chapter 2: the state and globalisation Flashcards
What did Francis Fukuyama argue? What was the context of his writing?
-He argued that war would become a thing of the past due to the rise of liberal democracies.
-The rise of democraces and their interconnectedness could challenge the primacy of the nation state, making way for a more supranational style of governance.
-He was writing in 1992, just as communism was collapsing. The Berlin Wall had fallen in 1989, and in 1991 the USSR collapsed, ending the Cold War.
How has the nation-state developed?
- Hugo Grotius put forward the idea that the role of a state is to protect the rights of citizens and ensure people work for mutual benefit and common interest. While Hobbes and Boudin argued that adherence to the authority of a nation state provided the most effective way of protecting society
-The Westphalian System in 1648. Develops the idea of sovereignty by stating that no state has the legal right to intervene in the sovereign affairs of another state, and all states possess the same legal right to independence - the montevideo convention in 1933 defined a nation state as one with defined territory, a permanent population, a viable government and the capacity to enter into diplomatic relations with other states.
-Wodrow Wilson’s 14 points, self determination.
-Article 2, of Chapter 1 of the UN Charter recognises what the importance of the nation state. no state, however powerful, has the right to intervene in the affairs of another
What is Globalisation?
-The process by which the world has become so interconnected that a variety of non-state actors, global trends, and significant events have challenged territorial borders and state sovereignty.
What is economic globalisation? What is political globalisation?
-Econ: Process where states become more vlosely connected and interdependent according to free-trade principles. Leads to greater transnational flow of goods, services, and capital.
-Pol: Shared membership of IGOs, regional orgs etc. This has led to greater interconnectedness of politics.
economic globalisation: What was the Washington Consesus? What do states have to do to attract global business? Why does this have negative impacts?
-Washington consensus is essentially economic liberalism, and the promotion of free-market trade, and interconnectedness.
-States must implement conditions that businesses find attractive (ie low corporate tax, light regulation, low workers rights).
-If states do not take part in economic globalisation, they risk losing their investments, and so Govs tailor economic decisions to encourage foreign business. Ireland reduced corp. tax to 12.5% to attract business.
-Globalisation of markets can therefore affect economic wellbeing. (As can be seen in the 2008 crash, or Covid pandemic).
economic globalisation: how can the globalisation of markets be seen?
- through the 2008 financial crash and 2020 pandemic which impacted every economy in the world
political globalisation: what are non state actors?
entities such as NGOs, IGOs, globally influential individuals, transnational corporations and even criminal and terrorist networks that wield significant influence over global affairs
political globalisation: Give some example of global pressure groups. Give some examples of NGOs successes.
-Amnesty, Greenpeace, Human Rights Watch. Also individuals, like Thunberg/Attenborough.
-Thunberg/Att have helped force climate change to be a global priority, discussing the environment with Obama in 2015 and presenting a witness statement in “A life on our plane” (2020).
-At COP26, Attenborough addressed world leaders, urging them to “rewrite our story.”
political globalisation: What are the Bretton Woods institutions?
-World Bank, IMF, WTO.
- all of them impact state sovereignty by advancing global free markets and free trade. the SAPs are founded on the core premise that economic growth is maximised through free-market reforms
political globalisation: What is the UN?
-United Nations is an IGO, mad eup of 193 member states, joined together to promote peace and resolve “collective dilemas.” It is arguably the most important IGO, due to its massive membership, and the fact that states don’t sacrifice sovereignty to join it.
political globalisation: Give some examples of UN agencies? What are some other things they’re responsible for?
-WHO -> responsible for the eradication of smallpox & (close to) of polio. Still works to reolve epidemics like Ebola.
-International Atomic Energy Agency -> Monitors states fulfillment of the terms of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (1968).
-UN High Commission for Refugees -> Seeks to alleviate plight of refugees. In 2020, there were 80m worldwide.
-Also, UNICEF, and World Food Programme.
-UN is also responsible for Millenium & Sustainable Development Goals + climate change.
political globalisation: Give some examples of regional organisations. What are their functions? What are their impact?
-EEC (1957) -> EU (1993).
-ASEAN (1967), Mercosur (1991), NAFTA (1994).
-They set up free trade agreements, within a smaller geographical area, providing regions with greater international influence in trade (though sovereignty is pooled).
-They protect states from the rigours of global competition, but the pooling of sovereignty means states become slightly limited.
What has the impact of the internet been?
-Econ: Instantaneous trading of shares, movement of capital, and producing a global marketplace. Leads to the globalisation of business.
-Cul: Easy spread of ideas and teachnological advances. Goods, fashion etc can be spread everywhere, and brands now have international recognisability.
-Facebook, and Al Jazeera played an important role in promoting the Arab Spring uprisings.
-Essentially, it provides a platform for social movements to develop. The quick spread of BLM in 2020 was almost entirely due to the internet.
- however, such as china’s firewall, it can be limited
economic globalisation has reduced poverty: convergence between the global north and global south?
- supporters of economic globalisation argue that free trade liberalism has done more than anything else in history to encourage convergence between the global north and the global south by creating new opportunities for manufacturing in the developing world
- gross world production 2000: $33,895bn compared to gross world production 2019: $87,552bn
- The difference between NK & South Korea’s economies massively exemplifies the effect that globalisation can have. (54x bigger)
- the numbers in extreme poverty 1980: 36% of the world, 2024:8.5%
- as a result of the enhanced global trading opportunities that free trade creates, developing countries have been able to break into global markets and use their comparative advantage in cheap labour to lift millions of their citizens out of extreme poverty
economic globalisation has reduced poverty: What is a tariff? What is the impact of tariffs on poverty? How has free trade therefore reduced poverty?
-Tax placed on foreign goods to encourage people to shop domestically.
-Tariffs enable domestic producers to increase prices, as the competiton’s prices are so high. This means that prices go up, making them far less affordable, exacerbating poverty.
-Free trade means that tariffs are removed, reducing prices. It also means that countries are able to specialise in what they produce cheapest, abandoning those that they are costly, also reducing prices.
economic globalisation has reduced poverty: how does the success of the MDGs highlight the success of globalisation to reduce poverty?
- by opening up their markets to foreign investment , developing countries have been able to climb the development ladder
-MDGs= A set of goals developed by the UN, and they aim to reduce poverty, target things like HIV & Aids.
-China; Uses its supply of cheap labour to manufacture low-cost goods, enabling China’s exports to be, in 2019, worth $2.5tr.
-SK: IMF states that in 2020, they had the 10th biggest GDP, through companies like Hyundai. In the 70s, their economy had been roughly the same as North Korea’s, but by 2019, it was 54x larger. - vietnam is increasingly focusing on the development of its world export market, specialising in low-cost manufacturing
economic globalisation has reduced poverty: What has the impact of economic globalisation on Africa been?
-African countries have been able to take advantage of trading opportunities with their natural resources (like diamonds in Botswana, coffee in Cote d’Ivorie, and tea in Kenya).
-Their population has been expected to go from 1.4bn to 1.7bn between 2020-2030, meaning they will be able to tak advantage of youtful, cheap labour.
economic globalisation has reduced poverty: Has Africa benefitted from the increasing wealth in Asia?
-As their Asian economies grow, labour prices are getting higher, which makes them less advantageous for comapnies to manufacture in.
-Renault, Peugot, and Volkswagen are moving car production to African plants. Toyota now manufactures in Kenya, for example.
-In 2019, Microsoft opened its first African Development centre in Nairobi.
-The Mckinsey Report in 2017 stated that there were 10,00 chinese companies operating in Africa.
economic globalisation has reduced poverty: What has the impact of globalisation been on consumers? What is its impact on ideas?
-Driven down the cost of goods, allowing people to access things that had previously been available to only the wealthy. In 2020, 45% of the world owned a smartphone, and the cheapest (Freedom 251) was solf for less than $3.50.
-Encourages the spread of ideas, introducing more people to new ways of making products, doing business and innovating.t his benefits people by providing them with with access to new commodities and job opportunities. Johan Norberg in “Open” (2020) emphasised how this enables progress.
economic globalisation has reduced poverty: What has the impact been on the poverty cycle?
Employment opportunities procided by new sectors helps break the cycle of poverty. Jobs provided in factories/production allows people to earn a regular, living wage, along with the opportunity for career development to accumulate the wealth necessary to give their children a better education. Paul collier demonstrates the importance of globalisation in enabling this in “The Boston Billion” (2007).
economic globalisation has not reduced poverty: What does Wallerstein argue about Dependency theory?
-Globalisation locks developing states into permananet dependency status, if states open their borders to trade “too soon” they can be saddled with cheap manufacture, and they become dependent on cheap foreign imports.
-Termed this “neo-colonisalism,” where developing states are never enabled to become big players in world trade.
-They therefore provide markets and workforces for MNCs, without developing their own business interests.
economic globalisation has not reduced poverty: What does Ha-Joon Change argue?
-Developing countried should embrace globalisation only when they have reached sufficent development to withstand foreign competition & exploitation.
-He draws on the example of the US abandoning the system of subsidies and tarrifs, only when they were on a level playing field with industrial superpowers.
economic globalisation has not reduced poverty: What do critics of economic globalisation argue about wealth created by global free trade?
-While it had generated great wealth, this has been concentrated in the pockets of the elite, drastically increasing the gaps between the rich and the poor, without actually promoting the wellbeing of the poor.
-China has increased wealth in society, but there is massive disparity in income & opportunities between rural & urban.
-In India, in 2019, 1% of the population earned 21% of total income, compared to 11% in 1990 (the year before they openeed their markets).
economic globalisation has not reduced poverty: What has Chua argued? In the US, how has the income gap influenced politics?
-Chua argued that, by concentrating wealth in the the hands of the few, the majority harbour resentment & dissatisfaction (even if globalisation had marginally improved their positions), making them feel as though they are not better off, undermining social cohesion.
-1989-2016, the income gap in the US has doubled, and the number of middle income families dropped from 61% in 1971 to 51% in 2019. This had encouraged anger and resentment among the working class & middle-class voters, and has been integral to the election of Trump.