New World Alliance

Twenty people sitting in a circle
Governing Council of the New World Alliance meets at a lodge in upstate New York, September 1980. Leonard Duhl of UC Berkeley is seated at the upper left, Michael Marien of the World Future Society is seated with legs crossed at the upper right, and spiritual-politics theorist and activist Corinne McLaughlin is sitting to Marien's right.

The New World Alliance was an American political organization that sought to articulate and implement what it called "transformational" political ideas. It was organized in the late 1970s and dissolved in 1983. It has been described as the first U.S. national political organization of its type[1] and as the first entity to articulate a comprehensive transformational political program.[2]

The Alliance maintained a national office two blocks from the White House. It established chapters across the U.S., produced a 98-page political platform, conducted "Political Awareness Seminars" to help participants learn to communicate across ideological and psychological divides, initiated national "Consultations with Elected Officials," and produced a national political newsletter whose sponsors included Ecotopia author Ernest Callenbach and psychologist Carl Rogers.

Over the decades, social scientists and others have sought to explain why the Alliance did not achieve a longer life. There is no agreement. Explanations have touched on history (the U.S. was not ready), culture (the Alliance was too counter-cultural), process (the commitment to near-unanimous consensus decision-making was too onerous), leadership (the people on the Governing Council did not have the personalities or skills to build a mass organization), transformational political assumptions and behaviors (said to be inappropriate, self-defeating, or cult-like), and more.[nb 1]

Following the dissolution of the organization, many former Governing Council members and other founders of the Alliance – many near the beginning of their careers[6] – took transformational ideas into a variety of organizational settings, including the early U.S. Green Party movement and the multinational corporate world. Their organizational efforts and published political writings extended into the 21st century.

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference Wells was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference Stein was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Susan Brownmiller, In Our Time: Memoir of a Revolution, Delta Books / Dell Publishing Co., 1999, pp. 35–294. ISBN 978-0-385-31831-0.
  4. ^ Andrew Cornell, Oppose and Propose!: Lessons from Movement for a New Society, AK Press, 2011, pp. 1–126. ISBN 978-1-849350-66-2.
  5. ^ John Rensenbrink, Against All Odds: The Green Transformation of American Politics, Leopold Press, Inc., 1999, Parts III and IV. ISBN 978-0-9660629-1-5.
  6. ^ Cite error: The named reference Paulson was invoked but never defined (see the help page).


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