World Social Forum : Democratic Structurelessness?

NIGD News and Notes December 2005

In this issue:
I. The World Social Forum : Democratic Structurelessness?
II. Global Civil Society : A Concept Worth Defining; A Terrain Worth Disputing
III. What about Global Political Parties?
IV. World Public Finances
V. The Bewildered Helsinki Process
VI. The New or Restored Democracies process: from Manila to Doha
VII. NIGD events

I. The World Social Forum : Democratic Structurelessness?
by Tuomas Ylä-Anttila
The methodology of the WSF has been characterised as an open space. However, Tuomas Ylä Anttila argues that recognising the existence of power relations and the need to come up with decisions, implies that the WSF needs two different normative frameworks for its debates : one for the Forum itself, and another one for the International Council.

2. WSF info via Public Libraries
By Mikael Böök
The idea of a public library is to make all information available without delay to all people. This idea is democratic, indeed, democracy is not possible without a well-developed, modern public library system. Well-developed means, that the society has invested and continues to invest in its library system. Modern means that the internet is recognized as a new branch on the growing tree of the library. Citizens need to know about the World Social Forum via the libraries. Read more on this NIGD project which is planning its upcoming events in Bamako.

3. The WSF : committing to activism
The Africa commission of the WSF in Finland (ACWSF) continues in the run up to WSF 2006. In a recent meeting of the Commission, visiting guest Anthony Baah (African Labour Researchers' Network) compared the going to a WSF with the going to a Haj and said that the commitment made to activism was an important result coming forth out of participating in the WSF process. Read more in the report from this meeting as well as other news from the commission at the ACWSF website

4. Report African Social Forum process 2004-2005
This report issued by the Secretariat of the African Scoial Forum process, provides an extensive overview of the continental african social forums as well as regional council meetings in the African Social Forum process of 2004-2005, with a view towards WSF Bamako 2006 and WSF Kenya 2007.

II. Global Civil Society : A Concept Worth Defining; A Terrain Worth Disputing
by Peter Waterman
Peter Waterman discusses Global Civil Society, and the case of the WSF and ILO and concludes that utopianism is a necessity : a map of global civil society that does not have a utopian dimension is not even worth a first glance.

III. What about Global Political Parties?
What would be the scope for an emergence of democratic international political parties? In the context of its Global Political Parties project, NIGD has hosted two dialogues on international political party formations addressing political parties, new social movements and future forms of political power. Read more on the discussions.

IV. World Public Finances
This is the provisionary title of a network which is to be launched in continuation of the Otro Sistema Financeiro platform and seminars organised in Porto Alegre 2005. The initiative currently working towards WSF 2006 wants to see its activities as part of a process which goal is to construct the political bases for "World Public Finances". Which could they be? Read more and join the initiative!

2. Book review : Capitalisms Achilles Heels
by Matti Kohonen
Raymond Baker is a key researcher of the Brookings Institute in Washington into the secretive, illegal, fraudulent practices of every day capitalism. Matti Kohonen wrote a review of his recent book Capitalisms Achilles Heels which addresses the 'dirty money' that is leaving developing countries annually, a USD500 Bn annually, or ten times official development aid.

V. The Bewildered Helsinki Process
By Matti Kohonen
The Helsinki Process in September 2005 gathered together a number of representatives from civil society along with governmental and some business representatives. The idea, as pronounced from the government of Finland was to build bridges between the World Social Forum and the World Economic Forum. Participation was fairly wide at the Helsinki Process, though having a process means methodologies and principles. Read a critical evaluation of the Helsinki Process with suggestions for improvements in a report by Matti Kohonen.

VI. The New or Restored Democracies process: from Manila to Doha
During the past years, we have experienced the birth of many processes on democracy. The sixth conference of the seventeen year old New or Restored Democracies process takes place in Qatar in fall 2006. In order to provide information on the particular movement of New or Restored Democracies, Tapio Kanninen and Katarina Sehm Patomäki have compiled articles and documents on the movement into a publication called Building Democracy from Manila to Doha: The Evolution of the Movement of New or Restored Democracies.