Adrienne Sörbom

Individualization, Life Politics, and the Reformulation of Social Critique : an Analysis of the Global Justice Movement

Taking the contemporary political activism of ‘the Global Justice Movement’ as an illustrative case, this article scrutinizes some influential theoretical ideas about the consequences of ‘individualization’ for collective political action. Quite often, this process is seen as implying a new politics of individual life style – ‘life politics’ – which is associated with new social movements and claimed to have gained importance since the 1960s, on the expense of the collective ‘emancipatory politics’ being associated with ‘old social movements’ such as the Labor Movement. In the light of the article’s empirical findings, this alleged division between life politics and emancipatory politics is questioned, and it is argued that these two kinds of politics should be understood as intertwined practices. The article’s theoretically grounded analysis is based on quantitative data from a survey of participants at the fifth European Social Forum. These data are interpreted and further explored using qualitative interviews with activists.

After a Cycle of Contention: Post-Gothenburg Strategies of Left-Libertarian Activists in Sweden

This article considers the strategic choices that radical activists face when a cycle of contention ends. It investigates the reorientation of the autonomous anarchists or left-libertarian activist milieu in Sweden after the riots at the Gothenburg summit in 2001, which ended a cycle of anti-globalization protests in Sweden. The article identifies five strategies by which this activist milieu attempted to reconstruct collective agency, build a new alliance structure, and renew the repertoire of contention: (1) rescaling and targeting of micro-politics; (2) moving from secluded to open communities; (3) rethinking collective agency with the help of a new movement theory; (4) reversing dominant discourses and opening up discursive space; and (5) redefining militancy and shelving of violent confrontation. The study builds on activist interviews and ethnographic research in Stockholm and Malmö.

Magical formulae for market futures: Tales from the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos

Markets are often portrayed as being organized by way of rationalized knowledge, objective reasoning, and the fluctuations of demand and supply. In parallel, and often mixed with this modality of k ...

Introduction: political affairs in the global domain: Corporate Engagement in Politics and Governance

This book sets out to investigate the manifold ways in which corporate actors attempt to influence political activities in the broad sense, in other words activities aimed at influencing the development of society. It brings together scholars from different fields in the study of global governance, to address the rising influence and power of corporate actors on the political scene, at national and transnational levels. These questions are addressed throughout the book by way of illustrative cases demonstrating the various ways in which corporations pursue political activities in the broad sense and how they aim to influence policy. One by one and taken together the chapters present an understanding of how corporate governance is pursued and with what types of consequences. Corporate ascendancy has emerged as a universal organizing principle in the contemporary world. Corporations, and their funded offsprings, appear as both heroes and villains in tales of political and policy change. Proponents often present them as the ‘new’, responsible kind of corporate actors that global politics need, building networks across national borders and contributing to multi-stakeholders’ solutions to complex issues. Sceptics view them as cunning organizations, barely masking their financial interests behind a thin layer of social and political concern. Both camps, however, would not deny the fact that corporate influence in what was usually seen as a nation-state domain of political affairs, have gained tremendous leverage over the last few decades. Through vast ideological shifts in the late twentieth century, markets rather than governments came to be seen as the more effective governance and the road to prosperity. Governments came to seek out the managerial expertise, technology and investment resources that corporations can bring. The corporate social responsibility movement (CSR) expresses this contemporary and double image of the corporation, as both a potentially accountable ‘corporate

Power, Policy and Profit

Power, Policy and Profit: Corporate Engagement in Politics and Governance investigates the manifold ways in which corporate actors attempt to influence political activities in the broad sense. Hist ...

Why Did It Not Happen Here? The Gradual Radicalization of the Anarchist Movement in Sweden 1980–90

This chapter examines the development and role of the anarchist movement in Sweden during the 1980s. In relation to many other parts of Northern Europe — which had seen an upsurge in radical left-libertarian activism, squatting and urban unrest at the turn of the 1980s — such social movements and confrontations remained a marginal phenomenon in Sweden, at least until the end of the decade. However, by the late 1980s a new generation of younger activists, often with roots in the anarchist milieu, formed the basis for a radical squatter and autonomist movement, which proved very similar to the movements that had developed throughout Europe almost a decade earlier.

Begreppet extremism – en kritisk introduktion

Termen ”extremism” har blivit vanligare inom bade svensk offentlig debatt och myndighetsprosa. I sadana sammanhang ar det dock sallan klart exakt vad som avses med denna term. Inte heller inom ...