Globalization

Thursday, 9 November 2017 3:51 PM

The Difficulty with Globalization

• Sometimes used to explain nearly all modern phenomena
○ Term would gain more analytical precision if we knew
precisely what it constituted
• Globalization should be, in the first instance, that which needs
explaining (DV) instead of that what explaining (IV)
• Ex. Politicians cite globalization as self-evident
○ Because of globalization…
○ We have no choice but to liberalize, privatize, and
deregulate
○ TINA argument: there is no alternative
Held, McGrew, Goldblatt, and Perraton -- Global Transformations
• Their globalization definition: the widening, deepening, and
speeding up of worldwide interconnectedness in all aspects of
contemporary social life, from the cultural to criminal, the
financial to the spiritual
○ Broader than what we have covered thus far which
concentrates on economic aspects
○ Highlight health-related aspects, such as the spread of
infectious diseases
• Process of reducing barriers worldwide to flows of capital, goods,
services, and labor

The Three Theses

• Hyperglobalist
○ There's no point resisting the inevitable erosion of national
borders
§ Nation states are increasingly porous
§ Consequently, government actors have less and less
discretion over what happens within their own borders
(lines of demarcation are becoming thinner and
thinner over time )
§ In an economic sense, nations have evolved into
"competition states" which aim to best attract FDI,
capital controls, offering a sound macroeconomic
 (lines of demarcation are becoming thinner and
thinner over time )
§ In an economic sense, nations have evolved into
"competition states" which aim to best attract FDI,
capital controls, offering a sound macroeconomic
framework, ensuring political stability and so on
○ B-school globalization's mostly economic framing:
§ Single global market, death of distance, etc.
○ Liberals and Marxists can believe hyperglobalist POV (but
differ on normative outlook)
§ Government as merely "sound economic
management"
§ Cultural homogenization (Thomas Friedman's The
Lexus and the Olive Tree; Barber's Jihad vs. McWorld )
§ Welfare benefits will become harder to sustain since
high taxes diminish economic competitiveness
○ Emergence of global elites
§ Easier for those who have attended quality universities
to relate to peers in other countries than less well off
compatriots (similar experiences, worldviews)
• Skeptical
○ Not truly globalization but internationalizarion, or
heightened interactions between predominantly national
economies
○ Levels of world trade investment and particularly migration
(which is now controlled via passports and so on) were
actually higher pre-1914
○ Also mostly eocnomic explanations
§ Law of one price violated
□ Diff prices in diff places
□ Big Mac index
§ Countries still trade less with each other as distance
increases
○ What we observe is less of globalization but of
regionalization (trade blocs forming especially in Asia
Pacific, Europe, and North America as opposed to a unified
word market)
• Main Idea: Hyperglobalization is Exaggerated
○ Most economic activity in various countries is still domestic
instead of international
§ There are some exceptions like, say Singapore
○ States still have discretion --often against further economic
 word market)
• Main Idea: Hyperglobalization is Exaggerated
○ Most economic activity in various countries is still domestic
instead of international
§ There are some exceptions like, say Singapore
○ States still have discretion --often against further economic
integration
§ Failure of WTO Doha Round, PH not joining the TPP
○ If Ohmae's thesis held true, we would not need to study
international political economy
§ The nation state, already weakened by globaization,
will soon no longer exist anyway ("politics-free")
§ Relations between nation states would be solely
dictated
• What is the reality for Skeptics, then?
• Transformationalist
○ Political, economic and social changes are reshaping
societies and the world order
§ Not entirely about economic integration
§ Role of the "intermestic"
§ Patterns of economic, military, technological,
ecological, political, and cultural flows have few
historical precedents
§ E.g. evolved forms of social organization reshape the
nation-state (PH Migrant families normalize "irregular
lifestyles of recent RP leaders)
○ Yet unlike the hyperglobalist thesis, there is no certainty
about the endpoint since globalization is a contested
concept
§ It is a tendency to which there are counter tendencies
○ Not North South OR core-periphery but new hierarchies
that cut across all societies and rgions
§ Not a pyramid analogy buy three interlocking circles
of elites, contented, marginalized
○ Complex global systems, not governments, connect the
fate of communities
§ Unbundling of the relationship among sovereignty,
territoriality, and state power
○ Sovereignty = less a territorial boundary than a bargaining
resource for a politics characterized by complex
transnational networks
§ States co-determine outcomes
A tendency to which there are counter tendencies
 territoriality, and state power
○ Sovereignty = less a territorial boundary than a bargaining
resource for a politics characterized by complex
transnational networks
§ States co-determine outcomes
A tendency to which there are counter tendencies
• Economic logic pushes for ever-greater liberalization,
privatization, and deregulation
○ In line with economists' thinking of the benefits gained from
reducing market distortions
○ But, there are also forces pushing back against these in
various coutnries worldwide
• Anti globalization movements
○ Occupy, other 99%
• Populist backlashes in OECD nations
○ Brexit, Trump-ism
○ Blame trade openness for job losses as well as economic
migration for losing jobs to foreigners, cultural dilution and
loss of indentity