ABSTRACT
The chapters presented in this volume were initially delivered at the international conference, ‘Civil Society, Religion and Global Governance: Paradigms of Power and Persuasion’, which was held 1-2 September 2005 at the National Museum of Australia, Canberra, under the aegis of the National Institute of Social Sciences and Law, The Australian National University. Inspiration for the conference, its timeliness and the fine collegiality of the discussions may all be said to have occurred in response to some very ‘uncivil’ aspects of world and domestic governance confronting us at the present time. Each of the main concepts – civil society, religion and global governance – is worthy of an international conference in its own right. Bringing all three into contiguity in order to examine their threefold interactions on human well-being has reinforced the commonality of human aspirations embedded in these major concepts: the desire for improved human security and greater protection of human rights; for implementation as well as recognition of the universality of the values underpinning the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) despite the diversity of cultures amongst the 192 members of the United Nations; and for recognition that the values societies uphold, while differing in detail, often source their origins in religious or spiritual paradigms. We may not always know what is ‘civil’; but we certainly know what is ‘uncivil’, no matter what religious or spiritual paradigm informs our existence; or what system of political governance orders our everyday lives. What is common is that no matter what religious paradigm or system of political governance prescribes our lives, there is a common seeking after an ethical plane which may be largely intuitive. ‘Civil society’ is often seen to fill that conceptual role in human yearning. This volume examines the ‘civil society’ parabola, from problematique to panacea, and ultimately says that, although it may not always be perfect, as a concept ‘civil society’ may be all we have in seeking after better.
