Gwanju Human Rights Folk School 2004

The NGOs as Global Actor: Myth or Reality?

Presented by Hae-Young Lee (Hanshin University)

I. Introduction

One of the peculiar trends in the nineties in the international political arena is
doubtlessly the NGOs. With the 1989/90 collapse of the so-called real existent socialism
was boastfully proclaimed the New World Order. The World-Capitalism has
successfully proved its viability once again. As a result, the 'Age of Extremes' (E.J.
Hobsbawm) seems to expire now and forever without knowing its successor. After ten
years of anxious hope are many people now conscious that the "Age of Extremes" is
ended irreversibly but the next century also has nothing to do with the "brave new
world". On the contrary the U.S. as a sole empire on the globe is continuing the
"imperial overstretch" (P. Kennedy). Only the "neo-feudal" international system has
substituted its antecedent. One imperial state assisted by the "knight" states such as G7
dominates the most countries. One used to say that after "September 11" everything has
changed utterly. However, the hard core of the age, in my view, has not changed at all.

Amidst fin de siecle pessimism had J. Habermas 1984 diagnosed our times as
follows :

The future is negatively cathected ; we see outlined on the threshold of the twenty-
first century the horrifying panorama of a worldwide threat to universal life
interests: the spiral of the arms race, the uncontrolled spread of nuclear weapons,
the structural impoverishment of developing countries, problems of environmental
overload, and the nearly catastrophic operations of high technology are the
catchwords that have penetrated public consciousness by way of the mass media.
... The situation may be objectively obscure. Obscurity is nonetheless also a
function of a society's assessment of its own readiness to take action. What is at
Gwanju Human Rights Folk School 2004

stake is Western culture's confidence in itself.1

On the one hand, the aftermath of "September 11" has reactivated the pessimism of
"new obscurity." On the other hand it may imply no other than a warning signal which
urges us to take measures. The "optimism of will" (A. Gramsci) could be justified above
all by the fact that in the nineties the NGOs have increased their capacities at the
international as well as at the national level so dramatically that the national
governments can hardly hold the countervailing power of NGOs under control. The
international institutions such as WB, IMF, WTO must react to them by any means.
Moreover, they are often considered as a recognized actor of world politics and people
demand them to hold even more accountability and morals than the politicians. In the
national politics many assign them to take the role of the "fifth pillar" next to
legislature, executive, jurisdiction and media. One often says, "taking NGOs seriously."
The NGO-activists' catchphrase may be: "Together, we are superpower."

Despite success stories of NGOs in the nineties, there may be still many
unanswered questions for closer examination. For some critics, "NGOs are the most
overestimated actor of the nineties." 22 However, others forecast the "shift of power"
from states to NGOs.33 There are good reasons for the critical review of previous global
activity of NGOs: as many contradictions and divergences as harmonies and
convergences exist between
- NGOs from the North and South
- "Moderate" and "radical" NGOs
- Lobbying-oriented and movement-oriented NGOs
- Rich and poor NGOs
- Large and small NGOs
- National and international NGOs
- "Occidental" and "oriental" NGOs
etc.

The list could last endlessly. Nevertheless, central in my paper is the next
problem: Could NGOs be a political alternative in the future? In other words, are they
1
) J. Habermas (1989), The New Conservatism, MIT Press; Cambridge, pp.50-51.
2
P. Wahl (1998), “NGO Transnationals, McGreenpeace and the Network Guerrilla”,
(www.globalpolicy.org/ngos/issues/wahl.htm)
3
) Jessica Mathews, the head of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, wrote that "the steady
concentration of power in the hands of states that began in 1648 with the Peace of Westphalia, is over, at least for
a while." See Economist, December 11-17, 1999.
Gwanju Human Rights Folk School 2004

politically capable enough to articulate a vision of global governance that re-regulates

the "disembedded" economy into world-society without world-government? If such
expectation seems to be unrealistic for the moment, then, is NGOs' future confined to
play a role of "checks and balances" in world politics, namely, the "junior-partner" of
senior players like states and international organizations? Is their role simply a moral
counterpart of corporate- or state-led international system in order to bridge the gap
between the people and international organizations? Is herein an alternative project to
the present international order included? This essay wants to contribute to such a
discussion.

II. Globalization and the rise of NGOs in the nineties

Although NGOs have existed for a long time in history (in the early 1800s, the
British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society played an important role in abolishing the
slavery system), they have not established themselves as an independent international
factor until the 1990s. The NGOs in the new age are one of unintended consequences of
neo-liberal globalization.

Most imposing is above all their increase in number. The Yearbook of

International Organizations has counted on the rather conservative basis - that is, groups
with operations in more than one country - the number of international NGOs at more
than 26,000 today, up from 6,000 in 1990. 44 In addition, the U.N. now lists more than
3,000 NGOs. The World Watch Institute suggested that in the U.S. alone there are about
2 million NGOs, 70% of which are less than 30 years old. In Eastern Europe sprang up
between 1988 - 1995 more than 100,000 NGOs. The big international NGOs are
concentrated mostly in three main areas: human rights, development and the
environment. Also remarkable is the membership growth in these areas; for instance, the
Worldwide Fund for Nature now has around 5 million members, up from 570,000 in
1985, which doesn't need to be shy to compare to the population of small countries.

All this is a historically unprecedented phenomenon. In form, the "NGO

swarm" is amorphous, linked each other "online", organized highly decentralized and
acts "molecularly". The NGOs as a whole are, in short, not an organization in classical
sense, but a "net" itself.
4
) Ibid.
Gwanju Human Rights Folk School 2004

As mentioned, the dramatic proliferation of NGOs was a reaction against the

neo-liberal globalization realized at the outset as an anti-crisis strategy in the advanced
capitalist countries since the 1970s. It is first of all the globalization of the economy.
The Transnational Corporations are one of its most enthusiastic protagonists. The neo-
liberal offensive enforced the reorganization of traditional nation-states as the
'transmission belt' of world market. With the transition of such nation-states into the
neo-liberal "competition-states", as J. Hirsch conceptualized, was every realm of life
threatened to subordinate into the logic of market. The hegemony of "Neo-liberal
International" (P. Anderson) accelerated, for instance, the shifts of the alliance between
the labor and the industry capital, which characterize the "Golden Age" of postwar
capitalism, to that of industry and financial capital against the labor. But the key
problem lies no other than in the fatal unbalance between the globalized economy and
the nationally structured politics. As a consequence, it is inevitable to reactivate the
critical potentials installed in the civil society and to mobilize its resources to block the
neo-liberal offensive from inside as well as from outside.

The list of achievements by the NGOs over the past decade is quiet
encouraging:

- Promoting agreements on controlling greenhouse gases 1992

- "Fifty Years is Enough" campaign 1994
- Campaign to outlaw anti-personal land mines 1997
- Establish an international criminal court
- Numerous concerted actions to improve labor conditions in the South against
individual corporations such as Nike and to control the genetically modified
organisms (GMOs)
etc.

The protest movement against such international institutions as WTO, World

Bank, IMF and the temporarily failed MAI (Multilateral Agreement on Investment)
belongs to the latest and most spectacular events in the nineties organized by
international NGOs. If the 1992 UN earth summit in Rio was the first turning-point in
the history of modern NGOs, where for the first time NGOs participated in the global
decision-making process not as protester, the anti-MAI campaign could be estimated as
an epoch-making second turning-point. In this campaign the NGOs as "global player"
Gwanju Human Rights Folk School 2004

experimented new methods of movement, which is "possibly turning out to be an

alternative to the transnationalization of large NGOs that is quite problematic from a
democratic point of view"55. From now on, the NGO movement gains another
dimension. The global political terrain changed radically: Seattle (November 1999),
Washington (April 2000) , Prague (September 2000), Quebec(April 2001),
Gothenburg(June 2001), Barcelona (June 2001), Genoa (July 2001), Washington
(September 2001) and now Qatar (November 2001). As C. Fred Bergsten commented
April 1999, "the anti-globalization forces are now in the ascendancy."

Of course, it is not true to say that the failure of MAI-negotiations66 was

exclusively due to the NGO protest. P. Wahl highlights three characteristics of anti-
MAI-campaign. First, this campaign has confronted initially not with the so-called "soft
issues" on the international agenda - like as environmental or development issues - but
with the "hard" economic issues. Secondly, the - limited - success of NGOs was "not
achieved by large, transnational NGOs, but by a lose network of both, i.e., small NGOs
together with some large, transnational NGOs." Lastly, "the campaign did not aim at
improving a project promoted by the government, but classified the agreement as part of
the globalization process and rejected it completely."

Furthermore, the experience of MAI campaign could be very useful as a

strategic framework for the future of NGOs:

"- With the issues of neo-liberalism and globalization, NGOs have picked out a
fundamental social problem as a central campaign issue and have overcome their
traditional single-issue projects.
- Refusing the MAI instead of "improving" it did not harm the image of the
campaign in the media.
- NGOs are politically successful when their issues move and mobilize the public.
- Loose networks turned out to be efficient; centralized and hierarchical structures
were not necessary, and would have possibly been counterproductive.
- Small and flexible NGOs played an important role." 77

With the anti-MAI campaign begins the trends to change. The "hard" issues
5
) See Wahl (1998), op.cit
6
) For the detailed description and critique, see M. Barlow/ T. Clarke (1998), MAI: The Threat to
American Freedom, New York: Stoddart.
7
) See Wahl (1998), op. cit.
Gwanju Human Rights Folk School 2004

were imported into the international NGO community. The NGOs turn to the "high
politics" and the core international institutions. As results, there took place a process of
differentiation from inside. The anti-globalization movement has become an
indispensable component of international NGOs.

III. The Strategic Framework for NGOs in Relation to Globalization

With the ongoing differentiation in the international NGO community, inherent

differences and disparities among various NGOs are confirmed inevitably. One of
decisive diverging points may be related to the problem of how to deal with the
economic globalization. In another words, - as W. Bello said - "should we seek to
transform or to disable the main institutions of corporate-led globalization?"88: in short,
"Reform or Disempowerment" of international institutions.

Tendency Main Argument Key Institutions

Global Against globalization of social/labor movements;

Justice capital(not people), environment advocacy groups;
Movements for "people-centered radical activist networks; regional
development" and national coalitions; leftwing
think-tanks; academic settings

Third World Join the system Self-selecting third world nation-

Nationalism but on much fairer States
terms
Post-Washington Reform "imperfect Most United Nations agencies;
Consensus markets" & "sustainable governments of France and Japan
development"

Washington Slightly adjust the status U.S. agencies (Treasury, Federal

Consensus quo (transparency, Reserve, USAID); Bretton Woods
supervision & regulation Institutions; WTO, centrist
Washington think-tanks; British and
German governments
Resurgent Restore U.S. isolationism; Populist & libertarian wings of
Rightwing Punish bank's mistakes Republican party; American Enterprise
Institute, Cato Institute, Manhattan
8
) W. Bello (2001), “Toward a New System of Global Economic Governance”, manuscript presented at
Institute,
a seminar organized by Munwha Ilbo, PSPD, Suh Sangdon Committee in Seoul,Heritage Institute
February 22.2001
Gwanju Human Rights Folk School 2004

<Table1: Five Reactions to the Global Crisis>

Especially, P. Bond has devoted his attention to this problem in recent years. He
categorizes five reactions to the globalization since the international financial crisis
around mid-1997 99(See the Table 1). Amongst the above five tendencies, this essay is of
course interested mainly in - following Bond's terminology - the "Global Justice
Movements", that is, international NGO movements. However, except the so-called
"Co-opted NGOs (CoNGOs)", which receive fund from the neo-liberal agency and seek
usually the "dialogue and compromise", there are also each other conflicting and
competing subcurrents within the NGO camp. With regard to the NGOs' global strategy
can there be logically two main axes: Pro-Globalist or Anti-Globalist. But the empirical
reality must not be so simplistic. There also can be minute sub-categories. For example,
one could be against the globalization of capital, but in favor of the "democratic"
globalization of people or "from below". To which camp, then, does this tendency
belong? While someone criticizes the present form of globalization, can he or she
imagine or accept at the same time alternative ways to globalization? Therefore, all
strategic models of NGOs must take into consideration such a case.

Ideal-typically, three kinds of approaches to the problem appear, for the

moment, according to the main line of argument and attitude to globalization: 1)
"international reformism" 2) "globalization from below" 3) "delinking."

1) "International reformist" approach:

This view is a global version of social partnership or corporatism at the national

level, which has backed up the 'Golden Age of capitalism" in Western society. It refers
basically to the thesis of "democratic deficit" of international institutions and regimes
that can be covered only by the cooperation with international civil society. The
interests of NGOs as "stakeholder" could be accommodated with the business. The
political legitimacy grounded on the support from the NGOs as junior-partner is a
necessary condition for the viability of global capitalism. Therefore, it aims the
capitalism with "human face".

9
) Patrick Bond (2001), “Strategy and Self-Activity in the Global Justice Movements”, FPIF Discussion
Paper #5, August 2001.
Gwanju Human Rights Folk School 2004

John Clark, a former leading Bank critic at Oxfam, issued an email memo now
as chief NGO liaison officer at the World Bank:

"[H]ow to respond to the demo organizers' request to all NGOs to boycott all
meetings with the Bank and Fund ... For some the compromise was to take part in
meetings with Bank staff off the premises (some said this was because they didn't
want to be seen and identified by demonstrators and be accused of cooption); but
others - notably Jubilee 2000 [U.S.] - were quite open that they intended to ignore
the request."1010

The aim of "international reformist" lies not in the abolition of international

institutions but in their improvement. From this viewpoint, it is not marvelous to find to
some extent the logical homogeneity with the so-called "Post-Washington Consensus"
of which World Bank chief economist Joseph Stiglitz takes the initiative. Aimed at the
correcting capitalist system's "imperfect markets", he tried to introduce a "new
paradigm" into the neo-liberal economy. J. Stiglitz writes: "The policies advanced by
the Washington Consensus are hardly complete and sometimes misguided. ... The focus
on freeing up markets, in the case of financial market liberalization, may actually have
had a perverse effect, contributing to macro-instability through weakening of the
financial sector."1111 This results in an elite fight between IMF and World Bank. The
World Bank shows, in comparison with its sister organization, the IMF, a relatively high
sensitivity to the activity of NGOs, which is well reflected in its document:
"Consultation with Civil Society Organizations (CSOs): General Guidelines for the
World Bank Staff.” Some of lines in the document say: “The primary objective of
consultations is to improve the quality of decisions by: capturing the experience of
specialized non-governmental agencies, tapping the knowledge of CSOs that work at
the community level, giving voice to the poor ..., and giving sustainability for proposed
reforms beyond any one government administration."1212 The World Bank's co-optation
strategy may express its changed approach to the integrationist fraction in the
international neo-liberal blocks.

In recent years, the partnership between business and NGOs increased

10
) Cited from Bond (2001). op. cit.
11
) Cited from P. Bond (1999), “Global and National Financial Reforms”, Proceeding at International
Conference on Neo-liberalism, Global Capitalism and Civil Alternatives, October 5, 1999,
Sungkonghoe University, Seoul Korea.
12
) See World Bank's homepage http://wbln0018.worldbank.org.
Gwanju Human Rights Folk School 2004

variously. The Financial Times reported:

"For companies, the desire to work with NGOs stemmed from a recognition that
environmental and social issues can provide business benefits, ranging from
differentiating products to cutting costs. "In the world of business, environmental
performance is increasingly seen as a competitive and strategic issue for
companies," says SustainAbility. In several instances NGOs have been willing to
endorse products. In 1992 Greenpeace helped launch a hydrocarbon called
"Greenfreeze" that could replace an ozone-damaging coolant in refrigerators. Its
efforts resulted in 70,000 orders."1313

The "symbiosis" between business and NGOs follows, as such, the business
logic: an equivalent exchange between profitability of business and fund-raising of
NGOs:

"The problem with partnerships lies not so much in the nature of the relationship as
in objectives. Despite the grand rhetoric, when it comes to negotiating the terms of
the partnerships, there is a tendency to revert to fundamental organizational aims:
reputation enhancement at the local and international level for the business and
access to financial resources for the NGO. Hence, most NGOs give the
responsibility for corporate partnerships to the fund-raising department, rather than
to their advocacy department."1414

But even such a partnership is inaccessible to the NGOs of the South, due mainly to the
"power differentials":

"The idea of partnership between a multi-billion dollar global corporation and a

poor, marginalized local community group in the South is at odds with the
enormous power differentials and divergent interests inherent in such a
relationship. On the other hand, when larger NGOs establish new collaborative
relationships with business, there appears to be greater scope for shared power and
control. Such NGOs increasingly need to work with business in order to realize
their organizational goals in a globalized economy. Their business partners need
credible independent guidance in order to respond appropriately to concerns about
13
) V. Houlder (2001), “Campaigners Learn Lesson of Business Advantage”, Financial Times, July 24,
2001.
14
) Kelly Currah (2000), “How Corporations Absolve Their Sins”, Guardian, August 28, 2000
Gwanju Human Rights Folk School 2004

the social and environmental impacts of their products and production processes."
1515

As mentioned above, the relationship between two "non-state actors" is recently

interwoven, to a great extent, because not of mutual understandings but rather of mutual
interests. Even though it is for now not proper to judge about it ultimately, one thing is
however not deniable that such an invisible connection could jeopardize all the
achievements of NGO movement. For instance, at the local level, the NGO's
intervention encouraged by many donors of the North, that is also NGOs, was accused
of misleading the outcome:

"By their action and their line of work, NGOs have a strong tendency to take in
charge some tasks or services that are normally of the State' s responsibility. This
attitude often leads peasants to consider the NGOs as being the State or its
legitimate substitute. It also represents a form of justification of the State's
passivity concerning rural development, or even a means of taking away from it its
responsibilities. The extension and generalization of such an attitude can also open
the way for the existence of two parallel States or of a State in the State..."

2) "Globalization from below" approach:

W. Bello, Director of Focus on the Global South, represents one of the typical
positions with regards to the anti-globalization campaign in the NGO community.
According to him, "a classic crisis of legitimacy has struck the multilateral institutions
that serve as key elements of the system of global economic governance: The WTO,
IMF and the World Bank." Therefore, "the focus of our efforts these days is not to try to
reform the multilateral agencies but to deepen the crisis of legitimacy of the whole
system. ... We are talking about disabling not just the WTO, the IMF and the World
Bank but the transnational corporations itself. And we are not talking about a process of
"re-regulation" of the TNCs but of eventually disabling or dismantling them as
fundamental hazards to people, society, the environment, to everything we hold dear."

So, the strategic orientation focused not on the "re-regulation" but on the
disempowerment of TNCs. Bello seeks the alternative to globalization in the "de-

15
David F. Murphy (1998), “Business and NGOs in the Global Partnership Process”,
(http://www.globalpolicy.org/socecon/unctad16.htm)
Gwanju Human Rights Folk School 2004

globalization":

"We are not talking about withdrawing from the international economy.
We are speaking about reorienting our economies from production for export to
production for the local market;
...
We are talking, essentially, about an approach that consciously subordinates the
logic of the market, the pursuit of cost efficiency to the values of security, equity
and social solidarity. Following Karl Polanyi, we are speaking, about reembedding
the economy in society, rather than having society driven by the economy."1616

Rejecting capitalist globalization radically, Michael Albert also recently

elaborates the alternative strategy to the globalization. The anti-globalization activists
now want to replace the core three institutions of capitalist globalization, such as the
IMF, the World Bank and the WTO, with dramatically new and different structures:

"The WTO trumps governments and populations on behalf of corporate profits.

The full story about these three centrally important global institutions is longer, of
course, but improvements are not hard to conceive. First, why not have, instead of
the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the World Trade
Organization, an International Asset Agency, a Global Investment Assistance
Agency, and a World Trade Agency. These three new (not merely reformed)
institutions would work to attain equity, solidarity, diversity, self-management, and
ecological balance in international financial exchange, investment and
development, trade, and cultural exchange."1717

M. Albert advocates, furthermore, a "bottom-up" method as the organizational principle

of the new institutions:

"And second, ... anti-globalization activists also advocate a recognition that

international relations should not derive from centralized but rather from bottom-
up institutions. The new overarching structures mentioned above should therefore
gain their credibility and power from an array of arrangements, structures, and ties
enacted at the level of citizens, neighborhoods, states, nations and groups of

16
) See Bello (2001), op. cit.
17
) See Michael Albert (2001), “What Are We For?”, ZNet, September 6, 2001.
Gwanju Human Rights Folk School 2004

nations, on which they rest. And these more grass-roots structures, alliances, and
bodies defining debate and setting agendas should, like the three earlier described
one, also be transparent, participatory and democratic, and guided by a mandate
that prioritizes equity, solidarity, diversity, self-management, and ecological
sustainability and balance."1818

3) "Delinking" approach:

Yash Tandon, a former chair of CIVIUS: World Alliance for Citizen

Participation, also presents a grassroots-oriented alternative from the perspective of the
South: "What are the alternatives? Stepping outside of the global economy is hardly a
realistic option. However, the South can do at least two things in relation to the process
of globalization. One: it can slow down the process of its further integration into the
global process. And two: it can strengthen its local- community based systems of
production and marketing, and begin to control local resources away from the hands of
multinational corporations."1919 For him, the governments in the South are not capable
any more of defending against the encroachment of their sovereignty accompanied by
globalization. Furthermore, most of the Southern NGOs are funded by the Northern
counterparts and consequently tend to be either "welfarist or single-issue oriented."
Hence, "by and large it is unrealistic to expect the NGOs (excepting a few) to take the
lead to raise broader issues of development and the effects of capital-led
globalization."2020 Instead, rather how the "ordinary people on the ground who are the
direct recipients of the damage that modernization, and now the globalization" will
become a force for change is a crucial issue for the South. "When they rise", "the NGOs
could become good allies for them, just as when the street kids of townships in South
Africa rose up to single-handedly take on the might of the apartheid state the middle
class intellectual cadre of NGOs became a strong support base of them."2121

In the tradition of Dependency Theory, S. Amin continued to radicalize the

strategy of "delinking" - "not autarky, but the subordination of outside relations to the
logic of internal development and not the reverse".2222 Then he reviewed the most
18
) Ibid.
19
) Yash Tandon (1997), “Globalization and the South: the Logic of Exploitation”, Internationale Politik
und Gesellschaft, 4/1997, p. 397.
20
) Ibid., p. 398.
21
) Ibid.
22
) S. Amin (1997), Capitalism in the Age of Globalization, London & New Jersey: Zed Books, p. 40.
Gwanju Human Rights Folk School 2004

radical reform proposals against the "Bretton Woods institutions", which are very
similar to the M. Albert's ideas sketched above: 1) the transformation of the IMF into a
genuine world central bank; 2) the transformation of the World Bank into a fund that
would collect surpluses and lend them to the Third World; 3) the creation of a genuine
international trade organization, etc. Although these are as such a very fine project for
the reform of world economic and political system, they have the blind spots, too. For
instance, too much "value judgments" are included in the analyses; the transformation
of the IMF or World Bank into new ones ought not to be the objective for the immediate
future in the long transition to world socialism. Consequently, he is afraid that "by
setting the bar too high we are condemning ourselves to failure"; because "the status of
globalization has not always been clearly defined (is it a determining objective force, or
one tendency among others?) certain elements of the reform project ... strike me as
doubtful.2323

For him, capitalist globalization is not in itself a way of resolving the crisis. A
simple "rejection" of globalization could not constitute an adequate solution, for it
become, at last, integrated into this globalization and are made use of it. The "delinking
is not to be found in these illusory and negative rejections but on the contrary by an
active insertion capable of modifying the conditions of globalization."2424 It means no
other than the "substituting the unilateral adjustment of the weak to the strong with a
structural adjustment that is truly bilateral" by means of "another type of globalization".
Most important is the problem for the "national and popular democratic alliance". It is
so impossible to bypass the "stage of popular national construction, of regionalization,
of delinking and the building of a polycentric world".2525

IV. Toward the Global Governance of People

Every political process presupposes normally three dimensions: polity, politics

and policy. The same applies also to the international political arena. It can’t be denied
that in the nineties NGOs act as global player like multinational corporations
successfully as well as unsuccessfully. They contract occasionally the strategic alliances
with each other and form a united front against the "tyranny of market". All these were
obviously political actions or at least "politically-oriented" actions. Like usual political
23
) Ibid., p. 43 passim.
24
) Ibid., p. 75.
25
) Ibid., p.78-9.
Gwanju Human Rights Folk School 2004

parties, they put pressure upon the government at the national level and contributed
immensely to the further democratization of society. In the public sphere they were
approved as a quasi-political party and gained a considerable "power of influence",
namely the "indirect" power compared to that of the administration. With regard to the
environmental and social issues, their positions nowadays are respected and adopted on
a case-by-case basis. If one takes all these processes seriously, she/he may conclude that
NGOs become global political actors. However, still one thing lacks in the NGOs
exactly as the TNCs do. That is democratic legitimacy. They were never elected but
only selected by the people on the basis of beliefs that they are morally superior to the
politicians by profession. If so, they have at best the virtual or ad hoc legitimacy, which
would be fulfilled only through their post-factum activity. In essence, people’s
acknowledgement of the NGOs is a kind of social contract that could be broken
anytime. As far as NGOs have never constituted themselves in the "body politic", the
legitimacy problem of NGOs remains unresolved.

Paradoxically the globalization made a favorable condition to create some type

of global polity. The globalized economy leads to the selective globalization of society.
Against this background, NGOs were rapidly internationalized. R. Falk and A. Strauss
proposed in Foreign Affairs a formation of "Global Parliament": "As with the early
European parliament, a relatively weak assembly initially equipped with largely
advisory powers could begin to address concerns about the democratic deficit while
posing only a long-term threat to the realities of state power."2626 According to them,
there are two ways to reach it. First, "civil society, aided by receptive states, could
create the assembly without resorting to a formal treaty process. Under this approach,
the assembly would not be formally sanctioned by states, so governments would
probably contest its legitimacy at the outset. But this opposition could be neutralized to
some extent by widespread grassroots and media endorsement." Second approach
"rel[ies] on a treaty, using what is often called the 'single negotiating text method'. After
consultation with sympathetic parties from civil society, business, and nation-states, an
organizing committee could generate the text of a proposed treaty establishing an
assembly."2727

Of course, it may be a too defeatist to reject this proposal only because it

sounds utopian. But it is also problematic to insist that the possibilities exist without
26
) Richard Falk / Andrew Strauss (2001), “Bridging the Globalization Gap: Toward Global Parliament”,
Foreign Affairs, January-February 2001.
27
) Ibid.
Gwanju Human Rights Folk School 2004

probing in detail the concrete conditions of it. Unacceptable is moreover that the idea of
"Global Parliament" is de-linked with any abolition or at least radical reform of neo-
liberal institutions.

Although it is true that the formation of a political unit on a global scale is in

the last instance one of the ultimate solution of legitimation problem, it matters,
however, in the first instance if its political contents are well planned and the political
driving forces are sufficiently organized. For instance, the ideological factor plays here
a significant role. To tell the truth, the ideological terrain within the NGO community is
to a great extent confusing and divergent. Especially those at the core of anti-
globalization understand themselves as "anarchist". Following B. Epstein, their
intellectual and philosophical perspectives might be better described as an "anarchist
sensibility than as anarchism per se." In this sense "it is a form of politics that revolves
around the exposure of the truth rather than strategy."2828 The ideological-political
backgrounds of anti-globalization movements vary from Marxism, Trotskyism, to the
Islam. A certain form of movement such as "network guerilla," on which the "anarchist"
mind-set is dominant, could be advantageous to access to the people. Neither the
movement could however vagabondize from here to there perpetually, nor works the
internet always.

The NGOs per se is an expression of a specific phase of history, wherein the

classical labor movement is politically inactive and the "new" social movement
somewhat suffers from tiredness. A. Gramsci proposed once a perspective of
"reabsorption of state into the civil society". This standpoint could be valid at the
national level. However, in the international arena there is no central authority as world-
state. It seems to be also not plausible that in the near future the world-state becomes a
reality. The "governance without government" is seemingly the only feasible alternative
in the world politics for the present. For the global "civil society" - whatsoever it may
be -this constellation might be a chance, for the international NGOs could try to
constitute themselves politically without relatively less backlash of states. In my view,
the future of NGOs depends considerably on whether they will reorganize themselves
anew as political body. Neither NGO-fetishism nor NGO-nihilism helps this project at
all. Anyhow, so true is the following: "There is no alternatives."

28
) Barbara Epstein (2001), “Anarchism and the Anti-Globalization Movement”, Monthly Review,
September 2001.