A model for homeland defense? The policing of alterglobalist protests and the contingency of power relations

Alternatives

Volumn 33, Issue 4, 2008, Pages 435-460

  Gibson, John ^a  

^a LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

Alterglobalism; Analytics; Power; Resistance; Violence

Indexed keywords

EID: 58549117310     PISSN: 03043754     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/030437540803300403     Document Type: Review

References (101)

1. See, for example, Stephen Gill, Globalization, Democratization, and Multilateralism (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1997), pp. 51-73; Tarak Barkani and Mark Laffey, "Retrieving the Imperial: Empire and International Relations," Millennium 31, no. 1 (2002): 109-127; Alex Callinicos, "The Actuality of Imperialism," Millennium 31, no. 2 (2002): 319-326; Bryan Mabee, "Discourses of Empire: The US 'Empire,' Globalisation, and International Relations," Third World Quarterly 25, no. 8 (2004): 1359-1378; and Michael Cox, "Empire, Imperialism, and the Bush Doctrine," Review of International Studies 30, no. 4 (2004): 585-608.
2. Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, trans. Alan Sheridan (London: Penguin, 1977); Michel Foucault, "Governmentality," in Graham Burchell, Colin Gordon, and Peter Miller, eds., The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), pp. 87-103. Similar arguments occur within Foucauldian approaches that investigate governmentality as the dominant mode by which bureaucratic power is exercised. See Wendy Larner and William Walters, Global Governmentality: Governing International Spaces (London: Routledge, 2004).
3. Robert Cox, "Beyond Empire and Terror: Critical Reflections on the Political Economy of World Order," New Political Economy 9, no. 3 (2004): 307-323.
4. Susan Strange, The Retreat of the State (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996); Pierre Bourdieu, Acts of Resistance: Against the Tyranny of the Market (New York: New Press, 1998); Barry Gills, Globalization and the Politics of Resistance (Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan, 2000).
5. Stephen Gill, Toward a Post-modern Prince? The Battle in Seattle as a Moment in the New Politics of Globalisation," Millennium 29, no. 2 (2000): 141. The intention that Miami would be the site of the final drafting of the FTAA became untenable in the twelve months preceding the ministerial, with strong opposition to its "one size fits all" nature emerging across much of South America after the economic collapse of Argentina in 2001 and the election of the outwardly antineoliberal Lula in Brazil; see Mario Carranza, "Mercosur and the End Game of the FTAA Negotiations: Challenges and Prospects After the Argentine Crisis," Third World Quarterly, 25, no. 3 (2004): 319-337.
6. Gill, note 5, p. 141. Christopher deLaurenti, a Seattle musician, has noted that the Seattle Police Department had a reputation for the civil policing of protest during the latter half of the twentieth century; hence, the experience of violence at the WTO was exceptional in the recent history of the city, and entirely unexpected: interview at Jackson's Bar, Seattle, July 21, 2004.
7. Gill, note 5, p. 137; Mark Rupert, "Globalising Common Sense: A Marxian-Gramscian (Re-)vision of the Politics of Governance/Resistance," Review of International Studies 29, special issue (Dec. 2003): 196; Cox, note 3, p. 311.
8. For a report on Genoa, see Jonathan Blair, Daniel McQuillan, et al., "Statement from Genoa Protesters," Guardian, July 26, 2001.
9. Tom Burgis and Jonathan Watts, "Global Trade Riots Rock Hong Kong," Observer, Dec. 18, 2005.
10. "Police Raids Against G8 Mobilisations in Germany," www.indy media.org.uk/en/2007/05/370112; accessed May 10, 2007.
11. The ongoing development of "policing" weapons that contain endothelin, a substance reportedly similar to snake venom in its effects, and agents designed to induce temporary paralysis of the lungs are particular concerns: Steve Wright, "When Drugs Become Weapons," Guardian, May 24, 2007.
12. Stephen Gill, "Constitutionalizing Inequality and the Clash of Globalizations," International Studies Review 4, no. 1 (Jan. 2002): 43-65.
13. Gill, note 5, p. 132; idem, note 12, p. 53; idem, Power and Resistance in the New World Order (Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), p. 60. 14. Cox, note 3, p. 311.
14. The erection of security fences designed to keep protesters from being able to disrupt transnational ministerials has become a common feature of subsequent affairs. The Gleneagles G8 in Perthshire in 2005 was accompanied by ten thousand police officers, mobile CCTV units, road blocks, and injunctions against a number of proposed acts of protest in and around the town of Auchterarder; see John Dennis and Scan Clarke, "Security Tightens ahead of G8 Summit," Guardian, July 4, 2005.
15. "South Florida FTAA Update," issued by the 800 million vs. 34 Coalition, Nov. 14, 2003 at www.ainfos.ca/03/nov/ainfos00304; accessed Aug. 19, 2005. See also the Miami-Dade Independent Review Panel articles about the policing in Miami, www.saveourcivilliberties.org/en/2004/06/379; accessed Feb. 9, 2006.
16. FTAA Miami Video Working Group, The Miami Model.
17. These measures redefined the precise definition of forms of public assembly that required a permit, criminalizing "unofficial" convergences of the scale necessary to effect successful disruption of the FTAA, including the "Sleeping Dragon" devices used by activists in Seattle to lock themselves together, chained to the ground so as to be virtually unmoveable, a measure that contributed greatly to the success of the blockade of the WTO. Affinity groups, to be within the letter of the law, could consist of no more than eight members. The City of Miami also codified the dimensions and materials of protest objects, barring glass bottles, pieces of wood more than one-quarter of an inch thick, or the possession of gas masks: Streets and Sidewalks Ordinance, Nov. 13, 2003 (approved unanimously by the city commission): www.ftaaimc.org/en/2003/11/287; accessed Jan. 8, 2006. Nikki Hartman, a direct-action participant from Maine interviewed by e-mail in autumn 2004, noted that officers undertook regular training exercises dressed in full armor in the streets of downtown Miami, creating a vivid spectacle of immense power and authority. Techniques deployed during the protest to disorient protesters included the use of ever-changing directives to protesters. Lt. Bill Schwarts, interviewed in one scene for the FTAA Miami Video Working Group's The Miami Model, described this tactic as "a kind of frustration technique. They want to go to a certain place, we're saying, 'Nah, we don't want you to go there.'"
18. The Miami Model, note 17.
19. Kevin Danaher recalls that at the Philadelphia event, Timoney ordered his police to storm the convergence center and destroy artwork and puppetry in advance of the event. Kevin Danaher, interviewed at Global Exchange, July 16, 2004.
20. Hartman notes that there was an extensive public relations campaign by the Miami-Dade police in the weeks preceding the ministerial, effectively warning people not to house known or suspected anarchists and to avoid the downtown area for the duration of the FTAA ministerial.
21. The Miami Model, note 17.
22. Paul de Armond, "Netwar in the Emerald City: WTO Protest Strategy and Tactics"; John Arquilla and David Ronfeldt, Networks and Netwars: The Future of Terror, Crime, and Militancy (Santa Monica, Calif.: Rand, 2001), pp. 201-235.
23. Naomi Archer, media worker with South Floridians for Fair Trade and Global Justice, recalled that "the cops would move forward, stop, then move forward again. They were pushing people to an intersection at Third Avenue for a mass arrest, but they couldn't organize it so they just shot at people instead": telephone interview, Oct. 18, 2004.
24. These techniques included exposure to extreme and often sudden variations in environmental temperatures to confuse and alarm arrested activists; the use of confusion techniques through the arrest procedure, including addressing protesters entirely in Spanish; and the widespread and open intimidation and ridicule of arrestees to terrify activists into submission. In the recollection of one anonymous participant, the use of solitary confinement was the most psychologically debilitating aspect of this regime: "Another Take on the FTAA: Inside a Miami Jail," www.ainfos.ca/03/nov/ainfos00594; accessed Jan. 6, 2006.
25. Moazzam Begg, "My Years in Captivity," Guardian, Feb. 25, 2006. These bear striking similarities to the practices endured by those arrested in Miami.
26. Ana Nogueira, a producer with Democracy Now, an independent radio and internet station, was arrested during a jail solidarity protest as a consequence of her being "nonembedded": reported by the station's Amy Goodman, "Democracy Now Producer Ana Nogueira Among 250 Arrested in Miami FTAA Protest, "www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/11/24/1455248&mode= thread&ctid=25; accessed Dec. 3, 2005.
27. Naomi Archer, telephone interview, Oct. 18, 2004.
28. James der Derian, 2004, "9/11: Before, After, and In Between," Social Science Research Council 2004, at www.ssrc.org/sept11/essays/ der_derian; accessed Apr. 17, 2005.
29. The Miami Model, note 17.
30. Ibid.
31. Naomi Klein, "From FTAA Lite to War Lite," Nov. 27, 2003, at www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles9/Klein_FTAA-Abuses; accessed Jan. 6, 2006; Starhawk, "Miami: A Dangerous Victory," at ftaaimc.org/en/2003/12/ 3006; accessed Jan. 6. 2006.
32. Steve Graham, Cities, War, and Terrorism (Malden: Blackwell, 2004); Louise Amoore, "Biometric Borders: Governing Mobilities in the War on Terror," Political Geography 25, no. 3 (2006): 336-351; Kyle Grayson, "Promoting Responsibility and Accountability-Human Security and Canadian Corporate Conduct," International Journal 61, no. 2 (2006): 479-494.
33. Michel Foucault, "Two Lectures," in Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972-1977, trans. Alan Sheridan (London: Harvester, 1980), pp. 79-108.
34. Michel Foucault, "Truth and Power," in Sheridan, trans., note 34, p. 119.
35. Amoore, note 33, p. 341.
36. Larner and Walters, note 2, p. 10.
37. Slavoj Zizek, Welcome to the Desert of the Real! (London: Verso, 2001), p. 91.
38. Judith Butler, The Psychic Life of Power (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1997), pp. 167-198; idem, Precarious Life (London: Verso, 2004), pp. 20-49.
39. Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Empire (New York: Harvard University Press, 2000), pp. 22-27.
40. Donatella della Porta, "Social Movements and the State: Thoughts on the Policing of Protest," in Doug McAdam, John D. McCarthy, and Mayer N. Zald, eds., Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 64-80. The convivial march to "Make Poverty History" in Edinburgh in July 2005, though conducted against a heavy police backdrop, was not subjected to police violence. In contrast, the Carnival for Full Enjoyment, an event conducted in the same city two days later by considerably fewer activists, was accompanied by a more active police strategy, designed to contain participants within confined spaces so as to prevent the successful staging of the event.
41. In Seattle, the route of the labor-NGO march was altered at the last moment by a small number of representatives in discussions with police, much to the surprise of the majority of marchers, who had expected their event to converge with the direct-action blockade occurring merely hundreds of meters away: Jason Adams, interviewed by Jeremy Simer for the WTO History Project, Mar. 16, 2000; see depts.washington.edu/wtohist/ interviews/Adams.pdf; accessed Nov. 13, 2005.
42. AFL-CIO "FTAA Call to Action," Oct. 2003, full text at www.citizenstrade.org/pdf/calltoaction.pdf; accessed Dec. 1, 2005.
43. Crimethinc, "Bringing the Heat in Miami," Jan. 23, 2004, www.crimethinc.com/features/6; accessed Dec. 12, 2005.
44. This activist wished these comments to be attributed anonymously.
45. An anonymous contribution, "Another Take on the FTAA: Inside a Miami Jail."
46. Crimethinc, "Bringing the Heat in Miami."
47. Andre Drainville, Contesting Globalization (Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), pp. 104-139.
48. Andre Drainville, "Quebec City 2001 and the Making of Transnational Subjects, " Socialist Register 2002, p. 35.
49. Mark Tran, "Geldof Hits Out at G8 'Farce,'" Guardian, June 8, 2007.
50. Rush Lowe, ABC Channel 7 News, extract from The Miami Model, note 17.
51. Nikki Hartman, interviewed in successive e-mail exchanges, autumn 2004.
52. Starhawk, note 32.
53. Michel Foucault, "The Subject and Power," in Hubert L. Dreyfus and Paul Rabinow, eds., Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982), pp. 201-226.
54. Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality, vol. 1, trans. Alan Sheridan (London: Random House, 1980), p. 93.
55. Michel Foucault, "Power and Strategies," in Sheridan, trans., note 34, pp. 142-143, 166; idem, note 55, p. 94.
56. Amoore, note 33, p. 338.
57. Butler, Psychic Life of Power, note 39, p. 96.
58. Slavoj Zizek et al., Contingency, Hegemony, Universality (London: Verso 2000), p. 220.
59. Alex Kumi, "Removal of Men from Holiday Flight Condemned," Guardian, Aug. 21, 2006.
60. David Campbell, "Political Prosaics, Transversal Politics, and the Anarchical World," in Michael J. Shapiro and Hayward R. Alker, eds., Challenging Boundaries (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996), pp. 18-21.
61. Butler, Precarious Life, note 39, p. 16.
62. "Another Take," note 46.
63. Ibid.
64. Jason Mark, interviewed at Global Exchange, July 16, 2004.
65. Kevin Danaher, a founder of Global Exchange, a San Francisco fairtrade and human-rights activist group, recalls, "In Genoa I saw cops who were obviously cops come in front of a peaceful demonstration, throw shit at the cops and then run away and the cops attacked the crowd. It was like it was Hollywood choreographed"; interview at Global Exchange, San Francisco, July 16, 2004.
66. The Miami Model, note 17.
67. Cathy Feingold, one of the organizers of the AFL-CIO Miami events, recalls that nearly two hundred buses containing prospective labor marchers were arbitrarily detained north of Miami, many containing retirees without access to food, water, or toilet facilities: Cathy Feingold, interviewed at the AFL-CIO, Washington D.C., June 14, 2004, Naomi Archer contends that, compounding this effect, hundreds of participants subsequendy abandoned the march because of the disappointingly low turnout (interview by telephone, Oct. 18, 2004).
68. The footage of this speech can be seen in full in The Miami Model, note 17.
69. Soren Ambrose, interviewed in Brooklands, Washington B.C., June 25, 2004.
70. See www.saveourcivilliberties.org/en/static/about; accessed Jan. 19, 2006.
71. Fern Feto Spring, interviewed at the Ruckus Society, Oakland, Calif., July 16, 2004.
72. Donatella della Porta, "Social Movements and the State: Thoughts on the Policing of Protest," p. 68.
73. See www.ciw-online.org/; accessed Nov. 18, 2005.
74. Telephone interview, Dec. 2, 2004.
75. The Miami Model, note 17.
76. "PS: An Activist's Thoughts on Race Relations in the Miami Protests," anonymous contribution to www.infoshop.org/inews/stories.php? story=03/12/25/9587001; accessed Jan. 7, 2006.
77. Starhawk, note 32.
78. The Miami Model, note 17.
79. Naomi Archer notes that one reporter from the Miami Herald, known to her personally, was unable to file (telephone interview, Oct. 18, 2004).
80. Robyn E. Blumner, "Miami Crowd Control Would Do a Tyrant Proud," St. Petersburg Times, Nov. 30, 2003; "Police Overreaction Serious," St. Petersburg Times editorial, Dec. 2, 2003.
81. Jim deFede, "Threat to Liberty at FTAA Worth a Second Look," Miami Herald, Feb. 27, 2004.
82. Kirk Nielsen, "Headbangers Ball: Claims That Police Didn't Aim at FTAA Protesters' Upper Bodies Get a Black Eye," Miami New Times, Dec. 12, 2003; Kris Hermes, "Charge Against Free Trade Protester Dropped After Cop Fails to Show in Court," Sun-Sentinel, Jan. 21, 2004.
83. Foucault, note 54, p. 208.
84. Amoore, note 33, p. 347.
85. Roland Bleiker, Popular Dissent, Human Agency, and Global Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), p. 56.
86. See www.saveourcivilliberties.org/en/2004/04/320; accessed Jan. 19, 2006.
87. See, for example, "Guard Indiscriminately Pepper-Spraying People, Miami FTAA, 2003," www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7WGOmKmSP8; accessed Apr. 19, 2007.
88. Chris Atkins, Taking Liberties (Revolver Entertainment, 2007).
89. Foucault, note 54, p. 211.
90. Foucault, note 55, p. 93.
91. Foucault, note 54, p. 212.
92. Roland Bleiker, Popular Dissent, Human Agency, and Global Politics, p. 115.
93. Clifford Bob, The Marketing of Rebellion (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005), pp. 1-31.
94. Gill, note 5, p. 140; Cox, note 3, p. 317.
95. Carolina Delgado, telephone interview, Aug. 11, 2004.
96. Dan Leahy, telephone interview, Dec. 2, 2004.
97. See Bill Aal, interview by Miguel Bocanegra, Nov. 11, 2000, for the WTO History Project, full text at depts.washington.edu/wtohist/interviews/Aal.pdf; also Ace Saturay, interview by Miguel Bocanegra, August 12, 2000, depts.washington.edu/wtohist/interviews/Saturay.pdf; accessed Nov. 13, 2005.
98. "PS," note 77.
99. See the discussion section at wvvw.indymedia.org.uk/en/2005/07/315975. html?c=on#c119989.
100. See www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2005/07/316226 for a wealth of examples.
101. See ibid.