Download - LSE Theses Online - London School of Economics and ...

experienced international marginalisation, and those that are facing challenges ofdevelopment and political articulation themselves; those who have fallen prey tomoral universalism, and those who seek to resist it.2.4 Internationalism and the StateWhat role is there for the state in Southern internationalism? In recent years, it hasappeared that ‘global civil society’ has assumed much of the responsibility forrepresenting the interests of the Global South. This was evident in protests such asthe Battle for Seattle in 1999, and in more recent campaigns to cancel Third Worlddebt, and to raise the profile of international development issues in developedcountries. In addition to this, rightful scepticism may be attached to any attempt atideological posturing and solidarity on the part of certain states in the developingworld, whose records of democratic governance are not unblemished. As notedearlier, however, it was in the name of the state and independence for peoplessubject to colonialism that earlier forms of internationalism in the developing worldtook shape. As Brennan notes, “Good dialectical sense would suggest that a politicalform born in the epoch of colonial conquest [the state] might play some role inresisting the next stage of imperial hegemony”. 128 The state in the South is avaluable vehicle for the practice of internationalism, as will be shown in this section,although some important challenges still remain.Each era of internationalism since its apotheosis after World War I has had cause tore-fashion itself in response to its assumptions about the state. As Sylvest notes,prior to the outbreak of World War I, a conception of internationalism prevailedwhich had little to do with the state. 129 The term ‘internationalism’ was first used inEnglish in the 19 th century, to denote a range of relations, from transnationalrelations of any kind, to specific liberal concepts of imperialism (the moralconception) 130 and has most frequently been linked, with reference to the earlytwentieth century, to the calls for the establishment of international institutions in128 Timothy Brennan, “Cosmopolitanism and Internationalism” New Left Review, 7(January-February, 2001): 76.129 Casper Sylvest, “Beyond the State? Pluralism and Internationalism in EarlyTwentieth-Century Britain”, International Relations, 21, No.1 (2007): 73.130 Sylvest, “Continuity and Change”, 265-266.71