Transforming democracy and partisanship: Globalization and its counter-movements in the US

Abstract

Recent scholarship on the transformations of American democracy has focused heavily on established political institutions such as Congress, the President, and media mechanisms, among others. In contrast, this chapter highlights the role of social movements, including the role of public protest and various types of backlash, in combination with the growing challenge of processes of globalization. Social movements and resistance literature can be used to better examine recent backlashes to globalization, which form an important foundation for the recent surge in right-wing politics. This chapter seeks to link three main concepts: processes of globalization, their resistance movements, and partisan alignment of different groups in the US. These backlashes do not only take the form of protest or counter-movements in the way that social movement scholars have theorized. By conducting a brief historical overview of resistance to globalization in the 1990s, and categorizing different perspectives on aspects of globalization, this chapter suggests new theoretical insights into backlashes and resistance that are reshaping partisanship and democracy.