ABSTRACT
So far, this work has addressed the changing context of movement mobilisation in a post-cold war neo-liberal climate, the impact of movements on key institutional fora such as the WTO, IMF and WB, the responses of national states and the globalisation of policing actions. In this chapter, we elaborate the ecology of action that arises from the system of relations between the various actors – NGOs, social movements and other civil society actors, and the militant re-framing of the concept of global civil society (GCS). Here the changed and accumulated capacities of the AGM initiate a transition to a ‘new’ mode of networked engagement in plateaux – the topographical term utilised by both Bateson (1973) and then Deleuze and Guattari (2002: 22) to describe the temporary stabilisation and heightening of collective intensities. These plateaux: protests, gatherings and social fora lead to the intensification of conflict around the key targeted signs elaborated in Chapter 2.
