Globalization, Governmentality and Global Politics: Regulation for the Rest of Us?

by Lipschutz; Ronnie

• ISBN13: 9780415701600
• ISBN10: 0415701600
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 2005-10-19
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Globalization is moving fast, impacting on the life of nations with accelerating force. This book delivers a keen assessment of how it is being handled by specific groups seeking positive outcomes for the people and causes they represent. Transnational social regulation is increasingly becoming the product of private interventions into the areas of global trade, corporate behavior and consumerism. The widespread failure of states and corporations to regulate the impact of increased globalization has given rise to non-governmental organizations and movements, seeking to influence corporations regarding social responsibilities and to address concerns about human rights, environmental destruction, unhealthy working conditions and child labor. This study critically evaluates the effectiveness of private regulation, assessing both the issues and problems that have given rise to various movements and campaigns, and the movements themselves. Using three detailed case-studies on the clothing industry,sustainable forestry and corporate social responsibility more generally, he explores the consequent tension between politics and management in light of these actions and examines the theoretical implications of these forms of social regulation for politics, citizenship and the state. Finally, Lipschutz asks what we are to do and calls for a return to politics centered on the direct participation of the individual in the social choices that affect the conditions and making of their own lives, individually and collectively. This book is essential for students, researcher and activists studying and concerned about globalization, civil society, citizenship and human rights.

Table of Contents

Tables	xi
Figures	xii
Series preface	xiii
Acknowledgments	xv
Between governmentality and global politics	1	(22)
PART I Affluence and effluents	23	(44)
Globalization, externalities, and regulation	25	(22)
Creating a stark utopia? Self-regulating markets and the disappearance of politics	47	(20)
PART II Doing well by doing good?	67	(104)
Doing well by doing it? Social regulation and the transnational apparel industry	69	(37)
Paper or plastic? The privatization of global forestry regulation	106	(24)
Corporate social responsibility as business strategy	130	(41)
James K. Rowe
PART III What is to be done?	171	(50)
Morals, markets, and members: privatizing human rights in the name of the public good	173	(23)
Bringing politics back in	196	(25)
References	221	(24)
Index	245