Social movements are rarely the analytical or theoretical focus of studies in international relations. They are often used just as starting points to elaborate more central concepts, or are displaced by NGOs and organizational networks as the preferred units of analysis.

Exploring international social movements, both empirically and theoretically, this book argues that some social movements must be understood as significant forms of political agency on the world stage. The author suggests that a number of contemporary social movements represent an important form of politics that has been ignored in the discipline, and offer us a helpful starting point for reconceptualizing world politics more generally. The Politics of Resistance in a Global Era:

• develops a theoretical framework in which social movements can be conceptualized as a particular kind of politics
• explores the usefulness of this framework in enabling an empirical analysis of three contemporary international social movements: the international indigenous people’s movement, the global women’s reproductive rights movement and the radical ecological movement
• draws out the implications of thinking about social movements as key forms of political agency in world politics for both an alternative conception of politics in the field as well as an alternative research agenda.