2007/12/01 by John A. Noakes, Patrick F. Gillham · 1 citation
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paper · doi:10.17813/maiq.12.4.hk88jk1mw3036302
openalex publication_date 2007/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/11
As the title of this special issue of Mobilization suggests, ―Seattle ‖ has become a rich signifier that embodies not merely a place but also a time, a series of historic events, and a moment of significant social change. The demonstrations targeting the World Trade Organization (WTO) Ministerial Conference in Seattle were a coming out party for the global justice movement in the United States. When direct action demonstrations engineered by the transgressive wing of the movement forced the WTO to cancel the opening day of the meetings and the Seattle police responded with a barrage of less-lethal weapons in an effort to retake control of the downtown streets, a new cycle of contentious politics had found its emblematic moment. For those who study social movements and the police response to them, it was the moment in which ―street politics again became visible ‖ in the U.S. after a quarter century of relative peace between mass demonstrators, their targets and the state (della Porta, Peterson, and Reiter 2006: 1). Like many such moments, however, the meaning of Seattle—and the groups, events, and actions that it symbolizes—is a matter of perspective. Watching the WTO protests unfold, many political activists believed they were witnessing the ―flowering of a new radical movement ‖ (Cockburn, Sekula, and St. Clair, 2000:1). Over the next two years, during which mass demonstrations were staged in numerous North American (Washington, DC, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Ottawa, Quebec City)