Globalisation In International Relations Notes

Globalisation Theory

• Global era = new identity since 1960, not just global processes, but instead global perspectives and experiences. This is linked to globalisation, but they are not the same

• Globalisation not a linear process happening at the same rate everywhere eg. Internet vs colonization

• 2 views:

  • Liberal view: globalisation has changed everything

  • Sceptical view: globalisation is not new, it is change introduced through the agency of state and international institutions

  • conclusion: global era is somewhere between realist view and liberal view

• We have never had as many democracies as we do today: perhaps this is a new aspect to the global era; however, the process still stems from the same Western dominant trend

• Global governance: each state must now give sovereignty to institutions, and in doing so they must give up some of their cultures/practices

• Realism: Globalisation is not new

• Liberalism: globalisation is a new way of thinking about sovereignty, EU is a good demonstration

• What is actually ‘new’ about globalisation, or is just more of the same?

  • By ‘new’, there must be an absence of precedence.

  • Distinction between quantitative and qualitative change: globalisation theorists are looking at connectedness, at the most basic level, and the world has always been connected. We want a qualitative change in the degree/level of connectedness.

  • Perhaps if there is enough quantitative changes, they become qualitative? However, this idea is hard to quantify

• Scholte’s 5 elements:

  • Internationalization: growth in exchange and interdependence

  • Liberalization: process of removing government imposed restriction to create borderless world

  • Universalisation: worldwide spreading of objects and experiences

Can be combined with - Westernization: social structures of modernity eg. Capitalism, bureacratism, developed within the context of neo-colonialism

• Institutionalisation: Institutions are created above the state, ranging from the EU to the IMF. Never in the past have there been so many institutions of this kind sitting above states and which therefore impact state primacy and autonomy

• Deterritorialization: reconfiguration of geography, social space no longer completely defined by territorial place – this is what is new about a global era

• Globalisation creates winners and losers:

  • It has a direction of travel – at the moment, this is generating more inequality

  • A truly ‘global era’ must be separated from Western, economic and cultural interests

  • World is richer in absolute terms, but never has it been more unequal in terms of the distribution of this wealth

  • Globalisation favours those who are already strong, within developed/developing states it aggravates existing disparities. Parts of the world/individual economies are completely cut off from the dynamic economy – this isn’t a coincidence, you need disparity for...

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