Lecture 1 Understanding Globalization PDF

UNDERSTANDING GLOBALIZATION FRAMING GLOBALIZATION Beyond a problem-solving approach, especially a perspective of “promoting international competiveness” (e.g. economic and technological) Beyond a buzzword: a process and discourse Critical view: globalization as contested; understood and con...

UNDERSTANDING GLOBALIZATION FRAMING GLOBALIZATION Beyond a problem-solving approach, especially a perspective of “promoting international competiveness” (e.g. economic and technological) Beyond a buzzword: a process and discourse Critical view: globalization as contested; understood and constituted in different ways Frames of meaning used to describe the world are part of a political process Words and meanings matter: some views become legitimate and define what the world is… Globalization: Levels of Debate What are the starting premises? Competing definitions Varying measurements Contrasting chronologies Diverse explanations What are the implications for social change? Geography identity Production Governance Knowledge Globalization: Levels of Debate What are the impacts on the human condition? Security Equality Democracy What are the responses? Neoliberalism (markets) Rejectionism (localism/populism) Reformism (public policies) Transformism (social revolution) Contending Perspectives 1. Liberal or hyperglobal 2. Conservative or skeptical 3. Critical or transformational Liberal or Hyper-global perspective 1. “end of geography”; ‘end of the nation-state’ ; borderless world of flows 2. Privileges an economic and technological logic 3. Globalization as mutually beneficial, progressive and benign 4. New, inevitable, levels off 5. A new modernization theory? 6. The end of the Cold War and the ‘end of history’: ‘there is no alternative’ (TINA) 7. There is however a “pessimistic globalist” perspective that emphasize both homogenization and its negative consequences Conservative/Skeptical Perspective 1. Underplays globalization: internationalization or regionalization 2. Certain types of Marxism/structuralism adopt a strongly state-centric perspective 3. Rise of anti-global authoritarian populism/nativism Critical/Transformation Perspective 1. Recognizes dissolution of old structures and boundaries (states, economies, communities) 2. “the state as a space of flows”: power and politics are reconfigured; they flow through, across and around territorial boundaries 3. Speed and magnitude of changes 4. Mobility, hybridity, complexity 5. Global-local nexus 6. Emphasis on unevenness and new hierarchies: inclusion and exclusion; globalization of superficiality; globalization of indifference GLOBALIZATION: SOME DEFINITIONS Globalization can thus be defined as the intensification of worldwide social relations which link distant localities in such a way that local happenings are shaped by events occurring many miles away and vice versa. (Giddens) Internationalization and multinationalization are phases that precede globalization because the latter herald the end of the state system as the nucleus of human activity. (Grupo de Lisboa) GLOBALIZATION: SOME DEFINITIONS Globalization as a concept refers both to the compression of the world and the intensification of consciousness of the world as a whole.(Robertson, 1992) the process of interaction and integration among the people, companies, and governments of different nations, a process driven by international trade and investment and aided by information technologies (Sunny Levin Institute) GLOBALIZATION: SOME DEFINITIONS The expansion and intensification of social relations and consciousness across the world time and across world space” (Steger) – Expansion – the creation of new social networks and the multiplication of existing connections that cut across traditional political, economic, cultural and geographic boundaries – Intensification – expansion, stretching and acceleration of these networks GLOBALIZATION: SOME DEFINITIONS The expansion and intensification of social relations and consciousness across the world time and across world space” (Steger) – Relates to the way people perceive time and space. (both objective and subjective) – Must be differentiated with an ideology called GLOBALISM (belief) Globalization: Key Themes and Characteristics (M. Steger) 1. Globality: A social condition characterized by tight economic, political, cultural and environmental interconnections and flows, making currently existing borders and boundaries irrelevant Globalization: Key Themes and Characteristics (M. Steger) 2. Globalization - A set of social processes that appear to transform our present social condition of weakening nationality into one of globality; human lives played out in the world as a single place; redefining landscape of sociopolitical processes and social sciences that study these mechanisms Globalization: Key Themes and Characteristics (M. Steger) 3. Global imaginary - A concept referring to people’s growing consciousness of belonging to a global community - Destabilizes and unsettles the conventional parameters of understanding within which people imagine their communal existence GLOBALIZATION AS A PROCESS, CONDITION AND IDEOLOGY GLOBALIZATION AS A PROCESS Multidimensional set of social processes that generate and increase “worldwide social interdependencies and exchanges while at the same time fostering in people a growing awareness of deepening connections between the local and the distant” Start of globalization? – depends GLOBALIZATION AS A CONDITION Globality Scholte’s transplanetary connectivity (establishment of social links between people located at different places of the planet – not geographic unit but as a space) and supra-territoriality (social connections that transcend territorial geography – renders borders and barriers irrelevant) GLOBALIZATION AS AN IDEOLOGY Exist in the people’s consciousness – ideas and beliefs about the global order 6 Core Claims 1. Globalization is about the liberalization and global integration of markets. 2. Globalization is inevitable and irreversible. 3. Nobody is in charge of globalization. 4. Globalization benefits everyone in the long run 5. Globalization furthers the spread of democracy in the world. 6. Globalization requires a global war on terror. THEORETICAL PARADIGMS ASSOCIATED WITH GLOBALIZATION 1. World Systems Theory 2. Global Capitalism Paradigm 3. The Network Society 4. Space, Time and Globalization 5. Transnationality and Transnationalism 6. Global Culture Paradigm WORLD SYSTEMS PARADIGM Immanuel Wallerstein View globalization not as a recent phenomenon but as virtually synonymous with the birth and spread of capitalism, c. 1500. Globalization is not at all new process but something that is just continuing and evolving. Capitalist world system is divided into three categories: 1. Core - powerful and developed centers (Western Europe, North America and Japan) 2. Periphery - those regions that have been forcibly subordinated to the core through COLONIZATION (Latin America, Africa, Asia, Middle East and Eastern Europe) 3. Semi – periphery – states and regions that were in the core and are moving down or those in the periphery and are moving up GLOBAL CAPITALISM Globalization is a novel stage in the evolving system of world capitalism. Qualitatively new features that distinguish it from earlier epochs New global production and financial system Rise of processes that cannot be framed within the nation-state/interstate system Sklair: “theory of the global system” at the core of which are transnational practices (TNPs) – TCC (transnational capitalist class) – new class that brings together several social groups – executives of transnational corporations; globalizing bureaucrats, politicians, professionals and consumerist elites in the media and the commercial sector. Robinson: theory of global capitalism involving three planks: transnational production, transnational capitalists and transnational state: class relations THE NETWORK SOCIETY Technology and technological change instead of capitalism Manuel Castells, The Rise of the Network Society New economy: 1. Informational, knowledge based 2. Global, production is organized on a global scale 3. Networked, productivity is generated through global network “the networked enterprise makes material the culture of the informational, global economy: it transforms signals into commodities by processing knowledge” SPACE, TIME AND GLOBALIZATION Giddens “time-space distanciation” – The intensification of worldwide relations which link distant localities in such a way that local happenings are shaped by events occurring many miles away and vice versa David Harvey – time-space compression (produced by the very dynamics of capitalist development” Sassen’s “The Global City” – proposes a new spatial order is emerging such as London, New York and Tokyo – sites of specialized services for transnationally mobile capital that is so central to the global economy Robert Robertson “Glocalization” – ideas about home, locality and community have been extensively spread around the world TRANSNATIONALITY AND TRANSNATIONALISM Transnationalism – an umbrella concept encompassing a wide variety of transformative processes, practices and developments that take place simultaneously at a local and global level Transnational processes and practices – broadly as the multiple ties and interactions – economic, political, social and cultural – that link people, communities and institutions across the borders of nation- states. Transnational links – more intense due to speed and relatively inexpensive character of travel and communications and their impacts GLOBAL CULTURE Emphasize the rapid growth of mass media and resultant global cultural flows and images in recent decades (global village – Marshall McLuhan) Focus: globalization and religion, nations and ethnicity, global consumerism, global communications and the globalization of tourism Ritzer’s Mcdonaldization of society (homogenization, Weber’s process of rationalization) – Efficient, predictable and standardized lines → alienation, waste, low nutritional value and the risk of health problems MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT GLOBALIZATION (SCHOLTE) GLOBALIZATION AS INTERNATIONALIZATION GLOBALIZATION AS LIBERALIZATION GLOBALIZATION AS UNIVERSALIZATION AND WESTERNIZATION GLOBALIZATION AS INTERNATIONALIZATION Globalization refers to global Internationalization refers to the economic integration of many increasing importance of international formerly national economies into trade, international relations, treaties, one global economy, mainly by free alliances, etc. Inter-national, of trade and free capital mobility, but course, means between or among also by easy or uncontrolled nations. migration. Includes activities by entities such as Includes a gamut of human corporations, states, international activities that do not require organizations, and even individuals reference to a state’s national with reference to national borders border. and national governments One Many GLOBALIZATION AS LIBERALIZATION Liberalization is the removal of barriers and restrictions imposed by national governments so as to create an open and borderless world economy. Globalization is realized when national governments “reduce or abolish regulatory measures like trade barriers, foreign – exchange restrictions, capital controls and visa requirements” (Scholte) Problem with this misconception: – Confines the study within the debate concerning the neoliberal macroeconomic policies: pro and anti – Political implication – neo-liberalism is the only available policy framework for a truly global world. – Debate about the pros and cons of laissez faire has been happening for centuries GLOBALIZATION AS UNIVERSALIZATION & WESTERNIZATION Universalization denotes a process of spreading various objects, practices and experiences to the different parts of the planet Globalization is when things, values and practices spread to the different parts of the planet. Implication: Homogenization of culture, politics, economy and laws. Destroys indigenous practices and cultures. When Western modernity spreads and destroys – Westernization Issues arising from this misconception: – Universalization is not a new feature of world history. – Westernization is not the only path that can be taken by globalization MULTIPLE GLOBALIZATION Scholars found it simpler to avoid talking about globalization as a whole Instead “multiple globalizations” instead of one process Arjun Appadurai: Different kinds of globalization occur on multiple and intersecting dimensions of integration – “SCAPES” – “ethnoscapes” – global movement of people – “mediascapes” – flow of culture – “technoscapes” – circulation of mechanical goods and software – “financescapes” – global circulation of money – “ideoscapes” – realm where political ideas move around Claudio: distinct windows into the broader phenomenon of globalization