Transnational struggles for recognition: new perspectives on civil society since the twentieth century

The transnationalization of struggles for recognition : an introduction into a multidisciplinary field of research / Dieter Gosewinkel -- 1. Struggles for recognition : bridging three separated spheres of discourse / Dieter Rucht -- 2. Understanding transnational social movements : potentials and limits of recognition theory / Volker Heins -- 3. "By the sacred ties of humanity and common decent" : the transnationalization of modern Jewish history and its discontents / Tobias Metzler -- 4. Institution building and policy making at the transnational level : challenges in the early history of the World Jewish Congress / Emmanuel Deonna -- 5. Jewish, socialist, antizionist : the Bund and its transnational relations / Gertrud Pickhan -- 6. Struggles for recognition and the concept of gender in twentieth century Poland / Claudia Kraft -- 7. The emergence of an impossible movement : domestic workers organize globally / Helen Schwenken -- 8. Peace movements and the politics of recognition in the Cold War / Holger Nehring -- 9. Recognition across difference : conceptual considerations against an Indian background / Martin Fuchs -- 10. Injustice symbols and global solidarity / Thomas Olesen.

Now more than ever, "recognition" represents a critical concept for social movements, both as a strategic tool and an important policy aim. While the subject's theoretical and empirical dimensions have usually been studied separately, this interdisciplinary collection focuses on both to examine the pursuit of recognition against a transnational backdrop. With a special emphasis on the efforts of women's and Jewish organizations in 20th-century Europe, the studies collected here show how recognition can be meaningfully understood in historical-analytical terms, while demonstrating the extent to which transnationalization determines a movement's reach and effectiveness