Portuguese author. He is Professor of Sociology, University of Coimbra (Portugal) and Distinguished Legal Scholar at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He earned an LL.M and J.S.D. from Yale University. He is a leading Portuguese social theorist, director of the Center for Social Studies at the University of Coimbra, and has written and published widely on the issues of globalization, sociology of law and the state, epistemology, social movements and the World Social Forum. His most recent books in English The Rising of the Global Left: The World Social Forum and Beyond, London: Zed Books, 2006; Toward a New Legal Common Sense: Law, Globalization and Emancipation, London: Butterworths, 2002; (editor): Another Democracy is Possible: Beyond the Liberal Democratic Canon, London: Verso, 2005; Another Production is Possible: Beyond the Capitalist Canon, London: Verso, 2006;  Another Knowledge is Possible: Beyond Northern Epistemologies, London: Verso 2007;(co-editor with Cesar Rodriguez-Gavarito) Law and Counter-Hegemonic Globalization: Towards a Cosmopolitan Legality, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.

Libros publicados en España: Reinventar la democracia. Reinventar el Estado, Madrid: Sequitur, 1999; Un discurs sobre les ciències. Introducció a una ciencia postmoderna, Xàtiva: Edicions del Crec i Denes Editorial, 2003; Crítica de la razón indolente. Contra el desperdicio de la experiencia, Bilbao: Editorial Desclée de Brouwer, 2003; Foro Social Mundial. Manual de Uso, Barcelona: Icaria, 2005; Democracia y Participación. El ejemplo del Presupuesto Participativo de Porto Alegre, Mataró: El Viejo Topo; El milenio huérfano. Ensayos para una nueva cultura política, Madrid: Trotta, 2005.