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National, Supranational, and Global: Ambivalence in the Practice of Civil Society

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Abstract

Civil society, in terms of both theoretical discourse and practice, has shifted from the national to the supra- and international levels. While theoretical debates on this ‘fuzzy concept’ have always alternated uneasily between discussing either utopia or critical matrix and providing an analytical description, in terms of practice it can be asserted that both the ‘organized European civil society’ and the ‘global civil society’ operate within the framework of governance regimes and according to ‘soft law’ rules (such as codes of conduct, consultation and partnership arrangements), which tend to domesticate unruly organisations and divide and re-feudalise civil society. In spite of the achievements of NGOs and other associations and the beneficial impact of their activities, their very inclusion through the process of ‘gouvernementalisation’ can be seen as having diverted them from their original ‘task’, namely the scandalisation of abuses of power.

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Notes

  1. For more detail on these changes, see G. Frankenberg, Die Verfassung der Republik (Nomos: Baden-Baden, 1996), Chap. 2.

  2. In the second half of the 20th Century, Hannah Arendt, in her philosophical texts, lined up as the heir to this polis tradition. See H. Arendt, Vita activa oder vom tätigen Leben (Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer Verlag, 1960) and Über die Revolution (München: Hanser, 1974).

  3. A. Smith, Wealth of Nations (Edinburgh, 1776).

  4. ‘Gesamtheit der materiellen Lebensverhältnisse nach dem Vorgang der Engländer und Franzosen im 18. Jahrhundert’. See K. Marx, Zur Kritik der politischen Ökonomie, 1859, MEW 13 (Berlin, 1951), 12; A. Ferguson, An Essay on the History of Civil Society (Basil: London, 1789).

  5. To put it bluntly and somewhat imprecisely: democratic ‘dispute’ culture.

  6. From the extensive literature on this topic see, in particular: U. Rödel, G. Frankenberg and H. Dubiel, Die demokratische Frage (Suhrkamp: Frankfurt/Main, 1989); E. Gellner, Bedingungen der Freiheit. Die Zivilgesellschaft und ihre Rivalen (Klett-Cotta: Stuttgart, 1995).

  7. For a meticulous digest of this topic, see A. Klein, “Der Diskurs der Zivilgesellschaft: Politische Hintergründe und demokratietheoretische Folgerungen”, Politische Vierteljahresschrift 43/4 (2002), 681–683. More comprehensively, see V. Heins, Das Andere der Zivilgesellschaft: zur Archäologie eines Begriffs (Transcript: Bielefeld, 2002). .

  8. In addition, see J. Kocka, “Das Bürgertum als Träger von Zivilgesellschaft – Traditionslinien, Entwicklungen, Perspektiven”, in Enquete-Commission’s “Zukunft des Bürgerschaftlichen Engagements” at 16; and G. Frankenberg, supra n. 1, Chaps. 2 and 5.

  9. J. Alexander, ed., Real Civil Societies – Dilemmas of Institutionalisation (Sage: London, 1998); H. Anheier, M. Glasius and M. Kaldor, eds, Global Civil Society 2001 (Oxford: OUP, 2001).

  10. For this, see K.A. Armstrong, “Rediscovering Civil Society: The European Union and the White Paper on Governance”, European Law Journal 8 (2002), 102 ff.

  11. R. Bellah, R. Madsen, S.M. Tripton, W.M. Sullivan and A. Swidler, The Good Society (New York: Knopf, Random House, 1991).

  12. On the object of the criticism, see: Rödel et al., supra n. 6. For further critique, see D. Richter, “Zivilgesellschaft – Probleme einer Utopie in der Moderne”, in: R. Eickelpasch and A. Nassehi, eds, Utopie und Moderne (Suhrkamp: Frankfurt/Main, 1996) 170 ff.; and, in agreement, U.R. Haltern, Integration als Mythos (CUP: Cambridge, 1996), 87.

  13. U. Haltern, ibid.

  14. ‘Die Zivilgesellschaft fügt sich … nicht länger in das Bild einer Einheit’. See Rödel et al, supra n. 6, 101.

  15. ‘Volksgemeinschaft der Gutmenschen’. See V. Heins, supra n. 7.

  16. European Commission, European Governance: A White Paper, COM (2001) 428 final. In addition, see P. Craig and de Búrca, EU Law – Text, Cases, and Materials, 3rd edition. (Oxford: OUP, 2003), 173 ff. and for a critique on the contributions to the symposium, see: Responses to the European Commission’s White Paper on Governance, www.jeanmonnetprogramm.org, in particular, G. Marks, F. Scharpf, P. Schmitter and W. Streeck, Governance in the European Union (London: Sage, 1996).

  17. For more detail on this point, see J. Scott and D. Trubek, “Mind the Gap: Law and New Approaches to Governance in the European Union”, European Law Journal 8 (2002), 1 ff.; O. de Schutter, “Europe in Search of its Civil Society”, European Law Journal 8 (2002), 198 ff. and K.A. Armstrong, supra n. 10.

  18. White Paper, Work Area no. 2.5, and subsequent. In addition see also: Economic and Social Committee. The Role and Contribution of Civil Society Organisations in the Building of Europe, CES 851/99 from 22.9.1999, Chap. 5.2.

  19. See the Brussels language regulation on the back of Art. 257 EC regarding the amalgamation of the Business and Social Committees (ECOSOC).

  20. On this decision, see F. Scharpf, Regieren in Europa (Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 1999) and “Democratic Policy in Europe”, European Law Journal 2 (1996), 136 ff.

  21. Compare with Art. 138, 139 and 257 EC.

  22. On comitology, see: Christian Joerges, “‘Good Governance’ through Comitology?”, in C. Joerges and E. Vos, eds, EU Committees: Social Regulation, Law and Politics (Oxford, Portland: OUP, 1999); and J.H.H. Weiler, The Constitution of Europe (Cambridge, UK: CUP, 1999).

  23. See for example: J. Cohen and C. Sabel, “Directly Deliberative Polyarchy”, European Law Journal 3/4 (1997), 313.

  24. M. Foucault, Society Must Be Defended. Lectures at the Collège des France 1975–76 (New York: Picador, 2003).

  25. See C. Offe, Civil Society and Social Order: Demarcating and Combining Market, State and Community, Archives Européennes de Sociologie, vol. XLI (2000), 71 ff.

  26. An example of this is the influence of the Migration Policy Group upon the formulation of the EU’s politics on migration.

  27. J. Habermas, Faktizität und Geltung (Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 1992).

  28. In addition see the contributions in I. Shapiro and C. Hacker-Cordón, eds, Democracy’s Edges (Cambridge, UK: CUP, 1999); D. Held, Democracy and the Global Order: From the Modern State to Cosmopolitan Governance (Cambridge: Polity, 1995); and J.N. Rosenau and E.-O. Czempiel, eds, Governance without Government (Cambridge, New York: CUP, 1992).

  29. J.A. Scholte, “Civil Society and Democracy in Global Governance”, CSGR Working Paper No. 65/01, (January 2001).

  30. From the enormous amount of literature on the topic of globalisation, see in particular: R. Münch, Globale Dynamik, lokale Lebenswelten (Frankfurt/M: Suhrkamp, 1998); J. Galtung, Die andere Globalisierung (Munster: Agenda Verlag, 1998); E. Altvater and B. Mahnkopf, Grenzen der Globalisierung (Münster: Westfaelisches Dampfboot, 1999).

  31. For a critique of this discourse on global governance, see U. Brand, A. Brunnengräber, L. Schrader, C. Stock and P. Wahl, Global Governance – Alternative zur Globalisierung (Münster: Westfälisches Dampfboot, 2000); and Michael Zürn, Regieren jenseits des Nationalstaates. Globalisierung und Denationalisierung als Chance (Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 1998); H.-P. Martin and H. Schumann, Die Globalisierungsfalle: Der Angriff auf Demokratie und Wohlstand (Berlin: Rowohlt Verlag Taschenbuch, 1996).

  32. L. Lessig, Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace (Cambridge, MA: HUP, 1999); Y.F. Lim, Cyberspace Law (Oxford, New York: OUP, 2002).

  33. For this, see H. Anheier and N. Themudo, Organisational Forms of Global Civil Society, 198 ff in M. Glasius, M. Kaldor and H. Anheier, eds, Global Civil Society 2002 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002).

  34. BINGO is the acronym for business-oriented international non-governmental organisation.

  35. C. Grzybowski, “Civil Society’s Responses to Globalisation”, in Corporate Watch from 8 November 1995; The Center for the Study of Global Governance, eds, Yearbook Global Civil Society 2002, Part II (Issues in Global Civil Society) – http://www.lse.ac.uk/Depts/global/Yearbook/outline2002.htm.

  36. D. Archibugi and D. Held, eds, Cosmopolitan Democracy: An Agenda for a New World Order (Cambridge: PUB, 1995); D. Held, Democracy and the Global Order: From the Modern State to Cosmopolitan Governance (Cambridge, 1997); and, finally, O. Höffe, Demokratie im Zeitalter der Globalisierung (Munich: C.H. Beck Verlag, 1999), who has absolutely no place for civil society in his conceptions of cosmopolitan democracy. For a more sober assessment see the contributions in E. Altvater, ed., Vernetzt und verstrickt – Nicht-Regierungsorganisationen als gesellschaftliche Produktivkraft (Münster: Westfälisches Dampfboot, 2000); R.D. Lipschutz, “Reconstructing World Politics: The Emergence of Global Civil Society”, Millenium 21 (1992), 389 ff.

  37. For this, see W. Streeck, “Einleitung: internationale Wirtschaft und nationale Demokratie”, in W. Streeck, ed., Internationale Wirtschaft und nationale Demokratie (Frankfurt; Campus, 1998), 11 ff. On the disintegrating effect of the fragmented NGO scene on the system of institutions of international society, see R. D. Lipschutz, supra n. 35, at 419.

  38. On the present institutional structure and the public international law rules, see S. Hobe, “Der Rechtsstatus der Nichtregierungsorganisationen nach gegenwärtigem Völkerrecht”, AVR (1999) 152 ff.

  39. A. Fischer-Lescano, “Globalverfassung: Los desaparecidos und das Paradox der Menschenrechte”, Zeitschrift für Rechtssoziologie (2002), 217 ff.

  40. On this problematic, see C. Vismann, “Das Recht erklären. Zur gegenwärtigen Verfassung der Menschenrechte”, Kritische Justiz 3 (1996), 321 ff.

  41. Fundamentally, A. Smith, Theory of Moral Sentiments (Edinburgh, 1759). Also, N. Chandhoke, “The Limits of Global Civil Society”, in Anheier, Glasius and Kaldor, supra n. 33, at 35 ff, 50 ff.

  42. F. Fukuyama, Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity (New York: Free Press, 1995).

  43. R. Putnam, “Bowling Alone: America’s Declining Social Capital”, Journal of Democracy 6 (1995) 65 ff.

  44. Putnam, ibid, at 76 with reference to M. Olson, The Rise and Decline of Nations (New Haven: Yale UP, 1982), 2.

  45. Lipschutz, supra n. 35.

  46. See, for example, J.A. Paul, NGO Access at the UN (July 1999) – http://www.globalpolicy.org/ngos/analysis; J.A. Scholte, “Civil Society and Democracy in Global Governance”, in Global Governance 3 (2002).

  47. W.H. Reinicke, F. Deng, J.-M. Witte and T. Benner, Critical Choices, The United Nations, Network and the Future of Global Governance (Ottawa: IDRC Books, 2000), xviii und 91 ff.; T. Brühl and V. Rittberger, “From International to Global Governance: Actors, Collective Decision-making and the United Nations in the World of the Twenty-first Century”, in V. Rittberger, ed., Global Governance and the United Nations System (United Nations University, 2001) 1 ff.

  48. For guidelines on arrangements on relations with Non-governmental Organizations – http://www.wto.org.

  49. N. Luhmann, Legitimation durch Verfahren, (Berlin: Neuwied, 1969).

  50. H.-J. Prieß and G.M. Berrisch, eds., WTO-Handbuch (München: PUB, 2003) 67 ff. and M. Krajewski, Verfassungsperspektiven und Legitimation des Rechts der Welthandelsorganisation (WTO) (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 2001) 261 ff.

  51. For a critical assessment, see R. Dahl, “Can international organizations be democratic?”, in Shapiro and Hacker-Cordón, supra n. 28, 19 ff., which characterises these organisations, including the EU, as ‘bureaucratic bargaining systems’.

  52. See J.A. Scholte, “Civil Society. Speziell zum IMF hat sich der ehemalige Vizepräsident der Weltbank, Joseph Stiglitz”, where this is very clearly expressed, in J.A. Scholte, “Globalization and its Discontents” (New York: The New Press, 2002). In addition, L.D. Brown, S. Khangram, M.H. Moore and P. Frumkin, “Globalization, NGOs, and Multisectoral Relations”, in J.S. Nye and J.D. Donahue, eds, Governance in a Globalizing World (Washington D.C.: Brookings Institutional Press, 2000) 271 ff.

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    Günter Frankenberg

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Frankenberg, G. National, Supranational, and Global: Ambivalence in the Practice of Civil Society. Law Critique 19, 275–296 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10978-008-9036-8

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