Ebook: Collective Action and Political Transformations: The Entangled Experiences in Brazil, South Africa and Europe

Takes lessons from the Global South to explore the possibilities for positive political action worldwide

Collective action in our current global situation is often associated with growing intolerance, xenophobia and exclusion, or it is regarded as incapable of making a real and positive difference in the lives of individuals. This book acknowledges the severe problems with effective and significant collective action, but it arrives at a more optimistic diagnosis of our time by rethinking the political from the angle of the experiences with progressive and conservative collective action in different parts of the globe: Brazil, South Africa and Europe. By doing so, it contributes a critical perspective to the debate about the possible impact that the Global South could have for positive social and political developments worldwide.

Key Features

• Based on nuanced historical and comparative analyses of society and politics in three world regions: Latin America, Southern Africa and Europe
• Participates innovatively in the debates in critical political theory about the need to rethink the political
• Links analytical and normative elements to explain the political as the combination of collective autonomy, problem-oriented reflexivity and a capacity for transformation-oriented intervention
• Firmly set within the debates in social theory and historical–comparative sociology about varieties of modernity and widens these debates by consciously adopting a world-historical perspective