Intelligentsia, Academics, Students and Other Participants at the World Social Forum
UCR Transnational Social Movement Research Working Group at the WSF-Nairobi
Christopher Chase-Dunn, Ellen Reese, Toi Carter and Roy Kwon
Department of Sociology and Institute for Research on World-Systems
University of California, Riverside
Riverside, CA 92521-0419
To be presented at the 2007 annual meeting of the Society for the Study of Social Problems cross-listed session, “Sociologists Do the World Social Forum: Tensions Between Scholars and Activists and Within the Scholar-Activist” organized by Marina Karides and Ellen Reese. This session is co-sponsored by Sociologists Without Borders and the Global Section of the SSSP.
Draft v. 8-7-07, 4820 words. This is IROWS Working Paper #37 available at http://irows.ucr.edu/papers/irows37/irows37.htm
Scholars, whether they are professors, teachers, or students, make up a surprisingly large portion of participants at the World Social Forum (WSF). While many of these scholars are also activists, their occupational roles as producers and distributors of knowledge and ideas may lead them to differ from other activists attending the WSF in important ways. This paper reports findings from survey data collected from participants at the WSF to explore the similarities and differences among scholars and other participants at the WSF in terms of their social background characteristics, political opinions, levels of social activism, participation in various social movements, and reasons for attending the WSF. A future version of this paper will draw on our participant observations of the 2005 and 2007 WSF meetings and the U.S. Social Forum meeting in Atlanta in 2007, where we will also reflect upon observed tensions regarding the role of scholars during WSF events and the multiple ways that scholars and scholar-activists have used this “open space.” [1]
Those who study social movements have long observed that most of the leaders come from families who have more education, income and social status than do followers. Mao Tse-tung was school teacher. Marx was ABD. It has also long been recognized that this poses a challenge for movements that seek to represent the interests of the poor and oppressed. Leaders may end up representing their own interests or the interests of their class rather than the interests of the poor and oppressed. Movements differ with regard to the extent to which they claim to represent the poor and oppressed, and to the extent to which they worry about the problem of leaders having different interests than followers. Those that worry about this the most employ organizational, educational and political instruments to increase the likelihood that leaders will act in the interests of the groups that they claim to lead.
Roy Kwon’s (2007) paper on “the World Scholars Forum” discusses the history of the labor movement as a struggle over attititudes toward power and authority and the authenticity of leadership have been major issues of contention since the First International. Kwon discusses the critical and sociological literature that has analyzed vanguardism (Karabel 2005; Szelenyi 1982) and the role of intellectuals as a new class. This literature is an important part of the class analysis of modern societies and has important implications for counter-hegemonic social movements.
Roberto Michels (1915) pointed to the oligarchical tendencies of political parties in which old leaderships, regardless of their original class background, tend to end up mainly protecting their own interests. The solution to this problem, as Thomas Jefferson pointed out, is to have a revolution every twenty to thirty years. Newly risen leaders are more likely to remember why they were motivated to take the risks of rebellion.
These issues of loyalty and leadership effectiveness are intertwined with many other issues of substance and form and there is a long history of bad relations between competing movements and popular leaders that has produced a historical legacy that affects political developments in the contemporary global justice movement.
Both critics and friends of the World Social Forum agree that, despite its formal denial of any claim to represent the peoples of the Earth (WSF Charter of Principles), it gains what moral capital it has by the effort to be truly global and to represent the global south (see Santos 2006: Chapter 5). Alvarez et al (2007) have analyzed the racial composition of attendees at the World Social Forum meeting in Porto Alegre in 2005 and the problems encountered by a group of scholars from the United States who sought to systematically study race relations at the meeting in Brazil. The dimension of social class at the WSF has been discussed by Santos (2006), and Chase-Dunn et al 2008 have examined how north/south issues and the origins of attendees from the core, periphery and semiperiphery are related to differences in political attitudes. This essay is about the participation of educated people, intellectuals, scholars and academicians at the World Social Forum. We discuss evidence about how over-represented these groups are and we examine hypotheses that they have political attitudes and social characteristics that are systematically different from those of other participants. We will also report on our own observations as social scientists who are both political activists and are doing research on the social forum process in a later version of this paper.
Regarding educational level, the Fundacao Perseu Abramo’s (FPA) survey of participants at the 2001 WSF found that most of their respondents were highly educated, with 73% having begun or finished their university education and that 75% were trained in the social sciences (Schönleitner 2003: 137). Similarly, we found that 51% of the WSF05 attendees that we surveyed had at least 16 years of education and that 51% were students, mostly in universities. We also found that nearly 51% of those with educational degrees were trained in the social sciences.
All these findings support the contention that academics and those with relatively high levels of education were greatly over-represented at the World Social Forum when compared with the world population. And this is consistent with the notion that the emerging contemporary global left is a subsector of global civil society, which is itself a group of people who are relatively privileged in world society. This is important to the extent that the World Social Forum itself, or political groups that spin out of it, claim to represent the poor and oppressed of the Earth.
But a further question is how do the better educated and higher occupation people who attend the World Social Forum compare with those with less education and less skilled occupations, and how do academics compare with non-academics with regard to attitudes toward issues in world politics. Are academics less or more radical than non-academics? Are academics more or less likely to want to reform or abolish, or abolish and replace global institutions such as the IMF and the WTO? The following tables based on the University of California-Riverside survey of attendees at the World Social Forum meeting in Porto Alegre, Brazil in 2005 address these questions.
Academics vs. Non-Academics
Table 1 shows the distribution across occupational categories of the respondents to our survey. We coded these categories from an open-ended question about the respondent’s current occupation. Our written survey was carried out in English, Spanish, Portuguese and French so we had to translate the written responses, and some of the answers were uncodeable. [2]
|
Table 1: Current Occupation |
Frequency |
Percent (total sample excluding unclear and non-responses) |
Percent (excluding students, unclear and non-responses) |
|
Occupation
|
|
|
|
|
Academic/Professor |
69 |
11.9 |
18.9 |
|
Media: TV director, Journalist, etc. |
30 |
5.2 |
8.2 |
|
Educators |
26 |
4.5 |
7.1 |
|
Activist/Organizer |
23 |
4.0 |
6.3 |
|
Consultant, analyst |
22 |
3.8 |
6.0 |
|
Services |
21 |
3.6 |
5.8 |
|
Researcher |
14 |
2.4 |
3.8 |
|
Health Field: Doctor, Nurse, etc. |
13 |
2.2 |
3.6 |
|
NGO worker |
13 |
2.2 |
3.6 |
|
Artist, Designer, Musician |
12 |
2.1 |
3.3 |
|
Manager, Executive, etc. |
12 |
2.1 |
3.3 |
|
Technical/Engineer |
11 |
1.9 |
3.0 |
|
Public Employee |
10 |
1.7 |
2.7 |
|
Skilled Worker: Electrician, Welder, etc. |
9 |
1.6 |
2.5 |
|
Lawyer/Attorney |
8 |
1.4 |
2.2 |
|
Communications |
8 |
1.4 |
2.2 |
|
Farmer |
7 |
1.2 |
1.9 |
|
Secretary/Office Worker |
7 |
1.2 |
1.9 |
|
Banking/Financial |
6 |
1.0 |
1.6 |
|
Clergy |
6 |
1.0 |
1.6 |
|
Architect |
5 |
.9 |
1.4 |
|
Sales |
5 |
.9 |
1.4 |
|
Business/Entrepreneur |
3 |
.5 |
.8 |
|
Miscellaneous
|
|
|
|
|
Unemployed/Retired |
20 |
3.5 |
5.5 |
|
Other |
5 |
.9 |
1.4 |
|
Students |
213 |
36.9 |
N/A |
|
Total |
578 |
100 |
100 |
Note that the largest occupational category in Table 1 is that of student with nearly 37%
of the respondents who clearly answered the question. The second largest category is that of academic/professor with nearly 12%. In order to compare academics with non-academics we selected out students and designated a group of “academics” who answered the question about their current occupation to indicate academic specialties as their occupation, as well as professors who work at universities. This category does not include teachers who work in schools that are not colleges or universities, nor does it include researchers who are media professionals. We computed a series of tables to see if students and academics differ from non-academics with regard to demographic and social characteristics and political attitudes. The results are presented below in Table 2.
Table 2: Demographic Characteristics of Students, Academics and non-Academics
Students Academics Other
Sample Size 213 69 276
World-System Position
(Country of residence)
Core 11.8% 13.0% 34.4%
Semiperiphery 85.3% 81.2% 53.3%
Periphery 2.8% 5.8% 12.2%
Gender (Female)*** 50.5% 59.4% 44.6%
Educational Degree Subject
% Social Sciences 51.7% 50.0% 51.6%
% Arts/Humanities 22.1% 35.9% 31.5%
% Natural Sciences 15.2% 10.9% 9.9%
% Technology 11.0% 3.1% 7.0%
Age***
under 18 11.4% 0.0% 0.4%
18-25 78.7% 11.6% 15.3%
26-35 9.9% 33.3% 43.4%
36-45 0.0% 23.2% 19.3%
46-55 0.0% 13.0% 15.0%
56-65 0.0% 17.4% 5.5%
over 65 0.0% 0.0% 0.7%
Race/Ethnicity**
White 43.9% 54.7% 33.6%
Black 8.0% 14.1% 16.0%
Mixed/Multiracial 17.1% 3.1% 6.0%
Latina/o 9.1% 3.1% 6.0%
Asian 2.1% 1.6% 9.2%
Indigenous 1.1% 0.0% 2.8%
None/Human 2.7% 6.3% 2.8%
Languages spoken
Speak one 35.7% 33.3% 27.9%
Speak two 35.2% 46.4% 34.8%
Speak three 18.8% 5.8% 19.2%
Speak four or more 10.3% 14.5% 18.1%
Number of protests last year
No protests 14.9% 13.8% 13.3%
One protest 25.2% 13.8% 19.0%
2-4 protests 38.1% 46.2% 30.0%
5 or more protests 21.8% 26.2% 37.6%
Attending a prior WSF*** 23.4% 43.1% 39.8%
Funding for WSF trip
Personal funds *** 48.8% 39.1% 46.2%
Family*** 26.8% 2.9% 7.6%
Educational institution* 15.8% 11.6% 5.3%
Other 14.4% 11.6% 17.4%
Work** 6.7% 11.6% 23.5%
Political organization** 7.2% 11.6% 12.1%
Friends 5.3% 2.9% 7.6%
Business organization*** 0.5% 2.9% 0.8%
Reasons for attending
Learn about the issues 81.6% 79.4% 70.1%
Research 45.6% 45.6% 31.3%
Network*** 29.1% 41.2% 52.2%
Organize 23.3% 22.1% 25.7%
Work*** 18.5% 30.9% 27.9%
Other 22.8% 22.1% 17.9%
Reporting back to about WSF
% at least one group 35.8% 44.9% 66.9%
% SMOs 36.1% 36.7% 37.3%
% Other 33.3% 16.7% 24.3%
% NGOs*** 19.4% 33.3% 40.1%
% unions*** 13.9% 26.7% 13.0%
% parties 5.6% 10.0% 6.8%
%Government Agency 4.2% 0.0% 2.8%
(1) Do you think we need to reform capitalism or abolish it? Check one.
Reform it 47.7% 36.8% 39.1%
Abolish it and replace 51.8% 60.3% 60.9%
Chose both answers 0.5% 2.9% 0.0%
(2) In the long run, what do you think should be done about the existing international financial and trade institutions such as the IMF and the WTO? Check one.
Negotiate with them 15.8% 7.4% 12.7%
Abolish them 28.6% 23.5% 22.5%
Abolish and replace 53.2% 66.2% 61.0%
Chose more than 1 answer 2.5% 2.9% 3.7%
(3) Which of the following approaches would best solve the problems created by global capitalism? Check one.***
Strengthen local communities 50.5% 41.8% 56.6%
Strengthen nation states 12.1% 1.5% 7.9%
Create democratic global inst. 29.3% 37.3% 16.6%
Choose more than one answer 8.1% 19.4% 16.6%
(4) Do you think it is a good or bad idea to have a democratic world government? Check one.**
Good idea, and it’s plausible 23.9% 23.3% 33.2%
Good idea, but not plausible 38.8% 50.0% 36.3%
Bad idea 36.3% 26.7% 29.7%
Chose more than one answer 1.0% 0.0% 0.8%
(5) "Overall the world needs less economic growth."
Agree 59.6% 58.8% 56.9%
Disagree 40.4% 41.2% 43.1%
(6) "The World Social Forum should remain as an open space for debate and should not itself take public positions on political issues."
Agree 50.2% 35.8% 50.9%
Disagree 49.8% 74.2% 49.1%
The demographic and geographical results are somewhat mysterious. Academics and students are far more likely to be from the semiperiphery than non-academics. This make sense for students because many of them who attended the meeting in Porto Alegre were local residents who came to see what was happening. But why should only 13% of the attendees from core countries be academics while 34.4% of non-academics were from the core? And why is a far larger percentage of academics women (59.4%) than non-academics (44.6%)? Kwon (2007:21 Table 2A) shows that 15.5% of the Brazilian attendees were academics, while on 8.8% of the non-Brazilian attendees were academics. This may account for the unusually large percentage of academics from the semiperiphery, because Brazil is a semiperipheral country. But these gender and geographical characteristics do not make much sense and suggest that there may be measurement issues in the cross-national study of occupational categories that are confounding these results.[3]
The age distribution is as expected, with a larger number of academics than non-academics in the oldest age group and the students in the appropriately younger age groups. And a much larger percentage of academics are white than are non-academics, a result that is entirely plausible. But the results for linguistic skills indicate that many more non-academics than academics speak three or four or more languages. Why should that be?
Regarding indicators of political activism the results for academics are mixed. More academics participated in from two to four protests, but more non-academics participated in five or more protests (?). Forty-three per cent of the academics have attended a previous WSF meeting, while for non-academics that percentage was 39.8%, probably not a significant difference. More research on levels of political involvement and activism needs to be done.
A larger percentage of academics report research as a reason for attending the WSF (45.6%), whereas for non-academics it was 31.3% even though researchers were included in the non-academic category. This result makes sense and increases our confidence in the operationalization of academics as a occupational category.
But the results for demographic and geographical characteristics and for political activism are mysterious or mixed. We also compared academics with non-academics on several items that indicate political attitudes. Regarding whether capitalism should be reformed or abolished there were no large differences between academics and non-academics. For both groups about 60% favored abolition. This does not support the notion that academics are less militant than non-academics. Regarding negotiation with, or abolishing of, institutions such as the WTO and IMF, more non-academics favor negotiation, but the percentage favoring abolition is about the same, and more academics favor abolition and replacement than non-academics. Again there is little support for the idea that academics are less militant.
A larger percentage of academics than non-academics favor the creation of global democratic institutions to solve the problems created by capitalism (37.3% vs. 16.6%). But on the question about whether or not a democratic world government is a good idea or a bad idea the result is complicated. A larger percentage of non-academics (33.2%) than academics (23.3%) say democratic world government is a good idea and it is plausible, but a larger percentage of academics (50%) than non-academics (36.3%) think that democratic world government is a good idea but is not plausible. The percentages who say that a democratic world government is a bad idea are 26.7% for the academics and 29.7% for the non-academics.
The response to the question about the world needing or not needing more economic growth was about the same for academics (58.8%) as for non-academics (56.9%). But the responses to the question about whether or not the WSF should remain an open space or should take political stances reveal a big difference. Only 35.8% of academics supported the open space option, while 50.9% of the non-academics were for open space. This implies that academics are more in favor of the project to generate a coordinated and formally organized global political organization for confronting neoliberalism than are non-academics.
Intelligentsia vs. People
Roy Kwon (2007) used the responses to the occupation question to divide the attendees into a group called the “intelligentsia” and another group called the “non-intelligentsia.” Students, unemployed, and retired respondents were put in another category called miscellaneous. Recall that students represent 36.9% of the respondents.
Kwon created two different divisions between the intelligentsia and the non-intelligentsia the he calls the low measure and the high measure. The occupational categories for the low measure are shown in Table 3, and those for the high measure are shown in Table 4. The low measure included NGO workers and activist/organizers in the non-intelligentsia category, while the high measure includes these in the intelligentsia category.
|
Table 3: Low Measure Intelligentsia vs. Non-Intelligentsia |
Frequency |
Percent (total sample) |
Percent (excluding students, unclear and non-responses) |
|
Non-Intelligentsia |
|
|
|
|
Activist/Organizer |
23 |
4.0 |
6.3 |
|
Services |
21 |
3.6 |
5.8 |
|
NGO worker |
13 |
2.2 |
3.6 |
|
Public Employee |
10 |
1.7 |
2.7 |
|
Skilled Worker: Electrician, Welder, etc. |
9 |
1.6 |
2.5 |
|
Farmer |
7 |
1.2 |
1.9 |
|
Secretary/Office Worker |
7 |
1.2 |
1.9 |
|
Sales |
5 |
.9 |
1.4 |
|
Intelligentsia |
|
|
|
|
Academic/Professor |
69 |
11.9 |
18.9 |
|
Media: TV director, Journalist, etc. |
30 |
5.2 |
8.2 |
|
Educators |
26 |
4.5 |
7.1 |
|
Consultant, analyst |
22 |
3.8 |
6.0 |
|
Researcher |
14 |
2.4 |
3.8 |
|
Health Field: Doctor, Nurse, etc. |
13 |
2.2 |
3.6 |
|
Artist, Designer, Musician |
12 |
2.1 |
3.3 |
|
Manager, Executive, etc. |
12 |
2.1 |
3.3 |
|
Technical/Engineer |
11 |
1.9 |
3.0 |
|
Lawyer/Attorney |
8 |
1.4 |
2.2 |
|
Communications |
8 |
1.4 |
2.2 |
|
Banking/Financial |
6 |
1.0 |
1.6 |
|
Clergy |
6 |
1.0 |
1.6 |
|
Architect |
5 |
.9 |
1.4 |
|
Business/Entrepreneur |
3 |
.5 |
.8 |
|
Miscellaneous |
|
|
|
|
Unemployed/Retired |
20 |
3.5 |
5.5 |
|
Other |
5 |
.9 |
1.4 |
|
Students |
213 |
36.9 |
N/A |
|
Total |
578 |
100 |
100 |
|
Table 4: High Measure Intelligentsia vs. Non-Intelligentsia
|
Frequency |
Percent (total sample) |
Percent (excluding students, unclear and non-responses) |
|
Non-Intelligentsia |
|
|
|
|
Services |
21 |
3.6 |
5.8 |
|
Public Employee |
10 |
1.7 |
2.7 |
|
Skilled Worker: Electrician, Welder, etc. |
9 |
1.6 |
2.5 |
|
Farmer |
7 |
1.2 |
1.9 |
|
Secretary/Office Worker |
7 |
1.2 |
1.9 |
|
Sales |
5 |
.9 |
1.4 |
|
Intelligentsia |
|
|
|
|
Academic/Professor |
69 |
11.9 |
18.9 |
|
Media: TV director, Journalist, etc. |
30 |
5.2 |
8.2 |
|
Educators |
26 |
4.5 |
7.1 |
|
Activist/Organizer |
23 |
4.0 |
6.3 |
|
Consultant, analyst |
22 |
3.8 |
6.0 |
|
Researcher |
14 |
2.4 |
3.8 |
|
Health Field: Doctor, Nurse, etc. |
13 |
2.2 |
3.6 |
|
NGO worker |
13 |
2.2 |
3.6 |
|
Artist, Designer, Musician |
12 |
2.1 |
3.3 |
|
Manager, Executive, etc. |
12 |
2.1 |
3.3 |
|
Technical/Engineer |
11 |
1.9 |
3.0 |
|
Lawyer/Attorney |