ATTAC: Association for the Taxation of Financial Transactions for the Aid of Citizens
Website: http://www.attac.org/
Category: Development
Year of Foundation: 1998
Location of Foundation: Paris, France
Brief Description: ATTAC describes itself as 'an international organization and network in the global justice movement ... [which resists] neoliberal globalization and ... [works] towards social, environmental and democratic alternatives in the globalization process.' (Source: www.attac.org; accessed 7 April 2010).
Founding Rationales:
According to the 'Platform of the International Movement ATTAC' adopted in December 1998, the movement aims 'to debate, produce and disseminate information, and act together, in their respective countries as well as on the continental and international levels ... [with] the following goals: to hamper international speculation; to tax income on capital; to penalize tax havens; to prevent the generalization of pension funds; to promote transparency in investments in dependant countries; to establish a legal framework for banking and financial operations, in order not to penalize further consumers and citizens; the employees of banking institutions can play an important role in overseeing these operations; to support the demand for the general annulment of the public debt of dependent countries, and the use of the resources thus freed in behalf of populations and sustainable development, which many call paying off the "social and ecological debt." More generally, the goals are: to reconquer space lost by democracy to the sphere of finance, to oppose any new abandonment of national sovereignty on the pretext of the "rights" of investors and merchants, to create a democratic space at the global level.'
Source: http://www.attac.org/en/whatisattac/international-platform (accessed 7 April 2010).
Evolution of Membership:
Sources: http://www.attac.de/was-ist-attac/ (accessed 7 April 2010); IECS; J. Clark & N Themudo, 'Linking the Web and the Street' (World Development, 34/1, 2006).