18-19 March 2006
Organized with and hosted by the Orfalea Center in Global and International Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara, and devoted to a debate on The Global Civil Society, this meeting brought together twenty-two persons, nine of which being regular members of the Circle. The participants considered three themes: What are the contours and characteristics of the global civil society? What are the most salient criticisms concerning the activities and behavior of organizations of the civil society? And, under which conditions could these organizations make a greater contribution to the emergence of a better world?
The Agenda had two annexes. The first, Notes on the Evolution of the Concept of Civil Society in the context of the United Nations, prepared by the secretary of the Circle, outlined the main steps of the participation of NGO’s in the work of the United Nations. Such participation rests on Article 71 of the Charter authorizing the Economic and Social Council to “make suitable arrangements for consultation with non-governmental organizations which are concerned with matters within its competence.” The other, entitled Humanity in Question: The Challenge of Moral Globalization, was a draft reflecting the current stage of a reflection of Richard Falk on how “to make the case for preserving “humanity” as a term designating both biological inclusivity of all persons and moral expectations of treatment of humans in accordance with international law and human rights.” The paper presented the argument that “moral globalization is a vital element in the response to a deepening crisis of global governance, and that a biological and normative framing of moral globalization by reference to humanity is integral to fashioning a coherent and widely acceptable response.” Richard Falk also wrote in this piece that “taking humanity as our compass provides a navigational tool needed if our species is to have any hope of yet negotiating a safe and satisfying journey through the treacherous waters of globalization.”
Civil society: an ambivalent concept and a great diversity of components
Participants were acquainted with the avatars of the concept of civil society. Whereas for John Locke, the term was the equivalent of civil government, Adam Smith identified it with an autonomous self-regulating economy separate from the political sphere and comprising, obviously, the craftsmen and merchants, the economic actors of the time. Taking exception to the liberal political doctrine and the capitalist economy espoused from Locke and Smith, Hegel and Marx saw the civil society as the sphere of specific and selfish interests and opposed it to the political society, the latter being the sphere of public and general interest.
The extreme diversity of the components of civil society throughout the world was noted. Civil society consists of organizations and institutions and also of individuals, for instance academics and journalists, who take public positions on matters of public interest. Among the former are organizations of very different sizes and sources of financing-ranging from those financed by grants from governments and international organizations to those surviving on contributions of their dedicated members. There are organizations with religious facilitations and/or foundations and others which are strictly secular. Actually, a significant proportion of those having consultative status at the United Nations have religious connections.
Some organizations have broad agendas, such as the development of the countries of the South, while others are focused on a single issue, for instance “pro-choice” or “pro-life.” Some groups are institutionalized and have a recognized place at the periphery of the “establishment”, as their representatives are regularly received by ministers and heads of international organizations. Others, whose nature is closer akin to social movements than to non-governmental organizations, and also closer to traditional revolutionary political parties and trade unions than to lobbies or interest groups, have a confrontational relationship with established authorities. Their members organize protests around sites of power, albeit with growing difficulty as “security measures” become increasingly strict. There are organizations of civil society operating in a single country or region, others having their headquarters in Europe or North America and operating in the developing world, notably Africa, and still others having a truly global vocation, for instance the protection of the environment or the promotion of gender equality across borders and continents.
A global civil society defined by its objectives
Is it possible and legitimate to identify “a” global civil society within this extremely diverse and evolving universe? Participants at this meeting took a substantive and political approach to this question. Were considered part of the global civil society, those organizations, movements and individuals that were working for a more just, more respectful of human dignity and more peaceful world order. Such work can take place in an African village, in the suburbs of an affluent city, in a university or in the corridors of an international organization. It can be conceptual or directed towards advocacy and active dissent. But what unifies these different initiatives and activities is their intentions, orientations, and objectives. The global civil society is helping to bridge the gap that separates developed from developing countries. More ambitiously perhaps, it aims to realize the moral globalization envisaged in the paper by Richard Falk. The global society seeks to promote universal respects for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It wants to regulate or, for some, replace global capitalism. It fights what was called the dragon of unrestricted market forces. These forces are slowly building a political and moral framework for the good of humankind.
The meeting devoted a fair amount of time to a discussion on the state of the world. It was argued that a second cycle of ecological urgency had started, marked by the emergence of extreme weather and the need for a transition to a post-oil economy. These issues had risen to prominence for a short moment in the 1970’s. Now, they are not being addressed properly, partly because of the disfunctionality of the policies pursued since the beginning of the “war on terrorism.” Security issues and wars are distractions from very urgent ecological problems. Among these, are the global warming and, also, the effects of biogenetic engineering on animal health and on biological diversity. Presently too much reliance is placed on the spread of global capitalism from the powerful countries to solve problems of global governance, including the deterioration of the environment. This culture of leaving world issues of public concern to global capitalism might be called Westphalian optimism: a powerful state and market forces will create a self-organized world system, with, when necessary, the use of force.
The global civil society: a major actor in a post-Westphalian world
The view that the world order initiated by the treaty of Westphalia in 1648 is coming to an end was generally shared by the participants. It follows that one of the main challenges of the times is to construct the political culture and institutions necessary to govern a world in which nation-states are no longer in control. This work would involve a large role for the international civil society. It was pointed out, however, that the domination of a nation sometimes identified with an empire was hardly “post-Westphalian” and that a diminishing role of states in socio-economic matters was often paralleled by a growing propensity to intervene in matters of law and order. Indeed, was the reply, but it remains true that the central Westphalian idea, the combination of territorial sovereignty and the ideology of secularization, is already being superseded: Iran is a theocratic state and the idea of secularization is under challenge in many parts of the world; and, the United States is no longer a single territorial entity, having bases in sixty countries and conceiving its security in global terms. Besides, history has shown that the greater use of one’s power may be in part the “sunset effect” of the declining state.
In this fragmented and dangerous world, does the global civil society have the legitimacy and capacity to influence trends and events? Negative criticisms of NGOs and more generally organizations of the civil society are directed first at their Western origin, financing and ethos. Hence an a-priori Western bias considered a handicap in a world seeking unity within cultural and political pluralism. Other criticisms are: the frequent tendency of civil society members to be excessively normative without having the responsibility to submit their ideas to the test of implementation; the naivety and manicheism of organizations inclined to divide the world between the “good and victimized” developing countries and the “bad and greedy” Western powers and corporations; and, a perceived lack of rigor in the management of their resources accompanied in some cases with authoritarian methods and style of leadership inconsistent with their mission.
Even more serious, and related to lack of transparency and accountability, is the criticism that these organizations of the civil society have no legitimacy, because they represent only their members and because they do not have to take responsibility for their actions since they are exempt by nature from any election process. The participants made a number of remarks in addressing these criticisms and in attempting to place the question of legitimacy in its proper context. These are summarized below.
Reasons for the legitimacy of the elements of the global civil society
Civil society would not have any raison-d’etre if governments, parliaments, and regional and international intergovernmental organizations were fulfilling properly their roles. If this is not the case, then a legitimacy “by default” is perfectly valid.
Political legitimacy is a relative notion subject to many interpretations. When democracies turn into plutocracies, politicians have questionable legitimacy as representatives of the “peoples.” When a government represents a majority of the votes but a minority of the electorate, the voice of the “rest” has the right to be heard.
At the international and global levels, there are no institutions and processes that are in a position to confer or deny legitimacy to organizations and individuals that wish to express their views on the state and future of the world. International intergovernmental organizations are to varying degrees accountable to the governments of their member-states, certainly not to the peoples of the world. Transnational corporations are, to an extent, accountable to their shareholders, certainly not to the peoples and their political representatives. When they express their views, politely or forcefully, on the international scene, organizations of the civil society do fill this vacuum. Their legitimacy is to represent the beginning of a democratic global order, the first step in the establishment of a world assembly of the peoples.
This is even more so since there are already forms of transnational governance. Apart from the transnational corporations and their various antennas, including most of the media with a global reach, there is the World Trade Organization and there are various forms of specific cooperation between governments and between private individuals and groups that progressively tie the world into a web of relationships that might be legitimate and useful but are certainly not approved and controlled democratically. Mention was made of the active cooperation that exists between the secret services of a number of nations. In contesting current arrangements and in working for a model of governance based on moral values and determined to seek the common interest of humankind, the global civil society meets an obvious need.
The achievements of civil society during the last quarter of a century are impressive enough so that questions about its legitimacy could be set aside. Mentioned were the roles of worker’s-unions (notably Solidarity in Poland) and of other organizations and individuals in the decline of the Soviet empire and fall of the Soviet Union itself. The apartheid system in South Africa was brought down by courageous leaders of states and members of civil society with the help of the United Nations and of a long and effective mobilization of numerous organizations of the global civil society. More generally and over a longer period of history, all great causes, from the abolition of slavery to the promotion of women’s rights and the defense of civil rights have been taken up in the vanguard by private individuals and groups.
At present, the dark and simply unfair or irrational sides of the globalization process and ideology are exposed essentially by members and organizations of the civil society. And, most importantly, the recent and dramatic weakening of the fundamental idea that basic human rights are applicable to all members of the human family is being countered by these members and organizations of civil society. Tribunals of the People, on the Nuremberg model but outside official channels and made essentially to collect testimonies and materials on the effects of wars on civilians (prominent examples being the Vietnam war and the current Iraq war) are also prominent initiatives of the civil society.
To be the conscience of the world by exposing abuses of power of all sorts is not without danger. The meeting was reminded that in a number of countries and regions of the world, intimidation, threats, and murder remain common methods for silencing those who dare to expose facts on corruption and abuses of power. At the time of the writing of these Notes, the assassination of a Russian woman journalist brought a tragic confirmation of such a reminder. To be an activist for human rights and fundamental freedoms is rather different from being an ordinary lobbyist. Real legitimacy is, unfortunately, not always on the side of those with power.
Markers for the role of the global civil society in a conflicted world
The global civil society, it was said, has also the responsibility to combat the moral and intellectual conformism that seems to characterize the dominant political culture. Perhaps because of the general atmosphere of uncertainty and insecurity, political debates on the way society could be better organized tend to be poor. The capacity for dialogue and confrontation of viewpoints appear to be regressing. It is up to the active members of civil society to have, in addition to moral courage, the political imagination that is sadly limited in circles of power. For example, the thinking that was captured and summarized some decades ago in the “Small is Beautiful” of Schumacher should be revived.
Economies and societies are harmonious when made of very diverse types of creativity and ways of living. And on the other hand, the global civil society ought to multiply the forums where universal values and norms of good behavior are debated. Even the current vulgate on Darwin and Darwinism ought to be revisited. It was pointed out that “Darwin was more clever than Milton Friedman regarding Darwinism.” He concluded from his observations in the Galapagos Islands that the finches having adjusted to their environment by using, for instance, a cactus spine to extend their beak and carve insects out of the bark of trees, would not have survived if exposed to the competition of the wood-peckers of the Latin American continent. Brutal exposure to competition and to the “law of the jungle” is not necessarily the ultimate refinement of a civilization.
At least in appearance, that part of the global civil society which is made of the non-governmental organizations continues to find its way into the deliberations of the major international organizations, including the United Nations, the World Bank and the World Trade Organization. In the United Nations, the doors of the General Assembly and of the Security Council are not as hermetically closed to NGOs as they were a few years ago. Expressions of dissent, however, criticism of the values and strategies that underlie public policies and above all proposals to regulate, control and tax the agents of globalization, however, are less and less tolerated. If the world conferences organized by the United Nations at the end of the 20th century are pushed aside, it is partly because many states, including the most powerful, are not anxious to offer a forum to the rebellious elements of the civil society.
The meeting also had a serious discussion on the future of solar energy given the apparently foreseeable depletion of oil resources. This debate followed the projection of the film Power of the Sun conceived and produced by Walter Kohn. Jonathan Cleeves was the narrator.