Globalization as Political Process

Economic perspectives on globalization can hardly be discussed apart from an analysis of

political processes and institutions. Most of the debate on political globalization involves the weighing of
conflicting evidence with regard to the fate of the modern nation-state. In particular, two questions
have moved to the top of the research agenda. First, what are the political causes for the massive flows
of capital, money, and technology across territorial boundaries? Second, do these flows constitute a
serious challenge to the power of the nation-state? These questions imply that economic globalization
might be leading to the reduced control of national governments over economic policy. The latter
question, in particular, involves an important subset of issues pertaining to the principle of state
sovereignty, the growing impact of intergovernmental organizations, and the prospects for global
governance.

An influential group of scholars considers political globalization as a process intrinsically

connected to the expansion of markets. In particular, steady advances in computer technology and
communication systems such as the World Wide Web are seen as the primary forces responsible for the
creation of a single global market. See, for example, Bryan and Farrell (1996), Kurdle (1999), Rao (1998)
and Weiss (2011). As Richard Langhorne (2001: 2) puts it, ‘Globalization has happened because
technological advances have broken down many physical barriers to worldwide communication which
used to limit how much connected or cooperative activity of any kind could happen over long distances.’
According to even more extreme technological-determinist explanations, politics is rendered powerless
in the face of an unstoppable and irreversible technoeconomic juggernaut that will crush all
governmental attempts to reintroduce restrictive policies and regulations. Economics is portrayed as
possessing an inner logic apart from and superior to politics. As Lowell Bryan and Diana Farrell (1996:
187) assert, the role of government will ultimately be reduced to serving as ‘a superconductor for global
capitalism’.

Perhaps the most influential representative of this view in the 1990s was Kenichi Ohmae (1990,
1995, 2005). Projecting the rise of a ‘borderless world’ brought on by the irresistible forces of capitalism,
the Japanese business strategist argues that, seen from the perspective of real flows of economic
activity, the nation-state has already lost its role as a meaningful unit of participation in the global
economy. In the long run, the process of political globalization will lead to the decline of territory as a
meaningful framework for understanding political and social change. No longer functioning along the
lines of discrete territorial units, the political order of the future will be one of regional economies linked
together in an almost seamless global web that operates according to free-market principles. For a more
recent example of the ‘end of the nation-state thesis’ from the opposite end of the ideological
spectrum, see Prem Shankar Jha (2006).

A second group of scholars disputes the view that large-scale economic changes simply happen
to societies in the manner of natural phenomena such as earthquakes and hurricanes. Instead, they
highlight the central role of politics – especially the successful mobilization of political power – in
unleashing the forces of globalization (see, for example, Gowan, 1999; Kapstein, 1999; Korten, 2001;
Luttwak, 2000). Hence, this group of scholars argues for the continued relevance of conventional
political units, operating either in the form of modern nation- states or ‘global cities’. Saskia Sassen's
(1991, 2007, 2008) work emphasizes the key role played by global cities in the organization and control
of globally oriented economic and social processes. See also Amen et al. (2006) and Brenner (2006). At
the same time, most proponents of this view understand that the development of the last few decades
has significantly constrained the set of political options open to states, particularly in developing
countries.

Jan Aart Scholte (2005), for example, points out that globalization refers to gradual processes of
‘relative deterritorialization’ that facilitate the growth of ‘supraterritorial’ relations between people.
Scholte emphasizes, however, that his concession to deterritorialization does not necessarily mean that
nation-states are no longer the main organizing forces in the world. Equipped with the power to
regulate economic activities within their sphere of influence, states are far from being impotent
bystanders to the workings of global forces. If concrete political decisions were responsible for changing
the international context in the direction of deregulation, privatization, and the globalization of the
world economy, then different political decisions could reverse the trend in the opposite direction. For
an excellent exposition of this argument, see Cohen (2001). See also Garrett (1998), Helleiner (1994,
1996) and Panitch (1996: 83–113). The core message of this group of academics is loud and clear:
politics is the crucial category upon which rests a proper understanding of globalization.

A third group of scholars suggests that globalization is fuelled by a mixture of political and
technological factors. John Gray (1998: 218), for example, presents globalization as a long-term,
technology-driven process whose contemporary shape has been politically determined by the world's
most powerful nations. According to Gray, it is the ultimate objective of the neo-liberal Anglo-American
initiative to engineer a global free market. Predicting that the world economy will fragment as its
imbalances become insupportable, Gray foresees a gloomy ending to the current political efforts to
establish a single global market: ‘Trade wars will make international cooperation more difficult. ... As
global laissez-faire breaks up, a deepening international anarchy is the likely human prospect.’

A far less pessimistic version of a perspective that combines technology and politics to explain
globalization can be found in Castells' (1996–8, vol. 3: 356) series of studies over nearly two decades
focusing on the ‘network society’. The Spanish sociologist separates the powerful forces fuelling
globalization into three independent processes: ‘The information technology revolution; the economic
crisis of both capitalism and statism, and their subsequent restructuring; and the blooming of cultural
social movements.’ For a more recent assessment, see Castells (2009). Castells points to the rise of a
new ‘informational capitalism’ based on information technology as the indispensable tool for the
effective implementation of processes of socioeconomic restructuring. In this context, he acknowledges
both the crisis of the nation-state as a sovereign entity and the devolution of power to regional and local
governments as well as to various supranational institutions. On the other hand, Castells also
emphasizes the continued relevance of nation-states as crucial bargaining agencies that influence the
changing world of power relationships. As new political actors emerge and new public policies are
implemented, the role of culture increases. While pointing to the potential for global economic and
ecological disasters brought on by globalization, Castells (1996–8, vol. 3: 379) ends on a far more
positive note than Gray: ‘The dream of the Enlightenment, that reason and science would solve the
problems of humankind, is within reach.’

A fourth group of scholars approaches political globalization primarily from the perspective of
global governance. Representatives of this group analyse the role of various national and multilateral
responses to the fragmentation of economic and political systems and the transnational flows
permeating through national borders. See the various essays collected in Wilkinson (2005). Some
researchers believe that political globalization might facilitate the emergence of democratic
transnational social forces emerging from a thriving sphere of ‘global civil society’. This topic is often
connected to discussions focused on the impact of globalization on human rights and vice versa – see
the essays in Brysk (2002). For example, Martin Shaw (2000: 16) emphasizes the role of global political
struggles in creating a ‘global revolution’ that would give rise to an internationalized, rights-based
Western state conglomerate symbolically linked to global institutions. Thus, he raises the fascinating
prospect of ‘state formation beyond the national level’. Democratic theorist John Keane (2003: 98) has
put forward a similar model of what he calls ‘cosmocracy’ – a messy and complex type of polity
understood as ‘a conglomeration of interlocking and overlapping sub-state, state, and suprastate
institutions and multi-dimensional processes that interact, and have political and social effects, on a
global scale’. In the aftermath of 9/11, however, both Shaw's and Keane's optimistic vision of a post-
imperial multilateralism directed by a Western political conglomerate seems to be out of step with the
reality of a unilateralist American Empire. Political scientists such as David Held and Anthony McGrew
(Held et al. 1999) articulate in their writings the need for effective global governance structures as a
consequence of various forces of globalization. They portray globalization as diminishing the sovereignty
of national governance, thereby reducing the relevance of the nation-state. Much to their credit, Held
and McGrew are two of the most vociferous advocates for moving the academic debate on globalization
in a more ideational and normative direction.

In Held's view, neither the old Westphalian system of sovereign nation-states nor the post-war
global system centred on the United Nations offers a satisfactory solution to the enormous challenges
posed by political globalization. Instead, he predicts the emergence of a multilayered form of democratic
governance based on Western cosmopolitan ideals, international legal arrangements, and a web of
expanding linkages between various governmental and non-governmental institutions. Rejecting the
charge of utopianism often levelled against his vision, Held (1995: 96–120) provides empirical evidence
for the existence of a tendency inherent in the globalization process that seems to favour the
strengthening of supranational bodies and the rise of an international civil society. He predicts that
democratic rights will ultimately become detached from their narrow relationship to discrete territorial
units. If Held's perspective on political globalization is correct, then its final outcome might well be the
emergence of a ‘cosmopolitan democracy’ that would constitute the ‘constructive basis for a plurality of
identities to flourish within a structure of mutual toleration and accountability’. For a more detailed
elaboration of his vision see Held (1995, 2006). In fact, even in the post-9/11 context, Held refuses to
abandon his hopes for restructuring world order toward a ‘cosmopolitan social democracy’
characterized by 'strong competent governance at all levels – local, national, regional, and global (Held
and McGrew, 2007: 131).

A number of academic critics have challenged the idea that political globalization is fuelling a
development toward cosmopolitan democracy. Most of their criticism boils down to the charge that
Held and McGrew indulge in an abstract idealism that fails to engage with current political
developments on the level of policy. Some critics argue that the emergence of private authority has
increasingly become a factor in the post-Cold War world. In their view, global collective actors like
religious terrorists and organized criminals are not merely symptoms of the weakening nation-state, but
their actions also dim the prospects for the rise of cosmopolitan democracy. See, for example, Hall and
Biersteker (2002). Moreover, sceptics like Robert Holton (2011: 202–3) raise the suspicion that Held and
McGrew do not explore in sufficient detail the cultural feasibility of global democracy. As cultural
patterns become increasingly interlinked through globalization, critics argue, the possibility of
resistance, opposition, and violent clashes becomes just as real as the cosmopolitan vision of mutual
accommodation and tolerance of differences.