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Including the Excluded in Global Politics

Global democracy is a thoroughly contested notion. However, most would agree that, whatever form it might take, global democracy would need to involve recognition, respect, voice and influence for all affected people. Yet such inclusion is far from available in global politics as currently practiced. On the contrary, in today’s more global world many people are denied, degraded, silenced and oppressed. Often this exclusion is deeply entrenched, for example on lines of age, caste, class, disability, faith, gender, gender identity, geography, knowledge, nationality, race and sexual orientation.

What determines these various forms of marginalisation? How can this disempowerment be overcome? What can be done – and by whom – to increase inclusion in global politics for subordinated people? What kinds of inclusion are wanted, in what circumstances, and for what kinds of change? How can people learn to recognise and understand the marginalised in global politics? What kinds of strategies advance empowerment for those who tend otherwise to be disempowered? What kinds of approaches do not deliver?

Exploring the issues

On 13-15 April 2011 the Building Global Democracy programme convened a discussion in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil to explore these issues. The workshop was one of the main activities of BGD’s Including the Excluded in Global Politics project. Some 35 persons from 24 countries spread across all world regions participated. Contributors included activists, policymakers and researchers with rich experience in struggles to counter arbitrary social hierarchies and discriminations.

The three-day Rio conversation explored questions of including the excluded in relation to a range of concrete cases. Workshop sessions considered the experiences in global politics of: Afro-descendent women; children; Dalits; indigenous peoples; informal urban settlements; Islamic finance; lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender persons; minority nationalities; peasants; persons with disabilities; and small island countries. As summarised under the headings below, the workshop discussions considered ways to understand exclusions as well as how to counter them.

Our findings shared

The present statement seeks to offer wider audiences a flavour of these three days of exchanges. It is impossible for any summary to capture the full breadth and depth of the conversations. Nor does this document present a consensus statement of the participants. Nevertheless, the workshop raised broad issues and propositions that can be of interest to larger debates on, and struggles for, global democracy.

Understanding Exclusions

Politics of naming

1.       Like earlier BGD workshops in Cairo and Delhi, the Rio conversation revealed much ambiguity and contestation around key concepts, including in this case ‘inclusion’, ‘exclusion’, ‘global’ and ‘democracy’. As in previous BGD encounters, the Rio exchanges repeatedly suggested that these terms need major renovation in the context of building global democracy.

2.     ‘Inclusion’ is not a straightforward concept. People hold diverse and sometimes contradictory notions. It is important always to ask: inclusion on what terms, for what purposes, and to whose benefit?

3.       Great care and political sensitivity is required when naming excluded groups: for instance, ‘peasant’ or ‘farmer’; ‘disabled person’ or ‘person with disability’; ‘minority’ or ‘minoritised’ people. The question of how the oppressed name themselves (and resist objectionable namings by others) is part of the struggle.

What does inclusion mean?

4.     Inclusion has cultural aspects in terms of access to identity, ecological aspects in terms of access to habitat, economic aspects in terms of access to resources, and political aspects in terms of access to power. Some movements stress one or the other aspect more, while others take on culture, ecology, economics and politics at the same time.

5.      Some visions seek inclusion within an existing social order, while others seek inclusion through structural change of the society. The relationship between shallower reform and deeper transformation is a core strategic question in any mobilisation for inclusion in global politics.

6.       People seek inclusion in global politics for a variety of purposes. Sometimes recognition, respect, voice and influence can be pursued as ends in themselves. Sometimes they can be means to other ends such as material security and self-determination.

7.     More fundamentally than inclusion, excluded people generally seek empowerment.

Mapping exclusions

8.     Exclusion in global politics can be obvious or subtle, deliberate or unconscious, long term or momentary. Exclusion also changes over time: in the forms that it takes; and in the actions and attitudes through which it is expressed.

9.      No excluded group in global politics is monolithic. All of the marginalised circles considered in the IEGP project contain large internal diversities. These diversities can both complicate and enrich struggles for empowerment. More attention is required to ways of negotiating through diversities so that they become sources of strength rather than division.

10.   Lines of exclusion can intersect and thereby deepen marginalisation: for example, as gender meets race. At the same time, intersecting subordinations can also provide bases for cross-movement alliances: for example, as sexual orientation meets HIV/AIDS.

11.   Exclusion in global politics is closely interconnected with exclusion on other scales: regional, national, local, household. It is an ongoing challenge to connect struggles for inclusion globally with empowerment in other spheres.

12.   Statistics can be important in making exclusions visible. The absence of relevant data can hide structural subordinations, especially from those who do not experience them. However, numbers can also be used to reinforce exclusion, for example, when indigenous peoples or Pacific island populations are depicted as being ‘insignificantly’ small.

13.   It is important not only to map exclusions in a descriptive sense, but also to explain how and why these exclusions occur. An explanation of exclusion identifies the main forces that a struggle for empowerment must resist and change. That said, people often hold contrasting accounts of the causes of exclusion and pursue correspondingly different strategies against it.

Countering Exclusions

Tools for empowerment

14.   Working collaboratively to enhance the capacity of marginalized groups is essential for all struggles against exclusion in global politics. Building authoritative and accountable leadership is also key for effective democratic movements.

15.   Global networking among excluded people is an important political tool in contemporary struggles for empowerment. Global associations and exchanges figure significantly in most movements, and where global connections are missing they would probably help.

16.   Collaborations across movements for empowerment should be developed further and more imaginatively than has generally been the case to date. Going beyond one’s silo requires recognition of wider agendas and an allocation of political energies that also addresses the needs of allies. Cross-movement exchanges can generate greater understanding of the social transformations required to address exclusions.

17.   Many movements for empowerment have made an impact by invoking a human rights discourse and utilising global human rights instruments. Some worry that a human rights emphasis can underplay economic aspects of empowerment, though in other cases it has strengthened struggles for access to resources. In addition, some worry that the currently prevailing human rights framework can be used to impose western norms if the diversity of cultural contexts is not taken into account.

18.   Quotas and other formal rules to ensure inclusion of one or the other social category might be helpful in global politics. Implementation of such measures needs to be carefully executed and monitored if they are to fulfil their potentials of empowerment.

19.   Mass media and new digital technologies are vital in many campaigns for more inclusive global politics. That said, one must always ask critical questions about what kinds of inclusion electronic communications are advancing. For example, mainstream broadcasters may give little attention to more transformational movements, and indigenous peoples may have little access to Internet. And not to forget that those in power can equally use these communications technologies as tools to further marginalise the excluded.

20.   Literature and other creative arts can be powerful channels to bring the cause of excluded people to global audiences.

Spaces of engagement for change

21.   The role of NGOs in struggles for inclusion in global politics varies by context. In some cases (e.g. LGBT campaigns) legally established and protected NGOs have significantly advanced recognition, respect, voice and influence on desired terms. In other cases (e.g. people living in poverty) there is a history of NGOs ‘acting upon’ and ‘speaking for’ marginalised people without having a mandate to represent them. The key point is that excluded groups self-organise, whether they do so through NGOs or other types of association.

22.   The place of the state in strivings for inclusion in global politics is contested. Some argue that marginalised people should look to their (democratic) state to champion their cause in global affairs. Others (e.g. many indigenous people) regard the state as itself a source of exclusion and seek empowerment through other channels.

23.   Opinions differ regarding whether, when, how and why movements for inclusion should engage with global governance institutions – and, if so, which ones. Most excluded groups have pursued involvement with United Nations agencies and/or other multilateral bodies as a more or less significant aspect of their struggles. However, owing to legacies of colonialism and other historical subordinations some marginalised circles regard ‘global governance’ with caution if not outright suspicion.

24.   Movements for empowerment in global politics need to look at ‘participation’ in official governance with critical scrutiny. Is it mere attendance or active involvement? On what terms and for whose benefit does official ‘consultation’ with the excluded take place?

A fuller exploration of these issues is undertaken in forthcoming summaries of the ten IEGP case studies. This account of the Rio conversation on Including the Excluded in Global Politics can also be read in conjunction with the summary accounts of preceding BGD workshops in Cairo on questions of Conceptualising Global Democracy and in Delhi on questions of Learning for Global Democracy.

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