Globalization in a Changing World PDF

Globalization in a Changing 20 World Which of these countries has the largest movie industry, as measured by the number of major ﬁlms produced each year? (For extra credit, rank them in descending order of the size of the ﬁlm industry.) a United States b China c Japan d India e Nigeria Turn the page for the correct answer. 689 I f you guessed the United States and Hollywood, you are not even close! India tops the list by far. In 2015, India produced 1,907 feature ﬁlms, resulting in nearly 2 bil- lion admissions (UNESCO, 2017). India’s ﬁlm industry produces ﬁlms in more than a dozen different languages, reﬂecting the extraordinary cultural and linguistic diversity of a country that is well known locally and globally for its Hindi-language “Bollywood” ﬁlms, based in the city of Mumbai (Bombay). Bollywood ﬁlms are truly global in origin: They draw from such wide-ranging sources as twentieth-century Hollywood musicals, ancient Sanskrit dramas that combine lavish music and dance, Indian folk theater, and even MTV. The results are rich, elaborate ﬁlms with romantic characters, numerous plots and subplots, lavish costuming, highly theatri- cal performances, and lots of dancing. Indian ﬁlms have had widespread impact outside India: Satyajit Ray’s Apu Trilogy was released in the 1950s to critical acclaim and was ranked among the top 100 movies ever made by Time magazine. More recently, British ﬁlmmaker Danny Boyle’s Academy Award–winning ﬁlm Slumdog Millionaire, based on an Indian novel, was ﬁlmed in Mumbai; Boyle—who also orchestrated the opening ceremony for the 2012 Olympics in London—credits Indian ﬁlm as a major inﬂuence. Nigeria comes in second, with more than 1,200 ﬁlm productions. Unlike in India, many ﬁlms in Nigeria are low budget: They are usually shot using digital handheld cameras, burned onto CDs, and sold inexpensively throughout Africa. A Nigerian online platform for on-demand ﬁlms, called iRokoTV, streams these homegrown movies across the globe; even Netﬂix has a dedicated section for Nigerian ﬁlms (Veselinovic, 2015). The country’s burgeoning ﬁlm industry, sometimes dubbed Nollywood, provides signiﬁcant LEA R NING OBJECTIV ES 1 BASIC CONCEPTS Recognize that numerous factors influence social change, including the physical environment, political organization, culture, and economic factors. 2 CURRENT THEORIES: IS GLOBALIZATION TODAY SOMETHING NEW— OR HAVE WE SEEN IT ALL BEFORE? Understand the debates among skeptics, hyperglobalizers, and transformationalists over whether globalization differs radically from anything in human history. 3 RECENT RESEARCH ON GLOBALIZATION AND SOCIAL CHANGE Recognize that globalization is not solely an economic phenomenon but rather the combined effect of technological, political, and economic changes. Understand how globalization has contributed to the rise of individualism, reshaped work patterns, influenced pop culture, and created new forms of risk and inequality. 4 UNANSWERED QUESTIONS Evaluate the notion that social change is ushering us into a postindustrial or postmodern stage of social organization. Understand why new forms of global governance are needed to address the risks, challenges, and inequalities produced by globalization. 690 CHAPTER 20Globalization in a Changing World employment in the job-starved country: Nige- ria’s ﬁlm industry employs over 1 million people hybridity Ċ The fact that cultures are neither wholly isolated nor entirely distinct, but instead and is the second-largest employer in the coun- constantly borrow from one another. try after agriculture. It has its own Academy Awards, enlivened with visits from Hollywood movie stars such as Danny Glover and Forest Whitaker. While the ﬁlms deal with a range of topics, they often draw on local themes and are shot on location, rather than in studios. According to the U.S. International Trade Commission (2016), Nigeria’s ﬁlm industry is a $600 million business. In the global sweepstakes of feature ﬁlms, the United States ranked only third in 2015, producing 791 feature ﬁlms—although its blockbuster, high-budget (and high-special- effects) ﬁlms are popular throughout the world, accounting for the highest revenues. China, despite its large population, came in only fourth (with 686 ﬁlms), and Japan, ﬁfth (with 581 ﬁlms) (UNESCO, 2017). Films around the world draw on one another for themes, cinematographic tech- niques, and technology. While Hollywood remains an important inﬂuence, each coun- try (indeed, in many countries, each region) has developed its own style and approach. The global ﬁlm industry is an example of hybridity—a notion borrowed from biology to capture the fact that cultures are neither isolated nor wholly distinct, but in fact borrow from one another. This has been true historically and arguably has accelerated in recent years. Globalization today brings people, and their cultures, into intimate contact with one another, whether through travel or migration, economic interdependence, mass media, or popular culture. Social media play a key role in connecting people, ﬁlms, and popular music across a global space: Fairly recent on the horizon, after Latino rock, is Mandarin pop, a Cantonese and Pacific American combination of styles. One of its original inspirations is Hong Kong crooners doing Mandarin cover versions of Japanese popular ballads. The Japanese ballads were already a mixture of Japanese and American styles that featured, for instance, saxophone backgrounds. Mandarin pop (or Mandopop) is part of the soundscape of the Pacific Chinese diaspora. Its audience ranges from youngsters in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, to prosperous second-generation Chinese immigrants in the United States. (Nederveen Pieterse, 2001) In this chapter, we go beyond our earlier discussions of globalization, examining the ways global processes affect our lives on many levels. We explore how globalization has contributed to the profound social changes that are sweeping the world today and con- sider what the future is likely to bring. THE ANSWE R IS D. 1 BASIC CONCEPTS Imagine standing before a clock that measures time on a cosmic scale, in which each sec- ond represents 60,000 years. On such a clock, it would take 24 hours for the 5-billion-year history of our planet to unfold. Humanlike apes would not even appear until the last two Basic Concepts691 minutes, and human beings only in the last four social change Ċ Alteration in basic structures seconds. Compared to us, even the dinosaurs of a social group or society. Social change is an ever-present phenomenon in social life but has would look like long-term residents of the planet; become especially intense in the modern era. they roamed the earth for nearly three-quarters The origins of modern sociology can be traced of an hour on our 24-hour clock, before disap- to attempts to understand the dramatic changes shattering the traditional world and promoting pearing forever. Will human beings—whose new forms of social order. great civilizations appeared only in the last quar- ter second—do nearly as well? Human beings are very recent residents of planet Earth, yet we have unquestion- ably made our presence known. Our numbers have exploded to some 7.6 billion people and will probably reach 9–10 billion by 2050. We have spread to every nook and cranny on the planet. Thanks to modern science and industry, each of us uses up a vastly greater amount of the planet’s limited resources than did our apelike ancestors. Indeed, the combination of population explosion and modern industrial expansion threatens both our planet and human civilization. Humans have demonstrated a unique ability to create massive problems—and then ﬁnd ways to solve them. Today our problems are global, requiring global solutions. Glo- balization has contributed to such challenges as global warming and climate change, the worldwide spread of HIV/AIDS, as well as conﬂict among nations, terrorism, and global poverty. Yet globalization can also contribute to their solution. All human beings share a common home and, therefore, a common interest in its preservation. Social Change During a period of only two or three centuries—a sliver of time in the context of human history—human social life has been wrenched away from the types of social order in which people lived for thousands of years. Social change can be deﬁned as the transformation over time of the institutions and culture of a society. Globalization has accelerated these processes of social change, affecting virtually all of humanity. As a result, far more than any generation before us, we face an uncertain future. To be sure, previous generations were at the mercy of natural disasters, plagues, and famines. And while these problems still trouble much of the world, today we must also deal with the social forces that we ourselves have unleashed. Social theorists have tried for the past two centuries to develop a single grand theory that explains social change. Marx, for example, emphasized the importance of economic factors in shaping social life, including politics and culture. But no single-factor theory can account for the diversity of human social development from hunting and gathering and pastoral societies, to traditional civilizations, to the highly complex social systems of today. In analyzing social change, we can accomplish two tasks: We can identify major factors that have consistently inﬂuenced social change, such as the physical environment, political organization, culture, and economics; and we can develop theories that explain particular periods of change, such as modern times. THE PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT The physical environment often affects the development of human social organization. This is clearest in extreme environmental conditions, where people must organize their ways of life in relation to the weather. For example, people in polar regions develop dif- ferent practices from those living in subtropical areas. Residents of Alaska, where the 692 CHAPTER 20Globalization in a Changing World winters are long and cold and winter days very short, follow different patterns of social life than residents of the much warmer U.S. South. Most Alaskans spend more of their lives indoors and, except in summer months, plan outdoor activities carefully, given the inhospitable environment. Less extreme physical conditions can also affect society. The indigenous population of Australia has remained hunters and gatherers because the continent has hardly any indigenous plants suitable for cultivation or animals suitable for pastoral production. Most of the world’s early civilizations originated in areas with rich agricultural land—for instance, in river deltas. The ease of communication across land and the availability of sea routes are also important: Societies cut off from others by mountain ranges, impassable jungles, or deserts often remain relatively unchanged over long periods. Jared Diamond (2005) makes a strong case for the importance of environment in his book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. Diamond, a physiologist, biologist, and geographer, examines more than a dozen past and present societies, some of which col- lapsed (past examples include Easter Island and the Anasazi of the southwestern United States; more recent examples include Rwanda and Haiti) and some of which overcame seri- ous challenges to succeed. Diamond identiﬁes ﬁve factors contributing to a society’s col- lapse: the presence of hostile neighbors, the absence (or collapse) of trading partners for essential goods, climate change, environmental problems, and an inadequate response to environmental problems. Three of these factors involve environmental conditions. The ﬁrst four factors are often outside a society’s control and need not always result in collapse. The ﬁnal factor, however, is always crucial: As the subtitle of his book suggests, success or fail- ure depends on the choices made by a society and its leaders. The collapse of Rwanda, for example, is typically attributed to ethnic rivalries between Hutu and Tutsi, fueled by Rwanda’s colonial past. According to some explanations of the genocide that left more than 800,000 Tutsi dead after a few horriﬁc months in 1994, much of the cause lay in the legacy of colonialism. During the ﬁrst part of the twentieth cen- tury, Belgium ran Rwanda through Tutsi administrators because, according to prevailing European racial theories, the Belgians considered the Tutsi—who tended on average to be somewhat taller and lighter skinned than the Hutu and, therefore, closer in resemblance to Europeans—to be more “civilized.” This belief led to resentment and hatred, which boiled over in 1994, fueled by Hutu demagogues urging the killing of all Tutsi. Diamond holds that this explanation is only part of the story. Through careful analy- sis of patterns of landholding, population, and killing, he argues that the root causes are found in overpopulation and the resulting environmental destruction. The population of Rwanda, he shows, was one of the fastest growing on earth, with disastrous conse- quences for the country’s land and people, who had become one of the planet’s most impov- erished populations. Faced with starvation—and the absence of land to share among the growing number of (male) children—Rwanda was ripe for violence and collapse. Although ethnic rivalries may have fueled the ﬁres of rage, Diamond also shows that in some hard- hit provinces, Hutu killed other Hutu, as young men sought to acquire scarce farmland by any means. Some have criticized Diamond for overemphasizing the environment at the expense of other factors. By itself—except perhaps for extreme circumstances, such as the extended drought that doomed the Anasazi early in the fourteenth century—the environment does not necessarily determine how a society develops. Today especially, when humans can control much of their immediate living conditions, environment seems less important: Modern cities have sprung up in the arctic cold and the harshest deserts. Basic Concepts693 POLITICAL ORGANIZATION Another factor inﬂuencing social change is the type of political organization that operates in a society. In hunter-gatherer societies, this inﬂuence is minimal because no political authorities can mobilize the community. In other types of society, however, distinct politi- cal agents—chiefs, lords, monarchs, and governments—strongly inﬂuence the course of social development. How a people respond to a crisis can determine whether they thrive or fail, and leadership is crucial to success. A leader capable of pursuing dynamic policies and generating a mass following or radically altering preexisting modes of thought can overturn a previously established order. However, individuals can reach positions of lead- ership and become effective only under favorable social conditions. Mohandas Gandhi, the famous paciﬁst leader in India, succeeded in securing his country’s independence from Britain because World War II and other events had unsettled the existing colonial institu- tions in India. Japan illustrates how effective leadership can avert possible ecological and economic col- lapse (Diamond, 2005). Political and military stability under the Tokugawa shoguns (mil- itary rulers from 1603 to 1867) ushered in a period of prosperity. This economic growth, however, contributed to massive deforestation of the island country. Its leaders (the cel- ebrated samurai warriors) instituted programs of conservation and reforestation, and today—despite having one of the highest population densities of any industrial country— nearly three-quarters of Japan is covered with forests (Diamond, 2005). Military strength played a fundamental part in the establishment of most traditional states, but the connections between level of production and military strength are indirect. A ruler may channel resources into building up the military, for example, even when this impoverishes the rest of the population—as happened in Iraq in the 1980s under the rule of Saddam Hussein and in North Korea during the 1990s under Kim Jong Il. The most important political factor that has promoted change in the modern era is the emergence of the modern state, a vastly more efficient mechanism of government than those of premodern societies. Government plays a much bigger role in our lives, for better or worse, than it did before modern industrial societies arose. Globalization today may be challenging national governments’ ability to effectively exert leadership. A number of theorists argue that political power is becoming increasingly uncoupled from geography (Sassen, 1996; Shaw, 2000). Sociologist William Robinson (2001, 2004, 2014), for example, claims that as economic power has become deterritorialized, so, too, has political power: Just as transnational corporations operate across borders, with few or no national allegiances, transnational political organizations are becoming stronger as national governments are becoming weaker. The World Trade Organization (WTO) has the power to punish countries that violate its principles of free trade (Conti, 2011). European countries have opened their borders to one another, established a common currency, and given up sub- stantial political power to the European Union (EU), a regional form of governance. Will the twenty-ﬁrst century see new forms of political organization better suited to a world in which people, products, knowledge, religious beliefs, pop culture, and pollution all cross borders easily? Although it is too soon to tell, most likely, the most important forms of political organization of this century will bear little resemblance to those of the twentieth. CULTURE The third main inﬂuence on social change is culture, including communications sys- tems, religious and other belief systems, and popular culture. Communications systems, in particular, affect the character and pace of social change. The invention of writing, for 694 CHAPTER 20Globalization in a Changing World instance, allowed for effective record keeping, making possible the devel- opment of large-scale organizations. In addition, writing altered people’s perception of the relationship among past, present, and future. Societies that write keep a record of past events, through which they gain a sense of their evolution. The existence of a written constitution and laws enables a coun- try to have a legal system based on the interpretation of legal precedents—just as written scriptures enable religious leaders to justify their beliefs by cit- ing chapters and verses from religious texts, such as the Bible or the Koran. We saw in Chapters 5, 6, 13, and 16 how the Internet and the prolifera- An Egyptian girl walks next to the Muslim Fulla dolls at a kids’ shop tion of smartphones have transformed in Cairo. Two years after she first came on the market, Fulla is now thought to be the best-selling girls’ toy in the Arab world, displac- our personal relationships, our forms ing her Western rival, Barbie. of recreation, the ways in which we learn and work, the nature of politics and social movements—in fact, almost every aspect of modern life. These changes, among the most rapid in human history, have caused what geographer David Harvey (1989) calls the “time-space compression.” And they have all occurred within a single generation. Religion, as we have seen, may be either a conservative or an innovative force in social life. Some forms of religious belief and practice have acted as a brake on change, emphasiz- ing traditional values and rituals. Yet, as Max Weber held, religious convictions frequently mobilize pressures for social change. For instance, many American church leaders pro- mote attempts to reduce poverty or diminish inequalities in society. Religious leaders such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. were at the forefront of the American civil rights movement, and adherents of liberation theology fought for better schools, water supplies, health services, and democracy in Latin America—often at the cost of their lives. Yet, at the same time, certain religious communities today have resisted many of the cultural aspects of globalization. Islamic fundamentalists, fundamentalist Christians, and ultra-Orthodox Jewish Haredim all reject what they regard as the corrupting inﬂu- ences of modern secular culture, now spreading globally through mass media and the Internet (Juergensmeyer, 1993, 2008; Juergensmeyer, Griego, and Soboslai, 2015). Islamic fundamentalists call this “Westoxiﬁcation”—literally, getting drunk on the temptations of modern Western culture. While such religious communities usually embrace modern technology, which they sometimes use to disseminate their ideas, they reject what they view as the “McWorld” corruptions that go along with it. Political scientist Samuel Huntington (1993, 1998) advanced the controversial thesis that such differences are part of seismic fault lines between entire civilizations. According to his “clash of civilizations” thesis, The great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cultural. Nation states will remain the most powerful actors in world Basic Concepts695 affairs, but the principal conflicts of global politics will occur between nations and groups of different civilizations. The clash of civilizations will dominate global politics. The fault lines between civilizations will be the battle lines of the future. (1993) Huntington identiﬁed several major civilizations as having great potential for future conﬂict: Christianity, subdivided into Western Christianity and Eastern Orthodox; Islam; Hindu; Chinese; African; Buddhist; and Japanese. Although his thesis seems espe- cially plausible after the events of September 11, 2001, it has been criticized as overly sim- plistic. Each of his so-called civilizations encompasses enormous differences in beliefs and practices, while old-fashioned geopolitical interests (for example, involving scarce resources such as oil and water) will likely shape international conﬂicts well into the twenty-ﬁrst century. Moreover, to the extent that national policies are inﬂuenced by a belief in the clash of civilizations, Huntington’s thesis may become a self-fulﬁlling proph- ecy, as different sides square off for a cosmic war against what each believes to be the forces of unmitigated evil (Juergensmeyer, 1993). In fact, the principal cultural clashes of the twenty-ﬁrst century may not be between so-called civilizations but between those who believe that truthful understanding derives from religious faith and those who ﬁnd such understanding in science, critical thinking, and secular thought (Juergensmeyer, 1993). Secular ideals, such as self-betterment, free- dom, equality, and democratic participation, are largely creations of the past two or three centuries. In the United States, political debates rage between right-wing Republicans who promote teaching creationism (versus evolution) in schools and oppose abortion, and liberal Democrats whose politics are guided by scientiﬁc evidence and preservation of civil rights. Not surprisingly, creationism is much more likely to be taught in pub- lic school systems in politically conservative districts in the South than more liberal regions of the North (Kirk, 2014). ECONOMIC FACTORS Of economic inﬂuences, the farthest reaching is industrial capitalism. Capitalism dif- fers fundamentally from previous production systems because it involves the constant expansion of production and the ever-increasing accumulation of wealth. In traditional production systems, levels of production were fairly unchanging because they were geared to customary needs. Capitalism requires the constant revision of the technology of pro- duction, a process that increasingly involves science. The rate of technological innovation fostered in modern industry is vastly greater than that in any previous type of economic order. And such technological innovation has helped create a global economy whose production lines draw on a worldwide workforce. Economic changes help shape other changes as well. Science and technology, for example, are driven in part by economic factors. Corporations, to remain competitive, must spend large sums on research and development to commercialize scientiﬁc insights. Governments often spend far more money than individual businesses can afford in an effort to ensure that their countries don’t fall behind militarily or economically. For instance, when the Soviet Union launched the world’s ﬁrst satellite, Sputnik, in 1957, the United States responded with a massive and costly space program, inspired by fear that the Russians were winning the “space race.” During the 1960 presidential campaign, John F. Kennedy heightened that fear by repeatedly accusing the Republicans of being lax on Russian missile technology, suggesting that a “missile gap” made the United States 696 CHAPTER 20Globalization in a Changing World vulnerable to nuclear attack. The arms race, fueled by government contracts with corpo- rations, has provided major economic support for scientiﬁc research and more general sup- port for the U.S. economy. Most recently, governments worldwide are spending vast sums to win the next technological race, whether it be information technology, biotechnology, or nanotechnology—the latest area that promises solutions to a wide range of problems that all societies confront today. Nanotechnology involves working with matter at the atomic, or “nano,” scale (a billionth of a meter), creating new materials that have novel properties: tiny particles that can enter the bloodstream and “search and destroy” particular cancer cells, replacing much more toxic chemotherapy; ultra-strong, lightweight carbon ﬁbers, which have already found their way into golf clubs, tennis rackets, and bicycle frames, and which promise to revolutionize air- craft; data storage devices that can store a hundred times as much data as the most powerful electronics currently available; and highly efficient nanoscale ﬁltration devices that can remove major industrial CONCEPT CHECKS 3 1. What are the most important political factors contaminants from groundwater. Coun- that influence social change? tries are investing signiﬁcant public funds 2. Name two examples of cultural factors that in support of research, development, and may influence social change. commercialization of advanced technolo- 3. How does industrial capitalism affect social gies, hoping to proﬁt while solving some of change? the world’s most vexing problems. 2 CURRENT THEORIES: IS GLOBALIZATION TODAY SOMETHING NEW— OR HAVE WE SEEN IT ALL BEFORE? In recent years, globalization has become a hotly debated topic. Most people accept that important transformations are occurring, but the extent to which one can explain them as “globalization” is contested. This disagreement is not surprising, given the unpredictable and turbulent process that globalization involves. David Held and his colleagues (1999) have identiﬁed three schools of thought: skeptics, hyperglobalizers, and transformational- ists. These approaches to the globalization debate are summarized in Table 20.1. The Skeptics Skeptics in the globalization controversy believe that present levels of economic inter- dependence are not unprecedented. Pointing to nineteenth-century statistics on world trade and investment, they contend that modern globalization differs from the past only in the intensity of interaction among nations. While they agree that countries today may have more contact than in previous eras, in their eyes, the current world economy is not sufficiently integrated to constitute a truly globalized economy. This is because the bulk of trade occurs within three regional groups: Europe, Asia-Paciﬁc, and North America. The countries of the EU, for example, trade predominantly among themselves. The same is true of the other regional groups, thereby invalidating the notion of a single global economy (Hirst, 1997). Current Theories: Is Globalization Today Something New—Or Have We Seen It All Before?697 Table 20.1 Conceptualizing Globalization: Three Tendencies CHARACTERISTIC SKEPTICS TRANSFORMATIONALISTS HYPERGLOBALIZERS What’s new? Trading blocs, weaker Historically unprecedented A global age geogovernance than levels of global in earlier periods interconnectedness Dominant World less “Thick” (intensive and Global capitalism, features interdependent than extensive) globalization global governance, in 1890s global civil society Power of national Reinforced or Reconstituted, restructured Declining or eroding government enhanced Driving forces of Governments and Combined forces of Capitalism and globalization markets modernity technology Pattern of Increased New architecture of world Erosion of old stratification marginalization of order hierarchies global south Dominant motif National interest Transformation of political McDonald’s, Apple, community etc. Conceptualization As internationalization As the reordering of As a reordering of of globalization and regionalization interregional relations and the framework of action at a distance human action Historical Regional blocs/clash Indeterminate: global Global civilization trajectory of civilizations integration and fragmentation Summary Internationalization Globalization transforming The end of the argument depends on government government power and nation-state acquiescence and world politics support Source: Adapted from Held et al., 1999. Many skeptics focus on regionalization within the world economy—such as the emer- gence of major ﬁnancial and trading blocs—as evidence that the world economy has become less integrated rather than more (Boyer and Drache, 1996; Hirst and Thompson, 1999). Compared with the patterns of trade that prevailed a century ago, they argue, the world economy is less global in its geographical scope and more concentrated on intense pockets of activity. They strongly reject the view held by some, such as the hyperglobal- izers, that globalization is producing a world order in which national governments are less central. According to the skeptics, national governments continue to be key players because of their involvement in regulating and coordinating economic activity. Govern- ments, for example, are the driving force behind many trade agreements and policies ofeconomic liberalization. 698 CHAPTER 20Globalization in a Changing World The Hyperglobalizers The hyperglobalizers argue that globalization is a very real phenomenon whose conse- quences can be felt almost everywhere. They see globalization as a process that is indif- ferent to national borders. In their view, globalization is producing a new global order, swept along by powerful ﬂows of cross-border trade and production. They argue that indi- vidual countries no longer control their economies because of the vast growth in world trade. National governments and the politicians within them have decreasing control over the issues that cross their borders, such as volatile ﬁnancial markets and environ- mental threats. Citizens recognize that politicians’ ability to address these problems is limited and, as a result, lose faith in existing systems of governance. Some hyperglobaliz- ers believe that the power of national governments is also being challenged from above—by new regional and international institutions, such as the EU and the WTO. These shifts signal the dawning of a global age (Albrow, 1997) in which national governments decline in importance and inﬂuence. Sociologists such as William Robinson (2001, 2004), Leslie Sklair (2002a, 2002b, 2003), and Saskia Sassen (1996, 2005) tend to reject the label of hyperglobalist, a term they associate with such popular writers or journalists as Thomas Friedman, whose best- selling books The Lexus and the Olive Tree (2000) and The World Is Flat (2005) paint a picture of globalization as a juggernaut that sweeps up everything in its path. Nonethe- less, they do argue that transnational economic actors and political institutions are chal- lenging the dominance of national ones. Robinson has studied these changes throughout the world, with a special focus on Latin America. He argues that the most powerful eco- nomic actors today are not bound by national boundaries; they are transnational. For example, the “transnational capitalist class” is emerging out of (and is transforming) the capitalist classes of individual countries, because the transnational corporations they manage are global rather than national. By the same token, he argues that nation-states are becoming “component elements” of a transnational state—exempliﬁed, for example, by the WTO, which serves the interests of global businesses as a whole by ensuring that individual countries adhere to the principles of free trade. Robinson (2001) concludes that “the nation-state is a historically specific form of world social organization in the process of becoming transcended by globalization.” The Transformationalists The transformationalists take more of a middle position. Writers such as David Held and Anthony G. McGrew (Held et al., 1999), and Anthony Giddens, one of the authors of this textbook (1990), see globalization as the central force behind a broad spectrum of change. According to them, the global order is being transformed, but many of the old patterns remain. Governments, for instance, still retain a good deal of power in spite of global interdependence. These transformations are not restricted to economics but are equally prominent within politics, culture, and personal life. Transformationalists contend that the current level of globalization is breaking down established boundaries between internal and external, international and domestic. In adjusting to this new order, soci- eties, institutions, and individuals must navigate contexts where previous structures have been shaken up. Unlike hyperglobalizers, transformationalists see globalization as a dynamic and open process that is subject to inﬂuence and change. It is developing in a contradictory fashion, Current Theories: Is Globalization Today Something New—Or Have We Seen It All Before?699 encompassing tendencies that frequently operate in opposition to one another. Globaliza- tion is a two-way ﬂow of images, information, and inﬂuences. Global migration, media, and telecommunications are contributing to the diffusion of cultural inﬂuences. Accord- ing to transformationalists, globalization is a decentered process characterized by links and cultural ﬂows that work in a multidirectional way. Because globalization is the prod- uct of numerous intertwined global networks, it is not driven from one particular part of the world. Rather than losing sovereignty, as the hyperglobalizers argue, countries are restruc- turing in response to new, nonterritorial forms of economic and social organization (e.g., corporations, social movements, and international bodies). Transformationalists argue that we are no longer living in a state-centric world; instead, governments must adopt a more active, outward-looking stance under the complex conditions of globaliza- tion (Cerny, 2005; Rosenau, 1997). In other words, nation-states remain relevant actors, but their function is changing. Globalization can perhaps be best understood as a tension between international (among nation-states) and transnational (borderless) social forces. Whose View Is Most Nearly Correct? There are elements of truth in all three views, although those of the transformational- ists are perhaps the most balanced. The skeptics underestimate how much the world is changing; world ﬁnance markets, for example, are organized on a global level much more than ever before. Yet, at the same time, the world has undergone periods of global- ization before—only to withdraw into periods when countries protected their markets and closed their borders to trade. Although the march of globalization seems inevitable, it may not continue unabated: Countries that ﬁnd themselves losing out may attempt to stem the tide, as indicated by Brexit as well as recent elections in Germany, Poland, and the United States. On the one hand, the hyperglobalizers are correct in pointing to the current strength of globalization as dissolving many national barriers, changing the nature of state power, and creating powerful transnational social classes. On the other hand, they often see globalization too much in economic terms and too much as a one-way process. In reality, globalization is much more complex. World-systems theorists such as Immanuel Waller- stein (2004) and Giovanni Arrighi (1994) argue that while countries remain important actors on the global ﬁeld, so, too, are transnational corporations. National governments will neither dissolve under the weight of a globalized economy (as some hyperglobalizers argue) nor reassert themselves as the dominant political force (as some skeptics argue), but rather will seek to steer global capitalism to their own advantage. The world economy of the future may be much more globalized than today’s, with multinational corporations and global institutions playing increasingly important CONCEPT CHECKS 3 roles. But some countries in the world econ- omy may still be more powerful than even 1. Compare and contrast how the skeptics, the the most powerful transnational actors. hyperglobalizers, and the transformationalists The world is in the midst of a highly explain the phenomenon of globalization. dynamic and turbulent transformation. 2. How might skeptics, hyperglobalizers, and transformationalists interpret differently the It is not surprising, perhaps, that scholars growing global prominence of China? cannot agree on the social forces that are reshaping it. 700 CHAPTER 20Globalization in a Changing World 3 RECENT RESEARCH ON GLOBALIZATION AND SOCIAL CHANGE As we have emphasized throughout this textbook, globalization refers to the fact that we increasingly live in one world, so that individuals, groups, and nations become more interdependent—that is, what happens 12,000 miles away is likely to have enormous conse- quence for our daily lives. In this section, we examine how advances in technology, coupled with political and economic changes, including the rise of transnational corporations, have contributed to globalization. We then consider the impact of globalization on both our personal lives and the wider social world, examining how globalization has introduced new forms of risk and exacerbated global wealth inequality. Factors Contributing to Globalization Although globalization is often portrayed solely as an economic phenomenon, it is in fact created by the coming together of technological, political, and economic factors. It has been driven above all by the development of information and communications technolo- gies that have intensiﬁed the speed and scope of interaction among people worldwide. INFORMATION FLOWS Important advances in technology and the world’s telecommunications infrastructure have facilitated the explosion in global communications. The post–World War II era has seen a transformation in the scope and intensity of telecommunications ﬂows. Tradi- tional telephone communication, which depended on analog signals sent through wires and cables, has been replaced by integrated systems in which vast amounts of informa- tion are compressed and transferred digitally. Cable technology has become more efficient and less expensive. The development of ﬁber-optic cables, for example, has dramatically expanded the number of channels that can be carried, and even this recent technology has achieved signiﬁcant advances. The spread of communications satellites has also helped expand international communications. The Union of Concerned Scientists (2016) esti- mates that more than 1,300 satellites are in orbit, of which more than half are primarily for communications purposes. The effect of these communications systems has been staggering. In countries with highly developed telecommunications infrastructures, homes and offices have multiple links to the outside world, including telephones (both land lines and cell phones), digital and cable television, and the Internet. The Internet is the fastest-growing communication tool ever developed. More than 3.5 billion people worldwide (nearly half of the world’s pop- ulation) were estimated to be using the Internet at the end of 2016, representing more than 200 percent growth in usage since 2005 (International Telecommunication Union, 2016). These forms of technology facilitate the compression of time and space: Two individu- als located on opposite sides of the planet can not only hold a conversation in real time, they can send documents and images or tweet their ideas to each other with the help of satel- lite technology. Widespread use of the Internet and smartphones is accelerating processes of globalization; more people are becoming interconnected through these technologies in places that have previously been isolated or poorly served by traditional communica- tions. Although the telecommunications infrastructure is not evenly developed around the world, a growing number of countries now have access to international communica- tions networks. Recent Research on Globalization and Social Change701 Globalization is also being driven forward by the electronic integration of the world economy. The global economy increasingly involves activity that is weightless and intan- gible (Quah, 1999), because so many products have their base in information, as with computer software, media and entertainment products, and Internet-based services. A variety of new terms describe this new social order, such as information society, ser- vice society, and knowledge society. The emergence of this “knowledge society” reﬂects a broad base of consumers who are technologically literate and who eagerly integrate new advances in computing, entertainment, and telecommunications into their everyday lives. The very operation of the global economy reﬂects the changes characteristic of the information age. Many aspects of the economy now require networks that cross national boundaries (Castells, 1996). To be competitive in globalizing conditions, businesses and corporations have become more ﬂexible and less hierarchical. Production practices and organizational patterns have become more ﬂexible, partnering arrangements with other ﬁrms have become commonplace, and participation in worldwide distribution networks has become essential. Whether a job is in a factory or a call center, it can be done more cheaply in China, India, or some other country in the global south. The same is true for software engineer- ing, graphic design, and ﬁnancial advice. Of course, to the extent that global competition for labor reduces the cost of goods and services, it also provides for a wealth of cheaper products (Roach, 2005). As consumers, we all beneﬁt from low-cost ﬂat-panel TVs made in China or inexpensive computer games programmed in India. It is an open question, how- ever, whether the declining cost of consumption will balance out wage and job losses due to globalization. POLITICAL CHANGES Political changes are driving forces behind contemporary globalization. One of the most signiﬁcant was the collapse of Soviet-style communism, which occurred in Eastern Europe in 1989 and in the Soviet Union itself in 1991. Since then, countries in the former Soviet bloc—including Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, the Bal- tic states, and the states of the Caucasus and Central Asia—have been moving toward Western-style political and economic systems and are increasingly integrated into the global community. In fact, the collapse of communism not only hastened processes of globalization but also was a result of it. The centrally planned Communist economies and the ideological and cultural control of Communist political authority ultimately could not survive in an era of global media and an electronically integrated world economy. A second political factor leading to intensifying globalization is the growth of inter- national and regional mechanisms of government. The UN and the EU are two prominent examples of international organizations that bring together nation-states into a common political forum. Whereas the UN does this as an association of individual nation-states, the EU is a form of transnational governance in which member states relinguish some national sovereignty. The governments of EU states are bound by directives, regulations, and court judgments from common EU bodies, but they also reap economic, social, and political beneﬁts from their participation in the regional union. Yet both the UN and the EU have been challenged in recent years. The UN, unfortu- nately, has proven to be a weak actor. One of the reasons is that signiﬁcant UN actions require the consent of its Security Council, which in turn requires the agreement of at least 9 of its 15 members, including all 5 of its permanent members (the United States, France, England, Russia, and China). Another reason is that member nations are not willing to give up their sovereignty to the UN, which consequently lacks the means to enforce its actions. 702 CHAPTER 20Globalization in a Changing World The EU has had difficulty managing the economic slowdown of its member nations, including the near-insolvency of debt-ridden countries such as Greece. The inﬂux of refugees from war-torn Syria and other countries has created seemingly insurmountable challenges, particularly since once they are in any European country, migrants can freely cross borders into any other. Antimi- grant sentiments have grown, leading some to question the “open borders” poli- cies that have thus far created a strongly uniﬁed Europe. One result was the so-called “Brexit” vote in Britain, a June 2016 referendum in which slightly more than half of all voters (52 percent) called for Britain to Brexit—a June 2016 referendum in which a majority of voters called for Britain to exit the European Union—was fueled in part withdraw from the EU. The vote passed by concerns about immigration. Most EU member countries share both because of voters’ concerns about open borders. immigration and the belief that Britain was surrendering too much national sovereignty to the EU governance system in Brussels. While opponents of Brexit argued that such concerns were greatly overblown, they could not assuage the fears of a majority of voters. The Brexit vote sent shock waves throughout the EU, since it raised fears that other countries may eventually follow suit. A third political factor is the growing importance of international governmen- tal organizations (IGOs) and international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs; see also Chapter 6). An international governmental organization is a body that is established by participating governments and given responsibility for regulating or overseeing a domain of activity that is transnational in scope. Such bodies regulate issues ranging from civil aviation to broadcasting to the disposal of hazardous waste. In 1909, 37 IGOs were in existence to regulate transnational affairs; by 2005, there were more than 7,000 (Union of International Associations, 2005). Prominent examples include the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the World Trade Organization, and the UN. INGOs differ from IGOs in that they are not affiliated with government institutions. Rather, they are independent organizations that work alongside governmental bodies in making policy decisions and addressing international issues. Some of the best-known INGOs—such as Greenpeace, Médecins Sans international governmental organizations Frontières (Doctors Without Borders), the (IGOs) Ċ International organizations established by treaties between governments International Committee of the Red Cross, for purposes of conducting business between and Amnesty International—are involved in the nations making up their membership. environmental protection and humanitarian international nongovernmental relief efforts. But the activities of the nearly organizations (INGOs) Ċ International organizations established by agreements 40,000 lesser-known groups also link coun- between the individuals or private organizations tries and communities (United States Institute making up their membership. of Peace, 2013). Recent Research on Globalization and Social Change703 Finally, the spread of information technology has expanded the possibilities for con- tact among people worldwide, while also facilitating the ﬂow of information about people and events in distant places. Some of the most gripping events of recent decades—such as the fall of the Berlin Wall; the violent crackdown on democratic protesters in China’s Tiananmen Square; the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Paris in 2015, Brus- sels in 2016, Manchester and London in 2017; and the Arab Spring protests—unfolded through the media before a truly global audience. Such events, along with less dramatic ones, have caused a reorientation in people’s thinking from the level of the nation-state to the global stage. This shift to a global outlook has two signiﬁcant consequences. First, as members of a global community, people increasingly perceive that social responsibility extends beyond national borders. There is a growing assumption that the international community has an obligation to act in crisis situations to protect the physical well-being or human rights of people whose lives are under threat. In the case of natural disasters, such interventions take the form of humanitarian relief and technical assistance. In recent years, earth- quakes in Haiti, ﬂoods in Mozambique, famine in Africa, hurricanes in Central America, the tsunami that hit Asia and Africa, and the 2015 earthquake in Nepal that claimed more than 8,000 lives and injured another 23,000 have been rallying points for global assis- tance. Today, with a growing awareness of the scientiﬁc consensus on the possible rami- ﬁcations of global warming, environmental movements—united by social media—have mushroomed from the Marshall Islands to Miami. There have also been stronger calls for interventions in the case of war, ethnic con- ﬂict, and the violation of human rights, although such mobilizations are more problematic than with natural disasters. In the case of the Gulf War in 1991 and the violent conﬂicts in Bosnia and Kosovo (in the former Yugoslavia), many people saw military intervention as justiﬁed in the interest of defending human rights and national sovereignty. Second, a global outlook means that people increasingly look to sources other than the nation-state in formulating their own sense of identity. This phenomenon both is produced by and further accelerates processes of globalization. Local cultural identities in various parts of the world are experiencing powerful revivals at a time when the tra- ditional hold of the nation-state is undergoing profound transformation. In Europe, for example, inhabitants of Scotland and the Basque region of Spain might be more likely to identify themselves as Scottish or Basque (or simply as Europeans) rather than as British or Spanish. The nation-state as a source of identity is waning in many areas as political shifts at the regional and global levels loosen people’s orientations toward the states in which they live. A form of nationalism based on ethnicity, religion, or culture—rather than nation-state—is reﬂected in growing persecution in many countries, and sometimes out- right violence, against those perceived as non-native, such as immigrants or members of religious minorities. ECONOMIC CHANGES: THE GROWING IMPORTANCE OF TRANSNATIONAL CORPORATIONS Among the many economic factors driving globalization, the role of transnational corpo- rations is particularly important. Transnational corporations are companies that pro- duce goods or market services in more than one country. These may be small ﬁrms with one or two factories outside the country where transnational corporations Ċ Business they are based or gigantic international ventures corporations located in two or more countries. whose operations crisscross the globe. Some of the biggest transnational corporations are 704 CHAPTER 20Globalization in a Changing World Apple, Disney, ExxonMobil, Volkswagen, General Motors, Google, McDonald’s, Nike, Star- bucks, Toyota, and Walmart. Even when transnational corporations have a clear national base, they are oriented toward global markets and global proﬁts. Transnational corporations account for some two-thirds of all world trade, are instrumental in diffusing new technology around the globe, and are major actors in international ﬁnancial markets. As one group of writers has noted, they are “the linch- pins of the contemporary world economy” (Held et al., 1999). A Swiss study of more than 43,000 transnational corporations found that a mere 737 ﬁrms—less than 2 percent of the total—accounted for four-ﬁfths of their combined monetary value. The ﬁnancial ser- vices industry is a power player in the global economy: The top 50 ﬁrms were primarily ﬁnancial organizations such as banks and giant investment ﬁrms (Vitali, Glattfelder, and Battiston, 2011). The world’s 500 largest transnational corporations had combined rev- enues of more than $27 trillion in 2016 (Fortune, 2017); in the same year, $75.6 trillion in goods and services were produced by the entire world (World Bank, 2017e). While the United States remains home to the largest number of giant transnational corporations, its share has slipped considerably in recent years, particularly with the rise of Asian countries such as Japan, South Korea, and especially China. Transnational corporations became a global phenomenon after World War II. Expan- sion initially came from ﬁrms based in the United States, but by the 1970s, European and Japanese ﬁrms also began to invest abroad. In the late 1980s and 1990s, transnational corporations expanded dramatically with the establishment of three powerful regional markets: Europe (the Single European Market), Asia-Paciﬁc (the Osaka Declaration, which guaranteed free and open trade by 2010), and North America (the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA). Since the early 1990s, countries in other areas have also eased restrictions on foreign investment. By the turn of the twenty-ﬁrst century, few economies were beyond the reach of transnational corporations. Over the past decade, transnational corporations based in industrialized economies have been expanding their operations in countries in the global south, as well as in countries in Eastern Europe and countries that were part of the former Soviet Union. The “electronic economy” also underpins economic globalization. Banks, corpora- tions, fund managers, and individual investors can now shift funds internationally with the click of a mouse. This new ability carries great risks, however. Transfers of vast amounts of capital can destabilize economies and trigger international ﬁnancial crises. As the global economy becomes increasingly integrated, a ﬁnancial collapse in one part of the world can have an enormous effect on distant economies. This fact became painfully evident when the once-venerable ﬁnancial services ﬁrm Lehman Brothers ﬁled for bank- ruptcy in 2008. The collapse of Lehman Brothers, which held an estimated $600 billion in assets, caused ﬁnancial shockwaves throughout the United States and global econo- mies. The Dow Jones dropped by more than 4 percentage points immediately following Lehman’s ﬁling for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, making it the largest single drop since the 9/11 attacks in 2001. Banks and insurers throughout the world, from Scotland to Japan, registered devastating losses as a result (Council on Foreign Relations, 2013). The Effect of Globalization on Our Lives Although globalization is often associated with changes within big systems— such as world financial markets, production and trade, and telecommunications—its effects are felt equally strongly in the private realm. Inevitably, our personal lives have been altered as globalizing forces enter into our local contexts, our homes, and our Recent Research on Globalization and Social Change705 communities through impersonal sources— such as the media, the Internet, and popu- lar culture—as well as through personal contact with individuals from other countries and cultures. As the societies in which we live undergo profound transformations, the institu- tions that underpin them have become outdated, which is, in turn, forcing a redeﬁnition of the family, gender roles, sexuality, personal identity, our interactions with others, and our relationships to work. The political, economic, social, and technological factors just described are producing a phenomenon without parallel in terms of intensity and scope. THE RISE OF INDIVIDUALISM In the current age, individuals have much more opportunity to shape their own lives than once was the case. At one time, tradition and custom strongly inﬂuenced the path of peo- ple’s lives. Factors such as social class, gender, ethnicity, and religious affiliation could close off certain avenues for individuals or open up others. The values, lifestyles, and eth- ics prevailing in one’s community provided ﬁxed guidelines for living. Conditions of globalization, however, bring a new individualism in which people actively construct their own identities. The weight of tradition and established values is lessening as local communities interact with a new global order. The social codes that formerly guided people’s choices and activities have signiﬁcantly loosened. Traditional frameworks of identity are dissolving; new patterns of identity are emerging. Globaliza- tion is forcing people constantly to respond and adjust to the changing environment; as individuals, we now evolve within the larger context. Even small choices in daily life— what to wear, how to spend leisure time, and how to care for our health and our bodies—are part of an ongoing process of creating and re-creating our self-identities. WORK PATTERNS Although we may regard work as a chore or a necessary evil, it is undeniably a crucial ele- ment in our lives. Not only our jobs but also many other aspects of our existence—from our friends to our leisure pursuits—are shaped by our work patterns. Globalization has unleashed profound transformations within the world of work. New patterns of international trade and the move to a knowledge economy have signiﬁcantly altered long-standing employment patterns. Many traditional industries have become obsolete or are losing their share of the market to competitors abroad whose labor costs are lower than in industrialized countries. Global trade and new forms of technology have affected traditional manufacturing communities, where industrial workers have been left unemployed and without the skills required by the knowledge-based economy. These com- munities are facing new social problems, including long-term unemployment and rising crime rates, as a result of economic globalization. If at one time people’s working lives were dominated by employment with one employer over several decades—the so-called job-for-life framework—today, more individuals are creating their own career paths. Often this process involves changing jobs several times over the course of a career, building up new skills and abilities, and transferring them to diverse work contexts. Standard patterns of full-time work are dissolving into more ﬂexible arrangements: working from home via information technology, job sharing, short-term consulting projects, ﬂextime, and so forth (Kalleberg, 2003). While ﬂexibility affords new opportunities for some, for most, it means greater uncertainty. Job security and attendant health care and retirement beneﬁts have largely become things of the past. 706 CHAPTER 20Globalization in a Changing World Women having entered the workforce in large numbers has strongly affected the per- sonal lives of people of both sexes. Expanded professional and educational opportuni- ties have led many women to put off marriage and children until after they have begun a career. Also, many women return to work shortly after having children, instead of remain- ing at home. These shifts have required important adjustments within families, in terms of the domestic division of labor, the role of men in child-rearing, and the emergence of more family-friendly work policies to accommodate the needs of dual-earner households. Tech companies such as Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, and Netﬂix all recently expanded their parental leave policies, and as of 2017, IKEA now offers all 13,000 of its employees— men and women, part-time workers and full-time workers—up to four months of paid parental leave. POPULAR CULTURE The cultural effects of globalization have received much attention. Images, ideas, goods, and styles are now disseminated worldwide more rapidly than ever. Trade, new informa- tion technologies, the international media, and global migration have all promoted the free movement of culture across national borders. Many people believe that we now live in a single information order—a massive global network where information is shared quickly and in great volumes. A simple example illustrates this point. The 2009 ﬁlm Avatar is a 3D science-ﬁction epic in which a greedy Earth-based cor- poration threatens to destroy a lush forest on the habitable moon Pandora, along with the humanlike Na’vi who live there in peaceful harmony with nature, to obtain the precious mineral called (appropriately) “unobtainium.” Avatar quickly became American films such as Star Wars: The Force the highest-grossing ﬁlm in history, garnering $2.8 bil- Awakens dominate the global box office. Does this amount to cultural imperialism? lion at the box office, three-quarters from outside the United States. The ﬁlm is one of many cultural prod- ucts that has succeeded in cutting across national boundaries and creating a truly international phenom- enon. More recently, ﬁlms like Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and The Fate of the Furious have enjoyed world- wide success. What accounts for the enormous popularity of a ﬁlm such as Avatar? And what does its success tell us about globalization? At one level, Avatar was popular for straightforward reasons: It combined romance (one of the humans who assumed the bodily shape—avatar— of a Na’vi to inﬁltrate their community predictably falls in love with a beautiful Na’vi woman) and drama (will the avatar go native and side with the Na’vi? Will the primitive weaponry of the Na’vi triumph over the high- tech weaponry of the humans?). The ﬁlm was also lav- ishly produced and included dazzling state-of-the-art special effects. But another reason for Avatar’s popularity is that it reflected ideas and values that resonated with audiences worldwide. One of the film’s central themes is the possibility of romantic love prevailing Recent Research on Globalization and Social Change707 over vast cultural (indeed, racial) differences external risk Ċ Dangers that spring from the and community traditions. Can a human male, natural world and are unrelated to the actions of humans. Examples of external risk include even occupying the body of an avatar, truly droughts, earthquakes, famines, and storms. find love with a 10-foot-tall blue- skinned Na’vi manufactured risk Ċ Dangers that are woman? The film, happily in the eyes of its created by the impact of human knowledge and many viewers, shows that true love can indeed technology on the natural world. Examples of conquer all, including a galactic version of manufactured risk include global warming and genetically modified foods. racial prejudice and the power of transgalactic corporations that will stop at nothing to sat- isfy their greed. These themes undoubtedly resonated with both widely shared romantic yearnings and growing environmentalist concerns. The success of a ﬁlm such as Avatar reﬂects changing values and may also contribute to this shift in values. Western-made ﬁlms and television programs, which dominate the global media, advance political, social, and economic agendas that reﬂect a speciﬁcally Western worldview. Some people worry that globalization is fostering a global culture in which the values of the most powerful and affluent—in this instance, Hollywood ﬁlmmakers— overwhelm local customs and tra- dition. According to this view, globalization is a form of cultural imperialism in which Western values, styles, and outlooks smother individual national cultures. Others, by contrast, have linked globalization to a growing differentiation in cul- tural traditions and forms, as is seen in the Indian Bollywood and Nigerian Nollywood ﬁlm industries discussed at the beginning of this chapter. Global society is character- ized by an enormous diversity of cultures existing side by side. Local traditions are joined by a host of additional cultural forms from abroad, presenting a bewildering array of lifestyle options. Rather than a uniﬁed global culture, what we are witnessing is the fragmentation of cultural forms (Friedman, 1994). Established identities and ways of life grounded in local communities and cultures are giving way to hybrid identities com- posed of elements from contrasting cultural sources (Hall, 1992). For example, while bhangra melodies hail from the Punjab region of India, U.S. music fans may recognize bhangra harmonies and rhythms from hip-hop artists such as Beyoncé and Jay-Z. India’s ﬁlm industry (dubbed “Bollywood”) sells twice as many tickets as Hollywood—although revenues from U.S. ﬁlms eclipse those from Bollywood. Globalization and Risk The consequences of globalization are far-reaching, affecting virtually all aspects of the social world. Yet, because globalization is an open-ended and internally contradictory pro- cess, it produces outcomes that are difficult to predict and control. Another way of thinking of this dynamic is in terms of risk. Many of the changes wrought by globalization present new forms of risk. Unlike risks from the past, which had established causes and known effects, today’s risks are incalculable in origin and indeterminate in their consequences. THE SPREAD OF “MANUFACTURED RISK” Humans have always had to face risks, but today’s risks are qualitatively different from those of earlier times. Until recently, human societies were threatened by external risk from the natural world—dangers such as drought, earthquakes, famines, and storms. Today, however, we increasingly face various types of manufactured risk—risks 708 CHAPTER 20Globalization in a Changing World created by the effect of our own knowledge and technology on the natural world. Many current environmental and health risks are the outcomes of our own interventions into nature. Environmental Risks One of the clearest illustrations of manufactured risk involves threats posed to the natural environment (see Chapter 19). A consequence of accelerating industrial and technological development has been the steady spread of human intervention in nature—for example, through urbanization, industrial production and pollution, large-scale agricultural projects, the construction of dams and hydroelectric plants, and nuclear power. The collective outcome of such processes has been widespread environmental destruction whose precise cause is indeterminate and whose consequences are difficult to calculate. In the globalizing world, ecological risk takes many forms. One example of eco- logical risk is global warming. Concern over global warming has been mounting in the scientiﬁc community; it is now generally accepted that Earth’s temperature has been increasing due to the buildup within the atmosphere of greenhouse gases—a byproduct of man-made processes such as deforestation and the burning of fossil fuels. The poten- tial consequences of global warming are devastating: If polar ice caps continue to melt at the current rate, sea levels will rise and may threaten low-lying land masses and their human populations. Changes in climate patterns have been cited as possible causes of the severe ﬂoods that afflicted Mozambique in 2000, the record number of hurricanes that swept through the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico in the fall of 2005, as well as Hur- ricane Katrina, which devastated New Orleans, and Hurricane Sandy, which leveled entire neighborhoods in New Jersey and New York in 2012. Because environmental risks are diffuse in origin, it is unclear how to address them or determine who bears responsibility for remedying them. For example, although scientists have found that chemical pollution levels have harmed Antarctic penguin colonies, it is impossible to identify either the exact origins of the pollution or its possible consequences for the penguins in the future. In such an instance—and in hundreds of similar cases— action to address the risk is unlikely because the extent of both the cause and the out- come is unknown (Beck, 1995). Health Risks Lately, the dangers posed to human health by manufactured risks have attracted great attention. The media and public health campaigns, for example, urge people to limit their exposure to harmful ultraviolet rays and apply sunscreen to prevent burning. Sun exposure has been linked to a heightened risk of skin cancer, possibly due to the depletion of the ozone layer—the layer of Earth’s atmosphere that normally ﬁlters out ultraviolet light. Because of the high volume of chemical emissions produced by human activities and industry, the concentration of ozone in the atmosphere has been diminishing, and, in some cases, ozone holes have opened up. Many examples of manufactured risk are linked to food, because advances in sci- ence and technology have heavily inﬂuenced modern farming and food production tech- niques. For example, chemical pesticides and herbicides are widely used in commercial agriculture, and chickens, pigs, and many other animals raised for food are pumped full of hormones and antibiotics. Some people have suggested that such farming techniques compromise food safety and could adversely affect humans. Two particular controversies have raised widespread public concern: the debate over genetically modiﬁed foods and the outbreak of mad cow disease. Recent Research on Globalization and Social Change709 The saga of genetically modiﬁed foods began 20 years ago, when some of the world’s leading chemical and agricultural ﬁrms decided that new knowledge about genes could transform the world’s food supply. These com- panies had been making pesticides and her- bicides but wanted to develop a major market for the future. The American ﬁrm Monsanto was the leader in developing much of the new technology. Monsanto bought up seed compa- nies, sold off its chemical division, worked to bring the new crops to market, and launched a gigantic advertising campaign promoting the beneﬁts of its genetically modiﬁed crops to farmers and consumers. The early responses were just as the company had conﬁdently Demonstrators march in the streets of Portland, Oregon, anticipated. By early 1999, 55 percent of the as part of an international protest against Monsanto and soybeans and 35 percent of the corn produced the use of GMOs. in the United States contained genetic altera- tions. From 1996 to 2016, genetically modiﬁed foods experienced an unprecedented 110-fold increase in worldwide production (International Service for the Acquisition of Agri- biotech Applications, 2016). It is currently estimated that upward of 75 percent of all processed foods sold in gro- cery stores contain some genetically modiﬁed components (Center for Food Safety, 2017). In addition to North America, genetically modiﬁed crops are being widely grown in China. Since genetically modiﬁed crops are relatively new, no one can be certain about their effects once they are introduced into the environment. Many ecological and consumer groups are concerned about the potential risks involved with the adoption of this largely untested technology. Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), known popularly as mad cow disease, was ﬁrst detected in British cattle in 1986. Scientists have linked BSE infection to the practice of raising cattle, normally herbivores, on feed containing traces of the parts of other animals. After the outbreak, the British government took steps to control the disease among cattle, but it claimed that eating beef was safe for humans. Only in the mid-1990s was it admitted that several human deaths from Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a degenerative brain condition, had been linked to the consumption of beef from infected cattle. Thousands of British cattle were killed, and strict new legislation was passed to regulate cattle farming and the sale of beef products. Most recently, cattle infected with BSE have been discovered in Canada and the United States, sparking widespread fears about the safety of the food supply. Although extensive scientiﬁc research has explored the risks to humans from BSE, the ﬁndings remain inconclusive. There is a risk that individuals who consumed British beef in the years preceding the discovery of BSE may have been exposed to infection. Calculat- ing the risks to humans from BSE is an example of the complexity of risk assessment in the contemporary world. It is necessary to know if and when infected cattle were part of a certain food chain, the level and distribution of the infection present in the cattle, how the beef was processed, and many other details. The sheer quantity of unknown factors has complicated the task. 710 CHAPTER 20Globalization in a Changing World THE GLOBAL “RISK SOCIETY” Global warming, the debate over genetically modiﬁed foods, the BSE crisis, and other manu- factured risks present new choices and challenges. Individuals, countries, and transnational organizations must negotiate risks as they make choices about how to live and conduct business. Because there are no deﬁnitive answers about the causes and outcomes of such risks, this endeavor can be bewildering. Should we use food and raw materials if their pro- duction or consumption might harm our health and the natural environment? German sociologist Ulrich Beck (1992) sees these risks contributing to a global “risk society.” As technological change progresses and produces new forms of risk, we must constantly respond and adjust to these changes. The risk society, he argues, is not lim- ited to environmental and health risks; it includes a series of interrelated changes within contemporary social life: shifting employment patterns, heightened job insecurity, the declining inﬂuence of tradition and custom on self-identity, the erosion of traditional fam- ily patterns, and the democratization of personal relationships. Because personal futures are much less ﬁxed than they were in traditional societies, decisions of all kinds present risks. Getting married, for example, is a riskier endeavor today than when marriage was a lifelong institution. Decisions about educational qualiﬁcations and career paths can also feel risky: It is difficult to predict what skills will be valuable in an economy that is chang- ing so rapidly. According to Beck (1995), an important aspect of the risk society is that its hazards are not restricted spatially, temporally, or socially. Today’s risks have global, not merely personal, consequences. Many forms of manufactured risk, such as those concerning human health and the environment, cross national boundaries. Consider the disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan in 2011. Everyone living in the immediate vicinity—regardless of age, class, gender, or status—was exposed to danger- ous levels of radiation. Globalization and Inequality Beck and other scholars have identiﬁed risk as one of the main outcomes of globalization and technological advance. Yet globalization is generating other important challenges, because its effect is differential—and some of its consequences are not benign. Next to mounting ecological problems, the expansion of inequalities within and between societies is one of the most serious challenges facing the world today. The majority of the world’s wealth is concentrated in the industrialized countries of the global north, whereas countries in the global south suffer from widespread poverty, overpopulation, inadequate educational and health care systems, and crippling foreign debt. The disparity between the industrial north and the global south widened steadily over the course of the twentieth century and is now the largest it has ever been. A recent report on global wealth shows that global inequality is at extreme levels. Taken together, the bottom half of the global population own less than 1 percent of total wealth. In sharp contrast, the richest 10 percent hold 89 percent of the world’s wealth, and the top 1 percent alone account for 50 percent of global assets (Credit Suisse, 2016a). Thought of another way, in 2017, just eight men owned the same wealth as the 3.6 billion people who make up the poorest half of humanity (Oxfam, 2017). These vast disparities in economic well-being are all the more jarring when daily income is considered. Recent data from the World Bank show that 767 million people are living in extreme poverty today; that is, they live on less than $1.90 per day. Although the Recent Research on Globalization and Social Change711 proportion of persons who live under such dire circumstances has decreased markedly over the last three decades—from 44 percent in 1981 to 10.7 percent in 2013—the abso- lute numbers living in abject poverty remain high because the populations in these poor nations are so large. Further, extreme poverty is clustered in sub-Saharan Africa, which accounts for half of the world’s extreme poor (World Bank, 2016e). In much of the global south, levels of economic growth and output over the past century have not kept up with the rate of population growth, whereas the level of economic devel- opment in industrialized countries has far outpaced it. These opposing tendencies have caused a marked divergence between the richest and poorest countries. North America has the largest share of global wealth (36 percent). China, on the other hand, accounts for 21 percent of the global adult population but only 9 percent of total wealth. And for Africa and India, the population share surpasses the wealth share by a multiple greater than 10 (Credit Suisse, 2016a). Globalization seems to be exacerbating these trends by further concentrating income, wealth, and resources within a small core of countries. The expansion of global trade has been central to this process. Global trade in goods and services has increased by nearly 60 percent in the last decade, from $13 trillion in 2005 to nearly $21 trillion in 2016 (UNCTAD, 2017). The volume of merchandise exports in 2016 exceeded $16 trillion—up from $10.6 tril- lion in 2005. The volume of service exports in 2016 was nearly $5 trillion, or 6.4 percent of total global output—up from $2.6 trillion in 2005 (World Bank, 2017e). Only a handful of countries in the global south have managed to beneﬁt from the overall rapid growth, and the process of integration into the global economy has been uneven. Some countries—such Figure 20.1 Share of Global Wealth by Region, 2016 North America Europe Asia-Pacific China Latin America India Africa 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 Share of adult population in % Share of total wealth in % Source: Credit Suisse, 2016a. 712 CHAPTER 20Globalization in a Changing World as the East Asian economies, Chile, India, and Poland—have fared well, with signiﬁcant growth in exports. Other countries—such as Algeria, Russia, Venezuela, and most of sub- Saharan Africa—have seen few beneﬁts from expanding trade and globalization (UNDP, 2006). There is a danger that many of the countries most in need of economic growth will be left further behind as globalization progresses. Many scholars see free trade as the key to economic development and poverty relief. Organizations such as the WTO work to liberalize trade regulations and reduce trade bar- riers. Free trade across borders is viewed as a win-win proposition for countries in both the global north and south. While the industrialized economies are able to export their prod- ucts to markets worldwide, it is claimed that countries in the global south will beneﬁt by gaining access to world markets. This, in turn, would improve their prospects for integra- tion into the global economy. But many are now challenging this belief, since free trade has also resulted in the loss of millions of U.S. jobs to low-wage countries. THE CAMPAIGN FOR GLOBAL JUSTICE Not everyone agrees that free trade is the solution to poverty and global inequality. In fact, many critics argue that free trade is a one-sided affair that beneﬁts those who are already well off, leads to massive job loss of industrial workers in advanced economies, and exacerbates poverty and dependency within the global south. During the 2016 presi- dential primary campaigns, Democrat Bernie Sanders and Republican Donald Trump seemed to agree on just one thing: Free trade agreements such as the proposed Trans Paciﬁc Partnership (TPP) were costing Americans their jobs. President Trump has doubled down on his campaign pledge to rethink all trade agreements: He has pulled the United States out of the TPP and is renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agree- ment (NAFTA) with Mexico and Canada, threatening to pull out if our partners do not make major concessions. Recently, much of this criticism has focused around the WTO, which is at the fore- front of efforts to increase global trade. In 1999, more than 50,000 people from around the world took to the streets of Seattle to protest during the WTO’s Millennium Round of trade talks. Trade unionists, environmentalists, human rights campaigners, antinuclear activists, farmers, and representatives from hundreds of local and international nongov- ernmental organizations joined forces to voice their frustration with the WTO—an orga- nization many see as favoring economic imperatives over all other concerns, including human rights, labor rights, the environment, and sustainable development. Negotiators from the WTO’s 134 member states—the number of members has since risen to 161—had come together to discuss measures to liberalize conditions for global trade and investment in agriculture and forest products, among other issues. Yet the talks broke off early with no agreements reached. The organizers of the protests were triumphant—not only had the demonstrations succeeded in disrupting the talks, but internal disputes among del- egates had also surfaced. The Seattle protests were heralded as the biggest victory to date for campaigners for global justice. Since that time, every ministerial meeting of the WTO has faced massive demonstrations by those excluded from the processes of setting the rules for global trade. Does this campaign represent the emergence of a powerful anti-globalization move- ment, as some commentators have suggested? Protesters in other cities, such as Lon- don and Washington, D.C., argue that free trade and economic globalization further concentrate wealth in the hands of a few, while increasing poverty for the majority of the world’s population. Most of these activists agree that global trade is necessary and Recent Research on Globalization and Social Change713 potentially beneﬁcial for national economies, but they claim that it needs to be regulated by different rules: trade rules oriented toward protecting human rights, the environ- ment, labor rights, and local economies—not toward ensuring larger proﬁts for already rich corporations. The protesters claim that the WTO is an undemocratic organization dominated by the interests of the world’s richest nations, particularly the United States. Although the members of the WTO include many countries in the global south, many have no inﬂu- ence over the organization’s policies because the richest nations set the agenda. Poorer nations have fewer resources, in terms of money and trained personnel, to confront the highly complex issues related to international trade. The president of the World Bank has pointed out that 19 of the 42 African states that are members of the WTO have little or no representation at its headquarters in Geneva (World Bank, 2000). Such imbalances have very real consequences. For example, although the WTO has insisted that countries in the global south open their markets to imports from industrial- ized countries, it has allowed industrialized countries to maintain high barriers to agri- cultural imports and provide vast subsidies for their domestic agriculture production to protect their own agricultural sectors. Between 1995 and 2014, the U.S. government spent $322 billion on subsidies to boost the income of crop and livestock farmers (Envi- ronmental Working Group, 2016). For certain crops, like sugar and rice, agricultural sub- sidies amount to as much as 80 percent of farm income (Stiglitz, 2007). The EU spends $69 billion each year on their farmers, and the farm budget takes up to 40 percent of the EU’s yearly expenditure (Reuters, 2013). In fact, the average European cow gets a sub- sidy of approximately $2 a day; more than half of the people in the global south live on less than that amount (Stiglitz, 2007). This means that the world’s poorest (and predominantly agricultural) countries do not have access to the large markets for agricultural goods in industrialized countries. This issue has confounded the expansion of WTO rules covering trade in services, for- eign investment, government procurement, and other areas. Beginning with the 2003 WTO ministerial meeting in Mexico, the “Group of 21” countries in the global south, led by Brazil and India, have refused to consider the expansion of WTO rules until the United States and the EU eliminate subsidies for agriculture production and allow greater access to other agri- culture markets, such as cotton. The issue of agriculture subsidies still has not been resolved. A group of countries in the global south, again led by Brazil, won two major disputes at the WTO over subsidies for European sugar and American cotton. Despite these rulings, the issue of illegal subsidies Europe and the United States use to support their farmers continues to hamper WTO ministerial meetings. A similar divide exists over the protection of intellectual property rights—an issue monitored by a WTO multilateral agreement called TRIPS (Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights). In 2015, high-income countries accounted for more than 50 percent of patent applications. Only ﬁve

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