Globalisation

Question 1

Definition of Globalisation by David Held et al

Answer 1

Globalisation refers to the widening, deepening and speeding up of wide world interconnectedness in all aspects of life

Question 2

Causes of Globalisation

Answer 2

Globalisation has many causes. These include:
- the spread of new information and communication technologies
- the influence of global mass media
- cheap air travel
- the deregulation of financial markets and their opening up to competition
The breaking down of boundaries when it comes to trade means we can now get goods cheaper from abroad and establish global brands

Question 3

Globalisation of Crime

Answer 3

There has also been an increasing interconnectedness of crime across national borders. The same processes that have brought about the globalisation of legitimate activities have also brought about the spread of illegitimate opportunities (transnational international crime)
Increased communication in global travel has increased the opportunities for crime

Question 4

Castells argues that there is now a global criminal economy worth over £1 trillion per annum. A range of crimes facilitated by globalisation include:

Answer 4

• arms trafficking
• smuggling of illegal immigrants
• trafficking in women and children
• sex tourism
• green crimes
• cyber crime
• the drugs trade
• money laundering

Question 5

The global economy has both a demand and a supply side. Demand in the rich west and supply from other countries…

Answer 5

Part of the reason for the scale of transnational organised crime is the demand for its products and services in the rich west. However, the global criminal economy could not function without a supply side (e.g. third world drug producing countries such as Columbia and Afghanistan) that provides the source of drugs, sex workers, and other goods and services demanded in the West. This supply is linked to the Globalisation process.
To understand drug crime, we cannot confine our attention merely to the countries where the drugs are consumed.

Question 6

Global risk consciousness

Answer 6

Globalisation creates new insecurities or ‘risk consciousness’. Risk is now seen as global rather than tied to particular places, e.g. economic migrants and asylum seekers fleeing persecution have given rise to anxieties in Western countries.
One result is the intensification of social control at the national level, e.g. the UK has tightened its border regulations

Question 7

Ian Taylor- Globalisation and Rising Crime

Answer 7

Taylor is a socialist- focuses on how globalisation has given free rein to market forces, claiming that this has created greater inequality which has in turn led to rising crime.

• Transnational corporations can now switch manufacturing to low wage countries to gain higher profits , producing job insecurity, unemployment and poverty
• Deregulation means governments have little control over their own economies and state spending on welfare has declined.

Question 8

This has produced rising crime and new patterns of crime:

Answer 8

• Among the poor, greater insecurity encourages people to turn to crime, e.g. in the lucrative drugs trade
• For the elite, globalisation creates large scale criminal opportunities, e.g. deregulation of financial markets creates opportunities for insider trading and tax evasion.
• New employment patterns create new opportunities for crime, e.g. using subcontracting to recruit ‘flexible’ workers, often working illegally.

Question 9

Simon Winlow-

Deindustrialisation, Service Sector and Job Opportunities

Answer 9

In recent decades, globalisation has led to a shift from a modern industrial society to a late modern or post modern de-industrial society. This has led to the loss of many of the traditional manual jobs through which working class men were able to express their masculinity by hard labour. At the same time as job opportunities in industry have declined, there has been an expansion of the service sector, including the night time leisure economy of clubs, pubs and bars. For some working class men, this has provided a combination of legal employment at the same time as criminal opportunities, as a means of expressing their masculinity

Question 10

Bouncers in Sunderland

Answer 10

His study of bouncers in Sunderland, an area of deindustrialisation and unemployment, demonstrated that working as bouncers in pubs and clubs provided young men with the opportunity for illegal business ventures in drugs, duty free tobacco and alcohol, as well as the opportunity to demonstrate their masculinity through the use of violence.

Question 11

‘Glocal’ crime

Hobbs and Dunningham

Answer 11

Hobbs and Dunningham found that the way crime is organised is linked to globalisation. It increasingly involves individuals acting as a ‘hub’ around which a loose knit network forms, often linking legitimate and illegitimate activities. This is different from the hierarchical ‘mafia style’ criminal organisations of the past. Although these new forms of globalisation have global links, e.g. through drug smuggling, crime is still rooted in its local context. They conclude that crime works as a Glocal system- locally based but with global connections

Question 12

Misha Glenny- Mcmafia

Answer 12

Glenny examined ‘Mcmafia’ - organisations that emerged in Russia and Eastern Europe after the fall of communism. The new Russian government deregulated much of the economy, leading to huge rises in food prices and rents. However, commodity prices (for oil, gas, metal etc.) were kept at their old Soviet prices- way below the world market price. Thus, well connected citizens with access to large funds could buy these up very cheaply and sell them on the world market, creating a new elite called ‘oligarchs’. To protect themselves from increasing disorder, oligarchs turned to the new ‘mafias’ (often composed of ex state secret service men from the old communist regimes) These criminal organisations were vital for the entry of the new Russian capitalist class into the world economy