Promoting a Different Type of North–South Interactions: Québécois Cultural and Religious Paradiplomacy with Latin America

ABSTRACT

The historiography on Canadian–Latin American relations states that economic incentives, along with geopolitical concerns during the Second World War, have always been the chief reason behind Canadian interests in the region. This article argues that social groups from Quebec had other incentives to establish connections with Latin America. Quebec’s civil society became well connected with Latin American groups before the North American Free Trade Agreement facilitated economic and political cooperation, thanks mostly to the intensive Catholic missionary effort in the region, and positive representations of Latino culture in French Canadian sociopolitical circles in the 1940s and 1950s. As a result, Francophones’ interests diverged from Canada’s main objectives in the region; Quebec’s civil society’s engagement was distinctly more cultural and social in nature. Because of the difference of objectives, this article shows that social groups from Quebec attempted to influence Canadian–Latin American relations to suit their interests.     

The Evolving Spheres of International Justice

Recent discussions about globalization and increasing global inequalities of wealth have reawakened interest in the possibility of a just international order. The unequal distribution of wealth remains central to discussions of global justice but it is not the sole consideration. Additional issues are raised by the democratic deficit in international relations, the growing importance of cross-border harm, the need for cooperation to protect the environment and the treatment of non-human species. These different spheres of justice prompt the question of whether states can act as agents of reform, encouraged by the more progressive forces in global civil society. A related issue is whether the interplay between the states-system and global civil society will lead to more cosmopolitan forms of national and international law. Answers to these questions require new advances in normative and empirical inquiry.     

An Exceptional Response? Security,Development and Civil Society in Spanish Policy after 11‐M

This article considers the ways in which Spanish state institutions responded to the Madrid bombings of 11 March 2004 in the context of the global ‘War on Terror’. It examines three inter‐related arenas of Spanish policy after 9/11 in which security and civil society are invoked in ways that impact upon the country's development agenda toward its southern Mediterranean partners. The first relates to Spain's external relations with its North African neighbours, and in particular the place of migration in shaping these relations over the last decade. The second concerns Spain's political relations with the representative organizations of its own Muslim populations. A third area of analysis pertains to the juridical‐institutional reactions of the state to the 11 March attacks: how have public authorities and civil society been affected and refashioned in the face of jihadist terrorism on the peninsula? The author argues that in each of these domains, the post‐9/11 context generally, and the 11 March attacks in particular, have elicited a securitization of civil society, which has in turn been associated with the country's international relations and domestic politics. Such securitization, however, has only been partially successful, thus vindicating the continuation of ‘politics as usual’ among Spain's state officials and its civil society.     

Participation and Passive Revolution: The Reproduction of Neoliberal Water Governance Mechanisms in Durban,South Africa

Abstract: This article demonstrates that Gramsci's concept of passive revolution can be utilised to help unearth some of the contradictions of participatory development within neoliberal governance systems in the global South. I argue that some approaches to “participation” within neoliberal governance systems can, in part, be understood as moments within a protracted process of passive revolution. The argument is traced through eThekwini municipality's Community Participation Programme and the related extension of Free Basic Water (FBW). This article contributes to existing scholarship by demonstrating how a Gramscian analysis is indispensable to understanding the way in which state–civil society relations are conceived in participatory development strategies and the implications this might have for radical social change. I argue that a Gramscian approach compels us to reconsider current understandings of state–civil society relations so that we might overcome the impasse of passive revolution and move towards a more progressive form of politics.     

Securing international society: towards an English school discourse of security

English School approaches to international politics, which focus on the idea of an international society of states bound together by shared rules and norms, have not paid significant explicit attention to the study of security in international relations. This is curious given the centrality of security to the study of world politics and the recent resurgence of English School scholarship in general. This article attempts to redress this gap by locating and explicating an English School discourse of security. We argue here that there is indeed an English School discourse of security, although an important internal distinction exists here between pluralist and solidarist accounts, which focus on questions of order and justice in international society respectively. In making this argument, we also seek to explore the extent to which emerging solidarist accounts of security serve to redress the insecurity of security in international relations: the tendency of traditional security praxes to privilege the state in ways that renders individuals insecure.     

The idea of order in ancient Chinese political thought: a Wightian exploration

Is there any significant international thought in antiquity beyond the West? If there is, why has there as yet been no meaningful conversation between the expanding enterprise of theorizing International Relations (IR) today and ancient Chinese political thought? This extended version of my Martin Wight Memorial Lecture addresses these questions through a critical exploration of how a pivotal idea in ancient as well as contemporary international relations, namely, the idea of order, is deliberated in ancient Chinese political thought. Inspired by Martin Wight's profound scholarship so steeped in historical and philosophical depth, it investigates why and how alternative visions of moral, social and political order are imagined, offered and debated in ancient Chinese philosophical discourse. It examines the ways in which the moral and political pursuit of order as a social ideal is conducted in the anarchical society of states in ancient China. Through these historical and philosophical investigations, this article seeks to establish that ancient Chinese political and philosophical deliberations are rich in international thought and that classical thinkers in China's Axial Age are alive to us and contemporaneous with us philosophically as much as ancient Greek philosophers are. In establishing such a claim, the article calls for, and issues an invitation to, a conversation between the world of thought in ancient China and the theorization of IR as an intellectual ritual in search of a truly international theory.     

Global social justice at the WTO? The role of NGOs in constructing global social contracts

Over the past decade, international non‐governmental organizations (NGOs) have been contesting the neo‐liberal economic order in international politics by campaigning for normative conditions to bring about what Richard Falk calls ‘humane governance’. However, the degree to which NGOs have contributed to the formation of global social contracts remains controversial. While NGO activists and various scholars advocate the establishment of such contracts, empirical testing of this normative argument is underdeveloped. Drawing upon this lack of empirical support, critics dismiss the global social contract concept and question the roles played by NGOs in international politics. This article addresses the controversy through a review, refinement and application of global social contract theory and an empirical study of two prominent international NGO campaigns directed at the World Trade Organization (WTO), an institution that represents a ‘hard test case’. It explores the ways in which NGOs and their networks are challenging the neo‐liberal basis of WTO agreements and contributing to the emergence of global social contracts. The article concludes that in some circumstances, NGOs have the capacity to inject social justice into international economic contracts and there is some basis for optimism regarding the formation of global social contracts involving NGOs, nation‐states and international organizations.     

The politics of repressing environmentalists as agents of foreign influence

Theoretically, this article reveals the long-term risk for local non-governmental organisations (NGOs) of participating in transnational advocacy networks (TANs), accepting money from foreign sources and throwing ‘boomerangs’ internationally—a strategy used by local NGOs to seek international allies to pressure repressive and unresponsive states at home. Focusing primarily on the suppression of environmental NGOs that oppose natural-resource extraction, this article examines three cases—Russia, India and Australia—to illuminate the consequences of this trend for local civil society and TANs. It also documents a global trend towards states depicting local NGOs with international linkages as subversive agents of foreign interests, justifying legal crackdowns and the severing of foreign funding and ties. State framing of NGOs as agents of foreign interests is repressing local environmental activism, depoliticising civil society and weakening international NGO alliances—a conclusion with far-reaching consequences for the future of TANs, local NGOs and environmental activism.     

Space,Social Relations,and Contestation: Transformative Peacebuilding and World Social Forum Climate Spaces

The 2013 and 2015 World Social Forums in Tunis, Tunisia hosted thematic “climate spaces” for the first time. This article examines the extent to which these spaces are constitutive of a form of “transformative peacebuilding” aiming to transform social relations and eliminate the structural violence of the world capitalist economy. Both the theoretical and practical activities of civil society at the climate spaces are shown to be transformative but only to the extent that they contest broad processes of trasformismo which transcend differences and obscure the lived realities of governance and resistance. In this sense, civil society groups and movements at the climate spaces are shown to engage with global capitalism to potentially produce new global understanding and action. This generates new understandings of civil society as constitutive of directly resistant modes of social relation that push for radically different visions of climate justice and governance.     

Post‐conflict Statebuilding and State Legitimacy: From Negative to Positive Peace?

This article is concerned with the potential that statebuilding interventions have to institutionalize social justice, in addition to their more immediate ‘negative’ peace mandates, and the impact this might have, both on local state legitimacy and the character of the ‘peace’ that might follow. Much recent scholarship has stressed the legitimacy of a state's behaviour in relation to conformity to global governance norms or democratic ‘best practice’. Less evident is a discussion of the extent to which post‐conflict polities are able to engender the societal legitimacy central to political stability. As long as this level of legitimacy is absent (and it is hard to generate), civil society is likely to remain distant from the state, and peace and stability may remain elusive. A solution to this may be to apply existing international legislation centred in the UN and the ILO to compel international organizations and national states to deliver basic needs security through their institutions. This has the effect of stimulating local‐level state legitimacy while simultaneously formalizing social justice and positive peacebuilding.     

Hobbes's Contribution to International Thought,and the Contribution of International Thought to Hobbes

Summary

The aim of this article is to explore in what respects Thomas Hobbes may be regarded as foundational in international thought. It is evident that in contemporary international relations theory he has become emblematic of a realist tradition, but as David Armitage suggests this was not always the case. I want to suggest that it is only in a very limited sense that he may be regarded as a foundational thinker in international relations, and for reasons very different from those for which he has become infamous. In the early histories of international thought Hobbes is a cameo figure completely eclipsed by Grotius. In early histories of political literature, the classic jurists were often acknowledged for their remarkable contributions to international relations, but Hobbes is referred to exclusively as a philosopher of a positvist ethics and absolute sovereignty. It is among the jurists themselves that Hobbes is believed to have made important conceptual moves which set the problems for international thought for the next three centuries. He conflates natural law and the law of nations, arguing that they differ only in their subjects—the former individuals, the latter nations or states. This entailed transforming the sovereign into an artificial man, not in the Roman Law sense of an entity capable of suing and being sued; rather, as a subject not party to a contract, but created by a contract among individuals who confer upon it authority. This subject is not constrained by the contractors, but is, as individuals were in the state of nature, constrained by the equivalent of natural law, the law of nations in the international context. Throughout, the methodological implications are drawn for modern historians of political thought and political philosophers who venture to theorise about international relations.     

One world? Many worlds? The place of regions in the study of international society

This article is a revised version of the 2006 Martin Wight Memorial Lecture and examines the placeof regional states‐systems or regional international societies within understandings of contemporary international society as whole. It addresses the relationship between the one world and the many worlds‐on one side, the one world of globalizing capitalism, of global security dynamics, of a global political system that, for many, revolves a single hegemonic power, of global institutions and global governance, and of the drive to develop and embed a global cosmopolitan ethic; and, on the other side, the extent to which regions and the regional level of practice and of analysis havebecome more firmly established as important elements of the architecture of world politics; and the extent to which a multiregional system of international relations may be emerging. The first section considers explanations of the place of regionalism in contemporary international society and the various ways in which the one world aff ects the many. The second section deals with how regionalism might best be studied. The final section analyses four ways in which regionalism may contribute to international order and global governance.     

A synopsis of the symposium on “civil organizations and the state in modern China”

The other side of the formation of the modern state is the thorough transformation of social structure, the way people are organized, and the mechanisms of social mobilization and participation. One distinctive feature of these changes is the growth and expansion of civil organizations (minjian zuzhi). As a linkage point between the state and the individual, civil organizations have exerted an important and unique influence on the orientation as well as the nature of society. The history of the separation and reorientation of state and society in China was both specific to China as well as relevant to global experience. In recent years, research on modern Chinese civil organizations has become rigorous and fruitful, covering a wide range of topics from the history of chambers of commerce to guilds, peasant associations, freelancer groups, charity groups, cultural and educational clubs, and religious organizations. Thanks to a relatively large pool of participating scholars, the discussions have also multiplied and deepened, contributing to the study of modern Chinese history a new yet indispensable subfield. All of these studies not only delineate the organizations’ background, development, structure, and function, but also pay attention to their relations with the state. Indeed, state–society relations constitute the most widely applied analytical framework. This is related to the middleman position of civil organizations, as well as to the state’s ability to dominate them under the Chinese social tradition of strong state and weak society.     

Embedding the War on Terror: State and Civil Society Relations

The global war on terror was used by the Bush administration and its allies to defend a US dominated geopolitical configuration. To this end, counter‐terrorism measures (CTMs) were introduced which strengthened the alignment of development aid with diplomacy and defence. The broad, adverse effects of CTMs on civil liberties and human rights are well documented. Despite the advent of a new US administration and a ‘soft power’ approach to international relations, the legacy of the war on terror remains embedded in the laws, policies and attitudes of many states and regimes that continue to enclose the lives of citizens. This article describes the experiences of civil society organizations (CSOs) as ‘securitization’ processes unfolded. Studies over two years involving some forty countries provide an on‐the‐ground view to probe the gains and losses of securitization, both for governments in the US‐led ‘coalition of the willing’ and for civil society in terms of the pressures emerging from a development‐for‐security agenda. The authors identify some of the perverse zero‐sum effects on governments of CTM philosophy and the means employed. Findings also show asymmetry between northern and southern CSOs in terms of their negative‐sum subordination, found in the definition of security and in the vulnerability to new risks involved in undertaking development work.     

The military covenant and the civil–military contract in Britain

Is the British civil–military contract strained to breaking point? The contemporary portrayal of British civil–military relations is bleak, with academics, politicians, the media and military charities arguing that military–societal relations are in urgent need of repair. Through assessing the extent to which the reciprocal expectations of the armed forces and the British public are realized, this article will argue that the moral contract, although under stress, is not breaking. Underlying social trends and the use of doctrinal concepts such as the military covenant have, combined with recent operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, altered the expectations of both sides causing tensions within military–societal relations. Yet, while the armed forces do harbour unrealized expectations of the British public who are unwilling or unable to support the use of the military in recent conflicts, neither the public nor the military is so disillusioned with the performance of the other for the relationship to be described as breaking or broken.     

Designing the model European—Liberal and republican concepts of citizenship in Europe in the 1860s: The Association Internationale pour le Progrès des Sciences Sociales

The formation of citizenship as a concept to define the rights of participation in the formation processes of modern territorial states is well known. But the transnational dimensions of defining citizenship and how to combine national legislations with enlightened universal and natural law rules in the mid-19th century is not very well known. The article aims to explore the transnational discourses on the political, economic and moral rights and duties of the citizen in the pan—European liberal Association Internationale pour le Progrès des Sciences Sociales. During the 1860s, its congresses should serve as a vast commission of enquiry and should eventually lead to a general definition of citizenship in Europe which could be implemented in national legislations. The article shows how the Association Internationale tried to deduce universal moral rules from national legislations and peculiarities by the means of moral or positive social science. In combining moral unity with national and regional diversities, the Association Internationale tried to give an elastic framework for a European civil society in which national subjects should become active citizens.     

Book review

In his main work, The Science of Legislation (1780–1783), the Neapolitan Gaetano Filangieri proposed a set of extensive political and cultural reforms. These reforms were necessary to free eighteenth-century societies from the remnants of feudal institutions that obstructed international peace and economic growth. Filangieri's ideas were shaped by the international political climate between the seven Years’ War and the eve of the French Revolution. Reinterpreting Montesquieu and Genovesi through the influences of French radical and Enlightenment thought (Helvétius, Raynal, l’Encyclopédie), as well as the economics of Hume, Verri and the Physiocrats, he concluded that European modernity was inherently contradictory.

From this perspective Filangieri set out to force a clean break between the technical horizons of mercantilism and enlightened absolutism and a society based on civil rights, a fair distribution of wealth and resources, and free trade. Proper ‘scientific’ knowledge of the rules and principles of legislation would allow governments to balance out the natural and cultural factors that characterise individual states, and to identify the appropriate model for social and economic development. If all states acted on their proper interest, international free trade and peaceful competition between states would emerge and the potential for general economic growth be materialised. Thus, the natural equilibrium and ‘universal consensus’ among nations could be restored.     

Protest Cycle,Political Violence and Social Movements in the Basque Country

A close look at the groups, organisations and social movements among which a terrorist organisation seeks refuge and support, will provide a fundamental and strategic view of its evolution. By means of the concept of a protest cycle, I analyse the relationship between political violence and social movements in the Basque Country. With the help of Tarrow's fundamental variables in the political structure, to which I have added the degree of consciousness‐raising and mobilisation in civil society, I aim to study the protest cycle of ETA's violence from its social origins at the start of the 1960s, through its consolidation in the 1970s, to its decline from the mid‐1980s onwards. The idea I will defend is that political violence should be seen as a form of collective action directed towards a mobilisation of society, and that its vicissitudes depend on the structure of interactions set up between the armed organisation, social movements and civil society.     

War as Feminized Labour in the Global Political Economy of Neoimperialism

ABSTRACT

This article examines the structures of international relations that facilitate political violence in postcolonial states. It explores the intersections of patriarchy and imperialism in the contemporary political economy to understand how armed conflict and political violence in postcolonial states form an integral element of the global economy of accumulation in deeply gendered ways. By focusing on the structural level of analysis, this article argues that the siting of armed conflict in postcolonial contexts serves to maintain neo-colonial relations of exploitation between the West and non-West, and is made both possible and effective through the gendering of political identities and types of work performed in the global economy. I argue here that armed conflict is a form of feminized labour in the global economy. Despite the fact that performing violence is a physically masculine form of labour, the outsourcing of armed conflict as labour in the political economy is ‘feminized’ in that it represents the flexibilization of labour and informalization of market participation. So while at the same time that this work is fulfilling hegemonic ideals of militarized masculinity within the domestic context, at the international level it actually demonstrates the ‘weakness’ or ‘otherness’ of the ‘failed’/feminized state in which this violence occurs, and legitimizes and hence re-entrenches the hegemonic relations between the core and periphery on the basis of problematizing the ‘weak’ state’s masculinity. It is through the discursive construction of the non-Western world as the site of contemporary political violence that mainstream international relations reproduces an orientalist approach to both understanding and addressing the ‘war puzzle’.     

The politics of education for globalisation: managed activism in a time of crisis

Since the 1990s, governments of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) have begun to promote their foreign aid politics domestically via global education. This policy remit has its origins in civil society and has been combined with a stated aim on the part of governments to prepare populations for globalisation, but also to convince populations of the need for increased aid spending in the context of various challenges, including calls for aid effectiveness, large-scale protest by the metropolitan left and rising parochialisms that diminish cosmopolitan world views. In the context of the apparent spontaneity of political mobilisation globally, this article seeks to qualify the optimism of the political sociology and social movements literature on the network society by comparing two OECD government remits for global/development education in the UK and Australia, which are attempts to manage or socially engineer civic activism and engagement. The problem which this article addresses is that, on the face of it, state funding of ‘global education’ appears to be a success of the activism of educators combined with the networked advocacy efforts of development non-governmental organisations, except that it has occurred in tension with international drivers to use education to further global economic competitiveness and governments' desire to promote their own foreign aid spending in a climate of falling legitimacy. This phenomenon of state funding for global education might be considered an elaboration of network politics, but this article argues that it must equally be read, via Gramsci, as a hegemonic contest in the struggle for subject production appropriate to the global knowledge economy.