Global Societies Are Social Things: A Conceptual Reassessment

This article reassesses the concept of a global society in light of recent historical analyses of the concepts of the social and society in the literature of International Relations. It is argued that the distinction between the social and society makes many theories of a global society indistinguishable from a global social system. However, it is also argued that those conceptions of a global society that emphasise its societal qualities are vulnerable to charges of Eurocentricity and methodological nationalism. To point the way forward, this article argues that, analytically, the features of the concept of a global society need to be conceived more diversely and the feature of a meaningful collective-self-narrative, or weness feeling, needs to be reconceived as relationally contested, rather than consistently consensual. With this conceptual revision, it is suggested that, empirically, the contents of a relationally contested collective-self-narrative at the transnational “level” are still elusive, and a topic for further research, but would likely attain a “post-Western” and ecological character if they were to emerge in practice.     

A View of Public Action as Collective Action: Evidence From an Indian Village

A theory of public action will be a sociological one, for it can explain the activities of different individual stakeholders who are both driven by varied motives and interests and are required to come together for achieving some avowedly public objective. On the basis of a review of scholarly literature and three case studies of public action (based on ethnographic fieldwork) in an Indian village, this study observes that public action is far more complex than celebrated problems of collective action. In public action we want collective action to happen and deliver optimum outputs for target publics. But this should at the same time offer gains, rewards, and outcomes of different kinds to different stakeholders. This discussion aims to outline the scope and possible types of public action. Such a discussion has important implications, for policy as public action should be designed adequately as collective action with differential rewards in place for participants.     

中国外交:光明与困难的辩证法

2006年,国际格局调整加快,世界热点问题升温,大国协调进一步展开,中国外交硕果累累。2007年,世界将进入深度调整,国际形势总体趋向缓和,但局部紧张可能加剧,尤其是伊朗核问题有可能升级,中国外交则在面对新机遇的同时有可能遭遇更复杂的挑战。鉴此,《现代国际关系》编辑部于2007年1月6日举办“2007年国际大势前瞻”研讨会,特别邀请30多位京内外专家学者在总结、回顾2006年国际形势的基础上,着重对2007年国际形势及中国外交的变化趋势进行前瞻性分析。现将研讨会主要观点辑录如下,以期有助于读者更准确把握国际形势走向。     

拉脱维亚:困境中艰难前行

经过数月风平浪静之后,东欧诸国波澜再起,拉脱维亚处在了此次波澜的中心。引发外界对拉脱维亚关注的原因是,无人问津拉脱维亚政府6月3日拍卖的价值5000万拉特(约合1亿美元)的短期国债。投资者担心在拉脱维亚经济衰退的大背景下,汇率相对过高的拉特大幅贬值将不可避免,并担     

Developing a Situationist Global Justice Theory: From an Architectonic to a Consummatory Approach

Conventional global justice theory expresses a concern for the suffering of individuals around the world, yet very often the experience of those individuals plays little role in the work of theorising global justice. In this paper I argue that global justice has tended to take an architectonic approach in which the theorist orders the world by offering idealised principles of justice that serve as guides to necessary global reforms. This approach draws on a flawed geography of injustice, in which the world is divided into just and orderly regions that must save unjust and disordered regions, while also misunderstanding the causes of injustice. In place of this architectonic approach, I offer a consummatory approach that conceives of justice as a quality of social relationships and which draws on the experience of individuals suffering injustice, using the Grenfell Tower fire as an example. This consummatory approach is then further developed by outlining a situationist global justice theory drawing on the philosophy of John Dewey.     

东北亚经济圈经济管理模式的构想及评价

东北亚经济圈的经济管理模式是在联合国UNDP的倡导下,经历了1+(3+2)经济管理模式的不断发展,并逐步向UNDP领导下的东北亚经济圈1+[(3+2)+1]的理想的经济管理模式过渡的过程。而这种理想模式的形成必须在已经形成的思维的基础上严格按照地缘关系和历代该地区的国际关系发展史重新拟构,逐步构建一种由多级引导管理走向统一管理框架,从而有力地推动东北亚经济圈的日趋完善。     

In the Wake of the East Asian Economic Crisis: Toward an Interdependent but Non-convergent Global System

Donald C. Hellmann here studies the political, societal and cultural forces that created the backdrop for the East Asian financial crisis. He presents three myths about the disaster, emphasizing that this event took place in the context of governmental and economic structures embedded in society and thus not easily modified. These myths include the idea that this region will not become the largest economic region in the next 25 years, that East Asian economies cannot continue to grow without Western-led structural change and that the existing economic and security multilateral institutions require only minor reform to face this new international order. He then goes on to argue that no international institution or world power has filled the new statesmanship vacuum of the post-Cold-War interregnum. A new global system will be necessary to face the challenges of this new balance of power.     

Creating Demand for Global Governance: The Making of a Global Money-laundering Problem*

In most studies on global governance, problems are treated as exogenous factors. Even constructivist global governance approaches normally concentrate on persuasion about global norms and rules, but take the existence of global problems as given. This ignores the fact that it may be necessary to persuade rule addressees of the existence of a problem in the first place. States comply with global rules voluntarily only if they agree that there is a problem. Hence international rule makers have to “problematise” the issue they attempt to regulate, i.e. to construct the issue as a global problem that requires global rules in order to be solved. This article inquires into the why and how of “problematisation” by international regulators. To this end it reconstructs how the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has turned the issue of money-laundering, which was not considered a problem until the late 1980s, into a global problem requiring a global solution.     

"Spontaneous" Interethnic Order: The Emergence of Collective, Path-Dependent Cooperation

Can "spontaneous," decentralized interethnic cooperation emerge among ethnic groups whose members heavily discount future interethnic relations and do not fear punishment for interethnic noncooperation? Why is it that once the interaction between two ethnic groups evolves along a certain (cooperative or conflictual) path it sometimes becomes harder for the interacting groups to reverse course and seek alternative paths? The answer to these two questions lies in the fact that individual members not only are always calculative and could hence act opportunistically, but also are interdependent and can learn from one another. Because the members of interacting groups operate interdependently they thereby create collective nonlinear path dependence. Using a social game (within evolutionary game theory) the article shows counterintuitively that the emergence of collective, nonlinear path dependence within and across ethnic groups whose members heavily discount the future and face no punishment for interethnic noncooperation makes "spontaneous" decentralized interethnic cooperation a long-run equilibrium. Collective cooperation can thus develop path-dependently among ethnic groups without a Damocles' sword of any sort hanging over their members' heads, even when most individuals are shortsighted and opportunistic.     

美国对外战略再思考--《抉择:全球统治还是全球领导》介评

当前,美国国内围绕国家安全问题正在展开独立建国以来的第三次大辩论。如果说此前诸多对布什政府对外政策持批评态度的人,一直未能提出一套有说服力的主张进而扬起一面大旗的话,那么,2004年3月出版的由美国前总统国家安全事务助理布热津斯基所著的《抉择:全球统治还是全球领导》一书显然对他们大有助益。布氏在书中从六个方面阐述了其美国对外战略再思考后的基本观点。     

从制度构建到观念内化:当代俄罗斯宪政发展的隐性问题

当代俄罗斯宪政发展是在两个层面上进行的:一是对西化制度模式建构的显性层面;二是深藏在制度背后的宪政观念生成的隐性层面.在社会转型之初,制度的建构成为实行宪政的必由路径,宪政观念、宪政的价值意义等隐性问题常常被忽视.近年来,俄罗斯在制度构建的同时已经注意到宪政发展的隐性问题,并把非制度性因素的培育作为宪政发展的目标.由制度构建到观念培育的思维转换是宪政从外在强制向内在需求的深化过程,这对那些后发外生型国家的宪政发展具有非常重要的借鉴意义.