Globalization Pol 3763

Globalization is:
- A contested phenomenon
- A buzzword which is very fashionable at the moment
- A term often used indiscriminately and without analytical precision

Globalization Experiences:
- Task: in which instances did you personally experience globalization?
o Protesting the persistence of U.S. socio-political influence and global capitalism

Globalization can be understood as:
- A process which increasingly connects people and countries around the globe
- A process of time/space compression
- Process that affects different areas economy, politics, culture, etc.

Three adjectives that describe the process of globalization:
- Exploitive
- Subjugative
- Hubris

Summary:
- Globalization is not easily characterized because it is highly asymmetrical and consists of
contradictions
- Globalization is about dynamics and relations between the global and local

Conclusion
- Globalization introduced as a phenomenon:
o Which can be described and characterized in many different ways
o Which affects all of us and creates personal experiences

Globalization as a/an:
- Condition
o Like taking a picture of a moment in time and analyzing the picture itself
Advantages
You can isolate and scrutinize the details captured in that moment
Disadvantages
Dont know where that photo is going or came from
- Force
o Abstractive way of explaining a cause and effect relation
o Disadvantages:
Think of force as a naturalized thing
Forget that its people, politics acting as an agent
Conflates Globalization as an actor
Forces should be brought on by actors
Tend to lose the mechanism and the way of changing
Futility/inevitability of globalization
- Process
o Does not accept globalization as an inevitability
o Ignores globalization as a force
- Age

Different Perspectives
- Force
o Perspective of globalism focusing on causality, disregarding outcomes causal explanation
- Condition
o Perspective of Globality focusing on the nature / state of globalization static snapshot
- Age
o Perspective of temporality focusing on the fact that globalization is happening now but is
also finite
- Process
o Dynamic perspective focusing on the evolving nature of globalization processual and open
ended
- All perspectives are valid, but a processual perspective is best suited
- Understanding globalization as a process allows us to:
o Include different dimensions of the process
o Analyze causes and driving factors of the process
o Explain why it is happening by analytically separating causes and effects
o Be aware of historical developments such as continuities and change
o Specify the qualities of the process and distinguish it from other processes
o Not consider globalization as irreversible or finished by rather as open-ended and
indeterminate

Defining qualities of globalization:
- Globalization as a process
o Creates new networks and social activities
o Multiplies existing networks and social activities
o Stretches networks and social activities
o Intensifies and accelerates networks and social activities
- In other words, globalization:
o Increases number of relations and activities
Impossible to measure
o Increases spatial stretch of relations and activities to global level
o Qualitatively changes relation and activities, giving them a new intensity and
- Examples of activities being expanded, intensified, and accelerated
o Communication
New mass media outlets
Faster and cheaper potentially global
o Education
No longer limited to local input
Accelerated as more and more people contribute to our bodies of knowledge
o Sports
From national to global events
Global coverage
o Production and markets
Transworld production chains
Global products and marketing
o Money and Finance
Global currencies and exchange markets
Global banking and derivatives trading
o Military
Global weapons and campaigns
o Ecology and health
Global warming and loss of biodiversity
Global communicable disease
- Complexity of globalization based in the fact that its qualities overlap
o Activities are expanded, intensified and accelerated at the same time
- Working definition of globalization as a process
o Globalization refers to some form of combination of expansion, intensification, and
acceleration of social relations and activities

Defining Globalization
- The need for definitions
o Naming and identifying social phenomena is much more than a lexicographical curiosity
o Definitions serve to advance knowledge and open new understandings, as long as they are
intelligently developed
o Definitions are never neutral reflect on the power relations that constitute definitions as
hey promote specific values and interests
o Definitions are always relative to their historical and cultural context
o Definitions are never definitive while they lend clarity and focus to arguments, knowledge
is a constant process of invention/reinvention
o Definitions should be clear, precise, concise, explicit, consistent, and cogent
o Definitions always need to balance between parsimony and abstraction on the one hand, and
authenticity and closeness on the other hand
- Different definitions
o Can be defined as the intensification of worldwide social relations which link distant
localities in such a way that local happening are shaped by events occurring miles away and
vice versa (Giddens)
o Reflects the sense of an immense enlargement of world communication, as well as the
horizon of a world market, both of which seem far more tangible and immediate than in
earlier stages of modernity (Jameson)
o Refers both to the compression of the world and the intensification of consciousness of the
world as a whole (Robertson)
o Can be thought of as a process (or set of processes) which embodies a transformation in the
spatial organization of social relations and transaction assessed in terms of their extensity,
intensity, velocity and impact (Held)
o Compresses the time and space aspects of social relations (Mittleman)
- Group Task
o Discuss the different definitions and rank them with regard to clarity, precision, conciseness,
explicitness, consistence, and cogency
- Personal definition
o Globalization is the persistence of economic and social interdependency characterized by the
class interests of the people most active in propagating its influence.

Conclusion
- Globalization refers to the expansion, intensification and acceleration of social relations across
world-time and world-space
o It blurs the domestic/foreign divide reshaping the world as a social space
o Any further definition depends on research interest and perspective

Globalization Faultlines
- Individual task: from your readings, what are the main points and contestation in the globalization
debate?
- Write them down for you
o Skeptic argument
Globalization is a myth which conceals the reality of an international economy
increasingly segmented into few regional blocs with powerful national governments
o Hyperglobalizer
Globalization as a new era in which peoples everywhere are increasingly subject to
the disciplines of a new global marketplace
o Transformationalists
Patterns of globalization conceived as historically unprecedented such that states
and societies across the globe are experiencing a process of profound change as they
try to adapt a more interconnected but highly uncertain world
- What are main points of conention in the globalization debate?
o Conceptualization how to think of globalization?
o Causal dynamics / explanations what is driving globalization?
o Impact / consequences what impact does globalization have
o Scale / extent how far does globalization go?
o Trajectory where is globalization coming from and where is it going?
o Normative assessment is globalization a good or a bad thing
o Periodization / chronology which historical narratives?
o Policies towards globalization what to do?

Reconstructing the 3 schools of thought in the debates:
- While globalizing itself is contested, authors agree that the academic discourse is structured by three
schools
o Hyperglobalists
o (Ultra) Skeptics
o Transformationalists
- Class task
o Discuss normative assessment
Conclusion
- Globalization debated in all its features, including starting premises
- Debates structured around three distinct schools of thought
- Debates sometimes lack quality because they are more concerned about proving ones position than
really engaging with globalization

One sentence summary/theme for each school
- Hyperglobalist
o The hyperglobalist thesis states that globalization represents a new economic phenomenon
that imposes a neoliberal agenda on the burgeoning world market and brings about the end
of the nation-state.
- Sceptics
o The sceptic thesis does not recognize globalization as a new phenomenon, rather
understanding it as a kind of internationalization driven by strong national/regional blocs.
- Transformationalists
o The transformationalist thesis recognizes globalization as a process that brings about the
reconfiguration/transformation of the world economy and social interactions in relation to
the process itself, without making any claims as to the trajectory of the process.

I believe the process of globalization does represent a new epoch, due in part to the present lack of
communicative and transactional hindrances, but the process is being economically driven by strong regional
blocs which create uneven dispersal of globalization and experience disproportionate effects and benefits of
globalization.

Theories of Globalization

Session Plan
- Function and purpose of theories
- Reconstructing theories of globalization
- Assessing the theoretical menu
- Conclusion

Function and purpose of theories
- Lessons from the reading beyond issue of globalization
o What are theories in social science and which functions do they have?
- Summarizing the debate theories:
o Describe
o Systemize / order
o Explain
o Predict
o Prescribe
o Outline action
o Increase in complexity and value commitment
- Because of different functions and different commitments, different theories exist

Reconstructing theories of globalization
- The theoretical menu for globalization
o Liberalism
o Political realism
o Marxism
o Constructivism
o Postmodernism
o Feminism

Constructivism:
Central Issues Social construction of reality
Generators of global relations forms and dynamics of consciousness
Key Actors Individuals by virtue of their group affiliation
Principle Structures mental reorientation to the evolving process of globalization

Assessing the theoretical menu
- Pick one of six theories, think about an example of applying this theory & discuss it in terms of its
merits & limits
- Assess whether or not the theory helps you understand globalization

Marxism
- Example of applying this theory merits
o It expresses the dominant mode of production in globalization: capitalism
o This helps identify the dominant players in the extending the globalization process
o And the people most exploited by the process and the overarching class struggle
o Delineates the actors and exploited by their class affiliation
- Limits
o Potential for class reductionism and arguments as to Marxist dogmatism
- Marxism helps identify differentiated possibilities of globalization presently bourgeois
globalization
o Posits proletarian globalization as an alternative by means of socialist internationalism and
permanent revolution

Eclectic approach of explaining globalization
- In Scholtes account, globalization is the spatial expansion of social relations based on four trends /
shifts weaved together
o Production from capitalism and hypercapitalism
o Governance and Regulation from statism to polycentrism
o Identity from nationalism to pluralism & identity hybridity
- Production and finance from capitalism to hypercapitalism
o Global markets increase sales volume (economies of scale)
o Global (out-)sourcing as a mechanism of cost reduction
o New global commodities creating new channels for surplus accumulation
o Global accounting practices / transworld pricing strategies
o Ability to avoid national taxation
- Governance & regulation from statism to polycentrism
o Provision of infrastructure for globalization (mainly by states)
o State policies of liberalization of cross-border transaction and trade
o Governance itself becoming global through new transworld governance mechanism
(sponsored by states):
Global solutions to questions of intellectual property rights

- Identity from nationalism to pluralism & identity hybridity
o National identities / ideas of the self need
o The other affirmation of national identities spur globalization
o Creation of new transworld, nonterritorial identities
- Knowledge from rationalism towards reflexive knowledge
o Or more precisely the complete rationalization of the globe
Secularist construction of the world on a global scale
Anthropocentric orientation globe as space for humanity
Scientific notion of objective truth globally accepted
Logic of efficiency and rationality
- Summary
o All shifts contribute towards global expansion of social activities:
Globalization as the result of intricate combination of multiple forces of
production, governance, identity, and knowledge

Steger, M. Globalization: a very short introduction. 3rd ed. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2013. 22-33.

Anno Domini:
- Genghis Khan
- Magellan Circumnavigation of the earth 1519-1522
- Surge in Irish Immigration to the US 1843-1850
- First World Fair in London 1851
- Global Swine flu epidemic 1919
- Introduction of package holidays tourism 1949
- Construction of Boeing 747 1969
- First Oil Crisis 1973
- Launch of first direct broadcast satellite 1989

Anno Domini Globalization
- Reflection
o What did this exercise tell about the origin and history of globalization?
o Whats your take-home message from the readings and the game?
o Scholtes argument:
Globalization can be thought of as a long historical process that is about
supraterritoriality
Over many centuries, has crossed distinct qualitative thresholds
Has accelerated dramatically in the last decades, reaching a new quality and
intensity since the post-1989 era.

The Beginning of Globalization
- One more time line made of your starting events of globalization
o Humanoid ancestors begin walking upright
o Nomads reaching south America and thereby settling on all continents
o Formation of first societies beyond hunting & gathering / first use of agriculture
o The invention of written word / wheel
o Expansion of Mesopotamia, Egypt, and China
o Silk Road
o Christopher Columbus
o Industrial revolution
o 1
st
Worlds Fair
o First cross-border telephone connection
o Late 19
th
/ early 20
th
century
o Invention of air planes
o Mid-twentieth century / after WWII
o Invention of the Internet
o End of Cold War

Periods of Globalization
- Periodization separates globalization into distinct periods
o Which consist of different events and leaps of technology
o Which are separated by qualitative thresholds (i.e., pace)
o Which are driven by different forces
o Which are characterized by certain boundaries and limitations
- Steger and his five separated historical periods:
o Prehistoric Period (10,000 BCE 3500 BCE)
Tribes starting to settle down and no longer rely on hunting and gathering
o Pre-modern Period (3500 BCE 1500 CE)
Monumental inventions leading to the age of Empires, in which long-distance
communication and the spread of ideas and technology is realized
o Early Modern Period (1500 1750 CE)
Europe and its social practices becoming prime catalyst for globalization through
colonialism
o Modern Period (1750 1970)
Age of industrialization initiates spiral of population growth, technological
advances, and interdependence
o Contemporary Period (1970 - ?)
Globalization reaches new quality as processes of time and space
- Scholte and his three part periodization
o Intimations of Globality to 19
th
Century
First conceptions of one world emerging / beginning transplanetary connectivity
o Incipient Globalization to mid-20
th
Century
Substantially increased transplanetary links, including some with supraterritorial
quality
o Contemporary Accelerated Globalization
Explosion of supraterritorial space and activities, as well as increased pace / scale of
transplanetary connections

Key question for the future is less whether and more whither globalization?

Periodization as a mean to systemize historical process
- Relies on distinct phases that can be reasonably separated
- Implies a trade off between analytical precision and depicting reality
o Any order to some degree a sketch of complex reality
- Allows for other accounts / systemizations
o Three distinct waves vs. Five separated historical periods
- Depends to some degree on your own interest and background

Week 3: Economic Globalization

Trends of economic globalization
- Economic globalization, at least in incipient form, has a long history:
o Ancient empires trading with each other
o The silk road
o Mercantilism & industrialism
- Emergence of global economic order in 20
th
century:
o Binding rules on economic activities outlined in Bretton Woods system
Fixed gold value of the USD
New international economic organizations
o Constant expansion of international trade as tariffs are lowered and free trade is globally
institutionalized
Implications of this are so far-reaching that oftentimes the notion of globalization is
reduced to the emergence of a global economic order
- Bretton Woods conference held in aftermath of WWII
o Critically discussing previous policies of high tariffs and protecting national economies
o Setting the institutional foundations by creating three organizations
International Monetary Fund
International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (later known as the World
Bank)
GATT General Agreement on Trades & Tariffs (succeeded by World Trade
Organization)
o Golden age of controlled capitalism
Global economic interactions governed by interacting nation states, yet expanding
beyond national control
- Economic globalization defined by three distinct trends:
o Internationalization of trade and finance
o Increased power of transnational corporation
o Enhanced role of international economic institutions

Group task: discuss the trend assigned to you. Define what this development entails and come up with at least
one example for it.

Examples of Economic Globalization
- To add to trends, a couple of numbers of economic globalization:
o Total value of world trade in 47 -- $57 billion
05 12.6 trillion
o Debt of developing countries in 80 618 billion
07 3.3 trillion
o Amount of money Kenya owes in external debt 05 7 billion
Amount allocated
o Amount of money worlds poorest countries spend on debt servicing each years 37.5
billion
Profits made by Exxon Mobil

What do our examples and numbers tell us about the economic globalization and its three developments?

Conclusion:
- Incipient economic globalization for a long time coming, but current economic globalization
qualitatively different because of:
o Internationalization of trade and finance, leading to hypercapitalism
o Power of transnational corporations as supraterritorial actors
o Enhanced role of international economic institutions challenging nation-states and their
ability to regulate economic activities

Developments in Economic Globalization
- Increasing power of transnational corporation
o Obvious increase in numbers from 7,000.
o Corporate revenues surpassing national GDPs
o Increase in structural and discursive power: corporations as new leading institution in
globalization
- Enhanced role of international economic institutions
o Rules of economic globalization no longer (only) decided by states
o Making and enforcing of rules by international economic institutions examples:
Structural adjustment programs by the World Bank
WTO dispute settlement bodies
- Institutions of Bretton Woods coming under pressure in 1970s
o Oil crisis and economic slumps
o Worldwide social conflicts and movements
o Emergence of neoliberalism, later culminating in election wins of conservative parties
worldwide
i.e., Reagan and Thatcher

Neoliberalism and Economic Globalization
- Story often being told globalization equals neoliberalism
- And in fact neoliberal turn marks the beginning of a new economic world order, accelerating
developments we discussed yesterday
- But need for analytical analysis
o
o
- Individual task please write down individually what neoliberalism is:
o Deregulation and privatization
- Group task:
o Policy Class project
o Class project Engine of inequality
o Political project Engine of globalization
o Engine of inequality Political project/
o Engine of globalization Policy
o Ideology Ideology
- Neoliberalism as an ideology outline set of distinct policy measures along the lines of free trade,
deregulation, and privatization
o Discursive (our own argumentation is influenced by our argument) foundation of
contemporary globalization;
Legitimizing effect of an underlying belief system
o Globalization to some extent is caused by neoliberalism, while at the same time reproducing,
reinforcing, and spreading neoliberalism
o Economic globalization and neoliberalism intertwined but not equal

Conclusion
- Economic globalization is not to be equaled with neoliberalism, but caused and perpetuated through
ideology of free markets and trade
- Challenge of economic globalization
o Global inequalities open debate, whether neoliberalism is the right answer
- Next session: political globalization

Missed Class 6/19

Political Globalization

Global governance
- Governance
o Sum of the ways individuals and institutions manage common affairs through collective
activities (i.e., setting and implementing rules)
o Outcome of governance
Decisions through which diverse interests are accommodated and order is
maintained
o Characteristics of governance
Top-down, formal, and hierarchical; or
Bottom-up, information, and deliberative
- Global
o Globality in terms of which:
Actors can become involved
Issues are considered
o Polyarchic & multilayered as there is no single locus of authority
o Dynamic geometry as regulatory capacities between different actors vary considerably
- Global governance as governance without government structurally complex and beyond the state

Advantages and Challenges to Global Governance
- Pieces of global governance
o States
o Subnational and local actors
o International organizations, institutions and regimes
o Private actors (NGOs, corporations & organized crime)
o Transnational networks & epistemic communities
o Private and hybrid public-private arrangements
o International rules and hard law
o International norms and soft law

What is culture?
- Shared norms, language, and other forms of expression

Defining Culture
- Difficulty ubiquity
o Encompassing the whole range of human phenomena that cannot be attributed to genetic
inheritance
- Difficulty ambiguity
o Culture as cultural products (e.g., music or images) vs. culture as cultural practices (e.g.,
eating or language)
- Difficulty overlaps
o Local vs. national vs. global culture
- Literal meaning
o Cultura in Latin means cultivation, improving and refining (i.e., agriculture as the activity to
cultivate animals and plants)
o Human culture understood as the refinement / betterment of the individual and collective
- Culture according to Steger (p. 71)
o Symbolic construction, articulation and dissemination of meaning
o Meaning commonly expressed in language, music or images
- On a more general note, culture is:
o The purposive shaping and changing of material by giving it new meaning
o A constant result of humans interacting with their world
o Both high culture and everyday culture
- Characteristics and features of culture:
o Culture exists within collectives (e.g., national cultures)
o Culture depends on reproduction and recognition as well as on a distinct otherness to
distinguish and identify with your own culture
o Culture includes visible and invisible aspects
Food, costumes, fashions, art & music and deep-held values, beliefs, and attitudes
o Culture is enacted and reproduced through symbols and acts
o Culture as behavior that is learnt and shared
o Culture influences / determines perception, thinking and acting culture as patterns of
interpretation


Group Task:
Culture
- Activist culture
Practices and particularities what makes if different from other cultures?
- Intense participation in political discourse
- Heightened class consciousness
- Social awareness
- Commitment to literature, ideology, and social change
Underlying values and beliefs
- Collectivism
- Social justice
- Equal representation
Prediction of what the future of your culture may look like how does globalization affect it?
- Activism increases as globalization encroaches on other cultures
- Globalization has the affect of marginalizing activism and activists

Week 4: Cultural Globalization

Session Plan
- Paradigms of cultural globalization
- Cultures in a globalized world

Paradigms of cultural globalization
- We have discussed the existence and overlap of, as well as the interaction between different cultural

Paradigmatic questions of cultural globalization:
- Does is produce sameness or differences?
- Will the process be peaceful or conflictual?

Rank from most to least likely:
- A In the future, tensions between west and Muslim countries will increase
- B Less Hollywood blockbusters and more movies like the AA winner Armour in 2013
- C New form of terrorism based on class
- D American sitcoms replace all telenovelas
- E One restaurant for each cuisine in san Antonio
- F At least one McDonalds franchise in every country including all Muslim countries
F, E, B, A, C, D

Paradigms:
- Ideal-typically, there are three paradigms of cultural globalization which you implicitly used to rank
the likelihood of events
o Cultural Hybridization/ ongoing mixing / cultural diversity
o Cultural convergence / growing sameness / McDonaldization
o Cultural differentialism / lasting differences / Clash of Civilizations
o No fourth ideal difficult to imagine a world where all is the same but conflict remains
- Cultural differentialism & lasting differences; Clash of Civilizations
o Culture engrained in nations, constituting different civilizations imagined as tectonic plates
o At the fault lines of these plates, conflicts arise and last
o Cultural conflicts inevitable as differences cannot be overcome
o Pessimistic outlook emphasizing conflict & need for security
o The most important conflicts of the future will occur along the cultural fault lines separating
civilizations from one another
- Cultural convergence & growing sameness McDonaldization
o Theme of modernization applied to culture:
Single-track process of evolution for nations and societies to be completed
eventually
o Derived from the idea of a singular process, cultures can be defined and measured according
to their level of maturity
o Implicit idea of cultural superiority as the world converges into one culture
o Pessimistic outlook as world if converging into one culture
- Cultural Hybridization & Ongoing Mixing
o Emphasis on plurality & variety of different cultures, both global and local
o Interaction between global and local not determined in its outcome
o No culture trumping the other, rather open-minded & pluralistic exchange
o Reciprocal / mutual benefitting
o Optimistic outlook on cultural globalization, emphasizing the dynamic, plural and open
nature of it

Conceptual difficulties in Clash of Civilizations & McDonaldization
- Offers a static / essentialist understanding of culture
- Macro-understanding of culture as societies and individuals are only defined by one culture
- Simplistic understanding of cultural interaction
- Rather pessimistic and maybe more ideological than analytical

Conceptual difficulties in hybridization
- Disregard for conflicts and cultural hierarchies
- Anything goes as cultural interaction remains unspecified
- Rather optimistic and maybe more ideological than analytical


Security Globalization

Session Plan:
- The (relative) notion of security
- Globalization and (in)security

Relative notion of security
- Notion of security as a relative notion
o Security as the condition of being protected from harm over a long term
o Any vulnerable and valuable asset, such as a person, a community, a nation, as well as the
international collective can be secure / insecure
o Threats as opposite to security (potential) harming of the condition
- What is the biggest threat to security?
o Technology, Political structure
o Global economic collapse, Cyberterrorism
o Bipartisan political structure,
o Americans turning against America,
o War / high-tech warfare (EMP),
o Loss of socioeconomic dominance,
o Internet / cyberterrorism,
o Domestic terrorism,
o National debt,
o Ignorance
- Potential ways to structure threads:
o Issue areas as in narrow vs. broad understanding of security
Traditional understanding: interstate war and peace
New understanding: material conditions, ecology, cultural, self-determination &
self-development as security issues
o Intensity / degree of threat from high to low
o Actuality of threat from past to present
o Threat by whom from international to individual
o Security for whom
- Notion of security as a relative concept, cont.
o Security happens on different levels international, national, regional, local
o Security is a notion which can be applied in different issue areas: from traditional military
and physical security to a broader understanding
o Threats and security become relative to perception, time, and location
o What is perceived as a security issue changes over time and in space
- Bipartisan Political Structure
o Globalization has the capacity to make people aware of alternative political structures
Awareness may soften or exacerbate peoples perception of polarity depending on
whether they are progressive or reactionary
o Because capitalists are most active participants in the political structure, their partisan
ideology shifts more towards the interest of global capital

Globalization and (in)security
- Globalization and its complication of the basic concept of threat
o New agents of threat and security from state to non-state actors
o New scope of issues from traditional to multiple securities; potentially global in reach
o Increased connectivity creates new/intensifies security issues
o Globalization characterized by increased need for non-physical security in which
information and technology become the new currency

Conclusion
- Perceived impact of increased Globality heightened vulnerability
o Common consensus contemporary global life steeped in insecurities
o But some, not all, of these insecurities originate/relate to globalization and threat in any
real sense of our security

Recap
- Notion of security is relative
o To time and space
o To the collective globalization and intermestic (international-domestic) security
o To the issues included globalization and non-physical security
o No social order will ever provide absolute security, but in a globalized world, security is
perceived as a fundamental challenge
- Given the relativity of security, how is it being produced?
o Issues are made into security issues through processes of securitization (Scholte)
Constructivist notion
No such thing as real security threat
Processes entail political acts of conceiving and making something into a threat by
calling for immediate political consequences (extraordinary measures to answer to
the threat)
Constructive approach in action political speech acts, as opposed to real objective
threats constitute our perception of security
To some extent, globalization as a whole has been securitized perceived of and
reacted to as if it is a threat / bundle of threats is this really justified?

Security implications of globalization
- Security can be discussed in relation to different issue areas which are affected differently by
globalization
o Peace (and war)
o Crime
o Health and environment
o
- Scholte
o Negative impacts of contemporary globalization on human security have generally resulted
not from the growth of transplanetary connectivity as such, but from the policies (often
along neoliberalist lines) that have been adopted toward the trend.

Conclusion
- Different issue areas are affected differently by globalization, creating a mixed picture of security
globalization
o Relationship between increased Globality and trends in human security complex, both
detrimental and benefitting effects, depending on issue area, and respective focus.

Ecological Globalization

Session Plan
- Environment and causes of its degradation
- Environmental issues and their nature
- Conclusion & outlook

Definitions
- Environment encompasses surrounding of an organism or population & includes factors that
determine survival, development, and evolution
- Environmental degradation defined as any change or disturbance to the environment perceived to be
deleterious or undesirable, such as:
o Depletion of resources
o Destruction of ecosystems / habitats
o Extinction of wildlife

Environment & causes of its degradation
- One cause of environmental degradation
o Capitalism and forces of industry
- Causes of environmental degradation
o Cultural values inherent in anthropocentric paradigm
o Population growth / population pressure and increased urbanization
o Overconsumption of resources
o Poverty / immediate need for resources
o Economic development
- Environment and its degradation in historical perspective
o Human interaction with environment as well as its degradation dates back to early
beginnings (e.g., irrigation in Mesopotamia)
o Increased energy demands during industrialization as first turning point in environmental
history: beginning of national movements
o Global environmental movements emerging during the second half of 20
th
century because
of global degradation experiences
Exploding global population and scarcity of resources
Rapid industrialization on a global scale
Deteriorating global health standards
o Sense of ecological interconnectivity leading to a new form of activism

Current Environmental Issues and their Nature
- Major environmental issues humanity faces today:
o Global warming and climate change
o Reduction of biodiversity and species extinction
o Transbound
o
- Global warming and climate change
o Despite long disagreement, consensus on humans causing climate change has emerged
o Greenhouse effect gas emissions
o Consequences meltdown of polar glaciers and rising sea levels as well as natural disasters
such as hurricanes, draughts and heat waves
o Kyoto Protocol of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change ratified in 2004 but
weakened by economic and ideological differences
- Reduction of biodiversity and extinction
o Biodiversity as a degree of variation
o Fastest mass extinction of living species in 4.5 billion years of earth history
o Disruption of ecosystems, causing problems we do not even understand
o Economic gains of exploiting biodiversity pharmaceutical interests and patent
o Convention of Biological Diversity
- Transboundry and Ocean Pollution
o Polluting chemicals unhindered by boundaries: unregulated global release of CFCs caused
ozone depletion in New Zealand
o Release of sulfur and nitrogen oxides leading to acid rain
o Export of hazardous waste from the North to the South
o Poorer nations unable to monitor and enforce policies nor have scientific expertise to
adequately deal with was, becoming toxic waste dumps
- Deforestation and water Scarcity
o Example of the amazon rainforest estimated to disappear annually by 3 million acres
o Increased deforestation leads to less air quality, less water supplies, less climate stability and
less agricultural productivity
o
- Current environmental issues and their common characteristics
o Problems are global in their consequences because of interconnectivity, they will affect all
human beings on the planet
o Problems cannot be contained / solved within single nation states
o Problems do not have isolated but interrelated causes and effects
o Problems become more pressing since there are more humans living in less space
o Problems need global solutions / international cooperation
o Environmental issues show that we are living in a globalized world

Conclusion and outlook
- Environmental degradation as one of the major challenges today
o Environmental issues at an intersection of politics, economics & culture
o Environmental issues today reaching new scale, speed and depth:
Potentially global in scope and with existential consequences for humanity

Partner task discuss and list either positive or negative effects globalization has on these issues and the
environment in general

Week 5: The Nation-State and Globalization

State and State Sovereignty
- As the traditional form of political authority, states can be defined:
o As a set of autonomous bureaucracies apart from society
Set of administrative, policing, and military organizations headed and coordinated
by an executive authority
o As a functional unit providing collective goods, not necessarily constituting an ethno-cultural
polity constituted by national identity.
o As a compulsory political organization with a centralized government that maintains
monopoly of legitimate use of force
o As a battleground for pluralist and competing interests
o As an instrument of the ruling class
- Defining the state as a theoretical and ideological exercise
- In a Westphalian understanding, states are defined by exercising:
o Supreme jurisdiction as the state does not answer to any other authority
o Comprehensive jurisdiction as the state governs all areas of social life
o Unqualified and absolute jurisdiction as the sate respects the norm of non-intervention into
other jurisdictions
o Exclusive jurisdiction as the state does not share governance over its realm with any other
party
- Sources of state sovereignty
o States represent / constitute a territory
o States are ruled by a central government
o Sates consist of a population to be governed
- In the international system then, states are
o Defined by the dividing line of domestic and foreign
o The building blocks which constitute the system
- Ideal-type state construction with its peak in mid-19
th
century
- Westphalian notion of sovereignty as organized hypocrisy
o Full and absolute sovereignty never realized
o Always more ideal-type than real
- But: although never real, sovereignty still the organizing principle:
o States interacting with each other instead of individuals
o International institutions representing state interests
o Ultimate decision to go to war with each other held by states
o State able to mobilize resources on a scale never seen before

Individual task: write down one historical practice (i.e., before 1850), which challenged the absolute notion of
state sovereignty.
- Civil War in France and the Paris Commune
- Other examples:
o Invasion as bluntest form of intervening into another sovereignty
o States never enjoyed full control of cross-border movements (e.g., money, diseases,
information, etc.)
o Some states only exercised limited or even no control over peripheral districts of their
claimed territory

Emergence of he State
- Throughout history, a variety of different state forms existed political mode of production and
reasons why/how it emerged
o The Network State
o Colonizing State
o Revisionist State
Idea that someone is opposing the state opposing the status quo
Reject idea that the power in the world is structured in the right way

The Emergence of the State
- Emergence of the state as primary actors
o Long process as different characteristics emerged, matured, and ceased
o Interplay between internal consolidation and external competition
o States becoming globalized, which significantly affects their modes of governance as well
as general provision of governance
o Globalization reconstructs political authority and alters governance

The State and Globalization
- Turns toward global constituencies
o Denationalized state agendas / repositioning of the state as the domestic and international
become blurred
o New state interests such as attracting global capital, global environmental protection,
promoting neoliberal order
- Pressures on state welfarism
o Considerable attenuation of state-supplied welfare guarantees, often explained and justified
by increased globalization
o Less and less progressive redistribution through the state
o Responsibilities for providing education, transport, housing, pensions, health care, etc.
shifted from state to non-state actors
o But pressure on welfare state also because of aging populations, altered family patterns,
and increased healthcare costs not only because of globalization
- Altered patterns of warfare
o Going to war (or not) ultimately a state decision states for a long time defined / measured /
tanked by their capabilities to wage war
o Globalization has rendered meaningless almost any kind of traditional interstate war with
the purpose of gaining territory
o But new forms and operations of warfare emerging, which is why the globalized state is
not a post-military state
- Increased transstate relations
o Unilateral, bilateral, or even multilateral governance impossible as problems and solutions
are beyond states
o Every layer of government connected to other layers of governments 40,000 country
officials alone convene every year at the OECD
o Tendencies of disaggregating and fragmenting the state as everything becomes foreign
policy
o Emergence of soft law rather than conventional international law
o Governance becoming multi-scalar substate vs. macro-regional vs. transworld, as well as
public vs. private
- Globalized states within a changes and interconnected political order
o Increased blurring of the domestic and the international
o New actors participating in global politics -- IOs and non-state actors demanding from states
to share functions transnationally
o State sovereignty and autonomy eroding as collective goods can no longer be provided by
the state
- Partner Task
o Think of instances where globalization affects the state and new mode of global politics
emerges. Examples of state authority being eroded
Globalization manifested as global capitalism and imperialism propagated by the
state, and successful leftist revolutions against the state
o Instances where states affect globalization and national politics continue to determine global
politics. Examples of states still being in charge on the card provided.
State legislation against womens autonomy despite growing global consciousness
of womens rights

Tripartite Structure of Society
- Public Sector
o State actors
- Private Sector
o Market actors
- Social Sector
o Civil society actors

Introducing civil society and NGOs
- The ex negative definition of NGOs
o Independent from governments at least in formal terms
o Non profit-making or engaged in any commercial activities
o Established as an organization, not informal or unstructured
- Historical overview
o Civil society playing a role in global affairs since centuries
o Formalization in the 19
th
century as NGOs become more active in the international system
(e.g., campaign to end slavery and women suffrage)
o Steady growth in numbers throughout the 20
th
century
o Formally recognized in international law in 1945 by the UN Charter while defined as
second class, definition still opened the door
o NGOs widely recognized in media and academia since the 1980s
o
- Distinguishing civil society & NGOs
o Civil society movements / networks uniting people with common purpose, implying
voluntary, reciprocal, and horizontal patterns of communication
o NGOs are legally constituted actors that operate independently from any form of
government and pursue social aims that have political consequences
o Civil society is loosely structured NGOs formally institutionalized
o Both aiming for broader goals based on their conceptions of the public good bound by a set
of principled ideas, shared values, and not profit-oriented
o Both often operate across borders, yet are not necessarily global
o Civil society movements often become formalized as they can only be influential in world
politics when they become NGOs.
o NGOs, among other actors, active within transnational advocacy networks
- NGO issue areas and activities summary
o NGOs active in a wide range of issue areas such as human rights, culture, development,
disarmament, environment, gender, etc.
o NGOs pursuing different forms of activities direct and indirect
Operational activities campaigns, programs, field work through pressure and
symbolic politics to raise awareness and create accountability
Lobbying activities such as advancing and promoting interests through engaging
with policy makers, influencing policy through hearings, etc
Technical activities harmonization, standardization, information exchange, and
communication

NGOs and Globalization
- Globalization made NGO concerns more prominent:
o From hard to soft politics: more awareness for new issues as environmental concerns and
human rights were put on the agenda
- Globalization made NGO networking more efficient:
o NGO networks raised new issues and made states accountable, creating a global
consciousness through using new means of communication
- But more specifically

Conclusion
- NGOs and globalization mutual reinforcement and reciprocal increase
o Because of globalization, NGO influence in world politics is increasing
o NGOs contributing to a more globalized world as they operate across borders and create and
sustain a global consciousness beyond nation states

Defining Multinational Enterprises
- Definitions in the literature
o Corporations which have their home in one country, but operate and live under the laws and
customs of other countries as well
o An enterprise which owns or controls producing facilities (i.e., factories, mines, oil refineries,
distribution outlets, offices, etc.) in more than one country.
- Dimensions of corporate multinationality
o Structural multinationality enterprises are multination in their operations, share holders,
management, organization structure is
o Performance multinationality enterprises are multinational if profit, sales, assets, number
of employees are large enough.
o Behavior multinationality enterprises are multinational if they act and think globally
o Enterprises might operate in multiple but not beyond states

Blue Card
- International Bolshevism
- Permanent Revolution