Goodbye to Grand Politics: The Cane Sugar Campaign and the Limits of Transnational Activism, 1968–1974. (November 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: van Dam, Peter
• Is Part Of: Contemporary European history. Volume 28:Number 4(2019)
• Page Start: 518
• Page End: 534
• Publication Date: 2019-11
• Subjects: Europe -- History -- 1945- -- Periodicals; 940.5
• DOI: 10.1017/S0960777319000249
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0960-7773

Abstract

Abstract: In 1968 Dutch activists launched a campaign focused on cane sugar as a symbol of unfair trading conditions for the global South. The history of the cane sugar campaign from 1968 to 1974 highlights how European integration provided hope for large-scale change and a common target. This led activists to establish European networks and campaigns. Its demise sheds new light on the new social movements' shift from 'grand politics', aimed at a sudden and drastic transformation through global and European politics, towards incremental change by locally targeting specific companies and countries.