W orld S ocial F orum 1

Every year at the end of January, the world's corporate and government elite gather in the Swiss resort town of Davos for the World Economic Forum to plot the future of corporate‐led globalization. In 2001, community organizers, trade unionists, young people, academics, and others began to meet in Porto Alegre, Brazil, to rethink and recreate globalization so that it would benefit people. From these humble beginnings, this alternative annual meeting called the World Social Forum has quickly grown into the world's largest meeting of civil society. Under the slogan “Another World Is Possible,” the forum provides a dynamic and important political venue for activists to discuss strategies of resistance to neoliberal globalization and to present constructive alternatives. As the same time, it has been an arena for perennial discussions regarding the relationship between civil society and political parties in organizing a social movement.