This may be of interest to some. It contains excerpts of a review article
of some recent publications by Manuel Castells. The review article is by
Felix Stalder, a graduate student at the Univ. of Toronto.
The entire review can be found at
http://www.slis.indiana.edu/TIS/stalder.htm
Arthur Cordell
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The Network Paradigm: Social Formations in the Age of
Information
by Felix Stalder
([EMAIL PROTECTED])
The Rise of the Network Society, The Information Age: Economy, Society
and Culture, Vol. I. M.
Castells (1996). Cambridge, MA; Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 556 pp., ISBN
1-55786-617-1
The Power of Identity, The Information Age: Economy, Society and
Culture, Vol. II. M. Castells
(1997). Cambridge, MA; Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 461 pp., ISBN
1-55786-874-3
The End of the Millennium, The Information Age: Economy, Society and
Culture, Vol. III. M.
Castells (1997). Cambridge, MA; Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 418 pp., ISBN
1-55786-872-7
Manuel Castells+ The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture
(1996, 1997 and 1998) is unrivaled in
ambition: to make sense of the global social dynamics as they arise out
of a myriad of changes around the world. It is a
cross-cultural analysis of the major social, economic and political
transformations at the end of this century. It is
presented through interrelated empirical case studies whose number and
variety are truly enormous-the bibliography
alone fills 120 pages-and threatens to overwhelm the reader at times.
Nevertheless, the trilogy is prodigious and sets a
new standard against which all future meta-accounts of the Information
Society will be measured. It will be
indispensable reading for anyone interested in a grand narrative of the
present.
Castells+ main argument is that a new form of capitalism has emerged at
the end of this century: global in its character,
hardened in its goals and much more flexible than any of its
predecessors. It is challenged around the globe by a
multitude of social movements on behalf of cultural singularity and
people+s control over their own lives and
environment. This tension provides the central dynamic of the
Information Age, as "our societies are increasingly
structured around the bipolar opposition of the Net and the Self"
(1996, p. 3). The Net stands for the new
organizational formations based on the pervasive use of networked
communication media. Network patterns are
characteristic for the most advanced economic sectors, highly
competitive corporations as well as for communities and
social movements. The Self symbolizes the activities through which
people try to reaffirm their identities under the
conditions of structural change and instability that go along with the
organization of core social and economic activities
into dynamic networks. New social formations emerge around primary
identities, which may be sexual, religious, ethnic,
territorial or national in focus. These identities are often seen as
biologically or socially unchangeable, contrasting with
the fast-paced change of social landscapes. In the interplay of the Net
and the Self the conditions of human life and
experience around the world are deeply reconfigured.
<snip, snip.....>
Castells identifies three types of identity which are related to
different social associations:
1. Legitimizing identity: introduced by the dominant institutions of
society to extend and rationalize their domination
over social actors. Legitimizing identities generate civil societies
and their institutions, which reproduce what Max Weber
called "rationale Herrschaft" (rational power).
2. Resistance identity: produced by those actors who are in a
position/condition of being excluded by the logic of
domination. Identity for resistance leads to the formation of communes
or communities as a way of coping with
otherwise unbearable conditions of oppression.
3. Project identity: proactive movements which aim at transforming
society as a whole, rather than merely establishing
the conditions for their own survival in opposition to the dominant
actors. Feminism and environmentalism fall under this
category (1997, pp. 10-12).
<snip, snip.....>
The classic embodiment of legitimizing identity, the nation state, is
losing its power, "although, and this is essential, not
its influence" (1997, p. 243). The loss of power stems from a loss of
sovereignty, effected by the globalization of core
economic activities, of media, of communication and, very importantly,
the globalization of crime and law enforcement.
The most obvious example of the loss of sovereignty can be found in the
currency exchange markets, which have, since
the late 1980s, outgrown the capacities of the central banks to control
them. They now link up national currencies. This
enforces financial coordination undermining the possibilities of
national governments to formulate independent economic
policy. As the former CEO of CitiBank, Walter Wriston, enthusiastically
hails: "The global market has produced what
amounts to a giant vote-counting machine that conducts a running tally
of what the world thinks of a government+s
diplomatic, fiscal, and monetary policy. That opinion is immediately
reflected in the value a market places on a country+s
currency" (Wriston, 1992, p. 9). Manuel Castells, more soberly, calls
this "commodified democracy of profit making"
(1996, p. 472).
Globalization has put the welfare state under double stress. Not only
are national budgets tighter under the coercion of
global financial markets, but also global firms can take advantage of
cost differentials in social benefits and standards. As
a result, "welfare states are being downsized to the lowest common
denominator that keeps spiraling downwards"
(1997, p. 254). Nevertheless, the nation state remains crucially
important because it is still the only legitimized entity
from which multilateralism can be built to address increasingly
pressing global problems. However, this proves to be a
dilemma. On the one hand, it increases the pressure on the nation state
to effect decisions in the international arena and,
on the other, it diminishes its credibility in the area of domestic
policy by constraining it in an ever more restrictive
network of global agreements.
The result is a crisis of political liberal democracy. The nation state
loses its ability to integrate its own constituency, an
integration which has been achieved through locally built instruments
of the welfare state. At the same time, the policy
process disappears into an increasingly abstract arena of international
organizations. The traditional institutions of
democracy are caught in a fundamental contradiction. "The more the
states emphasize communalism, the less
effective they become as co-agents in the global system of shared
power. The more they triumph on a planetary scene,
the less they represent their national constituencies" (1997, p. 308).
The more the nation state withdraws from its
citizens, the greater grows the need to find alternative sources of
identity. Trapped between the increased articulation of
diverse, often conflicting identities and the need to act on a global
scene, the traditional democratic institutions-the civil
society-are being voided of meaning and legitimacy: they lose their
identity. The power of the political democracy,
ironically at the moment when it reaches almost global acceptance,
seems to be inevitably waning.................
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