Movements of Anti-Globalization

Abstract

In 1994 the Zapatista’s Mexican insurrection helped name both the enemy — neo-liberal globalization — and the sentiment against it — enough! Taking this cue, the anti-globalization movement (AGM) framed its dissent in this spirit and in these terms. The Zapatistas’ compelling act of rebellion, and their clear illustration of neo-liberalism’s dire impacts on the marginalized, helped provide oppositional politics a focus and an impetus. Contemporary dissent is driven by antagonism to a globalization identified as culprit in widespread social and environmental ruin. As capitalism’s latest stage, this globalization is understood as neo-liberalist and corporate, and particularly adept at sharpening the inequalities that have always defined capitalism. Hence the development of an oppositional movement that is against neo-liberal globalization and for global justice. This chapter does not consider the debates about the status of globalization as a new phenomenon, nor the degree to which it signals a radically deregulated trading environment in which states are made irrelevant. These are of course vital debates that yield important information about the character of the current socio-economic climate (Hirst & Thompson 1996; Weiss 1998; Scholte 2000; Giddens 2002). There is nonetheless general agreement that globalization describes a substantially transformed economic, political and cultural landscape across the globe.