something to ponder over; the need for democratic global governance processes to address global issues that simply cannot be dealt with by separate national states. That global state formation is impossible, undesirable and would engender huge opposition from all quarters. Instead, I see a huge potential for democratizing global governance through uses of the Internet for mobilizing global civil society. Many others point out that existing institutions of global governance have a huge democratic deficit. The use of cheap and relatively free Internet communications by social movements has come to everyone’s attention since the Arab Spring of 2011. Globalization from below by transnational social movements could play an important role in speeding both the legitimacy and the effectiveness of global governance institutions. The neo-conservatism of the Bush administration heaped fuel on the calls for a multipolar world and challenges to the leadership of the United States. The Obama administration has been far more friendly to the idea of a multipolar system of global governance, preferring multilateralism and support for regional and global institutions over the unilateral adventures of the previous administration. Semi-peripheral Russia, trying to regain global status after the demise of the Soviet Union, has called for a more multipolar world order. The Russian government hosted a conference in 2009 to foster an alliance among some of the semi-peripheral countries: Brazil, Russia, India and China. The so-called ‘Pink Tide’ of populist regimes in Latin America also represents a renewed challenge to the predominance of global capitalism, proclaiming a 21st-century version of socialism and new respect for indigenous people and their cultures.
Posted on: Wed, 23 Oct 2013 00:27:29 +0000
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