Challenging Authoritarian Capitalism: The Transformative Power of the World Social Forum

The World Social Forum (WSF) was conceived as a platform for exchanging experiences and interlinking effective action. It has brought together people and social movements opposed to neoliberalism, imperialism and the domination of the world by capital. In this book, leading intellectual-activists from four continents take stock of the WSF-experience until the early 2020s and suggest new paths for collaboration between all who build other possible worlds.

Since the first meeting in Porto Alegre, Brazil, in January 2001, at least hundreds of thousands of activists have contributed to WSF activities locally, regionally, and globally. In the early years of the WSF, high hopes were often associated with the pink wave in Latin America, the Arab Spring, and similar events elsewhere. Many foresaw the coming of a systemic crisis and some activist-intellectuals even predicted with some accuracy the outbreak of the financial crisis. But not many predicted the strengthening of authoritarian capitalism that followed. The focus of this edited volume is on the multiple practices of struggle, organization, and conceptual innovation expressed in the main WSF slogan since 2001: ＂Another world is possible.＂

Most chapters in this book were originally published in the journal Globalizations.

Thomas Wallgren is Social Activist, Professor of Philosophy, and Director of The von Wright and Wittgenstein Archives at the University of Helsinki, Finland. He has been involved in Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam - Coalition for Comprehensive Democracy, Corporate Europe Observatory, and the Network Institute for Global Democratization.

Uddhab Pd. Pyakurel is Associate Professor of Political Sociology and Director of Global Engagement Division at Kathmandu University, Nepal. Pyakurel has his PhD from Jawaharlal Nehru University, India, and frequently contributes to journals on socio-political developments in Nepal. He is associated with South Asian Dialogues on Ecological Democracy, Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam, and Network Institute for Global Democratization.

Catalina Revollo Pardo is Colombian Immigrant Activist and Academic in Brazil. She has her PhD in Psychosociology of Communities and Social Ecology from Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) and is Substitute Professor in the Department of Psychology at Federal University of Minas Gerais UFMG, Belo Horizonte, Brazil. Her work investigates the Colombian situation and immigrant groups in Brazil from the perspective of Latin American decolonial criticism and postcolonial studies.

Teivo Teivainen is Professor of World Politics at the University of Helsinki, Finland. On behalf of the Network Institute for Global Democratization, he took part in founding the International Council of the World Social Forum. He is a recipient of Hopkins Award of the American Sociological Association, Amartya Sen Prize of Yale University, and Outstanding Activist Scholar Award of the International Studies Association’s IPE Section.