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Global Civil Society is the Answer to the Global

Democratic Deficit. Discuss.

Global civil society has become a buzzword among

policy-makers and scholars alike in the era of

globalization. While it is being hailed by some as an

inherently altruistic notion with potential to remedy the

emerging global democratic deficit, sceptics go so far as

to question its genuine existence. Scholte rightly argues

that whether ‘civil society activity, scaled up to global

dimensions, (is) an antidote to the failings of democracy

today’ depends upon many variables. Thus, different

conceptions of global civil society yield different

implications for democracy (2007: 15). This essay then

aims to deconstruct the discourses surrounding global

civil society, in order to assess whether it may impact

promisingly upon democracy in either of its apparent

forms. I shall put forth the argument that global civil

society, in its varying conceptions, does not provide the

answer to the global democratic deficit. This is because

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the concept itself cannot be perceived of outside of the

modern paradigm and thus detached from its Western roots,

which in turn severely limits its ability to challenge

the undesirable consequences of globalization.

In order for this essay to contribute meaningfully

to the wider academic discourse on the potential of

global civil society (henceforth referred to as GCS), it

must identify a problem against which to judge this

potential. The negative impact of industrial

modernization on global democracy shall therefore be

identified as the problem in the first part of this

paper. We explore Ulrich Beck’s conceptions of risk

society and reflexive modernization, in order to

determine the underlying nature of the global democratic

deficit. In part 2, we follow the rise of a standardized

global policy discourse, which places its hopes for

eliminating the global democratic deficit (henceforth

referred to as GDD) firmly in the hands of GCS. We then

examine in depth this particular understanding of GCS,

which is being employed by policy-makers and other

international actors in this context. It will soon emerge

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that the policies based on this understanding have done

little to remedy the GDD, as defined in part 1 of this

essay. We conclude that this is because the dominant

global political discourse has captured the concept of

GCS to refer to only a very limited selection of

political phenomena, namely those located in the so-

called ‘third sector’ (Scholte 2007: 16). In order to

provide a slightly more nuanced and less neo-liberally

biased, analysis of its impact on democracy, in part 3 we

open up the concept of GCS to include an alternative

vision by Mary Kaldor, constructed around the writings of

Jürgen Habermas. In the final part of the essay, I hope

to point out that this alternative version of GCS, as a

communicative sphere, while departing from the

restrictive neoliberal conception, ultimately cannot shed

its cosmopolitan, and thus inherently modernist,

normative roots. This in turn undermines its universal

applicability and thus its promise for reducing the GDD.

Part 1 – Why a Global Democratic Deficit?

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Standard accounts of the GDD build on the assumption

that globalization has eroded the power of sovereign

states as they suffer ‘loss of control over cross-border

action’ (Anderson and Rieff 2006: 27). In the absence of

a world state, a system of global governance has emerged

over the course of the last century to regulate growing

global interconnectedness. Overwhelmingly, the

institutions, which dominate the global governance

sphere, have remained exclusive and unaccountable. With

an underrepresentation of developing and transitional

countries, ‘decision making on key global (…) issues

remains concentrated in the major industrial countries’

(Langmore and Fitzgerald 2010), while policies are

devised with a decidedly neo-liberal bias. But even

formally neutral institutions cannot make up for the fact

that people are increasingly unable to meaningfully

influence the decisions that affect their lives. Kaldor

argues that, while common rules and procedures may

provide an institutional basis for the global

connectedness of states, ‘the spread of rules and

procedures is not the same as the spread of substantive

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democracy’ (2008: 34). It is precisely this lack of

substantive democracy, understood as ‘opportunities for

all individuals to shape their own lives and to

participate in and influence debates about public

decisions that affect them’, which Kaldor describes as

making up the GDD (2008: 35). Similarly, Scholte

attributes the GDD to the convergence of a number of

global phenomena: (1) an uninformed global demos, (2)

flawed institutional processes, (3) structural

inequalities, and (4) marginalised identities, which

means that a large number of people are ‘silenced’ within

governance processes.

Of course these developments have not occurred by

historical accident. One contemporary thinker who has

traced the impact of globalization on political decision-

making processes since the late 18th century is German

sociologist Ulrich Beck. His insights will help us to

establish a more fundamental understanding of the GDD

against which we can judge the potential of GCS. Beck’s

work circles around two main concepts, that of reflexive

modernization and risk society. Reflexive modernization

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describes the process of the self-destruction of

industrial society through ‘the victory of Western

modernization’ (1994: 2). In other words, modernity

backfires to create risk society (1994: 10). Risk society

emerges in two phases. First, effects and self-threats

are systematically produced but do not become public or

political issues. Second, ‘dangers of industrial society

begin to dominate public, private and political debates

and conflicts’ (1994: 5). It is crucial to note at this

point that throughout modernity the risks described above

had been captured by the nation state. Today, risks such

as nuclear threats or climate change can no longer be

contained within territorial borders, let alone by

national governments. Yet, while there are no longer

‘non-participants’ to global threats (Beck 1994: 11),

decision-making processes directed at these threats

remain confined to the formal political institutions of

modern society, which are themselves undemocratic. We

must then arrive at the conclusion that the proliferation

of industrial modernization has led to the GDD not only

by creating risk society in the first place, but also by

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failing to address said risks from outside the modernist

paradigm within which they were produced.

Part 2 - Global Civil Society to the Rescue?

Let us now turn to the historical moment at which GCS

is identified by the dominant political discourse as the

answer to what has been described above as the deepening

GDD. With the end of the Cold War, global governance

institutions gained leverage as they filled the power

vacuum created after the break down of the bi-polar world

order. The liberal democracies that spearheaded these

institutions, began feeling the deepening GDD as a crisis

of legitimacy (Anderson 2011). While throughout modernity

the liberal democratic state had gained legitimacy from

its citizens, who could negotiate their concerns and

challenge state power through civil society, global

governance institutions, such as the UN or the IMF, had

no such legitimacy resource. Their design left them

unaccountable to an overwhelming percentage of the world

population. In this light, the growing ubiquity of the

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concept of a GCS, first introduced in the late 1970s and

80s by Eastern European and Latin American activists who

regarded it as ‘a useful concept in opposing militarized

regimes’ (Kaldor 2003: 586), could be seen as a

convenient development for powerful global actors. If

civil society had played a crucial role in legitimizing

the state then a global civil society could surely do the

same for global political actors. And so by the early

1990s dominant political discourse had captured the

concept of GCS, by promising in its rhetoric the

democratization of global governance processes, through

societal input ‘from below’ (Scholte 2007: 15). The non-

governmental organisation (NGO) was viewed as a key agent

of this dynamic. NGOs were suitably institutionalised

manifestations of GCS whose numbers had grown

exponentially with the strengthening of the global human

rights regime and democratic transitions in post-

totalitarian societies. In any case, with the erosion of

state sovereignty through globalization, or the emergence

of risk society according to Beck (1994), NGOs were

increasingly taking a leading role in the provision of

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state services and functions across state borders and

causes. Most critically, the rhetoric circulating within

dominant policy discourse described NGOs as

representative of otherwise excluded views and interests

(Nelson 2002: 132). They were seen as credible and

trustworthy and thus their input could legitimize global

governance institutions and processes, by making these

more accountable. But did this dynamic actually reduce

the GDD in the sense that it allowed ‘the people affected

by a given circumstance (to) determine the policy

decisions vis-á-vis that circumstance’ (Scholte 2007:

21)? Most contemporary scholars would disagree, and here

is why:

First of all, Anderson criticises that the UN and NGOs

are mutually reconfirming (2011: 874). While NGOs are

seen as civil society organisations and therefore as

representatives of the world’s peoples for purposes of

providing the UN with a form of ‘quasi-democratic

legitimacy’ (2011: 855), NGOs are happy to fill this role

because it confirms their auto-vision as global moral

authorities. Because of this circular legitimation

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process, the assumption that NGOs can act as

intermediaries, thus democratizing the global governance

process, is never questioned. Yet, the GCS organisations

themselves often suffer from internal shortfalls in

transparency and accountability to those local groups

that they are claiming to act in the interest of (Nelson

2002: 133). Meanwhile, the assumption that these GCS

actors have purely altruistic intentions is inherently

misleading. Kaldor has described NGOs as ‘tamed social

movements’ (2003: 589), which means that they are

essentially interested in promoting their own cause.

Instead of the ‘the people of the world’ they represent

their own principles (Anderson and Rieff 2006: 29).

Additionally, it is important to acknowledge that in a

world dominated by liberal-capitalism, these actors must

too ensure their financial viability. Instead of

challenging the state and the market, ‘NGOs look

increasingly like quasi-governmental institutions,

because of the way that they substitute for state

functions, and at the same time compete with one another’

for donor funds (Kaldor 2003: 589). Naturally, the above

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factors challenge the legitimacy claims that global

governance actors make with reference to, what they

understand to be, GCS organisations. Their ability to

remedy the GDD, by providing people with an opportunity

to be directly involved with global decision-making

processes without constraints from the state or the

market, is no longer given. Finally, I will get to the

most crucial factor, which renders the dominant claim,

that NGOs as GCS organisations can provide an answer to

the GDD, invalid. Let us recall that in the first part of

this essay we determined that the GDD, produced by

reflexive modernization, which culminates in risk society

(Beck 1994), is a product of the failings of modernity.

As a historical paradigm it has proven inherently

exclusive and anti-democratic in its capacity to produce

knowledge and inform policy-decisions. The normative

regime, which both global governance institutions and

NGOs subscribe to, is firmly rooted in this modern

paradigm. Scholars have noted that NGOs begin to develop

in the 1970s and 80s alongside neoliberalism (Anheier,

Glasius and Kaldor 2012: 17). By the 1990s the global

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governance scene is dominated by policy-decisions, which

prioritise the global market and spread of humanitarian

norms. Unsurprisingly then, NGOs develop with an

overwhelming normative bias, with the promotion of human

rights and democracy as their main priority.

Interestingly, Anderson and Rieff note, that within this

discourse human rights and democracy are often used

interchangeably by NGOs who thereby fail to acknowledge

the deep contestation of these concepts outside of, but

also within, the West (2006: 34). This contestation can

probably be most felt in the form of backlashes against

said democracy promotion programmes, as described by both

Ishkanian (2008) and Chandler (2004). Chandler goes as

far as to suggest that the involvement of INGOs in

national civil society promotion schemes in the Balkans

should be read as an inherently neo-colonial endeavour.

The large gap between internationally funded civil

society associations and the Bosnian people, a dynamic

which resonates with the argument made earlier on in this

paragraph, leads to the downplaying of local power

relations and ultimately to conflict (2004: 235). The

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notion that local communities may be disinclined to

challenge their political elites for fear of economic and

social insecurities, escapes the understanding of most

Western actors. The NGOs remain unable to provide a

democratic link between locals and the international

community, because they are themselves trapped within the

normative confines of neoliberal modernity.

Should our analysis then end here? We have sufficient

evidence to conclude that those actors described by the

dominant global political rhetoric as constituting GCS,

have done little for the elimination of the GDD.

Naturally, this has also led to popular disillusionment

with the term itself. Yet, let us recall that so far we

have analysed the democratic potential of that version of

GCS, which is being advocated by those powers, who are

largely responsible for producing the GDD, as defined by

Beck, in the first place. In other words, we are failing

to see the concept from outside of the dominant paradigm,

while in fact scholars have suggested that the neo-

liberal hijacking of the concept, obscures alternative

understandings (Scholte 2007: 17). Howell and Peace

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(2001) have referred to this process as ‘the

Americanization of the Debate’ while Kaldor acknowledges

that global institutions and Western governments have

taken up the concept of GCS for their neo-liberal policy

agenda, but that this is not the whole story (2003: 589).

The above scholars agree that equating GCS with the NGO

sector silences a whole array of actors and should thus

be avoided. Moreover, if the backfiring of modernity has

indeed caused the GDD, then shouldn’t we search outside

of the dominant paradigm for the answer to this deficit?

In the third part of this essay, we will therefore

examine the potential of alternative understandings of

GCS, which claim to be less neo-liberally biased.

Part 3 – Alternative Global Civil Society

Mary Kaldor is among the frontrunners of an

alternative debate surrounding the concept of global

civil society, which appreciates its emancipatory

potential and ability to promote a kind of global

democracy that can maximize the ‘opportunities for all

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individuals to shape their own lives’ (2008: 35). Kaldor

is critical of the capturing of the concept of GCS by

dominant neo-liberal discourse in the 1990s. She does not

believe that the term can be conflated with the emergence

of a third sector of NGOs. With this claim she knowingly

subscribes to the European, or activist, understanding of

GCS (2003: 588). While she does acknowledge the growth of

the numbers of NGOs from the 1970s, she also sees the

emergence of other socio-political phenomena, such as

transnational advocacy networks and new social movements.

In that sense, she views GCS as being an ‘arena in which

the individual negotiates, struggles against, or debates

with the centres of political and economic authority’

(2003: 585). This arena must by no means describe a

physical or material space, rather it should be

understood as a ‘communicative sphere’ that allows for

the reconciliation of local and global discourses (Kaldor

2008: 41). Like Beck, she acknowledges that globalization

has produced a GDD, in the sense that territorial

boundaries no longer determine who is affected by global

risks and policies. The democracy gap cannot be remedied

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by the neoliberal version of GCS, which aims at creating

a global version of liberal representative democracy

through placing its emphasis on ‘top-down’ legitimization

of global procedures and institutions. In contrast, GCS

as a communicative sphere will allow for the ‘bottom up’

deliberation of a genuinely global public good, by

including voices from the very grassroots of society

(Kaldor 2008: 36). Details of this discursive process

have been elaborated by Habermas in his writing on

communicative action and the public sphere.

Habermas describes the public sphere as an ideal

space, which mediates between society and the state and

‘where subjects participate as equals in rational

discussion in pursuit of truth and the common good’

(Finlayson 2005: 12). He traces the emergence of a public

sphere to the 18th century enlightenment when ideas about

the freedom and equality of citizens of newly formed

nation-states begin to spread across the Western world.

Habermas charts the rise of a reasoning public through

the establishment of the freedom of association, which

sets the stage for increased public deliberation and

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debate (1974: 137). The 18th century public sphere can

then be classed as the origin of a democratic politics.

Habermas holds on to his theory of the public sphere,

which ‘holds up the ideal of free rational discussion

between equals’, despite knowing that the idea of true

equality has from its inception remained a purely utopian

ideal. His theoretical optimism is grounded in the

assumption that social order rests on communicative

action and a discourse ‘in which the voices of all

concerned are listened to, in which no argument is

arbitrarily excluded from consideration and in which only

the force of the better argument prevails’. Only under

these communicative conditions can a public consensus

emerge which is founded on the basis of reason. Thus,

communicative action is the only means of resolving

conflict in modern society because it allows subjects

collectively to determine ‘the rules of their coexistence

for themselves’ (Finlayson 2005: 107). Finally, Habermas

places his hopes for communicative action in contemporary

civil society, made up of informal organisations and

members of the political community who, through their

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participation in discourse can ‘reach understandings,

make compromises and form opinions’, which can influence

formal decision-making institutions (Finlayson 2005:

108). Returning to our problem of the GDD, Habermas,

argues that a political system is more likely to produce

politics and laws that are in tune with ‘discursively

formed public opinion’ (Finlayson 2005: 109), when it is

porous to the input from civil society. His writings

support Kaldor’s theory, that GCS, as a process of

communication among private individuals without legal or

other constraints, can produce such a thing as a genuine

global public good around which global democratic

practice can be built (Habermas 1974: 136). Crucially,

normative biases, which have impeded upon neoliberal

conceptions of GCS and undermined its democratic

potential, are avoided due to the purely rational nature

of communicative action. Kaldor’s alternative version of

GCS implies that the GDD can be remedied by the power of

communication, channelled by individuals who are able to

shape their own lives and ‘influence debates about public

decisions that affect them’ (Kaldor 2008: 35).

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Part 4 – The Never-Ending Story of the Liberal Paradigm

To simply assume that Kaldor’s interpretation of

what constitutes global civil society is entirely value

neutral and unbiased would of course be erroneous. It is

no surprise that Habermas’s idea of a public space has

been taken up by many Western activists to deliberate the

idea of a GCS. Like most human rights activists’,

Kaldor’s view of the global social order is an inherently

cosmopolitan one. Cosmopolitans subscribe to the idea

that globalization is leading to the formation of a world

community or ‘universal circle of belonging’, where

people are experiencing growing solidarity towards each

other and that this has been fuelled by a variety of

global developments such as trade, increasing human

mobility and the gradual elimination of nationalisms

(Cheah 2006: 491). While cosmopolitanism’s conceptual

roots can be traced back to Immanuel Kant who saw ‘man as

a citizen of the world’ and thus believed the key to his

freedom to lie in a universal civil society (Kaldor 2003:

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586), more recently this school of thought has influenced

the post Cold-War humanitarian regime and other actors

who consider themselves to be part of a wider version of

GCS (Cheah 2006: 493). Yet, a cosmopolitan approach to

GCS can prove problematic on a number of levels when we

consider its potential to remedy the GDD. First of all,

the claim that globalization has led to the replacement

of nationalism with growing human solidarity or a mass-

based political consciousness cannot be universalized.

Cheah rightfully observes that there is a ‘lack of fit

between the material interconnectedness brought about by

global capitalism and the degree of formation of global

solidarities’ (2006: 491). In other words, while people

in the global North may experience globalization as the

gradual ascension of human solidarity to the global

level, there is little evidence to suggest that people in

the global South are experiencing globalization in the

exact same manner. Any such claim would be blatantly

disregarding the rise in local extremist groups whose

solidarities may have been cultivated as a result of

globalization but who feel by no means connected to a

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‘universal circle of belonging’ (Cheah 2006). Secondly,

Marx suggests that political emancipation, which can be

achieved through the globalization of civil society as

suggested by Kaldor, is not full human emancipation,

because it leaves intact relationships of inequality and

exploitation (Howell and Pearce 2001: 53). There exists a

cosmopolitan inclination to privilege concerns over the

freedoms and rights of individuals over economic equality

and the international division of labour, which severely

challenges its potential to meaningfully address the GDD.

After all, this deficit is premised upon the condition

that people across the world are increasingly unable to

influence the decisions that affect their lives based on

structural inequalities. Assuming that the advancement of

civil liberties, such as the rights to freedom of speech

or association, can by itself lead to global democracy,

severely underestimates the divisive power of global

capitalism. Howell and Pearce thus rightfully proclaim

that translating the possibility of a GCS to the real

material world of exploitation and poverty in the South

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remains a considerable challenge (Howell and Pearce 2011:

60).

In conclusion, what are then the implications for

Kaldor’s version of GCS being deeply rooted in

cosmopolitan thought for its potential to remedy the GDD?

We established in the first part of this essay that this

deficit, understood by Beck as caused by the process of

reflexive modernization, is problematic precisely because

it cannot be remedied from within that same modern

paradigm from which it has emerged. Any effort to limit,

diagnose or monitor the threats produced by reflexive

modernization will ultimately lead to the production of

additional uncertainties. Kaldor’s cosmopolitan version

of GCS, although attempting to provide a critique of neo-

liberally biased conceptions of GCS as well as liberal

representative democracy, still to some extent subscribes

to liberal ideas produced during the enlightenment

period, such as an emphasis on individual human freedoms

and a belief in the possibility for rational

communicative action. In other words, much like the INGOs

from earlier on in this essay, most actors working under

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the banner of cosmopolitan GCS are too trapped within the

normative confines of modernity. In answer to our main

question, I would thus argue that cosmopolitanism’s claim

to certain alleged truths about the human condition, such

as the ability to perceive of a ‘common good’, undermine

the potential of Kaldor’s alternative version of GCS to

provide an answer to the GDD. This is precisely because,

any claim to an absolute truth, no matter how tentative

it might be, will by default exclude competing truths and

as such reduce the chances for a truly plural discourse

(Foucault 2002). People who are unwilling or unable to

address their political concerns within the language of

the modern individualist human rights regime, will remain

marginalised and largely excluded from global decision-

making processes. To some extent then, the core-periphery

divide, which is a crucial feature of the GDD, remains

unchanged.

Part 5 – Ways Forward

When we look back at our initial assessment of the

GDD, as having been produced by the emergence of risk

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society through the backfiring of modernity, it would

seem commonsensical to search for an answer to the

democratic deficit outside this realm of modernity.

Unsurprisingly, this is easier said than done. Both the

dominant discourse and alternative approaches show the

inclination of Western actors to hold on to familiar

forms of knowledge production and concepts which are

rooted in their ideological history. Of course it may one

day be the case that globalization will have spread the

ideas of Western enlightenment across the globe, so that

a truly global civil society can emerge, but this is

certainly not the reality today. For now, we need to find

a way of ensuring the coexistence of plural knowledges,

which in turn may provide a more fruitful answer to the

GDD than any version of GCS ever will. First and foremost

this must involve a sharp increase in non-Western voices

contributing to the discourse surrounding global issues.

Crucially, this must happen without the mediation of

Western actors and concepts. Secondly, as I have already

mentioned, we must not close our eyes to the destructive

and divisive power of global capitalism, primarily in its

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neo-liberal incarnation and the structural inequality

that it produces, which makes people, as groups and

individuals, unable to contribute meaningfully to the

global discourse. And while these goals might seem

utopian at this moment, we do not have to look very far

to see how they might well be attained.

The Occupy movement has been attempting to challenge

vast global imbalances in both political and economic

power, while claiming no representativeness other than

that of its participants. It recognises democracy as a

social process while questioning conventional means by

which global democracy is being produced in our world

today. The plurality of the movement’s manifestations

allows it to stay attuned to changing dynamics at the

base of society across global regions (Razsa and Kurnik

2012). Buell argues that one of its greatest achievements

has been to find a way to ‘forge a public space for a

continuing discussion’ of global issues (2011). He adds

that this space could eventually ‘allow disparate and

evolving life styles, ethnicities, and world views to

live and thrive together’. Crucially, Occupy does not

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seek to justify its political goals by immersing itself

in the language of GCS, and it may just be this factor,

which could give it the strength to meaningfully address

the GDD in the long run.

Conclusion

The preceding essay has attempted to explore whether

global civil society is the answer to the global

democratic deficit. I began my analysis with an

exploration of the deficit itself and the role that

global governance institutions have played in its

emergence. I then attempted to explore the paradigmatic

roots of the GDD by tracing the emergence of Beck’s risk

society. By establishing that said risk society must be

attributed to the backfiring of modernity, we assumed

that any attempt to remedy the GDD from within the modern

paradigm, was unlikely to yield much success. In line

with this prediction, we went on to establish in the

second part of this essay, that the dominant and

standardized version of GCS could not provide an answer

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to the GDD. This was due to a variety of shortfalls,

which overwhelmingly related to the discourse’s

rootedness in liberal Western political thought and its

fixation with installing liberal representative democracy

or enhancing legitimacy through international NGOs. In

the third part of the essay we introduced an alternative

understanding of GCS, as advocated most famously by Mary

Kaldor. We saw the concept widened to include not just

INGOs but players that are active in the realm between

the state and the market. In that sense GCS comes to

describe a communicative sphere, which allows people

across the globe to deliberate their common will and

become emancipated from the strains of dominant

neoliberal discourse. Ultimately, I concluded that

despite having been taken up by a broad variety of global

actors, this version’s normative cosmopolitan roots

impinge on its promise of total inclusiveness. Because

cosmopolitanism exhibits traits that link it to the

modern paradigm, we cannot but question its potential to

break out of and meaningfully confront the dilemmas posed

by reflexive modernity.

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What does this tell us about the usefulness of the

concept of GCS in general? Scholte (2007) is certainly

correct, when he suggests that any assessment of whether

GCS can be the answer to the GDD depends upon our notions

of civil society and democracy respectively. In this

essay I have assessed the potential of varying notions of

GCS against my understanding of the GDD, which is

informed by Beck’s notion of reflexive modernization.

Hence, I will certainly acknowledge that alternative

definitions of this deficit may produce different answers

as to the potential of GCS. Yet, while Scholte (2007)

concludes that ‘global civil society is not inherently

either a democratic or counter-democratic force in

contemporary politics’, I wish to assert that far from an

empty concept to be filled with meaning by whomever

wishes to do so, it has come into the world normatively

charged, if only by the power of its semiotic

connotation.

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