The signs are everywhere: From the Pink Tide in Latin America to the Arab Spring to the Occupy movement, radical social change - conceived as popular attempts to move the world in the direction of greater economic equality and political participation - is now in the very air we breathe. In Taking or (re)Making Power?, leading scholar of revolutions and social change, John Foran, argues these events indicate the rise and articulation of vibrant new political cultures of opposition very different from those that inspired the great social revolutions of the twentieth century - and these threads of resistance may also point towards future prospects for change. Specifically, Foran shows that rather than having to make a choice between seeking to change the world through elections or building a new society from the bottom up, the future of radical social change may lie at the many possible intersections of deeply democratic social movements and equally diverse and committed political coalitions.

An accessible and essential examination of radical new political cultures of opposition - how they have been fashioned, their successes and limitations, their prospects for achieving their goals, and what links these diverse movements to each other.