1. Global Justice Movements: Questions, Approaches, Answers Dieter Rucht
Research Group „Civil Society, Citizenship and
Political Mobilization in Europe“
Masarykova univerzita Brno, December 2, 2008

3. Questions What are the Global Justice Movements (GJMs)?
How did the GJMs emerge and develop?
What are the structures and strategies of GJMs?
What is the impact of GJMs?

4. What is a social movement?
A network of individuals, groups and organizations
based on a sense of collective identity
aiming at fundamental social change
(predominantly) by means of collective and public protest

5. 1. What are the GJMs)? Negatively defined:
Social movements against neoliberalism and its negative side effects
(marketization/commodification of public goods, withdrawal of the state, exploitation of human labor, environmental degradation, destruction of indigenous economies and cultures…)
Positively defined:
Social movements aiming at global justice, solidarity and democratization:
„Another World is Possible“

6. The struggle over naming the movements
Anti-globalization movement, anti-globals,
mouvement antimondialiste
= negatively loaded)
- „global justice movements“ (Anglo-american)
- „globalisierungskritische Bewegungen“ (German)
- „mouvements altermondialistes“ (French)

7. 2. How did the GJMs emerge and develop?
The myth of Seattle 1999:
The alleged birth of the GJMs

8. Protests before Seattle I I
Tabelle 1: Ausgewählte globalisierungskritische Proteste bis Seattle (Dezember 1999)
Protests before Seattle I I

9. Protests before Seattle II

10. Protests after Seattle I

11. Protests after Seattle II

12. Growth of Global Justice Events 1990-2005

13. 3. What are the structures and strategies of GJMs?

15. Dimensions of transnational protest mobilization

16. Map of GJM Groups in Germany
reformist
moderate field
Misereor,
Brot für
die Welt
BUND
unions
church-based
action groups
Weed
local
NSM groups
social
fora
Attac
spontaneous
Die Linke
organised
intermediary
networks
BUKO
Linksruck
SAV
PGA
FAU
anti-systemical field
radical

17. The Charter of Porto Alegre
The charter of the principles was established after the first Social Forum of 2001 in Porto Alegre to perennialize the initiative and to establish a general control, according to federator principles which made the success of the Forum.
The World Social Forum is an open meeting place for reflective thinking, democratic debate of ideas, formulation of proposals, free exchange of experiences and interlinking for effective action, by groups and movements of civil society that are opposed to neoliberalism and to domination of the world by capital and any form of imperialism, and are committed to building a planetary society directed towards fruitful relationships among Humanking and between it and the Earth.

18. The World Social Forum is a plural, diversified, non-confessional, non-governmental and non-party context that, in a decentralized fashion, interrelates organizations and movements engaged in concrete action at levels from the local to the international to built another world.
The World Social Forum will always be a forum open to pluralism and to the diversity of activities and ways of engaging of the organizations and movements that decide to participate in it, as well as the diversity of genders, ethnicities, cultures, generations and physical capacities, providing they abide by this Charter of Principles. Neither party representations nor military organizations shall participate in the Forum. Government leaders and members of legislatures who accept the commitments of this Charter may be invited to participate in a personal capacity.
Approved and adopted in São Paulo, on April 9, 2001, by the organizations that make up the World Social Forum Organizating Committee, approved with modifications by the World Social Forum International Council on June 10, 2001.

19. World Social Forums

20. Geographical distribution of Indymedias

21. 4. What is the impact of GJMs?

22. Number of articles on different campaigns in German newspapers

23. Proportion of thematic foci in German newspapers (per cent)

24. Evaluation of protesters in different campaigns in German newspapers

25. Content Analysis of Newspaper Coverage on Prague 2000

26. The foci of newspaper articles on the Prague event (per cent)

27. The space devoted to main themes in newspaper articles on the Prague event

28. Police actions as reported in newspapers (in percent)

29. Conclusion
new generation of „progressive“ movements, but not a genuinely new type of movements
„diversity instead of monotony“, plurality of movements
participation, deliberation, consensus principle („horizontals“)
tendency to stagnate in the north, open dynamics in the south
differentiated impact:
agenda setting: substantial
policy effects: minor, most likely on „soft issues“
institutional effects: marginal