Global civil society in an age of regressive globalization: the state of global civil society in 2003 (original) (raw)
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The idea of global civil society
International affairs, 2003
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Global Civil Society and Its Discontents
Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and …, 2006
According to enthusiasts the concept of global civil society is spreading rapidly and becoming pivotal to the reconfiguring of the statist paradigm. However, critics have recently grown more numerous and outspoken in opposition to the term claiming that it is actually perpetuating statism by grafting the idea of civil society onto the global by way of an unhelpful domestic analogy. This paper examines the role the concept is playing in perpetuating/reconfiguring statism. First it summarizes current criticism by identifying three basic accusations: the ambiguity of the term, the “domestic fallacy,” and the undemocratic effects of using it. Second, these criticisms are considered in turn and it is concluded that all three points relate, ultimately, back to the failure of the critics themselves and some global civil society theorists to move beyond a state-centered framework of interpretation. In the final section it is shown how global civil society discourse is beginning to move not only the concept of “civil society” away from its state-centred historical meanings, but also how it is contributing to changing the content of the concept of “the global.”
Global Civil Society and International Society: Compete or Complete
The use of the concept of ''global civil society'' (GCS) acknowledges the intensifying role of non-state civic actors in world politics and expresses the emergence of a unique social sphere transcending national boundaries. Extensive literatures strive to suggest conceptualizations and assessments of the actual and desired effects of GCS. Nevertheless, relatively little attention has been given to the interplay between the emerging sphere of a GCS and the traditional sphere of international or interstate interactions. This article examines the idea of GCS through an exploration of the conceptual interplay between the notions of GCS and the interstate system. It presents a typology of three possible ideal-type relations: (1) GCS as replacement of statist features of the international system; (2) GCS as opposition to the state system; and (3) GCS as subsidiary organ to the international society. From a perspective informed by the English School of international relations theory, the article argues that the enhanced role of GCS in world politics is a result of international society's attempts to adapt interstate rules and practices to the context of globalization.
Global civil society: changing the world?
Research Papers in Economics, 1999
Is, as many of its enthusiastic proponents suggest, global civil society the key to future progressive politics? This paper first develops a definition of global civil society and explores the circumstances that have prompted its growth. The paper then considers the consequences of global civil society, particularly in relation to matters of sovereignty, identity, citizenship and democracy. The latter part of the paper proceeds to outline criteria for evaluating global civil society, identifying seven areas of promise and four possible dangers. The conclusion offers several suggestions that could help to maximise the benefits and minimise the pitfalls of global civil society.
Global Civil Society as Concept and Practice in the Processes of Globalization
2009
The latest discussions about civil society have been reconsidering the globalization processes, and the theoretical discourse has been broadened to include the notion of the global civil society. The notion and the practice of a civil society are being globalized in a way that reflects the empirical processes of inter-connecting societies and of shaping a world society. From the normative-mobilizing perspective, civil society activists and theoreticians stress the need to defend the world society from the global threat of a nuclear war, environmental catastrophes, crime and violence, domination of world powers over the fate of individual countries and societies, i.e. the need to oppose the tendency of “power policy” on the world level, and to defend the autonomy of the (world) society as one compatible primarily with the expansion of policies based on the rule of law worldwide, and incompatible with the policy of force, state reasons, and domination of world power-centers. The globa...
Third Sector Research, 2010
Global civil society has become an important paradigm for progressive social change at a planetary level. It posits a bold new ethical project for global democratization. For its critics, though, it is just the social wing of neoliberal globalization diverting social movements from their tasks. It is also seen as irredeemably Eurocentric in its assumptions and orientation. A third option, proposed here, is to understand global civil society as a complex social and spatial terrain. By bringing politics back in, a progressive option can be presented to contest the dominant co-optive or reformist conception of global civil society.
Global Civil Society and Its Limits
Global Civil Society and its Limits, 2003
Looks critically at whether a global civil society is in the making. Authors of chapters examine issues around current social justice movements including those involving human rights, trade unions and anti-corporate globalization.They show that there is little evidence that a genuine civil society is emerging. Many argue that rather than promoting grassroots democracy, the dream of a global civil society may weaken the most power resistance to globalization from above. The most effective civic actions still largely take place where they have long been - at national and local levels.
Ambiguities of global civil society
Review of International Studies, 2004
The concept of an emergent global civil society (GCS), an identifiable public sphere of voluntary association distinct from the architecture of states and markets, has become voguish in some approaches to international relations and international political economy, and in the practices of global governance. This article seeks to reveal the limitations of the prevailing commonsense framing of GCS. Challenging the idea that we can isolate an unambiguous GCS sphere, we focus instead on the particular uses of GCS – on the practices that are shaped in its name. We make a number of interventions to emphasise the conceptual and political ambiguity of GCS. First, we shift the emphasis from GCS as a bounded ‘non-governmental’; space to GCS as precisely a means of making global politics governable in particular ways. Second, we question the assumption of GCS as ‘voluntary association’, asking what it means for GCS to embody or represent the interests of social groups. Finally, we raise questi...