Power, Politics and Global Civil Society.pdfVIP

Power, Politics and Global Civil Society Ronnie D. Lipschutz Although there remains considerable dispute about Global Civil Society (GCS) – whom or what it includes, whether it is international or truly global, and how it is constituted – there is no doubt that the agents, actors, organisations, and institutions of transnational social and economic exchange and action exist. But what is GCS? Is it a space or locus of sovereign agents, or merely a structural effect? Does it wield compulsory power or it is a mere epiphenomenon, a reflection of the state system? Is GCS an institutional phenomenon, the result of the exercise of power by other actors, or is it a productive phenomenon, constituted by the social roles and relations growing out of contemporary states and markets? In this article, I adopt a neo-Hegelian approach, and propose a dialectical relationship between developing modes of global political rule and the markets that it shapes and governs. I problematise GCS as a central and vital element in an expanding global neo-liberal regime of governmentality, which is constituted out of the social relations within that regime and which, to a large degree, serves to legitimise that regime. –––––––––––––––––––––––– My objective in this article is not to argue for the existence of Global Civil Society (GCS), but rather to ask what it is and what has produced it. Is GCS a space or locus of sovereign agents or merely a structural effect? Does it wield direct power over states or it is a mere epiphenomenon, a reflection of the state system? Is GCS an institutional phenomenon – the result of the exercise of power by other agents and actors acting with