WTO Protests Research Articles

Diane M. Nelson (1963–2022)

Diane M. Nelson (1963–2022)

Crowdsourcing Documentary Making

The creative commons documentary Preempting Dissent (2014) builds upon the book of the same name written by Greg Elmer and Andy Opel. The film is a culmination of a collaborative process of soliciting, collecting and editing video, still images, and creative commons music files from people around the world. Preempting Dissent interrogates the expansion of the so-called “Miami-Model” of protest policing, a set of strategies developed in the wake of 9/11 to preempt forms of mass protest at major events in the US and worldwide. The film tracks the development of the Miami model after the WTO protests in Seattle 1999, through the post-9/11 years, FTAA & G8/20 summits, and most recently the Occupy Wall St movements. The film exposes the political, social, and economic roots of preemptive forms of protest policing and their manifestations in spatial tactics, the deployment of so-called ‘less-lethal’ weapons, and surveillance regimes. The film notes however that new social movements have themselves begun to adopt preemptive tactics so as not to fall into the trap set for them by police agencies worldwide.

Anarchism and the Hermeneutics of Faith

Anarchism and the Hermeneutics of Faith Roger Rothman (bio) M. Proudhon has the misfortune of being peculiarly misunderstood in Europe. In France, he has the right to be a bad economist, because he is reputed to be a good German philosopher. In Germany, he has the right to be a bad philosopher, because he is reputed to be one of the ablest French economists. Being both German and economist at the same time, we desire to protest against this double error. —Karl Marx, foreword to The Poverty of Philosophy, 1847 Even more than the attacks on it from the right, it has been the attacks on it from the left that have relegated anarchism to the margins of academic discourse. It appears however that anarchism's fortunes are changing. Though the casual dismissal of it as simply "some vague embrace of chaos, anti-intellectualism, or disorganized violence" is still commonplace, a more complex reception of anarchism has been developing since the 1999 WTO protests in Seattle.1 In 2002, David Graeber was among the first to propose that academics need to come to grips with the fact that "most of the creative energy for radical politics is now coming from anarchism" and that "taking this movement seriously will necessarily also mean a respectful engagement with it."2 Eight years later, Todd May declared similarly, but with a focus on anarchism's adherents, rather than detractors: "Anarchism is back on the scene. Theoretically as well as practically, anti-authoritarian thought is in a resurgence that has probably surprised many of those who have been involved in it in one way or another over the years."3 May, in fact, has proposed that we are witnessing a "third wave" of anarchist discourse (after the first [End Page 429] wave in the late 1800s–early 1900s and the second in the 1960s) (May, introduction to New Perspectives on Anarchism, 1).4 Nevertheless, what Graeber said about anarchism in 2004 is still largely true today: Most academics seem to have only the vaguest idea what anarchism is even about; or dismiss it with the crudest stereotypes. ("Anarchist organization! But isn't that a contradiction in terms?") In the United States there are thousands of academic Marxists of one sort or another, but hardly a dozen scholars willing openly to call themselves anarchists.5 Indeed, the greatest impediment to the advancement of anarchist thought is not the everyday misperception of it as a philosophy of chaos and violence but the Marxist dismissal of it as theoretically immature and naively utopian.6 For scholars like Allan Antliff and Jesse Cohn, the hegemony of Marxist thought had relegated anarchist studies to the distant margins of their respective fields (art history and literary studies). As Cohn notes, despite the recent attention to the role of anarchist thought within the development of literary history, the question of anarchism in literary theory has been "consigned to official oblivion."7 Likewise, Antliff draws attention to the fact that "for most of its [Art History's] existence anarchism in the arts has figured, if at all, as a marginal subject. … The situation has not been helped by the numerous Marxist-oriented art historians firmly ensconced in the academy who are already predisposed towards taking anarchism less than seriously or attacking it as a threat to their perspective."8 What is the source of the Marxist predisposition to dismiss anarchism as unserious? There are a number of ways to approach this question, but I propose we begin with the conflict between David Harvey and Simon Springer that erupted a few years back in "Why a Radical Geography Must Be Anarchist." There, Springer argues that radical geographers, including Harvey, have all but ignored the "anarchist tradition that thrived a century before radical geography was claimed as Marxist in the 1970s."9 Harvey, among the most influential of the Marxist geographers of the 1970s, is singled out by Springer for having persisted in defining anarchism "as nothing more than opposition to the state, while also dismissing—or at least affording little consideration to—anarchism's shared rejection of capitalism and its refusal of the institution of private property" (Springer, "Radical Geography," 250). Harvey's lengthy...

Twitter or Radio Revolutions? The Central Role of Açık Radyo in the Gezi Protests of 2013

Radio has been employed as a communication tool during all the social movements and protests of the last decades of the past century, from the student movements of May 1968 in Paris and Mexico City to the 1999 Seattle WTO protests, while the political protests and uprisings at the beginning of the twenty-first century have mostly been supported by social media (Howard and Hussain, 2013). Is Twitter the radio of the twenty-first century?Another, more complex, reality lies beyond the surface of the representation of the protests shaped by the mainstream media: the mediascape in which political movements such as Occupy, the Arab Spring and the Indignados have emerged is a mixed one, a mediascape where old and new, mainstream and underground media co-exist, interact and shape each other.In this paper, we will focus on the case of Acik Radyo, the only independent and listener-supported radio station based in Istanbul, and the role it played in the Gezi Park protests of June 2013. This study is based on an ethnographic investigation undertaken between December 2014 and January 2015 that used a mix of participant observation (Spradley, 1980) and in-depth interviews (Patton, 2001) with 15 Acik Radyo workers and volunteers and 10 Acik Radyo listeners. We will show how radio has not lost the value that it gained as a tool for political and social change during the twentieth century, but how it has only repositioned itself within the changing digital mediascape of the twenty-first century, mixing itself with social media in order to continue amplifying radical political discourses and networking protesters together.

Imagined Globalization - by Garía Canclini, Néstor

Imagined Globalization - by Garía Canclini, Néstor

Direct Action, Deliberation, and Diffusion: Collective Action after the WTO Protests in Seattle

Direct Action, Deliberation, and Diffusion: Collective Action after the WTO Protests in Seattle

John porter lecture: waves of protest--direct action, deliberation, and diffusion.

The book Direct Action, Deliberation and Diffusion: Collective Action After the WTO Protests in Seattle argues that the process of diffusion is dependent on social processes in the receiving context. The most important in social movements is an egalitarian and reflexive deliberation among diverse actors. The book traces the direct action tactics associated with the Seattle protests against the World Trade Organization in 1999 and how these spread to activists in Toronto and New York City. It shows how the structure of the political field, racial and class inequalities, identity boundaries, and organizational and conversational dynamics limited deliberation among activists, and thus limited the diffusion of the Seattle tactics. By constraining the spread of the Seattle tactics, this slowed the global justice movement's wave of protest. In this paper, I explore the application of and implications of this model of protest tactic diffusion to the recent Idle No More mobilizations.

Teaching and Learning Guide for: ‘Securitizing America: Strategic Incapacitation and the Policing of Protest Since the 11 September 2011 Terrorist attacks’

Teaching and Learning Guide for: ‘Securitizing America: Strategic Incapacitation and the Policing of Protest Since the 11 September 2011 Terrorist attacks’

Direct Action, Deliberation, and Diffusion: Collective Action after the WTO Protests in Seattle. By Lesley J. Wood. New York: Cambridge University Press. Pp. xii+186. $90.00.

Previous articleNext article No AccessBook ReviewsDirect Action, Deliberation, and Diffusion: Collective Action after the WTO Protests in Seattle. By Lesley J. Wood. New York: Cambridge University Press. Pp. xii+186. $90.00.David StrangDavid StrangCornell University Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by American Journal of Sociology Volume 119, Number 2September 2013 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/671156 Views: 73Total views on this site For permission to reuse a book review printed in the American Journal of Sociology, please contact [email protected]PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Christian Theory: Postanarchism, Theology, and John Howard Yoder

Christian Theory:Postanarchism, Theology, and John Howard Yoder Ted Troxell John Howard Yoder was a Mennonite scholar who studied under Karl Barth and then taught at Goshen College, Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary, and Notre Dame. The Politics of Jesus is his best-known work, but he continued to write prolifically on a wide variety of issues in Christian theology and ethics until his death in 1997. Yoder is sometimes characterized as a monotonous trumpeter whose one note was pacifism, and while this is not the case, it is true that Yoder is one of the most articulate and sophisticated defenders of comprehensive nonviolence, a position that informs much of his work. It is not that Yoder begins with pacifism as an ideal and builds a theology or ethics around that—Yoder rejected the idea of an epistemological starting point at all—but that for him, following Christ and remaining true to the Christian heritage necessarily entail surrender to a nonviolent way of being in the world. Yoder wrestled with the political ramifications of pacifism in ways that bring him very close to anarchism, and there are Christian anarchists who make use of his work. Moreover, Yoder seems to have anticipated some of the moves being made in the shift in anarchist discourse toward what is being called postanarchism. Yoder also helps us see the deep connections between theology and political theory, and the turn in both political and theological thinking toward the postsecular. The basic premise of postsecularity is that there is [End Page 37] no neutral sphere in which to negotiate the common good without influence from religious or theological thought forms. In fact, the idea that there is such a sphere itself constitutes a claim about the "way things are" that is already at odds with religious formulations. To claim that religion and state should remain separate is still to make a claim about religion, one that suggests that the state should exclusively be called upon to do things that might otherwise fall under the purview of religious authority. Questions about the common good or how humans might best live together—questions that are usually assumed to be political—are not questions about which religion has historically been silent. Even the idea that there is a genus "religion" of which a given person's way of constructing the world can be seen as a species is problematic—especially for those for whom religion is a primary source of social identity. What lies at the core of many constructions of self and community is precisely the element that liberal democracy says should be bracketed. This suggests, at the very least, that the boundary between political theology and political theory is porous. The theological formulations of a thinker like Yoder not only bear a resemblance to certain trends in anarchist thought but also constitute a contribution to that thought. Postanarchism and Postsecularity Since the 1999 protests at the World Trade Organization Ministerial Conference, an altercation dubbed "The Battle in Seattle," anarchism has garnered attention from both the media and academia. The WTO protests were part of what is sometimes called the "anti-globalization" movement. "Postanarchism" is the name attached to the attempt to theorize the relationship between this movement and emerging forms of anarchism that seem to characterize it.1 This term does not mean "to be finished with anarchism," or that anarchism's moment has definitively passed, but instead denotes the introduction of poststructuralist and postmodern critiques into anarchist theory. It is often contrasted to the "classical" anarchism of Bakunin, Proudhon, Kropotkin, and others. Whether this is truly a break from these thinkers or a continuation of their thought is a topic of debate among postanarchist thinkers, but it is enough for our purposes to note that postanarchism is critical of the humanism and essentialism of modernist anarchist discourse. [End Page 38] Postanarchism is also markedly different in how it conceptualizes the state and its place in political theory. Todd May borrows language from Michel de Certeau, and calls this a difference between "strategic" and "tactical" thinking. In strategic thinking, May explains, the variety of oppressions and injustices that pervade a society and the possibility of justice are located...

Poverty Consequences of Globalisation in OIC Countries: A Comparative Analysis

Williamson (2002) points out that ‘the world has seen two globalisation booms over the past two centuries and one bust. The first global century ended with World War I and the second started at the end of World War II, while the years in between were ones of anti-global backlash’. In the first period of globalisation, poverty fell from 84 percent in 1820 to 66 percent in 1910. In the second period of globalisation poverty fell from 55 percent in 1950 to 24 percent in 1992. In the inter-war period, the world population living in poverty remains probably stagnant. The historical negative relationship between globalisation and poverty masks variations within and between countries in their experiences with globalisation. Many decades of increasing globalisation have not yet silenced the debate over the benefits of globalisation. The fierce street protests surrounding the ministerial meeting of the WTO and similar protests at the World Bank and the IMF show that anti-globalisation debate is getting strong.

Spillover o Spillout? Il movimento per la giustizia globale negli Stati Uniti dopo l'11 settembre

Spillover or Spillout? The Global Justice Movement in the United States after 9/11 - This article focuses on a seemingly paradoxical sequel to the 1999 Seattle WTO protests: the weakening of the global justice movement in the United States. While the movement has flourished in Europe, it seems largely to have stagnated in the American context. This outcome cannot be explained by either American exceptionalism or by a general decline in activism in the wake of the tragedies of 9/11 and the Iraq War. First comparing expressions of the American and European global justice movements and then turning to original data on movement organizing in Seattle after 1999, the article argues that the weakness of the American global justice movement can be tied to three key factors: (a) a more repressive atmosphere towards transnational protest; (b) a politically inspired linkage between global terrorism and transnational activism of all kinds; and (c) what we call social movement spillout. It is also argued that the strongest movement since September 11th - the antiwar movement - exemplifies a broader trend in the United States towards the spillout of transnational activism into domestic protest.

On the outskirts of form: cosmopoetics in the shadow of NAFTA1

On the outskirts of form: cosmopoetics in the shadow of NAFTA1

Policing Protest Events: The Great Strike of 1877 and WTO Protests of 1999

The notion of the police as protecting dominant economic interests is explored by presenting two case studies of direct action social movements occurring nearly 100 years apart. Recent protests in response to a non-state international organization (the World Trade Organization) are compared with a major labor strike of the late 19th century (the Great Strike of 1877). Historical data supports the contention that, despite many changes to contemporary policing strategies, the police are routinely used to protect existing economic structures. These narratives demonstrate how shifts in economic institutions shape formal social control practices. Comparing these events reveals how new technologies have allowed for certain adaptations and innovations for contemporary protesting and protest breaking activities. It is argued that the police institution should not be understood as only charged with responding reactively to criminal violations, but rather as serving more important social functions such as protecting dominant economic structures.

"More Than A March in a Circle": Transgressive Protests and the Limits of Negotiated Management

We examine how tactical innovations introduced by transgressive protesters during the Seattle cycle of protests contributed to the end of a long, relatively stable period of détente between police and protesters in the United States. Case studies of the demonstrations staged by the AFL-CIO and the Direct Action Network (DAN) during the 1999 WTO protests are used to reveal the divergent capacity of the negotiated management style of policing protest to control contained and transgressive protesters. We argue that the transgressive protesters' tactics, organizational structure, and decision-making processes all frustrated police attempts to control their demonstrations and contributed to DAN's ability to shut down the opening day of the WTO. We conclude by developing a framework for understanding how police responded in subsequent protests using what we describe as "strategic incapacitation" and by proposing research questions about the impact of this style of policing on subsequent protests in the U.S. and other Western democracies.

Spillover or Spillout? The Global Justice Movement in the United States After 9/11

This article focuses on a seemingly paradoxical sequel to the 1999 Seattle WTO protests: the weakening of the global justice movement in the United States. While the movement has flourished in Europe, it seems largely to have stagnated in the American context. This outcome cannot be explained by either American exceptionalism or by a general decline in activism in the wake of the tragedies of 9/11 and the Iraq War. First comparing expressions of the American and European global justice movements and then turning to original data on social movement organizing in Seattle after 1999, we argue that the weakness of the American global justice movement can be tied to three key factors: (a) a more repressive atmosphere towards transnational protest; (b) a politically inspired linkage between global terrorism and transnational activism of all kinds; and (c) what we call "social movement spillout." We further argue that the strongest movement since September 11th—the antiwar movement—exemplifies a broader trend in the United States towards the "spillout" of transnational activism into domestic protest.

Lost in the WTO Shuffle: Publics, Counterpublics, and the Individual

Contemporary rhetorical theory has been spurred on by the re-examination of the concept of public. This article adds to that discussion by examining the WTO protests in Seattle, WA, in late 1999. The rhetorical concept of testimony helps us to more readily understand how publics and their counters create and sustain messages about themselves. Testimony demonstrates how individuals disseminate, justify, and complicate public and counterpublic agendas. We can no longer take public as a static rhetorical category. But it is equally apparent that testimony should give us pause as we consider where we shall take public and counterpublic theorizing.

Coalitions of Contention: The Case of the WTO Protests in Seattle

Coalitions of organizations are cooperative arrangements that require ongoing management of conflicts among members and potential members. Using data on both successful and unsuccessful attempts at coalition building during the 1999 protests against the WTO in Seattle, we explain the variation in the formation of one type of coalition of organizations, the ‘event coalition’, in which social movement organizations coalesce around a specific protest event. We find that objectively common organizational interests and framing are necessary but not sufficient for explaining coalition partnering. Organizational representatives must also calculate a benefit from pooled resources and be able to commit credibly to delivering promised resources and to resolving the inevitable tensions that arise among coalition partners.

Eco-Warriors: Understanding the Radical Environmental Movement (Updated Edition)

Review: Eco-Warriors: Understanding the Radical Environmental Movement (Updated Edition) By Rik Scarce Reviewed by Byron Anderson Northern Illinois University, USA Rik Scarce. Eco-Warriors: Understanding the Radical Environmental Movement (updated edition). Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press, 2006. xvii, 313 pp. ISBN: 1-59874-028-8 (paper); US$26.95. Printed on acid free paper, minimum 30% recycled. How can a relatively small number of individuals, who have caused millions of dollars in damage and are considered to be domestic terrorists by the FBI, present their case? David Bower, in his foreword to the book, provides a starting point by stating, “Their cause isn’t noble, it’s essential” (p. xii). Scarce, on the faculty at Skidmore College in the Department of Sociology, draws on the radical environmental movement’s own sources and outlooks and intersperses these with numerous comments by the activists themselves. He hopes readers will better understand eco-warrior thinking and actions, even those involving property destruction and civil disobedience. Scarce asks, “…can any acts of destruction match, much less exceed, corporations’ and governments’ ability to wreak havoc?” (p. 275). With the exception of a final new chapter, this edition, a fifteen-year update to the first edition (1990), remains unchanged. Scarce did not revise the original text because he believes that the movement’s current concerns and challenges are similar to those of fifteen years ago. The coverage is comprehensive, though the discussion in the final chapter on the uses and impact of information technology, a major tool for radical movements, could have been explored more thoroughly. Eco-Warriors is international in scope, though primarily focused on movements in the U.S. and Britain. Covered are a wide variety of activities by organizations, for example, EarthFirst!, the Sea Sheperds, and personalities, such as Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney. Scarce discusses movements, such as deep ecology, eco-feminism, animal rights/liberation, vegans and their relation to radical environmentalism, and includes a chapter on the literature, art, music and theater of radical environmentalism. The final chapter covers new movements since 1995, for example, Seattle’s 1999 WTO protests, new organizations, particularly the Animal Liberation Front and Earth Liberation Front, and continuing problems in the movement, especially gender and race issues. A separate two-page section lists websites

Choreographies of Protest

This essay reconstructs nonviolent protest during three moments in recent US history—the lunch counter sit-ins of 1960, the ACT-UP die-ins of the late 1980s, and the Seattle WTO protests in 1999, asking of them the kinds of questions that a dance scholar might pose. By showing how bodies make articulate choices based on their intelligent assessment of other bodies, the essay frames a new perspective on individual agency and collective action.