Global Civil Society: Unrealised Undercurrents?
A few readings recently have raised the question in my mind of whether or not those advocating for unrestricted advances in globalisation and, more particularly, the outward spread of western-styled democracies and the idea of global civil society, are being done in a way that is slightly disingenuous to the concept of ‘democracy’ and individual rights. To begin with, whilst globalisation tends towards the integration on a global scale of an interconnected social, economic, and civic sphere amongst various national entities, it seems to me that the groups spearheading such change (including many INGOs) are doing so from one perspective to the exclusion of alternative ideas and modes of thought that are quickly deemed either as anti-capitalism, anti-globalisation, regressive, fundamentalist, etc. As mentioned here,
“Thus, for example, 60 per cent of the secretariats of INGOs are based in the European Union and one third of their membership is in western Europe. In addition, over half of all parallel summits have also been organised in Europe. This area is also the most densely globalised…”
It would seem that there is an underlying western, European, and/or liberal-oriented modes of political thought (for some of the most liberal/socialistic democracies are located within the EU and heavily within Western EU) behind much of the international pressure being brought to bear on a variety of social/political/economic issues championed by the aforementioned INGOs. Being sympathetic to much of what INGOs strive for in the environmental and political sphere, I can’t help but think one central tenet is being lost in the push forward to advance globalisation universally; that being: “By one mechanism or another, democratic governance rests on the consent of the governed.”1 That is to say, in our effort to advance the cause of individual rights and freedoms, the power of the individual and how they should be allowed to participating within the global civil society currently being developed, we cannot ignore the reality that those very individuals we hope to empower with more individual choices and freedoms have to have their choices respected, even if they choose to opt out or remain within their traditional belief/cultural/economic/social system. By attempting to categorize those against the idea of increasing focusing on the individual and more integrated aspects of transnational networks as ‘rejectionists’ or more prone to violence and by that vein of thought irrationality (as the Yearbook source by the London School of Economic mentioned above does), we will be unable to separate ourselves from the idea that our policies are nothing more than thinly veiled attempts at imposing Western/Liberal-based governance systems upon those countries which disagree with ours.
A reading which touches upon this and provoked this train of thought of mine can be found here.
~Shaun
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1Civil society and democracy in global governance, Jan Aart Scholte, Global Governance. Boulder: Jul-Sep 2002. Vol. 8, Iss. 3; pg. 281, 24 pgs
Weakly Discourse 