Daniele Conversi, "Demo-skepticism and Genocide" ("Political Studies Review", 4 [3], September 2006: pp. 247-62).
Abstract: "Genocide studies have expanded rapidly over the last twenty years, impelled by events such as the Bosnian and Rwandan tragedies and aided by the interdisciplinary confluence between comparative politics, history, anthropology and other social sciences. The challenge from historical sociology is particularly meaningful and few scholars are better equipped to achieve this task than Michael Mann. His explanation, linking genocide to 'democracy', is a relatively novel one. However, while scholars from various disciplines broadly agree on the link between genocide and modernity, the description of ethnic cleansing as the 'dark side of democracy' is more controversial. This article assesses Mann's claim, contrasting it with recent research in the field: after situating Mann's contribution within the structure-agency debate, I question whether causality and human responsibility are lost. I then explore the broader, recent trend of 'demo-skepticism' to which the book belongs. Its main weakness is a contraction of the concept of democracy into that of 'majority rule'. This is accompanied by an intermittent overlap between the concepts of democracy, liberalism and neoliberalism, under the umbrella term 'liberal democracy'."
The full text of the article can be read free of charge here:
www.sissco.it/fileadmin/user_upload/Risorse/biblioteca_digitale/pdf/Demoskepticism.pdf
Some excerpts: "Rarely in recent history has the faith in democracy become so debilitated as in the current dawning of the twenty-first century. Terrorism and counter-terrorism have demolished many certitudes. [...] In several Western countries, the lack of governments' responsiveness accompanied by the introductions of new 'anti-terror' legislation often sacrificing human rights in the name of 'security', have led many to question whether we still live in a democratic age. 'Liberal democracies' are facing a legitimacy crisis, while disenchantment, even cynicism, with our very political systems has gained ground. [...]
"[Academic thinking has been] expanding into a general critique of democratic theory and the very idea of 'liberal democracy'. It has combined with a much larger onslaught on the very notion of democracy, emerging in various areas and disciplines [...,] a rapidly growing circle of scholars, a larger, fashionable 'anti-democratic' trend which I define hereby as demo-skepticism. [...] US academics of different ideological persuasions [...] argue that mass democracy coupled with neoliberal globalization imperil multi-ethnic coexistence. [...] [T]he critics' true targets are not democracies per se, but more specifically globalizing market democracies. [...]
"Colin Crouch [...] has recently argued that we already live in a post-democratic age, where government slips away from popular control while big business and multinational corporations rule unchallenged. With globalizing neoliberalism, the era of popular sovereignty has come to an end, and with it the very meaning of democracy. The very fact that we begin to feel that we no longer live in 'democratic' societies could account for the rise of demo-skepticism. Long before the demo-skeptic turn, the Italian sociologist Franco Ferrarotti [...] had warned that the death of democracy is always a suicide, never a murder."
Italian-born Daniele Conversi is now Research Professor in the School of Social and Communication Sciences at the University of the Basque Country and at Ikerbasque, the Basque Foundation for Science.
Showing posts with label globalization. Show all posts
Showing posts with label globalization. Show all posts
12 February 2010
10 February 2010
Book: World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability
Amy Chua, "World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability" (Doubleday, 2002):
www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780385721868
From the publisher's description: "For over a decade now, the reigning consensus has held that the combination of free markets and democracy would transform the third world and sweep away the ethnic hatred and religious zealotry associated with underdevelopment. In this astute, original, and surprising investigation of the true impact of globalization, [...] Amy Chua explains why many developing countries are in fact consumed by ethnic violence after adopting free market democracy. Chua shows how in non-Western countries around the globe, free markets have concentrated starkly disproportionate wealth in the hands of a resented ethnic minority. These 'market-dominant minorities' – Chinese in Southeast Asia, Croatians in the former Yugoslavia, whites in Latin America and South Africa, Indians in East Africa, Lebanese in West Africa, Jews in post-communist Russia – become objects of violent hatred. At the same time, democracy empowers the impoverished majority, unleashing ethnic demagoguery, confiscation, and sometimes genocidal revenge."
Reviews: "Chua blames the West for promoting a version of capitalism and democracy that Westerners have never adopted themselves. Western capitalism wisely implemented redistributive mechanisms to offset potential ethnic hostilities, a practice that has not accompanied the political and economic transitions in the developing world. As a result, Chua explains, we will continue to witness violence and bloodshed within the developing nations struggling to adopt the free markets and democratic policies exported by the West." ("Publishers Weekly")
"By way of illustration, Chua offers, imagine that Chinese-Americans, representing about two percent of the US population, controlled the country's largest banks and most of its productive real estate, while the 75 percent of the population considered 'white' owned no land and, worse, 'had experienced no upward mobility as far back as anyone can remember': transfer the scenario abroad, 'and you will have approximated the core social dynamic that characterizes much of the non-Western world.' [...] Democratization in the Middle East, for instance, would likely mean only the rise of nationalist and fundamentalist regimes; corrupt and autocratic though they may be, the region's kings are still more liberal than those who would replace them should the majority rule." ("Kirkus Review")
Amy Chua is the John M. Duff, Jr. Professor of Law at Yale Law School.
www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780385721868
From the publisher's description: "For over a decade now, the reigning consensus has held that the combination of free markets and democracy would transform the third world and sweep away the ethnic hatred and religious zealotry associated with underdevelopment. In this astute, original, and surprising investigation of the true impact of globalization, [...] Amy Chua explains why many developing countries are in fact consumed by ethnic violence after adopting free market democracy. Chua shows how in non-Western countries around the globe, free markets have concentrated starkly disproportionate wealth in the hands of a resented ethnic minority. These 'market-dominant minorities' – Chinese in Southeast Asia, Croatians in the former Yugoslavia, whites in Latin America and South Africa, Indians in East Africa, Lebanese in West Africa, Jews in post-communist Russia – become objects of violent hatred. At the same time, democracy empowers the impoverished majority, unleashing ethnic demagoguery, confiscation, and sometimes genocidal revenge."
Reviews: "Chua blames the West for promoting a version of capitalism and democracy that Westerners have never adopted themselves. Western capitalism wisely implemented redistributive mechanisms to offset potential ethnic hostilities, a practice that has not accompanied the political and economic transitions in the developing world. As a result, Chua explains, we will continue to witness violence and bloodshed within the developing nations struggling to adopt the free markets and democratic policies exported by the West." ("Publishers Weekly")
"By way of illustration, Chua offers, imagine that Chinese-Americans, representing about two percent of the US population, controlled the country's largest banks and most of its productive real estate, while the 75 percent of the population considered 'white' owned no land and, worse, 'had experienced no upward mobility as far back as anyone can remember': transfer the scenario abroad, 'and you will have approximated the core social dynamic that characterizes much of the non-Western world.' [...] Democratization in the Middle East, for instance, would likely mean only the rise of nationalist and fundamentalist regimes; corrupt and autocratic though they may be, the region's kings are still more liberal than those who would replace them should the majority rule." ("Kirkus Review")
Amy Chua is the John M. Duff, Jr. Professor of Law at Yale Law School.
13 January 2010
Book: The End of the Nation-State
This book by Jean-Marie Guéhenno was published in French in 1993 as "La fin de la démocratie" (The End of Democracy). The English translation appeared two years later under the title "The End of the Nation-State" (trans. Victoria Elliott; University of Minnesota Press, 1995):
www.upress.umn.edu/Books/G/guehenno_endpb.html
From the back cover: "Will the information age and the resulting global community provide a new model, a 'fourth empire,' that will redefine how people pursue and protect their freedoms? [...] Questioning whether democracy can survive without nations, Guéhenno sees a future for humanity that has lost the 'dotted lines' of borders and geographical boundaries."
Reviews: "The End of the Nation-State argues that the territorial nation-state is giving way: from without, to a welter of overlapping, transnational networks fueled by information technology; from within, to subnational ethnic communities. At stake is the future of democracy." (Francis Fukuyama, "Foreign Affairs")
"His analysis ... draws intriguing parallels between the current period and that of the Holy Roman Empire but sees the current 'empire' as an economic network of independent institutions. ... Guehenno's thought-provoking ideas will certainly generate discussions and controversy." ("Library Journal")
"Guéhenno detects not just a shift in power from one institutional location to another but, rather, a profound redefinition of power itself. This redefinition will pose an almost formidable challenge to our basic notions of and approaches to governance." ("American Journal of International Law")
"Where Christianity teaches that 'each man ... is a consciousness, and that this consciousness is irreducible,' the new age of networks requires the surrender of autonomy. As dedicated servants of the network, we become 'people without principles.' Our networked age functions 'better than any human organization has ever functioned, but no one knows to what end.' [...] As if to complete the circuit of ironies that will describe this new era – a world without a center, inhabited by people without principles, gagging on freedoms that have lost all meaning – Guehenno offers this remedy: 'religions without God.'" (A.J. Bacevich, "First Things")
The book is fully searchable on Google Book Search (including partial table of contents):
http://books.google.com/books?id=Jrq9VhWra6oC&printsec=frontcover
Frenchman Jean-Marie Guéhenno has been Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations for Peacekeeping Operations since 2000. At the time the book was published, he was a Professor at Sciences Po Paris and Director of the Center for Analysis and Forecasting of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
www.upress.umn.edu/Books/G/guehenno_endpb.html
From the back cover: "Will the information age and the resulting global community provide a new model, a 'fourth empire,' that will redefine how people pursue and protect their freedoms? [...] Questioning whether democracy can survive without nations, Guéhenno sees a future for humanity that has lost the 'dotted lines' of borders and geographical boundaries."
Reviews: "The End of the Nation-State argues that the territorial nation-state is giving way: from without, to a welter of overlapping, transnational networks fueled by information technology; from within, to subnational ethnic communities. At stake is the future of democracy." (Francis Fukuyama, "Foreign Affairs")
"His analysis ... draws intriguing parallels between the current period and that of the Holy Roman Empire but sees the current 'empire' as an economic network of independent institutions. ... Guehenno's thought-provoking ideas will certainly generate discussions and controversy." ("Library Journal")
"Guéhenno detects not just a shift in power from one institutional location to another but, rather, a profound redefinition of power itself. This redefinition will pose an almost formidable challenge to our basic notions of and approaches to governance." ("American Journal of International Law")
"Where Christianity teaches that 'each man ... is a consciousness, and that this consciousness is irreducible,' the new age of networks requires the surrender of autonomy. As dedicated servants of the network, we become 'people without principles.' Our networked age functions 'better than any human organization has ever functioned, but no one knows to what end.' [...] As if to complete the circuit of ironies that will describe this new era – a world without a center, inhabited by people without principles, gagging on freedoms that have lost all meaning – Guehenno offers this remedy: 'religions without God.'" (A.J. Bacevich, "First Things")
The book is fully searchable on Google Book Search (including partial table of contents):
http://books.google.com/books?id=Jrq9VhWra6oC&printsec=frontcover
Frenchman Jean-Marie Guéhenno has been Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations for Peacekeeping Operations since 2000. At the time the book was published, he was a Professor at Sciences Po Paris and Director of the Center for Analysis and Forecasting of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
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