Published by De Gruyter

Volume 6 Issue 1

March 2012

Issue of New Global Studies

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Contents
Journal Overview

Article

May 7, 2012

Can We be Civil? The Proliferation of Global Plural Society

Daniel Gilligan

Abstract

This article questions the notion that the proliferation of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) should be regarded as the vanguard of a new global civil society. It begins by suggesting that the definition of global civil society is confused, at best, and offers competing and largely incompatible understandings of it alongside a retrospective on the political thought of Hannah Arendt, David Chandler, and Ernest Gellner, and the English School of International Relations. This illustrates the ways by which the undemocratic structure of NGOs lead to internal conflicts that often cause them to splinter, with losers leaving to form their own organization. The result is that NGOs are actually contributing a diverse set of mores, rather than a new set of global norms. This growth then can be better understood as atomization, and as much of a hindrance as a help to the formation of a more civil world. It takes the growing criticism of the democratic deficit in Global NGOs a step further from a question of legitimacy to a problem of functionality.

May 7, 2012

The Impossible Mission: Global Justice Movement Against Transnational Organized Crime

Baris Cayli

Abstract

This article argues that the best counterattack against globally oriented transnational organized crime (TOC) is by a global response. The contribution of participating states and the creation of a collective identity against TOC are both necessary. This creation would be more effective through transnational social movements. Therefore, activating the global justice movement (GJM) against TOC would be a significant achievement. This has not yet taken place for both structural and ideological reasons which are on the surface quite rational. If GJM activists create a more unified movement, however, and adhere more strictly to non-violence as have other social movements like the Libera anti-Mafia association of Italy and Flare Network of Europe, there is potential for convergence.

Commentary

May 7, 2012

"This is What Democracy Looks Like": Is Representation Under Siege?

Jose Pedro Zuquete

Abstract

Since the end of the 20th century loud calls for reinstating the rule of the people in liberal democracies have been heard, particularly in but not limited to alter-globalization circles devoted to creating another world. This trend has been strengthened in the passage to the 21st century and this article traces the influences behind it, as well as the motivations and ways in which representative democracy is rejected by activists in favor of a new system that fulfills what is perceived as the original promise of democracy to bring power to all the people. The article concludes with a discussion on the consequences of a re-energized notion and practice of “rule by the demos” to liberal democracy.

May 7, 2012

The Transatlantic Relationship: Common Interests?

Marten H.A. van Heuven

Abstract

What is the state of common interests across the Atlantic? Lord Palmerston's dictum that states have permanent interests masks the fact that interest perception is subjective and variable. It is defined differently across the Atlantic as well as within Europe, where we find a mix of distinct national interests set in the context of the European Union. The debt crisis in Europe has resurfaced the question where lie the common interests of the EU countries. NATO and the EU are vehicles that help shape common interests. The issue now is how to fit into a global setting the issue of defining common interests in the transatlantic relationship. This comes back to leadership.

Review Essay

May 7, 2012

Crimes and Sovereignty

Bruce Mazlish

Abstract

Bruce Mazlish reviews the current state of thinking about war crimes, state sovereignty and humanity.

Documentation

May 7, 2012

The Tribalism Index: Unlocking the Relationship Between Tribal Patriarchy and Islamist Militants

David Jacobson, Natalie Deckard

Abstract

Tribal dynamics have been strikingly prominent in the success or failure of militant Islamists, from Central Asia to North Africa. However, to date little systematic research has been undertaken on tribal culture and its interactions with militant Islamist groups. Part of the challenge is the absence of a quantitative measure of tribal culture that can gauge the degree of tribalism. A measure of this sort would assist in the exploration of relationships between tribalism and militant Islam, religiously motivated violence, or the export of that violence. In this article, we put forward such a measure, the Tribalism Index. This Tribalism Index is a predictor of religiously motivated violence, and is effective in parsing the varying relationships of Islam, Islamist militancy and tribal patriarchy to that violence. It is also helpful in predicting religiously motivated violence in diaspora communities in Western nations, and has proved effective in doing so in the United Kingdom. Regression models that include both Muslim population percentage and level of tribalism demonstrate that, in the absence of a clear tribal culture, adherence to Islam does not make for susceptibility to extremism. Furthermore, these models show that it is within tribal environments that Islamist movements are best nurtured. The Tribalism Index proves of greater utility than the Failed States Index for eliciting the dynamics of violence in tribal societies, while illuminating the inaccuracy of seeing militancy as a function of Islam as such.

Reportage

May 7, 2012

Do Oil and Democracy Only Clash in the Global South?: Petro Politics in Alberta, Canada

Meenal Shrivastava, Lorna Stefanick

Abstract

The relationship between oil and democracy has been most widely tested in the context of high-income states of the Middle East to explain the lack of political liberalism in those countries. Some recent studies have compared oil-exporting countries in Latin America and Africa to explore the "oil impedes democracy" hypothesis. This account applies the insights of these comparative studies beyond the Global South to explore questions such as: To what extent do the causal mechanisms of oil versus democracy apply in Canada? Is there any evidence of the phenomenon of "resource curse" in the Canadian province of Alberta, which is offered as an explanation for the lack of economic and political liberalism in the Global South?

Book Review

May 7, 2012

Review of Overcoming Evil

Jenna Jordan

May 7, 2012

Review of Nazi Empire: German Colonization from Bismarck to Hitler

Lakatos Artur

About this journal

Objective
Local, universal, world-historical, world-systemic, or global historiographies as well as work in sociology, anthropology and international relations have shed increasing light on the common history of humankind. Only comparatively recently, however, has human global self-awareness broken through the confines of scholarly specialization, and begun to enter the everyday popular life, action, psyche, imagination and consciousness on a mass, global scale. The step into space and the resultant view of the planet, the new computer and media technologies of mass communication, the global spread of multinational corporations and human rights, the unprecedented environmental changes and challenges, the promise and threat of nuclear power and explosions, all have led to the increasing self-experiencing of the globe as a “spaceship earth.”

The field of interest of New Global Studies (NGS) therefore is both multidisciplinary and global. New Global Studies interprets globalization with a historical and sociological angle as opposed to history or sociology with a global angle. The journal addresses the process going on around us as a whole, and developing over time. It addresses globalization with a holistic perspective, which gives us a view on the past and present of the globalizing phenomena that will be invaluable to all who seek to comprehend this fundamental aspect of our society and its development. Our focus is unabashedly on the new globalization that has manifested itself so vigorously in the period starting sometime after World War II. Starting from this relatively contemporary perspective, we are fully aware that there are deep roots in the past that must be explored. Nevertheless, and in contrast with most historical journals, our primary emphasis is on the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

Topics
We welcome articles on all aspects of globalization: economic, social, cultural, and political. In particular, we encourage analyses, both theoretical and empirical, of the following:

Transnational manifestations of culture, and cultural synthesis
Patterns and local effects of economic globalization
Elite and popular perceptions of, and reactions to, global change
Global institutions and organizations, both public and private
The global media, and the emergence of a "global society"
The degradation and preservation of the global environment
Global pedagogy

Article formats
Research articles, Review essays, Book reviews, Documentations, Commentaries