Professor Craig Borowiak
Office Hours: Tuesdays 1:00 – 3:00 (or by appt)
Office: Hall 214
Spring 2006
Class period: TTH 10:00 – 11:30
Classroom: Hall 07
POLSCH 251: Global Civil Society
This course will introduce you to the concept ‘global civil society.’ We will explore alternative theoretical
frameworks and traditions related to civil society and how globalization is impacting both the meaning
and practices of civil society. Our readings will draw from both classic texts as well as from more recent
social science scholarship.
The first half of the semester will by very theoretical, with a focus on the concept civil society. The first
few weeks will be devoted to discussing treatments of civil society within the western political theory
canon. The next couple of weeks will cover more recent theorizing about civil society both in and outside
of “Western” contexts. The second half of the semester will involve more analytic and empirical
approaches. We will examine the practices of social movements, advocacy networks and
nongovernmental organizations.
Assignments:
Two short reaction papers (3pgs) (one must be before midterm)
Take-home Midterm Exam
NGO Assignment
Final research paper (15 pgs)
Books for Purchase:
 The Civil Society Reader
 The NewTransnational Activism
 The World Social Forum: Strategies of Resistance
Books available on-line:
 Anheier, Helmut; Marlies Glasius, and Mary Kaldor eds. Global Civil Society 2001
http://www.lse.ac.uk/Depts/global/yearbook01chapters.htm

Glasius, Marlies, Mary Kaldor and Helmut Anheier eds. Global Civil Society 2002
http://www.lse.ac.uk/Depts/global/yearbook02chapters.htm

Kaldor, Mary, Helmut Anheier and Marlies Glasius eds. Global Civil Society 2003.
http://www.lse.ac.uk/Depts/global/yearbook03chapters.htm

Kaldor, Mary, Helmut Anheier and Marlies Glasius eds. Global Civil Society 2004/5.
http://www.lse.ac.uk/Depts/global/yearbook04chapters.htm
Schedule
Tu 5
Sept
First Class. Introductions….
History of Civil Society Concepts
Th 7
Sept
Civil Society and the Enlightenment
Ferguson (Reader, 40-62)
Paine (Reader, 63-70)
Locke, John The Second Treatise of Government (1690), 105-115, 138-147
[paragraphs 1-25, 77-100] Available on-line:
http://socserv.socsci.mcmaster.ca/econ/ugcm/3ll3/locke/government.pdf
Tu 12 Sept
Hegel
Hegel (Reader, 76-95)
Recommended:
Schlomo Avineri, “Hegel's Theory of the Modern State.” {Blackboard}
“A Hegel dictionary” {Blackboard}
Th 14 Sept
Marx
Marx (Reader, 96-112)
Marx, ‘Preface to A Critique of Political Economy’ {Blackboard}
Marx, ‘Towards a Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right: Introduction’
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1843/critique-hpr/intro.htm
Tu 19 Sept
Gramsci
Gramsci (Reader, 190-202)
Bobbio, Norberto (1988). ‘Gramsci and the Concept of Civil Society’
{Blackboard}
Chandhoke, Neera (1995). ‘Civil Society: The Hegelian, Marxian and Gramscian
Tradition’. {Blackboard}
Cohen, Jean and Andrew Arato (1992). ‘Gramsci and the Idea of Socialist Civil
Society.’ {Blackboard}
Th 21 Sept
De Tocqueville
Tocqueville (Reader, 113-132)
Robert Putnam, “Making Democracy Work,” (Reader, 322-327)
Robert Putnam, “Bowling Alone” Journal of Democracy 6:1, Jan 1995
{Blackboard}
Tu 26 Sept
Anti-Politics / Eastern Europe
Kaldor, Mary (2003). “The Ideas of 1989: The Origins of the Concept of Global
Civil Society” {Blackboard}
Havel, Vaclav (1985). ‘The Power of the Powerless’ in: Havel, Vaclav et al. The
Power of the Powerless: Citizens Against the State in Central-Eastern
Europe . London: Hutchinson. pp. 23-95. {Blackboard}
Konrad, George (1984). ‘The Democracy We Have – Amongst Ourselves’;
‘Antipolitics: A Moral Force’; ‘Historic Compromise in Europe: Lifting
the Iron Curtain’. In George Konrad, Anti-Politics. London: Quartet
Books. pp. 195-207; 91-98; 50-61. {Blackboard}
‘Manifesto of Charter 77’ (1977).
http://memory.loc.gov/frd/cs/czechoslovakia/cs_appnd.html
Michnik (Reader, 203-212)
Th 28 Sept
Civil Society and Public Sphere
Cohen and Arato, Civil Society and Political Theory (Reader, 270-292)
Jurgen Habermas, “the public sphere: An encyclopedic article” {Blackboard}
Recommended:
Habermas, “Between Facts and Norms,” 359-387
Habermas, “Three Normative Models of Democracy” Constellations, Vol 1, no. 1
(1994), 1-10
Tu 3
Oct
Class Visit: Thomas Rawski (meeting in Stokes 10)
Joint Class with S. Jilani’s “Global Economy” course.
“SOCIAL CAPABILITIES AND CHINESE ECONOMIC GROWTH”
http://www.pitt.edu/~tgrawski/papers2000/SENDN21.HTM
Th 5
Oct
Walzer and Young
Iris Young, “Civil Society and its Limits”(154-195){Blackboard}
Michael Walzer, “A Day in the Life of a Socialist Citizen” {Blackboard}
Locating the Concept Civil Society in Cultural Contexts
Tu 10 Oct
A Secular Western Concept?
Ernest Gellner, “conditions of liberty” (1-14, 15-29){Blackboard}
Hasan Hanafi, “Alternative Conceptions of Civil Society: A Reflective Islamic
Approach” (171-189) {Blackboard}
Camaroff and Camaroff, “Civil Society and the Political Imagination in
Africa” {Blackboard}
Recommended
Partha Chatterjee, “On Civil Society in postcolonial democracies” {Blackboard}
Introducing Global Civil Society
Th 12 Oct
Kaldor, “The Idea of Global Civil Society,” International Affairs 79, 3
(2003): 583-593{Blackboard}
Lipschutz, Ronnie D. (1992). 'Reconstructing World Politics: The Emergence of
Global Civil Society'. Millennium: Journal of International Studies. Vol.
21, No. 1 {Blackboard}
Sidney Tarrow, The New Transnational Activism, 1-12 {book}
Recommended
Keck and Sikkink, Activists Beyond Borders, “Introduction,” 1-39 {Blackboard}
Anheier, Helmut and Nuno Themudo “Organizational Forms of Global Civil
Society” (chapter 8). 2002 Civil Society Yearbook{on-line}
13-22 October: Fall Break
Tu 24 Oct
Social Movements, NGOs and Advocacy Networks
Mary Kaldor, “Social Movements, NGOs and Networks” (78-108)
{Blackboard}
Martens, Kerstin (2002) 'Mission Impossible. Defining Nongovernmental
Organizations', Voluntas. International Journal of Voluntary and
Nonprofit Organizations, 13 (3): 271-285. {Blackboard}
Keck and Sikkink, Activists Beyond Borders, 1-18 {Blackboard}
Tarrow, The New Transnational Activism, 35-56
Recommended:
Willetts, Peter (2001) 'What is a Non-Governmental Organization?' Available at:
http://www.staff.city.ac.uk/p.willetts/CS-NTWKS/NGO-ART.HTM
Walker, R.B.J. (1994). ‘Social Movements/World Politics’. Millennium. Vol. 23
No.3, pp. 669-700. {Blackboard}
Th 26 Oct
Class Visit: Selma James
Readings TBA
Tu 31 Oct
Sidney Tarrow, The New Transnationalism, 59 -119
Th 2
Nov
Marketing Rebellion
Clifford Bob, “The Making of an Anti-globalization Icon: Mexico’s Zapatista
Uprising,” in The Marketing of Rebellion, 1-8, 117 -178{Blackboard}
Tu 7
Nov
Human Rights and the Boomerang Effect
Tarrow, The New Transnationalism, 143-160
Keck and Sikkink, Activists Beyond Borders, 79-120 {Blackboard}
Th 9
Nov
Tarrow, The New Transnationalism, 161-219
Recommended:
Price, Richard (1998) 'Reversing the Gun Sights: Transnational Civil Society
Targets Land Mines,' International Organization 52 (3): 613-44
{www.jstor.org}
Tu 14 Nov
Global Environment
Paul Wapner, “Politics Beyond the State: Environmental Activism and World
Civic Politics,” World Politics 47 (April 1995): 311-340.
Available at: http://www.jstor.org.
O'Neill, Kate and Stacy D. VanDeveer (2005) “Transnational Environmental
Activism after Seattle. Between Emancipation and Arrogance”, in
Leatherman, Janie and Julia Webber (ed.), Beyond Global Arrogance.
Charting Transnational Democracy, pp. 195-220. New York:
Palgrave/Macmillan. {Blackboard}
Michael Mason, The New Accountability: Environmental Responsibility Across
Borders (1-15, 41-66) {Blackboard}
Th 16 Nov
Movements for Global Justice
Naomi Klein (2000) “Consumerism versus Citizenship: The Fight for the
Global Commons” No Logo, 439-446 {Blackboard}
Said, Yahia and Meghnad Desai, “Trade and Global Civil Society: The
Anti-Capitalist Movement Revisited” in Civil Society Yearbook
2003 {On-line}
Jackie Smith, “Globalizing Resistance: The Battle of Seattle and the Future of
Social Movements,” in Smith and Johnston, eds., Globalization and
Resistance, ch. 12 {Blackboard}
Tu 21 Nov
Civil Society and Accountable Global Governance
Craig Borowiak, “The World Tribunal on Iraq: Citizen Tribunals and the
Struggle for Accountability” {Blackboard}
Jan Aaart Scholte, “Civil Society and Democratically Accountable Global
Governance” in Held and Koenig-Archibugi (eds), Global Governance
and Public Accountability (87-109){Blackboard}
Th 23 Nov
HAPPY THANKSGIVING. No Class
Tu 28 Nov
Civil Society and International Finance
Jan Aart Scholte, “Civil Society and the Governance of global finance”, 11-32
{Blackboard}
Nancy Birdsall, “Global finance: representation failure and the role of civil
society,” 264-284 {Blackboard}
Irene Van Staveren, “Global Finance and gender,” 228-246 {Blackboard}
2-page paper proposal due
World Social Forum
Th 30 Nov
The WSF: Strategies of Resistance, 9-77
Tu 5
The WSF: Strategies of Resistance, 103-164
Dec
Critical Perspectives on Global Civil Society
Th 7
Dec
Tu 12 Dec
NGOs and Legitimacy?
Collingwood, Vivien and Louis Logister (2005) 'State of the Art. Addressing the
INGO 'Legitimacy Deficit'', Political Studies Review, 3: 175192.{Blackboard}
Jordan, Lisa and Peter Van Tuijl (2000) “Political Responsibility in
Transnational NGO Advocacy,” World Development 28 (12): 2051-65.
{Blackboard}
Ebrahim, Alnoor (2003) “Accountability in Practice. Mechanisms for NGOs,”
World Development 31 (5), 813-829. {Blackboard}
Wapner, “Defending Accountability in NGOs” (197-205) {Blackboard}
Spiro, “Accounting for NGOs” (161-169) {Blackboard}
Spar and Dail, “Of Measurement and Mission” (171-181) {Blackboard}
The Limits of Global Civil Society
Neera Chandhoke, “The Limits of Global Civil Society” Civil Society
Yearbook 2002 {On-line}
Mustapha Kamal Pasha and David Blaney, “Elusive Paradise: The Promise and
Peril of Global Civil Society” Alternatives: Social Transformation and
Humane Governance, Vol. 23, No. 4, pp. 417-51 {Blackboard}
Michael Goodhart, “Civil Society and the Problem of Global Democracy”
Democratization 12, 1 (2005), 1-21. {Ingenta}
Recommended:
Kenneth Anderson and David Rieff, “‘Global Civil Society’: A skeptical view”
in Civil Society Yearbook 2004/5 (26-39) {Blackboard}
Th 14 Dec
Last class. Catch up, wrap up