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| Can We Have a ‘Global Civil Society’? |
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When considering serious issues such as the environment, eradicating deprivation, AIDS or advancing human rights this global civil society is now emerging as a force weighty enough to engage with world leaders, intergovernmental bodies like the UN and with 'big business', also known as Transnational Corporations (TNCs), and on its own terms. Where nation-states once stood uncontested as the principal actors in global affairs these non-state actors are now muscling in.
Cosmopolitan theorists have felt the need to discuss novel forms of authority, representation, legitimacy and rights but if the nation-state is no longer fully sovereign over its affairs and denizens then what conception of political authority is most suitable in this era of globalisation? This article aims to examine the cosmopolitan argument before assessing the model of a global civil society as an alternative to the nation-state. However, to appreciate the call behind a global civil society and to comprehend the challenges facing nation-states it is necessary to first define the term globalisation.
'Flat World'?
One would imagine a prerequisite for this global civil society would be the existence of people who believe they are citizens of the world. Throughout history a number of individuals have proclaimed themselves world citizens ranging from Zeno of Citium and Socrates to Jules Verne and Albert Einstein so the idea is not new but today there is a difference. The distinction today is that cosmopolitans claim the processes of globalisation have already made us all global citizens whether we like it or not and have thereby automatically rendered possible a civil society on a global scale. This would assume that globalisation has the power to haul us, willingly or not, into a single polity.
The widely divergent spectrum of views for globalisation is nothing less than 'chaotic' (Jessop, 1999). A quick 'Google' search will suffice to confirm the multiplicity of definitions and it is apparent the term has degenerated into the greatest cliché in the social sciences.
Perhaps the simplest definition of globalisation is 'the compression of the world' (Robertson, 1992, p. 8) so when Thomas L. Friedman titled his latest book on globalisation 'The World is Flat' (2005) he was not pandering to those that still doubt Pythagoras' spherical Earth thesis. Friedman was writing on the processes of globalisation leading us to a situation where the planet is more connected than ever before, where the distance between us all is smaller making everything more visible and the communications revolution has shrunk the world and therefore 'flattened' it.
Indicators of a 'flat' world are immediately evident; news hurtles across the planet in 'real-time', the amount turned over daily in the financial currency markets has risen exponentially to trillions of dollars over the last few decades and the 'bird flu' threat from the western Qinghai province of China is not as distant as we would all hope. We are all more 'interconnected' than ever before.
While our increasing interdependence is evident a number of parties ranging from anti-capitalist protestors on the streets of Edinburgh and billionaire financier George Soros to Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz have mistakenly opted to reduce globalisation to its economic aspect.
Others such as Ethan Kapstein (1999, p.17) believe it is erroneous to view globalisation essentially as an economic phenomenon. Leading sociologist Anthony Giddens also called such an approach a 'mistake', commenting:
"The most important transformative force in our lives over the last 30 or so years is not economic markets, its not economic interdependence, it is the impact of communications, especially, it is normally called the communications revolution…It is absolutely vital to stress the impact of communication and the fact that instantaneous communication is the main medium of our increasing interdependence because it intertwines with almost everything else" (2001).
It is vital to note that globalisation entails a veritable assortment of adjustments and interconnections not just a single variable encompassing the cultural, social, political, legal and economic. Amartya Sen has argued these processes are varied and have continued for millennia:
"Over thousands of years, globalization has contributed to the progress of the world through travel, trade, migration, spread of cultural influences, and dissemination of knowledge and understanding (including that of science and technology) (2002)".
Another misconception surrounding globalisation is that it is external to our lives but the vast majority of us are not passive casualties of the processes of globalisation, we are agents of them. We consume goods such as papaya and pineapples from around the world, we demand cheap vacations to locations near and far and we access services through the World Wide Web purchasing, downloading and bidding till we are no longer separate but are living together in a global village.
'Governance Gap'
With globalisation defined it is clear to see why cosmopolitan theorists argue nations cannot claim to be totally sovereign over what occurs within their borders. If sovereignty is defined as the nation's claim to exclusive, self-government i.e. the right to resist external intervention in its affairs and the ability to exert absolute political authority over a given territory and people then we are now too 'interconnected' for that to be true. We no longer live separate enough for nation-state sovereignty to be viable.
These cosmopolitans argue, in contradistinction to the state-led realist view in international relations, that the processes of globalisation have led us to a point where it is simplistic and, in fact, naïve to think of a world where states are still able to act as exclusive 'containers' for the political activity within their territorial boundaries. That is not to say cosmopolitan theorists believe nation-states are completely defunct but they argue the processes of globalisation have categorically affected the sovereignty of nation-states as few events in any single country take place in a vacuum. Today's nations are not self-contained, if they ever were, and the spill-over effect of decisions by nation-states onto others outside their prescribed borders is definitely more pronounced in the global age.
Although even dedicated realists would concur that nation-states have never truly had unmitigated control of their own affairs ever since the 1648 Peace of Westphalia that heralded the origin of the modern nation-state (even in the heady days of empire in the 19th Century), it is now even less true in the 21st Century. Nation-states are now frequently at a loss to deal with events originating beyond their spheres of control, often at the mercy of developments far away and far out of reach. State sovereignty, once assured and assertive, is now brittle. Could any nation effectively deal with acid rain and global warming, tuberculosis, drug and human trafficking, international copyright infringement, extradition warrants, offshore oil spills, nuclear proliferation and international terrorism alone?
Decisions are no longer just taken at the national level, in fact political activity is less bound by territory than ever before. A decision by China to escalate manufacturing output would lead to a regional drain on energy thereby pushing up the price of fossil fuels for other countries. Changes in US immigration policy could sway Mexico's economic development and referendum votes against the EU constitution by the French and the Dutch will have repercussions across more than just the twenty-five member states. The Indian Ocean Tsunami of Boxing Day, 2004 was yet another example of the necessity of co-operation across borders. We are all living in a world of 'overlapping communities of fate' (cf. Dryzek, 1999).
Today no country can honestly say it lives remote from the processes of globalisation and nations attempting to reclaim such sovereignty are as powerless as King Cnut trying to hold back the sea.
Since no nation-state can claim absolute sovereignty within its borders a 'governance gap' exists - a segment of life's affairs that nation-states must accept they will never be able to completely master. This 'governance gap' affects states and of course those within them. The degree of uncertainty and insecurity in relations within and between states is escalating and the realist dichotomy between the domestic and international spheres is increasingly troublesome to maintain. The consequence is that for cosmopolitan theorists the sovereignty of nation-states is seen as an impediment and there is less talk of 'governments' which refers to the centralised system of political control within a state. In its place there is more talk of 'governance' or 'global governance' where the political stage is fragmented along sub-national, national and transnational lines.
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