Introduction

In this chapter, I argue for the global civil society as normatively and theoretically a new paradigm of global governance and also a possible emancipatory ‘cosmopolitan political project’ to the emerging challenges of democracy, justice and inclusive governance at the global level. Though global civil society is often perceived as a multilayered, contested and decentred space of associtionalism, I consider it an epic and irreversible ‘double movement’ of people seeking to transform hegemonic structures of global governance, protect human rights, minimize violence and increase the sphere of democratic life across the borderless world. And I suggest that this argument can be further explored, expanded and defended by offering at least four reasons.

First, I argue that globalization, benign or regressive, has created unique ‘political opportunity structures and processes’ rendering state-centric conventional theories of international relations and global governance completely irrelevant. Fuelled by the twin processes of associational and informational revolutions in the 1980s, global civil society has slowly and sturdily emerged as ‘a supranational sphere of social and political participation’ for a vast majority of people who have had not opportunity in the past to be heard in the hegemonic structures of international organizations. It is clear from the scope, reach and velocity of globalization that sovereignty of the modern nation-state has exhausted its imaginative power to continually secure the consent and allegiance of the population living under its shadow.