According to Margaret Keck and Kathryn Sikkink in their book, Activists Beyond Borders, at the core of a transnational advocacy network is information exchange. The main goal of a transnational advocacy network is to bring awareness of a specific issue to targeted audiences. These ideas and values that are spread can eventually transition into norms which are then institutionalized by the state through a "spiral" process described in The Power of Human Rights by Thomas Risse, Stephen Ropp and Kathryn Sikkink.
How these groups spread their ideas varies, but the general process remains the same. Groundwork is done to spread the prevalence of an idea or value so there is general public support. Either the domestic population of a state or the group brings the issue to the attention of the government, and the support for the activist group is already in place.
Here the process can take one of two turns depending on the identity of the state. Let's say that a human rights groups is advocating a particular women's rights policy in a country. Whether or not this country is a liberal democracy makes a difference in the reaction of the government. Either they will enter into argumentative discourse, or they will embrace the new idea and (with domestic pressure and support) institutionalize it as a norm.
According to Risse, Ropp and Sikkink, even if a state enters into argumentative discourse, some form of the norm will eventually become institutionalized due to outside pressure, which they call "shaming." Other governments within the "global community" will condemn the offensive state and exclude it from various privileges such as trade, institutional participation, etc. Once this occurs, the state would normally make strategic concessions in order to save face and maintain world status. This begins a slower process of changing state identity to one which encompasses these newly implemented ideas as norms.
This brings me to Professor Jackson's final question for Module 6... Is there a global public sphere? At first I thought that there may only be regional spheres of community due to the differences in culture and values. But perhaps the spread of ideas and their institutionalization as norms may be the beginning of the formation of a global public sphere. The spread of information through the internet and increasingly integrated economies seems to help the world become one global community. Each culture may influence one another until each becomes all encompassing in one complete identity.
This conclusion ignores the issues of state sovereignty and rational self-defense.... Yet if the world were to operate with a "what's best for everyone" mindset, and became one multinational, global public sphere, maybe war and coercion, the use of violence would cease to exist. However, history, and Hobbes, tells us that the natural state of man is one of war. So however utopian a global public sphere would be, it may not really be possible.
Taylor, the idea of a global public sphere is interesting and a difficult question to answer. Personally, I don't think it does or ever will exist. However, I like your mention of the internet and how it makes much of the world seem a bit more interconnected. The internet certainly enhances the argument that a global public sphere exists or will exist in the future.
ReplyDeleteTaylor - I agree, I don't think a global public sphere can really be possible. Jackson posed a couple of questions at the end of his lecture that helped me think through this. Firstly, the public sphere requires legitimacy and an audience, which is derived from consent of the governed. Jackson mentions that there is no democratic accountability on a global level, so how can there be a global public sphere? Also, I think it's hard to say there can be a global public sphere at least with the way the world is formed now, because representation is not equal. I think sometimes the global public be skewed based on financial standing, military strength, or state size. As you mentioned, technology is definitely an interesting aspect of this concept of a global public sphere and one that I think will continue to evolve as technology does as well.
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