Constructing World Culture: International Nongovernmental Organizations Since 1875 [Paperback]

John Boli (Editor), George Thomas (Editor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0804734224 | ISBN-13: 978-0804734226 | Publication Date: April 1999 | Edition: 1

This book illuminates the central role played by international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs) in the emergence and development of a comprehensive world polity. The contributors argue that the enormous proliferation of INGOs since 1875—including international environmental organizations, human rights groups, bodies formed to regulate technical standards, and economic development organizations, among others—both reflects and contributes to the spread of global institutions and cultural principles based on models of rationality, individualism, progress, and universalism. The contributors contrast this world-polity perspective to other approaches to understanding globalization, including realist and neo-realist analyses in the field of international relations, and world-system theory and interstate competition theory in sociology.

The volume considers transnational organizing as a historical process of the creation of global rules and norms, changing over time, that have identifiable effects on social organization at the national and local levels. The chapters provide empirical support for this approach, identifying specific mechanisms that translate global cultural assumptions and prescriptions into local social activity, such as the creation of state agencies, the formulation of government policies, and the emergence of social movements. The first part of the book deals with social movement INGOs, including environmental groups, women’s rights organizations, the Esperanto movement, and the International Red Cross. The second part treats technical and economic bodies, including the International Organization for Standardization, population policy groups, development organizations, and international professional science associations.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“This book is an unfaltering progress in world-polity institutional assessment.”—U.S.I. Journal

From the Inside Flap

This book illuminates the central role played by international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs) in the emergence and development of a comprehensive world polity. The contributors argue that the enormous proliferation of INGOs since 1875—including international environmental organizations, human rights groups, bodies formed to regulate technical standards, and economic development organizations, among others—both reflects and contributes to the spread of global institutions and cultural principles based on models of rationality, individualism, progress, and universalism. The contributors contrast this world-polity perspective to other approaches to understanding globalization, including realist and neo-realist analyses in the field of international relations, and world-system theory and interstate competition theory in sociology.
The volume considers transnational organizing as a historical process of the creation of global rules and norms, changing over time, that have identifiable effects on social organization at the national and local levels. The chapters provide empirical support for this approach, identifying specific mechanisms that translate global cultural assumptions and prescriptions into local social activity, such as the creation of state agencies, the formulation of government policies, and the emergence of social movements. The first part of the book deals with social movement INGOs, including environmental groups, women’s rights organizations, the Esperanto movement, and the International Red Cross. The second part treats technical and economic bodies, including the International Organization for Standardization, population policy groups, development organizations, and international professional science associations.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 380 pages
• Publisher: Stanford University Press; 1 edition (April 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0804734224
• ISBN-13: 978-0804734226
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #410,097 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Helps to Explain How the World Works, July 1, 2000

By 

Bill Bryant - See all my reviews

This review is from: Constructing World Culture: International Nongovernmental Organizations Since 1875 (Paperback)

The primary audience for this book is academic sociologists who are interested in comparative-historical sociology and international relations. The themes of the book, however, make it potentially appealing to a much broader audience that could include political scientists, public administrators, historians - as well as people who have an interest in world culture, governance, and non-governmental & inter-governmental organizations.

As a non-academic reader, I found this book to be weighty and difficult. Hence, only 3 stars. But, if you stick with it, and if you can grasp the concepts and language used by the authors, "Constructing World Culture" offers a great deal of useful information. Primarily, it describes a particular way to understand the "polity" of the world - that is, the way the world works in a social and political context.

The authors promote a viewpoint that understands global governance to be taking place through the interplay of various actors - e.g., nation-states, trans-national corporations, inter-governmental organizations, and International Non-Governmental Organizations (INGO's).

INGO's include a large, diverse group of organizations, some of which are familiar and some of which you've never heard of before. Think about the International Red Cross, Greenpeace, the International Olympics Committee, and the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). That is just the beginning of the list.

In these INGO's, Boli and Thomas find the "fundamental principles of world culture." These are: Universalism, Individualism, Rational Voluntaristic Authority, the Dialectics of Rationalizing Progress, and World Citizenship.

To get a taste of what the book is about, consider this quote: "...This volume suggests that INGO's exercise a surprising degree of authority in the contemporary world. This authority is neither coercive or commanding; above all, it is cultural." (Page 298).

This is the kind of book I wish could be translated into plain language and sent to elected officials and policy makers in many nations.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Situating this book in the globalization debate, January 25, 2002

By 

Maxime Lachance (Ottawa, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Constructing World Culture: International Nongovernmental Organizations Since 1875 (Paperback)

I decided to write a review for this book more in reaction to another reader's comment than for the promotion of the book itself. The rise of the non-state actors at the international or transnational level during the last decades is striking. Ignoring their role when studying the way our society is evolving is like trying to find out how a car work without looking at the engine... or at least, ignoring the source of energy needed for the car to function normally.

I agree with the previous commentator that the World Polity theories are often looking to closely at the motor and at how the fuel power the engine and forget to look at the driver, the wheels and all the other components of our globalization vehicle. However, I would argue that such a narrow perspective is necessary in order to appreciate some important mechanisms that influence our societies. I don't think anyone would deny the fact that for the first time in history, we can witness the creation of truly global norms that are shaping our world.

World Polity theories do not, however, explain everything about globalization. They offer some insights... Just as neo-liberal thories, realist theories, world system theories, and others do. In my view, academic struggles about which theories are the most relevant is often no more than a kids fight about whose father is the strongest.

9 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars World Culture Theory-- A Fraudulent Discourse, September 6, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Constructing World Culture: International Nongovernmental Organizations Since 1875 (Paperback)

This book presupposes that world polity is galvanized not by rational interests of sovereign states but by the cultural manifestations of the "rational voluntaristic authority" and highly specialized "standardization techniques" of global agents (non-nation states). What is highly fallacious in this argument is that most of the world cultural precepts they describe is nothing but an expansion of globalist economic theories--an addendum--merely capitalizing on pre-existing theories on globalism.

The evolution of International Organizations cannot be traced on the rationalizing aspect of world culture and the increased homogenization of world polity and its global arenas. Rather, the rational basis for the expansion of international organizations is merely economic, irrational, and mired in the global self-interests of industrialized states.

This book is purely pseudo-social scientific, and the editorial pieces that connect Boli and Thomas' arguments together is weak and elementary at best. I would not recommend this book to any public policy advocate for its utter lack of social scientific rigor and its reliance on abstract concepts they do not fully operationalize and define.