New World Alliance

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.

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."

The New World Alliance has been described by many terms other than transformational – among them, new paradigm,Aquarian Cconspiracy,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.

...
Wikipedia