21st Century Dissent: Anarchism, Anti-Globalization and Environmentalism (International Political Economy)

264 Pages·2007·0.72 MB·English

by  Giorel Curran

21st Century Dissent
Anarchism, Anti-Globalization and
Environmentalism
Giorel Curran
International Political Economy Series
General Editor: Timothy M. Shaw, Professor of Commonwealth Governance
and Development, and Director of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies,
School of Advanced Study, University of London
Titles include:
Hans Abrahamsson
UNDERSTANDING WORLD ORDER AND STRUCTURAL CHANGE
Poverty, Conflict and the Global Arena
Andreas Bieler, Werner Bonefeld, Peter Burnham and Adam David Morton
GLOBAL RESTRUCTURING, STATE, CAPITAL AND LABOUR
Contesting Neo-Gramscian Perspectives
Morten Bøås, Marianne H. Marchand and Timothy M. Shaw (editors)
THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF REGIONS AND REGIONALISMS
Sandra Braman (editor)
THE EMERGENT GLOBAL INFORMATION POLICY REGIME
Giorel Curran
21stCENTURY DISSENT
Anarchism, Anti-Globalization and Environmentalism
Martin Doornbos
INSTITUTIONALIZING DEVELOPMENT POLICIES AND RESOURCE
STRATEGIES IN EASTERN AFRICA AND INDIA
Developing Winners and Losers
GLOBAL FORCES AND STATE RESTRUCTURING
Dynamics of State Formation and Collapse
Bill Dunn
GLOBAL RESTRUCTURING AND THE POWER OF LABOUR
Myron J. Frankman
WORLD DEMOCRATIC FEDERALISM
Peace and Justice Indivisible
Marieke de Goede (editor)
INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL ECONOMY AND POSTSTRUCTURAL POLITICS
Richard Grant and John Rennie Short (editors)
GLOBALIZATION AND THE MARGINS
Graham Harrison (editor)
GLOBAL ENCOUNTERS
International Political Economy, Development and Globalization
Patrick Hayden and Chamsy el-Ojeili (editors)
CONFRONTING GLOBALIZATION
Humanity, Justice and the Renewal of Politics
Axel Hülsemeyer (editor)
GLOBALIZATION IN THE TWENTY–FIRST CENTURY
Convergence or Divergence?
Helge Hveem and Kristen Nordhaug (editors)
PUBLIC POLICY IN THE AGE OF GLOBALIZATION
Responses to Environmental and Economic Crises
Takashi Inoguchi
GLOBAL CHANGE
A Japanese Perspective
Kanishka Jayasuriya
STATECRAFT, WELFARE AND THE POLITICS OF INCLUSION
Dominic Kelly and Wyn Grant (editors)
THE POLITICS OF INTERNATIONAL TRADE IN THE 21st CENTURY
Actors, Issues and Regional Dynamics
Mathias Koenig-Archibugi and Michael Zürn (editors)
NEW MODES OF GOVERNANCE IN THE GLOBAL SYSTEM
Exploring Publicness, Delegation and Inclusiveness
Craig N. Murphy (editor)
EGALITARIAN POLITICS IN THE AGE OF GLOBALIZATION
George Myconos
THE GLOBALIZATION OF ORGANIZED LABOUR
1945–2004
John Nauright and Kimberly S. Schimmel (editors)
THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF SPORT
Morten Ougaard
THE GLOBALIZATION OF POLITICS
Power, Social Forces and Governance
Richard Robison (editor)
THE NEO-LIBERAL REVOLUTION
Forging the Market State
Timothy J. Sinclair and Kenneth P. Thomas (editors)
STRUCTURE AND AGENCY IN INTERNATIONAL CAPITAL MOBILITY
Fredrik Söderbaum and Timothy M. Shaw (editors)
THEORIES OF NEW REGIONALISM
International Political Economy Series
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Series Standing Order ISBN 0–333–71110–6 paperback
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21st Century Dissent
Anarchism, Anti-Globalization and
Environmentalism
Giorel Curran
Griffith University, Australia
© Giorel Curran 2007
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Curran, Giorel.
21st century dissent : anarchism, anti-globalization and environmentalism /
Giorel Curran.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 1–4039–4881–X (cloth)
1. Dissenters. 2. Opposition (Political science) 3. Anarchism.
4. Anti-globalization movement. 5. Environmentalism. I. Title.
II. Title: Twenty-first century dissent.
JC328.3.C87 2007
303.48′4–dc22 2006047639
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
16 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 07
Printed and bound in Great Britain by
Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham and Eastbourne
For Tess
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Contents
Preface ix
Introduction 1
Background 2
A post-ideological anarchism for the 21stcentury 6
The chapters 13
Part I Theorizing Contemporary Anarchism 17
1 Anarchism Old and New 19
Old anarchism: classical debates 21
Social ‘versus’ individual anarchism 23
Anarchism, the New Left and beyond 29
New anarchism: post-leftism 32
Anarchism and poststructualism: recent developments 34
Anarcho-primitivism 39
Temporary autonomous zones 43
Old tensions revisited 45
Conclusion 48
2 Movements of Anti-Globalization 49
Naming the movement 51
Old, new and newest social movements 53
The development of the AGM 56
Understanding the AGM 60
The World Social Forum 67
Space ‘versus’ movement 71
Conclusion 74
3 Technologies of Dissent 75
Politics, technology and the internet 77
The libertarian internet 79
The tools of dissent 86
The limits of technological dissent 92
Conclusion 96
4 Ecology and Anarchy 98
Green politics in the 21stcentury 100
Greening postmodernism 103
vii
viii Content
From mainstream environmentalism to radical ecology 105
Deep ecology 110
Eco-feminism 114
Eco-socialism 120
Conclusion 125
Part II Practising Contemporary Anarchism 127
5 The Politics of Zapatismo 129
Land struggles and the rise of the Zapatistas 132
The Zapatista National Liberation Army 137
Zapatismo 145
Zapatismo and the anarchist impulse 148
Zapatismo and power 151
Conclusion 155
6 Greening Anarchy: Social Ecology 157
Social ecology as eco-anarchism 160
The development of hierarchy 163
Dialectical naturalism 166
Nature as a grounding for ethics 170
Municipalism: the communalist project 174
Conclusion 178
7 Reclaim the Streets 180
The origins of RTS 181
The street party 184
Carnival and the politics of pleasure 189
Situationism, the spectacle and culture jamming 192
RTS and the anarchist temperament 197
Conclusion 200
8 Earth First! 202
The development of Earth First! 204
The splitting of Earth First! 209
Earth First! in Britain 213
The Earth Liberation Front 218
Conclusion 222
Conclusion: Towards 21stCentury Dissent 224
A radical democracy for the 21stcentury 226
Closing remarks 229
Bibliography 232
Index 246
Preface
This book represents a coming together of several of my main research
interests. My interest in environmentalism, particularly green political
philosophy, goes back a long way, as does my interest in political theo-
ry and political movements in general. That quirky political philosophy
anarchism had grabbed my attention right from the start, perhaps
because it had been marginalized for so long, but probably because it
had some very insightful political stories and ideas to tell. In the last few
years it seemed that all these research areas came together in a very
interesting form – the politics of anti-globalization. But my interest in
the book’s themes also goes beyond this. For those of us engrossed in
the frequently chaotic and quickly changeable world of global politics,
the early 21st century is already proving an immensely interesting, if
increasingly worrisome, one. Not only are environmental risks reaching
alarming levels, but so too are realignments in global power relations.
Despite some significant improvements, ‘old’ problems of inequality
and injustice remain. This is well illustrated in the increasingly
inequitable distribution of environmental risks and the justice consid-
erations they raise.
But all is by no means doom and gloom. As history consistently
demonstrates, with injustice comes resistance, with appropriation comes
counter-appropriation, and with hegemony comes counter-hegemony.
This is precisely the undercurrent in contemporary oppositional politics
that this book has sought to uncover. If this sounds utopian, we have to
remind ourselves that the idea of enfranchising the ‘great unwashed’ was
long considered a pipedream. One of human society’s greatest achieve-
ments is undoubtedly democracy. Certainly, it took a long time for
women and many Indigenous to be counted as full members of western
democratic communities, and the struggle goes on in many other parts of
the world. But democracy did make it on the agenda despite the concen-
trated resistance from many quarters of power, even if today its operation
is at best frequently faulty and at worst an empty shell. The post-
ideological anarchist impulse in contemporary dissent is a deeply demo-
cratic one. What is most optimistic about this oppositional current is its
determination to continue pushing the democratic impetus by ensuring
it incorporates the principles and practices of freedom, autonomy and
equality. Utopian perhaps but neither unrealistic nor ahistorical.
ix