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Movimientos sociales en America Latina: perspectivas, tendencias y casos

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... Social movements have been approached from a variety of theoretical and conceptual perspectives across disciplines such as sociology, anthropology, political science, social psychology, and history (Almeida and Cordero Ulate 2017;Inclán 2018;Somma 2020). Inclán (2018) cites a number of notable interdisciplinary anthologies on the subject of social movements in Latin America. ...
... A common thread throughout the region is opposition to neoliberal policies and the effects of globalisation. Almeida and Cordero Ulate (2017) classify this resistance into three principal groups: workers, students, and the informal sector; New Social Movements (NMSs), including feminists and environmentalists; and rural and indigenous groups. ...
... In addition to the diverse movements identified by Calderón Gutérrez (2010), Almeida and Cordero Ulate (2017), and Zibechi (2006), scholars such as Inclán (2018) and Bringel and Falero (2016) emphasise the importance of examining how social movements interact with the state, particularly in the context of progressive governments in Latin America. Inclán observes that while traditional social movements such as those representing workers and students continue to play a significant role, newer actors, including indigenous, feminist, and LGBT groups, have introduced new dynamics to the political landscape by contesting issues such as corruption, political violence, and social inequality. ...
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In the wake of the advancements made in civil and human rights in the twentieth century, social movements have come to be regarded as a driving force behind social change. Nevertheless, evidence demonstrates that social transformations driven by certain citizen mobilisations do not always prove beneficial to the most marginalised groups. In January 2023, acts of vandalism were perpetrated against the buildings of public institutions in Brasilia. Similarly, anti-democratic mobilisations have been observed in Colombia against the peace agreement with the FARC and in Chile against the proposed more inclusive constitution. Globally, anti-democracy and other movements that are in opposition to human rights are gaining ground, and their effects are having a detrimental impact on the environment in which organisations that are advocating for excluded sectors are operating. However, Latin American perspectives of social and behaviour change (SBC) emphasise engagement with social movements to contribute to social justice, creating alliances to amplify the voices of those most affected without interfering with the organic nature of citizen-led movements. This prompts the following inquiries: Can we categorize as social movements those with popular roots but espousing hegemonic interests? How can the Latin American tradition of social movement action and reflection inform strategies for social change? How can SBC strategies counteract anti-human rights movements and empower social movements prone to inclusion? This essay addresses these questions.
... Many contemporary investigations focus on antineoliberal social movements resisting the expansion of neoliberal policies in Latin America (Petras 2008;Roberts 2008;Silva 2009Silva , 2012Von Bülow 2010;Almeida 2014;Spalding 2014Spalding , 2023Almeida and Cordero Ulate 2017;Silva et al. 2018;Almeida and Pérez Martín 2022;Preusser 2022;Feoli 2023). The present article contributes to this body of literature by studying the influence of the social movements in Peru and Ecuador that criticized the Multiparty Trade Agreement (MTA, Acuerdo Comercial Multipartes) both Andean countries subscribed to and implemented with the European Union (EU). ...
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This article studies the influence of the antineoliberal social movements in Peru and Ecuador in the face of the Multiparty Trade Agreement (MTA) between both countries and the European Union (EU). To identify and analyze this influence, a transdisciplinary theoretical framework was created, integrating debates and concepts from social movement theory and critical international political economy. In Peru, the movement used European allies to establish their demands on the EU’s agenda, which resulted in increased pressure on the government to enforce labor rights and environmental standards. In Ecuador, the movement was able to establish food sovereignty and the rejection of free trade in the national constitution. As a result, the negotiations with the EU were delayed and Ecuador achieved certain exceptions in its adhesion protocol. Nevertheless, both movements were unable to maintain their influence, due to political and socioeconomic dynamics on the domestic and global levels.
... Si hay algo positivo en este escenario, es que se diversificaron de manera contundente las demandas sociales, haciendo surgir movimientos sociales con un espectro más amplio de reclamos (Ortiz, 2017). En cierta manera, los matices de sombras de este escenario también habilitaron las luces en tanto posibilidad de "renombrar nuevos problemas que se superponen con viejas discriminaciones" (Flórez-Flórez, 2007, p. 249). ...
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Este libro nos encuentra en procesos singulares y colectivos de apropia- ción de la perspectiva decolonial para el análisis de la discapacidad. En una primera parte, danzamos entre anclajes teóricos y "metodológicos" otros que nos fueron dando luz desde la pluriversalidad, a través de rodeos abstractos con relación al ser y al hacer en nuestro Sur Global latinoamericano mediado por los constructos de raza y estética. En una segunda parte, compartimos algunas concreciones de dichos abstractos en nuestros entramados situados, transitando por temáticas como comunidad sorda, educación, movimientos sociales, sexualidad, cuerpos/emociones, maternidades.
... En ese recorrido, han surgido crecientes esfuerzos teóricos y herramientas analíticas con el fin de mapear y comprender la emergencia de los movimientos sociales contemporáneos en nuestro continente (Aguilar-García, 2017;Aguilar-García & Camarena Luhrs, 2015;Almeida, 2020;Almeida & Cordero, 2017;Castro & Salazar, 2021;Hopkins & Pineda, 2021). Desde una perspectiva histórica, se ha sostenido que la toma de Caracas por las barriadas populares el 27 de febrero de 1989 y el levantamiento zapatista el 1 de enero de 1994 en Chiapas, abren una nueva senda para los movimientos sociales en la región, conformando un nuevo periodo de organizaciones y luchas que ha reconfigurado el estudio de los movimientos sociales frente a las tradiciones eurocéntricas y estadounidenses. ...
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Este capítulo plantea una revisión general sobre las referencias teóricas de los movimientos sociales, sus formas de protesta, los actores sociales y su movilización, el tipo de reivindicaciones enarboladas y las capacidades organizativas que despliegan en la escena contemporánea desde diversas perspectivas o enfoques teóricos, ya sea clásicos y contemporáneos. Se destacan las aproximaciones teóricas latinoamericanas que nacen al calor de las luchas populares, situando la relevancia de estos sujetos colectivos como potencia de cambio radical en nuestro continente, al mismo tiempo que se enuncian los desafíos y las proyecciones de la vinculación promisoria del trabajo social con los movimientos sociales en el momento coyuntural en Chile.
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Anger and long-lasting resistances in the Colombian Pacific Civil: Strikes in Buenaventura and Quibdó (1964-2017) In May 2017, two civic strikes occurred in Buenaventura and Quibdó, Colombia. Amid large cycles of global protest, these contentious collective actions demonstrated, once again, the failure of state promises made for decades to the inhabitants of the Colombian Pacific region. Based on historical-sociological information, we used qualitative-discursive analysis of archival sources, databases, and secondary material, as well as critical Latin American perspectives, to seek to carry out a processual and relational reading of social protest in the Pacific between 1964 and 2017. Our main conclusion is that the various events and struggles that took place during these 53 years constituted moments of historical, political, and cultural condensation of localized, micropolitical, and communal anger and resistance, from which some key challenges appear for the Pacific region and the country. Resumen En mayo de 2017 acontecieron dos paros cívicos en Buenaventura y Quibdó, Colombia. En medio de grandes ciclos de protesta global, estas acciones colectivas contenciosas evidencia-ron, una vez más, el fracaso de las promesas estatales realizadas por décadas a los habitantes de la región del Pacífico colombiano. A partir de una indagación de corte histórico-sociológico, donde empleamos el análisis cualitativo-discursivo de fuentes de archivo, de ba-ses de datos y de material secundario, así como perspectivas críticas latinoamericanas, busca-mos realizar una lectura procesual y relacional de la protesta social en el Pacífico, entre 1964 y 2017. Nuestra principal conclusión es que los diversos eventos y luchas que tuvieron lugar durante estos 53 años constituyeron momentos de condensación histórica, política y cultural de iras y resistencias lugarizadas, micropolíticas y comunales, de los cuales derivan algunos desafíos centrales para la región del Pacífico y el país.
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Con este mismo título, en diciembre de 2021, apareció el primer volumen de este trabajo. La intención fue sistematizar algunos proyectos de vinculación que habían logrado impactos sociales en términos cualitativos y de innovación educativa. En esa oportunidad se presentó una obra con diez capítulos de reflexión, sistematización, análisis y descripción de la trascendental importancia que implica, para la UPS, la vinculación con la sociedad. Ahora, al cumplir la UPS 28 años de vida institucional, presentamos este segundo volumen, que recoge en 14 capítulos el trabajo de 3 docentes, administrativos, estudiantes e investigadores invitados de distintos campos científicos. Es la continuación de la sistematización de los proyectos de vinculación emblemáticos que se han desarrollado en las sedes de Cuenca, Quito y Guayaquil de la universidad. EN cada uno de ellos se podrá encontrar el esfuerzo que la UPS ha desarrollado en estos 28 años, desde su fundación, para conseguir transformaciones sociales. Fiel a su misión y visión institucional, ha desplegado un arduo trabajo en el capo científico, tecnológico y cultural, dándose a conocer como una institución de excelencia académica, producción científica, responsabilidad social y capacidad de incidir en el desarrollo de la sociedad ecuatoriana.
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En este trabajo se trata de mostrar un panorama de parte de la discusión sostenida en la filosofía social y política contemporánea acerca de la problemática vinculada con la justicia. Particularmente se destaca la vigencia que tienen estos debates en el marco de las enormes injusticias sociales que se reproducen en nuestra época. Uno de los temas que se plantean es la importancia que sigue representando la cuestión de la redistribución, relacionada más precisamente con motivaciones económicas, frente a la presencia que alcanzan las reivindicaciones por el reconocimiento, vinculadas a demandas identitarias y culturales. Otra derivación significativa de la temática de la justicia se relaciona con las modalidades que adoptan las democracias actuales, especialmente en las respuestas que se han dado a manifestaciones de los movimientos sociales que repercuten en el ámbito jurídico-político a partir de los conflictos y reclamos relativos a los derechos humanos. Dichas manifestaciones de la sociedad civil se articulan en torno a las causas económicas y ambientales que se identifican como las principales amenazas del mundo globalizado bajo el neoliberalismo que se presentan en la región latinoamericana.
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La pandemia de la covid-19 puso de manifiesto el rol del Estado y de los Gobiernos en la gestión de esta situación de emergencia, así como la capacidad de los movimientos sociales para proponer formas de acción colectiva, de autonomía y de solidaridad. Con base en la observación de medios digitales pertenecientes a movimientos indígenas en México, Ecuador y Brasil –entre marzo de 2020 y julio de 2021– se analiza cómo estos movimientos han reorganizado sus formas de resistencia y han llevado a cabo acciones basadas en sus demandas, al visibilizar la ausencia y negligencia del Estado y establecer alianzas o asumir el reto de manera autónoma. Los casos abordados en el presente artículo permiten ampliar la comprensión sobre la potencia e importancia del accionar de los movimientos sociales, y, a la vez, proponer un entendimiento de la pandemia que atraviesa múltiples dimensiones sociales y ambientales, más allá de la cuestión sanitaria.
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The protest campaign against tax reform counts as the third major wave of anti‐neoliberal mobilizations in Costa Rica in this century. The first protest wave occurred over the ICE combo in 2000 (power and telecommunications privatization), the second was the fight against the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) between 2004 and 2007, and, finally, the wave of popular contention against fiscal policy in 2018 that is described in this entry. The social movement against regressive tax measures offers an important case study of Latin American resistance against globalized neoliberalism.
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Why do some governments manage to curb protest while others cannot and turmoil escalates to a social outbreak? This study proposes a theoretical argument that specifies how discretionary spending reduces conflict, highlighting the role of social movements in managing protests. It examines this and alternative arguments in Argentina, a country with strong social movements and historically large mobilizations, using statistical analysis with an original database on protests and a population of 364 national government programs between 2008 and 2019. The article makes a contribution by finding a differential effect between specific types of social spending, programmatic and discretional, and protests. It also specifies the linkage between the main variables using qualitative evidence during two presidencies. The goal of discretionary distribution is not to win an election but to ensure governance. The article finally raises some comparative implications on the role of social movements and welfare spending in Latin America.
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The protests of December 2001 in Argentina were the most visible manifestation of a larger cycle of contention, which continues to have a substantial influence on the forms, tactics and goals of social movements throughout the country. This paper provides a critical overview of these lasting effects. In particular, we focus on three areas where the consequences of the crisis for collective action have been particularly strong: performative politics, coalition‐building, and institutional support for grassroots networks. We conclude by reflecting on the implications for participatory democracy and the consolidation of a highly engaged civil society.
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El artículo propone un balance preliminar de las orientaciones analíticas acerca de las emociones en la movilización social y en la política, en Colombia y América latina. Se examina la pertinencia del enfoque emocional en un contexto de renovación de la sociología de la movilización y de diversificación de la investigación empírica latinoamericana. El énfasis en el componente expresivo de la protesta se manifiesta al observar el rol de las emociones frente a la represión o la defensa de las dimensiones subjetivas de la acción colectiva por los actores sociales, más allá de sus objetivos políticos. Con ese recorrido, en recientes estudios de caso, se evalúa qué impactos tienen las emociones en la acción y cómo se vinculan aspectos emocionales y estratégicos. Así, el estudio de la protesta se renueva también al nivel teórico y metodológico, al ampliar la comprensión de lo que “mueve” un actor social y sus participantes.
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Ensayo histórico sobre el proceso de conformación de los movimientos vecinales en Venezuela y su incidencia en las transformaciones del sistema político venezolano durante el lapso 1958-1998.
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Las subjetividades, corporalidades y espacialidades se erigen como base de las militancias políticas, un tema relevante para los estudios culturales, más aún en el actual panorama donde, las luchas feministas logran resonar tanto en el contexto local como en el global creando redes de solidaridad y debates, que conectan problemáticas particulares de las mujeres con los sistemas comunes de opresión. Esta investigación permite comprender las articulaciones y los desencuentros en las luchas feministas a partir de la experiencia de seis mujeres militantes en Pereira y la politización de sus identidades, quienes ofrecen sentidos, narrativas y apuestas diferenciales. Sin embargo, todas comparten la búsqueda por la igualdad de derechos en la defensa de la vida, el territorio, la educación, la paz y el trabajo digno a través de nuevos repertorios y estéticas que problematizan los discursos y prácticas machistas de la ciudad y de las organizaciones sociales.
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Purpose This paper aims to analyse the Chilean housing policy from a human rights perspective. The work is based on the framework to study socio, economic and social rights as human rights developed by the current special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights to describe the steps undertaken by the Chilean State in terms of recognition, institutionalisation and accountability of the right to adequate housing. Design/methodology/approach First, the authors describe the different levels of legal recognition of the right and the lack of constitutional and legislative recognition in the different levels of the Chilean Legal System. Second, they analyse the Chilean Housing Policy and the institutionalisation of the different elements that compose the right to adequate housing, describing and critically reviewing the Chilean housing policy in the past 30 years. The final section analyses the accountability of such policy, taking into consideration the developments of international and regional mechanisms and the processes of accountability lead by civil society and tribunals. Findings The paper concludes that a human rights perspective of the right to adequate housing with legal recognition could improve the accountability, the results and development of the Chilean housing policy. Originality/value The importance of this paper is both empirical and theoretical. Empirically, this paper adds to the current understanding of housing policies in Chile, aiming to complete the narrative of housing laws at the national level. Theoretically, this paper uses for the first time a recognition, institutionalisation and accountability human rights approach to analyse the Chilean housing policies and its loopholes at the national level.
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This chapter examines the multiple roles of threat in stimulating collective action. It seeks to establish a greater balance between threats and opportunities in the current literature. Threats are analyzed in relation to grievances, political opportunities, and resource infrastructures. Four structural threats of 1) economic‐based problems; 2) public health/environmental decline; 3) erosion of rights; and 4) state repression, are defined along with a discussion of their relationship to social movement emergence with examples selected from empirical scholarship. This survey of threat literature ends with suggestions on how to more precisely develop dimensions of threat and to incorporate social constructionist interpretations into extant research.
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El artículo analiza al Partido Comunista Colombiano (PCC) en su organización y dinámicas internas durante el periodo 1974-1986. A partir del estudio de sus documentos internos, de las declaraciones oficiales, de fuentes hemerográficas y testimoniales, se reconstruye la dinámica interna de esta organización que se mantuvo en el escenario político desde 1930 demostrando capacidad de reproducción y canalizando un sector significativo de la oposición política. Incluye cinco dimensiones: sus orígenes, la estructura organizativa, la dirigencia nacional, las formas de solucionar sus conflictos internos y las orientaciones ideológicas y disciplina interna. Las conclusiones a que se llegan son que el PCC constituyó durante este periodo una organización con alto grado de institucionalización, con una dirigencia estable y poco renovada, que presentó tendencias centrífugas en la resolución de tensiones y conflictos y tuvo una concepción ideológica muy ortodoxa basada en el marxismo-leninismo.
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Este libro trata en gran medida sobre las muertes producidas por la violencia de Estado, específicamente por las policías; esas muertes que se han dado en llamar de gatillo fácil. Pero, fundamentalmente, trata sobre las formas en que los familiares de las víctimas de esa violencia se han organizado para impugnarla, para denunciarla, para “demandar justicia” convirtiéndose así en un tipo particular de activistas. El libro describe las formas, específicas y locales, en que esta violencia y estas muertes han sido politizadas y se detiene en el análisis de particulares y populares modalidades de activismo. En este sentido, el interés de este trabajo ha sido comprender las formas en que se manifiesta la política y la protesta generada por personas de carne y hueso.
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Este libro se ocupa de analizar los fenómenos de movilización social en los últimos veinticinco años de vida del país. Por diversos motivos, se trata de un período muy significativo, marcado por importantes cambios en las formas de movilización. Si la historia de la movilización social en Argentina a lo largo del siglo XX estuvo signada, por un lado, por la inestabilidad de la política democrática y, por el otro, por la constitución de una clase obrera moderna ligada a la institucionalización del mundo del trabajo, ambos factores sufrieron transformaciones muy importantes en las últimas décadas.
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Social movements aligning with oppositional political parties against health care privatization in El Salvador
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Framing, within the context of social movements, refers to the signifying work or meaning construction engaged in by movement adherents (e.g., leaders, activists, and rank-and-file participants) and other actors (e.g., adversaries, institutional elites, media, social control agents, countermovements) relevant to the interests of movements and the challenges they mount in pursuit of those interests. The concept of framing is borrowed from Erving Goffman's Frame Analysis (1974) and is rooted in the symbolic interactionist and constructionist principle that meanings do not naturally or automatically attach themselves to the objects, events, or experiences we encounter, but arise, instead, through interpretive processes mediated by culture. Frames contribute to this interpretive work by performing three core functions. First, like picture frames, they focus attention by punctuating or bracketing what in our sensual field is relevant and what is irrelevant, what is “in-frame” and what is “out-of-frame,” in relation to the object of orientation. Second, they function as articulation mechanisms in the sense of tying together the various punctuated elements of the scene so that one set of meanings rather than another is conveyed, or, in the language of narrativity, one story rather than another is told. And third, frames often perform a transformative function by reconstituting the way in which some objects of attention are seen or understood as relating to each other or to the actor. Examples of this transformative function in the context of social movements are illustrated by the transformation of routine grievances or misfortunes into injustices or mobilizing grievances, and by the reconfiguration of aspects of one's biography as commonly occurs in both political and religious conversion. Given the focusing, articulation, and transformative functions of frames, it is arguable that how we see, what we make of, and how we act toward the various objects of orientation that populate our daily lives depends, in no small part, on how they are framed. Applied to social movements, the idea of framing problematizes the meanings associated with relevant events, activities, places, and actors, suggesting that those meanings are typically contestable and negotiable and thus open to debate and differential interpretation. From this vantage point, mobilizing grievances are seen neither as naturally occurring sentiments nor as arising automatically from specifiable material conditions, but as the result of interactively based interpretation or signifying work. The verb framing conceptualizes this signifying work, which is one of the activities that social movement leaders and participants, as well as their adversaries, do on a regular basis.
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This Handbook showcases research and thinking in the sociology of religion. The contributors, all active writers and researchers in the area, provide original chapters focusing on select aspects of their own engagement with the field. Aimed at students and scholars who want to know more about the sociology of religion, this handbook also provides a resource for sociologists in general by integrating broader questions of sociology (e.g. demography, ethnicity, life course, inequality, political sociology) into the analysis of religion. Broadly inclusive of traditional research topics (modernity, secularization, politics) as well as newer interests (feminism, spirituality, faith based community action), this handbook illustrates the validity of diverse theoretical perspectives and research designs to understanding the multi-layered nature of religion as a sociological phenomenon.
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On 11 September 1973, heavily armed troops attacked the Chilean Presidential Palace in Santiago and toppled the government of Dr. Salvador Allende. The military coup brought an end to Latin America's first democratically-elected Marxist government. Since the September military takeover, the Chilean armed forces have moved with unparalleled harshness to suppress the base of the Allende regime's popular support. The Allende government's efforts toward raising the consumption level of Chile's lower classes had earned his Popular Unity (Unidad Popular—UP) coalition a high degree of political support among the nation's working class and urban migrant population. Because his Socialist-Communist coalition had been actively competing since the 1960s with both the reformist Christian Democratic party (Partido Demócrata Cristiano—PDC) and the ultraradical Leftist Revolutionary Movement (Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria—MIR) for the support of the urban poor, Santiago's migrant shantytowns had an unusually high level of political mobilization. The squatter settlements outside of the capital provided some of the strongest support for Chile's various Marxist parties. Not surprisingly, since the military takeover many of Santiago's squatter communities have been subjected to mass arrests and even executions by the rightist government (Slaughterhouse, 1973; Terror, 1974).
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The aim of this book is to highlight and begin to give 'voice' to some of the notable 'silences' evident in recent years in the study of contentious politics. The seven co-authors take up seven specific topics in the volume: the relationship between emotions and contention; temporality in the study of contention; the spatial dimensions of contention; leadership in contention; the role of threat in contention; religion and contention; and contention in the context of demographic and life-course processes. The seven spent three years involved in an ongoing project designed to take stock, and attempt a partial synthesis, of various literatures that have grown up around the study of non-routine or contentious politics. As such, it is likely to be viewed as a groundbreaking volume that not only undermines conventional disciplinary understanding of contentious politics, but also lays out a number of provocative new research agendas.
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The World Social Forum quickly became the largest political gathering in human history and continues to offer a direct challenge to the extreme inequities of corporate-led globalisation. It has expanded its presence and continues to be an exciting experiment in global and participatory democracy. The book’s contributors have participated in World Social Forums around the globe. Recounting dozens of dramatic firsthand experiences, they draw on their knowledge of global politics to introduce the process, its foundations and relevance to ongoing transnational efforts toward democracy. This second edition of Global Democracy shows how the Forums have developed since their inception in 2001 and how they are now connected with other global movements including Occupy, the Arab Spring and beyond.