It has been argued that the growth in the number and influence of non-state actors on the international stage is fostering a restructuring of the international order. The adoption of the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production, and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines, and of the Roma Statute of the International Criminal Court, suggests that non-state actors are in a position to construct global norms in collaboration with like-minded states and international organizations.<br>However, the increasingly large and intense protests against globalization over the last 15 years in Seattle, Washington DC, Prague, Genoa and Cancun show that there is mounting anger in some sections of civil society against the current international order based on the neo-liberal economic policies of international economic institutions (IEIs) such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the World Trade Organization. Diverse actors in civil society appear to be growing more anxious about the increasing disparity between the rich and the poor, and about the perception that the current policies of the international order are seriously damaging the global environment and civil security. Because the areas in which sovereign states exercise control are shrinking, it has come down to nonstate actors to promote the control of the currently under-regulated corporate globalization, and to propose an alternative global order.<br>This article attempts to explore the reasons why civil society could play as an agent for constructing global order. First, the concept of civil society is examined in relation to international politics and the global market. Civil society is taken here to refer to a realm in which various nonstate actors —particularly NGOs and social movements— interact and seek to shape social order. Second, efforts by nonstate actors to democratize the UN system and the Ms are examined in relation to the case for reconstructing the global order. Such efforts to transform the current international political and market orders are analyzed. Third, the World Social Forum (WSF), held annually in opposition to the World Economic Forum, is examined as an emerging instrument of civil society that is searching for more effective ways of constructing the global order.<br>In summary, it has become clear that the endeavors of civil society to transform the current international order based on social order are being conducted in the following four ways: by democratizing the UN system and the IEIs through institutionalizing the involvement of civil society; by exerting pressure on private companies to act as responsible corporate citizens; by more effectively linking the protest movements and lobbying of civil society; and by developing alternative policy measures based on social order in contrast with the prevailing neo-liberal economic globalization.