Social & Cultural Geography, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2002 Routledge Taylor 6FmncisGmop New world warriors: `nation' and `state' in the politics of the Zapatista and US Patriot Movements Carolyn Gallaher' & Oliver Froehling2 'School of International Service, American University, 4400 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20016, USA; ZCentro Intercultural de Encuentros y Dialogo, M. Bravo 210, Col. Centro, C.P. 68000, Oaxaca, Oax., Mexico During the 1990s scholars began to identify and study social movements organized to confront the `new global order'. Such movements have emerged in Mexico, Japan, South Africa and the USA. In the emerging literature organized to study these movements scholars have noted two characteristics that hold constant across them. First, while such movements oppose globalization, they tend to focus their criticism against their own governments for ushering in its reforms. Second, while the state is regarded as the enemy, these movements frame their politics against the state in nationalistic terms. In this paper we compare and evaluate the projects of `national' resistance in two social movements against the new global order-the Mexican Zapatista and the US Patriot Movements. To conduct our analysis we employ a post-structuralist approach. We argue that the category of nation is constructed and may take any number of forms, from the liberatory to the repressive. As such, we hold that the best way to evaluate nationalistic projects is to assess whether antagonism infuses constructions of `nation' and its spatial policing. In our empirical analysis we argue that the nationalistic discourse of Zapatismo, though not without problems, is agonistically constructed, creating a plural space for nation re(building). In contrast, discourses of patriotism are antagonistically defined, fostering exclusive views of nation and a rigid policing of its borders. We conclude by noting potential pitfalls in the Zapatista identity politics and potential progressive openings within the Patriot identity politic. Key words: neoliberalism, political violence, Zapatista, Patriot, comparative approach. Introduction This paper is a comparative analysis of two social movements, the Mexican Zapatista and the US Patriot Movements. While these two movements emerged in different countries and under distinct circumstances, they share a com- mon resistance to `the new world order' (Castells 1997). Studies have identified similar movements in South Africa and Japan (Castells 1997; Fredrickson 1997). In the emerging literature on such movements, scholars have labelled them, variously, as 'anti-statist' (Kirby 1997; Luke 1997; Stein- ISSN 1464-9365 print/ISSN 1470-1197 online/02/010081-22 © 2002 Taylor & Francis Ltd DOI: 10.1080/14649360120114152