Global Civil Society Issues - Essay Example

Global Civil Society is about Civilizing or Democratization of Globalization Mary Kaldor creates an argument that the global civil society concerns civilizing and democratizing globalization in the sense that individuals, groups and movements will be able to demand a rule of laws that is global, global empowerment and global justice. She argues that the global civil society idea changed its meaning in the aftermath of 1989, where it was understood in very different and diverse ways. She describes the three main meanings paradigms where first, the term was taken up by the social movements all over the world, who were concerned with various issues including peace, the environment, new forms of protest, human rights, and women. She says how the transnational network of activists’ emergence became the new phenomenon that was of great importance. They converged on specific issues, which included climate change, human rights, HIV/AIDS, dams, landmines among others. She argues that they had a great impact on strengthening the processes of global governance more importantly in the field of humanitarian. Secondly, the Western governments and global institutions took up the term and became part of the ‘new policy agenda’. It was understood that civil society is what the West has. It is viewed as a method to facilitate reforms in the market and to introduce parliamentary democracy. She calls this ‘neoliberal version where NGOs are the key agents and not social movements. She considers NGOs as social movements, which have been tamed. The third concept is what she refers to as the ‘postmodern version’. The concept of society is criticized by the social anthropologists as being Euro-centric, born of the cultural context of the Western (Wood, Ellen Meiksins 239). I agree with Kaldor’s argument on the fact that global civil society is involved with the civilization and democratization of globalization. A civil society, as she also says, is the process by which there is generation of consent, arena for individual negotiation, debates with, or struggles against centres of economic and political authority, which include companies, global institutions, and international bodies. In the essence of it, democratization can be seen in the activities of a civil society. During the second millennium final decade, the global civil society rose as a major social force in the resisting of assault on democracy and life by the corporate globalization institutions. Initially, the World Trade Organization (WTO), the IMF, and the World Bank were at the center of the resistance, being the most visible and very powerful among the institutional instruments that were advancing the neoliberal policy agenda of economic borders elimination, deregulation, common property assets privatization and the social safety nets. Successively the attention of global civil society is directed towards the financial markets and global corporations (Goodhart 2). There are three dimensions of global civil societies, which include the empirical phenomena of interconnections, and social relations that are globalized, the mobilizing, formative force of the vision/project and the social movements (actors) on the transitional/global level. Empirical processes of cultural, economic, social relations globalization exists. However, it is not possible to understand all of these social interrelations and processes as global civil society manifestations. A typical and ideal connotation content of the global civil society category is given by the first two dimensions when they are taken together. It first strives to comprise the processes, which are actual and related to the social ties expansion to reach to a worldwide level, arbitrated by the internationalization of transport, satellite communication, internet, worldwide transparent media, culture, and the economic market. Secondly, the global civil society category strives so as to provide a mobilizing force and a normative content, a determination for the embodiment of a democratic way of life and a principle for the democratic rule worldwide, and also the identification of criteria for event evaluation in individual countries and also in the global tendencies, from the peace, control of society, autonomy and tolerance perspectives, as well as in confronting the world centres of power and government either formally or informally (Howell and Pearce 2). The global civil society concept is an ideal typical concept and it consists of the normative mobilizing aspect and the empirical analytical aspect. The practice of globalization of political, economic, cultural, social, legal interconnecting lies on the empirical aspects and cannot be recognized as being global civil societies’ genuine manifestation without the aspect of normative mobilizing which gives an outline of a normative framework, which includes justice, non-violence, solidarity principles, tolerance, among others on a global scale. This goes together with the publicity principles, autonomous acting, and associativity using the citizens on the global scale. This means that the spontaneous and voluntary formation of associations by the public, at the transnational level for the autonomous individuals, and issues that have a transitional or global importance have been the global networking field that bears the manifestations and meaning of global civil society. Global civil society has a relationship with the public acting of autonomous individuals that are associated, and groups which are networked on global and international level, or groups organized globally, and mobilized around political, economic, social issues expressed on a global scale, or relevant globally, and who are favoring what is best for humanity on global scale. The normative perspective on the other hang is important for the recognition and acknowledgement of what civic initiatives, networks on the global scale and social movements can be regarded as global civil society manifestations, and which among them should not be. The new world view is now the global civil society, meaning that it is the ‘big idea’ which is involved with globalization together with its discontents, and more so, with the capacity ties aimed at future improvement of the global democratic life. The most systematic and comprehensive organic and living alternatives comes from the fields and not the factories or the ivory towers. Patel argues that the most comprehensive and systematic organic and living alternatives come from the fields and not factories and ivory towers. He claims that production at the field level is enough to influence the living alternatives. He also has an opinion that a lot of focus should be put at the production level (Patel 90). I agree with Patel on this since the world economy can be transformed at the agricultural production level. There is currently a huge violation of human rights constituted in the current global food system. The model of fighting global hunger using food security, as used by various bodies including the IMF, the World Bank, the UN and other organizations is not a success (Schanbacher 160). This model hugely depends on trade and relies excessively on international agribusiness. Unlike the food security model, the food sovereignty model would be a responsive approach, which would be very effective. This model puts emphasis on helping businesses and local farmers to produce better food and with high quality. Various social justice movements have stood up in advocating for adoption of the model of food sovereignty for battling hunger, for example, Via Campesina (Torres, Elena and Rosset 170). For over the past 60 years, the worldwide environmental and food crisis have existed because of the replacement of family farming, which is sustainable, by corporate controlled and industrial methods of production and consumption. This is also the main cause of climate change. There is a lot of reliance on what Patel calls ‘factories’ and ‘ivory towers’. In order for this crisis to be confronted, changes are needed in both Western lifestyles and radical politics. Other ways of working, consuming, living and acting together must be changed. Decisions about people’s lives can be made through family farming and sustainable living. This can also help to counter the control of corporations, which is increasing over all aspects of people’s lives, and therefore the future generations to come will be guaranteed. The governments of the globe should therefore take action in support and favor of indigenous agriculture and peasant farmers, which is the only capable model that can feed the universe. Food sovereignty is therefore the only lasting solution to the many crises, which are currently affecting the societies. Local citizens should have the right to decide their own food policies rather than decisions being imposed on them. They should fully participate in the decision-making concerning the local food policies. One of the radical movements for example, that aim at reducing the global inequality in the food system is Via Campesina. Their core element of perspective is the mentioned food sovereignty. This agrarian social movement, which is transnational, has taken on a campaign that the United Nations implements a declaration, after a negotiation, and subsequently an international convention on the peasants’ rights. Like the indigenous peoples’ movements, which took part in the negotiations proceedings on the Rights on indigenous people in Latin America in 2007 UN declaration, the peasant organizations also want to follow those footsteps. Grassroots movement promotes sustainable agriculture and food sovereignty. The small farmers and the peasants hold the secret of an agricultural future that is more ethical, where such a high price is not extracted from the environment for people to be fed. This generally shows that ideas cannot be formulated at the ivory towers or by people who are disconnected from the reality, that will be able to sustain the universe, neither will the action to save the globe be taken at the factories. The manufacturing of products in different ways or trade and international agribusiness is not able to sustain the earth by itself. As it has been seen, this is what is causing the current crisis in the world. There is a lot of poverty around the world, and more especially in the third world, countries simply because the methods used are poor. The methods that are employed are simply not working or rather are not the best. It is important to realize that a lot of effort put at the local farming level will influence the whole world. The governments in the globe should pay attention to family agriculture and peasant farming to manage the production. Giving support at this level will eventually influence the production (Schanbacher 148). Much effort at this level will ensure production that can be able to sustain the globe with time. Furthermore, seeking of alternative methods to solve the crises in the globe in return create more crises. Abandoning of organic production methods to adapt the use of manufactured products and synthetic chemicals have added more problems to human health and the environment. The practices, movement and science of agro-ecology are a product of a long time of indigenous and peasant knowledge. This knowledge concerns food production for humanity since the time when no chemicals were used neither invented. The organization of this knowledge has been done through dialog of knowledge with the western science of agronomy, ecology, rural sociology among others. In the recent decade, there has been a lot of growth in support for agro-ecology among the consumers, the rural social movements, the nvironmentalists among others. This growth has been due to the alternatives to, and critique of the green revolution of industrial agriculture, which has been made a bad name. It should be realized that the construction of food sovereignty uses peasant agro-ecology as a building block. Many nations in the world have abandoned the responsibility of supporting peasant farmers in their production, offering technical assistance, public credit, farm diversification among others. Instead, the governments, more especially the third world countries, have increased the importation of basic grains, thereby causing massive profits for the importers, and thereby destructing the farm economies of the nation. The governments have also been pushed, because of the crises that exist, to the quick approval of new seed policies, which open up the use of genetically modified crops, which threaten the local native seeds produced by the peasant farmers. Therefore, there is the absence of strategies of the public sector that will build food sovereignty. In conclusion, Mary Kaldor creates an argument that the global civil society concerns civilizing and democratizing globalization in the sense that individuals, groups and movements will be able to demand a rule of laws that is global, global empowerment and global justice. Works Cited Goodhart, Michael. "Civil society and the problem of global democracy. “Democratization 12.1 (2005): 1-21. Print. Howell, Jude, and Jenny Pearce. Civil society & development: a critical exploration. Boulder, Colo.: L. Rienner Publishers, 2001. Print. Martínez-Torres, María Elena , and Peter M. Rosset. "La Vía Campesina: the birth and evolution of a transnational social movement." The Journal of Peasant Studies 37.1 (2010): p.149-175. JSTOR. Web. 5 May 2013. Patel, R.. "International Agrarian Restructuring and the Practical Ethics of Peasant Movement Solidarity." Journal of Asian and African Studies 41.1-2 (2006): 71-93. Print. Schanbacher, William D.. The politics of food the global conflict between food security and food sovereignty. Westport, CT: Praeger Security International, 2010. Print. Wood, Ellen Meiksins. "Civil Society and Politics of Identity." Democracy against capitalism: renewing historical materialism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. 238. Print. Read More