Full Description
For many commentators, global civil society is revolutionising our approach to global politics, as new non-state-based and border-free expressions of political community challenge territorial sovereignty as the exclusive basis for political community and identity. This challenge 'from below' to the nation-state system is increasingly seen as promising nothing less than a reconstruction, or a re-imagination, of world politics itself. Whether in terms of the democratisation of the institutions of global governance, the spread of human rights across the world, or the emergence of a global citizenry in a worldwide public sphere, global civil society is understood by many to provide the agency necessary for these hoped-for transformations. Global Civil Society asks whether this idea is such a qualitatively new phenomenon after all; whether the transformation of the nation-state system is actually within its reach; and what some of the drawbacks might be.
Contents
Introduction: global civil society and the future of world politics PART l Global civil society - contesting current trends 1 Global civil society: analytical category or normative concept? 2 Cosmocracy and global civil society 3 The demoralised subject of global civil society 4 The changing role of global civil society 5 Contextualising the 'anti-capitalism' movement in global civil society PART 2 Global civil society - contesting future possibilities 6 The idea of global civil society 7 Saying global civil society with rights 8 Global civil society: thinking politics and progress 9 Constructing global civil society 10 Global civil society and global governmentality: resistance, reform or resignation? 11 Global civil society as politics of faith
