Global Civil Society Across the Mediterranean: The Case of Human Rights

Abstract

The concept of global civil society began to be used regularly just a decade ago. Its formulation results from the application of the civil society concept to transnational political processes. This article reviews the networks created in recent years in the field of human rights in the Mediterranean and investigates to what extent these are exponents of the emergence of an alleged global civil society. Links and exchanges between very diverse human rights advocacy groups have multiplied in recent years and transnational constituencies have been forged. But the existence of this ‘global civil society’ can hardly be identified as if it were a global player. It would be more appropriate to speak of the existence of parcels of an international (and internationalized) civil society.

Notes

¹ This section expands on some of the ideas set out in my book (Feliu, 2004).

² The Arab world is totally absent from works like those compiled by Guillermo O'Donnell, Philippe C. Schmitter and Laurence Whitehead (1988), or published by Diamond, Linz and Lipset (1988), without even an attempt to excuse such an absence.

³ See for example the Freedom House publication Democracy Digest, which to a certain extent amplifies any meeting or initiative by democratic and liberal sectors in the Arab world. www.freedomhouse.org

⁴ See for example Clayton, A.(Ed.) (1996). NGOs, Civil Society: Building Democracy in Transitional Societies (Oxford: INTRAC); Florini, A.(Ed.) The Third Force: The Rise of Transnational Civil Society (Washington: Carnegie Endowment) or some studies on specific fields as Howell, J. and Pearce, J. (2002) Civil Society and Development: A Critical Exploration (Boulder: Lynne Reinner).

⁵ For a critical approach see: Scholte, J. A. (2002) Civil Society and Democracy in Global Governance, Global Governance (8) 3.

⁶ Whitehead, L. (2001) Three International Dimensions of Democratization, in L. Whitehead (ed.) The International Dimensions of Democratization. Europe and the Americas (New York: Oxford University Press), p. 5.

⁷ See Brynen, Korany and Noble (1995) or Norton (1995).

⁸ Especially active in the Arab world are the german Friedrich Ebert Foundation or the American Ford Foundation.

⁹ This became manifest for instance in the Valencia Civil Forum, where the organizers encountered difficulties in obtaining information about the previous edition.

¹⁰ This is shared in general by the major human rights organizations. Thus, for instance, Human Rights Watch (2004) has analysed its activity in the 2002–2004 period, concluding that there was a ‘highly excessive focus on Israel,’ while serious cases like Syria or Libya were virtually overlooked.

¹¹ The following reflections were inspired by the interesting work by P. Ibarra, S. Martí and R. Gomà (eds.) (2003).