Civil Society on the Rise: In Search of Global Impact

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Introduction

Globalization process highly contributed to the global market’s increased activity and partially its integration. There is however a question if globalization helped by the distribution of democracy. I am afraid many people would answer negatively. Thus, is the concentration of global capital mainly in the northern hemisphere positively influencing democracy? Civil society has a task to advocate and protect democracy in the globalization era, especially in regard to the global management and redistribution of the profits of globalization and mollifying its drawbacks. There are also opinions, among others by an American John Cavanagh from the Institute of Policy Studies and Martin Khor, a Research Director of Third World Network in Penang, Malaysia – that in the 21st century there will be a comeback to the brutal capitalism of the 19th century, and that the globalization achieved a destruction of the nation states’ power . Moreover, as argued by Riva Krut, the fate of democracy is not any more in the hands of national states, but rather civil society and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) .

The role and significance of civil society in the globalization era

It should be remembered that civil society is not expected to replace governments, or any commercial market institutions. It is supposed to create the so called third sector which builds a functioning society that has a right to observe the implementation of public policy and preserve the transparency of governance. Civil society was defined by London School of Economic Center for Civil Society as following: Civil society refers to the arena of uncoerced collective action around shared interests, purposes and values. In theory, its institutional form...

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...aper No. 83, April 1997, UNRISD.

7. London School of Economic Center for Civil Society: http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/CCS/introduction/default.htm

8. The ECOSOC Statute for Non-Governmental Organisations: http://www.staff.city.ac.uk/p.willetts/NGOS/RES31-96.HTM

9. The Rural Advancement Foundation International: http://www.rafiusa.org/

10. Third World Network, The World Trade Organization, Trade and Environment, position paper of the Third World Network, Penang, Malaysia, 1994.

11. Vander Stichele Myriam, Transnational Institute, TNCs run amuck, in ECO/CSD, 29 April 1996.

12. Public Services International, Hall-Jones Peter, The rise and rise of NGOs: http://www.world-psi.org/Template.cfm?Section=Home&CONTENTID=11738&TEMPLATE=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm

13. UNRISD, States of Disarray: The Social Effects of Globalization, UNRISD, Geneva, 1995.

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