Mario Pianta

Crossing borders. Transnational activism in European social movements

Since the late 1990s, the Global Justice Movement (GJM) has emerged as a major force in the global political arena. It has successfully organized growing numbers of cross border mobilizations on a range of global issues addressing justice, peace, and democracy. How has this surge of cross-border activism been possible? In this chapter we explore the complex factors — both external and internal to social movements — that have put global issues at the centre of transnational activism in European countries (as well as around the world). While the rest of the book addresses the visions and actions of GJMOs and their conceptions and practices of democracy as a fundamental element of their cross-border mobilizations, in this chapter we aim at identifying the key sources and dynamics of transnational activism, and the characteristics of the organizations of major European countries that are most active in cross-border mobilizations.