Page 248 - Contemporary Political Sociology Globalization Politics and Power

234 Globalization and Democracy

the same degree of popular impact, nevertheless requires a similar trans-
formation in perspectives. As well as addressing possibilities of extending
human rights through regulation in different ways, we must also come to
see ourselves differently as members of local, national, and global political
communities with obligations to other members of those communities as
well as rights. Again, even if many of us become less mobile, more local,
with the growth of environmental awareness, this will involve a shift in
personal identity, in how we relate to “ distant suffering ” and to those
who do move across borders for work or to escape war and persecution.
It will also require the fundamental re - evaluation of priorities in the West
as, like the environmental movement, the global justice movement surely
requires far less consumer - oriented ways of life. If citizenship is to become
more equal within states, while at the same time the exploitation in which
Western states are involved that raises the standard of living of people
here is ended, serious questions will need to be addressed about the sus-
tainability of the ways of life most of us take for granted.
In this book, we have been concerned only with the cultural politics of
egalitarian, “ progressive ” movements. These movements are inherently
democratizing insofar as they open up questions concerning how to live
that were previously settled or taken for granted, and make discussion of
the issues possible, and necessary, across different groups and in different
social contexts. They raise issues on which everyone must make decisions
for themselves, and, insofar as this is the case, everyone participates in
the ongoing consideration of how fundamental questions might be
resolved. In this respect, the questions raised by cultural politics are demo-
cratically contested, even if some individuals and groups are more articu-
late, better organized, or better placed to make their defi nitions of the
issues acceptable to the majority.
The cultural politics of progressive movements tends, then, to lead to
a greater degree of pluralism. Their effect in liberal - democracies has been
to open up sites of contestation and to keep them open. In large part, this
is because these movements were formed through resistance to hegemonic
interpretations of how society should be organized, encoded in policies
and laws that have been unjust or negligent in their consequences. Again,
the women ’ s movement is exemplary. Despite fears of “ political correct-
ness, ” a wide range of personal and professional life choices are now
acceptable for both men and women. At the same time, the issue of equal-
ity between the sexes is a recurring one in the media, in daily life, and in
relation to policy - making and the law. The cultural politics of the women ’ s
movement has been broadly democratizing, then, as it has tended to be

identified with claims that individuals should have the right to choose