The main argument of this article is that the idea of global civil society challenges the concept of international relations. It traces the evolution of the idea of society and argues that civil society has always meant a rule‐governed society where rules were based on some form of social contract among citizens. Historically, civil society was always territorially tied and contrasted with international relations between states. What changed in the 1980s and 1990s was the global dimension of civil society—a social contract is being negotiated across borders establishing a set of global rules involving states as well as international institutions. The article ends by asking whether September 11 and the war in Iraq mark a reversion to international relations.
Significant changes in the global setting over the course of the last few decades resulted in an increasing prominence for the pursuit of transnational justice and individual accountability. The aftermath of the terrifying attacks on America on September
Absolute despair would be the wrong response [to the current situation in Iraq]. Instead the disaster that is the West's current strategy in Iraq must be used as a constructive call to the international community to reconfi gure its foreign policy around human security rather than national security. Jan Egeland, UN Undersecretary for Humanitarian Aff airs 1Human security refers to the security of individuals and communities, expressed as both 'freedom from fear' and 'freedom from want'. Severe threats to human security range from genocide and slavery to natural disasters such as hurricanes or fl oods to massive violations of the right to food, health and housing. In this article, we argue that the adoption of a human security concept represents a qualitative change in the conduct of foreign and security policy. This step-change is particularly relevant for the European Union as it seeks to improve its eff ectiveness and visibility as a collective global actor. Terms matter, and human security is not simply a leitmotif for EU security policies, 2 or an analytical label which categorizes the EU's international role in the way that concepts such as normative power or civilian power have done. 3 Rather, it provides an enduring and dynamic organizing frame for security action, a frame which European foreign policy texts and practices currently lack. Thus human security can be seen as a proactive strategic narrative with the potential to further EU foreign policy integration. To elaborate this organizing frame, we examine two distinct aspects of a human security doctrine: lexis, or what is said and written about it; and praxis, or what it means in terms of everyday actions, from policies to tactics on the ground.The lexis of human security matters because it deals with how policy-makers and the European public view and articulate issues of external security. This is not just the stuff of academic discussions; we need to know what we mean when we talk about the ideas, values, interests and goals of EU external relations. Even practitioners who regard concepts with suspicion as abstract and unhelpful use
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