ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the impact of globalisation on the national state and civil society and its implications for democratic governance. It is important to note at the outset that globalisation is not some kind of fateful, inevitable force of nature that impinges on the state and state system and civil society from outside, without having been promoted in many respects by certain economic and political forces (often through the active encouragement or passive activities of one or more states) and/or realised through individual or group decisions in civil society at scales ranging from the local to the global. It is also important to note that the criteria chosen for assessing the impact of globalisation on democratic governance should not be anachronistic – a problem that can also be observed in recent debates on the European Union. Thus it would be wrong to take an idealised, nineteenth-century liberal representative democracy as the benchmark in an era when even national states are marked by growing authoritarian statism. That said, I will address the topic in three steps: first, indicate the complexities of globalisation; second, consider its impact on the state and civil society in the light of other changes occurring in these interconnected aspects of political and social order; and, third, address questions of democratic renewal. While my analysis will focus on globalisation and the transformation of the state and civil society, it will also raise broader issues of political economy, political ecology and governance failure. This leads eventually to some important questions about democratic governance and global solidarity and the prerequisites of a sustainable social and natural order.
