Suchergebnisse

Nongovernmental organizations (NGOS) both lobby states and work within and across societies to advance their interests. These latter efforts are generally ignored by students of world politics because they do not directly involve governments. A study of transnational environmental activist groups (TEAGs) such as Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, and World Wildlife Fund demonstrates that NGO societal efforts indeed shape widespread behavior throughout the world. TEAGs work through transnational social, economic, and cultural networks to shift standards of good conduct, change corporate practices, and empower local communities. This type of practice involves "world civic politics." That is, TEAGs influence widespread behavior by politicizing global civil society—that slice of collective life which exists above the individual and below the state yet across national boundaries. This article examines the activity of world civic politics as practiced by environmental activists and evaluates its relevance for the study of NGOs and world politics in general.

Focuses on environmental groups active in global civil society, showing how they operate outside of state-to-state interaction, yet engage in genuine political activity. Some focus on pressuring corporations and empowering local communities.

While human beings have always been able to visualize and seemingly care about the entire globe, it is only recently that the world has come to know genuinely global problems. Global warming, ozone depletion, and threats to biological diversity represent the first, bona fide global challenges, because they threaten the fundamental organic infrastructure that supports life on earth. If they come to pass, they will have universal physical consequences, in contrast to the more circumscribed consequences of non-global issues. This understanding conflicts with much contemporary thinking, which tends to see all problems—from poverty and hunger to war and human rights abuses—as global in character and thus in need of globalist responses. Proper understanding of what constitutes a genuinely global challenge will work against this tendency, and thus encourage addressing problems at the most appropriate level of governance. This article tries to provide such an understanding. It delineates the global dimension of global warming, ozone depletion, and threats to biological diversity and—after differentiating local, regional, and global issues—argues against addressing all common, transboundary challenges at the global level.

Contends that new environmental organizations, eg, the UN Environmental Program & the World Wildlife Fund, are fashioning a new type of world civic politics by investing themselves in the social, economic, & cultural dimensions of global life that lie outside the realm of governmental affairs. The development of several environmental organizations, including Greenpeace & Friends of the Earth, is examined, & it is concluded that the establishment of nongovernmental environmental organizations represents the birth of a new global civil society dedicated to ecological conservation. W. Howard

It is argued that a central dilemma for those thinking about & working for fundamental political change is the demise of grand political theory -- ie, the attempt to understand politics in an architectonic way. The demise of grand theory is traced via a Foucaultian critique of Karl Marx, the grand theorist par excellence. He understands the problems of political life through an interpretation of human nature, society, & history; since Marx's time, there has been an almost systematic deconstruction of such thinking. Michel Foucault's work embodies much of the criticism of grand theory: he takes issue with essentialist notions of human nature, society, & history, & can be considered one of the most successful problematizers of Marx & of grand theorists in general. Marx's grand theory, including his understanding of human nature, economic determinism, & historical materialism, is discussed, & Foucault's attack on these concepts & on essentialist thought in general examined. Ways to pursue progressive politics in a decentered or nonessentialist age are suggested. Modified AA