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.