Peter Spiro's portrayal of my book Beyond Citizenship illustrates the very problem we have in confronting the underlying causes of global crises and envisioning alternatives to existing models of governance. Legal scholar and activist Boaventura de Sousa Santos argued quite cogently in 2007 that the struggle for global social justice is also a struggle for global cognitive justice (“Beyond Abyssal Thinking: From Global Lines to Ecologies of Knowledges,” Eurozine, at http://eurozine.com/pdf/2007-06-29-santos-en.pdf). In order to succeed, this struggle requires a new kind of thinking. Such new thinking is apparent in many contemporary social movements, but academic training and practice inhibits our ability to appreciate the wisdom of those deemed less worthy to speak to the grand questions of our day.

Steeped in the discipline of law, but also—as is clear from his own book—keenly aware of our need to think beyond existing legal and institutional structures, Spiro is unable to grasp the complexities of my arguments. He reduces my discussion of a diverse and networked civil society to more formal, professional (and in his mind, mainly large and rich) “NGOs.” He also misses my analyses of how global institutions and alignments shape the operation of power in the global political economy.

Spiro agrees with the main contention of my book, namely, that “social movements are already democratizing global governance.” But I do not think this is evidenced by the World Bank's and World Trade Organization's attempts to integrate civil society actors—which have typically been done in ways that marginalize critical voices and limit civil society participation to project support, rather than policy influence.

What Spiro presents here is a caricature of a much more nuanced and complex account of how power operates in the contemporary global economy. While civil society actors have had some influence on global institutions and processes, this does not mean that they are effectively able to influence global policies. Yes, global institutions threatened with a loss of legitimacy have sought to recoup popular support by reaching out to civil society. The World Economic Forum does invite a few privileged nongovernmental organizations to attend their annual meetings. But in the book, I show that these responses have not offered space for true participation, accountability, and democracy, and therefore are unlikely to solve the legitimacy problem these institutions face.

Social movements and the various actors that comprise them have been articulating a vision of global integration that emphasizes democracy, human rights, and ecological sustainability over economic growth and markets. The cases in the book illustrate how networks of civil society actors have advanced democratic globalization even as neoliberal globalization expanded. The challenge now is to find ways to reduce the power of the corporate elite that has advanced the unsustainable neoliberal model of globalization and fueled the major social crises we face. Corporate social responsibility and consumer-based movements will not solve this problem, and that is certainly not an argument I make in this book. At the same time, we need to find ways to strengthen the capacities of civil society actors and to rethink national societies.

It is here that I find the most interesting grounds for conversations across Spiro's and my books. Both of us agree that the national state is a social entity that has evolved over time and that it is in a state of flux, given the changes brought by globalization. Neoliberal globalization has gutted the state, stripping it of much of its capacity for regulation and welfare provision (including the protection of citizenship rights). My analysis—as well as those of many groups I have studied—calls for a rethinking and reordering of national and global structures of representation. If a more democratic form of governance is to emerge, citizens and the social movements they comprise must gain power relative to corporations. Moreover, movement leaders must think creatively about the future roles and shapes of national and global institutions as they advance visions of other possible worlds.