Anti-Apartheid and the Emergence of a Global Civil Society / St Antony's Series (PDF)

HÅKAN THÖRN is Professor at the Department of Sociology, Gothenburg University, Sweden. His research mainly deals with issues of social movements and globalization and he has written and co-edited several books on these topics, including The Politics of AIDS: Globalization, the State and Civil Society and Horizons: Perspectives on a Global Africa.

'Håkan Thörn's powerful history of the anti-apartheid movement shows us how it was at once one of the most successful transnational campaigns in history, and at the same time how it produced a new globalization of politics, marked by the emergence of transnational networks of solidarity around issues of universal justice, equality and human rights. Thörn shows how the anti-apartheid movement was the most important of the social movements that have led to the construction of an active global civil society. The apartheid movement thus stands today as the historical model for the production of forms of contemporary collective action and solidarity in the new social movements - the first occurrence of what might be called a new Fifth International.' - Robert J.C. Young, New York University, Author of Postcolonialism: An Historical Introduction (2001)

'Håkan Thörn's book makes a significant contribution to our understanding of how social movements have adapted to the global age. His study is not only well-researched and thus greatly expands our knowledge of the anti-apartheid movement. It also advances our theoretical knowledge of social movements by revealing how new information technology has influenced how contemporary social movements can be effective in the new global public sphere. This is an important book.' - Ron Eyerman, Yale University, USA

'...the book makes a significant contribution to knowledge concerning global social movements...the book offers a rare full-length, empirically detailed and conceptually sophisticated examination of the bases of global political solidarity...It is to be hoped that this work gets the wide attention in global social movement studies that it warrants.' - Jan Aart Scholte, Acta Sociologica