Globalising Resistance against War? A Critical Analysis of a Theoretical Debate in the Context of the British Anti War Movement

The political revival of the anti-war movement after 9/11 launched a controversial debate on global resistance against war. Liberal cosmopolitans characterise the movement as a consensual force of opposition against war in the form of global civil society acting on the basis of ‘universal’ values. Radical poststructuralists consider it a preliminary example of the Multitude, waging ‘a war against war’ as a global body of opposition. For statecentrics, these views are utopian in referring to global struggles and political subjects that do not yet exist, and alarming because global resistance escapes power in the ‘postpolitical’ struggle. Here, the theoretical debate is critically analysed from the perspective of ‘critical theory in political practice’. Through an empirical case study of four organisations within the new anti-war movement in Britain, it is demonstrated that these theories’ connection to practice is inadequate, and in many ways problematic due to their tendency to resort to a dualistic ‘either-or’ logic. The paper introduces a ‘both-and’ approach that not only reflects more accurately the way in which the relationship between global and local is conceived within the movement but also provides a more comprehensive perspective for conceptualising power in the context of social movements generally.