Globalization and Soft Power: A Critical Analysis, Appunti di Sociologia

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PART 2 : Culture as Ideology in the Critical Paradigm Karl MARX: (1818-1883) COURSE - Marx, Capital, 3 volumes - Marx, Engels, The German Ideology - We will focus on Marx’s Theory of Culture and in particular on his concept of ideology; - Arendt: even when it seems he is forgotten, it’s not bc his methods have been abbandoned, but rather bc certain methods have become so axiomatic that the origin is not known anymore - Marx’s ideas still pose very important questions about fundamental problems, even ideology (imp for our course). - important also for the study of globalization and the symboloic power in our contemporary world - Discussed by Marx especially in the boook with Engels: ‘The German ideology’ Marx’s Theory of Culture - The distinction between substructure (or base) and superstructure is central to his theory of historical materialism and to his cultural theory: 1) The base (or substructure) includes the forces and relations of production: a) “material forces of production”: actual tools, such as machinery and factories,used to satisfy human needs; b) “relations of production”: the kinds of associations that people have with each other in satisfying their needs, «property relations», for example the relation between the capitalist who owns the means of production and the wage laborer who does not) 2) The superstructure includes culture, roles, rituals, social and political institutions, ideologies (noneconomic phenomena in society that can be explained by the economic structure). - so this will be the focus for us According to Marx, the influence of the base on the superstructure is predominant. - not only unidrectional - sometimes, if we want to investigate the superstructure it can affect the base but the influence of the ec base on the superstructure is certainly predominant; How he defines culture and what he calls the superstructure that includes it: - the concept of ideology is one of the most original concepts Marx introduced of 1 54 - Durkheim: anomy can be part of any kind of society in certain periods of pathological circumstances; anomy as a pathological condition in a period of economic booms or of ec depression; - Ideology on the contrary for Marx = distorted version of reality caused by capitalism - The term ideology - originated with a philosophical school - the school of ideologists in France (end 18th century beginning 19th century) - There is a science of ideas which studies the genesis of ideas starting from sensations - According to Marx and Engels, in German Ideology (1846), ideologies are distorted reflection of reality and culminate in systems such as philosophy, law, religion, art, literature. In setting out to answer all questions and all problems, ideologies appear as general and try to create a comprehensive view of the world; at the same time, though, they are representative of determinate, limited, special interests. - Where do ideas come from? (Main question of the school mentioned before) they come from sensations; - The science of ideas was called ideology - The term with Marx become a pegiorative term and it takes on entirely different dimension !!!!!! - According to Marx are no more individual representations ideas that come from sensations but they become a collection of represenations characteristics of a given epoch in society - the capitalistic society - Acording to him, ideologies have this pegiorative meaning and they are inverted, distorted, reflection of reality; - In ideologies, human beings and their conditions appear upside down like immagies on the lens of the camera. According to Marx, human beings usually do not perceive themselves as they are but projected on a screen with a distorted immage - Every ideology according to Marx is a connection of illusions, errors, mistifications that reflect, in some way refer to a historical reality, one that is however distorted 19.10.2023 MARX Ideology - question from social contexts => ideologies appear as an attempt to create a comprehensive view of the world; at the same time, they are representative o limited, special, determined interests, the interests of the dominant class, even when it is not even aware of it - Usually ideologies - historical and limited view of the dominant class, even though they try to represent the idea as universal (value, interests) - Marx: a lot of phylosophers claim to universality, to be able to give an universal answer; of 2 54 used or taken to represent its entirety; Fallacies are common errors in reasoning that will undermine the logic of your argument) - Also in the text (ELSTER), important: - Marx’s oficial theory: the interests of the rulling class are the cause of ideology - According to E (scholar of Marx) => Marx doesn’t really say it, but they are not always necesarily the cause. They exist, but they are not neccesarily the cause of ideological attitudes. The cause of ideological belives might be found sometimes also in the needs of the believers to for ex limit the aspiration of what is feasable (because the fox can not reach what she would like and then she says I m not interested in it - the cause is in the need). - !!!!! Another example: if the proletariat have the belief that there is no need for political freedom (ideological belief) - it serves the interest of the rulling class at a consequence, not as a cause. But the cause for this ideological thinking can be found in the need to limit its aspiration of liberation from opression. - Religion (interpretation of E) is not neccessarily born because of a project of a class, but by the need of proletariat to find a sense of afterlife - sense of this life on earth. - The capitalist system itself - even the rulling class is part of this system; ideologies belong to the superstructure and are strongly influenced and caused first of all by an economic capitalistic system - the proletariat feels the need to limit the aspiration to what is feasable ARTICLE: (1) THE MARXIST CRITIQUE OF IDEOLOGY - Jon Elster - ideologies are shaped by deep-seated tendencies that help them survive criticism and refutation for a long time - (A)What are the forces that shape and maintain ideological thinking? - Standard Marxist answer: interest of the ruling class - Different that the Freudian conception of false consciousness - the interest of the person himself distorts his thinking - How? By what mechanism the interest of the ruling class is supposed to shape the views of the other members of society? - Successful indoctrination: requires that rules believe in what they are preaching - But the fact that a ruling class benefits from the illusions of their subjects does not prove that it is casually responsible for them - BUT Marx also suggests that ideologies can arise or take root spontaneously in the minds of those subject to them, without any assistance from others. - Here he also differs from the Freudian conception of false consciousness by stressing the social causation of ideology rather than any individualized genetic account. - Marx: ideology is NOT an IDIOSYNCRATIC complex of beliefs and attitudes caused by a unique set of experiences, BUT a figure of thought shared by many ppl and cause by whatever is common in their situation. of 5 54 - (B) another difference between Freud’s psychological and Marx’s sociological conception of false consciousness - F: the object of individual attitudes is the individual himself (his experiences, his perception of other ppl, including his percpetion of their perception of him) - The false consciousness is accompanied by an unconscious awareness of the true state of affairs - an awareness that the person has repressed, substituting for it a false representation - The Marxist theory of idoelogy addresses itself to factual and normative beliefs about society - No similar assumption in the M theory. True, in the formation of ideology there si often (but far from always) an element of wishful thinking, the belief that the world is as one would like it to be, but this phenomenon differs from self-deception in that there is no dual belief system at work. The assumption of self-deception in Freudian theory appears plausible because the person stands in a peculiarly intimate relation to the true facts about himself; it might look as fi in some sense he can hardly avoid knowing them. Whatever one thinks of this argument, there is no way in which people have immediate access to the truth about society. Any view of society - true or false, distorted or not - is a construction. - How do shared ideological beliefs arise? They can emerge simultaneously in the minds of many people; or they arise first in the mind of one individual and then spread by diffusion to other people. - The Marxis theory of ideologies employs both methods. - 2 kinds of attitudes that are subject to ideological bias: - AFFECTIVE (‘hot’) - COGNITIVE (‘cold’) - a rational person would try to arrive at factual beliefs in a detached way (beliefs have a better chance of being true and at serving the passions than false beliefs) - 4 kinds of ideological attitudes, according to whether the attitudes themselves and the biases underlying them are hot or cold: 1. Affective attitudes shaped by affectively biased processes - the story of the fox and the grapes (people adjusting their aspirations to what seems feasible) - underlines Marx’s often cites statement: ‘religion is the opium of the people; 2. Hot motivations may be shaped by cold cognitive factors - when preferences are revered by redescribing the options 3. Cognitive attitudes are often shaped by motivational processes - wishful thinking, self-deception etc - operates in the selections of the world views: Among the many different accounts of social and economic causation, each group or class will select one that seems to justify special consideration for its interests - wishful thinking: operates when members of a particular class stipulate that the realization of their interest coincides with the realization of the interests of society as a whole. of 6 54 4. Cognition may be subject to specifically cognitive distortions, as when ppl have too much confidence in small samples / otherwise ignore the basic principles of statistical inference. - 1, 3, 4 important for Marx’s theory of ideology - 3, 4 - pars pro toto fallacies Political and Economic Thoughts and Religions as Ideologies Political Ideologies : (Curs) - In The German Ideology, the central argument concerns the relation between the special interests of a given class and the general interests of society. - Class members or their representatives actually believe (or pretend to believe) in the identity of their particular interest and the general interest. - the particular and general interest coincide in their opinion/pretend to act that they coincide; - A political ideology, to be successful, has to be couched in terms of the general interest. Marx argues, however, that sucess can be self-defeating (see below) (Art.) - the central argument concerns the relation between the special interests of a given class and the general interests of society - Class members (or at least their ideological representatives) always think that the general interest can be best realized by measures that also happen to promote their special interests. Smtm their belief is in fact true - the class acquires irresistible force and momentum; when It is not the case - the class appears as hopelessly utopian and impotent - A political ideology is not a pure expression of self-interest - at the very least, one has to pretend to act for the general interest - One can argue that class members / representatives will actually believe or come to believe in the identity of their special interest and the general interest - Does who do nt believe will faily to carry conviction - Even if at the beginning they are pretending to argue in terms of the general interest, after some time, they will come to believe in what they are saying. - It is by no means difficult to acquire the conviction that the general interest is served by implementing one’s own interest - the nature of social reality and of the human psyche make it very easy indeed - Easy bc:(one of the reasons) if you compare it to having no policy at all it is easy to represent it as being in everybody’s interest - the success of a party does not depend on the rationality of its program, because all are equally swayed by wishful thinking. - it rather depends on whether their clock happens to show the right time (for example the dissatisfaction with the current government) - A political ideology, to be successful, has to be couched in terms of the general interest. - Success could be self-defeating - The French bourgeoisie, when successfully demanding the abolition of privileges, also prepared the ground for its own future defeat by admitting its future enemy to the political arena. The bourgeoisie would no doubt have liked an abolition of privileges tailor- made to its interests, but, as Tocqueville noticed, it is difficult to contain of 7 54 1. Criticism of the dominant approach to race matters and emphasize the need to ground our racial analysis materially, that is, understanding that racism is systemic and rooted in differences in power between the races. (The old article) (1) racism is embedded in the structure of a society, (2) racism has a psychology, but it is fundamentally organized around a material reality (i.e., racism has what I characterized as a “material foundation”) (3) rac- ism changes over time, (4) racism has a “rationality” (actors support or resist a racial order in various ways because they believe doing so is beneficial to them), (5) overt, covert, and normative racialized behaviors (following the racial etiquette of a racial order) are all paths that “racial subjects” (Goldberg 1997) have in any society (6) racism has a contemporary foundation and is not a mere remnant of the past - if the core of the phenomenon coded as ‘racism’ is prejudice, then education and time should have cured this disease a long time ago - The basis of Bonilla-silva’s theory: racialization forms a real structure - racialized groups are hierarchically ordered and ‘social relations’ and ‘practices’ emerge that fit the position of the groups in the racial regime - those at the top of the order develop views and practices that support the racial status quo and those at th bottom develop views and practices that challenge it. - The most imp thing for understanding racism - uncovering the mechanism and practices at the social, economic, ideological and political levels responsible for the reproduction of racial domination - materialist approach - “Racial ideology” - his equivalent to ‘prejudice’ - a central element for the maintenance of racial order, but cannot by itself guarantee racial domination => variations of this would produce randomness in racial outcomes; but in every day life it is mostly constistent - Imp: the idea that there is no ‘racism’ but rather variations in how racial regimes are organized and, hence, variations in the racial ideologies of those regimes. - the 3 periods in the US - Racial contestation = the crucial driving force of any racialized social system 2. Critical reflection on his own theorization on race (the racialized social system approach) and acknowledgement that he should have explained better the role of culture and ideology in the making and remaking of race. - Did not deal very well with intersectionality - Racism as ideology (‘prejudice’) is also material and consequential - bc ideology, racial or otherwise, is intrinsically connected to domination, as Marx and Engels argues in The German Ideology (1985). Without it (ideology as a material force), Europeans could not have conquered, enslaved, and exploited people based on the claim that some people are different (better) than others - they needed an ideology to show that they were the ‘chosen’ ones. - ***** Racialized societies could not survive without ideology as it fulfills 5 vital social functions: “accounting for the existence of racial inequality, providing basic rules on engagement in interracial interactions, furnishing the basis for actors’ racial subjectivity, shaping and influencing the views of dominated actors, and, by claiming universality, hiding the fact of racial domination” - Racial ideology is CONSTITUTIVE of all racial domination situations. of 10 54 - Race has a ‘changing game’ - in constant flux and we must examine its remaking in societies. The constant change - due to factors such as racial contestation, the changing demography of a racial formation, and the impact of sociopolitical developments in the world-system. (Ex: the Civil Rights movement empowered ppl of color from other countries) 3. Describing some of the work he has done since this early work. - books:) - Racial ideology is flexible - must deal with new information to maintain its legitimation purposes - In one book, he deconstrocts color-blind racism or the dominant racial idoelogy of the post-Civil Rights Era. - this ideology is based by him on the frame that he labels ‘abstract liberalis’; - The color-blind eyeglasses whites wear nowadays are tinted with the myth that race is no longer relevant in this nation. But their seemingly naïve color- blindness is just an ideology that legitimates contemporary racial inequality. - prevents ppl from seeing + understanding the racial reality and thus, whites and nonwhites see two VERY different realities. - we need social movements! - There is smth like racial grammar organizing the normative field of racial transactions. - it facilitates racial domination and may be more central than coercion and other practices of social control for reproducing racial domination. - For ex: tv shows with mainly white ppl but yet they are read as universal, nonracial cultural artifacts. The ex with disappearances - “missing white woman syndrome” — one grammatical element of these stories is that they are represented as universal stories - People of color still emphatize, but most of these feelinf are not reciprocated bc are not processed by whites in the same way 4. Several new directions for research and theory in the field of race stratification - anchoring race theory in latin America and the Caribbean - Rooting our racial theory on the historical experiences of the oldest racial regimes in the world (US and Europe) might help us understand things such as the importance of intermediate racial categories, the rationality of pigmentocractic regimes, the disap- pearance of race in discourse but not in practice - How class (Marx etc.) and gender shape space and organizations has been studied - but behind in theorizing how race does the same - Intermediate racial categories - the need to investigate where biracial ppl, latinos etc fit in the more seemingly fluid American racial order that is emerging - Theorizing intersectionality - Racialization of immigration - central if we want o explore and predict how they will ultimately fit in the American racial landscape - Racial socialization - expanding the racial groups studied and exploring the different ways in which racial socialization is accomplished - Interracial relationships - have they really challenged the foundation of a racial regime? of 11 54 (3) Culture as the ideological battleground of the Modern World-System (Wallerstein) (Curs) - “Culture”: usage I and usage II - Culture as ideological weapon of control - Ideological doctrine and capitalistic world economy: i)universalism ii)racism / sexism - Contradictions of capitalist world economy and the role of ideologies - The anti-systemic movements (ARTICOL) (3) - Culture - USAGE 1 : The basic model of each person can be described in 3 ways: the universal characteristics of the specie, the set of ch that define that person as a member of a series of groups, that person’s idiosyncratic characteristics. - when we talk about traits which are neither universal nor idiosyncratic we often use ‘CULTURE’ to describe the colection of such traitS, or of such behaviors, or of such values, or of such beliefs. - in this usage every group has its culture. (Many groups - many ‘cultures’ : gender, race etc); culture as a way of summarizing the ways in which groups distinguish themselves from other groups - USAGE 1 = the set of characteristics which distinguish one group from another - but who are the groups? - obviously only certain ‘groups’ have cultures; examples: nations, ‘tribes’, ‘ethnic groups’, rarely: the ‘culture of communists’ these groups seem to have in common some kind of self- awareness, some shared pattern of socialization combined with a system of ‘reinforcement’ of their values or of prescribed behavior, and some kind of organization (organized: nation-state, or quite indirect - shared newspapers, magazines for the ‘urban intellectuals’). - Obvious differences (dinner time, length of skirts…) BUT the degree to which groups are in fact uniform in their behavior is distressingly difficult to maintain - so the author says that we can use this concept only for trivial statements basically - USAGE 2 : used to signify certain characteristics WITHIN the group (not the totality of the specificitty of one group against another) - we use culture to signify that which is “superstructural” as opposed to that which is the “base” (or symbolic from material) - USAGE 2 = some set of phenomena which are different from (and “higher” than) some other set of phenomena within any one group. - what is the evidence that any given group has a ‘culture’? - not a clear answer, any statistical findings would vary constantly over time (culture ofc is an evolving phenomenon) - Culture I seems not to get us very far in our historical analyses. Culture II is suspect as an ideological cover to justify the interests of some persons of 12 54 through the principle of citizenship - each state is proclaiming the universality of the equality of citizens - The princip]e of universalism both on a worldwide scale and within each of the sovereign states that constitute the interstate system is hypocritical!! - in reality there is a hierarchy of states within the interstate system and a hierarchy of citizens within each sovereign state that the ideology of universalims matters. - Racism-sexism as an ideology equally serves to contain the contradiction involved in creating sovereign states within an interstate system that contains a single division of laber - R-S legitimates the real inequalities, the always existing hierarchies both within the world-system as a whole and within each sovereign state. - Where internal hierarchies cannot be based on skin color, they can always be based on other particularist criteria - Everywhere (states individually but also the interstate system as a whole) - the racist ideology takes the same form. - one group is genetically or ‘culturally’ (usage 2) inferior to another group in such a way that the group said to be inferior cannot be expected to perform tasks as well as the presumably superior group - eternally or for a very long period into the future - So racism is used to justify these hierarchies - Sexism => racist terminology is regularly clothed in sexist language - the superior ‘race’ is considered to be more masculine, the inferior one to be more feminine. It is as though sexism was even more deeply rooted than racism. - Racist ideology (might fail occasionally) + sexist overtones => the clinching argument! The dominant group is more rational, more disciplined, more self-controled, indipendent…, the dominated one is more emotional, more lazy, more artistic and dependent. - Sexism doubles racism also by this => the dominated racial group (‘self-indulgent’) is thereby thought more aggressive sexually; the males therefore represent a threat to the females of the dominant group who, although women and not men, are somehow more ‘self-controlled’ than the males of the dominated group. But still females, therefore they require the active physical protection of the males of the dominant group. - Because women do not have as many rights in muslim countries - it is argued that they are not culturally capable of recognizing them - from this they say they are capable of many other things.. 2. The contradiction of modernization vs Westernization - the simple way to resolve this: assume they are identical - to argue that Western culture is in fact universal culture - More sophisticated argument: only western civilization was somehow capable of evolving from a pre-modern form to modernity - Clothed in the legitimation of particularism - the Orientalists suggested that these oriental cultures were historically frozen and could not evolve, but could only be ‘destoryed’ from without. - Always the conclusion that the West has emerged into modernity; the others had not… - Others preaching the eternal existence and virtue of difference - a universalist message of cultural multiplicity could serve as justification of educating various groups in their separate ‘cultures’ and hence preparing them for different tasks in the single economy. The extreme version of this is apartheid - Furthermore, racism and sexism can be justified by a rejection of Westernization which can take the form of legitimating indigenous ideological positions (a so- called revival of tradition) that include blatantly racist and sexist themes. At of 15 54 which point, we have a renewed justification of the worldwide hierarchy. It becomes legitimate to treat lran as a pariah nation. not only because lran uses "terrorist" tactics in the international arena, but because lranian women are required to wear the chador. 3. The problem of getting workers to work harder at lower pay is inherently a difficult one - against self-interest - a possible ideological explanation? - universalims: can become a motivation insofar as the work ethic is preached as a defining centerpiece of modernity - exemplifing a value that is of universal merit and is said to be socially beneficial to all. - states that are better off than others (or groups) have achieved this advantage by an earlier, stronger, and more enduring commitment to the universal work ethic. Conversly, those who are worse off (paid less) are in this position bc they merit it - Racism and sexism complement this unversalizing theorem very well - when instutionalized, create a high correlation between low group status and low income - those at the lower end of the scale are easily identificable by what may then be termed cultural criteria (usage II) - culture (II) now becomes the explanation of the cause: blacks and women are paid less bc they work less hard, merit less. 4. Modernity as a central universalizing theme gives priority to newness, change, progress. THROUGH THE AGES, the legitimacy of political systems had been derived from precisely the opposite principle, that of oldness, continuity, tradition. There was a straight-forwardness to premodern modes of legimitation which does not exist anymore - culture (usage 1) is helpful here - in the absence of the legitimacy of monarchical-aristocratic systems, a fictionalized collectivity with a collective soul, a hypothetical ‘nation’ whose roots are located in days of yore, is a marvelous substitute: the power of patriotism to achieve cohesion - but it has often been reinforced or transformed into racism and sexism. 5. The capitalist world-economy does not merely have unequal distribution of reward. It is the locus of an increasing polarization of reward over historical time. At the world-system: the gap of income between states has grown, but it does not necessarily follow that this is true within each state structure. - in this unequal and polarizing world-system => geographical dispertion => possible for real income to rise in some countries while going down in others and in the system as a whole. The countries in which the rise occurs are also the most extensively studied => false generalizations take root (for ex not measuring adequately the non-citizen component of the population - often illegally in residence)> - “Developmentalism”; the universalist theme: all states can develop, all states shall develop. Racist themes: if some states have developed earlier and faster than other, it is because they have done smth, behaved in a way that is different. (More ‘modern’). If other states have developed more slowly, it is because there is something in their culture (usage I at the state level, usage II at the world level) which prevents them or has thus far prevented them from becoming as "modern" as other states. - How can the underveloped develop? In someway, by copying those who already have (adopting the unversal culture of the modern world, with the assistance of those who are more advances - culture usage II). Despite assistance, little to no of 16 54 progress => it is bc they are ‘racist’ in rejecting universal ‘modern’ valuea which then justifies that the ‘advances’ states are scornful of them or condescending to them. Any attempt in an ‘advanced’ state to comprehend ‘backwardness’ in terms other than wiflul refusal to be ‘modern’ is labeled Third-Worldism, or reverse racism/irrationalism. 6. The contradiction of limitlessness and organic death. Limtiless expansion in the real world in not possible; even (especially) the strongest and wealthiest states have risen and decline. - 2 ways to deal with demise/decline: to deny them/to welcome the change - Both universalism and racism-sexism are useful conservative ideologies - Racism-sexism serves to sustain denial - temporary illusion, it ‘cannot occur’ given the strength/superiority of the dominant culture (usage II). Or, if it is really occurring, it is because culture (usage II) has ceded place to a deceptive world humanism in the vain hope of creating a world culture (usage I). Thus, it is argued the demise or decline, which it is now admitted may really be occurring, is due to insufficient emphasls on culture (usage II) and hence to admitting "lower" racial groups or "women" to political rights. In this version of ideology, demise or decline is reversible, but only by a reversion to a more overt racism-sexism. Generally speaking, this has been a theme throughout the twentieth century of what we today call the extreme, or neo-fascist, right. - But there is a universalizing version to this exercise in denial. The demise or decline has perhaps not been caused, or not primarily caused, by an increased political egalitarianism, but much more by an increased intellectual egalitarianism. The denial of the superiority of the scientific elite, and their consequent right to dictate public policy, is the result of an anti-rationalist, antinomian denial of universal culture (usage I) and its worldwide culture-bearers (usage II). D. emands for popular control of technocratic elites is a call for "the night of the long knives " a return to pre modern "primitivism." This is the heart of what is today called neo-conservatism. Conclusions: - the paired ideologies of universalims and racism-sexism have been very powerful means by which the contradictory tensions of the world system have been contained. But of course, they have also served as ideologies of change and transformation in their slightly different clothing of the theory of progress and the conscientization of oppressed groups. This has resulted in extraordinarily ambivalent uses of these ideologies by the presumed opponents of the existing system, the antisystemic movements. It is to this last aspect of culture as an ideological battleground that I should like now to turn. - antisystemic movement (to transform the system) is also a product of the system - what culture does such movement incarnate? - Culture usage I - incarnated the culture of the capitalist world economy - Culture usage II - claimed to have created a new culture, a culture destined to be a culture (usage I) of the future world - but we can’t know what shall be the culture of the future - the antisystemic movements in the last 150 years have turned themselves into the fulfillers of the liberal dream while claiming to be its most fulsome critics; the liberal dream has been that universalims will trimph over racism and sexism => 2 strategic operational imperatives: the spread of ‘science’ in the economy and the spread of ‘assimilation’ in the political arena. (Liberal dream = the search for science and assimilation). of 17 54 a peculiar assimilation of the conservative sense of determinism into the progressive utopia which strives to remake the world” - ???? He suggests a historical sequence for social movements - as they get boader (more successful), their viewpoint shifts to one of great historical concreteness and hence to CONSERVATISM??? - Ideology is dead, or dying, Mannheim said Marxism exposed it and buried it. “When history is becoming more and more man’s own creation, with the relinquishment of utopias, man would lose his will to shape history and therewith his ability to understand it.” - MARXISM - under steady attack throughout its existence as a worldview linked to a social movement. - Bc it is too utopian - OR For not being utopian enough (at all) - *but we have seen that it depends on the content one gives to the concept of utopia AND what one calls marxism.. - the 3 eras: 1. Era of Marx himself - 1840s - 1883 => More’s Utopia prevailed ; the politics of these era were essentially chiliastic (one day the working class would rise up, make the revolution, and then state would wither away). This did not happen - the Paris Commune tho became the symbol of utopian possibilities - but in reality it was the last gasp of chiliastic socialism. 2. Era of ‘orthodox Marxism’; the product of the German Social-Democratic Party + the experience of the Bolsheviks; the Marxism of the parties - dead now (as a utopia), as an ideology it has shown considerable resistance; this era essentially rejected the utopia of the era of Marx (without saying so); Lenin, Stalin denied doing it; marxism moved from being the expression of a chiliastic brotherhood to being the expression of organized parties operating in the real world. The language used was in general the language of Engels. 3. Era that started in the 1950s - still living it; among the thousand Marxisms there are even marxist marxism, still critical of existing capitalist reality, still in search of a utopia without which as Mannheim put it, we cannot understand the world. ; the marxist utopia of the era of a thousand Marxism is a utopia in search of itself. - the 3 eras are not a mere accident => Marx: sets of ideas linked to social movements are products of larger historical processes - (Dupa era istorie.. pag 12) - the French Revolution changed our ways of looking at the world - institutions were transmutable - Social science involved the rejection of utopia as ideology - The intellectual history of the 19th and 20th centuries has tended to be written as if it were one gigantic battle between liberalism and Marxism. Liberalism dominated the state structures and the universities, and Marxism represented the opposition, outside the state structures (at least until 1917) and largely outside the universities (at least until very recently). - Both social science and Marxism - took the modern state as the basic entity within which social reality occurred (implicitly) - Took science as the only rational worldview conceivable - dedicated themselves to its fulfillment of 20 54 - Both tied the successful manipulation of the world to the work of an elite defined in terms of intellectual criteria - Supreme validity of progress - the idea of progress as inevitable lurked their common utopian mentality - Today: in the 3rd era of social science - after the WW2, we are still in a great ‘sea change’ of transition. Rejects ‘philosophy’ as ideological utopia and says to scientific social science that is too an ideology - We cannot rely on the acquired wisdom of the second era - we need to reassemble it in forms that are usable; we need to think directly about our utopias (but in the sense of Mannheim, so something efficacious) - Utopias are always ideological - Engels (and Marx) were right, provided one remembers that they were wrong in the implicit utopia involved in believing that there could ever be an end to history, a world in which ideologies no longer existed. - WALLERSTEIN: We need to accept contradiction as the key to explain social reality but also to accept its enduring inescapability - our utopia has to be sought NOT in eliminating all contradiction but in eradicating the vulgar, brutal, unnecessary consequences of material inequality - It is in this sense that utopia is a process, always defining the better in a way that is critical of exisiting reality - brought to fruition by the many on behalf of themselves - A party can not bring this transformation, they can only play a role - social sciences and the activities of political organizations should be placed in a framework in which, in tension and in tandem with each other, they illuminate the historical choices rather than presume to make them. - The political task is to reconstruct a strategy of change that in fact will work, in the sense of being utopian - The intellectual task is to create a methodology that will seize the unseizable - process - in which A is never A, in which contradiction is intrinsic, in which the totality is smaller than the part, and in which interpretation is the objective. D. Held, A. Mc Grew, Globalization / Anti-Globalization Beyond the Great Divide of 21 54 The Academic controversy on GLOBALIZATION 1. GLOBALISTS Hyper-globalists (global optimists) (Hayek, Nozick): cosmopolitanism Transformationalists (Held e Mc Grew; Castells, Giddens): ethical cosmopolitanism; human global democracy. Critical globalists (Hardt e Negri): radical communitarianism; globalization from below; alternative globalizations. 2. INTERMEDIARY POSITION BETWEEN GLOBALISTS AND SCEPTICS: Glocalists: rooted ethical cosmopolitanism 3. SCEPTICS Statists: communitarianism. a. The historical materialists: progressive internationalism; anti-capitalism b. The realists: liberal internationalism 6 MODELS OF GLOBAL POLITICS 1. Neoliberals (Washington Consensus, 1990) 2. Liberal internationalists (Our Global Neighbourhood, 1995; UN High-Level Panel, 2005) 3. Institutional reformers (United Nations Development Programme: global public goods theory) 4. Global transformers (double democratization) 5. Radicals (self-governing communities; globalization from below) 6. Statists/Protectionists and Neoconservatives (ARTICLE - HELD, MCDREW) 1. INTRODUCTION: CURRENT CONTROVERSIES ABOUT THE DEMISE OF GLOBALIZATION - GLOBALIZATION - understood as the widening, deepening and speeding up of worldwide interconnectedness - Fiercely defended and contested idea among academics and activists - Academy => opinion divided over the evidence for + the explanatory significance of contemporary globalization - Political spehere: extreme right - globaphobia; neoliberals - globaphilia - ?? G denotes the intensification of worldwide social relations and interactions such that distant events acquire very localized impacts and vive versa of 22 54 - 4 successive waves of G scholarship => can be identified and roughly labelled as the: - Theoretical - concerned with the debates about the conceptualization of G, its dynamics and its systemic and structural consequences as a secular process of worldwide social change - Historical - explored in what ways contemporary G could be considered novel or unique - Institutional - asseses claims about global convergence (and divergence) by concentrating on questions of institutional change and resilience, whether in national models of capitalism, state restructuring or cultural life. - Deconstructive - reflects the influence of poststructuralist and constructivist thinking across the social sciences, from Open Marxism to postmodernism. Central: debate about whether the current historical conjuncture is best understoof as an epoch of competing and alternative globalizations (in the plural) - ‘clash of globalizations’ , or one of imperialism and empire. - not mapping these with the figure - The transformationalists => G is taken to be a really existing condition and considered to be amenable to either political reform or transformation. - The critical globalists => G is taken seriously but a new form of domination to be resisted along with any grand political projects for remaking the world according to cosmpolitan universal principles - The statists => the idea of G or its presumed benign nature is regarded with deep scepticism and instead the emphasis is on the continued centrality of state power to the improvement of the human condition - The glocalists => the privilege of the global is rejected and the intermeshing of processes of globalization and localization is emphasized, but with a normative attachment to ‘rooted cosmopolitanism’ - SCEPTICS: ‘G today has been oversold’ - As a description of social reality - As an explanation of social change - As an ideology of social progress - central to scepticism (STATIST + LOCALIST) - contemporary G is not historically unprecedented, the dominant economic trends are towards internationalization and regionalization, and the idea of G has been much more significant than its descriptive/explanatory utility => they argue that critical and transformationalist scholarship significantly exaggerates globalization’s empirical and normative significance, arguing that the world remains principally one of discrete national societies and states. - These arguments have acquired force in the current context - For today borders and boundaries, nationalism and protectionism, localism and ethnicity appear to define an epoch of radical de-globalization, the disintegration of the liberal world order and the demise of globalism. - Current world order defined by the reassertion of US hegemony, the rise of a new mode of Western imperialism, interventionism, geopolitics and intercapitalist rivalry. - Historical materialist + realisttheories of imperialism or geopolitics provide more accurate descriptions and explanations of the current conjuncture than does any TRANSFORMATIONALIST OR CRITICAL GLOBALIST - These sceptics on the whole DO NOT mourn the passing of the discourse of G - for many a welcome return to grounded historical critique, to understanding both the real possibilities and real obstacles to the construction of a better world. For those of a historical materialist persuasion, this requires of 25 54 capturing state power democratically, building a post-capitalist society and developing a progressive internationalism as opposed to the utopia of global democracy; realist persuasion - using the state power to create the conditions of a more just international order. Both share a commitment to the state as the principal agent of social and political progress. - ??GLOCALISTS - takes this shift seriously: Poststructuralism in the social sciences has encouraged a shift away from macro-social analysis to a concern with the particular, the local, and the micro-social - Takes both G and localization seriously without necessarily privileging either in explanations of the social. - Glocalist scholarhsip chart a third course between globalism and statism. - Ex: much of the work on global cities illuminates how they are simultaneously local, national, transna- tional, regional and global centres of power; Brenner: local and global retain their distinctive forms, but explanation of one necessarily requires an account of the other; his work = critique of that globalization scholarship which privileges any particular spatial scale. - similar arguments made in many studies of cultural globalization => point to ways in which local and global cultural resources are conjoined in the production of new kinds of identities and cultural communities, from the self-identification of Irish-Americans to the indigenization of world religions ; to explain this processes of cultural hybridizaion - requires recofnition of their mutual imbrication => this recognition informs the normative thinking of much glocalist scholarship - It rejects the crude binary division between the global as the principal source of domination and the local as the principal source of resistance or emancipation. => blurring of ethical attachments between ethical cosmpolitanism and ocmmunitarianism: a rooted cosmopolitanism (blends together local and global struggles) - GLOBALISTS: - 2 strands: - the transformationalist - present a rich account of the distinctive features of contemporary globalization from within a broadly historical sociology tradition. They map the scale and complexity of worldwide social relations across all dimensions, from the economic to the cultural, arguing that their historically unprecedented extensity and intensity represents significant 'global shift' in the social organization of human affairs. - the relationships between territory, economy, society, identity, sovereignty and the state no longer appear as historically fixed and congruent - even if this was imaginary - but rather as relatively fluid and disjointed. For the transformationalists, it is this apparent dislocation or destabilizing of the institutional coordinates of modern social life that is the source of both heightened conflict and insecurity, at all levels, from the local to the global. - Distributional consequences of G => CASTELLS argues that economic globalization is associated with a polarizing and dived world, as the of 26 54 gap between the rich and the poor widens while much of humanity remains on the margins or is excluded from its benefits => this structural exclusion and structural inequality it is argued is an inevitable consequence of market-led globalization. However, this need not be the case if globalization could be harnessed to the ideals of social justice. The cosmopolitan normative thrust of the transformationalist analysis is thus an argument for ethical or humane globalization, - Held, Castells - this takes the form of variations on a project for global democracy and global justice - critical globalist - G taken seriously because is constitutive of new global structures and systems of transnational domination - Social power is being radically extended and transnationalized by the social forces of G + in the process, new subjectivities and transnational collectivities of resistance are formed. - “Global matrix” - a new globalized social formation is held to be in the making which requires new ways of thinking about and acting in the world. - Seeks to understand the making and unmaking of these new globalized structures of domination, as well as the possibilities for their remaking or progressive transformation. - Hardt and Negri - Empire - the unique form of global domination with globalization at its core - diff from imperialism : it established no territorial center of power and does not rely on fixed boundaries or barriers. - In common with other neo-Gramscian account of hegemony of a globalized capitalist order: both consider globalization as a historically distinctive mode of domination which is economic+cultural+social+ideolofical+political. - Agency, subjectivity and social struggle - VITAL concepts in the critical globalist lexicon; 3. The Contentious Politics of Globalization: Mapping Ideals and Theories - the new politics of globalization - 6 leading position on what can and should be done ; there are some areas of common ground - Differ also in respect to their radicalism (from reform to rejection) and political strategies (from lobbying to protest). 1. Neoliberals - political life, like economic life, is a matter of individual freedom and initiative; minimal state intervention on the free market - The extension of the market to more and more areas of life - The project of neoliberalism pursued through a powerful agenda of economic reform, commonly reffered to as the ‘Washington Consensus’ - free trade, capital market liberalization, flexible exchange rates, transfer of assets to the private sector, tax reform, protection of intelectual property rights. - in recent year the original Wash Consensus has been augmented - G - new epoch in which traditional nation-states are becoming unnatural, even impossible, business units in a global economy. - we are witnessing the emergence of a single global market alongside the principle of global competition as the harbinger of human progress. of 27 54 - Argument: there is nothing inevitable of fixed about its current form, marked by huge asymmetries of power, opportunity and life chances. - this distinguished the global transformes from those who argue for altenratives to globalization and those who simply seek to manage it more effectively - Position: neither straightforwardly for nor against G; at issue here are its core organizational principles and institutions - Recasting G needs to be conceived as a ‘double-sided process’ (double democratization): the deepening of political and social reform within a national community + the creation of greater transparency, accountability and democracy across territorial borders - Each citizen of a state will have to learn to become a ‘cosmopolitan citizen’ - person capable of mediating between national traditions and alternative forms of life - Proposes measures in the conviction that, through a process of progressive, incremental change, geopolitical forces will come to be socialized into democratic agencies and practices. - reform of the UN system - The need for new modes of administering and implementing international agreements and international law, including an enhanced capacity for peacekeeping and peace-making - permanent independent military 5. Statists/Protectionists/Neoconservatives - best seens as representing a range of views, only aspects of which overlap - Ex: the extens of contemporary ‘globalization’ is wholly exaggerated + rhetoric tht G is seriously flawed and politcially naive since it underestimates the enduring power of national governments to regulate internationaly economic activity - Emphasis on the neccesity of enhancing or reinforcing the capacities of states to govern - to help organize - the security, economic well-being and welfare of the citizens. - Statist and protectionist positions become more closely connected when the politics of natioal communities is associated with a hostility to, or outright rejection of, global links and institutions, especially when they are perceived to be driven by American, Western or foreign commercial interests (seen a threat to local / national identities or to religious traditions) - Even if a clash of cultures or civilizations is not behind antipathy to global forces, statist/protectionist positions can be linked to deeply rooted scepticism or antipathy to Western power and dominance - global governance and economic internationalization as primarily Western projects, the main object of which is to sustain the primacy of the West in world affairs. - According to this view, only a fundamental challenge to dominant geopolitical and geoeconomic interests will produce a more pluralist and legitimate world order in which particular identities, traditions and worldviews can flourish unhindered by hegemonic forces. nI this regard, ti has much ni common with the last set of positions to be explored below. 6. Radicals - 2, 3, 4 - emphasize the necessity of strengthening and enhancing global governance arrangements; RADICALS stress the need for governance of 30 54 mechanisms based on the establishment of accountable and self-governing communities. - Concerned to establish the conditions necessary to empower ppl to take control of their own lives and to create communities based on participation, the common good and sustainability; - The agents of change are to be found in existing civil society movements - New regional + global transnational actors have emerged in the last few decades, contesting the terms of globaliation - some hold that these developments indicate the beginning of ‘globalization from below’ - the ‘coming out’ of global activism and global civil society. - ‘Global civil society’ - emerged against the backdrop of the spread of demands for democratization around the world after the end of the cold war and with the indensifying process of global interconnectedness. It reflects a demand for greater personal autonomy and self-organization in highly complex and uncertain societies, where power and decision- making increasingly escape national boundaries. - = an aspiration to extend the impact and efficacy of human rights, to deepen the international rule of law - Kaldor sees global civil society as a ‘contested process, in which different views about the world’s future can be expressed’. - other radical thinkers find in the emergence of global activism a firmer attachment to the achievement of social and economic equality - The emphasis is typically on identifying the principles on which politics might be constructed irrespective of the particular institutional reforms it might take - social movements are defining a ‘new progressive politics’ which involves explorations of new ways of acting, new ways of knowing and being in the world… - Signs that elements of contemporary protest movements are moving BEYOND this agenda (protest-driven concerns and frequently single-issue campaigns) and devloping institutional reform programmes not unlike those found among the institutional reformers and global transformers. ULRICH BECK - CRITICAL COSMOPOLITAN THEORY CURS - Ulrich Beck - “the cosmopolitan conditions” - Hannah Arendt - studies what is the human condition (1958 - “the human condition”) - Beck => while most classical sociology is focused on the study of the national society, today sociological studies are condensing into the paradigm of cosmo sociology - At the beginning of the 21st Century, according to Beck, we have to discover and understand the Cosmopolitan condition. The “New Cosmopolitanism” or “Realistic Cosmopolitanism”, that Ulrich Beck distinguishes from the of 31 54 philosophical-normative cosmopolitanism (proposed by Habermas and David Held), unites three interconnected commitments: - A. shared critique of methodological nationalism (classical sociology) that equates society with nation-state societies; - B. the shared diagnosis of the 21st century as an age of cosmopolitanism (the cosmopolitan condition cannot only become real in a translation of the principles of philosophy, but also through the back door of global unintended risks) - C. the shared assumption that we require some kind of methodological cosmopolitanism. - Cosmopolitan sociology and global risks - Critical Cosmopolitan Theory - We should adopt a new realistic cosmpolitanism that criticizes the national struggle? - Humanity in 2 divided; his approach - methodological nationalism - Beck - we have to do with global risk (tsunamis ecc) - ask for the help of many states to intervene - global risks that cannot be dealt with by states alone Second modernity and the cosmopolitan condition - First Modernity (industrial society) described by classical sociologists (Durkheim, Marx, Weber, Simmel) - Second Modernity (risk society) described by: - A. Giddens, Runaway World (2000) - U. Beck, Power in the Global Age (2005) - According to Giddens and Beck, globality and globalization are associated with what they call “second modernity”. What defines “second modernity” (or “late modernity” or “risk society”) is the decline of the power of the nations and the national borders that went to the heart of “first modernity” (risk society - society today have new risks that did not exist before: risks that can’t be easily identified without science - ex climate change - it requires sophisticated technology and knowledge to know it; risk are universal and you can’t escape them - the risk can’t buy out of them - can’t escape the radioactivity for ex, risk afects all classes; some irreversible - we don’t know how to deal with them) - No more the period of the first modernity (the 3 revolutions we talked about in the begining of the course) - now: second modernity: reflexive and network society + the risk society - In the first modernity, it was believed that the more we know about the world and the more we can control it with the help of science and reason - Second modernity - we need to overcome the difficulties, but science and reason are no more enough (but still imp). A cosmpolotian real politique - The goal of the global civil society is to achieve a connection between cvil society and the state - to bring the consmpolotian form of the statehood - States need a cosmopolitan form of political structure + activities of 32 54 TEXTE SEMINARE Texte mid-term: 1. 10 pag 2. 18 pag 3. 15 pag 4. 15 pag 5. 5 pag 6. 20-ish Seminare: 1. 14 2. Castells 1-19 3. One social movement CASTELLS 4. Umbrella revolution - citeste text (11) + eseul meu - SAU BLM SAU OCCUPY WALL STREET 5. 29 6. 28 7. 9 8. 18 9. 8 10. 28 (GREU) 11. 13 12. 23 13. 4 1. SOFT POWER: THE EVOLUTION OF A CONCEPT - J. NYE - power: the capacity to do things - in social situation the ability to affect others to get the outcomes one wants. - One must specify who is involved in the power relationship (the scope of power) + what topics are involved (the domain of power). It implies causation - Many power relationship depend veyr mich on what the target thinks - this is a crucial aspect of soft power - Common aproach in international relation (but smtm misleading) : power as resources (for countries) - but it depends on the context (the example with the US tanks in Iraq vs Vietnam); still, power is conveyed through resources, whether tangible or intangible; ppl notice them; often used this by policymakers - but imp to ask which resources provide the best basis for power behavior in a part context? - The traditional elements of national power (pop, ec, military) - misleading and inferiro to the behavioral or relational approach - dominant in the latter half of the 20th century : resources = vehicles that underlie power relaionships; - In practice, discussions of power in foreign policy involve both def (his exp) - Whether the capacity that those resources imply can actually be converted into preferre putcomes will depend upon the contexts and the country’s skill in converting resources into strategies that will produce preferred outcomes. - the decline of American power? - he argued that the US was was also able to get the outcomes it wanted bc of attraction rather than just threats of coercion or payment - he called this soft power and tried to understand its origins and of 35 54 dimensions. Distinguished it from hard power behavior based on coercion or payment - The Soviet soft power was undercut by their use of hard power to suppress revolts in Hungary + Czechoslovakia (1956, 1968) - The Berlin Wall fell - by people whose minds had been affected by Western soft power - ‘many types of resources can contribute to soft power, but that does not mean that soft power is any type of behavior. - HARD POWER = the use of force, payment and some agenda-setting based on them ; PUSH - SOFT POWER = agenda-setting that is regarder as legitimate by the target, positive attraction, and persuasion; PULL - Some resources that are commonly associated with hard power in mostcontexts can also produce soft power in another context. For example, when US naval ships provided tsunami relief to Indonesia in 2004, polls showed a rise of attraction to the US in that country - To a greater degree than with hard power, soft power depends on the minds of the targed audiences; anti-liberal actors can produce soft power in eyes of some crucial audiences even as they produce repulsion in others - If an agent deceives the targets and deprives them of choice, the structural manipulation fits the category of hard power; if the targets regard the agent’s agenda setting as welcome and legitimate, the behavior fits better in the category of soft power. - the distinction between hard and soft power as a matter of degree along a spectrum of behaviors that range from the hard end of command to the soft end of co-option - the issue of VOLUNTARISM AND COERCION in the manipulation of ideas has been complicated by the introduction of the concept of ‘sharp power’ in the aftermaths of authoritariant states’ insertion of false infromation into the political processes of democratic countries - They contrast sharp power, which ‘pierces, penetrates, or perforates the political and information environments in the targeted countries,’ with soft power which harnesses the allure of culture and values to enhance a country’s strength - Propaganda attracts => it can produce soft power - his spectrum of power behaviors focuses on the degree of VOLUNTARISM accorded to the target - In hard power behavior: coercion removes a target’s choices by negative sanctions - In soft power behavior, attraction can be direct with no deliberate action by the agent or indirect and mediated by communication - Enhanced attraction but in a way that preserves meaningflul voluntary choice by target REMAINS soft power - Extreme framinf (lies, deception) that Severly distort relaity remove the target’s meaningful choice and shade into the hard power behavior of coercion - Soft power does not depend upon being true, but on the agent’s intentions of presenting true or false information of 36 54 - soft power can pe used as a weapon, but it still remains different from sharp power when it rests on voluntary attraction - As China dramatically developed its hard power resources, leaders realized that it would be more acceptable if it were accompanied by soft power. This is a smart strategy because as China’s hard military and economic power grew, it could frighten its neighbors into balancing coalitions. - mixed success with its soft powerstrategy : in overall atttractiveness behind the US for most parts of the world, including Asia (even though: ec growth that has raised hundreds of millions of ppl out of poverty and its traditional culture has been an imp source of attraction) - His op: China should realize that most of a country’s soft power comes from its civil society rather than from its government. - China needs to give more leeway to the talents of its civil society, even though this is difficult to reconcile with tight party control. Chinese soft power is also held back by its territorial disputes with its neighbors. Creating a Confucius Institute to teach Chinese culture will not generate positive attraction if Chinese naval vessels are chasing fishing boats out of disputed waters in the South China Sea. - 3 aspects of his soft power concept have remained stable over the evolution of the concept: - It functions through directly or indricetly transforming the attitudes of target audiences in foreign countries - It has a longer operational time horizon compared to hard power and is more suited to the attainment of general rather than specific goals - Does not lie exclusively within the control of a country’s government, but is shared with civil society 2. NETWORKS OF OUTRAGE AND HOPE - MANUEL CASTELLS (Curs) How some individuals, that at the start of a movement are few or just one, are able to connect to other individuals and activate a networked social movement? Manuel Castells’s work provides an articulate focus on pivotal social movements of the network society that in particular include: • [ICELAND] “Pots-and-Pans Revolution” or “Kitchenware Revolution”: it started on the 11th of October 2008 to protest against the economic crisis. when Hordur Torfason sat in front of the building of the Althing (the Icelandic Parliament) in Reykjavik with his guitar he sang against the “banksters” and their subservient politicians. Then someone recorded the scene and uploaded it to the InternetOn the 20th of January 2009, thousands of people of all ages gathered in front of the Parliament, they beat on drums, pots and pans, thus earning the nicknmane “The Pots-and-Pans Revolution”. • [TUNISIA, EGYPT] Arab Spring phenomena: it started with the Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia on the 17th of December 2010 (“Revolution for Liberty and Dignity”). In the first mass demonstration in Cairo’s Tahrir Square on the 25th of January 2011, thousands shouted “Tunisia is the solution”. • Tunisia: The Arab Spring started with Jasmine Revolution On the 17th of December 2010 Mohamed Bouazizi, a 26 year old street vendor, set himself on fire to protest against the humiliation of of 37 54 - roots of social movements: in the fundamental injustic eof all societies, relentlessly confronted by human aspirations of justice - array of structurla causes and individual reasons - how these individuals network by connecting mentally to other individuals, and why they are able to do so, in a process of communication that ultimately leads to collective action - Ind level:they are emotional movements - enthusiasm, hope; However, for enthusiasm to emerge and for hope to rise, individuals have to overcome the negative emotion resulting from the avoidance motivational system: anxiety. Anxiety is a response to an external threat over which the threatened person has no control. Thus, anxiety leads to fear, and has a paralyzing effect on action. The overcoming of anxiety in socio-political behavior often results from another negative emotion: anger. - If many feel humiliated, exploited, ignored, misrepresented - they are ready to transform their anger into action. - social movements: dependent on the existence of specific communication mechanisms - the more interactive and self-configurable communication is, the less hierarchical is the organization and the more participatory the movement; - The more the ideas are generated from within the movement, on the basis of the exprience of their participants, the more representative, enthusiastic and hopeful the movement will be, and vice versa. - For the neworks of counterpower to prevails - they have to repgoram the polity, the economy, the culture etc in the institutions and in their own lives B. Tunisia + Iceland - common threas: their feeling of empowerment - In both countries: tangible political transformations + new civic cultures emerging from the movements in a very shot span of time - Tunisia : ‘The revolution of liberity and dignity’ - a street vendor setting himself on fire - after a few hours already a protest - other suicides/attempted suicides that fed the anger and stimulated the courage of youth; - Some informal organization to take care of the logistics and to enforce rules of engagement in the debates in the square - re-ccupy the square - Started and played the most active role - unemployed educated youth - who were also frequent internet users - For spreading: appear prominently the role played bu the Internet and Al Jazeera (satellite television) in triggering, amplifying and coordinating spontaneous revolts as an expression of outrage, particularly among the youth; + twitter - a lot of people had access to internet+phones - The feeling of outrage from the objective conditions (unemployment, inequality, high prices etc) => prompted spontaneous protests intiated by individuals. - it seems that in Tunisia we find a significant convergence of three distinctive features: 1. The existence of an active group of unemployed col- lege graduates, who led the revolt, bypassing any formal, traditional leadership; 
 of 40 54 2. The presence of a strong cyberactivism culture that had engaged in the open critique of the regime for over one decade; 
 3. A relatively high rate of diffusion of Internet use, includ- ing household connections, schools and cybercafés. 
 - kept up the demands in spite of persistant police repression and continuing presence of politicians from the old regime in the provisional governement + adm - The support of a newly independent media!!! => clean open elections in 2011 - Iceland: the wealth coming from the financial sector in the wake of the global expansion of speculative financial capitalism - Bank cus- tomers were persuaded to increase their debt, converting it into lower interest Swiss francs or Japanese yen. Unlimited credit permitted people to engage in unlimited consumption, artificially stimulating domestic demand and propelling eco- nomic growth. - Political support form he governemt for the big banks continued in spite their obvious insolvency - => in proportion to the size of the economy, it was the largest destruction of financial value in history. - the catalyst of the Kitchenware Revolution - Singer - sang against the ‘bankester’ and their subservient politicians => internet => days later protest in the square - the role of the internet and social entworks : crucial. - Name of the protest ! - The pressure - eary parliamentary elections - a new coalition by social democrats and red-greens cam into power in 2009 - The new government went to work on three fronts: to clean up the financial mess and exact responsibilities for the fraudulent management of the economy; to restore eco- nomic growth by transforming the economic model, setting up strict financial regulations and strengthening the over- seeing institutions; and to respond to the popular demand by engaging in a process of constitutional reform with full citizen participation - The economy bounced back in 2011 and 2012 - Did not promote the kind of drastic austerity measures that were implemented in other European countries. - Diff from Europe - made the bankers pay for the costs of the crisis. While relieving people from its hardship as much as possible - the revolution: mainly about a fundamental transformagtion of the political system that was blame dfor its incapacigty to manage the crisis, and its subordonation to the banks - The outrage came from the realizatoon that the democratic institutions did not represent the interests of citizens bc the political class had become a self- reproducing cast that was catering to the interests of the financial elite and to the preservation of their monopoly over the state - A unique constitutional process put in place and actually implemented - Facebook was used - in the end a rightist coalition returned to power - reasons: pro-EU stand of the governing coalition, the austerity policies… - the of 41 54 main source of discontent was the cognitive dissonance between the hopes of the social movement and the grim real- ity of institutional politics, a recurrent theme in the history of social movements. - both: he governemtns did not represent ppl’s will bc they had merged with the interests of the financial elite, and they had put their own interests above the interests of the people - Triggered by a dramatic events - Mobile phones+social networks played a major role in spreading images and messages that mobilized people in providing a platform for debate, in calling for actio etc - The movement went from cyberspace to urban space, with the occupation of symbolic public square as material support for both debates and protests - The process of mobilization leading to political change transformed civic consciousness - became role models for the social movements that, inspired by them, emerged thereafter in the landscape of a world in crisis searching for new forms of living together 3. PERFORMING CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE IN HONG KONG - AGNES KU - civil disobedience: Perceived social injustice could compel citizens to engage in oppositional social movements, sometimes including acts of noncompliance with the law. Such actions are liable to legal prosecution and are formally anticivil, yet nonobeying citizens sometimes seek to justify this on alternative moral political grounds that redefine civility. - Both in 2000 (conflict over the public order ordinance) + Umbrella Movement in 2014 => Students: endowed with certain idealized qualities and played a prominent symbolic role in both events ; nonviolence ; Umbrella Movement: the rise of a more combative form of activism among the young generation; - UM: occupation of roads (Novel strategy) - caused disruption In everyday social order - A new trend of radicalism began to arise in society in the 2000s - 3 sources of radicalism came from 3 directions in society - As it was on the rise , ideas and sicourses sha[ed the form of the movement and provided a vocabulary of motives to drive participation - The occupy central trio - key role in driving the vision of an occupy camapign in the communicative sphere for more than a year prior to the UM - Civil disobedience as a fundamental idea - for justice, acts are justifable if they are non-violent and proportionate - Tried to reconcile the idea of civil disobedience with the rule-of-law discourse by proclaiming that both shared the same goal of achieving justice ; civil disob might produce a necessary breakpoint for institutional changein which tensions had reached a bottleneck state - the claim to genuine democracy - lay at the heart of the political movement - Scholarism: the idea of civil nomination of 42 54 5. THE CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS - HUNTINGTON - Huntington thesis: the great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of conlfict will be cultural - the clash of civilizations will dominate global politics - the divisions are no longer relevant: first second third world - a civilization - a cultural entity - westerm confucian, Japenese, islamic, hindu, slavic-orthodox, latin American and possibly African civilization - the highest cultural grouping of ppl (objective elements - language religion etc - and by the subjective self-identification of people. ; may involve a large nr of people or a ver small number - civilizations may include everal nation states or only one - may include subcivilizations (western = European + north american) - they are dynamic; they rise and fall; they divide and merge - civilization identity will be increasingly important in the future, and the world will be shaped in large measure by the interactions among seven or eight major civilizations - differences between civilizations are not only real; they are basic ; the products of centuries of 45 54 - far more fundamental than differences among political ideologies and political regimes - they have generated the most prolonged and the most violent conflicts - The interactions among peoples of different civilizations enhance the civilization- consciousness of people that, in turn, invigorates differences and animosities stretching or thought to strech back deep into history, - The processes of economic modernization and social change throughout the world are separating people from longstanding local identities - the growth of civilization-consciousness is enhanced by the dual role of the west - cultural characteristics and differences are less mutable and hence less easily compromised and resolved than political and eocnomic ones - As pppl define their identity in ethinc and religious terms, they are likely to see an ‘us’ vs ‘them’ relation exsiting between themselves and people or different ethnicity or religion - The clash of civilizaton occurs at 2 lvls - Micro - groups along the fault lines between civilizations struggle (violenty often) over the control of territory and each other - Macro - states from Dif civ compete for relativ emilitary and economic power, struggle over the control of international institutions and third parties, and competitively promote their particular political and religious values - the fault line between civilizations are replacing the political and ideological boundaries of the cold war as the flash points for crisis and bloodshed - The cultural division of Europe between western christianity and orthodox christianty - the eastern boundary of western christianity in the year 1500 - sometimes also a line of bloody conflict! - in the arab world, western democracy strengthens anti-western political forces - the interactions between civilizations vary greatly in the extent to which they are likely to be characterized by violence; - a world of clashing civilizations is inevitably a world of double standards: people apply one standard to their kin-countries and a different standard to others - the kin country syndrome also appeared in conflicts in the former soviet union - the West - at a peak of power in relation to other civilizations - its superpower component has disappeared from the map - The central axis in the politics in the future is likely to be the conflict between the west and the ‘rest’ - response of non-western civilizations to western power and values take one or a combination of 3 forms: - a course of isolation, to insulate their societies from penetration by the west - “band-wagoning” = the attempt to join the west and accept its values and institutions - the attemtp to “balance” the west by developing economic and military power and cooperating with other non-western societies against the west, while preserving indigenous values and institutions = to moderniste BUT NOT to Westernize - to redefine its civilization identity, a country must meet 3 requirements of 46 54 1. political+economic elite has to be generally supportive of and enthusiastic about this move 2. its public has to be willing to acquiesce in the redefinition 3. the dominant groups in the recipient civilization have to be willing to embrace the convert 7. JIHAD VS. MCWORLD - BARBER - the planet is falling precipitantly apart and coming reluctantly together at the very same moment - Forces of jihad and forces of Mcworld - operate with equal strength in opposite directions, the one driven by parochial hatreds, the other by universalizing markets; the one re-creating ancient subnational and ethnic borders from within, the other making national borders porous from without. - In common: neither offers much hope to citizens looking for practical ways to govern themselves democratically - the market imperative - the search for an international economic imperium - marxist and leninist theories - market psychology: attenuates the psychology of ideological and religious clevages and assumes a concord among producers and consumers - categories that ill fit narrowly conceived national or religious cultures - common markets demand a common language as well as a common currency, and they produce common behaviors of the kind bred by cosmopolitan city life everywhere; - The resource imperative - democrats - dreamed of socieites whoe political autonomy rested firmly on economic independence; the Athenians tried to create a way of life simple and austere enough to male the polis genuinely self- sufficient. To be free meant to be independent of any other community or polis - Turns out each nation need smth another nation has; some nations have almost nothing they need. - the information-technology imperative - enlightenment science and the tecnhologies derived from it ar einherently universalizing - The pusuit of science and technology asks for, even compels, open societies - The consumer society and the open society are not quite synonymous; capitalism and democracy have a relationshoip, but it is smth less than a marriage. - The ecological imperative . - the impact of globalization on ecology ; the consciousness has meant not only greater awareness but also greater inequality, as modernized nations try to slam the door behind them - the Enlightment dream of a universal rational society has to a remarkable degree been realized - but in a form that is commercialized, homogenized, depoliticized, bureaucratized and ofc radically incomplete, for the movement toward McWorld is in competition with forces of global breakdown, national dissolution and centrifual corruption - of 47 54 intellectuals, such as the ideologie of human rights, feminism, environmentalism and multiculturalism, as well as the politics and lifestyles that embody these ideologies. - ‘Health ideology’ - also from America: ‘wellness’ programs and encouraging ‘fitness’ - Much of the consumption of this popular culture is arguably superficial, in the sense that it does not have a deep effect on people’s beliefs, values, or behavior. - The emergent global culture is carried by popular movements of one kind or another. Some of them are linked to faculty club culture, such as the feminist/ environmental movements - BERGER’S OPINION: evangelical Protestantism, especially in its Pentecostal version, is the most important popular movement seving as a vehicle to cultural globalization. The Chilean and South African data, for example, show how conversion to this type of religion transforms people's attitudes to family, sexual behavior, child rearing, and, most importantly, to work and general economic attitudes. This is religion that promotes what WEBER called the ‘protestant ethic’. - successfully indigenized everywhere it has penetrated. - For people caught in the early stages of the modernization process, there is above all a new sense of open possibilities and an aspiration for greater freedom - the sense of burden usually comes later. - The cultural earthquake affecting the world - different people respond differently - acceptance, militant rejection (under religion or nationalism), less totalistic forms of rejection (difficult balancing act - typically practied by governments trying to balance global economic participation with resistance against global culture). - Watson: LOCALIZATION = THE GLOBAL CULTURE IS ACCEPTED BUT WITH SIGNIFICANT LOCAL MODIFICATIONS - economic consequences to which McDonald;s management has to adapt. - Impinging global influences can also lead to a revitalization of indigenous cultural froms - Localization shades into another response, best described by the term ‘bybridization’. - the deliberate effort to synthesize foreign and native cultural traits (Japan) - Arguably the most important cultural inuence coming from Asia into the West is not carried by organized religious movements but arrives in the form of the so- called New Age culture. (Reincarnation, karma, but also behaviors meditation yoga etc) - Popular culture - Japan has been the most successful ‘emitter’ : automotive a`nd electronic products - SUBGLOBALIZATIONS - regional reach - ‘europeanization’ the most imp case, especially in the countries of the former soviet bloc - UNDER CERTAIN POLITICAL CONDITIONS, TENSIONS BETWEEN GLOBAL AND INDIGENOUS CULTURES CAN GIVE RISE TO WHAT HUNGTINGTON HAS CALLED THE ‘CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS’ - Globalization is very hard to control - some governments make the attempt - G as a continuation of the challenge of modernization of 50 54 - On the cultural level, this has been the great challenge of pluralism: the breakdown of taken-for-granted traditions and the opneing up of multiple options for beliefs, values, and lifestyles. - In the face of the emerging global culture, this means middle positions between acceptance and militant resistance, between global homogeneity and parochial isolation. Such a search has its diculties, but, as the data of our project show persuasively, it is not impossible. 9. THE CLAIMS OF CULTURE: EQUALITY AND DIVERSITY IN THE GLOBAL ERA - citeste notite daca ai timp 30.11.2023 Both Crowder and Benhabib - criticise ethnocentric forms of universalim - attempt to correct ethnocentrism and the enthocentric form of universalism, but by means of strong cultural relativism is criticised by them - is the other opposite extreme. - They are in the middle ground with some differences. Benhabib - in the middle ground bc she is against Hungtington (different cultures must be separate - mosaic culturalism, no space of overlapping ) ; differences must be protected + should be different jurisdictions in certain cultures, to protect minorities. A complex dialogue between cultures should be at least ospitable. If 1 culture is far away from the other (Benhabib does not mention us vs the other) when they meet, one can even find some limitations in itself and some sources in the other cultures. Benhabib: difference between the real confrontation and the .. confronation - real confronation - the initial pov is open to the possibility to change. It doesn’t neccesarily change, but it is open to it. The pov shouldn;t become a prejudice, should be open to the possibiilty to change, whereas the notional confronation: dialogue starts but no one is open to the possibility to change. Transcultural conversations in a multicultural society - BENHABIB - phrase used by Benhabib: “Claims of culture” - Foster understanding, open-mindness; promote tolerance, contribute to the creation of cohesive communities; - when 2 culture are in contact - confrontation - B believes it shouldn t be a reason to avoid it - She is against Huntington - with the clash of civilisations (cultural differecnes inevitably cause major conflicts). - she shares McIntyre’s idea that cultures should also share some characteristics otherwise comparison between them would be immposibile. - Mc - cultural mapping: wide range of research techniques and tools used to record local cultural assets bound to be used in collective strategies. - Cross cultural communication should be encouraged; to see a point from diff perspectives. Interactive universalism - BENHABIB - in a globalised world, where various cultures interact…. of 51 54 - cosmopotalism - also important for B; has 3 dimensions: moral phylosophy, meta-theoretical position (cultures interascting through borrowing and learning from each other), legal dimension (each being with rights) - Acknowledges cultural diversity - Interactive universalism: acknowledges universal values while also engaging with cultural diversity. The universalistic approach mainly revolves around a liberal political ideology which propogates freedom, equality, democracy. Individualism and so on. - it is very imp to preserve and protect the pluralism in societies even though it is confictual - B says the conflicts arise bc cultures are diff, but still pluralism should exist. - She says we should find a middle ground - She thinks that there are 3 conditions that should be presuposed before a dialogue : transcultural conversation; it should never end . The 3: Egalitarian reciprocity + delibarative democracy Universality - Benhabib - in opposition to universalism - relativism - Cultural relativism - judgements of valuea or truth depend on a single culture’s persepctive. Prezentari si legate de : Sen Nussbaum - human capabilities : quality of life + utilitarian preference satisfaction 10. UNIVERSALISM, RELATIVISM AND CULTURE - CROWDER - cultural relativism - truth or morality is relative to culture, each culture has its own uniwue standards of truth or moral rightness, and that consequently all cultures are equal in moral an intellectual status - not one of the leading multiculturalist thinkers Ishall discuss is an outright relativist, although some flirt with relativism from time to time. That is because cultural relativism suffers from a number of difficulties that make ti problematic in general and that undermine ti as a basis for multiculturalism in particular. - Universality - Ethical universalism is the view that there are certain moral rules that are binding on al human beings ni al places at all times. Such universal rules override the norms of particular cultures, which can be judged as more or less acceptable by the criterion of universal morality. - Locke : natural law generates a doctrine of natural rights - The idea of a universal normality implicit in human nature is one of the most powerful streams in Western thought, and foundational for modern politics, especially liberal democracy - Marxism: regarder morality as a secondary ‘suprerstructural’ phenomenon, determined by the more fundamental processes of the economic ‘base’. - The modern concept of human rights probably commands a more widespread international consensus than any previous form of universalism - RELATIVISM ESPECIALLY IN ITS STRONGER FORMS IS OPPOSED TO UNIVERSALISM - Strong forms of relativism deny that any moral judgements are universally valid, or even that any truth-claims are universally valid of 52 54