Constructing Global Civil Society: Morality And Power In International Relations

Introduction * Part I: Actually Existing Global Civil Society * The Limits of Constructivism * The Limits of Realism * Morality and Power * Part II: The Normative Project * Global Civil Society? * The Rejection of Politics * The Cosmopolitan Paradox * Conclusion


Global civil society is a crucial concept in International Relations today, used as both a description of new mechanisms of non-state actor and NGO engagement in international policy-making and as a normative political project of international change. David Chandler critically investigates the claims made by the advocates of global civil society, analyzing the limits of the concept as a way of describing actual policy processes and the political dynamics behind the search for an international source of collective ethical values and social change.