NGOs as Agents of Global Demo Politics

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NGOs as Agents of Democratic

“Global Civil Politics”

Mariya Y. Omelicheva

Purdue University, IN

Department of Political Science

[email protected]

"Prepared for delivery at the 2003 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association,

August 28 - August 31, 2003.

Copyright by the American Political Science Association."



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NGOs as Agents of Democratic “Global Civil Politics”

The rapid expansion of non-governmental sector at the global level invites scholars’

attention to analysis and evaluation of the role and influence of non-state actors in nearly

all issue areas of the global polity. In this essay I present an assessment of the extent and

significance of the democratizing role of NGOs in global politics drawing on a vast bodyof literature. To accomplish this goal, I develop a conceptual model of global civil

society, examine the association between global civil society and democratization of

global politics, and define the democratizing efforts of NGOs within this broader

conceptual framework. I examine the proposed model that describes the role of NGOs in

establishing a more democratic mode of global governance in light of the existing

approaches to international relations and against empirical findings of the scholarship

on global civil society and NGOs.

“Global associational revolution” of the late twentieth century precipitatedmomentous changes in the global landscape.1 Through different types of citizens’

associations - social movements, non-governmental organizations, advocacy networks,issue campaigns, etc. – citizens have found ways to speak up about their concerns and toact on politics affecting their lives. Through the creation of an intricate web of social

networks that link individuals and organizations from virtually every corner of the globe,

citizens expanded their influence beyond national borders. The upsurge of global citizenaction through multiple forms of associations and group activities poses a potential

empirical challenge to the state-centric model of governance of the modern world and

invites the attention of scholars to analysis of this new phenomenon of international life.

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are “a basic form of popular participationand representation in the present-day world” (Boutros-Ghali 1996, 7). The questions of

the place and roles of NGOs in the “global associational revolution” received

considerable scholarly attention.2 NGOs are often regarded as the “agents of social

change” (Harper 2001, 247) and the “motor for the dynamic of change” (Cooper 2002,

1). One problem with this understanding of NGOs as agents of social change is that these

“agents” are typically taken out of a broader context of relational and normativenetworks. Occasionally, NGOs are presented as the vanguard of an emerging global civil

society, which provides a broader cross-national setting for non-governmental

organizations as well as other forms of citizens’ associations.3 Yet, there have been

relatively few studies that integrated thorough conceptualization and theoretical analysis

1 Salamon, L. 1994. “The Rise of the Nonprofit Sector: A Global Associational Revolution.” Foreign

Affairs 73(4)2

See, for example, Dehqanzada, Y. Yahya. 2000. Annotated Bibliography in The Third Force: The Rise ofTransnational Civil Society, ed. Ann M. Florini. Japan Center for International Exchange and Carnegie

Endowment for International Peace, Washington DC3 There is vast literature that looks at non-governmental actors as agents of civil society in one country at a

time or draws comparisons of civic activities of NGOs across states (CIVICUS 1994; Fisher 1998;

Salamon 1999). There is expanding literature on the networks linking NGOs and other civil society

organizations across national borders. A useful up-to-date bibliography is Tarrow, Sidney and Melanie

Acostavalle. 1999. “Transnational Politics: A Bibliographic Guide to Recent Research on Transnational

Movements and Advocacy Groups.” Working Paper, Contentious Politics Series, Lajarsfeld Center at

Columbia University <http://www.ciaonet.org/wps/tws01/>.



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of global civil society and evaluation of the framework of global civil society as an

alternative paradigm of global governance.4

The mode of global governance centered in the system of states exhibited lack of

sensitivity to global issues that are of central concern to many people. Democratization of

global governance has become an important subject on the international agenda.5 Global

civil society is now viewed as a civic engine capable of generating the energy andresources needed to cope with global problems, a medium for democratization of

structures of global governance and global market (CIVICUS 1994, 5). The agents ofglobal civil society have a crucial role to play in the democratization of global politics. A

solid understanding of the role of NGOs in the process of social and political

transformations leading to more democratic global governance is therefore essential.There is a wealth of comparative studies of democratization documenting the role of

civil society in the promotion and struggle for democratization, endurance of democracy,

and consolidation of democratic forces (Bystydzienski and Sekhon 1999; Monshipouri

1995; Putnam 1995; Rudebeck and Törnkquist 1998; Salamon et al. 1999). Theinternational relations scholarship examined the impact of international factors and

dynamics of globalization on democratization (Edwards and Gaventa 2001; Grugel 2002;Risse-Kappen 1995) and the reverse effects of democracy and democratization on thebehavior of states in international relations (Kozhemiakin 1998).6 It is yet to be

theoretically corroborated and empirically demonstrated that a vibrant global civil society

is the key to a further democratization of global politics.Thus, the modern scholarship that studies the roles of global civil society and its

agents in the democratization of global politics is marred with conceptual gaps and blank

theoretical spaces. To make the idea of NGOs as agents of social and political change

work we need to reconsider it by placing non-governmental actors within a broadercontext of global civil society. To be able to locate NGOs within a framework of global

civil society, we need to define the concept of global civil society itself. To show that

NGOs are vehicles of democratization of global politics, we have to restore the missinglinks between global civil society and democratization and validate empirically the

contribution of NGOs to the transformation of the world in a democratic direction.

The goal of the present study is not original. It purports to assess democratizing rolesof non-governmental organizations in modern global politics. The modus operandi is

what distinguishes the present work from other scholarship in the field. To realize the

stated goal, this study fills out conceptual voids, builds theoretical bridges between the

scholarship on global civil society and democratization, and systematically evaluatesempirical findings about the multi-faceted roles of NGOs in global politics. It draws

extensively on theoretical accomplishments of political theory, political philosophy, and

comparative politics. I start this essay with my contemplations on the nature, constitution,

4 Notable exceptions are the studies of Clark, Friedman, and Hochstetler 1998; Lipschutz 1992; and Walzer

1995.5 See Boutros Boutros-Ghali, An Agenda for Peace, Preventive Diplomacy, Peacemaking and Peace-

Keeping. UN Doc. A/47/277 - S/24111 17 (1992); Boutros Boutros-Ghali, An Agenda for Democratization,

51st Session, at 973, U.N.Doc.A/51/761 (1996).6 On how democracies produce international peace see Doyle, Michael W. 1983. “Kant, Liberal Legacies,

and Foreign Affairs,” Philosophy and Public Affairs 12(4); Owen, John M. 1994. “How Liberalism

Produces Democratic Peace,” International Security 19(2):87-125; and Russett, Bruce. 1983. Grasping the

Democratic Peace: Principles for a Post-Cold War World . Princeton: Princeton University Press.



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and functions of civil society and global civil society, and define non-governmental

organizations within a broader social and cultural setting of global civil society. Next, Iconsider the concepts of democracy and democratization of global politics and examine

the relationship between global civil society and democratization of global governance.

This is followed by an analysis of the contemporary theoretical landscape of the

discipline of international relations in an attempt to identify theoretical models open tosynthesis with the framework of global civil society. Finally, I apply the delineated

concept of global civil society to an assessment of empirical findings, which embrace awide range of democratizing activities of NGOs in the realm of global politics.

Global Civil Society: A Social Setting for the Agency of Non-Governmental

Organizations

The term “global civil society” is still a neologism in the vocabulary of students of

international relations. Despite its growing presence in the language of political scientists,it lacks shared understanding. The concept of global civil society remains ill-defined and

infused with prescriptive more than descriptive meaning. Thinking of global civil societyand its civil agents, I reason by analogy with domestic civic society that has receivedmore systematic and thorough scientific analysis.

Derived from the Latin civilis societas, the notion of civil society in its original

meaning referred to the “condition of living in a ‘civilized’ community sufficientlyadvanced to have its own legal codes – jus civile – above that of individual states”

(Lipschutz 1992, 398). The subsequent conceptualizations of civil society expanded its

framework to tally the particular historical and social environments that provided the

context for civil society and, also, to meet the needs and goals of political theorists.7 Civil

society has become a very contentious term having no common or consensus definition

or single interpretive framework for its examination. It is possible, however, to order the

wealth of characteristics of civil society offered in the literature into several clusters. Inthat way, civil society can be defined as

the “arena” (Edwards 2001, 2), the “space” (Walzer 1995, 7), the “realm” (Warkentin

2001, 1), or the “context” (Cohen and Arato 1993, xviii; Shaw 1994, 648)of the “organized social life” (Warkentin 2001, 1), or the “relational networks”

(Nardin 1995, 29) of individual and collective actors,

whose interactions are voluntary, self-generating, self-sustaining, self-regulating, and

self-limiting.The aphorismatic description of civil society as the “arena,” the “realm,” the “space,”

or the “context” of regularized interactions of societal units is indicative of its systemic

nature. Civil society can be defined as a system, consisting of various units linked by

7 The models of civil society that have emerged in differing contexts of North and Latin America, Eastern

and Western Europe, Africa and Asia show important differences illuminated in various theories of civil

society, democracy, and democratization (Cohen and Arato 1992; Grugel 2002; Potter et al. 2000).

Historical context has always had tremendous bearing on the visions and goals of theorists of different

vintage. Reflecting on the differences in the surrounding socio-political environments, the early thinkers of

politics – Bentham, Dahl, Ferguson, Gramsci, Hegel, Marx, Schumpeter, de Tocqueville, etc. - whose

edifice on democracy and civil society has had a decisive impact on subsequent theorizing in this realm laid

down the underlying propositions of different traditions of civil society, democracy, and democratization

(Cohen and Arato 1992).



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regular interaction and a structure composed of organizing principles and norms of the

system.8 Civil society, as any system, is time and space contingent: it evolves over time

and contracts or expands vis-à-vis adjacent systems, such as the state and market.

The constitutive elements of the system of civil society are citizens “acting

collectively in a public sphere to express their interests, passions, and ideas, exchange

information, achieve mutual goals, make demands on the state, and hold state officialsaccountable” (Diamond 1994, 5). There is a plethora of ways of how citizens organize

themselves collectively ranging from formal organizations of a representative kind(parties, churches, trade unions and professional bodies) to informal organizations of a

functional kind (schools, hospitals, day care centers, universities and mass media) and

more informal social and political institutions and networks (local voluntary groups, adhoc activist coalitions, social clubs, human rights organizations, nationally or

international coordinated social movements) (Shaw 1994, 648).

The regulative principles of civil society are different from those of the state.

Whereas the state has a hierarchical structure of authority, civil society composed of thediverse networks of individuals and their collectivities has widely diffused authority and

diverse mechanisms of civic governance to order, direct, and manage individual behaviorin the areas of peoples’ common concerns. The authority of civil society “rests onpersuasion and more constitutive employment of power in which people change their

practices because they have come to understand the world in a way that promotes certain

actions over others or because they operate in an environment that induces them to do so”(Wapner 1995, 337).

Civil society defines, regulates, and limits itself relative to states and markets.

However, the interface between civil society and state, on the one hand, and civil society

and market, on the other, is very elusive. Civil society is usually represented asindependent of the state9 and taking the space above the individual and below the state

(Wapner 1995). It is generally referred to that part of society not encompassed by the

state or the economy (Dryzek 1996, 481; Cohen 1995, 37).10

With the growinginterdependence of the state, civil society, and the market, and increasing functional and

institutional isomorphism of these sectors of public and private life, it is becoming

difficult to pin down the boundaries between them.11

Given that the practices andactivities of civil society groups often exhibit political and/or economic character, it has

become emblematic to assume that civil society, state and market constitute an organic,

symbiotic whole. In this “symbiosis” civil society is expected to mediate and balance the

power of the state and the market, to provide a moral check on the market, to maintain

8 A concept of system is often used by social scientists for the description and analysis of complex and

elusive social categories. In the present work, the concept of system is used as a heuristic device helpful in

grasping the perplexing phenomenon of global civil society.9

In the early scholarship, the separation of civil society from the state was considered as a characteristic ofmodern bourgeois society that helped distinguish the more developed Western from the backward Eastern

societies (Shaw 1994, 648).10

In a broad term, civil society represents “society minus the state,” so including the economy. In a neo-

liberal theory the economic sphere is included within civil society because of the association of the civil

and bourgeois and the centrality of the institution of property rights to liberal philosophy and ideology. In a

Neo-Marxist conception of civil society, economy as a formal process falls outside of civil society, but

economic activities in the substantive sense are included, albeit for different reasons (Cohen and Arato

1992, 75).11

With the emergence of feminism the boundaries between public and private became ever more obscure.



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democratic integrity of the state, and to compete and cooperate with both for guidance in

different aspects of social life (Gordenker and Weiss 1996, 19; Howell and Pearce 2000,76-77).

The concept of civil society has traditionally been used to study the interplay of social

and political forces within the state. As the dynamics of globalization made our world

‘smaller’ and more integrated, the clusters of political, economic, and social activities ofthe actors of civil society spilled over the states’ borders.12

The idea of civil society

traveled from comparative politics, political theory and philosophy into internationalrelations scholarship where the term “global civil society” has become in vogue.

Global civil society can also be thought of as a self-regulating system composed of

various interacting units (non-governmental organizations, transnational movementsorganizations, activist networks, epistemic communities, etc.) arranged in manifold ways.

The system is space and time contingent with the boundaries of global civil society

fluctuating vis-à-vis the boundaries of the state system and global market.

Non-governmental organizations are central to the functioning of global civilsociety.13 Being one of the most highly institutionalized forms of transnational

relations,

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they represent a basic method of popular participation and representation inthe present-day world (Boutros-Ghali 1996, 7). Their “highly institutionalized”“representative” structure is crucial for the concept of global civil society have realism.

One of the strongest criticisms of the concept arises from the fact that in the absence of a

global state or global universalistic culture, there are few global citizens to constitute aglobal civil society in the deepest meaning of that term (Edwards 2001, 2). However, if

the essence of citizenship tied to the rights and entitlements gained in relationship to a

nation-state is redefined in terms of citizens’ participation and responsible action, global

citizenship can be viewed as “the exercise of the right to participate in decision-making insocial, economic, cultural, and political life, within and across the local, national and

global arena” (Gaventa 2001, 278).15

NGOs with their ostensibly defined structures of

12 Globalization of problems concerning weapons proliferation, terrorism, environmental degradation,

infectious diseases, refugee flows, etc., which cannot be solved by unilateral state actions along, have led to

increasing involvement of non-state actors in dealing with the global problems (Cusimano 2000, 2-3). The

global activities of multi-national corporations force agents of global civil society, which traditionally

communicated with business corporations on a national level, become internationally active in order to

restrain the destructive influences of global markets (Murphy 2000, 790; Nowrot 1998, 587) . Furthermore,

the processes of globalization (e.g., development in telecommunications and information technologies,

decrease in air fares facilitating foreign traveling and cultural exchanges, etc.) vastly increased

opportunities for international contact (Keck and Sikkink 1998; Rosenau 1977).13

As it will be demonstrated below, in the empirical studies the growth of global civil society is usually

associated with the expansion of the population of NGOs.14

Transnational relations are defined as “regular interactions actors national boundaries when at least one

actor is a non-state agent or does not operate on behalf of a national government or an intergovernmentalorganization” (Risse-Kappen 1995, 3). This definition builds upon the original definition of transnational

relations suggested in Keohane and Nye 1972, pp.xii-xvi.15

Rosenau (1992, 285-286) suggests a model of empowerment and participation available to global

citizens, “They can join social movements, contest their own leaders, protest in support of counterparts

abroad seen on television to be enmeshed in struggles relevant to their own, engage in cooperative designed

to deepen their foreign links, and otherwise undertake a host of diverse activities that tie them into the

dynamic of an ever more interdependent world.” To some, however, it is possible to define global

citizenship in terms of rights and entitlement even in the absence of world government because universal

rights are already established in international human rights law and humanitarian law and are guaranteed



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authority, scope of activities, membership, and goals (Nowrot 1998, 616-619) are the best

candidates for representing the interests of the global citizens and providing them withthe opportunities for participation in activities on a global scale.16

The population of NGOs is extremely heterogeneous.17

Consequently, developing a

comprehensive definition of NGOs is very problematic18

and NGOs are defined mostly

negatively by what they are not, rather than by any positive statement of what they are(Cusimano 2000, 257; Nowrot 1998, 615). First, NGOs are organizations that are not

necessarily registered or legally recognized but have some institutional presence andstructure expressed through the relative persistence of goals, activities, and/or a legal

charter that demonstrates intent of organization to continue in existence (Gordenker and

Weiss 1996, 20). Second, NGOs, as the literal interpretation of the term suggests, are

non-governmental entities,19 i.e. they are institutionally separate from the state. This

does not mean that NGOs cannot receive governmental support. On the contrary, NGOs

may be supported by governments, directed by governments, receive resources from

governments or offer resources to governments.20

They are nongovernmental “in thesense of being structurally separate from the instrumentalities of government, and they do

not exercise governmental authority” (Salamon et al. 1999, 465). Third, NGOs are nonprofit organizations meaning that profit making should play a secondary and subsidiaryrole in a spectrum of activities performed by an NGO. Profits received from such

commercial activity cannot be distributed among the members of the NGOs (Cusimano,

Hensman, and Rodrigues 2000, 257).21

Also, NGOs are voluntary organizations, i.e.,

international protection through different legal instruments, including the newly established International

Criminal Court.16

With this in mind, I decided to focus on NGOs as the agents of democratization.17

Different representatives of this population (church groups, trade and professional associations, labor

unions, civic groups, service providers, advocacy and lobbying groups, membership organizations, and

foundations) vary in size, types of functions, organizational structure, and goals.18

Non-governmental organizations have no legal status in international law. This makes it more difficult to

come up with a generally accepted definition of NGOs (Nowrot 1998). The official status of NGOs in

relations to the UN and State parties to international conferences is established in a number of the UN

resolutions, e.g., the UN Economic and Social Council Statute for NGOs (ECOSOS Resolution

1296(XLIV), adopted on 23 May 1968; ECOSOS Decision 1993/215: Procedural arrangements for the

Commission on Sustainable Development, etc. (Nowrot 1998; Willetts 1996, 277-310).19

Non-governmental organization is “any international organization that is not established by

intergovernmental agreement” (UN ECOSOS Resolution 1296(XLIV), adopted on 23 May 1968).20

NGOs are a very diverse group and are not subject to stringent generalizations. Some NGOs never accept

governmental aid (e.g., the Red Cross, Amnesty International). Others, such as CARE, Catholic Relief

Services, World Vision, and the Adventist Development and Relief Agency, derive significant portions of

their budgets and resources from the development aid of government agencies (Willetts 1996). Willetts

(1996, 8) suggested a classification of “pure” and “hybrid” types of NGOs that accounts for some of thedifferences among NGOs.21

The Council of Europe, for example, explicitly defines an NGO as having a “non-profit-making aim”

(Art. 1 of the Convention, given in Explanatory Report on the European Convention on the Recognition of

the Legal Personality of international Non-Governmental Organizations (Strasbourg: Council of Europe,

1986)) whereas the UN does so implicitly by specifying that the NGO’s resources should come from its

members or from voluntary contributions ((UN ECOSOS Resolution 1296(XLIV), in Willetts 1996, 3). It

would be inappropriate to apply the ‘non-profit’ criteria in a literal sense because most of the NGOs have at

least some full-time staff members. NGOs are therefore allowed to have income to finance their primary

activities in order to pursue their purposes (Nowrot 1998, 618). For example, community development



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membership in the NGOs is not legally required, the members can leave the organization

at any time, and the human and material resources for the NGOs come from voluntarycontributions of time and money (Salamon et al, 1999, 465; Gordenker and Weiss 1996,

20-21).22

Both single-country NGOs and international NGOs can be the agents of global civil

society.

23

The activities of a single-country NGO can have an impact beyond the nation-state level, especially when the NGO is part of a global network, in which both

international and domestic NGOs play a central role (Keck and Sikkink 1998, 9).The difficulty in defining the nature of NGOs and the scope of non-governmental

activities reflects the elusive frontiers of global civil society. The latter, as its domestic

counterpart, has ‘traveling’ borders separating global civil society from the system ofstates and global markets. Global civil society exists alongside other social institutions

and political and economic structures within a broader realm of global politics, while

constantly interacting with them with some contact resulting in mutually beneficial and

cooperative arrangements (Dryzek 1996, 481; Lipschutz 1992).24

The state is a ‘territorial container’ of civil society; state borders clearly demarcate

geographical limits of civil society. Global civil society operates ‘globally’, i.e., its civilpolitics and the dense networks of civil society organizations and movements arewidespread enough so that engage actors and reach the audiences from nearly all over the

world (Clark, Friedman, and Hochstetler 1998).25

The adjective ‘global’ also has

‘qualitative’ connotation denoting the breadth of issue-areas that global civil societyaddresses (Shaw 1994). The “global” part of global civil society signals that its actions

are targeting global institutions in response to the issues of global concern and in

realization of rights and entitlements offered to citizens by global treaties or agreements

(Gaventa 2001, 276-277). Global civil society is also ‘global’ as the result of a growingelement of global culture and global consciousness in the way the members of global

civil society act (Lipschutz 1992).26

banks do turn a profit, but rather than giving that profit to a board of trustees, stockholders, or investors,

any resources generated are reinvested in the community.22

Among other criteria suggested in the literature are that NGOs should support the goals and the activities

of an intergovernmental organization that recognizes them; should have non-violent goals and cannot be

engaged in violence or advocate it as a political tactic; should not be systematically engaged in

unsubstantiated or politically motivated acts against governments represented in the UN (Willetts 1996, 4).23

In this work, NGOs refer to either single-country or international non-governmental organizations. In

relations with the UN, for a NGO to be considered “international,” the organization must demonstrate a

transnational scope of activities, and should cover “where possible, a substantial number of countries in

different regions of the world” ((UN ECOSOS Resolution 1296(XLIV) in Nowrot (1998, 679)).24

This is what Rosenau (1998, 257) refers to as the “processes of bifurcation” that have given rise to “two

worlds of world politics – a multi-centric world comprised of diverse non-governmental actors who are

independent of the state-centric world and who frequently conflict, cooperate or otherwise interact withcounterpart in the state-centric world – which are still working out their respective domains as the

foundations of the emergent global order”.25

Some scholars prefer the notion of “transnational” civil society over “global” to emphasize the fact that

the border-crossing networks are rarely truly global, i.e., involving groups and individuals from every part

of the world (Florini 2000, 7).26

An element of global culture exists, for example, in some world categories and principles that are

collectively constructed and similarly understood throughout the world. The existence, general nature, and

purpose of states or trans-national corporations are known everywhere (Boli and Thomas 1999, 17). The

principles of economic and political liberalism, especially those associated with human rights, “come to



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Global civil society is a self-sustaining entity that preserves through the interaction

and reciprocal effects of the motivated, goal-oriented, and rational individuals and theircollectivities and structure of normative and institutional arrangements that exerts causal

and constitutive effects on the agents of global civil society. Shared norms, principles,

codes, goals, interests, arrangements and practices compose the structure of global civil

society that regulates the behavior of civic agents and provides them with opportunitiesand incentives for individual and collective activity in the public sphere. The civic agents

through their interactions create social reality of global civil society.Ever since the publication of the seminal work of Robert Putnam (1995) on social

capital, the term civil society became largely associated with the support, promotion, or

struggle for democracy and democratization (Grugel 2002, 93) and the relationshipbetween civil society and democratic governance became a subject of lively debates

(Smith 1998). Whether a vibrant global civil society is the key to further democratization

of global politics is the question that is explored next.

Democratization of Global Politics: The Role for Global Civil Society and Its Agents

Civil society almost always propels transitional changes to greater democracy andplays a prominent role on all stages of democratization. “[T]he emergence of strong,

dense, and vibrant civil societies that work consistently to democratize politics and to

hold the state accountable” is one of the most important factors for the endurance ofdemocratic regime and consolidation of social and political forces within democracy

(Grugel 2002, 1).

Democratization involves a series of socio-political changes that transform the state

from one condition of being non-democratic to a qualitatively different one of beingdemocratic.27 By extension, democratization on the global level refers to a series of

socio-political changes that alter global politics in a democratic direction.28

The question

is, then, what are the conceptual attributes of democracy on the global level and whatkinds of changes need to be taking place to infer that the world is moving in the direction

of greater democratization of global politics. Currently, there is no theory or conceptual

framework of democratization of global politics. For that reason, I employ classicalconceptions of democracy and democratization to analyze global democratic politics and

democratization and to identify the types of roles that civil society actors can play in this

process.

represent something like the jus civile of the civilized community, existing above the laws of individual

states (Lipschutz 1992, 407). In spite of the bitter contestation of many principles of world culture, “their

reification is enhanced by the very contestation that challenges them” (Boli and Thomas 1999, 18).27 The transitional process undergoes three consecutive stages: (1) the end of a non-democratic regime; (2)

the inauguration of a democratic regime; and (3) the consolidation of a democratic system (Huntington,

Samuel. 1991. The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century. Norma and London:

University of Oklahoma Press, 9).28

In the absence of world government we cannot define democratization on the global level in terms of

transformation of the global state. The term ‘global politics’ used in the definition encompasses all political

interactions that crosscut state borders and involve both state and non-state actors, which consciously

employ material, ideational, and symbolic resources to modify the behavior of other actors (Nye, Jr. and

Keohane 1972, 380).



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There is a myriad of different ways to define democracy.29

Most of the studies of

democracy simply catalogue its features rarely considering the question of why we needdemocracy in the first place. The modern scholarship on democracy and democratization

erroneously assumes that all people have knowledge and understanding of the virtues of

democracy. The justifications for democracy are hardly ever reiterated and the links

between the ‘empirical’ qualities of the democratic state and its goals are almost neverexplicated. I will take the goals of the democratic state as the point of departure, and,

then, define democracy in terms of the specific processes necessary to achieve thesegoals.30

Among the major contemporary justifications of democracy are that (1) it is the best

form of government for political equality, and the realization of individual rights,freedoms, and liberties; (2) it is the most efficient form of government serving the

welfare of people; (3) it is the form of government generating consent through

deliberation; and (4) it has educational virtue, i.e., changing to democratic forms can be

enlightening and fulfilling for the generation that make a change.31

The literature identifies several essential properties of democracy required for the

maximization of its goals. First, democracy must be grounded in a set of institutional andprocedural arrangements known as the “procedural minimums” of democracy.32

Various“external checks” - free-and-fair elections, separation of power, and informational and

associational freedoms – purport to forestall the emergence of non-democratic [tyranic]

government since the latter “entails sever deprivation of a natural right” (Dahl 1956, 6).33

Furthermore, broad participation of people in public affairs fosters human development,

enlightenment, and responsible citizenship (Dahl 1956; Walker 1966).

Democracy, when reduced to its formal institutional and procedural aspects, does not

necessarily serve the welfare interests of all people. The existence of socioeconomicequity is a fundamental condition for the successful functioning of democracy (Arat

1991). The means for achievement of the goal of socioeconomic justice are the welfare

state policies that serve to stimulate economic growth while assisting those who feel thenegative affects of the market system. The overall increase in social justice and public

welfare would lead to a greater consensus within society and the state and rear mutual

interests of individuals in the success of the political and economic system (Cohen and

29 Ever since democracy became a subject of systematic examination it has been a much-contested term in

political philosophy, political theory, comparative politics, sociology, and now in international relations.

The analysis of these perennial debates is beyond the scope of this study. Taking the risk of being charged

with oversimplification of the theoretical edifice on democracy, I undertake to synthesize the features of

some democratic models into a comprehensive framework applicable for analysis of global politics.30

This is known as the “method of maximization” offered by Dahl (1956) in his seminal work ondemocracy.31

Honderich, Ted, ed. 1995. The Oxford Companion to Philosophy. New York: Oxford University Press,

183-18432

This institutional or procedural aspect necessary for the effective operation of modern political

democracy is at the core of the liberal (classical) conception of democracy elucidated in the works of John

Locke, Jeremy Bentham, James Mill, and later, in the studies of John Stuart Mill, Arend Lijphart, and

Robert Dahl.33

Liberal theorists see the respect for individual rights as one of the standards for legitimacy in

constitutional democracies (Cohen and Arato 1992).



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Arato 1992).34

The efficiency of policy-making and administration in democracy will be

enhanced when competent, motivated, and responsible elites rule the state and when thepolitical system is open to multiple interests arriving at a consensus through bargaining.35

Thus, summarized, democracy pursues the goals of political equality, individual

freedoms, and the welfare of people; efficient governance; consensus within the state and

society; and enlightenment. These aspirations of the democratic state are attained through(a) various procedural and institutional mechanisms ensuring representation of individual

interests and public participation in the decision-making process; (b) welfare policies andprofessional leadership; and (c) associational life that leads to the spread and

internalization of democratic values (see Table 1 below).36

Democratic theorists have always assumed that the state is the main focus of theirinvestigation (Dryzer 1996, 475). Recently, some students of democratization have begun

to shift the focus of their studies to the polities below and above the state, thus, extending

the questions of democracy and democratization into the areas of civil society and global

politics. Following their suit, I attempt to define democratization on the global level andlink it conceptually to the framework of global civil society.

To give meaning to the term “democratic global politics” I employ the “method ofmaximization” used for the description of democracy. This definitional techniquequestions the final purpose of democracy on the global level and inquires into the modes

of governance optimal for the realization of this purpose. Having identified the modes of

governance, that is, the specific processes and institutions of global politics, the next stepis to single out the kinds of socio-political changes that have to occur on the global scale

to establish a democratic mode of governance and the ways of bringing about the

identified changes, the latter referring to democratization on the global scale as it is

defined in this work.At a time of escalation of domestic turmoil that many weakened regimes often fail to

contain and the emergence of global problems that governments are unable to deal with

constructively in a unilateral manner, a greater democracy on a global scale aspires toprovide (1) an additional level of protection of individual rights and freedoms; (2) a

worldwide stage for voicing the concerns and representing the interests of people and a

34 The antagonists of the welfare state contend welfare policies as they violate the core of the market,

private property, thus, undermining the liberty of entrepreneurs and threatening the vitality of the middle

class (Cohen and Arato 1992).35

The efficient functioning of the system as a whole is a focus of elitist and pluralist theories of democracy

(Lasswell, Harold. 1936. Politics: Who Gets What, When, How. New York: McGraw Hill; C. Wright Mills.

1956. The Power Elite. New York: Oxford University Press; Lowi, Theodore. 1979. The End of Liberalism.

New York: Norton; Walker, Jack. 1966. “A Critique of the Elitist Theory of Democracy.” American

Political Science Review 60:285-295). Elitist and pluralist theories of democracy, that favor public non-involvement over broad public participation, denuded the concept of democracy of many of its essential

elements. Nonetheless, their arguments about professional leadership, alternative channels of influence of

state politics, and possible predicaments to the effectiveness of ‘pure’ democracy arising from broad

participation of citizens, merit attention.36

The spread of democratic values in society and the degree of internalization of these values by people is

correlated with the level of tolerance in the society (Marcus, George E. et al. 1995. With Malice Toward

Some. New York: Cambridge University Press). For other classifications and theoretical models of

democracy (e.g., Marxist/Socialist democracy, feminist theories of democracy, etc.) see Democratization: a

critical introduction by Jean Grugel, ed. New York: PALGRAVE, 2002.



12

ground for lobbying for worldwide socio-economic equity and welfare;37

(3) a forum for

cooperation, consensus, and peaceful conflict resolution; and (4) a space fordissemination of democratic values, beliefs, and knowledge.

Table 1. Democracy and Democratization: Comparison Across the Levels of Analysis

Domestic GlobalWhat is

Democratization?

A series of socio-political changes that

transform the state from one condition of

being non-democratic to a qualitatively

different one of being democratic

A series of socio-political changes

that alter global politics in a

democratic direction

What are the

goals of

democracy?

- Political equality, and individual rights,

freedoms, and liberties;

- Welfare of people;

- Consensus; and

- Enlightenment

- Protection of individual rights and

freedoms;

- Worldwide socio-economic equity

and welfare;

- Cooperation, consensus, and

peaceful conflict resolution;

- Dissemination of democratic values,

beliefs, and knowledge.How can the

goals of

democracy be

maximized

(requirements for

democracy)?

- Procedural and institutional

requirements (free-and-fair elections,

separation of power, informational

freedom, etc.);

- Welfare politics;

- Professional Leadership; and

- Associational freedom

- Multiple channels of participation,

contestation, and legitimation of

global politics; and

- Inclusion of civil society actors in

the management of the world order,

which (a) assist in realization of

individual political rights, such as the

right to participation and freedom of

expression, and safeguard

internationally guaranteed individual

rights and freedoms; (b) seek to

improve the world welfare of people

and increase the efficiency of globalgovernance; (c) further cooperation in

multiple tiers of global governance;

and (d) disseminate democratic values

and knowledge.

What modes of global governance are optimal for the worldwide protection of

individual rights and liberties, effective representation of the interest of people, peace and

cooperation, and cultivation of democratic values? In the absence of world government,one of the most crucial elements of democracy, namely its procedural aspect, is

meaningless. With no central authority in place, the institutions of free-and-fair global

elections and separation of power between legislative, executive, and judicial branches of

the global government are non sequitur . Yet, the existence of voting rights andalternation in government does not, in itself, guarantee the existence of democracy

37 The extent to what democratization should include the elimination of the most extreme forms of socio-

economic inequality is a contentious question. Genuine socio-economic equity is utopian; inequalities,

political and economic, are endemic to any society (Grugel 2002, 5). Nevertheless, it’s important to

remember that inequalities are cumulative, i.e., economic inequity conditions access to political resources,

thus shaping the politics of democracies. Therefore, a full global democratization cannot take place without

elimination of the most pervasive socio-economic disparities.



13

(Grugel 2002, 23). On the global level, participation, not representation, is the core of

democratic global politics. A mode of governance that opens up multiple channels ofparticipation, contestation, and legitimation of global politics is the democratic maximum

on the global level.

Global civil society is delegated with an extremely important role in the process of

democratization of global politics. Global civil society seeks greater accountability fromstates, holds in check states and global market, serves as the “moral pulse” of people

(Howell and Pearce 2001) and functions to “serve underserved or neglected populations,to expand the freedom of or to empower people, to engage in advocacy for social change

and to provide services.”38

Global civil society not merely acts as a source of influence

over state policies, but can itself launch into the “quazi-governmental” activity by takingdecisive action in response to failures in government and the economy. Global civil

society promotes ‘civility’, a special “cast of mind” that implies tolerance, the readiness

of individuals to accept disparate political and religious views and social attitudes, and “a

willingness to live and let live.”39

The concrete ways of how non-governmental organizations contribute to

democratization of global politics can be characterized as follows:I. NGOs assist in the realization of political rights of participation and expressionof opinion through active involvement in all stages of the global decision making process

(Nowrot 1998):

(a) NGOs bring new problems to the global fore, politicize issues regarded as part ofthe nonpolitical realm, frame global agendas, influence discursive positions of states and

international organizations;

(b) Global civil society organizations exert impact onto international political

institutions and their operations;(c) NGOs take part in the creation and implementation of international regimes,

especially in the area of human rights where NGOs promote and monitor state

observance of international treaties and agreements in the area of international humanrights (Gordernker and Weiss 1996; Keck and Sikkink 1998; Risse, Ropp, and Sikkink

1999; Rosenau 1998; Uvin 1996).

NGOs multiply entry points to global system by providing informational, human, andfinancial resources and new and ongoing opportunities to the agents of global civil

society that seek to influence global politics (Keck and Sikkink 1998; Smith 1998).

II. NGOs seek improvements in welfare of people in every part of the world by

raising concerns about economic justice, socio-economic equity, and environmentalintegrity, which are often ignored in negotiations among states (Smith 1998; Uvin 1996),

and by delivering direct services to the state-abandoned localities. They facilitate the

efficiency of global governance by acquiring greater accountability from states (Clark,Friedman, and Hochstetler 1998; Smith 1998).

III. The issue of democratization of global civic politics also encompasses the

furtherance of cooperation in multiple tiers of global governance: among states, betweenstates, on the one side, and non-state actors, on the other, as well as among the agents of

38 Kathleen D. McCarthy, Virginia Hodgkinson, Russy Sumariwalla et al. 1992. The Nonprofit Sector in the

United States, San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 3 in Gorderker and Weiss 1996, 19.39

Augustus Richard Norton, “The Future of Civil Society in the Middle East,” Middle East Journal,

1993(47):214 in Warkentin 2001, 13.



14

global civil society (Alger 1997, 261; Gordenker amd Weiss 1996, 18). Often, it is NGOs

that, on a day-to-day basis, link democracy and peace (Boutros-Ghali 1996, 11). Not onlydo NGOs facilitate inter-state cooperation but also stimulate partnerships, “multi-party

cooperative ventures,” with like-minded countries (Cooper 2002, 7) and develop

triangular relationships of “complex multilateralism” embracing agents of states, markets,

and global civil society (O’Brien et al. 2000).IV. The energy of non-governmental actors is not oriented exclusively toward the

state. Much of the significance of NGOs efforts lies in their impact “on the ‘drifts,moods, and orientations’ that ‘pervade society’ and ‘act as forms of governance which

shape the way vast numbers of people live their lives’” (Turner 1998, 30). Through the

dissemination of knowledge and promotion of values such as peace, tolerance, anddemocracy, NGOs contribute to the general transformation of public consciousness.

Global Civil Society and Democratization of Global Politics: Is there a Place

on the Theoretical Landscape?

The phenomenon of global civil society grounded in a rapidly changing social andpolitical contemporary reality has become an indispensable object of study in the socialsciences.40 A systematic and intelligible scientific scrutiny of global civil society and its

multifarious agents calls for a rigorous theoretical description of its nature, constitution,

and status in the broader structures of world governance. A sound theoretical frameworkof global civil society will lend a requisite conceptual apparatus and a set of assumptions

to describe and theorize about the actual and potential roles of NGOs (and other agents of

global civil society) in the processes of democratization of world politics. Which of the

existing theoretical conceptions of world politics is ready to accommodate non-stateactors and is open to a synthesis with the suggested framework of global civil society? To

answer this question, I briefly revisit the tenets of mainstream approaches to international

relations and some of the alternative models of world politics.

The momentous changes in global environment that shook the foundations of the

state-centric world41

and the growing acceptance of NGOs by governments andintergovernmental organizations (IGOs) with the mounting recognition of their

multifaceted impacts on world politics42 compelled grudging recognition of non-state

40 In the literature, the term ‘civil society’ can be encountered under a host of alternative usages. These

include the “independent”, the “nonprofit”, the “third,” or the “volunteer sector, transnational social

movement organizations, non-state actors, grassroots organizations, etc.41

State sovereignty is challenged externally by the dynamics of globalization, and internally by the rise of

domestic conflicts, subnational movements, and economic crises undermining legitimacy of the state

(Cusimano 2000, 12). Sovereignty has been losing its identification with territory since the capital, labor,and information are becoming increasingly mobile. The fundamental disjunctions can be observed between

the assumptions about space, time, distance, identity, security, welfare, communication, and warfare that

underpin theoretical constructs of the state-centric politics and the realities of the modern world (Clough

1999).42

In the “Agenda for Democratization,” issued on December 20, 1996, the former Secretary-General of the

United Nations, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, declared that international relations “are increasingly shaped not

only by the States themselves but also by an expanding array of non-State actors on the ‘international’

scene.” The efforts of non-governmental organizations are recognized by the State parties in many

international documents, conventions, and treaties (see, for example, preamble to the Convention on the



15

within the neo-realist framework of international relations. In the anarchical

environment, interactions across borders are not limited to states alone. States must relatewith the agents of global markets and global civil society. These actors, the neo-realists

argue, do not pose any serious challenges or threats to states, which remain the

gatekeepers of the international system.43

The relations that really matter in the

international system are inter-state relations. For realists, the relations between differentsocieties become significant when they transpire through the institutions of the state that

regulate the activities of non-state actors. Any observable changes that happen in theglobal environment do not readily or easily translate into institutional changes or

crystallize in the structures of global governance and the structure of states (Krasner

1995). For realists, it is not the state that adjusts to the changes in global environment;rather, non-state actors must adapt themselves to the system of states. States influence

not only the avenues through which non-state actors operate, but also the very nature of

these actors making it congruent with the rules and institutions of power politics (ibid ,

261).The phenomenon of global civil society remains antithetical to realist models of

world politics since it is denied an ontological status commensurable with the status ofthe system of states. The roles of non-state actors are either sidestepped or undulydownplayed in realist analysis. The underlying conservative philosophy of realism

conceptualizes world politics in terms of an incessant struggle for power and discards the

positive face of human agency. It cannot be reconciled with the ideas of cooperation,sociability, and constructive vigor of individual and collective human agency, which are

endemic to the notion of global civil society.

The liberal framework of world politics is less restrictive of the ideas and actors of

global civil society. Liberal philosophy grounded in normative qualities and positivecharacteristics of individual human beings (their capacity for autonomy, capability to

exercise rational free choice, desire for freedom, etc.) is more compatible with the

underlying views of individuals within the framework of global civil society.44

Liberalontology that embraces any actor that might be consequential, including states, IGOs,

MNCs, religious and ethnic groups, terrorist organizations, etc. has more room for the

incorporation of non-governmental organizations.45

It ascribes explanatory power to

Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on Their

Destruction, Sept.18, 1997 <http://www.unog.ch/frames/disarm/distreat/ottawa.htm>, or Preamble to the

Report of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development , Annex II, Agenda 21, UN

Doc. A/CONF.151/26 (in Willetts 1996, Appendix B, 304-305).43

See, for example, Krasner, Stephen D. 1988. “Sovereignty: An Institutional Perspective,” Comparative

Political Studies 21 (April):74; McNeill, William H. 1997. “Territorial State Buried Too Soon,” Mershon

International Studies Review 41:269; Spruyt, Hendrik. 1995. The Sovereign State and Its Competitors.

Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 62, 75.44Though, in the liberal conception of human agency, materialistic interests display undisputable

prevalence. Also, the emphasis is on individual autonomy as opposed to sociability and communitarianism

that merit greater recognition within the conceptual framework of global civil society.45

This tradition goes back to the models of pluralism, transnationalism, and “complex interdependence”

(R.O.Keohane and J.S. Nye, Jr. 1977. Power and Interdependence. Boston: Little, Brown, and CO.), and

the later arguments of liberal institutionalism (also known as “sociological institutionalism” (Finnemore,

M. 1996. “Norms, culture, and world politics: insights from sociology’s institutionalism,” International

Organization 50(2):349-367) or “structural liberalism” that has been partly an outgrowth of the literature

on transnationalism (see, for example, Thomas, George M., John W. Meyer, Francisco O. Ramirez, and



16

domestic structures, including the organization of political and economic systems, civil

society, and the structures of norms that govern interactions between them. It alsorecognizes some impact of transnational actors and institutions on the states’ perceptions,

preferences, conceptions of rationality and their behavior (Keohane and Nye, Jr. 1972,

1977; Risse-Kappen 1995).

Liberal theorists speak of the impact of rules, norms, regimes, and institutions on thesystem of states, yet, consider them predominantly from the instrumental perspective, i.e.,

whether they are useful or not in the pursuit of individual or state interests. States remainthe key actors and the leading form of political organization in the liberal edifice of world

politics. The political incentives compel modern governments to work with NGOs and

other non-state actors because their participation enhances the regulative abilities ofstates, both in technocratic and political terms. However, states continue to control the

terms of the state-NGO interactions because in the liberal conception international

relations and international law are built and predicated on the system of sovereign states

(Keohane and Nye, Jr. 1972; Krasner 1995). For a successful realization of behavioraland policy changes sought by non-governmental actors, they need capacities compatible

to the coercive power of states.The most recent efforts to explain the deluge of non-state actors in the globallandscape are often linked to the processes of globalization that opened the “window of

opportunity” in the global political environment inviting non-state actors to play

unprecedented roles in national and global politics (Smith, Pagnucco, and Chatfield 1997,66; Tarrow 1994, 189). “Globalization theses” portrays the agents of global civil society

as a part of the global communications networks that were created as a result of modern

technological advances. Conceiving non-governmental actors in this way, globalization

models overlook an autonomous role of human agency attributing too much explanatorypower to the dynamics of globalization.46 Those, who associate globalization with the

liberation of the global market and the creation of economic interdependences, write off

the forces of global civil society by ascribing the primary responsibility for the retreat ofstate power to the dynamics of the global market.47

Globalization is not reducible to its technocratic or economic aspects. The idea of a

globalization of culture lies beneath the “world polity” perspective (Boli and Thomas1999; Meyer 1987). The “world polity,” of which global culture is a main constitutive

part, also encompasses the networks of state and non-state actors, regimes, norms, and

institutions. NGOs and IGOs are assigned the roles of “vehicles” for the diffusion of

world culture, the “enactors” of global cultural norms and principles. However, neitherthe source of global cultural norms nor the processes through which those norms evolve

are adequately specified (Keck and Sikkink 1998, 210).

The idea to confer an independent ontological and cognitive character on the norms,principles, and rules of global culture that defines the nature and purpose of social actors

John Boli, eds. 1987. Institutional Structure. Constituting State, Society, and the Individual. Beverly Hills,

CA: Sage; Risse-Kappen 1995).46

A notable exception is the studies of James Rosenau (1977, 1992, 1998) in which he places much

emphasis on the micro-level, i.e., individuals’ “skills revolution,” along with the structural technological

and market advances.47

See, for example, Strange, Susan. 1996. The Retreat of the State: The Diffusion of Power in the World

Economy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 189; Rosecrance, Richard. 1996. “The Rise of the

Virtual State,” Foreign Affairs (July/August):59-60.



17

is indebted to the “English School” of international relations.48

Even though, the bulk of

scholarship of the “English school” remains within the confines of the state-centricparadigm, it offers invaluable insights into how commonly excepted sets of values, rules,

and institutions make it possible for the system to function and how actors become to

share a common identity and create mutually recognized categorizes.

The “English school” of international relations inspired a generation of scholarsworking in the social constructivist tradition. Social constructivists have not yet managed

to devise a rigorous theory of constitutive rules or provide a groundbreaking account ofthe transformational changes taking place at the global fore. Yet, these phenomena are at

the forefront of their research agenda.49

The constructivists’ idea of “duality” and “macro-structural dimensions” of structurecontains a possible theoretical solution to the phenomenon of global civil society and its

position vis-à-vis the system of states and the global market. According to social

constructivists, structure and agency are mutually co-determined, i.e., structure constrains

the action of the agents and provides a space within which they interact. Through theirinteractions, agents incessantly form and potentially transform the structure. Structures

are time and space contingent, i.e., they evolve over time and in relation to other adjacentstructures. Structural changes juxtapose the changes in the nature or “identities” of theactors.50 Changes in identities, in turn, result from the creation of intersubjective

meanings through the interactions of actors within and across different structures.51

The agents of global civil society and its structure are mutually constitutive entities.The structure of networks, norms, principles, practices, and codes of global civil society

constrains its agents and provide them with a space for action. The agents of global civil

society through their social practices and interactions make global civil society a social

reality. Global civil society is situated in time and space. It emerges in concrete historicalcircumstances and undergoes internal evolution and external transformation relative to

the system of states and the global market. It endures through the interactions of its

agents who learn their identities, interests, shared ideas and understandings by cominginto regular contact with each other and with the agents of other social systems. Once the

norms, practices, principles, and a sense of “we-ness” become internalized, the whole

social system of global civil society becomes an objective social fact to its actors.52

Constructivism potentially contains multiple substantive theories of world politics

(Jørgensen 2001, 29). It lends its assumptions and insights to the description and analysis

of the nature of relations among social actors and structures. Network theory borrowed

the constructivist belief that the identities of actors of global politics are constructed in

48 The “English School” is a name given to a group of scholars, in particular, M.Wight, A.Watson,

R.J.Vincent, J.Mayall, R.Jackson, H.Butterfield, and H.Bull, and others. It denotes that some of the most

interesting studies produced within the “English School” come from outside of the American mainstream

theories of international relations.49 Social constructivism is not itself a theory of international relations. It is a theoretically informed

approach, a philosophy and a framework of assumptions that can and should provide a foundation for

theories of international relations (Jørgensen 2002; Ruggie 1998, 34).50

Identities are defined as “relatively stable, role-specific understandings and expectations about self”

(A.Wendt in Maja Zehfuss. 2001. “Constructivisms in International Relations: Wendt, Onuf, and

Kratochwil” in Karin Fierke and Knud Erik Jorgensen, Constructing International Relations: The Next

Generation. M.E. Sharpe, 55-56).51

Adopted from Wendt 1999.52

Ibid , 58; Wendt 1999, 327, 399.



18

interaction and linked it to empirical research tracing the paths through which this

process occurs. The empirical examination of social networks identified the material andideological limits to the construction of actors’ identities in particular historical and

political settings (Keck and Sikkink 1998). Network analysis can be applied to the study

of the role of global civil society in the democratization of global politics as it helps to (a)

discern the patterns of interactions among organizations and individuals affiliated withstate or non-state agency; (b) extricate mutual constitutive effects of the agents of global

civil society on the structure of states; and (c) bring the human agency back in byshowing how individuals “make” politics relying on the creative use of information and

employing an array of other sophisticated strategies and techniques in their campaigns.

Ruggie’s (1998) regime theory is also social constructivist in orientation. It attributesthe structures of regimes with great efficacy that is derived from “the mutual

intelligibility and acceptability of actions within the intersubjective framework of

understanding that is embodied in the regime’s principles and norms”(Ruggie 1998, 85).

Yet, “it allows for agency to be not simply the enactment of preprogrammed scripts butalso reflective acts of social creation, within structured constraints” (ibid ). The concept of

regimes crisscrosses public and private spaces bringing together the actors from thesystem of states and global civil society. The identities and interests of state and non-stateagents are equally subjected to causal, constitutive, and communicative influences of

cultural norms, rules, and ideas that compose the structure of regimes. These agents play

an equally important role in the creation and transformation of the normative structuresthat constitute regimes.

To summarize this brief excurse into the theory of contemporary international

relations, the neo-classical approaches continue to ignore, downplay, or diminish thesignificance of non-state actors. Adding new variables to realist or liberal conceptions of

world politics without modifying their core assumptions does not modify their state-

centric core. States remain at the heart of the mainstream and any non-state actor isassumed to serve the functional interests of states.

Globalization theories look into the structural changes that opened up space for the

upsurge of the civil activities across national borders and tilted the “balance of power”from the system of states toward the global market. Or, they inquire into the capacities of

states to harmonize their policies that target the consequences of global problems with the

activities of non-state actors. In either way, globalization theses tend to discount any

somewhat autonomous and consequential role of the agents of global civil society in theprocesses of democratization of global politics.

The “English school” of international relations and constructivism flags some

prospective avenues for examination of the nature, constitution, and roles of global civilsociety and its agents. Drawing on the constructivist ontological and epistemological

assumptions, the network and regime theories, as well as other approaches that look into

the social nature of transnational relations holds the promise of significantly increasingour knowledge about the ways NGOs and other non-state actors contribute to

democratization of global politics.

More rigorous theorizing about global civil society and its relationship to democraticglobal politic is still an imperative. On the surface, the direction of this relationship is in

question. It’s been said, “democracy requires a strong and lively civil society – if not for



19

the sake of its initial formation then for the sake of its coherence and stability over time”

(Walzer 1995, 1). Yet, a democratic civil society itself is a product of the democratic state(ibid , 24). Non-governmental organizations promote open societies, open economies, and

democratization; yet, they themselves benefit and are the products of open societies, open

technologies, and open economies (Cusimano 2000). The democratization process itself

encourages the creation and spread of NGOs. A thorough theoretical analysis must thendetermine the nature (causal vs. constitutive) and direction of relationships between

global civil society and democratization. If some degree of dependence between globalcivil society and the extent of democratization of global politics is detected, a theory must

specify whether the former is a necessary or sufficient condition for the latter. In the 20th

century, civil society coexisted with very different types of regime – including fascism inItaly and Germany. Therefore, the mere existence and strength of civil society are

inadequate explanations of democracy and democratization (Törnquist 1998, 110-111).

There is also ambiguity on the importance of the economy in a theoretical framework of

democratizing politics of global civil society.An interesting line of theorizing is about when and why the agents of global civil

society become subject to influences of state actors, i.e., when NGOs themselves becomeshaped by the “beyond the state” view of global policy-making leading to structural andfunctional isomorphism of state and non-state agents. Finally, the paradigm suggesting

that the deepening of global civil society promotes democratization of global politics sets

aside relations of power within global civil society itself. The assumption of equality ofthe citizens within global networks and citizens’ associations in global civil society

would not pass a reality check and have to be reconsidered.

Democratizing Role of NGOs, the Agents of Global Civil Society: From

Concepts and Theory to Empirical Evidence

Is there enough empirical evidence to assume the existence of global civil society? Isthe assumption of a positive link between global civil society and democratization of

world politics empirically validated? The skeptics of global civil society condemn it with

the grave misrepresentation of the contemporary world arguing that it is merely “aprojection of our desires” (Reiff 1999, 1) and a normative ideal that the advocates of

global civil society tend to mistake for an observable empirical phenomenon (Howell and

Pearce 2000, 76-77). The proponents of global civil society see it as existing alongside

other social and political institutions and structures within the broader realm of globalpolitics (Lipschutz 1992; Wapner 1995). I examine a vast body of empirical findings to

find out whether a democratizing role of the agents of global civil society is more than an

article of faith.

A number of writers have undertaken to corroborate the emergence of global civil

society empirically routinely using the expansion of the population of NGOs as one of theempirical indicators of the growth (Smith 1998; Wapner 1995; Willetts 1996). Although

the counts of NGOs vary, scholars agree that the number of NGOs in the global system is

steadily increasing.53

Furthermore, scholars have documented the rise of global civil

53 The Union of International Association tracking the numbers of NGOs listed 18,323 traditional

international NGOs in 2002 and 28,775 special NGOs (such as religious organizations) resulting in a total



20

society by looking at other empirical manifestations of growth, such as (a) the increase in

the numbers of NGOs that gain consultative status in the UN system or take part in thenational delegations to international conferences (Rosenau 1998, 268-269; Willetts

1996); (b) the expansion of national representations of international NGOs; (c) the spread

of the scope and intensity of NGO activities (Smith 1998); and (d) the deepening of the

lines of cooperation between different actors of global civil society (Skjelsbaek 1972, 73-74). Yet, empirical records reveal considerable imbalances within the structure of global

civil society reflecting global inequities. Although the number of NGOs from developingcountries has been on a steady rise (Smith 1998), the majority of actors of global civil

society remain situated in the Northern Hemisphere and the bulk of resources

concentrates in the NGOs that have a North American or European origin (Josselin andWallace 2001, 256).54

The original Latin concept of civil society, a civilis societas, or civilized community,

suggests that civil society should be bound by a set of shared norms, rules, principles, and

codes (Warkentin 2001, 1). Accordingly, the concept of global civil society requires morestringent empirical specifications to endorse its empirical validity. The mere increase in

the number of NGOs cannot be equated with the existence of global civil society. Studiesmust establish that the agents of global civil society are bound by a system of norms,beliefs, practices, shared meanings, and an overall sense of “we-ness.” Sparse empirical

accounts of normative structures of global civil society suggest that NGOs, transnational

movements, activist networks and other agents of global civil society are not unitedaround common ideas, patterns of beliefs about the causes of and solutions to contested

issues (Clark, Friedman, and Hochstetler 1998, 5), do not pursue the same values

(Raustiala 1997), and have no coherent global civil society agenda (Florini 2001, 35).

The NGOs community itself can be the site of conflict as “different groups come forscarce resources and access to publics and governments in addition to tensions that exist

between global networks and their local affiliates” (Willetts 1998, 11).

The norms, rules, and practices that constitute the normative structure of global civilsociety bestow rights as well as impose responsibilities on the agents of global civil

society. NGOs claim their rights of participation in global governance; yet, they rarely

voice their obligations to pursue their roles responsibly (Edwards 2001, 6). The questionabout the obligations of the agents of global civil society highlights a controversial issue

about the legitimacy and accountability of NGOs, i.e., whether organizations with

allegedly undemocratic structures can be promoters of democracy in the first place.55

Skeptics and supporters of NGOs concur in their critique of NGOs as often being self-selected (Cameron 2002, 86), unaccountable (Reiff 1999) and poorly rooted in society

(Uvin 1996). These critiques provide compelling reasons for questioning the legitimacy

of 47,098 international NGOs compared with 176 international NGOs that existed a century ago (inCusimano, Hensman, and Rodrigues 2000, 258; the data is from Union of International Associations (ed.),

Yearbook of International Organizations 2000/2001 (Brussels: K.G. Saur Verlag, 200), 1762-1763.54

Although, a decision to locate the H.Q. in cities like London, Geneva, or New York often results from

strategic organizational choices: telecommunications are more reliable and often cheaper in more

industrialized regions, and transport to and from these places is far more convenient (Smith 1998).55

Simmons (1998) confirms this point showing that NGOs “hailed as the exemplars of grassroots

democracy” can be “decidedly undemocratic and unaccountable to the people they claim to represent.”

Even when they remain “dedicated to promoting more openness and participation in decision-making” they

can “lapse into old-fashioned interest group politics that produces gridlock on a global scale.”



21

of NGOs as participants in global debates and appeal to theoretical validations of non-

governmental organizations.56

Thus, empirical evidence affords only partial support to the concept of global civil

society. Further examinations of the normative structures of global civil society, as well

as the structures of responsibilities of its agents are required. Conscientious theorizing on

the methods of legitimization of non-governmental actors must precede any attempts ofempirical investigation of legitimacy and accountability of NGOs.

There is a wealth of studies cataloguing a wide range of activities of non-state actorsin global politics. However, the empirical evidence supporting the claims about the

democratizing role of NGOs is at best inconclusive or at worst, fundamentally

contradicting. Advocates of the increasing importance of non-governmental actors inglobal politics supply a plethora of data on how NGOs safeguard individual political

rights by creating alternative channels for political involvement and how they influence

national and global policies by giving a voice to politically marginalized (or otherwise

disempowered) local constituencies. They list many different ways in which NGOs affectglobal agendas, policy formulations, and policy implementations,57and ensure the

effectiveness of law-enforcement in the area of internationally guaranteed individualfreedoms and rights.58

The contributions of NGOs to the efficiency of global governance and global welfare

politics are seen in the increasing evidence that, under the pressure of non-governmental

actors, state-affiliated organizations (such as the World Bank, or the World TradeOrganization) have come to recognize the adverse social, human, and environmental

consequences of their policies and programs (Cleary 1996; Morphet 1996). These

organizations have been willing to eliminate high-risk projects earlier in the project

evaluation cycle (Keck and Sikkink 1998, 121-165). NGOs initiate and widen the

56 There are different ways to validate organizations, for example, through representation where legitimacy

is claimed on the bases of democratic elections of the officers that ensure that an agency is representative

of, and accountable to, its constituents. The organization can also be validated on the basis of effectiveness,legal compliance, and recognition by other legitimate bodies, etc. (Edwards 2001, 7). There is a good

discussion of different bases of legitimacy for NGOs in Jennifer Chapman. 2001. “What Makes

International Campaigns Effective? Lessons from India and Ghana” in Global Citizen Action. Ed.

M.Edwards and J.Gaventa. Lynne Rienner Publichers, 259-275,57

For example, NGOs may legitimate or delegitimate states’ sovereign claims (Hochstetler and Clark

2000), affect governmental agendas through their participation in the conferences of the UN (Clark,

Friedman, and Hochstetler 1998) and decision-making processes of the UN, World Bank, WTO, and other

international organizations (Malone 2002; Willetts 1996). NGOs can affect decision-making process

through the distribution of specialized information or expertise relevant to governmental policy issue areas,

thus helping in designing multilateral treaties that work (Nowrot 1998; Simmons 1998; Willets 1996); by

exerting pressures through the coalition lobbying of intergovernmental organizations or meetings of leaders

of the states (Rosenau 1977, Uvin 1996); and by mobilizing people and initiating and running campaigns

around pressing issues (Cameron 2002; Makata 2000; Simmons 1998).58For example, Graer (1996, 51) argues, “human rights NGOs are the engine for virtually every advance

made by the United Nations in the field of human rights since its founding.” Indeed, NGOs succeeded in

their efforts of socialization of international human rights norms into domestic practices of developing

states (Risse, Ropp, and Sikkink 1999); NGOs made a great contribution to ending apartheid and

institutionalized racism in Southern Africa (Welch, Jr. 1995); NGOs monitored implementation of the

policies and human rights programs of the UN and regional organizations, gathered facts about human

rights violations and produced counter-reports revealing ferocious practices happening within certain states

and generated international pressure on the violating states (Keck and Sikkink 1998, 79-121; Monshipouri

1995; Uvin 1996, 165).



22

discourse about economic justice, environmental integrity, and other public goods

bringing the concerns of citizens about these issues to the attention of states andinternational institutions (Smith, Pagnucco, and Chatfield 1997; Willetts 1996, 11).

NGOs continue assiduous work on the ground taking up public roles that were once

played by states. Provisions of food, public health, development, and education functions

have been largely abdicated to NGOs in many regions where states are weak orcollapsing (Cusimano, Hensman, and Rodrigues 2000; Simmons 1998).

With regard to building consensus, facilitating cooperation and peaceful conflictresolution, there have been estimated over 400 NGOs “working with or alongside local

and international actors in analyzing, understanding and responding to violent conflict in

constructive and creative ways”59

thus increasing the probabilities for peace (Aal 1996;Anderson 1996; Mbabazi and Shaw 2000). Strategies of democratization used by non-

governmental organizations are based on consent. Thrown into the whirlpool of

democratizing processes, states are compelled to accrue collaboration. NGOs facilitate

cooperation among states by building trust and breaking deadlocks when states’negotiations have reached an impasse (Simmons 1998). They further collaboration

between state and non-state actors by initiating partnerships with like-minded countries(Cooper 2002, 7). By bringing together people from different countries and creatingvoluntary networks of non-governmental actors from different regions NGOs build up

consensus and collaboration within global civil society itself.

The democratizing activity of NGOs is coterminous with their educational effortsaimed at global “constituency” and institutions and organizations affiliated with either

states or civil society. The pursuit of peace includes the promotion of the philosophy of

non-violence and dissemination of knowledge about the techniques of negotiation and

conflict resolution (Anderson 1996, 344). The support for women rights encompassesenlightening efforts to bring about the changes in patriarchal practices and degrading

representation of women throughout society. The success of international environmental

action depends on the building of an accessible, international knowledge base andchanging the prevailing economic, political, moral, cultural, and social disposition of

society which support environmental degradation (Wapner 1995).

Many of the widely acclaimed accomplishments of non-governmental actors havebeen subjected to scrupulous reassessment. It has been demonstrated that non-

governmental actors often have a limited resource base, lack competent strategic vision

of global problems, and sometimes don’t have sufficient knowledge of issue-areas they

are trying to affect. An increasing amount of empirical evidence suggests a relatively lowdegree of success of NGOs on all fronts of global politics, including the areas of global

decision-making, human rights, and conflict resolution (Freres 2001, 32; Risse-Kappen

1995, 11-13; Shaw 1994).60

States and state representatives remain the principal players

59Reindorp, Levin ‘Global experiences of peace-building and social transformation,’ International Peace

Research Association Conference, in Rigby, Andrew. 2001. “Humanitarian Assistance and Conflict

Management: the View from the Non-Governmental Sector.” International Affairs 77 (4):957.60

The role of NGOs in the work of the UN human rights programs remains a subject of intense controversy

(Gaer 1996). There is not enough studies to confirm the argument that international pressure generated by

NGOs can lead to change in human rights practices, helping to transform understandings about the nature

of a state’s sovereign authority over its citizens (Keck and Sikkink 1998, 117). The results of the NGOs’

engagement in conflict-areas remain mixed (see, for example, Goodhand, J and Hulm, D. 1997. “NGOs

and Peace Building in Complex Political Emergencies: A Study of Sri Lanka.” Peace Building and



23

on all stages of decision-making process in the global realm (Gordenker and Weiss 1996,

208). The political culture of international organization continues to be “a sovereignty-oriented, state-dominated culture driven by norms that place the needs of individual

members ahead of the collective welfare” (Rosenau 1998, 261). The pattern of interaction

between like-minded countries and the NGO community remains “fuzzy, fragmentary,

and awkward” (Cooper 2002, 1). In joint ventures of NGOs and state actors, therelationship of partnership, authentic collaboration, and mutual respect is “more an

aspiration than a reality”(Gordenker and Weiss 1996, 37). The increased participation ofNGOs in global politics can prolong conflict, exacerbate global problems, impair regime

effectiveness, and create policy gridlocks (Clark 2001, 21-24; Clough 1999; Mathews

1997; Raustiala 1997; Simmons 1998).Why do scholars interested in the subject arrive at so inconclusive and contradicting

evidence of the democratizing impact of non-governmental actors? A possible answer

lies with the dearth of theory guiding research in the field. On one hand, a lack of theory

provides no basis for operationalization and finding empirical equivalents of the conceptsdescribing success, partial success, or failure of the democratizing efforts of non-

governmental organizations. On the other hand, absent or inadequate theorizing generatesspurious empirical findings. The evidence of empirical studies differ with regard to theoutcomes of democratizing influences of NGOs because the studies do not systematically

account for other factors, which might be more relevant for a particular outcome of

democratizing efforts of non-governmental actors. Theorizing about how the end resultsof democratizing activities of NGOs vary across different structural, institutional, and

other conditions,61 or on different stages of the policy cycle62 may help to bring the

findings of empirical scholarship to a consensus. Another strand of research is on the

‘causes’ and effects of the democratizing efforts of NGOs that is a subset of a broadertheoretical issue concerning the direction of the relationship between global civil society

and democratization of global politics. Might it be that Western non-governmental actors

are particularly successful because their ideas conform to the values and norms of themost powerful states in the world (that is the success of the NGO community is a

function of democratic culture of the community of Western states) (Risse-Kappen 1995,

288)? Or the relationship is reverse, i.e., the agents of global civil society, the carrier of

Complex Political Emergencies Working Papers No 2 IDPM, University of Manchester; Goodhand, J.

1999. “From Holy War to Opium War?: a Case Study of the Opium Economy in North Eastern

Afghanistan.” Peace Building and Complex Political Emergencies Working Papers No 5, IDPM,

University of Manchester; Atkinson, P. 2000. “NGOs and Peace Building in Complex Political

Emergencies: A Study of Liberia.” Peace Building and Complex Political Emergencies Working Papers

No 6, IDPM, University of Manchester.61

Some theoretical advances in this area can be found, for example, in Keck and Sikkink (1998) who

elaborate on the factors conditioning success of advocacy networks, or in Risse-Kappen (1995, 5-6) whosetheoretical framework accounts for differences in domestic governmental and societal structures and

degrees of international institutionalization that can alter the impact of transnational actors policies of

states.62

One approach for conceptualizing the global policy cycle suggests to divide it into four stages: problem

definition and agenda setting; policy transfer/formulation and legitimation; policy implementation, and

evaluation. Such a categorization used as a heuristic device can be a helpful starting point for identifying

different roles, relationships, and interactions of NGOs and state actors (Stone, Diane. 2001. “The ‘Policy

Research’ Knowledge Elite and Global Policy Processes” in Non-State Actors in World Politics, ed.

D.Josselin and W.Wallace. Palgrave, 117).



24

the liberal ideas and norms, mold the behavior of Western states to be congruent with a

set of liberal principles, practices, and norms, especially those associated with humanrights.

From the methodological standpoint, most empirical studies are conducted in the

positivist tradition; researchers inquire into causal relationships between social

phenomena aspiring to objectively describe the world by observation, measurement, andsearch for consistency between theory and data, and relying on the hypothetico-deductive

mode of explanations.63

Scholars take non-governmental actors with an assortment ofdemocratizing activities as an independent variable and ask what impact they have on

different aspect of global politics, the latter taken as the dependent variable. They seek

general knowledge about what NGOs do and how they do it on the basis of a number offacts or details about non-governmental actors and the activities that they observe. To test

causal hypotheses would require variation on the independent variable, that is, one would

have to vary empirical case studies with regard to the existence or non-existence of non-

state actors (Risse- Kappen 1995, 5). There is a serious methodological problem with thisapproach (as well as with methodologically more robust large-n studies) in that “we don’t

know enough about the universe of cases to be able to specify whether our case selectionconstitutes a reasonably representative sample” (ibid ).64

To make descriptive inferences,a tacit goal that is often sought in the exploratory studies of the non-governmental sector,

it is insufficient to look into a few cases or instances of NGOs’ encounters with the

agents of states and markets unless the representativeness of selected cases is justified.Consequently, many theorists of international relations remain reasonably skeptical of the

results of studies that aspire to say too much using too few cases and that speak in the

language of causality describing the world of inherently undeterministic social

relations.65

The major alternative to positivism-informed approaches is a more inductive

“narrative” mode of explanation. Armed with the interpretive methodological tools, the

narrative mode is more appropriate for empirical investigations informed byconstructivist assumptions. In the narrative mode, causality is not defined in terms of

law-like conditions preceding an outcome, but conforms to its original meaning of

whatever antecedent conditions, events, or actions are “significant” in producing or

63Excellent discussion of the positivist and post-positivists paradigms is offered in Hamilton, David. 1994.

“Traditions, Preferences, and Postures in Applied Qualitative Research” and Guba Egon G. and Yvonna S.

Lincoln. 1994. “Competing Paradigms in Qualitative Research” in Handbook of Qualitative Research, ed.

Denzin, Norman K. and Yvonna S. Lincoln. Sage Publications, 60-70 & 105-118.64

The only worldwide database of non-governmental organizations is maintained by the Union of

International Associations. The database can be accessed electronically via

<http://www.uia.org/organizations/ybonline.php> or through the Union’s annual publications of the

Yearbook of International Organization (Brussels, Belgium: K.G. Saur Verlag, Munichen). However, thedata contained in this database are insufficient to conduct, for example, statistical study or network analysis

that require the assembly of detailed data and, sometimes, lengthy observations. Because of that, very few

studies have compared the various global civil society networks to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of

this emerging form of global citizen action (Florini 2000, 12).65

There are, certainly, rigorous qualitative studies relying on process-tracing, narrative and content

analysis, historical, observational, and participatory methods, and various case studies techniques of

collection and analysis of data (e.g., Clark, Friedman, and Hochstetler 1998; Keck and Sikkink 1998;

Warkentin 2001). The majority of studies, however, lack an unequivocal research design and systematic

application of research techniques pertinent to the questions raised at the start of exploration.



25

influencing a given outcome (Ruggie 1998, 34). The “narrative” approach is more

suitable for writing ‘stories’ that tell us what, when, how, and in what consequence thenon-state actors did to achieve the end-results they get. Having identified the immediate

causes and effects of the interplay of governmental and societal forces, it is possible,

then, reasoning inductively, to add new cases, compare the findings across cases, and

come up with a more general argument at the end. Since the agents of global civil societyrely mostly on the ideational sources of influence (symbolic politics, creative use of

information, framing, etc.), interpretation is the best methodological device that helps toconstrue the meanings and significance that actors ascribe to collective situations,

historical and social environments, in which they find themselves and detect the changes

in those meanings.66

There are still problems with testing constitutive relationshipassumed within the framework of global civil society. Yet, these problems are derivative

of inherent ontological and epistemological incongruity of constructivism. To solve them

requires joint efforts of the students of phenomenology, methodology for social sciences,

as well as the scholars of particular disciplines.

Conclusion

This study started with questioning the aftermath of the global “associational”

revolution. Particularly, it purported to assess democratizing roles of non-governmental

organizations in the processes of transformation of modern global politics. In theliterature, this question received an abundance of answers, many being theoretically

uninformed, conceptually deficient, and fragmented. In this study, I chose a conceptually,

theoretically, and empirically informed approach to arrive at an answer that is more

encompassing and compelling.Non-governmental organizations, the agents of social change, carry out their

democratizing roles within a broader social setting, i.e. global civil society. To

understand their place in the realm of global politics, it is essential to characterize therelational and normative context, which they are a part of. Therefore, I started out this

essay by clarifying the concept of global civil society, reasoning by analogy with

domestic civil society, and defined NGOs within the broader social and cultural setting.To have a good grasp of the democratizing efforts of NGOs, it is crucial to ferret out why

they do what they do; in other words, what binds together NGOs and democratization of

global politics, and, on a broader scale, global civil society and democratic modes of

global governance. In answering these questions, I resurrected some conceptual andtheoretical links between global civil society and democratization of global politics

drawing extensively on theoretical insights from political theory, political philosophy,

and comparative politics. Having delineated a conceptual framework of global civilsociety, I attempted to reconcile it with the existing theoretical approaches to

international relations aspiring to find a theory open to synthesis with the proposed

concepts of global civil society and democratizing roles of its versatile agents. Finally, I

66 For a good description of interpretivism and interpretive method see Schwandt, Thomas A. 1994.

“Constructivist, Interpretivist Approaches to Human Inquiry,” and Hoddler, Ian. 1994. “The Interpretation

of Documents and Material Culture,” in Handbook of Qualitative Research, ed. N.Denzin and Y.Lincoln.

Sage Publications, 118 -138 & 403-413



26

applied the proposed conceptual framework to empirical evidence found in the studies of

global civil society and its multi-faceted actors.In a nutshell, the conclusions of this essay are:

(1) We can think of NGOs as “agents” having the ability to bring about social and

political changes on a global scale when we define them within the context of global civil

society, a self-regulated system composed of networks of individuals and civicorganizations interacting across national borders and the structures of norms, beliefs,

practices, and codes governing these interactions. Global civil society providesopportunities and incentives for democratizing activities of NGOs and delimits the scope

of their involvement in the public sphere.

(2) A vibrant global civil society is crucial for democratization of global politics, i.e.,for the establishment and endurance of the mode of global governance that provides (a)

an additional level of protection of individual rights and freedom; (b) a worldwide stage

for promoting socio-economic equity and welfare; (c) a forum for cooperation,

consensus, and peaceful conflict resolution; and (d) a space for dissemination ofdemocratic values, beliefs, and knowledge. NGOs carry out many important functions for

maximization of the stated goals of democratic governance. They assist in realization ofindividual political rights of participation and expression of opinion through activeinvolvement in all stages of the global decision making process. They seek

improvements in the global welfare of people and facilitate the efficiency of global

governance. NGOs further cooperation in multiple tiers of global governance and reardemocratic public consciousness.

(3) There is a considerable shortage of theory that can accommodate non-

governmental agency with the ontological status commensurable to that of the state. The

phenomenon of global civil society remains antithetical to realist theory; the role ofNGOs as significant actors in their own rights is downplayed in the liberal models of

international relations; and globalization approaches tend to overlook an autonomous

impact of human agency behind the ostentatious structural transformations happening ona global scale. Constructivism potentially contains multiple theories of democratization

of global politics. Yet, it is up against serious theoretical challenges concerning the

specification of the type of relationship (constitutive vs. causal), the direction of impact,and the degree of dependency (causality, association, necessary or sufficient condition)

between global civil society and democratization of global politics.

(4) The conceptual framework of global civil society accounting for democratizing

impacts of non-governmental organizations is up against serious methodologicalproblems. An empirical picture of global civil society is divested of some essential

elements, namely geographical balance, compatibility of resource bases, congruous

normative structure, and legitimacy, and accountability of the agents of global civilsociety. Hence, there is need to theoretically define and empirically investigate the ethical

and normative standards of NGOs, patterns of openness and accountability, and methods

of legitimation of non-governmental organizations.There is lack of convincing studies of sustained and specific processes through which

NGOs create more democratic world governance. The contradicting evidence of the

success of NGOs in transformation of global politics takes away empirical grounds forvalidation of this claim. A substantial portion of empirical research is divorced of any

theory and this is the major reason for inconsistencies in empirical findings. In their



27

attempt to underscore democratizing efforts of NGOs, researchers tend to focus

exclusively on what non-governmental actors do at the expense of other variables thatmight affect the processes under investigation. The neglect of important variables in the

models generates spurious results.

Lack of theorizing precludes interaction between data and theory when carrying out a

research project. As a consequence, the studies, with a few notable exceptions, don’t linktheir research questions to the methods of investigation and do not recognize the

restrictions in the types of empirical materials for the achievement of their stated goals.67

Time is an obstacle to empirical research in the field. Democratization of global

politics is a nascent phenomenon. The period of time lapsed since NGOs have made their

first democratizing attempts on the global scale is too short to be certain about their long-lasting effects. Policy changes often take a long time to be implemented, and the end

result may not be the one intended by the NGOs. Stable and substantive results of

democratization are not likely to be achieved in a short time frame; therefore, many

empirical findings have only tentative character (Grugel 2002, 137; Freres 2001, 132).We might be a long way from arriving at a consensus on a new conception of global

civil society or a theoretical paradigm of its democratizing impact on global politics sincenew theoretical models and novel forms of governance do not emerge quickly. Yet, torestore the confidence in global civil society and make the promise of global

democratization more fact than fable requires painstaking efforts of theorists and pundits

of global civil society at the present. Being more explicit about researcher’s ontologicaland epistemological stances, articulating research questions, honing the methods of

collection and analysis of data with the incorporation of more observational and personal

experience techniques, and critically evaluating the findings while remaining cognizant

of limitations of the data at hand, will help to launch more constructive dialogues withinthe discipline and diminish skepticism over the impact of non-governmental actors on the

politics of states.

67 The most illustrative example is that the majority of empirical studies pursue exploration as their main

research goal, that is, they purport to answer the questions of the type, “What do NGOs do?” and “How do

they do it?” They obtain fragmented (often indirect) evidence on a number of cases or NGOs, or,

substantial empirical data on one or a few cases or NGOs, and use these materials to infer their findings to

an undermined universe of cases or NGOs.



28

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