GLOBALIZATION
There are many definitions of globalization. The excerpt (definition) copied from Andrew Hurrell's essay on globalization will suffice for our purposes in USP2:
"Globalization is about the universal process or set of processes which generate a multiplicity of linkages and interconnections which transcend the states and societies which make up the modern world system. It involves a dramatic increase in the density and depth of economic, ecological, and societal interdependence, with ‘density’ referring to the increased number, range, and scope of cross-border transactions; and ‘depth’ to the degree to which that interdependence affects, and is affected by, the ways in which societies are organized domestically.
Source: Andrew Hurrell "globalization" The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics. Ed. Iain McLean and Alistair McMillan. Oxford University Press, 2003. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. CDL UC San Diego. 11 January 2004
<http://www.oxfordreference.com/views/ENTRY.html?subview=Main&entry=t86.e554>
The full version of Hurrell's definition is copied below.
However, with the end of the Cold War, academic interest shifted back to the role of external or global economic factors, this time under the broad banner of ‘globalization’. It is far from easy to gather together the wide variety of meanings attached to the term globalization. At one level it appears simple. Globalization is about the universal process or set of processes which generate a multiplicity of linkages and interconnections which transcend the states and societies which make up the modern world system. It involves a dramatic increase in the density and depth of economic, ecological, and societal interdependence, with ‘density’ referring to the increased number, range, and scope of cross-border transactions; and ‘depth’ to the degree to which that interdependence affects, and is affected by, the ways in which societies are organized domestically.
In reality, much of the muddle and inconclusiveness of the debates on globalization stem from the ambiguities of the concept. Globalization is sometimes presented as a causal theory: certain sorts of global processes are held to cause certain kinds of outcomes; sometimes it is a collection of concepts, mapping (but not explaining) how the changing global system is to be understood; and sometimes it is understood as a particular kind of discourse or ideology (often associated with neo-liberalism). There are also important distinctions between economistic readings of globalization (that stress increased interstate transactions and flows of capital, labour, goods and services) and social and political readings (that stress the emergence of new forms of governance and authority, new arenas of political action (‘deterritorialization’ or the ‘reconfiguration of social space’), or new understandings of identity or community). Within economistic readings, there are distinctions between a traditional focus on interstate economic transactions and broader shifts in transnational production-structures and the emergence of new kinds of deterritorialized markets. Distinctions are also drawn between globalization, internationalization, westernization, and modernization. And there is the important distinction between the claim that globalization should be seen as the continuation of a deep-rooted set of historical processes and the view that contemporary globalization represents a critical break-point or fundamental discontinuity in world politics.
Perhaps the most important single idea concerns the growing disjuncture between the notion of a sovereign state directing its own future, the dynamics of the contemporary global economy, and the increasing complexity of world society. More specifically, there are three broad categories of claim that globalization is having a deep, perhaps revolutionary, impact. In the first place, it is widely argued that certain sets of economic policy tools have ceased to be viable and that states face ever increasing pressures to adopt increasingly similar pro-market policies. Because of the increasing power of financial markets, governments are forced into pursuing macroeconomic policies that meet with the approval of these markets. Increasing trade also places governments under pressure to adopt pro-market policies, avoiding policies which would imply the need to harm business by taxation, or to raise interest rates as a consequence of increased borrowing. They also find themselves forced to cut back the role of the public economy in order to attract inward investment from increasingly footloose multinational companies quick to punish governments who stray from the path of economic righteousness by exercising their exit option. Consequently, the range of policy options open to governments is claimed to be dramatically reduced.
A second cluster of arguments relates to the degree to which globalization has created the conditions for an ever more intense and activist global or transnational civil society. The physical infrastructure of increased economic interdependence (new systems of communication and transportation) and the extent to which new technologies (satellites, computer networks, etc.) have increased the costs and difficulty for governments of controlling flows of information, has facilitated the diffusion of values, knowledge, and ideas, and enhanced the ability of like-minded groups to organize across national boundaries. Transnational civil society, then, refers to those self-organized intermediary groups that are relatively independent of both public authorities and private economic actors; that are capable of taking collective action in pursuit of their interests or values; and that act across state borders. Globalization writers have laid great emphasis on the roles played by non-governmental organizations, social movements, and multinational corporations, but such activity also includes transnational drug and criminal groups and transnational terrorism. The analytical focus of much of this work has been on transnational networks—for example, knowledge-based networks of economists, lawyers, or scientists; or transnational advocacy networks which act as channels for flows of money and material resources but, more critically, of information and ideas.
A third cluster of arguments suggests that it is institutional enmeshment rather than economic transactions or the ‘reconfiguration of social space’ that has most constrained the state. On this view, states are increasingly rule-takers over a vast array of rules, laws, and norms that are promulgated internationally but which affect almost every aspect of how they organize their societies domestically. Proponents of this view highlight the tremendous growth in the number of international organizations; they point to the vast increase in both the number of international treaties and agreements and the scope and intrusiveness of such agreements; and they suggest that important changes are occurring in the character of the international legal system (the increased pluralism of the process by which new norms and rules emerge; the appearance of more and more ‘islands of supranational governance’ (such as the EU or the WTO); the blurring of municipal, international, and transnational law; and the increased importance of informal, yet norm-governed, governance mechanisms, often built around complex transnational and transgovernmental networks).
The critics attack along a number of fronts. First, they highlight the lack of clear and consistent definitions of globalization and the deep ambiguities as to what ‘globalization theory’ is supposed to involve or explain. Second, they point to the mounting empirical grounds for scepticism, for example: that levels of globalization are not higher or more intense than in earlier periods (especially the period before WW1); that there is no clear evidence of state retreat, of welfare states being cut back because of globalization pressures, of transnational capital standing in automatic opposition to social welfare, or of globalization being the most important factor in explaining levels of inequality in OECD countries. Whilst many of the changes and challenges of globalization are very real, the critics argue that they do not point in a single direction and certainly do not provide secure grounds for accepting the claim that some sort of deep change or transformation is under way. Third, the critics argue that globalization has been driven not by some unstoppable logic of technological innovation, but by specific sets of state policies, backed by specific political coalitions. This suggests that states themselves are not passive players and that the impact of globalization will often depend on national-level political and institutional factors. Equally, even where liberalizing effects can be attributed to globalization, it is not always the case that this implies state retreat—as in the process by which privatization and deregulation have involved re-regulation. Nor does globalization inevitably push governments towards declining state activism. It can, on the contrary, lead to increased pressure on government to provide protection against the economic and social dislocations that arise from increased liberalization and external vulnerability. Finally, the critics remain deeply unconvinced by the arguments for systemic transformation, highlighting the degree to which international institutions are created by states for particular purposes and the evident capacity of powerful states to resist or even abandon such institutions; the continued importance of military power controlled by states and of political boundaries and of national allegiances even in regions of dense economic and societal interdependence; and the very deep resistance of the United States as the global hegemon to contemplate giving up its own sovereignty and the capacity of the United States to both shape and resist the course of globalization.
Andrew HurrellHow to cite this entry:
Andrew Hurrell "globalization" The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics. Ed. Iain McLean and Alistair McMillan. Oxford University Press, 2003. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. CDL UC San Diego. 11 January 2004 <http://www.oxfordreference.com/views/ENTRY.html?subview=Main&entry=t86.e554>
World Bank view:
Globalization – the growing integration of economies and societies around the world – has been one of the most hotly-debated topics in international economics over the past few years. Rapid growth and poverty reduction in China, India, and other countries that were poor 20 years ago, has been a positive aspect of globalization. But globalization has also generated significant international opposition over concerns that it has increased inequality and environmental degradation. This site provides access to some of the most recent presentations on globalization and some of the leading research on the subject. http://www1.worldbank.org/economicpolicy/globalization/
Not everyone embraces globalization as a positive development. There are what Mathew Humphrey calls "anti-globalization" movements:
anti-globalization An umbrella term invoking a common element of opposition to globalization amongst a diverse range of protest movements. Anti-globalization brings together campaigns about labour conditions (including child labour and slave labour), environmental destruction, bio-hazards, animal rights, social justice, third-world development and debt, and politically oppressive regimes. As well as these specific protests anti-globalization has also attracted groups more generally opposed to liberal capitalism, such as anarchists. Opposition to globalization focuses on two areas. First there is the perceived growth in the power of multinational corporations. These firms are deemed to wield significant political and economic power without being subject to the constraints of democratic accountability. Secondly, international bodies such as the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and the World Trade Organization are held by anti-globalization protestors to sponsor and facilitate this corporate power, and their meetings have thus also been the targets of protest. Major anti-globalization demonstrations have occurred at a number of recent meetings of international financial and trade organizations, including the World Trade Organization ministerial meeting in Seattle, November 1999, the meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos in January 2000, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund in Washington in April 2000, and again in Prague in September of that year, the Summit of Americas in Quebec in April 2001, and the G8 summit in Genoa in July 2001.
How to cite this entry:
Mathew Humphrey "anti-globalization" The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics. Ed. Iain McLean and Alistair McMillan. Oxford University Press, 2003. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. CDL UC San Diego. 19 January 2004 <http://www.oxfordreference.com/views/ENTRY.html?subview=Main&entry=t86.e49>
GLOBAL CITY-REGIONS AND THE NEW WORLD SYSTEM
Allen J. Scott, Department of Policy Studies and Department of Geography,
UCLA, Los Angeles, CA., 90095.
"...a global city-region can be said to comprise any major metropolitan area or any contiguous set of metropolitan areas together with a surrounding hinterland of variable extent — itself a locus of scattered urban settlements — whose internal economic and political affairs are bound up in intricate ways in intensifying and far-flung extra-national relationships."
A list of global city-regions can be found at: http://www.findmehere.com/search/cityregions/globalist.htm
Allen J. Scott, John Agnew, Edward W. Soja, and Michael Storper
http://www.sppsr.ucla.edu/globalcityregions/Abstracts/abstracts.html
Excerpts:
"There are now more than 300 city-regions around the world with populations greater than one million. At least twenty city-regions have populations in excess of ten million. They range from familiar metropolitan agglomerations dominated by a strongly-developed core such as the London region or Mexico City, to more polycentric geographic units as in the cases of the urban networks of the Randstad or Emilia-Romagna. Everywhere, these city-regions are expanding vigorously, and they present many deep challenges to researchers and policy makers as we enter the 21st century."
"...city-regions increasingly function as essential spatial nodes of the global economy and as distinctive political actors on the world stage. In fact, rather than being dissolved away as social and geographic objects by processes of globalization, city-regions are becoming increasingly central to modern life, and all the more so because globalization (in combination with various technological shifts) has reactivated their significance as bases of all forms of productive activity, no matter whether in manufacturing or services, in high-technology or low-technology sectors. As these changes have begun to run their course, it has become increasingly apparent that that city in the narrow sense is less an appropriate or viable unit of local social organization than city-regions or regional networks of cities. One tangible expression of this idea can be observed in the forms of consolidation that are beginning to occur as adjacent units of local political organization (provinces, Länder, counties, metropolitan areas, municipalities, départements, and so on) search for region-wide coalitions as a means of dealing with the threats and the opportunities of globalization. In this process, we argue, global city-regions have emerged of late years as a new and critically important kind of geographic and institutional phenomenon on the world stage."