GP- The State And Globalisation: Debates On Globalisation Flashcards

Question

How has economic globalisation helped reduce poverty?

Answer 1

Economic globalisation has enabled many states to spectacularly reduce poverty levels. Countries in the developing world can exploit their comparative advantage (David Ricardo) in cheap labour to mass-produce inexpensive products for the global market. Free trade has therefore spectacularly increased opportunities for developing states to grow their economies and participate in global trade, so encouraging their rapid industrialisation. In 2021, global trade reached a peak of $28.5 trillion with countries in the developing world playing a major role in world economic expansion. South Korea is a good example of a state that has experienced rapid economic development because of its full participation in the global economy. In 2022 it had the tenth-biggest GDP in the world ($1.63 trillion), which put it ahead of Russia ($1.48 trillion). South Korean brands such as Samsung, Hyundai, Kia and LG are globally recognised. China, whose participation in the global economy since reforms in the 1970s has, according to a report by the World Bank (2022), lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty. This has contributed to three-quarters of the total global poverty reduction. The reduction in the relative price of goods also enables people in extreme poverty to purchase important economical goods such as mobile phones and laptops, developing political and economical empowerment.

Answer 2

* Political globalisation has also seen the UN develop a leadership role in combating global poverty. * The UN developed powerful Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), enacting a 30-year programme of coordinated development projects. * Before this, there were no agreed international poverty reduction targets or strategies. * The MDGs and SDGs have led to important improvements and the UN constantly monitors their progress. * For example, the MDGs resulted in extreme poverty reducing by half, falling from 1.9 billion people in 1990 to 836 million in 2015, while child mortality was reduced by more than half between 1990 and 2015.

Answer 3

* According to world systems theory, economic globalisation traps developing states in a state of dependency. * Developed states exploit developing states' cheap labour force and raw materials, and in return they buy cheap manufactured products from developed countries. * This ensures that they always remain in a state of neo-colonial dependency and do not industrially develop themselves. * This argument does not satisfy when considering the remarkable economic rise of China and India. * However, it probably does hold validity for some of the world's poorest states. * Many of these states are found in sub-Saharan Africa and the economist Paul Collier has referred to the people in such countries as 'the bottom billion' who have not gained from globalisation. * For example, the Democratic Republic of Congo remains one of the world's poorest states, despite being the main source of the cheap minerals used in mobile phone technology, which have enriched global brands such as Apple and Samsung, enabling them to become some of the world's richest MNCs. * Critics further claim that, although economic globalisation can provide higher wages, it can also condemn people to working in factories for long hours in inadequate conditions, as MNCs seek to reduce costs in a 'race to the bottom'. * The World Bank and the IMF have also been accused of requiring states to introduce free-market reforms they may be unsuited to in return for financial support. * This 'conditionality' has been referred to as 'shock therapy' and it can lead to a significant deterioration of human capital as developing states are required to reduce public spending, encourage privatisation and increase taxation to balance the budget. * Critics of economic global governance also note that the WTO does not protect either workers' rights or the environment. * The environmental degradation that economic globalisation encourages is also especially acute in the developing world, as Shell's exploitation of the Niger Delta illustrates.

Answer 4

* Supporters of globalisation claim that economic and political globalisation have together reduced the likelihood of conflict between states. * As a result of the spread of economic globalisation, most states are economically dependent on each other and trade together through a system of global trading rules. * This reduces the need for states to fight each other for resources and, according to liberal economic theory, encourages cooperation, understanding and respect. * As the nineteenth-century French economist Frédéric Bastiat put it, 'If goods do not cross borders armies will'. * Political globalisation has also created institutions of global governance where states can resolve disputes and work together in an established framework, such as through COP meetings on climate change or the International Court of Justice. * Cultural globalisation can strengthen empathy and encourage the sharing of values between states across the world. It can also improve 'people to people' exchange such as through commerce, education, and the arts.

Answer 5

* However, globalisation has also increased the potential for conflict. * The internet can be exploited by extremist groups to encourage radicalism and, rather than build understanding, social media platforms and news networks, like GB News and Fox News, can encourage nationalism and populism while discouraging internationalism. * Cultural globalisation can also create a reaction against liberal multicultural values. * In Russia, for example, there has been a reaction against Americanisation with a renewed emphasis on nationalist, orthodox and conservative values. Indeed, in 2019, President Putin claimed that liberalism is 'obsolete' and has outlived its purpose. * According to Samuel Huntington in his book The Clash of Civilizations (1996), Islamist radicalisation is provoked by fear of the appeal of Western liberal values. * Economic globalisation does not benefit all nations equally and so can create resentment rather than understanding as workers in the developed world fear that they will lose their jobs to low-wage workers in the developing world. This helps to explain the rise of populist leaders such as President Trump in the USA and nationalist parties across Europe.

Answer 6

* In terms of the positive impacts, political globalisation has created a wide range of international human rights law since the creation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. * International human rights law has gradually developed in scope, with several conventions now protecting specifically vulnerable groups, such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989). * Several international courts and tribunals have also been set up to hold abusers of human rights accountable, notably the permanent International Criminal Court, which has been in operation since 2002. * The European Court of Human Rights has also been significant, establishing standards of human rights protection that the 46 members of the Council of Europe are expected to carry through.

Answer 7

* However, state sovereignty still enables states, both powerful and less powerful, to abuse human rights without fear of being punished. * Humanitarian intervention, where applied, to use military force to intervene to protect human rights, is rare. * Given that liberal democracies have been the main states to launch humanitarian interventions, the shift in their priorities towards containing Russian and Chinese expansion, means that further humanitarian interventions are less likely. * The universal jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (ICC) is also challenged, since only 123 states are parties to the Rome Statute that created it, and three permanent members of the UN Security Council, Russia, the USA and China, do not recognise its jurisdiction. * The ICC also lacks the necessary mechanisms to ensure that its judgments are enforced. * Economic globalisation has also seen powerful MNCs wield significant power over less economically developed states, often leading to claims of a 'race to the bottom' involving low wages and poor working conditions.

Answer 8

* Garrett Hardin's 'tragedy of the commons' thesis (1968) neatly shows how nation states and MNCs can pursue their own individual economic interests without considering the cost to the depletion of the earth's resources. * Economic globalisation has led to a massive increase in global trade and standards of living, which has therefore been achieved without sufficient regard to the impact on the environment of rising carbon emissions and the pollution of the global commons, such as the atmosphere and the ocean. * Political globalisation, through international climate change summits, has not yet been able to encourage states to cut their emissions to a level that would avoid damaging rises in global temperatures. * As of 2022, there had been 27 COPs under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. These have often resulted in emissions targets that states do not keep to, or even sign up to in the first place. * The current framework, set out in the Paris Treaty (2015), allows states to choose their own emissions targets, known as nationally determined contributions (NDCs). * However, many of these have been assessed as insufficiently ambitious to keep global temperature rises below the 1.5°C recommended by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. * China's progress in limiting its greenhouse gas emissions has been rated as 'highly insufficient' by Climate Action Tracker (2022). * Several important pledges, such as an international agreement to phase out the use of coal power, were also adjusted in the 2021 Glasgow COP summit to a much less impressive pledge to 'phase down', highlighting how nation states are still too focused on their economic wellbeing rather than the good of the global commons.

Answer 9

* Many commentators have argued that the Covid-19 pandemic has been a failure of globalisation. * The unequal rollout of vaccines across the world was highlighted by the World Health Organization, which estimated that by the end of 2021, only 8% of people in low-income states had received one vaccine dose, compared with over 60% in medium- to high-income states. * The economic response to the pandemic was also criticised, with the economic impact of lockdowns and the closure of international travel leading to a 9% reduction in global trade in 2020. * The response from global governance institutions to boost failing economies was significantly more muted than the response to the 2008 global financial crisis.

Answer 10

* However, political globalisation has delivered some important agreements and greater international coordination in tackling environmental issues. * Some emissions pledges arising from the Paris Agreement have been assessed as positive. For example, the EU has pledged a 55% net reduction of emissions by 2030 and to be carbon neutral by 2050. * Many states, including China and India, have recently moved to pledges of 'net zero' carbon emissions as opposed to merely reducing carbon emissions. An estimated 90% of the world economy is now covered by such pledges. * There has also been steady progress in widening the commitment of states to action. For example, India and China were not required to make any emissions reductions in the 1997 Kyoto Protocol but now do so under the Paris Treaty. * There has also been increasing acceptance by developed states of the need to assist developing states financially, with a pledge of $100 billion per year agreed at the Glasgow summit in 2021. * Additionally, cultural globalisation and the increased connectedness of global social media has led to some powerful campaigns that have encouraged greater awareness of the scale of the problem. For example, activists such as Vanessa Nakate, Greta Thunberg and David Attenborough have global recognition and so are important influencers on societal and political debates on climate change.