The challenges of building effective strategic alliances between social movements The revolutionary forces have to take civil society before they take the state, and therefore have to build a coalition of oppositional groups united under a hegemonic banner which usurps the dominant or prevailing hegemony. (Strinati, 1995, p.169) The key to 'revolutionary' social change in modern societies … [is predicated] upon the prior formation of new alliances of interests, an alternative hegemony or 'historical bloc', which has already developed a cohesive world view of its own. (Williams, 1992, p. 27) Introduction Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937) was a Marxist revolutionary who bequeathed us with a theory of ‘Hegemony’ which sought to explain power relations within state and society and the strategic alliances involved in both the maintenance of power and the taking of power.. Movements from above and movements from below have historically engaged in an incessant struggle, waged on the battleground of civil society. Such a struggle has inevitably involved the strategic construction and fostering of power relations and political strength primarily through the formation of coalitions. This paper gives analytical consideration to the numerous strategic challenges faced by many social movements from below (hereafter referred to as social movements) as they engage in the business of initiating, building, developing and sustaining effective cross movement coalitions. In doing so it shines a light on the ‘complex negotiations and arrangements’ that such formations may entail (Levi and Murphy, 2006). The paper begins by providing conceptual clarity to the terms utilised therein thereby assisting in differentiating between types of social movements and coalitions. As a starting point it draws on the sparse scholarly and activist literature to identify what the key challenges are within broader social movement dynamics generally and transnational coalitions more specifically. Against this back drop it moves on to examine the difficulties from the point of view of two of the movements involved in alliance building. Finally it concludes with a strategic discussion on the key 1 | Page