This concluding chapter examines the process of globalization more fully. The chapter begins by defining globalization and its major features. Globalization is a controversial process with staunch advocates and opponents. The final section of the chapter examines several possible futures that might follow from today’s trends. The chapter concludes that global politics is growing more complex, and as a result, we are less and less in control of our fates.
1. What is globalization?
The process is characterized by the rapid and intensive movement of persons, things, and ideas across national frontiers and the growing difficulty of sovereign states to control their own fate.
a) Features of globalization
Some of the most important features of globalization are globe girdling communications and transportation systems, growing knowledge and political participation of citizens everywhere, the dominance of a global economic market, the spread of a secular, consumerist culture, the use of English, the growing attraction of democracy, and the networking of NGOs.
b) Competing perspectives on globalization
- Hyperglobalists believe that changes in the global economy are creating a borderless economy in which territorial states are becoming obsolete as economic units.
- Skeptics argue that globalization is no greater than in the past and it certainly is not eroding the significance of the state.
- Transformationalists view globalization as new and revolutionary. It is merging foreign and domestic policy areas and producing an environment in which states are weakening.
2. The globalization debate
Globalization is a very controversial process. Controversies focus on whether it is reversible and whether it is beneficial or harmful.
a) The anti-globalizers
Critics of globalization argue that the process reduces democracy, widens the economic gap between rich and poor, undermines local cultures and traditions, fosters criminal activities and massive migrations, promotes environmental and human-rights abuses, and mainly benefits an oligarchy of giant transnational corporations.
b) The pro-globalizers
Adherents of globalization argue that it reduces baneful nationalism and increases interdependence, thereby helping to prevent wars; increases overall prosperity, especially in the developing world; enhances civic society; and promotes solutions to collective dilemmas.
3. The State in Decline?
The authority and capacity of the territorial state have eroded in a variety of ways, and many contemporary states are unable to meet the demands that citizens place upon them.
a) The Limits of Sovereignty
Although state sovereignty has always been honored in the breach, in the present epoch it provides states with less and less protection from external interference, and it tells less and less about real states.
b) The Sovereign State: Sharing Center Stage
The sovereign, territorial state that dominated global politics for over three centuries must now share pride of place with a host of other actors, including international and nongovernmental organizations.
4. A future dimly seen
Global politics in the future is likely to combine change and continuity as it has in the past. A variety of key trends allows us to speculate about how the future will look.
a) Key trends
- Globalization is intensifying.
- Free market capitalism continues to spread.
- Global power is diffusing more widely.
- The global environment is deteriorating.
- Democracy is spreading, and political participation is growing.
- The role of territory and geography are declining.
- Territorial states are losing their autonomy.
- Conventional interstate war is declining; irregular violence is growing.
- Religious, ethnic, and civilizational identities are intensifying.
- Intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations are proliferating and are beginning to form a nascent global civil society.
- Human rights are gaining wider acceptance.
- The definition of what security means is broadening.
b) Alternative futures
Four models of the future encompass these trends. There is evidence for all four, and they are not mutually incompatible.
- A Globalized World
- Market forces dominate governments, and states have little control over their economic destinies.
- Transnational corporations are responsible for the well-being of people everywhere.
- A World of Liberal Institutions
- Global norms have evolved as constructivists predict.
- International and nongovernmental organizations enforce global norms on states and intervene in crises that threaten humanitarian disasters.
- The UN experience in East Timor illustrates the potential of IGOs and NGOs.
- A World in Chaos
- This is a future dominated by failed states and failed institutions, continuous violence, growing economic gaps, disease pandemics, environmental catastrophes, and organized crime.
- Such chaos might trigger a search for authoritarian solutions.
- A Realist World
- The state system has revived owing to a breakdown of global authority or to a new era of old tensions among major powers.
- The most likely path back to a realist world would be the reaction to U.S. unilateral policies that other major states have viewed as dangerous.
- Although unlikely, states might try to balance American power.
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Q1 What is globalization?
A1 Globalization consists of economic, cultural, and political processes that knit people around the world together. It is, in other words, interconnectedness in all aspects of social life, the result of which is that people living all around the world have shared fates. As a result of the microelectronic revolution and advances in transportation, mutual awareness is growing as a result of the dramatic increase in the flow of people, ideas, and things across national borders. Among the key features of globalization are: (1) the spread of global communication, (2) the growing political participation of people in global politics, (3) the emergence of a global market, (4) the diffusion of a secular and consumerist culture, (5) the spread of English as a global language, (6) the spread of democratic institutions and norms, and (7) the networking of groups to form a nascent global civil society.
Q2 What are the main perspectives on globalization?
A2 Three perspectives toward globalization have been identified by David Held and his colleagues. The first called hyperglobalist consists of neoliberals and Marxists who focus on the unprecedented emergence of a single global market in which transnational corporations compete on a global scale. Neoliberals focus on the absolute growth in global wealth, and Marxists on the growing economic inequality between rich and poor both within and among states. The second perspective, which is held by skeptics, also focuses on the economic dimension but argues that economic interdependence was even greater in the 19th century. In their view, globalization features high levels of international trade and regional trading groups that they think will impede global economic integration. A third perspective, called transformationalist, sees globalization as revolutionizing the economic, social, and politics worlds, eliminating the difference between foreign and domestic affairs, reducing the importance of territory, erasing physical distance, and pulling states in two directions—toward larger and more encompassing systems and toward smaller, more intimate local polities—and, therefore, eroding state capabilities.
Q3 Is globalization a good or bad thing?
A3 Those who dislike globalization consist of groups such as environmentalists and trade unionists who believe that states can protect their interests. They argue that globalization reduces democracy, creates a cut-throat world in which economic inequality is growing, forces countries to reduce welfare and social programs, allows giant corporations to pollute the environment and pursue policies that harm workers, promote massive migrations, homogenizes local tastes, and undermines local customs and elites. Those who favor globalization regard the modern state as a source of war and oppression and are happy to see it become weaker. They point of the growth in global wealth, the erosion of protection for human-rights abuses, the spread of liberal democracy that will promote peace, the elimination of disreputable local custom like genital mutilation of women, and the spread of information and technology that promote democracy and allow ordinary people to express opinion about major issues.
Q4 Is the state in decline?
A4 State sovereignty was never absolute, but in some respects it does seem to be growing less important. Realists feel strongly about the importance of state sovereignty and are less likely to admit its erosion than liberal who always thought it was a barrier to helping individuals and constructivists who perceives changes in global norms away from sovereignty. Today, there are many sovereign states, but most are minor or weak, and rank well below many large corporations in terms of wealth. In addition, governments around the world are reducing or privatizing their social and welfare programs, and ever more countries have become or are becoming "failed states." In addition, state boundaries are becoming increasingly porous, and nonstate actors ranging from giant corporations to humanitarian organizations and terrorist groups are challenging state authority and attracting human loyalties. The state may not be disappearing but increasingly it shares authority with other groups and is less and less about to meet the demands of its citizens or protect them from external threats.
Q5 What does the future portend?
A5 There is evidence for a number of possible global futures. One foresees the triumph of globalization and the dominance of economic forces and economic logic. This is a future much desired by liberals. This possible future would be the outcome of such trends as intensified globalization, the spread of capitalism, the diffusion of global economic power, widening democracy, the declining importance of territory, and the erosion of state autonomy. A second possible future, also desired by liberals, entails a restructuring of the global system to provide a greater role for international and nongovernmental organization. Whether it becomes a reality depends on the continuation of some of the trends mentioned above plus others such as a changing definition of security, the proliferation of IGOs and NGOs and formation of global civil society, and the spreading acceptance of human rights. A third possibility is a world of escalating chaos brought on by the collapse of state and international institutions and the spread of violence. This prospect focuses on trends such as environmental degradation, the privatization of public functions, intensification of ethnic, religious and civilizational identities, the replacement of conventional by irregular warfare, and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. A fourth possible future allows the return of a realist world of states and the spread of authoritarianism to cope with growing chaos and violence. It is conceived as a reaction to possible chaos and the heightening of tension among remaining great powers of issues that divide them such as Kashmir, Taiwan and Palestine. In fact, there is evidence for all four possibilities, and in all likelihood the future will probably features elements of all of them, with different regions reflecting more of one or another of them. |
