Global Justice Movements: Questions, Approaches, Answers Dieter Rucht

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Global Justice MovementsQuestions, Approaches,
Answers Dieter Rucht

• Research Group Civil Society, Citizenship and
• Political Mobilization in Europe
• Masarykova univerzita Brno, December 2, 2008

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Questions

1. What are the Global Justice Movements (GJMs)?
2. How did the GJMs emerge and develop?
3. What are the structures and strategies of GJMs?
4. What is the impact of GJMs?

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What is a social movement?

• A network of individuals, groups and
  organizations
• based on a sense of collective identity
• aiming at fundamental social change
• (predominantly) by means of collective and public
  protest

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1. What are the GJMs)?

• Negatively defined
• Social movements against neoliberalism and its
  negative side effects
• (marketization/commodification of public goods,
  withdrawal of the state, exploitation of human
  labor, environmental degradation, destruction of
  indigenous economies and cultures)
• Positively defined
• Social movements aiming at global justice,
  solidarity and democratization
• Another World is Possible

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The struggle over naming the movements

• Anti-globalization movement, anti-globals,
• mouvement antimondialiste
• negatively loaded)
• - global justice movements (Anglo-american)
• - globalisierungskritische Bewegungen (German)
• - mouvements altermondialistes (French)

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2. How did the GJMs emerge and develop?

• The myth of Seattle 1999
• The alleged birth of the GJMs

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Protests before Seattle I I
Tabelle 1 Ausgewählte globalisierungskritische
Proteste bis Seattle (Dezember 1999)
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Protests before Seattle II
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Protests after Seattle I
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Protests after Seattle II
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Growth of Global Justice Events 1990-2005
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3. What are the structures and strategies of
GJMs?
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Dimensions of transnational protest mobilization
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Map of GJM Groups in Germany
moderate field
reformist
Misereor, Brot für die Welt
BUND
unions
church-based action groups
Weed
local NSM groups
social fora
Attac
Die Linke
spontaneous
organised
intermediary networks
BUKO
Linksruck SAV
FAU
PGA
anti-systemical field
radical
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The Charter of Porto Alegre

• The charter of the principles was established
  after the first Social Forum of 2001 in Porto
  Alegre to perennialize the initiative and to
  establish a general control, according to
  federator principles which made the success of
  the Forum.
• The World Social Forum is an open meeting place
  for reflective thinking, democratic debate of
  ideas, formulation of proposals, free exchange of
  experiences and interlinking for effective
  action, by groups and movements of civil society
  that are opposed to neoliberalism and to
  domination of the world by capital and any form
  of imperialism, and are committed to building a
  planetary society directed towards fruitful
  relationships among Humanking and between it and
  the Earth.

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• The World Social Forum is a plural, diversified,
  non-confessional, non-governmental and non-party
  context that, in a decentralized fashion,
  interrelates organizations and movements engaged
  in concrete action at levels from the local to
  the international to built another world.
• The World Social Forum will always be a forum
  open to pluralism and to the diversity of
  activities and ways of engaging of the
  organizations and movements that decide to
  participate in it, as well as the diversity of
  genders, ethnicities, cultures, generations and
  physical capacities, providing they abide by this
  Charter of Principles. Neither party
  representations nor military organizations shall
  participate in the Forum. Government leaders and
  members of legislatures who accept the
  commitments of this Charter may be invited to
  participate in a personal capacity.
• Approved and adopted in São Paulo, on April 9,
  2001, by the organizations that make up the World
  Social Forum Organizating Committee, approved
  with modifications by the World Social Forum
  International Council on June 10, 2001.
• http//www.portoalegre2002.org/default.html

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World Social Forums
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Geographical distribution of Indymedias
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4. What is the impact of GJMs?
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Number of articles on different campaigns in
German newspapers
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Proportion of thematic foci in German newspapers
(per cent)
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Evaluation of protesters in different campaigns
in German newspapers
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Content Analysis of Newspaper Coverage on Prague
2000
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The foci of newspaper articles on the Prague
event (per cent)
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The space devoted to main themes in newspaper
articles on the Prague event
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Police actions as reported in newspapers (in
percent)
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Conclusion

• new generation of progressive movements, but
  not a genuinely new type of movements
• diversity instead of monotony, plurality of
  movements
• participation, deliberation, consensus principle
  (horizontals)
• tendency to stagnate in the north, open dynamics
  in the south
• differentiated impact
• agenda setting substantial
• policy effects minor, most likely on soft
  issues
• institutional effects marginal