Jackie Smith, Social Movements for Global Democracy.

Participatory democracy in social movements

Participatory democracy refers to an organizational form in which decision making is decentralized, nonhierarchical, and consensus oriented. It can be contrasted with bureaucracy, in which decision making is centralized, hierarchical, and based on a formal division of labor, as well as with majority vote. Participatory democratic organizations have been a prominent feature of many progressive m...

Exploring Connections Between Global Integration and Political Mobilization

journal of world-systems research, x, 1, winter 2004, 255–285 Special Issue: Global Social Movements Before and After 9-11 http://jwsr.ucr.edu/ issn 1076–156x © 2004 Jackie Smith The Seattle protests against the World Trade Organization and subsequent resistance to global trade and investment negotiations highlight the growing centralization of economic and political power in entities that tran...

Understanding Social Democracy

Women’s Cultures and Social Movements in Global Contexts

This article examines the role that women’s cultures and communities have played in political protest and social change. We argue that women’s cultures, which form around the reproductive roles, labor, and emotional expectations placed on women, have been used to express femininity and as cultural resources or ‘‘toolkits’’ to transform male-dominated spheres of society. We begin by defining wom...

modernity and social movements

in this article, the writer discusses the concept of modernity and its relationship with social movements, as is reflected in classical works on modernity as well as in the contemporary modern political and sociological thoughts. the purpose is not to present a quantitative analysis of the development of the concept of modernity, but to explain the relationship between modernity and political a...