Globalization & (In) Security

Contemporary public discourse contains many threats, fears and emergency situations, a state
which sociologists refer to as a “Risk Society”.
We will now specify a number of central issues on the agenda and test how globalisation has
affected them.

Is globalisation truly to blame for the increasing lack of personal security?

Peace
Preparation for, and engagement in armed and organised violence constituted an incentive for
the creation of the Westphalian state, given its superior centralised military capabilities
compared to the medieval political entities that it replaced.

Throughout the modern nation-state’s existence, ‘war’ remained one of its chief
preoccupations.

In places where globalisation developed in its most complex form, governments are faced by
markets and strong communication networks which necessarily affect security. That is to say,
exports and FDI on the one hand, and the citizenry’s attachment to global communities on the
other, reduce the opportunities of advantageous warfare.
- For example, the highly globalised OECD states have not even once gone to war with
each other since 1945. Similarly, it is no coincidence that countries with McDonald’s
outlets in their jurisdictions have only ever gone to war once (the Kosovo war in 1999
between Serbia and NATO).

Furthermore, the interests that promote state warfare have weakened over time:
- True, war can serve territorial interests such as access to natural resources, the ousting
of a hostile government or territorial expansion. For example, territorial interests still
led Argentina and Britain to go to war in 1982.
- But war supplies little utility in the effort to take control over supra-territorial resources,
such as the internet, electronic finance, global markets and production networks, and
ecological trends.

Moreover, globalisation has led to the development of the ability to effect international
monitoring and the disarmament of larger weapons than was possible in the past. These new
crisis management tools (particularly the activities of the UN since 1950) have been successful
in limiting conflicts in various areas around the world (for example Cambodia, Cyprus and
Namibia).

However, globalisation has not eradicated warfare outside of the developed world (although
inter-state warfare is on the decline there as well):
 - Recent wars in the developing world resulted in 200,000 battle-related deaths over the
past decade. Most of the arms used by those groups came from global trade.
The rise in global connectivity has meant a relative rise in internal armed violence as compared
with external violence: all but 9 out of the 132 main armed conflicts registered between 1989
and 2010 were civil wars.

Technologies identified with globalisation (computer networks linked to satellites, long distance
warplanes and precision bombing) facilitate military processes. The war on terrorism includes
satellite remote sensing, monitoring of bank accounts, and hacking into computers as much as
armed combat.

Furthermore, processes associated with globalisation such as the liberalisation of capital

movements and freer movement of merchandise (amongst which weapons) supplied terror
with resources and new tools.

Finally, there are new types of operations, such as the idea behind the EU’s Rapid Reaction
Force.
So the balance sheet seems mixed: all in all, fewer people get killed in the globalised era due to
military conflict than before, yet globalisation has given states military equipment of
unprecedented sophistication and destructive potential.

Crime
Along with the fear of war, another example of insecurity in society is the advance of crime:
crime has killed over 4.3 million people over the past 15 years.

The question is: how is this issue related to globalisation?

States join together in fighting this cross-border crime phenomenon by developing institutions
and organisations to deal with this issue – for example, Interpol.

Nonetheless, global connections also supply tools for criminal activity. For example, the
internet has become an important tool for all kinds of fraud, pedophilia, money laundering etc.
In addition, many smuggling gangs have come about.

The Environment
On the one hand, globalisation has provided highly sophisticated tools for anticipating natural
disasters.

Furthermore, it seems that many global companies and predominantly first world citizens (not
plagued by financial and military threats) have been paying more attention to ecological
matters since the 60s.
On the other hand, many technologies of globalisation have also been highly polluting, thus
creating the conditions that bring about these disasters in the first place.
Moreover, some companies have ‘gone global’ in part to relocate to sites where environmental
regulations are less stringent.

Joint initiatives for solving ecological issues are not advancing in a fast, efficient way: take the
American refusal to ratify the Kyoto convention that was signed in 1997, whose aim was to
diminish the use of gases damaging the ozone layer. In 2009 the Copenhagen summit meeting
on environmental issues resulted in failure.

Health
On the one hand, globalisation has contributed to the improvement of global health:
– Global philanthropists such as the Gates and Rockefeller Foundations have
sponsored major programmes in developing countries.
– In 2001 the G8 set up a Global Fund to fight AIDS, TB and Malaria. This initiative,
however, has to date fallen far short of its target budget of $10 billion per year.
– Agreement was reached in 2003 through the WTO to improve poor countries’
access to essential medicines.
On the other hand:
– Global transmission of diseases (such as Cholera, Malaria, AIDS, SARS, etc.) via
people and produce has triggered a succession of popular panics since the
1980s. As a result of these developments (particularly regarding AIDS), average
life spans are declining by 20-40 years in a number of countries, mainly in Sub-
Saharan Africa.
– Greater global mobility has also facilitated the movement of thousands of health
professionals away from places of the greatest need.

Employment
Another topic crucial within the link between globalisation and economic security is
employment.

Some argue that the global economy has created new jobs and will in the future succeed in
providing work for all:
- Service industries indeed have significantly expanded their payrolls in recent decades,
all over the world.
- Despite many job-losses particularly in the developed world, this trend was
compensated for by the creation of an ever larger amount of jobs in the developed
world as a result of expanded FDI.
However:
- The end of central planning has brought about large-scale unemployment in the ex-
communist world.
- Overall, countries in the developed world have moved from effective full employment
in the 1960s to persistent unemployment in the 1980s (despite job creation in certain
sectors thanks to globalisation). There are those who argue that the reason behind this
 process is related to the phenomenon of industrial relocation to cheap countries in the
developing world, while others claim that it reflects improved mechanisation.
Certain efforts have been made to reduce unemployment via new action plans, in an attempt to
encourage the creation of new jobs, but with limited results.

Working Conditions
The acceleration in contemporary globalisation has also affected working conditions around
the world.

On the one hand, global companies have offered workers in the developing world a salary and
better conditions than they had had until then (although meanwhile encouraging a chaotic
urbanisation process, with side-effects such as criminality, drugs, violence etc.).

On the other hand, globalisation’s impact on the whole has been more negative than positive:
globalisation has tipped the political scales against workers, as corporations can now credibly
threaten to relocate to a place with lower working conditions.

That is to say, neo-liberal processes of globalisation have contributed to a decline in “Fordism”.

This social contract matured in developed countries from 1910 until the 60s, and was based on
a triangular relationship between government, management and labour.

Globalisation has led to a situation termed “Post-Fordism” – a situation marked by flexibility in

terms of working conditions: workers are supposed to be more flexible regarding employment
security, working hours, income and other issues. In other words, they work in accordance with
the changing needs of the market.

The transition from Fordism to Post-Fordism has especially worsened working conditions of
unskilled labour, with the most radical changes in the US and Britain.

- Workers in the developed world have generally accepted worsened working conditions
without resistance, as they fear that if they were to resist, they would lose their job to
the developing world.
- A simple threat by the employer to relocate is enough: research has shown that only
20% of the decline in the lowest salaries is attributable to firms moving to the Third
World. This conclusion is also reflected in reality: if low wages were the key objective of
MNCs , Africa would be the world’s leading continent in exports.
- In fact, the vast majority of this decline is due to improved mechanisation and the
waning power of trade unions. There are actually good incentives to remain in the
developed world:
The principle organisation trying to aid workers in their hardship is the ILO (International Labour
Organization).
For instance, from the 40s and onward, the ILO has advanced the creation of common
standards for the employment of workers. In addition, the organisation has widened its activity
in order to cover informal work effected by workers (for instance, housekeeping).
- The problem with the organisation’s activity is that not all countries ratify its proposals.
The organisation is also having a hard time enforcing its rules.
- In addition to the ILO, blocks such as the EU and NAFTA have over the 90s adopted
treaties dealing with social rights, but with limited results.

Identity
An additional security-related issue is identity – Who are we? Where do we belong? What is our
society?
On the one hand, globalisation has provided many opportunities for individual expression and
the creation of different collective identities.
On the other hand, this openness has caused a certain confusion regarding man’s personal
identity as well as his national identity, which is likely to lead to cultural destruction:
– At present, around half the world’s spoken languages are under threat of
extinction. As of 2010 around 82% of internet use is carried out in only ten
languages.
If so, globalisation has mixed effects on identity issues.

Conclusion
People around the world deal with different and various security challenges. It appears that no
one currently is secure due to different reasons, and globalisation is usually held responsible for
this lack of security.

According to what we have seen in relation to various issues, the implications of globalisation
can be positive and negative at the same time, although in a considerable number of fields the
damage has been greater than the gains.

Nevertheless, it is worth emphasising that every security problem was created also due to
additional reasons, not solely connected to the processes of globalization (intra-state, social
issues etc.). That is to say, the anti-globalisation movement errs in thinking that globalisation is
solely to blame for the lack of personal security…