Expose, Oppose, Propose
"Since the 1970s, economic globalization has fuelled concerns that democracy is being hollowed out. Transnational social movements have developed as advocates of a 'democratic globalization' that enriches human relations across space by empowering communities and citizens to participate in the full range of decisions that shape and govern their lives. Alongside and in support of these movements, transnational alternative policy groups (TAPGs) have emerged--^ 'think tanks' that provide evidence-based critique of neoliberal capitalism while promoting democratic alternatives to the corporate agenda of top-down globalization. These are think tanks of a different sort from the conventional ones that advise political and corporate elites. Groups such as the Transnational Institute (Amsterdam) and Focus on the Global South (Bangkok) create knowledge that challenges existing corporate priorities and state policies, and that advocates alternative ways of organizing economic, political and cultural life. They disseminate this knowledge not only via mainstream media venues but through activist networks and alternative media, and they work collaboratively with social movements in developing and implementing alternative ideas. TAPGs thus play important roles in social contestations that transcend national borders and movement silos.^ Expose, Oppose, Propose explores the networks, discourses and practices through which transnational alternative policy groups exert political and cultural influence, and assesses the challenges they face as transnational change agents in an era of economic and ecological crisis. Based on in-depth interviewing with protagonists in 16 groups, eight based in the global South and eight based in the global North, it is the first comprehensive study of these groups as strategically important agencies for counter-hegemony within the global left.^ The book calls attention to the diverse ways in which TAPGs produce and mobilize knowledge for change, but it also highlights their common features, including: - an engagement with the big issues facing humanity in the early 21st century, critiquing hegemonic frameworks and pointing toward globally just solutions; - an embeddedness in global civil society that places TAPGs in key strategic and mediating locations vis-à-vis movements, North and South, alternative media, intergovernmental and other bodies; - an "insider/outsider" approach to dominant institutions and a conscious resistance to NGOization and hegemonic integration; - dialogical and movement-centred modes of cognitive praxis that build participatory capacity and solidarity, create reflective spaces and prefigure alternative futures within a dialectic of theory and practice; and - the combination, in their cognitive praxis, of research and analysis, critical pedagogy, networking and outreach via a wide range of media.^ Among the book's conclusions, in view of the fact that the global left is intercultural, is that transnational alternative policy groups need to elaborate practices of intercultural translation that preserve autonomy while creating common ground. TAPGs can serve as "contact zones" where the work of translation across movements and cultures can thrive, contributing to the ongoing quest for global cognitive justice, which is a co-requisite of global social justice. As collective intellectuals of counter-hegemonic globalization, transnational alternative policy groups problematize borders and enclosures while providing the cognitive resources for both local changes and a strengthened capacity for justice globalism."--
