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Bibliography
Writings on social action and development tend largely to focus either on single issues, such as the environment or women's rights, or on examples of well-documented campaigns, such as the Chipko movement in India or the Anti-Poverty Campaign in Brazil. We have sought to take a broader focus, and to identify titles that explore elements that are common to the many expressions of contemporary social action taking place in the face of economic globalisation. Though reasons of space in this highly selective listing prevent us from including works by such names as Amilcar Cabral, Franz Fanon, Paulo Freire, or Mahatma Gandhi, we have sought to capture something of the diverse and rapidly changing ways in which civil society organises across boundaries, whether to push for certain goals or to resist forms of economic and cultural intrusion. These movements often take their inspiration in the thinking and example of leading social and political activists both past and present: it is not for nothing that the rebel movement in Chiapas which erupted in 1990 just as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was to come into force, takes its name from the 1910 revolutionary and pro-peasant leader, Emiliano Zapata. Yet the Zapatista movement is noteworthy also for its highly political and inventive use of electronic communication, which place its organisational methods and vision very firmly in the modern age.
The bibliography was compiled by Fenella Porter, Caroline Knowles, and Deborah Eade (respectively Reviews Editors and Editor of Development in Practice), with input from Miloon Kothari.
Haleh Afshar (ed.): Women and Empowerment: Illustrations from the Third World, London, Macmillan Press, 1998.
The term empowerment is critically analysed, and the different experiences and roles played by agencies, donors and recipients are explored using case studies from Latin America, SE Asia, and the Middle East. Contributors note the value of communal activities and goals, and the way in which isolated groups who are engaged in political negotiations with the state are able to use links with the international empowerment agenda to strengthen their own position.
Sonia E. Alvarez, Evelina Dagnino, Arturo Escobar (eds.): Cultures of Politics, Politics of Cultures: Re-Visioning Latin American Social Movements, Boulder CO: Westview Press, 1998.
The cultural politics of social movements provides a lens for analysing emerging discourses and practices that are grounded in society and culture, the state, and political institutions, and the extent to which these may either unsettle, or be co-opted by, prevailing neo-liberal strategies. The editors build on earlier work, notably that of Arturo Escobar and Sonia Alvarez, The Making of Social Movements in Latin America: Identity, Strategy and Democracy (1992) which examined the theory of social movements in the context of various contemporary expressions in Latin America (including feminism, urban popular movements, Christian Base communities, ecology movements, and indigenous movements). A leading post-development thinker, Arturo Escobar is also author of Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third World (1995).
Samir Amin: Spectres of Capitalism: A Critique of Current Intellectual Fashions, New York: Monthly Review Press, 1998.
The author criticises current intellectual fashions that assume a global capitalist triumph by focusing on the aspirations of the destitute millions of the post-Cold War era. He examines in turn the changing notion of crisis in capitalism; misconceptions of the free market model; the role of culture in revolutions; the decline of 'the law of value' in economics; the philosophical roots of post-modernism; how telecommunications affect ideology; and the myth of 'pure economics'. Other recent titles by this prolific author include Capitalism in the Age of Globalization: The Management of Contemporary Society (1997).
D. Archibugi and D. Held (eds): Cosmopolitan Democracy: An Agenda for a New World Order, Cambridge MA: Polity Press, 1995.
The end of the Cold War has led to major transformations in international and domestic politics. Contributors present ideas of national democracy and of a potential international or 'cosmopolitan' democracy. The latter refers to political organisation in which all citizens worldwide have a voice, input, and political representation in international affairs, in parallel with and independently of their own governments. This model places the pursuit of democratic values through popular participation in the political process at the centre, and relates this to the principles and institutions of human rights.
Bhagirath Lal Das : An Introduction to the WTO Agreements and The WTO Agreements: Deficiencies, Imbalances and Required Changes, Penang: Third World Network, 1998.
In the first of these companion volumes,the author explains the complex WTO Agreements, their background, the terms involved, and the implications of provisions that effectively extend world trade rules into areas not previously considered as falling into the economic sphere. In the second, he pinpoints the problems with these Agreements from the perspective of developing countries, stressing that only collective action by these countries will achieve the necessary changes in the regime now governing international trade.
Waldon Bello with Shea Cunningham and Bill Rau: Dark Victory: the US, Structural Adjustment and Global Poverty London: Pluto, with the Transnational Institute and Institute for Food Development Policy, 1994.
A fiercely critical study of Western aid, arguing that re-colonisation of the Third World has been carried out through the agencies of the International Banks, echoing the Reagan agenda to discipline the Third World. The consequences have been lower barriers to imports, the removal of restrictions on foreign investments, privatisation of state-owned enterprises, and a reduction in social welfare spending, with disastrous consequences for people in the Third World.
Bello has also written extensively on politics and economics in SE Asia, his most recent publication being A Siamese Tragedy: Development and Disintegration in Modern Thailand (with Shea Cunningham and Kheng Poh Li), Food First Books, 1998.
Amanda Bernard, Henny Helmich and Percy B. Lehning (eds): Civil Society and International Development, Paris: OECD and the North-South Centre of the Council of Europe, 1998.
In papers from a seminar on civil society and international development, contributors explore conceptual questions of civil society, the role of external actors such as donors and NGOs, with perspectives from developing regions. Civil society is often a crucial manifestation of an associative impulse and is influenced by existing regimes and political resistance in its ideological, political and social expression. A better understanding of the role, history, and traditions of civil society could provide useful practical insights into how to restore peace and resume the development process in regions plagued by violent conflicts, and also contribute to democratic processes and development elsewhere.
Roger Burbach, Orlando Nuñez and Boris Kagarlitsky: Globalisation and its Discontents: The Rise of Postmodern Socialisms, London: Pluto, 1997.
With the collapse of communism and the perceived triumph of capitalism, this book explores the crisis of social polarisation produced by globalisation. It links this exploration with the social movements that [long] for liberation from the conditions of oppression and exploitation that they see or experience, including the organisation of collective identity around religion, nationalism, ethnic minority rights, and the environment, and womens movements. The book looks at the positive sides of globalisation, asserting that with a common (even global) awareness, it becomes possible to end many of the forms of exploitation on which the capitalist system depends.
John Burbridge (ed.): Beyond Prince and Merchant: Citizen Participation and the Rise of Civil Society, New York: Pact Publications, 1997.
Contributors highlight the various historical roots of civil society, its diverse manifestations, and some of the new frontiers to be tackled. Through a series of extended case studies, the book describes the growth of civil society as people seek to address the root causes of deepening poverty, environmental destruction, and social disintegration. International networking and alliance building is, it is argued, leading to the formation of a globalised civil society with a shared vision of a world of diverse cultures and just and sustainable communities.
José Casanova: Public Religions in the Modern World, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994.
The author considers the relationship between religion and modernity, and argues that during the 1980s, religions from Islamic fundamentalism to Catholic Liberation Theology, forced their way into the public scene. No longer content to administer pastoral care to individuals, religious institutions are challenging domestic political and social forces, raising questions about the claims of entities such as nations and markets to be value neutral, and straining the traditional connections of private and public morality. Case studies from two religious traditions (Catholicism and Protestantism) in Spain, Poland, Brazil, and the USA are used to challenge assumptions about the role of modernity and secularisation in religious movements.
Manuel Castells: The Information Age: The Rise of the Network Society (Vol. 1), 1996
and The Power of Identity (Vol. 2), Oxford: Blackwell 1997.
The Information Age is concerned with trends of globalisation and identity, in the context of the information technology revolution and the restructuring of capitalism, which have given rise to 'the network society'. Characterised by the pervasive power of global capital, and interconnected media system, networking is a growing form of global social organisation, and has been accompanied by expressions of collective identity that challenge globalisation and cosmopolitanism. The nation-state is thus called into question, while powerful technological media are now used by various contenders to amplify and sharpen their struggle, as in the case for example of the Zapatistas' use of the Internet.
Volume 2 examines networks of identity such as religious communalism (including Islamic and Christian fundamentalism), and ethnic and territorial collective identity, which are elaborated into the broader theory of the Information Age. It also covers social movements against the New Global Order, the environmental movement, movements centred on issues of family and sexuality (such as feminisms, and the US gay community), the relationship between states and social movements, and the role of the media and electronic popularism.
A. Chhachhi and R. Pittin: Confronting State, Capital and Patriarchy: Women Organising the Process of Industrialisation, London: Macmillan, 1996.
This book brings together contributors from an emerging international network of researchers/activists working on numerous womens and labour issues. The linkages between North and South, and the global nature of industrialisation and organising are overarching themes, and are demonstrated in chapters from Asia, Africa, and Latin America. These highlight the myriad ways in which women organise to confront state, capital, and patriarchal structures in the face of industrialisation, in particular socio-cultural and political settings. Despite local variations, there are macro-level similarities to contexts that are coming under the increasing influence of IMF/World Bank structural adjustment policies.
M. L. Dantwala, Harsh Sethi, and Pravin Visaria (eds.): Social Change Through Voluntary Action, New Delhi: Sage Publications, 1998.
Though focused on India, and with a series of case studies from the sub-continent, the essays in this volume examine the role of voluntary action in bringing about wider social transformation goals. They do not assume, however, that NGOs have any special purchase on, or monopoly over, such efforts. Some contributors are indeed highly critical of the behaviour of NGOs, contrasting their radical and pro-poor rhetoric with their often low levels of accountability to their supposed constituencies.
Larry Diamond (ed.): Political Culture and Democracy in Developing Countries, Boulder CO: Lynne Rienner, 1993.
This book explores the complex and reciprocal interactions between a societys dominant beliefs, values, and attitudes about politics and the nature of its political system. Contributors examine specific cases and look at how these elements of political culture respond over time to social, political, and institutional changes. Issues addressed include: whether political culture is cause or effect; how does one weigh its causal importance for democracy; what are the most important elements of a democratic political culture; and how do these elements evolve? Topics considered include: historical and comparative perspectives; intellectuals, higher education and democracy; state elites and mass political culture; religion, political culture and democracy (Christian Democracy, Liberation Theology, and political culture in Latin America, Fundamentalism, ultra-nationalism, and political culture in the Israeli radical right; the Islamic movement and resource mobilisation in Egypt).
Jean Drèze and Amartya Sen (eds.): Hunger and Public Action, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1989
The authors argue that famine is more commonly caused by human (in)action than by food shortages as such, and that famines do not occur in situations where governments are accountable to their citizens, and where public information systems are effective. Sen, an influential economist, philosopher, and Nobel laureate, is the author of many other seminal works, including Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation, Inequality Re-examined, Choice, and Welfare and Measurement. In particular, his work on capabilities, entitlements, and human development has been instrumental in shaping the annual UNDP Human Development Report.
Richard Falk: On Humane Governance: Towards a New Global Politics, Cambridge: Polity Press, 1995.
Economic globalisation is diminishing the political role of the nation-state, though the main market- and capital-driven forces that challenge it remain largely concealed as political actors. Variants of the politics of identity are also causing fragmentation and furthering the decline in governmental capacity in many states. Emerging forms of geo-governance are regarded as 'inhumane' on five political counts: that 20 per cent of the world's population lacks adequate food, shelter, health care, clothing, education, housing; that the most vulnerable are denied full protection of human rights; that there is no tangible, cumulative process towards abolishing war as a social institution; that there is insufficient effort to protect and restore the environment; that there is a failure to achieve transnational democracy and little progress in the extension of primary democratic practices of respect for others, of accountability, and participation in decision-making. The author calls for a commitment to 'humane geo-governance, i.e. a set of social, political, economic, and cultural arrangements committed to rapid progress in these five areas. This will depend on dramatic growth of transnational democracy, the extension of primary democratic processes, a growing allegiance to global civil society, and on the plausibility of humane governance as a political priority.
Jonathan A. Fox and L. David Brown (eds): The Struggle for Accountability: The World Bank, NGOs, and Grassroots Movements, Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 1998.
This book analyses policy reforms within the World Bank to adopt more rigorous environmental and social policies, and the subsequent conflicts over how and whether to follow them in practice - an international struggle for accountability that involves the Bank, donor and borrowing governments, public interest groups, and grassroots movements. It asks how the Bank has responded to the NGO/grassroots environmental critique, with case studies to assess degrees of change, since even small changes in the behaviour of major institutions are significant to those affected. Secondly, it asks how far advocacy campaigns, often led by NGOs, represent the organisatons of those most directly affected by Bank projects, and how accountable NGOs are to their own partners. The Bank is shown to a small and uneven but significant degree to be more publicly accountable as the result of protest, public scrutiny, and the empowering effect on inside reformers. Also that transnational NGO networks have gradually become more accountable to their local partners - partly because of more vocal and autonomous grassroots movements, and partly in response to the Banks challenge to the legitimacy of international NGO critics.
Andre Gunder Frank: ReOrient: Global Economy in the Asian Age, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998.
The author is widely known for his 1970s neo-Marxist theory of 'underdevelopment', which held that the economic surplus generated in Latin America and other Third World areas is siphoned off to the affluent capitalist nations, principally the USA. His recipe for Third World economic survival and revival was to 'de-link from the world economy'. In a spirited critique of contemporary 'Eurocentrics' such as Huntington, and drawing on a vast range of Southern intellectuals, the author argues that the rise of the West is a relatively recent and transient phenomenon that accompanied the economic decline of the East from the 1800s, and that the world is now set to revert to being centred, culturally and economically, in Asia. See also Frank's essay, co-authored with Marta Fuentes Civil Democracy: Social Movements in Recent World History in S. Amin, G. Arrighi, A. G. Frank, and I. Wallerstein (eds.) (1990) Transforming the Revolution: Social Movements and the World System, New York: Monthly Review Press.
Joe Foweraker: Theorising Social Movements London: Pluto, 1995.
Economic transformation and social upheaval intimately affect existing class, gender, and ethnic relations, creating diverse areas of challenge and change. Throughout Latin America, extensive political re-alignments and re-definitions are underway even as social movements are challenging the traditional boundaries of politics and its actors. The main debates and issues in contemporary social movement theory are discussed in this context, with empirical reference to urban social movements and womens mobilisation (with or without a feminist content). While social movements theory is necessarily drawn from particular experiences, the gap between theory and collective action appears to be growing. Major theoretical developments have emerged from western Europe and North America (where social action has declined), and the author questions the extent to which these travel and their capacity to explain realities in Latin America, where social action is on the increase.
Anthony Giddens: Beyond Left and Right: The Future of Radical Politics, Cambridge: Polity Press, 1994.
Arguing that the political radical was once viewed as standing on the left, opposing backward-looking conservatism, the former is now defensive, while the right has become radical in its support of allowing free rein to market forces, regardless of tradition. The author develops a new framework for contemporary radical politics, with the ecological crisis at the core, for a world in which modernity has reached its limits as a social and moral order. The end of nature, as an entity that exists independently of human intervention, and the end of tradition, combined with the impact of globalisation, are the forces now to be confronted, made use of, and managed. The author provides a powerful interpretation of the rise of fundamentalism, of democracy, the persistence of gender divisions, and the question of a normative political theory of violence.
Gustavo Gutiérrez The Power of the Poor in History: Selected Writings, New York: Orbis Books, 1993.
A collection of eight essays by one of the leading intellectual authors of Liberation Theology, a form of Christianity that inspired many social movements and pro-poor activists throughout Latin America during the 1970s and 1980s, a period during which much of the continent was under military rule.
John A. Hall (ed.): Civil Society: Theory, History, Comparison, Cambridge: Polity Press, 1995.
This book aims to clarify what is meant by civil society', in order to identify its usefulness as a descriptive as well as a prescriptive term. The analysis is comparative, historical, and theoretical, with a focus on the relationships between civil society and other social forces, notably to nationalism and populism. The book defines civil society as a social value and a set of social institutions, noting that not every autonomous group creates or contributes to civil society, and that the notion that groups can balance the state is wrong. With case studies from Latin America, India, Turkey, and the Islamic world, the book asks where civil society has its foundation and its legitimacy.
Chris Hann and Elizabeth Dunn (eds): Civil Society: Challenging Western Models, London: Routledge, 1996.
'Civil society' has been enthusiastically and uncritically endorsed as a universal ideal of social organisation, despite its European origin and the fact that it fails even to do much to explain current social realities in Europe. Civil society is often presented as a private sphere and equated with the non-governmental sector. Contributors argue for a broader understanding that encompasses a range of everyday social practices, often elusive power relations, and the many material constraints that influence shared moralities and ideologies. Case studies from the USA, the UK, four former communist countries of Eastern Europe, Turkey, the Middle East, Indonesia, and Japan demonstrate the contribution that anthropology can make to current debate.
Jeffrey Haynes: Democracy and Civil Society in the Third World: Politics and New Political Movements, Cambridge: Polity Press, 1997.
Looking at Action Groups as popular political, social and economic movements in Third World societies, and focusing on poor and marginalised groups within developing countries, the author argues that demands for democracy, human rights, and economic change were a widespread catalyst for the emergence hundreds of thousands of popular movements in Latin American, Africa, and Asia, including movements of indigenous peoples, environmental movements, womens movements and Islamist action groups. These emerging popular organisations can be regarded as building blocks of civil society that will enhance the democratic nature of many political environments. The author speculates on the likelihood of their survival once the regimes under whose jurisdiction they must live, manage to exert control.
Richard Holloway: Supporting Citizens Initiatives: Bangladesh NGOs and Society, London: IT Publications, 1998.
This book explains the role currently played by NGOs in Bangladesh. From being peripheral organisations, NGOs today have grown in importance and impact to play a major role in different developmental activities. Focusing on questions, such as why Bangladeshi NGOs are praised throughout the development world and yet attacked in their own country, and why NGOs which take foreign donations are treated differently from the government, Islamic organisations and the business sector, the book contains lessons for all those concerned with understanding the relationship between the state and civil society organisations throughout the developing world.
Samuel P. Huntington: The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997.
In this controversial but nevertheless influential account of the cultural fall-out of economic globalisation in the post-Cold War environment, the author holds that as people increasingly define themselves by ethnicity and religion, so the West will find itself ever more at odds with non-Western civilisations that reject its ideals of democracy, human rights, liberty, the rule of law, and the separation of church and state as they have done throughout history. The principal threats to the West, Huntington maintains, are China and Islam; and his recommendation is that the West should abandon the attempt to establish universal values, refrain from intervening in non-Western cultures, and adopt a proactive form of isolationism.
Patricia Jeffery and Amrita Basu (eds): Appropriating Gender: Womens Activism and Politicised Religion in South Asia, London: Routledge, 1998.
The authors explore the paradoxical relationships between women and religious politics in India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh where many women have defied feminists, religious nationalists, and nation-states alike in framing their own political demands. Feminist activism South Asia has contributed both to raising peoples awareness of gender injustices and directly combating them. In part, politicised religion may be a response to the challenges so posed, and to secular changes in the wider economy. Despite being implicated in developments that are potentially deeply inimical to womens interests, the energies of many women have been successfully engaged in their support. Womens groups in the region have, however, been generally disturbed by the challenges that politicised religion poses for feminist activism and for womens rights. This comparative analysis permits an exploration of the varied meanings and expressions of gender identity through time, place, and according to political context.
A. G. Jordan with William Al. Maloney: The Protest Business? Mobilising Campaign Groups Manchester: Manchester University Press 1997.
An examination of the support for an environmental group (Friends of the Earth) and a human rights group (Amnesty International) in the UK, asking why people join such organisations, what motivating factors are relevant, and whether the support for campaigning causes is an irresistible and growing wave or whether it is entering a period of stagnation? The book also introduces the literature on the environmental movement, using different approaches to examine the concept of movement and challenging the view of such organisations as new social movements, as this may imply that their ultimate political role is to enhance participatory democracy.
Margaret E. Keck and Kathryn Sitking (eds.): Activists Beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998.
The contributors to this volume examine a type of pressure group that has been largely ignored by political analysts: networks of activists that coalesce and operate across national frontiers. They sketch the dynamics of emergence, strategies, and impact of activists from different nationalities working together on particular issues, such as violence against women. This work highlights a subset of international issues, characterised by the prominence of ideas that are based in ethical principles, and a central role for NGOs.
David C. Korten: The Post-Corporate World: Life after Capitalism, West Hartford CT: Kumarian, 1999.
Korten argues that capitalism is destroying life, democracy, and the market itself. Concentrated absentee ownership and footloose speculative capital, as embodied in global for-profit corporations, are incompatible with a just, sustainable, and compassionate society. He holds that these values depend on favouring enterprises that are based on stakeholder ownership and rooted in their localities, involving workers, suppliers, customers, and local communities. Other well-known titles by the same author include When Corporations Rule the World (1995) and Getting to the 21st Century: Voluntary Action and the Global Agenda (1990). See also PCDF under Organisations.
David Lewis (ed.): International Perspectives on Voluntary Action: Reshaping the Third Sector, London: Earthscan, 1999.
Rather than considering NGOs separately from voluntary agencies, this book explores the similarities, differences and growing connections between the two types of organisation. The book is divided into two parts: Linkages and Learning, and Contrasts and Complementarities, and looks particularly at the contribution of North-South learning and exchange. Contributions draw on examples from the UK and the US, Bangladesh, Pakistan and other contexts in both North and South, covering issues such as advocacy, legitimacy and values, evaluation, and governing bodies.
Stanford M. Lyman (ed.): Social Movements: Critiques, Concepts, Case Studies, London: Macmillan, 1995.
This compilation of classic and current analyses of social movements includes discussions on the various disciplinary approaches, topical debates, and criticisms of the literature on social movements, as well as case studies on the Townsend Movement (which sought pensions for the elderly during the US Great Depression), the Iranian Revolution, the collective protest over AIDS, and environmental reform. The book concludes with three essays on the future of social movements, reflecting perspectives from the US and Europe.
Greg B. Madison: The Political Economy of Civil Society and Human Rights, London: Routledge, 1998.
A comprehensive analysis that looks at the concept of civil society and the relationship with democracy/democratisation and human rights, and its political rebirth following the end of the Cold War era. It centres on three dimensions - the moral-cultural, the political, and the economic - arguing that these are closely interrelated yet autonomous, synergistic, and based in a rationality of dialogue and discourse. The author concludes that the sure way to achieve international justice is in building civil societies worldwide. Although the analysis is based on the idea of the nation-state, an appendix looks specifically at the application of these ideas to international issues of democracy and development.
Brendan Martin: In the Public Interest? Privatisation and Public Sector Reform, London: Zed Books in association with Public Services International, 1993.
Since the early 1980s, public sector reform worldwide has been characterised by privatisation, commercialisation, and deregulation. However, privatisation and economic structural adjustment have failed to deliver better public services or improved economic prospects. The author argues that it is vital for unions, citizen groups, and policy makers to move beyond simple 'public vs private' dichotomies in combining financial efficiency, democratic responsiveness, equity, and effectiveness in accordance with public demands.
Philip McMichael: Development and Social Change: A Global Perspective London: Sage, 1996.
The author offers a basic introduction to the history of the failed development project', putting it into context as a transnational project designed to integrate the world and used as an organising principle in the Cold War era. Part three addresses the Globalisation project, examining its relationship with development and the economic system, and its organising power of labour. Part four looks at social responses to globalisation, focusing on movements such as fundamentalism, environmentalism, feminism, and cosmopolitan localism. The central message is that the style and scale of politics are changing and new issues of human rights are complicating the tidy image of development, and exposing the integrated nature of the forces that currently constitute development.
Maria Mies: Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale: Women in the International Division of Labour (2nd Edition), London, Zed, 1999.
In this classic text, arguing that feminist analysis must transcend the divisions created by a capitalist patriarchal system between Northern and Southern women, Mies explores the state of the womens movement worldwide, the history of colonialist processes, and the relationship between womens liberation and national liberation struggles. She calls for a feminist perspective that transcends the international system of gender roles and the gender division of labour, and looks forward to a society where the liberation of one set of people is not based on the exploitation of another.
Manaranjan Mohanty and Partha Nath Mukerji (eds.): People's Rights: Social Movements and the State in the Third World, New Delhi : Sage Publications, 1998.
Contributors examine the role of social movements as a democratic assertion of people's rights. Rather than locating rights in the individualist tradition of Western liberalism, these are viewed as an affirmation of the political condition of human existence that involves a struggle against class exploitation and social oppression. Case studies from Africa and Asia illustrate the dilemmas faced by social movements, and challenge the supposed dichotomy between class politics and social movements.
J. J. Pettman: Worlding Women: A Feminist International Politics, London: Routledge, 1996.
The author offers a feminist overview of International Relations, arguing that this is a male gendered sphere though women are players (albeit largely invisible) in the world that International Relations seeks to explain. Drawing on Southern feminist scholars such as Mohanty, Afshar, Kandiyoti, and Moghadam, and the growing visibility of women and feminist transnational organising, Pettman puts forward a feminist international politics which would address international political identities, the gendered politics of peace and war, and the international sexual division of labour; and suggests a notion of an international political economy of sex. A concluding review of current experience looks at the possibilities and problems of transnational feminisms.
R. S. Powers and W. B. Vogele (eds): Protest, Power and Change: An Encyclopaedia of Non-violent Action from ACT-Up to Womens Suffrage, New York: Garland Publishing, 1997.
An encyclopaedia with case studies of non-violent struggle, methods of non-violent action, and profiles of people and organisations that have contributed through their arguments or their actions (or both) to advancing the knowledge and practice of non-violent struggle. The editors have sought to be representative rather than exhaustive, and to present the diverse applications of non-violent action, as well as cases that hold valuable. They acknowledge that the contents are biased towards the twentieth century and on examples from the USA. The central purpose is to provide a standard reference work for a domain of human behaviour that has been well studied but incompletely identified. Non-violent action is defined here as a range of methods for actively waging conflict without directly threatening of inflicting physical harm. This locates non-violent action within the realms of social conflict and identifies it as a distinctive form of conflict behaviour - one that eschews violence and physical force.
Mady Schutzman and Jan Cohen-Cruz (eds): Playing Boal: Theatre, Therapy, Activism, London: Routledge, 1994.
Boal's work has influenced theatre artists, social workers, educators, political activists, and scholars worldwide, encouraging spectators to become spectactors: active participants rehearsing strategies for change. This book examines the techniques in application, and looks at the use of Theatre of the Oppressed exercises by practitioners and scholars in Europe and North America. It explores the possibilities and problems of these tools for active learning and personal empowerment, cooperative education and healing, participatory theatre, and community action.
Christine E. Sleeter: Multicultural Education as Social Activism, Albany NY: State University of New York Press, 1996.
Connecting multicultural education with issues of power and struggle, this book explores what multicultural education means to white people, given the prevailing inequality in racial power relations. It examines connections between race, gender, and social class, particularly for white women. While taking a feminist perspective, the author is also wary of the power that white middle-class women exercise in defining what count as gender issues. The author argues that since multicultural education was born in political struggle and cannot meaningfully be disconnected from politics, the quest for schooling for social justice is a political goal rather than a technical issue.
Jackie Smith, Charles Chatfield and Ron Pagnucco (eds.): Transnational Social Movements and Global Politics: Solidarity Beyond the State, Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press, 1997.
From developing an environmental policy for the EU, to mobilising around the UN special sessions on disarmament; and from transnational strategies of the service for peace and justice in Latin America, to cooperative accompaniment and Peace Brigades International in Sri Lanka, are examples of the powerful dynamics at work in an emerging global civic culture. This volume lays the ground work for continuing cultural development, rather than the destruction of culture through development. Particular emphasis is given to the importance of the UN, and the constituencies being developed by international NGOs - particularly international communities of ethnic and inter-faith groups, and the development of the capacity for global civic action.
Matthias Stiefel and Marshall Wolfe: A Voice for the Excluded: Popular Participation in Development - Utopia or Necessity? London: Zed Books in association with UNRISD, 1994.
The outcome of an UNRISD research programme to examine the interacting political, economic, and other transformations that bear upon the prospects for popular participation, this book presents concepts of participation prevalent in the 1970s and 1980s and several case studies of participation among rural workers, urban wage workers, and the urban poor; the institutionalisation of participation; and the transformation from social movements to national movements. It also considers the ways in which grassroots movements, governments, inter-governmental organisations, and NGOs confront or evade the relevance of popular participation, and how participation is changing in the 1990s.
UNRISD: States of Disarray: The Social effects of Globalization, UNRISD: Geneva, 1995.
Prepared as part of the run-up to the 1995 UN Social Summit, this has now become a classic, translated into most major languages. It lays out the key trends that define globalisation - the spread of liberal democracy, the dominance of market forces, the integration of the global economy, the transformation of production systems and labour markets, the speed of technological change, and the media revolution and consumerism - and to link these to other trends, such as migration, crime, war and ethnic conflict. A final section outlines the challenges posed by globalisation for citizenship, social action, and human rights; and recommends ways in which to subject global forces and institutions to regulation and public scrutiny.
Paul Wapner: Environmental Activism and World Civic Politics, Albany NY: State University of New York Press, 1996.
Transnational environmental activist groups such as Greenpeace, the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF), and Friends of the Earth play a central role in the way the world addresses environmental issues. This book provides a systematic and theoretically informed study of strategies through which, in addition to lobbying governments, activists operate within and across societies and via transnational social, economic, and cultural networks to alter corporate practices, educate vast numbers of people, pressure multilateral development banks, and shift standards of good conduct. Wapner argues that since this takes place outside the formal arena of inter-state politics, environmental activists practise world civic politics; they politicise global civil society. The book throws world civic politics into sharp relief and draws out wider conclusions concerning NGOs in world politics.
Peter Waterman: Globalisation, Social Movements and the New Internationalisms, London: Mansell, 1998
The Communist Manifesto's workers of the world unite! inspired generations of unionists and socialists. But internationalism became nationalism, the chains were not loosened, and the worlds were lost. This book examines the decline of socialist and proletarian internationalism. It reconceptualises labour internationalism in Europe and the Third World, and looks at the international nature of the new radical-democratic social movements (such as womens movements and feminism). Waterman argues for a new global solidarity that relates to a radicalised, globalised, informatised, and complex capitalist modernity & that addresses multiple global social problems and democratic movements.
Ponna Wignaraja (ed.): New Social Movements in the South: Empowering the People, London: Zed Books, 1993.
Contributors identify various social movements and people's responses to crises poverty reproducing itself, the ecological crisis, gender conflicts, human rights conflicts, and the inability of state structures to mediate these tensions - and how such responses also attempt to protect the South from penetration by external forces which further intensify these internal tensions. Popular responses are taking the form of new social movements, people's movements, and experiments, and this book concentrates on those that have elements of sustainability and which promote development and democracy in new terms. The book thus provides an overview of the new thinking on social movements, and the nuances within it, that is emerging under different socio-political circumstances.
M. Wuyts, M. Mackintosh and T. Hewitt (eds.): Development Policy and Public Action, Oxford: OUP in association with the Open University, 1992.
Treating development policy as an activity of many types of public institution - public action - contributors move from 'public vs private' dichotomies, question the rigid boundaries of traditional concepts of the public sphere, expand the notion of public action, and explore the negative results of structural adjustment while also emphasising the potential for new forms of social organisation that might emerge to bring about change.
Journals
Alternatives: A Journal for Social Transformation and Humane Governance: published quarterly by Lynne Reinner. ISSN: 0304-3754. Editors: Saul H. Mendovitz (World Order Models Project), D. L. Sheth (Centre for the Study of Developing Societies), and Yoshikazu Sakamoto (International Peace Research Institute).
An alternative to coventional international politics journals, providing a forum for feminist, postcolonial and postmodern scholarship in international relations, with articles on the theoretical and practical implications of global change. Contributers consider emerging new forms of world politics, challenging the ethnocentrism of much modern social and political analysis, and emphasise the possibilities of a humane global polity.
Development in Practice: published in five issues per volume by Carfax Publishing Ltd on behalf of Oxfam GB, ISSN:0961-4524, Editor: Deborah Eade.
A forum for practitioners, policy makers, and academics to exchange information and analysis concerning the social dimensions of development and humanitarian work. As a multidisciplinary journal of policy and practice, it reflects a wide range of institutional and cultural backgrounds and a variety of cultural experience. Other relevant titles in the Development in Practice Reader series include Development and Patronage (1997), and Development and Rights (1998).
The European Journal of Development Research - Journal of the European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI): published twice-yearly by Frank Cass & Co Ltd ISSN:0957-8811, Editor: Cristóbal Kay.
An academic journal that reflects the wide diversity of discliplines and approaches to development represented among the 150 member agencies of EADI. Relevant theme issues include Globalisation, Competiveness and Human Security - Papers from the Vienna Conference of EADI, 1996, and Development and Rights: Negotiating Justice in Changing Societies.
Development: published quarterly by Sage on behalf of the Society for International Development, ISSN:1011-6730,. Editor: Wendy Harcourt.
Aims to be a point of reference for the dialogue between activists and intellectuals who are committed to the search for alternative paths of social transformation towards a more sustainable and just world. With a strong emphasis on local-global links running through the journal, its 1997 volume focused on globalisation and civic engagement.
