Globalisation and Modernity

Rashid Menhas

Objective of Lecture
To offer an critical introduction to the work
of Giddens and Beck

Structure of Lecturer
Section One: What is liberalism?
Section Two: Introduction to Giddens work
Section Three: Introduction to the distinctive
features of Becks work
Section Four: Critique and Conclusion

 Section One:
What is Liberalism?

 Mainstream Political Debates tend to between

different forms of liberalism
The next Prime Minister of UK will be a liberal
None of Scholars we engage with today are
Ohmae type liberals
In fact they would regard Ohmae as a market
fundamentalist
There work is reprehensive of wider body
critical liberal scholarship

Section Two
Tony Giddens

Tony Giddens is close to Tony

Blair (has acted as policy
advisor). Wrote a book entitled
the The Third Way and has
acted as a policy advisor.
Ennobled!
Sociologist and a Polymath.
Famous in 1970s for serious
engagement with Marxism,
work on classical social theory
and the nation state and
violence

 The argument:
Globalisation is high modernity
Modernity itself is marked by:
(1)Increased Pace of Change
(2) Increased Scope of Change
(3) The Creation of Modern Institutions

The Institutions of Modernity

Military Power

Surveillance

Industrialism

Capitalism

 Giddens argues that phenomena of modernity

has been poorly understood by social theory for
four reasons
(1) Reliance on monocausal explanation
(2) Failure to embrace radical reflexivity
(3)They take the concept of society for given.
For Giddens the key point to examine the
creation of time and space to uncover how
society is formed
(4)Failure to recognize fully the problems of
modernity. Nature of Risk and Danger.

 The third process is most interest to us for the

time being
Modernity is accompanied by process of timespace distanciation
This involves the emptying of time and space.
The separation of place from space and the
creation universal framework of time
The establishment of symbolic token and expert
systems. Money passed around without regard
to the specific characteristics of individuals and
groups

 Globalisation essentially represents stretching

process, in so far as the modes of connection
between different social contexts or regions
become networked across the earths service as
a whole
Modernity is inherently globalising.. But what
exactly is globalisation and how might we best
conceptualise the phenomenon?
Analysis must go beyond bounded entities

Dimensions of Globalisation
(1) Nation-state system
(2) World Capitalism Economy
(3) World Military Order
(4) International Division of Labour

 Globalisation can thus be defined as the

intensification of worldwide social relations
which link distinct localities in such a way
that local happenings are shaped by
events occurring many miles away

 Giddens view on nation state complex

On one hand maintains monopoly on key
types of power and one the other..
In circumstances of accelerating
globalisation, the nation-state has become
too small for the big problems of life, and
too big for the small problems of life

 It is difficult to see what is distinctive about

globalised military order. Arguments
about global military first world are
problematic
Can International Division of Labour and
Capitalism really be treated separately?
Is globalisation really anything more than
capitalism? Does Giddens pluralism stand
up

Ulrich Beck
According to
Theorycards.org.uk Beck
is like Giddens but not so
readable.
Second modernity. First
modernity national state
project modernity, the
second is global project/
reality.

 Argee with much of Giddens framework. I

would argue he is significantly to the left of
Giddens
The various autonomous logics of
globalization the logics of ecology,
culture, economics, politics and civil
society- exist side by side and cannot be
reduced or collapsed into one another

 His big ideas are transnational social

spaces, world risk society, glocalization,
the decline of work and the creation of
global rich and a local poor, and world
society

 Transnational Social
Space. New
transnational
(Imagined)
Communities
(African British,
Mexican Americans).

 World Risk Society: Acid Rain, Mad Cow

Disease, Rain Forests, AIDS. Politicisation
of previously de-political issues. Three
types of risk. Risks of affluence, poverty
and Weapons of mass destruction. War is
no longer localised.

 Glocalisation rather than McDonalisation

of Culture: British Grime Scene
Decline of work: As result of technological
change the decline in need for labour and
fortunes global rich and local poor become
completely separate. In a world were
increasingly defined as consumers the
poor become non-people

 World Society comes into existence when

people conceive of themselves as global
subjects. The emergence of global risk
and transnational social spaces provides
material basis for the development of
world society
Normative Solution to these problems is a
world state. Although its not exactly clear
what he means by world state

Criticisms of Critical Liberal

Approach
Giddens: Does not really explain globalisation.
Globalisation is a project of high modernity? So
what
His reading of classical social theory and
modernity is questionable
Marx on Circulation Bursts through all the
temporal, spatial and personal; barriers imposed
by the direct exchange of products, and it does
so by splitting up the direct identity present in the
case between the exchange of ones own
product and the acquisition of someone elses

 Weber No age has never experienced, in

the same sense as the modern Occident
the absolute and complete dependence of
its whole existence on a specially trained
organisation of officials

 Problems with his pluralist framework.

Ultimately time-space distinction itself becomes
source of explanation not the phenomena to be
explained.
The undue reliance which sociologists have
placed upon bounded systems, should be
replaced by a starting point upon analysing how
social life is ordered across time and space- the
problematic of time-space distantiation

 Ulrich Beck: Does really attempt to

establish cause of globalisation. Again
Globalisation theory rather than a theory
of Globalisation. Ultra-pluralism
More commentary than theory. No real
depth. Analysis is fragmentary
Some arguments are just plain wrong. For
example, the End of Work

 His ideas about the contents of First

Modernity are problematic
Underestimates conflicts of interest
between different state based groups
Some of his arguments are vague beyond
belief. For example, the world state
argument. Again an undue privileging of
space.

Conclusion
In certain respects Giddens arguments
are unproblematic
Equally the idea world risk society is fairly
unproblematic and he is correct in
highlighting transnational social spaces
However, it is questionable if his
arguments really contain any great
analytical depth or originality, arguably
they are simply tautological

 Next week we seek to assess Marxist

accounts of Globalisation (which oddly
enough share a certain amount in
common with free market accounts)
Whatever their weaknesses at least these
accounts give us a clear argument to react
against