Abstract
One influential sociological perspective on global and transnational developments has coalesced around the concept of the world system, defined—in the modern world—by the economic logic of capitalist production. While the capitalist world system and its economic aspects have been discussed in numerous publications, another view of the global political landscape has received much less attention: the various instances of popular mobilization questioning and challenging the logic of global capitalism. Apart from the occasional reference to anti-systemic movements by world system theorists and the discussion of twentieth century labor protests by Beverly Silver, this counterpoint to the growth of the capitalist world economy has largely eluded a thorough examination.
To fill this void is the ambition of Making Waves, a collection aiming to present the first systematic overview of social movement activities within the context of—and often in dialectical opposition to—a consolidating international capitalist system from roughly the mid-eighteenth century until today. The presentation is organized chronologically, with four substantive chapters sandwiched between an introduction and conclusion by William G. Martin, the coordinator of the project. Each of the substantive chapters, the work of different scholars, discusses a period within this larger historical framework: 1750 to 1850, 1848 to 1917, 1917 to 1968, and 1968 to 2005.
The strength of the collection emerges from the project’s historical and comparative depth. The chapters display the richness of popular protest in history. This makes the book a valuable concise introduction, particularly useful for those unfamiliar with the history of social movements before the twentieth century. Furthermore, placing these developments in a larger global context transcends the “methodological nationalism” and case-study culture of much of social movement research to reveal important connections between seemingly unconnected events—and to show how for centuries social movements have reacted not simply to “their” national context, but have been deeply embedded in global and transnational dynamics. The historical examination of popular protest is also highly suggestive of the interestingly “lumpy” trajectory of popular protest in history, as individual national and local protest initiatives, organizations, and events formed clusters, waves, or cycles of protest. In addition, the historical depth provides an important context for understanding contemporary forms of global and cross-national political protest. Finally, as Martin’s conclusion suggests, the book testifies to the power of ordinary people to shape economic and political structures by showing how “successive world movement waves have radically transformed the world-economy … and in so doing … have altered the conditions within which future movements form, and the forces against which they protest” (p. 170).
Where the book fails is in offering any new insights into the dynamics and causality of global protest. The introduction criticizes current social movement research, raising expectations of new theoretical contributions. Yet there is no coherent theoretical statement. Throughout, the argument seems to vacillate somewhat uneasily between a recognition of the importance of social movements and a disappointment that they have not changed radically the nature of the “system.” Thus the contention that anti-systemic movements are important and consequential—an obvious point in a book devoted to the history of these movements—alternates somewhat incoherently with the diametrically opposed position: that they are not really that consequential, as the capitalist system triumphs anyway by co-opting most of these movements (twentieth century working class movements being the prime example of such co-optation).
This tension raises questions regarding the the analytical depth of a framework that privileges intentionally social movements that are inherently “anti-systemic,” that is directed against the logic of the capitalist world system (p. 7). Indeed, several authors admit that the movements they discuss fall short of being full-fledged examples of anti-systematicity in action. Thus Tuba Agartan, Woo-Young Choi, and Tu Huynh talk about “transformative movements” dominating the period between mid-eighteenth and mid-nineteenth century. In the following century, Caleb Bush distinguishes anti-systemic movements from “anti-systemic activity” (pp. 50-51). Fouad Kalouche and Eric Mielants admit that “antisystemic” is “an elusive term over long periods of time” and that many movements are not “antisystemic per se but … ‘antirepressive’”(p. 129). Upon finishing the book my impression was that the historical texture of protest in the global arena was sufficiently complex not to lend itself easily to a dualistic scheme where popular mobilization is either resistance to the “forces” of the world system or a window-dressing for the political surrender of the oppressed. How useful analytically is the “anti-system” concept? Take for example working class movements. Caleb Bush argues that “While an unquestionable ‘success’,” they “pulled antisystemic resistance within safer bounds for the ongoing operations of historical capitalism” (p. 55). In short, “anti-systemic movements” end up strengthening the system. What then is the precise difference between them and (hypothetical) “pro-system” movements?
Some characterizations in the book would raise eyebrows among historians. The sans cullottes are proclaimed, rather solemnly, an anti-systemic and anti-capitalist movement (p. 16). The only source on Chartism is Engels’ Condition of the Working Classes (1845)—hardly a reliable source, superseded now by a voluminous historiography of Chartism. In addition, the text would engage the reader better with tighter editing. For example, the excursus on Das Kapital (p. 145) does not add anything except to show that Marx’s predictions have materialized.
The book could have had more straightforward causal arguments, beyond the simple statements on the connectedness of social movements with the political and ideological structures of the world system. How and to what extent were social movements determined by the logic of global capitalism? How exactly and to what extent did social movements in history change and shape the contours of the world system as we know it? While not giving fully satisfactory answers to these questions, Making Waves presents, often engagingly, the rich history of popular protest and thus invites researchers to take seriously the challenge of studying and understanding the logic of this protest in a broader historical and geographical perspective.