'Globalisation and Democracy: The Limits of the Nation-State'

When?

Monday 8 November 2004, 17:00 to 18:30

Where?

19AD04

Open to:

Public, Staff, Students

Speaker:

Dr Mark Olssen

Dr. Mark Olssen (Dept. of Political, International and Policy Studies, UniS)

This paper examines the role of the state and implications for individual and collective ethics in relation to globalization. It starts by examining the phenomenon of globalization, and argues that it is not a question of globalization or the nation-state, but of globalization and the nation-state. In order to understand how globalization might be represented as having both positive and negative effects on states, two forms of globalization are distinguished, one which attests to the growing interconnectedness of states, and another which relates to the neoliberal policy agenda amongst western countries since the 1970s. The final section of the paper argues for a version of cosmopolitan democracy based on Foucault's writings, which I term 'thin communitarianism', and it tries to extrapolate the consequences of globalisation for ethical theory in light of this. It concludes that if survival and security are to be possible, then strategies that preserve the openness of power structures, based on dialogical communication are necessary as a way, in Rorty's sense, of keeping the conversation going.