Is global civil society a good thing?

• Main Author: FLORINI, Ann
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2004
• Subjects: Political Science; Public Affairs, Public Policy and Public Administration
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/2334; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/soss_research/article/3591/viewcontent/New_Perspectives_Quarterly___2004___Florini___Is_Global_Civil_Society_a_Good_Thing.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

Washingtons — Tanks in the streets of Seattle in 1999. Molotov cocktails in Prague in 2000. Gunfire in Genoa in 2001. A hundred thousand people gathering every winter in a World Social Forum to talk about how to improve the world. Global agreements on everything from human rights protections to banning weapons systems. Fifteen million people on the streets in cities around the world on a single day in 2003 to protest the Iraq war. These headlines reflect the rise of a force now so potent in world affairs that the New York Times has referred to it as “the second superpower.” It is the power of civil society, that ill-defined, amorphous realm of human associations that are not family or government or profit-seeking business