Global Democracy, Social Movements, and Feminism

"In Global Democracy, Social Movements, and Feminism, Catherine Eschle examines the relationship between social movements and democracy in social and political thought. She does so in the context of arguments about the exclusions and mobilizations generated by gender hierarchies and the impact of globalization. A range of approaches in social and political thought are considered: long-standing liberal, republican, marxist, and anarchist traditions; postmarxist and postmodernist innovations; and recent efforts to theorize democracy and social movements at a global level. The author foregrounds the contribution of feminist theory and movement practices, drawing particular attention to black and third-world feminist interventions in debates about the democratization of feminism itself. She discusses the ways in which such debates are increasingly played out on a global scale, as feminists grapple with the implications of globalization for movement organization." "Eschle argues that these feminist movement debates have generated important reworkings of the concepts of power, politics, agency, and change. They point to ways in which the most vulnerable women in the world could gain some control over the globalizing processes shaping their lives. The book concludes by assessing the significance of these feminist innovations for the theorization of democracy and social movements more generally in an era of global transformation."--Jacket.