ABSTRACT
According to Karl Polanyi ‘the one comprehensive feature in the history of the age’ was the way in which ‘society protected itself against the perils inherent in a self-regulating market system’ (Polanyi 2001: 80). If that is, indeed, the case, then there is nothing unexpected in globalization generating what has been called, accurately or not, an anti-globalization movement. As a preliminary step this chapter reviews the various theoretical perspectives developed to account for the emergence of social movements, especially the so-called ‘new’ social movements that have emerged since the 1960s. What is it that is ‘new’ about the new social movements? Are these movements now finally flourishing and uniting as in an ‘anti-globalization’ movement? We also consider the complex relationship between these ‘progressive’ forms of contestation and those movements many observers would deem to be reactionary. Finally, I continue the task set in Chapter 1 of developing what I call the Polanyi problematic on social movements and the broader phenomenon of contestation in the era of globalization.
