ABSTRACT
International volunteers can be described as transnational activists, but a comparison of the two terms shows that they are a particular type – less ‘political’, more committed to ‘sharing’. The solidarity campaigns of the 1960s and 1970s were based on a new kind of mainly left radicalism, born in part out of young people’s opposition to the Vietnam War, US imperialism in Latin America and the continuing Israel–Palestine conflict. The Solidarnost trade union in Poland opened up a new arena of struggle for activists to support in the Eastern bloc. This indeed was the hope of many social movement activists in the USSR itself who supported M. Gorbachov’s perestroika policies. Social movement activists unite to press a shared identity or political position – but with less formal structure usually than in a trade union. Members of a management committee are elected by the membership of an NGO; they are therefore delegated and meet regularly to direct its work.
