Social movements and the problem of globalization

Alternatives

Volumn 23, Issue 2, 1998, Pages 149-173

  Lynch, Cecelia ^a  

^a NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY   (United States)

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EID: 22044453284     PISSN: 03043754     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/030437549802300201     Document Type: Article

References (92)

1. Recent conceptions of "society" on the transnational or global level (that focus on people rather than states) run the gamut of inspiration from Marx and Hegel to Habermas to mainstream liberal IR theory. See Justin Rosenberg, The Empire of Civil Society (London: Verso, 1994);
2. Paul Wapner, "Politics beyond the State: Environmental Activism and World Civic Politics," World Politics, 47, no. 3 (1995);
3. and Thomas Risse-Kappen, ed., et al., Bringing Transnational Relations Back In (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), respectively.
4. For discussions of the relationship between social movements and civil society on the domestic, transnational, and global levels, see Millenium (Special Issue: "Social Movements and World Politics") 23, no. 3 (1994), passim;
5. Richard Falk, On Humane Governance, Toward a New Global Politics (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995),
6. and Falk, Explorations at the Edge of Time (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1992);
7. Jean L. Cohen and Andrew Arato, Civil Society and Political Theory (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1992);
8. and John A. Hall, ed., Civil Society, Theory, History, Comparison (Cambridge, UK: Polity, 1995).
9. Gill, "The Global Panopticon? The Neoliberal State, Economic Life, and Democratic Surveillance," Alternatives 20 (1995): 1.
10. Thomas L. Friedman, "Revolt of the Wannabees," New York Times, February 7, 1996, p. A15.
11. Claire Turenne Sjolander, "Multilateralism, Regionalism, and Unilateralism: International Trade and the Marginalization of the South," in The State of the United Nations, 1993: North-South Perspectives, ACUNS Reports and Papers no. 5 (1993): 83-84;
12. Philip Cerny, "Globalization and Collective Action," IO 49, no. 4 (1995).
13. As Richard Falk points out, one has only to look to the international political-economy literature of twenty years ago, including the books of Richard Barnet, especially Global Reach: The Power of the Multinational Corporations, with Ronald E. Muller (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1974),
14. or Robert Gilpin, U.S. Power and the Multinational Corporation (New York: Basic Books, 1975).
15. See Falk, note 1, On Humane Governance.
16. For recent debates on what is new (or old) about economic globalization, see Suzanne Berger and Ronald Dore, eds., Convergence or Diversity? National Models of Production and Distribution in a Global Economy (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1996);
17. Andrew Hurrell and Ngaire Woods, "Globalisation and Inequality," Millenium 24, no. 3 (1995, special issue on liberalism);
18. John Ruggie, "At Home Abroad, Abroad at Home: International Liberalisation and Domestic Stability in the New World Economy," also in Millenium 24, no. 3;
19. and Stephen Gill, "Globalisation, Market Civilisation, and Disciplinary Neoliberalism," Millenium ibid.;
20. Richard Barnet and John Cavanagh, Global Dreams: Imperial Corporations and the New World Order (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994),
21. and Saskia Sassen, Losing Control: Sovereignty in an Age of Globalization (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996).
22. On the term global apartheid as used by contemporary activists, see John Cavanagh, "The Crisis of Globalization," comments at the "Teach-In on Globalization," New York City, Nov. 1995. This usage currently appears to connote primarily economic segregation, both within and among societies and states. The term itself, however, is a much older one, referring originally to the relationship between global racial relations and economic advantage.
23. See Gernot Kohler, "Global Apartheid," Alternatives 4, no. 2 (1978),
24. and Kohler, "The Three Meanings of Global Apartheid: Empirical, Normative, and Existential," Alternatives 20, no. 3 (1995).
25. Magnusson argues that capitalism's power is rarely understood as the effect of a social movement, although the evidence easily supports such an understanding. Capitalism has its ideology, its exponents, its true believers. It rouses millions of people in its support, generates hundreds of political parties, and inspires the most incredible personal sacrifices. It is a way of life that attracts fierce loyalty, and appears to offer people a means of solving all their problems. . . . In terms of sustained activity, it is hard to think of anything that rivals this effort. Magnusson, "Social Movements and the Global City," Millenium 23, no. 3 (1994): 637.
26. The winter 1985 issue of Social Research, with articles by Jean L. Cohen, Charles Tilly, Alain Touraine, Alberto Melucci, Claus Offe, and Klaus Eder represents one of the best collections of theoretical work on the "new social movements." Special issue, "Social Movements," Social Research 52, no. 4 (1985).
27. Here there is a problem, although an unavoidable one, of using the term movements to denote collective entities, each made up in reality of groups and individuals having many differences between them. Thus I am talking about each movement in somewhat oversimplified terms. Also, I wish to note that I am not attempting to provide an "objective" or single understanding of globalization, which has many facets and interpretations. Rather, my purpose in the following section is to give an outline of particular social movements' understanding and articulation of the "problem" and potential "responses" to it. There are, in fact, interesting debates within movement groups themselves regarding what constitutes an objective analysis of globalization.
28. Tariq Rauf, "A Critique of the Global Approach to Nuclear Nonproliferation," The State of the United Nations, 1993: North-South Perspectives, ACUNS Reports and Papers no. 5 (1993): 48.
29. For a discussion of the administration's change in policy, see Disarmament, New Realities: Disarmament, Peace-building and Global Security, NGO Committee on Disarmament Conference at the United Nations, New York, April 20-23, 1993.
30. Even the Convention on the Rights of Child employs rather weak language in this regard: "Children have the right to be protected from economic exploitation and from work that threatens their health, education or development. States shall set minimum ages for employment and regulating work conditions, particularly in line with standards set forth by the International Labour Organisation, particularly in the Minimum Age Convention 1973 (no. 138)." Substantive Provisions, 5c.
31. Ronnie D. Lipschutz, "Reconstructing World Politics: The Emergence of Global Civil Society," Millenium, 21 (1992);
32. Pamela Chasek, "The Story of the UNCED Process," in Bertram I. Spector, Gunnar Sjostedt, and I. William Zartman, Negotiating International Regimes: Lessons learned from the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (London: Graham & Trotman, 1994).
33. Activists at recent NGO conferences have been quite frank about this split. Comments at plenary session of International Forum on Globalization's "Teach-In," New York City, Nov. 10, 1995; comments by Hilary French, Worldwatch Institute, "We the Peoples" Conference, San Francisco, June 1995.
34. If this is the case, then the major opponent of "progressive" social movements has always been capitalism pure and simple, whether conceptualized as "structure," process, or social movement. My own perspective is that capitalism and its variants in different historical periods have indeed constituted on a consistent basis "a" primary foe for the realization of goals of social justice, although these variants have combined with other "movements" or sets of practices such as militarism in ways that produced internal contradictions and prevent us from assigning them rigid labels or qualities of immutability.
35. "The World Summit for Social Development," Oxfam, UK and Ireland, undated. These conferences include the World Summit for Children (1990), the Earth Summit (1992), the World Conference on Human Rights (1993), the International Conference on Population and Development (1994), the World Summit for Social Development (1995), the Fourth World Conference on Women (1995), and Habitat II (1996).
36. Women's Linkage Caucus Advocacy Priorities for the Draft Platform for Action, March 20, 1995, p. 3.
37. The Platform for Action reaffirms the importance of implementing the environmental standards of Agenda 21 and admits that "the major cause of the continued deterioration of the global environment is the unsustainable pattern of consumption and production, particularly in industrialized countries, which is a matter of grave concern, aggravating poverty and imbalances." Women's Environment and Development Organization, "A Brief Analysis of the UN Fourth World Conference on Women, Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action," New York, 1995.
38. "The Summit . . . is the centrepiece in a series of United Nations gatherings to address pervasive threats to humankind. It is aimed at mounting a global attack on poverty, unemployment and social disintegration." "Consensus Growing on Social Summit," press release, United Nations DPI/1577/Rev.3, September 13, 1994; "The grave deterioration of living conditions the world over has prompted governments [sic] to call upon the United Nations to hold the second United Nations Conference on Human Settlements (Habitat H)," "The City Summit" Istanbul, 3-14 June, 1996, Habitat New York Office, United Nations, conference brochure.
39. "The World Summit for Social Development," note 16.
40. Mike Salvaris, "United Nations Copenhagen Social Summit," forum, the Centre for Citizenship and Human Rights, no. 3, August 1995. Oxfam (UK and Ireland) noted in its preparatory materials that "any new institutional framework needs to address the fact that the globalisation of the economy has shifted the burden of protecting people's rights away from national governments and towards private actors, such as transnational organisations." "The World Summit for Social Development," note 16.
41. The International Forum on Globalization is a new alliance created by sixty activists, scholars, economists, researchers, and writers to stimulate new thinking, joint activity, and public education in response to the rapidly emerging economic and political arrangement called the global economy. . . . The International Forum on Globalization advocates equitable, democratic, and ecologically sustainable economics. It is formed in response to the present worldwide drive toward a globalized economic system dominated by supranational corporate trade and banking institutions that are not accountable to democratic processes or national governments. Undated pamphlet, IFG, San Francisco.
42. "Memo to all public members of IFG from Jerry Mander, Acting Director," December 10, 1996.
43. See Jerry Mander and Edward Goldsmith, eds., The Case Against the Global Economy (Sierra Club Books, 1996);
44. and David C. Korten, When Corporations Rule the World (Kumarian Press, 1995).
45. IFG pamphlet, note 22, fn.23.
46. This is a summary of IFG activists' arguments, compiled from comments made during the Teach-In on Globalization, by Colin Hines, Maude Barlow, John Cavanagh, and Jerry Mander, New York City, Nov. 1995.
47. Coalition for New Priorities, Debate on Globalization, Chicago, Sept. 1996.
48. "Labor & Environment in the Global Economy: Points of Collaboration," Teach-In on Globalization, note 26.
49. "Peace" now takes a back seat to the interconnection of these other concerns, although the implications for peace are assumed. Mark Ritchie, "Economic, Social, Cultural, and Human Rights: Getting Past the Cold War," Teach-In on Globalization, note 26.
50. Colin Hines, "The New Protectionism: What it is - why it is coming," Nov. 10, 1995,
51. first published in the United Kingdom as "Employment and the Culture of Insecurity: time to protect jobs," Employment Policy Institute, Economic Report 9, no. 5 (June 1995).
52. Cf. note 6.
53. Colin Hines and Tim Lang, The New Protectionism: Protecting the Future Against Free Trade (New York: New Press, 1993).
54. Hines, note 30.
55. Ibid.
56. Colin Hines, comments on "Relocalization, Decentralization, Alternatives to Globalization," Teach-In on Globalization, note 26.
57. Cecelia Lynch, "E. H. Carr, International Relations Theory, and the Societal Origins of International Legal Norms," Millenium 23, no. 3 (1994).
58. E. P. Thompson, "Ends and Histories," Mary Kaldor, "After the Cold War," and Tair Tairov, "From New Thinking to a Civic Peace," all in Mary Kaldor, ed., Europe From Below (New York: Verso, 1991);
59. E. P. Thompson, "Ends and Histories," Mary Kaldor, "After the Cold War," and Tair Tairov, "From New Thinking to a Civic Peace," all in Mary Kaldor, ed., Europe From Below (New York: Verso, 1991);
60. E. P. Thompson, "Ends and Histories," Mary Kaldor, "After the Cold War," and Tair Tairov, "From New Thinking to a Civic Peace," all in Mary Kaldor, ed., Europe From Below (New York: Verso, 1991);
61. E. P. Thompson, "Ends and Histories," Mary Kaldor, "After the Cold War," and Tair Tairov, "From New Thinking to a Civic Peace," all in Mary Kaldor, ed., Europe From Below (New York: Verso, 1991);
62. concerning concepts of "alternative defense," see Thomas R. Rochon, Mobilizing for Peace, the Antinuclear Movements in Western Europe (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1988);
63. for a discussion of the variations in reception of social movement alternatives in the Soviet Union, West Germany, and the United States, see Thomas Risse-Kappen, "Ideas do not float freely: transnational coalitions, domestic structures, and the end of the cold war," IO, 48, no. 2 (1994).
64. "Generals: Get Rid of Nuclear Weapons," Chicago Tribune, December 5, 1996;
65. "The Generals' War," San Francisco Examiner, December 6, 1996.
66. Benjamin Page, "Trouble for Workers and the Poor: Economic Globalization and the Reshaping of American Politics," unpublished paper, October 1996.
67. Thomas Friedman, in "Revolt of the Wannabees" (note 3), points out that a recent Davos Forum conference, "the ultimate capitalist convention" that consists of "an annual celebration of globalization," debated the "mounting backlash against its effects, especially in the industrial democracies" that "is threatening a very disruptive impact on economic activity and social stability in many countries."
68. Hines comments, note 35.
69. Thence we have the terms postmaterial values and post-Marxist approaches. For discussion of these, see Jean L. Cohen, "Strategy or Identity? New Theoretical Paradigms and Contemporary Social Movements," in Social Research, note 8; Rochon, note 37;
70. on postmaterial values especially, see Ronald Inglehart, The Silent Revolution (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977).
71. The "particularistic"/"universalistic" distinction is more complex than it seems at first glance. Peace, environmentalist, and feminist movements, for example, were seen to operate not from a "particularistic" sense of self-interest, but rather from a set of values that went "beyond" self-interest and thus could be promoted, in a sense, for a wider, "universal" good. However, some of the "new" movements, especially feminist movements, emanated from a self-consciously particularistic understanding of identity. The purpose here was to call forth values and norms that would highlight and respect that identity, rather than assume that all would share in it. For discussion and debate on Habermas's "unflinching defense of enlightenment rationality," see Axel Honneth, Thomas McCarthy, Claus Offe, and Albrecht Wellmer, eds., Philosophical Interventions in the Unfinished Project of Enlightenment (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1992), quote from preface, p. ix.
72. Here I am speaking primarily about European, "identity" theorizing, although similarities exist with the theoretical concerns of other schools of thought. Since I have been in considerable sympathy with the "new social movement" mode of understanding of what social movements do (i.e., create a semi-autonomous "space" for action that is separate from institutionalized politics; engage in the creation of "new meanings" and norms), this constitutes something of an autocritique.
73. Examples of the debate on the durability and strength of sovereignty in the international relations literature include John G. Ruggie, "Territoriality and Beyond: Problematizing modernity in international relations," IO 47, no. 1 (1993);
74. Thomas J. Biersteker and Cynthia Weber, eds., State Sovereignly as Social Construct (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996);
75. Stephen D. Krasner, "Sovereignty: An Institutional Perspective," Comparative Political Studies (1988);
76. Janice Thomson and Stephen Krasner, "Global Transactions and the Consolidation of Sovereignty," in Ernst-Otto Czempiel and James N. Rosenau, eds., Global Changes and Theoretical Challenges: Approaches to World Politics for the 1990s (Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, 1989);
77. and Friedrich Kratochwil, "Sovereignty and All What?" in Chant Chopra, ed., The Development of International Law (forthcoming). It is important to note that a current trend in political economy is to emphasize the resistance and importance of the state as a bargainer in the face of global homogenization of national institutions and structures.
78. R. B. J. Walker uses this phrase to describe "the appeal to some supposedly already existing world politics or universal ethics . . . to reveal some essential or potential humanity beneath." Walker, "Social Movements/World Politics," Millenium 23, no. 3 (1994): 673.
79. I am indebted to Nicholas Rengger for this term.
80. I use the term ideology somewhat gingerly, given the lack of a better alternative, to denote a worldview that incorporates a notion of political causality and some idea of moral good. Ideology in this sense provides an extremely important framework for guiding and shaping action. But in practice it is also fluid, in the sense that people in "real life" tend to adhere to it grossomodo, while at the same time retaining the ability to question aspects of it that do not "fit" their interpretations of real events, thereby allowing it to evolve with circumstance. Any usage of the term ideology should take into account Hannah Arendt's extremely powerful definition and critique of the role of rigidified, more totalizing ideologies that undergird totalitarian systems. For Arendt, ideologies, "isms which to the satisfaction of their adherents can explain everything and every occurrence by deducing it from a single premise," functioned to enable the adherents of Nazi and Stalinist totalitarianism to forgo all space for thought, reflection, and action. The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1975), pp. 468-469.
81. Antonio Gramsci, Selections from Prison Notebooks, ed. and trans. by Quintin Hoare and Geofrey Nowell Smith (New York: International Publishers).
82. Hegel's Philosophy of Right, T. M. Knox, trans. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978), pp. 124, 129-134, 145-155; Cohen and Arato, note 1, pp. 97-105.
83. Vladimir Tismaneanu, Reinventing Politics, Eastern Europe from Stalin to Havel (New York: Free Press, 1993);
84. Tony Judt, "The Dilemmas of Dissidence: The Politics of Opposition in East-Central Europe," in Ferenc Feher and Andrew Arato, eds., Crisis and Reform in Eastern Europe (London: Transaction, 1991), pp. 253-302; Cohen and Arato, note 1, chap. 1.
85. J. K. Galbraith, "Revolt in Our Time: The Triumph of Simplistic Ideology," in Kaldor, ed., note 37, pp. 67-74.
86. Cohen and Arato, note 1, Introduction and chaps. 9, 10.
87. Falk, note 1, Explorations.
88. Falk, "Liberalism at the Global Level: The Last of the Independent Commissions?" Millenium 24, no. 3: 575-576.
89. Walker, note 46, esp. pp. 682-684.
90. Mike Salvaris, "United Nations Copenhagen Social Summit," Forum (Centre for Citizenship and Human Rights), no. 3 (1995).
91. E. H. Carr, The Twenty Years' Crisis, 1919-1939, 2d ed. (New York: Harper & Row, 1964);
92. Ruggie reminds us of Carr's views in "At Home Abroad, Abroad at Home," Ruggie, note 45. See also Falk, note 55. Thomas Friedman states that the academic debate on globalization "is beoming one of the most important foreign policy debates. "Now, some of these writings are misleading - those that suggest globalization can be stopped. It can't. It's inevitable." "Roll Over Hawks and Doves, The global debate: Who are you?" New York Times, Feb. 2, 1997.