Civilizationism and the Political Debate on Globalization

Abstract

The focus of the debate on globalization is the inadequacy of the current institutional framework and its normative bases for a full development of the political sphere at the global level. Traditional political canons anchored in the nation-state and its domestic jurisdiction are increasingly perceived as insufficient, or indeed, self-defeating, in a world where socioeconomical interaction is, to a significant degree, interdependent and multilayered. Acknowledging the limits of this political tension, alternative projects of global politics have been developed in recent decades. What they have in common is their attempt to go beyond the centrality of the sovereign state toward new forms of political participation that allow new subjects to “get into transnational politics” from which they have been excluded. These new would-be or quasi-global political actors are part of the broad category of non-state actors, which includes international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs), transnational corporations (TNCs), networks and campaigns of civil society organizations and faith-based groups, transnational social movements (TSMs), transnational criminal networks, transnational political par-ties, regional public institutions,’ international private bodies, and individuals. Despite minor institutional experiments, most of these actors share the characteristics of effectively being excluded from international decision-making mechanisms, and yet being more and more active on the global stage.2 International exclusion constitutes the critical target of most of the alternative projects of global politics that occupy the centre of the public debate on globalization.