Contradictions and crises of neoliberal–imperial globalization and the political opportunity structures for the Global Justice Movements

Abstract

The Global Justice Movements emerged in the context of the contradictions and crisis of neoliberal–imperial globalization and the critique of it. They therefore express and provide a basis for the politicization of the negative consequences of post-Fordism and its crisis. This article examines the structural changes of the last 30 years from a Gramscian perspective of neoliberal globalization as a “passive revolution” and as the deepening of a “imperial mode of living” at a global scale. It is argued that examining structural changes helps us to understand why protest and social movements re-emerged around the year 2000. The article discusses some central features of the Global Justice Movements by focusing on the international Attac movement and the recent Occupy movement.

Keywords:

• neoliberal globalization
• imperial mode of living
• hegemony and counter-hegemony
• Global Justice Movements
• Attac
• Occupy movement

Acknowledgment

I would like to thank the anonymous reviewers, Dieter Rucht, Helen Schwenken, Pedram Shayar and Markus Wissen for useful comments, Marlon Barbehön, amended by Dieter Rucht and Julian Müller, for the translation into English, and Benjamin Opratko for research support. Naturally, all mistakes are those of the author.

Notes

1. A sink is an ecosystem that is capable of absorbing emissions, such as forests or oceans in the case of CO₂.

2. What Eschle and Maiguashga (2007, p. 285) correctly state with regard to critical scholars of International Relations can be generalized: they have “focused, in the main, on mapping the broad tectonic plates of global power – whether conceptualised in discursive or material terms – and the consequent conditions of possibility for the emergence of resistance, rather than on the detail of resistance itself”.

3. It is beyond the scope of this article to discuss the selectivities of the state and other social institutions in more depth in order to understand an important dimension of political opportunity structures.

4. Rucht (2012) systematically reviews the extant literature to draw conclusions about the complex preconditions of mass protest. Apparently, a standard trajectory does not exist. What is important, apart from some particular or more vaguely felt inconvenience or indignation, is the feeling of not being alone, which is often supported by a shared collective knowledge about the existence of certain frames of problem interpretation and solution as well as motivation. Other conditions include the simple fact that protest needs to be initiated; that its organization requires a lot of resources; that a certain degree of politicization in the media, the diffuse mood of the people, as well as a trend of political involvement must support participation in protest events (the so-called opportunity structures); and, finally, the expectation that participation in protests can contribute to the intended goal of fostering or averting social change.