Social Movements for Global Democracy

This impressive book presents a distinctive and provocative point of view. It successfully combines the construction of an analytical framework with the advocacy of a political agenda without allowing the political agenda to overwhelm the analytical framework or the analytical framework to obscure the political issues at stake. Social Movements for Global Democracy will play an important role in future debates over globalization. -- Peter Evans, University of California, Berkeley At last, a book that takes seriously the role of international institutions in opposing global neoliberalism! While acutely conscious of the biases of these institutions, Smith vigorously argues that the new forms of democratic participation encapsulated in the movement for global justice must engage them in contentious interaction. Her book is a challenge to movement activists and to institutional elites alike. -- Sidney Tarrow, Maxwell Upson Professor of Government and Professor of Sociology, Cornell University

Illuminating the deep-seated struggles between two visions of globalization, Smith reveals a network of activists who have long been working to democratize the global political system.This groundbreaking study sheds new light on the struggle to define the course of globalization. Synthesizing extensive research on transnational activism, Social Movements for Global Democracy shows how transnational networks of social movement activists-democratic globalizers-have worked to promote human rights and ecological sustainability over the predominant neoliberal system of economic integration. Using case studies of recent and ongoing campaigns for global justice, Jackie Smith provides valuable insight into whether and how these activists are succeeding. She argues that democratic globalizers could be more effective if they presented a united front organized around a global vision that places human rights and ecological stability foremost and if they were to directly engage governments and the United Nations. Illuminating the deep-seated struggles between two visions of globalization, Smith reveals a network of activists who have long been working to democratize the global political system.