"Attac": a global social movement?

• Date: 22 March 2002
• Author: Ruggiero, Vincenzo
• Published date: 22 March 2002
• Author: Ruggiero, Vincenzo

THE STUDY OF SOCIAL MOVEMENTS IS EXPERIENCING A SIGNIFICANT REVIVAL DUE TO the increasing frequency of protest across the world and to its novel international character. The emergence of "anti-globalization movements," as they are now described, raises general sociological issues and, simultaneously, elicits some rethinking of the categories elaborated within the specific field of the sociology of social movements.

The cross-national nature of these new movements, for example, echoes the contemporaneous mobility of goods, people, information, and images, which is said to reconstruct the "social as society" into the "social as mobility." The flows of people beyond national territories are also interpreted as explosions of desires, and as such, they are deemed central to sociological scrutiny. Because of its proximity to social movements, sociology has always attempted to make sense of collective desires, and "it is unlikely that it will survive if it does not again embody the ambitions of one or more of such social movements" (Urry, 2000: 18).

According to Bourdieu (2001), history teaches us that there is no meaningful social policy without movements capable of imposing it, and that social movements, not markets, are able to civilize the economy. Against economic fatalism, the French sociologist argues that governments should interfere with the laws governing the economy, which are by no means natural laws. Simultaneously, he notes the emergence of new forms of political mobilization, new leaderships, and new types of organizations inspired by self-management, and "characterised by a structural lightness allowing agents to reappropriate their role as active subjects" (Ibid.: 59). These new organizations are said to adopt forms of action of high symbolic content, to pursue concrete objectives, to be internationalist in nature, to require strong personal engagement from participants, and to shape themselves as loosely coordinated networks.

The association known in France, and by now internationally, as Attac displays most of these characteristics, and appears to be congruent with the shift noted by Urry (2000) from the "social as society" to the "social as mobility." It also appears to situate its theory and practice beyond the dichotomy identified by Touraine. (1999) in which "liberals" preach that all must be left to the market, while "ultra-leftists" confine their role to that of victims denouncing the market. Attac proposes concrete action to overcome this deadlock.

This essay discusses the ideas, structure, and action of "Attac," and attempts to locate this association, or movement, on the theoretical map of social movement theories. First, a chronology of its establishment and growth is provided, then the key ideas underpinning its activity are analyzed, and finally, some theoretical issues elicited by that activity are discussed.

Re-politicization: A Chronology

In times of alleged de-politicization, Attac has succeeded in attracting an increasing number of members and participants, providing them with some general guiding values, while leaving to individuals the task of formulating the sense of their engagement. "Re-politicization," a key word used by the movement, has been pursued through the search for a balance between general principles of social and economic justice and full respect for specific contexts and peoples. Re-politicizing justice has amounted to recognizing that developments in the world economy are not so much ineluctable as the result of individual and collective choice. Perhaps the success experienced by Attac is due to its flexibility in participants' recruitment and its careful combination of local, national, and international discourses and actions. Rooted in civil society rather than in official politics, the association/movement possesses a natural capacity to attract a plurality of members, thus distinguishing itself from traditional movemen ts or parties, whose rigidity may often discourage diversity.

The ancestors of Attac are found among the youth associations and the associations for popular education established more than a century ago in France. The Ligue de l'Enseignement was set up in 1866 and the ensuing movement, throughout the 1900s, grouped thousands of leading representatives and hundreds of thousands of members. The Ligue had no strong links with movements such as the unemployed, the homeless, or the sans-papiers, nor did it develop significant connections with the trade unions.

Activists of CNAJEP (Comite pour les relations nationales et internationales des associations de jeunesse et d' education populaire), a contemporary network associated to the Ligue, believe that people's education is indispensable for the development of social solidarity, communication, and action. Education is seen as a patrimony, a form of social capital to be invested in "the formation of citizenship." Similarly, the emphasis on "knowledge" is central to members of Attac, who organize summer universities and people's schools: "understand in order to act" is their motto.

After an appeal launched by the monthly Le Monde Diplomatique in 1997, several groups engaged in popular education gathered with the purpose of identifying common objectives. Attac was among the promoters of this meeting, which was intended to "reclaim the space lost by democracy to the financial sphere" (Attac, 2000a: 10). In December of the same year, an editorial in Le Monde Diplomatique called for the "disarmament of markets" and invoked the creation of a worldwide nongovernmental organization aiming at a "Tobin tax" for citizens' support. Nobel Prize economist James Tobin, who called for the taxation of financial transactions and, in particular, of currency speculation, provided crucial inspiration to the new-born network of activists. In partnership with union organizations, cultural associations, and other existing caring groups, the new NGO, it was felt, would exert tremendous civic pressure upon governments for the establishment of a Worldwide solidarity tax.

In March 1998, groups of unionists, journalists, and academics, along with representatives of different social movements, met with the purpose of creating a national association. The common conclusion was that "the rupture of the hegemony of ultraliberalism necessitates credible alternatives pursued by large numbers of individuals" (Ibid.: 12). The Tobin tax came to symbolize that alternatives to the current situation did exist and that economic insecurity and social inequality could be limited (Attac, 1999). Attac, an acronym standing for "Association pour la taxation des transactions financiers pour l' aide aux citoyens," called its first national meeting in October 1998 and more than 1,000 people turned up. The meeting was chaired by Bernard Casse, editor (directeur general) of Le Monde Diplomatique. In December, membership reached 5,000 and included community leaders and local councilors.

In February 1999, the threshold of 100 local committees was reached and a first petition on the imposition of the Tobin tax was presented to Laurent Fabius, the standing president of the national assembly of France. Membership soon doubled to 10,000 and in June 1999 the first international conference was organized in Paris under the title, "The Dictatorship of Markets? Another World Is Possible." During the WTO meeting in Seattle, Attac organized a number of initiatives under the slogan, "The World Is Not a Commodity." Marches across France were simultaneously organized, with some 20,000 people participating in Paris. In March 2000, several groups of Attac from across Europe met in Paris; representatives from 16 countries were involved. In early 2001, Attac had an international membership of nearly 30,000, while petitions for the Tobin tax gained more than 200 signatories among members of parliaments across the...