ABSTRACT
Theorizations of global change are certainly not in short supply. Indeed, to glance over the different approaches to globalization is to witness an array of vastly different diagnoses of its nature and scale (O’Byrne and Hensby 2011). Within this debate, those who speak of global civil society or cosmopolitanism tend to be put on the same side, the assumption being that both view globalization – that is, the process of interconnectedness and compression in which the world is increasingly understood as a single space – as an ever-unfurling reality both totalizing in reach and broadly irreversible in its effects. With this process established as a given, its advocates argue that in political thought one cannot retreat to a purely statist model: we can only go forwards. Nor must the juggernaut of globalization be dominated by the interests of the neoliberal marketplace, as ultimately, the securing of a peaceful and prosperous global coexistence must be of profound importance. Such sentiments are an essential foundation of cosmopolitan thought, and arguably presuppose the concept of an active global civil society.
