THEORIES OF GLOBALIZATION
All theories of globalization have been put hereunder in eight
categories: liberalism, political realism, Marxism, constructivism,
postmodernism, feminism , Trans-formationalism and eclecticism.
Each one of them carries several variations.
1. Theory of Liberalism:
Liberalism sees the process of globalisation as market-led
extension of modernisation. At the most elementary level, it is a
result of ‘natural’ human desires for economic welfare and political
liberty. As such, transplanetary connectivity is derived from
human drives to maximise material well-being and to exercise
basic freedoms. These forces eventually interlink humanity across
the planet.
They fructify in the form of:
(a) Technological advances, particularly in the areas of transport,
communications and information processing, and,
(b) Suitable legal and institutional arrangement to enable markets
and liberal democracy to spread on a trans world scale.
Such explanations come mostly from Business Studies,
Economics, International Political Economy, Law and Politics.
Liberalists stress the necessity of constructing institutional
infrastructure to support globalisation. All this has led to technical
standardisation, administrative harmonisation, translation
arrangement between languages, laws of contract, and
guarantees of property rights.
But its supporters neglect the social forces that lie behind the
creation of technological and institutional underpinnings. It is not
satisfying to attribute these developments to ‘natural’ human
drives for economic growth and political liberty. They are culture
blind and tend to overlook historically situated life-worlds and
knowledge structures which have promoted their emergence.
All people cannot be assumed to be equally amenable to and
desirous of increased globality in their lives. Similarly, they
overlook the phenomenon of power. There are structural power
inequalities in promoting globalisation and shaping its course.
Often they do not care for the entrenched power hierarchies
between states, classes, cultures, sexes, races and resources.
2. Theory of Political Realism:
Advocates of this theory are interested in questions of state
power, the pursuit of national interest, and conflict between
states. According to them states are inherently acquisitive and
self-serving, and heading for inevitable competition of power.
Some of the scholars stand for a balance of power, where any
attempt by one state to achieve world dominance is countered by
collective resistance from other states.
Another group suggests that a dominant state can bring stability
to world order. The ‘hegemon’ state (presently the US or G7/8)
maintains and defines international rules and institutions that both
advance its own interests and at the same time contain conflicts
between other states. Globalisation has also been explained as a
strategy in the contest for power between several major states in
contemporary world politics.
They concentrate on the activities of Great Britain, China, France,
Japan, the USA and some other large states. Thus, the political
realists highlight the issues of power and power struggles and the
role of states in generating global relations.
At some levels, globalisation is considered as antithetical to
territorial states. States, they say, are not equal in globalisation,
some being dominant and others subordinate in the process. But
they fail to understand that everything in globalisation does not
come down to the acquisition, distribution and exercise of power.
Globalisation has also cultural, ecological, economic and
psychological dimensions that are not reducible to power politics.
It is also about the production and consumption of resources,
about the discovery and affirmation of identity, about the
construction and communication of meaning, and about humanity
shaping and being shaped by nature. Most of these are apolitical.
Power theorists also neglect the importance and role of other
actors in generating globalisation. These are sub-state authorities,
macro-regional institutions, global agencies, and private-sector
bodies. Additional types of power-relations on lines of class,
culture and gender also affect the course of globalisation. Some
other structural inequalities cannot be adequately explained as an
outcome of interstate competition. After all, class inequality,
cultural hierarchy, and patriarchy predate the modern states.
3. Theory of Marxism:
Marxism is principally concerned with modes of production, social
exploitation through unjust distribution, and social emancipation
through the transcendence of capitalism. Marx himself anticipated
the growth of globality that ‘capital by its nature drives beyond
every spatial barrier to conquer the whole earth for its market’.
Accordingly, to Marxists, globalisation happens because trans-
world connectivity enhances opportunities of profit-making and
surplus accumulation.
Marxists reject both liberalist and political realist explanations of
globalisation. It is the outcome of historically specific impulses of
capitalist development. Its legal and institutional infrastructures
serve the logic of surplus accumulation of a global scale. Liberal
talk of freedom and democracy make up a legitimating ideology
for exploitative global capitalist class relations.
The neo-Marxists in dependency and world-system theories
examine capitalist accumulation on a global scale on lines of core
and peripheral countries. Neo-Gramscians highlight the
significance of underclass struggles to resist globalising
capitalism not only by traditional labour unions, but also by new
social movements of consumer advocates, environmentalists,
peace activists, peasants, and women. However, Marxists give an
overly restricted account of power.
There are other relations of dominance and subordination which
relate to state, culture, gender, race, sex, and more. Presence of
US hegemony, the West-centric cultural domination, masculinism,
racism etc. are not reducible to class dynamics within capitalism.
Class is a key axis of power in globalisation, but it is not the only
one. It is too simplistic to see globalisation solely as a result of
drives for surplus accumulation.
It also seeks to explore identities and investigate meanings.
People develop global weapons and pursue global military
campaigns not only for capitalist ends, but also due to interstate
competition and militarist culture that predate emergence of
capitalism. Ideational aspects of social relations also are not
outcome of the modes of production. They have, like nationalism,
their autonomy.
4. Theory of Constructivism:
Globalisation has also arisen because of the way that people
have mentally constructed the social world with particular
symbols, language, images and interpretation. It is the result of
particular forms and dynamics of consciousness. Patterns of
production and governance are second-order structures that
derive from deeper cultural and socio-psychological forces. Such
accounts of globalisation have come from the fields of
Anthropology, Humanities, Media of Studies and Sociology.
Constructivists concentrate on the ways that social actors
‘construct’ their world: both within their own minds and through
inter-subjective communication with others. Conversation and
symbolic exchanges lead people to construct ideas of the world,
the rules for social interaction, and ways of being and belonging in
that world. Social geography is a mental experience as well as a
physical fact. They form ‘in’ or ‘out’ as well as ‘us’ and they’
groups.
They conceive of themselves as inhabitants of a particular global
world. National, class, religious and other identities respond in
part to material conditions but they also depend on inter-
subjective construction and communication of shared self-
understanding. However, when they go too far, they present a
case of social-psychological reductionism ignoring the
significance of economic and ecological forces in shaping mental
experience. This theory neglects issues of structural inequalities
and power hierarchies in social relations. It has a built-in apolitical
tendency.
5. Theory of Postmodernism:
Some other ideational perspectives of globalisation highlight the
significance of structural power in the construction of identities,
norms and knowledge. They all are grouped under the label of
‘postmodernism’. They too, as Michel Foucault does strive to
understand society in terms of knowledge power: power
structures shape knowledge. Certain knowledge structures
support certain power hierarchies.
The reigning structures of understanding determine what can and
cannot be known in a given socio-historical context. This
dominant structure of knowledge in modern society is
‘rationalism’. It puts emphasis on the empirical world, the subordi-
nation of nature to human control, objectivist science, and
instrumentalist efficiency. Modern rationalism produces a society
overwhelmed with economic growth, technological control,
bureaucratic organisation, and disciplining desires.
This mode of knowledge has authoritarian and expansionary logic
that leads to a kind of cultural imperialism subordinating all other
epistemologies. It does not focus on the problem of globalisation
per se. In this way, western rationalism overawes indigenous
cultures and other non-modem life-worlds.
Postmodernism, like Marxism, helps to go beyond the relatively
superficial accounts of liberalist and political realist theories and
expose social conditions that have favoured globalisation.
Obviously, postmodernism suffers from its own methodological
idealism. All material forces, though come under impact of ideas,
cannot be reduced to modes of consciousness. For a valid
explanation, interconnection between ideational and material
forces is not enough.
6. Theory of Feminism:
It puts emphasis on social construction of masculinity and
femininity. All other theories have identified the dynamics behind
the rise of trans-planetary and supra-territorial connectivity in
technology, state, capital, identity and the like.
Biological sex is held to mould the overall social order and shape
significantly the course of history, presently globality. Their main
concern lies behind the status of women, particularly their
structural subordination to men. Women have tended to be
marginalised, silenced and violated in global communication.
7. Theory of Trans-formationalism:
This theory has been expounded by David Held and his
colleagues. Accordingly, the term ‘globalisation’ reflects increased
interconnectedness in political, economic and cultural matters
across the world creating a “shared social space”. Given this
interconnectedness, globalisation may be defined as “a process
(or set of processes) which embodies a transformation in the
spatial organisation of social relations and transactions,
expressed in transcontinental or interregional flows and networks
of activity, interaction and power.”
While there are many definitions of globalisation, such a definition
seeks to bring together the many and seemingly contradictory
theories of globalisation into a “rigorous analytical framework” and
“proffer a coherent historical narrative”. Held and McGrew’s
analytical framework is constructed by developing a three part
typology of theories of globalisation consisting of “hyper-globalist,”
“sceptic,” and “transformationalist” categories.
The Hyperglobalists purportedly argue that “contemporary
globalisation defines a new era in which people everywhere are
increasingly subject to the disciplines of the global marketplace”.
Given the importance of the global marketplace, multi-national
enterprises (MNEs) and intergovernmental organisations (IGOs)
which regulate their activity are key political actors. Sceptics, such
as Hirst and Thompson (1996) ostensibly argue that “globalisation
is a myth which conceals the reality of an international economy
increasingly segmented into three major regional blocs in which
national governments remain very powerful.” Finally,
transformationalists such as Rosenau (1997) or Giddens (1990)
argue that globalisation occurs as “states and societies across the
globe are experiencing a process of profound change as they try
to adapt to a more interconnected but highly uncertain world”.
Developing the transformationalist category of globalisation
theories. Held and McGrew present a rather complicated typology
of globalisation based on globalization’s spread, depth, speed,
and impact, as well as its impacts on infrastructure, institutions,
hierarchical structures and the unevenness of development.
They imply that the “politics of globalisation” have been
“transformed” (using their word from the definition of globalisation)
along all of these dimensions because of the emergence of a new
system of “political globalisation.” They define “political
globalisation” as the “shifting reach of political power, authority
and forms of rule” based on new organisational interests which
are “transnational” and “multi-layered.”
These organisational interests combine actors identified under the
hyper-globalist category (namely IGOs and MNEs) with those of
the sceptics (trading blocs and powerful states) into a new system
where each of these actors exercises their political power,
authority and forms of rule.
Thus, the “politics of globalisation” is equivalent to “political
globalisation” for Held and McGrew. However, Biyane Michael
criticises them. He deconstructs their argument, if a is defined as
“globalisation” (as defined above), b as the organisational
interests such as MNEs, IGOs, trading blocs, and powerful states,
and c as “political globalisation” (also as defined above), then
their argument reduces to a. b. c. In this way, their discussion of
globalisation is trivial.
Held and others present a definition of globalisation, and then
simply restates various elements of the definition. Their definition,
“globalisation can be conceived as a process (or set of
processes) which embodies a transformation in the spatial
organisation of social relations” allows every change to be an
impact of globalisation. Thus, by their own definition, all the
theorists they critique would be considered as
“transformationalists.” Held and McGrew also fail to show how
globalisation affects organisational interests.
8. Theory of Eclecticism:
Each one of the above six ideal-type of social theories of
globalisation highlights certain forces that contribute to its growth.
They put emphasis on technology and institution building, national
interest and inter-state competition, capital accumulation and
class struggle, identity and knowledge construction, rationalism
and cultural imperialism, and masculinize and subordination of
women. Jan Art Scholte synthesises them as forces of production,
governance, identity, and knowledge.
Accordingly, capitalists attempt to amass ever-greater resources
in excess of their survival needs: accumulation of surplus. The
capitalist economy is thoroughly monetised. Money facilitates
accumulation. It offers abundant opportunities to transfer surplus,
especially from the weak to the powerful. This mode of production
involves perpetual and pervasive contests over the distribution of
surplus. Such competition occurs both between individual, firms,
etc. and along structural lines of class, gender, race etc.
Their contests can be overt or latent. Surplus accumulation has
had transpired in one way or another for many centuries, but
capitalism is a comparatively recent phenomenon. It has turned
into a structural power, and is accepted as a ‘natural’
circumstance, with no alternative mode of production. It has
spurred globalisation in four ways: market expansion, accounting
practices, asset mobility and enlarged arenas of commodification.
Its technological innovation appears in communication, transport
and data processing as well as in global organisation and
management. It concentrates profits at points of low taxation.
Information, communication, finance and consumer sectors offer
vast potentials to capital making it ‘hyper-capitalism’.
Any mode of production cannot operate in the absence of an
enabling regulatory apparatus. There are some kind of
governance mechanisms. Governance relates processes
whereby people formulate, implement, enforce and review rules to
guide their common affairs.” It entails more than government. It
can extend beyond state and sub-state institutions including
supra-state regimes as well. It covers the full scope of societal
regulation.
In the growth of contemporary globalisation, besides political and
economic forces, there are material and ideational elements. In
expanding social relations, people explore their class, their
gender, their nationality, their race, their religious faith and other
aspects of their being. Constructions of identity provide collective
solidarity against oppression. Identity provides frameworks for
community, democracy, citizenship and resistance. It also leads
from nationalism to greater pluralism and hybridity.
Earlier nationalism promoted territorialism, capitalism, and
statism, now these plural identities are feeding more and more
globality, hyper-capitalism and polycentrism. These identities
have many international qualities visualised in global diasporas
and other group affiliations based on age, class, gender, race,
religious faith and sexual orientations. Many forms of supra-
territorial solidarities are appearing through globalisation.
In the area of knowledge, the way that the people know their
world has significant implications for the concrete circumstances
of that world. Powerful patterns of social consciousness cause
globalisation. Knowledge frameworks cannot be reduced to forces
of production, governance or identity.
Mindsets encourage or discourage the rise of globality. Modern
rationalism is a general configuration of knowledge. It is secular
as it defines reality in terms of the tangible world of experience. It
understands reality primarily in terms of human interests, activities
and conditions. It holds that phenomena can be understood in
terms of single incontrovertible truths that are discoverable by
rigorous application of objective research methods.
Rationalism is instrumentalist. It assigns greatest value to insights
that enable people efficiently to solve immediate problems. It
subordinates all other ways of understanding and acting upon the
world. Its knowledge could then be applied to harness natural and
social forces for human purposes. It enables people to conquer
disease, hunger, poverty, war, etc., and maximise the potentials
of human life. It looks like a secular faith, a knowledge framework
for capitalist production and a cult of economic efficiency.
Scientism and instrumentalism of rationalism is conducive to
globalisation. Scientific knowledge is non-territorial.
The truths revealed by ‘objective’ method are valid for anyone,
anywhere, and anytime on earth. Certain production processes,
regulations, technologies and art forms are applicable across the
planet. Martin Albrow rightly says that reason knows no territorial
limits. The growth of globalisation is unlikely to reverse in the
foreseeable future.
However, Scholte is aware of insecurity, inequality and
marginalisation caused by the present process of globalisation.
Others reject secularist character of the theory, its manifestation
of the imperialism of westernist-modernist-rationalist knowledge.
Anarchists challenge the oppressive nature of states and other
bureaucratic governance frameworks. Globalisation neglects
environmental degradation and equitable gender relations.
