GLOBALIZATION

 Is Globalization a myth or reality?

 There is a debate on this between Hyper Globalist or Globalist.

Hyper Globalists:

 Kenichi Ohame: He gave the word ‘border less world’.

 Marshall MacLuhan: ‘World is a global village’.

 Anthony Giddens: ‘Compression in time $ space.

 Hyper globalist who traced globalization as a profound, even revolutionary set of eco, cultural,
technological & political shifts.

 According to these, globalization is real & it has diluted the sovereignty of state both internal & external
sovereignty.

 According to Hyper globalization, today individuals are reaching around the world further, fastest, deeper,
cheaper.

 The chief image of hyper globalism is captured in a notion of borderless world.

Sceptics

 However, according to the sceptics Robert Gylpin, hyperglobalist offer an imbalanced & exaggerated view
of globalization.

 It overstates the extent to which the policy makers have been dominated by irresistible eco. &
technological forces.

 The images of the ‘end of sovereignty’ can be said as the myths of globalization.

 The role of the states can’t become irrelevant, thought their role has been altered. The advent of global
terrorism & the intensifying concerns about migrating pattern have re-emphasised the importance of
state in ensuring security & protecting national borders.

 Sceptics have further argued that globalization have been used as an ideological device by capitalists who
wish to advance market oriented economic agenda.

Transformationalists – David Held

 Between hyper globalists & sceptics.

 They have accepted that profound changes have taken place in the pattern & processes of world politics.

 Through much have changed but state’s sovereignty is still intact.

Internationalization or International & Interdependence

 Internationalization refers to growing interdependence among the states but still in this process, state
remains a discrete unit in which border matters. By contrast globalization refers to the process in which
the very distinction between the domestic & external breakdown. Borders are as longer barriers. Distance
& time are collapsed.

 Politics is now global politics  Hence, globalization is real.

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Evolution of Globalization & Present nature of Globalization

 There is lack of consensus as the when globalization started.

 General understanding is that it formerly started with end of C.W & with the establishment of WTO,
however according to the Marxist Scholar, it began with the start of capitalism, as they held that, the
search for profit will force bourgeoise to settle everywhere & nestle everywhere’.

 Marxist scholar considers globalization, as new buzz world for new capitalist exploitation.

 Rosa Luxemberg suggested that capitalism, imperialism, nationalism, militarism co-exist.

 Though there can be different models of globalization yet the present model is the neo-liberal model
which implies expansion of capitalism in global scale.

 The globalization has resulted into the collapse of socialist economics.

 Shock therapy have been applied on East European States & have been forced to open their economics &
to adopt market based economic policies & western model of democracy. – described by Huntington as
3rd wave of demo.

 Thus from a state controlled eco. To the mkt based eco. & from authoritarian to democratic State, the
change has been sudden. In comparison to Eastern European countries, China’s, Integration has been
gradual & it has been successful in alleviating the large no. of ppl. From poverty.

 Pol. Modernization theory suggests that countries more towards democracy due to urbanisation,
secularism, rationalism but China offers a different example.

 In general the response of developing Countries towards globalisation is this –

1. Globalisation has led to inter & intra state disparity.

2. It has created huge inequalities.

3. Growth led by globalisation has not been inclusive & adversely affected.

4. Given rise to civil society protest, environmental, farmer, consumer movements, ethnic conflict, and
increase in human trafficking, religious terrorism, chrony capitalism, led to rise of failed states.

 According to Pratap Bhanu Mehta, globalisation is witnessing the ‘Pincer Movement’. [facing pressure
from all sides] & according to E. Wallerstein, time to prepare Swan Song to it.

 However, according to Jagdish Bhagwati, he has done qualitative & qualitative analysis & he has
established that globalisation is the most powerful force to achieve social good. Growth is trickling down
& inequalities have started diminishing.

View of different scholars on globalisation

 Realist, liberals, constructionist, Marxist, Post-colonial, feminist.

 Refer to PDF

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THEORIES AND GLOBALIZATION
None of these theories has all the answers when it comes to explaining world politics in a global era. In fact,
each sees ‘globalization’ differently. We do not want to tell you which theory seems best, since the purpose of
this book is to give you a variety of conceptual lenses through which you might want to look at world politics.
All we will do is say a few words about how each theory might respond to the debate about ‘globalization’. We
will then go on to say something about the possible rise of globalization and offer some ideas on its
strengths and weaknesses as a description of contemporary world politics.

 For realists, globalization – however its advocates define it – does not alter the most significant feature of
world politics, namely the territorial division of the world into nation-states. While the increased
interconnectedness among economies and societies might make them more dependent on one another,
the same cannot be said about the state system. Here, powerful states retain sovereignty, and
globalization does not render obsolete the struggle for political power among those states. Nor does it
undermine the importance of the threat of the use of force or the importance of the balance of power.
Globalization may affect our social, economic, and cultural lives, but it does not transcend the
international political system of states. We might think of the decision of the British people to leave the
European Union as a demonstration of this.

 For liberals, the picture looks very different. They tend to see globalization as the end product of a long-
running transformation of world politics. For them, globalization fundamentally undermines realist
accounts of world politics since it shows that states are no longer such central actors as they once were. In
their place are numerous actors of differing importance according to the issue-area concerned. Liberals
are particularly interested in the revolution in technology and communications represented by
globalization. This increased interconnectedness among societies, which is economically and
technologically led, results in a very different pattern of world political relations from that which has gone
before. States are no longer sealed units, if they ever were, and as a result the world looks more like a
cobweb of relations than like the state model of realism or the class model of Marxist theory. From this
perspective, the British exist from the EU was a foolish and very expensive decision.

 For constructivist theorists, globalization tends to be presented as an external force acting on states,
which leaders often argue is a reality that they cannot challenge. This, constructivists argue, is a very
political act, since it underestimates the ability of changing social norms and the identity of actors to
challenge and shape globalization, and instead allows leaders to duck responsibility by blaming ‘the way
the world is’. Instead, constructivists think that we can mould globalization in a variety of ways,
notably because it offers us very real chances, for example, to create cross-national human rights and
social movements aided by modern technological forms of communication such as the internet.

 For Marxists, globalization is a sham, and the recent backlash against ‘globalization’ is evidence of this.
From a historical perspective, it is nothing particularly new, and is really only the latest stage in the
development of international capitalism: neoliberalism. It does not mark a qualitative shift in world
politics, nor does it render all our existing theories and concepts redundant. Above all, it is a Westernled
capitalist phenomenon that simply furthers the development of global capitalism, in a neoliberal vein.
Neoliberalism, in this sense, is less a variant of liberal internationalism, though there are links, than the
effort to deregulate global capitalism for the benefit of the rich. Rather than make the world more alike,
neoliberal globalization further deepens the existing divides between the core, the semi-periphery, and
the periphery. From this perspective, the decision of British people to retreat from transnational
collaboration, voting to exit the EU, was because ordinary working people did not feel the benefits of it.

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 Postcolonial and decolonial scholarship on globalization is similar to much Marxist thought in that it
highlights the important degree of continuity and persistence of colonial forms of power in the globalized
world. For example, the level of economic and military control of Western interests in the Global South is
in many ways actually greater now than it was under direct control—a form of ‘neo’-colonialism that is
compatible with neoliberal capitalism. So, although the era of formal colonial imposition by force of arms
is largely over, an important starting point for postcolonial scholarship is the issue of vast inequality on a
global scale, the forms of globalizing power that make this systematic inequality possible, and the
continued domination of subaltern peoples, those classes dominated under hegemony such as poor rural
women in the Global South.

 Each of the different branches of feminist scholarship responds differently to the question of
globalization, but they all address and debate the effects that it has on gendered forms of power.
Liberal feminists, as is to be expected, are most positive and hopeful about globalization, viewing it as a
way to incorporate more women into the existing political and economic system. Others are much more
sceptical, pointing to the negative effects of neoliberalism and economic globalization on the global
wealth gap, which has a disproportionately negative effect on women, especially women of colour. From a
feminist perspective, to really assess the significance, causes, and effects of globalization requires
concrete analysis of the lived experiences of men and women, showing how seemingly gender-neutral
issues are highly gendered, reinforcing relations of power and other forms of gender injustice.

By the end of the book we hope you will work out which of these theories (if any) best explains not only
‘globalization’, but world politics more generally. The central point here is that the main theories see
globalization differently because they have a prior view of what is most important in world politics.

Globalization: Myth or Reality?

The focus of this book is to offer an overview of world politics in a global era. But what does it mean to speak
of a ‘global era’? Societies today are affected both more extensively and more deeply by events in other
societies. The world seems to be ‘shrinking’, and people are increasingly aware of this. The internet is the most
graphic example, since it allows you to sit at home and have instant communication with people around the
world. Email and social media such as Facebook and Twitter have also transformed communications and
hence how we come to know about world politics. But these are only the most obvious examples. Others
would include: global newspapers, international social movements such as Amnesty International or
Greenpeace, global franchises such as McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, and Apple, the global economy, and global
problems such as pollution, climate change, and HIV/AIDS. Have these developments really changed the
nature of world politics? The debate about globalization is not just the claim that the world has changed but
whether the changes are qualitative and not merely quantitative. Has a ‘new’ world political system really
emerged as a result of these processes?

Our final task in this introduction is to offer you a summary of the main arguments for and against
globalization as a distinct new phase in world politics. We do not expect you to decide where you stand on the
issue at this stage, but we think that we should give you some of the main arguments so that you can keep
them in mind as you read the rest of this book. Because the arguments for globalization as a new phase of
world politics are most effectively summarized in Chapter 1, we will spend more time on the criticisms. The
main arguments in favour are:

1. The pace of economic transformation is so great that it has created a new world politics. States are
less and less like closed units and they cannot control their own economies under global capitalism.
The world economy is more interdependent than ever, with cross border trade and financial flows
ever expanding.

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 2. Communications have fundamentally revolutionized the way we deal with the rest of the world. We
now live in a world where events in one location can be immediately observed on the other side of
the world. Electronic communications alter our notions of the social groups we live in.

3. There is now, more than ever before, a global culture, so that most urban areas resemble one
another. Much of the urban world shares a common culture, a good deal of it emanating from
Hollywood.

4. Time and space seem to be collapsing. Our old ideas of geographical space and of chronological time
are undermined by the speed of modern communications and media.

5. A global polity is emerging, with transnational social and political movements and the beginnings of a
transfer of allegiance from the state to sub-state, transnational, and international bodies.

6. A cosmopolitan culture is developing. People are beginning to ‘think globally and act locally’.

7. A risk culture is emerging, with people realizing both that the main risks that face them are global
(pollution, HIV/AIDS, and climate change) and that individual states are unable to deal with these
problems.

However, just as there are powerful reasons for seeing globalization as a new stage in world politics, often
allied to the view that globalization is progressive—that it improves people’s lives—there are also arguments
that suggest the opposite. Some of the main ones are:

 Globalization is merely a buzzword to denote the latest phase of capitalism: neoliberalism. In a very
powerful critique of globalization theory, Paul Hirst and Grahame Thompson (1996) argue that one
effect of the globalization thesis is that it makes it appear as if national governments are powerless in the
face of global economic trends. This ends up paralysing governmental attempts to subject global
economic forces to control and regulation. Just think about how this played out in the negotiations
between Greece and its debtors in 2015. Believing that most globalization theory lacks historical depth,
Hirst and Thompson point out that it paints the current situation as more unusual than it is, and also as
more firmly entrenched than it might in fact be. Current trends may well be reversible. They conclude that
the more extreme versions of globalization are ‘a myth’, and they support this claim with five main
conclusions from their study of the contemporary world economy (Hirst and Thompson 1996: 2–3). First,
the present internationalized economy is not unique in history. In some respects, they say it is less open
than the international economy was between 1870 and 1914. Second, they find that ‘genuinely’
transnational companies are relatively rare; most are national companies trading internationally. Third,
there is no shift of finance and capital from the developed to the underdeveloped world. Overseas direct
investment continues to be highly concentrated among the countries of the developed world. Fourth, the
world economy is not global; rather trade, investment, and financial flows are concentrated in and among
different blocs—Europe, North America, China, and Japan. Finally, if they coordinated policies, this group
of blocs could regulate global economic markets and forces. Hirst and Thompson offer a very powerful
critique of one of the main planks of the globalization thesis: that the global economy is something
beyond our control. Their central criticism is that this view both misleads us and prevents us from
developing policies to control national economies. All too often we are told that our economy must
obey ‘the global market’, with enormous consequences for social spending and social justice. Hirst and
Thompson believe that this is a myth.

 Another obvious objection is that globalization is very uneven in its effects. At times it sounds very much
like a Western theory applicable only to a small part of humankind. To pretend that even a small minority

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 of the world’s population can connect to the internet is clearly an exaggeration when in reality most
people on the planet are not so technologically connected. In other words, globalization applies only to
the developed world. We are in danger of overestimating both the extent and the depth of globalization.

 A related objection is that globalization may well be simply the latest stage of Western imperialism. It is
the old modernization theory in a new guise. The forces that are being globalized are conveniently those
found in the Western world. What about non-Western experiences and values? Where do they fit into this
emerging global world? The worry is that they do not fit in at all, and what is being celebrated in
globalization is the triumph of a Western worldview, at the expense of the worldviews of others.

 Critics have also noted that there are very considerable losers as the world becomes more globalized. This
is because globalization represents the seeming ‘success’ of neoliberal capitalism in an economically
divided world. Perhaps one outcome is that neoliberal globalization allows the more efficient exploitation
of poorer nations, and segments of richer ones, all in the name of ‘openness’. The technologies
accompanying globalization are technologies that benefit the richest economies in the world, and allow
their interests to override those of local communities. Not only is globalization imperialist; it is also
exploitative.

 Not all globalized forces are necessarily ‘good’ ones. Globalization makes it easier for drug cartels and
terrorists to operate, and the internet’s anarchy raises crucial questions of censorship and preventing
access to certain kinds of material, including among those trading in the sexual exploitation of children.

 Turning to the so-called global governance aspects of globalization, the main worry here is about
responsibility. To whom are the transnational social movements responsible and democratically
accountable? If IBM or Shell becomes more and more powerful in the world, does this not raise the issue
of how accountable it is to democratic control? One of the arguments for ‘Brexit’ was that EU decision-
making is undemocratic and unaccountable. Most of the emerging powerful actors in a globalized world
are not accountable to democratic publics. This argument also applies to seemingly ‘good’ global actors
such as Amnesty International and Greenpeace.

We hope that these arguments for and against the dominant way of representing globalization will cause
you to think deeply about the utility of the concept of globalization. The chapters that follow do not take a
common stance for or against. We end by posing some questions that we would like you to keep in mind
as you read the remaining chapters:

o Is globalization a new phenomenon in world politics?

o Which theory discussed above best explains globalization?

o Is globalization a positive or a negative development?

o Is neoliberal globalization merely the latest stage of capitalist development?

o Does globalization make the state obsolete?

o Does globalization make the world more or less democratic?

o Is globalization merely Western imperialism in a new guise?

o Does globalization make war more or less likely?

o In what ways is war a globalizing force in itself?

o Do you think that the vote for Brexit and the election of President Donald Trump in 2016 represent a
major new challenge to globalization?

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We hope that this introduction and the chapters that follow help you to answer these questions, and that this
book as a whole provides you with a good overview of the politics of the contemporary world. Whether or
not you conclude that globalization is a new phase in world politics, whether you think it is a positive or a
negative development, or that it doesn’t really exist at all, we leave to you to decide. But we think it is
important to conclude this chapter by stressing that globalization—whatever it is—is clearly a very complex
phenomenon. How we think about politics in the global era will reflect not merely the theories we accept, but
also our own positions in this globalized world. In this sense, how we respond to world events may itself be
ultimately dependent on the social, cultural, gendered, racialized, economic, and political spaces we occupy. In
other words, world politics suddenly becomes very personal: how does your economic position, your
ethnicity, race, gender, culture, or your religion determine what globalization means to you?