Professor of Sociology at Columbia University for twenty years, Amitai Etzioni is now Professor at The George Washington University, where he is the D...

Professor of Sociology at Columbia University for twenty years, Amitai Etzioni is now Professor at The George Washington University, where he is the Director of the Institute for Communitarian Policy Studies. In 1990, he founded the Communitarian Network, a no-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to shoring up the moral, social and political foundations of society. He is considered as the leader of the communitarian movement.

Professor Etzioni, what are the relationships between the emerging global civil society and international institutions?

The development of the global architecture must proceed on both "legs", each supporting
the progress of the other. There is a need to develop transnational social networks, social movements, INGOs, and other modes of laying the foundations for a global civil society. At the same time, all societies need to be invested in some institutions, such as legal and political ones. These are the places where differences may be worked out in a peaceful manner, and where the shared decisions reached may be enforced. Above all, in the longer run, it is up to the global institutions to ensure that no people will carry war to another. This is a function of the state, not the civil society. At the same time if we have only institutions but no social foundations, these institutions will lack the public support and the value consensus they require.

Do you think that the idea of a World Government is acceptable as a tool to control globalization?

The Old System, built on nation states and the old type of international organizations, run by representatives of national governments, is very cumbersome, inefficient and slow. It is less and less able to respond effectively to numerous problems that are transnational. These include terrorism, pollution, white slavery, transnational crime and many others. They surely include curbing the side-effects of economic globalization.

How such a political structure can materialize within the UN institutions?

The UN cannot serve as a world government until it is vastly reformed. It also is basically an intergovernmental organization, governed by representatives of states, and hence very cumbersome. In the longer run, we need supranational bodies somewhat like the International Criminal Court. The UN has a role to play as a place where global dialogues do occur, peace-keeping missions are sometimes launched, and legitimacy is bestowed on some national actions and stripped from others. But it cannot, unless greatly modified, serve as an effective world government.

How do you assess the federalist paradigm as a potential instrument to understand and control the globalization process?

The federal paradigm provides a model for world government because it combines shared, "central" (in this case global) missions - with ample room for local (in this case national) missions.