[governance] Mercenaries on the list

[Garth Graham]

On 24-May-08, at 2:46 PM, Jacques Berleur wrote:

> 2b) "The civil society covers all the active networks in the  
> political public space which do not depend
> upon either the administrative and governmental system, or the  
> business system." ([Weerts, 2004],
> .......
>
> Definition 2b has my preference. Hope this may help. But I don't  
> see how to derive the "mercenaries on
> the list" from the definition!!!

The way you get to "mercenaries" is by being a bit less descriptive  
and a bit more cynical about the system's process in the definition.   
In answer to that “what is civil society?” question, I prefer the  
argument of Martin Carnoy and Manuel Castells that global alliances  
of common interest among corporations and governments have invented a  
construct called “civil society.”  They said:

“The other axis of the nation-state's reconfiguration is its attempt  
to regain legitimacy and to represent the social diversity of its  
constituency through the process of decentralization and devolution  
of power and resources. This translates primarily into revitalizing  
sub-state national governments (such as Scotland or Catalonia),  
regional governments, local governments, and non-governmental  
organizations. Indeed, the dramatic expansion of non-governmental  
organizations around the world, most of them subsidized and supported  
by the state, can be interpreted as the extension of the state into  
civil society, in an effort to diffuse conflict and increase  
legitimacy by shifting resources and responsibility to the  
grassroots.”  …..

…..   “What emerges is a new form of the state. It is a state made of  
shared institutions, and enacted by bargaining and interactive  
iteration all along the chain of decision making: national  
governments, co-national governments, supra-national bodies,  
international institutions, governments of nationalities, regional  
governments, local governments, and NGOs (in our conception: neo- 
governmental organizations). Decision-making and representation take  
place all along the chain, not necessarily in the hierarchical, pre- 
scripted order. This new state functions as a network, in which all  
nodes interact, and are equally necessary for the performance of  
state's functions. The state of the Information Age is a network state.”

…. “Thus, the state diversifies the mechanisms and levels of its key  
functions (accumulation, reproduction, domination and legitimation),  
and distributes its performance along the network. The nation-state  
becomes an important, coordinating node in this interaction, but it  
does not concentrate either the power or the responsibility to  
respond to conflicting pressures.”

….. “The second way to establish legitimacy in the new historical  
context is decentralization of state power to sub-state levels: to  
sub-national groupings, to regions, and to local governments. This  
increases the probability that citizens will identify with their  
institutions and participate in the political process. While nation- 
states cede power, they also shift responsibility, in the hope of  
creating buffers between citizens' disaffection and national  
governments. Legitimacy through decentralization and citizen  
participation in non-governmental organizations seems to be the new  
frontier of the state in the 21st century.

  Still, the state will have to respond to social movements' demands  
to avoid a legitimacy crisis.”  ……

Quotes from: Martin Carnoy and Manuel Castells, “Globalization, the  
knowledge society and the network state: Poulantzas at the  
millennium,” Global Networks, 1, 1, 2001, 1-18

There is, after all, some joy in the thought that many of the debates  
about representation on the IGC list are merely a reflection of "the  
new frontier of the state in the 21st century."  Also that, if "the  
state of the Information Age is a network state," then the protocol  
that governs its structure is called "Internet Protocol."

GG____________________________________________________________
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