Planetary politics: rekindling the spirit of the concept of “global civil society”
Keywords:
global civil society, methodological nationalism, globalisation, planetary politicsAbstract
Revista CIDOB d’Afers Internacionals, nº 134, p. 119-130
Quadrimestral (May-Setembre 2023)
ISSN:1133-6595 | E-ISSN:2013-035X
DOI: doi.org/10.24241/rcai.2023.134.2.119
This paper analyses the concept of “global civil society” – which played a major role in the symbolic construction of the post-Cold War social reality – and reflects on its initial purpose as a critique of the conventional perceptions of state-centric politics and as a change of approach, towards non-partisan politics and cross-border activism. While it opened new horizons for the empirical analysis of “globalisation from below”, this concept failed to prompt a radical epistemological change; it did not succeed in generating knowledge that transcended “methodological nationalism”. The paper maintains that what once constituted the concept’s disruptive potential – its theoretical engagement with the idea of globalisation, reflected in the adjective global – ultimately tamed it. Drawing on this premise, the aim is to rekindle the spirit of the notion of “global civil society” by introducing a concept that takes up and pushes forward this unachieved goal: “planetary politics”.
>> The full text articles of this issue are available only in Spanish language