Glocalization Manifesto

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Source

  • Article: Glocal Democracy; a Philosophical Platform for Democracy 2.0. By: Leif Thomas Olsen

Text

By: Leif Thomas Olsen

Uri Savir, a former Israeli diplomat then heading the Peres Center for Peace in Tel-Aviv. This initiative lead to the setting up of the Glocal Forum in 2001, a stakeholder-body aimed at promoting peace and mutual understanding, ‘while striving to create a new social and economic balance through city-to-city cooperation’ (The Glocalization Manifesto, 2004). This initiative came to blend with the neo-liberal ideas of glocalism (see above), although the manifesto itself lacks any such ideological or academic references, and/or -analysis.

The manifesto is nevertheless based on a joint study by the Glocal Forum, CERFE (Centro di Ricerca e Documentazione Febbraio ’74) and the World Bank Institute. This study (Glocalization; Research Study and Policy Recommendations, 2003) is full not only of such analysis and references, but also of recommendations.

It highlights e.g. the following (ibid, pp 1-4):

  • that it intends to outline a new strategy of international cooperation,
  • that it recognizes that actors and social relations at the local level have acquired crucial importance,
  • that no serious [ … ] sustainable development can ultimately succeed if an adequate degree of stability is not attained at all levels, from local to global,
  • that ‘governance of globalization’ requires bringing the benefits of globalization to local levels and empowering local realities so that they can contribute to the global decision-making process,
  • that the movement towards glocalization is strengthened by the characteristics of the knowledge society.

When it comes to more concrete recommendations, this report lists the following:

  • City diplomacy and city-to-city cooperation;
  • Socio-economic local development, aiming at an appropriate and well-balanced management of relations between the local and global dimension;
  • Culture, as a key factor in breaking down the barriers between peoples and human groups and as a powerful instrument of balancing the global and the local (in another part of the document referred to as ‘real multiculturalism’);
  • Tourism, at the same time a crucial force for local social development and a key instrument for peace and mutual understanding;
  • Sport, as a vehicle to deliver strong peace-building models and to provide concrete psychosocial dividends, especially to youth;
  • Youth empowerment, as a way to activate and support those who can be considered as key actors in glocalization policies;
  • Information and Communication Technology, as an instrument to foster relations and contacts between cultures and, at the same time, a key catalyst for economic development;

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