Complexity and Social Movements: Multitudes at the Edge of Chaos ...

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AGM have sought to frame GCS as a space of contestation and resistance, thereby maintaining links to structures of political representation and mediation whilst opening and maintaining space for antagonistic action by multiple constituencies across diverse milieu. In this sense GCS is an empty signifier which is invested with meaning by those utilising it, a discursive construct that seeks to articulate the ‘n’ dimensional state space of a global system constituted by a variety of associational relationships conducted by extra-familial and non-state actors. Our argument suggests that within this state space the AGM acts as a strange attractor that perturbates the trajectory of GCS whilst recursively structurating and defining the system of relations described by GCS. Reframing global civil society Ecologies of action 91 Its intricate social linkages stretched across vast distances are puzzling, indeed so difficult to grasp that new metaphors are urgently needed to help us to picture and understand them. Perhaps (to take an example) it is better to liken this society to the tens and hundreds of thousands of ‘nested systems within nested systems’ described in certain versions of complexity theory. (Keane 2003: 19) The concept of GCS is deployed as a normative-ideal by a range of political actors because of its considerable rhetorical and strategic utility. In each instance it is presented as a version of the good society stretched to the ends of the earth. Almost uniformly perceived as progressive and democratising, its composition varies according to one’s ideological position. Kaldor’s (2003) framework provides a useful orientation here. In what she terms the ‘activist’ definition of GCS, it takes on a utopian quality and is manifest in the interstices between markets and states. In the ‘neo-liberal’ version it is an essential adjunct to the globalising forces of free trade and privatisation, and in the normative ‘ideal-type’ she and Keane favour, it is a ‘dynamic nongovernmental system of interconnected socio-economic institutions’ that is capable of pluralising power and problematising violence (Keane 2003: 8). We would add a further definition: global civil society through the lens of global complexity – where GCS is perceived as a domain contested and variegated by multiple axes of cause and effect, reciprocity and ambivalence, an outcome and effect of ‘global complexity’, the interaction between ‘networks’ and ‘fluids’ that characterise planetary systems of production, mobility, and exchange (Urry 2003). From this perspective, GCS constitutes a ‘state space’, a field of relations between variables of a self-organising system, including the combination of ideological, organisational, and material investments that are represented in the definitions above. These denote attractors within the system that compete to consolidate their interpretation of GCS, dominate resources, and attribute meanings. We are suggesting that the rise to prominence of the AGM signifies the emergence of a strange
92 Ecologies of action attractor within GCS, an ‘antagonist’ attractor that perturbates relations between GCS actors and opens new directions for action, reflection, and critique. In doing so we are responding to Taylor’s call for a ‘theoretical re-articulation’ of GCS (Taylor 2004a: 8, 2004b) and to Keane’s challenge ‘to develop theoretical imagery for better imagining global civil society’ (Keane 2003: 24), so we might get ‘beyond theories of GCS based on simple unilinear projections’ (Munck 2004: 21). We advance these aims by suggesting the AGM can be considered as a heuristic device to accompany that of GCS. This is what Keane considers to be a ‘nested system within a nested system’ and it involves a typological distinction between the ‘antagonistic’ (Melucci 1996a) orientation of the AGM and the ideal type of GCS utilised by Keane (2003) and Kaldor (2003). It therefore marks an engagement with a movement that is actively involved in reframing the concept of GCS in order to support conflictual collective action, and goes some way to assessing the impacts and potential of the AGM as an antagonist attractor. When global civil society actors are differentiated according to their modes of organisation, and their position vis-à-vis international systems of production, distribution, and exchange, it is possible to discern an antagonistic kernel within GCS that promotes a fundamental and systemic critique. This is important, as Melucci (1996a) has pointed out, because most political discourse seeks to deny the existence of fundamental conflicts about the production and appropriation of social resources by reducing everything to a question of grievances or political claims. We argue that this antagonism is primarily, but not exclusively visible in the AGM. As demonstrated in Chapters 2 and 3, the AGM has been influential in perturbating existing discourses around trade, the environment, and social justice and through its capacity to re-orient the field of relations between GCS and global governance structures. When we move beyond complexity metaphors to the application of its conceptual framework of ‘emergence’, ‘small world networks’, and ‘strange attractors’ we can begin to discern the reasons for these seemingly disproportionate ‘system effects’ (Jervis 1997), reasons which suggest new possibilities for our understanding of social change. Civil society and democracy Many commentators have remarked upon the reflexive, dialogical and deliberative character of civil society and its potential to invigorate democratic processes (Beck et al. 1994, Lash and Urry 1994, Inoguchi et al. 1998). This interest has been given impetus by the much-heralded decline of participation in formal electoral processes, indicated by the low electoral turnouts amongst social democratic states and the increasing dissatisfaction with elected representatives indicated by survey data. Research produced by the Democratic Audit of the United Kingdom (UK) funded by the Rowntree
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Complexity and Social Movements Che
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Complexity and Social Movements Mul
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Contents List of figures vi Acknowl
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Acknowledgements With thanks to all
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Preface ix activists and engaged ci
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2 Introducing global movements poli
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4 Introducing global movements arou
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6 Introducing global movements esta
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8 Introducing global movements Thes
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10 Introducing global movements exp
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12 Introducing global movements che
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14 Introducing global movements Fra
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16 Introducing global movements ‘
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18 Introducing global movements for
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20 Introducing global movements and
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2 Prefiguration and emergence Intro
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24 Prefiguration and emergence on T
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26 Prefiguration and emergence 9 If
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28 Prefiguration and emergence Prop
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30 Prefiguration and emergence agai
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32 Prefiguration and emergence C. E
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34 Prefiguration and emergence The
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36 Prefiguration and emergence Glob
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38 Prefiguration and emergence In t
Page 51 and 52: 40 Prefiguration and emergence Neo-
Page 53 and 54: 42 Prefiguration and emergence from
Page 55 and 56: 44 Identities, protest dynamics and
Page 79 and 80: 68 States fight back when trust in
Page 81 and 82: 70 States fight back academically,
Page 83 and 84: 72 States fight back streets from d
Page 85 and 86: 74 States fight back ‘green Parli
Page 87 and 88: 76 States fight back to trivialise
Page 89 and 90: 78 States fight back beneath Big Be
Page 91 and 92: 80 States fight back ran out. The p
Page 93 and 94: 82 States fight back The attempt to
Page 95 and 96: 84 States fight back Accounts of th
Page 97 and 98: 86 States fight back hair, infringe
Page 99 and 100: 88 States fight back crisis is in e
Page 101: 5 Ecologies of action within global
Page 105 and 106: 94 Ecologies of action embedded in
Page 107 and 108: 96 Ecologies of action The assimila
Page 109 and 110: 98 Ecologies of action compatibilit
Page 111 and 112: 100 Ecologies of action linking up
Page 113 and 114: 102 Ecologies of action occurred wi
Page 115 and 116: 104 Ecologies of action leading to
Page 117 and 118: 106 Ecologies of action siege of in
Page 119 and 120: 108 Beyond resistance to global nex
Page 139 and 140: 7 The death of collective identity?
Page 141 and 142: 130 Global movement as a parallelog
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142 Global movement as a parallelog
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148 The map is not the territory th
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150 The map is not the territory of
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152 The map is not the territory Ne
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154 The map is not the territory mi
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156 The map is not the territory or
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158 The map is not the territory mo
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160 The map is not the territory of
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162 The map is not the territory ne
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Notes 1 Introducing global movement
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166 Notes 12 Ya Basta’s! subseque
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168 Notes 19 This practice has been
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170 Notes Afro Bloc parading drum b
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172 Bibliography Barker, C., Johnso
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174 Bibliography De Sousa Santos, B
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176 Bibliography Grubacic, A. (2003
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178 Bibliography Lash, S. (2002) Cr
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180 Bibliography O’Neill, J. (200
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182 Bibliography Thompson, E.P. (19
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Index Note: Page numbers in italics
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186 Index class: affinities 93; and
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188 Index G7 23 G8 23, 100; meeting
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190 Index London 52, 63, 69, 116; E
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192 Index Poland 44, 45; ‘Orange
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194 Index Taylor, P. 168 n.2; call
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