Global Civil Society is a crucial concept in International Relations today, used as both a description of new mechanisms of non-state actor and NGO engagement in international policy-making and as a normative political project of international change. David Chandler critically investigates the claims made by the advocates of global civil society, analyzing the limits of the concept as a way of describing actual policy processes and the political dynamics behind the search for an international source of collective ethical values and social change.

Autorentext

DAVID CHANDLER is Senior Lecturer in International Relations at the Centre for the Study of Democracy, University of Westminster, UK. He has published widely on international relations, democracy and human rights, including Bosnia: Faking Democracy after Dayton (1999, 2000), From Kosovo to Kabul: Human Rights and International Relations (2002) and Rethinking Human Rights: Critical Approaches to International Politics (Editor, 2002).

Zusammenfassung
Today there is a growing consensus that morality is returning to the study and practice of international relations. At the heart of this optimism for the future is the appearance of a new actor, an actor whose precise shape and contours may be indeterminate and disputed, but whose presence is not: global civil society. David Chandler takes a critical look at claims made on behalf of global civil society. How useful is the concept as an empirical description of new forces in the international sphere? Are we witnessing the social construction of a new, more ethical world on the basis of the strength of non-state actor networks armed with the 'power of ideas'? Uniquely, Constructing Global Civil Society also critically engages with the concept of global civil society as a normative project of international change. Can normative global civil society approaches potentially enlarge and restore a sense of political community, rescue a sense of human agency, or help democratize the international sphere - challenging and taming both states and markets?

Inhalt

Introduction PART I: ACTUALLY EXISTING GLOBAL CIVIL SOCIETY Constructing Global Civil Society The Decline of National Interests Morality and Power PART II: THE NORMATIVE PROJECT The Communicative Realm Radical Resistance 'From Below' The Cosmopolitan Paradox Conclusion Notes References