ASOK15804U Global Activism and Social Movements

During the November 1999 “Battle of Seattle,” activists from a plethora of groups and organizations took to the streets of Seattle to disrupt a meeting of the WTO (World Trade Organization). 

Since then, other transnational social movements emerged to protest and fight against—among other targets—free trade, the World Bank and IMF and most recently climate change.  What are the movements behind this most recent phase of international activism? How might we understand social movements that operate both within and beyond the traditional boundaries of the nation-state? What might transnational social movements teach us about connections between the local and the global? Is there an emerging global civil society and if so, what does it look like? 

The course will familiarize students with the current set of debates surrounding contemporary transnational social movements and shed light on its larger historical context. We will approach the topic by looking at various theoretical concepts and perspectives of social movements studies and draw empirically from a number of Western and non-Western cases.

The course will span international social movement activities beginning with the anti-slavery movement of the nineteenth century and conclude with the current anti-globalization movement. We will examine relevant early theoretical works on collective behavior, resource mobilization and political process perspectives as well as investigate theories of “new” social movements.

The final section of the course will focus on contemporary forms of activism.  Do the chosen strategies, targets and organizational forms of transnational activists differ from those of previous transnational movements? Does media coverage affect how and when transnational movements mobilize? In answering these questions, we will examine “new” and “old” social movements and transnational collective action from a comparative-historical and sociological perspective.