Entire Volume 17 issue 1 - Journal of World-Systems Research ...

269 JOURNAL OF WORLD-SYSTEMS RESEARCH
three movements, situating each within the political, economic, and cultural dimensions of
globalization. By situating each within a global context, she comes to a number of interesting
conclusions. First, Moghadam states that equal attention must be paid to sub- and supra-state
governance processes and nation-states, which continue to be relevant actors on the world scene.
Second, the location of a transnational social movement within the uneven political, economic,
and geographical context of the world-system affects its subsequent development. These
processes span multiple scales, from micro (e.g., access to employment or education), to meso
(e.g., area culture or regime type), and macro levels (e.g., neoliberal policies and technological
expansion, which vary significantly from place to place). Third, all of these factors mentioned
above shape individuals’ worldviews, which in turn shape a movement’s ideology, opportunities,
and tactics to achieve group goals. Finally, a central distinction between groups which utilize
violence to achieve their aims and those which eschew it, is the movement’s desire to seek state
power (p. 6).
Moghadam draws on evidence from case studies to support her arguments. She looks at
Islamism, Feminism, and the Global Justice movement cases, and finds that the groups involved
responded in different ways to global dynamics. She contrasts the Islamist movement with the
feminist and Global Justice movements to illuminate how the heterogeneous economic, political,
and cultural restructuring processes of globalization have impacted regions in the world-system
differently. She concludes that TSMs have created multiple transnational publics that may
overlap to varying degrees, facilitating a loosely interconnected global reach. These publics,
which may overlap or diverge entirely, are comprised of actors that consciously communicate,
cooperate, and organize across borders (p.121). Although TSMs are reacting to globalization by
targeting both states and global order, they use the fruits of globalization, namely the internet,
ease of travel, and developing technology, to promote and further their objectives. Collective
action, networking, and recruitment have expanded into the virtual field. Ultimately, the
polymorphic nature of globalization has yielded both progressive, democratic movements as well
as conservative, violent groups (p. 122).
The book makes a number of contributions to TSM scholarship and has numerous
strengths. First, its consideration of these three movements side by side leads to a deeper
theoretical understanding of how globalization has fostered multiple, loosely connected
transnational publics. These publics, in turn, yield both peaceful and violent TSMs based upon
that particular public’s ideological development and perceptions. Second, it develops an
explanatory framework for understanding the complex relationship between globalization and
TSMs. Further, it demonstrates how TSMs protests globalization while simultaneously depending
on it. Next, it eloquently synthesizes broad bodies of literature to provide an insightful, careful
analysis of the dynamic impacts of globalization on the mobilization of social movements. In
addition, it thoroughly explores the historical roots and current developments of three empirical
cases under the auspices of late stage capitalism. Finally, the book shows how TSMs balance
strategic-instrumental considerations with emotional and altruistic ones.
However, despite its various strengths, there are some limitations within the book. First,
Moghadam’s analysis overemphasizes the presence of violent groups within the Islamist TSM,
while understating their prominence in the other two TSMs. For example, the Zapatista
movement (part of the Global Justice Movement) initially used armed strategies to achieve its
goals. I would have liked to see a section discussing other anti-globalization social movements
that currently use violence to further their objectives. Anti-globalization groups that use