Of course, cultural consciousness is not static. New discoveries and inventions continually modify spatial and temporal consciousness and can lead to a shift in the cultural paradigm itself as well as to fundamental changes in economic and political arrangements. But, I would suggest that throughout history, people’s experience of reality begins with creating a story about themselves and the world and that story acts as a kind of cultural baseline DNA for all the evolutionary permutations that follow.
The point is that the culture is not and never has been an extension of either the market or the government. Rather, markets and governments are extensions of the culture. They are secondary, not primary, institutions. They exist by the grace of the cultures that create them. Jean Monnet sensed as much, admitting in the late 1960s that “if the European construction process had to be started again afresh, it would be better to start with culture.”1
After a long period of being colonized at the hands of the market and nation-state, the civil society—along with the deeper cultural forces that underlie it—is pushing to re-establish its central role in the scheme of public life. And like all liberation movements, the first prerequisites for reasserting its prominence is casting out much of the language that has come to define its very being. Advocates complain that the civil society is not “the third sector,” as many academicians claim, but rather the first sector. Similarly, categorizing civil society groups as “not-for-profit organizations” or “nongovernmental organizations” makes them appear as less significant or even just shadows of commercial or governmental institutions. A new generation of activists prefer to think of their institutions as civil society organizations (CSOs). They also define their activity as service rather than volunteering, to connote its importance in developing and reproducing the culture.
The reach of the civil society is impressive. A study conducted by the Johns Hopkins Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project, covering twenty-two nations, estimates that the civil society sector is a $1.1 trillion sector employing more than nineteen million full-time paid workers. “Nonprofit” expenditures in these countries average 4.6 percent of the gross domestic product, and nonprofit employment makes up 5 percent of all nonagricultural work, 10 percent of all service work, and 27 percent of all public employment. 2
Several European nations now boast an employment level in the “nonprofit” sector that exceeds that of the United States. In the Netherlands, 12.6 percent of total paid employment is in the nonprofit sector. In Ireland, 11.5 percent of all workers are in the nonprofit sector, and in Belgium, 10.5 percent of workers are in this sector. In the U.K., 6.2 percent of the workforce are in the not-for-profit sector, and in France and Germany, the figure is 4.9 percent. Italy currently has more than 220,000 nonprofit organizations, and its not-for-profit sector employs more than 630,000 full-time workers.3
The growth in employment in the nonprofit sector was stronger in Europe in the 1990s than in any other region of the world, expanding by an average of 24 percent in France, Germany, the Netherlands, and the U.K.4 The expansion in nonprofit employment in these countries alone accounted for 40 percent of total employment growth, or 3.8 million jobs.5
It is interesting to note that in the ten European countries where revenue data was available, fees for services and products accounted for one-third to one-half of the income in the nonprofit sector between 1990 and 1995. Globally, of the twenty-two countries for which data is available, 49 percent of nonprofit revenue comes from fees for services and products. In the U.S., 57 percent of all nonprofit revenue comes from fees for services and products.6 The share of funds coming from the philanthropic and public sectors, however, has declined in many countries, thus dispelling the long-harbored myth that the nonprofit sector is virtually dependent on government or private charity to sustain itself.
Community service is very different than labor in the marketplace. One’s contribution is meant to advance the social capital of the community. While economic consequences often flow from the activity, they are secondary to the social exchange. The goal is not the accumulation of wealth but, rather, social cohesion and well-being.
Unlike market capitalism, which is based on Adam Smith’s notion that the common good is advanced by each person pursuing his or her own individual self-interest, the civil society starts with the exact opposite premise—that by each person giving of him- or herself to others and optimizing the greater good of the larger community, one’s own well-being will be advanced.
In a globalized economy of impersonal market forces, the civil society has become an important social refuge. It is the place where people create a sense of intimacy and trust, shared purpose and collective identity. The civil society sector is the antidote to a world increasingly defined in strictly commercial terms.
Civil society organizations have exploded across the world in the past twenty years. In large part, they are a reaction to a new globalized economy where market forces are more remote and less accountable to local communities, and governments have become both too small to address issues that cross borders and affect the whole world—such as global warming, illegal immigration, computer viruses, and terrorist threats—and too big to accommodate needs of local neighborhoods and communities. Civil society organizations empower people to champion their own interests in a world where corporations and governments are less likely to do so. Civil society activists argue that over-reliance on a deregulated global marketplace has led to unbridled capitalist greed and exploitation while diminishing the traditional role of government as a redistributive agent and provider of essential social services. The authors of the Johns Hopkins study on the dramatic growth of civil society institutions conclude that the success of civil society organizations is attributable to their ability to fill the vacuum left by market and government failures.
CSOs are more flexible than governments and more deeply anchored in geography than corporations. The civil society’s clarion call is “think globally and act locally.” Civil society organizations often organize across national boundaries while representing the interests of local neighborhoods and communities. They are able to be transnational and global, as well as communal and local, making them the ideal social agents to address the plethora of issues that confront humanity in a more dense and interconnected world.
Making Room for a New Political Partner
CSOs have pushed for greater representation in every country as well as at global institutions such as the United Nations, World Bank, IMF, and World Trade Organization. The participation allowed, however, has rarely been more than perfunctory and advisory in nature. The EU has become the first government to formally acknowledge CSOs as full-fledged partners in public policy networks. The European Union has recognized the civil society as the “third component” of European Union governance, viewing it as serving “an intermediary function between the State, the market and citizens.”7 There is a growing understanding that the very success of the EU as a new kind of regulatory state depends, to a great extent, on the effectiveness of civil society organizations in representing the interests of real constituencies whose concerns span the local, regional, national, and even EU boundaries. The CSOs bring true “participatory democracy” to the governing process, making them critical players in the new political experiment. Officials understand that without their active and full participation, the EU is likely to fail. The Economic and Social Committee (ESC) of the EU observed that “one of the biggest challenges for European governance is ensuring effective participation of organized civil society.”8
Romano Prodi, the president of the European Commission, underscores the significance of the new political partnership. He envisions “EU institutions, national governments, regional and local authorities and civil society interacting in new ways: consulting one another on a whole range of issues; shaping, implementing and monitoring policy together.”9 This process is what President Prodi calls “network Europe.”10
Although formal representation of CSOs
in public policy networks is still weak, the very fact that the EU acknowledges a three-sector partnership is of great historic significance. Recall that the nation-state has been, from the very beginning, a handmaiden of commercial interests. Its mission has been to protect property rights and create conditions favorable to the geographic extension of market forces. Two-sector politics—commerce and government—has been the ever present reality of the modern era.
Now that commercial forces have broken through their national container and taken their activity to a global playing field, they are far less dependent on nation-states to protect their property interests. Indeed, global companies can now play states off against one another—threatening to relocate their operations elsewhere if their interests are not accommodated—making states hostage and increasingly subservient to their commercial agendas. And, if states fail to come in line with global commercial interests, regulating bodies such as the IMF, World Bank, and WTO can impose sanctions and force compliance.
The decoupling of the commerce-state partnership has weakened the state and diminished its power. The EU’s courtship of the civil society is an attempt to re-assert political influence in an era of global commerce. By giving up some of their remaining sovereignty and pooling their interests with one another and civil society organizations, nation-states can play collectively on a broader geographic playing field and, by so doing, more effectively negotiate the terms of engagement with global corporate institutions whose power eclipses most individual nation-states and whose influence spans the globe.
Finding Common Ground Between Universal Human Rights and Local Cultural Identity
The most remarkable political change of the past three decades has been the growing involvement of the civil society sector in the political process. There are three broad strains in the civil society. First, there are all of the organizations and activities that promote religion, education, and the arts; provide social services; care for neighborhoods and communities; and foster recreation, sports, and play. For the most part, these activities fall inside national boundaries and are not generally overtly political. Second, there are the “rights” organizations, whose objectives are much more politically oriented and whose activity is, more often than not, directed beyond national boundaries and toward more universal concerns. Third, there are the many organizations that represent the interests of local cultures and ethnic subgroups, whose purpose is to maintain their traditions, rituals, and values and represent their groups’ interests, both domestically and internationally, to ensure their survival and growth.
The civil rights movement, the environmental movement, the women’s rights movement, the human rights movement, the poor people’s campaigns, the peace movement, the disability rights movement, the gay rights movement, the animal rights movement, the consumer rights movement, and the anti-eugenics movement have remade the political landscape. These civil society movements transcend the territorial boundaries of nation-states. Their vision is universal. Their goals are global. They seek a transformation in human consciousness itself—a new awareness of the rights of every individual being and the indivisibility of the Earth’s living community. The European Union has become the place where these movements are beginning to make their voices heard, inside as well as outside the corridors of political power.
It’s worth pointing out that the new politically active rights-oriented transnational CSOs were not the first to break the hold of nation-state prerogatives in the international arena. An earlier genre of technical- and professional-based international nongovernmental organizations seeded the path for the new players. The International Bureau of Weights and Standards, the International Union for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, the International Bureau of Commercial Statistics, the International Labor Office, the International Institute of Agriculture, and the International Association of Seismology were among the thousands of nongovernmental organizations that proliferated from the turn of the century to the 1960s.11
Like their rights-oriented successors that began to take root in the late 1960s, in the aftermath of the student rights movement, these older INGOs were based on individual participation, voluntary association, and democratic practices. Their goal was to establish universal standards governing a particular field, endeavor, or activity. They sought to influence political and commercial behavior by having their standards accepted and adopted by relevant institutions in both arenas. They represented a third force with a nonbinding agenda whose influence was based largely on professional or technical expertise and rational norms of behavior.
The new rights-oriented transnational movements also seek to establish universal codes of conduct, not of a technical or professional nature but rather governing human behavior itself. Their legitimacy is not grounded on professional expertise but flows from a deeply felt sense of human conscience. They appeal to human empathy rather than rational calculation. Their sights are set on intrinsic values, not on utilitarian concerns. Their goal is less materialistic and more idealistic. Their efforts are designed to advance not merely economic growth but quality of life. For them, personal transformation, not just material advance, becomes an equal measure of progress.
While the rights-oriented CSOs often focus their attention beyond national borders, the ethnic-oriented CSOs’ attention is generally focused below national borders, in particular regions. At some times, the ethnic CSOs’ agendas are complementary to the EU’s, and at other times, they are at odds. Despite the fact that the EU’s motto is “unity in diversity,” the subcultures across Europe are often insular and xenophobic and frightened about the effect of Europeanization and globalization on their own communities. If universal human rights-oriented CSOs are more cosmopolitan and worldly in their orientation, local subcultures can often be defensive and reactionary and more directed toward building walls rather than eliminating boundaries.
The difficulty with the many subcultures that dot the European landscape is that their history is deeply embedded in territory. In a globalized world of fast-disappearing boundaries and increased mobility, territory-bound subcultures often feel under siege. Their fear and rage are frequently directed at immigrants and asylum seekers who they see as a threat to their ability to maintain their cultural identity. The feeling of being “invaded” often leads to hatred of foreigners and ultra-right political movements.
Still, local subcultures, especially those that exist as minorities within a larger culture that claims to represent the national identity, have found reason to create common cause with the EU. The Scottish and the Catalonians, for example, view the EU as a liberating force of sorts. Being part of a larger transnational political body has given them greater maneuverability within their own nations. Now, local subcultures, attached to specific geographic regions, can often bypass nation-state constraints and establish political, commercial, and social ties at the EU level, affording them a greater degree of independence and autonomy than they have known under nation-state rule.
EU architects began to sense a potential ally among cultural groupings and opened up direct political channels with local subcultures as a way to soften the influence of nation-state players. Antonio Ruberti, the former commissioner for Science, Research, Technological Development and Education at the European Union summed up much of the mixed feelings in Brussels about the status of local cultures. “Although it is a handicap in some respects,” notes Ruberti, “for the most part European diversity represents a ‘trump card.’ ”12
The rights groups and ethnic groups often overlap and share common agendas. For example, global human rights organizations support the Tibetan people’s struggle to maintain their identity and autonomy against Chinese political encroachment and repression that threaten their very existence. But rights groups and ethnic groups are just as often at odds with one another. That’s because the former ultimately represents the global interests of free individuals while the latter’s concern is with the more traditional interests of communiti
es. For example, some cultural groups in Africa still practice female genital mutilation and consider it a rite of passage to adulthood. Women’s groups in the first and third world have sought an end to the procedure, claiming that it violates women’s basic human right to control their own bodies. They charge that the practice is a way for men to hold women in bondage.
What makes the European Dream so interesting and problematic is that it seeks to incorporate both universal human rights and more parochial cultural rights under the same political tent. This is quite different from the nation-state agenda, whose aim was limited to the protection of individual property rights and civil liberties and the assimilation and integration of sub-groups into a single national identity. Accommodating multi-culturalism and human rights at the same time is no easy task. Remember, cultural communities are rooted in family, extended kin ties, and/or shared religious experiences and are generally anchored in physical settings. The various human rights movements, by contrast, are universal, not particular. Their emphasis is on the individual, not the group. Their setting is the biosphere, not territory.
The real question at hand for Europe is whether or not its people can stretch their affiliations and aspirations from the particular to the universal and from the local to the global. Is it possible to coexist and even flourish in a world of so many divided loyalties? Can one be a Catalonian and at the same time a Spaniard, a European, and a global citizen? To the extent that local cultures feel threatened by larger national, transnational, and global forces, they are likely to view their cultures as “possessions to defend” and sink deeper into the old “mine vs. thine” mentality. On the other hand, to the extent that they see Europeanization and globalization as a way to liberate themselves from the older nation-state yoke and to gain greater independence, maneuverability, and access to the outside world, they may come to view their culture more as “gifts to share,” bringing them into a less adversarial and more cooperative relationship with others. Certainly, the idea of a “networked Europe” fits more comfortably with the latter scenario.
The European Dream Page 30
