World society

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Some social scientists interpret the globalization of the last few decades as the development of an earth-spanning social network or a comprehensive social system and see in it a society that has already arisen or is just emerging , the world society .

Different approaches

Niklas Luhmann

According to Niklas Luhmann , the expression refers to the expansion of society (understood as the totality of communication that can be reached for one another) beyond national and regional restrictions, based on the system-theoretical idea that social systems are based on communication . World society accordingly presupposes the global spread of communications and, in theory, results from the globalization of media communication . In this concept-defining hypothesis, society is only capable of internal differentiation under the conditions of a global society, because where global real-time communication becomes possible, there is no longer any outside in society. A society as such can no longer itself become an environment under the conditions of the developed modernity. In the context of global society, nations are nothing more than regional societies that are outwardly particularistic and only internally universalistic. What is decisive for Luhmann's approach to global society is that nation states differentiate themselves exclusively in the (global) social functional system of politics. The differentiation of the nation-states thus forms a secondary social differentiation compared to the primary social differentiation into different functional systems. According to Luhmann's concept of society, according to which society is the system in which all potentially connectable communication takes place, today there can only be global society. A division of the world into nation states is reductionist for Luhmann, since communications do not stop at national borders. Nevertheless, according to Luhmann, nation states are important in world society in order to provide contact persons for territorial units for world society. For the global political system it is of secondary importance whether a nation-state is democratic or not, the communicative representation of a territory is the primary focus.

Miriam Meckel

Miriam Meckel elaborated on Luhmann's considerations. She tries to combine systems theory, communication research and globalization theory. The linchpin is communication itself if it is certain that from a system-theoretical point of view, globalization is ultimately globalization of communication. In turn, Meckel takes up Luhmann's idea that with the advancing globalization of mass media and the accompanying expansion of communication, a world society is by definition constituted. This World Society for Meckel in a close relationship with an emerging with the globalization of the media world public to see: world public is the corresponding global society media publicity , but understood as a part of public among many. As such, the world public is constituted in outstanding global media events , especially in the area of crisis communication . Accordingly, the concept of the world public refers to a transcultural journalism like that of CNN International or Al Jazeera English .

Manuel Castells

Manuel Castells brings a different approach , who sees a possible explanation through his "network theory". Nations therefore exist as particularly closely linked networks in the larger global social network.

John W. Meyer

In the world polity approach of the neo-institutionalist John W. Meyer , world society is a system of globally shared norms and values ​​of Western character. These values ​​are disseminated and adopted by organizations because they are perceived as generating legitimacy. Meyer describes this process as isomorphism , which organizations carry through the mechanisms of coercion, imitation or normative pressure. The development of a world social system follows from this isomorphism. However, Meyer does not pursue the goal of presenting a social theory in the narrower sense with his world society thesis, but bundles the empirical observation of the spread of Western institutions under this term. At Meyer, nation states are organizations. As a result, they take on a double role: the state as an institution is a consequence of isomorphism in its spread, but at the same time as an organization it is also the carrier of isomorphism.

Silvio Vietta

In his book Die Weltgesellschaft. How Western rationality has conquered and changed the world , Silvio Vietta derives world society from the history of Western rationality. The invention of occidental rationality in science and technology and in particular the superiority of occidental war technology - in antiquity the phalangeal formations, in modern times the firearms - led to a form of politics as world conquest and to the colonization of the conquered areas. In this process, the concept of world expanded through ever new discoveries and conquests up to today's global society. The standards of economic rationality today define prosperity and poverty, necessitate corresponding migration movements, but have also led to the current crisis of the technical-industrial society.

Criticism of the world society approach

It has not yet been decided whether this global social structure is a society. The central point of criticism - put forward by Helmut Willke , for example, for the systems-theoretical perspective - is that, despite the extensive functional differentiation at the global level, there is no authority with the capacity to determine the context of the other functional systems, as is the task of politics in the nation state is. In addition, the special role of the political system of world society, which is atypical for Luhmann's theory, is also critically assessed.

See also

literature

  • Niklas Luhmann: The Society of Society. DNB 953125688 , Volume I, Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1997, pp. 145 f.
  • Niklas Luhmann: The world society. In: Niklas Luhmann: Sociological Enlightenment. Volume 2, VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 1975, ISBN 3-531-11281-3 , p. 71 ff. (1971, p. 1–35) (= archive for legal and social philosophy 57)
  • Manuel Castells: The Information Age . Volume 1: The Rise of the Network Society. Through Reprint of the 1st edition. Leske + Budrich, Opladen 2003, ISBN 3-8100-3223-9 .
  • Ulrich Beck : What is globalization? ISBN 3-518-40944-1 .
  • Markus Holzinger: Is global society functionally differentiated? Niklas Luhmann's concept of the state in the mirror of para-state violence and informal statehood . In: Political Thinking. Yearbook 2012. Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-428-13959-0 , pp. 201-231.
  • Markus Holzinger: Wrong conclusions about "world society". Some considerations following Bettina Heintz 'and Tobias Werron's sociology of comparison . In: Cologne Journal for Sociology and Social Psychology (KZSS) , issue 2/2014. Pp. 267-289.
  • Markus Holzinger: Why the world society doesn't exist. Critical reflections on some empirical and epistemological problems in the theory of world society . In: Cologne Journal for Sociology and Social Psychology (KZfSS) , 70, No. 2/2018. Pp. 183-211.
  • Miriam Meckel, Markus Kriener: International Communication. An introduction. Westdeutscher Verlag, Opladen 1996, ISBN 3-531-12681-4 .
  • Theresa Wobbe : World Society. transcript Verlag, Bielefeld 2000, ISBN 3-933127-13-0 .
  • Julian Dierkes, Dirk Zorn: Sociological Neo-institutionalism . In: Dirk Kaesler (ed.): Current theories of sociology. CH Beck, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-406-52822-8 , pp. 313-331.
  • Rudolf Stichweh : The world society. Sociological Analysis . Frankfurt am Main 2000.
  • Silvio Vietta: The world society. How western rationality conquered and changed the world. Nomos Verlag, Baden-Baden 2016, ISBN 978-3-8487-2998-2 .

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ cf. explanation in English Wikipedia Isomorphism (sociology)