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NEW YORK UNIVERSITY
ROBERT F. WAGNER GRADUATE SCHOOL OF PUBLIC SERVICE
P11. 0017 Globalizing Social Activism and the Power of the
Media
Spring, 2009
Professor Ted Perlmutter
Sep4@nyu.edu
Course Hours: Monday/Wednesday 2:00-3:15
Room 706, Silver Center, 33 Washington Place
Office Hours: Wednesday 3:30-5:00
Email: tedperlmutter@cicr.columbia.edu
Phone 917-882-4672
The course will analyze how information technology has transformed
capacities for activist networks to share knowledge, develop strategies, and
expand their boundaries in the context of theories of social movements, global
civil society and international relations. The course will have three thematics,
which will accord roughly with three sections of the course:
1.) An elaboration of the theoretical paradigms for international relations,
social movement theories and global civil society, as they apply to the rise of
non-state actors in the context of the “information revolution” and the political
changes that have occurred in the last fifteen years.
2.) An examination of critical cases of international mobility and mobilization:
including discussions of: the campaign to ban land mines, anti-globalization
campaigns, and democratization in East Asia (Burma and East Timor).
3.) A series of case studies of how internet technology has shaped traditional
foreign policy endeavors and created new possibilities--issues including cases:
war and terrorism, public/virtual diplomacy, Web 2.0 and conflict prevention,
and genocide prevention.
In certain cases, we will be primarily interested in the mobilization patterns
and techniques. In others, it will be the effects of the underlying information
and communication technology. It is the relationship between the increasing
centrality of new forms of organization and new information technologies that
will be a recurrent them of this course.
The focus of the course will concern questions such as:
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To what extent does it make sense to speak of global civil society? What are
NGOs’ roles within it?
Which types of organizations are most able to use and/or most dependent on
sophisticated use of information and communications technology?
Has the development of new modes of communication made new organizational
forms possible?
Which of our traditional theories of international relations, social movements,
and global civil society best enable us to understand these transformations?
Required Texts:
Margaret Keck and Kathryn Sikkink, Activists beyond Borders: Advocacy
Networks in International Politics, Cornell University Press, 1998.
Sidney Tarrow and Donatella della Porta, Transnational Protest and Global
Activism, Rowman and Littlefield, 2005.
Wim vand de Donk, et. al. Cyberprotest: New media, Citizens and Social
Movements, Routledge, 2004.
Course Site(s) and Requirements
We will be using a Google Sites Wiki as the web platform for this course. The
site address will be http://dssi.jot.com. (Temporary login: student password:
studenti). At the level of logistics, the Google Sites Wiki will function as a
replacement for Blackboard—assignments and readings will be posted,
discussions will be held, etc. JotSpot is a very different platform, because all
content, except that which is explicitly locked can be edited by everyone in the
course. The most powerful effect of this openness is that it enables active
collaboration. It also will enable cross-linking between documents,
comprehensive search capacities and the ability to see what everyone has
posted recently.
There will be three “net-writing” requirements, two of which will regard class
participation that will be part of class participation . Their purpose is both to
familiarize you with the newest of technologies and to share our collective
wisdom beyond the confines of the campus.
The first is to use the Google Sites Wiki to comment on the readings and to
participate in collaborative work assignments.
The second is to use a service called delicious ( http://del.icio.us/ ) to tag web
entries that are relevant to the course and of interest to other students.
Tagging is a way to both categorize and link to sites. Students will be expected
to complete 20 tags throughout the semester, at least 15 of which should be
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related to the sites they are responding to or commenting on, and at least 10 of
which should be done by the mid-term.
The third will involve contributing to a site called Digitactiv. Digiactive is a site
that tracks and describes how different advocacy and activist groups use the
internet. The structure and requirements for this assignment will be worked
out collectively in the class.
Grading and Other Policies
Course grades are based on four requirements:
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Class and wiki participation, tagging and other web activities: 30%

Mid-Term Take-Home Exam: 30%

Final Take-Home Exam OR Digiactiv/ Paper: 40%
Participation: All web assignment must be completed before class:
Final Project Due Date: May 8
All late assignments will be penalized one third of a letter grade (i.e., from an Ato a B+) for each day or fraction of a day late. All students are responsible for
saving a hard copy or a backup in some other digital form of all assignments.
Other Policies
Google Sites Wiki: All assignments and course documents are available on the
Google Sites Wiki.
This syllabus is tentative and subject to change at the discretion of the
instructor.
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Week 1: Jan 21
Tuesday
Class themes, explanation of technology, etc.
Week 2: Changing Media/ Autonomous Voices Tag: CMAV
Post-Industrial Revolutions and Manifestos (Monday, Jan 26)
Thomas Friedman, “The World is Flat: A Brief History of the 21st Century:,
Chapter 1, pp. 3-47, and “Open Sourcing: Self-Organizing Collaborative
Communities, 81-103.
Karl Marx, “The Communist Manifesto”, Ch1 and 2,
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communistmanifesto/ch01.htm#a4 and
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communistmanifesto/ch02.htm
Eben Moglen, “The dot Communist Manifesto”,
http://emoglen.law.columbia.edu/publications/dcm.pdf
Recommended:
Howard Rheingold “From the Screen to the Streets”, In These Times, | 10.28.03
http://inthesetimes.com/print.php?id=414_0_1_0
“N.G.O. Bashing”. World Press International, Nov. 15, 2005
http://www.worldpress.org/Europe/2178.cfm
Information Revolutions, (Wednesday, Jan 28) Tag: IReV
Clay Shirky, Here Comes Everybody, ch. 1-4
Global Voices Online http://globalvoicesonline.org/about/ Global Voices Online
is a non-profit global citizens’ media project, sponsored by and launched from the
Berkman Center for Internet and Society at the Harvard Law School.
Biella Coleman "Indymedia's Independence: From Activist Media to Free Software"
Planetwork Journal http://journal.planetwork.net/article.php?lab=coleman0704.
Recommended:
Disputing Censorship http://www.committeetoprotectbloggers.org/
Media and Sovereignty: The Global Information Revolution and Its
Challenge to State Power 1 New Role of the State, pp. 3 – 31
Monroe E. Price,
Week 3 : Global Civil Society and NGOs :
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NGOs and Civil Society (Monday, February 2, ) Tag: NgoCs
CR Anheier, Helmut, Marlies Glasius, and Mary Kaldor. [Selections from:]
"Introducing Global Civil Society." Global Civil Society, 2001, pp. 3 - 21
Kenneth Anderson and David Rieff, “Global Civil Society: A Sceptical View”, GCS
2001
Helmut Anheier, Marlies Glasius and Mary Kaldor “Global Civil Society in an Era
of Regressive Globalisation: The State of Global Civil Society in 2003” in Mary
Kaldor, et. al. Global Civil Society Cambridge: Polity Press, 2003, pages 109-160.
NGOs and States Global Policy Forum,
http://www.globalpolicy.org/ngos/role/stateindx.htm (Articles about role of
NGOs and increasing efforts to regulate them.)
NGOs, Civil Society, and the Internet (Wednesday February 4) Tag: NgoInt
Jonathan Bach and David Stark, “Link, Search, Interact: The Co-evolution of
NGOs and Interactive Technology”, Theory, Culture & Society 2004 (SAGE,
London, Thousand Oaks and New Delhi), Vol. 21(3): 101–117
Naughton, John (2001): “Contested Space: The Internet and Global Civil Society”.
In: Helmut Anheier/ Marlies Glasius/Mary Kaldor (Hrsg.), Global Civil Society
2001. Oxford: Oxford University Press, S. 147-168.
http://www.lse.ac.uk/Depts/global/Publications/Yearbooks/2001/2001chapter
6.pdf
Shirky, Here Comes Everybody, Ch.6-7
Week 4: International Relations
Norms (Monday February 9) Tag: IRnorms
Keck and Sikkink, Activists beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International
Politics Chapter 1 and 2.
Drezner, Daniel “Weighing The Scales: The Internet’s Effect On State-Society
Relations”, http://islandia.law.yale.edu/isp/GlobalFlow/paper/Drezner.pdf
Recommended:
Robert O. Keohane and Joseph S. Nye, Power and Interdependence, 3rd edition.
New York: Addison Wesley Longman, Chapter 2: Realism and Complex
Interdependence, 20-32. Part V, “Globalism and the Information Age”
Finnemore, Martha and Kathryn Sikkink. 1998. "International Norm Dynamics
and Political Change." International Organization, 52: 887-917
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Globalization and Levels of contestation. (Wednesday February 11) Tag: IRgov
Richard Price, “Transnational Civil Society and Advocacy in World Politics, World
Politics 55: 2003
Kathryn Sikkink, ‘Patterns of Dynamic Multilevel Governance”, Transnational
Protest and Global Action, Ch. 7, pp. 151-173
Week 5: Social Movement Theory
Transnational Activism (Wednesday February 18) Tag: TransAct
Sidney Tarrow and Donatella Della Porte, Transnational Protest and Global
Activism, Ch. 1, 6, and 10.
Danish Cartoon Controversy case.
Networked Activism (Monday February 23) Tag: CyberAct
De Donk, Leader, Nixon, and Rucht, “Introduction: Social Movements and ICTs”
CyberProtest: New media, Citizens and Social Movements, pp. 1-25
W. Lance Bennett, “Communicating global activism: strengths and vulnerabilities
of networked politics”, Cyberprotest: New media, Citizens and Social Movements
123-147.
Week 6: Land Mines / Diffusion of Norms / Global civil society / ICT
Global Civil Society and Norm Diffusion (Wednesday, February 25) Tag: LmNorms
Price, Richard. 1998. "Reversing the Gun Sights: Transnational Civil Society
Targets Land Mines." International Organization, 52: 613- 644
Cameron, Maxwell, “Global Civil Society And The Ottawa Process: Lessons From
The Movement To Ban Anti-Personnel Mines” Canadian Foreign Policy, ISSN
1192-6422, Vol. 7, No. 1 (Fall 1999), 85-102. (directory)
ICT (Monday, March 2) Tag: LmICT
Ken Rutherford, “The Landmine Ban and NGOs: The Role of Communication
Technologies “ http://www.nautilus.org/gps/infopolicy/workshop/papers/rutherford.html
Hubert, Don. The Landmine Ban: A Case Study in Humanitarian Advocacy
Occasional Paper #42 Thomas J. Watson Jr. Institute for International Studies
(Providence, Brown University, 2000)
http://www.watsoninstitute.org/pub/op42.pdf
Index on Landmines: http://www.icbl.org/index/ a comprehensive guide to
Landmine resources on- and off the Internet .
Anti-Globalization / “Global Justice”
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Context, Movement, and Structure (Wed, March 4) Tag: AgNet)
Desai, Meghnad and Yahia Said. [Selections from:] "The New Anti-Capitalist
Movement: Money and Global Civil Society." In Global Civil Society 2001, edited by
Helmut Anheier et al. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001: ch. 3, pp 1-28
Felix Kolb, “The Impact of Transnational Protest on Social Movement
Organizations: Mass Media and the Making of Attac Germany” Transnational
Protest and Global Activism, pp. 95-120.
Indymedia videos from Hong Kong WTO
Target WTO: Common Front, "Struggles from the Margins: Dec 17/18 Battle of
Hong Kong against WTO"http://targetwto.revolt.org/node/156
Radio Hongkong.de
http://radiohongkong.de/clip.php?clipId=1263&PHPSESSID=6c8acc05c6e212cc
d9dc2da869b3a763
Week 7: Anti-Globalization and Exam
Anti-Globalization and ICTs (Monday, March 7) Tag: AgICT
Peter Van Aelst and Stefaan Walgrave “New Media, new movements? The role of
the internet in shaping the anti-globalization movement” Cyberprotest: New
media, Citizens and Social Movement, pp. 97-122.
Brigitte Le Grignou and Charles Patou “ATTAC(K)ing expertise: does the Internet
really democratize knowledge? Cyberprotest: New media, Citizens and Social
Movements, pp. 164-180
Recommended:
Steve Wright, “Informing, communicating and ICTs in contemporary anticapitalist movements”, Cyberprotest: New media, Citizens and Social Movements:
pp. 77-93.
Mid-term Exam (Wednesday, March 9)
Week 8: Wikis,
Monday March 23,
CSIS, “Wikis, Webs, and Networks. Creating Connections for Conflict Prone Settings” (theoretical
section) http://www.csis.org/component/option,com_csis_pubs/task,view/id,3542/type,1/
Clay Shirky, Here Comes Everybody, Ch. 5
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Johnathan Zittrain, The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It, Chapter 6, “The Lessons of
WikiPedia”.
Wednesday, March 25.
Zachary Metz, discussion of Israeli-Palestinian issues on Wikipedia.
Discussion of Twitter.com
Discussion of Digiactiv assignment.
Week 9: Democratization (Timor and Burma) and Post-Conflict InstitutionBuilding?
Supporting Democratization (Monday, March 30 ) Tag: SupDem
Gustavo Cardoso and Pedro Periera Neto, “Mass-Media Driven Mobilization and
online Protest: ICTs and the pro-East Timor movement in Portugal” in Van de
Donk, et. al, CyberProtest, pp. 147-164.
East Timor Action Network: http://etan.org/ a grassroots human rights
organization working in solidarity with the people of East Timor.
Tiffany Danitz and Warren “Networking Dissent: Cyber Activists Use the Internet
to Promote Democracy in Burma”,
http://www.usip.org/virtualdiplomacy/publications/reports/vburma/vburma_xc
.html (for text and links to other resources. Also published in Studies in Conflict
and Terrorism Volume 22, Number 3 / August 1, 1999 257 - 269
Viola Krebs, “The Impact of the Internet on Myanmar” ,
http://www.unige.ch/iued/wsis//DOC/451EN.PDF
THE WEB WON'T TOPPLE TYRANNY.
Dictatorship.com DictatorshipCom
by Joshua Kurlantzick The New Republic Post date 04.10.04 | Issue date
04.05.04
"China Buys Google"
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/04/01/china_buys_google/ Consulted:
04/01/2005
http://spaces.msn.com/chinasingapore/Blog/cns!2837099EC21CB7CF!367.entry
Coordinating Relief on the Ground: NGOS and International Orgs (Wednesday, April
2) Tag: CoRel
Donini, A. (1996) The Policies of Mercy: UN Coordination in Afghanistan,
Mozambique, and Rwanda, Brown Occasional Paper, 22, Watson Institute, Brown
University, Providence, pp. 7-59,
http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Watson_Institute/Publications/index.html
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Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief. http://www.acbar.org/
Afghanistan, Peacebuilding in Regional Perspective.
http://www.cmi.no/afghanistan/themes/ngos.cfm
ICTs Use in Humanitarian Response to Iraq
http://www.interaction.org/library/detail.php?id=1612
Week 10: Media and Public Policy
New Models for Journalism (Monday, April 6)
Rachel Sterne, Ground Report http://www.groundreport.com/
Minnesota Public Radio / public insight network
http://minnesota.publicradio.org/publicinsightjournalism/
Citizen Media: Fad or the Future of News?” The Rise and Prospects of
Hyperlocal Journalism” Jan Schaffer www.jlab.org
Jay Rosen, “What I learned from assignment.zero”,
http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/weblogs/pressthink/2007/10/09/what_i_learned.html
Contesting Media Policy (Wednesday, April 8)
Strengths, Challenges and Collaboration: Advocacy groups organizing together
on media ownership and beyond
http://www.mediaactioncenter.org/files/Strengths-Challenge-final.pdf
Russel, N. & Scott, B., "The Fight for the Future of the Media" p.11-40 in The
Future of the Media: Resistance and Reform in the 21st Century. (ed.Robert
McChesney, et al).
Off the Dial: Female and Minority Station Ownership in the United States
http://www.freepress.net/docs/off_the_dial_summary.pdf
Week 11: New Technologies and Social Activism:
Using Web 2.0 (Monday, April 13) Tag: W2Use
Presentation: Speaker: Tom Glaisyer, NetCentric,
Rheingold et. al, “Technologies of Cooperation” Institute for the Future, January
2005 http://www.rheingold.com/cooperation/Technology_of_cooperation.pdf
An Introduction to Activism on the Internet
http://backspace.com/action/
People Building Peace http://peoplebuildingpeace.org/
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Building Online Communities (Wednesday, April 15) Tag: W2Act
Representative from Causes.org
Norris, Pippa (2004). “The Bridging and Bonding Role of Online Communities” in
Howard, P. N. and S. Jones, Eds. (2004). Society Online: The Internet in Context.
Thousand Oaks, CA, Sage.
“What Is Web 2.0 Anyway? Indispensable tools your nonprofit should know
about,” http://www.techsoup.org/howto/articles/webbuilding/page4233.cfm
“CivicSpace Labs: Better politics through open source”, June 23, 2005
http://software.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=05/06/03/2021243&from=rss
Week 12: Netwar and Terrorism
Netwar Monday, April 20: Tag: Netwarz
Networks and Netwars: The Future of Terror, Crime and Militancy
Arquilla, John; Ronfeldt, David (editors) Paperback (RAND Corporation, 2001)
“Networks, Netwar, and Information-Age Terrorism,” in Zalmay M. Khalilzad and
John P. White, eds., Strategic Appraisal: The Changing Role of Information in
Warfare (Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND, 1999).
http://www.currenthistory.com/org_pdf_files/99/636/99_636_179.pdf
CyberTerrorism, Wednesday, April 22 Tag: CyberT
Maura Conway “Reality Bytes: Cyberterrorism and Terrorist 'Use' of the Internet”
http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue7_11/conway/
Weimann, G., 2005. “How Modern Terrorism Uses the Internet”. Journal of
International Security Affairs. pp. 91-105
Thomas, Timothy L. 2003. ‘Al Qaeda and the Internet: The Danger of
“Cyberplanning.”’ Parameters Spring.
http://carlisle-www.army.mil/usawc/Parameters/03spring/thomas.htm
Week 13: Genocide Prevention
Genocide Prevention (Monday, April 27) Tag: GenPrev
Heidenrich, John G. How to Prevent Genocide: A Guide for Policymakers,
Scholars and the Concerned Citizen, Praeger, 2001, selections.
Keck and Sikkink, “Human Rights Advocacy Networks in Latin America”, Activists
beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics chapter 3, pp. 79120
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Amitai Etzioni, “Genocide Prevention in the New Global Architecture” BJPIR: 2005
VOL 7, 469–484,
http://dspace.wrlc.org/bitstream/1961/1311/1/British+Journal.pdf
Rwanda and Darfur (Monday, April 29) Tag: RandD
Samantha Power, “Bystanders to Genocide: Why the United States Let the
Rwanda Tragedy Happen”, Essential Readings in World Politics, 2nd Edition, pp.
233-252.
Aegis: Confronting Genocide: Darfur “Status quo is not an option”
http://www.aegistrust.org/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=288&Itemid
=251
Coalition for Dafur: http://coalitionfordarfur.logspot.com/
Genocide Prevention International http://www.preventgenocide.org/
William Kristoff “Darfur: A Conversation” a multi-media interview on the Sudan,
New York Times, Nov 29, 2005:
http://selectflash.nytimes.com/packages/html/opinion/20051129_KRISTOF_VIDEO/blocker.ht
ml?th&emc=th
Week 14: Virtual Diplomacy (General/Democracy Dialogues)
Digital Diplomacy, (Monday, May 4) Tag: Pdip
Democracy Dialogues
http://www.democracy.gov/dd/democracy_dialogues/about.html
Edward P. Djerejian. “Changing Minds / Winning Peace: a new strategic direction
for US public diplomacy in the Arab & Muslim world” Report of the Advisory
Group on Public Diplomacy for the Arab and Muslim World, October 1, 2003
http://ics.leeds.ac.uk/papers/pmt/exhibits/2033/Changing_MindsWinningPeac
e.pdf
CSIS Commission on Smart Power, (Richard L. Armitage and Joseph S. Nye Jr.,
cochairs) “A Smarter More Secure America” 2007.
http://www.csis.org/media/csis/pubs/071106_csissmartpowerreport.pdf
USC Center for Public Diplomacy web site,
http://uscpublicdiplomacy.com/index.php and press review, to which you can
subscribe.
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