Constructing Global Civil Society

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.

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

David Chandler is Senior Lecturer in International Relations at the Centre for the Study of Democracy, University of Westminster.