Subject: BHA: RE: Re: Global Governance
Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2004 09:55:06 -0500


Hi Howard,

If social structures are generative mechanisms, then they are real, but neither actual nor empirical.  They, like our habits and other learned dispostions, are real even when not being "actualized."  Social structures are constructed, maintained, and modified by social interactions, but they do endure over periods of time when individuals are not actually acting under their influence. 

The symbolic representation of social relationships helps in their preservation during the times when they are not being enacted.  Not only do we refer verbally to absent persons in terms of our relations with them, but we have such things as wedding rings and other, less obvious, reminders of our relations with absent others.

Best regards,

Dick

 

Hi Ismail,

No, I think it is not correct to say that "structures exist and endure,
whether individuals engage them or not."

Structures exist and endure in virtue of the activities of individuals.
Individuals don't make them, they preexist individuals, but individuals do
reproduce or transform them, and without individuals acting, no social
structures.

Howard







----- Original Message -----
From: "Ismail Lagardien" <ilagardien-AT-yahoo.com>
To: <bhaskar-AT-lists.village.Virginia.EDU>
Sent: Wednesday, January 14, 2004 3:38 PM
Subject: BHA: Global Governance


>
> Dick
>
>
>
> I disagree with you... In most cases - during the accession process and
once a country is a full member - the WTO, DOES make policies that are
implemented domestically and these implementation of these policies, or
conditionalities if you will, ARE INDEED conditions for continued
membership. I am perfectly satisfied that global governance is a reality
while some of us may regard it as such or not.
>
>
>
> Someone made the point about social relations... My understanding of
Bhaskar, at this stage of reading, is that structures exist and endure,
whether individuals engage them or not.
>
>
>
> I apply this to the WTO as follows: The rules and legal texts of the WTO
(essentially the GATT) as well as its institutional ideology and structures
exist prior to poor countries, like, say, Niger becoming member-countries.
>
>
>
> To put it more crudely; sure they can come and make their own economic
policies, or choices, but they do it under conditions that are not of their
own making. The post-war liberal international economic order was created by
the dominant powers in the immediate post-war years and the new entries to
international society (in the form of independant countries) have to accept
teh rules. in fact, they are quite powerless to change it.
>
>
>
> I believe something akin to global governance emerged with the expansion
of European powers in the 15th century. The anthropologist, Eric Wolf
explains
>
>
>
> [a]ll struggles for dominance within Europe would take on a global
character, as the European states sought to control the oceans and to oust
their competitors from points of vantage gained in Asia, America, or Africa.
>From then on, too, events in one part of the globe would have repercussions
in other parts. The several continents would be drawn into one worldwide
system (my emphasis) of connections. (Wolf 1982: 129)
>
>
>
> Branko Milanovic argues that global governance,
>
>
>
> [w]as brought to the many "at the point of a gun" . many were "globalised"
literally kicking and screaming, from Commodore Perry's ultimatum which
opened Japan, to British and French gunboat diplomacy in Tunisia, Egypt and
Zanzibar, to the Opium wars and gunboats that patrolled Chinese internal
waterways" (Milanovic 2003: 3)
>
>
>
> In fact, By 1900 the world was pretty much divided into colonies, spheres
of influence and interest of the Europeans, North Americans and Japan, and
tied together into a lattice of "inter-imperial institutions" like the gold
standard and the balance of power (Murphy 2000: 789 - 790). Late 19th
century globalisation in a sense, completed global governance during the
Halcyon days of 1870 - 1913, when vast swathes of people in distant corners
of the world were governed (in most cases, without their consent) by the
metropolitan governments
>
>
>
>
>
> once again, appreciate the exchange...
>
>
>
> Ismail
>
>
>
>
> There May be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there
never must be a time when we fail to protest." Elie Wiesel (1928- ) Writer,
Nobel Laureate
>
> ---------------------------------
>   Yahoo! Messenger - Communicate instantly..."Ping" your friends today!
Download Messenger Now
>
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