* This book is based on 10 years of research and is widely regarded as an outstanding contribution to sociology. * Pleyers examines the question of how citizens and civil society can contribute to the building of a fairer, sustainable and more democratic co-existence of human beings in a global world.
Contrary to the common view that globalization undermines social agency, 'alter-globalization activists' or have contested globalization in its neo-liberal form and have developed new ways to become actors in the global age. They propose alternatives to Washington Consensus policies, implement horizontal and participatory organization models and promote a nascent global public space.
These activists have built a truly global movement that has gathered citizens, committed intellectuals, indigenous, farmers, dalits and NGOs against neoliberal policies in street demonstrations and Social Forums all over the world, from Bangalore and Seattle to Copenhagen and from Porto Alegre to Dakar. This book analyses this worldwide movement on the bases of extensive field research conducted since 1999 and until the aftermath of the global crisis.
Alter-Globalization provides a comprehensive account of these critical global forces and their attempts to answer one of the major challenges of our time: How can citizens and civil society contribute to the building of a fairer, sustainable and more democratic co-existence of human beings in a global world?
