Globalizations: definition and situation

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What is globalization?

Definitions and disciplinary issues

Should we talk about globalization or globalization? There is no difference, in French it is accepted that the two terms can be used interchangeably.

There is no consensus definition, it is an open debate. Within the debates on globalization, it is a particularly open debate because defining what globalization is is an issue. Globalisation is a difficult concept to study because we all have a certain perception of what it is.

Some common points

Globalisation has an impact on remote actions when the actions of social agents in one place have consequences on the other side of the planet. There is a compression of time and space. It is much easier to communicate, geographical and territorial barriers tend to decrease. On the other hand, there is an acceleration of interdependence with the increase in interconnection between national economies and societies.

When we talk about globalization, there is the idea of a shrinking world. With the erosion of human and geographical barriers to socio-economic activity, this gives the impression of a smaller world. Integration is global through a reordering of inter-regional power relations creating an awareness of a global condition and an intensification of interconnection between regions. This implies a homogenization that generates common visions and practices that would be imposed by the economic and political system according to a neoliberal vision.

A definition?

Globalisation can be known as a discourse, a process, an analytical grid or a common project. According to the studies, the emphasis will be on material, spatiotemporal or cognitive aspects.

These are very heterogeneous debates, they are approaches that represent disciplinary investments based on the merits of the readings. According to a conservative or socialist approach for which globalization is a threat to important values, the reading will be different. For example, a Marxist approach to globalization will assume that since the end of the Cold War, there has been a neoliberal agenda imposed by some international agents on the rest of the world. For realists, globalization would be imposed by a hegemon for its own interests by using military or other means of pressure. The realistic theory is dynamic because hegemons evolve over the course of history; thus, there would be no reason for globalization to be a phase.

In The Global Transformations Reader de Held et Macgrew publié en 2000[1], there is a coexistence of multiple conversations rather than a true dialogue. It's an extremely multidisciplinary thing. Wellerstein in The Modern World-System proposes the theory of the world system, others propose an approach by political economy or some like Kehohane and Nye in Transnational relations and world politics published in 1973 highlight a logic of complex interdependencies.

Skeptics vs. globalist

This type of distinction is only there to clarify an entry into the debate. For some, globalization is not a very original phenomenon, as it is for Hirst and Thompson in Globalization in question: the international economy and the possibilities of governance[2], we should be talking about internationalization. For them, globalization is really a myth that justifies and legitimizes the advent of a neo-liberal project, as it is for Hirst in From Statism to Pluralism[3] published in 1997 et Gordon dans The Global Economy: New Edifice or Crumbling Foundations[4] p

established in 1988, following the example of the Washington Consensus, deregulation, privatization, structural adjustment programs, etc.

Authors adopt a realistic ontology like Waltz in Theory of International Politics[5] and Gilpin in The Theory of Hegemonic War[6] challenging globalization as an analytical framework for understanding phenomena. Some adopt a Marxist ontology like Van der Pijl inTransnational Classes and International Relations[7], Negri and Hardt dans Empire[8] published in 2000.

For globalists like Held and McGrew in The Global Transformations Reader[9], globalization generates clear transformations of processes that make it possible to understand the world as opposed to international relations, which in general have as their main reference the State no longer sufficient to understand today's world. There are very present globalization logics that are part of a real phenomenon of structural change in the scale of social organization of the world. The State is no longer the main referent, they are round trips, complex joints. For globalists, globalization affects all other social areas.

Ri2 Sceptiques vs globaliste.png

Disciplinary issues: the case of international relations

Enjeux disciplinaires.png

It is a classification of disciplines according to their publication. International relations painfully rank seventh, ahead of economics, geography, sociology and even political science. On the other hand, it is not researchers in international relations who are debating the issue. International relations is not the discipline that has been most interested in globalization, unlike economics, sociology and political science.

In Globalization: An Analytical Framework, Walker highlights the dependence of international relations on the state, which cannot escape the double intellectual and territorial compartmentalization around the question of the state.

Time and globalization

Emergence of the term globalization

Friedman at the Miami Book Fair International, 1990

It is very interesting to begin by addressing the question of the origins of globalization by considering the itinerary of this notion, which must be distinguished from the processes we describe. Although the term globalization appears in Oxford's 1930s dictionary, it can also be found in The Economist in the 1950s and 1960s. It was really from the 1980s that the term exploded with a golden age in the 1990s. In the years 1980 - 1990, this is a novelty. Before being in a scientific debate, the debate on globalization comes from the political economy and will very quickly be grafted onto a political debate between neo-realism and alterglobalization, which embodies a counter-culture that claims to be part of globalization, but wants a different use. The term spreads from the financial and economic sphere to other social spheres. New York Time reporter Thomas Friedman popularized the term. Friedman published two books, one in 1900 The Lexus and the Olive tree[10] explaining his vision of globalization in today's world, and in 2005 The world is flat[11] which is an analysis of the major trends in globalization and the forces driving it.

Évolution terme globalisation.png

To illustrate that the term "globalization" came late, these two graphs show that the term "globalization" goes from an occurrence in the 1980s to a high use in the 2000s.

Dating

It is important to distinguish between the emergence of the notion and the fact that when people talk about "globalization". On dating, we are in the same logic. The question of "when" is particularly important, because for historians, the way globalization is presented suffers from anhistoricism. This limits the discourse on globalization because we do not know where to go from here.

For some authors, today, we have the culmination of a historical process that highlights different opinions. The three most common approaches are:

  • Theory of modernization in The consequences of modernity[12] of Giddens published in 1990. As early as the 17th century, we arrived at a standardization of time by trivializing watches, which made it possible to remove time from the individuals of time in its spatial design. What is important is individualization, because time compression makes it possible to conceive this phenomenon from individuation. Ulrich Beck spoke of a risk society in his 1986 book of the same name. In the individualized, interconnected and global society, issues are much more perceived in terms of risk.
  • Wallerstein's Theory of the World System: This theory is based on a three-volume book published between 1974 and 1989 entitledThe Modern World-System[13] as part of a Marxist approach. According to Wallerstein, the logic of globalization can be traced back to the 16th century with the introduction of the canons that are driving today's liberalization. From that time on, there was a structuring of the world into three regions: the centre[1], the periphery[2] and the semi-periphery[3]. According to Wallerstein, globalization is not an enthusiasm, but it is something that can be traced as a substitute for development. Beyond its positive conception, there is a criticism of development, particularly Marxist, saying that development is a project that allows the centre to continue to dominate the periphery. In a Marxist and long-term approach based on the long term of the French School of Annals founded by Lucien Febvre and Marx Bloch, we are in a project of development and domination of the central states on the periphery. These are the canons of Marxism, capital is only expanding and dominating the whole world.
  • The theory of space-time compression: Harvey is also a Marxist-oriented geographer who notes in his book The Condition of Postmodernity[14] published in 1989 an acceleration in the contraction of space-time where we are really in an expression of capitalism on a global scale.

We must see the current globalization in a long-term logic and in a logic of setting up a process that dates back several centuries.

For sceptics, globalization is just a Euristic term. There is nothing new, because the economic system already exists. For example, in the 19th century, there was a very significant migration, with 60 million European emigrants leaving. At the time, we were travelling without a passport. It is a historical critique of globalization seeking to highlight that we were perhaps in a much more globalized world in the 19th century. Historically, there have been a number of phenomena that have nothing to envy to the current globalization with diasporas, the Spring of Peoples in 1848, cosmopolitanism, the international system, particularly with the Congress of Vienna in 1815, or liberalism.

The mistreated State

When we talk about dating, the main issue is the question of the state. From the moment when globalization and its process must be dated, the question of the erosion of the State arises. There is a discourse on the temporality of globalization mainly centred around the disappearance of the nation state. This is a point that comes up systematically when we talk about globalization. In the Denationalization: Territory, Authority and Rights in a Global Digital Age[15],

Saskia Sassen shows that globalization may be linked to a form of state weakening, but we must be careful, because if we historicize state building, we see that the construction of the modern state can be read as an effort to make all essential aspects of society national. However, the State is gradually losing some of its prerogatives, particularly to wage war, control the economy or promote a national culture.

This is a largely unjustified criticism, because the state is thought of in an anhistorical way. Sassen believes that it should be a question of reconfiguration of the state rather than erosion. In the The Retreat of the State : The Diffusion of Power in the World Economy[16], Strange shows that it is not another political referee who will take the place of the State. The State itself is one of the main actors in the globalization of markets. It is a certain conception of how the state should be managed that will push the state to weaken, but it is not external forces that will weaken it. The transformation of citizenship is a logic that has come into the conception of citizenship within States. The issue of diasporas is part of the reconfiguration rather than an erosion of the state, as many states have in fact been regaining control over their diasporas for some time. The image of erosion is rather false, we are in a process of reconfiguring the State.

Space is globalization

Sassen wondered if we were in a "tipping point", i.e. in a rescheduling of authorities, territories, etc., all these levels, local, global and regional, were being articulated differently.

If we talk about globalization and space, we are in an articulation between flows and territories. The constitution of a state is a good example, city-states were in a logic of flow while empires are in a logic of territories by coercion. Charles Tilly speaks in War Making and State Making as Organized Crime[17] of « war making – state making ». States would have been formed by waging war. We must not reify the state, that is, when we talk about the state as the ultimate referent, it is a fiction.

Two approaches emerge. The great thinker in terms of flow is Castells who recomposes geography around a flow space in his book La société en réseau. There is a logic of deterritorialized flows, networked societies and information capitalism.

Two important thinkers are interested in the need to localize globalization. It's Appadurai and Robertson.

For Appadurai, the flows are disjointed, they circulate in different landscapes, either ethnic, media, technical, financial or ideological. The design of the local will evolve according to these different landscapes, there is an interaction and articulation between the local and the global, it is a mediation between the global and the local. Robertson is in the same logic. Globalisation is an indissoluble mixture of the global and the local, i.e. globalisation is not necessarily a homogenisation. The relationship to the territory is a permanent dialogue between the local and the global that will be interpreted.

Articulation d’échelles

Il faut se poser la question de comment articuler différentes échelles géographiques, car nous sommes dans un antagonisme entre flux et localité. Il y a un besoin des outils pour articuler toutes ces échelles. En d’autres termes, comme le préconise Dicken dans Location in space : a theoretical approach to economic geography[18], il faut penser une approche en termes de réseaux situés. Apparaît l’idée que la globalisation est un phénomène qui est à la fois multiscalaire et topologique ayant des applications à différents endroits en fonction de ces échelles.

Changement d’échelles

Les formations et les processus globaux peuvent être et sont une cause de déstabilisation de la hiérarchie des échelles fondées sur l’État national. Le global se constitue en partie grâce à la dénationalisation d’éléments particuliers qui avaient été intégrés dans les domaines institutionnels du national.

L’histoire de l’État moderne peut être lue comme un effort pour rendre nationaux tous les aspects essentiels de la société. La modification des hiérarchies ne veut pas dire disparition des anciennes au profit des nouvelles, mais que de nouvelles surgissent à côté des anciennes. Il faut être attentif, car cela veut aussi dire que certains États n’ont jamais été complètement souverains en pratique.

Les villes comme mondialisation située

Sassen parle des villes comme mondialisation située utilisant l’image et le rôle des villes parce qu’aujourd’hui apparaissent des villes polarisées avec une polarisation de l’activité économique mondiale. Il y a une dispersion des moyens de production qui favorise la concentration, la gestion et la coordination.

Les villes globales sont des villes à différencier des villes mondiales, car ces villes ont en commun qu’à partir du moment où l’économie s’est mondialisée, elles deviennent des hubs et des nœuds très importants faisant que les villes globales sont intrinsèquement liées entre elles.

Mobilité globale

La mobilité est devenue impérative, devenant un moyen pour circuler, mais qui n’est pas donnée à tout le monde, générant des inégalités. Le cosmopolitisme concerne avant tout une grange favorisée de l’humanité. Mais il existe d’autres mondialisations compartimentées.

Touristes et vagabonds

Dans Le coût humain de la mondialisation[19], Zygmunt Bauman montre comment la globalisation par l’impératif de mobilité va avoir quelque chose de clivant au sein de l’humanité. On assisterait à un nouveau clivage relevant de l’accès à la mobilité. La mobilité devient un facteur de stratification sociale. Il est très intéressant aujourd’hui de s’interroger entre le lien sur la mobilité nationale et la mobilité globale.

Cosmopolitisme

C’est une approche plutôt perçue comme étant positive avec une idée tout à fait noble. Ulrich Beck voit dans le cosmopolitisme l’apanage d’une société globale déterritorialisée, mais qui est avant tout l’apanage des classes supérieures, car les classes inférieures vont avoir du mal à participer au mouvement global. Il y aurait une souveraineté cosmopolite pour apprivoiser la globalisation. Apparaît une tension autour d’une notion très positive, mais qui se doit d’être discutée autour de la notion de stratification qui est la question de la société civile globale.

Toute une série de travaux s’intéresse et promeut l’idée. Sikking et Keck dans Activists Beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics[20], se sont intéressées aux advocacy network ; dans Epistemic Communities and International Policy Coordination[21], Haas s’est intéressé à la notion de communauté épistémique. Une communauté épistémique est un ensemble des scientifiques avec une autorité reconnue au niveau international, par exemple dans le domaine d’environnement. Les advocacy networks s’inscrivent dans la littérature des normes en relations internationales où l’idée est de pouvoir faire avancer des idées au niveau global sur une scène qui dépasse les frontières étatiques, donc la capacité de pouvoir parler à une arène globale, afin de rendre ces idées plus pertinentes et plus fortes.

Ce type de littérature nous amène à nous interroger sur les mouvements sociaux transnationaux. Lorsqu’on regarde de plus près, l’activisme transnational garde un enracinement national. Si on ne s’interroge pas sur les conditions spécifiques de chaque pays, on risque d’avoir une analyse assez simpliste en faisant un raccourci selon lequel les intérêts dans un monde cosmopolite sont les mêmes. C’est une contradiction avec des mouvements progressistes, mais venant de catégories supérieures déconnectées des populations auxquelles ils s’adressent. Ainsi, c’est un projet cosmopolitiste socialement situé au niveau des classes les plus favorisées comme le remarque Gobille dans Les altermondialistes : des activistes transnationaux ?[22] Si on prend le projet cosmopolite comme un projet élitiste, alors, on peut s’interroger sur savoir s’il faut posséder un capital cosmopolite pour pouvoir accéder à ces mouvements.

On peut avoir l’impression que ces idées de rapport au monde et au global positif sont répandues dans notre société. Il faut faire attention à ne pas différencier ce que certains comme Skrbis et Woodward appellent le « cosmopolitisme ordinaire » dans The Ambivalence of Ordinary Cosmopolitanism : Investigating the Limits of Cosmopolitan Openness[23]. Dans les pays occidentaux, on aurait tendance à valoriser les rapports à l’étranger à la culture, mais de rejeter la figure de l’étranger et du monde à partir du moment où l’étranger touche l’immigration et la culture nationale. L’adhésion aux thèses cosmopolites ne sont pas si données que ça et ne touchent pas tout le monde.

Mobilité par le bas

La mobilité par le bas serait le fruit d’une compartimentation de la mobilité qui va générer les inégalités du monde d’aujourd’hui. L’idée de la construction européenne est l’établissement d’un certain nombre de libertés, dont la liberté de circuler. L’idée de cet accord, est justement de donner une contrepartie sécuritaire à la libre-circulation des personnes avec une multiplication des murs physiques et électroniques. Il y aurait même un apartheid fonctionnel qui révèle un rapport paradoxal à la mobilité qui a des effets politiques et éthiques.

Les laissés pour compte de la mondialisation et de la mobilité, vont, soit être bloqués, soit vont pouvoir bouger en suivant des couloirs notamment au niveau des trajets migratoires. Le cas des remittances révèle qu’on a longtemps sous-estimé l’argent qui est renvoyé par les travailleurs pauvres de la globalisation dans leur pays d’origine, ainsi il y a des pays ou les remittances représentent 10 % des PIB voire plus que leurs propres recettes. C’est d’ailleurs quelque chose de très présent. On se retrouve dans cette stratification générée par la mobilité dans la globalisation.

Les diasporas qui au-delà des gouvernements qui s’y intéressent de plus en plus, nous avons à faire de plus en plus à la possibilité pour les diasporas de communiquer avec leur pays d’origine. C’est un flux qui n’est pas forcément des « gagnants » de la globalisation. Les entrepreneurs transnationaux représentent un flux particulier d’entrepreneurs qui s’inscrivent dans les logiques binationales ? Dans Le Gouvernement du monde. Une Critique politique de la globalisation[24], Bayard va parler de classe moyenne transnationale. Ce sont des gens qui par leur socialisation aux nouvelles règles économiques globales, ont un point commun faisant partie d’une classe moyenne transnationale.

Avec la mobilité, il y a un phénomène transnational qui se passe par le haut, pour les autres la mobilité et soit transnational soit compartimenté.

Annexes

Lectures

References

  1. Held, David, and Anthony G. McGrew. The Global Transformations Reader: An Introduction to the Globalization Debate. Cambridge, UK: Polity, 2000.
  2. Sklair, Leslie, Paul Hirst, Grahame Thompson, Tony Spybey, and Steven Yearley. "Globalization in Question: The International Economy and the Possibilities of Governance." The British Journal of Sociology 48.2 (1997): 333.
  3. Hirst, Paul Q. From Statism to Pluralism: Democracy, Civil Society, and Global Politics. London: UCL, 1997.
  4. Gordon, David M. "New Left Review - David Gordon: The Global Economy: New Edifice or Crumbling Foundations?" New Left Review - David Gordon: The Global Economy: New Edifice or Crumbling Foundations?
  5. Waltz, Kenneth N. Theory of International Politics. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Pub., 1979.
  6. Gilpin, Robert. "The Theory of Hegemonic War." Journal of Interdisciplinary History 18.4 (1988): 591.
  7. Pijl, Kees Van Der. Transnational Classes and International Relations. London: Routledge, 1998.
  8. Hardt, Michael, and Antonio Negri. Empire. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 2000.
  9. Held, David, and Anthony G. McGrew. The Global Transformations Reader: An Introduction to the Globalization Debate. Cambridge, UK: Polity, 2003.
  10. Friedman, Thomas L. The Lexus and the Olive Tree. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1999.
  11. Friedman, Thomas L. The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005.
  12. Giddens, Anthony. The Consequences of Modernity. Stanford, CA: Stanford UP, 1990.
  13. Wallerstein, Immanuel Maurice. The Modern World-system. San Diego: Academic, 1974.
  14. Harvey, David. The Condition of Postmodernity: An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change. Oxford: Blackwell, 1990.
  15. Sassen, Saskia. Territory, Authority, Rights: From Medieval to Global Assemblages. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 2006.
  16. Strange, Susan. The Retreat of the State: The Diffusion of Power in the World Economy. New York: Cambridge UP, 1996.
  17. Tilly, Charles, Peter B. Evans, Dietrich Rueschemeyer, and Theda Skocpol. War Making and State Making as Organized Crime. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1985.
  18. Lloyd, Peter E., and Peter Dicken. Location in Space: A Theoretical Approach to Economic Geography. New York: Harper & Row, 1972.
  19. Zygmunt Bauman, Le coût humain de la mondialisation, Hachette, 1999
  20. Keck, Margaret E., and Kathryn Sikkink. Activists beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics. Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP, 1998.
  21. Haas, Peter M. Knowledge, Power, and International Policy Coordination. Columbia, SC: U of South Carolina, 1997.
  22. Gobille Boris, « Les altermondialistes : des activistes transnationaux ? », Critique internationale 2/ 2005 (no 27), p. 131-145
  23. Skrbis, Zlatko, and Ian Woodward. "The Ambivalence of Ordinary Cosmopolitanism: Investigating the Limits of Cosmopolitan Openness." The Sociological Review 55.4 (2007): 730-47.
  24. Schlichte, Klaus. "Jean-François Bayart: Le Gouvernement Du Monde. Une Critique Politique De La Globalisation." Politische Vierteljahresschrift 47.2 (2006): 329-30.