Documents the rise of the World Social Forums. Succinct chapters include an analysis of the social forum decision making process.

Introduction; I: Background and Context; 1: Social Forums as Public Stage and Infrastructure of Global Justice Movements; 2: (In)Fertile Ground?; 3: The Political and its Absence in the World Social Forum:; 4: Surveys of World Social Forum Participants Show Influence of Place and Base in the Global Public Sphere; II: Campaigns and Movements in the Social Forum Process; 5: More Than a Shadow of a Difference?; 6: Indigenous Peoples and Social Forums; 7: Building National Labor Solidarity:; 8: The World Social Forum as a Bounded Open Space:; 9: Our World Is Not for Sale!; 10: Global Environmentalists and Their Movements at the World Social Forums; 11: The Road to the World Social Forum:; III: Local Places and Global Spaces; 12: African Voices and Activists at the WSF in Nairobi:; 13: Global Movements in Local Struggles:; 14: Diverging Visions of Another World in the Making of the Quebec Social Forum; 15: In the Belly of Empire:; IV: Democratic Innovations; 16: Youth Camps and the Bolivarian Revolution; 17: Deliberative Discussion and Languages in the World Social Forum Process; 18: Democratic Innovation in the U.S. and European Social Forums; 19: Transnational Movement Innovation and Collaboration:; The Space as Actor