Transnational Activism and the Global Justice Movement

Template: Royal A, Font: , Date: 24/11/2010; 3B2 version: 9.1.406/W Unicode (May 24 2007) (APS_OT) Dir: Z:/2-Pagination/TandF/TEMPO/ApplicationFiles/9780415548250.3d Transnational Activisms and the Global Justice Movement Donatella della Porta and Raffaele Marchetti Transnational activism can be defined as the mobilization around collective claims that are: a) related to transnational/global issues, b) formulated by actors located in more than one country, and c) addressing more than one national government and/or international governmental organization or another international actor. While forms of transnational activism have existed since a distant past, economic and political globalization have increased their frequency, as well as attention to them. Within the wider process of global transformations, the global justice movement (sometimes called anti-globalization movements), represent a key, though not unique, instance of transnational activism. In the last ten years, the intensification of transnational protests has been followed with attention in various fields of the social sciences, and beyond. Not only political science and sociology, but also anthropology and geography have had a specific focus on transnational social movements, which has produced a substantial body of empirical research and theoretical reflections. At the same time, social and political theory has been an integral part of this renewed interest for transnational protest. In particular, concepts developed in normative theories – such as (global) civil society, cosmopolitanism and deliberative democracy – have been used to investigate the innovations these forms of activism brought about. By clarifying the contextual variations at stake, these studies created a bridge between empirical and normative analysis (on the rapprochement between empirical political sciences and normative political theory, see Bauböck, 2008). Forms of Transnational Activisms Transnational activism entails transnational actors. Global civil society, international nongovernmental organizations, transnational social movement organizations, the global justice movements are concepts developed to name these actors. In social theory, global civil society (GCSOs) is a much used, and much debated term to indicate civil society organizations that represent themselves as a global actor, networking across national borders and challenging international institutions. Similarly, empirical research in international relations has addressed the birth of international non-governmental organizations (INGOs), pointing at the recent increase in their number, membership, and availability of material resources, as well as their influence on 428 Template: Royal A, Font: , Date: 24/11/2010; 3B2 version: 9.1.406/W Unicode (May 24 2007) (APS_OT) Dir: Z:/2-Pagination/TandF/TEMPO/ApplicationFiles/9780415548250.3d Transnational Activisms policy choices. The related concept of transnational social movement organizations (TSMOs) was coined to define the INGOs active within networks of social movements. While non-governmental organizations and social movements developed in parallel to national politics, the formation of INGOS and TSMOs has been seen as a response to the growing institutionalization of international politics. Research on the global justice movement (GJM) have thus understood it as the loose network of organizations and individuals, engaged in collective action of various kinds, on the basis of the shared goal of advancing the cause of justice (economic, social, political, and environmental) among and between peoples across the globe (Della Porta 2007). Focusing on the interactions between these actors and international governmental organizations (IGOs) (initially especially the United Nations, later on the European Union and other organizations), the first studies emphasized in particular their capacity to adapt to the IGOs’ rules of the game, preferring a diplomatic search for agreement over democratic accountability, discretion over transparency, and persuasion over mobilization in the street. Some of these actors have been highlighted as having not only increased in number, but also strengthened their influence in various stages of international policy-making (Della Porta, Kriesi, and Rucht 2009). Their assets include an increasing credibility in public opinion and consequent availability of private funding, as well as specific knowledge, rootedness at the local level, and independence from governments. They are usually considered as actors who enhance pluralism within international institutions by representing groups that would otherwise be excluded and, by turning the attention on transnational processes, making the governance process more transparent. Some of these claims have been challenged, however. Research indicated that, in contrast to business organizations and other economic actors, the actors of global civil society are usually loosely organized and poorly staffed, consisting mainly of transnational alliances of various national groups. Their inclusion in international politics has also been selective: only those organizations that adapt to the ‘rules of the game’ obtain some access, though usually of an informal nature, to some IGOs. Finally, rootedness at the local level and independence from governments remain variable. Studies on INGOs and TSMOs highlighted that many of them had nevertheless become increasingly institutionalized, both in terms of acquired professionalism and in the forms of action they employ, devoting more time to lobbying or informing the public than to marching in the street. In this regard, networks constitute a key organizational form (Marchetti and Pianta 2010). A transnational network can be defined as a permanent co-ordination among different organizations (and sometimes individuals, such as experts), located in several countries, based on a shared frame for one specific global issue, developing both protest and proposal in the form of joint campaigns and social mobilizations against common targets at national or supranational level. Transnational networking is characterized by voluntary and horizontal patterns of co-ordination, which are trust-centred, reciprocal, and asymmetrical. Networks are in fact eminently non-static organizations: flexibility and fluidity are two major features which allow for adapting effectively to changing social and to keep porous the organizational boundaries (Anheier and Katz 2005; Diani 2003). Transnational networks play a major role in terms of aggregation of social forces and development of common identities. These actors have also innovated the repertoire of contention. The main activities by transnational networks include spreading information, influencing mass media, and raising awareness, but also lobbying, protest, and supplying of services to constituency. At a more general level, transnational networks are usually characterized by their advocacy function towards the promotion of normative change in politics (Keck and Sikkink 1998; Risse-Kappen 1995) that they pursue through the use of transnational campaigns. In more recent time, innovative forms of transnational protests have been invented and spread. Among them, a new form of transnational protest is the 429 Template: Royal A, Font: , Date: 24/11/2010; 3B2 version: 9.1.406/W Unicode (May 24 2007) (APS_OT) Dir: Z:/2-Pagination/TandF/TEMPO/ApplicationFiles/9780415548250.3d Donatella della Porta and Raffaele Marchetti counter-summit, defined as the encounter of transnational activists in parallel to official summits of international institutions. Together with countersummits, global days of action represent a second new form of protest that brought activists to march, on the same day, in many countries. Finally, since 2001, transnational activism intensified in the World Social Forum, as well as its many macro-regional and national version (Della Porta 2009a, 2009b; Smith et al. 2007; Della Porta, Kriesi, and Rucht 2009; Pianta and Marchetti 2007; Smith 2007; Tarrow 2005b). Within these events and campaigns, new frames of action developed, symbolically constructing a global self, but also producing structural effects in the form of new movement networks. Not only have supranational events increased in frequency, they have also constituted founding moments for a new cycle of protest that has developed at the national and subnational levels on the issue of global justice. Even though transnational protests (in the forms of global days of action, counter-summits, or social forums) remained a rare occurrence, they emerged as particularly ‘eventful’ in their capacity to produce relational, cognitive, and affective effects on social movement activists and social movement organizations. Global Claims: A Global Civil Society? The global justice movement has contributed to redefine a number of political issues around global justice, and to initiate a process of norm change at the international/global level. While the symbolical reference to the globe is considered by some scholars as nothing really new – referencing the traditional internationalism of the workers’ movement or the transnational campaigns against slavery – others have instead stressed the centrality of the global dimension today. Transnational communication helped not only a definition of problems as global, but also the cognitive linkages between different themes in broad transnational campaigns. Whereas in the 1980s social movements had undergone a process of specialization on single issues. with ‘new social movements’ developing specific knowledge and competences on particular subissues, the global justice movement has bridged together a multiplicity of themes related with class, gender, generation, environment, race, and religion. In fact, different concerns of different movements were bridged in a lengthy, although not always immediately visible, process of mobilization (Della Porta 2007). Accordingly, the global justice movement developed from protest campaigns around ‘broker issues’ that tied together concerns of different movements and organizations. These processes resonate with some theoretical reflections about the emergence and functioning of a global civil society, characterized by norms of autonomy, respect for differences, and solidarity. In transnational protest campaigns, fragments of diverse cultures – secular and religious, radical and reformist, younger and older generations – have been linked to a broader discourse with the theme of social (and global) injustice as a common glue, while still leaving broad margins for separate developments. In many reflections on contemporary societies, civil society is referred to as an actor being able to address the tensions between particularism and universalism, plurality and connectedness, diversity and solidarity (Della Porta and Diani 2010). It is, in this sense, referred to as ‘a solidarity sphere in which certain kind of universalizing community comes gradually to be defined and to some degrees enforced’ (Alexander, 1998: 7). Research on civil society has stressed civility as respect for others, politeness, and the acceptance of strangers as key values (Keane 2003) as well as autonomy from both the state and the market. The global justice movement has been said to contribute to and reflect on the spread of composite and tolerant identities. The most innovative feature of this relational, cognitive, and affective process of transnational activism is precisely the capacity to combine the emphasizing of pluralism and diversity with a common definition of the self around a global dimension. At 430 Template: Royal A, Font: , Date: 24/11/2010; 3B2 version: 9.1.406/W Unicode (May 24 2007) (APS_OT) Dir: Z:/2-Pagination/TandF/TEMPO/ApplicationFiles/9780415548250.3d Transnational Activisms the transnational level, local and global concerns were linked around values such as equality, justice, human rights, and environmental protection. Transnational movements also confirm the growing importance of a conception of autonomy, as emancipation from state power and the market, that has always been central to the definition of civil society. Particularly inspired by new social movements and the movement for democracy in Eastern Europe (Misztal 2001), concerns about personal autonomy, self organization, and private space, independently from both the market and the state, became central (Kaldor 2003: 4). In particular at the global level, the enemy is singled out in neoliberal globalization, which activists perceive as characterizing not only the policies of the international financial organizations (the World Bank, International Monetary Found, and World Trade Organizations), but also the free-market and deregulation policies by national governments. These policies are considered as responsible for growing social injustice, with especially negative effects on women, the environment, the South, and other marginalized groups. Responses to such threat are different and vary from a reflexive continuation of the welfare policies, against both risks of colonization by state power but also of re-economization of society (Jean Cohen and Arato 1992), to the reform or re-foundation of international and would-be global institutions (Patomäki and Teivainen 2004). Rooted global visions, autonomy, respect for diversity, and solidarity are in fact paramount political principles around which the global justice movement coalesced (Marchetti 2009). Within a global vision, place-basedness plays a central role as in opposition to mainstream interpretation of globalization. Contrary to the universalizing perspective that regards the local as provincial and regressive, this principle maintains the importance of localism as an unavoidable and critical resource for social and political life. Rather than accepting mainstream images of dangerous nationalism and bigoted regionalism, the place-based paradigm re-affirms the local and the present as the essential elements for a real political emancipation, though always keeping open and lively the dialogue with the external for cross-fertilization. In this sense, culture plays a relevant role in that it is only through a process of cultural development and self-awareness that collective subjectivity can flourish. Without falling back in a self-enclosed localism, rooted micro-politics, from indigenous movements in Amazon forest to neighbourhood associations in Florence, is thus seen not as a loophole to escape, but as key process for the reorganization of the space from below (Dirlik and Prazniak 2001; Osterweil 2005). Autonomy is also crucial for distinguishing this perspective from its alternative paradigms. In opposition both to anonymous processes of globalization, and to naïve romanticism and local power positions, the autonomy principle asserts the legitimacy of communal authority. Highlighting pleasures, productivity, and rights of communities, local sovereignty remains grounded on a deep conception of democracy that rejects distant authority. Self-determination is claimed to be able to offer sound solutions to social requirements through a revolution of everyday life where social aims are focused on taking advantage of cultural heritage and traditions rather than seizing power. In many instances, autonomy is interpreted as part of a long process of decolonization which entails struggle against any form of domination, be it intimate, practical, or ideological. The principle of autonomy is mainly twofold for it entails both political independence (almost inevitably passing through violent confrontation) and economic independence. Concerning the latter, it defends the strengthening of local economies as representing more democratic, sustainable, and economically effective way of production. Food-sovereignty – reoriented towards community needs rather than global market imperatives – forms part of the ideal hereby implied. This indigenous, autonomist, anarchist, and environmentalist perspective aims thus at what has been called global de-linking (Hines 2000; Starr and Adams 2003). Diversity constitutes a further crucial component. Here the contention confutes the supposedly homogenizing process of globalization that would create a single societal model in which 431 Template: Royal A, Font: , Date: 24/11/2010; 3B2 version: 9.1.406/W Unicode (May 24 2007) (APS_OT) Dir: Z:/2-Pagination/TandF/TEMPO/ApplicationFiles/9780415548250.3d Donatella della Porta and Raffaele Marchetti individuals would be deprived of their cultural specificity and reduced to anonymous consumers. In opposition to the single capitalist interpretation of space, time, and values, pluralism is here pursued through a double process. While local cultural are reaffirmed from below, universalizing globalism is critically de-constructed without falling into the equally hegemonic perspective according to which any partial or plural alternative remains incomplete and deficient of something. A different political epistemology is required, one that is not in need of a centralized and unified point of reference. The image envisaged here is thus not a single project, but rather a plurality of cultural projects, a movement of movements, ‘a world in which many worlds fit’, as the Zapatistas would say. Such complex pluralism is an inevitable result once the point of departure is from below and without central planning, but such diversity is rather considered as a source of mutual learning than as an obstacle. Once this myriad of identities is networked, a new kind of globalism is revealed in the form of a subaltern cosmopolitanism (de Sousa Santos and Rodríguez-Garavito 2005; Tarrow 2005a). Solidarity, finally, represents a final key principle that stresses the importance of transnational collaboration in overcoming local political difficulties. A key factor underpinning the possibility of solidarity is the development of a new interpretation of socio-political problems in a systematic way, thus requiring collective action. The recognition of world interdependence constitutes the turning point for nurturing a process of problem generalization in which local issues become not circumscribed to the vernacular any more. Following from the acknowledgement of the interlinking of global and local, the principle of solidarity aims to generate a sense of group collective identity, thus of shared fate, which would enhance inter-local coalition to promote global change. In opposition to the neo-liberal logic of individual atomization, local groups would consequently feel they are not alone in their effort and, if acting together, they are able to impact on their lives (Brecher, Costello, and Smith 2000; Smith, Chatfield, and Pagnucco 1997). Global Movements and Deliberative Democracy Following from the previous political reflections is the profound reinterpretation of the central theme of democracy as developed by transnational activists. In this respect, it is especially important to note the conception of participatory and deliberative democracy which is elaborated and prefigured in the global justice movements and related transnational networks. In normative theory and beyond, several studies have indicated that the crisis of representative democracy is accompanied by the (re)emergence of other conceptions and practices of democracy. Empirical research on political participation has stressed that, while some more conventional forms of participation (such as voting or party-linked activities) are declining, protest forms are increasingly used. Citizens vote less, but they are not less interested in or knowledgeable about politics. While some traditional types of associations are decreasing in popularity, others (social movement organizations and/or civil society organizations) are growing in resources, legitimacy, and members. The global justice movement builds upon some visions of democracy that have long been present in the social sciences’ normative and empirical analysis of democracy. These visions however have been (or risk being) removed or marginalized in the ‘minimalistic’ conceptions of democracy that became dominant in the political as well as the scientific discourse. Social movements do not limit themselves to presenting demands to decision makers; they also more or less explicitly express a fundamental critique of conventional politics, thus shifting their endeavours from politics itself to meta-politics (Offe 1985). Their ideas resonate with ‘an ancient element of democratic theory that calls for an organisation of collective decision making referred to in varying ways as classical, populist, communitarian, strong, grass-roots, or 432 Template: Royal A, Font: , Date: 24/11/2010; 3B2 version: 9.1.406/W Unicode (May 24 2007) (APS_OT) Dir: Z:/2-Pagination/TandF/TEMPO/ApplicationFiles/9780415548250.3d Transnational Activisms direct democracy against a democratic practice in contemporary democracies labelled as realist, liberal, elite, republican, or representative democracy’ (Kitschelt 1993: 15). Their critique has traditionally addressed the representative element of democracy, with calls for citizen participation. While participatory aspects have long been present in theorizing about democracy and social movements, recent developments in transnational activism can be usefully discussed in light of the growing literature on deliberative democracy, with its focus on communication (Della Porta 2005a, 2005b). Several of the scholars who participated in this debate located democratic deliberation in voluntary groups (Joshua Cohen 1989), social movements (Dryzek 2000), protest arenas (Young 2003: 119), or, more in general, enclaves free from institutional power (Mansbridge 1996). Deliberative participatory democracy refers to decisional processes in which, under conditions of equality, inclusiveness, and transparency, a communicative process based on reason (the strength of a good argument) may transform individual preferences, leading to decisions oriented to the public good (Della Porta 2005a, 2005b). In particular, deliberative democracy ‘requires some forms of apparent equality among citizens’ (Joshua Cohen 1989: 18); as it takes place among free and equal citizens,as ‘free deliberation among equals’ (Joshua Cohen 1989: 20). Deliberation must exclude power deriving from coercion but also an unequal weighting of the participants as representatives of organizations of different sizes or as more influential individuals. Additionally, deliberative arenas are inclusive: all citizens with a stake in the decisions to be taken must be included in the process and able to express their views. This means that the deliberative process takes place under conditions of plurality of values, including people with different perspectives but facing common problems. Moreover, transparency resonates with direct, participatory democracy: assemblies are typically open, public spheres. In Joshua Cohen’s definition, a deliberative democracy is ‘an association whose affairs are governed by the public deliberation of its members’ (Joshua Cohen 1989: 17, emphasis added). While not always coherently practised, these norms are more and more present in the discourse of our social movements. If norms of equality, inclusiveness, and transparency were already present in social movements, attempts to develop alternative, deliberative, visions and practices of democracy constitute a novelty. Deliberative democracy differs from conceptions of democracy as the aggregation of (exogenously generated) preferences. A deliberative setting facilitates the search for a common end or good (Elster 1998). In this model of democracy, ‘the political debate is organized around alternative conceptions of the public good’, and, above all, it ‘draws identities and citizens’ interests in ways that contribute to public building of public good’ (Joshua Cohen 1989: 18–19). In particular, deliberative democracy stresses reason, argumentation, and dialogue: people are convinced by the force of the better argument. Deliberation is based on horizontal flows of communication, multiple producers of content, wide opportunities for interactivity, confrontation based on rational argumentation, and attitude to reciprocal listening (Habermas 1981, 1996 [1992]). Decisions rely upon arguments that participants recognize as reasonable (Joshua Cohen and Sabel 1997). What seems especially new in the conception of deliberative democracy, as developed within transnational networks is the emphasis on preference (trans)formation with an orientation to the definition of the public good. In this sense, the global justice movement and related networks seem to agree that ‘deliberative democracy requires the transformation of preferences in interaction’ (Dryzek 2000: 79). They also see their own action as ‘a process through which initial preferences are transformed in order to take into account the points of view of the others’ (Miller 1993: 75). In the global justice movement these norms entailed a renewed attention to practices of consensus, with decisions approvable by all participants – in contrast with majority rule, where decisions are legitimated by vote. 433 Template: Royal A, Font: , Date: 24/11/2010; 3B2 version: 9.1.406/W Unicode (May 24 2007) (APS_OT) Dir: Z:/2-Pagination/TandF/TEMPO/ApplicationFiles/9780415548250.3d Donatella della Porta and Raffaele Marchetti When applied to the realm of political struggle, these innovative conceptions of democracy have generated a critical attitude towards national and transnational politics. Experimenting in their organizational praxis, transnational activists have elaborated demands for radical changes not only in policies but also in politics. If the social movements of the 1980s and the 1990s were described as more pragmatic and single-issue oriented, research on the global justice movement testifies to its continuous interest in addressing the meta-issue of democracy, with some continuity and innovations vis-à-vis past experiences (Della Porta 2007, 2009a, 2009b). These kinds of organizations emerged as political actors, mobilizing in various forms in order to produce institutional changes, but also trying to practise those novelties in their internal lives. The prefigurative role of internal democratic practices acquires, a particularly important role for the global justice movement organizations, which stress a necessary coherence between what is advocated in the external environment and what is practised inside. Social movements are also more and more cited as important participants in democratic processes. As Pierre Rosanvallon recently observed, ‘the history of real democracies cannot be dissociated from a permanent tension and contestation’ (Rosanvallon2006: 11). In his vision, democracy needs not only legal legitimation, but also what he calls ‘counter-democracy’. Citizens’ attentive vigilance upon power holders is defined as a specific, political modality of action, a ‘particular form of political intervention’, different from decision making, but still a fundamental aspect of the democratic process (Rosanvallon 2006: 40). Actors such as independent authorities and judges, but also mass media, experts, and social movements, have traditionally exercised this function of surveillance. The latter, in particular, are considered as most relevant for the development of an ‘expressive democracy’ that corresponds to ‘the prise de parole of the society, the manifestation of a collective sentiment, the formulation of a judgment about the governors and their action, or again the production of claims’ (Rosanvallon 2006: 26). Surveillance from below is all the more important given the crisis of representative, electoral democracy. Social movement organizations take the democratic function of control seriously, mobilizing to put pressure on decision makers, as well as developing counter-knowledge and open public spaces. In fact, research indicates that the global justice movements organizations interact with public institutions, at various territorial levels (Della Porta 2009a). In many cases, especially but not only at the local level, they collaborate with public institutions, both on specific problems and in broader campaigns. They contract out specific services, but they are also often supported in recognition of their function in building ‘counter’, democratic spaces (Rosanvallon and Goldhammer 2009). In particular, these organizations perceive themselves as controllers of public institutions, promoting alternative policies but also, more broadly, calling for more (and different) democracy. While stressing the need for more public and less private, more state and less market, they also define themselves especially as autonomous from institutions and as performing democratic control of the governors. By creating public spaces, they contribute to the development of ideas and practices (Della Porta 2009b). If electoral accountability has long been privileged over the power of surveillance in the historical evolution of procedural democracy, these TSMOs contribute to bringing attention back to the ‘counter democracy’ of surveillance. Democratic surveillance acquires a special meaning given the perceived challenge of adapting democratic conceptions and practices to the increasing shift of competence towards the transnational level. In this transition, these organizations contribute to the debate on global democracy, not only by criticizing the lack of democratic accountability and even transparency of many existing IGOs and of the wider globalization process, but also by asking for a globalization of democracy and actually constructing a global public sphere (Smith 2007). Participation as non-hierarchical and horizontal public engagement constitutes in fact a major element of the political visions constructed by the global justice movement (Marchetti 2008). 434 Template: Royal A, Font: , Date: 24/11/2010; 3B2 version: 9.1.406/W Unicode (May 24 2007) (APS_OT) Dir: Z:/2-Pagination/TandF/TEMPO/ApplicationFiles/9780415548250.3d Transnational Activisms Here the critical target consists of all those indirect forms of political representation accused of eroding the political trust between the elected and the electors, or, in the most radical interpretation, of hiding the deception of a the ruling class. Contrary to this supposed elitist view, a model of democratic participation is reasserted in which active engagement of the entire citizenry is expected at all levels and genuinely collective decision-making process thus implemented. In more technical terms, the principle of participation is often associated with the deliberative turn in political thinking. This input-oriented process is supposed to generate in turn better information, higher solidarity, greater engagement and democratic skills, and enhanced trust in public institutions. In this conception of politics, public institutions are then seen more as facilitators of self-organized open spaces from below, rather than as traditional economic and political leadership from above. Different to previous left ideologies, political parties are for the most part mistrusted while self-organized civil society is called to join politics in first person. Also innovative is a different interpretation of politics, according to which self-organization is directed towards changing society rather than taking power and control the state (Fung and Wright 2003; Polletta 2002). Subaltern, Thick, and Rooted Cosmopolitanism The global justice movement has not only inspired a new conceptualization of deliberative democracy, but also of a peculiar version of the long-standing tradition of cosmopolitanism. In recent years, a sophisticated body of work, mainly (but not exclusively) coming from sociologists and social movement theorists, has provided a robust restatement of cosmopolitan thinking in terms of social cosmopolitanism which is very much indebted to political activism. This third wave of cosmopolitan thinking was generated as a reaction to the first two phases: in opposition to the first ethical phase, which is accused of being too abstract and thin (being linked only to the idea of common humanity), and in opposition to the second institutional phase, which it accused of being too close to a western, dominating agenda and too far from grassroots experience (i.e. resembling the global governance model). In response to these limits, this later version suggests new ways of conceptualizing the socio-political nexus that remains more inclusive and locally rooted. Rather than starting from a normative question of justice (ethical cosmopolitanism’s question: What does global justice imply?) or a formal question of institutional design (institutional cosmopolitanism’s question: Which institutions best serve global justice?), here the starting questions are about the agency: Who needs cosmopolitanism? Who is the genuine actor of cosmopolitanism? The answer is: the marginalized and excluded people of the world. This marks from the beginning a stark divergence from previous cosmopolitan thinking towards a more socially considerate reflection. What emerges is a third cosmopolitan understanding that combines the aspiration to achieve transnational and global justice with attentiveness to local struggles and realities as they actually exist (Marchetti 2008: ch. 4). It is highly significant that social cosmopolitanism emerged from an antagonism towards previous cosmopolitan theory. A number of oppositional claims on specific key problems with cosmopolitanism are of particular concern to social cosmopolitanism. They are the following: a) the domination problem, according to which cosmopolitanism is considered too close to neoliberal capitalism; b) the cultural problem, according to which cosmopolitanism is understood to rely on too minimal a set of abstract prescriptions that are far from popular experience; c) the motivational problem, according to which cosmopolitanism fails to connect norms to practices; and d) the political problem, according to which cosmopolitanism fails to champion the claims of local groups, remaining too attached to élites. In response to this critical focus, this new version of cosmopolitanism presents itself as subaltern, thick, embedded, and rooted. It 435 Template: Royal A, Font: , Date: 24/11/2010; 3B2 version: 9.1.406/W Unicode (May 24 2007) (APS_OT) Dir: Z:/2-Pagination/TandF/TEMPO/ApplicationFiles/9780415548250.3d Donatella della Porta and Raffaele Marchetti claims to be subaltern because it focuses on those voices that come from minorities, often from the south of the world, and not from the western centres of global governance (de Sousa Santos 2002). It is thick because it is imbued with solidaristic principles of social justice, and is not minimalist in terms of liberal non-harm (Delanty 2006). It is embedded because it is inserted within a social context characterized by intense mutual obligations and feelings of attachment to a comprehensive political experience, rather than referring to loose institutional relationships (Appiah 2006). Finally, it is rooted in that it emerges from local practices and remains tightly connected with political struggles from below, in opposition to élitist management (Tarrow 2005b). In contrast to the supposedly constitutive flâneurisme of cosmopolitanism, social cosmopolitans highlight the inevitability of relying on local factors for building up a viable political community. Social cohesion and solidaristic ties are needed for any political project. Any political struggle needs, in fact, to be embedded within local factors, within local struggles, to be effective and able to mobilize people. Social and political bonds are key elements for generating local and particularistic mutual obligations, which in turn are the true bases for eventual political solidarity, be it local, national, or transnational. The traditional side of communities is important, but this does not mean falling back on a blind acceptance of customs. Previous cosmopolitan thinking developed a problematic denigration of traditions, customs, and all that is related to local conservatism, including ethnicity and religion. Social cosmopolitanism conversely triggers a new understanding of the social. Pre-given traditions are a fundamental social bond, although they are not the only binding elements. Political visions remain the key component for reforming actual societies towards more democratic systems, but they can only work if they are embedded and engage critically with local traditions. Accordingly, the democratization process cannot be imposed from above (and a fortiori cannot be coercively imported), but it has to grow out of the Lebenswelt (lifeworld) – it has to empower individuals within traditions, not against them. A cosmopolitan framework built from below would serve as a facilitator of egalitarian and reciprocal encounters. It would provide the necessary overall framework for a potential reciprocal enrichment rather than for a homogenizing process. Only by beginning from the local can transnational solidarity be built through the formation of transnational and overlapping communities. 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