Full Description
Civil Society has become a major power in the world. The stunning defeat of the controversial and secretive Multilateral Agreement on Investments, the massive worldwide WTO protests and the yearly meetings of the World Social Forum are testimony to its coming of age. From these significant victories, civil society continued to catch world attention with the Arab Spring, the grassroots movement that helped elect former US President Barack Obama and the significant gains of the anti-fracking campaign. With tens of millions of citizens and over a trillion dollars involved in advancing its agenda, civil society now joins the state and the market as the third key institution shaping globalization. However, it cannot fully mobilize its resources and power as it currently lacks clear understanding of its identity.
Shaping Globalization argues that global civil society is a cultural institution wielding cultural power, and shows how - through the use of this distinct power - it can advance its agenda in the political and economic realms of society without compromising its identity. Nicanor Perlas outlines the strategic implications for civil society, both locally and globally, and explains that civil society's key task is to inaugurate `threefolding': the forging of strategic partnerships between civil society, government and business. Such authentic tri-sector partnerships are essential for advancing new ways for nations to develop, and for charting a different, sustainable type of globalization. Using the model of the Philippine Agenda 21, we are shown how civil society and progressive individuals and agencies in government and business are demonstrating the effectiveness of this new understanding to ensure that globalization benefits the environment, the poor and society as a whole.
This reprinted edition includes a new Afterword.
Contents
Foreword by Paul H. Ray - Message by Dr Ernst Ulrich von Weizsacker - Threefolding, the language of the new tri-polar world - Whose word? Surveying the terrain of contention - The Battle of Seattle - The threats and opportunities of globalization - Elite globalization and the world power structure behind it - Civil society as a global countervailing force - Identity crisis - Co-optation, the ironic fruit of the Battle of Seattle? - the cultural nature of civil society - Testing the framework - Cultural power - Cultural creatives and the cultural revolution of the 21st century - Civil society and the threefolding of national and global social space - Example of Philippine Agenda 21 - Tri-sector partnerships at the United Nations, boon or bane? - The juggernaut of tri-sector partnerships - Civil Society and the beginning of history - Notes - Bibliography - About the author - About Cadi - About Globalnet3 - Afterword to the 2019 edition
