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Political participation in America-supposedly the world's strongest democracy-is startlingly low, and many of the civil rights and economic equity initiatives that were instituted in the 1960s and '70s have been abandoned, as significant proportions of the populace seem to believe that the civil rights battle has been won. However, rates of collective engagement, like community activism, are surprisingly high. In Resisting Citizenship, renowned feminist political scientist Martha Ackelsberg argues that community activism may hold important clues to reviving democracy in this time o

"Political participation in America - supposedly the world's strongest democracy - is startlingly low, and many of the civil rights and economic equity initiatives that were instituted in the 1960s and '70s have been abandoned, as significant proportions of the populace seem to believe that the civil rights battle has been won. However, rates of collective engagement, like community activism, are surprisingly high. In Resisting Citizenship, renowned feminist political scientist Martha Ackelsberg argues that community activism may hold important clues to reviving democracy in this time of growing bureaucratization and inequality." "Resisting Citizenship brings together many of Ackelsberg's writings over the past 25 years, combining her own field work and interviews with cutting edge research and theory on democracy and activism. She explores these efforts in order to draw lessons - and attempt to incorporate knowledge - about current notions of democracy from those who engage in "non-traditional" participation, those who have, in many respects, been relegated to the margins of political life in the United States."--Jacket

Mujeres Libres, an organization of anarchist women established during the Spanish Civil War, was characterized by a dual focus on capacitación (empowerment) and captación (mobilization): (a) empowering women to enable them to recognize and act on their own potential and (b) mobilizing them into the organizations of the broader libertarian movement. An exploration of the activist biographies of two of its three founders (Lucía Sánchez Saornil and Mercedes Comaposada), as well as of two of its younger activists (Soledad Estorach and Sara Berenguer), makes clear how reflecting on personal experience within a larger political frame led to the creation of the organization and to its appeal to its base of (largely) working-class women. Although it did not frame its analysis in these terms, Mujeres Libres effectively prefigured mid-twentieth century feminist analyses of the social construction of women's subordination as well as feminism's claims about the relationship between "the personal" and "the political". Founded officially as a federated organization in Valencia in 1937, Mujeres Libres' roots were laid in small gatherings in different parts of the country in the preceding years. In this paper, I explore those roots through attention to the personal histories of these four activists, drawing on their writings, memoirs and personal interviews. The paper argues that, although Mujeres Libres did not define itself as a "feminist" organization, many of the writings of its founders—and, in particular, their analyses of the nature and causes of women's subordination that appeared in journals both before and during the Civil War—would find echo in later 20th and 21st century feminism. Especially significant was Mujeres Libres' insistence on the relationship between anarchist analyses of relations of domination and subordination in the society at large and the specific subordination of women, both within society and in the movement, itself. While it addressed problems that women confronted as individuals, Mujeres Libres was not interested in individual solutions. Rather, its goal was to develop programs that would empower women to take their places alongside other women (and men) in workplaces and in movement activism, while, at the same time, supported by other women, to take more effective charge of their lives, their households, their sexuality, and the education of their children. In doing so, they reflected not only the overall commitment of the libertarian movement to the inseparability of war and revolution, but also their own recognition of the inseparability of personal and collective liberation, the interweaving of "the personal" and "the political."

Abstract
Spanish anarchists travelled to and from both Argentina and Cuba in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, bringing with them not only ideology, but press, pamphlets and organizing strategies. Spanish immigrants and visitors played important roles in the development of the labour movement and anarchist women's movement in each country. It is true that the movement in Spain was unique, in the sense that it attained a massive following and played a prominent role in a profound social revolution. But it is also the case that ideas and practices from Spain found fertile ground and exercised a deep influence on labour movements in Cuba and Argentina. And the experiences of Spanish exiles in Argentina and Cuba, in turn, influenced the movements in Spain. The 'travels' of Spanish anarchism suggest that anarchist internationalism was a transnational reality, one critical to the development of movements on both sides of the Atlantic.

As both political theory and social movement, anarchism challenges hierarchical authority relationships in all their forms, aiming to establish a society grounded in equality, reciprocity, and mutuality. In its commitment to a multidimensional understanding of power and oppression, and in its insistence on the need for consistency between means and ends in the revolutionary process, anarchism offers important resources to those engaged in challenges to gendered hierarchies. At the same time, few anarchist movements have actually lived up in practice to the ideals of gender equality to which their writings have given voice.

Matthew Moore's survey and analysis reflect an enormous amount of work, for which all of us who study or teach political theory should be grateful. They offer us a fascinating snapshot of who is teaching political theory today, of how they understand and think about what they are doing, and of how they think others think about theory. Much that is included in his analysis (and especially in the longer paper from which the report here is selected) is well worth further study and debate, as it opens a door to the ways political science in general (and not theory alone) is being taught around the country: what political scientists think they are doing when they/we teach their material, what training they/we have, and even what modal teaching loads are.

Discusses four key themes to emerge from the roundtable conducted at the 2003 Annual Meeting of the APSA in Philadelphia. The first theme is the argument that numerous female, especially feminist, political scientists have played significant parts in questioning the discipline's epistemological boundaries, & in altering analytical modes. The second theme focuses on questions about the relationship between social & community activism & the university. The third theme also addresses issues about a presumption of professors' responsibility to encourage active citizenship among students. Last, the roundtable also prompted consideration of the linkage between questioning university & analytical frameworks & working for social justice. References. K. Coddon