Zygmunt Bauman on Global Social Democratic Governance
November 1st, 2009 by SocProf and tagged Global Governance, Globalization, Politics, Social Movements, Social Theory
I have never made a secret of my admiration for Zygmunt Bauman. He is one of my favorite contemporary theorists. So, I am glad to see him write for the Social Europe Journal, pushing for more social democracy at the level of global institutions.
Taking stock of the fact that, in Europe, labor / socialist parties have strongly contributed to the dismantling of the social safety net (and a lot of good it did them too…
Bauman offers the following:
That would involve growing the spine to reclaim one’s ideology and label as terms of pride and not insults, but this would also require major ideological work against “la pensée unique” that has almost triumphed with only the global civil society to push back as national parties may not be the right vehicle for this. Globally connected social movements might work better but the “dinosaurs” in many European socialist and social-democratic party still control quite a bit of power when it comes to money and mobilization despite a “crisis of legitimacy.”
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