Acting up politically gets people in trouble, but it also gets things done. When the people and the issue they attack stretch across national borders, the consequence is not only to affect the way governments deal with a problem, but also to reorient patterns of political interest, fellow feeling, knowledge, and value from state-centered to transnational networks: international activists create new institutions as they avoid old ones. Yet activists can cause problems for the people they intend to help, infantilizing the needy, screwing up, and then running back to headquarters, leaving local people with the mess. Although the activities of international nongovernmental organizations (NGO) and social movements are often seen as inept and harmless, in reality they present opportunities to do a great deal, of both good and harm. This seminar will review the tradition of direct action, consider whom action is supposed to benefit (the doer or the done-to?), and look at cases of success and failure. Examples which will ground our discussion include the anti-slavery movement, environmentalism, anti-war/nuclear freeze, AIDS activism, and social justice. Format: seminar. Requirements: three papers. No prerequisites. Enrollment limit: 18. Open only to first-year students and sophomores; preference given to those who have not taken another 101.