Social Movements in Advanced Capitalism: The Political Economy and Cultural Construction of Social Activism

2002 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 68
Author(s):  
Nella van Dyke ◽  
Steven M. Buechler
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Social Movements ◽  
Social Activism ◽  
Cultural Construction ◽  
The Political ◽  
Advanced Capitalism

Queer Liberation Theory: A Genealogy

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cameron McKenzie
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Social Movements ◽  
Identity Formation ◽  
Queer Theory ◽  
Social Constructionist ◽  
The Political ◽  
Class Analysis ◽  
Single Issue ◽  
Road Map ◽  
The Relationship

An emerging critical theoretical framework, queer liberation theory attempts to understand the relationship between queerness and capitalism, and more specifically, anti-capitalist movements. It seeks to update and reinvigorate the structural analysis of the earlier gay/queer liberation movement (1960s and 1970s) with the benefit of the insights of queer theory and empirical queer experiences of neoliberal capitalism. Queer liberation theory recognizes and celebrates diverse sexual orientations and gender identities or expression, including essentialist identities such as gay, lesbian, and trans. Within a realist, structural framework, queer liberation theory is interested in how social movements can move beyond identity formation to produce progressive, structural change. To date, three main tenets of the theory have been noted: anti-assimilationism, solidarity across social movements, and the political economy of queerness. The use of the word “queer” signals a progressive, critical, sex-positive, anti-assimilationist, liberationist perspective as opposed to an assimilationist perspective that strives for respectability, acceptance, prestige, and monetary success on capitalism’s terms. The second tenet, solidarity across movements, is an attempt to transcend to the divisiveness of single-issue politics without sacrificing intersectionality. For example, queer liberation theory seeks to recognize, expose, and dismantle social structures that oppress all communities, albeit in different ways. The political economy of queerness refers to a class analysis of structural inequalities. A genealogy of queer liberation theory’s development shows where it reflects, incorporates, or rejects aspects of various theories including a social constructionist perspective, with its debates about essentialism and identities; social movement theory, with its political tensions between recognition and redistribution; queer theory, with its focus on fluidity and ambiguity; materialism, with the strengths and shortcomings of its class analysis; and intersectionality with its focus on a matrix worldview of interlocking systems of oppression; and feminist political economy, with its focus on social reproduction, but adequate recognition of queer sexuality. Indeed, feminist political economy offers something of a pink road map to discover what aspects of the economy will be important for queer liberation theory to explore. Feminist political economy is helpful in the development of queer liberation theory because it has long claimed sexuality and identity as legitimate, as opposed to frivolous, sites of scholarship and political struggle. Feminist political economy, like queer liberation theory, seeks to understand oppression based on sexuality in everyday life. However, the feminist political economy road map takes us only so far, because the focus of the analysis can be seen as gendered, and often cisgendered, lives. Queer liberation theory attempts to draw from these theories to better understand the relationship between queerness and capitalism and provide a basis for political action.

A discussion of John S. Ahlquist and Margaret Levi's In the Interest of Others: Organizations and Social Activism

2014 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 857-863
Author(s):  
Brooke Ackerly
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Capital ◽  
Political Economy ◽  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Labor Unions ◽  
Social Activism ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Labor Politics ◽  
Wide Range

John S. Alquist and Margaret Levi’s In the Interest of Others: Organizations and Social Activism develops a new theory of organizations through a comparative analysis of two activist labor unions (the International Longshore and Warehouse Union in the United States and the Waterside Workers Federation in Australia) and two unions that focus only on pursuing member benefits (the Teamsters and the International Longshoremen’s Association in the United States). Integrating the study of labor politics, social movements, social capital, and the political economy of group organization and mobilization, the book addresses a wide range of political science concerns. We have thus invited a range of political scientists to comment on the book as an account of labor politics and as a broader account of the logic of collective action.— Jeffrey C. Isaac, Editor

Spending More and Enjoying It Less: On the Political Economy of Advanced Capitalism

1981 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 235
Author(s):  
Jeffrey D. Straussman ◽  
James M. Buchanan ◽  
Richard E. Wagner ◽  
Richard Rose ◽  
Guy Peters ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Advanced Capitalism

scholarly journals Hope Against Hype - Accountability in Biopasts, Presents and Futures

2003 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 3-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nik Brown
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Social Movements ◽  
Predictive Medicine ◽  
The Political ◽  
New Social Movements ◽  
Funding Agencies ◽  
Reproductive Science ◽  
Key Features ◽  
Culturally Embedded

We are today wholly accustomed to being daily bombarded with (often competing) claims about the seemingly limitless potential and promise of transgenics, predictive medicine, reproductive science, bioinformatics and much else besides. Stories of new breakthroughs and advances mesh with ‘our’ culturally embedded sense of the steady march of enlightenment progress. Each announcement seems to index a sequential pulse in the accomplishment of the ‘biotechnology revolution’. In more grounded terms, the talking-up of biotechnology prizes open the accounts of funding agencies and investors, in addition to winning the necessary support of various critical allies (patients, publics, regulators, etc). In equal measure, hyper-expectations feed into and fuel the complex counter concerns of oppositional cultures (new social movements, NGOs, etc). And yet these accounts of revolutionary potentially sit uncomfortably alongside our equally familiar experiences of unfulfilled promises, the awkward absence of future benefits, treatments, rewards and profits. This is not always the case, but more often than not, early hopes are rarely proportionate to actual future results. This paper charts key features in the ‘dynamics of expectations’, documenting the relationships between new hopes and emerging disappointments. It explores the routes of agency in the construction of the present’s future and touches on the possibilities for greater accountability in the political economy of biotechnological expectations.

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