Tradition/Modernity

• Religion

• Local/National Identity

• Indigenous or Ethnic Culture

• Communal Loyalty

• Emphasis on Unique History

• Non-material Values

• Defense of Territory

• Landscape Preservation (esp. symbolic)

• Materialism

• Amorphous or Consumer Identity

• Economic and Cultural Imports

• Individual Ambitions

• Universal Experience

• Material Values

• Connections with nongroup members

• Imported Elements

Theories of Globalization

Pieces of the Puzzle: What we know so far

• Improved communication technologies• Globalization of Trade and Production (MNCs)• McGlobalization (v. tradition) • Conflict between States and Fragmentation of

States• Development: Uneven development and social

justice• Rise of social protest

Globalization: Cliché or Explanation of Global Change?

• Does contemporary globalization really represent a novel global condition? Is power increasingly dispersed or does it continue to reside in the hands of elites?

• Will structural adjustment, free trade and the market reduce global poverty?

• What is the role of the state within globalization?

• Does contemporary globalization impose new limits to political freedoms?

• How can globalization be civilized and democratized? 

  

The Globalization Debate

• Agreement on intensification of Interconnectedness

• Disagreement on:– Conceptualization– Driving forces– Periodization– Impacts– Trajectories: where is it going?

Alternative Perspectives

• The Hyperglobalist Perspective

• The Skeptical Perspective

• The Transformationalist Perspective

Hyperglobalist Thesis

• NEW ERA

• IT’S ABOUT THE ECONOMY, STUPID

• REDUCTION OF SOVERIGNTY– Borderless World– Hollowing out of the State

• WINNERS AND LOSERS – New global division of labor

The Skeptical Thesis

Two types of Skeptics

– Anti-globalization critics

– Political Skeptics

Anti-globalization critics

• Global economy IS a monolithic and hegemonic process

• Critical of impacts of global economy, eg. “Money Lenders”

• Global capitalism is bad for poor people

• Oppositional social movements

• Need to fight against MNCs and WTO

The Political Skeptics Thesis

• Globalization is a myth:– global interdependency are not unprecedented.

– Really just heightened levels of internationalization between national economies

• Regionalization– Three major blocks and national governments remain

powerful: North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific

• State is still a key player• World will still remain controlled by power blocks

Skeptics Critique of their world

• Increasing uneven development• No real new international division of labor• Global corporation is a myth• Economic marginalization leads to

fragmentation and growth of fundamentalism

• “global governance” and economic internationalization are Western projects

Transformationalist Thesis

• Rise of new actors at various scales• New patterns of stratification among actors

– State, NGOs, Civil Society, Transnational and Global Governance

• No Clear Endpoint: Open ended outcome• New opportunities arise with globalization• State is a catalyzer, but interacts in new wayswith

other actors

The Global Economy

• Global Finance Regimes (IMF, Private Banks)• Global Production

– MNCs/Trade Networks

• Global Trade– World Trade Organization (WTO)

• Development – Multilateral Institutuions: IMF /World Bank– UN: Unicef, IFAD, FAO– Bilateral Aid (USAID, DANIDA, IDRC, etc. – NGOs (Oxfam, etc.)

Money Lenders: Two sides of the Global Economy

• Why start here?

• Financial Institutions

• Origins

• Critiques

• Critics

• Power relations: who controls whom?

Global Economy in Historical Context

• Early Patterns of Global Finance and Trade, largely supported state building, war making, and colonization.– 14th C.-Florentine Merchant Banks (Peruzzi Company)

• Financed Trade with Asia• “Supercompany”: also produced cloth transnationally

– 16th -18th C.-• Antwerp, Belgium financial center• Bank of England financed Britains war with France• British and Dutch East India Companies• Hudson Bay Company

– 18th C.-Amsterdam and London are global cities

Global Economy in Historical Context: 1850-WWII

• MNCs establish colonial operations– Extractive and Primary Industries; Mining, Logging– Agriculture: Plantations and Ranches; Fruit and Tea – Oil companies emerge – MNCs import textiles and decimate indigenous

industries

• Industrial Age: 1870-1914– Classical Gold Standard Period: Skeptics argue that this

was the only truly globalized era.– Telegraph drastically improves communication

Global Economy in Historical Context: Interwar Years

• Interwar years: Global Monetary Disorder– Collapse of the Gold Standard– German Hyperinflation– Domestic investments predominate

• Trade protectionism and cartels dominate remaining international business

• Soviet Union withdraws from int’l market