6. CIVIS MUNDI SUM: GLOBAL CIVIL SOCIETY
We are sceptical … of the claim that transnational or international
NGOs constitute “global civil society” …the global civil society
movement might better be understood as imagining itself as the bearer of
universal values, both operating in the teeth of globalization and yet
simultaneously using globalization as its vehicle for disseminating
universal values. (HELMUT ANHEIER, et.al.: 2005, p. 26)
6.1. The Postnational Constellation
RONNIE LIPSCHUTZ saw that “the growth of global civil society represents an
ongoing project of civil society to reconstruct, re-imagine, or re-map world politics.”
(LIPSCHUTZ: 1992, p. 391.) HABERMAS calls this new constellation postnational.
This
theoretization
of
the
postnational
constellation
or
“supranationality,” is not to deny the continuity and significance of
territoriality and its institutions and geographic as well as metaphoric
identities. Many emphasize that globality has not taken over territoriality but
territoriality no longer has the monopoly on social geography…
Crossborder cooperation strengthens “supraterritorial networks”
which provide new loyalties and regional identities. As a consequence,
there is a shift in the “geography of values” which supports the argument
for an emerging global civil society.
… many people in the contemporary globalizing world have become
increasingly ready to give “supraterritorial values” related to say human
rights and ecological integrity a higher priority than state sovereignty…
(SCHOLTE: 2002, p. 287.)
The emergence of global civil society at this particular juncture is seen as a
response to the "leaking away of sovereignty from the state both upwards, to
supranational institutions, and downwards, to subnational ones … Global civil
society is emerging as a functional response to the decreasing ability and willingness
68