> Call for papers issue 3: crises, social movements and revolutionary
> transformations
>
> Interface is a new journal produced twice yearly by activists and academics
> around the world in response to the development and increased visibility of
> social movements in the last few years - and the immense amount
of knowledge
> generated in this process. This knowledge is created across the
globe, and in
> many contexts and a variety of ways, and it constitutes an
incredibly valuable
> resource for the further development of social movements.
Interface responds
> to this need, as a tool to help our movements learn from each other's
> struggles, by developing analyses and knowledge that allow lessons to be
> learned from specific movement processes and experiences and
translated into a
> form useful for other movements.
>
> We welcome contributions by movement participants and academics who are
> developing movement-relevant theory and research. Our goal is to include
> material that can be used in a range of ways by movements - in terms of its
> content, its language, its purpose and its form. We are seeking work in a
> range of different formats, such as conventional articles, review essays,
> facilitated discussions and interviews, action notes, teaching notes, key
> documents and analysis, book reviews - and beyond. Both activist
and academic
> peers review research contributions, and other material is sympathetically
> edited by peers. The editorial process generally will be geared towards
> assisting authors to find ways of expressing their understanding,
so that we
> all can be heard across geographical, social and political distances.
>
> Our third issue, to be published in May 2010, will have space for general
> articles on all aspects of understanding social movements, as well as a
> special themed section on crises, social movements and revolutionary
> transformations.
>
> Crises, social movements and revolutionary transformations
>
> "In every country the process is different, although the content
is the same.
> And the content is the crisis of the ruling class's hegemony, which occurs
> either because the ruling class has failed in some major political
> undertaking, for which it has requested, or forcibly extracted,
the consent of
> broad masses . or because huge masses . have passed suddenly from
a state of
> political passivity to a certain activity, and put forward
demands which taken
> together, albeit not organically formulated, add up to a
revolution. A "crisis
> of authority" is spoken of: this is precisely the crisis of hegemony, or
> general crisis of the state."
>
> So wrote the Italian revolutionary Antonio Gramsci from behind the walls of
> Mussolini's prison, in his famous notes on "State and Civil Society". His
> words aptly describe the trajectory of crises in modern history - these are
> periods when the wheels of economic growth and expansion grind to
a halt, when
> traditional political loyalties melt away, and, crucially, when
ruling classes
> find themselves confronted with popular movements that no longer accept the
> terms of their rule, and that seek to create alternative social orders. The
> clashes between elite projects and popular movements that are at
the heart of
> any "crisis of hegemony" generate thoroughgoing processes of
economic, social
> and political change - these may be reforms that bear the imprint
of popular
> demands, and they may also be changes that reflect the
implementation of elite
> designs. Most importantly, however, crises are typically also those moments
> when social movements and subaltern groups are able to push the
limits of what
> they previously thought it was possible to achieve in terms of effecting
> progressive change - it is this dynamic which lies at the heart of
> revolutionary transformations.
>
> Gramsci himself witnessed, organised within and wrote during the
breakdown of
> liberal capitalism and bourgeois democracy in the 1910s through
to the 1930s.
> This was a conjuncture when tendencies towards stagnation in capitalist
> accumulation generated the horrors of the First World War and the Great
> Depression. Movements of workers and colonized peoples threatened
the rule of
> capital and empires, old and new, and elites turned to repressive
strategies
> like fascism in an attempt to secure the continuation of their dominance.
>
> Today social movements are once again having to do their organizing and
> mobilizing work in the context of economic crisis, one that is arguably of
> similar proportions to that witnessed by Gramsci, and a political
crisis that
> runs just as deep. The current crisis emerged from the collapse of the US
> housing market, revealing an intricate web of unsustainable debt and "toxic
> assets" whose tentacles reached every corner of the global
economy. More than
> just a destruction of "fictitious capital", the crisis has propelled a
> breakdown of world industrial production and trade, driving millions of
> working families to the brink and beyond. And, far from being a
one-off, this
> crisis is the latest and worst in a series of collapses starting with the
> stock market crash of 1987, the chronic stagnation of the once all-powerful
> Japanese economy, the Asian financial meltdown of 1997 and the
bursting of the
> dot.com bubble.
>
> The current conjuncture throws into question the fundamentals of the
> neoliberal project that has been pursued by global elites and transnational
> institutions over the past three decades. Taking aim at reversing the
> victories won by popular movements in the aftermath of the Second
World War,
> neoliberalism transferred wealth from popular classes to global elites on a
> grand scale. The neoliberal project of privatizing the public sector and
> commodifying public goods, rolling back the welfare states,
promoting tax cuts
> for the rich, manipulating economic crises in the global South and
> deregulating the world's financial markets continued unabated through the
> 1980s and 1990s.
>
> As presaged by Gramsci, neoliberal policies have whittled away the material
> concessions that underpinned social consensus. Ours is a
conjuncture in which
> global political elites have failed in an undertaking for which they sought
> popular consent, and as a consequence, popular masses have passed from
> political passivity to a certain activity.
>
> Since the middle of the 1990s, we have seen the development of large-scale
> popular movements in several parts of the globe, along with a series of
> revolutionary situations or transformations in various countries,
as well as
> unprecedented levels of international coordination and alliance-building
> between movements and direct challenges not only to national but to global
> power structures. The first stirrings of this activity were in
the rise of the
> Zapatistas in Mexico, the water wars in Bolivia, and the protests on the
> streets of Seattle. On a global scale we saw dissent explode in the form of
> opposition to the wars waged by the US on Afghanistan and Iraq. In terms of
> sheer numbers, the mobilisation of against the latter invasion
was the largest
> political protest ever undertaken, leading the New York Times to call the
> anti-war movement the world's "second superpower".
>
> Each country has had its own movements, and a particular
character to how they
> have moved against the neoliberal project. And for some time many have
> observed that these campaigns, initiatives and movements are not isolated
> occurrences, but part of a wider global movement for justice in the face of
> the neoliberal project. An explosion of analysis looking at these
events and
> movements has occurred in the academic world, matched only by extensive
> argument and debate within the movements themselves.
>
> In this issue of Interface, we encourage submissions that explore the
> relationship between crises, social movements and revolutionary
> transformations in general and the character of the current crisis and how
> social movements across different regions have related and
responded to it in
> particular. Some of the questions we want to explore are as follows:
>
> . What are the characteristics of the current economic and
political crisis,
> what roles do social movements - from above and below - play in
its dynamics,
> and how does it compare to the political economy of previous
cycles of crises
> and struggle?
>
> . What has been the role played by social movements in moments of crisis in
> modern history, and what lessons can contemporary popular
movements learn from
> these experiences?
>
> . What kinds of qualitative/quantitative shift in popular mobilisation we
> might expect to see in a "revolutionary wave"?
>
> . Are crises - and in particular our current crisis - characterized by
> substantial competitions between different kinds of movements
from below? How
> does such a dynamic affect the capacity to effect radical change?
>
> . What goals do social movements set themselves in context of
crisis and what
> kinds of movement are theoretically or historically capable of
bringing about
> a transformed society?
>
> . What are the criteria of success that activists operate with in
terms of the
> forms of change social movements can achieve in the current conjuncture?
>
> . Is revolutionary transformation a feasible option at present?
Is revolution
> a goal among contemporary social movements?
>
> . What are the characteristic features of elite deployment of coercive
> strategies when their hegemony is unravelling?
>
> . How have global elites responded to the current crisis in terms
of resort to
> coercion and consent? Have neoliberal elites been successful in trying to
> re-establish their legitimacy and delegitimizing opponents?
>
> . Are we witnessing any bids for hegemony from elite groups
outside the domain
> of Atlantic neoliberalism?
>
> . How is coercion in its various forms impacting on contemporary social
> movements and the politics of global justice?
>
> The deadline for contributions for the third issue is January 1, 2010.
>
> Please contact the appropriate editor if you are thinking of submitting an
> article. You can access the journal and get further details at
> http://www.interfacejournal.net/.
>
> Interface is programmatically multilingual: at present we can accept and
> review submissions in Afrikaans, Catalan, Croatian, Danish,
English, French,
> German, Hungarian, Italian, Maltese, Norwegian, Portuguese,
Romanian, Russian,
> Serbian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish and Zulus. We are also willing
to try and
> find suitable referees for submissions in other languages, but cannot
> guarantee that at this point.
>
> We are also very much looking for activists or academics interested in
> becoming part of Interface, particularly with the African, South Asian,
> Spanish-speaking Latin American, East and Central European, Mediterranean,
> Oceanian and North American groups.
>
> Lesley J. Wood
> Assistant Professor
> Department of Sociology
> 2067 Vari Hall
> York University
> 4700 Keele Street
> Toronto Ontario
> M3J 1P3
> Canada
> (416)736-2100 x77988
> (ljwood /at/ yorku.ca)
