ABSTRACT
How do groups and organizations matter in a WSF? This chapter examines the cleavages and polarities of participating groups, and then shows how the central organizations in Dakar were characterized by a strong connectivity of northern organizations, mostly represented beyond Africa, whereas participants were rather “troops and grassroots providers,” without benefiting from such a connectivity. If this chapter does not lead to an iron law of Western domination in global forums, it does show how, in WSFs, organizations with very different attraction capacities interact, therefore contributing to explain the polarities of global activism.
