Breaking the Bank & Taking to the Streets: How Protesters Target Neoliberalism

Abstract

This paper analyses a set of 467 local protests that took place against neoliberalism on 5 global days of action between 1998 and 2001 and ?nds that the targets of protest di?er on each continent. The majority target either the global institutions of neoliberalism, such as the IMF, World Bank, World Trade Organization or the Group of 8, or neglect to identify a single institutional target. However, the most popular local target in Africa and Asia is national or local government. In Latin America protests are most likely to target banks or stock exchanges, and in the US, Canada and Europe, corporations. The sources of such variation lie in pre-existing political repertoires, transnational organizational networks, and processes of structural equivalence that underlie di?usion patterns.