Globalization: a very short introduction
This book is written by Manfred B. Steger and published by Oxford University Press. It contains 8 chapters. Firstly, the writer gives some definitions of globalization. Then he takes globalization into consideration from cultural, political, economic, and ideological aspects. At last he talks about challenges to globalism and the future of globalization. This is really a useful book which gives us a relatively complete insight into globalization.
Manfred B. Steger is Professor of Global Studies and Director of the Globalism Research Centre at RMIT University. His main focus is on globalization, ideology, and non-violence in the America, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Australia. He has written 16 books, dozens of articles and book chapters, and numerous reviews. His study "Globalism: The New Market Ideology" won the 2003 Michael Harrington Award of the New Political Science Section of the American Political Science Association. Two of his journal articles on the subject of globalization and ideology are "From Market Globalism to Imperial Globalism: Ideology and American Power After 9/11", and "Ideologies of Globalization".
In chapter one, Steger tries to define globalization. Globalization suggests a kind of dynamism and development. It refers to a set of “social processes” which are changing our present social conditions into a globality which signifies a social condition characterized by the existence of global economic, political, cultural, and environmental interconnections. By globalization we are leaving modernity and moving towards condition of postmodern.
There are different opinions about the essential qualities of globalization. Steger talks about some influential definitions of globalization:
1) Globalization involves “creation” of new social conditions and activities which overcome traditional political, economic, and cultural conditions, so it involves the “intensification” of social relations around the world which links distant places to each other.
2) Globalization involves “expansion” of social relations and interdependencies.
3) Globalization involves “acceleration” of social exchanges. This can be done by use of internet and satellites.
4) The creation, expansion, and acceleration of social interdependencies occur both on material level and subjective level of human consciousness. It means that globalization refers to people who are becoming conscious of these creation, expansion, and acceleration of social interdependencies.
Globalization involves economic, cultural, political and ideological processes. It is like an elephant in a dark place. Everybody can touch a small part of it. Nobody can know it completely.
In chapter two he tries to answer to this question: is globalization a new phenomenon?
There are different opinions about the beginning point of globalization. Some scholars limit its scope to the last four decades of post-industrialism. Some extend it to the 19th century. Some believe that it started five centuries ago with the emergence of modernity and the capitalist world system. There are also some researchers who believe it had started since thousands of years ago.
Steger presents a chronology which identifies five distinct historical periods that are different from each other by acceleration in the speed of social exchanges and widening of geographical scopes. This chronology implies that globalization is as old as humanity.
1) The prehistoric period (10000 BCE- 3500 BCE): in this earliest phase of globalization, contacts among hunters and gatherers- who were spread around the world- were geographically limited. In this period due to the absence of advanced forms of technology, globalization was severely limited.
2) The pre-modern period (3500 BCE- 1500CE): in this period the invention of writing and the wheel were great social and technological boosts that moved globalization to a new level. The invention of wheel in addition to roads made the transportation of people and goods more efficient. On the other hand writing facilitated the spread of ideas and inventions.
3) The early modern period (1500- 1750): it is the period between the Enlightenment and the Renaissance. In this period, European Enlightenment project tried to achieve a “universal” form of morality and law. This with the emergence of European metropolitan centers and unlimited material accumulation which led to the capitalist world system helped to strengthen globalization.
4) The modern period (1750- 1970): innovations in transportation and communication technology, population explosion, and increase in migration led to more cultural exchanges and transformation in traditional social patterns. Process of industrialization also accelerated.
5) The contemporary period (from 1970): the creation, expansion, and acceleration of worldwide interdependencies occurred in a dramatic way and it was a kind of leap in the history of globalization.
In chapter three, Steger talks about the economic aspects of globalization. Economic globalization shows the intensification of economic interrelations across the world. With great flows of capital and technology, trade in goods and services flourished.
Huge transnational corporations, powerful international economic institutions, and large regional trading systems emerged with globalization in economy.
The internationalization of trade and finance: Free trade proponents believe that eliminating trade barriers among nations will lead to increase global wealth, secure international relations, and spread new technologies around the world. Globalization in financial trading leads to increased mobility among different parts of financial industry, with fewer restrictions and greater investment opportunities. During the 1990s, liberalization of financial transactions were accelerated by use of satellite systems and internet based technologies.
The power of transnational corporations: Transnational corporations control much of the world’s investment capital, technology, and access to international markets. They are a great rival to nation-states in their economic power.
The enhanced role of international economic institutions: Great international economic institutions such as IMF, the World Bank, and the WTO play an important role in making rules of a global economy that is sustained in the global North and South. We should take this issue into consideration that economic aspects of globalization cannot be discussed apart from political process and institutions. The intensification of global economic interconnections is set into motion by political decisions.
In this chapter he takes political dimensions of globalization into consideration. Political globalization refers to the intensification and expansion of political interrelation across the globe. This process raise questions about the sovereignty of states, the impact of intergovernmental organizations, and the future of regional and global governance. In the last few centuries people made territorial lines that produced a sense of belonging to a particular nation-state. Everything related to the inside of those lines were domestic, and out of these lines were considered as foreign. Globalization led to the partial diminishing of these territorial borders which consequently led to diminishing of cultural lines.
The modern nation-state: The origins of modern nation-state system can be traced back to 1648, the Peace of Westphalia which finished religious wars among the main European powers following the Protestant Reformation. Before Westphalia, political power was local and personal but subordinated to a larger imperial authority. After that Peace further centralization of political power occurred and state administration and professional diplomacy developed. In 1945 the United Nations which was rooted in a political order based on the modern nation-state system formed. With growth of globalization during the 1970s, the international society of separate states was turning into a global web of political interdependencies that challenged the sovereignty of nation-states. In 1990, President Bush announced the birth of a “new world order” which was the sign of the death of the Westphalia model.
The demise of the nation-state: Hyperglobalizers believe that political globalization is driven by economic and technological forces. They believe that globalization diminishes bounded territory and causes the rise of “a borderless world”. They suggest that political happens in global networks not in states based on territory.
In Steger’s view, states role in determining the direction of social life in their territory is becoming weaker as a result of globalization. The economic and political aspects of globalization are interconnected. The global markets impose their own standards and undermine the role of governments to set national policy objectives which are independent from each other. The sovereignty of nation-states is decreasing. Contemporary globalization is weakening the traditional boundaries of states and strengthening supraterritorial spaces.
Political globalization and global governance: The rise of supraterritorial institutions is a result of political globalization. Some believe that political globalization is moving to make dramatic global governance. But some less optimistic scholars think that creation of a global democracy is just an abstract idealism. They believe that with the intensification of cultural, political, and economic interactions across the world, oppositions and resistance are possible as well as tolerance, so some nation-states will not accept the global democracy.
In chapter five, Steger discusses about cultural dimensions of globalization. Globalization caused an expansion in cultural interdependencies and interconnections. Today, cultural transmissions happen much more than the past. New technologies such as internet have facilitated the circulation of dominant systems of meaning, ideas, and images. Today, cultural practices are not located in a fixed town or nation.
This chapter will focus on some important themes:
1) Global culture: sameness or difference: Pessimistic hyperglobalizers argue that globalization helped to the rise of a homogenized popular culture which is mostly based on a western culture industry. They believe that the diversity of existing cultures is diminishing. They say that cultural globalization is best discussed as “cultural imperialism” which is mostly moving towards “Americanization” of the world. Although some countries try to resist it, we can see the signs of sameness everywhere around the world.
Optimistic hyperglobalizers agree with the rise of sameness as result of cultural globalization, but they think it will be a good result. Some of them also think that Americanization of the world leads to expansion of democracy and free markets. On the other hand, there are some scholars who do not believe in rise of sameness or difference. For instance Roland Robertson talks about “cultural hybridity” as a result of “glocalization” in which there is an interaction between global and local cultural characteristics. As a result of cultural globalization, there is less stable sense of identity among people around the world.
2) The role of the media: Cultural globalization was facilitated through powerful media. Today, media is a giant commercial market which amounts to creation of a global oligopoly like the oil.
3) The globalization of language: A very important part of cultural globalization is the change in patterns of languages around the world. In globalization of languages, some languages are used in international communication and some others are put aside and sometimes disappear. There are five variables which influence the globalization of languages:
a) Number of languages
b) Movements of people
c) Foreign language learning and tourism
d) Internet language
e) International scientific publications
In chapter six, he gives explanations about ideological aspects of globalization. Ideology is a system of widely shared ideas, beliefs, norms and values among a group of people. It is often used to legitimize certain political interests or to defend dominant power structures. Ideology connects human actions with some generalized claims.
We should make a distinction between globalization- social processes of intensifying global interdependence- and globalism- an ideology gives the concept of neoliberal values and meanings to globalization.
Since political and business leaders try to sell their favorable version of globalization, a large part of public opinion around the world is shaped by neoliberal description of globalization. Globalism has become a strong discourse. Steger identifies five major ideological claims of advocates of globalism:
1) Globalization is about the liberalization and global integration of markets: the problem with this claim is that liberalization and integration of markets happen through political project of engineering free markets by interference of centralized state power, and it is in contrast to the neoliberal ideal of limited role of governments.
2) Globalization is inevitable and irreversible: globalists believe that spread of market forces driven by technological innovations is inevitable in globalization. Neoliberals uses this claim to convince people to adopt the natural discipline of the market if they want to prosper, which implies the elimination of government controls over the markets.
3) Nobody is in charge of globalization: this claim seeks to depoliticizing the public debate on globalization and neutralizing antiglobalist movements.
4) Globalization benefits everyone: globalists talk about the benefits of market liberalization such as rising global living standards, economic efficiency, individual freedom, and technological progress. But the reality is that the opportunities of globalization are spread unequally and power and wealth are concentrated among a specific group of people, regions and corporations.
5) Globalization furthers the spread of democracy in the world: for the globalists democracy and free markets are synonymous.
The neoliberal explanation of globalization is ideological because it is politically motivated and contributes to the construction of particular meanings of globalization which stabilize existing power relations. Globalism tries to create collective meanings and shape people’s identities.
In next chapter, he talks about the possible challenges to globalization. Although globalism is the powerful ideology of our time, but no single ideology ever enjoys absolute dominance.
Steger divides ant globalist groups into two large ideological camps. These groups differ both in terms of their political agendas and the means they employ against globalization- from terrorist violence to nonviolent parliamentarian methods.
a) Particularist protectionists: they are associated with the right wing of Republican Party in the US. They see themselves as patriotic protectors of hard working Americans against corporate elites, recent immigrants, and minorities. They say transnational forces are destroying the traditional American way of life. They believe that most American politicians help to promote corporate interests that undermine the sovereignty of the nation by supporting a global governance structure. Particularist protectionism is a response to the economic hardships and cultural dislocations brought about by neoliberal globalization. They long for cultural uniformity, moral certainty, and national superiority.
b) Universalist protectionists: this group is also a critic of corporate globalization. One of the prominent individuals in this group is Ralph Nader who rejects the globalist claim that globalization equals the liberalization and integration of markets and that globalization is inevitable. He advocates nonviolent social justice movements in the world in which ordinary people struggled together to defeat concentrations of undemocratic power.
The strategy of both the particularist and the universalist camp is to challenge globalism in word and action.
Although one may think that it is impossible to stop or slow down globalization, yet there are already some warning signs. Travel and international trade are becoming difficult through intense border controls and security measures at the world's major and seaports. Maintaining sharp cultural divisions is heard more frequently in public discourse.
In the long run, the growth of global inequality and the social instability will cause some reactionary social forces. In the future, globalization's survival will depend on its radical transformation and implementation of a comprehensive "Global New Order".
