This blog provides discussion highlights for the Sunday IR Cafe #69. Conducted on 11th February 2024, the discussion covered World Order Transformation from the Grassroots: Global South Social Movements and the Transcendence of Established Approaches to International Change.
Core Arguments:
- In contrast to the state-centric, top-down reformist and revolutionary approaches to change in world order, Thomas Davies points to the presence of transformationist approaches to bringing change. Driven by social movements from the Global South rooted in local community practices, transformationist approach stands for gradual, long-term change at the societal level that bypasses the state as the agent of change.
- Such an approach sees horizontal exchange facilitating mutual learning, strategizing, and community cooperation as critical to fostering change. The transformationist approach challenges the traditional understanding of the domains of action (local-national-regional-international) and seeks interhuman and communitarian approaches to change.
- Based on the case study of the Global Tapestry of Alternatives (a global network of social movements) and the Pluriverse (a dictionary of post-development approaches), the author highlights the locally-rooted ideas emanating from community practice that pose an alternative to capitalism, nation-state & liberal democracy, anthropocentrism, and various forms of discrimination. Davies also warns against the possibility of cooptation and displacement as challenges to these social movements. Thus, as a prudential strategy in the short-run, he suggests coexistence with the reformist and the revolutionist approaches.
Discussion:
- In focusing on alternative, social movement-based drivers of change, the paper holds up as the model many concepts and practices belonging to localized indigenous communities. It, however, overlooks the possible challenges involved in scaling up such alternatives at a global level. What may work for a small, relatively isolated, and technologically backward community may be inadequate for scaling up as feasible approaches for social ordering at national or global scales. Many of these practices work on the basis of successful socialization of people, but the pedagogical project of diffusing the erstwhile localized practices may itself face roadblocks. The challenge becomes even more acute if linked with the identity concern of various social groups in terms of provoking a backlash. One should, thus, needs to be cautios in terms of how far these alternatives can fly, so to speak.
- A contrarian, more optimistic take on the potential adoption of such indigenous alternatives can point to the praxeological success of the Western enlightenment tradition. While such a paradigm has a universal purchase (as well as contestation) today, these ideas also once were the providence of a small, localized section of global civil society, concentrated mainly in Western Europe. It was through both the undergirding of material power base and legitimate appeal that such ideas were diffused, selectively adopted, and contested. On this count, we need not be cynical about the potential purchase of alternative, indigenous conceptions. Another related take involves stressing the role of mutual learning in bridging identity differences. The adopted practices can also be modified to suit the needs of people in different localities. Though, the paper itself does not provide a strategy for change; rather, it is an account of approaches that seek to bring change from the Global South.
- We also need to be open to the possibility of failings of alternative ideas. Our experience with the variants of radical alternative experiments that have been tried in the West, including the counterculture phenomenon of the 1960s, should serve as a cautionary note. At the state level, the disastrous experience of 20th-century global communism (including its Asian variants), which posited itself as an alternative to capitalism and liberal democracy, comes across as another example.
- The GTA initiative taken up as a case study in the paper is centered on indigenous concepts and practices, but it clearly seeks to weld them to progressive politics. For instance, its criteria for identifying alternatives include opposition to liberal democracy and capitalism. One, however, need not agree in toto with such an alternative reading of both the problems that afflict the global order and solutions thereof. The principle of decentralization, for instance, might have advantages, but it can also foster the continuation of unequal hierarchies as localized elites resistant to change would hold onto power. In contrast, a centralized federal government can be used to serve progressive ends by using the rule of law. Hypothetically, a gram panchayat-based governance model on Gandhian lines could have seen less progress in combating caste-based discrimination than a democratic state. In the case of the US, states’ rights served as a justification for the slaveholders to defend their privilege against what they saw as the federal government’s encroachment. Likewise, the role of global capitalism combined with the welfare state in eradicating poverty can’t be overlooked as a viable model.
- Yet another popular post-development alternative in terms of food sovereignty warrants criticism. As George Monbiot makes it clear in his analysis, high yields per hectare and globalized supply chains are essential to take care of the dietary needs of a growing population: “A paper in the journal Nature Food found that only a quarter of the world’s people could be fed with staple grain crops grown within 100 kilometres of where they live. The average minimum distance at which the world’s people can be supplied with staple foods, it found, is 2,200 kilometres.” Many of the densely populated urban centers, as well as sparsely populated tough habitats, are unable to grow their own food at a sufficient scale to meet their needs, which should caution us against the notion of food sovereignty. Further, in contrast to a localized food supply chain prone to crop failure, a globalized supply chain would induce more resilience. While interdependence fosters its own set of vulnerabilities, the solution lies not in going local but in looking for alternatives at a feasible cost in terms of shock-proofing the supply chain.
- Finally, the post-development agenda outlined in the paper might be unsuited for the Global South, where lack of development is the foremost issue affecting people’s living standards. Depriving these nations of the current system, admittedly imperfect, would amount to a neglect of their immediate needs. Most Global South countries are still working to achieve adequate baseline infrastructure, healthcare access, education, employment opportunities, and nutrition for average citizens. Though flaws exist, the dominant global paradigm has lifted billions from extreme poverty. Abandoning this momentum risks worse outcomes. A more pragmatic way forward entails learning from the global merits and pitfalls of various societal models. The practical approach would integrate viable options and solutions into the existing paradigm rather than seeking to undo the progress made.
- The paper does a really good job of contributing to the burgeoning IR literature on indigenous movements. It allows us to go beyond the operations of state, capital, and intergovernmental organizations to think of alternatives in terms of societal forces. Further, in its focus on the indigenous, the paper reveals the need for and the possibility of conducting research beyond the paradigm of modernity.
(Discussion Transcript by Aniket Kumar and Kunal Kumar. Editing by Sanjeet Kashyap)