Global Civil Society: Challenge to Citizenship and Democracy?

Today, the autonomy and capabilities of states, which has a central position in the international order, have been questioned. With the process of globalization, alternative authorities, which would act instead of states or with states, are searched out. Global civil society, one of these alternative communities, is a vast, interconnected, and multi-layered social space that comprises the deliberate organizations of social, economic and political activities outside national borders. Despite the necessity of global civil society, it is said that global civil society beyond territorial states, goes against the state. Contrary to the argument, this paper intends to show that global civil society and the state are not necessarily incompatible, in particular if we get a fuller understanding of citizenship and democracy derived from the universal rights of people. With citizenship and democracy on a national basis, there are many limitations in the formation and development of a global civil society beyond territorial borders. But if we take a more comprehensive understanding of citizenship and democracy and extend them on a global scale, global civil society would be a practical entity. That is, the present conception of citizenship, which aims to offer rights and obligations to national citizens, should be transformed into an alternative principle, under which to have equal rights and accountability in a common decision-making processes about the global agenda. Democracy must go beyond the state and work in a global civil society, so that individuals can, in principle, participate in global public debates. By doing so, global civil society is a way of securing wavering citizenship and democracy in a contemporary globalizing world. As global civil society becomes more necessary, the alteration of our sense of citizenship, democracy, and their related concepts of participation, accountability and authority within a territorial state, may not be a choice, but an obligation which we should take for our future.