A Political-Linguistic Approach to Global Governance

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Author: Luisa Godinho (Universidade Autónoma de Lisboa, Portugal)
Speaker: Luisa Godinho
Topic: General Sociolinguistics
The (SCOPUS / ISI) SOAS GLOCAL COMELA 2021 General Session

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Abstract

The recent pandemic has made evident the need for global responses, resurging the issue of global governance, which we propose to discuss in a political-linguistic approach. The global governance, a concept with a long tradition in the humanities and the social sciences, has reappeared after the slow but effective process of erosion of the nation-state. However, its effectiveness depends on the consolidation of a global public sphere, a symbolic space capable of making the connection between world society and global political elites and that may compensate for the void left by the crisis of national public spheres. This symbolic space is based on language and mass-self communication processes, which allow the sharing of meanings around the world. This diffusion of meanings will guarantee the horizontal (between societies) and vertical (between societies and global political elites) communication of the fundamental values ​​of the global social contract.

Keywords: global governance, mass-self communication, public sphere, social contract