Neoliberal Globalisation and Resistance from Below Why the Subalterns Resist in Bolivia and not in Ghana Contemporary African Politics Series

As bearers of their own emancipation, the political agency of the subaltern classes is a vexed question, a time-honoured one at that. Why do the subalterns endure injustices without revolting most of the time, but revolt sometimes against some injustices? The euphoria of ?globalisation-from-below?, this book argues, skirts responsibility of addressing this question by presuming a groundswell of resistance across the world against neoliberal globalisation. In contrast to this oeuvre, Neoliberal Globalisation and Resistance from Below engages this question squarely by using the socio-historical approach to explain why the subalterns resist neoliberal globalisation in Bolivia and not in Ghana. The author urges scholars of critical political economy to pay greater attention to why the subalterns resist, rather than how they resist, or what the ideal end of their resistance should be. Such refocusing of the research and political lens will yield a more realistic picture of what is politically possible in the social context of peripheral capitalism regarding an anti-capitalist revolution. The author further argues that this refocusing will cure many of the romantic anti-capitalist claims and banal wishful thinking of a socialist revolution in peripheral capitalist regions such as Latin American, The Middle East and North Africa (MENA), and Sub-Saharan Africa.

Neoliberal Globalisation and Resistance from Below will be of interest to students and scholars of African politics, neoliberalism, globalisation, political economy and subaltern politics.

Acknowledgements

Foreword by David B. Moore

Introduction: Uneven Resistance in the Context of Uneven Capitalist Development

Chapter One: Subalterns, Injustice, and Resistance

Chapter Two: The Social-Historical Approach to Agency: ‘Pessimism of the Intellect and Optimism of the Will’

Chapter Three: Why the Subalterns Resist: the Cosmo-materialism of the Global Anti-Neoliberalism Resistance Movement

Chapter Four: The Rebellious Subalterns in Bolivia: Socio-Historical Dynamics of the Bolivian Model of Anti-neoliberalism

Chapter Five: Subaltern Agency and Resistance in the Social-Historical Context of The Gold Coast

Chapter Six: Neoliberalism and Resistance in Ghana

Chapter Seven: Electoral Democracy and Subaltern Resistance in Ghana

Chapter Eight: Conclusion: Intellectual and Political Implications

Jasper Abembia Ayelazuno is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Communication, Innovation and Technology, University for Development Studies, Ghana.