First Forum:

Department of Politics and Government, Illinois State University where Tadros participated in a workshop called Politics of Confronting Global Arrogance: Transnational Movements and Global Democracy at the 44th Annual ISA Convention of the ISA [International Studies Association], in Portland, OR, February 25 - March 1.

The workshop, and the proposed post-conference published volume, drew on cross-national perspectives, and discussed the role that new media technologies are playing in facilitating transnational social movements' role in articulating sites of global democracy, especially in terms of how they mobilize constituents, frame issues, carry out direct actions, and engage in coalition and consensus building. The workshop's premise was that it has become commonplace for scholars and elite decision makers alike to point to the emergence of a global community, a McWorld of shared goals, values, identifications, etc. New communications technologies fuel these impressions. The explosion of the internet, email, video-conferencing and other forms of media seems to suggest that if people communicate enough, they will know each other and a common humanity will emerge. The workshop therefore discussed the following issues: Do emancipatory movements have the power to counter hegemonic influence? Do they offer an alternative method of social transformation to violent anti-Western movements? Are emancipatory movements articulating new sites of global democracy? Do they overlap with or challenge a liberal regime of global governance? Do new media technologies give transnational movements an edge in articulating global democracy, or do they limit its reach and legitimacy?

The morning session was entitled Conceptualizing Global Arrogance and Democratic Alternatives, and the papers discussed were:

1. Resisting the Politics of Global Arrogance: The role of Nonviolent, Social Movements,
Janie Leatherman
2. Capturing Global Irresponsibility, Julie Webber
3. The Internet and Democracy in the Middle East, Marlyn Tadros

Janie Leatherman and Julie Webber in the morning session

Second Forum:

Davies Forum at the University of San Francisco, May 2nd or 3rd, entitled Digital Democracy

Dr. Tadros participated in two panels: the first was entitled: "The World Wide Web and Global Justice: Reports from Korea, the Middle East and Europe".Other panelists included Myung Joon Kim with Jinbonet from Korea, and Chris Bailey, with Internet Rights, Bulgraia. Among the issues the conference discussed were national threats to civil liberties from the US Government's Homeland Security and international lessons for activists using the Internet. More on the forum will be posted soon. For more on the panel, click on this pdf document.

The second was a workshop entitled Global Social Justice, which included Chris Bailey, Steve Zeltzer from Labortech, and two members of IndyMedia, where practical and case study issues were shown and discussed.

Steve Zeltzer in his radio show