Please enable JavaScript.
Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.
Globalisation and its Critics (CONCLUSIONS (Although a contested term,…
- Globalisation and its Critics
Bretton Woods, 1944
The conference held at Bretton Woods in New Hampshire in July 1944 established the economic framework for the post-War world on the principle of 'embedded liberalism'
-
The end of one consensus...
In August 1971, feeling that the US was over-contributing to global economic institutions, President Nixon withdrew US support for currency rates fixed to the dollar, thereby ending the possibility of continued 'embedded liberalism'
... and the rise of another
After the 1970s, global economic institutions formed the so-called 'Washington consensus' around liberalising trade, freeing exchange rates, balanced budgets, privatisation and redirecting public expenditures.
What is Globalisation?
'... the intensification of world-wide relations which link distant localities in such a way that local happenings are shaped by events occurring many miles away and vice versa'
'From the early 1980s onwards, globalisation was seen as an external technological and economic force compelling countries around the world to adjust their economic policies, largely though liberalisation and deregulation'
When was globalisation?
Globalisation is sometimes portrayed as a novel stage in human history, but we can see analogous process at work long before the 'global era' of the late 20th century, especially in workings of imperialism.
Global Governance in a pre 'Global' era
Institutions of global governance had their origins prior to the period we typically associate with 'globalisation' (1970s to date); indeed they helped create the conditions that made today's variant of globalisation possible.
Neo-Liberalism
As well as a way of understanding IR, neo-liberalism is an economic and philosophical ideology that suggests that human welfare and freedom is best achieved by promoting economic growth and seeks to reduce the role of the state in social, and especially, economic affairs
-
Global Wealth and Global Poverty
Critics of globalisation don't deny that globalisation produces wealth; they just point out that such wealth is unevenly distributed throughout the globe as well as within developed societies and is therefore socially unjust.
Empire vs. Empire
In two books of the same title published only three years apart, Hardy and Negri (2000) and Fergusson (2003) both drew different conclusions about empire and globalisation: Hard and Negri saw globalisation as a new form of empire; Fergusson admitted it was not possible to have 'globalisation without gunboats', but believed free trade was a good thing
Neo-Marxism
- Critique of capitalism for generating unequal social relations leading to domination, exploitation and oppression
- Explanations of class conflict between those who own the means of production (bourgeoise) and those who don't (proletariat)
- Critique of liberalism as an ideology that legitimises capitalism
- Recognition of the emancipatory potential of modernity
- Exploration of potential sources of social and political change
Class Struggle and the State System
For neo-Marxists international relations are structured by capitalism and the competition between classes that this produces. The modern state is the means by which the bourgeoisie imposes its interests upon the proletariat
Gramsci and Hegemony
Hegemony is the preponderance of power and influence held by a state. It is more than just power as it rests on persuassion and consent, fostered via ideology and transmitted via culture
'Through his notion of hegemony, Gransci redirected Marxist theory to the role of culture and ideology in reproducing the state and capitalism
The Anti-Capitalist Movement
The successes of globalisation and neo-liberalism - especially in Latin America and Eastern Europe - provoked a renewed critique from the left of politics
World Social Forum
Initiated in Porto Alegre in Brazil 2001, the WSF was created to facilitate the articulation of alternative to neo-liberal forms of globalisation
Democracy and Global Governance
In the developed world, the protests against the World Trade Organisation conference held in Seattle in November 1999 (and Melbourne in September 2000) marked the turning point in the politicalisation of globalisation and the role of global economic institutions in the governance of this emerging regime
Neo-Liberalism and Sustainability
By the end of the first decade of the 21st century, the anti-capitalist movement had cross-pollinated with other global social movements such as environmentalism, the anti-war movement of 2003 and the Occupy movement that grew up in the wake of the GFC in 2008 to create a 'cosmopolitan' critique of globalisation
The Communitarian Backlash
But as globalisation widened inequality gaps between its 'winners' and 'losers', another form of political mobilisation took place that sought to reassert local and national communities and their political agency. Brexit has been the most significant result of this to date
CONCLUSIONS
Although a contested term, globalisation implies an increase of social and commercial exchange around the globe and an increased consciousness of these linked processes
Policies aimed at producing globalisation create a blurring of local, national and world politics
Neo-liberalism policies have raised concerns about the sustainability and social justice of the new economic order
-