Globalization within a Global Potemkin Society
Year:
2000 A strategic challenge to proactive participation in society (Part #1)
Introduction
Environment policy
Economic policy
Peace-keeping
Security
International policy
Trade
Foreign policy
Political tours
Urban re-development
Society
Culture
Media
National politics
Technology
Justice
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Introduction
This paper explores the degree to which strategies and initiatives, whether individual or collective, are effectively designed to reinforce a facade. The facade gives the impression of effective action but in fact functions to separate people from the realities of world society on which action is ineffectual or non-existent.
The phrase 'Global Potemkin Society' is an extension of the notion of 'Potemkin Villages'. These derive their notoriety from a grand tour by Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia, of the newly conquered Crimea in 1787. The tour was organized by Prince Grigori Aleksandrovich Potemkin who is purporerted to have ensured that Catherine was only exposed to the prosperous villages along the route. Potemkin's critics in the Imperial Court labeled these villages "Potemkin Villages" and claimed that they were actually inhabited by actors. It was further claimed that the building facades along the route were torn down after the tour passed through and then rebuilt ahead of the tour. Not wanting to disappoint the Empress he had assembled a number of mobile villages to be viewed from the imperial barge. As soon as it had passed out of sight Potemkin's men stripped off their jolly peasant costumes, dismantled the villages and rebuilt them overnight further downstream. However, the principal dupes were foreign ambassadors. But this propensity for creating a sham for show, letting observers see what they want for the sake of what they are worth, has had other expressions throughout the centuries when pretentiously showy or imposing façades are designed to mask or divert attention from an embarrassing or shabby fact or condition.
Thereafter "Potemkin's Village" became synonymous with autocratic attempts to create images that were designed both to hide the unpleasant realities of Russian life and to keep foreign eyes from detecting them.
The following paragraphs are extracts from documents on the web that have been roughly clustered by topic area
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