Global Civil Society

INTRODUCTION
Marlies Glasius, Mary Kaldor and Helmut Anheier
‘This is a show about risk’, said the steward in a hard three-dimensional: spatial, temporal and social’ (Beck
yellow hat. She was telling people where to stand for 2002: 41). In other words, risks cross borders; they may
a firework show that was part of a cultural festival in be far into the future; and they are increasingly the
Brighton. ‘Are you a risk-taker?’, she asked. Illuminated cumulative outcome of the actions of many individuals.
above the heads of the crowd was a giant figure sitting Global civil society can be conceived as the medium
in an armchair underneath a standard lamp. As the through which consciousness and perceptions of risk
show began, flares and sparks whistled across the are shaped and new methods of protection are pro-
sky and a disembodied voice read extracts from the moted. The Brighton festival, like media stories and
UK government’s pamphlet, sent to every household performances, demonstrations and protests, or
in the country, about what to do in the event of a terrorist meetings and conferences in other parts of the world,
attack. ‘Go in, stay in, tune in’, the voice boomed as the are all ways in which we become aware of and argue
fireworks gathered pace and the giant figure exploded in about risk, and through which we develop the global
a cascade of fire. A circular wall of fireworks surrounded politics of risk. According to Beck, it is these new
the risk-takers in the park – giant Catherine wheels, unbounded risks that give rise to new pressures for
Roman candles, and green flames. A lone violinist rose global cooperation. Some risks are real – everyday
to the sky playing a mournful tune on a platform of dangers faced especially by those who live on the
silver fountains and sparklers. And when the show margins of existence. Some are imagined, constructed
ended after a magnificent gold and silver, pink, green for the purpose of political mobilisation. Global civil
and blue display of stars and sparkles and rockets, society is the arena where risks are enunciated, exag-
the disembodied voice could be heard saying, ‘This gerated, discounted, debunked, assessed and debated.
can happen to anyone, anytime, anywhere.’ It is an arena that encompasses information, expert
This is a Yearbook about risk. What do climate change, knowledge and reasoned deduction as well as fear,
migration, the tsunami of 26 December 2004, the terrorist prejudice and superstition. And it provides a forum, albeit
threat and the fall in the dollar have in common? Ulrich uneven and unequal, for expressing and communicating
Beck, one of the foremost theorists of risk, would say differential knowledge about risk.
‘world risk society’. Beck argues that the calculation and For understanding what has changed, it is useful to
management of risk was part of the ‘master narrative’ review developments around risk in the context of the
of the first phase of modernity, the construction of nation state, and then explore how it differs for world
nation-states and modern industry. The modern state risk society. We then describe the differential ways in
was designed to protect and insure citizens against which consciousness of risk is purveyed through global
risk – the dangers posed by nature, personal risks of civil society. In a following section we consider the mech-
ill health and unemployment, as well as threats posed anisms that constitute global civil society, through
by foreign enemies. Civic preparedness programmes, which individuals have an opportunity to join in global
GLOBAL CIVIL SOCIETY 2005/6

military defence, and the welfare state are the results politics and influence decision-making, and how they
of the state’s response to collective risk. are relating to governmental institutions at different
Yet, as Beck and others have argued, the challenges levels. In conclusion, we ask whether a form of global
of risk in terms of policy and risk management have protection against risk is beginning to develop as a result
changed, and no longer fit the policy blueprints of of growing consciousness as well as direct pressures.
state modernity. For Beck, ‘world risk society does not
mean that life has generally become more dangerous.
It is not a matter of the increase, but rather of the
de-bounding of uncontrollable risks. This de-bounding is
1
The precautionary principle and in Strategy for a Future Chemicals Policy (European Third, as citizens and stakeholders increasingly views about it. The pioneering work by Mary Douglas
world risk society Commission 2001: 8) is of this nature: ‘The Commission began to question the motives and performance of (1992; Douglas and Wildavsky 1983) has shown just how
proposes to shift responsibility to enterprises for governments and industry in relation to risk, other much ideas about risk differ across and within cultures.
The precautionary principle generating and assessing data and assessing the risks actors entered the policy arena, in particular NGOs It also assumed that those exposed to risk would
The modern, state-centred concept of risk assumed of the use of substances. The enterprises should also such as Greenpeace, the World Wide Fund for Nature, have equal voice to those producing it. Clearly, as the
its most developed expression in what has become provide adequate information to downstream users.’ and Friends of the Earth. They benefited from the examples of industrial accidents, such as Bhopal or
known as the precautionary principle of policy-making The precautionary principle, whose goal as a policy confidence gap that emerged between citizens and Exxon Valdez, corporations like Nestlé, governments
(Lofstedt 2003; European Commission 2000). In its sim- blueprint was to help manage risk, had a number of the conventional risk management community. They deregulating pensions, and episodes like ‘mad cow
plest formulation, taken from the 1992 Rio Declaration, effects that went beyond the purpose of specific policies. pressed for the precautionary principle to be applied disease’ or SARS, amply demonstrate, this is often not
the principle states, ‘where there are threats of serious It changed the relationships among stakeholders, to ever more policy fields, and they also became impor- the case, particularly in developing countries.
or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty including the general public, bringing about a new politics tant watchdogs of policy formulation, implementation There is a further implication of the world risk society
shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost- of risk management at the national and increasingly and performance. and the de-bounding process. Risk communities,
effective measures to prevent environmental degra- the regional and global levels. Importantly, it paved the In particular, as we argued in Global Civil Society 2003, framed largely in national and regional policy contexts,
dation.’ Subsequently, the application of the precautionary way for civil society organisations to assume a greater the last 20 years witnessed the institutionalisation of a are becoming increasingly linked in ways that are
principle spread to other fields such as the chemical role in the identification, handling and oversight of social movement industry (McAdam, Tarrow and Tilly frequently unknown and ill-understood. Sometimes,
industry, pharmaceuticals, climate change, and even risk-related aspects of policy concerns such as the 2001; Smith 1997; Kaldor 2003). Indeed, environmental these risk communities are latent and defined by the
the threat of terrorism, although the term is largely environment, human rights, industrial safety or NGOs now make up 1,781, or 4 per cent, of the over possibility of a highly unlikely catastrophic event, such
used in relation to environmental risk. Indeed, it can transnational crime. 50,000 INGOs reported by the Union of International as afflicted the fishermen, the hotel service workers
be argued that the state’s responsibility for physical First, the principle generated a big increase in the Associations in Brussels. In 1980, there were about and the tourists in Thai coastal resorts in 2004 when
and material security – for protecting people against amount of information about risk. Aided by advances 200 and in 1924 just one. In recent years, their number the 26 December tsunami hit. In such cases, global
risks which range from nuclear war to poverty – was in technology and, later, a greater use of the internet, has been growing between 3 and 5 per cent annually civil society creates a sphere of awareness and action
always an expression of the precautionary principle access to information about ‘the who, the why, the (Kaldor, Anheier and Glasius 2003). The new social for the (now) manifest risk communities.
within the boundaries of the nation-state. how and the for what’ of risky activities by government movements, and the NGOs they spawned, provide the In other cases, the risks may be better understood
In practice, different versions of the principle have and industry became widely available. In many cases, institutional connection between the drop in confidence and attributable in terms of benefits and costs, even
emerged, promoted by national preferences and it revealed uncertainties and the influence of money in conventional, nation-state institutions and the growth across boundaries, time and social class, but the
reflecting their political cultures. According to Wiener and power in situations where the public previously may of global civil society. In the environmental and other framework for policy action either lacks regulatory cap-
and Rogers (2002: 230–1), there are three major versions: have assumed greater certainty, more neutral reasoning fields, they helped fill and, in cases like Brent Spar, acity in the first place or has incomplete and ineffective
and less politicking. As a result, awareness about risk expanded the confidence gap. enforcement mechanisms. Such scenarios make the
Version 1: Uncertainty does not justify inaction… increased, as did public uncertainties about risk application of the precautionary principle more difficult,
assessments. This pattern began in countries where The de-bounding of risk if not impossible. Environmental laws, the law of the
Version 2: Uncertainty justifies action… the precautionary principle was in place first, such as NGOs usually pushed for the second and third sea, the Genocide Convention and a range of human
the US, Germany or Sweden, but soon spread to other versions of the precautionary principle, which turned rights instruments are examples that come to mind. Of
Version 3: Uncertainty requires shifting the parts of the world. out to be more complex as it became clear that many course, this is precisely where risk policies confront the
burden and standard of proof… Second, more information implied a greater likelihood risks at the global and transnational levels were of a typical problems of a deficient global governance system.
that faults and bad behaviours of all sorts, large and different quality. Whereas the principle sought to
The first version of the principle permits regulation small, would become known and publicised. The establish an explicit – if typically under-specified and Global civil society and the world risk society
in the absence of complete evidence about the particular greater transparency in effect decreased rather than yet unproven – link between cause and effect, the risks According to Beck (2005: 17), the ‘theory of world risk
risk scenario. The US Clean Air and Water Pollution increased public trust in regulators and industry, and, of world society are of a qualitatively different nature. society can throw considerable light on the emergence
Act of 1970 is an example of such policy-making, as is ultimately, even in science itself. The fate of the nuclear The bounding efforts the precautionary principle was of transnational public spaces… Global risks release an
much of the Kyoto Agreement. The second version of industry in the 1970s and the genetically modified food designed to achieve are more likely to fail in a world element of reflexion and communication… Acknowledged

the precautionary principle is a more aggressive (GM) debacle in the 1990s are cases in point that show risk society than in national or regional risk societies risks force people to build communicative bridges
approach, and demands policy action, which is reflected a decline in confidence in institutions entrusted with and communities. Risks have become less controllable where none or almost none existed before: between
in the decision of some countries in the 1990s to phase risk assessment and risk management. Industrial and manageable from a policy perspective even when monologic arenas and sectoral publics, across
out nuclear energy and the approach of the Bush disasters such as Contergan in Germany, Bhopal in efforts are made to build risk-management strategies systemic and linguistic boundaries, beyond conflicts
administration to fighting terrorism. The third version India and Chernobyl in the former Soviet Union, and on government-industry-NGO coalitions, based on of opinion, interest, class, nation and denomination.’
is more far-reaching yet. It states that uncertain risk the role of transnational corporations like Nestlé in principles of trust and institutional confidence. For one But the process through which this happens varies
requires forbidding the potentially risky activity until Africa, Shell in Nigeria or the tobacco industry in thing, the precautionary principle implied that those according to region, culture, class and gender. Beck
the producer of the activity demonstrates that it poses general, added to the decline in trust in institutions responsible for and affected by risk would have similar himself points to the gulf in risk perception between
no unacceptable risk. EU policy making, as suggested responsible for assessing and managing risk. perceptions, interpretations or at least similar world Europe and America. He argues that, in Europe, trans-
2 3
Box I.1: Tsunami relief effort
On the morning of 26 December 2004, giant tsunami waves tore across the Indian Ocean as a result of a of wealth for tsunami victims with the generally ignored crises in Niger, the Democratic Republic of Congo
massive 9.3 earthquake near Sumatra. They left in their wake approximately 200,000 people dead, many more and the Central African Republic.
injured, and millions displaced in 12 countries, with Indonesia, Thailand, India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, and the Of the major disaster relief NGOs, the International Federation of Red Cross/Red Crescent Societies has
Maldives among the hardest hit. In Indonesia alone, more than 128,000 people died and 500,000 became played the most significant role in the tsunami relief effort. It currently has over $248 million in pledges from
homeless; and in the severely affected Aceh province approximately 44 per cent of the population lost their private donors and government bodies. A major success of the tsunami relief effort was the swift response of
fishing- and agriculture-related livelihoods (BBC News 2005). the Red Cross/Red Crescent, preventing any significant outbreaks of water-borne diseases or other epidemics.
The response to the tragedy was immediate and global in nature. United Nations agencies like the World Although most individual donors gave to the most prominent disaster relief organisations, such as the Red
Food Program and the World Health Organization, took the lead along with major NGOs such as Oxfam and Cross/Red Crescent, even small and medium-sized relief agencies found themselves flooded with contributions
the International Federation of Red Cross/Red Crescent Societies. According to Reuters, six months after the in the days after the tsunami. For example, the US arm of Action Against Hunger, an INGO with higher name
tsunami struck, governments had contributed approximately US$4.2 billion, and NGOs had raised an additional recognition in Europe, raised $418,000 in the first ten days after the tsunami struck through the internet
$2.7 billion. Private donations are harder to calculate and different numbers abound. The Reuters Foundation alone, compared with $466,000 for the whole of 2004 (Aitchison 2005).
reports that private donations have topped $5 billion (Large 2005), although the United Nations has only Some organisations even found themselves in the unusual position of having more money donated than they
counted $2.5 billion of that (OCHA 2005). could reasonably plan to spend on their efforts in the region. Recalling the American Red Cross controversy
While the early response necessarily focused on emergency relief, long-term recovery plans are much more after the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks, when many donors became upset that some of the money
complex. The United Nations estimates that it will take between 5 and 12 years and $9 billion for all affected donated was going to overheads or being diverted to general funds, many NGOs were anxious to be clear with
areas to fully recover from the damage. Infrastructure needs, such as the rebuilding of schools, hospitals and donors regarding where and how their money would be spent. For example, on 4 January 2005 Médecins Sans
roads, are extensive. Adding to the challenges are the high poverty and poor communication facilities found in Frontières (MSF) posted a notice on its website urging prospective donors to give to the organisation’s general
these mostly rural regions which make access difficult and costly. Planned giving and a coordinated international Emergency Relief Fund, stating that it had ‘received sufficient funds’ for its tsunami relief activities (MSF 2005).
effort are also required for prevention of future tsunami-related disasters. Work on an early warning system However, organisations engaging in long-term reconstruction had funding needs much greater than MSF’s,
for the Indian Ocean region is now under way, to be completed in 2006, with coordination and funding provided and some criticised this action, fearing it could put off future donors whose contributions were desperately
mainly by UNESCO and the International Red Crescent (Kettlewell 2005). needed for other projects.
The UN flash appeal Criticism of the response to the tsunami

The UN response has been extensive, involving most of the UN related organisations, and high-profile – Although the global response to the tragedy of 26 December has been generous, it is not without critics.
for example, Bill Clinton was named Special Envoy for Tsunami-affected Countries by the UN in March 2005 Many have expressed the fear that the outpouring of wealth around the tsunami will threaten smaller domestic
and he has travelled widely in an effort to ‘sustain international interest’ (UNSG 2005; UN News Centre 2005). charities that may see donations to their causes decline. Anecdotal evidence, however, indicates that while
To coordinate efforts, on 6 January, a flash appeal was issued by the UN Office for the Coordination of some charities feel overlooked (Souccar 2005) others have actually seen increases in donations (Wallack
Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). A flash appeal is more than an appeal for funds; rather, it is a coordinated 2005). Another criticism is that smaller NGOs arrived on the scene without the necessary skills or expertise to
strategic planning process and a platform to publicise what is being done and where needs are greatest, lend effective help, leading some to call for a UN accreditation system (Associated Press 2005). Others, such
representing the work of not just the UN but a variety of NGOs. as Oxfam, have noted that much of the aid is going to businesses and landowners, while many of the poor are
The flash appeal raised over US$1 billion from 54 countries and 32 NGOs and inter-governmental organisations, still stranded in refugee camps (Oxfam International 2005b).
not counting the UN agencies themselves. As of 13 July, more than $335 million has been spent, almost a There are also inevitable controversies over how money is spent now that it has been given, such as the
third of that by the World Food Program. The largest amounts were given by the countries of North America construction of mud sea walls around villages in the Andaman Islands. The government now has the money
and Western Europe, along with Japan, China, Australia, and New Zealand. Japan stands out as by far the to build them, but environmental experts say that not only will they do nothing to stop the force of a tsunami-
most generous nation, giving over $225 million, more than the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, strength wave, they will be harmful both to the recovery of saline-soaked farmlands and to the coral reefs
France and Australia combined. NGOs contributing most to the flash appeal were the American Red Cross, surrounding the islands, which are vital to the area’s fishing economy (Bhaumik 2005).
the International Organization for Migration, Helen Keller International, the International Rescue Committee, Finally, it has been noted that after many humanitarian disasters like the 2004 tsunami, the actual aid
received by affected countries is often much lower than that pledged originally. An example of this is the 2003

CARE, and Islamic Relief. Of course, many other NGOs chose to raise money for their own projects, rather
than working through the flash appeal process. Bam earthquake in Iran, for which only about a fifth of the more than US$1 billion pledged has been received.
It remains to be seen if the response to the tsunami will be an exception, but according to Reuters all of the
Other philanthropic efforts top donors, with the exception of fully paid Japan, have major contributions outstanding. A worrisome example
The timing of the tsunami so close to Christmas, the involvement of foreign tourists (particularly from is that, as of mid-May, neither Australia ($602 million outstanding) nor Germany ($517 million outstanding)
northern Europe), the growing popularity of giving over the internet with the corresponding shift from in-kind had paid even a quarter of its stated commitments. Norway, the United States and the United Kingdom, on
giving to cash, and the increasing visibility of international NGO work has resulted in one of the most generous the other hand, have each paid more than 85 per cent of their intended contributions already (Large 2005).
global responses to a natural disaster ever seen. In fact, the overwhelming response to the tsunami disaster
has led OCHA to publicise a campaign highlighting ‘Forgotten and Neglected Disasters’ comparing the outpouring Jennifer Mosley, Center for Civil Society, UCLA
4 5
Map I.1: Tsunami relief
Aid flows, in US$

(Total: $1,021 Million)

*

Committed flash appeal

aid by target

*Unspecified NGO and Indonesia
UN channels US $14.5 million 17.4%
Maldives 3.3%
Myanmar 0.1%
unspecified Seychelles 0.4%
region Sri Lanka Somalia 0.7%
In this map, shading represents level of funds donated to each country in the disaster area. Green shades 8.8%
represent the 'flash appeal' contributions from donor nations, darker shades indicating greater contributions.
Yellow/brown shades indicate contributions received by disaster area countries, darker shades representing Thailand 0.8%
greater receipts. The red stars represent agencies acting as donors, and the blue circles those acting as channels
for flash appeal contributions, responsible for raising funds and transferring them to the disaster area.
6 7
national campaigning groups play much a larger role is likely to be male-dominated. Despite the campaigns over, there was a real sense that this particular disaster the Paris Club of major donors offered to suspend
in staging ‘the cultural symbols that raise the latent on violence against women, a universal but ‘private’ risk could have happened to each and any of us. It was felt payments from the countries affected. But some, such
threat to the level of consciousness’. In America, he such as rape is not likely to get the same consideration from Somalia and the Maldives to Burma and Indonesia, as Thailand, did not take up the offer because it would
argues, it is the state that ‘plays the role of staging the as climate change or terrorism. and emotionally felt far beyond the Indian Ocean. turn their country into ‘a credit risk’, and NGOs char-
terrorist risk in the mass media’ (2005:18). Beck also One response to world risk society is the demand The disaster itself was indiscriminate, hitting poor acterised the step as inadequate (Oxfam 2005; Jubilee
suggests that Europeans tend to be more worried about for a re-bounding of risk, applying the precautionary fishermen and rich holidaymakers alike, but the Debt Campaign and World Development Movement
climate change whereas Americans fear the terrorist principle in national terms, and the rebuilding of pro- responses to it were more complicated. From the outset, 2005). Thus, the tsunami has helped to reopen the
threat more (2005: 9-10). But it may be rather that tective walls around nation-states or particular groups. there was a disproportionate attention in the Western discussion on debt relief.
Europeans and Americans worry about these risks in This is the argument for Israel’s new wall designed to media to the plight of the relatively small number of ‘Other tsunamis’ were discovered in the form of the
very different ways. According to Lofstedt (2003), Europe exclude Palestinian suicide bombers. A different version tourists who had been affected, particularly in Thailand. war in Iraq (Monbiot 2005), the AIDS/HIV epidemic, the
and the US are drifting apart in their use and inter- of such attempts at re-bounding is efforts to establish But, paradoxically, this attention to the ‘recognisable’ ‘24,000 deaths every day from poverty and debt and
pretation of the precautionary principle when applied quasi-markets for transnational goods and bads, such victim may have increased the sense of a ‘global imag- division that are the products of a supercult called
to environmental risk. The European Commission is as pollutions rights and credits, even though their ined community’, and consequently contributed to the neoliberalism’ (Pilger 2005), and the consequences of
the main proponent trying to maintain and strengthen regulatory framework and enforceability remain unclear huge sums of money raised for the tsunami victims. climate change (Guardian 2004; Christian Today 2005),
it, while the current US Bush administration attempts ((Kaul, Conceicao, Le Goulven and Mendoza 2003). which would leave some of the coastal areas affected
to undermine and discredit it both domestically and Likewise, re-bounding is the goal of a myriad of by the tsunami permanently submerged. These
internationally. Likewise, fear of terrorism in the US is ethnic, religious or tribal groups that try to re-establish On one reading, the unprecedented attempts to apply the successful ‘tsunami risk frame’
used as an argument for the ‘war on terror’ whereas, exclusive control over territory, or of the growing political response to the tsunami could be considered to other areas did not always succeed in galvanising
in Europe, the ‘war on terror’ is often opposed on the factions in rich countries that call for tighter controls as proof of a greater global connectedness, the global imagination.
grounds that it could actually increase the terrorist threat. over immigration. And it is the belief in re-bounding global solidarity, global civil society On the one hand, according to British journalist
The role that global civil society plays as the medium that explains the new American global unilateralism in the twenty-first century Andrew Gilligan, the tsunami ‘lowered the bar to get
through which consciousness of risk is increased and designed to keep the terrorist threat at bay. But, of development stories on TV’ (Gilligan 2005). The Global
risk protection is promoted also, of course , varies widely course, there are others who press for new policies at a Call to Action Against Poverty (GCAP), initiated at the
between rich and poor regions. Risk experienced in global level – global regulations and global public goods The tsunami will live on in the global collective World Social Forum in Porto Alegre in January 2005,
the poorer parts of the world is much more pervasive designed to minimise, overcome or manage global risk. consciousness in many ways. For the direct victims built up a rapid momentum in the first six months of
and less amenable to control than risks in the richer Current preoccupations with, for example, reform of the and to a lesser extent for others, it will live on as a the year, with groups in more than 60 countries calling
parts of the world. Indeed, authors like Douglas (1992: United Nations or a new European constitution have to risk, something that ‘might happen again’. Govern- for the implementation of the Millennium Development
38–54) and Luhmann (1993: 22–3) draw a distinction do with this universalist interpretation of risk. ments have also gone into classic risk-management Goals. The focus was the G8 meeting in Scotland. The
between risk and danger, between uncertainties that mode, designing monitoring and warning systems after Make Poverty History campaign, with the Live 8
might be averted through alternative human decision- Consciousness of global risk the event, while squabbling over coordination (Tarrant concerts and the white armbands, mobilised millions
making and immediate threats to one’s daily survival. 2005; Cumming-Bruce 2005; IOC URL). For some of of people around the slogan ‘Justice not Charity’ (see
It could therefore be argued that worrying about risk The 2004 tsunami, global poverty and Darfur those who have given money, especially people who do Box I.2). On the other hand, the situation in Darfur,
is a luxury of privileged Northerners. People in conflict According to one set of authors, ‘the essence of risk is not usually make donations to international causes, it where tens of thousands have died as a result of
zones or at the margins of survival do not attend not that it is happening, but that it might be happening’. may foster a more lasting interest in the regions where violence, hunger or disease, has not entered the global
festival performances with a ‘risk’ theme. Yet it is the Moreover, most turn-of-the-century literature focuses their money is being spent. On one reading, the unprece- imagination as something that could happen to any of
privileged Northerners who dominate global civil on risk as ‘manufactured, not only through the application dented response to the tsunami could be considered us or as something we can all help alleviate. It may
society and who therefore have the biggest say in of technologies, but also in the making of sense’ (Adam as proof of a greater global connectedness, global spark feelings of compassion but also alienation and
determining what counts as global risk. and van Loon 2000: 2). In this sense, the tsunami that solidarity, global civil society in the twenty-first century. apathy. This is happening only to them, and will probably
Finally, global civil society is uneven and unequal in swept the Indian Ocean on 26 December 2004 had In this light, many global civil society actors saw it continue to do so.
the gendering of risk perceptions. As Jude Howell shows nothing to do with risk. It had not been manufactured as an opportunity. In the first place, it was a financial The responses to the tsunami and to Darfur would

in Chapter 1, the gendered nature of global civil society either in the technological sense or in the discursive opportunity. Large international NGOs saw their coffers suggest that shared risk perceptions on a global scale
is ambiguous. On the one hand, civil society may be a sense. Instead, it came as a complete surprise, and filled beyond their capacity to spend in the disaster- are possible, but only in very particular circumstances.
sphere more permeable to women than the market and afterwards it was no longer a risk but a reality. stricken areas, and had to find ethically acceptable ways Literally, the tsunami was a danger, not a risk, but the
the state due to its roots in charity and voluntarism. On Nonetheless, it bears a relation to risk in the way it of diverting the money to more structural problems. response to it has been to that of a risk: imaginable to
the other hand, civil society is seen by some feminists entered the global collective imagination. Many people Local groups sprang up or changed gear to take part us all, and fixable at least in its consequences by human
as a ‘public’ and hence historically exclusively male across the globe knew one or more people who might in the tsunami bonanza (Frerks and Klem 2005: 20–2; agency. The Darfur crisis, on the other hand, was and
domain. As Howell points out, the theorists and activists be affected, and so the brief period of uncertainty and Box I.1). But the tsunami effect was appropriated in is conceived as a danger: deplorable, inevitable, but
who reinvigorated the concept did not problematise information-seeking that usually follows a disaster other ways, too. not something we can internalise as a risk to us all
this heritage. Hence, risk framing in global civil society affected millions rather than thousands of people. More- In response to the public outpouring of generosity, that we must try to avert. This response is all the more
8 9
Box I.2: Mainstreaming Africa
In 2005 Africans found themselves the centre of attention around the globe. A convergence of international played a leading role in bringing NGOs together, encouraging celebrities to take part (Hodkinson 2005) and
summits and presidencies, research reports and civil society mobilisations hoisted Africa, poverty and, to a devising marketing gems such as the ‘click’ films (Rampton 2005).
lesser degree, the plight of developing countries generally, high on the political agenda, both on the global The Make Poverty History campaign supported the report of the Commission for Africa, which had been
stage and within many countries. Three events were pivotal in this plethora of anti-poverty activities: the G8 set up by Prime Minister Tony Blair with 17 commissioners, including himself, Brown and Geldof. Only a few
Summit in Gleneagles in July, the UN Millennium +5 Summit in September in New York and the World Trade weeks before the G8, Geldof was persuaded to stage Live 8 – ten concerts, one if each of the G8 countries,
Organization (WTO) meeting in December in Hong Kong. one in South Africa and a second hastily arranged UK concert featuring African musicians at the Eden Project.
An impression of Africa entered people’s imagination, particularly in Britain, in a way that the continent has These concerts, beamed around the world on 2 July, took place almost exactly 20 years after the original
not done before: while the focus was on poverty and how to tackle it, attention was not directed towards any LiveAid. Unlike LiveAid, in which Geldof memorably told the audience to ‘Give us yer fokkin money’, Live 8
specific famine, and the appeal was not for money but for justice. called for justice. The musicians’ messages might have been mixed but their lure was undeniable – an
Campaigning for such a concept presents a challenge and a risk: not only are the means to achieve it estimated one million attended the ten concerts and almost 30 million people watched them on television
disputed, but the very nature of justice is a subject of fierce debate that poses fundamental questions about at some point during 2 July.
the relationship between the rich industrialised world and developing countries. Given this momentum and the diversity of expectations around the world, perhaps the G8 was bound to
This debate would continue behind the key messages, celebrity endorsements and clever marketing of the disappoint. The final communiqué pledged US$48 billion in aid by 2010 and cancellation of some of the debts
Global Call to Action Against Poverty (GCAP), billed as the world’s largest anti-poverty alliance, which unites of the most heavily indebted poor countries. The G8 also promised to provide treatment for HIV/AIDS to all
some 150 million people in 72 countries. Under the symbolic white band, national GCAP coalitions organised those who need it by 2010. Progress on trade was negligible; no timetable was set for phasing out export
their own series of events and campaign slogans – among them: ‘Plus d’ Excuse’ in France, ‘You promised – Act subsidies, and detailed negotiations were left to the WTO meeting in December. Make Poverty History was
Now’ in Zambia and ‘Poverty is an enemy to Humanity’ in Palestine. These campaigns coalesced on 1 July 2005, downbeat, estimating that only around US$20 billion of the promised aid was new money, and that the debt
the First International White Band Day, when demonstrators wore them and pubic buildings were wrapped in relief deal would provide only one billion of the estimated US$10 billion a year of debt cancellation needed to
them, as a reminder to world leaders to fulfil their commitments to trade justice, debt cancellation, and more eradicate extreme poverty.
and better aid. African civil society campaigners said the G8 had simply reaffirmed existing decisions on debt relief and aid,
Around the world there were demonstrations, petitions, debates, pop concerts and media campaigns. In and the deals were still attached to harmful policy conditionality. ‘The message from Gleneagles is clear to us
Africa GCAP campaigners and celebrities launched Thumbs Down 2 Poverty, via Africa Snaps, a series of in Africa. We will intensify our call to our Governments that have not secured debate cancellation to strongly
television adverts featuring Youssour N’Dour, Ladysmith Black Mambazo and Seun Anikulapo Kuti, which were consider repudiating their unjust and odious external debt,’ said Justice Egware of the Civil Society Action
seen by an estimated 20 million people in 15 African countries. In Britain, it was the ‘click films’ – the clicking Coalition on Education for All in Nigeria (GCAP 2005).
fingers of Kate Moss, Kylie Minogue, Brad Pitt and others, symbolising the death of a child every three seconds; Those that had criticised the Commission for Africa report for its reliance on a free-market approach to
30,000 deaths from poverty each day. Such simple statistics and the endorsing celebrities were compelling; development were more vociferous in their condemnation of the G8. The World Development Movement said
among them Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Nelson Mandela, Bono, Scarlett Johansson, Claudia Schiffer and the outcome was a disaster for the world’s poor and an insult to the thousands of campaigners who had
Sir Bob Geldof. genuinely believed the G8 was committed to change. According to WDM head of policy, Peter Hardstaff, ‘These
The celebrity sheen of the campaigns was one spark in the fierce debate about how to tackle poverty, which tiny sums of money are nothing more than a sticking plaster over the deep wounds the G8 are inflicting by
was played out both between rich and poor worlds and within them. Focus on the Global South (URL) and Jubilee forcing failed economic policies such as privatisation, free trade and corporate deregulation, on Africa.’
South (URL) were among the groups refusing to sign up to GCAP, arguing that it was a Northern-dominated (Hardstaff 2005)
campaign that had failed to work or consult with those it purported to represent (Hodkinson 2005). Others Others argued that, in any case, the focus of NGOs and the British government on reducing subsidies and
argued that even to engage with Western NGOs and the G8 was a mistake. Firoze Manji, editor of Pambazuka trade barriers was misdirected. According to Matthew Lockwood, former head of policy and campaigns at
News, a web-based forum, says: ActionAid UK, the real problem for African countries is how to diversify out of primary commodity exports,
especially when faced with competitors such as China. Not only has Africa become marginalised from world
The western media and western ‘development’ agencies feed us with a diet that makes us think that ‘poverty’ trade, unable to share in the boom in high-value manufactured products, but it has seen the prices of its
is the problem. But poverty is not the problem. It is the looting, theft and frank exploitation that forces Africa’s primary commodities fall (Lockwood 2005).
people into destitution, that impoverishes them, and prevents millions from realising their full potential as The breadth of global mobilisation – some 30 million text messages were sent urging G8 leaders to act –

humans… Let’s end this charade about ‘fighting poverty’: turn instead to fighting those who caused the profit was hailed by many, such as Kumi Naidoo (2005), as a ‘victory for civil society.’ Jamie Drummond, executive
and impoverishment. (Manji 2005) director of Data, the campaign group set up by Bono of U2, argues that the involvement of celebrities and the
campaign tactics of Make Poverty History has had a democratising effect on development policy and poverty
Divergences within civil society were to resurface in Britain too, where Make Poverty History (URL) arguably alleviation: ‘Bob and Bono are doing something far more significant and strategic: making these issues massive
honed its message most finely of all the national GCAP coalitions. Comprising hundreds of NGOs, faith groups, and mainstream so power must come to the people, and not the other way around’ (Drummond 2005).
trade unions and networks, Make Poverty History attracted more than 225,000 people to the Edinburgh What impact has all of this activity and debate had on people’s attitudes towards Africa? As Tidjane Thiam,
demonstration on 2 July, four days before the G8 meeting. Its effectiveness in mobilising more than double a member of the Commission for Africa, has pointed out, challenging perceptions is crucial to combating
the numbers expected – and selling millions of white bands in the process – should perhaps be no surprise, Afro-pessimism. ‘I think it’s very important to win the battle of public opinion .…and be able to kill forever a
given those behind it. Film-maker Richard Curtis, a friend of Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown, number of ideas that have been very, very detrimental – all African leaders are corrupt, everything ends up
10 11
Box I.2 continued paradoxical because in fact the Darfur crisis was man- But Peter Newell shows in Chapter 3 in this Yearbook
made, whereas the tsunami was the natural disaster. that, in fact, global civil society actors are now busy
in war anyway, they cannot get their act together – if I go further they’re lazy, why put money there and so It would suggest that the tsunami was a ‘one-off’ in reconnecting class to risk even with respect to climate
on and so forth’ (Thiam 2005). global empathy, and in fact global civil society has a long change, not just between but within societies. Since
Indeed, in Britain the 'Public Perceptions of Poverty' research programme for Comic Relief* (Darnton 2005) way to go in representing environmental destruction, 2002, a self-styled ‘climate justice’ movement has joined
suggests that many people are deterred from taking action by what they perceive as the hopeless state of conflicts, hunger and disease as ‘other tsunamis’ or the more conventional Northern-based environmental
Africa – which has been dubbed the ‘Live Aid Legacy’ (VSO 2002). In the 2003 Office for National Statistics ‘global risks’ that could even hypothetically affect us all. NGOs. It is not just more global and more radical, but
Omnibus survey for Britain’s Department for International Development (DFID), people expressed concern also more holistic in its analysis than the old actors,
about poverty but their understanding of its underlying causes was low; they cited ‘internal’ issues such as Climate change who would not have connected greenhouse effects to
war, famine and corruption, rather than the international trade system, for example (Dawe 2003). In 2005, One of Ulrich Beck’s major theses about the risk either social justice or human rights.
the second wave of Public Perceptions of Poverty (conducted 25 March-5 April) found that trade justice was society, or world risk society, is that it has superseded Newell also cites the recent foundation, in the US, of
the least understood method of tackling poverty, with 47 per cent saying they knew nothing about it (Darnton the class society. In his seminal Risk Society: Towards the Environmental Justice and Climate Change Initiative,
2005). However, initial findings from the third wave of this research, conducted 15-19 July 2005 in the wake of a New Modernity (1992), Beck predicted that the prob- which advocates ‘the fair treatment of people of all
the G8, indicate significantly increased awareness of trade justice (57 per cent) and of Make Poverty History lematic of scarcity and distribution would increasingly races, tribes and economic groups in the implemen-
(87 per cent) (Darnton 2005), which may be linked to the rise in media coverage of Africa in the UK and give way to that of risk and safety. In 2000, Ruth tation and enforcement of environmental protection
elsewhere (see Table I.1). The British government’s support for such attitudinal research suggests it believes Levitas still confirmed that, in her students’ annual laws’ in the light of the ‘disproportionate impacts from
that increasing awareness and empathy can stimulate political action – which may explain its role in kindling essays on utopia ‘The question of safety (and hence of climate change (which) might accrue to these groups
campaigns such as Make Poverty History and the establishment of the Commission for Africa. risk) has been increasingly present … and the question because, for example, 80 per cent of people of colour
of economic equality less so’ (Levitas 2000: 203). and indigenous people in the US live in coastal regions.’
Table I.1: Media coverage of Africa, 2002–2005** But there was always a tension between the global In response, a coal lobby group has published a report
aspirations of the ‘risk society’ as proclaimed by Beck arguing that ratification of the Kyoto Protocol would
LexisNexis category 2005 2004 2003 2002 (1992) and Giddens (1990), and the recognition that the ‘disproportionately threaten the well-being of Blacks
Major world newspapers 853 39 65 82 shift from class to risk preoccupations would occur and Hispanics in the United States’ (Newell, Chapter 3).
only ‘where and to the extent that genuine material Similar social justice arguments are being made in
Global newswires 578 93 115 147
need can be objectively reduced and socially isolated other classic ‘risk’ domains, such as GM foods. In
UK news 840 30 46 70 through the development of human and technological Europe the debate has focused mainly on whether the
Asia Pacific news 243 31 49 68 productivity, as well as through legal and welfare state risks are acceptable. But in the developing world
US news 574 52 107 59 protections and regulations’ (Beck 1992: 19). Hence there are further divisions between those, such as
one of their friendly critics warned that ‘as the fault International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-
With the use of the LexisNexis database of media, the terms poverty w/p africa and end! (that is, poverty and africa in the same lines of risk expand, we must not lose sight of society’s biotech (ISAAA URL) and the Biotechnology Information
paragraph, narrowed down with end/ending/ended) were searched for the period 10 June–10 July in 2005, 2004, 2003 and 2002.
The table indicates the numbers of articles mentioning these search words. The search was conducted on 16 July 2005. oldest burden, the crushing weight of poverty’ (Mythen Centres (BIC URL; MABIC URL; Safetybio URL), which
2004: 185). argue that, if carefully managed, biotechnology can be
The research in this series would suggest that, after helpful to poor farmers, and those, including GRAIN
While assessing African perceptions of this year’s anti-poverty initiatives is stymied by lack of research and
the advent of the anti-capitalist movement, the idea that (URL) and Pesticide Action Network (URL), which
the limitations of media search engines, African experiences of poverty and views on the future have been
equality discourse has been replaced by risk discourse consider the global experiment with GM technology a
captured. Afrobarometer surveys conducted in 15 countries between June 2002 and October 2003 demonstrate
is no longer tenable. Instead, the two are increasingly risk to food and income security for the poor because
that many Africans lead ‘desperate lives’, with significant numbers experiencing frequent shortages of basic
linked by global civil society actors. New connections the power concentration involved means that small
necessities and formal incomes. But the research also finds an inspiring sense of optimism. ‘Yet as Africans
are being made, with class framed in a new, more global farmers are at risk of being driven out of business by
endure the impacts of economic crisis and subsequent adjustment, they do not conclude simply and
way that focuses on gender and ethnic dimensions as transnational agribusiness corporations.
cynically that “things fall apart” …most fully expect that their children will lead better lives than themselves’
much as income distribution. The Bhopal campaign has also been revitalised as it
(Afrobarometer 2004).

To begin with, various critics have pointed out that lends itself very well to a holistic analysis, having envi-
* Public Perceptions of Poverty is a three-year research programme for Comic Relief, funded by DFID, which aims to explore the Beck’s ‘democratisation of risk’ is predicated on a ronmental, social justice and human rights aspects as
media’s role in shaping public awareness, and to identify the barriers and drivers to public empathy, understanding, optimism and reliance on ‘worst case scenarios’: disasters of at well as a corporate villain (Jain 2003). In 2004, the
action in relation to poverty and development issues. least the magnitude and globalising tendency of the campaign made various advances in both Indian and
** With thanks to Olaf Corry, Hagai Katz and Lucy Shaikh for advice. tsunami. More conventional risks of famines, war or US courts, it presented its case in workshops at the
even pollution continue to affect people unevenly World Social Forum, and two core campaigners won
Fiona Holland, Centre for the Study of Global Goverance, LSE according to class (Scott 2000). The worst-case effects the prestigious Goldman Prize (Kuruganthi 2004).
of climate change would presumably be in the ‘ultimate
catastrophe’ category.
12 13
Terrorism have been killed by Israeli forces than Israeli civilians A year later, the bombings in London on 7 and 21 be explained or rationalised in terms of inequality or
At a meeting organised by the Club of Madrid, the killed by Palestinian suicide bombers2. In much of the July were universally condemned, as in Madrid. Initially, poverty, the readiness of the Bush administration and
club of 140 former presidents and prime ministers, on Middle East and beyond, it is the policies of the United it was the former perception that terrorism is a crime the G8 to respond to civil society pressure in the new
the first anniversary of the 2004 Madrid bombings, Kofi States and Israel that are seen as the major threat. with no political rationality that predominated. The global climate of fear is evidence that they recognise
Annan, the UN Secretary-General, called for a more Although the majority condemn jihadists or suicide attacks were seen as a crime not against Britain but some kind of connection.
active role for global civil society in countering terrorism: bombers, especially in Iraq, these are seen as lesser against multicultural London. According to London’s The debate about the meaning and nature of terrorism
or equal evils. Mayor, Ken Livingstone: is only just beginning. It is clear that terrorism is a
Not only political leaders, but civil society and Indeed, in much of the world the word ‘terrorism’ is global risk – indeed, it epitomises the de-bounding of
religious leaders should clearly denounce terrorist rejected because of the way it has been politicised and This was not a terrorist attack against the mighty and risk. At the same time, the risk is played out in local
tactics as criminal and inexcusable. Civil society has captured by the rhetoric of the Bush administration the powerful. It was not aimed at Presidents or Prime circumstances, involving local players with very
already conducted magnificent campaigns against and its allies. The word seems to be used to emphasise Ministers. It was aimed at ordinary, working-class specific local impacts. The fact that the London bombers
landmines, against the recruitment of children as threats to Western citizens and to downplay the kind Londoners, black and white, Muslim and Christian, were British citizens, far removed from the culture of
soldiers, and against allowing war crimes to go of political, criminal or just senseless violence that is Hindu and Jew, young and old. It was an indiscriminate violence experienced in the ‘black holes’ of conflict in
unpunished. I should like to see an equally strong the daily experience of many Colombian or Congolese attempt to slaughter, irrespective of any considerations other parts of the world, was particularly shocking.
global campaign against terrorism… We must pay citizens, for instance. for age, for class, for religion, or whatever. That isn’t The narrative of the terrorists was global. The jihadist
more attention to the victims of terrorism, and make In Europe, the perception that terrorism is a crime that an ideology, it isn’t even a perverted faith – it is just ideology, to which the bombers presumably subscribed,
sure their voices can be heard. (Annan 2005) has no political rationality competes with the perception an indiscriminate attempt at mass murder. (London centres on a Muslim community under siege in different
that the risk of terrorism has increased as a result of Homepage 2005) parts of the world. The 7 July attacks took place in the
As Figure I.1 shows, deaths and injuries from Western foreign policies. In Spain, it was the latter same week as the tenth anniversary of Srebrenica,
terrorist incidents have greatly increased since 2000. perception that predominated. The Madrid bombings But it was not long before the issue of the war in where 8,000 Bosnian men and boys were killed by
But the way in which terrorism is perceived varies of 11 March 2005 led to a popular mobilisation because Iraq began to be raised. The bombastic Respect MP Serb militants, and in a week when some 150 Iraqis
greatly in different regions. Indeed, perhaps more than the government had tried to attribute responsibility for George Galloway was widely criticised for blaming were also killed by suicide bombers. The attacks showed
any other risk, terrorism is subject to manipulation, the bombings to Basque separatists, in the knowledge Britain’s involvement in the war in Iraq in the immediate that the West can no longer insulate itself from what
instrumentalisation, and reinterpretation. The figures that the attacks would be linked to Spain’s involvement aftermath of the attacks. But the criticism was as happens in the rest of the world, that Western citizens
in the chart, which comes from a US funded source, refer in Iraq. The government was subsequently defeated at much about the tasteless timing as about the content nowadays have multiple identities, and that dangers in
only to non-state terrorism. This reflects the dominant a general election, and Spain immediately announced of the argument. Members of the Muslim Community the rest of the world are translated into risks
perception in the US, where terrorism is seen as a its withdrawal from Iraq. condemned the attacks but nevertheless insisted that experienced in rich countries. But the political and
threat to the US, akin to a foreign enemy like the Soviet the war in Iraq, and the double standards vis-à-vis social climate in which terrorists operate, whether in
Union or Germany. This is partly to be explained by the Israel, has alienated many young Muslims. The Mayor London, Madrid or Istanbul, is local. The attacks on
1 These figures come from Iraqbodycount.org. The other source
shock of 9/11, when more people were killed than at is the painstaking study reported in the British medical journal of London made a similar argument, and a poll London were also viewed as a reflection of the
Pearl Harbour in 1941, which marked the start of US The Lancet. This study was based on sampling of clusters of undertaken by the Guardian newspaper showed that alienation of young Muslim men living in urban areas
households in all the governorates of Iraq. Excluding the Fallujah
involvement in the Second World War. But it can also cluster, which had much higher casualties than elsewhere two-thirds of the British public felt the government in Britain.
be understood in terms of the way this perception of (accounting for two-thirds of violent deaths) the study found had some responsibility for the attacks because of the The bombers may have emphasised their Muslim
terrorism chimes with a narrative about the role of the the rate of casualties much higher than actually reported to war in Iraq. An even stronger report from the Royal identity. But they failed to respect human identity. Some
the press. The study estimated an additional 98,000 deaths,
US in promoting and defending freedom – a narrative excluding Fallujah, throughout Iraq, compared with a similar Institute for International Affairs (2005) published may condemn the bombers for being more Muslim
that is deeply embedded in the structures of govern- period before the war. The biggest cause of death was violent shortly after the attacks suggested that the war in Iraq than British – this is evidently the implication of the
ment and is narrative, moreover, widely purveyed by incidents accounting for some 24 per cent of the total; of these had increased the risk of terrorism. The government,
the majority were caused by American air strikes. See Roberts
government’s preoccupation with dialogue with
the American media. et al. (2004). of course, strongly denied any link, arguing that the Muslim leaders. But while globalisation may throw up
In fact, the majority of incidents included in Figure 2 According to the Israeli human rights organisation B'Tselem attackers were under the sway of an ‘evil ideology’ new transnational exclusive identities in place of terri-
(Human Rights Watch 2005), between the beginning of the Intifada
I.1 took place in the Middle East. There, more civilian and the end of November 2004, 3,040 Palestinians were killed that long predated Iraq. torially bound identities, it also offers the possibility

deaths have resulted from state violence than from by Israeli security forces, including 606 children, in the Occupied One constant that tends to be shared among these for greater solidarity with other human beings, whether
non-state violence. In other words, the figure shows Palestinian Territories. According to their investigations at least different perceptions is the growing recognition of the they are Muslim, British, American, Iraqi, Palestinian
1,661 of those killed (including 531 children under the age of 18)
only a minority of civilian deaths resulting from political were not involved in hostilities when they were killed. According importance of the social justice argument. As with or Spanish.
violence. In Iraq, the best estimates suggest that to the Israeli-based International Policy Institute for Counter other risk domains like climate change and GM foods, In world risk society, citizens cannot rely only on
Terrorism (URL), between the start of the Al-Aqsa Intifada and
around 25,000 civilians have been killed since the May 2003, Palestinians had been responsible for the deaths of
the risk of terrorism is increasingly used to bolster the states to protect them from risk (even though the
beginning of the war in March 2003; the majority are 700 Israelis, 546 of whom were non-combatants. According to case for social justice. In ministries of development and response to the London bombings demonstrated how
the result of American attacks, even though in recent the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (URL), which does not in the various reports discussed below, the link between efficiently public services can operate). They are
distinguish between combatants and civilians, between 29
months the share claimed by insurgent incidents has September 2000 and 13 May 2005, 3,607 Palestinians had died poverty and insecurity has received considerable agents and not just victims. This is why Kofi Annan’s
been increasing1. In Palestine, more Palestinian civilians and 28,695 been injured. attention. While many would argue that terrorism cannot proposal is so timely.
14 15
Figure I.1: Deaths and injuries from terrorism 2000–2005
12,000 2000 2001 2002
Fatalities
Fatalities
Fatalities
Incidents
Incidents
Incidents
Injuries
Injuries
Injuries
10,000
Region
Incide nts
Africa 28 139 37 27 239 289 29 183 129
Injurie s East & Central Asia 23 23 13 12 3 3
8,000
Eastern Europe 27 234 65 104 259 70 215 1236 375
F a ta litie s
Latin America 225 176 198 163 306 307 477 757 298
Middle East/Persian Gulf 309 190 60 508 1267 257 627 1914 564
6,000
North America 9 0 0 39 11 2987 16 3 3
South Asia 96 1043 297 197 1171 440 836 2169 1021
Southeast Asia & Oceania 72 601 87 122 494 161 96 975 351
4,000
Western Europe 372 153 33 550 213 31 342 104 15
World 1138 2536 777 1733 3983 4555 2650 7344 2759
2,000
2003 2004 2005 (to July 24)
Fatalities
Fatalities
Fatalities
Incidents
Incidents
Incidents
-
Injuries
Injuries
Injuries
2000 2001 2002 2003 2004
Region
Africa 29 51 109 36 424 390 18 139 53
Source: The National Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism (MIPT), Terrorism Knowledge Base, http://www.tkb.org East & Central Asia 13 1 21 15 43 26 5 10 4
Eastern Europe 125 689 266 167 1232 536 64 91 24
Latin America 199 473 185 102 238 146 32 66 39
Middle East/Persian Gulf 496 3205 907 1287 4901 2600 1535 4939 2943
North America 18 0 0 6 0 0 2 0 0
South Asia 613 1326 803 643 2936 895 474 1367 436
Southeast Asia & Oceania 30 394 72 51 408 202 37 235 68
Western Europe 372 114 6 271 653 194 146 286 56
World 1895 6253 2369 2578 10835 4989 2313 7133 3623

2005 (to
World 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 July 28)
Incidents 1274 1159 1138 1733 2650 1895 2578 2313
Injuries 8184 2333 2536 3983 7344 6253 10835 7133
Fatalities 2242 849 777 4555 2759 2369 4989 3623
16 17
Migration as a risk to host societies, while neo-liberal economic Middle East illustrates this global dynamic of demo- In the Spanish case global communications technology
Ulrich Beck (1992; much less in 2002) sees an arguments combine with a celebration of cultural cratisation. Second, international organisations are provided a clear anti-censorship factor in the sense
important democratising potential in the notion of the diversity and support for the human right to move in under increasing pressure to make more meaningful that, astoundingly after 30 years of democracy, people
world risk society, which he believes to be capable of favour of immigration. Both sides use combinations of arrangements for citizen participation. In Chapter 5, went to foreign websites for trustworthy information.
transforming global politics. Late modern technology economic reasoning and moral and emotional appeals. Richard Falk discusses the UN’s efforts to come to In the Philippines case the ‘global element’ was more
has slipped beyond the grasp of the technologists who In the sending societies, concerns about heavy brain terms with the challenge of opening up access for ambiguous as the wealthy diaspora helped to replace
create it. This may lead to disasters, but it also means drain, and again human rights concerns relating to the global civil society. We suggest below that the series a populist with a neo-liberal regime.
that the technologists can no longer claim a privileged treatment of migrants, compete with the advantages of ‘no’s’ to the European Union’s draft constitution may The trend for civil society mobilisation to democratise
understanding of the technologies, so that – in contrast of remittances in public discourse and government also be related to issues of access and participation. national politics seems to be continuing in 2005, making
to the modern era – any interested members of the policy. Desai argues that anti-immigration lobbies have Third, the new phenomenon of social forums is, at least inroads into remaining bastions of authoritarianism in
public can challenge the claims of the technocrats and dominated the debate within global civil society and in aspirational terms, about creating new mechanisms the former Soviet Union (Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan) and the
take part in ethical debates about the risks, in which that those who favour the right to free movement need for political participation. And finally, a new medium Middle East (Lebanon). While the first two were about
there is space both for fact-based calculation and for to be less defensive and to put their reasonable case for global civil society is the rash of reports, study election-rigging, Lebanon uniquely concerned foreign
emotional or ethical arguments. This optimism may to the test of public debate. In particular, the anti- groups, and commissions initiated by global leaders occupation (see Box I.3). The Ukrainian and Lebanese
be based on the experiences of the green movement, capitalist movement has not been vocal on this issue, and carried out by independent experts. events in particular show very similar features, and
especially in Germany, and more recently the Europe- and advocacy of the pro-migrant position within anti- raise similar questions, to those described in Chapter 8.
wide debates on GMOs (Beck 2000; Mythen 2004). capitalist circles has been largely confined to a few Mobilisation for democracy In both the Ukrainian and the Lebanese revolutions,
Some authors have doubted whether this potential peripheral anarchist and human rights groups. In the opening chapter of Global Civil Society 2004/5, text messaging again played an important role in mobil-
is actually being fulfilled, pointing out that ‘subpolitical The lack of voice on the issue of migration reflects we noticed a trend of renewed civil society interest in ising especially young people (Koprowski 2004; Quilty
groups are susceptible to engulfment by the formal what seems to be an increasing divergence between mobilising for national elections. We and others had 2005). There seems to be clear evidence of transnational
process’ (Mythen 2004: 173), and further that ‘discourses social justice and civil liberties. Security fears tend to earlier noted a shift in the recent decades away from contagion and imitation in these ‘colour-coordinated’
about risk are socially constructed narratives’ (Culpitt be used to marginalise the case for civil liberties but public participation in political parties and from civil revolutions. While the Ukrainian revolution looked the
1999: 13) which can be used for hegemonic as much they often help the case for social justice. During the society interest in national politics. Since the turn of the most heroic in braving the bitter cold, the Lebanese
as for counter-hegemonic projects. cold war, civil liberties were often curtailed but pro- century, however, there appears to be a renewed interest one put on the best display:
social justice groups were much stronger. Then in the in national politics, but not in the form of renewed
1990s, a period of neo-liberalism, the human rights political party activism. Instead, civil society mobilises Pieces of cardboard (coloured red, white or green on
The lack of voice on the issue of migration reflects movement was able to strengthen the global human on a more occasional basis against authoritarianism, one side and black on the other) were distributed to
what seems to be an increasing divergence rights regime in significant ways. In the aftermath of rigged elections, lying politicians, and corruption. the 10,000 people assembled in the adjacent Martyrs’
between social justice and civil liberties 9/11 the social justice agenda seems to have acquired Chapter 8, by Castells et al., brings out how these Square. On cue, the demonstrators flipped their
a new lease of life but terrorism is being used to forms of mobilisation are different from older forms of cardboard to form a 3,800-square-metre flag (when
legitimise all kinds of restrictions on civil liberties. The national mobilisation. First, and most eye-catchingly, the speaker demanded to know the truth about
This becomes more obvious as one moves beyond the debate about migration may be a casualty of this trend. there is the use of new information and communications Hariri’s killing) or a black rectangle of the same size
field of late modern technology, on which most risk Security and domestic welfare concerns have been technology (ICT). Where earlier work by Castells and (in reference to the opposition’s enemies). (Quilty 2005)
theorists focus, to review discourses which relate to allowed to override the human rights and global welfare others has concentrated on the transformative features
globalisation more generally (see also Beck 2005). In case for migration. of the internet, Chapter 8 focuses on mobilisation by But it has been questioned whether the global
the case of technology, it is easy to paint a picture of mobile phone. Like the internet, it can have the function element in all these revolutions was just a matter of
David-like social movement activists armed with emo- Democratisation and instrumentalisation of breaking into information oligarchies. New ICTs horizontal contagion or whether there was deliberate
tional and moral arguments pitted against the Goliath Where are the spaces in which global civil society became so important in the Korean, the Spanish, and foreign manipulation. Both the Bush administration and
of corporate and state-led technologists armed with communicates and argues about risk? How are perhaps also the Philippine cases because the old the financier-philanthropist George Soros have been
outdated rationality models. But when one surveys the individual concerns about risk translated into political media was, for whatever reason, on the side of the named as fomenters of the revolution, usually with

debates on migration, the picture becomes more mixed. decision making? In this Yearbook we discuss four establishment. But the speed with which mobile phones sinister intent. Soros did indeed quite openly support
It is often the case that those who are attracted to such forms. First of all, for many people the national can spread information greatly surpasses that of the the democratic revolutions in Serbia, Georgia and
extremist ideologies that are associated with terrorism level remains important. National governments are internet, although, as the authors point out, texting is Ukraine, financially and strategically, and the Bush
are migrants, either from countryside to town or across key participants in global negotiations and are often great for mobilisation but much less so for deliberation. administration has welcomed all the recent mobil-
borders (see Kaldor and Muro 2003). In Chapter 4, the first target of civil society action. To an extent that Second, while all the case studies describe national isations, and may also have given prior support –
Meghnad Desai discusses how old social-democratic was hardly thinkable during the first phase of modernity, politics, none of the mobilisations was exclusively although it must be pointed out that is due to Soros’s
concerns with welfare and distribution combine messily civil society activists can use global links to expand national in its concerns. Iraq binds the Spanish, the attempts at regime change.
with communitarian cultural arguments about identity, the space for democratic participation. The latest wave US and to some extent the Korean cases together as The confluence of local people’s movements and
security obsessions and racism to portray immigration of democratisation in post-Soviet republics and in the a global preoccupation impinging on national politics. foreign interests should be no surprise in a globalised
18 19
world. It may be that the US administration’s change of strong sense that the Martyrs’ Square rallies were Government reform and civil society: organisations that are in search of greater legitimacy,
tack on democracy in the Middle East has provided a demonstrations of privilege whereas this was one the risk of instrumentalisation and eager to try out seemingly new ways towards
space for the ‘cedar revolution’ (a brand name courtesy of the dispossessed – albeit a dispossessed being Not all encounters between civil society and the overdue public sector reform. The statements and
of the US administration), which might not otherwise instrumentalised by Hezbollah. state are dramatic tales of miraculous victory or proceedings of the Sixth Global Forum on Reinventing
have been allowed to exist. But to attribute weeks of bloody defeat. Global civil society also faces more Government, mentioned above, the UN’s High Level
demonstrations by hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian There are various ways of interpreting these reports, conventional risks, such as being instrumentalised by Panel on Civil Society (see below), the World Bank’s
and Lebanese individuals to Soros or Bush is to deny none of which is comfortable from a global civil governments and international organisations. For projects on social accountability and civic engagement,
agency, to deny the possibility that Ukrainians and society perspective. The first would be that the middle example, heads of state at the Sixth Global Forum in or the EU’s attempts to ‘reach out to civil society’, are
Lebanese, like Spaniards or Koreans, could act on classes are in cahoots with American or global neo- Reinventing Government3, held in Seoul, 23–27 May examples of this instrumentalisation.
their own initiative to express their disaffection with liberal interests, while the poor are manipulated by 2005, and attended by several thousand represen- Top-down views of the functions of civil society include
politics-as-usual. populists, authoritarians and Islamists. The second tatives from 140 countries, made repeated calls for three broad perspectives that have become prominent
would be that only the middle classes are capable of governments to work with civil society in meeting the in recent years. First, NGOs have become part of new
exercising their own judgement with respect to the growing gap between social needs and public resources. public management and mixed ‘economies of welfare’,
Another question the recent revolutions raise democratic credentials of their politicians, while the In an address delivered by Undersecretary Moreno, which involve public and private providers. New public
is the extent to which they will actually succeed poor and uneducated are subject to instrumentalisation. Kofi Annan called for a global government-civil society management approaches see NGOs as closely linked
in bringing about lasting social change The third would be that both groups are capable of consensus on development as part of a ‘system-wide to welfare state reform or welfare state alternatives.
exercising their own judgement, and are mobilising of exercise’; the Prime Minister of Korea stressed the Second, civil society is seen as central to ‘civil society-
their own volition, but have fundamentally different link between civil society and governmental reform social capital’ approaches, specifically the neo-
A more problematic element, related to the use of concerns and interests. Only the middle classes are and accountability; the President of Brazil emphasised Tocquevillian emphasis on the nexus between social
mobile phones, is that of class. In most of the world, concerned with abstract and ‘bourgeois’ concerns that civil society and engaged citizens were at the capital and participation in voluntary associations of
as in the Philippines, mobiles are still a luxury and will about democracy, while the poor are concerned with centre of policy action locally as well as globally; and many kinds. Third, from a wider social accountability
continue to be unavailable to those living on a few social justice – even if the politicians in whom they put leading government officials from countries and perspective, civil society is an instrument for achieving
dollars a day. Therefore, in most parts of the world any their faith do not necessarily deliver it. The reality is organisations as diverse as Tanzania, Thailand, Iran, greater transparency, heightened accountability and
mobile phone mobilisation could be only a middle- undoubtedly more complex and more determined by Tajikistan, Tunisia, Italy, South Africa, the European improved governance of public institutions. The ‘other
class mobilisation. Castells writes in Chapter 8 that local and historical factors than any of these Union and the OECD stressed the role of civil society genealogy’ of civil society, that which describes its
‘Estrada had overwhelming support in the countryside interpretations allows. Still, the idea that the recent in forging efficient systems of public-private partner- functions in terms of counter-hegemony and contes-
and among the poor, as shown in his landslide victory revolutions are evidence of an unproblematic global ships in service delivery, the contribution of civil society tation (Howell and Pearce 2002: 18–31; Kaldor 2003),
in the 1998 election’. Mobile phones were not a feature trajectory towards democracy, transparency and justice to greater transparency and accountability, and greater is left firmly out of the picture.
of the subsequent Poor People Power mobilisation: should be treated with some scepticism. social inclusion. While many scholars are beginning Apart from the discounting of more confrontational
‘Unlike those who had gathered there during People Another question the recent revolutions raise is the to problematise the idea of civil society as a panacea notions, civil society is also ‘domesticated’ in another
Power II, the crowd in what came to be billed as the extent to which they will actually succeed in bringing (Chandhoke 2005), diverse government leaders continue sense. Quite against the recent history of actually
‘Poor People Power’ was trucked in by Estrada’s about lasting social change. In Georgia, a new post- to be all the more enamoured of the concept. existing organisations, movements and networks, much
political operatives from the slums and nearby cold war generation has entered politics. In Lebanon, The change in terminology that has occurred over government rhetoric (less so that of international insti-
provinces and provided with money, food, and, on at Syrian troops have been forced to leave, but the recent years is remarkable. Whereas until the late 1990s tutions) treats civil society as a national phenomenon.
least certain occasions, alcohol’ (Rafael, quoted in political parties seem to have returned to their usual ‘NGO’ was the term most commonly used in such As such, it can conveniently be cast in a role of ‘junior
Castells et al. in Chapter 8). sectarian bickering (see Box I.3). In Ukraine and international gatherings, the term ‘civil society’ has partner’ to government. Such typecasting masks the
Very similar dynamics operated in Ukraine and in Kyrgyzstan, the result of the ‘revolutions’ was one of gained much currency. Increasingly, ‘NGOs’ and ‘civil fact that it is precisely the transcending of boundaries
Lebanon. In Lebanon, Jim Quilty (2005) writes of a intra-elite accommodation, as former ministers who society’ are being used interchangeably, and civil society that has made global civil society a force to be
smaller counter-demonstration by Hizbollah: had had a spell in opposition returned to government. has become reified as an actor similar to ‘the state’ and reckoned with (whether governments like it or not).
Nonetheless, the confident assert that the Kyrgyz ‘the market’. For one thing, that policy makers have The first of the three approaches set out above sees

the most striking difference between these ‘revolutionary uprising… set an example for neigh- begun to ascribe agency to civil society reflects a limited NGOs as service providers within public-private part-
demonstrators and the 70,000 or so anti-regime bouring peoples and governments’ (Sari and Yigit understanding of its nature and function, transforms nerships under the rubric of new public management
activists who gathered at Martyrs’ Square the night 2005). No one knows how far bloodless revolutions civil society into an organisational, even sectoral, and the rise of markets and quasi-markets in areas
before was class. Though sometimes evident in will extend in either the former Soviet Union or the phenomenon, and paints over diversity and complexity that have hitherto been part of the welfare state. The
matters of dress or manner, this difference was Arab world. The bloody confrontation in Andijan, in favour of finding a convenient ‘conceptual handle’
mostly registered in means of transportation – Uzbekistan, suggests that there may be setbacks. Our on a par with ‘the state’ and ‘the market’.
Hezbollah supporters travelling by bus or foot rather next Yearbook may be in a position to discuss the Equating NGOs and non-profit organisations with 3 The forum goes back to a Clinton-Gore initiative for government
reform. The first forum was held at the White House in 1999,
than the fleets of Mercedes, SUVs and Hummers implications of further challenges to Central-Asian civil society is also part of a process of instrumen- and has since then emerged as the major international meeting
used by opposition supporters. There was a very and Middle Eastern authoritarianism. talisation by national governments and international on governmental modernisation and innovation.
20 21
Box I.3: Lebanon’s ‘Independence 05’: from a moment to a movement?
Since 14 February 2005, and the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri, Lebanon has captured the political and economic advantages the country’s presence in Lebanon afforded it. Loyalists tried to
the attention of the international community. The murder of Hariri, a powerful international businessman and counter-attack taking a legalistic-technical approach to the assassination, denying its terrorist nature, and
major player in Lebanon’s reconstruction and peace process, sparked an immense and unexpected reaction hastily naming bogus culprits. They also tried to legitimise Syria’s presence based on historic ties, and blamed
from ordinary people. Winds of civic change seemed to be blowing from Kiev to Beirut and Cairo, legitimising foreign powers for supporting opposition groups and weakening state institutions. In an attempt to co-opt the
and reinstating the role of popular democratic practices in changing the course of politics and challenging growing opposition, loyalists called for a massive ‘one-million’ demonstration on 8 March 2005. Hundreds of
incumbent regimes. The intensity of this popular response enhanced the prospects of a coherent and enduring thousands of demonstrators gathered including, in addition to some pro-Syrian political groups, an overwhelming
civic movement that would impose new standards of participatory democracy and break the hold of a sectarian number of members of one sectarian community mainly coming from disadvantaged areas. The tensions
political leadership. This review of the period between 14 February and 30 April 2005 – ‘Independence 05’ – between the pro- and anti-Syrian camps assumed a new sectarian and socio-economic dimension.
attempts to trace the continuity of the movement. In a resounding political rebuff to loyalists, the Opposition also called for a ‘one-million’ demonstration, on
The assassination of Hariri concluded the post-war period since 1990, which had seen Syria’s role as 14 March. In an unprecedented effort, civil society groups, political parties and economic institutions collaborated
Lebanon’s guarantor strengthen in response to the Israeli occupation of South Lebanon between 1978 and on this memorable civic march, which encapsulated the spirit of the ‘Independence 05 uprising’. In addition
2000. Since 1990 the influence of Syrian and collaborating Lebanese security services nurtured political and to television stations providing continuous live transmission (especially the Hariri-owned channel), leading
economic corruption in a clientelist sectarian political system. Political tension had increased in the wake of advertising agencies created popular political slogans and paraphernalia, and many singers joined in solidarity
a Syrian-induced constitutional change in October 2004, which extended President Emile Lahoud’s term. Hariri songs. Many large firms, from banks to private hospitals, arranged for their employees to participate in the
led the opposition to the pro-Lahoud government, reshuffling political alliances into pro- and anti-Syrian demonstration. As a result, leaders of political parties and youth groups marched alongside individuals, families,
camps. His assassination provoked outrage from politicians and ordinary people. A ‘Opposition’ bloc was neighbourhood associations and rural groups in the streets of downtown Beirut. More than a million demon-
formed, which denounced the assassination as an unacceptable breach of the rules of the Lebanese political strators gathered – the largest demonstration in Lebanon. Protesters’ demands included an international
game. Citizens of all ages – led by youth groups – poured on to the streets for a protest that lasted more than inquiry into Hariri’s assassination, the resignation of the president, the resignation and detention of the heads
ten weeks. The minister of interior’s attempt to ban the protest met with defiance from protesters. Instead of of the five main security services, the immediate withdrawal of Syrian troops and security services, and the
violence, the demonstrations were commemorative, marked by sports events, human chains and thousands holding of elections by the end of May, in accordance with the constitution. In the following weeks Syrian troops
of people collectively forming the Lebanese flag. Protesters offered flowers to the armed forces, portraying and security forces withdrew after a 30-year presence in Lebanon, and four out of the five heads of the
and emphasising the ‘civilised’ nature of the movement. Lebanese security forces stepped down.
In its formative phase, this civic action was inspired by personal and emotional responses, and evolved in The UN response was in two stages. Ten days after the assassination, a UN mission of inquiry flew to
four steps: an emotional reaction to the assassination of Hariri, his public funeral, the youth-led protests and Lebanon, examined the crime scene and presented a report to the Security Council. On 7 April 2005, following
the transformation of his grave into a shrine. The brutal assassination of such a powerful man destroyed his a unanimous UN Security Council decision, a UN independent investigation commission flew to Lebanon
invincible image, which had been part of Lebanon’s collective consciousness. People responded from many to investigate Hariri’s death, and is still working on the case at the time of writing. General elections were
diverse motives: grief at the death of a great enabler of reconstruction and peace-building, fear of violent scheduled for 29 May–19 June 2005.
retribution and recurrence of civil war, or simply anger at the sabotage of the political process. Hundreds The concluding phase was not as glorious. Less then three months after Independence 05, the temporality
of thousands of citizens from all over the country attended his funeral and burial in Beirut’s Martyrs’ Square, of national solidarity, civic engagement and political reform was clear. Once the Opposition’s demands had
which was renamed ‘Freedom Square’ by opposition youth groups staging sit-ins. been fulfilled, cracks started to appear. The final days of the youth sit-in reflected this tension before it was
In the consolidation phase of this civic movement, the personal amalgamated with the political. Opposition hastily called off. The sectarian-based political system and electoral competition have proven to be the most
leaders demanded that the assassins be brought to justice. A blue ribbon and pin of Hariri that said simply difficult challenge facing any reformist civic movement. Opposition leaders fell out over diverging electoral
‘the truth’, became the slogan of the campaign. Opposition leaders’ demands for justice and accountability interests and began mobilising support by playing on clientelistic sectarian loyalties. As the loyalist camp
sealed popular support. It contrasted with dozens of unresolved political assassinations and a frustrating atrophied, many loyalists dropped their pro-Syrian stand and took up a polarised sectarian discourse. With
end-of-war amnesty granted to warlords. A shift in gendered political roles also boosted the momentum. In electoral alliances reuniting Opposition and Loyalist candidates, new sectarian-based grievances have been
a coordinated division of labour, Hariri’s wife and daughters represented the ‘feminine’ and ‘private’ image of created. Many citizens from the ‘14 March’ have aligned themselves with their leaders’ political and sectarian
sorrow, with moving broadcasts of their visits to the grave. MP Bahia Hariri, sister of the late Hariri, stepped swings. This realignment restored gendered political roles as Hariri’s sister was sidelined and his son inherited
into a ‘masculine’ and ‘public’ political role while maintaining a ‘feminine’ appearance of mourning and insisting the family’s political leadership. Also, the leaders of most youth groups were excluded from representation

she be called the ‘Martyr’s sister’. Her speech in the parliamentary session, broadcast live to the weeping in electoral coalitions by traditional candidates. Promises of an opposition reunion and reform have been
nation, was key to the government’s resignation two weeks after the assassination. Her resolute and frequent set for the post-election period and are again backed by international players such as France and the US.
public appearances enhanced her potential as the successor of her brother. Other women opposition politicians The ‘Independence 05’ civic movement will probably have to wait for another moment to be revived.
joined the solidarity front, including two widows of former presidents who had also been assassinated.
The confrontation phase focused on gaining politicised popular support. Momentum was built by strengthening Nisrine Mansour, Social Policy Department, LSE
the concept of national identity against an external enemy. ‘Lebaneseness’ was promoted as civilised solidarity
of all faiths facing barbaric terrorism. Legitimisation of the movement’s demands relied on the adoption of
international (Western) standards of democracy, exemplified by French and US support for the cause. The
external enemy was Syria, blamed for masterminding the assassination, and already unpopular because of
22 23
assumption is that NGOs are more efficient providers citizen participation; a new relationship between the Secretary-General’s dramatic announcement that which are sceptical and suspicious of international
than governments. The second approach – the discovery government and civil society with an engaged gov- the UN has reached ‘a fork in the road’ and needs ‘a institutions devote energy to participating in its debates,
of civil society as a source of social capital – is based ernment and a vibrant set of voluntary associations of hard look at fundamental issues’, leading to ‘structural rather than fighting the organisation from the outside.
on the growing awareness among policy-makers and many kinds; a wider role for businesses as socially changes’ (see Chapter 5). Despite the caution of the panel, Falk predicts that
scholars that the very social fabric of society is and environmentally responsible institutions; and a The Panel of Eminent Persons on United Nations- ‘a campaign on behalf of some institutional presence
changing. The assumption here is that civil society is structural reform of the welfare state away from Civil Society Relations stakes a major claim for global for global civil society within the structure of the United
key to social trust and cohesion. In the developed world, ‘entitlement’ towards risk management (Giddens civil society by titling its report We the Peoples: the Nations is likely to build momentum and generate
the decline of traditional membership organisations 1998; 2000; The White House 1999). United Nations, Civil Society and Global Governance (UN worldwide excitement’ (Chapter 5). There are various
such as unions, political parties and churches, alleged Yet, in the course of less than a decade, the ideological 2004a). It has often been remarked that the United developments that would back up this forecast: the
erosions in social capital and interpersonal as well as foundations of a renewal of government have been Nations does not in fact represent ‘peoples’ or ‘nations’, self-styled ‘World Forum of Civil Society Networks’
institutional trust, and other factors, bring with them cleansed of the ideology of empowerment in favour of but states. By its choice of title, the panel appears to Ubuntu launched a campaign to reform international
a profound awareness of uncertainty and a concern technocratic approaches that essentially incorporate suggest that civil society represents ‘the peoples’ institutions, beginning with the United Nations, in
about social stability. In the developing world, debate NGOs in the project to achieve greater public sector instead. It draws inspiration from ideas about par- 2002 (Reform Campaign URL), and the Italian Tavola
about social exclusion, failing states and social efficiency. New public management and not civic ticipatory or deliberative democracy to argue that, della Pace followed suit with an ambitious event in
disintegration raises similar expectations whereby civil renewal dominates, and the government-civil society through the mediation of global civil society, ‘anyone Padua in 2004 (Tavola della Pace URL).
society is to serve as the panacea to counteract social dialogue is increasingly top-down, paying lip service to can enter the debates that most interest them, through
isolation and the negative impact of individualism on social accountability and self-organisation. advocacy, protest, and in other ways’ (UN 2004a: para
social cohesion. Instrumentalisation of civil society rhetoric for 13). These are radical claims, which are valid in representation in the elective sense
The third approach – social accountability – sees essentially neo-liberal policies has allowed govern- principle but are extremely difficult to apply in practice is not what global civil society does
governance as a combined effort that includes civil ments with very different political ideologies and varied (see also Glasius 2005; Kaldor 2003). But the panel’s
society actors and business as well as government. human rights backgrounds to make claims on what they concrete recommendations are hardly in keeping with
The assumption in this case is that civil society enhances term ‘civil society’ but mean privatised governmental such an optimistic view of civil society’s role in global At the World Social Forum, where the interest in
accountability and transparency. It is about affirming functions under state tutelage. And yet the rhetoric of governance. As Richard Falk notes in Chapter 5, the international institutions has steadily risen (see
and operationalising directly accountable relationships civil society, which has proved surprisingly durable since report engages in ‘soft advocacy’, proposing primarily Marlies Glasius and Jill Timms, Chapter 6), the 2005
between citizens and the state. It includes efforts by the early 1990s, opens opportunities for civil society to maintain the concessions global civil society has won seminars on UN reform have generated a network
citizens and civil society organisations to hold the leaders to respond to the apolitical and top-down view over the decades through sustained pressure, rather backed by 140 organisations and a host of global
state to account as well as actions on the part of of civil society, and to correct both terminology and than to specify a structural role for civic participation. celebrities. An appeal, again in the name of ‘we the
government, civil society, the media and other actors agenda by engaging the new public management Moreover, the panel appears to show a tendency to people’, calls for ‘a constituent process involving all
to promote or facilitate greater accountability. dialogue more forcefully. The UN’s recent interest in want to ‘streamline’ and homogenise civil society possible actors in civil society, local authorities and
The combination of these three, somewhat contra- civil society may offer a platform in this respect for views. To this end, it proposes ‘disciplined networking parliaments. Priority must be given to ensure due
dictory, perspectives could be seen as a kind of merger what we see as a need to counteract the top-down and peer review processes of the constituencies’ (UN representation of region, race, class, gender and all
of neo-liberal policies of welfare state reform with ‘third and instrumentalist view of government organisations 2004a: para 26). But does not this run counter to the social pluralities in this process’. A ‘Global Day of
way’ approaches. Whereas neo-liberal policies stress vis-à-vis civil society. More doubtfully, the rejection of aspiration of democratising the United Nations through Mobilisation For a New World Order Against Poverty,
smaller governments overall, greater fiscal account- the European Union’s draft constitution in a series of global civil society participation? As Iris Marion Young War and Unilateralism’ has been proclaimed for 10
ability and individual responsibility, the third way calls referenda may also offer such an opportunity. (1997: 401) puts it, deliberative democracy should not September (September 10 URL). But the details of the
for decentralised forms of government based on be ‘a comfortable place of conversation among those proposed reforms are not (yet?) worked out.
transparency and accountability, efficient administration, The UN and global civil society who share language, assumptions, and ways of looking Many proposals for UN reform go in the direction of
more opportunities for direct democracy, social In 2004/5 we wrote that ‘if key decisions are taken at at issues’. The emphasis on ‘disciplined networking some kind of global civil society assembly, sometimes
inclusion, and an environmentally friendly economy. the global level, there have to be mechanisms for and peer review’ could have the effect of brushing out alongside an assembly of parliamentarians, to supple-
There was always a technocratic overlap between increasing the responsiveness of global institutions to differences within global civil society. This may make ment or replace the existing General Assembly (Falk

new public management and decentralisation; but they the demands of individual citizens’ (Kaldor, Anheier and ‘consultation’ more convenient and speedy for inter- Chapter 5; Van Rooy 2004: 134). But the fundamental
differed in terms of civil engagement and empowerment. Glasius 2005: 16). This question has taken centre stage national institutions, but it has negative consequences flaw of all these proposals is that they try to push
Initially, the third way foresaw a re-organisation of the at the United Nations in 2005, as Secretary-General for the legitimacy and creativity of global civil society, civil society into the straitjacket of representative
state that required an activation of civil society and Kofi Annan commissioned two high-level panels to and hence for its influence in the long term. It would democracy. As we and others have argued before,
social participation, the encouragement of social advise on the UN’s relation with global civil society on also be a strategic mistake for the United Nations. representation in the elective sense is not what global
entrepreneurship, and new approaches to public- the one hand, and its arrangements on governance of Procedures to invite and manage different and even civil society does (Edwards 2003; Van Rooy 2004:
private partnerships in the provision of public goods global security on the other hand. As Richard Falk opposing perspectives are not only a requirement for 62–76; Anderson and Rieff 2004/5: 29–31). We believe
and services. Specifically, the framework involved a describes in Chapter 5, both panels have made some having serious democratic debate. It would be a victory the claims, and hence also the structures, for
renewal of political institutions to encourage greater useful practical suggestions, but neither lives up to for the United Nations and for multilateralism if groups democratising the United Nations through global civil
24 25
society should be more imaginative. through of Jean-Marie Le Pen, leader of the National an excuse for not responding to requests, objections, the biggest clusters of INGOs mirror the centres of
Civil society participation can aid the transparency Front, to the final round of the 2002 French presidential ideas and proposals sent to a national address. Europe corporate and governmental power: New York, London,
of decision-making through calling states to account elections and the spectacular, if short-lived, success of seems to most people to be a set of buildings in Washington DC and Brussels. Hence, the network
and monitoring state behaviour. It can contribute – the Pim Fortuyn List in the 2002 Dutch parliamentary Brussels. The constitution became a symbol of distrust reproduces rather than counteracts the amplification
although not inevitably – to levelling the playing field election. Part of the reason for the ‘no’ vote clearly lay and frustration with the opaque character of decision- of Northern over Southern voices.
between states. It can introduce new viewpoints into in the desire to punish the main parties (including in making in a global era. Glasius and Timms, in their chapter on social
discussions and spark more substantial deliberation, both cases the socialist opposition), which advocated Opposition to the constitution came from both Left forums, come to rather different conclusions. The
not just predicated on putative state interest. And it a ‘yes’ vote. and Right. The Left voted against the content of the decision to hold the first World Social Forum in Brazil
can inject arguments based on (contestable) ethical constitution, particularly the neo-liberalism of the (albeit in the relatively wealthy south of the country)
claims regarding the global common good (Glasius constitution, the clauses incorporating wholesale the was a conscious attempt to get away from the self-
2005; Van Rooy 2004; Scholte 2001). Thinking about the rejection of the constitution reflected Thatcher-era provisions for the single market originally reinforcing dynamic described by Katz and Anheier.
how such ‘supplementary democracy’ (Van Rooy 2004: the growing distance between the European contained in the Maastricht Treaty. The Right were Social forums have since organised primarily around
137) through global civil society can be strengthened political class and the citizens. For the voting against Europe. It was both a debate about a South-American/European axis, more recently and
is both more creative and more realistic than proposals ‘man in the street’ interviewed on television, what kind of Europe and a debate about the French more problematically also including the Indian
that would make a set of international NGOs represent the rejection was a chance to express and Dutch relationships to Europe. And this was one subcontinent and Africa (see Glasius and Timms,
global civil society, which would in turn represent the disaffection with the political process of the big problems with the referenda. Because they Chapter 6). Europe is undoubtedly still over-represented,
global demos. took place in separate countries, they became pro- or but social forum organisation in North America is very
Even so, the upsurge of interest within global civil anti-Europe debates, debates about national identity, weak. But beyond the geography of the social forums,
society to radically democratise the United Nations But there was a wider problem with the way in which debates about ‘in’ or ‘out’, rather than debates about the most important thing about them from a global
and other international institutions, not incrementally, the constitution had come about and the way it was the future of Europe. civil society infrastructure perspective is the way they
but as a campaign in itself, may revitalise a rather communicated to the European public. A constitution There is no question that EU reform is necessary, have focused on horizontal networking across cultures
tired debate. As Hagai Katz and Helmut Anheier write is an emotive document, and could be considered as and many of the provisions in the constitution would and issues, and experimenting with participatory forms
in Chapter 7, ‘in light of the deepening weakness of nothing less than a covenant between a community of have made the organisation more effective, particularly of organising, as values in themselves.
the UN system …global governance actors lack any citizens, establishing not just the rules of how they are in the area of foreign policy. But the rejection could be The debate in Chapter 2, between three thinkers
motivation to act and often prefer to free ride’, and, as to be governed but also the values they share. The US taken by the politicians of Europe as an opportunity to deeply invested in the World Social Forum (WSF),
Falk discusses at length in Chapter 5, there are many Constitution is a prime example of such a text, but rectify the mistake they made in foisting a ‘constitution’ including two of its founder members, focuses on the
barriers to innovation. A new campaign may put even the Charter of Principles of the World Social upon their citizens without consulting them. This could difference between a movement and a space. For Chico
sufficient pressure on states and on the institution Forum could be considered akin to constitutions as a be a chance to have really open Union-wide discussions Whitaker, the WSF is a space where myriad individuals
itself to accept some changes. At least, it may help to foundational statement (Glasius and Timms Chapter about what people like, and dislike, about ‘being Euro- and organisations can come together to meet, debate,
prevent a simultaneous rollback of the power of global 6). But the European Constitution is a bureaucratic pean’; whether they feel in need of a constitution; and argue, and plan campaigns. Such a space can stimulate
civil society within international institutions, and of document, negotiated between politicians and former what should be in it. In such a process, which could campaigns or movements; indeed, the march against
international institutions within global governance. politicians, with little attempt at resonance with the include town hall meetings, school assemblies and the war in Iraq on 15 February 2003 and the Global
people of Europe. Indeed, politicians did not make online discussion forums, the people of Europe could Call to Action Against Poverty, which came out of the
The EU constitution and citizen participation sufficient effort to explain what was in the constitution define for themselves to what extent they actually have 2005 WSF, are two such examples. But to be effective
The European project is in trouble as the EU’s draft and why it was important. In the Netherlands, ‘lack of a common identity. If a real constitution can be forged in developing and purveying shared bottom-up analyses
constitution is the subject of a series of referenda. At information’ was one of the main reasons for voting out of such discussions and consultations, the process of global risks and injustices, the Forum needs to
the time of writing, Spain and Luxembourg have voted no (De Volkskrant 2005). The same explanation was and text itself could actually be drivers of a common retain its horizontal networking character. In contrast,
‘yes’, the former with a record low turnout, whereas given for the abstention by many Spanish voters, European spirit, as defined by the people themselves. Bernard Cassen and Boaventura de Sousa Santos
France and the Netherlands have voted ‘no’; and it is where the vote was ‘yes’, but with a turnout of only 42 warn against the ‘tyranny of structurelessness’ and
not clear whether other planned referenda in the per cent (Shields 2005). Social forums and interconnectedness argue that the WSF needs more transparent organ-

Czech Republic, Denmark, Ireland, Poland, Portugal Thus, the rejection of the constitution reflected the Two chapters in this Yearbook discuss directly the isational rules in order to be able to build on its strength
and the United Kingdom will go ahead. Some of these growing distance between the European political class matter of global civil society’s infrastructure: how to put forward concrete proposals for opposing neo-
countries are expected to be Euro-sceptic, but how did and the citizens. For the ‘man in the street’ interviewed global it is in terms of actual on-the-ground presence liberalism. They find the social forums too amorphous,
the citizens of two of the founding members of the EU, on television, the rejection was a chance to express and connectedness rather than rhetoric. The conclu- and hark back to earlier movements with more clearly
with a history of Euro-enthusiasm, come to turn against disaffection with the political process. It was a response sions of Katz and Anheier’s chapter on international circumscribed mandates and a clear leadership. In
the constitution? to decades of decision-making by the European elites NGOs give a bleak response to this question. While particular, they defend the ‘Manifesto of Porto Alegre’,
In both the Netherlands and France, there has behind closed doors. There is no ‘face’ of Europe, no international NGOs are nearly all connected to each launched in 2005 with very little fanfare. Among the
emerged in recent years a general mood of distrust of obvious address to which requests, objections, ideas, other in one huge inclusive network, there is a young activists of the social forums, however, the
establishment politicians, as evidenced by the break- or proposals can be sent. Yet Europe is often used as ‘pronounced centre-periphery structure’. Moreover, Whitaker view seems to be in the ascendant.
26 27
Box I.4: Key reports and strategies of 2004/5
A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility Our Common Interest

Report of the High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change The Commission for Africa
Established by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan under the chairmanship of Anand Panyarachun, former This report by the Commission for Africa, set up by UK Prime Minister Tony Blair in March 2004 with
Prime Minister of Thailand, this panel reconsidered the role of the UN with regard to peace and security in 17 commissioners, proposes a ‘coherent package for Africa’ based on ‘a new kind of partnership’ between
an era of globalisation when ‘a threat to one is a threat to all’. Tasked with generating new ideas about the the continent and the developed world. Arguing that many African countries have been making progress in
policies and institutions needed for the UN to be effective in the twenty-first century, the panel outlines the governance and growth, the report outlines recommendations in six key areas: governance and capacity
rationale for the concept and system of ‘collective security’. It endorses the notion of ‘a collective international building, peace and security, investing in people, growth and poverty reduction, more and fairer trade, and
responsibility to protect’, exercisable by the Security Council authorising military intervention, in the case of resources. On trade, the report recommends that industrialised nations should dismantle the tariffs and
genocide, ethnic cleansing or serious violations of international law, when states are unable or unwilling to subsidies that give them an unfair advantage over African producers. Africa has to make changes internally
act. In contrast to the past failure of member states to agree on a definition of terrorism, the report provides to improve the transport network, and reduce bureaucracy and tariffs system. Among proposals for financing,
a clear definition, arguing that terrorism can never be justified, and urges the General Assembly to conclude the recommendations include an additional US$25 billion per year in aid by 2010 (and a further $25 billion per
year by 2015), a commitment from rich countries to give 0.7 per cent of their GDP in aid, and debt cancellation
a comprehensive convention on terrorism. In addition to revitalising the Commission on Human Rights and
for the poorest countries in sub-Saharan Africa.
creating a Peacebuilding Commission, the report offers two models for reform of the Security Council that,
www.commissionforafrica.org/english/report/introduction.html
by broadening the states represented, would increase its credibility and effectiveness.
www.un.org/secureworld/
Investing in Development: A Practical Plan to Achieve the Millennium Development Goals
We the Peoples: Civil Society, the UN and Global Governance UN Millennium Project
This report is the outcome of research by the ten task forces of the UN Millennium Project, an independent
Panel of Eminent Persons on UN-Civil Society Relations
advisory body to the Secretary-General, led by Professor Jeffrey Sachs. The report’s ten recommendations comprise
Acknowledging that public opinion had become a key factor ‘influencing intergovernmental and governmental practical actions designed to speed up progress towards achieving the MDGs by 2015. Based on the current
policies and actions’, this panel is based on the premise that ‘civil society is now so vital to the UN that rate of progress many countries, particularly in Africa, will fail to meet these eight targets designed to tackle the
engaging with it well is a necessity, not an option’. Chaired by Fernando Henrique Cardoso, former President worst offences of poverty, which were enshrined in the 2000 Millennium Declaration.
of Brazil, the panel report makes 30 recommendations, based on four paradigms: that the UN become a The first recommendation urges developing countries to have in place by 2006 poverty reduction strategies that
more outward-looking organisation, embrace a plurality of constituencies, connect the local with the global, are radical enough to meet the MDGs by 2015. These strategies should scale up public investments and provide
and help strengthen democracy. a framework for strengthening governance. Another recommendation is the ‘Quick Win actions’, launched in
www.un.org/reform/pdfs/cardosopaper13june.htm 2005, which include free mass distribution of malaria nets and medicines for children, expansion of provision
of anti-retroviral medicines to people living with HIV/AIDS, ending fees for primary schools and health services,
In Larger Freedom: Towards Development, Security and Human Rights for All and replenishing soil nutrients for small farmers. Among the proposals aimed at high-income countries are
increases in development assistance, opening markets to developing country exports, and increased support
Report of the Secretary-General
for and investment in scientific research in health, agriculture, environmental management and climate.
This report embraces the recommendations of the High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change,
www.unmillenniumproject.org/reports/index.htm
and the Panel of Eminent Persons on Civil Society-UN Relations. In articulating priority areas for action by
members states under the principle of freedom – from want, from fear and to live in dignity – the report
A Human Security Doctrine for Europe
emphasises the necessity, challenge and capability of meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by
2015. This encapsulates the ethos of the Millennium Project Report to the UN Secretary General (see below). The Barcelona Report of the Study Group on Europe’s Security Capabilities
In Larger Freedom also outlines the changes needed to reform the structure and culture of the UN. The The report, commissioned by EU High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy Javier Solana,
report concludes with an annex listing specific actions on which heads of state will decide at the Millennium argues for a fundamental rethink of Europe’s approach to security – not only within its borders but beyond. With
+5 Summit in New York in September 2005. terrorism, the changing nature of warfare, and ripple effects of state collapse, Europe cannot ignore the growing

www.un.org/largerfreedom/ insecurity around the globe. A bottom-up approach, predicated on human rather than nation-state security, should
be at the heart of European policy, the report argues. Instead of defeating enemies or pacifying warring parties,
EU missions should focus on protecting civilians through law enforcement and, if necessary, the use of military
force. To carry out such missions, the report proposes an integrated civil-military force of 15,000 personnel, a
third of whom would be civilians with various professional skills and experiences. The Study Group developed
seven principles for Europe’s security policy which apply to prevention, conflict and post-conflict contexts alike,
and which are intended to guide the actions of high-level EU officials, politicians in the member states, diplomats,
and soldiers and civilians in the field, as well as a new legal framework governing such operations.
www.lse.ac.uk/Depts/global/Publications/HumanSecurityDoctrine.pdf
28 29
An optimistic conclusion from these chapters could between poverty and security, between – to use the potential future terrorists. Nor is it yet clear whether politan populations against terrorist attacks. Everyone
therefore be that an INGO contingent within global language of this introduction – dangers and risks. any of these proposals will make it to the implemen- has a right to feel secure, which means to be free from
civil society, focused on lobbying work in the corridors Terrorism and weapons of mass destruction are pres- tation stage. The G8 summit has been predictably fear and free from want. Yet, as the Commission on
of power, is complemented by a more dispersed, more ented, in these reports, as ‘other tsunami’ in the sense modest in its decisions, but at least it was discussing Human Security makes clear, it is not a good that can
militant as well as more self-reflexive contingent of that they are represented as a potential risk to us all. issues such as trade subsidies or climate change, be delivered to passive subjects; it also involves an
social forums. But the question arises to what extent As in the case of climate change, connections are which would not previously have been on its agenda. element of emancipation.
and in what manner the get-on-with-it culture of the made between terrorism and inequality. But here the The G8 campaigners have pledged to maintain the Finally, the concept refers to the security of individuals
relatively powerful INGOs interacts with the more dominant argument is not that terrorism would hit the pressure on political leaders, who will meet again at the and communities rather than states, whether we are
contentious, chaotic and creative social forum culture. poor harder, but rather that inequality itself increases UN Millennium + 5 Summit in New York in September talking about state borders or the protection of the state
Further research might provide a fuller picture of the risk of terrorism. Thus, the connection becomes one 2005, to review progress on the eight Millennium apparatus, and is thus connected to human rights as
whether these two worlds are fairly separate or of self-interest, and is not the preserve of a radical Development Goals, which were intended to address well as human development, civil liberties as well as
intimately linked, and whether relations are cordial, social justice movement. It has become common ground, the worst offences of poverty by 2015. As Kofi Annan social justice. In the case of security, this is particularly
antagonistic, or creatively contentious. at least in the rhetoric if not in the policy of Western said at a public event in London’s St Paul’s Cathedral important because it strips it from its historic
states, and expressed in these reports, that poverty on the eve of the G8: ‘We cannot win overnight. Success connection with the state, and the state’s prerogative
The year of the reports and inequality are security risks, and poverty alleviation will require sustained action across the entire decade to decide what constitutes a threat to security and what
Starting with the Brandt Commission in 1980, a phe- can therefore be a form of anti-terrorist policy. between now and the deadline (2015)… This is why the does not. The human security frame acknowledges that
nomenon that has become an important component This year’s reports have engendered a mixed mass mobilization we are seeing now is so important’ the security of citizens is not always bound up with the
of global civil society is the plethora of commissions, response. Within decision-making circles, the reports (UNIS 2005). security of the state; sometimes it is the state itself
study groups and task forces set up by governments have been welcomed as bringing together and taking that most threatens its citizens. On the other hand, it
or international institutions to bring together expert forward a range of proposals on the global and European Conclusion: risk and human security also acknowledges that in the twenty-first century the
opinion on specific global issues. The reports of these agenda. Among campaigning groups and NGOs, many The past year has been a roller coaster year for global state may not always be able to keep its citizens secure,
international bodies can be viewed as a sort of filter have expressed scepticism that the reports are too civil society. Events like the tsunami or the London bomb- and other actors, at the local, regional and global levels,
between civil society groups and the institutions of moderate and that, by focusing on what is perceived to ings have exposed the meaning of world risk society. should share responsibility for human security.
global governance. They are a way of drawing attention be politically possible, they have failed to shift the global Global civil society action, ranging from respectable This is where global civil society comes in. The idea
to global issues, both for the public and for decision- consensus in a more radical direction. Reports are, of reports to anarchic demonstrations, can be understood of human security can connect many of the global civil
makers. They can be both ‘top-down’, in the sense that course, a form of deliberation. The question is whether as attempts to portray both everyday dangers faced by society activities described in this introduction, from
they are generally commissioned by political institutions the proposals contained in a report can be translated millions of people in the poorer and more violent parts of social justice and climate change campaigns to disaster
and are often regarded as mechanisms for mobilisation, into global decision-making, whether moderation was the world and their translation into risks faced by people relief and campaigns against political violence. Because
and at the same time ‘bottom-up’, in so far as they the appropriate strategy or whether action requires living in the richer, supposedly more secure parts of the concept applies to the community of human beings,
take evidence from citizens and civil society groups more widespread pressure. the world. it offers the potential for expressing a global precau-
and offer a form of access. Whether they represent One concept that brings together many of these tionary principle. In Global Civil Society 2004/5 we
democratisation or instrumentalisation, therefore, concerns is that of ‘human security’. The term has redefined global civil society as the medium through
remains a question to be researched. The past year has been a roller coaster year been popularised by yet another report, that of the which one or more social contracts are negotiated by
The past year has been the year of reports (see Box for global civil society. Events like the Commission on Human Security (2003), and is applied individual citizens and the various institutions of
I.4), particularly for the United Nations and the Euro- tsunami or the London bombings have in the Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel on Threats, global governance (national, international and local)
pean Union. A number of reports were commissioned exposed the meaning of world risk society Challenges and Change (UN 2004b). But although the (Kaldor, Anheier and Glasius, 2004/5:2; Held 2004).
in the aftermath of the crises in both institutions as a term is beginning to be used in development discourse, This is an ongoing process involving debate, argument,
result of the war in Iraq. The profound divisions over its potential may not yet be fully realised. It is a term campaigning, struggle, pressure, information, and a
the war immobilised the institutions and represented At the 2005 World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, with which global civil society activists can confront wide range of groups and individuals. One scenario is
a profound crisis of multilateralism and global French President Jacques Chirac endorsed the idea of the current preoccupation of governments and public the further instrumentalisation of global civil society

governance. The reports can be viewed as proposals an ‘international solidarity levy’ to fight HIV/AIDS; British opinion with terrorism, entering the security debate as a partner in a top-down effort to contain risk. The
for overcoming these crises and reinvigorating efforts Prime Minister Tony Blair proposed a doubling of aid to with strategies that go beyond repression. This could alternative scenario is a combined effort to confront
to apply the precautionary principle at a global level. Africa and debt relief; and German Chancellor Gerhard be more realistic and productive than just lamenting everyday dangers of poverty, insecurity and environ-
The key conclusions of some of these reports are listed Schröder called for an end to ‘developed world agricul- the current security paradigm. mental degradation. Human security could be a
in Box I.4, with further discussion of some in Richard ture and export subsidies, punitive customs and excise On the one hand, it involves accepting that security is powerful framework for global civil society in framing
Falk’s chapter. duties’ (WEF 2005). It is uncertain to what extent this not just an obsession of controlling governments, it is these risks in transformative ways.
The central concerns of the 2005 reports are poverty increased social justice agenda can be attributed to the a deeply felt concern by people all over the world. On
and security. Perhaps the most significant idea that activities of the re-styled global social justice move- the other hand, the term ‘human security’ suggests that
comes out of the all the reports is the connection ment or to the desire to assuage the ‘global rancour’ of security policies must go well beyond securing metro-
30 31
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34

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INTRODUCTION

Marlies Glasius, Mary Kaldor and Helmut Anheier

GLOBAL CIVIL SOCIETY 2005/6

GLOBAL CIVIL SOCIETY 2005/6

The UN flash appeal Criticism of the response to the tsunami

GLOBAL CIVIL SOCIETY 2005/6

Aid flows, in US$

Committed flash appeal

GLOBAL CIVIL SOCIETY 2005/6

GLOBAL CIVIL SOCIETY 2005/6

GLOBAL CIVIL SOCIETY 2005/6

GLOBAL CIVIL SOCIETY 2005/6

GLOBAL CIVIL SOCIETY 2005/6

12,000 2000 2001 2002

2003 2004 2005 (to July 24)

GLOBAL CIVIL SOCIETY 2005/6

GLOBAL CIVIL SOCIETY 2005/6

GLOBAL CIVIL SOCIETY 2005/6

GLOBAL CIVIL SOCIETY 2005/6

GLOBAL CIVIL SOCIETY 2005/6

GLOBAL CIVIL SOCIETY 2005/6

A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility Our Common Interest

GLOBAL CIVIL SOCIETY 2005/6

GLOBAL CIVIL SOCIETY 2005/6

GLOBAL CIVIL SOCIETY 2005/6

Relations (Cardoso Report). UN Doc. A/58/817

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