Defiant Publics E-Book

Daniel Drache

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Serie: Themes for the 21st Century Series
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 370

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

Social activism and dissent have become global phenomena for our times. Ordinary people across the world are fighting back. This newly potent political force has defeated governments in India and Spain, and has brought down the EU draft constitution. Disaffected by the triumph of markets, public goods, public interest and public spaces are regaining political ground.

Daniel Drache argues that, feeding off distrust and suspicion of governments, and assisted by the new cultural flows of people, ideas and information, this is a political phenomenon without historical precedent. No-one owns the new public, elites remain baffled by its power and impact. No-one can contain its innovative, inclusive and rapidly evolving organizational style. No-one can determine when the current cycle of dissent will peak.

This lively and engaging book is a must-read for anyone interested in the role of protesters and publics in contemporary politics.

Leseprobe

Defiant Publics

Also Written or Edited By Daniel Drache (and Others)

La ilusión continental seguridad fronteriza y búsqueda de una identidad norteamericana, (Siglo XXI Editores: México, 2007).

L’illusion continentale: Sécurité et nord-américanité (editions Athéna, 2006)

Borders Matter: Homeland Security and the Search for North America (Fernwood Publishing, 2004)

The Market or the Public Domain: Global Governance and the

Asymmetry of Power (Routledge, 2001)

Health Reform: Public Success, Private Failure, with Terry Sullivan (Routledge, 1999)

States Against Markets:The Limits of Globalization, with Robert Boyer, (Routledge, 1996)

Warm Heart, Cold Country: Fiscal and Social Policy Reform in Canada, with Andrew Ranachan (Caledon Institute, 1995)

Staples, Markets and Cultural Change:The Centenary Edition of Harold Innis’ Collected Essays (McGill-Queen’s, 1995)

Canada and the Global Economy (University of Athabasca, 1994)

The Changing Workplace: Reshaping Canada’s Industrial Relations System, with Harry Glasbeek (James Lorimer, 1992)

Getting On Track: Social Democratic Strategies for Ontario, with John O’Grady (McGill-Queen’s, 1992)

Negotiating with a Sovereign Quebec, with R. Perin (James Lorimer, 1992)

The New Era of Global Competition: State Policy and Market Power, with Meric Gertler (McGill-Queen’s, 1991)

Politique et régulation modèle de développement et trajectoire canadienne, with Gérard Boismenu (Méridien/L’Harmattan, 1990)

DEFIANT PUBLICS

The Unprecedented Reach of the Global Citizen

Daniel Drache

with Marc D. Froese

polity

Copyright © Daniel Drache 2008

The right of Daniel Drache to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First published in 2008 by Polity Press

Polity Press65 Bridge StreetCambridge CB2 1UR, UK

Polity Press350 Main StreetMalden, MA 02148, USA

All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

ISBN-13: 978-0-7456-5749-3

Typeset in 11 on 13 pt Berlingby Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, CheshirePrinted and bound in the UK by MPG Books Ltd, Bodmin, Cornwall

The publisher has used its best endeavors to ensure that the URLs for external websites referred to in this book are correct and active at the time of going to press. However, the publisher has no responsibility for the websites and can make no guarantee that a site will remain live or that the content is or will remain appropriate.

Every effort has been made to trace all copyright holders, but if any have been inadvertently overlooked the publishers will be pleased to include any necessary credits in any subsequent reprint or edition.

For further information on Polity, visit our website: www.polity.co.uk

Contents

List of figures

Acknowledgements

Introduction: Goals and Values that are Inescapably Public

1  The Crowded Public Sphere and its Discontents

2  Market Fundamentalism and the Worried Public

3  Digital Publics and the Culture of Dissent

4  Nixers, Fixers, and the Axes of Conformity

5  Infinite Varieties of the Modern Public: Novelty, Surprise, and Uncertainty

Appendix: Critical Human Rights Conventions of the Global Public Domain

A Note on Sources

Select Bibliography

Index

If a man sets out to hate all the miserable creatures he meets, he will not have much energy left for anything else. Arthur Schopenhauer, Studies in Pessimism

Figures

1

Declining support for the new “Pax Americana”: popular approval ratings for Bush and Blair

1.1

Unweighted international inequality, 1950–98 (measured by the Gini coefficient)

2.1

The resurgent anti-market vote, 1995–2006

2.2

Taxes as a collective sharing of resources in the public interest

3.1

A surfer’s guide to the 1 billion-strong e-public universe

4.1

The compass of post-modern dissent: reinforcing social inclusion

4.2

The embedded axes of conformity: me individualism

Acknowledgements

David Held holds a special place in the festival of thank yous. He proposed that I extend my ideas about the public domain in a time of intense globalization and volatility. I particularly wanted to explore this seminal concept from the standpoint of agency rather than structure.The challenge appeared to be simple but turned out to be much more complex and demanding than ever imagined. I owe him a special debt of thanks.

In preparing Defiant Publics, I have received equal amounts of encouragement and critical feedback. Among those who were positive skeptics about this project are: Jules Duchastel, Robert Cox, Stephen McBride, Marjorie Cohen, Warren Crichlow, William Coleman, Harry Arthurs, Hazel Ipp, Robert O’Brien, Donna Bobier, Randy Germain, Ute Lehrer, Bob Kellermann, Andy Cooper, Janet Conway, Roger Keil, Duncan Cameron, Claude Serfati, Jan Arte Scholte, Mel Watkins, Isidoro Cheresky, Inés Pousadela, Stephen Clarkson, Marie-Josée Massicot, and Gilles Allaire. Michael Adams pitched in to help rethink the title and I am appreciative of his support.

Marc Froese played a key role in the final preparation of the manuscript. He has been brilliant in crafting words, clarifying ideas, and bringing his own special insights to the final preparation of the manuscript. A special thanks to him.

Many ideas were work-shopped at a number of conference settings including the Centre of Globalization, McMaster University (2005), the University of Ottawa’s Department of Political Science (2006), the École CNRS, CIRAD INRA Thématique in La Rochelle, France (2005), the Seminario Internacional Ciudadanía, “Sociedad civil y participación política,” at the University of Buenos Aires (2005), the Political Studies Students’ Conference “The State of the State: New Challenges in the 21st Century” at the University of Manitoba (2005), and at the University of Warwick’s Centre for the Study of Globalization and Regionalization, “Regionalization and the Taming of Globalization” (2005).

Daniel Salée, Concordia University, was generous with his time and thoughts about the dynamics of power and its central theoretical importance for my examination of the culture of dissent. He also gave the manuscript a critical read in the final stages. Imre Szeman, McMaster University, and Peer Zumbansen, Osgood Hall Law School, York University, also read the final manuscript and their critical comments made a difference. Justice Marion Cohen brought to my attention Hannah Arendt’s powerful essay “Personal Responsibility under Dictatorship,” which helped shape my thinking about micro-activism. Finally, George Baird, Dean of Architecture at the University of Toronto and a prolific writer on things public from an architectural perspective, let me read his important manuscript, “Public Space: Political Theory; Street Photography; An Interpretation,” which helped sharpen my own thoughts about Walter Benjamin, Jürgen Habermas, Nancy Fraser, and Hannah Arendt.

A group of graduate students has had a very positive role in the critical development of my ideas. Greg Smith worked closely with the idea of false majorities and prepared the tables and charts that shed light on my arguments. David Clifton has been an important mainstay throughout and helped with the modeling of global e-publics and also with preparing different tables and charts on the e-universe. Alex Samur and I shared a common project on the semiotics of disobedience which is available at Canadian Cultural Observatory (www.culturescope.ca). Jean-François Crépeault showed me the link between my own work and social values and media activism. He also helped in the earlier stages of the draft. Jaigris Hodson has been very useful in discussing the role of public reason in the making of the global citizen and helped prepare the appendix on human rights conventions. Our many discussions on the multifaceted articulation of public reason in an Internet age helped clarify my thinking.

Laura Taman played a critical role in reading multiple drafts and in editing the text throughout. I am much indebted to her sharp pencil and smart editorial judgment. I have been fortunate to work at the Robarts Centre for Canadian Studies at York University for the past fifteen years first as Director and now as its Associate Director. Seth Feldman, the current Director, has offered a lot of moral support throughout the many drafts.

Polity Press has been very kind and supportive as well as patient. Emma Hutchinson and Sarah Lambert, both editorial assistants at Polity, have offered much encouragement throughout.

It is convention to acknowledge support from those closest to the author. As always, family matters in my case, and loads of appreciation are due to Marilyn and Charlotte who have been tolerant, obliging, and kind to a fault. Very special thanks indeed!

Daniel Drache,Toronto, January 2008

Introduction: Goals and Values that are Inescapably Public

The decisive turning point

In the aftermath of the Allied victory in the Second World War, values and goals that were inescapably public captured people’s attentive imaginations.“Things public” was a highly evocative, catchall phrase that covered everything from new citizenship rights to state regulation of the modern capitalist economy. To speak of the public had an authentic, highly optimistic ring of pluralism to it and seemed the perfect choice of words for a democratic age. No one who had experienced the cataclysmic war had any doubt that a greatly expanded public domain embodied hope for a better life. It evoked the collective power of entitlement and the longing for a fair and just international order. Collective action became a core responsibility of the public, just as the ideal of citizenship would constitute the postwar framework for many postcolonial countries. As for the heart of economic policy, the seamless functioning of markets seemed to be banished forever from the modern repertoire of public policy.

In a more cynical time when Western liberal democracies regrouped to manage the perceived danger of Soviet communism, right-of-center governments enthusiastically embraced these same virtuous sounding policies that promised stability because it made for good politics that won elections, kept the Left out of power, and also protected governments from the harshest criticisms of their own citizens. With the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, a new era of international politics began. It consecrated an improbable marriage between the economic triumphalism of technocratic elites and the political optimism of easily led global publics that expected their governments would continue to build strong cohesive societies and foster the public interest through generous government spending. This book is about their violent and chaotic divorce.

At first during the Cold War period, elites everywhere were convinced that they had tamed the shrew of public dissent. Capitalism was to be the basis for all social life, and market fundamentalism was to be the religion that gave us domestic bliss at home and peaceful prosperity abroad. In his bestseller The End of History, Francis Fukuyama saw no reason to alter this convenient arrangement. Millions agreed with him that this was the most pessimistic of ages, a period in which the public saw few possibilities beyond the paternalism of global capitalism.1

Today, coordinated and defiant activists are standing up to market fundamentalism and testing the conservative belief in a narrowly defined technocratic process of politics.These diverse publics in Australia, Brazil, and South Africa have challenged the command and control structures of undemocratic state authority and the new property rights created by global neo-liberalism’s agenda of privatization, deregulation, and global free trade.2 How could the high priests of supply-side economics, who preached the power of low taxes, freewheeling entrepreneurs, and liquid capital for global growth, have missed the other side of globalization – the rise of social movements, micro-activists, and networks of oppositional publics? How could Fukuyama, like many elites before him, have failed to learn Hegel’s biggest history lesson?