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 and as the first entity to articulate a comprehensive transformational political program.
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.
Following the dissolution of the organization, many former Governing Council members and other founders of the Alliance – many near the beginning of their careers – 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.
A "transformational" politics
After the political turmoil of the 1960s, many writers and activists began searching for a new political perspective that would give special weight to such topics as consciousness change, ecology, decentralization of power, and global cooperation. Some called the emerging new perspective "transformational."
Naming the Alliance's politics
The New World Alliance has been described by many terms other than transformational – among them, new paradigm,Aquarian Conspiracy, New Age-oriented, postliberal, post-socialist, and Green. A libertarian magazine found the Alliance's newsletter to be "surprisingly libertarian," and a book about radical centrism characterized the Alliance as radical centrist.
However, "transformational" has been the term most frequently used to describe the Alliance's politics, both by political scientists and by the Alliance itself. For example, an article from the Alliance's chairperson was entitled "The New World Alliance: Toward a Transformational Politics," and the Alliance's political platform is entitled "A Transformation Platform: The Dialogue Begins."
Describing the Alliance's politics
Many attempts have been made to describe the Alliance's approach to transformational politics. Cultural critic Annie Gottlieb interviewed an Alliance member who said its goal was "to embody a new holistic vision of politics in America." Futurists Jessica Lipnack and Jeffrey Stamps said the Alliance was attempting to introduce values into politics that had traditionally been outside it. British Green activist Sara Parkin named some of those values, including "healing," "rediscovery," and "spirituality." Scholar J. Gordon Melton and his colleagues focused on the Alliance's commitment to combining supposed opposites – left and right, personal and political. Citing the ancient Greek concept of Paideia, Alliance chair Bob Olson told an interviewer that the Alliance wanted to build a society where every institution was geared to developing people's abilities and potentials.
Political theorists Corinne McLaughlin and Gordon Davidson identified what they felt was a defining passage in one Alliance document: Politics is the way we live our lives. It is not just running for office. It is the way we treat each other, as individuals, as groups, as government. It is the way we treat our environment. It is the way we treat ourselves.