Transcript Power Shift” - Globalization: Social & Geographic

“Power Shift”
Jessica Matthews, Ch. 34, pp. 287-293.
Excerpted from Matthews, “Power
Shift,” Foreign Affairs, 76:1, 1997, pp.
50-66.
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Key questions:

What is the nature of this “power shift”?
– and its causes/effects?



Advantages/disadvantages of NGOs providing services
once the responsibility of states?
Is technology creating a “global civil society”?
Does the influence of int’l NGOs constitute
“neo-colonialism”?
– Are int’l NGO workers “the new missionaries”?
– Are they members of the TCC (transnational capitalist class)?

What does the rise of NGOs mean for democracy?

Key terms: civil society, NGOs, global civil society
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The Rise of Global Civil Society

End of Cold War brought a redistribution
of power among states, markets, and civil
society

National gov’ts are sharing powers – incl
political, social & security roles at core of
sovereignty – w/ businesses, int’l
organizations, and range of citizens
groups, known as NGOs
– Gov’ts are not simply losing autonomy in a
globalizing economy
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…and the Decline of States

Absolutes of Westphalian system –
territorially fixed states; a single, secular
authority governing each territory and
representing it outside its borders; no
authority above states – are all dissolving
– Int’l standards of conduct are gradually
beginning to override claims of national
sovereignty
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As states weaken, nonstate actors
acquire more power globally

New info/communication technologies are most
powerful engine in the relative decline of states
and rise of nonstate actors (e.g., NGOs, as well
as TNCs, criminal and terrorist networks, etc.)
– They disrupt hierarchies, spread power among more
people and groups
– But they also have the potential to create new
divisions, separating ordinary people from elites with
wealth & education to command technology’s power
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The Network Model

In networks, individuals or groups link for joint
action without building a physical or formal
institutional presence
– Networks have no person at the top and no center
– Networks have multiple nodes where collections of
individuals/groups interact for different purposes,
e.g., businesses, ethnic groups, crime cartels

Gov’ts, by contrast, are quintessential hierarchies
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Global Civil Society?

civil society: arena of social activity outside of state & family
– commonly understood to be composed of the range of voluntary
organizations that operate on a not-for-profit basis, outside the market


– NGOs are key actors
NGO: (nongovernmental organization): voluntary organization not
part of the local, state, or federal government that is established for
a particular cause or interest, e.g., human rights, the environment,
consumer protection, etc.; also known as "citizen groups“
global civil society: refers to voluntary social organization at the
global level, in international institutions such as the UN, the
IMF/World Bank, the World Social Forum, etc.; it is composed of the
network of nongovernmental organizations that focus on
international issues (INGOs, international nongovernmental
organizations) or cooperate and collaborate across borders
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Is global civil society a new Babel –
or a new global elite?
New technologies and forms of organization may
promote "political and social fragmentation by
enabling more and more identities and interests
scattered around the globe to coalesce and
thrive“
 Citizens’ groups with transnational
interests/identities – just like the super-rich –
frequently have more in common with
counterparts in other countries, industrialized or
developing, than with countrymen

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The Boomerang Pattern
Researchers studying transnational advocacy
networks that link NGOs across borders highlight
a new pattern of political change
 boomerang pattern: State A blocks redress to
organizations within it; they activate network,
whose members pressure their own states and
(if relevant) a 3rd-party organization, which in
turn pressure State A

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Advantages of NGOs
In many countries they deliver services that
faltering gov’ts can no longer manage
 NGOs are nimble, quicker to respond to new
demands and opportunities
 Their loyalties and orientation are better
matched than those of gov’ts to problems that
demand transnational solutions
 In closed, undemocratic regimes, local NGOs can
leverage transnational links to pressure their
gov’ts

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Disadvantages of NGOs
NGOs are special interests, accountable to their
funders
 NGOs have limited capacity for large-scale
projects, and as they grow, the need to sustain
growing budgets can compromise their
independence
 The growth of NGOs may be used to justify
government downsizing, further undermining
state authority and capacity
 There are roles that only the state can perform

– e.g., employment security, environmental protection,
consumer protection, health and safety, national
security
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Democracy
Democracy is a certain class of relations
between states and citizens
 A regime is democratic to the degree that
political relations between state & citizens
feature broad, equal, protected and mutually
binding consultation

= broad & equal citizenship and protected consultation
(Tilly, Democracy, 2007)

What happens to mutually binding consultation
in a state dominated by NGOs?
– Accountability problem
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Haiti: Is “culture” the cause of
underdevelopment?

David Brooks, “The Underlying Tragedy,” NYT, 1/14/2010
“…it is time to put the thorny issue of culture at the center of efforts to
tackle global poverty. Why is Haiti so poor? Well, it has a history of
oppression, slavery and colonialism. But so does Barbados, and Barbados is
doing pretty well. Haiti has endured ruthless dictators, corruption and
foreign invasions. But so has the Dominican Republic, and the D.R. is in
much better shape. Haiti and the Dominican Republic share the same island
and the same basic environment, yet the border between the two societies
offers one of the starkest contrasts on earth — with trees and progress on
one side, and deforestation and poverty and early death on the other.
As Lawrence E. Harrison explained in his book “The Central Liberal Truth,” Haiti,
like most of the world’s poorest nations, suffers from a complex web of progressresistant cultural influences. There is the influence of the voodoo religion, which
spreads the message that life is capricious and planning futile. There are high
levels of social mistrust. Responsibility is often not internalized. Child-rearing
practices often involve neglect in the early years and harsh retribution when kids
hit 9 or 10.
We’re all supposed to politely respect each other’s cultures. But some
cultures are more progress-resistant than others, and a horrible tragedy
was just exacerbated by one of them.”
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Or the history of colonialism?
Jesse Lemisch, “George Clooney’s Haiti – and Beyond,” New Politics, on the Haiti telethon:
“But, in most of the show, politics were verboten, as was anything about the history of the place.
This left the audience to think that a terrible natural disaster had befallen Haiti, but ignorant of: the
country's origins in a successful slave rebellion (with US support for French efforts to crush it); more
than a century of French draining the economy for the money value of the slaves they had lost;
19 years of occupation by the US Marines; US complicity with the Duvaliers; after earlier support,
exiling of Jean-Bertrand Aristide on a US plane; the banning of the left party, Lavalas; the crimes
committed against the Haitian economy by neoliberal economics via such institutions as the IMF
(which, amidst the earthquake announced a wage freeze for public employees in Haiti.).
This all added up to an unnatural disaster: enormous poverty, flight from the countryside to the city
as the result of the destruction of Haitian agriculture by US dumping (rice) and the promise of low
wage manufacturing jobs (which didn't materialize); once crowded in the city, they put anything
over their heads that they could, and of course these poor structures easily collapsed. Cutting down
trees to make charcoal was one of the few ways of getting money, and that produced deforestation
which produced floods. It denies history to see the US as free of responsibility for these things….
Brooks has all but told us that they are a nation of welfare queens.” [http://www.newpol.org/node/205]
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