is a sociologist at Lund University and one of the editors of the social theory journal Fronesis.
Large-scale social movements often behave provocatively but with the aim to make more space for democracy. The latest of these is the global justice movement born in Seattle in 1999. Magnus Wennerhag’s new book is the first major Swedish study on the impact of this movement. In the extract Arena publishes here, he shows how it differs from the movements of 1968, being more political and more directed towards international institutions and globalized democracy.
“The liberal state has been hijacked for neoliberal agendas,” says Saskia Sassen in interview, and in some cases even for “very modern despotisms”. It is necessary to repossess the state apparatus for genuine liberal democracy, and ideally to create a “denationalized state”.
Is capitalism losing its progressive dimension, turning destructive instead? Is it perhaps even coming to its end? This line of reasoning sounds familiar, but the question is more widely discussed today than has been for a long time. Michael Hardt and Samir Amin, two of the main critics of today’s capitalism, talk about the future of the system, the movements resisting it and the alternatives they propose.
