Democracy
& Nature, Vol. 8,
No. 1
An
Examination of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) and New
Political Participation
Iain
Watson
Abstract:
The
mobilisation of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) on New Years
Day 1994 attracted considerable attention from those concerned with the
democratic deficits of neoliberal globalisation and the increasing sense of
individual powerlessness as states synchronise economic and public policy with
the ideas and institutions of global capital. The paper argues that as a
critical social movement the EZLN explores the meaning and practice of economic,
political and social democracy. The EZLN practises a politics of radical
democracy which incorporates a variety of strategies for enriching the
democratic project..However the EZLNs democratic project has little in common
with the inclusive democracy project and yet the EZLNs project of radical
democracy does cultivate a useful way of rethinking the site and nature of
democracy in an age of globalisation when such institutions seem so increasingly
inept.
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