Social Movements and the Politics of Debt: Transnational Resistance against Debt on Three Continents

Christoph Sorg

book: Social Movements and the Politics of Debt

Open Access Published by Amsterdam University Press 2022

Social Movements and the Politics of Debt

Transnational Resistance against Debt on Three Continents

Christoph Sorg

Volume 26 in the series Protest and Social Movements

https://doi.org/10.1515/9789048553273

Overview
Contents

About this book

It would have been hard to miss the pivotal role debt has played for contentious politics in the last decades. The North Atlantic Financial Crisis, Global Recession and European Debt Crisis - as well as the recent waves of protest that followed them - have catapulted debt politics into the limelight of public debates. Profiting from years of fieldwork and an extensive amount of empirical data, Christoph Sorg traces recent contestations of debt from North Africa to Europe and the US. In doing so, he identifies the emergence of new transnational movement networks against the injustice of current debt politics, which struggle for more social and democratic ways of organizing debt within and between societies.

Author / Editor information

Sorg Christoph :

Christoph Sorg is a researcher in political economy, labor sociology and social movement studies with a PhD from Humboldt University. For this book he conducted three years of field work in Tunisia, Egypt, the US and several European countries.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	1
Table of Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	7
List of Figures Open Access Download PDF	9
Selected Abbreviations Open Access Download PDF	11
Acknowledgments Open Access Download PDF	13
1 D.R.E.A.M. (“Debt Rules Everything around Me”)
Introduction Open Access Download PDF	15
The Southern Origins of Recent Contentious Debt Politics Open Access Download PDF	19
Social Movement Studies versus Critical Political Economy Open Access Download PDF	21
Contentious Debt Politics and How to Study Them Open Access Download PDF	24
The Outline of This Book Open Access Download PDF	31
The Argument of the Book Open Access Download PDF	34
2 Theories of Financialization and Social Movements
Some Preliminary Thoughts on Financialization Open Access Download PDF	37
(Political-)Economic Approaches: Neo- and Post-Keynesianism Open Access Download PDF	40
Varieties of Marxist Thought Open Access Download PDF	42
Historical Sociology – World-systems Approach Open Access Download PDF	46
Markets, Networks, Culture Open Access Download PDF	49
Social Movement Studies Open Access Download PDF	51
Social Movement Studies’ Traditional Agenda Open Access Download PDF	53
New Developments: Social Movement as Process Open Access Download PDF	57
Structure versus Movement Open Access Download PDF	59
3 The Financialization of Capitalism
Finance and Debt under Capitalism Open Access Download PDF	61
The Recent Financialization of Capitalism Open Access Download PDF	64
Financialized Actors and Institutions Open Access Download PDF	66
4 Contentious Debt Politics since the Southern Debt Crisis
Introduction Open Access Download PDF	71
From the “IMF Riots” to the Emergence of Transnational Advocacy Networks and Jubilee 2000 Open Access Download PDF	72
A Class of Debtors in and for Itself? Grievances and Cleavages of Debt Open Access Download PDF	76
Political Opportunities and Threats Open Access Download PDF	79
Mobilizing Structures Open Access Download PDF	83
Identity, Knowledge, Framing Open Access Download PDF	86
Repertoires of Action Open Access Download PDF	89
Some Tentative Conclusions: Two Approaches to Contentious Debt Politics at the Eve of the NAFC? Open Access Download PDF	91
5 Responding to the Multiple Crises of Financialized Capitalism
Introduction Open Access Download PDF	95
From Financial to Economic Crisis Open Access Download PDF	97
From Financial-Economic to Political and Social Crisis Open Access Download PDF	99
From Political and Social Crisis to Crisis of Legitimacy Open Access Download PDF	102
The Debt Politics Movement Reacts to Financial Crisis and Anti-austerity Protests Open Access Download PDF	105
Moving from Crisis to Resistance Open Access Download PDF	113
6 Debtors’ Clubs and Debtors’ Unions
A New Cycle of Contention: The Emergence of New Anti-austerity Movements Open Access Download PDF	115
New Movement Organizations, Transnational Networks, and Movement Parties Open Access Download PDF	119
Excursion: The Illustrative Case of Blockupy Open Access Download PDF	124
From Anti-austerity to New Contentious Debt Politics Open Access Download PDF	130
Yes ICAN: The International Citizen Debt Audit Open Access Download PDF	137
Old and New Organizational Repertoires Open Access Download PDF	141
By Way of Conclusion: A Virtuous Mutual Appropriation Towards a Debtors’ Cartel Open Access Download PDF	155
7 Who Owes Whom? Deconstructing Debt Fetishism
Introduction Open Access Download PDF	159
Eurodad: Everything Development Finance Open Access Download PDF	162
CADTM: The Debt System Open Access Download PDF	167
ICAN: Putting the Citizen in Citizen Debt Audit Open Access Download PDF	171
Each One Teach One: Putting the Creditors and the System into the Limelight Open Access Download PDF	177
What Is to Be Done? And Who’s Gonna Do It? Open Access Download PDF	180
8 Collective Debtor Action and Prefigurative Debt Politics
Introduction Open Access Download PDF	191
Lobbying against Vulture Funds for a New International Financial Architecture Open Access Download PDF	193
Towards an Athens Club: The Greek Truth Committee on Public Debt Open Access Download PDF	199
The Truth Committee’s Preliminary Report and the Ensuing Greek Tragedy Open Access Download PDF	203
The People Want the Overthrow of the Regime’s Debt: Tunisia’s Post-revolutionary Debt Audit Open Access Download PDF	208
Prefiguring a Democratic Finance: Municipal Audits, People’s Bailout, and Beyond Open Access Download PDF	212
Different Ways of Engaging Debt Open Access Download PDF	218
9 Towards a More Democratic Debt Politics?
Introduction Open Access Download PDF	221
Lineages of Recent Contentious Debt Politics Open Access Download PDF	224
Three Ways of Tackling the Debt Problematique Open Access Download PDF	231
Meditations on a Theory of Contentious Debt Politics Open Access Download PDF	236
Debtors of the World, Unite! Open Access Download PDF	240
Bibliography
Referenced Primary Sources Open Access Download PDF	245
Secondary Literature Open Access Download PDF	259
Index Open Access Download PDF	281

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: Amsterdam University Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 298
Illustrations
- Illustrations: 2
Keywords: Debt; financialization; contentious politics; social movements

eBook

Published: July 20, 2022
ISBN: 9789048553273