The 12th International Conference of

 

ISSEI

 

In cooperation

With

International Society for the Study of European Ideas

 

 

 

Section II: Politics, Economics, Law

 

Workshop: Democratic Thought in the Age of Globalisation

 

Chair: Maria Marczewska-Rytko

 

The multi-layered and multidimensional structure of globalization makes it difficult to rightly perceive it and to explicitly determine its consequences from the standpoint of various spheres of social life. The consequences perceived—whether real or imaginary—relate to the axiological dimension. That is why they are applauded or criticized. To the supporters of globalization, it appears as a special set of instruments and mechanism that we can use to attain our own goals if only we wish to. To attempt to reconstruct the mechanisms governing globalization processes is connected here with the search for opportunities to utilize them. The reward for using them is as high as severe is the punishment for refraining from such actions. The attitude to democracy and democratic transformations has a pragmatic dimension. Opponents of globalization are convinced that regardless of the democratic system, the rules of the game are imposed by powerful and anonymous markets and transnational corporations. That is why they offer various proposals for democratization of the global order. The outcome of globalization processes is a new policy, whose determinants were presented by Manuel Castells. The issue is the politics of identity, which is both local and global, not reducible to simple class affiliations, and able to grasp and express cultural changes. The crisis of democracy is a fact: traditional political parties are being weakened by global trends, there is a growing importance of politics of identity, and the electorate is growing more and more skeptical of professional politicians, who are perceived as corrupt and ineffectual in solving many important problems. Globalization processes reveal and at the same time heighten the contradictions, which liberal democracy necessarily carries with it. In response to these, more or less utopian models on a global scale appeared.

 

Maria Marczewska-Rytko

m_marczewska@yahoo.com

 

                         

 

 

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