ABSTRACT
Transnational political organization in pursuit of a progressive human goal is not particularly new even if the era of globalization has, arguably, witnessed a flourishing of such political fora. The notion of universal human rights was an integral element of the European Enlightenment tradition and it was, by definition, transnational. Women’s rights and the contemporary international women’s movement are inherently transnational too and, for many observers, a very successful example of a global social movement. Finally, we consider in this chapter the World Social Forum experience as the defining transnational political forum of the counter-globalization movement. But, in considering these three transnational political processes we need to reflect back on the notion of ‘global civil society’ (see Chapter 4). To what extent are we witnessing ‘ghosts in the machine’ of globalization that distract attention from more grounded and challenging movements of resistance from below?
