The MOST Phase II website is available at: www.unesco.org/shs/most.
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| Æ See also: "UNESCO at the World Social Forum 2002" | |
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also available in French, Portuguese and Spanish |
Introduction to the Seminar: For more than forty years, the Cold War has given rise to social science analyses dominated by geopolitics, military strategy and zero-sum games; today such approaches are replaced in official studies and speeches by new concepts such as geo-economics, globalisation, market-based regulation of the world order, governance and democracy. These words express a certain hierarchy of values, and at the same time have implications on State practices, the major lines of action for development and individual behaviour, both at the social and the economic levels. To the current transformation of the State, there is the proliferation of technical dimensions of "globalisation" which the world society would need to further develop: the market, communications, growth of exchanges, transnational issues (for example, the environment, demography, migrations, drug trafficking, mafia networks, etc.), as well as the globalised image. Thus, the concept of world society is nourished by three main logics: the logic of interdependence between the units composing the system, the logic of the globalisation of actors, objects, functions and stakes, as well as the logic of universalisation, based on universal principles and on the diffusion of models common to humankind (such as human rights, liberal democracy and the neo-liberal ideology). This process is set, in fact, in a history which is observable throughout the 20th Century, and is often summarized through the concept of globalisation. What really counts is that this vast process guides both the action and the perception of actors. In the framework of the world society, the objects, products, and references in general become "deterritorialised" and "homogenised"; the gap diminishes amongst the winners of globalisation, but grows between the latter and the majority group of losers. The poor in his shanty-town is not an actor of the planetary circuit; nevertheless, he daily endures the impact of the world market which affects the prices of cocoa, sugar and basic materials that his country produces. He has been pushed away from his village and deruralised; he has become a suburban. As regards the challenges for UNESCO in the 21st Century, it is evident that the effects of this global civilisational trend on social development are very numerous. The globalisation process creates forms of integration, but also, forms of exclusion. Globalisation has created new opportunities of enrichment for significant sectors and groups of society, but it has also negatively affected or even completely marginalised numerous other sectors. The forces of the globalised market destroy more than they create the safety nets of the underprivileged. In this context, UNESCO may initiate, during the General Conference, a fundamental debate for the 21st Century on questions such as: what instances of regulation for a world on its way to globalisation? How to democratise world governance? How to reinforce the capacity of national democracies to manage globalisation to the benefit of their citizens? Indeed, the definition of democracy at the global level can be split into several sub-questions. The oldest one touches upon the democratisation between States. It raises, amongst others, the recurrent question of the reform of the Security Council and the mode of functioning of international financial institutions’, such as the IMF and World Bank. The international community has progressed a lot in giving each State, whatever its size and the volume of its resources, the possibility of making itself heard in the world scene and to take part in the elaboration of major principles which have to guide international relations. The realities of power and domination would seem to make it difficult to go further in the democratisation at the inter-state level. One can deplore it, but is forced to register it. Democratisation also refers to the right of populations to emancipate themselves from their governments to advance their own points and claims themselves as regards world affairs. In intergovernmental organisations, it is the States, or more exactly the governments, which present themselves as the natural relay of the social aspirations and define the content of the international public order. The access of citizens to normative discussions on the principles which are going to found public action is quite marginal. The diagnosis is top-down and management remains technocratic. Finally, democratisation would suppose that the adressees of decisions, taken by a centre of power which is totally exterior to them – State, firm, international organisation – can intervene at any point of the process, in its preparation, in its application or the correction of its damageable results. In the domain of environment, finance, investments, one sees populations bearing the often disastrous effects of decisions taken far from them without any meditation between the different levels of actors, i.e. those who decide and those who undergo the consequences. How to conceive democracy in a global system which escapes more and more the principle of territoriality? For certain authors, the essence of democracy is the possibility for the citizens of changing their leaders. What happens when the decision-making centres are spatially dispersed across the world? Democracy has always been thought in reference to a place with a local anchorage, to polis. It is the territorial constructions which delimit the bases of participation of individuals in political life. How to manage democratically a world system shaped by commercial exchanges, financial innovations and direct investments, in part escaping political control? How to influence the communication networks and transactions which bind societies together over territorial boundaries and give rise between and within populations to asymmetries between those able to play the globalisation game to their profit, and the colossal mass of poor helpless people? Lots of proposals towards institutional innovations have been made for transposing representative mechanisms operating at the internal level onto the international level: People's Assemblies, international referenda, regional parliaments, etc. Such propositions are not suitable responses. Not only would they lead to constructing a supplementary level of structures "from the top" with no consideration for the social reality, but they would reproduce old recipes which, at the domestic level even in the democratic countries, are no longer effective for assuring the participation of citizens in political life (cf. the growing rate of abstentions in elections). Rather than artificially constructing institutional mechanisms, it would be preferable to consider what already exists and allow it to develop. The idea of the direct participation of "civil society" in international life has made extraordinary progress in the last decades. The Major Conferences of the United Nations (environment, population, women’s rights, habitat, etc.) in the 1990s, have strongly contributed creating a public space at the planetary level. Generally, international nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) have been successful in carving a space for themselves in the majority of inter-governmental organisations (IGOs) and in making themselves heard. A case in point, in the domain of human rights, is the principle of the right to access to victims, declared by the General Assembly of the United Nations, the establishment of two international penal jurisdictions (Ex-Yugoslavia, Rwanda) followed by the Rome Convention of 17 July 1998 bringing along the creation of the International Penal Court. In the domain of development and environment, it is henceforth admitted that nothing durable can be done without the participation of local populations, women, and grass-roots communities. In quite a lot of cases, this recognition remains at the level of discourse. Nevertheless, there is an awareness at the international level, and such a discourse acts as a constraint on the political authorities, and that powerful institutions like the World Bank begin to reorient their policy. The idea gains ground, that it will soon be time to reverse the famous slogan and "think locally" to "act globally". The triumphant ultra-liberalist wave of the 1980s led people to think that the market had become the principal mean of economic and social adjustment, if not the only one. For the last three years, following the Asian crisis, the Brazilian Crisis, the Russian chaos, and the break-down of some speculative funds, it looks as if we have entered a new era which some have dubbed "the post-Washington Consensus". The social effects of a globalisation without regulation now appear as harmful for the good functioning of the system as it is. Just like the XIX Century bourgeoises constructed the Welfare-State for appeasing the "dangerous classes", the globalised elites are now looking for "governance" mechanisms, in order to avoid the generalisation of a social chaos engendered jointly by poverty and the crisis of political identification. The difficulty is to establish at the same time the relevant framework
and actors for arriving at social deals indispensable for such a regulation.
The national framework is often insufficient, either too vast or too narrow.
It happens that the "representatives of civil society" are self-proclaimed
and without real legitimacy. The NGOs can make a remarkable job and construct
the necessary mediations between the different local, national, international
and world-wide levels of political action. That pre-supposes a long term
effort so that citizens are educated, that is to say, both the learning
by the local populations of the management of affairs which concern them
and the broadening of their action in the framework of "political" responsibility,
in the noble sense of the term.
The UNESCO seminar in the WSF: The seminar is part of the World Social Forum. The seminar intends to promote an open debate on the themes III and IV of the Forum, which are the civil society and the public realm, as well as democratisation of global authority. An exhibition of UNESCO publications will also be set up. The debate of each round table will be co-ordinated by a Chairperson. The speakers are expected to analyse critical issues based on their experience (socially and geographically considered) addressing questions for a general debate. A synthesis on the presentation will be written by a reporter, and published with the papers jointly by MOST/UNESCO and the Federal University (UFRGS). The participants must send the first written version of their presentation to UNESCO (version text winword, about 20 pages) with a summary (1 paragraph) and a bionote. First day (during the afternoon only): 29 January 2001
The goal of this round table is to discuss existing and/or future connections between state and non-state actors to promote development on the transnational level. Environmental problems, exacerbated urbanisation, human rights, migrations, criminal networks related to drugs, among other relevant issues concerning the actual world order transcend the nation-state borders and generate dialogue between actors of the global scene. How to consider the participation of associative movements, local associations, NGOs in general, trade and companies, in the constitution of a new public realm around the idea of a more democratic global "governance". Chairman: Paulo Vizentini Speakers:
Second day (afternoon only) : 30/01/2000
Governance is a category with a normative and a prescriptive dimension. In current debates on urban governance, for instance, the social conflict would be converted into rules of good management. It is true that the current debate on governance, and particularly that of financial international institutions, doesn't constitute an epidemiological opening for social sciences. Governance—useful concept often qualified as "good" or "democratic"—could be complementary to the global market regulation. The reference to essential questions of citizen management and participation, without directly mentioning the role of the State, made governance a very useful concept for the economic and financial experts around the world. Consequently, there is a great potential of mystification and a major risk of manipulation linked to the use of the notion of governance. It doesn't mean that contemporary societies (and the international system) is not more complex than before, composed of sub-systems much more less autonomous than before. It doesn't mean that societies sustain no democratic crisis, particularly in terms of representation, participation, legitimacy of actors and social cohesion. From a disciplinary perspective and from the object of each of the participant, this round table intends to promote a debate on the new articulations which are necessary between state and non-state actors in the promotion of public good. Chairman: Renato de Oliveira, FAPERGS Speakers:
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