Neoliberalism and Its Social-Movement Foes

Abstract

Social Movements for Global Democracy. By Jackie Smith. MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008. 299 pp., $25.00 paperback (ISBN-10: 0-8018-8744-5). Jackie Smith's book weaves tales about contemporary politics with hypotheses about interest-group power, humanistic ethics, and social-movement formation and tactics. Because Smith offers prescriptions, the book is politically engaging. A skillful college teacher might use Social Movements for Global Democracy to launch classroom debates over the role of social movements in international relations. More advanced scholars may find their memories of older theoretical debates piqued by the book's claims. Smith contends that today international politics can be understood as a ongoing struggle between two sets of local, national, and international formal and informal groups, which she calls the “neoliberal globalization network” and the “democratic globalization network.” They are not formally organized bodies with official leaders and doctrines. Rather, each network comprises groups that hold common views and priorities. The groups constituting neoliberal globalization network place profit maximization ahead of other goals and for the most part believe in the beneficial consequences of free trade. Members of the democratic globalization network espouse a lifestyle that Smith sometimes calls “personalism” (p. 126–129) and pursue aims, such as peace, ecological sustainability, and universal health care, which she classifies as “non-consumerist” (p. 26, pp. 81–88, pp. 150–152). Smith alternates between being a poet and a social scientist. She sometimes says that the notion of network is a convenient …