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Theory, Culture & Society
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Is the World Social Forum a Transnational Public Sphere?

Nancy Fraser, Critical Theory and the Containment of Radical Possibility

Janet Conway

Brock University in St Catharines, Ontario, jconway{at}brocku.ca

Jakeet Singh

University of Toronto in Toronto, Canada, jakeet.singh{at}utoronto.ca

In a number of recent articles, Nancy Fraser attempts to understand the World Social Forum within the framework of critical democratic theory. In this article, we examine the descriptive and normative aspects of Fraser’s theoretical framework, and explore the effects of projecting it upon the World Social Forum. We argue that while this theory may elucidate some features of the Forum, many of the Forum’s most challenging and innovative aspects are obscured and limited by Fraser’s framework. Not only, then, does the World Social Forum elude Fraser’s conceptualization of it, but we suggest that the praxis of the Forum poses a number of serious challenges to Fraser’s critical theory of democracy and social justice.

Key Words: democracy • global civil society • global justice • globalization • pluralism • social movements

Theory, Culture & Society, Vol. 26, No. 5, 61-84 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/0263276409106350
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