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Article: Global Governance and Global Politics"Author: Manuel CastellsIssue: January 2005

Journal: PS: Political Science & Politics

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Global Governance and Global Politics

Manuel Castells, University of Southern California, Los Angeles

The world is undergoing a process ofstructural transformation in multipledimensions: technological, economic,cultural, and institutional. This createsas many opportunities as it induces per-ils. Perhaps the most fundamental prob-lem we now face is the crisis of politi-cal institutions in charge of managingthe transition. We know the problems,we understand the issues, and in manycountries there is enough political willto tackle the questions to be addressed.However, the organizational and institu-tional tools of governance are eitherinsufficient or inadequate. Furthermore,the crisis of governance is related to acrisis of political legitimacy, character-ized by increasing distance between citi-zens and their representatives. Bothcrises feed into each other, threateningwith political paralysis and opening theway both for authoritarian policies andfor demagogic revolts.

Social movements and grassrootsorganizations, as well as a variety of so-cial actors, are trying to fill the currentvoid of representation and legitimatepolicy making. A global civil society isin the making. However, its contributionto solving the problems of our world islimited because of the segmentation ofthe interests and values underlying itsdiverse components. Their connection tonational and international institutions iscomplex and problematic. In otherwords, the transition from a reactivecivil society to a proactive reform of in-stitutions of governance faces formidableobstacles. This lecture aims at identify-ing the factors underlying the politicalcrisis of global governance, as well as atpinpointing the trends that foreshadow

pathways for reconstructing democratic

policy making under the new conditionsof globalization, cultural transformation,and a technological paradigm shift.

The Crisis of PoliticalLegitimacy

In April 2004, a report issued by theUnited Nations Development Programme(UNDP), and directed by Dante Caputo,on Democracy in Latin America foundthat 54.7% of people surveyed wouldprefer an authoritarian regime if it

would better help alleviate poverty andeconomic difficulties. Only 43% of LatinAmericans fully supported democracy,while 30.5% conditioned their support totheir living conditions, and another26.5% were critical of democracy. Theseattitudes came from a continent that hassuffered for decades from the lack ofdemocracy. Yet, the widespread popularfeeling is that instead of a democraticculture, what has arisen in LatinAmerica is an electoral culture manipu-lated by the political elites. These find-ings are not specific to Latin America.Indeed, in recent years, considerable evi-dence points to the increasing alienationof citizens vis vis their political repre-sentatives, and the institutions of repre-sentation. Such a trend seems to bepresent worldwide, with the significantexception of Scandinavian democracies.These were the findings of the twoworldwide surveys of representativesamples of the world population thatGallup conducted in 1999 for theMillennium Assembly of the UnitedNations and in 2002 for the WorldEconomic Forum. In the 1999 survey,62.1% of the 57,000 persons interviewedin 60 countries believed that their coun-tries were not governed by the will oftheir people. When asked to select aterm that would better describe theirperception of the government, their mainchoices were corrupt and bureau-cratic. The sample included citizens inthe United States and Western Europe.In the 2002 survey, the percentage ofpeople who thought they were not gov-erned by their will was 52% in NorthAmerica and 61% in the EuropeanUnion. Fifty-one percent of people in

the world found little or no trust inparliaments, a proportion that increasedto 59% in the European Union. Theleast trusted institutions were multina-tional companies, parliaments, politicalparties, and governments. The mosttrusted institutions were the armedforces, NGOs, and the United Nations.Similar results can be found for Euro-pean democracies in the Euro barometer.The World Values Survey, directed byRonald Inglehart at the University ofMichigan, also showed that from19972001 in the countries included inthe survey of political attitudes, the ma-jority of citizens thought that their gov-ernment was run by a few big interestslooking out for themselves. In the U.S.,this proportion in 2000 was 63.2%. Onthe other hand, on the basis of evidenceprovided by a variety of surveys, a highpercentage of people feel able to changethe world. But they feel empowered notthrough the political system but throughautonomous mobilization. This search forpolitical alternatives is changing the po-litical landscape, although not always inthe direction of democracy. In countryafter country around the world, in thelast decade people have turned to politi-cal outsiders, punished the incumbentleaders, or voted in dwindling numbers.In California, according to polls directedby Mark Baldassare for the Public PolicyInstitute of California in 1998 and 2000,70% of citizens believed that govern-ment is run by a few big interestslooking out for themselves, and 39%thought that quite a few people ingovernment are crooked. This attitudeundoubtedly influenced the public deci-sion to recall and replace Californias

elected governor was used in Californiawith an outsider who promised to termi-nate the professional political class, de-spite being a candidate of the RepublicanParty. The voter revolts in France and theNetherlands in 2003 had similar tones.While ideologies change in each context,the common trend is the rejection of thepolitical establishment and the expressionof political protest.

This widespread crisis of politicallegitimacy threatens to undo the demo-cratic system, and with it, the ability to

THE 2004 ITHIEL DE SOLA POOL LECTURE

PSOnline www.apsanet.org 9

Manuel Castellsis the Wallis AnnenbergChair Professor of Communication and Soci-ety at the University of Southern California, Los

Angeles. He is also professor emeritus of soci-ology and planning, University of California atBerkeley, and distinguished visiting professorof technology and society at MIT. He is theauthor of 21 books, including the trilogyTheInformation Age: Economy, Society, andCulture (Blackwell, 19962004), translated in20 languages.

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manage the problems and issues of aworld in turmoil. But unless we ac-knowledge the crisis and understand itsroots, the rejection of populism anddemagogy will not be taken as the de-fence of our principles but as the proofof our hypocrisy. At the source of thiscrisis are a number of well known fac-tors concerning the emphasis on simpli-fied image making induced by mediapolitics: domination of interest groupsdue to the system of campaign financ-ing; expensive media and marketingpolitics that push parties to use illegalfinancing, and, at times, corruption; andwhat John Thompson has labelled scan-dal politics, based on character assassi-nation and exposure or fabrication ofwrong doing as a weapon of choice.But I contend that the crisis of legiti-macy has a deeper structural underpin-ning: the increasing inability of the po-litical system anchored in the nationstate to represent citizens in the effec-tive practice of global governance and

the ascendance of global governance asan increasingly essential component ofnational and local governance.

In this lecture I will develop this ar-gument and I show how the emergenceof a global civil society is related to theattempt by the people to regain politicalcontrol under the new conditions ofpower making and governance.

Globalization and the State

The concept of globalization is thatwe live in societies in which the core

functions are determined by globally ar-ticulated processes that have the capacityto operate as a unit on a planetary scalein real or chosen time. Communicationand transportation technologies, the glob-ally inter-related media, and the world-wide diffusion of the Internet and othercomputer networks, as well as the spreadof wireless communication, are the mate-rial backbone of a global interdepend-ence that, of course, was not technogi-cally driven but technologically mediated.It is not necessary to analyze here theorigins and features of the process of

globalizationa number of academicworks, some of which are cited in thereferences, have settled the issue.

In this lecture the reality of theprocess of globalization is just an em-pirical starting point. This includes:

The existence of a global economy,

meaning: a) global interdependency

of financial markets; b) international-

ization of production, management,

and distribution of goods and services

around a core of multinational corpo-

rations and their ancillary networks;

c) largely as a result of b, interna-

tional trade (reflecting the internation-

alization of production) as a key

component of economic growth;

d) internationalization of science, tech-

nology, and know-how at the source

of productivity and competitiveness for

firms, regions, and countries;

e) segmented internationalization of

the labor force, with the formation of

a demand-driven global labor market

for the high end of talent and a

supply-driven international migration

of labor for all levels of skill.

A global media system, characterized

by the interrelation of global and local

processes of communication in an in-

terdependent, multilayered system. The

global media system is at the heart of

the emergence of globally diffused, lo-

cally appropriated cultural processes.

The management of the environment

as a planetary issue characterized by

the irreversible damage caused by un-

sustainable development, and theneed to counter this deterioration with

a global, long term conservation

strategy.

The globalization of human rights,

and the emergence of the issue of so-

cial justice for the planet at large.

Global security as a shared problem,

e.g., proliferation of weapons of mass

destruction, global terrorism, and the

practice of the politics of fear under

the pretext of fighting terrorism.

Overall, the critical issues condition-ing everyday life for people and theirgovernments in every country arelargely produced and shaped by globallyinterdependent processes that go beyondthe realm of countries as defined by theterritories under the sovereignty of agiven state. Under such conditions, anumber of processes constitute the newlandscape of global politics. There is agrowing gap between the space wherethe issues are defined (global) and thespace where the issues are managed(the nation-state). This is at the source

of four distinct, while related, politicalcrises that affect the institutions of na-tional governance:

Crisis of efficiency: problems cannot

be adequately managed, e.g., major

environmental issues, such as global

warming; regulation of financial mar-

kets; or counter-terrorism intelligence.

Crisis of legitimacy: political repre-

sentation based on democracy in the

nation state becomes simply a vote of

confidence on the ability of the

nation state to manage its interests in

the global web of policy making. It

cannot be a specific mandate, given

the variable geometry of policy mak-

ing and the unpredictability of the is-

sues. Political representation is in-

creasingly distant, with greater

between citizens and their representa-

tives. This crisis of legitimacy is ex-

asperated by the practice of media

politics and the politics of scandal as

the privileged mechanisms to access

power. Image making substitutes for

issue debating, partly due to the fact

that major issues can no longer be

decided in the national space.

Crisis of identity: as people see their

nation and their culture increasingly

disjointed from the mechanisms of po-

litical decision making in a global,

multinational network, their claim of

autonomy takes the form of resistance

identity and cultural identity politics as

opposed to their political identity as

citizens. Crisis of equity: The process of

market-led globalization often in-

creases inequality between countries,

and between social groups within

countries, because of its ability to in-

duce faster economic growth in some

areas while bypassing others. In the

absence of a global regulatory envi-

ronment that compensates for growing

inequality, existing welfare states come

under stress as a result of economic

competitiveness, and countries without

welfare states have greater difficulty

compensating for structurally inducedinequality because of the lesser capac-

ity of national institutions to act as

compensatory mechanisms.

As a result of these crises, and of thedifficulties for governments to act uponthem, non-governmental actors becomethe voices and the movements that de-fend the needs, interests, and values ofpeople at large, thus undermining evenfurther the central role of governmentsin responding to the stress induced byglobalization and structural transition.

New Projects of Governance:Utopias, Ideologies, and thePragmatic Emergence ofGlobal Governance in theform of the Network State

The increasing inability of nationstates to confront and manage the global-ization of the issues central to their gov-ernance leads to alternative projects ofgovernance proposed by various actors.The most relevant of these projects are:

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a) The constitution of a world govern-

ment, on the basis of current interna-

tional institutions, creating a system

of institutional relationships between

current nation states and international

institutions, and leading to a human

rights-founded world constitution

with institutions of global governance

established over a period of time.

This is Jrgen Habermasdream. In-

deed, the federalist project for the

European Union, put forward by the

German Green Party and other influ-

ential forces and leaders in Germany

(e.g., Ulrich Beck, Joshka Fischer), is

a transition step to the world govern-

ment. However, as both Habermas

and Beck acknowledge, what they

call a cosmopolitan system of gover-

nance could only be the result of the

rise of a cosmopolitan culture in civil

societies around the world. In fact,

public opinion data and political

trends point in the opposite direction,

in Europe as elsewhere. There is

considerable reluctance in Europe tosurrender more attributes of national

sovereignty, and this is unthinkable

in decisive countries such as the

United States, China, Russia, India,

Japan, and Brazil. Thus, for global

governance to succeed it must find

ways other than from the mechanical

transposition of the federal state to

the international stage.

b) Nation states are confronted with in-

creasing managerial difficulties in the

age of global networks. Two often

dovetailing solutions have recentlyarisen to deal with this issue:

The market takes care of economic

growth and equilibrium, with minimal

supervision and correction from

government.

The global civil society, made up of

NGOs and other forms of aggregation

of interests, organizes popular expres-

sion and representation, connecting to

the government as the processor of

these projects and demands in the

institutional system.

Therefore, the de facto systemof governance is broadening

through citizen participation in the

political dimension, and through

public/partnerships in the manage-

ment of the economy and of major

global issues (e.g., social rights,

the environment).

c) In the extreme, neo-anarchist tenden-

cies in contemporary social move-

ments seek the dissolution of the

state and its replacement by Internet-

enacted networks of people, NGOs,

and grassroots organizations in all

levels of society.

However, nation states, in spite of theirmultidimensional crisis, do not disappear,they adapt to the new context, and theirpragmatic transformation is the real agentof change in todays landscape of politicsand policy making. This transformation isinfluenced, and fought over, by thealternative projects and models I have

mentioned: they are cultural/ideationalmaterial on which political and social in-terests work to enact the transformationof the state. By nation states I mean theinstitutional set comprising a nationalgovernment: the parliament, the politicalparty system, the judiciary, and the statebureaucracy. In each country, this entiresystem transforms itself in respond to thecrises, by three main mechanisms:

i) By associating with each other and

forming diverse networks of states

falling into three categories: multi-

purpose and constitutionally defined,such as the European Union; fo-

cused on a set of issues, generally

trade issues, e.g., Mercosur or

NAFTA; or spaces of coordination

and debate, e.g., APEC or ASEAN.

In the strongest networks, the states

share sovereignty.

ii) By building an increasingly dense

network of international institutions

and supranational organizations to

deal with global issues. These consti-

tute two types: general purpose insti-

tutions, e.g., United Nations; andspecialized institutions, e.g., WTO,

IMF, World Bank, NATO, etc. There

are also ad hoc international semi-in-

stitutions defined around a set of is-

sues, e.g., the treaties on the global

environment and their institutions.

iii) By decentralizing power and re-

sources in the hope of increasing le-

gitimacy, and by connecting with

peoples identity, through devolution

of power to regional governments,

to local governments, and to NGOs

that extend the decision making

process in the civil society.

All in all, the emerging network stateis characterized by:

shared sovereignty and responsibility

flexibility of procedures of governance

greater diversity of times and spaces

in the relationship between govern-

ments and citizens

However, the whole system developsin a pragmatic way, by ad hoc deci-

sions, ushering in often contradictoryrules and institutions, and making thesystem of political representation muchmore obscure and removed from politi-cal control. Efficiency improves but thelegitimacy of the nation state suffers, al-though overall political legitimacy mayimprove if local and regional institutionsplay their role. Yet, the growing auton-omy of the local and regional state maybring the different levels of the stateinto contradiction against each other. Itremains that the response of nationstates to the crises of global governanceis the constitution of a new form ofstate, the network state. In turn, thisform of state induces new problems.

The Problems of the Solu-tion: The Contradictions ofthe Network State

The practice of global governancethrough ad hoc networks, has a numberof major problems derived from the con-tradiction between the historically con-structed nature of the institutions thatcome into the network, and the newfunctions and mechanisms they have toassume in the network, while still relat-ing to their nation-bound societies.

A coordination problem, with threeaspects: organizational, technical, andpolitical.

Organizational: agencies rooted in the

protection of their turf, and in their

privileged commanding position vis

vis their societies cannot have the same

structure, reward systems, and opera-tional principles, as those agencies

whose fundamental role is to find

synergy with other agencies.

Technical: protocols of communication

do not work; the introduction of the In-

ternet disorganizes rather than relates

agencies. Agencies are resistant to net-

working technology that implies net-

working of their practice.

Political: coordination is not only hori-

zontal between agencies, but also verti-

cal in two senses: networking with their

political decision makers, thus losingtheir bureaucratic autonomy; networking

with their citizen constituencies, then

being forced to democratize.

An ideological problem: coordinatinga common policy means a common lan-guage and a set of shared values, forinstance against market fundamentalismin the regulation of markets, or accept-ance of sustainable development in envi-ronmental policy, or priority of humanrights over the raison detatin securitypolicy.


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A geopolitical problem. Nation statesstill see the networks of governance as anegotiating table to impose their interests.There is a stalemate in the intergovern-mental decision making processes be-cause the culture of cooperation is stillnot there. The overarching principles arethe domination of the personal/political/social interests in the commandingheights of each nation state. Global gov-ernance is seen as a field of opportunityto maximize each nation states owninterests, rather than a new context forpolitical institutions to govern. In fact,the further the globalization process pro-ceeds, the more the contradictions it gen-erates (identity crises, economic crises,security crises) lead to a revival ofnationalism, and to the primacy of sover-eignty. Although this is a general trendfor all countries, the key issue nowadaysis American unilateralism, the policy ofpreemptive action, and putting nationalsecurity first without concern for thedestabilization of the world at large. This

American hegemonism must be seen,however, as a specific policy of the Bushadministration and its surrounding circleof neoconservatives. This was not thepolicy of previous administrations. Whilethe damage wrought by Bush unilateral-ism may last for some time, it is essen-tial to differentiate structural, long-termtrends, and short-term aberrations in thepolicy of a major power, even if weknow that aberrations may change thecourse of history. In other words: ourworld is multilateral, but Bush, at leastuntil 2004, did not seem to know it. And

the neoconservatives, who know it, aretrying to reverse the trend for the benefitof their own ideological agenda. How-ever, Bush may come to understand thathis legacy will depend on returning tomultilateralism. If this would be the case,the neoconservatives would be sacrificedon the new altar of a moral America.Yet, as long as these geopolitical contra-dictions persist, it is impossible for theworld to shift from a pragmatic, ad hocnetworking form of negotiated decisionmaking to a system of constitutionallyaccepted networked global governance.

Tentative Paths Towards theReconstruction of DemocraticGovernance in a GlobalContext

The reconstruction of a democraticpolitical order on the international scenecannot be based on a multilateral agree-ment on the characteristics of a newworld order. This would imply that theproblem has been solved. We are at thepreliminary stage: agreeing on how to

manage disagreements. The most urgentissue in global governance is how togovern in a process of shared sover-eignty assuming current disagreement;thus instituting processes of bargainingand control, with feedbacks in real time,on various dimensions: political, organi-zational, procedural, technical. If westart from observed practice in recentyears, procedures to tackling problemsof global governance include:

Public/private partnerships.

The development of a global civil so-

ciety, with an increasing role for non-

governmental actors in managing is-

sues at the international level, thus

bridging legitimacy in public opinion

with global issues management.

The emergence of the global move-

ment for global justice that has

forced a debate on issues and on

mechanisms of representation.

The redefinition of the role and organ-ization of international institutions, and

particularly of the United Nations, in-

troducing into their practice public/

private partnerships (e.g., UN Global

Compact), particularly with multina-

tional companies, and reaching out to

the global civil society and to the

global network of local governments.

Attempts at defining a Universal

Charts of Rights, leading to the for-

mation of a Global Social Contract,

as in the project of the International

Labor Organization (ILO). There is a

fragmented, global constitutionalprocess, with treaties on the environ-

ment, on social rights, on labor

rights, on childrens rights, on

womens rights, and on human rights

at large. This has no teeth in itself,

but then NGOs and civil society take

it up, becoming the actors that

process the principles into the media,

then in the political system.

Attempt to build new institutions on

specific issues, e.g., The International

Penal Court (albeit undermined by

the refusal of the U.S., Russia, China,and India to acknowledge its jurisdic-

tion); the Climate Change overseeing

institutions; the WTO competition au-

thority, etc.

Media exposure and media campaigns

as the inducers of a new culture, ulti-

mately impacting the political system.

Internet as a global, horizontal means

of communication provides a public

space, both as an organizing tool, and

as a means for debate, dialogue, and

collective decision making. Wireless

communication increases autonomy of

networks of communication.

Indeed, before 9/11, 2001, significantprogress was being made toward themultilateral management of global is-sues, based on networking between na-tional governments, international institu-tions, and the civil society. The threatof terrorism and the politics of fearpracticed by several governments have

temporarily derailed the prospects of in-ternational cooperation. But citizensaround the world are not giving up,and in some cases, as in Spain inMarch 2004, they are transforming thepolitical climate, inducing the condi-tions to restart cooperation and dialogueas predominant ways to tackle ourproblems, including security issues. Ul-timately, the power of global civil soci-ety acting on public opinion via themedia may overcome the resistance ofstate apparatuses to limit their power inexchange for increasing their legiti-

macy, and, ultimately, their efficiency.

The Multidimensional GlobalCivil Society

The crisis of legitimacy and the in-creasing difficulty of managing theworlds problems on a global scalehave induced the rise of a global civilsociety. However, this generic labellumps together several forms of organi-zation and action, which are quitedifferent, and even contradictory in

their goals and effects. A distinctionmust be made between:

Grassroots organizations, communitygroups, labor unions, and interestgroups, that, in every country, defendlocal or sectorial interests as well asspecific values against or beyond theformal political process. Some analysts,particularly Robert Putnam, argue thatthis form of civic engagement is on thedecline, as individualism ascends as thepredominant culture of our societies. Infact, the reality is highly diverse in dif-ferent areas of the world. For instance,

community organizations have become avery important part of the social land-scape in almost every Latin Americancountry. The difference is that thesources of social organization are in-creasingly diversified: religion, particu-larly non-Catholic religious groups,plays a major role. In some cases,criminal organizations build their sup-port networks in poor communities inexchange for patronage and forced pro-tection. Or, people in the community,or women groups, or ecologists, orethnic groups organize to have their

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voice heard and assert their identity.However, traditional forms of politicaland ideological sources of voluntary as-sociations seem on the decline almosteverywhere, although the patronage sys-tem continues to surround each majorpolitical party. Overall, this processamounts to a shift from the politicalsystem to informal and formal associa-tions of interests and values as thesource of collective action and socio-political influence. This is a strengthen-ing of the local civil society to face theproblems resulting from uncheckedglobalization. Properly speaking, this isnot the global civil society, although itconstitutes a milieu of organization,projects, and practices that nurture thegrowth of the global civil society.

A second trend is represented by therise of non-governmental organizations(NGOs) with a global or internationalframe of reference in their action andgoals. This is what most experts wouldname as the global civil society. These

are private organizations (albeit oftensupported or partly financed by publicinstitutions) that address global prob-lems outside government channels. Of-ten they affirm values that are univer-sally recognized, but politicallymanipulated by governments in theirown interest. In other words, interna-tional NGOs claim to be the enforcersof the unenforced human rights. A casein point is Amnesty International,whose influence stems from the factthat it is an equal opportunity critic ofall cases of political, ideological, or re-

ligious repression, regardless of the po-litical interest at stake. These are fun-damental, uncompromising values thatdefy argument: torture is always wrong.The notion here is that even to fightevil, adopting evil practices is to offervictory to the very sources of destruc-tion we are against. The affirmation ofhuman rights on a comprehensive,global scale gives birth to thousands ofNGOs that cover the entire span of thehuman experience, from poverty to ill-nesses, from hunger to epidemics, fromwomens rights to the defense of chil-

dren, and from banning land mines tosaving the whales. Mdecins Sans Fron-tires, Oxfam, Greenpeace, and somany others, are well known examples.The annual reports prepared on thematter by the London School of Eco-nomics center for the study of theglobal civil society provide ample evi-dence of the quantitative importanceand qualitative relevance of this grow-ing trend that has already altered thesocial and political management ofglobal and local issues around theworld. To understand the characteristics

on the Mexican people at large. Tosurvive and assert their rights, theycalled upon global solidarity, becomingone of the harbingers of the global net-work of indigenous movements, itself acomponent of the much broader globalmovement. In other words, the move-ment for global justice is not just onemovement: it is concurrently a globaltrend of local resistance, a connectionbetween many of these movements in aglobal network of debate and coordina-tion of action, and a formalization ofsome of these movements in a perma-nent, but changing, network of socialinitiatives aimed at influencing thecharacter of the ongoing process ofglobalization. Such a process is nowcharacterized by social movements asbeing in the hands of corporate inter-ests and their surrogate governments.Yet, the movement for global justice,inspired by the motto another world ispossible, is not a sum of nationallybound struggles. It is a global network

of opposition to the values and inter-ests currently dominant in the global-ization process. Its nodes grow andshrink alternately, depending on theconditions under which each societyrelates to globalization and its politicalmanifestations. This is a movementthat, in spite of the attempts by someof the moments elites to build a pro-gram for a new world order, is betterdescribed by what it opposes than by aunified ideology. It is essentially ademocratic movement that calls fornew forms of political representation of

peoples will and interests in theprocess of global governance. In spiteof its extreme internal diversity, themovement indeed voices a commoncritique of the management of the worldby international institutions made upexclusively from national governments.It is an expression of the crisis of legit-imacy, transformed into oppositionalpolitical action.

There is a fourth type, the movementof public opinion, made up of turbu-lences of information in a diversifiedmedia system, and of the emergence of

spontaneous, ad hoc mobilizations usinghorizontal, autonomous communicationssystems. A meaningful example was thespontaneous mobilization of thousandsof youth in Spain in March 2004,against the manipulation of informationby the Aznar government in the daysfollowing the barbarian massacre con-ducted in Madrid by Al Qaeda. Usinginstant electronic communicationthrough SMSs, their publicity campaignreached enough of the electorate tochange the result of the election. In theU.S. context, the success of the Howard

of the international NGOs, three fea-tures must be emphasized:

1) In contrast to political parties, these

NGOs have considerable popularity

and legitimacy, which translates to

substantial funding through donations

and widespread volunteer work.

2) NGOs focus on practical matters,

specific cases, concrete expressions

of human solidarity: saving childrenfrom famine, freeing a political pris-

oner with name and face, stopping

the lapidation of a woman, blocking

the destruction of indigenous culture

by unsustainable development in one

particular spot of the planet. What is

fundamental here is that the classical

political argument of rationalizing

every decision in terms of the over-

all picture of politics is denied.

Goals do not justify the means. The

purpose is to act to undo evil or to

do good in one specific instance.

The positive output must be consid-ered in itself, not as a way of mov-

ing in a positive direction. Because

people have come to distrust the

logic of instrumental politics, the

method of direct action on direct

outputs finds increasing support.

3) The key tactics of NGOs to achieve

results, and build support for their

causes, is media politics. It is

through the media that they reach

the public mind and mobilize people

in support of these causes. So doing,

they put pressure on governments

beholden to the voters or on corpo-rations fearful of consumers reac-

tions. Thus, the media become the

battleground for NGO campaigns.

Since these are global campaigns,

global media are the key target. The

globalization of communication leads

to the globalization of media poli-

tics. The public space of the global

civil society is the global space of

communication structured around in-

terdependent media.

The third type of reality that concurs

to the formation of the global civilsociety is made of social movementsthat aim at controlling the process ofglobalization, and in doing so they buildnetworks of action and organization toinduce a global social movement forglobal justice, as the movement calls it-self (what the media labelled, incor-rectly, the anti-globalization movement).The Zapatistas, for instance, were asocial movement insurging against theeconomic, social, and cultural effectsof globalization (represented byNAFTA) on the Mexican Indians and

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Dean campaign in 2003, in spite of thelimitations of his candidacy and hiseventual demise, showed the potentialof the Internet as a medium of au-tonomous organization independent froma command and control center, as it isthe case in practically all political cam-paigns. The implications of this phe-nomenon at the global level, as exem-plified by the simultaneous peacedemonstrations around the world onFebruary 15, 2003, are full of politicalmeaning. Internet and wireless commu-nication, by enacting a global, horizon-tal means of communication, provide apublic space, both as an organizing tool,and as a forum for debate, dialogue,and collective decision making. Theglobal civil society now has the techno-logical means to exist independent frompolitical institutions and the mass me-dia. However, the ability of socialmovements to change public perceptionstill depends, to a large extent, on theircommunication strategies vis vis the

mass media.In the last analysis, the will of the

people speaks. And people decide theirwill on the issues that affect their lives,as well as the future of humankind,from the messages and debates that takeplace in the public sphere. The publicsphere in our time is largely dependenton the communication media system,which includes not only television, ra-dio, and the print press, but a whole va-riety of multimedia and communicationssystems, among which the Internet is ofincreasing importance. There is a shift

from a public sphere anchored aroundthe institutions of society to a publicsphere constituted around the media sys-tem. This is neither good nor bad, butthis shift does have considerable conse-quences on the practice of democracy,and on the relationship between civilsociety and the state.

The media system nowadays is simul-taneously local and global. It is organ-ized around a few media businessgroups of global reach. But, at the sametime, it is dependent on state regula-tions, and focused on narrowcasting on

specific audiences. By acting within themedia system, particularly by creatingevents that send powerful images andmessages, transnational activists inducea debate on the hows, whys, and whatsof globalization, and on societal choices.It is through media politics that non-state actors influence people and fostersocial change. Ultimately, the transfor-mation of consciousness does have con-sequences on political behavior, on vot-ing patterns, and on the orientations ofgovernments. Here again, I do not makevalue judgments about how positive the

choices thus influenced will be. But it isat the level of media politics where itappears societies can be moved in a dif-ferent direction from those already insti-tutionalized in the political system.

Thus it is essential for state actors,and for intergovernmental institutions,such as the United Nations, to meetcivil society not only around institu-tional mechanisms and procedures ofpolitical representation, but in public de-bates in the global public sphere builtaround the media communication sys-tem. To some extent, the series of majorconferences that the UN organized inthe 1990s on several major issues ofhumankind (from the condition ofwomen to environmental conservation),while not very effective in terms of de-signing policy, were essential in foster-ing a global dialogue, in raising publicawareness, and in providing the plat-form on which the global civil societycould come to the forefront of the pol-icy debate. Therefore, for the states and

international institutions to meet the de-mands and projects of the global civilsociety, they must stimulate the consoli-dation of this media-based publicsphere, stimulate the dialogue with spe-cific initiatives, and record, on an ongo-ing basis, this dialogues contributions,so that they can inform policy makingin the UN itself. Harnessing the powerof the worlds public opinion is as im-portant as broadening institutional, polit-ical participation, in the fruitful, syner-gistic connection between thegovernment-based international institu-

tions and the global civil society.

ConclusionGlobal Gover-nance Without a WorldGovernment: Global CivilSociety and the NetworkState

The term global civil society refers toa highly diverse field of social practiceand organization. I have tried to identifythe main components of this diversity.To engage an informed debate on the

relationship between civil society andglobal governance, we need to take astep further in the analysis. We needsome conceptual precision to clarify thedebate.

Without going into the intellectualhistory, the concept of civil society canbe related to three theoretical traditions,each one rooted in the practice of soci-eties at different moments. The first,best represented by Locke, considerscivil society the organizational and insti-tutional defense of individual rightsagainst the intrusion of the state. Civil

society is in opposition to the state. In-terestingly enough, the approach ofmany social movements to the practiceof civil society reflects this old, liberaltradition, albeit extending the notion ofindividual rights to collective humanrights.

The second tradition, that we couldassociate to Tocqueville, refers to theprocess of self-management of the is-sues arising in social life by peoplethemselves, organized autonomouslyfrom the state, but within the frame-work of a democratic system of gover-nance. In this case, epitomized by theNorth American tradition of communityorganization and civic engagement, civilsociety is complementary to governmentin the conduct of public affairs. Itthrives under the protection of the dem-ocratic state, and in return nurturesdemocratic politics by making citizensresponsible for the management of theirown lives without becoming dependenton the government.

The third tradition, most often citedin progressive circles, but probably themost misunderstood, is Gramscis con-ceptualization of the civil society, asformulated in Quaderni de Carcere. Itstems, like the second tradition, fromthe belief in the importance of peoplesautonomous organization, as in theworks of labor unions, farmers coopera-tives, community organizations,churches, and the like. But for Gramscithese organizations constitute themselvesas civil society, on the basis of theirconnection to the state. So, the Grams-

cian civil society is this intermediatespace between the state and its citizens,in which the state institutions and peo-ples organization may interact, ex-change, and negotiate interests and val-ues, in a form of extendedco-governance. For Gramsci this is pre-cisely the interest of the civil society, asit provides the channel for the transfor-mation of the state without engaging ina frontal assault of the state apparatusto seize power. In this tradition, civilsociety is the channel to reform thestate and its policies, using the organ-

ized pressure from society, without lim-iting the process of democratic represen-tation to elections and formal politics.Scandinavian democracies come closerthan any other to this model, and seemto work more efficiently than any otherinstitutional systems in the world. Butwhat we must retain from this excursusis that civil society, at least in theGramscian tradition, is not definedagainst the state, or outside the state,but by its organized relationship to thestate. This is the difference between so-ciety and civil society; between social

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movements and civil society; betweencivic associations and social movements.

The practice of civil society changeswith its context. In our historical con-text, the key issue, I argued here, is thatgovernments are national, while themain issues to be managed are global.States have set up their networks ofglobal governance, but civic organiza-tions have remained in their territoriallybounded turfs.

Social movements have gone global,overcoming the limits of the nationstate, but in so doing have made diffi-cult their constitution as the civil soci-etys partner of the global networks ofgovernance. Thus, the formation of aglobal civil society, in the Gramsciantradition, amounts to identifying themechanisms and processes of connectionbetween peoples autonomous organiza-tions and the network state in its differ-ent levels and domains. In our societies,the forms of organization and aggrega-tion of interests are diversified, and

ephemeral. Cultural codes are constantlyforming and reforming. But there is stillone fundamental lesson from the Gram-scian approach to civil society that re-tains its meaning in our societies: thereis no civil society (in contrast to socialmovements or actions of peoplesprotest) without forms of articulationwith the state. The civil society is abridge between society and the state, achannel able to transform the statethrough a representative citizenship thattranscends, without denying, the proce-dures constitutionally coded in political

institutions.Identifying the issue is easier than

providing solutions to the problem, al-though it is a first and necessary step.Furthermore, to propose specific formsof articulation between state and societyin the space of the global civil societyis a task that goes way beyond the lim-its and purpose of this lecture. But Iwill try to illustrate how best to ad-vance in the practical treatment of theissue.

The key question is the following:which are the forms of articulation be-

tween the dynamics of societies and theinstitutions of the state in the process ofnetworked global governance? I summa-rize here some of the observed trendsthat could be the beginning of this insti-tutional and cultural transformation ofthe international political system. This isnot a program, an agenda, or a pro-posal. This is what I see growing in thepractice of people and institutionsaround the world.

First, there are a number of processesthat do not seem to address the funda-mental question of the autonomous link-

age between state and society. The de-centralization of the state in the formsof subsidies and support to NGOsseems to lead, more often than not, tonew forms of clientelism and patronage.The integration of the values of themovement into the state through theconstitution of progressive governmentsmay confront the oldest dilemma in therelationship between social change andinstitutionalization: how to preserve theautonomy of social movements whengovernments need to respond to a muchbroader range of interests in society andin the world at large? On the otherhand, the growing influence of neoanar-chism (explicit of implicit) in the anti-globalization movement, or the radical-ization of specific identities within themovement (e.g., indigenous identities),increase the separation between the stateand society, at least vis vis the mobi-lized sectors of society. The radical au-tonomy of social movements may be asource of social change and cultural in-

novation, but it will find difficulties inopening the path for the constitution ofcivil society.

Thus, maybe the issue must betackled differently, starting both fromthe state and from civil society, ratherthan giving priority to one or theother of this tense, but creative cou-ple. Here are the premises for thebuilding of this new relationship.

The global state does not exist, be-cause there is no global citizenship. Theprocess of global governance is enactedin practice by the global network state.

The network state, in its changing formsof representation and articulation is thestate of the global age. This state mustlink the state actors with interests ineach particular process of governance.This implies enlightened multilateralism.Any attempt at using multilateral institu-tions to impose unilateral interests orpolicies destroys the basis of trust onwhich a shared global governance canbe built. Procedural rules are essential.

On the other hand, the civil societyconstitutes itself at various levels bysetting up forms of articulation of soci-

ety with each level of the state: local,regional, national, international. So, gov-ernments acting together at the interna-tional level have already submitted tothe rules of engagement negotiated withtheir own civil society institutions.However, this is not enough. Becausethere are global problems in which so-cial actors are directly involved, withoutnecessarily acting upon governments(e.g., human rights, environment, etc.),social organizations or social actorsmust have mechanisms and processes ofdirect connection with the international

institutions, e.g., with the UnitedNations. And subnational levels of gov-ernment should also have access tohigher levels of international coopera-tion and negotiation. It is this complexnetwork of connections between formsof social organization and levels of po-litical institutions that constitute theglobal civil society.

In practical terms, this means concur-rent development of the system of inter-national institutions, the autonomous ex-pressions of societies, and themechanisms of their relationship.

This starts with the strengthening ofthe United Nations and related institu-tions and with the enlightened decisionby governments to enhance the auton-omy of the UN and other internationalinstitutions. This would be the equiva-lent, in the old context of the nationstate, of asserting the independence ofthe judiciary once it has been appointed.

On the other hand, society needs tohave the means for the growth of its

autonomy vis vis the state, not onlyinstitutionally, but culturally. The auton-omy of society depends on the extentand strength of its public civic con-sciousness. In our time, this depends es-sentially on the process of public com-munication at the roots of the formationof the public mind. This means institu-tional and political measures must leadto the following policies:

Preserve freedom of the Internet as a

horizontal, global means of au-

tonomous communication. This

should extend to the formation ofwireless communication networks.

Assert freedom of information and

communication in the new techno-

logical context, for instance through

the creation of an independent

International Free Communication

Council to protect people against the

manipulation of information or abuse

of media power. This is not to go

back to the statist project of the

New information order proposed

by Unesco years ago. Rather, here

I propose reproducing at the interna-

tional level institutions such as the

French Conseil de lAudiovisuel, to

protect the most fundamental source

of civil and political rights in our

form of society.

Similarly, the international institu-

tions themselves should practice

online transparency of their delibera-

tions and policy making, so that the

public can be aware of who runs the

world and for what. No more closed

meetings except when necessary for

security reasons.


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If international institutions aredeveloped and their autonomy

safeguarded, if societies are equippedwith autonomous means of informationand communication, if mechanisms forthe participation of social organiza-tions, social movements, and citizensat large, in their diversity, are set up

at all levels of the internationalinstitutional system, and if govern-ments agree to respect the rule of lawin this international system, then thereis an opportunity to upgrade democ-racy and political management at theglobal level where our lives aredecided.

Granted, it is unlikely that all stateswould accept this new global democracy.Yet, such states may well become the newform of failed states. The political outcastswould not be designated by the superpow-ers, in terms of their own interests, butstigmatized by the global civil society act-ing on behalf of the values of humanity.

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