Strategies for social change: Movements with, within, against and/or beyond the State?

Thursday, May 2nd, 2013 6:30 PM

Science/Religion Suite, Room 5307

Graduate Center, CUNY

New York, NY 10016

The question of the relationship of social movements to the state is one of the most pressing of our time. The Occupy Movement, as well as those in Greece and Spain, organize around goals but often without specific demands on the state. Historical experience shows that the autonomy of social movements is necessary for social change. At the same time the state controls important resources, is in a more powerful position than the movements, and tends to try and control or repress them. How can this dilemma be approached beyond either a simple total rejection of the state or a cooptation of the movements? Can autonomy be constructed while with a relationship to the state?

Dario Azzellini will facilitate a discussion using Venezuela, and in particular the local self administration structures Communal Councils and Communes, as a frame for this conversation. He will also address what is to expect in Venezuela after the recent presidential elections won by Chávez successor Nicolás Maduro.

Dario Azzellini is lecturer in Sociology at the Johannes Kepler University (Linz, Austria). He has written extensively on movements, participative democracy and workers control, focussing on Latin America.

(Source: Esteban Feliz/ AP)