The politics of globalisation (Pierre Bourdieu)

The politics of globalisation
Pierre Bourdieu
Globalisation is not a fate, but a politics. For this reason, a politics of opposition to
its concentration of power is possible. This alternative must be international, and
draw on the experience of both trade unions and the newer social movements.

T

he term ‘globalisation’ suggests the
inevitability of economic laws. This
masks the political reality. It is an
altogether paradoxical reality which relies upon
a politics of depoliticisation.
It is a politics which threatens to confer a lethal
status on economic forces unleashed from all
control or constraint. It is a politics which
secures the submission of governments and
peoples to those very economic and social forces
it says must be ‘liberated’.
The term ‘globalisation’ is simultaneously
descriptive and normative. Everything
encompassed in it is the precise result, not of
economic inevitability, but of a politics,
conscious and calculated, which has led the
liberal and even social democratic governments
of several economically advanced countries to
divest themselves of the power to control
economic forces.
They have at best relinquished those powers to
see them concentrated in the ‘green rooms’ of
big international concerns, such as the WTO; or

in such multinational ‘networks’ as the network

made up of fifty multinational companies, which
through all manner of ways and means,
including legal ones, are in the process of
imposing their will.
A different politics
We need to counter this politics of
depoliticisation and disempowerment. To do so
it is necessary to retrieve a politics both of
thought and action: a politics capable of
addressing itself beyond the nation-state at the
same time as it engages with the political and
labour movement battles within the nation
states. For many reasons, this is a dauntingly
difficult task.
In the first place, it poses sets of political
challenges which appear to be removed from
one another, are apparently inaccessible and
seemingly have little in common, either in terms
of they way they work or with the familiar,
formative political battles of the past.
Second, the powerful agencies and institutions
which today dominate our world, economically
and socially, can draw upon an extraordinary
convergence of all forms of capital – economic,
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political, military, cultural, scientific,

technological – amounting to a fundamental,
unprecedented symbolic hegemony over all
channels and means of communication through
which opposition will be reported.
It is important to concede that some of the
instruments for the politics which is needed are
to be found at the European level (at least to the
extent that European institutions and
businesses can have a causal effect on the
dominant forces of the world stage). It follows
that the construction of a
unified Social Europe, capable
of bringing together the
different forces in all their
divisions, as much in the
national arenas as in the
international, is the priority of
all those who wish to resist
effectively the dominant forces
of our time.
Co o p er a t io n
unification

wi t h o u t

A second common characteristic of social
movements is the way their priorities lie with
specific social issues such as housing,
employment and health.
A third typical feature is a fondness for direct

action, a desire that protests and demands
should manifest themselves in exemplary
actions which have a direct bearing on the
relevant campaign.
The fourth distinctive and shared characteristic
is that solidarity is the tacit
moving force behind the greater
part of their activities.

The construction of
a unified Social
Europe...is the
priority of all those
who wish to resist
effectively the
dominant forces of
our time

The social movements that are
essential to a politics of
resistance are very various,
thanks to their different origins, aims and
objectives. Nevertheless they undeniably share a
set of what we might call family traits.

In the first place, this is because they are often
the result of a refusal of traditional forms of
political mobilisation, particularly those typical
of the soviet-type communist parties. Typically,
they reject any kind of monopolisation of their

organisation by a minority, and positively
elevate and encourage the direct participation of
all the various stakeholders, resembling in this
regard the libertarian tradition.
They are particularly prone to those forms of
individually motivated politics requiring a light,
streamlined apparatus which will allow its
members to maintain control over their own
activity (in stark contrast to those party
machines with which they battle for political
hegemony).

Such similarities in the objectives
of disparate political struggles
highlight the usefulness, if not of
the complete unification of the
disparate movements that young
militant groups often urge, at the
very least of some coordination of
their action and demands. Such
coordination might take the form
of a network able to bring
together groups and individuals
in such a way that no one group
dominates another; a network
able to conserve all of the advantages of the
diversity of experiences, perspectives and
programmes of each group.
Its main function would be to direct social
movements away from dispersed and

fragmented actions, ensuring that they do not
become entangled in the specifics of one-off
local struggles (whilst at the same time avoiding
concentrations of bureaucracy). This would
have the benefit of empowering the groups to
overcome the inconsistencies between the
moments of intense mobilization and the latent,
slower forms of existence essential to their
preparation.
Any such network would seek to define a set of
shared objectives at the intersection of the
interests and concerns of all the different
groups, a set of values that they could all
recognise and collaborate in, at the same time as
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bringing to bear their own competencies and
methods.
Reviving trade unionism
The neo-liberal politics of globalisation has also
contributed to the weakening of trade unions.
The flexibility and precariousness of a growing
number of workers’ jobs has had the effect of
hindering any unified action, at the same time
as social security is extended to fewer parts of
the workforce.
This illustrates simultaneously just how difficult
and how indispensable the task of reviving trade
union action is. It will entail rotating

responsibility, and re-examining the model of
unconditional delegation, as well as inventing
new techniques that are essential for mobilising
the fragmented and insecure workforce.
Any such organization would have to be capable
of overcoming the fragmentation both in terms
of objectives and nationalities, in addition to the
divisions within movements and trade unions.
Bringing trade unions together in circumstances
of lively debate and discussion must have a
revivifying effect upon them.

The existence of a stable and efficient
international network should allow the
development of an international trade union
movement which has nothing to do with the
official bodies in which unions are represented,
and would integrate the actions of all the
movements which are tackling very specific, and
therefore limited situations.
In addition to the development and
coordination of new social movements and the
willingness to work at a European level, it is also
important to renew the more traditional area of
trade unions, in any politics that seeks to
respond to globalisation and defy the efforts to
‘depoliticise’ the way we are ruled.
20 February, 2002
Copyright © Pierre Bourdieu, 2002. Published by
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Pierre Bourdieu (1930-2002)was one of the foremost sociologists of French society and the
modern world. His 25 books include works on Algeria, taste, power, television, intellectuals, and
poverty. His later years were marked by increasingly public engagement with issues of globalisation
and state power. This article, translated by Sarah Verblow and Anthony Barnett, was published in Le
Monde on 24 January 2002, the day on which the paper reported Bourdieu’s death as its front-page
lead story.

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