Contesting Globalization: Space and Place in the World Economy(RIPE Series in Global Political Economy)

What is the best way to effect radical progressive change? Has globalisation created a global city? Will global civil society overcome global market capitalism? This book is an innovative and original addition to the literature on globalization and examines the challenges faced by those wishing to develop progressive visions of transparent global governance and civil society. The author traces the history and development of the institutions of global governance (The World Bank, IMF, WTO etc) as well as the emergence of the anti-globalization movement. The author argues that we are at a unique moment where social forces have moved from national and international struggles to a global struggle and intervention in the world economy. A series of case studies examine the ways in which cities have become contested sites for global struggles from the London dockworkers strikes of the nineteenth century to the recent demonstrations against the international financial institutions in Genoa, Seattle and Washington.

Table of Contents:
Introduction 1. More than Ghosts: Subjects in Places in the World Economy 2. Three Episodes from Cities in the World Economy 3. Occupying Places in the World Economy 4. The Civic Ordering of Global Social Relations 5. Integrated World-Creation: Outlines of a Radical Articulation  Conclusion

About the Author :
André C. Drainville is a professor of international political economy at Laval University in Quebec, Canada.

Review :
"This book is at the beginning of an inquiry into the metaphors and eventual concepts that will make sense of present and future struggles for social and political change.." -Robert Cox, York University, Canada "With remarkable insight and creativity, Andre Drainville imagines the world economy as a city and uses specific moments of urban conflict to show that global politics is a "placed politics." Far from emerging in some abstract space of flows, global power is specific, contingent, and relational. It is made and contested in situated struggles that spring from placed experiences. "Contesting Globalization uses the situationist urban imaginary to enrich our understanding of the concrete making and unmaking of transnational political subjects. It is a major work in critical urban theory and international political economy.." -Michael P. Smith, University of California, Davis