Radiohead and the Global Movement for Change examines the work of the British group Radiohead, focusing particularly on their landmark recording OK Computer. This book studies the band’s exploration of the crucial issues surrounding contemporary technological development and ‘musical hermeneutics’ with the media ecology perspective.

Much can be learned from burgeoning climate action movements in thousands of majority world rural communities. Land degradation has increased the vulnerability of over three billion people to famine, food insecurity, water shortages, and increasingly severe weather events, trapping climate-vulnerable communities in vicious cycles of impoverishment. Yet, many communities are learning through local climate action how to escape these cycles. We offer the case of Farmer-Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR) as one example to understand the conditions under which impoverished rural communities (...) address ecological degradation. Combining simple reforestation action with a community engagement approach enables farming households using FMNR to regreen their landscapes, increase food security, reduce poverty, increase resilience to climate change and transform rural development. Communities in at least 29 countries are practising FMNR, reforesting tens of millions of hectares of land, strengthening communities, and restoring landscapes. Synergies between FMNR and faith-based moral principles help boost its embrace. Across the majority world, moral imagination and reasoning help motivate emotions that sustain farmers’ local action through their hope of a better future and scale up globally important community-based agricultural movements. Such collective action movements harness synergies between climate justice, poverty reduction, and human flourishing. (shrink)

This interview with Paul Gilroy and Arjun Appaddurai was conducted in the belief that these two thinkers, who stem from different disciplines but whose work meets at certain crucial junctures, would be able to present a discussion to a wider audience about the themes and issues that were currently motivating them in their work. Paul Gilroy's work is well known as a central reference point within the contemporary analysis of `race' and racism. At its most broad, he has a reputation (...) for thinking throughout his writings about the historical constitution of race and the mobility of forms of racism over time and space. Arjun Appadurai's work emanates from the discipline of anthropology, and he has a specific and on-going interest in South East Asai Studies. He has been influential in the exploration of new modes of conceptualizing the remit and processes of forming anthropological knowledge. While both authors share certain key concerns, their interconnections are not explicit in their writings. This interview, conducted in London during Arjun Appadurai's visit in 1997, was an opportunity to bring these two authors together to discuss the themes and connections which they are both exploring in different ways, but in ways that have similar theoretical and political impulses. In particular, they address the themes that animate the critical edge of cultural studies: the politics of memory, the theorization of movement and new conceptualizations of spatiality, the critique of authenticity and modes of theorizing embodiment, and concurrent directions in their present work, especially around the notions of extreme actions, of war and violence. (shrink)

In 1972 a public choice model predicted that the incipient environmental movement in the United States would grow but encounter overwhelming industrial opposition. Twenty years later we find the model overstated this opposition. Environmental pressure groups were able to pass substantial legislation, resist counter forces, and reduce most targeted pollutants. A revised public choice model predicts that the success of the present global environmental movement depends on (1) information flows between scientists and the public on the potential (...) costs of deterioration, and (2) means for reducing the costs of regulation such as relying more on market incentives. (shrink)

This article puts forward the thesis that the contemporary global movement against capitalism, and the post-Fordist regime it is responding to, is best understood in terms of the emergence of ‘human nature’ as the crux of political struggle. According to Virno, the biological invariant has become the raw material of social praxis because the capitalist relation of production mobilizes to its advantage, in a historically unprecedented way, the species-specific prerogatives of Homo sapiens. Through the concept of ‘natural-historical diagrams’, (...) the article explores the significance of socio-political states of affairs which directly display key aspects of anthropogenesis, and, making use of Ernesto De Martino’s concept of ‘cultural apocalypses’, considers the different relations that a biological ‘background’ and a socio-political ‘foreground’ entertain in traditional and contemporary societies. The attempt to develop a ‘natural history’ of such diagrams leads Virno to reflecting on the importance of the language faculty, neoteny, non-specialization and the absence of a predetermined natural environment for political action. This reflection on the contemporary importance of political anthropology leads Virno to a set of concluding remarks on the role of ethics and the idea of the ‘good life’ in the practice of the ‘new global’ movement. (shrink)

The social science literature on identity politics around questions of race and ethnicity is profuse, prolix and contentious. Indigenous identity politics have seen a parallel growth and are equally complex. While there are analogies and overlaps, indigenous identities and social movements are neither conceptually nor empirically a sub-set of ethnic identities. The central issue of indigenous groups is the place of first peoples in relation to the nation-state system. This takes different forms in old world states of Asia and Africa (...) to those of new world settler (ex-colonial) states of the Americas and Australasia. While the major issues of the indigenous peoples have expanded beyond their national boundaries, their modes of participation in the national political arenas vary. They share a gradual nationalization of indigenous movements, including stronger links with socio-political forces of the respective countries in the region, a heightened consciousness of global processes and the broadening and enrichment of their socio-cultural and economic objectives. This paper looks at trans-national dimensions of indigenous social movements and identity politics in relation to nation-state policy regimes and examines the varying routes taken by indigenous peoples to achieve their goals. (shrink)

Since UNESCO launched its Culture of Peace Programme, it has helped mobilize people from all walks of life and from all continents to support the transformation from a culture of war and violence to a culture of pace. This is a report of the Programme's actions.

Any system for the protection of intellectual property rights (IPRs) has three main kinds of distributive effects. It will determine or influence: (a) the types of objects that will be developed and for which IPRs will be sought; (b) the differential access various people will have to these objects; and (c) the distribution of the IPRs themselves among various actors. What this means to the area of pharmaceutical research is that many urgently needed medicines will not be developed at all, (...) that the existing medicines will not be suitable for countries with a precarious health infrastructure or not target the disease variety that is prevalent in poorer regions. Such effects are commonly captured under the rubric of the “10/90 gap” in biomedical research. High prices will also restrict access to medicines as well endanger compliance to treatment schemes. IPRs are mainly held by multinational corporations situated in the developed world, which not only raises egalitarian concerns, but also severely limits the possibilities of companies in poorer countries to realize improvements on existing inventions, as they cannot financially afford to secure freedom to operate, which systematically shrinks the number of potential innovators. Those inequities lead to an enormous burden for the global poor and since no institution is willing to assume the responsibility to fulfil the right to health and the corresponding right of access to essential medicines, we have to analyse alternatives or additions to the actual intellectual property regimes in order to create new incentives to fill this gap. (shrink)

The Global Ethic is the set of basic principles of right and wrong which in fact are found in all the major, and not so major, religions and ethical systems of the world, past and present. It does not go beyond the existing commonalities. However, this de facto existing broad basic agreement on ethical principles, unfortunately, is largely unknown by most religious and ethical persons. If they were aware of this commonality, that would provide a broad basis for serious (...) dialogue and collaboration among the adherents of all the religions and ethical systems of the world. Lacking that awareness, far too often different religions and ethical systems foster destructive, rather than constructive, relations. Hence, it is vital to foster a conscious knowledge of the de facto existing Global Ethic. The Movement for a Global Ethic - drafting of a Universal Declaration of a Global Ethic and promoting knowledge and practice - was launched in 1991. Where did the idea of a movement for a Universal Declaration of a Global Ethic come from? New ideas, new movements, don't just appear out of thin air. When "integrating" forces pointing toward something "new" gradually gather below the conscious level, they slowly reach a critical point, and then suddenly a "new" idea will "precipitate," like the "quality of mercy, which droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath." Thus, it also happened with the Movement for a Global Ethic. In this book, Dr. Leonard Swidler and 11 colleagues propose their perspectives on the Global Ethic from the vantage points of various religions. (shrink)

In the face of impending global crises and stubborn conflicts, a conventional view of politics risks leaving us confused and fatalistic, feeling powerless because we are unaware of all that can be achieved by political means. By contrast, a variety of recent social movements, ranging from those of women, gays and lesbians and anti-racists, to environmentalists, the Occupy movement and the Arab Spring, demonstrate the enormous potential of political action beyond the institutional sphere of politics. At the same (...) time, religious fundamentalists, racial supremacists and ultra-nationalists make clear that movements are not necessarily progressive and are often at odds with one another. -/- West highlights the many ways in which national and global institutions depend on a broader context of extra-institutional action or what is, in effect, the formative dimension of politics. He explores some of the major contributions of social movements: from the genealogy of liberal democratic nation-states, sixties’ radicalism and the ‘new social movements’ to the politics of sexuality, gender and identity, the politicization of nature and climate, and alter-globalization. The book also considers current theoretical approaches and sets out the basis for a critical theory of social movements. This is a fresh and original account of social movements in politics and will be essential reading for any students and scholars interested in the challenges and the unpredictable potential of political action. (shrink)

Because of the overly market-oriented way in which technological development is carried out, there is a great amount of hubris in regard to how scientific and technological achievements are used in society. There is a tendency to exaggerate the potential commercial benefits and willfully neglect the social, cultural, and environmental consequences of most, if not all innovations, especially in new fields such as nanotechnology. At the same time, there are very few opportunities, or sites, for ensuring that nanotechnology is used (...) justly and fairly, or for that matter, contribute to alleviating any of the wide variety of injustices that exist in the world. Most of the public authorities responsible for the development and application of science and technology are uninterested and unwilling to “assess” the implications of nanotechnology, and there are few, if any spaces in the broader culture for assessment to take place. Within the various “social movements” that are, in one way or another, concerned with issues of global justice, there is as yet little interest in nanotechnology. By examining the relations between nanotechnology and the emerging movement for global justice this article attempts to understand the enormous gap between the potential for science and technology to do good and the actual ways in science and technology get developed, and what, if anything, might be done to help close the gap in relation to nanotechnology, so that it might better be able to contribute to global justice. (shrink)

Despite their theoretical attractiveness, global egalitarian arguments for open borders face the worry that open borders would in fact exacerbate inequality. In this paper, I offer a response to such egalitarian consequentialist concerns. I argue that they fail to attend to the larger political and economic forces that create and maintain inequality. Even in cases where immigration conflicts with egalitarian goals, the conflicts tend to be due to contingent circumstances that egalitarians have reason to change. As such, they do (...) not pose a deep challenge for egalitarian defenses of open borders. However, they do illuminate an important and overlooked point: egalitarians should construe open borders as part of a broad and coherent global egalitarian program, both politically and philosophically. This is in contrast to an approach that sees the border question as an isolated and abstract philosophical question. Furthermore, egalitarians would do well to engage the political economic factors that drive migration in our world, and to buttress their concerns of distributive justice with arguments emphasizing the negative effects of the global border regime on social and relational equality. (shrink)

Political philosophers’ prescriptions for poverty alleviation have overlooked the importance of social movements led by, and for, the poor in the global South. I argue that these movements are normatively and politically significant for poverty reduction strategies and global justice generally. While often excluded from formal political processes, organized poor communities nonetheless lay the groundwork for more radical, pro-poor forms of change through their grassroots resistance and organizing. Poor-led social movements politicize poverty by insisting that, fundamentally, it is (...) caused by social relations of power that exploit and subordinate poor populations. These movements and their organizations also develop the collective capabilities of poor communities in ways that help them to contest the structures and processes that perpetuate their needs deprivation. I illustrate these contributions through a discussion of the Landless Rural Worker’s Movement in Brazil, a poor mobilization organization in Bangladesh, and the slum and pavement dweller movement in India. Global justice theorizing about poverty cannot just “add on” the contributions of such struggles to existing analyses of, and remedies for, poverty, however; rather, we will need to shift to a relational approach to poverty in order to see the vital importance of organized poor communities to transformative, poor-centered poverty reduction. (shrink)

Clinical legal education is playing an increasingly important role in educating lawyers worldwide. In The Global Clinical Movement: Educating Lawyers for Social Justice, editor Frank S. Bloch and contributors describe the central concepts, goals, and methods of clinical legal education from a global perspective, with a particular emphasis on its social justice mission. With chapters written by leading clinical legal educators from every region of the world, The Global Clinical Movement demonstrates how the emerging (...) class='Hi'>global clinical movement can advance social justice through legal education. Professor Bloch and the contributors also examine the influence of clinical legal education on the legal academy and the legal profession and chart the global clinical movement's future role in educating lawyers for social justice. The Global Clinical Movement consists of three parts. Part I describes clinical legal education programs from every region of the world and discusses those qualities that are unique to a particular country or region. Part II discusses the various ways that clinical programs and the clinical methodology advance the cause of social justice around the world. Part III analyzes the current state of the global clinical movement and sets out an agenda for the movement to advance social justice through socially relevant legal education. (shrink)

The social movement literature in Western Europe and North America has oriented much of its theoretical work towards micro-, meso-, and macro-level examinations of its subject of study but has rarely integrated these levels of analysis. This review article broadly documents the leading theoretical perspectives on social movements, while highlighting the contributions made in recent years with regard to the wave of protests across the globe – typified by the Occupy Movement and the ‘Arab Spring’ – and grievances (...) that are relatively novel in qualitative or quantitative form such as austerity, precarity, and a sense of democratic deficiency. While these novel social processes have invigorated the specialized arena of ‘social movement studies’ and generated a resurgence of work on social movements beyond the field, this article argues for the need to interconnect levels of analysis in order to develop a more insightful account of contemporary contentious politics. (shrink)

The international organic agricultureand fair trade movements represent importantchallenges to the ecologically and sociallydestructive relations that characterize the globalagro-food system. Both movements critique conventionalagricultural production and consumption patterns andseek to create a more sustainable world agro-foodsystem. The international organic movement focuses onre-embedding crop and livestock production in ``naturalprocesses,'' encouraging trade in agriculturalcommodities produced under certified organicconditions and processed goods derived from thesecommodities. For its part, the fair trade movementfosters the re-embedding of international commodityproduction and distribution in ``equitable socialrelations,'' developing (...) a more stable and advantageoussystem of trade for agricultural and non-agriculturalgoods produced under favorable social andenvironmental conditions. The international market forboth organic and fair trade products has grownimpressively in recent years. Yet the success of thesemovements is perhaps better judged by their ability tochallenge the abstract capitalist relations that fuelexploitation in the global agro-food system. While theorganic movement currently goes further in revealingthe ecological conditions of production and the fairtrade movement goes further in revealing the socialconditions of production, there are signs that the twomovements are forging a common ground in definingminimum social and environmental requirements. I arguefrom a theoretical and empirical basis that what makesfair trade a more effective oppositional movement isits focus on the relations of agro-food trade anddistribution. By demystifying global relations ofexchange and challenging market competitiveness basedsolely on price, the fair trade movement creates aprogressive opening for bridging the wideningNorth/South divide and for wresting control of theagro-food system away from oligopolistic transnationalcorporations infamous for their socially andenvironmentally destructive business practices. (shrink)

In this paper I explore the emergence of women's organizations and feminist consciousness in the twentieth century in the English-speaking (Commonwealth) Caribbean. The global ideas concerning women's equality from the 1960s onwards clearly informed the initiatives taken by both women and states of the Caribbean. None the less, the paper illustrates, by use of examples, the interlocked nature of women's struggles with the economic, social and political issues which preoccupy the region's population. I examine in greater detail two case (...) studies of women's activism and mobilization around the impact of structural adjustment policies in the two territories of Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago. By tracing the connections between and among the organizations and initiatives of women in the region, the paper situates the feminist movement in the English-speaking Caribbean as a continuously evolving one, fusing episodic struggles in different territories, engaging women of different classes and groups, and continuously building on past experience. (shrink)

I am grateful for these rich and probing engagements with my book. Unlike some of the audiences to whom I first presented these ideas a decade ago – who worried that treating poor people as agents...

In ‘Theorizing resistance: Foucault, cross-cultural psychiatry and the user/survivor movement,’ Swerdfager develops a rich argument about the relationship between user/survivor voices, cross-cultural psychiatry, and the emerging discipline of global mental health. The paper questions the future directions of cross-cultural psychiatry in the era of GMH, and discusses the implications for user/survivor voices. This commentary engages with Swerdfager, focusing on the historical development of cross-cultural psychiatry and the discipline’s evolving relationship with GMH, concluding with a brief discussion of recent (...) developments with potential to open up new spaces for user/survivor voices as mental health... (shrink)

Dominant food systems, based on industrial methods and corporate control, are in a state of flux. To enable the transition towards more sustainable and just food systems, food movements are claiming new roles in governance. These movements, and the initiatives they spearhead, are associated with a range of labels (e.g., food sovereignty, food justice, and community food security) and use a variety of strategies to enact change. In this paper, we use the concept of relational fields to conduct a post-hoc (...) analysis of nine cases, examining how social movement organizations and other actors actively create new deliberative governance spaces. We argue that successes are related to the “power to convene,” a process-oriented approach that increases movements’ capacity to mobilize; leverage different types of power; and integrate, coordinate, and build a systems-oriented vision. The power to convene and create deliberative spaces is demonstrated in a variety of contexts and often results in outcomes that further movement aims, including policy change and repositioning food movement actors vis-à-vis others in the field. Our findings suggest that success is not only measured as policy outcomes, but as an advantageous repositioning of social movement actors that enables them to be part of governance processes beyond simple policy advocacy. (shrink)

In Poverty, Solidarity, and Poor-Led Social Movements, Monique Deveaux builds a political theory of poverty as relational and responsibility for injustice as solidaristic. Identifying the ways that poor-led movements have politically theorized and acted, Deveaux develops a theory of relational poverty that entails politicizing poverty which requires local-level organizing, consciousness-raising, resisting injustice and developing and demanding alternatives, and engaging in public debate and discourse. She goes on to argue that the praxis of poor-led movements reveals normative commitments to mutuality, deference (...) and deep listening, and risk taking. These enable movements of people in poverty to take on the injustice of poverty together across difference, privilege, and other obstacles to transformative (solidaristic) politics. Deveaux provides a mode for doing grounded normative theory (GNT) by relying on secondary literature. GNT is a methodology for doing political theory that destabilizes the epistemological authority of the political theory of the academy by treating lived experience – words and actions – as providing relevant text for analysis. The methodology is particularly important for theories related to justice. Deveaux demonstrates how this can be done with secondary sources thus enabling comprehensive engagement without avoiding burdening social movement actors with interviews or other modes of accommodating researchers. (shrink)

Normative theorists of migration are beginning to shift their focus away from an earlier obsession with whether the ‘liberal' or ‘legitimate’ state should have a right to exclude, and toward evaluation of how states engage in immigration control. However, with some notable exceptions – such as work of Rebecca Buxton, David Owen, Serena Parekh, and Alex Sager – this work tends not to focus on the global coordination of such control, and is still largely concerned with issues of membership. (...) In this paper I aim to show the value of shifting normative attention to the fundamentally interdependent nature of state control of migration, and the management of all forms of movement – not just settlement. This global management is greatly facilitated by the rapid digitisation of border controls. As such, I outline three aspects of the way digital border controls work – profiling, biometric identification, and the data sharing practices upon which they rest – and highlight ethical challenges of accountability, consent and the reach of the state, and entrenching global inequalities in access to movement. Ultimately, I hope to show that the globally interconnected nature of migration management is a combination of practices that normative theorists of migration should turn their attention to. (shrink)

Despite the proliferation of works on the ‘global justice movement’ (GJM) in recent years, surprisingly little has been written on the intersections between feminist and anarchist strands within this ‘movement of movements’. In an effort to rectify this gap in the literature, this article seeks to explore in what ways and to what extent anarchist and feminist renditions of revolution, within the context of the GJM, are conceptually compatible and thereby potentially politically reinforcing. In order to ascertain (...) the degree of convergence between these two radical projects, in the first part of the article I examine what each camp is fighting for and against and whether their struggles for social justice are ideologically consonant. In the second part, I turn my attention to the types of practices being enacted and defended by these two activist constituencies and ask how they see their respective revolutions being brought about. What notions of social change are at work here and are their political practices, and the different temporalities sustaining them, reconcilable? After arguing in the first two parts of this article that anarchism and feminism are more compatible than is often acknowledged and that the considerable synergies between feminist notions of social justice and social change and anarchist conceptions of revolution merit far more attention than they currently receive, I end the piece by reflecting on some of the points of tension that still militate against merging their respective political imaginaries. I do so in an attempt to identify what I see as the conditions of possibility for a more integrated, mutually collaborative feminist anarchist revolutionary politics. (shrink)

Revival from Below: The Deoband Movement and Global Islam By IngramBrannon D., x + 315 pp. Price PB £24.00. EAN 978–0520298002.

The reality of globalization warrants an understanding of mission that negotiates global and local realities. This article explores the way in which the global and the local have informed Mission as Transformation, a holistic missionary movement among radical evangelicals that developed in earnest since Lausanne ’74. How have local expressions — particularly Filipino expressions — of Transformation helped to form a global understanding of Transformation? And vice versa: How does a global understanding serve local expressions? (...) The Transformational view of the global-local — or glocal — relationship as symbiotic and not antagonistic undermines both universal theologies that are imposed on all cultures and to local theologies that lack global accountability. (shrink)

The problem of the concept of Ukraine’s state economic policy of regulation of human resources international movement in the context of global intellectualization remains topical throughout the existence of Ukraine as an independent state. It should be noted that the favorable geopolitical position of Ukraine provides potential opportunities for the development of both regions and the state as a whole, creates conditions that are associated with the involvement in international migration, tourism and transit and professional processes. Their number (...) increases in modern conditions of globalization development. The analysis of features of Ukraine's participation in the processes of intellectualization of the human resources international movement demonstrates the necessity of developing the state economic policy of the human resources international movement, which would become part of the global space and have certain benefits. (shrink)

Cultural Context of Multilevel Collective Social Actions: Framing, Reflection, Resonance and the Impact of Global and Local Anti-Poverty Movements In political science as well as in other social sciences much attention has been paid during recent years to the rapid growth of national and transnational activist networks and their increasing impact on domestic and world politics. Together with the proliferation of literature on the topic, concepts of collective action frames, framing processes, mobilizing ideas and meanings and their cultural resonance (...) have gained considerable currency. However, less has been written about the possibilities of and the constraints on the circulation of collective action frames or about the connection between the cultural adaptation of frames and the results of actual collective struggles. The paper explores this understudied issue both theoretically and empirically. After identifying possible links between collective action framing processes and the representational practices of particular cultures based on a review of existing theoretical approaches, the functional consequences are demonstrated by the example of the Global Call for Action against Poverty international campaign and the Czech national variant. (shrink)

Employing the case of theredwood Headwaters forest in rural NorthernCalifornia, this paper investigates the extentto which an anti-corporate progressive alliancebetween labor and the environmental movement ispossible in contemporary global capitalism.Progressive alliances between labor and theenvironmental movement have been historicallydifficult. This has been particularly the casein the timber industry, where companies havebeen able to mobilize workers againstenvironmentalists' designs. The caseillustrates the events that led to the purchaseof the Headwaters Forest by the state ofCalifornia and the Federal Government fromPacific (...) Lumber. This is a subsidiary of Maxxam,a corporation with interests in a variety ofeconomic sectors. The objective was to haltMaxxam's rampant deforestation of old growthredwood. Though conflict between labor andenvironmentalists existed, the casedemonstrates that the labor and theenvironmental movement were united againstMaxxam. They, however, were not completelysuccessful in their struggle as Maxxam greatlybenefited from the state-sponsored landpurchase. Maxxam gained economically, was ableto shape the ideological framework throughwhich the purchasing agreement was achieved,and extended its hegemony over the state. Thisoutcome cast doubts on the possibility thatcurrent forms of environmental protection couldtranscend commodified and reductionistpostures. Simultaneously, the existence of acommon anti-corporate consciousness among largesegments of labor and the environmentalmovement makes the environment a contestedterrain and allows for some optimism about thefuture of the struggle for ecologically soundsocial arrangements. (shrink)

There is no broad dispute in the doctrine on the matter how and on what purpose did the drugs appear in the nature and in the society. Why does a certain spectrum of light and sound waves and electromagnetic radiations bring a person into a state of euphoria? The Author has united biological and chemical substances as well as the sources of other origin changing person’s consciousness into a joint hypersystem: narcogenes’ movement recorded in the past,observable in the present (...) and expected in the future. It is admissible to associate the sources of formation of the modern variety of narcogens with the origin of life by means of «the reasonable plan», «lucky coincidence», panspermia in their interaction or otherwise. The life distribution on the Earth during 3.5 billion years with the participation of narcogenes has caused such global phenomena as drug trafficking and narcomania (toxicomania). Today narcogenes are discovered in all earthly environments and the vector of theirmovement is directed by a man beyond the limits of the earthly surface. In a set of regular medicines they are placed onboard tens thousands flight vehicles, shuttles and ISS are supplied with them. In 1969 onboard «Apollo-11» narcogens were first delivered to an orbitof the Moon. The happenings of their «exterrestia» consumption on the circumterrestrial orbit have already been recorded. Onward are narcogenic mixers, nanorobots, transferring narcogenes in a human’s brain and so forth. The postglobal scope of the narcogenes’ movement may get a colossal swing as the people develop the deep space, build circumplanetary settlements (upward 10 thousand people) and planetary colonies. It is time that the scientists payattention to the prognostic side of the problem under consideration and develop preemptive measures. (shrink)

This article questions the use of immigration as a tool to counter global poverty. It argues that poor people have a human right to stay in their home state, which entitles them to receive development assistance without the necessity of migrating abroad. The article thus rejects a popular view in the philosophical literature on immigration which holds that rich states are free to choose between assisting poor people in their home states and admitting them as immigrants when fulfilling duties (...) to assist the global poor. Since the human right to stay is entailed by values that feature prominently in the philosophical debate on immigration, the article further contends that participants in that debate have particular reason to reject the popular ‘choice view’ and endorse the alternative position presented in the article. (shrink)

We live within political systems that increasingly seek to control movement, organized around both the desire and ability to determine who is permitted to enter what sorts of spaces, from gated communities to nation-states. In _Movement and the Ordering of Freedom_, Hagar Kotef examines the roles of mobility and immobility in the history of political thought and the structuring of political spaces. Ranging from the writings of Locke, Hobbes, and Mill to the sophisticated technologies of control that circumscribe the (...) lives of Palestinians in the Occupied West Bank, this book shows how concepts of freedom, security, and violence take form and find justification via “regimes of movement.” Kotef traces contemporary structures of global mobility and resistance to the schism in liberal political theory, which embodied the idea of “liberty” in movement while simultaneously regulating mobility according to a racial, classed, and gendered matrix of exclusions. (shrink)

Catholic social teaching frames a practical, political tradition, historically embodied and directed toward the dignity of the person, solidarity, and the common good as essential to social justice. It aims not only to convert the Church but to be an agent of change in societies globally. Yet despite over 130 years of condemnations by CST of violence, exploitation, and other forms of social injustice, scourges like poverty, war, racism, and sexism still blight human existence. The work of the Belgian theologian (...) Johan Verstraeten offers resources for a view of social movements as agents of the transformation of social institutions and structures. Social movements can provoke and enhance the formation of justice as an institutional virtue, disposing institutions to better foster solidarity and the common good. (shrink)