Student Led Tutorial: Does Globalization Put the Nation-State at Risk?

(NO)

By: Raheem Hirji

 

 

  • During the last several hundred years the sovereign nation-state has emerged as the predominant frame work for political life
  • Globalization has existed for many years but only recently have nations been more advanced and technological in their integration
  • Sovereignty has four elements:
    • Comprehensive: claims authority over all affairs within its territorial boundaries
    • Supreme: has final say in all matters within its territorial realm and recognizes no higher authority
    • Unqualified: right to total authority over its own territory is treated as sacrosanct by other states who adhere to the principle of non-interference
    • Exclusive: does not share its authority with any other state

 

Globalizers of the World, Unite!  - Daniel Drenzer

 

  • Drenzer cites and constantly refers to five authors whom he believes; “they agree that the global spread of capitalism is eroding the power and autonomy of the nation-state, either through assimilation into a homogeneous global culture or the violent rejection of it.”
  • These five authors that Drenzer cites relate to an unconventional philosopher: Karl Marx.
  • He believes that globalization does constrain national governments but just as equally globalization empowers them.
  • Globalization doesn’t necessarily mean the weaken of state authority but a change in state- strategies
  • Drenzer states that globalization is only a redirection (term he often uses to describe effects of integration) of state energies

 

Below is a chart that introduces the authors often cited when referring to economics, culture, war and politics involved in globalizing the world.

Author

Beliefs

Flaws according to Drenzer

Kaplan

Finds states incapable of coping with the environmental and geographic implication of modernization; in their place, new identities are formed based on religion or ethnicity.

Looked only at failed states and concluded that all states are failing.

Fukuyana

Ability of global capitalism to reduce the nation-state’s economic role and to create a genuine cosmopolitanism that erodes its political role.

Studies of economic integration suggest that governments have been able to increase their role, even in a globalizing economy.

Barber

Reactionary movements exploit the same technological advances as those in favor of globalization. Modernization enhances that ability of these rejection groups to mobilize.

Film reports and rock lyrics which Barber uses when trying to prove his point, none of which proves his theory that capitalism erodes democracy. Barber claims that globalization strips states of their domestic autonomy does not have much empirical support.

Ohmae

The spread of the market place and the rapid pace of technological change weaken the social contract between individual and nations.

Ohmae analyzes a biased economically stable sample and thus reaches flawed conclusions. He provides no compelling evidence that information technology favor regional units of economic organization.

Huntington

Countries cannot maintain power and government loose control

This information is based on two small countries Singapore and Malaysia trying to maintain their internal control.

 

  • In the above chart, Drenzer finds flaws in each authors arguments and rebuttals them with facts, logic and connections relation to culture, wars and the economy.

 

The Economic Logic of Globalization

 

  • Marx says that the globalization of capital is detrimental to the nation-state because it weakens the autonomy of state institutions and dissolves the political bonds between the state and its populace.
  • All five authors will agree to some extent on certain aspects of Marx’s logic.
  • In reality the globalization of capital leads to a homogenization of cultures, eliminating differences between nationalities or civilization.
  • Integration of states causes communication making animosities and interstate war less likely and “thus removing one of the nation-state’s primary function.”
  • Regional variation in economic growth within the nation state generates political and economic conflicts.
  • One truth about globalization is that is creates new sources of economic and political rationales.
  • Coercive power has become a marketable commodity.
  • Criticism of globalization includes Kaplan’s belief that urbanization are the main causes namely the spread of industrialization to the developing world.
  • Most of the world embraces the effects of modernization including technology and “the reduction of barriers to economic exchange.”

 

 

The Nation-State and the Reaction to Global Capitalism

 

  • Cultural identity remains more powerful than class identity
  • Barber states that reactionary movements exploit the same technological advances as those in favor of globalization. Modernization enhances that ability of these rejection groups to mobilize.
  • Fukuyama and Ohmae believe the economic forces for cosmopolitanism are too great.

 

Critiquing the Last Seduction

 

·        “Theoretically, the economic and cultural forces unleashed by globalization impose new constraints on countries but not a straight jacket.”

·        Refer to the chart above to see how Drenzer responds to all criticism of globalization.

·        Many believed horrors as the result of globalization, but with globalization here, the horrors fail to materialize.

 

The Nation-State at the New Millennium

 

  • Government ownership of firms isn’t effective management
  • Globalization can encourage states to coordinate their regulatory policies
  • It imposes more stringent labor and environmental conditions (e.g., NAFTA in Mexico).
  • International organizations have been much more willing to impose multilateral economic sanctions for violations of international norms
  • “The increased mobility caused by globalization forces the nation state to focus on the location of innovation rather that production.”
  • Economic growth = technological change
  • “A renewed focus on innovation can only expand the economic pie for society.”
  • Many ethnic conflicts are not over cultural disagreements but rather who controls the state.
  • Sovereignty is not an absolute and indivisible commodity.

 

Social Science and Policymaking 

 

  • All authors according to Drenzer “use grand theories as a vehicle for radical policy proposals.” 
  • “Politicians have the incentive to use dubious theories when they are politically expedient.

 

Conclusion

  • much criticism is accurate but DOESN’T imply the erosion of the nation-states but rather a redefinition of its role in the international system.
  • States have faced constraints since Westphalia but haven’t withered away.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

- Glossary –

 

Nation-State - A political unit consisting of an autonomous state inhabited predominantly by a people sharing a common culture, history, and language.

 

Globalization - To make global or worldwide in scope or application

 

Risk - The possibility of suffering harm or loss; danger.

 

Sovereignty - Supremacy of authority or rule as exercised by a sovereign or sovereign state.

 

Economy - Careful, thrifty management of resources, such as money, materials, or labor: learned to practice economy in making out the household budget.

 

Culture - The totality of socially transmitted behavior patterns, arts, beliefs, institutions, and all other products of human work and thought.

 

Barriers - Something that separates or holds apart.

 

Marxism - The political and economic philosophy of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in which the concept of class struggle plays a central role in understanding society's allegedly inevitable development from bourgeois oppression under capitalism to a socialist and ultimately classless society.

 

Cosmopolitanism - Having constituent elements from all over the world or from many different parts of the world: the ancient and cosmopolitan societies of Syria and Egypt.

 

Marketplace - The world of business and commerce.

 

Integrate - To make into a whole by bringing all parts together; unify.

 

Capitalism - An economic system in which the means of production and distribution

are privately or corporately owned and development is proportionate to the accumulation and reinvestment of profits gained in a free market.

 

Westphalia - A historical region and former duchy of west-central Germany east of the Rhine River. The duchy was created in the 12th century and was administered for many centuries by ecclesiastical princes, especially the archbishop of Cologne. The Peace of Westphalia (1648) marked the end of the Thirty Years' War. Napoleon seized the area in 1807 and designated a portion of it as the kingdom of Westphalia, to be ruled by his brother Jérôme. The region became part of Prussia after 1815.

 

Technology - The application of science, especially to industrial or commercial objectives.

 

Developing - To cause to become more complex or intricate; add detail and fullness to; elaborate

 

Developed - To grow by degrees into a more advanced or mature state

 

Regimes - A government in power; administration: suffered under the new regime.

 

 

Discussion Questions:

 

1.     Which do you think will over; Jihad or McWorld? Why?

 

2.     How has globalization affected you in terms of economics (jobs, purchases etc…)?

 

3.     Do you think globalization erodes national culture and sovereignty?

 

4.     Marx believes the globalization of capital is detrimental to the nation-state because it weakens the autonomy of state institutions and dissolves the political bonds between the state and its populace. Discuss with reference to Marx if you believe democracy is threatened by globalization.

 

5.     Barber, Fukuyam, Hurtington, Kaplan and Ohmae all have their definition and future vision of globalization. In you opinion, what is the fate of globalization?

 

6.      Do the advantages such as coordination of regulatory policies outweigh the negatives such as a homogenous culture?

 

7.     Is a homogeneous culture necessarily a bad thing? What benefits does it provide?

 

8.     Do you think globalization benefits more the developed or developing world? Justify your answer.

 

9.     Does globalization lead to the loss of governmental power and social influence?

 

10. Drenzer suggests nation-states have faced constraints since Westphalia and they haven’t “withered away.” Is this similar to globalization?

 

11. What is the connection according to you between Jihad and McWorld and it’s threat to globalization?