Review article
GLOBALISATION, ENVIRONMENT AND NEW IDENTITIES IN POSTMODERN ERA
Branka Galić
; Department of Sociology, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
Although it cannot be denied that nation-states and their sovereignties still exist as a significant form of identity of the civilian society within the world order, under the influence of new globalisational processes – political, ecological, cultural – in the last decades of the 20th century, and the urgency of the need to solve new global problems (ecological, genetic, communicational, market, multicultural), the issue of new identities has emerged. The world of “complex interdependences” has dramatic implications for sovereignty, autonomy and responsibility of states and their ability to independently solve the key political problems they are faced with. The new issues brought about by the globalisational processes can no longer be based on solely on the principles of the white-Western-Christian-male-industrial civilization that has proved lethal in many social, cultural and political aspects of life, particularly regarding the environment. That is why the initiatives for the recognition of new multicultural identities cab be realized only within the global order in which Westerners do no longer have a privileged position. Radicalising these issues, environmentalists conclude that the global ecological policy can no longer be based on the old political boundaries of nation-states, that new political boundaries are needed, based on ecological principles. These boundaries should coincide with the boundaries of ecological systems if development is to be sustained. In order to achieve this, it is necessary to globally expand democracy in order to create new institutions that are going to institutionalise some new forms of political culture, based on the principles of the “green politics” which presupposes respect for all forms of life and avoids a hierarchy of life forms with humankind on the top.
Keywords
civil society; nation state; globalisation; environment; sovereignty; postmodernism
Hrčak ID:
24579
URI
Publication date:
28.1.2002.
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