Globalizing Civil Society? Social Movements and the Challenge of Global Politics from Below

Abstract

In recent years, considerable academic attention and diverse political aspirations have focused upon the role of social movements in ‘civil society’. Confronted with the collapse of state-led socialism in Eastern Europe and the social democratic consensus in the West, many on the Left have seized upon long-standing traditions of civil society theory and the burgeoning activities of contemporary movements as sources of emancipatory possibilities which are not centred on the state. Liberals have also turned to the concept of civil society as a potential reservoir of richer moral justifications for the new hegemony of the market. Furthermore, as awareness grows of the role of transnational interconnections in shaping current realities, an argument is emerging that civil society is global in scope, or that social movements should strive to make it so. Indeed, the last few years have seen a proliferation of literature on ‘global civil society’, particularly within the discipline of International Relations (IR).KeywordsCivil SocietySocial MovementGlobal SocietyInternational RelationCivil Society ActorThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.