International Relations
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Abstract
In his preface, he promises a ‘clearly articulated vision of global civil society’, and he does, to some extent, deliver on this promise. His vision is intensely liberal, some would even say neo-liberal, rather than radical or cosmopolitan. He takes clear positions on two major definitional disputes: profit-making corporations are included in global civil society, but any use of violence is out. One of the most interesting features of the book is the attention to non-Western, particularly Islamic, antecedents of (global) civil society. An astounding omission is the complete lack of any reference either to the East European dissidents so central to Keane’s own earlier work, or to the Brazilian and other Latin American intellectuals who were rediscovering and reinvigorating the civil society idea at the same time. According to most accounts, both were crucial to the emergence, and theorisation, of global civil society. One possible explanation for this remarkable brushing-out may be that both were to a large extent inspired by Antonio Gramsci, who Keane detests (see pp. 63, 75ff).