As discussed in the introduction, activists have associated a host of issues with what they regard as the neo-liberal economic project of globalization. These issues include labor market inequities, both north and south; poor working conditions and lack of labor protections; unfair trade practices and their impacts on community sustainability and quality of life in the global south; and a collection of environmental effects, such as the acceleration of species extinction, food and water shortages, and global warming. For many activists these and other challenges add up to a growing precariousness of life (sometimes termed precarity) both for individuals and for humankind. Indeed, a common critique of the neo-liberal agenda is that risks of different sorts have been offloaded to individuals as states cut back public goods and services in favor of privatization programs, while businesses seek to reduce commitments to workers through technology innovations, outsourcing, hiring of temporary labor, and reductions in job security and benefits.

These political conditions present interesting dilemmas for organizing protest politics (Smith and Wiest 2012). First, government control over many of these issues has become problematic, meaning that political pressure must be targeted at diverse local, national, and transnational institutions, as well as at corporations using global business models to escape regulation. Second, both within nations and transnationally, political issues are interrelated in ways that cut across conventional social movement sectors: labor and human rights often occupy common agendas, and economic justice initiatives align with environmental causes. The organizational incentives for greater flexibility in defining issues, targets, and protest strategies are magnified by a third factor involving the growing separation of individuals in late modern societies from traditional bases of social solidarity, such as parties, churches, unions, and other mass organizations.