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In establishing an anarchic framework for understanding public space as a vision for radical democracy, this article proceeds as a theoretical inquiry into how an agonistic public space might become the basis of emancipation. Public space is presented as

This article develops a novel approach to the relationship between public space and democracy. It employs the concept of the spectacle to show how public space can serve to destroy or weaken solidarity just as easily as it can foster a democratic ethos of

"Over the past 30 years, transnational space has emerged as a key locus of social transformation. Activist networks and movement coalitions span the globe in an attempt to build an alternative politics. Many transnational activist networks (TANs), however, are meeting sites of two very different entities-movements and organizations-and must thus contend with a crucial divide in the political arena. While social movements usually act extra-institutionally and are often bound together by strong emotions, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), by virtue of their legally encoded form, often proceed within prescribed channels and must remain accountable to outside stakeholders. What happens when social movements encounter organizations? Can the tensions between social movements and NGOs be harnessed to create a lasting convergence aimed at building a more equitable democratic politics? My aim in this article is to contribute to a further texturing of our ideas of transnational space by raising some questions and concerns regarding the 'actually existing democracies' being enacted there. I focus on the tension between the more emotive aspects of mobilization and the inevitable day-to-day bureaucratic procedures meant to ensure transparent and equitable democratic practice. These two forces, though complementary parts of any well-functioning TAN, are also forces of attrition. How close they are, and how they can both focus activists' energy and grind that energy to a halt, is shown by the example of the Amazon Alliance, a network of indigenous activists and conservation, human rights and environmental justice organizations, working to protect indigenous territories and the Amazonian ecosystem."

The notion of environmental space, based on the principles of environmental limits and sharing environmental resources equitably, offers a starting point for a positive approach to the global "return of scarcity" challenge, notably by providing a basis le

In this article, we address the ways in which theories and practices of cosmopolitanism and professionalization intersect in the sphere of global civil society. We emphasize the experiences of grassroots development activists, arguing that although they have so far been pivotal to the legitimacy of these spaces and discourses, such activists are increasingly absent from the practices of global civic spaces. We explore this process of change over time using the example of grassroots health promoters in Peru, explaining it in terms of the articulation of neoliberal processes of professionalization with a particularly neoliberal version of cosmopolitanism. We argue that the two are mutually reinforcing and produce a particularly narrow, and arguably less cosmopolitan, rendition of global civil society, with implications for the possibility of building critical and transformative encounters across difference as a foundation for more equitable ideas and practices of development and democracy.

In this article, we consider how privileged masculine performances within different spaces of (anti-)globalization politics discipline political praxis in ways that bolster, as much as contest, the order that these movements seek to subvert or overthrow. We draw on two case studies: a British 'anti-imperialist' organization working in solidarity with Latin America and the emerging British anarchist movement. On the basis of our own interpretive participation within these spaces, we consider how each was structured with reference to a privileged masculine identity - that of a patriarchal and authoritarian 'Man with Analysis' in the case of the former and what we call 'Anarchist Action Man' in the case of the latter. We reflect on how these dominant gendered scripts set restrictions around which bodies and voices could be included, and within what capacity; and how our own 'off-script' performances were reinterpreted with reference to available cultural texts within these activist subcultures.

This discussion engages with Janet Conway's and Sian Sullivan's comments on our article, 'Deconstructing Militant Manhood: Masculinities in the Disciplining of (Anti-)Globalization Politics'. First, we clarify our understanding of global capitalist forms of ordering and of the gendered scripts attendant to them as a response to Conway's call for a more intersectional analysis and to her point about the relationship between the situated practices we explore and the global order within which we locate them. In doing so, we defend our methodology based on an ascending analysis of power and the usefulness of our particular ethnographical approach to carry out such analysis. Second, we address Sullivan's concerns about our choice of an academic journal as the site for a discussion of the forms of gendered exclusion that we have experienced. While we have not been able to engender a space of active listening in the activist groups we analyse, developing our own tools of analysis of what had happened to us and finding this academic space to share them has been part of a process of making sense of our traumatic experiences both intellectually and emotionally.

This article explores the tension between place, space, and memory as they relate to the trans-Atlantic slave trade and are enacted in the arena of tourism. Tourism seeks to produce an appealing, easily narrativized experience that distinguishes one local

There is much concern in the social sciences and humanities today about how people are connected with and responsible to those who live in distant places. Recent examples are abundant: from climate change to the cyclone that hit Burma in 2008. At the same

Faced with formidable challenges to expression in Cairo's public spaces, urban blogger activists have developed new ways of articulating dissent, namely spatial tactics ranging from boycott campaigns, cyber-activism and protest art, to innovations in mobi

Adorno's critical theory aims to open space for the expression of alternative futures, but its insistence on dialectical reflection encourages at the same time our sustained attentiveness to the psychic and material constraints that may prevent the very p

There is an underlying optimism in much of the literature that considers the emergence of social movements as being associated with deepening processes of democratization. The expansion of civil society is seen to expand political space. This paper takes

Last week brought news that the Egyptian government is circulating a new draft NGO law, one which would severely restrict available space for civil society and criminalize the activities of unregistered civic organizations. A coalition of 41 NGOs, headlin

Idasa looks at protests in South Africa over the past 15 months and asks how citizen agency has contributed to the deepening of democracy. By Theo Chiviru In a dialogue funded by the IDRC last year, Idasa considered the space civil society has within t

This paper critically examines the rising popularity of blogging in the US as a new kind of public space that has the potential to extend and deepen the way in which we interact and engage each other in political discourse. To proponents of deliberative d

This article presents an overview on the state of the art of research on interregional relations. It clarifies underlying concepts and focuses on the theory-guided literature exploring the functions of interregional forums for the emerging global governance architecture. Empirical evidence provided by many of the reviewed studies suggests that interregional relations are part of complex institutional balancing games played by regions which curtail their potential as multilateral utilities. Empirical studies examining norm diffusion between regions are still in their infancy. This leaves considerable space for innovative research going beyond the notion of the EU as a 'normative power' trying to persuade other regions to adopt its model of regional integration.

Is Internet freedom an absolute, universal value like freedom of speech? If there are limits, how and by whom can they be established? Is crying fire or scaling firewalls anymore acceptable in cyberspace than in physical space? What is the impact on the discourse between nations, cultures and individuals? In this section, we gather a collage of comments from various key players from Google to Wikileaks to the US State Department along with comments by one of the most cogent analysts of the Net and the president of Turkey. ERIC SCHMIDT1, JARED COHEN2, HILLARY CLINTON3, BERNARD KOUCHNER4, JULIAN ASSANGE5

Is Internet freedom an absolute, universal value like freedom of speech? If there are limits, how and by whom can they be established? Is crying fire or scaling firewalls anymore acceptable in cyberspace than in physical space? What is the impact on the discourse between nations, cultures and individuals? In this section, we gather a collage of comments from various key players from Google to Wikileaks to the US State Department along with comments by one of the most cogent analysts of the Net and the president of Turkey.

The employment of autochthony discourses has become a prominent feature of contemporary politics around the world. Autochthony discourses link identity and space, enabling the speaker to establish a direct claim to territory by asserting that one is an or

Today there is a widespread recognition of the erosion of political community on the territorial basis of the nation-state. Instead, alternative framings of "being" political or of engaging in politics have argued for a more radical post-territorial space