1st Edition

Global Civil Society Contested Futures

Edited By Gideon Baker, David Chandler Copyright 2005
    240 Pages
    by Routledge

    218 Pages
    by Routledge

    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.

    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

    Biography

    Gideon Baker is a lecturer in Political Theory at the University of Salford. He is the author of Civil Society and Democratic Theory: Alternative Voices (also published by Routledge). David Chandler is a senior lecturer in International Relations at The Centre for the Study of Democracy, The University of Westminster. He is the author of Constructing Global Civil Society: Morality and Power in International Relations; From Kosovo to Kabul: Human Rights and International Intervention; and Bosnia: Faking Democracy after Dayton.