Stephen Gill, ed, Global Crises and the Crisis of Global Leadership, Cambridge University Press, 2012.
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RATING: 50
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There is some work of value in this volume, but it cannot be recommended as an edited collection, primarily because of the lack of engagement on the part of the editor with the other contributions. Gill's introduction and first chapter introduce the theme of multiple crises that add up to a global organic crisis. They start from the premise that 'there is an identifiable, neoliberal nexus of ideas, institutions and interests that dominates global political and civil society - one that is associated with the most powerful states and corporations' (1). Neoliberal governance is presented as virtually unchallenged in representational politics across the global North, and allied with authoritarian and dictatorial forces across the global South ('all mainstream parties' share the view that 'there is no alternative to disciplinary neoliberal governance of capitalism' - 27); its model of development is 'wasteful, energy-intensive, consumerist, ecologically myopic and premised on catering mainly to the affluent' (7); 'at least in the global North, the left seems to have offered only limited resistance and few credible alternatives to the neoliberal responses to the crisis of accumulation of the past three years [2008-2010]' (15); and neoliberal discourse 'tends to discount the future as well as the lineages of history by compressing all temporality into an unreflective time of immediacy associated with a single model of society and culture - a monoculture of society and of the mind' (24). The consequence is 'a perhaps unprecedented type of structural crisis of capitalism that is simultaneously a crisis of market civilization' (25). In the face of this situation, 'we need to think ethically, politically and imaginatively in relation to different forms of power and a range of social and ecological constraints,' and 'progressive political organization and its political imaginary needs to be founded in a realistic consideration of how existing human and non-human structures and forms of power either constrain or facilitate the full realization of human capabilities and potentials' (34), and 'new progressive policies must ... be linked to new forms of political organization, in order to construct institutions that allow women and men alike to engage fully in politics and leadership activities' (37). I find this stance overly schematic; others may not.
The salient point as regards the coherence of the collection is that the chapters that follow practically all offer different, complementary and sometimes contrary perspectives: Nicola Short sees a possible path to the resubordination of the market to democratic controls through new forms of regulation of the media and of party funding (55); Claire Cutler suggests that there might be 'emancipatory potential inherent in private transnational governance' if a critical focus is turned on the politics inherent in expert action and thought (69-70); Tim de Muzio reminds Gill that 'the emergence and social reproduction of [market] civilization was and is wholly dependent upon affordable, accessible and abundant fossil fuels' (78); Richard Falk presents the challenge of global warming on a terrain that challenges neoliberal and progressive politics alike: 'the originality of the global warming problématique arises from the tension between what we know and what is politically feasible to do' (104); Hilal Elver concludes that the 'progressive realization of basic human rights such as the right to water needs effective and prudent - indeed, very far-sighted - regulation', through democratically accountable institutions and 'policy-making structures and processes that can fully encompass multiple scales, from the local to the global, while also navigating the disparate perspectives of diverse users situated at levels extending from households and communities to the national, regional and international' (123); Solomon Benatar highlights powerful common forces reshaping health care in all countries, by no means all arising from neoliberal governance (142-3); Mustapha Kamal Pasha offers a rich account of the diverse ethical strands within Islam, and notes that 'the difficulty lies in aligning new philosophical schemes with political leadership committed to meaningful political change' (160); Upendra Baxi offers a nuanced account of 'adjudicatory leadership' which highlights varying institutional legacies and contexts across the global South, and concludes by drawing on Weber to suggest that 'tasks, or transformations, of leadership as social and economic enterprise begin only with the displacement of social relations embedded in charismatic or patrimonial relationships' (178); Teivo Teivainen, reflecting on the World Social Forum, notes that the road from politicizing protests to transformative proposals is filled with dilemmas', and highlights the need to address 'explicitly political questions of leadership and future institutional orders' (186, 198); Ingar Solty concurs in seeing a 'crisis of civilization', but suggests that 'the shape of the new economic, political and ideological order of the world is going to be different from the neoliberalism of the last decade', and that 'a historic social formation has come to an end' (209); and Adam Harmes suggests that 'progressives need to develop a more concrete strategy for promoting significant, but nevertheless more incremental and issue-by-issue, change that works to increasingly expand the political limits of the possible' (216), and makes the case for an alliance of progressives and classical economic liberals against the neoliberal 'locking in' and policy competition.
These various contributions have one thing in common - they are simply ignored in Gill's concluding essay, which combines a tour d'horizon of the state of things in 2009-2010 with another review of his earlier work (continued from the introduction and Chapter 1), and in particular an invocation of the 'postmodern prince' (253). If this concept is to develop from a mere set of slogans, some flesh needs to be put on the bones of this 'party' led by 'millions of organic intellectuals', and its possible programme and organization; the dilemmas it faces need to subjected to serious appraisal, and reasons need to be given for advocating it in preference to other possible political, institutional and organizational strategies. In all of this, the assembled contributions had pointers to offer. They were not taken up, and the volume is the worse for it.
The salient point as regards the coherence of the collection is that the chapters that follow practically all offer different, complementary and sometimes contrary perspectives: Nicola Short sees a possible path to the resubordination of the market to democratic controls through new forms of regulation of the media and of party funding (55); Claire Cutler suggests that there might be 'emancipatory potential inherent in private transnational governance' if a critical focus is turned on the politics inherent in expert action and thought (69-70); Tim de Muzio reminds Gill that 'the emergence and social reproduction of [market] civilization was and is wholly dependent upon affordable, accessible and abundant fossil fuels' (78); Richard Falk presents the challenge of global warming on a terrain that challenges neoliberal and progressive politics alike: 'the originality of the global warming problématique arises from the tension between what we know and what is politically feasible to do' (104); Hilal Elver concludes that the 'progressive realization of basic human rights such as the right to water needs effective and prudent - indeed, very far-sighted - regulation', through democratically accountable institutions and 'policy-making structures and processes that can fully encompass multiple scales, from the local to the global, while also navigating the disparate perspectives of diverse users situated at levels extending from households and communities to the national, regional and international' (123); Solomon Benatar highlights powerful common forces reshaping health care in all countries, by no means all arising from neoliberal governance (142-3); Mustapha Kamal Pasha offers a rich account of the diverse ethical strands within Islam, and notes that 'the difficulty lies in aligning new philosophical schemes with political leadership committed to meaningful political change' (160); Upendra Baxi offers a nuanced account of 'adjudicatory leadership' which highlights varying institutional legacies and contexts across the global South, and concludes by drawing on Weber to suggest that 'tasks, or transformations, of leadership as social and economic enterprise begin only with the displacement of social relations embedded in charismatic or patrimonial relationships' (178); Teivo Teivainen, reflecting on the World Social Forum, notes that the road from politicizing protests to transformative proposals is filled with dilemmas', and highlights the need to address 'explicitly political questions of leadership and future institutional orders' (186, 198); Ingar Solty concurs in seeing a 'crisis of civilization', but suggests that 'the shape of the new economic, political and ideological order of the world is going to be different from the neoliberalism of the last decade', and that 'a historic social formation has come to an end' (209); and Adam Harmes suggests that 'progressives need to develop a more concrete strategy for promoting significant, but nevertheless more incremental and issue-by-issue, change that works to increasingly expand the political limits of the possible' (216), and makes the case for an alliance of progressives and classical economic liberals against the neoliberal 'locking in' and policy competition.
These various contributions have one thing in common - they are simply ignored in Gill's concluding essay, which combines a tour d'horizon of the state of things in 2009-2010 with another review of his earlier work (continued from the introduction and Chapter 1), and in particular an invocation of the 'postmodern prince' (253). If this concept is to develop from a mere set of slogans, some flesh needs to be put on the bones of this 'party' led by 'millions of organic intellectuals', and its possible programme and organization; the dilemmas it faces need to subjected to serious appraisal, and reasons need to be given for advocating it in preference to other possible political, institutional and organizational strategies. In all of this, the assembled contributions had pointers to offer. They were not taken up, and the volume is the worse for it.