1. I use the term ‘movement actors’ because it is more inclusive than alternatives like ‘activists’. I have met many people who reject the title of ‘activist’ because they feel it represents a division and a privileged category similar to that of a ‘vanguard’. Also, the global movement networks include many people who do not self identify as activists and whose engagement with the movement is temporary. These people get involved, for example, because the G8 comes to their home town and they do not agree with what the G8 does, but they do not always think that this makes them ‘activists’. At times, however, when I am sure the label is appropriate, I do use the term ‘activist’.

 2. See the discussion on engaged anthropology in Current Anthropology 36(3), especially Scheper-Hughes (1995 Scheper-Hughes, N. 1995. The primacy of the ethical: propositions for a militant anthropology. Current Anthropology, 36(3): 409–420. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) and Kuper (1995 Kuper, A. 1995. Comments. Current Anthropology, 36(3): 424–426.  [Google Scholar]).

 3. Teivainen, however, does not incorporate this ‘new way of doing politics’ into his analysis, arguing that ‘the widely held idea that in order to be an “open space”, the WSF cannot be considered an “organization” or “institution” also contributes to its internal depoliticization’, in which he implicitly equates organizations, institutions, and politics (much in the same way movements pre-1960s did). This elision leads him to conclude that the movement, by focusing on process, is somehow avoiding ‘political questions’ by which he seems to mean ‘strategy’, arguing that the movement ‘should have a realistic analysis of what is possible and what is not, and then make strategic prioritizations based on that analysis’. For him this would include addressing ‘explicitly political questions’, by which he seems to mean reforms carried out by the state. This confusion in his argument is on the one hand likely to be due to his focus on only the WSF, which is arguably the space of movement activity that follows this new political logic the least consistently, and on the other hand the result of his use of analytical categories derived from past movements to apply them to this movement.

 4. He is referring not to the London ESF, but to the local London Social Forum which had recently been launched and which his political party boycotted.

 5. There is for instance a considerable difference between having a plan and having an organization, and a plan, if it is in some way goal-oriented, might suffice to be considered strategic.

 6. For an excellent description of ‘horizontality’ in the Argentinean uprisings, see Sitrin (2006 Sitrin, M. 2006. Horizontalism: Voices of Popular Power in Argentina, Oakland, CA: AK Press.  [Google Scholar]).

 7. Decentralizing power is often cited as an anarchist strategy for dealing with power (see Proudhon, 1923 Proudhon, P. 1923. General Idea of the Revolution in the 19th Century, London: Freedom Press.  [Google Scholar]; Kropotkin, 1927 Kropotkin, P. 1927. Revolutionary Pamphlets, New York: Vanguard Press.  [Google Scholar]; Dolgoff, 1970 Dolgoff, S. 1970. “The relevance of anarchism to modern society”. In Libertarian Analysis, Minneapolis, MN: Soil of Liberty. Available at http://flag.blackened.net/liberty/spunk/Spunk191.txt (accessed 11 June 2010) [Google Scholar]), but a confusion arises between decentralization of power and the redistribution of power. In the latter, power is considered to be the property of individuals (rather than a relation), ‘a kind of stuff that can be possessed by individuals in greater or lesser amounts’ (Young, 1990, p. 31), and the redistribution thereof to be the key to equality. But movement actors are aware that decentralized hierarchy exists, and this type of decentralization would not be horizontality, which requires that the decentralization of power be combined with the de-hierarchalization and de-individuation of power through the construction of collective processes in which groups and processes, not individuals, have power.

 8. Participatory democracy, when popularized by Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), was intended to be a goal and not a practice, but in reality, the moment the idea took hold people were already demanding that it also be an internal movement practice and the transition from participatory democracy as a goal to horizontality as a goal and a practice was in reality underway from more or less the moment the term was mobilized (see Miller, 1994 Miller, J. 1994. Democracy is in the Streets, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.  [Google Scholar], pp. 141–153).

 9. These limits being acts of hierarchy and prejudice, when movement actors intentionally create hierarchies or exhibit prejudice they are confronted.

10. Communist and socialist parties, for example, do not like this approach because it precludes them from convincing everyone of the primacy of the communist revolution.

11. This fact that diversity is rarely destructive does not mean that it does not lead to conflict; often it does; but conflict is generally embraced by these movements (see Maeckelbergh, 2009 Maeckelbergh, M. 2009. The Will of the Many: How the Alterglobalization Movement is Changing the Face of Democracy, London: Pluto Press.  [Google Scholar], pp. 99–108; Caruso, 2004 Caruso, G. 2004. Conflict management and hegemonic practices in the World Social Forum. International Social Science Journal, 56(182): 577–589.  [Google Scholar]).

12. This shift toward valuing diversity must also be understood as an act of resistance to the homogenization of 500 years of colonial history, representative democracy, the mass media, and even consumerism (see Holloway, 2004 Holloway, J. (2004) ‘Walking we ask questions’ an interview with John Holloway, interviewed by M. Sitrin, Available at http://auto_sol.tao.ca/node/1052 (accessed 11 June 2010)  [Google Scholar]; de Sousa Santos, 2004 de Sousa Santos, B. 2004. “The World Social Forum: toward a counter-hegemonic globalization (part I)”. In The World Social Forum: Challenging Empires, Edited by: Sen, J., Anand, A., Escobar, A. and Waterman, P. New Delhi: The Viveka Foundation). Available at http://www.choike.org/nuevo_eng/informes/1557.html [Google Scholar]).

13. This shift began to take root during the 1960s. For a description of this transition within social movements of the 1960s in Western Europe, see Horn (2007 Horn, G. 2007. The Spirit of '68: Rebellion in Western Europe and North America 1956–1976, Oxford: Oxford University Press.  [Google Scholar]). For a description of these practices in 1960s movements in the USA, see Polletta (2002 Polletta, F. 2002. Freedom is an Endless Meeting, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]).

14. This point requires me to make an important distinction between ‘strategy’ and ‘success’. The aims of the alterglobalization movement are intensely ambitious, and it is not clear that they will succeed any time soon in bringing about these goals. The lack of immediate success in transforming all of society does not mean that it is by definition astrategic to attempt to do so.

15. Personal email exchange with the author, 4 January 2007. The activist wishes to remain anonymous.