguing that developing democracies from the global South have developed serious and sustainable approaches to a more democratic global system. With chapters on Brazil’s responses to global food security, the purchase of drugs, open government initiatives and internet governance, this book opens up contemporary and novel practices of democracy for examination.

It is common to hear that we live in unique, turbulent and crisis-ridden times and this turbulence, transformation and crisis are said to be deeply significant - perhaps threatening - for the human sciences. Responding to such claims, this book provides an accessible engagement with pressing contemporary topics, such as violence, social movements, equality, identity and democracy. Foregrounding the imagination of possibilities (utopia), the mapping of the present (theory), and the transformation of the world-system (historical and global questions), the book surveys central issues and paradigms in contemproary political sociology, urging a recommitment to certain concepts and traditions for guidance in thinking and acting in the world.

The 21st century has witnessed a considerable and increasing number of political revolutions around the world. This contradicts the popular belief of many experts in the 1970s that revolutions occurred mainly in monarchies and empires. Instead, the revolutions of this century have several new characteristics, which call for a renewed analysis of the subject. This handbook offers a comparative perspective on the new wave of revolutions of the last decade. Presenting case studies on the color revolutions, the Arab revolutions of 2010–2011, and the global wave of revolutions in 2013–2018 that spanned regions ranging from Africa to the Caucasus, it offers a better understanding of the varied forms, features, and historical backgrounds of revolutions, as well as their causes. Accordingly, it highlights recent revolutions in their historical and world-systems contexts. The handbook is divided into seven parts, the first of which examines the history of views on revolution and important aspects of the theory of revolution. The second part analyzes revolutions within long-term historical trends and in their world-system contexts. In turn, the third part explores specific major revolutionary waves in history. The fourth part analyzes the first revolutionary wave of the 21st century (2000–2009), the so-called color revolutions, while the fifth discusses the second wave – the Arab Spring (2010–2013) – as an important turning point. The sixth part is dedicated to analyzing revolutions and revolutionary movements beyond the Arab Spring and some revolutionary events from the third wave that began in 2018. The seventh and final part offers forecasts on the future of revolutions. Given its scope, the book will appeal to scholars and students from various disciplines interested in historical trends, sociopolitical change, contentious politics, social movements, and revolutionary processes involving both nonviolent campaigns and political violence. ​"Once again, this volume demonstrates the kind of open-minded, systematic analysis that the field of revolutionary studies requires." (Prof. George Lawson, Department of International Relations, Australian National University Canberra)

Against the backdrop of Enron and the other high-profile cases of corporate malfeasance, it is easy to paint today's executives as villains and blame big business, and corporations generally, for a wide array of social ills. Is the criticism warranted? Not quite, says Evan Osborne, as he traces the history of anti-corporate sentiment and assesses the fever-pitch hatred, by some, of all things corporate. While not perfect angels, Osborne argues, corporations confer many more benefits to society than ills. Moreover, they are an essential engine of human progress, and longstanding legal principles are more than adequate to address their flaws. And that makes the rising tide of anti-corporate sentiment dangerous. Why? Look at the facts: Large corporations inspire both awe and fear. On the one hand, they create jobs, introduce scientific and technological breakthroughs, open up borders through trade, and provide indispensable products and services that make life easier. On the other hand, many think they undermine the will of the people, encourage bribery and corruption, finance oppressive regimes, ruin values and culture, befoul the environment, and encourage economic inequality. It was no accident that the terrorists of September 11 targeted the World Trade Center, an iconic symbol of American financial power. In this provocative book, Evan Osborne pulls back the curtain to illuminate how corporations have evolved as an essential element of society, and how opposition to them has developed out of proportion—a fire fanned by anti-business activists, the media, and other groups. He sets the record straight, explaining how corporations work, how they have evolved in the context of other institutions, the net benefits they provide—and how to deal with their undeniable imperfections. At the same time, he shows how anti-business claims have become more strident and where these arguments fail to stand up to scrutiny.

Drawing on the work of key thinkers such as Joel Kovel and John Bellamy Foster, Derek Wall provides an unique insider view of how ecosocialism has developed and a practical guide to focused ecosocialist action. Climate change and other ecological ills are driving the creation of a grassroots global movement for change. From Latin America to Europe, Australia and China a militant movement merging red and green is taking shape. Ecosocialists argue that capitalism threatens the future of humanity and the rest of nature. From indigenous protest in the Peruvian Amazon to the green transition in Cuba to the creation of red-green parties in Europe, ecosocialism is defining the future of left and green politics globally. Latin American leaders such as Morales and Chavez are increasingly calling for an ecosocialist transition. This is an important handbook for activists and engaged students of politics.

This book conceives of "religion-making" broadly as the multiple ways in which social and cultural phenomena are configured and reconfigured within the matrix of a world-religion discourse that is historically and semantically rooted in particular Western and predominantly Christian experiences, knowledges, and institutions. It investigates how religion is universalized and certain ideas, social formations, and practices rendered "religious" are thus integrated in and subordinated to very particular - mostly liberal-secular - assumptions about the relationship between history, politics, and religion. The individual contributions, written by a new generation of scholars with decisively interdisciplinary approaches, examine the processes of translation and globalization of historically specific concepts and practices of religion - and its dialectical counterpart, the secular - into new contexts. This volume contributes to the relatively new field of thought that aspires to unravel the thoroughly intertwined relationships between religion and secularism as modern concepts.

Explores Soviet policy toward the global left during the half decade of the speak of a as papers at a panel during the 4th World Congress of Soviet and East European Studies, held at Harrogate, England, July 1990. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR