The Rise of the Global Left The World Social Forum and Beyond

by Santos, de Sousa Boaventura

• ISBN13: 9781842778005
• ISBN10: 1842778005
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-12-26
• Publisher: ZED BOOKS

Summary

In this book the leading sociologist Boaventura de Sousa Santos makes an impassioned case for the politicisation of the World Social Forum. Since its inception in Porto Alegre in 2001, the World Social Forum has refused to take political positions on world events, preferring instead to provide a platform for diverse social movements to come together. de Sousa Santos argues, however, that the Forum can only realise its full potential as a force for social, economic and political change, by taking a directly political stand against the evils of neo-liberal globalization, war, famine and corruption. Through a detailed consideration of the WSF's history and organization, he demonstrates that it has always been an inherently political organization. If, he claims, the WSF is able to realise its potential as an institution for a new form of subaltern, cosmopolitan politics, it will become a global power to be reckoned with in the 21st century.

Author Biography

Boaventura de Sousa Santos is Professor of Sociology at the University of Coimbra in Portugal and a Distinguished Scholar of the Institute for Legal Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Table of Contents

Tables and figures	p. viii
Preface	p. ix
Introduction: forty years of solitude and the novelty of the World Social Forum	p. 1
The World Social Forum as critical utopia	p. 10
The World Social Forum as epistemology of the South	p. 13
The World Social Forum and the sociology of absences	p. 15
The World Social Forum and the sociology of emergences	p. 29
The World Social Forum as an insurgent cosmopolitan politics	p. 35
The struggles for global social justice must be based on a very broad conception of power and oppression	p. 36
Counter-hegemonic globalization is built upon the equivalence between the principles of equality and recognition of difference	p. 37
Rebellion and non-conformity must be privileged to the detriment of the old strategic options (reform or revolution)	p. 38
The WSF aims at a new internationalism	p. 38
The WSF process progresses as transversal political terrains of resistance and alternative are identified as an ongoing process	p. 39
The struggle for radical democracy must be a struggle for demo-diversity	p. 40
Transcultural criteria must be developed to identify different forms of democracy and to establish hierarchies among them according to the collective quality of life they provide	p. 40
The WSF process must be conceived as promoting and strengthening counter-hegemonic forms of high-intensity democracy that are already emerging	p. 41
There is no democracy without conditions of democracy	p. 43
There is no global social justice without global cognitive justice	p. 44
The many names for another possible world - social emancipation, socialism, dignity, etc. - are in the end the name of democracy without end	p. 45
Organizing fragmented counter-hegemonic energies	p. 46
Internal democracy: relations between the Organizing Committee and the International Council	p. 48
Transparency and hierarchies in participation	p. 51
Parties and movements	p. 55
Size and continuity	p. 57
The new organizational challenges: the evaluation of the 2003 WSF	p. 58
The new organizational models: the Mumbai demonstration and the 2005 WSF	p. 72
The 2006 polycentric WSF	p. 80
Representing this world as it fights for another possible world	p. 85
Whom does the WSF represent?	p. 85
Who represents the WSF? Composition and functionality of the International Council	p. 100
Making and unmaking cleavages: strategy and political action	p. 110
Reform or revolution	p. 111
Socialism or social emancipation	p. 113
The state as enemy or potential ally	p. 114
National or global struggles	p. 115
Direct or institutional action	p. 117
The principle of equality or the principle of respect for difference	p. 119
The WSF as a space or as a movement	p. 120
The future of the World Social Forum: self-democracy and the work of translation	p. 127
Self-democracy	p. 129
The work of translation	p. 131
The World Social Forum and self-learning: the Popular University of the Social Movements	p. 148
A proposal for collective transformative self-learning: the Popular University of the Social Movements	p. 149
The PUSM, 2003-06	p. 154
The left after the World Social Forum	p. 160
The phantasmal relation between theory and practice	p. 160
The twenty-first-century left: depolarized pluralities	p. 166
Conclusion	p. 182
Annexes
Composition of the International Council of the WSF (2005)	p. 188
Comparison between the Charter of Principles, the WSF India policy statement and the Charter of Principles and Values of the African Social Forum	p. 196
Manifesto of Porto Alegre	p. 205
Organizations and institutions that have provided financial support to the World Social Forums	p. 208
Bibliography	p. 210
Index	p. 216
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