Challenges of Globalization and Prospects for an Inter-civilizational World Order [1st ed.] 9783030440572, 9783030440589

Table of contents :
Front Matter ....Pages i-xxvi
Introduction: Globalization and the Millennial Ascent of Individual Rights (Ino Rossi)....Pages 1-20
Front Matter ....Pages 21-23
The Glocal Turn (Roland Robertson)....Pages 25-38
Global Systemic Anthropology and the Analysis of Globalization (Jonathan Friedman)....Pages 39-60
Media, Sociocultural Change, and Meta-Culture (York Kautt)....Pages 61-76
Globalization and the Challenge of the Anthropocene (Leslie Sklair)....Pages 77-87
Conceptual Structures for a Theory of World Society (Rudolf Stichweh)....Pages 89-103
Principles of Geo-Political Dynamics (Jonathan H. Turner)....Pages 105-123
Transdisciplinarity in Globalization Research: The Global Studies Framework (Manfred B. Steger)....Pages 125-138
Front Matter ....Pages 139-140
Goals, Values, and Endemic Conflicts in the New Global Culture (Martin Albrow)....Pages 143-159
The Affectual Landscape of Globalization: New Migration, Generalized Discontent, and Ressentiment (Jörg Dürrschmidt)....Pages 161-175
Globalization, Cosmopolitanization, and a New Research Agenda (Joy Zhang)....Pages 177-189
Front Matter ....Pages 191-191
Global Transformations in Polity, Policy, and Politics: World Polity, Europe, and the Nation-State (Didem Buhari Gulmez)....Pages 193-208
The Politics of the Adjective Global: May’s Global Britain and the ‘New World’ (Sabine Selchow)....Pages 209-224
(Postmodern) Populism as a Trope for Contested Glocality (Barrie Axford)....Pages 225-240
Globalization and the Rise of the Economic State: PRC and USA in Comparison (Guoguang Wu)....Pages 241-259
Front Matter ....Pages 261-261
Trade Globalization and Its Consequences (Michael C. Dreiling)....Pages 263-291
The Political Economy of the United States and the Structure of the Millennial World-System (Salvatore Babones)....Pages 293-305
Global Inequality and Capitalist World-Economy, 1500—Present: A Critique of Neo-Modernization Theories (Sahan S. Karatasli)....Pages 307-330
Mind the Gaps! Clustered Obstacles to Mobility in the Core/Periphery Hierarchy (Marilyn Grell-Brisk, Christopher Chase-Dunn)....Pages 331-353
Global Inequality and Global Poverty (Robert Holton)....Pages 355-373
Front Matter ....Pages 375-375
Reconfiguring Ecology in the Twenty-First–Century. Social Movements as Producers of the Global Age (Geoffrey Pleyers)....Pages 377-396
Globalization, Marginalization, and the External Arena (Robert Schaeffer)....Pages 397-409
Global Indigenism and the Web of Transnational Social Movements (Christopher Chase-Dunn, James Fenelon, Thomas D. Hall, Ian Breckenridge-Jackson, Joel Herrera)....Pages 411-434
Front Matter ....Pages 435-437
Globalization in Asia or Asian Globalization? (Habibul Haque Khondker)....Pages 441-464
China’s Global Rise: From Socialist Self-reliance to the Embracement of Economic Globalization (Yin-wah Chu)....Pages 465-481
The Newness of the Chinese Developmental State Under Xi’s Administration (Falin Zhang)....Pages 483-502
India’s Transition: A New Complex of Capitalism and Hindu Nationalism (Anjan Chakrabarti, Anup Dhar, Sayonee Majumdar)....Pages 503-530
Socially Sustainable Globalization? The Domestic Politics of Globalization in Australia (Tom Conley)....Pages 531-547
Front Matter ....Pages 549-549
Neoliberalism Without Guarantees: The Glocality of Labor, Education, and Sport in Japan from the 1980s to the 2000s (Koji Kobayashi, Steven J. Jackson)....Pages 551-571
The Impact of Globalization on Chinese Culture and “Glocalized Practices” in China (Ning Wang)....Pages 573-588
Border-Crossing and Interfacing in Asia: Approaches, Patterns, and Consequences (Ming-Chang Tsai)....Pages 589-604
Transformations in Kinship Relations in a Globalized India: Interrogating Marriage, Law, and Intimacy (Rukmini Sen)....Pages 605-619
Front Matter ....Pages 621-621
The Ascent of Asian Strongmen: Emerging Market Populism and the Revolt Against Liberal Globalization (Richard Javad Heydarian)....Pages 623-636
Globalization and Indian Political Modernity (Leila Choukroune)....Pages 637-654
Whose Democracy? Governing Indonesia in a Globalized World (Lena Tan)....Pages 655-671
Front Matter ....Pages 673-674
Globalization, Democracy, and Good Governance in Africa (Ngozi Nwogwugwu)....Pages 677-692
Political Globalization in an African Perspective: Continuity and Change (Goran Hyden)....Pages 693-710
Front Matter ....Pages 711-711
Human Capital Contribution to the Economic Growth of Sub-Saharan Africa: Does Health Status Matter? Evidence from Dynamic Panel Data (Abel Kinyondo, Mwoya Byaro)....Pages 713-724
Globalization, Poverty, and Development in Africa: Looking Past to the Future (Samuel Ojo Oloruntoba, Ebenezer Babajide Ishola, Israel Kehinde Ekanade)....Pages 725-748
Africa’s Industrialization and Prosperity: Time for Structural Change (David Sseppuuya)....Pages 749-775
Front Matter ....Pages 777-778
Latin America: Between the Promises of Globalization and the Chimera of Nationalism (Ronaldo Munck)....Pages 781-792
Globalization and the Transformation of Latin America’s Political Economy (William I. Robinson)....Pages 793-808
The Caribbean and Global Capitalism: Five Strategic Traits (Jeb Sprague)....Pages 809-832
Front Matter ....Pages 833-833
Through Thick and Thin: Globalization and Contested Conceptualizations of the Rule of Law in Latin America (Craig L. Arceneaux)....Pages 835-849
Indigenous People in Pluricultural Nations of Latin America (June Nash)....Pages 851-868
Front Matter ....Pages 869-877
Re-embracing the Masses Economically by Financialization (Jürgen Schraten)....Pages 881-892
A Manifesto for Good Globalization: Or, the Manifesto as Method (Paul James)....Pages 893-911
Forging a Diagonal Instrument for the Global Left: The Vessel (Rebecca Álvarez, Christopher Chase-Dunn)....Pages 913-933
Alternatives to Neoliberal Globalization (Vishwas Satgar)....Pages 935-952
Front Matter ....Pages 953-953
Global Mobilization in the Name of Islam: the Global Imaginary of Political Islam (Amentahru Wahlrab, Rebecca A. Otis)....Pages 955-968
Tian Xia: A Confucian Model of State Identity and Global Governance (Tongdong Bai)....Pages 969-982
Russian Civilization and Global Culture: Alternative or Coexistence? (Ilya Ilyin, Olga Leonova)....Pages 983-996
(Re)Constructing Neo-Confucianism in a “Glocalized” Context (Ning Wang)....Pages 997-1012
Front Matter ....Pages 1013-1013
From Cultural Pluralism and Civilizational Disintegration to a Global Cultural-cum-civilizational System (Alexander N. Chumakov)....Pages 1015-1029
From World Politics to a World Political System (Olga Leonova, Ilya Ilyin)....Pages 1031-1044
The Final Frontier of Global Society and the Evolution of Space Governance (Eytan Tepper)....Pages 1045-1066
Front Matter ....Pages 1067-1067
Toward a New Globalization Paradigm and a UDHR-Based Inter-civilizational World Order (Ino Rossi)....Pages 1069-1126

Citation preview

Ino Rossi Editor

Challenges of Globalization and Prospects for an Inter-civilizational World Order

Challenges of Globalization and Prospects for an Inter-civilizational World Order “With an encyclopedic coverage of regions and issues, a set of contributors including some of the best scholarship in the field, and an emphasis on how to deal with the many challenges of globalization, this book makes an important contribution. You could teach a whole class only using this book!” —Miguel Angel Centeno, Princeton University, author of War and Society and Building States in the Developing World “This exceptionally diverse, comprehensive set of articles about the many meanings and implications of globalization is certain to become an essential reference work. For covering not just the economic but also the moral, human rights and civilizational aspects of globalization these chapters form the basis for reevaluating and understanding what is happening.” —Daniel Chirot, University of Washington and author of You Say You Want a Revolution? Radical Idealism and its Tragic Consequences “Contemporary globalization has traveled a long way since its inception in the late 20th century. This volume is a much-needed comprehensive, updated, and non-Western-centric introduction to the origins, dynamics, and latest trends of globalization as seen from the perspectives of Global North and South.” —Ho-fung Hung, Johns Hopkins University, author of The China Boom: Why China Will Not Rule the World “Ino Rossi has brought together a range of authors that covers multiple aspects of our current condition. This diversity of engagements is what we need today to sort out our major challenges.” —Saskia Sassen, Columbia University, author of Expulsions “It is the best collection of studies on ecological globalization, latest impact on the Global South, millennia ascent of individual rights, and alternative designs of the future world order. This volume is indispensable for understanding the profound impact of the globalization process in the 21st century.” —Alvin Y. So, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and principal author of The Global Rise of China

Ino Rossi Editor

Challenges of Globalization and Prospects for an Inter-civilizational World Order

123

Editor Ino Rossi St. John’s University New York City, USA

ISBN 978-3-030-44057-2 ISBN 978-3-030-44058-9 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44058-9

(eBook)

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

To Ryan, Aiden, and Blake with wishes for a bright future of hopes and accomplishments

Foreword

Ino Rossi has produced and edited a wide ranging collection of essays on globalization considered in its broadest sense. In his preface, Rossi provides the background of, and rationale for the volume. My main concern here, however, is to introduce briefly and sketch the main points of the book as well as placing it in an even larger and longer context. There is quite a large number of sketches of the development of ideas concerning globalization. But the most significant aspect of what Rossi calls globalization research is that presently it has become a major aspect of contemporary political, economic, social, and, certainly not least, cultural discourse(s). One should add to this list of themes the overriding significance of worldwide concern with climate change. This has a strong bearing on present concern with the Anthropocene, generally preoccupation with the contemporary increasingly human-made geological condition of the world as a whole. Even though there are a few climate change deniers, paralleling holocaust deniers, there can be no doubt that this issue has entered the mainstream of global consciousness. Indeed it is almost impossible in contemporary discourse to avoid one aspect or another of the effects or consequences of climate change. At the present time of writing, the heat and the fires in south eastern Australia are providing dramatic manifestations of this. The Australian infernos constitute but one of many manifestations of climate change, including such phenomena in virtually every part of the world as flooding, droughts, hurricanes, salination, melting glaciers, and unpredictable and vacillating weather patterns. Apart from Australia, specific examples of the present crisis include floods in Brazil, Madagascar, Spain, and the USA, while many serious economic problems in Somalia have undoubtedly been caused by a series of droughts and floods. The examples could be multiplied and these are well documented in the reports of the Committee on Climate Change. Taking place at this time of writing is the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. A highlight, if one may use that term, has been the highly controversial insistence by President Trump that what he calls the apocalyptic, pessimistic thought on climate change is merely left-wing rhetoric. On the other hand, that stance has been thoroughly opposed by the Swedish teenager, Greta vii

viii

Foreword

Thunberg. Needless to say, both Thunberg and Trump have supporters. However, overwhelmingly support has been on the side of Thunberg. Climate change, really climate crisis, also involves the making available of— somewhat paradoxically—opportunities and incentives for both pleasure and the making of profit. This is well exemplified by the rapid increase in the availability of cheap air flights and, on the other hand, somewhat ironically the development of different forms of “green” energy and its accoutrements to replace fossil fuels. In other words, there can be no doubt that while climate change as a negative phenomenon is high on the agenda of much of everyday discourse, across the world there are people who undoubtedly benefit, at least in the short run, from its negative consequences. Coming to the fore in early 2020 has been the health crisis surrounding the rapid spread of the Coronavirus, apparently from Wuhan in China. At the present time of writing, the World Health Organization is considering declaring this health issue a pandemic, classified as a Global Health Emergency. This is the second pandemic of the twenty-first century, following SARS. However, Coronavirus is obviously much more threatening in the global sense than the latter. This kind of issue must be at the very least, connected analytically to any discussion of the frontiers of globalization research. Both the issues of climate change and pandemics constitute aspects of a significant shift in the direction of the world as a whole being “merely” in itself to one in which our planet is becoming for itself. Nonetheless, in spite of this shift, much of contemporary geopolitics is centered upon clashes with respect to interpretations and “uses” of the current crisis. In fact, if this shift is not widely and thoroughly acknowledged there may indeed be an apocalypse. Here, it is worth saying that for the first time in human history it would seem that individual choice is absolutely crucial. It can now be seen that every person on earth has in varying degrees responsibility for the fate of human life on earth. Nevertheless, ironically, even with this prospect in view there is presently much talk of space exploration and indeed colonization of other planets, the latter being potentially a way of escaping from planet earth (for the potentially lucky few). The history, or genealogy, of “globalization” as a concept is not by any means simple. In fact, there is also a rather large and growing literature on the pre-history of this and related terms. However, the principal thrust of this volume is to address the issue of new directions with respect to the study of globalization and its variants, including the relatively newly accepted idea of glocalization, the latter involving the interpenetration of the global and the local. The emphasis that Rossi places in his preface on what is conventionally known these days as the South should be strongly noted. The term South has, during the last 20 years or more, largely come to replace the older term of the Third World. It should also be said that scholars and politicians sometimes refer to southern societies as developing societies. However, a number of societies of the global South are often labeled as white settler countries. This tendency undoubtedly carries the risk of neglecting the various indigenous peoples in such countries as Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and Latin America, not to speak of South Africa.

Foreword

ix

Increasingly these indigenous peoples have come to be called First Nation people; this description apparently deriving from official Canadian categorization of its own indigenous people. The present author long ago addressed the issue of the characterization of what were sometimes called underdeveloped societies. It was during the 1950s and 1960s that there was a great concern with the issue(s) of what was variously called modernization, industrialization, and development. It is important to emphasize here that it was out of the concern with such processes that the very topics of globalization and world-systemic change made a conspicuous appearance on the academic scene. Until the 1960s, and certainly the 1950s, few scholars had ventured into discussion of world or global, let alone the cosmic, contexts in terms of which societal change actually occurred. Advocates of so-called world-systems theory, on the one hand, who were primarily concerned with economic factors, and more culturally and politically minded scholars, on the other, began to address this crucial world issue for the first time. It should be stressed nonetheless that these were for the most part rival intellectual programs. In fact, the period lasting from the mid-1950s until the late 1960s was particularly crucial in the very uneven crystallization of explicit, serious interest in the world as a whole in the social sciences. Indeed it now seems rather strange that until then exceedingly few social scientists had addressed the issue of extra-national, transnational, let alone global or cosmic, issues. In other words, this was the period when interest in what has subsequently become known in some quarters as globality began to take off in earnest. Having said this, it was not until the early 1990s that the concept of globalization made a highly prominent, if disputed, appearance. Moreover, it is of more than passing interest to note that for much of the 1990s academics, as well as politicians, continuously made claims as to the proposition that globalization was a new concept. In any case, it has to be strongly emphasized that globalization was not to be clearly defined across the social sciences. If there was anything approaching a consensus it was centered (unfortunately) upon the notion that globalization mainly involves economic and political changes, thus neglecting the crucial significance of sociality and culture. The latter, however, receives considerable attention in the present volume. Additionally, it was during this period that globalization became strongly linked to the theme of the third Way. The latter term, in the hands of its main proponents, was claimed to be a transcendence of the left v. right binary. It is worth emphasizing the overwhelmingly significant changes that can be seen between the first Davos gathering of 1971 and that of 2020. Inspection of the differences between the two demonstrates how much the world as a whole and interpretations thereof have changed (at least on the surface). A few examples may suffice, excluding various significant changes in personnel. There were no smartphones in 1971, nor was there an inkling that China would become the economic super power that it now is. The disparity between rich and poor in societies has vastly increased, even though destitution is not so significant now. In fact, living standards generally have risen as measured by incomes per head and life

x

Foreword

expectancy. Of course there was little or no, mentioned in 1971 of global heating but the latter was not then a significant political issue. It should be emphasized that the very idea of international relations did not become explicitly a feature of political discourse until the later part of the eighteenth century. However, as the nineteenth century wore on the fully fledged concept of an international system definitely did emerge; so much so that by the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, relations between national societies had become sufficiently problematic as to warrant the establishment of what was known as the standard of civilization. The felt need on the part of Western nations for a standard of civilization largely arose from the somewhat rapid rise in power and influence of Oriental societies. The countries covered by the latter term applied particularly to China and Japan as well as less powerful Asian societies, notably Korea but excluding India, the jewel in the British Empire. In fact, it was the victory of Japan over Russia in the war of 2004–5 that was a high mark in conceptions regarding the so-called inferiority or backwardness of the Orient. That victory was the first triumph of an Oriental society over a European or Occidental one. The need for a standard of civilization was considered to be necessary by Western elites in order to implement or impose the idea of extra-territoriality, specifically an application of Western values and norms to Eastern societies. In fact, disputes concerning this were to result in much global conflict, although the Opium Wars of the mid-nineteenth century, involving the forced importation of opium from the West to China, were largely responsible for this confrontation, one that continues to be invoked to this very day on the part of successive Chinese governments. The motif of civilization appears in various chapters in this book and the very titles of the chapters that deal with civilization(s) largely indicate not merely the range but also, at least indirectly, the disputes about and uses of this term. In the hands of numerous writers, the concept of civilization is used instrumentally or, as some might say, it is used as “a weapon.” For example, numerous elites have claimed that the societies in which they reside are in and of themselves civilizations and thereby superior. This has been said with respect inter alia to the USA, Russia, and China. In addition, civilization has been applied to entire continents or to ancient or fairly ancient religions. In this sense, organizations claiming to be involved in the study of civilizations, particularly in a comparative respect, have a great deal to cope with. Finally, globalization may be considered through the lens of inter-civilizational analysis. At the opposite end of this perspective is the extremely important topic of indigeneity, this being in a particular sense of great global significance; in part because many indigenous formations seek to be part of the global arena. In the last decade or thereabouts, the topic of populism has come to be of great importance; not least because virtually all populist movements claim to be anti-global. In making this claim, they are subliminally global. In other words, they are cognitive victims of globality. To put this yet another way, one cannot be against something without being held in thrall by it, consciously or otherwise, usually the latter.

Foreword

xi

Much of this volume may be summarized in the phrase global studies at the core of which lies, I believe, the concept of globalization. In advancing this proposition, it should be emphasized that in using the concept of globalization I include the theme of glocalization. Moreover, it should be clear by now that most, but by no means all, of the themes addressed in this volume emphasize in one way or another the overriding significance of culture. For some, the latter includes or covers the idea of the imaginary. In addition, it should be stressed that the idea of global studies is essentially transdisciplinary in character. After reading this foreword it should be clear that the frontiers of globalization are not by any means clear. In fact, they are, in a certain sense, ever expanding. This is one way of saying that not merely is this volume a contribution to the new field of global studies it is, as previously stated, transdisciplinary. However, it should be added that the latter word involve interrogation of matters well beyond planet earth. More specifically, it encompasses, at least in principle, the cosmological and the cosmogenic. If this were not the case we would not be able to view the world at all. It is insufficiently recognized that in order to have a clear cut view of planet earth one must employ the method of verstehen, i.e., to empathetically consider that one is looking at earth from a significant distance. To come back to earth, I have dealt in this foreword with numerous aspects of contemporary life. Perhaps the most important aspect of the latter touched on here has been the relationship between opposition to the global and the global itself. In this connection, I would argue that a major frontier for research into globalization must surely include the issue of populism, fascism, or neo-fascism and what are often called the left behind. Pittsburgh, USA, Aberdeen, UK

Roland Robertson

Preface

The idea of this book started brewing in 2016 when Hendrikje Tuerlings, an Assistant Editor at Springer, asked whether I would be interested in preparing a second edition of the 2008 “Frontiers of Globalization Research”. At that time, I felt I was making good progress with the second draft of a manuscript, so that I kept going with it with the idea of a new edition brewing in the back of my mind. One year of additional research on the old manuscript took me into deep and far reaching issues so that the idea of a revised edition became more appealing as a possibly more expeditious undertaking. Little that I knew, the new enterprise soon branched out into even deeper and wider issues so that we ended up with a completely new book on the state of globalization worldwide and its prospects with all original news essays and a new design. First, it became apparent that the coverage of globalization issues had to be extended to the Global South. That decision generated a laborious search to identify competent authors from and about the most important regions of the world and to connect with competent authors without an burdened writing schedule. Secondly, the list of committed papers about the impact of globalization both in the Global North and Global South soon looked like a long litany of problems and unresolved issues worldwide and, worst of all, those problems and issues appeared to be caused by or to be extensions of deep problems manufactured in the Global North. So another round of search for ideas and authors began on possible strategies for a better world order which is another focus absent from the 2007 book. This search also kept on going for a while, but quite a few people were of help in identifying competent authors, as it was the case for the previous searches. Let me mention Martin Albrow, Christopher Chase-Dunn, Roland Robertson, William Robinson, Leslie Sklair, Jonathan Turner, Salvatore Babones, Didem Buhari-Gulmez, Habibul Haque Khondker, Jeb Sprague, and others. I acknowledge also the generous help in reviewing (mostly anonymously) one or more manuscripts by Martin Albrow, Roland Robertson, Leslie Sklair, Jonathan Turner, Christopher Chase-Dunn, Salvatore Babones, Jorg Durrschmidt, Michael Dreiling, Marilyn Grell-Brisk, Didem Buhari-Gulmez, Sahan S. Karatasli, Koji Kobayashi, Goran Hyden, Ronald Munck, Eytan Tepper, and Ming-Chang Tsai and I apologize for those whom I may have forgotten. xiii

xiv

Preface

Illnesses, deaths, and other failures extended the search for contributors so that I had time to write an introduction to the book about the millennial developments of ideas and policies on the role of the individual in society which eventually led to the formulation of universal human rights (UDHR). I also had time to critically reflect on the essays about the impact of globalization in the Global North as an introduction to the last section on prospects for a New World Order. In the conclusion to the volume, I started reviewing the various suggestions on how to strategize a New World Order and I found only one consensual and effective way forward, the universal enforcement of the International Bill of Rights. Very early drafts of the conclusion have benefited from comments by Martin Albrow, Christopher Chase-Dunn, Didem Buhari-Gulmez, Paul James, Habibul Haque Khondker, Barrie Axford, Manfred Steger, Vishwas Satgar, and Jonathan Turner. But that was just the beginning. Since I was dealing with the contemporary civilizational claims about world order from China and Russia, Roland Robertson challenged me to draw from and perhaps contribute to classical civilizational analysis. This suggestion led me to formulate elements of an inter-civilizational approach and to test it through an inter-civilizational dialog with the contributors who have made a case for the role of a non-Western civilization in contemporary World Order. This third focus of the book, which is also totally new in respect to the 2007 volume, produced the surprising discovery of a possible affinity between the civilizational “Tianxia,” much exalted by Xi Jinping, and the UDHR that Xi Jinping (and Vladimir Putin as well) reject and want to replace: classical Confucian thinkers have made the case for an individual capable of purposeful activity and self-determination. Consequently, I have attempted to show how a UDHR-based “Tianxia” can bring a solution to our most urgent global problems. First, by redirecting the path of capitalist globalization along more equitable, democratic, and human-focused standards as demanded by Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Secondly, by bringing a possible resolution to contemporary hegemonic conflicts through an inter-civilizational dialog and principles of world order. Regrettably, the proverbial Western avarice with space and time has left room for barely proposing this Eastern/Western rapprochement. The same kind of avarice has prevented me from critically reviewing the many papers on the impact of globalization in the Global South. The studious reader will find plenty of material to bring to fruition these and related lines of inquiry. Forgotten will not be the many scholars who could not join the project because overcommitted and who, nonetheless, had plenty of suggestions for other competent scholars and, at times, even invited them to join this project. Finally, and importantly, I must thank all the contributors for their patience in enduring through multiple rounds of reviews. I do remember inviting a “distinguished” contributor to gain a fifth purple star (after four rounds of revisions), but he thankfully declined and reserved the fifth star for the book. As always and inevitably, shortcomings, simplifications, oversights, and related family of lacunae are the exclusive domain of this editor. Springer, of course, cannot go unmentioned for its “open” support of this project, no matter whether

Preface

xv

it turned, first Westward, then Southward, then Eastward, and then into the Cosmos. Let us hope that we all, individually and collectively, shall make a contribution to the arduous project of making planet earth moving forward as “one globe.” New York City, USA

Ino Rossi

Contents

1

Introduction: Globalization and the Millennial Ascent of Individual Rights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ino Rossi

Part I

1

GLOBALIZATION AS A FIELD OF STUDY: CONCEPTUALIZING AND EXPLORING GLOBALIZATION

Introduction 2

The Glocal Turn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Roland Robertson

3

Global Systemic Anthropology and the Analysis of Globalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jonathan Friedman

25

39

4

Media, Sociocultural Change, and Meta-Culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . York Kautt

61

5

Globalization and the Challenge of the Anthropocene . . . . . . . . . . Leslie Sklair

77

6

Conceptual Structures for a Theory of World Society . . . . . . . . . Rudolf Stichweh

89

7

Principles of Geo-Political Dynamics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jonathan H. Turner

105

8

Transdisciplinarity in Globalization Research: The Global Studies Framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Manfred B. Steger

125

xvii

xviii

Contents

Part II

GLOBALIZATION PROCESSES: CULTURAL, POLITICAL, ECONOMIC AND ECOLOGICAL

ON CULTURAL GLOBALIZATION 9

Goals, Values, and Endemic Conflicts in the New Global Culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Martin Albrow

143

10 The Affectual Landscape of Globalization: New Migration, Generalized Discontent, and Ressentiment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jörg Dürrschmidt

161

11 Globalization, Cosmopolitanization, and a New Research Agenda . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Joy Zhang

177

ON POLITICAL GLOBALIZATION 12 Global Transformations in Polity, Policy, and Politics: World Polity, Europe, and the Nation-State . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Didem Buhari Gulmez

193

13 The Politics of the Adjective Global: May’s Global Britain and the ‘New World’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sabine Selchow

209

14 (Postmodern) Populism as a Trope for Contested Glocality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Barrie Axford

225

15 Globalization and the Rise of the Economic State: PRC and USA in Comparison . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Guoguang Wu

241

ON ECONOMIC GLOBALIZATION 16 Trade Globalization and Its Consequences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Michael C. Dreiling

263

17 The Political Economy of the United States and the Structure of the Millennial World-System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Salvatore Babones

293

18 Global Inequality and Capitalist World-Economy, 1500—Present: A Critique of Neo-Modernization Theories . . . . . . Sahan S. Karatasli

307

19 Mind the Gaps! Clustered Obstacles to Mobility in the Core/Periphery Hierarchy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Marilyn Grell-Brisk and Christopher Chase-Dunn

331

Contents

xix

20 Global Inequality and Global Poverty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Robert Holton

355

ON ECOLOGICAL GLOBALIZATION 21 Reconfiguring Ecology in the Twenty-First–Century. Social Movements as Producers of the Global Age . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Geoffrey Pleyers 22 Globalization, Marginalization, and the External Arena . . . . . . . . Robert Schaeffer 23 Global Indigenism and the Web of Transnational Social Movements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Christopher Chase-Dunn, James Fenelon, Thomas D. Hall, Ian Breckenridge-Jackson, and Joel Herrera Part III

377 397

411

GLOBALIZATION IN THE GLOBAL SOUTH

VIEWS FROM THE ASIA-PACIFIC Globalization and Political Economy 24 Globalization in Asia or Asian Globalization? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Habibul Haque Khondker

441

25 China’s Global Rise: From Socialist Self-reliance to the Embracement of Economic Globalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Yin-wah Chu

465

26 The Newness of the Chinese Developmental State Under Xi’s Administration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Falin Zhang

483

27 India’s Transition: A New Complex of Capitalism and Hindu Nationalism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Anjan Chakrabarti, Anup Dhar, and Sayonee Majumdar

503

28 Socially Sustainable Globalization? The Domestic Politics of Globalization in Australia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Tom Conley

531

Impact of Globalization on Culture 29 Neoliberalism Without Guarantees: The Glocality of Labor, Education, and Sport in Japan from the 1980s to the 2000s . . . . . Koji Kobayashi and Steven J. Jackson

551

xx

Contents

30 The Impact of Globalization on Chinese Culture and “Glocalized Practices” in China . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ning Wang

573

31 Border-Crossing and Interfacing in Asia: Approaches, Patterns, and Consequences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ming-Chang Tsai

589

32 Transformations in Kinship Relations in a Globalized India: Interrogating Marriage, Law, and Intimacy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Rukmini Sen

605

Globalization, Law and Democracy 33 The Ascent of Asian Strongmen: Emerging Market Populism and the Revolt Against Liberal Globalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Richard Javad Heydarian 34 Globalization and Indian Political Modernity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Leïla Choukroune 35 Whose Democracy? Governing Indonesia in a Globalized World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Lena Tan

623 637

655

VIEWS FROM SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA Globalization and Political Culture 36 Globalization, Democracy, and Good Governance in Africa . . . . . Ngozi Nwogwugwu 37 Political Globalization in an African Perspective: Continuity and Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Goran Hyden

677

693

Globalization, Poverty and Economic Development 38 Human Capital Contribution to the Economic Growth of Sub-Saharan Africa: Does Health Status Matter? Evidence from Dynamic Panel Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Abel Kinyondo and Mwoya Byaro 39 Globalization, Poverty, and Development in Africa: Looking Past to the Future . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Samuel Ojo Oloruntoba, Ebenezer Babajide Ishola, and Israel Kehinde Ekanade

713

725

Contents

xxi

40 Africa’s Industrialization and Prosperity: Time for Structural Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . David Sseppuuya

749

VIEWS FROM LATIN AMERICA Globalization and Political Economy 41 Latin America: Between the Promises of Globalization and the Chimera of Nationalism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ronaldo Munck

781

42 Globalization and the Transformation of Latin America’s Political Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . William I. Robinson

793

43 The Caribbean and Global Capitalism: Five Strategic Traits . . . . Jeb Sprague

809

Impact of Globalization on Culture 44 Through Thick and Thin: Globalization and Contested Conceptualizations of the Rule of Law in Latin America . . . . . . . Craig L. Arceneaux

835

45 Indigenous People in Pluricultural Nations of Latin America . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . June Nash

851

Part IV

DESIGNS FOR A FUTURE WORLD ORDER

Introduction TOWARD A DEMOCRATIC GLOBALIZATION 46 Re-embracing the Masses Economically by Financialization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jürgen Schraten

881

47 A Manifesto for Good Globalization: Or, the Manifesto as Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Paul James

893

48 Forging a Diagonal Instrument for the Global Left: The Vessel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Rebecca Álvarez and Christopher Chase-Dunn

913

49 Alternatives to Neoliberal Globalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Vishwas Satgar

935

xxii

Contents

ALTERNATIVE CIVILIZATIONAL DESIGNS 50 Global Mobilization in the Name of Islam: the Global Imaginary of Political Islam . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Amentahru Wahlrab and Rebecca A. Otis

955

51 Tian Xia: A Confucian Model of State Identity and Global Governance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Tongdong Bai

969

52 Russian Civilization and Global Culture: Alternative or Coexistence? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ilya Ilyin and Olga Leonova

983

53 (Re)Constructing Neo-Confucianism in a “Glocalized” Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ning Wang

997

TOWARD AN INTER-CIVILIZATIONAL AND COSMIC WORLD ORDER 54 From Cultural Pluralism and Civilizational Disintegration to a Global Cultural-cum-civilizational System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1015 Alexander N. Chumakov 55 From World Politics to a World Political System . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1031 Olga Leonova and Ilya Ilyin 56 The Final Frontier of Global Society and the Evolution of Space Governance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1045 Eytan Tepper CONCLUSION 57 Toward a New Globalization Paradigm and a UDHR-Based Inter-civilizational World Order . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1069 Ino Rossi

Contributors

Martin Albrow Former President of the British Sociological Association and Fellow of the Woodrow Wilson Center, London, UK Rebecca Álvarez Sociologist, New Mexico Highlands University, Las Vegas, NM, USA Craig L. Arceneaux Professor of Political Science, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, CA, USA Barrie Axford Professor of Political Science, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, UK Salvatore Babones Department of Sociology & Social Policy, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia Tongdong Bai School of Philosophy, Fudan University, Shanghai, China Ian Breckenridge-Jackson Sociology, Los Angeles Valley College, Los Angeles, CA, USA Mwoya Byaro Economist, Government of Tanzania, Dodoma, Tanzania Anjan Chakrabarti Department of Economics, University of Calcutta, Calcutta, India Christopher Chase-Dunn Institute for Research on World-Systems, University of California-Riverside, Riverside, CA, USA Leïla Choukroune Professor of International Law, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, UK Yin-wah Chu Sociology, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong, China Alexander N. Chumakov Professor of Philosophy, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia

xxiii

xxiv

Contributors

Tom Conley School of Government and International Relations, Griffith University, Mount Gravatt, QLD, Australia Anup Dhar Professor of Philosophy, Ambedkar University Delhi, Delhi, India Michael C. Dreiling Department of Sociology, University of Oregon, Eugene, USA Jörg Dürrschmidt University of Applied Sciences (Admin and Finance) Ludwigsburg, Ludwigsburg, Germany Israel Kehinde Ekanade Department of Development Studies, University of Venda, Thohoyandou, Limpopo, South Africa James Fenelon Sociology, State University at San Bernardino, San Bernardino, CA, USA Jonathan Friedman Anthropologist, University of California San Diego and Directeur d’Etudes Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris, France Marilyn Grell-Brisk Institute for Research on World-Systems, University of California-Riverside, Riverside, USA Didem Buhari Gulmez Department of International Relations, Izmir Katip Celebi University, Cigli, Izmir, Turkey Thomas D. Hall Sociologist, DePauw University, Greencastle, IN, USA Joel Herrera Sociologist, University of California-Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA Richard Javad Heydarian Political scientist, Barangay, New Manila, Quezon City, Philippines

ADR—Stratbase

Institute,

Robert Holton Emeritus Professor of Sociology, Trinity College Dublin, University of South, Adelaide, Australia Goran Hyden Distinguished Professor Emeritus in Political Science, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA Ilya Ilyin Dean and Professor of Global Studies, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia Ebenezer Babajide Ishola Department of Political Science, University of Lagos, Lagos, Nigeria Steven J. Jackson University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand Paul James Professor of Globalization and Cultural Diversity, Western Sydney University, Penrith, Australia

Contributors

xxv

Sahan S. Karatasli Department of Sociology, University of North Carolina, Greensboro, USA York Kautt Institute for Sociology, Justus-Liebig University Giessen, Giessen, Germany Habibul Haque Khondker Professor of Humanities and Social Sciences, Zayed University, Abu Dhabi, UAE Abel Kinyondo Economist, University of Dar Es Salaam, Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania Koji Kobayashi Associate Professor, Otaru University of Commerce, Otaru, Japan Olga Leonova Department of Globalistics, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia Sayonee Majumdar Department of Economics, University of Calcutta, Calcutta, India Ronaldo Munck Head of Civic Engagement, Dublin City University, Dublin, Ireland June Nash Formerly Distinguished Professor Emerita of Anthropology, City University of New York, New York City, NY, USA Ngozi Nwogwugwu Political Sciences and Public Administration, Babcock University Ilishan-Remo, Ikenne, Ogun State, Nigeria Samuel Ojo Oloruntoba Associate Professor of Political Science, Thabo Mbeki African Leadership Institute, University of South Africa, Pretoria, South Africa Rebecca A. Otis Sociologist, University of Denver, Denver, CO, USA Geoffrey Pleyers Sociologist, Catholic University of Louvain & Vice-President of the International Sociological Association, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium Roland Robertson Distinguished Service Professor of Sociology Emeritus, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, USA; Emeritus Professor, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, UK William I. Robinson Professor of sociology, global and international studies, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, USA Ino Rossi Professor Emeritus of Sociology and Anthropology, St. John’s University, New York City, USA Vishwas Satgar Associate Professor, International Relations Department, University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa Robert Schaeffer Department of Social Sciences, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, CA, USA

xxvi

Contributors

Jürgen Schraten Sociologist, University of Giessen, Giessen, Germany Sabine Selchow Research Fellow, Program in International History, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia Rukmini Sen Sociologist, Dr B.R. Ambedkar University Delhi, New Delhi, India Leslie Sklair Emeritus Professor of Sociology, London School of Economics, London, UK Jeb Sprague Research Associate at the Institute for Research on World-Systems (IROWS), University of California, Riverside, CA, USA David Sseppuuya Board Member of the Africa Policy Institute, Uganda Christian University, Kampala, Uganda Manfred B. Steger Professor of Political Science, Department of Sociology, University of Hawai’i-Manoa, Honolulu, HI, USA; Professor of Global Studies, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT University), Melbourne, Australia Rudolf Stichweh Sociologist at the Forum, Forum Internationale Wissenschaft, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany Lena Tan Department of Politics, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand Eytan Tepper McGill Institute of Air and Space Law, Montreal, QC, Canada Ming-Chang Tsai Sociologist, Center for Asia-Pacific Area Study, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan Jonathan H. Turner Emeritus University Professor, University of California at Riverside and Santa Barbara, Murrieta, CA, USA Amentahru Wahlrab Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Texas at Tyler, Tyler, TX, USA Ning Wang Distinguished University Professor of Humanities and Social Sciences, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, People’s Republic of China Guoguang Wu Professor of Political Science, University of Victoria, Department of Political Science, Victoria, BC, Canada Falin Zhang International Relations, Nankai University, Tianjin, China Joy Zhang School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research Cornwallis North East, University of Kent Canterbury, Kent, UK

Chapter 1

Introduction: Globalization and the Millennial Ascent of Individual Rights Ino Rossi

Abstract The introduction discusses the evolving conceptualizations and policies of human societies since the antiquity regarding the rights and duties of people. The attention is focused on codes of conduct and institutions of societal support for poor and weak people and to the gradually evolving notions of natural law, human rights, common good, as well as to mutual aid societies in Ancient Greece, Rome, and Christianity. The rise of objective and subjective individual rights in Medieval Christianity is discussed, as well as their elaboration in the political realm by the thinkers of the first and second Enlightenment. Special attention is placed also on the evolution of the notion of civil society in the Ancient Rome and Greece, in the 17th century Dutch Republic, in the Enlightenment and subsequent intellectual and political milieux. The historical excursus ends with an overview of the pluri-millennial march of humankind toward human rights up to the 1948 UDHR, which incorporates three traditions of rights: a) the civil–political rights of the Enlightenment as well as the English, American, and French Revolutions; b) the socio-economic rights of the nineteenth century political revolutions; and c) the solidarity rights of the twentieth century. WHAT IS THIS BOOK ABOUT? Globalization has become a buzzword both in media coverage, in the political arena, as well as in the academic discourse. It is cited as the main engine of prosperity by financiers and corporate actors, but as a major culprit of our deepest and most intractable problems by many others. Do we all have the same understanding of what globalization is about? Or is globalization such a diverse and complex process to justify high praises as well as deep criticisms and even outright rejection? Can we device strategies and approaches to maximize the beneficial effects of globalization and eliminate the deleterious ones? These are the questions the contributors of this volume are braving with. In Part I pioneering globalization thinkers give us a full sense of the range of globalization processes: first, we are led to experience the micro processes of globalization in the making with a discussion of the concept “glocalization,” then we are exposed to the sphere of digitized interaction and global relations, and finally I. Rossi (B) St. John’s University, New York City, USA © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 I. Rossi (ed.), Challenges of Globalization and Prospects for an Inter-civilizational World Order, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44058-9_1

1

2

I. Rossi

we are invited to take a long-term view: does globalization occur each time a dominant social system declines and its accumulated wealth is being exported to a new emerging hegemonic society or is rather an uninterrupted evolution from simple to more complex social forms where economic, political, and cultural institutions are reconfigured according to a constant logic? Parts II and III offer documentation on how the processes of neoliberal globalization have impacted societal institutions as well as people’s daily life. Notice, however, the heavy emphasis of this volume on what the story has been in the Global South. The globe may look at times like one whole imbroglio dictated by the Global North, but we are interested in hearing how this imbroglio is deconstructed and reconstructed in different parts of the world. Part IV deals with attempts at reconfiguring this globalized and partially deglobalizing world. I invited scholars from different corners of the world to discuss not just socio-economic ideas and alternatives but also political philosophies and civilizational world views. Hence, we have in this volume essays from sociologists, political scientists, experts in international relations, anthropologists, and philosophers. The complexity of globalization demands a multidisciplinary approach, as Manfred Steger argues in his essay. If competing political ideologies and regimes seem to be on a collisions course, shouldn’t we explore whether we can detect elements of complementarity, and perhaps communality, at least in the foundational values of our great civilizational traditions? The hope is that a mutual appreciation among civilizations will open up an inter-civilizational dialogue and lead to the formulation of agreed inter-civilizational principles of world order. Recently, Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin have proclaimed a presumed superiority of the Chinese and Russian civilizations which they find superior (and incompatible) with the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights1 and the war-producing institution of the “nation-state.” On the contrary, I will show that a close historical analysis reveals an affinity between the civilizational “Tianxia” much exalted by Xi Jinping, and the 1948 UDHR that Xi Jinping (and Vladimir Putin as well) reject and want to replace. On the one hand, I have ascertained that Confucian thinkers of the golden “Tianxia” period, which Xi Jinping refers to, made the case for an individual capable of purposeful activity and self-determination, which is the core principle of the UDHR. On the other hand, it is obvious that the UDHR entails universal benevolence, like the classical Confucian Tianxia exalted by Xi Jinping, because it is based on the assumptions of the intrinsic dignity and equality of all human beings. Consequently, I have attempted to show how a UDHR-based “Tianxia” can bring a solution to our most urgent global problems: first, by redirecting the path of capitalist globalization along more equitable, democratic, and human-focused standards. In fact, the 1948 UDHR sanctions the principle that society should enable each individual and his family to attain socio-economic opportunities worth of their human dignity; secondly, by bringing a resolution to contemporary hegemonic conflicts. In fact, the Western individualism of the UDHR can be tempered and complemented by elements of communalism

1 https://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/.

1 Introduction: Globalization and the Millennial Ascent …

3

of the Confucian, Islamic, and Russian Orthodox traditions. Vice versa, communal cultures can be enriched with elements of individualism and entrepreneurship. What does the title of this introduction has to do with our discussion so far? The historical irony is that globalization processes, which have been submitted to much critique, have contributed to a cumulative body of knowledge on how society should be run to maximize individual fulfillment; that body of knowledge is summarized in the 1948 UDHR. The task of this introductory essay is to counterbalance the all too frequent understanding of historical globalization in terms of the evolution of types of economic trade and political regimes. In actuality, since ancient times there has been a concomitant growth of philosophical and political thinking on the proper relationships between society and individual, between social priorities and individual needs. It is true that over most of the millennia authoritarian institutions have repressed individual interests and rights, and this is true even in many non-Western societies of today. However, this introduction will document that the notion of individual rights was already clearly formulated in the Middle Ages, found some political application in the twelfth century with the “Magna Carta” and was fully developed in a secularized milieu from the enlightenment thinkers and political philosophers of Western Europe. The British Glorious Revolution, the French Revolution, the American Revolution, and the nineteenth-century ideologies and political turmoils were the major steppingstones of the march toward constitutional monarchy, democratic regimes, and individual liberties until the whole process was formalized in the 1948 UDHR. The fact remains, however, that authoritarian regimes keep on resisting the implementation of the UDHR for being contrary, among others, to their cultural traditions. I argue that this problem might be solved if in implementing the 1948 UDHR not only we incorporate communal elements of the Islamic, Confucian, and Orthodox traditions, but we also respect other elements of those traditions which are not incompatible with a peaceful international co-existence. In other words, it is time to sharply downsize the heavy dosage of implicit or explicit civilizational imperialism, and this is a recipe applicable to all latitudinal and longitudinal lines of our globe Earth!! This thesis will be developed in the conclusion of the volume. The main point of these introductory remarks is to sensitize the reader to the fact that we must assess the pros and cons of globalization documented in Parts II and III of this volume on the basis of the principles endorsed by world governments with the 1948 Declaration. This does not mean that we introduce extraneous standards of evaluation; on the contrary, we invoke the basic standards of human development that have been formulated and agreed upon by the same societies which have energized globalization processes. No one can deny that the enforcement of the principles of equality of opportunities for every individual coupled with the principle of individual self-determination represent strong guidelines on how to correct the inequalities, distortions, and exclusions associated with the process of globalization. Moreover, inter-civilizational sensibility in the enforcement of the human rights should foster international understandings and the formulation of inter-civilizational principles of world order.

4

I. Rossi

The crucial importance of the 1948 UDHR for the solution of socio-economic inequalities and of civilizational confrontations stems from the fact that the declaration was the culmination of millennia of inter-civilizational encounters and accumulated human lore, which eventually found its most advanced development in the Western hemisphere. THE GLOBALIZATION JOURNEY AND THE RISE OF THE INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS What is globalization about? Like many other concepts in social sciences, globalization is differently defined by different theoreticians, as the reader soon will find out in Part I of this volume. One of the controversies therein discussed is whether globalization is to be understood as an evolutionary phenomenon which has unfolded through millennia of human history (see Stichweh’s essay, Chap. 6) or whether it is a conjunctural phenomenon which occurs each time when there is an hegemonic decline (see Friedman’s essay, Chap. 3). Nobody can deny that human societies have been developing more and more complex social institutions (differentiation theory) in the process of adaptation to external and internal challenges. However, we all too often focus in our historical analysis on the increasing complexity of social institutions since we consider the daily life of people as totally dependent on them. Yet, if we closely examine the major events of the past few centuries, like the Enlightenment, the Protestant Reformation, and the French Revolution, we detect another important process which has accompanied the growth of social institutions— a progressive growth of ideas and policies about what access people ought to have to societal resources, including their participation in political affairs. Likewise, the American and the Industrial Revolutions have been accompanied respectively by the rise of “the common man” and of the worker, and the social and political turmoil of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries have occasioned new theories of human personality and strong proclamations of human rights. This duality of social evolution, both institutional and individual-centered, highlights an apparent paradox: the greater and more complex social institutions have grown to be, the greater the aspiration to human emancipation has become via political ideologies, popular movements, workers’ unions, civil society initiatives, and even governmental legislations. Rather than a paradox, I would call this a basic law of societal evolution: the more complex and intrusive social institutions have become, the greater the resistance of people and their efforts at human enhancement have been. The frequent eruption of political revolutions that all too often provoked by peoples’ frustration with economic and political condition (Skocpol 2015/1979) is an expression of the same law. The Arab Spring (1910–1912), the spreading of the liberal mindset in the Arab world (Haas 2016) and populist movements are more recent examples of the same law. The “World Value Surveys” conducted in four waves since 1981 in hundred Western and non-Western societies clearly indicate that there is a universal “desire for free choice and autonomy” as well as a universal aspiration for democracy (World Value Surveys 2019); in the conclusion of this book, I will cite other surveys which concur on this point.

1 Introduction: Globalization and the Millennial Ascent …

5

In reality, all these trends show that human agency ought to be considered an important engine of societal transformations. I go one step further: the events and trends we have mentioned ought to be considered as part of the millennial efforts of humankind to recapture a balance between societal rights and duties, on the one hand, and individual rights and duties, on the other hand—a balance that was the core characteristics of aboriginal societies.

Social Integration and Individuation in Kinship Societies With an eye on the many maladjustments in modern cultures, some anthropologists have enticed our critical imaginary with such terms as “genuine culture” (Sapir 1924), moral order (Redfield 1953), and personal community (Henry 1965) to describe the uniqueness of Neolithic kinship societies, where everybody was economically equal and had equal saying in group decisions, social tasks were performed in cooperative work groups headed by kinsmen, everybody enjoyed intimate and personal relations, and there was clarity of roles and social expectations. More uniquely, all activities in the group were performed because of deeply felt kinship and religious sentiments. Hence, we understand why the terms “moral order,” “personal community,” and “genuine culture” were used by some anthropologists to single out a type of culture which originates from and is structured around the fulfillment of individual needs. These cultures are called “genuine” because they do not tolerate frustrating social arrangements or meaningless and oppressive customs. The anthropologist Faron (1964) stated the following about the Mapuche Indians of Southern Chile: … religion is one of the forces most suited to mold the world view of individuals [as] is recognized both by the Mapuche and by Chilean missionaries.… Religion provides the framework in which the general inculcation of traditional values, attitudes and procedures is accomplished. Four hundred years of missionary work, economic imperialism, and even ultimate military defeat, have failed to crack the hard shell of Mapuche religious morality.

Kinship ties and deep religious and moral motivations for all activities explain the high degree of social integration in aboriginal societies. However, this does not mean that the individual was an automaton blindly controlled by the group in all his expressions and activities. Bronislaw Malinowski (1926), who spent two years among the Trobriand Islanders of Melanesia, stated the following: Take the real salvage, keen on evading his duties, swaggering and boastful when he has fulfilled them, and compare him with the anthropologist’s dummy who slavishly follows customs and automatically obeys every regulation. There is not the remotest resemblance between the teachings of anthropology on this subject and the reality of native life.

As Goldenweiser (1936) explained, “nor is there… any significant difference between religious, narrowly social or mainly personal situations. Envisaged as experiences, all situations are individual, and as such, unique, personal, historical. Society apart, man, not being a robot, lives—as an individual.” Paul Radin, the foremost anthropological authority on the Winnebago Indians, brilliantly explained how,

6

I. Rossi

besides being well socially integrated, aborigines also enjoyed a high degree of individuation. The latter was evident in people’s desire to excel in particular skills up to the point of provoking, at times, obtrusive relations and conflicts; the latter, however, were treated leniently precisely because there was a social emphasis on an “unhampered self-expression” of the individual. Besides, the product of skillful activities was shared by the whole group and this enhanced the individual recognition and sense of individuality. Radin (2017/1927: 34) stated the following: If these abuses [by the hunters] are more rampant and if they are treated more leniently there [aboriginal tribes] than among us, this is due to the insistence [of primitives] on unhampered self-expression. Every man and woman seeks individuation – outer and inner individuation – and this is the psychological basis for their otherwise bewildering and unintelligible tolerance of the fullest expression of personality.

Some facile minds may tempt to label as gratuitous romanticism the use of the terms genuine culture, moral order, and personal community. In reality, these terms ought to be accepted at least as “ideal models” of societies characterized by cultural harmony, social identity, and integration. I consider the balanced combination of individuation and social integration as the deep cultural code of genuine cultures.2 It should be clear that we are focusing here on the culture, social relations, and the psycho-social adjustment of people in egalitarian Neolithic societies. We are perfectly cognizant of the technological limitations of these societies, especially of their scarce control over diseases, although they were not necessarily indigent on survival resources. In fact, Sahlins (2003) called primitive people “the original affluent societies.” Leaving to anthropologists the task of evaluating the ethnographic documentation on “genuine cultures,” the term ought to be considered valuable, together with that of “moral order” and “personal community,” as a heuristic tool for cross-cultural analysis, especially for the anthropological critique of modern cultures.3 My daring assumption is that the aboriginal cultural code (the balanced combination of individuation and social integration in the daily life of people) became dormant when tribal societies transformed into chiefdoms and states and empires. We all know that in the long process of societal evolution human societies evolved into highly stratified, expansionary, and authoritarian societies which were ruled by a king surrounded by a small group of nobles and warriors who kept the rest of the population in subjugation and, all too often, in slavery. Ancient societies also gradually developed sophisticated technologies with the discovery of copper, bronze, and iron, which identify as many stages of historical development. Nor unmentioned must go architectural, mathematical achievements, and the invention of the alphabet and writing by ancient civilizations. But, perhaps unconventionally, this writer is ready to argue that those societies (together with the much more technologically sophisticated modern societies) were technologically superior but culturally inferior to egalitarian “moral societies.” Obviously, in highly stratified civilizations the aboriginal balance 2 On

the notion of code, see Talcott Parsons (1982) in Rossi (1982).

3 For the use of the term “primitive” for critical cultural analysis, see Stanley Diamond (2017/1974),

Diamond (1977), Diamond and Belasco (1987), and Sahlins (1996).

1 Introduction: Globalization and the Millennial Ascent …

7

between a kinship-based integration and individuation was replaced by a forced submission of the majority of the population to hereditary and expansionist elites which were far from self-legitimization through compassionate governance or from been chosen by popular consent. Yet, with some dosage of analytical imaginary one can hypothesize that even at the high points of ancient civilizations we may find some societal concern for the individual and, perhaps, a slow beginning of an historical reversal toward gradually recapturing elements of the aboriginal balance between social integration and individuation. We conclude that social integration which was, at first, in the hands of emperors, then moved in the hands of absolute monarchs, then of constitutional kings, and finally of democratic processes whose raison d’etre is the implementation of the will of the people. In this last stage of evolution social integration is based on the principle of individual self-determination.

Is There Any Evidence for a Concern for the Individual in Ancient Civilizations? Ethical Principles and Codes of Conduct in Antiquity Social norms were issued in highly stratified societies to appropriately transact with different categories of people together with a commitment to enforce them: the seventh-century B.C. teaching of Zoroaster on gender equality and democracy; the code of law by Pharaoh Menes (3100–2850 BCE) on food production and distribution, the rights of ruling families, and the enhancement of education and mathematical knowledge; the laws of the Sumerian King Shulgi (2095–2047 BCE) on inheritance, trade, agricultural tariffs, and many other aspects of social life, including the rights of slaves and laborers; the “Charter of Freedom of Mankind” (sixth-century BC) by the Persian king Cyrus the Great on human rights; “universal love” as the guiding principle of life by the Chinese philosopher Mozi (469–391 BCE); the Roman “Twelve Tables”(451–449 BCE) on the privileges of patricians, slavery for unpaid debts, and testamentary rights and contracts; legal books of the Dharma Shastras (500–300 BCE) on the principle that duties are more important than rights and that the king must protect people from material and moral harm. Even the poor and weak citizens attracted social attention in Ancient Greece, Rome and Byzantium; medieval Christianity formed guilds in their support and even set up the “Peace of God” from the tenth to the twelfth centuries to protect them from the political authority in the name of Divine Justice.

8

I. Rossi

The Principle of Common Good in Antiquity In Ancient Greece (with Aristotle and Plato) and Rome (especially with Cicero), the state and the individual were seen as partners toward the common good: the state existed for the moral development and perfection of the individual and, at the same time, the perfection of the individual meant also the perfection of the state. Justice was a virtue to be cultivated by each person as well as the community (Etzioni 2015). In Christianity, the most important common good became God which had to be pursued by the republic (St. Augustine) and by the individuals whose common good is the same as that of the state, as per Thomas Aquinas (Black 1988: 596 ff.). As hard it seems to imagine, some historians state that in the Middle Ages papalists, imperialists, monarchists, and republicans alike as well as guilds, towns and republics accepted the common good as a principle of good government. But was social integration accompanied in Antiquity by some expression of individuation?

Elements of Individual Rights and Natural Law in Ancient Civilizations Individual effort was important in various religions and cultures: to determine the future reincarnation in Hinduism; to achieve spiritual purification and union with the Ultimate in Buddhism; to achieve superior moral standing through self-cultivation in Confucianism; to achieve happiness by performing well individual and social activities (Aristotle); to be independent, self-reliant, and morally responsible in Judaism; to contribute to one’s own salvation in Christianity. For Christians each individual has an intrinsic dignity for being created in God’s image. The early Christians exhibited an outward individualism in relation to God and a detachment from the political order. As far as the Middle Ages is concerned, Rosser (2015) warns us to stop with the baseless identification of feudalism with communalism and of the modern world with individualism. Elements of human rights are contained in the following ancient documents: (a) the Code of Hammurabi (ca 1800 BCE), which specifies punishments for specific offenses committed by different classes of people on the basis of the Law of Redistributive Justice; (b) the so-called Charter of Human Rights (539 BCE), which introduced democracy, religious freedom, the end of slavery, respect for landed properties, and “let people free to live in all regions and to take up any job provided that they never violate other’s rights” (Lauren 2013); (c) the written democratic constitution by Darius the Great (522–486 BCE) and the fourth-century CE system of Common Law set in place in Iran (Borbor 2008); and (d) Draco’s codification of Greek peasants rights (621 BCE) and Solon’s introduction of democracy in Greece, which was firmly established by 594 and peaked with Pericles (460–430 BCE).

1 Introduction: Globalization and the Millennial Ascent …

9

The Notion of Natural Law was clearly present in Aristotle’s statement that what is “just by nature” is different from what is “just by law,” and that there was a natural justice valid everywhere with the same force and independently from people’s thought. The Stoics had an egalitarian notion of law of nature which conforms to the reason inherent in the human mind. The Roman jurists also paid lip service to this notion (Zeidan 2019) and held that human conduct should be judged according to the law of human nature which grants universal rights beyond those accorded by the state to Roman citizens. Cicero spoke of “innate natural” force as a reflection of the order that the Divine Reason has introduced in the universe as it is partially known to us via human reason. Medieval philosophers, theologians, and legal scholars had a doctrine of natural rights which were moral rights. In fact, “natural rights” arise from the human nature as created by God; hence, they are independent from law or custom. As a continuation of these ideas the Aquinas developed the notion of justice as an objective and external reality.

Middle Ages’ Obscurantism or Formulation and Protection of Individual Rights? A transition from natural rights to objective individual rights was made by Christian thinkers and canon lawyers of the Middle Ages with the clear notions of individual freedom, the fundamental moral equality of all individuals, a legal system based on equality, and a representative form of government benefiting a society of free people (Siedentop 2014). Hunt (2007) links the eighteenth century discourse on rights to psychological changes in the human mind, such as feelings of empathetic selfhood, individual identity, and sacredness of the human body. However, psychological assumptions on individuality, moral autonomy, self-preservation, self-possession, and sacredness of the human body were already present in the language and theories on natural rights of the late Middle Ages.4 The notion of “right” entailed the personal possession of a set of powers, freedoms, and/or competencies encompassing a complete control over one’s own mind and body. Aquinas (and perhaps even Aristotle) had the notion of a subjective human right— a capability possessed by an individual subject. In fact, Aquinas theorized about the rights of self-preservation, self-defense, freedom, and private property as long as it is shared with people in need. The notion of “subjective” individual rights became more clear with the Franciscan philosophers John Duns Scotus (1266–1308) and William of Ockham (c. 1285–1347/49) and, later on, with the Spanish Jesuit Francisco Suárez (1548–1617) who focused on the Devine Will rather than on the Divine Reason as the source of law. The reason was that God wanted the present order rather than other possible ones which he knew were possible. Hence, a voluntaristic notion of natural law developed with the related subjective notion of “right”; namely, “right” began 4 For

documentary sources, see Slotte and Halme-Tuomisaari (2015: 64 ff.).

10

I. Rossi

to be understood as a quality of the subject, a capacity for action, and an ius utendi (right to use) of the individual (Oakley 1961). We should add that medieval theologians supported the individualism of medieval merchants by providing justification for mercantile morality and entrepreneurial capitalism (Rossi 2011). Giacomo Todeschini stated that the merchants of Siena, Prato, and Milan “had the duty to be rich and at the same time, be honorable men” (McCloskey 2007: 15).

The Enlightenment’s Elaboration of the Medieval Individual Rights and Their Translation in a Secularized Political Milieu The optimist Dutch jurist Grotius (1583–1645) introduced the notion that individuals and companies have the subjective rights to self-defense, property, and contracts as deriving from an optimistic view of natural law. Individuals are sovereign and the state ought to respect their rights, since the state was established for their preservation (Kingsbury and Straumann 2010). A less optimistic Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679), who had experienced the turmoil of the English Civil War, considered the original state of human nature as a “savage” state where men are at war with each other and guided by selfishness and the amoral principle of self-preservation (Zagorin 2009). Accordingly, the first law of nature is that humans must seek peace and, if that fails, they must defend themselves since they are endowed with the basic natural rights of using everything in their power to preserve their life. Since other people have the same rights, the second law of nature is that we should give up the right to all things and be content with as much liberty against others as we are willing to allow them against ourselves. Hence, natural rights are not legal rights about specific things, but rather principles of co-existence or guidelines to maintain peace. The third law of nature is that we must make a covenant to give unlimited power to a public authority to make sure we follow these laws and live peacefully (Dyzenhaus and Poole 2012).

Human Beings at Their Peak with John Locke: Every Individual Is Born Equal, and Free, and with Inalienable Rights to Life, Freedom, and Property The optimistic John Locke (1632–1706) held that in the state of nature everyone has complete liberty to organize his own life and to acquire property rights over the resources to which they apply their labor. Since we are all born rational and equal, we must respect everybody’s God given rights to life and possessions. Hence, for Locke natural laws are moral laws independent of the existence of a political society,

1 Introduction: Globalization and the Millennial Ascent …

11

whereas for Hobbes it is political or civil society that create moral distinctions. Since in the state of nature there are no impartial judges to enforce moral rights, Locke held all individuals voluntarily agreed to create a civil society to protect their own natural liberty and properties. Whereas Grotius, Hobbes, and Locke (at least in some early writings) referred to natural law as discovered by reason and generating universal standards, other thinkers replaced nature with the principle of pleasure as the ground for moral judgment (Voltaire and Mandeville). The notion of common utility as the maximized benefit for individuals began to compete with the traditional notion of common good.

A Moral Turn Occurred with Hutcheson, Hume, and Smith: Sentiments as Sources of Morally Approved Behavior Against the gloominess of Hobbes the search was on for an objective criterion to judge whether a given course of action is oriented to the common good rather than to private self-interest. Francis Hutcheson (1694–1745) argued that God endowed man with the instinct of benevolence as well as an innate sense of pleasure for actions which are not selfservient. Humans’ reflection over acts of benevolence evokes a sense of pleasure (affection) which becomes the source of what is moral and good in society (Taylor 2014). Hutcheson’s notion of a natural instinct of benevolence influenced Hume and Smith. In the Treatise of Human Nature (1740), David Hume (1711–1776) held that our natural sympathy for others leads us to morally approve of an action when we see it being helpful to others. However, both the agent of an action and a spectator who observes the action must concur in the sympathetic feelings of approval. Such an agreement guarantees that the source of approbation is not a self-centered sentiment. Hence, sympathy with others is the core source of moral approbation (Martin 1990). In The Theory of Moral Sentiments (2016/1759), Adam Smith disagrees with Hume that we must reflect on the usefulness of an action for others before morally approving it. The feelings of agreement between agent and observer over the sentiment of others are sufficient to consider something moral. Hence, sympathy is not a virtue but a human faculty which puts human beings in tune with each other and makes other people’s happiness necessary to oneself.

12

I. Rossi

How and Who Is to Manage the Relations Between Society and Individuals, Between Common and Private Good? The Evolving Notion of Civil Society Locke’s free contractual relations can be dissolved when an association becomes useless in people’s minds. Then, how can we claim that the public good is superior to the private interests? We saw above that for the ancient Greeks and Romans the state and the individual were indispensable for each other’s perfection and were partners in the common good. Cicero introduced the term societal civilis to refer to a civilized political community (res public) or an association of people and communities which steer individuals to the common good. In Classic Rome and Greece not only was society a product of nature but it was also a “moral society,” or a society based on a common will and oriented toward a public good which prevailed over private interests (Laine 2014). The Dutch Republic in the seventeenth century became the first modern civil society with a state of law and public authority guaranteeing order and freedom, and with a democracy that preserved religious tolerance and encouraged allegiance to common purposes. There were historical reasons why a civil society could take hold there, like independence from Spain’s absolute Monarchy, a variety of antimonarchist who took refuge there, and the need of everybody’s cooperation to manage waterways and long-distance trade. The tension between a decentralized authority and the individual rights, amidst an intellectually and religiously diverse population, fostered self-restraint and a sense of the common good. The Dutch political experiment was unique and the theorizing about civil society and the common good waned with the theories of social contract to re-emerge later on with the Scottish philosophers.

Social Contract Theories and the Waning of Civil Society In the Leviathan (1651), Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) defended the absolutist authority of the government by hypothesizing a covenant between the “Commonwealth” and the King. Since in the pre-political “state of nature” equal people competed for scarce resources in a war of “all against all,” they secured respect of each other’s rights and economic development by forming a civil society in a twofold process. First, people relinquished their natural sovereign to a sovereign they elect. This transformed the “multitude” of the state of nature in a Commonwealth, which he called the “Leviathan,” a metaphor for an artificial person whose body is made from all citizens’ bodies, but with the head of the sovereign. Secondly, by majority rule the Leviathan transferred people’s natural rights to a sovereign, who promised to protect people’s safety, peace, contractual arrangements, and to direct everybody’s actions toward “common benefit” (Rhodes 1994).

1 Introduction: Globalization and the Millennial Ascent …

13

Hence, a naturally violent society became “civil” because of the protective apparatus of the state so that civil society became a synonym for the system of laws, government, and public administration created by the state. Given the absolute nature of its authority, the state performs its duties directly without the role of intermediary groups or voluntary associations. Hence, there is no room for any social entity besides the state. John Locke also theorized that a social contract was the foundation of civil society, but people with equal natural rights voluntarily (and not out of fear as for Hobbes) signed a contract to constitute the community as a public authority; the latter’s task was to protect all natural rights from internal and external aggression. Here, civil society consists of the authorization by self-organizing people to transfer the executive power of the natural state to the community constituted as a public authority. In other words, civil society is co-terminus with political society.

The Scottish Tradition and the Re-Emergence of Civil Society The seventeenth century was, among other things, the era of the commercial state and of the bourgeoisie. Hence, it is not strange that Scottish thinkers would consider commercial economy to be the source of civil society as the latter emerges from the interdependence of needs and the pursuit of self-interests under the guidance of reason (Hume) or sentiments of sympathy (Adam Smith) or civic virtues (Ferguson). Adam Ferguson (1723–1816) conceived civil society as an equal and just society produced by rule-bound deliberations developed in public discourse. Public deliberations nurture a moral citizenry by cultivating natural justice and the law of morality; this process results in a civil society whose goal is the happiness of the individual, whereas the individuals’ goal is to contribute to the public good. Regrettably, Ferguson argued, civil society was put in jeopardy by capitalism’s emphases on private profit, inequality, and fragmentation of specializations.

French Thinkers in Critical Mode In France, Charles-Louis de Secondat Montesquieu (1689–1755) argued that civil society mediates between state and society as a mechanism to counterweight despotism through the internalization of “customs” and “manners” which entail the virtues of moderation, trust, and reason (Montesquieu 2013/1989). On the contrary, the romantic Emile Rousseau (1712–1778) held that merchants and property owners funded civil society to maintain their position of power; in fact, in civil society people have competitive interests and inevitably hate one another. The original social contract should be replaced by a submission of people to the General Will of a political community which aims at the common good and favors social harmony, equality, and freedom for all (De Lue et al. 2016).

14

I. Rossi

Against Hegel’s emphasis on liberal individualism (see later) and centralized state, Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859) extolled the virtues of associationism and civil society. For him civil society encompassed everything which is not state, namely culture, politics, and society which play out in associations where problems are solved and common interests are pursued. For De Tocqueville the success of the American society was based on the combination of individualism and equality; the latter helps preventing the widespread egoism and the breakdown of civic virtues associated with individualism (Lewis 2001).

Civil Society in the German Tradition According to Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) civil society consists in the development of a public debate about the end of the state. Public debate generates collective ideas in favor of the principle that the ends sought by one should not be achieved at the expenses of the ends of the other (Principle of Universal Moral Obligation). The philosopher Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831) laid the foundations of the modern conception of civil society, which, according to him, emerges after the formation of the state and includes all social activities between the state and the family. Civil society is the realm of social interaction which originates from the pursuit of individual needs through social transactions with others. Hence, civil society is the place where people learn their social roles and conflicts are mediated. For Karl Marx (1818–1883) civil society is the capitalist economy as shaped by bourgeois interests with the help of the state. In other words, civil society connotes the bourgeoisie’s legitimation of the private property and the market, as private interests overpower the pursuit of the common good. Actually, Marx held that the bourgeoisie is the economic infrastructure that determines the whole structure of society, including the state, which is the “superstructure” at the services of the bourgeoisie. In Marx’s later works, the notion of the capitalist mode of production was replaced by the concept of civil society.

Civil Society as the Third Sector Between the Economy and the State In the twentieth century the concern went beyond the relation of the political (as in liberal thinkers) or economic (as in Scottish Philosophers) sphere to the state and emerged the notion of a third sector providing services and solidarity distinct from and in counterbalance to the state and the market. Whereas Marx identified civil society with the economic base of society, Antonio Gramsci (1892–1937) located civil society between the economy and the state. Civil society consists of those institutions of the superstructure, which are not part of the

1 Introduction: Globalization and the Millennial Ascent …

15

repressive capitalist state, like religious and educational institutions, the media, trade unions, political parties, and all other intermediate institutions that play a distinct role in the intellectual and moral development of a class society (Gramsci 1971). William Kornhauser, John R. Hall, and Robert D. Putnam modified De Tocqueville’s tradition focusing on the cultural orientation of people to join organizations to develop strategies for pressuring the state in favor of their interests. However, besides these down-up theories, a top-down theory also emerged which emphasized the political determinants of civil society, as exemplified by Lenin’s selfadministering communes, fascist and Nazi cooperatives, unions, youth movements, as well as Muslim and other groups today. Because of these political developments, Habermas abandoned his 1960 definition of civil society as developing in the public sphere through a public discourse. In 1992, he contended that the great expansion of the modern state, the capitalist economy, and the democratic revolution eliminated the role of the private sphere in resolving conflicts by colonizing and repressively integrating the sphere of public communication and opinion via bureaucratization and monetarization. Only a reinvigoration of the public sphere can free us from pessimism and alienation (Habermas 1996/1992). More recently, Andrew Arato, Jean L. Cohen (Cohen and Arato 1994), and Jeffrey Alexander (2008) have discussed civil society as the third sector where solidarity and universal values as well as conflicting and uncivil values emerge and interact. Jeffrey Alexander finds moral structures and solidarity even in the economic and political orientation of, respectively, the market and the state. Civil society seeks economic justice via voluntary organizations which exert pressure on the state to intervene. Hence, civil society ends up penetrating the market via legislation, and I add, it penetrates the state also via the platforms of political parties and political lobbying. In other words, the three sectors are not tightly separated from each other, but to a certain extent they constitute each other through their mutual interaction. We have so far examined the development of theories of societal and individual duties and rights as well as the mediating role of civil society as proposed by leading intellectuals and political philosophers. How many of these theories were translated in legislation and social practices?

The Millennial March of Humankind Toward the Implementation of Human Rights and Democracy Historical Milestones We saw at the beginning of this introduction that embryonic forms of democracy appeared with Zoroaster (seventh century BCE), Cyrus of Persia (sixth century BCE), Athens (fifth century BCE), and the Roman tribunes (third century BCE) which were elected by citizens. In eighth century AD, tribal communities were operating in Scandinavia. Democratically run comuni operated in Northern Italy since the

16

I. Rossi

eleventh century, in Germany and Spain in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and in the rural cantons of Switzerland in the thirteenth century. During the last millennium or so, England engaged in a long, although contested, march toward democracy beginning with the introduction of a trial by jury King Henry II. In 1188 and 1211, the Parliament (or “a place where to speak”) emerged when the Spanish and Portuguese kings summoned wealth people to solicit their financial support. In 1215, English barons and major land owners angered by regular extortion of lands and profit forced King John to sign the Magna Carta, which made the King recognize what we call today “the rights” of the church to be free from governmental interference, the rights of citizens to own and inherit property and to be free from excessive taxes, and the rights of widows with property not to remarry. The principles of due process and equality before law were also established and provisions were made against bribery and official misconduct. The 1215 Magna Carta contained the clause that, if necessary, a council of 25 barons with the power to overrule the king should be created. From 1246 onward England intermittently held parliaments until Edward I (1239–1307) made of the Parliament a permanent institution with tasks of raising taxes and reforming the law via statutes. From 1275 to 1307, the nobility, churchmen, and knights were joined in the Parliament by town’s citizen, counties, and finally boroughs (origin of Commons). In 1432, Henry IV declared eligibility to vote to all those who owned at least 40 shillings or property freeholders. In 1464, the State of Flanders convened the provincial estates (the parliamentary institutions of the various territories) to an Estates General, or a parliamentary assembly, of the representatives of all provincial estates. The Flanders’s practice was adopted by the Duke Philp of Burgundy and in France where there were the First Estate of prelates, the second Estate of the nobility, and the third Estate of the boroughs. The Estates were also important in the Dutch Republic, in Aragonese Sicily (fourteenth century), and in the fifteenth century in Bohemia, Sweden, and Poland. France established a permanent Parliament but with the limited task of carrying legal work for the curia. The three estates were frequently summoned by the king during the fourteenth century until they lost power with the absolutism of the seventeenth century and, finally, were eliminated by the French Revolution. In 1628, the English Parliament was displeased with the war policies and related taxation of King Charles I and sent to him a Petition of Right to complain about a series of breaches of law and to seek recognition of four principles established in previous statutes and charters: no taxation without the consent of Parliament, no imprisonment without cause, no quartering of soldiers on subjects, and no martial law in peacetime. The Parliament became the true seat of power with the 1688 Bill of Rights, which marked the end of absolute kings by limiting the powers of the monarch and establishing Parliament’s rights, among which were the rights to hold regular parliaments, free elections, and free speech in Parliament. Among the rights set for individuals were freedom from cruel and unusual punishments, freedom from being fined without trial, and no taxation without agreement of the Parliament. In 1789, the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen stated that “men are born and remain free and equal in rights” (art. 1) and that these rights are liberty,

1 Introduction: Globalization and the Millennial Ascent …

17

property, safety, and resistance against oppression (art. 20); everyone’s equality of rights is limited only by others’ enjoyment of the same rights. In 1807, England abolished slave trade in the British Empire. In 1832, the right to vote was extended in England to every man, even if renters of certain value, thus eliminating the medieval counties and boroughs and giving representation to industrial cities. So the Act of 1832 conservatively balanced the interests of the upper and middle classes, while maintaining landed influence. The 1836 Act extended the vote to all male householders in England. In 1867, the franchise was extended to around one-third of men by loosening property qualifications. In 1884, the electorate for the House of Commons was expanded from the nobility to the gentry (agricultural workers), and a single-member constituency was established, that is one officeholder per electoral district. All these acts tripled the electorate and prepared the way for universal male suffrage. In 1833, slavery was abolished in the British Empire. In 1875, freedom of association was established decriminalizing trade union activity. In 1928, the UK lowered women’s voting age to 21 and in 1928 any property requirement was dropped. The 1969 Representation of People Act in the UK introduced the modern vote for all citizens at 18 years of age. The English Acts of 1983, 1985, and 2000 dealt with such issues as denying the vote to criminals while in prison, allowing expatriates to vote in their original countries for 15 years, allowing ballot or proxy vote to vacationers, and accepting psychiatric hospitals as registration addresses. It was a rather laborious march of democracy and a slow one, but it was a steady march forward. The Trade Disputes Act of 1906 in England removed any liability for damages caused by a strike. In 1918, a universal suffrage was allowed for men over 21 years of age and for women over 30 years. A universal suffrage for everybody over 21 years of age was established in 1928. The American republic was initially based on a restricted franchise of small land and slave owners but produced a working democracy, which progressively expanded. In 1776, the Declaration of Independence was adopted with the still resounding introductory words by Thomas Jefferson: “We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.…” The controversies about an alleged too much power of the Federal Government resulted in ten amendments to the Constitutions which were ratified in 1791 that guaranteed freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly, and petition; the right to keep and bear arms in order to maintain a well-regulated militia; and the rights to due process of law, to trial by jury, and to speedy trial; finally, also freedom from selfincrimination, double jeopardy, excessive, and unusual punishment was established. The 13th Amendment to the Constitution in 1865 abolished slavery, thus granting freedom to more than 4 million people. The 14th Amendment to the US Constitution of 1868 granted citizenship rights to all persons born or naturalized in the United States—including former slaves—and guaranteed to all citizens equal protection of the laws. In 1870, the 15th Amendment abolished the discrimination to vote on the basis of race or color and the right to vote was extended to all African-Americans. In 1920, the 19th US Amendment granted the vote to women and in 1964 the Civil

18

I. Rossi

Rights Act ended the segregation of public and many private facilities and outlawed any form of discrimination based on religion, race, sex, or national origin. Various other countries followed the examples of England and the United States in the enactment of civil and political rights. For instance, women were granted the power to vote in New Zealand in 1893, in Australia in 1902, in Finland in 1906, and in Norway in 1913. The final milestone of this long march was the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) adopted by the UN General Assembly in Paris on December 10, 1948, with eight member states abstaining and none opposed. Such consent was remarkable given the then division of the world into a Western bloc pushing for liberal democracy and a Communist bloc practicing and spreading dictatorship. Some scholars argue that the UDHR encompassed three generations of civil-political, socio-economic, and collective-developmental rights. The first, or Enlightenment, generation had introduced mostly “civil-political” rights dealing with liberty and participation in political life as derived from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries Enlightenment and further elaborated in the English, American, and French revolutions. The second or socialist generation of the nineteenth century rights had been inspired by the teaching of Marx and Lenin, which after the 1917 Russian Revolution were instrumental in bringing universal recognition to economic and socio-cultural rights: Life, the right to work, the right to social security and the like. The third generation of “solidarity rights” had emerged in the twentieth century with the postWorld War II decolonization and referred to the rights of the Third World countries to political, economic, and cultural self-determination, as well as to the rights of sharing in the progress of humankind (Vasak 1984). At this point it is appropriate to raise a basic question: Have world governments attempted to regulate the course of neoliberal globalization to protect individual rights as they agreed in endorsing the 1948 UDHR? In particular, did they effectively protect everybody’s right to equality of opportunities so as to enable “each individual and its own family to have an existence worthy of human dignity” (art. 23 of the UDHR)? The answer to this question can be found in the essays of Parts II and III of this volume, which deal with the political economy in the countries of the Global North and Global South during the last 40 years of neoliberal globalization. Has neoliberal globalization facilitated the “free and full development of each individual’s personality” by enhancing a social atmosphere where “everyone respect the rights and freedoms of others and meet the requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare of a democratic society” (art. 29 of the UDHR)? This second question in answered in the essays of Parts II and III which deal with the impact of globalization on culture and social life. I have attempted to minimize biases or narrow views by seeking contributors from the Global North and the Global South, contributors from various subspecialties of humanities and social sciences, and contributors with personal knowledge of the society they write about it. The documentation on the impact of globalization worldwide they provide in Parts II and III of the volume prepares the discussion of Part IV on how to strategize future developments. There, we shall discuss how a culturally appropriate implementation

1 Introduction: Globalization and the Millennial Ascent …

19

of the UDHR could reorient the course of globalization and, at the same time, defuse geo-political tensions with inter-civilizational principles of world order.

References Alexander, Jeffrey. 2008. Civil Society. New York: Oxford University Press. Black, Anthony. 1988. The Individual and Society. In The Cambridge History of Medieval Political Thought c 350-1450, ed. J.H. Burns, 599–606. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Borbor, Darius. 2008. Iran’s Contributions to Human Rights, the Rights of Women and Democracy. Iran & the Caucasus 12(1): 101–121. 21. Cohen, Jean L., and Andrew Arato. 1994. Civil Society and Political Theory. MIT Press. De Lue, Steven M., and Timothy M. Dale. 2016. Political Thinking, Theory and Civil Society. New York: Routledge. Diamond, Stanley. 1977. Primitive Society in its Many Dimensions. In Anthropology Full Circle, ed. Rossi Ino, John Buettner-Janush, and Dorian Coppenhaver, 418–424. New York: Praeger. Diamond, Stanley. 2017/1974. In Search of the Primitive: A Critique of Civilization. New York: Routledge. Diamond, Stanley, and Bernard Belasco. 1987. The Anthropological Study of ‘Complex’ Societies. In People in Culture, ed. Rossi Ino, Ch. 16, 568–596. New York: Praeger. Dyzenhaus, David, and Thomas Poole, eds. 2012. Hobbes and the Law. Cambridge University Press. Etzioni, AMitai. 2015. Common Good. In Encyclopedia of Political Thought, ed. Michael T. Gibbons. New York: Wiley and Sons. Faron, L.C. 1964. Hawks of the Sun: Mapuche Morality and its Ritual Attributes. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. Goldenweiser, Alexander. 1936. Loose Ends of Theory…. In Essays in Anthropology, ed. R.H. Lowie, 99–104. Berkeley: University of California Press. Gramsci, Antonio. 1971. Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci. New York: International Publishers. Haas, L. Mark. 2016. The Arab Spring. 2nd ed. Routledge. Habermas, Jürgen. 1996/1992. Between Facts and Norms. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT University Press. Henry, Jules. 1965. Culture Against Man. New York: Vintage. Hunt, Lynn. 2007. Inventing Human Rights: A History. New York: W.W. Norton Company. Kingsbury, Benedict, and Benjamin Straumann. 2010. The State of Nature and Commercial Sociability in Early Modern International Legal Though. 31 Grotiana. Institute for Internal Law and Justice. Nyu Law. Laine, Jussi. 2014. Debating Civil Society: Contested Conceptualizations and Development Trajectories. International Journal of Not -for-Profit Law 16(1), September. Lauren, Paul Gordon. 2013. The Foundations of Justice and Human Rights in Early Legal Texts and Thought. In The Oxford Book of International Human Right Law, ed. Dinah Shelton. Oxford University Press. Lewis, David. 2001. Civil society in non-Western contexts: Reflections on the ‘usefulness’ of a concept Civil Society. Working Paper 13. October. LSE Research online at http://eprints.lse.ac. uk/29052/1/CSWP13_web.pdf. Accessed 24 April 2019. Malinowski, Bronislaw. 1926. Crime and Custom in Savage Society. New York. Martin, Marie A. 1990. Utility and Morality: Adam Smith’s Critique of Hume. Hume Studies, 16(2): 107–120. Project MUSE. McCloskey, Deirdre N. 2007. The Bourgeois Virtues: Ethics for an Age of Commerce. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Montesquieu. 2013/1989. The Spirit of the Laws. Cambridge University Press.

20

I. Rossi

Oakley, Francis. 1961. Medieval Theories of Natural Law: William Ockham and the Significance of the Voluntaristic Tradition. Natural Law Forum. Paper 60. Notre Dame Law school. Natural law Forum, 1-1-1961. Parsons, Talcott. 1982. Action, Symbols, and Cybernetic Control. In Structural Sociology, ed. Ino Rossi, 49–65. New York: Columbia University Press. Radin, Paul. 2017/1927. Primitive Mas as Philosopher. NYRB Classics. Redfield, Robert. 1953. The Primitive World and its Transformations. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Rhodes, Rosamond. 1994. Creating Leviathan: Sovereign and Civil Society. Rosser, Gervase. 2015. The Art of Solidarity in the Middle Ages: Guilds in England 2015-1550. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Rossi Ino, John Buettner-Janush and Dorian Coppenhaver (ed.). 1977. Anthropology Full Circle. New York: Praeger. Rossi, Ino (ed.). 1982. Structural Sociology. New York: Columbia University Press. Rossi, Ino (ed.). 1987. People in Culture: A Survey of Cultural Anthropology. New York: Praeger Publishers. Rossi, Ino. 2011. Modernity confronts Capitalism: From a Moral Framework to a Countercultural Critique to a Human-centered Political Economy. ProtoSociology: An International Journal of Interdisciplinary Research 27: 37–52. Sahlins, Marshall. 2003. Stone Age Economics, 2nd ed. Routledge. Sahlins, Marshall. 1996. How “Natives” Think: About Captain Cook. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Sapir, Eduard. 1924. Culture, Genuine and Spurious. American Journal of Sociology 29: 401–429. Siedentop, Larry. 2014. Inventing the Individual: The Origins of Western Liberalism. Cambridge, Mas: Belknap Press. Skocpol, Theda. 2015/1979. States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia, and China. Cambridge, UK: University of Cambridge Press. Slotte, Pamela, and Miia Halme-Tuomisaari, eds. 2015. Revisiting the Origins of Human Rights. Cambridge University Press. Smith, Adam. 2016/1759. Theory of Moral Sentiments. Create Space Independent Publishing Platform. Taylor, Jacqueline. 2014. Morale sense and moral sentiment. In The Routledge Companion to Eighteen Century Philosophy, ed. by Aaron Garrett, Chap. 18. New York: Routledge. Vasak, K. 1984. Pour une troisième generation des droits de l’homme. In Studies and Essays on International Humanitarian Law and Red Cross Principles, ed. C. Swinarski. Springer. World Value Surveys. 2019. Findings and Insights; Catalogue of Findings. WVS Association. Vienna. http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/WVSContents.jsp?CMSID=Findings. Accessed 14 July 2019. Zagorin, Perez. 2009. Hobbes and the Law of Nature. Princeton University Press. Zeidan, Adam. 2019. “Natural Law”, Encyclopedia Britannica Online https://www.britannica.com/ topic/natural-law. Accessed 27 July 2019.

Ino Rossi was a chairman of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Saint John’s University and has published extensively in the fields of Cultural Anthropology, Sociological Theory, Disaster Studies and Globalization. Some of his works are listed at the end of this Introduction and the Conclusion of the book.

Part I

GLOBALIZATION AS A FIELD OF STUDY: CONCEPTUALIZING AND EXPLORING GLOBALIZATION

Introduction Roland Robertson’s (1992) definition of globalization is still central in the academic discourse as various essays of this book show. It occurs to me that Robertson’s definition of globalization can be interpreted as an extension of the principles of integration and individuation that I have discussed in the introduction to this volume and which will be shown in the conclusion to be the core mechanism of a world order inspired by an inter-civilizational perspective. In the essay for this volume (Chap. 2), Robertson reiterates the 1992 definition of “globalization” as connoting two interrelated facts: (a) a de facto connectivity of social events and concrete social situations which amount to “a compression of the world” or a simultaneity of news and events constraining groups and individuals in interaction; this is the objective and behavioral component of globalization, so to speak and (b) a concomitant “intensification of consciousness of the world as a single whole” or “global consciousness.” Global consciousness represents a progression from Durkheim’s collective conscience and indicates the fact that people take the entire world as the domain of self-reflexivity. In a recent email, Roland Robertson has stated that we should avoid “making the same mistake as those who think of globalization as merely involving increasing connectivity, or what some call interdependence. This mistake is what I (along with Manfred Steger and Paul James) call the cult of connectivity. When speaking of the global whole I am going ‘well beyond’ Planet Earth. In other words, I am thinking of imaginaries, myths, heavens, and so on. This means that consciousness is not simply consciousness of connectivity, it is relatively autonomous. This is a chicken and egg problem and we simply must give equal emphasis to both sides.” As I interpret this statement, global consciousness entails a self-reflective reaction to both global connectivity and global conflicts through glocal processes of adaptation, transformation, and innovation. The selfreflective reaction to global connectivity (social integration and/or conflict) generates the process of individuation because the individual develops his/her own full potential only in social interaction by multiple role-playing and by becoming aware of being a crucial agent at the individual, group, national, and world system’s levels

22

Part I: GLOBALIZATION AS A FIELD OF STUDY: …

of functioning. In this sense, the “social” constitutes the individual and vice versa the individual constitutes the social. By the same token, we can conclude that the dialectic interface of individuation and social integration or the lack of it is the core mechanism of the nature and functioning of simple as well as complex societies. Such a dialectic interpretation of the mutual constitutiveness of the individual and the social is consistent with the notion that the “local” is a crucial component of globalization since the local is constituted via the self-reflective reaction to global connectivity. “It is the local that enables the global to work, and globalization can spread only because it is Glocalized,” Robertson states. Hence, the term “glocalization” “is a synthesis of the local and global”—a dynamic synthesis, of course, because of the crucial role of the self-reflecting individual and the ensuing heterogeneity of the global through processes of accommodation, hybridization and transformation. By the same token, we have the particularization of universalism with the “glocal” and the related universalization of the particular with the “global.” Digital technology has been the crucially intervening variable which has accelerated and intensified global connectivity over spatial and temporal barriers either through the medium of technical images or through computerized media. The media impact occurs also in the process of self-reflectivity and individuation so that the study of mediatized culture is a necessary extension of the analysis of glocalizaton. York Kautt’s essay (Chap. 4) discusses forms of mediatized culture and metaculture produced by the mediation of communication media to which I revert in the first part of the book’s conclusion entitled “Toward an Extended of Novel Paradigm?” I shall analyze there whether the analytical tools developed to explain the digital mediation of global processes amount to an extension of the traditional globalization paradigm and/or, perhaps, suggest the need of developing a new one. The outcomes of mediatized glocal processes accrue to a complex global culture as well as to global socio-economic and political systems, which are the focus of the remaining essay of the first part of the volume. Jonathan Friedman (Chap. 3) considers the global system not as the outcome of an evolutionary process which has been accruing with continuity throughout the course of world history. Rather globalization is conceptualized as a conjunctural phenomenon which occurs each time an hegemonic system declines; then, economic accumulation decreases and the capital is exported to a rising hegemons elsewhere. Friedman extends his analysis to the cultural correlates of the economic and political decline, namely, to the disintegration of cultural hierarchies and related indigenization of minorities and the rising of populist movements. It is Stichweh’s contention (Chap. 6), on the contrary, that we can construct a theory of world society through the process of an over-encompassing and continuous process of socio-cultural evolution. Specific societies are formed through the process of socio-cultural evolution which entails differentiation of functions, emerging eigenstructures, and societal transformations. Jonathan Turner (Chap. 7) proposes to replace the present emphasis of globalization theorizing on geo-economics with geo-politics, thus explaining the future of globalization in terms of increasing conflicts among the powers of the Northern hemisphere over resources and hegemony. He expects the same to hold true for

Part I: GLOBALIZATION AS A FIELD OF STUDY: …

23

the Global South. After reviewing Spencerian and other theories of inter-societal dynamics, Turner discusses variations and instability of geo-political formations and conditions of their mobilization to end up with a systematic theory of inter-societal relations consisting of a set of logically interrelated and predictive propositions and sub-propositions. Leslie Sklair (Chap. 5) offers another competitor to the idea of globalization as he proposes to replace the notions of generic, capitalist, and alternative globalization with the notions of generic, capitalist, and alternative Anthropocene. Sklair discusses the origin and development of the idea of the Anthropocene which focuses on the issue of whether Planet Earth is sustainable under the impact of the capitalist system. He argues that we must engage with the de-growth movement and develop small and democratically organized communities, which are more sustainable and compatible with a long-term survival of our planet. Robertson also touches on the ideas of the Anthropocene and cosmic society (on the later, see Tepper’s essay at the end of this volume, Chap. 56), which he finds to be extensions of the notion of globalization as they relativize the Planet Earth. Needlessly to say, the perspectives of geo-politics, cosmic society, and Anthropocene rely on the expertise of various disciplines, including natural sciences. No surprise than to see Robertson invoking the need for transdisciplinarity, which Manfred Steger echoes with the call for a “transdisciplinary imperative.” Steger envisions transdisciplinarity as a globalizing of the research imagination with the potential of reconfiguring the research project across social sciences and humanities, and by now I am sure he has caught up with natural sciences also. Taking off from the global studies framework, Steger “imaginatively” weaves through the “interdisciplinary,” “multidisciplinary,” and “transdisciplinary” conundrums. Finally, he critically examines some leading transdisciplinary attempts at globalization and ends recommending some prescriptions for a truly imaginative transdisciplinary research. The latter in Steger’s view is in dire need for transdisciplinarians who prove to be “intrepid maverick,” “radical insurgent,” and “tireless nomads.” It is up to the reader to assess the value of the transdisciplinary imagination discussed in the first part of the book’s conclusion, a propos of an extended or a novel globalization paradigm.

Reference Robertson, R. (1992) Globalization: Social theory and Global Culture, London: SAGE.

Chapter 2

The Glocal Turn Roland Robertson

Abstract Here, it is argued that the present state of globalization analysis is increasingly marked by its glocal turn. The chapter begins with a brief summary of the author’s past, most relevant, writings and an indication of the most striking aspects of the present global condition, including a glance at extra-global phenomena. It is emphasized that attention has been paid most frequently in discussions of the global circumstance to connectivity at the expense of, or relative to, global culture and consciousness. This contention is driven by the thesis that much of the intellectual work on globalization stemmed from work in the area of religious studies. This characteristic has been greatly neglected at the expense of concern with economic considerations. The central theme of this chapter is the claim that glocalization, as opposed to globalization, has been the hallmark of all global change and that globalization is a self-undoing process.

Before addressing directly the theme indicated above, I should outline my work on globalization, global studies, and international relations in the last 50 or more years. My concerns in this area were first embryonically developed in terms of international relations—more specifically the relationship between the attributes of individual national societies, on the one hand, and relations between and among the latter (e.g., Robertson 1976). This focus in and of itself did not directly confront the global, although it had a strong relevance to the latter. My first explicit publications on the issue of globalization, as well as globality, were first mainly published in a series of articles in the journal, Theory, Culture & Society in the 1980s (Robertson 1990). These were brought to a kind of fruition in my Globalization: Social Theory and Global Culture (Robertson 1992) and it is necessary here to provide a brief summary of the contents of the latter, as well as an indication of the work that I have done since that time. See also Robertson and Chirico (1985). R. Robertson (B) University of Pittsburgh, 6 Homeway Rd, Evington, Leicester LEF 5RG, USA e-mail: [email protected] University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, UK © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 I. Rossi (ed.), Challenges of Globalization and Prospects for an Inter-civilizational World Order, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44058-9_2

25

26

R. Robertson

Perhaps the most crucial point to make about my work from the early 1990s onwards was my insistence on the proposition that globalization is basically multidimensional. This characteristic contrasted greatly with the very strong practice then of speaking of globalization in a unidimensional, and more or less purely economic manner. Moreover, in spite of this absolutely crucial feature of my 1992 book, the fact of the matter is that throughout the 1990s and the early 2000s the major emphasis in a number of disciplines in the focus upon globalization continued to be economistic and overwhelmingly continues to be so to the present day. However, as will be seen, this concept has quite recently acquired a very negative view in certain quarters. Much of my thinking during the 1990s through the early 2000s is conveyed directly or indirectly in Robertson and White (2003a, b). See also Robertson and Scholte (2006). It is against this background that I should now present here the basic elements of my own conception of globalization in this period. As I have already said, the basic feature of my thinking was the multidimensionality of globalization. The second major element was my insistence that globalization was and had been a very long process. This feature of my work in this area was fairly frequently said by critics to be short term. On the contrary, I have always insisted that globalization, including what one might call protoglobalization, is and has been a very long process (cf. Robertson 2012, 2019a). Third, I regarded and still conceive of globalization in a fourfold form. I characterized the form as comprising of the global field. The latter consists of the following components: national societies; the world system of societies; individual selves; and humankind. Over time the relationships between these components have changed considerably and in very complex patterns. Put another way, each of these components have been subject to processes of relativization, a concept which needs some elaboration. When we speak of relativization we are referring to the process or processes involved in a phenomenon being contextualized by other phenomena. This means that there is an inbuilt instability involved in global change. A shift in one or more of the components will involve shifts in the rest and, at least in principle, this continuing trend is never-ending. Overall, the conception of globalization that I specified hinged upon the notions of global consciousness, on the one hand, and global connectivity, on the other. This relationship between consciousness and connectivity has pervaded my work for approximately 30 years or more and stands in great contrast to many, if not all, characterizations of both globalization and a condition that we may call globality. It will be seen in what follows that glocalization has been steadily introduced to this general field of intellectual endeavor. I claim that glocalization and closely related themes largely overcome the misleading nature of characterizing globalization as involving increasing connectivity only. In the present intervention I deal with what has more than occasionally been called the global turn, although what has been said thus far indicates much of what has been involved in this trend. In so doing I will look backward, in the sense of considering circumstances that have led up to the so-called modern period in a global respect; while I will look forward in the sense of advocating what could well be called a fully

2 The Glocal Turn

27

glocal turn. Specifically, I will elaborate a relatively new approach to what might generally be called the global scene. In addition, I will from time to time consider extra-terrestrial matters. Although I will not interrogate the latter in any significant way, they will nonetheless form an important background to the presentation of my thoughts. One additional preliminary note: During the past few years, particularly since the prominence of the not unrelated phenomena of BREXIT and Trumpism; the increasing power and influence of China; the pandemonium in the Middle East; the present turbulence in Venezuela and contiguous regions; not to speak of the geopolitical confusion in Africa; a very negative ideology, in connection with global matters, has arisen in many parts of the world. In addition, there is an increasing threat of nuclear confrontation, notably involving Russia and the USA; not to speak of the obvious and worldwide “problems” of climate change. At this point it is very relevant to make a careful distinction between “global” and “worldwide.” Much of this extensive uncertainty has been characterized by the use of the term populism, although this designation is not infrequently disputed and, in any case, is now the subject of increasing worldwide debate. The evidence for a generalized, quotidian opposition to the global, combined with the rise of worldwide nationalism, is overwhelming and this rise of anti-global, more specifically antiglobalization sentiment, is a strong undercurrent in what follows. And it should be readily acknowledged that this anti-globalism, combined with a more or less worldwide nationalism, severely undermines, or at least demands, serious revision of what has, until recently, been thought of as the theme of globalization. Indeed, this combination of nationalism and anti-globalism may well be the best and most parsimonious definition of populism that we have. With increasing intensity social scientific, particularly sociological, geographical, and anthropological, interest in and focus upon the global has been increasing exponentially since the 1960s. Although for much of this period “global” was conflated or confused with “international.” In fact, this confusion prevails to a large extent up to the present time. In any case, one might add that this conflation has been to a large extent paralleled by developments within the discipline of history. In fact, there is now much overlap between sociologists and historians in this regard. The sharp take-off with respect to the use of globalization as a concept, as well as associated themes, began in earnest in the early 1990s with the publication of Globalization: Social Theory and Global Culture (Robertson 1990, 1992). However, Charles McCoy had previously invoked the concept of globalization in his book, When Gods Change: Hope for Theology (1980). In spite of its significance in using the word “globalization,” McCoy’s book does not delve into the meaning of this concept. In fact, it would not be too much to say that it has little or no conceptual status in his work (cf. James 2019). Nonetheless, the invocation of McCoy’s treatise facilitates the mention of the considerable prominence and significance of the issue of religion in much of the early work on globalization. This is to be seen, in particular, in the work of Robertson (1992) and Peter Beyer (1994) although the academic concern with globality and religion had been well underway by the late 1980s. In fact, the significance of what is now called global studies was highly evident in

28

R. Robertson

the field of religious studies during that period. Of particular prominence was the attention being given in the late 1980s to liberation theology, particularly, but not only, in Latin America. In any case, the penetration of religious studies as an academic specialization by global concerns was becoming very prominent as, for example, in the work of Max Stackhouse (see Stackhouse 2000). The early 1990s was a period when the highly influential contributions of books, chapters, and articles by such people as Robertson himself, Beyer, Ulf Hannerz (e.g., 1996), Martin Albrow (e.g., 1996), John Tomlinson (e.g., 1991), Arjun Appadurai (e.g., 1990), and yet others were published. One should add, at this point, that much of what was previously studied under the rubric of globalization is now increasingly presented under the heading of global studies (Steger and Wahlrab 2014; Robertson 2016a; Juergensmeyer et al. 2019; cf. Cohen and Kennedy 2013). An important point to be made at this stage is a denial of what has been called the cult of connectivity (Robertson 2011; James and Steger 2014). For far too long the global has been equated “merely” with increasing interconnectedness—or connectivity—to the great neglect of ideational factors. In other words, it is argued here that globalization includes increasing consciousness of the world as a whole, as well as connectivity. I am referring here to what may simply be called the global or, indeed, the cosmic. This strong commitment to inclusion of the ideational must be carefully borne in mind in what follows. Ideational includes such notions as the imaginary and contextual culture; highlighting the significance of the imaginary being a central theme in the work of Manfred Steger (e.g., Steger 2008; Steger and Wahlrab 2014). It is very relevant here to emphasize how much of the work on globalization has been centered upon such notions as connectivity and interconnectedness, including ideas concerning networks (cf. Holton 2008; Urry 2003; McNeill and McNeill 2003; Freeman 2004) almost entirely to the neglect of consciousness. There is a somewhat disturbing tendency to think of the study of the global as of fairly recent origin, some academics thinking of it as having come into prominence as late as the early 2000s! The fact of the matter is that, slowly but surely, through much of the twentieth century, the global focus and the term “global” became increasingly prominent, “globalization” making it into Webster’s Dictionary in 1961. However, it must be emphasized that it had been more than occasionally used at least a hundred years before that. It gained strong purchase in the disciplines of sociology, business studies, anthropology, and geography in the late 1980s and early 1990s. As I have already stated, the intellectual concern with globalization and the global generally first made its most definite appearance in the work of students of American religion. Thus, it is more than worth pointing out that it is almost certainly the case that the emphasis upon the centrality of global matters was emphasized very strongly in the study of religion well before it became prominent in the disciplines of sociology, geography, anthropology, and business studies. The principal reason for the neglect of theologians and historians of religion with respect to what we may now call the global turn has much to do with the relative marginality of religion in the academy as a whole. It also has much to do with the long-term “atheism” of many academics, particularly social scientists. The very unfortunate peripherality of religion as an

2 The Glocal Turn

29

academic focus, outwith the study of religion per se, largely explains the serious inattention to religion in sociology. The present author was one of the leading participants in the introduction of global work to the study of religion. It may be worth mentioning that when I spoke of globalization in the British context, specifically in the sociology of religion section of the British Sociological Association in the early 1990s, I was more or less ridiculed; although, ironically, it was around the same time that I became associated—as a founding member—with the journal, Theory, Culture & Society. Moreover, it was in this context that I first developed my influential ideas on globalization and related topics. One might well add to this some prominent features of religion in the large. The most significant of these include the considerable rise in ecumenicism from the late nineteenth century onward, not to speak of the importance of evangelicalism and proselytization in different parts of the world. In other words, there is an important sense in which the study of religion—more accurately the history and anthropology of religion—was well ahead of most other disciplines with respect to what we would now call globalization. In addition, one could also say that, in adopting this tack, students of religion hit upon the theme of what we would now call glocalization, the latter involving the “synthesis” of the global and the local. After all, this invocation of evangelizing and proselyitizing is essential to the study of the world as a whole and therefore has much to do with the issue of globalization and glocalization (Coustenis and Encrenaz 2013). The present chapter centers in large part on the argument that the master concept with respect to many of the features of the contemporary study of globalization is in fact glocalization (e.g., Robertson 1992, 1993b, 1994, 1995a, 2014). The latter term has been slow in coming into prominence but by now is more or less widely accepted as an indispensable analytic term; in spite of it having often been ridiculed. The rationale for theses concerning glocalization, specifically the relationship between the global and the local, had become a major problematic in the study of globalization by the mid-1990s. The relationship between homogeneity and heterogeneity, as well as the relationship between universalism and particularism, constituted parallel antinomies or binaries. Moreover, the relationship between comparative social science and global social science was found to be of similar complexity. An example of the latter is to be found in the piece by Byron Fox entitled “The Emerging International Sociology” (in Horowitz 1964). In his otherwise adventurous chapter, at least for his time, Fox elides the pursuit of comparative work with efforts which involve transcending what he calls parochialism and nationalism. Before proceeding, however, we should again consider the historical and genealogical background to the general subject of the global. Academic and intellectual interest in the global can be traced to three particular sources. The first of these is the topic of civilizations and their comparison. The second is what came to be known as world systems; for some academics the singular world system. The third is the topic of global or world history. Each of these can be seen to be heavily related to the others (Sanderson 1995), although special concern with the world system in the singular is of the more recent origin. The distinction between the plural and

30

R. Robertson

singular versions will not detain us here however. Clearly the study of civilization in a general perspective has been closely linked for most of the present era to the study of world, sometimes called, global history (Conrad 2016). Moreover, the study of civilization(s) has frequently these days come to be known as civilizational analysis. Much of the latter came about through the pioneering work of Benjamin Nelson, particularly in the 1960s and 1970s (Huff 1981). In Nelson’s work the study of civilization(s)—or civilizational analysis—was frequently elaborated so as to encompass civilizational complexes and inter-civilizational encounters. Nelson had a number of colleagues who were instrumental in (re)founding The International Society for the Comparative Study of Civilizations (US). Much of the work of this group traced its origins to the classical contributions of Oswald Spengler and Arnold Toynbee (Robertson 1992: 150–156). In fact, during the 1990s the debate concerning the connection between globalization and the world system(s), as well as conceptions of civilization, was of considerable significance; and many of those who were interested in these topics helped enormously to bring the subject of the global into academic view, without specifically using the term “global.” This cluster of topics was addressed by such authors as those represented in the book edited by Anthony King, entitled Culture, Globalization and the WorldSystem (1991). Moreover, it was also during the 1990s that globality as well as the global became increasingly prominent, most noticeably in the work of Robertson (e.g., Robertson 1993a). During the same period the great debate began concerning Samuel Huntington’s highly controversial pieces on what he called the clash of civilizations (Huntington 1993, 1996). I would argue that even though the topic of the global, or globalization, was not directly central to the debate about Huntington’s work, the latter most certainly contributed in a highly significant way to the ongoing crystallization of global concerns. This interest in civilizations, within the context of discussions of world politics or international relations, was of great significance since it opened the way to the global, that is, beyond the purely nation-centered theme of the international. In fact, it is one of the central themes of the global/glocal turn. The issues of migration and immigration with their attendant cultural clashes, or at least problematics, are at the very center of world politics in general. Moreover, these matters have become increasingly significant in the first decades of the twenty-first century and at this time of writing threaten to become crucial in the very future of the world. The general, overriding argument in the present paper is that the overcoming of the global–local problem is to be found in the thorough interrogation of the themes of glocalism, glocality, and glocalization; the relationship of the latter to globalization; as well as the globalization and glocalization of social science. Although it is being given little attention here, one should also mention briefly at this point the increasing significance of cosmology (structure of the cosmos) notably as it has a bearing on the study of the global (Dickens and Ormrod 2007). The latter’s study of “cosmic society” is primarily concerned with space travel and the colonization of space. This, I argue, is a somewhat restricted view of this concept. It surely should encompass more religious or quasi-religious issues (Robertson 2016c) these having to do with the notion of cosmogony, that is, the creation of the cosmos.

2 The Glocal Turn

31

These kinds of issues, as expressed by Dickens and Ormrod, are innovatively dealt with in Life Beyond Earth by Coustenis and Encrenaz (2013). Also of considerable importance is the increasing interest in creation myths as well as science fiction (Evans 2014). In fact, the conflation of a variety of disciplines is one of the hallmarks of the present study of life—and not just on earth. Moreover, this conflation has much to do with what is nowadays called decolonization (Jansen and Osterhammel 2017) and what, in this chapter, includes the project of transdisciplinarity. All in all, these themes, taken together, point to the ongoing mixture of heretofore separate disciplines and world views. Another perspective that is a rival to—or better, relativizes—the global is that of the anthropocene (Davies 2016; Dalby 2019). The anthropocene is basically a geological concept, one that has been deployed in recognition of the damaging impact on the planet of human activity. In fact, the damaging effect of human activity is the present major focus of students of the anthropocene. This appears to clash with the idea of the cosmic society—at least as it has been described by Dickens and Ormrod (2007), since the latter is much more optimistic. The conceptions expressed by Dickens and Ormrod are largely optimistic since they celebrate, for the most part, the future of space exploration. In any case, both prognoses concerning the anthropocene and the cosmic society clearly extend, to put it mildly, the whole idea of globalization. As has been remarked, the crucial point here is the relativization of planet Earth. One should also note, more importantly, that history as a discipline is being tremendously influenced by the global approach, including some glocal moves. (It is more than important here to state that in this presentation the word global is often used in such a way as to encompass the glocal.) As has also been said, another basic ingredient of the present contribution is the emphasis upon transdisciplinarity—a focus that I have been advocating for many years (e.g., Robertson 1996a). This concept is very different from the much-used notion of interdisciplinarity that in effect if, unintentionally, indirectly “celebrates” disciplines. In fact, the study of globalization and related issues is best called transdisciplinary since the study of the global, and indeed the extra-global, literally transcends, goes beyond, what is normally studied by conventionally recognized disciplines. This is the most appropriate point at which to indicate what has become something of a territorial problem in the study of the global. This concerns the insistence by some historians who claim to be more global than the average student of the global. The best way to illustrate this issue is by invoking the words of an advocate of global history—namely John Darwin (in Belich et al. 2016: 178): “The naivety with which prognostications” concerning most conceptions of what Darwin not unproblematically calls a “globalized” world were largely due to “the absence of any historical dimension to the ways in which globalization was conceived. In our crudely ahistorical culture, globalization had no past—and we lacked any perspective in which to locate our current, but all too transient situation.” Obviously, Darwin’s insistence upon the ahistorical nature of globalization studies is well off the mark, although other contributors to the book in which his comment appears are much more

32

R. Robertson

in line with the real situation. In any case, much of the preceding interventions in this chapter center upon the long duree nature of globalization, as well as glocalization. Let us now turn much more directly, if only briefly, to the issue of glocalism, more specifically, methodological glocalism. Insofar as one can trace the origin of the term glocalization, it can be seen that it almost certainly relates to the Japanese word, dochakuka (cf. Tulloch 1991). This term almost literally basically means “to indigenize.” In other words, the thesis implied therein is that nothing can be done more than once in the same way and nothing can be done in the same way by two or more people. In fact, this kind of circumstance has occurred very frequently in many forms of social analyses although outwith the Japanese context. In the case of the concept of globalization, it can be found that there are a variety of meanings of this concept: words make worlds and worlds make words (Robertson 1996b; Gluck and Tsing 2009). It is in this way that it can be seen that there are a variety of uses of the actual term globalization and the use of the concept of glocalization enables us to see how glocalization has spread. In fact, it can be seen that the spread—or flow—of globalization and the global approach generally had inevitably involved glocalization (cf. Robertson and White 2003). Put another way, the spread of globalization as a term or idea can only be explained with respect to its having been glocalized. The concern with the issue of localization began to gain steam toward the end of the twentieth century, even though ideas such as those composed in the highly influential book Small is Beautiful (Schumacher 1973), had much influence well before this. In any case the idea of protecting the local by global means (Mander and Goldsmith 1996; Hines 2000) became particularly evident at the time of the massive protests in Seattle against the World Trade Organization (WTO). In fact, these demonstrations that took place in Seattle in 1999 constituted the beginning of what has often subsequently been called globalization from below. The very idea that the local has to be promoted or protected in a global manner in and of itself demonstrates the need for the conception of the theme of glocalization (cf. Sassen 2019). In a recently published article Victor Roudometof (2018) claims that the local has to be given its due, as if there had been little discussion of the local before this. However, it should be clear by now that the local has had longstanding stature in social science generally and thus it seems gratuitous to speak of a move from glocalization to localization. Such an observation or claim runs against the grain. For, ironically, sociology has long been accused of being too parochial and to that degree it is seemingly unnecessary to argue in favor of localization—at least in the West. Roudometof maintains that in writings of globalization “the inscription of the local as a secondary or derivative only becomes important in terms of its relationship to the global.” However, I would argue that the opposite is the case (cf. Roudometof 2016, 2019b; also Khondker 2019). In fact, much of what has been said in earlier parts of this chapter demonstrates this. In particular, I would draw attention to my statements concerning what I have called the global field, for the latter includes the individual self (or the local) as a crucial component of the overall process of globalization. The crucial dynamic link between what we have usually called the local and the global can be expressed as follows. Insofar as “items” flow from one “place” to

2 The Glocal Turn

33

another it is obvious that conditions must obtain in the latter that facilitate reception of the former. It so happens that this kind of thinking first originated most explicitly in work in American rural sociology where a particular concern was with how innovations spread (Robertson 2006). I have attempted in my own work to connect the local and the global by stating that the latter is “self-undoing.” By this I mean that globalization per se cannot continue ad infinitum. Every global move involves a shift from one locale to another locale. My main argument here is that this way of thinking should inform all of our analyses of what we have up to now called globalization. I argue that this is a particularly parsimonious manner of dealing with the kind of issue which has plagued much of the analysis of globalization and, indeed, overcomes much of the negativity involved in the use of the term globalization. We have witnessed over many years the concurrence of homogenization and heterogenization as well as the particularization of universalism and the universalization of particularism. Put simply, globalization, far from standardizing everything, actually encourages diversification. My own conception of glocalization surely catches these antinomies rather neatly. To put this another way, it is the local that enables the global to work. Although the term glocal and related concepts largely arose explicitly in the early 1990s, for the most part this development occurred within the much more widespread discourse of globalization. Generally speaking, the latter notion encapsulated such phenomena as marketization, free trade, and deregulation, while it was also linked, at least for a while, with the idea of the Third Way. In fact, the latter concept was prominent in the policies of left-center academics and politicians of the 1990s. In any case, for many intellectuals and politicians in the 1990s globalization largely centered upon economic processes. Unfortunately, in recent years, particularly since the rise of BREXIT and Trumpism, globalization has come to convey almost solely economic, negative processes, namely economic changes that have strong cultural consequences. In other words, from having been in the 1990s largely a multidimensional conception, with little ideological significance, it has become a highly ideological, polemical term. For many, even in the 1990s, globalization had as its central theme the idea of economic change, and it should be noted that even in a purely economic sense the cultural element was strongly evident. This is to be seen particularly with respect to the advertising and consumerist aspects of the latter. In light of the above, it is blatantly obvious that glocalization has strong cultural connotations as well as political and social ones. Specifically, taken very seriously, glocalization is a term that runs against the grain of the economic–political reductionism largely conveyed by present, controversial connotations of globalization. Insofar as globalization has acquired a cultural content it surely, and only superficially, conveys a sense of homogenization. Close interrogation of this problematic suggests that it, in fact, more than facilitates heterogeneity. Even more specifically, difference sells and, needless to, say glocalization produces difference in and of itself (cf. Brubaker 2017).

34

R. Robertson

At this point it might well be stated that a recent but nonetheless major participant in the general debate about glocalization has been George Ritzer. In his early publications on McDonaldization (e.g., Ritzer 2004), however, he never mentioned the words globalization or glocalization at all. The insertion of the name Ritzer into the glocalization debate is, it should be stressed, largely but not only due to the arguments presented in the book published recently by Victor Roudometof (2016). This cannot be the place for a thorough critique of Roudometof’s work on glocalization. What is important to note here is his portrayal of Ritzer’s conception of glocalization and his comparison of this with that of Robertson, as if they were clear-cut rivals. A crucial fact is that Ritzer only developed his idea of grobalization from 2003 onwards in an apparently direct response to Robertson’s idea of glocalization in an article in Sociological Theory (Ritzer 2003).

Conclusion As has been specified before, much of my concern with the concept of glocalization developed out of my reading about and visits to Japan and also the publications of the geographer (Swyngedouw 1992). Upon a visit to Japan in the early 2000s, I purchased, at what was then Narita airport, a copy of The Japan Times and was surprised to see on the front page an article announcing that a new word had arrived in Japan. This word was glocalization! Obviously, this word had traveled around much of the world, having started in Japan itself as dochakuka, as previously mentioned (Robertson 1992; Swyngedouw 1992). The announcement implied that this word would facilitate the defense of Japanese culture. It might be said in this respect that occasionally anthropologists have spoken of strategic essentialism—meaning making the claim to authenticity for mainly strategic reasons. The strategic use of the local in relation to the global is, however, one of the ways in which the glocal comes into play. There are other uses of the local in relation to the global. Among these are various aspects of comparative analysis. One among many others is the manner in which the issue of time has been glocally treated (Ogle 2015; cf. Robertson 2019b). It is worth saying here that Ogle herself does not mention the word glocal as such, but her book is certainly about this theme. It is extremely important in the present context because it rests on the argument that “time is what made the global imagination possible in the first place. Time was ubiquitous: in the second half of the nineteenth century, time became an object of display and inquiry in a staggeringly wide range of fields” (Ogle 2015: 7). In fact, Ogle’s entire book is about the intersection, or the interpenetration, of the local and the global, even though she rests most of her case linguistically on the latter. She insists throughout her work that the nation—as indicated by time zones and calendars—is globally situated and positioned in historical time. It is very important to state that hers is among many books published in recent years along the same lines; although hers is particularly outstanding. And all of it without even mentioning such words as glocal or glocalization. This comment is not by any means a criticism. It simply illustrates

2 The Glocal Turn

35

how what I call glocal analysis is rapidly becoming the methodology of our time. Moreover, it may well be that much of social science—and indeed all sciences and arts—can and should be recast in terms of glocalization and/or associated concepts (e.g., Wulff 1998). In light of the foregoing, a particularly important addendum is necessary. This concerns matters extra-terrestrial and draws upon much of that which has been written in recent years in the area of cosmology in the most general sense. As so-called globalization proceeds, even though the meaning of this word has become increasingly fuzzy, it has more or less exponentially “extended” to a domain beyond planet earth. This process has become extremely striking since the Apollo 8 spacecraft rounded the dark side of the moon for the fourth time 50 years ago. During this overall period planet earth has become increasingly relativized, not merely through science per se, but also via science fiction and other genres of imagination. Although this tack is not pursued here, it has become more and more obvious that earthly matters are, in a sense, coming to a kind of end. Such a consideration is surely coming to play a crucial part in what has until recently been called global studies. In other words, the latter term must now embrace matters and issues well beyond the planet upon which we dwell. To bring this back to the issue of glocalization, we can see that the proliferation of possibilities for the viewing of and thinking about planet earth increasingly multiplies and therefore our conceptions of the world are more and more glocalized (indeed, in a sense, localized).

References Albrow, M. 1996. The Global Age: State and Society Beyond Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press. Appadurai, A. 1990. Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy. In Global Culture: Nationalism, Globalization and Modernity, ed. M. Featherstone, 295–310. London: Sage. Belich, J., J. Darwin, M. Frenz, and C. Wickham. 2016. The Prospect of Global History. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Beyer, P. 1994. Religion and Globalization. London: Sage. Brubaker, R. 2017. Grounds for Difference. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Cohen, R., and P. Kennedy. 2013. Global Sociology. New York: New York University Press. Conrad, S. 2016. What is Global History?. Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press. Coustenis, A., and T. Encrenaz. 2013. Life Beyond Earth: The Search for Habitable Worlds in the Universe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dalby, S. 2019. The Anthropocene Thesis. In The Oxford Handbook of Global Studies, ed. M. Juergensmeyer, S. Sassen, and M.B. Steger, 173–187. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Davies, J. 2016. The Birth of the Anthropocene. Berkeley: University of California Press. Dickens, P., and J.S. Ormrod. 2007. Cosmic Society: Towards a Sociology of the Universe. London: Routledge. Evans, G.R. 2014. First Light: A History of Creation Myths from Gilgamesh to the God Particle. London: I.B. Taurus. Freeman, L. 2004. The Development of Social Network Analysis: A Study in the Sociology of Science. Vancouver: Empirical Press. Gluck, C., and L.A. Tsing. 2009. Words in Motion: Toward a Global Lexicon. Durham NC: Duke University Press.

36

R. Robertson

Hannerz, U. 1996. Transnational Connections: Culture, People and Places. London: Routledge. Hines, C. 2000. Localization: A Global Manifesto. London: Earthscan. Holton, R.J. 2008. Global Networks. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Horowitz, I.L. (ed.). 1964. The New Sociology: Essays in Social Science and Social Theory in Honor of C. Wright Mills. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Huff, T.E. (ed.). 1981. On the Roads to Modernity: Conscience, Science and Civilizations, Selected Writings by Benjamin Nelson. Totowa: Roman and Littlefield. Huntington, S. 1993. The Clash of Civilizations. Foreign Affairs 72 (3): 22–49. Huntington, S. 1996. The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. New York: Simon and Schuster. James, P. 2019. Major Figures in the Field of Global Studies. In The Oxford Handbook of Global Studies, ed. M. Juergensmeyer, S. Sassen, and M.B. Steger, 51–70. New York: Oxford University Press. James, P., and M.B. Steger. 2014. A Genealogy of ‘Globalization’: The Career of a Concept. Globalizations 11 (4): 417–434. Jansen, J.C., and J. Osterhammel. 2017. Decolonization: A Short History. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press. Juergensmeyer, M., S. Sassen, and M.B. Steger. 2019. The Oxford Handbook of Global Studies. New York: Oxford University Press. King, A.D. (ed.). 1991. Culture, Globalization and the World-System: Contemporary Conditions for the Representation of Identity. London: Macmillan. Khondker, H.H. 2019. Glocalization. In The Oxford Handbook of Global Studies, ed. M. Juergensmeyer, S. Sassen, and M.B. Steger, 93–112. New York: Oxford University Press. McNeill, J.R., and W.H. McNeill. 2003. The Human Web: A Bird’s Eye View of World History. New York: W. W. Norton. Mander, J., and E. Goldsmith (eds.). 1996. The Case Against the Global Economy: And for a Turn Toward the Local. San Francisco: Sierra Club. McCoy, C.S. 1980. When Gods Change: Hope for Theology. Nashville: Abbingdon. Moore, W.E. 1966. Global Sociology: The World as a Singular System. American Journal of Sociology 71 (5). Ogle, V. 2015. The Global Transformation of Time. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Ritzer, G. 2003. Rethinking Globalization: Glocalization/Grobalization and Something/ Nothing. Sociological Theory 21 (3): 193–209. Ritzer, G. 2004. The McDonaldization of Society: Revised New Century Edition. London: Sage. Robertson, R. 1976. Societal Attributes and International Relations. In Explorations in General Theory in Social Science, ed. J. Loubser, J. J, et al. (1977), 713–735. New York: The Free Press. Robertson, R. 1990. Mapping the Global Condition: Globalization as the Central Concept. In Global Culture, Nationalism, Globalization and Modernity, ed. M. Featherstone, 15–30. London: Sage. Robertson, R. 1992. Globalization: Social Theory and Global Culture. London: Sage. Robertson, R. 1993a. Community, Society, Globality and the Category of Religion. In Secularization, Rationalism and Sectarianism: Essays in Honour of Bryan R. Wilson, ed. E. Barker, J.A. Beckford, and K. Dobbelaere, 1–17. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Robertson, R. 1993b. Globaliseringens problem. GRUS [Denmark] December, 6–31. Robertson, R. 1994. Globalisation or Glocalisation? Journal of International Communication 1: 33–52. Robertson, R. 1995a. Glocalization: Time-space and Homogeneity-Heterogeneity. In Global Modernities, ed. M. Featherstone, S. Lash, and R. Robertson, 25–44. London: Sage. Robertson, R. 1995b. Theory, Specificity, Change: Emulation, Selective Incorporation and Modernization. In Social Change and Modernization: Lessons from Eastern Europe, ed. B. Grancelli, 213–231. Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter. Robertson, R. 1996a. Globality, Globalization and Transdisciplinarity. Theory, Culture and Society 13 (4): 127–132.

2 The Glocal Turn

37

Robertson, R. 1996b. The Theory and the Discourses of Globalization. Kyoto Journal of Sociology 4 December: 233–250. Robertson, R. 2006. “Glocalization” Encyclopedia of Globalization, 2 vols. New York: Routledge. Robertson, R. 2011. Global Connectivity and Global Consciousness. American Behavioral Scientist 55 (10): 1336–1345. Robertson, R. 2012. Global Studies, Early Academic Approaches. In Encyclopedia of Global Studies, ed. H.K. Anheier and M. Juergensmeyer, 741–743. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Robertson, R. 2014. Situating Glocalization: A Relatively Autobiographical Intervention. In Global Themes and Local Variations in Organization and Management: Perspectives on Glocalization, ed. G.S. Drori, M.A. Hollerer, and P. Wagenbach, 25–36. New York: Routledge. Robertson, R. 2016a. Considerations on Global Studies. In The Art and Science of Sociology: Essays in Honor of Edward A. Tiryakian, ed. R. Robertson and J. Simpson, 117–130. London: Anthem Press. Robertson, R. 2016b. Apocalyptic Global Consciousness: Relativizing Planet Earth. In Globalization of Culture: European and Global Networks, ed. V. Jerbic, A. Milodarvic, and H. Spehar, 72–82. Zagreb: Faculty of Political Science, University of Zagreb. Robertson, R. 2016c. Glocality: Transcending the Modernity-tradition binary. In Die Zwischengesellschaft: Aufbruche zwischen Tradition und Moderne?, ed. C.Y. Robertson-von Trotha, 23–30. Auflage: Nomos. Robertson, R. 2019a. Historical Antecedents of the Field. In The Oxford Handbook of Global Studies, ed. M. Juergensmeyer, S. Sassen, and M.B. Steger, 37–50. New York: Oxford University Press. Robertson, R. 2019b. Glocalization. In The International Encyclopedia of Anthropology, ed. H. Callan. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, forthcoming. Robertson, R., and J. Chirico. 1985. Humanity, Globalization and Worldwide Religious Resurgence: A Theoretical Exploration. Sociological Analysis 46 (3): 219–242. Robertson, R., and K.E. White. 2003a. Globalization: Critical Concepts in Sociology, 6 vols. London: Routledge. Robertson, R., and K.E. White. 2003b. Globalization: Sociology and Cross-Disciplinarity. In The Sage Handbook of Sociology, ed. C. Calhoun, C. Rojek, and B. Turner, 345–366. London: Sage. Robertson, R., and J.A. Scholte (eds.). 2006. Encyclopedia of Globalization, 4 vols. New York: Routledge. Roudometof, V. 2016. Glocalization: A Critical Introduction. London: Routledge. Roudometof, V. 2018. Recovering the Local: From Glocalization to Localization. Current Sociology, November: 1—17. Sanderson, S.K. (ed.). 1995. Civilizations and World Systems: Studying World-Historical Change. London: Sage. Sassen, S. 2019. Researching the Localization of the Global. In The Oxford Handbook of Global Studies, ed. M. Juergensmeyer, S. Sassen, and M.B. Steger, 73–92. New York: Oxford University Press. Schumacher, E.F. 1973. Small is Beautiful. London: Blond and Briggs. Stackhouse, M. L. with P.J. Paris. 2000. God and Globalization, 4 vols. Harrisburg: Trinity Press International. Steger, M.B. 2008. The Rise of the Global Imaginary: Political Ideologies from the French Revolution to the Global War on Terror. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Steger, M.B. 2017. Globalization: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Steger, M.B., and P. James. 2015. Globalization: The Career of a Concept. London: Routledge. Steger, M.B., and W. Wahlrab. 2014. What is Global Studies: Theory and Practice. London: Routledge. Swyngedouw, E. 1992. The Mammon Quest ‘Glocalization’, Interspatial Competition and the Monetary Order: The Construction of New Scales. In Cities and Regions in the New Europe: The Global-Local Interplay and Spatial Development Strategies, ed. M. Dunford and G. Kafkaris, 39–67. New York: Wiley.

38

R. Robertson

Tomlinson, J. 1991. Cultural Imperialism: A Critical Introduction. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Tulloch, S. (compiler). 1991. Oxford Dictionary of New Words. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Urry, J. 2003. Global Complexity. Cambridge: Polity Press. Wulff, H. 1998. Ballet across Borders: Career and Culture in the World of Dancers. Oxford, UK: Berg.

Roland Robertson is a Distinguished Service Professor of Sociology Emeritus, University of Pittsburgh, USA, and Emeritus Professor of Sociology and Global Society, University of Aberdeen, UK. His publications include The Sociological Interpretation of Religion (1970), Globalization: Social Theory and Global Culture (1992), and Globalization and Football (2009). He has held numerous visiting positions around the world. His work has been translated into approximately 20 languages.

Chapter 3

Global Systemic Anthropology and the Analysis of Globalization Jonathan Friedman

Abstract This chapter outlines the basic arguments for a global systemic anthropology as it has developed since the late 1970s. These include the fundamental notions that social process can best be understood in terms of the larger context of reproduction within which they occur, that world history does not consist of an evolution from primitive to civilized to modern, nor from more local to more global orders. The development of the first so-called civilizations is very much about the emergence of large-scale imperial systems in which accumulation of wealth has been a central dynamic. The dynamics of such systems, which can be called “global systems” has been more or less stable throughout the past three thousand years. The cultural correlates of such systems include the formation and disintegration of cultural hierarchies and evolutionary representations, assimilation of minorities in periods of expansion, and an inverse process of cultural and political separation and autonomization in periods of decline. I have already reflected upon the origins of the project of a global systemic anthropology in the chapter published in the 2007 edition of this book (Friedman 2007). That chapter detailed the history of an approach to the global that began as a necessity due to the failure to account for crucial phenomena within the model of a closed society. It linked notions such as Lévi-Strauss’ atom of kinship with the contemporary global system in an attempt to discover the basic logical parameters of an explanatory account of the functioning of social life. This was grounded in the notion of social reproduction, the conditions in which social orders are reproduced and which are always larger in context than the societies themselves. So, what was true of the elementary structure of kinship was true of the entirety of human social formations. This was not to equate all social orders to one another but, of course, to point out a specific property of social reproduction, that is, dependence on external conditions. Thus, a kin unit such as the nuclear family was understood by Lévi-Strauss to be part of a network of relations in which marriage outside of the unit, exogamy, was J. Friedman (B) University of California San Diego and Directeur d’Etudes Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris, France e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 I. Rossi (ed.), Challenges of Globalization and Prospects for an Inter-civilizational World Order, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44058-9_3

39

40

J. Friedman

crucial and which defined a larger network in which the kin unit could only be reproduced within the larger network. This dependency defines further a larger world of relations of alliance and politics which are constituents of the world of kinship. The reproductive matrix is a general or even universal aspect of human social existence and the one that leads to the larger systems, which are the focus of research on global systems. The early development of this approach was very much a critique and falsification of the then dominant notions of closed systems of local development (Ekholm 1975, 1976a, b, 1977a, b, 1980; Ekholm and Friedman 1979, 1980). The falsification process was in large part the result of ethnographic encounters by Ekholm Friedman in Madagascar in the 1970s where it became clear that no understanding of local societies was possible here without taking the history of relations in the Indian Ocean into consideration the activities of Arabs, and Europeans in the area over half a millennium. While the global approach was rejected in the 1970s by most anthropologists, there was a more general tendency in the social sciences, ancient history, and history toward an approach that we might call global systemic (Wallerstein 1974). Wallerstein’s “world system” approach was very much based on European history beginning in the fifteenth century. Before that there were only empires. The global systemic approach stresses, on the contrary, the continuity of global systems from the first “civilizations” until today, an approach which was also taken up by Frank (1978) and others. The continuity consists in the strong similarity in historical terms among empires and global systemic relations even if the actual extent of global itself might vary in geographical terms. The similarity refers to the internal logics and mechanisms, relations between forms of wealth and accumulation, forms of governance and power, and cultural representations and practices. More recent accounts of the global have absorbed much of the anti-structuralist bias that emerged in the 1980s and 1990s and which is quite dominant in contemporary forms of post-colonial discourse. Much emphasis has been placed on the need to deconstruct what is seen as colonial, white, and male bias in the very categories of analysis. Latour (2005) and others have launched a broad attack on notions of systematicity and structure which have been replaced by terms such as “actor networks” (Latour 2005) and “assemblage” inspired by Deleuze and Guattari (1980). The notion of “global assemblages” (Ong and Collier 2005) was introduced more recently to re-interpret global processual phenomena in a non-structural way by emphasizing the heterogeneous nature of the different domains or objects involved, for example, scientific knowledge and ethical norms. Interestingly enough, the source of this approach is the mathematical notion of “dynamical systems” (Wiggins 2003) which also dates from the 1970s and 1980s and which seems to be related to other approaches to the understanding of dynamics such as catastrophe theory (Thom 1989) and Prigoine et al.’s studies of non-equilibrium physical phenomena (Nicolis and Prigogine 1977). The latter were concerned with the nature of phenomena assumed to be random! What might seem to be a structured phenomenon could be re-interpreted as a product of a temporary stability rather than a permanent form. This very important understanding, however, is quite different than that used in discussions of assemblages in the social sciences. For example, we have argued that the rise of indigenous movements in the 1970s and 1980s is part of a process of global systemic change

3 Global Systemic Anthropology and the Analysis of Globalization

41

characterized by declining hegemony of former European and American powers. Populations that were formerly marginalized or even strongly assimilated began to assert their particular identities in North America, South America, and the Pacific at the same time as Europe saw the rise of regional cultural movements, and immigration began to become an assertive minority politics. This was not just a bunch of disparate happenings, but a systemic process. The problem here is that the goal of dynamical systems theory is precisely to reveal the properties, that is, structure of dynamical processes. Assemblage approaches such as actor network theory (Latour 2005) stress, on the contrary, the unpredictability or non-systemic character of social phenomena, reducing the so-called “complexity” to a situation in which explanatory models are replaced by relational descriptions. There are complex networks of relations but no models of their dynamics, how they come to be, and how they disappear or transform. On the contrary, the global systemic approach is specifically aimed at the explanation of complex global phenomena by demonstrating their systemic nature, that is the way in which such temporally defined processes self-organize and self-transform over time. Thus, when it is proclaimed that “An assemblage is the product of multiple determinations that are not reducible to a single logic” (Ong and Collier 2005: 12), one might rightfully ask what the meaning of “single logic” might be. This lack of clarity is amplified by stressing that the term global assemblage “suggests inherent tensions: global implies broadly encompassing, seamless and mobile; assemblage implies heterogeneous, contingent, unstable, partial and situated” (p. 12). This seems to permit the analysis of heterogeneous, that is specific and delimited phenomena without worrying about how it all hangs together. It suggests that there is a network of interconnected phenomena out there, but they are very complex and everchanging so that nothing systematic can be said to link them. For a global processual analysis, connection is not sufficient. Rather what is needed is an understanding of the nature of the connections, that is, their properties and the properties of their dynamics. Thus, globalization is not a product, the possibilities offered by new technologies, not a mere happening. It is the result of a certain logic that occurs in particular conditions that are historically generated as we try to demonstrate in the next section of this chapter. We do not try to define it as such since it is not a single phenomenon. The export of capital and the global spread of Coke or McDonalds are not the same type of phenomena even if they are often intertwined (i.e., in order to increase consumption of a product in another country one may have to produce in that country as well). We also need to distinguish between the movement of things and the issue of cultural diffusion. I discuss this below in relation to the history of pasta. Colonialism entails migration, capital export and what appears as cultural diffusion. The problem with the latter concept is that it reifies culture. Coke might move as a product but its cultural meaning depends on the meanings attributed to it in the host country. And colonialism, associated with expanding hegemony, is not the same kind of phenomenon as the export of capital accumulation in periods of hegemonic decline. As I highlight below, there is no contradiction between a global approach and the necessity of understanding the specifics of local, of institutional, symbolic, ideological, material-physical, phenomena. On the contrary, my approach assumes that the global systemic is in itself an articulation of such phenomena, which also has a logic of its own that is properly global. The rational capitalist actor who decides to move

42

J. Friedman

his production from the West to China is not acting randomly, and the effects of his actions for his surroundings are part of a contextual logic one that accounts for his rational action as well as the results of his export of capital. The de-industrialization of a wealthy hegemonic center is about the gradient of profit within the larger world. The very existence of relative wealth is the source of eventual decline, which is also the simultaneous development of new hegemonic centers. As the process of hegemonic decline progresses, those actors who remain tend to lose their faith in the future, on “progress,” and in the centrality of the center. They may seek other solutions that are religious, ethnic, and most often cultural in nature. There is also a tendency for increasing impoverishment among those who have little access to global capital, while those who do may become increasingly satisfied with their global existences, that is having property in other places. Courtaulds, the renowned textile family company in Britain, in the period of British imperial expansion produced textile in Britain, but by the second part of the twentieth century they moved most of their production to East Asia, and when the government sought to curb this process, the family moved as well. These issues are explored later. What is important to grasp here is that there are logics of global processes that occur in local situations and all situations are local in human terms. Even in the airplanes, the global headquarters of transnational firms, the “refugee” boats cross the Mediterranean. Even internet is local in terms of the communication process, just as much as a telephone. It consists not in globalizing the interlocutor but in localizing the global. Action is based on local intentionality, but the conditions of that intentionality exist in a broader reality that includes the global. The global systemic approach is about trying to explain the processes that generate what can be called global assemblages rather than merely describing them.

Globalization and Global Systems The prevailing discourse on globalization emerged in the 1980s in parallel fashion in the social sciences and in cultural studies where, in the latter, it took the form of “post-colonial studies.” It has been generally treated in quasi-evolutionary terms, as something that has happened quite recently, although the actual starting date varies from the end of the nineteenth century to as late as the 1960s (e.g., Robertson, Hannerz, Appadurai). The 1970s is the period when the global perspective took hold in academia, in a number of fields such as cultural geography (e.g., global shift (Dicken 2015)), economics in the late 1970s and 1980s where the notion of world division of labor became a central research issue (Fröbel et al. 1980)1 to more spectacular business economics concepts such as “global reach” (Porter 1990; Ohmae 1990). In the 1980s, it became popular to herald the end of the nation-state as the globalization of capital became increasingly evident. There was what might 1 The

work on the new global division of labor and global shift documented the decentralization of capital accumulation and the movement of investment to new geographical areas. It is quite unlike the anthropological literature on globalization and closer to a global systemic perspective.

3 Global Systemic Anthropology and the Analysis of Globalization

43

be described as a shift in consciousness in the 1980s that was widespread, a feeling that we were entering a new world of reality, the global. From a global systemic perspective, this shift was very much an ideological change within a changing elite. Proclamations that the world is now one place, that there is a world culture, and that the global is somehow above the local are expressions, in our approach, of the changing position of formerly more nationalized elites, their social mobility and cosmopolitanization (Friedman 2002, 2012). In contrast to globalization discourse, global systemic analysis, which includes a large range of research that links historians such as Braudel (1979) with Wallerstein’s (1974) world systems, Frank’s (1978) global accumulation and imperialism theory, Arrighi’s world historical systems, and our own global systemic anthropology, is based on the following hypotheses: 1. The global refers to the total social field within which social orders are reproduced and transformed over time. 2. As a structural concept the reproductive field itself can be of varying size, from a set of kin groups to the entire world. The nature of the processes and social orders with such fields is also variable, from kinship orders to capitalist world systems and empires. 3. The global system that we have dealt with as such is primarily the one that emerged with the first civilizations, marked by capitalist dynamics, class structures, imperialism that have characterized the past 3000 years of history. 4. Global systems are characterized by the formation of imperial centers and peripheries, and dynamics of expansion and contraction in which old centers are ultimately replaced by new in different geographical regions, often former semi-peripheral zones. 5. Globalization is a process that occurs within global systems and corresponds to periods of hegemonic decline when capital moves out of the center and the larger hierarchical imperial order decentralizes, increasing competition and warfare and ultimately the emergence of new hegemonic powers. In the period of decline there is both globalization of wealth and large-scale displacement and migration of people, usually from former peripheries to former centers. As the latter have no integrative dynamics, there is no integration of such populations but rather an enclavization and ethnicization that harbor its own conflicts. Globalization is neither new nor an evolutionary phenomenon, as in from local to global (Robertson 1992; Scholte 2000) and implicit in the works of Appadurai (1996) and Hannerz (1993) as well as the majority of those who make use of the term). This is not to deny that there is a general evolution of global systems related to technological evolution, which is not, of course, a continuous process but based on quite sudden developments. The contemporary global system is more or less coterminous with the entire world, and global systems have in general tended to become larger in scope, even if they maintain the same fundamental properties. Globalization is, as described above, a conjunctural phenomenon (see Fig. 1) which occurs within global systems as an effect of declining hegemony, decentralization of accumulation, and the export of capital to new rising hegemons. Technology may, as always, affect

44

J. Friedman

Fig. 1 Global systemic cycles and globalization. Source Friedman (2005): 96

Transfer of capital (globalization)

the speed and intensity of the process, just as it affects the periodicity of cycles of expansion and contraction, but it does not change its fundamental character. The logic linking global systems to globalization can be sketched as follows: 1. Initial expansion by a state within a pre-existing global system or co-extensively with the formation of the latter. Warfare usually plays a crucial role in this initial process as a major form of “primitive” accumulation of wealth initiating the following processes. 2. The formation of a hegemonic economic position, in which a center becomes a “workshop of the world,” producing a large percentage, even a majority, of the final consumption goods of the larger world. 3. Accumulation of wealth leads to increasing costs of reproduction in the hegemonic center since a wealthier population is always more expensive to maintain. This is the result of the translation of increased wealth into higher standards of living, higher levels of consumption. 4. As a result of the process outlined in the above Sect. (3), the center becomes relatively more expensive to reproduce than other regions of the system. 5. This leads to a gradual process of capital export (which takes many different forms) to areas that are more profitable for investment A. In this phase capital (accumulated wealth) cannot profitably be invested in local production, so it shifts to a combination of export of productive capital and investment in luxury consumption and a variety of forms of fictitious accumulation at home that tend to proliferate exponentially via a chain of packaging, securitization, and sale that lead ultimately to the emergence of hedge funds and derivatives referred to nowadays as casino capitalism and by extension to phenomena of the Madoff type. B. The above process (A) is equivalent to a broadly described shift from industrial to financial dominance in the accumulation process. C. This process entails, as a regional phenomenon in the old core, the double polarization discussed below in which there is a simultaneously growing

3 Global Systemic Anthropology and the Analysis of Globalization

45

conflict among cultural and ethnicized identities and between upwardly mobile elite factions and downwardly mobile middle and lower classes. 6. The center loses its productive activities to other areas of the world but at the same time it becomes a major consumer (based on credit) of the products of its own exported capital. This is the era of financial bubbles often based on the translation of previously gained class power into disastrous strategies of consumption based on the diminishing wealth producing base of the national economy. 7. New centers emerge, with former recipients of capital investment from the now declining center which becomes a major global debtor after having been the major global source of credit (Braudel’s thesis of the autumn of hegemony). Steps 4–7 correspond to the period of “globalization.” Now this is a specific use of the term and is clearly distinct from expansive periods of colonization and empire formation in which there is also capital export, but where the latter is primarily for the extraction of raw materials rather than the development of competing industrial activities. If we are to use the same term it is important to distinguish what are in fact very different conditions and processes. Thus, while there is plenty of cultural diffusion in periods of expansion, the globalization that is referred to in contemporary discussions is typical of hegemonic decline. These are related to the globalization of Western culture that is consumed by rising middle classes in other parts of the world very much linked to technologies that are replicated globally, but also to large-scale immigration in conditions where integrative processes are weak, for example, the expansion of Islam in Europe, the formation of ethnic enclaves in the West. Figure 1 represents the relation between expansion, decline, and globalization in economic terms, in which new centers replace old until the gradual expansion of the entire system leads to over-intensification and a more general global systemic crisis characterized by the depletion of resources, ecological crisis, and increasing competitive violence which is represented in the larger overarching curve. Such declines are associated with major collapses, dark ages, and technological regressions and have occurred repeatedly throughout history. The most well-known of these is the simultaneous collapse at the end of the Bronze Age in the Aegean, Egypt, and the Middle East, and the decline of the Roman imperial order.

Ethnography and the Global System There are numerous empirical aspects of global systems that can be captured in statistics, institutional descriptions, and, most importantly for anthropology, in ethnography. It is the latter that enables us to see the relation between global processes and everyday existence. There are two very different approaches to ethnography that are rarely discussed because they are not usually made explicit. The first and most innocent is a combination of direct observation of activities and objective interviews of the type: “How do you do X?” “Whom do you marry?”, “What do you believe”?. The second one explicitly aims to be phenomenological in approach which implies exploring the experience and intentionality of other people and to link the existential

46

J. Friedman

to forms of objectification and action. It is often the case that the two approaches are combined, sometimes unwittingly, but in our understanding, it is the latter that ought to be dominant in organizing ethnographic enquiry. The most famous forerunner of this approach was Paul Radin in his critique on the first-generation Boasian anthropology (1987). In my approach, culture is not a substance in the sense of having an autonomous status; it is an aspect of lived reality and should not be reified as it has occurred in much of the post-colonial globalizing literature. In the latter, culture flows, mixes, hybridizes, and does things that it didn’t use to do when it was more bounded in an imaginary past, and when the world was a cultural mosaic. Culture is elevated here to the status of a subject or actor whose ability to act is nothing short of magical.2 This is no mere error in anthropological thinking. It is a pervasive reality of anthropological practice, of a world of assumptions concerning the nature of the world itself. While there is a history of asking the people on study about their rules, attributed meanings, and moral principles, anthropologists were always aware of the whole breadth of human experience. But in the 1970s the culture concept tended to be reduced to set of discrete and relative texts (Geertz 1973) that eliminated the experiential within ethnography.3 Radin’s critique is an expression of that which was very much marginalized in the foundation of the subject, the notion that anthropology was about lived existence rather than its more tangible products, that is, rules and objects. All of those aspects of life that have been reduced to “culture” harbor the risk of taking the life out of anthropology. It is, of course, true that cultural things are much easier to study than life itself, the life within which such cultural things take on existential meaning, but this challenge remains central to any self-respecting anthropology. There have, of course, been important developments in what might be called an anthropology of experience (Kapferer 1997; Csordas 1994; Strauss and Quinn 1994). Even LéviStrauss, usually associated with extreme objectivism, had much of importance to say about lived experience. In La Pensée Sauvage, he demonstrated the way in which totemic categories encompassed as well as expressed the specific personalities of individuals via the “totemic operator” that translated individual characteristics into social-cosmic species in ways that preserved individual characteristics while incorporating specificity into seemingly fixed cultural categories. The characteristics of the individual’s life, his personality, his exploits, and his physical appearance could be rendered meaningful with respect to the more encompassing categories of the group. While this is certainly not a phenomenological analysis, it is an attempt to gain an understanding of a structure of a specific kind of social experience. For Lévi-Strauss, structure is never to be understood as an abstract reality but as the organization of 2 Attributing

the capacity for action to culture is a serious error of misplaced concreteness and misplaced intentionality in which culture is understood as a subject, an actor that organizes behavior, that transforms itself over time. This is common in cultural deterministic schemes that have prevailed in anthropology for decades. The power of culture is always and everywhere the power of actors that possess culture. This, in the most elementary terms, is what socialization is all about. 3 Geertz insisted on the notion of “reading” culture as a text and each text was quite specific and different from all others.

3 Global Systemic Anthropology and the Analysis of Globalization

47

the properties of concrete lived praxis which is always the fundamental object of understanding (Lévi-Strauss 1962: 173). Ethnography in the global context is not simply a question of expanding the horizons of the anthropological gaze. It requires, from our point of view, a reorientation that in itself has nothing to do with the global but with the general perspective of field research. This is particularly important because there is a tendency that we noted for globalizing anthropology to distance itself increasingly from the question of social existence and to transform the field into a collector’s art, local, global, and hybrid objects, defined and interpreted without any input from those “observed.” The fact of multisitedness, which has been much discussed in the past few decades, has been around for a long time but with no title of its own. It is a logical outcome of a perspective that takes into consideration a particular locale that does not contain all that is necessary for its understanding. But this should not be confused with the way in which culture is actually generated. Boas understood this when he claimed that the sources of culture are very much external, but culture is what one makes of the sources. I have used pasta to make my argument before. Its history is truly global to varying degrees, depending on one’s perspective. The early notion that Marco Polo brought it back from China was popular for some time until a more nationalist Lega Nord version made the claim that pasta has always been local to Italy and then the most recent archeological discussions that locate its origins in North Africa (La Cecla 2007). But this is entirely irrelevant for the Italians who make it and consume it in their particular ways. This is just as true of pasta’s voyage to the United States in the early years of the twentieth century where it was established as typical Italian (Italians’ staple was not for the most part pasta but polenta in spite of Garibaldi’s attempt to introduce pasta as a national dish), and then brought back by returning immigrants. It is only then that it became widespread and “quintessentially Italian.” So does this mean that pasta is a global product? Perhaps for observers, but not for local producers and consumers for whom it is just ordinary food. Culture as practiced and lived is always localized to the populations who perform it. All the rest is about third-party observers, museums, and other “collectors.” Culture is also often objectified by populations that live it in the form of ritual and symbolism that can be passed on to new generations, but it is important to maintain the distinction between objectified and live aspects of culture. Mannheim (1982) distinguished between what he called conjunctive and communicative knowledge. The former is grounded in the implicit, often sign-based relations of understanding that occur within social groups, the latter is abstract and universalized from the communities that generate them. Such knowledge is also that which exists external to lived experience, such as knowledge of the structures of global process and even social institutions. An anthropology of global process is one that deal with the entire gamut of relations, from global political to social structural to forms of lived experience. The understanding of the latter is in this approach achievable by contextualizing it within the “higher” order processes that form its conditions of existence. The examples offered throughout this chapter highlight that set of articulations.

48

J. Friedman

Global Systems and Globalization We have, hopefully, made it clear that globalization is not equivalent to global systems. We argued that globalization itself is a historically specific phenomenon generated within global systems and that this should help us in understanding the current state of the world. This should be clear from the gross misunderstandings of the world embodied in statements of anthropological globalists such as the following: “Diffusionism, whatever its defects and in whatever guise, has at least the virtue of allowing everyone the possibility of exposure to a world larger than their current locale” (Appadurai 1988: 39). Diffusionism is one of the key terms that was reborn in globalist ideology, as exemplified by the works of Appadurai, who holds the quite unsophisticated notion that culture moves because it is embodied in objects, symbols, and peoples. On the contrary, the meaning of on object is specific to the people who use the object in a given cultural area (A) and can only be reproduced (not diffused) in another area (B) if there are people attributing to that object the same meaning as in area (A). The argument that it opens up our perspective to the larger world is not really the same as the global systemic perspective which is in no way normative, as if being global were somehow morally superior. Yes, of course, there is a larger world out there but the concept of diffusion is not what it’s all about. The past three decades have not seen the world reach a new unity, although its elites may have begun to do so. On the contrary, the tendency has been to fragmentation, especially cultura–lsocial fragmentation.

Global Systemic and Cultural Processes For several decades we have argued for a model in which global systemic processes can be understood in terms of cycles of expansion and contraction in which there are inverted cultural process of integration into larger units followed by fragmentation and conflict, or “horizontal polarization” (Friedman 1994). This is quite different than the usual understanding of globalization as a universal evolutionary process. What began as a hypothesis (see Fig. 2a) has been a subject of substantial research since the 1980s, which has documented the validity of that hypothesis. The figure represents the inverse relation between social and cultural integration and cycles of hegemony or what some would call civilization. The latter refers to a global systemic organization into hegemonic centers and dependent peripheries in which the centers are associated with complex social orders, developed technologies of production and peripheries are relatively underdeveloped supply zones as well as markets for manufactured goods from the centers. Centers in this model do not develop based on internal resources but as a result of imperial expansion. This expansion includes access to the larger foreign markets, to foreign resources, and

3 Global Systemic Anthropology and the Analysis of Globalization

49

Fig. 2 a Hegemonic versus cultural cycles. Source Friedman (1992), repr. 1994, b XXX. Source Based on Friedman (1992)

foreign labor. Hegemony refers to control over the larger system and implies political integration of the center. In the expansion phase smaller dominated units have their identities repressed or dissolved, just as minorities within the center. The term “homogeny” refers to the process whereby former cultural identities are integrated, either by ranking, or assimilation, into the center’s cultural identity. In periods of hegemonic or imperial expansion there is a strong tendency to sociocultural integration as a political economic process, that is, division of labor, hierarchical ordering, and so on. The graphic above was developed at first to account for “modern” societies in transformation. In terms of cultural identity, the lower curve, there is first local cultural resistance to the expanding new order, then the decline of cultural identities as populations are integrated into the rising hegemonic regime. This most often takes the form of assimilation, that is, “peasants into Frenchmen,” the disappearance of local dialects increasing individualization accompanying the commercialization process. In the following period of declining hegemony, old and even new identities re-appear and appear along with the increasing turn to “roots”

50

J. Friedman

tradition and so on. In the pre-nation-state eras this took the form of strong hierarchization among ethnic or other culturally defined groups. In the nation-state it takes the form of homogenization or assimilation to a single cultural model or related models. The use of the word “homogeny” is partly a play on words meant to reflect the parallel cultural result of political-economic hegemony. As mentioned above, in the pre-nation state orders there is not homogeny but cultural hierarchy. However, even here, the hierarchy is integrated into a ranked totality which can take the form of caste like orders or ethnic divisions of labor or divisions of social functions. In periods of declining hegemony integration becomes more difficult and a social and cultural fragmentation sets in. In the case of the modern nation-state there has been a rise of cultural identities as well as cultural politics, a return to traditions, all of which coincides with the post-modern turn and then the post-colonial turn in which the hegemon is blamed for suppressing “the other.” This all began in the West in the late 1980s with the rise of minority politics, indigenous movements, and regional movements (especially in Europe).4 Immigration which increased from the beginning of the breakdown of Western hegemony became ethnicized, and politicized as well. Class politics declined as a combined result of de-industrialization and neo-liberal politics. This shift is what has been referred to as horizontal polarization. The latter refers to the effects of increasing cultural identity politics that emerge in this period where modernism is on the decline and there is a re-identification with roots, tradition, religions, all of which can be designated as cultural as opposed to social, that is, positional, class, and the like. In Europe, class politics is eclipsed by cultural politics beginning in the 1970s as has been documented by the works of Touraine (1969), Wiewiorka (1996), and Friedman (1994), and the rise of culturally based movements, like ethnic, racial, religious, and indigenous, as well as sexual politics are clear evidence of this shift. In our research on Hawaii, I applied Fig. 2b to the history of Hawaiian cultural identity in which the population becomes integrated into Western hegemony in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries during which the population was culturally repressed and socially marginalized within the US political and economic order introducing a break. This was followed, beginning in the 1970s, by a renaissance of Hawaiian cultural identity and politics in a period of US hegemonic decline. The terms in black represent the general cyclical relations. The terms in red refer to specific historical events and processes that are expressive of the cycles. They refer to both political-economic and cultural cycles. I could have included the forced “assimilation” of Hawaiians via the suppression of their language and culture in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The fragmentation that occurs in periods of decline is what we call horizontal polarization in which there are increasing conflicts among ethnic, religious, and 4 In

Europe, from the late 1970s, the Breton movement and the Occitanists, in France, the socalled “breakup” of Britain (Nairn 1977) with regionalist movements in Scotland, Wales, and even Cornwall, the rise to power of the Sami movement in Norway and Sweden, and proliferation of ethnic immigrant movements, all followed by the emergence of nationalist movements in many parts of Europe. In the United States, Black power is followed by Red power and the mobilization of American indigenous groups, the Hawaiian sovereignty movement, just to name a few.

3 Global Systemic Anthropology and the Analysis of Globalization

51

other cultural identities within a weakening nation-state, and where even national identity is increasingly ethnicized. But there is also a vertical polarization, including the rise of new financial-based classes, the increasing flow of financial resources to sports, the “culture industries” and political elites. The latter have a cultural identity of their own, or at least a cultural project which is identified in terms of globalization itself, the formation of a single word of hybridized cultures where the nation-state is now dealt with as a representative of reaction, racism and even Nazism. This is a major ideological transformation as well, which is epitomized in contemporary post-colonial representations of the world in which globalization is seen as a positive future of world unity. At the same time, as these new cultural–political-economic elites redefine the world in globalist terms, rustbelts emerge on an increasingly larger scale, leading to an impoverishment of a former working class and a rising politics of resistance, against immigration, and against multiculturalism which is interpreted as an elite project, and against the capitalist as well as the political classes. This increase of Gini indexes, that is, the wealth differentiation between upper and lower classes, generates a new “populism” which has become a major issue by the end of the 2010s, worrying academic liberal elites as well as political classes. The polarization is expressed in the categorization by elites of declining lower classes as “red-necks” and fascists and not merely “populists,” while the latter categorize the elites as globalists who don’t give a damn about the “people”; the core of populism is neither left nor right or both, just as the political rulers have tended to go “purple,” that is, fusion of left and right, as we discuss below. Double polarization refers to the combination of the horizontal fragmentation and vertical differentiation and opposition that characterize hegemonic decline. The following section explores the mechanisms involved in this transformation.

Neo-Liberalism as a Specific Historical Conjuncture Just as globalization, neo-liberalism can be understood as a cover term for a set of transformations in governance that accompany declining hegemony. There is a logical relation between globalization and the complex of processes referred to as neo-liberalism. The transition from Fordism to flexible accumulation (Harvey 1989; Duménil and Lévy 2011a, b) is the expression of the declining profitability of vertically organized (Fordist) capitalist production, one that is constituted in the period of expansion which led in classical analyses to modern corporate capitalism, sometimes referred to as monopoly capitalism. The Fordist model is one in which the chain of production leading from raw material extraction to the final product tends to be incorporated within the same hierarchical corporate structure. This is replaced by a double process of contraction of formerly productive units into financial hubs surrounded by a slew of competing flexible (replaceable) sub-contractors and a diversification into activities that need not have anything to do with the original productive activity (real estate: hotels, golf courses, casinos; derivative markets etc., from General Electric to GE Money). Finance is thus freed up from the production process and such periods

52

J. Friedman

are, as a result, also periods of massive expansion of finance capital relative to industrial capital. Flexible accumulation also implies flexible labor which is likewise hired on short term and uncertain contracts in the wake of the gradual dissolution of labor unions. The establishment of the conditions of decentralized flexibility requires state intervention, essentially a question of the active dismantling of the former Keynesian controls. Thus, the neo-liberalism in this is the change in the political/legal rules, that is, de-regulation, or rather re-regulation, of the economic process. And this refers to the political framework of economic activity rather than the activity itself. The government establishes the conditions of liberalization, privatization of state sectors, and so on, but this should not be conflated with post-Fordism as an organizational phenomenon. The fragmentation of accumulation and the subsequent global networking of the fragments has nothing directly to do with the re-liberalization of economic rules (see Duménil and Lévy 2004, 2011a), but the two processes articulate into the larger reality referred to by the term “neo-liberalism” primarily for historical reasons, if not structural necessity.5 They form a particularly powerful historical conjuncture. The proportional increase in the power of finance capital is a periodic phenomenon in the long cycles of capitalist accumulation, the latter referring to what can be understood as hegemonic cycles. Thus, the turn of the nineteenth century was the era of Hilferding’s Finanzkapital (1981) but it was not an era of neo-liberalism since up to the Great Depression the world was liberalized. There was of course a tendency toward centralization and monopolization of capital itself during the period, one that became a permanent fixture of modern capitalism, but this was perfectly compatible with a “deregulated economy.” The runaway features that led to the depression in this model were not the result of de-regulation as such although hindsight would have us believe that Keynes could have stopped it. In the Keynesian model there are cycles of expansion and contraction in which contraction is compensated by declining wages and layoffs that make new investment profitable. It is the latter that doesn’t occur, because of strong unions; hence the state must intervene with countercyclical measures, such as public spending, that save the market from collapse. The depression could have been avoided by massive state investment. But the real dynamic, and larger systemic contradiction was, as suggested above, the increasing divergence of fictitious and real accumulation and the latter was triggered by the global systemic configuration that can be called the changing gradient of profit. Following the model suggested above, the rise of any hegemonic center increases its trade surplus as well as increasing wealth levels that leads to internal class conflict and re-distribution of income, which in turn is translated into social costs of production. The center thus capitalizes itself out of its formerly competitive position and capital moves to more lucrative areas unless this can be checked by political means. That portion of capital that does not move is invested in the non-productive sectors where money can be readily turned directly into more money, thus creating the bubble phenomenon. 5 The liberalism of the 19th and early 20th centuries is just as “neo-liberal” as that of the 21st, and it

occurs with or without salient tendencies to flexibilization, which was of course prominent before the success of the union movements.

3 Global Systemic Anthropology and the Analysis of Globalization

53

Figure 3 describes the historical connection between two kinds of crisis. The first resulted from the long-term tendency to declining profitability of capital accumulation in imperial centers which leads to shifts to financial as opposed to industrial growth and the export of industrial capital. This process led to a larger financial crisis which is in fact a crisis of hegemony itself in which economic and political power becomes significantly challenged by rising new powers. The crisis of the end of the nineteenth century accompanied the massive export of British capital (to the USA, Russia, and even Argentina) and the transition from world’s workshop to world’s banker. The crisis related to the crash of 1929 marked the end of British-dominated world market and the shift of power to the USA. London still has the world’s sixth largest stock market, but its percentage of world production has plummeted over the past century and is only 2% today, compared to upcoming China’s 20%. This kind of historical process is documented in the work of Arrighi (1994) on the “long twentieth century” and that of Duménil and Lévy (2011a, b) on capitalist crises. The USA, somewhat like China today, rapidly became one among, and then the major industrial power from the end of the nineteenth to the twentieth century, accounting for 40% of

Fig. 3 Historical logic of two kinds of crisis. Source Friedman (2014): 57

54

J. Friedman

world production in the 1920s although still somewhat isolated politically. The USA remained “an insular giant… weakly integrated into the world economy.” Its financial system “could not have produced the necessary international liquidity… through a credit-providing network of banks and markets…. London had lost its gold, but its markets remained the most important single centre for global commercial and financial intermediation” (Ingham 1994 cited in Arrighi 1999: 233). However even the political shift from England to the United States is evident in the changing power relations of intermarried elites within the “Anglo-American Establishment” (Quigley 1981). The so-called shift from industrial to finance capitalism is the logical consequence of the historical superiority of the center, and its displacement is expressive of the decline itself. Thus, there is a temporal logic connecting hegemony to massive capital export to financialization and speculation. This is also a process in which production in the center becomes increasingly uncompetitive and is replaced by imports from cheaper industrializing areas that are themselves organized in regulated, centralized and variants of Fordist structures. The flexibilization of central economies, just as their neo-liberalization is a product of this pressure that leads to declining profit levels. Flexibility and de-regulation are ways to counteract this downward trend, by separating financial hubs from decentralizing productive activities, by diversifying in the direction of strictly financial investments and by, last but not least, flexibilizing the workforce leading to the re-creation of a lumpenproletariat. The decline of industrial manufacturing in the former hegemonic center and the simultaneous rise of finance capital, a huge service sector and so on, has often been understood as an evolution to a post-industrial economy. My argument here is that this is a devolution. If Walmart becomes the largest company in the USA, this represents the shift of production to East Asia, not at least China which has become the world’s new workshop. It would be absurd to see de-industrialization as a form of development in this approach. If, as some economists have argued, the standard of living has increased in the world, one should be more precise about where, about the rise of new middle classes in China and India, at the same time as in older centers there is a relative decline and rise of rustbelts with increasing problems of poverty and health.6 A model of these processes would generate scenarios like that of Sassen’s global cities with financial hubs surrounded by a series of ranked services from law firms to prostitution, decentralized production units if any, and a mass of poor flexibilized labor, a global “multitude” full of the social fragmentation and “ethnic” warfare characteristic of “blade runner society.” The only absent ingredient is industrial production itself which has been on the decline in the West. This is well exemplified by a recent discussion about Apple in the New York Times: 6 It

is important to note here that the existence of hegemonic cycles is not contradicted by the longterm trend to competition-induced increases in technological productivity which generally raise levels of consumption in the world as shown in Fig. 1. Hegemony is about relative relations of political economic power and not about the general levels of consumption or even technological growth. The enormous growth of “wealth” in East Asia goes hand-in-hand with the decline of manufacturing in the USA and much of Western Europe.

3 Global Systemic Anthropology and the Analysis of Globalization

55

In 2012, Apple’s chief executive, Timothy D. Cook, went on prime-time television to announce that Apple would make a Mac computer in the United States. It would be the first Apple product in years to be manufactured by American workers, and the top-of-the-line Mac Pro would come with an unusual inscription: ‘Assembled in USA.’ But when Apple began making the $3000 computer in Austin, Texas, it struggled to find enough screws, according to three people who worked on the project and spoke on the condition of anonymity because of confidentiality agreements. In China, Apple relied on factories that can produce vast quantities of custom screws on short notice. In Texas, where they say everything is bigger, it turned out the screw suppliers were not (Nicas 2019).

Manufacturing belongs to a previous era and the high-tech industries that can be found in the center are dispersed into distant industrial parks where land is cheaper and real costs matter much more than for financial capital which has greater leverage with respect to liquidity. Even if one might agree to some extent that the older center/periphery structure of the world is collapsed within the confines of the global city, this is only a partial truth in global terms. If Tokyo has gone in the direction of a global financial hub, the rapidly declining industrial sector of Japan is evidence of a complementary change of massive proportions, and in China where so much of Japanese capital export has landed, we are back in the world of mass production, even if it is very much based on sub-contracting (Lüthje 2014) but in a system of overall control that is similar to Fordism, and, whose products we all consume. One lesson that can be drawn from this discussion is that globalization, neoliberalism, and similar terms are not indicators of some kind of development, a social evolution. On the contrary, they are crisis phenomena typical of end-of-hegemony scenarios as Fernand Braudel has stressed (Braudel 1984). This is also an argument against the term, assemblages, which as we argue above is simply an attempt to escape the difficult task of putting together the disparate pieces that we have in our collections of things so that we might eventually understand how they are related to one another. My entire endeavor here is to unearth the logics involved in a number of phenomena that appear as disparate even if simultaneous and which, thus, can be easily subsumed under the sign of assemblage, which removes them conveniently from the realm of systematic accounts. This vertical polarization, Wall Street style, is an integral aspect of the larger transformation that has generated the cultural fragmentation discussed earlier in the chapter. Figure 4 discusses the relation between vertical and horizontal polarization. Thus, while national populations are increasingly divided into opposing categories, there is a formation of cosmopolitan elites at the top of the declining hegemony and a formation, equal and opposite, of rooted ethnicities including nationalism. The new elites tend to identify out of the nation-state with larger entities like the EU or even the world (see Friedman 2019) and the new cultural elites have provided a number of categories stressing multiculture, mixture, and hybridity that have been instrumental in the construction of this identity. The declining working class in this configuration becomes the core of the populism that we referred to above and which here can be understood as an effect of indigenization inside the category “national population.” And the structure of governance, following the same logic is also transformed (see Fig. 5).

56

J. Friedman

Fig. 4 Cosmopolitanization and indigenization in the contemporary global system. Adapted from Friedman (1999)

Fig. 5 Diametric to concentric dualism. Source Friedman (2008): 11

Figure 5 is a modern update of the Lévi-Strauss’s classic discussion of diametric and concentric dualism which was his way of representing the emergence of hierarchy within egalitarian (diametric) structures in traditional societies (Lévi-Strauss 1963). In diametric dualism the society is divided into equal and opposed halves, but as hierarchy emerges the same categories are re-arranged into what might be called inside versus outside, implying a relative ranking of the two. Concentric dualism can also be understood as a transition to a more extensive hierarchy since it allows the introduction of three or more categories. I have applied this to modern Western political culture in transition, one in which the new centralism in elite formation merges with global elite status. The new elites from both the left and the right and tend to fuse the two in terms of ideology. And the new political formation which is embryonic in the USA is quite developed in Europe, as depicted in some more detail in Fig. 6. Figure 6 includes the increasing merging of social democratic and liberal-right parties in coalitions, what in the UK was called New Labour, in Germany the Neue Mitte, more generally “purple” governments, that is, fusions of “red” and “blue” so that what was self-defined as a kind of new left politics was in fact a merging

3 Global Systemic Anthropology and the Analysis of Globalization

57

Fig. 6 Concentric dualism and the political order. Source Friedman (2016): 230

of social democracy and neo-liberalism. This included a strong identification with cosmopolitanism and “global governance” and a tendency to a redefinition of democracy as inhering in political actors themselves, rather than being a characterization of an arena of competition. Thus, those who were identified as the new populists were also implicitly anti-democratic even where they represented a significant portion of the electorate. This has occurred in the major countries of Europe and has also been taken up in discussions within the EU where “nationalism” and “populism” are seen as major threats to “democracy.” The contemporary EU as a supra-national institution, especially the EU Commission, with little accountability to the peoples of the different nation-states that it represents and tendencies to absolutism, especially in the matter of law-making (upwards of 60% of UK laws and regulations are initiated in the EU (Sippett and McKinney 2016)). The great fear among its elites, as I have stated above, which takes on quasi-violent proportions is populism, which is redefined as anti-democratic. All of this can be accounted for in terms of the transformation of the contemporary global system. Globalization as a concept is not of much help here since it is a product of the same processes. The real populist upsurge in the making does indeed correspond to the fears of EU elites even if there is little attempt to understand what it is all about, with variants as different as the new government of Italy, the popular government of Orban’s Hungary, the Brexit movement, and the recent rise of the gilets jaunes in France (Friedman 2015, 2018). In fact, the elites are clearly those in favor of globalization which has become linked to “democracy” as a set of values whose core is openness, free movement (of capital and people) as opposed to the closedness of “nationalism” which is tantamount in their interpretation of the world to isolationism.

58

J. Friedman

Conclusion Global systemic anthropology provides a way of understanding and analyzing the contemporary phenomenon of globalization as one that has occurred many times before in world history and which can only truly be grasped in terms of the historical process that generates globalization (Ekholm and Friedman 1979). If globalization is only one process within global systems, the latter can be said to include de-globalization as well as fundamental processes of imperial formation, empire, colonial structures, various kinds of state formation, and cultural phenomena such as identity formation, social movements, and so on. Globalization is not a constant phenomenon but one that is temporally variable, occurring in periods of hegemonic decline. It is not an evolutionary stage as is sometimes assumed and it is not, thus, stage of development that follows upon an earlier epoch in which we all lived in discrete societies that were more or less independent of one another. Global systems are as old as civilization itself and that the latter is equivalent to the existence of global systems, imperial relations, and structures of class. This approach implies, thus, that the study of globalization must be understood to be dependent upon the global system in which it occurs, and that it cannot be assumed to be an independent phenomenon. This study is all the more important when, as we see today, there is an emergent ideological hegemony that is very much based on an elite cosmopolitan identification that is at once predictable in global systemic terms, but which systematically denies the conditions of its own emergence.

References Appadurai, A. 1988. Putting Hierarchy in its Place. Cultural Anthropology 3 (1): 36–49. Appadurai, A. 1996. Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Arrighi, G. 1994. The Long Twentieth Century: Money, Power and the Origins of Our Times. London: Verso. Arrighi, G. 1999. The World Market. Journal of World-Systems Research 2(Summer): 217–251. Braudel, F. 1979. Civilisation matérielle, économie et capitalisme, XV e -XVIII e siècle. Paris: Colin. Braudel, F. 1984. The Perspective of the World. New York: Harper and Row. Csordas, T. (ed.). 1994. Embodiment and Experience: The Existential Ground of Culture and Self . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Deleuze, G., and F. Guattari. 1980. Mille Plateaux. Paris: Editions de Minuit. Dicken, P. 2015. Global Shift: Mapping the Changing Contours of the World Economy. New York: Guilford Press. Duménil, G., and D. Lévy. 2004. Capital Resurgent: Roots of the Neoliberal Revolution Cambridge. Mass: Harvard University Press. Duménil, G., and D. Lévy. 2011a. The Crisis of Neoliberalism. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. Duménil, G., and D. Lévy. 2011b. The Crisis of the Early 21st Century: A Critical Review of Alternative Interpretations. Paris: CNRS. Ekholm, K. 1975. System av sociala system och determinanterna i den sociala evolutionen. Antropologiska Studier. 14: 15–23.

3 Global Systemic Anthropology and the Analysis of Globalization

59

Ekholm, K. 1976a. Varför fungerar inte samhällen. Marxistisk Antropologi. Ekholm, K. 1976b. Om studiet av det globala systemets dynamik. Antropologiska Studier. Ekholm, K. 1977a. “Om studiet av riskgenerering i samhället och av hur risker kan avvärjas”, projektet Riskgenerering och Riskbedömning i ett samhälleligt perspektiv, SALFO, rapport 11. Ekholm, K. 1977b. External Exchange and the Transformation of Central African Social Systems. In The Evolution of Social Systems, ed. Friedman and Rowlands. London. Ekholm, K. 1980. On the Limitations of Civilization: The Structure and Dynamics of Global Systems. Dialectical Anthropology 5 (2): 155–166. Ekholm, K., and J. Friedman. 1979. ‘Capital’ imperialism and exploitation in ancient world systems. In Power and Propaganda: A Symposium on Ancient Empires Also in Review, ed. Larsen with Jonathan Friedman. V. 1:1. Ekholm, K., and J. Friedman. 1980. Towards a Global Anthropology. In History and Underdevelopment, ed. Blussé et al., 61–76. Leiden and Paris. Republished with changes and an introduction in 1986 Critique of Anthropology 5, 1: 97-119. Ekholm, K., and J. Friedman. 2008. Historical Transformations: Vol I of The Anthropology of Global Systems. Lanham: Altamira Press (Rowman and Littlefield). Modernities, Class, and the Contradictions of Globalization: Vol II of The Anthropology of Global Systems. Lanham: Altamira Press (Rowman and Littlefield). Frank, A.G. 1978. World Accumulation: 1492-1789. New York: MacMillan. Friedman, J. 1992. Narcissm, Roots and Postmodernity: The Constitution of Selfhood in the Global Crisis. In Modernity and Identity, ed. S. Lash and J. Friedman. Oxford: Blackwell. Friedman, J. 1994. Cultural Identity and Global Process. London: Sage. Friedman, J. 1999. Indigenous Struggles and the Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie. Taja: Australian Journal of Anthropology 10:1. Reprinted in Journal of World Systems Research 5(2): 391–411 (1999). Friedman, J. 2002. Globalization and the Making of a Global Imaginary. In Global Encounters, ed. T. Tufte and G. Stald, 13–32. Luton: Luton University Press. Friedman, J. 2005. Plus ça change: On Not Learning from History. In Hegemonic Declines: Past and Present, ed. Friedman and Chase-Dunn, 89–116. Boulder: Paradigm Press. Friedman, J. 2007. Global Systems, Globalization, and Anthropological Theory. In Frontiers of Globalization Research: Theoretical and Methodological Approaches, ed. I. Rossi. Boston, MA: Springer. Friedman, J. 2008. Power, Pluralism and the Transformation of Governance in an Era of Declining Hegemony. In The Troubled Triangle: Unravelling the Linkages between Inequality, Pluralism and Environment, ed. W. Pansters, 65–84. Amsterdam: Rozenberg Publishers. Friedman, J. 2012. Diametric to Concentric Dualism: Cosmopolitan Elites, Cosmopolitan Intellectuals and the Re-Configuration of the State. In The State: Alternatives, Futures and Utopias, ed. A. Hobart and B. Kapferer, 261–290. Wantage, Oxon: Sean Kingston publishing. Friedman, J. 2014. Capitalist Markets and the Kafkaesque World of Moralization. In Cash on the Table: Markets, Values and Moral Economies: Anthropological Engagements with Economics and Economies, ed. Edward F. Fischer, 51–66. Santa Fe: School of Advanced Research Press. Friedman, J. 2015. Global Systemic Crisis, Class and its Representations. In Anthropologies of Class: Power, Practice and Inequality, ed. J. Carrier and D. Kalb, 183–199. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Friedman, J. 2016. The Kafka Connection: Structure, Lifeworld and the Cunning of History. In A Practice of Anthropology: The Thought and Influence of Marshall Sahlins, ed. A. Golub, D. Rosenblatt, J. Kelly, 203–236. Montreal: McGill Queens University Press. Friedman, J. 2018. A Note on Populism and Economic Crisis. Economic Anthropology 5:135–137. Friedman, J. 2019. PC Worlds: Political Correctness and Rising Elites at the End of Hegemony. New York: Berghan. Fröbel, F. Heinrichs, J., and Kreye, O. 1980. The New International Division of Labour: Structural Unemployment in Industrialised Countries and Industrialisation in Developing Countries. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, and Paris: Maison des Sciences de l’Homme.

60

J. Friedman

Geertz, C. 1973. The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books. Hannerz, U. 1993. Cultural Complexity: Studies in the Social Organization of Meaning. New York: Columbia University Press. Harvey, D. 1989. The Condition of Postmodernity. Oxford: Blackwell. Ingham, Geoffrey. 1994. States and Markets in the Production of World Money: Sterling and Dollar. In Money, Power and Space, ed. R. Martin, N. Thrift, and S. Corbridge et al., 29–48. Oxford: Blackwell. Kapferer, B. 1997. The Feast of the Sorcerer: Practices of Consciousness and Power. Chicago: Chicago University Press. La Cecla, F. 2007. Pasta and Pizza. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Latour, B. 2005. Reassembling the Social. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lévi-Strauss, C. 1962. La Pensée Sauvage. Paris: Plon. Lévi-Strauss, C. 1963. Do Dual Organizations Exist. In Structural Anthropology, 132–166. New York: Basic Books. Lüthje, B. 2014. Why No Fordism in China? Regimes of Accumulation and Regimes of Production in Chinese Manufacturing Industries. IFS working paper 3; Institut für Sozialforschung, Frankfurt am Main. Mannheim, K. 1982. Structures of Thinking. London: Routledge. Nairn, T. 1977. The Break-Up of Britain: Crisis and Neo-Nationalism. London: New Left Books. Nicas, J. 2019. A Tiny Screw Shows Why iPhones Won’t Be ‘Assembled in U.S.A. New York Times, January 28. Nicolis, G., and I. Prigogine. 1977. Self-Organization in Nonequilibrium Systems. New York: WileyInterscience. Ohmae, K. 1990. The Boarderless World: Power and Strategy in the Interlinked Economy. New York: Harper. Ong, A., and S. Collier (eds.). 2005. Global Assemblages: Technology, Politics and Ethics as Anthropological Problems. New York: Blackwell Porter, M. 1990. The Competitive Advantage of Nations. New York: Free Press. Quigley, C. 1981. The Anglo-American Establishment. New York: Books in Focus. Radin, Paul. 1987. The Method and Theory of Ethnology: An Essay in Criticism. South Hadley, Mass: Bergin and Garvey. Robertson, R. 1992. Globalization: Social Theory and Global Culture. London: Sage. Scholte, J.A. 2000. Globalization: A Critical Introduction. New York: Palgrave MacMillan. Sippett, A., and McKinney, C.J. 2016. U.K. Law: What Proportion is influenced by the EU. Full Fact, June 8. https://fullfact.org/europe/uk-law-what-proportion-influenced-eu/. Strauss, C., and N. Quinn. 1994. A Cognitive/Cultural Anthropology. In Assessing Cultural Anthropology, ed. R. Borofsky, 284–297. New York: McGraw Hill. Thom, R. 1989. Structural Stability and Morphogenesis: An Outline of a General Theory of Models. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. Touraine, A. 1969. La société post-industrielle: naissance d’une société Paris: Denoël. Wallerstein. 1974. The Modern World System. New York Academic publishers. Wiewiorka, M. 1996. Une Société fragmentée: le multiculturalisme en débat. Paris: La Découverte. Wiggins, S. 2003. Introduction to Applied Dynamical Systems and Chaos. Berlin: Springer.

Jonathan Friedman is a professor emeritus of social anthropology at the University of California San Diego, and Directeur d’études Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris. His ethnographic research in Hawaii, Central Africa, and Europe has developed and integrated Levi-Straussian, Marxist, and World-Systems analyses. Among his publications are Historical Transformations (2008) in two volumes coauthored with Kajsa Ekholm Friedman, and PC Worlds:Political Correctness and Rising Elites at the End of Hegemony (2019).

Chapter 4

Media, Sociocultural Change, and Meta-Culture York Kautt

Abstract Besides and together with actions, communications are the basic processes of the constitution of the social. Since all communications depend on a material basis, the latter is at the same time an important condition for the construction of social realities. This also applies to processes of globalization and the associated sociocultural change. Printing, technical image media (photography, film, television) and computerized media considerably expand the spatial and temporal availability of communication and are thus key drivers of globalization. To discuss this issue, the article reflects on the concept of “media.” It also outlines some fundamental consequences of mediatized communication that contribute to the emergence of a globalized meta-culture. The third section finally concretizes these considerations in two areas, namely, a) self-presentation and image work and b) staging of food.

Introduction Sociocultural change, occasionally associated with the notion of “modernization,” is driven by various forces such as social and functional differentiation, sociocultural evolution, industrialization, rationalization, or economization which are important theorems with which the social sciences describe the development of contemporary (world) society. In contrast, the present article focuses on media as a driver of sociocultural change. This is by no means intended to present media as autonomous generators of social change and innovation. Undoubtedly, (communication) media are in complex and mutually influencing networks of relationships to the processes just mentioned (social differentiation, rationalization, etc.). Nevertheless, it is possible to determine the characteristics of media that are derived from their materiality and that therefore structurally affect the communication within society. Be it the human body or materialities such as stone, paper, plastic, wood, concrete, electricity, or any Y. Kautt (B) Institute for Sociology, Justus-Liebig University Giessen, Karl-Glöcknerstr. 21E, 35394 Giessen, Germany e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 I. Rossi (ed.), Challenges of Globalization and Prospects for an Inter-civilizational World Order, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44058-9_4

61

62

Y. Kautt

other materiality, communication require a physical basis in which signal carriers can be embedded. In this sense, an overview of some medial attributes is aimed that provokes a sociocultural change. These characteristics are assigned to the following contexts: (a) decoupling from interaction: complexity, anonymization, and symbolic generalization; (b) connectivity: figuration, civilization, and moralization; (c) participation: democratization, commercialization, popularization, and universalization; and (d) visualization, visual communication. In a further section, it is shown, by way of example, that and to what extent the outlined media structures affect two social contexts: (1) image as a specific schematization and qualification of identity and (2) food as a topic of the mass media and digitized culture of the globalized society. In a first step, however, a brief remark is required on the terms, media and mediatization. 1. Media When reflecting on tendencies of the global mediatization of culture, it is of prime importance to determine more precisely what, terminologically speaking, “media” are. This is because the sociocultural effects of the media are situated on very different (though connected) levels. Niklas Luhmann’s media theory develops these facts with impressive clarity (Luhmann 2012). It differentiates between communication media, dissemination media, and the system of the mass media.1 (a) Communication Media Luhmann understands the communication media to be the observer-oriented distinction between medium and form in a medial substrate (physical carrier). The oldest medium of communication in cultural history is the body. It enables meaningful communication by structuring perceptible performances (gestures, facial expressions, etc.). Orality, writing, or imagery is communication media in so far as they bind together forms in a medium; in other words, they offer specific spheres of space for medium/form inter-relationships. Specifications concerning the reproduction of meaning combine with the possibilities of presentation linked to the material. It thus makes a considerable semantic difference if a message is being communicated linguistically, graphically, photographically, via filmic means or computerized media. (b) Dissemination Media The concept of dissemination media reflects on the actual specific possibilities of a communication medium to disseminate messages spatially and temporally and, in so doing, to be able to generate specific degrees of social redundancy. In contrast to the communication medium of the body, which as a dissemination medium cannot go beyond the range of any spatial and temporal situation, media such as writing and pictures do transcend situations thanks to their material carriers and, via their reproducibility, render the messages available to great numbers of people in different places and times—with numerous sociocultural consequences.

4 Media, Sociocultural Change, and Meta-Culture

63

(c) Mass Media and Mass Medial Genres In contrast to the above, one could apply the concept of “mass media” to designate any institution which continuously supplies information to society, from its everyday culture of individuals right through to the functional realms such as politics, the economy or science and scholarship. Accordingly, the mass media make use of communication and dissemination media in a particular fashion and by having particular functions. They constitute the memory and a central sphere of reality of (world) society. The mass media emerge as such an institution with their professionalized fields of action and organizations because social differentiation and mediatization processes create an enormous demand for information in society. Since this occurs in very different subject and problem areas, different “communicative genres” (Luckmann 1986) are developed, whereby one can distinguish for purposes of simplifying the categories of news/reports, advertising, and entertainment (Luhmann 2000 [1996]). The different genres belong to a “media logic” (Altheide and Snow 1979), whose grammar, once it has been established, not only forms the basis of everyday knowledge but also sets in motion processes of adaptation to the mass media by different areas of society. The emergence of mass media publics leads to a drastic dynamization of cultural variety. Since the “sender” under the anonymous media conditions cannot know what the recipient has actually perceived, it must presume the cognition of the once communicated. “Novelty” is becoming central to mediatized communication, as the risk of redundancy and related denial must be minimized. Innovation and creativity are put at the service of making the new, even if it is just about design modifications of the existing. This pressure for the new, creative, and innovative exists in the context of professionalized media markets and their organizations (advertising, journalism, entertainment) as well as in the field of individual media action, if this is aimed at wider public (social media). 2. Media and sociocultural change: Mediatization In recent social science literature, the connection between (communication) media and sociocultural change is often taken as mediatization. In this broad sense, mediatization is “a concept used in order to carry out a critical analysis of the interrelationship between the change of media and communication, on the one hand, and the change of culture and society on the other.” (Hepp and Krotz 2014: 3). The view that mediatization processes are intrinsic to the different levels in the order of the social is linked to this perspective. They affect the level of interaction just as they do roles, organizations, institutions, fields, or systems. In taking account of this empirical situation, it is helpful to approach “mediatization” from Herbert Blumer’s understanding less as a “definitive” but rather as a “sensitizing” concept (Jensen 2013), and one that remains open for different relations of mediality, communication and social structures, and does not restrict the view to specific complexes, for example, the development of institutions such as the mass media. It has been repeatedly stressed by mediatization research that, in carrying out this task, one cannot

64

Y. Kautt

base one’s assumptions on linear processes or on the exclusive, powerful effects of dominant individual media when faced with the complex interlinking of relations between media, sociality, culture, and society, but that complex media ecologies (Lundby 2014) need to be considered.2 (a) DeCoupling of Communication from Interaction: complexity, synthetic situations, anonymization, and symbolic generalization A primary structural property that is significant for all communication and dissemination media beyond the body is that it emancipates communication from interaction taking place between humans. That is true of the written word as much as it is of images (for example, drawings, photographs) or of forms of computerized communication as well. On the contrary, messages in these media can be received by individual people in situations in which no other person is present. Of course, at the same time, it cannot be denied that communication between people involved therein also plays a large part in the worlds of mediatized life. But from now henceforth it is one case among others, a case that exists in different relations to mediatized communications. The gradual emancipation of communication from physical performances and their transcription to other carrier media has many and diverse consequences. One of them is found in the increasing complexity of meanings. One only has to bear in mind the dramatic gains in time facilitated by using media like the written text, image, or computer in contrast to the cursoriness of social situations. Storage media enable time-consuming constructions (novels, reports, works of art, etc.) as well as the formation of a collective memory that goes beyond the memory of individuals. Both set in motion a cultural creativity and continuous cultural variations. The disembodiment of mediatized communication is accompanied further by a detachment from the primarily sensuous experiencing of the world at the same time as the relevance of experiences gained “at second hand” increases (Gehlen 1986). It is already clear how print and picture media, but even more clearly how TV and computerized media confront whoever use them with sense constructions which do not necessarily belong to the close-up world of primary experiences. “Virtual realities” (for example, those of transmitted myths) do indeed exist in oral cultures, but these remain much more strictly limited in this context and bound up in collectively shared living worlds (Levi-Strauss 2017 [1978]: 34–38). It is part of the mediatized constellation that in any one place there are always other places and realities present, for example, in the context of knowledge and ideas that were formed on the basis of the written word. The “synthetic situation” as “a composite of information bits that may arise from many areas around the world,” as a situation which is “always in the process of being assembled” by information of different contexts (Knorr Cetina 2009: 69 pp) insofar is not an effect of digitization or the presence of “screens” (computers, smartphones, etc.). Situations are synthetic ever since writing and other communication media (technical picture media) are part of the social construction of reality, which is part of the framing of social situations (numerous innovations of computerized communication are not disputed by this statement).

4 Media, Sociocultural Change, and Meta-Culture

65

Communication and dissemination media as well as the institutionalized mass media contribute to a construction of reality to which mediatized communications have always belonged, alongside and together with experiences gained in close proximity with others. Thus, it is a central effect, as a consequence of mediatized communication, for members of society to engage with that very complex connection with reality. Communication and dissemination media, from the printed book via the audiovisual media and through to the computer, are forcefully driving forward a socially structural dis-embedding. On the one hand, they contribute to the dissolution of a simple cosmology that integrates different individuals through their pluralization of knowledge pools, aesthetic philosophies, and value guidelines. On the other hand, and connected with this, it is becoming less likely under these conditions for individuals to be socialized in very similar ways in the poly-contextural realities. Instead, individualized (media) biographies will become probable to which new forms of (self-reflexion) and (self-socialization) belong (cf. Luhmann 2012 [1997]: 174– 179). Consequently, through medially based communications enriching the worlds in which one lives, one will encounter contingency experiences which challenge our “ontological security” (Giddens 1991). Media therefore play a decisive role in the development of modern subjects, in the constant work on the self and in the emergence of the modern cult around creativity. These processes are associated with such of social and functional differentiation. Individuals move as part of a general trend in a functionally differentiated (world) society toward a socially structural peripheral position in which the participation in different functional areas of society, such as the economy, education, politics, or law, is considerably less secured through one’s family background. Whereas family background regulates markedly the different spheres of a subject’s life in stratified societies, the formation of social identity and biographical development is being substantially less strongly (pre-)structured in many regions of the world. In such manner, the self is being inevitably dynamized and modern subjects are having to worry constantly about questions of their identity (cf. Willems and Hahn 1998). Identity has to be ever more strongly “managed” on one’s own—the notion of “a hand crafted existence” (Hitzler and Honer 1994) is one of the several which gets to the core of this matter. Mediatized communication is furthermore full of repercussions because the pressure to conform due to social situations is removed under its conditions. While actors participating in an interaction tend toward agreeing with the communications of the other people—in order to avoid conflicts—the same does not apply in any way under the anonymized conditions of mediatized communication. The probability of approval and acceptance is therefore drastically reduced. Consequently, the probability of acceptance in the communication itself has to be increased. In Sociology, it is mainly Luhmann who identifies this factor as an important driving force behind sociocultural differentiation (Luhmann 1974). The argument concerning the diminishing pressure to conform in no way contradicts the fact that there are numerous contexts under mediatized conditions in which individuals behave in a conformist manner in order to receive recognition from their peers and other public

66

Y. Kautt

spheres, for example, those found in social media (“clicktivism”, “echo chambers”). What is meant above, on the other hand, is the fundamental fact that communication among users is, in principle, an undertaking filled with risk and conflict which actors encounter with a predisposition to consent. One is reminded in this connection of Erving Goffman’s description of the interaction order (cf. Goffman 1967). According to him, this is essentially structured through the claim of the participants to receive attention. The mutual “face-keeping” in his view functions as a “work consensus” of interaction, even if that may, of course, be disregarded and frequently is. This interaction order applies only very restrictedly though to the degree that it creates inter-active (computerized) media interaction analog situations between actors. In any case, one can say that the anonymization and dissociation of communication from interaction contexts by media reduce the probability of acceptance of the communicated. Under these conditions, the probability of success in (mediatized) communication itself must be increased. This happens, according to Luhmann, by processes of symbolic generalization, which occur in different subject areas. Luhmann speaks of success-conveying media, which are “subject oriented special languages” for historically developed problems and issues as example institutionalized power, the semantics of romance, scholarship and science, and education or money (Luhmann 1974). (b) Connectivity: Figuration, civilization, and moralization A further basic characteristic of mediatization processes is to be found in substantially extending the mutual dependencies between people beyond the circle of those persons with whom individuals interact within the framework of social situations. Book printing enhances this process by connecting, for example, authors not only to a widely dispersed audience, but also to other persons publishing and to their publications (Ong 1982; Giesecke 1992). A globally encompassing communication network that connects people in a new way is only coming about fully with the technological picture media, radio, television, and the computerized media. One only has to think of the “social media” which embrace billions of people. Norbert Elias’s concept of “figuration” gains a new relevance against this backdrop. The argument behind the theory of civilization is this: Individuals, in their reflexive viewing of dependency relationships with others, will tend toward a selfcontrol which makes any deviations from behavioral expectations less likely so that the probability may be increased at the same time of not losing the approval or favor of other figuration participants (and especially from those who happen to be more powerful). It is true that there are many reasons why one should reject the diagnosis of the “civilization process” (Elias 1994 [1939]) as a development that is substantively and continuously affecting society.3 Indeed, it is the very opposite case that some phenomena of present-day society point to tendencies of uncivilizing, de-inhibiting, and increasing indecency. One needs to only think of the unrestricted forms of individual self-portrayal on social media or of medial genres like “scripted reality”, pornography, horror film, and other forms.4

4 Media, Sociocultural Change, and Meta-Culture

67

Even where the present-day cultures can neither be fitted on a regional or global scale into the framework of civilization theory, one can nevertheless accord it a degree of relevance when looked at again. That is true in so far as phenomena like those just mentioned belong to a segment of uncivilized being that is framed temporally and contextually and systematically controlled, and for which Cas Wouters deploys the notion of “informalizing” (Wouters 1979). But it is also true to the extent that mediatized communications and communicative genres such as advertising or entertainment too develop a globalized semantics in which “being civilized” is a central trait of higher status and (upper class) background. The mass media are indeed very diversified “cultural forums” (Newcomb and Hirsch 1986) but then frequently revert to showing civilized living if they wish to display models of “being better.” In this way, it becomes understandable, on the one hand, that the civilizing complex is widely diffused across society. Types of presentation that are analogous to advertising promotions can be found, for example, not only in other media genres but also in the realm of individual self-depictions in social media. On the other hand, (in part mediatized) counter-cultures and sub-cultures emerge in the wake of these developments. One might mention, for example, journalistic formats which focus on uncivilized “truths” behind the scenes. The search for what is “genuine” and “authentic”—for example, within the foodie movement—also represents the seeking after the simple, non-falsified, and marginalized in relation to the civilizing complex (Johnston and Baumann 2010: 69). A tendency toward moral communication can be observed alongside and together with civilizing tendencies. Ethical issues are becoming a plaything of mediatized public arenas since religion, status, class, ethnicities, or cultures cannot claim to provide a binding normative order. A “modern” ethic that is tied to rational criteria becomes subject to the presentational constraints imposed by medial communication. The medial anonymization that has already been mentioned further impacts structurally on the tendency toward adopting moralizing positions. It not only creates a net that leads to a lack of transparency within complex sets of relationships (panopticon), but it also enables those doing the moralizing to be sheltered from becoming the object of any evaluation by other people. The greater condensing of the figurations is therefore accompanied by a tendency toward moral communication. Indeed, one can almost speak of a newly emerging digital culture of evaluation. Internet portals are just as much a symptom of this as is the structural provision of a followup communication in quite a number of medial genres that have been abbreviated to “like” and “dislike.” (c) Participation: Democratization, Commercialization, Popularization, and Universalization Communication media that exist beyond the body contribute greatly as dissemination media to increasing the opportunities for taking part in spatially extended public spheres. That is true, in general, of writing under the conditions of printed books, and becomes even more apparent when photography is socialized in the nineteenth century, and reaches its highest level for the present moment as society is transformed

68

Y. Kautt

by the computer. Every person who has access to a computer connected to the Internet is able to become a “sender” whose scope is worldwide. In one sense, one can speak of a democratization of the public sphere as a result of media developments (Benjamin 1977 [1936]). The conditions under which one may access medial public spheres are not at all egalitarian in democratic “open” systems either. Here too one finds gatekeepers and “speaking subjects” (Foucault) who dominate discourses, for example, in the dynamic interface of regional and national public spheres. And it is the power of money which continues to regulate in a very forceful way how visibility is created, the setting of agendas, and the authority that interpretations exert over (media) discourses. Broadcasting time on television or space in the print media, for instance, can be acquired with money. To that degree, one can unquestioningly agree with the diagnosis of a “commercialization of communication” (Schmidt and Spieß 1997). However, a dramatic destabilization of traditional hegemonic powers accompanies the (commercial) mediatization. On the one hand, it is enabling diverse groupings and individuals to participate in globalized public spheres. There is hardly a single country for which videos cannot be found, produced by amateurs who report, for example, on realities from the lives of local people, and these videos can be received throughout the world.5 As part of this, amateurs exert influence on the evaluation of professionals of journalism, advertising, and entertainment, and are being part of the public sphere in different contexts themselves. On the other hand, the logic of the market itself in one sense exerts a democratic effect. This is because production must necessarily be geared to the interests of those who receive the communications and the products that are linked to these and thereby finance the producers, (however indirectly that might be). The receivers are (as consumers) very much “authorities” who are crucially involved in the (re-) production of mass medial reality. The emergence of media formats for quite different “target groups” in newspapers, magazines, and TV programs is in keeping with this. Wherever one looks, the supply has long been satisfying the taste of quite different groupings so that in one sense one can indeed speak of a “democratization” of (commercial) public spheres. The increased opportunities for participation and the adjustment toward an audience do not necessarily lead to a pluralization of cultures at all. In fact, one can hardly overlook tendencies toward the standardizing, typifying, and universalizing of media semantics. In this respect, it is crucial that one recognizes that economic rationalization is certainly not the only, or most important driving force behind processes of uniformization and standardization. The structural features of mediatized communication, already outlined, are also very effective. In circumstances where groups of receivers are so extensively spread, forms of meaning and representation, in fact, have to be arranged in such a way that regionally determined differences in reception, for example, awareness of ethnic, religious or national customs, do not become obstacles for the success of the communication.

4 Media, Sociocultural Change, and Meta-Culture

69

(d) Visualization and visual communication Another dimension of media-related sociocultural change in recent decades is the increased importance of visible surfaces, visuality, and visual communication. This development comes about through the technological picture media that have their origins in the photography of the nineteenth century. On the one hand, technological picture media are radically differentiated from manual forms of presentation as communication media because what they show is causally linked to that which is pictured by indexical sign vehicles: technological pictures point less to a picture author but rather to a “reality” that has occurred in front of a camera, and do so in spite of their observer-centered constructivity (temporal and spatial extract, perspective, and other selections). On the other hand, picture-based public spheres are formed initially through the technological reproducibility (= dissemination media) which offer for viewing the most diverse visibilities in different contexts to a wider audience in different places and at different times. The consequences of this development are multi-faceted. While it is true that static and dynamic pictures are unable to achieve a (sequentially organized) grammar and therefore any sense ordering that is a characteristic of language (distinguishing of tenses, conceptual definitions inter alia), technological pictures though are able to present the visible in great detail and with much condensed information that written descriptions do not achieve. Technological pictures are all the more potent in their social effectiveness since their comprehensibility is hardly dependent on language. Photographs and films thereby turn into a “world language” very speedily despite all the existing intercultural differences that undoubtedly exist. In any case, the most diverse objects are condensed in the mediatized public spheres of (world) society into “images” in the sense of identities that arise via visual attributions.6 In this way, different topics are subjected to a general pressure to be aesthetized. It is the case that vital resources are possible in a visual medium on the level of visibilities in order to increase the likely acceptance of an audience. 3. Two examples: Image and mediatized food cultures (a) Image In everyday language and the discourses of the mass media, the word “image” emerges in the 1950s. In the meantime, it has become common to speak of an “image” in relation to various objects: political parties, sports, religions, musical styles, organizations, institutions, business enterprises, celebrities, consumer products, holiday destinations, nation states, etc. The fact that this is a phenomenon with a special meaning becomes clear if one looks for alternative terms. Honor, reputation or prestige are similar, but by no means the same. Why and how does the everyday concept of the image and the phenomenon it describes appear? In the context of which historical developments is this happening? There are many indications that the technical picture media are an important driver of this sociocultural innovation (Kautt 2008). The empirical analysis of the social history of photography on the basis of various sources—newspaper articles, (popular)

70

Y. Kautt

scientific publications, exhibition catalogs, photographer advisory literature, letters, diaries—shows that the medium has a profound effect on the communication conditions in various areas of society. With photography emerge new problems, for which the construction of images represents a solution among others. These problems can be assigned to two different structural levels, which also apply to the newer media of film, television, and computerized media, insofar as these are based on photography. Photographic (cinematic, digital photographic) images operate with indexical sign vehicles. These are—starting with photography—in a causal relation to what happens at a certain time in a certain place in front of a camera. Despite the transformation processes of technology and although technical images are constructed in many ways (temporal and spatial framing, the determination of perspective, depth of field, (non-)colorfulness, manipulation of requisites, and others), they often function as references of a visible “reality.” This is also true in the post-photographic age of digitization (Mitchell 1992; Wolf 2003), in which images are produced and received billions of times in everyday social practice as indexical signs. The medium creates a lasting social problem, which causes a sociocultural change: By fixing the respective surfaces in the context of their >realistic< pictures and subjecting them with a wealth of detail to an enduring, anonymous, and repeatable observation, they direct the reception in a new way on a wide variety of objects as visible surfaces. It exponentiates and varies the meaning of external appearances and specifies the old question of how visible surfaces can be interpreted as indications of invisible (identity) attributes. The surface emphasis becomes a special problem when respect is an important dimension of the production and reception of photographically fixed objects. Pictures then raise the question of how much recognition is given to the photographically identified things as a visual phenomenon—be they humans, animals, or lifeless products. Photographic surfaces then have to convince as representations of positive or negative character traits of the particular objects. The history of photography in the nineteenth century reveals this reference problem as well as the first attempts to solve it, whereby portrait photography is an early and clear indicator. The staging practices of pose and retouching become—and not only in the age of Photoshop and Instagram and the associated selfie culture—a mass social practice, just because people want to optimize their personal image in the medium of photography. Also as dissemination media, the technical image media provoke—even today under the conditions of their computerization (e.g., in different contexts of the Internet)—a drastic sociocultural change. Decisive is the aspect of reproducibility. Not only that the possibilities of duplication of the medium considerably extend the spatial and temporal limits of what can be communicated in comparison to body performances or previous image technologies (woodcut, etching, lithography, etc.): As dissemination media, technical picture media at the same time unfold public image spaces based on >naturalistic< (indexical) sign vehicles. Only with photography and the associated media network (print, electronic media) image-based public spheres evolve, which constantly can be updated. Above all, when objects are to be publicly established as positively qualified “identities” via technical image media, visual communications are necessary which

4 Media, Sociocultural Change, and Meta-Culture

71

increase the probability of acceptance of the objects offered as images. The demand comes mainly from the economy, because under the conditions of modern industrial capitalism (mass production, new transport technologies, etc.) it is forced to address its potential customers in anonymous, geographically widespread markets. Essentially, this has to be done via dissemination media, whose development in the field of image media runs parallel to the development of mass consumption. The economy, in particular, therefore provokes the formation of an area of society that specializes in identifying various objects visually as identitied and qualifying them as positively as possible. Advertising developed in the first half of the twentieth century into this special area (see Kautt 2008). Not only does professionalized advertising adapt to image communication, but image constructions are also relevant for the most diverse actors, who want to develop an identity in the public sphere of contemporary society. The emerging image semantics are subject to the above-indicated structural conditions of mediatized publics: they must convince under anonymous conditions as visual communications and are bound into more expansive, often intransparent figurations in which now (almost) all members of society are involved. This suggests forms of symbolic generalization of information and aesthetics as well as general, widely comprehensible forms of assessment (e.g., stereotyped notions of beauty, eroticism, naturalness, youthfulness, and high status). As micro-semantics, images often operate with universally understandable quality attributes. The structurally extremely flexible assignments of “good” and “bad” not only fit in well with the diffuse inclusion/exclusion mechanisms of modern society that occur in the most diverse strata, milieus, and lifestyle groupings. Rather, within the framework of a highly globalized world media consumption society, they establish a “world language” of social hierarchy that undermines intercultural differences (of knowledge, norms, and values) and introduces an easily acceptable cultural symbolic world. Globally known images for corporations, such as Mercedes, BMW, McDonalds, Sony, Apple, Samsung, or Coca-Cola, give examples of this. But also in entertainment, journalism or art, tendencies of symbolic generalization can be observed. Thus, in various areas of visual communication, for purposes of addressing global publics, something emerges which, despite regional variations, can be described as a meta-culture of contemporary society (cf. Kautt 2008, pp. 190-350). (a) Mediatized Food Cultures The aforementioned mediatization effects have led to a dramatic change in publicly distributed food communications and food cultures in recent years. One dimension is the increasing importance of visual communication. The relevance of work on the “beautiful form” cannot be overlooked in TV cooking shows, food blogs, or social media (Instagram, Facebook, and others). This tendency has repercussive effects for the everyday eating cultures or for the star gastronomy. One symptom of this among others is the exchanging of food photographs via social media which has been designated “food porn” and is widely practised in many regions of the world (cf. McDonnell 2016). It shows that the traditional work on economic, cultural, and social

72

Y. Kautt

“capital” (Bourdieu 1984), reinforced via visual communications, is proceeding as these maintain as such close intertextual links with other media images and media genres (advertising, cookery shows, food blogs). Furthermore, the effects of decoupling food communications from interaction contexts become apparent. On the one hand, there is a considerable increase in complexity. The various actors (professionals and amateurs) can work on their products on the “backstage” until they are satisfied with the products and then present them online on the “frontstages.” On the other hand, this decoupling results in the anonymization of mediatized communication. Here, as in other topics, communication in itself must increase the likelihood of acceptance. This is all the more so as the increased connectivity of computerized media not only increases the pressure of competition between communicants, but also greatly expands communicators’ figurations—to (potentially) global networks. Under these circumstances, the democratization of mediatized public of food is ambivalent. On the one hand, it is obvious that this public is currently being developed all over the world. In all regions, different actors present their ideas of cooking, cuisine, or rituals of the meal. The medial given opportunities for participation also definitely shift the balance of power—an actor on YouTube or Instagram can certainly gain more influence than an advertising campaign or a gastro-critic. In any case, it is evident that public food communications were never as diverse as in the current society. At the same time, however, the computerized media are driving forms of symbolic generalization, standardization, and universalization, which stabilize certain cultural models and power relations. This problem, concerning connecting, also concerns the economy as well but not only this. This becomes quickly evident when one realizes that amateur food bloggers, non-profit organizations, or individuals, staging their lifestyles, are subject to the same constraints on representation as commercial suppliers (e.g., in advertising). This is because they also have to adapt their communications in such a way when they leave the social locality of their immediate environment and wish to reach wider groups of receivers that they are understood independently of individually idiosyncratic or group-centered mindsets and so be potentially positively assessed. The mediatized communication of food, if it wishes to engage large numbers of people, has to be actually set up in a very general way that includes people from the most divergent social placements and be popularized in this sense. A number of tendencies within the popularization of a mediatized, global food grammar might now be discerned which one can observe in the context of televisual cooking formats, just as one can in the framework of journalistic reports, advertising, or on social media. – Beauty: the emphasis, which we have already mentioned, on visual communications through the technological picture media and the aesthetization of food as “beautiful form” linked with this, is understandable on a culturally universal level. Even if ideas about beauty undoubtedly vary, then the work on the form being demonstrated does not require any explanation or justification and creates as such attention and acceptance potentials.

4 Media, Sociocultural Change, and Meta-Culture

73

– Craftsmanship, know-how, and creativity: cooking is stylized in different contexts as craftsmanship that can be elevated to the level of professional expertise. However regional cuisines may vary in their detail, medial presentations are trans-cultural and trans-national insofar as they make the practise of cooking, as a creative and demanding process for the actors, visible. – Communitarization: food is, as an effective medium of “socializing,” a firm component of globally circulating media presentations. Cooking and eating can be easily portrayed as globally appreciated expressions of communitarization, making friends or as opportunities for creating personal relationships and erotic seduction, because the sociality of cooking, the social institution of the meal, and the principle of commensality are basal constructions of meaning. – Respect and recognition: a universal dimension of mediatized foodscapes lies in the linking of eating and cooking with processes of relative acknowledgement. The prerequisite for this is the “sanctity of self” (Goffman 1967), in the sense of a universal desire of the individual to be respected and appreciated by others. The threatened loss of personal respect as part of the contests (for example, in the context of cooking shows) that is part of the dramaturgy of the media is a sign of this as much as the presentation of qualifying identity attributes, for instance, in the context of portrayals of (un)creative hobby cooks, poor or good host in films. – Geared toward the middle class: the mediatized cooking and eating cultures are separated from a plain kitchen of lower social classes just as it is from the elaborate haute cuisine. The predominant order is that which is oriented to the norms of the middle class that rises above that of the “needs dictated taste” (Bourdieu 1984) of those from a lower status (poor) background, by emphasizing values such as “freshness” and “creativity,” yet at the same time drawing clear dividing lines with the refined claims of the haute cuisine.

Conclusion Even if mediatization research has so far been a mainly European project, one can hardly agree with Don Slater’s critique that it deals with European problems that are all too swiftly deemed to be universal (Slater 2013). One can nevertheless find evidence to show that comparable developments are taking place on all continents concerning images in the realm of brands as well as in the context of presentation of self (Manovich 2012) as well as food communications, to mention just two realms of globalized public spheres. One will all the more be able to assign to this outcome a serious importance, when one considers that media communications are even influencing how actors observe, comprehend, feel, desire, and imagine, when their own individual practises, for example, due to scarce economic resources, permit no or only marginal alternatives for action. Indeed, it is part of the tragedy of the present media constellation that not only are contingency experiences being speeded up as a result of the visible diversity and variability of possibilities, but the actual limitations on an individual’s scope for action are becoming evident at the same time. In this

74

Y. Kautt

respect, the question whether mediatization processes had their origins in Europe is of no importance for our particular purposes. On the contrary, we can adopt the thesis of “multiple modernities” (Eisenstadt 2000) instead and assume that communication media like book printing, the technological picture media, and the computer represent key temporal elements of a “polycentric modern” (Schmidt 2014) within present-day society. As a result one will have to expand the perspective of Comaroff and Comaroff (2009), who interpret the stereotypifying of culture and ethnicity by using Southern Africa as their example, as a combining of (post-)colonialist power structures with the forces of capitalism, with a genuinely media theoretical approach. In the context of global communication networks, it is the case that the most diverse identity constructions (“cultures”) are not only becoming commodities in the markets in the narrower sense of economies but also in the symbolic “markets” of globalized communication. And only those things can succeed which can be understood without any deeper knowledge, for example, of cultures and/or of intercultural differences. The “social imaginary” (Castoriadis 1997) of culture is (also) honed down to an easy to read sign repertoire, or it is presented in a stereotypical manner (Garine 2001). Mediatized cultures often amount to little more than a “globalization of nothing” which Ritzer (2007) diagnoses in the context of product semantics. At the same time, though one must create a degree of critical detachment from the globalization rhetoric of “interconnectedness” and “flows,” for example, of globalized images and forms of image communication. As the research on glocalization demonstrates, mediatization processes are invariably bound up with regionally anchored structures. However, the aim here was to outline some of the media structures that contribute to a globalized meta-culture and related forms such as image communication or certain semantics of food. Notes 1. Luhmann’s media theory is especially suited as a contextual framework for a sociology of mediatization as it is embedded not only in a theory of sociocultural evolution but also at the same time in a general communication and social theory, as well as within a theory of society. By allocating communication and dissemination media a decisive importance not only in the development of interlinked problems but also in the solutions via forms of symbolic generalization, and finally to the creation of systems of functions, Luhmann is basing his social and societal theory a great deal more firmly than is often realized on media theoretical figures of argumentation. For the development of the concept, see Luhmann (1974, 2012). 2. Cf. Lundby (2014). Nonetheless, the sociocultural effects of significant media developments such as language, writing, printing, audiovisual picture media, and computers may be distinguished from one another for a general view. For an overview (excluding audiovisual media), see Luhmann 2012 [1997], Chap. 2. For a typology of “graphic mediatization,” “print mediatization,” “audiovisual mediatization,” and “digital mediatization” cf. Fornäs (2014).

4 Media, Sociocultural Change, and Meta-Culture

75

3. Elias’s concept has been criticized from an ethnological viewpoint as well with reference to the shame cultures of earlier societies (cf. Paul 2011). 4. The “tyranny of intimacy,” as identified by Richard Sennett (1977), offers one explanation for this among others. According to Sennett, the anonymization of communication conditions, for example, in the wake of the emergence of cities, leads, alongside and together with processes of social upheaval, to the behavioral tendency to individualize and intimize public communication spaces. According to Sennett, a search for self-(narcissism) operates as a basic motive and is typical for modernity. 5. This statement is of course not based on any implicit assumption that from now on we are dealing with equally shared opportunities for power where medial public spheres are concerned, but rather that a huge shift in these opportunities has occurred. 6. See Kautt (2008) for the history of the development of “image” as an everyday phenomenon and everyday concept with reference to the technological picture media.

References Altheide, David L., and Robert P. Snow. 1979. Media Logic. Beverly Hills: Sage. Benjamin, Walter. 1977 [1936]. Das Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner technischen Reproduzierbarkeit. Drei Studien zur Kunstsoziologie. 10. Aufl. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Bourdieu, Pierre. 1984 [1979]. Distinction. A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Trans. Richard Nice. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. Comaroff, Jean, and John Comaroff. 2009. Ethnicity, Inc. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Castoriadis, Cornelius. 1997 [1975]. The Imaginary Institution of Society. Trans. Kathleen Blamey. Cambridge: MIT Press. Dürrschmidt, Jörg, and Kautt York (eds.). 2019. Globalized Eating Cultures. Mediation and Mediatization. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Eisenstadt, Shmuel N. 2000. Multiple Modernities. Daedalus 129, 1–30. Cambridge: MIT Press. Elias, Norbert. 1994 [1939]. The Civilizing Process. Oxford: Blackwell Publ. Fornäs, Johan. 2014. Mediatization of Popular Culture. In Mediatization of Communication, ed. Knut Lundby, 483–504. Berlin: De Gruyter. de Garine, Igor. 2001. Views about Food Prejudice and Stereotypes. Anthropology of Food 40 (3): 487–507. Gehlen, Arnold. 1986. Anthropologische und sozialpsychologische Untersuchungen. Reinbek: Rowohlt. Giddens, Anthony. 1991. Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age. Cambridge: Polity Press. Giesecke, Michael. 1992. Sinnenwandel, Sprachwandel, Kulturwandel. Studien zur Vorgeschichte der Informationsgesellschaft. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp. Goffman, Erving. 1967. Interaction Ritual: Essays on Face-to-Face Behavior. New York: Anchor Books. Hepp, Andreas, and Friedrich Krotz (eds.). 2014. Mediatized Worlds—Understanding Everyday Mediatization. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Hitzler, Roland, and Honer, Anne. 1994. Bastelexistenz. Über subjektive Konsequenzen der Individualisierung. In Riskante Freiheiten. Individualisierung in modernen Gesellschaften, ed. Ulrich Beck and Elisabeth Beck-Gernsheim, 307–315. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.

76

Y. Kautt

Jensen, Klaus Bruhn. 2013. Definitive and Sensitizing Conceptualizations of Mediatization. Communication Theory 23: 203–222. Johnston, Josée, and Shyon Baumann. 2010. Foodies: Democracy and Distinction in the Gourmet Foodscape. New York: Routledge. Kautt, York. 2008. Image. Zur Genealogie eines Kommunikationscodes der Massenmedien. Bielefeld: Transcript. Knorr-Cetina, Karin. 2009. The Synthetic Situation: Interactionism for a Global World. Symbolic Interaction 32 (1): 61–87. Lévi-Strauss, Claude. 2017 [1978]. Myth and Meaning. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Luckmann, Thomas. 1986. Grundformen der gesellschaftlichen Vermittlung des Wissens. Kommunikative Gattungen. In Kultur und Gesellschaft, ed. Friedhelm Neidhardt, M. Rainer Lepsius, and Johannes Weiss, 191–211. Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag. Luhmann, Niklas. 1974. Einführende Bemerkungen zu einer Theorie symbolisch generalisierter Kommunikationsmedien. Zeitschrift für Soziologie 3 (3): 236–255. Luhmann, Niklas. 2000 [1996]. The Reality of the Mass Media. Cambridge: Polity Press. Luhmann, Niklas. 2012. [1997]. Theory of Society, 2 vols. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press. Lundby, Knut. 2014. Mediatization of Communication. In Mediatization of communication, ed. Knut Lundby, 3–35. Berlin: De Gruyter. Manovich, Lev. 2012. How to Compare one Million Images. In Understanding Digital Humanities, ed. David M. Berry, 249–278. London: Palgrave. McDonnell, Erin Metz. 2016. Food Porn. The Conspicuous Consumption of Food in the Age of Digital Reproduction. In Food, Media and Contemporary Culture, ed. P. Bradley, 239–265. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Mitchell, William J. 1992. The Reconfigured Eye. Visual Truth in the Post-Photographic Era. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Newcomb, Horace, and Paul Hirsch. 1986. Fernsehen als kulturelles Forum. Neue Perspektiven für die Medienforschung. Rundfunk und Fernsehen Zeitschrift für Medien- und Kommunikationswissenschaften 34(2): 177–190. Ong, Walter J. 1982. Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word. Florence: Routledge. Paul, Axel T. 2011. Die Gewalt der Scham. Elias, Duerr und das Problem der Historizität menschlicher Gefühle. In Zur Kulturgeschichte der Scham, ed. Michaela Bauks, Martin F. Meyer, 195–216, Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag. Ritzer, George. 2007. The Globalization of Nothing. 2nd rev. and completely updated. Thousand Oaks, California: Pine Forge Press. Robertson, Roland. 1992. Globalization: Social Theory and Global Culture. London. Schmidt, Volker H. 2014. Global Modernity: A Conceptual Sketch. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Schmidt, Siegfried J., and Brigitte Spieß. 1997. Die Kommerzialisierung der Kommunikation. Fernsehwerbung und sozialer Wandel 1956-1989. Frankfurt am Main. Sennett, Richard. 1977. The Fall of Public Man. New York: Knopf. Slater, Don. 2013. New Media, Development and Globalization. Cambridge: Polity Press. Willems, Herbert, and Alois Hahn (eds.). 1998. Identität und Moderne. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Wolf, Herta (ed.). 2003. Diskurse der Fotografie. Fotokritik am Ende des fotografischen Zeitalters. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Wouters, Cas. 1979. Informalisierung und der Prozeß der Zivilisation. In Materialien zu Norbert Elias’ Zivilisationstheorie, ed. P. Gleichmann, J. Goudsblom, and H. Korte, 279–298. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.

York Kautt, PD Dr., is a researcher and lecturer at the Justus Liebig University Giessen, Germany. His main areas of work include media sociology, cultural globalization, and aesthetic research. Recent publications include Mediatization and Global Foodscapes (Palgrave Macmillan 2019) and Soziologie visueller Kommunikation (Springer 2019).

Chapter 5

Globalization and the Challenge of the Anthropocene Leslie Sklair

Abstract Just as globalization was a leading idea in the social sciences from the 1990s to the first decade of the new millennium, the Anthropocene is now a serious contender to be a leading idea in the social sciences and humanities. Controversies around the origins and implications of the Anthropocene mirror those around those of globalization—are they ancient or modern phenomena, are they sustainable or leading us into disaster? Mobilizing ideas on the “silent qualifiers” of globalization (generic, capitalist, and alternative globalizations) I argue that it is fruitful to theorize generic, capitalist, and alternative Anthropocenes. With the mantra of endless growth integral to the survival of both global capitalism and the state system, it seems obvious that these systems are incompatible with planetary survival in the long term, necessitating an engagement with the emerging degrowth movement. Given the failure of governments and corporations to seriously engage with the risks of the Anthropocene, smaller democratically organized communities at different geographic and socio-political scales offer prospects for simpler less ecologically destructive living. Fortunately, the Anthropocene is also a digital era, facilitating cooperative networking between such communities.

This chapter argues that if globalization was one of the leading ideas in the social sciences from the 1990s to the first decade of the new millennium, the Anthropocene can now be considered as a leading idea in the social sciences, the humanities, and also in some of the creative arts. The Anthropocene, strictly speaking, is a geological concept, coined in recognition of increasingly destabilizing human impacts on the planet. The controversies around the origins of the Anthropocene mirror those around the chronologies of globalization—are they ancient or modern phenomena? The label Anthropocene was intended to replace the Holocene epoch (roughly the last 10–12,000 years) in the geological nomenclature (see Steffen et al. 2011) and to establish the discipline of Earth System Science (ESS, see Hamilton, C 2015; Angus 2016). L. Sklair (B) London School of Economics, London WC2 2AE, UK e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 I. Rossi (ed.), Challenges of Globalization and Prospects for an Inter-civilizational World Order, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44058-9_5

77

78

L. Sklair

The idea of the Anthropo-scene appeared around 2015, and was first systematically set out in an article in the journal Social Studies in Science to highlight the “rich, inchoate and multi-disciplinary diversity of this Anthropo-scene… [proposing] five ways in which the concept of the Anthropocene has been mobilized: scientific question, intellectual zeitgeist, ideological provocation, new ontologies and science fiction” (Lorimer 2017: 117). Adding the intervention of creative artists, this is a useful way of organizing a vast literature.

Globalization as Social Science, Anthropocene as Geological Science, Anthropo-Scene as Totalizing Narrative The initial popularity of globalization as a motif for the social sciences and humanities was little short of astonishing. Introduced in the print media around 1960, the term first started to be used systematically by scholars and journalists in the 1980s, and by the turn of the millennium it was to be found everywhere, applied to almost everything (Ritzer 2012). In the words of The Economist in 2009, “The concept globalization was popularized by an American journalist, Thomas Friedman, in his book The World is Flat (2005).” It reached the top of several bestseller lists with its headline message that the world is now just “one big integrated market” (http://www.economist.com/node/14031230). The idea of the Anthropocene was “officially” announced to the wider scientific community in a short communication in the journal Nature1 (probably the most influential science publication in the world) entitled “Geology of mankind” (Crutzen 2002)—in retrospect, an unfortunate title. An article in the Guardian (London) highlighted the male bias in science in general and in the group leading the Anthropocene campaign in particular—this attracted hundreds of comments (Raworth 2014). Critics of the ideas of globalization and of the Anthropocene share many characteristics. For example, the literature on globalization is suffused with a good deal of fatalism, popularly known as TINA (there is no alternative). Even some progressive academics, popular writers, and political and cultural leaders seem to accept that there is no alternative to capitalist globalization and that all we can do is to try to work for a better world around it (Giddens 2000). And this is where the challenge of the Anthropocene to existing conceptions of globalization starts to bite. In 2009, the historian of fossil capitalism Andreas Malm, declared: “Forget the Anthropocene, we should call it the Capitalocene” (quoted in Moore’s edited book of 2016: xi). While sympathizing with the sentiment, I think that there are many reasons to claim that the Anthropocene is an apt label for the human impact on the planet. It is inclusive of the human enterprise, and though different levels of responsibility can be apportioned, most people on Earth (rich and poor) are understandably complicit through what I have labeled the culture ideology of consumerism (Sklair 2001, 2002). Rebranding Anthropocene as Capitalocene conveniently lets anti-capitalists off the hook to fly around the world critiquing capitalism and making our own ecologically destructive consumer choices. Just as we are all living in a globalized world that world is also

5 Globalization and the Challenge of the Anthropocene

79

the Anthropocene. And it is taking place within and being intensified through the system of capitalist globalization fortified by hierarchic states. What, then, does the idea of the Anthropocene have to offer that the immense body of globalization research does not already offer? The first and most obvious answer to this question must focus on the efforts of Earth System scientists to establish connections between the economic, social, and cultural spheres and the Earth System itself. Lorimer makes the distinction between the scientific agenda of the Anthropocene for Earth System science, and its rapid absorption into the intellectual zeitgeist. I would suggest, however, that the evidence permits another reading of the situation, namely, that many ESS researchers (including some of the most influential) framed their concept of the Anthropocene in a way that directly invited diverse publics into the fold, creating popular and transdisciplinary appeal. This, I would argue, can be clearly seen from what may be labeled the “official canon” of the Anthropocene as a scientific reality. In their collective introduction to the topic in the authoritative Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, Steffen et al. (2011) conclude that the Anthropocene might be compared to the Darwinian revolution. Even more boldly (and alarmingly) these three leading Earth scientists and one of the most influential world historians of our time state: “Darwin’s insights into our origins provoked outrage, anger and disbelief but did not threaten the material existence of society of the time. The ultimate drivers of the Anthropocene, on the other hand, if they continue unabated through this century, may well threaten the viability of contemporary civilization and perhaps even the future existence of Homo sapiens” (p. 862). Unusually for an article announcing a new field of scientific inquiry in a most prestigious natural science publication, this suggests that the Anthropocene is of direct relevance to planetary survival. Further evidence of the enthusiasm of the promoters of the Anthropocene concept to welcome the social sciences, humanities, and the arts into the broad tent of “Anthropocene studies” comes from the Anthropocene Working Group (AWG). This was established in 2009 to prepare the scientific community and the general public for the theoretical and practical challenges that lay ahead. The chairman was Jan Zalasiewicz (Professor of Paleobiology at the University of Leicester) who, through his writings, media outreach, and promotional skills, has done as much as anyone to disseminate the idea of the Anthropocene in scientific and public spheres. In December 2009, in correspondence with Davor Vidas (an international law of the sea scholar), Zalasiewicz wrote: “I would be glad to discuss the wider implications [of the Anthropocene] to your field of study, because while we are aware of the general societal implications of this term, the possible practical implications for international law [of the sea] would be of considerable interest in our examination of this term.”2 The Royal Society of Great Britain accepted a proposal for a thematic set of papers on the Anthropocene, to appear in their Proceedings journal. The first theme was “Historical perspectives and concept of the Anthropocene,” followed by eight geological and ecological topics. The last, “societal responses to the Anthropocene,” is of particular significance for my argument like the article by Steffen et al., wide enough to encourage participation from practically anyone. In his annual AWG report for 2014, Zalasiewicz wrote: “This has been another eventful year in the rapidly

80

L. Sklair

growing field of what one might term ‘Anthropocene studies’.” Also highlighted were major Anthropocene projects at Berlin’s Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW), and the Deutsches Museum/Rachel Carson Center Anthropocene exhibition in Munich, the incorporation of the Anthropocene as a major theme in the Smithsonian Institution’s “Deep Time” exhibition, three new Anthropocene journals and general books and films on the topic in the pipeline—all examples of prestigious outreach and what research funding bodies term “impact.”3 The inaugural meeting of the AWG was hosted and financially supported by HKW in Berlin in October 2014. This meeting included discussion of various technical questions concerning the measurement of the Holocene–Anthropocene boundary, whether the Anthropocene should be considered as “a unit of Earth history or human history,” and the issue of the “Anthropocene as a time unit and a material unit to be visualized by geoscientists and other interested communities.” A session on “Human Impacts and Their Consequences” ranged far and wide over critical assessment of science-political solution pathways, and a “research agenda beyond sustainability, linking scientific practice with societal relevance and local to global strategies of knowledge production.” Zalasiewicz summed up these “exchanges” as follows: “a set of dialogues between members of the Anthropocene Working Group and social scientists, thinkers, and artists, a serial thread of conversations that draws from a vast range of expertise, disciplines, and practices. … engaging with research methods in the lab or field, at the desk or in the studio.” This was followed in June 2015 by “The Anthropocene Project” at the Tate Modern, an exhibition at the Barbican in London, and similar events in many other cities around the world. This suggests that in the case of the Anthropocene the dire warnings of C.P. Snow’s “two cultures” thesis (chronicling the dangers of the separation of the sciences from the humanities and arts) were finally being taken to heart by all sides.4 My view is that globalization as a sociological concept has always been too frail to sustain the theoretical and substantive burdens loaded on to it. The “global” has always seemed too big and often lacking the specificity necessary for any sort of scientific rigor and no doubt some think the same about the Anthropocene.

Generic, Capitalist, and Alternative Anthropocenes In order to address political and methodological problems, I originally distinguished three modes of globalization in theory and practice, what we may term the “silent qualifiers” of globalization, namely, generic, capitalist, and alternative globalizations (Sklair 2009). Now, after studying the Anthropocene (and -scene), it appears to me that the same “silent qualifiers” can also be applied—generic, capitalist, and alternative Anthropocenes (same names, different contents).5 By generic Anthropocene I mean the simple ideas that living creatures have always had a multitude of impacts on the Earth System which itself is constantly changing in various ways, and that the evolution of humankind represented a quantitative

5 Globalization and the Challenge of the Anthropocene

81

transformation of these impacts (particularly with respect to city building, agriculture, and infrastructure). By capitalist Anthropocene I mean that the industrialization made possible by fossil fuels, exploited via capitalist relations of production, set in motion qualitative transformations of these impacts on the Earth System (Malm 2016). The difference between the generic and the capitalist Anthropocenes and, by implication, between the quantitative and the qualitative impacts on the planet, is caught by the distinction that geologists have made between the Holocene and the Anthropocene. The Holocene represents the previous 12,000 years of relative planetary stability, notably moderate temperature fluctuations and other functions favorable to life on the planet; the capitalist Anthropocene represents an end of relative planetary stability and a far less predictable, possibly catastrophic future. In the opinion of many Earth scientists and Anthropocene popularizers, one possible outcome is the end of life as we know it on the planet. However, like capitalist globalization, in the capitalist Anthropocene such alarming messages are rapidly dealt with by diluting them through a variety of what we might label “reassurance narratives.” For example, the Steffen et al. (2011) paper cited above concludes on an optimistic note reassuring us that human intelligence and ingenuity is prepared for the challenge of the Anthropocene. The most influential statement of this view comes from the prestigious Stockholm Resilience Centre research on planetary boundaries (PB). An authoritative report on the status of these boundaries, while highlighting the dangers (several boundaries already breached, others on the edge) concludes: “Nevertheless, by identifying a safe operating space for humanity on Earth, the PB framework can make a valuable contribution to decision-makers in charting desirable courses for societal development” (Steffen et al. 2015: 475). The ideas of “safe operating space” and the frequently quoted “Welcome to the Anthropocene” are only the most common of the Anthropocene reassurance narratives which have come to be associated with the label “good Anthropocene.” The parallels with globalization as theory and practice are striking. Equivalent reassurance narratives for the downsides of capitalist globalization are “the rising tide lifts all boats” blurring the evidence of global and local class polarization, and “ecological modernization” (also propagated by good Anthropocene enthusiasts) blurring the evidence of global and local ecological unsustainabilities (see Leichenko and O’Brien 2008; Sklair 2002: 48–58)—the capitalist Anthropocene avant la lettre! In the media, these reassurance narratives successfully morph from challenges to opportunities, successfully trumping (no pun intended) pessimism with optimism, pushing existential threats into the shadows.6 Engaging creatively with the science-politics of the Anthropocene, Stengers (2015) shows that as scientists went public on the Anthropocene before all the geological results were established (waiting for more definitive markers could be catastrophic), the anthropogenic climate change deniers could keep the debate going, opening up the unenviable choice between merchants of fear or merchants of doubt.7 Latour keeps this conversation going. Science and politics are both frail human endeavors, he argues. Anthropocene politics “is not a rational debate … [it is] incredibly easy to make two sides emerge even when there is only one” (Latour 2015: 147). There is a large literature on climate change denial (Boykoff and Olson 2013), much less on Anthropocene denial (but see the exemplary case study by Casagrande

82

L. Sklair

et al. 2017, where this is conceptualized as “ecomyopia”). Unsurprisingly, comparisons have been made between climate change denial and Holocaust denial: “Climate change and the Holocaust are not equivalent, but that does not mean there is no climate denial” (Jacques 2012: 10). While it would be quite wrong to identify the slogan “Welcome to the Anthropocene” with climate change or Anthropocene denial, I would argue that even when used ironically it does create an atmosphere of skepticism about the severity of the situation, which can implicitly lead to denial. The slogan adorned a front-page story in the Economist magazine in May 2011, the title of a 3-minute film introducing the UN Rio +20 summit in June 2012, and in 2014 “Welcome to the Anthropocene: The Earth in Our Hands” opened in the Deutsches Museum, Munich. A review of this exhibition concludes with a sharp critique of what I mean by the capitalist Anthropocene reassurance narrative: “the Anthropocene idea has prompted many scholars and activists to point out the radical environmental injustice of the epoch and to critique the capitalism that has led to it. We see neither in this exhibit. Instead, it offers a relatively benign vision of a changing planet. The change is not pictured as threatening, in spite of being rapid. The exhibit says Welcome to the Anthropocene, not Goodbye to the World You Knew” (Jørgensen and Jørgensen 2016: 237).8 Several books, articles, and mass media references to “Welcome to the Anthropocene” suggest that there is a middle way between the generic Anthropocene and extreme capitalist Anthropocene denial, and that the idea of the “good, welcoming Anthropocene” provides it. We may, after all, be having to think about planetary survival sooner rather than later.9 The debates around Anthropo-scene ideologies take different forms from those around globalization (see Sklair 2017). Capitalist ideologues generally adopted neoliberal forms of globalization, though by no means all (in and out of the transnational corporations and think tanks) took this position. My fourfold model of the transnational capitalist class (TCC) attempted to demonstrate alliances between corporate, political, professional, and consumerist fractions, but was sensitive to intra-TCC differences and sometimes open warfare between the fractions, though usually resolved in the interests of Big Business and the Big State (Sklair 2001). In the case of capitalist globalization, it was always obvious that there were powerful globalizing forces at work—the consequences of the digital revolution in all spheres of life and social organization made this difficult to deny. The political problem was and is: can capitalist globalization work for everyone or does it have an inbuilt tendency toward class polarization, inequality, and ecological disaster? Chinese President Xi at Davos in 2017 lectured the world with an impassioned defense of globalization and President Trump in the White House in 2018 promised to make America great again by resisting globalization. The politics of the Anthropocene do not rest on such obvious foundations. And, more to the point, I would argue that while globalization and especially climate change regularly appear in the mass media, albeit frequently in misleading and sensationalist terms (Boykoff 2011), the Anthropocene is still relatively unknown outside some bubbles in the worlds of science, academe, culture critique, and creative arts.10 Adding to Lorimer’s remarks on science/climate fiction and the Anthropocene (2017: 128–31), I can offer some comments on how the sciences are catching up

5 Globalization and the Challenge of the Anthropocene

83

with science fiction in a desperate attempt to prepare for the worst-case Anthropocene scenario—namely, what do we do when planet Earth becomes no longer able to support human life?11 Two issues appear to be paramount, first the practical possibility of physical escape from a doomed planet, and second, the identification of planets that hold out prospects of supporting human life. Both are now being investigated by leading scientists and entrepreneurs with the financial backing of private benefactors and public money. Planning for physical escape from a doomed planet does not receive much publicity, but it is clearly underway. In 2017, BBC2 screened a documentary, “The 21st century race for space.” Hosted by the genial Professor Brian Cox, a leading science popularizer in the UK, it took viewers on a tour of cutting-edge research locations all around the world. Cox explained: “surprisingly, some of the boldest efforts at putting humans into space are now those of private companies started by a handful of maverick billionaire businessmen.”12 These include Richard Branson (Virgin Galactic), Jeff Bezos (founder of Amazon and Blue Origin) and Elon Musk (Spaceport America and SpaceX) and their initiatives in privately financed space flight, space tourism, asteroid mining, and dreams of colonies on Mars. But, says Cox, “their true ambition is to ensure the survival of the human race by crossing our solar system and colonizing Mars in the next decade.” Building space ships is one problem, the next is ensuring the voyagers survive the journey, and then to find somewhere eventually for them to land and make a home. This is the search for a new planet Earth. The late Stephen Hawking had for some years been arguing that the human species will have to relocate to a new planet within 100 years. This documentary gave him one more platform to disseminate his views. The search for another planet Earth or a planet that can be terra formed to serve as a new home for humans is also underway.13 Professor Hawking and several other distinguished scientists worked with Breakthrough Initiatives, a program of scientific and technological exploration, probing the big questions of life in the Universe. The website (https://breakthroughinitiatives.org) explains: “Are we alone? Are there habitable worlds in our galactic neighborhood? Can we make the great leap to the stars? And can we think and act together—as one world in the cosmos? … Breakthrough Listen is a $100 million program of astronomical observations in search of evidence of intelligent life beyond Earth. …A complete survey of the 1,000,000 nearest stars, the plane and center of our galaxy, and the 100 nearest galaxies. All data will be open to the public.” This is serious money supporting serious efforts by serious scientists in what has been labeled exoplanet studies, namely, the study of planets outside our solar system that orbit a star. A recent publication on exoplanet astrobiology states: “The discovery of seven new exoplanets orbiting the relatively close star TRAPPIST-1 forces us to rethink life on Earth. It opens the possibility to broaden our understanding of coupled system dynamics and lay the foundations to explore a path to long-term sustainability by entering into a cooperative ecological-evolutionary dynamic with the coupled planetary systems” (in Kelley 2017).14 Behind all this effort is the fear of the worst-case Anthropocene scenario, a fear that seems to put all forms of globalization into a new, rather parochial, perspective. However, this would be a premature judgement.

84

L. Sklair

Conclusion I have argued that the emerging discipline of Anthropocene (and -scene) studies is poised to absorb globalization as the new meme for twenty-first-century thinking about our world as a whole and possible future. The Anthropocene has the unique capacity to pose questions about planetary survival, and globalization has the unique capacity to explain local–global dynamics. The critical point will arrive if and when sufficient numbers of ordinary people all over the world begin to realize that geoengineering, new technologies, and Artificial Intelligence machines will not save us from the ravages of the Anthropocene. Stephen Hawking, for example, campaigned vigorously against AI, warning that robots could destroy humanity—another sphere in which capitalist globalization confronts the Anthropocene.15 If it is not too late to secure planetary survival, alternative Anthropocenes (i.e., intelligent reworkings of human impacts on the Earth System and its constituent ecosystems) may start to replace the current dysfunctional capitalist and state systems that exacerbate existing problems. A necessary aspect of these reworkings would be innovative reformations of global–local relations. Such initiatives are already under way in thousands of small communities all round the world, seeking routes to zero-carbon living, producing their own food, and detaching themselves from the growth obsession of capitalism and its variants. It is important to acknowledge that diluted versions of these strategies are also to be found in the rhetoric of the capitalist “good Anthropocene,” propounded by corporate interests, national governments, and international organizations in terms of getting to grips with climate change. Climate change summits over the last 50 years have made some progress at local, national, and global levels, but the optimism of the negotiators and most of the mass media often seems pathetically naïve in comparison with the evidence-based pessimism of many Earth System scientists. The key, in my view, is the issue of degrowth, now a rapidly expanding transnational intellectual and social movement (D’Alisa et al. 2014). With the mantra of endless growth integral to the survival of both global capitalism and the state system, it seems obvious that capitalism and the centralized hierarchical state are incompatible with planetary survival in the long term (perhaps even in the shorter term, if we are to take Stephen Hawking and others like him seriously). However, the proponents of degrowth, like everyone else, are yet to deal convincingly with the formidable problems of existing global inequalities and their root causes. Studying more carefully small-scale self-reliant communities and their strategies of disengagement with the capitalist market and the state may “highlight the US and Italy… not only because Tarrant drew inspiration from both, but also because both have become important contemporary laboratories of dangerous ideologies.” Fortunately, the Anthropocene is also a digital era, which raises the possibility for opportunities to create local democratically organized communities, networking on many different geographic and socio-political scales. This, in my view, is the best prospect for alternative globalizations and alternative Anthropocenes. So, if the worst comes to the

5 Globalization and the Challenge of the Anthropocene

85

worst, even this remote possibility of long-term planetary survival might become a little less remote and the future for our descendants a little less desperate.16 Notes 1.

Crutzen and Stoermer (2000) was a more technical article on the Anthropocene in the newsletter of the International Geosphere–Biosphere Programme. Stoermer is also credited with introducing the term (see Angus 2016: 33ff., Ellis 2018: Chap. 1). 2. In 2009, Vidas organized a major international conference on “The World Ocean in Globalisation,” perhaps the first scholarly conference to link globalization and the Anthropocene. Unattributed quotes below can be accessed from the AWG website newsletters dated from 2009 to 2014, https://quaternary.stratigraphy. org/workinggroups/anthropocene/. 3. On these and other scholarly and creative art events, see Robin and Muir (2015), Anderson (2015) and Swanson et al. (2015). 4. See http://s-f-walker.org.uk/pubsebooks/2cultures/Rede-lecture-2-cultures.pdf The major figure for the Anthropocene in this context is the Indian historian Dipesh Chakrabarty (2009, 2018) See also Hamilton, C. et al. eds. (2015). 5. I deal with generic and capitalist Anthropocenes in this section, for alternative Anthropocenes see my conclusion. 6. The institutional support for these views could be labeled the “Philanthropocene” (philanthropic institutions and foundations propagating “good” Anthropocene narratives). 7. See Oreskes and Conway (2012). Relevant here is the literature on consensus in science—the multidisciplinary survey of Cook et al. (2015) has had more than 300,000 downloads. 8. For a thorough discussion of debates around the “good Anthropocene,” see Dalby (2016). 9. Compare: “Welcome to the Anthropocene” with “Welcome to the Holocaust” or the prizewinning book “Adventures in the Anthropocene” with “Adventures in the Holocaust” or the art exhibition and conference entitled “Postcards from the Anthropocene” with “Postcards from the Holocaust” or “Romancing the Anthropocene” with “Romancing the Holocaust.” These comparisons might seem ridiculous (even offensive) now, but if the worst comes to the worst… 10. For an edited collection based on a research project to establish how the Anthropocene is represented in the mass media in local languages all over the world, see Sklair ed. (2021). 11. Kim Stanley Robinson’s novel, Mars Trilogy, tells the story of the colonization of Mars. The richness and remarkable prescience of Robinson’s writing are ample rewards for the effort required to read all three volumes. See Wark (2015: ch. 4), and Knoespel (2012), who provides a useful glossary of the main themes. 12. See https://www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/en/media/bbc-two-the-21stcentury-race-for-space(50aba912-8932-4dd2-8e28-c72a7821be49).html.

86

L. Sklair

13. Usually, terraforming is defined as making other planets more like Earth. However, I consider it more fruitful to expand the definition to include Earth and bring terraforming into debates about nature, infrastructure, technology, and bio- and geoengineering. 14. Kelley summarizes the paper—originally published in the journal Anthropocene. I do not cite it because I do not entirely understand it; however, the conclusion in Kelley, quoting one of the authors, seems to imply something like the relationship between Earth and Mars in Robinson’s trilogy. 15. In the long Harvard Business Review (July 2017) cover story on AI, notable for their absence are the words citizen, democracy, ethics, morality, responsibility, and values. 16. For example, https://transitionnetwork.org/news-and-blog/activism-in-the-ant hropocene; see also Sklair (2016). As the coronavirus epidemic (frequently blamed on globalization) and the intensifying of the ecological crisis have demonstrated, the necessity for genuine system change is more pressing than ever.

References Anderson, K. 2015. Ethics, Ecology, and the Future: Art and Design Face the Anthropocene. Leonardo 48 (4): 338–347. Angus, I. 2016. Facing the Anthropocene: Fossil Capitalism and the Crisis of the Earth System. New York: Monthly Review Press. Boykoff, M. 2011. Who Speaks for the Climate? Making Sense of Mass Media Reporting on Climate Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Boykoff, M., and S. Olson. 2013. ‘Wise contrarians’: A Keystone Species in Contemporary Climate Science, Politics and Policy. Celebrity Studies 4 (3): 276–291. Casagrande, D., E. Jones, F. Wyndham, J. Stepp, and F. Zarger. 2017. Ecomyopia in the Anthropocene. Anthropology Today 33 (1): 23–25. Chakrabarty, D. 2009.The climate of history: Four theses. Critical Inquiry 35:197–222. Chakrabarty, D. 2018 Anthropocene time. History and Theory 57(1): 5–32. Cook, J., et al. 2015. Consensus on Consensus: A Synthesis of Consensus Estimates on HumanCaused Global Warming. Environmental Research Letters 11: 1–6. Crutzen, P., and E. Stoermer. 2000. The ‘Anthropocene’. IGBP Newsletter 41: 17–18. Crutzen, P. 2002. Geology of Mankind. Nature 415 (January): 23. D’Alisa, G., F. Demaria, and G. Kallis (eds.). 2014. Degrowth: A Vocabulary for a New Era. London: Routledge. Dalby, S. 2016. Framing the Anthropocene: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. The Anthropocene Review 2 (2): 102–106. Ellis, E. 2018. Anthropocene: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Giddens, A. 2000. The Third Way and its Critics. Cambridge: Polity. Hamilton, C. 2015. Getting the Anthropocene so Wrong. The Anthropocene Review 3 (1): 33–51. Hamilton, C., C. Bonneuil, and F. Gemenne (eds.). 2015. The Anthropocene and Global Environmental Crisis: Rethinking Modernity in a New Epoch. London & New York: Routledge. Jacques, P. 2012. A General Theory of Climate Denial. Global Environmental Politics 12 (2): 9–17. Jørgensen, F., and D. Jørgensen. 2016. The Anthropocene as a History of Technology: ‘Welcome to the Anthropocene’. Technology and Culture 57 (1): 231–237.

5 Globalization and the Challenge of the Anthropocene

87

Kelley, P. 2017. http://www.washington.edu/news/2017/09/06/earth-as-hybrid-planet-new-classific ation-scheme-places-anthropocene-era-in-astrobiological-context/. Knoespel, K. 2012. Reading and Revolution on the Horizon of Myth and History: Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars Trilogy. Configurations 20 (1–2): 109–136. Latour, B. 2015. Telling Friends From Foes in the Time of the Anthropocene. In C. Hamilton et al. Eds. op cit., 145–55. Leichenko, R., and K. O’Brien. 2008. Environmental Change And Globalisation: Double Exposures. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lorimer, J. 2017. The Anthropo-scene: A Guide for the Perplexed. Social Studies of Science 47 (1): 117–142. Malm, A. 2016. Fossil Capitalism: The rise of steam Power and the Roots of Global Warming. London: Verso. Moore, J. (ed.). 2016. Anthropocene or Capitalocene? Nature, History, and the Crisis of Capitalism. Oakland CA: PM Press. Oreskes, N., and E. Conway. 2012. Merchants of doubt—How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming. London: Bloomsbury. Raworth, K. 2014. Must the Anthropocene be a Manthropocene? https://www.theguardian.com/ commentisfree/2014/oct/20/anthropocene-working-group-science-gender-bias. Ritzer. G., ed. 2012. The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Globalisation, 5 vols. Malden MA: Wiley-Blackwell. Robin, L., and C. Muir. 2015. https://umaincertaantropologia.org/2015/05/02/slamming-the-anthro pocene-performing-climate-change-in-museums-recollections/. Sklair, L. 2001. The Transnational Capitalist Class. Oxford: Blackwell. Sklair, L. 2002. Globalization: Capitalism and its Alternatives. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sklair, L. 2009. The Emancipatory Potential of Generic Globalization. Globalisations 6 (4): 523– 537. Sklair, L. 2016. Half-Baked. Philosophica. Critica 2 (2): 103–116. Sklair, L. 2017. Review Article: Sleepwalking through the Anthropocene. British Journal of Sociology 68 (4): 775–784. Sklair, ed. (2021) The Anthropocene in Global Media: Neutralizing the Risk. London: Routledge Steffen, W., J. Grinevald, P. Crutzen, and J. McNeill. 2011. The Anthropocene: Conceptual and Historical Perspectives. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A 369: 842–867. Steffen, W., K. Richardson, J. Rockström, et al. 2015. Planetary Boundaries: Guiding Human Development for a Changing Planet. Science. http://science.sciencemag.org/content/347/6223/ 1259855. Stengers, I. 2015. Accepting the Reality of Gaia: A Fundamental Shift. In Hamilton et al., op cit. (Eds), 134–44. Swanson, H.A., N. Bubandt, and A. Tsing. 2015. Less than One But More Than Many: Anthropocene As Science Fiction and Scholarship-in-the-Making. Environment & Society 6: 149–166. Wark, M. 2015. Molecular Red: Theory for the Anthropocene. London: Verso.

Leslie Sklair is Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the London School of Economics, and the President of the Global Studies Association (UK). He is a founding member of the Network for Critical Studies of Global Capitalism and is best known for his books, The Transnational Capitalist Class, and Globalization: Capitalism and its Alternatives. His work has been translated into many languages.

Chapter 6

Conceptual Structures for a Theory of World Society Rudolf Stichweh

Abstract The paper gives an overview of the most important conceptual structures for writing the history and constructing a theory of world society. It 1. defines the concept of society and asks how many types of society can be observed in the history of human social systems; 2. connects the argument about types of society with a reconstruction of patterns of settlement of the earth by humans; 3. resumes these arguments by presenting a concept of sociocultural evolution as basic process of the formation of societies. Then it switches its focus to the reconstruction of modern world society (eighteenth–twenty first centuries); 4. defines main aspects of the complexity of world society and the nexus from complexity to functional differentiation; 5. identifies inclusion revolutions since the eighteenth century as starting point of global function systems such as the economy, education, science, and polity; 6. explains the other emerging eigenstructures of world society (scale-free networks, world organizations, epistemic communities, global interaction systems, and world events); and 7. resumes the argument by identifying the basic mechanisms of societal transformation—namely communication, migration, observation, and knowledge—which function as enabling background of the history of human societies.

What Is Society and Which Types of Society Do We Observe? To understand the hypothesis of “world society” we must, first of all, have an idea of what the concept of society means. There seems to be an implicit consensus that society is always the most extensive macrosystem, including a closed web of social relations, forming a system which produces all structures and processes from inside its own boundaries and on the basis of its own resources. This suggestion is affine to the notion of society formulated by Talcott Parsons and Niklas Luhmann (Stichweh 2005). Besides social closure and self-production one can add the ideas of selfsufficiency and autarchy which were already prominent in Greek political theory. R. Stichweh (B) Forum Internationale Wissenschaft, University of Bonn, Heussallee 18-24, 53113 Bonn, Germany e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 I. Rossi (ed.), Challenges of Globalization and Prospects for an Inter-civilizational World Order, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44058-9_6

89

90

R. Stichweh

Enlightenment thinking added the hypothesis of a tendency toward expansion as the formative principle of society: “The social principle in man is of such an expansive nature, that it cannot be confined within the circuit of a family, of friends, of a neighborhood; it spreads into wider systems, and draws men into larger communities and commonwealths; since it is in these only, that the more sublime powers of our nature attain the highest improvement and perfection of which they are capable.” (Britannica 1771). There are several types of society in the history of human social systems. For ten thousands of years (approximately 70.000–10.000 BCE) there existed only hunter/gatherer societies which consist of a few dozen, at most a few hundreds, of members. They were mobile, migratory societies which moved when their nutritional resources were no longer sufficient for their needs. With the invention of agriculture, ca. 10.000 years ago, arose sedentary societies which added religious and political roles and institutions and at a certain level of complexity could be described as states which were politically unified. From the territorial expansion of states, more extensive societies arose which, by military aggrandizement and a minimum political control of heterogeneous spaces, included several hunter/gatherer societies and several states into one macrosociety which is often called an empire. Empires could already cover landmasses over distances of thousands of kilometers and they existed for around six-thousand years until our times. Most of the empires dissolved after World War II when the territorial and national state became the dominant political form in world society. Parallel to the expansion of empires one could observe what probably was a type of society of its own: civilizations. The boundaries of civilizations were more sociocultural boundaries than they were political-military boundaries as was the case in empires. China, India, and Europe probably were examples of macrosocial systems (= societies) that were defined in their unity by sociocultural boundaries. In the last few hundred years, especially as a result of the colonization of the other continents and their societies by European empires, interrelations between world regions intensified enormously. From these growing interdependencies slowly arose world society as one sociocultural space which includes all sociality and communication into the boundaries of a singular societal system. The emergence of world society was especially advanced by the rise of global function systems such as the economy, polity, religion, science, and others, world systems which include all the varieties of economic behavior, political regime, religious belief, and scientific practice as internal varieties of these systems. In a first approximation, it can even be said that the rise of world society and the genesis of global function systems are one and the same social process.

Settlement of the Earth and the Rise of the Anthropocene The genesis of world society is closely coupled to the history of Homo Sapiens as the hominid species who succeeded to settle all natural spaces and to coexist with all

6 Conceptual Structures for a Theory of World Society

91

natural ecologies which are to be found on earth. There had been numerous hominid species over millions of years. But over the last 70.000 years Homo Sapiens who came from a small stretch in East Africa (near Lake Tanganyika) and first established its presence on another continent (Near East) 70.000 years ago succeeded to outcompete and extinguish all remnants of earlier hominid species. The unity of only one human species became a precondition and a precursor of the later unity of world society. And there is another unity implied, the “psychological unity of mankind,” as nineteenthcentury anthropologists began to call it (Köpping 2005), which narrows the space of behavioral alternatives to be expected and therefore makes the expansion of the potential span of society easier. Besides these biological and psychological conditions there was a remarkable similarity of the basic institutions of all human societies. They are all based in small groups and in these small groups knowledge about kinship can be presupposed. Humans know how they are related to one another—who is kin and non-kin and who is a stranger. More to the material-technological side there are in all human societies stone tools and probably wooden tools, and another astonishing (near) universality is the use of pigments for symbolic pictorial representations. Furthermore, there is the universality of language and linguistic communication—and there arises the institutional world around death. All human societies bury their dead members, this is connected to the human experience of the boundary between life and death as demarcated by an irreversible transition and to the killing of other humans and animals as an intentional act and not simply as a side effect of violent fights. And the knowledge of death and the institutions around death are finally related to the emergence of sociocultural memories: Memorizing the dead, knowing about the irreversibility of loss, and in many societies avenging the death of lost members on those who were responsible for killing the dead members of one’s own group and even doing this after very long stretches of time. Spatial and temporal horizons of leading a human life expand and this is another aspect of the formation of society. The settlement of ever new physical spaces on earth by Homo Sapiens who originally was an animal physically inferior to many other animals and therefore needed tools and weapons for defense and survival, over time changed the conditions of living for nearly all plant and animal life forms which are there on earth. Homo Sapiens became a dominating world species as no species before had ever been, and its social systems and technologies and their cumulative effects finally even began to change physicochemical parameters of the planet on which plant and animal life evolved. “Anthropocene” has become the common epoch-defining term for this increasing influence of social systems on all life forms, their ecologies, and on physicochemical parameters of earth. It is easily to be seen that “Anthropocene” is in one respect only another word for the condition which we call “World Society.” In other respects, it is a formulation for the massive physico-technological reality of World Society which contrasts sharply with the apparent weightlessness of its communications. And it is one aspect of the argument made here about certain biological, psychological, and sociocultural universals of human social systems that it relativizes the novelty of “World Society” as a historical condition which could not have been expected. From the universality of many preconditions of World Society, one could deduce that the

92

R. Stichweh

later realization of a modern World Society became somehow probable as soon as the preponderance of the cultures of Homo Sapiens on earth had been established for the first time.

Sociocultural Evolution It is another perspective on the long-term transitions just analyzed that they can be attributed to the invention by hominids of a world process we call sociocultural evolution (Blute 2010; Boyd and Richerson 1985; Campbell 1988; Hodgson and Thorbjorn 2010; Richerson and Boyd 2005). Sociocultural evolution is analogous to, but clearly distinct, from biological evolution. Both, biological evolution and sociocultural evolution, are processes of information transmission, both are about the storage, the passing on, the variation, and selective reproduction of units of information and these commonalities identify both processes as genuine evolutionary processes. But otherwise they are clearly different. In biological evolution, it is always the (plant, animal) genome which functions as the mechanism of storage, in sociocultural evolution we have cultural or individual memories. The mechanism of transmission is via genes in the case of biological evolution, in sociocultural evolution it is based on communication and on specific types of communication, for example, on communicative acts of teaching and learning. Variation arises in biological evolution by genetic mutation or by a recombination of genes (in the case of sexual reproduction), in the case of sociocultural evolution by acts of social innovation, by the implicit or explicit negation of established expectations, and in conflict systems which intensify negations. Finally, there are mechanisms of selection. In biological evolution, the selective survival of those organisms endowed with novel characteristics is decisive (besides other levels of selection) (Campbell 1970); in sociocultural evolution, there are many levels of selection (and the selective survival of whole societies and their institutions can be important in hunter/gatherer societies), but basically sociocultural selection is about the selective reproduction of elementary social units (expectations, symbols, memes, routines) in communication processes. What is interesting in sociocultural evolution is that—as is the case in biological evolution—sociocultural evolution is clearly a world process in the sense that in doing work on sociocultural evolution we have to adopt a theoretical perspective which contradicts the impression that world society is a late emergence of very recent times. Of course, there can arise separations between world regions, even for thousands of years, as it probably was the case for the separation of the Americas from the Eurasian world until the “rediscovery” of America around 1500. After this rediscovery, it was “one world” in which sociocultural evolution as a process went on, producing novel expectations and behaviors and retaining only some of them in a world space of sociocultural possibilities and resources which connected all the world regions. And, of course, the diverse territorial spaces of our planet had to a certain amount been one world before, in the ten thousands of years these spaces had

6 Conceptual Structures for a Theory of World Society

93

been successively populated in the migration history of the tribal societies of Homo Sapiens. Beyond the fundamental duality of variation and selection, in evolutionary processes, isolation and separation define the other very important evolutionary mechanism. In biological evolution, isolation/separation are responsible for the emergence of new animal and plant species (Mayr 1942). In sociocultural evolution, isolation and separation make use of the different forms of social differentiation (segmentation, stratification, center/periphery, functional differentiation) (Luhmann 1982). On the basis of the availability of these forms of differentiation is then established the autonomy of differentiated social systems which are either segments, strata, centers or peripheries or, finally, function systems in society (Stichweh 2007b).

Global Complexity and Functional Differentiation in World Society In contemporary society, there are several terms for the complexity of world society, all of which are an important part of the vocabulary of the theory of a global societal system. There is first “interrelatedness,” a term which signifies symmetrical relations of co-dependence among social units (Olds 1992). World society is a historical condition which expands interrelatedness to any kind of social units whatever, all of whom in principle can now be interrelated with one another. At the same time, interrelations among units are always selective and via selectivity arises meaning and structure. One can understand this interest in interrelatedness as a turn to a relational understanding of the world, a turn for which the rise of numerous network theories in the last decades (Barabási 2003; Barabási 2011; Easley and Kleinberg 2010) is another and probably the most prominent indicator. A second relevant but different term is “connectivity” (in some authors “connectedness”) for which I propose an interpretation which looks at connectivity as an asymmetry in relations among units (Subrahmanyam 2005; Van Dijck 2013). A second social unit connects to something which has been produced by a first unit beforehand. This means there is a temporal sequence built into the relations of social units. These relations of connectivity set up social processes in time. And connectivity seems to mean that far distant events can be connected with one another. A third term which has to be added to our vocabulary is “ubiquity” (Buchanan 2002). This concept does not speak of relations but about repetitions. Some social units are ubiquitous in world society. Such an understanding is first about spatial universality. The respective units and the events coupled to them happen to occur anywhere, at any place, again and again. This implies a spatial understanding of being to be found everywhere but it adds the temporal implication of happening again and again. The most important form of realizing societal complexity in world society is functional differentiation. Function systems combine a precise functional specification of

94

R. Stichweh

meaning with a global extension of their communicative horizons. In some respects, the differentiation of functional perspectives and the historical process of globalization are identical. The decomposition of the world that is chosen in focusing on problems of religious belief or of scientific truth or legal justice or economic profitability, etc., if one really makes one of these perspectives one’s own, do not tolerate regional spatial restrictions—and in this coevolution of functional differentiation and world society consists the revolutionary relevance of functional specification and concentration in the genesis of world society. There are clearly many other social systems besides function systems, for example, interactions, organizations, social groups, and other candidates. They need not be global and often cannot be. But all of them are related to function systems, and function systems make available for them the possibility of links to world society. This universal availability of links to global contexts is the specific achievement of function systems and defines their relevance.

Inclusion Revolutions and the Universal Relevance of Function Systems Function systems go back to semantic and structural inventions which in some cases were made more than two thousand years ago (e.g., Roman law or the genesis of axial age religions and philosophies) (Jaspers 1949). But function systems realize their modern form on the basis of inclusion revolutions which start in the second half of the eighteenth century (democratic revolution, industrial revolution, education revolution, scientific revolution) (cf. for similar ideas) (Parsons and Platt 1974). An inclusion revolution means that a functional relevance, which may have been a very small societal phenomenon before, acquires a new kind of social universality by including potentially and nearly every human individual into its purview. I will briefly illustrate this idea by analyzing the four cases mentioned (and it is obvious that there are many more than these four cases): Industrial or economic revolution: Since the second half of the eighteenth century, European economies were the first “commercial societies.” They were commercial societies in the understanding that everyone, in the words of Adam Smith, “becomes in some measure a merchant” (Smith 1776) (Book 1, Ch. 4). Everybody occasionally sells something on the basis of prices and learns to understand that the marketplaces where this happens are embedded into (global) interconnected markets which regulate the prices sellers and buyers can expect (Rothenberg 1992). The European economies where this happened were the first cases of a major economic system which escaped the Malthusian trap of population growth leading to the pauperization of growing segments of the population. Instead of this classical phenomenon, Europe brought about economies in which population growth became the driving engine of further economic growth which progressed faster than population growth (Maddison 2005; North and Thomas 1973). Something similar even happened in Russia as an

6 Conceptual Structures for a Theory of World Society

95

eighteenth-century agrarian economy from 1720 to 1788 (Kollmann 2017: 68). Two hundred years after this transition, which was a regional phenomenon in the European economy, the worldwide inclusion revolution of the economy is still going on. There are still significant populations in the world which are very marginal to the world economy as they are not really a part of the global labor force and as they are nearly no contributors to global economic demand. Democratic revolution: Since late eighteenth-century society, democracy became for the first time in history a realistic option as an acceptable political regime. Again, there is an inclusion revolution behind it (Stichweh 2016: Chaps. 4–6). Political systems of modern society are increasingly based on the inclusion of everyone, first as the recipients of the achievements and outputs of political processes into which they are included on the basis of ideas about the commonweal. Secondly, and more important still, inclusion refers to rights and possibilities of active participation in political decision making as political voters and in many other situations and roles. The extension of these rights of participation is the core of the inclusion revolution of modern society. These rights of participation are granted to individuals and/or to the new collectivities of modern political systems, collectivities which are no longer heterogeneous strata and estates but are constituted as the inclusive collectivities either called “the people” or “the nation.” The mix and the relative weight of individual and collective inclusion differ over time and they differ between countries and regime types (Judson 2016: pp. 51, 77, 199). But the reference to and the relevance of universal inclusion is shared even by many authoritarian regimes who often have a preference to describe themselves as “democratic” (e.g., “people’s democracy” in the case of many communist regimes). In this respect, it might be said that the democratic revolution is a world phenomenon and that the bipolar distinction of democracy and authoritarianism simply describes two subtypes of it (Ahlers and Stichweh 2019). Educational revolution: If one looks at the European tradition since the Middle Ages, primary and secondary schools and universities were for hundreds of years mostly small or niche phenomena, often relevant for the education of elites, but only for them. Since the eighteenth century, one could observe a progressive universalization of the different levels of schooling (first as a European, later as a world development). There is a near universalization of primary education late in the eighteenth century in some European countries (especially Calvinist countries—Scotland, Netherlands); late in the nineteenth century, the United States were the first case of a near universalization (including females) of secondary schools and secondary school degrees (Goldin and Katz 2008). Near the end of the twentieth and early in the twenty-first century, one observes very high inclusion rates into higher education which in some countries (South Korea, Taiwan, New Zealand) nearly approach 100%. Here again, the global relevance of the different levels of schooling is realized by the educational revolution as an inclusion revolution. Science revolution: There are well-established concepts of the seventeenthcentury “Scientific Revolution” and the so-called “Second scientific revolution” in the decades around 1800 (Bellone 1980; Brush 1988; Cunningham and Williams 1993). But these two revolutions are not primarily about universal inclusion, although the

96

R. Stichweh

disciplinary differentiation of science in the second scientific revolution is obviously coupled to inclusion effects (Stichweh 1984, 1992, 2015b). Nonetheless, it might be argued that the availability of inclusion roles for everyone never came about in the global system of science. Looking at this situation we propose for science the concept of a “science revolution” (probably one should call it the “third scientific revolution”) which comes about only in the twentieth/twenty-first century and which realizes global inclusion in a way different from the other function systems. The core transformation is not the availability of inclusion roles for everyone. Instead, this transformation consists in an enormous expansion of the problem space scientific research can deal with. The main effect of this science revolution is that there is no aspect of the practice of living in contemporary society which is not affected by insights based in scientific research. And, therefore, global inclusion into science does not come about in the form of inclusion roles into science but more in the form of the relevance of scientific knowledge systems for nearly all aspects of living which cannot easily be denied and only from this relevance of scientific knowledge is derived its interest for everybody who has good reasons to look at it. This aspect of inclusion into science via inclusion into its effects is similar to welfare state inclusion in the polity. Often, the welfare state, too, substitutes inclusion into its achievements and products for possibilities of active participation for its citizens. We could prolong this argument in looking at other inclusion revolutions and their effects on the constitution of a world system. The logic is similar. There are niches of highly specified communications in some regions of the world which by including ever new regions, ever new types of collectivities, and by making from individuality a core institution of society become constitutive parts of world society and as such finally acquire responsiveness to all aspects of their societal environments. “Responsiveness” means a kind of diagnostic competence which makes use of highly specialized perspectives for redefining external societal problems (Stichweh 2015a: pp. 45–47). And then there are interesting variants in these processes as the case of science demonstrates. Science is more a function system of far-reaching responsiveness to its societal environments than it realizes universal possibilities of inclusion for everyone.

Theory of Eigenstructures To write about functional differentiation means to analyze one of the eigenstructures of world society. Eigenstructures are those structures of society which are related to world society via reciprocal intensification. They bring about world society, and the arising world system reinforces its own preconditions by giving these structures evolutionary advantages in comparison to other structures of society (Stichweh 2007a). If one analyzes world society on the basis of its eigenstructures this is probably by far the best way to make visible the radical discontinuity which separates Modern

6 Conceptual Structures for a Theory of World Society

97

World Society from premodern societal systems. There existed an underlying structural unity and long-term stability of premodern Eurasian societies which were based on eigenstructures of their own among which one should probably mention regional segmentation (of social systems), hierarchization/stratification (of social groups), and presence orientation (relevant decisions need presence of all those participating and are thereby limited in their reach) (Schlögl 2014). The eigenstructures of global modernity are based on the negation of all three of these structural premises and this demarcates the historical discontinuity. (a) Among the eigenstructures, functional differentiation is the defining structure for world society and modernity. Since 1750, it has a 250 years history with significant transitions (inclusion revolutions, switch to global systems with global responsiveness) and significant additions of new function systems (mass media, sport, the addition of health concerns to an “illness system”) and an open future. To speak about a society after functional differentiation seems to be premature. But there is an enormous growth in structural complexity by adding other eigenstructures. (b) There are global networks which as so-called small world networks (= scalefree networks) combine the principle of direct or indirect interrelatedness of a big number of network nodes (billions of individuals, billions of websites) with a surprisingly short path distance between any two of these billions of nodes. Such a “small world” can always be described by the paradox that it is on the one side a “world” (i.e., inexhaustible, not easily to be understood) and at the same time “small,” as any of the nodes in such a network can be attained from any other node in only a few steps (Easley and Kleinberg 2010). One of the sociologically remarkable characteristics of small world networks is that they combine the non-hierarchical property of laterality (there is no formal hierarchy of levels) with network-specific forms of hierarchy and inequality. Different nodes in a network are characterized by very different numbers of ties they have (there is no clustering around a central value of number of ties). This is a conspicuous form of inequality which is self-reinforcing as there are mechanisms of “preferential attachment” which make it probable that new ties are mostly addressed to those nodes which already have a significant number of ties. To the nodes privileged in this way then accrues centrality in the network which implies that many information processes are routed via these central network nodes. A sociological interpretation of these central nodes will add that the routing of many communications via these nodes will provide them with power (Burt 1992). They are “gatekeepers.” One has to appeal to them, has to get their consent, if one wants to get access to certain resources and information. The problem of access to resources and information often points to third parties to which one has no ties of one’s own and therefore one needs the gatekeepers and affirms their power. There is a strong mathematical relation between these hierarchies in small world networks and the remarkably short path distances to be observed even in very extensive networks.

98

R. Stichweh

The originality and sociological relevance of the form of structure formation called small world network will be visible. Inside every function system there will always exist many small world networks. For example, in studying the internal differentiation of a scientific discipline one can look at the network structures of cooperation and coauthorship internal to it and one can even analyze conceptual structures in a discipline as a cognitive network. But if one looks for the overall unity of a scientific discipline and its relations with disciplines in its scientific environment network analysis seems not to be the best instrument. At this point—analyzing internal unity and differentiation and external environments of the discipline—one needs the theory of functional differentiation and its insights regarding the internal differentiation of science into a plurality of disciplinary communication systems. (c) A third eigenstructure of world society is the formal organization. Organizations as systems are based on membership. For each individual person who wants to belong to an organization, a decision on its inclusion as a member has to be taken. And not only inclusion into membership is based on decisions. It is furthermore true for all other communicative operations internal to the organization that they finally will result in a decision to be taken. All the decisions made by an organization then function as premises for connecting operations and for further decisions based on them. It is this ability to work on the basis of sequences of decisions which distinguishes the organization from function systems and networks, both of which can’t take decisions. The globality of the modern organization, as another of its defining attributes, is brought about by the fact that it is relatively easy to replicate organizations and their constitutive routines (Nelson and Winter 1982). One can establish economic enterprises, churches, sports clubs, hospitals, and universities anywhere in the world. One needs local and regional adaptations for doing this. But how to institutionalize such adaptations can become an organizational routine in itself. In consequence, one observes organizations which exist in similar forms in all world regions. And one can break down one and the same globally oriented macro-organization into dozens or even hundreds of regionally located subsidiaries which ensure the presence of the respective macroorganization at any place in the world. Among the suborganizations of one macro-organization and among the organizations with a thematic focus on the perspectives of one function system arise global networks of organizations. This emphasizes the complementarity and reciprocal intensification of these three forms of structure formation: function system, small world network, and organization. (d) The fourth eigenstructure of world society is the “epistemic community”. The epistemic community more than the first three forms embodies the respects in which present-day world society is a “knowledge society” (Stichweh 2014). Epistemic communities as communities include all those who share a certain

6 Conceptual Structures for a Theory of World Society

99

repertoire of normative and cognitive premises constitutive of the community. These community participants need not be organized and they need not establish a small world network as for them the binding nature of cognitions and norms is ensured by the reciprocal observation of the participants and not by ties of cooperation and social exchange. It might even be said that an epistemic community is more strongly held together by the “mechanical” solidarity of communities than by the “organic” solidarity of function systems and small world networks (Durkheim 1893). A test case for the concept of epistemic community could be the epistemic world community of chess players. It is not part of a function system, for example, not a subsystem of the function system sport, as the acceptance of chess into sport is more honorific than real. Chess is only very partially organized, most chess players in the world are probably not a member of a club or any other organization. And the community of all chess players is not identical with the small world network of those players who compete with one another in online games on the Internet. Therefore, chess seems to be, first of all, an epistemic community held together by rules and the observation of openings, end games, and whole games. At best it might be claimed that chess is a “small” function system. But for realizing such a claim chess lacks thematic universality (the creative and instructive projection of chess perspectives on any meaning context in society) and it lacks an inclusion revolution. (e) The fifth eigenstructure of world society is the “global interaction system”. Global interaction systems arise on the basis of those systems which have been called “interaction order” (Goffman 1983) or “simple social systems” (Luhmann 1975) or “encounters” (Goffman 1961) and by combining these strongly localized systems defined by the visual co-presence of all participants with the technologically enabled virtual inclusion of any other person whomsoever. There arise numerous variants: audio communications (telephone), video communications (Skype, etc.), and synchronized writing (chats). These forms can be practiced as self-sufficient forms or they can be integrated into presence-based classical interaction systems. One of the most remarkable emergences is that every individual can simultaneously participate at a plurality of these global interaction systems. This is, of course, a provisional list of eigenstructures. Sociocultural evolution probably will over time add new forms of building structures of society. And it will change the existing eigenstructures and finally will add new function systems. One could hypothesize that there are always new function systems in the making, perhaps to be called “small function systems” (besides chess, already mentioned above, computer games could be an even better example for such a “small function system” in our days, although they are in terms of numbers already a big system). Only some of them will acquire the universal societal relevance (inclusion revolution, expansion toward world constitution) characteristic of function systems.

100

R. Stichweh

(f) There is a last candidate, we will only mention briefly in this paper (for a more extensive discussion (Stichweh 2008)). This is the staging of “world events,” such as World Exhibitions (since 1851), Olympics (since 1896), World summits and conferences (in the polity and other functional domains), Art fairs (since 1967) (Morgner 2014) and trade fairs in the arts or the economy, and a number of other cases of world events. World events are an interesting case of the selfthematization and self-organization of world society. They are based on four main features: they have functionally defined themata (operating somehow along the lines of functional differentiation); they are characterized by local situatedness (most of them are tied to specific cities) and temporal limitations (they last a few days or at most weeks) and global inclusion (everybody can participate either in personal presence or as an observer via media). Finally, one could point to the “world significance” of what happens in a world event as distinguishing it from more local events.

Mechanisms of Societal Structure Formation There are several basic social mechanisms which are the generative mechanisms for the social complexity (interrelatedness, connectivity, ubiquity) and the eigenstructures characteristic of world society. But they are the most general social mechanisms equally defining for structure formation in all earlier societies. There is, first of all, “communication” which is the elementary operation functioning as the operative basis of all events in every human society and by implication in world society. Communication is responsible for the selectivity of information transfer (not all information available to a participant is communicated in society) between dyads of processors (every society consisting from dyads, triads, and more complex arrangements of processors). Processors are mostly human individuals but other candidates—gods, ancestors, other animal species, robots—might come into play. Processors in communication are related by attainability, connectivity, communication media (ensuring global attainability), intentionality (in selecting information for transfer) and understanding (by second, third processors), by consensus and conflict, and repetition and variation. The emergence of world society can be studied as arising from transformations in these components of communication. The second mechanism of globalization is migration. Migration means the voluntary or involuntary, partial or complete transfer of social structures (meaning variants, expectations, behaviors) by the spatial displacement of migrants. In the process of the first settlement of the earth by Homo Sapiens (70.000–10.000 BC), migration clearly was the most important mechanism of globalization. Today, it has been superseded in this role by communication based on media (Stichweh 2016: 189–201). But still migrants who arrive as strangers at some other places are effective in transporting variant expectations and behaviors. And all the function systems in world society have been transformed by the participants who meet one another every day evidently being strangers toward one another without having to be migrants. The universality of

6 Conceptual Structures for a Theory of World Society

101

strangerhood in function systems somehow substitutes for the relevance of migrants in generating new ideas and behavioral variants (Seabright 2010). The globalization and diffusion effects of migration depend on communication (the transported meaning variants need to be communicated). And they depend on observation. Even if the migrants don’t communicate their knowledge, the locals will observe them and learn from them by observation. To observe means applying distinctions on realities that one hopes to understand better by the making of the respective distinctions. Observation was tied to closely circumscribed localities for a long time. By the same electronic media which transform communication observation is detached from specific localities and becomes world observation. At any place in the world, one can observe Japanese films or English soccer games or worldwide stock markets. At some point, all these observations will have to be included into communication processes (otherwise they would not enter society and therefore be of no social relevance). But this introduction of observations into communications happens selectively and with a certain delay. From these considerations clearly is to be seen that observation—for example, the global comparison of alternatives on the basis of global observational possibilities—is the third mechanism of globalization. We finally have to look at knowledge. Local and then global knowledge is the cumulative result of the operation of communication, migration, and observation. Knowledge stabilizes results of these three mechanisms. You can as well call knowledge the mechanism of sociocultural memory. And knowledge becomes globalized. Knowledge which has been found out and is thought to be relevant at some place in the world may in present-day society become relevant knowledge at any place in the world. One knows ever more about the alternatives which are available in a worldwide perspective and one can take selective decisions in view of this background. Of course, one can always be ignorant of significant parts of available knowledge and can simply try out something “blindly.” But one moment later the blindly chosen alternative enters the worldwide circulation of stocks of knowledge. Sociocultural evolution is in precisely this understanding a worldwide knowledge process in which the global accessibility of knowledge becomes ever more visible and in which reactivations of “blindness” often occur nonetheless. This process is steered by selection environments which can be local or regional or global. These levels of selection (and there are probably more) interlock (Campbell 1988), which means they build a hierarchical order of the buildup and incessant transformation of global knowledge in the system of world society (Stichweh 2018).

References Ahlers, Anna L., and Rudolf Stichweh. 2019. The Bipolarity of Democracy and Authoritarianism. Value Patterns, Inclusion Roles, and Forms of Internal Differentiation of Political Systems. Sociologia & Antropologia (Rio de Janeiro) 9 (3):819–846. Barabási, Albert-László. 2003. Linked. How Everything Is Connected to Everything Else and What It Means for Business, Science and Everyday Life. New York: Plume. Barabási, Albert-László. 2011. Bursts. The Hidden Patterns Behind Everything We Do, from Your E-mail to Bloody Crusades. New York: Plume Book.

102

R. Stichweh

Bellone, Enrico. 1980. A World on Paper. Studies on the Second Scientific Revolution. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press. Blute, Marion. 2010. Darwinian Sociocultural Evolution: Solutions to Dilemmas in Cultural and Social Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Boyd, Robert, and Peter J. Richerson. 1985. Culture and the Evolutionary Process. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Britannica, Encyclopaedia. 1771. Society. In Encyclopaedia Britannica, vol. 3. Edinburgh. Brush, Stephen G. 1988. The History of Modern Science: A Guide to the Second Scientific Revolution, 1800-1950. Ames/Iowa: Iowa State Press. Buchanan, Mark. 2002. Ubiquity: Why Catastrophes Happen. New York: Crown. Burt, Ronald S. 1992. Structural Holes. The Social Structure of Competition. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard U.P. Campbell, Donald T. 1970. Natural selection as an epistemological model. In A Handbook of Method in Cultural Anthropology, ed. Raoul Naroll and Ronald Cohen, 51–85. Garden City. Campbell, Donald T. 1988. Methodology and Epistemology for Social Science. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Cunningham, Andrew, and Perry Williams. 1993. “De-Centring the ‘Big Picture’; “The Origins of Modern Science” and the Modern Origins of Science.” The British Journal of the History of Science 26(4):407.32. Durkheim, Émile. 1893. De la division du travail social, 1973. Paris: P.U.F. Easley, David, and Jon Kleinberg. 2010. Networks, Crowds, and Markets. Reasoning about a Highly Connected World. Cambridge: Cambridge U.P. Goffman, Erving. 1961. Encounters: Two Studies in the Sociology of Interaction. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill. Goffman, Erving. 1983. The Interaction Order. American Sociological Review 48 (1): 1–17. Goldin, Claudia, and Lawrence F. Katz. 2008. The Race between Education and Technology. Cambridge, Mass./London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Hodgson, Geoffrey M., and Knudsen Thorbjorn. 2010. Darwin’s Conjecture. The Search for General Principles of Social and Economic Evolution. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Jaspers, Karl. 1949. Vom Ursprung und Ziel der Geschichte. München: Piper. Judson, Pieter M. 2016. The Habsburg Empire. A New History. Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard U.P. Kollmann, Nancy Shields. 2017. The Russian Empire 1450–1801. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Köpping, Klaus Peter. 2005. Adolf Bastian and the Psychic Unity of Mankind. The Foundations of Anthropology in Nineteenth Century Germany. Münster: Lit Verlag. Luhmann, Niklas. 1975. Einfache Sozialsysteme. In Soziologische Aufklärung 2, ed. Niklas Luhmann, 21–38. Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag. Luhmann, Niklas. 1982. The Differentiation of Society. New York: Columbia University Press. Maddison, Angus. 2005. Growth and Interaction in the World Economy. The Roots of Modernity. Washington, D.C.: The AEI Press. Mayr, Ernst. 1942. Systematics and the Origin of Species from the Viewpoint of a Zoologist. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard U.P. (Paperback ed. 1999). Morgner, Christian. 2014. The Evolution of the Art Fair. Historical Social Research/ Historische Sozialforschung 39 (3): 318–336. Nelson, Richard R., and Sidney G. Winter. 1982. An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change. Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. North, Douglas C., and Robert Paul Thomas. 1973. The Rise of the Western World: A New Economic History. Cambridge. Olds, Linda E. 1992. Metaphors of Interrelatedness: Towards a Systems Theory of Psychology. New York: State Universioty of New York Press. Parsons, Talcott, and Gerald M. Platt. 1974. The American University. Cambridge/Mass.: Harvard University Press. Richerson, Peter J., and Robert Boyd. 2005. Not by Genes Alone. How Culture Transformed Human Evolution. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

6 Conceptual Structures for a Theory of World Society

103

Rothenberg, Winifred Barr. 1992. From Market-Places to a Market Economy: The Transformation of Rural Massachusetts, 1750-1850. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Schlögl, Rudolf. 2014. Anwesende und Abwesende. Grundriss für eine Gesellschaftsgeschichte der frühen Neuzeit. Konstanz: Konstanz University Press. Seabright, Paul. 2010. The Company of Strangers. A Natural History of Economic Life. Revised Ed. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press. Smith, Adam. 1776. The Wealth of Nations. London: Wordsworth Edition, Reprint 2012. Stichweh, Rudolf. 1984. Zur Entstehung des modernen Systems wissenschaftlicher Disziplinen. Physik in Deutschland 1740-1890. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp. Stichweh, Rudolf. 1992. The Sociology of Scientific Disciplines: On the Genesis and Stability of the Disciplinary Structure of Modern Science. Science in Context 5: 3–15. Stichweh, Rudolf. 2005. Zum Gesellschaftsbegriff der Systemtheorie: Parsons und Luhmann und die Hypothese der Weltgesellschaft. In Weltgesellschaft. Theoretische Zugänge und empirische Problemlagen, ed. Bettina Heintz, Richard Münch, and Hartmann Tyrell, 174–185. Stuttgart: Lucius & Lucius. Stichweh, Rudolf. 2007a. The Eigenstructures of World Society and the Regional Cultures of the World. In Frontiers of Globalization Research: Theoretical and Methodological Approaches, ed. Ino Rossi, 133–149. New York: Springer. Stichweh, Rudolf. 2007b. Evolutionary Theory and the Theory of World Society. Soziale Systeme 13: 528–542. Stichweh, Rudolf. 2008. Zur Soziologie des Weltereignisses. In Weltereignisse. Theoretische und empirische Perspektiven, ed. Stefan Nacke, René Unkelbach, and Tobias Werron, 17–40. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften. Stichweh, Rudolf. 2014. Wissensordnungen und Wissensproduktion im 21. Jahrhundert. Merkur 68 (4): 336–344. Stichweh, Rudolf. 2015a. Analysing Linkages between Science and Politics. Transformations of Functional Differentiation in Contemporary Society. In Interfaces of Science and Policy and the Role of Foundations, ed. Stiftung Mercator, 38–47. Essen. Stichweh, Rudolf. 2015b. Transformations in the Interrelation between Science and Nation States. The Theoretical Perspective of Functional Differentiation. In Legitimizing Science: National and Global Publics (1800-2010), ed. Axel Jansen, Andreas Franzmann, and Peter Münte, 35–48. Frankfurt/New York: Campus. Stichweh, Rudolf. 2016. Inklusion und Exklusion. Studien zur Gesellschaftstheorie (2. erweiterte Auflage). Bielefeld Transcript. Stichweh, Rudolf. 2018. The Knowledge Production of the Future. In Germany and the World 2030: What will change. How we must act, ed. Stefan Mair, Dirk Messner, and Lutz Meyer, 216–221. Berlin: Econ. Subrahmanyam, Sanjay. 2005. Explorations in Connected History. Mughals and Franks. New Delhi: Oxford U.P. Van Dijck, José. 2013. The Culture of Connectivity. A Critical History of Social Media. Oxford: Oxford U.P.

Rudolf Stichweh is Dahrendorf Professor for the Theory of Modern Society, of the Forum International Science (University of Bonn), and member of the Bonn Centre for Dependency and Slavery Studies, of the North Rhine Westphalian Academy of Sciences and the Leopoldina, National Academy of Sciences at Halle. His books include Inklusion und Exklusion, 2016; Der Fremde. Studien zur Soziologie und Sozialgeschichte, 2010.

Chapter 7

Principles of Geo-Political Dynamics Jonathan H. Turner

Abstract A general set of theoretical principles on geo-dynamics is developed. This line of emphasis follows from a critique of current theories of globalization as emphasizing geo-economics over geo-politics and as positing a rather ideologically driven view of the future of globalism toward a world-level polity and socialism. In contrast, this chapter argues that, despite the dramatic globalization of markets in the modern world system, geo-politics is inevitably drawn into such geo-economic systems and that, moreover, the future of globalization will revolve as much, if not more, around geo-politics as northern powers increasingly come into conflicts over resources and hegemony. It is very likely, it is argued, that the northern part of the global system will evolve into very distinct geo-political formations in western Europe, eastern Europe and Soviet Union, China and upper south Asia at its borders, and the United States of North America. The fate of the southern half of the globe is more fluid and difficult to theorize, but it is argued that geo-politics as much or more than geo-economics will dominate the dynamics of India and South Asia (extending down to Australia and New Zeeland), sub-Saharan Africa, and South America.

When Immanuel Wallerstein (1974) began his analysis of the world system some decades ago, he distinguished between “world empires” and “world economies.” In so doing, he was making a case for the increasing importance of geo-economic over geo-political dynamics in global formations. While the two are related, geoeconomics seemingly are now seen as more important than geo-politics in driving global formations. In particular, this emphasis is favored by Marxist theorists who can shift the unit of analysis from less than accurate predictions about the coming societal revolution to world-level evolution, arguing that capitalist geo-economics will, finally, reveal the Marxian “contradictions” that will usher in not only oneworld government but also world-level socialism. Of course, a world system built around vast networks of international trade is not just a Marxian dream, but the hope J. H. Turner (B) University of California at Riverside and Santa Barbara, 38141 Bear, Canyon Drive, Murrieta, CA, USA e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 I. Rossi (ed.), Challenges of Globalization and Prospects for an Inter-civilizational World Order, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44058-9_7

105

106

J. H. Turner

of many non-Marxist scholars. My concern, however, is that hope for a world-level economic system, whatever its intellectual origins, has often led scholars to push aside concern with “empires” or more loosely, geo-politics, as key forces driving the fate of the global economy. Much of the hope and optimism about geo-economic forces needs, I feel, to be tempered by the reality of geo-politics. There is, I think, a failure to appreciate fully the extent to which geo-politics or world empires remain central to global dynamics; and, in fact, world capitalism may ironically accelerate geo-political forces, particularly when global markets increase competition and tensions among global nation-state actors. Moreover, both Marxist or other forms of multi-laterialism assume that political organization at the world level—whether socialist or something else—is even possible at a global level, whereas I suspect that the scale of such a future to sociologically unviable and, in the end, will be comprised by geo-political forces described in this chapter. These arguments seem increasingly remote as both the Soviet Union and China become less democratic and, as a result, engage in both internal repression of their populations and move in geo-political expansion vis-à-vis the west which, itself, also is experiencing a new movement toward geo-political confrontations. In this chapter, then, my goal is to avoid these problematic assumptions and, instead, to lay out the theory of geo-politics that I been developing over the last decade, drawing upon many diverse sources. This theory is not driven by ideology for what I would like to see in the world of tomorrow, nor is it blinded by the fantastic spread of world capitalism—as dynamic as it is—because geo-politics is still very much in play in any analysis of globalization today and, indeed, represents a dark side to hopes for a global economy and certainly a global-level government. Indeed, if I were to make a theoretically informed guess, geo-political dynamics will increase as a force in the decades ahead—even as any “contradictions” of capitalism play themselves out. In fact, the emerging contradictions of capitalism will not so much lead to world-level socialism or world-level governance but, rather, to renewed geo-political competition between eastern and western powers in the global system, with the place of southern societal formations so fluid as to be unpredictable. The theory that I offer is explicitly value-neutral because it simply tries to lay out the basic dynamics of geo-politics. A similar theory of geo-economics can also be delineated (Turner 1995, 2010: 309–21, 2017), and then the two can be compared and reformulated in light of the reciprocal effects of political and economic forces in world system today. I see the principles of geo-politics enumerated in this chapter as part of a more general theory of inter-societal dynamics, a process that was set into motion during the evolution of the first human societies. Thus, I do not see “globalization” as the basic unit of analysis for theorizing but, instead, the more fundamental dynamics inhering in relations among societal formations as they create—large and small— inter-societal systems. A truly global system is more of a wish than a likely reality, primarily because of the inherent instability of capitalism and the inevitable rise of geo-politics in times of economic crisis.

7 Principles of Geo-Political Dynamics

107

Variations in Geo-Political Formations Among early sociologists, Herbert Spencer (1874–96) was the first to analyze intersocietal dynamics [see also, Carneiro (2015) on Spencer). Of course, past scholars such as the Athenian historian Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War and Ibn Khaldun’s The Muqaddimah, An Introduction to History contains many insights into the sociology of geo-politics. Thus, for a long time scholars have sought to explain the underlying dynamics of geo-political processes; and hence, not surprisingly, there is no shortage of similar works among contemporary historians (e.g., McNeil 1982), sociologists (e.g., Mann 1986; Chase-Dunn 1990a, b; Chase-Dunn and Hall 1997), and even bio-ecologists turned sociologists and historians of empires (e.g., Turchin 2003, 2006, 2013; Turchin and Nefadov 2009; Turchin et al. 2013). All of these lines of work have been developing historically based theoretical models and explanations of how warfare affects the evolution of societies even as geo-economics has come into such prominence analysis of globalization. My theoretical effort is, in many ways, an effort to formalize and consolidate many past and contemporary insights into abstract principles on the dynamics of geo-politics. Spencer’s (1851) famous phrase—“survival of the fittest”—uttered almost a decade before Darwin’s (1859) famous treatise On the Origin of Species (by means of “natural selection”) was the first explanation by someone who can be considered a sociologist, even if contemporary sociologists do not want to keep Spencer in their sacred pantheon. When Spencer turned to sociology in the late 1860s and began to successively publish sections of his monumental The Principles of Sociology (1874–96), the underling theory to almost all of this sociology was a geo-political theory of how societies grow, differentiate, and often disintegrate from the dynamics revolving around warfare and the inherent instabilities in coercive administration of societies. For Spencer, inter-societal conflict had driven evolution and, in this sense, it had positive effects in societal development but he felt (like many today) that the development of capitalism and market dynamics, or geo-economics, would drive the evolution of industrial based societies in the future. Contrary to many retrospective views (typically without actually reading Spencer’s works), Spencer was a political theorist (see Turner 1985; Carneiro, 1967, 1970, 2015), who sought to explain how warfare among societies had been the driving force of societal evolution. For Spencer, warfare is an ecological process involving competition for resources by societies, and it involves the mobilization of resources to out-compete or conquer another society in order to secure needed resources. Likewise, present-day theorists like Chase-Dunn (2001), Turchin (2006, 2013), Turchin and Nefadov 2009), Collins (1981), Carneiro (2015), and Sanderson (2015, 1995) often use ecological concepts to explain power and conflict dynamics among societies. For Spencer, the evolution of societies toward larger, more complex formations was driven by successive waves of warfare, conquest, and consolidation; and depending upon how the conquering society integrated conquered populations into its institutional systems, the nature of the emergent inter-societal system would vary. If the conquered were given some degree of autonomy while under political control of the more fit society (e.g., the

108

J. H. Turner

Roman Empire), a more co-optive strategy of geo-political formation would evolve. If members of the conquered population were killed off (or a high proportion thereof), a more coercive form of geo-political formation would emerge (e.g., the Mongolian empire). If the conquered were incorporated into the institutional mainstream of their conquerors, a variant revolving around the consolidation of culture and institutional systems would emerge. And, in the context of world capitalism, if conquest or the threat of conquest allowed one society to exploit members of another, then Wallerstein’s inter-societal system revolving around a core, periphery, or semi-periphery would emerge. Of course there are many more variants, but just which one emerges is often an historical question that is not easily theorized because so much of history involves idiosyncratic and contingent forces coming together at particular geographical places and points in time. Still, one can theorize about the general conditions under which one society becomes more likely to engage in geo-political mobilization and under which a geo-political formation will grow and then is likely to collapse (see also Collins 1981 from whom I have drawn many key ideas).

Conditions of Geo-Political Mobilization and Territorial Expansion In Fig. 1, I lay out key processes involved in geo-political mobilization (Turner 1995, 2010: 289–308, 2017). These come from Spencer, but others have emphasized these same dynamics. As Spencer argued population growth generates a series of intense selection pressures on a population if this population is to sustain itself in a given environment. One is to increase production and distribution of resources to sustain the larger population; another is to find new means for regulating and controlling the larger and often more diverse population. If a population cannot meet these selection pressures, then it was likely to “dissolve” or be conquered by a more fit society. As many scholars since Spencer such as Lenski (1966) have emphasized, population growth, production and distribution, and consolidation of power are interconnected; and they set up the basic conditions in which geo-political mobilization is likely to occur. In examining the model in Fig. 1, all of the relationships among the forces are directional and positive in their effects on each other. Time1,…n moves from left to right across the figure, specifying the sequences of events that are set into motion with population growth, whereas the reverse causal arrows moving from right to left (Time2….n ) emphasize the recursive nature of social process such that an outcome can feed back and affect the very processes that brought about this outcome. These recursive effects are also positively connected; and because of these positive connections, once population growth kick starts increased production (and distribution), selection pressures for more regulation increase, thereby setting into motions the growth of polity. And, with the growth of polity comes geo-political actions. Failure to win a war, however, sends inhibiting force through these positive connections, and

Level of production

Level of productive surplus

Rate of resource depletion

Level of inequality

Intensity of selection pressures for regulation

Level of perceived extternal threat

Intensity of perceived internal threat

Consolidation/ centralization of power

Level of consolidaiton of coercive/ administrative base of power

Fig. 1 Population growth, production, consolidation of powser, and territorial expansion

Size of population/ rate of growth

Rate of environmental degredation

Degree of circumscription

Mobilization for warfare

Level of success in warfare

Ratio of coercive/ administrative to co-optive strategies of social control

Intensity of resentment among those conquered

Level of logistical loads on polity of geo-political formation

Size of territory

7 Principles of Geo-Political Dynamics 109

110

J. H. Turner

stymies the expansion of a geo-political formation, often leading to its implosion to its home base or even its conquest by an advancing geo-political empire. Still, the positive connections among the variable forces denoted in the figure tell us why, once started, such formations tend to expand and grow, until stopped by logistical loads that generate a new round of selection pressures that cannot be solved by consolidation of more power and it use in warfare, or that cause a polity to lose a key war. The result is that geo-political formations continue to grow and, then, collapse at some point back to their home base or are absorbed by a more powerful geopolitical empire that, in the future, is likely to over-extend its logistical capacities and/or lose a war and implode back to its home base. Thus, geo-political formations involving conquest of one society by another are inherently unstable, as can be seen by examining the basic forces unleashed in their formation. And so, once logistical loads are exceeded and an empire can no longer win wars, it will tend to collapse, closing the cycle of growth and expansion. As outlined in Fig. 1, a larger, more productive, and politically organized population is more capable of waging and winning wars against societies that are less organized along these dimensions. The left side of the model emphasizes these forces, adding some additional forces—rate of environmental degradation, rate of resource depletion, and degree of circumscription by other societies (Carneiro 1970, 2015; Chase-Dunn 2001). All of these forces, as their valences increase, will begin to bias the consolidation of power around its coercive and administrative bases over consolidation around symbolic and material incentive bases, although these latter bases can be mobilized to recruit troops and the legitimate polity’s mobilization for warfare. Once this biasing begins, the forces on the right side of Fig. 1 are more likely to come into play and, eventually, lead to the collapse of the geo-political formation. As Herbert Spencer was one of the first sociologist to emphasize that much geopolitical activity by a society is driven by threats, internally to a given society, and externally imposed by the potential for conflict with neighboring societies. Figures 1 and 2 together outline some of these dynamics, but Fig. 2 provides more detail tracing the forces that start mobilization and that affect success in warfare as well as the forces that begin to accumulate to increase the potential for collapse of the empire. As is evident, the signs on the arrows are both positive (+) and negative (−), as well as lagged positive or positive after a certain threshold is reached (=/+), and positive but leveling off (+/=) in a kind of s-function. Thus, the dynamics that initiate a geo-political formation will, with time, become more complex in ways that also increase the potential for geo-political collapse. Yet, there are some dynamics that cannot be fully outlined in the models, without making them more complex than they currently are. One set of dynamic revolves around inequalities, a force that Spencer emphasized. High levels of inequality in a society, particularly inequalities correlated with religious and ethnic distinctions, generate the dynamics outlined in the left side of the model outlined in Fig. 2. Inequalities and even just population diversity, per se, will increase conflict potential because subpopulations in a society come to see each other as a “threat” to their wellbeing, especially when social classes and other categoric memberships like religion

+

+

+

+/=

+

+

_

+

+

Threat

Level of productive surplus

+

Level of inequality

+

+

administrative base of power

Level of ideological among members of population

+

Mobilization of coerive base of power

+

tax collection system Size of military

+

solidarity of military units

Sophistication + of armaments

+

+

+

_

_ _

Extent of marchland advantage

+

+

_

+

+

+

Level of logistical loads

+

+

Ratio of coercive to co-optive strategies of domination

+

+

+

=/+

Threat and pervasiveness of revolts +

+

_ Likelihood of showdown war

+

Territorial size of empire

Level of inequality among conquered populations

Level of success in successive wars

+

+

+

Fig. 2 Conditions affecting mobilization for warfare as well as size and stability of geo-political formations

+

+

Level of production

Level of resuorces that can be extracted

+

+

Level of technology

Size of population

+/-

+

Size and diversity of conquered populations

+

Potential for collapse of empire

7 Principles of Geo-Political Dynamics 111

112

J. H. Turner

and ethnicity are correlated with higher and lower class positions. Perceived internal threats inevitably lead to the consolidation of power, as those in privilege positions seek to sustain their well-being in the face of growing resentment of those in lower class positions and devalued categoric units. The consolidation of power, especially around its coercive and administrative base, is costly and will, over time, lead to further inequalities as polity imposes high tax burdens on the population; and in time, even more elite classes come to resent increased taxation and thus implicitly form alliances with less-elite classes. Thus, once polity begins to consolidate power around its coercive and administrative bases, the biasing of decisions favors coercion, and this bias can lead to further repression of dissent and thus an increase in resentments—thereby raising the level of internal threat. Often in a desperate search for more resources to allay domestic unrest, coercive polities often begin to see external populations as a potential source of needed resources and, as a result, mobilize symbolic bases of power (ideologies) around the threats posed by other societies, thereby deflecting some of the resentment toward polity outward to the “evils” of other populations. The result is mobilization for warfare; and if polity has sufficient resources to mobilize its coercive base of power and its symbolic bases of power by demonizing potential “enemy” populations outside its borders, it is likely to be successful in war with neighbors. Such is particularly likely to be the case if a society mobilizes for warfare possesses superior technologies, large numbers of young to serve in military forces, economic resources, and ecological advantages (such as marchland advantages with enemies only on one side of its borders). Yet, successes in initial wars often bring demands for more conquest, and once this process begins, it becomes difficult to stop because the inability to move forward and secure more resources will lead to the de-legitimization of polity as if it had “lost” a war. And of course, if a polity actually loses a war, the de-legitimization of polity will be that much greater and rapid (Weber 1922; Skocpol 1979). Thus, efforts of a society attempting geopolitical expansion are often nipped at their inception, but if not, polity inevitably finds itself under more pressure to expand. The result is that the size of the territories to be controlled increases, as does the size of the resentful population that must be controlled. Costs for sustaining administrative infrastructures of social control increase, along with corresponding costs of maintaining standing coercive force across a larger territory. As resentments increase, the core polity of a geo-political formation will increasingly be likely to collapse under insurgent activities within its territories, and moreover, it will be even more likely to have to fight a multi-front war with all other neighboring societies and, even worse, to confront another advancing empire. In addition to the need to address both internal and external threats, the polity of a society is likely to become mobilized for conflict with other societies in its environment if it needs resources from other societies. And as is emphasized in Fig. 1, the greater the rates of environmental degradation and resource depletion, the more likely will a society needs to mobilize for conflict to secure resources, especially if a society needing resources is highly circumscribed by other societies. At times, trade and a geo-economic inter-societal system can evolve under

7 Principles of Geo-Political Dynamics

113

these conditions, but if exchanges of resources among societies are unequal, then geo-political processes increasingly are likely to come into play, as is outlined in Figs. 1 and 2. Also, equally often historically, societies with capacities for longdistance transportation can engage in conquest and/or geo-economic exploitation of more distant societies, although such efforts are rarely left unchallenged by other powerful societies as was clearly evident during the early age of exploration, the expansion of the British Empire and Soviet empires, and today in the increasing competition among northern East-West powers like China, U.S., European Union, Russia. Indeed, resource shortages in the face of population growth will, no doubt, increase not just economic competition but in the global geo-political systems that will eventually emerge. Indeed, one prediction would be that Western Europe, Eastern Europe, China, and North America become geo-political formations as much as geoeconomic confederations in the future, with the future political alignment, if any, of South Asia, South America, and sub-Saharan Africa unclear (because of the unpredictability of not only their economic growth but also of their dependence in a world system composed of core, peripheral, and semi-peripheral states, as well as shifting alliances among the societies of the southern globe with each other and northern political powers). The more mobilized for conflict, the more likely is a society to have some success in war with neighboring societies. Of course, if a society cannot win wars, it is then likely to be conquered by one or more societies in its environment. In either case, the key variables affecting the kind of inter-societal system that will emerge are (1) the ratio of coercive/administrative to co-optive strategies of domination employed by the more fit polity, (2) the level of resentment and potential for revolt of conquered populations, (3) the size of the populations and the territories that must be controlled by the conquering polity, and (4) the logistical loads placed upon a conquering polity. Let me briefly elaborate in each of these. 1. A polity that seeks to dominate and tightly regulate a conquered population must rely on the coercive/administrative bases of power more than on the symbolic basis (cultural ideologies) and material incentive bases to control members of the conquered. This type of domination is more costly, while at the same time, more likely to increase resentments of the conquered population, thereby raising dramatically the logistical loads on polity for social control. 2. The use of force and tight administrative regulation will almost always involve increasing inequality, thereby escalating the level of resentment of [a] conquered population[s]. And the more resentments increase, the more likely is internal conflict to emerge, thereby increasing logistical loads revolving around social control on the conquering polity. 3. The larger the size of the population and the greater the territorial expanse that must be controlled, the greater will be the logistical loads on the conquering polity. It will need to deploy more troops and administrators across longer supply lines in order to engage in coercive control; and in so doing, it will expend resources which, in turn, will often lead to more usurpation of resources from conquered populations, thereby increasing resentments and potential for revolt,

114

J. H. Turner

thus escalating logistical loads that much further. Moreover, expanding geopolitical formations will, eventually, come up against another expanding geopolitical system, often resulting in a “showdown” war, or as was the case with NATO and the old Soviet Union a “cold” showdown war of military posturing and/or directed wars through client states (e.g., the Vietnam War or, more recently, the conflicts of the Middle East, especially Syria). 4. And thus, as logistical loads increase, a polity can find itself in a situation where resources from both its own population at its home base and the conquered must be usurped and used for social control, not only of the conquered (thereby increasing revolt potential) but also of key subpopulations in its home territory who have become resentful and, thus, likely to revolt as well. And, if resources usurped from the conquered are sent back to appease key actors in the home base, the level of resentments among the conquered will increase; and if the population is large and spread across large territorial expanses, logistical loads will increase dramatically and make conquerors vulnerable to successful revolts which, if these occur, will erode the legitimacy of polity at its home base (Weber 1922; Skocpol 1979). Such, then, are the dilemmas always facing societies that engage in warfare and conquest, creating empires extracting resources from subjugated populations. The larger the population to be controlled, the greater the territorial expanse and distance from the home base of the conquering population, and the more coercive/administrative control is used over more co-optive strategies of social control, the more likely will the logistical loads eventually exceed the control capacity of a polity. And thus, to the extent that globalization activates these dynamics, it will be inherently unstable. Even with world-level markets and some degree of worldlevel legal regulation of these markets, once these geo-political processes outlined in Figs. 1 and 2 are unleashed, both the geo-political and geo-economic formations involved become vulnerable to collapse and de-evolution. Thus, world capitalism does not insulate, as was argued by Wallerstein and by so many after him, a global formation from disintegration, if geo-political forces are activated. It is important to emphasize, then, that even with world-level capitalist markets, legal agreements, and regulative agencies facilitating trade among societies are in place (as they are today), it is impossible to eliminate geo-political dynamics. And, once these dynamics are unleashed, they are difficult to stop before they have run their cyclical rise and demise. For example, the annexation of Russian-speaking eastern Ukraine by Russia, the increasing belligerence of China in its south sea regions and its courting of a traditional American ally, The Philippine Islands, attests to how readily geo-political actions can trump geo-economic alliances and world systems. Even when a hegemon like the United States has been rather consistently being unsuccessful in realizing key geo-political goals—e.g., Korean unification, conquering a communist regime in Vietnam, eliminating Taliban in Afghanistan, and controlling Middle East conflicts—geo-politics continues to take precedence over geo-economic strategies of domination. Even when the lesson of North (now in a unified) Vietnam, which won the war with the United States, the co-optive power of capitalism to

7 Principles of Geo-Political Dynamics

115

turn former enemies into allies does not seem to have had an impact on American foreign policy. Even with the aftermath of World War II (as an even better example of economic relations creating a more stable basis for inter-societal systems), American policy has not followed the geo-economic route to inter-societal systems as much as might be expected, given the success at past efforts to do so. There has been, of course, a great deal of ideological posturing and rhetoric by political leaders about the benefits of economic globalization but, when push comes to shove, the U.S. continues to become bogged down in more purely geo-political conflicts. The fact that geo-political conflicts are so frequent, even with dramatic increases in the scope of the world economic system, suggests that there is a biasing process in the actions of key geo-political actors around the world and especially in the United States with its massive infrastructure devoted to coercive weaponry. Indeed, despite economic relations that, as is the case with China, are extensive and highly robust, economic competition, domestic ideological posturing, and geo-political goals now appear to be as important as economic goals and, based on the theory that I am proposing, geo-politics will increasingly take precedence in future global formations.

The Instability of Geo-Political Formations Defining an empire can be difficult because different terminologies are often used. For example, empire connotes active political control of other societies by a hegemon, whereas looser terms, such as “civilizations” and “periods,” often describe a series of empires in an area that has formed, collapsed, and formed again. Thus, we can see that there are some very long term geo-political formations, such as the Imperial period of Rome that lasted 1500 years and the more active empire of the Republican period that last 500 years—with the latter representing a very long period of empire formation. The Ottoman Empire can be interpreted to have lasted 600 years but in reality can be broken down into shorter phases, as is also possible with distinct “civilizations in agrarian Egypt. Still, even taking these difficulties into account, actual political control of one society by another, or one portion of a society (say the Chinese dynasties), are not long-lived—at the outset a few hundred years. In more recent times, empires have been even shorter. For example, the British Empire was built around a geo-economic expansion, with a mix of coercive and co-optive forms of political domination, whereas the Soviet Empire that evolved from Moscow was mostly coercive and only secondarily economic. Neither can be said to have last past 100, if not 70 years. Even whether or not an empire is geo-economic and geopolitical, the modal length of rule has not been long, because the logistical loads and costs of social control are very high and costly. Thus, the presumption that the current geo-economic system is inevitably marching to a global-level world system with a coherent form of governance is premature if not a bit presumptive, being driven more by hope and ideology than sociological analysis. This current world system was developed by American economic and co-militaristic hegemony (with

116

J. H. Turner

the expanding Soviet Union); and it has lasted about the modal duration of a geopolitical and/or geo-economic system. Indeed, the northern part of the world system is clearly moving toward more potential geo-political conflict and reshuffling of geopolitical formations at the very same time that geo-economic interdependence seems to be increasing. But, I would argue that geo-political pressures are increasing, with the result that as such conflicts intensify and spread via client states, the instability of world systems will, once again, become all too evident. While it is true that globalization has reached a new level, it is also the case that pressures for geo-political conflict are rising all over the globe. Thus, some degree of economic integration across the globe has, as is predicted in the models in Figs. 1 and 2, also increased the potential for more widespread geo-political conflict.

The Instability of Large Geo-Political and Geo-Economic Formations Geo-economic and geo-political systems tend to grow and spread, but the very processes by which they do so contains the seeds of instability and demise. A geopolitical system will generally become less stable as the logistical loads on the dominant state increase. The costs of social control are very high and eventually impose powerful economic pressures on a dominant society that, in turn, force polity to usurp more resources from both its home and conquered territories which in turn, will cause conflict across its territories, thereby increasing logistical loads to the point of collapse of a geo-political system back to its home base—as occurred in the 1990s with the Soviet Union or a century earlier with the British Empire. China is currently expanding its geo-political influence and, some 50 years down the road, may encounter similar problems if it extends its reach beyond its current home territory, which itself, has historically collapsed and, it can be hypothesized, may do so again. In fact, even though advanced military technologies allow for more monitoring and hence control, especially when accompanied by use of modern coercive force, but the use of higher technologies only raises the costs to a society trying to sustain an empire. Moreover, given the spread of distributive networks, black markets in these very technologies often allow dependent and dominated populations, or factions thereof, to acquire coercive technologies often equal to their oppressors. Thus, the spread of market forces across the globe ironically increases logistical costs of social control but, equally significantly, makes it likely that sectors of populations can use higher level weaponry to generate more geo-political conflict. Markets buy and sell anything, and thereby spread the capacity for coercive action via black market transactions or patronage by states engaged in proxy wars via client states. Geo-political formations are thus particularly difficult to sustain because they always tend to increase the logistical loads on a core polity, especially if this polity mobilizes its coercive/administrative basis of power over more co-optive bases of power (revolving around material incentives and ideological manipulation of

7 Principles of Geo-Political Dynamics

117

conquered populations). Moreover, geo-political formations dramatically increase inequalities as resources are usurped to meeting growing logistical loads; and as inequalities grow, segments of the conquered and, at times, the core population of a hegemon become willing to incur the costs of confronting centers of power and even to seek out the armaments in global markets or patronage of other societies to do so. Furthermore, to the extent that a geo-political formations is caught in the constant need to expand, it will increasingly need to control larger territories filled with larger, more resentful populations, while at the same time confronting enemies on ever-more fronts and, perhaps, even an advancing geo-political formation ready to engage in a showdown war or at least willing to sponsor resentful sectors of societies within an empire (with armaments and even training of revolutionaries). Geo-economic formations face similar problems if they are sustained by coercive/administrate bases of power that impose highly unfair and asymmetrical trade relations (Frank 1969, 1978, 1979). At some point, resentments increase among exploited populations (often “sold out” by their corrupt leaders); and moreover, other potential hegemons begin to compete with a hegemon for the resources of a peripheral society. Such is ever more likely if a semi-periphery of mediating states has evolved between the core and peripheral populations (Chase-Dunn and Hall 1997; Chase Dunn 2001, 1998). Even if geo-political formations do not exhibit a coherent Wallerstein trilogy of core, periphery, and semi-periphery, geo-economic formations are generally unstable for many of the reasons outlined by Marx: they involve exploitation of domestic workers who eventually to engage in conflict with local and national and, potentially, international elites; they are built from exploitation more dominant trading partners; they are connected by markets which, over time, are inherently unstable in a series of up and down cycles; and they are built upon competition among not only corporate units within and between societies but also between the polities of societies where corporate units involved in trade and its administration are based (thus, almost always bringing the instabilities of geo-politics into an inter-societal economic system). Moreover, the larger and more complex a geo-economic system, the more likely are the above vulnerabilities to come into play, and particularly if a growing economic power also begins to exert geo-political power—as is the case with contemporary China which cannot easily be threatened by either the United States or the Soviet Union. Under these conditions, the political leaders will consolidate and centralize more power and begin to more actively enter the geo-political arena, as is clearly the case with China, while using its economic power to exert more control in the world geo-economic system. The result is, inevitable trade wars, coupled with hot and cold military engagements between geo-economic and geo-political powers.

Conditions Affecting the Size of Geo-Political Formations The size of a geo-political formation varies under a number of conditions. One is the ability to maintain superiority of coercion in the face of either internal and external

118

J. H. Turner

threats. As a geo-political formation evolves, however, meeting this basic condition becomes increasingly problematic, for several reasons: (a) mounting logistical loads and fiscal costs as an empire expands away from its home base; (b) ability of potential adversaries inside and outside of an empire to copy military technologies of a dominant power; (c) loss of marchland advantage the further the boundaries of a geopolitical formation extend beyond its home base and capital city, thereby increasing the number of potential adversaries across extended borders; (d) costs of maintaining standing armies across greater reaches of territory, with these costs increasing for high technology coercive forces; (e) difficulties of a geo-political government to sustain legitimacy in its home base as taxes, military recruitment, and other costs increase in efforts to sustain an empire; and (f) problems in sustaining order in conquered societies, with these problems increasing to the extent that coercive/administration basis of power are used over incentive and symbolic bases of power in ways that disrupt indigenous institutional systems of conquered populations. Under these conditions, the likelihood of geo-political collapse increases. This collapse will be accelerated to the extent that a hegemonic power is engaged in military activities against other powerful states, especially when logistical loads of maintaining coercive/administrative bases of power are high. And, should a geopolitical force lose a war, de-legitimization of political leaders and the state will come rapidly (Weber 1922; Skocpol 1979) as they lose prestige at home and in the inter-societal system. Indeed, a geo-political formation can disintegrate very rapidly, once bases of power are undermined by the actions of other military powers and by the loss of “faith” and “trust” in leaders of an empire. For at least these reasons, this is why active geo-political domination of one society by another rarely for long periods, with some exceptions like the Roman Empire. There are simply too many sources of instability built into the use of coercive force. If, however, a central polity can avoid expanding beyond its logistical capacity, avoid a showdown war with another expanding empire, employ more co-optive control strategies, leave in place indigenous institutional systems (particularly religion and economy, as well as local administrative structures), and impose only moderate taxes and forms of resource extraction, then a geo-political formation can endure for a longer period of time.

Conclusion: Some Elementary Principles of Geo-Political Dynamics The models developed in Figs. 1 and 2, and the hypotheses offered in the discursive text hint at a more general set of principles on geo-political dynamics. Principles such as those delineated below can be used to assess and predict geo-political dynamics, per se, but such dynamics are almost always intertwined with geoeconomic processes, with the result that predictions must be tempered and reconciled with what principles of geo-economics would predict. Still, to the extent that the loadings for the forces outlined in these geo-political processes are high, then the

7 Principles of Geo-Political Dynamics

119

predictions made are very likely to materialize. These principles contain no ideological bias (that I or others might have), although they are a bit speculative, and thus subject to re-evaluation by new data. Thus, they should just be seen as a starting point for developing a more parsimonious set of principles that can be used in analysis of global dynamics, on both a small and more encompassing scale (see for one effort, Turner 2010, 2017). 1. The potential for geo-political mobilization by one society for territorial expansion through conflict with another society is a positive and additive function of: A. The capacity of a society to consolidate bases of power into an autonomous institutional domain, with this capacity being a positive, multiplicative function of: 1. The absolute size and rate of growth of its population. 2. The level of surplus wealth generated by production. B. The degree of circumscription of a society by neighboring societies, along with high levels of resource depletion and environmental degradation that impose pressures of economic and political actors in a society to find new sources of resources. C. The extent to which the culture and institutional system of neighboring societies are viewed by economic, political, and religious actors as an external threat, with this sense of threat being an additive function of: 1. The level of economic competition among actors in neighboring societies. 2. The level of political competition with, or military threat posed by neighboring societies. 3. The rate and frequency of past conflicts with neighboring societies 4. The level of perceived divergence in values and ideologies, especially those revolving around religion, in neighboring societies. D. The perceptions of political actors in a society that other societies, both those in its immediate environment and, at times, those at more remote distances from its home base, contain valued resources needed to sustain elite privilege, to expand economic productivity, and to finance military activities. E. The perception of key actors in the polity of a society that segments of their domestic population pose internal threats to polity, with this perception being a positive and multiplicative function of: 1. The level of inequality in the distribution of resources in a society. 2. The level of class formation. 3. The consolidation of these class formations with distinctive ethnic or religious subpopulations. 4. The rates of ethnic and religious discrimination against particular subpopulations. 5. The resulting linearity in social class rankings.

120

J. H. Turner

F. The degree to which power is centralized around coercive and administrative bases of power which, in turn, is a multiplicative function of 1-C and 1-D above. G. The capacity of polity to use its symbolic base of power to formulate emotionarousing ideologies legitimating the mobilization for conflict which, in turn, is a positive function of 1-C, 1-D, and 1-F above. 2. The likelihood that the polity of one society will attempt territorial expansion through warfare and conquest is an additive, positive function of: A. The conditions listed under 1-A through 1-G above. B. Perceptions by actors in polity that they have a greater capacity than potential adversaries for financing military actions. C. Perceptions by actors in polity that their symbolic base of power is eroding from inequalities and internal threats. D. Recognition by actors in polity that they possess a marchland advantage and, thereby, will only have to fight a one-front war. 3. The level of success of a society engaged in geo-political expansion is a positive, additive function of: A. The capacity to mobilize coercive forces which, in turn, is a positive and additive function of: 1. The size of the population available for military recruitment and deployment. 2. The level of military technologies. 3. The level of wealth to support and sustain military activities which, in turn, is a positive function of: a. level of production. b. level of productivity. c. level of efficiency in system of taxation. d. level of economic technology vis-à-vis adversaries. 4. The level of infrastructural development to move personnel, resources, information, and military hardware across territories. 5. The level of solidarity within military units, and the efficiency of their coordinates efforts against adversaries. B. The extent of the marchland enjoyed by a society over its adversaries, and the duration to which this advantage can be held during territorial expansion. 4. The size of an inter-societal geo-political formation is a positive and additive function of a polity’s: A. Use of co-optive strategies of social control over coercive-administrative forms of domination which, in turn, is a positive function of: 1. Recruiting members of conquered populations to administrative structures engaged in taxation, monitoring, and regulating their own populations which are easiest when existing administrative structures before conquest are co-opted.

7 Principles of Geo-Political Dynamics

B.

C. D.

E.

121

2. Tolerating a high degree of autonomy in key institutional domains, particularly polity, economy, law, and religion of a conquered population. 3. The ability to convert a geo-political formation into a geo-economic relation of exchange of resources, with only moderate degrees of asymmetry. 4. The willingness to invest capital into the economy in conquered populations and thereby initiate economic growth, productivity, and wages among the labor force of a conquered population. Capacity to sustain a superior coercive force while, at the same time, allowing for some degree of self-governance of a conquered population which, in turn, is an additive function of: 1. The capacity to prevent the conquered population gaining access to military technology, armaments, and organizational forms. 2. The fiscal and logistical capacity to deploy large numbers of military and administrative personnel across dominated territories. 3. The willingness and fiscal and technological capacity to construct and/or maintain distributive infrastructures across a geo-political formation. Ability to sustain resource, productive, and marchland advantages at the home base of a geo-political formation. Ability to sustain legitimacy at the home base of a geo-political formation and, if possible, to generate acceptance and implicit legitimacy or, at the very least, inevitability, of geo-political control by another population. Willingness and ability to avoid shown-down wars with other advancing geo-political formations.

5. The level of instability of a geo-political formation and the likelihood of its collapse back to its home base increases with: A. The loss of the dominant polity of its coercive, productive, resource, and marchland advantages which, in turn, increases with: 1. The size of territories and population to be controlled in a geo-political formation. 2. The costs relative to productive capacity and efficiency of taxation systems to maintain coercive and administrative forces across territories which is a negative function of 4-A-1 above. 3. The number and relative power of hostile societies at the borders of a geo-political foundation. 4. The level of economic competition and/or geo-political conflict with other dominant societies engaged in geo-economic and geo-political expansion. B. The degree to which the logistical capacities for sustaining a distributive system across a territory have been exceeded. C. The level of inequality and potential threat from disadvantaged subpopulations at hegemon’s home base, particularly its capital city. D. The level of inequality and its rate of increase at either or both a hegemon’s home base or its conquered territories.

122

J. H. Turner

E. The degree to which a hegemon’s legitimacy at its own base has decreased across diverse sectors of the population which, in turn, is a positive function of: 1. Declining standards of living among the population of the home base, particularly its elite sectors. 2. Increasing inequality 3. Loss of patronage by elite sectors 4. Losing a shown-down war with another geo-political power 5. Losing in economic competition with geo-economic and/or geo-political rivals. F. The degree to which the sense of inevitability of political domination by an outside power has declined, coupled with an increase in hostility among members of the conquered population, including elite sectors, which is an additive function of 5-A to 5-E above.

References Carneiro, Robert L. 1967. On the Relationship of Size of Population and Complexity. Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 23: 234–243. Carneiro, Robert L. 1970. A Theory on the Origin of the State. Science 169: 733–788. Carneiro, Robert L. 2015. Spencer’s Conception of Evolution and its Application to the Political Development of Societies. In Evolution and Society: Toward an Explanatory Social Science, ed. H. Turner, R. Machalek, and A. Maryanski, 215–227. New York: Paradigm/Routledge. Chase-Dunn, Christopher. 1990a. Resistance to Imperialism: Semi-Peripheral Actors. Review 13 (1):1–31. Chase-Dunn, Christopher. 1990b. World State Formation: Historical Processes and Emergent Necessity. Political Geography Quarterly 9 (2): 108–130. Chase-Dunn, Christopher. 1998. Global Formation: Structures of the World Economy. Lanham MD: Rowaman and Littlefield. Chase-Dunn, Christopher. 2001. World Systems Analysis. In The Handbook of Theoretical Sociology, ed. J.H. Turner, 589–612. New York: Plenum. Chase-Dunn, Christopher, and Thomas Hall. 1997. Rise and Demise: Comparing World Systems. Boulder CO: Westview Press. Collins, Randall. 1981. Long-Term Social Change and the Territorial Power of States. In Sociology Since Midcentury, ed. R. Collins, 71–106. New York: Academic Press. Darwin, Charles. 1859 [1958]. On the Origins of Species: By Means of Natural Selection. New York: New American Press. Frank, Andre Gunder. 1969. Latin America: Underdevelopment or Revolution?. New York: Monthly Review Press. Frank, Andre Gunder. 1978. World Accumulation, 1492-1789. New York: Monthly Review Press. Frank, Andre Gunder. 1979. Dependent Accumulation and Underdevelopment. New York: Monthly Review Press. Lenski, Gerhard. 1966. Power and Privilege: A Theory of Stratification. New York: McGraw-Hill. Mann, Michael. 1986. The Social of Social Power: Volume 1 from the Beginning to AD 1760. Cambridge UK: Cambridge University Press. McNeil, William. 1982. The Rise of the West: A History of the Human Community. Chicago IL: University of Chicago Press.

7 Principles of Geo-Political Dynamics

123

Sanderson, Stephen K. 1995. Social Transformations: A General History of Historical Development. Oxford UK: Blackwell. Sanderson, Stephen K. 2015. Darwinian Conflict Theory: A Unified Evolutionary Research Program. In Evolution and Society: Toward an Explanatory Social Science, ed. J.H. Turner, R. Machalek, and A. Maryanski, 267–284. New York: Paradigm/Routledge. Skocpol, Theda. 1979. States and Social Revolutions. New York: Cambridge University Press. Spencer, Herbert. 1851 [1888]. Social Statics: Or, the Conditions Essential to Human Happiness Specified, and the First of Them Developed. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts. Spencer, Herbert. 1874–96 [1899]. The Principles of Sociology. New York: Appleton-CenturyCrofts. Turchin, Peter. 2003. Historical Dynamics: Why States Rise and Fall. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press. Turchin, Peter. 2006. War and Peace and War: The Life Cycles of Imperial Nations. New York: Pi Press. Turchin, Peter. 2013. Modeling Social Pressures Toward Instability. Cliodynamics 4: 24–280. Turchin, Peter, Thomas E. Currie, Edward A.L. Turner, and Sergey Gavrilets. 2013. War, Space, and the Evolution of Old World Complex Societies. PNAS 110 (41): 16384–16389. Turchin, Peter, and Sergey A. Nefadov. 2009. Secular Cycles. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press. Turner, Jonathan. 1995. Macrodynamics: Toward Theory on the Organization of Human Populations. New Brunswick NJ: Rutgers University Press. Turner, Jonathan. 2010. Theoretical Principles of Sociology: Volume 1 on Macrodynamics. New York: Springer. Turner, Jonathan. 1985. Herbert Spencer: A Renewed Appreciation. Beverly Hills and London: Sage. Turner, Jonathan. 2017. Principles of Inter-societal Dynamics. Journal of World Systems Research 23 (2): 1–23. Wallerstein, Immanuel. 1974. The Modern World System: Volume 1 on Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World Economy in the Sixteenth Century. New York: Academic Press. Weber, Max. 1922 [1968]. Economy and Society. Berkeley CA: University of California Press.

Jonathan H. Turner is the 38th University Professor of the University of California system. He received his B.A. from U.C. Santa Barbara, in 1965, his M.A. from Cornell University, in 1966, and his Ph.D. from Cornell, in 1968. He is the author of 43 books and several hundred research articles. He is primarily a general theorist on all social processes in human societies. His chapter in this collection illustrates the kind of theorizing that he prefers.

Chapter 8

Transdisciplinarity in Globalization Research: The Global Studies Framework Manfred B. Steger

Abstract Contemporary globalization research increasingly occurs within the loose academic framework of “global studies,” which, in the late 1990s, emerged as a transdisciplinary endeavor exploring the many dimensions of globalization. After an initial comparative discussion of the academic use of the concept “transdisciplinarity,” this chapter argues that attempts to understand the social complexities related to today’s globalization processes raise a plethora of empirical, normative, and epistemic concerns that cannot be sorted out by specialists operating within the narrow and often rather arbitrary confines of single disciplines and their associated idioms. To illustrate these dynamics, this chapter presents concrete examples of how globalization researchers working within the global studies framework employ transdisciplinarity strategies to understand global complexity. As will be shown, they are critical of the tendency to compartmentalize social existence into discreet spheres of activity, and thus have been increasingly committed to the engagement and integration of multiple knowledge systems and research methodologies. The chapter closes with a call to extend these transdisciplinary modes of engaging in globalization research. Indeed, this transdisciplinary imperative of “globalizing the research imagination” has the potential to reenergize and reconfigure research projects across the social sciences and humanities.

Contemporary globalization research increasingly occurs within the loose academic framework of “global studies,” which, in the late 1990s, emerged as a transdisciplinary endeavor exploring the many dimensions of globalization. Although globalization dynamics have been extensively studied in sociology, economics, anthropology, geography, history, political science, and other fields, the subject itself falls outside the established disciplinary framework. Indeed, it is only of secondary

M. B. Steger (B) Department of Sociology, University of Hawai’i-Manoa, Honolulu, HI 96822, USA e-mail: [email protected] Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT University), Melbourne, Australia © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 I. Rossi (ed.), Challenges of Globalization and Prospects for an Inter-civilizational World Order, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44058-9_8

125

126

M. B. Steger

concern in these traditional fields organized around different master concepts: “society” in sociology; “resources” and “scarcity” in economics; “culture” in anthropology; “space” in geography; “the past” in history; “power” and “governance” in political science; and so on. By contrast, global studies have placed this contested keyword “globalization”—without a firm disciplinary home—at the core of its intellectual enterprise. The rise of global studies represents, therefore, a clear sign of the proper recognition of a new kind of social dynamic involving the expansion and intensification of social relations across world-space and world-time. But it also suggests that the nineteenth-century realities that gave birth to the conventional disciplinary architecture should no longer confine twenty-first century social research. Calling for a special academic and methodological context for globalization research, the new field has become increasingly institutionalized in the academy. Yet, global studies do not see itself as just another cog in the disciplinary machine of contemporary higher education. In spite of today’s trendy talk about “globalizing knowledge” and “systematic internationalization”—which often seems to be more about the neoliberal reinvention of the academy as big business than creating new spaces of epistemological diversity—the traditional Western academic framework of knowledge specialization has survived largely intact into our own age of globalization. Often forced to make compromises and find less than desirable accommodations with the dominant academic order, global studies challenge a fractured mindset that encourages the division of knowledge into sharply demarcated areas populated by disciplinary “insiders.” Consequently, the new field is also critical of the parochial departmental structure of higher education that operates institutionally in most cases as an inwardlooking defense mechanism against real and suspected threats from “outsiders.” In the roughly two decades of its existence, global studies have thrived on the growing academic disaffection with this insular status quo. Although it seeks to blaze new trails of social inquiry, the newcomer is not afraid of presenting itself as a fluid and porous intellectual terrain rather than a novel, well-defined item on the dominant disciplinary menu. To use Fredric Jameson’s apt characterization, the global studies framework generates an academic “space of tension” characterized by multiple disagreements and agreements in which the very problematic of globalization itself is being continuously produced and contested (Jameson 1998: xvi). Thus, the evolving field has attracted scores of unorthodox faculty and unconventional students who share its sincere commitment to studying transnational processes, interactions, and flows from a perspective framed by broad research networks rather than narrow disciplinary communities. After an initial comparative discussion of the academic use of the concept “transdisciplinarity,” this chapter argues that attempts to understand the social complexities related to today’s globalization processes raise a plethora of empirical, normative, and epistemic concerns that cannot be sorted out by specialists operating within the narrow and often rather arbitrary confines of single disciplines and their associated idioms. To illustrate these dynamics, this chapter presents concrete examples of how globalization researchers working within the global studies framework employ transdisciplinarity strategies to understand global complexity. As will be shown, they are

8 Transdisciplinarity in Globalization Research …

127

critical of the tendency to compartmentalize social existence into discreet spheres of activity, and thus have been increasingly committed to the engagement and integration of multiple knowledge systems and research methodologies. The chapter closes with a call to extend these transdisciplinary modes of engaging in globalization research. Indeed, this transdisciplinary imperative of “globalizing the research imagination” has the potential to reenergize and reconfigure research projects across the social sciences and humanities (Kenway and Fahey 2009; Darian-Smith and McCarty 2017; Steger 2017).

Interdisciplinarity, Multidisciplinarity, and Transdisciplinarity While the term of “interdisciplinarity” is quite familiar, the trendy label “transdisciplinarity” has emerged more recently in various academic settings. But does it carry the same meanings as the more established concept? Some experts on the subject warn against using these terms synonymously in order to avoid conceptual confusion (Alvargonzález 2011; Repko 2011). Others propose conceptualizing them on a spectrum that runs from “multidisciplinarity” through “interdisciplinarity” to “transdisciplinarity” (Russell 2005; Choi and Pak 2006). Most global studies researchers have approached these terms in rather pragmatic ways that allow for their interchangeable usage. Although it may not be possible—and, indeed not be desirable—to establish rigid distinctions among these three major terms in applied settings like university teaching or research, it does makes sense to separate them for analytic reasons. Derived from the Latin word multus (“many”), the term “multidisciplinarity” refers to activities drawing on knowledge from different disciplines that involve tight coordination among disciplines but falling short of deep integration. In this context, “deep integration” might mean a thoroughgoing reconfiguration of the conventional academic institutional framework and the creation of new research paradigms no longer configured around “disciplines” but wide-ranging research questions and projects. In most cases, members from different disciplines come together around a particular project that would benefit from a variety of theoretical approaches. Still, multidisciplinarians work independently on different aspects of their common project—often in a parallel or sequential manner. Proceeding in a self-contained fashion, they stay largely within their own disciplinary boundaries and require only few opportunities for intercommunication. Repko (2011: 17) compares multidisciplinarity to “a bowl of fruit containing a variety of fruits, each fruit representing a discipline and being in close proximity to the others.” Their lack of interest in integration, however, does not mean that multidisciplinary scholars fail to make valuable contributions to their collaborative projects. By adding, contrasting, and juxtaposing their distinct insights, multidisciplinarians extend and enhance existing knowledge. Rather than learning from each other, they learn about each other’s separate modes of approaching a joint question or problem. The ultimate outcome of multidisciplinary

128

M. B. Steger

efforts is cumulative, that is, the sum of the individual parts. Examples include a team-taught course on climate change mitigation in which faculty from different disciplines provide serial or parallel lectures, or the study of a Monet painting from the distinct perspectives of art, history, religion, and philosophy. Of course, it is important to avoid that such cumulative insights lose coherence and turn into a mélange of findings that are difficult to apply to concrete social issues. Continuing with the term “interdisciplinarity,” let us recall that the Latin prefix inter means “among”—as in the word “international” (“among nations”). However, as in “interchange,” it can also signify “together,” “mutually,” or “reciprocally.” Interdisciplinarity refers to any form of dialogue or interaction among two or more disciplines that might in some cases lead to an enduring reciprocal relationship between them. Still, just as international relationships between different countries do not imply denying the sovereignty of each, interdisciplinarity does not eliminate the independence of each discipline (Alvargonzález 2011: 388). Indeed, many scholars associate interdisciplinarity with circumscribed or overlapping spaces of interaction involving no more than two or three disciplines that leave each field largely unaltered. Although some of these interactions might at times necessitate a departure from some disciplinary aspects, scholars usually do not give up their area-specific base. Thus, members from different disciplines come together as interdisciplinary teams to collaborate on teaching or research projects that are seen as benefiting their own areas of expertise. Team members learn from each other, thus expanding their own disciplinary horizons. In some cases, such established routines of mixing or sharing disciplinary-specific knowledge lead to only moderate forms of integration that can give rise to new hyphenated fields and sub-disciplines such as political economy, mathematical physics, environmental planning, or biochemistry. Finally, the term “transdisciplinarity” is configured around the Latin prefix trans (“across” or “beyond”). It signifies the systemic and holistic integration of diverse forms of knowledge by cutting across and through existing disciplinary boundaries and paradigms in ways that reach beyond each individual discipline. If interdisciplinarity can be characterized by the mixing of disciplinary perspectives involving little or moderate integration, then transdisciplinarity should be thought of as a deep fusion of disciplinary knowledge that produces new understandings capable of transforming or restructuring existing disciplinary paradigms. But the transdisciplinary imperative to challenge, go beyond, transgress, and unify separate orientations does not ignore the importance of attracting scholars with specific disciplinary backgrounds. Rather, transdisciplinary teams typically use a shared conceptual framework like “globalization” and draw together discipline-specific theories, concepts, and approaches to address a common problem such as cultural homogenization or offshore tax shelters (Choi and Pak 2006: 355). Putting complex “real-world problems” at the heart of their intellectual efforts, transdisciplinary globalization researchers routinely encourage the research participation of non-academic experts from public and private sectors whose relevant applied skills can add much value to their academic efforts. Rather than just mixing together various insights drawn from different disciplinary backgrounds, they aim at a deep integration of disciplinary knowledge.

8 Transdisciplinarity in Globalization Research …

129

As discussed in the next section of this chapter, transdisciplinary globalization researchers and their corresponding methodological toolkits are steeped in pluralism and eclecticism. Their new modes of knowledge production associated with globalization processes require diverse, problem-based, and collaborative forms of research capable of transcending both methodological nationalism and disciplinary boundaries in the integration and synthesis of multiple contents, theories, and methodologies (Darian-Smith and McCarty 2017). At the same time, full transdisciplinarity— understood as activities that transcend, recombine, and integrate separate disciplinary paradigms—remains an elusive goal for globalization researchers who remain typically associated with currently existing academic programs in their fields. Hence, the term “transdisciplinarity” contains both a strict indication of a very high level of disciplinary integration and a more pragmatic reference to a broad range of practices and dynamics that occur between disciplines, across disciplines, and beyond any single discipline, thus encompassing “multidisciplinarity” and “interdisciplinarity” as well.

Transdisciplinarity and Global Complexity: Some Research Examples Globalization scholars frequently disagree with each other on various pertinent issues related to their subject. But one can also point to a growing number of agreements. One claim, above all, seems to enjoy virtual consensus: the study of globalization requires close encounters with multiple forms of social complexity and differentiation. Already one of the earliest definitions of globalization offered by Modelski (1968: 389) revolves around the recognition of the significance of growing complexity in the incipient global society of the 1960s: “A condition for the emergence of a multiple-autonomy form of world politics arguably is the development of a global layer of interaction substantial enough to support continuous and diversified institutionalization. We may define this process as globalization; it is the result of the increasing size, complexity, and sophistication of world society.” By recognizing the importance of increasing complexity for their systematic inquiries, global studies researchers consciously embrace transdisciplinarity in their efforts to understand the shifting dynamics of interconnectedness. Thus, their exploration of complex forms of interdependence not only combats knowledge fragmentation and scientific reductionism, but also facilitates an understanding of the “big picture,” which is indispensible for stimulating the political commitment needed to tackle the pressing global problems of our time such as large-scale human migration, advanced digital technologies, and novel pandemics. For this reason, transdisciplinarity expert Pohl (2010: 68) emphasizes the imperative to grasp the complexity of socially relevant issues as the overriding rationale for engaging in transdisciplinarity research. Since global complexity appears in many forms and pervades different social arenas, it makes sense to approach it from different angles and through multiple

130

M. B. Steger

levels of analysis. The goal, in particular, is to illuminate the intensifying complexities involved in the interconnectivity of microscopic, “local” phenomena, and macroscopic dynamics involved in the creation of globality. Grasping these “glocalized” forms of interdependence requires globalization researchers to experiment with innovative methodological approaches that reject the local/global binary (Robertson 1992). To illustrate such new modes of transdisciplinary thinking as they apply to the global studies framework, let us consider the treatment of four concrete manifestations of global complexity—global networks, flows, fluids, and hybrids—as introduced by notable globalization scholars. There are few globalization researchers who did more to integrate the technological discourse centered on “electronically processed information networks” with the emerging globalization debate configured around “social interdependencies” than Manuel Castells. Examining complex globalization processes operating in economic, social, and cultural domains, his path-breaking 1996–98 three-volume study of The Information Age (2010) constitutes an encompassing theoretical treatise constructed from a series of specific “network analyses” of these interlinked spheres of globalization. Castells’s project offers an empirically grounded, coherent account of globalization capable of explaining changing social and organizational arrangements of what he called the “network society.” To that end, the author introduced new concepts into a comprehensive theoretical perspective that stopped just short of proposing the sort of general, unitary theory of society. Castells’s most basic concept is that of a “network,” which he defines as a set of “nodes” interconnected by “ties” that are capable of directing all sorts of “flows.” Conceding that networks have existed in various forms throughout human history, Castells emphasized that their current manifestations were infinitely more complex and expansive. Their unprecedented combination of flexibility and taskimplementation allowed for a superior coordination and management of growing social complexity. Emerging as the indispensable medium for the absorption, organization and dissemination of microelectronics-based communication and information, networks appeared in the contemporary context in myriad forms and dynamics, most importantly as the capitalist world economy greased by transnational financial flows that are directed by 24/7 stock exchange markets; globally connected webs of civil society and their proliferating nodes of information-sharing NGOs; mobile digital devices generating, transmitting, and receiving signals in interlinking global media systems, expanding crime cartels and drug traffic routes cutting across national and regional geographies, and so on. Presenting these new communication/information networks as open structures capable of infinite expansion and integration of a large number of new nodes and ties, Castells argued that their global expansion at the turn of the century made them animating forces of all dimensions of contemporary social life. Indeed, Castells claimed that the new technological paradigm constituted around digital networks represented a new period in human history. The global “Information Age”—configured around the rising “network society” and embedded in interconnected networks of production, power, and experience—was replacing the Industrial Age and its centrally organized, vertical chains of command and control geared toward the production and distribution of energy.

8 Transdisciplinarity in Globalization Research …

131

Although Castells emphasized the crucial impact of economic and technological developments—especially the significance of digital “systems of horizontal communication networks” in the liberalization and global integration of markets—he was careful to point out that the impact of the Internet and wireless communication technologies had to be analyzed in explicit transdisciplinary modes that eschewed determinist and reductionist explanations of globalization as “technology plus markets.” For example, while the evolution of digital technology in the Information Age went hand in hand with the formation of “informational capitalism,” it also sparked a series of fundamental cultural and political transformations that make “virtuality” an essential aspect of people’s sense of the social whole. After all, Castells insisted, communication is a process of sharing meaning through the exchange of information. The ongoing transformation of communication technology in the digital age—and the environment in which such communication occurs—directly affects the forms of meaning construction, and therefore the production of culture. But Castells’s theory of the network society raised as many questions as it answered. For example, how did these sophisticated digital technologies of networked information and communication mediate a vast array of social, political, and economic practices? How, precisely, did networks operating primarily in one domain interact with networks unfolding in other dimensions? And how did multiple expanding interdependencies form a coherent whole that could be conceptualized as the “rise of the network society” in the information age? Castells insisted that the key to understanding the evolving network society—and the diffusion of its logic of interconnectivity across all social domains—lay in an in-depth analysis of the globalizing forms of social complexity in the contemporary context. As he explained [D]igital networking technologies, characteristic of the Information Age, powered social and organizational networks in ways that allowed their endless expansion and reconfiguration, overcoming the traditional limitations of networking forms of organization to manage complexity beyond a certain size of the network. Because networks do not stop at the border of the nation-state, the network society constitutes itself as a global system, ushering in the new form of globalization characteristic of our time (Castells 2010: xviii).

In particular, Castells sought to unlock the complexities of the global network society by concentrating on the “flows”—purposeful and repetitive sequences of exchange and interaction involving such things as language, data, money, or drugs— that pass through nodes along the ties of the network. However, under conditions of increasing complexity, flows can assume many different forms, characteristics, and qualities. As Barney (2004: 26) suggests they can be constant or intermittent, oneway or reciprocal, uni- or multidirectional, balanced or imbalanced, strong or weak. Castells recognized this difficulty and acknowledged that his empirical analysis of specific flows in the network society could not proceed without a prior consideration of larger space-time transformations in the human experience resulting from the new patterns of connection and mobility. The emergence of new modes and dimensions of space and time mediated by information technologies assumed a place of great significance in Castells’s investigation of global networks. Introducing his influential concept of “space of flows,”

132

M. B. Steger

he argued that microelectronics-based digital communication, advanced telecommunication networks, and computerized information systems had transformed conventional forms of social space by introducing simultaneity, or any chosen time frame, in social practices, regardless of the location of the actors engaged in the communication process. Unlike a “space of places”—conventionally bounded space linked to specific locations such as delineated suburbs, villages, towns, and the nation-state— Castells’s “space of flows” referred to a new interrelationship of knowledge, power, and communication that involved the production, transmission, and processing of flows of information. To be sure, the space of flows on the Internet still relied on the production of localities as nodes of expanding communication networks, but the primary function of such “places” consisted of providing “material support of simultaneous social practices communicated at a distance” (Castells 2010: xxxii). In other words, Castells argued that the network society reorganizes and manages globalizing forms of social complexity through the space of flows. Localized constraints of place and time no longer limit expanding and proliferating manifestations of human activity mediated by global communication networks. Castells’s approach to global complexity emphasized the materiality inherent in the space of flows. He pointed to the rise of a flexible “new economy” organized in countless circuits of electronic exchanges that directed billions of financial transactions around the world. The production of significant nodes and hubs such as “global cities” like New York and Shanghai not only facilitated the global division of labor or the global distribution centers for countless products and services, but also served as crucial social meeting places for global elites. As Barney (2004: 29) sums up “The network society is ‘always on’ and the placement of its members in territorial space is less important than their existence as ‘space of flows’ where crucial economic and other activity occurs.” Thus, Castells consciously broadened his transdisciplinary approach to complexity beyond the conventional focus on the dynamics of global capitalism to include flows of organizational templates, technical knowledge, images, sounds, symbols, and so on. But his pioneering analysis of the network society in terms of “space of flows” allowed Castells not only to explain how networking forms of organization managed complexity but also showed how global networks included some people and territories while excluding others, inducing a geography of social, economic, and technological inequality. Indeed, his exploration of various forms and processes of power in the network society has moved to the center of his research efforts (Castells 2009, 2012). In particular, he focused on the exercise of hegemonic power by programming and switching political, military, and financial networks, and the enactment of counterpower by dominated groups willing to disrupt prevailing networks and reprogram them around alternative interests and values. This significant expansion of his theory into the world of social movements and identity politics brought Castells closer to his transdisciplinary goal of examining the different dimensions of the global network society. Building on Castells’s theory of the global network society as well as Zygmunt Bauman’s (2000) notion of “liquid modernity,” John Urry emerged as one of the most influential academic voices urging the reconfiguration of globalization research

8 Transdisciplinarity in Globalization Research …

133

around the “liquid” nature of “complexity.” Citing the transformative impact of globalization—reflected especially in the increasing mobility of people, commodities, technologies, and ideas—the Urry embarked on the transdisciplinary quest to connect social inquiries into the nature of the global with the “complexity sciences” and “chaos theory” in order to capture these new transnational dynamics. In particular, he argued that new concepts and methods borrowed from physics and biology had the capacity to expand our understanding of the global as a complex system or series of interdependent systems. Appreciative of Castells’s innovative examination of intersecting global networks as the new framework for studying globalization, Urry nonetheless criticized his colleague for lacking a sufficiently broad range of theoretical terms necessary to illuminate the intensification of global complexity. As he saw it, Castells’s notion of “network” was “too undifferentiated a term” to capture the dynamic properties of global processes and worldwide connections. Hence, Urry’s basic premise was to overcome the “limitations of many globalization analyses that deal insufficiently with the complex character of emergent global relations” (Urry 2003: 39). In this constructive spirit, he proceeded to advance his innovative transdisciplinary project by introducing three key concepts to the study of globalization. As his starting point, Urry proposed that emergent global systems should be conceptualized as interdependent and self-organizing “global hybrids”. Combining both physical and social relations in curious and unexpected ways, these formations were capable of evolving toward both disorganization and order. Teetering “on the edge of chaos,” global hybrids often moved away from points of equilibrium and stability, thus exhibiting the qualities of unpredictability, contingency, non-linearity, irreversibility, and indeterminacy that have long been described and analyzed in natural sciences devoted to the study of complexity such as quantum physics, thermodynamics, cybernetics, ecology, and biology. Citing informational systems, automobility, global media, world money, the Internet, climate change, health hazards, and worldwide protests as examples of such global hybrids, Urry (2003: 14) argued that all of these manifestations could be classified as either “globally integrated networks” or “global fluids.” For Urry, globally integrated networks (GINs) consisted of complex and enduring networked connections between peoples, objects, and technologies stretching across multiple and distant spaces and times. The purpose of GINs was to manage global complexity by introducing regularity and predictability into the chaotic multiplicity of emergent globality. For example, global enterprises like McDonald’s, American Express, or Sony were organized through GINs that interweave technologies, skills, texts, and brands to ensure that the same service or product was delivered more or less the same way across the entire network. This made outcomes predictable, calculable, routinized, and standardized. However, as Urry (2003: 56–59) notes GINs also showed important weaknesses under conditions of advanced globalization. For example, the power of a global brand based within a GIN could evaporate almost overnight as a consequence of relatively minor occurrences. Local protests against global sweatshop practices or locally organized resistances to global corporations

134

M. B. Steger

such as Starbucks could produce powerful effects that were difficult to analyze within a “network” framework. Thus, Urry introduced his third and perhaps most significant key concept to the study of globalization: “global fluids” (GFs). While these highly evolved manifestations of global hybridity undoubtedly involved networks, this term did not do justice to the uneven, emergent, and unpredictable shapes that fluids might take. Structured by the various dimensions and domains of global order, GFs traveled along network ties from node to node, but their movements were much less stable and predictable than Castells suggested when he introduced the notion “space of flows” within “global networks.” Urry argued that GFs “may escape, rather like white blood corpuscles, through the ‘wall’ into surrounding matter and effect unpredictable consequences upon the matter.” Seizing upon the quantum physics metaphor of matter exhibiting qualities of both particles and waves, he suggested that GFs were constituted by “particles” of people, information, objects, money, images, risk, and networks that moved within and across diverse regions forming “heterogeneous, uneven, unpredictable, and often unplanned waves.” For example, powerful fluids of traveling people or health hazards such as global pandemics traveled across national borders at changing speeds and at different levels of viscosity with no necessary end state or purpose. Unlike the “network” metaphor, the notion of GFs (of different viscosity) was quite capable of explaining how the messy power of complexity processes was organized in the global age. As Urry (2003: 60–61) emphasized GFs managed complexity by creating over time their own context for action rather than being seen as “caused” by such a context. The advantage of substituting the new “global fluids” metaphor for the more conventional notion of “network flows” lay in the superior representational powers of the former. It allowed researchers to better grasp the intersecting dynamics of globalization while at the same time acknowledging their complex and ultimately unpredictable forms. Troubled by the ambitious attempts of researchers like Castells to produce a unified and generalizable theory of globalization, Urry suggested that globalization was neither unified nor could it be presented as a linear and orderly set of processes unfolding in different domains. But his willingness to accept limits to his analysis of the global set by the growing complexity of globalization itself did not mean abandoning the academic task of inquiring into the wide array of rapidly evolving GINs and GFs. Rather, Urry (2003: 124) encouraged fellow scholars to engage in a “thoroughgoing post-disciplinarity” or transformation of conventional disciplinary structures capable of transcending the physical science/social science divide. In short, the deep integration of new post-disciplinary initiatives constituted the heart of global studies, and thus should inspire the analysis of contemporary global relations.

8 Transdisciplinarity in Globalization Research …

135

Globalizing the Research Imagination in the Social Sciences and Humanities In a book presenting a series of interviews with some of the world’s leading global studies scholars, Kenway and Fahey (2009) conclude that globalization has deeply challenged many prevailing ideas and practices in the social sciences and humanities. The resulting imperative to globalize the research imagination has put pressure on conventional academic landscapes and architectures shaped by Western disciplinary logics developed in the previous two centuries. As Kenway and Fahey (2009: 4) put it mobilizing this global imagination “becomes a form of ‘disciplinary urging’ encouraging those in the field to move beyond its impasses and absences, even beyond inherited ways of thinking.” But, as noted at the outset of this chapter, such an intellectual enterprise of globalizing inherited ways of thinking stands in stark contrast to established forms of academic tribalism that discourages relationships and exchanges between different disciplines. Transgressing disciplinary space means establishing relationships to knowledge that are more open to the perpetual intellectual demands for change and selfalteration. As one among many manifestations of this transdisciplinary spirit, the global studies framework encourages intellectual travel of the sort that produces wider academic horizons. But such a journey cannot be made without accepting the intellectual and institutional risks that come from challenging deeply engrained disciplinary modes of theory and practice. Globalization research must stretch far beyond the confines of conventional bounded concepts like “society” or “nation” that have long dominated academic thinking. Exploring global complexity means abandoning social science’s methodological nationalism without sacrificing the focus on the specific that characterizes thoughtful area studies approaches. In short, one of the most formidable challenges facing global studies today is transdisciplinarity: finding both innovative and applicable ways of globalizing the research imagination. Full transdisciplinarity involves at least four major dynamics: the systematic integration of knowledge in the never-ending search for knowledge unification; the transgression of disciplinary boundaries; transcendence of the scope of disciplinary views by articulating them in a holistic framework; and an issue-driven focus on problemsolving in the life world that elevates concrete research questions and practices over disciplinary concerns (Alvargonzález 2011: 394–395). As various transdisciplinary initiatives have gathered strength in the last two decades, new fields of inquiry have turned into trendy academic programs that often contain the denotation “studies”—such as environmental studies, urban studies, cultural studies, ethnic studies, black studies, poverty studies, development studies, internet studies, and, of course, global studies. Such “studies” programs in general not only represent fundamental challenges to the dominant academic superstructure, but their growing popularity also indicates widespread dissatisfaction with the prevailing order of knowledge embodied in the traditional forms of disciplinary organization (Repko 2011: 9). While it may be true that such “studies” programs often lack a traditional “canon” or established methodologies that are celebrated within disciplinary boundaries,

136

M. B. Steger

a more generous, and perhaps accurate, perspective would replace such derision with the recognition of the innovation that one finds at the heart of many of these unorthodox newcomers (Nederveen-Pieterse 2013). While newly emerging transdisciplinary initiatives might surpass the conventional disciplines in performing the necessary task of realigning changing forms of knowledge to the global challenges of the twenty-first century, the success of “studies” programs might actually weaken the transgressive impulse at the heart of transdisciplinarity. How so? In order to be effective within the still dominant academic order of largely self-contained disciplines, global studies and other “studies” fields face considerable pressures (and incentives) to join the existing single-discipline club as—yes—yet another separate-discipline member. In other words, the more popular global studies becomes, the greater the danger of drawing disciplinary boundaries between “us” and “them,” which is institutionally fortified by the erection of protective departmental walls and the separate allocation of resources. The task, then, is for globalization researchers to go beyond the confines of their own academic interests and inspire a new generation of scholars in the social sciences and humanities to employ boundary-crossing methodologies and remaining open to scholarly innovation. Together, they must develop a clear agenda for transdisciplinarity in global studies and other new academic “fields of tension” that appeal to today’s students and faculty. Global studies need to expand its foothold in the dominant academic landscape while at the same time continue its work against the prevailing order. To satisfy these seemingly contradictory imperatives, globalization scholars must retain their ambition to project “globalization” across the conventional disciplinary matrix, yet accept with equal determination the pragmatic task of finding some accommodation within the very disciplinary structure it seeks to transform. Such necessary attempts to reconcile these diverging impulses force transdisciplinary scholars to play at least one, and preferably more, of three distinct roles, depending on the concrete institutional opportunities and constraints they encounter in their academic home environment. First, transdisciplinarians might have to assume the role of intrepid mavericks willing to establish their field as a separate discipline—as a first but necessary step toward the more holistic goal of comprehensive integration. However, as Armin Krishnan (2009: 34) has pointed out, leaving one’s discipline behind does not mean the wholesale abandonment of one’s original disciplinary interests: “[P]ractically every new discipline starts off necessarily as an interdisciplinary project that combines elements from some parent discipline(s) with original new elements and insights.” To be sure, mavericks must possess a certain spirit of adventure that makes it easier for them to leave their original disciplinary setting behind to cover new ground. And being mavericks always carries the considerable risk that they and their new field will possibly fail. Second, transdisciplinary globalization scholars must be prepared—if their academic context demands it—to embrace the role of radical insurgents seeking to globalize established disciplines from within. This means working toward the goal of carving out a “global” dimension or status within specific disciplines such as political science or sociology. A specific example of such “insurgent” activity would

8 Transdisciplinarity in Globalization Research …

137

be Dicken’s (2004) fierce critique of his own discipline of geography for failing to engage properly with intellectually and economically significant globalization debates. He challenged his colleagues to take up what he considers the “central task for geographers”—to pay more attention to contemporary global issues and concerns such as the spatial outcomes of globalization that set the framework for crucial social dynamics in the twenty-first century. Dicken’s plea did not fall on deaf ears, for one can find today many human geographers at the cutting-edge frontiers of globalization research (Murray and Overton 2014). Finally, transdisciplinary globalization researchers must slip into the role of tireless nomads traveling perpetually across and beyond disciplines in order to reconfigure existing and new knowledge around concrete globalization research questions and projects. The nomadic role, in particular, demands that they find the intellectual energy necessary for getting acquainted with vast literatures on pertinent subjects that are usually studied in isolation from each other. Indeed, one of the most formidable intellectual challenges facing globalization researchers today lies in its enduring commitment to making transdisciplinarity work in concrete university settings. This task requires the integration and synthesis of multiple strands of knowledge in a way that does justice to the ever-growing social complexity, fluidity, and connectivity of our globalizing world. Acknowledgments The final section of this chapter was previously published in global-e journal: http://www.21global.ucsb.edu/global-e/february-2017/globalizing-research-imaginationtransdisciplinarity-global-studies. Reused with permission of the global-e editors.

References Alvargonzález, D. 2011. Multidisciplinarity, Interdisciplinarity, Transdisciplinarity, and the Sciences. International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 25 (4): 387–403. Barney, D. 2004. The Network Society. Cambridge: Polity. Bauman, Z. 2000. Liquid Modernity. Cambridge: Polity. Castells, M. 2009. Communication Power. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Castells, M. 2010. The Information Age: Economy, Society, and Culture, 3 vols., 2nd ed. Chichester, UK: Wiley-Blackwell. Castells, M. 2012. Networks of Outrage and Hope: Social Movements in the Internet Age. Cambridge: Polity. Choi, B., and A. Pak. 2006. Multidisciplinarity, Interdisciplinarity, and Transdisciplinarity, Education and Policy: Definitions, Objectives, and Evidence of Effectiveness. Clinical and Investigative Medicine 29 (6): 351–364. Darian-Smith, E., and P. McCarty. 2017. The Global Turn: Theories, Research Designs, and Methods for Global Studies. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Dicken, P. 2004. Geographers and Globalization: (yet) Another Missed Boat? Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 29: 5–26. Jameson, F. 1998. Preface. In The Cultures of Globalization, ed. F. Jameson and M. Miyoshi, xi–xvii. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Kenway, J., and J. Fahey (eds.). 2009. Globalizing the Research Imagination. London and New York: Routledge.

138

M. B. Steger

Krishnan, A. 2009. What are Academic Disciplines? Some Observations on the Disciplinarity vs. Interdisciplinarity Debate. Southampton: University of Southampton National Centre for Research Method. Modelski, G. 1968. Communism and the Globalization of Politics. International Studies Quarterly 12 (4): 380–393. Murray, W., and J. Overton. 2014. Geographies of Globalization, 2nd ed. New York and London: Routledge. Nederveen-Pieterse, J. 2013. What is Global Studies? Globalizations 10 (4): 499–514. Pohl, C. 2010. From Transdisciplinarity to Transdisciplinary Research. Transdisciplinary Journal of Engineering & Science 1 (1): 65–73. Repko, A.F. 2011. Interdisciplinary Research: Process and Theory. London: Sage. Robertson, R. 1992. Globalization: Social Theory and Global Culture. London: Sage. Russell, A. 2005. No Academic Borders? Transdisciplinarity in University Teaching and Research. Australian University Review 48 (1): 35–41. Steger, M. 2017. Globalizing the Research Imagination: Transdisciplinarity in Global Studies. Global-e 10 (12). http://www.21global.ucsb.edu/global-e/february-2017/globalizing-researchimagination-transdisciplinarity-global-studies. Urry, J. 2003. Global Complexity. Cambridge: Polity.

Manfred B. Steger is a Professor of Sociology at the University of Hawai’i-Manoa, and Global Professorial Fellow at the Institute of Culture and Society, Western Sydney University. He has served as an academic consultant on globalization for the US State Department. He is the author or editor of twenty-seven books on globalization, social and political theory, and nonviolence, including The Rise of the Global Imaginary: Political Ideologies from the French Revolution to the Global War on Terror (Oxford University Press, 2008), What Is Global Studies? Theory & Practice (Routledge, 2017), and Globalization Matters: Engaging the Global in Unsettled Times (with Paul James; Cambridge University Press, 2019).

Part II

GLOBALIZATION PROCESSES: CULTURAL, POLITICAL, ECONOMIC AND ECOLOGICAL

ON CULTURAL GLOBALIZATION

Chapter 9

Goals, Values, and Endemic Conflicts in the New Global Culture Martin Albrow

Abstract The new global culture bears little resemblance to the bland unity of a world culture, once imagined as the direction of globalization. The combined effects of communication technology, disembedded community, and digitalization result in fragmentation and the continual reconstitution of the globality of culture. Elements include 1. its autonomic self-regulation and boundary-crossing nature; 2. open creativity with a consequent differentiation of culture; 3. the development of transcultural values, such as sustainability; 4. conflicts in claims to define universal values leading to a pragmatic universalism; 5. the fluidity of social entities and negotiation of identities; 6. the demand for integrity as an existential quest; 7. focus on the issues that challenge all human beings; 8. deepening conflict between globalism and populism; 9. acknowledgment of agency and responsibility for individual and collective behavior; and 10. dissemination of the sense of performative global citizenship. Taken together these elements prefigure a possible global coalescence around the threat to our existence on the planet. That, however, is jeopardized by the developing dominance of the digital in every aspect of life.

In 1996, outlining the characteristics of a Global Age that was shaping the narrative of the time, I wrote in a section headed “Culture and Multiple Worlds”: “Globality restores the boundlessness of culture and promotes the endless renewability and diversification of cultural expression rather than homogenization or hybridization” (1996: 144). It followed in the path of the seminal seventh volume of the journal, Theory, Culture and Society (TCS), also published as the book Global Culture: Nationalism, Globalization and Modernity (1990). Its editor, Mike Featherstone, captured the tone of its debates in writing of “trans-societal cultural processes” giving rise to “all sorts of ‘third cultures’” (1990: 1). Rightly, he rejected any suggestion that a single world culture was emerging, equivalent to and transcending national cultures.

M. Albrow (B) 4 Lawrie Park Crescent, London SC26 6HD, UK e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 I. Rossi (ed.), Challenges of Globalization and Prospects for an Inter-civilizational World Order, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44058-9_9

143

144

M. Albrow

Nearly three decades later the early exchanges in TCS still resonate for the world of our time. Yet the profound changes since have left their marks on both public debate and new currents of ideas in the academic world. In particular, there has arisen a widely noticed political divide that has appeared in many countries between what are generally called globalists and populists. Such a divide, where a clash of the global and the national has each side making transnational alliances, marks a development of political globalization that warrants speaking of a global politics beyond what is usually thought of as either national politics or international relations. It has, of course, its economic parallels in global corporate capitalism and its anti-capitalist campaigners and the clash is equally a cultural phenomenon transcending national boundaries. The idea of global culture consequently has taken on quite another meaning from the single world culture Featherstone rejected in 1990. It is not the culture of a unified world society but of a global political system where dominant and oppositional segments contest the scope and penetration of the global into both national and daily life. It is a public conflict conducted through media with unprecedented reach into everyday lives, inhabited by events and celebrities that have global recognition and conducted through conversations where distance is irrelevant. The account that follows identifies elementary features that should aid the understanding of the novelty of this conflicted global culture. It will consider the ambiguous relation globalization has to the continual fragmentation and reconstitution of culture. It will deal with the inherent tensions in claims to control culture. It can only in passing refer to the economic, political, and environmental preconditions that are dealt with elsewhere in this volume. But three other defining features of the present world that have singular importance for culture need special mention. The first is information and communication technology (ICT). In the broadest sense, technology is also a cultural product if we mean by that the outcome of human ingenuity harnessed to shared knowledge. Often enough too it is human aspiration that leads technology. From the early speculations about satellite communication by the visionary scientist and novelist Arthur C. Clarke (1945) through pathbreaking insights into the relation of media technology to the content of communication by Marshall McLuhan (1962: 31), who branded his time and ours with the “global village,” through to Berners-Lee and Fischetti (1999), who tested out his dream of an interconnected world through the Internet by inventing the World Wide Web, technology has been the main means to bring worlds together. The second is the transformation of social relations, happening in parallel with technological development, both as a spur and being facilitated by it. Advances in the means of physical transportation have played a major part in travel within and between countries and have aided the migratory flows stemming from environmental pressures and diasporas induced by political conflict. But equally important has been the possibility of real-time interpersonal communication over any distance in the world. As a result, we no longer associate community primarily with presence in local area. It can now be generated equally out of networks

9 Goals, Values, and Endemic Conflicts in the New Global Culture

145

that extend worldwide. The consequences of this disembedding are profound for nation-states confined within territorial boundaries, for ideas of citizenship and social control. The third may be summed up as digitalization, but the pervasive use of “digital” already renders too familiar processes that contribute to the transformation of every aspect of daily life, as well as to the infrastructure that makes industrial civilization possible, and to weapons systems that extend to outer space and threaten human existence. The computing power that increases exponentially takes us beyond global thinking into reconstructing the human being. Beyond human is no longer science fiction fantasy, but on the horizon of development in artificial intelligence (AI). ICT, disembedding, AI, each sets boundaries to the analysis of contemporary culture. They are prime determinants of its future direction. They are incalculable too in their combined effects. But their impact is also under our scrutiny and can in part be controlled by our own efforts. These arise very much in the more narrowly defined sphere of culture. Current understanding of changes in this sphere is the theme of what follows.

The Autonomy of Culture The boundary-crossing nature of globalization has been the catalyst for recognizing both the autonomy and creativity of culture. In the early 1990s, it was the threat of globalization to nation-state sovereignty that preoccupied public commentary. This was mirrored in academic debate by controversy around national claims to culture. Featherstone’s volume mentioned above, for instance, featured a sharp exchange between Immanuel Wallerstein (1990), for whom cultural analysis was only an extension of national power and ideology and in effect a “non-subject,” as against Roy Boyne (1990) who argued that the concept of culture could not be confined to relations within and between groups. Wallerstein’s dismissal of cultural as distinct from social analysis has to be seen against the earlier widespread criticism of the dominant sociological paradigm of the 1960s. For Talcott Parsons (1951), culture and social relations were bonded in national societies integrated around central values. As a general theory of society, it came under relentless attack from Marxist emphases on class conflict throughout the 70s and 80s. The inherent nature of culture to cross boundaries has long been recognized, as well as its potential for inspiring solidarity within, and division between peoples. In early anthropology, acculturation was regarded as one of the effects of diffusion, where features of one culture were adopted by another. In early twenty-first century, the same process may well be denounced as cultural appropriation. Margaret Archer (1988: xxii) summed up the constant flux within and between cultures when she wrote of “this shapeless, seething and shifting thing we call culture.” She went on to fix it for the purposes of sociological analysis with

146

M. Albrow

the concept of morphogenesis, the way in which interactions between people are constantly shaped by new cultural configurations. There is now widespread recognition that social relations operate through cultural media with their own generative rules. The primordial case is a language, learnable by anyone, providing for personal expression but only within the limits of its syntax. At the same time, translation points to commonalities behind and between languages. The success of the term Richard Dawkins (1976) invented, “meme,” to refer to a cultural element reproduced in multiple contexts exemplifies the very message he wanted to convey. “Meme” has become a meme. It also highlights the dissection of culture into basic factors, images, phrases, texts, all of which can be detached from their bearers, people, or media, aggregated and analyzed. Computing power today allows for the findings derived from assemblages of “big data” in turn to be fed into product development, marketing, and political persuasion.

Cultural Differentiation Culture is a site for conflict and competing claims to ownership. Yet attempts by human groups or organizations to monopolize what they claim to be their own culture, even to control symbolic expression in general, have never succeeded in the longer run. Globalization’s controversial impact on national cultures reinforces what has always been evident, that culture is potentially open to all. It is prior to ownership, which can only asserted after the event in an effort to control the creative expression that any culture generates. The creativity of the counter-cultural movements of the 1960s was an obvious challenge to the dominant sociological theory that sought to accommodate them within its paradigm by means of the concept of deviant sub-cultures. But there was nothing “sub-cultural” about the transnational spread of the student movement of 1968, nor the feminist, peace, and environmental movements that drew on its energies into the future. The discrediting of claims to exclusive ownership of a national culture by a state or a sectional group does not eliminate assertions of ownership of non-national cultures. Accusations of cultural appropriation can be aimed at anyone adopting the symbols of what were previously stigmatized cultures, e.g., at white persons displaying the dreadlocks associated originally with West Indian culture. Those conflicts are all the more confusing because culture also produces the markers of belonging, from the special handshake of the secret society to the proud wearing of the shirt with a favorite team’s logo. That shirt and its logo may itself cost more because of a sponsor’s claim to ownership. Commercial interests thrive on creating new images and copyrighting them, inventing processes, and then establishing patents. States underpin both corporate and individual claims to ownership with intellectual property law, extending it in the case of the United States to 99 years from the original creation. But the spread of culture always outstrips attempts to control it.

9 Goals, Values, and Endemic Conflicts in the New Global Culture

147

Law can pursue smuggling or counterfeiting. No censorship can ultimately prevent every singing of a song, the telling of a story, or the subversive joke.

Transculturality The tension between a superordinate national culture and the culture of minorities, national or tribal, with the consequent fusions and variations has generated statesponsored attempts to preserve some stability in relations between cultures through the concept of multiculturalism. Related to it is the notion of hyphenated identity, where immigrant minorities are held to belong both to their original and to their host cultures. These ideas are hotly contested in both political and intellectual debates, as in Samuel Huntington’s Who are We? (2004). Multiculturalism is a state-sponsored strategy for self-preservation. The institutional structure and values of the national culture are required to accommodate the religion and morality of minorities who in turn must adapt to state requirements. Frequently those minorities are not indigenous but share ancestry and culture with counterparts in other states. The result is hybrid transnational cultural relations. Hybridization has, however, inflammatory biological overtones at odds with the pressing state needs to defuse incipient racism in populations hosting influxes of immigrants. In an older, religious discourse syncretism was a favored expression for an emergent mix of elements from different faiths. Under globalizing conditions, the concept of transculturality, emerging out of the anthropology of colonialism, conveys the quality of culture that arises out of contact between cultures, co-exists with them but frees itself from their control.1 The morphogenesis of transcultural values and institutions is especially obvious in the case of the discourse shared by multilateral institutions, transnational corporations, and national diplomatic services. It is their business that constitutes much of what is called global governance. In the course of it, each governmental or non-governmental agency makes a contribution to a developing common discourse, reinterprets it for a domestic audience, and returns to take the dialog forward. A prime example of this recursive process is provided by the idea of sustainable development that was brought to the world’s attention by the Brundtland Report Our Common Future (1987). Sustainability has become a transcultural theme, part of a wider global discourse on the future of the planet. In different countries, sustainability is related to specific social and environmental conditions and re-interpreted to engage with their own cultural definitions. Thus, in China, for instance, what is ecologically sustainable is then tied to national political and social sustainability (Zhang and Barr 2013: 9). National leadership then returns the message to the global discourse, in this case in President Xi Jinping’s (2018)

1 Fernando

Ortiz (1951) coined the term to capture the quality of the music that developed in the West Indies from the intermingling of African and indigenous traditions.

148

M. Albrow

speeches that pick up the Brundtland meme and point “Towards a Common Future for Mankind.”2 Transcultural communication in a common discourse can never preclude disagreement, indeed provides precisely the opportunities for opposing views to confront each other. President Donald Trump’s announcement of his intention to withdraw the United States from the Paris Climate Change Agreement of 2015 highlights the ever-present potential for conflict between national and supranational culture, and it is also extremely contentious within the United States.

Pragmatic Universalism It has been a feature of Western culture since its ancient roots to aspire to universal truths. From Thomas Jefferson’s self-evident truths in his American Declaration of Independence, through the French revolutionary dedication to rights, liberty, and justice, to the British missionary zeal to spread civilization to the rest of the world, each state has proclaimed its unique status in promoting universal values. That states could come into mortal conflict with each other, not just in spite of, but even because of these claims, was subsequently tragically demonstrated in the two World Wars. The founding of the United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights represented a collective effort to realize universal values for the whole world. They have been subject to continual debate and development ever since. At the same time, there has been growing recognition that the simple declaration of human rights does not guarantee a shared understanding of their meaning. The extension of the idea of human rights from juristic notions of freedom, justice, and equality before the law to economic and social rights has been a continual source of deep differences between states. In the ongoing exchanges, pragmatic compromises have been made on individual freedom, parents’ and children’s rights, collective bargaining, religious expression, etc. that cross-value systems, East and West, South and North. In comparing different claims to universality what becomes apparent is that it is only the striving for the universal which captures human imagination everywhere. When one culture’s universality claims meet another’s then accommodations between them, respect for difference and compromise, become necessary means to avoid conflict. This is an outlook variously praised or denounced as pragmatism. Frequently it involves the substitution of goals for abstract values, an orientation to material outcomes, reductions in carbon emissions, halting desertification, eliminating infectious disease, and preserving endangered species. This is the global materialism of the present age that may outlive the abstract notions of global markets and national sovereignty. It recognizes that it is easier to meet common challenges than to change minds. It is the ethos of a pragmatic 2 For

an account of the challenges that concept might pose for China, see Albrow (2018).

9 Goals, Values, and Endemic Conflicts in the New Global Culture

149

universalism, where the emphasis is on striving rather than perfection, agreement to differ rather than imposition of absolute truths. In terms of civilizational encounters in a globalized world, the main testing ground for the success of pragmatic universalism has to be in exchanges between the West and Asia. The worldwide adoption of similar technology and associated lifestyles is one aspect of bridging cultural divides. But at the fundamental level of contrasting value systems the emphasis in Asian cultures on harmony between opposites while maintaining the difference, coupled with increasing economic power, may mitigate the effects of the unqualified claims to possessing universal truths that have fuelled Western expansion in the past.

Negotiated Identities The conditional nature of nation-states’ relations with each other, their sense of common threats, their shared technologies and participation in a global market, all of which are regularly bracketed under the general heading of globalization have as a counterpart individual, group, and corporate mobility and the formation of ties across boundaries. Diasporas and the maintenance of personal ties across long distances and through long absences have increased recognition of community as a continuing set of close relations without a fixed or necessary land location or boundary. Detachment from the soil and the intermittent nature of contact between its members make community the imagined social framework for everyday life, rather than the sum of real-time interactions with known persons. Benedict Anderson’s (1983) account of contemporary nationalism shows that even the largest social entities depend on this presumed fellow feeling with unknown others. The omnipresence of strangers, dispersion of families, emotional attachment to causes and iconic figures, chains of economic dependency, instant communication over any distance, social media, and local presence of global enterprises all contribute to complex networks of social relations. The coalescence and dissolution of social entities, or the growth of entities of a hybrid kind, (natural, cultural, and social as Bruno Latour [1993] has highlighted) become a major narrative theme of our time. Individuals now experience their personal social environment as a socioscape with no primary organizing image like community, class, or even household. Their social networks are extended in space and time lodged in sociospheres with their own characteristics and rules (Albrow 1997). The theoretical basis for understanding the interdependence of multiple group membership with personal social identity was established at the beginning of the twentieth century by Georg Simmel’s (1971) emphasis on overlapping group membership as constitutive of personal social identity. In the flux of globalizing conditions, both groups and individuals are engaged in constant redefinition of selfidentity in negotiation with others. This extends through gender, race, ethnicity,

150

M. Albrow

nationality (as a personal attribute), nationhood (as a collective quality), and partnership, both sexual and economic. “Trans” has become a prefix as prevalent in gender identity discussion as in debates about culture. In the case of collective agencies globalization, in forcing the most powerful, namely, states, to engage with the conditions of their own existence, has brought the multiply contingent nature of all social entities into sharper focus. However, large an entity is, it depends for its existence on beliefs in its existence, (e.g., sovereignty recognition) just as in the simplest case an agreement between two persons depends on each believing the other believes it has been agreed, double contingency. Widespread recognition of this indeterminacy, the purely conventional facticity of all social arrangements, from friendships to global agreements on climate change is coupled with the continuous creation of new entities with novel structural features. This applies to innovative partner relationships, through business relations up to multilateral arrangements between nations. Binary classifications of entities into open or closed, authoritarian or democratic, networks or hierarchies only capture single dimensions of multi-dimensional arrangements. Developing Internet technologies permit vastly diverse circles of contacts to establish unique collective identities with greater or lesser investment of personal time and energy. Facebook with billions of users is only the largest of the hosts to these friendship groups, online communities, or businesses. This indeterminacy clashes with an old image of the nation-state as the guarantor of social order. In a globalized world, a myriad of social relationships and entities criss-cross national boundaries and the demand for trust at every level of society increases. Arguably the nation-state can no long meet the demand and the touchstone of the advance of globalization has often been seen as the diminution of the power of the nation-state.

Integrity The imagery of flows has become a conventional way of describing society rather than structure or system. Identity maintenance in an environment of flows and contested values makes integrity, both of individuals and collective entities, a focal point for aspirations and accusations. The dual linked meanings of integrity, wholeness, and high morality provide clues to its contemporary prevalence. Fluid boundaries and negotiable identities under globalized conditions create existential anxiety for individuals as well as producing in others uncertainty about their trustworthiness. The demand for integrity applies equally to relationships and social entities of all sizes. Their putative existence, capacity to be recognized as responsible agents, depends on it. The claim to integrity in human affairs then is a declaration of a certain kind of existence, durable enough to be counted on to behave in a way that also confirms the claims to recognition of and respect for the existence of others.

9 Goals, Values, and Endemic Conflicts in the New Global Culture

151

Over time, we may see the usage “an integrity” or “integrities” come to register this underlying social transformation. For individuals, the fluid, often ephemeral existence of social relations, has ambiguous consequences. At one extreme, identity itself may become a fungible asset, put to use as the occasion demands, as John Eade (1997) described in his study of young Bangladeshis in London who alternated between being British and Bangladeshi depending on those who happened to be with them. But equally experience of self in multiple social relations may impart urgency to the quest for integrity, to find core, durable elements. An equivalent search may occur too after sharing in diverse kinds of social relations in multiple contexts. Anthony Giddens (1991) examination of self-identity sees it resulting in a quest for the pure relationship, beyond the conventional definitions of the wider society. In collective and corporate settings, the integrity of members and employees is demanded as intrinsic to the integrity of the organization as a whole. Thus, the British civil service makes it a core value for the service as a whole. It crosses ideological divides. It also appears as one of the Chinese Communist Party’s 12 socialist values. It is proclaimed by business, but also in politics, art, and literature. It extends too to the artistic or literary product. When it is challenged it becomes a media story. It is a key marker for existence in the culture of the global age. The search for integrity as an existential quest appears in acute form in a phenomenon that is not intelligible in an old modernist frame of reference that treated religion as a survival of pre-modern times. The vast profusion of religious movements as documented in the work of Eileen Barker (1989) and so-called cults offer adherents a worldview, deep personal experience, and firm boundaries to relationships. Existential religiosity is as much a feature of the new global culture as the radical politics of the Occupy movement.

Global Culture In the 1990s, global culture was still a term in search of a concept. It could refer to worldwide cultural connections and expressions that were shared by national cultures. It might intimate Western ideas and practices that had achieved worldwide penetration, as with the cultures of transnational corporations. It could reflect the aspirations of intellectuals to shape a cosmopolitan outlook. Cosmopolitanism has roots deep in history since it is the reflex of encounters with strange cultures and seeks to accommodate that strangeness in a common ethic that emerges from each side to the encounter. Harking back to my earlier account of universalisms it may be seen as the attempt to universalize the experience of otherness. It has, as Joy Zhang’s (Chap. 11) contribution to this volume makes clear, deep affinities with the practices of science. But a brief résumé of the sources of contemporary global culture shows how far it extends beyond science and technology, though that they are vital constituents. Global culture has arisen out of diverse sources coming together: satellite communication,

152

M. Albrow

the commercial media, information and entertainment industries aiming for world audiences, the commitments of multilateral institutions and their staff, the global consciousness of civil society organizations, the lifestyles of the employees of global corporations, the networking of global elites, and the growth of social media. These forces have long crossed national boundaries and in the digital age inhabit a cyberspace that governments struggle to control. Global culture is both transnational and transcultural. In promoting dialog between cultures, it generates new culture and the receptiveness of national and local cultures to the reformulation of values that each has regarded as its own is one of the key dynamics in globalization. But neither the transnational nor the transcultural is yet global. The global reference returns culture to the fate of the globe as a whole. Until the rise of the “digital,” “global” was the most successful meme of recent history, capturing in succession: the sense of common fate in the aftermath of World War II; the threat of nuclear warfare in the Cold War; environmental threats to human life on this planet: the interconnectedness produced by worldwide media transmissions; real-time communication (social media) made possible by advancing communication technology.3 Phrases like Marshall McLuhan’s (1962) “global village” and René Dubos’ (1965) “think globally, act locally” were widely quoted before global corporations latched on to the global for marketing purposes and globalization was adopted as a master narrative by economists, policy-makers, and politicians. The pervasiveness of global references by both the advocates of globalization and its opponents reflected the sense of a shared and single world even when the contests over its future were bitter and prolonged. The global then is not a summation of national, transnational, or even transcultural experience. It concerns the fate of the human species on an endangered planet.4 Those who made that their concern were the first globalists, and their globalism predated and was appropriated by the later apostles of economic globalization. When the opponents of economic globalization coalesced and became the alter-globalization, movement at the turn of the millennium political conflict became embedded in global culture. If today both the advocates of economic globalization and its opponents are spoken of in one breath as globalists it is because the development of the global economy is itself one of the dangers to life on this planet. They are locked in a fateful and shared engagement with the human future, even when their motives and proposed courses of action may be deeply at odds with each other.

3 Sabine

Selchow (2017) has documented how “global” has become inextricably intertwined with “globalization” and argued that together they belong to a “new world” discourse. 4 Cf. Martin Albrow “‘Global age’ refers to a period of time when there is a prevailing sense of the interconnectedness of all human beings, of a common fate for the human species and a threat to its life on this Earth,” in Ritzer (2012, Vol II, p. 823).

9 Goals, Values, and Endemic Conflicts in the New Global Culture

153

Globalism Versus Populism The shared community of interest between the cultures of global corporations, national and multilateral agencies, international non-governmental organizations, and civil society activists is a central component of global culture, but not the only one. They have a presence in global media that also are tied to the global entertainment industry and the manufacture of celebrity. Together they provide for worldwide public viewing the lives and lifestyles of an elite that is truly global in the scope of its wealth and separation from 99% of the world’s population. Global culture now has matured to achieve something like the hegemony that Antonio Gramsci (1957) attributed to the cultural practices of the old industrial ruling class of the early twentieth century. But now it is global in nature rather than Western imperial. The sign of this late maturity is the emerging struggle between globalists and populists. The intensification of transnational relations since 1945, the growth of multilateral institutions, and the worldwide scope of the activities of global corporations have between them created a global elite vastly separated in wealth and lifestyle from the general citizenship of nation-states. Globalization has been the practice of this elite, globalism provides the set of ideas that legitimizes the practice, the belief that it is the globe as a whole that is the field and object of concern for human activities. As such globalism is an outlook shared as much by the opponents of globalization as its practitioners. Indeed, as the extensive research of Geoffrey Pleyers (2010) has shown, the activists who demonstrated against globalization, like those who caused the suspension of the WTO talks in Seattle in 1999, were as much, if not more concerned about the future of human well-being across the globe than were the politicians and trade negotiators. The anti-globalization movement morphed into alter-global, but the worldwide spread of globalist ideas opposing the global elite corresponds with Gramsci’s analysis, where emerging classes generate their own organic intellectuals outside the traditional intellectual training programs of the new elite. Taking the similarities with the international situation of industrial workers in the nineteenth century still further, the ambitions of a global opposition to the global elite are in fundamental contradiction to national resentments to anything global. Global activists, with their intellectually based moral commitments to saving the world and their international connections, are no longer seen as belonging to “our people.” For nationalists, the activists are seen as part of the problem. The boundary-crossing forces of global culture had their antecedents in earlier periods. The national problem for global activists is as much an acute issue today as it was for the international working men’s movement of Marx’s time. They were identified as cosmopolitans which became a term of abuse for nationalist and antisocialist movements. Today where cosmopolitanism has an added ingredient of global consciousness, of attending to global issues and the fate of the planet, then it qualifies as globalism.

154

M. Albrow

Globalism is the apotheosis of cosmopolitanism. It also incurs the added odium of hostility to cosmopolitanism by those who feel threatened by changes that can be portrayed as benefitting the globalists at the expense of the masses.

Agency and Responsibility The two most prominent dynamic elements of globalism are the agents and forces operating in the global market, on the one hand, and the agencies and activists committed to global causes, on the other. Taken together they constitute a transformative force in world society that supersedes and should be distinguished from the world domination impetus of the older nationalist/imperialist configuration. We are talking here about the contrast between two ages, the modern and the global. In each, there is a collusion of opposites. The rampant industrialization of the modern age was accompanied by romantic nostalgia for the past, and ruthless imperial exploitation of peasant producers could combine with Christian missions. Yet the extremes could sink their differences in the idea of progress, the advance of civilization, and the results, often enough, were public sanitation, education, and even democracy. In the global age, similar accommodations are made as corporations compete to take charge of the sustainability agenda, to claim “green” credentials, while civil society’s campaigns on climate change use modern selling techniques and all the promotional opportunities that the new media technologies provide. In both cases, they participate in the culture of consumer capitalism. The contrast between the cultures of the modern and the global extends into the way purpose is woven into human activity. Max Weber famously made goal orientated, rational activity a distinctive feature of modern society as compared with traditional societies. We can develop that idea in many ways and one of them is to point to both the nuances of purposive action and its distribution in global society. Modern culture made goal directedness central to culture. Progress meant continuing achievement. Goals are extended into a limitless future. As Jürgen Habermas (1997) puts it, modernity was an unfinished project At the same time, those goals were established through authority, delivered by bureaucracy, and coordinated through the division of labor in the market and in organizations. Agency operated through well-understood institutions and structures. That whole cultural complex of modernity crumbled under the impact of two World Wars, the Holocaust and nuclear destruction. Globality came as a shock, or a series of shocks, the biggest in 1945. Like Hegel’s owl of Minerva taking to flight when dusk is falling, social theory was rather slow to register the change except in capturing a sense of postmodern disorientation. It was the late lamented Ulrich Beck (1992 [1986]) who first pointed to social consequences of the repositioning of purpose in human agency. He argued that perception of risk brought about a new conditionality of action. It came also with differential exposure to risk for different groups, and its shared nature had become

9 Goals, Values, and Endemic Conflicts in the New Global Culture

155

a structural feature of society quite as important as class formation. Later he was to extend his understanding of the break from the past with a series of publications around the theme of a second modernity ensuing from the rupture with the older modern culture. One has to dig deep to identify the theoretical shifts underlying the cultural history of the second half of the twentieth century. They were obscured in any case by the ideological conflict of the Cold War. But beneath those bitter exchanges between collectivistic and individualistic views of human society there was a deep, shared insecurity about human purpose and how it related to social structure. Outside that ideological conflict this insecurity surfaced in counter-cultural movements, until achieving some kind of resolution in the resurrection of the idea of civil society in the 1990s. With it came the recognition and acceptance of new ways of infusing individuals and society with purpose. Linked with the understanding of culture as autonomous, boundary setting rather than being bounded, values came to supersede authority. The sharing of values came to define goals. Value orientation provides for debate and updating of goals. Linked with the networking capabilities of new communication technology it results in the decentering of organization. Two quite distinct moments then provide for goals to be shared across boundaries. One is value orientation in decentred organization and the other is the sense that global challenges should govern the choice of goals. The present time is characterized as never before by goal definitions shared by nearly all governments and served by innumerable governmental and nongovernmental organizations. The Millennium Development Goals, followed by the Sustainable Development Goals, represent the most ambitious project ever for human society to work as one in pursuit of values held by all. If success followed plan as night follows day then the future would be bright indeed. The reality is that the new value-driven global goal seeking society has difficulty in attributing responsibility and holding both individuals and organizations to account. Philosopher Hans Jonas (1984) argued that new technology meant new ethical ideas of responsibility had to be developed to meet the challenges to our species’ existence. By the end of the first decade of the new millennium there was hardly a leader of a nation-state who did not call for responsibility. That was the essence of America’s promise its new President Barack Obama declared (Albrow 2014: 189). This political call to reattach responsibility to human action is paralleled by a theoretical re-examination of purpose led by philosophers. John Searle has argued at length for the rehabilitation of shared purpose with the concept of collective intentionality. As in the performance of a symphony, players contribute to the collective intention without knowing each other’s part in it (Searle 2010: 45). It is an argument that can be extended: “the entire structure of existing society depends on collective intentionality” (p. 166). We can go further and ask “Why not global society?”. Another concept, “distributed agency,” approaches the same issues of action toward common goals from an angle closer to the experience of decentred organization and human/machine cooperation. It is more closely related to the study of

156

M. Albrow

socio-technical systems and ideas of hybrid entities (the “car driver,” human and mechanical, still purposive). This last conceptual development, however, brings to the fore the issues of responsibility and accountability in a global culture. When intention, goals, and design pervade the lives of all on the planet, what contribution can any one agent, individual or collective, make to meet the global challenges, so many of which are the aggregate effect of human activities? Should the driver of the diesel car who bought it in good faith, when told that it would help to reduce carbon emissions, now need to scrap it when told it increases pollution? What price progress or advancing civilization in the global age?

Global Citizenship In the recognition of threats to the species and the resulting mobilization for global goals, the goal directedness of all forms of human activity has become ever more prominent, even as the goals themselves have an increasingly indeterminate relation to human agents. The depersonalization of goals is a characteristic of the global age. At the same time, as the individual lives and breathes in a telic culture, institutionalized purpose drives states and multilateral agencies, expressed for their collective direction in such formulations as the sustainable development goals. Global governance may be conceived more in terms of “governance objects” (Corry 2013), fields for which partnering agents, both state and non-state, set shared goals, rather than in terms of governmental institutions. Commitments to global causes often in the face of local and populist opposition require an awareness of the nature and limits of citizenship in the modern state. The ancient universalist subordination of duties to the city state in the idea of world citizenship is translated into global citizenship in response to globalization. It transcends the earlier oppositional focus of the anti-globalization movement and operates to use globalization for global ends, sustainable food production, green energy, eliminating communicable disease, cleaning up the oceans, combatting injustice, and poverty. Implicit in the performative nature of global citizenship is the virtual global state. Existing only in the actions of the global citizen it has no constituted form other than in the aggregate, repeated, and connected instances of those actions. The order that is the outcome of those actions is the global social order and global governance is the continuous attention to perpetuating that order. Global citizenship breaks with the modern nation-state idea by having no acknowledged central authority or institutionalized leadership. The new global culture does not entail world government. But that meets with incomprehension. The historic and deep-rooted hostility to the autarchy of the world citizen has had its recent, much cited public expression in the words of the former British Prime Minister Teresa May, “the citizen of the world is a citizen of nowhere.” Implicitly that remark is a rejection of the abstract universalism of the Western Enlightenment, but it fails to challenge the global activist whose commitments are

9 Goals, Values, and Endemic Conflicts in the New Global Culture

157

strongly material, to ecologically sound ways of living, elimination of disease, and provision of clean water. The globalism of the global citizen both detaches materialism from Marxism and rejects the abstract individualism of neo-liberal ideology.

Conclusion: The Digital Challenge The last decade has seen dramatic change geopolitically with upheaval in the Middle East and the rise of China; economically with the stagnation of the global economy after the 2008 financial crisis; in Western national politics with the rise of populism; in technology with the advance of computing power; and culturally with the growth and influence of the social media; the two last factors being generally combined under the broad heading of the digital age. These all have ambiguous, often contradictory, relations with globalization when it is deemed to be an overall trend toward the greater integration of world society. Geopolitics has become multi- rather than uni- or bipolar, populism is directly hostile to globalization even though populism itself thrives on transnational alliances. The 2008 global financial crisis forced unprecedented multilateral cooperation in the shape of the G20 meetings. Computing technology and social media together have brought the globe into their frame of reference and vision, yet also advance artificial intelligence and the pluralization of views and outlooks that ignore the globe. It is the agnosticism of advancing technology toward global issues that encourages the adoption of the language of the digital age to displace that of the global age. There is a new nightmare scenario for our species in addition to a nuclear holocaust and the destruction of our natural environment, both ever-present possibilities. Artificial intelligence raises up the new specter of the re-engineered human being, even human beings supplanted altogether by machines. The digital and the global now occupy the same narrative space, threatened human existence on this earth, but they tend to compete for attention rather than find common cause. But what the digital does to the narrative of the global is to force recognition that it could too be consigned to a past era. Not every factor in human life contributes to the advance of globalization. It can spawn its own countervailing forces, such as the localization of transcultural elements or the fusion and hybridization of cultures. The proliferation of local centers of globally oriented communities, special interests, and organizations may easily lead to a redirection of their focus toward each other, to competition and conflict with disregard for a shared human future. Currently, the greatest force that is neutral in respect of world society, pushing technology forward is digitalization, the direct line successor to the rationalization that Max Weber saw as the pervasive factor in advancing modernity. Digital technologies can be developed to serve human welfare, health, and prosperity, or to control free speech and weaponize cyberspace. They could serve a world

158

M. Albrow

society with effective answers for global issues and social order based in good governance. Or they could underpin global inequality and the authoritarian rule of a few oligarchs. Either way, the digital age operates transversally to the global age, can deflect human projects away from global concerns toward technologies for their own sake, shift the balance of value commitments away from human well-being and fulfillment toward innovation and power. The risk is global catastrophe through attention deficit, the disaster the world allowed to happen in a memory lapse.

References Albrow, Martin. 1996. The Global Age: State and Society beyond Modernity. Cambridge: Polity. Albrow, Martin. 1997. Travelling beyond Local Cultures: Socioscapes in a Global City. In Living the Global City, ed, Eade, 37–55. Albrow, Martin. 2012. Global Age. In Encyclopaedia of Globalization, ed. Ritzer, 823–826. Albrow, Martin. 2014. Responsibility in the Global Age. In Global Age Essays on Social and Cultural Change, 189-202. Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann. Albrow, Martin. 2018. China’s Role in a Shared Human Future: Towards Theory for Global Leadership. London: Global China Press. Anderson, Benedict. 1983. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. London: Verso. Archer, Margaret. 1988. Culture and Agency. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Barker, Eileen. 1989. New Religious Movements. London: HMSO. Beck, Ulrich. 1992 [1986]. Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity. London: Sage. Berners-Lee, Tim, and Mark Fischetti. 1999. Weaving the Web: The Original Design and Ultimate Destiny of the World Wide Web by its Inventor. London: Orion Business. Boyne, Roy. 1990. Culture and the World System. In Global Culture, ed. M. Featherstone, 57–62. Brundtland, Gro Harlem. (World Commission on Environment and Development). 1987. Our Common Future. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Clarke, Arthur C. 1945. Extra-terrestrial Relays: Can Rocket Stations Give World-wide Radio Coverage. Wireless World LI(10): 305–308. Corry, Olaf. 2013. Constructing a Global Polity: Theory, Discourse and Governance. London: Palgrave. Dawkins, Richard. 1976. The Selfish Gene. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Dubos, René. 1965. Man Adapting. New Haven: Yale U.P. Eade, John (ed.). 1997. Living the Global City: Globalization as Local Process. London and New York: Routledge. Featherstone, Mike (ed.). 1990. Global Culture: Nationalism, Globalization and Modernity. London: Sage. Giddens, Anthony. 1991. Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age. Cambridge: Polity. Gramsci, Antonio. 1957. The Modern Prince and Other Writings. New York: International Publishers. Habermas, Jürgen. 1997. Modernity an Unfinished Project. In Habermas and the Unfinished Project of Modernity, ed. Maurizio Passerin d’Entrèves and Seyla Benhabib, 38–55. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press. Huntington, Samuel P. 2004. Who are we? America’s Great Debate. New York: Simon and Schuster. Jonas, Hans. 1984. The Imperative of Responsibility: In Search of Ethics for the Technological Age. Chicago: Chicago University Press.

9 Goals, Values, and Endemic Conflicts in the New Global Culture

159

Latour, Bruno. 1993. We Have Never Been Modern. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press. McLuhan, Marshall. 1962. The Gutenberg Galaxy. Toronto: Toronto University Press. Ortiz, Fernando. 1951. Los bailes y el teatro de los negros en el folklore de Cuba. Havana: Cardenas y cia. Parsons, Talcott. 1951. The Social System. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Pleyers, Geoffrey. 2010. Alter-Globalization: Becoming Actors in the Global Age. Cambridge, UK: Polity. Ritzer, George. 2012. Encyclopaedia of Globalization, vol. II. Malden, MA and Chichester: WileyBlackwell. Searle, John R. 2010. Making the Social World: The Study of Human Civilization. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Selchow, Sabine. 2017. Negotiations of the “New World”: The Omnipresence of “Global” as a Political Phenomenon. Bielefeld: Transcript. Simmel, Georg. 1971. Edited by Donald Levine. On Individuality and Social Forms. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Wallerstein, Immanuel. 1990. “Culture as the Ideological Battleground of the Modern World System,” and “Culture is the World System” In Global Culture, ed. M. Featherstone, 31–56 and 63–66. Xi, Jinping. 2018. The Governance of China, vol. II. Beijing: Foreign Languages Press. Zhang, Joy Y. National Science Governance and the Practice of Cosmopolitan Citizenship: Evidence from China. Zhang, Joy Y., and Michael Barr. 2013. Green Politics in China. London: Pluto.

Martin Albrow’s university teaching from 1961, included Leicester, Reading, Cardiff, Roehampton, Munich, Cambridge, Stony Brook (SUNY), and Beijing Foreign Studies University. Formerly President of the British Sociological Association and Fellow of the Woodrow Wilson Center, his recent book is China’s Role in a Shared Human Future: Towards Theory for Global Leadership, 2018.

Chapter 10

The Affectual Landscape of Globalization: New Migration, Generalized Discontent, and Ressentiment Jörg Dürrschmidt Abstract Globalization research has developed a rather lukewarm relationship toward the theory of affect and emotion. This is surprising, because the global arena is a maelstrom of unfulfilled ambitions, false expectations, and slippery belongings. Global society, perhaps more than any society before it, also generates winners and losers, subsequently providing for human drama in abundance. Consequently, affect and emotion are by no means just additional features to an otherwise spatially and technologically defined globalization process. It could be argued instead that a central feature of global society is the gap between opportunities de jure and de facto, which in turn is central to the understanding of wounded identity and its related affects. Rather than leaving these issues to a psychology of globalization, grasping the emotive and affectual economy of globalization is a frontier that should be pushed by contemporary sociology. Among a cluster of affects, ressentiment appears to be of central importance for understanding the structure of feeling of contemporary global society. It is a key sentiment for understanding social vulnerability and status anxiety among the middle classes. But it is also central for understanding the issues of socio-economic global rebalancing behind Western middle class discontent. The so-called “refugee or migration crisis” serves to illustrate the analytic argument of this chapter.

Introduction: Emotional Economy as a New Frontier of Globalization Research? Globalization studies until recently have had a lukewarm relationship toward notions of affect and emotion. This is surprising, since we all know that knowledge is irrevocably embedded in emotions, and that affect plays a crucial role in deciphering our everyday life worlds. With regard to globalization we could more specifically argue that globalization, understood as a process, which widens the gap between J. Dürrschmidt (B) University of Applied Sciences (Admin and Finance) Ludwigsburg, Ludwigsburg, Germany e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 I. Rossi (ed.), Challenges of Globalization and Prospects for an Inter-civilizational World Order, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44058-9_10

161

162

J. Dürrschmidt

opportunities de jure and opportunities de facto, implies a maelstrom of unfulfilled utopias, false expectations, and slippery belongings. What lures behind the façade of opportunity, success, and ambition is life forced to live the ethos of “new individualism.” By this term Elliott and Lemert (2010) refer to the emotional attitude of flexibility and non-attachment that people develop in order to survive the “deadly worlds” of neoliberal globalization. We have argued elsewhere that the neglect of emotion and affect in globalization studies has to do with an impoverished understanding of globalization as prevalent in the discourse of “flow speak” (Bude and Dürrschmidt 2010). This metaphor refers to a convenient discursive shorthand for the complex process of globalization, which overemphasizes technological annulment of spatial distance. It tends to reduce the complexity of globalization to a media-generated world of networked simultaneity and consumerist juxtaposition of difference. It conveys an impoverished understanding of human beings as choosers and consumers of goods and destinations. “Flow speak” thus tends to underestimate the cultural density of global society as opposed to its technological connectivity. Thereby, the existential dimension involved in responding to global option and difference tends to be short-changed. Perhaps the best formula to capture this existential dimension in a globalized world of opened horizons and increased opportunity stems from Polish-British sociologist Zygmunt Bauman (2000: 38). He argues that in a global cum “liquid modernity” it all comes down to managing “the yearning gap between the right to self-assertion and the capacity to control the social settings which render such self-assertion feasible.” In other words, option and choice are not always enabling, and the gap between option and action can be exhausting. As Bauman (ib. 34) argues, to be mobile in a world of global opportunity does not necessarily promise fulfillment. It “promises… no satisfaction of arriving, of reaching a final destination, where one can disarm, relax and stop worrying.” More recently, Bauman (2016) has linked this existential ambivalence closer to issues of migration, integration, and refuge. He argues that the recent European “migration panic” is tied to a growing everyday life perception of globalization as a force beyond control. The “strangers at our door” symbolize for large parts of society “already haunted by existential frailty and precariousness of their social standing and prospects […] yet more competition on the labour market, deeper uncertainty and falling chances of improvement” (p. 4). Thus, the comparatively sudden and numerous influx of migrants and refugees is linked to issues of a declining welfare state and growing social inequality, both perceived as part and parcel of neoliberal globalization. Rather than looking down on the bigotry of everyday life discourse on migration, we would agree with Elliott and Lemert in claiming that we need much more detailed study of the emotional costs of globalization and of living the “new individualism” that goes with it. However, we would not see this undertaking well placed under the umbrella of a “psychology of globalism” (2010: 103). As they have argued themselves, in order to uncover the “emotional climates of globalization,” we need of course access to the “individual experience” of globalization. At the same time, we should aim at a deeper understanding of “the effects of global structures on emotional

10 The Affectual Landscape of Globalization …

163

lives of individuals” (ib. 13, xvii). In other words, as much as this undertaking is indeed about feelings located in individuals, it is just as much about “how the structure of a society feels” in which these individuals are embedded (cf. Gray 2008: 937). Subsequently, in times of interdisciplinary research, we might appreciate advances made by the discipline of psychology to invest into researching the “psychological underpinnings of globalization” in order to push “for a new frontier in the study of globalization” (Gelfand et al. 2011: 841). However, there is a genuinely sociological agenda to be retained here as well. This agenda includes at its core the globalized link between social landscapes of affects, on the one hand, and shifting landscapes of social inequality, on the other, with complex winner/loser dynamics attached. The purpose of this chapter is to explore some aspects of “ressentiment” as a key to both the inner experience of “new individualism” and to the shifting balance of global society that works behind it.

Middle Class Discontent and Globalized Inequalities The beginning of this millennium has seen a particular mode of social mobilization emerging, which has been interpreted as emotion-driven reaction toward neoliberal globalization. Some of these movements such as the Arab Spring, the Spanish M15, and global Occupy movement had a democratic and anti-hegemonic ethos to them. However, these movements were not only carried by hope for democratic change but also by “fear, anxiety, anger and indignation” due to experiences of disrespect and humiliation (Benski and Langman 2013: 534f.). These feelings of economic distress, political marginalization, and social degradation they share with movements conveniently called the “New Right.” They got labeled in such a way, because these movements tend to frame their emotional response to neoliberal globalization along closed concepts of national belonging and religious identities, thus giving populist answers to complex questions. The “Tea Party movement” in America is exemplary of this kind of emotion-centered “contentious political mobilizations” (Langman 2011: 473). It articulates feelings of generalized resentment, which tend to be shared by a large part of the population adversely affected by financial crisis, housing bubble burst, under- or unemployment, and alienation from conventional party politics in America and elsewhere in the global North. However, while these movements certainly are triggered by economic anxiety and political disappointment, the centrality of emotions in these contentious mobilizations indicates that their resistance is also driven by perceived threat to collective identity. What they feel is threatened is the “normalcy” of lower middle class life conduct and the value orientations attached to it. Consequently, we could agree with the observation that the new contentious movements “… are based on lower middle class resistance to economic and/or cultural changes/crises. Today these mobilizations are collective attempts to preserve these people’s status (esteem), values and identities in the face of challenges that undermine their dignity, recognition and respect. Challenges

164

J. Dürrschmidt

to one’s very self, one’s values and identities, evoke powerful feelings” (Langman 2011: 471). In order now to further grasp the sources of generalized discontent that carries the “contentious mobilization” of the working middle classes, we could start by appreciating the timeless pun in German twentieth-century zeitgeist writer Kurt Tucholsky’s (1890–1935) proverb: “Ordinary folks understand most things wrong, but feel most things correctly.”1 If working middle class folks today were able to rationalize their felt status anxieties and wounded identities, they would possibly refer to the recent analysis of social economist Branco Milanovic (2016). He would tell them that, taking all socio-economic variables of globalization into account, things will not get any better for them in the twenty-first-century global economy. In fact, Milanovic summarizes his analysis in the short but brisk foresight that globalization will be leading to a “great middle-class squeeze” (p. 214f.). This foresight implies two aspects. Firstly, working middle classes in America and Western Europe will be the losers in a global socio-economic restructuring process. This process at the same time has two winners, namely, the metropolitan elites in the West and an aspiring “global middle class,” which is mainly located in Asia. Secondly, there will be further socio-economic polarization in Western society. This structural decline of the working middle class will thus have further social and political knock-on effects. Milanovic (p. 197ff.) explicitly mentions decline of public service infrastructure, rise of populism and nativism, dispute on citizenship and human rights, and thereby loss of elective affinity between capitalism and democracy. This excurse into the potential drivers of middle class discontent conforms with Therborn’s (2013: 177ff) assumption that the “decisive battle” concerning inequality in the twenty-first century will be “on the orientation of the middle classes,” both with regard to socio-economic positioning and political inclination. While the twentieth-century battles on social justice focussed on the working class, it is indeed a “noteworthy sign of our new century” that social inequality tends now to be perceived through a global prism with middle class focus. Bauman refers to those middle class segments of society “afraid of losing their cherished and enviable achievements, possessions and social standing” as “emergent precariat” (2016: 15), a categorization echoed elsewhere in the discourse (cf. Benski and Langman 2013; Therborn 2013: 171f.). This initially seems to be a bit over the top, since we are accustomed to associate precariat with underclass life conduct. But we have to recall that this newly “emerging precariat” is not defined in terms of material poverty but by the “growing fragility of social position and instability of recognized identities” (Bauman 2016: 29). This free-floating “insecurity” is quite logically met by nativist calls to “make America great again” or to rally “Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the West” (PEGIDA). At its core, these “new right” movements and their populist slogans translate to: make the downwardly mobile middle classes in the global North “safe again” amid the mysterious forces

1I

owe this reference to Hannes Hintermeier, who used it in a literature review blog of Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (my translation).

10 The Affectual Landscape of Globalization …

165

of globalization that have visibly and tangibly reached the middle class milieu (cf. p. 49).

New Migration as Catalyst of Globalization Discontent That this lower middle class milieu should provide a preferred seedbed for resentment toward issues of immigration does not come as surprise. On the one hand, the massive influx of “bare life,” stranded away from home and stripped of privileging citizenship status, might trigger feelings of social superiority and self-esteem. On the other hand, they remind the middle segments of society that there is a lot to lose. Seen from the perspective of the “emerging precariat” it reaffirms latent fears that globalization is a force beyond control, interfering with everyday life conduct in unpredictable manner. As Bauman (2016: 15f.) has succinctly put it, the comparatively sudden and massive appearance of enforced migrants at first world borders is a “harbinger of bad news,” namely, that of “the collapse of order.” Accordingly, latent discontent focussed around the “migration crisis” (ib. 1) is not at all purely economic in character, but rather existential in nature. This means that, even though they often find expression in resentment against the “economic migrant” (supposedly) hiding behind the “asylum seeker,” anxieties projected toward the “stranger at our doors” are not exclusively about (loss of) economic status and privilege. Instead, they are also driven by latent suspicion that new migration is about social privilege. There is latent awareness that the “migration crisis” is irrevocably linked to issues of belonging and citizenship, freedom, and security; dignity of life conduct; and mutual respect. Moreover, this anxiety among the so far rather stationary segments of Western society triggers the insight that mobility and migration are becoming the new sorting devices in a new round of global inequality (cf. Castles 2003: 16). Insofar as national and supranational (such as the EU) forms of government and governance seem to be unable to regulate this global transformation in a predictable and sustainable manner, especially the anxiety prone middle classes might indeed experience the “existential frailty and precariousness of their social standing and prospects” as a form of “governmental precarization” (cf. Bauman 2016: 4, 59). More recent accounts on these issues have pushed the argument that social climate toward issues of (im)migration has a lot to do with the prevailing outlook on life, in general, and on whether globalization is considered to be “a desirable objective” in particular. Accordingly, the positioning toward issues of globalization and migration is not driven by an exclusively socio-economic logic of income, status, and merit. Instead, it is steered by emotional intelligence and moral virtue, a kind of moral compass, which we tend to mobilize in order to judge our capacity to aspire to the chances and challenges offered by life, in general, and globalization, in particular. In order to capture the polarization of attitudes toward migration and globalization not just with respect to socio-economic factors but with regard to real-world concerns and values, Goodhart (2017: 19ff.) has introduced the somewhat catchy and yet revealing

166

J. Dürrschmidt

fault line between the “Somewheres” and the “Anywheres,” with the rest of the population referred to as “Inbetweeners.” While the “Anywheres” describe the ideal typical milieu of the somewhat footloose liberal and well-educated metropolitan, the “Somewheres” represent the more conservative and not so well-educated small city or countryside dweller. While the former due to their mobile lifestyle tends to be tied to larger identity groups, the latter tends to stick to the stability of everyday local community. Goodhart (2017) sees these contradictory attitudes at work, for instance, in the “leave/remain divide” that runs through Brexit UK. However, we can find a similar divide of attitudes also in relation to Germany’s “welcome culture” (cf. Rommel 2017). Moreover, a recent analysis of global and European quantitative surveys on public attitudes on (im)migration by the prestigious Chatham House policy institute (Dempster and Hargrave 2017) revealed complementary findings. The study argues that public opinion to issues of refuge and (im)migration is, next to fact and evidence, largely influenced by everyday concern, emotion, and values. This implies that policies on migration have to take into account the fact that the “real-world impact” of migration is tied to complex emotive and value-related modes of responding, not just to rational argument and factual evidence (ib. 13ff). Of crucial importance, according to the Chatham House study, is the “individual’s feeling of control over life more generally” (ib. 15). The study further highlights that, in view of regional and national context effect, there is nevertheless an “increasing polarization between those holding opinions most strongly on either side” for or against immigration (ib. 9). While this polarization could on closer inspection be broken off into finer “attitudinal segments,” for most Western countries “the largest part of the public tends to fall within a ‘conflicting’ and ‘anxious’ middle” (ib. 12.).

A Theoretical Note on Discontent, Ressentiment, and the Middle Classes Looking through the particular prism of the “migration crisis” as it is being perceived in certain segments of the working middle class, our analysis so far has described the emotional climate of global society as one of latent discontent due to increasing precariousness of status and identity claims. This analysis ties in with more general attempts to diagnose contemporary society. Most prominently perhaps, one can detect an affinity toward “a diffuse, generalized attitude of discontent” in Sloterdijk’s writing on the zeitgeist of contemporary society (cf. Klauser 2009: 166). On closer inspection, this generalized discontent reveals itself as a cluster of affects such as rage, (hurt) pride, and ressentiment, which Sloterdijk (2008: 352) describes as the foundational affects within contemporary society’s emotional economy. This link between a generalized discontent and a specific cluster of affects can also be sustained when looking back at the analysis of the “contentious political mobilizations” above. Here too a feeling of general discontent due to precarious social standing is linked to

10 The Affectual Landscape of Globalization …

167

feelings of anger, rage, anxiety, indignation, and ressentiment (Langman 2011: 483; Benski and Langman 2013: 534; Lyman 2004). Often resentment and ressentiment are not properly distinguished. However, “the difference is more than in spelling” (Neu 2009: 31). The more colloquially used “resentment” refers to moral claims of right and wrong. If something or someone contradicts our moral principles, we tend to feel emotional resistance. “Ressentiment,” in turn, is tied to notions of self-respect and self-deception. It tends to rise when one cannot follow ones moral principles or if one is left unclear and confused about them. Most authors, who work with the concept of “ressentiment,” tend to describe it as swallowed down anger or rage, and thus the opposite to immediate and violent discharge of painful emotions. Largely following Nietzsche in their analysis, they describe ressentiment essentially as postponed anger, driven by a latent “spirit of revenge,” and being caused by hurt pride, offended self-respect, and by perceived injustice (cf. Langman 2011: 481). While we would agree with this overall description of ressentiment, we consider the analysis of ressentiment offered by Max Scheler more sophisticated and revealing for the analytic purpose at hand. Unlike Nietzsche, who primarily links ressentiment to the “slave morality” of the powerless, Scheler ties his understanding of ressentiment to the overall “ethos” of a person or group, which provides them with valuebased fundamental rules of preference in the disclosure of reality (cf. Frings 1965: 81ff.; Vandenbergh 2008: 22). Ressentiment, according to Scheler, tends to arise when this life-guiding order of values becomes obscured, distorted, or challenged. Thus, ressentiment here is less of a defensive reaction to status injury than a reactionary attitude against emotional confusion or loss of emotional control. In essence then, ressentiment is grasped as “a re-feeling” of the deception of one’s own morality, in the process of which “reactionary emotion usually increases with time” (Frings 1965: 82). Still following Scheler’s argument, ressentiment in modern society can arise from three major sources. There is first of all the dominant ethos of “utilitarianism” that tends to devalue higher spiritual values in so far as it sees everything, including people and their relationships, under the perspective of their usefulness (Vandenbergh 2008: 22). However, ressentiment also can occur were “difference” is felt. This could, for example, be the case where constitutional rights and de facto social positions differ, especially where there is an emotional distance between one’s own values and those favored by society, or simply where different people’s values clash in everyday culture. Finally, resentment is imbued with a sense of “weakness,” both in terms of social position and with regard to the power to actually change it (cf. Frings 1965: 82ff.). While there might be dispute about the proper allocation of ressentiment to a particular class within the modern “psychic landscape of social class” (Reay 2005), there is certainly an elective affinity between the working middle classes and ressentiment. The professional social position of the working middle classes tends to be largely based on self-achievement as instead of confidence in inherited wealth or luck in financial speculation. Accordingly, it is a social milieu driven by “anger at the continuous risk of losing one’s class standing” (Lyman 2004: 144). It is more than

168

J. Dürrschmidt

other social milieux one that is carried by consumerism, producerism, and technical rationality in its life-ethos. “Consumerism” can be described here as the attitude of transforming difference in socio-economic status into the fine web of cultural distinction. Hard-earned money will be spent on consumer goods that make people feel part of mainstream society. An expanding credit and mortgage system helps to maintain a sense of achievement, even if not satisfaction. However, as various crisis in this system have revealed, the culture of consumerism “is mostly about forgetting, not learning” (Bauman 1998: 82). Thus, it can be argued that while “consumerism conceals and redirects individual pen-up anger towards new civic duties of enjoyment and desire it also creates an explosive multi-egoistic situation, which is deeply shaped by rather unarticulated manifestations of disappointed anger communities… [and] disoriented anger holders” (Sloderdijk in Klauser 2009: 166). “Producerism” in turn describes a prevalent aspect of working middle class worldview. It sees the working middle classes as the only really productive milieu in modern society. Squeezed between a tax spending government on the one side and an underclass of “freeloaders” on the other, it feels challenged in its Puritan life ethic of self-improvement by hard work (Langman 2011: 478). Finally, going back to Weber’s analysis of modernity as a society tied to rationalization in all spheres of society, it could be argued that the professional middle classes are the milieu of “technique.” This term refers us to an attitude of “impersonal professionalism.” It describes the intellectual skills and emotional inclination of a middle class milieu whose status in society depends on the “mastery of technique and… the emotional orientation towards objectivity that this implies.” Consequently, it does not just refer to a set of profession-related skills but also to “calculability” as this milieu’s “central cultural value” (Lyman 2004: 143). Obviously, all three value orientations have been contested by recent neoliberal globalization. Housing bubble burst and credit card crash in the wake of global financial meltdown are just two indicators, which reveal to the working middle classes that behind the veil of consumption there lurk the precariousness of their social position, and the fragility of their belief in calculable self-improvement. Government bailout programs for the big financial players have severely undermined positive belief in “producerism.” And finally, the inability to comprehend the complexity of structural change behind individual precariousness of social status induces ambivalent emotions toward “technique” as sustainable formula for managing society and self. Consequently, it is certainly not wrong to see the drivers of the “new contentious mobilizations,” as described in the previous section, based in middle class socioeconomic precariousness, and rooted in the disjuncture between status expectation and lived social position. However, taking the idea of ressentiment seriously, the crucial observation of the middle classes becoming “deprived of the basic requirements for a decent and dignified life” (Benski and Langman 2013: 528) conveys additional and perhaps different meaning here: it points us toward an increasing inability to relate the “inner microcosm” of life-ethos to the “outer macrocosm” of contemporary global society. This resonates well with Elliott and Lemert’s (2010: 72) analysis of “new individualism” as prevalent mode of life conduct in neoliberal global society. According to their analysis, it is the “ongoing emotional struggle to

10 The Affectual Landscape of Globalization …

169

relate internal and external experience” which lies at the core of this “new individualism.” In conclusion of this more conceptual part of our argument, we would finally suggest that ressentiment is one if not the key to understanding “new individualism” and the generalized middle class discontent that tends to go with it. The “migration crisis” and its policy implications remain the testing ground to this argument, to which we shall now return.

Global Migration Crisis and European Reception Culture—Coping with Ressentiment In order to pinpoint Europe’s “reception culture” or “culture of hospitality,” one could refer to its “fragility” (Hann 2015). On the one hand, there have been repeated attacks on refugee housings, which were met with suspicious silence among wide parts of the middle class population. On the other hand, many people from the same segments of society have engaged in voluntary work, have given time, money, and goods, in order to make refugees feel welcome. This somehow reflects the aforementioned attitudinal polarization among the middle classes with regard to (im)migration issues. Consequently, the eventual outcome of societal positioning toward new migration once again “will depend on what happens in the middle” (ib. 1). In order to unravel the link between middle class ressentiment and “reception culture,” we have initially to recall the empirically grounded assumption that attitudes toward migration are driven by a complex web of “real-world concerns, emotions, and values,” a web which is not always open to “myth-busting” by facts and evidence (Dempster and Hargrave 2017: 3). Accordingly, in the wake of the “refugee crisis” certain segments of the working middle classes might see themselves being placed second or third as far as welfare and institutionalized solidarity are concerned, despite seeing themselves as key providers of societal wealth. Next to this perceived “status injury” there might then develop “an injury to an expectation that one’s appeal will be listened to by someone else” (cf. Lyman 2004: 140). However, middle class ethos, as we have argued above, is also carried by “calculability” and related modes of “technique.” The migration crisis in this respect must seem like proof for the loss of hegemony of instrumental reason and of the “capacity for purposive manipulation” (ib. 143). Accordingly, loyalty to government and its apparatus of bureaucratic professionalism might turn into moral indignation. Yet anger will not erupt spontaneously due to the deeply internalized “feeling rules” that encourage “splitting speech from emotion,” not just here but with regard to other political issue too (ib. 138). The actual practice of hospitality or reception culture that emerged after the 2015 peak of asylum migration into Europe provides a potent seedbed of ressentiment. First, ressentiment might grow between the refugees and those parts of the populations in the receiving societies that feel vulnerable socially and/or trapped regionally. This applies to the underprivileged and status weary in an economically rich

170

J. Dürrschmidt

society such as Germany just as much as to those young people in Poland, Spain, and elsewhere, who would wish for a fast track entry to the booming German labor market, including language courses and other modes of integration by design (cf. Hann 2015: 2). Then there might be the ressentiment between the host population of the receiving countries and those parts of the refugee milieu that feel culturally distant. The latter might perceive of their attempted integration as “surviving in a moral cocoon within the belly of the beast,” to take up the apt description provided by Appadurai (2006:122). By this metaphor he attempts to grasp the structural ressentiment that lies in the migrant’s differentiation between Western “way of life” (highly valued opportunity structure) and Western “lifestyle” (considered to be morally fraught). Finally, working middle class ressentiment toward government might emerge out of public unease about muddled responsibilities and unclear competencies with regard to issues of border control, accommodation, and social services geared toward refugee migrants. Government might react to this public perception of “migration out of control” by setting unrealistic targets of immigration control, thereby inducing an “escalating performance spiral,” which enhances rather than diminishes feelings of mutual ressentiment between middle people and government (Dempster and Hargrave 2017: 16). On the surface of it, the reception culture that has evolved throughout Europe might seem like as a compensating engagement of middle class based civil society. Because it certainly helped to soften the local policy implications of central government failure amid a migration crisis. However, this perspective would fail to reveal the ways in which middle class ressentiment toward migration, in general, and refugees, in particular, is tied up to issues of a structural rebalancing between the so-called “North” and “South” in contemporary global society. Moreover, it would fail to address the fundamental insight going back to Scheler that ressentiment-driven engagement in society avoids going to the roots causes that stir it. Instead, ressentiment-driven engagement tends to be moving in contradictions and double binds, leading to further indignation and anger (cf. Lyman 2004: 142). Indeed, “how to hospitably welcome migrants” is a fundamentally ambivalent question, because it carries within it notions of “host” as well as “hostility.” This even more so when migration crisis meets “the crisis of modern organized solidarity and systems of welfare.” In other words, national cultures of hospitality are not free floating but embedded in societies that simultaneously face transformation of their welfare system and labor market in the wake of global restructuring. Accordingly, hospitality toward the “strangers at our doors” tends to be tied not just to issues of basic protection, but also to the fundamental “tensions between inclusion and exclusion, identity and difference.” Reception culture in the narrower sense of administrative and every day practice is thus always also a means of somewhat controlling the risk involved in following the universal ethical requirement to offer hospitality (Friese 2010: 324). It is, despite multiple gestures of spontaneous welcome in the end a “technique” that translates an ethical need (responding to the stranger in need at our door) into a technical rights-based procedure (who is entitled to what in a highly specific and graded system of rights to inclusion). Those participating in the benign forms of this “technique” are nevertheless part of a powerful “mode of operation framed by instrumental rationality, even as

10 The Affectual Landscape of Globalization …

171

the vision of engagement is projected by a rhetoric of humanitarian concern” (James 2014: 210). To the working middle classes, driven by the ethos of calculability, it gives back a sense of control over the complex issue of migration and refuge. The “best practice fiction” (Friese 2010: 334) of “a massive apparatus of abstracted adjudication… and point systems [serves] to mediate or defer the intense difficulty of making ethical judgements” about “deserving” and “undeserving” migrants (James 2014: 214). Subsequently, despite all its humanitarian concern, what is largely glossed over by the middle class civil society part of this complex apparatus called “reception culture” is the question of responsibility. Empirical evidence (cf. Dempster and Hargrave 2017: 19) suggests that especially from the “anxious middle” there is support for a discourse that sympathetically concentrates on the difficulties experienced by refugees and migrants, and which thereby “risks portraying them as victims.” However, behind this well-meaning attitude lurks the idea of a middle class that perceives of itself as “contributor,” thereby implicitly identifying others as “not contributing” and not “capable.” This reminds us of a new version of the longstanding social technique of “blaming the victim” (cf. Cole 2011). What this social technique implies is a gaze that identifies deficiencies in the individuals it cares for in humanitarian concern (such as in language proficiency or professional qualification), but fails to identify the structural socio-economic and cultural inequalities that might be the root cause for these deficiencies. This kind of framing of humanitarian help might be unintended, but it nevertheless is an ideological distortion of reality: “the middle-class liberal may leave the system that benefits him intact, while still seeming to care for those it victimizes” (ib. 3).

Toward a Critical Rebalancing of the Global South and Global North Looking at it from this perspective, reception culture is all but benign. It is “a site of contestation and a site where various disjuncture become apparent” (Friese 2010: 335): ethical obligation versus administered law, welfare versus security, universal human rights versus national citizenship, and conditional versus unconditional hospitality. Its core disposition, however, we can identify as “abstract –as opposed to historical—humanity” (Danewid 2017: 1675). It refers to a form of migration-related humanism that sees Europe as a safe refuge for those under threat elsewhere. What it (sub)consciously neglects, however, is the fact that this very Europe in its constitutive history is irrevocably tied to colonial conquest and transatlantic slavery. Thus, reception culture based on this ahistorical worldview “turns questions of responsibility, guilt, restitution, repentance, and structural reform into matters of empathy, generosity, and hospitality” (ib. 1675). “Victimization” and “ahistoric humanism” are part of a larger ideological structure that can be described as “projective individualism” (James and Scerri 2012).

172

J. Dürrschmidt

Reflecting the abstracted and mediatized nature of social and cultural embeddedness in global society, it supports the lifestyle of “self-active selves” (p. 227), who live life as if it was a series of projects that emerge mainly from autonomous achievement rather than the contributions of near and especially distant others. “Soft consumption” is the modus operandi of this privileged individualism. It combines the “desire for self-improvement” with “world-weariness” amid global problems. “Fair trade” and “green consumption” might be prime examples for the emerging “third spaces” that, according to James and Scerri (ib., 225), “ameliorate” the tension between selfaffirmation and global ethical responsibility. In consequence, they “allow for the deferral of an alternative politics of consequence.” We might wonder if not “reception culture” as enacted in Europe during the “migration crisis” also provides such a “third space.” As a “third space,” new migration can become a self-enhancing project without seriously challenging the life-ethos of the privileged. Carried by “enlightened sympathy” it fails to question the legitimacy of “a prevailing ethico-moral code that sustains the privilege of the privileged” in neoliberal global society (p. 228f.). This inherent deferral of confronting recognition that the status quo of contemporary global order may be unsustainable contains several interlinked issues of contention. This implies initially the EU migration regime. Despite all technical and administrative amendments, it remains part of a “broken global refugee system” (Betts and Collier 2017) that continues to ameliorating the “liberal paradox” (Hollifield 1992). While, on the one hand, inner stability and welfare protection demand control of state borders and emphasis on sovereignty, the globalized economy as well as humanitarian obligations on the other hand tend to enforce the imperative of mobility and the right to migrate. This paradox is by no means specific to the European or EU migration regime but applicable to any regional attempt of controlling new migration (cf. James 2014: 210). Serious amendments would at least have to acknowledge that in the twenty-first century “refuge is as much a development issue as a humanitarian issue,” and that refuge is irrevocably “bound up with a broader, and distracting, discussion about the right to migrate” (cf. Betts and Collier 2017: xi, xiii). This in turn raises fundamental questions regarding global inequality and its regulation beyond the confines of individual nation-states. If this is indeed a world where location is still more important than class in terms of influencing one’s lifetime income and chances of achievement, especially the status anxious lower middle classes in Europe might justifiably fear for their “citizenship premium” that for a long time has given them a privileged socio-economic position in modern and global society. The “strangers at our door,” seen from this socio-economic perspective, are then people who do not want to put up with their equivalent of a “citizen penalty” for being born in the wrong places of this world (Milanovic 2016: 131ff.). Moreover, this deferral of recognition might further involve the refusal to recognize that the aforementioned “fragility” of Europe’s reception culture (Hann 2015) is in effect part of that “expanded geography of instability and economic destruction,” which emerged in the wake of neoliberal forms of globalization. This in turn raises questions of historic responsibility, insofar as “current fragility did not start in

10 The Affectual Landscape of Globalization …

173

the last few years,” but is the long-term consequence of failed postcolonial development policy and a global capitalism based on financial and extractivist logic. In this respect, metaphorically speaking, do the “strangers at our door” not testify to “a lack of order,” but “they are the new order,” which might imply “massive loss of habitat” not just in sending but also in receiving regions of “new migration” (Sassen 2016: 206, 223). Obviously, these fundamental questions concerning inequality have more than a socio-economic dimension: “they contain fundamental implications for how we view the world and our place in it” (Milanovic 2016: 125). Seen from this almost ontological perspective, we could argue that “the strangers at our door” are testifying to a large-scale process of “global rebalancing” between what is conveniently called the global “North” and “South.” In the process of this current rebalancing, “countries representing the majority of the population have come to the global head table” (Nederveen Pieterse 2011: 27). Moreover, looking at the technological and urban development in the emerging economies, people in the “North” might sense that what they are confronted with is a “major tipping point in history.” What is emerging is a multi-polar order, where the undisputed economic and political hegemony of the global North is challenged by a vibrant “East-South” turn, and where the burden of necessary reform can no longer be shifted exclusively to the “South” (ib. 26, 31). The ressentiment toward the “strangers at our door” might thus finally testify to a generalized demoralization of “Euromodern” society, which senses that its heydays are over. Amid experience of deskilling, flexibilization of labor, new forms of urban polarization and poverty, new forms of uncontrolled and sudden migration, corruption in politics and economy alike, democratic deficit, and xenophobic particularism it could indeed seem that in the process of neoliberal globalization “the North appears to be ‘evolving’ southward” (Comaroff and Comaroff 2012: 13, 48).

Conclusion: Continuity and Discontinuity Sometimes it could seem as if history repeats itself, and sociological analysis goes in circles. Quite a few aspects of the analysis in this chapter, we can find already in the classic account on the “homeless mind” inhabiting modern industrial society by Berger and his collaborators (1973). Here they talk already of a generalized sense of “discontents,” which stems from a feeling of “homelessness” in a fragmented and pluralized society (ib. 165). They already mention the development of a subsequently “precarious” private sphere and talk of emerging “counterformations” in response to this threatening precariousness (ib. 169). They also refer to the individual’s task of “psychological engineering and emotional management” of structural societal cleavages (ib. 39). However, theirs in the end remains an account of industrial modernity. The “underinstitutionalized” private sphere of the family by then could still be regarded as a source for providing a “do-it-yourself-universe” to rebalance the “cold winds of homelessness” in a modern society segmented by complex industrial division of labor and fragmented by bureaucratic structures.

174

J. Dürrschmidt

It is perhaps the core thesis in Elliott’s and Lemert’s account of the “new individualism” that these resources of inter-personal meaning making are used up, and that the contemporary individual confronted with neoliberal globalization is indeed left alone “to remake itself from the inside to adjust to the new global condition” (2010: 72). The “projective individualism” we have geared our argument toward might stand exemplary for this ongoing emotional struggle of new quality. For the moment, we would not know a better frontier of globalization research than to further investigate the balance between “jouissance” (fragile joy) and “lassitude” (world-weariness) that characterizes the fundamental tension of value orientation juxtaposed in the “projective individualism” of our times (James and Scerri 2012: 228). Ressentiment rising seems to be an indicator of that prevalent tension. We propose that ressentiment, understood as a continuous reliving of a distorted value orientation or deception in life-ethos, provides a fundamental part of any further research toward the emotional landscape of global society. Acknowledgments I would like to thank Natalia Ermasova, Governors State University, Chicago, for her useful comments on an earlier draft of this chapter.

References Appadurai, A. 2006. Fear of Small Numbers: An Essay on the Geography of Anger. London: Duke University Press. Bauman, Z. 2016. Strangers at Our Door. Cambridge: Polity. Bauman, Z. 2000. Liquid Modernity. Cambridge: Polity. Bauman, Z. 1998. Globalization: The Human Consequences. Cambridge: Polity. Benski, T., and L. Langman. 2013. The Effects of Affect: The Place of Emotions in the Mobilizations of 2011. Current Sociology 61 (4): 525–540. Berger, L.P., B. Berger, and H. Kellner. 1973. The Homeless Mind: Modernization and Consciousness. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Betts, A., and B. Collier. 2017. Refuge: Transforming a Broken Refugee System. London: Penguin/Random House. Bude, H., and J. Dürrschmidt. 2010. What’s Wrong with Globalization?: Contra ‘flow speak’— Towards an Existential Turn in the Theory of Globalization. European Journal of Social Theory 13 (4): 481–500. Castles, St. 2003. Towards a Sociology of Forced Migration and Social Transformation. Sociology 37 (1): 13–34. Cole, A.M. 2011. Embittered Subjects: The New Politics of Blaming the Victim. Eurozine 02/09: 1–12. www.eurozine.com. Comaroff, J., and J.L. Comaroff. 2012. Theory from the South: Or, How Euro-America is Evolving Toward Africa. London: Paradigm. Danewid, I. 2017. White Innocence in the Black Mediterranean: Hospitality and the Erasure of History. Third World Quarterly 38 (7): 1674–1689. Dempster, H., and K. Hargrave. 2017. Understanding Public Attitudes Towards Refugees and Migrants. Chatham House Working Paper 152: 1–26. Elliott, A., and C. Lemert. 2010. The New Individualism: The Emotional Costs of Globalization. London: Routledge.

10 The Affectual Landscape of Globalization …

175

Friese, H. 2010. Limits to Hospitality: Political Philosophy, Undocumented Migration and the Local Arena. European Journal of Social Theory 13 (3): 323–341. Frings, M.S. 1965. Max Scheler: A Concise Introduction to the World of a Great Thinker. Pittsburgh, Pa.: Duquesne University Press. Gelfand, M.J., S.L. Lyons, and J. Lun. 2011. Toward a Psychological Science of Globalization. Journal of Social Issues 67 (4): 841–853. Goodhart, D. 2017. The Road to Somewhere: The Populist Revolt and the Future of Politics. London: Hurst & Co. Gray, B. 2008. Putting Emotion and Reflexivity to Work in Researching Migration. Sociology 42 (5): 935–952. Hann, Chr. 2015. The Fragility of Europe’s Willkommenskultur. Anthropology Today 31(6): 1–2. Hollifield, J.F. 1992. Immigrants, Markets and States: The Political Economy of Postwar Europe. Cambridge MA.: Harvard University Press. James, P. 2014. Faces of Globalization and the Borders of States: From Asylum Seekers to Citizens. Citizenship Studies 18 (2): 208–223. James, P., and A. Scerri. 2012. Globalizing Consumption and the Deferral of a Politics of Consequence. Globalizations 9 (2): 225–240. Klauser, F.R. 2009. Review essay: Zorn und Zeit. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 27 (1): 164–167. Langman, L. 2011. Cycles of Contention: The Rise and Fall of the Tea Party. Critical Sociology 38 (4): 469–494. Lyman, P. 2004. The Domestication of Anger: The Use and Abuse of Anger in Politics. European Journal of Social Theory 7 (2): 133–147. Milanovic, B. 2016. Global Inequality: A New Approach to the Age of Globalization. Cambridge, M.: The Belknap Press. Nederveen Pieterse, J. 2011. Global Rebalancing: Crisis and the East-South Turn. Development and Change 42 (1): 22–48. Neu, J. 2009. Resentment Rising. Emotion Review 1 (1): 31–32. Reay, D. 2005. Beyond Consciousness? The Psychic Landscape of Social Class. Sociology 39 (5): 911–928. Rommel, I. 2017. ‘We are the People’. Refugee-‘Crisis’ and the Drag-Effect of Social Habitus in Germany. Historical Social Research 42(4): 133–154. Sassen, S. 2016. A Massive Loss of Habitat: New Drivers for Migration. Sociology of Development 2 (2): 204–233. Sloterdijk, P. 2008. Zorn und Zeit: politisch-psychologischer Versuch. Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp. Therborn, G. 2013. The Killing Fields of Inequality. Cambridge: Polity. Vandenbergh, F. 2008. Sociology of the Heart. Max Scheler’s Epistemology of Love. Theory, Culture & Society 25(3): 17–51.

Jörg Dürrschmidt is a Professor of Sociology at the University of Applied Sciences (Administration) Ludwigsburg, Germany. His most recent book publication (coedited with York Kautt) is Globalized Eating Cultures: Mediation and Mediatization. London: Palgrave Macmillan (2018).

Chapter 11

Globalization, Cosmopolitanization, and a New Research Agenda Joy Zhang

Abstract This chapter demonstrates that a key progress of contemporary cosmopolitan debate is its attentiveness to transforming a philosophical ideal into an interpretative framework that gives new insights into social changes. It first provides a brief review on the history and definition of cosmopolitanism and what cosmopolitan social theory emphasizes. It argues that contemporary theorization extends the cosmopolitan investigations both “downward” and “inward” so as to capture its multiplicity of effects. Particular focus will be given to Ulrich Beck, who, before his sudden death in 2015, was the most visible and ambitious social theorist and who championed developing grand theory of cosmopolitan sociology for the twenty-first century. It then draws on an empirical case to illustrate cosmopolitan belongings at work and to evaluate Methodological Cosmopolitanism (as opposed to Methodological Nationalism) as a new sociological research agenda. Methodological Cosmopolitanism’s alleged commitments to the fluidity and contingencies of social boundaries and to going beyond a Euro-centric theorization hold much promise. But, the journey has just started. There is still a lack of analytical tools to elucidate the power dynamic in these transnational public spheres.

From Globalization to Cosmopolitanization Discussions on globalization can be both trite and stimulating. On the one hand, the fact that we are living in an interconnected world in which societies advance through idea and commercial exchanges across continents and at multiple levels is nothing new. In fact, Chinese historian, Brook (2007) convincingly demonstrated that the seemingly modern idea of “globalization” had emerged in the social life of the seventeenth century. The mutual influence and coming together of different world cultures were not only exhibited in the expansion and correction of world maps but can also be seen through how ordinary European families’ desire for Chinese J. Zhang (B) School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research Cornwallis North East, University of Kent Canterbury, Kent CT2 7NF, UK e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 I. Rossi (ed.), Challenges of Globalization and Prospects for an Inter-civilizational World Order, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44058-9_11

177

178

J. Zhang

porcelains gave rise to the booming business of affordable Delft imitations (Brook 2007). In other words, we, both the noblemen and the common folks all considered, have been observing, appreciating and adopting other cultures for centuries. So what is new? This is where the topic of globalization becomes stimulating and seems to generate never-ending conversations. How globalization is taking place, how it is steered, and how it shapes international conflicts and global welfare on the ground are questions that never cease to attract fresh insights. On the one hand, some see globalization as a means to attain cross-border conformity or even a synonym of “Westernization.” Even many who identify themselves as proponents of universal values, may still explicitly or implicitly promote what Immanuel Wallerstein (2006) criticized as “European universalism” (as opposed to “universal universalism”). On the other hand, some see globalization as merely assembling world cultures as mosaic displays in consumer catalogues, with limited interpenetration among them. Yet, with intensified cross-border exchange facilitated by global trade, the internet and international travels, the exposures to global “Others,” and their consequences have permeated into almost every aspect of our lives. The effects of globalization to us is no longer limited to an “exotic decoration” on the wall, as in the aforementioned case of the seventeenth century Dutch households. The boundary between the global and the local has also become increasingly blurred, as the presence of global influence can no longer be neatly described as residing in a specific site, a unique category of artifacts or a particular type of social interactions. The substantial expansion in the scale and scope of globalization has brought qualitative change in how we conceptualize our life opportunities, how we conduct our conduct, and more importantly, how we understand our own identities. For example, for social research, national tags that used to indicate incontrovertible and precise social “boundaries,” now seem to convey ambiguity. Attempts to describe a phenomenon as of uniquely “national” characteristic (i.e., being uniquely “British” or “Chinese” or “Korean”) are increasingly proved methodologically challenging. A simple exercise is to imagine if you are conducting a study on the “Chinese” automobile industry. To delineate what distinguishes “Chinese” automobile engineers from “non-Chinese” ones may not be as straightforward as one might imagine: To begin with, should “Chinese” be interpreted as an indication of ethnicity or nationality? Surely such definitions do not have universal appeal. When the media broadcasts new designs or innovations made by “American” engineers, “British” engineers or “German” engineers, most of the time, it merely refers to individuals who are based within the American/British/German border. Then, should the adjective “Chinese” be used to describe interviewees’ workplaces? This interpretation has also shown increasing limitations. One reason is that with transnational trade and funding schemes, it is not rare for an individual to hold dual positions in both Chinese and foreign institutions or carry out parallel projects based in different nations. Does this mean then, a person can be a “Chinese” engineer one minute, and another minute not “Chinese,” when stepping into different offices? A third way would be to define Chinese engineers by their allegiance to a specific work culture. Yet through shared online databases, telephone, email, international conferences, collaborations, and training events, professionals in China, similar to

11 Globalization, Cosmopolitanization, and a New Research Agenda

179

their counterparts elsewhere in the world, are becoming more cosmopolitan. In terms of professional associations, one could be a “Chinese” scientist as well as a “British” or a “German” scientist. An alternative route for defining “Chinese” is from a legal/political perspective. That is to say that by “Chinese” automobile engineers you meant professional who are subject to the system of rules set by the government of People’s Republic of China. Yet as is widely acknowledged, “national” regulations may not be exclusively unique; they may be a particular recipe of inclusiveness of various “international” norms and concerns. The point of this exercise is not to say that national categorization has become obsolete, but to highlight how categorization words, such as “Chinese” that were supposed to “clarify” research premises now need to “be clarified.” Contemporary globalization has significantly intensified the hybridity and fluidity of our sense of belongings. Globalization is no longer a simple diffusion of ideas that trickles down through established socioeconomic hierarchies, but has become a primary engine for new social agencies and new social norms to emerge (Delanty 2009; Held 2010; KwokBun 2002; Mau et al. 2008; Urry 2011). As early as 1990, social anthropologist Hannerz (1990, 239–241) has highlighted a growing number of individuals who have embraced “a willingness to engage with the other” and emphasized that “it is really the growth and proliferation of such [cross-border] cultures and social networks in the present period that generates more cosmopolitans now than there have been at any other time.” It is important to stress here that this is not to say that the world has been cosmopolitanized, or that the world has come together as one. Rather, as Sociologist Beck (2006) encapsulated, it is ongoing and open-ended process of “cosmopolitanization.” The omnipresence of a world of alternatives and entanglements has become a transformative force that conditions contemporary organization of collective actions and the orientation of the relations between Self, Other, and World (Beck 2006). This increasing hybridity and boundary-blurring effect of contemporary globalization calls for a reconsideration of the validity and effectiveness of relying on the nation-state as the default analytical units in the social sciences. A re-invention of the wheels may be needed to develop new methodological tools as well as vocabularies to recognize, articulate, and comprehend an emerging logic in the organization of our social lives. To address this “newness” in contemporary globalization, theorists such as Harvey (2000, p. 529) has heralded that “cosmopolitanism is back!” This chapter examines the recent development of the cosmopolitan debate within sociology. It first provides a brief review on the history and definition of cosmopolitanism and what cosmopolitan social theory emphasizes. That is, how a cosmopolitan framework helps sociologists to comprehend and articulate new ways of organizing the social with more conceptual precision and depth. In other words, this chapter is not primarily concerned with philosophical cosmopolitanism and its normative impact on global ethics. Indeed, as the next section discusses, an important theme in cosmopolitan sociological investigations is to turn their attention from normative discussions to empirical analyses. After outlining key features of cosmopolitan

180

J. Zhang

social theories, the chapter then draws on empirical examples to illustrate and evaluate the strength and weakness of methodological cosmopolitanism (as opposed to methodological nationalism) as a new sociological research agenda. Particular focus will be given to Ulrich Beck, who, before his sudden death in 2015, was the most visible and ambitious social theorist who championed the developing grand theory of cosmopolitan sociology for the twenty-first century. More importantly, many of the experiment he initiated and the criticisms they drew provide invaluable insights for future transnational research.

Cosmopolitan Theorization and Its Research Agenda “Cosmopolitanism,” wrote philosopher Appiah (2005, p. 218), “might have come to mean the proposal that we create a world state to govern a world community; but this is not what we nowadays mean by cosmopolitanism, and, significantly, it is not what the Stoics had in mind, either.” Traced back to the ancient Greeks, cosmopolitan thinking originated from this famous story: When asked where he came from, Diogenes the Cynic answered “I am a citizen of the world.” The concept of kosmopolitês, or world citizen, was then further fully developed in Roman Stoicism. Whether or not the Stoics “really wished to establish a single world state” (Nussbaum 1997: 6) has not been central to the cosmopolitan school of thought. But rather it is the emphasis on the interconnectedness among individuals and the aim to promote the common good that is widely perceived as essential and defining characteristics of cosmopolitanism. Modern cosmopolitanism is most prominently promoted by Immanuel Kant. In his essay Toward Perpetual Peace, a cosmopolitan right is grounded in the context of “universal hospitality,” or “the right of a stranger not to be treated in a hostile manner by another upon his arrival on the other’s territory” (Kant 1795, p. 82). Kant further specifies that: In this way, remote parts of the world can establish relations peacefully with one another, relations which ultimately become regulated by public laws and can thus finally bring the human species ever closer to a cosmopolitan constitution. (Kant 1795: 82)

Recognition of and respect for human interconnectedness are here highlighted as the pre-condition for common prosperity. In the paragraphs immediately following the above citation, Kant uses examples of Western colonialism (which was a violent enforcement rather than genuine attempt of interaction) and China and Japan’s decline (which was due to their semi-closed-door policy as opposed to open interaction with the wider world) to illustrate how a cosmopolitan outlook (or the appreciation of “universal hospitality”) is key in promoting the common good. In Kant’s writing, however, cosmopolitanism is less a concrete political scheme than a regulative ideal. Thus it is not surprising to find that in Anthropology Kant acknowledged his portrayal of a “cosmopolitan society” (cosmopolitismus) was an “unattainable” end. Instead, he considered it to be valuable as a “regulative principle:”

11 Globalization, Cosmopolitanization, and a New Research Agenda

181

This idea, unattainable in itself, is, however, not a constitutive principle (that is, of the expectation of a peace that actually exists amidst the most vigorous actions and reactions among human beings), but rather a regulative principle, an idea to be diligently pursued as the vocation of the human race under the reasonable assumption of a natural tendency to this idea. (Kant 1798, p. 174)

No wonder, then, that cosmopolitanism in Kant’s sense was later described as “a kingdom of the air” (Heine in Beck 2002: 25). Contemporary thinkers tend to seek more institutional approaches to practical goals. After all, as David Harvey bluntly pointed out in Cosmopolitanism and the Geographies of Freedom: “Treating others with respect costs nothing… but the redistribution of real income and of political power does.” (Harvey 2009: 115) Contemporary cosmopolitan theories have branched into a diversity of disciplines which emphasize different aspects of global collaboration. In their edited volume, Conceiving Cosmopolitanism: Theory, Context, and Practice, Vertovec and Cohen (2002: 1–3) divided contemporary cosmopolitan theories into four trends: (a) new political declarations that attempt to resolve nationalism and multiculturalism; (b) cosmopolitan citizenship and international democracy; (c) flexible international spaces where hybrid public space is maintained by an overlapping of interests; and (d) socialcultural processes that embrace cultural multiplicity. Regardless of the divergence of empirical emphasis, cosmopolitan theorists have a shared commitment of better comprehending how various actors transcend existing social boundaries and prevent/promote the attainment of shared values. More specifically, there are three key characteristics of contemporary cosmopolitan theorization that mark out a new research agenda. Firstly, instead of focusing on abstract principles and ideals that, in theory, should guide human society, contemporary cosmopolitan debate is more attentive to the social process that brings various actors into orchestrated collective actions and gives more value to the study of “rooted cosmopolitanism” (Appiah 2005: 213–72), that recognizes both the transcendence and contextuality of a cosmopolitan outlook. As Craig Calhoun (2003: 532) rightly affirmed, a cosmopolitan imagination is not “a view from nowhere or everywhere,” but is built on “thick attachments” to specific social spaces. Similarly, in explaining the foundation of realizing cosmopolitan rights, political scientist James Bohman stressed the notion that cosmopolitanism should not be seen as endeavors “beyond borders but across borders” (Bohman 2007: 12, emphasis in original). The emphasis on seeing the development of a cosmopolitan outlook as a process can be best seen in Beck’s creation of the term “cosmopolitanization.” To some extent, it is quite fitting that most people would stutter with the pronunciation of this word upon first encounter, for it aimed to transform a conventional association of cosmopolitanism with an elitist ideology and to turn cosmopolitan social theory “from its philosophical head unto its social scientific feet” (Beck 2011, p. 57). Secondly, contemporary cosmopolitan investigation recognizes that meaningful dialogue and collaboration across traditional sociopolitical boundaries involve reflexive efforts from a variety of social levels, including that of the individual. In his study on the democratization beyond the nation-state, Bohman (2007, p. 189)

182

J. Zhang

observed that “the participants in transnational public spheres and associations, the citizens who inhabit networks of communication and interaction” as a transformative agent, for they inserted new voice across borders and that “they do so not merely by employing new technologies and networks of communication, but also by using them self-consciously to create public spheres to pursue justice, create innovative practices, establish common liberty, and further democratic ends.” Grassroots actors’ recognition and enactment of this empowering effect of globalization signify the phenomenon of “globalization from within.” As Beck puts it, Globalization is a non-linear, dialectic process in which the global and the local do not exist as cultural polarities but as combined and mutually implicating principles. These processes involve not only interconnections across boundaries, but transform the quality of the social and the political inside nation-state societies. This is what I define as “cosmopolitanization”: cosmopolitanization means internal globalisation, globalisation from within the national societies. (Beck 2002, p. 17, original emphasis)

It is this emphasis on “globalization from within” that contemporary cosmopolitan theorization adds a new layer of methodological insight. For it no longer constrains a cosmopolitan investigation to an “upward” and “outward” direction, that is, focusing only on the elites, the establishment, and on what happens outside of national boundaries, at the supranational level. Cosmopolitanism, as in the words of Appiah (2005, p. 256), “is not the name for a dialogue among static closed cultures, each of which is internally homogeneous and different from all the others; not a celebration of the beauty of a collection of closed boxes.” Rather it is about recognizing different communities as intersecting contexts and about how actors live with rival lifestyles and negotiated differences. Correspondingly, research into contemporary globalization is not limited to “events” and “actions” that took place across national borders, but incorporates a closer examination at how social actors compare, reflect, criticize, mediate, and benefit from a world of divergences. Thus there is a move to expand a cosmopolitan gaze both “downward” and “inward,” so as to understand how intensified globalization has transformed social agents” mindsets in their orientation of their ambition and in the calculation and organization of social actions. Finally, the becoming of cosmopolitan communities is essentially a sociopolitical project of belonging (Skey 2013). Cosmopolitan belonging is not simply “freedom from social belongings,” nor should it be conceptualized as a fixed form of belonging (Calhoun 2003). Rather, as I have argued elsewhere, the essence of cosmopolitan identities lies in its liberating prerogative (Zhang 2015). Instead of conceptualizing the space and time we live in as an absolute given, cosmopolitan agencies have an acute awareness that the social milieus are “contested terrains” (Harvey 2009, p. 197). The boundaries and norms of a social space can be produced and re-produced by social actors, through their “struggl[e] to internalize (either individually or collectively) the immaterial and relational connections and solidarities in space-time that can liberate us as well as others” (Harvey 2009: 259–6). The liberating effect comes from social actors’ freedom to explore and exploit different forms of social belonging simultaneously, without necessarily being pressured to commit to or to prioritize any one of them. As Beck (2006, p. 4–5) argued “a determination of identity has replaced the either/or logic with the both/and logic of inclusive differentiation. One

11 Globalization, Cosmopolitanization, and a New Research Agenda

183

constructs a model of one’s identity by dipping freely into the Lego set of globally available identities and building a progressive inclusive self-image” which “comprises the development of multiple loyalties” and “diverse transnational forms of life.” While from an individual actor’s point of view, the embodiment of multiple social attachments may ultimately produce a new and unique hybrid identity, the recognition of one’s capacity to experience and instrumentalize different belongings may become universal. It is this liberating prerogative rather than the specific substance that underpins a social characteristic of cosmopolitan belongings (Zhang 2015). A shared view among cosmopolitan scholars is that the fluidity and interconnectedness of social experience, along with new forms of cosmopolitan belongings will, in turn, necessitate and produce a novel global order of governance. The novelty emphasized here is not so much on the specific content but on how new forms of governance are established, structured, and maintained. Following this line of enquiry, the “foreigner-native” duality marked by methodological nationalism “no longer adequately reflects reality” (Beck 2006, p. 26). Furthermore, one needs to think outside the box of European intellectual history and recognize the plurality of modernities. In other words, while contemporary cosmopolitan theorization has pointed out where to look for emerging transformative effects of globalization, it still lacks methodological sophistications that provide tools on how such research agenda can be carried out. Ulrich Beck’s championing of a “methodological cosmopolitanism” has only partially addressed this question. For example, in line with his “risk society” thesis, Beck suggested that instead of relying on the nation-state as an analytical frame, transnationally networked “cosmopolitan risk community” presents a better way to frame empirical investigations (Beck et al. 2013). As the next section demonstrates, this change of analytical frame allows some new insights in understanding the effects of globalization. But, a change of research unit alone does not automatically generate new analytical tools or vocabularies that are necessary to trace how cross-boundary solidarities are formed and of how these solidarities assume a powerful influence. To be sure, the re-invention and retooling of a methodological paradigm for the social science is a continuous effort and it requires inputs from empirical studies. While the next section employs a case study to demonstrate some of the challenges and gaps, here it is important to note that East Asian scholars have played a key role in the methodological cosmopolitan discussion to date. The level of intense interest in the sociological investigations of cosmopolitanization in East Asia corresponds with the region’s increasing presence and confidence in global exchanges. But it was also a direct result of a series of European-East Asian dialogues that Beck and his research team hosted. In April 2009, Beck organized a workshop in Munich, in which he invited leading Asian study scholars from around the world. The fruitful discussion in the 2009 meeting was exhibited through two sets of publications: one is a special issue on the “Varieties of second modernity” in the British Journal of Sociology (Beck and Grande 2010a) and the other on “Beyond methodological nationalism” in Soziale Welt (Beck and Grande 2010b). But more importantly, this was the first of a series of annual workshops that Beck hosted regarding cosmopolitan studies

184

J. Zhang

in East Asia. It also formed the foundational network for his last and unfinished European Research Council (ERC) project “Methodological Cosmopolitanism.” In the original proposal of his final ERC project, Beck wrote “the time has come to take cosmopolitan sociology for a ride outside Europe and explore its meaning for other contexts.” The point was not so much as to apply and test the cosmopolitan idea, but to enrich it, subvert it, and built it from the ground up. However, it should be noted that these discussions were not primarily aimed at conceptual comparisons, such as how the Confucian idea of “Tianxia” (literally translated as “all under heaven”) can be connected to cosmopolitanism. To be sure, without empirical grounding, simply adding on an East Asian perspective or importing a few Asian phrases does not make a theory “cosmopolitan”. It would be yet another “celebration of the beauty of a collection of closed boxes” (Appiah 2005, p. 256) in which “East Asian cosmopolitanism” and “European cosmopolitanism” are displayed as a mosaic of exhibits. Normative concepts alone, regardless of their cultural origin, have the tendency of monopolizing certain discourse and engender intellectual closure. A true “cosmopolitan” understanding of the social worlds requires equal attentiveness to empirical and conceptual debates. This helps to explain why some of the leading sociologists of cosmopolitanization have carried out a number of empirical studies in China, Korea, and Japan, on a wide range of topics such as social issues relating to science, manufacturing, finance, and environmental politics (e.g., Chang 2010; Tyfield and Urry 2009; Zhang 2010). Collectively, these studies are both valuable explorations of what methodological cosmopolitanism means in research practice and important correctives to how the nature of a cosmopolitan belonging can be conceptualized. They demonstrated how bottom-up efforts have increasingly become a powerful force in shaping national agendas and the possibility for the practice of cosmopolitan citizenship to empower previous less advantaged social groups. They helped to provide a clear view on questions such as how does cosmopolitan citizenship interacts with deep-seatednationalism and/or with an authoritarian regime. To give an indicative demonstration of patterns of new social norms are emerging as a consequence of intensified globalization, how a cosmopolitanization lens helps to capture these changes and where the analytical challenges lie, the next section examines a recent case in grassroots environmentalism.

Cosmopolitan Citizenship in Practice The transformative effects of cosmopolitanization can be seen in a global rise of grassroots environmental movements, in which civil organizations and individual activists together form a powerful force in steering environmental discourse. When the Kyoto Protocol was negotiated in 1997, the mass media largely portrayed reducing greenhouse gas emissions as a nation-state game. By the time of the 2009 Copenhagen Summit, however, official negotiations had to share the spotlight with various “people’s summits,” organized by groups such as Friends of the Earth, Climate Justice

11 Globalization, Cosmopolitanization, and a New Research Agenda

185

Action, and Third World Network (Ferguson and McCarthy 2009). Even in countries with little tradition of public debate, such as China, grassroots involvement in climate change has increasingly gained a “prominent role” (Wang and Chen 2006). The significance of the grassroots environmental movement is not only a matter complementing established global institutions. Rather, by actively linking local and global concerns, such movements commonly seek to exploit creative opportunities to challenge conventional nation-state power structures. One recent example is the case of Apple and the contentious politics of pollution in China. Since the millennium, southern China has increasingly emerged as a global hub for manufacturing branded IT products, with factories known for discharging heavy metals (copper, nickel, lead) at levels above authorized standards. Such discharges cause severe water and soil pollution, while irritant gas presents health hazards for local populations. Traditionally handled within vertical power relations among local governments and manufacturers, civic groups have gained a stronger voice on such issues in recent years. Since 2008, 41 environmental groups in China have formed the Green Choice Alliance (“the Alliance”), which aims to exert pressure on brand companies, upstream and downstream in the production process, to comply with environmental standards. In April 2010, the Alliance contacted the IT multinational Apple over reported cases of suspected illegal pollution discharge from its contracted manufacturers in southern China. This initiative soon received support from a California-based NGO, the Pacific Environment (PE). Disappointed by Apple’s initial response of pledging an internal investigation but refusing future information disclosure to NGOs (FON et al. 2011a), PE voluntarily launched a campaign to encourage American consumers to join in pressuring Apple in being open about their pollution in China. Within 2 weeks of launching the campaign, almost 1000 letters from American consumers demanding “a greener Apple” for China finally pushed the company to “agree to have a transparent discussion” with Chinese NGOs (Zhang and Barr 2013). The rationale behind a cross-Pacific solidarity promoted by this American NGO is a firm recognition of the interconnectedness of a global ecological future (Pacific Environment 2012). Meanwhile, in China, a coalition of domestic NGOs released two environmental reports on Apple suppliers, helping to increase the sense of public pressure (FON et al. 2011a, b). After a year’s cooperation from both sides of the Pacific, Apple set up a communication platform with the Natural Resources Defense Council in the USA and with Chinese NGOs (Xie 2011). Later, in response to a demand for transparency, Apple disclosed more than a hundred of its suppliers’ names (Apple Inc. 2012) and agreed to respect the standards set by China’s Green Choice Alliance (IPE 2012; Nuttall 2012). The Apple case presents several challenges to methodological nationalism. If one were to summarize the series of events as an American multinational’s pollution in China, it might be somewhat misleading. The social dynamic involved in the identification, negotiation, and solution of illegal discharge is not simply “the American versus the Chinese.” Technically speaking, it is Chinese factories that create localized pollution through fulfilling their contracts on products to be consumed around the world. The two sides of the negotiation table might be better described

186

J. Zhang

as a cross-Pacific NGO coalition confronting a transnational supply chain. In such processes, grassroots environmentalist communities establish themselves as agents of cosmopolitanization, seeking to hold powerful economic and political actors accountable to emerging shared norms. If one steps away from a nation-state lens and recognizes that we live amid a confluence of global flows and in a “space of assemblage” (Ong 2005: 697; Ong and Collier 2005), then it would not be difficult to see through the myth that “cosmopolitan citizenship” as a privilege of the elites. In fact, this Apple case and many other civil initiatives illuminate the possibility and feasibility for grassroots actors in less advantageous countries, even inside an authoritarian nation-state like China, to acquire effective leverage in steering how institutions should and should not behave. More specifically, the transformative effect of cosmopolitanization lies in the fact that it empowers individual actors to construe their responsibility and entitlements beyond the containment of a nation-state but through reaching out to and taking advantage of different assemblages of associations (e.g., international production chain, advocacy group, and consumers). In the process, this prompts joint efforts, such as the cross-Pacific NGO coalition, to tackle collective problems in creative ways. As social actors start to establish new trans-local networks and break free from a conventional reliance on seeing vertical nation-state regulation as the primary answer to social problems, it may also be time for the social sciences to expand its methodological horizon. To be able to recognize how cosmopolitanization transforms (sub)politics and the practice of cosmopolitan citizenship at multiple levels is but the first step. There is still a lack of analytical tools or even vocabularies to elucidate the power dynamic in these transnational public spheres. For example, does the notion of a cosmopolitan risk “community” allow us fully to encompass the contingencies, as well as the durability of the ties, relations, and solidarities formed in such issue-oriented coalitions among environmental activists? On a closer look at these transnational initiatives, how do we systematically comprehend the relation between self-identity, social positioning, and the grid of power relations between groups? More importantly, nation-states remain important, what novel roles would old forms of social belongings play when social borders are becoming increasingly contested and are subjects to be “chosen” or “redrawn?” These are all pressing questions that remain to be addressed by future empirical studies.

Conclusion What is “new” about contemporary globalization that we are experiencing and why does it necessitate a new methodological framework? The continuity and unity of human history mean that the attempts to claim any social phenomenon as “new” or qualitatively different are always in danger of being an over-statement. But the growing body of transnational studies seems to warrant the view that the dominance of nation-state boundaries as the frame for our social conducts is effaced by an increasing

11 Globalization, Cosmopolitanization, and a New Research Agenda

187

recognition of global interconnectedness. But for empirical studies to comprehend the implications of this new sociopolitical project of belonging, and to be able to trace the actual shift in power dynamics, it requires appropriate methodological tools. A key progress of contemporary cosmopolitan debate is its attentiveness to transforming a philosophical ideal into an interpretative framework that shed new insights on social changes. Emphasis was put on cosmopolitanization as a process rather than a static status. Contemporary theorization also extends the investigatory scope both “downward” and “inward” so as to capture its multiplicity of effects. When social actors are liberated from the conviction that nation-state citizenship is their only source of power and influence, and recognize their prerogative of dipping freely into the different social assemblages, it opens up their perceptions of rights, obligations, and access to social resources (both material and immaterial) (Skey 2013; Zhang 2015). A corresponding “liberation” of the social scientists is thus needed. That is, a liberation from presupposed categories of significance or units of research, and to conduct open examination of new patterns of social interactions as they happen. The social milieu of country-specific studies remind me not of a “container,” of which the boundaries are clear and inflexible, but of the classic desktop toy PinPressions, in which thousands of sliding metal pins (individual social actors) within a rectangular frame (national borders) forms a three-dimensional sculpture (social setting) that is open to “on the spot” (contexutalized) remodeling whenever objects (specific issues) are pressed onto them. Methodological Cosmopolitanism’s alleged commitments to the fluidity and contingencies of social boundaries and to going beyond a Eurocentric theorization hold much promise. But the journey has just started. It requires much more input from empirical investigation and experiments from diverse regions and of different topics for Methodological Cosmopolitanism to become full-fledged and to fully realize that promise.

References Apple Inc. 2012. Apple Supplier 2012 Progress Report. http://images.apple.com/supplierrespons ibility/pdf/Apple_SR_2012_Progress_Report.pdf. Appiah, K.A. 2005. The Ethics of Identity. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Brook, T. 2007. Vermeer”s Hat: The Seventeenth Century and the Dawn of the Global World. New York and London: Bloomsbury Press. Beck, U. 2002. The Cosmopolitan Society and Its Enemies. Theory Culture & Society 19 (1–2): 17–44. Beck, U. 2006. The Cosmopolitan Vision. Cambridge: Polity Press. Beck, U. 2011. Multiculturalism or Cosmopolitanism: How Can We Describe and Understand the Diversity of the World? Social Sciences in China 32 (4): 52–58. Beck, U., and E. Grande. 2010a. Varieties of Second Modernity: The Cosmopolitan Turn in Social and Political Theory and Research. The British Journal of Sociology 61 (3): 409–443. Beck, U., and E. Grande. 2010b. Jenseits des methodologischen Nationalismus. SozialeWelt 3 (4): 187–216.

188

J. Zhang

Beck, U., A. Blok, D. Tyfield, and J.Y. Zhang. 2013. Cosmopolitan Communities of Climate Risk: Conceptual and Empirical Suggestions for a New Research Agenda. Global Networks 13 (1): 1–21. Bohman, J. 2007. Democracy Across Borders: From Dêmos to Dêmoi. Cambridge Massachusetts: MIT Press. Calhoun, C. 2003. Belonging” in the Cosmopolitan Imaginary. Ethnicities 3 (4): 531–568. Chang, K. 2010. The Second Modern Condition? Compressed Modernity as Internalized Reflexive Cosmopolitization. British Journal of Sociology 61 (3): 444–464. Delanty, G. 2009. The Cosmopolitan Imagination: The Renewal of Critical Social Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ferguson, B., and M. McCarthy. 2009. Countdown to Copenhagen: The “people’s summit”. In The Independent (UK). http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/countdownto-copenhagen-the-peoples-summit-1831098.html. FON (Friends of Nature), Institute of Public & Environmental Affairs (IPE), Green Beagle. 2011a. The other Side of Apple. Beijing. FON (Friends of Nature), Institute of Public & Environmental Affairs (IPE), Green Beagle, Envirofriends, Green Stone and Environmental Action Network. 2011b. The Other Side of Apple-II: Pollution Spreads Through Apple’s Supply Chain. Beijing. Harvey, D. 2000. Cosmopolitanism and the Banality of Geographical Evils. Public Culture 12 (2): 529–564. Harvey, D. 2009. Cosmopolitanism and the Geographies of Freedom. New York: Columbia University Press. Held, D. 2010. Cosmopolitanism: Ideals and Realities. Cambridge: Polity. Hennerz, U. 1990. Cosmopolitans and Locals in World Culture. Theory, Culture & Society 7: 237–251. Kant, I. 1795. Toward Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch. In Toward Perpetual Peace and Other Writings on Politics, Peace, and History. 2006 edn, ed. P. Kleingeld. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Kant, I. 1798. Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View. In Toward Perpetual Peace and Other Writings on Politics, Peace, and History. 2006 edn, ed. P. Kleingeld. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Kwok-Bun, C. 2002. Both Sides, Now: Culture Contact, Hybridization, and Cosmopolitanisam. In Conceiving Cosmopolitanism: Theory, Context and Practice, ed. S. Vertovec and R. Cohen, 191–208. Oxford: Oxford University Press. IPE (Institute of Public & Environmental Affairs). 2012. IPE Green Alliance client information index: Apple (Kehu qiye jiansuo: Pingguo). http://www.ipe.org.cn/alliance/t_detail.aspx?name= 苹果. Mau, S., J. Mewes, and A. Zimmermann. 2008. Cosmopolitan Attitudes Through Transnational Social Practices? Global Networks 8 (1): 1–24. Nussbaum, M. 1997. Kant and Stoic Cosmopolitanism. Journal of Political Philosophy 5 (1): 1–25. Nuttall, C. 2012. Apple Agrees to China Pollution Audit. Financial Times. http://www.ft.com/intl/ cms/s/0/0fa8897c-86ec-11e1-ad68-00144feab49a.html#axzz1vbXBV5cL. Pacific Environment. 2012. China. http://pacificenvironment.org/section.php?id=183. Ong, A. 2005. (Re)Articulations of Citizenship. PS: Political Science and Politics 38 (4): 697–699. Ong, A., and S.J. Collier. 2005. Global Assemblages: Technology, Politics and Ethics as Anthropological Problems. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Skey, M. 2013. Why Do Nations Matter? The Struggle for Belonging and Security in an Uncertain World. The British Journal of Sociology 64 (1): 81–98. Tyfield, D., and J. Urry. 2009. Cosmopolitan China: Lessons from International Collaboration in Low-Carbon Innovation. British Journal of Sociology 60 (4): 793–812. Urry, J. 2011. Climate Change and Society. Cambridge: Polity. Vertovec, S., and R. Cohen (eds.). 2002. Conceiving Cosmopolitanism: Theory, Context, and Practice. New York: Oxford University Press.

11 Globalization, Cosmopolitanization, and a New Research Agenda

189

Wallerstein, I. 2006. European Universalism: The Rhetoric of Power. New York, London: New Press. Wang, H., and M.L. Chen. (2006). China civil environment movement: The third force is struggling forward. Xinhua News Website. http://news.xinhuanet.com/environment/2006-10/20/content_5 226743.htm. Accessed 20 Oct 2006. Xie, X. 2011. Apple Wakes Up to Chinese Pollution Concerns. The Guardian (UK). http://www.gua rdian.co.uk/environment/2011/oct/04/apple-chinese-pollution-concerns. Accessed 4 Oct 2011. Zhang, J.Y. 2010. The Cosmopolitanization of Science: Experience from China”s Stem Cell Scientists. Soziale Welt 61: 255–274. Zhang, J.Y. 2015. Cosmopolitan Risk Community and China’s Climate Governance. European Journal of Social Theory 18 (3): 327–342. Zhang, J.Y., and M. Barr. 2013. Green Politics in China: Environmental Governance and StateSociety Relations. London: Pluto Press.

Joy Zhang is a Chinese-born British sociologist with a first degree in medicine and teaching at the University of Kent, UK. Her expertise is on the transnational governance of scientific uncertainty, with a focus on the Sino-European context. Her work on the life sciences and climate science contributes to cosmopolitan social theories by empirically examining how actors in non-Western societies capitalize on the concept of global risk and how this gives rise to new modes of social intervention.

ON POLITICAL GLOBALIZATION

Chapter 12

Global Transformations in Polity, Policy, and Politics: World Polity, Europe, and the Nation-State Didem Buhari Gulmez

Abstract This chapter discusses the global transformations at the interrelated levels of polity, policy, and politics by following three views of globalization as (1) a “re-” process or the continuation of an old system in disguise, (2) a “de-” process underlying the dismantling of old borders and systems, and (3) a “post-” process that focuses on the emerging phenomena and new, hybrid structures. The first section explores the changing nature of the international system with a special focus on global, national, and European polities, respectively. It covers the debates about world order, national sovereignty, and self-determination and looks at the complex relationship between European integration and globalization. Secondly, at the policy level, the chapter focuses on changing security policies with a special emphasis on new wars, new terrorism, human security, and securitization. After discussing the polity and policy dimensions of globalization, the chapter focuses on politics in terms of ideologies, including the political stances toward globalization. Overall, the study suggests looking at political globalization as a complex and multidimensional phenomenon that involves not only “re-” and “de-” processes but also “post-” processes that transform and go beyond the taken-for-granted understandings about polity, policy, and politics at global, regional, and national levels.

Introduction There are at least three main views of political globalization that define it as the continuation, the end, or the transformation of the established structures and processes: (1) Globalization as a “re-” process; (2) Globalization as a “de-” process; (3) Globalization as a “post-” process. Firstly, globalization as a “re-” process implies that globalization is reduced to an “empty signifier” or a myth that reinforces an already well-established system such as imperialism, liberalism, or capitalism. Hence, globalization is merely an “old wine in new bottles.” Secondly, political globalization is seen as an unprecedented, revolutionary series of events that challenge and blur, if not D. B. Gulmez (B) Department of International Relations, Izmir Katip Celebi University, Cigli, Izmir, Turkey e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 I. Rossi (ed.), Challenges of Globalization and Prospects for an Inter-civilizational World Order, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44058-9_12

193

194

D. B. Gulmez

dismantle, traditional structures, boundaries, and hierarchies. Hence, globalization involves the rise of “de-” processes such as deterritorialization, denationalization, and the “end” of taken-for-granted notions such as nation-state, ideology, history, and Westphalian era. Thirdly, political globalization is defined as a transformative process that alters the temporal and spatial forms of key political phenomena with an emphasis on the rise of new types of sovereignty, war, terrorism, solidarity networks, and geographies of power. Therefore, political globalization is associated with “post” processes involving the rise of post-territorial, post-ideological, post-Western, postneoliberal, postregulatory, and postnational phenomena in world politics. This study will consider the complexity of globalization in terms of involving “re-,” “de-,” and “post-” processes at the same time since globalization is an iterative, multifaceted, and non-unidirectional process. Ongoing debates about who governs the globe raise several questions about the world order. Is the world system best defined with multipolarity, unipolarity, or nonpolarity? Is the world order changing due to the rising powers in the East? How can one conceptualize the roles of transnational actors and institutions, including international organizations, international financial institutions, epistemic communities, International Courts, and global civil society that emphasize democratization and human rights? Some scholars (Meyer et al. 1997) point to an emerging world polity that is reflected upon global isomorphisms associated with the spread of policies and institutions to dissimilar states in various policy domains ranging from education to migration, from same-sex marriage to ombudsmanship, from environment to sports. Others point to globalization as an external force that replaces the authentic culture with emptiness or “nothingness” (Ritzer 2007). The “fragmegrative” (Rosenau 2003) nature of global transformations—deriving from the simultaneous unifying and disintegrating forces of globalization—paves the way for the formation of at least two different views around the concepts of “grobalization” (Ritzer 2003) and “glocalization” (Robertson 2003). While the grobalization view tends to reduce globalization to Americanization or Westernization, the glocalization approach disagrees with the claim that globalization is under the control of a particular state or authority and is merely serving the interests of particular centers or powers. According to glocalization, the interplays between global—norms, standards, universalistic blueprints, templates, frames, discourses, and rules—with local, regional, and national contexts create hybridities that are not easily predictable. As globalization is a multifaceted and dynamic process, it involves both grobalization and glocalization dynamics. It cannot be fully designed and controlled by a particular center or state. However, it is noted that globalization can sometimes become a strategic instrument at the hands of national governments which find in the notion of globalization a “scapegoat” for their own failures. By blaming globalization— or “external forces”—for creating and perpetuating social, cultural, economic, and political crises in the national arena many governments try to evade responsibility and conceal their lack of political will to solve domestic and international problems. This chapter will discuss political globalization and its implications with a focus on the global transformations at the interrelated levels of polity (the form of politically organized units such as nation-states), policy (the content of plans of action within a polity), and politics (the process through which political actors struggle

12 Global Transformations in Polity, Policy, and Politics …

195

for control over the political system). Firstly, it will study the transformation of global, national, and European polities as regards the changing nature of international system, sovereignty, and power. Then, it will explore how policies and visions about war and security are shifting due to globalization. Finally, it will review the ongoing debates about political ideologies, including the political and normative stances toward globalization among others.

Global Transformations at Polity Level: Toward a New World Order? This section discusses the effects of globalization at macro-, micro-, and mesolevels by focusing on global polity (world order), national polity (nation-state), and European/regional polity (European Union), respectively. The Westphalian system of nation-states relies upon international anarchy that pushes states to an eternal search for power maximization, self-sufficiency, and relative gains. Emphasizing the scarcity of resources, the international system encourages protectionism and selfhelp, especially in times of crises. Following the failure of the post-WWI order based on idealism, the post-WWII era provides an international order that reflects both a realist focus on power hierarchies among states and liberal collective security efforts relying on “win-win” strategies and harmony of interests. Most significantly, the modern world order is based on “complex interdependence” (Keohane and Nye 1987) associated with globalization. Contrary to Marxist scholars who focus on the dependency between the West and the rest—which is reinforced by the global capitalist system—the neoliberal notion of complex interdependence emphasizes the establishment of a harmony of interests, a culture of compromise, dialogue, and multilateral diplomacy in world politics through various processes and mechanisms such as: • Democratization: the spread of ideas associated with liberal democracy, human rights, and the rule of law based on the assumption that converting states to liberal democracies would end up pacifying world politics, • Free trade and shared economic interests that serve to limit wars and transform militarized states into trading states that abandon the strategies of economic selfsufficiency and military dominance and hold a different vision of security and development based on interdependence. • Social and cultural exchanges promoted by states and civil society actors that benefit from new communication and transportation technologies in order to establish new solidarity networks across national borders, • Increasing political dialogue through international organizations, international norms, international regimes, and platforms that serve as peaceful channels to express dissent and resolve conflicts,

196

D. B. Gulmez

• Introducing political rules, norms, and mechanisms that seek to create a condition of peaceful coexistence between the Western hegemon and the rising powers in the East, • Establishing an international society of states that resorts to political and economic sanctions and interventions against authoritarian states that show belligerency and fail to comply with the Western standards of civilization. The end of the Cold War brought back identity politics to the fore and new theoretical tools have become necessary to understand the post-Cold War international system as seen in Huntington’s thesis of the clash of civilizations. State-centric and ideology-based approaches lost their explanatory power vis-a-vis the rise of non-state actors that demonstrate the ability to not only constrain but also constitute state and societal perceptions of national identity and interests. In addition, the so-called “postpost-Cold War” era proclaimed after September 11 refers to the dynamic nature of the international system and emphasizes that the mainstream approaches to security and survival are no longer valid due to the blurring and transformation of boundaries between inside and outside. The literature on post-Westernization (Delanty 2006) points to the rising hybridities and complexities that are not easily reduced to binary oppositions. Hence, it is no longer possible to distinguish Europe from Asia, the West from the rest, domestic from external, or national from foreign based on cultural, religious, social, political, and economic divides. Given the complexity of global transformations, the nature of the global order remains elusive. While the US predominance in the world system cannot be overlooked, the rise of non-Western powers (BRICs) and non-state actors raises questions about the future evolution of the world order. Multinational corporations, international governmental and non-governmental organizations, non-state-armed actors, and International Courts such as the International Criminal Court that penalizes individuals who commit crimes against humanity, and individuals such as “hacktivists” who are able to challenge the national security of the US superpower are among the main non-state actors that contest the Westphalian system of nationstates. While the idea of multipolarity finds an echo in the elite circles of rising powers such as Russia and China, the concept of “non-polarity” may be more useful to grasp the complexity of the world order. Multipolarity implies the continuation of the state-centric Westphalian system that experiences a power transition from the West to the East. Alternatively, a non-polar world order indicates power transformation in terms of substantial normative and cognitive changes in the system, actors, and visions—with a special emphasis on the rise of non-state actors, transborder institutions, and cross-border regions. Here, the international regime—a collection of rules and norms that limit state behavior in issue-specific areas such as environmental protection, health and safety, economic development, and trade, among others—plays an important role in the global arena. Rather than merely power-driven or interest-driven mechanisms, international regimes are actors that teach innovative thinking and policies to nation-states (Hasenclever et al. 1997).

12 Global Transformations in Polity, Policy, and Politics …

197

Another debate about the future of political globalization is whether the new world order denotes “de-globalization” or a return to power politics and self-help. The dismantling of global institutions and mechanisms reinforcing complex interdependence among nations, states, and individuals may also bring a “neo-medieval” system of overlapping authorities. The decision of African nations to withdraw from the membership of the International Criminal Court (ICC) as a reaction to the US refusal to ratify the Rome Statute of the ICC demonstrates that institutions promoting a global vision are still deficient vis-a-vis national governments. The lack of a central authority at the global level—defined as “international anarchy” in International Relations—provides a context where all sovereign states are equal in principle but they nevertheless unevenly experience the effects of globalization. As observed in the Iraqi invasion of 2003, powerful states can even bypass the United Nations when they perceive the global institution as an obstacle against their national interests. The current order provides a mixture of realist power politics with liberal ideas on how to strengthen the role of the United Nations and other international organizations promoting a global vision. After discussing the effects of political globalization at the macro-level in terms of the changing nature of the world order, the following section will focus on the micro-level, i.e. the nation-state.

National Sovereignty and Self-determination: The End of the Nation-State? The traditional understanding of national sovereignty and self-determination in the Westphalian system relies upon the principle of non-interference stipulated in the United Nations Charter. Hence, nation-states do not interfere with the internal affairs of other nation-states. The United Nations Charter also acknowledges the selfdetermination right of people who wish to establish an independent nation-state and seek international recognition based on the principle of non-interference. The traditional view of sovereignty and self-determination assumes that it is possible to insulate oneself from external interference as if the boundaries between inside and outside were impermeable. This view can no longer hold in the absence of clear boundaries between inside and outside. In a highly interdependent world, it is no longer possible to completely control the flows of people, goods, and ideas that affect the domestic arena. This renders the non-interference model of national sovereignty and self-determination partially obsolete (Roepstorff 2013). Globalization has blurred the boundaries between internal and external and challenged the taken-for-granted assumptions about national sovereignty and self-determination. Facilitating mobility and migration, globalization has paved the way for a “decoupling of nation and state” (Delanty and Rumford 2005). Accordingly, national governments are facing important transformations in terms of their roles and responsibilities toward both nationals and foreigners. Some scholars (Held and McGrew 2003) ask whether this is the end

198

D. B. Gulmez

of nation-state that allegedly lost sovereignty due to the blurring of inside/outside boundaries and the rise of non-state actors. This view emphasizes the “de-” processes of globalization. An important “de-” process that challenges the traditional view of national sovereignty is deterritorialization which refers to a decoupling between territory and sovereignty. As early as the late 1950s, Herz (1957) denounced the “demise of territorial state” stating that national security was no longer based on the control of territory due to the invention of atomic bomb. Today, it is possible to add transnational terrorist networks that involve both “foreign fighters” and “home-grown terrorists” to the list of factors that challenge nation-states. Secondly, Rosecrance (1996) points to the rise of virtual states that rely on the mobile factors of production, foreign investment, and internationalization rather than raw materials and self-sufficiency in an interdependent world where capturing more territory is no longer an effective strategy to increase national wealth. National economic development is increasingly related to mobile factors of production, especially in an era where agriculture without land has become possible due to technological advancements. Moreover, national governments can transfer state funds abroad in the case of a foreign invasion as the Kuwaiti government did during Saddam’s invasion (Rosecrance 1996). Rather than the “end” of nation-state and national sovereignty, an alternative approach is to focus on the “transformation” of national polity and sovereignty. The transformationalist thesis of globalization resonates with the definition of globalization as a “post-” process. Accordingly, the notions of national sovereignty and self-determination are redefined in a post-Westphalian context as “non-domination” instead of non-interference (Young 2007). As an alternative to the “non-interference” thesis, the view of non-domination allows a better grasp of global complexities, taking into account the blurred boundaries between the domestic and the external (Roepstorff 2013). According to the non-domination thesis, all units within the global system are interconnected and co-constitutive, which reinforces a focus on “the world-as-a-whole” (Robertson and Buhari-Gulmez 2016). Unlike the mainstream approach that defines sovereignty and self-determination as domestic resistance to and insulation from global flows, the non-domination thesis argues that national sovereignty and self-determination are products of globalization and are prone to change in line with global transformations. A complementary view based on glocalization is that the interactions between global scripts and national context result in a multiplicity of forms, understandings, and values associated with sovereignty and self-determination (Roudometof 2014). In the post-Westphalian context, those who seek sovereignty and self-determination do no longer seek complete control over a certain territory and society because they understand that the principle of non-interference has become redundant under the effects of globalization. As interferences between communities are inevitable due to globalization, they aim for “non-domination” models of interference and power-sharing. Hence, rather than secession (external self-determination), they opt for “internal self-determination” such as confederation, federation, decentralization, and devolution based on power-sharing and non-domination relationship between polities and communities (Young 2007). This goes hand in hand with the rise of

12 Global Transformations in Polity, Policy, and Politics …

199

the postregulatory state whose authority relies less on formal hierarchies and more on non-state institutions and norms in dealing with a more complex society where multiple actors at subnational, national, and supranational levels express varying, if not conflicting, demands. Hence, the understanding of sovereignty evolves in line with new actors, new demands, and new visions. The globalization of liberal values has also affected the processes through which emerging states are recognized as sovereign. International community decides on the fate of secessionist polities based on a liberal conditionality with a special emphasis on minority rights, human rights, and the rule of law. A liberal democratic character and a peaceful break-away from the parent state—ideally with the consent of the parent state or as a “remedial right” against an illiberal government that resorts to discrimination and violence—are the main preconditions for international recognition (Roepstorff 2013). In addition, the post-Westphalian system refers to the rise of regional actors such as the European Union which often acts as a pacifying and liberalizing force in Europe and elsewhere. The scholarship on Europeanization discusses how member states’ pooling of sovereignty and transfer of decision-making power to the European Union’s supranational institutions empower nation-states rather than weakening them (Milward 1994). Besides, the transformative effects of European integration on secessionist communities such as Scottish and Catalan people can be studied in terms of shifting the preference of the community in question from external to internal self-determination. The following section discusses the effects of globalization on the European polity. Often depicted as a “laboratory for globalization” (Rosamond 2002), the European political integration project will be discussed in order to explain the role of globalization in constraining and constituting European sovereignty and power with an emphasis on the Eurozone, Brexit, and refugee crises.

European Polity European integration was launched after WWII as an attempt to put an end to the historical conflicts among European nations. Two simultaneous processes have turned an economic cooperation mechanism to a political Union: (1) a “deepening” process that refers to a closer integration among member states through supranational institution-building and (2) “widening” process that aims at geographically extending the Union by recruiting new member states. Although the main motivation of European integration was political—to ensure peaceful relations among European nations and prevent a future war on the European continent—the lack of political will for a complete political unification and the risk of “free-riding”— implying the national governments’ tendency to evade responsibility and burdensharing—delayed the rise of the European Union as a global actor in world politics. During the Cold War, Europeans relied on American security guarantees and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization while focusing on the reconstruction of their war-torn economy and infrastructure. Over time, European governments learned to

200

D. B. Gulmez

cooperate in the economic sector and related domains, which eventually led to the development of a habit of cooperation in political issues—which is known as the spillover effect of integration. The end of the Cold War brought a new dynamic to European integration and transatlantic alliance following the dissolution of the Soviet Union that was perceived as a common threat to the liberal democratic West. The post-Cold War era saw the rise of “two Wests” (Habermas 2006). The Western liberal camp faced a division after the rise of Europe that assumed a distinct political identity based on the 1993 Maastricht Treaty and then 2009 Lisbon Treaty. The European Union presenting an alternative identity based on multilateral diplomacy, a partial transfer of state sovereignty to supranational institutions and a preference for using soft power instruments such as persuasion, trade, and aid, has become a “model” for other regions that sought to promote good neighborly relations, economic development, and political stability in a time where globalization “hits” domestic arena strongly. Thus, the European integration based on pooling sovereignty appears as an effective strategy to “manage” globalization in terms of viewing globalization as an opportunity-challenge structure rather than merely a threat (Rumford and Buhari 2014). By acting together, Europeans have shown that it is possible to grasp the opportunities associated with globalization while protecting the region from its pernicious effects. However, the “Eurozone crisis” disheartened those who saw in European integration a “Fortress Europe” that is designed to protect nation-states against globalization. Rather than blocking globalization, European integration serves as a “laboratory” for globalization in terms of demonstrating the effects of interconnectedness and awareness of sharing common problems that no national government can solve on its own. Rather than building a Fortress Europe, European integration encourages complex interdependence with non-European parts of the world. Hence, when the Eurozone crisis hit the EU member states, the solution involved non-European global actors including, The IMF, the US, China, among others. In this sense, the European Union reinforces transnational governance that implies the coordination of policy decision-making and implementation at local, regional, national, and global levels involving both non-state and supranational actors. As regards the security and defense domain, the failure of an independent European “actorness” in the Balkan conflicts of the 1990s motivated European efforts to develop a common foreign policy, including a common approach to defense and military affairs which slowly but steadily ensued in spite of the Atlanticist and Eurosceptic trends within the EU that opposed a full political unification. For Euroskeptics and Atlanticists, intergovernmentalism in foreign and security policy should prevail over the European supranational sovereignty that might bring significant independence of the EU institutions from the European national governments. While Atlanticist members of the European Union such as the United Kingdom prefer to rely on NATO’s continued guarantees for the security and defense of Europe, Euroskeptics point to the European military weakness and lack of a single voice in the global political arena. The ongoing political unification efforts led by European institutions and Europeanist members of the Union (such as France) provoke debates about whether European integration has become a threat to democracy and sovereignty in

12 Global Transformations in Polity, Policy, and Politics …

201

many European nation-states. For its part, “Brexit,” i.e., the decision of the UK— known for its Atlanticist and Eurosceptic stance—to leave the EU, seems to have strengthened Europeanist efforts toward military unification rather than weakening it as increasingly emphasized by French and German leaders who invited all Europeans to take responsibility for the future of European continent against Russia, China, and the United States. As the Lisbon Treaty—that was signed in 2007 and entered into force in 2009—consolidated the position of a “High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy”, the EU began to take initiatives such as the establishment in 2011 of the European External Action Service (EEAS), the launch of the Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) in December 2017 and the European Intervention Initiative (EI2) advocated by France in June 2018 within the context of the EU’s Common Security and Defense Policy. It takes a step forward toward a more autonomous European actorness in the world as a “security provider” rather than merely a “security consumer” that relies on the US-led NATO (Buhari Gulmez and Gulmez 2020). European efforts to assume a leadership role in its wider neighborhood derive from the belief that the European Union can present an alternative model of “normative power” that would contribute to the peaceful resolution of conflicts in the world politics as opposed to past hegemons that resorted to imperialism and colonialism. According to Manners (2002), what makes Europe a normative power in the global arena is mainly its adoption and promotion of global values and norms enshrined in the United Nations Charter. In this context, it is plausible to argue that the boundaries between European and global are becoming fuzzy (Meyer 2001). Contrary to the idea that European actorness is blocked or constrained by the global, European actorness has been largely constituted and shaped by the global. Overall, Europe is not operating in a void as if it was an insular island (Buhari-Gulmez 2017). Global transformations affect and shape European visions, identities, polities, politics, and policies. This challenges the Eurocentric approaches that view European transformations as immune to and separate from globalization and external interferences (Rumford and Buhari-Gulmez 2015). On the contrary, European integration helps to create postnational borders that challenge the traditional distinction between foreign and national and expand the governments’ responsibility toward non-nationals. The Syrian refugee crisis demonstrated the ongoing divisions within the EU, given the resistance of East European countries such as Hungary and Slovakia against a common refugee policy and the idea of “postnational membership”(Soysal 1994) imposing on European governments additional responsibilities toward non-nationals. The rise of far-right in both Eastern and Western parts of Europe (and in other parts of the world) reflects that those who see globalization as the main culprit for social, cultural, economic, political, and refugee problems are gaining ground. Populist calls for inward-looking self-help policies and separation from the European integration process started to find a greater echo in European publics. The rise of populism goes hand in hand with Euroscepticism and emphasizes the collective perception of a coconstitutive link between European integration and globalization. One of the main reasons for domestic opposition to European refugee policy relies on the perceived

202

D. B. Gulmez

linkage between security threats and migration. The following section will discuss how national visions and policies in the domains of war and security are transforming in the context of globalization.

Global Transformations at the Policy Level Global transformations at policy level often emphasize the view that conceives of globalization as a “post-” process rather than a “re-” or a “de-” process. For instance, the ongoing debates about “new war” and “new terrorism” are based on the assumption that globalization has altered the nature of war and terrorism. Traditional understandings and methods are no longer sufficient to grasp the wars and terrorist activities that take place in the global context. As regards the thesis of “new wars,” Kaldor (2013) argues that today’s wars are no longer made on a particular battlefield by two standing armies officially representing two nation-states. New actors, new goals, and new methods determine new wars. In addition to armies, new wars involve new actors such as mercenaries, private security contractors, jihadists, warlords, and foreign fighters who do not even wear a uniform. While previous wars were made on the basis of geopolitical and ideological goals, new wars are often fought over identity. Rather than capturing new territory by invading other countries, the actors of the new wars know that territorial aggrandizement is no longer the main component of national wealth and progress. They seek to benefit from the continuation of the wars in order to consolidate their exclusive identity and reserve the existing resources for their own nation, tribe, and identity group. New wars tend to be never-ending wars since globalization allows non-state armed actors to coalesce across national borders, receive funding from the diaspora or sponsor the war through pillage and human, oil, diamond, and drug trafficking. Besides, digital currencies such as Bitcoin help non-state actors to bypass the national governments in financing wars and terrorist activities. Similarly, the idea of “new terrorism” implies that globalization has changed how terrorist networks are built and operate. Terrorist groups such as Al-Qaeda and ISIS are motivated by religious fanaticism based on a global vision about Muslim solidarity beyond national borders. They launch mass-casualty attacks and view the world as a whole rather than focusing on a particular territory. They actively use social media to recruit new members, propagate disinformation and anti-Westernism and they resort to cyberterrorism which proves a serious threat against the existing security and financial systems. Those who criticize the idea of “new terrorism” overlook the different characteristics of today’s terrorist groups defined with a global membership, global intentions, and a horizontal network structure that lacks a particular hierarchical order, leader, or center (Kurtulus 2011). In this context, traditional security policies face serious challenges in the global era. A redefinition of security is necessary in terms of grasping the multidimensional, complex, and dynamic nature of security. The United Nations’ emphasis on human security points to the interconnectedness between security and many other policy

12 Global Transformations in Polity, Policy, and Politics …

203

areas—such as economy, environment, energy, development, education, health— that were traditionally seen as of secondary importance compared to national security policy. The concept of human security is a critique of the mainstream tendency to focus on national security and military threats. The traditional approach to security tends to consider war as inevitable, which reinforces the feeling of insecurity and justifies the expansion of military power. However, there are cultural, social, historical, and human elements in security, which require a complex approach focusing on food security, economic security, political security, community security, and their interrelationship. This leads to a shift of regulatory activities to the transnational level through sector-specific regimes, intergovernmental organizations, and private governance in terms of dealing with the rising asymmetric threats associated with globalization. Furthermore, new policies derive from the securitization of certain locations, themes, and policy areas. Securitization implies a political process through which an issue that is not normally perceived as related to security is becoming a matter of security. By securitizing an issue, political elites can easily legitimize extraordinary restrictive measures and even violence since the securitized issue is no longer open to public debate. For instance, the migration from Islamic countries has been increasingly connected to the rise of new terrorism by the Western media and political circles, which has paved the way for the securitization of migration. A new understanding of security as a complex and multifaceted phenomenon leads to greater activism in the international arena. The United Nations General Assembly adopted the doctrine of Responsibility to Protect in order to legitimize a humanitarian intervention in failed states that cannot protect their own citizens. The rise of international interferences into the domestic affairs of non-Western states raises debates about whether former colonizers might abuse the doctrine of Responsibility to Protect in order to maintain their hegemony over the non-Western societies. These debates also relate to a general question about whether global top-down policies should be replaced by glocal solutions. An increasing tendency of the international community to collaborate with regional organizations such as the African Union to deal with African problems favors glocal policies that reconcile top-down and bottom-up approaches. Emphasizing the diffusion of policies and institutions to dissimilar states in various policy domains ranging from education to migration, from same-sex marriage to ombudsmanship, from environment to sports, Meyer et al. (1997) argue that there is an emerging world polity that shapes how policy-makers decide on what is appropriate and legitimate. Yet, the world polity is conflicted. It often spreads contradictory norms. It reinforces national sovereignty while encouraging self-determination and humanitarian intervention. The global spread of certain policies doesn’t mean that the world is becoming homogeneous. On the contrary, the policies in question are implemented in different ways as seen in the case of ombudsmanship that is granted diverse responsibilities and value in different regional and national contexts (BuhariGulmez 2011).

204

D. B. Gulmez

Politics in the Global Context: Toward a Post-ideological Era? In the realm of politics, globalization is often used interchangeably with Westernization and/or Americanization. The rise of “catch-all” pragmatic parties and the mediatization of political campaigns are often depicted as the spread of American way of doing politics to the rest of the world. When the Soviet Union fell, Fukuyama (1992) announced the “end of history,” assuming that the ideological competition of the Cold War had been won by Western liberal democracy. This Western-centric evolutionary thinking suggested that non-Western societies would eventually adopt the Western liberal democracy (Huntington 1997: 66). Yet, the rise of Islamic, farright, and anti-capitalist movements that criticize the liberal democratic culture has challenged the global spread of liberal democracy. While the study of democratization gained some popularity during the “transition” of former communist countries to liberal democracy in the 1990s, today the main focus has shifted to understanding the reasons of “democratic backsliding” in the Balkans, Europe, Turkey, and even in the United States, among others. The failure of welfare state to prevent rising socioeconomic and political inequalities, as well as the negative effects of individualist–consumerist culture associated with neoliberalism, undermine the popularity of the mainstream Western models in Europe, the United States, and the rest of the world. The perceived pernicious effects of globalization lead to greater insecurity among political elites and pave the way for the rise of neopatrimonialist clientelism where a small circle of families and friends benefit from the state resources undermining liberal democratic politics. Economic crises and the rise of populist and nationalist rhetoric hit the West as strongly as the rest, showing that globalization is not merely a reassertion of Western dominance over the world. Whether one lives in the West or elsewhere, one finds oneself in a “risk society” (Beck 1992) requiring a new mindset. Rather than globalization as a “re-” process that instills the Western political mindsets, some scholars refer to political globalization as a “de-” process. Hence, the “end of ideology” is a recurrent theme that has been discussed since the late 1950s (Bell 1960). It relies on the assumption that the explanatory power of traditional political ideologies has significantly declined in contemporary politics and society. The end of the Cold War marked the blurring of the boundaries between left and right and the rising political apathy in both Western and non-Western parts of the world. Political programs have become increasingly obsolete since televised performances of political party leaders often suffice to satisfy voters (Talshir 2005). The end of the Cold War coincides with the rise of “identity politics” based on gender, ethnic, national, and religious differences. Identity conflicts replaced the Cold War conflicts over grand ideologies. This raises debates about whether the post-Cold War politics can be defined as “post-ideological.” New social movements are seen as ‘post-ideological’ as they fail to follow a coherent set of political projects (Dalton and Kuechler 1990: 281). As observed in the Occupy protests and the Arab uprisings neither parochial visions nor ideological

12 Global Transformations in Polity, Policy, and Politics …

205

left-right divides explain the dynamics of political mobilization in the post-Cold War era (Axford et al. 2017). Political discontent is expressed through various channels that are not only associated with local and national but also global organizations, including media, civil society, and international Courts. New communication technologies help to restructure social and political relations and play a greater role in influencing both international and national politics (Axford 2013). New ideas about the “world as a single place” motivate cosmopolitanist thinking in politics that encourage multiculturalism, transnational solidarity, and global campaigns for a fair allocation of natural resources. While cosmopolitanism insists on establishing global ethics in shaping politics and society, communitarianism emphasizes the diversity of local and national needs, wants, and interests that should be preserved. Globalism as an ideology also affects politics in terms of looking for political solutions and support across national borders. The main ideological stances toward globalism are hyper-globalism, anti-globalism, and alter-globalism. According to hyper-globalists, globalization is a set of opportunities and provides a constitutive and legitimating environment for nation-states and non-state actors to maximize their interests and project their power beyond national borders. Anti-globalists tend to disagree. They focus on the challenges and threats globalization poses to national and local identities and interests and they call for a dismantling of global organizations that reinforce social, economic, and political inequalities. For their part, alter-globalists are similarly critical of current institutions and processes of globalization and ask for more egalitarian, just and fair globalization. Unlike anti-globalists, they do not call for an end to global processes. They wish to alter the trajectory of globalization toward a more humane and just system. “Another World is Possible” is a popular motto used in the World Social Forum that resonates with alter-globalism. According to alter-globalists, globalization does not “wipe out” the nation-state or local identities. The relationship between identity and globalization is complex, if not paradoxical. Identity groups such as feminists gain ground due to globalization, while some religious communities such as Islamists feel threatened by globalization. Yet, even the communities that see globalization as a threat also benefit from, adapt, and contribute to globalization (Lechner 2009). The thesis of ‘secularization’ created the illusion that religion had disappeared from world politics (Robertson 2007: 17, 2009: 459). The emerging discourse about ‘the return of religion’ as associated with the ‘war on terror’ is therefore misleading because it misrepresents religion as the ‘bogeyman’ of the modern world, implying backwardness, hostility, and radicalism (Robertson 2007: 17, 2009: 459). Popular theses such as “West versus Islam” or “Jihad versus McWorld” (Barber 1992) fail to do justice to the existing culture wars within Islam and the resulting differential impact of globalization on Islamic movements and national identities (Robertson 2007: 24). Religion cannot “return” to national politics because it never left (Robertson 2007: 23). In particular, ‘religion has become a major vehicle for the expression of national identities’ in the global era (Robertson 2009: 461). Globalization facilitates both the mobility and mobilization of religious identities (Robertson 2007: 23).

206

D. B. Gulmez

In particular, the relationship between Islam and the West is worth attention as Islam divides the world between Muslims and non-believers (Brubaker 2012: 15). Western capitalism, industrialization, and nationalization are thought to have led to Islamic radicalization by disrupting Islamic traditions (Gellner 1981). While some think that the essence of Islam will remain anti-modern (Brubaker 2012: 14), others believe that Islam may essentially change and adjust itself to modern conditions à la West (Piscatori 1986). There are many Islamic communities who participate in national politics by using the ‘grammar’ of modern nationalism (Friedland 2002). Overall, there have been significant changes in how politics is done and understood due to globalization. The theses about the end of ideology and history remain deficient as it is crucial to grasp the transformations and the “new politics” that explain the post-Cold War politics.

Conclusion This chapter covers different dimensions of political globalization in terms of its implications for nation-states, European regionalism, and the world polity. It mainly deals with the global transformations at the interrelated levels of polity, policy, and politics by benefiting from three main approaches to globalization that define globalization as (1) a “re-” process or the continuation of an old system in disguise, (2) a “de-” process that emphasizes the dismantling of old borders and systems, and (3) a “post-” process that focuses on the new and hybrid structures that emerge due to globalization. In the first part, the chapter looks at the changing nature of the international system with a special focus on global, national, and European polities, respectively. It covers the debates about the evolution of the world order and the future of the Westphalian system of nation-states. After a brief overview of the debates about national sovereignty and self-determination, it explains the theses about the end of the nation-state and the transformation of the nation-state that resonate, respectively, with the “de-” and “post-” processes of globalization. As regards the European polity the study discusses the complex relationship between European integration and globalization in light of the Eurozone crisis, Brexit, and refugee crisis. It highlights the view that rather than merely a barrier against globalization, the European Union can be seen as an attempt at “managing” globalization. It also emphasizes that European actorness in world politics is based on the co-constitutive link between European integration and global visions, actors, and projects. In the second part, the chapter covers the debates about security policies with a special focus on new wars, new terrorism, human security, and securitization concepts. It demonstrates how globalization changes the nature of security and security threats. In this context, national governments become more aware of the interconnectedness of security with other policy areas as well as the significance of non-state actors. Lastly, the chapter deals with the ongoing debates about politics by

12 Global Transformations in Polity, Policy, and Politics …

207

focusing on political ideologies, including the political and normative stances toward globalization such as hyper-globalism, anti-globalism, and alter-globalism. Overall, the study suggests looking at political globalization as a complex and multidimensional phenomenon that involves not only “re-” and “de-” processes but also “post-” processes that transform and go beyond the taken-for-granted understandings about national, global, and regional polities, policies, and politics.

References Axford, B. 2013. Theories of Globalization. Malden, MA and Cambridge: Polity. Axford, B., D. Buhari-Gulmez, and S.B. Gulmez. 2017. Rethinking Ideology in the Age of Global Discontent Bridging Divides. London: Routledge. Barber, B. 1992. Jihad Versus McWorld. In The Atlantic monthly. http://www.theatlantic.com/mag azine/archive/1992/03/jihad-vs-mcworld/303882/#disqus_thread, March 1. Beck, U. 1992. Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity. London: Sage Publications. Bell, D. 1960. The End of Ideology. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Brubaker, R. 2012. Religion and Nationalism: Four Approaches. Nations and Nationalism 18 (1): 2–20. Buhari-Gulmez, D. 2011. Ombudsmanship and Turkey’s Europeanization in ‘World Society’. Journal of Contemporary European Studies 19 (4): 475–487. Buhari-Gulmez, D. 2017. Europeanization in a Global Context: Integrating Turkey into the World Polity. London and New York: Palgrave MacMillan. Buhari Gulmez, D., and S.D. Gulmez. 2020. Towards an autonomous European defense? A comparative analysis of French, Polish and German perspectives in the post-Brexit era. Global Affairs, advanced online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/23340460.2020.1776628 Dalton, R., and M. Kuechler (eds.). 1990. Challenging the Political Order. Cambridge: Polity Press. Delanty, G. 2006. Europe and Asia Beyond East and West. London and New York: Routledge. Delanty, G., and C. Rumford. 2005. Rethinking Europe: Social Theory and the Implications of Europeanization. Abingdon, New York: Routledge. Friedland, R. 2002. Money, Sex and God: The Erotic Logic of Religious Nationalism. Sociological Theory 20 (3): 381–425. Fukuyama, F. 1992. The end of History and the Last Man. New York: Free Press. Gellner, E. 1981. Muslim Society. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Habermas, J. 2006. The Divided West. Cambridge: Polity Press. Hasenclever, A., P. Mayer, and V. Rittberger. 1997. Theories of International Regimes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Held, D., and A. McGrew. (eds.). 2003. The Global Transformations Reader: An Introduction to the Globalization Debate. 2nd edn. Cambridge, UK: Polity. Herz, J. 1957. Rise and Demise of the Territorial State. World Politics 9 (4): 473–493. Huntington, S.P. 2002 [1997]. The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. London: Free Press. Kaldor, M. 2013. In Defence of New Wars. Stability: International Journal of Security and Development 2(1). http://www.stabilityjournal.org/articles/10.5334/sta.at/. Keohane, R., and J. Nye. 1987. Power and Interdependence Revisited. International Organization 41 (4): 725–753. Kurtulus, E.N. 2011. The ‘New Terrorism’ and its Critics. Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 34 (6): 476–500. Lechner, F.J. 2009. Globalization: The Making of World Society. New York: Wiley Blackwell.

208

D. B. Gulmez

Manners, I. 2002. Normative Power Europe: A Contradiction in Terms? Journal of Common Market Studies 40 (2): 235–258. Meyer, J.W. 2001. The European Union and the Globalization of Culture. In Institutional Approaches to the European Union, ed. S.S. Andersen, 227–245. Oslo: Arena. Meyer, J., J. Boli, G. Thomas, and F.O. Ramirez. 1997. World Society and the Nation-State. American Journal of Sociology 103 (1): 144–181. Milward, A.S. 1994. The European Rescue of the Nation-State. London: Routledge. Piscatori, J.P. 1986. Islam in the World of Nation-States. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Ritzer, G. 2003. Rethinking Globalization: Glocalization/Grobalization and Something/Nothing. Sociological Theory 21 (3): 193–209. Ritzer, G. 2007. The Globalization of Nothing. 2 edn. Thousands Oaks: Sage. Robertson, R. 2003. Globalisation or Glocalisation? In Globalization: Critical Concepts in Sociology, ed. R. Robertson and K. White, 31–52. London and New York: Routledge. Robertson, R. 2007. Global Millennialism: A Postmortem on Secularization. In Religion, Globalization and Culture, ed. P. Beyer and L. Beaman, 9–34. Leiden & Boston: Brill. Robertson, R. 2009. Globalization, Theocratization, and Politicized Civil Religion. In The Oxford Handbook of the Sociology of Religion, ed. P.B. Clarke, 451–477. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Robertson, R., and D. Buhari-Gulmez (eds.). 2016. Global Culture: Consciousness and Connectivity. Farnham, UK: Routledge. Roepstorff, K. 2013. The Politics of Self-determination: Beyond the Decolonisation Process. Abingdon and New York: Routledge. Rosamond B. 2002. Globalisation and the European Union. In Conference on the European Union in International Affairs, National Europe Centre, Australian National University, 3–4 July. Rosecrance, R. 1996. The Rise of the Virtual State. Foreign Affairs 75 (4): 45–61. Rosenau, J.N. 2003. Distant Proximities: Dynamics Beyond Globalization. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Roudometof, V. 2014. Nationalism, Globalization and Glocalization. Thesis Eleven 122 (1): 18–33. Rumford, C., and D. Buhari. 2014. The ‘World Society Turn’ in European Studies. In Handbook of European Politics, ed. J. Magone, 910–925. London and New York: Routledge. Rumford, C., and D. Buhari-Gulmez (eds.). 2015. Europe and World Society. Farnham, UK: Routledge. Soysal, Y. 1994. The Limits of Citizenship. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Talshir, G. 2005. The Phoenix of Ideology. Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 8 (2): 107–124. Young, I.M. 2007. Global Challenges: War, Self-determination and Responsibility for Justice. Oxford: Polity press.

Didem Buhari Gulmez is an Associate Professor in International Relations at Izmir Katip Celebi University. Her works include Europeanization in a Global Context: Integrating Turkey into the World Polity (Palgrave, 2017); Global Culture: Consciousness and Connectivity (with R. Robertson) (Routledge, 2016).

Chapter 13

The Politics of the Adjective Global: May’s Global Britain and the ‘New World’ Sabine Selchow

Abstract The adjective global has come to be an omnipresent ingredient of contemporary politics discourses. There is hardly anything these days that is not attributed with this adjective in one context or another. Most recently, in the context of the Brexit-debate, “Britain” has been relaunched by UK Prime Minister May as “global Britain”. This chapter engages with then adjective global. It argues that the omnipresence of the adjective global is not just a linguistic curiosity, nor is it “simply” a symbolic manifestation of a “global” consciousness. Rather, the widespread use of global is a political phenomenon. It constitutes the discursive reproduction of a web of meanings that is best labelled “new world”. As such, the use of the adjective global demands critical scrutiny from political analysts. The aim of the chapter is twofold. First, it outlines this theoretical argument. Second, it discusses the politics of the adjective global in UK Prime Minister Theresa May’s post-Brexit use of the term global Britain.

Introduction Since 1990s, the English adjective global has seen a remarkable rise in popularity. From Pope Francis to ‘the market’ and ‘the South,’ almost everything has been premodified with global, in one context or other. Most recently, it was US President Trump’s America First-campaign and the Brexit rhetoric of UK PM Theresa May in which the adjective has prominently featured: for the former, it is the “global elite” that is to be blamed for the perceived downfall of the US (Trump 2017); for the latter, (post-)Brexit-Britain is “global Britain” (May 2016). Of course, the proliferation of the adjective global has not been overlooked by critical observers (e.g., Albrow 1996; Shiva 1998; Abu-Lughod 1991). Yet, systematic engagements with the contemporary adjective global and the web of meanings it is embedded in are rare. This is a lacuna worthy to be closed because, as I show in this chapter, such an endeavor reveals that the contemporary adjective global is S. Selchow (B) The University of Sydney, 7/39 Frenchs Roads, Sydney, NSW 2068, Australia e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 I. Rossi (ed.), Challenges of Globalization and Prospects for an Inter-civilizational World Order, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44058-9_13

209

210

S. Selchow

much more than the signifier of a particular scale that stands in line with local, national, and international. I argue, the use of the contemporary adjective global constitutes a powerful symbolic practice, through which the discursive realm ‘new world’ is produced. This, in turn, is a distinctly loaded discourse at the heart of the contemporary symbolic negotiation of social reality. The aim of this chapter is threefold. It develops the above argument, introduces the use of the adjective global as a valuable object of study for political scientists, and presents the key findings of an empirical study of global in UK PM May’s public contributions to the negotiation of social reality.

The Contemporary Adjective Global as a ‘New’ Word The contemporary adjective global is a new word. Of course, the linguistic sign global is not a recent invention. Even its ‘dictionary life’ has been relatively long. Although global did neither appear in what is often seen as the first monolingual English dictionary, namely Cawdrey’s A Table Alphabeticall of Hard Usual English Words from 1604 (Cawdrey 1966[1604]), nor in Johnson’s 1755 A Dictionary of the English Language (Johnson 1983[1775]), it has been a feature of the influential A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles from 1901, which is the foundation of what has come to be called the Oxford English Dictionary (see further Selchow 2017, pp. 29–31). Since 1901, global has been a permanent inhabitant of all kinds of English dictionaries, which provide the adjective’s meanings as, or similar to, “pertaining to or embracing the totality of a number of items, categories, etc.; comprehensive, allinclusive, unified; total; spec. pertaining to or involving the whole world; worldwide; universal” (A Supplement to the Oxford English Dictionary 1972, p. 1240). Dictionaries are fascinating publications that give a sense of how certain words have been used within a distinct corpus of (mainly written) texts that were compiled under the supervision of the dictionaries’ respective editors. What is fascinating about them is that, more often than not, dictionaries are unreflectively used as if they were objective bearers of the ‘natural’ and ‘real’ meanings of words (see, for instance, the reference to the dictionary meanings of the words global and globalization in Scholte (2005, pp. 50–52)); as linguist Weekley (1924) observes, “almost the only individual to approach the sacred book [dictionary] in the spirit of a doubter is the lexicographer himself.” Yet, dictionaries are not neutral collectors and custodians of a language that is ‘out there’; rather than mirroring the standard of a language, they actually determine it (see Willinsky 1994; Stubbs 1996). Dictionaries do not provide the meaning of a word because the meaning of a word does not exist. As Eagleton (1983, p. 128) explains, the meaning is a “constant flickering of presence and absence together,” filtering through language like a web-like shadow. This means that dictionaries do not only just provide context-free meanings of linguistic signs generated through the analysis of a curated corpus of texts but are also always already “out of date as soon as they are published” (Gramley and Pätzold 2004, p. 26), because the language has ‘moved on.’

13 The Politics of the Adjective Global …

211

In regard to the contemporary adjective global, I argue that, since 1990s, the English language has moved on and brought out global as a new word.1 As lexicographer Hargraves (2004, p. viii) explains, a word is usefully called ‘new’ if there is “something genuinely innovative about [it] hitherto unnoted in dictionaries.” What is ‘innovative’ and has gone ‘hitherto unnoted’ about the contemporary global, I argue, is its close relationship with the word globalization. As demonstrated in detail elsewhere (Selchow 2017, pp. 53–68), a study of how the contemporary adjective global is actually used in public and scholarly discourses reveals that it is a product of what is best-called globalization-discourse, that is, the talk about the world with the help of the noun globalization. This means, in addition to the myriad of other (and intended) meanings that are conveyed with global in the various contexts in which it is used, what all contemporary uses of the adjective global have in common is that they imply the idea ‘globalisation’—no matter if this is intended and made explicit or not. Hence, a systematic examination of the contemporary use of global reveals its new meaning is ‘outcome of globalisation.’ Turning this around, it is valid to say that whenever the contemporary adjective global is used the globalization-discourse is produced and altered (see further Selchow 2017, pp. 135–141).

The Globalization-Discourse as a Discourse of the ‘New World’ The insight that the contemporary adjective global comes out and, therewith, helps producing the globalization-discourse is noteworthy because of the nature of the globalization-discourse. I use the word discourse to refer to a web of meanings that is produced through language (and practices) and that disciplines what is sayable, doable, and thinkable, while constantly being reproduced and altered (e.g., Foucault 1972; Doty 1993). Following this idea of ‘discourse,’ the globalization-discourse is the web of meanings that is reproduced and altered when the word globalization is used. This brings up the question: what does the noun globalization refer to? As it is apparent in the contributions to this edited collection, the word globalization is polysemic; depending on the perspective of the language user, it is applied to refer to issues and processes as diverse as the integration of markets, the movement of people, a growing consciousness of the world as one place, and much more. Hence, texts with the word globalization are part of a variety of discourses, such as the web of meanings around liberal ideas of market integration, issues around social and political belonging, or collective perceptions of the world. What is usefully called the globalization-discourse, however, I argue, is the web of meanings around what 1 This is actually not the first time that the word has been identified as ‘new’. There have been three

instances before: in 1954 and 1955, global was identified as ‘new’ due to its (then) ‘new’ sense of ‘worldwide’ (Macdonald 1954: 94; Reifer 1955: 93); and in 1991, Tulloch (1991: 133) identified the following ‘new’ meaning: “In environmental jargon: relating to or affecting the Earth as an ecological unit. Used especially in: global consciousness […]; global warming […]” (see further Selchow 2017, p. 65).

212

S. Selchow

all the diverse uses of the noun globalization have in common. To understand what this is, we need to reflect on the birth and proliferation of the noun globalization. The noun globalization was invented in the 1980s and gained popularity in the 1990s, at which time it settled in the English vocabulary to capture all kinds of social, political, and cultural processes (see further Selchow 2017, pp. 75–80). As Sen (2001) and others point out, many of the realities that the neologism globalization has come to capture are/were not necessarily new, in the sense of historically unprecedented. Nevertheless, using one of Foucault’s expressions (1981, pp. 61), it was only at the beginning of the 1990s that ‘globalisation’ came to be “in the true” and the neologism globalization came to be a socially accepted and ‘normal’ linguistic tool to grasp the world. The reason why this was possible was that at that time there was the widespread perception that there was something ‘new’ about this world, which required a new linguistic tool and made it possible for the neologism globalization to enter. The fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the bipolar block system after 1990 was widely perceived as a caesura that made obsolete much of the established conceptual tool kit with which the social world had been made sense of until then. After 1989, there was a widespread perception that “old truths had lost their validity” (Daase and Kessler 2007, p. 412), that “basic concepts of political discourses are contested [and that] epistemological or diagnostic considerations need to be reconsidered” (ibid., p. 420). “The irruptions in the established order and traditional practices of statecraft have given many of international politics’ customary modes of analysis an air of nostalgia,” observed Campbell (1998[1992], p. ix). They were perceived as demanding a breakout from the “conceptual jails in which the study of world politics is deemed to be incarcerated,” as Rosenau (1990, p. 22) put it. Hence, underlying everything else, it was the perceived ‘newness’ of the world that allowed the neologism globalization to enter the language (bringing along a myriad of different meanings, playing into a myriad of different discourses). This means that the globalization-discourse, i.e., the web of meanings that is produced when the word globalization is used, is a discourse of the ‘new world’; that is, a web of meanings that implies that there was something ‘new’ about the world.

The Loaded Discourse ‘New World’ There are two kinds of proclamations of the ‘new world.’ The first one is the promise of a ‘new world’ to come, which is a familiar feature of political discourses; there is hardly anybody running for office who does not promise ‘the new’ and assures that they make everything ‘new,’ like President Clinton (1997; emphasis added) in his 1997-Inaugural Address: “We need a new Government for a new century. […] The promise we sought in a new land, we will find again in a land of new promise. In this new land, education will be every citizen’s most prized possession. […] Yes, let us build our bridge, a bridge wide enough and strong enough for every American to cross over to a blessed land of new promise.” In this first kind of proclamation of the ‘new world,’ the ‘new world’ is a better future that will come into being through action

13 The Politics of the Adjective Global …

213

and agency in the present; it is a better world in the making (see further Selchow 2017, pp. 102–108). In comparison, the idea of the ‘new world’ that is at the heart of the globalizationdiscourse is a different, the second kind of ‘new world.’ Its proclamation is not about an imagined future world that will come into being through agency ad action in the present but a world that already is. It is a reality in which actors (suddenly) find themselves, as opposed to one that is to be designed by them. It is a new world that came and that actors are confronted with, rather than one that is to come and of their making. What makes this second idea ‘new world’ intriguing and loaded is that its proclamation insinuates that it is a neutral observation of the state of the world; it is not about a future that might come, which inevitably is apparent as being an interpretation, but a supposed observation of the now, of the very reality, that actors are (passively) confronted with. In this sense, this kind of proclamation of the ‘new world’ is a powerful practice. As elaborated elsewhere, this is apparent for instance in George W. Bush’s post-9/11 proclamation that a ‘new world’ had come which, covering as mere observation, symbolically produced a break with history and, consequently, opened the discursive space that made the subsequent military intervention in Iraq thinkable, i.e., possible (see further Selchow 2014; also Selchow 2017, pp. 100–102).

The Use of the Adjective Global as an Object of Study for Political Scientists A synergy of the above discussion brings out the use of the contemporary adjective global as a powerful practice. Due to the distinct historical relationship between global and the word globalization, and due to the nature of the globalizationdiscourse, the use of global is part of the production of the discourse, that is, the web of meanings ‘new world.’ This, in turn, is a loaded discourse because it is a web of meanings that produces the social world by insinuating that it was an objective observation of this world ‘as it is.’ The loadedness of the discourse ‘new world,’ as well as its empirical relevance, which is manifest in the proliferation of the words global and globalization, makes the use of the contemporary adjective global a valuable object of study for political scientists, because it enables empirically grounded insights into an important aspect of the contemporary symbolic negotiation of social reality. Such empirically grounded insights are particularly valuable if one starts on the premise that the contemporary organization of social life is shaped by profound challenges, such as human-induced climate change and damages to ecosystems, an increase in inequality and a widening of the poverty gap. Following sociologist Beck (1994, 2006), these challenges are not ‘just’ the negative side effects of the way social life is organized, and, hence, could be tackled by improving and progressing the existing institutional structure; on the contrary, they are the very ‘success’ of modern social organization. This means

214

S. Selchow

that these challenges are inherent in the modern way of life, its very structure, and its premises (such as the premise and promise of economic growth or the premise that societies form lockable national containers). If the aim is to productively deal with the profound challenges humanity is facing, such as human-induced climate change and the destruction of ecosystems, a consequence of the above is that a radical reimagination of institutions and their premises is needed. Such a reimagination needs to move beyond nothing less than what Beck (2006, pp. 90) calls the ‘national perspective’ (see also Selchow 2016a). The ‘national perspective’ is a perspective that imagines societies as national societies and, in profound and almost invisible ways, shapes much of the contemporary organization of social life, including its knowledge production. Yet, it mismatches the world in which we actually live, as Beck argues, which is a world of ‘cosmopolitised’ realities, in which ‘cosmopolitisation’ is a social process that happens as a side effect of (even ‘national’) actions, and inevitably brings the ‘global other’ in the midst of other ‘global others’—no matter if this is acknowledged by social actors or not (Beck 1994, 2006; also in detail Selchow 2016a; Blok and Selchow 2017). As Grande (2006) elaborates, it is a world in which boundaries are “ambiguous,” “incongruent” (in the sense that economic, political, social, and cultural boundaries do no longer co-exist), and “contingent” (meaning that, more than ever, they have become the subject of individual and collective decisions and, what is more, they have to be permanently continued to be decided). Hence, it is a world that enforces decisions and, at the same time, necessitates the development of new grounds and procedures for these decisions (ibid.; also Beck et al. 2004, p. 15). It is a profoundly ‘ambivalent’ world (Beck 2006: 34). This ambivalence is particularly intriguing when it comes to territorial and social boundaries (territory and membership), which are constitutive of political systems (Grande 2006, p. 91, with reference to Rokkan 1999). The contemporary mismatch between territorial and social boundaries means that the heart of political systems is up for negotiation; if one understands the term sovereignty to refer to the spaces in which national institutions can define the content, form and reach of their policies, legitimized by internal acceptance and consent (Grande 2006, p. 91), this negotiation then is a negotiation of sovereignty and, as such, goes to the heart of and necessitates the explicit negotiation of the nation-state, i.e., the dominant way in which political space is imagined and organized across the planet. In such a historical context then, the study of the use of the adjective global, constitutes a focused way for political scientists to generate concrete empirical insights into how the ambivalent contemporary world is symbolically reproduced and where and how openings are imagined or possibilities for new pathways are symbolically ‘tamed’ (see in detail Selchow 2017).

For Example: Brexit and the ‘New World’ On 29 March 2017, the UK Government under PM Theresa May notified the European Council of the UK’s intention to withdraw from the EU in accordance with

13 The Politics of the Adjective Global …

215

Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union, a move called Brexit. Brexit constitutes a remarkable historical moment because it has enforced the explicit re-negotiation of hitherto taken-for-granted institutions and premises; it has opened an unprecedented space for the re-imagination of the political world. At the same time, it is an event in the context of which the adjective global plays a role; this is apparent in the UK PM’s public contributions to the negotiation of social reality and the curious expression ‘global Britain’ that May used in a speech in October 2017. The combination of the significant historical event and the explicit use of the adjective global is enough to ask: How does the practice of the use of global look in the context of May’s public contributions to the negotiation of social reality in this distinct historical moment? How is the discourse ‘new world’ filled with meanings? In light of the foundational challenges to our existing institutions and their premises, which possibilities of thinking beyond Beck’s ‘national perspective’ are symbolically opened, that is, made thinkable, or closed? To answer these questions, I built a corpus of all documents that the UK Government website (gov.uk) provides under the category ‘speech’ for Former PM Theresa May for the period of her taking office in 2016 and the end of April 2018. The corpus consisted of 108 files with a total word count of just under 182,500 words. In order to be able to detect noteworthy particularities in the use of language in my corpus of interest, I compiled a reference corpus (see Baker 2006, pp. 43–44) of speeches by May’s predecessor PM David Cameron, adding up to the same number of words. I first approached my corpus in an inductive way by looking at concordances and co-occurrences in order to detect patterns in the use of the adjective global. The software AntConc, a popular and open concordance software that is used in corpus analyses,2 served as the basis for an interpretation of how the ‘new world’ is filled with meanings through the use of the adjective global and which possibilities for a radical reimagination of institutions and their premises are made thinkable or symbolically ‘tamed’ (for this strategy see further Selchow 2016a, b). Figure 1 as well as Tables 1 and 2 offer the findings of my preliminary study of the use of the adjective global in the corpus of PM May’s speeches.

Global in Former UK PM May’s Public Contributions to the Negotiation of Social Reality Global is a stable ingredient in May’s public contributions to the negotiation of social reality after the UK’s Brexit-decision. The adjective is used 308 times across 108 speeches; it appears in 57% of May’s speeches at least once (the reference corpus (RC) holds 92 uses of the adjective across the same number of words). Notably, there are 10 speeches in which global appears more than 10 times each. The majority of them (n = 7) were given in international forums; three speeches were given in a UK 2 For

an introduction to the software and the statistical premises that inform its functions, see the developer’s documentation (Anthony 2018).

216

S. Selchow

Fig. 1 The first ten most frequently ‘global’-co-occurrences in May’s speeches (in % of total uses of the adjective)

context: her speeches at the Lord’s Mayor Banquet in 2016 and 2017, and a speech entitled ‘The government’s negotiating objectives for exiting the EU,’ given on 17 January 2017. A concordance analysis of the entire corpus brings out that there are 90 different things that are attributed with the adjective global, hence, lifted into the discursive realm of the ‘new world’; these range from ‘Britain,’ ‘economy,’ and ‘challenges,’ to ‘elite,’ ‘reputation’ and ‘ties’ (See Table 1). In total this is an impressive number of ‘global’ issues that May brings into the negotiation of social reality, yet, compared to the reference corpus (with 52 different ‘global’ issues across a total of 92 uses of the adjective) and relative to the total number of uses of the adjective in her corpus, May’s application is less diverse. Indeed, a look at the co-occurrences of the adjective reveals that alone 14% of the total uses of global co-occur with one noun:

13 The Politics of the Adjective Global … Table 1 Nouns pre-modified with the adjective global in May’s speeches (total number of uses)

217

48

Global Britain

15

Global economy

12

Global trade

12

Global challenge/s

11

Global security

6

Global growth

6

Global norms

6

Global order

6

Global response

5

Global opportunity

5

Global prosperity

5

Global role

5

Global rules

5

Global stage

4

Global champion

4

Global cooperation

4

Global internet

4

Global issues

4

Global leadership

4

Global system

4

Global terrorism

3

Global advocate

3

Global approach

3

Global community

3

Global nation

2

Global coalition

2

Global concern

2

Global consensus

2

Global effort

2

Global finance

2

Global forum

2

Global GDP

2

Global hub

2

Global leader

2

Global networks

2

Global outlook

2

Global peace

2

Global power (continued)

218 Table 1 (continued)

S. Selchow 2

Global powers

2

Global reach

2

Global relationships

2

Global solutions

2

Global threats

2

Global voice

1

Global action

1

Global agenda

1

Global alliances

1

Global appeal

1

Global benefit

1

Global brands

1

Global climate

1

Global compacts

1

Global conference

1

Global danger

1

Global debate

1

Global elite

1

Global exports

1

Global fund

1

Global giants

1

Global governance

1

Global health

1

Global innovation

1

Global institutions

1

Global market

1

Global markets

1

Global matter

1

Global mission

1

Global multinationals

1

Global offer

1

Global oil

1

Global opinion

1

Global output

1

Global partner

1

Global phenomenon

1

Global player (continued)

13 The Politics of the Adjective Global … Table 1 (continued)

Table 2 Adjectives pre-modifying the noun Britain in May’s speeches (total number; excluding great as in Great Britain)

219

1

Global position

1

Global problem

1

Global problems

1

Global reputation

1

Global scale

1

Global standard

1

Global support

1

Global television

1

Global terror

1

Global threat

1

Global ties

1

Global tragedy

1

Global transition

1

Global uncertainty

1

Global warming

Global

48

Fairer

10

Stronger

4

Better

4

Meritocratic

3

Modern

1

Strong

1

United

1

Britain (n = 43). The co-occurrence of the adjective global and the noun Britain does not exist at all in the reference corpus (See Fig. 1). This means that the expression ‘global Britain’ is not just a single, incidental—albeit curious—linguistic move but constitutes a remarkable use of the adjective global in May’s public contributions to the negotiation of social reality post the Brexit-decision. Given its significance, it is worth focusing on. The expression ‘global Britain’ appears in a total of 18 speeches, given in international and UK settings alike. For the first time, the adjective global co-occurs with the noun Britain in May’s speech to the Lord Mayor’s Banquet on 14 November 2016: “I am clear that for a global Britain to thrive in a global economy, business is part of the solution” (May 2016). Notable is the earlier mentioned speech ‘The government’s negotiating objectives for exiting the EU,’ given on 17 January 2017, in which the co-occurrence global Britain features prominently. Here, ‘global Britain’ appears 11 times (May 2017e); in May’s speech at the World Economic Forum two days later it appears 7 times (May 2017a). As just noted, the co-occurrence global

220

S. Selchow

Britain does not appear at all in the reference corpus. This is despite the fact that the noun Britain is used by Cameron almost twice as often (n = 887) as by May (n = 487). And yet, it is never pre-modified with global. In fact, only three out of 887 uses in the reference corpus is the noun Britain pre-modified with any adjective (strong, greater, and modern). In comparison, in May’s speeches, in 14.5% of its uses, the noun Britain is pre-modified with an adjective, with global (n = 48), fairer (n = 10), stronger (= 4), better (= 4), meritocratic (n = 3), modern (n = 1), strong (n = 1), and united (n = 1).3 Hence, the use of global in combination with Britain is part of a general pattern and its frequency relative to the use of other adjectives (67%) within the corpus is remarkable. In fact, the used association measure MI demonstrates that the association between the adjective global and the noun Britain is meaningful.4 Two things are notable about the co-occurrence of global Britain. First, in 43% of the co-occurrences (n = 21) in the written, archived transcripts of the speeches, the adjective global is written with a capital ‘G,’ even though it is not used at the beginning of a sentence, for instance: “But the great prize for this country […] is to use this moment to build a truly Global Britain” (May 2017e), indicating a concept. Second, and moving to the semantic level, the use of global Britain can be divided into five non-exclusive categories: 1. ‘global Britain’ is something to be created (“I will talk more about our plans for economic reform, our plans to build a global Britain” (May 2017d)); 2. ‘global Britain’ is a reality (albeit an imagined one in the future) (“I am clear that for a global Britain to thrive in a global economy, business is part of the solution” (May 2016)); 3. the adjective global signifies one among other attributes of the signified of the noun Britain (“[W]e have the opportunity to reassert our belief in a confident, sovereign and global Britain” (May 2017b)); 4. the co-occurrence global Britain constitutes a distinct unit, a category (“As we build a new, bold, confident Global Britain […]” (May 2017a)); 5. the adjective global signifies an attribute of Britain that exists to different degrees (“[W]e are going to take this opportunity to forge a more global Britain” (May 2017c)). Looking at the first two categories, it is notable that the signified of the co-occurrence global Britain is twice as often something that exists as a reality (in the future) (Category 2) than something that is to be created (Category 1).

Global Britain and the ‘New World’ As developed in the main part of this chapter, the use of the contemporary adjective global brings out the discourse ‘new world,’ a powerful web of meanings that forms part of the negotiation of social reality. This makes the use of global a noteworthy practice and valuable object of analysis. The above-summarized examination of a relevant corpus shows that the practice of using global is a constant in May’s public leaves out the co-occurrence ‘Great Britain’ (n = 7). 5.87560; measured in AntConc; Settings: MI-score, 0-R1 span, minimum collocate frequency: 5.

3 This

4 MI-score

13 The Politics of the Adjective Global …

221

communication post the UK’s Brexit-decision; in fact, the adjective is applied about three times more often than in the reference corpus of speeches of her predecessor Cameron. There is a range of around 80 issues that are attributed to the adjective; particularly curious is the pre-modification of the noun Britain with the adjective global (refer back to Fig. 1). Bringing the above now together with the first, conceptual part of this chapter, the use of the term global Britain can be seen as a particular instance in the production of the discourse ‘new world.’ As such, its study helps us to gain concrete and empirical insights into the discourse ‘new world’ and the openings and closings it holds. Two interlinked insights that come out of such an examination are particularly interesting. First, the ‘new world’ is a web of meanings in which action happens within an environment that is divided into two distinct entities, called ‘the world’ and ‘Europe,’ and in relation to which the political unit ‘Britain’ comes into being. With its decision to leave the EU, the unit ‘Britain’ emerges from the entity ‘Europe’ as a confined unit and as an independent actor. This actor does not only exist independent and outside of ‘Europe’ but also outside of ‘the world,’ the second entity that constitutes the environment in which action happens in the web of meanings ‘new world.’ It is outside both entities that ‘Britain’ exists; it then makes conscious decisions to join or to remain outside, to interact, or to retreat. The unit ‘Britain’ decides “we are not leaving Europe” (May 2017e), “reach[es] out into the world” (May 2017e), “makes its offer to the world” (ibid.), and “gets into the world” (May 2017a). It is this distinct constellation of the two entities ‘Europe’ and ‘the world,’ as well as ‘Britain’ that brings out the latter as an active agent that has its fate in its hands and constitutes a stable and self-contained unit that exercises the choice of moving in and out of ‘Europe’ and ‘the world.’ Second, the ‘new world’ is a web of meanings that brings out a political environment in which there is a variety of actors whose identities are grounded in their relationship with the unit ‘Britain.’ There are ‘friends,’ ‘allies,’ ‘partners,’ and ‘nations.’ In fact, there are ‘old friends’ (n = 13; RC n = 0) and ‘new allies’ (n = 10; RC n = 0); there are also ‘new alliances,’ ‘new partners’ (n = 4; RC n = 0) and ‘new partnerships’ (n = 24; RC n = 0)—but there are no ‘new friends’ (n = 0; RC n = 0). Friendships and friends are relics of the past that are looked after but not actively sought by the unit ‘Britain.’ The future lies in strategic relationships, grounded in a transactional and instrumental rationale, which includes the relationship with “nations around the world,” which are actors with whom ‘trade relations are to be deepened’ (May 2018). Taking these two aspects together, we see that the web of meanings ‘new world’ that is produced in the use of the adjective global in May’s public contributions to the negotiation of social reality, more precisely, in her use of the co-occurrence global Britain, opens distinct possibilities for new imaginaries. This is due to the variety of actors that occupy the political environment in the web of meanings ‘new world.’ It is not restricted to traditional political actors, to nation-states but is open to all kinds of private but also civil and intergovernmental actors, opening the space for new actors to enter the world political stage. Inevitably, this opens the space for new imaginaries of institutional settings, governance constellations, practices, and, of course, ideas,

222

S. Selchow

potentially grounded in new premises. And yet, at the same time, this opening and the very scope of what is imaginable in and through the web of meanings ‘new world’ is limited and circumscribed in profound ways. This is because, although not predefined by international relations-thinking, they are pre-defined by their instrumental value to the unit ‘Britain.’ Overall, the political environment that is produced in the web of meanings ‘new world’ is one that is shaped by sharp and clear delineations between distinct, sovereign actors who stand in predictable relationships. While the grey zones that come with friendships are a relic of the past, the future of the unit ‘Britain’ and the political environment, in which it exists, is one that is defined by self-defined instrumental relationships between allies and partners. Through this, managerial premises are reproduced in and through the web of meaning ‘new world,’ which fundamentally ‘tame’ the existing openings and conserve the ideational foundations that, as sketched above, Beck identifies as undermining the contemporary institutional setting. Given, as sketched in the main part of this chapter, the web of meanings ‘new world’ constitutes a powerful aspect of the negotiation of social reality May’s distinct production of this discourse is remarkable.

Conclusion and Summary Social reality comes into being through language and practices which make it meaningful. The aim of this chapter was to illustrate that the contemporary adjective global plays a particular role in the production of social reality in that its use constitutes a practice through which a powerful web of meanings is produced: the discourse ‘new world.’ This argument was developed grounded in a systematic study of the rise of the adjective global after 1989 and the webs of meanings that have come to be linked to it, which shows that the contemporary adjective global is the product of the globalization-discourse, that is, the web of meanings that is produced whenever the word globalization is used. Looking at the birth of the word globalization and the historical moment, in which it was able to enter the language as a ‘legitimate’ and ‘needed’ linguistic tool to capture the world, the chapter argued that this web of meanings, i.e., the globalization-discourse, is a discourse of the ‘new world’; it is a web of meanings that constitutes and makes meaningful a world that is/was perceived as ‘new.’ This, in turn, identifies the contemporary adjective global as part of the production of the discourse ‘new world.’ The chapter went on to illustrate that it is this role of global that makes it intriguing and, in fact, powerful because the idea and proclamation that there was something ‘new’ about the world open a distinctly loaded discursive realm. What is loaded about this discursive realm is the insinuation that it was an objective observation of the state of the world as it is. Building on this insight and bringing it together with Ulrich Beck’s diagnosis of the state of the (‘cosmopolitised’) world, the chapter went on to introduce the use of the contemporary adjective global as a valuable object of study for political scientists, which enables empirical insights into an important aspect of the symbolic reproduction of social reality. The chapter closed by outlining how such an empirical study

13 The Politics of the Adjective Global …

223

of the practice of the use of global might look. The sketched-out analysis of UK PM May’s use of global and the web of meanings ‘new world’ that is produced through her co-occurrence global Britain demonstrated the value of such an analysis; in the case of May, it unveiled production of the ‘new world’ as a place of neat containers with defined and predictable relationships, negating the fundamental enmeshment of social actors and conserving the foundations of the challenges that Beck and others identify as undermining the contemporary world.

References A Supplement to the Oxford English Dictionary. 1972. vol. I, ed. R.W. Burchfield. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Abu-Lughod, J. 1991. Going Beyond Global Babble. In Culture, Globalization and the WorldSystem, ed. A. King, 131–138. Binghamton: SUNY Press. Albrow, M. 1996. The Global Age: State and Society Beyond Modernity. Cambrige: Polity Press. Anthony, L. 2018. AntConc (Version 3.5.7) Macintosh OS X 10.6-10.12. Tokyo: Waseda University. Baker, P. 2006. Using Corpora in Discourse Analysis. London: Continuum. Beck, U. 1994. The Reinvention of Politics: Towards a Theory of Reflexive Modernization. In Reflexive Modernization: Politics, Tradition and Aesthetics in the Modern Social Order, ed. U. Beck, A. Giddens, and S. Lash, 1–55. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Beck, U. 2006. Cosmopolitan Vision. Cambridge: Polity Press. Beck, U., W. Bonss, and C. Lau. 2004. Entgrenzung XXerzwingt Entscheidung: Was ist neu an der Theorie reflexiver Modernisierung? In Entgrenzung und Entscheidung, ed. U. Beck and C. Lau, 13–51. Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp. Blok, A., and S. Selchow. 2017. Risk Society. In The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Social Theory, ed. B. Turner et al. London: John Wiley & Sons. Campbell, D. 1998[1992]. Writing Security: United States Foreign Policy and the Politics of Identity. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Cawdrey, R. 1966[1604]. A Table Alphabeticall of Hard Usual English Words. A Facsimile Reproduction with an Introduction by Robert A. Peters. Gainesville, Florida: Scholar’s Facsimile & Reprints. Clinton, W. 1997. Inaugural Address. Daase, C., and O. Kessler. 2007. Knowns and Unknowns in the ‘War on Terror’: Uncertainty and the Political Construction of Danger. Security Dialogue 38 (4): 411–434. Doty, R.L. 1993. Foreign Policy as Social Construction: A Post-Positivist Analysis of U.S. Counterinsurgency Policy in the Philippines. International Studies Quarterly 37 (3): 297–320. Eagleton, T. 1983. Literary Theory: An Introduction. Oxford: Blackwell. Foucault, M. 1972. The Archaeology of Knowledge. London: Tavistock. Foucault, M. 1981. The Order of Discourse. In Untying the Text: A Post-Structuralist Reader, ed. R. Young, 48–78. London: Routledge. Gramley, S., and K.M. Pätzold. 2004. A Survey of Modern English. London: Routledge. Grande, E. 2006. Cosmopolitan Political Science. The British Journal of Sociology 57 (1): 87–111. Hargraves, O. (ed.). 2004. New Words. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Johnson, S. 1983[1775]. A Dictionary of the English Language. vol. 1. London: Times Books. Macdonald, A.M. 1954. The Lure of Dictionaries. English 10 (57): 93–96. May, T. 2016. PM speech to the Lord Mayor’s Banquet. 14 November. May, T. 2017a. Davos 2017: Prime Minister’s speech to the World Economic Forum. 19 January. May, T. 2017b. Prime Minister’s speech to the Republican Party Conference 2017. 26 January. May, T. 2017c. PM speech to Department for International Development staff. 27 March.

224

S. Selchow

May, T. 2017d. The Shared Society: Prime Minister’s Speech at the Charity Commission Annual Meeting. 9 January. May, T. 2017e. The government’s negotiating objectives for exiting the EU: PM speech. 17 January. May, T. 2018. PM’s speech in Cape Town 2018. 28 August. Reifer, M. 1955. Dictionary of New Words. New York: Philosophical Library. Rokkan, S. 1999. State Formation, Nation-Building, and Mass Politics in Europe: The Theory of Stein Rokkan. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Rosenau, J. 1990. Turbulence in World Politics: A Theory of Change and Continuity. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Scholte, J.A. 2005. Globalization: A Critical Introduction. London: Sage. Selchow, S. 2014. An Interplay of Traditions: The ‘Return of Uncertainty’ and its Taming in Post9/11 US Security Thinking. In Interpreting Global Security, ed. M. Bevir, O. Daddow, and I. Hall. London: Routledge. Selchow, S. 2016a. The Paths Not (Yet) Taken: Ulrich Beck, the ‘Cosmopolitized World’ and Security Studies. Security Dialogue 47 (5): 369–385. Selchow, S. 2016b. Resilience and Resilient in Obama’s National Security Strategy 2010: Enter Two ‘Political Keywords’. Politics 37 (1): 36–51. Selchow, S. 2017. Negotiations of the “New World”: The Omnipresence of Global as a Political Phenomenon. Bielefeld: Transcript. Sen, A. 2001. A World of Extremes: Ten Theses on Globalization. In Los Angeles Times. Shiva, V. 1998. The Greening of Global Reach. In The Geopolitics Reader, ed. G.Ó. Tuathail, S. Dalby, and P. Routledge, 231–236. New York: Routledge. Stubbs, M. 1996. Text and Corpus Analysis. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. Trump, D.J. 2017. President Trump Rally in Melbourne, Florida. https://www.c-span.org/video/? 424154-1/president-trump-holds-rally-melbourne-florida. Accessed 1 June 2018. Tulloch, S. 1991. The Oxford Dictionary of New Words. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Weekley, E. 1924. On Dictionaries: The Ever-Changing Role of the Lexicographer. In The Atlantic. Willinsky, J. 1994. Empire of Words: The Reign of the OED. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Sabine Selchow is a Research Fellow in the Laureate Program in International History at the University of Sydney, Australia, where she is in charge of the ‘Planetary Pasts and Futures’ research theme. She is the author of Negotiations of the “New World”. The Omnipresence of Global as a Political Phenomenon (2017, Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag).

Chapter 14

(Postmodern) Populism as a Trope for Contested Glocality Barrie Axford

Abstract The chapter addresses the latest political frisson to engage students of globalization and contentious politics the world over; the specter or promise of populism. Populism affords some purchase on an axial feature of this globalized world—the imbrication or antithesis of local and global, of difference and sameness—and gives it an intriguing twist. My argument will be that what I call postmodern populism holds up a mirror to current politics and the present phase of globalization; and what that shows is both unedifying—since it depicts easy solutions to perceived troubles—and in some respects more palatable, because it conjures images of a less curated, popular and engaged politics, both within, and heedless of, borders.

Introduction: Provenance In what follows, I tackle a troubling facet of the current phase of the global constitution; one that offers a gloss on the tensions between secular convergence and the potential for disruption. It focuses on the ways how the assumptions framing globalization—especially “market globalization” (Steger 2015)—and knowledge about the global are being reworked under crisis conditions. The discussion is couched in terms familiar to global scholars: those of global convergence and its discontent, hybridity, syncretism (with the latter two concepts implying cultural amalgamation), and, of course, glocalization, the manner in which local and global are articulated (Roudometof 2016). For many commentators, globalization implies secular integration. But that has always been too simple a description of a non-linear and often contradictory process; one that is increasingly de-centered (Nederveen Pieterse 2018). Above all, globalization is a multidimensional process moving to different impulses that inflect economic life, culture and, of course, politics. B. Axford (B) Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, UK e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 I. Rossi (ed.), Challenges of Globalization and Prospects for an Inter-civilizational World Order, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44058-9_14

225

226

B. Axford

Here, I privilege the latest political frisson to (re)engage students of globalization and contentious politics the world over; the specter or promise of populism. Populism affords some purchase on an axial feature of this globalized world—the imbrication or antithesis of local and global, of difference and sameness—and gives it a piquant twist. While, generally, anti-globalist in its “thin” ideology (Mudde 2004, 2015; Inglehart and Norris 2016, 2017) populism is also at odds with more politically congenial manifestations of anti- or alter-globalization. This makes it an uneasy bedfellow for much resistance to neoliberal globalization, even allowing for different shades of populist thinking. My argument will be that what I call postmodern populism holds up a mirror to current politics and the present phase of globalization, and what that shows is both unedifying and palatable. Unedifying because it offers what many see as false solutions to perceived troubles; more palatable, because it conjures images of a less curated, popular and engaged politics, both within, and heedless of, borders (Piccone 1995; Moffitt 2017; McKnight 2018). The latter motif does not eclipse the former as a description of postmodern populism but introduces some ambiguity when judging its merits as a disruptive and possibly transformative politics. The prefix postmodern is appropriate because it speaks to the reinvention of populism in the global, digital age. To reiterate, on the face of it, populism is the antithesis of globalization. Its most reported feature is the evocation of militant and pristine difference vested in “the people”—the virtuous people. The people are enjoined to resist the destruction of the particular, the local, and the idiosyncratic by remote and uncaring (global) elites, indifferent economic forces and a host of malign, or opportunistic, others. In a notable paradox, populists always appeal to “the people” as an inclusive subject but are selective about conferring membership; favoring those with “authentic” claims to a particular birthright. There is rarely a universal populism or even a claim for it. And yet, as Ferguson (2016) notes, “populists are nearly always part of a global phenomenon” and their appeal to the sense of powerlessness and injustice felt by “the people,” is populism’s enduring credo. Populism looks to co-opt the voice of the forgotten “ordinary” citizen and, in many cases, disports as the only begetter of genuine patriotism and authentic democracy (Zakaria 2016). As Donald Trump wrote in the Wall Street Journal (April 14, 2016), “(t)he only antidote to decades of ruinous rule by a small handful of elites is a bold infusion of popular will.” Norbert Hofer, who mounted an “Austria first” presidential campaign in 2016, berated his opponent “(y)ou have the haute volée (high society) behind you; I have the people with me.” In the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, elected president in 2016, fulminated against the failures of what he termed “elite democracy.” His revolt against it and his brand of strongman leadership find echoes around the world (Heydarian 2018). In the social sciences, the antinomy of sameness and difference is a driver of all social change, and, more to the point here, it is at the heart of the emerging field of global studies. In that pantheon, but probably more generally, the antinomy comprises a historical and spatial dialectic in which the vernacular engages (absorbs, resists, accommodates, succumbs to) more encompassing structures and

14 (Postmodern) Populism as a Trope for Contested Glocality

227

processes to produce, or just intimate, new forms of glocality (Roudometof 2016). When discussing populism as the medium through which local and global collide, the politics that results often displays visceral qualities. In many respects, the vision of a combustible politics is at odds with much current theorizing on the ways in which local and global interact. The interaction of local subjects with global processes is a clear example of the fluidity and complexity of global–modern lifestyles. But for the most part, this complexity is seen as negotiable, quite unlike the condition that affronts many locals who complain of being “left behind” by globalization. For those feeling abandoned, being neither local nor global, caught between somewhere and everywhere, has a disturbing resonance. Such tensions are at the heart of what David Goodhart calls the current “populist revolt” (2017). In Arjun Appadurai’s “geographies of anger” post-9/11, there is a visceral fear of strangers when they alight in the guise of terrorists, illegal immigrants, (some) refugees, and many categories of mobile labor (2006, 2013). The empirical worth of any binary is always open to question, regardless of its heuristic value, and sameness–difference is no exception. For the most part, critical global studies cleave to the view that in the engagement between sameness and difference, global and local, there can be no determined or determinate outcome. And unless you embrace hyperglobalist precepts—in which case globalization is always convergent, homogenizing and resolute—this may be a no-brainer since the world is full of paradox. Of course, what constitutes “global” conjures disparate visions of an autonomous cultural field, or a “self-evident” global scale, as Saskia Sassen has it (2006, 7). Rather more inchoately, the articulation of local cultural traditions and practices with global norms and scripts. In the latter scenario, it is the manner of their articulation that is compelling when examining the implications of the current spate of populism for different signifiers of globalization (open borders, market ideology and practice, multiculturalism, cosmopolitan tenets, and so on).

Local and Global Roland Robertson claims that globalization brings locales closer together materially and ideationally through various spatiotemporal transformations (2011, 2012). In this process, localities “cease to be things in themselves,” just as the very idea of locality gets reproduced and valorized globally. Clearly, one of the possible downsides of this approach is that it might simply reproduce the binary it rejects. Here, the global appears as a homogenizing force that will eliminate, or at least threaten, local difference. In turn, this utopian/dystopian prospect is countered by the obdurate nature of the local and, of course, because of its valorization. This is altogether too neat. Regardless, the local, however construed, is where implied global homogeneity gets articulated with the vernacular, both actual and metaphorical. Tellingly, theorists of glocalization refute the assumption that globalization processes always endanger the local. Rather, they argue that “glocalization both highlights how local cultures may critically adapt or resist ‘global’ phenomena”,

228

B. Axford

and reveal the way in which the very creation of localities is a standard component of globalization. There is now a universal normalization of ‘locality,’ in the sense that ‘local’ cultures are assumed to “arise constantly and particularize themselves vis-a-vis other specific cultures” (Giulianotti and Robertson 2006, 134). As I have noted, this process is often viewed as a benign accommodation. But with populism, we are often enjoined to think of it as a maverick strain or a pathological variant of localism. In most strains of populism, globalization, however construed, is debilitating, even demonic. The point here is not whether any such ascription is accurate, but to point up the political consequences of treating all strands of globalization in this way. For in populist rhetoric, accommodating global forces, possibly through hybridization, always appears, or can be portrayed as, a betrayal of the people or a loss of culture. Such roils make for a turbulent—and for some regressive—politics, as the Brexit process and the success of anti-immigrant platforms around Europe in 2017–2018 demonstrate. Giulianotti and Robertson (2006) employ a categorical scheme comprising four categories of cultural glocalization. In the social science of globalization, categorical nuances are useful, though where populism is concerned, only up to a point. Because, valuable as they are for delineating types of glocalization, it is not clear that any of them could entertain populism as a categorical variant of local–global relations. Its focus on local autonomy, even purity, is too empirically demanding as a possible glocal outcome. Instead, they all assume at least a modicum of change in the demeanor of local actors and cultures as the result of local–global entanglements. The categories are relativization, whereby social actors try to preserve their cultural institutions, practices, and meanings within a new environment, underpinning differentiation. Accommodation, involves actors adopting the practices, institutions, and meanings associated with other societies, to protect key elements of the prior local culture. Hybridization occurs when social actors synthesize local and other cultural phenomena to produce distinctive, hybrid cultural practices, institutions, and meanings. And finally, there is the possibility of transformation when actors incorporate the practices, institutions, and meanings associated with other cultures, or which are in accord with global culture. In this case, “transformation may procure fresh cultural forms or, more extremely, the abandonment of the local culture in favor of alternative and/or hegemonic cultural forms” (Loc. cit, p. 135). It is important to note that these outcomes are not predicated on the immutable properties of actors or processes. In other words, they are made through practice and in singular conditions. The categories are useful because they qualify the simple binary of local versus global, which informs much current populist rhetoric. Instead, ‘glocalization projects’ are the everyday strategies of local cultures as they engage global challenges (Giulianotti and Robertson 2006, 2007). This is some way from seeing the local as a reified entity and the global as an abstract and totalizing process. In what follows, these nuances of the global constitution are exemplified by addressing the features, variable appearance, and consequences of what may be an increasingly modal postmodern populism as a form of glocalism.

14 (Postmodern) Populism as a Trope for Contested Glocality

229

It is not necessary to depict this modus as a simple, atavistic response to “out there” global forces, or a form of selective autarky when used in political platforms that offer a nativist and exclusionary slant on migration, job protection and the preservation of cultural identity. Indeed, on the left of the political spectrum, twenty-first-century populism could even pass for a more elemental reflex or “double movement” to the trammels of neoliberal globalization, as prefigured in Karl Polyani’s work (1944). Often cast as a brand of resistance politics, this reflex plays out the dialectics of sameness and difference; domination and resistance, democratization and authoritarianism in glocal settings (Polanyi 1944; Block 2016; Pettifor 2017). And just as there are many varieties of globalization so might there be different shades of populism to confound or rescue it.

Populism in Its Variety In what follows, the appearance of different kinds of populism in local–global relations is rehearsed to weigh the prospects for a global systemic crisis or transformation. Postmodern populism is, or maybe, a driver of change in neoliberal practices and/or a reflex (or strategic) localism couched as resistance to globalist ideology and institutions. But there is also another, largely normative, aspect to the debates about populism. While postmodern populism exposes the failures of the neoliberal strain of globalization, is it progressive enough to champion the deep-seated economic complaints of “ordinary” people without discriminating against immigrants and trashing multiculturalism and democracy? This is not a simple calculation. If contemporary populism is a backlash against globalization—whether neoliberal or cosmopolitan—its appearance and relative success are due to a number of contextual factors. Among these are chronic economic, and especially financial, woes, anti-immigrant sentiment, perceptions, and experience of growing inequalities and disillusion with conventional politics and politicians. There is also disgust at widespread corruption in the governing classes. Populism holds out redemption from these travails, but in many accounts, it is sullied by its past and by its reputation. Even allowing for a “progressive” strain, outside the United States populism has always enjoyed a bad press, mainly because of its association with authoritarian, far-right, and even fascist tendencies, especially in Western Europe. As Inglehart and Norris (2016) note in their review of left–right populisms, previous analyses of parties and party ideologies on that continent have often associated populism with the Right, mainly because of the authoritarian cast of their leadership styles and treatment of dissenters, immigrants, and minorities. Terms such as “radical right,” “extremist right,” and “far-right” invest the literature with a degree of necessary categorical variety but, counter-intuitively, may actually underestimate the complexity of the wider picture. For conceptual richness still fails to capture some bespoke and local features of populist politics, parties, and movements around the world. For example, in the Americas, Eastern and Central Europe and Asia, some practitioners—Syriza

230

B. Axford

in Greece, Podemos in Spain and the late Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, come to mind—favor (ed) leftist economic policies, social justice platforms, and rights for minorities. In turn, even left-wing populism is no stranger to authoritarian impulses. Authoritarian populism sometimes embraces the use of “exclusionary and even violent political power” (Scoones et al. 2018, 3) yet still delivers socially progressive outcomes, such as free tertiary education in the Philippines. And as Levitsky and Way (2010) argue, to compound the definitional mix, there are different varieties of authoritarian populism. These differences span regimes that allow some room for opposition, all the way to would-be and outright dictatorships. The threat posed by populisms to both strong and weak democracies varies with the local strength of two “meta-norms,” as Levitsky and Ziblatt have it (2017). The first is “mutual toleration,” or the willingness to accept political rivals as a legitimate opposition. The second is “forbearance” or restraint in the exercise of executive authority. Circumstances and context dictating, norm erosion, in either case, can lead to greater political and societal polarization. And in Venezuela polarization actually increased public tolerance for authoritarian control measures on media freedom. Meanwhile, following elections in Italy in the Spring of 2018, a populist governing coalition emerged comprising the free-wheeling “anti-establishment” 5Star Movement (Movimento Cinque Stelle or M5S) and the Lega with its Eurosceptic and anti-immigration platforms. An unlikely marriage between rivals erstwhile, the coalition can be seen as a further increment in the crisis of traditional parties and partisan loyalties, driven by a public mood of chronic disappointment and fear. In Italy, the balance of politics has shifted to a more right-wing, Eurosceptic and anti-globalist demeanor, though, at the time of writing, it is too early to be conclusive. M5S has a left-wing pedigree on, for example, green environmental policy, but endorses policies of immigration control with the same vigour as parties and movements of the right. The hybrid version of populism seen in the Italian coalition not only underlines the sense that populism is ideologically shallow and promiscuous, but that voters increasingly endorse such a stance where it invokes defense of the national interest and national identity. The interesting question, though one beyond the scope of this chapter, is why then does the opposition to usual politics and to globalization take populist form? If there is a mobilization of anger and despair, coupled with the ambition to transcend established and establishment politicians and parties, is it just the untutored quality of populist leadership, organization, and platforms that has most appeal? If so, would it be appropriate to place all populisms and their anti-globalist credo in the same niche of contentious politics as, for example, the Occupy Movement; with each cast as glocal manifestations of a modal discontent? In this scenario, “the people” seem hardly separable from the outcast “99%.” Of course, there are differences between types of populism, and these include variety in ideas, style, organization, and (policy) inclination. But what conjoins them is an outrage, and, if unrequited, this alone may have severe consequences for the axial and organizational principles upon which liberal–democratic, multicultural and, of course, core, globalized societies have been built, as well as for ones seeking to

14 (Postmodern) Populism as a Trope for Contested Glocality

231

replicate that path (Crouch 2011). In such circumstances, there may be no need to offer a programmatic alternative. So, at least in the short term is outrage enough? Certainly, it is enough to simplify the daunting task of classification. Perhaps we need only know what populism is against and thus what occasions it. But if all populisms are nourished by the same conditions as were listed above—although not all need be present in every case—what distinguishes them and what are the consequences for the temper of politics? These are not trivial questions. As Jacques Ranciere tells us, while use of the term populism may not serve to designate a “defined political force” and it is sufficiently embracing, or agnostic about differences to allow “amalgams between political forces that range from the extreme right to the radical left” (2016, 102). More than this, populisms are also permissive about the kind of organizational features and leadership style needed to galvanize activism and support. Some are leader dominated and reliant on identification from members and supporters, others are scarcely more than loosely coordinated networks. To reiterate, how fanciful is it to see Occupy and M5S as varieties of protest, distinguishable in some regards, but each typical of contemporary protest politics, not least because they are light on organization and programmatic content. In both cases, many supporters not affiliated with traditional party organizations and other political NGOs offered their backing for what they see as authentic “low” or vernacular forms of discontent. And in these terms, neither is it that surprising to see M5S cohabit with the Lega, which looks far closer to the authoritarian image of the liberal nightmare. Arguably all these examples, as well as a host of others, also play to Gramsci’s notion of “transformism,” wherein popular discontent is mobilized, sometimes—though not necessarily—in support of authoritarian precepts. All such instances betoken a strategic shift in the appearance and balance of political forces away from typical forms of collective action and brokerage politics (Bennett and Segerberg 2012). Sustainable and effective collective action, at least from the perspective of the seminal thesis by Olson (1965) typically requires varying degrees of resource mobilization to be deployed when organizing and through leadership. A formal organization is deemed necessary to coordinate action, mobilize resources, and forge collective identities, all before collective action can occur. But as Gidron and Bonowski argue (2013) populism, at least in its current guise, is not like that, and its appearance in contemporary democracies is leaving an “imprint on important political phenomena” (2013, 2). For, as these authors also opine, the ability of populist politics to “galvanize new forms of political engagement is…. important in an era of decline in formal political participation such as voting turnout and party membership.” The flip side of this is that in less established democracies populism is charged with increasing political and social polarization and ushering in authoritarian solutions to problems of societal integration. While there is general agreement that populism is “confrontational, chameleonic, culturebound and context-dependent” (Arter 2010), it is also at large across countries and regions with quite different cultures and histories. At the least, all this suggests that certain features of populism may be present, indeed, have to be present, despite the variety in other respects. As we shall see, these features can be ideological, though without being determinate. More loosely,

232

B. Axford

populisms may cohere around “rhetoric that constructs politics as the moral and ethical struggle” between people and elites (de La Torre 2000, 4). In other words, populism is a discourse built around contextually variable, but always present, constructions of ‘us’ and ‘them.’ I will also suggest that populisms share certain postmodern attributes that inflect the claims they make and the manner in which their narrative is couched. Here, changing technologies of political communication renders the dualisms of senders and receivers of political content and of leaders and followers, increasingly redundant. Technology’s part in framing and constituting politics—democratizing it on some accounts—also confounds simple notions of populist politics always being top-down. These considerations make for a complex picture of populism as a factor in global– local constitution. Populisms vary by place and circumstances, along with what they address strategically and in the manner of that address. There are shades of populism, and this is not just a reference to its comparative variety, but recognition that there have been historical variants too. Any classification, and especially one that admits the many different cases of populism, requires a clear statement of common features and must then identify sub-categories or “local” types (Mudde 2015). The typology also has to distinguish populism from non-populism and such differences are, or should be, categorical. As Cas Mudde says, populism is neither elitism nor pluralism. In the former, it is the elite, not the people who are virtuous. In the latter, social and cultural diversity is applauded, with homogeneity at best a sign of social and political stagnation; at worst, repressive. That said, it is permissible to talk about actors who are more or less populist. But the strict conceptualization that precedes such permissiveness demands that the researcher has first to agree that an actor is populist before determining by how much. And identifying the necessary generic qualities is not easy. Take the linking of populism with nationalism. It is not uncommon to hold that nationalism is a defining feature of populism. But is it a necessary component? It is true that ethno-nationalism is a source of contentious politics within many territories (for example, India, Sri-Lanka, the former Yugoslavia, and Spain) but it is not clear that it is either a necessary condition for, or consequence of, populism. On the other hand, populists in established democracies may be inclined to invoke a more respectable brand of civic nationalism, if only to distance themselves from the charge of being racist, xenophobic, or even fascist. Moreover, populism, and certainly what is sometimes called “neo-populism,” combines readily with neo-liberal economic policies. Some left populisms, notably in Latin America, support socialist economic policies, including redistributive social programs. As to categories, Mudde rightly points to the widespread use in typologies of adjectival populism as a means of distinguishing types. Thus, we have “authoritarian populism,” “civic populism,” “xenophobic populism,” “socially and culturally inclusive or exclusive” populism, and so on. The list, while not endless, shows a lively regard for conceptual innovation, often around the theme of ideational differences as distinguishing features of different populisms. The much-used binary of “left” versus “right-wing” populisms is also fraught but has the virtue of tapping into the once-grand narratives of modern politics. But in practice, there may be little regard

14 (Postmodern) Populism as a Trope for Contested Glocality

233

for ideological consistency. Some right-wing populists evince support for neoliberalism and nationalism, while left-wing populists sometimes have recourse to national protectionism as a form of local defense against the world. The appeal of a populist leader such as Rodrigo Duterte appears to cross the class divide and his platform addresses the discontent of more prosperous Filippinos and marginalized segments of that society. Trying to map all this onto the articulation of populism (as localism) and globalization is also difficult. As we have noted, there are some properties that define populism per se. These are a strong attachment to the local, suspicion, and distrust of international and global actors, as well as of domestic elites, and enduring hostility to incursions from the outside world (migration, cultural flows, capital movements, and flows of labor). In turn, these common denominators of populism are everywhere inflected by local conditions, including historical factors, and by contingencies of all sorts. Among other things, local conditions determine the temper of the politics delivered by populism, including its appeal to, or rejection of, democratic norms, or the style and mythology of its leadership. Inflected too by the character of the globalization it opposes—market liberalization, ethical cosmopolitanism, or, in the case of the UK Independence Party (UKIP), EU super-sovereignty as a trope for dangerous globality. In a recent foray, Friedman (2018) corrals populism’s basic precepts with the label “sovereigntism,” almost elemental regard for retaining control over one’s conditions of existence. He renders the binaries of sameness and difference and global versus local as a “set of oppositions” with “emergent cosmopolitanism” at one pole and reactive indigenization at the other. Globalist discourses muster as open, cosmopolitan, multicultural, liberal, anti-sovereign, anti-indigenous, and pro-immigration. Localist discourse is closed, nationalist, monocultural, conservative, collectivist (including socialist), pro-sovereign, pro-indigenous, and anti-immigration. My brief excursion through types of populism suggests that these binaries underestimate the ambiguity and contradiction in the demeanor of populists. And this is exactly Friedman’s point. But in commentary, they still serve as markers of praise and blame. Much like George Orwell’s aphorism in Animal Farm, localist politics built around these precepts are often treated as bad by definition. Even though different types of populism may cohere around the discourse of “us” and “them,” of people versus the elite, we need to be sensitive to variability in types of populism–localism. All this is much in line with the idea of populism as a “thin” ideology. Populisms share a suspicion of and hostility toward elites, mainstream politics and established institutions. Beyond this, as Cas Mudde says, no definition of populism will fully describe the gamut of populists (2015; Friedman 2018; Werner-Mueller 2017). There is no encompassing and “thick” description of what precepts should guide and which strategies might implement the will of the people. And there is no holistic take on how politics, economy, and society should be ordered. Populism is a long way from being programmatic and invokes the values of localism to undergird its claims to novelty and authenticity. In part, this is why it is both a portable formula for electoral success in times of crisis and something

234

B. Axford

of an empty signifier when it comes to proffering a blueprint for, and the necessary policy detail on, how to deal with perceived hard times. Today, populist rhetoric and appeals display a good deal of vigor, whether on the part of those “left behind” by globalization or, and/or, worried that immigration endangers national culture and values, pace the UK after Brexit and Germany according to the Alternative for Germany (AfD.) It is seen too in the machinations of Donald Trump, with his seeming rejection of the global liberal order in favor of a latter-day Jacksonianism that is progressive because of its democratizing feel, but replete with economic nationalism and nativist sentiments. Other down-home populisms can be seen from Marseilles to Moscow, via France, Italy, Spain and Greece, Hungary and Poland. On some accounts, it is visible in Narendra Modi’s strain of Hindu nationalism in India and in the ‘patronal authoritarianism’ practiced by Vladimir Putin in Russia and Recip Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey (The Times of India, January 22, 2017). In Latin America, the latest wave of left populism, the so-called “pink tide,” is clearly a local facet of global opposition to neoliberalism as ideology and practice. The fact is that different leaders and their brands of populism sit at various points on the populist-authoritarian-nativist scale, again pointing up the importance of context in glossing what might otherwise appear as an undifferentiated response to liberal globalization and its leitmotifs of open borders and hybrid cultures.

Populism Redux Populism’s thin ideology is properly implicated in the crises of liberal democracy and of neoliberalism (Crouch 2011). And as a feature of both, it would be easy to depict it simply as an elemental and even fundamentalist response. But that would be to ignore a distinctive feature, though again one variably observed, that both qualifies its resolute nature and speaks to its regressive and progressive traits, as well as its transformative potential. I now advert the extent to which the resurgence of populism in recent decades owes a debt to postmodernism (Jameson 1991). In his provocative essay on the cultural “logic” of late capitalism, Frederic Jameson (1991) opines that the triumph of economic globalism from the late 1970s onwards, ushered in a new cultural era that was distinctive because of the usurpation of modernist ideals and ideas by populist images, aesthetics, and texts. Postmodernism is often seen as the birth of “a society of the image or the simulacrum, and a transformation of the ‘real’ into so many pseudoevents,” as Jameson says. The culture of postmodernism is characterized by “a new kind of flatness or depthlessness, a new kind of superficiality in the most literal sense” where “depth is replaced by surface.” (1991, 127). Crucially, postmodernism brings with it the erasure of older distinctions, notably between reality and fiction, and this extends to political discourse. Rarely, is the concept just a description of the change, but rather a summary of the contested and awkward passing of one “order” and the rise and instantiation of another, which tends to disorder. In this regard, Trump’s populist style is postmodern and the same may

14 (Postmodern) Populism as a Trope for Contested Glocality

235

be said of Vladimir Putin. Michael Hauser (2016) writes that both display a “radical heterogeneity of discourses, a decentered ideological structure, a central void, the end of universal truths” and, of course, the end of axial ideas, unless you count the appeal of “Russia first” and “America first” under that rubric (see also Heer 2017). Modernism was the product of the age of money and of rationality. Postmodernism, says Jameson, is the product of a new era characterized by “the intensification of the forces of reification” (2001, 58). In the age of global capitalism, the utopian sublime of modernism, seen most clearly in art and aesthetics, has been vitiated and the anxieties and emotional void left, along with a legitimation deficit, have been filled, at least until recently, by a postmodern cultural ideology of consumption. Because of the universalization of market capitalism, the distinction between culture and economics has collapsed in a blurring of fields. Culture now pervades everything and everything is subject—though not necessarily in thrall—to the universal “logic” of commodification, marketization, and mediatization. Thus postmodernity is a world relativized by global forces and full of risk. Many of Trump’s supporters are seeking relief from the insecurity of this kind of world, especially where jobs and communitarian values are concerned. Their aspirations are the antithesis of postmodernism’s contempt for solidity and all claims to authenticity. And yet postmodern populism feeds their insecurity, valorizes their sense of powerlessness, and offers redemption through a return to fundamentals and certainties. If this is the politics of illusion, it is also a paradox and should be seen as typical of the complex of motivations that inform waves of protest politics around the world at present (Nederveen Pieterse 2018).

So What Is Postmodern Populism? Postmodern populism displays the following characteristics (Axford and Huggins 1997; Axford 2018). First and at its most general, the idea suggests that contemporary politics is undergoing, or should undergo, radical and maybe systemic changes. Such claims are not new but have a stark resonance today. As early as 1993, Martin Jacques talked about the meltdown of the formal boundaries of politics and political discourses as part of the crisis of the nation-state and of modernity itself (Jacques 1993). He was particularly concerned with the seismic tremors in Italian politics during the 1990s, but his vision of epochal change is more widely applicable some 25 years on. Trump’s populism and the Brexit campaign are firmly located in what Vattimo called “the giddy proliferation of communications” (1992, 27) that now frames politics and the sense of crisis that pervades it. Nowhere is exempt from this kind of framing. Second, and intimately linked, postmodern politics manifests in a growing frustration with usual politics and politicians. The difference with past discontents may well lie in the speed and facility with which protests can be mobilized and expressed. The Internet, and especially social media, make it easy to be a dissenter or just a curmudgeon. Hitherto unheard of—and unlooked for—“activists” are now able to bypass the kinetic structures of usual politics. In some, though not all, cases, they

236

B. Axford

lack strong identification and see no need for their intervention to be brokered. This is the politics of contagion. The problem for populist leaders is what do to with public cynicism once they harness it; how to pick up the emotional slack and fashion a sustainable platform that goes beyond nationalist rhetoric, anti-governmentalism, and fundamentalism. How sustainable is the politics of anger expressed through populist vehicles? But is populism even built to last? In the present conjuncture, the postmodern version musters as a distinct challenge to the remnants of embedded liberalism and its successor neoliberalism. Thus, Dani Rodrik argues that it is best seen as part of an ideological and policy rebalancing of market globalization (Rodrik 2018). But even if true that could still leave it as no more than a cathartic response to periodic crises, a shock to the system, rather than its successor-in-waiting. And that syncs with its thin ideology and hit-and-run style of politics. Populism appears to demand transformation, but of a back-to-the-future variety. Third, postmodern populism has emerged as a robust and explicit challenge to the very idea of transcendental meanings and forms. It is the antithesis of absolutes and grand narratives and its embrace of new media augment such as relativism. And yet, in no small measure, its success lies in trumpeting the defense of absolutes— sovereignty, uni-culturalism, while selling a politics that has little regard for truth and civility. It easy to dismiss this as a form of anti-politics, but is it damaging for democracy? Of a certainty, it challenges received wisdom that independent, authoritative sources can, and perhaps should, set the temper of debate and curate or broker the political agenda; assumptions implicit in the founding myths of democratic elitism. But such a change still might be seen as democratizing in its own right or, more contentiously, popularizing. Of course, the tone of much criticism tends to dismiss any such claim. In a recent foray into the relationship between the Internet and democracy, Cass Sunstein catalogs the ways in which the norms of brokered conflict and the politics of accommodation in a pluralist democracy are (he says) being violated in the online world. He argues that instead of tolerance and mutual comprehension social media promotes mutual incomprehension, social fragmentation, and intolerance of others (2017). For critics, such features epitomize populist politics. Fourth, despite the reference to “left” and “right”-wing populisms, postmodern populism is often linked to the demise or transcendence of left–right politics and of received models of political allegiance. To some extent, the idea of transcendence flatters the cut-and-paste model of policy choice often taken by populists in pursuit of their aims, where left- and right-wing preferences on immigration control, protecting domestic industries and rejecting austerity spending are adopted promiscuously, regardless of ideological provenance. In a weary aside, the British journalist Nick Cohen complains that in areas like immigration control and identity politics “the worst of the right has aped the worst of the left” (2018). At all events, depending on the pathological image employed transformation is portrayed as either a shift to a politics based on the revival of palpable communities or, more usually, a politics in which all kinds of identities are relativized or mutable under the impacts of digital media. In Orwellian terms, each can be seen as either good or bad depending on context, perspective or circumstance, and the politics that results as always contingent.

14 (Postmodern) Populism as a Trope for Contested Glocality

237

Fifth, postmodern populism is thus a reflection of the mediatization of politics, where that refers to the processes through which media permeate, influence, and even constitute wider culture and society. Such processes have profound consequences for the construction of glocalities. What has become known as Web-2.0 (interactive and full of user-generated content) is a clear example of what we might call digital glocalization. Dannah Boyd has it thus: “(g)localized structures and networks are the backbones of Web 2.0. Rather than conceptualizing the world in geographical terms, it is now necessary to use a networked model to understand the relations between people and culture, to even think about localising in terms of social structures not in terms of location” (2005, 181). Again, it is entirely in keeping with the mixed and contradictory character of populist parties and movements that this image can be taken as the antithesis or apotheosis of localism.

Postmodern Populism, Revolt and Neoliberalism None of this should surprise us, because it is an echo of shifts and paradoxes revealed in the ideologies and practice of domestic politics and in global trends over the past decade. Responses to the crisis have congealed uneasily around a more robust national-centrism, both in developed and emerging markets, albeit for different reasons. Globalism—and certainly globalization—subsists, but not in its Westerndominated, free-market, high-roller guise. The idea of a “new” globalization depicts a global economy that is much more fragmented and multipolar. In some of the bestknown cases of populist incursion, free markets are applauded at the same time as the rhetoric of closed or tightly regulated borders, refurbished sovereignties, and controls over labor supply, all qualify the mantra of market liberalization. Responses to crisis and engagements with globalization outside developed markets and core states and societies reveal an equally complex, and less than uniform, picture. We have also witnessed the appearance of global or proto-global publics enabled or constituted through an online connection, as during the 2011 uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East. More widely, it is possible to discern a networked globality of countercultural, glocal discourses around the valence issues of precarity, poverty, human rights, and self-determination. Across the board, we can see different clusters of protest (revolt) driven variously by the documented failings of neoliberal capitalism and austerity, by crises of governance in emerging states and societies, and by ethnic and regional tensions in, for example, Myanmar, Syria and Catalonia. But this is not a monolithic pantheon, as each cluster moves to different temporalities and rhythms (Nederveen Pieterse 2018, 168). So, it is not clear that they are of a piece when it comes to describing and explaining what triggers protest and whether they all should be considered as glocal expressions of the same global systemic crisis. Nederveen Pieterse notes that their concerns overlap and so they are part of a “general conjuncture” of discontents (2018, 169); but whether there is a “convergence of radicalism,” a “globalization of defiance,” “left” and “right” manifestations of that impulse or expressions of a unifying ideology, is much more open to question.

238

B. Axford

Populism and some kinds of alter-globalization for that matter are a revolt of the left-behinds, the expanding precariat, the poorly governed, and the culturally bereft. But as forms of contentious politics, they move to different impulses, attract a more varied constituency than global “have-nots” and adopt a variety of strategies that are context-specific. In those varied contexts and for good or ill, the rise of populist forces enlarges fissures in the relations between citizens and those who govern their lives. For many citizens ties to established parties of both the social–democratic left and center-right have become increasingly tenuous. As disillusion grows, the appeal of a less compromised politics increases. This may not be an ideological shift; more a move of last resort, a metaphorical expletive delivered through the ballot box (which is mostly the case), though sometimes on the street and through social media.

Reasons to Be Cheerful? The fissiparous quality of protest tempers any impulse to generalize. This is a world manifesting different kinds of revolt, and that variety is itself a reflection of growing— not to say systemic—multipolarity (Nederveen Pieterse 2018). The de-centeredness, or multi-centeredness, of this world also qualifies the use of blanket labels such as “global capitalism” or “global neoliberalism” as unequivocal descriptions of a predominant or hegemonic variety of globalization or global system. Capitalism is differentiated and neoliberalism increasingly fails to convince as an overarching and steadfast rubric because big players in emerging markets—China, India, and Northeast Asia—have developed, and continue to develop, outside it. The brands of politics that have emerged in these regions tend to the model of strongman, authoritarian leadership; but even so, there is variety. And it remains true that in advanced economies in the West and North populist movements and parties of both the left and the right have emerged in recent years to protest and counter the perceived and experienced ills of market capitalism. To a greater or lesser extent, and almost regardless of ideological hue, they offer a cure or palliative for perceived maladies that challenges both established and weaker forms of democratic politics (Inglehart 2018). But does it have to be like this? Is their kind of glocalism always likely to be regressive and thus suffer the calumny that attaches to most versions of populism and to the wiles of many populist leaders? In other words, in its postmodern guise, can populism be redeemed as a sub-set of glocalization projects tempering globalist excess? Well, in spite of Ernesto Laclau’s insistence that populism is a hegemonic project (2005), or Douglas Kellner’s treatment of Trump as an “authoritarian populist” (2018) postmodern populism might be redeemable; or rather, the democratic and glocalist components of its make-up can be rescued from the dark side, as both Chantal Mouffe and David McKnight argue (Mouffe 2013; McKnight 2018). This is more a task for activists than observers, though its realization is hampered by the apparent job description required of any progressive populism, that is, has to ape a reworked social–democratic politics, rather than become a transformative, postmodern variant. For activists, also for commentators, there is a key question. What would such a strategy comprise and how far

14 (Postmodern) Populism as a Trope for Contested Glocality

239

it can realize emancipatory glocal politics not in thrall to authoritarian norms and practices, tempering the worst excesses of market globalization and promoting the glocal imaginary as a site for progressive politics?

References Appadurai, A. 2006. Fear of Small Numbers: An Essay on the Geography of Anger. New York: Columbia University Press. Appadurai, A. 2013. Between Utopia and Despair. The Future as Cultural Fact: Essays on the Global Condition. London: Verso. Arter, D. 2010. The Breakthrough of Another West European Populist Radical Right Party? The Case of the True Finns. Government and Opposition 45 (4): 484–504. Axford, B., and R. Huggins. (1997). Anti-Politics or the Triumph of Postmodern Populism in Promotional Cultures? Javnost: The Public 4 (3): 5–25. Axford, B. 2018. The World-Making Power of New Media: Mere Connection?. Abingdon: Routledge. Bennett, L., and A. Segerberg. 2012. The Logic of Connective Action: Digital Media and the Personalization of Contentious Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Block, F. 2016. Karl Polanyi and Twenty-first Century Socialism. https://www.opendemocracy.net/ fred-block/karl-polanyi-and-twenty-first-century-socialism. Boyd, D. 2005. ‘Why Web 2.0 matters: Preparing for glocalization’, apophenia: Making connections where none previously existed. http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2005/09/05/ why_web20_matte.htm. September 2016. Cohen, N. (2018). We Recognize the Grievances of the Left Behind. But We have no Solutions. In The Observer Newspaper. London. May 13, 54. Crouch, C. 2011. The Strange Non-Death of Neoliberalism. Cambridge: Polity Press. de la Torre, C. 2000. Populist Seduction in Latin America: The Ecuadorian Experience. Athens: Ohio University Press. Ferguson, N. 2016. Populism as a Backlash against Globalization—Historical Perspectives. Belgrade, Centre for International Relations and Sustainable Development: Horizons. Friedman, J. 2018. A Note on Populism and the Global Systemic Crisis. Economic Anthropology. https://doi.org/10.1002/sea2.12108. Gidron, N., and B. Bonikowski. 2013. Varieties of Populism: Literature Review and Research Agenda. http://www.tinyurl.com/. Giulianotti, R., and R. Robertson. 2006. Futbol, Globalizacion y Glocalizacion: Un analisis sociologico del juego mundial. Revista Internacional di Sociologia. Giulianotti, R., and R. Robertson. 2007. Globalization and Sport. Oxford: Blackwell. Goodhart, D. 2017. The Road to Somewhere: A Liberal’s Right Wing Turn on Immigration. London: C Hurst & Co. Hauser, M. 2016. Transformations of Laclau’s Concept of Populism with Trump and Putin. Distinktion: Journal of Social Theory. Heer, J. 2017. America’s First Postmodern President. New Republic. https://newrepublic.com/art icle/143730/americas-first-postmodern-president, July 8. Heydarian, R.J. 2018. The Rise of Duterte: A Populist Revolt against Elite Democracy. London: Palgrave. Inglehart, R. 2018. How to Save Democracy from Inequality and Automation. In Foreign Affairs. Inglehart, R. P. Norris. 2016. Trump, Brexit and the Rise of Populism: Economic Have-Nots and Cultural Backlash. Paper presented at 2016 meeting of the American Political Science Association. Inglehart, R., and P. Norris. 2017. Trump and the Populist Authoritarian Parties: The Silent Revolution in Reverse. Perspectives on Politics 15 (2): 443–454.

240

B. Axford

Jameson, F. 1991. Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of late Capitalism. Durham: Duke University Press. Jameson, F. 2001. A Singular Modernity: Essay on the Ontology of the Present. London: Verso. Jacques, M. 1993. Battleground of Europe’s Future. Sunday Times, March 27. Kellner, D. 2018. Donald Trump as an Authoritarian Populist: A Frommian Analysis. Logos, a Journal of Modern Society and Culture 17 (1). Laclau, E. 2005. On Populist Reason. London: Verso. Levitsky, S., and L.A. Way. 2010. Competitive Authoritarianism: Hybrid Regimes After the Cold War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Levitsky, S., and D. Ziblatt. 2017. How Democracies Die: What History Reveals about our Future. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. McKnight, D. 2018. Populism Now: The Case for a Progressive Populism. Sydney: New South Books. Moffitt, B. 2017. The Rise of Global Populism: Performance. Political Style and Representation: Palo Alto, Stanford University Press. Mouffe, C. 2013. The Populist Moment. https://www.opendemocracy.net/democraciaabierta/cha ntal-mouffe/populist-moment. Mudde, C. 2004. The Populist Zeitgeist. Government and Opposition 39 (4): 541–563. Mudde, C. 2015. The Problem with Populism. https://www.theguardian.com/…/2015/…/problempopulism-syriza-podemos-dark-side. Nederveen-Pieterse, J. 2018. Multipolar Globalization: Emerging Economies and Development. Abingdon: Routledge. Olson, M. 1965. The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press. Pettifor, A. 2017. Brexit and its Consequences. Globalizations 14 (1): 127–132. Piccone, P. 1995. Postmodern Populism. Telos 2: 45–87. Polanyi, K. 1944. The Great Transformation. New York: Rinehart. Rancière, J. 2016. The Populism that is Not to be Found. In What is a People?, ed. A. Badiou, 100–106. New York: Columbia University Press. Robertson, R. 2011. Global Connectivity and Consciousness. American Behavioral Scientist 55 (10): 1336–1345. Robertson, R. 2012. Globalization or Glocalization? The Journal of International Communication. 1 (1): 33–52. Accessed 4 Apr 2012. Rodrik, D. 2018. Populism and the Economics of Globalization. Journal of International Business Policy: 1–22. February 22. Roudometof, V. 2016. Glocalization: A Critical Introduction. Abingdon: Routledge. Sassen, S. 2006. Elements for a Sociology of Globalization [or A Sociology of Globalization]. New York: W.W. Norton. Scoones, I., M. Edelman, M. Saturnino, R. Hall, W. Wolford, and B. White. 2018. Emancipatory Rural Politics: Conforming Authoritarian Populism. The Journal of Peasant Studies. http://www. tandfonline.com/loi/fjps201-20. Steger, M. 2015. Globalization: A Very Short Introduction, 3rd edn. Abingdon: Routledge. Sunstein, C. 2017. Hashtag Republic. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Vattimo, G. 1992. The Transparent Society. Cambridge: Polity Press. Werner-Mueller, J. 2017. What is Populism?. Pittsburgh: Penn State Press. Zakaria, F. 2016. Populism on the March: Why the West is in Trouble. Foreign Affairs 95 (6): 9–17.

Barrie Axford is a Professor of Politics at Oxford Brookes University (UK), and among his recent books are Theories of Globalization (Polity 2013) and The World-Making Power of New Media: Mere Connection? (Routledge 2017). He is currently working on Postmodern Populism and the New Globalization (Sage 2020).

Chapter 15

Globalization and the Rise of the Economic State: PRC and USA in Comparison Guoguang Wu

Abstract This chapter proposes a theoretical outline of the economic state for capturing a major institutional transformation caused by globalization. It suggests to analyze the economic state with six features, which include the state’s increasing economic concern, the state’s extending authority into economic domains, the frequent involvement of state coercion in economic affairs, the shift of sources of state legitimacy to economic performance, the state’s declining supply of public goods, and the prevalence of power–money exchange relationships in governmental ethics. It then examines the economic state of the People’s Republic of China and the United States of America, respectively, from these angles, and places them in a comparative perspective. Such comparative case studies help to, first, demonstrate how the economic state arises across a wide range of countries in very different economic, political, and social-cultural characters; second, a variety of the economic state exists in the trend of the rise of the economic state; and third, democracy, as being undermined by the rise of the economic state, is still vital to determine different types of the economic state. Post-Cold War globalization has become possible due to virtually all states in the world having accepted the market as the sole effective mechanism for organizing economic activities (Wu 2017).1 With such state–market reconciliation, the global market has taken hold; it also means, however, that the capitalist market has reached its geographic limit, and economic competition has inevitably and increasingly intensified on this limited market. The state that now works with the market mechanism, therefore, is either forced or enticed, or both, to be more and more engaged in global market competitions, in the case of international relations, for promoting national interests and, in the case of domestic politics, in attempts to deliver material benefits to its citizens. For a better understanding of these developments in global political economy, this article suggests a theoretical outline of the economic state, elaborates 1 The

author would acknowledge Yuesheng Xu for her research assistance in making the figures and Emma Lansdowne for her checking of grammars. G. Wu (B) University of Victoria, Department of Political Science, Victoria, BC V8P 5C2, Canada e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 I. Rossi (ed.), Challenges of Globalization and Prospects for an Inter-civilizational World Order, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44058-9_15

241

242

G. Wu

what the economic state means in terms of institutional transformation with globalization, investigates the economic state in two country cases, namely the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the United States of America (USA), and, further, brings the two distinguished cases into a comparative perspective in order to highlight both the similarities and divergences between different types of the economic state. In general, the article argues that the rise of the economic state has been reconfiguring some fundamental institutions with which human societies had lived since at least the eighteenth century, but that such great challenges are not currently being sufficiently acknowledged and deliberated. The state, according to Max Weber’s classic definition (1978: 314), is a political organization with a legitimate monopoly of coercive power. The market activities, by contrast, are, at least in concept, voluntarily and autonomously performed and managed by individual and non-coercive organizational players. The rise of the economic state, however, inevitably implies that the coercive power of the state is increasingly mobilized and employed for making economic benefits. This coercionfor-benefits phenomenon is not entirely new, of course, to one who has sufficient knowledge of the origins and developments of the modern state (Strayer 1970; Tilly 1975; Poggi 1978). But, today with globalization, it is definitely much more prevalent worldwide than previously, and it is also more justified both in ruling elites’ selfcongratulation of their own capability for predation and in the masses’ materialistic mentality. In any sense, the combination of state coercion and market competition indicates a significant transformation of both the state and market institutions. So, what does the economic state mean in the conceptual sense? How does the economic state operate in the institutional sense? The theoretical section of the article will try to answer such questions by outlining six features of the economic state. The worldwide prevalence of the economic state in the globalization age can be exemplified by its rise in both the PRC and the USA, the most powerful economies in today’s world that also have fundamentally different political systems and, traditionally, divergent state roles in economic affairs. This article will emphatically, though briefly, investigate and compare these two cases. The China case is quite obvious and exemplary for the economic state, where the authoritarian regime with strong state capacity remarkably promotes economic prosperity through comprehensive involvement in, penetration into, and supervision of market activities. In its newest version of the economic-state mentality, the current Xi Jinping leadership explicitly defines its “China dream” in nationalistic economic terms. The USA, by contrast, is a difficult case in terms of the economic state. However, evidences will show that the American state has been in a trend of prioritizing economic goals on its agenda at least since the 1990s, and its commitment to promoting economic prosperity has been growing, though governmental actions in this regard have been sporadic and not-always-soeffective. The rise of Donald Trump, it will be argued, clearly indicates the headway that is being made toward the American economic state. Below, a section will be devoted to each of the two country cases. Then a brief comparative analysis will be drawn, especially on how a variety of the economic state emerges in the common trend of the rise of the economic state. Due to limited space, analyses below will be restricted to be qualitative and discretionarily essential, the presence of empirical evidence being at a minimum.

15 Globalization and the Rise of the Economic State …

243

Globalization and the Rise of the Economic State: A Theoretical Discussion Globalization is a phenomenon with multiple facets that express themselves in material, financial, informational, and human movements (Held et al. 1999; Steger 2009). The latest wave of globalization that has appeared since the late twentieth century is also a historical reincarnation of earlier waves of globalization in, for example, the early nineteenth century (Hopkins 2002; Robertson 2003; Osterhammel and Petersson 2005; Stearns 2010). In the institutional sense, however, the globalization we have been living with since the 1990s in the so-called post-Cold War era can be understood as the embracement of the market by virtually all states in the world as the sole effective mechanism for economic life (Wu 2017). It is fundamentally different from what the last generation lived through under the shadow of the Cold War, when, under both capitalism and communism, the state, whether democratic or not, was overwhelmingly dominated by ideological programs, political concerns, and strategic security centered around such ideological and political considerations. The communist state, moreover, featured a state-planning economy that excluded market institutions (Perkins 1966; Roberts 2000). In contrast, today, even Cuba and North Korea, the most closed economies in the world, have been testing the waters for introducing the market mechanism into their countries (Feinberg 2016; Smith 2015). Everywhere in the world of the early twenty-first century, the state is working with the market, and ideological reconciliation and practical collaboration have been established between the state and the market. This distinguishes the latest wave of globalization from those appearing earlier in our human experience and defines globalization in the institutional sense. In its ideological reconciliation and operational collaboration with the market, the state has inevitably experienced institutional cross-fertilization with the market and reconfigurations of the state per se. One of the most significant institutional reconfigurations in such historical processes is the rise of the economic state (Wu 2017), which, as below suggested, can be observed and understood with its six institutional features. The purpose of the state: The economic state is primarily occupied by concern over its economic performance, taking economic goals and relevant state functions into a significant consideration when setting the state agenda, and often giving them the priority of state policy—this is the first feature of the economic state. To borrow a Foucauldian term, economic performance, often in the form of promoting growth, rises as the “governmentality” (Foucault 1991) that works as the consonance between state and citizens to the degree that often intends to dominate politics and public power. It does imply that the economic state inclines toward subordinating other matters to economic performance in the condition of maintaining institutional essence of the state. Curiously enough, such prevalence of the governmentality of the economic state in the globalization age takes place across regime types in both democracies and non-democracies. Since Aristotle (1981), traditional typologies of the state have

244

G. Wu

highlighted the distinct political demarcation between two regime types, that ruled by the majority and that by a small minority. But, with the rise of the economic state, this distinction becomes vague, if not totally meaningless, in practices of state governance, and less important in citizens’ perception of public power. Almost everywhere, especially in developing countries (though some of them may not be able to actualize it), the state intends to adopt the economy-centered approach in governance, as our later comparative cases of China and the USA help to demonstrate. Accordingly, profound institutional changes of the state have taken place in a basic sense that, as institutions are understood as rules of the game (North 1990: 3), such changes reconfigure the entire game of state activities by redefining the criterion that players must strive to meet. Now the purpose of the state is widely viewed and prioritized to be promoting economic development, and the government that successfully realizes this purpose is often judged to be a good government (Kohli 2004). The domains of state authority: With its increasing economic purpose, the state in embracing the market has been extending its domains of governance into those traditionally belonging to the market domains. As we know, traditionally and conceptually, the state and the market work in different spheres of human activity; when they interact with each other, they check over one another more than mutually and jointly working together, often acting as a constraint to the other’s operations, functions, and impacts. Now, however, they are mutually reinforcing each other to the extent that an institutional codependence emerges between the state and the market (Wu 2017). Where the market reaches, the state follows; their jurisdictions are highly overlapping. In one sentence, now the state and the market jointly, rather than separately or antagonistically, set the framework for economic activities. Within this framework, the state is increasingly functioning on behalf of market-based economic activities, namely transforming itself into the economic state. From a historical perspective, this expansion of the economic domains of state governance in the globalization age seems contradictory to the worldwide collapse of the communist state-planning system. This chapter would argue, however, that the failure of the state-planning economy—which virtually excludes the market mechanism—does not mean the so-called retreat of the state in economic affairs (Strange 1996), but, as defined earlier, the state’s acceptance of the market. This is a fundamental challenge to many prevailing conceptions based on the state–market dichotomy; the framework of the state confronting the market is by and large obsolete as it fails to seize this great institutional change. This is a grander topic beyond the scope of this chapter, but it is highly relevant to the acknowledgment of the state’s increasing jurisdiction in economic matters, and to the awareness of such expansions taking place to the benefit of market coverage. With globalization emerges the global market that reaches virtually every corner on earth and covers every aspect of human life. But what also emerges is the state that recognizes the market, works with the market, and increasingly shares with the market many domains of human activity, primarily economic activity. This market-based expansion of state economic functions is another major feature of the economic state. The application of state coercion: As touched upon in the introduction by citing Max Weber, the state is the organization that legitimately monopolizes coercive

15 Globalization and the Rise of the Economic State …

245

power. When the state is increasingly concerned with economic purposes and, accordingly, increasingly plays active roles in the economy, it is natural for the state to apply and exercise the coercive means it monopolizes in economic affairs. This may not be a particularly novel phenomenon over history, as the rise of the modern state is often connected to the application of coercive means to economic activities. It is still new in the current context, however, in two senses. First, in the sense of perception: many perspectives of modern social sciences that emphasize the state–market dichotomy have chosen to ignore this important dimension of historical reality; now the candid or shameless application of state coercion for gaining economic benefits can refresh people’s viewpoint of public power. The theory of the economic state, indeed, can help in this regard. Second, in the sense of historical change: during the Cold War era, in confronting the anti-market-mechanism communist state, the capitalist West often self-claimed to be the “free world” by highlighting a free market that operated the economy while the state was portrayed with little involvement in or exercise of its coercive power over economic affairs; the post-Cold War rise of the economic state is, therefore, new when viewed against this historical background. In short, the involvement of state coercion in economic affairs can be seen as the third feature of the economic state; in extreme circumstances, the state can be turned from an agent of public power to a coercive machine for profit-making. Sources of state legitimacy: The fourth point concerning the rise of the economic state is the shift of sources of state legitimacy from various sources, often including ideology, due procedures, and majority rule under a democracy, to those more closely attached to the state’s and its leadership’s accomplishment in promoting economic development and delivering to its citizens material benefits. For a democracy, nominally elections still legitimize leaders, their policies, and other state actions, but it appears that voters’ choices in elections are increasingly determined by their economic concerns. This might not be a problem since citizens in a democracy are entitled to choose a political leader based on their individual preferences. But, this trend may have reached a degree to which what Weber (1978: 215) calls “rational grounds” of authority resting “on a belief in the legality of enacted rules” is eroded by something resting on a belief of the materialistic promise of enacted leaders. The issue of political legitimacy within a non-democracy is even further complicated, as contemporary authoritarianism often transplants democratic election procedures in choosing leaders but manipulates those procedures to kill the possibility of voters’ autonomous choice (Wu 2015). That inevitably means much weaker procedures, thus, more vulnerability in terms of accepting a state authority that promotes economic prosperity while ignoring the legal grounds of authority. In general, something similar to so-called “Asian values,” that is, rice over rights and food over freedom, is worldwide becoming a tacit social contract between state leaders and citizens, making the state more accountable to banknotes rather than to ballots. Supplies of public goods: Ideally, the state is responsible for the protection and provision of public goods. By contrast, economic benefits are by and large private goods. The rise of the economic state inevitably implies, however, the state’s decreasing concerns over and reluctant action in providing public goods, especially those types of public goods that may constrain and even undermine economic growth.

246

G. Wu

Such types of public goods primarily include environmental protection, ecological security, socioeconomic equalities, and social justice, as they often require huge state fiscal input without direct material output, and/or increase the cost of capital investment (i.e., a locomotive of economic growth); both are in contradiction with the concerns and priorities of the economic state. It is not a surprise, therefore, that the economic state tends to marginalize, ignore, and even victimize public goods. This helps explain the worldwide dilemma between state capacity being more or less strengthened in promoting economic development and speeding deterioration in the quality of public governance. Governmental ethics: The economic state as elaborated above implies that public power is now more than ever before tainted by the market rule of exchange for profit-making, and that, accordingly, public power is now more likely to be utilized by power holders for an exchange of capital for their own private benefit, often in material terms. This everywhere leads to the increase of power–money exchanges, causing severe governmental corruption, especially in the polity where checks over public power are impotent or virtually absent. Tracks leading to the market-based economic state can be traced back long ago, particularly and directly to the Cold War developments of the capitalist state. In advanced industrialized nations, the rise of the welfare state has expanded state economic functions, primarily in the realm of distribution and redistribution (EspingAndersen 1990; Barr 2012; Garland 2016), and the paradigm of “governing the economy” has been proposed in response to various challenges, in particular the oil crisis in the 1970s (Gourevitch 1986; Hall 1986). The developmental state, such as that which first arose in Japan (Johnson 1982), furthered the scope and depth of the economic coverage of the democratic state. The East Asian miracle reinforced belief in the significant role of the state in promoting economic development (Deyo 1987; Haggard 1990; Wade 1990). When the call for “bringing the state back in” (Evans et al. 1985) arose in political science, it by and large, referred to a larger role and stronger capacity of the state in the economy and society. Globalization has further fueled the rise of the economic state in at least four areas. First, globalization intensifies the international economic competition that engages virtually all states, which further increases economic concerns and strengthens relevant economic functions of the state (Micklethwait and Wooldridge 2014), crossing the divides between south and north and between democracy and non-democracy. Second, with the collapse of the state-planning system, the debate over justifying or denying state intervention in the economy ebbed, and, ironically, the increasing economic role of the state has seemingly become naturally legitimized, perhaps partially due to the disappearance of the fear of too much state intervention. Thirdly, the decline of ideology in dominating politics opened a wider path for a shift in the state mentality and popular concerns over being economy-centered. Fourth, globalization has further involved the Global South in global competition, where the motivation to catch up with development is strong and the paradigm of state-led development seems to easily prevail (Evans 1995; Weiss and Hobson 1995; Waldner 1999; Kohli 2004). The state, therefore, is increasingly viewed, analyzed, and appreciated as an economic agency.

15 Globalization and the Rise of the Economic State …

247

In short, the rise of the economic state is transforming the state apparatus from being the most significant public arena into being gradually and increasingly an institutional collaborator of the market mechanism that promotes material and private interests. The basic institutional dilemma of the economic state, therefore, lies in its self-contradiction of combining coercive public power and market profit-making. This yields a series of significant implications for the political economy in the globalization age. To demonstrate and deepen the above observations, let us now turn to two of the weightiest cases of the economic state in the world, the PRC and the USA.

The Economic State in the PRC: A Coercive Machine for Profit-Making and Prosperity China has since the 1990s embraced globalization enthusiastically (Lardy 2002); this took place in the context of the country having experienced since the late 1970s the post-Mao transition away from a state-planning economy by introducing the marketization program (Naughton 1995). When communism collapsed in the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries, China not only eluded regime change but also managed to obtain economic prosperity in the years to follow. Various perspectives have been proposed to understand why it is so (e.g., Dimitrov 2013; Saxonberg 2013). The rise of the economic state, for this author, well explains both the political survival and the economic miracle of the communist state and highlights both the accomplishments of China in globalization and the pitfalls it has brought about. Following the above theoretical outline, the economic state in China can be analyzed from six aspects, each being briefly discussed below. The economy-centered governmentality of the Chinese party-state: During the post-Mao era starting in the late 1970s, the Chinese party-state, in my analysis, twice took a lead in the world for focusing and refocusing its attention on economic development. This took place first in 1978–79, when, with the neoliberal turn of contemporary global history (Caryl 2014), the post-Mao leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) made an announcement that it would shift “the focus of work” from class struggles to economic construction. This declaration is later regarded by the CCP itself as the official starting point of post-Mao Chinese reform that features the introduction of the market mechanism into the country. Then in 1992, as a response to the collapse of world communism, Deng Xiaoping, then the party-state’s paramount leader, pushed China to be refocused on economic growth (Naughton 2007), as this economy-centered approach had been briefly interrupted following the Tiananmen crackdown by the political debate over the compatibility between the Communist Party’s monopoly of political power and the market elements. These two initiatives of prioritizing economic growth on the state agenda clearly indicate how the economic state powerfully arose to dominate the country, and, as Fig. 1 shows, effectively resulted in China’s rapid economic growth in, respectively, the 1980s and the years following 1992.

248

G. Wu

Fig. 1 China’s annual economic growth rate (%) 1973–2012. Source National Bureau of Statistics of China. http://data.stats.gov.cn/easyquery.htm?cn=C01. China’s financial statistics 1950–1985 (1950–1985). Beijing: China financial & economic publishing house, 1987

State dominance of market operation: The transition to the market-oriented economy implies the shrinking of the omnipresence of state roles in the economy. But, this is only true in comparison with state roles in the state-planning system. Beyond the state–market dichotomy, huge space exists for a variety of different combinations of state functions and market autonomy. Today’s China, even without the traditional communist state-planning system, stands closer on this wide spectrum to the end where the state dominates the market, or, in two Chinese scholars’ phrase, “market in state” (Zheng and Huang 2018). That is to say, quite contradictory to the prevailing but simplified assumption that China has been marketized in the sense of operating the “free” market, the Chinese state with its market transition retains ultrasignificant function in the economy to the degree that it is the state that dominates market operations in comprehensive ways. It is impossible to discuss these comprehensive ways in this short article, but one can get a sense of them by observing three primary aspects. First, the Chinese state still has the indispensable role of planning the economy, though nowadays it does so in collaboration with the market, rather than excluding the market as was practiced in the Mao era (Naughton 2007). Second, the Chinese state carries tremendous weight in the ownership of properties, as Fig. 2 helps to demonstrate. In fact, private ownership was officially recognized by the Chinese state as late as in the early 1990s, and, in the early twenty-first century, guojin mintui (the state sector grows at cost of the private sector which has to retreat) became a strong trend (Wu 2011). Third, in embracing globalization, the Chinese state also continues to develop a series of measures to retain its dominance in admitting and controlling foreign enterprises’ access to the Chinese market. Other states also do this (yes, this indicates the trend of the rise of the economic state worldwide), but China’s state power in this regard is obviously and overwhelmingly predominant in comparison both with that of other states and with market power (Wu 2017). Why can’t Chinese residents use Google and Facebook? Clearly, the answer is not in these enterprises’ possible market flaws, but in the power

15 Globalization and the Rise of the Economic State …

249

Fig. 2 Fixed assets value of state and private enterprises in China 1998–2012. Source China statistical yearbook 1999–2012. http://www.stats.gov.cn/tjsj/ndsj/

and capacity that the Chinese state possesses to make the decision of fencing off them from the Chinese market. The state as the coercive machine for economic prosperity: The Chinese state never shies away from mobilizing state coercion for ensuring its program of economic development. In 1989, the Chinese government sent tanks to the Beijing streets and opened machine-gun fire on university students and citizens who peacefully protested against corruption and requested transition to democracy (Brook 1992). The Chinese party-state justified this brutal massacre straightforwardly by claiming the “necessity” of the crackdown for maintaining a “stable” social environment that favors economic development. Moreover, the Chinese state has since then strived to institutionalize the coercion-for-economic-prosperity mechanism, mainly by building up the so-called “stability maintenance” (weiwen) system (in disguise claiming public security), with the help of a tremendous state fiscal budget (see Fig. 3), for safeguarding the CCP’s monopoly of state power and fending off social discontent against socioeconomic inequalities, social injustice, and governmental corruption. Tacit materialistic social contract for supporting state legitimacy: Authoritarian legitimacy is somehow a self-contradictory term, which, without effective electoral authorization of the leadership by voters, is often crystallized through a tacit social contract that the governed passively accepts and confirms the leaders already in power (Wu 2015). In the PRC, with the “focus on economic construction,” post-Mao leaderships began to have a tacit social contract with residents that highlighted the regime’s capability to deliver material benefits to citizens (Cheng 2008), then made efforts to maintain and enforce it by excluding any alternative demands of citizens for social and political rights. With the disaster of the Maoist Cultural Revolution in the 1970s and, then in the 1990s, the collapse of world communism, the Chinese

250

G. Wu

Fig. 3 China budget on public security v. national defense 1985–2017 (billion yuan). Source National Bureau of Statistics of China. http://data.stats.gov.cn/easyquery.htm:cn=C01. Ministry of Finance of the Pepole’s Republic of China, “National general public budget expenditure of 2017.” http://yss.mof.gov.cn/qgczjs/201807/t20180712_2959592.html. Finance year book of China 2002/2001/2000/1999/1998/1997/1996/1995/1994/1993. http://r.cnki.net/KNavi/yearbook/Detail/ SJYY/YZGCZ?NaviD=&NO=N2005110483

party-state was repeatedly aware of how seriously its legitimacy was undermined. In refusing a democratic transition for shifting its legitimate bases to citizens’ choice, it relies, with the exercise of state coercion to restrict people’s non-economic demands, on its accomplishments in material progress for making the populace tacitly accept the current regime. The state’s ignorance of public goods: The Chinese state’s powerful and tremendous engagement in economic activities have effectively created China’s national advantages in global economic competition and reached its goal of promoting rapid growth. The cost of doing so, however, is tremendous (Hong 2015); it has especially left huge holes in supplying public goods. As the economic state is generally not much interested in providing public goods, the authoritarian Chinese economic state is even further impotent in this regard, due to its very weak accountability to public demands. This helps to explain why the strong state in the PRC in terms of maintaining political repression and stimulating economic growth is extremely weak and incapable when dealing with issues of human security such as, to name a few among many, food safety, vaccine scandals, and pollutions of air, soil, and water (Wu 2013). Moreover, when social forces attempt to fight these problems, the Chinese state likes to direct its vigilance against such social forces, including NGOs, rather than the problems per se. The Chinese state is not only inactive in responding to non-economic demands, especially social and political demands for equity, justice, civic rights, and democratic participation but also makes every effort to remove them from the state agenda while, as emphasized above, mobilizing coercive suppression

15 Globalization and the Rise of the Economic State …

251

to deal with them, and justifying this by citing the necessity of “maintaining stability” for facilitating economic prosperity. Rampant governmental corruption: It is so severe and obvious that even the Chinese regime has since the 1980s never denied the existence and spreading of the country’s rampant governmental corruption. The party-state has indeed made efforts to contain and crackdown on corruption; the campaign launched by the Xi Jinping leadership since 2013 has been especially powerful. What the regime denies, however, is the very institutional nature of China’s corruption; this nature, in this article’s analysis, is the authoritarian economic state. It is technically infeasible to present evidence here in support of this argument, but a reader may consult relevant publications (e.g., Cheng 2016; Pei 2016) to get a sense of how the power–money alliance that promotes China’s economic prosperity simultaneously nurtures and fuels governmental corruption, particularly through the commoditization of public power. Mao’s motto for party-state cadres “serving the people” has been for decades buried in huge piles of Renminbi (on which Mao’s portrait, ironically, is printed); money dictates governmental ethics, and public power is widely and permissibly, if not lawfully and legitimately, utilized by state offices and officials for making money to their private benefit. Summarizing the above analyses, the PRC can be viewed as a strong example of the economic state with deep institutional roots in primarily three aspects: the lingering totalitarian legacies from the Mao era regarding the economy, such as state ownership, which are never officially denounced by the post-Mao leaderships, but intentionally mobilized for strengthening state capacity in framing the market and in global competition; state-dominated marketization, through which the Chinese state has developed new strengths in promoting economic development and in embracing globalization; the repressive nature of PRC political authoritarianism, which squeezes the nation’s energy exclusively toward material accomplishments while suppressing citizens’ non-economic demands. Altogether, China’s transition from communism must be understood as the state’s strategic adjustments to its economic role in embracing the market while dominating the market. This is a reincarnation of state socialism into state capitalism: the economic flesh body is changed, but the soul is almost the same, which has been revitalized from the ideological state to the economic state.

The Economic State in the USA: Spasmodic Changes in Tension with Democracy In comparison with the PRC where state power in controlling society and the economy has been constantly strong and, accordingly, the rise of economic state is among the most palpable in the world, the USA has for a long time been regarded as a nation where state power is greatly limited under a model democracy with highly societal autonomy (de Tocqueville 1990), where state capacity is often accused of being weak (Evans et al. 1985), and where the state plays even fewer roles in

252

G. Wu

economic affairs than in most of the industrialized market economies (Gourevitch 1986). Recently, the point of view that the American state has little to do with the market has been challenged, but the economic role of the state in the USA, generally speaking over the country’s history of about two and half centuries and comparatively speaking in a global context, is still much constrained and less extensive, especially in terms of domestic economic administration. Against such a background, this chapter would argue, the rise of the economic state in the USA during the post-Cold War globalization has been particularly discernable, though gradual, spasmodic, and often ineffective. This can be also observed in terms of those six aspects listed in the theoretical section. The state’s growing concern over the economy: The traditional economic role of the American state is often termed “gate-keeper” and, in the fashion of scholarly conceptualization, the regulatory state. It means that the state aims to function for the purpose of maintaining the basic, legal order of the market while leaving the market to operate with its own mechanism with not-much state intervention (DeCanio 2015). This is not what I refer to as the economic state, though such a regulatory state still has some, yet greatly limited, economic functions. In fact, the US founding fathers did not include much economic consideration in the principles of the new nation; their concerns were human dignity and civic rights of all citizens, for the protection and promotion of which the government was established as an agent of public life. Economic concerns belonged mostly to the private sphere, where individuals were to make their own efforts to strive for prosperity. The state, under this logic, simply safeguards the circumstances for citizens to do so. This approach has been under change over time, especially since the end of the Cold War. In industrialized democracies, the disappearance of political, military, and ideological confrontations between democracy and communism with the collapse of the Soviet bloc greatly promoted an economy-centered mentality among voters, as epitomized in Bill Clinton’s first campaign phrase, “It’s the economy, stupid!”.2 The Clinton years are, accordingly, remembered and celebrated for their economic achievements, a time of unprecedented wealth, of breathtaking progress in technology, and, therefore, a “golden age” in which American society was “so favored as it entered a new millennium that its people could be excused for believing they were experiencing their very best of times” (Johnson 2001: 1). It is its economic performance that has roughly since then increasingly become the central concern of the American state for both politicians and voters; people who are not aware of this centrality of economic concerns are simply scorned “stupid.” The rise of Donald Trump in American politics further demonstrates that this evolution of the USA toward the economic state is well beyond partisan politics, and instead is a roughly continuous acceleration through the 1990s–2010s. Trump’s campaign slogan, “Making America Great Again,” clearly signals the upgrading of the Clinton “it’s-the-economy-stupid” cognizance in at least two aspects: First, national economic performance, which sits at the center of this Trump slogan, is 2 For

the phrase and its background, see, for example, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ It’s_the_economy,_stupid, accessed June 15, 2015. Emphasis is added.

15 Globalization and the Rise of the Economic State …

253

upgraded to the degree that the greatness of the USA is embedded; second, the state’s action, as indicated in the word “making,” is regarded as necessary and perhaps inevitable for improving national economic performance, in contrast to Clinton’s vague expression concerning the economy that mostly means the necessity of politicians’ awareness of voters’ economic concerns. These campaign slogans might be said superficial signals, but they are doubtlessly emblematic; they have clearly shown how economic concerns have become more and more dominant on the US state agenda. The enhancement of state authority in economic domains: The position of the USA in this latest wave of globalization is unique and, perhaps, awkward. It is unique because this wave of globalization, by and large, originated from the USA, ideologically and politically motivated by capitalist democracies’ strategic competition with communism and, then, fueled by the global triumph of capitalism as well as democracy. The rise of neoliberalism since the late 1970s (Prasad 2006; Caryl 2014) can be understood as a major strategy of capitalism against communism; the collapse of world communism, however, did not finish this trend. Rather, the capitalist world led by the USA took this opportunity to spread the global market through continuous neoliberal policies (Harvey 2005). Different from the prevailing interpretation of neoliberalism as the reducer of state roles in the economy, this author has argued elsewhere that the neoliberal state is by virtue a type of the economic state based on a conceptual distinction between the state’s “positive” and “negative” interventions of economic activities and, furthermore, on the fact that the neoliberal state only reduces “positive” interventions for increasing state-market collaboration (Wu 2017). In the American case, as emphasized above, the state’s economic concern substantially grew with neoliberalism and its various consequences, thus starting the rise of the American economic state. Geopolitical competitions are, of course, always important for shaping state behaviors, as they have also contributed to the transformation toward the economic state. It is obvious, however, that geopolitical competitions the USA was involved in were much more extensive during the Cold War era, but I cannot argue that the American state during the Cold War was the economic state in any sense. Rather, post-Cold War globalization, which was very much promoted by neoliberal policies, helps to shift state concerns to geoeconomic competitions. Then things become awkward, however. Globalization intensifies global competition in such a way that not only private firms but also states are involved; but the neoliberal policies of the USA, while facilitating the global flow of capital, have, in return, undermined the American economy as well as American democracy in many ways (Wu 2017). Manufacturers have moved out to those countries, including China, where capital finds cheaper labor to make greater profits, thus jobs for US workers have evaporated; immigrants have come in to take lower paying job opportunities in the service sector; economic polarization, like elsewhere and everywhere in the world of globalization, has arisen to a severe degree that nurtures hatred, crime, and sociopolitical splits (Piketty 2014; Stiglitz 2015). Trump’s rise clearly indicates the discontent of American voters on these problems; such discontent has now amassed to the degree that a majority of citizens has turned to the state with stronger economic capacity for remedies. Traditionally, the US state was often criticized for

254

G. Wu

its lack of industrial policy. The rise of the economic state, however, implies that the American state pays increasing attention to various economic policies, primarily including trade policy, R&D policy, and industrial policy. The Trump administration has further expanded the domains of the state’s economic governance into infrastructure and greatly enhanced state efforts in promoting growth and creating jobs. In any sense, the American state today is very much more active than it traditionally was in economic affairs. This economic involvement of the American state is of course not prominent in comparison with many other countries (either those developmental states or the welfare states), but, in historical comparison with earlier periods, the expansion and enhancement of the US state’s economic functions are inarguably substantial and impressive. The involvement of state coercion for promoting economic interests: Does the US economic state also exercise coercive means for promoting economic interests? Yes, though not in the same way that we have observed in the PRC, nor to such an extent. Democracy is of course a major institutional factor that directs state coercion emphatically outward, namely in the USA’s dealing with other countries, rather than inward, as in the case of China with its authoritarian state dealing with its own citizens. This means that state coercive measures for economic purposes are employed mainly in the international realm, that is, global competition. The Trump administration seems especially consciously to be doing so, as it has initiated and fought a series of trade wars with China and many other countries (Wikipedia 2018). Yes, the trade war is nothing new for states in general and for the US in particular, but it is still not so usual for the American state to do it, for whatever reasons, with such high frequency and great priority at such a central position on the state agenda. The shift of major sources of state legitimacy from procedural democracy to economic performance: In the formal sense, democratic elections still decide who rules the US; on a deeper level, however, as both cases of Bill Clinton and Donald Trump have demonstrated in different time periods, a majority of voters chose to send to power the leader who emphasized economic issues and who promised better delivery of economic benefits. What Trump struggles to achieve, such as improvements of infrastructure, the creation of jobs, and, more generally, a faster economic growth rate, are obviously closer to the Chinese state programs than to the US founding fathers’ imagination of their nation’s future. As the Chinese authoritarian state is arguably accepted by its citizens for its spectacular performance in promoting economic growth, would it be far from reality to say that the American state is also increasingly becoming reliable on its economic accomplishments while the democratic mechanism is accordingly being hollowed out? The declining commitment to state supplies of public goods: Especially with the Trump administration, the US state’s willingness in supplying public goods is noticeably declining. Take environmental protection for example. According to National Geographic (Greshko et al. 2018), The Trump Administration’s tumultuous presidency has brought a flurry of changes— both realized and anticipated—to U.S. environmental policy. Many of the actions roll back Obama-era policies that aimed to curb climate change and limit environmental pollution, while others threaten to limit federal funding for science and the environment.

15 Globalization and the Rise of the Economic State …

255

Gender equality is another example, regarding which a similar trend has occurred leading to a situation in which “many view his [Trump’s] presidency as ‘the worst we’ve ever seen for women’” (Siddiqui 2018). Possible partisan biases aside, the above ignorance of public goods is complemented by the Trump administration’s accomplishment in economic aspects. In the second quarter of 2018, the US economy accelerated to a 4.1% pace of growth, the fastest since 2014, and consumer spending grew 4%, more than estimated, while nonresidential business investment climbed at a 7.3% clip (Chandra 2018). In the month of September 2018, 134,000 jobs were added, and the US unemployment rate came to 3.7%, the lowest since 1969, while average earnings rose 8% an hour and were up 2.8% over the past year (Casselman 2018). This contrast between the ignorance of public goods and the gains in the economy here doesn’t necessarily indicate any causal explanation, but it definitely highlights the feature of the economic state in prioritizing the latter over the former. The deterioration of governmental ethics: As crony capitalism taints politics today almost everywhere in the world, including in many established democracies such as the UK (Cave and Rowell 2015) and India (Khatri and Ojha 2016) and in less mature democracies in Latin America and East Asia (Haber 2002; Kang 2002), the USA is not an exception (Zingales 2012, ch. 3; Lewis 2013; Stockman 2013). Yes, crony capitalism simply means the prevalence of governmental corruption, especially in the form of power–money exchange for illegitimate private benefits. Government– business collaboration that usually helps to foster economic development to actualize the policy priority of the economic state also, unfortunately, nurtures severe governmental corruption; this also applies to the USA despite its mature and even model democracy. In terms of both extent and strength, the rise of the USA economic state is, of course, much less phenomenal than that of the PRC. With very different cultural landscapes, economic structures, and, especially, political systems, it would be unimaginable to find no huge dissimilarity between the two country cases in state responses to and state reconfigurations from globalization. The similarities as those analyzed above, however, are already sufficiently surprising, especially in terms of how the USA state is now becoming more and more comparable to the PRC state. Yet American democracy might be working well to prevent the US state from being fundamentally reorganized along with a deviation from the American constitutional tradition, but, ideally, exploring in a feasible path to combine diverse social interests and strong state capacity. In such a scenario, the developments discussed here might prove simply to be something like the Clinton–Trump detour during the globalization age, or even just the Trump adjustment as a non-optional sine qua non in this economic cycle and juncture without lasting political–institutional implications. Alternatively, they might add institutional elements of the economic state to the American political system while their undermining effects for democracy are contained, for developing a democratic economic state that combines a strong democracy with capable economic governance. In any case, assuming that the greatness of America will be successfully revitalized in the Trump style, which means it is primarily measured by its economic accomplishments rather than the indicators emphasized by the founding fathers, the

256

G. Wu

US state seemingly will experience a struggle in actualizing both its democratic mission and its economic priority.

Conclusion Globalization arising in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries has tremendously transformed many fundamental institutions of human activities, primarily including the state. The above chapter has proposed a theory of the economic state for understanding how state–market collaboration as the institutional essence of globalization has reconfigured the state toward the direction of becoming a coercive apparatus for, at best, material prosperity and, at worst, public power holders’ private benefits. It has sketched out six features of the economic state and compared the PRC and the USA, the two most powerful economies of the world, along with these six dimensions. In general, the state has unprecedentedly taken an increased interest in its own economic performance in both interstate and domestic political economies. In practice, however, such economic engagement of the state can take different paths with different historical- and institutional-embedded factors. With the demonstration of how fundamentally different types of state can develop some homogeneous features in governance, the common trend of the rise of the economic state becomes clear, especially in the form of cross-state similarities in distant cases such as the PRC and the USA. Obviously, globalization explains the trend of similarities in a number of ways. State–market collaboration is an institutional framework within which globalization unfolds; it inevitably nurtures further institutional inter-fertilization between the state and the market. Intensification of global competition propels state engagement in economic activities in both international and domestic spheres; the capacity and extent of mobilization of statecontrolled resources that range from material to organizational ones for economic purposes can determine the rise or fall of a nation nowadays more than in many previous historical eras. Even those negative aftermaths of globalization, such as the prevalence of commodity fetishism among populaces and increasing economic inequalities both domestically and internationally (Wu 2017), in return, call for the further extension of jurisdiction and power of the economic state. A variety of the economic state exists, however, as the differences between the Chinese and American economic states exemplify. This can be explained with the given nation’s whereabouts in the dynamic process of institutional change toward the rise of the economic state; the specific place of a country on the landscapes of globalization and international relations also matters, as the USA is a status quo and hegemonic power while the PRC is a late comer and rising to be a challenger. To this article, however, the distinguished characters of the given economic state are much embedded in the political institutions the state has established, though it also considers how such established institutions are affected by the economic state and its features. In this line of reasoning, it sees the PRC economic state moving from state socialism through state capitalism to state-capital despotism, while the USA

15 Globalization and the Rise of the Economic State …

257

economic state, by contrast, is constrained by American democracy and has little to do, at least so far, with domestic coercion for private profit. The economic state operationally bends politics to economics, and conceptually it desires citizens’ convenient acceptance of the proposition of “economics as politics.” As economics is propelled toward becoming the central focus of politics, political power, whether in the form of democracy or not, needs effective delivery of economic benefits to bolster its legitimacy over the ruled; politicians now often rely on their propagandized promises and positive performance in promoting economic prosperity either to gain power, as in a democracy, or to maintain power, as with authoritarianism. This logic of the economic state undermines democracy and, under authoritarianism, hinders democratization (Wu 2017). The differences between the democratic economic state and the authoritarian economic state, however, still stand out prominently, not only indicating tensions between the economic state and democracy but also implying the potential embedded in a democracy for self-adjustment and self-regeneration toward the direction of combining the democratic spirit with improved economic governance.

References Aristotle. 1981. The Politics (trans. by T.A Sinclair). Penguin Books, New York Barr, N. 2012. Economics of the Welfare State. 5th edn. Oxford University Press. Brook, T. 1992. Quelling the People: The Military Suppression of the Beijing Democracy Movement. Stanford University Press. Caryl, C. 2014. Strange Rebels: 1979 and the Birth of the 21st Century. Basic Books, New York Casselman, B. 2018. With 8 Years of Job Gains, Unemployment is Lowest Since 1969. New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/05/business/economy/jobs-report.html. Accessed 5 Oct 2018. Cave, T., and C. Rowell. 2015. A Quiet Word: Lobbying, Crony Capitalism and Broken Politics in Britain. UK, London: Random House. Chandra, S. 2018. U.S. growth hits 4.1%, fastest since 2014, in win for Trump. Bloomberg. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-07-27/u-s-gdp-growth-hits-4-1-fas test-since-2014-in-win-for-trump. Accessed 5 Oct 2018, 27 July 2018. Cheng, X. 2008. Back From Honeymoon to Political Tension: Reform Politics from Zhao Ziyang to Hu Jintao. In Zhao Ziyang and China’s Political Future, ed. G. Wu and H. Lansdowne, 135–150. London: Routledge. Cheng, X. 2016. Capitalism Making and its Political Consequences in Transition: A Political Economy Analysis of China’s Communist Capitalism. In China’s Transition from Communism—New Perspectives Political Future, ed. G. Wu and H. Lansdowne, 10–34. London: Routledge. DeCanio, S. 2015. Democracy and the Origins of the American Regulatory State. New Haven: Yale University Press. de Tocqueville, A. 1990. Democracy in America. New York: Vintage Books. Deyo, F.C. (ed.). 1987. The Political Economy of the New Asian Industrialism. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Dimitrov, M.K. (ed.). 2013. Why Communism Did Not Collapse: Understanding Authoritarian Regime Resilience in Asia and Europe. Cambridge University Press. Esping-Andersen, G. 1990. The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism. Princeton University Press.

258

G. Wu

Evans, P. 1995. Embedded Autonomy: States and Industrial Transformation. Princeton University Press. Evans, P., D. Rueschemeyer, and T. Skocpol. (eds.). 1985. Bringing the State Back In. Cambridge University Press. Feinberg, R. 2016. Open for Business: Building the New Cuban Economy. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press. Foucault, M. 1991. Governmentality. In The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality, ed. G. Burchell, C Gordon and P. Miller, 87–104. University of Chicago Press. Garland. D. 2016. The Welfare State: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press. Greshko, M., L. Parker, B.C. Howard, D. Stone. 2018. A Running List of How President Trump is Changing Environmental Policy. National Geographic. https://news.nationalgeographic.com/ 2017/03/how-trump-is-changing-science-environment/. Accessed 5 Oct 2018. Gourevitch, P. 1986. Politics in Hard Times: Comparative Responses to International Economic Crises. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Haber, S. (ed.). 2002. Crony Capitalism and Economic Growth in Latin America: Theory and Evidence. Stanford: Hoover Institution Press. Haggard, S. 1990. Pathways from the Periphery: The Politics of Growth in the Newly Industrialized Countries. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Hall, P.A. 1986. Governing the Economy: The Politics of State Intervention in Britain and France. Oxford University Press. Harvey. D. 2005. A Brief History of Neoliberalism. Oxford University Press. Held, D., A. McGrew, D. Goldblatt, and J. Perraton. 1999. Global Transformations: Politics. Economics and Culture: Stanford University Press. Hong, Z. 2015. The Price of China’s Economic Development: Power, Capital, and the Poverty of Rights. Lexington KY: University Press of Kentucky. Hopkins, A.G. (ed.). 2002. Globalization in World History. New York: W W Norton. Johnson, C. 1982. MITI and the Japanese Miracle: The Growth of Industrial Policy, 1925–1975. Stanford University Press. Johnson, H. 2001. The Best of Times: America in the Clinton Years. New York: Harcourt. Kang, D.C. 2002. Crony Capitalism: Corruption and Development in South Korea and the Philippines. Cambridge University Press. Khatri, N., and A.K. Ojha (eds.). 2016. Crony Capitalism in India: Establishing Robust Counteractive Institutional Frameworks. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Kohli, A. 2004. State-Directed Development: Political Power and Industrialization in the Global Periphery. Cambridge University Press. Lardy, N.R. 2002. Integrating China into the Global Economy. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press. Lewis, H. 2013. Crony Capitalism in America: 2008–2012. AC2 Books. Micklethwait, J., and A. Wooldridge. 2014. The Fourth Revolution: The Global Race to Reinvent the State. New York: Penguin Press. Naughton, B. 1995. Growing Out of the Plan: Chinese Economic Reform, 1978–1993. Cambridge University Press. Naughton, B. 2007. The Chinese Economy: Transitions and Growth. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. North, D.C. 1990. Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance. Cambridge University Press. Osterhammel, J., and N.P. Petersson. 2005. Globalization: A Short History (trans. by D. Geyer). Princeton University Press. Pei, M. 2016. China’s Crony Capitalism: The Dynamics of Regime Decay. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Perkins, D.H. 1966. Market Control and Planning in Communist China. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Piketty, T. 2014. Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

15 Globalization and the Rise of the Economic State …

259

Poggi, G. 1978. The Development of the Modern State: A Sociological Introduction. Stanford University Press. Prasad, M. 2006. The Politics of Free Markets: The Rise of Neoliberal Economic Policies in Britain, France, Germany, and the United States. University of Chicago Press. Roberts, J.M. 2000. The Penguin History of the Twentieth Century: The History of the World, 1901 to the Present. London: Penguin Books. Robertson, R. 2003. The Three Waves of Globalization: A History of a Developing Global Consciousness. London: Zed Books. Saxonberg, S. 2013. Transitions and Non-transitions from Communism: Regime Survival in China, Cuba, North Korea, and Vietnam. Cambridge University Press. Siddiqui, S. 2018 How has Donald Trump’s first year affected women? The Guardian. https://www. theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jan/18/how-has-donald-trumps-first-year-affected-women. Accessed 5 Oct 2018. Smith, H. 2015. North Korea: Markets and Military Rule. Cambridge University Press. Stearns, P.N. 2010. Globalization in World History. London: Routledge. Steger, M.B. 2009. Globalization: A Very Short Introduction. 2nd edn. Oxford University Press. Stiglitz, J.E. 2015. The Great Divide: Unequal Societies and What We Can Do About Them. New York: W W Norton. Stockman, D.A. 2013. The Great Deformation: The Corruption of Capitalism in America. New York: Public Affairs. Strange, S. 1996. The Retreat of the State: The Diffusion of Power in the World Economy. Cambridge University Press. Strayer, J.R. 1970. On the Medieval Origins of the Modern State. Princeton University Press. Tilly, C. (ed.). 1975. The Formation of National States in Western Europe. Princeton University Press. Wade, R. 1990. Governing the Market: Economic Theory and the Role of Government in East Asian Industrialization. Princeton University Press. Waldner, D. 1999. State Building and Late Development. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Weber, M. 1978. Economy and Society. Berkeley: University of California Press. Weiss, L., and J.M. Hobson. 1995. States and Economic Development: A Comparative Historical Analysis. Cambridge: Polity. Wikipedia. 2018. 2018 China–United States trade war. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_China% E2%80%93United_States_trade_war. accessed 7 Oct 2018. Wu, G. 2011. China in 2010: Dilemmas of ‘Scientific Development’. Asian Survey 51 (1): 18–32. Wu, G. (ed.). 2013. China’s Challenge to Human Security. London: Routledge. Wu, G. 2015. China’s Party Congress: Power, Legitimacy, and Institutional Manipulation. Cambridge University Press. Wu, G. 2017. Globalization against Democracy: A Political Economy of Capitalism after its Global Triumph. Cambridge University Press. Zheng, Y., and Y. Huang. 2018. Market in State: The Political Economy of Domination in China. Cambridge University Press. Zingales, L. 2012. A Capitalism for the People: Recapturing the Lost Genius of American Prosperity. New York: Basic Books.

Guoguang Wu is a Professor of Political Science, Professor of History, and Chair in China & Asia-Pacific Relations, University of Victoria, Canada. He is author of four books, including China’s Party Congress: Power, Legitimacy, and Institutional Manipulation (Cambridge University Press, 2015) and Globalization against Democracy: A Political Economy of Capitalism after its Global Triumph (Cambridge University Press, 2017).

ON ECONOMIC GLOBALIZATION

Chapter 16

Trade Globalization and Its Consequences Michael C. Dreiling

Abstract Trade globalization began centuries ago and was associated with the emergence of European empires and their exploitation of colonies. By the middle of the twentieth century, global trade expanded dramatically, linked to the rise of US-based multinational corporations and an aggressive free trade agenda of the U.S. government. Neoliberalization of trade began in the 1970s and accelerated with a wave of regional and global trade liberalization initiatives from 1988 to 2010. The result was heightened trade in goods and services globally, a dramatic realignment of capital investments, and numerous anticipated and unanticipated social and economic dislocations, most forcefully depicted in the 2007–09 Great Recession. U.S. foreign direct investments (FDI) and U.S.-led trade liberalization with China resulted in a dramatic shift in the geography of global manufacturing and the loss of millions of manufacturing sector jobs in the U.S. The rise of new economic powers, especially the BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India, and China), prompted a long-standing stalemate at the World Trade Organization. Finally, recent political events in the UK and the U.S. (Brexit and Trump) are considered as both initiatives signal a crisis in multilateralism in an age of reaction to neoliberal globalization.

Introduction This chapter reviews several interrelated arguments about the economic forces that animate globalization. This is no small feat, as much of the rest of the book can attest. However, scholarship from a variety of social science disciplines identifies several points of focus for understanding the skeletal structures of economic globalization, namely the Bretton Woods institutions and their various iterations; the growth in the political and economic activities of transnational corporations; internationalization of merchandise and finance capital flows, as indicated in the growth of international trade and Foreign Direct Investment (FDI); geographic reorganization of manufacturing; the decline of organized labor in OECD; establishment of international trade M. C. Dreiling (B) Department of Sociology, Sociology University of Oregon, Eugene, USA e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 I. Rossi (ed.), Challenges of Globalization and Prospects for an Inter-civilizational World Order, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44058-9_16

263

264

M. C. Dreiling

blocs; and the economic policies of nation states. Broadly speaking, these organizational and institutional forces contributed to a dramatic opening of the world economy in the last 70 years, which we explore below. Corporate and state actors overwhelmingly dictated the direction of these forces and established the architecture for this globalization. The transition from the postwar liberal to a neoliberal international order can be explained by the expanded influence of global corporate and financial interests. These top-down corporate and government forces are also in turn shaped by constant tensions arising from technological, economic, geo-political, and demographic changes in the world. Other chapters explore these dynamics.

Overview of Post-world War II Globalization Trade continues to be an inextricable condition for larger patterns of economic and political globalization. From perspectives as varied as world systems theory to neoliberal economics, trade volume and flows are treated as important levers and indicators of globalization. Over the last two hundred years, trade not only grew, but it grew faster and faster. Figure 1 presents value estimates of world exports between 1800 and 2014. Using data from Federico and Tena-Junguito (2016), the vertical axis represents constant prices indexed to the value of exports in 1913. As this data shows, the growth in world exports grew steadily for about 140 years and then accelerated after the Second World War. Exports grew so rapidly, as seen using this scale, that it is difficult to see the slump in world trade and exports that occurred between the two world wars. Of course, also notable are the effects on world exports of the Great 6000

5000

4000

3000

2000

1000

1800 1805 1810 1815 1820 1825 1830 1835 1840 1845 1850 1855 1860 1865 1870 1875 1880 1885 1890 1895 1900 1905 1910 1915 1920 1925 1930 1935 1951 1956 1961 1966 1971 1976 1981 1986 1991 1996 2001 2006 2011

0

Fig. 1 Two centuries of world exports at constant values, indexed to 1913 U.S. dollars. Source Federico and Tena-Junguito (2016)

16 Trade Globalization and Its Consequences

265

Recession (2007–2009). The 2007 financial crisis and recession induced a worldwide contraction in trade and exports, leading some to speculate that the financial crisis and recession fundamentally restructured globalization. This transformation and realignment of globalization will be considered in the final section of the chapter. Outside of sociology, the growth of world trade is often treated as a purely economic phenomenon. World growth in merchandise exports is viewed as an important proxy for deepening networks of economic exchange and integration (see Fig. 1). The expansion of activities by multinational corporations, including intra-firm trade, and the global development of value chains contribute to this economic globalization (Milner 1988). While growth in the trade of goods and services is certainly a facet of globalization, concluding that this growth is mostly a function of economics, not politics, is a mistake. To be direct, markets cannot exist apart from the activity of states (Polanyi 2001[1944]; Fligstein 2001). Whether one views capitalist markets positively or negatively is quite secondary to this basic observation about the role of the state in shaping trade and financial markets. The most straightforward manner in which states transform the conditions for international trade is through import and export tariffs. Economists have long noted the negative relationship between tariffs and international merchandise trade. For example, Garret (2000), using World Bank data, found a strong negative correlation (−0.89) between annualized trade taxes for all countries and the total value of world trade. As tariffs steadily dropped in the postwar era, the volume of world trade expanded. While international trade flows linked to large firms were a key expression of this process, the genesis of these changes can be clearly traced, in many ways, to changes that occurred within states. Of course, nation states condition trade relations in a number of other ways, independent of natural resource, labor, or capital endowments. The inverse of trade liberalization is found in protectionism, which involves the effort by governments, often at the direction of powerful corporate sectors or class factions, to restrict access of foreign products or services to the domestic market. Different motivations may drive these efforts, though two primary factors can be identified. The first rationale may be to simply raise revenue by taxing or adding import tariffs to foreign-produced goods and services. Often related is the rationale to protect a specific domestic industry from foreign competition. In this case, the interest of policymakers is not simply to raise government revenue by taxing foreign imports, but these state policymakers also respond to domestic political pressures to protect an industry by imposing restrictions that limit the quantity of foreign imports. These restrictions could come in the form of tariffs or nontariff (e.g., quotas, licensing schemes, quarantines, etc.) measures. As observed in Fig. 1, the long-term world capitalist trend is toward trade liberalization, not protectionism. At the beginning of the plot in 1800, we should note that world trade accounted for a paltry 2% of world economic output, indexed to the value of world exports in 1913 dollars (See Estevadeordal et al. 2003). At the turn of the eighteenth century, trade remained closely coupled to colonialism. For two centuries, empires were the means by which trade interests were secured by powerful states on behalf of merchants. Using their sphere of influence, earlier commercial treaties spelled out protections and privileges for merchants associated with the empire.

266

M. C. Dreiling

Trade flowed through the viaducts of empires and colonies. These arrangements were bolstered with the philosophy of mercantilism which stressed that a nation should export more than it imports and thereby enjoy a trade surplus to finance armies, navies, and colonial expansion. Smith (1793) and later Ricardo (1817/2001) rebuffed mercantilist theory, arguing, respectively, that greater efficiencies in production across countries can result from more open trade, increasing total production over what would occur without trade. Their classical liberal theory of trade generated very different policies and ideological agendas from mercantilism, favoring less state involvement in the economy and reduced barriers to trade. Successive waves of trade liberalization and protectionism impacted world trade in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. By the mid-twentieth century, however, trade as a proportion of world GDP approached 25% (WTO 2013). However, by 2012, total trade accounted for about 60% of global economic output (ibid). Though notable increases in trade occurred in the mid-1800s, especially among the major European empires and colonies, the pattern of global trade expansion, sometimes referred to as the second wave of globalization, began earnestly after 1945. As the colonial system unraveled and the postwar Bretton Woods institutions took effect, international trade among sovereign nations dramatically increased. What explains this departure from the first wave of international trade between European powers and the colonial system toward trade globalization?

Opening of World Trade Milner (1988: 15), for example, makes a compelling case that U.S. trade policy became less protectionist after World War II because dominant corporations and economic sectors were more integrated within the burgeoning international economy, and not as a result of prior government transformations that enhanced the authority and autonomy of the President. In Milner’s view, the United States’ growing support for liberal trade was a by-product of the ascendance of MNCs and was not significantly determined by changes in the locus of policy authority precipitated by the 1934 Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act (RTAA). Given the arguments and evidence presented by Chorev (2007), however, the transformation of state rules after the landmark 1934 trade act (RTAA) and the growing economic prominence of multinational corporations worked synchronously to facilitate the expansion of post–World War II trade liberalization (Dreiling and Darves 2016).1 State actors can change trade rules. But they also work with corporate actors to create entirely new rules and institutions, internationally and domestically. Evidence 1 The

1934 RTAA is widely viewed as a victory for internationalists versus isolationists and is seen as an important response to the protectionist Smoot Hawley Tariff Act (1930). The RTAA shifted policy authority on trade away from Congress—which was susceptible to competing demands on trade by various industry interest groups and hence prone to protectionist demands— and toward the Executive Branch and the President, presumed to be more autonomous from those industry-specific pressures.

16 Trade Globalization and Its Consequences

267

of this occurring immediately after the Second World War is central to understanding the 1945–70 transformation in international institutions and global capitalism (cf. Evans 1995; Ruggie 1998). Within this broader context, state and corporate leaders in the United States worked closely together during the war while hosting the United Nations, founding the Bretton Woods institutions, successfully forming the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) (see Domhoff 2014). These initiatives emerged from elite policy circles that advanced major U.S. foreign policy projects, circumscribed by a “Grand Area” strategy that included expanding influence in Latin America, Southeast Asia, and Japan and the establishment of international financial and trade institutions. International economic interests were formulated by the corporate elite and channeled through the policy discussion circles to government officials, resulting in a concerted push to expand international trade and investment and boost American corporate interests (ibid). Expanding global economic power and market opportunities were, thus, driven by both state and corporate elite whose enterprises were increasingly multinational after World War II. Created after the wreckage of war, these new institutions and interstate governance structures set the conditions for the long-term growth in international trade and economic exchange after the interwar lull. These changes coincided with numerous other key historical developments. In the twenty-five years after World War II, several lasting changes involved the militarization of the United States and USSR during a Cold War, the collapse of the formal colonial system and subsequent decolonization, the expansion (in both size and operational scope) of U.S. multinational corporations, and the buttressing of American economic and political power through international institutions (Arrighi 1994; Wallerstein 2011). Collectively, these diffuse transformations contributed to a deep restructuring of the world system wherein the United States and the USSR emerged as world superpowers. This phase of globalization involved the United States’s growing political power alongside the success of its multinational firms in the areas of finance, manufacturing, advanced technology, and energy; in many cases, the growth of these corporations was fueled by the successful globalization of their operations which included both foreign production and entry into non-US consumer markets. In tandem with these changes, an international division of labor closely linked to the colonial system quickly took forms in the postcolonial order (Nash and Fernandez-Kelly 1983).2 Under this international division of labor, until about the 1970s, former and current colonies were incorporated into the international economy primarily as suppliers of raw materials and agricultural products. From the 1970s forward, a new international division of labor took shape alongside neoliberal reforms. In this later period, selective developing countries, such as South Korea, Mexico, Brazil, and South Africa began to attract manufacturing investment while 2 The theory of an international division of labor rests on two key tenets of liberal political economy,

namely Ricardo’s theory of comparative advantage and later theories of factor proportionality. Combined, these tenets assert that trade and investment patterns are a function of the relative advantage different nations have in their factors of production, including inputs such as labor, natural resources, and technical infrastructure.

268

M. C. Dreiling

industrial manufacturing in developed countries declined—poor countries continued to generate raw materials and agricultural products for export to richer nations. American capitalism dominated the world economy and, alongside the core nations in Europe and later Japan, would over-determine neoliberal changes in the world system from 1970 to present. Together, the triumvirate of capitalist economies in the U.S., Europe, and Japan dominated the international political institutions, the growth of multinational corporations, and military might. American cultural institutions and brands spread globally. During this period, the geopolitics, foreign policy, and military interventions of the United States reflected its interest in shaping and preserving a global “free enterprise system” (Arrighi 1994), which consisted of expanding global trade and investment through the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), World Bank, and International Monetary Fund (IMF). These global institutions opened world commodity trade, centralized and globalized finance, and the dollar served as a global currency. With successive tariff reductions through the GATT by the end of the 1960s, tariffs dropped globally from approximately 25 to 15%, and export processing zones grew in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Asia.3 The postwar institutions and policies expanded markets for globalizing U.S. corporations and fueled a rapid reindustrialization of Europe, Japan, and several emerging or newly industrializing countries. This era of relatively open trade was embedded in a postwar social accord that assured some social welfare and labor protections from the costly dislocations that can stem from the international trading system. National pensions, union rights, universal education investments, and forms of trade adjustment assistance were implemented throughout these capitalist countries.

Social Conflict and the Rise of Economic Neoliberalism By the 1960s and 1970s, armed conflicts and anticolonial movements strained the global system, while mass movements throughout richer nations reflected deepening contradictions in this system. Various challenges to U.S. and European dominance grew in the 1960s ranging from the war in Vietnam, national liberation movements that ended colonialism in sub-Saharan Africa, and the formation of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to pro-democracy and socialist movements in Latin America and Asia. In the capitalist democracies in Europe and North America, inspired by the U.S. Civil Rights movement, the antiwar, student, environmental, labor, and feminist movements pressed for more open democracies, greater social inclusion, and environmental protection. Their efforts culminated in important 3 The

actual global tariff rate at the beginning of the GATT in what is known as the Geneva Round is not well-measured. Many countries were still colonies or protectorates and in the wake of WWII and the Great Depression, many countries had instituted protectionist tariffs. Depending on what countries are included estimates for the 1947 average tariff rate on imported goods range from 30 to 20% (WTO 2007).

16 Trade Globalization and Its Consequences

269

environmental protections (e.g., formation of the EPA), greater government transparency (e.g., the Freedom of Information Act), and of course a number of civil rights protections against ongoing forms of discrimination, segregation, and violence. By the late 1960s, these global and national tensions emboldened conservative corporate elites to fight against the new environmental and social protections that people demanded from their governments. A corporate coalition reacted to these changes by cultivating conservative think tanks, media, and funneled money into the Republican Party (Domhoff 2014). This same corporate coalition pushed back against new forms of trade protectionism, regulation on pollution, wages, and social inclusion with an agenda of free trade, lower corporate taxes, and deregulation. During this period of heightened social conflicts, a chorus of voices in the U.S. began to demand trade protectionism in the 1960s and early 1970s. The resurgence of support for protectionism in the late 1960s had many causes. Many industries and unions were reacting to a surge of Japanese and German imports that were beginning to undermine the historic trade surplus enjoyed by the United States following World War II. Lower-priced textiles and electronics were being imported to the U.S., prompting labor unions and some industry leaders to complain of lost jobs due to the rise of import competition. This was especially evident in the trade imbalance with Japan that grew from 17 to 50% between 1967 and 1977 (Canto 1983: 82). As the demand for imports in U.S. consumer and supplier markets rose, the surplus with many countries turned into a trade deficit, meaning the U.S. imported more than it exported to select countries. The United States’ deteriorating balance of payments also contributed to its growing inability to support the gold standard along with the protracted Vietnam War and growing budget deficits. Most trade policy theories predict that protectionist trade policies are more likely to be enacted during periods of economic decline, particularly when the decline is associated with losses incurred through import competition (Cohen et al. 2003; Destler 2005; McKeown 1984; Milner 1988: 4). Why, instead of institutionalizing protectionism during the tumultuous economic conditions of the 1970s, with the oil crisis, war, inflation, and import competition, did the U.S. and much of the world embark on further liberalization that dropped tariffs to their lowest levels in U.S. history?4 Despite a growing trade deficit, weak U.S. dollar, a recession (1973–1975), and flagging private sector profitability, Congress enacted the Trade Act of 1974 that renewed and expanded the United States’ commitment to reduce tariff and nontariff barriers to trade on a reciprocal basis. Dreiling and Darves (2016) argue that the 1974 Trade Act was created by a coalition of globalizing corporate leaders and their supporters in the Nixon Administration. Their success eroded the influence of protectionist interests and paved the way for a new form of neoliberal globalization. To facilitate the interests of globalizing corporations and the system of global finance, 4 Certainly

protectionist initiatives occurred during the 1970s and 1980s, but, as Chorev (2007) points out, these were selective within a larger set of compromises that deepened trade liberalization. Additionally, standard economic models account for the increase in world trade into the mid-1970s but do not explain growth since then (Yi 2003).

270

M. C. Dreiling

OECD governments and corporate leaders continued vigorously to press for trade liberalization and financial deregulation, 1974–2016. At the beginning of the neoliberal era in the 1970s (Harvey 2005; Dreiling and Darves 2016), corporate elite in the United States and the United Kingdom moved ideologically to the right. A more strident defense of free markets internationally offered an upper hand to many of the conservative economic voices within the U.S.. Together, interest in free trade abroad and free markets at home fused in a neoliberal economic ideology and a politics of domestic deregulation, tax cuts, and trade globalization that, by the mid-1990s, gained hegemonic status in many regions across the globe, anchored strongly in the conservative political and class coalitions of the UK, USA, and elsewhere. This convergence of domestic deregulation and free trade globally was legitimized by neoliberal economists (Dreiling and Darves 2016).

Institutionalizing Neoliberalism and the Acceleration of Trade Liberalization: The NAFTA, WTO, and Beyond From the early 1980s onward, neoliberalism provided the basic policy framework for “structural adjustment” in the global south, for “rescuing” the welfare state in the global north, and as a vision for a global economy unbound from centrally planned markets, dying industries, or rent-seeking interest groups.5 Neoliberals exaggerated the premise of the classical liberals that production efficiencies could be improved with free markets and trade liberalization. Their argument stipulated that economic growth would accelerate when market rules, not public policy, governed capital investments. Similarly, neoliberals took to an extreme the notion that government intervention in markets is destructive. This framework is apparent in the continued failure of the USA to provide universal healthcare, instead of relying on a mix of market and public sector solutions to the healthcare needs of the population. As a result, neoliberalism, as ideology and policy creed, was used as a tool to reduce the role of government in all areas of public life—except the military and defense. Domestically and internationally, neoliberal trade proposals were generally presented in tandem with calls for privatization of public lands and investments, deregulation, social and environmental protections, and a reduction in the size of government (non-military) spending as a share of GDP. Neoliberal policies across all countries of the Global North emerged primarily from the political right and 5 Structural adjustments were loan conditions set by the Bretton Woods institutions (the World Bank

and International Monetary Fund—IMF) and global banks on developing countries. New loans to developing countries were directed to the to privatization of public sector investments (such as roads, electricity and energy development industries, telecommunications, education, forestry, and public lands), deregulation, allowing more foreign direct investment in key industries, cuts to public spending, and more. In short, the global financing sector demanded a free market orientation in the structural adjustment programs. This same free market ideology also demanded governments in rich countries to cut public spending (e.g., schools, national parks), reduce corporate taxes, and remove regulations on workplaces and the environment.

16 Trade Globalization and Its Consequences

271

wedded a socially conservative political agenda (anti-abortion, religious schools, etc.) with a corporate neoliberal economic framework of free markets, lower taxes, and deregulation. Combined effects were growing national debt (reduced government revenue, increased military spending), shrinking investments in schools and universities, and erosion of social welfare for children and the poor. By the 1990s, neoliberal economic policies were imposed on the developing world (Africa, Latin America, and much of Asia) and adopted in all Western states. McMichael (2005: 58) argues that with “the collapse of the Cold War in 1991, the stage was set for a universal application of liberalization, under the leadership of the United States and its G-7 allies.” Without a global opponent to the free market project, the crisis in the Soviet Union created opportunities for accelerating the promotion and experimentation with the neoliberal prescriptions that were already tested in the heavily indebted global South (e.g., privatization, increased FDI, and restrictions on public sector investments). As others point out, the adoption of neoliberal economic policies within developing states of the Global South involved both active coercion by international finance (via the International Monetary Fund’s structural adjustment programs) and by the incorporation of neoliberal technocrats into leading government positions (Babb 2009; Fourcade 2006; Campbell and Pederson 2001). With the establishment of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) that integrated trade between Canada, the U.S., and Mexico (1993) and the creation of the World Trade Organization following the conclusion of the GATT, Uruguay Round (1986–1994), a robust transnational apparatus to enforce market governance began to take shape across the world. Once limited to the GATT, free trade was now enforced through the WTO, regional free trade agreements (NAFTA, the EU, and ASEAN), and a growing number of bilateral preferential free trade agreements. The possibility for new “open” markets in Eastern Europe and Russia further consolidated neoliberalism as a global economic modality (Campbell and Pederson 2001) as efforts intensified in implementing what Robinson (2004) refers to as a corporate “revolution from above.” These international institutions were the product not of deliberate and open elections but of elite think tanks and top-down corporate agendas (Dreiling and Darves 2016). From the Maastricht Treaty, which created open trade and a common currency among most European nations, to NAFTA and the WTO, the liberalization of regional and global markets accelerated in the early 1990s, though with distinct legal and institutional signatures associated with their national industries and political histories (Duina 2006). Figure 2 plots the mean tariff rates, across the world, from 1993, where it was about 12%, to about 4% in 2016.6 The continued world decline in tariffs stems from the wave of free trade agreements (and the formation of the World Trade Organization (WTO)) that began in the 1990s. 6 The

mean tariff rate is an estimate from the unweighted averages of tariffs applied on all products subject to tariffs. The measure is discussed further at: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/TM. TAX.MRCH.SM.AR.ZS. The plot uses a measure from the World Bank, developed with data from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Developments Trade Analysis and Information System (TRAINS) database and the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) Integrated Data Base (IDB) and Consolidated Tariff Schedules (CTS) database.

272

M. C. Dreiling

14 12 10 8 6 4

2015

2016

2013

2014

2011

2012

2010

2008

2009

2007

2005

2006

2004

2003

2001

2002

2000

1998

1999

1997

1996

1995

1994

0

1993

2

Fig. 2 Average tariff rate, all products, world (%). Source The World Bank (2018)

The expansion of world trade has both pros and cons and critics on the left and right have acknowledged as much. But the solution to the problems of free trade is not a retreat to nationalist unilateralism, but rather more civic involvement in national and multilateral trade rules. Greater democratization of global trade rules and institutions has the promise of opening channels to weigh the costs of the worker or environmental dislocations that often come from trade, relative to the potential gains of economic growth. Standards for trade could also be improved. Already, all trade occurs with standards, and there is no reason why workplace and environmental standards could not also be included in international trade rules. Presently, standards, such as a global minimum wage or pollution measures, are discussed publicly in large part because too many businesses want to avoid regulations or higher labor costs when investing globally.

Neoliberal Trade in the Global South This decline in tariff rates around the world was associated with the widespread adoption of preferential trade agreements (PTAs) in the 1990s and 2000s. But these changes were uneven. This is largely because tariff and nontariff trade barriers were already very low between developed countries in the Global North. Indeed, while the global and multilateral regional trade agreements, like NAFTA or the

16 Trade Globalization and Its Consequences

273

Fig. 3 Number of Preferential Trade Agreements by Country-group, 1950–2010. Source WTO Organization Secretariat (2011)

EU, consolidated more open trade among the richest countries of the world in the Global North, bilateral and plurilateral agreements grew rapidly among nations in the Global South. Figure 3 plots the frequency of preferential trade agreements (PTAs), grouped by country-income levels. PTAs include free trade and investment agreements and are considered the most general category for international agreements affecting investment and trade. Lower- and middle-income countries are classified as developing countries in the Global South, while high-income countries are categorized as developed countries in the Global North. Figure 3 reflects the widespread adoption of neoliberal trade agreements across all segments of the international political economy. Importantly, the figure reveals the acceleration of agreements between developing countries and regions from the mid-1990s onward. Developing countries in the Global South, especially those in Asia, have increased their share of the global trade in goods from 25 to 48% while increasing from 33 to 45% their share of total world economic output, as measured by gross domestic product (GDP) (United Nations Development Programme 2013). The sustained growth in both trade and economic production in China is a major factor contributing to these developments. The UN Human Development Report (2013) estimates that China’s trade with sub-Saharan Africa between 1992 and 2011 increased from approximately $1 billion to over $140 billion. According to the UN Development Program (United Nations Development Programme 2011), Brazil, China, and India combined are projected to account for 40% of global output by 2050, up from 10% in 1950. The substantial increase in global FDI from the mid-1980s onward reflected the combined effect of liberalizing both finance and trade and the subsequent geographical redistribution of manufacturing (Panitch and Gindin 2012) that led to the rise in economic stature of some countries in the Global South.

274

M. C. Dreiling

Foreign Direct Investment and Globalized Production Coinciding with this decline in global tariff rates was a sustained increase in world trade and Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). Figure 4 plots the growth in trade and FDI in constant U.S. dollars. From countries in the Global North—countries in Europe, North America, Japan, and Australia—financial interests uprooted less profitable and aging industries (e.g., the American “Rust Belt”) and maneuvered globally in search of more profitable places for investment. The search for lower wages and fewer regulations, which are central to the economic logic of neoliberalism and capitalism, corresponded to an actual decline in real wages in many parts of the developed world and an increase in income and wealth inequality everywhere (Panitch and Gindin 2012). Pressure on communities to reduce taxes and workers to accept lower wages increased in this quest to reduce costs—and increase profits. Workers once earning decent wages and benefits now competed with lower wage workers around the world. As a result, the gains in economic growth increasingly went to capital (owners, top income earners), while the share of economic growth going to workers decreased. This has exacerbated the decline of unions—which had long kept wages and benefits growing as productivity increased—across the U.S. and world. Global banking and financial corporations grew and consolidated as this occurred. Facilitated by advances in telecommunications technology and revolutions in the ease and cost of transport, capital could move globally with fewer attachments to locales (Harvey 2005; United Nations Development Programme 2013). FDI consists of a wide range of activities, including the investment in service or manufacturing subsidiaries in host countries and the purchase of assets (public or private) in host countries. Global corporations prefer the open trading system

Fig. 4 Trade and FDI, Worldwide 1970–2010. Sources WTO (2013), International Trade Statistics (2013), UNCTAD (2013), World Investment Report 2013. Global Value Chains: Investment and Trade for Development

16 Trade Globalization and Its Consequences

275

because it reduces the marginal costs of FDI inflows and the costs of trade within firms (from one production center to another). Globally oriented corporations, thus, lobbied aggressively and funded politicians that promoted tax cuts and expanded protections for FDI and free trade agreements (Dreiling and Darves 2016; Panitch and Gindin 2012). By the 1980s–1990s, these globalizing corporations promoted globalization so that it was easier to move production offshore and spread production processes over many different countries based on the cost and trade advantages to those companies. Even as economic growth accelerated in many emerging economies with the inward flow of FDI through the 1990s and 2000s, the benefits of that growth were highly uneven. A new class of investors and private corporations arose in many of the emerging economies, from Brazil, Russia, India, and China (the BRICs) to Mexico, Malaysia, and Bangladesh. Uneven economic growth brought new levels of income inequality in these countries even as their middle-classes grew. These patterns ran parallel to the growing inequality in the developed countries. These trends of increasing inequality amid economic growth were worsened during the global economic crisis, 2007–10. Trade and FDI contracted substantially, with trade plummeting over 20% from $33 trillion to $25 trillion in 2009. FDI reached an alltime high of $2.1 trillion prior to the economic crisis, dropping to $1.1 trillion in 2009 (UNCTAD 2013; See Fig. 4). Economic growth and increased trade in many developing economies occurred because of the large inflows of FDI. From 1980 to 2010, the share of global FDI going to countries of the global South increased from 20 to 50% (UNDP 2013). It is important to recall that it was during this time that many developed countries saw corporations pursue a “race to the bottom” in search of investments and manufacturing in countries with lower wages and fewer regulations (a phenomenon called “offshoring”). This neoliberal search for countries with lower costs (in wages, taxes, and environmental cleanup) and higher profits by corporations is why this process has been referred to as corporate globalization. Increased FDI inflows arrived in low-wage countries like China in the form of investments in massive manufacturing enterprises; in 2011, China became the largest manufacturer in the world. Correspondingly, a decrease in manufacturing employment in rich countries like the U.S. occurred (see Fig. 5). The result was increased economic growth and manufacturing in countries like China alongside a relative deindustrialization of countries in the global North, especially the U.S., Canada, Japan, and parts of Europe. The increase in trade and investment by multinational corporations in developing countries coincided with the expansion of international production networks. These investment patterns intersected with new technologies that enabled corporations to spread production processes across many borders. Global corporations increasingly divide production activities into multi-phase processes that cross borders. These cross border “commodity chains” involve organizing the acquisition of necessary raw materials plus semifinished inputs, the recruitment of labor power and its provisioning, arranging transportation to the next site, and the construction of modes of distribution (via markets and transfers) and consumption (Gereffi 1996: 8).

276

M. C. Dreiling

Fig. 5 Network of Corporate Ownership and Control. From open source Vitali et al. (2011)

This system of production obviously contributes to increased trade between nations and within companies. Supply and raw material inputs are exported from one country to another where component manufacturing then occurs. Another step in the chain or network could then involve another country where low wages combine product assembly or packaging. High-value—such as design, engineering, or marketing—segments of the network or chain typically originate in countries in the global North where engineering, design, and brand marketing define the commodity and the various costs, inputs, and timing associated with each step in the production network. Each step in the chain of production adds value to the end commodity. TNCs seek to maximize profit by organizing the production chain to minimize costs and improve margins on the value added at each phase. As a result, social scientists can study trade across borders in these larger production networks and global commodities or value chains (Brewer 2011; Gereffi 1996; Cattaneo et al. 2010). These production networks encompass the full range of activities that bring a good or service from the original concept all the way to the end consumer. Global production chains thus straddle many countries and involve many divisions or subsidiaries within transnational corporations. Consequently, the study of neoliberal trade and its growth over the last several decades also requires the study of large, global corporations and their search to cut costs and increase profits by spreading their activities across national boundaries. It is not hard to discover these fragmented global production networks that result from the cost-cutting initiatives of TNCs like Nike, Walmart, or Apple. With a bit of selfreflection, consumers of services and products can readily observe these dynamics. A recent New York Times (Duhigg and Bradsherjan 2012) article explored these dynamics in the case of Apple. Apple employs approximately 43,000 people in the U.S. and another 20,000 overseas. But the bulk of work done for Apple is through outsourcing. About 700,000 people work on engineering and assembling Apple products through outsourcing, most of them in Asia. The NYT article explains how thousands of workers can be called to work for a 12-h shift in the middle of the night, from their dormitories at a massive city-size manufacturing facility known as Foxconn City,

16 Trade Globalization and Its Consequences

277

to assemble I-Phones. They are paid very low wages and can be hired or laid off with ease. Apple is not unique. Most major electronics are produced in a similar fashion, drawing on supply chains from multiple countries before the products are assembled in massive factories like Foxconn. This arrangement is compounded by the supply chains that must conform to the demands of assembly operations. Take the example of Corning, a large U.S. TNC that manufactures glass products, among other things. Instead of producing glass screens for smartphones in the U.S., and then shipping them to China for assembly, Corning instead built a large manufacturing center in China to supply the glass screens. From the perspective of the U.S. economy, this contributes to the decline of manufacturing employment, which generally pays better than low- or semi-skilled service sector jobs. As a result, lower wage service sector employment replaces manufacturing employment in the U.S., leading to growing inequality and wage decline for workers. In contrast, Chinese manufacturing employment has surged in recent decades, and FDI by firms like Apple or Corning contribute to the countries’ high rates of economic growth. Finally, higher profits for corporations, their owners, and top management tend to concentrate income growth in the top 10% of the population, furthering income inequality. Trade globalization and the interdependent production chains it establishes, thus, generate increased inequality, even though it also contributes to economic growth. Within a global regime of neoliberal trade, these companies, freed from social, environmental, or political restrictions, analyze costs of moving production to lowwage countries while keeping high-skill production or service sector expertise in rich countries. Whether they outsource certain operations (e.g., sweatshops for clothing assembly, call centers, etc.) or produce a good through a subsidiary is determined by analyses of their relative profitability.

Corporations and Trade Trade occurs within and across borders. However, the single most important factor in global trade expansion is found in the increase of transnational corporations (TNCs). Various studies over the last two decades have determined that approximately 40% of global trade occurs within firms or related enterprises (Bardhan and Jaffee 2005). These percentages vary by region, country, and economic sector (Lanz and Miroudot 2011). Based on data from the U.S. government, about 47% of all imports into the U.S. are intra-firm or related party trade (Ruhl 2015). This means that a substantial portion of global trade is actually the result of corporations moving goods and services across their own global production networks, including exchanges within the firm and between their subsidiary firms. Transnational corporations (TNCs) are enterprises that own or have a controlling interest in business operations in a nation other than the home of the parent company. Their numbers have grown rapidly in the last four decades and their scope is both economic and political. The roughly 60,000 TNCs operating in the world—with another 690,000 fully or partially owned subsidiaries—operate in every economic

278

M. C. Dreiling

sector and in every country around the world. According to a recent report by Oxfam’s “Global Justice Now” program (Green 2016), 69 of the world’s largest economies are TNCs, 31 of these economies are nations. Walmart is the tenth largest economy. Below Walmart are a half dozen of the largest oil companies, including China National Petroleum, several of the largest automakers followed by large electronics manufacturers and large financial enterprises. Every few years, the trend continues to include more TNCs and fewer nations in this list. TNCs are distinct from state-owned enterprises, which have also globalized in recent decades. According to recent data from UNCTAD (2016), there are approximately 1,500 state-owned companies with about 86,000 affiliates in one or more countries globally. The largest of these TNCs are based in the U.S., China, Japan, and Europe. TNCs are also organizational centers of capital ownership and economic control. In late 2011, a group of systems analysts published a groundbreaking study of ownership among transnational corporations. Their research shows that “nearly 4/10 of the control over the economic value of TNCs in the world is held, via a complicated web of ownership relations, by a group of 147 TNCs in the core of the ownership network, which has almost full control over itself” (Vitali et al. 2011: p. 6). This dense, globular cluster or “super-entity” (Ibid.) of corporate ownership centers on the world’s largest financial institutions, producing a social and organizational network that parallels the imagery presented by the Occupy Wall Street movement (see also Peetz and Murray 2012). Not inconsequentially, these global connections compel TNCs to press host governments to adopt policies that benefit their global corporate interests (Murray 2017). The Vitali et al. (2011) study went viral on the Internet, and Glatfelder has received popular and academic acclaim for this research, some of which is summarized in his “TED Talk”7 on corporate control. TNCs and their state-owned counterparts are not just economic actors; they are heavily engaged in politics and intergovernmental institutions, both as individual firms and as organized class actors. Combined, these multinational enterprises have reshaped government policy priorities and defined agendas in multilateral institutions (Carroll 2010; Dreiling and Darves 2016; Fairbrother 2014; Gill 1990; Sklair 2001). Take, for example, the political role that large US-based corporations played in opening trade and investment opportunities with China in 1998–99. Despite a strong opposition in the U.S. to opening trade with China, from the left and the right, a corporate campaign spent over $100 million to outstrip its opponents, making it the most expensive lobbying campaign in U.S. history (Woodall et al. 2000). Because Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR) with China was also linked to China’s entry into the World Trade Organization, interests among large U.S. corporations were magnified by hopes of market opportunities that an opening of China’s economy would harbor (Cohen et al. 2003). U.S. business leaders eager to set up low-wage manufacturing operations in China funded several lobbying groups to win the fight and open China to U.S. corporate FDI and trade. Their lobbying 7 The Ted Talk is accessible at: http://www.ted.com/talks/james_b_glattfelder_who_controls_the_ world.html.

16 Trade Globalization and Its Consequences

279

Fig. 6 U.S. Manufacturing Employment, 1990–2010. Source U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employment, Hours, and Earnings from the Current Employment Statistics survey (National), All employees, thousands, manufacturing, seasonally adjusted, 2011

campaign successfully influenced the Executive and Legislative branches of the U.S. government (Dreiling and Darves 2016). The result of normalizing trade with China has been nothing short of a world shift in global manufacturing. Figure 5 plots employment in U.S. manufacturing from 1990 to 2012. Economists from a variety of theoretical persuasions identify trade liberalization with China as the key factor in the dramatic drop in manufacturing employment in the United States (Autor et al. 2012). As a share of world manufacturing output (as a share of national GDPs), the trend put China on track to surpass the United States in 2011 and become the world’s largest manufacturing economy. Economists estimate that China trade normalization and China’s entry into the WTO, net other factors, reduced the manufacturing sector in the United States by about 3 million jobs over seven years, more than the 900,000 manufacturing jobs lost in the first year of the Great Recession (Autor et al. 2012). Liberalized trade and entry of China into the WTO contributed to a watershed drop in U.S. manufacturing employment (See Fig. 6; Pierce and Schott 2012).

Conflicts Over Neoliberal Globalization McMichael (2001: 207) explains that globalization is best understood as a “historical project rather than a culminating process.” This means we must consider the actions associated with the project, including contests over the direction it takes. As Hopewell (2016: 18) qualifies, neoliberal globalization “is an institution-building project…” geared to the construction of new rules, regulations, and institutions with the aim to

280

M. C. Dreiling

expand markets globally. This expands on Harvey’s (2005) assertion that neoliberalism was “a class project” of dominant corporate and government players aimed at increasing profits and Arrighi’s (1994) explication of the world-historic shift in the U.S. hegemonic project toward neoliberalism domestically and internationally. For Arrighi, the financialization of the U.S. and world economy are responses to internal contradictions in the present epoch of capitalism. As a decline in the profitability of manufacturing production occurred in the U.S., state and corporate initiatives reorganized the system in favor of financial capital. This financialization contributed to the simultaneous expansion of the service sector and the decline of U.S. manufacturing. In this larger context, the political project of neoliberal globalization by U.S. corporate elites favored a deepening of financialization (Krippner 2005, 2011) that intensified inequality (Piketty and Goldhammer 2014) and reflected a relative decline in the U.S. corresponding to geographic shifts in economic power toward the emerging BRIC economies of Brazil, Russia, India, and China (Babones 2013; Hopewell 2016; Lachmann and Block 2014). Notably, these changes in the global economy corresponded to a growth in trade in services and the expansion of information technology. Because larger trade and globalization processes are also contested projects, with competing power structures mobilized to achieve diverse aims, they are not always congruent nationally or transnationally. Trade agendas are crafted in historically specific contexts (Duina 2006) and take shape through specific institutional settings and conjunctures (Chorev 2007; Dreiling and Darves 2016). Just as economic liberalization arose as a project in the postwar era, challenges have arisen by protectionist, economic nationalist, neomercantilist, and progressive interests since the mid-1960s, again in the 1980–1990s, and again in the wake of the Great Recession. The corporate coalitions advancing neoliberal and global trade interests tend to dominate political parties in their respective countries. However, the political dominance of neoliberal corporate interests is showing cracks that emerged in several countries and were foreshadowed decades ago. In the early 1990s, conflicts over the European Union (EU) and over the implementation of NAFTA continued for several years. Within North America, the inauguration of NAFTA on January 1, 1994 was met by a Zapatista mobilization in Chiapas, Mexico, and followed by numerous actions gathering steam at the transnational level (Dreiling 2001; Harvey 1998). These conflicts over NAFTA and the formation of the WTO in 1995 stimulated on the political right anti-immigrant and ethno-nationalist reactions and on the political left an expansion of global justice networks that included various movement actors, transnational governance structures, and countermovement networks (Dreiling 2001; Smith 2010). Even as the corporate neoliberal coalition mobilized for Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR) with China, a global justice movement on the left and an economic nationalist movement on the right were emerging as well. (cross reference with Pleyer, Axelrod, Chase-Dunn papers). The intense and focused mobilization against the 1999 and 2003 ministerial conventions of the World Trade Organization in Seattle, Washington, and in Cancún, Mexico, respectively, exemplified emergent transnational political forces mobilized around transnational neoliberal institutions. Beginning in Seattle, the “neoliberal

16 Trade Globalization and Its Consequences

281

network” that was led by corporate and political elites from the U.S. and the EU (Smith 2010) faced combined opposition from below by a democratic global justice movement as well as challenges from within the WTO by neoliberal elites of several developing countries (Hopewell 2016). These conflicts intensified over several years, escalating in Cancún at the WTO’s Fifth Ministerial in 2003.8 Instead of a manifesto for international trade liberalization, the 2003 talks collapsed as unified opposition from developing countries surfaced and massive protests occurred in the streets. Over eighty of the poorest WTO member countries along with Brazil and India called on the trade body to develop a more transparent and democratic process so that their voices could be heard (Dreiling and Silvaggio 2009; Hopewell 2016). The situation enabled nations of the global South to gain negotiation leverage as a bloc against the U.S. and EU. Frustrated with frictions, and prior to the Cancún Ministerial meetings of the WTO, corporate leaders explained their hopes for deepening U.S. “leadership” in the world. Corporate neoliberals in the U.S. sought access to markets globally, even as developing countries sought greater access to markets in the EU and U.S. for agricultural, service, and manufacturing exports. Where Cancún represented a setback for United States and European Union dominance in global trade negotiations, the failure to open negotiations for a Free Trade Area of the Americans (FTAA) in Miami represented a major blow to U.S. designs in the western hemisphere. Opposition in Latin America was widespread, and the U.S. walked away from negotiations after failing to get the biggest economies, Brazil and Argentina, to sign on to the agreement. As the U.S. and Canada sought greater market access for services, finance, and intellectual property, the developing countries of the Americas, led by Brazil, rejected the hypocrisy of agriculture subsidies in the U.S. and Canada, raising the same rift that plagued the Doha Rounds of the WTO. Instead, the common market among several South American countries, Mercosur, found opportunities to expand by introducing a formal parliament one year after the failed FTAA talks.9 Since the passage of China PNTR and China’s accession to the WTO, massive amounts of FDI poured into China while exports surged. A world-historic economic transition was underway, and this economic context added new pressure on U.S. corporations operating globally to press the U.S. government for more aggressive investor protections for corporate interests in the growing economies of Asia. Of particular note is the dispute between the U.S. and China over intellectual property protections. Intellectual property refers to a wide range of symbolic products by humans, including inventions, ideas, artistic creations, and software. IP is generally protected by patents, licenses, and trademarks. Not all countries have the same legal 8 In

2001, the WTO ministerial meetings were held in Doha, Qatar, launching the Doha Rounds of negotiations that concluded without resolution in 2015. Activists commonly remarked that the “Battle in Seattle” was the reason that the 2001 meetings were held in Doha, where opportunities for protest were severely curtailed. 9 Mercosur initially arose from a bilateral agreement between Argentina and Brazil. The Treaty of Asuncion in 1991 expanded the region to include four full member states and has since grown to include much of South America, recently adding Bolivia after some contention.

282

M. C. Dreiling

framework for governing IP protections which is the reason trade bodies like the WTO have sought to better define and enforce IP protections. The U.S. alleges China is not doing enough, and China has acknowledged a need for improvement, often stating that they are still a developing country and lack the legal institutions to properly enforce IP. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce (2018) ranked the U.S. first in protecting IP and China at 25 and improving. The dispute has served as a pretext for the Trump Administration to target imports from China with tariffs. Rather than working through the WTO, the U.S. under the Trump Administration has bypassed these multilateral solutions and is pursuing unilateral actions. Within the WTO, the emerging economic BRICs altered the balance of power in the global trading system. Though these national governments were not rejecting neoliberal globalization and its institutions, they were attempting to insert themselves, on their terms, and via their respective national power structures, into neoliberal global institutions (Hopewell 2016).

Crisis in Neoliberal Globalization Trade globalization produced new centers of economic power which contributed to a stalemate over the Doha Rounds (Hopewell 2016). These circumstances led U.S. leaders to pursue interests outside of the WTO via bilateral agreements. Hopewell (2016) argues that U.S. hegemonic decline, coupled with the economic power of emerging economies, especially China, has disrupted but not ended the WTO (see also Lachmann and Block 2014). Fourteen years after beginning, with years of stalled negotiations about trade in services, agricultural subsidies in the rich countries, and intellectual property, what began as the Doha Rounds of the WTO in 2001 ended without resolution (Smith 2010). Over the course of twenty-two years, the WTO dispute settlement system has been put to the test. Figure 7 presents the top ten disputants in the WTO’s history. We see that the U.S. is by a significant margin both the leading complainant of other countries’ trade practices and the most frequent target of complaints by other nations. Only the entire European Union approximates the U.S. situation. Reflecting new economic alignments in the world, it is also clear that India, China, and Brazil are frequent targets and complainants of the WTO’s dispute settlement system. Elites in the BRIC nations have marshaled various approaches to neoliberal economic governance, often in conflict with democracy and political liberalism. Neoliberal inspired privatization in post-Soviet Russia during the 1990s led to the consolidation of most enterprises into very few former Soviet political and military elite. This new oligarchy exerts extensive control over Russia’s political system. Neoliberal policies in China have entailed a combination of state-owned and private corporations operating under heavy centralized guidance by the Chinese state and the Communist Party. Combined, these growing tensions within the WTO, rising economic powers in Asia, and frustration by the U.S. and its major corporations with the dispute resolution mechanism of the WTO have contributed to a fracturing of the international trading

16 Trade Globalization and Its Consequences

283

Fig. 7 Frequency of WTO Members’ Disputes, 1995–2017. Source Author analysis of data from the World Trade Organization Secretariat (2017)

order. Amid these fractures, the conservative elite in the U.S. mobilized to advance unilateral foreign policy, further deepening rifts in the international order. Upon taking office, President Trump withdrew from the UN Paris Climate Accord, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and opened renegotiations of the NAFTA and the U.S.– Korea Free Trade Agreement. His administration has raised tariffs on dozens of countries—including long-standing allies and trade partners like Canada—under the pretext of national security. Actions by the U.S. under Trump have sparked a series of trade conflicts with the world’s major economies. Talk of a trade war escalated in response to Trump’s economic nationalist rhetoric and trade actions, including a ramping-up of numerous tariffs on major imports. In May of 2018, President Trump announced unilateral tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, with few nations excluded. These actions have been followed by retaliatory tariffs from every major trading partner, including Canada, Mexico, the European Union, and China. By July of 2018, the costs of these tariffs began to incur. For example, China, the largest importer of American produced soybeans, halted their import along with other agricultural goods, which has proven financially devastating to Midwestern farmers in the U.S.. The impacts of these new protectionist policies from the Trump White House were becoming apparent at the time of writing this chapter, and it is expected that the beginning stages of a trade war will generate economy-wide problems in the years ahead. The rationale for Trump’s tariffs rests on an arcane tool from Cold War era trade law and a provision in the WTO allowing nations to impose tariffs to protect national

284

M. C. Dreiling

security. Specifically, the 1962 Trade Expansion Act contains provisions, sometimes referred to as the sledgehammer, to argue that when imports constitute a national security threat, the president can impose tariffs. This is considered very rare and used under very exceptional circumstances. Section 232 of this law has been used only a handful of times in the 1970s and early 1980s and then was only limited to oil imports. That the Trump Administration has unilaterally asserted a national security threat from Canadian and European aluminum and steel producers has aggravated relations with these long-standing U.S. allies. These actions by the U.S. have driven a wedge into the larger conflicts in the WTO, leading China and the U.S. to accuse each other of breaking the WTO (Miles 2018). Simultaneously, authoritarian and ethno-nationalist politics in the Western democracies and Japan—exemplified in Britain’s highly contentious vote to exit the EU (aka, BREXIT) and the election of U.S. President Trump—have strengthened the hand of conservative and nationalist corporate elite to advance protectionist and neomercantilist trade agendas, mixed with anti-immigrant nationalist political agendas. Sobering analyses warn of an end to the liberal international order that has governed 70 years of democratization, globalization, and unprecedented economic growth—unless this historical path is re-directed. At the Danish Institute for International Studies, we read in their report on the unilateralism now emerging from the U.S.: Donald Trump’s trade policy represents a radical departure from the U.S. mainstream over the last forty years or more. This radicalism consists not only in its unilateralism and its echoes of mercantilism, but also in the systemic nature of its ambition (Gibbon and Vestergaard 2017: 6).

The departure of the U.S. from the standard norms of the liberal international order, which has promoted democracy and market capitalism since WWII, raises questions about the viability of these institutions as a global modality. Does the resurgence of economic nationalist politics, which also rose decades earlier during the negotiation of NAFTA and the Maastricht Treaty for the EU, spell an end to neoliberalism? As conditions globally press against a unipolar world of U.S. dominance, and U.S. conservative forces reject multilateralism (e.g., the Paris Climate Accord), what do recent events bode for the neoliberal era?

Resurgent Ethno-Nationalist Politics and Trade Protectionism Many questions arose following the 2016 Brexit vote and the election of U.S. President Trump.10 President Trump appointed a quintessential inner circle cabinet, including long-time Business Roundtable policy committee leader Rex Tillerson to Secretary of State. The first two years of Trump’s presidency have seen a high level of turnover in the Cabinet, including Tillerson’s exit. Six indictments or guilty pleas 10 At

the time of writing, the legitimacy of both of these elections has been called into question as a result of documented Russian interventions in the Britain and the U.S. votes.

16 Trade Globalization and Its Consequences

285

by top leaders of Trump’s presidential campaign (and his personal lawyer Michael Cohen and former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn) indicate an administration beset by scandal and corruption at the highest levels. The highly partisan context of criminal investigations into the Trump Administration has exacerbated rather than alleviated divisions in American politics. Candidate and President Trump resurrected ethno-nationalist and protectionist rhetoric of conservative reactionaries, like Patrick Buchanan, from twenty-five years earlier. Like Buchanan in 1992, Trump blasted NAFTA on economic populist and ethno-racist grounds, offering a seemingly hostile and incompatible view to the neoliberal trade system. However, as the New York Times reported in May of 2017, the actual priorities around NAFTA renegotiation are less economic populist and much more in line with an agenda pursued by leading U.S. corporations in recent years, with a heavy focus on updates to intellectual property, digital services, and investor protections. As President Trump’s U.S. Trade Representative, Robert Lighthizer put it: “NAFTA was negotiated 25 years ago… and while our economy and businesses have changed considerably over that period, NAFTA has not” (quoted in Davis 2017). It remains unclear if the Trump Administration is employing a crude attempt at aggressive unilateralism to extract concessions from wary trading partners. If so, the U.S. is not offering much reason for other countries to concede to its demands. As analysts in Denmark concluded, “The U.S. is offering little or nothing in the form of trade-offs on any front for the major concessions it is demanding on trade” (Gibbon and Vestergaard 2017: 47). Perhaps the retrenchment from the neoliberal trading order by Trump and Brexit is less a function of a narrow policy orientation with respect to trade, but part of a wider ideological reconfiguration among competing factions of corporate elite in the U.S. and elsewhere. What is the evidence for such a position? Indeed, the lessons of 2016–18 require discernment between the ethno-nationalist politics of conservative parties from the more aggressive and even coercive demands for corporate-friendly policies (e.g., corporate tax cuts, deregulation) in the economic universe. The gross inequalities and economic woes spurred by neoliberal globalization are creating persistent crises in political legitimacy for governments, spawning an age of reaction (Dumenil and Lévy 2011). Liberal and left-leaning political parties in many parts of the world have sought to maintain commitments to both neoliberal globalization and the social welfare protections against the worst effects of free trade. The U.S. Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, is a case in point. Conservative parties, however, have drifted rightward, mobilizing exclusionary ideologies and policy agendas all aimed at thwarting liberal policy agendas and advancing greater economic freedoms for corporations. Scholars have identified ways in which conservativism relies increasingly on authoritarian ideologies, rejecting political liberalism in favor of political authoritarianism alongside corporate-friendly economic liberalism (i.e., free markets or laissez-faire). We know that political authoritarianism from the conservative right blends with free market capitalism as a strategy to secure political legitimacy; indeed it is not new (Bruff 2014; Hall 1988). Conservative corporate elite and the overwhelmingly white conservative base that elected Donald Trump to the presidency did not reject neoliberalism per se, but as Nancy Fraser argues, rallied

286

M. C. Dreiling

against “progressive neoliberalism… an alliance of mainstream currents of new social movements…., on the one side, and high-end ‘symbolic’ and service-based business sectors (Wall Street, Silicon Valley, and Hollywood [where] progressive forces are effectively joined with the forces of cognitive capitalism, especially financialization” (Fraser 2017: 2). Since the Great Recession, conservative elite embraced a political fix to the crises of neoliberalism, relying less on a belief in free markets, i.e., markets are efficient or desirable in other ways, and increasingly on favoring corporate interests alongside coercive and punitive strands of exclusion, racism, misogyny—in short, authoritarianism—to advance neoliberal economic agendas (See Wacquant 2009). Right-wing efforts to address legitimation problems through coercive and punitive policy frameworks also embrace the most extreme ideological elements of economic liberalism or laissez-faire capitalism, e.g., the U.S. Tea Party. Bruff’s (2014) conceptualization of “authoritarian neoliberalism” fits Trumpism and suggests a growing rift among corporate elite between two political strands of neoliberalism (authoritarian vs. progressive). These are playing out domestically and on the world stage. Do the combined pressures of global power shifts and domestic differences among the corporate rich portend an end to or significant transformation in the neoliberal trading order and the U.S. corporate unity that advanced it? Since the Great Recession (2007–2009), there has been a resurgence of protectionist trade policies throughout the world. But their scope thus far has been limited. The politics of protectionism, however, have been more pronounced when aligned with ethno-racist views of the nation, drawing historical parallels to fascist mercantilism in the 1930s. This is seen in the U.S. anti-immigrant policies of the Trump administration, the heavy-handed police authority of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and the right-wing anti-immigrant movements in much of Europe, Japan, and elsewhere. Amid these potent political forces coming from the nationalist right, trade liberalization and globalization—which persisted since the 1970s—now appear strained. Trump’s tariff initiatives certainly increase the chances of trade-related political and economic crises and will likely foment deeper challenges in this age of reaction to neoliberal globalization.

Conclusion To conclude, trade globalization was pressed by globalizing corporations and the U.S. government after WWII. Initially, as a means to gain export markets for U.S. firms and provide institutional frameworks for global capitalism, the Bretton Woods institutions were transformed in the neoliberal era beginning in the mid-to-late 1970s. The neoliberal goals of reducing public sector investments, decreasing corporate taxation, reducing costs by eliminating regulations that protect labor and the environment, and moving production activities globally to lower wage regions all contributed to an acceleration of international trade and an increase in global FDI. Globalizing

16 Trade Globalization and Its Consequences

287

corporations became TNCs, with production networks spanning many borders as information and transportation technology enable a global race to the bottom in costs for the production of goods and services. Politically, TNCs advanced these changes as a means to increase profits by accessing wider markets and reducing costs. The effects of neoliberal trade are too numerous to elaborate in this chapter, but the acceleration of trade and economic growth also occurred alongside: burning more fossil fuels and irrevocably changing the climate; increasing income inequality within nations and between the global poor and the global rich; accelerated transformation in information, transportation, and communication technologies; and generated social instabilities as capital moved more freely around the world, transforming once stable manufacturing regions into “rust belts.” Furthermore, and contrary to neoliberal theory, increased trade and FDI alone do not improve the human progress of a nation. Ample evidence suggests that human progress, as measured by the Human Development Index (HDI), accelerates when trade and FDI build on robust public investments in infrastructure, health, and education (UNDP 2013). Unfortunately, neoliberal economic prescriptions for managing debt among developing countries in the Global South demanded austerity and cuts to public investments. These calls for “structural adjustment” in highly indebted countries and the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s led to a wave of disinvestment in infrastructure, education, and health (Campbell and Pederson 2001; Robinson 2004). While not necessarily improving quality of life, trade expansion has contributed to economic and political realignments in the world. New centers of economic growth in Asia and the relative slow-down of growth in Europe and North America have also generated new elites in changing economies around the world. More recently, these changes have brought new centers of economic power to the world stage, shifting the geo-political and economic alliances of the last seventy years. Combined, the changes and the economic crisis of 2007–2009 have produced an “age of reaction” where right-wing nationalist and protectionist movements have fused with authoritarian versions of capitalism and deepened a rift between capitalist liberal democracies and authoritarian-oriented capitalist countries. By 2018, the age of reaction has begun to undermine the neoliberal global institutions as American President Trump and the Republican Party assert unilateralism abroad and ethnonationalist politics at home.

References Arrighi, Giovanni. 1994. The Long Twentieth-Century: Money, Power, and the Origins of our Times. London, New York: Verso. Autor, David H., David Dorn, and Gordon H. Hanson. 2012. The China syndrome: Local labor market effects of import competition in the United States. NBER Working Paper No. 18054. Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research. Babb, Sarah L. 2009. Behind the Development Banks: Washington Politics, World Poverty, and the Wealth of Nations. Chicago, London: University of Chicago Press.

288

M. C. Dreiling

Babones, Salvatore. 2013. A Structuralist Approach to the Economic Trajectories of Russia and the Countries of East-Central Europe since 1900. Geopolitics 18: 514–535. Bardhan, A., and D. Jaffee. 2005. On Intra-Firm Trade and Multinationals: Offshoring and Foreign Outsourcing in Manufacturing. In The Role of Foreign Direct Investment and Multinational Corporations in Economic Development, ed. E.M. Graham. London: Palgrave. Brewer, B.D. 2011. Global Commodity Chains and World Income Inequalities: The Missing Link of Inequality and the ‘upgrading’ Paradox. Journal of World-Systems Research 17 (2): 308–327. Bruff, Ian. 2014. The Rise of Authoritarian Neoliberalism. Rethinking Marxism 26 (1): 113–29. Campbell, John L., and Ove K. Pedersen (eds.). 2001. The Rise of Neoliberalism and Institutional Analysis. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Canto, Victor A. 1983. U.S. Trade Policy: History and Evidence. CATO Journal 3: 679–703. Carroll, William K. 2010. The Making of a Transnational Capitalist Class: Corporate Power in the Twenty-First Century. London, New York: Zed. Cattaneo, Olivier, Gary, Gereffi and Cornelia Staritz. 2010. Global Value Chains in a Postcrisis World a Development Perspective. Trade and Development. Washington, DC: World Bank. Chorev, Nitsan. 2007. Remaking U.S. Trade Policy: From Protectionism to Globalization. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Cohen, Stephen D., Robert A. Blecker and Peter D. Whitney. 2003. Fundamentals of U.S. Foreign Trade Policy: Economics, Politics, Laws, and Issues. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Davis, Julie Hirschfeld. 2017. Trump sends Nafta Renegotiation notice to Congress. The New York Times. https://nyti.ms/2rvy8pJ. Destler, I.Mac. 2005. American Trade Politics, 4th ed. Washington, DC: Institute for International Economics. Domhoff, G.William. 2014. The Myth of Liberal Ascendancy: Corporate Dominance from the Great Depression to the Great Recession. Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers. Dreiling, Michael C. 2001. Solidarity and Contention: The Politics of Security and Sustainability in the NAFTA Conflict. New York: Garland Publishing. Dreiling, Michael C., and Derek Y. Darves. 2016. Agents of Neoliberal Globalization: Corporate Networks, State Structures, and Trade Policy. New York: Cambridge University Press. Dreiling, Michael C., and Tony Silvaggio. 2009. NAFTA and Transnational Contention: A Decade of Alliance and Conflict over Neoliberalism. In Contentious Politics in North America: National Protest and Transnational Collaboration under Continental Integration, eds. Jeffrey Ayres and Laura MacDonald, 211–230. New York: Palgrave Press. Duhigg, Charles and Keith Bradsherjan. 2012. How the U.S. Lost Out on iPhone Work. The New York Times. https://nyti.ms/2k4VKhi. Duina, Francesco. 2006. The Social Construction of Free Trade: The European Union, NAFTA, and MERCOSUR. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Dumenil, Gérard, and Dominique Lévy. 2011. The Crisis of Neoliberalism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Estevadeordal, A., B. Frantz, and A.M. Taylor. 2003. The Rise and Fall of World Trade, 1870–1939. Quarterly Journal of Economics 2 (118): 359–407. Evans, Peter B. 1995. Embedded Autonomy: STATES and Industrial Transformation. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Fairbrother, Malcolm. 2014. Economists, Capitalists, and the Making of Globalization: North American Free Trade in Comparative-Historical Perspective. American Journal of Sociology 119 (5): 1324–1379. Federico, Giovanni and Antonio Tena-Junguito. 2016. A Tale of Two Globalizations: Gains from Trade and Openness 1800–2010. London, Centre for Economic Policy Research. (CEPR WP.11128). https://e-archivo.uc3m.es/bitstream/handle/10016/22354/wh1602.pdf?sequence=1. Fligstein, Neil. 2001. The Architecture of Markets: An Economic Sociology of Twenty-First-Century Capitalist Societies. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Fourcade, Marion. 2006. The Construction of a Global Profession: The Transnationalization of Economics. American Journal of Sociology 112 (1): 145–195.

16 Trade Globalization and Its Consequences

289

Fraser, Nancy. 2017. The End of Progressive Neoliberalism. Dissent Magazine. https://www.dissen tmagazine.org/online_articles/progressive-neoliberalism-reactionary-populism-nancy-fraser. Garrett, Geoffrey. 2000. The Causes of Globalization. Comparative Political Studies 33: 941–91. Gereffi, Gary. 1996. Global Commodity Chains: New Forms of Coordination and Control Among Nations and Firms in International Industries. Competition & Change 1 (4): 427–39. Gibbon, Peter and Jakob Vestergaard. 2017. U.S. Trade Policy Under Trump: Assessing the Unilateralist Turn. Danish Institute for International Studies. http://pure.diis.dk/ws/files/1246798/ DIIS_RP_2017_8.pdf. Accessed 3 Dec 2017. Gill, Stephen. 1990. American Hegemony and the Trilateral Commission. New York: Cambridge University Press. Green, Duncan. 2016. The Worlds Top 100 Economies: 31 Countries; 69 Corporations. Oxfam International. https://oxfamblogs.org/fp2p/the-worlds-top-100-economies-31-countries-69-corporati ons/. Accessed 3 May 2018. Hall, Stuart. 1988. Hard Road to Renewal: Thatcherism and the Crisis of the Left. London: Verso. Harvey, David. 2005. A Brief History of Neoliberalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Harvey, Neil. 1998. The Chiapas Rebellion: The Struggle for Land and Democracy. Duke University Press. Hopewell, Kristen. 2016. Breaking the WTO: How Emerging Powers Disrupted the Neoliberal Project. Emerging Frontiers in the Global Economy. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press. Krippner, Greta R. 2005. The Financialization of the American Economy. Socio-Economic Review 3 (2): 173–208. Krippner, Greta R. 2011. Capitalizing on Crisis: The Political Origins of the Rise of Finance. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Lachmann, Richard, and Block, Fred. 2014. The United States in Decline. Political Power and Social Theory. Bradford: Emerald Group Publishing Limited. Lanz, R., and S. Miroudot. 2011. Intra-Firm Trade: Patterns, Determinants and Policy Implications. In OECD Trade Policy Working Papers, No. 114. OECD Publishing. http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/ 5kg9p39lrwnn-en McKeown, Tim J. 1984. Firms and Tariff Regime Change: Explaining the Demand for Protection. World Politics 36: 215–33. McMichael, Philip. 2001. Revisiting the Question of the Transnational State: A Comment on Williams Robinson’s ‘social theory and globalization’. Theory and Society 30: 201–210. McMichael, Philip. 2005. Globalization. In The Handbook of Political Sociology: States, Civil Societies, and Globalization, ed. Thomas Janoski. New York: Cambridge. Miles, Tom. 2018. U.S. and China Each Say the Other is Wrecking the WTO. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trade-wto/us-and-china-each-say-the-other-iswrecking-the-wto-idUSKBN1I91TM. Accessed 1 June 2018 Milner, Helen. 1988. Resisting Protectionism: Global Industries and the Politics of International Trade. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Murray, Joshua. 2017. Interlock Globally, Act Domestically: Corporate Political Unity in the 21st Century 1. American Journal of Sociology 122 (6): 1617–663. Nash, June C., and María Patricia Fernández-Kelly. 1983. Women, Men, and the International Division of Labor. SUNY Series in the Anthropology of Work. Albany: State University of New York Press. Panitch, Leo, and Sam Gindin. 2012. The Making of Global Capitalism: The Political Economy of American Empire. New York: Verso. Peetz, David, and Georgina Murray. 2012. The financialization of global corporate ownership. In Financial Elites and Transnational Business: Who Rules the World? ed. Georgina Murray and John Scott, 26–53. Cheltanham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing. Pierce, Justin R., and Peter K. Schott. 2012. The Surprisingly Swift Decline of U.S. Manufacturing Employment. NBER Working Paper No. 18655. Cambridge, MA: The National Bureau of Economic Research.

290

M. C. Dreiling

Piketty, Thomas, and Arthur Goldhammer. 2014. Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Cambridge Massachusetts: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Polanyi, Karl. 2001. The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of our Time. Boston: Beacon Press. First published 1944 by Beacon Books. Ricardo, David. 1817/2001. On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation. London: Electric Book. Robinson, William. 2004. A Theory of Global Capitalism: Production, Class, and State in a Transnational World. Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press. Ruggie, John G. 1998. Constructing the World Polity: Essays on International Institutionalization. New York: Routledge. Ruhl, Kim J. 2015. How Well is U.S. Intrafirm Trade Measured? American Economic Review: Papers and Proceedings 105 (5): 524–529. Sklair, Leslie. 2001. The Transnational Capitalist Class. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Smith, Jackie. 2010. Social Movements for Global Democracy. Themes in Global Social Change. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Smith, Adam. 1793. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations By Adam Smith, … In Three Volumes. The Seventh edn. London: Printed for A. Strahan and T. Cadell. United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. 2013. World Investment Report 2013. Global Value Chains: Investment and Trade for Development. Geneva: UNCTAD. United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. 2016. Investor Nationality: Policy Challenges. Geneva, Switzerland: UNCTAD. United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). 2011. Human Development Report 2011: Human Development Report 2011: Sustainability and Equality: A Better Future for All. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. http://hdr.undp.org/sites/default/files/reports/271/hdr_2011_en_complete. pdf. United Nations Development Programme. 2013. Human Development Report 2013. The Rise of the South: Human Progress in a Diverse World. New York, NY: UNDP. http://hdr.undp.org/sites/def ault/files/reports/14/hdr2013_en_complete.pdf. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1990–2011. Employment, Hours, and Earnings from the Current Employment Statistics survey (National), All employees, thousands, manufacturing, seasonally adjusted. U.S. Chamber of Commerce. 2018. U.S. Chamber International IP Index. https://www.theglobal ipcenter.com/ipindex2018/. Accessed 26 Dec 2018. Vitali, S., J.B. Glattfelder, S. Battiston. 2011. The Network of Global Corporate Control. PLoS ONE 6 (10): e25995. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0025995. Accessed 26 Aug 2018. Yi, Kei-Mu. 2003. Can Vertical Specialization Explain the Growth of World Trade? Journal of Political Economy 111 (1): 52–102. Wacquant, Loic. 2009. Punishing the Poor: The Neoliberal Government of Social Insecurity. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press. Wallerstein, Immanuel. 2011. The Modern World-System IV Centrist Liberalism Triumphant, 1789–1914. The Modern World-system Centrist Liberalism Triumphant, 1789/1914. Berkeley: University of California Press. Woodall, Patrick, Lori Wallach, Jessica Roach, and Katie Burnham. 2000. Purchasing Power: The corporate-White House Alliance to Pass the China Trade Bill Over the will of the American People. Washington, DC: Public Citizen. World Bank. 2018. IBRD IDB Data Bank. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/TM.TAX.MRCH. SM.AR.ZS. Accessed 28 Apr 2018. World Trade Organization. 2007. World Trade Report: Six Decades of Multilateral Cooperation, What Have we Learnt?. Geneva: WTO. World Trade Organization Secretariat. 2011. World Trade Report 2011. The WTO and preferential trade agreements: From co-existence to coherence. Geneva: WTO. https://www.wto.org/english/ res_e/booksp_e/anrep_e/world_trade_report11_e.pdf. Accessed 01 Feb 2018.

16 Trade Globalization and Its Consequences

291

World Trade Organization Secretariat. 2013. World Trade Report 2013: Factors Shaping the Future of World Trade. Geneva: WTO. https://www.wto.org/english/res_e/booksp_e/world_trade_rep ort13_e.pdf. World Trade Organization. 2013. International Trade statistics 2013. Geneva: WTO. https://www. wto.org/english/res_e/statis_e/its2013_e/its2013_e.pdf. World Trade Organization Secretariat. 2017. Chronological List of Dispute Cases. https://www. wto.org/english/tratop_e/dispu_e/dispu_status_e.htm. Accessed 3 Dec 2017.

Michael C. Dreiling is at the Sociology Department of the University of Oregon, USA, and specializes in trade globalization, corporate political networks, and social movements. His recent works include Agents of Neoliberal Globalization (Cambridge, 2016), “A Nuclear Complex? A Network Visualization of Japan’s Nuclear Industry and Regulatory Elite, 2006-2012” (Socius, 2018), and the production of the award-winning feature documentary on Costa Rica’s demilitarized society—A Bold Peace.

Chapter 17

The Political Economy of the United States and the Structure of the Millennial World-System Salvatore Babones

Abstract 4/1 Global trade, investment, and financial flows have been roughly stable since the end of the 2008–2009 global financial crisis, suggesting that the process of rapid economic globalization that began in the 1970s has now come to an end. Four decades of globalization gave the world an economy that is not so much “international” as “transnational.” While in the past, the world-economy was centered on international markets, today, the world-economy is centered on transnational value chains, the management of which is heavily concentrated in North America, with secondary nodes in Western Europe and East Asia. As economic power in this “millennial world-system” shifts from the Atlantic to the Pacific, American companies, especially Internet companies, have come to dominate the world’s peak value chains. But although globalization has reinforced the position of the United States at the core of the world-system, this has not benefitted all Americans. Instead, economic power is increasingly concentrated among America’s east and west coast elites, leaving many people in the middle struggling to find a place in the new global economy. The key to finding that place is independent thinking, which should be promoted by governments, schools, and parents alike.

The four-decade long process of rapid economic integration that led to the globalization of the world’s economy reached its culmination in 2008. Between the breakdown of the “Bretton Woods” system of economic management in the early 1970s and the global financial crisis of 2008, international trade more than doubled as a percentage of total global gross domestic product (GDP), from less than 30% to more than 50%, as illustrated in Fig. 1. Cross-border investment flows increased even more dramatically, from historical levels of less than 1% to briefly touch 5% in 2007 before falling back to the range of 2–3%. The world went from having a tightly controlled economic system in the immediate aftermath of World War Two, a system in which imports, exports, investment, currency exchange, borrowing, lending, wages, and prices were all highly regulated, to having an economic system that was increasingly S. Babones (B) Department of Sociology & Social Policy, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 I. Rossi (ed.), Challenges of Globalization and Prospects for an Inter-civilizational World Order, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44058-9_17

293

294

S. Babones

70%

7%

60%

6%

Trade (le axis) FDI (right axis)

50%

5%

40%

4%

30%

3%

20%

2%

2008

2015

2010

2005

2000

1995

1990

1985

0% 1980

0% 1975

1%

1970

10%

Fig. 1 International trade and foreign direct investment expressed as a percentage of global GDP, 1970–2017. Source World Bank (2018)

based on free market principles and the freedom of contract. A program of economic deregulation and liberalization was exported from the United States to the rest of the world, resulting in a complete transformation in the character of capitalism itself. The highly regulated capitalism of the post-war era (1948–1968) was replaced by the free market of the globalization era. These economic changes didn’t just “happen.” They were promoted by powerful political actors, especially business corporations, private sector professionals, and the wealthy, who argued for the removal of many of the limitations that had been placed on economic activities in the first half of the twentieth century. Free market oriented economists like Hayek (1944) were highly influential in arguing that government “interference” in the economy reduced economic productivity, and ultimately threatened the future of democracy itself. The ideas of Hayek and other free market economists like Friedman (1962) found their most receptive audience in the United States, but their ideas have since spread to Europe, Asia, and the rest of the world. Since this new philosophy of free markets called for a return to the unregulated markets of the nineteenth century, it came to be known as “neoliberalism” (“neo” meaning new and “liberal” meaning free, as in freedom from regulation). In the globalization era, neoliberalism has replaced regulation as the world’s dominant approach to political economics. Through a series of policy shifts that resulted in a sharp decline in union membership (Clawson and Clawson 1999), a huge shift in economic rewards from workers to financiers (Tomaskovic-Devey and Lin 2011), massive increases in executive compensation (McCall and Percheski 2010), and a dramatic reduction in taxes on

17 The Political Economy of the United States and the Structure …

295

those with the highest incomes (Piketty and Saez 2007), neoliberalism within countries led to a return to levels of economic inequality last seen in the late 1800s and early 1900s. (Piketty 2014) Neoliberalism between countries led to a boom in international trade and foreign direct investment, as depicted in Fig. 1. The globalization of trade and investment has led to a “compression of the world” (Robertson 1992: 8) as people interact more and more across national borders, both as producers and (especially) as consumers. Global trade and investment flows were also high in the decades leading up to the outbreak of World War One in 1914 (Chase-Dunn et al. 2000), but in this original “liberal” era, globalization consisted mainly of trade in final consumption goods between people and firms based in different countries. The neoliberal deregulation of the late 1900s and early 2000s engendered a new type of globalization based on transnational integration, not mere international exchange (Holton 2011: 68–69). Today’s leading companies are not national companies that trade with other countries’ companies; even if their head offices are in one particular country, the companies themselves are global in their operations. In fact, a large proportion of “international” trade today occurs within companies, for example, when a manufacturer moves smartphone components from a factory in one country to an assembly plant in another country, then to a retail shop in a third country. More often, the many intermediate steps that go into producing a sophisticated product like a smartphone are merely coordinated by “lead firms” in a global value chain that spans several countries. (Gereffi et al. 2005) Lead firms are the consumer-facing companies that people are aware of when they buy a particular product or service. Lead firms typically control the relationship with the final consumer via branding; people buy a particular brand of smartphone, not a particular brand of circuit board. Global value chains concentrate power—and profits—in the lead firms that interface with final consumers. A distinctive feature of today’s globally integrated economy, in which transnational value chains are managed by lead firms across multiple national borders, is thus the fact that most international trade is trade in intermediate goods, not final consumption goods. (WTO 2018) Intermediate goods are goods that are used to make other goods, for example, the circuit boards, chips, and screens that go into making a smartphone. The emergence of transnational value chains in which intermediate goods like parts and components can cross multiple borders before final assembly and export to a destination market has completely transformed the structure of the world-economy. Qualitatively speaking, most trade today is not the trade between “countries.” Exports and imports may happen to cross international borders, where they get recorded as “trade,” but from an economic perspective, the real trade is between nodes in value chains, not countries as such. Those nodes are individual sites that may contribute only a small (but often essential) component to a larger product, such as the circuit board, chip, or screen that is ultimately incorporated into a consumer’s smartphone. A smartphone that is exported from China to the United States may actually include components that were produced in hundreds of smaller production nodes in a dozen or more different countries (Gereffi and Lee 2012). The economy of the modern world-system (c. 1500–2000) really was based on international trade between countries in a global market system. (Babones 2015)

296

S. Babones

The basic premise of any market system is the principle that prices are determined by the balance of supply and demand among sellers and buyers of undifferentiated (not branded) products. There are still global markets today for commodities like oil, cotton, and steel. But today, most prices are negotiated inside global value chains, not set on a global market. Leading companies that “own” the consumer through brand awareness are able to generate disproportionate profits, while the secondary companies that supply them must compete fiercely for orders. Globalization has thus transformed the old modern world-economy based on an international market system into a new postmodern world-economy embedded within transnational global value chains. This new “millennial world-system” is much more deeply integrated—more thoroughly interwoven with cross-border connections among value chain nodes— than the old modern world-system, and with this integration, comes an even greater concentration of power at the center of the world’s economic networks.

The Millennial World-System The economy of the millennial world-system (c. 2000–????) is postmodern in more ways than one. It is postmodern in that it has emerged as a successor to the modern world-system, but it is also postmodern in that economic value in the millennial world-system is captured mainly by branding, celebrity, and social networking. The fame and reputation of a seller have become more important for generating value than the weight or dimensions of the product being sold. For example, a smartphone branded with the logo of the world’s leading consumer products company can be sold at a much higher price than a near-identical phone from a generic Chinese manufacturer, even if the two phones are literally assembled in the same factory from the same components. If this disparity is true of the physical products sold by the lead firms in global smartphone value chains, it is even more true of the applications that run on those phones. Consider, for example, ride hailing apps. There are only three major ride hailing apps in the world, two of them originating in the United States and one in China. They operate no cars themselves, yet they are able to charge riders a modest booking fee and drivers one-quarter of their total revenues just for the service of linking the two together. A true market for ride hailing services would quickly drive these transaction costs down toward zero, but because the ride hailing service “owns” the customer relationship through branding and social networking, it is able to garner a wildly disproportionate share of the value generated by the transaction. Geographically, the dominant value chains of the millennial world-system, and especially of intangible value chains of the smartphone app economy, tend to be focused around the shores of the Pacific Ocean. Nearly every major consumer technology company in the world is based on the west coast of the United States, the east coast of China, or somewhere in between (Japan, South Korea, or Taiwan). Whereas the peak trading networks of the modern world-system were concentrated in the Atlantic, connecting North America and Western Europe, the peak value chains of the millennial world-system are concentrated in the Pacific, connecting North

17 The Political Economy of the United States and the Structure …

297

America and East Asia. Many of the most profitable of these value chains have lead firms that are based in California’s Silicon Valley that manage Chinese production networks in a symbiotic economic structure that can be called “Calichina.” (Babones 2017) The intangible app economy is also a Calichina economy, with nearly every major social networking company based either in California or in coastal China. And even those that are based in China must run on American software, since both of the world’s two major smartphone operating systems are the products of American companies (as are the world’s dominant personal computer operating systems). The old modern world-system and the new millennial world-system share one geoeconomic feature in common: a focus on the United States. The global financial system, a dominant feature of the modern world-system, is still centered primarily on New York with a secondary center across the Atlantic in London. Meanwhile, the global information technology system, the dominant feature of the millennial worldsystem, is centered primarily in Silicon Valley with secondary centers in Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen. In each case, American firms were and are at the core of the system. The difference is that while financial firms exercise their power through market dominance, technology firms mainly extract profits from their privileged positions in social networks. This concentrates power even more in a small number of effective monopolies. No bank has ever had so much monopoly power as the leading Internet search, social networking, and app store companies do today. The centrality of the United States in the networks of the millennial worldsystem and the extraordinary concentration of economic power within those networks interact to make today’s American economy unique (Starrs 2013). In the 1900s, the final century of the modern world-system, the United States was already the world’s financial hub, with all global markets based on the US Dollar and all countries holding US Dollars as their main reserve currency (Babones 2017). These financial advantages still exist, and they continue to make New York the richest city in the world. But now in the 2000s, the first century of the millennial world-system, the United States has emerged as the world’s information technology hub as well. The combination of finance and technology gives leading American companies today a level of access to resources that is unprecedented in economic history. As a result, the United States is becoming much richer than the rest of the world, or at least certain parts of it are. This global economic dominance has a domestic counterpart in rising internal inequality. Though the exact direction of causality connecting inequality and globalization is not always clear, the broad spatial outlines of the new economic geography are: the millennial world-system is centered on the east and west coasts of the United States, with secondary notes in Western Europe and East Asia. As some (but not all) people in places like New York and California consolidate their positions at the top of global value chains, many other people in the middle are being left behind. The postmodern economy of the millennial world-system has largely bypassed ordinary American workers. Figure 2 combines several time series to build a picture of the evolution of the median income of male full-time workers in the United States from 1860 to 2016. All figures are expressed in the equivalent of 2016 dollars. The figure focuses on men’s incomes because of a lack of data on women’s incomes for earlier years. Over the 100 years from 1873 to 1973, men’s wages grew at a

298

S. Babones

$60,000

1973 $50,000 Median FT Male Income

$40,000

Real GDP per Capita

$30,000

$20,000

$10,000

1860 1865 1870 1875 1880 1885 1890 1895 1900 1905 1910 1915 1920 1925 1930 1935 1940 1945 1950 1955 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015

$0

Fig. 2 The median income of full-time employed men in the United States versus US real GDP per capita, 2016 Dollars, 1860–2016. Sources Phelps Brown and Browne (1968), Bolt et al. (2018), BLS (2018), Census Bureau (2017), FRED (2018)

compound average rate of exactly 2% per year, slightly faster than compound average economic growth in the United States of 1.92% per year. However, since 1973, median individual income—the income of the typical male worker—has actually declined, despite the fact that the economy has continued to grow. Other Americans have experienced stagnant incomes as well, though data are only available for most groups for the last fifty years. (Babones 2016) The fact that most Americans are still living at the same real income levels (adjusted for inflation) that their parents did in the 1970s and 1980s shows that while United States may be central to the peak value chains of the millennial world-system, most individual Americans are not. The long-term stagnation in the incomes of ordinary Americans since the early 1970s has been reinforced by a regional shift in productivity from the poorer to the richer areas of the United States. With the exception of a small number of lowpopulation states that have experienced a sudden boom in oil or gas production, the richest areas of the United States are growing much faster than the poorest areas, a trend that has exacerbated regional disparities. As illustrated in Fig. 3, the alreadyrich northeast and west coast are growing much faster than the rest of the country. For example, in 1997, California’s gross state product (GSP) per capita was 46% higher than that of the poorest state, Mississippi. By 2016, it was 84% higher. (BEA 2017; note that GSP data are only available starting in 1997). Of course, California is a very large state with a population of nearly 40 million people, not all of them wealthy. Silicon Valley alone has roughly the same population as Mississippi. New York also has large income disparities between the New York City metropolitan area and much poorer areas upstate. States like California and New

17 The Political Economy of the United States and the Structure …

299

Fig. 3 Compound average annual growth in gross state product (GSP) per capita, 1997–2016. Source BEA (2017)

York are similar in population size and regional diversity to many Western European countries. But to an even greater extent than they have pulled away from the rest of the United States, they have pulled away from what we are used to thinking of as the “developed” countries of Western Europe and East Asia. Globalization has put places like California and New York at the center of global value chains that extend far beyond the borders of the United States. Their GSPs reflect not only local production, but the concentration of value in these areas that is generated far beyond their borders. Most people imagine that the rich “Western” or “developed” countries are roughly similar in income levels. But measured in terms of GSP or GDP per capita, both California and the Northeastern United States are roughly 20% richer than the Netherlands, 33% richer than Germany, and 50% richer than France (IMF 2017). Japan, with a GDP per capita of $38,550 in 2017, is roughly on a par with France ($39,673), and in other words, only slightly above Mississippi ($36,802), the poorest state in the United States. Drilling down to the city level makes the gap clearer still. When the OECD (2012) calculated regional product per capita for the world’s 281 largest metropolitan areas, sixteen of the top twenty were in the United States (and two were in Canada). Pittsburgh ($68,940) is richer than Munich ($63,592), Stockholm ($62,464), or Zurich ($62,798). San Francisco ($82,112) is roughly twice as rich as Tokyo ($41,636). Such comparisons may seem shocking to people who visit these cities, but statistically, they are true. If cities in Europe and Japan seem richer and more developed, it is only because Europeans and Asians tend to spend more on the kinds of public amenities that are readily visible to tourists, while Americans tend to spend more on private goods like larger homes and higher education. The simple fact is that North

300

S. Babones

America, the United States, the northeast and west coast of the United States, and even more narrowly America’s coastal cities are simply pulling away from the rest of the world. If the modern world-system was centered on a small number of EuroAtlantic core countries, the millennial world-system is centered on a small number of North American cities. And as twenty-first-century technology networks come to be more important to the global economy than twentieth-century financial networks, the center of the world-system is shifting ever westward.

The New Economic Geography In addition to its North American center(s), the millennial world-system has two subcenters in Western Europe and East Asia. Taken together, North America, Western Europe, and East Asia have a combined GDP of more than $60 trillion, making up more than three-quarters of the world’s total economic output, according to data from the IMF (2017). Moreover, these three major economic regions are home to nearly all of the world’s most important manufacturing, services, and Internet value chains. These peak value chains tend to integrate the three major regions with each other, while the economies of countries outside the three regions are largely excluded from global value chains and poorly integrated with each other. These “leftover” countries are mainly providers of raw materials for the economies of the three major regions. This is true even for very rich (but economically isolated) countries like Australia (top exports: iron and coal) and New Zealand (top exports: milk and meat). It is even more true for their poorer cousins in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, and South Asia. In fact, the three major economic regions are the only regions of the world for which intraregional exports (exports to other countries within the region) exceed extraregional exports (exports to the rest of the world) (WTO 2017). In other words, they trade mainly among themselves. Countries in all other parts of the world tend to export out of their home regions; for example, Argentina’s soybeans go to China, not to Chile. These economically isolated countries are not integrated into global value chains or even regional value chains. They survive mainly as raw material suppliers to the three major economic regions. Though natural resource exports from the global South are nothing new, the economic integration of the global North is. The countries of North America, Western Europe, and East Asia used to trade mainly with the global South. Now, they trade mainly with their regional neighbors through the nodes of global value chains. This represents a wholesale reconfiguration of the economic geography of the previous modern world-system. From the beginnings of the modern world-system in the early 1500s until its culmination in the late 1900s, international trade followed colonial (or post-colonial) patterns, with each major “core” country of Western Europe (and later the United States) trading mainly with the peripheral and semiperipheral areas of the world over which it had some degree of political influence. These core countries fought repeated wars with peripheral countries and with each other to establish and extend colonial empires. The final catastrophe of the modern

17 The Political Economy of the United States and the Structure …

301

world-system, World War Two, was largely motivated by the desire of the leaders of the late-developing countries (Germany, Italy, and Japan) to establish colonial empires of their own. Today, wars to establish or wrest control over colonies are a thing of the past. The three major economic regions of the world mainly trade intermediate goods within their own regions—and the three regions then trade final consumption goods with each other. The rest of the world suffers more from economic neglect than from economic oppression. Granted, individual companies based in North America, Western Europe, and East Asia continue to exploit people and resources in the rest of the world, but this exploitation is incidental to the peak value chains of the millennial world-system. For the world’s top information technology companies, the peripheries of the world-economy are largely irrelevant, whether as producers or as consumers. Their production networks and consumer markets are overwhelmingly concentrated in the three major economic regions. The three major economic regions are in effect integrated economic units, not just collections of national economies that happen to trade with each other. This is most visible in Western Europe, where the European Union has merged 28 countries plus Switzerland and Norway into a single customs area (though the final status of the United Kingdom in that area is still being debated). Economic regionalism is also clearly visible in North America, where the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) melded the United States, Canada, and Mexico into a single continental economy. Economic regionalism is less obvious but no less real in East Asia, where firms based in Japan, Korea, and Taiwan are among the top investors and producers in China and Vietnam. In each of the three major economic regions, important production networks span international borders within the region but have much less important ties to countries outside the region.

A Hierarchy of Regions In terms of incomes, technology, and value chain structure, there is a clear hierarchical structure to the millennial world-economy that places North America at the center of the new economic geography. Western Europe and East Asia have fallen out of the core of the world-economy, down to the status of “semi-cores” (Norkus 2016): regions of the world that were technological leaders during the last wave of industrial development but have fallen behind in the new leading industries of the intangible postmodern economy. Germany in Western Europe and Japan in East Asia are still the most advanced manufacturing hubs in the world, but manufacturing is no longer the peak economic activity it once was. To see that, just look at the United States, where manufacturing employment has long since migrated from the east and west coasts to the poorer states of the midwest and south. Each new cycle of innovation in the global economy has the potential to reduce (some) former core areas to semi-core status, while other areas shift into newly emerging leading industries. (Norkus 2018) As a result, the world is littered with

302

S. Babones

former economic cores that have seen their fortunes decline as their once cuttingedge industries have fallen into disuse. These areas may remain wealthy for decades or even centuries after the passing of their world-economic centrality, but they cease to be locations of major new wealth creation. For example, three hundred years after its peak as the world’s shipping capital, Amsterdam is still rich, but in terms of global influence, it is a shadow of its former self. New York’s “golden age” may have ended in 2008 with the collapse of global financial markets, but it is still the richest city in the world, and likely will be for another century or more. The companies driving forward today’s “next big thing”—information technology—are overwhelmingly concentrated on the west coast of the United States, suggesting that the core of the millennial world-system will coalesce around northern California’s Silicon Valley. But the economic tendrils of Silicon Valley spread out far and wide across the Pacific Ocean to China. Although in physical geography terms, East Asia is connected to Western Europe across the landmass of Eurasia, in economic geography, it is much more closely tied to California across the Pacific. Due to the high costs of land transportation, nearly all trade between East Asia and Western Europe is conducted by sea, not over land. China’s “Belt and Road Initiative” to improve Eurasia’s transportation infrastructure cannot change this basic economic fact. And when it comes to shipping by sea, the travel time from East Asia to Western Europe is about twice as long as that from East Asia to California. Thus in economic terms, it is more accurate to say that China is in the “far west” of the world-economy than it is to describe China as being in the “far east.” But the economic integration of Calichina is about much more than sea freight. The human connections between East Asia and the west coast of North America are also very dense. Immigration flows from East Asia to North America are vastly larger than those to Western Europe, in addition to which those migrating to North America also have much higher average education levels (Platonova and Urso 2013). There are also substantial levels of “birth tourism” through which Chinese mothers give birth to US citizen babies in California hospitals (Babones 2017). The United States is also by far the most popular destination for Chinese students seeking higher education abroad. On top of all this, many leading Chinese Internet companies have succeeded by “cloning” American (Californian) business models. Silicon Valley looms large in the postmodern Chinese imagination. China itself is still a middle-income country, with a GDP per capita roughly oneseventh that of the United States. As a country, it cannot be considered part of the core of the millennial world-system. But in a process that is similar to what is happening in the United States, parts of China are pulling away from the rest of the country, not just in terms of GDP per capita but also in the character of their economy. China’s major Internet, social networking, computer gaming, and other online companies are all based in three distinct economic zones on China’s east coast: the regions surrounding Beijing in the north, Shanghai in the center, and Shenzhen in the south. These three cities (and their hinterlands) are becoming increasingly differentiated from the rest of China, focusing their industrial development on the intangible services of the online economy.

17 The Political Economy of the United States and the Structure …

303

China’s closed Internet, which excludes most of the top American Internet companies, has given Chinese competitors a free space to innovate and expand. Just as countries used protective tariffs to shield domestic manufacturers from international competition at the height of the modern world-system, China uses its Internet firewall to shield domestic Internet companies from American competition today. It remains to be seen whether or not China’s Internet giants will ever be able to compete successfully with American companies on the global stage, but it is nonetheless noteworthy that China’s restricted Internet is the only part of the world where domestic Internet companies have been able to maintain any significant market share in the face of US competition. There are extensive human, technological, and financial connections between China’s Internet companies and their American counterparts, but at least for now, China’s companies retain a distinct identity. That said, they make very little money compared to their American counterparts because although Chinese Internet companies have a captive home market, they have (so far) proven unable to convince developers and consumers in the rest of the world to “plug in” to their technological ecosystems. In the intangible, online, postmodern value chains of the millennial world-system, American companies are globally dominant, Chinese ones maintain a protected foothold in their home market, and European ones are virtually nonexistent. The shift in the world’s economic center of gravity from the Atlantic to the Pacific is clear, even if the exact position of China in that shift remains to be determined. Parts of China may constitute a new semi-core in formation, but they have a long way to go before they could ever challenge California as the new global core of a future wave of technological innovation.

Policy Recommendations The process of globalization took four decades to unfold, but the globalized worldsystem that was its end result is still very new. Still, as the first truly globalized worldsystem, it is perhaps the first one for which policy recommendations can be made that are globally applicable. After all, participation in the intangible value chains of the online economy is, in principle, open to anyone with an Internet connection. And a quick look at the national flags displayed on the freelance work websites of the online “gig” economy will demonstrate just how open that economy is. Today, intergovernmental organizations like the United Nations, individual national governments, and even local state, county, and municipal governments all have to think about global integration when they formulate public policies, not just economic policies but social policies as well. And at the nexus between economic and social policy sits education. The idea that education should prepare today’s young people for participation in tomorrow’s global world has become a platitude, and like most platitudes, it often escapes careful analysis. Today’s educational debates vacillate between oldfashioned “back to basics” movements and expert-driven initiatives to promote “critical thinking skills.” Both of these approaches mistake the lessons of the past for the lessons of the future. Rote training in basic skills will always have a place at the

304

S. Babones

most elementary levels of education, but it is not a very effective way to prepare students for the unbounded economy of the digital age. That seems clear enough. Less obvious is the fact that the critical thinking approach also tends to box students into pre-defined (if more sophisticated) ways of thinking. Advocates of critical thinking start from the premise that “the correct assessing of statements” (Ennis 1962: 81) is both possible and desirable. Over time (and through self-serving disciplinary pressures), this basic premise has evolved into the idea that discipline-specific epistemologies (ways of knowing) should be rigorously applied by students to the specific questions of those disciplines to generate (and replicate) correct discipline-specific assessments (Moore 2004). The parallel with “back to basics” rote learning, if not exactly obvious, is nonetheless complete. Whereas rote learning teaches students to repeat pre-defined correct answers (as defined by their teachers), critical thinking teaches students to reason toward pre-defined correct answers (as defined by their teachers). Neither approach leaves open a place for the intellectual entrepreneurship of independent thought. Yet the traditions of intellectual entrepreneurship and independent thought—of finding your own answers to life’s questions—are precisely what make American culture distinctive in the world. These traditions well-equip the United States for leadership in a fluid, postmodern economy like that of the millennial world-system. It is perhaps no coincidence that many of the founders of America’s top Internet companies dropped out of college to pursue their own ideas, rather than their teachers’ ideas. For Americans (and others) who want to succeed in today’s postmodern economy, the ability to think for oneself is the key. If governments want to see their people flourish, educational policy should promote independent thinking, That is easier said than done. Most teachers naturally want to teach what they (think they) know to be true. But the fast pace of technological change repeatedly shows us that what teachers “know” to be true very often turns out to be false. University students who master the disciplinary knowledge of the 2020s will find their education to be meaningless by the time they reach senior management in the 2040s. If instead, they spend their classroom years in experimentation and self-cultivation, then as adults they will be better equipped to adapt to whatever challenges economic and technological change may hold in store. The most important policy recommendation for a globalized world may thus be simply to be yourself. Governments, schools, and indeed parents who learn the lesson of intellectual forbearance may be those that are best educating their children for an uncertain (but opportunity-filled) future.

References Babones, S. 2015. What ‘is’ World-Systems Analysis? Thesis Eleven 127: 3–20. Babones, S. 2016. The global Diffusion of Inequality Since 1970. In Essays on Inequality and Integration in Times of Crisis, ed. A. Franzen, B. Jann, C. Joppke, and E. Widmer, 93–115. Zurich: Seismo Verlag. Babones, S. 2017. American Tianxia: Chinese Money, American Power, and the End of History. Bristol: Policy Press. BEA [Bureau of Economic Analysis]. 2017. Per Capita real GDP by State. Washington: BEA.

17 The Political Economy of the United States and the Structure …

305

BLS [United States Bureau of Labor Statistics]. 2018. Consumer Price Index for all Urban Consumers. Washington: BLS. Bolt J., R. Inklaar, H. de Jong, and J.L. van Zanden. 2018. The Maddison Project Database, version 2018. Groningen: Groningen Growth and Development Centre. Census Bureau. 2017. Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplements, Table P-36. Washington: Census Bureau. Chase-Dunn, C., Y. Kawano, and B.D. Brewer. 2000. Trade Globalization Since 1795: Waves of Integration in the world-System. American Sociological Review 65: 75–95. Clawson, D., and M.A. Clawson. 1999. What has Happened to the US Labor Movement? Union Decline and Renewal. Annual Review of Sociology 25: 95–119. Ennis, R. 1962. A Concept of Critical Thinking. Harvard Educational Review 32: 81–111. FRED [Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis]. 2018. GDP Implicit Price defLator. St. Louis: FRED. Friedman, M. 1962. Capitalism and Freedom. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Gereffi, G., and J. Lee. 2012. Why the World Suddenly Cares about Global Supply Chains. Journal of Supply Chain Management 48: 24–32. Gereffi, G., J. Humphrey, and T. Sturgeon. 2005. The Governance of Global Value Chains. Review of International Political Economy 12: 78–104. Hayek, F.A. 1944. The Road to Serfdom. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Holton, R.J. 2011. Globalization and the Nation State, 2nd edn. New York: Palgrave-Macmillan. IMF [International Monetary Fund]. 2017. World Economic Outlook Database. Washington: IMF. McCall, L., and C. Percheski. 2010. Income Inequality: New Trends and Research Directions. Annual Review of Sociology 36: 329–347. Moore, T. 2004. The Critical Thinking Debate: How General are General Thinking Skills? Higher Education Research & Development 23: 3–18. Norkus, Z. 2016. On global Social Mobility, or How Kondratieff Waves Change the Structure of the Capitalist World System. In Kondratieff Waves: Cycles, Crises, and Forecasts, ed. L.E. Grinin, T.C. Devezas, and A.V. Korotayev, 121–152. Volgograd: Uchitel Publishing House. Norkus, Z. 2018. Long Waves and Changes in the Structure of the Capitalist World System. In Global Inequalities in World-Systems Perspective: Theoretical Debates and Methodological Innovations, ed. M. Boatca, A. Komlosy, and H.H. Nolte, 78–93. Oxford: Routledge. OECD [Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development. 2012. Redefining Urban: A New Way to Measure Metropolitan Areas. Paris: OECD. Phelps Brown, E.H., and M.H. Browne. 1968. A Century of Pay: The Course of Pay and Production in France, Germany, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States of America 1860–1960. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Piketty, T. 2014. Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Piketty, T., and E. Saez. 2007. How Progressive is the U.S. Federal Tax System? A Historical and International Perspective. Journal of Economic Perspectives 21: 3–24. Platonova, A., and G. Urso. 2013. Journal of Global Policy and Governance 1: 143–156. Robertson, R. 1992. Globalization: Social Theory and Global Culture. London: Sage Publications. Starrs, S. 2013. American Economic Power hasn’t Declined—It globalized! Summoning the Data and Taking Globalization Seriously. International Studies Quarterly 57: 817–830. Tomaskovic-Devey, D., and K.H. Lin. 2011. Income Dynamics, Economic Rents, and the Financialization of the U.S. Economy. American Sociological Review 76: 538–559. World Bank. 2018. World Development Indicators Databank. Washington: World Bank. WTO [World Trade Organization]. 2017. WTO World and Regional Merchandise Export Profiles. Geneva: World Trade Organization. WTO [World Trade Organization]. 2018. World Trade Statistical Review 2017. Geneva: World Trade Organization.

Salvatore Babones is a comparative sociologist who takes a long-term approach to understand the structure of the global economy, with a particular focus on China’s role in it. He is the author of American Tianxia: Chinese Money, American Power, and the End of History, and the coauthor of BRICS or Bust? Escaping the Middle-Income Trap.

Chapter 18

Global Inequality and Capitalist World-Economy, 1500—Present: A Critique of Neo-Modernization Theories Sahan S. Karatasli Abstract The historical analysis presented in this chapter refutes the claims of the neo-modernization theories on empirical grounds. By examining trends of global inequality from the sixteenth century to the present, the chapter documents major problems with arguments claiming that global inequality trends have started to radically decline for the first time since the industrial revolution. What we call as globalization today is neither a recent nor a linear phenomenon, but historically recurrent and cyclical feature of historical capitalism. By analyzing the trends of global inequality during periods of financial globalization, the analysis presented in this chapter shows that from the sixteenth century to the present, the world economy has experienced further polarization between the rich and poor countries during periods of financial globalization. While global inequality trends temporarily declined in the short run during what Arrighi named as “financial expansion” periods of the world economy, they tended to increase in the long run, producing “divergences” in the periphery. Moreover, changes in the global hierarchy of wealth have been characterized by not one but a series of great divergences in the longue duree, from the sixteenth century to the present, all of which have taken place during periods of financial expansion and globalization.

Introduction Modernization theory is not dead.1 Since the turn of the twenty-first century, a growing chorus of scholars has been arguing that between-country inequality trends have started to decline for the first time since the industrial revolution, thanks to globalization (Firebaugh 2009; Wolf 2011; Lucas 2002; Sala-i Martin 2006; also see Milanovic 2013). Some scholars believe that we are experiencing an “inequality 1I

would like to thank Mich Fredricks for his assistance on this project. I would also like to thank Ino Rossi and anonymous reviewers of this chapter for their very useful comments and suggestions. S. S. Karatasli (B) Department of Sociology, University of North Carolina, Greensboro, USA e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 I. Rossi (ed.), Challenges of Globalization and Prospects for an Inter-civilizational World Order, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44058-9_18

307

308

S. S. Karatasli

transition” of world-historical significance (Firebaugh 2009). For these scholars, the benefits of the industrial revolution have finally started spreading to poor countries, allowing them to grow faster than the rich countries in recent decades. This process began to reduce inequality between countries, which has consistently been rising since the industrial revolution. Wolf (2011) calls this “inequality transition” a “great convergence” process. He argues that we have started to see the reversal of the “great divergence” process identified by Pomeranz (2000), which had initially produced the overwhelming income and wealth disparity between the “West” and the “rest”, or to put differently, between the Global North and the Global South. Lucas (2002), to give another example, makes a similar argument by turning attention to the spread of technology and similar institutional designs during the contemporary age of globalization. He believes that these trends will decrease global inequality trends and bring them to the level prior to the industrial revolution in the late eighteenth and the early nineteenthcentury. For many scholars, the rapid economic growth of China, India, and many other peripheral countries of the Global South at the turn of the twenty-first century is the evidence that modernization theory was right after all. Qualitatively different versions of modernization theories have long occupied a prominent place in theories of international development since the end of World War II. Arguably, the most famous of these theories were put forward by W. W. Rostow, during the height of the U.S. world hegemony. In his Non-communist Manifesto, Rostow (1960) claimed all traditional countries were able to catch up with the standards of wealth enjoyed by advanced, developed, and modern countries thanks to the spread of industrialization and modernization. All they needed to do was follow five stages of growth that will transform them from traditional societies to societies of high-mass consumption. For Rostow, developed western capitalist countries already had progressed and developed along these stages and provided the blueprints of modernization and development to the rest of the world. While Rostow’s modernization theory did not directly deal with patterns of global inequality, his model suggested that during initial phases of modernization efforts, as the Western capitalist countries followed these five stages of growth (but rest of the world did not), global inequality would tend to increase. However, as all traditional societies finally complete their stages of growth, global inequality levels would eventually decline. In the late 1960s and the 1970s, the emerging conservative consensus around “modernization theory” led to the formation of new critical schools of thought including (but not exclusively) the dependency school and world-systems perspectives. The dependency school emphasized the implausibility of “catching up” with the advanced capitalist countries as postulated by the modernization theory. For the dependistas, modernization theory did not pay attention to the polarizing tendencies of capitalist relations (Frank 1967; Dos Santos 1970; Amin 1974). As Frank (1967) famously pointed out, “catching up” was implausible under historical capitalism because “development” and “underdevelopment” were two sides of the same coin. In the long run, capitalist modernization could not lead to convergence, but could only produce further polarization and greater divergence. According to dependistas, capitalist modernization would eventually result in a polarized bimodal world: a

18 Global Inequality and Capitalist World-Economy …

309

small group of developed capitalist countries on one pole, and a large group of underdeveloped countries on the other pole. The dependency critique was very influential in the late 1960s and the early 1970s, especially when the U.S. world hegemony entered into a systemic crisis, which Arrighi (1994) labeled as the signal crisis of the U.S. systemic cycle of accumulation. Most dependistas, however, could not explain how some countries—such as South Korea or Taiwan—could move from low-income groups to middle-income groups in this period without delinking themselves from the capitalist relations. Neither could they explain the large cluster of countries that occupied an intermediate position between the developed Western countries. These anomalies led to the formation of a distinct school of international development called the world-systems analysis. Simultaneously criticizing the modernization theory and the dependency school, the world-systems perspective offered a new approach to international development. World-systems scholars pointed out the existence of a relatively stable trimodal division of labor (the core, semiperiphery, and periphery structure) within the capitalist world-economy which reproduced itself and maintained its hierarchy since its formation in the sixteenth century (Wallerstein 1979). In contrast to the dependency school, world-systems analysts maintained that the individual countries can move up and down in the global hierarchy of wealth, but the trimodal structure and hierarchy of the whole system would remain stable (Chase-Dunn and Rubinson 1977; Arrighi and Drangel 1986). While the criticism of the modernization theory by the dependistas and the worldsystemists was very effective until the 1980s, with the revival of the world economy during the age of U.S. led financialization in the post-1980 era, modified versions of modernization theory have been (re)produced. We can easily distinguish three types of neo-modernization theories that emerged in this conjuncture. The first was the neoliberal modernization theory of the 1980s and the 1990s, which reduced Rostow’s “five stages” into a single process. According to the neoliberal orthodoxy, development and catching up would be possible for any country once they implemented policies that favored competitive markets, free trade, low taxes, low government spending, and minimal regulation (Friedman 2002). While they were very different from Rostow’s policy suggestions in content, shock therapies advocated by the socalled Washington Consensus still shared the essential spirit of Rostow’s modernization theory. Neoliberal theories continued to propagate the idea that the rest of the world could “catch up” with the established standards of wealth enjoyed by advanced capitalist countries if they removed the obstacles before free trade in domestic and global markets. However, the widespread experimentation with neoliberal policies around the world since the 1980s, demonstrated that the neoliberal idea of “catching up” was a myth. While neoliberalism probably helped some sections of the bourgeoisie in the Global South to catch up as a “class” with their counterparts in the Global North, it definitely did not help the rest of the world to catch up as a “nation”. Consequently, neoliberalism did not decrease inequality between countries, but in most cases, it increased income inequality within each country. A second type of neo-modernization theory emerged after the collapse of the U.S.S.R. and the Eastern bloc countries in the 1990s, as a broader intellectual project

310

S. S. Karatasli

in the sphere of politics, economics, and culture. Some social and political scientists, who were also skeptical of the claims of the neoliberal orthodoxy, started to believe that the rapid decline of socialism and the eventual rise of East Asian countries falsified the claims of the dependency and world-systems analysts. Sociologists such as Edward Tiryakian (1991), Jeffrey Alexander (1995), and Zapf (2004) claimed that it was time to seriously rethink the claims of modernization and to introduce a new modified version of the theory which they called as “Modernization II” or “neo-modernization theory”. Different from the classical modernization theory, these scholars did not see economic, political, cultural, and institutional convergence with “Western countries” as inevitable, but very plausible under correct policies. In their Why Nations Fail, Acemoglu and Robinson (2012), for instance, explain how inclusive political and economic institutions would help nations develop. For them, this trend is not inevitable, but it is possible under correct policies. Modernization II theories did not ignore the exogenous factors that influenced trends of development, but instead of dependency relationships, they focused on the inter-dependency between nations in an age of globalization. Interestingly, some elements of neo-modernization theories fit very well into heterodox dependency theorists who wanted to explain how some countries could catch up without delinking from the capitalist relations. Since the publication of Cardoso and Faletto’s (1979) Dependency and Development in Latin America, more and more dependency theorists started to believe that “dependent development” under capitalism was indeed possible (also see Evans 1979). Hence, Modernization II theories opened an intellectual room to accommodate the “dependent development” theories as well. Until the late 1990s, there was no strong empirical support for claims of neomodernization theories. Indeed, empirical trends strongly supported the worldsystems perspective against neoliberal modernization or Modernization II theories. Through an analysis of the world economy from 1936 to 1985, for instance, Arrighi and Drangel (1986) found strong evidence for a relatively stable trimodal distribution as expected by the world-systems perspective. While individual countries could move up and down in the global wealth hierarchy, the trimodal structure remained stable. Follow-up research also strongly refuted many versions of modernization theories on empirical grounds (Korzeniewicz and Martin 1994; Arrighi et al. 1996; Babones 2005). Until the mid-1990s, there was no strong and robust evidence for income convergence between countries either (Korzeniewicz and Moran 1997; Arrighi et al. 2003; Wade 2004). Yet, since the turn of the century, mostly due to the rapid rise of China, India, and many peripheral countries of the Global South from lower tiers of the world economy to middle tiers, this trend has started to change significantly. Not only did the relatively stable trimodal distribution start to dissolve (Karatasli 2017; Karatasli and Kumral 2018), but also global income inequality started to decrease (Hung and Kucinskas 2011; Milanovic 2013). Hence, former critics of modernization theory who defended polarization, stability, and reproduction of the global hierarchies against over-optimistic transformation promises by modernization theories are mostly caught off-guard by these transformations. These developments led to the emergence of a third variant of neo-modernization theories which I briefly mentioned at the beginning of this chapter. In contrast to their

18 Global Inequality and Capitalist World-Economy …

311

counterparts, these most recent representatives of neo-modernization theory do not need to rely on abstract theories to justify why convergence is possible. They can use existing empirical trends and theorize these patterns post factum. For many scholars, there is no better evidence for the ability of traditional countries to “catch up” with the developed countries than the rapid rise of China, India, and many countries of the Global South. The rise of the Global South provides incredible flexibility and room for new modernization theorists to come up with ad hoc and eclectic explanations for these “catching up” trends. Because of such flexibility, many former critics of modernization theory can also find a room in this new most recent iteration of the modernization theory. That’s probably why, in direct contrast with the 1960–1990 period, the neomodernization theories of the twenty-first century have not been producing strong refutations by its critics. Most former critics of the modernization theory do not pose a strong refutation of the neo-modernization claims in the twenty-first century. Of course, many existing critics correctly point out that regardless of what is happening at the global level, inequality within countries are increasing in the world. While it is correct, this observation does not address the main theoretical issue at stake. Are we really observing a major great convergence process that has been reversing the great divergence process that had established the divisions between the Global North and the Global South (or the West and the rest of the world)? If yes, how is such “convergence” possible under the polarizing tendencies of historical capitalism at the global level? Did polarizing tendencies of historical capitalism suddenly disappear, or were they never as strong as assumed? This chapter provides some initial answers to these questions. The historical analysis presented in this chapter refutes the claims of the neo-modernization theories on empirical grounds by examining the contemporary transformations in the global hierarchy of wealth from a longue durée perspective. By recasting the current moment into a long historical perspective that spans from the sixteenth century to the present, and using multiple indices and strategies to analyze global inequality trends, I will document some of the main problems with the “inequality transition” and “great convergence” arguments. In my refutation of the neo-modernization theories, however, I will not argue that global hierarchies of wealth remained stable since the formation of the modern world-system. In the late twentieth century, in their critique of modernization theory, both dependency and world-systems perspectives emphasized the relative stability (and reproduction) of existing global hierarchies and inequalities. While this critique was valid and effective based on the nature of the debates then, it will be less and less useful in the twenty-first century. I believe that to be able to counter the claims by modernization theories, critics of these theories should provide a better explanation of how global hierarchies can change under certain conditions than neo-modernization theories. Based on this observation, I will show that global hierarchies of wealth and patterns of inequality under capitalism have radically transformed during periods of systemic crisis and financial globalization from the sixteenth century to the present. Thus, instead of seeing the contemporary trends as evidence for neo-modernization theories or a complete

312

S. S. Karatasli

rupture from long historical dynamics of capitalism which produced the Great Divergence between West and East, I will show that these contemporary trends are still part of the polarizing tendencies of capitalism which produced the Great Divergence in the first place. I will show that changes in the global hierarchy of wealth have been characterized by not one but a series of great divergences in the longue duree, from the sixteenth century to the present, all of which have taken place during periods of financial globalization. As I will elaborate below, globalization is not a recent phenomenon. Since the birth of historical capitalism in northern Italian city-states in the fourteenth century, we have seen many waves of globalization in world history. Although each of these waves was qualitatively different from each other, one of their common features was that they all shaped patterns of global inequality. The historical approach I will utilize in this chapter will help us re-evaluate the relationship between globalization and global inequality.

Globalization and Global Inequality in the Longue Durée Much of the literature which examines the relationship between globalization and global inequality has a myopic bias. The analysis of global inequality presented in this chapter builds on the view that globalization is neither a recent nor a linear historical phenomenon (see Chase-Dunn et al. 2000). Today, many historians and social scientists not only set back the beginnings of globalization to much earlier historical periods than the late twentieth century but they also discover successive historical waves of globalization, corresponding to major transformations in historical capitalism. For instance, Hirst and Thompson (1999, 2002: Ch. 2) posited the existence of even a stronger wave of globalization in the late nineteenth century. Comparing the 1850–1914 wave of globalization with the 1950–2000 period, they show that the contemporary era of globalization—measured as the international flow of merchandise trade, capital investment, and labor migration—barely reached the level it was before 1914 (Hirst and Thompson 2002, 1999, Ch. 2; also see James and Nairn 2005, 5). Historian Hopkins (2018) claims that there were three waves of globalization in world history. A wave of proto-globalization spanning from the seventeenth to the eighteenth century, a wave of modern globalization spanning from the late nineteenth to the early twentieth century, and a wave of post-colonial globalization from the late twentieth to early twenty-first century. Immanuel Wallerstein goes further back and sets the origins of globalization with the emergence of the capitalist world-economy in the sixteenth century. He maintains that “what is described as globalization [today] has been happening for 500 years” (Wallerstein 2000, 252). For Wallerstein, globalization is related to global relocation of sectors of production on a world scale during periods of intensified crisis, and these kinds of relocations have been a feature of downswing periods of the capitalist world-economy (261). Similarly, Janet Abu-Lughod (1989) turns our attention to globalization processes that existed in the thirteenth century AfroEurasian world trading system. Following Abu-Lughod’s lead, Tilly (1995) argues

18 Global Inequality and Capitalist World-Economy …

313

that over the last millennium, in addition to the neoliberal globalization of the late twentieth century, there were at least three more historical waves of globalization. The first wave occurred in the thirteenth century with the emergence of the AfroEurasian world trading system. The second wave occurred in the sixteenth century when European imperial powers connected the Indian Ocean with the Caribbean through a network of exchange and domination. The third wave occurred in the inter-imperial rivalry and race for imperial domination of the world in the nineteenth century (Tilly 1995, 1–2). Agreeing that historical waves of globalization are linked to the development of historical capitalism, Arrighi (2007) points out that globalization is linked to financial expansion processes. Financial expansion processes are different from regular financial relations which are essential for any capitalist activity. Financial expansion occurs when leading government and business organizations in the world economy start to produce super-profits not from production and trade, but from financial speculation. While contemporary economists use the term “financialization” to characterize the global economy in recent decades, French historian Fernand Braudel and Italian sociologist Giovanni Arrighi, argue that these “financialization” processes existed since the fourteenth century. Arrighi also argues that from Renaissance Florence in the fourteenth century to the Reagan era, all financial expansion processes in world history—including the financial expansion led by Genoese merchant-traders in the mid-sixteenth century, Dutch business enterprises in the late eighteenth century, and British capitalists in the late nineteenth century—produced distinct waves of financial globalization by intensifying inter-state competition for mobile capital. The long historical perspective of globalization used in this chapter is based on Arrighi’s (1994) notion of systemic cycles of capitalist accumulation and financial expansions. As we will elaborate in more detail below, Arrighi’s conceptualization of financial expansions as periods of financial globalization has the advantage of bringing a new light to ongoing debates focusing on the effects of globalization on inequality. This long historical approach will also help us understand the limitations of the neo-modernization theories.

Measuring Inequality As mentioned above, in contrast to the 1960s, new representatives of the modernization theory in the twenty-first century do not present their argument as an abstract “hypothesis” or a “theory”. In contrast, they are able to present their argument as a “historical fact” which can be observed from empirical trends and provide postfactum explanations to why between-country inequality trends in the world have been declining. Thus, a serious critique of new modernization theories first has to deal with these historical/empirical facts. Do we really see a great convergence/inequality transition process, or not? Unfortunately, assessing empirical facts does not make the task at hand any easier at all. The problem is that income inequality trends are very sensitive to the (a)

314

S. S. Karatasli

data you use, (b) inequality indices you choose (e.g. Gini index, Theil’s T, Palma index, Top/Bottom decile ratios), (c) decisions you make such as how to convert different national units into a single unit (e.g. whether to use PPP conversions or foreign exchange rate conversions), (d) whether or not you will weigh the data by population size, and (e) whether or not you will exclude China and India from the analysis. In the 1990s and the 2000s, the mushrooming literature and ongoing debates on income inequality trends have produced some kind of consensus about which combinations of methodological choices produce what kind of conclusions about income inequality (see Korzeniewicz and Moran 1997; Firebaugh 2000; Babones 2002; Wade 2004; Sala-i Martin 2006). For instance, decisions such as using PPP conversions, weighting the data, and using the Gini index supported the argument that globalization decreases inequality between countries. Decisions such as using foreign exchange rate conversions, not-weighting the data, using alternative indices (and/or doing a sensitivity analysis by excluding China and India from the analysis) supported the arguments that globalization increases inequality between countries. There is no space in this paper to discuss the ways in which different theoretical camps justified their decisions. However, suffice it to mention that while Rostow’s modernization theory was about countries not populations (which treated China and Luxemburg as comparable units with equal capacity to affect the inequality trends), the new modernization theorists in the twenty-first century almost exclusively relied on data weighted by populations (hence China’s effect on global inequality trends was approximately 2345 times higher than Luxemburg).2 One of the common themes in empirical studies that either defended or criticized modernization theory was the relatively short temporal scope of analysis. Most existing analyses focused on the post-1960 period (because of the most comprehensive data existed for this period only). Unfortunately, this time frame was extremely limited to assess the validity of theories which made arguments regarding trends that being with the industrial revolution of the late eighteenth and the early nineteenth century. The limited temporal choice was of course due to lack of data on income trends. For longer historical analyses on global income inequality, there are not many choices for scholars besides Maddison’s calculations and Bank’s CrossNational Time-Series (CNTS) data. A comparison of these existing data reveals that Maddison’s tables are far more consistent and reliable than the CNTS data (see Karatasli et al. 2019). For these reasons, in what follows, I will use a modified version of the Maddison tables to discuss the transition of the inequality trends.3 This choice works very well for the purposes of this paper because the Maddison tables are based 2 Interestingly,

however, as the twenty-first century progressed, these different decisions have also started to produce similar results (i.e., declining global income inequality), which seemed to make these methodological distinctions less important. 3 A critical assessment of the Maddison tables and an explanation of the modifications made can be found in Karatasli (2017). The modifications deal with resolving issues about missing values. Following the footsteps of Bourguignon and Morrisson (2002), I estimated missing values in Maddison’s GDP and population estimates by imputing missing values using linear interpolation and extrapolation methods based on the growth rates of nearest geographic or geo-economic neighbor.

18 Global Inequality and Capitalist World-Economy …

315

on PPP estimates. Hence, the results I present to criticize modernization theory arguments are those which actually support this theory in the strongest way possible. Using the Maddison tables, I will first examine global inequality trends using not one but many different inequality measures such as Gini coefficient, Theil’s T, Palma index, and Top 10/Bottom 10 ratio. Then, I will look at the changes in the global distribution of wealth in financial globalization periods of historical capitalism.

Global Inequality Through Gini Index, 1500–2008 Let us start with basic patterns. Figure 1 below presents the Gini coefficient to examine between-country/region inequality from 1500 to 2008. The dashed lines from 1500 to 1820 show the periods for which we do not have sufficient data for interpolation. For this early period, we only have data for years 1500–1700, and 1820. Hence we are not able to observe short and medium-term fluctuations in inequality trends. Figure 1 presents three versions of the Gini coefficient which are based on three different decisions about how to modify the data. The first measure is the unweighted Gini coefficient, which is estimated by giving equal weight to each country/region. This measure corresponds to what Milanovic (2005) has called as “Concept 1” inequality. The second measure is the weighted Gini coefficient

Fig. 1 Gini coefficient for between-country/region inequality, 1500–2008. calculations using the statistics of Maddison (2009)

Source Author’s

316

S. S. Karatasli

(i.e., Milanovic’s “Concept 2” inequality), which is calculated by weighting each country/region by the country’s population that year. The third measure also uses weighted Gini coefficients but excludes China and India from the analysis. According to the unweighted Gini coefficients (i.e., concept 1 inequality), the decline of global inequality in the early twenty-first century is not as high as the new modernization theorists want us to believe. Nor is this the first time since the Industrial Revolution that we see such a decline. As the unweighted Gini coefficient shows, between-country income inequality trends have sharply increased from the 1910s to the mid-1940s, decreased from the 1950s to the early 1980s, increased from the 1980s to the late 2000s, but began to decrease again in the 2000s. If anything, these patterns tell us that there is a combination of a secular and cyclical movement prevalent in inequality trends over the longue duree, which begs the explanation for what is driving these trends. It is important to note that a closer investigation reveals that this cyclical pattern also exists in the course of the nineteenthcentury. This cyclical pattern in global inequality cannot be explained simply by modernization or dependency theories. This pattern contradicts the modernization theory because the empirical trend is not simply an inverted-U curve, where inequality between countries first increase (when leading capitalist countries finalize their stages of growth), then starts to decrease (when rest of the world starts to catch up with these developed countries). This pattern also challenges the dependency theory because it shows that the trend in capitalist world-economy is not simply a story of gradual polarization between center capitalist countries and dependent satellites. It suggests that the dynamics of global inequality is far more complex than the narratives provided by modernization or dependency theories. How can we explain these trends? We will produce a more elaborate explanation of this problem in the following sections. For now, let it suffice to note that the uneven development of capitalism occurs not only spatially but also temporally. In addition to the uneven spatial development of capitalism (that the dependency school correctly turns attention in its critique of modernization theory) that produces polarization between core and peripheral locations, capitalist world-economy is also characterized by uneven temporal development which affects different units of the system in very different ways. Because, previously dominant capitalist countries can lose their competitive and comparative advantages in production and trade in the face of systemic crises, and since various new countries or regional blocs are able to challenge formerly dominant centers of production and trade, the trend in capitalist world-economy is not simply a trend of increasing inequality between the units over time. Hence, temporary decreases in between-country inequality trends are also possible under the dynamics of historical capitalism.

Global Inequality With and Without China and India Our second measure in Fig. 1, the population weighted Gini coefficient, shows significant similarities and differences with the first measure. According to this Concept

18 Global Inequality and Capitalist World-Economy …

317

2 inequality measure, between inequality trends have stayed more or less constant between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, they slightly increased from the seventeenth century to the early nineteenth century, and they started to rapidly escalate from the 1820s onwards. This is very much in line with arguments that turn attention to the “Great Divergence” process and the effects of the Industrial Revolution that started the polarization between the west and the rest of the world, or the Global North and the Global South. As we can see in the late 1970s, this rising global inequality trend started to reverse. Most neo-modernization theorists base their arguments about “Great Convergence” or “inequality transition” on this pattern. Since this figure uses PPP conversion and population weighted Gini coefficient, it illustrates the empirical base of the neo-modernization theory in the strongest way possible. Putting this declining trend into a longer historical perspective, however, we can see (1) why we cannot talk about a “Great Convergence” process at all, and (2) why a short temporal frame that examines inequality trends since the 1960s, is extremely misleading. From a longer historical view, this decline in equality trend can best be named as a “slight convergence”. The level of inequality today is still higher than the late nineteenthand the early twentieth century, and has nowhere near the level of inequality before the industrial revolution. As our third measure in Fig. 1 reveals, this decline is not necessarily due to changes in the system as a whole either. If we exclude China and India from the data, we can see that the trends are slightly different. Without China and India, the decline only starts in the early twenty-first century and the reversal is not that great. Therefore, our understanding of global economic trends is heavily influenced by patterns in two countries with massive population. Considering that the major change in inequality trends that we have been observing today are heavily influenced by movements by China and India from peripheral to a semiperipheral position in the world economy, one might wonder whether or not the further rise of China and India from semiperipheral to core positions can decrease global inequality patterns to the level before the industrial revolution. While there is no space in this chapter to give a proper answer to this question let us suffice to note that even if we assumed that China and India could achieve core status without facing economic limits and contradictions (which is very unlikely), without triggering global wars or annihilating all environmental sources of the planet (which is extremely unlikely), the consequence of such movement would not be declining global inequality, but a radical increase that further exceeds the highest levels in the twentiethcentury. That’s why, such a “great convergence” under capitalism is not only impossible but also highly undesirable. There is another myth, in which. the population weighted Gini measures (with or without China and India) help us debunk. It confirms that this is not the first time that we see such temporary reversals in income inequality trends in world history. Similar to unweighted Gini coefficients, the population weighted Gini coefficients show us that global inequality trends temporarily decreased during the terminal crisis of the British world hegemony in and around late 1920, as well as in and around mid-1940s. We can think of 1929 and 1945, as two major turning points. The year 1929, was the terminal crisis of the British world hegemony in the economic sphere, and the Second World War which ended in 1945 was the terminal crisis in the geopolitical

318

S. S. Karatasli

sphere. If the first reversal in inequality trends occurred during the crisis of the British world economy, the second such reversal is happening today during the crisis of the US world hegemony. This pattern suggests that the crisis of world hegemonies have been transforming existing inequality patterns due to uneven development over space and time. To explain how these transformations have taken place, we need to have a closer look at how the global distribution of wealth has transformed during the world hegemonic crisis and transition periods. Before we examine these changes, however, let us briefly look at the global inequality trends using alternative indices.

Alternative Lenses to View Global Inequality Because Gini coefficients are very sensitive to the changes in the “middle” areas of the distribution, a proper analysis of global inequalities must also take into consideration alternative measures of inequality. Figure 2 introduces three such alternatives. The first one is the Theil’s T index. Like Gini index, Theil’s T uses all data points in the distribution but it uses an “entropy measure” to calculate the inequality. The other two alternative measures do not use all the data points, but they focus on the extreme ends of the distribution. The second measure, the Palma index, presents us the ratio of the top 10% of the income distribution (90th percentile) to the bottom 40% (40th

Fig. 2 Alternative indices of between-country/region inequality, 1500–2008. Source Author’s calculations using the statistics of Maddison (2009)

18 Global Inequality and Capitalist World-Economy …

319

percentile), and the third measure focuses on the ratio of the top 10% to the bottom 10% (top and bottom deciles). As far as these latter two measures are concerned, the justification of not using all data points is that we are interested in “inequality” trends which can also be identified by focusing on the extreme ends of the distribution. The key finding of Fig. 2 is that as we go from data that uses all data points (such as Theil’s T) to the more extreme ends of the distribution (such as the top 10% and bottom 10% ratio), the conclusions we will reach about the current trends start to change radically. Theil’s T shows us almost a synthesis of the results that we have already observed through our analysis of population weighted and unweighted Gini coefficients. According to Theil’s T, income inequality trends have been rising since the early nineteenth century, but they have started to decline since the 1990s. It is visible from Theil’s T that inequality trends greatly fluctuate during the terminal crisis of the British world hegemony, declining in and around 1929, and rising rapidly during the Second World War and declining again after 1945. This is very similar to the pattern we have observed in the population weighted Gini coefficients in Fig. 1. According to Palma index, the ratio of top 10% income of world population to the bottom 40% has gradually been rising since the nineteenth century (with minor fluctuations in the terminal crisis of the British world hegemony) and has started to decline since the 2000s (during the terminal crisis of the US world hegemony), but this decline appears to be extremely modest compared to Theil’s T and the Gini index. According to the ratio of the top 10% income of world population to the bottom 10%, however, there is almost no such decrease in the early twenty-first century. Income inequality seems to have increased radically through the twentieth century and it continues to increase today. As far as the richest and the poorest countries of the world are concerned, the long history of global inequality seems to be a story of gradual polarization as emphasized by the dependistas. This finding also suggests that the conclusions scholars have been reaching about the declining income inequality in the twenty-first century are heavily influenced by radical changes that have been taking place in the middle of the income distribution. However, not sufficient attention has been paid to the rising difference between the richest and the poorest countries in the world. As we will show in further detail below, in the twenty-first century a double movement has been taking place. On the one hand, a number of countries have been rapidly moving up from low-income to middle-income clusters, but on the other hand, a cluster of poor countries have been falling down in the income hierarchy not only in relative but also in absolute terms. This completely undermines the “Great Convergence” argument. To understand how this is possible, we need to move away from inequality indices and examine the changes in the global distribution of wealth more closely.

320

S. S. Karatasli

The Changing Distribution of Global Wealth in the Longue Durée The seemingly different conclusions one could reach through different inequality measures and methodologies can easily be reconciled by analyzing the changes in the distribution of global wealth in the longue durée. A focus on changes in the distributional properties of the world economy also helps us understand why the fluctuations in global inequality trends tend to occur in periods of world hegemonic crisis and transition. In Fig. 3, I illustrate the changes in the world population along the log-GDP per capita calculations using a revised version of the Arrighi-Drangel (1986) method. For details of this method see Karatasli (2017), Karatasli and Kumral (2018). The top part of Fig. 3 presents the changes in the global distribution of wealth from 1820 to 2008 as a continuous scale, and the lower part shows select periods. As Fig. 3 shows, the global distribution of wealth was not characterized by a “Great Divergence” followed by a “Great Convergence” pattern as predicted by old and new modernization theorists. The trend was not towards unilinear polarization as argued by the dependency school or a stable “trimodal distribution” as argued by orthodox versions of world-systems analysis either. Different from the expectations of all of these main schools of thought, the global distribution of wealth went through a series of transformations (i.e., bifurcations), which increased the hierarchical complexity of the global wealth distribution in the longue durée. A closer analysis shows that all such bifurcations have taken place during world hegemonic crisis and transition periods, which according to Arrighi (1994), are consequences of systemwide financial expansions. More specifically, the global distribution of wealth was characterized by a unimodal distribution from the establishment of the Dutch world hegemony in the sixteenth century to the nineteenth century. The declining center of the previous material expansion period (i.e., Italy) and the rising hegemonic power of the era (i.e., the United Provinces) were at the top of this unimodal income hierarchy. The economic regions were followed by many Western European regions such as the United Kingdom, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Spain, Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, and Portugal. China and Turkey/Ottoman Empire were also in the middle of this income distribution. These regions were followed by Ireland, Finland, Poland, and the rest of American and other world regions.4 Global wealth distribution moved from a unimodal to a bimodal distribution in the early nineteenth century (i.e., during the transition from the Dutch to the British world hegemony), and remained as a bimodal distribution throughout the British world hegemony. According to our analysis, the new hegemonic power (i.e., the United Kingdom) and its settler colonies such as Australia and New Zealand were at the top of the income distribution. They were followed by the former zones of material expansion such as the Netherlands and Belgium regions. The former British colony 4 It

must be kept in mind that the unit of analysis of this data is not states or countries but regions.

18 Global Inequality and Capitalist World-Economy …

321 First Great Divergence and emergence of the bimodal (CorePeriphery) structure Second Great Divergence and emergence of the trimodal (Core-Semiperiphery-Periphery) structure Third Great Divergence and emergence of a quadrimodal structure

Fig. 3 Changing modes of wealth distribution in the world economy. Source Author’s calculations using the statistics of Maddison (2009). See Karatasli and Kumral (2018). Note Figure on the top excludes the years before 1820 and presents a three-dimensional graph showing the transformation of distributions for across years. The figure below shows a two-dimensional distributions for selected years. Each figure is a population weighted Gaussian distributions of log-GDP per capita with a bandwidth of 0.10. Y-axis represents the relative size of the world population and the x-axis represents the GDP per capita on a logarithmic scale

322

S. S. Karatasli

and the United States, was also at the height of this income distribution. Together with other Western European powers, such as France and Italy, these regions constituted the “core” zone. The rest of the world constituted the “periphery”. The image of the world in the nineteenth century was very similar to the one presented by dependency theorists. During the crisis of the British world hegemony and the transition from the British to US world hegemony in the late nineteenth and the early twentieth century, global distribution of wealth moved from a bimodal to a trimodal distribution. In this transition, there were no major changes in the core regions. As we will discuss below, the key changes occurred in the former periphery, which divided into two groups during the crisis of the British world hegemony. The declining group which constituted the new periphery were many East and South East Asian countries including China and India, as well as the African regions. Those regions which maintained their position such as Russia and Ottoman Empire/Turkey remained as semiperipheral countries. Latin American countries were divided into two groups, some of which fell down to the new periphery, others remained in the semiperiphery. Global distribution of wealth remained a relatively stable trimodal distribution throughout the US world hegemony in the twentieth century. Since the turn of the twenty-first century, i.e., the crisis of the US world hegemony, the world economy has been moving from a trimodal to a new quadrimodal structure characterized by a small core (including most Western European and North American countries), a highly populated semiperiphery (including Botswana, Brazil, China, Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, Egypt, Guatemala, Iran, Indonesia, Jordan, Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, Peru, Poland, Romania, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Syria, Thailand, Tunisia, and Turkey), an upper periphery (including India, Burma, Cambodia, Cape Verde, Congo, Honduras, Lesotho, Mozambique, Pakistan, Philippines, Vietnam, and Yemen), and a much smaller lower periphery (including Afghanistan, Angola, Banladesh, Cameroon, Chad, Cote d’Ivoire, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Nepal, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Tanzania, Uganda, Zaire, Zambia, and Zimbabwe). Elsewhere I explained that these transformations have occurred during intensified periods of crisis and financial expansions because (a) historical capitalism expanded and incorporated new territories for capital accumulation and (b) global relocation of capital produced new geographical centers of production and trade, as well as new zones for exploitation, surplus production, and resource appropriation (Karatasli 2017). In order to survive, the hierarchical structure of the capitalist world-economy has been fundamentally transformed during each period of world hegemonic crisis and systemic chaos. Figure 4 complements the analysis presented in Fig. 3, by illustrating transformations in the modes of global wealth from one mode to another. These patterns reveal how historical capitalism has developed and is still developing unevenly across space and time. The temporal dynamics of this uneven development fit well into Arrighi’s (1994) theory of systemic cycles of accumulation and his view of financial globalization. Originally introduced by Arrighi (1994), the notion of systemic cycles of accumulation can also be found in an embryonic form in Capital, where Marx ([1867] 1992) explains the relationship between financial lending by declining

18 Global Inequality and Capitalist World-Economy …

323

Fig. 4 Distributions and mobility tables, 1500–2008. Source Karatasli and Kumral (2018)

centers of global capitalism and emergence of primitive accumulation processes in new centers. Marx observes three world’s historically significant examples of these financial flows—i.e., from Venice to Holland in the seventeenth century, from Holland to England in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, and from England to the United States around 1860s (Marx [1867] 1992, Ch. 31)—which produced primitive accumulation processes and started new rounds of capitalist accumulation in the recipient countries. Building upon this idea and extending it with insights and historical observations from Braudel (1984), Arrighi (1994) conceptualized historical capitalism as four overlapping systemic cycles of accumulation (the Genoese-Iberian, the Dutch, the British and the US cycles). Synthesizing Marx’s ideas with Braudel and Arrighi, we can argue that these successive primitive accumulations did not only started new rounds of capitalist accumulation in recipient countries but also qualitatively different regimes of accumulation in capitalist world-economy. Put more radically, they produced qualitatively different world economies with different distributional properties which become empirically visible when sorted by their wealth

324

S. S. Karatasli

(measured as log-GDP) and population size. There was a unimodal Dutch world hegemony, a bimodal British world hegemony, and a trimodal U.S. world hegemony. In the early 21st century, as global capital flows move from the U.S. to China, we see the emergence of a new quadrimodal system. Since the major transformations occurred during the periods of financialization and world hegemonic transition as identified by Marx, Braudel, and Arrighi, we expect to see major fluctuations in global inequality trends in these periods. The patterns presented in Fig. 4, illustrate these relations quite clearly. The horizontal (x) axis shows global wealth distributions of a previous era, and the vertical (y) axis shows global wealth distributions of a new era. The shapes in the middle are scatterplots, which show economic regions weighted by their population. If these regions are above the best fitting regression line (which symbolizes average growth in the world economy), it means these regions are moving up in the wealth hierarchy. If they are below the best fitting line, it means these regions are moving down. As we can see in Fig. 4, from the sixteenth century to the eighteenth century, the main transition occurred due to the change in position in the most advanced capitalist countries. Northern Italian city-states started to decline and Dutch cities (i.e., United Provinces, shown as the Netherlands) started to take off. Yet, due to small populations of these countries (as well as small populations of their colonies), this change did not make a significant shift in the global distribution of wealth. From the eighteenth century to the mid-nineteenth century, the capital flows from the Netherlands to England (and its settler colonies), and the corresponding “industrial revolution” created polarization (as argued by dependency theorists) as these capitalist countries started to take off but the rest of the world stayed in its place (as also argued by early modernization theorists). This is how a bimodal distribution emerged. From the mid-nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century, capital flows moved from England to the USA, the bimodal distribution gradually transformed into a trimodal distribution. This transformation took place during the crisis of the British world hegemony. Like previous periods of world hegemonic crisis periods, financial flows from declining centers of capitalist production to new geographies—this time from England to the United States—changed positions of individual countries in the upper tail of the income distribution. While England lost its economic power (and the Netherlands continued to lose its power), the United States became the new center of global production and trade. The most important factor that transformed the global inequality trends in this era was the corresponding race of imperialist colonization by the British Empire and its rivals. Colonization of India and the Second Opium War in China started to move two world regions with huge populations—i.e., India and China—from the middle of the income distribution to the lower end. Together with the imperialist colonization of Africa, a new type of periphery emerged. Countries that escaped this such as Russia, Ottoman Empire, and many others produced the semiperipheral mode. This brings us to the most recent transformation that has still been taking place in front of our eyes today. In the late 1990s and the early 2000s, as the finance capital started to move rapidly from the USA to East Asia, a number of countries in the Global South started to move from a peripheral position to a semiperipheral

18 Global Inequality and Capitalist World-Economy …

325

position. Movement of some of these countries with huge populations (such as China) from a peripheral position to a semiperipheral position helped create a much greater “middle tier”—i.e., semiperiphery—than before. Between-country inequality indices such as Gini and Theil’s T, mostly capture the effect of this movement. However, Fig. 4, shows that this is not the only trend that has been taking place in front of our eyes today. Simultaneously, the world periphery has started to break into two groups. While some of these countries relatively increased or maintained their position in the world economy, some of them have started to fall down in absolute levels, producing a divergence in the world periphery. This is precisely why when we use the Palma index and—more importantly—the top 10% to bottom 10% ratio as inequality indices, we start to observe increasing inequalities and another great divergence trend rather than decreasing inequalities and a story of great convergence. There is no space in this chapter to explain how this quadrimodal structure manifests itself in different datasets, and how it has evolved in the 2008–2018 period. Given the limited scope of this chapter, let it suffice to highlight that analogous transformation are visible from alternative datasets and also for most recent periods as well. For instance, (1) inflation of the semiperiphery, (2) bifurcation of the periphery into two parts, and hence (3) the emergence of a lower periphery is also partly visible in Grell-Brisk and Chase-Dunn’s (2019) chapter in this edited volume, which uses a similar strategy with different completely different data. Of course, since these transformations are still ongoing in front of our eyes, it is not easy to predict if the world hierarchies will be stabilized in a trimodal, quadrimodal or a new structure (also see Karatasli 2017). However, analysis by Pasciuti and Payne (2018) suggests that “zonal volatility” which has increased during the financial globalization era has already stabilized in recent years. Therefore, the quadrimodal structure may be entering its relative stability phase. The question of whether or not the bifurcation of the former periphery into two parts (one smaller, one larger) is an important issue (i.e., whether or not we can call them both as a single periphery) cannot be answered properly unless we recast this process into a longer historical perspective. Only a longue durée perspective gives us the necessary theoretical and empirical tools to observe that non-core locations have recurrently been polarized in financial globalization and world hegemonic crisis periods. The early twenty-first century is not an exception. Put differently, in all of these financial expansions and world hegemonic crisis/transition periods, we have seen a “great divergence” process that transformed the hierarchical structure of the world hegemony. Figure 5 illustrates the three “great divergence” processes by focusing on the changes in the world population that live in each zone. In Fig. 5, the vertical (y) axis percentage of the world population sorted in terms of their wealth. The higher areas in the vertical axis show richer/core regions, and the lower areas show poorer/peripheral regions sorted by their GDP per capita levels. The marks help us see what percentage of the world population resides in such rich or poor regions. Such an exploration of the size of the world population that resides in rich and poor areas will tell us the significance of inequality trends in global wealth, as well as help us to test the arguments of the modernization theories. After all, according to both old and new modernization theories, the relative size of the world population living in rich

326

S. S. Karatasli

Fig. 5 Percentage of world population in each zone of world economy. Source Author’s calculations using the statistics of Maddison (2009)

developed regions should be growing over time as more and more countries and regions join these new zones. As Fig. 5 illustrates, first great divergence that created the core-periphery differentiation occurred in the late eighteenth and the early nineteenth century which produced a relatively stable core-periphery structure in the mid-nineteenth century. In the nineteenth century, approximately 10–15% of the world population lived in the “core regions” while the remaining 85–90% lived in “peripheral” regions. The second great divergence occurred during the late nineteenth century. It polarized the former periphery and produced the trimodal core-semiperiphery-periphery structure. In the mid-twentieth century, approximately 10–15% of the world population continued to live in core locations, 25–30% of the world population lived in the world semiperiphery, and around 60% of the world population lived in the world periphery. The third such divergence is happening today, in the early twenty-first century. This divergence is producing another bifurcation in the periphery, producing two distinct types of the periphery that I call as the lower periphery and the upper periphery. In 2008, approximately 15% of the world population resided in the core, around 40% of the world population in the new semiperiphery, 30% in the upper periphery, and the remaining 15% in the lower periphery. From this perspective, it becomes even more clear to why these most recent changes in the global distribution of wealth cannot be characterized as an evidence for modernization theory. This is because the “rising countries” of the Global South

18 Global Inequality and Capitalist World-Economy …

327

are not catching up with the “core” regions or countries. The percentage of the world population residing in the core has remained more or less stable since the first bifurcation. On the contrary, the non-core locations have been restructuring once again. The declining inequality trends we have been observing are not the consequence of modernization, but of major transformations that occur in every financial globalization phases of historical capitalism. Modernization cannot explain these trends because (1) no economic region is catching up with the rich, developed regions, (2) some countries are further declining in wealth hierarchy, and (3) these processes have not only been happening in recent decades but also in all financial expansion periods. The major novelty of the current moment is that because the recipients of this most recent financial flows are countries in the Global South, their rise created and expanded middle tier in the income distribution and decreases the global inequality indices that pay attention to the movements in these middle tiers. If we look at the extreme ends of the distribution, however, we see that inequality trends have still been increasing.

Conclusion The analysis and empirical evidence presented in this chapter refutes the neomodernization theorists’ claim that we have been observing a great convergence process in wealth inequality due to the spread of globalization. Building upon insights from historical sociology—that globalization is not a recent and linear phenomenon but a long historical process—this chapter took a longue durée perspective and turned attention to major transformations that occurred in the world economy during financial globalization periods. It showed that in contrast to the convergence of wealth and declining inequality predicted by modernization theory, polarization model predicted by dependency school and reproduction models predicted by orthodox interpretations of the world-systems perspectives, the core-periphery structure of the world economy has successively transformed during periods of financial globalization, from a unimodal distribution to a bimodal (core-periphery) structure at the turn of the nineteenth century, from a bimodal to a trimodal (core-semiperiphery-periphery) structure at the turn of the twentieth century, and now (from 1990 to present) to a new quadrimodal structure, due to the rise of China, India, and many other countries from the Global South. While the percentage of the world population residing in core locations remained relatively stable from the nineteenth century to the present, noncore regions have experienced a series of “bifurcations” during each of these financial globalization periods. Therefore, each financial globalization period produced a great divergence. In short, since the 1990s, we have not been observing a great convergence process but the third great divergence in non-core locations. This third great divergence process has temporarily been decreasing betweencountry inequality trends because new recipients of financial flows in the 1990s were peripheral East and South Asian countries such as China and India. The rise

328

S. S. Karatasli

of such countries in which huge populations has been reducing global inequality trends. However, these declining trends cannot continue further because the further continuation of this trend will eventually increase global inequality trends to an unprecedented degree once China starts to move from a semiperipheral position to a core position. Moreover, such a move is not feasible or desirable because it will annihilate all environmental sources of the planet and possibly trigger a global war. Hence expectations about returning back to the “low” global inequality trends that we have seen before the industrial revolution are highly unrealistic.

References Abu-Lughod, J.L. 1989. Before European Hegemony: The World-System A.D. 1250–1350. New York & Oxford: Oxford University Press. Acemoglu, D., and J. Robinson. 2012. Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty. New York: Crown Business. Alexander, Jeffrey. 1995. Modern, Anti, Post, Neo. New Left Review I (210): 62–101. Amin, Samir. 1974. Accumulation on a World-Scale. New York: Monthly Review Press. Arrighi, Giovanni. 1994. The Long Twentieth Century: Money, Power, and the Origins of Our Times. London: Verso. Arrighi, Giovanni. 2007. Adam Smith in Beijing: Lineages of the Twenty-First Century. London: Verso. Arrighi, Giovanni, and Jessica Drangel. 1986. Stratification of the World-Economy: An Exploration of the Semiperipheral Zone. Review 10 (1): 9–74. Arrighi, Giovanni, Roberto Patricio Korzeniewicz, David Consiglio, Timothy P., and Moran. 1996. Modeling Zones of the World-Economy: A Polynomial Regression Analysis (1964–1994). In Paper presented at the 1996 Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association. New York City. Arrighi, Giovanni, Beverly J. Silver, and Ben Brewer. 2003. Industrial Convergence and the Persistence of the North-South Divide: A Rejoinder. Studies in Comparative International Development 38 (1): 3–31. Babones, Salvatore J. 2002. Population and Sample Selection Effects in Measuring Income Inequality. Journal of World-Systems Research 8: 7–28. Babones, Salvatore J. 2005. The Country-Level Income Structure of the World-Economy. Journal of World-Systems Research 11 (1): 29–55. Bourguignon, François, and Christian Morrisson. 2002. Inequality Among World Citizens: 1820– 1992. American Economic Review 94 (2): 727–744. Braudel, Fernand. 1984. Civilization and Capitalism, Fifteenth-Eighteenth Century. The Perspective of the World. vol. 3. New York: Harper and Row. Cardoso, Fernando H., and Enzo Faletto. 1979. Dependency and Development in Latin America. Berkeley: University of Berkeley Press. Chase-Dunn, Christopher, and Richard Rubinson. 1977. Toward a STRUCTURAL Perspective on the World-System. Politics and Society 7 (4): 453–476. Chase-Dunn, C., Y. Kawano, and B.J. Brewer. 2000. Trade Globalization Since 1795: Waves of Integration in the World-System. American Sociological Review 65 (1): 77–95. Dos Santos, Theodonio. 1970. The Structure of Dependence. American Economic Review LX (2): 231–236. Evans, Peter. 1979. Dependent Development: The Alliance of Multinational. State, and Local. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

18 Global Inequality and Capitalist World-Economy …

329

Firebaugh, Glenn. 2000. The Trend in Between-Nation Income Inequality. Annual Review of Sociology 26: 333–334. Firebaugh, Glenn. 2009. The New Geography of Global Income Inequality. Harvard University Press. Frank, Andre Gunder. 1967. Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Latin America: Historical Studies of Chile and Brazil. New York: Monthly Review Press. Friedman, Milton. 2002. Capitalism and Freedom. Chicago: University of Chicago. Grell-Brisk, Marilyn and Christopher Chase-Dunn. 2019. Mind the Gaps! Clustered Obstacles to Mobility in the Core/Periphery Hierarchy. In New Frontiers of Globalization Research: Theories, Processes, and Perspectives from the Global North and the Global South, ed. Ino Rossi. Ch. 16. Hirst, P., and G. Thompson. 1999. Globalization in Question: The International Economy and the Possibilities of Governance, 2nd ed. Cambridge: Polity Press. Hirst, P., and G. Thompson. 2002. The Future of Globalization. Cooperation and Conflict 37 (3): 247–265. Hopkins, Anthony. 2018. American Empire: A Global History. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Hung, Ho-fung, and Jaime Kucinskas. 2011. Globalization and Global Inequality: Assessing the Impact of the Rise of China and India, 1980–2005. Americal Journal of Sociology 116 (5): 1478–1513. James, Paul, and Tom Nairn. 2005. Global Matrix: Nationalism, Globalism and State Terrorism. Ann Arbor, MI: Pluto Press. Karatasli, Sahan S. 2017. The Capitalist World-Economy in the Longue Duree: Changing Modes of the Global Distribution of Wealth, 1500–2008. Sociology of Development. Karatasli, Sahan S., and Sefika Kumral. 2018. Great Convergence or the Third Great Divergence?: Changes in Global Distribution of Wealth, 1500–2008. In The World-Systems as Unit of Analysis: Past Contributions and Future Advances, ed. Roberto P. Korzeiewicz. London: Routledge. Karatasli, Sahan S, Dan Pasciuti and Corey Payne. 2019. Comparison of World Income Datasets.In The Arrighi Center for Global Studies Development Research Working Group Reports. Korzeniewicz, Roberto Patricio, and Timothy P. Moran. 1997. World-Economic Trends in the Distribution of Income, 1965–1992. American Journal of Sociology 102 (4): 1000–1039. Korzeniewicz, Roberto Patricio, and William G. Martin. 1994. The Global Distribution of Commodity Chains. In Commodity Chains and Global Capitalism, ed. Gary Gereffi, and Miguel Korzeniewicz Westport, 67–91. Connecticut: Praeger. Lucas, Robert. 2002. Lectures on Economic Growth. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Maddison, Agnus. 2009. Statistics on World Population, GDP, and Per Capita GDP, 1-2008 AD. www.ggdc.net/MADDISON/oriindex.htm. Marx, Karl. [1867] 1992. Capital: A Critique of Political Economy (trans by Samuel Moore and Edward Aveling). vol. I. New York: International Publishers. Milanovic, Branko. 2005. World Apart. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Milanovic, Branko. 2013. Global Income Inequality in Numbers: In History and Now. Global Policy 4 (2): 198–208. Pasciuti, Daniel S., and Corey R. Payne. 2018. Illusion in Crisis? World-Economic and Zonal Volatility, 1975–2013. In The World-Systems as Unit of Analysis: Past Contributions and Future Advances, ed. Roberto P. Korzeiewicz. London: Routledge. Pomeranz, Kenneth. 2000. The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy. Princeton Economic History of the Western World series. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press. Rostow, Walt W. 1960. The Stages of Economic Growth: A Non-Communist Manifesto. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sala-i-Martin, Xavier. 2006. World Distribution of Income: Falling Poverty and Convergence, Period. Quarterly Journal of Economics 121 (2): 351–397. Tilly, Charles. 1995. Globalization Threatens Labor’s Rights. International Labor and WorkingClass History 47: 1–55.

330

S. S. Karatasli

Tiryakian, Edward A. 1991. Modernisation: Exhumetur in pace (Rethinking macrosociology in the 1990s). International Sociology 6 (2): 165–180. Wade, Robert H. 2004. Is Globalization Reducing Poverty and Inequality. World Development 32 (4): 567–589. Wallerstein, Immanuel. 1979. The Capitalist World-Economy. New York: Cambridge University Press. Wallerstein, Immanuel. 2000. Globalization or the Age of Transition? A Long-Term View of the Trajectory of the World-System. International Sociology 15 (2): 249–265. Wolf, Martin. 2011. In the Grip of a Great Convergence. Financial Times. https://next.ft.com/con tent/072c87e6-1841-11e0-88c9-00144feab49a. Accessed 4 Jan 2011. Zapf, Wolfgang. 2004. Modernization Theory-and the Non-western World. In Paper presented to the conference “Comparing Processes of Modernization”. University of Potsdam. https://www.ssoar.info/ssoar/bitstream/handle/document/11036/ssoar-2004-zapf-mod ernization_theory_. Accessed 15–21 Dec 2003.

Sahan S. Karatasli is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. His broad research areas are international political economy, global sociology, labor unrest, and nationalism. Karatasli’s research on historical capitalism has received many awards, including PEWS Best Faculty Article Award and Theda Skocpol Dissertation Award by the American Sociological Association. Currently, he is working on a book manuscript on the global and historical dynamics of capitalism and nationalism.

Chapter 19

Mind the Gaps! Clustered Obstacles to Mobility in the Core/Periphery Hierarchy Marilyn Grell-Brisk and Christopher Chase-Dunn

Abstract The primary concern of this chapter is with global structural inequality, which we address by examining the shape and distributions of global economic and military power from 1960 to 2015. We find that despite several changes in the distributions that occurred in the first decade of the new millennium, there has been a tendency for the convergence of countries into groups or clusters with empirical gaps between the clusters. Both the economic and military distributions are trimodal, displaying a—core-semiperiphery-periphery structure. These findings are consistent with the world-system perspective, and the economic clustering confirms what economists have called “convergence clubs”. Regarding the military distribution, we also found, in addition to the trimodal distribution, a military superpower—the United States at the top of the hierarchy. This is the main difference between the economic and military distributions. Economic power is more evenly shared among core states than the military power. We seek to explain why the distributions of economic and military power are lumpy rather than continuous. What is the nature of economic development and military competition in the modern world-system that causes countries to group together in three clusters? What causes these gaps?

Introduction The modern capitalist world-system is structurally unequal and undergirded by a stable hierarchy in the international division of labor. A major characteristic of this hierarchy is a lack of substantive mobility for countries within this system. Worldsystem scholars have different ways in which they empirically determine where 1 Relational network measures use formal network analysis with direct measures of interactions among nodes (countries) such as trade whereas attributional measures use attributes of countries, such as GNP per capita, to infer positions in a larger hierarchy.

M. Grell-Brisk (B) · C. Chase-Dunn (B) Institute for Research on World-Systems, University of California-Riverside, Riverside, USA e-mail: [email protected] C. Chase-Dunn e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 I. Rossi (ed.), Challenges of Globalization and Prospects for an Inter-civilizational World Order, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44058-9_19

331

332

M. Grell-Brisk and C. Chase-Dunn

countries fall in this hierarchy. Some use network links between countries (e.g., Snyder and Kick (1979), Nemeth and Smith(1985), Mahutga and Smith (2011)) while others rely on attributes of countries that are deemed to be consequences of or indicators of global power-dependence relations (e.g., Bornschier and ChaseDunn 1985; Arrighi and Drangel 1986; Grimes 1996; Babones 2005; Karatasli 2017; Grell-Brisk 2017).1 Yet, no matter the method, the findings all show a substantial degree of clustering of countries into core, semiperiphery, and periphery zones with real empirical gaps2 between the zones. Still, the argument has been made that terms like core, semiperiphery, and periphery are only heuristic labels that facilitate discussion of different levels of what is really a continuous multidimensional hierarchy without gaps (Chase-Dunn 1989)3 In his most recent publication on this issue, Smith (2018), contends that Chase-Dunn’s notion of a continuous multidimensional core-periphery hierarchy is most likely correct (see also Mahutga and Smith 2011). Most world-system scholars, though, have found that countries indeed do cluster into separate groups that constitute zones in the core-periphery hierarchy. Karatasli (2017), notes that GNP per capita is itself an artifact of how decolonization and population settlement have produced national containers. But using the same GNP per capita data as Arrighi and Drangel (1986), Taylor (1988), removed the national containers by disaggregating the population data into equal sized cells (bins) (a method developed by a political geographer, Cole (1981), and also employed Babones (2005)). Taylor found that, despite severe spatial reorganizations of the data, the results were quite similar to Arrighi and Drangel’s, including the gaps between the periphery and semiperiphery and semiperiphery and core. Other non-world-system scholars have found similar results (Bianchi 1997; Henderson et al. 2008; Paap and van Dijk 1998; Romer 1986). Not only do countries clearly cluster into separate core, semiperipheral and peripheral zones, but the difficulties of upward mobility have been shown empirically (Pittau et al. 2010; Quah 1996). Immanuel Wallerstein (1974a) and other world-system theorists contend that the core/periphery hierarchy and the existence of a semiperiphery are structural characteristics of the modern capitalist world-system. The mechanisms that are claimed to reproduce this hierarchy explain the existence of reproduced structural inequality, but do not explain why the hierarchy is not continuous. The real existence of gaps requires examination and theorizing about the 2 The

use of the term “gap” has most often been applied to the core/periphery hierarchy as a whole. The idea of a “widening gap” implies that the magnitude of global inequality is increasing. Here we are investigating a different problem—the existence of gaps between the core and the semiperiphery and between the semiperiphery and the periphery. Rather than seeking to explain why the whole hierarchy is reproduced or why global inequality is increasing or decreasing, we are asking why the distributions of economic and military power are “lumpy”—not a smooth continuous distribution from low to high but rather a discontinuous distribution with gaps between groups of countries. 3 Chase-Dunn (1989: 166–98) said that the core/periphery structure is “a nested hierarchy of multilevel and overlapping regional and organizational boundaries.” He proposed that the empirical core/periphery hierarchy was probably a multidimensional set of continuous distributions but the evidence provided in this paper supports the existence of gaps in this hierarchy.

19 Mind the Gaps! Clustered Obstacles to Mobility in the Core …

333

mechanisms which impede upward and downward mobility in the world-system. The research reported here uses the method developed and used by Arrighi and Drangel (1986), in their study of the long-term shape of the core/periphery hierarchy.

Method and Data In this chapter, we calculate both the world distribution of wealth and world distribution of military power using the Arrighi and Drangel (1986) approach. The logic for the Arrighi and Drangel (1986) method is based on the idea that world-system positionality is not determined by any one particular mix of “peripheral-type”/“coretype activities” (Wallerstein 1974b), since what is “core-like” today may change tomorrow (Arrighi 1990; Arrighi and Drangel 1986). Rather, it is the result of the systemic outcome of creative and not-so-creative destruction (see Schumpeter’s (1942), concept of creative destruction) brought on by the struggle over the benefits of the world division of labor (Arrighi 1990; Arrighi and Drangel 1986). Therefore, “core activities command aggregate rewards that incorporate most, if not all, the overall benefits of the world division of labor, whereas peripheral activities command aggregate rewards that incorporate few, if any, of those benefits… The differences in the command over total benefits of the world division of labor must necessarily be reflected in commensurate differences in the GNP per capita of the states in question “(Arrighi and Drangel 1986: 31). This approach allows us to largely determine the world distribution of economic power based on the benefits reaped from the world division of labor. Arrighi demonstrates that the reproduction of global inequality is more complicated than simple exploitation of peripheral countries by core countries, and that the spatial unevenness of Schumpeterian techno-organizational changes (brought on by unilateral transfers of capital, labor, unequal exchange, and unequal rewards at different nodes in the commodity production chain) plays a key role (Arrighi 1990). Our initial theory was that, based on the existing literature, the persistent convergence of countries into core, semiperipheral and peripheral groupings, and the resulting gaps in the distributions might be due to the use of GNP per capita as an indicator. We supposed that examination of a different dimension of global power—military capability—might produce demonstrable differences in the world-system hierarchy. For consistency, we calculated the military distributions using the Arrighi and Drangel method. The Arrighi and Drangel method involve plotting each country’s population as a percentage of the total world population by its log GNP per capita in intervals of one-tenth. The (population) distribution is then smoothed by a three-interval moving average. We adhere to this method but we use several variations such as GNI, GNI per capita rather than GNP, military expenditure by country, and smoothed and unsmoothed distributions for comparison, each producing similar, yet interestingly different results.

334

M. Grell-Brisk and C. Chase-Dunn

The gross national income (GNI) per capita (10/13/2016 download), gross national income (GNI) (1/19/2018 download), and population (10/13/2016 download) data are from the World Bank (WB) (World Bank 2016).4 According to the WB’s formal definition, the current GNI per capita indicator is its old GNP indicator (2016), which was an estimate of the monetary value of all domestic economic transactions that occurred within a nation over a period of one year.5 Both the GNI and GNI per capita are converted from the country currency into U.S. dollars using the WB’s Atlas Method. The Atlas Conversion Factor is a three-year average of exchange rates used to smooth the effects of transitory exchange rate fluctuations, adjusted for the difference between the rate of inflation in the country and that of several developed countries (also using a weighted average of those countries’ GDP deflators) (World Bank 2014). This measure is good for comparing the relative sizes of national economies. For per capita calculations, the GNI in US dollars is divided by the country’s midyear population. In this study, we use GNI per capita as a proxy for the level of national economic power derived from the world division of labor. The estimates of total military expenditure by the country are from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI 2017) and are in constant 2015 US dollars (12/23/2017 download). We do not use the per capita military expenditures because this is a measure of the capital intensity of a country’s military. We are interested in the global distribution of the military capability of nation-states, and this is best estimated by knowing the amount of money that each state spends on the military each year. We acknowledge that the figure for the United States includes expenditures on non-arms related acquisitions, but despite the inclusion of a lot of non-military items under the category of military expenditures, relative military capacity is well captured by this variable.

Results The most important and novel result in our study is our finding of clustering/convergence of countries in the global distribution of military power across states and the resulting gaps between the clusters. Unlike the zones in the “economic” power distributions, which were trimodal (except in 2000) with two gaps (see Fig. 1b), there are usually three or four gaps in the military distributions (see Fig. 1a). This could imply that mobility within the world military hierarchy is even more of a challenge than in the economic hierarchy. We also found, as was expected, that the bulk of global military power is concentrated within the core (see Fig. 1a), but with each new iteration, the percentage of the total world population with significant 4 The

data we used for this study and additional tables and figures are in the Appendix at http:// www.irows.ucr.edu/cd/appendices/irows128/gapapp.htm. 5 The difference between GNP and GDP is net factor income from abroad, which is included in GNP but not in GDP. Net factor income from abroad includes debits and credits from foreign investments and other payments to flow in and out of the national economy.

Fig. 1 a Distribution of global military power, 1990–2015. b Trimodal world-economic distribution of wealth, 1990–2015. Source Grell-Brisk (2017)

19 Mind the Gaps! Clustered Obstacles to Mobility in the Core … 335

M. Grell-Brisk and C. Chase-Dunn

Fig. 1 (continued)

336

19 Mind the Gaps! Clustered Obstacles to Mobility in the Core …

337

military capacity is increasing. This is primarily because of the rise of China and India, two populous countries that are acquiring substantial military capabilities. As can be seen in Fig. 2, the economic and military distributions are, for the most part, the inverse of each other. Most of the world’s poor are found in the peripheral region and the majority of the world’s military power is in the core. Furthermore, there is a substantive entanglement between military power/capacity and its economic counterpart in the hierarchical world-system. This intricate tie is shown in Fig. 2. While some might argue that it is obvious that the more economically advanced a country might be, the better its military capacity, based on world-system positionality determined by the Arrighi and Drangel approach, this is not altogether true. There are certain countries which rank high based on the GNI proxy, such as Sweden or Norway, commanding significant benefits from the global division of labor, but hold relatively minimal military power. This is not due to deficiencies in the measurement per se. For example, Samuel Cohn and his coauthors have demonstrated that Norway managed to be in the core by commanding significant benefits from the global division of labor, not through exploitative means but through “un-exploitative development” (Cohn and Blumberg 2015; Cohn and Upchurch 2017). Luck may have played a significant role in terms of the country’s geographic location. Having access to a valuable fishery and the ability to use a low-capital-intensive technology (canning) allowed the middle-class to use its own capital to fund technological advances. Still, semiperipheral and peripheral states understand the implicit power dynamic and dominance that can be exerted by those core states wielding military strength. Further, any challenge to the existing world-system structure must be backed by some show of military capability. This is not lost on China and Russia today. In the case of China, the expansion of military bases to Djibouti on the African continent and its aggressive stance in the South China Sea dispute with the Philippines (Batongbacal 2016; Bodeen 2016; Xu 2014) show that the leadership of the PRC understands that global power is both economic and military. The basic assumption would be that there is a strong correlation between economic power position and military capacity. Obviously, one must have some economic power to spend on the military. However, there are many countries (such as Finland or Norway) with strong economic power positions that do not spend significant amounts on their military. In Table 1, we document our findings on cross-national correlations between military and economic power. There is not a particularly strong correlation between the two. The correlation coefficient improves after removing China and India from the calculations, but only early on when there is a significant difference between their economic and military power position (see Tables 1 and 2).

Fig. 2 Distributions of economic and military power, 1990–2015

338 M. Grell-Brisk and C. Chase-Dunn

19 Mind the Gaps! Clustered Obstacles to Mobility in the Core …

339

Table 1 Cross-national correlations between military power position and economic power position Year

N

Correlation coefficient

Correlation coefficient w/out China and India

1990

105

0.604161288

0.65769541

1995

131

0.629595265

0.66477545

2000

138

0.60094603

0.63168494

2005

148

0.601599216

0.62850597

2010

147

0.566997698

0.59182792

2015

136

0.570314666

0.59096467

If we apply the same cut-off points for core positionality6 determined by GrellBrisk (2017) to the military distribution, key semiperipheral countries (Brazil (except in 2010), Russia, India, China) are included in the military core (see Fig. 1a, and Table 2 for the list of countries). This again demonstrates the impact of China and India, on the shape of the distribution of global power, with both countries initially in the periphery and eventually making it into the semiperiphery. Grell-Brisk (2017), has argued that a greater proportion of the world population has been moving toward the center of the world-economic distribution, and this is also reflected in the military distribution in 2010 and 2015 compared with 1990 and 2000 (Fig. 2). Additionally, the military distributions are somewhat irregular and spasmodic after 2000, similar to what Grell-Brisk (2017). found for the distribution of economic power after 2000. This may be one of the consequences of the global economic and political crisis and the declining hegemony of the United States (Chase-Dunn et al. 2011). In Table 2, we indicate which countries fall into the military core based on GrellBrisk (2017) method used to determine a country’s position in the global economic hierarchy. We observe a shrinking military and economic core, as both become concentrated to a few countries. There is a large fall off between 1990 and 1995 after which there is further concentration in 2010. There is most likely a strong correlation between this trend and global political instability (such as the fall of the Soviet Union) and nationalist movements or internal political turmoil (such as the breakup of Yugoslavia or China’s continued efforts to isolate Taiwan). There was significant military spending in the nineties but that tapered off as some of these issues resolved themselves. Semiperipheral economic countries that find themselves in the military core are most likely to still dealing with internal nationalist or separationist issues.

6 In

Grell-Brisk (2017), for each year’s economic power distribution, a determination is made as to the cutting points between the core, semiperiphery, and periphery. This is done by first determining the median point (or median cluster of countries) in the distribution of that year. The cutting points for the semiperiphery for that year is based on the local minima in the immediate right and left of that median point. So, for example, in 1990, the median cluster was 3.45 and the semiperipheral economic zone would be countries falling within the 3.15–3.65 cluster; to the right of that would be the general core zone and to the left of that the general periphery zone.

*

Core

Core

Core

Core

Core

Core

Periphery

Periphery

*

Core

USSR

Germany

UK

France

Japan

Italy

Saudi Arabia

China

India

Kuwait

Canada

Spain

India

S. Korea

Saudi Arabia

Russia

China

Italy

Japan

Germany

UK

China

US

Core

US

1995

Corresponding Military economic rank core

Military core

1990

Japan Italy

Core

Periphery

Core

Core

US UK

China

Core

Germany Saudi Arabia

Italy

Semiperiphery Russia

Periphery

Semiperiphery India

Core

Japan

Semiperiphery France

Core

Core

Turkey

Semiperiphery Brazil

S. Korea Semiperiphery S. Korea

Russia

Semiperiphery India

2005 Corresponding Military economic rank core

Germany Core

China

UK

France

US

Semiperiphery Saudi Arabia

Periphery

Core

Core

Core

Core

Core

Core

Corresponding Military economic rank core

2000

2010

US

India

Saudi Arabia

France

UK

Japan

Semiperiphery

Core

2015

US

Russia

Saudi Arabia

UK

Core

Semiperiphery

core

Core

Semiperiphery

Core

Semiperiphery

Core

Corresponding economic rank

Brazil

(continued)

Semiperiphery

Core

S. Korea Core

Germany Core

S. Korea Semiperiphery Italy

Core

Core

Japan

Semiperiphery India

Periphery

Semiperiphery France

Core

Core

Semiperiphery China

Core

Corresponding Military economic rank core

Germany Core

Semiperiphery Italy

Core

Periphery

Semiperiphery Russia

Core

Core

Core

Core

Semiperiphery China

Core

Corresponding Military economic rank core

Table 2 Comparing core military power to Grell-Brisk’s (2017) calculation of world-economic position

340 M. Grell-Brisk and C. Chase-Dunn

1995

Core

Core

Core

Semiperiphery Netherlands Core

Semiperiphery

Australia

Netherlands

Turkey

Venezuela

Core

*

Core

Semiperiphery

Sweden

Poland

Greece

Argentia

Venezuela

Israel

Australia

position unavailable

Core

Belgium

* World-economic

Core

Switzerland

Czechoslavakia *

Semiperiphery Turkey

Israel

Semiperiphery

Core

Core Canada

Israel

2005

Spain

Core

Core Turkey

2010

Core

Core

Core

Core

Corresponding Military economic rank core

Semiperiphery

Venezuela Semiperiphery

Canada

Israel

Semiperiphery Australia

Core

Corresponding Military economic rank core

Semiperiphery Australia Core

Brazil

Semiperiphery Spain

Core

Brazil

Canada

Core

Core

S. Korea

Brazil

2000

Corresponding Military economic rank core

Spain

Corresponding Military economic rank core

Military core

1990

Table 2 (continued) 2015 Corresponding economic rank

Australia Core

Corresponding Military economic rank core

19 Mind the Gaps! Clustered Obstacles to Mobility in the Core … 341

342

M. Grell-Brisk and C. Chase-Dunn

The Arrighi and Drangel study (1986) and the Grell-Brisk article (2017), employed a three-point moving average, which smoothed the data.7 This made sense because the focus was on the overall shape of the distributions. But for military power smoothing obfuscates a very important factor—the mammoth—that is, the United States’ military capacity. Figure 3, shows both the smoothed and the unsmoothed distributions of military power. The United States is all on its own to the extreme right of the rest of the country clusters in the unsmoothed distribution. The United States consistently spends three times as much as the second country in the hierarchy, China (2016 data is found in Fig. 4). This produces a colossal gap between the rest of the core and the United States in terms of military capability. Some call this “global 911” and others call it a de facto global empire. But the literature on modern hegemony, especially that part of it that is influenced by Antonio Gramsci’s (1971) analysis of ideological hegemony, notes that much more than military power and economic power are involved in the form of global governance produced by the hegemon. Coercive power by itself is too expensive and ineffective. It must be paid for and it must be supplemented by the consent of at least some of the governed. Thus, the modern hegemons have all purveyed visions of universal values that they claim are in the interests of all humanity and that they purport to uphold. For the United States, this has taken the form of “leader of the free world.” The vast and expensive U.S. military capability, with 782 military bases distributed across the globe, was legitimated by the Cold War with the Soviet Union until its collapse. Since then it purports to keep the global peace against terrorists and rogue states. This military predominance is unstable in part because it contradicts its own ideology of legitimation. The commander in chief (the U.S. president) is not elected by the people of the world. Given the questions raised above by the smoothing of the military power distribution, we reviewed the GNI per capita distribution. Our examination of the unsmoothed distribution did not reveal a large gap between the economic power of the U.S. and the rest of the core. 8 This is an important difference between the distributions of the two types of power, particularly since military power is expensive. During the long period after World War II in which the U.S. had a substantial comparative advantage over competitors, its military predominance was paid for by taxes on profits from the domestic economy and on sales of goods abroad. The decline of the U.S hegemony in manufacturing production and the rise of competitors abroad has produced this mismatch of economic and military power. The U.S. has been able to afford huge military expenditures without raising taxes because of financialization: it prints world money and sells bonds and real estate to governments and investors abroad. This is the fruit of having been at the top of the capitalist world-economy since World War II, but these advantages cannot be relied on forever (Chase-Dunn and Inoue 2017). 7 The

use of a moving average is a way to smooth time-series data. It smooths out short term fluctuations and makes longer-term trends easier to see. The first element of the moving average is obtained by taking the average of the initial subset of three data points. The next value is calculated by shifting forward one time period (year) and recalculating the average. The result shows the changes in these three-year averages. 8 See Fig. A1 in Appendix at http://www.irows.ucr.edu/cd/appendices/irows128/gapapp.htm.

343

Fig. 3 Unsmoothed military power distribution

19 Mind the Gaps! Clustered Obstacles to Mobility in the Core …

344

M. Grell-Brisk and C. Chase-Dunn

Fig. 4 Top 15 countries ranked by military expenditure in 2016. Source: Stockholm International Peace Research Institute

Arrighi and Silver argue that it is the bifurcation of military and financial power under the US hegemony that is preventing the current crisis from further deterioration—“the present [system-level] crisis has no inherent tendency to escalate into a war among the system’s most powerful units…” (Arrighi and Silver 1999). It would seem then that the system, is currently in suspended semi-controlled chaos. In terms of the military capacity of states in the distribution, the gap between the US and the rest appears too vast to overcome. Another finding of this study is that the United States’ military predominance was even greater prior to the great recession of 2008, but even then, China was already second in the hierarchy (Fig. 5a), as it also was in 2010 and 2015 (Fig. 5b). China has been persistently outspending countries that have been in the “economic core” since the start of this study’s time-frame. And we can see in Fig. 5b, that it is whittling away at the size of the U.S.’s lead, however, there is still a significant difference between the U.S. and China in military capacity (Fig. 4). The size of the gap between the United States and the rest of the world has remained huge even after the global economy began to recover from the crash of 2008 (Figs. 5a, b).

19 Mind the Gaps! Clustered Obstacles to Mobility in the Core …

345

Fig. 5 a Pre-2008 recession global military power distribution. b Post-2008 global military power distribution

346

M. Grell-Brisk and C. Chase-Dunn

Discussion Thus, gaps9 exist within the distributions of both global economic and global military power. Claiming that the gaps are a necessary feature of the world capitalist system is fine as a theoretical axiom, but does not explain the actual causal mechanisms that produce the gaps. Immanuel Wallerstein and other world-system scholars have long argued that the modern capitalist world-system is inherently unequal (Wallerstein 1974a), and that mobility from one zone to the next has been very difficult. He explicitly states that it is not possible for all countries to ‘develop’ simultaneously. The so-called ‘widening gap’ is not an anomaly but a continuing basic mechanism of the operation of the world economy. The countries that rise, do so at the expense of others that decline (Wallerstein 1974a). The global hierarchy that emerged with the rise of the West is seen as a zero-sum game with a relatively stable and reproduced structure of inequality. Arrighi (1990) argued that unequal exchange within the world-system was only part of what reproduced global inequality. According to Emmanuel (1972), the unequal exchange by which the core extracts economic surplus from the non-core hinges on wage levels that are larger than differences in productivity. Arrighi (1990) contended that core/non-core exploitation has been based on a “lack of mobility of labor resources and high mobility of capital resources between trading partners.” The core trading partner with the higher average level of wages receives most of the benefits of trade. The other causes of the reproduction of inequality have included transfers of labor (forced-slavery and unforced-migration) and transfers of capital (capital flight and financialization). The structure of transfers is backed up by violence or the credible threat of violence. Here, it is important to understand the role of military power in this dynamic. At the height of the U.S.’s economic hegemony, it [the US] simply had to threaten to use its military strength, and often it used its military power to manipulate and shape entire world regions. Arrighi argued that transfers were far more effective at creating, reproducing, and deepening inequality than unequal exchange. Still, pointing to the U.S., Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea, Arrighi noted that unequal exchange and transfers of labor and capital were only contingent attributes of the capitalist world-economy. For Arrighi, the ability of a country to appropriate benefits from the global division of labor is mainly based on its position in the hierarchy of wealth. The higher up a state is in this hierarchy, the better it can deflect the negative effects of technological-organizational change initiated and controlled by competitors. While these are good explanations of why there is a global hierarchy of economic and military power, they do not explain why there are gaps between core and the semiperiphery, and between the semiperiphery and the periphery. Lumpy (discontinuous) distributions also exist in other realms. Ecologists study the physical sizes of plants and animals in ecosystems, and they know why big fierce 9 The

gaps in a world-system trimodal distribution are the spaces between the core zone and the semiperiphery and between the semiperiphery and the periphery. The existence of empirical gaps demonstrates that the distribution is not a smooth and continuous hierarchy.

19 Mind the Gaps! Clustered Obstacles to Mobility in the Core …

347

animals are rare. The upper levels of a food chain are dependent on the lower levels for energy, and so the number of big fierce animals at the top is limited by the availability of smaller things to eat and by the inefficiencies of energy transfer as one goes up the hierarchy. This is called the Eltonian pyramid, in honor of Charles Elton, who first discovered it by observing the arctic foxes who ate birds, and some of whom ate insects and worms. This pyramid is not a continuous distribution of sizes. There are size-jumps, discrete sizes, which are caused by “the mechanics of eating and being eaten” (Colinvaux 1978: 20). The gaps in the size distribution of animals have a cause that stems from the processes of distributing food energy. Of course, there are exceptions, as when very large whales live on very small plankton. But the average lumpiness of the size distributions of animals is a well-known feature of ecosystems. This analogy suggests that it may be something about the nature of interactions among competing nation-states that causes the gaps. Our study shows that military power tends to be concentrated within the economic core with a few major exceptions (a few strong semiperipheral and peripheral states). The difficulties of countries moving from one economic zone to another, such as from the semiperiphery to core or from the periphery to the semiperiphery, are tied to a country’s difficulties in jumping the gaps in military power. The economic growth literature provides some insights into the kinds of obstacles to national economic advancement that are suggestive regarding the issue of explaining the gaps. Barro (1991), demonstrated empirically that the gross domestic product (GDP) per capita of countries tended to converge over time. This clustering in the distribution of per capita income among countries occurred regardless of a country’s initial GDP per capita. Barro confirmed that human capital (Becker et al. 1990; Nelson and Phelps 1966; Romer 1990) played a significant role in the ability of countries, particularly poor countries, to grow. Human capital (skills and education) is important in the research sector, producing new products and ideas that drive technological progress and economic growth. Economists contend that technological progress is a way to augment movement toward an equilibrium between production growth and economic growth (Galor 1997). World-system scholars have also argued for the importance of technology as it relates to development and mobility in the global economy. Human capital also facilitates the absorption of new products and ideas. Barro and Lee (1994), and Barro (1996) found that, in addition to human capital-related variables (such as schooling and life expectancy), political freedom had only a weak effect on growth rates. Expanding low-level political rights stimulated growth, but once a moderate amount of democracy10 is achieved, the further expansion of rights was associated with reduced growth. Other researchers have found that convergence of countries with similar levels of GDP per capita has resulted in clustering. Persistent poverty and polarization make it extremely difficult to move from one cluster to another (Bianchi 1997; Durlauf and Johnson 1995; Gadzala and Hanusch 2010; Galor 1997; Pittau et al. 2010). Alesina and Rodrik (1994), found that countries with within-country inequality in land and homeownership experienced negative effects on economic growth. Pitau 10 This

is based on an index of political rights developed by Raymond Gastil (1991).

348

M. Grell-Brisk and C. Chase-Dunn

et al.’s (2010) findings of “convergence clubs” are the closest to the findings of our study and that of other world-system scholars. These authors argue the clustering of countries around similar GDP per capita levels is not sufficient to imply convergence clubs. They contend that true “club-ness” implies complete immobility from one cluster to another in the global distribution of per capita income levels. While some scholars like Henderson et al. (2008) and Bianchi (1997), find little mobility between clusters, Pittau et al.’s (2010) study is the only one that examines cross-country distributions across time (the period from 1960 to 2000). They found that there was a tendency for countries to cluster into three clubs (what world-system scholars call “zones”). This clustering and the shape of the distributions found were also like that of traditional world-system formulations—a large periphery, a medium-sized semiperiphery, and a large core. The authors labeled their clubs “poor, middle, and rich.” During the study’s time period there was very little cross-cluster mobility. What these economic growth scholars have demonstrated is that the current global hierarchy and distribution of income/wealth is stable, rigid, and the gaps between the core and semiperiphery, and between the semiperiphery and the periphery are entrenched and difficult to overcome. However, the alleged causes in this literature of the inability to jump across the gaps all point to factors within countries. Structures and relationships that are international or transnational or global are not considered. In a sweeping cross-disciplinary research project, Alesina et al. (2003), examined fractionalization and different levels of diversity to determine their impacts on development and growth for 90 countries. Prior studies had shown an inverse relationship between ethnolinguistic fractionalization and economic growth, as was the case for much of Africa (Easterly and Levine 1997). However, some of these measures of ethnolinguistic diversity relied heavily on the linguistic aspect of fractionalization. Alesina et al. (2003), developed three new indices to better measure ethnolinguistic fractionalization. These authors confirmed the findings of Easterly and Levine (1997), and found that ethnic fractionalization is higher in poorer countries that are closer to the equator, which may contribute to the study of geographic causes of development.11 Their findings have interesting implications for regional aspects of immobility within the world-system. Impediments to economic growth and development as suggested by Alesina et al. (2003), or Easterly and Levine (1997), could prevent countries from moving up in the world hierarchy of wealth. Still, whether it does or does not function as an obstacle to “jumps” depends on its distribution across cases. If it is concentrated within either the peripheral or the semiperipheral zone it could be an obstacle that causes the gaps. For there to be gaps, countries below and above the gaps must be constrained in their abilities to cross them. The discourse on the political determinants of economic growth and the ability of countries to cross the great divides between zones has also tended to revolve around endogenous factors such as particular systems of government or mixes of interactions between political and economic institutions. Bilson (1982) and Weede 11 See

Gillmartin (2009) for an excellent discussion of why such results persist, or Sluyter’s (2003) article in which he discusses the implications of using results like this to devise sweeping socioeconomic theories.

19 Mind the Gaps! Clustered Obstacles to Mobility in the Core …

349

(1983), found no correlation between political systems and economic growth despite Adelman and Morris’s (1967) finding that a government’s commitment to economic growth significantly impacted a country’s ability to grow economically. A number of studies since then, have found quite the opposite including Barro (1991) and Alesina et al. (1996). Using a sample of 169 countries, over a five year period, Aisen and Veiga (2011), found a correlation between political instability and low economic growth rates; and between low ethnic fractionalization, high economic freedom and economic growth. Feng and Chen (1996), also found that regime instability, policy polarization between contending parties, and severe government repression, negatively influenced economic growth. These findings are on par with the economic growth literature and again, look to issues internal to the state to explain why they are unable to grow and, catch up or cross the gap between the country clusters. Such factors might explain why countries converge into core, peripheral, and semiperipheral clusters if they are concentrated in the clusters. But if they are distributed across the clusters they can still explain why global inequality is reproduced, but not why the distributions of global power are lumpy (discontinuous). Exogenous factors such as dependence on foreign direct investment (FDI) and foreign aid have also been shown to affect economic growth. Bornschier and ChaseDunn (1985), showed that the dependence of a national economy on FDI had a longterm negative effect on economic growth, and was associated with greater withincountry income inequality. Subsequent research claimed to show that this finding was a methodological mistake stemming from the relatively less growth-causing effect of FDI compared with domestic investment (Firebaugh 1992). This means that interventions from abroad can impact growth. Eastern European countries made a quick transition from industrialized economies without foreign direct investment to involvement in the capitalist world-economy and foreign investment after the fall of the Soviet Union. Curwin and Mahutga (2014), tested the link between foreign direct investment and economic growth in Eastern Europe and found that dependence on FDI (which they call “penetration”) reduced economic growth both in the long-term and in the short term. Furthermore, they found that domestic investment was a much more important cause of economic growth. GrellBrisk (2018) found that, compared to Sub-Saharan African countries that remained within the peripheral zone, post-communist countries entered and rose relatively quickly in the semiperipheral economic zone. This was explained in part by SubSaharan Africa’s colonial past, implying that the legacies of colonialism continue to have consequences for development in the contemporary world. For Kentor and Boswell (2003), foreign investment concentration (being dependent on a single another country for foreign investment) was shown to have a significant negative effect on economic growth. When the foreign investment comes from only one other country, the effects are extremely negative. The authors claim that this “inhibits an LDC’s [less developed country’s] ability to construct and implement economic policies that are in its own long-term interest. A lack of autonomy affects the bargaining power of states in dealing with the transnational corporations they host and in markets…” (Kentor and Boswell 2003: 310). However, when there [werre = were] investors from more than one other country the negative effects on economic

350

M. Grell-Brisk and C. Chase-Dunn

growth diminished. Regarding the effect of foreign aid on growth and mobility, early studies showed that aid dependence had a positive effect (Tsikata 1998). According to Dollar and Burnside (2000), foreign aid mostly grew the recipient country’s economy, but for that aid to remain effective, good quality state institutions were of the utmost necessity. McGillivray et al. (2006), found similar results but contended that good policy regimes were needed in order for foreign aid to have a positive impact on economic growth. Once again, we have findings that demonstrate a mix of endogenous and exogenous variables that impact economic growth within states, which, in turn, impact their ability to move up or down a global military-economic hierarchy. Beckley (2010), argues that factors such as differences in political systems, levels of human capital, civil-military relations, or other such ‘non-material’ factors are not satisfactory for explaining differences in military power. He found that in battles fought between 1898 and 1987, the most compelling reason for military success was economic development. He writes, “a conception of military power that considers both the quantity of a state’s resources and its level of economic development provides a sound basis for defense planning.” Beckley found that in Western democracies, where there are high levels of human capital and low levels of civil-military conflict, the links between political and social factors, and military effectiveness are spurious. Economic growth has been empirically shown (as indicated by the literature mentioned above) to be positively influenced by factors such as high levels of human capital. Yet, according to Beckley, “conventional military dominance of Western democracies stems primarily from superior levels of economic development, not societal pathologies or political institutions” (Beckley 2010). The findings of our study align with Beckley’s only in the sense that the position in the world-economic hierarchy is related to the position in the world military hierarchy. Still, this is not sufficient to explain the gaps in the distributions of military and economic power. Although the literature partly explains why some of the countries converge into clubs and demonstrates empirically that gaps exist between the clubs, it does not explain why the gaps exist. There are a number of internal and external causes that may impede upward and downward mobility out of zones: corruption, the resource curse, International Monetary Fund structural adjustment programs, covert intervention from core countries, legacies of colonialism, internal inequality, global racism, kleptocracy versus developmental states, strong states versus weak states, democracy, literacy, education, demography, age distribution, within-country inequality, size of middle-class, natural resources, dependence on foreign investment, concentration of foreign investment from a single investor country, dependence on foreign aid, trade dependence, and trade concentration. Are there enough data for multiple correlation analysis to sort out some of these possible correlations? All these are known to reproduce betweencountry inequality by their negative effects on development. But what is not known is whether these conditions are themselves discontinuously distributed. Logically the causes of between-zone gaps, whether within-country characteristics or global relationships, must be themselves gapped in order to cause the gaps between zones. And it is also possible that the causes of the gap between the periphery and the semiperiphery are different from the causes of the gap between the semiperiphery

19 Mind the Gaps! Clustered Obstacles to Mobility in the Core …

351

and the core. Further research that examines the distributions of these variables is needed to answer the question of causes.

References Adelman, I., and Cynthia Taft Morris. 1967. Society Politics and Economic Development. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Aisen, Ari, and Francisco José Veiga. 2011. How Does Political Instability Affect Economic Growth?. Alesina, Alberto, and Dani Rodrik. 1994. Distributive Politics and Economic Growth. The Quarterly Journal of Economics 109 (2): 465–490. Alesina, Alberto, Sule Ozler, Nouriel Roubini, and Phillip Swagel. 1996. Political Instability and Economic Growth. Journal of Economic Growth 1 (2): 189–212. Alesina, Alberto, Arnaud Devleeschauwer, Sergio Kurlat, and Romain Wacziarg. 2003. Fractionalization. Journal of Economic Growth 8: 155–194. Arrighi, Giovanni. 1990. The Developmentalist Illusion: A Reconceptualization of the Semiperiphery. In Semiperipheral States in the World-Economy, ed. W.G. Martin. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Arrighi, Giovanni, and Jessica Drangel. 1986. Stratification of the World-Economy: An Exploration of the Semi-Peripheral Zone. Review (Fernand Braudel Center) X (1): 9–74. Arrighi, Giovanni, and Beverly J. Silver. 1999. Chaos and Governance in the Modern World System. Minneapolis: University of Minneapolis Press. Babones, Salvatore J. 2005. The Country-Level Income Structure of the World-Economy. Journal of World-Systems Research XI(I): 29–55. Barro, Robert J. 1991. Economic Growth in a Cross Section of Countries. Quarterly Journal of Economics 106: 407–444. Barro, Robert J. 1996. Determinants of Economic Growth: A Cross-Country Empirical Study. Cambridge. Barro, Robert J., and Jong Wha Lee. 1994. Sources of Economic Growth. In Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, vol. 40, 1–46. Batongbacal, J. 2016. Philippines vs. China in the South China Sea: Beijing at a Geopolitical Crossroads. The National Interest. Becker, Gary S., Kevin M. Murphy, and Robert Tamura. 1990. Human Capital, Fertility, and Economic Growth. Journal of Political Economy XCVIII: 12–37. Beckley, Michael. 2010. Economic Development and Military Effectiveness. The Journal of Strategic Studies 33 (1): 43–79. Bianchi, Marco. 1997. Testing for Convergence: Evidence from Nonparametic Multimodality Tests. Journal of Applied Econometrics 12 (1): 393–409. Bilson, John F. 1982. Civil Liberty: An Econometric Investigation. Kyklos 35: 94–114. Bornschier, Volker, and Christopher Chase-Dunn. 1985. Transnational Corporations and Underdevelopment. New York: Praeger. Boswell, Terry. 1995. Review of a Short History of the Future. Journal of World Systems Research l. Bodeen, Christopher. 2016. China to Close Part of South China Sea for Military Exercise. Navy Times. Chase-Dunn, Christopher. 1989. Global Formation: Structures of the World-Economy. Cambridge: Blackwell Publishers. Chase-Dunn, Christopher, Roy Kwon, Kirk Lawrence, and Hiroko Inoue. 2011. Last of the Hegemons: U.S. Decline and Global Governance. International Review of Modern Sociology 37 (1): 1–29.

352

M. Grell-Brisk and C. Chase-Dunn

Cole, John. 1981. The Development Gap: Spatial Analysis of World Poverty and Inequality. New York: Wiley. Colinvaux, Paul A. 1978. Why Big Fierce Animals Are Rare. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Cohn, Samuel, and Rae Lesser Blumberg. 2015. Introduction: Crisis in Development—How Development Lives and Dies. In Development in Crisis: Threats to human well-being in the Global South and Global North, 1–32. New York: Routledge. Cohn, Samuel, and Michael Upchurch. 2017. Accessible Technology, Commodities and Egalitarian Growth: Nineteenth Century Norway as a Model of Un-Exploitative Development. In Conference on Development in the Face of Global Inequalities. Barcelona. Curwin, Kevin D., and Matthew C. Mahutga. 2014. Foreign Direct Investment and Economic Growth: New Evidence from Post-Socialist Transition Countries. Social Forces 92 (3): 1159– 1187. Dollar, David, and Craig Burnside. 2000. Aid, Policies, and Growth. American Economic Review 90 (4): 847–868. Durlauf, Steven N., and Paul A. Johnson. 1995. Multiple Regimes and Cross Country Growth Behaviour. Journal of Applied Econometrics 10 (4): 365–384. Easterly, William, and Ross Levine. 1997. Africas Growth Tragedy: Policies and Ethnic Divisions. The Quarterly Journal of Economics 112 (4): 1203–1250. Emmanuel, Arghiri. 1972. Unequal Exchange: A Study of the Imperialism of Trade. New York: Monthly Review Press. Feng, Yi, and Baizhu Chen. 1996. Political Environment and Economic Growth. Social and Economic Studies 45 (4): 113–141. Firebaugh, Glenn. 1992. Growth Effects of Foreign and Domestic Investment. American Journal of Sociology 98 (1): 105. Gadzala, Aleksandra, and Marek Hanusch. 2010. African Perspectives on China-Africa: Gauging Popular Perceptions and Their Economic Determinants. Galor, Oded. 1997. Convergence?: Inferences from Theoretical Models. The Economic Journal 106 (437): 1056–1069. Gastil, Raymond D. 1991. The Comparative Survey of Freedom: Experiences and Suggestions. In On Measuring Democracy, ed. A. Inkeles. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers. Gilmartin, Mary. 2009. Colonialism/Imperialism. In Key Concepts in Political Geography, ed. C. Gallaher, C.T. Dahlman, M. Gillmartin, A. Mountz, and P. Shirlow, 115–23. London: Sage Publishing. Gramsci, Antonio. 1971. Selections from the Prison Notebooks. 2010th edn, ed. Q. Hoare, and G. N. Smith. London: Lawrence and Whisharts. Grell-Brisk, Marilyn. 2017. China and Global Economic Stratification in an Interdependent World. Palgrave Communications 3. Grell-Brisk, Marilyn. 2018. Arrested Development? Sub-Saharan Africa in the Stratified WorldEconomy 1965–2015. Journal of Contemporary African Studies Forthcoming. Grimes, Peter. 1996. Economic Cycles and International Mobility in the World-System: 1790–1990. Johns Hopkins University. Henderson, Daniel J., Christopher Parmeter, and R. Robert Russell. 2008. Modes, Weighted Modes, and Calibrated Modes: Evidence of Clustering Using Modality Tests. Journal of Applied Econometrics 23 (1): 607–638. Karatasli, Sahan Savas. 2017. The Capitalist World-Economy in the Longue Durée: Changing Modes of the Global Distribution of Wealth. Sociology of Development 3 (2): 163–196. Kentor, Jeffrey, and Terry Boswell. 2003. Foreign Capital Dependence and Development: A New Direction. American Sociological Review 68 (2): 301–313. Mahutga, Matthew C., and David A. Smith. 2011. Globalization, the Structure of the World Economy and Economic Development. Social Science Research 40 (1): 257–72. McGillivray, Mark, Simon Feeny, Niels Hermes, and Robert Lensink. 2006. Controversies Over The Impact Of Development Aid: It Works; It Doesn’t; It Can, but That Depends …. Journal of International Development 18 (7): 1031–1050.

19 Mind the Gaps! Clustered Obstacles to Mobility in the Core …

353

Nelson, Richard R., and Edmund S. Phelps. 1966. Investment in Humans, Technological Disffusion, and Economic Growth. American Economic Review Proceedings LVI: 69–75. Nemeth, Roger, and David A. Smith. 1985. International Trade and World-System Structure: A Mulitple Network Analysis. Review (Fernand Braudel Center) VIII (4): 517–60. Paap, Richard, and Herman K. van Dijk. 1998. Distribution and Mobility of Wealth of Nations. European Economic Review 42 (1): 1269–1293. Pittau, Maria Grazia, Roberto Zelli, and Paul A. Johnson. 2010. Mixture Models, Convergence Clubs, and Polarization. Review of Income and Wealth 56 (1): 102–122. Quah, Danny T. 1996. Convergence Empirics Across Countries with (Some) Capital Mobility. Journal of Economic Growth 1 (1): 95–124. Romer, Paul M. 1986. Increasing Returns and Long-Run Growth. Journal of Political Economy 94: 1002–1037. Romer, Paul M. 1990. Endogenous Technological Change. Journal of Political Economy XCVIII: 71–102. Schumpeter, Joseph A. 1942. Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy. New York: Harper and Row. SIPRI (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute). 2017. SIPRI Arms Industry Database. Peace Research Institute. https://www.sipri.org/databases/armsindustry. 23 Accessed 2017. Sluyter, Andrew. 2003. Intellectual Damage Control, and Nature/Society Science. North 35. Smith, David A. 2018. World-System Zones in the 21st Century: Beyond Core and Periphery, Who Fits Where? In Global Inequalities in World System Perspectives, ed. M. Boatca, A. Komlosy, and H. Nolte. Boulder: Routledge. Snyder, David, and Eward L. Kick. 1979. Structural Position in the World System and Economic Growth, 1955–1970: A Multiple-Network Analysis of Transnational Interactions. American Journal of Sociolgoy 84 (5): 1096–1126. Taylor, Peter J. 1988. Alternative Geography: A Supportive Note on Arrighi and Drangel. Review (Fernand Braudel Center) 11 (4): 569–579. Tsikata, Tsidi M. 1998. Aid Effectiveness: A Survey of the Recent Empirical Literature. Wallerstein, Immanuel. 1974a. Dependence in an Interdependent World: Limited Possibilities of Transformation within the Capitalist World Economy. African Studies Review 17: 1–26. Wallerstein, Immanuel. 1974b. The Modern World System: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World-Economy in the Sixteenth Century, vol. 1. New York: Academic Press. Weede, Erich. 1983. The Impact of Democracy on Economic Growth. Kyklos 36: 21–39. World Bank. 2014. The World Bank Atlas Method—Detailed Methodology. World Bank. World Bank. 2016. World Development Indicators. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator. Accessed 13 October 2016. Xu, Beina. 2014. South China Sea Tensions. Council on Foreign Relations.

Marilyn Grell-Brisk is currently a Research Associate at the Institute for Research on WorldSystems, at the Institute of Sociology of the University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland. She is the author of articles that have appeared in Palgrave Communications, Societies, and Journal of Contemporary African Studies, as well as book chapters in edited volumes on historical sociology, imperialism, and world-systems. Christopher Chase-Dunn is a Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Director of the Institute for Research on World-Systems at the University of California, Riverside, USA. He is the author of Rise and Demise: Comparing World-Systems (with Thomas D. Hall), and Social Change: Globalization from the Stone Age to the Present (with Bruce Lerro). He is the founder and former editor of the Journal of World-Systems Research. Chase-Dunn is currently doing research on transnational social movements. He also studies the rise and fall of settlements and politics since the Stone Age and global state formation.

Chapter 20

Global Inequality and Global Poverty Robert Holton

Abstract The world is very unequal. This applies both to inequalities within countries and between countries. Global inequalities of income and wealth are on the increase, in most respects, while global poverty has been significantly reduced in recent years. However, global income inequality between countries has recently lessened. Improvements are also evident in global health and some aspects of gender inequality. Yet the topic is complex and uncertain. This is partly because inequality and poverty are not easy to measure. Inequality and poverty are also multidimensional involving political participation and cultural acceptance as well as income, health, and literacy. Explanations of inequality and poverty are similarly complex. Globalization, through concentrations of global economic power, is responsible for some inequality. Unregulated markets, however dynamic, do not distribute their benefits equally between individuals and between countries. Yet it is too simplistic to see free trade causing global inequality since free trade can, in some circumstances, lift incomes. More significant is deregulation which undermines social protection and allows massive tax avoidance. New global policies of taxation and more systematic public intervention in health and literacy are more relevant to inequality-reduction than economic protectionism.

The contemporary world is a very unequal place, with massive disparities of income, wealth, and social participation. The top 10% of the world’s population receive over 50% of global income, while the bottom 50% receive just less than 10% (Alvaredo et al. 2017: 13, 40). In terms of global wealth, the picture is more extreme with the top 10% owning 88%, while the bottom half only around 1% (Suisse 2017: 9). Extreme poverty is also a serious and enduring feature of the global scene. It is estimated that 900 million people are currently in extreme poverty (World Bank 2017). This is manifest not simply in low incomes, but also in a wider range of other highly significant indicators. These include shortage of clean water, premature death, malnutrition, exclusion from adequate education, and low political participation. R. Holton (B) Trinity College Dublin, University of South, Adelaide, Australia © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 I. Rossi (ed.), Challenges of Globalization and Prospects for an Inter-civilizational World Order, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44058-9_20

355

356

R. Holton

So are inequalities and poverty getting worse, and, if they are, is this a result of globalization? These questions often generate simple answers dividing pessimists who see only globally induced deterioration and misery, and optimists who claim globalization increases human welfare. Recent research, however, reveals a more complex picture. This defies ideological presuppositions both about the necessarily negative effects of economic globalization, and the necessarily positive effects of market capitalism. Inequality and poverty are themes that support Urry’s (2003) argument that globalization is characterized by high levels of complexity and uncertainty.

Introductory Comments Human welfare can be assessed using many different measures of well-being and deprivation. Analysis of inequality and poverty is a crucial element in such assessments. Yet, we cannot move immediately to examine empirical data, because there are conceptual and methodological difficulties that affect both the definition and measurement of inequality and poverty. Inequality refers to contrasts and disparities in access to resources and life opportunities. Most attention has been given to inequalities of income and, more recently, inequality of wealth. The former deals with flows of resources, while the latter with stocks of assets. Beyond this, inequalities of access to good health, education, political participation, and social respect are also very important. Therborn (2006) identifies three analytically distinct forms of inequality. These comprise inequality of resources (income, assets, skills), vital inequalities (bodily health and well-being), and existential inequalities (freedom, respect, and rights to social participation). While economic inequalities in possession and access to resources have a strong bearing on wider bodily, social, and political inequalities, they do not account for many dimensions of inequality influenced by gender, race, ethnicity, and sexual preference (Walby 2009; Holton 2014; Chapter “Conceptual Structures for a Theory of World Society”). Complexity is a major issue here because different aspects of inequality inter-sect and inter-act as do the causal influences that explain patterns of inequality. There are, in short, multiple inequalities, and multiple influences upon inequalities. A further key distinction in analyzing global inequality is that between withincountry and between-country inequality. Much attention has been given to withincountry inequality. This dominates the national political horizons within which most citizens, political actors, and policy-makers approach the topic. Yet between-country inequality has been identified as the major source of global income inequalities for most of the recent past (Milanovic 2011: 151–4). The complexities here increase, as we shall see below, because global trends in within-country and between-country inequality often lead in different directions. So between-country inequality may increase while within-country inequality may decrease at some points in time, and vice versa at other times.

20 Global Inequality and Global Poverty

357

Poverty, meanwhile, typically refers to modes of social existence which fundamentally limit the well-being, life chances, and bodily sustainability of sections of the population. Poverty may be defined absolutely in terms of access to the minimum amount of sustenance necessary for survival and reproduction, or relatively in terms of social standards that apply in particular countries and cultures and at particular moments in time (see Bourguignon 2015: 24) Accordingly, there are a variety of dimensions of poverty, just as with inequality. These include material deprivation as well as poor health, premature death, radical existential insecurity, lack of access to information, and effective modes of social participation. Many economists tend to define poverty in terms of inadequate incomes available for consumption. Many other social scientists, philosophers, and United Nations agencies, by contrast, deploy wider standards such as opportunities for human development in its widest sense, including access to health, education, as well as cultural and personal development (see, for example, Sen 1985, 1999; Nussbaum 2011). Inequality and poverty have often been analyzed in separate discourses. This is partly due to the presumption that the absolute deprivation of the most extreme poverty is the more urgent problem requiring policy responses and remedial action. Setting priorities this way sometimes drew on the presupposition that inequality was either not a problem (Feldstein 1999) or that income inequalities were justified as a reward for skill and an incentive for effort. The priorities of the World Bank became poverty reduction, in the first instance, rather than inequality. In recent years, however, serious attention has been given to inequality-reduction as a means of extreme poverty reduction (World Bank 2016). Greater emphasis on global inequality also reflects a recent shift of opinion in elite bodies like the World Economic Forum (WEF). Many figures within the WEF now believe that current high levels of inequality threaten economic development and political stability. Increasing numbers of economists agree (Bourguignon 2015). In this chapter, we analyze inequality and poverty alongside and in interaction with each other, on the presumption that these concepts provide distinct but complementary perspectives on human welfare on a global scale. A final set of introductory issues concerns problems in defining and measuring inequality and poverty. Not all dimensions of inequality and poverty are directly measurable. Examples include forms of prejudice, violence, and abuse that reflect the exercise of power and authority. Discussions of poverty, meanwhile, are typically top-down, deploying income-based poverty lines rather than starting from surveys of how the poor actively survive. Portfolios of the Poor: How the Poor Live on $2 Day (Collins et al. 2009), based on financial diaries of households in India, Bangladesh, and South Africa, reveals how the very poor actually manage their meager resources, and what kinds of tipping-points make life better or worse. But there is comparatively little work of this kind. In general, poverty is defined by people who are not poor rather than by those who occupy these most deprived positions in society. The global use of a poverty line based on a notional income of say $1 or $2 per day is also vulnerable to the criticism that it is gives a false precision to claims about poverty levels and comparisons between countries. Monitoring Global Poverty, commissioned by the World Bank (2017), argued that while headline numbers of

358

R. Holton

the global poor are ‘flawed’ in terms of precision, current measures of poverty are not ‘futile’. The estimate of 900 million people in extreme poverty does not need to be completely precise. The scale of poverty is extremely important, but so is the identification of trends over time using the best available statistics. Knowing whether and why the situation is getting better or worse is a major priority. The use of multiple sources of information on income or wealth is also preferable to one single source, in part because different research methods can yield different results for the same country or group. Such discrepancies can be of major significance rather than being minor technical issues. For both Brazil and China, survey data suggest income inequality has fallen considerably in recent years, whereas official income and tax records indicate it has either remained constant or fallen far less (Alvaredo et al. 2017: 29–30). Further problems of accuracy, coverage, and comparability between countries, regions, and cultural groups abound. In the case of global inequalities of wealth and income, for example, massive tax avoidance creates a systematic underrepresentation of the scale of inequality at the top of the scale, among the 1% (Palan et al. 2010). There are also technical difficulties in comparing incomes and poverty across different countries, since they are measured in different currencies. The cost of living also varies in different locations further complicating comparison. Another serious methodological problem is that most statistical data is crosssectional in form. It measures inequalities of income and wealth within a country, region, or for the world as a whole, at a given point in time. If these data are collected annually across time, we can infer whether aggregate inequality is increasing or decreasing. These data are crucial but still have their limitations. The most important problem is that they cannot tell us whether it is the same people in the same countries that occupy particular positions across time. This matters a great deal at the bottom end of the income and wealth distributions. For those below the poverty line or the bottom 10% of the income distribution, the most important question is whether the same people stay there over time or do some move upward and others move downward, and if so, how many and why (Esping-Andersen 2007). One possibility is that over the course of a life cycle, a certain amount of poverty and low income may be concentrated among the young and the elderly. Both youth unemployment and low retirement income lie behind this. This leaves open the possibility that mobility, both upward and downward, is possible at different points in the life course. The cross-sectional statistical data used in most scholarly debates about global inequality and poverty do not get directly at the life-time trajectories of particular individuals and households. Questions about the inequality of particular individuals over time also arise at the top end and in the middle. Are the top 1% a self-perpetuating oligarchy with wealth inherited across generations unaffected by any political attempts to reduce inequality through increased taxation? The middle levels of the income and wealth distributions have also generated considerable interest. This is largely because the social condition of the middle class is seen as vital to social cohesion, and electoral support for governments. So does globalization underwrite elite wealth, while hollowing out or

20 Global Inequality and Global Poverty

359

reducing middle-income employment for many? We return to this question in the final section. Attention now moves from conceptual and methodological challenges to research findings.

Global Inequality and Poverty in Historical Perspective Inequalities of income, wealth, political rights, and social participation have a long history linked with the cultural politics of tribalism and gender distinction, military conquest, enslavement, and differences in natural resource endowment (this section draws extensively on Holton 2014; Chapter “Global Systemic Anthropology and the Analysis of Globalization”). Measurement of levels and trends in inequality and poverty was not possible before the nineteenth century. However, with improving data collection, there has been a constant enhancement in the coverage of inequality statistics over the last 200 and especially the last 50 years. The poorest countries, nonetheless, still do not have the resources to accurately measure the income or health of their populations. Contemporary evidence suggests a recent increase in global income inequality, though some areas have experienced inequality-reduction. The World Inequality Database (WID), based on an inequality aggregated region, shows a broad increase from the 1980s onward. The share of the top 10% in the income distribution currently varies between 63% in South Africa and 61% in the Middle East, to 47% in the USA, and 37% in Western Europe. Over a longer time period, as seen in Table 1, there was a lowering of the share of incomes going to the top 1% between the 1920s and the 1970s with a subsequent reversal of trend thereafter. An even longer historical timeframe from the 1820s onward is available from other research. Bourguignon and Morrisson (2002) find a significant increase in world inequality right across the period from the 1820s and the 1990s. One way of describing this is through a statistical device called the Gini coefficient. This measures differences in income between individuals within a population, whether a country or region. The measurements are then placed on a scale which varies from 0 (zero inequality) to 100 (total inequality). On this basis, the Gini for income inequality across all countries (where data are available) worsened from around 50 in 1802 to 61 in 1910 and 66 in 1992 (ibid.). Milanovic (2011: 150) sees a further aggregate rise in income inequality from the 1990s to around 2005. During this period, the Gini increased from the mid-60s to around 70, at which level a plateau has been reached. He identifies the highest levels of within-country inequality at around 60 occurring in South Africa and Brazil, and the lowest around 30 in Scandinavia and EU, with levels over 40 in the USA and Russia. In the period from the 1990s onward, there seems to be a break in trend (Bourguignon 2015: 25–38). The overall increase in income inequality across the previous 170 years was composed of several elements. Between-country inequality worsened

360

R. Holton

over the entire period, while within-country inequality improved for most of the twentieth century. The reversal in trend after the 1980s suggests a worsening of withincountry inequality as we move into the twenty-first century. The USA has recently recorded the highest levels of inequality in the developed world, at levels not seen since the 1920s (Bourguignon 2015: 49). Meanwhile, between-country inequality lessened at least for populous countries like China and India compared with higher income countries (Milanovic 2016: 120–1), but worsened for many smaller poorer countries, notably in Africa. In spite of the break in trend, high levels of inequality persist, and for many get worse. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) sees the gap between high-income and low-income groups widening both across wealthier and poorer countries. Rather than using the Gini index, the OECD compares the gap between the top 10% and the poorest 10% in both member and non-member countries. This gap widened in wealthier OECD countries (such as the USA and the UK) from a ratio of 7:1 in the 1980s to 8:1 in the 1990s, to 9:1 in the 2000s, and 10:1 between 2011 and 14 (OECD 2015: 15 and 20). Other data show that while 44% of increased global income between 1988 and 2008 went to the top 5%, only 2–4% went to the lower middle class (Milanovic 2016: 11–24). This finding is consistent with arguments about the increasing precariousness of most of the middle-class employment and wage levels in the wealthiest countries. Table 1 Share of top 1% income earners in national income 1890–2014 in major countries. Source Based on open source data set at www.wid.world/#spctinc_p99p100_z/US;FR;DE;CN;ZA;GB; WO/last/EU/k/p/yearly/s/false/5.487/30/curve/false/country accessed 30th July 2018

20 Global Inequality and Global Poverty

361

Occupations affected include travel agents, hotel clerks, accountants, and shop assistants (ibid. 109–110). These have been adversely affected by technological change associated with digitalization and information processing. There are also linkages between technological change and globalization that allow capital-intensive technological products to be produced in low-wage Asian countries. This has contributed to the decline of manufacturing employment in North America and Europe. Yet it has also helped raise wages in countries like China compared with poorer less economically buoyant countries in most of Africa. Even so, it has not reduced income inequality within China, where the gap between middle- and working-class incomes is increasing. Clearly, patterns of global income inequality are complex. The generalization that global income inequality is rising is correct, but this is not true of all aspects of income inequality. From around the 1980s, aggregate between-country inequality has ceased to rise, while aggregate within-country inequality has begun to rise again as it did in the nineteenth century (Alvaredo et al. 2017: 54–5). These are, however, general trends that do not fit all cases. What explains these complex patterns? Economists tend to explain betweencountry inequalities in terms of differences in economic growth rates. Dynamic economies do outperform those that are stagnant, widening income gaps between them. However, if stagnant or underdeveloped countries themselves achieve greater economic dynamism, there should be convergence in incomes as underdeveloped countries industrialize and innovate. This approach is, however, liable to two criticisms. First, much of the historical rise of the West occurred within a framework of imperialism and colonization that thwarted the economic potential of the world beyond Europe and North America. Secondly, it is not clear that poorer countries are converging with the richer ones to any significant extent. When it comes to within-country inequality, the political framework within which economic activities take place also matters a great deal. The improvement in within-country inequality for much of the twentieth century is connected with the impact of stronger unionism, progressive taxation, and welfare support. Similarly, the more recent increase in within-country inequality in Western societies stems from economic deregulation, corporate tax cuts, and relative declines in welfare support. In more authoritarian countries lacking democratic institutions, meanwhile, elite corruption (Robinson 1988), and the poorly designed imposition of many free-market solutions to poverty reduction also typically worsen inequality (Holton 2014). Global income inequality by gender is also very worthy of attention. Ñopo et al. (2012), in a 64-country study, report a gap of between 7 and 48% between the average earnings for men and women, with matched characteristics. This gap was the widest in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. Trends are more difficult to establish. Dorius and Firebaugh (2010) found a significant global gender inequality decline between 1960 and 2000. Walby (2009) also reported some decline in the gender pay gap between 1996 and 2006 in 18 European countries (334). The gap stood between 10 and 20% in 2006. More recent data collected by the World Economic Forum between 2006 and 2017, by contrast, suggest an increase in the global gender pay gap in more recent years as seen in Table 2 (Luxton and WEF 2016).

362

R. Holton

Table 2 Trends in the global gender income gap. Source Chart derived from World Economic Forum open-access data set, for more detail see World Economic Forum, Global Gender Gap Report 2017, p. 30

One major problem with such wage-gap data is that they do not control for variations in women’s labor force participation. If participation rates, typically in lower paid work, decline, this shows up statistically as a narrowing in the pay gap which would be a misleading inference. Other dimensions to gender inequality such as obstacles in access to better paid jobs may then give a better indicator of trends in inequality. The decline in the gender pay gap between 1980 and 2010 in the USA has been slower for higher paid work (Blau and Khan 2017). The concept of a rigid upper limit to women’s occupational mobility is often referred to as a ‘glass ceiling’. This description implies that such limits are not obvious, but operate as seemingly invisible forms of discrimination.

Section Conclusion In very general terms, there has been a worsening of income inequality by historical standards over the period of the Industrial Revolution and its consolidation in the twentieth century. While the dynamic industrialization process has increased per capita incomes in aggregate, it has not led to a sustained reduction in global income inequality (Bourguignon 2015). This worsening of global income inequality also coincides with the expansion of economic globalization over the same period. How far

20 Global Inequality and Global Poverty

363

globalization causes increased global income inequality is a question to be explored in more depth in the following section. The distribution of global wealth is even more unequal than the global distribution of income. While income refers to flows of resources, wealth refers to stocks of assets, like factories, shares, and land. The 2017 Global Wealth Report, compiled by Credit Suisse, found that the top 10% of the world’s population owned 88% of the wealth, and the top 1% around half, while the bottom 50% owned only 1% (Suisse 2017: 9). The Gini index for global inequalities of wealth measured around 2000 was 80 when measured for households, (Davies et al. 2011: 243), but by 2014, it had increased to a staggering figure of 92 (Davies et al. 2017: 731). Some argue that the Gini index is not very useful for cross-national comparisons of wealth, because so many households in the bottom 50% have no wealth at all (OECD 2015: 248). The overall index numbers do nonetheless highlight the extreme character of wealth inequalities, compared with inequalities of income. The long-term historical evolution of global wealth distribution is, however, difficult to trace with any precision. While industrializing countries in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries collected data on distributions of national wealth, this practice declined in the twentieth century. The assumption was that income levels alone were a sufficient basis for understanding economic inequality. This assumption is, however, problematic because income and wealth are not clearly correlated (OECD 2015). This in turn reflects the significance of wealth as a base upon which higher returns are possible than for labor market incomes, and as a basis for the cross-generational transmission and consolidation of inequality through inheritance. Wealth is also correlated with better outcomes in terms of educational attainment, health, and access to prestige and power (see discussion in Kus 2016: 518–9). The pioneering work of Piketty (2014) on Europe and North America has stimulated a wider and more informed research focus on the historical evolution of inequalities of wealth. While not global in coverage, he used data from nineteenth century and early twentieth century estate records to show that in Western European societies the top 10% owned 80–90% of the wealth and the top 1% 50–60% (Piketty, op. cit.: 345). These levels of inequality look very similar to contemporary data on global wealth. So, at first sight, the current situation seems to have a long and continuous history. This impression is not, however, correct. This is because the two World Wars in the twentieth century made massive inroads into stocks of wealth, partly through economic disruption and partly through the destruction of physical assets. Inequalities of wealth shrank considerably over the first half of the twentieth century. However, this was of no benefit to the bottom 10% of wealth-holders because it was redistributed to those in the middle. By the 1980s and 1990s, as seen in Table 3, the predominance of the 1% had been reasserted. The very high levels of contemporary inequalities of wealth are very much a catch-up to earlier patterns. Beyond this, there is one important spatial contrast over time. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, wealth inequalities in Europe exceeded those in the United States. By the early twenty-first century, wealth inequality in the US has surpassed that of Europe. OECD (2015) data from 2010 show that the top 10% in the US own

364

R. Holton

Table 3 Changes in the share of top 1% of wealth holders in national wealth of major countries: 1800–2015. Source Alvaredo et al. (2017), 207–8, Based on open-access data set at www.wid.world

76% of the wealth, compared to around 60% for Germany and the Netherlands, 50% in France, and 47% in the UK. Global poverty data, by contrast, tell a very different story from that of inequalities of income and wealth, at least for absolute poverty. This is a tale of historical improvement. Long-term historical data are available for trends in absolute poverty. Bourguignon and Morrisson (2002), using an extreme poverty line of $1 per day, find a striking decline in extreme poverty from 94% of the world’s population around 1820 to 52% in 1992. This trend has continued according to more recent World Bank data. This uses a different poverty line of $1.90 per day. This new standard allows a more accurate comparison than before of changes in the cost of living facing the poor in individual countries. It does so by recognizing changing relative prices in different national currencies into a common purchasing parity measure (World Bank 2016: 23–3). Using this data the researchers found a decline in ‘absolute poverty’, from 44% in 1980 and 35% in 1990 to 11% in 2013 (Ibid., 35; Roser and Ortiz-Ospina 2018a: 3). These data indicate a massive positive improvement in absolute poverty levels over the last 200 years thereby supporting a sevenfold increase in the world’s population. This decrease in poverty may be positively linked with the productivity increases associated with the dynamic effects of industrialization which increased the overall level of incomes per head.

20 Global Inequality and Global Poverty

365

Yet, this positive optimistic story comes with its own complexities. Poverty has remained concentrated in particular regions and countries. In 2013 around 782 million people, i.e. 10.9% of the world’s population were estimated to still be living in absolute or extreme poverty (World Bank 2018, passim). Of these, the vast majority lived either in sub-Saharan Africa (400 million) or in South Asia (257 million). The highest concentration relative to the regional population was in sub-Saharan Africa where 42% of inhabitants were in extreme poverty, compared with 15% in South Asia. The number of those in extreme poverty was far lower in other regions, such as East Asia and the Pacific (73 million), and Latin America and the Caribbean (28 million). What is equally significant is how these extreme poverty data vary across time. Important changes here are captured in Table 4. The most dramatic change over the period 1987–2013 is the rapid decline in East Asia and the Pacific from nearly 60% to less than 10% of the regional population (for further discussion of this and subsequent poverty data, see Roser and Ortiz-Ospina 2018a). Significant reductions are also evident in South Asia from nearly 50% to around 15%. Far less progress has, however been, made in sub-Saharan Africa, with a reduction from over 50 and to around 40%. While there are pockets of poverty in industrial societies in Europe and North America, including within urban neighborhoods, the World Bank’s Table 4 Recent changes in extreme poverty by region. Source The World Bank PovcalNet—an open access source—cited by Roser and Ortiz-Ospina (2018a), ‘Global Extreme Poverty’, at https:// ourworldindata.org/extreme-poverty/

366

R. Holton

general profile of the world’s poor is predominantly rural, poorly educated, working in agriculture, and living in larger households (2016: 35). An alternative approach to understanding global poverty goes beyond economic measures like income and wealth. It looks instead at human development in the round, including social welfare. The United Nations Development Programme’s Human Development Index (HDI) measures not only living standards, but also health and education. The HDI index shows that the regions and countries with the worst levels of income, health, and educational provision are the same as those in the World Bank’s poverty data (Holton 2014: 97). What is strikingly different is that levels of low income do not necessarily coincide across the board, with those of poor health or education. Poorer countries with similar levels of income can have very different health and educational profiles. China, Sri Lanka, and Cuba, for example, have health profiles much better than other countries with similar income profiles (Marmot 2005). In general terms, trends in global health show aggregate improvement in contrast to deteriorating trends in income inequality. Looking first at vital inequality, there has been a long-term trend toward longer life expectancy for the world’s population over the last two centuries. Bourguignon and Morrisson (2002: 741–2) report that the average world life expectancy at birth stood at 26 years in 1820, rising slowly to 33 by the 1930s. Since 1945 there has been a more significant and rapid improvement, reaching 60 in 2000. More recent World Health Organization (WHO) data suggests a further rise to 71.4 in 2015 (World Health Organization 2018). While there were variations between a life expectancy of around 75 in Europe and North America, 66 in South-East Asia, and 60 in Africa, at a national level, the divide was greater, with Japan at 84, France at 82, the USA at 79, and China at 76, compared with sub-Saharan African countries like Equatorial Guinea, 58, Nigeria, 55, Lesotho, 54, and Sierra Leone 50. Other dimensions of global health show far greater variation between positive and negative outcomes. These include deaths at the age of under-fives and maternal mortality. While aggregate global deaths of under-fives declined by half between 1990 and 2016–41 deaths per 1000 live births (World Health Organization 2018), it remains the case that much of sub-Saharan Africa still has levels greater than 100 deaths per 1000 live births (ibid.). Similarly, aggregate improvement in maternal mortality figures has not eroded sharp regional contrasts between maternal mortality. Rates in Africa are still thirty-five times higher than those in Europe (ibid.). Patterns of inequality in educational provision and outcomes are broadly similar to health patterns. General aggregate data show improvements in literacy rates, narrowing the gap between most poor and wealthier countries. Once again subSaharan Africa is the main exception (Roser and Ortiz-Ospina 2018b). Here, gender inequalities in education have declined (when measured in terms of ratios of girls to boys in primary, secondary, and, more strikingly, tertiary education (Dorius and Firebaugh 2010, especially 1950–4). So how far are inequalities in health and education determined by inequalities of income? Recent research indicates that connections between the two are significant but limited in scale. Taking health, as the main example, it was once believed that ‘wealthier is healthier’, and therefore, that poor health was primarily a problem of

20 Global Inequality and Global Poverty

367

poverty. More recent research, however, argues that less than half of the improvements in global health between 1952 and 1992 can be explained in terms of income growth (World Health Organization 1999). While accepting that there are connections between low income and poor health, Deaton 2006 maintains that there are many other contributory factors at work. A key argument here is that a number of poorer countries and regions have made striking improvements in health indicators, including Cuba, Costa Rica, Sri Lanka, and Kerala largely due to public policy and professional intervention. Meanwhile, countries which have made fewer gains in health may be poor because public intervention is lacking. Lack of public intervention produces sickness and ill-health which contributes to poorer rates of economic development and poverty. Some preliminary observations have been made about possible explanations for patterns of inequality over time and across space. This issue is now tackled head-on.

Globalization and Inequality It is widely believed that globalization causes global inequality and poverty. It is also widely believed, though perhaps less than before, that globalization increases incomes and reduces poverty. Yet a good deal depends on what is meant by globalization. This can mean free trade across borders, capital mobility around the world, the powerful outreach of global corporations, or information technology and communications, together with neoliberal public policies such as market deregulation (for an even wider checklist, see Holton 2014: 123). So it is important to clarify exactly what it is about globalization that may increase or decrease inequality and poverty. However, the balance is struck between positive and negative effects of globalization; a further complication in the analysis is that there are multiple causes of inequality and poverty. Many of these are linked to national and local influences, including nation-based public policies, sources of corruption, and cultural attitudes (Holton 2014: 136–49). Much of the research into globalization and inequality may be broken down into the impact of specific processes. Examples include the relationship between free trade and income inequality, the relationship between global capital transfers and employment, and the impact of policies of deregulation on the distribution of income and wealth. A vital starting point here is the dynamic expansion of global capitalism over the last 200 years. This has generated increased technological innovation, the transformation of most of the world’s production from low-productivity agriculture into higher productivity industry and services, and the cross-border mobility of capital and labor. These dynamic factors have raised aggregate global incomes and made great inroads into absolute poverty in many parts of the world. What they have not done is to distribute the fruits of economic dynamism more equally, in any kind of consistent manner. Bourguignon (2015) sees a paradoxical relationship between economic globalization and capitalism. Global capitalism both reduces poverty by raising incomes

368

R. Holton

per head over the long-term, while equally contributing to greater inequality of income and wealth for many. Positive and negative processes are intertwined. Economic globalization operates in a wider setting than markets alone. This includes social, political, cultural, and environmental processes. Piketty argues that in recent history, income from capital has tended to grow faster than economic growth and incomes as a whole. This is not simply because capitalism is dynamic. It is also because wider political and social arrangements have been restructured to reduce taxation, erode welfare states, free markets from social and environmental regulation, and create cultures of private consumerism rather than social democracy. This creates increased inequalities of wealth and income unless the power of capital and the operation of market mechanisms are challenged by more powerful counter-trends. He takes the asset destruction, increased taxation, and welfare state income transfers developed during and after the two World Wars to represent a major disruption of global capitalism. These processes reversed previous pre-World War I trends toward greater within-country inequalities. Between 1914 and 1980, wealth became more equally held. These observations indicate that the only sustained period of greater economic equality in modern history was a period when the dynamic of economic globalization had been undermined by war, depression, and political intervention by nation-states. Moving to a global level of analysis, another line of argument suggests that the power of wealthier countries structures ‘free trade’ in ways that suit the wealthy, not the poorer nations. This draws not so much on older theories of economic imperialism, as on world-system theory (Wallerstein 1974; Chase-Dunn 1991). This emphasizes inequalities of power in the international division of labor that create and reproduce inequalities between the wealthy core and the low-wage periphery. This theoretical perspective has its limitations, including the rise of previously peripheral economies like China. It remains influential, nonetheless, in encouraging the analysis of inequalities built into the terms upon which global trade and exchange take place. One question that arises is ‘how free is free trade?’ ‘Free trade’ between wealthy and poor countries is typically organized through multinational corporations, whose power to set prices and gain tax and regulatory exemption from poorer countries perpetuates between-country inequality. It is not clear how far ‘fair trade’ programs have made inroads into such power inequalities (Jaffee 2014). Nor is it clear whether the corporate rhetoric of ‘corporate social responsibility’ is any more than a strategy to legitimize unequal exchange between the economically powerful and their weaker employees, consumers, and suppliers. Powerful corporations and countries also limit the operation of free trade when it is seen as in their own interests. Wealthier countries, contrary to free-market principles, gain some benefit over the poorer because markets are not open enough. The USA and EU still restrict access to their home markets, for agricultural products from poorer countries. This weakens the capacity of such countries to trade their way out of poverty, and thus reduce between-country inequality. Against this negative interpretation, it can be argued that the dynamic effects of a more productive global economy over the last 200 years have supported the reduction of absolute poverty, improved health, expanded educational opportunity,

20 Global Inequality and Global Poverty

369

and allowed reduction of the working day. The positive consequences have been diffused through more productive technology, reduced transport and communication costs, and increased income. Free trade, another key mechanism of this diffusion, has also been shown to be correlated with increased rather than decreased incomes overall (Anderson 2005; Babones and Vonada 2009). This does not, however, mean that losses of employment and income do not occur in particular settings where cheap imports disrupt local producers. The greater integration of China into the world economy based on freer trade and capital export has both increased Chinese economic growth compared with the growth rates in Europe and North America, and, thereby lowered betweencountry inequality against the previous long-term historical trend. There is, nonetheless, a further paradox here, namely that within-country inequality in China has increased, in line with the typical peacetime European experience, at the same time as Chinese economic development has contributed to the reduction of between-country inequality across the globe. General improvements in health and educational provision depend to a considerable extent on the long-term rise of total global incomes grounded in improved productivity, though this is a necessary but not a sufficient cause of improved global living standards. Deregulated global markets do not guarantee the distribution of economic benefits equally to all. Nor do they guarantee crisis-free economic stability and sustainability. Forms of political intervention, regulation, and redistribution matter too. So what can be done to reduce global inequalities?

Policy Options for Reduction of Global Inequality and Poverty Far more attention has been given during the last 50 years to the reduction of global poverty than the reduction of global inequality. It was assumed by most Western policy-makers that poverty reduction would occur mainly through deregulated movements of global capital and trade, a doctrine called the Washington Consensus (Williamson 2004). International bodies like the World Bank, IMF, and World Trade Organization presided over this policy framework and enforced its implementation. The Washington Consensus amounted to a global version of ‘trickledown’ economics, where deregulated economic growth is believed to create benefits over time to those at the bottom of the income distribution. This approach, over the long-term, has made a positive impact on absolute poverty, but has had only modest success in reducing global inequality. Poorer countries under the umbrella of the United Nations Development Programme found the Washington Consensus inadequate because human development for all was being subordinated to economic growth for the richer and powerful. Increasing attention has, therefore, been given to development aid, including

370

R. Holton

programs to educate and upgrade the skills of the world’s poor in pursuit of poverty reduction and equality of opportunity. Yet, development aid, like the Washington Consensus has come in for other kinds of criticism. This includes the structuring of aid to benefit donors more than recipients by tying those who receive it to the economic and political interests of donor countries. Much development aid, meanwhile, does not reach those it is intended for, being liable to corrupt transfers to wealthy interests in poor countries (Holton 2014). If the benefits of economic growth are uncertain and uneven and development aid inadequate, what other possibilities are there? Milanovic (2016: 232) agrees that economic growth can reduce between-country inequality, but only when the economic growth of lower income countries, like China, exceeds economic growth in wealthier Western countries. China’s geopolitical strength matters a good deal to the maximization of the national income, alongside economic advantages such as low-cost labor compared with the West. Yet, economic growth by itself is nowhere near enough to guarantee greater equality within nations. What also matters is how increased incomes are distributed, and this raises the issues of policy options affecting property rights and institutional supports for wealthy individuals and businesses. Limits to democratic politics in developing countries undermine the reform of domestic income inequality as in China, but do not necessarily undermine improvements to other aspects of welfare such as health and literacy. A contrasting policy option, broadly labeled as socialdemocratic (Sandbrook et al. 2007), is evident in Costa Rica, Chile, Mauritius, and the Indian state of Kerala. A key issue here is the consolidation of a democratic development state. According to Sandbrook, this usually depends on the capacity of globally oriented democratic coalitions to offset the influences of traditional land-holding classes, combatting corruption, and avoiding domination by external pressures from international funding bodies. Problems with market-based policies toward global inequality have led elite opinion around the World Bank and World Economic Forum, to develop a more explicit focus on addressing global inequality in recent years (World Bank 2016; World Economic Forum 2018). Part of this is stimulated by a sense that inequality is bad for business, requiring more effective partnerships between business and other parties concerned with inequality. And part is directed at a better, more effective development aid. It is too early to determine whether this will have a positive effect. This opinion-shift has not, however, prevented a resurgence of anti-globalization sentiment, much of it associated with economic nationalism. The major policy options here include tariff barriers on trade, as recently announced by Trump in the USA, and restriction of immigration. These are sometimes justified as ways of maximizing national incomes and employment behind borders, but there is no evidence that they reduce within-country inequality in countries that adopt them. The reduction of within-country inequality in the first two-thirds of the twentieth century was due far more to increases in progressive taxation and welfare spending, and the undermining of capital and profit growth by wartime destruction. So what policy options would contribute to both the reduction of between-country as well as within-country inequality of income, and especially, capital? Two well

20 Global Inequality and Global Poverty

371

publicized options are the regulation of tax-havens, and the levying of a global financial transactions tax. This tax proposal, often known as a Tobin tax, extends Tobin’s original idea for a tax to smooth over foreign exchange fluctuations, to the idea of taxing the daily trillion-dollar movements of finance across borders as a source of funds for development (Brock 2011). The self-interest of powerful corporations and low-tax countries like the USA is one obstacle to these global options being agreed upon. In an epoch of resurgent nationalism, political corruption, and populist resistance to elites, it is difficult to see any clear momentum toward international agreement to implement such measures. Meanwhile, national wealth taxes also strike up against the self-interest of the wealthy, and ideologies of neoliberalism. The crossborder mobility of capital, characteristic of globalization, makes national wealth taxes very hard to implement. If these issues were not difficult enough, a further obstacle to global inequalityreduction has become the self-interest of the populations of wealthier countries in limiting immigration of the world’s poor. Migration has, over the course of history, been a major source of economic advancement for the world’s poor and those displaced by war, genocide, and environmental crisis. In the present conjuncture of economic, political, and cultural crises, this option has recently become far more constrained and far more risk-prone. Taken overall, the prognosis for global inequality-reduction over the next generation is not good. While global inequalities of wealth are hardest to address, some progress in reducing between-country inequalities of income has been achieved. Extreme poverty remains significant, while the extent of absolute poverty has reduced considerably in recent years, alongside improvements in health and literacy. Research and experience suggest some policy options like progressive taxation and fairer trade rules can work, but the obstacles to implementing them seem to be growing.

References Alvaredo, F., F. Chancel, T. Piketty, E. Saez, and G. Zucman. 2017. World Inequality Report, 2018, World Inequality Lab at. www.wir2018.wid.world/files/download/wir2018-full-report-english. pdf. Accessed 26th Feb 2018. Anderson, E. 2005. Openness and Inequality in Developing Countries: A Review of Theory and Recent Evidence. World Development 33 (7): 1045–1063. Babones, S., and D. Vonada. 2009. Trade Globalization and National Income Inequality—Are they Related? Journal of Sociology 45 (5): 5–30. Blau, F., and L. Khan. 2017. The Gender Wage Gap: Extent, Trends and Explanations. Journal of Economic Literature 55 (3): 789–865. Bourguignon, F. 2015. The Globalization of Inequality. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Bourguignon, F., and C. Morrisson. 2002. Inequality Among World Citizens, 1820–1992. American Economic Review 92 (4): 727–744. Brock. 2011. Reforms to Global Taxation and Accounting Arrangements as a Means to Pursuing Social Justice. Global Social Policy 11 (1): 7–9. Chase-Dunn, C. 1991. Global Formation: Structures of the Global Economy. Oxford: Blackwell.

372

R. Holton

Collins, D., J. Mordach, S. Rutherford, and O. Ruthven. 2009. Portfolios of the Poor: How the Worlds Poor Live on $2 a Day. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Suisse, Credit. 2017. Global Wealth Report 2017. Zurich: Credit Suisse Research Institute. Davies, J., S. Sandstrom, A. Shorrocks, and E. Wolff. 2011. The Level and Distribution of Global Household Wealth. Economic Journal 121: 223–254. Davies, J., J. Lluberas, and A. Shorrocks. 2017. Estimating the Level and Distribution of Global Wealth, 2010–14. Review of Income and Wealth 63 (4): 731–748. Deaton, A. 2006. Global Patterns of Income and Health: Facts, Interpretations, Policies. National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper 12735. http://nber.org/papers/w12735. Accessed 2 Aug 2018. Dorius, S., and G. Firebaugh. 2010. Trends in Global Gender Inequality. Social Forces 88 (5): 1941–1968. Esping-Andersen, G. 2007. More Inequality and Fewer Opportunities? Structural Determinant and Human Agency in the Dynamics of Income Distribution. In Global Inequality, ed. D. Held and A. Kaya, 216–251. Cambridge: Polity Press. Feldstein, M. 1999. Reducing Poverty Not Inequality. The Public Interest 137 (Fall): 33–41. Holton, R.J. 2014. Global Inequalities. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Jaffee, D. 2014. Brewing Justice: Fair Trade Coffee, Sustainability, and Survival, updated edn. Oakland: University of California Press. Kus, B. 2016. Wealth Inequality: Historical Trends and Cross-National Differences. Sociology Compass 10 (6): 518–529. Luxton, E. (World Economic Forum). 2016. These Industries Have the Largest Gender Wage Gaps. www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/10/these-industries-have-the-largest-wage-gap/. Accessed 27th Feb 2018. Marmot, M. 2005. Social Determinants of Health Inequalities. Lancet 365: 1099–1104. Milanovic, B. 2011. The Haves and the Have-Nots: A Brief and Idiosyncratic History of Global Inequality. New York: Basic Books. Milanovic, B. 2016. Global Inequality: A New Approach for the Age of Globalization. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press. Ñopo, H., N. Daza, and J. Ramos. 2012. Gender Earnings Gaps Around the World: A Study of 64 Countries. International Journal of Manpower Studies 33 (5): 464–513. Nussbaum, M. 2011. Creating Capabilities. The Human Development Approach. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press. OECD. 2015. In it Together. Why Less Inequality Benefits All. Paris: OECD. Palan, R., R. Murphy, and C. Chavagneux. 2010. Tax Havens: How Globalization Really Works. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Piketty, T. 2014. Capital in the 21st Century. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press. Robinson, M. (ed.). 1988. Corruption and Development. Abingdon: Cass. Roser, M., and E. Ortiz-Ospina. 2018a. Global Extreme Poverty. https://ourworldindata.org/ext reme-poverty/. Accessed 22nd Feb 2018. Roser, M., and E. Ortiz-Ospina. 2018b. Literacy. https://ourworldindata.org/literacy/. Accessed 22nd Feb 2018. Sandbrook, R., M. Edelman, P. Heller, and J. Teichman. 2007. Social Democracy in the Global Periphery: Origins, Challenges, and Prospects. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sen, A. 1985. Commodities and Capabilities. Amsterdam: North Holland. Sen, A. 1999. Development as Freedom. New York: Knopf. Therborn, G. 2006. Meaning, Mechanisms, Patterns, and Forces: An Introduction. In Inequalities of the World, ed. G. Therborn, 1–60. London: Verso. Urry, J. 2003. Global Complexity. Cambridge: Polity Press. Walby, S. 2009. Globalization and Inequalities. London: Sage. Wallerstein, I. 1974. The Modern World System: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World-Economy in the Sixteenth Century. New York: Academic Press.

20 Global Inequality and Global Poverty

373

Williamson, J. 2004. The Washington Consensus as Policy Prescription for Development. www. piie.com/publications/papers/williamson0204.pdf. Accessed 11th Mar 2018. World Bank. 2016. Taking on Inequality. Washington: World Bank. World Bank. 2017. Monitoring Global Poverty. Washington: World Bank. World Bank. 2018. PovCalNet, (ongoing data base on global poverty), section on Regional Aggregation. www.ireresearch.worldbank.or/PovCalNet/povDuplicateWB.asx. Accessed 12th June 2018. World Economic Forum. 2017. Global Gender Gap, 2017. Geneva: World Economic Forum. World Economic Forum. 2018. Grow Inclusive. www.weforum.or/projects/inclusive-growth-anddevelopment. Accessed 2nd Aug 2018. World Health Organization. 1999. The World Health Report 1999. Making a Difference. Geneva: WHO. World Health Organization. 2018. Global Health Data Repository. www.who.int/gho/database/en/. Accessed 27th Feb 2018. World Inequality Data Base (WID). www.wid.world.

Robert Holton is Emeritus Professor of Sociology at Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland, and Adjunct Professor at the Hawke EU Centre of Excellence at the University of South Australia. He has written extensively on the historical sociology of globalization, global inequality, and more recently on artificial intelligence and robotics. He published Global Inequalities in 2014.

ON ECOLOGICAL GLOBALIZATION

Chapter 21

Reconfiguring Ecology in the Twenty-First–Century. Social Movements as Producers of the Global Age Geoffrey Pleyers Abstract This chapter proposes an agency perspective on social movements and actors who contribute to shape the Global Age, understood as a social configuration in which life and society are deeply shaped by an increasing reality and consciousness of the interdependence at the scale of humanity and the finitude of the planet. It briefly analyses the contribution of a series of actors of the global environmentalist movements, including indigenous movements, peasant movements, critical consumption, and environmental NGOs. The analysis emphasizes increasing contributions of actors from the Global South to the way we conceive our world and to solutions to global challenges. It also points to a renewing of epistemological and critical perspectives in a time increasingly shaped by the constraints and challenges of the global age. It points to major inconsistencies of the modern economic system on a limited planet and to the limits of social sciences that remain deeply rooted in modernity.

Social Agency in the Global Age The Global Age Hypothesis The natural science community has made a statement that can no longer be ignored by social scientists: the modern way of life is not sustainable. It alters fundamental geological and chemical cycles (IPCC 2013; Crutzen 2002) and generates global warming at an increasing and unprecedented pace. Moreover, resources fundamental for our ways of life and economic system will be unavailable in a few decades. This assertion deeply questions modernity itself, as the modern worldview is built on the perspective of an ever-expanding world and infinite natural resources—that allows economists and corporations to consider nature as a “free good” (Say) and to exclude “externalities” from economic considerations—and on the idea of permanent G. Pleyers (B) Catholic University of Louvain & Vice-President of the International Sociological Association, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 I. Rossi (ed.), Challenges of Globalization and Prospects for an Inter-civilizational World Order, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44058-9_21

377

378

G. Pleyers

growth, that is supposed to lead humanity toward progress and better living standards. But these times may come to an end sooner than expected (Urry 2012, 2013). In the first part of the twenty-first century, we may experience a shift from globalization—defined as the expansion of modernization and driven by the idea of growth—to what Albrow (1996) has called “the Global Age” where one of our main challenges will be linked to the common management of a limited planet. The Global Age may be defined as a social configuration (Elias 1969) in which life and society are deeply shaped by an increasing reality and consciousness of (1) the interdependence at the scale of humanity and (2) the finitude of the planet. Martin Albrow convincingly shows that this finitude is a central element of our time, and that it distinguishes the global age from the previous era and, in particular, from modernity. In the words of Elias (1991), we live the “last step of a long process of integration”. The area of interdependency now spans the whole planet. It is certainly larger than the world experienced by most of our predecessors, but it is also, and for the first time, a finite world, with limited resources and no extra spaces where to expand. The “survival unit” of most human beings is now interwoven with humanity and the planet. In his insightful analysis of previous steps of this integration, namely the formation of nation states, Elias showed that the extension of interdependency to a wider geographical unit has a deep impact not only on society and the economic system, but also on individual behavior and subjectivity. With the rise of the global age, we are moving from modernity that was largely organized around the nation state (Albrow 1996; Beck 1997) toward a social configuration that is not only wider, but also—and for the first time—limited, without possible “outside” or further expansion. Therefore, in accordance with this new stage of human integration, we may expect not only a deepening (a quantitative change) of interdependency among human beings, but also a structural change (a qualitative change) in the nature of this interdependency among humans, between humans and other species, and between humans and nature. This “Global Age Hypothesis” and the corresponding awareness of the finitude of the planet shed new light on contemporary debates on development (Escobar 1995; Acosta and Martínez 2012) and growth (Latouche 2011; Jackson 2008). Yet, the impact of the global age goes far beyond our economic model, and the way we manage natural resources. It raises major challenges for society and its actors, from global institutions to the responsibility of ordinary people (Albrow 2013). It deeply transforms the way individuals and communities consider and experience life, society, and the world. The global age is both an objective and a subjective reality. The limit of the planet is a material fact, that can’t be negated. Neither is it temporary. The objective reality of the global age is notably illustrated by the “Anthropocene perspective” (Crutzen 2002) and global warming. Its subjective reality is both the rising consciousness of the finitude of the planet and the resulting world view (Weltanschauung) it leads to. The rise of global world dangers and challenges (nuclear, climate change) has increased the consciousness of a shared destiny at the scale of humanity and expanded a sense of cosmopolitan identity (Albrow 1996; Beck 1997).

21 Reconfiguring Ecology in the Twenty-First–Century …

379

However, these objective and subjective realities of the global age do not always correspond. Norbert Elias pointed out a significant delay: “Compared to the relatively rapid change of the integration shift, the pace of the corresponding change in the social habitus of the individuals concerned is extraordinarily slow” (Elias 1991: 214). Individuals, social, political, and economic actors live under rules corresponding to a previous social configuration. Peoples and policy-makers remain deeply rooted in the modern worldview. For instance, the oil peak in 2006 represents a considerable threat to the modern economy and way of life (Urry 2013). However, most policymakers, citizens, and social theorists live and work as if they ignored the fact. Thus Modernity and the global age coexist in the subjective and objective reality of our time. Rather than a comeback to postmodern positions, whose hyper-cultural perspectives have been criticized (Best and Kellner 1997), Albrow suggests that the emphasis on the global in public discourses reveals a new grand narrative and argues for the specificities of a new age: not modern, nor postmodern, but “global”. The limits of modernity are not only cultural. The material reality of the finitude of the globe challenges some of the normative orientations at the core of modernity and of our societies. The modern project is incompatible with the limits of the planet and its natural resources. Urry (2013) points to the landscape change that the end of oil will bring about in our lives and our societies. Bauman (2004) has shown that economic growth and modernity rely on external spaces where human and goods surplus could be dropped. The global age requires us to revisit anew the very foundations of our social, economic, and cultural models and contradicts the modern project of perpetual expansion and improvement of living standards through new technologies and science. What do growth, progress, and happiness mean on a limited planet? The modern welfare state, as it is based on three premises that are deeply challenged by the global age, is also at risk: the ability of the state to collect taxes on increasingly transnational economic activities; the premise of a permanent-growth enabling to improve the population living standards without questioning inequalities; and the exploitation of cheap labor and resources in the Global South to ensure access to consumer goods for the population in the North.

Social Change in and Toward the Global Age The major configurational change and the materiality of the finitude of the planet shape social actors’ subjectivity and forms of agency. However, the global age perspective is not a deterministic approach. While the finitude of the planet and its resources is a fact, it does not presuppose the way human beings, institutions, and societies will deal with the challenges of living together on a limited planet. This has two reasons. First, as industrial modernity was embodied by various forms of communism and capitalism, the global age as a new social configuration does not presume a particular type of economic and political system. Secondly, the way

380

G. Pleyers

societies will deal with the constraints of the global age depends on the outcomes of the symbolic and concrete confrontation of perceptions of the world and contrasting ways to face its main challenges. Future scenarios in a world affected by climate change are numerous.1 The “business as usual in the midst of climate deregulation” scenario is far from excluded. It dominates current policies and habits and is supported by powerful actors, which makes it the most probable option as long as the main resources (and oil, in particular) remain relatively easily available. The “redemption catastrophe” scenario has recently gained impetus, notably with the Hopkins’ (2011) “transition perspective”. Its “transition movement” has quickly gained a grassroots social constituency. Dozens of intellectuals and thousands of citizens maintain that climate deregulation, the multiplication of natural disasters, and the depletion of natural resources will automatically lead to a “transition” toward more resilient local social organizations. The belief in the redemption feature of catastrophes has been constantly evoked by progressive thinkers. This time again, the founder of the transition movement and some of the most protagonist actors and thinkers of the ecology (e.g. Cochet et al. 2012) maintain that a catastrophe may be needed to push humanity to adopt the required changes. This direct link between catastrophes or major crises and social change is historically false and politically dangerous. To take recent examples, the magnitude of the 1997–1998 Asian crisis has not impeded an unprecedented expansion of financial speculation in the following years and the financial crisis that started in 2007, is considered as the most severe since 1929, and has not drastically modified economic policies and regulations of the financial sector. The political impacts of environmental hazards are an even better illustration of this. The multiplication of hurricanes in the US or the heavy pollution smog in Beijing (see Zhang and Barr 2013) haven’t impeded the governments of the two most polluting countries to carry on with their energy and industrial policies. The Fukushima major nuclear disaster has not prevented the Japanese government from restarting its nuclear power plants.2 My point is not to deny that a crisis may have an impact on policies or may represent an opportunity for social actors. Nevertheless, no matter how large it is, the crisis itself will not generate social change. The latter depends on the capacity of social actors to highlight the questions spawned by the historic situation and to advance alternative political visions and economic rationality. Social actors play a major role in raising public awareness, proposing alternative political and economic rationality, and pushing toward a concrete implementation of alternative policies and behaviors. Moreover, actors who manage to impose their interpretation of the crisis and foster alternative political and economic rationality are not always the progressive ones. Canadian activist and journalist Klein (2008) reminds us that the “Chicago boys” used—and produced—crises to impose neoliberal policies in various countries.

1 For

a list of possible scenarios, see Urry (2012: Chap. 9). (2011) excellent book provides a rigorous analysis of the impact of green movements’ strategies on national governments.

2 Vasi’s

21 Reconfiguring Ecology in the Twenty-First–Century …

381

As social scientists, we can neither deny the reality of the impact of human activities on the climate and the environment, nor endorse the idea of a determinist social transition resulting from the environmental crisis.3 Developing perspectives for a better understanding of social agency in and toward the global age thus constitute a major challenge for social scientists. It requires analyzing both progressive and conservative actors, as well as the actors and mechanisms that foster the apathy in most individual and collective actors.

Progressive Movements Toward the Global Age While scientists and the International Panel on Climate Change have accumulated data alerting on the magnitude of climate change and its devastating consequences, economic growth remains the main preoccupation of all governments, and more cars have been bought in 2013 than ever before.4 The challenges of the global age are huge and urgent, but changes in individual and collective behaviors have remained very limited so far. This paradox of social agency in the global age may, however, only be apparent. The panorama is different when we look at grassroots actors (Biekart and Fowler 2012), hardly visible in global mass media and distant cosmopolitan analyses. In all continents, local social movements are contesting core values of modernity, and its idea of progress based on growth and accumulation. While actions and worldviews of policy-makers remain largely shaped by the modern context, challenges, and constraints, elements of a different social configuration are experienced, lived, and produced in the shadow of everyday life, local initiatives, and citizen debates. In this article, I will briefly explore how the global age perspective sheds new light on the meanings and potential of actors in four sectors of global environmentalism and how these actors provide insights for a better understanding of the global age and social agency in and toward it.

Indigenous People and Small Farmers Indigenous communities and small farmers were previously considered as anachronistic leftovers of a premodern era that would disappear with the modernization process. They now inspire citizens and intellectuals worldwide and are widely considered as frontrunners of the global age. As summarized by an activist during the 2008 3 Our

planet has always been limited and catastrophes connected to human-caused disturbance of climate and/or natural circles have been numerous in recent years. It has not prevented humanity form producing and consuming goods as fast as never before. 4 82 million, and an expected 85 million in 2014. Ramsey M., Boudette N. “Global Car Sales Seen Rising to 85 Million in 2014”, Wall Street Journal, 16/12/2013.

382

G. Pleyers

Social Forum in Mexico City, “They always taught us to look at the North and the West. But today, if we want to change things, we have to look towards the South and towards the indigenous people”. In the last two decades, Latin American indigenous movements5 have contributed to changing governments and shaping major public debates, laws, and new constitutions (Cortez 2009; Le Bot 2009). They have implemented alternative social and political organizations at the local level in the Americas (Hocquengem 2009) as in India (Srikant 2009) and many regions of the world. They have become leading protagonists of major global movements, inspiring thousands of activists over the world. For instance, the Zapatista rebellion and community organization have been a major reference for the alter-globalization activists (Pleyers 2010; Holloway 2002). Their impact is even wider among global environmentalists. Indigenous movements have revisited traditional cosmovisions to propose alternative perspectives of development, happiness and a “good life”, and a respectful relation with “Mother Earth” that are far more compatible with the constraints of a limited planet. Among the most widespread concepts, the “Buen Vivir” (“good life” or “living well”, “Sumak Kausai” or “Sumak Quamaña” in Quetchua) draws on Bolivian and Ecuadorian indigenous cosmovisions. It may be summarized by five core principles (Acosta and Martinez 2012; Gudynas 2011): the main goal is to look for harmony, and not for growth and endless development; the respect of “Mother Earth” and of nature, to which human are part of; the primacy of the community over individualism; a focus on complementarity, rather than competition; a de-commodification process in opposition to the “monetarization of everything”. This epistemological, cultural, and economic paradigm proposes an alternative conception of development and happiness that focuses not on growth, accumulation, and mass consumption but on a “good life”, defined as a cultural expression of shared satisfaction of human needs in harmony with nature and the community (Kowii 2012; Cortez 2011). It challenges core principles of modernity, such as the quest for permanent growth and accumulation, the separation of nature and culture, and the primacy of expert knowledge. Indigenous people actually rather refer to the Quechua terms “Sumak Kausay” or “Sumak Kamaña” (Kowii 2012), as the “Buen Vivir” concept has lost most of its cosmogonic and spiritual dimensions in its “translation” (Sousa Santos 2014) to Spanish. However, indigenous people who implement this “Sumak Kamaña” perspective as a personal and collective philosophy and in their community’s daily life are seldom visible in national and international public arenas. Their perspectives have been connected to a broader global environmentalist audience through events and brokers (Tarrow 2005). Global events, such as the 2009 World Social Forum in Belem and the 2010 People Forum on climate change in Cochabamba, have contributed to diffusing their worldviews and their plea for more respectful 5 Idealization of indigenous people should be avoided (Fontaine 2006). Only a minority of indigenous

people and communities are actually involved in initiatives for an alternative way of life. In the meanwhile, many share the aspirations of the mass consumption society.

21 Reconfiguring Ecology in the Twenty-First–Century …

383

relations with nature. Progressive intellectuals have also played an important role. They insist on the need to develop an “epistemology from the South” (Sousa Santos 2014) taking into account a perspective on the world and development that is not only economic. Combining insights from the postcolonial studies (Quijano 2007; Mignolo and Escobar 2010) and inspirations from indigenous traditional knowledge that was often little formalized, progressive intellectuals (e.g. Gudynas 2011; Houtart 2012; Acosta and Martínez 2012) have brought perspectives inspired by the “Buen Vivir” into intellectual and political arenas, often based on an idealized perspective of indigenous communities (Bernal 2012) and missing some of their complexity and their philosophical and cultural dimensions (Kowii 2012). In the current global debates about an “ecological transition”, these perspectives clearly oppose the “scientific ecology” and the market, or engineer proposals to deal with climate change as being rooted in a narrow Western perspective and do not deal with the roots of the problem.

Small Farmers Small farmers were also supposed to disappear with modernization and its urbanization and industrialization processes. “Progress” would replace small farms by latifundia and family agriculture by oil-based food industries. The capitalist, sovietist, Indian (so-called) “green revolution”, and most non-aligned countries’ development projects sacrificed family agriculture on the altar of modern industrialization. Moreover, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, agro-industry and food corporations have figured in the main winners of corporate globalization. In this context, it was unexpected that small farmers’ movements would become major protagonists of global movements. Founded in 1993, the international peasant movement La Vía Campesina quickly became the most global movement network, claiming 200 million members in 88 countries. It has been an actor of the struggle against the World Trade Organization and particularly active in the alter-globalization movement and its World Social Forums (Bringel 2014). Its role is even more central among environmental movements toward a global age. The two main features of the global age (the integration and interdependency at the scale of humanity and the challenges of a limited planet) have indeed been deeply incorporated by La Vía Campesina’s organization, discourses, and aims. It has successfully framed itself and small farmers in general as globalized actors and indispensable stakeholders in dealing with climate change and environmental challenges. Therefore, they relied on a double strategy. First, La Vía Campesina has been particularly successful in combining various scales of actions, from the local to the global, and in maintaining “a balance between local realities and global action” (Desmarais 2007: 135). Agrarian movements put forward an alternative development model that relies on relocalization, re-peasantization, and de-commodification. Their claims for local agroecology and food sovereignty directly challenge the corporate globalization and the global food

384

G. Pleyers

system. At the same time, it has projected itself as a global actor, adopting as one of its main slogans “Globalize struggle, globalize hope”, gathering peasants and organizations from over 88 countries. It has kept its focus on its grassroots constituency and on “relocalization” as the main target, jealously guarding the autonomy in the inclusions of its grassroots voices (Desmarais 2007: 121). But it has also invested the World Social Forum and a number of UN arenas (Gaarde 2017). As Bringel (2014) states, action scales and arenas don’t pre-exist with actors. Social actors, and in particular social movements, build the scales and the arena (Jasper 2010) in which they act. La Vía Campesina has contributed to building the global scale by its struggles and by integrating UN arenas. It has also reshaped the local scale, as a scale that is not opposed to the global nor premodern, but that may contribute to dealing with some challenges of the global age by the rescaling of life, production, and consumption. Secondly, rather than presenting their claims as a corporatist defense of small farmers, La Vía Campesina has successfully framed them as a public interest of humanity (Bringel 2013) and major contributions to dealing with key challenges of the global age: to feed the planet, to protect the environment, and to limit global warming. We must go beyond the anthropocentric model, we must rebuild the cosmovision of our peoples, based on a holistic view of the relationship between the cosmos, mother earth, the air, water and all human beings. Human beings do not own nature but rather form part of all that lives. The small farmers, peasants and indigenous agriculturalists hold in their hands thousands of solutions to climate change (Vía Campesina’s final declaration at the 2010 Summit on Climate in Cancun).

The global age hypothesis provides a convincing framework in explaining the recent appeal and success of indigenous and small farmers’ movements. Indigenous cosmovisions and community and small farmers’ alternatives are not much different from what these actors proposed a few decades ago. The rise of the global age has provided a new space for small farmers and indigenous peoples’ identity and agency and to the recognition of their contribution to humanity. While their claims and projects did not fit in the modern project, they now resonate with the aspirations of thousands worldwide and with the objectives of international institutions. So the last in the modern age shall be the first in the global age.

Critical Consumption and Convivial Movements The aspiration to build a world based on more self-reliant local communities is shared beyond indigenous communities and small farmers. It has recently gained a new impetus all over the Western world. “Relocalization movements” were particularly active in Australia (e.g. Global Trade Watch, 2006), the US, and the UK in the mid-2000s. Hopkins (2011) has given a new impetus to local and ecological “transition initiatives” in the UK and abroad. Cultural movements such as “convivial degrowth” or “voluntary simplicity” (de Bouver 2009) have gained momentum,

21 Reconfiguring Ecology in the Twenty-First–Century …

385

notably in France, and hundreds of local food networks and “community-supported agriculture” have been created since 2000. In the aftermath of the economic crisis, thousands of Southern Europe citizens have turned to local initiatives both to address their needs outside of failed market economy and to foster local solidarity (Conill et al. 2012; Hart et al. 2011). German and US local environmentalists have been particularly active in developing “local common goods” (Boiler 2014). They consider that the change toward a more sustainable society starts by oneself. Personal commitment to the global age and a more sustainable planet involves considerable subjective dimensions such as personal resistance against the “constant formatting by advertisings and the rule of consumption, competition, and constant comparison society” (a young activist in Belgium, 2013).6 They call themselves “objectors to growth and speed”, and question the monopoly of economists over the determination of well-being on the basis of economic growth and the GDP (see Méda 2013). Activists7 recycle and reuse objects, travel by bike and public transports, reduce their consumption, grow vegetables, buy local food, and set up local currencies (Hess 2009). They claim to change the world through prefigurative activism, by implementing alternative practices in their daily lives and local communities (Nun 1989; Epstein 1991; Pleyers 2010, Chaps. 2–4). While decreasing consumption and restraining one’s choices is constraining in a consumption society, activists put much energy in reframing it (and living it) as a happy experience. To be involved in food or environmental movements does not require sacrificing part of one’s life for a cause, they insist. On the opposite, activists claim they live “more intensely” and enjoy “more authentic pleasures” and happiness (Pleyers 2014).8 Local and seasonal food improves the quality of life, both through the sensual experience of eating quality food (Ellix Katz 2009) and through convivial relations with food producers, fellow activists, and neighbors. It is about desalinating oneself. Once you become more conscious of your real needs, you simply become happier (Brussels 2012).9 It is important to explain to people that it is not a sacrifice. On the contrary, they will enjoy better things, like tomatoes that really have a flavor, that their life will actually become better. (Keka, 34, Sustainable Flatbush, New York City, 2010).

Likewise, “voluntary simplicity” practices do not only aim at decreasing personal carbon footprint. It also reduces working time and fosters convivial human relations (Schor 2010; de Bouver 2009; Caillé et al. 2012). As Illich (1973: 28) stated, the 6 The

assertion of activists’ subjectivity and authenticity against consumption society plays as a permanent repetition of the Habermasian confrontation between the Lebenswelt and the system. 7 Many citizens who contribute to these initiatives don’t actually consider themselves as “activists”. ‘I don’t see it as activism. It is just a change in our way of life’ (a Swedish student, interview, 2012). 8 The Italian “Justice Balance” groups constitute an uncommon counter-example. Households meet monthly to present a balance of their consumption and collectively monitor each family’s consumption reduction (Rebughini 2011). 9 “With local food, to celebrate brings back to something much more experiential. Like that tasty tomato, that’s the satisfying experience. (…)You just put it into your mouth and experience that.” (Anne, a food activist in New York City, 2010).

386

G. Pleyers

stake is to “replace productivity by conviviality”. To the anonymity of (super-)market relations, they oppose the authenticity of direct relationships between consumers and local producers. Against widespread social disaffiliation (Castel 2003; Putnam 2000), they recreate social fabric by growing collective gardens or promoting the use of bicycles (Eliasoph and Luhtakallio 2013). Analyzing these actors allows us to gain access to some elements of both subjectivity and agency in the global age. On one side, local and convivial environmental movements show glimpses of the internalization of the rules and constraints of the emerging social configuration as we may well expect cultural transformations connected to a shift to the Global Age to be more visible among these activists, prior to possible dissemination into a broader population. Interviews and fieldwork10 with young environmental activists have shown how deeply the subjectivity and daily experience of young people are reshaped by the consciousness of the global age and its challenges. It transforms daily practices as private as showers, diets, and transport. They share tips to “micro-shower” and reduce the use of water, eat local and season vegetables. Many have become vegetarians and avoid (or reduce) the use of cars and planes. These actors also testify to the rise of an ethics of responsibility specific to the global age and essential to a sustainable life on a limited planet (Jonas 1990; Arnsperger 2011; Hess 2013; Albrow 2013). It includes more sustainable bonds with nature, along with a different concept of the self and of one’s connection to the world.11 Callicott (2012) summarized the main principles of this ethical perspective as the respect to the Earth as a living being (Gaya), the concern for human and nonhuman future generations, and the virtue of self-respect as an individual. On the other side, these actors explore various paths of social agency that put life and experience rather than policies at the core of social change. These movements oppose modernization and top-down development perspectives and propose rescaling life and production and rethinking the meaning and extent of consumption. Most initiatives involve a limited amount of activists and don’t belong to global networks and even less to an international organization. The sociological relevance and historical meaning seldom correspond to the size of a social actor, and it is probably even less the case with our information society (McDonald 2006). From their local territories, these small and local actors contest the core values of our society and thereby manifest a global relevance. Local and personal changes and the internalization of constraints of the global age constitute an indispensable element of the adaptation to the global conditions of life on a limited planet and provide social actors with paths for concrete social agency in a global age. However, pointing to the significance of local movements does not dispense, however, a critical analysis of the empirical and structural limits of these forms of social agency. Empirically, the impact of these initiatives and movements remains limited when confronted with a consumer society that seduces millions of newcomers 10 Interviews in France (2009–2012), New York City (2010–2011) and Rio de Janeiro (2013) and sociological interventions (series of focus groups) with young environmentalists in Belgium (2013). 11 Elias’ (1969) interdependency between the self and social configuration.

21 Reconfiguring Ecology in the Twenty-First–Century …

387

in emerging countries. Analytically, the connection between local or personal change and social transformations at the national and global scales usually remains a blind spot for activists (Pleyers 2010; Young and Schwartz 2012). Can the world be changed only by multiplying individual conversions or building local “resilient” communities? Will the multiplication of “alternative islands” in an ocean of modern capitalist societies manage to alter the system? Or will actors also have to tackle more institutional and political struggles?

Climate Justice NGOs The “Climate Justice Movement” is often used as an umbrella for designating all those activists I have called “global environmentalists”. In this section, I discuss a specific component of this movement, namely professional activists working in NGOs, endowed with strong expertise, monitoring and research capacity, but who maintain a contentious perspective on environmental issues and oppose the marketbased proposals to deal with climate change (which differentiates “climate justice NGOs” from other environmental NGOs. Climate justice activists’ main objective is to “repoliticise” climate and environmental issues. They do so by pointing to the strong connection between climate issues and social justice, and by focusing on advocacy and global regulations while claiming some admiration for grassroots struggles and actors. Climate justice (CJ) NGO activists are thus at the crossroads of two confluences: social and environmental claims; grassroots and institutional perspectives on social change.

Red and Green: “Change the System, Not the Climate” The climate justice movement emerged from a confluence of social and environmental struggles. It is partly rooted in the “environmental turn” of the alterglobalization movement in the second half of the 2000s (Bullard and Müller 2012; Pleyers 2010: 251–256), which generated lively and committed expert networks and initiatives such as the “climate action camps”. The repeated clashes between proand anti-“market solutions” to global warming among civil society organizations also propelled the birth of the “climate justice movement”. Indeed, the “Climate Justice Now!” was founded at the UN conference on climate in Bali, in 2007, in opposition to the positions held by the “Climate Action Network”. The latter was rejected on the grounds that it is dominated by international (mainly Northern) NGOs that consider carbon trade12 and similar market-based solutions as a step toward a more sustainable development. On the contrary, climate justice activists denounce 12 For instance, the Kyoto protocol in place since 2005 established mechanisms for Northern corporations to buy additional emission rights.

388

G. Pleyers

carbon trade as resulting in further financialization of nature (e.g. Durban Declaration on Carbon Trading 2005), and virulently condemn agrofuels (Houtart 2010; De Schutter 2013), “green washing”, and “green capitalism” (Müller and Passadakis 2009; Combes 2013). As stated in their main slogan “System change, not climate change”, CJ activists consider that global warming requires structural changes in the economic and development model, rather than adjustments at the margins. We want to participate in another model of development, based on social needs and responsibility for ecological damage (Belgian trade union activist, on his way to Copenhagen 2009).

Some scholars and activists insist on the fact that global warming and environmental damages affect humanity as a whole and consequently lead to a focus on the common destiny of humanity rather than class and national divides (Chakrabarty 2009; see Bonneuil and Fressoz 2013). On their side, climate justice activists insist that human beings don’t share the same responsibility in global warming and in the destruction of the environment (see notably the Declaration of the 2002 Climate Justice Summit in Delhi). They emphasize that 7% of mankind account for 50% of the greenhouse gas emissions (xxx), while the poor suffer more from global warming and natural hazards. Climate justice activists also point to a differentiated responsibility for industrialized countries, which notably results in a “climate debt” they owe to the Global South. They consider that to deal with global warming and the environmental crisis, we need to attend to dealing with inequalities, North/South relations, and neoliberal globalization. While Albrow’s global age hypothesis pointed to a rather consensual shift toward an awareness of the unity of humanity, social movements develop a more contentious perspective. They point to the significance of social conflicts for a fairer global age. Thus, some activists and committed intellectuals merge climate justice and anticapitalism frames. It is particularly the case among committed intellectuals in the South (Guerrero 2011), but also in Western Europe, where “eco-socialism” has become a vibrant intellectual space (Löwy 2011). It contributes to a master frame that points to a “civilization crisis” (Houtart 2010; Boff 2010) provoked by the capitalist and industrial system. Humanity thus faces a major “civilization change” that requires deep reshaping in the economic system as well as in societies, global governance, and values. We all agree that capitalism is the problem, but it goes beyond. It’s also productivism, a whole western utilitarianism concept of nature. It is deeply embedded in our minds. This is why we need to have a dialogue with other cultures, with other civilizations (G. Azzam, President of ATTAC-France, at the WSF 2013).

Like the global age perspective, the frame of a “civilization change” maintains that the limits of the planet require us to strengthen global governance and to restructure our social, economic, and political models and institutions. Both also state that the challenges of the global age, which include climate change and environmental crises, cannot be dealt with in the modern economic and development paradigm. The climate justice movement points to the need to develop a more contentious perspective on the global age and on the way to it. While the sense of unity of

21 Reconfiguring Ecology in the Twenty-First–Century …

389

humanity is a core element of the global age hypothesis, it would gain from a better integration of social and economic inequalities, grassroots actors’ claims, and social conflicts. To put it in a nutshell, the climate justice movement is about reclaiming social justice and democracy in the global age.

Institutional Civil Society with an Eye on the Grassroots Climate justice NGOs are also at the crossroads between institutional and grassroots approaches. On one side, CJ activists consider perspectives that focus on local change and individual purchasing habits as illusory and limited in scope (Guerrero 2011). They focus on convincing governments to adopt national and international regulations. CJ “radical NGOs” thus invest much of their energy in some of the typical functions of institutionalized civil society actors (Kaldor 2003). They monitor international institutions and negotiations, draw up expert reports, do their best to convince policy-makers, and raise public awareness. On the other side, CJ activists constantly denounce “big environmental NGOs” and oppose both their very institutional and top-down approach and support of market-based solutions to cope with climate change. They constantly reassert the strongly contentious dimension of their claims and discourses and repeatedly refer to “grassroots struggles”, preferably from the Global South (and often in an idealized way). This contentious stance stems from two main sources. First, the climate justice movement was founded via the encounter of environmental NGOs mostly based in the Global North and social movements from the Global South including small farmers, indigenous peoples, and delegates from local struggles protesting against state “development” projects (mines, dams, big plants, highways, etc.…). Successive international summits on climate change and the environment (Bali 2007; Copenhagen 2009; Cancun 2010; Rio 2012 …) favored confluences among these actors. Insights from Southern movements and perspectives and indigenous peoples’ participation were particularly strong at the 2009 World Social Forum in Belem and the 2010 “Peoples’ World Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth” held in Cochabamba, Bolivia, that gathered 25,000 people from 147 countries. The second root of this positioning lies in the activist career (Fillieule 2009) of “young adults” now turned into professional NGO activists. A few years ago, they were part of “radical” environmentalist networks, with a pronounced horizontal “alter-activist” culture (Pleyers 2010: Chap. 3). As professional activists working for NGOs, they embody the institutionalization of “from the 2000s”. Their suspicion toward “big environmental NGOs” and contentious approaches, however, also confirms a “gradual SMO-ization of environmental NGOs active at the EU level, with a growing tendency to participate in less conventional forms of collective action and

390

G. Pleyers

to express increasingly explicit criticism of EU policies” (Della Porta and Caiani 2009: 172; see also Guerrero 2011).13 The failure of the UN negotiations on climate in Copenhagen (2009) became a new unifying reference for the climate justice movement and an apparent turning point in its strategy. Those who were disappointed with the UN process14 joined the ones who had never believed in it. As Pablo Solon, former Bolivian Ambassador at the UN, stated when he opened the Climate Space at World Social Forum (WSF) 2013 in Tunis, There is one thing in common among all the people here: we all believe it [climate change] won’t be solved in the UN. All our energy can’t be focused on the UN discussion. This is an issue that will be solved in the streets, in a struggle. We have to think differently: not which is the UN commission where we could be heard, but what is happening at the grassroots… and I have been an ambassador in the UN.

The strategy based on institutional change being blocked, climate justice activists decided to focus on the support to grassroots alternatives and struggles against private interests (notably mines and fracking) and infrastructure projects. However, this new consensual discourse cannot conceal the disarray of their strategy after the Copenhagen summit failure. By claiming that change will not come from institutional agreements but from grassroots’ actors, climate justice NGOs put themselves in an uncomfortable position and undermined their raison d’être. First, NGOs, even radical ones, are not grassroots actors. They may provide some occasional support, expertise, or media coverage of local movements, but with the Web 2.0, grassroots networks don’t need NGO intermediaries. Secondly, as stated above, climate justice NGOs exist precisely because their activists believe that local solutions are not sufficient to deal with global challenges. As a result of this strategic shift, the very role of climate justice NGOs is being questioned. Their contribution to the global environmentalist movement lies in their capacity to connect local environmental struggles (e.g. water movements and protests against a dam…) to international movements and institutions. “We have to make people aware, to give them a more holistic approach.”; “We have to make them feel that their local struggle is part of something wider” (two young CJ NGO professionals, Brussels 2013). This “scaling-up process” transforms both the scale (from a

13 These dimensions were the core results of a sociological intervention we conducted with young climate justice activists working in NGOs around the European institutions in Brussels in 2013. This series of 5 focus groups was conducted with Christian Scholl and Priscilla Claeys, in the framework of the research project “From global justice to climate justice”, co-founded by the Université Catholique de Louvain and the Marie Curie program. 14 The delusion towards institutional change is even bigger for environmental justice activists and intellectual in Ecuador. Five years after proclaiming the “Buen vivir” as a national objective in the new constitution, R. Correa’s government has largely reduced it to rhetoric and focuses on the construction of a welfare state based on the resources of extraction industries and some insertion in the global economy.

21 Reconfiguring Ecology in the Twenty-First–Century …

391

local to international) and the meanings of the struggle15 (from the defense of a local livelihood to environmental justice). To deliver this key contribution, CJ NGOs have to maintain one foot in local struggles and the other one in institutional negotiations. The disillusionment after the failure of the UN negotiations in Copenhagen jeopardizes this stance. However, contrary to many of their discourses, CJ NGOs and activists haven’t stopped monitoring and lobbying UN and European institutions, along with all the stakeholders of the UN climate negotiations. The next major Climate Summit in Paris in 2015 remains in everyone’s head, hopeful that it will be conducive to a better tackling of climate justice, or at least that the movement will gain impetus, thanks to the coverage of the event. In the meantime, as stated during the final assembly of the Climate Space at the 2013 WSF, “There is one key question: How do we build a global movement for climate. Locally based but also global appeal and strategy”.

Global Environmentalists Many other actors belong to the global environmentalists’ arena, and would have deserved a more thorough examination in this article. It is notably the case of some green parties and policy-makers (Richardson and Rootes 2006; Jamison et al. 1991), and local resistances to development projects (mines, dams, and airports …) (Svampa and Antonelli 2009; Srikant 2009). In the US, “grassroots environmental alliances” connect environmental and social activism to “build an environmental movement from below” in poor neighborhoods. They struggle against the intersection of social and racial injustice with food deserts (Winne 2008) and environmental injustice (Dawson, in this volume). Networks of committed scholars also play an important role. Scientists have gathered evidence on global warming and raise public awareness (IPCC 2013), and nonconventional economists who challenge GDP as an indicator of wealth and the meaning of economic growth (Latouche 2011; Schorr 2010; Jackson 2008; Méda 2013) and propose economic rationalities adapted to the constraints of the global age. Particularly insightful intellectuals and activists’ spaces have rescued the concept of “commons” to think and implement alternative management of common resources beyond state and market, and beyond the false dichotomy of institutional regulations and personal choices (Boiler 2014).

15 “An increase of the level of generality”, to take the words of Boltanski and Thévenot (1991), a move “from local interest to historicity” in Touraine’s perspective or the building of a “master frame” for the frame analysis theories (Snow and Benford 2000).

392

G. Pleyers

Conclusion: From the Global Age to Social Movements, and Back The heuristic connection between social movements and a social configuration is two-sided. The global age hypothesis has shed new light on a specific meaning of environmentalist actors. Conversely, analyzing these social movements and their claims provide us with empirical elements to grasp both social agencies in and toward the global age, and elements of life, society, and public debates in the global age. On the one hand, these movements offer useful insights for a better understanding of social agency toward and in the global age. By combining expertise and agency in international negotiations and institutions, with grassroots struggles and bottomup strategies, global environmentalists can explore innovative strategies to foster habits and public policies more consistent with a finite planet. At an analytical level, these movements provide elements for a multidimensional and multi-scalar approach to social change, from local to global, and from personal change to institutional regulations. Case study analyses should stress the meanings and potential of these actors and strategies as well as underline their limits and impasses. Environmentalist movements are now widespread, but they have not reduced the frenetic increase of consumption and the depletion of natural resources. Climate justice activists’ impact on international negotiations and public policy remains limited compared to the urgency of the challenges. Much of the Western population feels less concerned with environmental issues than with unemployment, economic crises and growth, and the rise of China as an economic superpower and environmental super polluter bringing about new challenges (Zhang and Barr 2013). Moreover, there is no system or determinist force sparking toward a smooth and untroubled adaptation to the constraints of the global age. Especially as social agency plays on both sides. Counter-movements require a particular attention (Meyer and Staggenborg 1996). Conservative movements promote a modernization perspective and are effectively engaged in maintaining the mainstream model. They include powerful lobbies (Brulle 2013) notably founded by the agro-food corporations (Nestle 2007) or oil and cars companies. Urry (2013: Chap. 4; see also Bonneuil and Fressoz 2013) evokes the efficiency of US conservative movements and car and oil companies’ lobbies in organizing a backlash against environmental movements and values in the 1970s. More recently, the same actors have massively founded climate-skeptics think tanks (Brulle 2013). On the other hand, these movements provide insightful empirical data to understand the nature of life and society in the global age and point to major challenges of this emerging social configuration to be thoroughly explored by social scientists. Prefigurative movements show the glimpses of life in a global age and point to some of its major challenges and collective debates. The move toward a global age is not only a matter of international negotiations and institutions. It is a daily reality for citizens the world over. While actions and worldviews of policy-makers remain largely shaped by the modern context, challenges, and constraints, elements of a different social configuration are experienced, lived, and produced in the shadow of everyday

21 Reconfiguring Ecology in the Twenty-First–Century …

393

life, local initiatives, and citizen debates. It shows the rise of an ethics that better corresponds to the global age. The global age analytical proposal would gain from integrating more social agency and contentious perspectives. Global environmentalists’ contentious stance contrasts with more consensual approaches of environmental issues than those promoted by major environmental NGOs (such as the WWF) at the global scale or the “transition movement” at the local scale. This contentious perspective reminds us that both the path toward the global age may not be peaceful and that the global age will probably not be a consensual era. On the opposite, it will enhance social conflicts, notably around the collective management of limited resources and economic “bads”. Indigenous communities, small peasants, and the Global South in general were largely excluded from modernity and from the industrial era collective bargaining and welfare state. The advent of the global age has provided them with a new space. They took this opportunity to make their voices heard in national and international institutions and to challenge the mainstream proposals to deal with the challenges of the global age. The climate justice movement also contributes to a major renewing of critical perspectives in a time increasingly shaped by the constraints and challenges of the global age. It points to major inconsistencies in the modern economic system on a limited planet. Climate justice activists transform the claims of both social and environmental justice. Social justice should include intergenerational justice, environmental and climate debts, redistribution policies at the global level, and an aggiornamento of the Western welfare state, relying on the economic growth that destroys nature and on the exploitation of workers in the South. Therefore, they stress both the need for international regulations and institutions and inspirations from nonWestern knowledge. The combination of these critical approaches and the global age perspective points that what is at stake in the current crisis and ecological challenges is modernity, both as a utopia, a social organization, and an ethos based on a permanent growth. It represents a major epistemological challenge for both social sciences and social movements, as their worldviews are deeply rooted in and shaped by modernity (Echevarria 1995). Empirical studies of actors who prefigurate and foster a transition to a global age thus provide us insightful perspectives to rethink society, regulations, solidarity, and emancipation in the twenty-first century.

References Acosta, A., and E. Martínez (eds.). 2012. El Buen Vivir. Quito: Abya Yala. Albrow, M. 1996. The global age. Cambridge: Polity. Albrow, M. 2013. Responsibility as a Fundamental Category in the Global Age, Conference ‘Globality in the Space of Reflection’, Bonn 25 April. Arnsperger, C. 2011. L’homme économique et le sens de la vie. Paris: Textuel. Bauman, Z. 2004. Wasted Lives. Cambridge: Polity. Beck, U. 1997. Was ist Globalisiering?. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp. Best, S., D. Kellner. 1997. The Postmodern Turn. New York: Guilford Press.

394

G. Pleyers

Biekart, K., and A. Fowler. 2012. A Civic Agency Perspective on Change. Development 55 (2): 181–89. Boff, L. 2010. Do iceberg à la arca de Noé. In O nascimiento de uma ética planetária. Rio de Janeiro: Mar de ideias. Boiller, D. 2014. Think Like a Commoner: A Short Introduction to the Life of the Commons”. Gabriola Island: New Society Publishers. Bonneuil, C., and Fressoz, J. B. 2013. L’anthropocène. Paris: Seuil. Bringel, B. 2013. Soberanía alimentaria: la práctica de un concepto,. Bringel, B. 2014. Social Movements and Contemporary Modernity: Complex Internationalism and Paths of Global Contestation. In: Global Modernity and Social Contestation, ed. Breno Bringel and José Maurício Domingues. London: Sage. Brulle, R.J. 2013. Institutionalizing Delay: Foundation Funding and the Creation of US Climate Change Counter-Movement Organizations. Climatic Change 1–14. Bullard, N., and Müller, T. 2012. Beyond the ‘Green Economy’. Development 55 (1): 54–62. Caillé, A., M. Humbert, S. Latouche, and P. Viveret. 2012. De la convivialité. Paris: La découverte. Callicott, B. 2012. Ecology: An Ethical Perspective. Nature Education Knowledge 3: 16–22. Castel R. (2003) Transformation of the Social Question, New Brunswick, NJ. Chakrabarty, D. 2009. The Climate of History: Four Theses. Critical Inquiry 35: 197–222. Cochet Y., J.P. Dupuy, and S. Latouche. 2012. Où va le monde? 2012–2022: une décennie au devant des catastrophes, Paris: 1001 nuits. Combes, M. 2013. La nature n’a pas de prix. Paris: Les liens qui libèrent. Conill, J., M. Castells, A. Cardenas, and L. Servon. 2012. Beyond the Crisis: The Emergence of Alternative Economic Practises. In Aftermath. The Cultures of the Economic Crisis, ed. M. Castells, J. Caraça, and G. Cardoso. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Cortez, D. 2009. La construcción social del “Buen Vivir” (Sumak Kawsay) en EcuadorEn: Actas del Congress for Intercultural Philosophy: Good life as Humanized life, vol. VIII. Seoul: Ewha Womans University. Cortez, D. 2011. La Constrcucción Social del Buen Vivir en Ecuador. Quito: PADH. Crutzen, P. 2002. Geology of Mankind. Nature 415: 23. De Bouver, E. 2009. La simplicité volontaire. Charleroi: Couleurs libre. De Schutter, O. 2013. Note on the impacts of the EU biofuels policy on the right to food. New York: United Nations Human Rights. Della Porta, D., and Caiani, M. 2009. Social Movements and Europeanization. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Desmarais, Annette Aurélie. 2007. La Vía Campesina: Globalization and the Power of Peasants. Halifax and London: Fernwood Publishing and Pluto Press. Echevarria, B. 1995.Las ilusiones de la modernidad. México: El equilibrista. Elias, N. 1969. Le processus de civilisation. Paris: Fayard. Elias, N. 1991. La société des individus. Paris: Fayard. Eliasoph, N., and E. Luhtakallio. 2013. Personal Attachment and Global Climate Change: promoting bicycling in Helsinki, Los Angeles, and Paris, session Theorizing Context. New York: ASA. Ellix Katz, S. 2009. The Revolution will not be Microwaved, 2nd ed., White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green Publishing [2008]. Epstein, B. 1991. Political Protest and Cultural Revolution. Berkeley: University of California Press. Escobar, A. 1995. Encountering Development. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Escobar, A. 2009. Territories of Difference. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Eyerman, R., and A. Jamison. 1991. Social Movements: A Cognitive Approach. Pennsylvania: Penn State U.P. Fillieule, O. 2009. Carrirèe militante. In Dictionnaire des mouvements sociaux, ed. O. Fillieule, L. Mathieu, and C. Péchu. Paris: Presses de Sciences Po. Fontaine, G. 2006. Convergences et tensions entre ethnicité et écologisme. Autrepart 38: 63–80. Gaarde, I. 2017. Peasants negotiating a global policy space. London: Routledge.

21 Reconfiguring Ecology in the Twenty-First–Century …

395

Gudynas, E. 2011. Tensiones, contradicciones y oportunidades de la dimensión ambiental del Buen Vivir. In Vivir bien, ed. H. Farah and L. Vasapollo. CIDEZ: La Paz. Guerrero, D. G. 2011. The Gobal Climate Justice Movement. In Global Civil Society 2011, ed. H. Seckinelgin and M. Albrow, 120–127. London: Palgrave. Hache, E. ed. 2012. Ecologie politique. Cosmos, communautés, milieux. Paris: Amsterdam. Hart, K., J.L. Laville, Catani 1. 2011. The Human Economy, Cambridge: Polity. Hess, D. 2009. Localist Movements in a Global Economy. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Hess, G. 2013. Ethiques de la nature. Paris: Puf. Hocquenghem, J. 2009. Le rendez-vous de Vicam. Paris: Cascades. Holloway, J. 2002. Change the World Without Taking Power, London. Hopkins, R. 2011. The Transition Companion. Devon: Green Books. Houtart, F. 2010. Agrofuels Big Profits, Ruined Lives and Ecological Destruction. London: Pluto Press. Houtart, F. 2012. De los bienes comunes a los bienes comunes de la humanidad. In Un paradigma poscapitalista: el bien común de la humanodad, ed. G. Houtart and B. Daiber. Ruth: Panama. http://www.srfood.org/images/stories/pdf/officialreports/20101021_access-to-land-report_en.pdf. Illich, I. 1973. La convivialité. Paris: Seuil. IPCC. 2013. Fifth Assessment Report: Climate Change 2013. New York: United Nations. Jackson, T. 2008. Prosperity Withouth Growth Economics for a Finite Planet. New York: Earthscan. Jamison, A., R. Eyerman, and J. Cramer. 1991. The Making of the New Environmental Consciousness. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Jasper, J. 2010. Social Movement Theory Today: Toward a Theory of Action? Sociology Compass 10: 1–12. Jonas, H. 1990. Le principe responsabilité. Paris: Cerf. Kaldor, M. 2003. Global Civil Society: An Answer to War. Cambridge: Polity. Klein (2008) The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. New York: Metropolitan books. Kowii, A. 2012. El Sumak Kawsay. Quito: UASB. Latouche, S. 2011. Vers une société d’abondance frugale. Paris: Mille et une nuits. Le Bot, Y. 2009. La grande révolte indienne. Paris: Laffont. Löwy, M. 2011. Écosocialisme, Paris: 1001 Nuits. McDonald, K. 2006. Global Movements. Londres: Blackwell. Meda, D. 2013. La mystique de la croissance. Paris: Flammarion. Meyer, D., and Staggenborg, S. 1996. Movements, Countermovements, and the Structure of Political Opportunity. American Journal of Sociology 101 (6): 1628–1660. Mignolo, W., and Á. Escobar. 2010. Globalization and the Decolonial. New York: Routledge. Müller, T., Passadakis. 2009. Another Capitalism is Possible? From World Economic Crisis to Green Capitalism. In Sparking a World-wide Energy Revolution, ed. K. Abramsky. Oakland: AK Press. Nestle, M. 2007. Food Politics. Berkley: University of California Press. Newell & Paterson—”The Carbon Economy”. Julien Artoisenet. Nun, J. 1989. Rebelión del coro. Estudios sobre la racionalidad política y el sentido común. Buenos Aires: Nueva Visión. Pleyers, G. 2010. Alter-Globalization. Cambridge: Polity. Pleyers, G. 2011. La consommation critique. Paris: Desclée de Brouwer. Pleyers, G. 2014. Pleasure and Happiness in Food Movements. SMAG Working Paper, www.ucl ouvain.be/smag. Putnam, R. 2000. Bowling Alone: America’s Declining Social Capital. New York: Simon & Schuster. Quijano, A. 2007. Coloniality and Modernity/Rationality. Cultural Studies 21 (2–3): 168–178. Rebughini, P. 2011. La consommation critique en Italie. In La consommation critique, ed. G. Pleyers, 133–146. Richardson, D., and C. Rootes. 2006. The Green Challenge. London: Routledge. Schor. 2010. True Wealth. New York: Penguin. Sousa Santos, B. 2014. Epistemologies of the South, Paradigm.

396

G. Pleyers

Srikant, P. 2009. Tribal Movement in Orissa: A Struggle Against Modernisation? ISEC Working Paper 215, Bangalore Svampa, M., and M. Antonelli (eds.). 2009. Minería transnacional, narrativas del desarrollo y resistencias sociales. Buanos Aires: Biblios. Tarrow, S. 2005. The New Transnational Activism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Touraine, A. 2002. From Understanding Society to Discovering the Subject. Anthropological Theory 2 (4): 387–98. Urry, J. 2012. Climate Change and Society. Cambridge: Polity. Urry, J. 2013. Societies Beyond Oil. London: Zed books. Vasi, B. 2010. Winds of change. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Winne, L. 2008. Closing the Food Gap. Boston: Beacon Press. Young, K., and M. Schwartz. 2012. Can Prefigurative Politics Prevail? Journal of Classical Sociology 12 (2): 220–239. Zhang, J., and M. Barr. 2013. Green Politics in China. London: Pluto.

Geoffrey Pleyers is a Professor at the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium, he is the President of ISA Research Committee 47 “Social movements” and will preside over the 2020 World Forum of Sociology. He chairs the research program “Social movements in the global age” at the University of Louvain, and at the Collège d’Etudes Mondiales in Paris. His research focuses on social movements, youth activism, ecology, critical consumption, democracy, and globalization, and among his publications are Alter-Globalization. Becoming Actors in the Global Age (Polity 2011) and Movimientos sociales en el siglo XXI (CLACSO 2018).

Chapter 22

Globalization, Marginalization, and the External Arena Robert Schaeffer

Abstract The crisis of globalization has contributed to the marginalization and exit of people in the postcolonial periphery and growing isolationism in the core. These developments have reduced the “footprint” of the capitalist world-system and contributed to the (re)emergence of what Immanuel Wallerstein called the “external arena.” In the periphery, falling core demand has reduced earnings from commodity production, while debt crisis and government corruption has made it difficult to generate economic growth or provide the infrastructure needed to curb population growth. The result has been the creation in many countries of “low-level equilibrium traps” that prevent any real economic “development.” Moreover, sectarian conflicts over scarce resources have erupted, and many people have sought to escape poverty and violence by migrating to the core. In the core, states have become skeptical about the benefits of aid to corrupt governments in the periphery, indifferent about trade, weary of endemic sectarian violence, and alarmed by immigration. So they have reduced investment, foreign aid, and trade with much of the postcolonial periphery and built “walls” to secure their frontiers. This chapter examines how the crisis of globalization contributed both to the marginalization in the periphery and isolationism in the core.

The crisis of globalization accelerated the marginalization and exit of people from peripheral states into an “external arena” where people do not meaningfully participate in the capitalist world-system (Wallerstein 1974: 301–302). While globalization typically integrated economic, political, and social ties, it also led to the disintegration of these ties in some places. These developments reduced the footprint of the globalizing world and resulted in the fortification of borders along the frontier that divides the capitalist world from the external arena. The external arena emerged because many postcolonial peripheral states across Africa failed to develop economically and because the rich post-imperialist states in the North grew indifferent to their problems and increasingly hostile to their fate. R. Schaeffer (B) California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, CA, USA e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 I. Rossi (ed.), Challenges of Globalization and Prospects for an Inter-civilizational World Order, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44058-9_22

397

398

R. Schaeffer

Back in the 1950s, Raul Prebisch and Richard Nelson warned that development in the periphery might fail. Prebisch argued that the prices for raw materials produced in the periphery would fall and that a long-term decline in their earnings was “not casual or accidental but deeply ingrained in the world trading system” (Maizels 1993: 105–106). Over time, peripheral states would earn less from their exports and pay more for imported manufactured goods. This “unequal exchange” would contribute to “under development.” At the same time, Nelson (1956) warned that if infant mortality declined and fertility rates remained high in peripheral states, as they did in the postwar period, rapid population growth would eat up any economic gains and prevent any real development. He argued that economic and demographic developments— marginal economic growth and rapid population growth—would create a “low-level equilibrium trap” that would tighten the grip of poverty on people in many settings. In retrospect, Prebisch and Nelson were right about these problems in some poor countries, particularly in Africa, but wrong about them in Latin America and Asia, where governments managed to stimulate economic growth and curb population growth. For example, between 1950 and 1980, peripheral states in Latin America and India promoted import-substitutionist industrialization to develop manufacturing and stimulate economic development (Schaeffer 1997a: 51–52). Citizens practiced family planning and reduced fertility rates, which slowed population growth dramatically (Schaeffer 1997b: 222–224). Fertility rates in Latin America plunged from 6 in 1960 to 2.09 in 2015 and rates in India fell from 6 to 2.4 in the same period (Google 2018). Poor states in East Asia took a somewhat different approach. They adopted exportoriented industrialization to spur economic growth and, like the others, supported family planning practices that curbed population growth (Cumings 1987). Fertility rates in Asia fell from 5.5 in 1960 to 1.75 in 2015. China provided the most dramatic case of these developments. When the Great Leap Forward failed in 1959, China fell into a low-level equilibrium trap for the next 20 years (Schaeffer 2012). But U.S. recognition and Deng’s 1979 reforms, which used export-led industrialization to accelerate economic growth and the one-child policy to curb population growth, integrated China into the global world-economy and engineered its escape from a low-level equilibrium trap. A handful of other poor, peripheral states used oil revenues to spur economic growth, though this proved more beneficial to countries with small populations (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the Emirates, and Libya) than to countries with large populations (Venezuela, Nigeria, Iraq, Iran, and Indonesia) (Schaeffer 2005: 255–270). Significantly, they all curbed population growth. For example, fertility rates in the Middle East fell from 6.8 in 1960 to 2.8 in 2015. Although these peripheral states achieved different degrees of economic growth, they all adopted strategies to develop manufacturing industries and curb population growth. But most countries in Africa did neither. Instead of developing industry, they continued to rely on raw-material exports, which resulted in a “structural disarticulation,” so that “what is produced [raw materials] is not consumed and what is consumed [industrial goods] is not produced” (Taylor 2014: 129). Africa’s share of global manufacturing declined to 1.1% in 2008 (Taylor 2014: 141–146). Moreover,

22 Globalization, Marginalization, and the External Arena

399

African countries did not significantly slow population growth. In Africa, fertility rates declined only a little, from 6.6 in 1960 to 5 in 2015, which was twice as high as the world average: 2.45. And this led to the kind of problems that Prebisch and Nelson predicted. Of course, Africa is a diverse place. A few postcolonial states—South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Angola, and Zambia—prospered, their economic development fueled by mineral resources (oil, gold, copper). But other African countries did not develop manufacturing industries and instead continued to rely on raw-material exports to finance development. Moreover, they did not curb population growth. As a result, they fell into low-level equilibrium traps. These countries stretch across north-central Africa and include Mali, Niger, Chad, Libya, South Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia, and Yemen and reach south to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Other peripheral states—Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, and Madagascar—have similar problems, though conditions have not deteriorated to the same extent, and risk being swept into the emerging external arena in the center of Africa. Although other peripheral countries around the world are also at risk (El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Venezuela, Myanmar, Laos, and Afghanistan), the focus here will be on poor states in Africa, where the process of disintegration is most advanced, where events confirm many of the predictions made by Prebisch and Nelson. Still, when thinking about disintegration and the emergence of an external arena, remember that the process of integration, the expansion of the European world-economy around the globe, proceeded in fits and start (Wallerstein 1974). Given the history of integration, it is likely that the process of disintegration (Dickinson and Schaeffer 2001: 286–287) will also be a protracted and uneven process, which has been underway in Africa since the 1980s. [Cross-refer to African papers]. Moreover, while Prebisch and Nelson identified some of the problems that prevented development, they did not predict how debt, technological innovation, climate change, and government corruption would retard economic growth and prevent the demographic transitions that could curb population growth. This chapter explains why some peripheral states failed to secure economic development, how failure fueled conflict over scarce resources, and how conflict triggered a massive migration to the rich countries. It explains why officials in the rich countries initially promoted development but eventually became economically and politically indifferent to events in the periphery. It shows how the conflict in and migration from peripheral countries fueled growing core-country hostility toward terrorists and migrants from what President Donald Trump called “the shithole countries” (Stolberg and Kaplan 2018). And it explains how terrorism and immigration persuaded rich countries to fortify the borders that separate the globalized world from the external arena.

400

R. Schaeffer

Underdevelopment in Africa According to Nelson (1956), “underdevelopment” in peripheral states was a product of two problems: weak economic growth and rapid population growth. If the population grew faster than the economy, the result would be zero or negative growth. Let us look first at the reasons for anemic economic growth in Africa since 1950, when the process of decolonization began. Newly independent African states relied on the production of raw materials— coffee, sugar, cocoa, rubber, oil, copper, and gold—to provide the jobs, schools, roads and hospitals, electricity, and clean water needed to promote economic growth. But their dependence on export commodities was a problem, Prebisch argued, for two reasons. First, he said they would all work hard to expand their production of commodities so they could earn the money they needed to finance development. But this increased the supply of these goods and led to falling prices, so they all worked harder for less. Second, he said that corporations in rich countries would use their monopoly power to drive down the prices paid to producers. Moreover, because many raw materials are bought and sold in dollars, successive dollar devaluations also reduced producers’ real incomes (Schaeffer 2003: 51–75). As a result of these developments, commodity prices in Africa and around the world fell by one-half between 1950 and 1970 (Schaeffer 2003: 119–152). Things changed in the 1970s. Global oil and food shortages drove commodity prices up sharply and fueled rapid economic growth for a brief period. Many countries in Africa, Latin America, and Eastern Europe then borrowed heavily to expand production so they could capture the benefits of high prices. African debt grew from $6 billion in 1970 to $183 billion by 1992 (Taylor 2010: 114). But the onset of the debt crisis in 1980 triggered a global recession, which reduced the demand and lowered prices for raw materials. To repay debt, borrowers in Africa and around the world increased production to earn the money they needed to repay debt, but this also contributed to falling prices, which fell by one-third between 1980 and 1982 (Schaeffer 2003: 103). Africa was particularly hard hit by falling prices because it depended more heavily on raw materials to generate the income needed to repay loans (countries in Latin America and Eastern Europe also earned money from industrial goods). The debt crisis crippled economic development in Africa for the next 25 years. In 2005, rich countries and U.N. financial institutions finally provided substantial debt relief— about $100 billion—for impoverished African countries (Sulaiman 2014). But many countries continued to borrow from private sources, so that African countries now owe about as much as they did in 2005, before the bailout. As the economist Joseph Stiglitz said, “They get over-indebted, they get a bailout from the World Bank and IMF, and they start all over… their memory is short and their greed is large” (Sulaiman 2014). On the contrary, the Latin American debt crisis has eased, and debt as a percentage of GDP has fallen by half since the 1980s, except in Argentina.

22 Globalization, Marginalization, and the External Arena

401

During the 1980s, corporations in the rich countries developed new technologies that allowed them to replace raw materials from the periphery with goods originating in the core, a process of “substitutionism” and “dematerialization” (Schaeffer 2007: 203–220). Because new technologies in the core reduced the demand for raw materials from the periphery, core countries became disinterested in economic development in the periphery. They just didn’t need peripheral stuff any more. This came as a great shock to producers in the periphery, both because the rich countries had long insisted that colonized and then independent countries produce raw materials and because they had a few, if any, economic alternatives. Climate change has also adversely affected economic growth. Scientists recently found that Sahelian Africa had “dried faster in the 20th century than at any time over the last 2,000 years” (Sengupta 2018). Hotter weather has dried out soils, reduced productivity of export commodities, dried up water sources, drained dams and reduced power generation, contributed to deforestation and desertification, and fueled the migration of “environmental refugees.” Climate change has also undermined subsistence agriculture and pastureland for cows, goats, and sheep. This contributed to rising food prices and growing hunger in the 2000s. In the Horn of Africa, 12 million people now rely on food aid to survive (Sengupta 2018). Governments in African states also took steps that retarded economic development (Moyo 2015). In many states, corrupt officials diverted money from trade, foreign investment, foreign aid, and loans into private pockets, not public coffers, where it might have been used to build roads, railroads, power grids, schools, and hospitals. They deprived government agencies of the money needed to pay bureaucrats, soldiers, and police, who then demanded bribes for their services in lieu of pay. Because bureaucrats did not pay taxes on illegal incomes, they starved public coffers of much-needed revenue. Meanwhile, private businesses and citizens avoided paying bribes and conducted their affairs in the informal, black-market economy, which makes up half of all economic activity in many countries (De Soto 2000: 28–32). Because the income citizens earned from the informal cash-based economy is not easily taxed, it cannot be used to finance public infrastructure (roads, schools, etc.). And because people don’t deposit their savings in the banks, where it might be taxed, financial institutions cannot make loans to finance economic development. As a result, government corruption retarded economic development. Government corruption also indirectly fueled population growth in Africa.

Rapid Population Growth Nelson (1956) warned that rapid population growth might consume the gains from economic development in peripheral countries. But he did not anticipate the subsequent development of reproductive technologies (the pill) and social developments— girls attending school longer, delaying marriage, and women entering the workforce—that dramatically lowered birth rates and slowed population growth in many poor countries. Although China used coercive measures (one-child policies) to induce

402

R. Schaeffer

change, the economist Sen (1994: 69) observed that many countries did so voluntarily, sometimes despite the opposition of pro-natalist governments and religious institutions. For example, many poor Catholic countries in Latin America and Moslem countries in Asia made demographic transitions that slowed population growth, despite the opposition of religious leaders to family planning (Schaeffer 1997b: 224). Still, rapid population growth remained a problem in many African countries, and their inability to make a demographic transition crippled development. The population of countries in Sub-Saharan Africa increased by 200 million between 2010 and 2020 and “the world’s poorest region will more than double,” to 2.4 billion by 2050 (Cincotta 2011: 189). Fertility rates remained high: seven children per woman in Niger; six in Somalia, Uganda, Zambia, Congo, and Angola; five in Mozambique, Ethiopia, Nigeria, and a dozen other countries (CIA 2015). African countries have been unable to curb population growth for complex reasons (Linden 2017). After the debt crisis, the World Bank and IMF argued that debt repayment had a higher priority than public goods and services. Meanwhile, patriarchal cultures and religions advanced pro-natalist ideologies, opposed family planning, kept girls out of school, and defended early marriage. For example, President Youweri Masev argued that Uganda was “underpopulated” and said, “I am not one of those worried about a ‘population explosion.’ This is a great resource” (Rice 2006). These institutional and cultural practices disadvantaged women and girls and kept fertility rates high in Africa, though for different reasons (Fisher 2013). Inadequate funding for public education made it difficult for poor families to send or keep girls in school, so they attended school less frequently and for fewer years than boys. Girls with little education had high rates of illiteracy, married early, and had more children during their childbearing years. This kind of “long-term childbearing” kept fertility rates high (Wilson Center 2014). Infectious diseases, inadequate supplies of antibiotics and medicines, and inadequate funding for clinics and staff kept infant mortality high. Where the risk of disease and infant mortality is high, women engage in “defensive childbearing” practices and have more children than they would if the real or perceived dangers were lower. The lack of access to family planning and reproductive technologies contributes to “unintentional childbearing.” The outbreak of conflict and violence, and the widespread use of rape and forced marriage contributes to “coerced-involuntary childbearing” (Turner 2011). These problems kept birth rates high and populations growing. Rapid population growth in Africa then made it difficult for everyone, men and women alike, to improve their lives.

Fight and Flight In response to growing misery, people adopted two related strategies: fight and flight. Fight. Political scientists found that battles over scarce resources have erupted for both economic and political reasons in peripheral states. Miguel et al. (2004) found

22 Globalization, Marginalization, and the External Arena

403

that conflicts regularly erupted in African countries during the 1980s and 1990s when export commodity prices fell and subsistence food prices rose. In a study of 39 SubSaharan African countries between 1960 and 2006, Bruckner and Ciccone (2009: 2) found that falling commodity prices were closely associated with the outbreak of civil wars: “a 10% decline in export prices increased the probability of civil war by 100%.” Meanwhile, in a study of 161 countries between 1945 and 1999, Fearon and Laitin (2003) found that conflicts frequently erupted in states where corruption was rampant. Corruption prevented the emergence of rational, honest, effective Weberian bureaucracies and instead created dishonest, weak, and ineffective bureaucracies (Stearns 2007: 202). Insurgents then challenged weak governments and tried to seize the economic advantages that state power can provide. In effect, weak states “invited” insurgents to challenge them, resulting in conflict and instability (Fearon and Laitin 2003). Moreover, conflict in Africa has assumed an increasingly sectarian character. Initially, diverse social movements waged wars against “others,” against corrupt governments who hoarded wealth and power, and against members of different ethnic or ideological groups who were competing for a share of the spoils (Schaeffer 2016: 202). But in recent years, movements have begun fighting with their “own,” against members of the same ethnic or ideological “families”: Marxists versus Marxists in Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Somalia; Christians versus Christians in Rwanda, Burundi, and Uganda; Moslems versus Moslems across Africa and the Middle East. These fratricidal sectarian conflicts have created a Hobbesian world, where people engage in wars of all against all. For example, academics and aid workers in the Congo describe a region where 60 different armed militias fight over what they call an “ungovernable space” (Gettleman 2016). Flight. In response to deteriorating economic conditions and/or the outbreak of violence and war, people have fled marginalized regions in large numbers, first to the cities, then neighboring states, and then, if possible, to the rich countries in the North. They organized household- and community-based social networks to help members migrate out of impoverished and dangerous settings to more prosperous and secure places, where they might obtain the resources they need to survive and, importantly, help other members join them. Although conflicts in Sub-Saharan Africa triggered migration in the 1990s and 2000s, migration flows accelerated during the Arab Spring and, in 2015, millions of migrants pushed toward Europe, crossed the Mediterranean, and joined the “Long March” across Europe (Yardley 2015). Between 2012 and 2014, 1.2 million migrants entered Germany as refugees (Mushaben 2017: 96). Conflict and migration reshaped U.S. and European attitudes toward the periphery. Although they had become indifferent to events in the periphery, the eruption of conflict and migration prompted U.S. and European officials to take a more hostile view of events, even though they had contributed to the underdevelopment and marginalization that triggered them. Let us now describe how the rich countries’ postwar policies contributed to the marginalization and exclusion of peripheral peoples.

404

R. Schaeffer

Superpower Disinterest and Disengagement Initially, the United States and the Soviet Union together championed the decolonization of European and Asian empires and promoted economic development in postcolonial peripheral states across Africa and Asia. They supported independence movements and the creation of postcolonial republics because they believed that “the age of imperialism has ended” and because they thought that economic aid would secure the allegiance of new political allies in the periphery (Schaeffer 1990: 75). The United States spent $70 billion on economic and military aid to developing countries between 1945 and 1975; the Soviet Union, $30 billion (Klare 1984: 1, 9). But as Cold War rivals, U.S. and Soviet leaders also backed dictators in the new republics who could be enlisted as allies in competing U.S. and Soviet “spheres of influence.” As a result, “the sweeping terms of [Cold War rivalry] obligated [the superpowers] to recruit, subsidize, and support a heterogeneous army of satellites, clients, dependents, and puppets” (Rodman 1994: 47). Although superpower support for client dictators in the 1950s and 1960s created reliable allies, it also encouraged the creation of corrupt and weak governments that proved incapable of promoting real development. By 1970, U.S. and European officials had become disenchanted with efforts to promote economic development in the periphery. “The development business is in trouble,” World Bank President George Wood argued in 1970. “Some of the high resolve with which the business was begun 20 years ago [in the 1950s] has gone. A sense of disillusionment is not confined to the industrial countries; in the less developed countries too, there is disappointment and an impatience for results” (Oliver 1995: 232). The rich countries tried a new approach in the 1970s. They encouraged peripheral states to borrow money from global financial institutions to finance their development and use the money they earned from high commodity prices, which rose sharply for the first time in decades, to repay low-interest loans. Debt, not aid, was seen as the key to development. But when U.S. officials raised interest rates in 1979 to battle inflation, they triggered a debt crisis for borrowers in Latin America, Eastern Europe, and Africa, who watched helplessly as interest rates rose and commodity prices collapsed (Schaeffer 2003: 95–118). The crisis wiped out the gains peripheral states had made in the 1970s and crippled their efforts to promote development. Then in the 1980s, businesses in the rich countries introduced new substitutionist and dematerialist technologies, which reduced their demand for and dependence on raw materials from the periphery. Moreover, they realized that poor, indebted, and corrupt peripheral states provided few investment opportunities for businesses and created weak consumer markets for their industrial goods. So they turned instead to more promising peripheral countries like China, where investment opportunities and massive consumer markets beckoned in the 1980s and 1990s (Schaeffer 2012: 121–36). As the century drew to a close, the rich countries became increasingly disinterested in economic development in peripheral states, particularly in Africa, where economic growth seemed difficult or nearly impossible to achieve. Scholars described the 1990s

22 Globalization, Marginalization, and the External Arena

405

in Africa as the “decade of disengagement” (Taylor 2010: 33). As Thomas Callaghy (1994: 32) observed in 1994, “Africa is no longer very important to the international division of labor or to the major actors in the world-economy….Africa generates a declining share of world output. The main commodities it produces are becoming less sought after [as a result of substitutionism] and are more effectively produced by other countries. Trade is declining, nobody wants to lend, and few want to invest except in selected parts of the mineral sector.” During the 1990s, rich countries also became indifferent to political developments in Africa. In the 1990s, democratization in Eastern Europe and then the Soviet Union brought an end to the Cold War. But this reduced U.S. and Soviet interest in client regimes in Africa and they curbed or curtailed foreign aid to the region. “When the Cold War ended, America’s strategic interest in Africa ended,” one U.S. analyst observed (Taylor 2010: 25). And in 2000, President George W. Bush announced that “Africa does not fit into the national strategic interest” of the United States and said he “would not intervene to prevent or stop genocide in Africa should such a threat, as occurred in Rwanda in 1994 develop” (Booker 2001: 195). Political indifference had become official U.S. policy. Economic disinterest and political indifference further marginalized African countries and made them less connected to global economic and political institutions. Instead of assuming some responsibility for security or development in postcolonial states, U.S. and European officials ceded their authority to United Nations peacekeepers and encouraged nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to provide food, health care, and education to populations in “failed” or “collapsed” states. U.N. agencies provided security and built refugee camps, NGOs like Oxfam provided food aid, Doctors without Borders provided medical care, church groups built missions and schools, Habitat for Humanity built homes, and private foundations provided mosquito nets. NGOs provided the kind of rudimentary infrastructures and public services that local governments and rich states were unable or unwilling to provide. But despite heroic efforts and good intentions, U.N. agencies and private NGOs encountered two problems. First, U.N. peacekeepers had no authority to combat insurgents or negotiate an end to the conflict, so they could not provide meaningful security. They also had no authority to borrow money or raise the taxes needed to finance the construction of public infrastructures or provide public services. Second, they were not elected to represent the people they served. So they lacked the popular legitimacy needed to create responsible and durable political and economic institutions. They could not assume the responsibilities that a permanent commitment would entail. They could only treat the symptoms of marginalization. They could feed and protect people in refugee camps but not create conditions that might allow them to return home. As a result, local populations grew dependent on and resentful of the “aid” they received, while NGOs experienced “donor fatigue” and “burnout.” The leaders of some NGOs have called for an “end to aid,” and argued that “more aid is not the answer” (Glennie 2010: 206). One study in Uganda found that “a majority of civil service cadre in Africa see aid as the fundamental cause of Africa’s deepening poverty” and that there was an “almost universal pessimism among African

406

R. Schaeffer

civil society and academic professionals about the unworkable nature of aid, given the way it is structured” (Glennie 2016: 206).

Great Recession and the External Arena Events during the Great Recession, which began in 2008, persuaded governments in Western Europe and the United States to take a new, more hostile view of the periphery. The uprisings associated with the Arab Spring trigged new conflicts that fueled migration from Libya, Syria, Yemen, and Iraq. These conflicts joined the ongoing wars in Afghanistan, Sudan, Niger, Mali, Chad, Congo, Uganda, and the Horn of Africa and the migrations driven by underdevelopment across Africa. Refugees and migrants streamed into Libya, Turkey, and Lebanon and then crossed the Mediterranean to seek asylum in Europe. The immigrant surge contributed to the emergence in Europe of populist movements who were opposed to “foreign” immigrants and linked immigrants with terrorist attacks in Europe. The rise of antiimmigrant parties forced or persuaded European states to adopt new policies. They erected barriers to prevent entry, built walls to seal European borders, deployed navies to intercept immigrant voyagers, and returned or deported immigrants to the outlands, places outside the new frontiers being created by European states. Moreover, they enlisted surrogates in Morocco, Turkey, Lebanon, Libya, and Sudan to police the borders of the new frontiers, obstruct the passage of migrants, detain them in camps, and, if possible return them to their homelands, what Europeans called “migration management” (Hirt 2018: 177). They enlisted secret police and local militia in Libya and Sudan to intercept and assault migrants in an effort to deter them from attempting the journey (Kingsley 2018). U.S. and European officials also established drone and special-forces bases across the region so that they could conduct counter-terrorist wars at a distance, without having to put (many) boots on the ground (Schmitt 2018). These collective measures created a new frontier that divides the globalizing capitalist world from the emerging external arena. Globalization generally contributed to the economic, political, and social integration of peoples around the world. But it also resulted in the disintegration of these ties in some places, particularly in Africa. The recent crisis of globalization accelerated the marginalization and exit of peoples from the periphery to an external arena, noncontiguous places where people do not meaningfully participate in the global capitalist world. For the most part, these are African states with corrupt, weak, and ineffective bureaucracies have collapsed or failed; where surrogate peacekeepers provide security and NGOs provide services to client populations; where commodity production for export markets is declining; where people engage in subsistence production or in the production of illegal, high-value goods: trafficked humans, blood diamonds, ivory tusks and endangered species, and rare earths; where foreign businesses refuse to invest and tourists refuse to travel; where armed male militias impose confiscatory “taxes” on residents without providing meaningful public services in return; where

22 Globalization, Marginalization, and the External Arena

407

the rule of law does not exist; where diplomatic missions have closed and foreign missionaries have departed; where violence is chronic and disease is endemic; and where infant mortality and birth rates are high and school attendance is low. The emergence and growth of the external arena have changed the shape and reduced the footprint of the global capitalist world. It has resulted in the creation of barricades along the new frontiers that divide the old world and the new.

Policy Recommendations In the 1980s, government officials and private citizens organized a global boycottdivestment campaign to protest Apartheid and promote democratization in South Africa. This campaign overcame public apathy about events in South Africa and helped promote real change in the region (Schaeffer 1997a). Today, U.N.-member states, NGOs, diaspora communities, and solidarity movements need to overcome public indifference and hostility toward events in Africa and invest in the resources needed to support women, advance “fair trade” and democracy in the region. Women and girls need affordable access to education, health care, family planning, and a safe environment to raise families. This is the key to lowering birth rates and slowing rapid population growth. Global institutions and NGOs need to invest resources in these areas and make the well-being of women and girls a priority, not an afterthought. People in Africa need higher prices for the raw materials they produce. They need the kind of farm-support policies that the United States and Western European governments long provided to their own farmers (Schaeffer 2003: 153–190) so they can earn the income they need to survive. They need “fair trade” policies and practices that support farmers and raise prices and are made part of international trade agreements (Nicholls and Opal 2004). Moreover, they need foreign investment (not loans) to develop industries that could wean them from a centuries-long dependence on raw materials, investment of the kind that enabled poor states in Asia and Latin America to generate economic growth. And people in Africa need democratic governments so they can create effective bureaucracies that can provide security and build the public infrastructures needed to promote economic and social development, as many countries in Asia and Africa have done (Schaeffer 1997a). Again, U.N.-member states, NGOs, diaspora communities, and solidarity movements can help local people build civil societies and democratic institutions that serve all the people, not just a few. These are not impossible or unattainable goals. But they must be part of a concerted effort. The failure of one undermines them all. If a concerted effort is not made, the result will be the exit of people to a growing external arena, where marginalized people fight and forage over scarce resources, where “other ruffians, as their fancies wrought, would shark on you, and men, like ravenous fishes, would feed on one another” (Shakespeare 1596–1601).

408

R. Schaeffer

References Booker, S. 2001. Bush’s Global Agenda: Bad News for Africa. Current History, May. Bruckner, M., and Ciccone, A. 2009. International Commodity Prices, Growth, and the Outbreak of Civil Wars in Africa. Paper, August. Callaghy, T.M. 1994. Africa: Falling Off the Map. Current History, January. Cincotta, R. 2011. Africa’s Reluctant Fertility Transition. Current History, May. CIA: Central Intelligence Agency. 2015. https://cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook, 2015. Cumings, B. 1987. The Origins and Development of the Northeast Asian Political Economy: Industrial Sectors, Product Cycles, and Political Consequences. In The Political Economy of the New Asian Industrialization, ed. F. Deyo. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Davis, J. H., G. Stolberg, and T. Kaplan. 2018. Trump Alarms Lawmakers With Disparaging Remarks for Haiti and Africa. New York Times 11. De Soto, H. 2000. The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else. New York: Basic Books. Dickinson, T., and R. Schaeffer. 2001. Fast Forward: Work, Gender, and Protest in a Changing World. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. Fearon, J.D., and D.D. Laitin. 2003. Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War. American Political Science Review 97 (1): 75–90. Fisher, M. 2013. The Amazing, Surprising, Africa-Driven Demographic Future of the Earth, in 9 Charts. The Washington Post 16. Gettleman, J. 2016. Where Wars Are Small and Chaos Is Endless. New York Times. Glennie, J. 2010. More Aid Is Not the Answer. Current History. Google. 2018. Public Data/World Development Indicators/Fertility Rates. Hirt, N. 2018. European Missteps on African Migration. Current History. Kingsley, P. 2018. By Stifling Migration, Sudan’s Feared Secret Police Aid Europe. New York Times 22. Klare, M. 1984. American Arms Supermarket. Austin: University of Texas Press. Linden, E. 2017. Remember the Population Bomb? It’s Still Ticking. New York Times 18. Maizels, A. 1993. Commodities in Crisis: The Commodity Crisis of the 1980s and the Political Economy of International Commodity Prices. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Miguel, E., S. Satyanath, and E. Sergenti. 2004. Economic Shocks and Civil Conflict: An Instrumental Variables Approach. Journal of Political Economy 112 (4): 725–53. Moyo, J. 2015. The Hidden Billions: Behind Economic Inequality in Africa. Inter Press News Service. Mushaben, J.M. 2017. Angela Merkel’s Leadership in the Refugee Crisis. Current History. Nelson, R. 1956. A Theory of the Low-Level Equilibrium Trap in Underdeveloped Economies. American Economic Review 46 (5): 894–908. Nicholls, A., and C. Opal. 2004. Fair Trade: Market-Driven and Ethical Considerations. Oxford: New Internationalist. Oliver, R.W. 1995. George Woods and the World Bank. Boulder, CO: Lynne Reinner. Rice, Z. 2006. High Birth Rates Threat to Trap Africa in a Cycle of Poverty. Guardian. Rodman, P.W. 1994. More Precious than Peace: The Cold War and the Struggle for the Third World. New York: Scribner’s. Schaeffer, R. 1990. Warpaths: The Politics of Partition. New York: Hill and Wang. Schaeffer, R. 1997a. Power to the People: Democratization Around the World. Boulder, CO: Westview. Schaeffer, R. 1997b. Understanding Globalization: The Social Consequences of Political, Economic and Environmental Change. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. Schaeffer, R. 2003. Understanding Globalization: The Social Consequences of Political, Economic and Environmental Change, 2nd ed. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.

22 Globalization, Marginalization, and the External Arena

409

Schaeffer, R. 2005. Understanding Globalization: The Social Consequences of Political, Economic and Environmental Change, 3rd ed. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. Schaeffer, R. 2007. Globalization and Disintegration: Substitutionist Technologies and the Disintegration of Global Economic Ties. In Frontiers of Globalization Research: Theoretical and Methodological Approaches, ed. I. Rossi. New York: Springer Science + Business Media. Schaeffer, R. (2012). Red Inc.: Dictatorship and the Development of Capitalism in China, 1947 to the Present. Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers. Schaeffer, R. 2016. Understanding Globalization: The Social Consequences of Political, Economic, and Environmental Change, 5th ed. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. Schmitt, E. 2018. Drone Base in Niger Ramps Up a Murky U.S. War. New York Times. Sen, Amartya. 1994. Population: Delusion and Reality. New York Review of Books. Sengupta, S. 2018. The Horn of Africa Drought Is The New Normal. New York Times. Shakespeare, W. 1596–1601. The Book of Sir Thomas Moore, Act 2, Scene 4. Stearns, J. (2007). Congo’s Peace: Miracle or Mirage? Current History. Sulaiman, T. 2014. Analysis: Decade After Debt Relief , 17. Reuters, March: African’s Rush to Borrow Stirs Concern. Taylor, I. 2010. The International Relations of Sub-Saharan Africa. New York: Continuum. Taylor, Ian. 2014. Arica Rising? Woodbridge, Suffolk: James Currey. Turner, T. 2011. Kabila’s Congo: Hardly ‘Post Conflict.’ Current History. Wallerstein, I. 1974. The Modern World-System: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World-Economy in the Sixteenth Century. New York: Academic Press. Wilson Center. 2014. Africa’s Stalled Fertility Transition: Causes, Cures, and Consequences? Wilson Center. Yardley, J. 2015. Libyan Tumult Alters Europe’s Migration Equation. New York Times.

Robert Schaeffer is a Professor of Sociology in the Social Sciences Department of California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, California, U.S.A. He is the author of many books on globalization, social movements, conflict and war, economic development, and political change. He is the author, among others of Social Movements and Global Social Change: The Rising Tide (2014); Red Inc.: Dictatorship and the Development of Capitalism in China, 1949 to the Present (2012).

Chapter 23

Global Indigenism and the Web of Transnational Social Movements Christopher Chase-Dunn, James Fenelon, Thomas D. Hall, Ian Breckenridge-Jackson, and Joel Herrera

Abstract A global indigenous movement has emerged as a visible player in global civil society and in the New Global Left. Advocates of indigenous rights have had an important influence on the emerging character of the global justice movement. We use surveys taken at a succession of Social Forum gatherings to examine how indigenous rights activists are like, or different from, the other attendees at these events and to investigate the links that indigenous rights activists have with other social movements. We find that the number of attendees who assert that they are actively involved in the indigenous rights movement is more than five times greater than the number of those who identify themselves as indigenous when asked about their racial/ethnic identity. The indigenous rights movement is strongly connected by overlapping memberships with the human rights movement and with the environmental and peace movements.

The indigenous rights movement has been an important element of the New Global Left and the current world revolution since the Zapatista rebellion in Southern Mexico against the neoliberal North American Free Trade Agreement in 1994. Autonomists from Europe, anarchists in North America, and the organizers of the U.S. Social Forum meetings have given attention and support to indigenous rights. The 2010 Cochabamba, Bolivia World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights

C. Chase-Dunn (B) Institute for Research on World-Systems, University of California-Riverside, Riverside, CA, USA e-mail: [email protected] J. Fenelon Sociology, California State University at San Bernardino, San Bernardino, CA, USA T. D. Hall DePauw University, Greencastle, IN, USA I. Breckenridge-Jackson Sociology, Los Angeles Valley College, Los Angeles, CA, USA J. Herrera University of California-Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 I. Rossi (ed.), Challenges of Globalization and Prospects for an Inter-civilizational World Order, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44058-9_23

411

412

C. Chase-Dunn et al.

of Mother Earth, has received widespread support from those who are concerned about human-caused climate change and ecological degradation. The World Social Forum process has been an important venue for the formation of a New Global Left since 2001 (Santos and de Sousa 2006; Reitan 2007; Smith and Weist 2012; Smith et al. 2014). The founding of the World Social Forum in 2001 was a reaction to the exclusivity of the World Economic Forum held in Davos, Switzerland since 1971. The emergence of the World Social Forum signaled the coming together of a movement of movements focused on issues of global justice and sustainability (Steger et al. 2013).1 The Transnational Social Movement Research Working Group at the University of California-Riverside2 began conducting paper surveys of the attendees at Social Forum meetings at the world-level meeting held in Porto Alegre, Brazil in 2005. Similar surveys were mounted at the United States Social Forum held in Atlanta, Georgia in 2007, the world-level Social Forum held in Nairobi, Kenya in 2007, and the U.S. Social Forum meeting held in Detroit, Michigan in 2010. The surveys included questions on demographic characteristics, levels of activism, political attitudes, and involvement in a long list of movement themes3 (Chase-Dunn et al. 2007; Coyne et al. 2010; Reese et al. 2008, 2012). In this article, we use the Social Forum survey data to examine Hall and Fenelon’s earlier studies (Hall and Fenelon 2008, 2009) of indigenous people’s movements as both ancient and distinctive from many other anti-globalization movements. We are also interested in tracing the impacts that the indigenous rights movement has had on other movements, and on the use of local forms of governance in support of local social institutions.

Indigeneity in the Geoculture and in the New Global Left Indigenous resistance and adaptation to expanding world-systems is a very old story. Small-scale societies have generally been decimated by larger, more hierarchical societies. Diamond’s (1997) Guns, Germs and Steel story is mainly a huge human tragedy with many prodigious struggles of resistance (e.g., Hamalainen 2008). But some of the peoples who formerly lived in autonomous small-scale societies have survived and adapted as they have become incorporated into both ancient and current world-systems (Hall and Fenelon 2009; Perry 1996; Ferguson and Whitehead 1992) and they now play an important role in world politics (Wilmer 1993). “Geoculture” is Wallerstein’s (2012) term for the political ideas and institutions that have become hegemonic in the modern world-system. The very idea of a global indigenous movement is a contradiction in terms. Indigenous peoples usually stress the importance of their connections to places. But since the 1930s indigenous groups have been appealing to the United Nations (2007) for help in resisting culturicide4 (Fenelon 1998; Wilmer 1993) especially over collective indigenous rights.5 What has been different about transnational and global indigenous organizations and movements is that are keenly aware how their problems are fundamentally local, yet

23 Global Indigenism and the Web of Transnational …

413

broadly similar. The larger movements are characterized by an ethos that demands respect for each indigenous group’s values, culture, and social practices (Brysk 2000). Growing awareness of eurocentrism in politics, culture, and social science has combined with old notions about the other, civilization, barbarism, and savagery and imagined original “states of nature” in European social thought. The European Enlightenment itself legitimated cultural self-determination, though this value was most often ignored when colonized peoples were concerned. But it is important to note that the legitimate rights of indigenous peoples are not just a concern of the New Global Left. It is a globally recognized issue as documented in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2007). The mainstream of the emerging global geoculture also includes an important element of respect for indigenous cultures as well as the other tenets of what Wallerstein (2012) calls centrist liberalism (see also Martin et al. 2008). Indeed, indigeneity is sometimes used to promote various projects that relate to neoliberal politics, capitalist profit-making, and tourism. A case in point was included in Hobden’s (2014) study of development projects in Accra, Ghana. The Meridian Mall project uses the trope of indigenous bead-making to promote itself as a social hub. This, along with the not infrequent [mis]use of indigenous spirituality by nonindigenous people, often renders attention from “outsiders” problematic for many indigenous peoples. Indeed, the use of the labels “Indigenous” or “Native American, or “American Indian” is often hotly contested and controversial. On a global level, the contests and controversies grow more complex (Hall and Fenelon 2009). The UN Declaration (2007) is something of a standard, though not without its own problems.6 Indigenous rights have been an important element of the New Global Left since its inception. The Zapatista rebellion of 1994 was an iconic event in the emergence of the current world revolution.7 Several of the movement organizations that spun out of the Battle of Seattle in 1999 had connections with the Zapatistas and with umbrella indigenous organizations in the Andes such as La Coordinadora Andina de Organizaciones Indígenas (CAOI). The World Social Forum has been an important venue for indigenous rights, holding its world-level meeting in Belem, a port city of the Amazon basin, in 2009. It was reported that about 1,900 indigenous people, representing 190 ethnic groups, attended the Belem World Social Forum. They raised the issue of stateless peoples, and the plights that they face. The Escarré International Centre for Ethnic Minorities and Nations helped to organize the tent for the Collective Rights of Stateless Peoples who are “marginalized in an international system that recognizes only states as political units.” The stateless ethnic groups represented were Basques, Roma, Kurds, Palestinians, Tibetans, Mapuche, Saharawi, and Australian Aborigines (Osava 1999). So indigeneity has come to include ethnic minorities that are poorly represented in the existing system of states. This was also apparent at the U.S. Social Forum meeting in Detroit, which highlighted indigeneity and at which the Palestinians made common cause with American Indians. So the issue of indigeneity is a trope in global politics that is claimed by descendants of small-scale societies, but also by ethnic minorities who are disenfranchised and that is also used to sell commodities and to legitimate development projects. We should also

414

C. Chase-Dunn et al.

mention the strong connection between indigeneity and the environmental movements. The Indigenous Environmental Network emerged in the U.S. in 1990 and groups such as this have played an increasingly visible role in the emerging climate justice movement.8 The Red Road movement is a version of New Age spiritualism that embraces indigenous-inspired approaches that have emerged since the 1960s, mainly in the United States (Lincoln 1987; McGaa 1992; Hull 2000). It is an example of a reconstructed indigenous ideology inspiring mainly non-indigenous participants. Movements and/organizations such as this have stirred considerable controversy and animosity among some indigenous peoples (see Hall and Fenelon 2009; Ross et al. 2011) but they demonstrate the salience of indigeneity as a potent dimension of global culture. The idea of “buen vivir” as a harmonious, community-oriented, and naturefriendly alternative approach to the human future was first articulated in Latin America in connection with the Cochabamba encuentro on the rights of Mother Earth. Buen vivir has been incorporated into the Ecuadorian constitution and has been championed by many social movements participating in the Social Forum process (Conway 2012; Smith et al. 2014).

Who Are the Indigenous Rights Activists? We have used survey responses from the four Social Forum meetings at which surveys were mounted to see how many attendees identified themselves as racially/ethnically9 indigenous and how many saw themselves as either strongly identified with, or actively involved in, the indigenous rights movements. We also looked to see whether or not indigenous rights activists were similar to, or different from, other attendees regarding demographic characteristics and attitudes toward political issues.10 Table 1 shows the numbers and percentages of those who identified themselves as indigenous11 at each of the four venues and for the whole sample of attendees Table 1 Indigeneity and activism at the four Social Forum meetings Porto Alegre Nairobi 2007 Atlanta 2007 Detroit 2010 All 2005 Racially/ethnically 10 (1.8%) identified indigenous

15 (3%)

4 (.7%)

4 (.8%)

3 (1.5%)

Strongly identify with indigenous rights

211 (37.5%)

96 (19.5%)

182 (32.3%)

149 (28.8%)

638 (29.9%)

Actively involved in indigenous rights

48 (8.5%)

35 (7.1%)

66 (11.7%)

27 (5.2%)

176 (8.2%)

Total sample

563

492

562

518

2135

23 Global Indigenism and the Web of Transnational …

415

that includes the sum of all the responses at all four venues. A number of important observations are implied by the findings in Table 1. Each of the surveys included around 500 respondents, but we are not entirely sure how representative our samples were of all the people who attended the Social Fora and so we are not sure how well we can generalize to the whole group of attendees. This would have required a complete list of participants, which we did not have. In order to improve the representativeness of the sample, the surveys were distributed at a variety of locations where people congregated at each meeting (e.g., registration lines, workshops). Combining the results from all of the surveys increases the number of respondents to 2135, which is useful for this study because we are examining a group that is a small minority among the whole sample of attendees. There are difficulties involved in combining the results from the different surveys because in some cases the wording of questions was different (e.g., Footnote 8), and also because indigeneity does not have a uniform global meaning. It very likely means something different in Africa (Hodgson 2002, 2011) from what it means in the United States and Brazil, and indigenous people who choose to participate in Social Fora probably differ in motivation and orientation in different regions of the world. Our surveys were done in the major languages that were used at different venues (English, Portuguese, Spanish, French, Swahili). Combining the results from the separate venues is somewhat risky so we also present the results for each venue. The biggest finding in Table 1 is the large difference between the numbers and percentages of attendees, who identify themselves as ethnically/racially indigenous and the number and percentages of those who say they strongly identify or are actively involved in the indigenous rights movement. Looking at the last column in Table 1, we see that only 33 out of a total of 2135 (1.5%) surveyed attendees identified themselves as racially/ethnically indigenous, but 638 (almost 30%) said they strongly identified with the indigenous rights movement and 176 (8.2%) claimed to be actively involved in indigenous rights movements. So only around one-fifth of the attendees who say they are actively involved identify themselves as racially/ethnically indigenous. This shows that the indigenous rights movement is much larger than would be expected on the basis of the number of indigenous people who are participating in the Social Forum process. There is a very large number of sympathizers and many activists who are not racially/ethnically indigenous. It is interesting to note that Idle No More explicitly calls for all people to join them in their vision statement (http://www.idl enomore.ca/vision). This is the main reason we have discussed the ideational role of indigeneity in global culture and in the New Global Left above. We note that indigenous movements are not monolithic and vary greatly in goals and objectives and sociopolitical relationships to the state. Table 1 also contains several other interesting features. One is the large drop-off from “strongly identify” to “actively involved” (rows 2 and 3 in Table 1). We have found this same large drop-off for all social movement themes in all of our surveys (e.g., Chase-Dunn and Kaneshiro 2009). It is not unique to the indigenous rights movement. It means that attendees take seriously the difference between sympathizing with a movement and actually doing work for that movement. This is important for the topic at hand because of the finding of a large number of non-indigenous,

416

C. Chase-Dunn et al.

but actively involved, participants. These are not just sympathizers. They are activists. Looking at differences across the four venues we note that there were more ethnically/racially identified indigenes at the world-level meetings in Brazil and Kenya than there were at the U.S. meetings. This may partly be due to sharply different perspectives on non-indigenous leadership and participation that is often connected to ideas and practices toward decolonization strategies. We also note the decline in the percentages of strongly identified and actively involved that occurred when we compare the Atlanta and Detroit meetings. This is interesting because indigenous activists led a protest at the end of the meeting in Atlanta and the organizing committee of the U.S. Social Forum made an important effort to include local indigenous people from Michigan in the meeting that took place in Detroit. Indigenous rights were also an important focus of the plenaries and indigenous activists led the march through the streets of Detroit that was held the first day of the meeting. Despite all this, our survey implies that there was a decline in participation by both strongly identified and actively involved attendees compared with Atlanta.12 The small number of attendees that racially identify as indigenous in Atlanta and Detroit was the same (4) in our samples (Row 1 of Table 1). Table 2 shows the racial/ethnic composition of the indigenous rights sympathizers and activists compare with the racial/ethnic breakdown of the other Social Fora attendees. About one-third of the indigenous rights activists (actively involved) and 42% of the sympathizers (strongly identified) say they are racially/ethnically white. The percentage of attendees who are not involved with indigenous rights are about half white. So indigenous rights sympathizers and activists are less likely to be white than other attendees and this difference is statistically significant (see z-test in Table 2). They are also less likely to be black and this difference is also statistically significant. Latina/o and Arabic percentages are about the same. Indigenous rights activist’s racial/ethnic identity percentages are higher than others in the indigenous, mixed, Asian, and “other” categories but for only the “other” category is the difference statistically significant.

Similarities and Differences Between Indigenous Rights Activists and Other Attendees at the Social Forum Meetings The following tables compare, across the four venues, actively involved indigenous rights activists with all other attendees and with all other attendees who were also actively involved in at least one of the other social movement themes. We include other “actively involved” because some of our findings imply greater radicalism on the part of the indigenous rights activists, but we want to know if this is related to the focus on indigenism or is just a feature of all those who are actively involved. It is generally known from social movement research that higher participation by

23 Global Indigenism and the Web of Transnational …

417

Table 2 Racial/ethnic composition of indigenous sympathizers and activists at the four Social Forum meetings Porto Alegre 2005

Nairobi 2007

Atlanta 2007

Detroit 2010

All

Actively involved in indigenous rights White or Caucasian

26.7% (12)

37.5% (12)

35.9% (23)

43.5% (10)

34.8% (57)a

Black, African

15.6% (7)

18.8% (6)

10.9% (7)

4.3% (1)

12.8% (21)

Latina/o

8.9% (4)

6.3% (2)

10.9% (7)

17.4% (4)

10.4% (17)

Mixed or multiethnic/racial

4.4% (2)

9.4% (3)

17.2% (11)

17.4% (4)

12.7% (20)b

Arab/Arabic/Middle Eastern

2.2% (1)

0% (0)

1.6% (1)

0% (0)

1.2% (2)

Asian

6.7% (3)

12.5% (4)

7.8% (5)

8.7% (2)

8.5% (14)c

Indigenous

15.6% (7)

12.5% (4)

1.6% (1)

0% (0)

7.3% (12)

Other

20% (9)

3.1% (1)

14.1% (9)

8.7% (2)

12.8% (21)d

Total

100% (45)

100% (32)

100% (64)

100% (23)

100% (164)

NOT actively involved in indigenous rights White or Caucasian

44.4% (195)

31.1% (116)

52% (244)

58.5% (264)

47.3% (819)a

Black, African

14.1% (62)

47.7% (178)

12.8% (60)

9.5% (43)

19.8% (342)

Latina/o

6.2% (27)

2.9% (11)

15.6% (73)

14.2% (64)

10.1% (175)

Mixed or multiethnic/racial

10.3% (45)

2.9% (11)

8.7% (41)

9.1% (41)

8% (138)b

Arab/Arabic/Middle Eastern

0.7% (3)

2.4% (9)

1.5% (7)

0.7% (3)

1.3% (22)

Asian

5.2% (23)

8.3% (31)

3% (14)

4.4% (20)

5.1% (88)c

Indigenous

0.2% (1)

1.9% (7)

0.6% (3)

0.9% (4)

0.9% (15)

Other

18.9% (83)

2.7% (10)

5.8% (27)

2.7% (12)

7.6% (132)d

Total

100% (439)

100% (373)

100% (469)

100% (451)

100% (1732)

Strongly identify with indigenous rights (continued)

418

C. Chase-Dunn et al.

Table 2 (continued) Porto Alegre 2005

Nairobi 2007

Atlanta 2007

Detroit 2010

All

White or Caucasian

39% (73)

34.8% (31)

43.7% (76)

50.4% (67)

42.4% (247)

Black, African

12.3% (23)

37.1% (33)

12.1% (21)

10.5% (14)

15.6% (91)

Latina/o

9.6% (18)

4.5% (4)

13.8% (24)

15.8% (21)

11.5% (67)

Mixed or multiethnic/racial

9.1% (17)

3.4% (3)

13.8% (24)

13.5% (18)

10.6% (62)

Arab/Arabic/Middle Eastern

1.6% (3)

5.6% (5)

1.1% (2)

0% (0)

1.7% (10)

Asian

5.9% (11)

7.9% (7)

4.6% (8)

6% (8)

5.8% (34)

Indigenous

3.7% (7)

5.6% (5)

1.1% (2)

0.8% (1)

2.6% (15)

Other

18.7% (35)

1.1% (1)

9.8% (17)

3% (4)

9.8% (57)

Total

100% (187)

100% (89)

100% (174)

100% (133)

100% (583)

p-value = 0.002*** p-value = 0.061 c Z-test, p-value = 0.061 d Z-test, p-value = 0.020* *p < 0.05 (two-tail), ***p < 0.01 (two-tail) a Z-test,

b Z-test,

individuals is related to greater concern and we suspect that this may also be related to greater radicalism. The results in Table 3 may mean that indigenous rights activists have a more radical position on capitalism because 59% want to abolish it versus only 51% for all other attendees.13 But when we compare the indigenous rights activists with other attendees who also claim to be actively involved in another social movement theme, the difference is smaller (55%) and it is not statistically significant. This means that indeed indigenous rights activists have a somewhat less sanguine attitude toward capitalism than other participants in the New Global Left, but it should also be noted that over half of the attendees favored abolishing capitalism except at the Nairobi meeting (38%). This more radical stance vis a vis capitalism should not be generalized. We also asked attendees to choose their positions on the political spectrum from far left to far right (See Table A5 in the Appendix). On that item, indigenous activists were not more radical than other activists. We note that Hall and Fenelon (2008, 2009) among others argue that many indigenous movements are inherently anti-capitalist, even when not explicitly or even intentionally so motivated. Since many seek to preserve communal ownership, administration, and stewardship of resources (on the latter see Ross et al. 2011) they challenge

23 Global Indigenism and the Web of Transnational …

419

Table 3 Attitudes toward capitalism Do you think we need to reform capitalism or abolish it? Check one.  Reform it  Abolish it  Neither Porto Alegre 2005

Nairobi 2007

Atlanta 2007

Detroit 2010

All

Actively involved in indigenous rights Reform it

26.1% (12)

42.4% (14)

35% (21)

28% (7)

39.2% (54)

Abolish it

34 73.9% (34)

36.4% (12)

61.7% (37)

56% (14)

59.1% (97)a, b

Neither

N/A

21.2% (7)

3.3% (2)

16% (4)

7.9% (13)

Total

100% (46)

100% (33)

100% (60)

100% (25)

100% (164)

NOT actively involved in indigenous rights Reform it

42.8% (208)

53.6% (202)

35.3% (158)

38.8% (174)

42.2% (742)

Abolish it

57.2% (278)

38.2% (144)

55.6% (249)

51.1% (229)

51.2% (900)a

Neither

N/A

8.2% (31)

9.2% (41)

10% (45)

6.7% (117)

Total

100% (486)

100% (377)

100% (448)

100% (448)

100% (1759)

Actively involved in any other movement Reform it

40.2% (154)

50.7% (138)

32.1% (119)

37.2% (151)

39.2% (562)

Abolish it

59.8% (229)

42.3% (115)

60.1% (223)

54.2% (220)

55% (787)b

Neither

N/A

7% (19)

7.8% (29)

8.6% (35)

5.8% (83)

Total

100% (383)

100% (272)

100% (371)

100% (406)

100% (1432)

p-value = 0.05 b Z-test, p-value = 0.308 *p < 0.05 (two-tail), ***p < 0.01 (two-tail) a Z-test,

fundamental, often unstated, assumptions of enlightenment discourse on trade and capitalism: that humans are inherently individualistic, and that private property is assumed to be “natural.” Furthermore, but not as directly challenging to capitalist or neoliberal ideology, many Indigenous Peoples have kinships systems that differ significantly from those of the West,14 and many other state-based systems. Similarly, they have very different views of spirituality and what Western discourse is wont to call “religion.” In these senses then, many movements of Indigenous Peoples challenge fundamental axioms of neoliberal capitalism. Alas, the surveys do not provide sufficient detail to tease out these nuances numerically. Table 4 shows the pattern of responses to a question about global institutions, specifically the World Bank. The Porto Alegre survey is not included because this question was not asked in a way that clearly separated the World Bank from the International Monetary Fund and the United Nations in the Porto Alegre survey. The results in Table 4 indicate that indigenous activists may be more in favor of abolishing the World Bank than are other attendees and also than other attendees who are actively involved in other movement themes, but these differences are not statistically significant (see z = test values in Table 4). We also note that the percentage favoring the abolition of the bank was significantly lower at the Nairobi meeting than at the Atlanta and Detroit meetings.

420

C. Chase-Dunn et al.

Table 4 Attitudes toward the World Bank In the long run, what do you think should be done about these existing global institutions: The World Bank:  Reform  Abolish  Replace  Do Nothing Nairobi 2007

Atlanta 2007

Detroit 2010

All

13.8% (8)

25% (6)

23.5% (27)

Actively involved in indigenous rights Reform

39.4% (13)

Replace

27.3% (9)

25.9% (15)

20.8% (5)

25.2% (29)

Abolish

33.3% (11)

58.6% (34)

54.2% (13)

50.4% (58)a, b

Nothing

0% (0)

1.7% (1)

0% (0)

0.9% (1)

Total

100% (33)

100% (58)

100% (24)

100% (115)

26.4% (117)

34.4% (424)

NOT actively involved in indigenous rights Reform

54.2% (188)

26.9% (119)

Replace

18.2% (63)

21% (93)

19.8% (88)

19.8% (244)

Abolish

23.1% (80)

49.2% (218)

0.9% (226)

42.5% (524)a

Nothing

4.6% (16)

2.9% (13)

2.9% (13)

3.4% (42)

Total

100% (347)

100% (443)

100% (444)

100% (1234)

Actively involved in any other movement Reform

51.8% (131)

24.9% (92)

24.5% (99)

31.4% (322)

Replace

18.6% (47)

23.3% (86)

20.8% (84)

21.2% (217)

Abolish

26.1% (66)

49.3% (182)

52% (210)

44.6% (458)b

Nothing

3.6% (9)

2.4% (9)

2.7% (11)

2.8% (29)

Total

100% (253)

10% (369)

100% (404)

100% (1026)

p-value = 0.099 b Z-test, p-value = 0.238 *p < 0.05 (two-tail), ***p < 0.01 (two-tail) a Z-test,

The surveys also asked Social Fora attendees about their attitude toward the idea of a democratic world government. Table 5 shows that indigenous rights activists may be more likely to think that a democratic global government is a good idea and is possible than are those who are not involved in indigenous rights and this is not related to active involvement in general. But these differences are not statistically significant (see z-tests in Table 5). Indigenous rights activists also were somewhat more likely to think that a democratic world government is a bad idea. This seeming contradiction occurs because of the response in the middle, for which indigenous rights activists were less likely than others to think that a democratic world government is a “good idea, but not possible” than those who are not indigenous rights activists. Indigenous rights activists disagree with one another in their attitudes toward the desirability of a democratic world government. These results might be interpreted somewhat differently. As noted earlier, social organizational features—communal control of resources, kinship and marriage systems, religious values, etc.—among indigenous peoples are arguably quite distant

23 Global Indigenism and the Web of Transnational …

421

Table 5 Attitudes toward democratic world government Do you think it is a good or bad idea to have a democratic world government? Check one.  Good idea, and it is possible  Good idea, but not possible  Bad idea, and it is possible  Bad idea, and not possible Porto Alegre 2005

Nairobi 2007

Atlanta 2007

Detroit 2010

All

Actively involved in indigenous rights Good idea and possible

37.2% (16)

36.7% (11)

44.9% (22)

52.4% (11)

42% (60)a, b

Good idea, but not possible

30.2% (13)

40% (12)

22.4% (11)

19% (4)

28% (40)

Bad idea

32.6% (14)

23.3% (7)

32.7% (16)

28.6% (6)

30% (43)

Total

100% (43)

100% (30)

100% (49)

100% (21)

100% (143)

NOT actively involved in indigenous rights Good idea and possible

28.6% (137)

44.3% (167)

45.2% (185)

36.3% (150)

38.1% (639)a

Good idea, but not possible

39.5% (189)

40.6% (153)

25.9% (106)

30.3% (125)

34.1% (573)

Bad idea

31.9% (153)

15.1% (57)

28.9% (118)

33.4% (137)

27.8% (466)

Total

100% (479)

100% (377)

100% (409)

100% (413)

100% (1678)

Actively involved in any other movement Good idea and possible

28.6% (108)

44.1% (119)

45.3% (149)

37.5% (141)

38.2% (517)b

Good idea, but not possible

39.7% (150)

40% (108)

25.5% (84)

30.9% (116)

33.9% (458)

Bad idea

31.7% (120)

15.9% (43)

29.2% (96)

31.6% (119)

27.9% (378)

Total

100% (378)

100% (270)

100% (329)

100% (376)

100% (1353)

p-value = 0.358 b Z-test, p-value = 0.379 *p < 0.05 (two-tail), ***p < 0.01 (two-tail) a Z-test,

from the Eurocentric approaches among most of the world. So, for instance, nonindigenist activists typically come from traditions that see democracy as a general good and general goal. Indigenous peoples have had several bad interactions with democratic governments: witness, the U.S.A., New Zealand, Australia, Canada to name a few. Given generally small numbers of indigenous peoples, their interests can easily be overrun by far larger groups, as has happened in the past. Second, and more difficult to pin down, is that some indigenous traditions are not “democratic” in the same sense that European derived states are. To give a shopworn and overworked example, there is a great deal of controversy over gender relations among the Haudenosaunee (League of the Iroquois) and among Cherokees. Men control war and external interactions. Women control domestic matters. But, and this is a major difference with European patriarchies, men cannot vote for war without the

422

C. Chase-Dunn et al.

approval of the clan mothers and the clan mothers appoint (and can remove) individuals from the men’s councils. So, is this democracy? Is it matriarchy? Or Patriarchy? Or is the question even relevant? This vignette is far too simplistic but does illustrate the issues. It is notable that British officials often referred to Haudenosaunee and/or Cherokee as “petticoat nations,” run by women. Not a surprising view given the extreme patriarchy of sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries (with very strong residuals today).15 This may be due to sharp distinctions of indigenous activists and movement groups toward working with the state and governmental organizations, or working against them, or in just working altogether separate from them. Besides the Zapatistas, who ask for all Indigenous Peoples to decide for themselves outside state interests, a most applicable example would be perspectives toward the Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2007) passed by the United Nations (after 30 years of struggle). Some indigenous movement leaders see this as great progress to be built upon, while others see it as capitulation to state-system politics that will only further reign in indigenous collective rights in opposition to neoliberal and state capitalist interests.16 The surveys also asked about which level of government is most important for solving most contemporary problems: communities, nation-states, or international/global. Sixty-eight percent of indigenous rights activists indicated that the community level is most important, and this percentage was higher than for those not involved in indigenous rights and for those who were actively involved in other movement themes. These first differences in proportions are quite close to the 0.05 level of statistical significance according to the z-test. But the local focus indicated by the results in Table 6 is somewhat contradicted by the results in Table 7. The surveys asked attendees whether they think of themselves as involved in the global social movement. Nine out of ten global indigenous rights activists said yes, and this was a higher percentage than those not involved in indigenous rights and higher than those that were actively involved in other movement themes. The first difference is highly statistically significant and the second is nearly so at the 0.05 level according to the Z-tests reported in Table 7.

The Relationships that Indigenous Rights Activists Have with Other Social Movements Social movement organizations may be integrated both informally and formally. Informally, they are connected by the voluntary choices of individual persons to be active participants in multiple movements. Such linkages enable learning and influence to pass among movement organizations, even when there may be limited official interaction or leadership coordination. At the formal level, organizations may provide legitimacy and support to one another, and strategically collaborate in joint action. The extent of formal cooperation among movements

23 Global Indigenism and the Web of Transnational …

423

Table 6 Best level of government for solving problems Out of the following, which level is most important for solving most contemporary problems? Porto Alegre 2005

Nairobi 2007

Atlanta 2007

Detroit 2010

All

Actively involved in indigenous rights Communities/subnational

73.2% (30)

53.8% (14) 63% (34)

90.5% (19) 68.3% (97)a, b 0% (0)

Nation-states

7.3% (3)

11.5% (3)

11.1% (6)

International/global

19.5% (8)

34.6% (9)

25.9% (14) 9.5% (2)

23.2% (33)

8.5% (12)

Total

100% (41) 100% (26)

100% (54)

100% (21)

100% (142)

56% (230)

76.2% (326)

60.3% (970)a 9.6% (154)

NOT actively involved in indigenous rights Communities/subnational

57.6% (245)

49% (169)

Nation-states

9.9% (42)

10.4% (36) 9.7% (40)

8.4% (36)

International/global

32.5% (138)

40.6% (140)

15.4% (66) 30.1% (485)

Total

100% (425)

100% (345) 100% (411)

100% (428)

100% (1609)

59.1% (198)

46.3% (112)

76% (294)

61% (795)b

Nation-states

9.3% (31)

11.2% (27) 9.4% (32)

9% (35)

9.6% (125)

International/global

31.6% (106)

42.6% (103)

15% (58)

29.4% (383)

Total

100% (335)

100% (242) 100% (339)

100% (387)

100% (1303)

34.3% (141)

Actively involved in any other movement Communities/subnational

56.3% (191) 34.2% (116)

p-value = 0.060 p-value = 0.089 *p < 0.05 (two-tail), ***p < 0.01 (two-tail) a Z-test,

b Z-test,

within “the movement of movements” both causes and reflects the informal connections. In the analysis below, we assess the extent and pattern of informal linkages among social movement themes based on the responses we got from our four surveys of attendees at the four Social Fora meetings we studied. Table 8 contains the number of affiliations between movement themes based on active involvement in 27 movements from the Social Forum surveys in Nairobi, Atlanta, and Detroit. The Porto Alegre survey included only 18 movement themes and combined human rights with anti-racism. This original list of movements was created based on previous studies of global justice movements (Starr 2000; Fisher and Ponniah 2003) that we believed would be represented at the Porto Alegre event. The Nairobi, Atlanta, and Detroit surveys included a longer list of 27 movement themes

424

C. Chase-Dunn et al.

Table 7 Are you part of a global social movement? Do you consider yourself to be part of a global social movement?  No  Yes Nairobi 2007

Atlanta 2007

Detroit 2010

All

84.6% (22)

91.9% (113)a, b

Actively involved in indigenous rights Yes

90.9% (30)

95.3% (61)

No

9.1% (3)

4.7% (3)

15.4% (4)

8.1% (10)

Total

100% (33)

100% (64)

100% (26)

100% (123)

73.7% (328)

82% (1058)a

NOT actively involved in indigenous rights Yes

86.2% (325)

86.4% (405)

No

13.8% (52)

13.6% (64)

26.3% (117)

18% (233)

Total

100% (377)

100% (469)

100% (445)

100% (1291)

Actively involved in any other movement Yes

91.5% (247)

91.2% (352)

77.2% (308)

86% (907)b

No

8.5% (23)

8.8% (34)

22.8% (91)

14% (148)

Total

100% (270)

100% (386)

100% (399)

100% (1055)

p-value = 0.005*** b Z-test, p-value = 0.069 *p < 0.05 (two-tail), ***p < 0.01 (two-tail) a Z-test,

Table 8 Symmetrical affiliation matrix of movement links Media/Culture Anarchism Anti-corporate Anti-globalization Alternative globalization /global justice Human rights Communist Environmental Fair trade/ trade justice Food rights/slow food Gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender/queer rights Health/HIV Indigenous Labor National sovereignty/national liberation Peace/anti-war Socialist Women’s/feminist Antiracism Autonomous Development aid/Economic development Open-Source/Intellectual Property Rights Housing rights/anti-eviction/squatters Jobless workers/welfare rights Migrant/Immigration rights Religious/Spiritual Peasant/Farmers/Landless/Land-reform

Media/CAnarchism Anti-corpoAnti-globalAlternative globa Human rights CommunisEnvironmeFair trade/ tFood rights/sGay/lesbiaHealth/HIV Indigenous Labor National sPeace/Socialist Women’s/Antiracism AutonomoDevelopment aOpen-Source/Housing rJobless wMigrant/ImReligious/S Peasant/F 271 38 86 79 86 116 19 103 107 81 53 67 52 62 32 112 44 85 121 43 56 40 51 42 75 42 33 38 93 56 51 31 40 14 44 40 29 31 27 22 32 14 38 10 37 49 33 20 17 34 18 34 11 21 86 56 212 128 91 109 22 106 117 80 53 53 51 78 31 114 46 86 126 43 46 30 51 43 79 31 36 79 51 128 233 98 118 30 105 108 81 40 60 49 72 28 108 53 85 126 45 51 26 50 38 86 33 47 86 31 91 98 270 147 20 118 142 99 54 62 60 70 36 118 53 88 108 37 74 35 51 48 88 42 41 116 40 109 118 147 421 32 165 178 116 77 118 88 113 57 202 76 150 197 41 87 36 105 91 156 76 63 19 14 22 30 20 32 82 23 23 18 17 23 13 36 16 32 39 31 35 16 19 9 18 18 24 10 13 103 44 106 105 118 165 23 360 164 138 76 99 72 75 36 163 56 127 146 36 94 48 72 62 91 56 52 107 40 117 108 142 178 23 164 354 146 64 85 68 96 47 172 64 120 149 41 89 39 71 65 116 58 57 81 29 80 81 99 116 18 138 146 238 59 63 49 62 31 102 46 85 96 29 62 38 52 49 68 39 57 53 31 53 40 54 77 17 76 64 59 159 50 44 45 24 70 25 83 75 20 37 25 43 42 61 31 32 67 27 53 60 62 118 23 99 85 63 50 233 40 52 28 90 47 109 112 32 58 27 60 58 71 52 38 52 22 51 49 60 88 13 72 68 49 44 40 128 39 30 72 26 62 68 22 41 32 42 34 62 30 46 62 32 78 72 70 113 36 75 96 62 45 52 39 235 31 99 76 91 101 31 47 27 55 73 98 34 35 32 14 31 28 36 57 16 36 47 31 24 28 30 31 75 46 32 27 46 21 25 20 30 28 33 23 27 112 38 114 108 118 202 32 163 172 102 70 90 72 99 46 362 78 131 164 38 72 42 77 68 122 78 61 44 10 46 53 53 76 39 56 64 46 25 47 26 76 32 78 154 63 67 20 33 21 31 43 54 27 28 85 37 86 85 88 150 31 127 120 85 83 109 62 91 27 131 63 308 147 36 59 35 68 62 105 54 46 121 49 126 126 108 197 35 146 149 96 75 112 68 101 46 164 67 147 383 54 74 29 84 77 133 60 47 43 33 43 45 37 41 16 36 41 29 20 32 22 31 21 38 20 36 54 95 24 19 29 26 36 13 22 56 20 46 51 74 87 19 94 89 62 37 58 41 47 25 72 33 59 74 24 189 29 45 47 59 37 33 40 17 30 26 35 36 9 48 39 38 25 27 32 27 20 42 21 35 29 19 29 76 26 21 25 23 33 51 34 51 50 51 105 18 72 71 52 43 60 42 55 30 77 31 68 84 29 45 26 160 60 64 33 48 42 18 43 38 48 91 18 62 65 49 42 58 34 73 28 68 43 62 77 26 47 21 60 141 64 33 34 75 34 79 86 88 156 24 91 116 68 61 71 62 98 33 122 54 105 133 36 59 25 64 64 264 40 51 42 11 31 33 42 76 10 56 58 39 31 52 30 34 23 78 27 54 60 13 37 23 33 33 40 163 27 33 21 36 47 41 63 13 52 57 57 32 38 46 35 27 61 28 46 47 22 33 33 48 34 51 27 106

and separated human rights from anti-racism. Some of the network analyses that follow use all four surveys. In order to make the later surveys comparable with Porto Alegre, we combine human rights with anti-racism and use only the 18 movement themes that were on the Porto Alegre survey. But for some analyses, we drop Porto Alegre and use the longer list of 27 movement themes.17

23 Global Indigenism and the Web of Transnational …

425

Table 8 does not include the Porto Alegre survey because we want to see how indigenism is related to the longer list of movement themes and to separate human rights from anti-racism. This is the affiliation matrix for the combination of responses from the Nairobi, Atlanta, and Detroit surveys. The affiliation matrix displays all the instances in which respondents chose two or more movement themes as one in which they were actively involved. As we found in our earlier studies, the affiliation matrix shows that all of the movement themes are connected with all of the other movement themes by a least a few overlaps. There are no zeros. The matrix of movement affiliations does not contain separate factions (unconnected groups of movements). It is a single interconnected web of movements. The smallest number in Table 8 is 9, which (ironically) is the intersection between Communist and Open Source/Intellectual Property Rights. The diagonal in the affiliation matrix contains the total of all the choices of each movement theme. So, for indigenous, there were 128 attendees who indicated that they were actively involved. The numbers in red in Table 8 show the overlaps between indigenous activists and the other movement themes. The movement theme with the least overlaps with indigenous rights activism is communist (13). The movement theme with the largest number of overlaps is human rights (88). Figure 1 displays the network connections for the 27 movement themes using data from Nairobi, Atlanta, and Detroit. In order to produce this figure, it is necessary to dichotomize the distribution of affiliations shown in Table 8. We use the same cutting point that we have used in earlier studies of the network of movement ties— 1.5 standard deviations above the mean number of affiliations in Table 8. Using this cutting point results in a figure that indicates that Human Rights is the main contact

Fig. 1 Movement links: the number of affiliations based on active involvement in 27 movement themes from the Social Fora surveys in Nairobi, Atlanta, and Detroit

426

C. Chase-Dunn et al.

point between indigenous rights and the other movements. This happens because indigenous rights is a relatively small movement theme and so when we use the mean of the whole distribution as the cutting point the ties that indigenism has with other movements are coded as zeroes. Only the tie with human rights is large enough to be 1.5 standard deviations above the mean. By this same criterion, the six movement themes in the upper left corner have no connections with other movement themes that are large enough to show up in the diagram. This figure is good for showing the relative location of the largest and most central movement themes such as human rights, anti-racism, environmental, fair trade, and anti-corporate, but it is not very helpful for showing the nature of the connections between a small movement theme like indigenism with other movements. Table 9 uses the affiliation data that was in Table 8 but looks at it from the point of view of the indigenous rights movement theme, a so-called ego network approach (looking at the links of a particular node of the network rather than from the point of view of the whole network.) This allows us to see more clearly which other movement themes indigenism is strongly connected with and those with which it is only weakly connected. Table 9 also includes both the results when all four surveys are included (based on 18 movement themes) and the results when only the last three surveys are included (based on 27 movement themes). Table 9 also includes the indigenist overlaps for each of the surveys separately. The first at the second and third columns in Table 9 contain the results with and without Porto Alegre. Human rights/anti-racism has the biggest overlap with indigenism in Porto Alegre, and the human rights theme by itself has the biggest overlap when it is separated from anti-racism in the other three surveys. This is an important finding. The Human rights theme is consistently large and near the center of all the networks. It is one of the most important nodes connecting all Table 9 Ego network of Indigenous overlaps Indigenous Human rights (and antiracism*) Environmental Peace/anti-war Fair trade/ trade justice Women’s/feminist Media/culture Alternative globalization /global justice Anti-globalization Anti-corporate Food rights/slow food Labor Health/HIV Gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender/queer rights National sovereignty/national liberation Socialist Anarchist Communist Antiracism Migrant/immigrant rights Peasant/ farmers/landless/land-reform Housing rights Development aid/economic development Jobless workers/ welfare rights Open-source/ intellectual property rights Religious/spiritual Autonomous

All 4 Surveys* Count Percent Rank 176 112 63.64% 98 55.68% 87 49.43% 84 47.73% 74 42.05% 73 41.48% 72 40.91% 63 35.80% 61 34.66% 60 34.09% 54 30.68% 53 30.11% 51 28.98% 39 22.16% 34 19.32% 27 15.34% 20 11.36% n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a

3 Surveys (no Porto Alegre) Porto Alegre WSF 2005* Count Percent Rank Count Percent Rank 128 48 1 88 68.75% 1 24 50.00% 2 72 56.25% 2 26 54.17% 3 72 56.25% 2 15 31.25% 4 68 53.13% 4 16 33.33% 5 62 48.44% 6 12 25.00% 6 52 40.63% 9 21 43.75% 7 60 46.88% 8 12 25.00% 8 49 38.28% 11 14 29.17% 9 51 39.84% 10 10 20.83% 10 49 38.28% 11 11 22.92% 11 39 30.47% 18 15 31.25% 12 40 31.25% 17 13 27.08% 13 44 34.38% 14 7 14.58% 14 30 23.44% 21 9 18.75% 15 26 20.31% 23 8 16.67% 16 22 17.19% 24 5 10.42% 17 13 10.16% 26 7 14.58% n/a 68 53.13% 4 n/a n/a n/a 62 48.44% 6 n/a n/a n/a 46 35.94% 13 n/a n/a n/a 42 32.81% 15 n/a n/a n/a 41 32.03% 16 n/a n/a n/a 34 26.56% 19 n/a n/a n/a 32 25.00% 20 n/a n/a n/a 30 23.44% 21 n/a n/a n/a 22 17.19% 24 n/a n/a

Nairobi WSF 2007 Count Percent Rank 35 2 26 74.29% 1 20 57.14% 5 18 51.43% 4 16 45.71% 9 15 42.86% 3 13 37.14% 9 17 48.57% 7 12 34.29% 12 7 20.00% 11 13 37.14% 5 10 28.57% 8 13 37.14% 15 11 31.43% 13 8 22.86% 14 9 25.71% 17 2 5.71% 15 6 17.14% n/a 12 34.29% n/a 16 45.71% 18 51.43% n/a n/a 8 22.86% n/a 11 31.43% n/a 11 31.43% n/a 12 34.29% n/a 10 28.57% n/a 9 25.71%

Atlanta USSF 2007 Count Percent Rank 66 1 46 69.70% 2 33 50.00% 3 44 66.67% 6 40 60.61% 8 33 50.00% 9 31 46.97% 5 32 48.48% 12 27 40.91% 24 26 39.39% 9 23 34.85% 18 19 28.79% 9 20 30.30% 15 23 34.85% 22 9 13.64% 20 10 15.15% 26 9 13.64% 25 3 4.55% 12 40 60.61% 6 35 53.03% 3 19 28.79% 22 23 34.85% 15 18 27.27% 15 15 22.73% 12 13 19.70% 18 12 18.18% 20 9 13.64%

Detroit USSF 2010 Count Percent Rank 27 1 16 59.26% 6 19 70.37% 2 10 37.04% 3 12 44.44% 6 14 51.85% 9 8 29.63% 8 11 40.74% 10 10 37.04% 11 18 66.67% 12 13 48.15% 16 10 37.04% 15 7 25.93% 12 10 37.04% 23 13 48.15% 22 7 25.93% 23 11 40.74% 26 4 14.81% 3 16 59.26% 5 11 40.74% 16 9 33.33% 12 11 40.74% 18 12 44.44% 19 8 29.63% 20 7 25.93% 21 8 29.63% 23 4 14.81%

3 1 14 8 5 19 10 14 2 6 14 22 14 6 22 10 25 3 10 18 10 8 19 22 19 25

23 Global Indigenism and the Web of Transnational …

427

the movement themes. In part, this is because human rights is a central element of the emerging global geoculture, which is built around increasing centrality of the human individual (Meyer 2009; Wallerstein 2012) and legitimation of authority with reference to the rights of individuals. This said, the indigenist movement has a fundamental criticism of the individualist model of human rights as embodied in the Universal Declaration of Human Right because it completely ignores collective rights (the rights of communities). Indigenous rights movements have also linked the rights discourse with nature, proclaiming the rights of pachamama (Mother Earth) as identified by Casas (2014; see also Champagne 2010). It is also useful to recall that “individual rights” was often used as a rationalization for dispossessing indigenous peoples from their lands and resources. Table 9 also shows that the second biggest overlap of indigenism is with environmentalism. This is not very surprising, but there is an interesting wrinkle. When we look at the surveys separately environmentalism was first in Porto Alegre (column 4) and Detroit (column 7) and second in Nairobi, but it was sixth in Atlanta. The indigenous activists who attended the Atlanta U.S. Social Forum were less connected with environmentalists than were the indigenous activists at all the other venues. Perhaps this is part of the reason behind the big rebellion that occurred at the end of the Atlanta meeting. Students of indigenism know that there are important differences among the champions of indigenous rights. The classical split is between the traditionals [who stand for the maintenance of traditional values and ways of life] and the moderns [who seek integration with and prosperity within the larger non-indigenous societies). But there are other contradictions as well. A few movement themes seem to change their degree of connection with indigenism greatly from venue to venue. Media/culture is near the top (third) in Porto Alegre but near the bottom (nineteenth) in Detroit. We should also discuss the other end of the spectrum, those movements that are little connected with indigenism. The Old Left movements (anarchism, communism, socialism) are in this group, but somewhat surprisingly so is autonomism despite the substantial support that European autonomists have voiced for Latin American indigenism (Lopez and Turrion 2006). And though New Age spiritualism is often thought to be an important element in the Red Road movement, in the Social Forum context the religious/spiritual movement theme has little overlap with indigenism. This may be a wording problem, since indigenous belief systems have different labels: “spirituality” with positive connotation; “superstition” with a very negative connotation. Figure 2 is an ego network depiction based on the three surveys for which we had 27 movement themes—no Porto Alegre. It uses lines of different widths to distinguish between connections of different strengths in the indigenous ego network. Once again production of such a figure requires dichotomization of the affiliation matrix, but here we used 1.5 standard deviations above the mean calculated at the average of the indigenous overlaps. Figure 2 shows the big overlaps discussed above as well as some of the links among those movements that are well-connected with indigenism. We have not yet mentioned feminism, but in Fig. 2 and in Table 9 feminism is fairly high among the movement theme overlaps with indigenism, varying from 9th place of importance in Porto Alegre, 8th in Nairobi, 6th in Atlanta, and 5th in Detroit). It is tempting to see a trend in this.

428

C. Chase-Dunn et al.

Fig. 2 Indigenous Ego network

Summary Our main purpose was to investigate conditions of the current world revolution and the ways in which indigenism is working within it. Indigenism as an ideology is far larger and more important in the culture of the New Global Left than the number of people who consider themselves to be indigenous. This is a significant finding. Indigenism is also an important feature of the larger emerging global geoculture and is used frequently to sell commodities and to promote all kinds of projects. We have used the results of surveys conducted at Social Forum meetings to see how indigenous sympathizers and indigenous activists are similar to or different from other attendees. The Social Forum process is itself a project of the New Global Left, so we are mainly comparing indigenists with other progressive activists, not with the population of the world. While our findings are far from definitive, they are strongly suggestive and point to a need to explore these matters in greater depth. [1] We find that the numbers of both sympathizers and activists are far larger than the number of attendees who identify themselves as racially/ethnically indigenous. [2] We also find that indigenous activists are both less white and less black than other attendees, and more likely to classify themselves as mixed or other. But 34% of indigenous activists classify themselves as White/Caucasian. [3] Indigenous activists are somewhat more radical on some political issues than those who are not indigenous activists, and they are more likely to believe that the community arena is the most important locus for solving contemporary problems. [4] We find that indigenous activists want to abolish capitalism and the World Bank more than other attendees, and this holds even in comparison with those who

23 Global Indigenism and the Web of Transnational …

429

are actively involved in other social movement themes. But indigenous activists are not more radical in general (Table A5 in the Appendix). [5] Indigenous activists are both more in favor of and more against a future democratic world government (Table 5), indicating that this issue is contentious among indigenous activists. This could reflect past experiences with “democratic” states. Indigenous activists see the local community as the most important for solving problems more than do other attendees (Table 6) but they are also more likely to consider themselves to be part of a global movement than other attendees (Table 7). A much deeper, and we think far more important, theoretical link lies just below the surface of these statistical findings. The lifeways and views of many indigenous peoples and their many movements are implicit—though becoming increasingly explicit—challenges to fundamental institutions and ideologies that were part of the European Enlightenment and the practices that were used in the expansion of European colonialism. [6] Collective rights are much more than a simple summation of individual rights. Rather, they constitute a set of human rights different from individual rights. Similarly, concepts of marriage, kinship, religion, and “democratic” governance are much broader and more variable that nearly all state-level conceptualizations. [7] Regarding the links that indigenistas have with other social movements we find that indigenous rights movements are strongly connected with human rights, environmentalism, and anti-racism. The overlap with feminism is also strong and may be getting stronger. Endnotes 1. 2.

3.

4.

5.

Demographic and attitudinal characteristics of attendees are presented in Reese et al. (2008). The project website contains the WSF05, WSF07, and USSF07 and USSF 10 survey instruments. See http://www.irows.ucr.edu/research/tsmstudy.htm. All network calculations employed the UCINET 6.130 software package (Borgatti et al. 2002). What we call “movement themes” include both ideological constellations (e.g., anarchism, communism, etc.) and topical issues. The latter groupings of social movement organizations around their goals have been called “social movement industries” (Zald and McCarthy 1987; Snow and Soule 2009: 152). Culturicide refers to destruction of a culture without necessarily killing individuals. Ethnocide refers to destruction of an ethnic identity without necessarily killing individuals. The two together constitute complete assimilation. Collective rights guarantee the development and preservation of ethnic minorities’ cultural identities and forms of organizations. A few existing legal instruments recognize these rights, including Article 169 of the International Labour Organization and the political constitutions of several nations including Colombia, Bolivia, and Ecuador. In Colombia, for example, collective rights

430

C. Chase-Dunn et al.

have been invoked in the struggles of the Nukak Makuk, Uwa, and Embera people. https://www.foei.org/what-we-do/collective-rights). 6. (See Champagne 2010; Coates 2004; Cobo 1986; Fenelon 2012; Hall and Nagel 2000; Perry 1996; Smith 1999; and Tsosie 2003). 7. World revolutions are periods in world history in which local rebellions cluster in time across the world-system. Iconic years of rebellions are used to symbolize the meaning and organizational nature of world revolutions: 1789, 1848, 1917, 1968, 1989, and 20xx for the one that is occurring now (Chase-Dunn and Niemeyer 2009). 8. Idle No More is a similar organization. Its web page [http://www.idlenomor e.ca/] and the Wikipedia article on it is very informative. 9. We use racial/ethnic because the terms were so used in the surveys. It would be nice to be able to document the valence of the term “indigenous” in different parts of the world and in different local places and among different sets of people. Sometimes indigenous is a matter of pride (there is wide Facebook presence for just that) but in other places indigeneity is a negative status characteristic that causes people to avoid presenting an indigenous identity. Systematic global research on indigenous identities is yet in its infancy, 10. The data set and additional tables and figures that we produced for this paper are available from the paper appendix at http://irows.ucr.edu/cd/appendices/ind igpap/indigpapapp.htm. 11. In Porto Alegre, the survey question was “What is your race or ethnicity? Please write in.” In Nairobi and Atlanta, the question was somewhat different: “What is your ethnicity or race? Check one.  Black  Middle Eastern  South Asian  Indigenous  Latino/Hispanic  East Asian  White  Pacific Islander  Multiracial: Please specify ___________________________________  Other: Please specify_______________________________________  Decline to answer In Detroit, race and ethnicity were separated: “What is your race? Check one.” ◯ Black ◯ Middle Eastern ◯ South Asian ◯ Indigenous ◯ Latino/Hispanic ◯ East Asian ◯ White ◯ Pacific Islander ◯ Decline to answer ◯ Multiracial, please specify _________________________________ ◯ Other, please specify_____________________________________ What is your ethnicity? _____________________________ The separation of race from ethnicity in the Detroit survey may have caused the answers to have a somewhat different meaning from those given in the other surveys, but the exact similarity in the number of those identifying themselves as indigenous at the Atlanta and Detroit meetings shown in the first row of Table 1 could imply that the differently worded questions did not have much

23 Global Indigenism and the Web of Transnational …

12.

13. 14.

15.

16.

17.

431

effect. Most sociologists understand that both race and ethnicity are socially constructed status characteristics. As we have said above, we are not entirely confident that our efforts to obtain a random sample of attendees were entirely successful. It is possible that indigenous activists were so busy at the Detroit event that they did not have time to fill out our survey. The z-test comparison of these two proportions finds this difference to be significant at the 0.05 level. A recent commentary on indigenous kinship, “Matters of Ancestry Indigenous people speak often about their ancestors, but they may not mean anything as simple as genealogy (Godesky 2015; online at. https://medium.com/@jefgod esky/matters-of-ancestry-35e9bc6328d6), provides a recent, brief discussion of this issue. Some useful resources here are Dunaway (1996, 1997, 2000), Jaimes and Halsey (1992), Pickering (2000), Snow (1996), and Ward et al. (2000). The UN declaration is available online in several languages. The examples in Ferguson and Whitehead (1992) clearly show that many of these issues arose in instance long before the global dominance of capitalism. This indicates that some of these problems are rooted in states, whether they are capitalistic or not. In earlier studies, we have looked at the networks produced from each Social Forum meeting separately (e.g., Chase-Dunn and Kaneshiro 2009; Chase-Dunn and Breckenridge-Jackson 2013). Our main finding is that, though there are some differences from meeting to meeting, the overall pattern of a single multicentric network in which all the movement themes are connected with one another holds across all the meetings.

References Borgatti, S.P., M.G. Everett, and L.C. Freeman. 2002. UCINET 6 For Windows: Software for Social Network Analysis. http://www.analytictech.com. Brysk, Alison. 2000. From Tribal Village to Global Village: Indian Rights and International Relations in Latin America. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Casas, Tanya. 2014. Transcending the Coloniality of Development: Moving Beyond Human/Nature Hierarchies. American Behavioral Scientist 58 (1). Champagne, Duane. 2010. Notes from the Center of Turtle Island. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press. Chase-Dunn, C., Christine Petit, Richard Niemeyer, Robert A. Hanneman and Ellen Reese. 2007. The contours of solidarity and division among global movements. International Journal of Peace Studies 12 (2): 1–15 (Autumn/Winter). Chase-Dunn, C., and Ian Breckenridge-Jackson. 2013. The Network of Movements in the U.S. Social Forum Process: Comparing Atlanta 2007 with Detroit 2010. IROWS Working Paper #71. http://irows.ucr.edu/papers/irows71/irows71.htm.

432

C. Chase-Dunn et al.

Chase-Dunn, C., and Matheu Kaneshiro. 2009. Stability and Change in the Contours of Alliances Among Movements in the Social Forum Process. In Engaging Social Justice, ed. David Fasenfest, 119–133. Brill: Leiden. Chase-Dunn, C., and R.E. Niemeyer. 2009. The world revolution of 20xx. In Transnational Political Spaces, ed. Mathias Albert, Gesa Bluhm, Han Helmig, Andreas Leutzsch, and Jochen Walter, 35–57. Frankfurt/New York: Campus Verlag. Coates, Ken S. 2004. A Global History of Indigenous Peoples: Struggle and Survival. New York: Palgrave. Cobo, José Martinez. 1986. Who are the Indigenous Peoples? A Working Definition. International Working Group for Indigenous Affairs. http://www.iwgia.org/sw310.asp. Accessed 1 Mar 2006. Conway, Janet M. 2012. Edges of Global Justice: The World Social Forum and Its ‘Others’ London: Routledge. Coyne, Gary et al. 2010. 2010 U.S. Social Forum Survey of Attendees: Preliminary Report. http:// irows.ucr.edu/papers/irows45/irows45.htm. Diamond, Jared. 1997. Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. New York: W.W. Norton. Dunaway, Wilma A. 1996. The First American Frontier: Transition to Capitalism in Southern Appalachia, 1700-1860. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Dunaway, Wilma. 1997. Rethinking Cherokee Acculturation: Women’s Resistance to Agrarian Capitalism and Cultural Change, 1800-1838. American Indian Culture and Research Journal 21 (1): 231–268. Dunaway, Wilma. 2000. The International Fur Trade and Disempowerment of Cherokee Women, 1680–1775. In World-Systems Reader: New Perspectives on Gender, Urbanism, Cultures, Indigenous Peoples, and Ecology, ed. Thomas D. Hall. Lanham, MD, 195–210. Rowman and Littlefield. Fenelon, James V. 1998. Culturicide, Resistance and Survival of the Lakota (“Sioux Nation”). New York: Garland (Routledge). Fenelon, James V. 2012. Indigenous Peoples, Globalization, and Autonomy in World-Systems Analysis. In Routledge Handbook of World-Systems Analysis, ed. Salvatore J. Babones and Christopher Chase-Dunn, 304–312. New York: Routledge. Ferguson, R.Brian, and Neil L. Whitehead (eds.). 1992. War in the Tribal Zone: Expanding States and Indigenous Warfare. Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research Press. Fisher, William F., and Thomas Ponniah (eds.). 2003. Another World is Possible: Popular Alternatives to Globalization at the World Social Forum. London: Zed Books. Godesky, Jason. 2015. Matters of Ancestry: Indigenous People Speak Often about their Ancestors, but they May Not Mean Anything as Simple as Genealogy. Published online by Medium.com, 6 Jan 2015. https://medium.com/@jefgodesky/matters-of-ancestry-35e9bc6328d6. Accessed 17 Jan 2015. Hall, Thomas D., and James V. Fenelon. 2008. Indigenous Movements and Globalization: What is Different? What is the Same?” Globalizations 5 (1): 1–11. Hall, Thomas D., and James V. Fenelon. 2009. Indigenous Peoples and Globalization: Resistance and Revitalization. Boulder, CO: Paradigm Press. Hall, Thomas D., and Joane Nagel. 2000. Indigenous Peoples. In The Encyclopedia of Sociology, Vol. 2, Revised edition, ed. Edgar F. Borgatta and Rhonda J. V. Montgomery, 1295–1301. New York: Macmillan Reference. Hamalainen, Pekka. 2008. The Comanche Empire. New Haven: Yale University Press. Hodgson, Dorothy L. 2002. Precarious Alliances: The Cultural Politics and Structural Predicaments of the Indigenous Rights Movement in Tanzania. American Anthropologist 104 4(Dec): 1086– 1097. Hodgson, Dorothy L. 2011. Being Maasai, Becoming Indigenous: Postcolonial Politics in a Neoliberal World. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Hobden, Deborah. 2014. Your Mall With it All: Luxury Development in a Globalizing African City. Perspectives in Global Development and Technology 13: 129–147.

23 Global Indigenism and the Web of Transnational …

433

Hull, Michael. 2000. Sun Dancing: A Spiritual Journey on the Red Road. Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions International. Jaimes, M. Annette with Halsey, Theresa. 1992. American Indian Women: At the Center of Indigenous North America. In The State of Native America: Genocide, Colonization, and Resistance, ed. M. Annette Jaimes, 311–344. Boston, MA: South End Press. Lincoln, Kenneth. 1987. The Good Red Road: Passages into Native America. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. López, Jesús Espasandín and Pablo Iglesias Turrión (eds.). 2006. Bolivia en movimiento. Acción colectiva y poder político. http://www.nodo50.org/boliviaenmovimiento/. Martin, William G., et al. 2008. Making Waves: Worldwide Social Movements, 1750-2005. Boulder, CO: Paradigm. McGaa (ed.). 1992. Rainbow Tribe: Ordinary People Journeying on the Red Road. New York: HarperCollins. Meyer, John W. 2009. World Society. New York: Oxford University Press. Osava, Mario. 1999. World Social Forum: ‘Stateless Peoples’ Defend Diversity. Inter Press Service New Agency. http://www.ipsnews.net/2009/02/world-social-forum-stateless-peoples-defend-div ersity/. Perry, Richard J. 1996. From Time Immemorial: Indigenous Peoples and State Systems. Austin: University of Texas Press. Pickering, Kathleen Ann. 2000. Lakota Culture, World Economy. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press. Reese, Ellen, Christopher Chase-Dunn, Kadambari Anantram, Gary Coyne, Matheu Kaneshiro, Ashley N. Koda, Roy Kwon and Preeta Saxena. 2008. Research Note: Surveys of World Social Forum Participants Show Influence of Place and Base in the Global Public Sphere. Mobilization: An International Journal 13 (4): 431–445. Revised version in A Handbook of the World Social Forums, 2012, edited by Jackie Smith, Scott Byrd, Ellen Reese and Elizabeth Smythe. Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers. Reitan, Ruth. 2007. Global Activism. London: Routledge. Ross, Anne, Kathleen Pickering Sherman, Jeffrey G. Snodgrass, Henry D. Delcore, and Richard Sherman. 2011. Indigenous Peoples and the Collaborative Stewardship of Nature: Knowledge Binds and Institutional Conflicts. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press. Santos, Boaventura de Sousa. 2006. The Rise of the Global Left. London: Zed Press. Smith, Jackie and Dawn Weist. 2012. Social Movement in the World-System. New York: RussellSage. Smith, Jackie, Marina Karides, Marc Becker, Dorval Brunelle, Christopher Chase-Dunn, Donatella della Porta, Rosalba Icaza Garza, Jeffrey S. Juris, Lorenzo Mosca, Ellen Reese, Peter Jay Smith and Rolando Vazquez. 2014. Global Democracy and the World Social Forums, Revised 2nd edn. Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers. Smith, Linda Tuhiwai. 1999. Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples. London: Zed Books. Snow, Dean R. 1996. The Iroquois. New York: Blackwell. Snow, David A., and Sarah A. Soule. 2009. A Primer on Social Movements. New York: Norton. Starr, Amory. 2000. Naming the Enemy: Anti-Corporate Movements Confront Globalization. London: Zed Books. Steger, Manfred, James Goodman, and Erin K. Wilson. 2013. Justice Globalism: Ideology, Crises, Policy. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Tsosie, Rebecca. 2003. Land, Culture and Community: Envisioning Native American Sovereignty and National Identity in the Twenty-First Century. In The Future of Indigenous Peoples: Strategies for Survival and Development, ed. by Duane Champagne and Imael Abu-Saad, 3–20. Los Angeles: UCLA American Indian Studies Center. Wallerstein, Immanuel. 2012. The Modern World-System, Volume 4 The Triumph of Centrist Liberalism. Berkeley: University of California Press.

434

C. Chase-Dunn et al.

Ward, Carol, Elon Stand, Ward, Carol, Elon Stander, and Yodit Solom. 2000. Resistance through Healing among American Indian Women. In A World-Systems Reader: New Perspectives on Gender, Urbanism, Cultures, Indigenous Peoples, and Ecology, ed. Thomas D. Hall, 211–236. Boulder, CO: Rowman and Littlefield. Wilmer, Franke. 1993. The Indigenous Voice in World Politics. Newbury Park: Sage. Zald, Mayer N., and John D. McCarthy. 1987. Social movement industries: competition and conflict. In Social Movements in and Organizational Society, ed. Mayer N. Zald and John D. McCarthy, 161–184. New Brunswick, NJ: Transactions Publishers.

Christopher Chase-Dunn is a Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Director of the Institute for Research on World-Systems at the University of California, Riverside, USA. He is the author of Rise and Demise: Comparing World-Systems (with Thomas D. Hall), and Social Change: Globalization from the Stone Age to the Present (with Bruce Lerro). He is the founder and former editor of the Journal of World-Systems Research. Chase-Dunn is currently doing research on transnational social movements. He also studies the rise and fall of settlements and polities since the Stone Age and global state formation.

Part III

GLOBALIZATION IN THE GLOBAL SOUTH

VIEWS FROM THE ASIA-PACIFIC

Globalization and Political Economy

Chapter 24

Globalization in Asia or Asian Globalization? Habibul Haque Khondker

Abstract Asia has been a beneficiary of economic globalization as evident in the rapid economic growth of a number of large Asian countries in the past three decades. Yet, the process of globalization has been both contested and coopted. In some Asian countries, globalization has been embraced unquestioningly and adopted as an economic strategy to catch up with the economically and technologically advanced West. In other parts of Asia, a tension exists between economic globalization and political globalization, or techno-economic globalization and cultural globalization. This chapter will highlight the various combinations and permutations of accepting aspects of globalization and rejecting others. The conflicting and complimentary relationships can be viewed simply as globalization in Asia, which posits Asia at the receiving end of the processes of global modernity. Arguing that an Asian globalization with deep historical roots may be viewed as a contributor to the processes of globalization, the present chapter examines the process of globalization in Asia historically arguing that Asian globalization is likely to reshape and broaden the very idea of globalization. In this chapter, a comprehensive view, that is, a thick theory of globalization is presented, which is entangled, embedded, and contingent.

Introduction The rise of Asia is best visualized in the presence of soaring structures from Dubai to Shanghai, Taipei, and Kuala Lumpur. The Burj Khalifa in Dubai, the tallest building in the world (as of 2018) stands at 830 m; the Empire State Building, which dominated the skyscrapers in most of the twentieth century is 381 m tall. Shanghai Tower, 632 m; Taipei’s 101 tower, 509 m, and Kuala Lumpur’s Petronas tower, 452 m stand tall exuding a confidence of achievement. A new Asian drama in the midst of a globalized world is unfolding. In 1968, when Swedish economist (later, Nobel laureate) Gunnar Myrdal (1968) wrote a book on Asian developments, he titled it The Asian Drama. With hindsight, his title was a little premature; the real Asian drama is H. H. Khondker (B) Zayed University, Khalifa City, PO Box 144534, Abu Dhabi, UAE e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 I. Rossi (ed.), Challenges of Globalization and Prospects for an Inter-civilizational World Order, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44058-9_24

441

442

H. H. Khondker

taking place only now as a growing number of economies in Asia are vying for the center stage in the world economy. And many writers in the West, historian Kennedy (2010), for example, has accepted that reality stoically, as part of historical processes where economically productive countries surge ahead and slackers fall behind. But should globalization be viewed narrowly as an economic process alone? Globalization, in this chapter, will be viewed as a social process of connectivity and interactivity cutting across geographical and cultural boundaries. This mega process can be conceptualized as impacting different aspects or spheres of society, for example, in technological, economic, political, cultural, and ideological domains. Roland Robertson and Joan Chirico offer a broad and inclusive definition of globalization as a set of processes through which the world is becoming “a single place” (Robertson and Chirico 1985: 220 quoted in Chirico 2014: 8). Globalization has also been examined as a macro-historical “process of processes” as well as changes in the consciousness of people at the level of everyday life (Turner and Khondker 2010: 17). The process of globalization has not led to the demise of the regions, nationstates, or national or local cultures; in fact, nation-states have become more robust and cultures more resurgent. The process of globalization has led to both integration and divergence. The economies of the world have been enmeshed in trade, integrated production, and shared ideas about scientific knowledge and technology. Alongside homogenization, there is divergence or differences too, in matters of culture, identity, and political culture. Goody (1998: 166) observed that there are two aspects of the processes of globalization that proceed concurrently: homogenization and differentiation. The co-presence of uniformity and diversity is the most unique feature of globalization. Sociologist Robertson (1992, 1995) and others have introduced a new concept, globalizations, which may be a more useful concept to understand the intermingling of these processes. In the present chapter, we introduce a distinction between a thin theory of globalization and a thick theory of globalization. The thin theory, popularized mostly by the journalists, sees the world as being flattened or homogenized due to the diffusion of culture and technology. A thick theory of globalization views globalization as entangled, a condition produced by historical experiences of human interactions, absorptions of cultural ideas, institutions, and practices which are embedded and contingent. An entangled globality is the outcome of the processes of historically evolved globalization where ideas, cultural practices, and institutions intermingled and produced new differentiated cultural forms. The notion of embeddedness drawn from Polanyi (1944) and Granovetter (1985) is useful in the sense that it helps us understand that economic, technological, or political processes or ideas are not independent of social and cultural contexts. The idea of contingency reminds us that historical processes are neither unilinear nor teleological, that is, predetermined with a definitive outcome. Religious notions of predetermination or the Marxist idea that class societies will come to end via class struggle and social revolution are examples of teleology. Even Francis Fukuyama’s optimism expressed in the early 1990s that history has come to an end in the adherence of liberal, capitalist economy and democracy is an example of ideas rooted in teleology. The short-lived optimism was a product of the end of the Cold War in favor of the Western world. Yet, the “end of the history” thesis did not go unchallenged.

24 Globalization in Asia or Asian Globalization?

443

“History may have ended in the West but for the rest of the world, it has just begun”, commented one author (Khondker 1992). In retrospect, Fukuyama’s unbridled optimism and naiveté were the outgrowth of eurocentrism, an entrenched view of looking at the world through the provincial lenses of the Atlantic world. Globalization, more specifically, economic globalization has benefitted a large part of Asia—mostly East, Southeast, and South Asia in the first decades of the twenty-first century. Some of the most populated countries of the world located in Asia have experienced a high level of economic growth that led to a sharp fall in the number of poor people accompanied by a rising middle class. With the remarkable economic growth in China and India, Asia has been billed not only as one of the centers of the global world, but also credited as introducing the idea of a new, alternative, “Asian” globalization has also been mooted. Yet globality—the social, cultural, and political correlates of the process of economic globalization—has not developed evenly. Adherence to a global, cosmopolitan culture is being challenged by nationalism and pragmatic regionalism. In examining the contours of what we call, the Asian globalization, this chapter will explore the multifaceted nature of the processes of globalization and globality with specific reference to Asia as a historically constituted region. A disaggregated analysis of Asia reveals that while some regions have officially adopted a proactive globalization “policy”, other regions have allowed themselves to be guided by the forces of economic globalization as long as it benefits these nations economically but try to resist the cultural and political globalizations. The divergent approaches to globalization have resulted in complexities and contradictions in the processes of social transformation with profound ramifications. This chapter examines the Asian version of globalization with roots in the historical transformation of China, India, and the Middle East that resulted in a hybridized form of entangled globality starting with Japan in the late nineteenth century. Exploring the multifaceted mosaic of globalization in Asia, this chapter will examine the viability of Asian globalization and its implication for the globalization of the world as such.

Globalization in Asia More than three billion, or 41% of the world’s present 7.5 billion people live in Asia. Five of the top ten most populous countries of the world are in Asia. China with nearly 1.4 billion people is ranked number one, India is ranked two with 1.35 billion, Indonesia is ranked four with 264 million and Pakistan trails Brazil in the sixth position with a population of over 199.3 million. Bangladesh, despite an impressive slowdown of her fertility rate is ranked number eight with a population of 164.7 million. The other large-sized countries in population in Asia are: Japan, 126.7 million; Philippines 105 million; Vietnam 93.7 million. As an economic zone containing two of the fastest-growing economies—China and India—Asia also accounts for 33.84% of global gross domestic product (GDP). The process of accelerated economic development began in the last quarter of the twentieth century in East and Southeast Asia when scholars and journalists began to forecast that the twenty-first century would

444

H. H. Khondker

be the Asian or the Pacific century in the wake of the American century of the twentieth century and the European century of the nineteenth century. The three large economies of the world are located in Asia: China, Japan, and India. A new group of economies, “the next 11” according to the Financial Times, (Moore 2012) that included Indonesia, Vietnam, Bangladesh, and Pakistan—all large countries in terms of population—are taking significant strides in economic development. It will not be an exaggeration to say that the center of gravity of globalization—at least, in economic terms—has shifted to Asia. Asia as a region has made a leap forward by adopting and benefiting from some aspects of economic globalization such as economic liberalization by giving market forces a dominant role, promoting international trade, advancing migration, emphasizing education, adopting modern science and technology and changing the economic role of the state from one of controller to that of an enabler of the market. While joining the bandwagon of market liberalization and economic globalization, some of the large Asian countries have defied political liberalization and democratization; for example, the Asian Dragon economies took off under, what some writers called, “soft authoritarianism” (Fukuyama 1992; Nasir and Turner 2011). Soft authoritarianism has been defined, in the context of the Dragon economies, as a political system based on nominal democratic practices, where citizens settle for rapid economic growth under the guidance of the state and sacrifice some of the basic social and political rights in the bargain. Even for China, rapid and robust economic growth provides performance legitimacy to the government where political democracy is compromised to the extent that the term illiberal democracy is more apt. Yet, the largest of the world’s liberal democracies, at least, in procedural terms, India is also in Asia. The discussion of Asian globalization would remain incomplete without taking into account the interplay of the historical development of political and economic institutions in different regions of Asia. Political and economic transformations in Asia as part of the processes of global modernity have been tempered by a highly nationalistic rhetoric in various parts of Asia; in China, it has given rise to the notion of globalization with “Chinese Characteristics” (Eichengreen 2018). By analyzing the social and economic transformation in Asia, which remains highly heterogeneous not only politically but also culturally, we ask whether it is appropriate to talk about Asian globalization identifying specific economic, political, and cultural trends, or should we just see the remarkable transformations in Asia as an aspect of the larger, mega process of globalization incorporating Asia as a hitherto “external arena” in the sense of Immanuel Wallerstein. A mosaic of 48 countries that constitute Asia, according to the United Nations, has been embroiled at various degrees and levels of globalization and globality. Even before the rise of China, countries such as Singapore and South Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong pursued proactive globalization policies, embracing the logic of market and aligning the state policies towards enabling the market. For the Asian Tigers, Japan was the role model. Japan recuperated from the devastations of World War ll, albeit with the US assistance, but showed a great deal of innovation in steering an export-driven development and pragmatism in engaging with the world.

24 Globalization in Asia or Asian Globalization?

445

Table 1 The world’s ten largest economies in 2017 in GDP Rank Country

GDP (in millions of US dollars) Share of the World economya (%)

1

United States

19,390,604

24.3

2

China

12,237,700

14.8

3

Japan

4,872,137

5.9

4

Germany

3,677,439

4.5

5

United Kingdom

2,622,434

3.9

6

India

2,597,491

3.3

7

France

2,582,501

2.8

8

Brazil

2,055,506

2.5

9

Italy

1,934,798

2.4

10

Canada

1,653,043

2.1

Source World Development Indicators, The World Bank: 1 July 2018 http://databank.worldbank. org/data/download/GDP.pdf a The last column is based on Infographics in Foreign Policy https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/02/24/ infographic-heres-how-the-global-gdp-is-divvied-up/

By late 2017, according to the World Bank, three of the world’s ten largest economies, China, Japan, and India, were located in Asia (Table 1). Pundits agree that the United States dominates the world economy but given the high rates of growth in China and India that dominance may not last for long. China’s economy is currently trailing behind that of the US by 7 trillion dollars, but China’s growth rate was 6.7% in 2017 compared with the US’s 1.6% according to the IMF. According to a study by PricewaterhouseCoopers, China will be in the first place by 2050, India will rank second, the US will be third, and fourth place is expected to go to Indonesia (World Economic Forum 2017). The world economy grew at a rate of 3.5% from 1980 to 2016. According to economist Stephen Roach, without China growing at 9.7 percent during this period the global growth rate would have been just 2.7% (Moody 2017: 9). While growth in Gross Domestic Product, GDP, or Gross National Income, GNI provides an indicator of economic growth rate, life expectancy, and overall Human Development Index, HDI calculated by the United Nations Develop Program (UNDP) is a better indicator of overall social advancement. The following table presents the trajectory of growth rate measured in GNI, life expectancy, and HDI in large developing countries in Asia. The following Table 3 presents the per capita GNI growth and Human Development in two large Developing Countries of West Asia. Tables 2 and 3 present a clear trend in economic growth and improvement in the quality of life as measured by the Human Development in the most populous countries of Asia, indicating the dynamics of the Asian globalization. Comparative data reveal that Asia as a whole—the resource rich as well as resource poor, East, Southeast, South and West Asia—has experienced remarkable economic growth and human development. Later in this section, we also highlight the development trends in Central Asia, which clearly marks some of the shifts in the globalizing trends.

446

H. H. Khondker

Table 2 Per capita GNI growth and human development in large developing countries of East, Southeast, and South Asia Country

Year

Per capita GNI

Life expectancy

China (East Asia)

1970

120

59

1980

220

67

1990

330

69

2000

940

72

2010

4,340

75

2016

8,250

76

India (South Asia)

Indonesia (Southeast Asia)

Pakistan (South Asia)

Bangladesh (South Asia)

2017

8,690

76.4

1970

110

48

1980

270

55.4

1990

380

58.5

2000

440

62.1

2010

1,220

65.7

2016

1,670

68

2017

1,820

68.8

1970

80

54

1980

470

58.6

1990

560

63

1997

1,100

66

2000

580

66

2010

2,520

70.2

2016

3,400

70.5

2017

3,540

69.4

1970

180

53

1980

350

58

1990

420

60

2000

490

63

2010

1,080

66.1

2016

1,500

66.5

2017

1,580

66.6

1973

120

47 (in 1971)

1980

230

55

1990

310

60

2000

420

65

2010

780

69.4

2016

1,330

72

HDI ranking and index

86 (0.752)

130 (0.640)

116 (0.694)

150 (0.562)

(continued)

24 Globalization in Asia or Asian Globalization?

447

Table 2 (continued) Country Philippines (Southeast Asia)

Vietnam (Southeast Asia)

Year

Per capita GNI

Life expectancy

HDI ranking and index

2017

1,470

72.8

136 (0.608)

1970

220

61

1980

700

62.5

1990

720

65

2000

1,220

67

2010

2,470

68.2

2016

3,580

69

2017

3,660

69.2

1970

xxx

59.5

1980

xxx

67.5

1990

130

70.5

2000

420

73

2010

1,250

75.5

2016

2,060

76

2017

2,170

76.5

113 (0.699)

116 (0.694)

Source for Per Capita GNI data: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GNP.PCAP.CD?locati ons=BD-CN-IN-ID-IR-PK-PH-SA-VN Source for Human Development and Life Expectancy data: http://hdr.undp.org/en/69206 UNDP Human Development Report (2016). http://hdr.undp.org/en/countries/profiles/VNM

In the definition of economic globalization, economists give priority to the flow of trade and investments. Global merchandise trade stood at US$16 trillion in 2016 of which China’s export share was US$2.1 trillion, US’s was US$1.5 trillion, and Germany’s US$1.3 trillion (UNCTAD 2017). These three countries were the world’s largest exporting economies. Although an international investment, especially Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) has declined by 23 percent from $1.87 trillion in 2016 to $1.43 trillion in 2017, FDI flow remained about the same in Asia with growth in China and Indonesia. The following Table 4 presents the FDI inflows in major Asian countries. The data on Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) inflows in the above table reveal that there has been a substantial reduction of FDI inflow in the United States, while it increased in China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, and Thailand and declined moderately in Singapore and India. These trends of increasing inflow of FDI in Asia indicate an increase in the integration of globalization on the part of the Asian economies (Table 5). The above table shows that although the US is still a major source of FDI, but Asian countries such as Japan, Hong Kong are increasingly playing an important role as sources of FDI. China has registered a decline but still remains one of the major sources of FDI.

448

H. H. Khondker

Table 3 Per capita GNI and human development in West Asia Country

Year

Per capita GNI

Life expectancy

Iran

1970

400

51

1980

2,100

54.1

1985

3,490

55

1990

2,560

63.4

2000

1,740

70

2010

6,140

73.1

2017

5,400

76

1970

930

53

1980

14,200

63

1985

8,960

66.6

1990

7,340

69

2000

8,110

72.4

2010

18,750

74.8

2016

21,720

75

2017

20,080

74.7

Saudi Arabia

HDI ranking and index

60 (0.798)

39 (0.853)

Source World Bank Data (2018) Source for Per Capita GNI. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GNP.PCAP.CD?locati ons=BD-CN-IN-ID-IR-PK-PH-SA-VN, https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GNP.PCAP.CD? locations=BD, https://data.worldbank.org Source for Life Expectancy data. http://hdr.undp.org/en/69206 UNDP Human Development Report (2016). http://hdr.undp.org/en/countries/profiles/ Table 4 Foreign direct investment inflows in selected countries

Country

2016 (in billion US$)

2017 (in billion US$)

USA

$457

$275

China

$134

$138

Hong Kong

$117

$104

Singapore

$77

$62

India

$44

$40

Indonesia

$4

$23

South Korea

$12

$17

Vietnam

$12.6

$14

United Arab Emirates

$9.6

$10.3

Philippines

$7

$9.5

Source World Investment Report (2018), UNCTAD Appendix, Table 1, pp. 185–186

24 Globalization in Asia or Asian Globalization? Table 5 Foreign direct investment outflows from selected countries

449

Country

2016

2017

USA

$281

$342

Japan

$145

$160

China

$196

$125

Hong Kong

$60

$83

Germany

$51

$82

Canada

$74

$77

France

$63

$58

South Korea

$30

$32

Singapore

$28

$25

Thailand

$12

$19

United Arab Emirates

$13

$14

Taiwan

$18

$11

(in billion U$) Source World Investment Report (2018), UNCTAD Fig. 1.6, p. 6

Over the years China has built a huge reserve of foreign reserves amounting to US$3.118 trillion in mid-2018 (Bloomberg 2018). China’s growing economic prowess is evident in the massive infrastructural investments that China has embarked on involving nearly 100 countries in the world under the initiative known as Belt and Road Initiative. Invoking the metaphor of historical silk road that once connected China to parts of Europe via Middle East and Central Asian countries, in 2013 Chinese president Xi Jinping declared the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projecting mega infrastructural investments reviving both over land connectivity and sea routes. A new multilateral development institution, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, (AIIB) was launched in 2015 (Feigenbaum 2017). The Belt and Road Initiative with its attendant billions of dollars infrastructural developments threatened to create debt crises in several countries in Asia and Africa (Davidson 2018; Kuo and Kommenda 2018). China has also become a major trading partner and investor in Africa and the Middle East. One would normally associate Gulf countries such as the United Arab Emirates (UAE) as dependent on the export of petroleum and not as a source of FDI. However, the UAE has become a source as well as a receiving country of FDI. The petroleum exporting countries in the Gulf region are busy diversifying their economy as they seek to globalize their economies. In the economic plans of both Saudi Arabia and the UAE, cutting-age technology and sustainability play an increasingly important role. The Gulf states in the Middle East, the United Arab Emirates, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, and Bahrain stand at the forefront of globalization embracing new technology, promoting education, enabling gender empowerment, and adopting the latest ideas of governance. This region is also poised to pursue its own distinctive course of modernization (Khondker 2011) by engaging with the world. For example, following the format of the Davos Conference

450

H. H. Khondker

where the business leaders of the world meet annually to discuss the economic future of the world, in Dubai various world leaders, tech gurus, and development experts gather annually to discuss various issues of governance at the World Government Summit since 2013 when it first held the summit. In Saudi Arabia, an annual investment conference since 2017, nicknamed “Davos in the Desert” attract the world’s corporate leaders and high-level government officials. Economic globalization, innovation, foreign investment, good governance has now become part of the vocabulary in the public discussions in the Gulf Cooperation Council, composed of the six oilrich countries in the West Asia region, namely, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, and Qatar. Central Asian countries (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan) were parts of the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), or commonly known as the Soviet Union. As part of the Soviet Union, Central Asia, the region experienced industrialization and modernization, and access to modern education. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the region continued to be under the Russian economic influence playing its continued role as an economic hinterland. Recently, China has replaced Russia as the region’s dominant trading partner. Regional organizations such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization since its inception in 2001 comprising the central Asian countries, Russia, and China has contributed to the maintenance of stability and growth in the region. Of the five Central Asian countries, three are resource rich, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and remaining two, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are resource poor. Globalization affected these two parts differently. The table below presents the socioeconomic profile of the five Central Asian as well as the two other states, Armenia and Azerbaijan, of the former Soviet Union (Table 6). Table 6 Human development and economic trends in Central Asia Country

Population in millions

HDI rank and index

Life expectancy

Per capita GNI

Internet access

FDI inflow in million

Kazakhstan

18.2

58 (0.800)

70.0

22,626

74.6

4,633.7

5.8

108 (0.706)

68

15,594

18.0

2,313.5

Uzbekistan

31.9

105 (0.710)

71.4

6,470

46.8

95.8

Kyrgyzstan

6.0

122 (0.672)

71.1

3,255

34.5

93.8

Tajikistan

8.9

127 (0.650)

71.2

3,317

20.5

141.3

Armenia

2.9

83 (0.755)

74.2

9.144

67.0

245.7

Azerbaijan

9.8

80 (0.757)

72.1

15,600

78.2

2,867.0

Turkmenistan

https://unctad.org/en/Pages/DIAE/World%20Investment%20Report/Annex-Tables.aspx

24 Globalization in Asia or Asian Globalization?

451

Table 7 Internet access on December 2017 in West Asia and in the rest of Asia East, South East and South Asia

% of population with access to internet

West Asia

% of population with access to internet

Japan

93.3

UAE

98.4

South Korea

92.6

Qatar

98.1

Taiwan

88

Bahrain

98

Singapore

83.6

Kuwait

97.8

Malaysia

78.3

Saudi Arabia

90.2

Vietnam

66.3

Jordan

87.8

Philippines

63

Israel

79.7

China

54.6

Iran

69.1

Indonesia

53.7

Bangladesh

48.4

India

34.1

Source Internet World Status (2018). https://www.internetworldstats.com/me/ae.htm

While increasing economic interaction and interdependence is a strong indicator of economic globalization, the spread of communication technology plays an equally important role in making the world more interconnected, if not homogenized. In internet penetration, countries in West Asia, especially the Gulf countries are ahead of East and South Asia, with the exception of Japan and Singapore. The following Table 7 shows comparatively the internet penetration in various parts of Asia. The growing internet penetration and connectivity along with the growing economic opportunities will likely make Asia a major player in the Internet-driven globalization. Internet technology has been playing a key role in the spheres of education, modernization of the rural sector, sharing knowledge and information on agricultural production and marketing, disseminating information on health issues, and fighting poverty. Social media has also emerged as a virtual public sphere with a potential contribution to the democratization of the region.

From Globalization in Asia to Asian Globalization In The Communist Manifesto Karl Marx, the unacknowledged father of globalization, predicted in 1848 with Fredric Engels that “the need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the entire surface of the globe. It must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connections everywhere.” Marx-Engels (2006) continued: The bourgeoisie, by the rapid improvement of all instruments of production, by the immensely facilitated means of communication, draws all, even the most barbarian, nations into civilisation. The cheap prices of commodities are the heavy artillery with which it batters down all Chinese walls, with which it forces the barbarians’ intensely obstinate hatred of

452

H. H. Khondker

foreigners to capitulate. It compels all nations, on pain of extinction, to adopt the bourgeois mode of production; it compels them to introduce what it calls civilisation into their midst, i.e., to become bourgeois themselves. In one word, it creates a world after its own image.

This quote summarizes the processes of both economic and cultural globalization presciently. Such a view, however, presents globalization as unilineal, uniform, and what sociologists call homogenization, which is echoed in recent writing as a flat world view (Friedman 2005). Sociologists of modernization (Lerner 1958; Inkeles and Smith 1966) assumed that homogenization will erase the local cultural differences to create a single, monolithic world. They thought that all the local, national cultural, social, and political differences will be erased over time in the face of modernization and the cultures of the world will converge. The convergence thesis of the modernization theorists of the 1960s and 1970s (Lerner 1958; Kahl 1959; Moore 1965; Inkeles 1966; Bell 1973) saw social transformation as a victory over tradition by modernity in the wake of the emergence of an industrial society. Kerr et al. (1960) popularized the convergence thesis. Globalization was simply viewed as global modernization, that is, modernization of the entire world where the vestiges of tradition along with differences between cultures will disappear (Moore 1979). This view was rooted in the nineteenth-century view of linear progress that Marx, along with Herbert Spencer and Auguste Comte represented. According to this view, European modernization was the model that in the long run all other societies would eventually adopt or be forced to accept, as Marx and Engels predicted. This “Eurocentric” view has been roundly criticized (Frank 1967; Wallerstein 1987; Amin 1989). Most discerning analysts, today, use globalizations in the plural rather than globalization as a singular concept indicating that there are many forms of globalization. During the 1980s, criticisms of modernization theories on both historical and conceptual grounds led to the idea of multiple modernities (Eisenstadt 2000). Europe, according to Therborn (1995) pursued four different routes, not a unilinear path, of modernization. Globalization, which was initially conceptualized as a monolithic process, gave way to the notion of multiple globalizations based on multiple processes and multiple discourses (Robertson and Khondker 1998). It will be useful to keep these aforementioned points in mind while discussing globalization in Asia. The idea of multiple globalizations will help us understand Asian globalization, in general, and the case of China in particular. A Chinese academic and a former minister identified three principles of globalization: first, against Fukuyama, he held that the sociocultural evolution of human society will continue to develop; second, “democratization of international relations cannot be reversed”, and, third, the post-World War ll institutions will continue to play their roles. He also noted that, as a rising power, China “has become an important driving force in reshaping the world” (He 2017). It is worth pointing out that He emphasized the importance and continuity of the institutions which presumably covered the existing democratic norms of international relations based on the Wilsonian doctrine of the right to self-determinations by the nations of the world, including China. In view of the changes in the US policies—presumably, economic

24 Globalization in Asia or Asian Globalization?

453

nationalism and a fiasco of economic neoliberalism, a new thinking of global governance has arisen. China’s interest in reshaping the global system is both in the interest of China as well as the entire globe. While China’s reversal from communism began following the death of its founding leader, Chairman Mao Zedong in 1976, especially, since Deng Xiao Ping, the leader of the new China consolidated his power in 1978. China abandoned its socialist economy in favor of a pro-economic globalization strategy. Globalization, for the Chinese reform-minded leaders, was not just a process it became a deliberate policy strategy. Economic reforms were central to the pragmatic leaders who embraced the market economy for its efficiency and productivity. China became a member of the World Trade Organization in late 2001, marking an end to socialist autarchy and initiating an integration with the global economy. However, Chinese history of the twentieth century from the birth of the Chinese republic in 1911 to the May Fourth movement of 1919, when the main demands of the students were science and democracy through the communist movement that culminated in the revolution of 1949 can be seen as aspects of a broad globalization process. The Marxist–Leninist ideals of socialism and the historical role of the first generation of communist leaders, who were schooled in the socialist ideology during their overseas sojourns in Paris, are all aspects of (cultural) globalization. Setting aside the narrative of economic liberalization for a moment, it can be argued that China has been entangled into a global modernity or globality since the beginning of the twentieth century, especially with the introduction of Western education in China. While it is commonly accepted that the process of global transformation in China began in the last quarter of the twentieth century. Historians would date it, at least, to the 14 centuries ago with roots going as far back as over 2000 years ago when Han Chinese rulers sent Ambassador Zhang Qian to explore opportunities in one of the Greek-ruled kingdoms in Central Asia (Fernandez-Armesto 2007: 156). The short versus long history of Asian globalization is best illustrated in the narratives of the rise of China. In the last quarter of the twentieth century, some major shifts were taking place in the world. First, the political economy of the post-World War II world was transforming as new power alignments were replacing the old, challenging the economic power, and political and cultural domination of the West. At one level, the Cold War between the US-centered West and the Soviet Union reached its peak in the 1980s followed by the collapse of the Soviet-style socialist world, graphically represented in the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. The end of the formal Cold War made the US the unrivaled superpower. At another level, changes began to take place in China even before the collapse of the Socialist world. The state-led economic development in China had historical precedents in Asia, most notably, Japan. Japan was the only country that was able to modernize economically, politically, and culturally outside of the Western world comprising Europe, the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand—all derivatives of the European global system. Japan, despite the rhetoric of tradition and difference, became a modern society both economically and politically. Japanese society was transforming since the Meiji Reformation of 1868. Following the economic success of Japan in the second half

454

H. H. Khondker

of the twentieth century after a devastating war that ravaged the country, not only Japan was billed as Number 1, in the celebrated phrase of Ezra Vogel, but Japan’s successful economic model was replicated in South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore, the so-called Tiger economies of Asia. By the 1990s as Soviet Union and its East European allies were changing from socialism to capitalism, following the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev’s policies of political openness and economic reforms, China was pursuing a policy of gradual economic reforms. China was keen to join the path of capitalist globalization while maintaining the political control of the Communist Party. By the 1990s, as Japan was trapped into a long phase of slow growth, China’s economy with over 1 billion people was rapidly growing to become the second-largest economy of the world. Economic reforms enabled the Indian economy to grow from the 1990s slowly yet, but steadily. Economic development in both India and China was the result of their growing linkage with the rest of the world. The large Asian countries have also been successful in reducing their poverty level as measured by the World Bank from as high as 66.6% of the population in China in 1990 to 1.4% in 2016. In fact, China’s record is unmatched poverty reduction in human history. The percentage of population living in poverty (according to the World Bank’s standard) fell from 88.3% in 1981 to 66.6% in 1990 and 3.1% in 2017. According to the World Bank, the number of poor in China who escaped poverty accounted for nearly 70% of the world’s poor (World Bank 2017: 19). China’s performance impacted the reduction of the poverty of the entire world. The rest of the populous Asian countries also managed to reduce their poverty level significantly (Table 8). While China was more successful in reducing the number of poor people bringing it down to 3.1%, India was tardy yet it too also lowered the percentage of the poor people. Vietnam, Indonesia, and Bangladesh three other populous countries too reduced poverty. China’s success in reducing poverty is largely due to strong economic growth and economic reforms initiated by the new reformist leaders since 1978. The remarkable rise of Japan in the post-War period provided a model for the trend-setting economic growth of the Asian Tiger economies. In the backdrop of economic prosperity, scholars in Asia became highly assertive (Mahbubani 2008, Table 8 Poverty reduction in large Asian Countries 1990s–2017

Bangladesh

48.9% (in 2000)

24.3% (in 2016)

China

66.6% (in 1990)

3.1% (in 2017)

India

45.3% (in 1993)

21.9% (in 2011)

Indonesia

23.4% (in 1999)

10.6% (in 2017)

Pakistan

64.3% (in 2001)

29.5% (in 2013)

Philippines

26.6% (in 2000)

21.6% (in 2015)

Vietnam

20.7% (in 2010)

9.8% (in 2016)

Source https://data.worldbank.org/country/. The World Bank (2018)

24 Globalization in Asia or Asian Globalization?

455

2018). Asian scholars and their sympathizers in the West launched a discourse on Asia’s rise following the presumed decline of the West, as a new source of globalization (Rohwer 1995; Nye 2015). Following the rapid economic development of East Asia and Southeast Asia, a number of Asian leaders and intellectuals began to view the twenty-first century as the Asian century or the Pacific century. Even relatively smaller countries like Singapore and Malaysia represented by Lee Kuan Yew and Mohammad Mahathir, respectively, began to challenge the West-centered globalization by introducing discourses of “Asian Values” as a counterweight to the discourse of human rights. By rejecting the idea of the universality of human rights as it was perceived to be Western and not suited for the Asian historical and cultural condition the concept of Asian values was launched in Bangkok in 1993 (Asciutti 2009: 21). The discourse of the Asian century was boosted by some of the Asian scholars energized by newly established foundations and research grants. The new discourse reflected the assertiveness of a new generation of Western-educated scholars. Germs of a discourse of Asian globalization was thus born underwritten by the new wealth and the growing local Think-Tanks and a new crop of Asian intellectuals. While partaking in the process of global modernity in a robust manner, the leadership in the “Tiger Economies” invested a great deal of ideological energy in the discourse of Asian values showing how Asian high economic growth performers were “different” from the West. In the revitalized binaries, the West was (re)created. One writer captures that debate succinctly as follows: “The category of Asian values was born, during the 1990s, from the attempt of the political-governmental elites of some Southeast Asian countries to characterize their identity on the international scene in opposition to individualistic values, considered dominant in Western societies. Indeed, those that refer to Asian values believe they can discern some arguably typical traits in them, such as: the embodiment of the traditional cardinal virtues of Confucianism; the primacy of collective on individual interests; the care for order and stability; the continuity between generations; the openness to sacrifice; and the deferment of instant gratification. Asia, therefore, would be governed by the principles of social harmony and the respect for authority and family; while the West is depicted as a place in which community values are eroded by the spread of rampant individualism, where the proliferation of rights is not compensated by a hierarchy of community duties and constraints” (Fornari 2007: x). While politicians, public officials, and journalists began to celebrate the rise of Asia, historians of Asia correctly pointed out that it was not the emergence but resurgence of Asia, especially, of China (Arrighi 2009). They reminded the glory that was Asia. The rise of China was followed by a plethora of studies that linked China’s economic success to the historic role of China when China’s economy was a major economy in the world in the year 1500. In the year 1500, wrote Paul Kennedy, “it was by no means obvious that Europe was poised to dominate much of the world. Of all the civilizations, none appeared more advanced, none felt more superior, than that of China. Its considerable population, 100–130 million compared with Europe’s 50–55 million in the fifteenth century; its remarkable culture; its exceedingly fertile and irrigated plains, linked by splendid canal system since the eleventh century; and its unified, hierarchical administration run by a well-educated Confucian bureaucracy had given a coherence and sophistication to Chinese society which was envy of

456

H. H. Khondker

foreign visitors” (Kennedy 1987: 5–6). By the early fifteenth century, China was poised to take off as a dominant economic power but, to the bafflement of many historians, China called off its mission. Braudel (1979) suggests that the relocation of the capital city from Nanking with access to seaports to the landlocked Beijing in 1421 could be one of the pieces of the puzzle to explain China’s turning its back on the world economy. For Angus Maddison, Western Europe overtook China, the leading Asian economy, in per capita performance in the fourteenth century (Maddison 2001: 44). Paul Bairoch, an economic historian estimated that per capita income in Asia as a whole around 1800 was slightly behind Western Europe, but ahead of Europe as a whole, and China was ahead of even Western Europe (quoted in Pomeranz 2000: 36, 2002). Andre Gunder Frank’s critique of the eurocentrism which flowered fully with his subsequent writings culminating in the publication of his Re-Orient: The Global Economy in the Asian Age (Frank 1998). His attack against Eurocentric history helped us rethink the linear narrative of the rise of the West and of modernization. Frank’s work has to be situated in the context of critical theoretical works on orientalism by Turner (1978) or Said (1978) or Goody (1996, 1998, 2006) and historians such as Abu-Lughod (1991), or Pomeranz (2000). The synthetic quality of Western modernization, industrialization, and even enlightenment has been evolving with the path-breaking contributions of Hodgson (1974), and Needham’s (1954–1995) multivolume study of science and technology. As far as the spread of scientific knowledge and technology was concerned, the world embraced new technology without questioning about its origin. In fact, the center of scientific creativity and technological innovation and manufacture shifted out of China and the Islamic world sometimes mediated by India to Europe and centuries later to the USA and in the twentieth century increasingly to Japan and now to China. Although in the post-World War ll period, the USA became the locus for innovation and invention, some of the European countries continued to remain key centers of innovation, the locus of production and global marketing of new technological goods is now Asia. It is now a received wisdom that industrialization, the basis of modernization, evolved in Europe from the later part of the eighteenth century toward the end of the nineteenth century. Replacing an animate source of power by inanimate sources of power not only made the productive processes efficient, the surplus production and increased consumption led to a new lifestyle as it created the true working class as a class for itself. All these developments centering around the power of technology brought in by industrialization profoundly changed human society and led to a transnational industrial society, a new phase of globalization. However, this common wisdom has now been challenged. John Hobson has argued that to a great extent Britain was a “newly industrializing country” (Hobson 2004: 190), as Marshall Hodgson commented that the industrial revolution was “the unconscious heir of the industrial revolution of Sung China” (quoted in Hobson 2004: 192). An alternative narrative—a narrative that is not linear and more faithful to the historical processes leading to global modernization has been advanced by Nederveen (2006, 2010 and 2012) amongst others who criticize the Eurocentric globalization and posits the idea of an oriental globalization. In the alternative narrative of global modernization, it is argued that the enlightenment began in Central Asia in the years between the ninth

24 Globalization in Asia or Asian Globalization?

457

and thirteenth centuries with the writings of Muslim philosophers, scientists, and poets who raised questions ranging from the creation of the universe to functions of the human body (Starr 2013). Unfortunately, that Middle Eastern, Central Asian enlightenment was not sustained and over time fell victim to religious orthodoxy. Roughly during the so-called Dark Ages in Europe, from the fall of the Roman empire in 410, i.e., the fifth to the thirteenth century, was the time span that coincided with the original industrial revolution that began in China. From the ninth to the fourteenth century, in the Islamic world where the likes of Al-Khwarizmi (780–850), Al-Kindi (801–873), Al-Farabi (872–950), Al-Biruni (973–1048), Ibn Sina (980–1037), and Ibn Khaldun (1332–1406), who played an important part in the development of European Renaissance, albeit inadvertently. These scholars spanned a geographical region from North Africa to Central Asia. During the Muslim rule of part of Europe of Al-Andalus (today’s Spain) which ran from 850 to 1492, the metropolitan centers of Cordova and Seville were centers of intellectual fermentation. In the words of Jones, “From the mid-tenth to the midthirteenth centuries, Muslim, Christian and Jewish scholars were used to working together in Spain, to their great mutual benefit. ….One of the great stimuli to cooperation was the desire of Christian Europeans to gain access to the knowledge of science contained in the Arabic versions of Greek books … In this way, Greek, Persian and Indian science, retranslated out of Arabic into Latin, reached Western Christendom. So did some of the technology of China, notably the ability to make paper, and perhaps the knowledge of gun powder” (Roberts 1985: 140). According to Hobson (2004), from 1700 to 1780, a number of Enlightenment thinkers from Montaigne to Voltaire drew upon Chinese conceptions of politics, religion, and philosophy. “Indeed, many of the major enlightenment thinkers derived their preferences for the ‘rational method’ from China” (Hobson 2004: 195). [Editor’s footnote: credit must be given to rationality in Ancient Greece, Hellenism, Ancient Rome, Talmudic traditions, and Medieval Christianity]. Historically, both China and Japan illustrate the case of modernity by choice. True, the push for modernity in the case of China, and more so for Japan, came with colonial incursions, especially, the well-known forays of Commodore Perry from 1853 to 54. Even earlier, there were, at least 25 times, attempts were made privately or officially to establish contacts with Japan (Holcombe 2011: 215). The Japanese officials were aware of the fate of China during the Opium War in 1842 and sought to avoid that by embarking on modernization. Yet, it would be useful to recount the Japanese interest in acquiring Dutch knowledge of medical sciences and military sciences in the early eighteenth century during the Tokugawa period (Holcombe 2011: 213). Even in the twentieth century, there are several examples of globalization by choice. Most of the Newly Industrializing Economies in East and Southeast Asia and later China and India pursued the strategy of inviting and negotiating with neoliberal globalization. While for the smaller nations it was a conscious drive to economic globalization keeping certain arenas sealed off from the global influences. For example, Singapore sought to be the Switzerland of Asia, followed an open, market-friendly economic policy, and adopted English as the lingua franca, yet promoted Confucian values to maintain political order and social harmony. Malaysia’s simultaneous “look East” policy for economic development and

458

H. H. Khondker

anti-Western rhetoric championed by Mohamed Mahathir, in the 1980s and 1990s were conscious effort to partake in a selected version of global modernity. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, similar “look east” policies are visible in the Western part of Asia with growing business ties between East Asia and West Asia (Fulton 2019). Asia as the rest of the world is in the cusp of great social and economic opportunity and inequality that threatens the long-term stability of the global system. If the world is taken as a single society social inequality has diminished, but it has increased within the countries in most cases. Social inequality in the rising powers such as China and India is high. China, despite or, because of its high economic growth rate, has become more unequal than India in terms of the Gini ratio, a measure of income inequality between the rich and the poor. The income inequality measured in the Gini coefficient stood at 35.1 for India and 42.2 for China in 2017 (World Bank 2017). Economists Dreze and Sen (2013) maintain that the development in India has not been inclusive and the social indicators of development as reflected in children’s nutrition or female literacy or access to sanitary toilets, India is behind Bangladesh, its poorer neighbor. Poverty remains endemic in India despite spectacular income growth (Kohli 2012). China’s growth has been much more inclusive having lifted 850 million people out of poverty since economic reforms began in 1978 (World Bank 2017). In China, a powerful and efficient state continues to show greater skill in managing and suppressing potential threats by a mixture of opportunities, ideological disciplining and raw suppression. In India, with its weak governance—compared to China—has seen radical, ironically known as the Maoist movements in some of its depressed provinces, where a long drawn out guerilla-style insurgency has taken a toll of tens of thousands of lives in the past decades. In social mobilization and disciplining China has become a great success where the legacy of socialism has played a positive role. India remains deeply divided into ethnic, caste, and religious lines often superimposed by social and political ideologies, which stand as an obstacle to social mobilization and social discipline. Indian founding Prime Minister, and a visionary of Indian modernity, Pundit Jawaharlal Nehru, traced Indian history as sedimented by layers of cultural and institutional influences. Indian founding leaders were inspired by the socialist ideas and idealisms of equality, justice, and internationalism associated with it. Following independence in 1947, India did not pursue socialism; it pursued a statist policy, where the state, not the economy was at the driving seat in charge of economic development. In the early 1990s with the collapse of the Soviet Union, and in view of the waves of economic globalization, India too began to pursue policies of neoliberal economic globalization. The signs of these changes were visible as early as in the 1980s. India, now a powerhouse of software technology, produced not only a large middle class, but also widespread poverty. Yet, Indian democracy remains the world’s largest democracy, which “is not only compatible with diversity, but preserves and protects it” (Tharoor 2012: 394). [Editor’s footnote: Socio-economic distortions and exclusion are documented in the papers of Chakrabarti and Dhar]. Indonesia, Vietnam, and Bangladesh have done well in reducing the income inequality through a mixture of state-directed social policies, market-driven economic opportunities, and the activism of the Non-Governmental Organizations.

24 Globalization in Asia or Asian Globalization?

459

Indonesia achieved a great deal of progress in social indicators under the authoritarian regime of Suharto very much like other East Asian states such as South Korea, and the Asian Tiger economies. Comprising over 17,500 islands, a diverse archipelago nation of more than 300 ethnic groups, Indonesia is the largest economy in Southeast Asia and also the largest Muslim country in the world. Indonesia, where the “Third World” was born through the Bandung conference in 1955 has charted impressive economic growth since overcoming the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s. The country’s GDP per capita has steadily risen, from $857 in the year 2000 to $3,603 in 2016. Indonesia is the world’s fourth most populous nation, the world’s 10th largest economy in terms of purchasing power parity, and a member of the G-20. An emerging middle-income country, Indonesia has made enormous gains in poverty reduction, cutting the poverty rate to more than half since 1999, to 10.9% in 2016 (World Bank 2017). [Editor’s footnote: for more documentation see the paper by Sufian Jusoh?].

Politics of Asian Globalization One of the implications of the rise of Asia in general and China, in particular, is that it has implicitly introduced an alternative model of illiberal globalization for the developing nations of the world. There are critics of China’s rise who do not see long-term stability in economic growth without political reforms that lead to democratization and pluralism. Critics have pointed out that economic growth is not the only measure of the progress of a society (Pei 2006: 318). The critics have pointed out the cost of breathtaking growth on society and the physical environment. For, Pei (2014) the loss of ideological commitment in the post-Mao era has led to an erosion of motivation and discipline, which in turn has contributed to the escalation of corruption. The critics of China view developments through the lenses of the Western experience, where capitalist reforms go hand in hand with political democracy. The coexistence of a single-party dominated state and a market economy is sometimes seen as a recipe for disaster. Daniel Bell argues to the contrary. Bell (2018) argues that China endorses basic human rights and the idea that all citizens should be equal before the law in criminal cases. Although China allows electoral democracy at the village level, it opposes the system as a way of selecting political leaders at higher levels of government. It practices a “political meritocracy”. The rise of China and the Chinese brand of globalization (Thornton and Thornton 2018)—market-driven under political centralization—has been criticized for lack of democracy and liberal values. China has abandoned pursuing Western-style democracy in order to focus on economic development. This touches on a larger debate on the compatibility between corporate capitalism and democracy. Some writers Monbiot (2000), Klein (2000) argue that corporations are antithetical to democracy as Joseph Stiglitz recognized the sharp incompatibility of democracy and corporate capitalism (Stiglitz 2002). In the case of China, there are politico-economic grounds for an authoritarian political system that preserves social discipline.

460

H. H. Khondker

However, it can be argued that in a multilateral world, liberal democracies and state-guided, or meritocratic societies or some new hybrid models have equal chances of survival rendering the world a truly pluralistic world. What is of utmost importance that the nations, like all other organizations, play by the rules of the game protecting basic human rights and dignity set up collectively.

Conclusions Is China-centric globalization or Asian globalization different from the Atlantic globalization? Is the Pacific globalization going to bring peace in the world? There is no compelling reason for being overly optimistic. Some writers see China as a hegemon as they consider many of the financial institutions created under the patronage of the Chinese state as rivals of the Western financial institutions. The cases in point are the New Development Bank, launched in 2013 and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank launched in 2015, which are seen as rivals to the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank. In fact, China continues to be an important partner of the Asian Development Bank and remains a member of the World Bank (Feigenbaum 2017: 36). China’s trillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative billed as an attempt to revive the historical trade links by building an infrastructure of connectivity may be a path of a new regime of dominance. Is the West-centered world going to lose its dominance? The west will remain an important partner due to its role in knowledge production. In terms of sheer number of publications of scientific papers—a rough measure of knowledge production—China stands a distant second to the United States. Between 2001 and 2011, researchers in all fields combined in the United States published 3,049,662 scientific papers compared to China’s 836,255 papers (Reuters 2011). However, when it comes to the impact of those papers measured in the number of citations, China falls close to the bottom of the top 20 countries in publications. The Atlantic region (Europe and North America) still dominates the list with Switzerland at the top with 16.09, followed by the US with 16.02. As China keeps deploying more resources in research and higher education, the gap is likely to narrow, but the dominance of the Atlantic world will not be dislodged. An increasingly technology-driven world will also be a more interdependent world. The economic prowess of Asia will be dependent on an integrated knowledge prowess of the nations of Europe and North America. Scientists and the scientific cultures are being globalized and they would continue to be footloose. In the Reuters Top 100 World’s Most Innovative Universities in 2017, 23 of the top 100 universities were from Asia with Japan leading the Asian group with 9 followed by Korea with 8. Of the 26 European universities, Germany is the leader with 7 universities followed by the UK and France with 5 each. Forty-nine of the top 100 universities are the US universities with 8 of the top 10 universities in the world (Reuters 2017; Clarivate Analysis 2011). Yet, China has an edge over other competitors in the sheer number of graduates in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics graduates that would play a critical role in the next stage of science-technology development (Table 9).

24 Globalization in Asia or Asian Globalization? Table 9 The countries with the most STEM graduates

461

China

4.7 million

India

2.6 million

USA

568,000

Russia

561,000

Iran

335,000

Indonesia

206,000

Japan

195,000

Source McCarthy (2017) in https://www.statista.com/chart/7913/ the-countries-with-the-most-stem-graduates/

China has made significant strides in the development of AI or Artificial Intelligence. As of now, the two AI superpowers are the United States and China (Lee 2018). Sociologist Meyer et al. (1980, 1997) using the idea of isomorphism, which means replication of the same form yet separated from the main source, has shown that modern education—not Western education though it was perhaps modified and institutionalized in the West—has spread worldwide and a similar set of values and practices have emerged in diverse settings. This provides grounds for optimism. Sen (2004) argued that the centers of earlier globalizations around 1000 AD were outside of the West in China and the Middle East, but the West did not shut its doors and learnt from the contributions of great Islamic philosophers, scientists, and mathematicians. In the present phase of globalization, it is prudent for the non-Western societies to learn from the achievements of the west. Goody (1996) noted that the world is to be viewed not as the West versus the East but as the East in the West. As we look at the centers of rapid modernization in China, Southeast Asia, or India, we see the presence of the West in the East. The globalization—historically conceived—is a true composite of the East and the West, where Asian globalization is one among many contributing to a “multipolar globalization” (Nederveen 2018). The development of a cosmopolitan world has to be a conscious project underpinned by shared values of the civilizations at one level, and forging cooperation between the nations and regions on science and technology at other. Adherence to a global ethic premised on the Enlightenment ideals of freedom, equality, and justice in solving the common problems of humanity is the path to stability and peace in the twenty-first-century world.

References Abu-Lughod, J. 1991. Before European Hegemony: The World System A.D. 1250–1350. New York: Oxford University Press. Amin, Samir. 1989. Eurocentrism. New York: Monthly Review Press. Arrighi, Giovanni. 2009. Adam Smith in Beijing: Lineages of the 21st Century. London: Verso.

462

H. H. Khondker

Asciutti, Elena. 2009. Asia and the Global World: Identities, Values, Rights. In Identity in Crossroad Civilizations. Edited by Erich Kolig, Vivienne SM. Angeles and Sam Wong, 21–42. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Bell, Daniel. 1973. The Coming of Post-Industrial Society. New York: Basic Books. Bell, Daniel. 2018. China’s Political Meritocracy Versus Western Democracy The Economist, 12 June. Bloomberg News. 2018. China’s Foreign Reserves Hold Steady in June as Trade War Loomed, July 9. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-07-09/china-s-foreign-reserves-increa sed-in-june-as-trade-war-loomed. Braudel, F. 1979. Civilizations and Capitalism: 15th–18th Century. Volume 3. The Perspective of the World. New York: Harper and Row. Chirico, JoAnn. 2014. Globalization: Prospects and Problems. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Clarivate Analysis. 2011. http://archive.sciencewatch.com/dr/cou/2011/11decALL/. Davidson, Helen. 2018. Warning Sounded over China’s ‘debtbook diplomacy’, The Guardian, 15 May. Dreze, J., and Amartya Sen. 2013. An Uncertain Glory: India and Its Contradictions. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Eichengreen, B. 2018. Globalization with Chinese Characteristics Project-Syndicate, August 10. https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/globalization-chinese-characteristics-by-barry-eic hengreen-2018-08. Eisenstadt, S. N. 2000. Multiple Modernities. Daedalus. 129 (1). Feigenbaum, Evan A. 2017. China and the World. Foreign Affairs 96 (1): 33–40. Fernandez-Armesto, Felipe. 2007. World: A Brief History. Pearson Prentice-Hall. Fornari, Emanuela. 2007. Modernity Out of Joint: Democracy and Asian Values in Jürgen Habermas and Amartya K. Sen. Aurora, CO, USA: The Davies Group, Publishers, 2007. ProQuest ebrary. Web. 20 January 2016. Frank, A.G. 1967. Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Latin America. New York: Monthly Review Press. Frank, A. G. (1998) Re-Orient: Global Economy in the Asian Age. University of California Press. Friedman, Thomas. 2005. The World is Flat. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Fukuyama, Francis. 1992. Asia’s Soft-Authoritarian Alternative. New Perspectives Quarterly 9 (2): 60–64. Fulton, Jonathan. 2019. China’s Relations With Gulf Monarchies. London: Routledge. Goody, J. 1996. The East in the West. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Goody, J. 1998. Food and Love. London: Verso. Goody, J. 2006. The Theft of History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Granovetter, Mark. 1985. Economic Action and Social Structure: The Problem of Embeddedness. American Journal of Sociology 91: 481–493. He, Yafei. 2017. China Helping to Reshape the World. China Daily, May 8–14, p. 15. Hobson, J.M. 2004. The Eastern Origins of Western Civilization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hodgson, M. 1974. The Venture of Islam. 3 volumes. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Holcombe, Charles. 2011. A History of East Asia: From the Origins of Civilization to the TwentyFirst Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Inkeles, A. 1966. The Modernization of Man. Harvard University, Center for International Affairs. Inkeles, A., and D. Smith. 1966. Becoming Modern. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Internet World Stats. 2018. https://www.internetworldstats.com/me/ae.htm. Kahl, Joseph. 1959. Some Social Concomitants of Industrialization and Urbanization. Human Organization 18. Kennedy, Paul. 1987. Rise and Fall of Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000. New York: Random House. Kennedy, Paul. 2010. Asia’s Rise: Rise and Fall. The World Today, August-September 66 (8–9): 6–9.

24 Globalization in Asia or Asian Globalization?

463

Kerr, Clark, J.T. Dunlop, F.H. Harbison, and C.A. Meyers. 1960. Industrialism and Industrial Man. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Khondker, Habibul. 1992. The Third World Does Matter in Trends 4, Business Times (Singapore) September 24, 1992. Khondker, Habibul. 2011. Many Roads to Modernization in the Middle East. Society 48 (4): 304– 306. Springer. Klein, Naomi. 2000. No Logo. London: Flamingo. Kohli, Atul. 2012. Poverty Amid Plenty in New India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kuo, Lily and Kommenda, Miko. 2018. What is Chin’s Belt and Road Initiative? The Guardian. July 30. Lee, Kai-Fu. 2018. AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Lerner, Daniel. 1958. The Passing of Traditional Society. London: The Free Press. McCarthy, Niall. 2017. The Countries with the Most STEM Graduates. In Statista 2017. https:// www.statista.com/chart/7913/the-countries-with-the-most-stem-graduates/. Maddison, Angus. 2001. The World Economy: A Millennial Perspective. OECD: Development Centre of the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development. Mahbubani, Kishore. 2008. The Case Against the West. Foreign Affairs. May/June. Mahbubabi, Kishore. 2018. Has the West Lost It?. New York: Penguin. Marx, Karl and F. Engels. 2006 [1848]. The Communist Manifesto. New York: Penguin Books. Meyer, John W. 1980. The World Polity and the Authority of the Nation-State. In Studies of the Modern World-System, ed. A. Bergesen, 109–137. New York: Academic Press. Meyer, John W., John Boli; George M. Thomas and Francisco O. Ramirez. 1997. World Society and the Nation-State. American Journal of Sociology 103 (1): 144–181. Moody, Andrew. 2017. A World Without China Unthinkable. China Daily Asia Weekly. January 6–12. Monbiot, George. 2000. Captive State: The Corporate Takeover of Britain. Basingstoke: Macmillan. Moore, Elaine. 2012. Civets, Brics and the Next 11. Financial Times. June 8. https://www.ft.com/ content/c14730ae-aff3-11e1-ad0b-00144feabdc0. Accessed 16 August 2018. Moore, Wilbert E. 1965. Industrialization and Labor: Social Aspects of Economic Development. New York: Russel and Russel. Moore, Wilbert E. 1979. World Modernization: The Limits of Convergence. New York: Elsevier. Myrdal, Gunner. 1968. Asian Drama: An Inquiry into the Poverty of Nations. 3 volumes. New York: Harper Brothers. Nasir, K. M., Turner, B. 2011. Governing as Gardening: Reflections on Soft Authoritarianism in Singapore. Citizenship Studies 339–352. https://doi.org/10.1080/13621025.2012.707005. Nederveen Pieterse, Jan. 2006. Oriental Globalization: Past and Present. In Europe and Asia Beyond East and West. Edited by G. Delanty, 61–73. London: Routledge. Nederveen Pieterse, Jan. 2010. Views from Dubai: Oriental Globalization Revisited. In 21st Century Globalization: Perspectives from the Gulf. Edited by Nederveen, J and Habibul Khondker, 15–37. Dubai: Zayed University Press. Nederveen Pieterse, Jan. 2012. Periodizing Globalization: Histories of Globalization. New Global Studies 6 (2) Article 1. Nederveen Pieterse, Jan. 2018. Multipolar Globalization. London and New York: Routledge. Needham, J. 1954–1995. Science and Civilization in China. Seven volumes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nye, Joseph. 2015. Is the American Century Over? Cambridge: Polity. Pei, Minxin. 2006. China: Can Economic Growth Continue without Political Reform? In Strategic Asia 2006–07; Trade, Interdependence, and Security. Edited by Ashley J. Tellis and Michael Wills, 303–331. Seattle: Washington: The National Bureau of Asian Research. Pei, Minxin. 2014. The Chinese Political Order: Resilience or Decay? Modern China Studies 1. http://www.modernchinastudies.org/us/issues/past-issues/118-mcs-2014-issue-1/1361-the-chi nese-political-order-resilience-or-decay.html.

464

H. H. Khondker

Polanyi, Karl. 1944. The Great Transformation. New York: Farrar & Rinehart. Pomeranz, Kenneth. 2000. The Great Divergence: China, Europe and the Making of the Modern World. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Pomeranz, Kenneth. 2002. Beyond the East-West Binary. Journal of Asian Studies 61 (2): 539–590. Reuters. 2017. Top 100: The World’s Most Innovative Universities—2017. https://www.reuters. com/article/us-amers-reuters-ranking-innovative-univ/reuters-top-100-the-worlds-most-innova tive-universities-2017-idUSKCN1C209R. Robertson, Roland. 1992. Globalization: Social Theory and Global Culture. London: Sage. Robertson, Roland. 1995. Glocalization: Time-Space and Homogeneity-Heterogeneity. In Mike Featherstone, Scott Lash and Roland Robertson, ed. Global Modernities, 25–44. London: Sage. Robertson, Roland, and J. Chirico, 1985. Humanity, Globalization, and Worldwide Religious Resurgence: A Theoretical Exploration. Sociological Analysis. 46 (3): 219–242. Robertson, Roland, and H. Khondker. 1998. Discourses of Globalization. International Sociology 13 (1): 25–40. Roberts, J.M. 1985. The Triumph of the West. London: Guild Publishing. Rohwer, Jim. 1995. Asia Rising. Singapore: Butterworth-Heinemann. Said, E. 1978. Orientalism. New York: Knopf Doubleday. Sen, Amartya. 2004. How to Judge Globalism. In The Globalization Reader. Edited by F. Lechner and J. Boli. Malden. MA: Blackwell. Starr, Frederick. 2013. Lost Enlightenment: Central Asia’s Golden Age From the Arab Conquest to Tamerlane. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Stiglitz, Joseph. 2002. Globalization and its Discontents. London: Allen Lane, Penguin Books. Tharoor, Shashi. 2012. Pax Indica: India and the World of the 21st Century. New Delhi: Penguin Books. Therborn, G. 1995. Routes To/Through Modernity. In Global Modernities, ed. M. Featherstone, S. Lash, and R. Robertson. London: Sage. Thomson Reuters. 2011. Science Watch. http://archive.sciencewatch.com/dr/cou/2011/11decALL/. Thornton, William H., and Songok Han Thornton. 2018. Sino-Globalisation: The China Model After Dengism. China Report 54 (2): 213–230. Turner, Bryan S. 1978. Marx and the End of Orientalism. London: George Allen and Unwin. Turner, Bryan, and Habibul Khondker. 2010. Globalization: East and West. London: Sage. UNCTAD. 2017. UNCTAD Handbook of Statistics 2017: Factsheet #1 Total Merchandise Trade. http://unctad.org/en/PublicationChapters/tdstat42_FS01_en.pdf. UNCTAD. 2018. World Investment Report 2018. http://unctad.org/en/PublicationsLibrary/wir 2018_en.pdf. UNDP Human Development Report. 2016. Human Development for Everyone. http://hdr.undp.org/ sites/default/files/2016_human_development_report.pdf. Wallerstein, Immanuel. 1987. World-System Analysis. Stanford: Stanford University Press. World Bank. 2017. China: Systematic Country Diagnostic Towards a More Inclusive and Sustainable Development. Report No. 113092–CN. World Economic Forum. 2017. These Will be the Most Powerful Economies of the World by 2050. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/12/these-will-be-the-most-powerful-econom ies-in-the-world-by-2050. World Bank. 2018. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GNP.PCAP.CD?.

Habibul Haque Khondker Ph.D., (Pittsburgh) is a Professor at Zayed University, Abu Dhabi, UAE. Khondker has coauthored Globalization: East/West. (Sage, 2010) with Bryan Turner; and coedited Asia and Europe in Globalization: Continents, Regions, and Nations (Brill 2006) with Goran Therborn, and The Middle East and the 21st Century Globalization. (Dubai and Abu Dhabi: Zayed University Press, 2010) with Jan Nederveen Pieterse.

Chapter 25

China’s Global Rise: From Socialist Self-reliance to the Embracement of Economic Globalization Yin-wah Chu

Abstract The essay examines China’s globalization from the perspective of neoMarxist theories of capitalist development and the world systems approach. The first part of the essay will outline the economic and political impasse encountered by China in the 1970s that forced the country to turn away from socialist economic planning and experiment with neoliberal reforms. It will also examine the crisis of accumulation associated with Fordism–Keynesianism among the advanced capitalist economies, which induced them to welcome China’s reintegration into the capitalist world economy as a spatial fix to problems of rigidity and declining profit. The second part of this essay will analyze China’s “model” of development, namely state neoliberalism, and delineate its three features including neoliberal reforms, reliance on socialist ideology as the basis of political legitimacy, and the resultant hesitations and policy reversals. Finally, the third part of the essay will highlight recent changes in China’s approach, especially its embracement of globalization and formation of global institutions, and the resulting tensions with other countries that might exert far-reaching consequences on the nature of globalization.

Introduction China has made impressive strides in economic and social development in the 40 years since it adopted the reform and opening-up policy. The following are some indicators: 1 The World Bank classifies 189 member countries and 28 others into four categories of countries: upper income, upper middle income, lower middle income, and low income. It follows a rather complex methodology that takes into account exchange rates, inflation, and others. See https://datahelpdesk.worldbank.org/knowledgebase/articles/378833-how-are-theincome-group-thresholds-determined. 2 For both the Gini coefficient and the Gini index, a value of 0 signifies perfect income equality, whereas a value of 1 or 100, respectively, indicates maximal inequality.

Y. Chu (B) Sociology, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong, China e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 I. Rossi (ed.), Challenges of Globalization and Prospects for an Inter-civilizational World Order, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44058-9_25

465

466

Y. Chu

• China has surpassed Japan to become the second-largest economy in the world since 2010. With a total of 120 corporations making it to the list of Fortune Global 500 in 2018, China was also second behind the USA, which topped the list with 126 of the world’s most powerful corporations. • In 2017, China attained a per capita GDP of US$8,826.99 (at current US dollars). Although the figure was still much lower than that of the USA (US$59,531.7) and Japan (US$38,428.1), it compared favorably with India (US$1,942.1) or, indeed, South Africa (US$6,151.08). The country was classified along with 55 others by the World Bank as “upper middle income” countries (World Bank 2019).1 • China’s economic growth has been marked by grave income inequality. In 2016, the National Bureau of Statistics announced a Gini coefficient of 0.465. Relying on its own calculation, the World Bank gave this formally socialist country a Gini index2 of 42.2, which was similar to that of the USA (41.0), yet much higher than Japan (32.1) and India (35.1) (World Bank 2019). Despite this, the country managed to reduce its poverty level, defined according to the international standard of US$1.9 a day, from 66.6% of the country’s population in 1990 to 0.7% in 2015, which outshined India, where the poverty ratio reduced from 45.3% in 1993 to 21.9% in 2011 (World Bank 2019). These remarkable achievements have been made possible by the country’s reintegration into the capitalist world economy since 1979.3 The questions then become: what reasons have prompted China to change its course of economic development and what circumstances have facilitated the country’s reintegration into the capitalist world economy? What model of development has China adopted, and how has it changed over time? This short chapter is an attempt to address these questions.

China’s Reintegration into the Capitalist World Economy I will explain the circumstances that have prompted China’s reintegration into the capitalist world economy by discussing, first, the economic and political impasse that confronted China since the mid-1970s and, then, the accumulation crisis facing the advanced capitalist economies. The events explain why China was compelled to change the course of economic development and, in turn, given a chance to do so.

3 China’s

reform and opening-up policy in late 1978 is characterized as a “reintegration” into the capitalist world economy because the country was tightly integrated before 1949. Even though the exact date of China’s integration into the capitalist world economy is a matter of academic debate, there is little doubt that China had been integrated since the later part of the Qing dynasty (i.e., early 1800s).

25 China’s Global Rise: From Socialist Self-reliance …

467

Socialist China: Economic and Political Impasse and the Launch of the Reform and Opening-up Policy China was torn apart by the civil war that erupted toward the end of the Second World War. Despite a number of favorable factors such as the command of state power, possession of superior military and economic resources, and support by the US government, the Republican Party (or Kuomintang) lost the war and was forced to retreat to Taiwan in 1949. After that, the Chinese Communist Party pursued statesocialism as a strategy to achieve both economic development and social equality. Among other practices, the party-state implemented land reform, nationalized private property, and replaced market mechanisms with economic plans. Given the rivalry between the capitalist and socialist blocs in the context of the Cold War and China’s involvement in the Korea War, the country was cut off from other market economies and was forced to pursue autarkic development, adopting in part the Soviet model of heavy industrialization. China’s experience oscillated between revolutionary socialism and its moderate retreat, as with the formation of communes (completed in 1958), experiment with the Great Leap Forward (1958–1961), launch of the Cultural Revolution (1967–1974), and the interludes which immediately followed them (Selden 1993). Without going into all the historical details, it might be noted that starting with an experiment in the early 1950s with rural collectivization at the village level, where differences in individual contribution was recognized and remunerated, the period between the mid1950s and 1958 saw the formation of communes that normally encompassed a whole township and observed egalitarian remuneration regardless of individual effort. At the same time, private enterprises of all sizes were nationalized or collectivized,4 with smaller ones being transformed into larger-sized enterprises. Initially at least, large-scale agricultural and industrial production made possible by communes and state or collective enterprises did generate a number of benefits. In the rural areas, communalization contributed to the construction of irrigation systems and other rural infrastructures, as well as the nurturing of small industries and training of their managers at the local level. In the urban setting, nationalization of industries and formation of large enterprises contributed to greater efficiency in production. According to some studies, China attained a very respectable average growth rate of 7% between 1952 and 1978, as compared with the 1% growth rate attained by all the “low income countries excluding China and India” (Noland and Ash 1995; Lippit 1982). However, much of the growth concentrated in the early part of China’s socialist experiment. It was found that the incremental output-capital ratio was halved between the First and Fourth Five-Year Plans (i.e., 1953–1957 and 1971–1975) (Noland and Ash 1995). Agricultural labor productivity, measured on a labor-day basis, fell by 15–36% between 1957 and 1975 (Lippit 1982). A number of reasons have been proposed to account for the decline in the rate of economic growth. For one, China’s pursuit of autarkic development was in part forced upon by the Cold War tension and 4 The

state or collective enterprises were attached to the different levels of the administration extending from the national center to the province, county, township, and village.

468

Y. Chu

stringent effort on the part of the US government to contain the spread of communism. As a result, China could only rely on its resources rather than tap into the capital, technology, and market of the capitalist world economy. For another, in the rush to promote heavy industrial development, the country gleaned its agricultural surplus and injected no more than 8–13% of the government’s investment from 1960 and 1978 into agriculture. This urban industrial bias resulted in underdevelopment of the agricultural sector and deficiency in raw material production, which backfired and circumscribed the country’s industrial growth. Third, most economists attributed the low productivity to the rigidity of the planned economy, and the lack of feedbacks, whether in the form of market signals or reward systems that could generate timely corrections. In the words of Lippit (1982: 142–144), the problem with the Chinese socialist economy was that it “vanquishes flexibility, timeliness and perhaps, most important, the initiative and ingenuity of the cadres and workers responsible for production.” Finally, economic production also suffered from disruptions stemming from waves of political mobilization, including but not confined to the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. In part because of the slowdown in productivity growth and in part because of heavy re-investment, wage increase became stagnant after 1957. According to Lippit (1982: 129), per capita income from collective labor in the countryside was 57 yuan in 1957; the amount fell sharply during the Great Leap Forward, recovered up to 1965 and rose to 65 yuan in 1977. For similar reasons, the pattern of frequent wage increases for the urban industrial workers that occurred during the years of the First Five-Year Plan was broken for two decades after 1957. Per capita consumption of food grains and edible oil in 1978 was actually lower than that of 1957 (Selden 1993: 21). By the 1970s, urban industrial workers were found to be alienated by the Cultural Revolution. Walder (1982: 222) related how most workers experienced the latter “as little more than (1) discontinuation of regular wage increases, (2) cancellation of bonuses tied to work performance, and (3) intensification of political study, campaigns, and criticism sessions.” The same was true of the general population, who became cynical about slogans of class struggle and absolute egalitarianism after experiencing long periods of political struggle during the Cultural Revolution and earlier mass mobilizations. A certain political undercurrent also emerged alongside the ascendency of ultra-leftist policy in the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution. According to Tsou et al. (1982: 277–278), the political forces in this countercurrent consisted of “almost all of the leaders and cadres at every level who had been disgraced, persecuted, or pushed aside during the Cultural Revolution and during the purge of anti-Party elements after the Lushan Conference of 1959; all intellectuals, scientists, technical personnel, educators, and other professionals who had suffered from one kind of denunciation or another since 1957; and those moderate leaders who had reluctantly gone along with the ultra-leftist policies of Mao.” These leaders and cadres came to believe that it was about time to change policy directions. If two decades of experiment with radical egalitarianism and never-ending political mobilization had only led to economic stagnation and popular dissatisfaction, a shift in economic strategies to pay more attention to individual interests might be what

25 China’s Global Rise: From Socialist Self-reliance …

469

was needed to unleash the forces of production and allow the party to maintain its leadership. If the sluggish economic performance, surging popular dissatisfaction, and emerging ideological undercurrents had presented pre-conditions for policy changes, the latter were also made possible by a number of triggering events. The passing of Mao Zedong in 1976 made room for the sidelined or persecuted leaders and cadres mentioned above to form a new political coalition. Their return was accompanied by a nationwide rehabilitation of lower-level party-state functionaries that were adept at policy formulation and implementation. With the natural disasters that hit the country between 1977 and 1979, some of these lower-level officials experimented with forms of family farming and justified them as strategies to cope with emergencies. Their good results justified the introduction of family farming to other provinces, which later led to de-collectivization and the institutionalization of the household responsibility system in the countryside. The success of economic reforms in the agricultural sector empowered the Chinese state to pursue comparable strategies in the urban industrial sector (Chu and So 2010).

Crisis of Accumulation, Fading of the Cold War, and Emergence of Neoliberal Globalization Important changes within the advanced capitalist economies also facilitated the reintegration of China. Four of these interrelated changes can be mentioned here. First, Western capitalism ran into crisis after two decades of rapid development since the Second World War. The early 1970s saw the surge of inflation, oil price increases, excess capacity, and fiscal crises, all of which allegedly stemmed from the rigidity of Fordism-Keynesianism, a regime of accumulation noted for the relative stability of employment and provision of basic social security. Recessions and waves of inflation in the 1970s prompted a series of experiments that culminated in a new regime of accumulation known as flexible accumulation, or a “new system of production and consumption characterized by more flexible labor processes and markets, of geographical mobility and rapid shifts in consumption practices” (Harvey 1990: 145). Additional features of the flexible regime were the rising importance of the service sector, financialization as well as segmentation of labor market, casualization of work, outsourcing, and emergence of the neoliberal state. Second, in tandem with the emergence of flexible accumulation was the retreat of anti-systemic movements, in this case, organized labor. Specifically, the Reagan and Thatcher governments dismantled the welfare state and promoted free trade as part of their strategies to address the problems of Fordist rigidity and fiscal overload. While endeavoring to resist these assaults on their livelihood, labor unions were crushed. According to the world systems theory, the retreat of organized labor made it possible

470

Y. Chu

for the casualization of work and outsourcing to sweep through the advanced capitalist economies (Hung 2009). Together with revolutions in information and communication technologies, these set the stage for the rise of neoliberal globalization and the intensification of the international division of labor. In other words, the incessant search for profit has led to the integration of labor, skills, and resources from the developing countries into the global economy, not only through trade but also through global production networks that span territorial boundaries. Indeed, the socalled new international division of labor emerged in as early as the 1960s in which developing countries supplied labor-intensive manufactured products in addition to agricultural goods and raw materials. With revolutions in information and communication technologies since the 1970s, it became possible if not customary to organize the manufacturing processes through global production networks (Castells 1996; Harvey 1990; Yeung 2016). In the proverbial case of the I-phone, components were designed, manufactured, and traded in more than 10 countries to be assembled into the final product in developing economies like China and Vietnam (Xing and Detert 2010). The intensification of the international division of labor made it easier to outsource production to developing countries and tap into their labor and natural resources. The third major change relates to the winding down of the Cold War and erosion of US hegemony. The late 1970s was a period of declining US hegemony. Politically, the USA was still plagued by its defeat in Vietnam and its failed attempt to fend off global Soviet expansionism. Economically, the USA faced strong competition from German and Japanese manufacturers in the world market. At this historical juncture, the USA welcomed China back into the world economy, as exemplified by Henry Kissinger’s historic visit to Beijing in 1971, China’s displacement of Taiwan to become a member of the United Nations in the same year, and the establishment of diplomatic relationship between the USA and China in 1979. China was seen by the USA as a potential new regional power to counterbalance Soviet military expansion and Japanese economic expansion in East Asia. Moreover, as insinuated above, the vast Chinese market, cheap Chinese labor, and abundant Chinese raw materials and minerals could considerably increase the competitive power of American industries in the world market (So and Chu 2016). Having said so, it remains to be emphasized that China’s reintegration into the capitalist world economy was initially through the intermediaries of the country’s East Asian neighbors. This brings us to the fourth point. Even though the so-called East Asian economic miracles were orchestrated by the USA to stem the spread of socialist expansion (Cumings 1984), the vigorous development of these economies compelled changes in various ways. On one hand, feeling the competitive pressure of the East Asian economies, the USA has become less tolerant of their mercantilist strategies. The imposition of the Plaza Accord in 1985, which devalued the US dollar vis-à-vis the Japanese Yen and other East Asian currencies, was intended to reduce the competitiveness of the manufactured exports from the East Asian economies. On the other hand, economic development also generated pressures for wage increase in East Asia and thus the need for these economies to move up the value chains in some ways. All these suggest that these East Asian economies had to launch their own

25 China’s Global Rise: From Socialist Self-reliance …

471

“defensive globalization” or efforts to expand transnationally with a view to capturing lower wages and inexpensive resource inputs, overcoming trade barriers and gaining access to markets, or acquiring advanced technology and pertinent information, all with the purpose of maintaining, if not advancing, their positions in global value chains (cf. Kung 2005). China appeared to be a source of cheap labor and inexpensive resources not only to the USA, but also to these East Asian economies. In part owing to their geographical and cultural proximity, Hong Kong and to a lesser extent Taiwan were the biggest investors in China during the early days of the country’s reform. Between 1979 and 1997, Hong Kong invested as much as US$120 billion, which was 55% of the total overseas direct investments (ODI) received by China during the same period (Zhang 2001). Taiwan businesses also started to invest in China since the 1980s, though it was only after the 1990s that such investment became legal. For a long time, Taiwan served as the second-largest investor in China and the latter captured 59.3% of Taiwan’s stock of ODI as of 2016. While South Korea’s investments in China were of a smaller scale, China’s share in South Korea’s ODI also increased from 1% in 1990 to the peak of 40% in 2004 (Chu 2019). Most of these investments took the form of processing plants that assemble parts and components imported from the home countries and elsewhere to become final products for export to the USA and other advanced economies. In so doing, investments in China facilitated the emergence of a regional division of labor whereby enterprises in Taiwan, South Korea, and Hong Kong could specialize in research and development (R&D) as well as the production and testing of more advanced products. In short, these processes generated the opportunity for China to be reintegrated into the capitalist world economy and to become the global factory since the late twentieth century.

State Neoliberalism: China’s Model of Development China’s reintegration into the capitalist world economy has not been characterized by a process of convergence in terms of economic policies and many of the organizational practices of the West. In other words, although the reform and opening-up policy has changed China in far-reaching ways, the country has not followed the Washington Consensus and adopted the so-called “big bang” approach characteristic of the former Soviet Union and countries in East-Central Europe such as Poland and Hungary. Nonetheless, the communist party-state introduced reforms that can be considered neoliberal in the sense the concept has been coined to characterize the “class project” of the capitalists in the 1970s USA and Europe. The latter refers to the fragmentation of labor market, casualization of work, and other measures5 introduced by the capitalists to fight back against high taxes and rigidities in production relations stemming from state regulations and trade union imperatives. Some 5 These

measures may also be summarized with the ideas of marketization, de-regulation, and privatization.

472

Y. Chu

scholars have described China’s route of development as “state neoliberalism” (Chu and So 2010) and suggest that, even though China has modeled upon the East Asian economies in pursuing export-led industrialization, China’s socialist legacy led it to follow pathways that were rather unique. The idea of state neoliberalism has three dimensions. First, while continuing to provide leadership in matters of economic development, the communist party-state introduced neoliberal practices that include marketization, deregulation, and privatization (cf. Harvey 1990). Much like the East Asian economies in the 1950s, state actors in China had to build up capitalist institutions; yet much of what happened in China involved the gradual reform of socialist institutions to address the issue of rigidity. The following will highlight a few changes launched with the introduction of the reform and opening-up policy in December 1978 under the auspice of Deng Xiaoping. The changes in agricultural production, organization of state enterprises, and labor market during the 1980s and 1990s were instrumental for enhancing productivity, inducing inflow of foreign investment, and enabling export promotion. • De-collectivization. Before the 1978 reform, peasants were organized into production teams, brigades and, since 1958, communes. They undertook production tasks collectively, sold their grains and other agricultural products to the state, shared the income based on a highly egalitarian work point system, and were given access to basic education, rural healthcare, and other infrastructures provided by the collectives. In the late 1970s, the “household responsibility system” was introduced. In this new system, land continued to be owned collectively by the village, but households were given the option of contracting out plots of land to cultivate crops of their choice, sell the surplus in the market, and be responsible for their own gains and losses. At the same time, although the concern with exploitation led the communist partystate to impose stringent restrictions on rural entrepreneurs hiring seven persons or more, the township and village enterprises (TVE), converted from commune and brigade enterprises, soon became a locus of entrepreneurship. Not only had the number of TVE increased sharply from 1.5 million in 1978 to 12 million in 1985, observers contended that 10.5 million of the 12 million supposedly collectivelyowned TVE were actually private (Huang 2010: 5–6; Naughton 1994; see also Nee and Opper 2012). • Reform and privatization of state-owned enterprises. In 1978, the reform of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) was confined to the de-centralization of management; some forms of profit-sharing between the state, management, and workers; permission to sell surplus products at higher prices; clearer delineation of responsibilities among the manager, enterprise, and the state; as well as permission for the employees to invest in the shares of their firms (So and Chu 2016). These mild reforms continued in the 1980s until they gave way to the more drastic measures of privatization, bankruptcy, and merger after 1992 when it was decided that the SOEs have to be turned into modern enterprises. In particular, the policy of “seizing the large and letting go of the small” (zhuada fangxiao) was announced

25 China’s Global Rise: From Socialist Self-reliance …

473

in 1994. While encouraging the largest SOEs to expand into inter-regional, interindustrial conglomerates that excel in production, technology, trade, and, in some cases, to get listed in the stock market, the policy also made it possible to privatize or even bankrupt the smaller, less efficient, and loss-making ones. The process was slow at the beginning, yet large and unsustainable losses incurred by the SOEs during the 1997 financial crisis threatened the solvency of the banking system, which led the Chinese state to initiate aggressive restructuring. The number of industrial SOEs dropped sharply from about 85,000 in 1994 to about 47,000 in 2001 (Yang and Zhang 2003; Fewsmith 2008). Of equal importance was the adoption in 1993 a system of corporate law that sought to introduce a more sophisticated structure of corporate governance and property rights. Depending on the extent of state ownership, the law required that a board of directors and a CEO and, in some cases, a board of supervisors and a general meeting of the shareholders were to be appointed (Aivazian et al. 2005). The new governance structure was expected to give incentives to the management for the pursuit of profit and to make them accountable for their business decisions. With privatization, corporatization, and the introduction of the shareholding system, the SOEs could no longer depend on the state for funding; but had to operate independently in the market in search for profit. • Proletarianization of the peasantry and emergence of an urban labor market. Post-reform China also saw the emergence of a labor market. For the peasants, the loss of collective social rights in the countryside meant that they had to face burdensome user charges for schools, medical care, and the like. Apart from working for the TVEs, they were also enticed by the expansion in non-state employment opportunities to migrate into the cities. Owing to the rigidity of the household registration (hukou) system, these peasant workers (or migrant workers) were initially (before 1985) not authorized to migrate and had no right of urban residency. Only in 1985 were procedures introduced to allow the peasants to register, with permits and later identity cards, as temporary urban residents. Even then, their rights as citizens were limited and precarious. It is not easy to estimate the number of peasant workers in the 1980s. To give a rough indication, some 44 million people were found in 1995 to reside within the urban areas using temporary residential permit (Chan 2003). Given their dubious legal status, the “floating population” of peasant workers was subjected to exploitation on a grand scale; forming an immense labor reserve that placed tremendous downward pressure on the wages of the urban workers (Pun 1999; Wu 2007). The number of migrant workers has increased tremendously over the years, reaching 286.52 million in 2017 and playing an indispensable role to fuel China’s emergence as the global factory. It is notably that although some attempts have been made in recent years to improve the life chances of these migrant workers, the improvement was limited. Significantly, in 2013, the Chinese government issued a National New Urbanization Plan (2014–2020), which indicated among other things that it intended to facilitate a course of human-centered urbanization. Specifically, it will allow migrant workers with the necessary “means and capability” to apply and become urban residents. Among the estimated 200 million

474

Y. Chu

migrant workers in 2013, the Plan estimated that some 100 million of them would qualify. Furthermore, while the migrant workers could apply for residency in cities with five million or less population, the largest cities in the Eastern coast will be closed to these migrant workers6 (see Chu 2020). For workers with urban hukou, the pre-1978 arrangement wherein the Bureau of Labor and Personnel matched urban workers and prospective employers, and the work units (danwei) paid workers subsistence wage and provided them with housing, healthcare, childcare, pension, and related benefits was gradually replaced (Walder 1986; Cai et al. 2008). Two changes are noteworthy. First, the emergence of private enterprises generated opportunities for employment, not only for migrant workers, but also other urban dwellers. Second, within the state sector, although the municipal governments continued to place new graduates in government or state-sector jobs until the late 1990s, the “contract labor” system was introduced in the mid-1980s and the share of contract workers in total employment increased from 4% in 1985 to 39% in 1995 (Cai et al. 2008). Furthermore, SOE restructuring launched in 1994 included changes in labor regulations that allowed the listed SOEs to set their own wages according to skill and productivity in addition to occupation and rank. The SOEs were also given permission to lay off redundant workers and, in some cases, government subsidies were provided to reduce the workers’ resistance. According to Cai et al. (2008), “the number of state sector workers fell from a peak of 113 million in 1995 to 88 million in 1998 and 64 million in 2004,” which means the state enterprises laid-off 49 million workers in 9 years. As another indication, the share of SOEs in urban employment dropped from 78% in 1978 to 70.2% in 1989, then to 28.9% in 2002, and further to 18.4% in 2012 (Cai et al. 2008; National Bureau of Statistics 2014). Taken altogether, these have facilitated the rise of flexible labor practices, made possible the hiring and firing of workers on the basis of productivity and efficiency, and gradually put an end to lifelong employment and the job security guaranteed in the era of state socialism. More could be said of the neoliberal changes introduced in China over the years. Important changes in the financial sector can be examined. However, even without doing so, the above is sufficient to demonstrate that most of the post-1978 reforms were efforts to introduce flexibility into the otherwise rigid socialist planned economy. If the first dimension of state neoliberalism was the state’s continued effort to promote economic development through the introduction of neoliberal reforms, the second dimension was the communist party-state’s adherence to socialism as the basis for its political legitimacy. This has a number of consequences. Significantly, not only were the political institutions slow to change, many of the economic institutions that embody fundamental socialist ideology also exhibited remarkable stickiness. Rural land ownership, for instance, remains to date in the hand of the collectivity rather than succumb to private ownership. Second, given the state leaders’ adherence to 6 According

to the National New Urbanization Plan, the restriction was imposed to avoid further expansion of these cities and hence lessen their ecological pressure.

25 China’s Global Rise: From Socialist Self-reliance …

475

socialism as its guiding ideology, alienated party leaders, much as the workers and peasants devastated by neoliberal reforms, often resorted to the rhetoric to frame their criticisms and protests. In turn, state leaders were compelled to intervene in attempts to soothe the hardship or appease disgruntled individuals, mostly through the provision of social benefits or through seemingly more fundamental policy change. This, indeed, were what happened after the 1989 Tiananmen Incident and the 2000s when massive protests erupted among peasants and workers. Without going into a detailed discussion of the causes and consequences of the Tiananmen Incident, it will suffice to mention here that, having cracked down the student protesters, state leaders no longer took economic construction as their main mission during the next few years, but introduced stop-gap measures to tackle socioeconomic problems induced by the first decade of economic reform. Among other things, they addressed the issues of “dual-track pricing” and “triangular loans” that generated room for corruption among the officials.7 These and other problems such as inflation were considered to have provoked much popular discontent immediately before the protests. At the same time, effort was exerted to strengthen state capacity through the introduction of a “cadre responsibility system” in 1993 and tax reform in 1994. The cadre responsibility system required county party secretaries and township heads to sign performance contracts, pledging to attain certain targets laid down by higher level officials (Edin 2003). The tax reform rationalized tax collection and strengthened the fiscal position of the central government (Shen et al. 2012). Together, these prepared for a new round of development support. Similarly, by the 2000s, when the deepening of neoliberal reforms in the 1990s led to the eruption of massive protests among workers laid-off without due compensation, peasants whose land was expropriated, or people who suffered from pollution in various ways, far-reaching policy changes were introduced. Of particular importance were Hu Jintao’s emphasis on environmental sustainability and social development rather than economic development as such. To alleviate the so-called “three agriculture question,” the policy of building a “new socialist countryside” was promoted, which involved an abolishment of the agricultural tax, elimination of school fees in the countryside, and increased subsidies for rural health cooperatives, among others. Similarly, a new “Labor Contract Law” was introduced, which among other things made provision for negotiations between employers, workers, and/or their representatives on such matters as remunerations, working hours, and so on. Nonetheless, as these policy changes were either temporary or introduced without changing the basic concern with economic development and hence the criteria for assessing the performance of local officials, the latter had no choice but to continue to implement the neoliberal policies regardless of their ruthlessness. The irony was that the central state could continue to hold the moral high ground, maintain its authority, 7 Dual-track pricing and triangular loans were both arrangements made in the early years of China’s

economic reform. Take dual-track pricing as an example, it means that the same commodity was given different prices, one within the socialist planned economy and the other the newly emerging market economy. The price in the socialist planned economy tended to be lower and, consequently, officials and their family members could use their connection to acquire products at low prices in the planned economy and sell them for windfall profit in the market economy.

476

Y. Chu

and condemn local state managers and nascent capitalists for the exploitation of workers, plundering of the environment, and corrupt behaviors. Finally, the third dimension of state neoliberalism concerns the hesitant and zigzag nature of China’s pathway of post-1978 development, which resulted from the inherent contradiction of an avowed socialist state that led national development along the path of neoliberal capitalism. On one hand, the above has indicated that, quite unlike the cases of the former Soviet Union and East-Central Europe, which undertook a course of “shock therapy,” reform in China was marked by gradualism (Sachs and Woo 2000). Initially, the objective was no more than to develop a commodity economy alongside the planned one. To minimize the impact on the state center, changes since 1978 were introduced initially in the rural sector and experimented in remote provinces, such as Guangdong or Sichuan, before being introduced to Beijing or Shanghai. Thus, there were some truths in Deng Xiaoping’s metaphor of “crossing the river by feeling the stones.” On the other hand, as the above has also indicated, policy reversal occurred after 1989 and in the 2000s when neoliberal reforms had gone too rapidly to prompt popular reactions. To date, the general pattern could still be detected, such as in the case of the human-centered urbanization (see Chu 2020). In characterizing the third dimension of state neoliberalism as the hesitant and zig-zag nature of China’s pathway of post-1978 development, this essay by no means suggests that the process was entirely an adaptation to external and internal political or economic events. The hesitation and reversals in policy were consequences of the state elite’s dual concerns of maintaining the party-state’s continual domination on the basis of socialist ideology, on one hand, and attaining success in promoting the country’s economic growth, on the other hand.

From “Go Global” to the Building of Global Institutions One can go on to examine China’s experience of reintegration into the capitalist world economy by analyzing its development after the mid-2000s. One question that has puzzled many China watchers is whether Xi Jinping continues to support private enterprises or have state enterprises been gaining more importance over time? Instead of investigating this specific issue, the following will draw attention to a more general question that has great contemporary interest, namely, what are China’s positions with regard to globalization as it experiences greater economic success? China has become more assertive politically, economically, and culturally since the late 2000s. With the eruption of the financial tsunami in 2008, the tension between China and many countries in the world has escalated. The ways in which globalization would evolve depend on many factors that are beyond the scope of this short chapter. However, two observations on China are in order. First, China’s reintegration into the capitalist world economy was characterized initially by a division of labor in which China supplied inexpensive human and natural resources, whereas more advanced capitalist economies supplied capital and

25 China’s Global Rise: From Socialist Self-reliance …

477

technology to produce standardized products for consumers around the world. Over time, China moved up the technology ladder by investing heavily in R&D and, above all, stepped up its embracement of globalization by becoming an exporter of outward direct investments. In the early 1990s, Jiang Zemin had proposed the policy of “going out (zou chuqu)” and incorporated it as part of the Tenth FiveYear Plan in 2001. Stated simply, just as the country continued to welcome capital inflows, business enterprises were encouraged to find business opportunities and engage in technological cooperation overseas. The Tenth Five-Year Plan highlighted a number of possibilities for “going out”: Chinese business enterprises could engage in contract engineering and contract labor; invest in overseas processing plants to facilitate the export of products, services, and skills; cooperate in the excavation of resources needed by China; or set up research centers and design centers to utilize human resources overseas. All these were considered instrumental in helping China to restructure its economy and build up transnational corporations. The policy continued to receive support from Hu Jintao. The strategy of “going out” was given a boost by Xi Jinping’s 2013 “Belt-Road” initiative. In an attempt to invoke the imagery of China’s pre-modern trade routes, Belt refers to the overland routes for road and rail transportation called “the Silk Road Economic Belt,” whereas Road refers to sea routes or the “21st Century Maritime Silk Road.” The Belt-Road initiative encompasses some 90 countries in East Africa; Southeast, South and Central Asia; the Middle East; East-Central Europe; and even Oceania. At the beginning, the initiative focused on cooperation in infrastructural construction. Over time, it has been expanded into communications and connectivity in five dimensions. Citing China’s Ambassador to the UN, the five dimensions refer to (BBC 2017): • • • • •

Communication (and coordination) of policies Connectivity of infrastructures (inclusive of telecommunications) Connectivity in trade Connectivity in finance Connectivity among people.

In other words, the Belt-Road initiative aims to expand rooms for China to engage in cooperation in trade and infrastructural construction, which are to be financed in part by The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (to be examined later), thus extending the friendship base of the country (BBC 2017). According to Xi and his aides, the Belt-Road is a pure economic initiative that aims to be inclusive and generate benefits for everyone. It is definitely not an initiative to boost China’s geopolitical influence (Guo 2018). Second, if China’s reintegration into the capitalist world economy has initially taken the form of China gaining acceptance to and working within the framework of existing global institutions, the country has recently attempted to launch its own global institutions. A most prominent one is “The Shanghai Cooperation Organization” established formally in 2001. Apart from the sharing of information and cooperation in the area of anti-terrorism, other goals of the Organization are to enhance

478

Y. Chu

cooperation in politics, trade, technology, culture, education, energy, transportation, and environmental preservation. However, the most ambitious institution to date is the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). Proposed in 2013, the Bank commenced operation after the Articles of Agreement entered into force in 2015 with the ratification of 10 member-states holding a total of 50% of the initial subscription of the US$100 billion authorized capital stock. While the AIIB’s initial capital was less than that of the Asia Development Bank and the World Bank, it was considered to have the potential of contending with the World Bank and IMF for their influence. Xi Jinping and other Chinese officials have emphasized all along that the BeltRoad initiative and the AIIB aim at equal participation, win–win relationship, and that these are pure economic rather than political projects. However, observers overseas have been cautious and considered these as attempts by Chinese leaders to increase their global influence if not some forms of colonial domination. It has been suggested that these mega-scale infrastructural projects threaten to throw the developing countries into debts that force them to cede important economic interests. The protests and project cancellations in Pakistan, Malaysia, and some other countries are cases in point (Ide and Huang 2018). In fact, similar suspicions and criticisms have been piling on China’s investments overseas. The most acrimonious criticisms are directed at China’s investment in Africa. In 2006, Britain’s foreign secretary Jack Straw first used the notion “neo-colonialism” to describe China’s activities in Africa. In 2011, the US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton also warned of neo-colonialism and that Africa should be wary of [Chinese] investors that only seek to extract natural resources and deal with African elites, rather than bring benefits to all citizens (Quinn 2011). Lamido Sanusi, the governor of Nigeria’s central bank, contended in 2013 that China was not unlike “the US, Russia, Britain, Brazil, and the rest” in its interest in Africa’s raw materials and markets rather than a real contributor to the continent’s industrial development (Sanusi 2013). Although these criticisms have not always been substantiated (Ali and Jafrani 2012), suffice to say here that China’s attempt to assert its economic, cultural, and political interests as it embraces globalization will be fraught with difficulties. Responses of the USA and other countries to China’s attempt, which include the tariff wars that are still unfolding at the time of writing, will also transform globalization in ways most far-reaching and unpredictable.

Conclusion The above has striven to account for China’s globalization by examining its reintegration into the capitalist world economy. Without recapitulating the above discussion, it will be suggested that the experience sheds a few lights on the theoretical debates on globalization. First, China’s reintegration occurred at a juncture when the advanced capitalist economies ran into crises of accumulation. The reintegration of China was a spatial fix that helped these economies to address the issue of rigidity and declining profit. Just as the reintegration benefited capitalists and

25 China’s Global Rise: From Socialist Self-reliance …

479

many consumers in the Western world, it also deepened the de-industrialization of, and hardship experienced by many workers in the advanced capitalist economies. As for China, the reintegration helped the socialist planned economy to overcome its economic and political impasse encountered around the 1970s, facilitated rapid economic growth, and delivered many people from poverty. However, the process was attained at the expense of long working hours, low wages, volatility of employment, acute and widespread industrial accidents, harsh labor suppressions, massive environmental deterioration, and grave social dislocations. Despite claims made by the US President Donald Trump, rules of international trade set under the auspices of the World Trade Organization (WTO), which were instrumental for governing China’s trade with other WTO member countries since the country’s accession in 2001, were not so much dominated or manipulated by the Chinese. More often than not, Western corporations had the upper hand in WTO trade negotiations and, according to Joseph Stiglitz (2017), got exactly what they wanted at the expense of labor and environmental interests of their countries. Second, although China’s reintegration had proceeded in most parts within frameworks defined by global institutions set up by the advanced capitalist economies, the country’s experience could not be described as one of convergence. As examined in the context of the idea state neoliberalism, even as China sought to promote neoliberal capitalism by reforming many existing socialist institutions, the country’s state elite did not subscribe to the Washington Consensus, but continued to maintain control over many aspects of the economy and sought to steer the course of development in their country. Furthermore, they continued to hold on to socialist ideology as their basis for political legitimacy, hence generating contradictions, hesitations, and, at times, policy reversals as suggested above. Third, contrary to the arguments of some radical globalists who preach about the world being flat or borderless (Friedman 2005), the experience of China’s reintegration is not a process of sweeping globalization, but a continuous tension between the global and the national. Attempts by the Chinese state elite to steer the course of development and, in particular, to deepen globalization (e.g., expand overseas direct investments) and build global institutions (e.g., AIIB) are cases in point. The same can be said of the surge of discontent among state leaders around the world. The latest round of tariff wars between the USA and China is a continuation of preexisting trends, though it raised the tension to a new level that threatens to transform globalization.

References Aivazian, Varouj A., Ying Ge, and Jiaping Qiu. 2005. Can Corporatization Improve the Performance of State-Owned Enterprises Even Without Privatization? Journal of Corporate Finance 11: 791– 808. Ali, Shimelse and Nida Jafrani. 2012. China’s Growing Role in Africa: Myths and Facts. International Economic Bulletin (9 February). http://carnegieendowment.org/ieb/2012/02/09/chinas-growing-role-in-africa-myths-and-facts/9j5q.

480

Y. Chu

BBC. 2017. What are the Most Important Meanings of “One-Belt-One-Road” for the Xi Regime? (yidai yilu dui Xi zhengquan zuidadeyiyi shi shenma?), (May 15). https://www.bbc.com/zho ngwen/simp/indepth-39923214. Cai, Fang, Albert Park, and Yaohui Zhao. 2008. The Chinese Labor Market in the Reform Era. In China’s Great Economic Transformation, ed. Loren Brandt and Thomas G. Rawski, 167–214. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Castells, Manuel. 1996. The Rise of the Network Society. Oxford: Blackwell. Chan, Kam Wing. 2003. Migration in China in the Reform Era: Characteristics, Consequences, and Implications. In China’s Developmental Miracle: Origins, Transformations, and Challenges, ed. Alvin Y. So, 111–135. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe. Chu, Yin-wah and Alvin Y. So. 2010. State Neoliberalism: The Chinese Road to Capitalism. In Chinese Capitalisms: Historical Emergence and Political Implications, ed. Yin-wah Chu, 46–72. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Chu, Yin-wah. 2019. Democratization, globalization, and institutional adaptation: The developmental states of South Korea and Taiwan. Review of International Political Economy. https://doi. org/10.1080/09692290.2019.1652671 Chu, Yin-wah. 2020. China’s New Urbanization Plan: Progress and Structural Constraints. Cities. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2020.102736 Cumings, Bruce. 1984. The Origins and Development of the Northeast Asian Political Economy: Industrial Sectors, Product Cycles, and Political Consequences. International Organization 38 (1): 1–40. Edin, Maria. 2003. State Capacity and Local Agent Control in China: CCP Cadre Management from a Township Perspective. The China Quarterly 173: 35–42. Fewsmith, Joseph. 2008. China Since Tiananmen: From Deng Xiaoping to Hu Jintao. New York: Cambridge University Press. Freidman, Thomas. 2005. The World is Flat. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Guo, Jiping. 2018. Five Years Since President Xi Jiping’s Proposed the “One Belt One Road” Initiative: A Great Practice in Creating a Community of Shared Future for Mankind (Xi Jinping zhuxi tichu yidaiyilu changyi wu zhounian: jiangou renlei mingyungongtongti de weida shijian). People’s Daily (5 October 2018). http://www.gov.cn/xinwen/2018-10/05/content_5327979.htm. Harvey, David. 1990. The Condition of Postmodernity: An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change. Oxford: Blackwell. Huang, Yasheng. 2010. China Boom: Rural China in the 1980s. Asia Society: The China Boom Project. https://rucore.libraries.rutgers.edu/rutgers-lib/42167/PDF/1/play/. Hung, Ho-Fung. 2009. America’s Head Servant? New Left Review 60 (23): 5–25. Ide, Bill and Joyce Huang. 2018. Caution, Cancellations, Protests as Concerns Grow on China’s Belt and Road. Voice of America (15 October). https://www.voanews.com/a/caution-cancellat ions-protest-concerns-grow-china-belt-road/4614103.html. Kung, I-Chun. 2005. The Embeddedness of Semi-Periphery Taiwanese Business in World-System [in Chinese]. Taiwan Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 2 (1): 61–82. Lippit, Victor D. 1982. Socialist Development in China. In The Transition to Socialism in China, ed. Mark Selden and Victor Lippit, 116–158. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe. National Bureau of Statistics. 2014. Table 4.2 Number of Employed Persons at Year-End in Urban and Rural Areas. China Statistical Yearbook. www.stats.gov.cn/tjsj/ndsj/2013/indexeh.htm. Naughton, Barry. 1994. What is Distinctive about China’s Economic Transition? State Enterprise Reform and Overall System Transformation. Journal of Comparative Economics 18 (3): 470–490. Nee, Victor, and Sonja Opper. 2012. Capitalism from Below: Markets and Institutional Change in China. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Nolan, Peter and Robert F. Ash 1995. China’s Economy on the Eve of Reform. The China Quarterly 144 (Dec): 980–998. Pun, Ngai. 1999. Becoming Dagongmei: The Politics of Identity and Difference in Reform China. The China Journal 42: 1–19.

25 China’s Global Rise: From Socialist Self-reliance …

481

Quinn, Andrew. 2011. Clinton Warns Against “New Colonialism” in Africa. Reuter (June 11). http://reuters.com/article/2011/06/11/us-clinton-africa-idUSTRE75A0RI20110611. Sachs, Jeffrey D. and Wing Thye Woo. 2000. The Debate on Understanding China’s Economic Growth. In Planning, Shortage, and Transformation: Essays in honor of Janos Kornai, ed. Eric Maskin and Andras Simonovits, 385–406. Cambridge: MIT. Sanusi, Lamido. 2013. Africa Must Get Real about its Romance with China. Financial Times (March 12). https://www.ft.com/content/562692b0-898c-11e2-ad3f-00144feabdc0. Selden, Mark. 1993. The Political Economy of Chinese Development. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe. Shen, Chunli, Jing Jin, and Heng-fu Zou. 2012. Fiscal Decentralization in China: History, Impact, Challenges and Next Steps. Annals of Economics and Finance 13 (1): 1–51. So, Alvin Y. and Yin-wah Chu. 2016. The Global Rise of China. Cambridge: Polity. Stiglitz, Joseph E. 2017. Globalization and Its Discontents Revisited: Anti-Globalization in the Era of Trump. New York: W. W. Norton. Tsou, Tang, Marc Blecher, and Mitch Meisner. 1982. National Agricultural Policy: The Dazhai Model and Local Change in the Post-Mao Era. In The Transition to Socialism in China, ed. Mark Selden and Victor Lippit, 266–299. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe. Walder, Andrew G. 1982. Some Ironies of the Maoist Legacy in Industry. In The Transition to Socialism in China, ed. Mark Selden and Victor Lippit, 215–237. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe. Walder, Andrew G. 1986. Communist Neo-Traditionalism: Work and Authority in Chinese Industry. Berkeley: University of California Press. World Bank. 2019. World Bank Open Data. https://data.worldbank.org/. Wu, Fulong. 2007. Beyond Gradualism: China’s Urban Revolution and Emerging Cities. In China’s Emerging Cities, ed. Fulong Wu, 1–25. London: Routledge. Xing, Yuqing and Neal Detert. 2010. How the iPhone Widens the United States Trade Deficit with the People’s Republic of China. ADBI Working Paper 257. Tokyo: Asian Development Bank Institute. http://www.adbi.org/workingpaper/2010/12/14/4236.iphone.widens.us.trade.def icit.prc/. Yang, Ruilong and Yongsheng Zhang. 2003. Globalization and China’s SOEs Reform. Paper Presented in the International Conference on “Sharing the Prosperity of Globalization”, Organized by WIDER/UNU, Finland (September 6–7). Yeung, Henry W.-C. 2016. Strategic Coupling: East Asian Industrial Transformation in the New Global Economy. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Zhang, Kevin H. 2001. China’s Inward FDI Boom and the Greater Chinese Economy. The Chinese Economy 34 (1): 74–88.

Yin-wah Chu is an Associate Professor of sociology at the Hong Kong Baptist University, doing research on economic development and political movements in China, South Korea, and Taiwan. Her papers have appeared in Critique Internationale, Economy and Society, International Journal of Urban and Rural Research, and Urban Studies among others. She is an editor of Chinese Capitalisms (2010), The Asian Developmental State 2016), coeditor of East Asia’s New Democracies 2010), and coauthor of The Global Rise of China (2016).

Chapter 26

The Newness of the Chinese Developmental State Under Xi’s Administration Falin Zhang

Abstract China has entered a new age since the inception of Xi’s administration in late 2012. The newness can be observed from the developmental structure, role, and outcome, adopting the “Chinese developmental state” view. It specifically embodies the power consolidation of the Party by re-emphasizing the “The Party Leads Everything” principle; the changes and continuity of the state-market relations featured a strengthened Chinese state: the growing but not laissez-faire Chinese market and the unique bureaucrats–entrepreneurs’ connections, the upgraded development visions from quantity-first to quality-centered and from inward to outward, and the reinforced state legitimacy through (conventional and new) legitimization strategies.

Introduction China, as widely acknowledged, has entered a new age since the inception of the Xi’s administration in late 2012, but there has been less consensus on or systematic stocktaking of the newness. Many observations mainly focus on scattered empirical activities or polices, such as the supply-side reform, the “Belt and Road” initiative (BRI), the foundation of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the slowdown of China’s economic growth, the China–US trade conflict, the power consolidation of the Communist Party of China (the Party or the CPC), and so on. Though indicating fine-tuning or reform of China’s political and economic systems, these activities or policies by no means show any radical change in the Chinese model that lasted at least for the past two decades. This model per se, however, has long been in fierce debate, labeled variously and sometimes contradictorily as a market-friendly state (Lardy 2014), “market-facilitating state” (Ma 1999), “Sino-Capitalism” (McNally 2012), “helping-hand state” (Frye and Shleifer 1997), “regulatory state” (Yang 2004), “corporate state” (Hsu and Hasmath 2012), “dual developmental state” (Ming 2000), and so on. F. Zhang (B) International Relations, Nankai University, Tianjin, China e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 I. Rossi (ed.), Challenges of Globalization and Prospects for an Inter-civilizational World Order, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44058-9_26

483

484

F. Zhang

These different views, in a broad sense, converge into three groups along the spectrum of state-market relations: market-oriented, state-oriented, and hybrid-oriented. The market-oriented views apparently espouse the idea of a free market as an “invisible hand.” Lardy (2014: ix), for example, attributed the economic success of China to “the freeing of the private sector and the shrinking of the state.” China’s economic globalization and privatization since the reform in the late 1970s have all been incorporated into the evidence database of this view. According to this view, the recent consolidation of the Chinese state has evidently pulled China off the conventional growth track for better or for worse. The state-oriented views emphasize the symbolic, ideological, functional, and regulative roles of the state in China’s economic development. A typical view of this group is the developmental state (DS), which was initially abstracted from Japan’s development experience and subsequently applied to other economies, including South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Vietnam, China, and many others, such as Frye and Shleifer (1997), Knight (2014), Hayashi (2010), and Zhang (2018a).1 The concept of DS was first conceptualized by Johnson (1982) to explain the highly successful post-war reindustrialization and reconstruction of Japan. The hybrid-oriented views, adopting the philosophy of eclecticism, argue that hybrid strategies have been used to boost China’s economic development, including both state-oriented and market-oriented ones, such as McNally (2012). The developmental state argument better illuminates China’s development. The Chinese way of development has reflected the standard accounts of the DS based mainly on the experience of Japan and South Korea (White and Wade 1988; Hayashi 2010; Knight 2014; Zhang 2018b), but embodies new characteristics. These standard accounts and new characteristics can be summarized into three aspects: developmental structure, developmental role, and developmental outcome, which are drawn from the existing studies (Fritz and Menocal 2007; Vu 2007; Routley 2012). In a concise way, the developmental structure means state capacity of pursuing economic development; the developmental role refers to vision of development and its operationalization; and the developmental outcome means the consequence of the capacity, vision, and operationalization in realizing the goal of the economic development (Zhang 2018a). The state capacity can be measured through the power and influence of the state in the market, or the “embedded autonomy”2 in Evans’ term (Evans 1995), the structure and efficiency of the bureaucracy, and the legitimacy of the state. The developmental role and outcome can be observed from the views on development of the new leadership and relevant actions and results. The dissection of the Chinese developmental state into the developmental structure, role, and outcome, as well as into specific indicators, provides a benchmark to measure the new features of the Chinese state under the Xi’s administration. Accordingly, this chapter aims to explore the newness of the Chinese developmental state 1 For

a detailed literature review of the developmental state, see Zhang (2018a). autonomy” means that the state and the central government have established close relations with the market through structural linkages and social interactions between political and economic elites; meanwhile, the state maintains relative autonomy against the influence of the market through legal and illegal measures, like lobbying and bribery.

2 “Embedded

26 The Newness of the Chinese Developmental State …

485

under the Xi’s administration specifically from four aspects: power consolidation, state-market relations, development visions, and state legitimacy.

Power Consolidation: Back to “The Party Leads Everything” The first and foremost change of the Xi’s administration is the consolidation of the Party’s power and capacity through channels of reassuring the absolute leadership of the Party and of centralizing the power of the central over the local governments. The unified leadership of the Communist Party, or the “The-Party-Leads-Everything” principle (hereafter the PLE), was formally established in middle 1942, a hard time for the Party during the Counter-Japanese War (1937–1945) (CPC Political Bureau 1942). The unified leadership initially contained vertical and horizontal dimensions of meaning. At the vertical level, it emphasized the authority of the central Party over the locals, and thus the unconditional obedience of the local party organizations with the orders from the central. At the horizontal level, it stressed the central position of the Party in leading and coordinating other forces. The explicit motive was to effectively unify and organize any potential forces in countering the Japanese invasion. The unified leadership of the Party and its effective organizations and operations, to a significant degree, enabled the success of the Counter-Japanese War, and subsequently gained incremental advantages in the civil war against the Kuomintang. As a result of the successive triumphs of the Party in both wars, the unified leadership was legitimatized and institutionalized with the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1949. The leadership of the Party was then transplanted into and led the new state apparatus. Consequently, the vertical dimension of the unified leadership was maintained while the horizontal dimension was upgraded into the leadership of the Party over the state, and all forces are governed by the state. The degree of power concentration of the Party, however, has fluctuated over the past nearly seven decades. During Mao’s era, the unified leadership position of the Party, or the PLE, was stressed given the urgent need of restoring domestic political and economic orders and of dealing with the complicated international context of the Cold War. For instance, in the speech at the opening ceremony of the 1st Session of 1st National People’s Congress held in 1954, Mao Zedong defined the leadership position of the CPC as “the core force” (People’s Daily 1954). In 1962, Mao (1999: 305) emphasized the core leadership position of the Party in industry, agriculture, commerce, education, military affairs, and government. This overarching leadership gradually extended to management of specific issues at a more micro level, and thus the Party and the government were highly merged. The indistinction between the Party and the government caused the transformation of the Party’s ideology into action guidelines of the government and the market. The hostility in Mao’s era against the market economy developed in capitalist countries is an example and a result of the indistinction. The subsequent reform of the Deng Xiaoping’s administration aimed to separate the government and the market from the Party, and redefined (and actually limited) the leadership of the Party. For instance,

486

F. Zhang

the Political Report and the Party Constitution in the 12th CPC National Congress did not mention the PLE; instead, it stated that the leadership of the Party lied only in politics, ideology, and organization. The political leadership of the Party meant that the Party exclusively took the responsibility of deciding the political forms, objectives, tasks, and directions; the ideological leadership meant that the Party’s upholding ideology must be the basic ideational guidelines of the country; the organizational leadership meant that the Party was in charge of the cadre selection, management, and promotion. This new definition and expression had lasted more than two decades until the 19th CPC National Congress in 2017. Although the PLE still often appeared in official documents or political rhetoric, the degree of power concentration of the Party had evidently declined since the Deng administration in the late 1970s. The decline can also be observed from the vertical and horizontal perspectives. Vertically, as the reform increased economic independence of the local, the economic links between the central party and the local organizations have been weakened, and thus so have the political ones. The rapid number increase of party members and local party organizations has brought many problems and challenges to effective party management, such as corruption.3 Horizontally, the separation of the government and the market from the Party means some power transfer from the Party to the government and the market, which is widely acknowledged as a driving force of China’s economic rise under the previous administrations (Lardy 2014). The Party–state–market relations and balance had been the key determinants of China’s security, stability, and, in particular, development. The releasing of market forces since China’s reform in the late 1970s has brought economic growth, but at the cost of environmental degradation, food safety, income gap, sustainable development, and so on. Dealing with these issues requires a strong state with more market intervention and rule-making. In addition to these domestic problems, bargaining, and even conflicts, the present international situation has also brought a survival threat to China, as a logical result of China’s economic rise and the consequent international power competition. These complicated domestic and international contexts entail a strong leadership, and therefore the Xi’s administration has changed the Party–state–market balance constructed since the Deng’s administration toward a more centralized Party and state and a relatively weakening and more controlled market. Against these contexts, the Xi’s administration restates the PLE and consolidates the power of the Party through ideological, organizational, and operational channels. Ideologically, the PLE has been incorporated back into the Party Constitution, and was publically and widely propagandized. The CPC Constitution lately amended in the 19th CPC National Congress adds that: “Government, the military, society

3 The

number of party members increased from 4.48 million in 1949 to 89.564 million in 2017, while for one of the local party organizations it increased from 0.195 million to 4.572 million (Socialism Theoretical System Research Center with Chinese Characteristics 2011; The Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee 2017).

26 The Newness of the Chinese Developmental State …

487

and schools, north, south, east and west—the party leads them all.” Organizationally, the number of members of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau was cut down to seven from nine, and more importantly, the old pattern of each member nearly independently taking charge of one particular issue area has changed. Meanwhile, some newly created or upgraded supra-agency party commissions institutionalize and centralize the decision-making power in different policy areas at the central Party level, such as Central Committee for Comprehensive Law-Based Governance, Central Comprehensively Deepening Reforms Commission, Central Cyberspace Affairs Commission, Central Financial and Economic Affairs Commission, and Central Foreign Affairs Commission. Operationally, the implementation of party rules and disciplines, as well as the party censorship, has been strengthened. For instances, under pressures of the Chinese Party and government, the Cambridge University Press had removed about 300 papers and book reviews published in the China Quarterly journal, and the Springer Nature also blocked access to certain articles in China.

Changes and Continuity of the “Embedded Autonomy” State–market relations are a crucial dimension of defining and differentiating various models of economic development. The Chinese way of development features a unique relation between the strong state and the weak market, which was classically summarized as “embedded autonomy” (Evans 1995). Overall, the “embedded autonomy” implies a strong state, a weak market, and effective connections between the two, but the Chinese state–market relations have been nuanced at different stages since the late 1970s. Drawn from Evans (1995) classification on differential roles of the autonomous but connected state in the market, at the initial stage of the opening-up reform (1978–1992), the Chinese state had attempted transformation from a “demiurge” who directly involved into productive activities to a “custodian” who protects and regulates the market. The slow progress of the market-oriented reform at this stage called for a more sophisticated and comprehensive role of the state beyond its traditional roles as an “owner” or a “regulator” in Mao’s era. Consequently, the Chinese state has begun to relocate itself since Deng in the late 1970s as a “midwife” of birthing new enterprises in specific sectors and a “husbandry” of teaching, cultivating, and nurturing entrepreneurial forces. The four roles are not exclusive, and the Chinese state plays all the four roles. The weights of these roles, however, vary depending on domestic and international contexts. During the Xi’s administration, the “demiurge” role is relatively increased through the strengthened and centralized Party–state, the “regulation” role is maintained though the market forces are growing fast, and the “midwife” and “husbandry” roles continue to work through the networks of bureaucrats–entrepreneurs.

488

F. Zhang

The Strengthened Chinese Party–State The Chinese state in a specific form of the Chinese government parallels and largely overlaps with the Party at both the central and local levels. The leadership of the Party organizations at all levels has been specified, and the Party’s power has been consolidated, as discussed above. As a consequence, the position of the Party–state in the state–market relation is strengthened. From a more specific angle of the government, its strong state capacity has been maintained and, to some degrees, even increased in the Xi’s administration. The power and capacity of the Party and the state are correlated rather than separated or even competing with each other. Major counter-arguments regarding the claim of the strong state capacity are the high degree of decentralization and rising localism (Howell 2006). The decentralization in the past administrations since Deng, however, had occurred mainly in the economic domain, in which local governments have gained relatively more autonomy and discretion in realizing the goal of economic growth. The bottom-up economic decentralization has been accompanied by a top-down political concentration via the cadre and personnel management system consisting of an administrative staffing system and a target responsibility system (Zhang 2018a; McNally 2012). The administrative staffing system (or bianzhi in Chinese), a list of the authorized number of personnel (employees) in governmental administrative organs with a definition of their duties and function, has been effective at least in terms of exercising “control over the entire administrative apparatus and its cadre corps from central to local level” (Chan 2004; Brødsgaard 2012: 76). The target responsibility system, interweaving with the administrative staffing system, stipulates the specific duties and targets that cadres must achieve within the tenure of office. Performance evaluation by the higher-level government agencies according to these stipulated duties and targets is crucial for individual political careers of both party and non-party members (Choi 2012). The rising localism argument (Howell 2006) is a direct response to the economic decentralization. “Entrenched localism is associated with long tenures of local officials; conversely, shorter tenures are prima facie evidence that localism has abated” (Huang 1996: 663). The smooth and frequent personnel changes at the central and provincial levels under the aforementioned organizational leadership of the Party show that the localism argument is not convincing. In addition to these traditional ways of maintaining the strong state capacity, the Xi’s administration has also adopted new measures to further increase the state capacity, among which the most significant one is the massive government restructuring, the largest of its kind since Deng’s reform in the late 1970s. The overarching guideline of this wave of restructuring is the Plan for Deepening the Institutional Reform of the Party and State adopted at the Third Plenary Session of the 19th CPC Central Committee in 2018. There are at least three inter-related objectives behind the restructuring, which are all conducive to increasing the state capacity. One objective is clearer power and responsibility re-demarcation of the party organizations and government agencies. For example, for removing duplications or vacancies of responsibilities on banking and insurance regulations, the China Banking Regulatory

26 The Newness of the Chinese Developmental State …

489

Commission (CBRC) and the China Insurance Regulatory Commission (CIRC) were merged into one commission, China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission (CBIRC). Another objective is to enhance intra-government collaboration. Insufficient intra-government collaboration and even conflict of interests among agencies with particular missions have long been a crucial problem within the Chinese government, such as the known conflict between the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) and the Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) regarding China’s exchange rate policy. Some inter-ministerial or supra-ministerial formal and informal organizations were newly established aiming at this issue, such as the Financial Stability and Development Committee in strengthening coordination between financial regulators. Partly as consequences of the first two objectives, the third objective is to increase the capacity and efficiency of the government supervision and management. For instance, the dual systems of the central and the local bureaucratic systems of separate tax collection, which caused problems of significant administrative burden, duplicate filing, inefficacy, and so on, were recently integrated into one under the State Administration of Taxation. Furthermore, this wave of government restructuring has also spread to areas like entertainment and media, environmental protection, law enforcement, protection of natural resources, pharmaceutical and healthcare, and others.

The Chinese Market: Fully-Fledged or Laissez-Faire? Unleashing market forces have been widely believed as the most important momentum of China’s economic growth in the past around 40 years.4 The role of the market in resource allocation, according to the official documents of the Chinese Party and state, has evolved from the nearly absence in the planed-economy period (before 1978), the auxiliary role (1978–1992), and the fundamental role (1992–2013), to the recent “decisive role” since the Xi’s administration. The cultivation and growing-up of the market forces in the past nearly 40 years mean, to some degrees, a power transfer from the government to the market, but never mean a laissez-faire market. The power transfer has gradually made the market fully-fledged, in terms of the price formation mechanisms based on supply and demand (including prices of goods and services, interest rates, exchange rates, etc.), the mechanism of self-adjusting and resisting crises, the mechanism of distribution and redistribution, and so on. A fierce debate centers around the issue of whether the growing-up Chinese market has eroded the capacity and power of the state, and therefore has led the Chinese way of development toward the typical Western capitalism based on a laissez-faire market (or a strong market) and a relatively weak state (Naughton 2017; Coase and Wang 2012). There are at least three caveats regarding this debate. First, the growing trend of the market forces has not been linear, but fluctuated upon times and issue areas. Although enhancing the power of the market has consistently 4 Some

studies questioned this claim. For instance, Cai and Treisman (2006) argued that there are no convincing links between the political or fiscal decentralization and China economic successes.

490

F. Zhang

been a rationale of China’s economic reform since Deng’s era, the policies in specific issue areas have not been highly consistent, but full of twists and turns. The exchange rate policy, one of the core policies of the Chinese economy, serves as a good example. The market-oriented exchange rate regime reform commenced in the early 1990s. An iconic event is the unification of the dual exchange rates (official and swap center rates) and the initiation of a managed floating exchange rate regime in 1994. The essence of this reform that lasted in the subsequent more than 20 years is to transfer power to the market. The reform, however, was suspended in 1998 and 2008 due to financial crises, and then resumed separately in 2005 and 2010 (Zhang 2016) and still in vogue. Second, the growing of the market forces does not inevitably mean the retreat of the government. The government–market power distribution is not completely zero-sum but somehow function-oriented. Deng’s attempt of developing a market economy in a socialist China has proved the possibility of coexistence of the socialist political regime and the market economy claimed as a pillar of the capitalism. The market economy embedded in the socialist political system is evidently not the pure western style, which is the root of the dispute on China’s market economy status (Kerswell and Lin 2017). The growing of the Chinese market economy is not laissez-faire, but still inherits the characteristic of planning to some degrees and innovates in the way of adapting to rather than grabbing from the strong socialist state. Therefore, the changes of the government–market relations embody more the reorganization and reallocation of their functions, rather than the power structure. The Chinese government focuses incrementally (but not yet completely) on macro-policy making, regulation, and adjustment through administrative, legal, and informal instruments, while the market gains relatively more power in business operation and resource allocation. The two types of functions and powers are certainly not equivalent in terms of their influence. The function and power of the market are largely exogenous to the domestic power structure, which is significantly different from the endogenous autonomy and power of the traditional Western laissez-faire market. The endogenous market power parallels with the power of the government, and thus the relations between them are usually zero-sum. The exogenous power of the Chinese market is mainly affiliated with and derives from the power of the Chinese government. Thus, the strong government and the dynamic and relatively autonomous market coexist. Third, the Chinese market has not yet fully served the decisive role in the resource allocation. Although the political rhetoric has emphasized the “decisive role” of the market since the Xi’s administration, some economic realities still expose the deficiency or incapability of the market, such as the recent panic of the real estate market, the underdevelopment of the capital market, the volatility of the exchange rates, and the stagnation of the RMB’s internationalization. The growing of the Chinese market is largely selective and has brought new problems. These problems call for a stronger and more technocratic government. In this sense, the growing of the Chinese market does not squeeze the power room of the government, but instead creates new demands of the government regulation and intervention. Therefore, as explained above, the presence of the market and the presence of the government are not exclusive, but they are complementary in many areas and mutually facilitating.

26 The Newness of the Chinese Developmental State …

491

Bureaucrats–Entrepreneurs Connections More specifically, the state–market relations embody informal and formal connections between the government and (state-owned and private) enterprises. State-owned enterprises (SOEs), the most important force boosting China’s economic growth, have kept a clientelist or paternalistic relationship with the local and central governments. Top executives of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) are appointed by the Organization Department of the CPC. This institutional design ensures the direct control of the central and local governments over SOEs. This unique relation has brought absolute advantages to SOEs in resource allocation, such as priority in direct and indirect financing, more policy supports, scale effects, and so on. Although the number of SOEs decreased from 153,847 in 2010 to 132,373 in 2016,5 the annual gross income increased from 21.05 trillion yuan in 2008 to 52.2 trillion yuan in 2017, and so did the annual total profit from 1.18 trillion yuan in 2008 to 2.90 trillion yuan in 2017.6 Nonetheless, this unique relation has also caused many problems, such as low efficiency and competitiveness, high loan rates and corruption at the company level, and imbalance of the resource allocation and policy bias at the system level. Therefore, the SOEs reform has always been in the agenda of China’s economic opening and reform. The Xi’s administration has attached more significance, urgency, and priority to the SOEs reform. Comprehensively deepening China’s reform is the core guideline of the new administration’s domestic economic policy, which was crystalized in the Decision of the Central Committee of the CPC on Some Major Issues Concerning Comprehensively Deepening the Reform adopted at the Third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the CPC in 2013.7 Accordingly, the Central Leading Group for Comprehensively Deepening Reforms, the highest policy formulation and implementation body, was set up in 2013 and later upgraded into the Central Comprehensively Deepening Reforms Commission. The SOEs reform is a crucial part of the comprehensively deepening reform, and relevant institutional and policy measures came into being, such as the establishment of the leading group for state-owned enterprise reform and the issue of the Guiding Opinions of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council on Deepening the Reform of State-owned Enterprises. These changes in the political rhetoric, policies, and institutions show the determination of the new leadership on the SOEs reform, which was even recently put in the “central position” (Xie 2018). Specific measures of the reform mainly include two aspects: regulation and ownership at the macro level and corporate governance at the micro level. The particular importance, for instance, has been attached to mixed-ownership reform of the SOEs (Xinhua 2018). 5 Data

source: National Bureau of Statistics of China, available at: http://data.stats.gov.cn/search. htm?s=国企. 6 Data source: Ministry of Finance of the PRC, available at: http://zcgls.mof.gov.cn/zhengwuxinxi/ qiyeyunxingdongtai/index_6.html. 7 For the full text of the decision, see The Supreme People’s Court of the PRC, available at: http:// english.court.gov.cn/2015-10/08/content_22130532.htm.

492

F. Zhang

This wave of the deepened and market-oriented SOEs reform mainly aims at the company-level objectives regarding corporate governance, competitiveness, and efficiency, meanwhile contributes to solving some system-level problems like the newly modified “principle contradiction” of the Chinese society “between unbalanced and inadequate development and the people’s ever-growing needs for a better life” (Xinhua 2017). It, however, never means to change the fundamental characteristic of SOEs, mainly the absolute political control of the Party and state and the relative economic control through the ownership structure. The recent policy of the central government encourages mixed ownership of SOEs, which will not change their state-owned attribute, or allows completed privatization.8 As a consequence, the government can effectively and timely implement its medium/long-term macroeconomic policies via SOEs, such as the supply-side reform, and intervene the market from time to time. In comparison, the close connections between the government and the private enterprises are mostly informal via a guanxi network, which is constituted by relations based on mutual trust and reciprocity or particularistic relations. The informal network and its implication on China’s economic growth were further generalized as “Guanxi capitalism” (McNally 2011). The Guanxi capitalism realigns the interests of the government and the private sector in China, and bridges “the logics of freewheeling capital accumulation and authoritarian control in a state dominated economy’ (ibid: 1). The informal connections are rooted in Chinese history and culture, and, therefore, will not be easily changed dramatically in the short term. The new administration, though relatively weakened the informal connections through the anti-corruption campaign and the deepened law-based governance, has not intended to change the business culture. Instead, the government has recently intended to boost confidence and maintain the legal and non-legal status of the private enterprises. In the private enterprise symposium held in late 2018, the Party and state publically affirmed the position and role of the private enterprises and pledged to support their development (Xi 2018).

Upgraded Development Visions The development vision in Mao’s era, generally speaking, was highly ideological and subordinated to political objectives. Shifting the priority of the Party and state away from the domestic and inter-state political and ideological struggles to economic growth was a key task and contribution of the Deng’s administration. The development vision had been relatively narrow since then, confining to economic growth in the specific form of the scale and growth rate of gross domestic product (GDP).

8 For

details of the government’s policy on the mixed ownership, see National Development and Reform Commission etc. (2017) Policies for Deepening Pilot Programs of Mixed-Ownership Reform, available at: http://www.ndrc.gov.cn/zcfb/zcfbtz/201809/t20180918_898683.html.

26 The Newness of the Chinese Developmental State …

493

This vision has been implanted into the Party and the government, and been implemented through the aforementioned highly centralized Party systems, the Chinese government with strong capacity and various instruments of market intervention, and the growing socialist market. The vision and implementation constitute the core feature of the Chinese developmental state. The significance of the development vision change is undeniable for it has directly resulted in the economic miracle of China, while its negative implications are also evident, such as environmental degradation, income gap, and resource depletion. Another remarkable change that the new leadership has brought to China lies in the upgraded vision and new measures of development, and the (negative and positive) consequences of the new vision and measures. The negative results of the GDP-centered development aroused attention and policy changes before the Xi’s administration, such as the “Scientific Outlook on Development” centered on the “people-first” view proposed by the Hu Jintao’s administration (2003–2013). Confronted with huge (domestic and international) pressures of maintaining highspeed economic growth and because of the lack of sufficient (internal and external) motivation to make dramatic change, these new development visions had not been substantially turned into actions and realities. The muddling-along situation of maintaining the GDP-centered growth came to end with dramatical changes in the international and domestic contexts. The 2008 global financial crisis has dragged the world economy into a recession; furthermore, the post-crisis repercussions on the world have not only been confined to the short-term GDP decline, but widely extended to the international system reconstructed after the two World Wars. Therefore, the international market and the liberal international trade system that facilitated China’s foreign trade has shrunk and shaken, and this gloomy external environment has urged the change of China’s economic model. Domestically, the traditional rugged way of China’s economic development has been at the cost of overexploitation of energy, environmental degradation, unbalanced development, and so on, and, consequently, is not sustainable. Given the international and domestic contexts, the Xi’s administration has altered the GDP-centered high-speed growth model into the “new normal” of slower growth, and has reshaped the official Chinese development vision into “innovation, coordination, green, openness and sharing.”9 The phrase of “new normal” and the new development visions indicate that China’s economic development in Xi’s era enters into a new period, characterizing relatively faster adjustment of the economic structure, more sustainable momentum of economic growth, and thus lower economic growth rates. The China’s economy has been foreign-trade-oriented and driven by the expanding manufacturing industry (or secondary industry). This unbalanced industrial structure has significantly changed since 2014, when the “new normal” development vision was put forward. Figure 1 shows that the secondary industry had been in a dominant position in China’s economy in terms of GDP contribution rates until 2014. The GDP contribution rate 9 For introduction to the “new normal” economy, see the special issue China’s New Normal Economy in the Journal of Chinese Economic and Business Studies (Volume 15, 2017). The new development vision was put forward in the 5th Plenary Session of 18th CPC Central Committee in 2015.

494

F. Zhang

Fig. 1 GDP contribution rates of China’s three sectors. Data source National Bureau of Statistics, China, http://data.stats.gov.cn/search.htm?s=gdp贡献

of the service sector formally and steadily exceeded one of the secondary sectors in 2014, and the trend has been strengthened since then, which has made the Chinese industrial structure more healthy and sustainable. The industrial structure adjustment, on the one hand, is a response to the gloomy economy of the world and China (Fig. 2), and, on the other hand, has further brought short-term negative impacts on the economic growth. The annual GDP growth rate in 2016 declined to 6.7%, which is less than half of the one in 2007 (14.23%). The adjustment, however, aims to construct a more solid base for the long/middle-term sustainable development through both domestic changes of macro-economic policies, such as the supply-side reform, and new foreign economic relations and strategies, such as the “Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI) and the “new type of international relations.”

Fig. 2 GDP growth rates (2000–2017). Data source World Bank Database, available at: https:// data.worldbank.org. [Springer editor: title is not available, just the data source].

26 The Newness of the Chinese Developmental State …

495

The supply-side reform initiated in 2015 well reflects the transformation of China’s development visions in terms of domestic macro-economic policies. The conventional simulating force of the Chinese economy is majorly exporting, assisted by investment and consumption. Therefore, the Chinese economy was highly demand-driven and foreign-trade-dependent, which brought the Chinese economy volatility and vulnerability resulting from the uncontrollable and often instable international market. The motive of the reform is to change the core driving forces of the Chinese economy from the demand-side (exporting, investment, and consumption) to the supply-side (including the labor force, capital, technology, regulation, and others). Specific policies and practices of the reform focus on five fronts: cutting excess and backward industrial capacity, particularly in the coal and steel industries; destock property inventory mainly in third- and fourth-tier cities; curbing debt levels; lowering business costs; tacking weak links. As a result of the active domestic reform or the passive response to the international context, the position of foreign trade in the Chinese economy has been weakening, with the foreign-trade-dependent rates (foreign trade/GDP) declined from the peak (64.48%) in 2006 to 37.8% in 2017. Compared to the average level of the world, China’s foreign trade dependency increased sharply after joining the WTO (2001), and exceeded the world average level between 2003 and the explosion of the 2008 global financial crisis. The present level of foreign trade dependency roughly falls to the one in 2001 (38.53%) when China just became a member of the WTO. In addition to the domestic practices of the new development visions, the “Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI) epitomizes the new development visions at the international level. The BRI was initially put forward in 2013 and aims to promote policy coordination, facilities connectivity, unimpeded trade, financial integration, and peopleto-people bond along the Silk Road Economic Belt and the twenty-first-century Maritime Silk Road. More than 100 countries and international organizations have signed cooperation agreements with the Chinese government so far (Zhang 2018a).10 Though many doubts and the fierce international competition, the BRI signals that the Chinese vision of development has largely expanded from inward to outward and from “keeping a low profile” to “striving for achievement” (Yan 2014). This new development vision can also be seen in other domestic and foreign policies and practices, such as the foundation of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and “Chinese proposals” in actively joining in the global governance of many international issues, which have also aroused much criticism, misunderstanding, or misinterpretation of some countries, organizations or scholars (Fig. 3).

10 For more information on the BRI, see the Belt and Road Portal, available at https://eng.yidaiyilu.

gov.cn/index.htm.

496

F. Zhang

Fig. 3 Foreign-trade-dependent rates (%). Data source World Bank Database, available at: https:// data.worldbank.org

State Legitimacy Largely as a result of the aforementioned changes, the legitimacy of the Chinese state has been consolidated through (conventional and new) legitimization strategies, rather than weakened by the rising social and ideological problems (Howell 2006) and the international pressures like the China–USA trade conflict. Classic DSs, like Japan and South Korea, relied on five sources of political legitimacy: economic growth, nationalism, security, ideology, and democracy (Kim 2011). The legitimization strategies of the Chinese state largely overlap with these classic measures, and mainly include, but not limited to, political reform and strengthening state capacity, an upgraded ideological framework, economic restructuring and growth, and the new international strategy. First, the political and power concentration to a large extent ensures efficiency of policy-making and implementation, particularly in solving issues with vested interests or conflicts of interests. Although the Chinese democracy has been criticized for lack of transparency and being symbolic, the criticism has been more external than internal. For the underdeveloped China with a huge demographic, geographic, and cultural diversity, enhancing the quality of democracy (if it is) is only one of the problems along with many more urgent surviving issues like poverty and security, but not a cause of these issues. The political and power concentration, as proved in the past decades, has been indeed an efficient way to tackle these issues, such as poverty alleviation. As shown in Fig. 4, the poverty ratio in China (66.6%) was much higher than the world average level (35.9%) in 1990. This huge gap and the large-scale poverty in China were evidently alleviated in around 2005. The poverty ratio in China further dropped to 0.7% in 2015, while the ratio of the world was 10%. These efficient solutions undoubtedly are important sources of the state legitimacy.

26 The Newness of the Chinese Developmental State …

497

Fig. 4 Poverty headcount ratio at $1.90 a day (2011 PPP) (% of population). Data source World Bank Database, available at: https://data.worldbank.org

The current transition of the domestic economy requires a stronger government, and this wave of political concentration has better equipped the decision-makers with ideological, political, and administrative instruments to deal with the instability and uncertainty of the domestic transition. The domestic policies related to the economic restructuring, the anti-corruption campaign, and the crackdown on environmental violations have all met strong covert and overt resistances, and thus require a strong government. For example, the anti-corruption campaign has disciplined more than a million Party officials, and has been further institutionally strengthened by forming the National Supervision Commission (NSC) in 2018 as the highest anti-corruption agency at the same administrative ranking as the Supreme People’s Court and the Supreme People’s Procuratorate. To the end of 2017, more than 30,000 companies and over 5,700 officials have been penalized for environmental violation (Corne and Browaeys 2017). The stricter enforcement and positive effects of these domestic policies rely on the strong Party and state, and, meanwhile, are important sources of the state legitimacy. Second, ideology has served as an important legitimatization tool by providing a moral basis and evaluative norms for judging state legitimacy (Holbig and Gilley 2010). The core of China’s official political ideology is socialism, which has evolved from the conventional Marxism–Leninism in Mao’s era to the socialism with Chinese characteristics since the Deng’s administration. The post-Mao political ideology is now claimed to enter a “new era,” namely “the socialism with Chinese characteristics for a new era.” The upgraded official political ideology embodies a series of Xi Jinping thoughts on Party building, economy, military, diplomacy, and others. The upgraded ideology reflects, to some extent, changes in the domestic and international systems, and becomes a new action guideline of the Party and state, the market, and even the ordinary people. For example, the development vision discussed above, as

498

F. Zhang

Fig. 5 Selected average GDP growth rates between 2009 and 2017. Data source World Bank Database, available at: https://data.wor ldbank.org

a key component of the “Xi Jinping thought on socialism with Chinese characteristics for a new era,” has guided and facilitated the deepening reform of the Chinese economy; another crucial component is the new diplomatic thought, which, as to be explained later on, pushes forward the Chinese proposal of the new type of international relations. The socialism with Chinese characteristics embodies the unique Party–state–market relations discussed here and above. Third, although the economic slowdown did arouse anxieties on the stability and legitimacy of the Chinese state and market, the focus shift of China’s development vision from growth speed to growth quality and the corresponding deepening economic restructuring have created new expectations on the sustainable development of the Chinese economy. As shown in Fig. 5, the slowdown is relative and the absolute average growth rate of China after the 2008 global financial crisis (2009–2017) (8.11%) is much higher than the one of developed and other emerging economies or regions. Moreover, the new expectations or hopes for the future qualitycentered economic growth are an important source of the state legitimacy. At the ideological level, the central position of economic growth has not changed, and what has been changed so far is the development vision. At the institutional level, the central position of the Party and state, compared to the relative weak position of the market, has not been changed, but what has been changed is the degree of power concentration and the foundation of new government agencies, such as the Central Comprehensively Deepening Reforms Commission. At the operational level, the embeddedness or intervention of the government in the market and the relative autonomy of the state and the market have not been changed. Fourth, the transition of the international order in the post-2008 global financial crisis era has exerted great external pressures on China’s domestic transition and reforms, and the new international strategy of the Xi’s administration under these pressures turns into a significant source of the state legitimacy. The key feature of the post-crisis international order is the relative decline of the USA, or even the “the end of American world order” (Acharya 2014). The change of the balance of power, particularly between the USA and China, has been escalated into the direct power confrontation and competition in specific areas like international trade and intellectual property rights and more broadly in the rule-making of global governance, the international monetary system, and others. The China–US trade conflict broken

26 The Newness of the Chinese Developmental State …

499

out in early 2017 is a good example. The harsh external environment, as mentioned before, is one of the pressures stimulated the domestic reform, and works as a golden opportunity and strong force to mobilize and strengthen nationalism, which evidently is another important source of the state legitimacy. In addition to the passively stimulated nationalism in response to the external pressures, the active international strategy of the new administration has increased the presence of China in the international community. The new international strategy embodies in the Xi Jinping thought on diplomacy, which was systematically put forward in the central conference on foreign affairs in 2018. China’s stance toward and actions in global governance, the new type of international relations and the BRI are all practices of the new international strategies. For example, in addition to acknowledging the thousand-years communication and interaction among people and cultures and respecting sovereign equality, the new type of international relations claims democratization of international relations and equalization of development rights, namely countries of different sizes should have equal rights to develop, and, therefore, is legitimate at least in rhetoric.

Conclusion The Chinese economic miracle has been acknowledged, as widely as the dispute on defining, categorizing, and labeling the Chinese system. The politics-oriented binary divide between socialism and capitalism has not been able to differentiate the world economy since the end of the Cold-War political ideological confrontation. The economics-oriented classification into traditional economy, pure market economy, pure command economy, and mixed economy has also lost its explanatory power, since nearly most of economies feature some sort of mix against the context of the accelerating globalization. Combining politics and economics and more specifically according to ownership of means of production (economics) and allocation mechanism (politics), a relatively more common way is to sort out economic systems into socialist planned economy, command capitalism, market socialism, and market capitalism. China is evidently in the group of the market socialism, which echoes the selfdefinition of the Chinese government, namely a socialist market economy. Nonetheless, the Chinese authority emphasizes the Chinese characteristic of the socialist market economy, which means that differences exist within the group of the market socialism. Therefore, the key is to define the Chinese characteristics. The classic developmental state models serve as a benchmark to measure the Chinese characteristics in the medium or long term (Zhang 2018a). The specific ideology, policies, and practices in previous and present administrations provide specific dimensions to observe more nuanced changes and continuity of the Chinese characteristics. These changes and continuity in the Xi’s administration mainly lie in the power consolidation of the Party and state, the market–state relations inheriting the “embedded autonomy,” the upgraded development vision and practices, and the new legitimization strategies. The endurance of the Chinese system is partly supported by the strong

500

F. Zhang

“path dependency” of the Chinese political and economic institutions, and largely relies on the updating of these institutions and systems referring to the changing domestic and international environments. The Xi’s administration has been working on the updating. This Chinese way of development explores a new way for the development of similar countries (Zhang 2018b), and has been even partially adopted by Western states in combating the 2008 global financial crisis and maintaining the post-crisis international political economic order.

References Acharya, A. 2014. The End of American World Order. Cambridge, England: Polity. Brødsgaard, K. 2012. Cadre and Personnel Management in the CPC. China: An International Journal 10 (2): 69–83. Cai, H., and D. Treisman. 2006. Did Government Decentralization Cause China’s Economic Miracle? World Politics 58 (4): 505–535. Coase, R., and N. Wang. 2012. How China Became Capitalist. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Chan, H. 2004. Cadre Personnel Management in China: The Nomenklatura System, 1990–1998. China Quarterly 179: 703–34. Choi, E. 2012. Patronage and Performance: Factors in the Political Mobility of Provincial Leaders in Post-Deng China. China Quarterly, 212: 965–81. Corne, P., and J. Browaeys. 2017. China Cleans up Its Act on Environmental Enforcement. The Diplomat, 2 December, https://thediplomat.com/2017/12/china-cleans-up-its-act-on-environme ntal-enforcement/. CPC Political Bureau. 1942. Decision on the Unified Leadership of the Party and Adjustment of Relations among Different Organizations in the Anti Japanese Base Area (关于统一抗日根据地 党的领导及调整各组织间关系的决定). http://marxists.anu.edu.au/chinese/maozedong/1968/ 1-145.htm. Evans, P. 1995. Embedded Autonomy: States and Industrial Transformation. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Fritz, V., and A. Menocal. 2007. Developmental States in the New Millennium: Concepts and Challenges for a New Aid Agenda. Development Policy Review 25 (5): 531–552. Frye, T., and A. Shleifer. 1997. The Invisible Hand and the Grabbing Hand. The American Economic Review 87 (2): 354–358. Hayashi, S. 2010. The Developmental State in the Era of Globalization: Beyond the Northeast Asian Model of Political Economy. The Pacific Review 23 (1): 45–69. Holbig, H., and B. Gilley. 2010. Reclaiming Legitimacy in China. Politics & Policy 38 (3): 395–422. Howell, J. 2006. Reflections on the Chinese State. Development and Change 37 (2): 273–97. Hsu, J., and R. Hasmath (eds.). 2012. The Chinese Corporatist State: Adaption, Survival and Resistance. London, England: Routledge. Huang, Y. 1996. Central-Local Relations in China During the Reform Era: The Economic and Institutional Dimensions. World Development 24 (4): 655–72. Johnson, C. 1982. MITI and the Japanese Miracle: The Growth of Industrial Policy, 1925–1975. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Kerswell, T., and J. Lin. 2017. Capitalism Denied with Chinese Characteristics. Socialism and Democracy 31 (2): 33–52. Kim, H. 2011. Political Legitimacy in South Korea. In Political Legitimacy in Asia: New Leadership Challenges, ed. John Kane et al., 217–238. New York, NY: Palgrave MacMillan. Knight, J. 2014. China as a Developmental State. The World Economy 37 (10): 1335–1347.

26 The Newness of the Chinese Developmental State …

501

Lardy, N. 2014. Markets Over Mao: The Rise of Private Business in China. Washington, D.C.: Peterson Institute for International Economics. Ma, S. 1999. The State, Foreign Capital and Privatization in China. Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics 15 (3): 54–79. Mao, Z. 1999. Selected Works of Mao Zedong (毛泽东文集). Beijing, China: People’s Publishing House. McNally, C. 2012. Sino-capitalism: China’s Reemergence and the International Political Economy. World Politics 64: 741–776. McNally, C. 2011. China’s Changing Guanxi Capitalism: Private Entrepreneurs Between Leninist Control and Relentless Accumulation. Business and Politics 13 (2): 1–29. Ming, X. 2000. The Dual Developmental State: Development Strategy and Institutional Arrangements. Brookfield, VT: Ashgate. Ministry of Finance of the PRC, Monthly Reports on SOEs (2008–2018). http://zcgls.mof.gov.cn/ zhengwuxinxi/qiyeyunxingdongtai/index_6.html. National Bureau of Statistics of the PRC. http://data.stats.gov.cn/search.htm?s=国企. National Development and Reform Commission etc. 2017. Policies for Deepening Pilot Programs of Mixed-Ownership Reform. http://www.ndrc.gov.cn/zcfb/zcfbtz/201809/t20180918_898683. html. Naughton, B. 2017. Is China Socialist? Journal of Economic Perspectives 31 (1): 3–24. People’s Daily. 1954. The Opening of the 1st Session of 1st National People’s Congress. http:// www.china.com.cn/08ch-meet/ziliao/renda-onejie/renda-11-1.htm. Routley, L. 2012. Developmental States: A Review of the Literature, ESID Working Paper 3: 4–13. Socialism Theoretical System Research Center with Chinese Characteristics. 2011. The Changes and Development of the Number and Structure of the CPC members in the Past 90 Years (史诗 般的辉煌巨: 90年来中国共产党党员数量与结构的变化与发展). Guangming Daily (光明日 报). http://theory.people.com.cn/GB/15078164.html. Accessed 5 July. The Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee. 2017. The 2017 CPC Statistics Communiqué (2017年中国共产党党内统计公报). http://news.12371.cn/2018/06/30/ART I1530340432898663.shtml. The Supreme People’s Court of the PRC. 2015. Decision of the CCCPC on Some Major Issues Concerning Comprehensively Deepening the Reform. http://english.court.gov.cn/2015-10/08/ content_22130532.htm. Vu, T. 2007. State Formation and the Origins of Developmental States in South Korea and Indonesia. Studies in Comparative International Development 41 (4): 27–56. White, G., and R. Wade. 1988. Developmental States and Markets in East Asia: An Introduction. In Developmental States in East Asia, Basingstoke, ed. G. White and R. Wade. England: The Macmillan Press. World Bank Database. https://data.worldbank.org. Xi, J. 2018. Xi Jinping’s speech at the private enterprise symposium. Xinhua News. http://www. gov.cn/xinwen/2018-11/01/content_5336616.htm. Xie, J. 2018. China to push SOE reform from guideline level to practical level. Global Times. http:// www.globaltimes.cn/content/1122478.shtml. Xinhua. 2017. Xinhua Insight: China Embraces New “Principal Contradiction” When Embarking on New Journey. http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2017-10/20/c_136694592.htm. Xinhua. 2018. Chinese SOEs Make Headway in Mixed-Ownership Reform. Xinhua News, 1 Feb 2018. http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2018-02/01/c_136942367.htm. Yan, X. 2014. From Keeping a Low Profile to Striving for Achievement. The Chinese Journal of International Politics 7 (2): 153–184. Yang, D. 2004. Remaking the Chinese Leviathan: Market Transition and the Politics of Governance in China. Stanford, MT: Stanford University Press. Zhang, F. 2016. Determinants and Fluctuations of China’s Exchange Rate Policy: Guojia Liyi and Decision-Making Process. In International Finance Review 17: The Political Economy of Chinese Finance, ed. J. Jay Choi, Michael R. Powers and Xiaotian T. Zhang, 334–369.

502

F. Zhang

Zhang, F. 2018a. The Chinese Developmental State: Standard Accounts and New Characteristics. Journal of International Relations and Development 21 (3): 739–768. Zhang, Y. 2018. Big Data Shows B&R Cooperation Yields Win-win Results. Belt and Road Portal. https://eng.yidaiyilu.gov.cn/qwyw/rdxw/56375.htm.

Falin Zhang is an Associate Professor in the Zhou Enlai School of Government, Nankai University, China. His research fields are international political economy, Chinese political economy, and foreign policy analysis. His recent works were published in both Chinese and English academic journals, such as International Studies Review, Pacific Review, Chinese Journal of International Politics, Journal of Contemporary China, Journal of International Relations and Development, World Economics and Politics (Chinese), Journal of International Studies (Chinese) and Journal of International Security Studies (Chinese), and others.

Chapter 27

India’s Transition: A New Complex of Capitalism and Hindu Nationalism Anjan Chakrabarti, Anup Dhar, and Sayonee Majumdar

Abstract Globalization has unleashed two concomitant forces in India since 1991: neoliberalism and private capitalism. Neoliberal globalization enabled India’s economic transition from state capitalism under a centralized plan regime (1951– 1991) toward private capitalism that took the form of global capitalism (1991–). In the post-globalization era, while Indian capitalism has been successful in terms of outcomes of high growth and extreme income poverty reduction, its form of global capitalism represented by circuits-camp of global capital is shown as constituted by the structural exclusion of world of the third. This economic map is revealed to have sown new seeds of contradictions that manifested in new-fangled problems of income and social inequalities, misdirection in sectoral change, low quality of job creation, and agrarian crisis. Finally, we unpack the rise of nationalism and Hindutva in the post-globalization period and conclude by reflecting upon the possibility of a complex unity of capitalist minority might and Hindu majority might, albeit with contradictions and conflicts.

India’s post-independent transition has been home to two major experiments in economic systems: the first experiment (1951–1991) was that of state capitalism transpired under the centralized planning system and the second (1991–2019) of global capitalism under a neoliberal global order (Chakrabarty 1987; Bhagwati and Srinivasan 1993; Chakrabarti and Cullenberg 2003; Chakrabarti and Dasgupta 2015; Economic and Political Weekly 2018). Using a class-focused approach (Resnick and Wolff 1987, 2012, Chap. 4), we trace India’s transition from state capitalism to private capitalism during the post-Washington Consensus phase of neoliberal globalization till the pre-Covid period. We then examine the formation of the circuits-camp of global capital and world of the third. A. Chakrabarti (B) · S. Majumdar Department of Economics, University of Calcutta, West Bengal, Calcutta, India e-mail: [email protected] A. Dhar Ambedkar University Delhi, Delhi, India © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 I. Rossi (ed.), Challenges of Globalization and Prospects for an Inter-civilizational World Order, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44058-9_27

503

504

A. Chakrabarti et al.

Global capitalism and world of the third. Based on this post-globalization economic map, a set of problems related to exclusions (structural, income, and social), agrarian distress, job crisis, and transition of Indian economy would be discussed. Neoliberal forms of globalization helped connect global capitalist enterprises to one another and to local enterprises, capitalist and non-capitalist, through the chain of global markets (where exchange happens between entities across national boundaries) and local markets (where exchange happens between intra-national entities). This spatial domain, with global capital as the privileged center, is defined as the circuits of global capital. Connected to the circuits of global capital arises a social cluster of practices, relationships, and forms of life which relocates subjectivities as also cultural meanings-moorings. We refer to this socialized cluster as the camp of global capital. Global capitalism stands for this circuits-camp of global capital. India’s transition since its independence was guided by the dominant trope of development. From our class-focused formulation, we consider development as premised on an encounter with the Other of modern, industrial capitalist economy, whose most well-known representation is “third world.” It is posited as a devalued, lacking, and passive space of pre-capitalism that is predominantly agrarian and informal in character. Development is about uplifting of predominantly “third world” societies into industrial capitalism and urbanized society. Challenging this capitalocentric-orientalist representation, we unpack the Other as a world beyond what are known as first worlds and third worlds. It is about a third perspective, a perspective beyond capitalocentrism and orientalism. It is about a third kind of experience, an experience that is neither capitalist nor pre-capitalist, but derived from heterogeneous non-capitalist economic forms of society. It is about a third location, a location that is neither in need of benevolence (i.e., social programs) nor annihilation (i.e., primitive accumulation), but an outside, marking outsidedness to global capitalism, in terms of its language-logic-experience-ethos. We have called it “world of the third” and sharply distinguished it from the given of “third world.” The creation and expansion of circuits-camp of global capital ontologically confronts world of the third, but does so in the name of uplifting third world from its so-called decrepit state of existence. Finally, we discuss what can be termed as the Weberian moment for India in the sense that religion (Christianity in Weber) becomes not the enemy of the secular idealization of global capitalism but its ally (rise of Protestant ethic in capitalist West for Weber). With Hindus constituting 79.80% of the Indian population according to Census Data 2011, there is a right-wing attempt to formulate the community might to be based on the cultural hegemony of Hindu nationalism that is not inimical to global capitalism. We ask: is contemporary India on the threshold of a new historical conjuncture of minority might of capitalists and the majority community might of Hindu nationalism?1

1 In

this paper, we primarily use class as a process of surplus labor and not a noun predicated on income.

27 India’s Transition: A New Complex of Capitalism …

505

The Prelude to Neoliberal Reforms In late 1980s Indian economy faced a grave economic crisis stemming from serious macroeconomic imbalances such as high fiscal deficit, high inflation, and unsustainable current account deficit. This was coupled with the realization that “the macroeconomic problems… had been accentuated by, if not largely been a result of, the microeconomic inefficiencies” (Bhagwati and Srinivasan 1993, (ii). Microeconomic reforms need to be in sync with macroeconomic reform; both needed radical transformation. However, there was a deeper argument in favor of systemic change. India’s development objective since the 1950s has been to reduce poverty through industrialization-driven income growth. Without questioning this objective, a critique was launched against the erstwhile development strategy of achieving it through statesponsored planning system under the condition of creating a self-reliant economy that has been in place till 1990. This strategy was seen as fettering the economic growth inducing virtues of efficiency, incentive, private initiative, and possibility of gains from investment and trade. Slower average rate of growth was considered as the main culprit for the failure to achieve the objective of rapid poverty reduction (to see this correlation refer to Table 3 and Fig. 1). Combining the two arguments, there was a felt need to telescope the solution to 1980s economic crisis within a transitional

% of population below poverty line

120 100 80 60 40 20 0 1977

1983

1987

1993

2004

2009

2011

Year $1.90 a day (2011 PPP)

$3.20 a day (2011 PPP)

$5.50 a day (2011 PPP)

Fig. 1 Poverty headcount ratio. Source Constructed from World Development Indicator Data, World Bank Data Bank, Retrieved on September 6, 2018. Notes According to World Bank International Poverty Line has a value of US$1.90 PPP; Lower Middle-Income Class Poverty Line has a value of US$3.20 PPP; Upper Middle-Income Class Poverty Line has a value of US$5.50 PPP. $1.90 is considered extreme poverty in United Nation’s SDG-1. (United Nations, SDG Goals, https://uns tats.un.org/sdgs/report/2016/goal-01/)

506

A. Chakrabarti et al.

argument in favor of a systemic shift toward growth inducing private capitalism in the context of the newly emerging global order. There is a dispute though regarding the starting point of Indian reforms. One school traces the initial footprints of economic reforms to the 1980s, especially in the changed positive attitude of the government toward big private business (Alagh 1991; Rodrick and Subramanian 2004). The dominant view, however, finds this argument to be faulty. The mentioned authors contend that it is only with the promarket neoliberal reform under a global order in the 1990s that the pro-business attitude of the government emerged and sustainable growth followed (Srinivasan 2005; Ahluwalia 2018). They locate the decisive shift in the 1991–1992 budget speech of Manmohan Singh, then Finance Minister of a Congress-run government who sought “essential reforms in economic policy and economic management, as an integral part of the adjustment process…. (to)…attain an adequate technological and competitive edge in a fast changing global economy” (Singh 1991, p. 3). Irrespective of different coalition governments led by Congress, Bharatiya Janata Party, and Third Front that followed in the next three decades, the overall direction of state policy toward neoliberal reforms did not change.

Neoliberalism in India Despite its gradual approach, we contend that India’s “reform” policies over the quarter century took the texture and color of neoliberalism that has reset the relation between state, economy, and subjects (Chakrabarti et al. 2015, Chaps. 4 and 6 for a detailed explication; Economic and Political Weekly 2018). Its purpose was to help shape private capitalism within a global economic order through rapid industrial modernization, capital accumulation, innovation, and trade. This would reinvigorate average economic growth and fulfil the objective of poverty eradication. As part of the reform, the Indian state self-transformed itself through three steps. First, create and facilitate the competitive market economy (both competition and market structure need to be created and cannot be taken as given) and then allow that economy, through the interaction of rational, calculating agents, to “selfregulate” itself. Second, provide “space” for homoeconomicus2 (agents as competitive rational ability machines) to cultivate themselves and consequently, exercise their freedom of choice-action in and through competitive market economy. Finally, connect both to the newly created global order such that the reference point becomes “global” competitive market economy and choices on production, distribution, and consumption come to be globally situated or sensitized. A global competitive market 2 Under

neoliberalism, homoeconomicus is not merely a “rational being” but (i) innately rational capable of weighing any situation through cost–benefit calculation and maximize welfare in a dynamic field of competing ends and (ii) an entrepreneur capable of taking care of self, organizer of his own capital, his own producer and source of earnings. Following Foucault, we can refer to neoliberal homoeconomicus as rational ability machine (Foucault 2008; Chakrabarti et al. 2015).

27 India’s Transition: A New Complex of Capitalism …

507

economy functioning through the conduct of the neoliberal homoeconomicus guarantees the production of a full-fledged capitalist economy that, in comparison to other competing economic systems, will generate higher economic growth and enhance individual welfare. Unlike the centralized planning period where the state governs for itself, neoliberalism claims that the state governs for a self-regulated and optimal competitive market economy without fettering the freedom of individual’s choice-action. As part of the reform in India spanning nearly three decades, rules and regulations concerning trade and competition aligned to the global order were restructured, integration into World Trade Organization (WTO) was approved, full current account convertibility and partial capital account convertibility were allowed. There has been gradual authorization of the creation of free market in areas which till now had operated in severely controlled markets or non-market ways (spanning the vast arena of finance and banking, land, information and communication, roads, power, public transport like airports and metros, water, care-affective labor, old age, body and mental health, art, entertainment, etc.). Financialization of the economy witnessed a long run expansion of the stock market in trading and value as economic growth took hold. India’s integration to a privately-driven global competitive market economy remains in the final stage of completion with a few resisting areas in agriculture, health, education, defense, retail, banking, and infrastructure being rapidly unlocked for partial or total integration. Regarding Indian state’s own functioning, its restructuring included actions like reducing fiscal deficit, gradual disinvestment and privatization of many of its enterprises, amalgamation of administrative departments, shedding off activities completely (like management of hotel business or pension funds), outsourcing or selling off previous state public and merit goods (such as water, education, health, and infrastructure) to private agencies or managing them through other arrangements (such as public–private partnership). The remaining governmental functions pertaining to production and distribution of goods and services of non-privatized state corporations, public utilities such as infrastructure, water, health, or education (which though are also fast being privatized and/or made marketable), poverty management, and public distribution system are being increasingly subjected to targeting, individualization, and monetization. Even though taxation rules, bureaucracy, corruption, labor laws, and slow litigation process continue to be criticized as problems for an efficient private capitalism, there have been concerted attempts lately (such as adoption of goods and services tax (GST) in 2017 to create a unified indirect taxation system) to address some of these issues.

Transition from Private Capitalism to Global Capitalism The essential difference between the various economic forms of society, between, for instance, a society based on slave labour, and one based on wage-labour, lies only in the mode in which this surplus labour is in each case extracted from the actual producer, the labourer. Marx (1967, vol. 1: 217)

508

A. Chakrabarti et al.

The post-independent Indian economy was and has always been mixed (Chakravarty 1987). We use the class-focused Marxist approach to characterize the meaning of a “mixed” economy. Taking off from Marx (1967), Resnick and Wolff (2012, Chap. 4) define class as process of performance, appropriation, distribution, and receipt of surplus labor. In any concrete situation, the class process in turn cannot exist alone but must do so in a mutually constitutive relation with other non-class processes (other economic, political, cultural, and natural processes). To begin with, a labor process is one that uses the direct producer’s labor power (mental and physical capacity to work) to transform the means of production into a final produce. The new labor time contained in the final produce can be divided into necessary labor and surplus labor; necessary labor equivalent (equivalent to subsistence basket of goods and services) is paid back to the laborers while the surplus labor component remains unpaid. Depending upon whether the output is distributed in non-commodity (as in household) or commodity form (as through market exchange), surplus labor takes the form of surplus product or surplus value, respectively. Taking cue from Marx and Resnick and Wolff, the “economy” can be preliminarily classified in terms of various class process of performance and appropriation of surplus (Chakrabarti et al. 2015, Chap. 1) (Table 1). The first and second letter of the alphabet stands respectively for performance and appropriation of surplus labor. As indicated in the table, whether the mode of appropriation is self-appropriative, exploitative, or non-exploitative will depend upon the manner in which the performers of surplus labor, individually or collectively, are excluded or not excluded from the process of the appropriation of surplus labor. If exclusion, then exploitation; otherwise not. Considering all the class processes and their modes of appropriation, AA and CC designate independent and communist class process, respectively; AC and CA represent two forms of communistic class process;3 and the rest AB and CB map out into different kinds of exploitative class processes to be further classified as capitalist class process, feudal class process, and slave class process. The surplus so generated are then distributed to, and received by those delivering the non-class conditions of existence—rent to landlord for the land, interest to banker/moneylender for loans, trading fee to merchant for selling the product, salary to managers for supervising the labor process, funds to managers for capital accumulation and so on—that secure the class process of performance and 3 An example of CA communistic class process would be a family farm in rural India where the entire

family (head of the family, brothers, sisters, children, wife, cousin, etc.) takes part in the production process collectively, but only one performer, say, the “male head” of the family, is the sole appropriator of surplus. Here, many direct producers are excluded from the process of appropriation. An example of AC communistic class process would be a case where agricultural producers produce a particular crop individually in their respective land, but decide to collectively pool together their produce in a marketing cooperative in order to sell the produce and appropriate the surplus collectively. No exclusion of direct producers occurs here. Unlike capitalist class process, some (as in CA) or all (as in AC) of the appropriators are performers of surplus labor in communistic class process; on the other, unlike communist class process, there is exclusion whether in performance (as in AC) or in appropriation (as in CA).

27 India’s Transition: A New Complex of Capitalism …

509

Table 1 Class process and modes of appropriation Appropriation of surplus labor Performance Individual labor (A) of surplus labor

Non-labor (B)

Collective labor (C)

AA (performance and appropriation by same individual); Self -appropriative/non-exploitative (example: individual-directed farm)

AB (individual performance but appropriation by non-laborer); Exploitative (exclusion of the laborer from appropriation) (example: Uber—taxi operated individually by the driver/worker but surplus appropriated by the non-performing company capitalists)

AC (individuals performing labor on their own (A) but appropriation done by all individuals collectively (C)); Non-exploitative (no exclusion of individual laborers from appropriation) (example: see footnote 3)

CA (performance collectively (C) but appropriation by only one member of that collective (A)); Exploitative (exclusion of laborers from appropriation) (example: see footnote 3)

CB (performance by a collective of laborers but appropriation by non-performers); Exploitative (exclusion of laborers from appropriation) (example: Microsoft or KFC)

CC (performance and appropriation done by the same collective); Non-exploitative (no exclusion of laborers from appropriation) (example: workers self-directed enterprise—Mondragon Cooperative Complex)

appropriation of surplus labor. The distribution and receipt of surplus labor constitute another set of class process. An enterprise is a site comprising a specific cluster of mutually constituting class (performance, appropriation, distribution, and receipt of surplus labor) and non-class processes. It is therefore not simply an economic institution but a social institution; depending on the mode of performance and appropriation of surplus labor, we have “capitalist” enterprise, “slave” enterprise, “communist” enterprise, and so on. From our class-focused characterization, the Indian economy can be conceptualized as a “mixed” economy with diversely co-existing economic forms of society such as independent, slave, feudal, and capitalist. The Indian economy as such cannot

510

A. Chakrabarti et al.

Table 2 Employment status in India by category of employment in different years Employment status Self-employed

Regular

employeesa

Casual labor

Year

Rural

Urban

Total

Male

Female

Male

Female

Male

Female

1972–1973

65.9

64.5

39.2

48.4

60.6

63

1993–1994

57.7

58.6

41.7

45.8

52.9

56.7

2011–2012

54.5

59.3

41.7

42.8

50.7

56.1

1972–1973

12.1

4.1

50.7

27.9

19.7

6.3

1993–1994

8.5

2.7

42

28.4

17

6.3

2011–2012

10

5.6

43.4

42.8

19.8

12.7

1972–1973

22

31.4

10.1

23.7

19.7

30.7

1993–1994

33.8

38.7

16.3

25.8

30.1

37

2011–2012

35.5

35.1

14.9

14.3

29.4

31.2

Source Constructed from National Sample Survey Office (1997), Report No. 409, Table: 6.6; and NSSO (2014), Report No. 554, Statement: 5.10, p. 113 a Regular wage/salaried employee is defined as a person “who worked in others’ farm or non-farm enterprises (both household and non-household) and, in return, received salary or wages on a regular basis (i.e. not on the basis of daily or periodic renewal of work contract)” and casual wage laborer as “a person who was casually engaged in others’ farm or nonfarm enterprises (both household and non-household) and, in return, received wages according to the terms of the daily or periodic work contract” (NSSO 2011, Report No. 537, 15)

be reduced to feudalism or capitalism as a universal representation of economy (Chakrabarti and Cullenberg 2003; Chakrabarti et al. 2015). A focus on “selfemployed” in Table 2 exemplifies the mixed nature of Indian economy by underscoring the presence of a continuum of non-capitalist class processes in addition to the capitalist ones. In the official statistics, self-employed is classified as own account workers (on their own, individually), employers, and helpers in household enterprises, and in these capacities he or she could be working independently, with partners (i.e., collectively) or even hiring laborers (i.e., under the relation between employer and employee). From our class-focused approach, the category of “self-employment” can be delineated into independent class enterprises, a variety of non-capitalist class enterprises and small-scale capitalist class enterprises of simple reproduction type (i.e., reproduces by creating surplus value but without accumulating capital) (Chakrabarti et al. 2015, Chap. 1). The strength of “self-employment” from 1972 to the present time is proof of the historical resilience of non-capitalist class enterprises in Indian economy and its “mixed” character. Unpacking regular employees and casual labor under different class arrangements, capitalist and non-capitalist, will only add to the complexity of the mixed economy. Furthermore, the numerical dominance of self and casual employment among the working mass till the present time highlights

27 India’s Transition: A New Complex of Capitalism …

511

the remarkable perseverance of informal character of production and jobs in India.4 Following Bremen (1996) a large number of self-employed and casual laborers can be portrayed as footloose labor or labor in movement, making up the migrant labor. Notwithstanding the character of India’s mixed economy, since the 1950s, the discourse of development per se took as its starting point the dualist structure of modern industrial capitalist economy and traditional agrarian non-/pre-capitalist economy, and in which the former was taken as a privileged center. From our vantage point, the key question is: how can an otherwise decentered and disaggregated “mixed” economy be re-presented as economic dualism? It is worth remembering that the birth of the concept of capitalism under Classical Political Economy overlapped in time with the founding of “the economy” as an independent social sphere (Callari 1983). The concept of Capitalism and the ontology of Economy dovetailed into one another, creating an isomorphism between the two. From our class-focused perspective, capitalism thus emerges as the center, the privileged lens, within an otherwise de-centered and disaggregated economy. Gibson-Graham (1996, Chap. 1) designates this perspective as capitalocentrism. Following capitalocentrism which implanted capitalism as the representative of (actual/relevant) economy, the differences within non-capitalist class processes became irrelevant and got erased. The diverse non-capitalist economies came to be re-presented as a homogenized, singular block named “non-capitalism,” that is, as capitalism’s Other. In this dual economic structure of {capitalism, non-capitalism} centered on capitalism, the class-focused disaggregation of diverse economic forms of society gets foreclosed; aspects like modes of appropriation of surplus labor or of their forms such as exploitation get occulted from the analytic terrain (Chakrabarti et al. 2015, Chap. 2). The reduction of economy to that of capitalism as embraced by the discourse of mainstream economics became acceptable as one of the signposts of the discourse of development. In it, “non-capitalism” came to be further conceptually displaced as “pre-capitalism,” wherein the term “pre” entails a projection of an archaic, historic pastness that has no futurity. Seen as a fertile ground of pre-capitalism, the rural and the artisanal (informal) segments come to be signified by the so-called “backward” socio-economic institutions, subsistence economic activities, disguised unemployment, and “traditional” mindset. As a breeding ground of unproductiveness, inefficiency, and backwardness, pre-capitalism purportedly inhibits economic growth, thereby procreating mass poverty. Such a representation of agrarian (or informal) pre-capitalist economy signified by mass poverty goes by the name “third world” (Escobar 1995; Chakrabarti and Dhar 2010, Chap. 2). In this context, development or progress became synonymous with structural transformation of the predominantly non-/pre-capitalist agricultural economy into a predominantly modern, industrial, capitalist economy that in turn will facilitate income growth per person and hence help eradicate mass income poverty. 4 While

official statistics on enterprise and employment are generally in terms of organized/unorganized, the more popular/academic discussion is in terms of formal/informal. Because of minor differences between the two, we use them interchangeably in this paper.

512

A. Chakrabarti et al.

Broadly embracing this idea of development, the Indian state, beginning from the landmark second five-year plan (1956–1961), decided to privilege state capitalist class enterprise and state command over allocation of resources. The primary allocation of resources was undertaken under a centralized planning system with the intention to achieve high growth through the industrial production of heavy capital goods which was supposed to facilitate over time the development of light capital goods and consumer goods production. Moreover, since private capitalism in India was considered to be at an incipient stage, it was decided to create and facilitate the state enterprises to pioneer the process of capital accumulation. In these state-owned enterprises, the board of directors were appointed by concerned ministry who, with the help of state-appointed management, were in charge of running the enterprises. After deducting for the cost of inputs (means of production and labor power as per their market money value) from the value of the commodity, the board of directors were also the first direct appropriators of surplus value that is embodied in the value of the product. In short, the state enterprises exhibited capitalist character. Their particular forms in various sectors of Indian economy materialized through a variety of relations with other class enterprises. The latter included class enterprises in the private sector which, with few exceptions, were now dependent for their existence on the state sector for access to inputs, such as capital goods and raw materials; they were also at times suppliers of inputs to state enterprises. The combination of privileged state capitalist enterprises and state-controlled allocation of resources is what we designate as state capitalism. Private capitalist enterprises and other non-capitalist forms of enterprises co-existed largely in the rest of the sectors in heavily controlled market economy (consumer goods, agriculture, services, etc.). Moreover, from 1960s onwards the policy of self-sufficiency and import substitution further entrenched the reach and control of state over the economy and the role of centralized planning in securing it. What gradually fell out of favor was open economy favoring free trade and export promotion. With the advent of neoliberal reform in the early 1990s, the developmental objective of Indian state remained poverty reduction via economic growth through rapid industrialization and modernization. What changed was the strategy, signifying a shift from state capitalism, planning, self-sufficiency, and import-substitution to private capitalism, market competition, free-trade, and a commitment to globalization. Under globalization, the class processes of performance, appropriation, distribution, and receipt of surplus value fragmented across regions and nations. The process of fragmentation was facilitated by the dramatic changes in information technology, transportation, and telecommunication since 1970s that allowed both dispersion of production/tasks and centralization of accumulated surplus value. With these conditions becoming standardized by 1980s, global capitalist enterprises (in industry, trading, and finance) were organized on the basis of creation of surplus value through M-C-M/ (money generating more money through commodity production, i.e., produced surplus value generated in class process; this created surplus value in money form is also called productive capital) or M-M/ (money begetting more money, i.e., surplus value generated through circulation process as in case of trading or finance; also called unproductive capital). We call the totality of global

27 India’s Transition: A New Complex of Capitalism …

513

productive and unproductive capital as global capital. Seen as the major component of value addition in gross domestic product (GDP) and hence driver of growth, global capital, particularly productive capital, was privileged and taken as the primary unit in the reorganization of the structure of Indian economy. As the above-mentioned processes concretized and deepened with the help of neoliberal reforms in the last quarter century, global capitalism transformed large and medium Indian enterprises into global ones,5 and international firms (such as Microsoft Corporation, Nestle, Proctor and Gamble, Coca Cola, Sony Corporation, Samsung, Suzuki Motor Corporation, etc.) came to India. Resultantly, the character of Indian capitalism fundamentally changed in the last quarter century. For example, the TATA group of companies transformed themselves into global capitalist enterprises. Headquartered in Mumbai, as of March 2018, the Tata group had 100 independent operating companies in 28 product sectors in more than 100 countries across six continents with international revenues of $100 billion, combined market capitalization of about $144.79 billion and collectively employing over 695,000 people (www. tata.com). There is a continuation then in the transition of India from pre- to post-planning period—not capitalism but the form of capitalism changed from state to private global capitalism. How did this restructuring of global capitalism reshape India’s economic map?

The New Economic Map of India: Global Capitalism and World of the Third Detached from its erstwhile moorings in North/South or Centre/periphery division, the post-colonial nations became global capital’s theatre of operation in the new global order. Privileging global capital as the center of the economy, a structural transformation transpired that shaped the circuits of global capital (Chakrabarti et al. 2015, Chap. 7). Circuits of global capital comprise all class-based processes, including noncapitalist class process and local capitalist class process of the expanded reproduction type (those who reinvest surplus value for capital accumulation) and non-class processes that are directly or indirectly connected with global capitalist enterprises. For example, when Marks & Spencer or Gucci (global capitalist enterprises) procures their leather materials from the “unorganized sector dominated by the presence of family units”6 in the Topsia-Tangra-Tiljala belt of Kolkata (many of which are organizationally non-capitalist in character as they use unwaged family labor), a global circuit of capital emerges. 5 Forbes

Global 2000 ranking for 2018 includes 58 top Indian companies and 121 billionaires (the highest after China and USA) (https://www.forbes.com). For a full list of global Indian companies, see https://business.mapsofindia.com/india-company. 6 Italian Trade Commission, http://italiaindia.com/images/uploads/pdf/leather-industry-in-india2010.pdf.

514

A. Chakrabarti et al.

Crucial to the making of circuits is the role of local–global markets. Local– global markets materialize when global markets (exchange between entities across national boundaries) and local markets (exchange between intra-national entities) get connected (via outsourcing, subcontracting, off-shoring, and body shopping) in the local–local…global–global chain of markets to create the global capital-centric value chain. Clearly, the process of globalization is integrated into the circuits of global capital. One important component of the circuits of global capital is the “hub” of global capital, which is constituted by processes directly connected to the global capitalist enterprises, including, to name a few, those related to ancillary class enterprises (big and small-scale, private, and state), financial, and merchant enterprises. Such institutions within the hub of global capital are said to be “distance close” to global capital. The rest are considered “distance away” from global capital; these may include a portion of the so-called informal sector as well. Evidently, circuits of global capital encompass a much wider span than that specified by the physical reach of all global capitalist enterprises combined. The rapid expansion of the circuits of global capital in India (inclusive of manufacturing, services, and now in agriculture) has been and is feeding into a process of rural–urban migration and urbanization. It is modernizing the spatial contour of India’s old and new cities and towns. The shifting urban landscape and idea of urbanity (gated community alongside the growing urban slums) propelled by a growth of income and wealth in the hands of people directly connected to the hub of global capital (the rise of the so-called middle class) is producing along the way a culture of individualization, consumerism, new ideas of success, entrepreneurship and human capital, new ways of judging performance and conduct, changing labor–gender– caste-related customs, and more. It is, however, notable that India’s urbanization in terms of its rapid population growth and as indicated by the “prosperity index” capturing the expansion around the hub of global capital is concentrated in the seven metro-political cities of Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Kolkata, Chennai, Hyderabad, and Ahmedabad (World Bank 2015). For the rest of India, the story is different, thereby pointing to severe disparities in India’s urbanization process. With the expansion of forms of life around the hub, a new social cluster of practices, activities, and relationships has transpired; we name it as the “camp of global capital.” It is becoming the nursery ground of a new culture emphasizing self-gain, competition, possession, and accumulation, that is, the biopolitical production of the subject (as competitive rational ability machines), which in turn lubricates the neoliberal machinery. Circuits-camp of global capital is provisionally named as global capitalism. As an extension of post-enlightenment thought, a hope emerged that neoliberal reform fueling India’s global capitalism will subvert and end the age-old caste, religious, and ethnic divisions in India. Nilekani (2006) provided perhaps the most clearly laid down vision of this Utopia. He argued that global capitalism under a neoliberal regime is producing an open access order. As growth-friendly and progressive, an open access order is roughly the creation and reproduction of a regime of equality and opportunity supported by the rule of competitive market economy

27 India’s Transition: A New Complex of Capitalism …

515

backed by modern law that undercuts India’s regressive and outdated social structures based on caste, religion, gender, and ethnicity. From today’s vantage point, this modernist vision of India lies in tatters. The problem in analysis can be traced to Nilekani’s deep-seated faith that the hub of circuits-camp of global capital would magically transform itself into the whole of India. In short, Nilekani’s Idea of India remained capitalocentric and this analytical deficiency explains his and similar such liberal approaches’ inability to answer how instead of ending caste and religious inequalities the new order seems to have deepened it. But, getting to uncover the limits, contradictions, and conflicts of the new economic order requires first to produce an analytical space that will highlight the manner in which circuits-camp of global capital structurally excludes the rest of the economy and society, and the consequences that emerge from it. The category of world of the third stands for that exclusion. World of the third is conceptualized as the mutually constitutive space of class and non-class processes that procreate outside the local–global markets connected to the circuits of global capital. Therefore, production takes place under exchange and distribution conditions that are strictly confined within the national geography. Within it, class processes and their various non-class conditions of existence give shape to the specific form of world of the third economy and society. A large number of these class processes would fall under “what are not capitalist” forms ranging from independent, feudal, communistic, and slave to communist. We will encounter, in all probability, capitalist class enterprises as well (especially of the simple reproduction type). In short, world of the third comprises an ensemble of class and non-class processes that are outside the circuits of global capital and are wedded to local markets as well as to non-market exchanges. Since world of the third class enterprises are constituted by non-economic processes, the cluster of mutually constitutive processes produces another set of social relationships and practices with distinct cultural meanings-moorings and subjectivities that form in turn the camp of world of the third. The circuits-camp of world of the third has a distinct language-knowledge-logic-experience-ethos which, while affected by neoliberal systems of meanings emanating from the circuits-camp of global capital, nevertheless resists straightforward assimilation by virtue of being in a different set of relations and practices within which it is embodied. Regarding this conceptual-territorial space, no a priori claim and valuation are made regarding its economic and political structures, its cultural structures and ethos, and its relation with nature. World of the third is, to use Foucault, a “hollowed-out void” which can take multiple, irreducibly unique, concrete forms depending upon the specific combination of class and non-class processes. It can reside in the metro city of Delhi or in the rural heartland of Orissa; it can be part of agriculture or informal sector7 (e.g., on world of the third, see Chakrabarti and Dhar 2010, Chap. 8; Chitranshi 2016). As the outside of the circuits-camp of global capital, world of the third has a spatial 7 Given

the centricity of the hub of global capital, the informal sector is split into two components: a portion of the informal sector connected to the circuits of global capital and a vast swathe of the informal sector in world of the third (WOT).

516 Table 3 Average growth rate of India

A. Chakrabarti et al. Years

Average growth rate (in percentage)

Real GDP growth of India at 2004–2005 prices 1951–1965

4.090714286

1966–1990

4.045384615

1990–2014

6.523043478

Real GDP growth of India at 2011–2012 prices 2012–2018

6.853333333

Source Constructed from CSO (Central Statistics Office) data, (2014) Source CSO data (2018)

existence. It additionally signifies a different perspective arising from the distinct set of social relationships, practices, and subjectification that shapes the subjects. Spatially and perspective-wise it thus differs from and defers the circuits-camp of global capital. This economic map is understood in a specific way in the discourse of development since it displaces the category of world of the third into a devalued, abnormal, homogenous third world and through that secures the justification—both logical and moral—of uplifting the “backward” third world in the image of global capitalist economy. Was India’s post-reform development strategy successful? Was it prudent to embrace globalization? In so far as its central objectives of economic growth and poverty reduction are concerned, the answer would be yes, as Table 3 and Fig. 1 indicate. Table 3 suggests that material prosperity under a neoliberal regime, especially surrounding the hub of global capital, has no doubt transpired. Likewise, one can discern a decline in income poverty, especially those falling under extreme poverty (Fig. 1). There is another side to India’s success story. High growth regime driven by value addition from global capitalism catapulted India into a global economic power. There is a major shift in the share in world GDP toward India and China which can be taken as a proxy of shifting international concentration of global capital in the last three decades as indicated in Fig. 3. Clearly, China and India have been the winners of globalization by these measures. Moreover, in India’s case, in comparison to the era of state capitalism the above series of data in Table 3 and Figs. 1 and 2 are deployed to project and defend India’s post-reform development strategy and its decision to embrace globalization.

27 India’s Transition: A New Complex of Capitalism …

517

25 USA

Percentage share in world GDP in PPP

USA

USA 20

C USA

C USA

15

USA

C

J

10 J

C

G F

5 C

CIF

I

I

I

I

J

G

I

J

G F

R

J

G R

J

G R

G R

F

F

F

2010

2015

2017

0 1980

1990

2000

Year

China

India

France

Japan

Germany

USA

Russia

Fig. 2 Percentage share of countries in world GDP based on purchasing power parity. Source Constructed from IMF WEO Data, April (2018)

Exclusions and Inequalities in the Post-globalization Era High growth rate and escalating rates of capital accumulation8 resulted in the rapid expansion of the circuits-camp of global capital. This expansion led to what Marx called primitive accumulation of world of the third by attacking its various conditions of existence including the means of production needed to reproduce the means of subsistence in those societies (Chakrabarti and Dhar 2010, Chaps. 6 and 7). A rapid process of expropriation of land, minerals, forest, rivers, and so on, leading to land alienation, forced eviction, displacement followed (especially in the last two decades), justified no doubt by the idealized notion of “progress” intending to uplift third world societies from its so-called decrepitude state (Basu 2008; Navalkha 2012). Instead of solving the problem of poverty eradication, primitive accumulation created fresh poverty. Furthermore, this encounter was inordinately skewed against certain already marginalized communities, such as the Adivasis9 (indigenous population) 8 Rate

of gross fixed capital formation which had risen from 26.5% in 2003 to 35.6% in 2007 had collapsed to 26.4% in 2017 on account of fall in private investment; likewise rate of domestic saving that reached a peak of 38.3% in 2007 slid back to 29% in 2017. (Economic Survey 2017–2018 in the chapter “Investment and Saving Slowdowns and Recoveries”). 9 According to the 2011 Census of India, Adivasi (designated officially as Schedule Tribe) make up 8.6% of India’s population, or 104.3 million people, Dalits (designated as Schedule Caste) 16.6% of the population or 201.4 million people spread across various religions and Muslims 14.23% of

518

A. Chakrabarti et al.

and Dalits (the socially lowest in the caste ladder) who predominantly live on these natural resources and/or are most vulnerable as precariat members of the working class. While the violence of primitive accumulation appeared as liberation of third world from its decrepit state in the discourse of development, it came to be seen as unjust intrusion and violence over its forms of life and livelihood from the perspective of world of the third. This led to country-wide resistance (violent and non-violent) alongside the effort of state–capital nexus to manage and navigate this process. India not only has a divided society (structurally, income-wise, socially) but also a nation with divided perspectives and understanding of what is “just” and “progressive.” Figure 3 shows that the problem of income inequality in India has dramatically increased since 1991, indicating a concentration of income from high economic growth in the hands of those directly connected to the hub of global capital—capitalists (industrial, financial, and merchant) and their cohorts. The issue of maldistribution of benefits of growth becomes even more dramatic when one views India’s wealth concentration. According to Credit Suisse 2018 Global Wealth Report (Credit Suisse 2018), the richest 1% of Indians own 51.5% (note the power and cunning of the surplus appropriating minority capitalists; note also the might of the minority), the richest 10% own 77.4%, and the bottom 60% own 4.7 of the country’s wealth. 0.6 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1

2012

2015

2009

2003

2006

2000

1997

1994

1988

1991

1985

1982

1979

1976

1973

1970

1967

1964

1961

1958

1955

0 Year Top 1%

Top 10%

Middle 40%

Boom 50%

Fig. 3 Income Inequality in India 1955–2015. Source Constructed from World Inequality Database. Available at https://wid.world/data/, accessed on September 6, 2018. Note Here data are not presented as percentage rather as share in 1 the population or 172.2 million people (Registrar General and Census Commissioners, India http:// www.censusindia.gov.in/pca/Searchdata.aspx).

27 India’s Transition: A New Complex of Capitalism …

519

Finally, income and wealth inequality has reinforced the already existing social divides, deepening further the exclusion of socially disadvantageous groups such as Adivasis, Dalits, and Muslims (overwhelmingly residing at the margins of the circuits of global capital and particularly world of the third). Even as absolute poverty has declined within the social groups, its incidence continues to be disproportionately high amongst Dalits (SC), Adivasis (STs), a section of Other Backward Castes (OBCs) {among the Hindu population}, and Muslims (Panagariya and More 2013). Contrary to Nilekani’s assertion of open-ended market capitalism flattening the social divisions, post-globalization India sees continuing economic and social divisions.

Sectoral Shift and Employment: A New Transition Problem Unlike other late transitional countries like South Korea and China, India’s threedecade-long structural transition departs from the classical route in two ways. First, the classical route presumes that at the initial level of development the growth rate will be driven principally by industry/manufacturing. The trajectory of manufacturing will be large-scale, labor-intensive production structure that would absorb low-skilled workers (migrating from rural to urban areas) on a mass scale (thereby forming the bulk of the “working class”). It will then over time move toward more skilledbased capital-intensive production as the quantity and quality of human capital, and capital stock gradually improves with rising income. This job-absorption process of industrialization did not transpire in India. While India’s development strategy since the second five-year plan (1956–1961) was based on capital-intensive-driven industrialization process, in India’s post-reform period, this pattern did not change with manufacturing sector for the formal sector continuing to be capital-intensive, requiring relatively high-skilled labor rather than labor-intensive and labor-absorbing (Economic Survey 2012–2013; Nagaraj 2018). The second associated departure concerns the nature of employment and sectoral reorganization. In line with the above-mentioned trajectory, classical development theory predicts that agricultural share in GDP and employment will ultimately decline under the double digits, while the same should expand rapidly in manufacturing and services. However, as Fig. 4 shows, both in sectoral share of GDP and share of employment, the service sector grew faster than others. Its growth, particularly in share of GDP, was due to high value addition in IT and IT-enabled service, financial services, real estate, and hospitality including medical tourism. Still, this sector overwhelmingly absorbs employment in the informal/unorganized sector (concentrated in world of the third mostly). Despite its own growth (India is now a food surplus country), agriculture and allied activities’ relative share in GDP sharply declined as predicted. Nevertheless, unlike what was predicted, this sector still contains the largest share of employment which is indicative of stagnating and falling income for a substantial rural population. A combined effects of various factors have paved the way for rural distress: rising input cost and fluctuating output price (more often unfavorable to the farmers), persistent role of middlemen in driving a huge wedge

520

A. Chakrabarti et al. 100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10%

1972-73 Agriculture and Allied

1993-94 Industry

GDP

Employment

GDP

Employment

GDP

Employment

0%

2011-12 Services

Fig. 4 Percentage shares of different sectors in India in total employment and GDP at 2004–2005 constant prices in different years. Source Constructed from data of Planning Commission of India (2014) and Papola and Sahu (2012, p. 36)

between producer’s price (what farmers get) and retail price (what consumers get), fragmentation of land holdings, climatic disruptions, farmer’s debt cycle condition, slowdown of public sector rural infrastructure investment after the reforms, effects of demonetization, and so on. Moreover, inequality marked by differentiation in ownership of land and income in rural India is dramatic. As of 2016–2017, 85% landholdings (small and marginal farmers) in India are below two hectares. In terms of income distribution, 85% of farmer households earn 9% of the total income, while the rest earn 91%.10 Amidst the situation of food surplus for the country, the rural distress and inequality has presently given rise to massive farmer unrest across India. Finally, while industry/manufacturing grew in absolute terms, the capitalintensive nature of its formal sector component (in the circuits of global capital) entailed that its share in GDP and employment changed marginally; in very recent times, the ongoing organizational readjustment due to technological adoption of artificial intelligence, robotics, data analytic, and mechanization in the labor process is furthering the process of labor shedding. Moreover, within manufacturing as a whole, the informal sector dominates; even the bulk of the new jobs created in the formal sector has been in the form of informal employment (causal workers), a 10 https://www.nabard.org/auth/writereaddata/tender/1608180417NABARD-Repo-16_Web_P.pdf.

27 India’s Transition: A New Complex of Capitalism …

521

phenomenon called informalization of formal sector (Panagariya 2008; Economic Survey 2012–2013: Chap. 2; Nagaraj 2018). The two departures from the classical route suggest that India’s sustained economic growth was not associated with the expected sectoral shift toward laborintensive and labor-absorbing manufacturing, thereby leaving troubling questions about the distributional benefits of economic growth, quality of industrial job creation in formal sector, and agrarian distress. These structural problems point to another transition crisis emanating from the new order of things, even before the pandemic hit India. We now switch to the contemporary phenomenon of Hindutva that is attempting to transform the meanings of nation and nationalism as also the idea of “India” and the “Indian” through a novel connection between economic futurity and cultural pastness of a kind India has never seen.

Nationalism Before the Rise of Hindutva The struggle over an “imagined futurity” has animated Indian nationalism from the beginning of its independence struggle in the nineteenth century. While nationalism has been conventionally seen as a struggle over claims to a shared past (claim to “homogeneous empty time” (Anderson 1991)), it is also about an “imagined (economic) futurity”—a futurity marked by economic redemption/salvation as also power (while the past is about cultural claims). Nationalism is, as if, dialectic between cultural pastness and economic futurity. During India’s nationalist struggle for independence, Gandhi (2010), Tagore (2010), and Ambedkar (Mungekar 2015) offered radically alternative visions of her cultural past and the need for reconstitution in a critical vein, along with its relation to economic futurity, though these were not what the Nehru-led Congress adopted for India after independence (Nandy 1994). This is important because the Hindutva vision of cultural pastness that has become dominant in the current juncture (see the next section) is not only different from the secular and liberal vision of the Nehruvian imagery that has long dominated postindependent Indian politics but also from the critically re-casted understandings of cultural pastness offered by Gandhi, Tagore, and Ambedkar. This dialectic of an imagined past and an imagined future comes with a selfdescription in terms of India as developed, developing, and under-developed. Third worldism has operated in three ways for India. In its initial phase, it was an unabashed affirmation of one’s lack (i.e., one’s pre-capitalist state). In its middle phase, it was growth (hence growing out of one’s own third world status) albeit with poverty alleviation (for the remnants of the original third world). At present, India sees itself, somewhat narcissistically, as the rising economic giant, imbued with a desire “to become the largest economy” and a “powerful defense force.” We have shown in the earlier sections that it will be a mistake to miss deeper cracks, divisions, and differences within the assumed universality of an imagined

522

A. Chakrabarti et al.

community: what have been nationalism’s economic, political, and cultural exclusions? While Tagore and Gandhi put to question the violence of anti-colonial nationalism and Ambedkar the caste-character of the nationalist movement, and while Ashis Nandy has put to question secular nationalism, it is time to interrogate the new order of things through a class-focused disaggregation that takes us beyond third worldism (Chakrabarti and Dhar 2012). Such disaggregation helps us get a glimpse of the “hegemonic inside” (i.e., circuits of global capital with the minority capitalists at the helm of affairs) and the “constitutive outside” (i.e., world of the third). The more expansive the circuits of global capital, the more the world of the third hurts; the intolerance of the current regime to world of the third is symptomatic of this desire for expansiveness. India’s nationalism of an imagined economic futurity working to secure the might of the capitalist minority has to work through the crevices of a divided nation—divided structurally as also perspective-wise. It is in this contradictory conjuncture that Hindutva has made its presence felt.

The Majority Might of Hindu Community and the Minority Might of Capitalists A Hindu…inherits the blood of that race whose first discernible source could be traced to the Vedic Saptasindhus and which on its onward march, assimilating much that was incorporated and ennobling much that was assimilated, has come to be known as the Hindu people, who has inherited and claims as his own the culture of that race as expressed chiefly in their common classical language Sanskrit and represented by a common history, a common literature, art and architecture, law and jurisprudence, rites and rituals, ceremonies and sacraments, fairs and festivals…These are the essentials of Hindutva—a common nation (Rashtra) a common race (Jati) and a common civilization (Sanskriti). V.D. Savarkar, “Essentials of Hindutva” 1923, pp. 44–45.

These essential ingredients of Hindutva, based on India’s cultural pastness became the guiding light of right-wing forces, including the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). Formed in 1925, RSS is a cultural organization dedicated to spread the message of Hindutva. It seeks to cultivate a community might that would crystallize into a social movement to induce a political transformation of Indian state and institutions. It remains the main ideological and organizational force guiding the right-wing political party of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) which was formed in 1980. Interestingly, the rapid growth of Hindutva paralleled the entry of neoliberal globalization in India. That resurgence began with the Ram Mandir (Temple) controversy in the 1980s culminating in the demolition of Babri Masjid in Ayodhya (to build Ram Temple its place) in December 6, 1992. This period witnessed a groundswell of support for BJP. However, while BJP became a major electoral force from late 1980s onwards, the politics of Hindu nationalism could never take the center-stage within Indian state and its organs, or even in the non-state institutions (like formal education, media, or business group). It was only after Narendra Modi-led BJP came to power in

27 India’s Transition: A New Complex of Capitalism …

523

2014 that a concerted attempt to achieve the full-scale socio-political transformation of Indian society according to the ideal of Hindutva started to unravel. There is a concerted attempt to merge nationalism signifying the rise of India as a global economic superpower and Hindutva signifying the rise of the social ideology of the dominant community as representative of the “culture” of India. This merger seeks to recast the Idea of India whereby to be against Hindutva is anti-national, and to be against nationalism is anti-Hindu. This is what one can call Hindu nationalism. How can Hindu nationalism that stresses the domination of a homogenous culture of the collective/majority be reconciled with global capitalism under a neoliberal regime with its focus on the free choice of individuals backed by modern law? Capitalist-led development is seen as a socio-economic force of modernism founded on the post-enlightenment idea of freedom and equality. This process was seen as inconsistent with the so-called regressive third worldist “irrationalities” of ancient philosophies, backward structures, and institutions. Nevertheless, it is precisely the latter kind of cultural pastness that Hindu nationalism tries to favorably foreground in conjunction with global capitalism. In this backdrop, we argue that contemporary Indian presents itself as an intersection of two apparently contradictory processes: one, building on Marx, can be called the cunning of the capitalist minority and, two, building on Freud, can be called the secret of majority might. In liberal political economy, capitalism appears as the competitive market economy based on individual rights guaranteed by modern law. Marx challenges this definition by demonstrating that representation of capitalism as an embodiment of “equality, liberty, property and Bentham”—the general sphere of free and equivalent exchange—is a “delusional appearance of things” that forecloses (i) the earthly reality of organization of exploitation by a minority group of appropriators (capitalists) of a portion of income (surplus value) created by the mass of workers and (ii) the brutal process of primitive accumulation as expropriation of the so-called “pre-capitalist” life-world that is paradigmatic of the original sin of capital coming “dripping from head to foot, from every pore, with blood and dirt.” The right of possession of surplus value backed by modern law gives the capitalist minority-free access for accumulation of income and wealth, control over social institutions like education, health, and media, and access to political power; the right to minerals/resources and labor power for the capitalist class process following the violence of primitive accumulation conducted by state–capital nexus too is legally guaranteed. Putting it in another way, capitalism is the system of creation and justification of the might of capitalist minority through the mechanism of “free” choice and right guarantee under competitive market economy. This, for Marx, is capitalism’s duplicity as also its source of instability. Thus, secular “innate rights of man” on which modern law rests (for the unit of modern law is the individual; there is no law for the collective) and the might of the minority capitalist to lord over the laboring class and the economy/society are consistent and can co-exist. That is also why neoliberalism (requiring the sanctity of modern law) and global capitalism (personifying the minority might of the capitalist class) can be each other’s condition of existence, albeit with all contradictions and instabilities that arise from this relation and which we have already distilled for India.

524

A. Chakrabarti et al.

In his correspondence with Einstein (1931–1932) on war, Freud argued that, conventionally and quite wrongly, the aspect of right is often pitted against might, and the rule of law against force (force: as irrational, as the [ab]use of power by the individual). It has been assumed that it is the discourse of right(s) that counters the discourse of might, and it is law that counters the perpetration of the immorality of force. In the annals of political economy, it was Marx who showed how capitalism foregrounded by individual right(s) secures the might of the minority capitalist, thereby nullifying this opposition. Our earlier analysis of nationalism in India reveals that the attempt to forge an imagined community around an economic utopia is fractured by exclusions, divisions, and conflicts, ones which is, as Marx contended, based upon securing the might of the minority capitalists (and their cohorts) concentrated in the hub of the circuitscamp of global capital. But, this also announces the failure to create a community might of the majority. How can a nation, economically and socially divided by the newly created economic order be united culturally–politically in a platform that is not inimical to that economic order? How can the population beyond the camp of global capital find an identitarian desire for nation-building? Indian secularism (presuming at the minimum laws and social values without acknowledging the creation and sanction of divine authority) based on a faith in post-enlightenment political philosophy fails to grasp its own unreality, that is, its disconnect with the concrete context of a divided India. India’s modernism, like that of Nilekani, wants to, in the words of Marx in Theses on Feuerbach, IV, resolve “the religious world into its secular basis.” But, that the “secular basis” detaches itself from itself and establishes itself as an independent realm in the clouds can only be explained by the cleavages and self-contradictions within the earthly world. The detached secular up in the clouds sought to produce an imagined modernist community might co-existing with the minority might of capitalists. This project failed in India since the earthly contradictions revealed themselves into irreconcilable social divisions and conflicts (quarter century ongoing dispute over Ram Mandir in Ayodhya is a classic instance) that could not be resolved at that level. One can think of at least two alternatives. One, as Marx contended, to create a community might of the working masses that would confront the concrete contradictions of the secular world so as to produce a new “social humanity” in which the might of the minority capitalist class is overcome. This involves the revolutionary work to produce a majoritarian economic/laboring community might that contains not just critique of the political theology such as that of Hindu nationalism, but also a critique of the abstract imagined community of the secular world. The other alternative is to produce a majoritarian community might that is neither modernist nor revolutionary but based on cultural-pastness, such as on the Hindutva triad of a common nation (Rashtra), a common race (Jati), and a common civilization (Sanskriti). Let us concentrate on the latter. Freud argues that the recognition of a “community of interests” engenders in turn a psychology of “unity” and “fraternal solidarity”; it links up its members psychologically, at times pathologically. For the psychology of “unity” and “fraternal solidarity,” Freud draws our attention to few conditions that must obtain. Condition one: “the union of the people must be permanent and well organized.” Condition two:

27 India’s Transition: A New Complex of Capitalism …

525

“it must enact rules,” that is, laws and by default the register of the illicit—beef ban in India being the recent most expression of community might “to meet the risk of possible revolts” (Freud 1931–1932, 6). Condition three: it must “set up machinery insuring that its rules—the laws—are observed and that such acts of violence as the laws demand are duly carried out” (Freud 1931–1932, 6). Shaped over a period of 100 years, Hindu nationalism has emerged as such a kind of normalized community might, a desire of communitarian majority that unifies psychologically the mass of population including those in world of the third and margins of the circuits of global capital into a “fraternal solidarity” but which is not antagonistic to the minority right of the capitalist class. Various organizations like the RSS (the most powerful), Viswa Hindu Parishad, Bajrang Dal, and so on have worked for decades at the ground level, through cultural interventions (including through education, social bodies, and religious organizations) and political mobilizations, to nurture and fertilize the psychological landscape of Indians and grow in it the essential ingredients of Hindu nationalism. The growth and subsequent hold of Hindutva ideology in the consciousness of large section of Indian population is not a result of false consciousness, but one which is an outcome of social construction. One can thus view global capitalism under neoliberalism and Hindu nationalism as an attempt to produce a dialectical— unfinished and unresolved albeit—unity between economic futurity and culturalpastness, in which the vast majority of the population can perceive themselves as active participants and hence be part of both subjectification and subjection. The marriage of the might of minority capitalist (through global capitalism) and that of the majoritarian community brings people together psychologically (underpinned by emotions, anxiety, dread, and hatred toward the others) into a common nation building project. One can see this in its continual attempt to create a homogenous majoritarian might, based on the evaluation and subjugation of homogenous others, such as the Indian Muslim principally (and, by extension, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Rohingyas) but also the Christian (seen as personifying an alien political theology and forms of life), the Adivasi (tribal forest dwellers or Vanvasis as RSS calls them), and the Dalit (the lowest substratum of the Hindu caste system); the last two are considered as part of the same Hindu culture by RSS and requires accommodation within the Hindutva project. Nevertheless, the process of procuring a unity around Hindutva is fraught with the internal contradictions of the caste system within Hinduism itself, as Ambedkar argued in the context of the discrimination and exclusion of Dalits and with dangers of religious disharmony and violence as Gandhi warned. This is in addition to the complexity arising from RSS’s attempt of Hinduization of the unique Adivasi culture within the mainstream of Vedic culture of the so-called Aryan race that RSS sees as the foundation of Hinduism. These population groups find themselves squeezed between the social contradictions and conflicts, and those emanating from the violence of primitive accumulation, income, and social inequality with reference to global capitalism. The combined effects of these contradictory forces have led to social and political unrest across India, particularly among the Dalits, Adivasis, farmers, and workers. The unity that this hegemonic order attempts to construct is thus shaky.

526

A. Chakrabarti et al.

Finally, what is the role of politics and state in this unity? As a top-down political front of Hindu nationalism, the BJP’s objective is to capture national and regional state powers to help politically formalize the above-mentioned unity of global capitalism and Hindu nationalism. This unity in practical terms secures the co-existence of the secret might of the minority capitalist class and the secret of majoritarian community might of the Hindus. It seeks to procure this through elections (democracy is an ally here) as it has done with its control over the Indian state and most regional states in the last few years. As the right-wing-led Indian state (as the modern secular parties in power have also done) protects the minority might of the capitalists through ideological and repressive apparatuses sanctioned by modern law against the opposition that arises from challenges to this new economic order (say, against land acquisition), the problem with Hindu nationalism might be that state (constitutionally bound by the limits of citizenship, rights and law) and community (armed with the discourse of embodied insidedness, obligation, and the “totem and taboo”) are usually pitted against each other. But perhaps, as Freud argued, state and community are not on opposite sides. Perhaps they are two sides of the same coin. While modern law backed by Supreme Court with its emphasis on individual rights (religious, gender, sexuality rights of each individual) continues to uphold the idealized secular version of modernity, the legislative/executive branch of Indian state (under the present BJP rule) has been silent on their implementation when these appeared as contrary to the might of the majoritarian community. Take two examples. Hindu nationalism considers cow to be sacred and seeks to ban cow slaughter. In the last four years, the lynching of people for trading cow or eating beef (hitherto common among many Muslims, Christians, and Dalits) has become common in the Hindi heartland (also known as cow belt). Recently, the Supreme Court ruled that such lynching is illegal and asked the regional states to take immediate steps to protect the “fundamental rights of the people.” However, the central government and most regional states maintain a stoic silence, thereby allowing the militant Hindu groups to enforce its self-proclaimed social law, even with explicit violence; the secret of community might prevails over the law protecting individual rights. Second, the choice of friendship, love, and marriage between Hindu women and Muslim men ratified by Supreme Court as coming under the fundamental right of individual’s freedom is being violently challenged socially by Hindu nationalists in the name of war against “Love Jihad.” The state machinery if not complicit has maintained a stoic silence on this violence. Both examples reflect the core principles of Hindutva intent on protecting the “blood of that race” and “culture of that race.” The possibility of conflict between the modernist organs of the state and the Hindu community is being negotiated through a specific strategy. If the judiciary is taken as the modernist organ of state (whose supreme branch, that is, Supreme Court still remains partially outside the ambit of Hindu nationalists) then one can clearly see the Indian state splitting its functional existence into two: the judiciary and legislative/executive. The executive branch ruled by the BJP has become complicit in furthering the community might of Hindu nationalism. Is the Indian state then becoming “a certain organization of places [lieux] designed to lead astray” (Derrida 1986: xxxvi); lead us

27 India’s Transition: A New Complex of Capitalism …

527

astray from the secret, from its own secret: community/nationalist might? When the opportunity presents itself, the veil of secrecy could be removed and the India state becomes the brazen face of Hindu nationalism. The latest example of this policy is the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 that gives automatic citizenship rights to all non-Muslim migrants from Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Pakistan who came to India till December 2014 while excluding the Muslim migrants from the same right. At this instance, the community might of Hindu nationalism directly finds its expression through the desire and action of the Indian state. The last five years of Modi government had politically made possible what previously seemed to be impossible within the complex tradition of Indian democracy and argumentative tradition.

Conclusion We have shown that India’s transition in the post-globalization era has undergone a change from state to private global capitalism under a neoliberal regime. The new economic map that has since materialized has taken the form of circuits-camp of global capital and world of the third. This new economic map produced its own set of contradictions and conflicts that we have elaborated. Moreover, the attempt to unite the minority might of capitalists and majority might of Hindu nationalism has been shown to be precarious, continually challenged and fraught with possibility of its own unmaking. Nevertheless, this hegemonic order has successfully transformed the terms of debate in India, and has made itself the point of reference and departure for any future debate on transition. There perhaps lies its success. The contemporary global rise of right-wing forces in the wake of global economic crisis has been inspired to a large extent by the Hindu nationalist experiment in India; Steve Bannon described Modi’s victory in 2014 as the beginning of a “global revolt” against the neoliberal global order we have described. However, unlike other countries such as USA and Italy which have taken a more nationalist turn in their economic policies, thereby throwing neoliberal globalization into an era of uncertainty, India has been trying to steer and mould neoliberal globalization (which it sees as being beneficial) in a way that is consistent with Hindu nationalism. As the fate of neoliberal globalization itself hangs in balance, the hegemonic order presently being shaped in India stands challenged not only by the internal cluster of contradictions and conflicts that we have elucidated but also by the uncertainly looming over its economy from a series of unpredictable external processes. As the pandemic turns the already recessionary tendencies into a depression like scenario, these embedded instabilities combine with newly emerging ones (such as the reverse migration from urban to rural indicating the collapse of the erstwhile development model or the seismic change in the global order) to drastically unsettle and perhaps once again recast the transitional past of Indian economy.

528

A. Chakrabarti et al.

References Ahluwalia, M. S. 2018. The 1991 Reforms: How Home Grown Were They?” In Quarter Century of Liberalisation in India: Essays from Economic & Political Weekly. Edited by Economic and Political Weekly. Oxford University Press: New Delhi. Alagh, Y.K. 1991. Indian Development Planning and Policy: An Alternative View (Wider Studies in Development Economics). New Delhi: Sangam Books Ltd. Anderson, B.R. 1991. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, Revised and extended ed. London: Verso. Basu, P.K. 2008. Globalization An Anti-Text: A Local View. New Delhi: Aakar Books. Bhagwati, J., and T.N. Srinivasan. 1993. India’s Economic Reforms. New Delhi: Ministry of Finance, Economic Division. Bremen, J. 1996. Footloose Labour: Working in India’s Informal Economy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Business Maps of India, List of Companies in India. https://business.mapsofindia.com/india-com pany/. Accessed 15 Dec 2018. Callari, A. 1983. Adam Smith, the Theory of Value, and the History of Economic Thought. Association for Economic and Social Analysis, Discussion Paper#3, University of MassachusettsAmherst. Chakrabarti, A., and S. Cullenberg. 2003. Transition and Development in India. New York: Routledge. Chakrabarti, A., and A. Dhar. 2010. Dislocation and Resettlement in Development: From Third World to World of the Third. London: Routledge. Chakrabarti, A., and A. Dhar. 2012. Gravel in the Shoe: Nationalism and World of the Third. Rethinking Marxism 24 (1): 106–123. Chakrabarti, A. A. Dhar, and B. Dasgupta. 2015. The Indian Economy in Transition: Globalisation, Capitalism and Development. Cambridge University Press. Chakravarty, A. 1987. Development Planning: The Indian Experience. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Chitranshi, B. 2016. Singleness and Sanghathan. Cusp- the Journal 1(2). http://www.cuspthejo urnal.com/issue2/vol1no2.html. Credit Suisse. 2018. Global Wealth Report. https://www.credit-suisse.com/corporate/en/research/ research-institute/global-wealth-report.html. Accessed 10 Nov 2018. CSO (Central Statistics Office). 2014. Rate of Growth of GDP by Industry of Origin at Factor Cost & at 2004-05 Prices (Current/Constant). http://planningcommission.nic.in/data/datatable/. Accessed 6 Sept 2018. CSO (Central Statistics Office). 2018. Key indicators related to national accounts, NSSO and Economic Statistics. https://data.gov.in/catalog/key-indicators-related-national-accounts-nssoand-economic-statistics. Accessed 6 Sept 2018. Derrida, J. 1986. Foreword. In The Wolf Man’s Magic Word: A Cryptonymy, ed. Abraham, N. and Torok, M. (trans: Nicholas Rand). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Economic Survey 2012-13. 2013. Ministry of Finance, Government of India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Economic Survey 2017-18. Ministry of Finance, GOI. 2018. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Escobar, A. 1995. Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third World. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Foucault, M. 2008. The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at the College de France 1978-79 (trans: Graham Burchell). London: Palgrave Macmillan. Freud, S. 1931-32. The Einstein-Freud Correspondence (1931-1932). http://www.public.asu.edu/ ~jmlynch/273/documents/FreudEinstein.pdf. Gandhi, M. 2010. M K Gandhi’s Hind Swaraj: A, Critical ed. Orient BlackSwan: Hyderabad. IMF WEO Data. 2018. Gross domestic product based on purchasing-power-parity (PPP) share of world total (Percent). https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2018/01/weodata/weoselgr. aspx. Accessed 6 Sept 2018.

27 India’s Transition: A New Complex of Capitalism …

529

Italian Trade Commission. Indian Leather and Tanning Industry Profile 2010. http://italiaindia. com/images/uploads/pdf/leather-industry-in-india-2010.pdf. Accessed 15 Dec 2018. Marx, K. 1967. Capital. vol. 1–3. New York: International Publishers. Mungekar, B. (ed.). 2015. The Essential Ambedkar. New Delhi: Rupa. Nagaraj, R. 2018. Economic Reforms and Manufacturing Sector Growth: Need for Reconfiguring the Industrialisation Model. In Quarter Century of Liberalisation in India: Essays from Economic & Political Weekly. Edited By Economic and Political Weekly. Oxford University Press: New Delhi. Nandy, A. 1994. The Illegitimacy of Nationalism: Rabindranath Tagore and the Politics of Self . New Delhi: Oxford University Press. National Sample Survey Office (NSSO). 1997. Employment and Unemployment in India, 1993–94: NSS 50th Round, Report No. 409. Government of India. National Sample Survey Office (NSSO). 2011. Employment and Unemployment Situation in India, 2009–10: NSS 66 th Round, Report No. 537(66/10/1). Government of India. National Sample Survey Office (NSSO). 2014. Employment and Unemployment Situation in India, 2011–12: NSS 68th Round, Report No. 554(68/10/1). Government of India. Navlakha, G. 2012. Days and Nights in the Heartland of Rebellion. New Delhi: Penguin. Nilekani, N. 2006. Imagining India: The Idea of a Renewed Nation. Penguin Press. Panagariya, A. 2008. Transforming India. In Sustaining India’s Growth Miracle, ed. J.N. Bhagwati and Calomiris, C.W. New York: Columbia University Press. Panagariya, A., and V. More. 2013. Poverty by Social, Religious and Economic Groups in India and Its Largest States 1993–94 to 2011-12, Programme on Indian Economic Policies, Columbia University, WP 2013-02. Papola, T.S., and P.P. Sahu. 2012. Growth and Structure of Employment in India. New Delhi: Institute for studies in Industrial Development. Planning Commission of India. 2014. GDP at Factor Cost at 2004–05 Constant/Current prices by Industry of Origin, Share to GDP for each Sector & Percentage Rate of Growth: 1971-72 to 2013-14—updated as on December, 2014. http://planningcommission.gov.in/data/datatable/ index.php?data=datatab. Accessed 6 Sept 2018. Economic and Political Weekly. 2018. Quarter Century of Liberalisation in India: Essays from Economic & Political Weekly. Oxford University Press: New Delhi. Registrar General and Census Commissioners, India. Census of India, 2011. http://www.census india.gov.in/pca/Searchdata.aspx. Accessed 6 Sept 2018. Resnick, S., and R. Wolff. 2012. Contending Economic Theories: Neoclassical, Keynesian, and Marxian. Cambridge: MIT Press. Rodrik, D., and A. Subramanian. 2004. From’Hindu Growth’ to Productivity Surge: The Mystery of the Indian Growth Transition. IMF Working Paper. WP/04/77. International Monetary Fund. Savarkar, V.D. 1923. Essentials of Hindutva. http://savarkar.org/en/encyc/2017/5/23/2_12_12_04_e ssentials_of_hindutva.v001.pdf_1.pdf. Accessed 6 Sept 2018. Singh, M. 1991. Budget 1991–92 Speech. https://www.indiabudget.gov.in/bspeech/bs199192.pdf. Accessed 6 Sept 2018. Srinivasan, T.N. 2005. Comments on “From ‘Hindu Growth’ to Productivity Surge: The Mystery of the Indian Growth Transition. IMF Staff Papers, vol. 52, no. 2. Tagore, R. 2010. Nationalism. Penguin Books. TATA Company Website. http://www.tata.com/ Accessed 15 Dec 2018. United Nations, SDG Goals, Goal 1: End poverty in all its forms everywhere. https://unstats.un. org/sdgs/report/2016/goal-01/. Accessed 6 Sept 2018. World Bank Data Bank, World Development Indicator Data. Accessed 6 Sept 2018. World Inequality Database. https://wid.world/data/. Accessed 6 Sept 2018. Political Economy. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd.

530

A. Chakrabarti et al.

Anjan Chakrabarti is a Professor of Economics at the University of Calcutta. He has published numerous articles in journals such as Cambridge Journal of Economics, Rethinking Marxism, Economic and Political Weekly, Journal of Asset Management, Collegium Anthropologicum and Critical Sociology, edited books and handbooks and published 8 books among which is the coauthored The Indian Economy in Transition: Globalization, Capitalism and Development (Cambridge University Press 2015). He was the recipient of the Dr. VKRV Rao Prize in Social Science Research in Economics for the year 2008. Anup Dhar is a Professor of Philosophy and Director, Centre for Development Practice in Ambedkar University Delhi, India. His coauthored books include Dislocation and Resettlement in Development: From Third World to World of the Third (Routledge 2009), and The Indian Economy in Transition: Globalization, Capitalism and Development (Cambridge University Press 2015). He coedited Psychoanalysis in Indian Terroir: Emerging Themes in Culture, Family, and Childhood (Lexington Books 2018). Sayonee Majumdar is a Ph.D., scholar at the Economics Department, University of Calcutta. She is presently working on a comparative analysis of the economic transition of China and India. She has recently published a paper titled “Disinterring the Transition Debate in Maoist China” in Arthaniti (a SAGE Publications journal).

Chapter 28

Socially Sustainable Globalization? The Domestic Politics of Globalization in Australia Tom Conley

Abstract The chapter has two major aims. The first is to outline the broad trajectory of the globalization of the Australian political economy since the 1980s, and consider its relationship to social outcomes. The second is to consider how work exploring the domestic underpinnings of, and limits to, globalization can contribute to an understanding of the Australian political economy and the political sustainability of the globalization project. The paper questions whether the current policy trajectories of continuing (hyper)globalization plus either compensation or trickle down are sustainable, even under conditions of renewed growth. While compensatory strategies can help sustain globalization—as they have done since the 1950s—the paper contends that policy-makers need to consider domestic social imperatives, and to act to ensure a fairer distribution of the costs and benefits of economic activity and policy change. The evidence provided on state taxation and spending shows that states and societies retain the capacity to improve social outcomes, if that is their aim. A failure to improve distributional outcomes will lead to increasing reactions against globalization. The chapter concludes that sustaining globalization will require states to limit its scope and improve social protections, rather than weaken them.

Introduction The market determines prices, but it does not solve, indeed can exacerbate, moral problems of distribution and the environment, ultimately of human survival. It must always be responded to and mediated by a democratic politics (Crick 2000).

Since the 1980s, Australia has transformed its economy from one of the most protectionist in the advanced world to one of the most open. Moving from a policy consensus in favor of a comprehensive protectionist policy structure, the Hawke and Keating Labor governments (1983–1996) transformed the economy through economic policy T. Conley (B) School of Government and International Relations, Griffith University, Mount Gravatt, QLD, Australia e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 I. Rossi (ed.), Challenges of Globalization and Prospects for an Inter-civilizational World Order, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44058-9_28

531

532

T. Conley

liberalization in finance, trade, competition, government ownership, and the labor market. They transformed the political economy through a combination of persuasion (an overwhelming rhetoric of globalization) and coercion (extensive policy liberalization). Since the pioneering changes introduced by the Hawke and Keating governments, subsequent Liberal-National Coalition and Labor governments extended and sustained the globalization consensus. Undoubtedly, the global financial crisis (GFC), the great recession (GR), and the European debt crisis (EDC) have led to some questioning of globalization, but these ponderings have not led to a fundamental policy rethink of the merits of a globalization without limit or the neoliberal policy framework. Policy-makers see the crises as setbacks, not knock-backs, despite regular hand-wringing, particularly on the center-left, about the growth of inequality. The consensus view is that with some better regulation in finance (which for some means less) and more open trade, enough winners will emerge to underpin the globalization consensus politically (i.e., electorally). Such assumptions rest on a narrow economic focus that underestimates other factors of opposition to globalization, including hostility to multiculturalism, immigration, and asylum-seekers. There has been, to use the Hall (1993) framework, no paradigmatic or third-order change away from the globalization project within any developed country, despite the global malaise. Hall (1993: 278) defines “social learning as a deliberate attempt to adjust the goals or techniques of policy in response to past experience and new information.” The experience of crisis and the warnings of pundits have not yet led to a fundamental policy reassessment. In Crouch’s (2011) words, there has been “a strange non-death of neo-liberalism,” or for our purposes, the associated globalization project. Australia’s relatively stellar economic performance since the GFC has led to even less policy re-evaluation. The policy consensus in Australia, therefore, is that the globalization project is sustainable with some tweaking. For the center-left Labor party, the argument is that the addition of limited compensation can limit opposition to globalization and provide for widespread prosperity. The center-right Liberal-National Coalition government accepts the need for some compensation, but argues for a crude form of “trickle down.” It proffers no intellectual arguments to underpin its contentions, just the assertion that corporate tax cuts, lower wages, and less social compensation will lead to higher employment, greater entrepreneurialism, and, eventually, widespread prosperity (Murphy 2018). The chapter has two major aims. The first is to outline the broad trajectory of the globalization of the Australian political economy since the 1980s and consider its relationship to social outcomes. The second is to consider how work in exploring the domestic underpinnings of, and limits to, globalization can contribute to an understanding of the Australian political economy and the sustainability of the globalization project. The paper questions whether the current policy trajectories of continuing (hyper)globalization plus either compensation or trickle down are sustainable even under conditions of continuing growth. While compensatory strategies can help sustain globalization—as they have done since the 1950s—the paper contends that policy-makers need to consider domestic social imperatives, and to act to ensure a

28 Socially Sustainable Globalization? The Domestic …

533

fairer distribution of the costs and benefits of economic activity and policy change. The evidence provided on state taxation and spending shows that states retain the capacity to improve social outcomes, if that is their aim. A failure to improve distributional outcomes will lead to increasing reactions against globalization. Ironically, sustaining globalization will require states to limit its scope and improve social protections, rather than weaken them.

Defining Globalization In this chapter, I define globalization as the process of integration of national economies, a process that has (asymmetrical) interdependence effects. The broad framework involves a catholic version of what some critics call methodological nationalism (Chernilo 2011; Fanning 2013). I concur with Rieger and Leibfried’s (2003: 31) contention that: “instead of speaking of an independent, globalized economy, it makes more sense to proceed from the assumption of an international system of interdependent national economies.” I base the argument on the idea that the continuing locus of political action remains centered on the “domestic,” that is the nation-state and its constituent parts. Australian debates—like those elsewhere—have framed globalization in two major ways. The phrase, “the globalisation of the Australian economy,” describes the opening up of the Australian economy. In this guise, globalization is a description of a process over which policy-makers have considerable influence, despite arguments that liberalization was inevitable. The phrase, “the globalisation of the world economy,” describes global developments in trade, production, finance, migration, labor markets, technology, governance, and culture. Notwithstanding Australia’s small but significant role in the world, it represents processes and forces over which Australian policy-makers have little or no control. The latter definition is used to assert that states have no choice but to liberalize their own economies if they want to be economically successful. This is despite the fact that the embrace of economic liberalism is everywhere partial and incomplete. It is, as political economists like to point out, a world political economy, where politics intervenes at every level of economic interaction. In this chapter, I argue that the globalization of the Australian economy is both an economic strategy and a political discourse, rather than an inevitable imperative. The globalization project incorporated all aspects of policy and involved a discourse of state limitation and a rejection of the Keynesian welfare state and the mixed economy. Globalization has also been an implicit and sometimes explicit justification for the rise in inequality since the 1980s.

534

T. Conley

The Globalization of Australia Globalisation does not operate outside of and against local conditions but rather always through them. For this reason, it is at all times of the utmost importance to understand local conditions in their particularity, as well as the consequences these particularities have for societal and individual fates respectively in the era of globalization (Rieger and Liebfried 2003: 4).

The development of a new globalization policy consensus in Australia had to overcome long-standing bipartisan support for protectionism. Governments entrenched a protectionist policy structure in the first decades of the twentieth century and reinforced it during good times and bad over the next 60 years. There were four main components: protection of industry, the conciliation and arbitration of industrial disputes, the white Australia policy (WAP), and a residual welfare system (Rawson 1966; Castles 1988). Trade protectionism underpinned the creation of a manufacturing sector of greater size and importance than would have been possible if Australia had adopted a policy of free trade. Manufacturing provided a fundamental source of employment and helped to establish a more diversified capitalist economy (Bhattacharyya and Williamson 2009). High wages and controlled, but expansive whites-only immigration provided a compromise between the demands of labor and desires of business for a larger population. High levels of employment meant that policy-makers deemed only a residual welfare state was necessary. The consensus began to unravel in the 1960s, with the WAP the first pillar to fall. The economic crises of the 1970s and early 1980s accelerated the sense of Australian economic malaise and the perception grew that the protectionist policy structure would be unable to underpin rising living standards (see Robinson 1978; Walsh 1979; Kasper 1980). During the deep recession of the early 1980s, the Australian economic policy community began to envisage widespread structural change, although many wondered whether Australia was up to the task and whether the Hawke Labor government (elected in 1983) could engineer a transformation (Kahn and Pepper 1980; Emy and Hughes 1988). One of the Hawke government’s first major policy decisions in 1983—floating the dollar and abandoning exchange controls—was also its most important. Financial liberalization exposed the Australian political economy to the wider world of international finance (Keating 1986: 73). The specter of financial discipline provided a useful rhetorical device to persuade Australians about the urgency of economic policy change (Hawke 1985; Keating 1987). In 1986, the Hawke government faced a terms-of-trade crisis, an expanding current account deficit, increased foreign indebtedness, and currency depreciation. It responded by turning its back on protectionism and quickening the pace of liberalization, marketization, and privatization. The government cut tariffs in 1988 and, in 1991, cut further, even in the sensitive car, textiles, clothing, and footwear sectors (Keating 1988; Keating and Button 1991). The tariff cuts and other liberalizing policy reforms broke the back of protectionism in Australia. The Liberal-National Coalition opposition of the period supported this agenda. Bipartisanship on liberalization was fundamental to the success of the

28 Socially Sustainable Globalization? The Domestic …

535

project. A new policy consensus emerged: Australian economic problems required less protection not more, more globalization not less. From 1996 to 2007, the John Howard-led Liberal-National Coalition government consolidated and then augmented the globalization of the Australian economy, despite the continuing reservations of many working-class Australians and tradeexposed businesses. While the government was pragmatic in the face of electoral pressures, it continued the process of privatization and tariff cuts. Despite the Asian financial crisis and the technology boom and bust, the Australian economy continued to go from strength-to-strength, with the Howard government presiding over a housing and consumption boom, followed fortuitously by a mining boom, sparked by voracious Chinese demand for resources, particularly coal and iron ore (Conley 2009). By the time of the election of the Rudd government in 2007, the globalization consensus was almost complete. In the lead up to the 2007 election, Labor leader Rudd (2006) attempted to differentiate himself and the Labor Party by arguing that Howard and the Liberals were “market fundamentalists,” who had taken economic liberalism too far. It would have been wrong, however, to think that Rudd Labor would move away from support for globalization and neoliberalism. As Rudd (2001) had earlier explained: For its part, Australian Labor is embracing the new globalisation agenda with gusto … We will not be turning our back on the modern Labor tradition of nearly two decades of economic reform. We will recommit ourselves afresh to the principles of free trade—and will not be retreating to the “dog whistle” politics of neo-protectionism and its associated code language.

For Rudd and his successor, Julia Gillard, reform meant liberalization. Rudd believed that the debate about free trade and globalization was over and that Australians would not benefit from a return to past Australian policies of protectionism (ABC Radio 2006). Australia has not had a recession since 1991, and since 2008 has had one of the developed world’s best-performed economies. Australia largely avoided the negative impacts of the financial crisis felt in the United States and Europe due to a combination of good luck and, in the immediate aftermath of the crisis, good policy. The Rudd Labor government’s fiscal stimulus and the Reserve Bank of Australia’s (RBA) lowering of interest rates had a beneficial effect on the Australian economy, stopping the creation of a downward spiral that might have led to recession. The Rudd government’s haste to stimulate the economy, associated bureaucratic problems, and a general antipathy to government spending, led to intense criticism from the opposition and some commentators, but Australia did perform better than other countries during the key quarters of the crisis and before the Chinese stimulus helped to bolster export growth (McDonald and Morling 2011; Morling and McDonald 2011). Australia clearly benefitted from the decoupling of Asia from the major advanced economies from 2009. The Rudd government dealt with the GFC and while there was a rhetorical shift— with Rudd’s (2009) critique of neoliberalism in an essay in The Monthly the high point—an entrenched fiscal conservatism restrained the putative Keynesian shift toward higher spending. Quiggin (2013) argues that, the government:

536

T. Conley

regarded the GFC as a once-off shock, never to be repeated. Australia’s success in managing the crisis has been seen as proof that our macroeconomic policies and institutions are in no need of change, while the catastrophic failures of similar policies and institutions in other developed countries have been largely ignored.

This was also true of the Gillard government, which nevertheless attempted to restructure taxation and spending within a constrained fiscal framework, developing a mining tax and an emissions trading scheme. Effective campaigns against these policy changes by key mining figures and companies led to their watering down and, with the election of the Abbott government, their repeal (Cox et al. 2014). Despite the rhetoric of economic policy woes and in particular a budget emergency (which disappeared as the government increased public debt levels) (Swan 2014), the absence of crisis in Australia meant that there has been no mainstream departure from the globalization consensus. The Abbott and Turnbull Liberal-National Coalition governments have continued to augment the globalization project, and have largely dispensed with the idea of compensation as a fundamental component. The Abbott government placed particular emphasis on expanding Australia’s international trade and cutting welfare and corporate taxes. The current Turnbull government has been restricted in its policy development by a noisy core of conservative backbenchers, including Abbott. The core component of their economic reform agenda has been to cut corporate taxation. Australian policy-makers—both political and bureaucratic—believe that Australia will continue to benefit from Chinese and Asian growth well into the future and that the economy will transition away from the mining boom with few policy innovations required apart from fiscal rectitude (ABC Radio 2012; Crowe 2014). Despite the instability caused by the crisis, the Abbott and Turnbull governments, like their Labor predecessors, assume that Asian demand will continue and has acted to shore up this demand by finalizing trade agreements with Japan, South Korea, and China. Coalition governments have matched their faith in resources and the demand possibilities associated with growing Asian middle classes with skepticism about the need for a market-based scheme to reduce carbon emissions. Outside the economic arena, the Coalition has played on and encouraged significant hostility in the community toward asylum-seekers, particularly those that come by boat. Coalition governments have developed a restrictive approach to this component of “immigration” (Cameron 2013; Doherty 2016). At the same time, the government has maintained the expansive immigration program that John Howard had earlier revitalized in the late 1990s. Howard’s (2001) nationalist rhetoric—“we will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come”— provided a neat rhetorical device to obfuscate the government’s significant increase in general migration in the early 2000s. Australia’s immigration program increased from 67,100 in 1997–1998 to 158,630 in 2007–2008, and since 2012–2013, the migration program has been around 190,000. Skilled migration has become the largest component of the migration program, moving from 29% in 1995–1996 to 68% in 2007–2008, a percentage maintained ever since (Phillips and Simon-Davies 2017).

28 Socially Sustainable Globalization? The Domestic …

537

Forms of nationalism have accompanied the globalization of the economy, but they do not limit the overall globalization project. Instead, they act to focus some of the antagonism toward openness away from distributional issues. As well as the harsh rhetoric and policy toward asylum-seekers, the government has emphasized citizenship qualifications and criticized multiculturalism (Koleth 2010; Karvelas 2012; Baker and Burke 2017). In the context of heightened fears about terrorism, the national security agenda (Turnbull 2017a) and the development of a large Department of Home Affairs (Grattan 2018) provide reassurance that the government is securing the borders. Conservative members of the Coalition, who wholeheartedly support the nationalist rhetoric, are very happy to echo the self-stated political philosophy of John Howard. The goal of a “strong, fair and decent Australia,” Howard (1999) contends, “is best met through a mix in public policy which combines liberalisation in economic policy and what I would describe as a ‘modern conservatism’ in social policy.” In the economic arena, selective restrictions on foreign investment (Treasurer 2018) carry a whiff of economic nationalism, but the limits are cosmetic and selective rather than substantial. An 80% foreign-owned mining sector (Connolly and Orsmond 2011) and a substantial foreign debt (Gittins 2017) provide evidence of Australia’s continuing openness to global finance and investment. Overall, both the Coalition and Labor maintain that the solution to global and regional problems lies in more globalization and the development of international institutions that have continuing globalization as goals. Prime Minister Turnbull (2017b) implores leaders to reject deglobalization and embrace economic liberalism: We must commit to the principle that respect for the rules delivers lasting peace and work together through our regional institutions for the common good; reject the deglobalization impulse with a principled and sustained commitment to greater economic integration; and embrace the opportunities and address the vulnerabilities of the digital age.

The Labor Party in opposition also remains committed to continuing globalization, with a strong safety net compensating for the uneven nature of its costs and benefits. Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs, Wong (2017), argues: We must ensure that Australia is able to take advantage of international economic opportunities. We must ensure that our interests are advanced in global economic, financial, investment and trade institutions. And we must ensure that these institutions are capable of arguing the benefits of globalization and open trading systems. … While the effects of globalization may have been uneven, the fact remains that barriers to trade and constraints on capital flows ultimately act against our national interest. … Labor’s support for international economic engagement and its support for a strong social safety net are two sides of the same coin.

As federal Labor politician Leigh (2017: 26) argues: “Openness raises average living standards, but some people can be hurt. Redistributing part of the gains from openness from the winners to the losers is not just a matter of fairness. It is essential if the beneficiaries want to avoid a populist backlash.” But, he argues, there should be no retreat from globalization. Both parties are vehement supporters of freer trade, liberal finance, and high immigration. Both parties have supported growing private indebtedness (while agonizing over public debt), house price inflation, and speculation, although the contemporary

538

T. Conley

Labor opposition has made some moves to limit speculation (Conley 2018). This debt-property nexus has been a fundamental source of growth, augmented by a large foreign debt. Some differences exist between the parties on social policy, particularly in rhetoric, but both argue for a restrained welfare state and limited intervention. Both parties seem to accept rising inequality, given that neither party advocates significant distributional changes in terms of either taxation or spending. Instead, tax cuts compose a large component of both parties’ current economic policies. Both parties have ignored calls for simple measures such as an increase in unemployment benefits (van Onselen 2018a). Bipartisanship on key liberalizing reforms was very important for the progress of globalization. Australia’s two-party system meant that citizens who opposed policy change were only able to vote for parties or candidates with no structuring impact on the policy process. Business groups also increasingly supported globalization, although some key sectors such as the car industry were able to continue to garner state support. Continued support for sections of manufacturing and agriculture did not come at the expense of the general shift toward liberalization and globalization (Conley and van Acker 2011). While policy-makers succeeded in globalizing and restructuring the economy, they were far less successful in cutting the size of the state or reducing expectations of state support for both business and citizens. However, rather than hobbling the process of globalization, an inability to downsize the state in Australia (and elsewhere) supported the globalization process during the 1990s and 2000s, a claim the chapter investigates in the following section. If the advocates for a smaller state had actually achieved their aim, it’s possible that they would have undermined the acceptance of globalization, liberalization, and marketization. Over the last 30 years, governments have used the idea of globalization to justify or at least explain rising inequality (Conley 2006). Nearing the end of Labor’s 13 years in power, Prime Minister Paul Keating (cited in Taylor 1995) argued the gap between the rich and poor had: widened, but nothing like it would have widened… This is now an international country and the wage spectrum reflects that which exists in a lot of other countries… but what we have done, unlike the United States, unlike… the Thatcher’s Britain which John Howard would seek to emulate, or Ronald Reagan’s America, we have brought the bottom two income deciles… up immeasurably.

In other words, Labor had succeeded where governments in other countries had failed: it had managed the transition to greater inequality more fairly and at a slower pace. Globalization dominated the policy rhetoric, and social policy was increasingly seen as a residual. During the 1980s and early 1990s, Whiteford (2015: 90) argues that improved social assistance “moderated the rise in market income inequality.” In contrast, “from the mid-1990s to 2008, government policies became less effective, partly because there was less need during a period of strong employment and income growth, but also due to deliberate government policy decisions, particularly in regard to tax cuts that favoured higher income groups.” I am not arguing here that all of the economic liberal policy changes were a mistake. Many of the policy changes have been beneficial. My argument instead

28 Socially Sustainable Globalization? The Domestic …

539

is that the logic of global constraint that has accompanied globalization as both discourse and policy imperative in Australia has been turned into an argument about the need for not only freer trade and financial laissez-faire, but smaller government, less welfare, privatization, and liberalization of labor relations. Supporters measure reform success by the achievement of liberalization or lower taxation, rather than an assessment of outcomes down the line. Although the two major parties differ in some policy areas, they both accept this narrative. Indeed, the Labor opposition appears even more vehement on the issue of public debt (Hartcher 2018). Both believe that social policy and outcomes must adapt to globalization. The cementing of the globalization consensus and the lack of an effective backlash against openness in Australia can be explained, at least in part, by the long period of growth in Australia. According to a recent poll of Australia’s attitudes to the world: Most Australians (78%) believe globalization is ‘mostly good’ for Australia, up 14 points since 2006. Two-thirds (67%) think free trade is good for both ‘[their] own standard of living’ and the ‘Australian economy’. Smaller majorities say free trade is good for ‘Australian companies’ (61%) and for ‘creating jobs in Australia’ (55%) … A majority (53%) of the population say the total number of migrants coming to Australia each year is either ‘about right’ or ‘too low’ (down eight points since 2014). Four in ten (40%) say the number is too high (Oliver 2017: 3–4).

The China resources boom and expanded immigration have helped supercharge the economy since the early 2000s. While stagnant wages and a declining labor share of income have worked against a favorable assessment of the globalization project, rising indebtedness and wealth illusion have helped households maintain spending. The rise in debt has spurred property prices, creating a positive wealth effect for property owners and delivering large returns for investors. Nevertheless, the expansion of credit since the 1990s as a source of growth and way to ease distributional conflict cannot be repeated over coming years, except at the expense of even higher future vulnerability (Conley 2018). Australia also remains vulnerable to collapses in resource demand and prices. Policy-makers have ignored the build-up of vulnerabilities, because Australia’s globalization framework inhibits their characterization as policy problems, requiring intervention by the state. The framework reinforces Australia’s economic “strengths” in resources and property investment, underplays the dangers of distributional conflict, and hampers the development of a more diverse, less debt-prone, and egalitarian economy. The real test for the globalization project in Australia will come when the long period of growth ends. How policy-makers deal with the distributional consequences of recession will determine the sustainability of the globalization project. In what follows, I want to consider a particular strand of political economy writing to assess the prospects of a more sustainable globalization for Australia.

540

T. Conley

Sustainable Globalization? Our thesis is that the idea of a self-adjusting market implied a stark utopia. Such an institution could not exist for any length of time without annihilating the human and natural substance of society … Inevitably, society took measures to protect itself, but whatever measures it took impaired the self-regulation of the market, disorganized industrial life, and thus endangered society in yet another way. It was this dilemma that forced the development of the market system into a definitive groove and finally disrupted the social organisation based upon it (Polanyi 1957 [1944]: 3).

Polanyi (1957 [1944]: 141) turned the standard liberal version of the relationship between politics and markets on its head by arguing that: “While laissez-faire economy was the product of deliberate state action, subsequent restrictions on laissezfaire started in a spontaneous way. Laissez-faire was planned; planning was not.” What Polanyi means is that the construction of a liberal market economy required extensive and deliberate state (that is political) action. Polanyi’s insight was that there are social or domestic limits to the market transformation of societies and when states enforce “market” outcomes, popular reactions arise spontaneously. While it is possible that demands for social protection could lead to a progressive agenda, the danger is that reactions will instead lead to xenophobia, nationalism, and protectionism. Rising right-wing populism throughout the developing world provides ample evidence of the possibilities for a nationalist shift. While governments have reshaped welfare institutions to bolster productivity, government spending remains pivotal as we approach the third decade of the twentyfirst century. As Cameron and Kim (2006: 15) summarized in the mid-2000s, “the fiscal role of the government remains significant in all [countries] and continues to increase in some.” This continues to be the case today (Rodrik 2011). Total government spending has remained remarkably consistent over the past 30 or so years. In Australia, expenditure has increased (Fig. 1). There has been no decline in taxation; in fact, to the contrary. Even between 1995 and 2006—a period of rapid globalization—considerably more developed countries increased their taxation levels than reduced them. While many European countries grew their debt levels in the wake of the crisis, subsequent austerity has led to growing populism, particularly on the right of the political spectrum. The Howard government is still the highest taxing government in Australian history, despite Howard’s small government rhetoric (Emerson 2005; van Onselen 2018b). Yet, as Fig. 2 shows, Australia still ranks at the bottom of the table in terms of total tax taken and is well below the OECD average. Australians are not generally overtaxed. The real issue in Australia has been the perception that the burden of taxation is not fairly shared. Recent government attempts to lower corporate tax rates, and the revelation that many of Australia’s largest companies pay no tax at all, have added to this perception (Alberici 2018). The Polanyian framework suggests that openness leads to demands for increased spending and social outlays have indeed increased over the past 25 years. This is true for the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Even Sweden, which

28 Socially Sustainable Globalization? The Domestic …

541

commentators constantly argued needed to reduce social outlays, ended up spending more in 2000–2003 than in 1980–1984. Globalization and liberalization have placed pressures on government to at least maintain social spending because of increasing market inequality. While these statistics show that social spending has not been forced down, current levels of spending have not been comprehensive enough to stop poverty and inequality from increasing in many countries, with low wage growth a major factor (Angus 2017). While social outlays increased in Australia during the Howard years, there was also an increase in the percentage of non-cash benefits (government services, spending on health and education, etc.) going to higher-income households (Harding 2002). As Table 1 shows, the average levels of spending in Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States were below the OECD average. In all countries, social expenditure expanded significantly between 1960 and 1990 and most countries continued to increase spending between 1990 and 2016. The globalization of the Australian economy has seen social spending increase from 5.9% of GDP to 13.1% in 1990. The most intense period of globalization and liberalization between 1990 and 2000 saw a rise in social spending to 18.2% of GDP. In 2016, social spending accounted for 19.1% of GDP. It should not surprise anyone that there is a strong relationship between globalization and social spending. Rieger and Leibfried (2003: 4) argue that in “an ironic 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0

1988

1998

2008

2017

Fig. 1 General government total expenditure. Percent of GDP. Source IMF (2017) World Economic Outlook Database. http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2018/01/weodata/index.aspx

542

T. Conley

twist of world history,” the welfare state was a vital precondition for post-war globalization. They contend, “just as government freedom of action is dependent on ‘globalisation’, the fate of globalisation itself is decided by government action.” In the aftermath of WWII, they argue, “the welfare state was able to take on the social functions of protectionism.” The progress of globalization, they conclude, has less to do with “conscious international institution-building and more to do with a fundamental shift from external methods of adjustment which differentiate between transactions with foreigners and domestic transactions to internal measures which do not rely on such discrimination” (Rieger and Leibfried 2003: 13). Rodrik (2011) takes this argument and the Polanyian framework to a logical conclusion and offers a comprehensive critique of the hyper-globalization argument. He argues that global markets are only “weakly embedded” and suffer “weak governance,” which means they “are prone to instability, inefficiency, and weak popular legitimacy.” Over the 1980s and 1990s, he argues, “globalization became an end in itself,” resulting in a “series of disappointments,” particularly in finance and social outcomes (Rodrik 2011: xvii). The two major success stories—China and India—have been skeptical, he contends, about the benefits of liberalization, while countries fully embracing the so-called Washington consensus have done poorly. Rodrik (2011: xviii) argues that there are two insights that must inform an alternative narrative about globalization: first, “governments and markets are complements,

Fig. 2 Tax revenue as a percentage of GDP. Source OECD (2017a) Revenue Statistics. http://www. oecd-ilibrary.org/taxation/revenue-statistics-1965-2016_9789264283183-en

28 Socially Sustainable Globalization? The Domestic …

543

Table 1 Social spending as a percentage of GDP yearly averages 1960

1990

2000

2016

12.0

24.3

27.5

31.5

22.0

23.8

28.7

Sweden

10.4

27.2

26.8

27.1

Germany

15.4

21.4

25.4

25.3

Norway

6.0

21.6

20.4

25.1

Japan

3.5

11.1

16.3

23.1

United Kingdom

9.7

15.2

17.7

21.5

France Denmark

OECD

17.1

17.4

20.8

Switzerland

12.1

16.3

19.7

United States

7.0

13.2

14.2

19.3

Australia

5.9

13.1

18.2

19.1

Canada

8.1

17.5

15.8

17.2

Ireland

7.1

16.8

12.6

16.1

Korea

2.7

4.5

10.4

Mexico

3.2

4.8

7.5

Source OECD (2017b) Total Social Expenditure. http://www.oecd.org/social/expenditure.htm

not substitutes,” and, secondly, “capitalism does not come with a unique model.” The (hyper)globalization project of continuous liberalization seemingly ignores both insights. Streeck (2014) also offers a critique of the sustainability of the neoliberal globalization project. He contends that capitalist democracies have “bought time” through three financialization strategies, which have aimed to ameliorate conflicts between capitalism and democracy. First, in the 1970s, inflation helped to ameliorate social conflict until it threatened to get out of control. Then, in the 1980s, increasingly open capital markets facilitated state borrowing (providing the opposite of the supposed discipline that financialization was meant to bring). The rise of household debt is the third stage of capitalist states “buying time” to ameliorate social conflicts and create the illusion of growth and prosperity. Following Crouch (2011), Streeck argues that the expansion of private debt acted as a form of “privatized Keynesianism,” which compensated for the rise of austerity and cuts to certain types of welfare, but not overall social spending. Australia has largely missed Streeck’s second stage with its relatively benign fiscal position, augmented by a considerable surge in revenue from the resources boom. However, it has embraced the third stage with alacrity. Lending for houses has led to an explosion in household debt. Household debt to disposable income in Australia went from around 50% in the early 1990s to 170% in the late 2000s, and then growing again in recent years to reach 188.6% in December 2017 (RBA 2017). The possibilities that growing debt can continue to underpin economic growth are limited (and dangerous), meaning that polities will have to develop a new strategy to deal with capitalist–democratic tensions.

544

T. Conley

Streeck’s contention is that the dominance of capital will lead to a hollowed-out democracy, ineffective in its ability to balance globalization pressures. Nevertheless, governments still face periodic judgement by voters. Contemporary liberal democracies, therefore, are more, not less directly constrained by domestic political pressures than they ever have been before (Simmons 1994). The Brexit vote, the election of Donald Trump, and the growing strength of the far right in Europe show that electorates are willing to vote against the globalization consensus. Despite the rhetoric of globalization, and the coercive effects of policy changes, citizens and businesses have pushed back against efforts to persuade them that they need to decrease their demands on the state and accept openness. Pressures on states—acting as a mediating institution between the global and the domestic and between the economic and the socio-political—are significant. History and comparative political economy clearly show that the pursuit of openness and economic growth do not undermine the ability of governments to maintain a strong welfare state. As Lindert (2004: 6) points out: There is no clear net cost to the welfare state, either in our first glance at the raw numbers or in deeper statistical analyses that hold many other things equal … It turns out there are many good reasons why radically different approaches to the welfare state have little or no net difference in their economic costs. Those reasons … boil down to a unified logic: Electoral democracy, for all its messiness and clumsiness, keeps the costs of either too much welfare or too little under control.

Conclusion A sustainable globalization project for Australia must build on Polanyi’s insight about the likelihood of popular reactions to laissez-faire, consider Rodrik’s domestic limits to globalization, and analyze the tensions inherent in capitalist democracies such as Australia, as explained by Streeck. Although Streeck would argue that such strategies are simply “buying time,” different approaches to globalization, compensation, and regulation produce widely varying social outcomes in developed capitalist states. While the tensions between capitalism and democracy play out, polities everywhere continue to make decisions that lead to more or less equitable social outcomes. Rodrik might well be right about the incompatibility between (hyper-) globalization, the nation-state, and democracy, but it is likely that, rather than any one of pillars falling away, they will continue to rub up against each other. If governments cannot find an appropriate balance between globalization and democracy, it is not at all clear from the evidence that globalization will prevail, as advocates for the globalization project assume. In Australia, both Labor and Coalition governments have aimed to restrict the electoral fall-out from globalizing the economy by attempting to persuade Australians that the “world economy” or “globalization” has forced liberal policy changes, made alternative economic policy choices unviable, limited social policy, and led to rising inequality. Ironically, a sustainable globalization “strategy” for Australia requires the abandonment of the globalization “project”—the belief that the globalization of the world economy requires continuous liberalization and an ever-greater role for markets.

28 Socially Sustainable Globalization? The Domestic …

545

References ABC Radio. 2006. Rudd’s New Vision for the Nation. AM, December 5. http://www.abc.net.au/am/ content/2006/s1804299.htm. ABC Radio. 2012. Economic Forum will Feed into Policy Decisions: Swan. AM, June 12. http:// www.abc.net.au/am/content/2012/s3522920.htm. Alberici, E. 2018. Why many big companies don’t pay corporate tax. ABC News, 16 February. http:// www.abc.net.au/news/2018-02-14/why-many-big-companies-dont-pay-corporate-tax/9443840. Angus, C. 2017. Slow wage growth. EBrief, August. NSW Parliamentary Research Service. https:// www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/researchpapers/Documents/Slow%20wage%20growth.pdf. Baker, S., and R. Burke. 2017. Coalition’s test likely to disadvantage those who need citizenship most. The Guardian, June 15. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/commentisfree/2017/ jun/15/coalitions-test-likely-to-disadvantage-those-who-need-citizenship-most. Bhattacharyya, S., and J.G. Williamson. 2009. Commodity Price Shocks and the Australian Economy since Federation. Discussion Paper 605. Centre for Economic Policy Research, Australian National University. Cameron, D.R., and S. Yeon Kim. 2006. Trade, Political Institutions and the Size of Government. In Globalization and National Self-Determination: Is the Nation-State Under Siege?, ed. David R. Cameron et al. London and New York: Routledge. Cameron, M. 2013. From ‘Queue Jumpers’ to ‘Absolute Scum of the Earth’: Refugee and Organised Criminal Deviance in Australian Asylum Policy. Australian Journal of Politics and History 59 (2). Castles, F. 1988. Australian Public Policy and Economic Vulnerability. Sydney: Allen and Unwin. Chernilo, D. 2011. The Critique of Methodological Nationalism: Theory and History. Thesis Eleven 106 (1). Conley, T. 2006. It’s the Government Stupid: Globalisation, Government and Equality in Australia. In Globalisation and the Asia-Pacific: Contested Perspectives and Diverse Experiences, ed. I. Islam and M. Hossain. London: Edward Elgar. Conley, T. 2009. The Vulnerable Country: Australia and the Global Economy. Sydney: University of NSW Press. Conley, T. 2018. The Stretched Rubber Band: Banks, Houses, Debt and Vulnerability in Australia. Australian Journal of Political Science 53 (1). Connolly, E., and D. Orsmond. 2011. The Mining Industry: From Bust to Boom. RBA Research Discussion Paper No. 2011-08. https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/rdp/2011/pdf/rdp2011-08. pdf. Conley, T., and E. van Acker. 2011. Whatever Happened to Industry Policy in Australia. Australian Journal of Political Science 46 (3). Cox, L., J. Massola, G. Hutchens. 2014. Mining tax repealed after deal struck with Palmer. Sydney Morning Herald, September 2. http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/miningtax-repealed-after-deal-struck-with-palmer-20140902-10blcr.html. Crick, B. 2000. In Defence of Politics, 5th ed. London: Continuum. Crowe, D. 2014. Bullish Hockey has Faith in Boom. The Australian, October 10. http://www.the australian.com.au/news/bullish-hockey-has-faith-in-boom/story-e6frg6n6-1227085657032. Crouch, C. 2011. The Strange Non-Death of Neoliberalism. Cambridge: Polity Press. Doherty, B. 2016. ‘Let Them Stay’: Backlash in Australia against Plans to Send Asylum Seekers to Detention Camps. The Guardian, February 10. http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/ 2016/feb/10/let-them-stay-australia-backlash-267-asylum-seekers-island-detention-camps. Emerson, C. 2005. John Howard is a Socialist. The Australian, September 13. Emy, H.V., and O.E. Hughes. 1988. Australian Politics: Realities in Conflict. Melbourne: Macmillan. Fanning, B. 2013. In Defence of Methodological Nationalism: Immigrants and the Irish NationState. Irish Journal of Sociology 21 (1). Gittins, R. 2017. Australia has $1 trillion foreign debt. Should we be Worried? Sydney Morning Herald, April 8. http://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/australias-1-trillion-for eign-debt-level-should-worry-us-all-20170407-gvfsqq.html.

546

T. Conley

Grattan, M. 2018. Peter Dutton’s Bid for More Crime-Fighting Power has Bought him a Fight. The Conversation, May 3. https://theconversation.com/grattan-on-friday-peter-duttons-bid-for-morecrime-fighting-power-has-bought-him-a-fight-96046. Hall, P. 1993. Policy Paradigms, Social Learning, and the State: The Case of Economic Policymaking in Britain. Comparative Politics 25 (3). Harding, A. 2002. Research Highlights a Nation Growing Apart. The Australian 8. Hartcher, P. 2018. Bowen seizes chance to make history. Sydney Morning Herald, May 11. https:// www.smh.com.au/national/bowen-seizes-chance-to-make-history-20180511-p4zeph.html. Hawke, R. 1985. Stan Kelly Memorial Lecture, Commonwealth Record, 5 September. Hawke, R., P. Keating, and J. Button. 1991. Building a Competitive Australia. Canberra: AGPS. Howard, J. 1999. Time to Build on Bold Ideas. The Australian, May 8–9. Howard, J. 2001. Federal Election Campaign Launch Speech, October 28. IMF. 2017. World Economic Outlook Database. http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2018/01/ weodata/index.aspx. Kahn, H., and T. Pepper. 1980. Will She be Right?. The Future of Australia: Brisbane, University of Queensland Press. Karvelas, P. 2012. Multiculturalism Divides Again. The Australian, January 11. https://www.the australian.com.au/news/inquirer/multiculturalism-divides-again/news-story/fb1a23612f71ece 78d3d8c3713a0fc7c?sv=dba4e74712a4a1642555fce1f4789c64. Kasper, W. 1980. Australia at the Crossroads: Our Choices to the Year 2000. Sydney: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Keating, P. 1986. Speech to Banking Summer School. Commonwealth Record, February 10–16. Keating, P. 1987. Traditions of Labor in Power: Whitlam and Hawke in the Continuum. In Traditions for Reform in NSW. Sydney: Pluto Press. Keating, P. 1988. Economic Statement: May 1988. Canberra: AGPS. Koleth, E. 2010. Multiculturalism: A Review of Australian Policy Statements and Recent Debates in Australia and Overseas. Research Paper No. 6, 8 October 2010–11 https://www.aph.gov.au/ About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/rp1011/11rp06. Leigh, A. 2017. Choosing Openness: Why Global Engagement is Best for Australia. Sydney: Penguin/Lowy Institute. Lindert, P.H. 2004. Growing Public: Social Spending and Economic Growth since the Eighteenth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. McDonald, T., and S. Morling. 2011. Reasons for Resilience: The Australian Economy and the Global Downturn Part 1. Economic Roundup 2. http://www.treasury.gov.au/~/media/Treasury/ Publications%20and%20Media/Publications/2011/Economic%20roundup%20issue%202/Dow nloads/01_Part1_Resilience.ashx. Morling, S., and T. McDonald. 2011. The Key Quarters: The Australian Economy and the Global Down Turn Part 2. Economic Roundup 2. http://www.treasury.gov.au/~/media/Treasury/Pub lications%20and%20Media/Publications/2011/Economic%20roundup%20issue%202/Downlo ads/02_Part2.ashx. Murphy, K. 2018. Turnbull to Sell Economic Credentials and Say Tax Cuts will Lead to Wage Growth. The Guardian, February 1. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/feb/01/ turnbull-to-sell-economic-credentials-while-staying-vague-on-income-tax-cuts. OECD. 2017a. Revenue Statistics. http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/taxation/revenue-statistics-19652016_9789264283183-en. OECD. 2017b. Total Social Expenditure. http://www.oecd.org/social/expenditure.htm. Oliver, A. 2017. The Lowy Institute Poll 2017. Sydney: Lowy Institute for International Policy. https://www.lowyinstitute.org/sites/default/files/documents/lowy-2017-pollreport-web.pdf. Phillips, J., and J. Simon-Davies. 2017. Migration to Australia: A Quick Guide to the Statistics. Research Paper Series, 2016–17, January 18. https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Par liamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/rp1617/Quick_Guides/MigrationStatis tics.

28 Socially Sustainable Globalization? The Domestic …

547

Polanyi, K. 1957[1944]. The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time. Boston: Beacon Press. Quiggin, J. 2013. Macroeconomic Policy after the Global Financial Crisis. Risk and Sustainable Management Group Working Paper Series. http://www.uq.edu.au/rsmg/WP/Australian_Public_ Policy/WPP13_3.pdf. Rawson, D.W. 1966. Labor in Vain. Melbourne: Longman. RBA [Reserve Bank of Australia]. 2017. Household Finances—Selected Ratios—E2. Statistical Tables. https://www.rba.gov.au/statistics/tables/. Rieger, E., and S. Leibfried. 2003. Limits to Globalization. Cambridge: Polity Press. Robinson, P. 1978. The Crisis in Australian Capitalism. Melbourne: VCTA Publishing with the National Times. Rodrik, D. 2011. The Globalization Paradox: Democracy and the Future of the World Economy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Rudd, K. 2001. Social Democratic Responses to Globalisation. Sydney Papers 12(4). Rudd, K. 2006. Howard’s Brutopia: What the Prime Minister Doesn’t Want to Talk About. The Monthly, November. Rudd, K. 2009. The Global Financial Crisis. The Monthly, February. https://www.themonthly.com. au/issue/2009/february/1319602475/kevin-rudd/global-financial-crisis. Simmons, B.A. 1994. Who Adjusts? Domestic Sources of Foreign Economic Policy during the Interwar Years. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Streeck, W. 2014. Buying Time: The Delayed Crisis of Democratic Capitalism (trans. Patrick Camiller and David Fernbach). London, Brooklyn, NY: Verso. Swan, J. 2014. Economists Sceptical of Abbott’s ‘Budget Emergency’. Sydney Morning Herald, April 30. http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/economists-scepticalof-abbotts-budget-emergency-20140430-zr1uo.html. Taylor, L. 1995. PM Admits Gap Between Rich and Poor has Widened. The Australian, October 6. Treasurer. 2018. Australia’s Foreign Investment Policy, January 1. https://cdn.tspace.gov.au/upl oads/sites/82/2017/06/Australias-Foreign-Investment-Policy.pdf. Turnbull, M. 2017a. National Security Statement. Transcript, House of Representatives, Parliament House, Commonwealth of Australia, Canberra, June 13. http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/ download/library/prspub/3165114/upload_binary/3165114.pdf, https://www.pm.gov.au/media/ national-security-statement. Turnbull, M. 2017b. Keynote Address. IISS Shangri-La Dialogue 2017, June 2. https://www. iiss.org/en/events/shangri-la-dialogue/archive/shangri-la-dialogue-2017-4f77/opening-remarksand-keynote-address-fc1a/keynote-address—malcolm-turnbull-4bbe. van Onselen, L. 2018a. Why won’t Labor Commit to Raising Newstart? MacroBusiness, May 24. https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2018/05/wont-labor-commit-raising-newstart/. van Onselen, L. 2018b. John Howard was the King of ‘Big Government’. MacroBusiness, May 2. https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2018/05/john-howard-king-big-government/. Walsh, M. 1979. Poor Little Rich Country. Melbourne: Penguin. Whiteford, P. 2015. Inequality and Its Socioeconomic Impacts. Australian Economic Review 48 (1). Wong, P. 2017. Australia’s national interests in a time of disruption. Speech to the Lowy Institute, July 6. https://www.lowyinstitute.org/publications/penny-wong-australia-national-intereststime-disruption.

Tom Conley is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Government and International Relations at Griffith University in Queensland, Australia. His most recent publications include: “The Stretched Rubber Band: Banks, Houses, Debt and Vulnerability in Australia,” Australian Journal of Political Science 53(1), 2018, and “Crisis, What Crisis? The Political Economy of Vulnerability in Australia”, In E. van Acker, and G. Curran, (eds.) Understanding Government Business Relations in an Unpredictable World, Pearson, Frenchs Forest, 2019.

Impact of Globalization on Culture

Chapter 29

Neoliberalism Without Guarantees: The Glocality of Labor, Education, and Sport in Japan from the 1980s to the 2000s Koji Kobayashi and Steven J. Jackson

Abstract This chapter explores the impact of neoliberalism on Japanese culture and economy. Japan serves as a strategic site of investigation not only because it fervently embraced neoliberalism from the 1980s to the 2000s but also because it has offered its own unique approaches in response to perceived “problems” at different times. Focusing on the sites of labor, education, and sport, the chapter contends that the casualization of labor and individualization of society are increasingly manifested while the Japanese practice of selective incorporation, through glocalization, remains prominent. For instance, youth and women largely embraced neoliberal values and attitudes in order to challenge the dominant ideological construct of “salarymen ideals.” However, the new values, systems, and practices associated with individual freedom and individuality were largely resisted by the extant inherited frameworks and regimental practices, including life-time employment in major corporations, rote memorization in school education systems, and collective orientation in bukatsud¯o (extracurricular school activity). Consequently, we contend that neoliberalism is constantly susceptible to the glocal conditions, and therefore there are no guarantees, nor any predetermined outcomes, for dominance within a context of the particular. Thus, the socio-cultural effects of neoliberalization need to be carefully examined for their glocality.

Introduction Globalization has often been discussed with respect to its contrasting consequences of convergence and divergence, or homogenization and heterogenization. Within this discussion, neoliberalism, or neoliberalization, is generally accepted to complement the thesis of globalization as a force of convergence—that is, it has been largely K. Kobayashi (B) Otaru University of Commerce, 3-5-21 Midori, Otaru, Japan e-mail: [email protected] S. J. Jackson University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 I. Rossi (ed.), Challenges of Globalization and Prospects for an Inter-civilizational World Order, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44058-9_29

551

552

K. Kobayashi and S. J. Jackson

framed in a totalizing fashion to subsume the world under a uniform ideology characterized by individual freedom, the free market, and minimal state intervention. While the impediments to globalization have been widely acknowledged and analyzed over the years (e.g., Jackson and Andrews 1999; Robertson 1995; Scherer and Jackson 2010), the impediments to neoliberalization have not been scrutinized to the same extent in the literature, resulting in a rather skewed view of neoliberalization as an incontestable and linear pathway of convergence or homogenization. However, like globalization, neoliberalization is unequivocally subject to contestation and negotiation within specific economic, political, geographic, social, and cultural contexts (Giulianotti and Robertson 2009, 2012; Peck and Tickell 2002; Tapper and Kobayashi 2018). In contrast to a common debate on globalization which is often centered on the tensions between the global and the local, what makes it difficult to assess the processes of contestation and negotiation within neoliberalization is that it is constituted by multiple meanings, ideas, and assumptions. Thus, this chapter illustrates how different meanings and ideas of neoliberalization are manifested, contested, and/or negotiated, particularly within the context of Japan. Japan serves as a strategic site of investigation not only because it has embraced neoliberalism since the 1980s but also because it has offered its own unique approaches in response to perceived “problems” in Japanese society with respect to traditions, hierarchy, bureaucracy, collectivism, Confucianism, and the bushid¯o (way of the samurai) ethos. In previous literature, neoliberalism has often been linked with nation-states’ policies for deregulation, privatization, and the dismantling of social welfare systems (Brenner et al. 2010). Nonetheless, the political-economic rendering of neoliberalism has also been re-interpreted to account for its impact on society with respect to identity, lifestyle, family, community, education, sport, and migration (Allison 2013; Andrews and Silk 2012; Giulianotti and Robertson 2009, 2012; Hayashi 2011; Ong 2006; Takeyama 2010). This chapter offers analysis of the socio-cultural effects of neoliberalization at three key sites of society: labor, education, and sport. These sites were selected based on their centrality and interrelationships within Japanese traditional social systems which were extensively affected by the neoliberal policies of deregulation and individualization. Each of the three sites embraced the discourse of individualism as the underlying principle of neoliberalization, but not without resistance and negotiation by the status quo and those advocating for common sense and traditional ways of life. While previous research has identified the uniqueness of the political-economic formation of Japan as a “developmental state,” there has been little attention focused on the impact of, and resistance to, neoliberalization with respect to the extant cultural values, systems and practices. Consequently, in contrast to treating neoliberalism as a fully actualized regulatory framework, we contend that the socio-cultural effects of neoliberalization need to be closely examined for glocality (or the co-existence and interpenetration of the global and the local) in relation to the realities and actual practices of cultural-economic institutions such as labor, education, and sport. The chapter begins by outlining the political context of Japan and its adoption of neoliberal policies from the 1980s to the 2000s. Following this, analysis of the three sites is provided to examine how neoliberalization was manifested but also

29 Neoliberalism Without Guarantees …

553

resisted. Lastly, the discussion and conclusion summarize what can be learned from the different sites and synthesize the overall understandings of the socio-cultural effects of neoliberalization in Japan.

The Socio-Cultural Effects of Neoliberalization in Japan Japan has long been characterized by a unique set of cultural values, principles, and ways of life that contrast with a Western perspective. Chie Nakane’s (1970) seminal work on the Japanese way of social organization introduced such concepts as ie (traditional household system) in order to articulate how social values, structures and relations were constructed differently within Japanese families as well as other organizations compared to Western counterparts. For instance, ie was considered responsible for generating and reinforcing values and practices of collectivism, senior–junior hierarchies and the ringi system of decision-making.1 The notion of ie was then widely applied by subsequent scholars of Japanese management, who identified its distinctive practices such as lifetime employment, seniority-based promotion, enterprise unions, consensus decision-making, and keiretsu (intercorporate network) (Bhappu 2000; Lincoln and Kalleberg 1985; Lincoln and Nakata 1997). In this context, the discourse of Japanese uniqueness, often called “nihonjinron,” was used as a rationale for framing a particular understanding of the remarkable rise of the post-war Japanese economy (Yoshino 1992). However, the nationalist politics of nihonjinron were largely dismissed during the subsequent economic downturn of the 1990s when the politics of neoliberalism emerged to take a stronghold within Japanese society. While contested in its meanings, neoliberalism is commonly understood as “the ‘free-market’ ideological doctrine” (Brenner et al. 2010, p. 183) which was inspired by the writings of renowned economists, Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman. The doctrine was then adopted and put into practice by politicians—such as Margaret Thatcher in the U.K. and Ronald Reagan in the U.S.A.—during the course of dramatic political-economic transformations in the 1980s. Following this trend, the Japanese government, led by Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone (1982–1987), embraced neoliberalism when it deployed the “small government” idea and privatized previously publicly-owned entities such as Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation in 1985 and Japan National Railways in 1987 (Tsukamoto 2012; Hill and Fujita 2000). Nakasone was particularly concerned of the previous governments’ primary focus on the economic growth and associated negative impacts—including the issue of kar¯oshi (death from overwork)—on labor, education, and society. The culturaleconomic policies and legislations established under his administration were limited in their effects due to the newness of the neoliberal ideas yet planted seeds of greater changes in the 1990s and the 2000s.2 In the 1990s, Japan underwent what is often referred to as “the lost decade” due to a severe recession and increased rates of bankruptcy and unemployment. This raised questions about the mythologized superiority of “Japan’s salarymencentered ‘enterprise society’, where group-oriented values and ethics such as hard

554

K. Kobayashi and S. J. Jackson

work (kinben), perseverance (nintai) and group harmony (ky¯och¯osei) are idealized” (Takeyama 2010, p. 234). “The lost decade” was widely perceived as a crisis of the Japanese economy and identity, with politicians advocating for neoliberalism as the only answer, not just to revive the economy, but also to solve a range of social issues emerging at the time. As Takayama (2007) asserts, “the crisis narrative is constructed in a way that legitimizes a certain approach to the alleged crisis as the solution” (p. 427, emphasis in original). In response to the crisis, Prime Minister Ry¯utaro Hashimoto (1996–1998) promoted the ideas of individual freedom of choice and “individual responsibility” (jiko sekinin) at the core of neoliberal reform (Allison 2013; Hayashi 2011). Specifically, Hashimoto’s neoliberal policy was carried out through what was known as the “six reforms” (roku dai kaikaku), including radical changes in: governmental administration, fiscal structure, financial system, economy, social security, and education (Osawa 2000). With the Japanese economy showing signs of recovery at the beginning of twentyfirst century, the discourse of neoliberalism was further advanced by Prime Minister Jun’ichiro Koizumi (2001–2006). Koizumi was labeled by the mass media as a “neoliberal savior” of the nation from the recession of the 1990s and known for his leadership in privatizing the Japanese postal services (Hayashi 2011). Notably, it was also during this period of neoliberal reform when levels of inequality gained widespread public recognition resulting in the discourse of kakusa shakai (gap society) (Allison 2013; Edwards 2014). There are contested views on whether neoliberalization was advanced, stalled, or even reversed by the successors of Koizumi’s administration. For instance, the most influential economic policy after Koizumi, known as “Abenomics,” which was dubbed after Prime Minister Shinz¯o Abe (2006– 2007 and 2012–present), consisted of “a mix of both Keynesian and neoliberal remedies” (Shibata 2017, p. 400). Thus, our analysis focuses on the period from the 1980s to the 2000s when Japan’s political economy was most radically neoliberalized. While a brief overview of neoliberal reforms in Japan may suggest an undisrupted and steady development of neoliberalization from the 1980s to the 2000s, it does not provide a full picture of its effects on Japanese society especially in relation to culture, identity, and social relations as well as the extent of neoliberal transformation of traditional values, systems, and practices. Here, we allude to Stuart Hall’s (1980) notion of “no guarantees” as a way of understanding that there is “no necessary correspondence” (p. 136) between the multifaceted discourse of neoliberalism and its actual effects. Drawing upon a “neoliberalism without guarantees” approach directs our attention away from the application of predetermined outcomes toward the analysis of (in)determinacy that “is transferred from the genetic origins of class or other social forces in a structure to the effects or results of a practice” (Hall 1985, p. 95). As such, it is important to acknowledge that neoliberalism, like any other globally circulated ideology, is subject to contextual differences and influences emanating from particular institutional, political-economic, and socio-cultural formations.

29 Neoliberalism Without Guarantees …

555

Brenner and Theodore (2002) introduced the term “actually existing neoliberalism” in order to similarly emphasize “the contextual embeddedness of neoliberal restructuring projects” (p. 351, emphasis in original). The concept was therefore proposed to recognize the path-dependent nature of institutions that continue their regimental practices while embracing market-oriented restructuring policies and processes. In other words, neoliberalism has been “glocalized,” or articulated and re-articulated differently across a variety of times and spaces (Brenner and Theodore 2002; Jessop 2000). Hence, rather than focusing on neoliberalism as a fully actualized regulatory framework with fixed consequences attached to market economy and individualism, Peck and Tickell (2002) insist on the use of neoliberalization as a term to attend to precisely how this is an ongoing market-driven transformative process. It is in this sense that Brenner and Theodore (2002) argue “an adequate understanding of contemporary neoliberalization processes requires not only a grasp of their politico-ideological foundations but also, just as importantly, a systematic inquiry into their multifarious institutional forms, their developmental tendencies, their diverse sociopolitical effects, and their multiple contradictions” (p. 353). As such, contestations and negotiations through neoliberalization deserve more analysis because it is where “struggles over the future shape of capitalist social relations are currently being fought” (Brenner and Theodore 2002, p. 361). In relation to the Japanese context, previous literature argued that Japan’s adaptation of neoliberalization could be distinguished in terms of its selective incorporation of Keynesian and Schumpeterian ideas as informed by several key factors, including country-specific historical traditions and exigencies (Hill and Fujita 2000); level of state supervision in managing perceived risks (Shibata 2008); and, the enduring importance of the post-war national development regulation (Tsukamoto 2012). Nevertheless, these studies are centrally focused on state or municipal policies based on the assumed uniqueness of a “developmental state,” or government interventionist approach, which was considered prevalent in East Asian nations. In contrast, this chapter attempts to explore the effects of, and resistance to, neoliberalization within the cultural realm, specifically focusing on labor, education, and sport. We suggest that indigenization of a foreign ideology is nothing new to Japan. Robertson (1995) has explored how Japan has localized foreign ideas and practices over many centuries and indeed based his theory of glocalization on this genealogy of cultural hybridization (see also Kobayashi 2016). According to Robertson (1995), glocalization denotes “the simultaneity and the interpenetration of what are conventionally called the global and the local, or – in more abstract vein – the universal and the particular” (p. 30). Japan’s glocalization of dominant foreign cultures, for instance, is associated with the historical adoption of cultural and political practices such as governmental policies, religions, philosophies, arts, and music from China (particularly from the Tang Dynasty (618–907)). During the time of modernization, this type of cultural hybridization was practiced by the Meiji government (1868– 1912) which adopted European (especially French, British and German) systems, policies, and technologies to reconstruct the nation as a modern, economic, and military superpower. As Giulianotti and Robertson (2007) assert, the principle philosophy of Japanese modernization was “encapsulated in the implicitly glocalist aphorism,

556

K. Kobayashi and S. J. Jackson

wakon y¯osai (‘Japanese spirit, Western learning’)” (p. 180, emphasis and macron added). In this context, it is fair to assert that neoliberalism is equally subject to this historical practice and process of re-interpretation, indigenization, and hybridization. As Brenner and Theodore (2002) contend, neoliberalization generates dialectical forces of “the (partial) destruction of extant institutional arrangements and political compromises through market-oriented reform initiatives; and the (tendential) creation of a new infrastructure for market-oriented economic growth, commodification, and the rule of capital” (p. 362, emphasis in original). Thus, there is a need to closely examine and understand how inherited dominant values, systems, and practices in a particular locality are challenged or transformed as well as how new ideas and discourses are adopted but also re-interpreted to suit the needs of local actors and institutions. This approach is therefore consistent with the examination of a “duality of glocality” (or the co-existence of convergence and divergence) in regard to “the varied way in which nations implement promarket policies” (Giulianotti and Robertson 2009, p. 65). We now turn to the analysis of labor, education, and sport through which such glocal processes of neoliberal destruction and creation are more specifically examined.

Labor Within the context of labor, neoliberalization in Japan was aimed at transforming the work regime to promote labor mobility, contractual work, and individual freedom of choices (Allison 2013). This was epitomized by the legislation, the Worker Dispatch Law (R¯od¯osha haken h¯o) established under Nakasone administration in 1985, and the associated discourse of freelancers or “freeters” (“fur¯ıt¯a” derived from “free” in English and “arbeiter” in German). From the post-war period, the notion of “salaryman” was introduced to support a career path for new university graduates to immediately enter the workforce, with the expectation of lifetime employment and senioritybased promotions at the same company. The discourse of freeters was marked by a recognition of the emergent group of university graduates who opted out of this rigid corporate career path of salaryman. In 1991, the Ministry of Labor recognized the significance of freeters and defined the term as “part-time workers between the ages of fifteen and thirty-four years, who were unmarried women and men expected to hold their jobs for less than five years” (Hayashi 2011, p. 181). The movement was reinforced during the 1990s through Hashimoto’s further deregulation of labor policies and privatization of social services. Most importantly, these neoliberal policies were supported and underpinned by Hashimoto’s insistence of individual responsibility (Allison 2013). The rise of discourses of individual responsibility endorsed by politicians and corporate “Japan Inc.” was mirrored by the increased desire for individual freedom among youth who chose to prioritize their leisure/lifestyle over rigid corporate careers offered by the post-war work regime. The casualization of labor was further promoted by Koizumi’s neoliberalism in the 2000s with an emphasis on an extended capacity of dispatched (haken) work

29 Neoliberalism Without Guarantees …

557

(Allison 2013). By 2008, it was estimated that a third of the Japanese workforce was contract, dispatched, or temporary workers (Hayashi 2011; Kubota 2011). What was also intriguing about Koizumi’s neoliberalism was that it was aimed at the destruction of Japan’s traditional institutional arrangements, which were framed as impediments to the growth of the Japanese economy in a globalizing world. In other words, his policies provided an anti-traditional discourse through which “the boundaries of the normative standards of ‘Japaneseness’ are being negotiated” (Takeda 2008, p. 157). On the other hand, the creation of new values and norms based on individual freedom of choice for both workplace and flexibility in working patterns and styles continued to be used as justification of further neoliberalization. One of the emblematic examples of Koizumi’s anti-traditionalist policies was the relaxation of the regulations that favored the conventional gender roles in which men work outside the home as “bread winners” and women stay at home as “care givers” (Takeda 2008).3 The neoliberal discourse was therefore mobilized to challenge “the ‘outdated’ idea of hegemonic masculinity in post-war Japan” (Takeda 2008, p. 161). In 2002, the Government’s White Paper titled: “Structural Reform and the Everyday Life of the Family” (Kazoku no Kurashi to K¯oz¯o Kaikaku) proposed measures to reduce the sense of burden felt by working parents (Takeda 2008). These measures were essentially targeted at increasing child-care professionals and community support toward child rearing. The policy was set in response to the decline in the post-war model of “the three-generation family” “where care of children and the elderly was carried out by housewives’ unpaid work, as the ‘hidden capital of the Japanese economy’” (Takeda 2008, p. 162). In this sense, the feminist movement toward greater gender equality at work was intrinsically linked with the national political agenda, and neoliberal discourses of individual freedom and responsibility in particular, when addressing long-standing issues of the patriarchal structures and practices in Japan (Osawa 2000; Takeda 2008). Despite the rhetoric of neoliberal transformations proposed by different governments at different times, the Japanese labor system is far from being completely transformed. Thelen and Kume (1999) use the term “resiliency” to describe the largely unchanged nature and traditional forms of industrial and labor relations after Hashimoto’s neoliberalization of the 1990s. For instance, Thelen and Kume (1999) point out the enduring uniqueness of Japanese labor relations, including the continued existence of decentralized enterprise unions as opposed to industry-wide unions that are more common in Western nations (see also Kobayashi et al. 2010). Similarly, they insist on the resiliency in the employment system by referring to a number of sources including: (a) Morishima’s (1995) survey of 1618 firms which found that only 10.8% of the firms were committed to full reform of the traditional system; (b) Nikkeiren’s (Japan Federation of Employers’ Associations) survey of 255 firms in 1998 which found that only 8.3% had moved away from lifetime employment; and (c) the Ministry of Labor’s survey which found that 87% of the firms that reformed the wage system applied these changes only to a small number of managers and white-collar employees. This trend of resiliency in Japanese labor practices was also confirmed in a more recent study by Miyamoto (2017). Drawing on the nation-wide surveys of approximately 1,000 companies with more than 200 employees in 2004

558

K. Kobayashi and S. J. Jackson

and 2008, Miyamoto (2017) found the endurance of lifetime employment and gradual adoption of merit-based salary systems. Most strikingly, there was an increase in the proportion of listed companies that were “maintaining” lifetime employment (from 71.8% in 2004 to 83.3% in 2008) while those that were “abandoning” it decreased (from 8.7 and 4.2%, respectively). In short, the transformation of the employment system has been partial at best, and the shift away from lifetime employment appeared more untenable than the trend of wage system reform. Likewise, despite Koizumi’s policies to support child-rearing by professionals and community networks, improved conditions for the female workforce have not been realized for many, while the gender imbalance with respect to the time spent for housework duties remains high, with a ratio of ten to one for women and men (Tsuya et al. 2005). With the persistence of a patriarchal model of social security in Japan, Takeda (2008) contends that there is a certain perception that a discourse of gender equality is posing “a ‘double burden’ of work and family” (p. 165) on women as they are now expected to work full-time and still stay on top of housework without much support from their family, community, or professional services. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and interviews with 40 women between ages 24 and 35, a more recent study by Mirza (2016) confirms that young Japanese women “very often felt trapped between the new corporate rhetoric claiming to accommodate them, the narrative on economic difficulties, the rise of a flexible work regime, and the pressure to have a successful marriage and take care of children” (p. 35). As such, a seemingly triumphant rhetoric of neoliberalization may undermine the harsh realities of female workers who continue to struggle with the largely unchanged, inherited frameworks and regimes of labor in Japan.

Education Like the labor system reform policies introduced in the 1990s, similar reforms were undertaken in the education sector based on the neoliberal principles of individual freedom and responsibility as well as individuality (kosei) (Cave 2001). The motivation behind these changes was consistent with that of the labor system reforms—there was a perceived crisis of Japanese identity or Japaneseness. Indeed, the crisis was heightened by, and articulated with, an intense media focus on school dropouts, bullying, violence, and classroom breakdown (gakky¯u h¯okai) as emerging problems of youth (Takayama 2007). The problems were framed to be rooted in traditional Japanese education, which was criticized as “being allegedly too uniform and rigid, too focused on the goal of university entrance examinations, and too concerned with inculcating knowledge at the expense of self-motivated enquiry and creative thought” (Cave 2001, p. 175). Here, neoliberal ideas of individual freedom and individuality were promoted as a way of enhancing such “self-motivated enquiry and creative thought.”

29 Neoliberalism Without Guarantees …

559

In response to the perceived crisis of the traditional education systems, in 1998 the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (MEXT) introduced education reforms centered on the concept of yutori, or “relaxation, latitude or more room for growth” (Takayama 2007, p. 423) (formally implemented in 2002). Through this reform, the national curriculum standards (gakush¯u shid¯o y¯ory¯o) were amended with a reduction of school days from 6 days to 5 days a week, a reduction of instructional hours and the introduction of a less-prescribed, integrated study period (s¯og¯o gakush¯u no jikan). According to Takayama (2007), the aim of the reform was to “shift the focus onto building children’s ability to learn and think independently and to de-emphasize rote memorization as well as reduce pressure in children’s lives” (p. 423). Therefore, the yutori education reform was said to replace a traditional mode of learning through disciplines and a teacher-centered environment with a more “humanized” mode of learning through a student-centered environment. As Takayama (2007) contends, the education reform was also used to align with the “global curricular orientation” set by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) whose aim was to promote learning of “know-why, know-how and know-who” rather than “know-what” (p. 431). During the 2000s, the alignment of Japanese education with “global standards” advanced and was accompanied with an emphasis on English language competency as a highly desired educational outcome. In this context, neoliberalization of education meant that “each individual is seen to be responsible for developing through lifelong learning the knowledge and skills required to be fully employable in the flexible job market of the knowledge economy” (Kubota 2011, p.249). In other words, a discourse of individual responsibility—rather than individual freedom or individuality—was brought to the forefront of neoliberal education reforms to signify the need for youth to acquire and develop relevant knowledge and skills to succeed in a neoliberal world order. As Edwards (2014) notes, “[b]usiness leaders were often quoted as saying that successful Japanese workers of the future would need to be independent, self-motivated, self-directed, and not Japanese, with ‘Japanese’ serving as an overdetermined placeholder to denote a range of stereotypical qualities associated with pre-bust ‘Japan Inc.’” (pp. 447–448, emphasis in original). It is in this sense that learning English is viewed as a means of “linguistic instrumentalism” which reinforces the perceived importance of English as a de facto lingua franca for global business communication (Kubota 2011). In 2003, the MEXT released a policy document titled: “Action Plan to Cultivate Japanese with English Abilities” which encouraged “all Japanese people to aim at achieving a level of English commensurate with average world standards based on objective indicators such as STEP, TOEFL, and TOEIC” (MEXT 2003 in Kubota 2011, p. 250). Despite the multiple emphases of neoliberalization put forward by different governments at different times, the Japanese education system is far from being completely transformed. For instance, the public was very critical of the yutori education reform and consequently the reform was substantially undone in the following review period (Takayama 2007). While individual responsibility and individuality were promoted by the education reforms, the realities of classroom teaching have meant that the dominant mechanisms of rote memorization, collective orientation,

560

K. Kobayashi and S. J. Jackson

and teacher-centric environment continue (Cave 2001). Likewise, Kubota (2011) argues that linguistic instrumentalism, underpinned by putative needs of the neoliberal global labor market, was less than successful given the realities of Japanese workers who did not see the benefit of English language proficiency for employment and career advancement. Kubota (2011) also points out that the realities may be even harsher for Japanese women. For instance, there was a trend of women learning English in order to “escape a male-dominated work environment and obtain better career opportunities” (Kubota 2011, p. 254). However, many quickly realized that the investment in English language proficiency was not linked to career progression and upward mobility. Kubota (2011) also identified that work that required a high level of English competency was typically outsourced to a casualized workforce such as dispatched (haken) workers who were predominantly women. In Terasawa’s (2011) quantitative study on the value of English language for Japanese citizens with a sample size of 2507 participants, it was found that over 80% valued English language skills “never,” “hardly,” or “a little” for their jobs while it was suggested that women, especially of the upper class, tended to learn English more as a hobby than as a tool for career building. Hence, the neoliberal rhetoric of English competency as a means of “linguistic instrumentalism” falls short on realizing the potential of young female workers becoming globally employable talents and changing the male-dominated world of business executives in Japan.

Sport Sport in Japan is a significant cultural institution that has been affected by neoliberalization since the 1990s. In particular, the emerging popularity of soccer (or association football) around the turn of twenty-first century represented a moment for Japan—and other East Asian nations more widely—to re-consider and renew a sense of national identity in the face of globalization and regionalization (Cho 2013). In the late 1990s when the prolonged recession was exacerbating the decline of Japanese self-confidence, soccer provided “a new opportunity for showing national pride” (Horne and Manzenreiter 2008, p. 367). Specifically, a professional league for men’s soccer, called J-League, was established in 1993 and subsequently expanded from one division with 10 teams to two divisions with 26 teams in 1999. Following the initial success of the professional league, the men’s Japanese national team attracted an unprecedented level of public attention during the qualifying round for the 1998 World Cup in France, “producing some of the highest television audience rates in the history of Japanese broadcasting” (Horne and Manzenreiter 2008, p. 367). The status of soccer as the fastest growing sport was further solidified when Japan co-hosted the 2002 World Cup with South Korea and its national team advanced to the knockout stage for the first time in history. Thus, although Japan has historically embraced sport through modernization, it was soccer through which Japan was able to claim a truly global outlook and status as a “sporting nation.” In parallel with the rise of

29 Neoliberalism Without Guarantees …

561

neoliberal politics aligned with the Hashimoto and Koizumi’s administrations, the development of soccer was particularly resonant with, or susceptible to, the language and rhetoric of new attitudes, beliefs, and values associated with globalization and neoliberalism. Given its context of development, it is no surprise that soccer came to signify discourses of neoliberalism with respect to individuality, individual freedom, and individual responsibility (Yamashita and Saka 2002). For instance, as in the cases of labor and education, the empowerment of women as part of a neoliberal discourse was also evident in the rise of soccer’s popularity. Unlike baseball and sumo which were not participated in or viewed widely by women, soccer provided a far greater degree of inclusion of women’s games. In particular, the establishment of a semi-professional league for women’s soccer, called the L-League, in 1994, and the subsequent glory of the women’s national team winning the 2011 FIFA World Cup in Germany brought women’s sport to the forefront as the face of “new Japan.” As Kelly (2013) notes, “the prominent achievement of the women’s team is a case in which sport (as baseball and sumo) no longer reflects Japan society’s dominant gender ideology but rather (as soccer) is unsettling these norms as it demonstrates an alternative future” (pp. 1236– 1237). As such, women’s soccer epitomized a site of change and struggle in sport within the context of neoliberalization. As a former L-League player, Elise Edwards (2014) observed that “[i]n coaching publications, journalists’ recaps of the weekend’s matches, and even locker room discussions, ideal players and model performances were most commonly infused with the words kosei (individuality), koseiteki (individualistic), and kojin (individuals)” (p. 439). From her research on female soccer players and coaches in Japan, Edwards (2014) found that many of those she interviewed described soccer as “more ‘free’ (jiy¯u) in comparison to baseball and other more ‘traditional’ Japanese sports that were ‘stiff’ (katai) and ‘serious’ (majime)” (p. 449). As was evident in labor and education, an increased sense of individual freedom was accompanied by an emphasis on individual responsibility that held “centrality and currency in the world of soccer around the turn of the 21st century” (Edwards 2014, p. 438). Similar findings were echoed by Miller (2013) who investigated a university basketball club through interviews and observations. Specifically, Miller (2013) suggested the emergence of new expectations of sport coaches for student-athletes to embody “independent thinking” (against collectivist thinking) and a focus on “performance-based hierarchy and leadership” (against seniority-based hierarchy). However, Edwards (2014) also questions the extent to which the rhetoric of neoliberalization in terms of individual freedom and individuality was actualized in practice. By and large, Edwards (2014) confirms that the players were still pressured to conform to the status quo underpinned by collectivism and traditional norms. For instance, drawing on Kim’s (2009) study, Edwards (2014) reiterates that “even though coaches and technical directors at the JFA [Japanese Football Association] emphasize individuality, “team harmony” (sh¯udan no wa) is ultimately reinforced” (p. 440). Similarly, the seniority-based hierarchy represented by senpai-k¯ohai (senior–junior) relationships was perceived to persist in the L-League despite the discouragement of the traditional practice. Thus, primarily based on interviews, observations, and

562

K. Kobayashi and S. J. Jackson

personal experience as a former player, Edwards (2014) concludes that “despite the rhetoric of free will and creative independence that dominated so much of soccer discourse in the late 1990s and early 2000s, the actual experience of soccer for those who played at elite levels was in many ways overwhelmed by regimentation, spatial circumscription, surveillance, and few opportunities to make individual decisions” (p. 453). The resiliency of collectivism, seniority-based hierarchy, and traditional norms can be explained by the glocality, or the quality of wakon y¯osai, of sport in Japan. In the process of its adoption as a Western cultural institution and practice around the end of the twentieth century, sport was significantly localized in Japan—“infused with traditional cultural principles, mobilized to cultivate nationalistic attitudes and developed primarily as school physical education to instil militaristic disciplines within the body and minds of youth” (Kobayashi 2012, p. 730). It is within this context of development that sport came to signify the traditional values, virtues, and morals of bushid¯o.4 After the Second World War, youth sport was largely constituted by an extracurricular school activity, called bukatsud¯o, serving as one of the most potent sites where traditional principles, disciplines, and practices are reproduced. A number of scholars have described how bushid¯o-inspired values and principles were reinforced and internalized through participation in bukatsud¯o (Kumate and Falcous 2015; Miller 2011). The disciplinary and hierarchical characteristics of bukatsud¯o have also been linked with the (re)production of bio-political subjectivity and practice for loyal and hardworking salarymen. For instance, conducting ethnographic research on rowing clubs at Japanese universities, McDonald (2009) suggests that Japanese school-affiliated club sport “provides a blueprint for the reproduction of a particular masculine identity that will maintain its capital in the field of salary-man employment after graduation” (p. 439). While the community sport model outside of school has emerged in soccer and is certainly contesting the dominant form of youth sport provision and participation (Horne and Manzenreiter 2008), bukatsud¯o remains a significant space in youth soccer, not to mention the rest of youth sports and recreation.

Theoretical Contributions and Implications While employed by some (cf., Andrews et al. 2014; Brenner and Theodore 2002; Jessop 2000; Tsukamoto 2012), neoliberalism, and neoliberalization, have not been fully linked with, or comprehensively examined through, the theoretical lenses of glocalization or the glocality. The work of Giulianotti and Robertson (2009) was instrumental in laying the theoretical foundation of the relationship between neoliberalism and glocalization, asserting the importance of identifying “the political contestation and cultural diversity of the ‘free market’” (p. 66). Giulianotti and Robertson’s (2009) analysis focused primarily on the national differences in the level of neoliberal impacts of privatization, economic inequalities, corporatization, and increased player mobility on football/soccer. In contrast, our chapter focused on the context

29 Neoliberalism Without Guarantees …

563

of Japan and revealed: (a) the ways in which the discourse of individualism was promoted by politicians as the underlying principle of free-market policies in order to counter the perceived problems of traditional systems and norms; and, (b) that despite their pervasiveness, these discourses remained highly contested in practice. As Giulianotti and Robertson (2012) point out, some scholars have equated globalization with neoliberalism, thereby underplaying the existence of multiple ideological forces and their interpenetrations within a historical process of globalization. In the same vein, the permeation of individualism, accompanied by the adoption of neoliberalism, needs to be located within a wider historical context of Westernization, modernization, and glocalization since the Meiji era (1868–1912) in Japan. Accordingly, what is evident from the analysis here is that the political deployment of neoliberalism from the 1980s to the 2000s accelerated the legitimization of individualism—or the discourses of individual freedom, individual responsibility, and individuality—across a range of cultural-economic institutions. The relationships between the policies and intended outcomes during each era of neoliberalization are summarized in Table 1. What is also important to note is that the accelerated discourse of individualism was paralleled by, and closely associated with, the internalization of “global standards,” which was particularly notable in the 2000s. In this context, the global standards were articulated with the attainment of gender equality at work and the use of English language as lingua franca. For instance, women and freeters’ movements for flexibility in working patterns and styles were spurred by the same emphasis of individual freedom and responsibility that were endorsed by the Hashimoto and Koizumi political administrations. In this sense, the concurrent emergence of discourses of individualism, gender equality, and English language as lingua franca were inextricably interwoven and mutually reinforcing during the time of radical neoliberalization in Japan. We also identified that the increased cultural-political rhetoric of greater individual freedom, individual responsibility, and individuality, prompted by neoliberalization, were continually challenged in actual practice. Table 2 highlights the values, systems, and practices that were “partially” destroyed and “tendentially” created by neoliberalization across the cultural-economic sites of labor, education, and sport. The list is certainly not exhaustive or complete, yet it provides an informative picture of the co-existence of the old and the new. For example, none of the “old” practices were completely destroyed while the “new” practices came short of completely permeating or transforming the extant institutions and traditions. In addition, the degree of transformation or resilience was seen to vary amongst each value, system and practice, thereby pointing to the complex glocal conditions of neoliberalization within the socio-cultural dimension. For example, in the field of sport, soccer was one of the rising popular activities that was much more affected by the discourses of individuality and independent thinking than traditionally prominent sports such as baseball and sumo. Moreover, the practice of gender discrimination was more likely to be challenged and discouraged across a variety of sports than the collective orientation and seniority-based hierarchies (Edwards 2014; McDonald 2009).

• Privatization of Japan National Railways and other previously public entities • Act for Establishment of Special Council on Education (Rinji ky¯oiku shingikai secchi h¯o) • Worker Dispatch Law (R¯od¯osha haken h¯o)

• To shift the focus of the government • To restore the Japanese economy • To dismantle the Japanese from economic development to and self-confidence through the “six traditional political systems and national security and cultural reforms” (roku dai kaikaku) attain the global standards nationalism

Intended outcomes

• Revision of the national curriculum • Privatization of postal services and standards (Gakush¯u shid¯o y¯ory¯o) public corporations • Basic Law for a Gender Equal • Action Plan to Cultivate “Japanese Society (Danjo ky¯od¯o sankaku kihon with English Abilities” (“Eigo ga h¯o) tsukaeru nihonjin” no ikusei no tame • Amendments to Worker Dispatch no k¯od¯o keikaku) Law (to widen its application) • Amendments to Worker Dispatch Law (to further widen its application)

• Small government • Free market • Deregulation

2001–2006

Key cultural-economic policies or legislations

• Small government • Free market • Deregulation

1996–1998

1982–1987

• Small government • Free market • Deregulation

Koizumi government

Core political principles

Hashimoto government

Periods

Nakasone government

Table 1 The principles, policies, and intended outcomes of neoliberalism promoted by the Nakasone, Hashimoto, and Koizumi governments

564 K. Kobayashi and S. J. Jackson

• “Salarymen” and rigid career pathways • Emphasis on gender and seniority in work roles and positions

Practice

• Teacher-centered learning systems • Curricula centered on Japanese language competency and the preservation of national values and culture

• Emphasis on rote memorization and collective orientation of activities

Practice

Uniformity Obedience Hard work (kinben) Group harmony (ky¯och¯osei)

System

• • • •

• Human resource systems based on lifetime employment • Seniority-based promotions • The system of social security based on “the three-generation family”

System

Education Value

• • • •

Labor

Company as ie (traditional household system) Hard work (kinben) Perseverance (nintai) Group harmony (ky¯och¯osei)

Value/System/Practice “Partial” destruction of the old

Value

Sites Individual freedom Individual responsibility Gender equality Global standards

Individual freedom Individual responsibility Individuality (kosei) Global standards

(continued)

• Emphasis on independent thinking and creative activities

• Student-centered learning systems • Curricula centered on English language competency and the attainment of global standards

• • • •

• “Freeters” and increased labor mobility • Emphasis on greater individual responsibility and gender equality at work

• The emergence of the haken industry • Merit-based promotions • Systematic incentives for Women to participate in full-time positions

• • • •

“Tendential” creation of the new

Table 2 Neoliberal destruction and creation of values, systems, and practices from the 1980s to the 2000s across labor, education, and sport in Japan

29 Neoliberalism Without Guarantees … 565

Value/System/Practice “Partial” destruction of the old

• Bushid¯o • Obedience • Team harmony (sh¯udan no wa)

• Bukatsud¯o and the centrality of school-centered participations in sport and physical activities • Preservation of baseball and sumo as signifying systems of national pastimes and masculine identities

• Sacrifice of the self for the team • Emphasis on the senpai-k¯ohai (senior–junior) hierarchy in relationships, leadership, and selection

Value

System

Practice

Sites

Sport

Table 2 (continued) Individual freedom Individual responsibility Individuality (kosei) Gender equality

• Adoption of individualistic (koseiteki) playstyles • Emphasis on the performance-based relationships, leadership, and selection

• Flexible and multiple modes of participation in sport and physical activities • Development of soccer as a signifying system of the global status and greater gender equality

• • • •

“Tendential” creation of the new

566 K. Kobayashi and S. J. Jackson

29 Neoliberalism Without Guarantees …

567

In sum, while there is clear evidence of neoliberalization, the nature and degree of its penetration varied, was not guaranteed, and was often resisted.

Conclusion Neoliberalism has different meanings, ideas, and emphases within particular contexts depending upon when and where the ideology is adopted and re-interpreted by specific cultural-political actors and institutions. While there is general consensus that it has a “free market” doctrine at the core of its ideological construct, its effects on socio-cultural forms are variously contested and articulated. Close examination of the cultural-economic sites of labor, education, and sport in Japan reveals that neoliberalization was commonly deployed to legitimize discourses of individual freedom, individual responsibility, and individuality. The analysis of the historical adoption of neoliberal politics by the Nakasone administration in the 1980s, the Hashimoto administration in the 1990s, and the Koizumi administration in the 2000s confirms that there has been a steady progression of neoliberalization in terms of establishment and reinforcement of national policies on casualization of labor, educational reform, and alignment with “global standards.” Essentially, these policies were aimed at challenging the status quo, common sense, and traditional ways of life by framing them as “problems” and unfit for cultivating the next generation of Japanese workforce in an increasingly competitive global economy. However, despite the pervasiveness of political rhetoric about the need for neoliberalization to save the national economy and restore national confidence, the realities of cultural-economic and educational actors and organizations have remained far from being completely transformed. The selective incorporation through glocalization, that Japan has been historically renowned for, is clearly evident in the nation-state’s encounter with neoliberalism. For instance, the discourses of neoliberalism brought an emphasis of individualism and individuality to workplace, school, and sport, thereby enabling youth to aspire to a flexible career trajectory and advancement based on merit rather than on seniority. Moreover, both Hashimoto and Koizumi governments adopted policies to promote gender equality and encourage women to participate in traditionally male-dominant areas, sectors, and job positions. In this sense, youth and women largely embraced neoliberal values and attitudes in order to challenge the dominant ideological construct of “salarymen ideals” that had been articulated in relation to lingering traditional norms and principles. However, the new values, systems, and practices associated with individual freedom and individuality were largely resisted by the extant inherited frameworks and regimental practices including life-time employment in major corporations, rote memorization in school education systems, and collective orientation in bukatsud¯o. Furthermore, cultural-economic institutions conveniently applied the concept of “individual responsibility” with the effect of marginalizing and excluding those who did not conform to the status quo and social

568

K. Kobayashi and S. J. Jackson

norms. For instance, freeters and haken workers continue to be disadvantaged in social security and tax systems at the expense of their own “individual freedom of choices.” Thus, neoliberalization has produced sites of contestation between discursive ideals of neoliberalism and continued salience of traditional regimes and practices. This also points to the co-existence or hybrid form of newly cultivated values (such as individuality, global standards, and gender equality) and traditional ones (such as collectivism, seniority-based hierarchies, and structural rigidity) in contemporary Japanese society. Consequently, we contend that neoliberalism is constantly susceptible to the glocal conditions, and therefore there are no guarantees, nor any predetermined outcomes, for dominance within a context of the particular. Rather than approaching neoliberalism as an all-encompassing, totalizing ideological force, the socio-cultural effects of neoliberalization need to be carefully examined not only for its contestations and the extent of the destruction caused to the inherited frameworks but also for the creation of new conditions, or its glocality, emanating from such contestations. Notes 1. The ringi system refers to a traditional decision-making process through which organizational decisions are formed by group participation and consensus. This is often viewed as a bottom-up approach yet criticized for its unclarity and diffusion of responsibility (Lincoln and Kalleberg 1985). 2. These policies and legislations include the Act for Establishment of Special Council on Education (Rinji ky¯oiku shingikai secchi h¯o), which served as a basis for the development of yutori education in the 1990s, and the Worker Dispatch Law (R¯od¯osha haken h¯o), which was further extended in its scope during the 1990s and the 2000s. 3. In Japan, the political intervention into gender inequality can be traced back to the mid-1990s when “a set of remarkably broad initiatives by the Japanese government to promote gender equality, with what seemed like an unprecedented level of feminist involvement in policy-making, culminating in the passing of the Basic Law for a Gender Equal Society (danjo ky¯od¯o sankaku kihon h¯o)” (Kano 2011, p. 42). Promotion of gender equality was also an important theme of Hashimoto’s neoliberal reform (Osawa 2000). This highlights parallel movements of neoliberalism and feminism in the Japanese context. 4. According to Kusaka (2006), bushid¯o is informed by “an emphasis on the moral excellence of Confucianism, a fighting spirit which was influenced partly by Zen-Buddhism, and a consciousness of shame” (p. 21).

29 Neoliberalism Without Guarantees …

569

References Allison, A. 2013. Precarious Japan. Durham: Duke University Press. Andrews, D.L., C. Batts, and M. Silk. 2014. Sport, glocalization and the new Indian middle class. International Journal of Cultural Studies 17 (3): 259–276. Andrews, D.L., and M.L. Silk (eds.). 2012. Sport and Neoliberalism: Politics, Consumption, and Culture. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Bhappu, A.D. 2000. The Japanese Family: An Institutional Logic for Japanese Corporate Networks and Japanese Management. The Academy of Management Review 25 (2): 409–415. Brenner, N., and N. Theodore. 2002. Cities and the Geographies of “Actually Existing Neoliberalism”. Antipode 34 (3): 349–379. Brenner, N., J. Peck, and N. Theodore. 2010. Variegated Neoliberalism: Geographies, Modalities, Pathways. Global Networks 10 (2): 182–222. Cave, P. 2001. Educational Reform in Japan in the 1990s: “Individuality” and Other Uncertainties. Comparative Education 37 (2): 173–191. Cho, Y. 2013. Introduction: Football in Asia. Soccer & Society 14 (5): 579–587. Edwards, E. 2014. Fields of Individuals and Neoliberal Logics: Japanese Soccer Ideals and the 1990s Economic Crisis. Journal of Sport and Social Issues 38 (5): 432–464. Giulianotti, R., and R. Robertson. 2007. Recovering the Social: Globalization, Football and Transnationalism. Global Networks 7 (2): 166–186. Giulianotti, R., and R. Robertson. 2009. Globalization & Football. Los Angeles: Sage. Giulianotti, R., and R. Robertson. 2012. Mapping the Global Football Field: A Sociological Model of Transnational Forces Within the World Game. British Journal of Sociology 63 (2): 216–240. Hayashi, S. 2011. From Exploitation to Playful Exploits: The Rise of Collectives and the Redefinition of Labor, Life, and Representation in Neoliberal Japan. In Neoliberalism and Global Cinema: Capital, Culture, and Marxist Critique, ed. J. Kapur and K.B. Wagner, 180–196. New York: Routledge. Hall, S. (1980). Encoding/Decoding. In Culture, Media, Language: Working Papers in Cultural Studies, 1972-1979, ed. S. Hall, D. Hobson, A. Lowe, and P. Willis, 128–138. London: Hutchinson. Hall, S. 1985. Signification, Representation, Ideology: Althusser and the Post-Structuralist Debates. Critical Studies in Mass Communication 2 (2): 91–114. Hill, R.C., and K. Fujita. 2000. State Restructuring and Local Power in Japan. Urban Studies 37 (4): 673–690. Horne, J., and W. Manzenreiter. 2008. Football, komyuniti and the Japanese Ideological Soccer Apparatus. Soccer & Society 9 (3): 359–376. Jackson, S.J., and D.L. Andrews. 1999. Between and Beyond the Global and the Local: American Popular Sporting Culture in New Zealand. International Review for the Sociology of Sport 34 (1): 31–42. Jessop, B. 2000. The Crisis of the National Spatiotemporal Fix and the Ecological Dominance of Globalizing Capitalism. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 24: 323–360. Kano, A. 2011. Backlash, Fight Back, and Back-Pedaling: Responses to State Feminism in Contemporary Japan. International Journal of Asian Studies 8 (1): 41–62. Kelly, W.W. 2013. Japan’s Embrace of Soccer: Mutable Ethnic Players and Flexible Soccer Citizenship in the New East Asian Sports Order. The International Journal of the History of Sport 30 (11): 1235–1246. Kim, M. 2009. Sakkaa kara miru nikkan no nashonariti to r¯okariti [Japanese-Korean nationality and locality as seen through soccer]. Tokyo: Ochanomizu Shoten. Kobayashi, K. 2012. Globalization, Corporate Nationalism and Japanese Cultural Intermediaries: Representation of Bukatsu through Nike Advertising at the Global-Local Nexus. International Review for the Sociology of Sport 47 (6): 724–742. Kobayashi, K. 2016. Taking Japan Seriously Again: The Cultural Economy of Glocalization and Self-Orientalization. In Global Culture: Consciousness and Connectivity, ed. R. Robertson and D. Buhari-Gulmez, 193–210. Farnham: Ashgate.

570

K. Kobayashi and S. J. Jackson

Kobayashi, K., J.M. Amis, R. Irwin, and R. Southall. 2010. Japanese Post-Industrial Management: The Cases of Asics and Mizuno. Sport in Society 13 (9): 1334–1355. Kubota, R. 2011. Questioning Linguistic Instrumentalism: English, Neoliberalism, and Language Tests in Japan. Linguistics and Education 22 (3): 248–260. Kumate, J.M., and M. Falcous. 2015. The Lived Experiences of Taibatsu in Japanese High School Wrestling. Asia-Pacific Journal of Health, Sport and Physical Education 6 (1): 41–56. Kusaka, Y. 2006. The emergence and development of Japanese school sport. In Japan, Sport and Society: Tradition and Change in a Globalizing World, ed. J. Maguire and M. Nakayama, 19–34. London: Routledge. Lincoln, J.R., and A.L. Kalleberg. 1985. Work Organization and Workforce Commitment: A Study of Plants and Employees in the U.S. and Japan. American Sociological Review 50(6): 738–760. Lincoln, J.R., and Y. Nakata. 1997. The Transformation of the Japanese Employment System. Work and Occupations 24 (1): 33–55. McDonald, B.D. 2009. Learning Masculinity Through Japanese University Rowing. Sociology of Sport Journal 26 (3): 425–442. MEXT. 2003. Action plan to cultivate “Japanese with English abilities”. http://www.mext.go.jp/ english/topics/03072801.htm. Miller, A. 2011. From Bushid¯o to Science: A New Pedagogy of Sports Coaching in Japan. Japan Forum 23 (3): 385–406. Miller, A. 2013. For Basketball Court and Company Cubicle: New expectations for University Athletes and Corporate Employees in Japan. Japanese Studies 33 (1): 63–81. Mirza, V. 2016. Young Women and Social Change in Japan: Family and Marriage in a Time of Upheaval. Japanese Studies 36 (1): 21–37. Miyamoto, M. 2017. Change and Continuity in Japanese Corporate Reform. Japan Forum 29 (3): 312–337. Morishima, M. 1995. Embedding HRM in a Social Context. British Journal of Industrial Relations 33 (4): 617–640. Nakane, C. 1970. Japanese Society. Berkeley: University of California Press. Ong, A. 2006. Neoliberalism as Exception: Mutations in Citizenship and Sovereignty. Durham and London: Duke University Press. Osawa, M. 2000. Government Approaches to Gender Equality in the Mid-1990s. Social Science Japan Journal 3 (1): 3–19. Peck, J., and A. Tickell. 2002. Neoliberalising Space. Antipode 34 (3): 380–404. Robertson, R. 1995. Glocalization: Time-Space and Homogeneity-Heterogeneity. In Global Modernities, ed. M. Featherstone, S. Lash, and R. Robertson, 25–44. London: Sage Publications. Scherer, J., and S.J. Jackson. 2010. Globalization, Sport and Corporate Nationalism: The New Cultural Economy of the New Zealand All Blacks. Oxford: Peter Lang. Shibata, K. 2008. Neoliberalism, Risk, and Spatial Governance in the Developmental State: Japanese Planning in the Global Economy. Critical Planning 15: 92–118. Shibata, S. 2017. Re-packaging Old Policies? ‘Abenomics’ and the Lack of an Alternative Growth Model for Japan’s Political Economy. Japan Forum 29 (3): 399–422. Takayama, K. 2007. A Nation at Risk Crosses the Pacific: Transnational Borrowing of the U.S. Crisis Discourse in the Debate on Education Reform in Japan. Comparative Education Review 51(4): 423–446. Takeyama, A. 2010. Intimacy for Sale: Masculinity, Entrepreneurship, and Commodity Self in Japan’s Neoliberal Situation. Japanese Studies 30 (2): 231–246. Takeda, H. 2008. Structural Reform of the Family and the Neoliberalisation of Everyday Life in Japan. New Political Economy 13 (2): 153–172. Tapper, J., and K. Kobayashi. 2018. ‘It’s a Harsh Fact of Life with the RMA’: Neo-liberalism and the Realities of Community Sports Facility Development by the Private Sector in New Zealand. Leisure Studies 37 (3): 282–294.

29 Neoliberalism Without Guarantees …

571

Terasawa, T. (2011). Japanese People’s Valuation of English Skills: Sociometric Analysis of JGSS2010. JGSS Research Series 11(8): 47–57. http://jgss.daishodai.ac.jp/english/research/monogr aphs/jgssm11/jgssm11_05.pdf. Thelen, K., and I. Kume. 1999. The Effects of Globalization on Labor Revisited: Lessons from Germany and Japan. Politics and Society 27 (4): 477–505. Tsukamoto, T. 2012. Neoliberalization of the Developmental State: Tokyo’s Bottom-up Politics and State Rescaling in Japan. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 36 (1): 71–89. Tsuya, N.O., L.L. Bumpass, M.K. Choe, and R.R. Rindfuss. 2005. Is the Gender Division of Labour Changing in Japan? Asian Population Studies 1 (1): 47–67. Yamashita, T., and N. Saka. 2002. Another Kick Off: The 2002 World Cup and Soccer Voluntary Groups as a New Social Movement. In Japan, Korea and the 2002 World Cup, ed. J. Horne and M. Wolfram, 147–161. London: Routledge. Yoshino, K. 1992. Cultural Nationalism in Contemporary Japan: A Sociological Enquiry. London: Routledge.

Koji Kobayashi an Associate Professor in the Center for Glocal Strategy at Otaru University of Commerce, Japan, and an Adjunct Senior Lecturer at Lincoln University, New Zealand. His research interests include globalization, cultural production, practice of representation, and identity politics as they relate to sport and recreation. His work appeared in journals such as Sociology of Sport Journal, International Review for the Sociology of Sport, Sport in Society, Managing Sport and Leisure and Consumption Markets and Culture. He also published a book chapter on the cultural economy of glocalization and self-Orientalization in Global Culture: Consciousness and Connectivity edited by Roland Robertson and Didem Buhari-Gulmez (2016). Steven J. Jackson is a Professor in the School of Physical Education, Sport and Exercise Sciences at the University of Otago, New Zealand. His research interests include globalization, media, promotional culture, and social policy and his work has appeared in journals such as Media, Culture & Society, Sociology of Sport Journal, International Review for the Sociology of Sport, and Cultural Studies-Critical Methodologies. Examples of his work include Sport, promotional culture and the crisis of masculinity (London, UK: Palgrave Macmillan), and The other sport mega-event: Rugby World Cup 2011 (Abingdon, UK: Routledge).

Chapter 30

The Impact of Globalization on Chinese Culture and “Glocalized Practices” in China Ning Wang

Abstract In this chapter, the author first reconstructs the concept of globalization from seven aspects: (1) Globalization as a way of global economic operation, (2) as a historical process, (3) as a process of financial marketization and political democratization, (4) as a critical concept, (5) as a narrative category, (6) as a cultural construction and reconstruction, and (7) as a theoretic discourse. So China’s globalization practice is a sort of “glocalization”. The same is true of modernity in China, which could be viewed as an alternative modernity or modernities with Chinese characteristics. The impact of globalization on Chinese culture manifests itself in the following aspects: (1) it helped form a sort of Chinese modernity, or a sort of alternative modernity; (2) the popularization of Neo-Confucianism in the current era; and (3) the “Belt and Road” initiative and the building up of a community of shared future for mankind. The author also tries to offer his reconstruction of globalization with regard to its “glocalized” practices in China, mainly from a cultural and intellectual perspective. To the author, in the global era, modernity has taken on a new look, which is of different forms in different regions and which will contribute to global modernity.

China and globalization has always been a heatedly discussed topic attracting the increasing attention of scholars of both humanities and social sciences, especially after Donald Trump’s attempt to give up the leadership of economic and political globalization and China’s taking it up in the world. One might raise these questions: why should China’s humanities scholars are so interested in globalization and deal with the topic of cultural globalization with such enthusiasm? Has China really greatly benefited from globalization in its grand project of modernity as Chinese modernity came later and is bridged up with postmodernity by the advent of globalization? How is cultural globalization realized in the Chinese context? How has globalization impacted China’s humanities and cultural tradition? We cannot neglect that the successful advent of economic globalization in China is subjected to various N. Wang (B) Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, People’s Republic of China e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 I. Rossi (ed.), Challenges of Globalization and Prospects for an Inter-civilizational World Order, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44058-9_30

573

574

N. Wang

constructions and reconstructions in its “glocalized” practice. But when we talk about cultural globalization, things will be more complicated as China has its own long and splendid cultural tradition, which is so stubborn that some of the pioneering figures, such as Lu Xun, of the New Culture Movement (1915–1923) openly called for breaking away with it so that the country would be moving toward the world and become progressive and modernized. If we say that the coming of Western modernity in the first half of the twentieth century has helped starting China’s grand project of comprehensive modernization, then we should further affirm that the coming of globalization in the latter part of the twentieth century has undoubtedly pushed forward China’s modernization toward a “glocalized” orientation. In this chapter, I will mainly deal with the issue of cultural globalization or “glocalization” and its impact on Chinese culture and intellectual thinking.

Redefining Globalization from a Chinese Cultural and Historical Perspective It is no doubt that China has been greatly benefited from globalization, which also manifests itself in its culture. As we know, the New Culture Movement in China in the first half of the twentieth century is particularly known for its openness to the outside of the world and breaking away from traditional Chinese culture and intellectual thinking. During the period, there was a very radical slogan: “Down with Confucius and Smash Confucian Temples.” Indeed during those years, many Confucius’ temples were burned and Confucius himself and his doctrines were severely attacked as a counter-revolutionary reactionary doctrine. But even so, Confucianism is still alive many years after that period and has developed much more rapidly in the age of globalization as it is attached importance to by the current Chinese leadership as well as mainstream scholarship in China. The same is almost true of globalization in culture, which was first thought of as something harmful to the development of Chinese culture. But it was not long after the advent of globalization that China’s humanities scholars have found that it may well help to disseminate Chinese culture in the world, especially helped to popularize the Chinese language under the banner of the “Confucius Institute”. Just as Francis Fukuyama holds, China is the biggest winner of globalization (Yu 2011). It is certainly true to a large extent, but to me, the United States is also one of the biggest winners of globalization, which finds a particular embodiment in the current Sino-US negotiation on trade. So if China is not the only biggest winner, it is at least one of the biggest winners of globalization, not only economically, but also politically and culturally. Thus in this part, I will focus on cultural issues, and first, try again to offer my dynamic understanding and critical description of globalization chiefly from a Chinese cultural and intellectual perspective although I have done it elsewhere (Wang 2015). (1) Globalization as a way of global economic operation. This is particularly true of its practice in China. Economic globalization is certainly marked by the

30 The Impact of Globalization on Chinese Culture …

575

fact that all countries are developing their economies according to a “homogeneous” rule formulated by certain international organizations like the IMF and World Trade Organization (WTO). This not only stimulates backward national industries to innovate in their science and technology, but also ruthlessly raises a challenge to the established system of national industry. It is not surprising that globalization is largely opposed both in the developed countries and in the underdeveloped countries. In the earliest phase of globalization in China, the country largely imported advanced technologies and management theories and experiences from developed countries, seldom exporting its own technologies. But things have gradually been changing: with the innovation and renovation of China’s high-speed rail technology and advanced IT industry as well as other high technologies, China is building itself into a powerful country of advanced science and technology, as well as creating efficient management models mixing both capitalism and Confucian doctrines. That is, the capitalist elements chiefly lie in the strict rule of marketization and management rather than the longstanding socialist planned economy brought into China from the former Soviet model. Since Confucianism is a sort of humanism of Chinese characteristics, it is still necessary to use the Confucian doctrine of Ren (benevolence) to manage the enterprises as well as the entire country. That is why many foreigners feel that in China guanxi (connections or underhand relations, namely outside or beyond the law) is so important that, if the appropriate channel is found, something impossible could be turned possible; similarly, if you cannot find the right channel even possible things could be turned impossible. According to the renewed and reconstructed Confucian doctrine practiced in managing the enterprises, if workers’ motivation has been given full play, they will work very hard of their own initiative to create more wealth. That is how Western management theories have been “localized” or metamorphosed according to the typical Chinese condition and circumstances. Otherwise, they will not work in the Chinese context. (2) Globalization as a historical process. According to Marx and Engels, the process of globalization started with Christopher Columbus’ discovery of the Americas and the consequent global capitalist expansion (Marx and Engels 1999). In the late 1980s, this historical process culminated in the stage of transnational capitalism. Just as William I. Robinson illustrates, “Globalisation is characterized by related, contingent and unequal transformations. To evoke globalisation as an explanation for historic changes and contemporary dynamics does not mean that the particular events or changes identified with the process are happening all over the world, much less in the same way” (Robinson 2015: pp. 17–18). At present, the Chinese mode of development, or the Chinese way (Zhongguo daolu or Zhongguo moshi) characterized by speed and efficiency, is becoming increasingly attractive to those engaged in the study and practice of globalization in their own countries. So we should clearly realize that this transitional period of transnational capitalism is by no means a short one, but rather, a relatively long period that will develop step by step.

576

N. Wang

(3) Globalization as a process of financial marketization and political democratization. Globalization has actually become a “hidden God” or invisible “empire” (Hardt and Negri 2000) crossing the boundaries of nations and countries and functioning both at the center and periphery. Unlike the aggressive old imperialism, economic and cultural imperialism usually intervene in other countries by gradual penetration, with political democracy being realized once the economy has developed to a certain stage. But, just as globalization may be localized in a particular country or nation, democracy should not be viewed as a singular form, especially in an oriental country like China, where feudal and totalitarian systems dominated people’s minds and intellectual thinking for thousands of years. Thus democracy in China entails a long and gradual process different from its forms in those Western developed countries. The current flourishing of China’s internet culture, characterized by the forces of public opinion leaders, more or less indicates the irresistible tendency of gradual democratization despite internet censorship that occurs now and then. But this has already become a big progress as compared with what happened in the past. Overseen by various internet users and public opinion leaders, government decisions have been increasingly transparent and relatively democratically made as compared to the previous practices. But in any event, the democratic situation in China now is much better than the past, especially than those years before China’s openingup and economic reform. Thus in the process of Chinese democracy, cultural and internet globalization will function more effectively. Anyway, Chinese democracy should not necessarily follow the Western model since China had once been a long feudal and totalitarian country for thousands of years. China’s democratic mechanism should be established and perfected step by step as China has long been a totalitarian country with lots of feudalistic ideas deep in people’s mind. Otherwise, it will cause social turmoil like what happened during the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976). For people might well know that during those years of the Cultural Revolution characterized by “great democracy” (da minzhu), quite a number of high-ranking party and government officials, including the former president of PRC Liu Shaoqi, as well as army generals, including Marshall He Long, were persecuted to death even without a trial. (4) Globalization as a critical concept. The issue of globalization heatedly discussed in the international humanities and social sciences should also be viewed as a critical concept, with which scholars try to deconstruct the old-fashioned concepts of modernity and postmodernity. That is, globalization has deconstructed the artificial opposition between modernity and postmodernity by overlapping the two which are often mixed up and appear in different regions in different forms and to different degrees, thereby breaking through the Eurocentric mode of thinking. Since China is such a big country, its development is always uneven: in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Guangzhou there have already appeared some postmodern elements, while in most of China’s inland cities, people are still working hard to modernize their regions. Even in such a postmodern metropolis as Shanghai, we could still easily find quite a few modern and even premodern scenes in some underdeveloped areas although

30 The Impact of Globalization on Chinese Culture …

577

the per capita GDP has already exceeded $20,000 by 2018 in both Beijing and Shanghai. On the other hand, since the imperial center moved to the USA with the advent of globalization, this critique of Eurocentrism will thus be pointed to a sort of American-centrism. The reason why globalization was a controversial concept when first introduced into China in the early 1990s is largely due to the contingent condition of the country, for it is true that China was then at a different level of development and ordinary people easily got a misunderstanding of globalization. To many people, globalization is another type of Westernization or Americanization. So it was first economically welcomed and adopted but politically and culturally resisted in China. Now, however, the leading role of China in the process of globalization is increasingly apparent not only economically but also politically, with China becoming the second-largest economic entity in the world since 2010, and the country having more say in international affairs and more power in maintaining regional and global peace. Chinese culture is also increasingly attractive to the international community. I just give two examples. More and more Western universities and high schools have set up programs of Chinese language and culture or started to offer Chinese language courses to students. And more and more Western publishers, such as Routledge, Springer, Brill, and Macmillan, have published books by Chinese authors or journals on China studies in English. More and more people have realized that globalization is by no means merely an economic phenomenon, for it also manifests itself in many aspects of people’s life and works, especially in a culture which will be discussed later on in this volume. (5) Globalization as a narrative category. Globalization not only represents people’s expectations of a bright and beautiful future, but also embodies the global expansion of an imperial notion of value characterized by Western domination. It is, therefore, a grand narrative, according to which the traditional boundaries of nations and countries can be deconstructed. But this grand narrative becomes fragmentary in its “glocal” practice in different countries or regions as it merges with their local conditions. A sort of economic globalization and marketization is taking the place of the power of government in many countries, which finds particular embodiment in the penetration of strong cultures into weak cultures and weak cultures’ resistance to the former. National and cultural identity is becoming more and more obscure, with a single identity replaced by multiple identities. As a result, people in the age of globalization are suffering from a sort of identity crisis. This is particularly true of the case in diasporic Chinese writers’ works, in which their identity is split and they usually have double or even multiple identities mediating among different cultures. Of course, it is not necessarily a bad thing since these glocalization effects are by no means merely negative phenomena. They have on the other hand produced a new identity, such as the Neo-Confucian identity, cosmopolitan identity, or even multiple identities with enlarged global horizons, as well as new cultural and technological models. For instance, when Western companies settled down in China in the 1980s and 1990s, their representatives or agents were usually Western people who found it difficult to deal with their Chinese counterparts. Nowadays, more

578

N. Wang

and more representatives or agents of these Western companies were those of Chinese origin, who were born in China and later got a degree in a Western university and became a citizen of a Western country. Since these people have double identities speaking two languages, it is easy for them to deal with their boss as well as to their Chinese counterparts. (6) Globalization as a cultural construction and reconstruction. Thus, in the course of cultural globalization, Chinese culture might well be colonized or Westernized. But the practice of cultural globalization in China over the past few decades proves that globalization in culture is also a cultural construction and reconstruction like its precursors, modernism, and postmodernism. We will continue to bring Western culture to China; at the same time, we will also promote traditional Chinese culture, which has been reconstructed in the contemporary era, in the West as well as in the rest of the world. That is, the reconstructed modern Chinese culture is to a certain extent a combination of three elements: traditional Chinese culture chiefly characterized by Confucian doctrines plus a bit of Daoist and other Chinese cultural doctrines, the “Sinicized” Marxist doctrines, and Western cultural doctrines recast in the Chinese context. As for this, I will discuss it in a separate chapter of this volume. Thus in discussing this issue, scholars from different fields cannot but make their own constructions or reconstructions. In this way, it is their goal to construct and reconstruct different cultures of globalization. For us humanities scholars, observing our research objects in a global context and communicating with our international counterparts on a common ground of globalization will undoubtedly broaden our horizons and endow our theoretic debate with more liveliness, so as to make some theoretical innovations, such as the New Confucian culture in the global era. This New Confucian culture has partly incorporated traditional Confucian doctrines in combination with Western modern and postmodern elements. That is, it has got rid of the feudalist ideas and incorporated more humanistic elements brought in from the West. It has also transcended over the either/or mode of modernist thinking appealing to a sort of postmodern both/and mode of thinking which is close to the Confucian golden mean (zhongyong) model (namely, moderation and balance). Of course, it is not surprising that some critics may well refer to it as an ideological version of Confucianism or as a political propaganda. But to me, it is due to some misunderstanding, especially with regard to the so-called Confucius Institute. Obviously, to set up hundreds of Confucius Institutes in the world is to disseminate Chinese language and culture. For instance, some of these Confucius Institutes often launch exhibitions of traditional Chinese painting and calligraphy, and some simply teach foreign people “kunfu” or martial arts, and others simply show Chinese films or stage traditional Chinese operas. In any event, these Confucius Institutes have helped world people to know more about China and its language and culture. That is why some of these Confucius Institutes are strongly reacted in some of the Euro-American universities, for people in those countries might well mistake the task of the Confucius Institute as teaching the Confucian doctrines or disseminate the communist ideologies. But actually, this sort of New Confucianism advocated by some overseas

30 The Impact of Globalization on Chinese Culture …

579

Chinese intellectuals does not mean writing off the discourse of modernity, but rather, it appeals to dialogue with the latter. As for the Confucius Institute, it causes even more confusion among world people. Actually, “Confucius” here is merely symbolic of Chinese language and culture, and the major task for these Confucius Institutes is to promote Chinese language and culture rather than disseminate the Confucian doctrines in other countries. I myself have since the beginning of the new century lectured in dozens of Confucius Institutes in Asia, Europe, North America, and Latin America, but never on the topics related to Confucius’ doctrines. Perhaps the way of setting up these Confucius Institutes by the Chinese government through Hanban (the Office Managing Teaching Chinese as the Second Language) is not the best and most effective model. It could be done by academic means through universities in China and the foreign countries, which will more effectively disseminate Chinese culture worldwide. As for the essence of Chinese culture, I will discuss it later on. (7) Globalization as a theoretical discourse. More and more scholars of the humanities in China have been involved in the discussion of this issue in the past two decades or more, but how to construct a sort of Chinese theoretical discourse has become a tough question. In this respect, globalization has gradually become a polemical and theoretical discourse causing theoretical discussions and even debates. As I have illustrated, globalization, to many people, is a Western phenomenon, more specifically, it simply means Westernization. Since the United States is most powerful, politically, economically, and militarily, Westernization thereby means Americanization. But along with the debate, more and more people have realized that globalization has also helped Chinese culture to go global. I, therefore, agree with Robertson (2002) that, in theorizing cultural phenomena, we could use the concept of “globality” (Robertson 2002) instead of that of globalization, for the former appeared much earlier than the latter, and is, therefore, more appropriate for describing the orientation and development of culture and literature. As for the phenomenon of “glocalization”, it mostly occurs in culture, for globalization cannot be realized unless it is located in a particular cultural context. Hence “glocalization” which appears in China. In the process of cultural communication and exchange, some Chinese scholars have been strongly arguing for a reconstruction of a Chinese theoretical discourse under the umbrella of the grand narrative of globalization. This discourse is currently chiefly characterized by the “Sinicized” Marxism. Or more specifically, according to the mainstream Chinese media, it includes classical Marxist doctrines, Mao Zedong Thought, and the current leader Xi Jinping’s thought of socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era. In this sense, globalization has provided precious opportunities for us Chinese humanities scholars to have equal dialogues with our Western and international colleagues in an attempt to construct our own theoretical discourse.1 That is, we should not only continue to interpret Chinese social and 1 In this aspect, cf. the special issue entitled Chinese Encounters Western Theories, eds. Wang Ning

and Marshall Brown, Modern Language Quarterly, Vol. 79, No. 3 (2018).

580

N. Wang

cultural phenomena with Western theory but also start to interpret Western and international phenomena from a Chinese theoretical perspective. But the latter has not yet largely been practiced. The above is my dynamic understanding and constructive redescription of globalization with regard to its “glocalized” practices in China, obviously with more emphasis on cultural and intellectual aspects. Of course, other scholars may well construct more forms of globalization from their own perspectives, but these seven forms are sufficient to cover all the aspects of globalization, especially in dealing with its practices in China. In the following sections, I will deal in more detail with three different forms of “glocalization” practiced in the Chinese context.

Modernity: A “Glocalized” Alternative Chinese Version Modernity is no doubt an “imported” concept from the West, largely through translation and Chinese practitioners’ dynamic understanding and creative construction and reconstruction of Western modernity in the twentieth century. Throughout the twentieth century, Chinese scholars have spent much effort in bringing various descriptions of modernity defined by Western thinkers like Appadurai (1996), Calinescu (1987), Eagleton (1996), and Jameson (2002), to name just a few. Therefore, the concept of modernity has already been “glocalized” with lots of Chinese elements and characteristics after it came to settle down in China through translations and creative interpretations by Chinese scholars, including myself. Of course, other Chinese theorists, such as Qian (2005), who is an eminent scholar of Bakhtin studies, even try to put forward a sort of theoretical system of “xin lixing jingshen” (New Rationalist Spirit), which incorporates both traditional Chinese literary and cultural as well as modern and postmodern Western literary and cultural doctrines, as being dialogic with Western modernity (Qian Loc. Cit.: 316–321). As a Chinese scholar doing research on both global modernity and literary modernism and postmodernism, I am chiefly concerned about how modernity has been metamorphosed through a sort of cultural translation and theoretical interpretations and reconstructions and how different modernity or modernities appear elsewhere (Wang 2010b). I always think that although such topics as modernity and modernism are no longer new in the Western context, they are still attractive to scholars of literary and cultural studies, especially to us Chinese scholars. Following some of my Western colleagues, like Jameson (1991, 2002), Eagleton (1996), Calinescu (1987), and Appadurai (1996), who deal with the issue of modernity with regard to postmodernism, and who are largely quoted and discussed in the Chinese context, I will further explore the issue from the perspectives of literature and culture, or more specifically, from the Chinese cultural and intellectual perspective. Unlike the above Western scholars, I simply rely on the Chinese experiences and examples taken from Chinese literature and culture. In other words, in dealing with the above theoretical and cultural topics I shall start from the angle of modern Chinese literature and culture. For a long period of time, the study of modern Chinese literature and

30 The Impact of Globalization on Chinese Culture …

581

culture was almost confined to the sinological circles in the West. Seldom does a non-sinologist touch upon this topic in his/her discussion of global culture and world literature. As compared with the enthusiastic translation and critical and creative reception of Western literature and cultural theories in China, modern Chinese literature and culture is much less known to scholars and ordinary readers in the West. The essays by Hayot (2012) and Zhang (2012) have thus to a great extent filled up such a gap. As a result, the modernity of Chinese literature of the twentieth century has been known to more people in the West and quite a few Chinese writers’ works have been included in various anthologies of world literature. In speaking of China’s modernity or modernism, one might well think that it is largely translated into China from the West. This affirmation is both right and wrong. As Hayot pertinently points out: If we want to think of modernism globally, we must face the fact that any attempt to get past the Eurocentric story about what modernism is and does must encounter, first, the history of that Eurocentric story as it has been incorporated into national systems of literature (including European ones) and into the world literary system as a whole. To see that what has been recognized as “modern” or “modernism” in China is at least partially an effect of European modernism…. (Ibid. 152).

Here, Hayot tries to indicate that this “recognition” obscures the fact that Chinese modernity and modernism have their own unique characteristics different from its tradition not only in content but also in language, and is different from those in the West. As Zhang, after a close reading of Lu Xun’s Ah Q—The Real Story, sums up, “It is from the allegorical radicality of the ‘real story’ of the nameless ghost of China, seeking in vain its return and reinvention, that the origin of Chinese modernism surges into being and acquires its formal-aesthetic as well as its political properties and intensities—as a radical, nihilistic phenomenology of decay, void, dispersal, and, dialectically, as renewal, rebirth, and hope.” (Ibid. 201) Those who have brought Western modernity into China largely intend to put an end to old China’s state of isolating itself from the outside world and involve it in the world that was moving toward a stage of modernity. It is true to a large extent that modern Chinese culture and literature are deeply influenced by Western culture and literature, but they are also, in receiving Western influence, attempting to dialogue with mainstream world culture and literature with their unique characteristics and writing practice. That is why, Lu Xun, who always stood at the forefront of China’s cultural and literary modernity, calls for a sort of “grabbism” (nalai zhuyi). That is, to grab anything useful to China’s literary and cultural modernity and transformation. That is why we say that Chinese modernity is largely “imported” or “translated” from the West, but in the process of which it has been metamorphosed due to its reaction with domestic Chinese elements like the old Confucian feudalist doctrine. And Chinese writers and theorists have actually reconstructed a sort of alternative modernity or modernities in receiving Western modernity. Because of China’s long-standing isolation from the outside world and its conservative attitude to foreign influences, classical Chinese literature developed almost cut off from Western influence. In contrast, the unique tradition of modern Chinese literature was forged directly under Western influence. One cannot avoid mentioning its existence when dealing with global modernity and

582

N. Wang

world literature, for modern Chinese literature widely participates in the metamorphosed and “glocalized” practice of global modernity. As a result, different versions of modernity have been produced in China: political, cultural, literary, and aesthetic. Obviously, these different versions of Chinese modernity also assume different faces geographically: on the mainland, modernity is often viewed as an open, developing, and democratic concept closely related to China’s economic, political, cultural, and literary modernization and postmodernization. However, because of their colonial heritage, Hong Kong and Taiwan modernities are related to the decolonization of their culture, while among overseas Chinese, modernity is often associated with their diasporic status and indeterminate identities in the age of globalization. Hence Chinese modernity is not similar to the West’s, for it is also developing in different regions in an uneven way as China is such a vast country. Also, these different versions of modernity or modernities of Chinese characteristics constitute a sort of alternative modernity or modernities that has deconstructed the “grand narrative” of “singular” modernity dominated by Western culture and ideology. On the other hand, this sort of “glocalized” Chinese modernity or modernities has enriched global modernity with its unique elements and characteristics. It is well known that Chinese literature once had a long tradition and grand cultural and literary heritage, which is particularly known for such literary phenomena and periods as Book of Poetry, Qu Yuan’s sao poetry, the Tang poetry and Song Ci, Ming and Qing novels before the nineteenth century, and the New Culture Movement in the twentieth century, which largely caused it to be isolated from the outside world, except the last one. Both Western Sinologists and domestic Chinese scholars agree that classical Chinese literature developed almost without any foreign influence. But upon entering the twentieth century, Chinese literary scholars increasingly acknowledged the “marginalized” position of its literature in the broad context of world literature. In order to regain its past grandeur and move from the periphery to the center modern Chinese literature should identify itself with the then prior dominant force: Western cultural modernity or modern Western literature. That is why these scholars strongly supported the large-scale translation of Western literary and academic works along with cultural and academic reflections on this practice as the best way for China to emerge from its state of isolation. Through such a large-scale literary and cultural translation, all the major cultural trends or literary currents, as well as their representative works, came into China, thereby exerting a profound influence on its twentieth-century literature at the threshold of cultural modernity. This influence finds a particular embodiment in the three aspects: replacing ancient Chinese with modern vernacular Chinese; people of lower classes becoming the main literary characters; and the birth of New Chinese poetry and spoken drama. As a new episteme or cultural dominant, postmodernism later dethroned modernism. But in China, though imported from the West, postmodernism is intertwined with other elements, especially those characterizing Chinese modernism. That is, China’s is actually a sort of “belated” modernism, which is mixed up with other elements: romanticism, realism, and postmodernism, plus its domestic elements. Although they are all Western intellectual movements, they have had their Chinese versions in the metamorphosed forms. Similarly, cultural modernity as a project of enlightenment was also undergoing a profound crisis, as it was first questioned

30 The Impact of Globalization on Chinese Culture …

583

and challenged by postmodernity emerging in post-industrial society before being lashed by the wave of globalization in the late 1980s. Largely through the critical introduction by both Western scholars, like Fredric Jameson, whose China lectures on postmodernism in 1985 are still mentioned now and then, and Chinese theorists like myself and others, postmodernism came to China and a number of different versions were produced in contemporary Chinese literature and culture in the late 1980s and early 1990s (Wang 1997). I just take contemporary Chinese fiction for example. To my observation, these different versions of Chinese literary postmodernism are represented as the following features, among other things: (1) the short-circuiting of narration, (2) border crossing between history and fiction, (3) the mixing of the languages of high and low culture, (4) violation of established linguistic and aesthetic conventions, (5) a dehumanizing or post-humanizing tendency in the naming of characters. As a result, modernity has thereby taken on a new look, both in the West such as the North American counter-culture movement and in China such as the avantgarde fiction in the late 1980 s and consumer culture in the early 1990s (Wang 1997; Chen 2005). As I have already pointed out, modernity has always been a heatedly discussed or debated theoretic topic both in Western and Chinese academic circles throughout the twentieth century. In this aspect, such Western thinkers or theorists as Jürgen Habermas, Jean François Lyotard, Jean Baudrillard, and Fredric Jameson and their theoretic doctrines are frequently quoted and discussed, especially in the Chinese context. Since Jameson’s close relations with Chinese academia and his description or critique of modernity with regard to postmodernity and postmodernism is most influential and controversial in China, I will deal a bit more with his idea of “singular modernity” although I have discussed it in detail elsewhere (Wang 2012). In dealing with the relations between modernity and postmodernity, Jameson, is obviously inspired by Lyotard (1984), who thinks that the postmodern is “undoubtedly a part of the modern,” and a “work can become modern only if it is first postmodern. Postmodernism thus understood is not modernism at its end but in the nascent state, and this state is constant.” (Lyotard 1984: 79). Here Lyotard obviously tries to stimulate the almost emaciated theoretic debate on postmodernism in North America endowing it with a new and continued life in European and international intellectual circles. It is very clear that Lyotard, in constructing an inclusive grand narrative of modernity, has deconstructed its fixed meaning and deterritorialized its narrow domain. The same is almost true of Jameson. For Jameson also puts it in the preface of his book: The revival of the concept of modernity is an attempt to solve that problem: in a situation in which modernization, socialism, industrialization (particularly the former, pre-computerized kind of heavy industry), Postmodernism, and the “rape of nature” generally, have been discredited, you can still suggest that the so-called underdeveloped countries might want to look forward to simple “modernity” itself. (2002: 8)

That is, the existence of modernity should depend on different situations, especially in those underdeveloped or developing countries, where modern elements are often mixed up with premodern ones and where there might be postmodern elements in some newly developed societies. Therefore, modernity manifests itself differently

584

N. Wang

in different times and places. Take China for example. As we know, China had long been a feudal country in which Confucianism dominated over thousands of years until the beginning of the twentieth century when Western cultural and academic thoughts flooded into China largely through translation and enthusiastic promotion by those intellectuals involved in the New Culture Movement. So the modernity we are discussing in the global postmodern era is no doubt different from the one we advocated in the New Culture Movement in which Lu Xun was writing and the most demanding thing for the country is to modernize itself so that it would catch up with the advanced scientific and cultural trends in those developed countries. Since they are influenced by the Western thinkers, they tried to follow what their Western masters had done with their own selection. With reference to the development of global modernities and modernisms in different parts of the world, we could affirm that modernity in China is mainly a “translated” theoretic concept or a cultural and literary discourse from the West (Wang 2010b) that has been metamorphosed and subject to various constructions and reconstructions. In discussing modernity in the context of Chinese literature and culture, I would argue that modernity within this context has undergone three stages: (1) its introduction and translation as a literary project and the reconstruction of modern Chinese literature and culture from the beginning of the twentieth century until the 1970s, which is meant to reconstruct modern Chinese literature and culture with the Western model; (2) the introduction and translation of postmodernity as an extended modernity in an attempt to define either an alternative modernity, or extended or “metamorphosed” modernities with Chinese characteristics and elements in the late 1980s, which is characterized by radical innovation of characterization, narrative technique, and critical discourse practiced by the Western postmodernist writers and thinkers; (3) the advent of globalization which overlaps the discourses of modernity and postmodernity forming a sort of “modernity at large”, or modernity in a global context, which means that modernity as a grand project has not yet been completed and is thereby extended in the process of globalization. When we talk about global modernity, we are actually dealing with both modernity and postmodernity in the age of globalization, for global modernity must be localized in a particular cultural context while it travels. In this sense, Chinese (alternative) modernity or modernities have finally become involved in the grand discourses of global modernity but, as has been noted, distinguishes itself through its unique elements and characteristics of both the New Confucian doctrine and the “Sinicized” Marxist doctrine. As we might agree that there is indeed such a thing as Chinese modernity, as an alternative modernity among global modernity or modernities, then one may further raise the question: what are the major characteristics of this alternative modernity? To my observation, I think there are at least four characteristics of the alternative Chinese modernity or modernities as follows: First, it is both centripetal and centrifugal, that is, it is both similar and close to Western modernity and with more Chinese characteristics from the latter. Second, it is both modern and postmodern, and sometimes even premodern. That is, China is such a large country with the biggest population in the world that there are striking differences between different areas in the country: Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Guangzhou, and other developed coastal cities are marked with some postmodern characteristics, and more medium-sized

30 The Impact of Globalization on Chinese Culture …

585

cities are increasingly modernizing themselves; while the wide Western areas of the country are moving toward modernization; and few poor regions and minority regions are characterized by being premodern in an attempt to depovertize themselves. So modernity in China has different forms. This is just the unique condition of Chinese modernity. Third, it is both constructive and deconstructive in the sense that, in deconstructing the Western-centric hegemonic modernity, it has constructed an alternative modernity of Chinese characteristics as having been described above. Fourth, it is both global and local, or simply called “glocal” (Wang 2012). Here I just spend a few more words elaborating it. Like what appears in the Western context, Chinese modernity is also characterized by an either/or mode of thinking; while its postmodernity, as a form of extended modernity, is characterized by a win-win situation, that is, to cooperate for a win-win goal rather than defeat the other party. Since China is an old country with a long feudal history and splendid Confucian cultural tradition, its modernity is still mixed up with many traditional elements as indicated in the previous sections. In the past decades, it has also been mixed up with some of the postmodern elements, such as the grand spectacular scenes In Pudong, Shanghai (Wang 2017) described by Guthrie (2012). Perhaps that is why it is called “modernity of Chinese characteristics” which may well carry on dialogues with its Western counterpart and contribute a bit to global modernity and postmodernity. It is true that the advent of globalization has brought tremendous changes to China, and the country is now one of the very few in the world that directly benefits most from the process of globalization in a comprehensive way according to Fukuyama (Yu 2011), not only economically and politically but also culturally and intellectually. But as we all know, globalization cannot be realized unless it is localized in a particular (Chinese) cultural soil. Economically speaking, China should observe the various regulations of the WTO and other international organizations, but politically and culturally, it still has its own stubborn and unique political mechanism and cultural tradition. In this way, a “glocalized” practice of modernity is both possible and effective. And it has been proved true by the practice of Chinese modernity in the past decade. In speaking of cultural globalization, we could easily find that there are more “glocalized” factors and characteristics in China. In the recent World Philosophy Congress held in Beijing on August 13–20 2018, these characteristics are all the more highlighted as “Learning to Be Human,” which is undoubtedly characterized by the Confucian or Neo-Confucian doctrines in the global context. Here one could easily find that Western philosophy encounters Chinese tradition, in the process of which something new has appeared. As for what China could contribute to the world both culturally and intellectually, I will first elaborate it a bit before discussing it in detail later on in this volume. When we talk about the old-fashioned Confucianism, we will immediately think of its feudalistic thought which is especially disliked and challenged by feminists as well as the broad masses of women. As we know, according to the Confucian doctrine, women in China should observe the so-called San Gang Wu Chang (three cardinal guides and five constant virtues) as specified in the feudal ethical code. The Three Cardinal Guides are: ruler guides subject, father guides son and husband guides wife, and the Five Constant Virtues include benevolence, righteousness, propriety,

586

N. Wang

knowledge, and sincerity, which make up the principle of feudal moral conduct. But the New Confucianism has largely been revised and reconstructed by modern Neo-Confucianists of one generation after another (Wang 2010a). It has already given up the feudalist doctrine and highlighted the Confucian spirit characterized by xiushen, qijia, zhiguo ping tianxia (self-cultivating, family-regulating, state-ordering, and global-governing), especially the Confucian tianxiaguan which is close to the doctrine of cosmopolitanism. It will certainly help to build up a community of shared interests for mankind as it has been advocated by the current Chinese leader Xi (2018). Perhaps that is one of the reasons why Confucianism or New Confucianism is popular and promoted in contemporary China as some of its doctrines, after dynamic interpretations, are close to the Chinese party and government’s strategies of governing the country.

Conclusion: Impact of Globalization on Chinese Culture and Society In the above sections, I have discussed some core issues brought about by the advent of globalization in China. It is true that along with the steady development of the Chinese economy, more and more people start to doubt about China’s status as a Third World country. Thus China, both greatly benefited from globalization and impacted by it, is now experiencing a sort of “de-povertizing and “de-third-worldizing” process (Wang 2015), for both the Chinese leaders and humanities intellectuals have realized that the cultural confidence as demonstrated by Xi (2014) will secure the country as a great power in the world. Thus in this concluding part, I just sum up what impact globalization has made on Chinese culture and society and elaborate a bit more about the impact in other aspects. That is, traditional Chinese cultural value has undergone certain changes by being combined with a sort of “Sinicized” Marxism in the age of globalization, especially when China officially entered into a market-oriented society at the beginning of the 1990s. It is no doubt that the advent of globalization has impacted the core traditional Chinese value and beliefs. Interpersonal communication has largely been replaced by high technological means rather than face-to-face communication. That is, anyone, whether he comes from the city or the countryside, has connections with other people either by means of cellphone or WeChat, the latter could even solve any problems in people’s daily life and work. Also, impacted by the advent of globalization and international cultural communication and exchange, traditional Confucianism has also undergone changes: It has given up its feudalistic connotations while highlighting its humanistic spirit which functions as a reaction to the consumerist tendency. Although to many people, contemporary Chinese people pursue consumerism and fashionable way of life, they seem to have forgotten that since China is such a big country, these people are indeed only very few as compared to the large population of the country. They mostly live in such postmodern developed megacities like Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen, and Guangzhou and other fast developed cities where modernization has already been realized. But as I have pointed out that there is still striking contrast

30 The Impact of Globalization on Chinese Culture …

587

in China between urban and rural areas, between coastal cities and interior land, and between mental and manual labor, which is gradually being narrowed along with China’s urbanization process in the age of globalization (Wang 2017). China’s political culture has also been impacted with the notion of global governance and democracy increasingly recognized by the broad masses of people although in a different form. As for this, I need to elaborate on it more elsewhere. In current China, the concept of the “Belt and Road” or “One Belt and One Road” has become a heatedly discussed topic as it has helped and will continue to help China’s economic development and cultural production move toward the world. It has not only stimulated Chinese writers’ creative desire, but also attracted the attention of major international media and mainstream academia. The “Belt and Road” initiative, namely, “the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road,” is usually regarded as a political and economic strategy adopted by the Chinese Party and government for its current and future economic development. If we think that globalization is a sort of process largely from the West to the East, then the “Belt and Road” initiative should be regarded as another type of globalization: from East to West, or more exactly, from China to the world. Since China has become the second-largest world economic entity and will hopefully surpass the United States in the years to come, it has undoubtedly contributed a great deal to the world economy. However, culturally speaking, it is far from satisfactory. There is actually a big imbalance between the impacts of the Chinese economy and Chinese culture. The “Belt and Road” initiative will, therefore, fill up the gap as it will also be proved significant and valid along with its practice at present and in the near future for it not only appeals to economic development, but also to cultural development. As we know, when the People’s Republic of China was founded in 1949, its late leader Mao Zedong declared to the world: “The fundamental theoretic ideology guiding our thinking is Marxism-Leninism” (Mao 1977: 133). As a great leader with a wide international horizon, Mao also called China to make greater contributions to humanity. No doubt China has already made and will continue to make increasingly greater contributions to humanity culturally like what it has contributed to the world economically and politically. As far as what Chinese culture could contribute to the world in the age of globalization, I will discuss it in detail on a separate occasion. (see Wang’s other paper in this volume).

References Appadurai, Arjun. 1996. Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Calinescu, Matei. 1987. Five Faces of Modernity: Modernism, Avant-Garde, Decadence, Kitsch, Postmodernism. Durham: Duke University Press. Chen, Xiaoming. (ed.). 2005. Hou xiandaizhuyi (Postmodernism). Kaifeng: Henan University Press. Eagleton, Terry. 1996. The Illusions of Postmodernism. Oxford: Blackwell. Guthrie, Doug. 2012. China and Globalization: The Social, Economic, and Political Transformation of Chinese Society, 3rd ed. New York: Routledge.

588

N. Wang

Hardt, Michael, and Antonio Negri. 2000. Empire. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Hayot, Eric. 2012. Chinese Modernism, Mimetic Desire, and European Time. In The Oxford Handbook of Global Modernisms, eds. M. Wollaeger and M. Eatough, 149–170. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Jameson, Fredric. 1991. Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Jameson, Fredric. 2002. A Singular Modernity: Essay on the Ontology of the Present. London and New York: Verso. Lyotard, Jean-François. 1984. The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. trans. Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Mao, Zedong. 1977. To Strive to Build China into a Great Socialist Country” (wei jianshe yige weida de shehuizhuyi guojia er fendou). Selected Works of Mao Zedong, Vol. 5, 132–133. Beijing: People’s Press. Marx, Karl, and Friedrich Engels. 1999. The Communist Manifesto. Edited and with an Introduction by John E. Toews. Boston, MA: St. Martin’s. Qian, Zhongwen. 2005. Qian Zhongwen wenji (Selected Essays of Qian Zhongwen). Shanghai: Shanghai Cishu Chubanshe. Robertson, Roland. 2002. Globality: A Mainly Western View. Public lecture, Tsinghua University, November 26, 2002. Robinson, William I. 2015. The Transnational State and the BRICS: A Global Capitalism Perspective. Third World Quarterly 36 (1): 1–21. Wang, Ning. 1997. The Mapping of Chinese Postmodernity. Boundary 2 24 (3): 19–40. Wang, Ning. 2010a. Reconstructing (Neo) Confucianism in ‘Glocal’ Postmodern Culture Context. Journal of Chinese Philosophy 37 (1): 48–62. Wang, Ning. 2010b. Translated Modernities: Literary and Cultural Perspectives on Globalization and China. Ottawa: Legas Publishing. Wang, Ning. 2012. Multiplied Modernities and Modernisms? Literature Compass 9 (9): 617–622. Wang, Ning. 2015. Globalisation as Glocalisation in China: A New Perspective. Third World Quarterly 36 (11): 2059–2074. Wang, Ning. 2017. From Shanghai Modern to Shanghai Postmodern: A Cosmopolitan View of China’s Modernization. Telos 180(Fall): 87–103. Wang, Ning and Marshall Brown (eds.). 2018. Chinese Encounters Western Theories, A Special Issue. Modern Language Quarterly 79 (3). Xi, Jinping. 2014. Xi Jinping zongshuji zai wenyi zuotanhui shang de zhongyao jianghua xuexi duben (Reader’s Guide to General Secretary Xi Jinping’s Important Speech at the Forum on Literature and Art), ed. Central Department of Publicity of CCP, Beijing: Xuexi chubanshe. Xi, Jinping. 2018. Lun jianchi tuidong goujian renlei mingyun gongtongti (On Building up a Community of Shared Interests or Mankind). Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe (Central Documentation Press). Yu, Keping. 2011. quanqiuhua, dangdai shijie he zhongguo moshi—Yu Keping yu Fushan de duihua (Globalization, Contemporary World and the China Mode: Yu Keing in Conversation with Francis Fukuyama), Beijing Daily, March 28, 2011. Zhang, Xudong. 2012. The will to allegory and the origin of Chinese modernism: Reading Lu Xun’s Ah Q—The real story. In The Oxford Handbook of Global Modernisms, ed. M. Wollaeger and M. Eatough, 173–204. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.

Wang, Ning is a Distinguished University Professor of Humanities and Social Sciences at Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China. Apart from his 20 more books and hundreds of articles in Chinese, he has authored two books in English: Globalization and Cultural Translation (2004), and Translated Modernities: Literary and Cultural Perspectives on Globalization and China (2010), and published extensively in English on such topics as globalization, cosmopolitanism, comparative and world literature and Chinese literature.

Chapter 31

Border-Crossing and Interfacing in Asia: Approaches, Patterns, and Consequences Ming-Chang Tsai

Abstract Border-crossing and interfacing within or across countries, continents, or cultures can be viewed as a key practice of globalization. In contrast to macro-level research which highlights the institutional configurations of international relations and global production networks cross regions, this essay advances our understanding of a micro-level approach to globalization as the experiences of individuals when they physically appear in other countries, have hands-on experience with local lifestyles and cultures, or engage in trade and exchanges on-site, highlighting the “center to center” mobility between big cities in East Asia, in contrast to that of “periphery to periphery” in the highlands of Southeast Asia. By juxtaposing these two types of border-crossing, this essay specifies how distinct patterns of global mobility and networking facilitate distinct identity making in search of similar tribes while developing values and dispositions toward one’s nation as well as strangers and outsiders [141].

From a macrostructural viewpoint, globalization has been conceived as an upward trend of “the widening, intensifying, speeding up and growing impact of worldwide interconnectedness” (Held 2010: 29). Globalization implies a “big structure”, whose “large processes” across the globe necessarily carry “huge impacts” (Tilly 1984). Held (2010), for instance, maintains that the extent and intensity of cross-border over the past decades has paradoxically generated urgent issues (climate change, biodiversity, global infectious diseases, toxic waste disposal, etc.) that cannot be solved by any one nation-state. International collaborations are called for, but unfortunately, nations are not designed for this purpose. This approach of thinking is inspiring, particularly for those people whose main concern is effective policies for the public good at a global scale. Compared to these big ideas of global formation and transformation, Robertson (2016) advances a much more grounded strategy for understanding global processes and consequences. Globalization starts when two populations interface, that is, they M.-C. Tsai (B) Center for Asia-Pacific Area Study, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 I. Rossi (ed.), Challenges of Globalization and Prospects for an Inter-civilizational World Order, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44058-9_31

589

590

M.-C. Tsai

cross a border and make contact (Robertson and White 2003). While recognizing the critical importance of global forms and organizations and their impacts, he contends that it is not wise to “exclude individual or indeed everyday life, from the realm of global change” (Robertson and White 2007: 60). An ideal example includes the process of individualization over the globe. As societies and regions across the world become more linked, connected, and integrated, conventional social forms, such as class, social status, family, neighborhoods, etc. are increasingly fragile. Yet this does not mean they are reduced into insignificance. Rather, they often are restructured in format and continue to exert influences on values and actions in human society. Beck and Beck-Gernsheim (2009) also forecast a trend in which modern individuals will need to supply for themselves self-selected regulations and guidelines, that is, to fill rules and goals into one’s own biography through the contents of one’s own actions. This “do-it-yourself” autobiography is becoming increasingly popular. Thus, what has paralleled globalization is a process of identification, a never-ending, open-ended project of boundary finding and self-anchoring (Bauman 2009). Robertson has further highlighted the resurrection of locality with the fascinating concept of glocalization, which stresses the simultaneity of the global and the local, rather than placing the latter in opposition to the former. The seemingly distinctively local reflects a structuring force, rather than a passively structured space. As globalization goes deeper, glocalization becomes more apparent, instead of increasing homogenization, as was proposed by the world society school (Meyer et al. 1997), or accelerating polarization, as was expected in the view of civilization- or religion-grounded conflicts (Huntington 1996). What is more interesting but remains understudied is the idea of relativization, proposed by Robertson to understand how individuals or collectivities connect, perceive, and react to each other when they cross borders. As individuals or societies break out of their own civilizational shells and meet members of other tribes, Robertson contends (Robertson and Cherico 1985: 234), they necessarily place themselves in “larger categorical contexts,” which is to say, they relativize their standing vis-à-vis others at two basic levels: (1) relativization of selves, that is, placing one’s self-hood in a more inclusive and fundamental frame of what it means to be a member of mankind; and (2) relativization of societies, placing one’s own society in the larger context of the world and evaluating to what extent they exemplify ideal societal qualities (Robertson and Chirico 1985). Two arguments are in order. First, global consciousness as is posited cannot be detached from global connectivity—it is driven by the relationships and reactions between individuals networked in various global forms. This is as much a Durkheimian structuralism as a diffuse-adaption process in communications research. Second, global consciousness is characterized by reflexive thinking, which encourages us to see the world from a panoptical angle rather than any fixed parochial perspective. Despite its insightfulness in theorizing how glocalization has been experienced, Robertson’s conceptual presentation of global connectivity and consciousness is often highly abstract and sometimes improvisational, making it hard to operationalize his key concepts and pin down certain pivotal relationships inherent in his model. For instance, he concludes that a global trend of searching for national

31 Border-Crossing and Interfacing in Asia …

591

identities can often be in vain (Robertson 2016: 14): being a radical movement in our contemporary era, this type of search represents more of a global symptom than a solution, indicating increasing confrontation of a desire for an imagined community (a sense of nation) with an outside world teasing everyone with its network of flows, mobility, and opportunities. In short, the search is illusive, usually without a final anchorage of identity. More precisely, Robertson (2016) proposes that one cannot imagine a locality, a close place, or a nationalist sentiment in the absence of imagining a context in which these local or national entities are situated. What interests most researchers is how to identify any new global imaginaries evolving along the processes and how to evaluate their outcomes. Robertson does not advance any specific hypotheses or case evidence. James and Steger (2016) recently elaborate a model of global imaginary, and suggest that global consciousness has been evolving into modern “background knowledge” that guides our way of knowing the existence and happening in the world by proposing normative notions and images to underlie our expectations from the world. Their proposal, however, remains unspecified in terms of conceptualization and operationalization, let alone providing exemplary analysis.

Microglobalization: Global Exposure as a Key For many Asian people, mobility and networking across borders have indeed become routine activities, taken for granted when they communicate, work, travel, or schedule days (or better, weeks) off for leisure in foreign resorts. Some others move across borders for business trips, specific training, education and degrees, or landing a job overseas. How this mobility and networking evolve into specific structural patterns and affect their values and global imaginaries has been receiving only scant attention, either in grand global theories as discussed previously, or in empirical works that are just starting to accumulate. I consider it important to observe various people on the move outside rather than within borders. Their agency and actions at the quotidian level in fact are constitutive of a larger, global social structure. In light of this microglobal perspective, as I propose in this essay, four key elements are particularly useful for theory building and hypothesis testing of how agency, networks, and communities can evolve in a certain global context with specific consequences. The patterns and variations of these various elements across the societies are worth empirical investigation. The first is border crossing. Physical presence in a territory of others represents a unique experience of “being here” with diverse meanings and values. For many people, it is a precious time of a rare foreign holiday spent with family, and becomes lasting, sweet memories. But some others who receive educational degrees or have worked in a foreign country (especially from the “centers” of the world system like the US, the UK, or Germany, etc.) enjoy a privilege not offered by local degrees or job positions. Babones (2017) proposes a theory particularly highlighting how a globally hierarchical system is established by the US, and how certain East Asian people are involved in it to gain benefits and differentiate

592

M.-C. Tsai

themselves from others who do not possess “public goods” provided by the US. Tsai (2010) also demonstrates with a Taiwan case that, to a large extent, US-trained social scientists, compared to those holding local degrees, performed better and got financed for their research projects because they are more equipped to publish in “international” academic journals. The second element in global exposure analysis pertains to conduit. Earlier studies have documented how middle-class people from Europe or the US moved in almost all directions to pursue personal careers, many of which established a biography featuring a variety of working experiences in global companies in different sites (Burawoy et al. 2000; Eade 1997). Also documented was a person’s conduit with a simplified binary design, soliciting information merely on whether a person had ever traveled overseas or to a certain region (Tsai 2013). It is more substantive to track what routes have been traveled when people crossed borders. An itinerary can happen within a constricted geography or culture. A trip from Singapore to Taiwan (or China) might produce little cultural shock because of the similar cultural background of the natives in the two countries. In contrast to within-continent trips, some travel routes are designed to be “inter-continental”, in order to have hands-on experience in Others’ civilizations. For instance, brides and grooms used to fly from Hong Kong to Taiwan for wedding photos in studios and local attractions. Recently, ˇ couples of Taiwan and Hong Kong have flown farther, to Ceský Krumlov in Czech, for its ancient castles, old town streets and a scenic riverbend as the backgrounds of their pre-wedding photos. These photos are to be displayed at their wedding to show their love and happiness together, in addition to showing off being able to afford conspicuous consumption. Drawing data from the East Asian Social Survey (http:// www.eassda.org), Tsai (2015) provides a comparison of the routes East Asians took in their international travel as of 2008. Japanese respondents visited North America (to Hawaii more often than to the mainland US) and Europe more frequently. Affluence in that society accounts for distance in travel. Korean and Taiwanese people traveled mainly within Asia. Southeast Asia (SEA) appears to be a popular, nearby destination where sun, sand, and (perhaps) sex are affordable to visitors with limited budgets. The extremely frequent visits of the Taiwanese to SEA have much to do with their massive investment in this region, as well as with numerous “foreign brides” from the area (Bélanger and Wang 2012; Tsai 2011). The rise of China also means rising expenditure by Chinese on global tours. Southeast Asia had been one most visited regions. Recently, the US (specifically, southern California) has become the most “desired” destination for birth tourism. For many rich Chinese families, choosing this conduit means to give a better future to their offspring. Not surprisingly, there has been a huge panic among natives over Chinese birth tourism. “Jus soli” birthright citizenship clashes with the natives’ “racialization” of new baby immigrants (“Who can become a baby American?”) in this scenario of birth tourism (Wang 2017). Global networking constitutes the third element. This is where global exposure analysis overlaps with, but goes beyond, the neighborhood or kin network studies in sociological tradition. Global networking features relations across borders. It is far-flung, sparsely connected, fluid, and specialized in terms of resources and support (Wellman 1999). Indeed, “long distance”’ community and relations stretching across

31 Border-Crossing and Interfacing in Asia …

593

borders reveal one central feature of “global network society” (Hampton and Wellman 2001; Wellman 2001). The boundaries of concepts like place, culture, and milieu can become questionable if constricted territorially (Albrow et al. 2007). However, such networking has been not as common as people predict it is. Tsai’s (2015) analysis shows that about 75% of the Japanese reported no personal relationships with people in other Asian countries, and approximately 87% of them reported having no relationships in either North America or Europe. The Chinese sample showed even higher percentages of the mass public that did not have personal relations in Asia or the West. In comparison, Taiwanese people are more “outbound-networking”, at least within their region: 43.7% of respondents reported one or more relations within Asia, 15 percentage points higher than the Korean sample. The last element brings us back to where we started—the issue of global consciousness. From an empirical perspective, one critical question is how can global consciousness be better measured? There is so far no consensus, and research design varies in operationalization. Robertson seems to suggest measuring reflexive global consciousness by probing whether people are “very conscious of global circumstances” like climate change, space exploration, migration, diasporas, and other extraterritorial imaginaries (Robertson and Buhari-Gulmez 2016). The global exposure approach has extensively investigated whether favorable attitudes are present toward trade openness, imports of cultural artifacts, and tolerance of immigration in this region. Yet this does not mean favoring a certain institutional format (free market society, multiculturalism, and so on) for the whole world, in contrast to the rejection of foreign forces’ “invasion” into the motherland. This is not a game of taking sides with either homogenization or heterogenization. Rather, the global consciousness idea in reality expects to see a blended complex of the relationship between sameness and difference. Empirically, “a relativized world” is one where both sameness and difference coexist, and probably get along pretty well. Tsai’s (2013) cross-national study of 14 societies in Asia indeed offers supportive evidence of this. Using a composite index of global exposure, he showed a positive correlation between global exposure and patriotic education. That is, the more globalized a person is, the more importance he or she gives to the teaching of love for one’s own country. His finding also indicates that global exposure tends to decrease the overvaluing of traditional culture. This result echoes with the idea of relativization, that those being involved in global forces can increase, rather than reduce, the intensity of their identity with one’s nation.

The Mobile, the Marginal, and Other Social Types Globalism, observed from the individual level, connotes regular practices of bordercrossing and transnational networking, as well as evolving imaginaries of the world’s economy and culture. While stressing an upward trend of globalism as such in Asia, the current scholarship does not ignore the fact that global mobility and connectivity are class-stratified phenomena. Inequality in the opportunity of global exposure

594

M.-C. Tsai

remains very much an outcome of individual resources and cultural (and language) capital (Delhey et al. 2015; Tsai 2015). The death of the class argument in contemporary, postmodern society is not very useful here (Bauman 1998). Neither does global mobility reflect high individualization that prevents understanding from a class perspective. Rather, as Bauman (1998) has contended, “mobile” versus “immobile” is the deciding line in separating who is privileged and who is not involved in current global society. This contrast is essentially similar to a social type of cosmopolitan versus local, proposed by Robert Merton (1968). We do see in some instances that the lower classes indeed get connected globally. Immigrants, exiles, and seasonal workers are seen on the move, texting messages or getting connected wirelessly from host countries to their native towns. But they are often “marginalized cosmopolitans”: They are situated in global cities but are only thinly connected or integrated into the mainstream societies. They do not exemplify microglobalization. As Calhoun (2008) strongly argues, cosmopolitanism is a “stylistic capacity” that depends on privilege, a good passport, and language capital. The “class consciousness of frequent travelers” (Calhoun 2003) which operates in the imaginary of a flat, open world is very grounded in the material privileges of world-class elites. Tsai and Iwai (2013) had attempted to propose a typology of global exposure on the basis of an individual’s border-crossing and transnational relationships. Four types are distinguished: the “global exposed,” “global surfer,” “networked,” and the “local.” In this new trial of comparing East Asian samples, they found that Japanese more likely are global surfers, who traveled across regions but developed less networking beyond their border. Taiwan and South Korea had a larger proportion of the global exposed, who were mobile as well as were connected with overseas friends or coworkers. Locals, however, still account for a large share of the population in the three countries. Along the current debate on inequality of global, there is not much progress in new imagination of how to effectively distinguish different social groups as well as their experiences of global mobility and exposure. Additional research on social types as such and their underlying factors are needed here.

Networking Across Borders: Southeast Asia Studies of border-crossing and people meeting in Southeast Asia have focused an area that has been called “Zomia”, the “interconnected” borderlands at high altitudes, where Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, Burma, India, and China meet (van Schendel 2002; Scott 2009). Metaphorically, this area has been long been understood as the “margins” or “edges”, which are remote, empty, static, ignored, alienated, underdeveloped, barbarous, not-worthy, and so on. These adjectives reify a periphery that lacks value, power, and resources, in contrast to the “centers” or “heartlands”, the significance of which is well defined and taken for granted. Baud and van Schendel (1997) forcefully challenge this conception, arguing that Zomia in fact can constitute a unique social space which have their own dynamics, struggles, and confrontational or cooperative relationships. Their relationship with the state has been fascinating

31 Border-Crossing and Interfacing in Asia …

595

as a research issue. Scott (2009) argues that “hill people” in Zomia are best understood as “runaway, fugitive, maroon communities,” who have been escaping from the oppressions of state-making projects—slavery, taxes, conscription, warfare, etc.— expanding from the plains or valleys. In response, over centuries or even longer these regions have evolved into various hubs that have strived for self-governance to avoid being governed by “centers”. Subversive economies also evolve here, concentrating on the trading of arms for resistance and small wars (van Schendel 2002). Indeed, smuggling of goods, arms, and other variety of contrabands has been active in the region for centuries (Tagliacozzo 2002). The borders have been an intended or unintended consequence of state authority. Like what I have discussed in analyzing the experience of transnational mobility and flow in Northeast Asia in the first section of the paper, the dynamics and processes over this geographical area of Southeast Asia can be investigated more systematically using a similar framework of microglobalization. Indeed, flows, networks, and systems of interaction across borders have received special attention (Baud and van Schendel 1997; van Schendel 2002; Saxer, Pippa and Horstmann 2018). In what follows below, this paper does not intend to offer a comprehensive review of the “meeting points” and transnational relationships thereof. My interest lies in highlighting selected works to show some comparative advantages of the concepts of global exposure and transnational networking. Studies on borderlines, borderlands, or borderlanders continue to make two major claims. First, the state’s influence in the borderlands is usually constrained. The issues of security and sovereignty cannot be taken for granted in Zomia. Second, the borderland, when seeing it from “below” rather than a top-down perspective, is enriched with the praxis and narratives of the border people. It is believed that borders create unique physical, social, and economic circumstances that give rise to specific life strategies totally different from those of people residing in centers. Eilenberg and Wadley’s (2009) investigation of the Iban people straddling over Sarawok, Malaysia, and West Kalimantan, Indonesia, represents a typical case in highlighting the agency of migrants in their transnational activities. Iban workers in Indonesia have been particularly effective in utilizing their ethnic ties and kin connections to open up the doors to “higher-income” jobs across the border, which in fact were low-skilled, entry-level works in labor-intensive factories or supermarkets. Kusakabe and Pearson (2016) offer a similar case at the Thailand–Burma border. They are specifically concerned with Burmese female workers in Mae Soe, a small border town providing garment factory jobs for both local and migrant women. They have been “hill people” and are not considered full citizens, even by their own native state of Burma. They choose to work on borders, rather than moving farther to Bangkok, where higher wages can be obtained, because the borderland provides an “exceptional space” with lax state controls, of which they take advantage by moving back and forth across the border easily. This flexibility allows them to utilize resources on both sides—for example, education and health care in Thailand and familial resources in Burma. Rangkla (2014) provides an additional case with which to reveal how the displaced Karen in Northern Thailand have been able to maintain a strong ethnic community by practicing a unique wrist-tying rite. By promoting and practicing this rite of

596

M.-C. Tsai

tying a white thread around the wrist in many ceremonies to help keep a person’s soul in the body, the ordinary Karen as well as the Karen National Union both have infused a new element of ethnonationalism into this traditional practice, and therefore strengthened their tribal identity, besides operating to ease their pain for their experiences of physical suffering and painful memories of war and adversity in eastern Burma. To Liu (2001), the understanding of the “contact zone” in Southeast Asia has to take a transcultural viewpoint, because large Chinese communities had emerged extensively in this region by the 1920s. To be sure, approximately 20 million people of Chinese ancestry or ethnicity there can be dated back much earlier, some as early as the 1700s (Lockard 2013). Rather than investigating the cultural uniqueness within each border, Liu (2001) proposes an insightful “Sino-Southeast Asia” perspective to observe trans-region trade, ethnic community building, growth model learning, longdistance nationalism, and so on. Chang’s (2004, 2013) anthropological observation of the jade trade between Burma and Thailand represents a typical case. Despite a thousand-year-long history of trade in precious stones out of Burma to China, natural resources as such were nationalized under Ne Win’s “the Burmese Way to Socialism”. Illegal trade became a necessity for satisfying living needs. But it also opened up a window of exchange with the neighboring countries, a unique sort of exposure through crossing borders. The Yunnanese Chinese in Burma initiated a new trade route to Thailand, by which to connect with buyers from Hong Kong and Taiwan. Some of the people involved in this business have been Chinese migrants for centuries. Added to them were also those who escaped from China’s civil war to upper Burma in the 1950s. A number of jade companies they managed or participated in played the role of the node for networking all persons or groups involved in the whole trade: mine workers, caravans carrying jades between borders, ethnic militias offering protection for the caravans (and taxing them), underground banking companies, buyers and sellers gathering in Thailand, etc. Chang (2004) argued that for this cross-national trade to run smoothly and reliably, dependence on narrow private relationships (guanxi) or personal trust is not sufficient and effective. The caravan and jade companies together were able to develop strong organizational regulations, rules, and insurance strategies to realize reciprocity, interdependence, and fairness in trade. Institutionalized sanctions were exercised to decide who can have established, good reputations and can continue to participate in these secret trades to share in the lucrative profits (Chang 2009). To fully reveal the gamut of types of lifestyles on borders in this region, Askew’s (2006) study of the Lower South of Thailand provides an interesting description of both sacred and secular visitations of Chinese-Malaysian and Singaporeans. The Buddhist temples in Hat Yat on Thai’s border provides venues for Chinese tourists and sojourners, who have found shrines vernacularly “similar” to those of their folk religions, so that they can show respect to sacred spirits, seek helps from deities, accumulate comforts, and benefit from blessings of various gods. This visitation, often finished in a day, allows these Chinese to find a “haven for affirming and expressing shared elements of culture with a freedom not entirely possible in Malaysia or Singapore” (Askew 2006: 183). In exactly the same town, as well as nearby small cities, commercial

31 Border-Crossing and Interfacing in Asia …

597

sex also has thrived for decades to cater to the needs of visitors across borders. Massage parlors, brothels, discotheques, karaoke bars, and so on, have supplied sexual services for customers of various religious backgrounds. Through a special system of “booking” specific sex workers, male tourists often become return visitors. Many visitors even have developed regular relationships with mistresses across the border. This is frequently observed not merely among Chinese, but also found for Malay Muslim men practicing it like a legitimate temporary (mut’a) marriage (Askew 2006: 197). Needless to say, these visitors have a common strong interest in making borders permissible and porous. Cases, stories, and narratives abound in the ethnographic studies of people or tribes crossing borders and benefiting from “international” connections in Southeast Asia. There appears to have emerged a high interest shared by both sociological and anthropological scholars to explore various “hinterlands” for observing a wide array of lifeworlds as represented by identity searching, trade engaging, (state) regulations evading, war-making, etc. But so far, interactions across the two disciplines remain limited, which had prevented a fuller, holistic understanding of the daily practices of globalization in this region.

Mobility and Consciousness: Comparing Global Exposure and Borderlands Perspectives The global exposure perspective highlights inequality in global mobility because the sites of observation are located in Northeast Asia. Crossing the borders in this region mostly means taking flights, presenting an official passport, and passing the customs in international airports. It is usually mobility from a center to a center. Procedures in this “center to center” mobility may become an effortless routine for many middle-class people whose income has increased owing to rapid economic growth in the past decades. In each capital city they can visit, they may collect a standard trophy, like a Starbucks mug inscribed with the name of Tokyo or Seoul, or even New York or Paris. They are basic building blocks of one’s individualized biography. Not surprisingly, how many territories, or centers (to be more precise) a person can land at is closely determined by the economic resources one possesses, as well as a lingua franca one has command of (English, for most East Asian people). Border-crossing by land is surely very different from that by air. Usually, it is a mobility of “periphery to periphery”, rather than hopping from a center to another center. The sites tend to be specific geographical settings. The mountainous borderlands in Southeast Asia provide a typical case. Yet it is here that agency looms large when border-crossing behaviors shift between resisting and accommodating, in order to effectively deal with the state power which becomes increasingly “eligible” overtime (Scott 2009). Indeed, many scholars believe that borders have become less and less “abandoned” by modern states (Horstmann and Wadley 2006).

598

M.-C. Tsai

In the borderland approach, the routes taken by either migrants or trading caravans appear to be highly constrained, despite (and because of) involving transnational division of labor. In most cases, distances are short and the number of territories involved is small. The conduit can be more varied and distant among the respondents in global exposure studies (from Tokyo to Thailand, or Seoul to New York), but the routes taken are highly selective. From Japan and China, middle-class people travel to their favorite centers in rich countries. This has much to do with the privileges a person possesses, as well as with the pride or prestige he or she can establish from having been around the (rich) world. A series of social surveys in Taiwan reveals that during 2005–2015, for those who had ever traveled overseas, less than 4 percent reported they had been to either the Middle East, South America, or Africa. In contrast, those who had visited Europe increased from 14% to 18%. North America continues to be most frequented (24%), when it comes to intercontinental travel (Fu et al. 2016). Here, the routes taken keenly are not those less traveled; rather, they reflect a world system of hierarchy that defines cores and peripheries. The routes of global travel follow accordingly. Randomness has little influence over where one travels around the world. The global exposure approach to transnational networking is somewhat constrained, not because it fails to deliver information about who gets connected with whom beyond borders, but because it provides fewer thick descriptions of how these relationships work to facilitate one’s transnational social capital or worldviews. This is not to blame the research design, which aims to understand the general pattern of networking across borders with tools of standard survey instruments, such as structured questionnaires (Tsai 2015; Delhey et al. 2015). The borderland approach appears to be much focused on networking. However, transnational networking and social capital in the works cited in the previous section were investigated only superficially. When mentioning a social relationship is being used, these works rarely move forward to ask: are these strong or weak ties? How do they evolve along time? To what extent and why do some ties become useful tools for obtaining the desired goals, while others turn out to be exploitive? How does trust play out its role in cross-border migration and marriage, legal business management, or secret trade? It is insufficient to say that because those who live across borders are of the same ethnic background or religious belief, these naturally become viable social capital for daily use across borders (Horstmann 2006). Investigation from the global exposure approach might have risked “misplaced empiricism”, easily making a mistake in overstating about the social structure of global exposure from a few equations of regression estimation yet ignoring the larger contexts of the global order responsible for observed behaviors at the individual level. The borderlands research seems to fall short in the opposite way, that is, it reveals a methodological weakness of placing an overdose of attention to selected informants in the fields yet overdramatizing their stories into a distinct perspective or even an analytical explanation with a undue tone of generalization. Current researchers with both global exposure and borderlands approaches might feel somewhat embarrassed if they are asked for evidence on whether glocalization breeds a feeling of relativization as a consequence. Clearly, relativization has

31 Border-Crossing and Interfacing in Asia …

599

been understudied in academics, despite its theoretical importance. Robertson (2016) and his followers have been emphasizing how different social groups become more conscious of their distinctive positions in a wider world context (Giulianotti 2016). Using international sporting games as a typical example, Giulianotti highlights the issue of identity and its making in glocalization. In highly compressed campaigns which all the world is watching, football fans, particularly those from small nations, attend tournaments in order to celebrate a collective pride by seeing their little nation on a global stage and being watched and discussed by global audiences (Giulianotti 2016: 131). It is understandable that global forces can serve to sharpen, rather than diminish, a national identity, for instance, in the Olympic games. But even here, evidence remains highly limited and selective: even if waving a national flag or wearing a customized logo T-shirt provides a banal national identity, how does this Durkheimian collective effervescence sustain itself and expand into other everyday domains? How does this marking of one’s identity through global sports happen in Asia? (Giulianotti and Robertson 2012) Admittedly, there is no solid research on global imaginaries yet in the literature of both global exposure and borderlands approaches. Tsai’s (2013) finding of a positive association between global exposure and a specific aspect of nationalism (patriotic education) seems to stand alone, and obviously needs additional support from empirical research. The relativization thesis is concerned with the potential loss of nationalism against the powerful wave of globalization. In the Asian context, indeed, nationalism remains as strong as a trust in globalization. There is a widely held belief that globalization can be used as a means to achieving a better and strong national economy. People with overseas experiences, mostly middle-class professionals, tend to show attitudinal support to globalization even in China, not to mention in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan (Tsai 2015). Because globalization is not perceived as a threat to local industries and workers, its core ideological claim that free market is a self-regulating institution benefiting all has been celebrated with little hesitation. What is intriguing is that contestation against neoliberal globalism has been constrained or muted in East and Southeast Asia. The left, feminists, and environmentalists, who have been active in anti-globalization movements in the Western societies (Kahn and Kellner 2007), had a very hard time in organizing and competing with mainstream politicians who are tilting toward neoliberalism. That the global imaginaries in this area have been structured to favor globalization is an issue of great importance for understanding the local context of “thinking global”. In my view, both global exposure and borderlands perspectives are weak in inspiring answers to issues incurred beyond “the borders”. That is, questions like how global hegemons have formulated and disseminated neoliberal ideologies can be better answered by referring to cultural critiques of globalization (Steger 2007). I do not mean there is a divide in theorizing. Rather, I see a necessity of the academic division of labor among global exposure, borderlands, and cultural theories to collectively anatomize the massive body of globalization as a neoliberal economic system as well as a coherent set of ideology-loaded imageries.

600

M.-C. Tsai

Concluding Remarks Through a close look at the experiences of global connectivity and cosmopolitan imaginaries of Asian people, this paper arrives at a conclusion that both the global exposure and borderlands approaches initiate new and provocative views on how micro-level praxis of globalization have been performed in East and Southeast Asia. Yet there is still work needed to be done. Perhaps because of its status as a fledgling enterprise, the global exposure viewpoint has not gained sufficient popularity in this region, compared to much research done especially using European samples (Delhey et al. 2015; Mau and Mewes 2009; Pichler 2011). Nevertheless, previous works using this approach have provided a workable framework to operationalize key concepts such as transnational social networking, identity formation, cosmopolitanism, etc. What is needed in future research is to foreground the ideas like glocalization and relativization and put them into hypothesis testing. To take the transnationality perspective as an instance, does a globalized world generate not only new transnational communities (for immigrants), but also facilitates cross-country network ties (for those remaining “natives” yet becoming outward-looking) which incurs a new formation of social identity that cannot be defined by the traditional reference point of national states? (Robinson 2007) This question is concerned with beliefs and agency at individual and national levels. At a higher, global level, questions like this one have been probed by theorists of global order perspective but are never rigorously tested: for instance, to what extent does globalization enhance what had been called “cosmopolitan rights” across continents? Here cosmopolitan rights connote “the capacity to present oneself and be heard within across political communities”; it is the right “to enter the dialogue without artificial constrains and limitation” (Held 2010: 42). Testing these hypotheses is urgently needed to help deepen our understanding of a global system at operation. Many cross-national research projects based in Asia have incorporated a few (but still limited) border-crossing behaviors regularly in their information collection— for instance, the East Asian Social Survey (www.eassda.org) and Asian Barometer Survey (www.asianbarometer.org). Other global projects like the World Values Survey (www.worldvaluessurvey.org) and International Social Survey Program (www.issp.org) fall short in this aspect as global behaviors are not included in their modules, although attitudes and value positions about international systems are available. This might reflect Asian researchers’ particularly keen interest in knowing the patterns and consequences of glocalization in the regional context. This is obviously a good direction to go. Cross-country comparison in this genre can become realized when global project leaders become more aware of the significance of the topic of global exposure. The borderlands perspective succeeds in weaving together a large number of cases and stories from the margins to show how the government and authority of the nationstate are mostly defied, dodged, or evaded. Because the studied subpopulations tend to be ethnic minorities, refugees, diasporas, nomads, or dissidents, not surprisingly,

31 Border-Crossing and Interfacing in Asia …

601

they challenge the state’s power actively, in order to access better economic opportunities, to maintain control over a locale, or to simply increase the likelihood of survival by whatever the borderlands can provide. Indeed, scenarios as such show up regularly in academic journals and books. But there is a concern over whether the way this “life-world”, as has been studied, can continue to provide a source of alternative concepts for understanding glocalization. For instance, let me quote an interesting comment, “A border can be defined as a state’s intervention into overlapping social domains, such as family, business, religion, and livelihood, for the sake of establishing and validating sovereignty… border-crossing mobility necessarily incurs a pantheon of spaces that evoke negotiation and contestation of interests, ideologies, and identity. Borders generate new social space (which can be real or imagined)” (Chan and Womack 2016: 98). This quote was originally to highlight the human experiences happening on the borderlands in Southeast and Northeast Asia. I would not be surprised if this description is shifted to describe the lifeworld of a certain urban community in China or a rural town in the Philippines. Not that I devalue the significant scholarship in the field of the borderlands, but it seems to me that those researchers capitalize on their specific study targets more than they offer new insights to challenge fundamental assumptions of how globalization proceeds or how its transformative power operates. I have shown achievements, strengths, and weaknesss in both of the global exposure and borderlands approaches in a comparative perspective. Rather than, respectively, keep one another aloof, cross-referring intimately between the two major scholarships is called for. This is to acknowledge the multilayered lifeworld in the peripheries. A borderland of freedom may adjoin other borderlands of constraints, catharsis, or celestials. Moving on or over borderlands, some low-skilled labors, foreign maids, marriage migrants, and even sex workers may have written an autobiography featuring as much mobility as the middle and upper class. They frequently become forced labor because their rights are not protected despite their stay in host societies is legal (Bélanger 2014; Killias 2010). Overall, the patterns and processes of the interfacing between people on and over borderlands are dynamic and improvising, not easily settled in pre-designed conceptualization, categorization, or ideal types. Hopefully, this paper has contributed to highlighting the issues, concerns, and the spent effort in both sociology and anthropology in capturing these complex flows and their interfacing, as well as to stimulating future research with a holistic view on borders, borderlands, and border-crossing in Northeast and Southeast Asia.

References Albrow, M., J. Eade, J. Dürrschmidt, and N. Washbourne. 2007. The Impact of Globalizations on Sociological Concepts. In Living the Global City: Globalization as a Local Process, ed. J. Eade, 20–36. London: Routledge. Askwe, M. 2006. Sex and the Sacred: Sojourners and Visitors in the Making of the Southern Thai Borderland. In Centering the Margin: Agency and Narrative in Southeast Asian Borderlands, ed. A. Horstmann and R.L. Wadley, 177–206. New York: Berghahn.

602

M.-C. Tsai

Babones, S. 2017. American Tianxia: Chinese Money, American Power, and The End of History. Bristol: Policy Press. Baud, M., and M. van Schendel. 1997. Toward a Comparative History of Borderlands. Journal of World History 8: 211–242. Bauman, Z. 1998. Globalization: The Human Consequences. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bauman, Z. 2009. Identity in the Globalizing World. In Identity in question, ed. A. Elliot and P. du Gay, 1–12. Los Angeles: Sage. Beck, U., and E. Beck-Gernsheim. 2009. Losing the Traditional: Individualization and ‘Precarious Freedom’. In Identity in Question, ed. A. Elliot and P. du Gay, 13–36. Los Angeles: Sage. Bélanger, D. 2014. Labor Migration and Trafficking Among Vietnamese Migrants in Asia. Annals, AAPSS 653: 87–106. Bélanger, D., and H.-Z. Wang. 2012. Transnationalism from Below: Evidence from Vietnam-Taiwan Cross-Border Marriages. Asian and Pacific Migration Journal 21: 291–316. Burawoy, M., et al. 2000. Global Ethnography. Berkeley: University of California Press. Calhoun, C. 2003. The Class Consciousness of Frequent Travelers: Toward a Critique of Actually Existing Cosmopolitanism. In Debating cosmopolitics, ed. D. Archibugi, 86–116. London: Verso. Calhoun, C. 2008. Cosmopolitanism in the Modern Social Imagination. Dædalus 137: 105–114. Chan, Y.W., and B. Womack. 2016. Not Merely a Border: Borderland Governance, Development and Transborder Relations in Asia. Asian Anthropology 15: 95–103. Chang, W.-C. 2004. Guanxi and Regulation in Networks: The Yunnanese Jade Trade Between Burma and Thailand, 1962–1988. Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 35: 479–501. Chang, W.-C. 2009. Venturing into “Barbarous” Regions: Transborder Trade Among Migrant Yunnanese Between Thailand and Burma, 1960–1980s. Journal of Asian Studies 68: 543–572. Chang, W.-C. 2013. The Everyday Politics of the Underground Trade in Burma by the Yunnanese Chinese Since the Burmese Socialist Era. Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 44: 292–314. Delhey, J., E. Deutschmann, and K. Cirlanaru. 2015. Between ‘Class Project’ and Individualization: The Stratification of Europeans’ Transnational Activities. International Sociology 30: 269–293. Eade, J. 1997. Living the Global City: Globalization as a Local Process. London: Routledge. Eilenberg, M., and R.L. Wadley. 2009. Borderland Livelihood Strategies: The Socio-Economic Significance of Ethnicity in Cross-Border Labour Migration, West Kalimantan, Indonesia. Asia Pacific Viewpoint 50: 58–73. Fu, Y.-C., et al. 2016. Executing Report of 2015 Taiwan Social Change Survey. Taipei: Institute of Sociology, Academia Sinica. Giulianotti, R. 2016. Glocalization and Global Sport. In Global culture: consciousness and connectivity, ed. R. Robertson and D. Buhari-Gulmez, 127–142. London: Routledge. Giulianotti, R., and R. Robertson. 2012. Glocalization and Sport in Asia: Diverse Perspectives and Future Possibilities. Sociology of Sport Journal 29: 433–454. Hampton, K., and B. Wellman. 2001. Long Distance Community in the Network society. American Behavioral Scientist 45: 476–495. Held, D. 2010. Cosmopolitanism: Ideas and Realities. Cambridge: Polity. Horstmann, A. 2006. Deconstructing Citizenship from the Border: Dual Ethnic Minorities and Local Reworking of Citizenship at the Thai-Malaysian Frontier. In Centering the Margin: Agency and Narrative in Southeast Asian Borderlands, ed. A. Horstmann and R.L. Wadley, 155–176. New York: Berghahn. Horstmann, A., and R.L. Wadley. 2006. Centering the margin in Southeast Asia. In Centering the Margin: Agency and Narrative in Southeast Asian Borderlands, ed. A. Horstmann and R.L. Wadley, 1–24. New York: Berghahn. Huntington, S.P. 1996. The Clash of Civilizations and The Remaking of World Order. New York: Simon & Schuster. James, P., and M.B. Steger. 2016. Globalization and Global Consciousness: Levels of Connectivity. In Global Culture: Consciousness and Connectivity, ed. R. Robertson and D. Buhari-Gulmez, 21–40. London: Routledge.

31 Border-Crossing and Interfacing in Asia …

603

Kahn, R. and Kellner, D. 2007. Resisting Globalization. In The Blackwell Companion to Globalization, ed. G. Ritzer, 662–674. London: Blackwell. Killias, O. 2010. ‘Illegal’ Migration as Resistance: Legality, Morality and Coercion in Indonesian Domestic Worker Migration to Malaysia. Asian Journal of Social Science 38: 897–914. Kusakabe, K., and R. Pearson. 2016. Working Through Exceptional Space: The Case of Women Migrant Workers in Mae Sot, Thailand. International Sociology 31: 268–285. Liu, H. 2001. Sino-Southeast Asian Studies: Toward an Alternative Paradigm. Asian Studies Review 25: 259–283. Lockard, C.A. 2013. Chinese Migration and Settlement in Southeast Asia Before 1850: Making Fields from the Sea. History Compass 11: 765–781. Mau, S., and J. Mewes. 2009. Class Divides Within Transnationalization—The German Population and Its Cross-Border Practices. In Mobilities and Inequality, ed. T. Ohnmacht et al., 165–185. Farnham: Ashgate. Merton, R. 1968. Social Theory and Social Structure. New York: Free Press. Meyer, J.W., J. Boli, G.M. Thomas, and F.O. Ramirez. 1997. World Society and the Nation-State. American Journal of Sociology 103: 144–181. Pichler, F. 2011. Cosmopolitanism in a Global Perspective: An International Comparison of OpenMinded Orientation and Identity in Relation to Globalization. International Sociology 27: 21–50. Rangkla, P. 2014. Karen Ethno-Nationalism and the Wrist-Tying Ceremony Along the ThaiBurmese Border. Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 45: 74–89. Robertson, R. 2016. Global Culture and Consciousness. In Global Culture: Consciousness and Connectivity, ed. R. Robertson and D. Buhari-Gulmez, 5–20. London: Routledge. Robertson, R., and D. Buhari-Gulmez. 2016. Conclusion. In Global Culture: Consciousness and Connectivity, ed. R. Robertson and D. Buhari-Gulmez, 211–214. London: Routledge. Robertson, R., and J. Chirico. 1985. Humanity, Globalization, and Worldwide Religious Resurgence: A Theoretical Exploration. Sociological Analysis 46: 219–242. Robertson, R., and K.E. White. 2003. Globalization: An Overview. In Globalization: Critical Concepts in Sociology, vol. 1, ed. R. Robertson and K.E. White, 1–44. London: Routledge. Robertson, R., and K.E. White. 2007. What is globalization? In The Blackwell Companion to Globalization, ed. G. Ritzer, 54–66. Malden: Blackwell. Robinson, W.I. 2007. Theories of Globalization. In The Blackwell Companion to Globalization, ed. G. Ritzer, 125–143. London: Blackwell. Saxer, M., A. Pippa, and A. Horstmann. 2018. Asian Borderlands in a Global Perspective. In Routledge Handbook of Asian Borderlands, ed. A. Horstmann, M. Saxer, and A. Rippa, 1–13. London: Routledge. Scott, J.C. 2009. The Art of Not Being Governed. New Haven: Yale University Press. Steger, M.B. 2007. Globalization and Ideology. In The Blackwell Companion to Globalization, ed. G. Ritzer, 367–382. London: Blackwell. Tagliacozzo, E. 2002. Smuggling in Southeast Asia: History and Its Contemporary Vectors in an Unbounded Region. Critical Asian Studies 34: 193–220. Tilly, C. 1984. Big Structures Large Processes Huge Comparisons. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Tsai, M.-C. 2010. Evaluating Sociologists in Taiwan: Power, Profession and Passersby. In The international Handbook on Diverse Sociological Traditions, ed. S. Patel, 313–323. London: Sage. Tsai, M.-C. 2011. Foreign Brides Meet Ethnic Politics in Taiwan. International Migration Review 45: 243–268. Tsai, M.-C. 2013. The Effect of Global Exposure on the Attitudes Toward Tradition, Patriotism and Foreigners: Multilevel Analysis of Fourteen Asian Societies. Globalizations 10: 819–835. Tsai, M.-C. 2015. Global Exposure in East Asia. London, UK: Routledge. Tsai, M.-C., and N. Iwai. 2013. Global Exposure and Openness: Comparative Analysis of Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. Comparative Sociology 12: 301–329.

604

M.-C. Tsai

van Schendel, W. 2002. Geographies of knowing, geographies of ignorance: jumping scale in Southeast Asia. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 20: 647–668.d. Wang, S.H. 2017. Fetal Citizens? Birthright Citizenship, Reproductive Futurism, and the “Panic” Over Chinese Birth Tourism in Southern California. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 35: 263–280. Wellman, B. 1999. The Network Community: An Introduction. In Networks in the Global Village, ed. B. Wellman, 1–47. London: Routledge. Wellman, B. 2001. Physical Place and Cyberplace: The Rise of Personalized Networking. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 25: 227–252.

Ming-Chang Tsai is a Research Fellow and Deputy Director of Research Center for Humanities and Social Sciences, CHSS, Academia Sinica, Taiwan. He is a former president of the Taiwanese Sociological Association and the president of the Research Committee of Social Indicators of the International Sociological Association. His recent books include Global Exposure in East Asia (Routledge, 2015) and Family, Work and Wellbeing in Asia (coeditor, Springer, 2017).

Chapter 32

Transformations in Kinship Relations in a Globalized India: Interrogating Marriage, Law, and Intimacy Rukmini Sen

Abstract This paper intends to review sociological/anthropological literature from India on marriage and family structures within a transformative landscape. Most of the essays, social events, laws, and judgments that will be used in this article will be post-millennium, indicating an engagement with the politico-cultural impact of globalization in India. The objective through this article is to indicate that in the last two decades, contestations around love, consent, “honor”, and freedom have become important concepts that sociology has been engaging with or is expected to engage with. While it is important to note a shift in sociological studies on marriage, family and kinship forms since the ones from the 1970s to 1990s, it is equally necessary to acknowledge that heterosexual marriage remains a dominant structure through which kinship is still popularly imagined or practiced. By discussing briefly four recent narratives of love, all of which were sub-texts of violence as well, this paper will engage with questions around the social impossibilities of inter-community and inter-caste marriages and same sex intimacy, while the Indian judiciary brings the principle of constitutional morality into the domestic space. This paper wishes to finally propose a real need to foreground intimacy as a sociological subject of enquiry in India.

Family: Claimed and Contested Studying family as an institution is central to the discipline of sociology. The Blackwell Companion to the Sociology of Families proposed that for examining the impact I wish to thank Professor Ino Rossi for his patience and perseverance with this paper. I am grateful to Professor Habibul Khondker for having faith and introducing me to the editor of this collection. I am extremely thankful to Dr B. R. Ambedkar University Delhi for allowing me to design and transact the MA Sociology compulsory course on Relationships and Affinities, the ideas explored in which form the basis of this paper. R. Sen (B) Dr B. R. Ambedkar University Delhi, New Delhi, India e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 I. Rossi (ed.), Challenges of Globalization and Prospects for an Inter-civilizational World Order, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44058-9_32

605

606

R. Sen

of globalization and its ramifications of individualization, there is no better testbed than the family setting (Scott 2004). It quotes Anthony Giddens “among all the changes going on today, none are more important than those happening in our personal lives—in sexuality, relationships, marriage and the family. There is a global revolution going on in how we think of ourselves and how we form ties and connections with others.” Don Edgar, in the same book, proposes that in most Western societies there is a normative acceptance of new types of family forms—single parent, separated, divorced, even the un-family of friendship groups (Ibid). What follows in this section, is noting how at different junctures in Indian sociology, postmillennium, anthologies around the state/status of the discipline have included a discussion on family, kinship, intimacies, and the kind of questions that these essays had raised. These were moments of re-inscribing the importance of the institution and/also suggesting the changing form of relations that kinship is undergoing. In the Indian Council of Social Science Research publication Research Surveys and Explorations, family studies find a place within a chapter on Sociology of Gender. Rajmohini Seth (2014), proposes a feminist family study within Indian sociology, which has successfully raised questions on conflicts arising due to gender and age within the household. These studies critiqued the public–private divide and located family as a site of both production and reproduction. In the most recent Critical Themes in Indian Sociology, (Srivastava et al. 2019) although there is no separate chapter on kinship in the volume, yet there is a return to kinship/domesticity/co-living through varying concepts, methods, and sites.

New Kinds of Domestic Intimacies Pervez Mody (2019) explores contemporary intimacies through her work around heterosexual love marriages, where exercising choice to legally marry in Tis Hazari courts (district court in India’s capital city Delhi) appeared as a transgressive act. The potential of intimacy in meaning a quality of closeness as well as the process of generating closeness both within domestic lives as well as in other forms of sociality in the Internet Age. Mody (2008) in her full-length book explores the contemporary phenomenon of love marriage in Delhi that crosses the boundaries of castes, communities, and religions. Situating her ethnography in one of the district court premises in Delhi, where multiple heterosexual couples “seek” legal registration of love marriage, Mody describes how elopement in order to marry can be construed by couples and their families as abduction, kidnapping, or rape. Paul Boyce and Rohit Dasgupta (2019) enquire non-heteronormative sexual and gendered experiences bringing ethnographic works, documentary production emerging from queer activist spaces and judgments converse with each other. Tracing the sociological/cultural studies roots to the concept of transgression, this essay charts out a queer citizenship narrative to foreground secrecy and desire in private and public realms. Lamb (2019) exploring Ageing, brings us again to intimacy and dispersal in the rearrangement of structure and values of the joint family system and intergenerational reciprocity.

32 Transformations in Kinship Relations in a Globalized India …

607

New forms of kin-ning for men and women living in old age residencies emerge as sociology grapples with how best to age in Indian cities. All these essays in the past decade are indicating new ways of engaging with shared domestic arrangements.

Multiple Disciplines, Myriad Directions Other than the way in which concerns relating to the transformations in the family have found space in volumes on Indian Sociology, in the past two decades, it will be relevant to also do a brief literature review about some of the other works on family in India, engaged with by anthropologists, historians, and sociologists, sometimes also using a feminist perspective.

Inequality and Identity Through Family Kannabiran (2006) very effectively traced the myriad ways through which the studies in sociology of Indian family are usually mapped. She proposed that family is an institution that is a site of identity, emotion, cultural expression, care, despair, reproductive labor, systemic and systematic violence, repression, and domination. She discussed how approaches to the family had naturally concentrated on kinship patterns and patterns of inheritance; while feminist writings problematized gender hierarchies within the family, and violence as a theme in studies on family in India. Deshmukj (2008) engaged with contemporary challenges to the institution in India. The titles of the four sections of this book, give us a glimpse into the shift in sociological studies of the family—experiencing the family, expressing the family, seeking justice, and including the excluded. The articles keeping power and democracy as conceptual themes explore domestic violence and community-based responses to it, reflections of family and motherhood in feminist songs and mythological reinterpretations, the impact of structural adjustment programs on families (thereby moving away from the joint family to nuclear family debates) and finally questions of excluded masculinities and how families also exclude and are not just inclusive structures. In a much earlier sociological essay, Andre Beteille (1991) had argued that family plays a crucial if not decisive role in the reproduction of social structure, including the structure of inequality. Apart from its material capital, each family has a stock of cultural capital, comprising its command over knowledge, skills, tastes, that are a part of its distinctive way of life. It also has its own social capital in the form of networks of relationships, partly acquired from the past and partly constructed through the initiative of its members. Beteille mentioned that the emphasis of much of the sociological work has been on the interface between family and kinship, family and caste, family and religion. This was a significant essay at the turn of globalizing India, marking hierarchy in familial relations. Patricia Uberoi (2005) discussed the Hindu Marriage Act and the Special Marriage Act suggesting that the developmental state may be

608

R. Sen

conceived as a “patriarchal” institution articulating the familial ideology of patrilineal kinship through law and public policy. The former codified various schools of customary and classical laws, enforced monogamy, and provided the facility for divorce or dissolution of marriage on certain grounds. The latter law provided for freedom to choose one’s partner in marriage across caste and community lines. In some respects, it was thought that the Special Marriage Act reflected the democratic spirit of the nation-state, however by retaining the severance of the parties from the joint family property, the law thus went a few steps backward, penalization for the intimate relation that one decided to establish out of one’s choice.

Choice and Elopement Henrike Donner (2002) explores “one’s own marriage” in Kolkata, a city in the Eastern part of India. Focusing on love marriages among Bengali Hindu middleclass women, Donner critiques the exceptional status that is usually attributed to love unions, in much of sociological literature, understanding them as either elopement or impact of Westernization. Through her field research, she proposed that the causes for exercising agency toward one’s own marriage are connected with female education in mixed-gender schools and employment among urban middle-class Hindu Bengalis. Prem Chowdhury (2004) noted that in cases of runaway marriage the State apparatus gets galvanized on a complaint generally made by the woman’s male guardian. The police register a FIR (First Information Report) and accept such cases as criminal cases involving abduction and kidnapping and very often rape. The family pressurizes the woman into indicting her husband as an abductor and a rapist, and denies marriage. Any claims made or even proof of marriage supplied by the man is discounted on grounds of the woman’s testimony, or on the minority age status of the girl or on the allegation of the use of force to compel the girl to get married in order to have “illicit intercourse” with her. The criminal case that follows is instituted by the State against the alleged criminal/criminals. Where marriage rituals are not observed and parental consent is not forthcoming, such marriages are love marriages, based upon badmashi (lustful intercourse). The fate of the runaway woman, who is either recovered by the family or by the State, is extremely uncertain. Clearly, the attempt at absorbing a runaway girl into a traditional biradari (caste) network is not easy and often physical elimination of the girl is the only “honorable” option. There are clear social and familial connections between Chowdhury’s work and Mody’s ethnography indicating how the love between consenting adults remains a contested terrain. It may be valuable to cite Ambedkar (1936), “Where society is already well knit by other ties, marriage is an ordinary incident of life. But where society is cut as under, marriage as a binding force becomes a matter of urgent necessity. The real remedy for breaking caste is inter-marriage. Nothing else will serve as the solvent of caste.”

32 Transformations in Kinship Relations in a Globalized India …

609

Troubles in Marriage In the introduction to their edited work Kaur and Palriwala (2014), raised a question, “wither marriage?” They agree that studies of nonmarriage, never married, intimacy inside and outside marriage, homosexual and heterosocial bonds are few. Research on widow, divorce, or remarriage indicates the continuing hegemony of marriage as a precondition for social citizenship. So, heterosexual, adult intimate relationship has not really been the focus of empirical sociological research in India till date. Srimati Basu (2015) engages with the word trouble as a recurring metaphor in her book on marriage, divorce, legal provisions, police stations, courtrooms, mediation centers, feminist politics—all these sites “trouble” and are “troubled” according to the author. This book is definitely in the genre of feminist political engagement with law, while the distinctiveness lies in foregrounding courtroom ethnography as a method of engaging with the everyday legal. The Muslim Dissolution of Marriage Act1 (1939), the Hindu Code Bill2 (1950s), Towards Equality Report3 (1974), and Lok Sabha debates on Family Courts Bill4 (1984) are the legal texts analyzed to look at how “marriage is a pillar of nationalist stability, a necessary refuge or an incipient site of violence.” Both Basu (2015) and Grover (2009) engage with questions of marital dissolution and the processes through which these are possible through legal/quasi-legal means. The latter uses case studies of people in squatter settlements in Delhi to discover the everyday lives of married women, and the role of women-led Mahila Panchayats5 for conflict resolutions. In her words, the book presents a close and critical scrutiny into arranged marriages, love marriages, secondary unions, and widow relationships as embodied experience and lived practice. Grover fills up an important gap of putting into empirical test the theoretical discourses on Indian conjugality. Indian feminists’ critique on the hierarchy in familial practices had started during the social reform period since the early nineteenth century when family was the site of many transformations happening through reform legislations. Debates surrounding sati, raising the age of consent, and widow remarriage have dominated feminist writings while engaging with the women’s question in colonial law reform. Since the autonomous women’s movement in the early 1980s, it was violence that dominated 1 Situation

and provisions through which Muslim women in India can seek divorce. proposal to bring together and codify Hindu customs around marriage, divorce, succession, and the like. It was met with stiff resistance and finally seven separate marriage-related laws were passed by the Indian Parliament between 1955 and 1956. 3 Government of India constituted committee for the Status of Women in India came out with a report titled Towards Equality in 1974. One of the first and most comprehensive reports till date on the disconnect between Constitutional guarantees for women in India and the unequal social reality of their everyday lives. 4 A legislation for separate courts to discuss familial matters, a space more congenial for women to participate in and one in which lawyers would be absent. 5 Run by nongovernmental organizations, these collectives (panchayats) offer legal aid at a community level, mostly on cases pertaining to bigamy, maintenance, domestic violence, alcoholism, and for women belonging to the lower economic strata. 2 The

610

R. Sen

the public imagination. According to John (2005), within small groups, among friends and even in solitude questions relating to sexual experiences, love, relationships, monogamy, institution of marriage, and remaining single were discussed. However, it was only around violence that it was possible to have sustained public debates and awareness building. Many critical questions like different forms of family, socalled “love” and “arranged” marriages, and troubling questions relating to sexuality remained, according to John, more personal than political and did not get translated into wider questioning. Finally, in Sen et al. edited book (2011), foregrounds that the age of open economies and global markets have marked the transition of sex as a reproduction to sex as consumption, and therefore sociohistorical focus on marriage conjugality as primary needs questioning since multiple forms of intimacies are abounding households. What remains to be assessed is to what extent do different forms of intimate domestic arrangements emulate marriage conjugality or create new scripts of cohabitation.

Popular Discourses and Legal Transformations on Marriage and Intimacies: Sex, Transgression, Identities As much as there have been changes in the sociological engagement with marriage, divorce, sexuality, alternate intimacies, yet it has been fewer and far between than the manner in which journalistic, popular culture representation or judicial decisions have been around these matters in the past many years. It is necessary to emphasize that this explosion of writings and visuals have been around promoting “Indian” wedding and thereby a certain traditional Indian culture meant for consumption by the global community, but also fostered by the global Indian. Alternately, there is also the resistance to the dominant heterosexual, upper-caste wedding narrative and that has found space through the literature or art and also through the development of queer studies within interdisciplinary locations in Indian academia. In the legal field, challenges to the criminalisation of queer sexuality, judgments on “live-in” relationships, or establishing the right to choose one’s partner has made radical shifts in the conservative ideas around heterosexual conjugality arranged through caste/community/family connections.

Sex and Popular Magazines A popular fortnightly magazine India Today has been conducting sex surveys since 2003. The titles of these issues since 2003 are itself telling—Sex and India Women (2003), What Men Want (2004), Sex and Single Women (2005), Men in a Muddle (2006), Sex and Marriage (2007), The naked truth (2008), The Fantasy Report (2009),

32 Transformations in Kinship Relations in a Globalized India …

611

Women want More (2010), Bold and Bored (2011), Sex still a prisoner of circumstances (2012), and Bride and Prejudice (2013). Sexual revolution, sexual liberation, my body my right, “no means no” have dominated the popular, journalistic literature as well as anti-rape campaigns in the recent past. However, at the same time, heteronormative fetishism with virginity of women before marriage dominates the sex surveys. In a social, cultural environment where in 2012, the India International Jewellery Week launched The Great Indian Wedding Book, covering couture, food, jewelry, entertainment in Indian (read Brahmanical Hindu) wedding, or Hindi films [Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge (Come…Fall In Love, 1995), Baghban (Can you Depend upon your family?, 2003), Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham (It’s All About Loving Your Parents), We Are Family (2010), as examples] also inevitably portray a husband, wife, and child/children while depicting a family.

Live-In Relationships Defined in Court Judgments While the dominant and popular visual representation has been marriage, it is also true that sex outside of marriage, understood either through socio-legal terms like adultery or live-in have occupied public/political debates in India in the recent past and the judiciary has been addressing it on some occasions as a “problem”, and on other situations as a social issue, but judicial intervention has been happening surely since early 2000. Student groups in 2014 Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad had announced that it will run a campaign in Delhi university colleges against love jihad and live-in relationships because they are against Indian cultural values. That live-in-relationships are against the institution of family, the student union’s national secretary was quoted as telling a newspaper. “Such relationships are hardly succeed. We will form group of students in all colleges in Delhi University to create awareness against such relationships.” In D. Velusamy v D. Patchaiammal (2010), the Supreme Court had stated a “relationship in the nature of marriage” means: (a) The couple must hold themselves out to society as being akin to spouses. (b) They must be of legal age to marry. (c) They must be otherwise qualified to enter into a legal marriage, including being unmarried. (d) They must have voluntarily cohabited and held themselves out to the world as being akin to spouses for a significant period of time. In 2013, the Madras High Court was of the opinion in the concerned judgment, […]if a woman aged 18 or above has a sexual relationship with a man aged 21 or above, and during the course of such relationship, if the woman becomes pregnant, she would henceforth be treated as the ‘wife’ and the man would be treated as the ‘husband’. Even if the girl does not become pregnant after having such sexual relationship with a man but if there is strong documentary evidence to show the existence of such relationship, then also the couple involved in such acts would be termed as “wife” and “husband” (pg 12)

612

R. Sen

Some questions that necessarily come from the way these judgments are: How does the society recognize a spouse—marriage symbols? Surname change? Sharing a residence? Having a child together? What is legally recognized to be a significant period of time—2 years, 3 years, or the legally popular 7 years? Is it not possible to imagine newer terms like civil partnership, domestic union, cohabiting companions, friends; rather than linking all consensual adult relationship to married, separated, divorced, widow, bachelor, or spinster? Are these relations to be understood as transgressions to the Indian wedding or as pushing the contours of an adult union? Effective sociological research needs to be conducted on these questions.

Mobilizing Toward Decriminalizing Same-Sex Relationships One of the significant areas of identity creation through social mobilizations as well as through courts of law in the past decade has been the queer identity, discussed in India as LGBTQI identities (Lesbian, Gays, Bisexuals, Transgenders, Queer, Intersex) all of whom are affected due to the presence of S 377 of the Indian Penal Code (partially struck down in 2018). In an Economic and Political Weekly editorial (2008), it was asserted that “The long and short of the issue is that Sect. 377 denies sexual minorities the freedom of expression, as enshrined in the Constitution, since all sex between consenting adults falls in this category. The legal and public debate on Sect. 377 must be seen as an important but only one, element in the broader movement by the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender communities of India- those who are collectively described as sexual minorities.”6 The matter gets more contested when queer women become the analytical entry point to the sexual minority narrative. Arasu and Thangarajah (2012) argued that the use of the phrase “queer women” is thus a conscious political and theoretical choice distinct from an engagement with a long list of markers of “identity”, which can never be exhaustive. One of the first platforms on lesbian activism was Campaign for Lesbian Rights, CALERI, in their manifesto, Lesbian Emergence, provided one example of the centrality of emergence in the creation of new social worlds. CALERI wrote, historicizing its own collective emergence on December 7, 1998: We are supposed to have been dwelling in comfortable silence for so many centuries. Silence about our existence, a conspiracy of silence. A social pact. Don’t let us know! It does not mat-ter that you must hide your love… as well as your heartbreak and loneliness in wells of silence. This silence is not spiritual… it is the poorest of defenses. It is a fundamental denial of the freedom of expression. It is to live a life filled with lies. It is a daily slaughter of the soul. (CALERI 1999).

For CALERI to speak, then, is for lesbians to emerge, to triumph over silence, to transcend confinement. This is where a turn to Judith Butler (2002) argument that kinship does not work unless it assumes a recognizable family form which is 6 This

was when the court struck down the demand for decriminalization of S 377 on grounds of affecting public morality.

32 Transformations in Kinship Relations in a Globalized India …

613

marriage with reproductive relations becomes relevant. Sexuality is always thought in terms of marriage and marriage is already thought of as the purchase of legitimacy. Arasu and Thangarajah articulate well, the intention, in the creation of a lesbian identity, was to explore the possibilities of destabilizing marriage position as the sole system of intimate relationships and social organization, and examine what we can learn from this line of thought. Ruth Vanita (1999) had proposed that woman’s and sexuality movements need to foreground that there are different kinds of familial living. Sadly the women’s movement primarily voiced and tried to find legal solutions to how violent marriages can become less violent but unhappy and take juridical revenge for a woman’s death or continuous violence in marriage. The sexuality rights movement also seem to talk about same-sex marriages, and the political economy of victimization of the sexual minorities, while not talking the discourse firmly around friendships (as a way of life), companionship, love, and cohabitation. Since all kinds of property-related entitlements, medical/health-related benefits, is connected to marriage or blood-based kinship and the identity of the wife/husband or father/son becomes the only means to avail these claims.

Intimacy, Marriage, Violence, and Law: Globalized India’s Permissibility and Resistances to Adult Consensual Love This section intends to briefly describe marriage in India, which has a distinct characteristic of being “arranged” (Kolenda1987; Mandlebaum 1972) between two families usually of the same caste and community and not dependant on adult consent. But it is also necessary to understand that the ways in which marriages are arranged have also undergone a transformation in India through the use of technology. More importantly, it is worth noting that dating has become a social phenomenon in India in the past few years, app-based services are in place to facilitate dating cultures. From the local/neighborhood match maker, to newspaper matrimonial columns, to matrimonial websites to finally dating apps for people with diverse sexual orientation—it’s a journey that has been traversed and is ever-changing. As the marriage circle is expanding spatially and in caste definition, especially for the urban high-caste middle classes, across the country and even abroad, the brokerage industry is playing an increasingly crucial role. A segment of intermediaries are increasingly focusing on late and/or second marriages, which is seen as an expanding and lucrative market. Thus, “do it again” is a new tagline in the economy of marriage (Mukhopadhyay, Madhurima 2012). The neighborhood, college, or the workplace still serve as sites of discovering love. Ramakrishnan (2012) indicates that matrimonial columns in newspapers which are placed by parents or guardians, emphasize caste followed by educational and professional qualifications. They are for heterosexual relationships, are written in Indian English while caste and lineage markers and birth-stars are borrowed from Sanskrit and other Indian vernaculars. It wasn’t until the late 1990s that websites such as Jeevansathi.com (marital life partner.com) and Shaadi.com

614

R. Sen

(marriage.com) were introduced, encouraging Indians to look online for the right arranged-marriage match. This marked the slow beginning of a major cultural shift.

Marriage Matrimony Portals and Dating Apps By 2008, Shaadi (marriage).com was one of India’s five most popular websites. It had over 300 million page views each month and 6000 profiles were added every day. Since then, the online matrimony market has become more segmented and numerous clones have cropped up—most notably, Jeevansathi (lifetime companion).com and BharatMatrimony (IndiaMarries).com. While this has somewhat taken the sheen off from Shaadi’s dominance, the portal still remains the market leader in India (https://cis-india.org/raw/the-curious-incide nts-on-matrimonial-websites-in-india). For years, online matchmakers focused on keeping conservative parents happy, reaffirming the idea that the responsibility of finding a life partner rested with elders alone. India’s online matrimony business was expected to grow to |1,500 crores by 2017 from |520 crores in 2013, according to a 2013 report by industry lobby group Assocham (https://www.livemint.com/Politics/1PFh6Uakl1mhEaQTxzGZuK/Nocasual-hookups-on-matrimonial-sites-as-government-lays-do.html). Shaadi.com, in March 2017, roped in stand-up comedian Neeti Palta for an online campaign titled “Ladies First,” which encourages women to make the first move, breaking an ageold norm in the dating game (https://scroll.in/article/831770/indias-matrimonial-web sites-are-trying-to-keep-up-in-the-age-of-tinder last accessed on April 15, 2019). In India, matrimonial profiles of self-employed people have traditionally been preferred by the business community. But Matrimony.com and Shaadi.com, say entrepreneurs are garnering a lot more clicks across communities following the boom in the country’s start-up ecosystem. In a bold move by Shaadi.com, it has moved from its positioning “Love, Arranged by Shaadi.com” to “#MyConditionsApply.” In this beautifully shot and perfectly executed television commercial, it talks about how girls would not want to change in a relationship. Now what the matrimonial site is doing is trying to find a midway between a un cool matrimony service and a cool dating app like Tinder, Woo, Truly Madly, (https://hooklineandclincher.in/the-business-and-mar keting-of-online-matrimony-and-dating-services-in-india-891cdba079ef). There are nearly three times as many men as women on online dating platforms in India. According to homegrown dating app Woo’s survey, of December 2018, of 20,000 urban Indians, the gender divide on these apps is massive, with only 26% of their users being female. The survey found that the main reason Indians join a dating app is for a “meaningful relationship.” The second most common reason is to meet new people after moving to a new city (https://scroll.in/article/904602/mind-the-gapthere-are-three-men-for-every-woman-on-dating-apps-in-india). On the other hand, nearly half of Truly Madly’s users are between 18 and 22—about college age. Sachin Bhatia, a Delhi-based entrepreneur who started Truly Madly, feels that many of their matches don’t actually meet in person. After a couple is matched, they migrate

32 Transformations in Kinship Relations in a Globalized India …

615

to the app’s chat room to check each other out. The average user spends forty-two minutes on the app every day—more than on Facebook—chatting, sending “stickers,” flirting. This is where Indians are learning the mating game. It is their safe space, without the judgments of their elders. (https://thriveglobal.com/stories/dating-appsmartphone-relationships-india/). Bumble is a location-based application that allows dating, platonic friendship, and professional communication. The standout differentiation in all cases is that in heterosexual matches, only women can make the first contact. The media reports of the Bumble7 launch said that women are quite similar across the globe, they all have a voice, they all want friendship, respect, opportunity, and the ability to be themselves, it’s not nuanced differently in India and America and that the app is focused on combating misogyny (https://www.livemint.com/).

Intercommunity and Intercaste Marriages: Data and Examples While the above section demonstrates that the young are dating and using technology before marriage, yet that does not necessarily make an impact in the resilience of caste and religion in marriage practice. The same globalized, technology adapted India is witnessing resistance and violence, when young men and women are engaging in love relations. Only 5.8% of Indian marriages were intercaste, according to Census 2011, a rate unchanged over 40 years. The education level of the groom’s mother is the leading determinant of an intercaste marriage: These are the findings of a 2017 study by the Indian Statistical Institute, Delhi, which used data from the latest round (2011–2012) of the Indian Human Development Survey (IHDS-II) to examine the impact of education on intercaste marriages (https://www. business-standard.com/article/current-affairs/inter-caste-marriages-depend-on-edu cation-level-but-not-that-of-the-couple-118102200084_1.html). In 2007, two young heterosexual couples’ love ended—one in Kolkata (Eastern India) and another in Haryana (Northern India). In the first instance a Muslim boy, who was married to a Hindu girl, was killed (although reported in media as suicide) and in the second case both the girl and the boy, who were married, were killed through a decision of “khap” panchayat (community moral authority, to resolve disputes in rural areas) since they belonged to the same clan and from the same village thereby indicating sibling relationship between the two, and a prohibited incestuous marriage. In the first instance, the marriage had taken place under the Special Marriage Act (1954), which is the Indian law permitting intercommunity marriages between adult consensual individuals. Yet the working-class Muslim boy who had married the daughter of a rich Hindu businessman and living with his wife in his parental home, had informed the police about possible harm on him, despite doing nothing that was against the law of the land. The role of laws such as the Special Marriage Act is clearly to promote the fulfillment of a vision of India premised on 7 Launched

in 2014, Bumble has 45 million users in 140 countries. Bumble will first start with the top eight metros of India and then go deeper. The app that is available in Hindi and Hinglish.

616

R. Sen

the idea that communities are not insular but instead have deep fraternal relations with each other. However, it is precisely this idea of India which is questioned at its very root by the Hindu right through the notion of “love jihad”. The notion is based on the premise that marriage is a relationship that individuals enter into within the bounds of a community after marriage. The reason why the concept of “love jihad” has to be challenged and opposed, is not only because it is contrary to the right to free association and intimacy guaranteed by Article 21, and the right to freedom of expression guaranteed by Article 19, and the right to equality guaranteed by Article 14, but also because it is a fundamental attack on the very premises of the constitutional order (Narrain and Gupta 2011). If the idea of India as a constitutional democracy is to mean anything at all, at its minimum it must encompass an idea of citizens freely determining their lives, including the decision to love and marry across the boundaries of caste and religion. In addition to the intercaste couple being killed in 2007, between 2009 and 2012, in Haryana, there were 13 reported cases of couples who had intended to marry against the wishes of their parents, but these alliances were treated as serious violations. Both the boys and girls were in the age group of 19–23 years and studying in colleges. There were seven cases where the girls belonged to higher castes, such as Brahmin and Jat, who wanted to marry boys from Chamar and Dhanak (Scheduled Castes [SC]) castes (Ahlawat 2015). Within caste and patriarchy, honor serves as the legitimate control over women because they pose a constant threat to the purity of the male seed as well as caste boundaries, while men possess honor, women have the gendered counterpart of honor—shame (Gupte 2013). According to another survey, Mizoram has the most intercaste marriages in India, a nation where 95 percent of Indians marry within their caste, according to a 2016 report from the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER), a New Delhi-based think-tank. Meghalaya and Sikkim followed Mizoram, with 46 percent and 38 percent of intercaste marriages, according to The Indian Human Development Survey (IHDS-II), based on nationwide surveys conducted between 2011 and 2012 (http://www.ncaer.org/news_details.php?nID=188).

To Love and Be in Cohabitation: Death or Right? On February 2011, two young girls committed suicide together in one of the interior villages in West Bengal. Their love affair and nonacceptance of the village community as well as their families came to light as plausible causes for the eventual death. To deal with such “abnormality.” one of the girls was married off in a hurry, which perhaps pushed them toward the end of the road—committing suicide. But their death did not end societal non-acceptance, even after death their dead bodies lay unclaimed in the police morgue for several days. Through the last letter (for more details around the letter and the suicide read Chatterjee (2018) by one of the girls that survived them and tried to tell the story of love and loathing, asked their parents to cremate them together, which did not happen. The unclaimed bodies were

32 Transformations in Kinship Relations in a Globalized India …

617

disposed of by the police, unattained, uncared for. This complete disenfranchisement Butler (ibid 2002) draws our attention towards—“it means that when your lover is into a coma, you may not assume certain executorial rights, it means that when your lover dies, you may not be able to be the one to receive his body”…A sense of delegitimation can make it difficult to sustain a love—a love/bond which is not “real” because it was not meant to exist socially and legally. In 2018, the Supreme Court of India (Navtej Singh Johar v Union of India Supreme Court of India 2018) has decriminalized parts of Sect. 377 of the Indian Penal Code which criminalized same-sex adult consensual relationships. The judgment said, Sect. 377 IPC is irrational, indefensible and arbitrary. “The majoritarian views and popular morality cannot dictate constitutional rights” (https://www.livelaw.in/breaking-sc-strikesdown-157-year-old-law-criminalizing-consensual-homo-sexual-acts-between-adu lts-holds-section-377-ipc-unconstitutional/). This legal transformation is intended to have manifold implications for cohabitation, although there is nothing to suggest immediately that there will be any deep impact on marriage as an institution. The Supreme Court, again in 2018 in a case on intercommunity marriage, (where the girl’s father had resistance to his daughter having converted to Islam), pronounced that the right to marry a person of one’s choice is integral to Article 21 (right to life and liberty) of the Constitution. The choice of a partner whether within or outside marriage lies within the exclusive domain of each individual. Intimacies of marriage lie within a core zone of privacy, which is inviolable. The absolute right of an individual to choose a life partner is not in the least affected by matters of faith. The Constitution guarantees to each individual the right freely to practise, profess and propagate religion. Neither the state nor the law can dictate a choice of partners or limit the free ability of every person to decide on these matters. They form the essence of personal liberty under the Constitution (https://indianexpress.com/art icle/india/right-to-marry-supreme-court-hadiya-case-5131055/).

The Intimacy Question There are no real studies indicating behavior patter change among people in millennial India from that of what is known as urbanized or Westernized India though studies on kinship, caste, and agrarian economy of the 1960–1980s/Yet by reading through the sociological literature published, journalistic writings, representation in popular films and court judgments clearly there are changing trends in the heterosexual monogamous family through arranged marriage as the most dominant social reality. Globalized India continues to remain in a paradox and transformation with several adult intimacies being legally recognized, socially practiced, and also abhorred by communities. There is nothing strictly traditional and modern about these practices and resistances. On the one hand, neoliberal globalized India has seen new forms of patriarchal caste-based control, while on the other hand, it is also witnessing multiple methods of negotiations with marriage, family, and law. Are new forms of intimacies and domesticities seeking new legal recognition and rights? It is important to

618

R. Sen

note that in India most of the matrimonial-related rights rests only with the wife (assuming that the husband “naturally” is powerful through patriarchal advantages) and as a consequence also with the divorced, widowed, separated. There is no other category that is recognized to provide entitlements of various kinds. Redefining intimate partnerships, sharing domesticities, other than marriage, indicate associated recognition of civil rights, but to go on replicating the marriage model to affirm rights may end up reinforcing heterosexual marriage norms which may not be the best way forward. It will be of immense value to Indian sociology in the current politico-economic moment, if sociologists/anthropologists enquire intimacy in adult relationships which coexists with marriage-based associations, making heterosexual, monogamous marriage only one form of cohabitation and not the sole form.

References Ahlawat Neerja. 2015. Marriage Norms, Personal Choices and Social Sanctions in Haryana. Sociological Bulletin 64(1): 91–103. Available online at https://www.jstor.org/stable/26290722. Last accessed Apr 2019. Ambedkar B.R.1936. The Annihilation of Caste. Available online at http://ccnmtl.columbia.edu/ projects/mmt/ambedkar/web/readings/aoc_print_2004.pdf. Last accessed Feb 2019. Arasu, Ponni and Thangarajah. 2012. Queer Women and Habeas Corpus in India: The Love that Blinds the Law. Indian Journal of Gender Studies. 19(3). Basu, Srimati. 2015. The Trouble with Marriage: Feminists Confront Law and Violence in India. Hyderabad: Orient Blackswan. Beteille, Andre. 1991. The Reproduction of Inequality: Occupation, Caste and Family. Contributions to Indian Sociology 25(1). Available online at https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/006996 691025001003, last accessed March 2019. Boyce, Paul and Dasgupta, Rohit. 2019. Alternating Sexualities: Sociology and Queer Critiques in India. In Critical Themes in Indian Sociology. eds Srivastava, Sanjay Arif, Yasmeen and Abraham, Janaki. New Delhi: Sage Publications. Butler, Judith. 2002. Is Kinship Always Already Heterosexual? Differences 13(1): 14–44. Duke University Press - what is the full title of the publication/journal?. Caleri. 1999. Lesbian Emergence—A Report on Campaign for Lesbian Rights. Available online at http://feministlawarchives.pldindia.org/lesbian-emergence-report-campaign-lesbianrights-1999/. Last accessed April 2019. Chatterjee, Shraddha. 2018. Queer Politics in India: Towards Sexual Subaltern Subjects. UK: Routledge. Chowdhury, Prem. 2004. Caste Panchayats and Policing of Marriage in Haryana: Enforcing Kinship and Territorial Exogamy. Contributions to Indian Sociology 38(1, 2). Deshmukj, Joy-Ranadive (ed.). 2008. Democracy in the Family: Insights from India. New Delhi: Sage Publications. Donner, Henrike. 2002. One’s Own Marriage: Love Marriages in Calcutta Neighbourhood. South Asia Research 2002: 79–94. Grover, Shalini. 2009. Lived Experiences: Marriage, Notions of Love and Kinship Support Amongst Poor Women. In Delhi Contributions to Indian Sociology (n.s.) 43, 1–33. Gupte Manisha. 2013. The Concept of Honour: Caste, Ideology and Patriarchy in Rural Maharashtra. Economic and Political Weekly 48(18):72–81. John, Mary. 2005. A Feminist Perspective on Family and Marriage: A Historical View. Economic and Political Weekly 40(8).

32 Transformations in Kinship Relations in a Globalized India …

619

Kannabiran, Kalpana. 2006. Three Dimensional Family: Re-Mapping a Multi-Disciplinary Approaches to Family Studies. Economic and Political Weekly 41(42):4427–4433. Kaur, Ravinder and Palriwala, Rajni. 2014. Marrying in South Asia: Shifting Concepts and Changing Practices in a Globalising World. Kolenda, Pauline. 1987. Regional Differences in Family Structure in India. Jaipur: Rawat Publications. Lamb, Sarah Ageing. 2019. Ambivalent Modernities and The Pursuit of Value in India. In Critical Themes in Indian Sociology. eds. Srivastava, Sanjay Arif, Yasmeen and Abraham, Janaki. New Delhi: Sage Publications. Mandlebaum, David. 1972. (Reprint 2019). Society in India. New Delhi: Sage Publications. Mody, Pervez. 2008. The Intimate State: Love Marriage and the Law in Delhi. UK: Routledge. Mody, Pervez. 2019. Contemporary Intimacies. In Critical Themes in Indian Sociology. eds. Srivastava, Sanjay Arif, Yasmeen and Abraham, Janaki. New Delhi: Sage Publications. Mukhopadhyay, Madhurima. 2012. Matchmakers and Intermediation: Marriage in Contemporary Kolkata. Economic and Political Weekly 47(43): 90–99. Available online at https://www.jstor. org/stable/41720304. Last accessed 27 Apr 2019. Narrain, Arvind, and Alok Gupta. 2011. Law Like Love: Queer Perspectives on Law. New Delhi: Yoda Press. Navtej Singh Johar v. 2018. Union of India Supreme Court of India. Available online at https:// www.sci.gov.in/supremecourt/2016/14961/14961_2016_Judgement_06-Sep-2018.pdf. Ramakrishnan, Srilakshmi. 2012. ‘Wheatish’ Grooms and ‘Innocent’ Divorcées: Commodifying Attributes in the Discourse of Indian Matrimonial. Discourse and Society 23(4): 432–449. Available online at, https://www.jstor.org/stable/43496390. Last accessed 27 Apr 2019. Seth, Rajmohini. 2014. Sociology of Gender: Some Reflections in Identity, Communication and Culture. In Indian Sociology, vol. 3, Indian Council for Social Science Research Surveys and Explorations. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Scott Jacqueline, Treas Judith and Richards Martin. 2004. The Blackwell Companion to the Sociology of Families. Blackwell Publishing Limited. Sen Samita, Biswas Ranjita and Dhawan Nandita. 2011. Intimate Others: Marriage and Sexualities in India. Kolkata: Street Publications. Srivastava, Sanjay Arif, Yasmeen and Abraham, Janaki (ed.). 2019. Critical Themes in Indian Sociology. New Delhi: Sage Publications. Uberoi, Patricia. 2005. Legislating the family in post independence India. In Women of India (sic?): Colonial and Post-colonial Periods, ed. Bharati Ray. New Delhi pages: Centre for Studies in Civilizations. Vanita, Ruth. 1999. Thinking Beyond Gender in India. In Gender and Politics in India, ed. Menon, Nivedita. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Velusamy D versus Patchaiammal D on 21 October. 2010. Supreme Court of India. Available online at https://indiankanoon.org/doc/1521881/.

Rukmini Sen is a Professor of Sociology at Ambedkar University, Delhi. Her teaching and research interests lie at the intersections of the sociology of law, feminist pedagogy, and kinship in India, and the UK. Her most recent publication is a co-edited volume, Trust in Transactions, 2019, Orient Blackswan, New Delhi, and a chapter titled “Interrogating (non) Consent in sexual intimacies and infringements: Mapping the socio-legal landscape in India” in Re-imagining Sociology in India: Feminist Perspectives, edited by Gita Chaddha and Joseph M T., 2018, Routledge, London and New York, pp. 197–219.

Globalization, Law and Democracy

Chapter 33

The Ascent of Asian Strongmen: Emerging Market Populism and the Revolt Against Liberal Globalization Richard Javad Heydarian Abstract The chapter looks at the emergence of right-wing populism in emerging market democracies, from Turkey to India and Indonesia, but with particular focus on the rise of Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines. The chapter argues that this represents the third wave of anti-globalization popular backlash, with the first one emerging in response to trade liberalization under the World Trade Organization, reaching its apotheosis in the 1990 Battle in Seattle, and the second phase emerging in the aftermath of the 2007 Great Recession, which was followed by the Arab uprisings in 2011–2012 and emergence of anti-capitalist movements in the West, from Syriza in Greece to the Occupy Wall Street protests in the United States. The first two phases were largely civil society-centric with potent left-wing, progressive ideological tinge. The emergence of right-wing populism in countries like the Philippines, however, represents a more state-centric, reactionary, and agential turn in the anti-globalization movement in the East. A closer look, however, reveals that their rise to power was predicated on a widespread backlash against the deleterious dynamics of globalization, particularly the explosion of inequality, inflation, and sense of alimentation and disenchantment among the rising middle class and the masses in the developing world in the twenty-first century.

Introduction In many ways, we live in the age of strongmen. As both old and new institutions bend and fracture under the pressure of rapid change, largely brought about by the vicissitudes of economic globalization, a growing proportion of humanity is— or compelled to—placing its faith in the hands of charismatic leadership. As Max Weber in Tucker (1968: 731) aptly described, this unique type of statesmen are not defined by hereditary rule or bureaucratic-technocratic competence. Instead, they are R. J. Heydarian (B) ADR—Stratbase Institute, Fellow; 4F Gilmore Heights, Corner Granada Street, Barangay, New Manila, Quezon City, Philippines e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 I. Rossi (ed.), Challenges of Globalization and Prospects for an Inter-civilizational World Order, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44058-9_33

623

624

R. J. Heydarian

supposedly “endowed with supernatural, superhuman, or at least specifically exceptional powers or qualities.” Even the world’s two most powerful nations, America and China, have seemingly succumbed to this new political temptation. America, the world’s first modern democracy, has fallen under the spell of a charismatic leader, who has had no experience in public office in his entire life. By every measure, Donald Trump, a celebrity billionaire, is also not known for a deep, technocratic grasp of policy issues. And he is the first from his family to have risen to such position of prominence. Yet, his appeal, especially among his base, is his abiding claim to supposedly supra-natural executive capabilities. Thus, Trump’s claim to having the ability to resolve complex border issues (think of US-Mexico border problems), trade disputes and imbalances with China but also key allies such as Japan and the European Union, and geopolitical tensions with North Korea and Iran—all thanks to the sheer “genius” of his art of the deal negotiating skills. In China, meanwhile, we are witnessing the gradual institutional erosion of arguably the world’s most sophisticated autocratic regime. Under President Xi Jinping, the two-decades-long collective leadership regime—a key legacy of former paramount leader Deng Xiaoping—is rapidly giving way to a Mao-like cult of personality. In his first few years in office, Xi oversaw a massive purge of not only corrupt officials, but also practically every possible rival (i.e., Bo Xilai and Sun Zhengcai). The decisive punishment, in some cases even execution and life imprisonment, of close to 1.4 million Party members, including “seventeen full and seventeen alternate Central Committee members, a pair of sitting Politburo members, an ex-member of the Politburo Standing Committee, and more than a hundred generals and admirals” has helped Xi to gradually institute a de facto one-man rule (Shirk 2018: 24). In his first two years in power, Xi created a number of key agencies in order to consolidate his grip on the Chinese political system: These include the National Security Commission, the Central Leading Group for Comprehensively Deepening Reforms, the Leading Small Groups (LSM) on foreign and security affairs, including the Cross-Straits Taiwan Affair, as well as the State Security Committee (SSC), among many others (Glosserman and Roy 2014). He has also taken control of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA)—often personally reviewing their large-scale drills, whether in inner Mongolia or in the South China Sea—as well as the internal security agencies. “No other Chinese Communist Party leader, not even Mao Zedong, has controlled the military to the same extent as Xi does today, [since] Mao had to share power with powerful revolutionary-era marshals,” a Chinese scholar Tai Ming Cheung bluntly put it cited in Shirk (2018, p. 24). In 2018, the Chinese leader went a step further, eliminating term limits on the office of presidency. This puts Xi in a position to become a “leader for life” with minimal institutional checks (Shirk 2018). In Russia, the world’s largest country and the seat of a former empire, Vladimir Putin has instituted a modern czardom, where Kremlin has the final say on every key policy decision. Almost two decades in power, Putin has quickly become an inspiration for autocrats and would-be strongmen around the world, including Trump as well as European populists such as the Hungarian leader Viktor Orban. Genuinely popular, and intolerant of any rival or opposition, Putin has made himself an indispensable element to the everyday functioning of the whole Russian political system.

33 The Ascent of Asian Strongmen: Emerging Market Populism …

625

And he has repeatedly won, with a large landslide, (partially free and competitive) elections (Gessen 2013). Putin has arguably invented what Zakaria (1997/2018) termed as “illiberal democracy,” where electoral contestation is ritualized, but the spirit of democratic freedom and rule of law has been systematically sniffed out of the institutions of the state. The world’s three most powerful nations, America, China, and Russia, are now under the control of charismatic leaders, who are either actual or aspiring strongmen. Though placed in highly divergent contexts, what Putin, Trump, and Xi share in common is their self-representation as national saviors, who transcend institutional checks and balances. Trump has described himself as a harbinger of “making America great again” and Xi has trumpeted the “Chinese Dream” of “national rejuvenation,” while Putin, often described as a homo sovieticus, has promised to return Russia to its heydays of imperial glory and Soviet prowess. And collectively, these leaders have set in motion a global trend toward charismatic leadership. And we’re not talking about symbolism and ideational force only. The Trump administration has downgraded its relations with democratic allies, especially in Western Europe, dialed back its promotion of human rights and democracy, and stepped up diplomatic engagement with repressive regimes, including Saudi Arabia and Egypt. The Putin regime has dedicated itself to a systematic campaign of undermining Western democracies, while providing advanced armaments to even the most heinous autocracies, including Syria. As for China, it has undermined good governance and democratization across the world by injecting large-scale capital and technology into developing nations with often minimal regulatory oversight and transparency. The upshot is widespread corruption in both autocratic and democratic developing nations, thus empowering a well-connected ruling elite at the expense of democratic institutions and economic reform. Then, we must mention, the threat of “debt trap,” as poorer countries pile up unsustainable Chinese-financed project, leaving them even more vulnerable to Beijing’s undue influence (Chellaney 2017). And this is the global milieu within which one should understand the rise of right-wing populists across what could be described as emerging market democracies. What are witnessing is an age of anger (Mishra 2016a) amid growing public outrage over and consciousness of institutionalized corruption across the developing world. However, as I argue in the following sections, this is especially true in the emerging market democracies of the Philippines, India, Indonesia, and Turkey.

The New Populists Shortly before the momentous collapse of the Soviet Union, Francis (Fukuyama 1989), then a senior policy-maker at the State Department, triumphantly foresaw the “the end of history.” Deploying Hegelian dialectics, via the lectures of the Paris-based Russian émigré Alexandre Kojève, Fukuyama asserted, “something very fundamental has happened in world history,” and that is “the total exhaustion [author’s own emphasis] of viable systematic alternatives to Western liberalism.” In short,

626

R. J. Heydarian

the world entered an ideological terminus, where liberalism transformed from the “particular” (confined to the Western world) to the ‘universal’ (spread across the globe). As Fukuyama (1989) argued, the world found the ultimate resolution of millennium-old ideological struggles in favor of the Western synthesis of capitalism and democracy. At first, the sense of optimism proved potently verified by encouraging developments on the ground. The following decade saw not only the collapse of communism as a viable alternative to Western liberal capitalism, but also the rapid erosion of Moscow-aligned dictatorial regimes from Baghdad to Belgrade. This was the American unipolar moment, as the new hyper-power shaped the world in the image of its most radical neo-liberal aspirations. First came George H.W. Bush’ “new world order,” to be quickly followed by William Jefferson “Bill” Clinton administration’s all-out project of economic globalization, namely the integration of all economies under the umbrella of American-led free trade agreements and international inter-governmental organization such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Thus, came the establishment of the World Trade Organization (WTO), the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and upgrading of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and, at the closing of the century, China’s full integration into the liberal global economic order. This was the apogee of the so-called “Washington Consensus,” where trade liberalization, low inflation, fiscal tightening, monetary policy discipline, welfare-reduction, and foreign investment-promotion became the key elements of the national economic policy-making (Bremmer 2013; Goh 2013; Heydarian 2014; Kiely 2007; Shirk 2008). By all indications, the globalization project became the operating system of virtually all nations. The first decade of the twenty-first century saw not only the inevitability of economic globalization, as post-Cold War Vietnam and Russia embraced the new economic paradigm, but also its relative success in bringing about a measure of prosperity around the world. As Sharma (2012) shows in his book The Breakout Nations, right until the 2008 Great Recession, developing nations experienced an unprecedented period of growth and convergence with the West, thanks to the infusion of large-scale capital and technology, followed by the assimilation of Western patterns and values of travel, consumption, and even social interaction. The upshot was the emergence of a global cosmopolitan elite across a new group of highly promising developing nations, which registered above-average growth rates over an extended period—namely, the emerging markets. From 2000 to 2005, the emerging markets experienced a 92% expansion in capital inflows, mostly from the developed world. In the second half of the decade, the figure reached as high as 478 percent. The result was a major realignment in the global economic balance of power, with the developing world’s share of the global economy doubling from 20 to 40% (Sharma 2012: 2–14). Yet, far from consolidating the hegemony of Western liberalism, anchored by liberal democracy and free markets, a number of major emerging market democracies began to exhibit signs of authoritarian turn under the stewardship of a new breed of politicians. Some embraced economic protectionism, even questioning the value

33 The Ascent of Asian Strongmen: Emerging Market Populism …

627

of free market economies. The first batch of new populists emerged in resourcerich anti-American nations such as Iran (Mahmoud Ahmadinejad) and Venezuela (Hugo Chavez), as a massive surge in petrodollars boosted their geopolitical heft and ambitions. Within a decade, however, even (Western-friendly) emerging market democracies, with relatively diversified and modernized industrial base, began to experience their own populist turn. What all these leaders shared in common was “bad manners” (rhetorical bombast combined with defiance of normal rituals of statesmanship), a “political style that features an appeal to ‘the people’ versus ‘the elite,’” and a fantastical national vision, often driven by “the performance of crisis, breakdown or threat,” if not promise of national rejuvenation (Moffitt 2016: 45). The Fukuyama euphoria was now over. Instead of an inexorable ideological convergence between the East and the West, an ever-more confident East instead began to carve out its unique and divergent styles of governance and models of national development under the yoke of unconventional, yet highly charismatic politicians. In the world’s largest democracy, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi rose to the pinnacle of power based on a message of economic development, inspired by the so-called “Gujarat mode,” and, crucially, Hindu-nationalism. In his words, India needed “modernization without westernization,” if it were to become great again (Marino 2014). Modi managed to garner a landslide electoral victory in 2014, despite widespread allegations of systematic discrimination against minorities, particularly Muslims, during his long reign as the chief minister of Gujarat. Most controversially, the Indian leader has been accused of willful neglect during the 2002 riots, which led to the death of hundreds of Muslims, including women and children. While expressing regret about the event, he has been lambasted, particularly by the mainstream media, for refusing to openly apologize and accepting responsibility for the tragic events. For this reason, in addition to his controversial roots in the hardline Hindu-nationalist group Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), Modi was denied visa entry to the United States throughout much of his local government experience. The chest-thumping, macho Indian leader, nevertheless, has managed to become one of the most dominant prime ministers in the country’s history with an increasingly illiberal, if not outright autocratic, bent. Under his watch, religiously motivated attacks, some with utmost violence and fatality, against minority groups has gained pace. There has also been a perceptible uptick in crackdown on liberal intelligentsia, civil society groups, and outspoken voices of independence. The widely celebrated novelist Arundhati Roy faced trial on charges of contempt after openly criticizing the erosion of secularism and pluralistic values under Modi’s rule (Marszal 2016). Raghuram Rajan, the celebrated former IMF chief economist, was eased out of the central bank’s helm after publicly expressing his disagreements with the illiberal rhetoric and policies of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) party (Cloudhury et al. 2016) (Cloudhury et al. 2016). Modi’s right-wing populism, built on the promise of prosperity and Hindutva (Hindu dominance), is echoed on the state level, where demagogic leaders such as Jayalalitha Jayaram and Mamata Banerjee have been in firm of command of large constituencies of Tamil Nadu (72 million) and West Bengal (91 million), respectively. In 2017, Yogi Adityanath, a controversial and hardline Hindu monk, who has been accused of propagating islamophobia, became

628

R. J. Heydarian

the BJP’s designated chief minister of Uttar Pradesh. Under Modi, pluralism, secularism, and democracy seem to be giving way to strongmen and Hindu nationalist forces. The Congress Party’s decades-long hegemony in Indian politics, anchored by social democratic values, is fast receding into distant memory. In its place, the so-called “Modi wave” is ushering in a period of Hindutva developmentalism, where strongmen and business forces stand at the center of a political landscape, which is increasingly hostile to liberals, religious minorities, and Congress-style socialism (Miller 2018). In Turkey, a once promising democracy has rapidly transformed into a Sultanistic regime. Long hailed as a model leader for the Middle East and broader Islamic world, Recep Tayip Erdogan has introduced a more muscular era of “neo-Ottomanism,” where iron-fist rule at home is matched with foreign policy pro-activeness abroad. Similar to Modi, he is a popular former local government official, who has had enjoyed successive landslide electoral victories by running against the establishment. While Modi challenged the Congress hegemony, Erdogan launched a direct assault on the laic-secularist regime, which was set up by the late Atatürk. Both men also played a critical role in the strengthening of their relatively new insurgent parties, BJP in the case of Modi, through his roots in the RSS, and Justice and Development Party (AKP) in the case of Erdogan, through his roots in the Welfare Party. Erdogan, who rose to prominence based on a promise of clean and effective governance following his successful stint as the mayor of Istanbul, has systematically eliminated all potential rivals as well as voices of moderation within his own party, particularly former President Abdullah Gul and former Prime Minister Ahmet Davuto˘glu. He has also overseen a massive purge within the country’s security establishment, beginning with the so-called “Ergenekan trial,” including the imprisonment of numerous admirals, generals, and mid-level officers, who he has accused of being part of a “deep state” bent on toppling his democratically-elected government. After the failed 2016 coup attempt, the Erdogan regime oversaw a new wave of purges, now targeting military, intelligence, and police forces allegedly aligned to the Gulenist (Hizmet) movement, an ally-turned-rival of the ruling party. The scale of the purges are unprecedented, even by the standard of Turkey’s tumultuous history of civil– military relations: dismissal, imprisonment, or early retirement of 58% of admirals, 44% of army generals, 42% of air force generals, in addition to 586 colonels and 400 staff officers, with around 20% reduction in overall number of commissioned officers. As many as 10,000 suspected Gulenist officers, professors, and state-employed individuals were purged in the year following the failed coup attempt (Gurcan 2018). What makes Erdogan’s autocratic lurch particularly distressing is the blanket incarceration and intimidation of any contrarian voice, including opposition leaders such as Selahattin Demirtas, the progressive leader of Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), on what many objective observers see as nothing but trumped up political charges. Major independent newspapers such as Zaman have been completely shutdown, while other media outlets have been intimidated through tax evasion charges and other forms of intimidation tactics. Under Erdogan, Turkey, which not long ago aspired to become a member of the European Union (EU), has surpassed authoritarian regimes of China and Iran in terms of the number of journalists placed behind

33 The Ascent of Asian Strongmen: Emerging Market Populism …

629

bars (Akyol 2017). Erdogan hasn’t only eliminated all potential rivals, but also has, through a controversial referendum (2017) and sustained arm-twisting of the parliament, reduced term limits for the office presidency—a formerly ceremonial office that has been greatly empowered through constitutional reforms. Thus, Erdogan has become the “new Sultan” of Turkey, who hasn’t shied away from turning a new page in the country’s history by, paradoxically, reversing the earlier modernization efforts of post-Ottoman leaders such as Ataturk. Beginning with his stint as mayor of Istanbul in the 1990s, he has emphasized the importance of expanded welfare and redistributive justice for “ordinary Turks,” ramping up infrastructure spending, with main focus on affordable and efficient public transportation, and vastly improving public services, particularly in basic health care. Under his watch, average Turks have seen dramatic improvement in the basic socio-economic conditions, with the country becoming a full-fledged “middle class society.” Yet, his stellar track record in the delivery of basic public services has been progressively overshadowed by authoritarian rule and institutionalized corruption among his own ranks (Cagaptay 2017). In Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim nation, autocratic nostalgia has reared its ugly head. In 2014, Joko Widodo, former mayor of the small town of Solo (Surakarta) and later shortly the governor of Jakarta, led a historic presidential campaign as the ultimate outsider, who promoted the interest of orang kecil (ordinary people). In this sense, he shared something with both Modi and Erdogan, who were also initially political outsiders with strong local government background. Jokowi touted his “Solo model” of governance, built on progressive policies catered toward religious moderation, empowerment of small and medium enterprises, and grassroots-driven governance where consultation, accountability, and transparency are the guiding principles. His people-centered approach quickly won him acclaim not only in his hometown, where he scored a landslide re-election (2010), but also across the Indonesian archipelago and beyond. By early 2010s, he was increasingly seen as a potential presidential candidate, the first to hail from outside the Imperial Jakarta elite. Massive youth and middle class support eventually catapulted him—and his deputy Basuki Tjahaja Purnama (also known as “Ahok”), a Christian of ethnic Chinese background—to the governor’s office in Jakarta in 2012. The remarkable electoral success by the two outsiders was seen as an affirmation of Indonesia’s reformarsi (democratic reform) and, crucially, an auspicious launching pad for an even more ambitious bid for the highest offices in the land. But just as Joko Widodo (also known as “Jokowi”) began to ride the crest of a wave of nationwide progressive sentiment, he faced a surprising challenge from Prabowo Subianto, a former general, who has been accused of gross human rights violations. The son-in-law of former Indonesian strongman, Muhammad Suharto, Prabowo managed to build large-scale support, both among the Jakarta oligarchy as well as across the nation, by presenting himself as an agent of law and order amid a supposedly dystopian post-Suharto era of anarchy, corruption, and incompetence. In many ways, he promised a return to iron-fist rule. It was a textbook case of tapping into autocratic nostalgia among certain sections of the Indonesian society, who have been disillusioned by the democratization of corruption and disruptive change after the collapse of the three-decades-old New

630

R. J. Heydarian

Order in 1998. Prabowo offered a firm and steady hand at the top, questioning the gains of the reformarsi period of democratic opening—providing a diametrically opposed vision to that of Jokowi’s. Prabowo offered top-down stewardship of the state apparatus to address corruption and disorder, while Jokowi offered a bottom-up participatory democracy to bring about efficient and clean governance. If not for the 11th hour mobilization of millennial and middle-class voters, Jokowi could have lost a nail-biting race for the presidency. Once in office, however, Jokowi began to gradually move from the left of center in rightward direction, emphasizing law and order issues and touting a more strident form of nationalism. Over the years, he proceeded with (long-suspended) implementation of death penalty against drug traffickers, a measure that proved highly popular among the local populace, while going so far as providing shoot-to-kill orders to the Indonesian police against suspected drug dealers. “The police and TNI (military) have been firm, especially when dealing with foreign drug traffickers entering the country. If they [drug dealers] resist arrest, just gun them down, show no mercy,” declared Jokowi in mid-2017, much to the consternation of his progressive base. “From the practice in the field, we see that when we shoot at drug dealers they go away. So if such a policy were implemented in Indonesia, we believe that the number of drug traffickers and users in our beloved country would drop drastically,” he added (Liljas 2014; Pamuntjak 2015; Rieffel 2016). By “practice in the field,” Jokowi was referring to the burgeoning Filipino strongman Rodrigo Duterte, who cruised to the presidency of one of Asia’s oldest democracies by promising the restoration of order at any cost—without law if necessary. Similar to three previous leaders discussed earlier, Duterte also hailed from a local government background, spending two decades, mostly as mayor, in the frontier-turned-cosmopolitan city of Davao in the conflict-ridden southern island of Mindanao. By allegedly deploying “death squads” against suspected criminals, he brought a measure of order to the conflict-ridden city, while instituting bureaucratic reforms, including cutting red tape and accelerating processing of business licenses, which made Davao one of the fastest growing cities in the country. The “Davao model” was at the heart of his “fire and fury” presidential campaign. He managed to outmaneuver his more articulate and well-funded rivals, namely former vice president Jejomar Binay, the highly popular neophyte senator Grace Poe, and then-President Benigno Aquino’s anointed successor, interior secretary Manuel Roxas III. Touting his “Davao model” of governance, built on brute force and bureaucratic efficiency, Duterte presented himself as a decisive and single-minded leader, who would save the Philippines from the apocalypse of unrestrained drugs and corruption. He carefully presented himself as an anti-establishment candidate, an alternative to Imperial Manila elite, who is capable of rescuing a dysfunctional democracy and disciplining a rapacious elite with sheer political will. And soon after he took over office, in a landslide electoral victory, Duterte oversaw a scorched-earth anti-drugs campaign, which reportedly led to the extrajudicial killings of thousands of suspected drug dealers (Casiple 2016; Heydarian 2017). Once in power, he benefited from massive defections among the ranks of rival and opposition parties, which gave him a super-majority in the legislature. This has made him the most powerful president since the Marcos dictatorship (Bello 2016).

33 The Ascent of Asian Strongmen: Emerging Market Populism …

631

He has also been in charge of selecting the replacements of the retiring members of the Supreme Court, which turned increasingly deferential toward the tough-talking president on all major judicial cases, including his abrupt declaration of Martial Law across the entire island of Mindanao during the siege of the city of Marawi by so-called Islamic State-affiliated militants. Almost overnight, the Philippines transformed from a traditional bastion of human rights and democracy into a cutting-edge laboratory for twenty-first-century authoritarianism, anchored by Putin-style intimidation of mainstream media and critics, imprisonment and expulsion of independent-minded figures from state institutions, and systematic state-sponsored violence against large sections of the society deemed as enemies of the republic. And despite widespread international condemnation, and increased diplomatic isolation of the Philippines, Duterte remained highly popular two years into office (Heydarian 2018). Inspired by the Filipino leader’s political success, Prabowo is likely to make another run for presidency in Indonesia; this time, however, based on an even more vicious campaign of “manufactured crisis” and apocalyptic predictions in hopes of rallying support for his law and order message (Coconuts Jakarta 2018). Duterte’s brazen and cuss-laced defiance of his Western critics has emboldened other regional strongmen, from Myanmar’s junta to Cambodia’s Hun Sen and Thailand’s Prayut Chan-o-cha, to suppress the opposition and tighten their grip on the seat of power. Perhaps most interestingly, Malaysia experienced an electoral earthquake in 2018, when the opposition ended the hegemony of the Barisan Nasional (BN) party. Ironically, however, the opposition had to rely on no less than former strongman Mahathir Mohammad, an ultimate insider, to unseat the ruling party. It remains to be seen whether the return of Mahathir to power would, this time, usher in democratic change; what’s clear, however, is the enduring appeal of the charismatic leader, who previously ruled Malaysia with fire and fury and has remained unapologetic for his past record of suppressing opposition, jailing rivals, and muzzling the media (Bland and Mallet 2018). As Indian essayist (Mishra 2016) explains, the magnetic appeal of this new breed of right-wing populists, particularly Modi, Erdogan, Prabowo, and Duterte, lies in their “offering not so much despotic authority as a new relationship between the rulers and the ruled.” Their political success, Mishra (Ibid.) continues, is due to their ability to “shrewdly grasp a widely felt need for a new mode of sincere, dedicated leadership, as well as a more energetic way of involving the masses in politics.” But what makes the rise of this new breed of leaders puzzling is their emergence in nations with relatively strong traditions of democratic rule and robust economic growth. Moreover, these are nations with minimal anti-immigrant sentiment; if anything, many of the emerging market democracies that are succumbing to strongmen have been among the world’s largest labor exporting nations. In contrast, in the West, it’s a combination of economic stagnation and anti-immigrant sentiment that has been driving right-wing populism across Europe and the developed world (Ferguson 2017). In short, there are unique forces that are driving populism in the emerging market democracies. In many ways, we are speaking of supposed “winners” of globalization, especially because the backbone of support for Modi, Erdogan, Duterte, and Jokowi tend to be the aspirational middle class, not the destitute, who

632

R. J. Heydarian

have benefited from the fruits of higher investment and cross-border technological transfusion in recent decades (Fukuyama 2014; Heydarian 2017).

The Huntington Trap “It is not a revolution…it is perhaps the first great insurrection against global systems, the form of revolt that is the most modern and the most insane,” Michel Foucault described the 1979 Iranian Revolution, which ended the reign of a rapidly modernizing regime, under Mohammad Reza Shah, which oversaw among the fastest growing economies in the East (Afary and Anderson 2005: 222). What transpired in Iran—a shocking revolt at the heart of an ostensibly booming nation—is what Slavoj Zizek has aptly characterized as “trouble in paradise.” As Zizek (2013: 11) observes, “we might see the [Ayatollah] Khomeini revolution of 1979 as the original ‘trouble in paradise’, given that it happened in a country that was on the fast-track of pro-Western modernization, and the West’s staunchest ally in the region.” In short, contemporary history should have guarded us against the inevitable shock that has greeted the emergence of Duterte-like figures across emerging market democracies. Two main factors explain not only the collapse of the Shah’s regime in Iran, but also the fragility and electoral defeat of liberal elite in emerging market democracies. The first one is the inability of state institutions to effectively respond to new societal needs amid a period of rapid economic growth, which in turn gives birth to a politics of grievance. The upshot is a quasi-Malthusian trap, whereby the exponential increase in social expectations, especially among the aspirational middle classes, hopelessly runs against the gradual, slow burn improvements in the capacity of state institutions to accommodate new political voices as well as provide basic public services. In some cases, there was even political decay and outright breakdown, as exemplified by the massive traffic congestion as well as electricity and water shortages across major cities in Indonesia, the Philippines and India in recent years. In Metro-Manila, recent years have seen a literal breakdown of main public transportation systems, with the Metro Rail Transit 3 (MRT 3) experiencing close to 500 glitches in a single year alone (Bueza 2017). As one former senior official in the previous Benigno Aquino administration (2010–2016), which oversaw more than six percent average annual GDP growth, official bluntly put it, “Things were being fixed in a painstaking— and painstakingly slow—manner, particularly for things that mattered to the urban middle class.1 ” As early as the 1960s, Samuel Huntington identified this paradoxical tendency among rapidly developing post-colonial nations. As Huntington (1968: 392) warned Political Order in Changing Societies (1968), “[i]nstead of a trend toward competitiveness and democracy, there has been an ‘erosion of democracy’ and a tendency to [lapse into] autocratic…regimes.” For him (1968: 392), the culprit behind democratic reversal and surge in authoritarian relapse throughout the 1970s was the “decay of 1 Interview

with author, July 24, 2017.

33 The Ascent of Asian Strongmen: Emerging Market Populism …

633

the administrative organization inherited from the colonial era and a weakening and disruption of the political organizations developed during the struggle for independence.” Almost two decades ago, Carothers (2002: 9–10) made similar observations among so-called Third Wave democracies such as the Philippines, which “suffer from serious democratic deficits” such as “very low levels of public confidence in state institutions, and persistently poor institutional performance by the state.” The second factor is the persistent lack of inclusive development across emerging market democracies. This has been especially the case in India, Indonesia, and the Philippines, where there is a systematic lack of what economist (2011) calls the “manufacturing imperative”; growth has been driven by services, ranging from real estate to retail and business processing outsourcing, rather than manufacturing output and agricultural productivity, which have been historically the main source of quality, sustainable employment as well as inter-generational poverty-alleviation during the early developmental stages of today’s industrialized nations. In fact, it was the combination of agricultural as well as manufacturing development, which allowed formerly poor nations such as Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea to join the ranks of the world’s richest nations (Studwell 2014). Moreover, services, especially real estate and retail, tend to be highly vulnerable to regulatory capture by networked cronies, which tend to also suppress labor rights and profit from extractive business practices. Despite rapid growth rates, few well-connected conglomerates and insiders have managed to capture the lion share of growth. In the Philippines, for instance, the year 2013 saw the forty richest families gobbling up 76% of newly created wealth. Indonesia, in particular, has been heavily dependent on resource-extraction, which is dominated by few mining companies, while Turkey has struggled to move up the value-chain in its relatively robust manufacturing sector. None of the major emerging market democracies have followed in the footsteps of Newly-Industrialized Countries, so far (Rodrik 2011; Keenan 2013; The Economist 2016). Such systematic economic balances are the long-run result of earlier structural adjustment programs, imposed by the World Bank and the IMF in the aftermath of the debt crises of the 1980s and 1990s, which limited policy space for the kind of robust trade and industrial policies that made South Korea and Taiwan highly prosperous and egalitarian societies (Gallaghar 2005; Studwell 2014). The upshot of political decay and concentrated growth is “democratic fatigue” (See Fig. 1.1) across many of the most promising nations, namely India, Turkey, and the Philippines, where a growing proportion of the demos have expressed their preference for decisive autocrats (Foa and Mounk 2017). And this is where the strength of right-wing populists lies: They have skillfully tapped into widespread frustration with lack of inclusive development and rising inequality, while convincing a significant proportion of the population that they can overhaul decaying state institutions through decisive leadership. This is, in Weberian terms, their “magical” and “supernatural” political talent. Populism across emerging market democracies may share similarities with its cousin across the West, yet it’s driven by different dynamics. Unlike in the West, it’s not anti-immigration sentiments and economic stagnation that is driving the populist backlash, but instead growing inequality and corruption as well as weakening state institutions amid rapid modernization. Interestingly, right-wing populists

634

R. J. Heydarian

such as Duterte, Erdogan, and Modi are yet to meet their left-wing populist match in the political arena, while liberals, whether the Liberal Party in the Philippines or the Congress Party in India, are in total disarray. Thus, any liberal-progressive pushback against the populist strongmen should come together with a convincing narrative backed by a concrete policy package of social empowerment along with an emphasis on law and order, which appeals to the aspirational middle class, as well as an inclusive development agenda, which addresses rising inequality and persistent poverty and unemployment among the masses. This should serve as the foundation of a robust left-wing populism, which is still missing across major emerging market democracies. Moreover, the ultimate antidote to strongmen is strengthening of state institutions, so that the populace will place its trust in impersonal agencies and organs of governance, rather than charismatic leaders with authoritarian ambitions.

References Afary, J., and Kevin Anderson. 2005. Foucault and the Iranian Revolution: Gender and the Seductions of Islamism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Akyol, M. 2017. Coming Soon: Edrogan ‘The Chief’. Al-Monitor.com. Accessed from http://www. al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2017/02/turkey-erdogan-movie-boost-cult-personality.html. Bello, W. 2016. Requiem for the EDSA Republic, Interaksyon. Accessed from http://www.intera ksyon.com/article/129284/op-ed--requiem-for-the-edsa-republic. Bland, B, and Victor Mallet. 2018. Mahathir Mohamad Charts New Democratic Path for Malaysia, The Financial Times. Accessed from https://www.ft.com/content/b415ac2e-625a-11e8-90c2-956 3a0613e56. Bremmer, I. 2013. Every Nation For Itself: What Happens When No One Leads the World. New York: Penguin. Bueza, M. 2017. MRT Woes: How Often do They Happen?. Rappler. Accessed from https://www. rappler.com/newsbreak/iq/188912-mrt-problems-frequency-data. Cagaptay, S. 2017. The New Sultan: Erdogan and the Crisis of Modern Turkey. New York: I.B. Tauris. Carothers, T. 2002. The End of Transition Paradigm. Journal of Democracy 13(1): 5–21 Casiple, R. 2016. The Duterte Presidency as a Phenomenon. Contemporary Southeast Asia 38 (2): 179–184. Chellaney, B. 2017. China’s Creditor Imperialism. Project Syndicate. Accessed from https://www. project-syndicate.org/commentary/china-sri-lanka-hambantota-port-debt-by-brahma-chellaney2017-12?barrier=accesspaylog. Cloudhury, Suvashree, Rupam Jain, and Rajesh Kumar Singh. 2016. Inside the ‘Constant Quibbling’ and Drama That Led to India’s Central Bank Chief’s Departure. Businessinsider.com. Accessed from http://www.businessinsider.com/r-indian-central-bank-chief-felt-undermined-inweeks-before-quitting-sources-2016-6. Coconuts Jakarta. 2018 Prabowo Warns Indonesia May No Longer Exist by 2030 in Fiery Speech That Could Preview His Campaign Strategy. Accessed from https://coconuts.co/jakarta/news/pra bowo-warns-indonesia-may-no-longer-exist-2030-fiery-speech-preview-campaign-strategy/. Ferguson, N. 2017. Populism as a Backlash Against Globalization—Historical Perspectives. In Center for International Relations and Sustainable Development. Accessed from https://www.cirsd.org/en/horizons/horizons-autumn-2016--issue-no-8/populism-as-a-bac klash-against-globalization.

33 The Ascent of Asian Strongmen: Emerging Market Populism …

635

Foa, Roberto Stefan, and Mounk, Yascha. 2017. The Signs of Deconsolidation. Journal of Democracy 28(1): 5–16. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/world/2016-11-14/democracy-aftertrump. Fukuyama, F. 1989. The End of History. Summer Issue: The National Interest. Fukuyama, F. 2014. Political Order and Political Decay. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux Gallagher, K. (ed.). 2005. Putting Development First: The Importance of Policy Space in the WTO and International Financial Institutions. London: Zedbooks. Gessen, M. 2013. The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin. Riverhead New York: Books. Riverhead Books. Glosserman, B., and D. Roy. 2014. Asia’s Next China Worry: Xi Jinping’s Growing Power, The National Interest. Accessed from http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/asias-next-chinaworry-xi-jinpings-growing-power-10939. Goh, E. 2013. The Struggle for Order: Hegemony, Hierarchy, and Transition in Post-cold War East Asia. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gurcan, M. 2017. Turkish Military Purges Decimate Career Officer, Pilot Ranks, Al-Monitor. Accessed from http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2018/05/turkey-military-purges-car eer-officer-pilot.html#ixzz5HKAevy9C. Heydarian, R.J. 2014. How Capitalism Failed the Arab World: The Economic Roots and Precarious Future of Middle East Uprisings. London: Zed Books. Heydarian, R.J. 2017. The Rise of Duterte: A Populist Revolt Against Elite Democracy. London: Palgrave. Heydarian, R.J. 2018 Duterte’s Continuing March Towards Imperial Presidency. Nikkei Asian Review (Magazine). Huntington, S. 1968. Political Order in Changing Societies. New Haven: Yale University Press. Keenan, J. 2013. The Grim Reality Behind the PHILIPPINES’ Economic Growth. The Atlantic.com. Accessed from https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/05/the-grimreality-beh ind-the-philippines-economic-growth/275597/ Kiely, R. 2007. The New Political Economy of Development. London: Palgrave. Liljas, P. 2014. Here’s Why Some Indonesians are Spooked by This Presidential Contender. TIME.com. Accessed from http://time.com/2836510/prabowo-subianto-human-rights-indone sia-elections/. Marino, A. 2014. Narendra Modi: A Political Biography. New Delhi: Harpercollins India. Marszal, A. 2016. Arundhati Roy Caught in the Crossfire of Indian Judicial Power Struggle. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/india/12144154/Arundhati-Roycau ght-in-the-crossfire-of-Indian-judicial-power-struggle.html. Miller, M.C. 2018. India’s Authoritarian Streak. Accessed 2 June 2018 from https://www.foreignaf fairs.com/articles/india/2018-05-30/indias-authoritarian-streak. Mishra, P. 2016a. The Globalization of Rage Why Today’s Extremism Looks Familiar. Foreign Affairs. November/December Issue. Mishra, P. 2016b What’s Behind the Rise of Demagogues?. Bloomberg. Moffitt, B. 2016. The Global rise of Populism: Performance, Political Style, and Representation. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Pamuntjak, L. 2015. Jokowi, We Voted For a Humble Man. Now You’ve Taught a New Generation About Killing. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/may/05/ jokowi-wevoted-for-a-humble-man-now-youve-taught-a-new-generation-about-killing. Rieffel, L. 2016. Lessons for Myanmar in Indonesian Politics. East Asia Forum.org. Accessed from http://www.eastasiaforumorg/2016/11/22/lessons-for-myanmar-in-indonesian-politics/. Rodrik, D. 2011. The Manufacturing Imperative. Project Syndicate.. Sharma, R. 2012. Breakout Nations. in Pursuit of the Next Economic Miracles. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. Shirk, S. 2008. China: Fragile Superpower. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Shirk, S. 2018. The Return to Personalistic Rule. Journal of Democracy 29 (2): 22–36.

636

R. J. Heydarian

Studwell, J. 2014. How Asia Works: Success and Failure in the World’s Most Dynamic Region. New York: Grove Press. Teehankee, J., and Mark Thompson. 2016. Electing a Strongman. Journal of Democracy. 27 (4): 125–134. The Economist. 2016. Traffic in the Philippines Capital: Slowly Does it. The Economist. Tucker, R. 1968. The Theory of Charismatic Leadership. Daedalus 97(3): 731–756. Accessed from http://www.jstor.org/stable/20023840. Zakaria, F. 1997/2018. The Rise of Illiberal Democracy. Accessed 2 June 2018 from https://www. foreignaffairs.com/articles/1997-11-01/rise-illiberal-democracy. Zizek, S. 2013. Trouble in Paradise. London Review of Books. 35 (14): 11–12.

Richard Javad Heydarian who taught at De La Salle University and Ateneo De Manila, is the incoming research fellow at the National Chengchi University, Taiwan. He is currently a columnist for The Philippine Daily Inquirer, and a regular contributor to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). Besides the many contributions to The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, Foreign Affairs, Forbes, and others journals, he has authored “The Rise of Duterte: A Populist Revolt Against Elite Democracy” (Palgrave Macmillan 1917).

Chapter 34

Globalization and Indian Political Modernity Internationalizing Law, Domesticating Democracy Leila Choukroune

The project of modernity formulated in the 18th century by the philosophers of the Enlightenment consisted in their efforts to develop objective science, universal morality and law, and autonomous art according to their inner logic (…) The Enlightenment philosophers wanted to utilize this accumulation of specialized culture for the enrichment of everyday life—that is to say, for the rational organization of everyday life. Jürgen Habermas, Modernity—An Incomplete Project.

Abstract One of the most often used concepts in understanding Indian realities is that of the ‘modern’. Numerous visions of the modern coexist. The main feature of the transition to modernity is generally understood as a rupture with a medieval fixed and unitary cosmic order in which the sources of law and power were reduced to the will of an unchallenged ruler and were not detached from their communal or religious legacy or other popular customs. But, the modern can also manifest itself, as in India, in using a great variety of other forms. In this regard, Indian law provides a fascinating example of universal appeal in terms of law and democracy. While the post-colonial legislator had tried to develop a robust set of norms suited to the political aspirations of the new Indian Republic in the form of an evolutionary constitutional project, this dynamic process has also been supported by a vibrant judiciary, which has had recourse to foreign and international laws as engines for social modernization. Law has been internationalized and democracy domesticated. With the challenges posed on the Constitution, today’s interrogations on Indian democracy show that this dynamic and incomplete process of modernization is all but irreversible.

L. Choukroune (B) University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, UK e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 I. Rossi (ed.), Challenges of Globalization and Prospects for an Inter-civilizational World Order, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44058-9_34

637

638

L. Choukroune

Introduction One of the most often used concepts in understanding Indian realities is that of the ‘modern’. The ‘modern’ describes experiences, outlooks, visions and imaginations. It also comes to indicate a periodization of time within today’s globalization and prior to it. Numerous conceptions of the modern explaining and defining its contours as determined by time, space, practice, idea and imagination coexist. There is, for instance, more than Enlightenment to the modern. Its criticism did not start with post-modern theories but rather with the defenders of the “ancient regime” and other opponents to the French revolutionary project. From a legal perspective, the main feature of the transition to modernity is generally understood as a rupture with a medieval fixed and unitary cosmic order in which the sources of law and power were reduced to the will of an unchallenged ruler and were not yet detached from their communal or religious legacy and other popular customs. But the modern also manifested itself in a non-linear and heterogenous manner that is at different moments and using various forms. This is very true in India. The modern is, as Habermas put it, “an incomplete project”, one, which is constantly evolving and adapting to given circumstances (Jürgen Habermas 1981). In this regard, Indian legal journeys provide a fascinating case study of universal appeal in terms of law and democracy. The post-colonial legislator had indeed tried to develop a robust set of norms suited to the political aspirations of the new Indian Republic in the form of an evolutionary constitutional project seen as able to adjust to modernity. This dynamic process was to be supported by a vibrant judiciary, which has had recourse to foreign and international laws as engines for social modernization. Law has been internationalized and democracy domesticated at the same time. With the challenges posed on the Constitution in terms of territorial unity or access to information, today’s interrogations on Indian democracy show that this dynamic and incomplete process of modernization is all but irreversible Based on the Indian constitutional project understood as a path towards modernity (I), this contribution argues that the normative internationalization, in which the national judge plays a central role, in emerging economies like India where foreign and international laws are not only domesticated but also held as powerful instruments for empowering the national democratic process by shielding it from internal pressure sometimes at the risk of being rejected as a form of judicial hyperactivism (II). It shows, as well, that this dynamic and incomplete process is all but irreversible today while Indian law and democracy are questioned. Indian political modernity is hence both challenged and reinforced by globalization, its proponents and opponents (III).

I The Constitutional Path to Legal Modernity a. What is Modern Law? Is modern law a reaction to an oppressive feudal legal regime incarnated by a despotic sovereign? Is it a displacement of the same traditions revisited in a more acceptable

34 Globalization and Indian Political Modernity …

639

political regime? Is it a set of bourgeois norms provided for the protection of private property and eventually the good functioning of capitalism as Marxists could put it? Or is it the advent of rights empowering the individual in a democratic State but keeping a more daring utopia at bay1 ? Political theory and jurisprudence have addressed the question of modern law at length.2 Modern law is first a rupture: a rupture with a medieval fixed and unitary cosmic order in which the sources of law were reduced to the will of an unchallenged ruler and not yet detached from their communal or religious legacy and other popular customs. Modern law becomes general and abstract. It forms a complete and coherent system able to perpetuate itself in the long term and rationally resist arbitrary political changes. It puts the individual as a rights holder at its core. It so implies the justiciability of rights and the consequent development of an independent judiciary. It is institutionalized and professionalized. It is secular. It contributes to the construction of the nation-state in formalizing the social contract in a constitution, which determines the legitimate exercise of powers together with the hierarchy of norms and defines fundamental individual rights. Lastly, modern law supports sovereignty and so independence. b. Is Indian Law Modern? Can one even pose the question of legal modernity in India? Indeed, as exposed by Trubek from Weber’s approach, it was generally accepted that: The European legal system was distinct in all dimensions. Unlike the legal systems of other great civilizations, European legal organization was highly differentiated. The European state separated law from other aspects of political activity. Specialized professional or “status” groups of lawyers existed. Legal rules were consciously fashioned and rulemaking was relatively free of direct interference from religious influences and from other sources of traditional values. Concrete decisions were based on the application of universal rules, and decision making was not subject to constant political intervention.3

This rather idealized perception of European political modernity was put to the test of history in Europe itself by the ravages of Nazism, Fascism and Stalinist approaches of the law, which entertained a much less depoliticized and rational rapport with the norm. As such, legal modernity is not a linear and irreversible construction. The 1 In

reference to a proposal put forward by Martin Loughlin, “The Constitutional Imagination”, Modern Law Review, vol. 78, n 1, 2015, pp.1–25. 2 For an introduction to modern law, see S. Goyard-Fabre, Les principes philosophiques du droit politique moderne, Paris, P.U.F., 1997; on the role of the Constitution in crafting modern law and the interactions between ideology and utopia, see Martin Loughlin, “The Constitutional Imagination”, The Modern Law Review, op.cit. pp. 1–25; on modern law and the emergence of capitalism in Europe, see, for the very least, Max Weber, The Protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism, OUP, 2010; and more generally the “Law and Development” scholarship on modernization with Marc Galanter, “The Modernization of Law” in M. Weiner (ed.), Modernization, The Dynamics of Growth, New York, Basic books, 1966, pp. 153–165.; D. Trubek, "Max Weber on Law and the Rise of Capitalism” (1972). Faculty Scholarship Series. Paper 4001: http://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/ fss_papers/4001; D. Trubek et M. Galanter, “Scholars in Self-Estrangement: Some Reflections on the Crisis in Law and Development Studies”, Wisconsin Law Review, 1974, pp. 1062–1103. 3 See D. Trubek, “Max Weber on Law and the Rise of Capitalism”, op.cit.

640

L. Choukroune

temptation to challenge the modern is always here, as the project is not completed but constantly in motion. If on the move then, legal modernity cannot be circumscribed to a given territory. It is polymorphous and, as the Indian experience will demonstrate, open to enrichment from other experiments. Indian modern law has been defined against the backdrop of native norms and the various attempts by British scholars to rewrite this legacy as a “deliberate” and “adaptive re-creation”, which culminated in the codification of an Anglo-Indian law supporting the Raj’s ambitions.4 This transformation has attracted a considerable amount of scholarship amongst which the work of Marc Galanter, which is deeply grounded in a profound knowledge of Indian legal practices. In analysing Indian legal modernity indeed, Galanter proves the death of Hindu, Muslim or customary “traditional law” in its displacement by modern law. Restauration of “indigenous” practices with their “dharmasastra component” is then “almost completely obliterated”.5 In Galanter’s work, there is no romantic fascination for a glorious Indian past resting upon venerable ancient scriptures or an idealized village structure, but a blunt observation: modern law exists and is asserted as a distinct reality. Hence, argues Galanter: The modern legal system provides both the personnel and the techniques for carrying on public business in a way that is nationally intelligible and free of dependence on particular religious or local authority. It thus provides one requisite for organizing Indian society into a modern nation state.6

Indian modern law is plural in its practice and so distinct in its nature.7 In blending the reception of foreign law with the present reality of a domestic legacy, Indian law apparently met our previously defined criteria of the modern. Within that dynamic process, the Constitution appeared as a promise of a nation-state in which the protection of individual rights and the principle of equality were—and remain—the central objectives to achieve. c. An Evolutionary Constitution Largely detached from traditional and customary law, the Indian Constitution has also deliberately distantiated itself from the Gandhian proposal of a village-based 4 See

Rajeev Dhavan’s Introduction to the Marc Galanter, Law and Society in Modern India, OUP, 1989, pp. xiii–xcixi. 5 Ibid. Dharmasastra, in Hindu ancient scriptures, refers to the treatises on “dharma” (duties, rights, law and, in sum, a right way of living). They address, in poetic verses, the questions of duties, responsibilities, family and the self in society. The term “dharma” is itself subject to many meanings and interpretations in different Indian religions (Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism). In Hinduism, it is often associated with the idea of righteousness and equated to “satya” (truth). The Laws of Manu is probably the most famous of these many Dharmasastra. First translated in 1794, it has influenced many European thinkers including Nietzsche. Often mistranslated and poorly understood, it remains an essential text to approach the development of Indian norms. See, Wendy Doniger’s translation and presentation, The Laws of Manu, Penguin Classic, (2000). 6 Ibid., p. 28. 7 See Olivier Mendelsohn, “How Indian is Indian Law?” in Law and Social Transformation in India, OUP, 2014, pp. 47–80.

34 Globalization and Indian Political Modernity …

641

structure. Despite a certain degree of opposition to the foreign nature of Indian law and its inability to solve indigenous problems, the Constituent Assembly (1947– 1949) was clearly not in favour of the restoration of local justice or legal traditions. The only concession accorded by the Directive Principles of State Policy in their Article 40 on the “organisation of village panchayats” appeared as very minimal and revealed, over the years, a rather limited mechanism for access to justice for the most vulnerable, a “bread for the poor”, which took a variety of expressions including in its latest incarnation in the “lok adalat”, a form of “traditional justice”.8 This return to the past found very little support amongst a legal profession, which eventually viewed Anglo-Indian law as a positive development and a manifestation of hybridization. Not that colonial justice offered a rosy picture to look at with its awful lot of “white violence” that constituted an “intrinsic feature of imperial rule” and was “endemic rather than ephemeral”. But after all, British norms had had more than a century of reception and blending with all other norms that previously existed in India to develop on their own. Indianization had already made its mark on the law and resulted in a syncretic regime and a multitude of local practices of apparent foreign nature. Had it been oppressive and unjust, the promise of law sustained the colonial regime as much as it liberated native imagination for the possibility of freedom. According to Austin’s analysis of the Nehru–Gandhi correspondence and his interpretation of the Constitution “the Congress had never considered the Gandhian view of society (as exemplified in Hind Swaraj), much less adopted it”.9 Ambedkar’s ferocious fight against Gandhi on the issue of untouchability testified of a profound distrust in what could result from a new adherence to Hindu law for the depressed classes: Mr Gandhi wants Hinduism and the Hindu Caste System to remain intact. Mr Gandhi also wants the Untouchables to remain as Hindus. But as what? Not as partners but as poor relations of the Hindus. Mr Gandhi is kind to the Untouchables. But for what? Only because he wants to kill by kindness them and their movement for separation and independence from Hindus. (…) Democracy and democratic life, justice and conscience, which are sustained by a belief in democratic principle are foreign to the Hindu mind. To leave democracy and freedom in such Tory hands would be the greatest mistake democrats could commit (…).10

Ambedkar’s highly symbolic decision to publicly burn a copy of the Manusmriti (The Laws of Manu) during the second Mahad conference of 1927, demonstrated the profound aversion to the “traditional” model shared by many others of his fellow congressmen at that time.11 Even though it was not so evident that the overall majority 8 With

the absence of an appeal mechanism, the exclusion of lawyers and their unclear normative basis, these « traditional » ways of settling justice do not participate to the project of equality and indeed seems like a substitute of justice for the poorest, see Marc Galanter and Jayanth K. Krishnan, “Bread for the Poor: Access to Justice and the Rights of the Needy in India”, Hastings Law Journal, Vol. 55, 2004, pp. 789–834. 9 See Granville Austin, The Indian Constitution, Cornerstone of a Nation, OUP, (2002), p. 39. 10 See Ambedkar August 1942 paper “The Problem of Untouchables of India”, prepared for a Conference of the Canadian Institute of Pacific Relations and reproduced in Narendra Jadhav, Ambedkar, op.cit., p. 363. 11 The « incident » is narrated in relation to Ambedkar later strong condemnation of Gandhi’s reaction to the Mahad conference and mild support for the cause of untouchability in the introduction

642

L. Choukroune

of the Constituent Assembly was ready to embrace equality as later demonstrated by the very evolutionary structure of the Constitution, the attempt to revive a mystical past was clearly not on the modernization agenda. The Constitution was then seen, as later unveiled by the Kesavananda Bharati v. State of Kerala Supreme Court judgement, as the means to bring about a “non violent social revolution”.12 This peaceful modernization, which de facto equalled to a revolution largely rested upon the innovative architecture of the constitutional text and the interplay between the justiciable Fundamental Rights and the guiding but not enforceable Directive Principles of State Policy. Borrowing from many foreign systems of the Commonwealth countries (Australia and Ireland notably) but also influenced by the civil law world (Germany) and the US, the Indian Constitution is not a mere reproduction of alien norms. It forms a syncretic synthesis, a metis law based on an evolutionary structure, which can easily be amended (Part XX) and so designed to resist the attacks of time and politics.13 As to the Fundamental Rights (Part III), the Constitution provides for a step-by-step approach in identifying the actors (the State and the rights holders), the applicable law and all other inconsistent norms, the rights, and finally the remedies available for breaches of these very rights. It is not by chance that the enumeration of rights starts with “equality before the law” (Article 14) soon followed by the “prohibition of discrimination on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth” (Article 15). In the Directive Principles of State Policy then (Part IV), the Constitution clearly states: The provisions contained in this Part shall not be enforceable by any court, but the principles therein laid down are nevertheless fundamental in the governance of the country and it shall be the duty of the State to apply these principles in making laws.

Large in scope, the principles deal with the following questions understood as policies to be legislated: securing a social order for the promotion of the welfare of the people, policy principles to be followed by the State, equal justice and free legal aid, organization of the village panchayats, right to work, to education and to assistance in certain cases, just and humane conditions of work and maternity relief, living wages, participation of the workers in the management of industries, promotion of co-operative societies, early childhood care, promotion of education and economic interests of scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and other weaker sections, nutrition, standard of living and public health, organization of agriculture and animal husbandry, protection and improvement of environment and safeguarding of forest and wildlife, protection of monuments and places and objects of national importance, separation of judiciary from the executive, promotion of international peace and security. The topics are of Arundhati Roy to the Annihilation of Caste, Navayana, 2013. See as well, Marendra Jadhav, Ambedkar, Awakening India’s Social Conscience, Kornak Publishers, 2014. For an interview of Ambedkar on Gandhi, take a listen to a 1955 BBC interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v= XALsEguKumI. 12 Kesavananda Bharati v. State of Kerala, (1973), 4 SCC 225. 13 On the evolution of the Constitution and the series of amendments that followed its adoption, see Granville Austin, Working a Democratic Constitution, The Indian Experience, OUP, 1999.

34 Globalization and Indian Political Modernity …

643

varied if not heteroclites, and the list is long but important to bear in mind in gauging the success of the modernization project. The later constitutional amendments, the role of the judiciary, and to a large extent, the recourse to foreign and international laws to further the constitutional project find their very roots here. “Workable”, “flexible” and “strong enough” to “hold the country together both in peace and in war time”, the Constitution eventually offered the promise of a nationstate.14 This promise, together with the attainment of equality—a principle absent in traditional Hindu law—had to be realized through “a Sovereign Socialist Secular Democratic Republic”. Democracy and socialism were conceived as compatible and mutually reinforcing the constitutional project. Indeed, one of the most salient features of the Indian Constitution lies in its very ability to “accommodate”, to borrow a term coined by Austin, very different needs and realities.15 In that capacity to adapt to the present without forgetting the past, the Indian Constitution is truly modern.

II Indian International Law as Support to the Constitutional Project Yet, the constitutional imagination had to be fostered to achieve the objectives of equality and social justice and domesticate democracy.16 In this endeavour, the recourse to foreign and international law through the strategic will of the judge revealed instrumental. a. Pushing the Limits of the Constitutional Frame In this context, the judiciary was free to have recourse to foreign and international laws as a rights implementation engine. The domains in which it intervened are very diverse and vary from border delimitation to federalism, law of the sea, refugee law or international trade and investment law including the impact and possible direct effect of the World Trade Organization (WTO) decisions in municipal law.17 For instance, the case of WTO law is particularly interesting in that it reflects the dialogues of national and international courts on matters of incorporation. In the recent WTO Solar case indeed, India tried to win the legal battle in putting forward the very arguments of its own Supreme Court showing that a legislative act was not necessary to incorporate international norms, which were not affecting the rights

14 See Ambedkar’s introduction of the Draft Constitution in the Constituent Assembly on 4th November 1948, reproduced in Narendra Jadhav, Ambedkar, op.cit., p. 466. 15 See Granville Austin, The Indian Constitution, op.cit, p. 317. 16 In using the term “imagination” we refer implicitly to the article of Martin Loughlin, “The Constitutional Imagination”, Modern Law Review, op.cit., pp. 1–25. 17 See Haridas Exports v. All India Float Glass Manufacturers Association, 22 July, (2002). available at: https://indiankanoon.org/doc/838587/; and M/S. S & S. Enterprise v. Designated Authority and Ors, on 22 February, 2005, available at: https://indiankanoon.org/doc/1868210/

644

L. Choukroune

of the citizens.18 While not accepted by the WTO adjudicating body, this argument once again proves the keen reception and later re-exportation of international norms in and by India. However, in approaching the modernization process, our analysis will deliberately focus on a few limited fields of law, the environment and human rights as well as a recent commercial saga. For the two first areas of law, the judicial endeavoured to push the limits of the constitutional framework to complete the constitutional project. This echoes the Indian practice of Social Action Litigation (SAL) coined by Upendra Baxi as a Public Interest Litigation “à l’indienne”. The implicit interaction between the SAL and the internationalization of Indian law through judicial activism is indeed fascinating as a peaceful social revolution. Public interest litigation emerged as a rights advocacy strategy in the United States with the civil rights movement of the 1960s and has been broadly used worldwide to describe the many ways general grievances relating to the enforcement of socioeconomic rights have been litigated by the courts and to the remedies awarded to the victims of the State. It is probably in Asia, and precisely in India, that PIL has achieved its most sophisticated, yet sometimes ambiguous variation.19 As convincingly demonstrated by Upendra Baxi in his 1985 article,20 that is a few years after the 1975–1976 Emergency period and at a time “judicial democracy” was revolutionizing Indian politics, the “extraordinary remedies” the Indian population was seeking out differed from the PIL. They were indeed “transcending the received notions of separation of powers and the inherited distinctions between adjudication and legislation on the one hand, and administration and adjudication on the other”. Not to 18 See

DS 456 India—Certain Measures Relating to Solar Cells and Solar Modules, Panel and Appellate Body Reports of 24 February 2016 and 16 September 2016 available at: https://www. wto.org/english/tratop_e/dispu_e/cases_e/ds456_e.htm/. 19 See generally, J. Baghwati, “Judicial Activism and Public Interest Litigation”, Columbia Journal of Transnational Law, Vol. 23, 1984, pp. 561, C.D. Cunningham, “Public Interest Litigation in Indian Supreme Court: A Study in the Light of the American Experience”, Journal of Indian Law Institute, Vol. 29, 1987, p. 494, “ S. P. Sathe, Judicial Activism in India, OUP, New Delhi, 2002, Manta Rao, Public Interest Litigation in India: A Renaissance in Social Justice, Eastern Book Co; 2nd edition 2004, Videh Upadhyay, Public Interest Litigation in India, Concepts, Cases and Concerns, Lexis Nexis, 2007, Modhurima Das Gupta, Courting Development: The Supreme Court, Public Interest Litigation and Socio-Economic Development in India, VDM Verlag, 2009, Jona Razzaque (ed.), Public Interest Environment Litigation in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, special issue of the Comparative and Environment Law Series, vol. 7, Kluwer Law, 2004, Surya Deva, “Public Interest Litigation in India: A Critical Review”, Civil Justice Quarterly, vol.28, Issue 1, 2009, pp. 19–40, Parmanand Singh, “Promises and Perils of Public Interest Litigation in India”, Journal of Indian Law Institute, vol. 52, 2010, pp. 172–188, Madhav Kosla, “Making social rights conditional: lessons from India”, International Journal of Constitutional Law, vol. 8, 2010, pp. 739–765. For a general and recent overview: Po Yen Yap and Holning Lau (eds.), Public Interest Litigation in Asia, Routledge Law in Asia, 2010., and Leïla Choukroune, “The Paradox of Justiciability: Labour Rights Litigation and the Realization of Socio-Economic Rights in China and India”, in Surya Deva (ed.), Socio-Economic Rights in Emerging Free Markets: Comparative Insights from India and China, Routledge, 2016, pp. 147–165. 20 See Upendra Baxi, “Taking Suffering Seriously: Social Action Litigation in the Supreme Court of India”, Third World Legal Studies, Vol. 4, Issue 1, 1985, pp. 107–132.

34 Globalization and Indian Political Modernity …

645

mention that they brought “a new kind of lawyering and a novel kind of judging21 ”. Oriented towards the “rural poor” and not, as it has progressively been the case in the US—and in India itself—in the direction of “civic participation in governmental decision making” and eventually the representation of “interests without groups22 ”, the Indian incarnation of PIL was indeed first essentially social. This “social action litigation23 ” (SAL), as conceived by Uprenda Baxi, was “primarily judge-led and even judge-induced” and as such “elated to juristic and judicial activism on the High Bench”.24 The Indian “social action litigation” trend was not deprived of populist rhetoric and judicial politics, although putting forward humanist aspirations. But as demonstrated in the seminal decision Kesavananda Bharati,25 these ambitions were originally framed by the division of powers and the inherent limitation of constitutional precedent: “These landmarks in the development of the law cannot be permitted to be transformed into weapons for defeating the hopes and aspirations of our teeming millions, half-clad, half-starved, half-educated. These hopes and aspirations representing the will of the people can only become articulate through the voice of their elected representatives. If they fail the people, the nation must face death and destruction. Then neither the Court nor the Constitution will save the country.26 ” “Whenever there is a public wrong or public injury caused by an act or omission of the State or a public authority which is contrary to the Constitution or the law, any member of the public acting bona fide and having sufficient interest can maintain an action for redressal of such wrong or public injury.” (…) “If public duties are to be enforced and social collective “diffused” rights and interests are to be protected, we have to utilize the initiative and zeal of public minded persons and organizations by allowing them to move the court and act for a general or group interest; even though, they may not be directly injured in their own rights”.27

The parallel with the internationalization process, through what some would analyse as the equally populist activism of zealous judges, is striking and largely illustrated in India case law. The Indian higher courts not only made law but legislated “exactly in the way in which a legislature legislates” as S. P. Sathe explained: In environmental law to start with, Indian courts have largely filled a constitutional void. Indeed, the Constitution did not contain any provision for the protection and preservation of the environment. But, once again, based on the Directive Principles,

21 Ibid.,

p.108. p.109. 23 Ibid., p.108. 24 Ibid., p.111. 25 See Kesavnanda Bharathi v. State of Kerala (1973) 4 S.C.C. 225. 26 See Justice Chandrachud in Kesavananda at 968 quoted by Upendra Baxi, p.112. 27 See Justice Bhagwati’s fascinating reasoning in S.P. Gupta v. Union of India, AIR (1982) SC 149: 1981, at 190–194. This case is often contemplated as the precursor of the Indian PIL. PIL writ petitions have been filed under article 226 (Power of High Courts to issue certain writs) or article 32 (remedies for enforcement of (fundamental) rights guaranteed by the Constitution) of the Indian Constitution. 22 Ibid.,

646

L. Choukroune

India ratified a number of international Conventions as well as it amended the constitutional text in incorporating the Article 48-A (Protection and Improvement of environment and safeguarding of forest and wildlife) and Article 51-A(g) (Fundamental duties to protect and improve the natural environment including forests, lakes, rivers and wildlife and to have compassion for living creatures). Further, in the Supreme Court landmark judgement Vellore Citizens’ Welfare Forum v. Union of India, Justice Singh directly proposed the incorporation of customary international law in reference to the “precautionary principle” and the “polluters pays principle”: Even otherwise once these principles are accepted as part of the Customary International Law there would be no difficulty in accepting them as part of the domestic law. It is almost accepted proposition of law that the rule of Customary International Law if it is not contrary to the municipal law shall be deemed to have been incorporated in the domestic law and shall be followed by the Courts of law.28

The Court’s reasoning, in referring to a series of “soft law” sources of environmental law such as the Rio Declaration or the Agenda 21 supported the idea that the Constitution Article 21 (Fundamental Rights), as well as all other relevant constitutional provisions and the existing municipal law, were sufficient to integrate these principles into Indian law.29 Of course, such a daring approach can be understood as too expansive if not in contradiction with a democratic legislative process that had not yet adopted the same far-reaching principles of contemporary customary international law. But as exposed above, the objective of the Court is rather to further the constitutional social revolution as a pillar of the Indian democracy. The same type of reasoning is found in international human rights law where the court has even more clearly tried to fill the gap left by a rather passive legislature, which has often been reluctant to advance the constitutional rights agenda. As a matter of fact, until the adoption of the 1993 Protection of Human Rights Act and the establishment of the National Human Rights Commission, no specific text existed in Indian law to give effect to Part III (Fundamental Rights) of the Constitution. Beyond the “basic structure” doctrine and the Kesavnanda Bharathi v. State of Kerala 1973 decision (while fundamental rights can be amended, the Parliament cannot alter the “basic structure of the constitution”), the Courts have fostered and furthered the rights of the most vulnerable and those of women and in particular.30 In 2000, in the Chairman, Railway Board v. Chandrima Das, a case dealing with the rape of a Bangladeshi woman by Railways’ officials and for which the Calcutta High Court had directed the Railways to pay one million rupees in compensation for the crime perpetrated by the company’s employees, the Supreme Court furthered the 28 See Vellore Citizens’ Welfare Forum v. Union of India and Ors on 28 August, 1996, available at: https://indiankanoon.org/doc/1934103/. 29 See Jaydeepsinh G. Vaghela, “The Judiciary of India and Implementation of International Environmental Law: Some Remarks”, in Bimal N. Patel (ed.), India and International Law, Vol. 2, Brill, 2008, pp. 453–467. 30 See V.S. Elizabeth, “Feminism and International Law in India”, in Bimal N. Patel (ed.), India and International Law, Vol. 2, Brill, 2008, pp. 381–411.; and B.C. Nirmal, “Taking Violence Against Women Seriously: International and Domestic Human Rights Jurisprudence”, in Bimal N. Patel (ed.), India and International Law, Vol. 2, Brill, 2008, pp. 413–453.

34 Globalization and Indian Political Modernity …

647

interpretation of Fundamental Rights. In referring to a large number of international human rights instruments including Article 2 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as well as a vast ensemble of foreign decisions on the same matter, it concluded that fundamental rights apply to foreign nationals as well as Indian citizens.31 In Visakha and ors v. State of Rajasthan, a case addressing the need to protect women from sexual harassment at the workplace, the Supreme Court observed: Any international convention not inconsistent with the fundamental rights and in harmony with its spirit must be read into those provisions to enlarge the meaning and content thereof, to promote the object of the Constitutional guarantee (…) Gender equality includes protection from sexual harassment and right to work with dignity, which is a universally recognised basic human right. The common minimum requirement of this right has received global acceptance. The international conventions and norms are, therefore, of great significance in the formulation of the guidelines to achieve this purpose.32

Not many courts worldwide dare to give such an empowering effect to international law. In this case, international law does not serve as a shield against globalization to reclaim the democratic process from foreign hands, [but rather to foster, further and uphold the very constitutional project when confronted with internal resistances. In the same vain, in the National Legal Ser.Auth vs Union Of India and Ors of 15 April, 2014, better known as the transgender case, the Supreme Court, once again, used international law to achieve the constitutional objectives and so upheld the fundamental rights of equality and dignity.33 It stated: The basic spirit of our Constitution is to provide each and every person of the nation equal opportunity to grow as a human being, irrespective of race, caste, religion, community and social status. Granville Austin while analyzing the functioning of Indian Constitution in first 50 years has described three distinguished strands of Indian Constitution: (i) protecting national unity and integrity, (ii) establishing the institution and spirit of democracy; and (iii) fostering social reforms. The Strands are mutually dependent, and inextricably intertwined in what he elegantly describes as “a seamless web”. And there cannot be social reforms till it is ensured that each and every citizen of this country is able to exploit his/her potentials to the maximum.34

Of course, one could argue that the higher courts (High Courts and the Supreme Court) have not always been this liberal and certainly not consistent with, for example, the 2013 infamous Supreme Court decision to (re)penalized Indian LGBT. A Delhi High Court judgement had precisely decriminalized homosexuality.35 But a recent landmark decision tends to, once again, support our analysis. In August 2017, indeed, a nine-judge bench of the Supreme Court of India unanimously recognized the right 31 See The Chairman, Railway Board and Ors vs Mrs. Chandrima Das and Ors on 28 January, 2000,

available at: https://indiankanoon.org/doc/113663/. Vishaka and Ors vs State Of Rajasthan and Ors on 13 August, 1997, available at: https://ind iankanoon.org/doc/1031794/. 33 See National Legal Ser.Auth vs Union Of India and Ors on 15 April, 2014, available at: https:// indiankanoon.org/doc/193543132/. 34 Ibid. at 91. 35 See Suresh Kumar Koushal and Anr vs Naz Foundation and Ors on 11 December, (2013), available at: https://indiankanoon.org/doc/58730926/. 32 See

648

L. Choukroune

to privacy as the “constitutional core of human dignity”. A historic moment in Indian judicial activity, the 547 pages decision in Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd.) v. Union of India, clarifies the nature of the right to privacy as a fundamental right under the Part III (Fundamental Rights) of Article 21 (Protection of Life and Personal Liberty) of the Indian Constitution.36 https://www.scribd.com/document/357098939/SC-Rightto-Privacy-Judgment#download. In a crystal clear reasoning and direct wording, the judgment states: Privacy is a constitutionally protected right which emerges primarily from the guarantee of life and personal liberty in Article 21 of the Constitution. Elements of privacy also arise in varying contexts from the other facets of freedom and dignity recognised and guaranteed by the fundamental rights contained in Part III.

The internationalization of the issue at stake is here again quite remarkable. The nine-judge bench very much delves into comparative studies with a thorough analysis of British, American, Canadian or South African case law as well as that of the European Convention on Human Rights and the Inter-American Court. It is also in reference to a holistic interpretation of international human rights law that the Supreme Court stresses the interdependent character of all political, socio-economic and cultural rights, and so deconstructs the argument of privacy being an elitist concern for a small minority of affluent citizens. So that it is eventually clear to the Court that privacy “safeguards individual autonomy” and the ability to decide and control “vital aspects” of life, including sexuality and gender identity, on the very basis of human dignity. Lastly, one could put forward the difficulty to sustain such a large and heteroclite body of case law without proper legislative support as exemplified by the impossibility to adopt a Uniform (and secular) Civil Code providing the same rights for all and all women in particular.37 But the many efforts of the Indian Judge to look at foreign and international laws as guiding principles for the realization of the constitutional project is nevertheless as remarkable as unique.38 As such, “judicial activism is not an aberration” but a “counter-majoritarian check on democracy”.39 Indeed, “the struggle for custody of the Constitution”, as Granville Austin put it, required innovative interpretation and a non-traditional approach of the separation of powers. India’s peaceful social revolution has yet to be completed, but the path taken by the

36 See

Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd.) vs Union of India, on 24 August 2017, available at: Leila Seth, “A Uniform Civil Code towards Gender Justice”, in Talking of Justice, Aleph Book Company, 2014, pp.71–87. 38 Because of the familiarity of the Constitution with a number of common wealth countries Constitutions, the Indian Judge also often referred to, for example, Australian or Canadian law and decisions. See, Michael Kirby, “The Supreme Court of India and Australian Law”, in Supreme but not Infallible, Essays in Honour of the Supreme Court of India, OUP, 2000, pp.66–84., and Claire L’Heureux-Dubé, “Human Rights: A Worldwide Dialogue”, ibid, pp. 213–231. 39 See S.P. Sathe, Judicial Activism in India, Transgressing Borders and Enforcing Limits, op.cit., p.310. 37 See

34 Globalization and Indian Political Modernity …

649

judge with the support of foreign and international laws, although often uncertain, goes in the right direction.40 Our last example deals with a commercial matter in which the Indian judiciary developed a rather ambiguous relation with international law: the case of Vodafone. In what is now a real legal saga, New Delhi recently managed to—momentarily— twist some legal arguments in its favour, hence creating a stimulating debate on the limitations of international arbitration and the role domestic courts could play in framing disputes. The first episode started, in 2006, when Vodafone BV International (a Dutch company) bought Hutchison Telecommunications International Ltd (a Cayman Island company) which acquired 67% shares in and Indian Company Hutchison Essar Ltd (HEL) for the amount US$11 billion. In reaction to this transaction, Indian tax authorities imposed a tax of US$ 2.2 billion on Vodafone. But the company contended that the transaction did not involve assets based in India and so was not taxable in India. In 2010, the Bombay High Court decided in favour of the State.i This decision was then challenged by the company in the Indian Supreme Court, which reversed the Bombay ruling for this was an offshore transaction on which India had no territorial tax jurisdiction.ii But the saga did not stop there. In an unpredictable move, the Indian government amended its tax law and tried to impose its new rules retroactively to Vodafone. This naturally did not give the image of stability and rule of law-based country but, on the contrary, is likely to have triggered a series of new tax-related investment disputes. As a logical consequence, Vodafone decided to challenge the Indian government in bringing an arbitration claim under the IndiaNetherlands BIT.iii In addition, and while the first case is still pending, Vodafone served a new notice of arbitration in January 2017 under, this time, the India–UK BIT, challenging the same tax imposition.iv Here comes a new domestic episode. The Indian government decided to play the “abuse of process” card to counter the second arbitration deemed superfluous. The Delhi High Court took the case and rendered a controversial decision concluding to an abuse of process indeed as the two companies were de facto owned by the same shareholders.v The Delhi High Court then passed an ex-parte interim order, in August 2017, restraining Vodafone from pursuing the second arbitration. While the issue of abuse of process in the arbitration is fascinating and still very much debated (Gaillard 2017), the real question remains on whether an Indian court has any legal ground to issue a sort of anti-arbitration pronouncement (Ranjan 2019). One has then to look into domestic arbitration legislation to see if it can apply to BITs but also the very BITs for the dispute in question as the countries (India and the Netherlands and the UK) gave explicit consent to arbitration. A more logical path would have been to push in favour of a joint arbitration of the different disputes. In any case, international tribunals do not seem particularly impressed by domestic courts’ anti-arbitration injunctions as illustrated by the SGS v. Pakistan case in which the Supreme Court of Pakistan failed to stop the arbitration in issuing an order.vi The arbitration process initiated by a Swiss company went on but was 40 See Granville Austin, “The Supreme Court and the Struggle for Custody of the Constitution”, in Supreme but not Infallible, Essays in Honour of the Supreme Court of India, op.cit., pp.1–15..

650

L. Choukroune

eventually discontinued. The very last episode of the Vodafone saga, however, took place in May 2018, at the very same Delhi High Court. In a new well-argued and lengthy decision addressing the questions of the applicability of the Indian Arbitration and Conciliation Act of 1996 (amended in 2015) to BITs, as well as Indian international obligations, the Court reversed its previous judgement.vii According to the Court indeed: “104. (…) there is no unqualified or indefeasible right to arbitrate. The National Courts in India do have and retain the jurisdiction to restrain international treaty arbitrations which are oppressive, vexatious, inequitable or constitute an abuse of the legal process.” (…) But 120. There is no presumption or assumption that filing of multiple claims by entities in the same vertical corporate chain with regard to the same measure is per se vexatious.” (…) And 123. Since it is the case of the Plaintiff-Union of India that the claim under the NetherlandsIndia BIPA is without jurisdiction, invocation of another treaty by the parent company cannot be regarded as an abuse per se. (…) Therefore “The Tribunal while deciding the said issue will take into account the Defendants’ undertaking to this Court that if the Plaintiff-Union of India gives its consent, it would agree to consolidation of the two BIPA arbitration proceedings before the India-United Kingdom BIPA Tribunal. Accordingly, the ex parte interim order dated 22nd August, 2017 stands vacated. No order as to costs”.viii

The Court hence concluded in favour of the consolidation of the two arbitrations (if agreed by the parties) and in any event vacates its 2017 order. Indeed, as elaborated above, the courts conclude that there is no “vexatious” aspect in this very procedure and there is no abuse of procedure per se. Hence, the court recommends the consolidation of the two arbitrations but does not want to interfere further in trying to stop the procedure. What does this case say about India in ISDS? That India is and is not a rule-based country at the same time, and that it is certainly in search of a consistent strategy. There are both a sense of confusion created by contradictory legislative and judicial decisions, and the idea that argumentative India is easily able to claim and counterclaim. This impressionistic account is naturally limited to the dedicated space of our demonstration but highlights important trends and a certain mastery of legal techniques as well as a form of creativity in countering arguments although these moves are not necessarily rule-based nor testify of the greatest legal rigour and consistency.

III Conclusion: Indian Political Modernity Challenged? Is today’s Indian law modern? Is the Indian modern political project challenged by certain aspirations towards a “Hindu country”? Is there, as Marc Galanter put it: “a certain irreversibility in the process of forming a modern legal system (…)”. Is it true that “in India where the proponents of indigenous law are less attached to

34 Globalization and Indian Political Modernity …

651

dharmasastra than nostalgic for the ‘simplicity” of local customary law (…) any change (in the direction of revivalism) is even more unlikely”41 ? Or, on the contrary, and as Menski recently argued, is there a sort of reformation of Hindu law at work in today’s India42 ? If so, is it based on the deliberate action of Indian courts to revive a useful set of norms to solve everyday life conflicts or the result of a more political strategy instrumentalizing a glorious past and a recreated common identity to serve the ambitions of a highly nationalistic political agenda? Is it a resistance to modernity or a parallel phenomenon living its existence at the margin of the modern legal apparatus. Lastly, how to qualify this revival of the past? Is it an anti-modern reaction or a post-modern plurality? It might be indeed that Indian law is not quite modern but yet already postmodern. This post-modernity is where Habermas meets Foucault for Indian modern law is “an incomplete project” but also a relation to the present, “an attitude”, an “êtnos”, a “philosophical life” in which self-criticism is both a “historical analysis of the limits imposed upon us” and “the test of their possible crossing”.43 In that sense, our analysis differs from that of Menski. The post-modern character of Indian law does not rest upon a frustrated reaction to the colonial “modernism” and legal “positivism” equally alien to the national genius of the people of India. It is the expression of a plural, highly diverse society, which evolves in multiple realities and thinks and acts in many apparently irreconcilable ways. Indian legal modernity is the capacity to accommodate different deterritorialized legal spheres in one hybrid project testing the limits of history. It is the crafting of an Indian international law very much heteroclite in its sources and not quite rigorous in its categorization of norms or systematic in its relation to municipal law, but creative and adaptable to the needs of the present. It is the appearance of the foreign against the reality of Indianess. As such, it might well survive the contemporary interrogations. Notes i

Civil Appellate Jurisdiction on Vodafone International Holdings B.V. v. Union of India [2012]. ii Ibid. iii Ibid. iv Vodafone Group Plc and Vodafone Consolidated Holdings Limited v. India (II) [2017]. v Judgment Report on Union of India v. Vodafone Group Plc United Kingdom, CS (OS) 383/2017, adopted 22 August 2017. vi ICSID Case No. ARB/01/13 SGS Société de Surveillance SA v. Islamic Republic of Pakistan [2004]. vii Union of India vs Vodafone Group Plc United Kingdom, CS(OS) 383/2017 and I. A. No. 9460/2017, adopted 7 May 2018. viii Ibid. 41 See

Marc Galanter, Law and Society in Modern India, op.cit., p. 35. Werner Menski, Hindu Law: Beyond Tradition and Modernity, Delhi, OUP, 2003. 43 See Michel Foucault, Qu’est-ce que les lumières, Breal, 2004 (texte), p. 85. 42 See

652

L. Choukroune

References Literature Granville, Austin. 2002. The Indian Constitution. Cornerstone of a Nation, OUP 2002: 39. Granville, Austin. 2000. The Supreme Court and the Struggle for Custody of the Constitution. Supreme But Not Infallible, 1–15. OUP: Essays in Honour of the Supreme Court of India. Baghwati, P.N. 1984. Judicial Activism and Public Interest Litigation. Columbia Journal of Transnational Law 23: 561. B.C. Nirmal. 2008. Taking Violence Against Women Seriously: International and Domestic Human Rights Jurisprudence. In India and International Law, vol. 2, ed. Bimal N. Patel, 413–453. Brill. Upendra, Baxi. 1985. Taking Suffering Seriously: Social Action Litigation in the Supreme Court of India. Third World Legal Studies 4 (1): 107–132. Baxi Upendra interview with The Caravan: In this Democracy we Must not Distrust or Suspect Dissent or Disagree with it, 2016. Eyal, Benvenisti. 2008. Reclaiming Democracy: The Strategic Uses of Foreign and International Law by National Courts. American Journal of International Law 102: 241–274. Bodin, Jean. 1993. Les Six Livres de la République. Paris: Livre de poche. Burke Edmund. 1968. Reflections on the Revolution in France. Penguin. Cunningham, C.D. 1987. Public Interest Litigation in Indian Supreme Court: A Study in the Light of the American Experience. Journal of Indian Law Institute 29: 494. Leïla Choukroune. 2016. The Paradox of Justiciability: Labour Rights Litigation and the Realization of Socio-Economic Rights in China and India. In Socio-Economic Rights in Emerging Free Markets: Comparative Insights from India and China, ed. Surya Deva, 147–165. Routledge. Deva, Surya. 2009. Public Interest Litigation in India: A Critical Review. Civil Justice Quarterly 28 (1): 19–40. Modhurima Das Gupta. 2009. Courting Development: The Supreme Court. VDM Verlag: Public Interest Litigation and Socio-Economic Development in India. Rajeev Dhavan’s Introduction to the Marc Galanter. 1989. Law and Society in Modern India, xiii–xcixi. OUP. Dhavan, Rajeev. 1997. Treaties and People: Indian Reflections. Journal of the Indian Law Institute 39: 1. Wendy Doniger’s translation and presentation. 2000. The Laws of Manu. Penguin Classic. Michel Foucault. 2004. Qu’est-ce que les lumières, 85. Breal (texte). Galanter, Marc. 1966. The Modernization of Law. In Modernization, ed. M. Weiner, 153–165. The Dynamics of Growth: New York, Basic books. Goyard-Fabre, S. 1997. Les Principes Philosophiques du Droit Politique Moderne. Paris: P.U.F. Granville Austin. 2002. The Indian Constitution, Cornerstone of a Nation, 39. OUP. Amal K. Ganguli. 2008. Interface between International and Municipal Law: Role of the Indian Judiciary. In India and International Law, vol. 2. ed. Bimal N. Patel, 11–47. Brill. Jürgen Habermas. 1981. Modernity—An Incomplete Project, Lecture Delivered in 1980 and Later Published Under the Title “Modernity versus Post-Modernity”, New German Critique (22), Winter 1981. Hedge, V.G. 2010. Indian Courts and International Law. Leiden Journal of International Law 23 (1): 53–77. Thomas Hobbes. 2002. Leviathan. Penguin Classic. Hunt, Alan. 1986. The Theory of Critical Legal Studies. Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 6 (1): 1–45. Jadhav, Marendra. 2014. Ambedkar. Awakening India’s Social Conscience: Kornak Publishers. Michael Kirby. 2000. The Supreme Court of India and Australian Law. In Supreme but not Infallible, Essays in Honour of the Supreme Court of India, 66–84. OUP.

34 Globalization and Indian Political Modernity …

653

Kosla, Madhav. 2010. Making Social Rights Conditional: Lessons from India. International Journal of Constitutional Law 8: 739–765. Kolsky, Elizabeth. 2010. Colonial Justice in British India, 1–2. White Violence and the Rule of Law: CUP. Claire L’Heureux-Dubé. 2000. Human Rights: A Worldwide Dialogue. In Supreme But Not Infallible, Essays in Honour of the Supreme Court of India, 213–231. OUP. Lefort, Claude. 2007. Complications Communism and the Dilemmas of Democracy. Columbia: Columbia University Press. Loughlin, Martin. 2015. The Constitutional Imagination. Modern Law Review 78 (1): 1–25. Machiavelli, N. 1988. The Prince. CUP: Cambridge Texts in Historical Thought. Karl Marx, Capital, Penguin, 1990. Olivier Mendelsohn. 2014. How Indian is Indian Law? In Law and Social Transformation in India, 47–80. OUP. Menski, Werner, and Hindu Law. 2003. Beyond Tradition and Modernity. OUP: Delhi. André Nollkaemper’s Oxford project on International Law in Domestic Courts: http://opil.ouplaw. com/page/ILDC/oxford-reports-on-international-law-in-domestic-courts#Contributors. Lavanya Rajamani. 2016. International Law and the Constitution. In The Oxford Handbook of the Indian Constitution. eds. Sujit Choudhry, Madhav Khosla and Pratap Bhanu Metha, 145. OUP. Manta Rao. 2004. Public Interest Litigation in India: A Renaissance in Social Justice, 2nd edn. Eastern Book Co. Jean-Jacques Rousseau. 2012. On the Social Contract and other Political Writings. Penguin. Arundhati Roy, Introduction to the Annihilation of Caste, Navayana, 2013. Sathe, S.P. 2002. Judicial Activism in India. OUP, New Delhi: Transgressing Borders and Enforcing Limits. Slaughter, Anne-Marie. 2000. Judicial Globalization. Virginia Journal of International Law 40 (1103): 1112–1123. Jona Razzaque (ed.). 2004. Public Interest Environment Litigation in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, Special Issue of the Comparative and Environment Law Series, vol.7, Kluwer Law. Saxena, Rekha. 2007. Treaty Making Powers; A Case for Federalisation and Parliamentarisation. Economic and Political Weekly 42 (1): 24. Leila Seth. 2014. A Uniform Civil Code towards Gender Justice. In Talking of Justice, 71–87. Aleph Book Company. Singh, Parmanand. 2010. Promises and Perils of Public Interest Litigation in India. Journal of Indian Law Institute 52: 172–188. Trubek, D. 1972. Max Weber on Law and the Rise of Capitalism. Faculty Scholarship Series. Paper 4001. http://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/fss_papers/4001. Trubek, D., and Galanter, M. 1974. Scholars in Self-Estrangement: Some Reflections on the Crisis in Law and Development Studies. In Wisconsin Law Review, 1062–1103. Videh Upadhyay. 2007. Public Interest Litigation in India, Concepts, Cases and Concerns. Lexis Nexis. Elizabeth, V.S. 2008. Feminism and International Law in India. In India and International Law, vol. 2, ed. Bimal N. Patel, 381–411. Brill. Po Yen Yap and Holning Lau (eds.). 2010. Public Interest Litigation in Asia. Routledge Law in Asia. Jaydeepsinh G. Vaghela. 2008. The Judiciary of India and Implementation of International Environmental Law: Some Remarks. In India and International Law, vol. 2. ed. Bimal N. Patel (ed.), 453–467. Brill. Max Weber. 2010. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, OUP.

654

L. Choukroune

Cases (Chronologically) Maganbhai Ishwar Bhai Patel v. Union of India, 9 January, 1969, (1969) 3 SCR 254 by Hidyatullah CJ. Kesavnanda Bharathi v. State of Kerala (1973) 4 S.C.C. 225. Jolly George Verghese and Anr v. The Bank Of Cochin on 4 February 1980, 1980 AIR 470, 1980 SCR (2) 913. Gupta S.P. v. Union of India, AIR 1982 SC 149: 1981. Vellore Citizens’ Welfare Forum v. Union of India and Ors on 28 August 1996. Vishaka and Ors vs State Of Rajasthan and Ors on 13 August 1997. The Chairman, Railway Board and Ors vs Mrs. Chandrima Das and Ors on 28 January 2000. Haridas Exports v. All India Float Glass Manufacturers Association, 22 July 2002. M/S. S and S. Enterprise vs Designated Authority and Ors, on 22 February 2005. Suresh Kumar Koushal and Anr vs Naz Foundation and Ors on 11 December 2013. National Legal Ser.Auth vs Union Of India and Ors on 15 April 2014. DS 456 India—Certain Measures Relating to Solar Cells and Solar Modules, Panel and Appellate Body Reports of 24 February 2016 and 16 September 2016. Justice Puttaswamy K.S. (Retd.) vs Union of India, on 24 August 2017.

Leila Delphine Choukroune is a Professor of International Law and Director of the University of Portsmouth Thematic Area in Democratic Citizenship. Recently, she has authored or edited Judging the State in International Trade and Investment Law (2016), Exploring Indian Modernities (2018), Adjudicating Businesses in India (2020), and International Economic Law (2020). She is the Editor of the Springer book series International Law and the Global South and the Routledge book series Human Rights, Citizenship and the Law. She is also an Associate Editor of the Manchester Journal of International Economic Law and Member of the Editorial Boards of China Perspectives and Perspectives Chinoises.

Chapter 35

Whose Democracy? Governing Indonesia in a Globalized World Lena Tan

Abstract In 1998, Indonesia’s political system underwent a complex transition from thirty years of authoritarianism to democratic rule. While it has been widely lauded as a model for many countries, Indonesia’s democracy is now increasingly described as illiberal. This chapter examines the complex processes and actors involved in the reconstruction of its political system by first unpacking its conceptualization and practice of democracy through a discussion of its main features and institutions. Second, it analyzes how the development and formulation of Indonesian democracy was influenced not just by factors and processes at the domestic level, but, critically, by their encounter and interactions with the politics, ideas, actors, and networks that have engendered and empowered globalization. In particular, Indonesian actors encountered a post-Cold War political milieu in which democracy was considered de rigueur for all states that aspired to be legitimate members of the international community, and an inextricable part of the foreign policy agenda of the West across the Global South. In doing so, this chapter also sheds lights on the local and global actors who have benefitted from this conceptualization of democracy as well as the structures of power that underpin it.

Introduction In 1998, Indonesia took the first steps toward leaving three previous decades of authoritarian rule behind when its economy collapsed during the Asian financial crisis of 1997 and the ruling elite deserted President Suharto in droves. During the years that followed, the pliant legislature, judiciary, political parties, and media that had propped up authoritarianism in the Indonesian political system were dismantled and replaced with free and fair elections and the institutions and processes that have become the hallmark of western democracies. Today, Indonesia is not only Southeast Asia’s only democracy, but it is also frequently cited as a model for states that are still under authoritarian rule or those that are making the transition to democracy. L. Tan (B) Department of Politics, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 I. Rossi (ed.), Challenges of Globalization and Prospects for an Inter-civilizational World Order, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44058-9_35

655

656

L. Tan

The construction and reconstruction of any political system is a complex process involving contested ideas and concepts regarding the fundamental principles and rules that should underpin it, competing actors as well as existing social, economic, and power relations. In Indonesia, the pathway to the democracy that it has built for itself today was influenced not just by these factors and processes at the domestic level, but their encounter and interactions with the politics, ideas, actors, and networks that have engendered and empowered globalization. Specifically, Indonesian actors encountered a post-Cold War political milieu in which democracy was considered de rigueur for all states that aspired to be legitimate members of the international community. It was also an international environment where democracy promotion and good governance were an inextricable part of the foreign policy agenda of the West across the Global South (Robinson 1996; Ayers 2008; Bridoux and Kurki 2014). These efforts were, in turn, supported by a web of “principal bilateral agencies, international and regional organisations, foundations and NGOs, civil society organisations such as political parties and foundations, NGOs, and policy institutes” (Ayers 2008). In other words, Indonesia’s democracy and structures of power are not only borne of the local, but deeply embedded within a broader social environment where certain understandings, ideas, norms, and practices regarding legitimate forms of governance and the political were an important and constitutive part of our globalizing world.1 In the rest of this chapter, I discuss, first, Indonesia’s democracy and its institutions and unpack, in that process, its conceptualization and practice of democracy. Critically, I will also ask: How has political globalization, in which states are increasingly enmeshed in webs of regional and multilateral institutions, transnational policy networks and ideas, and non-governmental actors, played a role in constructing this political system in post-Suharto Indonesia? Who does this conceptualization of democracy benefit? What are the local and global structures of power underpinning this conceptualization?

Political Reform in Post-Suharto Indonesia Between 1999 and 2002, the basic shape and substance of Indonesia’s political system was transformed through four consequential amendment packages to its 1945 Constitution which had been mostly dominant for almost half a century. The first of these packages placed two five-year terms limits on the presidency and transferred power from the executive branch to the legislature while the second did not only devolve power in the previously highly centralized system to the provinces across Indonesia’s sprawling archipelago, but also incorporated a human rights bill. The reform of 1 In

the discipline of International Relations, the constructivist turn that began in the 1990s has showcased the importance of social rules, norms, ideas, and principles in constituting the meanings, understandings, relationships, and identities that underpin global politics. For example, see Wendt (1999) and Ruggie (1998).

35 Whose Democracy? Governing Indonesia in a Globalized World

657

existing institutions as well the creation of new ones like the Corruption Eradication Commission, or Komisi Pemberantasan Korupsi (KPK) associated with “good governance” were the focus of the third amendment package. The final one focused on presidential elections, the composition of the People’s Consultative Assembly, or Majelis Permusywaratan Rakyat Republik Indonesia (MPR-RI) and socio-economic rights. These important constitutional amendments, which improved and strengthened civil rights, decreased the structural power of the president, and devolved authority to the provinces, have also been accompanied by free and fair elections for the presidency and legislature held in 1999, 2004, 2009, and 2014. In these elections and beyond, political parties competed freely for votes. Indonesia also has a vibrant media, civil society and NGO sector that have been able to apply some oversight and influence over the policies and behavior of locally and nationally elected government officials. There are, for example, at least 8,000 registered NGOs in Indonesia in fields ranging from microloans to human rights and inter-faith dialogue (Aspinall 2013). Notably, some of these NGOs have been able to wield influence on the Judicial Commission and the Constitutional Court, the KPK, and the National Human Rights Commission (Nardi 2018). In the case of the Constitutional Court, Indonesian NGOs have even been able to highlight, frame, and influence policy and political debates by bringing certain issues to court and providing information and briefings to an already over-strapped and under-funded judiciary (Nardi 2018). Furthermore, several NGO activists who were against Suharto’s New Order regime have also become members of the legislature, served in executive institutions, and joined various government ministries (Mietzner 2013). Besides these constitutional amendments, the Washington Consensus’ framework of “good governance,” characterized “as minimal, neutral, transparent, accountable and participatory government with an effective bureaucracy” (Ayers 2008), has also been central to Indonesia’s efforts to build and reform its legal, financial, and political institutions. Over time, these reforms have been strengthened and enhanced, and Indonesia can now boast of having a polity that has governmental accountability through regular, free, and fair elections with results that are accepted by those in power and the opposition. Moreover, it has political parties that accept and abide by the existing constitution, restraints to executive power, a free and independent media and civil society, and individual freedom and political pluralism (Horowitz 2013). It has, in other words, met the criteria and definition of a consolidated democracy. While Indonesia does fulfill the criteria of a consolidated democracy as defined by most democracy indices, a closer evaluation reveals a more complicated picture. Specifically, Indonesia has also been characterized by corruption, weak rule of law, and a lack of transparency. Elections have also been dominated by elites from the old system as well as money politics (Choi 2009) with gangsters sometimes winning local office due to voter intimidation. There have also been instances of legislators who have succumbed to bribes in exchange for their support of certain pieces of legislation.

658

L. Tan

Despite the incorporation of a bill of rights into the constitution and the establishment of a human rights commission and human rights court which have the power and jurisdiction to research, monitor, mediate, and adjudicate, there have been serious violations of civil, political, and socio-economic rights in Indonesia (Rosser 2013). Ethnic and religious minorities have been persecuted while many human rights abuses committed by the armed forces have gone unpunished (Horowitz 2013). In the arena of socio-economic rights, approximately 93 million Indonesians (36% of its population) are living in poverty or just above the poverty line (Oxfam 2017 2).2 Despite good levels of economic growth since 2000, poverty alleviation almost came to a stop between 2000 and 2016 (Hadiz 2017). Instead of an improvement in the area of socio-economic rights, Indonesia is now ranked sixth for the worst inequality of wealth in the world. These levels of inequality in Indonesia (World Bank 2016) have produced a population where its wealthiest 1% owned 49% of total wealth in 2016. The constitutional right to free health care for the poor and free basic education for all have also not translated into practice. Many are unable to access these services without additional costs in the form of legal and illegal fees. Sustainable access to better water sources and services, another constitutional right, is also missing for more than fifty percent of the population (Rosser 2013). Finally, labor issues like unfair dismissals, minimum wage violations, and the loss of farming land to companies though illegal seizures have also been frequent occurrences (Rosser 2013). Overall, the capacity of Indonesian democracy to ensure the protection of the social rights of its citizens—and, in particular, those of the most vulnerable—has not improved dramatically in the last two decades. Therefore, Indonesia may have the formal institutions of a democracy but the many issues and problems that continue to beleaguer a large portion of its population point to a political and economic system that does not serve its neediest. In fact, several prominent scholars argue that Indonesia’s “democratic” political system is a mere shell for it continues to be underpinned by social and power relations of elites who were part of the Suharto regime (Robison and Hadiz 2004; Hadiz and Robison 2014; Winters 2011). In other words, Indonesia remains dominated by oligarchs and predatory elites consisting of “former apparatchik, military men, entrepreneurs and assorted political operators and enforcers of Soeharto’s New Orderat both the national and local level” (Hadiz 2010: 28). These elites have continued to stay at the apex of the economic and political system and control the distribution of power and resources in Indonesia through their ability to dominate and influence elections with their overwhelming financial resources (Choi 2009) and increasing role in party politics (Sugiarto 2006; Mietzner 2007). Hence, Indonesia is more accurately described as an illiberal democracy, a low-quality democracy (Horowitz 2013), or one that has “fallen into a state of stagnation”(Savirani and Tornquist 2015). In the rest of this chapter, I discuss—in broad strokes—how Indonesia’s democracy in the post-Suharto period came to be by examining the actors, ideas, processes, 2 According

to the World Bank (2016), the middle class stands at 22% in 2017 while the aspiring middle class is 45%.

35 Whose Democracy? Governing Indonesia in a Globalized World

659

and networks that were influential in its creation. Specifically, I will discuss this by focusing on how a certain form of democracy became the only game in town by tracing Indonesia’s path to democratization, and the ideas, programs, and policies that were adopted and implemented. In particular, I will stress that a richer and fuller understanding of how Indonesia’s political institutions came to be reconstructed— with the underlying structural power relations of the Suharto era remaining mostly intact—can only be understood if they are situated within a global network of actors, institutions, NGOs, and transnational political and economic policy agendas which engendered a certain kind of democracy and, therefore, also, ultimately, limited and constrained its choices.

Global Agendas: Promoting Democracy and Political Change in Indonesia The choice of liberal democracy as a political system was not inevitable when Indonesians were presented with another opportunity to modify and reconstruct their state and nation in 1998. A singular conception of democracy does not exist as a state could adopt one of a competing number of politico-economic models of democracy (Bridoux and Kurki 2014). Liberal electoral democratic models, for example, exist alongside radical extra-liberal conceptions. The latter can consist of social democracy, participatory democracy, or forms of radical democracy where there is also an emphasis on the ability of government to exercise oversight and control over the economy and redistribute material wealth and resources in order to provide individuals with equal opportunity to exercise their political rights (Bridoux and Kurki 2014). In Indonesia, there were several competing conceptualizations of democracy. During the authoritarian regime of Suharto, democracy was championed by intellectuals and civil society organizations like YLBHI (Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation), INFID (International NGO Forum On Indonesian Development), the Centre of Information and Action Network for Democratic Reform (Pusat Informasi dan Jaringan Aksi untuk Reformasi, PIJAR), and the Institute of Policy Research and Advocacy (Lembaga Studi dan Advokasi Masyarakat, LESAM). These individuals and organizations supported universal human rights values and had similar “values of popular participation, self-reliance, and empowerment as vehicles for enhancing both quality of life and human dignity” (Eldridge 2005: 149). However, these similarities also papered over important differences in their understandings of democracy (Eldrige 2005). For some students, intellectuals, and the middle class, democracy was indeed synonymous with liberal democratic models of representative governments (2005). For others like the Forum for Democracy group, founded by Abdurrachman Wahid in 1991, and the “Petition of Fifty” group (Eldridge 2002: 122), their idea of democracy drew on Pancasila ideology, the philosophical basis for an independent Indonesia state and nation which was first enumerated by

660

L. Tan

Sukarno in 1945 as a means of uniting a country of tremendous religious, ethnic, and linguistic diversity spread across an archipelago of approximately 1,000 islands within a 13, 600 island group extended over an area of approximately 5 million square kilometers.3 Pancasila was the means to consciously construct and unify on one level, “groups of different ethnicity, size, contact with the modern world, and experience with colonial rule”4 (Bertrand 2004: 28). Besides the principles of nationalism or Indonesian unity, and belief in one God, Pancasila also includes humanitarianism, social justice, and an emphasis on musyawarah (consultation), mufakat (consensus), and other idealized concepts of traditional village governance in Indonesia as an important part of the decision-making processes in the social, economic, and political spheres (Ramage 1997).5 These ideals of consultation and consensus, the fourth principle of Pancasila, were an important part of this group’s vision of democracy for Indonesia. A third conceptualization of democracy placed emphasis on radical mass participatory mobilization which focused on “people’s sovereignty” and direct action, and drew on the revolutionary experience of the immediate post-independence period. A fourth, emerging from the dependency theory literature of the 1970s, placed the evolution of Indonesia in the broader context and hierarchy of international capitalism, and linked democracy with a development process that would be more just and equitable (Hadiz 2004). Consequently, civil and political rights were considered important, but they were not the ultimate goal for both of these groups. Rather, they were viewed as a means to transform capitalist and imperialist structures of power and attain the definitive goal of social justice (Eldrige 2005). These conceptions 3 Some

mainstream NGOs also adopted this as a position in order to reconcile Pancasila as their “sole foundation” which was legally required, with democratic participation (Eldridge 2002: 122). 4 From the 1920s to the 1940s, the formative period in the construction of the Indonesian nation, political elites debated and struggled to define the meaning of the Indonesian nation, its character, and political goals through various alternative political agendas. The nationalists focused on independence and envisioned “a nation based on the modern, European principles of self-determination, democracy and modern political institutions.” A second group, the Islamists, “preferred an Indonesian nation that would build unity around Islam as the common characteristic of the diverse peoples of the archipelago.” The third main group “emphasized social revolution and favored the adoption of a communist program.” A fourth group, the integralists, envisaged an Indonesia based on the idea of “the state as a large family in which members of the society were integrated as whole.”. 5 Belief in God, the first principle, “recognizes that the state will be based on religious belief and that every Indonesian should believe in God” (Ramage 1997: 12). While implying “belief in a monotheistic religion, a concession to Muslim concerns,” it also “stipulates that Indonesians should respect their fellow citizens even if they have different religious beliefs” (ibid.). The second principle is humanitarianism or in Indonesian, kemanusiaan yang adil dan beradab. Literally meaning “a just and civilized humanity,” this principle “represents the ideal of humanitarian behavior between all peoples” and “emphasizes tolerance and respect between all Indonesians” (Ramage 1997: 13). Indonesian national unity (persatuan Indonesia), the third principle, focuses on the importance of “maintaining the unity and integrity of Indonesia as a single state” Ramage (1997: 13). The fourth principle emphasizes Indonesian-style democracy where the decision-making process is one dominated by musyawarah (consultation) and mufakat (consensus). Social justice (keadilan social), the fifth and final principle, “posits a goal of economic and social egalitarianism and prosperity for Indonesia” (Ramage 1997: 14).

35 Whose Democracy? Governing Indonesia in a Globalized World

661

of democracy underpinned groups like the Centre for Indonesian Labour Struggles (Pusat Perjuangan Buruh Indonesia, PPBI), Students in Solidarity with Democracy in Indonesia (Solidaritas Mahasiswa Indonesia Demokrasi, SMID), and the National Peasants Union (Solidaritas Tani Nasional, STN). These groups were also part of two networks—the Indonesian Pro-Democracy Movement, and the Indonesian Peoples’ Solidarity Struggle with the Maubere People (Solidaritas Perjuangan Rakyat Indonesia dengan Maubere, SPRIM) which advocated independence for East Timor which had been annexed by Indonesia in 1975 (Eldrigde 1996: 26). The transition to democracy, however, only took place after poverty levels escalated due to the 1997 Asian financial crisis, and there was growing political opposition to the authoritarian regime in the form of many small groups, and protests in university campuses across Indonesia.6 When Suharto was abandoned by almost all of the ruling elites in May 1998 (Aspinall 2005, 229), and replaced by the Vice President, B. J. Habibie, it marked the end of his 30-year authoritarian rule. Significantly, it was a liberal and procedural form of democracy rather than existing alternatives that became dominant during this process of political transition and consolidation in Indonesia. Notably, the collapse of the Suharto regime did not necessarily have to be followed by a democratic transition for other states like Malaysia which had confronted similar political, economic, and social circumstances at that time emerged with a reconstituted version of authoritarianism (Aspinall 2005, 252 and 209).7 In Indonesia, both before and after the fall of Suharto, democracy became dominant due to the interaction of local state and non-state actors with global webs of state actors, regional and multilateral institutions, and non-governmental actors in a post-Cold War international social and normative environment dominated by the common transnational policy agenda of promoting and supporting the adoption of procedural democracy across states of the Global South. In the rest of this section, I will outline how this took place in Indonesia by first tracing how democracy—and critically, liberal and procedural democracy—rather than alternative forms of government, e.g., semiauthoritarianism, became the only legitimate choice for domestic actors in 1998. Second, I will also demonstrate the importance of global norms to Habibie and his team by outlining the tremendous significance that they placed on being viewed as a democratic state in the international system through discussing the critical decision that they made to hold early elections in 1999 and change decades-long policy on East Timor. Finally, the influence wielded by the idea of liberal and procedural democracy in global democracy promotion efforts will also be traced through a discussion of the substance of the constitutional amendments and political and economic reforms undertaken in Indonesia.

6 For

more on the role of students in the fall of Suharto, see Aspinall (2005). is another example.

7 Myanmar

662

L. Tan

Preparing the Groundwork for Democracy: NGOs and Civil Society Organizations in Indonesia During the Suharto Period During the 1990s, NGOs, intellectuals, and various opposition groups propelled human rights and democratization as the legitimate basis of government to the forefront in Indonesia (Aspinall 2005). Critically, almost all of these Indonesian NGOs and civil society organizations like YLBHI and the INFID were funded by organizations like the Ford Foundation, the Asia Foundation which received funding from USAID, German party foundations as well as international NGOS like Oxfam, HIVOS (Humanistisch Institut voor Ontwikkelingssawenwerking, Humanistic Institute for Development Cooperation), and NOVIB (Nederlandse Organisatie Voor Internationale Bijstad, Dutch Organisation for International Aid) (Mietzner and Aspinall 2008: 21). Over time, these organizations also began to receive aid directly from western governments like the United States that were becoming more sympathetic to their goals and programs (Mietzner and Aspinall 2008: 21).8 USAID Indonesia, for instance, provided US $5.9 million for programs that could increase the effectiveness of institutions that supported democracy in 1997 (Mietzner and Aspinall 2008: 21). These democracy promotion efforts were not confined to Indonesia. The end of the Cold War was, in fact, a period when democracy promoters like the United States (Robinson 1996; Bridoux and Kurki 2014), the EU, and various non-state actors poured financial resources and offered technical advice on the processes and institutions needed for democratization to states ranging from those of the former Soviet bloc to conflict-torn territories in Africa, central America, and Asia. On a more concrete level, these democracy promotion efforts emphasized procedural and electoral aspects involving the establishment of credible, multiparty elections together with liberal constitutionalism, the rule of law, human rights, “good governance,” and the presence of an independent civil society. Significantly, this understanding of democracy and, implicitly, the corresponding criteria and stages for a successful democratization process, have been manifested in the form of technical assistance and training programs to create electoral systems, political parties, independent judiciaries and legislatures, implement good governance policies and measures in the form of eradicating corruption, civil service reform, public financial management, public enterprise reform, and build a civil society (Abrahamsen 2000). This support in the form of funding and technical assistance for democracy promotion was considered significant for Indonesia’s transition to democracy by these actors who had become “an increasingly important and vociferous part of the Indonesia political scene in the 1990s” (Mietzner and Aspinall 2008: 21; Aspinall 2010: 2). These groups had a significant ideational impact on the official political sphere in Indonesia in the 1990s as their alternative discourses on human rights and 8 Before the end of the Cold War, the authoritarianism and many human rights transgressions of the

Suharto regime were pushed to the background in US–Indonesian relations as Indonesia was an important ally in the American battle against communism.

35 Whose Democracy? Governing Indonesia in a Globalized World

663

democratization “slowly but perceptibly shift[ed] the terrain of legitimacy under the government’s feet” over time (Aspinall 2005: 258). The changes to this terrain were evident at the behavioral, rhetorical, and communicative levels (Jetschke 1999). In 1993, for example, a National Commission on Human Rights was established in Indonesia and was an indicator of a highly significant concession on the part of the Indonesian government for it was institutionalizing human rights within the Indonesian state, a clear illustration of its growing receptiveness and acceptance of these norms in its domestic context. At the rhetorical and communicative levels, Indonesia began to openly acknowledge that it had a human rights problem in international fora like the United Nations after years of making culture-specific counter-arguments, invoking the principle of noninterference, and questioning the legitimacy of international jurisdiction. After the Santa Cruz massacre in East Timor in 1991, for example, members of the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) and Indonesian delegates arrived at a common description of the human rights situation in Indonesia and developed ways to address it (Jetschke 1999). In 1992, the Indonesian human rights delegate at the UN Human Rights Commission stated that their motivation was “to learn and benefit from such a visit in order to minimize, if not eradicate, the practice of torture in Indonesia” (Jetschke 1999). This statement was significant for two reasons. Firstly, it was the Indonesian government’s first public acceptance of allegations of torture in the country (Jetschke 1999). Secondly, it was an acknowledgment of the validity of the international norm. Moreover, discussions were later conducted on the basis of the consensual norm of human rights and consequently, on matters of norm compliance and implementation (Jetschke 1999). Rhetorically, regime leaders were also “routinely acknowledg[ing] that demokratisasi was unavoidable by the mid-1990s” (Aspinall 2005: 48). In short, there was, “a subtle change of political discourse during the 1990s. By the mid-1990s, key themes like ‘human rights’ and ‘democratization’ were no longer the political taboos they had been in the late 1980s” (Mietzner and Aspinall 2008: 23). In fact, these ideas about political reform were present and discussed widely in the media and other locations. Authoritarianism and the Suharto regime were slowly becoming delegitimized while democracy and human rights were becoming increasingly legitimate norms at all levels of Indonesian society.

Rebuilding the Indonesian Polity: Democracy, Global Norms, and Global Actors The influence of this discourse of human rights and democracy was very much evident during the immediate transitional period after the collapse of the authoritarian regime when B. J. Habibie, a Suharto loyalist, was left holding the reins of power. During this period, Habibie offered to hold free and fair elections as soon as possible, appointed a team of academics and civil servants to draft new laws on political parties, elections,

664

L. Tan

governmental institutions and structure, and decentralization (Aspinall 2005) and changed decades-long policy regarding its annexation of East Timor. Leaving East Timor and Global Democratic Norms9 The awareness of the importance of democracy as a global norm on the part of Habibie and his team is particularly well illustrated by the steps that they undertook to resolve the East Timor question, an issue that had come to bedevil Indonesian foreign policy in the 1980 and 1990s after the Suharto regime had annexed the former Portuguese colony in 1975 (Tan 2015). For Habibie and his team, continuing to maintain that East Timor was an inexorable part of Indonesia would only lead to its isolation by the rest of the world during a period of acute economic and political instability (Singh 2000). The world, Habibie and his team stressed, was no longer dominated by the Cold War. Instead, it had been radically transformed to one dominated by increasing attention to issues of human rights and democracy. In such a world, Indonesia’s claim that the East Timor issue had been resolved was no longer tenable (Singh 2000: 322). Implicitly, Habibie and his team were acknowledging that Indonesia’s handling of the East Timor issue was now very much linked to human rights and democracy. More specifically, they realized that the East Timor issue had resulted in international perceptions of Indonesia as a non-democratic country which violated basic human rights. In order to “restore Indonesia’s image,” Habibie and his advisers were convinced that they had “no other choice but to try and solve the East Timor problem in a manner acceptable to the international community” (Singh 2000: 322). This was to give the East Timorese the opportunity to decide if they wanted independence or to remain part of Indonesia through a referendum. Habibie’s decision to offer autonomy to East Timor was—on one level—due to economic reasons. He did so to obtain the economic assistance necessary for Indonesia’s recovery. As their statements show, however, this was also a decision that emerged from the awareness that Indonesia was operating in a global environment where democratic and liberal norms for domestic conduct were in ascendance (Tan 2015). Resolving the East Timor issue, then, became a means to indicate to the rest of the world that the Indonesia of the New Order no longer existed. It also provided them with a way to align Indonesia with what Habibie and his advisers understood to be the broader normative structure of global politics. Thus, strategic thinking on the part of Habibie and his advisers played a role in this decision. They formulated and implemented a policy that would enable them to perform their self-described identity as a democracy to convince the rest of the world that genuine political changes were afoot in Indonesia, and therefore, to obtain the economic help that they needed. Significantly, this was also a decision where their knowledge and awareness of the social context guided them to act in a way that would correlate to global norms in service of particular ends. Hence, the broader social underpinnings of international relations where democracy and human rights 9 This

sub-section on Habibie’s policy regarding East Timor from 1998 to 1999 draws heavily on Tan (2015).

35 Whose Democracy? Governing Indonesia in a Globalized World

665

had become de rigeur for domestic conduct provided both the wellspring for their actions as well as the constraints on them. This was therefore, a decision that was also profoundly embedded in the social (Tan 2015). At the very least, Habibie and his advisers believed that Indonesia needed “to act in ways that were consistent with a country that was professing that it was on the way to becoming a democratic nation committed to human rights” (Tan 2015). Thus, the policy changes that they made regarding East Timor cannot be separated from a social process to perform Indonesia’s nascent identity as a democracy which had yet to be recognized and acknowledged by other countries in the international arena. The resolution of the East Timor issue was, therefore, “initiated by actors who were acting strategically but within and through the confines and limitations of a wider social structure of norms and identities” (Tan 2015). Adopting Liberal and Procedural Democracy Significantly for the type of democracy that was adopted, the dispersed and fragmented state of the opposition created a situation where it was impossible for them to coalesce around a central figure (Aspinall 2005), much less a single political platform in which the form of democracy that Indonesia would adopt was clearly defined after a period of debate and reflection. In this political vacuum at the initial stages of reform, a team of individuals consisting mainly of academics and a senior civil servant who had been given the task of producing drafts of new rules and laws for elections, political parties, and other political institutions by Habibie played an important role. Consisting primarily of individuals with PhDs in Political Science from American universities, these teams were heavily influenced by their academic experiences in the United States (Horowitz 2013; Clear 2002) and thought mainly in terms of creating rules, laws, and institutions for structuring the Indonesian political system, regional autonomy and on certifying political parties that were eligible for the upcoming elections (Horowitz 2013; Clear 2002). Besides the ideational resources derived from American universities and research centers, these teams also drew on the knowledge, skills, and capacities of US-based organizations like the National Democratic Institute and the International Republican Institute that specialized in constitutional and electoral reform. Political parties, which have been a dominant feature of the American political system and seen as a critical conduit for facilitating democratic governance in a polity, also featured prominently in these deliberations (Horowitz 2013). In the time that he was in office, Habibie and his team removed controls on the media, freed dozens of political prisoners, annulled the ban on political parties, called for new parliamentary elections in mid-1999, and the selection of a new president by the end of 1999. In addition, a team of seven political scientists was also put together to work on three laws which would fundamentally reconfigure Indonesia’s electoral and political system. These laws—the Law on Political Parties, the Law on General Elections, and the Law on the Composition of the MPR, the DPR, and the DPRD—were significant for building the structural framework that would provide the basis for pulling Indonesia out of authoritarianism into a new regime type which would include, at the very least, the elements of an electoral democracy.

666

L. Tan

The influence of the global web of democracy promotion advocates and actors did not abate after this initial phase. In fact, it continued for more than a decade as Indonesia’s democratization unfolded. For example, the June 1999 general elections—the first one held after Suharto’s fall—was supported by the United States, Japan, Germany, Sweden, Netherlands, the UK, international and regional organizations such as the UN, EU, and OECD, and intergovernmental organizations such as the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (Bridoux and Kurki 2014). These actors provided financial resources and technical assistance for this election (Clear 2002). During this process, state and non-state US democracy promotion efforts also focused heavily on assisting and transforming political parties in the country so that they could “serve as effective intermediaries between citizens and their government” (Clear 2002: 151). The United Nations Development Program (UNDP), on the other hand, served as the coordinator for the Electoral Technical Assistance Program on behalf of the international community (Clear 2002). Following these elections, democratic assistance programs—ranging from USAID’s Democratic and Decentralized Governance program and those of the UNDP’s democratic governance program to those managed by organizations like the Asia Foundation, the Friederich Naumann Stiftung (FNS), the Ford Foundation, and the Open Society Institute—have concentrated on three main areas (Aspinall 2010: 4). The first was in the area of supporting and strengthening the electoral and legislative systems through providing funding to build up the capacity of the DPR (People’s Representative Council) Secretariat and political parties. These programs also stressed voter education, non-governmental election monitoring, and technical and institutional support for the KPU (General Elections Commission). The second, in the area of decentralization and local governance reform, “involved dramatic devolution of political and economic power to over 500 district governments” across Indonesia (Aspinall 2010). The third concentrated on the rule of law and justice sector reform which has involved reforming and building up the capacity of the judiciary system, the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), and the police. In the important initiative known as the Partnership for Governance Reform started in October 2000 and envisioned as a partnership between international donors and lenders and the Indonesian government, the private sector, various donors, NGOs, and think tanks, the dominance and influence of the democracy promoters did not abate. While the majority of the members of the Governing Board were Indonesians, and could, thus, claim to represent Indonesian interests, the setting of agendas remained with its international partners like the World Bank, the United Nations Development Program, and the Asian Development Bank. The agenda, unsurprisingly, emphasized areas like decentralization, legal and judicial reform, anti-corruption, police reform, corporate governance, and the strengthening of civil society (Crawford and Hermawan 2002). Finally, NGOs which have been considered key actors in challenging authoritarianism, promoting and popularizing democracy and human rights in contemporary Indonesia, have not been immune from the impact and influence of the specific discourses on democracy and the democracy promotion agenda of the Global North as many of them have global connections and networks and remain dependent on

35 Whose Democracy? Governing Indonesia in a Globalized World

667

foreign funding (Aspinall 2013; Eldridge 2005). Hence, their discourses, programs, and activities have been influenced by these networks. In some cases, they have been determined by them (Aspinall 2013). These influences have been especially evident for NGOs concerned with issues such as governance, rule of law, and elections (Aspinall 2013). In competing for funding which emphasizes the priorities of its donors, “local NGOs have … become agents not only of a specifically Indonesian politico-economic order, but also part of an emerging neoliberal global governmentality, by which individual subjects come to internalize dominant social and political norms” of an “emerging democratic political system and liberal economic order (Hadiz 2010; Aspinall 2013).

Whose Democracy? Democratization and the form of democracy that is now in Indonesia has emerged from a process that has emphasized the creation and establishment of a political system with the requisite institutions, mechanisms, and conditions in place which would allow for ordinary citizens to exercise their right to vote and replace politicians and regimes that have not been able to fulfill their civil, political, and socio-economic rights through regularly held elections where parties compete for votes and the right to govern. Proponents of liberal and electoral democracy assume that establishing and having political parties, credible elections, and an active civil society are sufficient for the fulfillment of rights as these institutions and procedures will provide all citizens with the means to access and influence policy-making processes, mobilize on issues that are important to them, and create the necessary electoral incentives for politicians to respond to their needs. In Indonesia, it was assumed that democratization would provide channels and spaces for greater participation in the policy-making process by ordinary citizens and NGOs. This was especially important in the area of socio-economic rights (Rosser and van Diermen 2016). The political reforms enacted have indeed resulted in a more open and accessible policy-making arena—public consultations are now common during legislative processes while parliament is no longer inaccessible or ineffective. Furthermore, a vibrant media landscape and civil society ensure that public policies are vigorously debated (Rosser and van Diermen 2016). It was also assumed that the cronyism, corruption, and nepotism that had characterized the Indonesian political economy before the 1997–1998 Asian financial crisis would be eliminated after the IMF imposed policy and institutional reforms as a condition for the bailout. Despite the changes implemented and the resulting improvements, it has also become apparent that there are increasing and troubling levels of inequality in the country despite a respectable rate of economic growth. These developments point to serious issues in the fulfillment of civil and socio-economic rights and problems with the current form of Indonesian democracy. Rather than transforming the political and economic power relations that had underpinned Suharto’s regime, Indonesia’s democratization, and in particular, the

668

L. Tan

liberal and procedural form which was adopted, “provided a lifeline to oligarchic interests that had been incubated and nurtured within the New Order’s centralised system of patronage” (Hadiz 2017: 273). This was a system in which politicalbureaucratic and business interests had fused together to one another’s benefit. State control over concessions in the forestry and mining sectors, import licenses, state bank credit and governmental contracts and procurement enabled family and close friends not only of Suharto but, eventually, those of other powerful political and bureaucratic officials and military access to have “preferential access to loans, concessions, import licences and state bail-outs” (Hadiz 2017: 272; Hadiz and Robison 2014: 47). Hence, Suharto’s regime created a system where the main families of business, politics, the military, and the bureaucracy intermingled to form an oligarchic political and economic elite (Hadiz and Robison 2014: 38; Robison and Hadiz 2004; Winters 2011). Despite IMF demands for reforms in the shape of good governance, rule of law, and programs to build capacity and promote democracy, it was ultimately limited in its ability to engender the type of transformative and effective change that was needed to create a truly democratic Indonesia (Hadiz and Robison 2014: 52). This resulted from the oligarchy’s success in resisting attempts, for example, “to close insolvent banks and to force insolvent groups to part with assets and repay debt” as they were still able to rely on “the networks of political authority and economic interests that underpinned and defined oligarchy and permeated the institutions of the state itself” (Hadiz and Robison 2014: 49). Moreover, the oligarchs have not resisted democracy or markets because these provided a framework within which they could exploit, maneuver, and consolidate their authority and power (Hadiz and Robison 2014: 46). Economically, IMFimposed reforms that led to the privatization of public services and the abolition of subsidies, etc., mostly benefitted the already rich. Politically, democratization enabled the oligarchy to participate in the electoral system with far fewer restraints than within the confines of an authoritarian regime. Their wealth provided them with the means to start and fund new parties and election campaigns whether through direct or indirect participation and in that process, gain an important presence in the Indonesian polity. Political parties in post-Suharto Indonesia, for example, have behaved in a corrupt way in local and national elections (Choi 2004; Buehler and Tan 2007; Choi 2007; 2009; Buehler 2010; Hadiz 2010) and have demonstrated little interest in the needs of ordinary citizens. Slater (2004) has argued that Indonesian parties no longer compete with each other. Instead, they collude and form alliances in order to exploit state resources together. At the same time, leftists, progressive and social democratic sectors of Indonesian society did not and could not emerge during this period after having been obliterated by the 1965–1966 massacre of those related to the Indonesian Communist Party, and decades of brutal authoritarian rule (Hadiz 2017). When predominantly defined, conceptualized, and manifested in procedural and electoral terms, such forms of democracy provide very limited opportunities for improved social justice and can often lead to the emergence of polities that may appear democratic but can, in fact, be rather exclusionary of the poor and marginalized

35 Whose Democracy? Governing Indonesia in a Globalized World

669

(Abrahamsen 2000). This has been the case in Indonesia for the technical focus on creating and establishing elections, electoral systems, and other institutions tend to “ignore underlying power relations, with little analysis of whose interests are served by the existing set-up, or whose interests would be threatened by reform efforts. Such an orientation thus focuses on issues of ‘low politics’ and not on the crucial questions relating to power relations and their transformation” (Rosser and van Diermen 2016). Hence, these previously powerful elites were able to retain their positions and maintain their interests by capturing political and legal institutions during the era of reform. They now dominate over the country’s political parties, elections and parliaments, and the enormous political patronage network that were an inextricable part of the New Order is still very much a part of “democratic” Indonesia (Hadiz 2003). Thus, the construction of this version of democracy for Indonesia which has been heavily shaped and influenced by the democracy promotion agendas of actors of the Global North did not take the relationships of power and interest that have been an important part of the Suharto legacy into account. Through its neglect, the structural constraints bestowed by this legacy have ensured that the interests and agenda of these elites remain at the forefront of government (Rosser and van Diermen 2016).

Conclusion Overall, the governing of Indonesia today has been heavily influenced by a global agenda promoting procedural and liberal forms of democracy that has been supported in turn by interconnected webs of international and regional institutions and state and non-state actors. Despite the promise of transformative change that usually accompanies a state’s transition from authoritarianism to democracy, this potential has not been borne out for millions of Indonesians. Instead, the focus on the technical and procedural aspects of democratization together with the neglect of underpinning power relations existing in the state created the space and opportunity for members of the business, military, and bureaucratic elite of the New Order to maintain their dominance of the main instruments of economic and political control. Hence, the achievement of socio-economic rights and the goals of human rights, equality, and social justice will remain challenging. In an Indonesia that is now exhibiting many of the illiberal tendencies of other democracies around the world, it is important for all policy-makers to problematize the dominant conceptualization of democracy that has been promoted and imposed across the world, acknowledge its many issues, and create democracies that are far more able to respond to rising inequality.

670

L. Tan

References Abrahamsen, R. 2000. Disciplining Democracy. Development Discourse and Good Governance in Africa. London: Zed Books. Aspinall, E. 2005. Opposing Suharto: Compromise, Resistance and Regime Change in Indonesia. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Aspinall, E. 2010. Assessing Democracy Assistance: Indonesia. Madrid: FRIDE Institute. Aspinall, E. 2013. A nation in fragments. patronage and neoliberalism in contemporary Indonesia. Critical Asian Studies 45(1): 27–54. Ayers, Alison J. 2008. We All Know A Democracy When We See One: (Neo)Liberal Orthodoxy in the ‘Democratisation’ and ‘Good Governance’ Project. Policy and Society 27: 1–13. Bertrand, J. 2004. Nationalism and Ethnic Conflict in Indonesia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bridoux, J., and M. Kurki. 2014. Democracy Promotion. A Critical Introduction. London: Routledge. Buehler, M. 2010. Decentralisation and Local Democracy in Indonesia: The Marginalization of the Public Sphere. In Problems of Democratisation in Indonesia: Elections, Institutions, and Society, ed. E. Aspinall and M. Mietzner. Institute of Southeast Asian Studies: Singapore. Buehler, M., and Tan, Paige Johnson. 2007. Party-Candidate Relationships in Indonesian Local Politics: A Case Study of the 2005 Regional Elections in Gowa, South Sulawesi Province. Indonesia 84: 41–69. Choi, N. 2004. Local Elections and Party Politics in Post-reformasi Indonesia: A View from Yogjakarta. Contemporary Southeast Asia 26 (2): 280–301. Choi, N. 2007. Elections, Parties and Elites in Indonesia’s Local Politics. South East Asia Research 15 (3): 325–354. Choi, N. 2009. Democracy and Patrimonial Politics in Local Indonesia. Indonesia 88. Clear, A. 2002. International Donors and Indonesian Democracy. Brown Journal of World Affairs. 9 (1): 141–155. Crawford, G., and Y.P. Hermawan. 2002. Whose Agenda? “Partnership” and International Assistance to Democratization and Governance Reform in Indonesia. Contemporary Southeast Asia 24 (2): 203–229. Eldridge, P. 1996. Development, Democracy and Non-hoverment Organizations in Indonesia. Asian Journal of Political Science 4 (1): 17–35. Eldridge, P. 2002. The Politics of Human Rights in Southeast Asia. London: Routledge. Eldridge, P. 2005. Nongovernmental Organizations and Democratic Transition in Indonesia. In Civil Life, Globalization and Political Change in Asia, ed. Robert P Weller. London: Routledge. Hadiz, V.R. 2003. Reorganizing Political Power in Indonesia: A Reconsideration of So-Called ‘Democratic Transitions. The Pacific Review 16 (4): 591–611. Hadiz, V.R. 2004. The Rise of Neo-third Worldism? The Indonesian Trajectory and the Consolidation of Illiberal Democracy. Third World Quarterly, v 1: 55–71. Hadiz, V.R. 2010. Localising Power in Post-authoritarian Indonesia: A Southeast Asia Perspective. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Hadiz, V.R. 2017. Indonesia’s Year of Democratic Setbacks: Towards a New Phase of Deepening Illiberalism? Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies 53 (3): 261–278. Hadiz, V.R., and R. Robison. 2014. The Political Economy of Oligarchy and the Reorganisation of Power in Indonesia. In Beyond Oligarchy: Wealth, Power and Contemporary Indonesian Politics, ed. Michele Ford and Thomas Pepinsky. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Horowitz, D. 2013. Constitutional Change and Democracy in Indonesia. NY: Cambridge University Press. Jetschke, A. 1999. Linking the Unlinkable? International Norms and Nationalism in Indonesia and Philippines. In The Power of Human Rights: International Norms and Domestic Change, ed. Thomas Risse, Stephen C. Ropp, and Kathryn Sikkink. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

35 Whose Democracy? Governing Indonesia in a Globalized World

671

Mietzner, M. 2007. Party Financing in Post-soeharto Indonesia: Between State Subsidies and Political Corruption. Contemporary Southeast Asia 29 (2): 238–263. Mietzner, M. 2013. Fighting the Hellhounds: Pro-democracy Activists and Party Politics in Postsuharto Indonesia. Journal of Contemporary Asia 43 (1): 28–50. Mietzner, M., and Aspinall, E. 2008. From Silkworms to Bungled Bailout: International Influences on the 1998 Regime Change in Indonesia. Stanford, CA: CDDRL Working Papers. Nardi, D.J. 2018. Can NGOs Change the Constitution? Civil Society and the Indonesian Constitutional Court. Contemporary Southeast Asia 40 (2): 247–278. Oxfam. (2017). Towards a More Equal Indonesia. London: Oxfam. Ramage, D.E. 1997. Politics in Indonesia. Democracy, Islam and the Ideology of Tolerance. London: Routledge. Robinson, W.I. 1996. Promoting Polyarchy. Globalization, US Intervention and Hegemony. NY: Cambridge University Press. Robison, R., and V.R. Hadiz. 2004. Reorganising power in Indonesia: The Politics of Oligarchy in an Age of Markets. London: RoutledgeCurzon. Rosser, A. 2013. Towards a Political Economy of Human Rights Violations in Post-new Order Indonesia. Journal of Contemporary Asia 43 (2): 243–256. Rosser, A., and M. van Diermen. 2016. Law, Democracy and the Fulfilment of Socioeconomic Rights: Insights from Indonesia. Third World Quarterly 37 (2): 336–353. Ruggie, John. 1998. What Makes the World Hang Together? Neo-utilitarianism and the Social Constructivist Challenge. International Organization 52 (4): 855–885. Savirani, A., and O. Törnquist (eds.). 2015. with H. Hanif, E. Hiariej, and W.P. Samadhi, Reclaiming the State: Overcoming Problems of Democratization in Post-soeharto Indonesia. Yogyakarta: PolGov and PCD Press. Singh, B. 2000. Habibie and the Democratization of Indonesia. Sydney: Book House. Slater, D. 2004. Indonesia’s Accountability Trap: Party Cartels and Presidential Power After Democratic Transition. Indonesia 78: 61–92. Sugiarto, B.A. 2006. Political Business. Inside Indonesia 87. Tan, L. 2015. Metropolitan Identities and Twentieth Century Decolonization. NY: Palgrave. Wendt, Alexander. 1999. Social Theory of International Politics. NY: Cambridge University Press. Winters, J. 2011. Who Will Tame the Oligarchs? Inside Indonesia 104. World Bank. 2016. Indonesia’s Rising Divide. Washington, DC: World Bank.

Lena Tan is a senior lecturer in International Relations at the University of Otago (Dunedin, New Zealand). Her research interests lie in the construction and constitution of the Global South in international relations, and recent publications include Metropolitan Identities and Twentieth Century Decolonization (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015).

VIEWS FROM SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA

Globalization and Political Culture

Chapter 36

Globalization, Democracy, and Good Governance in Africa Ngozi Nwogwugwu

Abstract Democracy, which is the most popular system of government in the world today, facilitates attainment of good governance. Globalization has fostered the third wave of democracy, which led to most countries of Africa electing democratic governments. However, across Africa, democratic practices have faced varying challenges ranging from threats of military coups, ethnic politics, marginalization of some groups, non-adherence to rule of law, high level of corruption in the public sector, and a rising trend of populism and religious fundamentalism. This article places these challenges in the wider context of globalization and discusses the reasons why elections lack in democratic quality, corruption prevails, and political leaders manipulate constitutions to stay in power. Globalization helps lay bare these weaknesses, but the social forces on the ground in African countries that could redress the ill effects of globalization and poor governance are not strong. So, what is the state of democracy in Africa? How can it be improved? These are the principal questions the article addresses.

Introduction Globalization is a complex and fluid concept that especially since the end of the Twentieth Century has engaged researchers and politicians as well as activists throughout the world. “It is a phenomenon that stems from advancement in capitalist thought and its associated liberal democratic principles, resulting in an increasingly interconnected and interdependent world through international trade, investment, and finance that have been growing faster than national incomes” (Iyanda and Nwogwugwu, 2016, p. 17). Sociologist Roland Robertson (1992) is considered a key founder of the concept of globalization, which he defines as “the compression of the world and the intensification of consciousness of the world as a whole” (p. 8). Anthony Giddens (1990, N. Nwogwugwu (B) Political Sciences and Public Administration, Babcock University Ilishan-Remo, Ikenne, Ogun State, Nigeria e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 I. Rossi (ed.), Challenges of Globalization and Prospects for an Inter-civilizational World Order, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44058-9_36

677

678

N. Nwogwugwu

p. 64) defines globalization as “the intensification of worldwide social relations, which link distant localities in such a way that local happenings are shaped by events occurring many miles away and vice versa” (p. 64). Giddens sees globalization from the standpoint of the way in which electronic communication has brought about a new regime in which the constraints of distance and time on social organization and interaction are completely eroded. Globalization manifests itself in different dimensions political, economic, technological, military, and cultural. However, the focus of this chapter is political globalization. According to Held and McGrew (2004, p. 1), globalization can be conceived “as a process (or set of processes) which embodies transformation in the spatial organization of social relations and transactions, expressed in transcontinental or interregional flows and networks of activity, interaction and power.” The same authors (ibid. 2004) went further in explaining four characteristics of globalization which include: 1. Stretching of social, political, and economic activities across frontiers, regions, and continents; 2. It is marked by the intensification or the growing magnitude of interconnectedness and flows of trade, investment, finance, migration, culture, etc.; 3. It can be linked to a speeding up of global interactions and processes, as the development of world-wide systems of transport and communication increases the velocity of the diffusion of ideas, goods, information, capital, and people; 4. The growing extensity, intensity, and velocity of global interaction can be associated with their deepening impact such that the effects of distant events can be highly significant elsewhere and specific local developments can come to have considerable global consequence. So, what is the inference from their definition? It can be said that globalization manifests itself across various sectors of the society, political, economic, and social, making countries of the world increasingly borderless. It has facilitated greater visibility of countries, and its enhanced inter-dependency of nations provides leverage for different countries, including the small ones who hitherto lacked the capacity to transact at the same level with the big economies. Globalization breaks the barriers, providing the platform for countries to utilize their comparative advantage in some areas to operate at the global scale without any inhibitions. There are scholars however who view globalization as having negative impact on societies. Ukpere (2011, p. 6072) has posited that “globalisation is a powerful force that cannot be denied, as it has brought positive facets to some parts of the world, however, conversely, it has also threatened life, in a broader sense.” Others see “the globalization project as nothing more than a project of ‘colonialism in disguise’” (Uwa et al. 2014, p. 273). Their argument is that globalization is a new form of neocolonialism, because it offers a platform for third world countries to become dependent on the advanced industrialized countries, which have a comparative advantage because of their dominance in the manufacturing sector. So, as the argument goes, they are left to export their raw materials at prices determined by the

36 Globalization, Democracy and Good Governance in Africa

679

advanced industrialized countries and forced to buy manufactured goods from the advanced industrialized countries on their terms. Most African countries embraced democratic governance from the last decade of the twentieth century, following the third wave of democracy globally (Huntington 1991). As a result of the many years of military dictatorship and authoritarian civilian rule across Africa, the practice of democracy has since not been smooth. Most African countries have struggled to establish proper democratic practice. The military has been reluctant to give up their power and many countries competed for political power with civilians across several African countries have experienced military coups, both successful and unsuccessful. Since 1990, there have been a total of 52 military coups in Africa, 35 resulting in the take-over of government, 17 failing (Taiwo 2017; Powell and Thyne (2011). Countries that have experienced military coups during the period, cover all subregions of the continent, including but not limited to the following: Central Africa (Republic of Congo–October 25, 1997); Democratic Republic of Congo–May 16, 1997; East Africa (Madagascar–March 17, 2009; Somalia–January 26, 1991), North Africa (Algeria–January 11, 1992; Egypt–February 11, 2011, July 03, 2013; Libya– April 17, and October 2013, April and October 2014, October 14, 2016), West Africa (Guinea-Bissau–May 07, 1999, September 14, 2003, April 12, 2012; Ivory Coast– December 24, 1999; Liberia–September 09, 1990; Niger–April 29, 1992, January 16, 1996, May 25, 1997; Nigeria–April 22, 1990 and November 17, 1993), and Southern Africa (Zambia–July 1, 1991, October 28, 1997; Zimbabwe–November 14, 2017) (Giles 2019; Bada 2018; Taiwo 2017). In spite of the large number of such attempts, most African countries are beginning to build a more democratic governance practice. They face, however, many factors that hinder its growth. Among these are oligarchy, patriarchy, ethnicity, tribalism, regionalism, factionalism, the rise in the incidence of individual or group “ownership” of political parties by political godfathers or political big men, state capture, public sector corruption, verbal manipulation of political and economic concepts, sloganeering, political careerism, populism, manipulation of constitutions through calculated referenda to cling on power, manipulation of elections and electoral processes, intolerance of dissenting views, censorship, elite circulation/recycling of old politicians, exclusion of the youth, women and other minorities groups such as gays and lesbians as well as people with disabilities from structures of power. In a liberal democratic society, where the principles of fairness and equity are upheld, resources are equitably distributed without recourse to ethnic or other primordial sentiments. The distribution of national resources is expected to be based upon objectively measurable and generally accepted criteria in which the interests of all ethnic groups in a country are protected. Political leaders in Africa, in contrast, play the ethnic card by making members of their ethnic group believe that other ethnic groups, out of envy, are against their interest and that they are the custodians of state power and resources. As such, any suggestions of reform or restructuring of the system are regarded as threats to their political and economic power base and their relatively prosperous community. The result is that there is a lack of equity in the allocation of resources. Leaders “effectively

680

N. Nwogwugwu

promote wider division within the diverse ethnic groups, especially if members of the leaders’ own ethnic group are themselves experiencing job competition from other ethnic groups” (Martinussen, 1997, p. 327). They manipulate laws and regulations too, violating individual rights, including the right to produce and make a profit. What is worse, this practice makes it difficult to agree on good policies that foster economic growth (Easterly and Levine 1997), especially long-term growth. The two authors, therefore, view Africa’s multiple ethnic conflicts as standing in the way of the continent’s progress. Rather, the leaders waste resources on patronage and on corrupt and rent-seeking activities in order to hold on to power and the associated privileges (Brass 1991). They systematically divert resources for investment to themselves and a few cronies. Given the rentier nature of most African economies, i.e., the inclination to take advantage of public office for personal or community gains, ethnic groups that produce the President view this as a license for direct access to state resources. In the light of the foregoing, this chapter will discuss (1) why elections that take place regularly occur in the absence of meaningful discussions and debates (2) why the African electorates participate in referenda that seek to legitimize the extension of autocratic leaders in power, (3) how democratic oligarchies and patriarchies consolidate their grip on power with the support of majorities of women who are often marginalized in decision-making processes, (4) how ruling elites manipulate the norms and the precepts of democracy to their advantage, and (5) to what extent do procedures, values, norms, and precepts of democracy legitimize and camouflage undemocratic practices. To address these issues, the chapter uses mainly secondary sources although it also relies on statistics from such sources as Transparency International and the Economist Intelligence Unit. To ensure a thorough analysis of the subject matter, the author has engaged in a review of extant literature, utilizing an interpretivist approach. Given the negative effects of corruption on democracy, the Transparency International Corruption Perception Index 2018 is used to assess Africa’s fight against corruption, while the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index 2018 is used to assess Africa’s democratic practice.

Theoretical Perspective To analyze the ambition to democratize society in the context of globalization calls for a theoretical perspective that blends the ideal with reality. It is not possible to assume that democracy is already established; yet note must be taken of what a functioning democracy entails in practice. To cope with this theoretical challenge, we have consulted the original elite theory and the empirical democratic theory that evolved in the light of practice in already advanced democratic societies.

36 Globalization, Democracy and Good Governance in Africa

681

Elite Theory The origins of this theory lie in the writings of Gaetano Mosca (1858–1941), Vilfredo Pareto (1848–1923), and Robert Michels (1876–1936). Mosca emphasized the ways in which tiny minorities outorganize and outwit large majorities, adding that “political classes”—Mosca’s term for political elites—usually have “a certain material, intellectual, or even moral superiority” over those they govern (1923/1939, 51). Pareto, on his part, postulated that the elites are usually the few who are the most talented and deserving individuals; however, in actual societies, elites are those knowledgeable in using force and persuasion, which are the two modes of political rule, and who usually have inherited wealth and have noble family connections, which gives them advantage over others (1915/1935). He is also credited with originating the concept of circulation of the elites. According to Pareto, “history is a graveyard of aristocracies.” Circulation of elites may be exemplified in the leadership changes that have occurred in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) over the years (Meyers et al. 2016). This circulation, however, is sometimes fraught with the risk of political instability (Varma 2004, pp. 145, 266). Michels rooted elites (“oligarchies”) in the need of large organizations for leaders and experts to operate efficiently; as these individuals gain control of funds, information flows, promotions, and other aspects of organizational functioning, power becomes concentrated in their hands (1915/1962; Linz 2006). Emphasizing the inescapability and the relative autonomy of elites, all three men characterized aspirations to fully democratic and egalitarian societies as futile. The relevance of this theory is that the original elite theorists developed their ideas at a time when European countries faced similar challenges to those in Africa today. Europe in the beginning of the nineteenth century was far from democratic and the political elite experienced uncertainty, a structural condition that encouraged anti-democratic behavior. Like African countries today, they faced the challenge of nationhood. For example, at the time Germany and Italy were just being formed out of a number of independent principalities. African political elites face these conditions today and to stay in power its members engage in the manipulation of political institutions through individual and direct control of military, police forces, and other security agencies which they use to perpetuate themselves in office while keeping opposition forces at bay. According to Higley (2008), it does not matter what social or political background you have—it is an ingrained part of behavior in the public realm. What is consequential analytically is that elites, regardless of their partisan inclination, see power as personalized and directly dependent on the support of organized coercive forces. Acquiring state power is not seen as opportunity to serve, but rather as the means to have access to state resources. As such in a highly monetized democratic system, elite groups in opposing political parties mobilize humongous amounts of money for the purpose of “buying state power” democratically through electoral corruption, which is perpetrated in various forms. Elites, critical of the current social and economic set-up, for whatever reason, necessarily view political

682

N. Nwogwugwu

change in terms of removing or altering the incumbent group. In their eyes, power flows from gaining at least temporary control over the principal means of coercion— state power. Attempts to seize government executive power by force are seen by all as plausible, even probable, eventualities. This explains why in most African countries where elections nowadays are treated as a preferred mode of changing government, elites regard them as “do-or-die” events that require enormous resources to buy votes at all costs. When elections produce results that are not acceptable to the ruling elite, they are ready to manipulate the outcome either through the judiciary or the creation of governments of national unity as in Zimbabwe in 2009. In other cases, post-election conflicts have degenerated into ethnic killings (e.g., Cote D’Ivoire in 2010–2011), at other times requiring intervention by regional bodies for the outgoing government to accept defeat at the polls (e.g., Yaya Jammeh of Gambia in 2018). The Central Africa Republic is yet another case of where the abuse of power by elected leaders has caused instability (Isaac-Martins 2016). The manipulation of the electoral process to ensure that incumbent governments and their candidates are favored across Africa is an ongoing malady. The experiences of three West African countries (Senegal, Benin, and Nigeria) who conducted general elections in 2019 that were seen by international and domestic observers as being below par for different reasons, including adjustments of electoral laws, disqualification of opposition candidates, and logistics challenges resulting in very low voters turnout, show that much needs to be done to steer democracy in the right direction across Africa (Okanla 2019). The idea that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely, as the elite theorists would argue, is very much evident on the African continent. Still, the picture is not apocalyptic. Through the lens of empirical democratic theory, it is possible to see more.

Empirical Democratic Theory The major proponents of the empirical democratic theory are Dahl (2000), Shapiro (2003), and Held (2006). These theorists have concerned themselves with studying the ways in which actual democracies function, across space and time. In addition to a basic commitment to democracy as an object of study, the three theorists agree that the democracy concept denotes some form or process of collective self-rule, in line with Abraham Lincoln’s conception of democracy as government of the people, by the people, and for the people. Traditionally, the word is derived from two Greek terms demos (the people, the many) and kratos (to rule). Held (2006) provides one of the most popular overviews of the various models of democracy coupled with a critical account of what democracy means in the light of globalization, (namely Classical model of democracy, republican democracy, and liberal democracy). According to Shapiro (2003), contemporary democracy should be geared toward minimizing domination throughout society, instead of focusing on aggregating preferences or collective deliberation on what should be the common

36 Globalization, Democracy and Good Governance in Africa

683

good. He argues that although Joseph Schumpeter’s defense of competitive democracy was in the right direction, it requires very radical improvement in terms of its operation in national political institutions and its extension to other forms of collective association within society. Keane (2009) provides a sweeping historical narrative that tells the story of democratic governments and ideals as they have developed and transformed since 1945. Various extra-parliamentary institutions have emerged focusing on holding governments and their institutions accountable. These power-monitoring, power-restraining, and power-contesting as well as information-providing mechanisms include but not limited to citizen juries, public interest litigation, participatory budgeting, weblogs as well as national and global social forums. He argues that democracy is more than a cluster of institutions, practices, and processes for organizing public accountability of power-holders, more importantly, it is about selecting and authorizing the public officials who are legally empowered to exercise public authority. In the present context, globalization has brought into prominence a systemdynamic model of democratic practice. In this model, the political system is not restricted to government, neither to a combination of government and public administration (van Dijk 2000). Their relationships with other central regulating institutions, the organizations of civil society, corporations, and individual citizens cover a large part of the model. To the extent that this distinction of roles played by state and non-state actors becomes reality in African countries, it would entail an important change in governance practice. It points to the possibility for greater synergy between the state and civil society at various levels, national, regional/state, and local governments as well as those of the bureaucracies, a change that Africa’s many civic activists are demanding. Taken together, elite theory and empirical democratic theory provide a realistic perspective of the actual functioning of democracy on the African continent while at the same time indicating the possibilities of how to get democracy entrenched through the active involvement of civil society organizations in the democratic process. International development partners can play an important complementary role in overcoming some of the environmental factors such as cultural values and norms that make it impossible for leaders to be held accountable and discourage strict adherence to the rule of law across the continent. It is to these impeding or potentially facilitating factors that we now return.

Ethnic Politics and Marginalization of Minorities Across Africa, high premium is paid to ethnic affiliation in the political process. In multi-ethnic societies, power either rotates among major ethnic groups, or there may be cases of specific ethnic group dominating others. It is not unusual that allocation of resources instead of being carried out in an equitable manner relies on ethnic affiliation which is a form of corruption. It often involves explicit and implicit reciprocal

684

N. Nwogwugwu

obligations among the favored groups depending on whether the beneficiaries are business associates and acquaintances or friends and loved ones. For example, in Nigeria ethno-religious affiliation is a major determinant of electoral outcomes as well as an influence on most of the central government’s development strategies. The Hausa-Fulani (Muslim) north, which has held political power for much longer than any other ethnic group in the country, does not see anything wrong with the system in practice and as such is opposed to any calls for a restructuring of the country to make it a truly federal state. In Ghana, the promotion of the interest of one ethnic group while marginalizing others is common with the Ashanti and Akan being principal beneficiaries of this rotation. Similar experiences are replicated in Kenya, Democratic Republic of Congo, and most of Africa. The favoring of one ethnic group over others is against the tenets of an ideal democracy and makes it impossible to access some needed resources for national development. An exclusivist approach hinders attainment of good governance and creates a feeling of disillusionment and alienation in the minds of the groups that are marginalized, one of the hurdles that African countries must overcome on their way toward more democracy. Governments across Africa that utilize ethnocentrism in their governance employ the divide and rule method which was once a major strategy of the colonial powers to obtain the support of influential members of marginalized ethnic groups. The latter become collaborators in the government, even if they do not hold strategic positions or are allowed to wield the kind of powers that their offices are supposed to command because they are beneficiaries of the rentier nature of the state and take it upon themselves to encourage their people to support the government. As government leaders “buy” the support of other ethnic groups by elevating their leaders to public office with the expectation that it can be used to pursue their private or communal interests, public sector corruption with its attendant negative effects on democratic governance becomes endemic.

The Prevalence of Corruption Corruption is indeed endemic in most countries of Africa, with the lower ranks of the Transparency International (TI) Corruption Perception Index (CPI) being occupied by African countries. Because public sector corruption has a direct impact on democratic practice, it negates the very principles on which good governance is built. “Given that corruption is abuse of power, it leads to repressive practices, robs citizens of their inalienable right to participate in the governance and democratic processes. Subsequently corruption can be attributed to undermining of foundations, values and morals of democratic societies” (Mapuva 2014, p. 170). As we have seen in recent decades, this is a serious challenge not only in Africa but in other parts of the world, including Europe and America, where populism tends to justify the use of power that contradicts the rule of law.

36 Globalization, Democracy and Good Governance in Africa

685

Based on the CPI scores, only five African countries had 50 points and above in the 2018 corruption perception index, namely, Seychelles (66 points), Botswana (61 points), Rwanda (56 points), Namibia (53 points), and Mauritius (51 points). The regional analysis of the report shows that sub-Saharan Africa had the lowest score among the continents of the world with an average of 32 points. According to TI (2019), in order to make meaningful progress in the war against public sector corruption, countries need to strengthen democracy by undertaking the following: (1) strengthen the institutions responsible for maintaining checks and balances over political power, and ensure their ability to operate without intimidation; (2) close the implementation gap between anti-corruption legislation, practice, and enforcement; (3) support civil society organizations which enhance political engagement and public oversight over government spending, particularly at the local level; (4) support a free and independent media, and (5) ensure the safety of journalists and their ability to work without intimidation or harassment (TI 2019). These are areas where most African countries that fall below the acceptable level on the CPI have been performing woefully. Institutions of democracy are weak, while there are limited checks and balances, as the executive arm of government in most of the countries determine what happens in the other arms of government. There are countries where journalists are harassed and cowed into submission. Regulatory agencies are used to shut down broadcast organizations that are not pro-government or expose system anomalies as has become the norm, e.g., in Nigeria and Liberia. Opposition elements are arrested and arraigned on trumped up charges while governmentfriendly judges are assigned to handle the cases in order to ensure that they kept behind bars for as long as the government desires.

Lack of an Independent Judiciary The judiciary is supposed to be independent in African countries but in practice it is not, because it is tied to the apron strings of the executive. The executive determines the direction of specific cases. This situation has tended to compromise the capacity of the judiciary to make informed judicial decisions, especially against members of the ruling party. It has been noted that corruption in the judiciary is usually the result of “weak institutional functioning, with a number of judges coming from within the ranks of political party, with no adequate training but party loyalty and militancy” (Kunaka and Mashumba 2002, p. 24). Corruption in the judiciary also means that sometimes justice is for the highest bidder, leaving women and poor and marginalized unable to access justice. Nigeria epitomizes the capture of the judiciary by state approved corruption. The Chairman of the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC) was quoted as having stated ahead of the 2019 general elections that any corrupt politician from the opposition who defects to the ruling party will have his “sins” forgiven. In line with that, several key opposition elements who defected to the ruling party have had their corruption trials suspended, while they have either been elected or appointed to federal positions.

686

N. Nwogwugwu

Members of the government who have been indicted on corruption charges have been relieved of their public office and allowed to walk away with their loot. African countries have inherited two forms of legal systems—the common law tradition from the British and the civil law tradition from France and Portugal. Little modification has been made since independence in the way law is being practiced, the main exception being the introduction of presidential or semi-presidential systems of government, replacing the parliamentary model. This constitutional change has contributed to the loss in system checks and balances across the continent. The point is that whether the legacy is British, French, or Portuguese, the same weaknesses as discussed above prevail everywhere. Informality in the form of expeditious political deals tends to trump legality. In most African countries, when the interests of those in power and their cronies are not favored by the position of the law, they lean toward traditional sentiments and favor primordial and neo-patrimonial tendencies. However, when those in opposition have court judgments against them, the full weight of the law is brought against them, even when such judgments are obviously influenced by the executive. Liberal democracy is built on the principle of an independent judiciary and adherence to the rule of law. The brand of democracy being practiced by most African countries, however, does not recognize this principle. The result of their adulterated practice of democracy across has resulted in increasing dissatisfaction, as majority of the population see democracy as not delivering those basic services that are delivered to people in democracies across Europe and the Americas.

Weak, Failed, and Collapsed States A state’s most basic tasks are to provide security and basic services (such as education and health care) to its citizens. The provision of security and ensuring the territorial integrity of the country by maintaining a monopoly on the use of force against internal and external threats is regarded as paramount. When a government cannot ensure security across its territory, various militia, terrorist groups, or criminal non-state actors capitalize on this shortcoming to operate (Eizenstat et al. 2005). In many African countries, such non-state criminal elements control certain parts of the country, limiting the capacity of the state to maintain its territorial integrity. Examples include Somalia (with pirates), Nigeria (with militants—between 2006 and 2009, Boko Haram terrorist group since 2011, and Fulani Herdsmen since 2015), Cameroun and Chad (with the Boko Haram terrorist group since 2014) as well as the Democratic Republic of the Congo (with armed ethnic militias). As of 2019, 17 African countries are classified as Weak States, while five (Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan, Central African Republic, and Sudan) are classified as Failed States, i.e., countries where the state is not in full control of its territory (Fund for Peace 2019). Failed states are tense, deeply conflicted, dangerous, and contested bitterly by warring factions. In most such states, government troops battle armed revolts led

36 Globalization, Democracy and Good Governance in Africa

687

by one or more rivals. The warring factions, including government troops, tend to prey on their own constituents. Driven by ethnic or other inter-communal hostility, or by the insecurity of the governing elite, they victimize their own citizens or some subset of the whole that is regarded as hostile. As in Mobutu Sese Seko’s Zaire or the Taliban’s Afghanistan, ruling cadres increasingly oppress, extort, and harass their own compatriots while privileging a more narrowly based party, clan, or sect. A collapsed state is a rare and extreme version of a failed state. Political goods are obtained through private or ad hoc means. Security is equated with the rule of the strong. Such a state exhibits a vacuum of authority. It is a mere geographical expression, a black hole into which a failed polity has fallen. When Somalia failed in the late 1980s, it soon collapsed. Nigeria and Sierra Leone collapsed in the 1990s, but the former has since moved to the status of a weak state. Only Somalia is regarded as a collapsed state in Africa. Weak states are measured by their inability to perform in three critical areas; security, provision of basic services, and protection of essential civil freedoms. Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya, and Nigeria have belonged to this category. Following the mismanagement of its vast resources, high rate of corruption, limited supply of political goods, and battered civil society, Kenya fell into it in the 1980s (Rotberg nd, p. 17). The typical weak state plunges toward failure when this kind of ruler-led oppression provokes a countervailing reaction on the part of resentful groups or newly emerged rebels. Another indicator of state failure is the growth of criminal violence. As state authority weakens and fails, and as the state becomes criminal in its oppression of its citizens, general lawlessness becomes more apparent: criminal gangs take over city streets; arms and drug trafficking grows more common; and ordinary police forces become paralyzed. Such are the costs associated with state weakness. Kenya, however, is also an example of a country that has been able to move forward and is no longer a weak state. Since the adoption of its new constitution in 2010, prepared over a period of fifteen years through wide popular participation and careful negotiations, Kenya is now a place where civil and political rights are widely respected and violations, whether by those in power or ordinary citizens, are now duly punished.

Populism and Religious Fundamentalism Disillusionment with politics and a rising populist tide has seen far right groups such as Golden Dawn (GD) and the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) perform well across Europe and enabled Donald Trump to not only secure the nomination of the Republican Party for the 2016 presidential election but actually also win it (Allin 2016; Berbuir et al. 2015; Ellinas 2015). The Brexit vote in the United Kingdom in 2015 was also driven by populist challengers. In Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari rode on the back of popular disillusionment with corruption to emerge Nigeria’s president in 2015. Across North Africa, religious fundamentalism has been gaining ground following the Arab Spring, with several countries becoming politically unstable and characterized by frequent changes of government. The development of Boko Haram

688

N. Nwogwugwu

to a terrorist group with capacity to control some parts of Nigeria’s North-East, without state security agencies being able to curtail their activities, was fueled by religious fundamentalism. The Northern elite initially saw them are proponents of Islam, until they started attacking Imams and Emirs that were not amenable to their peculiar brand of Islam. Populist challengers base their appeal on a “claim to represent the rightful source of legitimate power—the people, whose interests and wishes have been ignored by self-interested politicians and politically-correct individuals” (Canovan 2004, p. 242). Mudde and Kaltwasser (2013, p. 153) further note that “populism has a ‘chameleonic’ character: populism can be left-wing or right-wing, organized in top-down or bottom-up fashion, rely on strong leaders or even be leaderless.” The threat posed by populist actors is greater in weak democracies, as the institutions to manage such demands and address claims from the population are less well-developed. The fact that these weak democracies are not able to provide the basic services that they are supposed to do makes them vulnerable, and the populist propaganda appealing. When those countries face one form of crisis or another, populist actors capitalize on it to present their claims as validating the need for the non-performing and anti-people government to be removed from office (Kaltwasser 2012). The situation in Africa has its special features because society is not stratified by economic interest and social class as much as by cultural identity which means that political leaders don’t really represent classes as much as identity groups, be they ethnic or religious. This means that the challenge in Africa is not the rise of populism as much as it is the absence of a crystallization of society into socio-economic groups with which people identify above anything else.

Authoritarian Referendums Since year 2000, there has been an increasing number of referendums conducted by democratically elected governments to essentially dismantle what has been accomplished in terms of democratic consolidation. In countries such as Uganda, Guinea, Chad, and Congo-Brazzaville, which are defined as competitive-authoritarian regimes, democratic and electoral institutions exist but they lack the independence to discharge their responsibilities without being tele-guided by the executive. As a result, constitutional referendums were conducted in these countries just to extend the tenure of the incumbent in power (Boogards and Elischer 2015). A similar type of referendum was held in Rwanda 2015 and in Burundi 2018 to allow for an additional presidential term for the incumbent. Like in the previous cases listed above, an overwhelming majority voted yes—in the former country 98% of the votes and in the latter over 70%. An additional presidential term was the mandate sought through the referendum in Burundi in 2018, with over 70% of the votes. These referendums have been widely criticized by the United Nations, Western powers, and civil society organizations but the African leaders have gone ahead with them despite this criticism.

36 Globalization, Democracy and Good Governance in Africa

689

Referendums held in sub-Saharan Africa in the context of electoral authoritarianism have been largely predictable. They are usually manipulated as ethnicity, religion and other primordial cleavages are utilized as the instruments for mobilizing “yes” votes. In some cases, state resources are mobilized as incentive to buy “yes” votes from the citizens. Where citizens have resisted the extension of presidential term limits in Africa, this has been through organizing protests rather than defeating referendums at the polls. It should be noted, however, that not all attempts to use a popular referendum to extend terms in office have ended as intended by their populist sponsors. For example, in Togo, President Faure Gnassingbé attempted to pass a constitutional amendment through the legislature in the fall of 2017 that would have allowed him to run for two additional terms in office. The amendment did not garner the supermajority of votes required. Gnassingbé then suggested passing the changes via a referendum, which touched off months of opposition protests. The referendum failed as a result of the protests which showed the rejection by a large part of the population.

The State of Democracy Although most African countries claim to be practicing democracy, a critical analysis of their practice indicates that most of them are not in line with the basic tenets of democracy. When viewed from the rating of The Economist Intelligence Unit’s (EIU) 2018 Democracy Index which utilizes Electoral process and pluralism, Function of government, Political participation, and Political culture as indices for measuring democracy, Africa’s practice of democracy is seriously adulterated. Only one country in Africa, Mauritius, is classified as a Full democracy among the 167 countries across the globe that were rated. Eight African countries (Cape Verde, South Africa, Botswana, Lesotho, Ghana, Tunisia, Namibia, Senegal), are classified as having Flawed democracies. A further fifteen countries are classified as Hybrid democracies, while twenty-five countries are classified as Authoritarian. It is no coincidence that those countries that have conducted popular referendums to justify the extension of time in office for incumbent leaders belong to those toward the bottom of the ladder: Chad is number 163, Burundi 153, Togo 138, Guinea 136, Congo-Brazzaville 131, Rwanda 128, and Uganda 97. Given the figures above, it would be easy to dismiss the attempts that have been made to develop democracy in Africa as wasteful. That would be a mistake. There are countries such as Ghana, South Africa, and Kenya within the category of flawed democracy that give hope for democracy in the continent. In most countries, however, a lot needs to be done to move democracy forward. Rwanda is an interesting test case which has done very well in ensuring public accountability, promoting infrastructural development, and pursuing an economic transformation since the recovery from the war of the 1990. It is also ranked among the leading countries in the world in terms of female representation in the legislature. Still, Rwanda has a very authoritarian

690

N. Nwogwugwu

mode of governance and it still has a distance to go before being able to make its democracy score match that of its development record.

Conclusions and Recommendations This article has examined the political dimensions of globalization as they apply to Africa. While African analysts may be ambivalent about the economic benefits of globalization, it provides political gains in terms of opening new political vistas. Especially important, as we have shown here, is the exposure of the widespread malgovernance that has characterized African countries in the last three decades when other regions of the world have witnessed major strides toward democracy. As discussed above, the growing influence of non-state actors, especially civil society organizations and their international partners, has helped highlight the weaknesses in governance and making it more costly for politicians to continue governing as if change is not needed. Globalization, therefore, has been largely a positive factor when it comes to political development in Africa although, as we have stressed in this chapter, many shortcomings remain before the majority of countries on the continent can claim they have moved beyond being “authoritarian” or “hybrid” regimes. The main issue facing CSOs in Africa is that they need to justify their own existence by doing a good job in providing services, whether it is tangible as in the case of health care or intangible as in the case of legal aid, while simultaneously taking on politically sensitive issues like corruption and abuse of power. This is a tricky balancing act and it is the relative outspokenness by these organizations that at least in part explain why governments have been slow in embracing them as development partners. As the Kenyan case illustrates, however, it is the sustained strength of civil society activism that has helped that country to move from being just another “weak state” to becoming, like South Africa, a place where the concept of rule of law, despite violence and other threats, finds more and more support among not only citizens but politicians as well.

References Allin, D. 2016. Donald Trump’s America. Survival 58: 221–228. Bada, F. 2018. African Countries With The Most Coups. WorldAtlas. Accessed from https://www worldatlas.com/articles/african-countries-with-the-most-coups.html. Berbuir, N., M. Lewandowsky, and J. Siri. 2015. The AfD and Its Sympathisers: Finally a Right-Wing Populist Movement in Germany? German Politics 24: 154–178. Boogards, M., and Elischer, S. 2015. Competitive Authoritarianism in Africa Revisited. In book: Democratization and Competitive Authoritarianism in Africa, eds. Boogards, M., and Elischer, S. Berlin: Springer. Available online https://doi.org/10.1007/s12286-015-0257-6. Brass, P. 1991. Ethnicity and Nationalism: Theory and Comparison. U.K: Sage Publications. Canovan, M. 2004. Populism for Political Theorists? Journal of Political Ideologies 9: 241–252.

36 Globalization, Democracy and Good Governance in Africa

691

Dahl, R. 2000. On Democracy. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Easterly, W., and Levine, R. 1997. Africa’s Growth Tragedy: Policies and Ethnic Divisions, Quarterly Journal of Economics 112(4): 1203–1250. Eizenstat, S.E., J.E. Porter, and J.M. Weinstein. 2005. Rebuilding Weak States. Foreign Affairs 84 (1): 134–146. Ellinas, A. 2015. Neo-nazism in an Established Democracy: The Persistence of Golden Dawn in Greece. South European Society and Politics 20: 1–20. Fund for Peace. 2019. Fragile States Index 2018: Issues of Fragility Touch the World’s Richest and Most Developed Countries in 2018. Accessed from https://fundforpeace.org/2018/04/19/fra gile-states-index-2018-issues-of-fragility-touch-the-worlds-richest-and-most-developed-countr ies-in-2018/. Giddens, A. 1990. The Consequences of Modernity. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Gilles, C 2019. Sudan Coup: Are Military Takeovers on the Rise in Africa? Accessed from https:// www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-46783600. Held, D. 2006. Models of Democracy, 3d ed. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Held, D., and A. McGrew. 2004. Global Transformations: Politics, Economics and Culture. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Higley, J. 2008. Elite Theory in Political Sociology. Accessed 10 March 2019 from https://www. semanticscholar.org/paper/Elite-Theory-in-Political-Sociology-Higley/effb395da9dd580fa32f4 f1a4b53091abb145df4. Huntington, S. 1991. Democracy’s Third Wave. Journal of Democracy 2 (2): 12–34. Isaac-Martins, W. 2016. Political and Ethnic Identity in Violent Conflict: The Case of Central African Republic. IJCV 10 (1): 26–39. Iyanda, R.O., and Nwogwugwu, N. 2016. Globalization and Rising Human Trafficking in Nigeria. Kuwait Chapter of Arabian Journal of Business and Management Review. 5(5): 17–31. Kaltwasser, C. 2012. The Ambivalence of Populism: Threat and Corrective for Democracy. Democratization 19: 184–208. Keane, J. 2009. The Life and Death of Democracy. New York: W. W. Norton. Kunaka, C., and N. Mashumba. 2002. Strategies Against Corruption in Southern Africa. Harare: Human Rights Trust of Southern Africa. Linz, J.J. 2006. Robert Michels, Political Sociology, and the Future of Democracy. New Brunswick NJ: Transaction Publishers. Mapuva, J. 2014. The Debilitating Impact of Corruption on Democracy and Good Governance: A Critical Analysis. International Journal of Political Science and Development 2 (8): 164–174. Martinussen, J. 1997. Society, State and Market (A Guide to Competing Theories of Development). London: Zed Books. Meyers, D.A., Ram, M., and Wilke, L. 2016. Circulation of the elite in the Chinese Communist Party. Journal of East Asian Studies, 16(1): 147–184. https://doi.org/10.1017/jea.2015.6. Mudde, C., and C. Kaltwasser. 2013. Exclusionary versus Inclusionary Populism: Comparing Contemporary Europe and Latin America. Government and Opposition 48: 147–174. Okanla, K. 2019. Democracy in West Africa. Accessed from https://www.dandc.eu/en/article/tro ublesome-trend-recent-elections-senegal-benin-and-nigeria-have-revealed-serious-problems. Powell, J.M., and C.L. Thyne. 2011. Global Instances of Coups from 1950 to 2010: A New Dataset. Journal of Peace Research 48 (2): 249–259. https://doi.org/10.1177/00223433103974. Robertson, Roland. 1992. Globalization: Social Theory and Global Culture. London: Sage. Rotberg, R.I. (nd). Failed States, Collapsed States, Weak States: Causes and Indicators. Accessed 10 May 2019 from https://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/…/statefailureandstateweaknessinatimeo fterr or.pdf. Shapiro, I. 2003. The State of Democratic Theory. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Taiwo, S. 2017. Everything You Should Know About the 200 Coups that Have Taken Place in Africa. Pulse. Accessed from https://www.pulse.ng/bi/politics/politics-everything-you-shouldknow-about-the-200-coups-that-have-taken-place-in/dmbxgt2.

692

N. Nwogwugwu

Ukpere, W. 2011. Globalisation and the Challenges of Unemployment, Income Inequality and Poverty in Africa. African Journal of Business Management 5 (15): 6072–6084. Uwa, O.G., A.S. Lanrewaju, and S. Ojeme. 2014. Globalisation and Africa Crisis of Development in the 21st Century. International Journal of Humanities and Social Science 4 (4): 273–285. Van Dijk, T.A. 2000. Parliamentary Debates. In Racism at the Top. Parliamentary Discourses on Ethnic Issues in Six European States, eds. Wodak, R., and van Dijk, T.A., (45–78). Klagenfurt, Austria: Drava Verlag. Varma, S.P. 2004. Modern Political Theory. New Delhi: S. Chand Publishing.

Ngozi Nwogwugwu is an Associate Professor of Political Sciences at the Department of Political Science and Public Administration, Babcock University, Nigeria. His recent publications include “Women, Climate Change and Sustainable Development” In O. Yacob-Haliso, T. Falola (eds.) (2020). The Palgrave Handbook of African Women’s Studies, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan. “Youth and Big Man Politics in Africa”. In Kalu. K, Yacob-Haliso. O & Falola. T, (eds.) (2018). Africa Big Men: Predatory State-Society relations in Africa (pp. 122–141). New York: Routledge.

Chapter 37

Political Globalization in an African Perspective: Continuity and Change Goran Hyden

Abstract Ever since colonization started, African countries have been the subject of external efforts to shape their future. When European powers occupied the continent, these efforts were initially brutal, later still hard for those who had to live with enforced change. After political independence in the 1960s, reform efforts have been more benign, yet leaving Africans at the receiving end. This chapter traces the various turns of this narrative, showing how Western donors in the last six decades have largely failed in producing the kind of societal transformation that they have had in mind. The main reason is that they have not taken into consideration African context and agency. Most notably, they have not realized that African countries are not nation-states like those in Europe but state-nations which face totally different governance challenges. How these state-nations are best governed is still an open question, but it is increasingly evident that only Africans themselves will be able to find the right formulas. This would entail a more meaningful change than those that have been attempted by outsiders. It would give Africans the sense of self-confidence to act in their own interest that has been held back to date.

It is impossible to understand Africa without placing it in its global context. More than any other region of the world, it has been subject to externally driven transformations, colonial occupation being especially significant. Most Asian countries, when colonized, could withstand such interventions by falling back on their own age-old civilizations and state structures. Latin America was colonized at a time before the world embarked on a global modernization. Only in Africa did the latter coincide with colonial conquest. The result is that as laggards, African countries are viewed as needing assistance to accelerate their pace of development. Critics of this view, e.g., Rodney (1972), have referred to these countries as victims of underdevelopment. Regardless, there is an assumption that African agency is subsumed by external forces. This perception has prevailed also in the political and academic discourse on democracy. For example, Western donors have been preoccupied with G. Hyden (B) University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 I. Rossi (ed.), Challenges of Globalization and Prospects for an Inter-civilizational World Order, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44058-9_37

693

694

G. Hyden

shaping African political systems into democracies. For three decades now, Western donors have extended political and financial support of such a transition in Africa. The study of African agency has been confined to how far political actors comply with the liberal democratic credo. Although the limits of the “democratic transition” paradigm have been identified by informed analysts, e.g., Carothers (2002), its influence has continued in political donor circles where it serves as a principal rationale for giving aid in the first place. The purpose of this chapter is to examine the political side of globalization in an African perspective. It is divided into two parts. The first deals with the ephemeral nature of how external actors in the West have approached Africa with the benign objective of helping countries to develop. The second is a closer examination of why donor interventions to promote more liberal modes of governance have fallen far short of their promise and what the challenges are as Africans thanks to globalization are increasingly expected to deal with their own governance issues.

Shifting Donor Paradigms International development assistance goes all the way back to the end of the Second World War when the United States launched its ambitious Marshall Plan aimed at speeding up reconstruction in Europe. A second such effort was initiated when African countries were freeing themselves from colonial bonds in the early 1960s. This time, the United States was joined by other Western countries, including the former colonial powers. The coordinated nature of this effort made it especially powerful. Donors working under the auspices of the Development Assistance Committee of the Organization for Economic Development Cooperation (OECD) produced a joint agenda that would help avoid duplication and enhance efficiency but which at the same time would limit policy choices. The result is that in tracing six decades of donor involvement with African countries, there is an interesting story of how policy paradigms have come and gone because of Western hubris about what may be possible to achieve. They have not just come out of nowhere and reflect a logic built around two basic governance questions (1) what comes first: development or democracy? and (2) what matters most: state or regime? Drawing on contributions by Krasner (2009) and Noussi (2010), it is possible to identify four separate approaches: (1) modernization, (2) state-building, (3) structural adjustment, and (4) good governance. While paradigms have come and gone, they have all left their own residue for policy practitioners and academics to ponder. There are elements of all these paradigms present one way or the other in contemporary policy discourse in the international donor community (Fig. 1).

37 Political Globalization in an African Perspective … Fig. 1 Changes in donor approaches to institution-building

695 Society

Good Governance 2000-10s

Modernízation 1950s-60s

Democracy

Development

Structural Adjustment 1980-90s

State Building 1970s

State

Modernization The concept of modernization was the launching pad for international development cooperation when it began in the 1950s, and it was influential in the donor community in the initial two decades. It had its origins in the academic writings of scholars like Canadian Seymour Martin Lipset whose article from 1959 on the perquisites of democracy became influential not only among his academic peers but also in the policy world. He showed with empirical data from the time that the richer the country, the greater the chance it would be democratic. Lipset built on what Lerner (1958) had defined as social conditions necessary for democracy to develop, namely “an open class system, economic wealth, equalitarian value system, capitalist society, literacy and high participation in voluntary organisation” (1959: 105). Although he did not intend them to be prerequisites (only perquisites), they were later taken as such by scholars and policy-makers (Diamond 2009: 11). Consequently, democracy or good governance was treated as dependent variable influenced by socio-economic variables. It is no surprise that development policy during this time supported economic development even if that meant supporting authoritarian rulers. Influenced by modernization theory, much of foreign aid in the early days went to education on the premise that it would accelerate the transition from backward traditional and customary forms of organizing society. The development-democracy nexus has continued to receive attention over the years. Przeworski and his collaborators (Przeworski et al. 2000) showed that while a certain level of economic and social development is not a precondition for democracy to arise, their influential statistical survey also indicates that there is a striking relationship between development level and the probability of sustaining democracy. The poorer the country, the greater is the likelihood of a breakdown of democracy! The idea that more development increases the probability of democracy to emerge can also be found in the studies that use data from the World Values Survey (e.g., Inglehart and Welzel 2005). That is the reason why another team of researchers has

696

G. Hyden

argued that relative to their level of economic development, African countries are overperforming—they are simply “too democratic” given their position in global economic development indices (Bates et al 2012). An interesting twist of this argument has been made by some African leaders, for example, Yoweri Museveni of Uganda and Paul Kagame of Rwanda who believe, like the colonial administrators once did, that African society is not yet ready for democracy. Unlike the latter, however, who approached African aspirations in a paternalistic manner, Museveni and Kagame refer to it as a “luxury” that their societies only can afford when they have overcome their vertical cleavages along ethnic or other primordial lines. Not surprisingly, this perspective rings convincingly in the ears of other African leaders while being generally brushed off by civil society activists as a self-serving device.

State-Building While modernization was a broad-based attempt to lay the societal foundation for a mode of governance that resembled those in the West, the next phase was a reaction to what was perceived as the incremental nature of this process. The 1970s witnessed a radicalization of thoughts about how donors might best assist poor countries to develop. There was no longer enough patience to wait for an independent professional middle class to emerge or other factors to fall in place. Instead, a new core notion was adopted: development requires a strong state. Interest in regime issues waned and democracy was dropped altogether as a priority. Events in African countries reinforced this new orientation among the donors. Although the colonial boundaries did not become a source of armed conflicts, the political stability of many countries was threatened by civil war, as in Nigeria and Congo-Kinshasa (later Zaire and today the Democratic Republic of Congo) or military coups, as in Ghana and Uganda (Young 1994). These conditions contributed to making state-building in postcolonial Africa very different from the historical experience of European countries (Herbst 2000). There, nationhood had served as the principal rationale for state formation. Sorting out national borders had often been settled only through warfare (Tilly 1975). The idea that development depends primarily on effective state agencies vanished in donor discourse during the 1980s although attempts to revive it occurred, for example, in the 1997 World Development Report (World Bank 1997) and the writings of influential theorists like Fukuyama (2004). Interest in state capacity has also grown in the 2000s in conjunction with the emergence of the concept of inclusive development. Since the signing of the 2011 New Deal for fragile and conflict-affected states at the High-Level Forum in Busan, state-building has resurfaced as a main concern in those parts, notably the Mano River Region, the Sahel and the Horn of Africa where political volatility has proved especially difficult to quell. Overall though, state capacity has, since the 1990s, taken a back seat to regime change in

37 Political Globalization in an African Perspective …

697

the wider international donor community, initially in the form of economic and later political regime reforms.

Structural Adjustment Structural Adjustment was the first phase of this emphasis on regime change. It was an obvious response to the perceived shortcomings of a state-driven development strategy, foremost among which was the growth of corruption. Reform advocates pointed to the discrepancy between de facto and de jure power of institutions in many developing countries, especially in Africa. They questioned the feasibility of establishing autonomous public institutions from the outside and argued instead for an economic order in which local actors would have incentives to act responsibly on their own. By liberalizing the economy from unnecessary state regulations, a more enabling environment would help accelerate development. The 1981 World Bank Report on Accelerated Development in Sub-Saharan Africa became the leading policy document for implementing this new agenda. It became very controversial in African countries because it laid the blame of its lack of economic progress at the foot of the African leaders themselves. Furthermore, it ignored the initiative that African countries had taken in 1980 in the form of the Lagos Plan of Action which argued that the continent would only be able to develop by a decreased reliance on raw material extraction, industrialization, global equality in trade relations, and an increase in development aid from the international community. Although Structural Adjustment paid some dividends for agricultural producers who previously had been excessively taxed by the state and political elites gradually accepted the new credo, it also laid the foundation for an economic development regime in which private actors, notably foreign investors, have come to play a leading role. Foreign direct investment has no doubt been a valuable source of Africa’s improved economic performance in the 2000s, but these investors have remained foreigners without any real influence on the growth of an indigenous independent middle class capable of sustaining a development agenda of its own. Furthermore, members of this emerging class of Africans tend to be sidelined in tenders for large-scale projects because they lack capital to compete with foreign banks and investors. One offshoot of Structural Adjustment that has been widely adopted by African governments is New Public Management which argues for a public service that is driven by criteria associated primarily with private sector operations, such as efficiency, results-orientation, and a delegation of operational authority to non-state actors. It is not a formula, however, that fits easily into a political culture where hierarchical power continues to be a distinguishing factor in human relations (Montgomery 1987).

698

G. Hyden

Good Governance The second phase of reform has followed an even broader and more ambitious agenda aimed at changing deep-rooted political practices that evolved in the wake of both state-building and structural adjustment. Neoliberalism did not eliminate corruption, nor other forms of abuse of power. With foreign aid itself coming under criticism in many donor countries, their governments could not afford to be seen condoning such practices. Beginning in the 1990s and continuing into the new century, donors became adamant in pursuing a democratic governance agenda in which combatting corruption and condemning human rights violations have often overshadowed the actual task of building democratic institutions. The third wave of democratization that began in the late 1980s was a watershed event in Latin America and Eastern Europe, but it never hit the African countries with the same strength. Most of these countries have made headway toward more democratic forms of governance but it has been spotty and less transformative than in the other two regions. More recently this regime transition has slowed down and even suffered reversals in countries all around the world, but this trend has been less apparent in African countries because, with a few exceptions, democratization never peaked. Democratic forms coexist with illiberal practices (Zakaria 1997, Schedler 2006, Levitsky and Way 2010). This is very much true for Africa, but the explanation is not just leadership fallacies as mainstream academic and popular interpretations suggest. It also indicates the difficulty of transforming societies, including how they are governed, by relying on external interventions.

Globalization and the African State-Nation In the context of globalization, Western donors have taken for granted that their own institutional forms of governance are not only superior but also universally applicable. In their perspective, democracy has been treated as “the only game in town.” Neither history nor local context has been seriously considered in their attempt to transform the world. Perhaps nowhere else has this been more conspicuous than in Africa. Yet, nowhere else may the conditions for a democratic transition have been more difficult. This is the subject of the rest of this chapter. Although the forms of governance in Africa have their roots in Western concepts, the colonial experience of these countries presents them with a very different trajectory than what we know from the West. The state, as we know it in Europe, derives its legitimacy from serving a group of people who share the determinants of a common culture, notably language, and can relate to an identical historical experience. It is commonly the result of battles between nationalities to gain control of their own destiny, a principle that obtained international legitimacy through the 1919 Peace Treaty in Versailles at the end of the First World War. The resolution of this issue coincided with the first wave of democratization, a significant factor in shaping the

37 Political Globalization in an African Perspective …

699

future of the nation-state. Although it was for some time hijacked by fascists, the notion that the state belongs to its citizens meant that there was a deep-rooted moral rationale for taking it back—hence the second wave of democratization at the end of the Second World War. This process set in motion the decolonization of the African continent. This time, it was more difficult to apply the principle of self-determination based on nationality. There were few, if any, self-evident claims based on a shared national heritage in Africa. Instead of putting nationality first, the decolonization process was launched on the opposite principle, that the state must forge a nation. Territorial entities, which had been politically and administratively organized by colonial powers, were turned into sovereign states. It was up to the leaders of these newly independent state entities to bring together under one flag people who were used to identify with their own ethnic group. This was no easy task. The colonial experience was virtually the only thing these ethnic groups shared as they moved toward political independence. The language of the colonial masters was typically spoken only by a small elite. While decolonization in the African context also involved a liberal democratic component, it was overshadowed by the prime governance challenge of bringing multiple ethnicities into a single nation (Zolberg 1966). It rendered legitimacy to the state as owner of its citizens. It became a state-nation rather than a nation-state. It could claim the moral authority in ways that turned the European experience on its head. African countries after independence came to be engaged in building state-nations where the state was viewed as the right-holder and citizens as duty-bearers. The latter faced the obligation to abandon their parochial loyalties in favor of allegiance to the newly independent state. Although Africa has the largest number of state-nations in the world, the concept has hardly ever been applied to political analysis in these countries. As the most authoritative account of “crafting the state-nation” (Stepan et al. 2011) suggests, the concept has been used primarily to discuss the challenges of multiculturalism to the homogeneity of the nation-state. This chapter extends the use of this concept to the African governance scene and examines the specific challenges that stem from the dual threat of a state that is not an organic outgrowth of society and a population that is divided by ethnicity or religion. A state-nation is a political system which manages diversity while also striving to build a sense of belonging with respect to the larger political community (ibid, p 3). How it differs from the nation-state is illustrated in Table 1. It recognizes both the centripetal and centrifugal nature of politics in societies that are characterized by ethnic diversity, often geographically concentrated. Countries like Canada, Belgium, and Spain in the West and India, Pakistan, Philippines, and Indonesia in Asia are examples of what these authors view as state-nations. They are contrasted with countries like Japan, Thailand, Germany, France, and the Scandinavian countries which have more organically over time grown into nation-states. Although there are examples of federal state-nations in Africa, notably Nigeria, Ethiopia, and Sudan, federalism as a constitutional principle, has not gained wide popularity on the continent. It has been associated with the emergence of irredentist sentiments and as the Biafra War in Nigeria and the violent break-up of Sudan

700

G. Hyden

Table 1 Differences between nation-state and state-nation Pre-existing condition

Awareness of and attachment to one dominant cultural tradition

Awareness of and attachment to more than one cultural tradition

Development scenario

Organic homogenization

Manufactured integration of consensus

Dominant form of politics

Competition between interest-based parties and organizations

Rivalry over state power among identity-based groups

State Policy

Assimilation of new groups

Creation of a sense of belonging to the political community at large

Citizen orientation

Acceptance of a single national identity

Presence of multiple identities

indicate, state-building under federalist auspices has been plagued by violence. The protection of minorities as articulated in the United Nations Convention on Cultural and Social Rights, has also had limited appeal among government leaders on the continent (Gilbert 2013) because it is difficult to argue that one ethnic group is more “indigenous” than another. Even devolution of power has been avoided in favor of a strong central state. That is how most countries have organized their governance.

Evolution of Forms of Governance Given these significant historical differences, it is not surprising that African forms of governance have evolved in ways that are peculiar to the continent. They can be explained by two principal factors. The first is what happened at independence. To deal with the challenge of managing the new state, political leaders tended to respond in two distinct ways. One was to insist on unity based on control by an inclusivist party monopoly. Another was to allow for a degree of pluralism within the overall task of building the new nation. The second factor is how well governments have managed diversity since independence. Using data from the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP) on conflicts where the state has been a party and violence has occurred as a result of its inability to pre-empt conflict, there is a distinction between those countries that have had a largely peaceful governance experience since independence and those that during the same period have suffered disruptive violence due to state action. These data do not include changes in regime, e.g., through military coups, only those conflicts that directly threaten social and political order through violence. These differences show up in four different forms of governance that stretch from being competitive to absolutist. The competitive mode is associated with clientelism and tends to stay in equilibrium thanks to the successful management of transactions among leaders of roughly equal ethnic communities. The fractured mode is more unstable and involves bargaining between ethnic or religious groups that fail to find a

37 Political Globalization in an African Perspective …

701

durable accord. The result is typically the rise of a “big man” to serve as the ultimate authority. The monopolist mode is what might be called a party-state, a form that is a relic from the days of struggling for independence and primarily evident in countries which have had a European settler presence. The absolutist mode is characterized by total adherence to principles, be they political or technical. It is found in only two countries, both of which have reinvented themselves in the image of their past after a period of violence. Figure 2 summarizes the various pathways toward current forms of governance. The arrows accompanied by a number show them in greater detail. There is quite strong correlation between a pluralist party legacy and a peaceful postcolonial past leading to a competitive governance regime. The same applies, albeit less strongly, between a monolithic party legacy, violent postcolonial past, and fractured governance regimes. These two types, both of which rely heavily on informal institutions, are dominant. This confirms the findings from the Afrobarometer which show that Africans prefer the informality when it comes to delivery of policy goods (Bratton and Houessou 2014). The more formalized versions—monopolist and absolutist—are in clear minority. The former is a remnant from the liberation struggle and examples of states where the party leading the liberation struggle successfully managed to take over and control the process of building the new state-nation. The absolutist mode is grown out of crisis and aimed at reinventing the past as a way of moving society forward in a peaceful and positive manner. There is an almost blind adherence to governing principles, be they political or technical, making discipline and subordination to authority hallmarks of these societies.

The “Governmentality” Deficit The African state-nation is a project still in the making. The politics of forging the nation and subjecting society to schemes, ideologies, and systems that make it possible for the state to realize its objectives is still the prime governance challenge. In advanced societies, individuals manage themselves in ways that agree with the state’s notion of good conduct. That is much less so in African countries where “governmentality,” as Foucault (1991) calls it, is still an issue because people are not yet organized according to shared economic interest but rather in communities with their own culture. Loyalty still tends to be extended first to religious or ethnic communities. Churches and mosques often have a firmer grip on individuals than the state can ever claim. Although Africans are used to managing multiple identities in a cross-cutting manner, being a citizen aligning oneself with the canons of civic public institutions has never really been a priority. Ekeh (1975) and Trager (2001) showed with reference to Nigeria how communal loyalties trumped those of public institutions. Bratton and Logan (2006) confirm the weakness of civic consciousness by describing respondents in the Afrobarometer survey as “voters but not yet citizens.” Another challenge in the African context is that most people are not part of a formal system that compels them to comply with public law and regulations. For example,

702

G. Hyden Party System at independence Current

Pluralist system (24) Benin Botswana Burkina Faso Burundi Cameroon Comoros Congo (Brazzaville) Dem. Rep. of Congo Gabon Gambia Ghana Kenya Lesotho Liberia Madagascar Maurius Nigeria Senegal Seychelles Sierra Leone South Africa Sudan Uganda Zambia

Peaceful path (26) Benin Botswana Burkina Faso Cape Verde Comoros Djibou Eritrea Gabon Gambia Ghana Guinea Guinea Bissau Kenya Lesotho Liberia Madagascar Malawi Mauritania Maurius Namibia Sao Tome e Principe Seychelles South Africa Swaziland Tanzania Togo Zambia

governance regime

14

Pathway aer independence

Compeve (23) Benin Botswana Burkina Faso Cape Verde Djibou Ghana Guinea Bissau Kenya Lesotho Liberia Madagascar Malawi Mali Mauritania Maurius Namibia Nigeria Sao Tome e Principe Senegal Seychelles Sierra Leone South Africa Zambia

18

6

5

9

11 Monolithic system (24) Angola Cape Verde Central African Republic Chad Djibou Equatorial Guinea Eritrea Ethiopia Guinea Guinea Bissau Ivory Coast Malawi Mali Mauritania Mozambique Namibia Niger Rwanda Sao Tome e Principe Somalia South Sudan Swaziland Tanzania Togo Zimbabwe

12

11

Fractured (19) Burundi Cameroon Central Afr. Rep. Violent path (22) Chad Angola Comoros Burundi Congo (Brazzaville) Cameroon Dem. Rep. of Congo Central Afr. Rep. Equatorial Guinea Chad Gabon Comoros Gambia Congo (Brazz.) Guinea Dem. Rep. of Congo Ivory Coast Ethiopia Mozambique Ivory Coast Niger Liberia Somalia Mali South Sudan Mozambique Sudan Niger Swaziland Nigeria Togo Rwanda Uganda Senegal Sierra Leone Somalia 1 South Sudan Sudan Uganda Zimbabwe

Fig. 2 African pathways to current forms of governance regime

1 1 13

3

Monopolist (4) Angola Ethiopia Tanzania Zimbabwe Absolust (2) Eritrea Rwanda

37 Political Globalization in an African Perspective …

703

small farmers are still subsistence-oriented in their approach to tilling the land. Their reliance on the state for daily living is minimal. In most respects, they continue to be what the present author observed in Tanzania forty years ago—uncaptured by the state (Hyden 1980). Much the same applies to the growing number of informal sector entrepreneurs who conduct their business without being captured by formal institutions such as the revenue authority. They may not always be able to escape the heavy hand of the police, but such encounters tend to only exacerbate the difficulties associated with making people comply with the dictates of state institutions. Because the African state-nation typically lacks the institutional mechanisms that help align state and society in relations that are mutually productive, it is no surprise that state-based conflicts (i.e., conflicts where the state is at least one of the actors) keep occurring. According to one report, there has in fact been an increase in the number of such conflicts in Africa over the past five years. In 2017, Africa experienced 18 state-based conflicts (Bakken and Rustad 2018). While this is a decrease from the all-time high of 21 conflicts in 2016, it is substantially higher than ten years ago. These conflicts tend to be confined to a smaller number of countries, the Horn of Africa, the Mano River region in West Africa, and the Sahel being most afflicted. These are all places where the boundaries drawn by the colonial powers collide with those set by local entities—in the Horn by Ethiopia, in the Mano River region by Liberia, and in the Sahel by nomadic populations like the Kel Tamasheq (also referred to as Tuaregs). Most state-based conflicts in Africa stem from violations of the transactional nature of politics. Military coups have in several cases been a starting point for a slide toward civil war and chaos whenever leaders have tried to impose a police-like state where not only freedom of association and speech is prohibited, but so is the opportunity to bribe oneself out of trouble. Informal institutions are vital in African society as ways of overcoming hardship and getting out of dilemmas. Whenever these avenues are blocked, society tends to stall and opposition to the regime rise. The imposition of a Marxist–Leninist ideology aimed at totalitarian control of society has proved to be an especially grave threat to political stability and led to both coups and civil wars. Nkrumah’s fall in Ghana, the forced departure of Modibo Keita in Mali and Mengistu Haile Mariam in Ethiopia are only among the most noted such cases of disastrous political “overreach.” Although not necessarily contributing to statebased conflict, it is generally true across Africa that ideological regimes have been difficult to sustain. The best-known case is Tanzania where a home-grown ideology— ujamaa—was initially widely embraced locally and supported by many others— Africans as well as donors—but gradually gave way to a more instrumentalist and transactional form of politics that characterizes the country to this day.

Regime Variations Countries that have lived through a period of conflict and violence after independence have had especially great problems to make democracy work on a sustainable basis.

704

G. Hyden

Some of them have bounced back from chaos by adopting a militarist approach justified with reference to the presence of extraordinary circumstances. Rwanda is an example of where a true national emergency produced such a drastic approach to governance but a similar rationale, albeit with a less dramatic background, has been used elsewhere, e.g., Eritrea and Ethiopia. Others, however, have opted for a civilian approach. Getting back to civilian rule has often proceeded only with the permission of the army as in Nigeria or with the assistance of external bodies as in the cases of Liberia and Sierra Leone. The memory and experience of the killings has no doubt played a role in pushing these countries toward democracy but given their fractured nature, salvation has been sought in a strong leader who can refer to a heroic act such as overthrowing a brutal leader or ending a civil war as justification for holding the state-nation together. These charismatic leaders, however, have themselves been tempted to remain in power for as long as possible, e.g., by changing the constitutional principle that a president can only stay in office for two terms (of 4 or 5 years). President Museveni of Uganda and President Nkurunziza of Burundi are two recent examples of leaders acting in this fashion. Universalism is a troublesome concept to accommodate in any one of the four types of governance regime, but it tends to be especially so in countries where a Big Man arises amidst deep social fractures to claim the role of savior. Governance in these countries eventually generates a “we-and-them” feeling that sets the strong man against an opposition which in the long run may gain strength and lead to his removal. Sudan 2019 is the most recent example of what might happen to such leaders if they overstay their time in power. Again, causation is reciprocal, delivering democracy by default rather than by device. The main reason why the notion of universal rights is not widely embraced in Africa is that it is not engrained in the political culture. For example, the concept of “freedom” sits loose in the average African definition of democracy. When asked to define the concept, only four out of ten Afrobarometer respondents mentioned “freedom” as part of its essence, leading Bratton (2010) to worry about the equivalences—and validity—of survey responses to questions that may take on a different meaning dependent on culture and history. Regimes across Africa that rely on informal institutions tend to be more accommodating of democracy than those that are more formalized (Cheeseman 2015). This indicates that local African values are not necessarily incompatible with democracy and the challenge is for actors to work out the appropriate modality on terms that fit the challenges of the state-nation project. Issues of human rights and the rule of law are central to this effort to democratize governance in the context of globalization.

Dealing with Dissent African countries generally follow the constitutional imprints they inherited from their respective colonial administrations: the former British colonies follow a common law legacy while former French and Portuguese colonies continue to adhere to a civil law legacy. Some amendments have been made, notably the adoption of a

37 Political Globalization in an African Perspective …

705

presidential or semi-presidential system of government. Because these state-nations have yet to settle down in patterns that make local sense, when it comes to dealing with dissent, they are faced with a dual dilemma: (1) how significant is law in these societies? and (2) which law matters most? Most African countries still have some way to go to institutionalize the rule of law. They may have constitutions on the book but not in practice—a condition of “constitutions without constitutionalism” as one African observer (Ogendo and Hastings 1988) once put it. This discrepancy between prescription and practice manifests itself in many ways beginning with how Africans have preferred to solve inter-state or intra-state conflicts on the continent. Rather than relying on external mediators with expertise in international law, they have preferred to call in African “wise men”, i.e., retired politicians with public integrity. Thus, former U.N. Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, was called into mediate in the domestic conflict in Kenya after the 2007 elections. Nelson Mandela was involved in solving a similar domestic political crisis in Burundi at the turn of the century. There are other similar cases from across the continent. They all point to the preference among Africans to use political rather than legal approaches to solving disputes. This notion of using social or political mechanisms rather than independent courts is inherently African in the sense that it was the common practice before colonial times. The colonial powers did not manage to erase these norms and they have been reinvented and reasserted after independence. An especially interesting case is the return of Rwanda’s precolonial gacaca courts to judge in cases stemming from the 1994 genocide against the Tutsis—the country’s aristocracy. In these local courts, no lawyers are allowed. Everyone must defend himself. The judges are all lay people from the local village. Again, Western legal norms are absent and instead it is social norms about what is right and wrong that decide the outcome. The significance of local African norms in the legal sphere is also present in their definition of rights. While countries in Europe and the Americas with a democratic tradition follow the notion that rights are individual, whether defined as civil and political or social and economic. These are also the rights inscribed in international conventions. The Africans, however, have their own rights convention—the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights—adopted in 1987 as a response to the many international conventions that had been adopted under the auspices of the United Nations in the years before. While the African Charter recognizes most of what the international conventions state, it is different in at least important respects. The first is its emphasis on communal rights, notably the family and the cultural group, of which there are of course many in Africa’s multi-ethnic societies. It is also different in that it includes a section on citizen duties such as the importance of maintaining the family and demonstrating solidarity with the state. This ambivalence reflects the point made above that the state occupies the moral high ground in Africa as the creator of legal regimes with rights for citizens. [But even the 1948 HDHR has duties besides rights!!]. The concept of rule of law, therefore, lends itself to more than one interpretation in the African context. Individual rights are not the only ones that matter; the independence of the courts is not the only way Africans treat judicial institutions. To be

706

G. Hyden

sure, there is movement in the direction of accepting the norms of modern democracy, but this happens foremost in urbanized settings and not necessarily everywhere. Globalization has facilitated exposure to these internationally accepted democratic norms, but it is primarily in countries with a cosmopolitan outlook that meaningful steps have been taken. South Africa and Kenya are examples of countries that have developed “home-made” progressive constitutions that embrace universal values and stress the rule of law. These reforms seem to have paid off in the sense that there are now genuine pressures on politicians to respect the law.

The Spread of Democracy When democratization began in Latin America in the 1980s and quickly spread to Eastern Europe, it took the form of a wave. Whole regions were swept in one and the same direction. It made a noticeable difference. Citizens celebrated when new leaders embraced civil and political rights for all and brought back competitive elections for government office. Whether this involved saying good-bye to military or communist rule, it was a historical watershed—a critical juncture for politics in those two regions. More recently, the Middle East and North Africa region experienced a similar wave—the Arab Spring. It was less successful, but it shook the region to the core and the democratic spirit it generated is not dead as evidence from Algeria, Egypt, and Lebanon more recently confirms. Compared with these other regions, the recent democratization in Africa began in a less dramatic fashion. As Bratton and Van de Walle show in their analysis of what happened, protests began in some countries but not in others. What happened in one country got little publicity in others, including those close by. This “bubblingup-here-and-there” was not insignificant, but it never turned into a real wave. The two authors wisely referred to the events as “democratic experiments.” What helped turn this process into a more continent-wide phenomenon was the support given by Western donors. Where governments did not accept the coming of a new order, donors generously supported civil society organizations—some of which were genuine, others fake. This support has no doubt helped civil society to become a voice in governance, but the argument has also been made that its close link to the donors might have carried its own costs such as the risk of being painted as serving “foreign interest” (Hearn 2000). As civil society has grown in strength in many countries, this point may be less applicable today, but organizing collective action for democratic causes in a sustainable manner remains a challenge in societies divided along vertical lines. Shifting social cleavages from vertical to horizontal lines and reordering society along class lines is an effort that is at best in a beginning stage. It is hard to share the confidence expressed in a book on recent protest waves in African countries 2011–2016, that social class consciousness—among members of both the middle and working classes—is driving these countries in a democratic direction, much like they did in Europe a century ago (Mueller 2018).

37 Political Globalization in an African Perspective …

707

Overthrowing autocracy is easier than building democracy. Protest or rebellion is only a first step and not itself an evidence of a democratic transition. What happened with the outcome of the struggle for independence bears witness to this. Without a historical perspective on institutions, it is easy to overdramatize the impact of single current event. The point is that democratization in African countries has benefitted from the tailwind that the global wave provided across the world, but it has also encountered headwinds—not really in the form of explicit right-wing opposition, but rather the absence of strong domestic social forces to drive the project. This becomes evident when the analysis is brought down to sub-regional level. Although democratic values have at least slightly taken more root in Western and Southern African countries than they have in Central and East Africa, there is no concentration of “democratic” countries in the region except for Southern Africa where Botswana, Namibia, and South Africa constitute a democratic core. Another notable feature of the African democracy scene is that the small island-states in the Atlantic and Indian oceans tend to outperform states on the African mainland. Mauritius and the Seychelles on the east side and Cape Verde and Sao Tomé e Principe on the west side are among the high scorers (but the larger island nation of Madagascar does not fall in this category). Geographic location seems to make some difference when it comes to accommodating democracy in governance. Because democratization in Africa has resulted from the burst of local bubbles rather than a transformative wave, there is no single model for how to sustain a transition to democracy. For example, Botswana has for a long time been an exemplary case of democracy, but it has not inspired leaders from other countries. Instead, they have often criticized the country for being “too Western.” In the contemporary African context, there is no equivalent to Brazil or Poland to serve as beacon for the whole region. Democracy, at least so far, has lacked the contagion effect that it had in both Latin America, Eastern Europe, and—to a lesser extent—in the MENA region during the Arab Spring. The African region has also lacked robust institutional mechanisms for monitoring and enforcing democratic values. The African Union has been primarily concerned with continent-wide security issues and it is bodies at sub-regional level that have tried to step into evaluate and respond to critical governance events. Although the relatively high democracy scores in West Africa cannot be attributed to the work of its regional body—ECOWAS—the latter has been actively intervening not only to stop the civil wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone, but also to prevent member countries from turning to outright autocracy. The Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) has similarly been active in monitoring member states and in the case of Lesotho intervened to save the democratic system. Equivalent bodies in Central and East Africa have been much more hesitant to intervene in the affairs of their member countries. For example, the leaders of the East African Community have failed to intervene in Burundi to stop President Nkurunziza from changing the country’s constitution to enable him to continue in power beyond the stipulated two terms in office. The region lacks a superpower of its own like South Africa in the South and Nigeria in the West. Furthermore, the other East African leaders are accused of lacking the moral authority for a credible intervention in another country’s internal affairs.

708

G. Hyden

Conclusions The African experience with the political aspects of globalization has indeed been characterized by both continuity and change. While Africa has welcomed many new economic actors, it is Western donors that have continued to be important in the political sphere. Ever since independence, Western donors have played a major role in setting the governance and development agenda for the region. A closer look at what has been attempted suggests that they have often fumbled and thus been forced to change their approach—at least four times in the six decades since independence, as discussed in the first part of the chapter. The notion of continuity and change is also applicable to the discussion of Africa’s efforts to democratize. While opening to the adoption of international conventions of human rights and participating in venues where democratic norms are taken for granted, African governments have also brought to the fore legal and social norms that represent the legacy of their own societies. This means that legal and constitutional issues are less clear-cut than they are in societies in Europe and the Americas with a long tradition of democratic governance of their own. This tension between the local and the global still leaves room for the rise of autocracy but as the cases of Botswana and more recently Kenya and South Africa illustrate, it also stimulates home-made solutions to how democratic rights and the concept of rule of law may be more effectively advanced.

References Bakken, Ingrid Vik and Siri Aas Rustad. 2018. Conflict Trends in Africa, 1989–2017. Conflict Trends No 6. Oslo: Peace Research Institute in Oslo (PRIO). Bates, Robert H., A. Hoeffler, and G. Fayad. 2012. The State of Democracy in Africa. International Area Studies Review 14 (4): 323–338. Bratton, Michael and Carolyn Logan 2006. “Voters but not yet citizens: the weakness of vertical accountability in Africa’s unclaimed democracies”, Afrobarometer Working Paper No 63. Johannesburg: IDASA. Bratton, Michael, and Richard Houessou. 2014. Demand for Democracy is Rising in Africa, But Most Political Leaders Fail to Deliver. Afrobarometer Policy Paper No. 11. Johannesburg: IDASA. Carothers, Thomas. 2002. The End of the Transition Paradigm. Journal of Democracy 13 (1): 5–31. Cheeseman, Nic. 2015. Democracy in Africa: Successes, Failure and the Struggle for Political Reform. Cambridge UK: Cambridge University Press. Diamond, Larry J. 2009. The Spirit of Democracy: The Struggle to Build Free Societies throughout the World. Hoover Institution: Stanford University. Ekeh, Peter. 1975. The Two Publics in Africa: A Theoretical Statement. Comparative Studies in Society and History 17 (1): 91–112. Foucault, Michel. 1991. Governmentality. In The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality, ed. G. Burchell, C. Gordon, and P. Miller. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Fukuyama, Francis. 2004. Building Democracy After Conflict: ‘Stateness’ First. Journal of Democracy 16 (1): 84–88. Gilbert, Jeremie. 2013. Constitutionalism, Ethnicity and Minority Rights in Africa: A Legal Appraisal from the Great Lakes Region. International Journal of Constitutional Law 11 (2): 414–431.

37 Political Globalization in an African Perspective …

709

Hearn, Julie. 2000. Aiding Democracy? Donors and Civil Society in South Africa. Third World Quarterly 21 (5): 815–830. Herbst, Jeffrey. 2000. States and Power in Africa: Comparative Lessons in Authority and Control. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press. Hobsbawm, Eric. 1992. Nations and Nationalism: Programme, Myth, Reality. Cambridge UK: Cambridge University Press. Hyden, Goran. 1980. Beyond Ujamaa in Tanzania: Underdevelopment and an Uncaptured Peasantry. Berkeley CA: University of California Press. Inglehart, Ronald, and Christian Welzel. 2005. Modernization, Cultural Change and Democracy: The Human Development Sequence. New York: Cambridge University Press. Krasner, Stephen D. 2009. Power, the State and Sovereignty: Essays on International Relations. New York: Routledge. Lerner, Daniel. 1958. The Passing of Traditional Society: Modernizing the Middle East. Glencoe IL: The Free Press. Levitsky, Steven, and Lucan Way. 2010. Competitive Authoritarianism: Hybrid Regimes after the Cold War. New York: Cambridge University Press. Lipset, Seymour Martin. 1959. Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic Development and Political Legitimacy. American Political Science Review 53 (1): 69–105. Montgomery, John. 1987. Probing Managerial Behavior: Image and Reality in Southern Africa. World Development 15 (7): 911–929. Mueller, Lisa. 2018. Political Protests in Contemporary Africa. New York: Cambridge University Press. Noussi, Katharina 2010. How to Build Institutional Capacity in Developing Countries: The Case of Supreme Audit Institutions. Department of Political Science, University of Vienna. Ogendo, Okoth, and W.O. Hastings. 1988. Constitutions without Constitutionalism: An African Paradox. New York: Council of American Learned Societies. Przeworski, Adam, Michael E. Alvarez, Antonio Cheibub, and Fernando Limongi. 2000. Democracy and Development: Political Institutions and Well-being in the World, 1950–1990. New York: Cambridge University Press. Rodney, Walter. 1972. How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. London: Bogle-L’Ouverture Publications. Roessler, Philip. 2016. Ethnic Politics and State Power in Africa: The Logic of The Coup-Civil War Trap. Cambridge UK: Cambridge University Press. Schedler, Andreas. 2006. Electoral Authoritarianism: The Dynamics of Unfree Competition. Boulder CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers. Stepan, Alfred, Juan J. Linz, and Yoghendra Yadav. 2011. Crafting State-Nations: India and Other Multinational Democracies. Baltimore MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Tilly, Charles (ed.). 1975. The Formation of National States in Western Europe. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press. Trager, Lillian. 2001. Yoruba Hometowns: Community, Identity and Development in Nigeria. Boulder CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers. Weber, Eugen. 1976. Peasants into Frenchmen: The Modernization of Rural France, 1870–1914. Stanford: Stanford University Press. World Bank. 1981. Accelerated Development in Sub-Saharan Africa. Washington DC: The World Bank. World Bank. 1997. World Development Report 1997: The State in a Changing World. Washington DC: The World Bank. Young, Crawford T. 1994. The African Colonial State in Comparative Perspective. New Haven CT: Yale University Press. Zakaria, Fareed. 1997. The Rise of Illiberal Democracy. Foreign Affairs 76 (6): 22–43. Zolberg, Aristide. 1966. Creating Political Order: The Party States of West Africa. Chicago: Rand McNally.

710

G. Hyden

Goran Hyden is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus in Political Science at the University of Florida. He is the author of some 20 books and numerous articles on African politics and development. Among his more notable publications are Beyond Ujamaa in Tanzania: Underdevelopment and an Uncaptured Peasantry (University of California Press 1980) and African Politics in Comparative Perspective (Cambridge University Press 2013). In 2005, he served as the President of the U.S. African Studies Association. In 2015, he received the Association’s Distinguished Africanist Award.

Globalization, Poverty and Economic Development

Chapter 38

Human Capital Contribution to the Economic Growth of Sub-Saharan Africa: Does Health Status Matter? Evidence from Dynamic Panel Data Abel Kinyondo and Mwoya Byaro Abstract This chapter re-examines health as a human capital contribution to the economic growth of 33 Sub-Saharan African countries using unbalanced panel data for the period 2000–2016 and employs generalized methods of moments (GMM) estimator that takes care of endogeneity (reverse causality). We used trade openness, population growth, prevalence of HIV (% of total population age 15–49 years), total health expenditure (private and public), and gross fixed capital formation in sample countries to take care of omitted variable bias in growth regression model. Our empirical model shows that health population indicator (life expectancy) and education have positive effects on economic growth in Sub-Saharan Africa. The magnitude of the effect of population health on economic growth is far greater than education. The policy implication is for African countries to continue investing more in population health and education and training programs to boost economic growth in the region.

Introduction Human capital is an important driver of economic growth (Qadri and Waheed 2014; Byaro et al. 2017; Ogundari and Awokuse 2018). It is defined as the set of knowledge, skills, competencies, and abilities that are embodied in individuals and are acquired over time through training, education, work experience, medical care, and migration (Becker 1964). It is divided into three components, namely, health, education, and experience/training. It is not surprising then that its stock can only increase through better education, higher health status, and new learning (Byaro et al. 2017; Ogundari and Awokuse 2018). Since new learning and training cannot be measured A. Kinyondo (B) University of Dar Es Salaam, Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania e-mail: [email protected] M. Byaro Government of Tanzania, Dodoma, Tanzania e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 I. Rossi (ed.), Challenges of Globalization and Prospects for an Inter-civilizational World Order, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44058-9_38

713

714

A. Kinyondo and M. Byaro

easily, health and education status have widely been used as a form of human capital measures on contribution to economic growth (Ogundari and Awokuse 2018). This study focuses on human capital in Sub-Sahara African (SSA) countries because both education and health levels are far behind from other regions of the world like Europe and South Asia. In turn, following the outgoing MDG (Millennium Development Goals), developing countries are encouraged to increase investment in schooling and health to achieve SDG (sustainable development goals) by 2030. Therefore, it is important to assess the human capital contribution to economic growth in SSA since the majority of these countries are poor and it is clear that no country has achieved sustained economic development without investing in human capital. It should be noted that the economic growth in Sub-Saharan Africa is slower than expected (World Bank 2018). Global trade and industrial activity have lost momentum in such a way that there is a need to accelerate and sustain an inclusive growth momentum that focuses on investments that foster human capital and boost productivity (World Bank 2018)1 . Indeed, according to the African Development Bank (2018), Africa still faces a challenge of jobless growth. It thus has to transform its economy in a manner that creates jobs and reduce poverty by modernizing agriculture and moving labor to manufacturing and service sectors. The continent thus needs to invest in human capital, particularly in the entrepreneurial skills of youth, to facilitate the transition to higher-productivity modern sectors. It is against this background that we aim to re-examine the health status contribution to economic growth of Sub-Saharan Africa covering 33 countries over the 2000– 2016 period. We note that bivariate analysis between life expectancy and economic growth prevails in past literature and resulted into bias and inconsistent estimates owing to omitted variable. We overcome this bias by introducing a number of control variables (fixed capital formation, population growth, trade openness, HIV prevalence, and under-five mortality) that are also likely to impact the economic growth. Furthermore, we take care of endogeneity problems in our estimation procedure acknowledging the fact that life expectancy can be affected by income resulting in biased estimates due to reverse causality. To control for endogeneity problems arising from income (GDP) to life expectancy, we used panel Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) technique (Arellano and Bover 1995; Blundell and Bond 1998). The advantage of using GMM method is that we do not require separate instrument variable for each endogenous variable, instead, we can use internal instruments made available by the panel nature of the dataset (see Sharma 2018).

1 https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2018/10/03.

38 Human Capital Contribution to the Economic Growth …

715

Literature Review There are various models of economic growth. The classical growth model deals about factual issues such as diminishing returns and its relation to the accumulation of physical, human capital, population growth rate, technology transfer, competitive behaviors as well as equilibrium dynamics. However, Lakhera (2016) argued that, the model could not be used as a policy guide as it fails to address the framework of the reality of “growth” economics. This conundrum gave rise to the emergence of various models such as that of Harrod (1939) and Domar (1946, 1957) which both attempted to integrate Keynesian analysis in their models (Lakhera 2016). Harrod– Domar model of economic growth has two distinctive features. First, it advances that the national income of any country is proportional to its capital stock. In turn, capital stock results from savings from the people which is sourced from a fraction of the national income. Intuitively, the Harrod–Domar model advanced that economic growth is the function of national savings thereby introducing the concept of optimization analysis in the growth models as saving rates were considered to be endogenously determined. The neoclassical model as championed by Solow (1956) which is applied in this study acknowledges the fact that economic growth is exogenously determined. Specifically, Solow argued that the natural rate of growth and the equilibrium is determined by the labor force growth rate and technical progress. In a simple way, the model which later came to be known as Solow–Swan, predicts that there is steady-state equilibrium of growth that is determined by the prevailing technology, and exogenous variables that include saving rates, population growth, and technical progress (Dewan and Hussein 2004). There have been several works using various econometric models that sought to establish determinants of economic growth worldwide. However, these studies fail to distinguish between drivers of economic growth in developing and developed world (Chirwa and Odhiambo 2016). When factoring in this difference, the study finds distinctive determinants of growth. Specifically, key determinants of economic growth in developing world include human capital development, investment, foreign direct investment, foreign aid, trade, demographics, monetary policy, reforms, fiscal policy as well as regional, political, and financial factors. Using Bayesian model that is extended to panel data in 73 countries, Moral-Benito (2009) finds that determinants of economic growth include the price of investment goods, distance to major world cities, and political rights. Meanwhile, using Granger Causality tests Dritsakis et al. (2006) showed that there is a unidirectional causal relationship between foreign direct investment and economic growth in Turkey. Furthermore, using panel regressions Baro (2003) finds that economic growth is attained when the initial level of per capita GDP is low relative to the initial human capital in the form of educational attainment and health. Growth is also positively affected by favourable terms of trade and to a lesser extent increased international openness. Meanwhile, using a sample of 41 middle income countries Dewan and Hussein (2004) find that the labour force, investment in both physical and human capital as

716

A. Kinyondo and M. Byaro

well as low inflation and less trade barriers are crucial for economic growth. This includes the ability to adopt technological changes so as to improve efficiency. It is important to note that openness of Africa to the rest of the world is not necessarily a key factor in inducing economic growth in the continent. Indeed, comparing China and African countries’ growth trajectories, Anyanwu (2014) finds that openness is not that much of a factor in Africa: while Africa is twice as much open as China, that openness does not significantly affect Africa’s growth. The reason behind this result is that Africa mainly imports consumer goods more than it exports while the opposite is true for China. Moreover, Ndambiri et al. (2012) conducted a study based on 19 African countries for the years 1982–2000 and used Generalized Methods of Moments (GMM). Their results indicated that physical capital formation, vibrant export sector, and human capital development significantly contribute to economic growth in the region with government expenditure, nominal discount rate, and foreign aid having an opposite effect. Basu et al. (2005) suggested that what the region needs is a sustained and a substantial increase in real per capita GDP growth rates coupled with significant improvements in social conditions. Two factors seem to be key in determining economic growth in Africa. The first is investment as shown by various studies using different methodologies (see Lichtenberg 1992; Ulku 2004; Lensink and Morrissey 2006). In general, there is a huge body of literature that assesses the relationship between investment and economic growth (Artelaris et al. 2007). The second factor determining economic growth in Africa, and certainly one that has not been thoroughly researched on, is human capital (Ndambiri et al. 2012). It basically entails a health labor force with skills and know-how acquired through education and training. Some researchers (for example, Barro 1991; Mayer 2001; Narayan et al. 2010) used cross sectional and panel data to investigate the relationship between health and economic growth. The main findings of these studies are that, health contributes positively to economic growth. On the other hand, other authors (for instance Bhargava 1997; Strauss and Thomas 1998) examined the impact of health indirectly on economic growth through its effects (nutritional status) on productivity. The findings from these studies conclude that, health contributes positively to productivity. Other empirical studies (such as Bhargava et al. 2001; Webber 2002) use time series analysis and their main findings showed that health is an important determinant of economic growth.

Data Sources and Model Estimation Data Sources We used a cross-sectional time series data involving 33 Sub-Saharan Africa countries across the period of 17 years (2000–2016). All the data was obtained from the World Bank Development Indicators dataset of 2018. The panel data account for country

38 Human Capital Contribution to the Economic Growth …

717

specific effects (e.g., differences in economic growth, differences in education and health policies). Note that the period 2000–2016 provides for the most current data on 33 SSA countries.

Theoretical Framework and Model Estimation We used an augmented version of Solow (1956) neoclassical growth model that defined Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as being a function of human capital (i.e., education and health), physical capital formation, and other control variables relevant to economic growth, such as population growth, trade openness (see Narayan et al. 2010). The choice of these control variables was guided by previous studies growth = drop (see e.g., Becker 1964; Barro 1991; Mayer 2001; Morand 2005; Narayan et al. 2010; Qadri and Waheed 2014; Byaro et al. 2017; Ogundari and Awokuse 2018). The dynamic model (GMM) was used consistently with several other similar studies (e.g., (Baltagi 2005; Julilian et al. 2007; Catrinescu 2006; Hsiao 2003; Ndambiri et al. 2012). The choice to use GMM is straight forward. The GMM estimations for dynamic panel models produce more efficient and consistent estimates than Ordinary Least Square or pooled regression models (ByungWoo 2015). Specification of the GMM model therefore becomes ln(y)i,t = ln(y)i,t−1 + β1 ln(Invest)i,t−1 + β2 ln(life)i,t−1 + β3 ln(trade)i,t−1 + β4 ln(education)i,t−1 + u i, + γt + Vi,t Whereas y = GDP (Gross domestic product); invest = gross fixed capital formation; life = life expectancy at birth; education = gross secondary school enrollment ratio; t − 1 = lagged time, γt = time specific effects; u i = is the country specific fixed effects that are constant in time (e.g., geography); and Vi,t = error term. The dependent variable is the gross GDP at local currency unit. The investment ratio is proxied through the gross fixed capital formation in percentage of GDP, the life expectancy at birth is the number of years one is expected to stay alive when birthing, and education level is measured as the gross secondary school enrollment ratio. The effects of education, life expectancy, and investment ratios are likely to be positives. Mostly explanatory variables are likely to be jointly endogenous with economic growth and country specific effects are not observable and omitted in the estimation. For instance, investment ratio and trade openness are jointly endogenous with economic growth, which may cause biases in estimation resulting from simultaneous or reverse causality. Similarly, education and health are jointly endogenous with economic growth. Life expectancy is strongly correlated with economic growth together with other indicators of health such as HIV prevalence and underfive mortality rate. Therefore, estimating growth model by OLS would lead to biased results. Thus, system GMM estimator developed for dynamic panel data models

718

A. Kinyondo and M. Byaro

are appropriate (see Arellano and Bover 1995; Blundell and Bond 1998). The main advantage of the GMM estimator is that, it does not require any external instrument to deal with endogeneity. It deals with endogeneity bias due to omitted variables, simultaneity and measurement error. The variables chosen were based on the growth- Solow model theory that assesses the effect of human capital (health and education), investment on growth. Moreover, variable selection was made following other empirical works on growth determinants. For instance, we used life expectancy as an indicator of health (see e.g., Bloom et al. 2004) and longer life expectancy is associated with better health status and lower morbidity (see Murray and Lopez 1997). We consider GDP as the dependent variable and whether population health indicated by life expectancy has significant association with the levels of income on 33 countries in Sub-Sahara Africa. That is why we controlled for other factors associated with economic growth like trade openness and population growth.

Empirical Results and Discussion Table 1 shows a summary of descriptive statistics used in the regression model Meanwhile, Table 2 shows the pairwise correlation between explanatory variables to be used in the regression model and it helps in checking whether the regression results are distorted by perfect multicollinearity. The Table rules out the evidence of perfect multicollinearity between explanatory variables because the correlation coefficient is less than (0.9). Before estimating GMM, the pooled OLS (ordinary Least Square) shows how the coefficient estimates change by inclusion of under-five mortality and endogeneity of explanatory variables (see Table 3). The result shows that life expectancy, underTable 1 Descriptive statistics of the variables used in the model Variable

Observation Mean

GDP at local currency

562

Std deviation Minimum

Maximum

3.54E + 10 8.07E + 10

6.53E + 08 4.60E + 11

Education (%), secondary 344 enrollment ratio

37.81

19.66

6.11

102.75

Life expectancy (years)

56

5.3

39

67

Under-five 564 mortality(number of death per 1000 live births)

563

104.8

39

38.5

233

Investment (% of GDP)

527

21

7.8

1.1

53.6

Trade openness (ratio of exports + imports) to GDP

541

67

32.8

19

311.4

Source (Authors computation 2019)

38 Human Capital Contribution to the Economic Growth …

719

Table 2 Correlation matrix L (GDP) L (GDP)

L (EDU)

L (INVEST)

L (LIFE)

L (TRADE)

U5MR

1

L (EDU)

0.44

1

L (INVEST)

0.31

0.13

1

L (LIFE)

0.20

0.26

0.41

1

L (TRADE)

– 0.09

0.26

0.33

0.09

1

U5MR

– 0.28

– 0.68

– 0.28

– 0.77

– 0.18

1

Source (Authors computation 2019) Note L = Natural logarithm, GDP = Gross Domestic Product, EDU = Education (gross secondary schools enrollment) INVEST = Investment, LIFE = Life expectancy at birth, TRADE = trade openness, U5MR = Under-five mortality

Table 3 Summary of pooled OLS, fixed, and random effects regression Pooled OLS

Fixed Effects

Random Effects

Variables

Coefficient

Standard error

Coefficient

Standard error

Coefficient

Ledu

1.64a

0.17

1.7a

0.18

1.64a

0.17

Llife

0.08

1.19

0.85

1.32

0.08

1.2

Ltrade

−1.33a

0.18

−1.36a

0.19

−1.33a

0.18

U5mr

0.007b

0.003

0.007b

0.003

0.01b

0.003

Linvest

1.08a

0.21

1.11a

0.23

1.1a

0.22

Constant

18.62

5.37

15.36

5.9

18.62

5.38

Observation

321

321

Standard error

321

Source (Authors computation 2019) Note a p < 0.001 and b p < 0.05 Ledu = logarithm of education(gross secondary schools enrollment ratio; Llife = logarithmn of life expectancy at birth, Ltrade = Logarithmn of trade oppeness; U5mr = under-five mortality rate; Linvest = logarithm of investment

five mortality, and education enter the regression positively. Under-five mortality is strongly negative correlated with life expectancy and education (gross secondary schools enrollment ratio). Thus, estimating growth model by OLS, fixed, and random effect model would lead to biased results. Table 3 shows the summary of pooled ordinary least square (OLS), fixed, and random effects. Regression estimation in Table 3 through OLS (ordinary least square) leads to biased estimates due to ommited number of lags (time dimension) in the variables and the endogeneity concerns due to potential reverse causality from income (GDP) to growth determinants factors such as trade, investment, education, and health. Likewise, both fixed effects and random effects model fail to address the concern imposed by endogeneity of explanatory variables. Endogeneity issue is resolved by using a number of instruments which are correlated with dependent variable

720 Table 4 Growth regression results using system GMM estimator for the period 2000–2016

A. Kinyondo and M. Byaro Variables

Coefficient

Standard error

P- Value

Constant

3.2582

7.9352

0.6817

LINVEST

0.8259

0.2146

0.0001b

LEDU

1.6181

0.7685

0.0361a

LLIFE

4.4405

2.1861

0.0431a

LTRADE

−1.3991

0.9459

0.1402

Observations

321

Instruments used

9

Hansen test p value

0.69

Source (Authors computation 2019) Note L denotes natural logarithm, LIFE = Life expectancy, EDU = Education, INVEST = Investment a p < 0.05, b p < 0.001

and uncorrelated with the error term (Arrellano and Bover 1995). Therefore, the instruments are introduced in panel GMM to control endogeneity. Table 4 shows dynamic GMM results that incorporate human capital variables (education indicated by gross secondary enrollment ratio and health indicted by life expectancy), trade, and physical capital represented by investment. To control for endogeneity in the regression model, we used instrumental variables (such as population growth, HIV prevalence, health expenditure, under-five mortality rate, and trade). We test the over identifying restriction to provide some evidence of instrument validity. The J- Hansen Test shows that, the instruments used in GMM specification are valid (Hansen test p value > 0.10). Moreover; we used two lags and HAC (Newey-West) weighting matrix to control for heteroskedasticity and serial correlation. The table shows that education (indicated by gross secondary enrollment ratio), health (indicated by life expectancy), and investment (physical capital formation) have positive and statistically significant impact on economic growth. Specifically, an increase of 10% of secondary gross enrollment ratio results into 16% increase in economic growth in Sub-Sahara Africa. Similarly, an increase of 10% of investment results into about 8.2% increase in economic growth. Again, an increase of 10% of population life expectancy at birth would result to 44% increase in economic growth. Our result show that, schooling, investment, and population health have positive and statistically significant impact on economic growth of Sub-Saharan Africa. However, the contribution of population’s health on economic growth is superior to that of gross secondary school education. Our results are consistent with Ogundari and Awokuse (2018) that found health human capital to contribute more on economic growth than education human capital. Their study found that the health elasticity of growth estimate is substantially larger than the education estimate. This could be explained by comparing the initial conditions of both health and education in SSA. Indeed, while the continent has relatively improved its education system and accessibility thereof, it is still facing basic health issues which, if left unchanged, can remove

38 Human Capital Contribution to the Economic Growth …

721

gains in education (see Pelizzo et al. 2018). To make this point clearer, Byaro and Kinyondo (2018) showed that there is correlation between health care expenditure and mortality in the European Union, meaning in continents with better initial health conditions, the elasticity of health on economic growth becomes negligible. Moreover, results on the effects of education on economic growth support Petrakis and Stamatakis’s (2002) argument that the growth effects of education depend on a country’s level of development and low-income developing countries benefit more from primary and secondary education. Likewise, Glewwe et al. (2014) reviewed the macro-level studies and found the impact of education on Sub-Sahara Africa economic growth is lower than in other countries likely due to lower quality of schooling. That said, these results have an implication that governments across SSA need to pay more attention to prioritize human capital (education and population health), if the subcontinent has to realize some more impressive economic growth. This is because; other things kept constant, good health allows the working population to be more productive in terms of new ideas and innovations (Sharma 2018). Gains in life expectancy can be attributed to reductions in child as well as adult mortality; providing for greater number of working years and hence higher level of savings and investments which boost economic growth (Sharma 2018). It is important to invest in health care systems and education programs to boost economic growth of Sub-Saharan African countries. It is also important to note that investment (i.e., Gross physical capital formation) has a positive and statistically significant impact on economic growth in SSA. This result calls for the subcontinent to embark on improving business so that it can attract both the foreign direct investment (FDI) and domestic investment. Therefore, with higher investment levels, more jobs shall be created in the subcontinent. This will increase income levels and in turn improve both education and health of SSA citizenry.

Conclusion In this essay we investigate whether population health and education contribute positively to economic growth in 33 Sub-Saharan African countries using unbalanced panel data for the period 2000–2016 sourced from the World Bank Indicators dataset of 2018. We use life expectancy as indicator of population health, gross secondary school enrollment rate as a proxy for education and control for endogeneity using generalized method of moment (GMM). Given the model specification, we showed that both education and population health (indicated by life expectancy) have positive and significant effect on economic growth. Moreover, we noted that the magnitude of the effect of population’s health on economic growth is far greater than education for 33 Sub-Saharan African countries. From the policy perspective, Ogundari and Awokuse (2018) explained that the small elasticity of growth with respect to education relative to that of health might be

722

A. Kinyondo and M. Byaro

linked to the quality of education in Sub-Saharan Africa and hence, calls for improvement in the quality of education in the region. This of course must be accompanied with massive improvement of health services in SSA. The results have revealed that human capital development is an important determinant of economic growth in SubSaharan Africa. This implies that governments in the region should prioritize skill development and quality health care among the people if at all they are to realize any meaningful GDP growth with much more emphasis on health care. In fact, the region starts from such a very low health condition that a marginal improvement leads to significant change in economic growth. In addition, the results showed that investment has a positive and highly statistically significant effect on economic growth, albeit an impact that is lower than that coming from education and health of the population. The policy implication is that generic determinants for economic growth such as investments, terms of trade, openness, and exports are not as important in the SSA region. The fact that health and education have bigger impact on economic growth necessitates for SSA to prioritize the two sectors in their development agenda.

Appendix: List of Countries Included in the Analysis Angola, Botswana, Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Congo Dem. Rep, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leon, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe.

References African Development Bank. 2018. African Economic Outlook. Anyanwu, J. 2014. Factors Affecting Economic Growth in Africa: Are There any Lessons from China? African Development Review 26(3): 468–493. Arellano, M., and Bover, O. 1995. Another Look at the Instrumental Variable Estimation of Error components Models. Journal of Econometrics 68(1): 29–52. Artelaris P., Arvanitidis P. and Petrakos G. 2007. Theoretical and Methodological Study on Dynamic Growth Regions and Factors Explaining their Growth Performance. In Paper Presented at the 2nd Workshop of DYNREG in Athens. Baltagi, B. 2005. Econometric Analysis of Panel Data, 3rd edn. New York: Wiley. Baro, R. 2003. Determinants of Economic Growth in a Panel of Countries. Annals of Economics and Finance. 4: 231–274. Barro, R. 1991. Economic Growth in a Cross-Section of Countries. Quarterly Journal of Economics 106 (2): 407–443. Basu, A., Calamitsis E.A., and Ghura D. 2005. Adjustment and Growth in Sub-Saharan Africa. Economic Issue is based on IMF Working Paper 99/51.

38 Human Capital Contribution to the Economic Growth …

723

Becker, G. S. 1964. Human Capital: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis, with Special Reference to Education. New York, USA: NBER. Bhargava, A. 1997. Nutritional Status and the Allocation of Time in Rwandese Households. Journal of Econometrics 77 (1): 277–295. Bhargava, A., D.T. Jamison, L.J. Lau, and C.J.L. Murray. 2001. Modelling the Effects of Health on Economic Growth. Journal of Health Economics 20 (3): 423–440. Bloom, D.E., D. Canning, and J. Sevilla. 2004. The Effect of Health on Economic Growth: A Production Function Approach. World Development 32 (1): 1–13. Blundell, R., and S. Bond. 1998. Initial Conditions and Moment Restrictions in a Dynamic Panel Data Model. Journal of Econometrics 87 (1): 115–143. Byaro, M., and A. Kinyondo. 2018. No Correlation between Health Care Expenditure and Mortality in the European Union. European Journal of Internal Medicine 55: e9. Byaro, M., A. Kinyondo, and P. Musonda. 2017. Economic Growth and Under-Five Malaria Mortality in Tanzania Mainland: From Correlation Analysis to Causality. International Journal of Health. 5 (1): 91–96. ByungWoo Kim, 2015. Innovation, Job Creation and Economic Growth in the U.S. Journal of Business Economics and Information Technology, ScientificEducation.org 2(4): 1–2. Catrinescu, N., M. Leon-Ledesma, M. Piracha, and B. Quillin. 2006. Remittances, 2139. Discussion paper: Institutions and Economic Growth, Institute for the Study of Labour (IZA). Chirwa, T., and N. Odhiambo. 2016. Macroeconomic Determinants of Economic Growth: A Review of International Literature. South East European Journal of Economics and Business. 11 (2): 33–47. Dewan, E., and Hussein, S. 2004. Determinants of Economic Growth: Panel Data Approach. Working Paper 01/04. Reserve Bank of Fiji. Suva. Domar, E. 1957. Essays in the Theory of Economic Growth. New York: Oxford University Press. Domar, E. [1946] 1957. Capital Expansion, Rate of Growth, and employment. Econometrica 14: 137–147. As Reproduced in Domar (1957), pp. 70–82. Dritsakis, N., Varelas, E. and Adamopoulos, A. 2006. The Main Determinants of Economic Growth: An Empirical Investigation with. Glewwe, P., E. Maiga, and H. Zheng. 2014. The Contribution of Education to Economic Growth: A Review of the Evidence, with Special Attention and An Application to Sub-Saharan Africa. World Development 59 (1): 379–393. Harrod, R.F. 1939. An Essay in Dynamic Theory. Economic Journal 49: 1433. Hsiao, C. 2003. Analysis of Panel Data. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. http://dx.doi.org/ 10.1017/CBO9780511754203. Ndambiri K., Ritho C., Ng’ang’a I., Kubowon, C., Mairura C., Nyangweso M., Muiruri, M., and Cherotwo, H. 2012. Determinants of Economic Geowth in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Panel Data Approach. International Journal of Economics and Management Sciences 2(2): 18–24. Lakhera L. 2016. Determinants of Economic Growth in Developing Economies. In Economic Growth in Developing Countries. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Julilian, H., Kirkpatrick, C., and Parker, D. 2007. The Impact of Regulation on Economic Growth in Development Countries: A Cross-Country Analysis. http://www.researchgate.net/publication/ 4899298_The_Impact_of_Regulation_on_Economic_Growth_in_Developing_Countries_A_C ross-Country_Analysis/file/d912f50effaa09b155.pdf. Lensink, Robert and Morrissey, Oliver. 2006. Foreign Direct Investment: Flows, Volatility, and the Impact on Growth. Review of International Economics 14(3): 478–493. Available at SSRN: https://www.ssrn.com/abstract=912579 or http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9396.2006. 00632.x. Lichtenberg, F. 1992. R&D Investment and International Productivity Differences, NBER, Working Paper, No. 4161. Mayer, D. 2001. The Long-Term Impact of Health on Economic Growth in Latin America. World Development 29(6): 1025–1033.

724

A. Kinyondo and M. Byaro

Moral-Benito, E. 2009. Determinants of Economic Growth: A Bayesian Panel Data Approach. World Bank Policy Research Working Papers 4830. Morand, O.F. 2005. Economic Growth, Health, and Longevity in the Very Long Term: Facts and Mechanisms. In Health and Economic Growth: Findings and Policy Implications eds. Guillem Lopez-Casasnovas, Berta Rivera and Luis Currais, 239–254. The MIT Press. Murray, C.J.L., Lopez, A.D. 1997. Regional Patterns of Disability-Free Life Expectancy and Disability Adjusted Life Expectancy: Global Burden of Disease Study. Lancet 349: 1347–1352. Narayan, P.K., S. Mishra, and S. Narayan. 2010. Investigating the Relationship between Health and Economic Growth: Empirical Evidence from a Panel of 5 Asian Countries. Journal of Asian Economics 21 (4): 404–411. Ogundari, A., and T. Awokuse. 2018. Human Capital Contribution to Economic Growth in Sub Saharan Africa: Does Health Status Matter More Than Education? Economic Analysis and Policy 58: 131–140. Pelizzo, R., A. Kinyondo, and N. Nwokora. 2018. Development in Africa. World Affairs 181 (3): 256–285. Petrakis, P.E., and D. Stamatakis. 2002. Growth and Educational Levels: A Comparative Analysis. Economics of Education Review 21 (5): 513–521. Qadri, F.S., and A. Waheed. 2014. Human Capital and Economic Growth: A Macroeconomic Model for Pakistan. Economic Modelling 42: 66–76. Sharma, R. 2018. Health and Economic Growth. Evidence from Dynamic Panel Data of 143 Years. PLoS ONE 13(10): e0204940. Solow, R.M. 1956. A Contribution to the Theory of Economic Growth. The Quarterly Journal of Economics 70(1): 65–94. Strauss, J., and D. Thomas. 1998. Health, Nutrition and Economic Development. Journal of Economic Literature 36 (2): 766–817. Ulku, H. 2004. R&D, Innovation, and Economic Growth: An Empirical Analysis. In International Monetary Fund Working Papers. WP/04/185, pp. 2–35. Webber, D.J. 2002. Policies to Stimulate Growth: Should We Invest in Health or Education? Applied Economics 34 (13): 1633–1643. World Bank. 2018. World Bank Indicators. Accessed August 2018, http://www.data.worldbank.org.

Abel Kinyondo is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Dar es Salaam (DUCE). Previously, he worked for REPOA and UNDP. Dr. Kinyondo has over 10 years of research experience having published over 20 articles in internationally reputable journals. He has also led several teams of experts in formulating various socioeconomic policies, regulations, and codes of ethics in Tanzania, and beyond. He as published in World Affairs, African Journal of Economic Review, and European Journal of Internal Medicine. Mwoya Byaro Ph.D., is a Professor of Public Health at the University of Zambia, and has over 10 years’ of experience working in the government of Tanzania. He has an extensive knowledge of health systems in Sub-Saharan Africa and has done an extensive research in the region. Among his recent publications are: Kinyondo, A., & Byaro (2019). “Does Citizen’s Trust in Government Increase with Willingness to Pay Taxes in Tanzania?” African Journal of Economic Review, 7(1), 176–187 and Byaro (2018). “Commentary: No Correlation between Aggregate Health Care Expenditure and Mortality in the European Union”, http://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejim.2018.04.02.

Chapter 39

Globalization, Poverty, and Development in Africa: Looking Past to the Future Samuel Ojo Oloruntoba, Ebenezer Babajide Ishola, and Israel Kehinde Ekanade

Abstract This chapter examines the intricate link between globalization, poverty, and development in Africa. It adopts an historical and materialist political economy approach to establish a causal link between globalization, poverty, and development in Africa. The central argument of the paper is that the neoliberal capitalist order has fostered a form of interconnectedness among countries, in which the rich countries design and formulate programs that keep peripheral regions of the world such as Africa in a state of perpetual dependency. Given the failure of the market-oriented economic reforms of the past three decades, the chapter concludes that there is a need for an alternative political economic arrangement that can foster inclusive development in the continent.

Introduction Globalization has manifested in various forms and epochs. Contrary to the popular notion that the globalization process dates back to the post-Second World War, scholars have argued that indeed the world has witnessed several epochs of interconnectedness and relations among people (Rodrik 2004). Economic historians and anthropologists have also argued that Africa’s engagement with the globalization processes in terms of relations with countries in the West and the East dates back to centuries (Kusimba et al. 2017). From the Indian Ocean through Cape of Good Hope in the Southern tip of the continent to the Niger Delta region in West Africa, precolonial Africans have related with European countries like Portugal, Dutch, and later S. O. Oloruntoba (B) Thabo Mbeki African Leadership Institute, University of South Africa, Pretoria, South Africa e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] E. B. Ishola Department of Political Science, University of Lagos, Lagos, Nigeria e-mail: [email protected] I. K. Ekanade Department of Development Studies, University of Venda, Thohoyandou, Limpopo, South Africa e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 I. Rossi (ed.), Challenges of Globalization and Prospects for an Inter-civilizational World Order, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44058-9_39

725

726

S. O. Oloruntoba et al.

France and Britain before the series of events that culminated in the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade and colonialism. Thus, any discourse on the link between globalization and contemporary poverty and the intractable challenges of underdevelopment in Africa must take as its point of departure the historical origin of the contemporary manifestations of globalization in Africa. Globalization is a term that is often prone to criticisms due to its complex nature. Often, it consists of economic relations on the global scale which implies transfer of commodities transnationally (Bhavsar and Bhugra 2008) with goods and services that transcend geographical boundaries. At the heart of the current discourses on globalization is the neoliberal notion of capitalism (Dominelli 2007; Bhagwati 2004) which exemplifies autonomy, competition, obvious gain, and commodity consumption. Globalization has also been viewed in terms of how developed countries and multilateral institutions design and enforce their neoliberal orientation on developing regions of the world (Chang 2007; Stiglitz 2002). The mobility of goods and services across transnational boundaries has affected relationships among individuals and countries due to the huge advances made in the field of technology and journeys that improve communication. The succeeding sections of the chapter contain a historical discussion of the crisis of development in Africa, with emphasis on the challenge of poverty in post-colonial Africa. The chapter further engages the importance of charting an alternative strategy for development in Africa.

Africa’s Development Trajectory Prior to the evolution of the colonial state and its successor, states in Africa were largely homogenous in nature and organized in various forms with centralization or decentralization of power. Examples of the former include the Hausa–Fulani empire, Buganda kingdom, Asante kingdom, and Songhai empire, with the Igbo pre-colonial society and Nyamwezi empire as examples of the latter (Otunnu 2018). The transformation of these pre-colonial governments to the modern state is an outcome of imperialistic relations between Africa and European superpowers. Ake (1981) explains that the contradictions of the domestic capitalist economies in Europe during the industrial revolution manifested in the search for markets, constant and cheaper source of raw materials, and labor (p. 20). The above constitutes the motif force for colonialism (Rodney 1981). To elucidate, the need for complementary political structure to entrench the economic domination of Africa and its integration into the global capitalist system led to the emergence of the colonial state in Africa. This scenario has continued to plague Africa’s development condition in contemporary times. Despite the changes that have occurred in the form of some growth spurts, essentially through over accumulation in China, these have not translated into building human capabilities. Rather, what has been obtained is growth without development. UNDP (2018) ranks Africa the lowest in human development among other regions of the world such as OECD countries, Europe and Central Asia, Latin America and

39 Globalization, Poverty, and Development in Africa …

727

Fig. 1 Human Development Index by region (1990–2017). Source UNDP (2018, p. 3)

the Caribbean, East Asia and the Pacific world, Arab states and South Asia (p. 3) (Fig. 1). The crisis of development can be gleaned from the indices on poverty, inequality, and unemployment (Seers 1968). Poverty has been a malaise that has affected the globe with Africa being the epicenter of its rampaging force. Dominant literature on poverty in Africa has sought to locate the causes to the failure of governance, which is exemplified by corruption among political elites, the capture of the state through prebendalism, kleptocracy, and neopatrimonialism (Bayart 1993; Chabal and Daloz 2000; Joseph 2016). Yet, others argue that the parlous state of the economy in most countries on the continent are reflections of the historical forms of domination in the international division of labor in which developed countries have leveraged on military and economic advantage to exploit the continent for centuries (Wallerstein 1979; Amin 2011). Poverty has eaten deep into the fabric of the African continent and has led to brain drain, crimes, and civil wars. Sub-Saharan Africa comprising 48 African countries with a total population of 1 billion (UNFPA 2018, p. 143) is a poster of the crisis of development confronting the world today. This crisis is manifested in poverty, inequality, lack of access to good health facilities, unemployment, and illiteracy levels ravaging the countries of the region. The state of primary healthcare which refers to a set of values and principles which regulate health system policies, leadership and governance, and its commitment to global health coverage and primary care (World Health Organization 2008) also provides an indication of Africa’s dismal development condition. An effective

728

S. O. Oloruntoba et al.

primary healthcare system is denoted by governance, economics, and the primary care workforce (Kringos et al. 2010). Africa carries 25% of the world’s disease burden, having 3% of global health professionals and less than 1% of the global health budget (Crisp 2011). The authors further assert that historically Africa is characterized by deadly and communicable diseases like malaria, diarrhea, respiratory tract infections, tuberculosis, and measles. In the last three decades, other diseases like HIV/AIDS, ischemic heart disease, stroke, and diabetes have become prevalent in the African society (Agyepong et al. 2018). Newly discovered threats have emanated, which include Ebola, climate change, global warming, wide spread conflicts culminating into dispersing and displacement of persons outside of their countries of origin, gender inequalities and poverty with a surge in social violence, denigration of womenfolk in relation to education and wage earnings, and constant high risks involved during pregnancy and childbirth. The political condition of Africa also provides insights on the challenges of development in the region. With very few exceptions, Africa’s democracy is being run by tyrants who are not concerned about living conditions and the health of its citizens (Economist Intelligence Unit 2014, 2017). Only a sizeable number of African states have complied with meeting the 15% yardstick of allocating the annual budget on healthcare in the Abuja Declaration of 2001. Less-developed countries suffer resource scarcity while the available resources are often diverted to big government hospitals. Most countries with 2.28 doctors, nurses, and midwives per 1000 population fall under the category of countries that has a worse decline of health professionals (Campbell et al. 2013). Table 1 provides an economic perspective to the challenge of development in Africa with emphasis on the GDP growth of the countries in the region between 1960 and 2010.

Challenges of Globalization Central to globalization is the elimination of barriers in the movement of goods, capital, services, and people across the world (Stiglitz 2002, p. 9). To the apologists of a neoliberal globalization processes, the benefits of this global integration are evident in the increased volume of international trade, foreign direct investment, and movement of capital. However, these benefits accrue largely to the owners and controllers of capital in the global capitalist system. African countries have been on the receiving end of globalization in terms of the expropriation of profits by multinational corporations, loss of state autonomy due to intervention of global institutions like the IMF, World Bank, and WTO. The development trajectory of countries such as the United States of America, Britain, France, and Germany shows the utilization of tariffs on imports to develop their economies, generate revenue, and protect infant industries. The agenda of globalization championed by the developed countries which is antithetical to protectionist measures has been described by Chang (2003, 2007) as “kicking away the ladder”

2000

2010

2,954

193

15,368

1,014

3,638

85

27,903

252

1,424

Congo, Dem. Rep.

Congo, Rep.

Cote d’Ivoire

Djibouti

Egypt, Arab Rep.

Equatorial Guinea

Eritrea

1,504

Central African Republic

Comoros

211

Cape Verde

Chad

5,409

Cameroon

1,847

291

35,923

162

5,416

1,335

20,267

238

3,656

1,829

274

6,842

3,513

2,469

221

44,952

340

8,501

1,798

27,019

329

4,554

2,274

300

9,110

4,130

3,158

374

56,843

562

12,518

2,389

36,406

438

6,011

2,935

348

12,181

5,602

1990

3,668

520

67,648

732

16,582

3,136

49,626

562

8,222

3,702

437

15,678

6,374

2000

5,254

700

81,121

889

19,738

4,043

65,966

735

11,227

4,401

496

19,599

8,383

2010

NA

NA

NA

NA

NA

NA

NA

NA

NA

NA

NA

NA

NA

NA

NA

NA

5.6

NA

10.4

NA

NA

10.0

NA

NA

3.3

5.7

NA

1.0 −1.1

17.6

−6.6

5.1

-4.2

(continued)

-0.5 2.2

−13.1

5.1

NA

2.4

8.8

7.2

2.1

13.0

3.0

5.2

2.9

12.5

5.4

0.4

−3.7

7.6

−6.9

1.4

-0.9

−2.5

−2.1

−11.0

2.2

−0.2 6.4

NA

-6.0

-4.5

7.3

4.2

2010 3.8

2000

7.9

7.0

2.6

3.4

3.3

2010

−0.9

1.8

5.9

0.7

−6.1

−2.0 NA

3.5

1990

-0.6

6.8

4.9

3.0

9.0

2.2

−0.3

2000

0.8

1990

1.0

1980

0.8

NA

1.9

2.3

NA

3.1

21.3

1970

0.1

12.0

6.8

1960

2,940

Burundi

1980

16,469

17.1

2.1

GDP growth (annual %)

1970

12,294

NA

NA

NA

0.8

1960

9,324

2,007

8,850

NA

8.9

Population (in hundreds of thousand)

7,212

1,758

6,518

NA

NA

Country

5,807

1,382

4,773

19,082

35,468

4,882

996

3,611

13,926

30,534

Burkina Faso

693

2,850

10,335

25,299

2,420

7,638

18,811

524

5,926

13,746

Botswana

4,963

1980

Benin

10,800

Angola

1970

1960

1990

GDP growth (annual %)

1980

1960

1970

Population (in hundreds of thousand)

Algeria

Country

Table 1 Population and GDP growth of African countries (1960–2010)

39 Globalization, Poverty, and Development in Africa … 729

3,541

593

8,105

852

1,116

1,349

5,104

3,525

5,248

854

659

11,626

7,647

603

3,250

Kenya

Lesotho

Liberia

Libya

Madagascar

Malawi

Mali

Mauritania

Mauritius

Morocco

Mozambique

Namibia

Niger

Ghana

Guinea-Bissau

6,742

The Gambia

Guinea

486

373

Gabon

4,373

780

9,453

15,310

826

1,134

6,034

4,531

6,549

1,994

1,440

1,033

11,252

603

4,154

8,682

459

530

1970

5,871

1,013

12,146

19,567

966

1,518

7,246

6,240

8,609

3,063

1,923

1,310

16,268

835

4,407

10,923

630

683

1980

7,788

1,415

13,547

24,781

1,059

1,996

8,673

9,381

11,281

4,334

2,127

1,639

23,447

1,017

5,759

14,793

966

929

1990

10,922

1,896

18,201

28,793

1,187

2,643

11,295

11,229

15,364

5,231

2,847

1,964

31,254

1,241

8,344

19,165

1,297

1,235

2000

15,512

2,283

23,391

31,951

1,281

3,460

15,370

14,901

20,714

6,355

3,994

2,171

40,513

1,515

9,982

24,392

1,728

1,505

2010 NA

NA

NA

NA

NA

NA

NA

NA

NA

NA

NA

NA

NA

NA

NA

NA

NA

NA

−51.0

−4.1

3.1

NA

NA

4.7

NA

12.0

6.1

0.5

5.3

NA

2.5 −1.3

−2.2

1.0 NA

NA

4.0

7.2

−10.1 3.6

−0.4

−1.8 3.4

−1.4

3.5

1.1

1.6

9.0

3.2

−1.9

−4.3

1.6

4.8

3.7

25.7

5.1

0.6

3.6

2.5

3.7

5.7

3.1

6.6

(continued)

8.0

6.6

6.8

3.7

4.1

5.1

5.8

6.5

1.6

NA

10.9

5.7

5.8

1.7

1.9

8.0

6.5

−1.9 5.5

2010

9.9

2000

6.1

0.4

0.8

NA

5.6

−2.7

6.7

NA

4.2

5.6

−4.7 2.2

4.3 6.1

NA

3.3

3.6

5.2

1990

2.7

−16.0

NA

0.5

6.3

2.6

1980

NA

NA

9.7

6.2

8.7

1970

NA

1960

GDP growth (annual %) NA GDP growth (annual %)

82,950

1960

65,578

Population (in hundreds of thousand)

48,333

Country

35,426

22,553

Ethiopia

28,959

Population (in hundreds of thousand)

Country

Table 1 (continued)

730 S. O. Oloruntoba et al.

3,048

42

2,187

2,819

17,396

3,242

8,319

349

10,074

1,578

4,221

6,788

3,045

3,752

Sao Tome and Principe

Senegal

Seychelles

Sierra Leone

Somalia

South Africa

South Sudan

Sudan

Swaziland

Tanzania

Togo

Tunisia

Uganda

Zambia

Zimbabwe

3,749

5,206

4,139

9,446

5,127

2,097

13,605

446

10,908

3,857

22,087

3,601

2,593

54

4,096

74

5,179

7,289

5,775

12,662

6,384

2,667

18,686

603

15,097

4,974

27,576

6,436

3,162

64

5,414

95

Source World Bank (2013), Africa Development Indicators

2,771

64

Rwanda

75,543

1980

2000

10,202 12,509

10,469

24,213

9,564

4,794

34,038

1,011

27,556

6,631

44,000

7,399

4,143

81

9,506

141

8,098

123,689

7,860

17,700

8,154

3,666

25,479

863

20,457

6,037

35,200

6,599

3,982

70

7,242

116

7,110

97,552

1990

2010

12,571

12,926

33,425

10,549

6,028

44,841

1,056

33,604

9,948

49,991

9,331

5,868

87

12,434

165

10,624

158,423

NA

NA

NA

NA

NA

NA

NA

NA

NA

NA

NA

NA

NA

NA

NA

NA

NA

22.6

4.8

NA

4.7

2.5

NA

NA

5.9

NA

5.2

NA

8.6

8.9

8.6

NA

6.0

25.0

1970

7.5

14.4

3.0

NA

7.4

14.6

NA

12.4

1.5

NA

6.6

NA

2010

9.6

−3.1 7.0

7.6

3.5

−0.5

5.9

3.1

3.0

4.0

−0.8 4.7

7.0

4.9

1.9

5.1

NA

2.9

NA

5.3

5.6

4.1

NA

7.2

8.0

6.5

7.9

-0.2

7.0

1.8

8.4

−5.5 21.0

NA

4.2

−0.3 NA

NA

6.7

4.2

3.2

NA

3.3

−2.5 4.8

−0.7

−3.3

NA

8.3

NA

−2.4

2000 5.4

1990 8.2

NA

9.0

4.2

1980

1960

57,357

1970

1960

45,926

Nigeria

Population (in hundreds of thousand)

Country

GDP growth (annual %) GDP growth (annual %)

Population (in hundreds of thousand)

Country

Table 1 (continued)

39 Globalization, Poverty, and Development in Africa … 731

732

S. O. Oloruntoba et al.

that the developed countries climbed to reach their current level of development. As Wade (2005) argues, the current globalized system of accumulation has created a Mathew effect, in which the rich take more from the poor. Although Mkandawire (2010) would argue that the pursuit of development and the need to catch up with the West occupied some post-colonial African leaders in the early years of independence, the manner of the incorporation of the state in Africa to the circuit of global capital has rendered any such aspirations to Euro-modernity a less successful enterprise. While Africa might have derived some benefits from the globalization processes, in general, the continent has been at the receiving end. The third wave of democracy from the 1980s to the early 2000s (Huntington 1991) went hand in hand with neoliberal globalization. African countries were more or less forced into accepting the tenets of liberal democracy. Since adoption of liberal democratic values was made conditional to receiving aid and debt forgiveness, there has been commitment to democracy at national and continental levels since the early 1990s. The African Union adopted the “African Charter on Democracy, Elections, and Governance” in 2007. The central principles of the charter include commitment to rule of law, free and fair elections, independence of the judiciary, eradicating corruption, and good governance (African Union 2007). Democratization is also central to the current development agenda in Africa captured in Agenda 2063 (African Union Commission 2014). The nature of democracy in most parts of the continent is however limited to the tenets of liberal democracy measured by guarantee of fundamental human rights, rule of law, constitutionalism, periodic and fair elections, free press, among others. The development of a people-centered democracy hinged on accountability and engendering the dividends of development has witnessed scant emphasis. Thus, what obtained has been described as voting without choosing, choiceless democracy as well as democratization of disempowerment (Mkandawire 2010). The concern of international observers, especially those from the West on democracy in Africa is the conduct of elections and meeting of the nebulous “African standards”. If elections are conducted periodically, with or without change of government, there is little concern both by political gladiators and Western powers about how that democracy could translate to poverty reduction. The monetization of the electoral process in large democracies like Nigeria manifested, for instance, in buying of votes has called to question the value of liberal democracy on the continent. The absence of an indigenous democratic culture as well as enabling social, political, and economic conditions for this culture to develop threatens developmental governance and democratization in Africa (Clapham 1993 p. 424). For Amusan et al. (2017), the problem with democracy in Africa is the patrimonial culture where there is no absence of separation between the public and private realm (p. 47). This negates the central tenet of accountability in democracy. The weakness of critical institutions such as the Judiciary and the Parliament has resulted in the culture of impunity and what calls authority stealing in the case of Nigeria. What has emerged in the linkage between globalization and democracy in Africa is that whereas liberal democracy was adopted as part of the conditionalities for international support, the political economy environment as well as the required

39 Globalization, Poverty, and Development in Africa …

733

institutions is typically absent. As Oloruntoba (2018a) argues, leading scholars of democracy such as Francis Fukuyama, Larry Diamond, and Richard Joseph have started to query the optimism that they once held that liberal democracy will promote development. These scholars argue that, some countries that fall below the standard of liberal democracy in terms of rule of law, protection of political and civil rights, among others such as Rwanda, Ethiopia, and Tanzania are currently posing higher level of economic growth and some improvements in the living conditions of the citizens (Diamond 2015; Fukuyama 2013; Joseph 2016). Hobson (2012) alludes to the negative effects of subordinating politics to the logic of market economy and how this affects redistribution. When the capacity of the state to mediate the rampaging profit motive of capitalists is absent, what remains is democracy without development (Ake 1996). Globalization stands as a façade for neoimperialism, largely benefiting only one partner, the developed countries. Reversing this equation requires African countries to engage in more beneficial relationships in the global capitalist system. Amin (1990, 2002) discusses this as delinking from the exploitative global capitalist system, where third world countries direct external relationship to the benefit of their internal conditions, on their own terms.

Globalization, Poverty, and Development in Africa In this section, we focus on the roles of the state, local, and international elites, including political actors, multinational corporations, and international financial institutions as well as class and markets, which represent the forces of demand and supply that impact on economic activities. The nature and character of these elements have continuously shaped the continent’s development paradox and its response to the dynamics of globalization. For instance, since the 1980s, international development agencies such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have been playing critical roles in fashioning policies that affect developmental outcomes in Africa and other peripheral regions of the world. The conception of the state has been subject to divergent ideological interpretations informed by normative and empirical postulations such as the origin and purpose of the state as well as its link to the core of global capitals such as Britain, France, and United States of America. In this regard, two broad dimensions have informed understanding of the state and its character. These are the Marxist and liberal approaches (Nasong’o 2018; Stepan 1978). The instrumentalist nature of the state advanced by the Marxist approach emphasizes the state as a tool in the hand of the ruling class who own and control the means of production. This class utilizes the state in advancing and protecting its interest. This is reflected in Marx and Engel (1986) assertion that “the executive of the modern State is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie” (p. 36). Similarly, Ekeh (1975) discusses the post-colonial state in Africa as civil public where individuals pursue material accumulation with little or no sense of responsibility.

734

S. O. Oloruntoba et al.

The post-colonial state in Africa has emerged as the most coveted means of accumulation as it has continued to manifest the character of the colonial state that preceded it. The dominant classes at the local and international levels have perfected the art of using the state for accumulation through rents, perks, and primitive diversion of national patrimony to personal ends. This explains the failure of the state to engender development evident in the eradication of poverty and other forms of socio-economic crisis, as the state is oriented toward advancing the interests of the privileged few who control its machinery. Nkrumah (1957) underscoring this development in the aftermath of colonialism asserts that “Seek ye first the political kingdom, and all things shall be added unto you” (p. 164). But as Mazrui (1999) would argue, Nkrumah’s expectation was misplaced because acquiring political kingdom without corresponding economic power has done little to improve the conditions of Africa post-independence. Robinson (2004, 2010) extends the Marxist conceptualization of the state, through what he calls the theory of global capitalism, in which he establishes a link between the state and other members of the Transnational Capitalist Class (TCC), including international financial institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund as well as multinational institutions. The TCC, he argues, has profit maximization and accumulation as their core objectives. As a way of achieving this, they establish a global economic system that favors the market at the expense of the public. Rather than advancing the welfare of the citizens, state officials, especially, in developing countries are recruited and rewarded as members of this class to advance and protect the interests of the Transnational Capitalist Class, through award of juicy contracts, payment of kickbacks, and all forms of patronage. The liberal approach to understanding the state on the other hand has emerged from the work of social contract theorists such as Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Jean Jacque Rousseau, among others. The state, in this regard, possesses more autonomy as it regulates the interaction of individuals in the society to forestall breakdown of law and order. The state provides the enabling environment in terms of welfare, laws, security of lives, and properties for the existence of individuals. Accumulation as a function of who gets what, when and how is regulated by the hidden hand of the market, rather than through the instrumentality of the state as advanced by the Marxian approach. The liberal conception of the state as a restricted actor undervalues the nature of the state that has emerged in Africa. This is illustrated in the understanding of the emergence of the modern state on the continent. Yet, through series of exchanges, the state in Africa has become subordinated to the logic of neo-imperial designs that ensure the state lacks autonomy as well as capacity to formulate appropriate policies that can bring about development (Ndlovu-Gatsheni 2013). The implication of this is that the state that emerged was in disconnect with the society it sought to organize (Otunnu 2018, p. 64). Shivji (1980) and Taylor (2014) also emphasize the lack of embeddedness of the elites in post-colonial Africa into the society. Lacking in a unified ideology of development and faced with difficulty in building nation-state out of the mosaic of diverse nationalities, many of the political elites resorted to the promotion of ethnicity and religious identities as a means of building legitimacy (Ki-Zerbo 2005). Thus, legitimacy in this state was guaranteed

39 Globalization, Poverty, and Development in Africa …

735

through the instrumentality of force. Gana (1985) explains that the colonial state in Africa was strong in coercion, but weak in autonomy (p. 117). Competition between the indigenous elite class created by colonialism and the colonial powers for control of the instrumentality of the state in the process of accumulation triggered fight for independence across sub-Saharan Africa, shortly after gaining political independence (Ki-Zerbo 2005; Mkandawire 2005). At independence, the indigenous elite class controlled the machinery of the state. Failure to reform the nature of the post-colonial state as an instrument of exploitation and expropriation enabled this class to consolidate its stronghold on the political economy of the independent states. This was done through the transformation of the independent government to authoritarian regimes and one-party states. This development increased the coercive apparatus of the state, while reducing its autonomy. In many instances, African states consequently transformed into patrimonial states where the state is seen as an extension of the ruler’s estate for rent-seeking and distribution (Ottoh 2018, p. 344). Intra-class competition among the elite class led to civil wars, secessionist movements, and political instability in countries like Nigeria and Congo, Uganda, Sudan, Ethiopia, and Eritrea. Due to the economic challenges of the state in Africa in the 1980s through the 1990s, the market was touted as a viable alternative to the state in organizing the society (Tomori 1995, p. 242) in the context of the prevalent neoliberal principles underscoring the globalization agenda. The dominance of the market forces or the invisible hand of the market is to ensure uninhibited production, distribution, and exchange to yield utmost benefit for the society at large. This goal is reflected in the Structural Adjustment Programs imposed on sub-Saharan countries as part of conditionalities for fiscal support from the IMF and World Bank. These institutions required that African countries should liberalize trade and finance, cut back on social spending, rationalize staff of public service, and devalue currencies. About thirty-five African countries signed into the Structural Adjustment Programs from the 1980s to the 1990s. Despite resistance from critical voices such as labor unions, student bodies, and other professionals, the state was forced to ram through the bitter bills of structural adjustment on the citizens. The resultant effects were massive poverty and inequality across the length and breadth of the adjusting countries (Tables 2 and 3). More than three decades after the imposition of the structural adjustment programs, both the World Bank and the IMF have acknowledged the deficiencies in the reform packages both in terms of its content and sequence (World Bank 2018). While economic and political reforms might be necessary, such should incorporate other elements such as investment in human resources and infrastructures, building institutional capacity, and ensuring developmental governance (Khan 2012). To the extent that the reform packages imposed on African countries lacked these ingredients, the resultant failures of the reforms were the inevitable outcomes. The failure of market-oriented strategy to guarantee development over the years underscores the need to substitute the centrality of the market for the state as the dominant mechanism for controlling production, distribution, and exchange. Weakness,

21.2

Domestic credit (per cent annual change)

100.0

Food crop price index/urban wage rate indexc 127.0

124.0

92.6

22.8

19.2

12.7

127.0

140.0

90.7

21.1

12.5

12.7

153.0

144.0

85.4

17.4

10.0

11.5

25.6

−4.0

−7.3

3.3

1983

177.0

158.0

73.6

12.0

17.2

12.0

21.6

0.1

−6.4

6.5

1984

143.0

163.0

79.1

15.8

18.4

10.3

19.8

0.4

−7.3

7.7

1985

145.0

174.0

113.5

15.5

15.5

6.8

20.5

−3.2

−7.9

4.7

1986

–

–

168.6

–

–

7.2

23.1

-3.3

−7.2

3.9

1987

–

–

–

–

–

8.3

21.7

−4.0

−7.1

3.1

1988

Source World Bank (1989a, 1990a, and 1991b), IMF (1988, 1989, and 1990), and Development Committee (1988: 36) as cited in (1993, p. 16)

100.0

crop price index/urban wage rate indexc

100.0

16.1

Growth of money supply (per cent annual change)

Real effective exchange rate

12.5

Consumer prices-median estimate (per cent annual change)

indexb

24.6

Consumer prices – weighted average (per cent annual change)

19.2

−5.5 29.3

-8.4 −6.7

−8.1

1.4

−6.3

Overall balance (per cent of GDP)

Government balance (per cent of GDP)

1.7

1982

2.6

1981

7.7

1980

Private sector balance (per cent of GDP)a

Variable

Table 2 Macroeconomic variables in Africa (1980–1989)

–

–

–

–

–

8.8

19.6

−3.0

−6.9

3.9

1989

736 S. O. Oloruntoba et al.

39 Globalization, Poverty, and Development in Africa …

737

Table 3 Sub-Saharan Africa Debt Burden (1982–1990) 1982

1986

1990 (E)

Total debt disbursed and outstanding (DOD)

71.69

116.72

159.69

Of which:

20.35

41.40

64.59

Officia bilateral Official multilateral

15.46

28.51

42.88

Private long-term guaranteed (LTG)

22.26

27.51

29.61

Private LT unguaranteed (LTU)

3.89

5.36

7.31

Private short-term (STD)

9.73

13.94

15.30

Total private DOD

36.72

45.50

54.83

Interest arrears due

0.83

2.76

72.48

Note (E) = estimated figures Source Percy S. Mistry, African Debt Revisited, Amsterdam: AWEPAA, 1991, p. 18 as cited in Mailafia (1997, p. 116)

fragility, and other pathologies of the state in neocolonial social formations underscore the imperative to reconstitute the state economically, culturally, politically, and so on for its effectiveness (Kieh 2009). Van der Waldt (2015) categorizes government intervention in stimulating development into two, namely, regulatory (laws and policies) and facilitatory (programs, projects, and strategies). The centrality of the state in organizing the political economy to engender development is reflected in the emergence of developmental states in East Asia in 1970–1990s, and increasingly in countries like Rwanda, Mauritius, and Ethiopia in Africa (Dawn 2019). The secret behind the success of East Asian economies transcends effective economic policies. The success story was arrived at through the implementation of relevant policies with the state playing the key role in regulating the economy. These states direct the market in achieving the set developmental agenda such as export promotion, reducing poverty, employment, and so on. Despite the challenges of the state in Africa, the few states mentioned above are showing the way in what is possible where political elites are focused on socio-economic transformation of the society. Whereas, other states in Africa have pandered to the dictates of the market through the various reforms, Rwanda, Ethiopia, and increasingly Tanzania are adopting a mix of home-grown economic policies and a calculated engagement with the global capitalist system to bring about positive change. Although experiences of these countries are different and may not be easily replicated in other parts of the continent, they provide some level of hope that a state led by purposeful leadership can achieve positive developmental outcome in Africa. The economic growth achieved by Ethiopia is attributable to the role played by the government in concert with the private sector, foreign firms, and development partners (Shiferaw 2017). Current estimates from the World Bank indicate that extreme poverty in Africa witnessed a decline from 57% in 1990 to 43% in 2012. Recent data from United Nations Development Programme and Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (2019) show the extent of poverty in Africa (Figs. 2 and 3).

S. O. Oloruntoba et al.

2007-2017

% of population living below $1.90 per day

738

Select African countries

Sub-Saharan Africa

South Asia

Lan America and the Caribbean

Europe and Central Asia

East Asia and the Pacific

50 45 40 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 Arab States

% of Populaon living below $1.90 per day 2007-2017

Fig. 2 Poverty level of African Countries measured by living below $1.90 per day. Source United Nations Development Programme and Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (2019)

Regions

Fig. 3 Poverty level by regions measured by living below $1.90 per day. Source United Nations Development Programme and Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (2019)

39 Globalization, Poverty, and Development in Africa …

739

Table 4 Poverty indices in Africa Indices

Proportion

Maternal mortality ratio (deaths per 100,000 live births)

549 (2015 est.)

Population with quality sanitation facilities

28.1% (2015 est.)

Population with quality sources of drinking water

23.2% (2015 est.)

Population with access to internet (2016)

20% (2016 est.)

HIV adult (15–49) prevalence rate

4.5% (2016 est.)

Life expectancy

53.7 years (2016 est.)

Source Computed from UNDP (2018)

Sub-Saharan Africa has an average poverty rate of approximately 41%. Of the 28 poverty-stricken countries on the globe, 27 of them are found in the Sub-Saharan African region with poverty rates above 30%. Extreme poverty in sub-Saharan Africa has improved minimally as countries may be kept from ending extreme poverty by 2030, following forecasts from the World Bank. Simultaneously, Africa has experienced population explosion culminating in an increase in the population of those living in abject poverty by about 100 million. Further research suggests that Africa has the highest number of poverty-stricken people on the globe (World Bank 2016). The menace of poverty in Africa has been exacerbated by conflicts and civil wars, political instability, droughts, climate change, high external debt portfolio, and the spread of HIV/AIDS pandemic (Arimah 2004). The continent’s poverty quagmire is reflected in the Table 4. Lately, poverty has been viewed as the result of the deprivation of basic capabilities, promotion of reduced life expectancy, health, participation, personal security, environmental pollution and degradation, and disempowerment which deprives people from earning a living (Sen 1999). Poverty exceeds the lack or insufficiency of income rhetoric which gives a more nuanced understanding of the causes and makes allowance for the devising of more powerful anti-poverty strategies. African states embraced human development strategies in order to mitigate incidences of pervasive poverty in their domain. However, the continent continues to suffer from the effects of the structural adjustment programs of the 1980 and 1990s. For instance, membership of the World Trade Organization and the trade liberalization that followed led to the collapse of textile industry in different parts of the continent. This was due to cheap imports from relatively more developed and developing countries such as China and India, but also Europe and the United States of America. As Page (2016) argues, industrialization has not developed to its potentials in Africa. Whereas, the World Bank and the IMF advise Africa to concentrate on exports of raw materials as a means of generating capital, scholars have argued that this only produces more macroeconomic problems through acquisition of new debts and imposition of more austerity measures (Blad et al. 2017) Debt can be productive if they are invested in capital projects such as building infrastructures like roads, rail lines, ports, and supporting education and health. But whereas domestic and external

740

S. O. Oloruntoba et al.

debts are used to service the ostentatious lifestyles of political elites; they constitute disincentive to development. Relatedly, despite the much avowed commitment to an open international trade system, (before the new turn in protectionism and populism), developed countries have continued to subside farmers to the tune of billions of dollars and euros per year. These subsides make imports of agricultural products from Africa to be noncompetitive, thus depriving the continent of much-needed revenue (Soludo 2012). Loss of revenue from agricultural produce robs Africa of the much-needed incentives to propel its economy forward by making it a highly competitive one in the international economic system. Lack of insurance, storage facilities, corruption in the agricultural sector, diversion of World Bank assisted program funds intended for agricultural development, and the inability of the state to provide incentives meant to alleviate agricultural challenges, especially amongst farming communities. This accounts for the continent’s subservient or dependent nature on the West for survival (Salami et al. 2010). Land reform in countries like Zimbabwe further plunged the economy into a crisis as white farmers were dispossessed of their farms, reducing agricultural productivity, and leading to a mass exodus of citizens to neighboring states like South Africa (Mkodzongi and Lawrence 2019). Financialization of the global economy and the attendant liberalization of finance have also made it possible for multinational companies to engage in illicit financial flows, with the result that Africa loses about $50–70 billion annually (Oloruntoba 2018b. The cumulative effects of these twin processes of trade and finance liberalization, which were part of the conditionalities of the 1980s, led to the reduction in human development in Africa. In confronting the poverty epidemic and the challenges of development, many countries have nationally initiated Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) as proposals to attract donor funding. The United Nations also introduced the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) which provided the yardstick through which states and donor agencies can measure the success or otherwise of poverty eradication (CPRC 2004). The first MDG goal highlights the essence of poverty reduction by 2015. More recently, the Sustainable Development Goals of making poverty history and leaving no one behind by 2030 is framed in the mold of the previous international commitment to eradicate poverty. As Oloruntoba (2017) argues, regardless of the soundness of the agenda or the depth of these goals, as long as the current logic of capitalist accumulation remains, which reify profit for few at the expense of welfare of many, poverty will continue to be the defining feature of the peripheral regions of the world.

Imperative for Alternative Development for Africa There have been various approaches to mediating globalization and its effects on development in different regions of the world. In East Asia and some parts of Africa, the idea of developmental state has been promoted as a strategy or policy framework for development. Developmental state was coined by Johnson (1982) in a research

39 Globalization, Poverty, and Development in Africa …

741

about the Ministry of Trade and Industry in Japan based on its concrete plans to encourage industrialization. Amsden’s thesis (1989) and Wade’s (1990) on Korea and Taiwan followed suit with similar studies. The end of the twentieth century saw the emergence of the developmental state paradigm with different approaches by proponents. Developmental state has emerged as one of the alternative paths to development for African countries away from the tenets of the neoliberalism advocated by the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and other development merchants within the context of globalization. The understanding of developmental state has been shaped by the experiences of East Asian countries of South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan. Central to these experiences is the imperative of the state as a central actor in the development agenda in terms of articulating the developmental ideology and implementing this agenda via relevant structures and institutions (Öni¸s 1991). This contrasts with the restrictive role of the state advanced by the liberal approach and its variant. By submitting to the hegemony of finance capital, there is a sense in which the West want weak states (Stiglitz 2010). Stiglitz shows how finance capital in Washington subverts regulatory institutions that caused free fall of the economy in 2008–2009. The developmental state directs other agencies of development such as market, class, institutions, and civil society in achieving the goal of development. Central to the developmental state is a development-oriented bureaucracy responsible for formulating and implementing developmental policies, a bourgeoisie class that is national in character and patriotic in sentiment in close alliance with the state for development, and a vibrant manufacturing sector engaging in productive activities (Johnson 1982; Amsden 1989; Evans 1989; Beeson 2006). The feasibility of developmental state in sub-Saharan Africa is confronted by critics. Encapsulated in the impossibility theorem, challenges of replicating developmental state in Africa are explained by the unfavorable conditions of the global capitalist system due to the rise of globalization, inability to replicate developmental institutions in Africa due to contextual issues, such as the nature and character of the state in which the state lacks embeddedness in the society, lacks a coherent ideology of development, and so on (Musamba 2010, pp. 30–33). The experiences of Botswana, Rwanda, and Mauritius negating the impossibility theorem stand as examples of the practicability of developmental state in Africa. Biedermann (2016) discusses the character of the post-genocide Rwanda developmental state with a reformed and efficient bureaucracy as well as alliance between the state and capital to foster economic development, as central components. The emergence of developmental elites, who judiciously managed the resources of these countries, offers alternative developmental outcomes from the predatory elites that have ruled over many countries in post-colonial Africa. The failure of the political elites in post-independent Africa to achieve inclusive development is not lost to the multilateral institutions such as the United Nations Organizations and its various organs. The global approach to confronting Africa’s developmental crisis is encapsulated in the emergence of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In September 2015, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) replaced the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) with the aim of reducing

742

S. O. Oloruntoba et al.

poverty, attaining gender equality, and ensuring food security globally by 2030. It has been argued by civil society and UN member states that these goals and targets (17 Goals and 169 targets) be given a time period before actualizing them. This made the UN Secretary General state that the SDGs are people’s agenda, a plan of action for eradicating poverty in all its dimensions, irreversibly, everywhere, and leaving no one behind (Ki-moon 2015). The SDGs are founded after the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and seek to complement the shortcomings (of the MDGs), as well as respond to new challenges (UN 2015). Top of the agenda of the SDGs is poverty eradication as Hulme (2015) affirms that the SDGs have signaled the end of development as poverty reduction. Goal-1 of the SDGs says: “End poverty in all its forms everywhere”. The first target of this goal precisely states that “by 2030, eradicate extreme poverty for all people everywhere, currently measured as people living on less than $1.25 a day” (UN 2015b). Despite the loftiness of the goals, there are no concrete strategies to realize them, as the structures of the global economy remain unchanged (Oloruntoba Oloruntoba (2017); Wade 2011). Against the preceding background, resolving the challenge of poverty and development confronting Africa will require a new commitment to developmentalism that is rooted in the local experiences and environment of the people. The current retreat of globalization as the new turn to protectionism in the West provides African countries with a unique opportunity to restructure their internal economies, through investment in industrialization and services, reform politics to be developmental, and accelerate the process of integration. The African Continental Free Trade Area provides an opportunity for African countries to renegotiate their terms of engagement with other parts of the world. Achieving the above requires more decisive leadership, anchored on an ideology of development, which has at its core, the promotion of welfare and expansion of democratic rights. Learning experiences from South East Asia where a cautious engagement with the globalization processes underpinned by the presence of initial conditions such as infrastructure, human capital development and sound macroeconomic policies, culture of hardwork, prudence, and relative disposition to accountability led to appreciable level of growth and development could guide African countries toward a brighter future, where the massive human and material resources could be harnessed to achieve developmental outcomes. Unlike many African countries that have been made to adopt neoliberal economic doctrine of no alternative to the market, East Asian countries adopted home-grown trade and industrial policies that allowed for manufacturing and production for exports. This job-creating approach led to decades of progressive economic growth, which lifted millions of people out of poverty in countries like China, India, and South Korea (Oloruntoba 2016). Although conditions in East Asia are markedly different from Africa, mixture of home-grown strategies which is anchored on selfreliance, investment in human resources and technology, more coherent strategy of engagement with other regions of the world in trade and investment, higher degree of intra-African trade and mobility of factors of production, visionary and ethical leadership, effective states, and active citizens (Green 2008) could foster a better outcome for the continent in terms of development.

39 Globalization, Poverty, and Development in Africa …

743

Conclusion This chapter has discussed globalization, poverty, and the status of development in sub-Saharan Africa, noting the impact of the evolution of the state, elites, and the market. The globalization processes have led to different outcomes in Africa. While externally imposed programs such as the structural adjustment programs have led to the withering of state capacity, de-industrialization, and general reduction in the role of the state to foster welfare, there are some positive outcomes in terms of contributions of services to gross domestic products of some African countries such as Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, and Ghana. Globalization has also brought about revolution in information communication technology. Telephony and access to internet has increased and penetrated with the result that there is an emerging digital economy on the continent. Despite these new changes, majority of citizens on the continent have been excluded from the process as they lack the required skills to participate in the globalization processes. Engendering development in Africa in an increasingly integrated world requires collaboration among the central agents of development namely state, elites, and market around a consensus developmental agenda. This agenda which should be emphasized must be based on self-reliance in order to actualize sustainable development. Political reforms should go beyond the current practice where voting without choosing is increasingly becoming the norm in large democracies like Nigeria and Democratic Republic of Congo like manipulation of the electoral process through rigging, vote buying, and state-sponsored violence during elections. Economic reforms should also go beyond market principles to include an active trade and industrial policies that can facilitate manufacturing and job-creating industrialization. The informal sector constitutes the chunk of many economies in Africa. The potentials inherent in this sector, which provide employment for people outside the formal structure, need to be harnessed to boost improvement in the standard of living for Africans. In many instances, people operating in the informal sector, especially, those engaged in informal cross-border trade are harassed by security agencies and treated with scorn. However, given the space that this sector provides for job creation, more support is needed from the government to build capacity and enhance more productivity.

References African Union. 2014. High Level Panel on Illicit Financial Flows in Africa, Addis Ababa: African Union. African Union Commission. 2014. Agenda 2063: The Africa we want. Addis Ababa. Agyepong I.A, Sewankambo N, Binagwaho A. et al. 2018. The Path to Longer and Healthier Lives for All Africans by 2030: The Lancet Commission on the Future of Health in Sub-Saharan Africa. Lancet 390: 2803–2859. Ake, C. 1981. A Political Economy of Africa. New York: Longman Nigeria Plc. Ake, C. 1996. Democracy and Development in Africa. Maryland: Brookings Institution.

744

S. O. Oloruntoba et al.

Ake, C. 1994. Democratization of Disempowerment in Africa. Issue 1 of CASS Occasional Monograph. Lagos. Malthouse Press. Amin, S. 1990. Delinking: Towards a Polycentric World. London: Zed Books Ltd. Amin, S. 2011. Maldevelopment: Anatomy of a Global Failure. Oxford: Pambazuka Press. Amin, S. 2001. Imperialism and Globalisation. Monthly Review 53(2): 6–33. Amsden, A. 1989. Asia’s Next Giant: South Korea and Late Industrialization. New York: Oxford University Press. Amsden, A. 2012. Grass Roots War on Poverty. World Economic Review 1 (1): 114–131. Amusan, L., A. Jegede, and L. Saka. 2017. The Challenges of Democratisation in Africa: Evidence and the Way Forward for Nigeria. Journal of Administrative Sciences 15 (29): 43–69. Anand, S. and Sen, A. 1994. Sustainable Human Development: Concepts and Priorities. UNDP Occasional Paper Series, no. 8. New York: UNDP. Arimah, B. 2004. Poverty Reduction and Human Development in Africa. Journal of Human Development 5 (3): 399–415. Bayart, J. 1993. The State in Africa: The Politics of the Belly. New York: Longman. Beeson, M. 2006. Politics and Markets in East Asia: Is the Developmental State Compatible with Globalisation? In Political Economy and the Changing Global Order, eds. Stubbs, R. and Underhill, G.R.D. Ontario: Oxford University Press. Bhagwati, J. 2004. In Defense of Globalization. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bhavsar, V., and D. Bhugra. 2008. Globalization: Mental Health and Social Economic Factors. Global Social Policy 8 (3): 378–396. Biedermann, Z. 2016. The Case of Rwanda as a Developmental State. In Entrepreneurship and SME Management Across Africa, ed. L. Achtenhagen and E. Brundin, 139–157. Springer, Singapore: Frontiers in African Business Research. Blad, C., S. Oloruntoba, and J. Shefner. 2017. Course Corrections and Failed Rationales: How Comparative Advantage And Debt Are Used To Legitimise Austerity in Africa and Latin America. Third World Quarterly 38 (4): 822–843. Bradshaw, T.K. 2006. Theories of Poverty and Anti-Poverty Programmes in Community Development. In RPRC Working Paper No 06–05, Columbia: University of Missouri. Byrne, J.J. 2014. The Cold War in Africa. In The Routledge Handbook of the Cold War, ed. A.M. Kalinovsky and C. Daigle. New York: Routledge. CPRC. 2004. Chronic Poverty Report 2004–2005, Manchester. Available at www.chronicpover ty.org. Accessed 18 May 2019. Campbell J., G.D., Buchan J, et al. 2013. A Universal Truth: No Health Without a Workforce. Geneva: World Health Organization. Chabal, P., and J. Daloz. 1999. Africa Works: Disorder as Political Instrument. Oxford and Bloomington: James Currey and Indiana University Press. Chabal P., Daloz J. 2000. Africa works: Disorder as political instrument. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Chang, H.-J. 2007. Bad Samaritans, Rich Nations, Poor Policies, and the Threat to the Developing World. London: Random House. Chang, H.-J. 2003. Trade and Industrial Policy Issues. In Rethinking Development, ed. Chang H.-J., 1–24. London: Wimbledon Publishing Company. Chapuruka, K, Oka, R, Gotse, V. Dussubieve, L and Kusimba, S. 2017. Predatory Commerce and Economic Disaster; A Cautionary Tale from the 17th Century Indian Ocean Economy. In Africa and its Diaspora; History, Identities and Economy, ed. S. Oloruntoba. AUSTIN and Ibadan, Pan African University Press. Chilunjika, A., and D.E. Uwizeyimana. 2015. Tracing Policy Paradigm Shifts in the Zimbabwean Land Reform Discourse From 1980 to the Present. African Journal of Public Affairs 8 (3): 130–144. Clapham, C. 1993. Democratisation in Africa: Obstacles and Prospects. Third World Quarterly 14 (3): 423–438.

39 Globalization, Poverty, and Development in Africa …

745

Crisp N. 2011. Global Health Capacity and Workforce Development: Turning the World Upside Down. Infectious Disease Clinics North America 25: 359–367. Dawn M. 2019. Assessing developmental states in africa: Ethiopia, Mauritius and Rwanda, PhD Thesis submitted to the Department of Politics. University of Johannesburg, South Africa. Development Committee. 1988. Proposals for enhancing assistance to low-income countries that face exceptional difficulties. Pamphlet no. 16, Appendix A, prepared by the staff of the World Bank, Washington, D.C: World Bank and IMF. Diamond, L. 2015. The Democratic Recession. Journal of Democracy 26 (1): 141–155. Dominelli, L. 2007. Revatalising Communities in a Globalizing World. Hampshire, MA: Ashgate. Economist Intelligence Unit. 2014. The Future of Healthcare in Africa: Progress, Challenges and Opportunities. https://eiuperspectives.economist.com/sites/default/files/The%20future% 20of%20healthcare%20in%20Africa%20-%20progress%2C%20challenges%20and%20oppo rtunities_1.pdf. Accessed 24 Aug 2019. Economist Intelligence Unit. 2017. EIU Democracy Index 2016. https://infographics.economist. com/2017/DemocracyIndex/. Accessed 24 Aug 2019. Ekeh, P. 1975. Colonialism and the Two Publics in Africa: A Theoretical Statement. Comparative Studies in Society and History 17 (1): 91–112. Evans, P. 1989. Predatory, Developmental and Other State-Apparatuses. A Comparative Political Economy Perspective on the Third World State. Sociological Forum 4 (4): 561–587. Evans, P. 2014b. The Korean Experience and the Twenty-First-Century Transition to a CapabilityEnhancing Developmental State. In Learning from the South Korean Developmental Success: Effective Developmental Cooperation and Synergistic Institutions and Policies, ed. I. Yi and T. Mkandawire, 31–53. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Fukuyama, F. 2013. Democracy and the Quality of the State. Journal of Democracy. 24 (4): 5–16. Gana, A. 1985. The State in Africa: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow. International Political Science Review 6 (1): 115–132. Green, D. 2008. From Poverty to Power: How Effective States and Active Citizens Can Change the World. Great Britain: Oxfam. Hobson, C. 2012. Liberal Democracy and Beyond: Extending the Sequencing Debate. International Political Science Review 33(4). Hulme, D. 2015. The SGDs Mark the End of Development as Poverty Reduction, Online Accessed from http://developmentatmanchester.com/2015/10/01/the-sdgs-mark-the-end-of-developmentaspovertyreduction. Accessed 18 May 2019. Huntington, S.P. 1991. The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press. International Monetary Fund (IMF). 1988. World Economic Outlook – April. Washington, D.C. International Monetary Fund (IMF). 1989. World Economic Outlook – April. Washington, D.C International Monetary Fund (IMF). 1990. World Economic Outlook – May. Washington, D.C. Johnson, C. 1982. MITI and the Japanese Miracle: The Growth of Industrial Policy 1925–1975. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Joseph, R. 1987. Democracy and Prebendal Politics in Nigeria: The Rise and Fall of the Second Republic. Cambridge: University Press. Joseph, R. 2016. The Nigeria Prospect: Democratic Resilience and Global Turmoil. https://africa plus.wordpress.com/2016/03/31/the-nigerian-prospect-democratic-resilience-amid-global-tur moil. Accessed 10 March 2017. Kamruzzaman, P. 2016. A Critical Note on Poverty Eradication Target of Sustainable Development Goals. European Journal of Sustainable Development 5 (2): 75–86. Khan, M. 2012. Governance and Growth: History, Ideology and Methods of Proof. In Good Governance and Growth, ed. A. Noman et al. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ki-moon, B. 2015. Sustainable Development Goals ‘Leave no One Behind. The Guardian online Accessed from http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2015/aug/03/ban-kimoon-hails-sgdsagreed-by-193-nations-as-leaving-no-one-behind. Accessed 18 May 2019.

746

S. O. Oloruntoba et al.

Ki-zerbo, J. 2005. Joseph Ki-Zerbo African Intellectuals, nationalism and pan-Africanism: a Testimony. In African Intellectuals-Rethinking Politics, Language, Gender and Development, T. Mkandawire (ed.), 81. M Dakar: CODESRIA. Kieh, G.K. 2009. The State and Political Instability in Africa. Journal of Developing Societies 25 (1): 1–25. https://doi.org/10.1177/0169796X0902500101. Kringos DS, Boerma WG, Hutchinson A, et al. 2010. The Breadth of Primary Care: A Systematic Literature Review of Its Core Dimensions. BMC Health Services Research 10:65. Kusimba C.M., Oka R.C., Gogte V.D., Dussubieux L., Kusimba S.B. 2017. Predatory commerce and economic disaster: A cautionary tale from the 17th Century Indian Ocean economy. In: Oloruntoba, S.O (eds.) Africa and Its Diasporas: History, Identity and Economics. Austin: PanAfrican University Press Mailafia, O. 1997. Europe and Economic Reform in Africa: Structural Adjustment and Economic Diplomacy. London: Routledge. Marx, K., and F. Engels. 1986. The Manifesto of the Communist Party. Moscow: Progress Publishers. Mazrui, A. 1999. Seek Ye First the Political Kingdom. In General History of Africa, ed. Ali Mazrui. Oxford: James Currey Ltd. Mehrotra, S., and E. Delamonica. 2007. Eliminating Human Poverty: Macroeconomic and Social Policies for Equitable Growth. London: Zed Books. Mkandawire, T. 2005. African Intellectuals, Political Culture and Development. Australasian Journal of Development Studies XVIII, 1 (2002): 31–47. Mkandawire, T. 2010. Running While Others Walk: Knowledge and the Challenge of African Development, 17. London School of Economics and Political Science, December: Inaugural Lecture. Mkandawire, T. 2011. Running While Others Walked: Knowledge and the Challenge of Africa’s Development. Africa Development XXXVI (2). Mkodzongi, G., and P. Lawrence. 2019. The Fast-Track Land Reform and Agrarian Change in Zimbabwe. Review of African Political Economy 46 (159): 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1080/030 56244.2019.1622210. Musamba, C. 2010. The Developmental State Concept and Its Relevance for Africa. In The Developmental State in Africa: Problems and Prospects, ed. P. Meyns and C. Musamba. Institute for Development and Peace: University of Duisburg-Essen. Nasong’o, S. 2018. Competing Theories and Concepts in Politics, Governance and Development. In The Palgrave Handbook of African Governance, Politics and Development, eds. S. Oloruntoba and T. Falola, 35–56. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Ndlovu-Gatsheni S. 2013 Decolonial Epistemic Perspective and Pan-African Unity in the 21st Century. In The African Union Ten Years After, eds. Munchie, M., Lukhele-Olorunju, P. and Akpor, O., 385–409. Pretoria: African Institute of South Africa. Nkrumah, K. 1957. Ghana: The Autobiography of Kwame Nkrumah. Edinburgh: Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd. Oloruntoba, S.O. 2016. Democratization and Poverty in Nigeria: Exploring the Link between Politics and Poverty in Middle Income Countries. In Poverty and Inequality in Middle Income Countries: Policy Achievements, Political Obstacles, eds. J. May, G Wright and E. Breathen, 123–214. London and New York: Zed Books/CROP, University of Bergen, Norway. Oloruntoba, S.O. 2017. Global Regulation and the Quest for Development Post-2015. In From Millennium Development Goals to Post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals: The Travails of International Development, eds. S. Zondi and T. Philani, 166–186. Cape Town: CTP Printers in association with Institute for Global Dialogue. Oloruntoba, S.O. 2018a In Whose Interest? Liberal Democracy, Inequality and the Imperatives of Alternative Politics: Nigeria and South Africa in Comparative Perspectives. New South African Review 6: 102–114. Oloruntoba, S.O. 2018b Illicit Financial Flows and Africa’s Development Conundrum. In Palgrave Handbook of African Politics, Governance and Development, eds. S. Oloruntoba, S. and T. Falola, 619–632. New York: Palgrave.

39 Globalization, Poverty, and Development in Africa …

747

Onimode, B. 1995. Planning for South-South Co-operation. In Issues in African Development: Essays in Honour of Adebayo Adedeji at 65, ed. B. Onimode and R. Synge. Ibadan: Heinemann Educational Books Nigeria Plc. Ottoh, F.O. 2018. Ethnic Identity and Conflicts in Africa. In The Palgrave Handbook of African Politics, Governance and Development, ed. S.O. Oloruntoba and T. Falola. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Otunnu, O. 2018. Theory of the Crises of the State. In The Palgrave Handbook of African Politics, Governance and Development, ed. S.O. Oloruntoba and T. Falola. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Öni¸s, Z. 1991. The Logic of the Developmental State. Comparative Politics 24(1): 109–126. Page, J. 2016. Africa’s Industrialization: Reversing the Decline. Available at: https://www.odi.org/ events/4319-africa-industrialisation. Accessed 3 June 2017. Pogge, T. and Sengupta, M. 2015. The Sustainable Development Goals: A Plan for Building a Better World? Journal of Global Ethics 11(1): 556–564. Robinson, W. 2004. A Theory of Globalization Capitalism: Production, Class, and State in a Transnational World. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press. Robinson, W. 2010. Global Capitalism Theory and the Emergence of Transnational Elites, Working Paper No. 2010/02, Finland: World Institute for Development Economics and Research, United Nations University. Rodney, W. 1981. How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. Washington DC: Howard University Press. Rodrik, D. 2004. Rethinking growth policies in the developing world. Luca d’Agliano Lecture in Development Economics delivered on October 8, 2004. Torino, Italy. Rodrik, D. 2007. One Economics, Many Recipes: Globalization. Institutions and Economic Growth. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Salami, A, Kamara, B and Brixiova, Z. 2010. Smallholder Agriculture in East Africa: Trends, Constraints and Opportunities. African Development Bank Group Working Paper Series No 105. Seers, D. 1968. From Colonial Economics to Development Studies, Institute of Development Studies Bulletin, 4–6. Sen, A. 1999. Development as Freedom. New York: Knopf. Shiferaw, A. 2017. Productive Capacity and Economic Growth in Ethiopia. CPD Background Paper No 34. New York: Department of Economic and Social Affairs. United Nations. Shivji, I. 1980. The State in the Dominated Social Formations in Africa: Some Theoretical Issues. International Social Science Journal 32(4). Soludo, C. 2012. Will Europe Underdevelop Africa Again? News African Magazine. Stepan, A. 1978. The State and Society: Peru in Comparative Perspective. New Jersey: Princeton University Press. Stiglitz, J. 2002. Globalization and Its Discontents. New York: W.W. Norton and Company Inc. Stiglitz, J. 2010. Freefall: America, Free Markets and the Sinking of the World Economy. New York: Norton. Tarp, F. 1993. Stabilization and Structural Adjustment: Macroeconomic Frameworks for Analyzing the Crisis in Sub-Saharan Africa. London: Routledge. Taylor, I. 2014. Africa Rising? BRICS-Diversifying Dependency, Martlesham and New York: James Currey. Todaro, P.M., and S.C. Smith. 2006. Economic Development, 9th ed. Harlow: Pearson Education. Tomori, S. 1995. Evolving a New Development Paradigm in Africa. In Issues in African Development: Essays in Honour of Adebayo Adedeji at 65, ed. B. Onimode and R. Synge. Ibadan: Heinemann Educational Books Nigeria Plc. UNDP. 2000. Human Development Report. New York: Oxford University Press. UNDP. 2018. Human Development Indices and Indicators: 2018 Statistical Update. New York: UNDP. UNFPA. 2018. The State of World Population 2018: The Power of Choice–Reproductive Rights and the Demographic Transition. New York: UN. Union, African. 2007. African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance. Addis Ababa: African Union.

748

S. O. Oloruntoba et al.

United Nations. 2015. Open Working Group Proposal for Sustainable Development Goals, online, Accessed from https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/focussdgs.html. Accessed 18 May 2019. United Nations Development Programme and Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative. 2019. Global Multidimensional Poverty Index 2019: Illuminating Inequalities. U.S. Van der Waldt, Gerrit. 2015. Government Interventionism and Sustainable Development: The Case of South Africa. African Journal of Public Affairs 8(3): 35–50. Vandemoortele, J. 2011. The MGD Story: Intention Denied. Development and Change 42 (1): 1–21. Wade, R. 1990. Governing the Market: Economic Theory and the Role of Government in East Asian Industrialization. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Wade, R. 2005. The Causes of Increasing World Poverty and Inequality, or Why the Mathew Effect Prevails. International Journal of Health Services 35 (4): 631–653. Wade, R. 2011. The Economy Has Not Solved Its Problems. Challenge 54(2): 4–41. Wallerstein, I. 1974. The Modern World System: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World-Economy in the Sixteenth Century. New York: New York Academic Press. Wallerstein, I. 1979. The Capitalist World Economy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. World Bank. 1989a. African Economic and Financial Data. Washington, D.C. World Bank. 1990. World Development Report 1990: Poverty. New York: Oxford University Press. World Bank. 1990a. World Development Report 1990. Washington, D.C. World Bank. 1991b. World Development Report 1991. Washington, D.C. World Bank. 2008. Poverty-Overview Accessed from www.worldbank.org/poverty. Accessed 18 May 2019. World Bank. 2013. Africa Development Indicators. Washington. World Bank. 2016. Africa Poverty Report: Poverty in a Rising Africa: Washington. World Bank. 2018. World Bank Report on Poverty. New York. Oxford University Press. World Health Organization. 2008. The World Health Report 2008:.Primary Health Care–Now More Than Ever. Geneva: World Health Organization.

Samuel Ojo Oloruntoba is an Associate Professor at the Thabo Mbeki African Leadership Institute, University of South Africa, Pretoria, South Africa, and Visiting Scholar, Institute of African Studies, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada. Among his publications are Regionalism and Integration in Africa: EU-ACP Economic Partnership Agreements and Euro-Nigeria Relations, Palgrave and co-editor with Toyin Falola of The Palgrave Handbook of African Political Economy, 2020. Ebenezer Babajide Ishola is a doctoral student in the Department of Political Science, University of Lagos, Nigeria. Publications include Developmental state and development alternatives: Lessons from Cuba (A chapter contribution in The Palgrave Handbook of African Political Economy. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan; Regional cooperation for Development: The African Union experience (A chapter contribution in Pan-Africanism, Regional Integration and Development in Africa, edited by S.O. Oloruntoba, 2020. Israel Kehinde Ekanade is a doctoral candidate, Department of Development Studies, University of Venda Thohoyandou Limpopo, South Africa. His latest publications include Ekanade I.K. 2020. The Political Economy of State Sponsored Repatriations of Economic Migrants in Africa in The Palgrave Handbook of African Political Economy, S.O. Oloruntoba and T. Falola (eds.) 2020 and Enaifoghe, A.E., Maramura, T.C, Ekanade, I.K, and Muzee, H. 2019. The Socio-Political Dynamic Import of Citizens Participation in Public Resource Management in Relation to Good Governance for South Africa, Journal of Social and Development Sciences, 10 (3), 12–21.

Chapter 40

Africa’s Industrialization and Prosperity: Time for Structural Change David Sseppuuya

Abstract For Africa to prosper and mitigate its position as the world’s least developed region, manufacturing capacity and diverse export-oriented industrialization (EOI) must grow exponentially. For centuries, Africa’s place in global trade has been limited to the supply of raw materials to other industrialized regions and to being a market for manufactured imports, which has held back its own industrialization. With abundant mineral resources, Africa has sufficient natural capital to convert into the productive capital that is critical in industrialization. However, there is no need to shun Globalization. Focus should be on making Globalization work better, with backward and forward linkages in a structural adjustment that would cater for a burgeoning population projected to reach two billion in mid-century. With 13 million African youth joining the job market annually, a labor force that is projected to hit one billion by 2040 needs a Globalization structure that will create jobs urgently and stem frequently fatal attempts at economic migration. There are three opportunities to grasp: the new automotive revolution that the electric vehicle is begetting, the old petrochemicals industry for which a hydrocarbon-rich Africa has been only a primary producer, and China’s industrial upgrade that is leaving primary manufacturing to newly industrializing countries.

Globalization has been a bitter–sweet experience for Africa. It has brought the world’s least-advanced region into the global mainstream of technology and innovation while concurrently pushing it to the margins of prosperity. It is an economic truism that Africa produces what it does not consume, and consumes what it does not produce, supplying raw materials it hardly uses and consuming manufactured goods it barely produces. Globalization, in as far as it manifests as free trade and open access to markets, has entrenched structures that have further impoverished the continent. In the last 100 years, Africa’s main contribution to global trade has been commodity exports, like rubber from Congo and Liberia, oil from the Sahara and D. Sseppuuya (B) Board Member of the Africa Policy Institute, Uganda Christian University, 16003, Kampala, Uganda e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 I. Rossi (ed.), Challenges of Globalization and Prospects for an Inter-civilizational World Order, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44058-9_40

749

750

D. Sseppuuya

Map. 1 Export-bound crude oil and gas pipelines in Africa (Sseppuuya 2017)

the West African Delta region, copper and cobalt from southern Africa, iron ore and bauxite from West Africa, and coffee and cotton from East Africa. In return, the continent has been consuming manufactured goods, initially from the First Generation (1G) of industrializers, then increasingly from 2G Japan and 3G Asian Tigers, and, latterly, from 4G China (Sseppuuya 2017). That is Africa’s place in global trade, of which it contributed a mere 2% in 2013 (WEF 2015) while also fielding big trade deficits, with their consequent balance of payments crises. Economies that are rich in natural capital but which they fail to convert into productive capital are largely responsible for ills like poverty, debt, under-industrialization, and corrosive unemployment.

40 Africa’s Industrialization and Prosperity …

751

Fig. 1 Composition of major export items in Korea (Lee 2017)

The structural problems are consequences of the way the resources are viewed and exploited, regarded largely as an end in themselves, not as a means to a much more prosperous destiny. African nations are seemingly oblivious of how early industrializers like England, Germany, France, the USA, and Canada used their natural resources, initially iron ore and coal, to industrialize. Even later, industrializers like Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, and China appropriated imported natural resources as the foundation for societal transformation. The main difference between the 1G and 2&3G is that the latter hardly had naturally occurring raw materials and therefore sourced them elsewhere. Africa was a willing source, just as it had been with the 1G. One study (Fin24 2015) established that Africa represented half of the top 20 countries with the highest mineral export contributions (Map. 1). The mentality that views natural resources as the be-all and end-all of economic prospects nourishes the institutionalization of a structure that encourages primary commodity export. This disposition, the Esau Syndrome (Sseppuuya 2017), has fostered the mindset that considers natural resources as sources of rents like export earnings, royalties, tax revenues, personal riches, and political power. It is a condition that sees nations surrender their natural capital in order to meet short-term needs like roads, schools, dams, railways, stadia, and airports. Noble though these needs are, done exclusively they have come at the expense of long-term imperatives like an industrialized, transformed, and prosperous society (Map 1). Globalization, particularly free trade in goods across borders, has exacerbated this by evacuating low-value primary commodities while availing manufactured imports that undermine domestic industries. Globalization has dealt with small African economies a cruel hand by delaying and even, in concert with other factors (Meredith

752

D. Sseppuuya

2006), reversing their industrialization. Between 2000 and 2012, the share of manufacturing in African GDP for the continent as a whole fell from 13% to 10% (World Bank 2013a). Given that nations’ survival in the contemporary global economy entails acquiescence to the regulations of the World Trade Organization (WTO), free trade can be overbearing. One example was the US’s insistence in early 2018 that Rwanda opens its markets to second-hand clothing from America, pulling the rug, so to speak, from under the feet of the East African country’s nascent textile industry. An under-industrialized African country was being boxed into exporting cheap and importing dear. Rwanda’s defiance vindicates the invoking of small measures of protectionist policies to cushion infant industries, just as early industrializers like the US and Germany, did in the nineteenth century. In 1879, Germany placed tariffs on industrial goods, impeding trade liberalization and reinstating to continental Europe protectionism that lasted well into the new century (Asaf 2002). For a large part of the nineteenth century, protectionism was a dominant practice in building the US economy as America sought to catch up with Britain’s manufacturing prowess. Unmitigated free trade and sharp declines in commodity prices result in situations like in 2015 when only two African countries—Botswana and Swaziland—run positive current account balances. Over 50 others were in the red. In contrast, most of Africa’s key trading partners—China, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, and Thailand—run-up positive accounts by the virtue of being export-oriented industrialized (EOI) economies (Sseppuuya 2017). The evidence shows that an increase in trade openness in sub-Saharan Africa since the 1990s has gone hand-in-hand with deterioration in the current account (Moussa 2016), which has been compounded by falling commodity prices, insufficient international credit, and slow capital inflows. Deindustrialization had kicked in with the collapse, in the 1970s, of import substitution industrialization (ISI) that, in turn, had been undermined by reckless nationalization and indigenization programs (Sseppuuya 2017). How, then, can Africa make the big leap forward and mitigate these negative trends that occurred during Globalization? For 30 years, African economies have followed the diktats of the World Bank and IMF-sponsored Washington Consensus, cutting national budgets, eliminating subsidies, deregulating and privatizing state-owned enterprises, among other austerity policies. This ultra-liberalism has not delivered the hoped-for prosperity, though it registered growth that had only a limited impact on prosperity. The one major positive has been the underscoring of macroeconomic stability like steady exchange rates and prudent interest rate management (Sseppuuya 2017). Otherwise, continuous market failures make it inevitable that governments intervene in resource allocation (Abebe and Schaefer 2015), like East Asia in the 1970s and 1980s. There is an increasingly influential school of thought advocating for New Structural Economics (NSE) (Lin 2011). NSE looks at alternative growth models like the endogenous use of countries’ natural resources to improve manufacturing value added (MVA) to enhance positioning in global trade. NSE is borne of the realization that Washington Consensus policies and practices have not prospered nations. Africa is rich in natural wealth, retaining about 30% of the world’s total mineral reserves (AfDB 2007) that are foundational inputs for light manufacturing and heavy

40 Africa’s Industrialization and Prosperity …

753

Table 1 Africa’s balance of payments as compared with some export-oriented industrialized countries Current account balance (2015, in USD) African countries; selected trade partners highlighted Country

Balance (2015)

Algeria

−27,229,373,000

Angola

−10,272,841,000

Botswana

+1,120,644,000

Burundi

−374,695,000

Cabo Verde

−68,870,000

China

+330,602,206,000

Congo, Dem. Rep.

−1,545,622,000

Djibouti

−547,777,000

Egypt, Arab Rep.

−16,786,500,000

Germany

+283,907,752,000

Ghana

−2,809,291,000

Hong Kong, China

+9,632,461,000

Japan

+135,607,665,000

Lesotho

−172,717,000

Liberia

−859,626,000

Malawi

−710,269,000

Mauritania

−955,946,000

Mauritius

−565,598,000

Morocco

−2,160,696,000

Mozambique

−5,832,977,000

Namibia

−1,528,695,000

Nigeria

−15,763,233,000

Rwanda

−1,098,700,000

Seychelles

−256,181,000

Singapore

+57,921,917,000

South Africa

−13,644,089,000

South Korea

+105,870,700.00

Sudan

−5,933,452,000

Swaziland

+414,839,000

Tanzania

−3,312,322,000

Thailand

+32,148,691,000

Tunisia

−3,849,716,000

Uganda

−2,352,636,000

Zambia

−767,651,000 (continued)

754

D. Sseppuuya

Table 1 (continued) Current account balance (2015, in USD) African countries; selected trade partners highlighted Country

Balance (2015)

Zimbabwe

−1,520,624,000

Source IMF, World Economic Outlook ( 2016), World Bank Data Bank (2016)

industry. NSE envisages industrialization according to comparative advantage under the endowment structure. NSE is attractive to Africa in at least two game-changing industries—electric vehicles (EVs) and petrochemicals—as I shall explain shortly. It is also compelling in as far as there is an opportunity from China’s change of emphasis, driven by rising labor costs and beckoned to higher value manufacturing, to relinquish some labor-intensive basic industry. East Asian manufacturers are already offloading some manufacturing to Africa (and South Asia): Japanese auto firms Toyota, Nissan, and Mitsubishi, alongside German company Volkswagen have assemblies in Kenya as well as plants in other more advanced vehicle manufacturers like South Africa, Morocco, Egypt, and Nigeria. Shoemaker Huajian Group of China has a factory in Ethiopia, investing directly in that country’s vast quantities of hides and skins. Huajian was projecting annual export earnings of $4 billion by 2020 (Abebe and Schaefer 2015). Key to this will be cheap labor and Africa can expect a demographic dividend by 2050, if it trained its people well. Another key ingredient will be high GDP growth rates— and a number of states have topped 4% for well over a decade. Most of all, foreign finance and technology will be critical. Africa has no technology of its own to boast of; hence, developments like A-Link Technologies of China setting up a $500,000 phone assembling plant in Rwanda, producing 200 mobile phones a day, and mobile phone maker Tecno’s plans to establish a handset assembly plant in Kenya, are of critical importance. Finance is a major challenge, though developments like the $10 billion oil refinery being built in Lagos, Nigeria by Aliko Dangote, Africa’s richest man, shows that there is some local capital waiting to be invested. The refinery will be one of the world’s largest, processing 650,000 barrels of crude a day, and is expected to be near full capacity by mid-2020 (Bloomberg 2018). An investment like the above-mentioned in footwear, apparel, automotive, and tech is exactly what the rest of the continent needs to emulate. The Huajian investment in Ethiopia is a four-fold win: (i) export-oriented manufacturing, (ii) in a laborintensive industry that is creating jobs, (iii) being complemented by a policy with the government ban on the export of raw hides and skins, and (iv) engendering a measure of import-substitution that can correct trade imbalances. Electric vehicles, petrochemicals, and newly available labor-intensive light manufacturing are not the only options. Others exist, but I shall analyze just the three imperatives for their viability (Table 2).

40 Africa’s Industrialization and Prosperity …

755

Table 2 African percentage of World production and reserve of minerals Mineral

African % of production

Rank in world prod’n

African % of reserves

Rank in world reserves

Platinum

54

1

60

1

Gold

21

1

42

1

Chrome

40

1

44

1

Manganese

28

2

82

1

Vanadium

51

1

95

1

Cobalt

60

1

55

1

Diamonds

78

1

88

1

4

7

45

1

27

1

66

1

Bauxite Phosphate

Source African Development Bank (2007), United States Geological Survey (2005), British Geological Survey (2006)

It is in the following three fields that opportunity knocks loudest: (a) petrochemicals, particularly downstream. Downstream processes turn natural gas and oil into marketable petroleum products, and a big proportion of manufactured goods have an element of petrochemicals. Ethylene, propylene, butadiene, and benzene are the raw materials of the petrochemical industry, which turns them into products used in 95% of all manufactured goods, from household goods (DVDs, kitchen appliances, textile, furniture) to medicine (heart pacemakers, transfusion bags), to leisure (running shoes, computers), on to specialized fields like archaeology. (b) The newfangled automobile industryis being driven by the electric vehicle (EV), where Africa is well endowed with primary resources, particularly lithium, copper, and cobalt. These natural resources could be game-changers when converted into productive capital. (c) The cyclical shift of primary manufacturing to different geographical locations. In the global economy there are always low-wage, high-growth countries that produce basic and inexpensive manufactured goods. However, as economies move up in the manufacturing value chain, they are faced with demands for higher wages by labor. As a result, these economies tend to leave behind simple and low value-added manufacturing for newly developing countries to pick up. The electric vehicle and an advanced petrochemical industry hold a three-fold promise for reversing two centuries of resource extraction. Successive generations of impoverished Africans have witnessed the extraction, first of ivory in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, then of rubber to give traction to the then-nascent automotive revolution, followed by the extraction of iron ore, copper, tin, oil as well as the export, in the late twentieth century, of tantalum and coltan (columbite-tantalite). The iron ore, copper, tin, oil have fueled Western and East Asian industrialization, while the tantalum and cobalt have powered the mobile phone revolution. Now, the world is at the cusp of a Second Automotive Revolution with the electric vehicle whose primary inputs like cobalt, copper, lithium, manganese, and nickel, critical for lithium-ion batteries and circuitry, are found in Africa. With NSE

756

D. Sseppuuya

Table 3 Productivity of African automotive industry (IOMVM 2014)

suggesting that economic development be based on an economy’s factor endowments, like the availability of labor, capital, and natural resources, fresh opportunities abound for Africa. Effective business strategies, though, will be needed. In the century since the launch of the First Automotive Revolution, Africa has not produced a car of its own. Its contribution has been limited to the supply of raw materials—iron ore, rubber, bauxite, and oil—for vehicle manufacture and operation. Lately, the continent has been assembling the outgoing internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles. The electric vehicle (EV) can be a relatively level starting point for Africa to graduate from primary into secondary economies by entering big league manufacturing, because the EV is still in nascent state. Integral to the notion that “the West rules because the Industrial Revolution happened there” (Morris 2011) is the fact that the early bird catches the worm: the first entrepreneurs, investors, and developers of EVs will reap most from a revolution that promises to be age-defining. In 2015, EV sales grew by about 60% worldwide, the same growth rate that helped the Ford Model T to overtake the horse and buggy at the flag-off point of the internal combustion engine [ICE] vehicle in the 1910s (Bloomberg 2016), launching the motorcar as arguably the key global social-economic influence of the twentieth century. Africa is strategically placed to accelerate into position for the EV, given that new technologies warrant new ways of producing and consuming raw materials. There is already excitement in Zimbabwe, the world’s fifth-largest producer of lithium, for the processing of ore into battery-grade lithium carbonate, and for the ramping up of ore output to 500,000 tonnes by 2020. This would be a more than twofold increase from the 2018 rate of 200,000 tonnes. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, which accounts for 60% of the world’s cobalt production (USGS 2017), the government was, in 2018, focusing on upgrading cobalt concentrates to intermediates with an eye on local benefit (Rashotte 2018). These two efforts, commendable though they are, still keep the respective nations too low down the value chain, since the export of concentrates is only one step higher than the old export of ore.

40 Africa’s Industrialization and Prosperity …

757

Opportunity can be seized through research and development (R&D) that is happening at the heart of the continent and with the integration of markets. The African Continental Free Trade Area (ACFTA), which encompasses most of the continent’s 55 countries, is one of a plethora of autonomous regional blocs like the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the East African Community (EAC), the Southern African Development Community (SADC), and the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA). World-class research and development in EVs, which has been underway at Makerere University in Uganda since 2006, could take care of the proprietary rights for a pan-continental vehicle. Makerere’s prototype, the Kiira EV, is the product of a collaborative effort of a consortium consisting of 12 universities from Europe, 15 from North and South America, 8 from Asia, and 1, Makerere, from Africa. Technical support comes from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) (architectural team and lead team), the University of California (architectural team), the University of Leuven, Belgium (frame, body, and propulsion), TUDelf University (interior and exterior designs), Delhi College of Engineering (braking system), and Makerere University (electrical system and data networking) (Makerere 2010). In April 2018, the Ugandan government allocated a budget for Kiira EV’s commercialization (Kiira is the local Ugandan name for the Nile, the world’s longest river) that is expected to reach a full production capacity of 60,000 units per year by 2039. This, though, is a drop in the ocean in the global auto industry, but economies of scale and competitive volumes can be built through collaborative efforts across Africa’s borders if appropriate policies were put in place. Europe’s management of Airbus, the pan-European corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells aeronautical products worldwide, is exemplary, though EV manufacture would require considerably less technological and financial capital than making airplanes. From being low on the global manufacturing scale, Africa can only climb by ratchetting up its manufacturing value added (MVA), looking for deeper and wider linkages with national, regional, and continental economies. Effectual MVA for the electric car would depend on country specialization. For instance, the mining of cobalt in DR Congo and of lithium in Zimbabwe; the forging of alloys and electroplating in energy-abundant economies like Ethiopia, South Africa, and Egypt. Where Uganda has established a manufacturing plant, the experienced metal-bashing of the South African and Kenyan auto industries would be invaluable, as would Morocco’s knowledge and skill in electrical circuitry and Botswana’s manufacturing of ignition wiring sets. Moreover, there is an opportunity for existing battery makers like the First National Battery and Powertech Battery Group in South Africa, ABM in Kenya, Zimbabwe Battery Manufacturers in Harare, and Uganda Batteries Ltd, among others, to upgrade their technology and make lithium-ion batteries. Botswana’s expertise in making ignition wiring sets would also be relevant. This matrix is NSE, with locally available inputs being employed, at its best. NSE looks to the upgrading of local skills, capacity, resources, and infrastructure, as illustrated above. To attain real value-added improvement, there is a need to reduce the export of primary resources; without improved manufacturing value added and GDP, globalization will continue to hurt Africa.

758

D. Sseppuuya

Alternatives for Oil The pre-eminence of oil as the world’s most traded commodity is projected to take a hit as EVs gradually replace petroleum-guzzling ICEs. Electric vehicles could overtake ICE cars in production by the year 2025, and in sales by 2037 (de Vries and Ghour 2016). Some projections indicate that there could be a non-recoverable drop in the price of crude. One estimate has EVs displacing demand for oil by as much as two billion barrels a day by 2023, creating the kind of glut in global markets like that precipitated by the 2014 oil crisis (Randall 2016). With every passing year, there will be more electric cars on the road, and therefore less demand for oil. For a continent that has a quarter of the world’s top 20 producers of oil and is responsible for 10% of global petroleum output, it is critical that Africa looks for alternatives for its oil. Roads/motor vehicles consume about 50% of the world’s oil, followed by petrochemicals’ 14%, with aviation a distant fourth, at 7.5% (Statista 2016). Discernment of oil’s uncertain future has already been voiced. A seasoned global petroleum player, Sheikh Ahmed Zaki Yamani, the former energy minister of Saudi Arabia, said at the turn of the century: Thirty years from now, there will be a huge amount of oil–and no buyers. Oil will be left in the ground. The stone age came to an end, not because we had a lack of stones, and the oil age will come to an end not because we have a lack of oil (Guardian 2018). This was a prophetic insight into what would be the waning influence of oil as a source of energy in motor vehicles. Africa is still discovering more oil and gas reserves: in the two decades to 2010, the continent’s oil reserves grew by over 25%, while gas reserves increased by over 100% (Kamara et al. 2009). The petrochemical industry is therefore a conspicuous option. Oil and gas provide essential raw materials for thousands of products from diverse industries. The naphtha, associated gases, methane, and natural gas liquids (NGL) that are the primary derivatives of crude oil and natural gas, before refining, distillation, and other processes, culminate in the wide range of goods we use today. The final products are vital in communication, agriculture, and medicine. Ethylene, propylene, butadiene, and benzene are the raw materials of the petrochemical industry, which turns them into products used in 95% of all manufactured goods (Petrochemicals Europe 2016). With input into 95% of manufactured goods, the manufacturing potential founded on petrochemicals is staggering for a wide range of industrial goods. Africa has had limited forward linkages, namely the building of value chains beyond extraction. Even petroleum jobs are few because oil extraction is capital-intensive. With its numerous downstream linkages, such as refining, processing, and purifying crude oil and natural gas, as well as end products used in manufactured goods, the petrochemical industry promises jobs and employment income. Even in under-industrialized Africa, manufacturing jobs pay six times as much as wages in agriculture, today’s dominant employer.

40 Africa’s Industrialization and Prosperity …

759

Improving the petrochemicals value chain along with feedstock, intermediates, derivatives, and end-use market would foster diversification, which can deliver Africa into global supply chains. Imagine Nigeria, a major oil producer, which already has over 50% of ECOWAS’s installed manufacturing capacity and has identified auto assembly as a potentially viable industry (Nigeria 2014), supplying plastic dashboards and interior parts to major global vehicle manufacturers. To develop a viable petrochemical industry though, Africa must first overcome the structural bottleneck of little refining capacity. Africa produces 3.5 times as much oil as it refines; that is, seven out of eight barrels of petroleum extracted out of subterranean Africa is exported as crude oil. That is also another way of saying that 77.5% of potential petrochemical beneficiation from petroleum extraction is lost to wholesale crude oil exports. Nigeria, with proven reserves of 37 billion barrels, and targeting to produce 4 million bbl/d by 2020, had only four refineries by the mid-2010s. By 2017, there were 46 refineries in Africa, compared to the 140 in the United States. The aforementioned $10 billion Dangote refinery in Lagos is using mostly local capital, supplemented by a $3 billion loan from Standard Chartered plc, but is getting technical and commercial assistance from Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Vitol Group, and Trafigura Group Pte (Bloomberg 2018). Uganda is constructing a $4 billion inland oil refinery through the Albertine Graben Refinery Consortium (AGRC) made up of General Electric (GE) Oil and Gas, YAATRA Ventures LLC, Lionworks Group Ltd., Intracontinental Asset Holdings Ltd. (IA), and Saipem SpA. Alongside a subsidiary of GE, the American firm, and the Italian concern Saipem, the presence of two Mauritian firms, YAATRA and Lionworks, indicates the availability of local African capital. Africa exports most of its oil as crude. (Sseppuuya 2017).

Into China’s Boots The shifting offshore of much of the light manufacturing that made China the ‘factory of the world’ is already causing tectonic changes in South Central Asian nations like Vietnam, Cambodia, India, and Bangladesh. Therein also is an opportunity for Africa, though the continent is collectively still weak in governance, particularly in corruption control where countries are doing badly (Transparency International 2018). Moreover, the sociopolitical environment for doing business in Africa is generally not very conducive, be it for securing construction permits, paying taxes, obtaining credit, getting electricity, trading across borders, registering property, and the like (WB 2017). Nevertheless, in 2018, the World Bank reported that the trend of reforms was improving: “a record number of 83 reforms, making it easier to do business, were implemented in 36 of 48 economies in Sub-Saharan Africa in the past year. This is the largest number of reforms ever recorded in any region by the Doing Business report of the World Bank, and represents 31 percent of all reforms implemented globally in the past year.” (WB 2018).

760

D. Sseppuuya

Since 2003, the business-friendly leaderships of President Uhuru Kenyatta and his predecessor Mwai Kibaki in Kenya, President Paul Kagame in Rwanda, and Prime Minister Pravind Jugnauth and his predecessors Paul Berenger and Navin Ramgoolam in Mauritius have accounted for most of Africa’s 798 reforms, with Rwanda totaling 52, followed by Kenya (32) and Mauritius (31) (WB 2018). The overall picture, nevertheless, is not great, with only five African countries— Mauritius (25), Rwanda (41), Kenya (80), Botswana (81), and South Africa (82)—ranked among the top 100 nations globally in 2018 in ease of doing business. Justin Yifu Lin, the advocate of New Structural Economics (NSE) and a former Senior Vice President and Chief Economist at the World Bank, computed in 2011 that China would shed or free up 85 million lower productivity factory jobs if it maintained a GDP growth of nearly 10% a year in the coming decades. This would move China up the global manufacturing value chain, with labor-intensive industries shifting to countries where wage differentials are large enough to ensure competitiveness in global production networks. Africa, with its abundant cheap labor, can be one of those beneficiaries. For Africa to be competitive, these labor-intensive industries must take advantage of geographic agglomeration of jobs and related technologies, and to this end, there are locations and efforts underway in different places. In 2015, Tanzania started mitigating the overall cost of doing business by integrating port facilities with transport infrastructure in one economic zone. The $11 billion Bagamoyo project—a tripartite agreement between Tanzania, China, and Oman—includes 800 hectares of the port, 1,700 hectares of a portside industrial zone, and a $500 million railway linking Bagamoyo with the commercial capital Dar es Salaam, 75 km to the south (Sseppuuya 2017). More extensively, numerous development corridors are dotting the continent: the Maputo Development Corridor (MDC), which links Johannesburg, Africa’s financial capital with the Indian Ocean port of Maputo; the Trans Caprivi corridor that connects Namibia, Zambia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC); the Zambezi Valley Development Corridor (ZVDC) adjoins Zambia, Malawi, and Mozambique. The Walvis Bay Corridor (WBC), consisting of roads, railways, and shipping services, is composed of the port of Walvis Bay, the Trans Kalahari Corridor, the Trans Caprivi Corridor, the Trans Cunene Corridor, and the Trans Oranje Corridor, and runs through Namibia, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Angola, and South Africa and indirectly to the DRC. In West Africa, the Mano River Union (MRU) brings together four countries—Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Cote d’Ivoire. In East Africa, the Nairobi–Mombasa stretch in Kenya’s southeast, links up well with the Nairobi–Naivasha–Nakuru–Eldoret route in western Kenya on to the Mbale–Tororo–Jinja–Kampala corridor in Uganda (Sseppuuya 2017). To be competitive Africa would need to grow its capital investment, advance its technological competence, and strengthen governance institutions (Leipziger and Yusuf 2015). Even with widespread corruption, for instance, over US$50 billion worth of stolen assets flowing out of Africa every year (Transparency 2018), and the rigid environment that makes it hard to do business, there are still some standouts

40 Africa’s Industrialization and Prosperity …

761

Map. 2 Southern Africa development corridors with export-processing zones (Sseppuuya 2017)

bucking the trend and setting a new pace. Rwanda is carefully studying the Singapore model and the two countries signed a memorandum of understanding in 2008 for public sector collaboration. The African nation formed the Rwanda Workforce Development Authority (WDA), modeled on the Singapore Workforce Development Agency. Among its fruits was the establishment, by 2017, of 392 vocational training schools across Rwanda offering a wide range of courses (Ng 2017). On top of fostering a business-friendly environment, Rwanda has tried to cultivate Singapore’s expertise in urban planning, police management, curbing corruption, and cultivating

762

D. Sseppuuya

Map. 3 East Africa development corridors with export-processing zones (Sseppuuya 2017)

rule of law. Singaporean experts head some of these efforts: a Singaporean technocrat, Chong Fook Yen, designed a curriculum, based on Singapore’s Institute of Technical Education system, but tailored for Rwanda’s industry needs (Ng 2017). Mauritius, ranked the best African country by the World Bank in ease of doing business and probably the continent’s most democratic nation, has successfully diversified its economy and exports. Long a monocrop economy depended on sugar, between 1980 and 2010 Mauritius has diversified to the point where manufacturing is the source for some 75% of merchandise exports, contributing around one-fifth of real GDP, with textiles and clothing accounting for more than 40% of manufacturing output (Trade Chakra 2018). Key manufactured exports include watches and jewelry.

40 Africa’s Industrialization and Prosperity …

763

Ethiopia has demonstrated how the judicious implementation of industrial policies can turn a country around, while Botswana has become a poster child for an orderly transition of power and the good use of natural resources. Botswana is diversifying slowly but steadily by building a manufacturing base that has supplied automotive parts to South Africa’s car manufacturers. Botswana exports have increased tenfold in the last 20 years (GAN 2018); the country’s ignition wiring set output and exports have grown in leaps. In 2008, South Africa’s ignition wiring set imports were dominated by Thailand, the US, Romania, the Philippines, and Germany. In 2009, Botswana started to supply the South African market with ignition wiring sets and now controls half of South Africa’s import market of this component (GAN 2018). Some of these African exemplars are simply emulating the tenacity of the successful East Asian nations. African countries indeed score an abysmal average of 32 out of 100 in the “Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index” and field 6 out of the bottom 10 countries (Transparency International 2017). Corruption, therefore, has to be curbed. Africa can be more attractive to foreign direct investment (FDI), which, alongside domestic savings and bank loans, is one of three financing options. While, in 2010 China overtook the World Bank as Africa’s biggest source of development finance, exceeding even the African Development Bank (AfDB) in lending and FDI flows, the continent still receives only a very small fraction of global FDI. In 2016 it declined to $59.4 billion from $61 billion the year before, or 3.4% of global FDI compared with approximately 5% between 2012 and 2014 (UNECA 2017). Moreover, most FDI still goes mainly to infrastructure and the extractive industry with little to manufacturing that otherwise has the ability to create jobs, develop skills, transfer technology, and plug into global supply chains. Africa’s infrastructure gap, though, is being bridged by extensive investment as outlined below. African countries do not have much leverage in directing where FDI is invested. If they are to pursue New Structural Economics, with its emphasis on utilizing the local endowment, governments will discover that FDI is mostly market-driven and, therefore, more oriented to short-term profits than long-term structural change. As a result, FDI can be limited in scope, focus, and impact and may not flow to investment that countries consider to be vital: the investor may choose to invest in financial capital which may not necessarily be in the immediate strategic interest of the recipient country. Take the example of Rift Valley Railways (RVR), the consortium formed in 2005 to manage, as a private entity, the East African railway in Kenya and Uganda. The main shareholder was a private firm, Sheltam Rail Corporation of South Africa. Not much was done to upgrade the line, known as the Lunatic Express from its tortuous beginnings as a British colonial investment in the 1890s. The failure to make extensive technical upgrades, particularly investment in a standard wider 1,435 mm (4 ft 8 1 /2 in) railroad gauge that would enable the acquisition of modern rolling stock and carriages, led to the premature termination, in 2017, of RVR’s 25-year concession. Kenya and Uganda subsequently took loans from China to modernize a strategic piece of infrastructure. FDI is not entirely reliant on offshore capital since some financing is from within Africa. UNCTAD estimates that, in 2014, of

764

D. Sseppuuya

the total $13.39 billion that African investors sunk into global greenfield projects, $10.2 billion were from Africa (UNCTAD 2015). The leading African investors were South Africa ($6.9 billion), Angola ($2.1 billion), Nigeria ($1.6 billion), Libya ($0.9 billion), and Togo ($0.5 billion) (WEF 2015). South African transnationals tended to invest in telecoms, retail, and mining, while those from Nigeria largely focused on financial services (WEF 2015). Infrastructure investment may not in itself lead to manufacturing investment unless there are deliberate industrial policies. Countries, however, can direct investment into strategic industries by appropriating domestic savings and incentivizing local investors. Many economies, most notably China, have employed joint ventures as an effective route for attracting FDI. China has elaborated the legislation, “Law of the People’s Republic of China on Joint Ventures Using Chinese and Foreign Investment,” with 105 articles that make a range of provisions, from the acquisition of technology and the sourcing of equipment and raw materials, through registered capital and foreign exchange control, to accounting, staffing, and trade union relations (China 2018). It is a model worth studying. Development banks, which adapt to each country’s needs, are being revamped to provide low-cost capital for national development imperatives, including industrialization. Globally between 2007 and 2009, the combined global loan portfolio of development banks increased from $1.16 trillion to $1.58 trillion dollars, with Africa’s growing 60% (Asia 72%, Americas 70%, Europe 12%) (UN Taskforce 2018). In Africa, these institutions include Development Bank of Kenya Ltd (DBK), TIB Development Bank, formerly known as Tanzania Investment Bank (TIB), Development Bank of Ethiopia, Development Bank of Rwanda, commonly referred to by its French name Banque Rwandaise de Développement, Uganda Development Bank (UDB), Development Bank of Zambia (DBZ), and Infrastructure Development Bank of Zimbabwe (IDBZ). Others are Swaziland Development & Savings Bank (SwaziBank), Industrial Development Bank—Sudan, Development Bank of Namibia, Banco de Desenvolvimento de Angola, Development Bank of Nigeria (DBN), Agricultural Development Bank of Ghana, and National Development Bank Ltd. in Sierra Leone. In July 2018, Malawi announced plans to open the Malawi Development Bank before the end of the year. There are regional banks like East African Development Bank (EADB), West African Development Bank (BOAD), and Islamic Development Bank. In August 2017, the $50 billion New Development Bank (NDB), set up by BRICS (association of emerging economies Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), established its first regional office, the Africa Regional Centre in Johannesburg. A more deliberate allocation of capital, following a well-thoughtout industrial policy, could correct some imbalances of governments in directing capital or providing incentives to strategic industries. This was the rationale and application behind the all-winning chaebol policy in South Korea. Another admittedly strong Asian Tiger, Singapore, appropriated local savings when financial sector managers impressed upon the political leadership that

40 Africa’s Industrialization and Prosperity …

765

Central Provident Fund savings were redundant, and they were invested where they could fetch better returns (Kuan Yew 2000). There already is recognition of domestic savings’ potential. Writing on the eve of the second African Transformation Forum in June 2018, Rwanda President Paul Kagame, one of Africa’s visionary leaders, said: We also need to match external capital with African capital. African savings are not being mobilised effectively. This can help reduce risk perceptions, and also ensure we share the upside of profitable deals (Kagame 2018).

Domestic savings. The potential impact of domestic savings is exemplified in Uganda: in 2016, the country’s provident savings totaled $3bn, which was more than two-and-a-half times that year’s FDI inflows of $1.2bn. The following year’s national budget was $9bn in a GDP of $25bn. It is a similar picture across a continent whose savings ratio is otherwise still lower than in non-African regions. It nevertheless goes to show that there are great possibilities for financing industrialization. FDI is not particularly high across the continent: In 2015, it weighed in at $1.5bn in Tanzania’s $45bn economy; $1.4bn in Kenya’s $61bn economy; and $1.7bn in South Africa’s GDP of $313bn. In 2016, flows declined by 3% to $59 billion (UNCTAD 2017), though the continent still gives better returns on FDI than any other developing region, according to four respected development experts. Writing an opinion piece in the runup to the jointly-sponsored “Investing in Africa Forum,” in Addis Ababa on June 30 and July 1, 2015, Makhtar Diop, World Bank Vice President for the Africa Region; Yuan Li, Executive Vice President, China Development Bank; Li Yong, Director General, the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO); and Ato Ahmed Shide, Ethiopia’s State Minister of Finance and Economic Development, noted that Africa is well placed to attract strategic, job-creating investment (World Bank 2015). Taking up low-tech manufacturing, with its simple technology and laborintensiveness, is a starting point: a hybrid of low-tech manufacturing and cumulative MVA with more financial and technology investments, more skills, and wider markets makes for a good mix and greater diversification. China, the world’s largest manufacturer, is steadily shedding some low-tech manufacturing as it repositions itself to be a more hi-tech, local consumption-driven economy. The opportunities availed by the EV revolution notwithstanding, Africa’s industrialization will not be driven by supercomputing or robotics, rather by a combination of old and new technologies. Countries can focus on basic industry, like the manufacture of vehicles and parts, of shoes and cookers, of televisions and refrigerators—consumer items for which the technology and raw material inputs already exist. As advanced industrialized states like China, South Korea, Taiwan, Western Europe, and North America consolidate supercomputing and advanced engineering, African economies have the opportunity to take up basic mass production. It would need to be in a structure transformed from commodity-driven, low-value exports to EOI in which nations grow their economies by manufacturing and selling goods in which they have a comparative advantage.

766

D. Sseppuuya

A few countries have realized this. Ethiopia and Rwanda, resource-poor but with good industrial policies, are focusing on footwear and apparel. Ethiopia’s total exports of apparel and footwear, whose production includes designer labels, was about $104 million in 2010/2011 and is projected to grow to about $4 billion in the decade following 2011 (Noman and Stiglitz 2015). Strong platforms are being built for manufacturing exports—a 2006 report lists 20 countries in Africa, including Egypt, Mauritius, Kenya, South Africa, Tunisia, Lesotho, and Madagascar totaling more than 90 export processing zones (EPZs) (Stein 2008). These are complemented by the aforementioned development corridors. Like has been since the advent of the Industrial Revolution, the rail line and energy have been essential to the success of manufacturing. In this vein, railways are being revamped across Africa with modern gauge lines and new energy sources are being developed.

Upgrading Infrastructure In the years since 2010, rail transport has been revamped by, dismantling the old 1,067 mm gauge network, replacing with new 1,435 mm standard gauge railroads. Projects include: • • • • • • •

Abuja–Kaduna Rail Line, Nigeria Accra–Tema Line, Ghana Awash Woldia/Hara Gebeya Line, Ethiopia Ethiopia–Djibouti Line Modernisation, Ethiopia Heavy Rail Developments, Morocco Mombasa–Nairobi Standard Gauge, Kenya Malaba–Kampala–(Juba)–Kigali Standard Gauge, Uganda–South Sudan– Rwanda • Mpumalanga to Richards Bay Freight Coal Line, South Africa (Railway Technology 2016) A major competitive challenge for African manufacturing lies in the cost of transportation (McKinsey 2012), which is much higher on the continent than say China, with whom Africa would want more balanced terms of trade or direct competitors like Vietnam and Bangladesh (Table 4). Most cargo is still carted in trucks and moved by road. Efficient rail transport promises to bring down costs. Infrastructure plays a central role in improving competitiveness, facilitating domestic and international trade, and enhancing the continent’s integration into the global economy. The energy deficit is also being addressed. The International Energy Agency has projected that it will take three efforts in the energy sector to boost the sub-Saharan Africa economy by 30% in 2040: (i) An additional $450 billion in power sector investment, reducing power outages by half and achieving universal electricity access in urban areas; (ii) deeper regional co-operation and integration, facilitating new

40 Africa’s Industrialization and Prosperity … Table 4 Cost of transport per km from the coast

767

Cost of transport per km from the coast Destination

Cost (US dollars)

Kampala, Uganda

$0.08

Lusaka, Zambia

$0.06

China

$0.05

The USA

$0.04

Source World Bank, Uganda Economic Update (2013)

large-scale generation and transmission projects and enabling further expansion in cross-border trade; and (iii) better management of resources and revenues, adopting robust and transparent processes that allow for more effective use of oil and gas revenues (Africa Energy 2015). Financing is basically by domestic public investment, mostly through government budget allocations; this is the largest source of the continent’s infrastructure funding. In 2012, domestic public investment reached $59.4 billion or 72.9% of the total African infrastructure financing. African governments have increased their investments in infrastructure, particularly in energy. Infrastructure budgets grew by 8% per year from 2011 to 2013 and the allocations to the energy sector grew by 5% over the same period (Brookings 2017). There is foreign capital as well—between 2000 and February 2018, China alone invested $34.8 billion in Africa’s energy infrastructure; by 2014, European Union member states had pledged to provide energy access for 500 million people by 2030. In June 2013, the US President Barack Obama unveiled ‘Power Africa,’ a largely private-sector effort to increase generation capacity by improving access for 20 million new households and giving $7 billion in energy financing over five years (AidData 2014). The 6,000 MW Grand Renaissance Power Dam, Africa’s largest hydropower project, has been funded by the Ethiopian Government through the sale of bonds to Ethiopians as well as international buyers. Additionally, the Koffi Anan-led Africa Progress Panel (APR 2015) recommended 10 steps to plug financing gaps in the energy sector: increase tax revenues; cut pro-rich subsidies; remove tax concessions; reform energy utilities; seize the low-carbon opportunity; boost aid; phase out fossil fuel subsidies in G20 countries; redouble efforts to combat illicit financial flows, including tax evasion; overhaul the climate finance architecture; unlock private finance. The issue of large-scale generation and transmission is being addressed by the trade blocs and via market integration. Investment in energy since 2010 is already evident in the following projects: • • • • •

Menengai Geothermal, Kenya Lake Turkana Wind Power, Kenya Azito Power Expansion Project, Côte d’Ivoire Ain Beni Mathar Solar Power, Morocco Karuma Dam Hydropower, Uganda

768

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

D. Sseppuuya

Isimba Hydropower, Uganda Project For Scaling-Up Renewable Energy, Mali Djibouti-Ethiopia Interconnection Ethiopia-Kenya Interconnection Regional Rusumo Hydroelectric Project, Rwanda CTDS Biomass Plant/Coal CHP Plant, Mauritius Olkaria II Expansion, Kenya Beni Suef Combined-Cycle Natural Gas Power Plant, Egypt 750-MW Kafue Gorge Lower Hydroelectric Power Station, Zambia Amakhala Emoyeni Wind Farm, Bedford, South Africa Bujagali Falls Hydropower Dam, Uganda Bumbuna Hydroelectric Power Station, Sierra Leone Gilgel Gibe III Hydroelectric Power Project, Ethiopia KivuWatt Project, Lake Kivu, Kibuye, Rwanda Sasol Gas Engine Power Plant, South Africa Grand Renaissance Hydroelectric Project, Ethiopia (AfDB 2016)

Export-oriented manufacturing thrives on the circulatory system of thrifty supply chains. Africa’s supply chains can be reformed with fresh investment in ports and development corridors. To enhance its place in international commerce, Africa’s ports must become more competitive by hastening cargo processing and improving turnaround, expanding capacity by widening locks, deepening docks, dredging waterways, and increasing road and rail links. This is critical because maritime transport accounts for 80% of global trade by volume and 70% by value. Since 2010, there has been a concerted effort to improve the following African ports: • Leki deep seaport upgrade (Nigeria) • $1.5 billion new port at Tema (Ghana) • $11 billion revampings of Bagamoyo to make port biggest in East Africa, with a capacity to handle fourth-generation ships (Tanzania) • Dredging of the port, from 12 meters to 15 m deep, completed in 2012, Mombasa (Kenya) • Upgrades planned for Owendo and Port-Gentil ports (Gabon) • Port Lome deepened to dock bigger ships (Togo) • Construction at Kribi to be the only deep-sea port in Central Africa (Cameroon) • $4 billion expansion of Suez Canal completed in 2015 (Egypt) • Kenya and Tanzania mulling new ports at Lamu and Mtwara on Indian Ocean coast • Landlocked Rwanda acquired 20 ha plot at Port Djibouti for access to the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden (Djibouti) • Landlocked Uganda to invest $3b in Bukasa inland port project on Lake Victoria, to link with Tanzania’s Indian Ocean capacity (Uganda) • Walvis Bay planned expansion (Namibia) • Transnet Port Terminals (TPT) to invest 71% of its $2.8b planned investment in ports, of which Durban is Africa’s largest and busiest (South Africa) • Badagry planned as the future port (Nigeria)

40 Africa’s Industrialization and Prosperity …

769

• Port Louis Harbour awarded Euros 41 million tenders to dredge container terminal (Mauritius) • Bolloré Ports extension of container terminal at Port of Freetown (Sierra Leone) • Transnet National Ports Authority (TNPA) commenced infrastructure rehabilitation at Port Nolloth (South Africa) • Port of Antwerp, Belgium to invest in expanding logistics platform at San Pedro port (Ivory Coast) • $442 ten-year concession awarded to DP World to manage multipurpose port at Berbera (Republic of Somaliland) • $1.329 billion budgeted for three-port infrastructure projects in Cabinda and Zaire provinces (Angola) • Concession for a dry bulk terminal at Takoradi (Ghana) (Sseppuuya 2017) Much of the financing has been through foreign loans: multilateral from the World Bank and the European Union, and bilateral from China, though national governments have also chipped in. It is imperative that abundant natural resources are transformed into innovative drivers of growth and transformation—natural capital becoming productive capital. The groundwork exists for energy- and resource-intensive manufacturing—metals and mining and other extractive industries, pulp, and paper, plastics and pharmaceuticals, accessories, and parts. Foundations are there for labor-intensive tradables like footwear and apparel, and auto manufacturing, some of which China will be relinquishing. It is an opportunity too good to waste but would require mindset change and NSE-driven strategies. African nations desire to move up from the low productivity sectors of agriculture and the informal economy, which employ more than 80% of the labor force. The most viable higher productivity sector is light manufacturing with its potential competitiveness of low-wage costs and the abundant natural resources that supply raw materials for industries. The well-trodden path is in the sub-sectors of apparel, leather goods, metal products, agribusiness, and wood products, which draw on the natural resources. These sub-sectors are labor-intensive, less-skilled, low-capital ventures that are critical for a continent where youth joblessness is endemic. The African Economic Outlook estimated in 2014 that 53 million of Africa’s 200 million young people between the ages of 15 and 24 were in unstable informal jobs, while 40 million youngsters were out of work. Africa’s share of global light manufacturing is still too low, at less than 1% of the world’s industrial production. However as China, the dominant player in light manufacturing, repositions to mitigate rising costs of production, Africa has an opportunity to muscle in, provided it gets its strategies and policies right. The aforementioned export-processing zones (EPZs) in the development corridors are strategically placed to spur EOI. Both light and heavy manufacturing require skills. Where education has traditionally been academic-oriented, African countries are waking up to the need for technical and vocational skills. Rwanda alone has about 400 vocational schools. Across the board, nations are appropriating technical and vocational education and

770

D. Sseppuuya

training (TVET) (UNESCO 2015) that address the multiple demands of economic, social, and environmental nature. TVET helps youth and adults develop the skills needed for a decent job and entrepreneurship; at the same time, TVET promotes a more equitable, inclusive, and sustainable economic growth as it broadens job and vocation options in economies strapped by high youth unemployment. Vocational and technical skills are critical for iron and steel production, the essential inputs for heavy industry. It is an economic truism that no country can industrialize without a domestic steel sector because steel is the basis of most capital goods and infrastructure. Iron and steel provide material for manufacturing structural goods, transport equipment, including the aforementioned new electric vehicle (EV), and machinery, as well as the engineering industry. Africa has big iron ore reserves, a critical starting point if it can weather the glut that has seen major industrial powers dump steel on world markets. That surplus is likely to be cyclical, so African economies should brace for the time when their iron and steel can be appropriated for onshore manufacturing. Iron ore is the second most-traded raw material in international commodity markets. South Africa, Mauritania, Egypt, Algeria, Guinea, Morocco, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Tanzania, and Libya all have large iron ore deposits. South Africa is already fairly advanced in producing structural steel for use in construction, as well as machinery and mining equipment, but that can hardly be said of any other African country. In 2013, Tanzania established that the Mchuchuma–Liganga twin coal and iron ore projects had deposits that can be mined for over 100 years. The reserves amount to 364 million tons and 219 million tons respectively. An annual extraction regime of three million tons of coal and 2.9 million tons of iron ore was initially planned. The National Development Corporation (NDC) announced that the government had projected annual revenues of $33 million in royalties. But royalties should not be the cardinal strategy. If African countries are to go into the kind of heavy manufacturing that competes globally, they must review the amounts of raw materials exported and start retaining some proportion of minerals and hydrocarbons, like iron ore, bauxite, lithium, cobalt, platinum, coltan, tin, tungsten, oil, and gas as strategic reserves to employ in their own industries. Africa needs to devise a long-term strategy for the deployment of these resources. They should take the long view—after all, geological resources have been in the ground for thousands of years. Delayed gratification is a virtue, as was implied by Harvard economist Peter Schumpeter, when he noted that progress occurs via structural change, which may inflict pain. Making these structural changes may be painful in the short term, particularly if they deny African governments rents from commodity exports, but the progress deriving from future benefits should be much more fruitful. The structural change that incorporates consumption of mineral resources by local industry may call for a sliding-scale approach to the exploitation since many countries’ livelihood presently depends on the extractive industry, which cannot be closed off entirely to cater only for future consumption.

40 Africa’s Industrialization and Prosperity …

771

Strategies for Conversion of Mineral Resources Africa must diversify its economies, lest it perishes. African governments have for too long been obsessed with economic rents. The revenues issuing forth from naturallyoccurring mineral and hydrocarbon wealth have been funding national budgets, but the trade-off has come by surrendering to other industrial powers the transforming power that lies latent in these resources. It is obvious that there is a need for an African Industrial Revolution and strategies, conceivably based on NSE, need to be devised urgently on how to go about it. Africa must however beware of mismanaging its industrial strategies. A resource-driven industrialization would be viable, as it would have a starting point in the form of essential inputs. Broadening and deepening the manufacturing base through EOI remains a proven path, walked by countries not too dissimilar in background. With an eye to future prosperity and the imperative to industrialize through the establishment of manufacturing bases, African nations need to work out a balance between appropriating their abundant natural resources as commodity exports and utilizing them as manufacturing inputs. This then calls for policy or legislation on resource allocations and regulation that would set aside a certain proportion of the natural resources for domestic input in manufacturing; another proportion would go for commodity exports; finally, a third portion would go for future strategic purposes. A precedent of sorts exists for the regulated allocation of (financial) resources in the form of the Maputo Declaration on Agriculture and Food Security. In July 2003, African Heads of State and Government endorsed a “commitment to the allocation of at least 10 percent of national budgetary resources to agriculture and rural development policy implementation within five years” (NEPAD 2003). There also exists some political will in the form of the Africa Mining Vision (AMV), adopted by the Heads of State at the 2009 African Union summit as Africa’s own response to tackling the paradox of great mineral wealth existing side by side with pervasive poverty. The Vision aims at integrating mining into industrial and trade policy, and to redeem Africa from its historic status as an exporter of cheap raw materials to manufacturer and supplier of knowledge-based services. (AU 2011). Finally, some thought has already gone into strategizing the future. The Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA) developed a nine-point guideline prescribing how African countries could harness their resources for development: • • • • • • • • •

African ownership of development plans and processes Strengthening of governance systems Crafting new legal frameworks to protect and regulate the extractive industries Enhancing institutional capacity Investing natural resource wealth in development Production of new knowledge to drive resource-based development Negotiating better terms with external investors Improving investment and business process transparency Fully integrating natural resource sectors into national development plans. (OSISA 2012)

772

D. Sseppuuya

Policies and strategy do matter, though Africa has been struggling in this regard. Ha-Joon Chang, a prize-winning economist at the University of Cambridge, has noted: When it comes to high-productivity activities whose existence determines whether a country is economically developed or not, countries become good at something only because they deliberately decide to become so—there is really no ‘natural’ reason for the Japanese to be good at building cars, the Finns at making mobile phones, and the Koreans at making steel (Chang 2015).

In 1960, South Korea was receiving more financial aid, 9.5% of GNI, than Kenya (8%) (World Bank—South Korea 2017). By 1982, South Korea had ceased to receive financial aid, while Kenya’s was at 8%, heading to a peak of 16% in 1993. With a strong state and a Confucian culture that engenders discipline and hard work, South Korea simply decided to industrialize (albeit using imported raw materials), which led to transformation into one of the world’s major economies. The World Bank noted: Korea policies resulted in real GDP growth averaging 10% annually between 1962 and 1994. This spectacular performance was fueled by annual export growth of 20% in real terms, while savings and investment rose sharply above 30% of GDP. Korea is an exceptional example of an aid-recipient-turned-high-income country, with GNI per capita increasing rapidly from $67 in the early 1950s to $22,670 in 2012. Now the world’s 15th largest economy, Korea is a key development partner of the World Bank Group and an important contributor to the International Development Association (IDA), the fund established to support the world’s poorest countries (World Bank Country Overview, South Korea 2017).

Such pacesetters demonstrate to Africa why it too needs to take a long-term view to the management of natural resources and economic development if it can visualize industrialization at the end of the tunnel. Policies can and should change. Africa should not remain perpetually tethered to policies and practices that disadvantage it in the appropriation of its mineral wealth. In 2010, Tanzania revised its mining code in response to the following challenges: low integration with other sectors; low contribution of mining to GDP compared to sector growth; low capacity to effectively administer and regulate the sector; and low revenue paid by mining companies compared to what they reap. Policies should be complemented by political will and sheer determination to ram through change. Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Rwanda, South Africa, Botswana, Morocco, and Tanzania have leaders with a firm focus on the economic direction. Paul Kagame in Rwanda is a disciple of Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew; in Tanzania John Magufuli is implementing elements of NSE; and Ethiopia’s new Prime Minister, Abiy Ahmed, has been referred to by ‘The Economist’ as reformer-in-chief for taking on the rigidities of the state-led development model (Economist 2018). The ascendancy to power in South Africa of Cyril Ramaphosa, a business-minded selfmade billionaire, has given Africa’s most industrialized economy a new lease on life after the stagnation of Jacob Zuma’s years. Botswana also has a new business-friendly leader in President Mokgweetsi Masisi, who came to power in April 2018 vowing to wean the country off reliance on diamonds by diversifying a relatively vibrant

40 Africa’s Industrialization and Prosperity …

773

economy. Another new leader, Nana Akufo-Addo, was elected President of Ghana in 2016 on the back of a promise “to build a factory per district” and attracting FDI to a country whose state-driven import substitution industrialization (ISI) strategy had proved disastrous back in the 1960s. Though not a democracy, Morocco’s monarchy under King Mohammed VI has been savvy enough to cultivate conditions that underscore the manufacture of airplane and automotive parts, electricals, and electronics, as well as mechanical and metallic components. Consensual politics in Ethiopia, Kenya, Ghana, Tanzania, Mauritius, Botswana, South Africa, which are increasingly characterized by the orderly transfer of power, are a prerequisite for economic growth. But for every Botswana and Ghana, there is a DR Congo and Burundi, where incumbents cling to power with blood-soaked methods. Since 2009 Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, Cameroon, Congo Brazzaville, and Benin have bent their constitutions to enable incumbent presidents to stay longer in power. Sam Nujoma amended the Namibian constitution in 2009 to get another term. Similar attempts in Zambia and Malawi failed, while in Burkina Faso, Blaise Compaore’s schemes were met with popular resistance that forced him out of office in November 2014, after 27 years in power. Potentially, the continent’s wealthiest nation, the Democratic Republic of Congo that sits on natural resources valued at $24 trillion (UNEP 2012) saw its long-standing ruler Joseph Kabila brazenly refuse to relinquish power for two years, despite the expiration of his constitutional mandate in 2016. Such autocratic tendencies augur badly for investment because poor governance tends to percolate through systems and institutions, contributing to Africa’s poor placing on global corruption perception indices. Ultimately, Globalization cannot be wished away. Africa needs to strategically work out how to improve its unequal relationship with other powers and, at the same time, to benefit from the globalization process. When political independence occurred 60 years ago, African leaders inherited a continent full of hope for a prosperous future. More than a half-century later, this hope has been disappointed as the countries have remained the world’s poorest, and the structure of their economies has remained the same. The continent, however, remains gifted. If they are to have legitimacy and a positive influence, the challenge to African leaders, therefore, is to clean up their act and convert natural gifts into material prosperity. Globalization, on more equitable terms, where Africa grows its industrial power, is the best path.

References Abebe, Girum, and Florian Schaefer. 2015. Review of Industrial Policies in Ethiopia. In Industrial Policy and Economic Transformation in Africa, ed. Akbar Noman and Joseph E. Stiglitz. New York: Initiative for Policy Dialogue at Columbia. Columbia University Press. AfDB (African Development Bank). 2007a. Africa’s Non-Renewable Natural Resources.

774

D. Sseppuuya

AfDB (African Development Bank). 2016. Kable Intelligence Ltd. Africa Energy Outlook. 2015. A Focus on Energy Prospects in Sub-Saharan Africa. International Energy Agency. AidData Research Lab. 2014. www.aiddata.org. Williamsburg, VA. APR (Africa Progress Report). 2015. Africa Progress Panel. Asaf, Zussman. 2002. The Rise of German Protectionism in the 1870s: A Macroeconomic Perspective. Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research. AU (African Union Commission). 2011. Building a Sustainable Future for Africa’s Extractive Industry: From Vision to Action. Draft Action Plan for Implementing the AMV. Bloomberg. 2016. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018–07-06/billionaire-dangote-rea dies-refinery-for-2020-talks-with-vitol. Bloomberg. 2018. Here’s How Electric Cars Will Cause the Next Oil Crisis. https://www.bloomb erg.com/features/2016-ev-oil-crisis/.2016. British Geological Survey (BGS). 2006. Brookings Institution. 2017. Africa Growth Initiative. Closing the Financing Gap for African Energy Infrastructure. Chang, Ha-Joon. 2015. Is Industrial Policy Necessary and Feasible in Africa? In Industrial Policy and Economic Transformation in Africa, ed. Akbar Noman and Joseph E. Stiglitz. New York: Initiative for Policy Dialogue at Columbia. Columbia University Press. China, Government of the Peoples Republic. 2018. Ministry of Commerce, Beijing. www.china. org.cn/English/government/207001. de Vries, Andreas and Salman Ghouri. 2016. Wake Up Call for Oil Companies: Electric Vehicles Will Deflate Oil Demand. Energy Post http://energypost.eu/wake-call-oil-companies-electric-veh icles-will-bigger-impact-oil-demand-think/. Ng, Desmond. 2017. Channel News Asia. Economist. 2018. The Ethiopia’s New Prime Minister Wants Peace and Privatization. London. Fin24. 2015. Africa Dominates Global Mineral Exports. www.fin24.com/Economy/Mining-Indaba/ Africa-dominates-global-mineral-exports-20150210. GAN (Global African Network). 2018. Botswana Automotive and Component Industry Overview. Guardian. 2018. The. Saudi Modernisation Drive is Reflected in Aramco’s Faltering Sale. London. IMF (International Monetary Fund). 2016. World Economic Outlook. Kagame, Paul. 2018. Africa is Finally Uniting: Now We Need Good Politics. The Guardian. London. Kamara, A.B, John C. Anyanwu, Michael Juel, Salvador Mondlane, Akim Iwayemi. 2009. Oil and Gas in Africa, Joint Study of the African Development Bank and the African Union. Oxford University Press. Kuan Yew, Lee. 2000. From Third World to First–Singapore and the Asian Economic Boom. Harper Collins, New York. Leipziger, Danny, and Shahid Yusuf. 2015. Growth Strategies for Africa in a Changing Global Environment. In Industrial Policy and Economic Transformation in Africa, ed. Akbar Noman and Joseph E. Stiglitz. New York: Initiative for Policy Dialogue at Columbia. Columbia University Press. Lin, Justin. 2011. New Structural Economics: A Framework for Rethinking Development. The World Bank Research Observer, Oxford University Press. Makerere University, Kampala. 2010. Vehicle Design Project (2006–2010). College of Engineering, Art and Design. McKinsey Global Institute. 2012. Africa at Work: Job Creation and Inclusive Growth. New York. Meredith, Martin. 2006. The State of Africa: A History of Fifty Years of Independence. London: Simon & Schuster. Morris, Ian. 2011. Why the West Rules–for Now. London: Profile Books. Moussa, Nicole. 2016. Trade and Current Account Balances in Sub-Saharan Africa: Stylized Facts and Implications for Poverty. UNCTAD: Trade and Poverty Series No.1. United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.

40 Africa’s Industrialization and Prosperity …

775

NEPAD (New Partnership for Africa’s Development). 2003. Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme. Nigeria, Government of Federal Republic. Nigeria Industrial Revolution Plan, Abuja, 2014. Noman, Akbar, and Joseph E. Stiglitz. 2015. Industrial Policy and Economic Transformation in Africa. New York: Initiative for Policy Dialogue at Columbia. Columbia University Press. OSISA (Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa). 2012. Win-Win Partnership? China, Southern Africa and the Extractive Industries. Southern Africa Resource Watch, Johannesburg. Petrochemicals Europe. 2016. http://www.petrochemistry.eu. Lee, Prof Keun. 2017. Public lecture: ‘Unlocking Uganda’s Export Potential’. In 7th National Development Policy Forum/National Planning Authority. Kampala. Railway Technology. 2016. www.railway-technology.com. Randall, Tom. 2016. Here’s How Electric Cars Will Cause the Next Oil Crisis. Bloomberg. Rashotte, Nicole. 2018. Will Cobalt Supply Meet Growing EV Battery Demand? In Investing News. Sseppuuya, David. 2017. Africa’s Industrialisation and Prosperity. Kampala: Beeranga Mwesigwa. Statista, The Statistics Portal. 2016. Leading Oil Demanding Sectors Worldwide. Stein, Howard. 2008. Africa, Industrial Policy and Export Processing Zones: Lessons from Asia. University of Michigan. Trade Chakra. 2018. http://www.tradechakra.com/economy/mauritius/gdp-of-mauritius-298.php. Transparency International. 2017. Corruption Perception Index. Transparency International. 2018. How to Win the Fight Against Corruption in Africa. UN Taskforce. (UN Inter-Agency Taskforce on Financing for Development). 2018. UNCTAD (United Nations Conference on Trade and Development). 2015. Annual Report. UNCTAD (United Nations Conference on Trade and Development). 2017. World Investment Report. UNECA (United Nations Economic Commission for Africa).2017. Economic and Social Council. UNEP (United Nations Environment Programme). 2012. Post-Conflict Environmental Assessment of the Democratic Republic of Congo: Synthesis Report for Policy Makers. www.unep.org/drc ongo. UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization). 2015. Strategy for Technical and Vocational Education and Training. http://www.unesco.org/new/en/dakar/educat ion/technical-and-vocational-education-and-training/. United States Geological Survey (USGS). 2005. US Geological Survey (USGS). 2017. World Bank. 2013a. Economic Prospects for sub-Saharan Africa. Washington DC. World Bank. 2013b. Uganda Economic Update. World Bank. 2015. Africa Still Poised to Become the Next Great Investment Destination. Washington DC. World Bank. 2017. Doing Business Report. Washington DC. World Bank Country Overview. 2017. South Korea. World Bank Data Bank. 2016. Washington DC. World Bank. Doing Business Report. Washington DC, 2018. World Economic Forum (WEF). 2015. Africa Competitiveness Report. World Economic Forum (WEF). 10 Trends on Foreign Investment in Africa. 2015 https://www.wef orum.org/agenda/2015/07/10-trends-on-foreign-investment-in-africa/.

David Sseppuuya is a member of the advisory board of the Africa Policy Centre in Uganda Christian University. He is a writer and consultant who authored “Africa’s Industrialisation & Prosperity – From Esau Syndrome to Structural Adjustment Strategy”, (Kampala, 2017). He is the editor of “Celebrating 50 Years of Development Partnership: The World Bank and Uganda”, 2013.

VIEWS FROM LATIN AMERICA

Globalization and Political Economy

Chapter 41

Latin America: Between the Promises of Globalization and the Chimera of Nationalism Ronaldo Munck

Abstract Latin America sits between the promises of globalization to attain full development and democracy and the older chimera of nationalism pledged to attain the same objectives albeit by different means. This chapter starts with a summary of the National-Popular Development State, the dominant development matrix from 1950 to 1980. The developmental state promoted industrialization and the integration of the popular masses. We then turn to an analysis of the new Global-Elite/FreeMarket Order: the state was seen as detrimental to development and only the free market could prevail. Incorporation of the masses was once a priority now it was to incorporate the elites into the emergent global order.

Latin America has gone through a period of complex economic, political, social, and cultural transformation that has, arguably, taken us Beyond Globalization versus Nationalism. In an era of global complexity, Latin America maybe exemplified a new hybrid matrix betwixt and between globalism and nationalism or even beyond this choice. A final section Toward a new imaginary turns to the post-2000 rise of left-of-center governments: there was a turn toward forms of nationalism but also the re-emergence of indigenous cosmologies and a counter-hegemonic imaginary beyond the binary opposition of nationalism versus globalism.

National-Popular Development State Latin America’s insertion into the global order has always been peripheral, subordinate, or dependent. This gave rise to Latin America’s best known contribution to global social theory, namely, the dependency paradigm. In its Latin American expression (Cardoso and Faletto 1979), it was a nuanced structural-historical methodology and theory of development, but in the hands of US popularizers (see Frank 1970), it R. Munck (B) Dublin City University, Dublin, Ireland e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 I. Rossi (ed.), Challenges of Globalization and Prospects for an Inter-civilizational World Order, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44058-9_41

781

782

R. Munck

became a simplistic account whereby underdevelopment was simply caused by the dominant countries regardless of the growth model adopted. It became a reversed mirror image of the conservative modernization theory. Whereas modernization theories saw the diffusion of capital to backward areas as the key to development, the dependency approach saw it as the main cause of underdevelopment. Diffusion of innovation would transform traditional areas of the world according to modernization theorists, but would simply create stagnation and decapitalization according to the dependency approach. Rostow’s “non-communist manifesto” (Rostow 1960) was a product of the Cold War but so also, in different way, was the image of Cuba as the preferred social, economic, and political model to counter underdevelopment for the whole of Latin America. From a contemporary “global theory” perspective, the dependency approach could be seen as limited insofar as it shared with the modernization theory it critiqued a fundamentally nation-state perspective. National economic development was the shared objective for both theories; what they differed on was how the richer countries impacted on this process and on the solution. The methodological nationalism they shared would become problematic in the 1980s as they were unable to account for changes then underway in the global system such as industrialization in South East Asia. They also tended to share a strong economism that led them both to downplay the political process, not to mention the cultural dimension. Finally, they were equally teleological social theories seeing history heading to a pre-defined end. Modernization theory saw a series of stages of development heading inevitably to a US-style consumer society. Dependency theory, in its more simplistic or politicized variants, also saw a series of stages going from feudalism to capitalism and then to socialism, by which they meant the small, beleaguered, and less than democratic Cuba. In terms of the history of development, the early post-independence period in Latin America saw the consolidation of an agro-export development model and in political terms the emergence of an oligarchic state. The struggle for independence from 1810 onward was set in the context of a changing world order. Spanish and Portuguese power was fading, and Britain was emerging as the new global hegemonic power. British merchant adventurers descended on the continent and began to weave the networks of a British “informal empire.” This was in partnership with the criollo elite, and especially the big landowners with whom they shaped the agro-export development model. By around 1850, a degree of political cohesion and state formation had been achieved. This did not occur on the basis of a solid-state structure and a confident-rising bourgeoisie. In Latin America, as in much of the postcolonial world, there was no clear dominant class hegemony; rather, the hybrid local–international elites dominated by international finance capital. In each country, an elite group representing the dominant agro-export orientation—be it coffee or cattle, oil or mineral—controlled the political power. This political system presided over an export-based economy that was well integrated into the world market. Some products lent themselves naturally to “forward linkages” into the rest of the economy such as cattle which could lead to footwear, but there were others such as bananas, for example, which could not. Some products such

41 Latin America: Between the Promises of Globalization …

783

as nitrates, for example, required “backward linkages” through the production of machinery to extract them, while others such as guano were simply gathered up. The cruder dependency approaches saw this as simply external domination of the development process, but this could not occur divorced from the development of social classes—such as a nascent proletariat and a crucial urban middle class from the early 1900s onward—and their struggles over democratization in the political domain which began in earnest in the 1920s and 1930s. This model was already less than stable during the First World War and entered a serious crisis with the 1929 crash and the depression of the 1930s. The engine of export-led growth and the stability of the oligarchic state began to falter with the disruption caused by the First World War. After the Second World War, and most decisively in the 1950s, a new economic, political, social, and cultural matrix for development was consolidated across Latin America most decisively in the Southern Cone (Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, and Brazil) and Mexico. In 1945, the world was a very different place from that of 1914 as the United States replaced Britain as hegemonic power. Whereas, in 1914, three quarters of overseas investment was in portfolio terms (for example, through financial investment) and only a quarter was in direct production, by 1945, these proportions were just about reversed. Thereafter, the internal markets in Latin America would be internationalized and external domination would not just occur where the enclaves of petroleum installations and banana plantations existed. The “new” dependency led to a realignment of political alliances in Latin America as the old landed oligarchy, the new industrialists, the urban middle classes, and the unionized workers vied for space and created alliances in the new development model. The main driver of this new phase of capital accumulation was the state which promoted an ideology of ‘developmentalism’ (desarrollismo in Spanish) which prioritized national economic growth as the key to social and political development. Economic historian Rosemary Thorp concludes that “Latin American economic performance during the three decades that followed the Second World War was astounding” (Thorp 1998: 159). The period of state-led industrialization (1945– 1975) has also been characterized as one of the inward-oriented growths because it prioritized the development of an internal market. Whereas the oligarchic state (1850–1930), based on the big landowning classes, focused on the need for social order, the new developmentalist state stressed much more the need for social integration. In political terms what emerged was a type of “compromise state” that promoted the social integration (rather than exclusion) of the working classes and the political empowerment of the middle classes. A cross-class “populist” or national-popular political discourse both empowered the subaltern classes but also, to varying degrees, co-opted them within the new order with clear political limits. The associateddependent economic model was also a compromise, or even alliance, between national industrialists and the emerging U.S transnational companies that began to spread their wings during this period. Dependence on foreign capital and technology was to some extent masked by the nationalist ideology, and the developmental state held a balancing role between national and foreign sectors of capital in a type of “tripod” (Evans 1979) where national, state, and foreign capital co-existed in some kind of symbiotic relationship.

784

R. Munck

What I am calling the “national-popular import substitution” model of capital accumulation and political control began to enter a crisis in the 1960s, to finally implode in the 1970s. There was a certain “exhaustion” of the import substitution industrialization model because its “easy” stages (such as the replacement of previously imported basic consumer goods) had been completed. Perhaps more crucially, in political terms, the compromise state was beginning to crack. The new industrialist class, in alliance with the transnationals, was beginning to feel that it needed a state more directly reflective of its interests. From below, powerful trade unions, peasant movements, and neighborhood associations were emerging on the scene and creating considerable pressure. The Cuban Revolution in the early 1960s had scared the powerful and emboldened those less powerful. The scene was set for dramatic confrontations which occurred with military takeovers of the state in Brazil in 1964 and Argentina in 1966. These set the scene for further confrontations and even bloodier military interventions in the 1970s, Chile in 1973, and Argentina in 1976. There is also an external context to be considered related to do the mutations of global capital accumulation in the 1970s and beyond, the period was a precursor to the rise of globalization, as it were. The transnational corporations had begun to move into Latin America in the 1950s, and they were followed in the 1960s by the major commercial banks. We thus began to see internationalization of production followed by the start of financialization. By the 1970s, capital flight out of Latin America had accelerated with an elite that had become fully internationalized and no longer (if they ever were) interested in national development. As Garretón et al. put it “at the same time, Latin America was capital starved and rich counties still had capital to export” (Garretón et al. 2002: 29). The internal market built up during the state-led industrialization period was no longer particularly relevant, as Latin America, and most of the rest of the world, turned to the global market now increasingly dominated by finance capital.

Global-Elite/Free-Market Order New development paradigms do not emerge overnight, but by the 1970s we had seen a paradigm shift whereby the “national-popular” development model was replaced by a “global-elite” model, and the developmental state was replaced by a new freemarket order as its polar opposite. This new development matrix turned most of the principles and practices of the old model on their head. Where the state once drove development, now the market alone would be the sole decider on the allocation of economic resources. While there had been some degree of protectionism in the past to assist the developing industries, this was now seen as anathema because it interfered with the market. Finance would henceforth flow freely into Latin America, and there would be no national or state regulations. Whereas citizens had been political actors during the national-popular period, they were now just to be consumers. The project was to disembed the market from society to allow it free rein because it was seen as

41 Latin America: Between the Promises of Globalization …

785

the best way to allocate resources rationally according to the Washington Consensus which codified the new model. The compromise state of the past was shattered by military intervention and the development model was overthrown just as decisively. Some analysts point to 1975 as a turning point in this regard, a pivot as decisive and punctual as 1929 had been in the turn from the outward to inward-oriented development model. The global context of this “great transformation” lay in the crisis of the Northern development model which opened up around 1973. The first oil crisis of 1973 was followed by the abandonment of the gold standard in 1974 and the rise to dominance of international finance. Latin America’s debt crisis, which broke out in 1982, can be traced back to this period and the recycling of petrodollars that occurred from the price hike of oil in 1973. Globalization, as it became known, was now emerging as a strategy of the dominant powers and the biggest economic players. Illusions around the Washington Consensus as a viable development strategy began to fade with the so-called Tequila Crisis of 1994 in Mexico. The InterAmerican Bank warned that this crisis showed the vulnerability of the Latin American economies to internal and external shocks (IDB 1997). By the end of the 1990s, we saw the emergence of a new post-Washington Consensus which sought to retain some of the original principles while accepting much of the critique. There was a growing sense that democratization in the region was now necessary. The first generation economic reforms, according to the World Bank, should now be followed by a focus on the social and institutional agenda. The political leaders of the region had met in Santiago de Chile in 1998 to discuss the social and institutional fallings of the free-market model where it was World Bank President James Wolfensohn who captured the new mood declaring prophetically that “If we do not have greater equity and social justice, there will be no political stability, and without political stability no amount of money put together in financial packages will give us financial stability” (cited in Higgott 2000: 131). On the ground, social movements were, for their part, fiercely contesting the effects of the model even though they had been severely weakened during the military period. While the Washington Consensus, like any paradigm, did not fail because of its internal contradictions, the collapse of the Argentinian economy in 2001–2002 was a decisive turning point. The 1990s had seen Argentina follow a textbook version of the neoliberal development model with the peso even tied to the US dollar in recognition of its dependent status. The convertibility of the peso to the US dollar was the lynchpin of the system, and when it was no longer possible due to inflation, the model collapsed. The banks closed at the end of 2001, and by early 2002, there was social and political chaos. Governments rose and fell in rapid succession, neighborhood assemblies began to run a barter economy, and the state more or less pulled back. As savings evaporated, the middle class joined the working class in all-out rebellion. The slogan of the time was “¡Que se vayan todos!” (let them all go) referring to politicians. Political stability was only regained with the election on Nestor Kirchner in 2001. He was from the left-wing of the national-popular movement and would bring back many of the economic policies of that era while also forming part of the broader turn to the left across Latin America post-2000 (see final section).

786

R. Munck

The impact of the new neoliberal economic model was uneven across countries, economic sectors, and social classes. While globalization did not totally restrict the choices open to developing countries, it certainly set clear limits on what was possible. It acted, as F. H. Cardoso puts it, “more like a fragmenting force than a levelling force which would make the world more homogeneous. It disconnects and reconnects segments of countries locally and internationally as economic growth produces more inequality within.” (Cardoso 2008: 302). Just as with the earlier turn in the 1930s toward industrialization, the 1990s adaptation to the new era of globalization was more or less successful depending on the prior level of economic diversification. Thus, countries like Brazil or Mexico were more likely to have the resources to find a form of integration into the new order— albeit subordinate—than the smaller, less diversified countries of Central America, for example, that were more likely to continue in a more traditional agro-export form of integration. The dictatorships of the 1980s and the civilian regimes that followed them in the 1990s had sought to create a society based on the same individualist principles as the free-market economy it believed in. This meant a great upsurge in consumerism as both the reward for good behavior and as the new overarching pleasure principle. Baker in an analysis of “the market and the masses” in Brazil concludes that “Latin Americans in this new era think about the most important economic issues of their time as consumers and not as workers” (Baker 2009: 258). Leaving aside the unnecessary opposition between people’s identity as workers or as consumers, there is indeed a point here. While privatization was opposed by the majority of public opinion in Latin America, there was considerable support for more open trade and the availability of diverse consumer goods. The number of shopping malls tripled in Brazil in the course of the1990s and one analyst concludes that “the twentieth century in Latin America ended with a shopping spree” (cited in Baker 2009: 258).While this was certainly not available for the majority of the population, it would be true to say that the market policies of the 1990s did generate a consumer boom for many. Critical analysts in Latin America were always aware of the contradictions of the neoliberal model. As Marcus Taylor puts it, “Unfortunately for the neoliberal utopians…the vision they pursued was unrealizable owing to the implausibility of the assumptions from which neoclassical theories of the market began” (Taylor 2009: 67). Critics of the free market in the past, such as Polanyi (2001) writing toward the end of the Second World War, had clearly expounded on the limitations of a free or unregulated market policy. It was quite simply not a viable or sustainable development strategy because of its destructive impact on society and nature. Joe Stiglitz, at the time of writing chief economist of the World Bank, began to question the neoliberal free-market model from within, inspired openly by the work of Polanyi. Eventually, he was to articulate a full-blown critique of the World Bank and, particularly, the IMF policies that represented a full paradigmatic shift beyond the dominant model (Stiglitz 2002). Stiglitz centered on a careful analysis of globalization, its promises, and its achievement in terms of development as well as its detrimental impact in terms of poverty and inequality. It could be said that he wanted to save globalization from neoliberalism and reconstruct it on a more stable and consensual basis. Be that was it may, the illusion of the “one true way” to development had evaporated when it could no longer deliver in theory or in practice.

41 Latin America: Between the Promises of Globalization …

787

Beyond Globalization Versus Nationalism As the twenty-first century dawned over Latin America, it seemed as though politics had moved beyond a “globalization versus nationalism” simplistic binary opposition (for its implications for social theory, see Munck 2016). Globalization seemed to offer a new paradigm for socio-economic development and political democratization. Where we once saw dependency, it was now a question of a mutual “inter-dependency” between peripheral and core countries. International integration, however, spelt increased social disintegration at the national level, as we have seen in the previous section. Latin America’s growing internationalization over recent decades—through the economic, social, cultural, and political processes described by the term “globalization”—has signaled the emergence of a new cultural political economy in the region. This has impacted on the very meaning of politics and democracy with a novel political language emerging around civil society, empowerment, capacity building, and active citizenship that sat uneasily with the prior traditions of the national-popular and anti-imperialist discourses. For many critical Latin American authors, globalization was simply the latest manifestation of U.S. imperialism and did not usher in a new global order. It was not seen as a novel condition on a continent where powerful external forces have always shaped the political economy since the days of the Conquest. Thus, Borón (1998) develops a Latin American reading of globalization that focuses on its neoliberal features and tends to minimize what was new about it. Globalization, for Boron, has simply “caused the new Latin American democracies to surrender important margins of national sovereignty and self-determination” (Borón 1998: 10). Part of the argument is economic, as with the globalization skeptics Borón argues that the economic impact of globalization has been exaggerated. The main argument, however, is political and simply promotes the older ideologies of developmentalism and the role of the state to counter the deleterious effects of economic internationalization under the aegis of neoliberalism. For others, such as F. H. Cardoso, originator of dependency theory and then President of Brazil, globalization was, however, a game changer. Cardoso was to claim that his own “new dependency” analysis of the late 1970s was in fact referring to an emerging condition of globalization, a globalization avant la lettre as it were (Cardoso 2009). This is a persuasive argument insofar as the internationalization that preceded globalization, as we know it, did occur during the 1980s. It would take the collapse of actually existing socialism and the end of the cold war in 1990, however, to usher in globalization and “the end of history” as Fukuyama (1992) puts it. For Cardoso, the globalization paradigm was too narrow or restricted a framework to explain concrete cases, and he always stressed the structural-historical context of development as the dependency approach had. As a pragmatic politician—accused of pandering to neoliberalism by his old leftist colleagues—Cardoso was, as ever, openended in his politics, arguing that “globalization may or may not offer conditions for a more equitable world. It is a matter of making the right choices nationally and internationally” (Cardoso 2009: 252).

788

R. Munck

A more critical take on globalization, that also recognized how it had changed the context for social transformation in Latin America, was that advanced by Negri and Cocco (2006). An important argument of theirs is that “The world market is no longer external and conflicts cut across it at all levels: between the centre and periphery, clearly of course, but also within the centre and the periphery” (Negri and Cocco 2006: 491). There can, thus, be no return to the national development paradigm that others still turn to when tempted by isolationist or rhetorical anti-imperialist politics. Where these authors differ from Cardoso and his social democratic version of globalization is their reliance for social transformation on forces from below, the so-called multitude. They emphasize what they call the “biopolitical power block” exercising a political rationality which takes the administration of life and populations as its subject. From this position flows the need for a radical Foucaultian-style biopolitics in opposition to this new power block. Negri and Cocco reject all forms of isolationist responses to globalization and argue that dependency has become inter-dependency as many mainstream theorists also argue. They see globalization as the necessary starting for any progressive project for social transformation that can be built on for progressive ends. Another line of investigation of the new global order in Latin America has been cast in terms of “hybridity,” originally meaning a cross between two plants, but in this case referring to something that is mixed, such as ethnicity and culture. Rather than seeing development in a teleological fashion heading toward a pre-determined end, this theoretical lens accepted the uneven and combined nature of development of Latin America, as manifested in co-existing historical temporalities of the traditional and the modern, the old and the new. A particular symbiosis between seemingly pre-modern and ultra (or post) modern forms combine through syncretism, an amalgamation of different religions, cultures, or schools of thought, particularly evident in popular culture. These hybrid societies are fundamentally fluid or labile, that is torn between tradition and modernity, the local and the global. Even time does not seem to follow the logic of Western sequential temporality; rather we see old temporalities mixed with new ones. If Latin America is still a hybrid social formation, then globalization may not have achieved the “revolution” against the old order it proposed. Against any totalizing logic, we might pose García Canclini’s argument that “multicultural and multi-temporal heterogeneity does not constitute an obstacle to be eliminated but a basic fact for any programme of development and [regional] integration” (Garcia Canclini 1997: 31). In terms of transnational cultural flows, Latin America has been transformed since the collapse of the national-popular model of development. The transnationalization of the cultural political economy has closed the possibility of a simple return to an essentialist national Latin America identity and culture. Popular culture can no longer be conceived of as a simple and direct counter to hegemonic culture as though they operate in watertight compartments. We are moving from this bipolar conception of political culture to one that is much more decentered and where social, political, and cultural relations are forged in a complex and contradictory manner. The promises of global development and the new cosmopolitanism may have delivered for small

41 Latin America: Between the Promises of Globalization …

789

elite, but not for the majority of the population that see these as mirages, while the nationalism and populism of the past are now often seen as a mythical utopian period. All social processes in Latin America are impacted by globalization but not in a simple way. Transnational migration, for example, cannot be reduced to a South– North flow. By 2015, there were 54 million “Latinos” in the United States, and it is estimated that by 2060 there will be 120 million. From a Latin American perspective, this is a diaspora population far larger than most countries in terms of population. In terms of hybridity, this border crossing segment of the population is deepening this characteristic constantly in ways far more complex than the mainstream “development and migration” problematic allows for. Countries such as Argentina and Venezuela have also acted as a pole of attraction for a wide range of workers from professionals to construction workers. Migration and its circular flows have become an integral element of what constitutes Latin America today. To put it simply, the nation-state is no longer the main or default frame for identity formation. New voices from the margins are being heard today, opening up a kaleidoscope of possibilities for social transformation. I would argue that Latin America is now part of the world and the world is now part of Latin America. This statement leads us beyond conceptual schemas based on simple binary oppositions by which, in language and thought, two theoretical opposites are strictly defined and set off one against another. The national arena is no longer (if it ever was) the self-evident and self- sufficient container of all social and political activity. The global system—with its intensified flow of money, people, and ideas—is no longer something “outside” Latin America, an external reference point as it were. We are moving from a bipolar conception of the political to one that is more decentered, where social and political relations are constructed in a more complex and contradictory manner. We now accept more readily the hybridity of the Latin American condition—in economic, political, social, and cultural terms—and the transnational character of the making, unmaking, and remaking of hegemonic politics.

Toward a New Imaginary From 2000 to around 2015 when the progressive wave began to subside, Latin America went through an unprecedented period of left-wing governments and popular insurgency (for an overview see Munck and Delgado Wise 2018). This was, as Boa Santos puts it, “a time of paradigmatic transition” (Santos 1995: ix). From Venezuela to Ecuador and Bolivia, and from Brazil to Argentina and Uruguay, various varieties of left-wing governments came into office, quite often on the back of mass mobilizations. The new dominant economic model, especially in the Southern Cone, was the neo-structuralist one developed by ECLAC (Economic Commission in Latin America and the Caribbean). It was in part a continuation of the developmentalist approach of the 1950s while also taking on board some of the “market friendly” measures of the 1990s. Its slogan was “growth with equity.” National— and

790

R. Munck

especially regional—development was back on the agenda, and the market was now tempered by state intervention. A series of anti-poverty measures made measurable impacts on poverty and—to a lesser extent—inequality levels. This approach chimed with the critique made by Stiglitz (2002) and others that the promise of globalization was in contradiction with its actual achievements in terms of development. The global market—or what in Latin America is usually called dependency— came back with a vengeance through the so-called extractivism model (based on the extraction of natural resources from the Earth to sell on the world market) which prevailed in Venezuela and the Andean countries. Given that the governmental left turn in Latin America coincided with an international commodities boom (until around 2012), it is not surprising that there was a return to neo-colonial trading patterns. Those governments sought to amplify economic growth through mining, oil and gas exploitation even if they were to use the revenue for enhanced social development. Thus ex-President Correa of Ecuador declared that oil should be seen as “a blessing” if rents were redistributed. By promoting the new extractivist model, the alliance with transnational capital (such as the big mining corporations) was deepened and predatory exploitation practices rode roughshod over local indigenous communities and environmental norms as well. This path—whatever the intentions— arguably leads back toward the classic export-oriented dependency patterns of the past. There was also a socialist—or twenty-first century Socialism—alternative as advocated particularly by Hugo Chávez in Venezuela. This discourse sought a way to go beyond the post neoliberalism policy (compatible with the post-Washington Consensus) adopted in practice in most countries. It recognized the mistakes of the left in the past and advocated a more participative or communitarian politics. It was more attuned to gender, environmental, and cultural politics. The new socialism was also thoroughly national (or Latin American) in tracing its ancestry to the heroes of the anti-colonial era, and even to the Amerindian past before that. Like the radical populisms of the 1950s, they celebrated the national will of the people, and promoted a new understanding of national identity that challenged the conservative wisdom legitimizing the old social order. It was hostile toward globalization which it tended to equate with imperialism, or simply the U.S. The subsequent deterioration of the situation in Venezuela in 2015 deprived twenty-first century Socialism of a plausible role model in practice. From a global perspective perhaps one of the most interesting development paradigms to emerge from Latin America in the last two decades is the political philosophy of buen vivir (literally “living well” but better expressed as “living in harmony” as in with nature and society). It represents a critical reproach to modernist notions of progress and seeks an alternative not based on the exploitation of nature, materialism, and consumerism. It seeks to articulate economic and ecological criteria to create a new ethics of development based on social justice and the collective well-being of the people. It has promoted, along with Latin American peasant movements, a strategy for “food sovereignty” which argues that the people who produce, distribute, and consume food should control the mechanisms and policies of food production and distribution, rather than the corporations and market institutions that

41 Latin America: Between the Promises of Globalization …

791

have come to dominate the global food system. In a Polanyian spirit, it encourages the decommodification of nature, and in its biocentrism (the view or belief that the rights and needs of humans are not more important than those of other living things), it engages with new global concerns around the Anthropocene (…). Buen vivir works on the premise that there are two transitions underway in Latin America: a relatively recent transition toward socialism barely 100 years old and a longer term transition beyond colonialism that goes back to the fifteenth century. While this new cosmovision does not deny the relevance on Western forms of representative democracy, it mainly stresses the need for more communal forms of government. It is characterized thus by a profound hybridity that rearticulates indigenous practices in a modern idiom. It articulates new principles of production and property, identity and subjectivity and, not least, a new way of understanding the world and the production of knowledge about it. Collective aims and values from the Amerindian collective memory play a key role in the articulation of a new vision for development and democracy beyond capitalism, neoliberalism, and actually existing globalization. While the notion of autonomy it propounds, just like that of multiculturalism, can be co-opted by neoliberalism, it also offers a powerful radical alternative in practice. For Néstor García Canclini, the central tension in rethinking Latin America today is that “we are between the promise of global cosmopolitanism and the loss of national projects” (García Canclini 2002: 50). We cannot really argue today that nationalism is a sufficient or adequate response to the new global order for Latin America, though economic nationalism, political populism, and various forms of regionalism will color many of the responses as we have seen above. Manichean (an old religion that breaks everything down into good or evil, light or dark, and love or hate) nationalist “solutions” to development and democracy deficits—for example, in the discourse of Hugo Chávez—do not take into account the heterogeneous or hybrid nature of contemporary Latin America. This is a continent that, going back to the colonial era, has been always-already globalized, criss-crossed by transnational flows and thus not amenable to simple calls for national or regional unity. A blunt nationalism is not a viable or progressive alternative to the vacuous pieties of global cosmopolitanism I would argue. The indigenous cosmologies around buen vivir may well offer a more viable and progressive alternative for engagement with a globalized world now struggling to achieve environmental and social sustainability. Neoliberal globalization has not achieved the transformation of Latin America through open markets, deregulation, and destatization that it had hoped for. Globalization, in terms of the region’s international integration through economic, social, and cultural networks, has not succeeded in its own terms, and even its supporters have now adopted a post-Washington Consensus paradigm. What we see now is a struggle for a new paradigm for democratic development in Latin America: a politics of transformation that understands the nature of hybridity and would be capable of overcoming debilitating binary oppositions between globalism and nationalism. It would focus on inclusion and social economic equity while, also at the same time, foregrounding the issue of indigenous identities and the need for a post-colonial Latin American cultural identity.

792

R. Munck

References Baker, A. 2009. The Market and the Masses in Latin America: Policy Reform and Consumptions in Liberalizing Economic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Borón, A. 1998. Globalization: A Latin American Perspective. Estudos Sociedade e Agricultura No 11. Cardoso, F.H. 2008. Charting a New Course. The Politics of Globalization and Social Transformation. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Cardoso, F.H. 2009. New Paths: Globalization in Historic Perspective. Studies on Comparative International Development 44: 450–456. Cardoso, F.H., and E. Faletto. 1979. Dependency and Development in Latin America. California: California University Press. Evans, P. 1979. Dependent Development. The Alliance of Multinational, State and Local Capital in Brazil. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Frank, A.G. 1970. Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Latin America. New York: Monthly Review Press. Fukuyama, F. 1992. The End of History and the Last Man. London: Hamish Hamilton. García Canclini, N. 1997. Imaginarios Urbanos. Buenos Aires: Editorial Sudamericana. García Canclini, N. 2002. Latinoamericanos buscando lugar en este siglo. Buenos Aires: Paidós. Garretón, M., P. Cleaves, M. Cavarozzi, J. Hartlyn, and G. Gereffi. 2002. Latin America in the Twenty-First Century. Boulder CO: Lynne Rienner. Higgott, R. 2000. Contested Globalization: The Changing Context and Normative Challenges. Review of International Studies 26: 131–153. IDB (Inter American Development Bank). 1997. Economic and Social Progress in Latin America. Washington DC: IDB. Munck, R. 2016. Global Sociology: Towards and Alternative Southern Paradigm. International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society 29 (3). Munck, R., and R. Delgado Wise (eds.). 2018. Reframing the Latin American Development Question: Other worlds are Possible. London: Routledge. Negri, A., and G. Cocco. 2006. Global: Biopoder y luchas en una América Latina Globalizada. Buenos Aires: Paidós. Polanyi, K. 2001. The Great Transformation: The Social and Political Origins of our Times. Boston: Beacon Press. Rostow, W. 1960. The Stages of Economic Growth. A Non-Communist Manifesto. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Santos, B.S. 1995. Toward a New Common Sense: Law, Science and Politics in the Paradigmatic Transition. New York: Routledge. Stiglitz, J. 2002. Globalization and its Discontents. New York: W. Norton. Taylor, M. 2009. The Contradictions and Transformations of Neoliberalism in Latin America. In Post Neoliberalism in the Americas, ed. L. Macdonald and A. Ruckert. London: Palgrave. Thorp, R. 1998. Progress, Poverty and Exclusion: An Economic History of Latin America in the Twentieth Century. Washington: Inter American Development Bank.

Ronaldo Munck is the Head of Civic Engagement at Dublin City University (Ireland), and Senior Researcher at the University of Buenos Aires (Argentina). Among his publications are Labour and Globalization: The new ‘great transformation (2002) and Rethinking Latin America: Development, Hegemony and Social Transformation (2013). He is on the editorial boards of the journals such as Globalizations, Global Labour Journal, Global Discourse, Labour History and Review.

Chapter 42

Globalization and the Transformation of Latin America’s Political Economy William I. Robinson

Abstract As Latin America has become swept up into capitalist globalization from the 1980s, and on it has experienced a vast transformation of its political economy and social structure. Mass movements, revolutionary struggles, nationalist and populist projects were on the ascent in the 1960s and 1970s, were beaten back by local and international elites in the latter decades of the twentieth century in the face of the global economic downturn, debt, state repression, U.S. intervention, the collapse of a socialist alternative, and the rise of the neo-liberal model. This paved the way for the region’s integration into the new global capitalism. A new breed of transnationally oriented elites and capitalists led the region in the late twentieth century into the global age of hothouse accumulation, financial speculation, credit ratings, the internet, malls, fast-food chains, and gated communities through restructuring and integration into the new global production and financial system. This chapter explores Latin America’s integration into this new global economy and concludes with a discussion of the region’s early twenty-first century turn to the Left followed by a return to the Right in the context of a mounting crisis of global capitalism.

Two hundred years after its independence, Latin America remains deeply tied—and subordinated—to the larger world capitalist system that has shaped its economic and political development from the conquest in 1492 right up to the present period of globalization. Over the past five centuries this world capitalist system has gone through successive historic stages, or epochs, each of which has led to transformations in Latin American society and economy. Globalization as a qualitatively new epoch in the ongoing and open-ended evolution of this system is now having a profoundly transformative effect on the region. The ambition of the present essay is to examine Latin America’s experience in the crisis and restructuring of world capitalism that began in the late twentieth century, linking this experience in a systematic and macroscopic way to globalization as the world-historic context for processes of change in each country and region of the world. W. I. Robinson (B) University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, USA e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 I. Rossi (ed.), Challenges of Globalization and Prospects for an Inter-civilizational World Order, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44058-9_42

793

794

W. I. Robinson

What are the successive epochs of world capitalism?1 In the first, mercantilism, capitalism emerged from its feudal cocoon in Europe during the so-called Age of Discovery, symbolized by the bloody conquest of the Americas starting in 1492. This epoch spanned the creation of the colonial and interstate systems, the emergence of the trans-Atlantic economy, and the intensification of trade between West and East. The second stage, competitive industrial capitalism, defined by the industrial revolution, encompassed the forging of the modern nation-state and the rise to power of the bourgeoisie, symbolized by the American Revolution of 1776 and the French Revolution of 1789. The third stage, the rise of national corporate capitalism in the late nineteenth century, brought a new wave of imperialist conquest, powerful national financial and industrial corporations, the consolidation of nation-states and national markets, and the integration of these national markets into a single world market. It was the crisis of national corporate capitalism that paved the way for globalization as a new epoch.2 Let us step back and see how this epoch of national corporate capitalism first came about, and then how it came into crisis. The world economy experienced an unprecedented boom in the post-WWII period. The particular model of national capitalism that took hold in this period was known as Fordism–Keynesianism. Why “Fordist-Keynesian?” It was Henry Ford who first recognized that the new system of mass, standardized production (“Fordism”) could not be sustained without introducing mass, standardized consumption. This meant establishing a stable employment arrangement—or capital-labor relation—for a significant portion of the working classes and wages high enough for the working class to actually consume the goods and services that their labor produced—in exchange for workers’ obedience to capital. In turn, John Keynes analyzed that the Great Depression of the 1930s owed to insufficient demand as a result of the concentration of wealth. The state needed in Keynes’ view to intervene in the economy in order to regulate the market (especially financial markets) and to boost demand through state spending on public projects such as infrastructure and social services as well as through the establishment of minimum wages, unemployment insurance, pensions, and so forth. This Fordist–Keynesian model of capitalism came about because of the mass struggles of working and popular classes around the world from the late 1800s to the 1930s. These struggles spanned worker, populist and socialist movements, the Bolshevik revolution in Russia in 1917, the anti-colonial and national liberation struggles in the Third World, and nationalist and populist movements in Latin America. Fordism–Keynesianism brought about high-growth rates, a rise in living standards for significant sectors of the working classes, and a decrease in inequalities. In effect, the mass upheavals from below in the wake of the two world wars and the Great Depression of the 1930s gave capital little choice but to accommodate itself to these mass struggles through a model of nation-state capitalism which involved a redistribution of wealth downward and constrains on the ability of capitalist classes to freely accumulate. But this so-called golden age of capitalism entered into crisis in the 1970s, characterized by stagnation and a decline in corporate profits. Capital responded to the constraints on accumulation (that is, on its freedom to make profit) imposed by the

42 Globalization and the Transformation of Latin America’s …

795

model of Fordist–Keynesian capitalism, which was based on redistribution through state intervention and regulation of national markets and financial systems, by “going global.” The corporate class and its agents identified the mass struggles and demands of popular and working classes and state regulation as fetters to its freedom to make profits and accumulate wealth as the rate of profit declined in the 1970s. In fact, corporate profits had risen sharply from 1945 to 1968, and then declined until the early 1980s, when it again rose very rapidly, this time as a result of globalization. As I will explain in more detail below, the 1970s crisis precipitated a period of restructuring and transformation that ushered in a new model of global capital accumulation. Transnational fractions of capitalist classes and bureaucratic elites captured state power in most countries of the world during the 1980s and 1990s, typically through elections that took place on the heels of financial turmoil. They utilized that power to undertake massive neo-liberal restructuring, as I explain below, opening up the world in new ways to transnational capital. The correlation of social forces worldwide shifted in the 1980s and early 1990s against popular and working classes and in favor of transnational capital, as income shifted from working and poor people to transnational corporations and to new high-consumption middle, professional and bureaucratic strata that provided a global market segment fueling growth in new areas. All this reverted—temporarily—the crisis of stagnation and declining profits of the 1970s. As Latin America has become swept up into this capitalist globalization from the 1980s, and on it has experienced a vast transformation of its political economy and social structure. Mass movements, revolutionary struggles, nationalist and populist projects were on the ascent in the 1960s and 1970s, ranging from Peronism in Argentina to the elected socialist government of Salvador Allende in Chile and armed revolutionary movements in many countries. These movements were beaten back by local and international elites in the latter decades of the twentieth century in the face of the global economic downturn, debt, state repression, U.S. intervention, the collapse of a socialist alternative, and the rise of the neo-liberal model. This paved the way for the region’s integration into the new global capitalism. In the next section, I put forth a theoretical framework for the dialectics of localglobal change.

Waves of Integration into World Capitalism Earlier epochs of world capitalism have had major implications for Latin America (for discussion, see Robinson 2003, 2008). With each new wave of integration or reintegration of Latin America into world capitalism, there has been a corresponding fundamental change in the leading economic activities and social and class structures of Latin America. The mercantile era saw the original creation of Latin America through conquest and colonial incorporation into the emerging world capitalist system. It was in the next epoch of competitive, industrial capitalism that Latin America won its independence as the former colonies became nation-states with their own national

796

W. I. Robinson

elites and administrative apparatuses. In this epoch, Latin America broke loose from Spanish mercantile control and experienced a rearticulation to world capitalism based on export expansion under the new political and economic elites that led liberal revolutions and oversaw nation-building. The epoch of national corporate capitalism saw yet a deeper integration of Latin America into world capitalism through a major export boom and the rise of new industrial, commercial, and financial elites and new middle and working classes. These groups came together in multi-class populist and corporatist projects that sought development through expanding the internal market, an expansion of agro-exports, import-substitution industrialization, and modernization. This was the particular Latin American variant of Fordist–Keynesian nation-state capitalism discussed above. Global capitalism since the 1980s has been having a similar transformative effect on every country and region of the world. Latin America is experiencing a transition to a new model of economy and society as the region becomes reinserted into the emerging global stage of world capitalism. As transnational capital integrates the world into new globalized circuits of accumulation it has broken down national and regional autonomies, including the earlier pre-globalization models of capitalist development and the social forces that sustained these models. Through internal adjustment and rearticulation to the emerging global economy and society, local productive apparatuses and social structures in each region are transformed, and different regions acquire new profiles as components of a globally integrated production and financial system. The remolding of each national economy creates an array of contradictions between the old and new forms of accumulation. Countries enter the globalization process conditioned by their own history and culture. Uneven development shapes the pace and nature of local insertion into the global economy. Saskia Sassen (1991) has suggested that the international mobility of capital creates new specific forms of articulation among different geographic areas and transformations in the role played by these areas in the world economy, e.g., zones of export processing, offshore banking, global cities as nodes of worldwide management and control. The particular form of rearticulation that emerges through transnational processes has varied from region to region. What is determinant (of causal priority) in conceptualizing regions such as Latin America within the larger unity of the emerging global economy and society is the distinct configurations of social forces and of institutions that arise from these configurations. If we are to properly understand the role of local and regional economies and social and class structures they must be studied from the perspective of their point of insertion into global accumulation rather than their relationship to a particular national society. Local conditions, history, or culture are important but the key becomes their relationship to a transnational system and the dynamics and dialects of global-regional-local change. As these processes unfold, transnational social forces from above are able to reproduce and utilize regional distinctions to serve global accumulation, while transnational social forces from below continue to operate politically through local and national institutions in struggles against global capitalism.

42 Globalization and the Transformation of Latin America’s …

797

Global capitalism is a concrete totality but the world economy is not a general abstraction. On the one hand, it is the laws of capitalist development that drive the overall system and that also constitute the unifying basis and the common linkage of all the different constituent elements of the system, such as national and regional economies and social formations. On the other hand, the world economy becomes manifest in specific regions and their inter-relations. When we study one region, such as Latin America, we are studying a piece of a larger system. The larger system cannot be understood without looking at its “pieces” and how they fit together. Neither can any “piece” be understood outside of how it fits into the larger encompassing system. A critical focus of globalization studies should be exploration into the dynamics of change at the local, national, and regional levels in tandem with movement at the level of the global whole (or the interface among these varied levels). Globalization has involved a change in the correlation of class and social forces worldwide away from nationally organized popular classes and toward a new transnational capitalist class, or TCC, and local economic and political elites tied to transnational capital. As the logic of national accumulation became subordinated to that of globalized accumulation, transnationalized fractions of local dominant groups in Latin America gained control over states and capitalist institutions in their respective countries in the 1980s and 1990s and used that control to push forward capitalist globalization. These new transnationally oriented elites found that continued access to power, privilege, and wealth meant pursuing this path of integration into the global economy. They based “development” on the virtually exclusive criteria of achieving maximum internal profitability as the condition sin que non for attracting mobile transnational capital. As this process pushed forward, these in-country agents of global capitalism became integrated organically as local contingents into the transnational elite, part of the broader process under globalization of transnational class formation. The new face of global capitalism in Latin America, therefore, has been driven as much by local capitalist classes that have sought integration into the ranks of the transnational capitalist class as it has by transnational corporate and financial capital from outside the region. Propelled by privatizations and liberalization during the 1980s and 1990s (and in some countries, into the twenty-first century as well), sectors of the capitalist class and the elite in Latin America amassed an unprecedented amount of wealth and power. They have merged with one another across borders into powerful grupos and business conglomerates, known as multilatinas. In turn, these have cross-invested with extra-regional transnational corporations. According to one estimate, some 70 multilatinas are capable of competing worldwide in the global economy. Conglomerates like Mexico’s Telmex, Cemex, or Grupo Carso; Brazil’s Gerdau; the Cisnero dynasty in Venezuela; the Cuscatlán conglomerate in El Salvador; and the Argentinebased Grupo Arcor, among others, are full-fledged global corporations (Robinson 2008: 171–178). Hence, this new breed of transnationally oriented elites and capitalists led the region in the late twentieth century into the global age of hothouse accumulation, financial speculation, credit ratings, the internet, malls, fast-food chains, and gated communities through restructuring and integration into the new global production

798

W. I. Robinson

and financial system. Neo-liberalism forged a social base among emergent middle classes and professional strata for which globalization opened up new opportunities for upward mobility and participation in the global bazaar. But neo-liberalism also brought about unprecedented social inequalities, mass unemployment, the immiseration and displacement of tens if not hundreds of millions from the popular classes, triggering a wave of transnational migration, and new rounds of mass mobilization among those who stayed behind. But by the turn of century the neo-liberal path of “development” was in crisis in the region, unable to bring about any sustained development or to contain the social conflicts and political tensions generated by the polarizing and pauperizing effects of neo-liberalism. The explosive contradictions of capitalist globalization let to a string of revolts among the popular classes and a turn to the left in the new century, referred to as the “Pink Tide.” These included the Venezuelan revolution led by the nowdeceased Hugo Chavez, the election of the first indigenous president in Bolivia, Evo Morales, in the wake of several popular uprisings, the election of socialist president Rafael Correa in Ecuador, Luis Ignacio da Silva and the Workers Party in Brazil, and neo-Peronists in Argentina, among others. Yet these leftist governments proved unable or unwilling to challenge the juggernaut of capitalist globalization, paving the way for a return of the far right in recent years (more on this below). By the early twenty-first century the “commanding heights” of accumulation were no longer the old agro-exports or national industry and their oligarchies but new set of activities that form part of globalized circuits of accumulation, such as maquiladoras industrial production, transnational agribusiness complexes, global banking, tourism, the “retail revolution,” or the spread of Walmart and other super-stores, the transnationalization of labor markets that has made Latin America a major exporter of workers to the global economy, and a new round of raw materials extractivism. It is to this new model that we now turn.

The New Globalization Model of Accumulation: 1990s to Date The commanding heights of accumulation in Latin America are no longer the old traditional agro-exports or national industry. In particular, six “axes of accumulation” have come to dominate the region’s political economy and its articulation to the world economy. Transnational capital poured into the region in the form of productive investment in these dynamic new circuits of accumulation. But it also poured in as portfolio and speculative financial ventures. Transnational finance capitalists took advantage of the bonanza opened up by the privatization of public assets, the deregulation of banking systems, and the issue of government bonds as a widespread mechanism in the region to attract investors from the money markets that dominate the global financial system. The region experienced a sharp increase in integration

42 Globalization and the Transformation of Latin America’s …

799

into global markets from 1989 to 2016. During this time trade in goods as a percentage of the region’s total GDP more than doubled, increasing from 10.2 to 21.7.3 The first axis is a reorientation of industry toward global markets. This involves integrating national industrial activity into global production chains as component phases. Most notable is the phenomenal spread of maquiladora assembly plants that were established along the U.S.-Mexico border in the 1970s and on but subsequently spread throughout the Greater Caribbean Basin and more recently into South America as far south as Brazil and Argentina. Through this “industrial reconversion,” small and medium industrial enterprises—known by their Spanish acronym PYMES—have also reoriented from the national to the global market by becoming local subcontractors and outsourcers for transnational corporations. For the region as a whole, manufacturing exports as a percentage of total manufacturing stood at 67 in 2016. Table 1 shows the ongoing reorientation of industry into the “global factory” for select countries and years. The decrease in some countries from 2005 to 2016 is Table 1 Manufacturing exports f.o.b. as percentage of total manufacturing, select countries (aggregate value, at constant 2000 prices) 1995

2000

2005

2016

Argentina

15.8

18.2

22.6

14.7

Bolivia

19.8

36.7

15.8

n/a

Brazil

21.3

26.6

45.5

41.2

Chile

17.4

26.6

33.3

33.4

Colombia

28.9

36.6

49.8

27.8

Costa Ricaa

26.7

97.8

98

74.2

Ecuador

24.3

61.6

92

n/a

El Salvador

15.9

21.4

28.1

82.1

Guatemala

23.8

34.1

49

36.4

Honduras

33.7

28.6

53.1

86.3

Mexicoa

81.6

129.6

155

165

Nicaraguaa

22.6

8

11.5

122.1

Paraguay

15.8

15

26.6

28.1

Peru

10.4

15.1

27

20

Uruguay

24.3

28.1

28.7

26.4

Venezuela

12.1

13

20.4

n/a

Source 1995, 2000, and 2005 calculated on the basis of ECLAC, Statistical Yearbook for Latin America and the Caribbean, 2006 edition; 2016 calculated on basis of World Bank Indicators, 2016 a Figures are above 100% for Mexico because a portion of manufacturing exports in the in-bond industry is calculated by statistical agencies as manufacturing exports but not as part of the national manufacturing sector. The same holds for Nicaragua in 2016. The Costa Rican case appears skewed because the very high percentage of manufacturing value-added as exports is accounted for by the installation of a major INTEL computer chip plant in the country in 1997 and the export of high-value computer chips. Chip production reached a peak in the first decade of the twenty-first century. Intel announced in 2017 that it would close the plant

800

W. I. Robinson

Table 2 Maquiladora production in Central America (millions $US, average five-year periods and select years) 1980–84

1990–94

2000–03

2006

2012

Costa Rica

10.4

507.5

3172.2

n/a

n/a

El Salvador

–

360.2

1724.6

n/a

1041

Guatemala

–

88.5

483.6

1717.1

2186

Honduras

–

107.6

613.4

2661.8

2800

Nicaragua

–

6.5

117.9

753.6

2524.9 (2014)

Source compiled from ECLAC and SICA, various years

likely due to domestic industrial policies pursued by Pink Tide governments. Table 2 shows the explosive growth of maquiladoras in Central America from the 1980s to the twenty-first century.4 Second are new transnational agribusiness exports that increasingly eclipse the old agro-export and domestic agricultural models. Every national agricultural system in Latin America has been swept up in it the new global agribusiness complex. Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, and Bolivia are no longer identified with coffee, sugar, and beef but with King Soy. Soy is processed industrially as industrial and edible oils, as feed for animals and as food for markets in Asia and elsewhere. Soy plantations set up by transnational agribusiness and run as capitalist “factories in the field” are displacing millions of smallholders, eating up the rainforests and savannas, and generated a ecological disaster. In Mexico, millions of acres previously planted in corn, beans, and other crops for the domestic market have been replaced by fruits and vegetables for the global supermarket. Colombia and Ecuador are now the second and third largest exporters of cut flowers to the world market. Chile’s Central Valley, once the country’s bread basked, is now a specialized region for the intensive production and export of canned and fresh fruits and wines, and so on. This new face of transnational corporate agribusiness in Latin America involves capitalist rather than the earlier oligarchic production relations and draws in rural workers rather than the early peasant or peon labor.5 Third is the explosive growth of the global tourist industry. Virtually every Latin American country has been swept up into the industry, which now employs millions of people, accounts for a growing portion of national revenue and gross national product, penetrates numerous “traditional” communities, and brings them into global capitalism. Local indigenous, Afro-descendant, and mestizo communities have fought displacement, environmental degradation, and the commodification of local cultures by tourist mega-projects such as the Ruta Maya in Mexico and Central America, the Ruta Inca in Peru, Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic, and San Pedro de Atacama in Chile. For many countries—including Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, and most of the Caribbean nations—tourism is the first or second most important source of foreign exchange. By 2004, tourism represented 12% of Latin America’s aggregate foreign exchange receipts, 33% for Cuba, 35 for the Central American republics, 35% for the Dominican Republic, 36% for Jamaica, and so on.6

42 Globalization and the Transformation of Latin America’s …

801

Fourth, services, commerce, and finances have become increasingly transnationalized. The arrival of the Global Supermarket has involved the invasion of transnational retail conglomerates like Walmart, K-Mart, Costco, Carrefour, and Royal Ahold, as well as fast-food chains, as noted above, generally in partnership with Latin American investor groups. Already by 2002, these transnational retail conglomerates controlled some 70% of the region’s commerce, up from just 10–20% in 1990. (Reardon and Berdegue 2002: 371). Fast-food chains, super-stores, and malls are the outlets for the distribution of goods from the Global Farm and the Global Factory. They have displaced thousands of small traders, disrupted local economies, and propagated a global consumer culture and ideology. Meanwhile, data processing and call centers, outsourced from the Global North, have spread at an astonishing rate. Already by 2003, half a million Brazilians labored in call centers, largely women from 16 to 24 years of age, in what some characterized as “informational maquiladoras.” Fifth is the export of labor to the global economy. Immigrant labor is exported across Latin America to intensive zones of accumulation and to the global economy, to the United States, Europe, and beyond. In turn, Latin Americans working elsewhere in the global economy send back remittances. In 2016, these remittance flows surpassed $70 billion, up from just $30 billion at the turn of the century (Orozco 2016: 3). To put this in perspective, this figure represents 13% of the combined GDP of all of Latin America and the Caribbean. In many countries remittances are the number one source of foreign exchange making possible macroeconomic stability, mitigating fiscal crises, and providing an escape valve for acute social and political tensions. In 2016, Mexico received nearly $27 billion in remittances, which made it the most important foreign exchange earner that year (if we don’t count drug money that enters the financial system, which is estimated at close to $35 billion [see, inter-alia, Gibler 2011; Paley 2014]). Remittances are also the single most important foreign exchange earner for Central American and most Caribbean countries (see Table 3). Families receiving remittances become integrated into the global retail sector that now controls over 70% of local retail markets, as fast-food chains and malls have spread in every country of Latin America, so that the social reproduction of millions of Latin Americans becomes dependent on these new global labor, financial, and commercial flows. And sixth, a new round of extractive activity has been launched, including a vast expansion of mining operations and energy extraction to feed a voracious global economy, especially in the Asia-Pacific region, which has displaced the United States as Latin America’s principal trading partner. China is now the biggest foreign investor and lender in the region, much of its capital being invested in extractive activities and accompanying infrastructural projects. Ironically, a major portion of the extractive expansion has come from left-oriented Pink Tide governments, such as in Ecuador and Bolivia, where governments have used combinations of nationalizations, tax reforms, and social programs to redirect a portion of the income generated by extractive activities toward poor majorities, what some have referred to as a neo-extractivism. In sum, Latin America’s productive apparatus has experienced a fundamental transformation. In comparison to today, in the 1960s and 1970s, there were still

802 Table 3 Remittances as percentage of exports and GDP, 2014, select Latin American Countries

W. I. Robinson Exports

GDP

Bolivia

17.8

3.7

Colombia

7.8

1.1

Costa Rica

5.8

1

Dominican Republic

22.7

7.4

Ecuador

11.9

2.4

El Salvador

118.9

18.3

Guatemala

66.6

12.2

Haiti

n/a

24.9

Honduras

46.6

19.7

Jamaica

n/a

16.5

Mexico

18.9a

2.1

Nicaragua

20.5

10.7

Peru

15

3.2

Source IDB, various annual reports, World Bank Indicators 2015, and Orozco (2016): 3 a Excludes maquiladora exports

major pockets of society that were pre-capitalist or that at least enjoyed some local autonomy vis-à-vis national and world capitalism. But twenty-first-century global capitalism has penetrated just about every nook and cranny of Latin America. Capitalist relations are practically universal now in the region. Let us turn to how political dynamics became articulated with these economic transformations bound up with globalization.

From Right to Left and Back to Right: The Unraveling of the Pink Tide The new patterns of accumulation and the set of neo-liberal policies that governments implemented to facilitated integration into global capitalism were unable to bring about any sustained development for a majority of the population, or even to prevent continued backward movement, in the late twentieth century. The world recession of 2000–01 hit Latin America hard, undermining growth and reversing the gains of previous years. Politically, the fragile democratic systems installed through the so-called transitions to democracy of the 1980s were increasingly unable to contain the social conflicts and political tensions generated by the polarizing and pauperizing effects of neo-liberalism. The Washington Consensus—which refers to the convergence of state policies around the world since the 1980s around neo-liberal measures—eroded as the region experienced renewed economic stagnation. By the early twenty-first century, neo-liberalism appeared to be reaching its ideological

42 Globalization and the Transformation of Latin America’s …

803

and political limits insofar as it had become discredited among the Latin American masses and was generating widespread resistance that threatened stability. The political turning point came with the collapse of the Argentine economy in 2000—previously the poster child of neo-liberalism—and the subsequent mass uprising in 2001, which was followed throughout the region by a string of revolts among popular classes, an electoral comeback of the left and a new “radical populism.” The leftist governments that swept to power in the early twenty-first century transformed the political landscape in the Americas and inspired popular and revolutionary struggles around the world. They challenged and even reversed major components of the neo-liberal program. Many of them halted privatizations, nationalized natural resources and other economic sectors, restored public health and education, expanded social spending, introduced social welfare programs, renegotiated foreign debts on discounted terms, broke with the IMF in rejection of the Fund’s neo-liberal policy prescriptions, and staked out foreign policies independent of Washington’s dictates. All of this was highly popular with poor majorities. Yet the structural power of transnational capital, and especially of global financial markets, over the effort by states and social movements to undertake transformations is enormous and pushed the Pink Tide states to accommodate these markets. Redistribution, the reduction of poverty, and high-growth rates were made possible by a worldwide spike in global commodity prices in the first decade of the twenty-first century, driven in part by China’s voracious appetite, given its booming economy and double-digit growth rates, for raw materials. Notwithstanding the leftist rhetoric, these governments oversaw a massive expansion of raw material production in partnership with foreign and local contingents of the transnational capitalist class. The social model involved the capture and redistribution of surpluses generated by the export of these raw materials, especially minerals, fossil fuels, and agricultural commodities. The Pink Tide countries became ever more integrated into the circuits of global capitalism and dependent on global commodity and capital markets. In Venezuela, redistributive reforms were much deeper than in other Pink Tide countries and were linked to the goal of transformations in state structure and property relations and to greater empowerment of the popular classes. Yet Venezuela was even more dependent on oil exports in 2017 than it was at the turn of the century (World Bank 2018). Soy production in Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Bolivia experienced an explosive expansion from the 1990s into the second decade of the twenty-first century as transnational corporate agribusiness displaced millions of smallholders and converted the countryside into a vast sea of industrial-scale soy plantations (Robinson 2008, Chap. 2). With the exception of Venezuela during the height of the Bolivarian revolution, what stood out were the absence of any shift in basic property and class relations despite changes in political blocs, a discourse in favor of the popular classes, and an expansion of social welfare programs. In effect, these governments carried out what Italian Marxist theorist and politician Antonio Gramsci referred to as passive revolution, whereby dominant groups undertake reform from above that defuses mobilization from below for more far-reaching transformation. The Pink Tide governments were “progressive” insofar as they introduced limited redistribution and restored a

804

W. I. Robinson

role for the state, less in regulating accumulation than in administering its expansion in more inclusionary ways. When we cut through the rhetoric, many of the Pink Tide states were able to push forward a new wave of capitalist globalization with greater credibility than their orthodox and politically bankrupt neo-liberal predecessors. In doing so, these governments in effect deradicalized dissent and demobilized social movements. The same movements that brought the Pink Tide governments to power were now seen as threats to the extent that they stood in the way of resource extraction and the generation of state revenues through granting concessions to transnational capital. An elected progressive bloc emerged in the region, made up of the Pink Tide governments, committed to mild redistributive programs, respectful of prevailing property relations, and unwilling or simply unable to challenge the global capitalist order. The Pink Tide model constituted a new, post neo-liberal form of the national state tied to the larger institutional networks of global capitalism. The commodities boom financed the expansion of social programs that reduced poverty and raised the standard of living of the working and popular classes. Yet because there were no more substantial structural transformations that could address the root causes of poverty and inequality, these social programs were subject to the vagaries of global markets over which the Pink Tide states exercised no control. Once the 2008 world financial crisis hit, they came up against the limits of redistributive reform within the logic of global capitalism. The extreme dependence on raw materials exports threw these countries into economic turmoil when global commodities markets collapsed, undermining governments’ abilities to sustain social programs and generating political tensions that helped fuel popular protest and open up space for a right-wing resurgence. Brazil was most indicative of these patterns and the most tragic for the popular classes. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva won the 2002 election only after his wing of the Workers Party moved sharply toward the political center and promised not to default on the country’s foreign debt. The wealthy grew in number by 11.3% in 2005 alone as inequality deepened (Zibechi 2006). “Far from doing any harm to the propertied, this [Lula] was a government that greatly benefitted them,” historian Perry Anderson (2011) observed. “Never has capital so prospered as under Lula… Brazilian financiers and industrialists have been warm supporters of Lula’s government.” The Brazilian stock market outperformed every other bourse in the world. Outlays to the Bolsa Familia [a welfare program] totaled a mere 0.5% of GDP while rentier incomes from the public debt took 6–7% and taxes remain staggeringly regressive,” Anderson (2011: 2) noted.7 At the same time, the Workers’ Party government demobilized the mass social movements that brought it to power and then imposed austerity after the collapse. Only in this light can we understand the brazen return of the far right. US intervention, of course, is a critical part of the story of the unraveling of the Pink Tide. As in other historical moments of counterrevolution, such as in Chile under Salvador Allende in the early 1970s and Nicaragua in the 1980s, US strategists were deft at exploiting mistakes and limitations of the Pink Tide governments and manipulating legitimate grievances among the popular sectors in these countries for the purposes of destabilization. This is especially the case with the Bolivarian project in

42 Globalization and the Transformation of Latin America’s …

805

Venezuela—by far the most radical and socialist-oriented experiment among the Pink Tide—that has faced an all-out strategy of US counterrevolution since its inception.8 There are other factors to consider as well, such as the particular dynamics of class and social struggles in each country that shaped the trajectory of Pink Tide experiences and the attempts at building an alternative regional economic bloc around the Bolivarian Alternative for Our America (ALBA). Yet these dimensions played out to the drumbeat of the expansion of capitalist globalization in the region followed by crisis. The transnational capitalist class (and let us recall, the leading Latin American capitalist groups are part of this transnational class) used its structural power in the global political economy to defuse the Pink Tide challenge to its rule. Nearly two decades after the turn to the left that began in the late 1990s, the right resumed power with a vengeance in Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Chile, and Honduras, while the Venezuelan revolution entered deep crisis and the leftist projects in Bolivia, Ecuador, Uruguay, Nicaragua, and El Salvador have been emptied of much of their socialist pretensions. If this ebbing of the Pink Tide demonstrates the limits of parliamentary changes in the era of global capitalism, it also points to the renewed hegemony of the transnational capitalist class over the region.

Conclusion: Latin America and the Crisis of Global Capitalism Global capitalism, however, faces an unprecedented crisis—at once ecological, social, economic, and political. Structural crises of capitalism—so-called because the only way out of these crises is to restructure the system—occur about every forty to fifty years. The structural crisis of the 1930s was overcome through a Keynesian emphasis on state investment and redistributive policies to shore up demand. Capital responded to the next structural crisis of the 1970s by going global. The technological revolution associated with the rise of computer and information technology in the 1980s was itself a response on the part of capitalists to the crisis of overaccumulation, declining rates of profit, and well-organized working classes and social movements in the 1960s and the 1970s. From the 1980s and on, as discussed earlier, the emergent transnational capitalist class promoted vast neo-liberal restructuring, trade liberalization, and integration of the world economy. The global economy experienced a boom in the late twentieth century as the former socialist countries entered the global market and as capital, liberated from nation-state constraints, unleashed a vast new round of accumulation worldwide. As we have seen for Latin America, this transnational capitalist class unloaded surpluses and resumed profit-making in the emerging globally integrated production and financial system through the acquisition of privatized assets, the extension of mining and agro-industrial investment on the heels of the displacement of hundreds of millions from the countryside, and a new wave of industrial expansion assisted by computers and informatics.

806

W. I. Robinson

In the logic of global capitalism, the social reproduction of labor and poor majorities has become less important for accumulation since the output of each nation and region, is to be exported to the global level. At the aggregate level of the world economy, this means an overall system-wide contraction in demand simultaneous to a system-wide expansion of supply. Escalating inequality and the impoverishment of the many means that global demand tends to stagnate and the global market cannot absorb the output of the global economy, leading to crises. Hence the current pattern of capitalist globalization aggravates the tendencies inherent in capitalism toward what is known as overaccumulation by further polarizing income and therefore contracting the system’s absorption capacity (Robinson 2018, in press). To state this in another way, by liberating capital from redistribution at the nationstate level as a countervailing tendency to that of social polarization, globalization resulted in unprecedented global inequalities that, far from diminishing, have escalated at an astonishing rate since the 2008 Great Recession. According to the development agency Oxfam (2016), just one percent of humanity owned over half of the world’s wealth in 2016 and the top 20% owned 94.5 of that wealth, while the remaining 80% had to make do with just 4.5%. Given such extreme polarization of income and wealth, the global market cannot absorb the output of the global economy. The Great Recession marked the onset of a new structural crisis of overaccumulation (Robinson 2014). But now the crisis threatens to become systemic as we approach the ecological limits to capitalism’s reproduction, and human-induced environmental change threatens to bring about the sixth mass extinction in our planet’s history and devastating climate disruption. It is in the context of global capitalist crisis that we should ponder alternative futures for Latin America. The panorama as we approached the third decade of the twenty-first century, and the sixth decade of capitalist globalization, suggests that the state structures which have been set up (and continuously modified) to protect dominant interests in the region are again decomposing, possibly beyond repair. A long period of political decay and institutional instability is likely. Worldwide, we are entering a time of great turbulence, conflict, and uncertainty in the global system. Structural crises of world capitalism are historically times of sustained social upheaval and transformation, as reflected in Latin America’s recent history. Perhaps in response to the crisis, we will see a reassertion of productive over financial capital in the global economy and a global redistributive project, a global Keynesianism pushed from below by popular resistance and from above by reformist elements among the transnational elite? Or are we already witness to an emerging global police state (Robinson 2018) to contain the explosive contradictions of the system, as exemplified in the return of a repressive right in Latin America, along with a resurgent far right in Europe and other regions? As in all historic processes, what happens next is unscripted. Historical outcomes are always open-ended, subject to contingency and to being pushed in new and unforeseen directions. It would be foolish to predict with any conviction the outcome of the looming crisis of global capitalism. But Latin America will surely play a vital role in this unfolding stage of global conflict and change.

42 Globalization and the Transformation of Latin America’s …

807

Notes 1. For background discussion on this opening section, see Robinson (2004, 2014). 2. Some see globalization as dating back to the rise of capitalism in the 15th century. Others see it as an even older process going back millennia and defined by the spread of world religions and intercontinental cultural flows. My theory of global capitalism that forms the theoretical backdrop to the matters addressed here can be found, inter-alia, in Robinson (2003, 2004, 2008, 2014, in press). The application of this theory to Latin America specifically is expounded on in Robinson (2003, 2008). 3. The 1989 figure is from World Bank (2001), Table 6.1, p. 322. The 2016 figure is from World Bank (2016). 4 For greater discussion and more data on the Central America case, see Robinson (2003). 5. For more on the new transnational agribusiness, see Robinson (2008, Chap. 2). 6. For brevity’s sake, this data and all data not otherwise cited in an endnote are from Robinson (2008), diverse tables. 7. Similarly, in Argentina, the percentage of national income going to labor (through wages) and to the unemployed and pensioners (through social welfare subsidies and pensions) dropped from 32.5 in 2001, before the crisis exploded, to 26.7 in 2005. In the words of the Pink Tide president Nestor Kirchner, the aim of his policies was to reconstruct capitalism in the country, “a capitalism in which the state plays an intelligent role, regulating, controlling, and mitigating where necessary problems that the market does not solve.” As cited in Dangl (2010: 69–70). 8. In Venezuela, the government of Hugo Chavez cut poverty by more than half, trebled real social spending per person, expanded free health care and education to millions of people, all but eliminated illiteracy, and raised living standards across the board. The United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America (CEPAL) reported in 2010 that Venezuela had reduced inequality by more than any other country in Latin America from 2002–2008, ending up with the most equal income distribution in the region. As reported by Weisbrot (2010).

References Anderson, Perry. 2011. Lula’s Brazil. London Review of Books 33 (7). Dangl, Benjamin. 2010. Dancing With Dynamite: Social Movements and States in Latin America. Baltimore: AK Press. Gibler, John. 2011. To Die in Mexico: Dispatches from Inside the Drug War. San Francisco: City Light Books. Orozco, Manuel. 2016. Remittances to Latin America and the Caribbean in 2016. Washington, D.C.: Inter-American Dialogue. Oxfam. 2016. An Economy for the 1%. January 2016 report. The full report. https://www.oxfam. org/en/pressroom/pressreleases/2016-01-18/62-people-own-same-half-world-reveals-oxfamdavos-report.

808

W. I. Robinson

Paley, Dawn. 2014. Drug War Capitalism. Oakland: AK Press. Reardon, Thomas, and Julio A. Berdegue. 2002. The Rapid Rise of Supermarkets in Latin America: Challenges and Opportunities for Development. Development Policy Review 20 (4). Robinson, William I. 2003. Transnational Conflicts: Central America, Social Change, and Globalization. London: Verso. Robinson, William I. 2004. A Theory of Global Capitalism: Production, Class and State in a Transnational World. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press. Robinson, William I. 2008. Latin America and Global Capitalism. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Robinson, William I. 2014. Global Capitalism and the Crisis of Humanity. New York: Cambridge University Press. Robinson, William I. 2018. Accumulation Crisis and Global Police State. Critical Sociology 1–14. Robinson, William I. In press. Into the Tempest: Essays on the New Global Capitalism. Chicago: Haymarket. Sassen, Saskia. 1991. The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Weisbrot, Mark. 2010. The Venezuelan Economy: Media Sources Get it Wrong, Again. The Guardian, September 13. World Bank. 2001. World Development Indicators (Washington D.C.: World Bank). World Bank. 2016. World Integrated Trade Solution. World Bank Group. https://wits.worldbank. org/CountrySnapshot/en/LCN/textview. World Bank. 2018. The World Bank in Venezuela, on-line country report. http://www.worldbank. org/en/country/venezuela/overview/. Accessed 3 May 2018. Zibechi, Raul. 2006. America Latina: La Nueva Gobernabilidad. ALAI news service, June 23 dispatch, datelined Montevideo. http://www.paginadigital.com.ar/articulos/2006/2006prim/not icias6/america-latina-260606.asp. Accessed 23 June 2006.

William I. Robinson is a Professor of Sociology, Global and International Studies, and Latin American and Iberian studies at the University of California, at Santa Barbara. Among his awardwinning books are Transnational Conflicts: Central America, Social Change, and Globalization (2003), Latin America and Global Capitalism (2008), and Global Capitalism and the Crisis of Humanity (2014).

Chapter 43

The Caribbean and Global Capitalism: Five Strategic Traits Jeb Sprague

Abstract Once the slave plantation outposts of European colonialism, then a domain of U.S. imperialism, over recent decades the Caribbean has become engulfed in novel forms of accumulation and social relations. This paper focuses on the Caribbean region’s contradictory integration into the globalization phase of world capitalism. As dominant groups facilitate new accumulation networks, workers have been compelled to incorporate their labor power into transnational value chains. Markets once segmented by national economies are fragmenting and becoming functionally integrated across borders. In this paper, I outline five strategic traits unfolding across the region: (1) the rise of a transnational financial system into which Caribbean society has become integrated, (2) the envelopment of the region by transnational production networks, (3) the marginalization, flexibilization and precarization of negatively racialized and gendered workers in relation to capitalist globalization, (4) the emergence of transnationally oriented state elites across the Caribbean alongside the restructuring of U.S. domination, and (5) new subcontractor networks through which local business groups deepen their transnational integration. A tenuous political economic process entwined with upheavals from below, and socio-economic and environmental crises, it occurs alongside a revamping of consent formation and various coercive forms of domination.

This article offers an account of the Caribbean’s integration into today’s novel global capitalist system, as a product of the interplay of class dynamics and institutional apparatuses operating on local, regional, international, and global levels. By the era of “global capitalism” or “globalization,” I refer to the latest period in the history of world capitalism. While world capitalism formed over the last five centuries, the newest era within it emerged over the closing decades of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first century. I argue that we need to understand the changes sweeping the Caribbean through global political economy, and specifically, using the Global Capitalism School (GCS) J. Sprague (B) Institute for Research on World-Systems (IROWS), University of California, Riverside, CA, USA e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 I. Rossi (ed.), Challenges of Globalization and Prospects for an Inter-civilizational World Order, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44058-9_43

809

810

J. Sprague

approach, represented by scholars such as Hoogvelt (2001), Sklair (2002), Robinson (2004, 2014), and Watson (2015). This approach posits that over the last three to four decades, through the rise of Transnational Corporations (TNCs) and globalized forms of accumulation, there have occurred fundamental changes to social relations. People across the planet have been compelled to integrate their labor power into transnational networks of accumulation (through banking, the goods they buy, their jobs, mortgages, and so on). While experiencing different histories than metropole societies, people in post-colonial nations have also become subsumed by global/transnational capitalism. This GCS approach in many ways updates and builds upon the World Systems approach (Wallerstein 1979; Arrighi 1994). World Systems’ scholars have provided a very useful paradigm for thinking critically about the unevenness of the interstate system over the centuries. World Systems’ scholars have helped us to understand how different core, semi-peripheral, and peripheral nation states have developed (or what they describe as having become underdeveloped). They have helped us to think about how different societal systems have been reproduced over the millennia (Chase-Dunn and Lerro 2014), and how in modern history countries have become specialized in the production of particular types of goods. From this perspective, labor across the interstate system has become bunched within nations and geared toward particular industries and circuits of trade. While getting at important dynamics, in my view this proposition of World Systems’ scholars does not account for the deep integrative nature of transnational capitalism arising over recent decades. For transnational capitalists, the real economy is not a mass of independent national economies but rather an interconnected (global) space in which place and space form a heterogeneous unity, which approximates an open-ended totality that never reaches a simple whole. Uneven and combined development remains integral to capitalism’s spatial motion, with a “tendency for capital to concentrate in particular built environments” (Robinson 2009, p. 74). Yet capital accumulation (at the most general level), in my view, is often misrepresented as national economic development. Far from being motivated to make the economic development of any single country its priority, the logic of capital is to enrich a handful of individuals and private institutions at the expense of nature and of the exploited, the marginalized, and gendered and negatively racialized working people. From a GCS approach the core and periphery can also denote social groups and classes through a transnational context. This helps us consider how social polarization rooted in the rising transnationalization of material relations impacts regions and nations. Pools of the first world (such as high-consuming strata) now also exist in the third world, and vice versa large populations of migrants and marginalized workers live in the Global North. These groups are linked in diverse ways to new transnational networks of production, finance, and consumption. Even as transnational processes intensify (such as through finance, trade, entertainment, communications, and various institutions), these dynamics entwine with many local, regional and international particularities dynamics, impacting how capitalist development occurs.

43 The Caribbean and Global Capitalism: Five Strategic Traits

811

At historic crossroads, the Caribbean has passed through different phases of capitalism—from mercantilism to national formation to international monopoly capitalism to today’s transnational/global capitalism (Sprague 2019a; Regalado 2006; Robinson 2003). “Transnational processes” differ from international processes in the sense that different components or agents jointly operate across borders, thus creating a diverse array of structural, institutional, and organizational phenomena that functionally link regions and nations globally.1 Many factors have contributed to this ongoing shift from international to transnational processes, key among them is the unprecedented technological revolution made possible by the development of the microprocessor, leading to leaps in coordinating and labor-eliminating computer technologies. This has allowed for new kinds of long distance instantaneous communications, remittance networks, global cultural and media flows, low-cost mass travel, new banking and financial activities, and so on. As an important factor, however I do not want to overemphasize technology and organizational advancements as the driving force of the changes that are occurring. First we need to look to the human role in constructing these changes. Alongside the rise of transnational capitalism (or the “globalization era” of world capitalism), there have been periods of economic growth and stagnation and political tumult, the constant role of U.S. intervention, as well as a global crises like climate change and social polarization. Top elites meanwhile face growing difficulties in reproducing their legitimacy and are seeking ways to offset this (alarmed by the potential political impact of social media and the rapid spread of information) (Friedman 2018; Blumenthal and Sprague 2018; Khandelwal 2018). Capitalist overaccumulation meanwhile intensifies, evidenced by risky investments in global cryptocurrencies and derivatives markets. The region also now enters a situation unprecedented in its modern history, with the region’s healthcare infrastructure strained and the collapse of tourism occurring under the global Coronavirus pandemic. Over recent decades, with these deep changes coming about alongside rising levels of production and consumption, there has also emerged a scientific consensus on the rise of climate change with its increasingly devastating role on the planet’s flora and fauna. More than half of the Caribbean’s coral reefs have been lost (Aldred 2014). As a Tufts University report explains, “The two dozen island nations of the Caribbean, and the 40 million people who live there, are in the front lines of vulnerability to climate change. Hotter temperatures, sea-level rise and increased hurricane intensity threaten lives, property and livelihoods throughout the Caribbean” (Bueno et al. 2008). The subsumption of the region into transnational capitalism, while allowing for improved access to goods and other advancements, exists through a form of production based on exploitation and is enmeshed in turbulent crises. What then are some of the fundamental changes taking place in the region that are representative of the rise of capitalist globalization? As the region’s political economy is remolded, I argue that we see a number of strategic traits that hinge upon extreme inequality and a new kind of functional (transnational) integration across borders:

812

J. Sprague

(1) The emergence of a transnational financial system. (2) The formation of transnational production networks. (3) New subcontractor networks that function to integrate local and regional businesses into transnational chains. (4) A move away, by regional policymakers, from indicative development planning with an eye to national goals and to a transnational orientation and promotion of so-called “global competitiveness.” This plays out in different ways, intersecting with different political authorities, yet as the U.S. remains the region’s hegemon. (5) The flexibilization and precarization of labor, as the labor power of racialized and gendered workers is inserted into globalizing market relations. Prior to looking at these traits in more depth and in relation to the Caribbean, I want to first lay out a brief political economic history leading up to this point where there has arisen a new global historic bloc, which has at its core a new hegemonic class, the Transnational Capitalist Class (TCC).

Historical Background The Caribbean was the place of the first colonial expeditions and colonial institutions. It was at the center of the brutal slave plantation complex and where world capitalism’s racialized class relations began in large part to take shape. But also, significantly it was also one of the first places of colonial independence and modern slave revolts. In reaction, it was the region in which the United States cuts its teeth as a nascent empire, in the shape of repeated military interventions. Through the early to mid-twentieth century, in the wake of the completion of the Panama Canal and the rise of international monopolies, labor and independence movements were growing. In different manners, the U.S. and European colonial powers sought to manage or avert transitions to independence, and promote their interests in those parts of the region that had become independent (such as in Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and Cuba). Eventually by the 1960s and 1970s much of the Anglophone Caribbean had achieved independence. Meanwhile Puerto Rico and many of the French and Dutch colonies (and some small remaining British outposts) came to exist in a liminal state, somewhere between self-rule and colonial holding. Also over these decades, many state actors in the Caribbean and Latin America were attempting to develop national ISI (Import Substitution Industrialization) programs. These ISI policies were meant to shield national industry from foreign competition and were envisioned as a way to manage portions of international capitalist investment, and often to secure a stake for the state in the major industries operating in the country. Different such attempts were made in the 1960s and 1970s in Jamaica, Guyana, and in the Dominican Republic, just to name a few. Leftist forces briefly achieved a counter-hegemonic moment in the region, from around 1979 to 1983, with socialist Cuba remaining a radical beacon of revolutionary

43 The Caribbean and Global Capitalism: Five Strategic Traits

813

upheaval, and then joined by the left-wing Sandinista and New Jewel revolutions, in Nicaragua and Grenada. Revolutionary forces in El Salvador gained momentum and Manley’s social democratic government emerged in Jamaica. This occurred at a time in which these countries could engage in trade and foreign relations with the Soviet Union and its allies, though by this time the U.S. and Western powers had far surpassed their cold war foes in economic advancements and market penetration. In response to the renewed leftist projects in the western hemisphere, the U.S. intervened militarily, politically, and economically. U.S. forces invaded the island of Grenada, engaged in a proxy death squad war in Nicaragua, and facilitated paramilitary and army forces in Guatemala that carried out ethnic cleansing in the country’s indigenous highlands. At the same time, U.S. officials promoted the creation of new programs such as the Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI), which developed under the Reagan administration, to help strengthen U.S. political influence as well as facilitate the growth of capitalist interests in the region. The Reagan administration even promoted the exportation of Christian Pentecostal missionaries from the US Bible Belt into Latin America and the Caribbean as a form of counter-insurgency. Rather than intervening only with force and money, the U.S. and its allies increasingly facilitated a wider variety of civil society strategies meant to build consent and construct an ideological base of support among parts of the local populations and within the region’s business communities. New strategies were needed as top ruling elites sought to reconsolidate their power through institutions of the Washington consensus (such as the IMF and the World Bank). During these closing decades of the twentieth century, there occurred a shift in the ideological terrain of many political scenes in the region. Ideological differences between many of the major political parties became minimized, with U.S. policymakers and changing structural conditions playing an important role in facilitating this shift. The 1990s became a period of neoliberal expansion, with a deepening role of supranational forums and international financial institutions across the Caribbean. U.S. officials and many leading local policymakers pushed for neoliberal macroeconomic adjustments such as the privatization of state enterprises, liberalization of trade and finance, and in general a shift in the balance of power away from labor and toward capital. Alongside the evolving role of transnational capitalism and the various geoeconomic and geo-political tensions, always present has been corruption and opportunism, the hiding of assets in Caribbean tax havens, or syphoning off of wealth from state agencies, and the corrupting influence of the narco trade. By the twenty-first century, new political challenges to the dominant order once again were inflamed. Examining a number of countries in Latin America, economist Mark Weisbrot (2001) points out how during the neoliberal period of the final decades of the twentieth century there developed a widening gap between rich and poor, as well as a decline in income for working people alongside major cuts in social spending. Around the turn of the century and over the following decade, this helped a new generation of leftist and progressive forces, as Weisbort observes, to gain power through elections in countries such as Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, and Venezuela.

814

J. Sprague

In the face of many difficulties, states within the alternative regional bloc known as ALBA (Alianza Bolivariana para los Pueblos de Nuestra America) attempted over recent years to pioneer an important anti-neoliberal developmental model, an alternative to that of the Washington Consensus. However, Washington’s brutal sanctions and hybrid warfare have greatly undermined Bolivarian Venezuelan (Sprague 2019b), heightening many internal problems, and weakening the ALBA project. While always integrated into capitalism and under intense pressure by the US empire, popular region-wide initiatives have existed. For example, the CARICOM campaign for colonial reparations has broad support. Many officials in the region have walked a tight rope, attempting to maintain friendly relations with Washington and transnational investors even as they have sought to cooperate with the leftist ALBA bloc (gaining valuable resources). Many states in CARICOM, promoting the region as a zone of peace and international law, have clashes with efforts inside the Organization of American States (OAS) to isolate and undermine Caracas (Delgado 2017). Venezuela’s Bolivarian revolution to be sure has suffered its own internal contradictions, alongside declining commodity prices, and under intensified U.S. and elite aggression (Weisbrot 2017). While leading to many important social investment projects, some of Venezuela’s foreign policy initiatives has faced pitfalls, especially as Venezuelan officials—increasingly desperate—seek out any friendly partners available. The country has faced for nearly two decades a ramping up of a destabilization campaign launched by Washington and its allies, making it increasingly isolated. In one of the most problematic scenarios, a large portion of the funds obtained by the government of Haiti through a Venezuelan PetroCaribe initiative is believed to have gone into the pockets of local corrupt officials. By 2018–2019, a right-wing counteroffensive across the hemisphere was well underway. In this difficult and contradictory environment, statist fractions of transnational capital (from Russia and China, for example) have proven to be one of the best options available to state actors (such as in Venezuela and Cuba) seeking an alternative to the Washington consensus (Harris 2016). Leftist political projects breaking from the Washington consensus are made to feel the pain by the U.S. and its allies. By contrast most governments in the region, exhibiting only a “soft” form of sovereignty and on friendly terms with the U.S., remain deeply entrenched in their bourgeoisie political scenes In order to reproduce the status quo (beneficial especially to leading Western sectors of the TCC) and to isolate as “despotic” for those political projects not going along with Washington, we see emphasis on the construction of what is euphemistically advertised as “democracy” in nations around Latin America and the Caribbean. It should more appropriately be described as “polyarchy.” Polyarchy, as Robinson explains, refers to …a system in which a small group actually rules, and mass participation and decisionmaking are confined to choosing leaders in elections that are carefully managed by competing elites. In the age of globalization, polyarchy is generally a more reliable political system for containing and defusing mass pressure for popular social change. But it is not just a superior

43 The Caribbean and Global Capitalism: Five Strategic Traits

815

mechanism of stable domination; it is also a more propitious system for managing intraelite conflict and competition, and for developing the political environment for globalized economic intercourse for which the old regimes were ill-suited. (Robinson 2007)

Hence, in practice, “democracy” often becomes the activity of masses choosing between two or more competing elites in elections (who are oriented toward leading capitalistic interests). In many parts of the Caribbean, we see that this polyarchy dynamic has been solidified over recent years (Barrow-Giles and Joseph 2010). Many of the region’s major parties have come to differ little on core issues like economic development and migration (and depend on campaign contributions from local and diaspora elites). Heavily funded “democracy promotion” programs conducted by agencies such as USAID, the Washington D.C.-based National Endowment for Democracy (NED), as well as some European Union and Canadian institutions have been important for carrying out this agenda in the region as well (Robinson 1996). Finding allies among leading wealthy families, business groups, and powerful Western states, many post-colonial state policymakers now promote what Harvey (1997) describes as neoliberal mechanisms for the reconsolidation of economic power in the hands of top dominant groups. This restructuring process, as GCS scholars argue, is occurring through a “progressive dismantling of autonomous or ‘autocentric’ national production systems and their reactivation as constituent elements of an integral world production system” (Robinson 2003, p. 16). As a heterogeneous process, this entails many different modalities from country to country.

The Transnational Capitalist Class Looking at the era of globalization, sociologists and political economists have studied the rise of new globally oriented ruling class groups, and what some describe as a Transnational Capitalist Class (TCC) (Sklair 2002; Carroll 2010; Liodakis 2010; Harris 2016; Murray and Scott 2012; Robinson and Sprague 2018). This TCC is not monolithic and is made up of different fractions such as those involved in global finance, agro-industry, tourism, and many other industries (Robinson 2014; Jessop and Overbeek 2018). Some are more closely aligned with or entwined with particular state authorities than others. It is between some of these competing TCC fractions and their aligned states where we see some of the deepest geo-economic fissures boiling to the surface. For example, we can see ongoing disputes and competition between transnational capitalists closely aligned with the U.S. state with the more statistgeared TCC fractions in countries such as Russia and China. Yet, even as tension exists, and as some governing elites engage in nationalistic rhetoric or policies that are in apparent contradiction, global power elites engage in an array of joint investments and activities that require the maintenance of a “capitalist peace” (even if riven with crises).

816

J. Sprague

This is because to promote its hegemony over a crisis-prone global system, the TCC requires a new broad alliance of social forces, a globally oriented historic bloc (Robinson 2014). This new historic bloc (with the TCC as its hegemonic class) has been made up of major banks, Transnational Corporations (TNCs), large global investors, transnationally oriented state managers, elite-oriented political strata, and a variety of technocrats and corporate media interests. As part of this formative process, over recent decades, contingents of many dominant national groups have peeled off, transitioning (or beginning to transition) toward a transnational orientation into this new global historic bloc. While many countervailing pressures and divisions remain, we are not going back to the late nineteenth century or to the economic world order of the Second World War era, or even the early 1970s; however, many reversals and crises that might occur are part of the nodal line of history, a non-linear but forward historical motion. The role and emergence of a transnational capitalist class (Harris 2016; Phillips 2018; Sklair 2002), with its different fractions and allies, can be seen across the Caribbean region. The Cayman Islands is now the chosen headquarters for over 40% of the companies listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Richard Branson, founder of the transnational Virgin Group, owns a 30-hectare island in the British Virgin Islands, where he hosted President Obama shortly after he left office. In the Bahamas, the Walt Disney Corporation owns a private island, “Castaway Cay,” which its cruise line uses. Also in the Bahamas, China’s Export–Import Bank recently provided a $2.5 billion loan to develop the Baha Mar resort. An Iranian-born businessman, Ali Pascal Mahvi, head of the Switzerland-based M Group Corporation, helped develop Sugar Beach resort in St. Lucia. In Jamaica, and smaller islands such as St. Maarten, hubs of Chinese business people have formed, alongside major investments. Meanwhile, in Cuba, Brazilian-based companies have largely financed a massive new cargo and manufacturing hub, managed by a Singaporean firm (Whitefield 2017). Numerous transnationally oriented U.S. capitalists use accounting strategies to “shift” profits to Puerto Rico to avoid mainland taxes. Blockchain billionaires have been taking up residency in Puerto Rico seeking to remake the country into a “cryptocurrency utopia” (Takahashi et al. 2018). And, just shortly after the 2010 earthquake, Haiti privatized the majority of its public telephone company, selling it to a Vietnamese company. There is also a growing array of transnational capitalists who are citizens of Caribbean nations. For example, Trinidad and Tobago is home to more than half a dozen billionaires, such as the Sabga family, who originally migrated from Syria in the early twentieth century. Gustavo A. Cisneros, a Venezuelan-Dominican national of Cuban descent, of the Florida-headquartered Cisneros Group, has a fortune estimated at over $1 billion (Forbes 2018). With financial holdings spanning the globe, he is a major shareholder in prominent Spanish language media and entertainment outlets such as Univision and Venevisión. The wealthiest Jamaican businessman, Michael Lee-Chin, is an investor and philanthropist with dual Jamaican and Canadian citizenship, with an estimated worth of $1.2 billion. Among numerous other holdings, he was the Executive Chairman of AIC Limited, a Canadian mutual fund, and the Chairman of the National Commercial Bank of Jamaica since December

43 The Caribbean and Global Capitalism: Five Strategic Traits

817

2014. Haiti, often described as the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere—and the most unequal—is also home to a growing number of transnational capitalists. Dumas Siméus, originally from Haiti but now living in the U.S., is a former CEO and founder of Siméus Foods International, and holds investments in many other companies and has powerful political connections, including within the Republican Party establishment in Florida. Global capitalist accumulation has meant immense gains for transnational capitalists and some benefits for consumerist middle strata. Yet the majority of the region’s population face exploitative or marginalized conditions. Alongside improved access to healthcare and cheap goods, the majority of Caribbean people face major crises. 6.3 million of Haiti’s 10 million people are unable to meet their basic needs, and 2.5 million cannot meet food needs, with just 2% of the population consuming the equivalent of $10 a day or more, according to data from the World Bank (IBRD and The World Bank 2014). Meanwhile, a fifth of the population in Jamaica lives in poverty, according to the World Bank, yet, the structural reality is clearly much starker with so many people facing underemployment or very low wages alongside a lack of public infrastructure and rising costs of living. Unemployment can reach higher than 40% in Kingston’s lowest-income neighborhoods like Tivoli Gardens. With the Covid-19 pandemic of 2020 these are problems that have been greatly magnified, with employment plummeting. The backdrop to this extreme inequality has been the turbulent integration of a new global capitalism into the region, which has led to significant social and class transformations.

Five Strategic Traits: Processes of Transformation (1) Global finance and the remittance regime New cross-border financial flows constitute part of the process of globalization underway since the late twentieth century. We can trace parts of the history of this phenomenon to the creation of the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications Network (SWIFT), established in the 1970s, the interlinking of national stock markets that started in the 1980s, and the massive growth of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and Cross-border Merger and Acquisition deals over the last four decades. The Caribbean has become home to some of the most successful tax havens in world history, and an important mechanism for TCC formation (van Fossen 2012). In 2013, $92 billion flowed into the British Virgin Islands. This tiny territory pulled in more FDI than every nation in the world, except for China, Russia, and the United States (Miles 2014). FDI to developing countries in the Caribbean rose from $320 million in 1970 to over $6 billion in 2012, though it did face periods of stagnation. Global finance not only immerses regional businesses into transnational capital flows, but also connects exploited working-class people to each other across borders

818

J. Sprague

via remittances and other financial networks. Remittance businesses have profited tremendously by charging fees for cross-border money transfers. By controlling chains of the distribution through which income is sent, transnational companies have gained an additional means to extract value from lower-income people. Western Union, with its economy of scale, has come to control a significant share of the formal remittance market around the world. According to Western Union’s tax records, the company has gone from revenues of just under $400 million in 1970 to nearly $5.5 billion in 2015 (Sprague 2019a). Western Union kiosks and agents are ubiquitous in the region. In Jamaica, for example, Western Union first began operations in 1990 through a local agent, the GraceKennedy Group, a partnership that now accounts for approximately 50% of the island’s entire remittance market. Over time, other money transfer operators in Jamaica followed suit. Remittances help us to see the concrete manifestation of global capitalism across broad swaths of society. For instance, in the Dominican Republic in 1970, remittance inflow amounted to just $25 million, while, by 2013, it was valued at $4.5 billion. In Jamaica and Haiti over this same period, remittance inflows shot from insignificant amounts to $2.1 billion and $1.8 billion, respectively. In many rural communities and urban centers of the Caribbean, it is only possible to buy the barest of essentials with the assistance of remittances sent from abroad. Recent research suggests that as many as one in five households in Haiti have received remittances, with each recipient family gathering an annual average of nearly $2,000. Thus, these communities are often dependent on the diaspora. Yet, as Caribbean people become embedded within transnational remittance networks, new inequalities have emerged among community members. With these new dependencies come new contradictions. As some scholars have argued dependence on remittances can have a pacifying effect (Garni and Weyher 2013); where marginalized populations rather than organizing among themselves or putting pressure on local authorities can come to rely and wait upon small amounts of money sent from abroad. The same can be said of dependence on NGOs and donor funding. Pertinent here is what Roy (2014) describes as the “NGO-ization of resistance,” with its especially pernicious impact on resource starved movements from below. Grantee, donor/aid, and NGO money holds such important sway upon so many in civil society (such as upon labor officials and business unionism that has become so dominant Sprague 2008). The role of NGOs and remittances can also be said to have allowed politicians in the region to further justify withdrawing the state from its social responsibilities, claiming that remittances and aid from abroad provide sufficient cushions for lower-income populations. In Haiti, where the state’s role has largely receded, NGOs have come to play a particularly central though exploitative role (Schuller 2012). Key planks for so many people’s survival thus are wrapped up—in contradictory ways—with the shifting global political economy. (2) Global production and the new panoply of services Throughout the late twentieth century, manufacturing and extractive industries became increasingly integrated into transnational production networks. This is

43 The Caribbean and Global Capitalism: Five Strategic Traits

819

shifting the very structural features of how capitalism functions in the Caribbean. The establishment of a host of supranational agreements, such as the Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI), Dominican Republic–Central American Free Trade Agreement (DRCAFTA), various European Union and Caribbean Community (CARICOM) forums, as well as bilateral accords, has helped facilitate this process. A more conducive climate for big business in the region has been fostered through financial liberalization, the standardization of regulations, and creating new supply chain infrastructure such as with the advent of container shipping and in recent years the construction of new deep water ports. While the region has been entwined with international processes for centuries, so many linkages are now playing out through new and immediate transnational systems. Deep changes in productive relations have occurred, such as in the mining industry. In the mid-twentieth century, British and U.S. companies launched modern industrial mining in Guyana and Jamaica, whose interests often closely aligned with the “national interests” of these nation states. In fact, the U.S. Mutual Security Act (1951) and the Point IV Program (established in 1949) set the stage for decisions regarding the treatment of raw materials, such as bauxite, crude oil and their derivatives, to be seen as matters of “national security.” U.S. government initiatives helped facilitate large-scale mining in the Caribbean through its own companies in the 1950s and 1960s. In recent decades, however, we have seen a complete change in the makeup of both mining corporations and the industry’s structural features (Sprague 2015). For instance, the transnational company UC Rusal, now the world’s largest aluminum producer, has begun to acquire Jamaican mines in recent years. The company, with operations around the world, has headquarters in Moscow, but was incorporated in the British Channel Islands, and is entwined with a host of transnational investors from across the world, like the U.S., China, and Qatar. We can conceptualize such changes to the formation of capital as reflecting the globalization of ownership and mergers, with the rise of a TCC. Changes to capitalist formation have developed in nearly all sectors of the regional economy, including telecommunications. Digicel, which specializes in mobile telephone networks, has a heavy presence across the Caribbean and other regions, such as Oceania and Central America. Founded in 2001, Digicel is headquartered in Jamaica but is incorporated in the tax haven of Bermuda. Digicel’s investors include a growing array of companies, ranging from private equity houses, corporations, and government firms. A number of Caribbean-based investors have also provided launch costs for new Digicel operations in the region, such as in Barbados. In 2007, Digicel sold $1.4 billion in high-yielding bonds (Reuters 2007). Even the World Bank has invested in Digicel operations in Haiti, whose majority owner is Denis O’Brien, an Irish citizen residing in Malta. After initially entering the telecom business during the early 1990s industry liberalization in Ireland, his company now focuses on marketing mobile services in small countries worldwide. Digicel has expanded rapidly through purchasing mobile licensing contracts from governments in the process of liberalizing their communications sectors. Pre-globalization, political economists would have considered Digicel’s chief executives to be part of an Irish or British capitalist class. But under the new regime

820

J. Sprague

of transnational capitalism, these businesspeople increasingly have no overriding incentive to develop their European home nations, nor interest in repatriating profits to them. In fact, they are increasingly oriented toward transnational accumulation. Investors have sought to free themselves from national constraints, a goal shared by many political allies. While particular state policies may not benefit all transnational investors equally, many state policies have come to explicitly facilitate transnational capital at the expense of more locally or nationally oriented capital. Policymakers from powerful state apparatuses are vitally important to this process, especially the U.S., which can intervene diplomatically, militarily, and so on. As Grazia Ietto-Gillies explains, transnationally oriented capitalists with interests across various countries “use their economic position and clout to strengthen their ties and claims…[with] specific countr(ies) and exercise influence to secure special treatment” (Sprague and Ietto-Gillies 2014). A case in point is the transnational tourism corporations specializing in the Caribbean, which enjoy privileged status from governments across the region and from the U.S. government. The owners and major investors of the cruise ship business are some of the wealthiest people in the world and are themselves a product of the transformations underway (Sprague-Silgado 2017). The growth of social strata with disposable income for leisure activities has enriched this industry, with a significant part of the world’s population having the resources to pursue entertainment and travel. The largest pools of consumerist strata exist of course in the Global North, but so too there are growing middle strata groups in the post-colonial world. To serve growing tourist flows, massive walled-off resorts and an array of privatized beaches dot the region. Transnational Corporations (TNCs) in the tourism and cruise ship business have become intertwined with the global financial system instead of with the more nationally rooted banking sectors of the past. For example, the cruise ship company Carnival began to become publicly traded on the NYSE in 1987, while Royal Caribbean went public in 1993. Driving their competitors out of business or acquiring them, Carnival and Royal Caribbean now form an oligopoly, operating around 70% of the world’s cruise ships. Carnival Cruise Lines’ revenues of $1.3 billion in 1990 swelled to nearly $15.5 billion by 2013. Carnival’s former CEO, Micky Arison, in recent years was listed as one of Forbes’ 250 wealthiest people worldwide. Importantly, while capital accumulation (and so-called development) is often misrepresented as a national economic project, over recent decades it has become increasingly clear that capital is not motivated by the aims of any single country. Rather, it is focused on enriching a select handful of individuals and private institutions, regardless of nationality. Seen in this light, we can understand how transnational processes allow capital to extract greater wealth from every corner of the globe, with ever less accountability to local populations. (3) Subcontractor and new business networks Another important factor is the development of new subcontractor networks, where local capitalists become inseparable from global circuits of accumulation, integrating

43 The Caribbean and Global Capitalism: Five Strategic Traits

821

local and regional businesses into major TNCs and globalizing financial interests. Subcontracting for big construction projects and especially in post-hurricane clean ups has become a huge industry in the region, evident, for example, in the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, and other parts of the region following the Irma and Maria Hurricanes of 2017. We can see so many concrete examples of how local business is linking into transnational chains through subcontracting. Local owners of the banking sector in the Caribbean, for example, have become part and parcel of the global financial system. Across the region, local banks and remittance businesses operate as agents for transnational remittance companies. In the Dominican Republic, Remesas Vimenca operates as an agent for Western Union. Smaller local agents exist as well, such as Money Corps (with offices in Santo Domingo), which works in collaboration with Money Gram, headquartered in the U.S. In Haiti, Sogebank, one of the country’s largest banks—owned in part by a few local wealthy elites—operates its Sogexpress chain as a local agent for Western Union. Subcontractors have come to operate widely in many other sectors, such as in the cruise ship industry. For example, in many cases, they manage operations that are less profitable or require an expertise, like shops, casinos, photography, and spa services, and in turn pay sizable fees to the cruise ship companies in order to gain access to customers on the ships. TNCs have become highly dependent on subcontractors, under extremely beneficial circumstances that effectively outsource much of the risk of lawsuits and consequences of direct management of employees. TNC– subcontractor relations occur also within fenced-off privatized ports and markets built expressly for cruise ship tourism. Whereas 30 years ago, in the incipient stage of the globalization era, tourists still shopped at local independent retailers, they now head to shore to shop at businesses contracted out by the cruise companies (Sprague 2017). In other industries as well, such as in the mining and textile industries, large TNCs are employing a whole array of local, regional, and global subcontractors to carry out tasks previously done in-house. The logic of transnational capital increasingly seeps into every available crevice. Locally based subcontractors have even come to advocate on behalf of these corporate interests. For instance, tour excursion providers and taxi operators have mobilized in support of the TNCs to lobby local state officials (Ibid.). In this way, many working people and middle strata people are drawn into the very structure of transnational capital, internalizing its logic as they are made dependent on it. (4) From indicative development to transnational engagement, and the role of the U.S. power Over recent decades, Caribbean policymakers of many stripes have shifted toward a transnational orientation. Indeed, state elites have increasingly come to depend on transnational capital for their political survival and social reproduction. Vital for this are new mechanisms to promote investor confidence, respond to crises that threaten market stability and security, and establish a level of macroeconomic policy

822

J. Sprague

uniformity across borders. This project unfolding under heterogenous conditions is open ended, incomplete, and crisis prone. These conditions can be seen in the history of how temporary and limited free trade agreements (such as the CBI and the Lomé Convention) were put in place during the 1980s, and into the twenty-first century as state officials developed increasingly all-inclusive trade agreements and supranational forums (that in fact expand beyond trade, such as in regard to copyright law) (Cox 2008). These new forums and agreements encouraging cross-border investment and transnational market penetration are not just lobbied for by capital, but are also promoted by government officials. The state itself is not disappearing, as some observers claim, but rather transforming in ways suited to this era of globalization (Jayasuriya 2005). Caribbean politicians and state officials need access to capital, which is increasingly held in the hands of transnational businesspeople. At the same time, regional political actors must continue to placate domestic public opinion. This leads to a number of contradictions. Political leaders are in a constant juggling act, attempting to maintain national political legitimacy, precisely while deepening practices congenial to transnational capital. Even when these strategies are deleterious to the popular classes and to nature, state leaders often trumpet the creation of employment in the new sectors to bolster their legitimacy. As state officials engage in locally geared rhetoric and speak of national competition and rivalaries, at the same time many articulate interests that are tied less and less to territoriality or any local interests, but instead promote the interests of transnational capital. Global industries have powerful lobbying and legal arms active in the region that seep into the state. For example, state officials, as well as national chambers of commerce and business associations seeking less cumbersome channels for production and trade, widely promote EPZs. One official within Jamaica’s Ministry of Finance I interviewed explained that in addition to his government work, he was working with a group of entrepreneurs to launch an online remittance company that he hoped to pitch to Silicon Valley investors (Sprague 2019a). In an unhealthy pattern, the very government officials responsible for privatization of industries have regularly been rewarded with lucrative jobs in these sectors upon leaving office. Yet it is not only personal enrichment and campaign donations that foster this relentless dynamic. Officials have also sought to increase declining state revenues by tapping into new transnational capital flows, with mixed results. Some countries, such as St. Kitts and Dominica, have resorted to selling citizenship, where wealthy individuals abroad, often from China or the Middle East, can obtain passports allowing them to travel to more than a hundred countries (Edmonds 2012; Grell-Brisk 2018). State elites promoting global competitiveness have struggled with how to tap into the changing conditions, often seeking to lessen the burden on corporations while placing more of a burden on the popular classes and especially upon women workers and negatively racialized communities. Many governments, for instance, have placed new fees and taxes on remittances sent by migrants home. Such measures are highly unpopular, as so many depend on these remittances for their livelihoods. In a different instance, Caribbean governments have largely failed to collect revenue from the tourists on cruise ships—as cruise ship tourists pay an average of just $15 to the

43 The Caribbean and Global Capitalism: Five Strategic Traits

823

countries where their boats land (Klein 2009). Caribbean policymakers attempted but failed to cooperate in agreeing on a common head tax in the 1990s and early 2000s, when cruise company lobbyists defeated the effort, playing the various island governments against each other. The apparent capture of the state by unaccountable interests has produced a concomitant crisis of legitimacy and deep cynicism toward party politics in the eyes of many in the region. Caribbean-based ruling elites, as well as elites from other regions, are compelled to forge transnational alliances in order to have a fighting chance to reproduce themselves. While Chinese state policymakers have expanded their role in the Caribbean, this needs to be seen in light of the accumulation strategies and economic interests of Chinese transnational capitalist fractions (Harris 2016: 170–213). While Chinese capitalists expand their operations, China at the same time is vital for any multipolar developments in the region, with the economic lifeline it can provide to alternative political projects that are being undermined by Washington (see for example: Venezuelanalysis 2018a, b). That being said, the U.S. state is the world and regional power and is most vital for facilitating the interests of transnational capital. Across the Caribbean, U.S. military and security apparatuses have consistently intervened, from the post-Second World War period in which there was a heightened internationalization of capital to the globalization era with the ongoing transnationalization of capitalism. In the wake of September 11, 2001, U.S. state authorities carried out a new “state of exception” with new security initiatives and a global surveillance state, and through new interventions and vast rounds of militarized accumulation (Agamben 2005; Robinson 2014). U.S. global strategy is not based on promoting peace and stability but is based on the idea that the United States is the indispensable nation, without which the world simply cannot hope to advance. In amplifying its aggression against Venezuela throughout 2019-2020, the Trump administration has been able to mobilize a bipartisan foreign policy consensus. This consensus is rooted in notions of full spectrum dominance and global supremacy. The US strategy is anathema to national sovereignty. In fact, the United States and its ruling strata promote capitalist globalization, consistent with the fact that capital accumulation is a global process. For instance, US policies do not just promote the interests of US capitalists, but rather benefit a variety of transnational capitalist fractions. Even so, US officials feel compelled to try to “Americanize”. The same globalization they promote. This is largely unrealizable, for a variety of factors. US global military strategy feeds on the disorder that its officials help to produce and maintain. This is further designed to get US society to feel insecure at home and to believe that the world is naturally chaotic, needing the United States to hold things together. The strategy serves as a way to justify the pursuit of security abroad, as the necessary precondition to feel secure at home Washington’s bases now dot the basin—from the Fourth Fleet’s home in Florida to U.S. military deployments in Colombia, to forces present in Curaçao and Aruba, to Antigua and Barbuda, to the installations in Guantánamo Bay in Cuba, to Andros Island in the Bahamas, and activities in Panama, Honduras, and El Salvador (COHA 2009; Muñiz and Vega Rodríguez 2002). In recent years, Colombia, which has a large

824

J. Sprague

Caribbean coast, has itself become a part of NATO and serves as a base for rightwing plots against Venezuela (Feldman 2013). Whereas, some of the U.S. bases in the region are permanent larger sites, others serve as smaller flexible “lily pad” bases, where local authorities (such as in Costa Rica) have tried to deny their existence. Most local security forces have become entwined with regional “security” efforts, especially those undertaken by Washington. In the Dominican Republic, the country’s military and border forces, financially supported by U.S. and E.U. agencies, are now mainly used as a mechanism for labor discipline and patrolling Haitian migrant communities (Miller 2014, pp. 177–208). Meanwhile, U.S. immigration agencies, the DEA, and those forces engaged in the “war on drugs” have had an extensive role in the region over the closing decades of the twentieth century and into the twentyfirst century (Paley 2014). We must ask ourselves: what are the human costs of these policies? How else could these resources be utilized? (5) The flexibilization and precaritization of gendered and racialized labor Globalization is profoundly impacting the lives of the Caribbean’s popular classes. The rise of TNCs connects to new patterns of inter-regional migration, gendered and racialized workforce segmentation, and new strategies for disciplining labor. In the mining industry, jobs have declined alongside the use of new laboreliminating technologies. The thousands who do still work in mining in the region face new flexibilized and often precarious working conditions, in which companies utilize new monitoring technologies and quickly increase or decrease the number of employees and the hours of work, making employment less predictable and secure. We see racialized dynamics across industries, such as in mining, where managers are overwhelmingly mestizo or white, or come from nations in the Global North (Sprague 2015). Meanwhile, during the era of globalization many people in the region have been compelled to export their labor abroad as migrant workers in the global economy. Remittance flows, the money sent from a migrant to her or his family or other relations abroad, now comprise vital revenue for the global poor; however, labor exportation and the increasing reliance on remittances also reflect the desperation and struggles to survive for lower-income people. TNCs in the Caribbean have also drawn upon strategies old and new to hinder labor organizing among the globalizing workforces. For instance, the cruise business relies on various means of social control and surveillance of workers—cruise lines typically hire workers from multiple countries, with different languages and backgrounds, undermining the possibility of collective action (Oyogoa 2016). Even when workers overcome linguistic and cultural barriers to work together, the companies take advantage of their precarious legal and migratory status on the high seas. In one example, a cruise company solved a labor dispute by placing South Korean, Jamaican, and Haitian room stewards (who were organizing together) onto buses at the Port of Miami, sending them immediately back to their countries of origin, according to research by Klein (2001/2002).

43 The Caribbean and Global Capitalism: Five Strategic Traits

825

Many have noted that companies operating in Export-Processing Zones (EPZs) often exploit workforces composed primarily of young women. These genderimposed hierarchies are reproduced and reconfigured to conform to the needs of transnational capitalism in these burgeoning sectors, such as among Afro-Caribbean women working in high-tech sweatshops in Barbados (Freeman 2000). Meanwhile, on cruise ships, not only are there few female ship captains, but unequal gender relations permeate the industry from top to bottom. Female workers are usually responsible for “the ‘frontline’ work of interacting with passengers, or the ‘backstage’ work of cleaning cabins” (Chin 2008). Women’s labor in turn is also segregated along national and racialized lines. According to Christine Chin (2008), while it is common for Eastern European female employees to greet and interact with passengers, lower-income and nonwhite female workers from the Caribbean and elsewhere in the Global South are usually tasked with the tedious, low-status duties that give the cruise ship an air of cleanliness and luxury. More broadly, gendered labor, in both productive and reproductive processes, has been at the core of devalued labor in capitalist society—seeping into ideology and so many cultural practices (Bhattacharya 2017). In one example, some sex workers in the region have become part of a mobile fraction of today’s globalizing proletariat, with the traveling or trafficking of women from parts of the region for sexual exploitation abroad (IOM 1996). A growing trend of regional mobility of sex work can be seen on display in Costa Rica, a country frequented by many well-off foreign tourists. These mobile Caribbean sex workers though face a contradiction of barriers to care and rising risks of violence or contracting AIDS or HIV, yet alongside socio-economic opportunities not otherwise available (Goldenberg, et al. 2014; Maher, et al. 2014; Johnson and Kerrigan 2013). Industry shifts have occurred alongside a change in the kind of work being performed due to the explosive growth of subcontracting and the development of far-reaching business networks. Alterations have occurred down to the very way that workers eat lunch, and in contradictory ways: decades ago in the Dominican Republic the mostly male workers at the Pueblo Viejo mine ate lunches they brought from home. Instead, over recent years, the mega-subcontractor SODEXO, which also caters many U.S. military bases, brings waged—almost entirely female—laborers on-site to make and distribute meals to all of the miners.

Shifting Mechanisms of Coercion and the Construction of Consent A significant portion of the Caribbean population faces structural marginalization and labor market exclusion. Across the region, new policing strategies target these lower-income and negatively racialized people, crowded into neighborhoods such as the Laventille slum in Trinidad’s Port of Spain, Cité Soleil in Haiti, Tivoli Gardens in Jamaica, or in Dominican border towns (e.g., Kerrigan 2015). These populations are

826

J. Sprague

in turn compelled to seek out new means of survival. With shrinking options, if they seek employment that violates legal codes, the poor can expect the worst, suffering humiliation and repression. Capital also benefits from these surplus populations as their desperate conditions pressure working people to accept low wages. Powerful interests active in the region, especially U.S. policymakers, have long utilized a variety of methods to keep a lid on the restive energies of the structurally marginalized. Chauvinism and conservative religious forces become a salve, where certain groups take the blame for many contradictions in society, without any clear critique of how the forces of capitalism shape those realities. In some cases, politicians facing legitimacy crises have taken advantage of these conditions by amplifying nationalist rhetoric, even promoting some “nationalist” policies in apparent contradiction with transnational capital. In other examples we see progressive and leftist forces vying for state power, recasting regional and international forms of solidarity. Yet, as I have argued elsewhere, today’s political economic restructuring is broadly consolidating power in the hands of a transnational bourgeoisie. Many forms of domination are being revamped—from the courts of law, to militarized police, to the role of U.S. intervention and other coercive apparatuses (Sprague 2018). Hegemony (the construction of consent) that functions to uphold the dominant order is being reproduced through a variety of mechanisms. These include ideology, cultural production, the role of media and information flows, and polyarchy within political scenes. The role of these mechanisms in renewing the dominant order relies on historical myths and on cultural and other established norms that have been constructed over the generations (such as the idea that it is acceptable for large swaths of humanity to live in poverty or without access to healthcare). Transnational elites and their allies have become adept at exploiting the effects of major disasters, which have thrown societies and their political systems into disarray. This is nowhere more on display than in the wider Caribbean. From New Orleans to the small islands of the Southern Caribbean, we see how large investors have sought to buy up real estate in the wake of hurricanes, as Naomi Klein has so comprehensively demonstrated in her work (Klein 2009, 2018; see also Elie 2017). The U.S. government’s indifferent and inhumane response to the devastation wrought by Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico is sure to have profound social, economic, and political consequences for the island and perhaps the region as a whole. Major components of the post-earthquake development strategy in Haiti, meanwhile, have centered on drawing in global investors, as the U.S. and World Bank facilitate export-processing ventures, new mining developments, and a host of undemocratically reengineered investment laws. What awaits the region in the post-Corona era remains to be seen. According to major policymakers and investors, the solution to the emergencies that the region faces is to further deepen integration into the global capitalist economy.

43 The Caribbean and Global Capitalism: Five Strategic Traits

827

Alternatives in the Twenty-First Century? Through its dialectical foundation, is this emerging global system laying the possibility for transcending the relations and processes that global capitalism has created? Without the space here to consider the shifting conditions faced by subaltern, leftist, anti-imperialist, and social movement forces, it needs to be noted that these emancipatory and alternative countercurrents exist across the region. They face significant barriers toward interlinking their struggles and are under constant attack and demonization. Even under difficult conditions, with the polyarchic political models that have taken hold in so many countries, there are renewed efforts to transcend and resist (Watson 2015). Labor protests and ongoing grassroots and union organizing continue in the region, playing out, for instance, within EPZs and mining communities. Student movements and anti-corruption campaigns have gained steam, pushing back against persistent neoliberal and oligarchic political models. There have also been largescale protests against U.S. military presence, especially in Puerto Rico, where in recent decades, activists successfully pressured the military to shut down many of its activities, such as U.S. navy training and bombing activities in Vieques (Cruz Soto 2018). In Haiti, grassroots pressure is growing against the rebuilding of the country’s brutal military apparatus and the rightist takeover of the country in the wake of the 2010 earthquake and 2004 coup d’é·tat. Socialist Cuba faces its own difficulties as it seeks to further integrate with the global economy, a peculiar case in the region, as novel social and political economic dynamics unleash contradictory transformations. In regards to Venezuela, the global media has for nearly two decades demonized its elected government and left-wing Bolivarian movement. Western-based human rights groups and media outlets meanwhile say next to nothing of the harmful impact of sanctions and the strategy of economic strangulation that the U.S. and its allies have deployed against the country (Emersberger 2018). The reverberations of this desperate situation have been felt by Venezuela’s closest allies, such as in Nicaragua, a country that has experienced growing polarization with violence breaking out between some government backers/police and some within the opposition (Maté 2018). The country’s governing officials attempt to walk a contradictory line of pleasing transnational investors while maintaining a level of social spending and left rhetoric, and as they come under increasing pressure from neoconservatives in Washington. While leftist, progressive, and popular political currents exist across the region, they face considerable challenges and contradictions. Many have been worn down over time, been forced to make compromise after compromise, and have faced splits and opportunism. Entrenched leading centers of power meanwhile have ways of reproducing themselves with seemingly endless resources, making the sustainability of any alternative project extremely difficult. The struggle of subaltern forces in a globalizing world remains the open-ended challenge of the century. As I have pointed out elsewhere (Sprague 2019b), the territorial division of the world in conjunction with growing transnational integration from above, strengthens the need to appreciate

828

J. Sprague

the importance for a 21st century popular front, among socialists and anti-imperialist progressive forces capable of building both international and transnational linkages.

Conclusion Over recent decades not only have state and transnational capitalist forces recalibrated and facilitated new accumulation networks, the popular classes have been compelled to participate in these transnational value chains. We cannot separate the dynamics gripping the region from the broader transition from international to transnational capitalism. The new globalization era is novel in many ways, but it is also rooted in a practice that has been at least 500 years in the making. While the significance of the North–South divide continues in a major way, powerful transnational capitalist groups are involved in or have emerged throughout the “Global South” whose interests lie in the transnational over national economies and beyond the older international models. Since the closing decades of the twentieth century, the Caribbean has served as a laboratory for the neoliberal “Washington Consensus.” Various mechanisms have been used to promulgate austerity policies alongside expanding tourism, non-traditional agricultural exports, Export-Processing Zones (EPZs), real estate, and other sectors that serve as platforms for integrating local productive relations with the global economy. Financial activities across the region have become enmeshed with global banking interests, and business people across the region to have a fighting chance are compelled to link into global chains of accumulation. The emergence of globalizing transnational capitalism thus carries extraordinary consequences for regions around the world, including the Caribbean basin. As people across the region are propelled into its clutches, they experience mounting inequality and climate change. Working and marginalized communities seeking to organize and promote their own interests will need to seek out new and reworked strategies to confront these challenges. Dr. Jeb Sprague is a Research Associate at the Institute for Research on WorldSystems (IROWS) at the University of California, Riverside. He formerly taught at the University of Virginia and at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is the author of Globalizing the Caribbean: Political economy, social change, and the transnational capitalist class (Temple University Press, 2019), Paramilitarism and the assault on democracy in Haiti (Monthly Review Press, 2012), and is the editor of Globalization and transnational capitalism in Asia and Oceania (Routledge, 2016). He is a co-founder of the Network for Critical Studies of Global Capitalism. Visit him at: https://sites.google.com/site/jebsprague/. Notes 1. The term “transnational” has become quite popular in academic parlance and is sometimes, in my view, mistakenly used to describe processes occurring in earlier historical periods under which transnational processes were not yet

43 The Caribbean and Global Capitalism: Five Strategic Traits

829

present. The term is often used interchangeably with “international,” ignoring how they describe fundamentally different dynamics. 2. One could argue that embryonic transnational processes occurred quantitatively in earlier times. The term “transnational” might be useful to describe some subjective dynamics occurring in earlier periods, for example, in the way that Basch et al. (1993) deploy transnationalism to think about how migrants and others form subjective bonds across nations, developing a particular kind of consciousness. Yet this subjective dynamics becomes all the more pronounced in recent decades as transnational objective processes begin to form. In my view, we do not see transnationalism qualitatively emerging (and continuing to heighten) until the shift in productive forces and social relations during, roughly, the last quarter of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first century.

References Agamben, Giorgio. 2005. State of Exception. Chicago, IL, USA: University of Chicago Press. Aldred, Jessica. 2014. Caribbean Coral Reefs ‘Will Be Lost Within 20 Years’ Without Protection. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jul/02/caribbeancoral-reef-lost-fishing-pollution-report. Arrighi, Giovanni. 1994. The Long Twentieth Century. London, UK: Verso. Barrow-Giles, C., and S.D. Joseph. 2010. General Elections & Voting in the English-Speaking Caribbean 1992–2005. Bogota, Colombia: Autores Editores. Basch, Linda, Nina Glick Schiller, and Cristina Szanton Blan. 1993. Nations Unbound: Transnational Projects, Postcolonial Predicaments and Deterritorialized Nation-State. London, UK: Routledge. Bhattacharya, Tithi (ed.). 2017. Social Reproduction Theory: Remapping Class, Recentering Oppression. London, UK: Pluto Press. Blumenthal, Max and Jeb Sprague. 2018. Facebook Censorship of Alternative Media “Just the Beginning,” Says Top Neocon Insider. Grayzone Project. https://grayzoneproject.com/2018/10/ 23/facebook-censorship-of-alternative-media-just-the-beginning-says-top-neocon-insider/. Bueno, Ramón, Cornelia Herzfeld, Elizabeth A. Stanton, and Frank Ackerman. 2008. The Caribbean and Climate Change: The Costs of Inaction. http://ase.tufts.edu/gdae/Pubs/rp/Caribbean-fullEng.pdf. Carroll, William K. 2010. The Making of a Transnational Capitalist Class: Corporate Power in the 21st Century. London, UK: Zed Books. Chase-Dunn, Christopher, and Bruce Lerro. 2014. Social Change: Globalization from the Stone Age to the Present. Boulder, USA: Paradigm Publishers. Chin, Christine B.N. 2008. Labor Flexibilization at Sea. International Feminist Journal of Politics 10 (1): 1–18. COHA. 2009. The U.S. military’s presence in the greater Caribbean basin: More a matter of trade strategy and ideology than drugs. COHA. http://www.coha.org/the-u-s-militarys-presence-in-thegreater-caribbean-basin-more-a-matter-of-trade-strategy-and-ideology-than-drugs/. Cox, Ronald W. 2008. Transnational Capital, the US State and Latin American Trade Agreements. Third World Quarterly 29 (18): 1527–1544. Cruz Soto, Marie. 2018. In Vieques, Life Amid Devastation. NACLA 50 (2): 160–162. Delgado, Antonio Maria. 2017. Rubio tells Haiti, other nations to defend democracy in vote on Venezuela sanctions. Miami Herald. https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/ americas/article141080013.html.

830

J. Sprague

Edmonds, Kevin. 2012. Selling citizenship in the Caribbean. NACLA. https://nacla.org/blog/2012/ 12/21/selling-citizenship-caribbean. Elie, Janise. 2017 ‘It feels like Dominica is finished’: life amid the ruins left by Hurricane Maria. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2017/nov/01/it-feels-like-dom inica-is-finished-life-amid-the-ruins-left-by-hurricane-maria. Emersberger, Joe. 2018. Trump’s Economic Sanctions Have Cost Venezuela About $6bn Since August 2017. Telesur. https://www.telesurenglish.net/opinion/Trumps-Sanctions-HaveCost-Venezuela-US6bn-Since-August-2017-20181005-0020.html. Feldman, David. 2013. Trouble brewing in South America: NATO sets its sights on Colombia. Spectrezine. Forbes. 2018. #1999 Gustavo Cisneros & Family. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/profile/gustavocisneros/#27bcd07f733d. Freeman, Carla. 2000. High Tech and High Heels in the Global Economy: Women, Work, and Pink-Collar Identities in the Caribbean. Durham, NC, USA: Duke University Press. Friedman, Uri. 2018. Trust is collapsing in America. The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/int ernational/archive/2018/01/trust-trump-america-world/550964/. Garni, Alisa, and L. Frank Weyher. 2013. Dollars, ‘free trade,’ and migration: The combined forces of alienation in postwar El Salvador. Latin American. Goldenberg, S.M., J. Chettair, P. Nguyen, S. Dobrer, J. Monaner, and K. Shannon. 2014. Complexities of Short-Term Mobility for Work and Migration Among Sex Workers: Violence and Sexual Risks, Barriers to Care, and Enhanced Social and Economic Opportunities. Journal of Urban Health 91 (4): 736–751. Harvey, David. 1997. A Brief History of Neoliberalism. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Harris, Jerry (2016) Global Capitalism and the Crisis of Democracy. Clarity Press. Hoogvelt, Ankie. 2001. Globalization and the Postcolonial World: The New Political Economy of Development. Baltimore, USA: Johns Hopkins University Press. IBRD (The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development) and The World Bank. 2014. Investing in people to fight poverty in Haiti. World Bank. Washington, D.C, USA. http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/222901468029372321/pdf/944300v10 REPLA0sment0EN0web0version.pdf. IOM. 1996. Trafficking in Women from the Dominican Republic for Sexual Exploitation. Geneva, Switzerland: International Organization on Migration. Jayasuriya, Kanishka. 2005. Reconstituting the Global Liberal Order: Legitimacy and Regulation. London, UK: Routledge. Jessop, Bob, and Henk Overbeek (eds.). 2018. Transnational Capital and Class Fractions: The Amsterdam School Perspective Reconsidered. London, UK: Routledge. Johnson, Janagan Emmanuel, and Dylan Kerrigan. 2013. Human Trafficking and Forced Prostitution: A Channel Carrier of HIV. In Working with Youth, Women and Children with HIV/AIDS: Strategic Intervention for Inclusive Development, ed. R. Mangaleswaran, 279–286. Kerrigan, Dylan. 2015. Transnational anti-black racism and state violence in Trinidad. Cultural Anthropology. https://culanth.org/fieldsights/692-transnational-antiblack-racism-andstate-violence-in-trinidad. Khandelwal, Deepanshu. 2018. China’s latest crackdown on social media results in over 9800 accounts being blocked. The Tech Portal. https://thetechportal.com/2018/11/13/china-socialmedia-accounts-blocked/. Klein, Ross. 2001/2002. High Seas, Low Pay: Working on Cruise Ships. OurTimes: Canada’s Independent Labour Magazine. Klein, Naomi. 2009. The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. New York, NY, USA: Picador. Klein, Naomi. 2018. The Battle for Paradise: Puerto Rico Takes on the Disaster Capitalists. Chicago, USA: Haymarket Books. Liodakis, George. 2010. Totalitarian Capitalism and Beyond. London, UK: Routledge.

43 The Caribbean and Global Capitalism: Five Strategic Traits

831

Maher, Jane Maree, Sharon Pickering, and Alison Gerar. 2014. Sex Work: Labour, Mobility, and Sexual Services. London: Routledge. Maté, Aaron. 2018. Debate: Who is behind Nicaragua’s turmoil? The Real News Network. https:// therealnews.com/series/debate-who-is-behind-nicaraguas-turmoil. Miles, Tom. 2014. Top tax haven got more investment in 2013 than India and Brazil: U.N. Reuters. http://www.reuters.com/article/us-tax-havens-idUSBREA0R1KF20140128. Miller, Todd. 2014. Border Patrol Nation: Dispatches from the Front Lines of Homeland Security. San Francisco, USA: Open Media Series, City Lights Book. Muñiz, Humberto García, and Glorida Vega Rodríguez. 2002. La Ayuda Militar como Negocio: Estados Unidos y el Caribe 1791–2001. San Juan, Puerto Rico: Ediciones Callejon. Murray, Georgina, and John Scott (eds.). 2012. Financial Elites and Transnational Business: Who Rules the World?. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing. Oyogoa, 2016. Cruise Ships: Continuity and Change in the World System. Journal of World-Systems Research 22 (1): 31–37. Paley, Dawn. 2014. Drug War Capitalism. San Francisco, USA: AK Press. Phillips, Peter. 2018. Giants: The Global Power Elite. Seven Stories Press. Regalado, Roberto. 2006. Latin America at the Crossroads: Domination, Crisis, Popular Movements, & Political Alternatives. Melbourne, Australia: Ocean Press. Reuters. 2007. Digicel cuts yield guidance on $1.4 bln debt-KDP. Reuters. https://www.reuters. com/article/digicel-debt-guidance/digicel-cuts-yield-guidance-on-1-4-bln-debt-kdp-idUSN2 244780820070222. Robinson, William I. 1996. Promoting Polyarchy: Globalization, US Intervention, and Hegemony. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Robinson, William I. 2003. Transnational Conflicts: Central America, Social Change, and Globalization. London, UK: Verso. Robinson, William I. 2004. A Theory of Global Capitalism: Production, Class, and State in a Transnational World. Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press. Robinson, William I. 2007. Democracy or Polyarchy? NACLA. https://nacla.org/article/democracyor-polyarchy. Robinson, William I. 2009. Beyond the theory of imperialism: Global capitalism and the transnational state, ed. In Marxism and world politics, A Anievas, 61–76. Robinson, William I. 2014. Global Capitalism and the Crisis of Humanity. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Robinson, William I., and Jeb Sprague. 2018. The Transnational Capitalist Class. In The Oxford Handbook of Global Studies, ed. Mark Juergensmeyer, Manfred Steger, Saskia Sassen, and Victor Faesse. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Roy, Arundhati. 2014. The NGO-ization of resistance. Massalijn. http://massalijn.nl/new/the-ngoization-of-resistance/. Schuller, Mark. 2012. Killing with Kindness: Haiti, International Aid, and NGOs. New Brunswick, USA: Rutgers University Press. Sklair, Leslie. 2002. Globalization: Capitalism and Its Alternatives. Oxford University Press. Sprague, Jeb. 2008. Labor, Neoliberalism, and the 2004 Coup in Haiti. HaitiAnalysis. http://haitia nalysis.blogspot.com/2008/08/labor-neoliberalism-and-2004-coup-in.html. Sprague, Jeb. 2015. From International to Transnational Mining: The Industry’s Shifting Political Economy and the Caribbean. Caribbean Studies 43 (1): 71–110. Sprague, Jeb. 2017. The Caribbean Cruise Ship Business and the Emergence of a Transnational Capitalist Class. Journal of World Systems Research 23 (1): 93–125. Sprague, Jeb (2018). “Global Capitalism, Haiti, and the Flexibilization of Paramilitarism.” Third World Quarterly. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01436597.2017.1369026. Sprague, Jeb. 2019a. Globalizing the Caribbean: Political Economy, Social Change, and the Transnational Capitalist Class. Philadelphia, USA: Temple University Press.

832

J. Sprague

Sprague, Jeb. 2019b. Washington’s Hybrid Warfare on Venezuela: Multipronged Intervention in an Age of Globalization. In Futures Held Hostage: Confronting US Hybrid Wars and Sanctions in Venezuela, J.T. Camp, M. Karuka. Sprague, Jeb, and Grazia Ietto-Gillies. 2014. Transnational Corporations in Twenty-First Century Capitalism: An Interview with Grazia Ietto-Gillies. Critical perspectives on international business 10 (1/2): 35–50. Takahashi, Dean. 2018. Blockchain billionaire Brock Pierce on saving Puerto Rico, cryptocurrency games, and fighting controversy. Venture Beat. https://venturebeat.com/2018/10/29/blockchainbillionaire-brock-pierce-interview/. van Fossen, Anthony. 2012. The Transnational Capitalist Class and Tax Havens. In Financial Elites and Transnational Business Who Rules the World? ed. Georgina Murray and John Scott. Edward Elgar Publishers. Venezuelanalysis. 2018a. Venezuela’s Maduro Secures $5bn Chinese Loan & Joins Beijing’s New Silk Road Initiative. Venezuelanalysis. https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/14056. Venezuelanalysis. 2018b. US Bars Antigua Visa-Renewal Waiver Over Pro-Venezuela Stance. Venezuelanalysis. https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/14053. Wallerstein, Immanuel. 1979. The Capitalist World-Economy. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Watson, Hilbourne (ed.). 2015. Globalization, Sovereignty and Citizenship in the Caribbean. Mona, Jamaica: The University of the West Indies Press. Weisbrot, Mark. 2001. Imf “Rescue” Won’t Help Latin America. Global Policy Forum. https:// www.globalpolicy.org/component/content/article/168/42945.html. Weisbrot, Mark. 2017. Trump’s Sanctions Make Economic Recovery in Venezuela Nearly Impossible. The Nation. https://www.thenation.com/article/trumps-sanctions-make-economicrecovery-in-venezuela-nearly-impossible/. Whitefield, Mimi. 2017. Mariel is Cuba’s big industrial gamble. Could U.S. companies be among investors? Miami Herald. https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/ame ricas/cuba/article180057406.html.

Jeb Sprague is a Research Associate at the Institute for Research on World-Systems (IROWS) at the University of California, Riverside, and has taught sociology at the University of Virginia and the University of California, Santa Barbara. His most recent publication is Globalizing the Caribbean: Political Economy, Social Change, and the Transnational Capitalist Class (Temple University Press, 2019).

Impact of Globalization on Culture

Chapter 44

Through Thick and Thin: Globalization and Contested Conceptualizations of the Rule of Law in Latin America Craig L. Arceneaux

Abstract This study begins with a brief discussion on the range of definitions accorded to the rule of law, from “thin” approaches that emphasize procedural or institutional aspects of rule to “thick” approaches that incorporate substantive attributes of rules. Next, I examine contemporary efforts in Latin America to construct the rule of law in three issue areas and note their varied outcomes: the relatively successful struggle to hold past government officials accountable for human rights violations; the failed moves to stem violence and ensure citizen security; and attempts to deepen democratization that have had mixed results. The variation underscores a nuanced understanding of globalization and political change: globalization has neither a uniformly positive nor negative effect on political change, but rather its impact is determined on an issue by issue basis mediated by understandings of the rule of law. This is because different issue areas attract and embolden different actors, both global and domestic, as the rule of law is constructed around a given issue area. Whether it be through thick or thin definitions, the composition of the rule of law illuminates the impact of global forces on distinct issue areas of political change in Latin America.

Over 2,000 years ago, Aristotle asked whether the “best law or the best man” should rule, and identified the rule of law as fundamental to our study of politics. Yet, despite countless treatises on the subject since the time of Aristotle, we still lack a consensus on the precise meaning of the rule of law. Indeed, the understanding of the rule of law often varies from issue to issue. It is a contested matter, one which increasingly involves global forces and actors. As such, an examination of how the rule of law is constructed around a given issue offers a window into the dynamics of political change and the level of influence wielded by interested and affected actors, be they domestic or global. In regard to globalization generally, a focus on the design of the rule of law not only allows us to evaluate the role of global forces, but also to assess whether globalization has had a net positive or negative impact. This is readily C. L. Arceneaux (B) California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, CA, USA e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 I. Rossi (ed.), Challenges of Globalization and Prospects for an Inter-civilizational World Order, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44058-9_44

835

836

C. L. Arceneaux

apparent in Latin America as we judge the impact of globalization on transitional justice, citizen security, and democratization. The variation in progress on these issues is curious. There is evidence of significant progress on transitional justice, abject failures to uphold citizen security, and a mixed record on democratization. What accounts for advances in some issue areas, and reversals or mixed records in others? And what is the role of globalization? Conceivably, political change involves a host of domestic and global actors, but which come to the fore and wield influence in any given issue area, for good or for worse, may vary (Arceneaux and Pion-Berlin 2005). By approaching the rule of law as an arena of contestation, we are able to observe how, where, and why different actors influence an issue, either by seeking to construct the rule of law to fit their interests, or to obstruct the rule of law to maintain their interests. This approach also allows us to unpackage the agents of globalization and identify where they have in fact advanced or reversed political change and the rule of law in Latin America. This study begins with a brief discussion on the range of definitions accorded to the rule of law, from “thin” approaches that emphasize procedural or institutional aspects of rule to “thick” approaches that incorporate substantive attributes of rules (Møller and Skaaning 2012). It also recognizes the difficult history of the rule of law in Latin America. Next, I examine contemporary efforts to construct the rule of law in three issue areas and their varied outcomes: the relatively successful struggle to hold past government officials accountable for human rights violations; the failed moves to stem violence and ensure citizen security; and attempts to deepen democratization that have had mixed results. The variation underscores a nuanced understanding of globalization and political change: globalization has neither a uniformly positive nor negative effect on political change, but rather its impact is determined on an issue by issue basis. This is because different issue areas attract and embolden different actors, both global and domestic, as the rule of law is constructed around a given issue area. Whether it be through thick or thin definitions, the composition of the rule of law illuminates the impact of global forces on distinct issue areas of political change in Latin America.

The Rule of Law The rule of law is a deceptively inviting concept. At its core, it protects against the arbitrary use of power by holding all individuals, from the highest government officials to everyday citizens, subject to the same laws. As an antidote to arbitrary power, it is little wonder that scholars almost unanimously celebrate it as a necessity of good government. But the problem is that scholars often embrace very different definitions of the rule of law. For while the rule of law admonishes arbitrary power at its core, it does not prescribe how one protects against arbitrary power, and it is here that scholars disagree. The debate over the meaning of the rule of law unfolds in three layers extending from the core protection against arbitrary power, and each layer grows more

44 Through Thick and Thin: Globalization and Contested …

837

contentious than the previous. The strongest area of consensus rests in the first layer just outside the core, where scholars deliberate which formal aspects of laws best ensure the rule of law. By way of an example, Fuller (1964) argues that the rule of law requires laws that are (1) prospective—they cannot be retroactively applied to past behavior once considered lawful; (2) general—equally applied to all; (3) publicly promulgated; (4) clear; (5) non-contradictory; (6) must not ask the impossible—so that they are known and intelligible to citizens; (7) constant—to protect against arbitrary changes; and (8) faithfully applied—to guard against the selective implementation of the law. Though scholars might differently prioritize these formal aspects, most would agree with Fuller’s list. But is the form of the law alone enough to ensure the rule of law? In The Spirit of the Laws, first published in 1748, Montesquieu (1689–1755) offers an institutional approach to the rule of law that draws us into the second layer. He argues for a separation of powers to ensure an independent judiciary. The U.S. Constitution placed Montesquieu’s ideas into practice, dividing government into structurally independent executive, legislative, and judicial branches to protect against the concentration of authority and abuse of the law. Others delve deeper into institutions and argue that there are certain procedures necessary to the rule of law, such as due process, which requires guarantees specified but not limited to the right to a hearing, to an attorney, to cross-examine witnesses, and to a ruling based on evidence and open to appeal (e.g., Tashima 2008). Perhaps no modern scholar has more strongly advocated an institutional/procedural definition of the rule of law than Raz (1977), who emphasized the independence and accessibility of the judiciary, as well as its power of judicial review. But this second layer surrounding considerations of the rule of law is much more contentious than the layer dealing solely with the form of rules, because it raises detailed questions of practice. How independent, accessible, and ultimately powerful should the courts be? What are the parameters of due process guarantees? Debate over the rule of law grows most contentious in its third layer, which moves beyond procedural/institutional considerations to the substance of the law, or from “thin” minimalist conceptions to “thick” maximalist conceptions. Here scholars debate whether the rule of law also requires laws that embrace some fundamental guarantees of political principles. For example, Bingham (2011) argues that the rule of law necessitates a commitment to basic human rights and compliance with international law. Thick definitions emerged as scholars recognized how governments from the Antebellum South in the United States to Nazi Germany ingrained violations of basic human rights into their laws, but still effectively followed the formal, institutional, and procedural requirements of thin approaches to the rule of law. The United Nations embraces a definition that not only requires laws that are “publicly promulgated, equally enforced, and independently adjudicated,” but that are also “consistent with international human rights norms and standards” (United Nations. Report of the Secretary-General 2004). Directly impacted by apartheid, South African jurist Arthur Chaskalson goes further and emphasizes socioeconomic goals to foster equality and safeguard human dignity. Of course, the choice of political principles itself can be a matter of debate. Unsurprisingly, neoliberal thinkers

838

C. L. Arceneaux

oppose the activist state proposed by Chaskalson, but they embed their own substantive concerns into the rule of law. Hayek (1960) argues that the rule of law in fact requires limited government to protect individual liberty, and Cass (2004) holds that the protection of property rights best girds the rule of law. Despite the debate surrounding the definition, few would disagree that Latin America has long struggled to construct the rule of law at its very core given the history of dictatorship. The caudillos, or military strongmen who assumed power for their own personal gain, established a practice of arbitrary rule in the nineteenth century that eventually and ironically, made its way into the legal foundations of the region. Constitutions incorporated wide-ranging “regimes of exception” that allowed the suspension of civil and political rights, and even the confiscation of property. Loveman holds that such provisions “initiated the Spanish American tradition of constitutional dictatorship” (1999, p. 38). General Alfredo Stroessner ruled Paraguay under constitutional provisions that limited a declared state of siege to 90 days, but he simply renewed the declaration every 3 months for 15 years. Arbitrary rule would reach its height in the second half of the twentieth century, when military regimes took hold in nearly every country of the region and unleashed a wave of violence in a presumed battle against communist insurgency. The abuse of power under these regimes was truly staggering. The 1976–83 military regime in Argentina killed over 30,000. A 2004 truth commission in Chile decided that 27,153 individuals were entitled to compensation due to torture, illegal detention, or other human rights violations. The military in Guatemala implemented a scorched earth campaign against indigenous communities, and killed over 75,000 in the early 1980s. The 1992 discovery of records detailing intelligence sharing (Operation Condor) exposed the methodical use of state terror among military units in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay, leading to the deaths of some 60,000 individuals. Nonetheless, a wave of democratization would sweep the region in the 1980s and 1990s, and today, military rule appears to be a thing of the past. Also during this time, globalization has expanded dramatically. Hence, it seems fitting to take a detailed look at the building of the rule of law in Latin America, and to assess the role of global forces. The following sections examine three of the most important political issues in Latin America: transitional justice; citizen security; and democratic consolidation.

The Rule of Law and Transitional Justice Authoritarianism declined worldwide in the latter half of the twentieth century, with the transitions in Latin America resting midway between the 1970s democratizations in Southern Europe and the 1990s democratizations in Eastern Europe, Africa, and portions of Asia (Huntington 1991). But the distinction of Latin America was that it experienced military rule. While the communist parties of Eastern Europe lost legitimacy and disintegrated, and the personalist dictators of Africa fled to exile, the armed forces in Latin America remained a part of the emerging democracies. They could threaten re-intervention, and negotiate their withdrawal from rule. Certain

44 Through Thick and Thin: Globalization and Contested …

839

prerogatives, such as budgetary guarantees, influence over defense, and security policy, and amnesties to prevent the prosecution of crimes committed under military rule, were secured. Transitional justice refers to any measures taken to redress large scale human rights abuses after a transition from authoritarian rule. At a minimum, it may involve truth commissions or moves to compensate victims, but maximum efforts involve trials to prosecute the perpetrators of human rights violations. Transitional justice gained traction in the immediate aftermath of WWII under the Nuremberg and Tokyo Trials. But foreigners imposed these tribunals in countries under occupation. When the push for prosecution comes from inside the country, it is much more than retributive; it is intertwined with the very process of democratization. New leaders want a clear break with the past, and hope to instill confidence in the ability of the new democratic regime to maintain the rule of law (McAdams 1997). This was clearly the case in Argentina under President Raúl Alfonsín (1983–89). Still, his approach to transitional justice was understandably practical and limited, in part due to novelty. Argentina was arguably the very first country to prosecute its former authoritarian rulers. Soon after the 1983 transition, nine ex-commanders were found guilty of human rights violations. But the trials were limited because the government embraced the principle of “due obedience,” which allowed lower ranking officers to avoid prosecution if they were “following orders.” Likewise, because the investigations prompted uncertainty (and two military uprisings), Alfonsín would later set a February 1987 deadline on all trials, which would effectively allow hundreds of suspects to go free. His decisions were justified by the writings of his human rights advisor, Carlos Nino, a prominent moral theorist who argued that justice need not be retributive, but “symbolic justice” had tremendous value for a new democracy. By prosecuting top leaders, a signal is sent for future leaders to act in a just and moral way, and democracy grows stronger even if efforts are not made to try all those suspected of crimes under the regime. In this way, Nino offered a “preventionist” theory of justice (Nino 1991, 1996). Though limited, the transitional justice in Argentina was still the exception rather than the rule in Latin America through much of the 1980s and 1990s. Democratic governments in neighboring Brazil, Chile, and Uruguay heeded the military amnesties they faced. In Central America, prosecutions of human rights violators were not part of the dialogue as El Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua negotiated ends to their civil wars. In fact, trials were viewed as obstacles to a negotiated peace. And Argentina itself would suffer a reversal, when President Carlos Menem (1989– 99) pardoned the ex-commanders as a gesture of national reconciliation, and in an effort to sideline human rights issues as he prioritized economic policy. Though essentially absent as a matter of national policy, social activists worked to ensure that human rights would remain on the agenda. Ingenious lawyers developed new legal strategies to circumvent the amnesties. In Chile, litigation on the “disappeared” (victims of the military regime whose bodies have not been found) was framed not as “murders,” but as “permanent kidnappings,” a crime not covered by the amnesty. Similarly, lawyers in Argentina charged the ex-commanders as conspirators in a babytheft ring, due to the systematic policy of allowing military officers to adopt the babies of pregnant political prisoners before they were disappeared. And social activists

840

C. L. Arceneaux

took novel approaches to impunity. In Argentina, the group H.I.J.O.S. (“Children for Identity and Justice Against Forgetting and Silence”), developed the “escrache,” a form of public denouncement of an individual deemed to have escaped justice. These public denunciations became commonplace throughout Latin America. But the passivity of Latin American governments toward human rights trials in the 1990s belied dramatic changes in the global arena. The United Nations convened ad hoc tribunals for the post-Yugoslavia states in 1991 and Rwanda in 1994 to try political and military leaders for genocide and crimes against humanity. In 1997, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights adopted French jurist Louis Joinet’s thoughts on the rule of law in his “Principles Against Impunity,” which held that societies emerging from a repressive regime not only had a right to know and be compensated for past human rights violations, but also a right to justice that obliges the state to investigate and holds the persons responsible to account (UNCHR 1997). And in 1998, the International Criminal Court was established to adjudicate charges of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. In 1998, the wave of change in the global arena would stun Latin America when the United Kingdom arrested a visiting Augusto Pinochet, dictator in Chile under the 1973–89 military regime, in compliance with an extradition request from Spanish courts on charges of genocide, torture, and forced disappearance. Though the British government ultimately released Pinochet (ironically on human rights grounds based on a dubious claim of declining health) the litigation shamed the Chilean courts and government into action (Arceneaux and Pion-Berlin 2005, pp. 124–155). Four years later, over 300 cases would be opened against Pinochet (he would only avoid justice by dying in 2006). Global forces would revitalize human rights progress in Argentina as well. In 2005, the Supreme Court of Argentina would declare unconstitutional the amnesty laws implemented by Carlos Menem because the Argentine Constitution incorporated international law. But advances in transitional justice were truly an interactive affair between domestic actors in Latin America and the global arena (Skaar et al. 2016). Sikkink points to the Argentine trials as a “formative moment for the global transitional justice movement” because they showed that such trials did not provoke backlashes and undermine democracy (the military uprisings occurred only after investigations on lower level officers generated uncertainty) (2011, p. 76). Indeed, the first Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court was Argentina’s Luis Moreno-Ocampo, lead attorney during the ex-commanders trials. And already in 1992, the InterAmerican Commission advised that amnesties passed in Argentina and Uruguay contravened international human rights obligations. Most significantly, in 2001 the Inter-American Court ruled against an amnesty in Peru in Barrios Altos v. Peru, declaring that amnesties for violations of human rights protected by international treaty law (e.g., genocide, forced disappearance, and torture) were “prohibited.” A similar ruling against Chile in 2006 (Almonacid Arellano v. Chile) provided further precedence against amnesties (Binder 2011). The use of trials for transitional justice has become an international norm, and notably, by 2007, over one-half of the trials worldwide were conducted in Latin America (Sikkink and Walling 2007).

44 Through Thick and Thin: Globalization and Contested …

841

Recent evidence of collaboration by domestic and international forces comes from Guatemala and efforts to prosecute former dictator Efraín Ríos Montt for presiding over massacres of indigenous populations during the early 1980s. Similar to the Pinochet case, Spanish courts, though lobbied aggressively by Guatemalan activists including Nobel Peace Prize winner Rigoberta Menchú, took action early and helped shame Guatemalan courts into action. In 1999, the Spanish courts indicted Ríos Montt and seven other leaders under the basis of universal jurisdiction, which held that crimes of “international concern” are appropriate for prosecution in any court. The Guatemalan Constitutional Court dragged its heels, ruling in 2007 that the extradition requests were invalid. But the international push toward justice was also coming from the United Nations, which played a critical role in the 1994–96 peace accords. As part of those accords, the UN supported the creation of the Commission for Historical Clarification, a truth commission which published a report documenting three decades of state repression leading to the deaths of some 200,000 Guatemalans. And in 2006, the UN sponsored the creation of the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala to help dismantle clandestine security forces responsible for extrajudicial killings. Though the commission would later turn its focus to corruption (see below), it emboldened the push for transitional justice. The Guatemalan courts finally opened their own case against Ríos Montt and found him guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity in 2012. Though the case was overturned on a technicality, it was reopened in 2015. Like Pinochet, Ríos Montt would only escape justice through death, in April 2018. The struggle against impunity associated with the authoritarian regimes of the past has been couched in the language of the rule of law. Indeed, as noted by Carmody, “transitional justice has proven to be anything but transitional. Instead it has become a permanent feature of the political landscape and struggles over transitional justice have continued to function as a microcosm of broader struggles to shape the political order” (2018, p. 5). As applied to transitional justice, the rule of law has taken on a “thick” characterization. Holding perpetrators of human rights violations under past authoritarian regimes accountable is viewed as fundamental to the very legitimacy of new democratic governments in Latin America. Importantly, both domestic actors in the region and foreign actors have contributed to this particular understanding and application of the rule of law. And in this case, globalization has had a positive effect on political change in Latin America.

The Rule of Law and Citizen Security Latin America holds roughly 9% of the earth’s population, yet endures 36% of intentional homicides worldwide (UNODC 2013, p. 11). Of the top twenty countries with the highest homicide rates, a troubling seventeen rest in Latin America. In 2016, the global average of about 6 homicides per 100,000 individuals was far outpaced by El Salvador—with 83 murders per 100,000, Honduras—with 57 murders per 100,000, and Venezuela—with 56 murders per 100,000. The scourge of violence affects the

842

C. L. Arceneaux

largest countries of the region, with Brazil suffering 30 homicides per 100,000 and Mexico bearing 20 homicides per 100,000 (UNODC 2018). The violence not only dulls the sense of security in the region, but it also erodes the rule of law. Only 24 convictions follow every 100 murders in Latin America, while countries in Asia achieve 48 convictions per 100 murders and in Europe, 81 persons find themselves behind bars for every 100 murders (UNODC 2013, p. 18). The level of impunity adds to the sense of insecurity in a region plagued by common crime, kidnapping, human trafficking, extortion, vigilantism, gang violence, drug and contraband trade, and other forms of lawlessness. The incidence of crime and violence in the region is uneven. Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, and Uruguay exhibit more typical crime rates. Nonetheless, all countries of Latin America saw their crime rates increase since the 1980s, in no small part due to global pressures to move toward neoliberal policies (Briceño-León and Zubillaga 2002). The dismantling of import-substitution models involved slashing social safety nets, cutbacks on public spending on education and public services, the withdrawal of subsidies for national business, the deregulation of business operations, and the opening of domestic producers to international competition. Small farmers could not compete with cheap agricultural products from abroad. Extractive industries such as mining and oil moved from state hands and felt intense pressure to mechanize or simply went bankrupt. The result was massive migration from rural to urban areas such that today, Latin America is the most urbanized region on earth (Portes and Roberts 2005). And urbanization took place with little planning or support from government. Municipalities quickly found themselves surrounded by shantytowns, makeshift housing with limited or nonexistent access to basic supplies of water, electricity, sanitation, as well as markets, transportation, public safety, or education. Today, over half of the population in Latin America makes a living in the informal sector, a portion of the economy that is untaxed and unregulated, and in which workers do not contribute to any form of social security. The lack of government services in the urban slums is a breeding ground for criminal organizations. High youth unemployment offers a ready supply of desperate labor, the lack of public safety provides ample opportunities for extortion, and the demand for basic needs creates a ready market for the control of services, from access to electricity to public transportation. And should government officials take notice of the growing blight, criminal organizations can rally the support and votes to have the area incorporated into the municipality. A corrupt relationship emerges whereby local politicians turn a blind eye to criminal activity in exchange for secured political support. Electoral politics thus serve as a medium of exchange rather than as a forum for the expression of ideas and search for good public policy. Global forces magnify and further complicate the growth of crime. The drug trade, made possible by proximity to the US market and its appetite for illegal drug use, affords a seemingly endless stream of illicit earnings. And while drugs trade north, firearms flow south from the United States to further embolden criminal organizations, which often outgun local police forces, and intensify violence. Indeed, while firearms account for 41% of all homicides globally, they are involved in 75% of murders through Central America and the Caribbean (Asmann 2017). The cash flows surrounding illicit trade creates

44 Through Thick and Thin: Globalization and Contested …

843

tremendous needs for money laundering and outlets for investment, both of which have been eased by neoliberal provisions to deregulate banking services and simplify foreign direct and portfolio investment. Little wonder that crime has skyrocketed in the vulnerable states of the Caribbean, given their long history of dependence on foreign markets, tourism, and offshore banking, and inauspicious location between the drug-producing countries in the Andes and the drug consuming market of the United States (Maingot 2003). Neoliberal principles influenced the perpetrators of violence as well as responses to violence. Though drug trafficking can be conceived of as an economic activity, it involves risks unlike any other, including imprisonment and involvement in violent activities. Little wonder that traffickers quickly embraced outsourcing strategies to defray risks. Through the 1980s, Colombian cocaine traffickers handed distribution networks to US gangs, and as U.S. military strategy squeezed routes through the Caribbean in the 1990s, the Colombian cartels grew more dependent on Mexican traffickers to send their product north. The Mexican cartels used their leverage to demand in-kind payments of cocaine rather than monetary payments, which allowed them to increase profits upwards of ten-fold. Newly enriched Mexican drug lords then used their newfound power to outflank Colombians and purchase directly from cocaleros in South America, and to open new markets in destinations such as Argentina and Brazil (Gootenberg 2012). Another strategy embraced by drug traffickers has been diversification into human trafficking, smuggling, pirated goods, auto-theft, extortion, and other criminals activities (Castillo 2014; Huixcolotla 2017). For those concerned with the growing violence, neoliberalism forces a response that looks not to the state for safety, but rather to private markets. Indeed, private security guards now outnumber police officers in Latin America, having charted annual growth rates of 7–11% since the 1980s (Ungar 2007). Much of the supply of security comes from abroad. Sales from international security firms to Latin America reached $23 billion in 2012, representing 24.5% of their global income (Marcella 2013, p. 74). Of course, the consequences of using the market to address citizen security extend inequality to the sphere of individual safety. Security is not an obligation of the state, but rather a commodity accessed easily only by the wealthy. Scholars and political leaders concerned with violence and citizen security regularly invoke the rule of law, but with a thin approach that emphasizes access to and the efficiency of judicial institutions, as well as enhanced policing methods. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) spearheaded judicial reform efforts in the 1980s and 1990s, with the presumption that the rule of law required a move from inquisitorial code law practices and toward U.S. style adversarial common law practices. The World Bank and Inter-American Development Bank followed with complimentary programs (Domingo and Sieder 2001). There is a naive, patronizing premise behind the approach: “the adoption of Western judicial procedure, via limited institutional and technical adjustments rather than direct political change, will somehow transform the justice system.” But the results have been far from satisfactory: “None of these fairly narrow changes to make Latin American legal codes, criminal procedures, training, or facilities appear more like foreign models have actually transformed these legal systems. These projects continue to be funded

844

C. L. Arceneaux

and implemented by international actors because they are in line with the underlying implicit rationale, that somehow such changes will transform reality” (Pásara 2012, p. 5). Embracing a narrow conception of the rule of law and approaching violence and insecurity as a technical, procedural issue rather than as a barometer of economic dislocation, inequality, and disenfranchisement has not only failed, but has proved counterproductive. Frustrated by the rising tide of violence and ineffectiveness of judicial or police reform, support for hardline, or “mano dura,” approaches to crime has grown. These policies not only undermine basic constitutional protections as they prioritize punishment, but they also instill a narrow conception of criminal activity as an individual choice, one devoid of the larger socioeconomic setting and political environment (Holland 2013; Muggah 2017). In reality, it is difficult to explain the rise of violence in Latin America outside the neoliberal global forces that have shrunk state services and safety net provisions (Frühling et al. 2003). More politically, rising violence is an indicator of disenfranchisement, as some Latin Americans lose their very identity and attachment to the state as citizens. The most fundamental function of the state is to provide safety, as Hobbes reminds us in Leviathan. In the case of citizen security, globalization has taken on a ruinous role. Neoliberal pressures have added to the vulnerability of Latin American societies and crippled the ability of the state to address basic needs. Globalization has done more to open opportunities for criminal organizations than everyday persons. Placing security in the hands of the marketplace means that today, citizenship itself in Latin America is a commodity available only to a privileged minority.

The Rule of Law and Democratization The rule of law is fundamental to democratic consolidation. Ungar (2002, p. 18) notes, “whether (public officials) deal with citizens in a law-abiding way is central to popular perceptions and support for democracy.” The Organization of American States agrees and views the rule of law and democracy as inextricably intertwined. Its 2001 Inter-American Democratic Charter identifies “the effective exercise of representative democracy” as “the basis for the rule of law” (Article 2), and lists “access to and the exercise of power in accordance with the rule of law” as an “essential element” of representative democracy (Article 3). The document then goes on to protect democracy (and the rule of law) by stipulating explicit regional responses and penalties for alterations (not just interruptions) of the constitutional regime (Article 19). The Charter represents the most powerful statement by a regional organization to safeguard democratic rule among its members (OAS 2001). Despite the boldness of the Inter-American Democratic Charter, its member states have made use of it selectively, invoking its full authority only when constitutional rule is most egregiously threatened, as in the case of coups d’état. When executive and legislatures face off in constitutional crises, or under more subtle but equally menacing conditions such as executive overreach or the erosion of basic civil liberties

44 Through Thick and Thin: Globalization and Contested …

845

and political rights, member states have proved reluctant to reference the charter (Arceneaux and Pion-Berlin 2007). International discipline of states for alleged violations of basic political rights has always been a delicate subject in Latin America given the history of US intervention. Still, the ambition of Latin American leaders to secure their new democracies overshadowed those concerns in 2001. But this proved to be but a brief moment in time. Elections in Venezuela (Hugo Chávez 1998), Argentina (Néstor Kirchner 2003), Brazil (Luis Inácio Lula da Silva 2003), and Bolivia (Evo Morales 2006) initiated a pink tide of new, left-leaning populist leaders who rebelled against the neoliberal wave that had overtaken the region in the 1990s. As the U.S. voiced criticisms of economic policy changes, suspicion grew that the country would use the rhetoric of protecting democracy to shield neoliberal policies already in place, and even to promote the replacement of recalcitrant political leaders with more docile ones. And if the rise of democracy in the hemisphere had generated a spirit of Kantian goodwill, this would quickly dissipate after September 11, 2001 (ironically, the same date the OAS passed the Inter-American Democratic Charter). In the UN Security Council, opposition by Chile and Mexico to US attempts to legitimate an invasion of Iraq in 2003 drew swift condemnation by the United States and threats of reprisal. The imperious and unilateral United States of the Cold War era appeared to have returned. But even as the OAS lost momentum as a forum for the oversight of democratization and the growth of the rule of law, the World Bank took up the cause. The organization had long been reluctant to directly address matters of government, which were viewed as outside the scope of its mandate to support economic growth. But the debt crisis and failures of the structural adjustment policies of the 1980s forced the Bank to reconsider its approach to development. It found an answer in the growing scholarship of development economics, which increasingly emphasized the role of institutions, in particular legal institutions, for the effective functioning of market economies (Van Den Meerssche 2017). Neoliberalism calls for general economic policy changes, such as ending subsidies, privatization, deregulating exchange rate markets, liberalizing trade, labor market flexibility, and fiscal responsibility, but the broader legal concerns involve the necessary changes to investment codes, the regulatory framework, labor codes, legislation to guide privatization, and so on (Santos 2006, p. 267). The Bank’s approach to development underwent further change in the 1990s as it attempted to come to grips with the successful role of the state and industrial policy in the “East Asian Tigers,” and in the abject failures of neoliberal shock policy in Russia and other post-communist states. It found a ready answer in the theory of the New Institutional Economics (most prominently laid out by North 1981), which focused on property rights. “An absence of clearly defined and consistently enforced property rights leads to high transaction costs and…is a key contributing factor to poor economic performance and growth” (Krever 2011, p. 304). The focus on property rights was quickly placed in the context of an expansive focus on governance, defined by the Bank as “the manner in which power is exercised in the management of a country’s economic and social resources for development” (World Bank 1992). This emphasis on governance meant that the World Bank saw the rule of law as embedded not simply within certain neoliberal policies, but rather

846

C. L. Arceneaux

in how those policies were implemented. “While the old development model (neoliberalism) held that the path to growth and prosperity lay in the construction of efficient markets, the new orthodoxy stresses that such markets are themselves dependent on the rule of law” (Krever 2011, p. 289). Corruption was always a concern, but it soon emerged as central. As noted by the World Bank itself, “the (legal neoliberal) reforms that the Bank supported in the 1980s and 1990s…were partly aimed at reducing the incentives for corruption”. But the launching of the 1997 strategy was an important change that put the fight against corruption at the forefront of the Bank development agenda (World Bank 2004). Corruption thus emerged as the core component of good governance, which in turn defined the Bank’s understanding of the rule of law (Santos 2006, pp. 273–75). And in Latin America, few would deny that corruption is a problem. Transparency International (2017) found that one in three Latin Americans (29%) reported that they had to pay a bribe for a public service over the previous 12 months. In its 2017 Corruption Perceptions Index, (of the mainland Latin American countries) only Uruguay (#23), Chile (#26), Costa Rica (#38), and Argentina (#85) made it above the global median ranking of 180 countries. And the region is not lacking in high profile cases. The “car wash” scandal in Brazil saw the state oil company, Petrobras, sign off on bloated contracts and pay over 100 implicated government officials to look the other way. Some $3 billion changed hands, and the incriminated oil-infrastructure corporation, Odebrecht, was also found to have been involved in Ecuador and Peru, and to have compromised top officials there. In Guatemala, the International Commission against Impunity, initially created to address impunity in the security sector, shifted its target to government corruption, and ultimately indicted President Jimmy Morales. Moves have also been made against the former President of Panama, Ricardo Martinelli. But while few would deny the significance of corruption, what is important is that the neoliberal focus of the World Bank places the spotlight almost exclusively on the public sector, and gives less attention to malfeasance by private business. And in fact here, corruption has flourished within the channels of neoliberal globalization. According to Global Financial Integrity (2017), the fraudulent misinvoicing of trade by private corporations accounts for 87% of illicit financial outflows from developing countries. While public sector reform can undoubtedly reduce corruption, it is curious that the World Bank almost unquestionably emphasizes greater involvement of, and even the channeling of its resources directly through, the private sector as a measure to combat corruption, as if the sector were solely a victim of and never a beneficiary of corruption (World Bank 2006). There is also a danger in the fight against corruption in the weaker democracies of Latin America. It can easily grow politicized, as the charges become one more weapon in the arsenal of a would-be autocratic leader to target opponents (Estrada 2018). Ultimately, the fight against corruption cannot succeed without greater appreciation of the advance of democracy. The OAS floundered in its attempt to maintain a thick conception of the rule of law by protecting representative democracy. Its Secretary-General, Luis Leonardo Almagro Lemes, captured the frustration in the institution when he noted, “The OAS has to know today if its Democratic Charter is

44 Through Thick and Thin: Globalization and Contested …

847

a strong instrument to defend the principles of democracy, or if it is for the archives of the Organization” (OAS 2016). The World Bank, working within the strictures of neoliberal ideology, targets the state as anathema to development, and thus insofar as it conflates corruption with the absence of the rule of law, it emphasizes corruption by political leaders, rather than corruption by private business as well. The Bank has contained the rule of law within a thin conception. Overall, one should credit the significant advances to prosecute corrupt actions of Latin American politicians (Casas-Zamora and Carter 2017), but the discursive impact of global actors to narrow the rule of law has yielded incomplete and mixed results on corruption generally.

Conclusion The rule of law is a contested concept, and within the confines of its meaning we can evaluate the impact of globalization on political change in Latin America. Globalization has had a positive influence on the advance of transitional justice in Latin America, as the rule of law took on a thicker conceptualization that embraced the fight against impunity as integral to democratization. Globalization has had a net negative effect on efforts against crime and violence in Latin America. Within the rubric of a thin conceptualization of the rule of law, criminal organizations are empowered within global channels. Neoliberalism creates powerful social dislocations, curtails the ability of the state to address crime, and ultimately leads to a privatization of security and effectively disenfranchises disadvantaged groups. And the global impact on the rule of law as applied to democratization has had an uneven effect. Efforts by the OAS to maintain a thick conceptualization of the rule of law have been stunted, and the thin use of the rule of law by the World Bank prioritizes corruption cases against politicians, and can foster the politicization of corruption probes when pursued in weaker democracies.

References Arceneaux, Craig, and David Pion-Berlin. 2005. Transforming Latin America: The International and Domestic Sources of Change. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. Arceneaux, Craig and David Pion-Berlin. (2007). Explaining OAS Responses to Democratic Dilemmas in Latin America. Latin American Politics and Society, 49(2), 1–32. Asmann, Parker. 2017. New Data Reinforces Link Between Guns, Violence in Latin America, Aug 14. Insightcrime.org. https://www.insightcrime.org/news/brief/new-data-reinforces-linkguns-violence-latin-america/. Accessed 6 July 2018. Binder, Christina. 2011. The Prohibition of Amnesties by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. German Law Journal 12 (5): 1203–1230. Bingham, Tom. 2011. The Rule of Law. London: Penguin Press. Briceño-León, Roberto, and Verónica Zubillaga. 2002. Violence and Globalization in Latin America. Current Sociology 50 (1): 19–37.

848

C. L. Arceneaux

Carmody, Michelle Frances. 2018. Human Rights, Transitional Justice, and the Reconstruction of Political Order in Latin America. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Casas-Zamora, Kevin, and Miguel Carter. 2017. Beyond the Scandals: The Changing Context of Corruption in Latin America. Washington, D.C: Inter-American Dialogue. Cass, Ronald. 2004. Property Rights Systems and the Rule of Law. In The Elgar Companion to the Economics of Property Rights, ed. Enrico Colombatto, 131–163. Oxford: Edward Elgar Publications. Castillo, E. Eduardo. 2014. Mexican Drug Cartels Are Becoming Diversified ‘Multinational Corporations.’ Business Insider, Mar 17. www.businessinsider.com. Accessed 15 July 2018. Domingo, Pilar, and Rachel Sieder (eds.). 2001. Rule of Law in Latin America: The International Promotion of Judicial Reform. London: Institute of Latin American Studies. Estrada, Gaspard. 2018. Politicised Justice in Latin America Has Weakened Faith in the Judiciary. https://www.trtworld.com/opinion/politicised-justice-in-latin-america-has-weakenedfaith-in-the-judiciary-18088. Accessed 21 July 2018. Frühling, Hugo, Joseph S. Tulchin, and Heather A. Golding (eds.). 2003. Crime and Violence in Latin America. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Fuller, Lon. 1964. The Morality of Law. New Haven: Yale University Press. Global Financial Integrity. 2017. Illicit Financial Flows to and from Developing Countries: 2005–2014. http://www.gfintegrity.org/report/illicit-financial-flows-to-and-from-develo ping-countries-2005-2014/. Accessed 16 July 2018. Gootenberg, Paul. 2012. Cocaine’s Long March North, 1900–2010. Latin American Politics and Society 54 (1): 159–180. Hayek, Friedrich. 1960. The Constitution of Liberty. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Holland, Alisha C. 2013. Right on Crime? Conservative Party Politics and Mano Dura Policies in El Salvador. Latin American Research Review 48 (1): 44–67. Huixcolotla, San Salvador. 2017. Why Murder in Mexico Is Rising Again: Gangs Get Smaller, and Diversify. The Economist. www.economist.com. Accessed 15 July 2018. Huntington, Samuel P. 1991. The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. Krever, Tor. 2011. The Legal Turn in Late Development Theory: The Rule of Law and the World Bank’s Development Model. Harvard International Law Journal 52: 288–319. Loveman, Brian. 1999. For La Patria: Politics and the Armed Forces in Latin America. Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources. Maingot, Anthony P. 2003. Internationalized Crime and the Vulnerability of Small States in the Caribbean. In Crime and Violence in Latin America, ed. Hugo Frühling, Joseph S. Tulchin, and Heather A. Golding, 233–258. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Marcella, Gabriel. 2013. The Transformation of Security in Latin America: A Cause for Common Action. Journal of International Affairs 66 (2): 67–82. McAdams, A. James. 1997. Transitional Justice and the Rule of Law in New Democracies. Notre Dame: Notre Dame Press. Møller, Jørgen, and Svend Erik Skaaning. 2012. Systematizing Thin and Thick Conceptions of the Rule of Law. Justice System Journal 33 (2): 136–153. Muggah, Robert. 2017. The Rise of Citizen Security in Latin America and the Caribbean. International Development Policy 9: 291–322. Nino, Carlos. 1991. Radical Evil on Trial. New Haven: Yale University Press. Nino, Carlos. 1996. The Duty to Punish Past Abuses of Human Rights Put into Context: The Case of Argentina. The Yale Law Journal 100 (8): 2619–2640. North, Douglass. 1981. Structure and Change in Economic History. New York: W.W. Norton. OAS. 2001. Inter-American Democratic Charter. www.oas.org/en/democratic-charter/pdf/demcha rter_en.pdf. Accessed 2 Aug 2018. OAS. 2016. Presentation of the Secretary General of the OAS to the Permanent Council on the Application of the Democratic Charter. S-011/16. Washington, D.C.: OAS.

44 Through Thick and Thin: Globalization and Contested …

849

Pásara, Luis. 2012. International Support for Justice Reform in Latin America: Worthwhile or Worthless? Washington D.C.: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Portes, Alejandro, and Bryan R. Roberts. 2005. The Free-Market City: Latin American Urbanization in the Years of the Neoliberal Experiment. Studies in Comparative International Development 40 (1): 43–82. Raz, Joseph. 1977. The Rule of Law and Its Virtue. Law Quarterly Review 93: 195–211. Report of the Secretary-General. 2004. The Rule of Law and Transitional Justice in Conflict and Post-Conflict Societies. S/2004/616. New York: United Nations. Santos, Alvaro. 2006. The World Bank’s Uses of the “Rule of Law” Promise in Economic Development. In The New Law and Economic Development, ed. David Trubek and Alvaro Santos, 253–300. Sikkink, Kathryn. 2011. The Justice Cascade: How Human Rights Prosecutions are Changing World Politics. New York: Norton. Sikkink, Kathryn, and Carrie Booth Walling. 2007. The Impact of Human Rights Trials in Latin America. Journal of Peace Research 44 (4): 427–445. Skaar, Elin, Jemima Garcia Godos, and Cath Collins. 2016. Transitional Justice in Latin America: The Uneven Road from Impunity Towards Accountability. New York: Routledge. Tashima, Wallace. 2008. The War on Terror and the Rule of Law. Asian American Law Journal 15: 245–265. Transparency International. 2017. People and Corruption: Latin America and the Caribbean. Berlin: Transparency International. UNCHR (United Nations Commission on Human Rights) 1997. Set of Principles for the Protection and Promotion of Human Rights Through Action to Combat Impunity. E/CN.4/Sub.2/1997/20/Rev.1. www.documents-dds-ny.un.org. Accessed 10 July 2018. Ungar, Mark. 2002. Elusive Reform: Democracy and the Rule of Law in Latin America. Boulder: Lynne Reinner. Ungar, Mark. 2007. The Privatization of Citizen Security in Latin America: From Elite Guards to Neighborhood Vigilantes. Social Justice 34 (3–4): 20–37. United Nations. Report of the Secretary General. 2004. The Rule of Law and Transitional Justice in Conflict and Post-Conflict Societies. S/2004/616. www.documents-dds-ny.un.org. Accessed 10 July 2018. UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime). 2013. Global Study on Homicide 2013. Vienna: United Nations. UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime). 2018. UNODC Statistics. www.data.uno dc.org. Accessed 14 July 2018. Van Den Meerssche, Dimitri. 2017. The Evolving Mandate of the World Bank: How Constitutional Hermeneutics Shaped the Concept and Practice of Rule of Law Reform. Law and Development Review 10 (1): 89–118. World Bank. 1992. Governance and Development. Washington, D.C.: World Bank. World Bank. 2004. Mainstreaming Anti-Corruption Activities in World Bank Assistance: A Review of Progress Since 1997. Report No. 29620. Operations Evaluation Department. http://lnweb90.worldbank.org/oed/oeddoclib.nsf/DocUNIDViewForJavaSea rch/048351B876971B9285256EED006AAE69/$file/anti_corruption.pdf. Accessed 15 July 2018. World Bank. 2006. Governance and Anti-Corruption: Ways to Enhance the World Bank’s Impact. Washington, D.C.: World Bank.

Craig L. Arceneaux is a Professor of Political Science at the California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. His specialty rests in Latin American Politics and the design of democratic institutions. He is author of Democratic Latin America (Routledge, 2020), and has recently published works on matters of electoral integrity, for example: “Decentralized Administration: Federalism in the Americas,” in Pippa Norris et al., Electoral Integrity in America (Oxford, 2018).

Chapter 45

Indigenous People in Pluricultural Nations of Latin America June Nash

Abstract In the context of neoliberal democracy, the concept of an autonomous, indigenous multicultural democracy co-existing with the nation state is truly revolutionary. This occurred in the state of Chiapas and was brought to global awareness with the Zapatista uprising of 1994. The Chiapas experiment provides an alternative model to accepted neoliberal doctrine. My engagement in the area was carried out over decades, which enabled me to see beyond the immediate circumstances to understand the larger ongoing cultural/political changes as they arose, developed, lingered, or disappeared. I was able to assess culture in a processual way. The Maya people’s ability to resist the attempt by the government to take away indigenous lands, their means of production, and exchange systems, and to retain their culture while finding new markets under these circumstances, admirably illustrates their ability to retain cultural premises, while responding to global influence. This is particularly important today, with the tendency of countries to respond to the pressure of global trade through the homogenization of production. The Maya motivation and success in linking their own culture with global aspirations provides a model for expanding local and global exchange, without the loss of identity.

Indigenous peoples of the Western hemisphere are seeking recognition as pluricultural autonomous governing regions within the nations in which they have been marginalized since the Spanish conquest. In their quest for democratic inclusion in governance and collective conservation of their resources, they are expanding the horizons of democracy. I argue that democracy is an ongoing process of democratization, contingent on the inclusion of all members of society in the promise of justice and equality. Movements of indigenous people, supported by liberation Catholic activists, women’s organizations, and organized sectors of civil society seeking to overcome racist and sexist premises, hope to revitalize collective autonomy

J. Nash–deceased. J. Nash (B) City University of New York, New York City, NY, USA © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 I. Rossi (ed.), Challenges of Globalization and Prospects for an Inter-civilizational World Order, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44058-9_45

851

852

J. Nash

in the democratic participation of members of the communities and regions in which indigenous people predominate. In 1994, the advent of Zapatista rebels in the national political life was countered by what United Nations human rights agents have called genocidal attacks by the Mexican government on indigenous populations. Soon after the 1994 uprising of indigenous people in Chiapas, the communities in resistance to the central government formed the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (Ejercito Zapatista de Liberación Nacional EZLN). They began to exercise self-governance as they demanded multicultural co-existence in autonomous regions of the Lacandón Rainforest. Other communities of indigenous people in the Northern Frontier and Highland Plateau of the state of Chiapas are practicing autonomy in parallel governments operating within municipalities. Indigenous areas of Guerrero, Michoacan, and Oaxaca are also developing their own security forces as their first step toward autonomy because of the failure of state security agents to respond to their needs. The advent of indigenous people as distinct self-governing entities challenges European and North American models of democratic revolutions. Enlightenment philosophers linked the aspirations for democracy with autonomy, contrasting this with its opposite condition of heteronomy, or the will enforced by others. Immanuel Kant affirmed that “only that man’s character is good whose right acts flow from his own will, not from compulsion or constraint.” (Cohn 1971/2013: 148). He went on to say that only when the community is democratically governed can autonomy be realized since it is then that one finds participation of the governed (ibid. 169). The linkage of autonomy with participatory democracy is an essential basis for understanding contemporary movements. However, it has failed to encompass indigenous peoples’ invocation of the collective will as the basis for autonomy within Latin American nations. Giambattista Vico provided such a link in his analysis of the “collective consciousness” among Italian peasantry that defines “a particular moment in the history of the human spirit” (Scienza Nuova of 1725, cf. Encyclopedia Britannica 1991, Vol. 25 p. 556). The collective base of indigenous societies in the Western hemisphere resonates more with the vision of Vico’s eighteenth century Italian peasantry than with European colonial models. The colonial emphasis on individual rights and rationality clash with the communalistic and moral commitments was described by Vico. Indigenous people of the Western hemisphere who maintain their primordial world views also go beyond the nineteenth and twentieth century dyadic oppositions, intrinsic to Marxist and liberal social theorists. In their defense of environmental conservation, indigenous people embrace the notion of Mother Earth in polyvalent alliances with feminist, religious, and other groups crossing class lines. The demand of indigenous peoples for autonomous co-existence within the nations that have been carved out of their territories can contribute to our understanding of democracy in the post-modern era. Their commitment to regaining selfgovernance in accord with their own cultural precepts and ways of life has survived 500 years of colonization and marginalization. Demands for regional autonomy which recognizes the collective will of indigenous people are resurgent throughout the Americas, as they protest the invasion of mining companies, oil explorers, and agro-industrial food producers. Their concerns are echoed by conservationists who

45 Indigenous People in Pluricultural Nations of Latin America

853

question the short term perspective of those who promote profits regardless of its costs to the environment and the local populations affected by such projects. Industrial workers, who have lost their position of power in the labor movement, are more prone to accept the invasion of extractive enterprises in their desperation to find wage work. The Marxist framework of a “vanguard” of workers in industrialized societies constructing a homogeneous “mass” society is no longer adequate to conceptualize the fluid, and often acephalous mobilizations that are intrinsic to indigenous and civil society movements for democracy in Latin America. The Bolivarian Revolution which crosses boundaries to link South American countries, has created geopolitical changes in the Western hemisphere that creates an alternative model for the process of democratization. Brazilian competitors for resources offer alternative trade alliances and development models, all of which are undermining the hegemonic control exercised by the United States in the hemisphere. In the emergence of new expressions of democracy in Latin America, when distinct ethnic groups seek participation in mono-cultural democracy, we can expect to find, as David Nugent suggests, that the “antinomies among co-existing democracies in a contested field of legitimizing claims” will engender conflict (Nugent 2013). This might conceivably stimulate progress as well as breakdown in democracy. As the history of the United States suggests, the Civil War overcame an autocracy of slaveholders, and unforeseen events may yet overcome the threat of global corporations. In this chapter, I focus on the mobilizations of Mayas to attain endogenous (not foreign) modes of collective autonomy in Chiapas, Mexico where they constitute a majority. Their demands for inclusion in the nation state as equal citizens were broadcast throughout the world on January 1, 1994 when Tzeltal and Tzotzil speaking settlers of the Lacandón rainforest staged an attack on the capital city of Chiapas, San Cristobal de Las Casas. The insurgents, known as the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN), included some 2000 men, women, and youths who, for a decade, had been training with a guerrilla operation of students and intellectuals from Mexico City. They took over the municipal buildings of four cities, the military quarters on the outskirts of San Cristobal de Las Casas, and the maximum-security penitentiary nearby, that had recently been expanded in anticipation of a rebellion. The insurgents announced the reasons for the rebellion in terms that echo nineteenth and twentieth-century revolutionaries: liberty, equality, and justice in a democratic society. As indigenous people gained a greater voice in the ranks of the EZLN, their call for autonomy emerged. Its distinct meaning as collective action in which leadership involves “commanding while obeying the will of the people,” and liberty signifies “acting in accord with collective customs and uses,” became apparent in their demands for inclusion as indigenous people in a democratic nation. Although some of the 2000 rebels who rose up in arms bore rifles, many carried only sticks in what was more a theatrical than military action. It was designed to attract the attention of a government that had never taken into account the voice of unarmed indigenous people. The inclusion of women, who constituted a third of the attackers, along with some adolescents in the operation, also jarred the sensibilities of what constituted a guerrilla uprising.

854

J. Nash

The Quest for Autonomy by Indigenous People From their very first action, these revolutionaries intended to convey the collective action of a peoples’ movement, not an army. They sought alliances with the media and with non-governmental organizations in their quest for democratic inclusion in governance. In taking into account these changes in social movements, our models of social process are moving toward multi-valence constructs deriving from actors differentially positioned in fluid, non-hierarchical societies, and including equal numbers of women. The autonomy movement is deeply embedded in indigenous societies throughout the Americas. Autonomy is a dimension of inter-personal as well as inter-societal relations expressed in behavior among all members of a collective society. In colonial days, indigenous peoples in the Republicas de Indios (Indian Republics) found a space for practicing autonomy in their semi-self-sufficient economy based on common lands allotted to subjected communities. Many indigenous populations sought refuge areas in mountainous regions or jungle areas to escape incorporation in the colonial government as servile ethnic groups (Aguirre Beltran 1967). The basis for ethnogenesis, or the reproduction of themselves as cultural entities, was submerged following independence in 1821, when communal lands were appropriated by creole and mestizo, or mixed-blood interlopers. President Lázaro Cárdenas (1934–40) succeeded in institutionalizing constitutional reforms following the 1910 revolution that restored the basis for semisubsistence economy. Most important for small plot indigenous cultivators was the promise of the land reform act, Article 27 of the 1917 Constitution. The lands taken from pueblos indios during the liberal period were to be restituted, and the unsettled national territories would be distributed on demand of settlers in national territories. But once they acquired communal lands that enabled them to resume their subsistence economy, the strategies of “cultural refusal” were reconstituted as indigenous pueblos asserted a limited autonomy of their internal governance. Decades later, in the indigenous communities of Chiapas in the 1950s, they accepted the educational and medical programs that were introduced by the national government. And for the first time in post-conquest history, indigenous men were able to vote and hold political office for which they were paid. This changed the power structure between men and women in the indigenous communities. The independent indigenous movement owes its impetus but not its agenda to both government and ecclesiastical initiatives. The governor of Chiapas called upon Bishop Samuel Ruiz García to assist him in convoking the first National Indigenous Congress (CNI) that took place in Chiapas in 1974. In the course of promoting the meeting, indigenous leaders developed an independent agenda from that envisioned by the ruling Party of the Institutional Revolution (Partido de la Revolución Institution PRI). Each of the four major linguistic groups of the Chiapas San Cristóbal diocese prepared a paper on themes raised in the congress: land, commerce, education, and health (Kovic 1995: 113). Among the agreements of the participants were those

45 Indigenous People in Pluricultural Nations of Latin America

855

regarding “land for those who work it” and “only in the unity of the pueblos can liberation be achieved.” Following the Congress, indigenes from throughout the region undertook intensive organization of regional and national indigenous organizations. Regional congresses of the 56 participating linguistic groups became the nucleus for the National Council for Indigenous Pueblos (Consejo Nacional de Pueblos Indígenas CNPI) that promoted the National Coalition “Plan de Ayala” (Coordinadora Nacional Plan de Ayala CNPA) in 1979 (Díaz-Polanco 1992: 153, Mattiace 1997: 39). These organizational strategies avoided the loss of cultural distinctions, while regional indigenous organizations that promoted the Congress provided a civic network that fed into broader political actions throughout the state of Chiapas. The collective identity was further developed in civil society groups that formed around the quincentennial celebration of 500 Years of Resistance in October 1992. On October 12, 1992, over ten thousand men, women, and children came from the Lacandón and surrounding highland villages to march in a procession through the streets of the colonial capital city of San Cristobal de Las Casas where they used to be forced off the sidewalks when there were Ladinos (acculturated indigenes). This occasion introduced a plurality of visions that posed new modes of civic action through collective strength to overcome formidable opposition. The quincentennial celebration by indigenous movements made public the mounting commitment for autonomy, now clearly demanded in the framework of democracy. In the interim between these two defining moments in 1974 and 1992, movements that began as claims for land developed into autonomy drives, as indigenous people formed governing institutions to consolidate their gains (Ruíz Hernandez 1994). Understanding of the history of this process as a multi-centered, pluralistic organization clearly defies unilineal progression typical of Western modes of thinking. It exemplifies the collective inputs of many active agents that provide the resilience and flexibility enabling the movement to survive even when leaders are killed or imprisoned. The autonomy movement also revealed the public participation of indigenous women. During the decades of the 1970s and 1980s, women in many indigenous communities were becoming major contributors to the subsistence sector since men were often forced into migratory streams to get much-needed cash. Since indigenous women were the least favored sector in receiving public services, whether in education, health, nutrition, or even land distribution, they developed their own sources of income, by commercializing artisan products (Nash 1993). Their challenge to subordination in male dominant families and communities led to gender conflict within families. At the same time, the contest among political parties sharpened with the loss of PRI hegemony (Mexico’s Institutional Revolutionary Party that held power for 71 years). In the new millennium, there was intensified conflict, as a result of fighting among opposed factions within indigenous communities. With the promise of gaining land in national territories opening up in the Lacandón rain forest, indigenous settlers migrated to the area in the 1970s and 1980s. Their dream of gaining title to land was abruptly ended with President Salinas’ “reform” of Article 27 of the 1917 Constitution in 1992, allowing for the private sale of

856

J. Nash

communal lands. Added to this, the North American Free Trade Act (NAFTA), called the Tratado de Libre Comercio TLC, or Free Trade Treaty in Latin America, threatened their subsistence economy by opening national markets to U.S. subsidized corn and other crops. These actions undertaken by Carlos Salinas in his promotion of neoliberal capitalism in the fourth year of his six-year term (1988–1994) provoked many of the settlers in the Lacandón rain forest to join the guerrilla action begun by a group of Mexico City students and dissidents. The Zapatista Army of National Liberation, EZLN, had begun training and recruiting indigenous settlers in the Lacandón rainforest a decade before the New Year’s Eve of 1994 when the TLC was to go into effect. The army, numbering over 2000, including women as well as men, attacked and took control of four major cities and the military base of Nuevo Rancho that had been expanding in its site on the outskirts of San Cristobal. News accounts of the uprising were broadcast throughout the world before the government was able to silence the voice of indigenous settlers (cf. Nash 1997).

The Unraveling of Mexican Democracy In the electoral year that began with the 1994 New Year’s Uprising, one could follow the unraveling of Mexico’s democratic scaffolding in a series of catastrophic events precipitated by the indigenous movement for autonomy and democratic participation in public life. With an uncertain peace accord signed between President Salinas and the EZLN after twelve days of fighting, the presidential election campaign proceeded. In the spring of 1994, Luis Donaldo Colosio, the PRI candidate, chosen as was the custom, by the incumbent president Carlos Salinas, was the first victim in the charged campaign. Shot at close range by his assailant while campaigning in Baja California, the gun-man was immediately seized and jailed. Although few accepted him as the “intellectual author” of the assassination, there was no further investigation and the campaign proceeded, fraught with additional tensions concerning the instigation of the crime. The election process was further flawed with the attempted assassination of Amado Avendaˇno, candidate of the civil society coalition for the gubernatorial post in Chiapas. On July 25, 1994, as he was returning from his campaign tour on the west coast to attend an “emergency” meeting called by the PRI, a truck crashed into his vehicle, causing the death of a campaigner and severe injuries to Avendaˇno. Afterward, Ernesto Zedillo was chosen to continue the campaign as the PRI candidate. These acts, believed to be motivated by the hegemonic PRI, indicated subversion within the ranks of the party, of its historic democratic revolutionary goals. The PRI president Carlos Salinas de Gortari followed up his neoliberal measures of reversing the land reform act (of 1917) by allowing privatization of ejido land (common land) grants, and opening Mexican markets to subsidized U.S. imports. These strategies drove down the price of subsistence crops raised by small-plot farmers, for sale as well as familial consumption. Forced migration of indigenous men to cities, and even to the United States, seeking wage work, devastated the domestic economy. The PRI

45 Indigenous People in Pluricultural Nations of Latin America

857

systematically withdrew support for the subsistence sector, removing the subsidies for coffee crops that the government had promoted in the 1980s. Throughout the electoral campaigns in 1994, the Zapatistas never gave support to any of the political parties, even after one of the candidates, Cuauhtemoc Cárdenas, visited the EZLN base in the Lacandón on May 15, 1994. As the son of Lázaro Cárdenas, who had implemented the demands of the 1910–1917 Revolution, he had broken away from the PRI and formed a new Party of Revolutionary Democracy (Partido Revolucionario Democratico: PRD). Despite his high credentials, the deep distrust of party politics caused the EZLN high command to reject Cárdenas’ bid for support. Living from day to day, with paramilitary troops increasing in their midst and an army of at least 40,000 at the borders of the cease-fire zone, the settlers in the Lacandón rainforest were wary of any further attempts at negotiation. Mocking the lack of democracy in the electoral campaign with what he called “the other campaign,” the charismatic leader, sub-commander Marcos traveled throughout indigenous regions in the country, explaining the aims of the autonomy movement and listening to people. Despite the growing distrust of the election process nationwide, the campaign proceeded, resulting in the contested victory of Ernesto Zedillo. On the day of the voting, I attended the polls in the municipal headquarters of Las Margaritas, an indigenous community far from the settlements in the Lacandón. I saw people who had walked over two hours to stand in line for hours waiting for polls to open. The women told me there had never been polling stations before the uprising, and that they had never before voted. Following the elections, many seriously questioned the results in which Cuauhtemoc Cárdenas lost to Ernesto Zedillo. At the end of the cease-fire pact, on December 9, 1994, the EZLN broke the military encirclement to include three more communities in resistance. The EZLN withdrew their troops as the army advanced, avoiding a confrontation that allowed Zedillo’s inauguration to proceed. In 1995, when Zedillo had taken power, he increased the military stations in Altamira, and in Rancho Nuevo outside of San Cristobal. These became the hub of military surveillance and paramilitary assaults extending to the Northern Frontier towns of Tila, Sabanila, El Bosque, to the Lacandón settlements, and to the highland border towns of San Andrés Larrainzar and Chenalhó, which were considered the centers of resistance. On February 2, 1995, I visited the hospital in the municipality of Ocosingo to interview the nuns who had attended patients on both sides of the conflict in the aftermath of the uprising. Their calm demeanor defied the chaos I watched outside the hospital in the militarized site of Altamira. I saw convoys of black-armored trucks loaded with soldiers, racing through the rutted streets on the way to their new garrison which was being built near Tonina, a classic Mayan site that I had visited when it was a slumbering ruin only a few months before. I was told that during the uprising the rebels took their position on the built-up promontory, which mimics the thirteen levels of heaven to the underworld in Mayan lore. From that elevation, they were able to fend off army patrols.

858

J. Nash

Zedillo’s plan for the invasion of the Lacandón began to unroll on television on February 8, 1995, when I watched the breaking news of sub-commander Marcos’ identity being revealed. The announcer displayed his photo with and without a face mask, much as in a show and tell game, declaring him to be Rafael Sebastián Guillén, a National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) graduate student and adjunct professor of philosophy. Armed with the information of the identity of the guerrilla leader, which was rumored to have been divulged by U.S. CIA channels, Zedillo had a pretext for invading the jungle. A search warrant for Marcos’ arrest was issued, and on February 9, 1995 twenty thousand troops were added to the forty thousand already encamped in the jungle. The added troops entered villages burning houses, raping women, contaminating food supplies by spraying them with pesticides, killing cattle and chickens, stealing and destroying tools, trucks, and homes. The population fled to the hills and canyons where they lived for a fortnight with no supplies. The government sealed off the jungle from reporters, and it was only after a week of terrorizing the population that reporters were able to enter the villages and record the wreckage (Weinberg 2002, Chap. 7). Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas, of The Centro de Derechos Humanos (The Center for Human Rights), called the Zedillo policy “the genocidal politics in the armed conflict of Chiapas” (Feb. 2005). Once the military occupation of the Lacandón was in place, Zedillo expressed a desire to enter into peace negotiations. I registered with the civil society Commission of Conciliation and Pacification (Comisión de Concórdia y Pacificación COCOPA) and took the bus to Sacamch’en de los Pobres, the new name given by the rebels to the indigenous municipality of San Andrés Larrainzar, where the negotiations were to take place. I saw the seven EZLN delegates driven by the Red Cross that escorted them to the meeting in the basketball court where the mediators of the National Intermediation Commission (Comisión Nacional de Intermediación CONAI), including Bishop Samuel Ruiz and the Rector of National Autonomous University of Mexico Pablo Gonzalez Casanova, were awaiting them. The crowd of an estimated 5,000 indigenous people, some of whom had walked two hours with their entire families, waited throughout the afternoon. TV and news reporters slept in the shadow of their vans. Bishop Ruiz went back to San Cristobal to consult with the government team. Late in the evening, he notified the CONAI that government mediators would not come since the huge multitude of indigenous people exceeded the numbers agreed upon in planning of the event. EZLN Commander David announced this to the assembled crowd. In the interim until a future encounter was announced, peace huts were established by civil society volunteers in the communities in resistance in the Lacandón rainforest. I joined a group of teachers in a partially demolished house abandoned by the owner. Army vehicles carrying troops raced through villages, scattering children, and chickens in their path. During my week in residence, I saw women colonizers of Patiwitz refuse gifts of food thrown out by soldiers from racing vehicles, which was offered as appeasement on Mothers’ Day. The women sometimes taunted the young soldiers, who appeared to be Indians, in their native language. This reversal of harassment by women of men may have been more upsetting to the soldiers than

45 Indigenous People in Pluricultural Nations of Latin America

859

their encounters with men. I saw women bussed in by the army to comfort the young soldiers, much to the growing hostility of the villagers who had imposed a ban on alcohol and prostitution. When I returned to San Cristobal, I saw videos showing women pushing the soldiers out of their towns, and linking arms with other women to prevent tanks from rolling into the villages of the Lacandón.

The San Andrés Agreement for Autonomy The agreement arrived at in the negotiations of the COCOPA and CONAI asserts not only the individual rights of indigenous people to maintain distinct customs and practices but also the right to collective representation of these rights in regional governance. This was not, the proponents insisted, anti-constitutional as the opponents claimed. Based on the United Nations convention No. 169 declaring the rights of culturally distinct peoples which the federal government had signed, the accord reaffirmed this as the very essence of democracy in multicultural nations such as Mexico. Precedents for the transformation to a multicultural nation could be found in Nicaragua’s recognition of Miskito autonomy, and at the turn of the millennium in constitutional accords reached in Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, and Ecuador, that had made national constitutional changes to approve autonomy. The San Andrés Agreement focused on the rights of free determination in the framework of the constitution and democratic governance. The authors urged the expansion of political representation and recognition of the economic, political, social, and cultural rights as collective rights. It provided guarantees of full access to justice in the legal system with respect for differences in cultural values and ethics. It called for the promotion of cultural expressions, the provision of educational and training programs, and expansion of employment possibilities for those who identified as indigenes (Navarro et al. 1998: 26–27). Euphoria was high in the second anniversary of the uprising when the National Indigenous Forum was held in San Cristobal in January 1996. It was attended by indigenous people from throughout Central America, North America, and South America, including supporters, academics, and media. My request to attend the forum was registered by COCOPA and approved by sub-commander Marcos. The Zapatista delegates were driven to the auditorium of the municipal theater in a Red Cross van. They wore ski masks since they were still threatened with apprehension and even assassination. Sub-commander Marcos appeared only briefly, presumably because of the particular danger he faced. This allowed greater scope for the EZLN commanders David and Tacho to speak. In his address, Commander Tacho urged the indigenous people in attendance to speak in their own voice and “to join in constructing a world where everyone loves without the need to dominate others.” He concluded his speech with the words, “The good word has many ways and many paths, and in those paths there is respect and dignity” (Nash n.d.). The impressive variety and forcefulness of the many popular

860

J. Nash

representatives attending the convention embodied the aspirations for pluriethnic and pluripolitical governance of the country. The enormous acclaim for the meetings (Washington Post February15, 1996, A15; New York Times, February 15, 1996, A12) undoubtedly influenced the success of the negotiations in the following month. Signed in February 1996 by Zedillo and the congress, the San Andrés Agreement was hailed as an attempt to do away with inequality, discrimination, exploitation, and political exclusion. And indeed, it would have been an historic break with the colonial past of Latin America if it had been honored. As Luis Hernandez Navarro and Reyna Vera Herrera (Navarro et al. 1998, pp. 9–10) state in their introduction, “In this document is contained the germ of a reform at the heart of the Mexican state,” the “jewel in the long process of peaceful negotiation, and the construction of a new state.” Taken as an augur of a new era in the transition toward a new relationship of indigenous people with the state, its proponents were soon to face disillusionment. In February 1996, the legislators in the Mexican national congress, still controlled by the PRI, rejected the provision in the agreement for regional autonomy with governing authority to represent their distinct interests, which was the essence of autonomy [iv]. Instead, they revised the accord, restricting the rights of indigenous people for self-determination to pueblos, with no regional representation. The breakdown in communication between the federal government and the EZLN initiated by Zedillo’s militarization of the conflict upon taking office was confirmed in the revision of the San Andrés Agreement he presented to the congress. The Zapatistas withdrew to their bases and refused to vote in subsequent elections. Sub-commander Marcos carried on “la otra campana” (the other campaign) as the candidate of pueblos in resistance. The opposition Party of National Action (Partido de Acción Nacional PAN) gained the elections in 2000 and 2006, breaking 71 years of PRI hegemony. Questions about the legitimacy of the elections in 2006, in which the left-wing candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador was defeated by the PAN candidate Felipe Calderon, were just as prevalent as during PRI hegemony. The only difference was that the Federal Electoral Institute (Instituto Federal Electoral IFE), that was put into place to correct abuses, was itself being accused of fraudulent attacks on left-wing coalitions. The return to power of the PRI with the election victory of Peˇna Nieto in 2012 reawakened the desire of the EZLN to legalize autonomy, which continues to be exercised in self-declared communities in resistance in the Lacandón. Electoral democracy had succeeded in seating candidates, but at the expense of reducing credibility for democracy of the ruling government. Autonomy has a distinct meaning among constituent parts of the populations that are now practicing it in Mexico. A decade after his initial study assessing the potential for multicultural autonomy, Hector Diaz Polanco (Diaz-Polanco 1992, 1997: 10) notes the changes that must occur in the context of multicultural co-existence. The “naturalism” of democracy in a diverse context differs from formal democracy as the society moves toward “participatory governance.” It was only after the world community of conservationists criticized the growing environmental disaster in the Lacandón resulting from the cutting down of the forest,

45 Indigenous People in Pluricultural Nations of Latin America

861

that the government responded by seizing the woodcut by colonists clearing the land. In 1991 without warning and without compensating the settlers for their labor in cutting down the trees, government trucks arrived in the settlement, loaded up the wood, and carried it off presumably to sell for their own profit. The various groups colonizing the area joined a march made up of 150 men, women, and children prepared to go all the way to Mexico City to protest government corruption. They were met by 700 federal troops stationed in the zone, and men, women, and children were imprisoned in Palenque and Tuxtla jails where they were held incommunicado for several days, without being allowed to take the food offered by relief agencies. The coincidental meeting of a United Nations group in Mexico at the time of the jailing led to a declaration calling for their release. Despite this experience, the same group of settlers mobilized several months later to protest the government’s failure to uphold the terms of the agreement (Centro de Derechos Humanos “Fray Bartolome de Las Casas” 1991). This unprecedented protest action by culturally distinct indigenous groups including women and children signaled the incipient collective political action in the region. The colonizers succeeded in mobilizing people who spoke different languages, who came to the jungle from widely separated villages. The region includes Ch’oles, Zoques, Nahuas, Chinantecos, Tojolobales. Tzeltal, and Tzotzil speakers, along with mestizos and ladinos settled on ejido land (Centro de Derechos Humanos “Fray Bartolome de Las Casas” (1993). It was a preview of the growing opposition to government policies in the rain forest. The growing protests demonstrated the political potential of these settlements even before the uprising. Santana Echeagaray (1996) describes the strong collective basis for Christian Base Communities in the community of Flor del Rio where she worked in 1983 and 1984. When I visited Flor del Rio with her in 1994, I was struck by the greater impoverishment in this colony than in any of the highland pueblos where I have worked in the past three decades. The school is a crude wooden shack, and it is rarely staffed by teachers. Villagers have to walk two hours to get to the nearest clinic, where a doctor occasionally appears, and where the lack of medicine is deplorable. Although high power lines that draw electricity from the hydroelectric plants of Chiapas run directly overhead, the town has no electricity. The gifts we brought—rubber boots for every member of the community, medicines and food supplies that they could no longer get because of the harassment that community members experience when they go beyond the military lines established by the cease fire—were stored in the community storehouse to be shared equally. So great were the needs of the colonizers for almost anything-from soap, to cooking oil to matches, that we were embarrassed to retrieve our few personal belongings that had inadvertently been stored along with the gifts. The failure to implement the San Andres Agreement resulted in the formation of autonomous jurisdictions in 40 municipalities. Aracely Burguete Cal y Mayor (1999) provides a case study in one of the most conflicted areas, the community of Ocosingo, where the Peace and Justice Coalition of Autonomous Organizations declared autonomy in 1995 during the most traumatic periods of Chiapas History.

862

J. Nash

The Lacandón settlements are assigned as dependent hamlets in the border municipalities of Las Margaritas, Simojovel, and El Bosque. Officials of these towns are mestizo ranchers, cattlemen, commercial venders, and cacique middlemen; whose interests run counter to those of the settlers. When autonomy was formally declared in December 1995 soon after the October meetings on the San Andrés accord, the communities of small plot cultivators questioned the legitimacy of those who had governed the region. They called for a new era of governance based on democracy and respect for the will of the majority. When autonomy was formally declared in December 1995; President Zedillo called for a new era of governance based on these same terms. The communities responded with great enthusiasm. As Burguete Cal y Mayor recounts (1999: 250) the communities in and around the municipality of Ocosingo began their transformation to “democracy at the base,” demanding decentralization at every level of governance. It was a very different democracy from that anticipated by Zedillo. Setting up parallel governments, in which civil affairs were referred to autonomous government officials, with judicial claims referred to the EZLN, they proceeded to implement the accords. The communities followed the initial declaration of autonomy with the nomination and election of the governing authority, and in a final phase they extended and consolidated their jurisdiction. Land disputes were a major activity of authorities, along with other duties including registering deeds and adjudicating disputes over resources. They ensured the rights of women to vote, be heard in meetings, run for office, and the demands enunciated in the EZLN Declaration of Women: to have the rights of marital choice, and over the number of children they would bear. Among other duties, local authorities would attend to environmental issues, including a ban on mining and forestry [1]. Conflicts developed repeatedly without formal intervention by municipal headquarters attending to them. Some were settled by ARICID (Independent Democratic) and members of the Inter-institutional Commission. (Cuarto Poder April 5, 2000a: 9). The Marista mission that founded the community studied by Leyva Solano and Franco (Solano et al. 1995: 159) taught the Agrarian Law and the rights of Mexicans in the course of teaching the catechism. Leyva Solano and Franco (Solano et al. 1995) quote one of the community members’ statements about weekly meetings in which they carry out “a communal study of our life in confrontation with the Word of God, especially the deeds of the apostles and their teachings on the first Christian communities. This makes us see the road to be better, and we understand that this road is to share what we have and all have the same.” The experiences of this vast mingling of culturally distinct groups in a vital new landscape became a melting pot, or better yet, a pressure cooker for assessing social and political positions. The growing unity in opposition to a government that had deceived the settlers repeatedly promoted the autonomy movement that was latent in all the groups. The extraordinary encounter with the guerrilla operation that mounted the uprising in 1994, opened a path for directing the unity of the colonizers as marginalized indigenous people, against elites favored by the federal government. The success of the autonomous government in allotting lands to the settlers

45 Indigenous People in Pluricultural Nations of Latin America

863

who had worked them even in such turbulent times was, in itself, proof of the ability of the settlers to govern autonomously.

Highland Indigenous Pueblos The autonomy movement, that developed in the Ch’ol region of the Northern Frontier and in the Tojolobal and Tzeltal speaking settlements of the Lacandón, found allies among indigenous pueblos of the Central Highland. Hamlets of the highland municipalities, particularly those such as San Andrés Sacam Chen de los Pobres (formerly Larrainzar), and Chenalhó, on the edge of the escarpment that fell to the Lacandón rainforest, adjacent to the Northern Region, were breaking away from the municipal head towns which had become the locus of corruption and cooptation by political parties in power. There, movement for autonomy was influenced by Christian Base Communities inspired by Bishop Samuel Ruiz’ liberation theology. The failure of the PRI government to address the complaints of corruption and injustice among these dissident groups crippled their ability to govern in the state, and ultimately led to their electoral defeat in the year 2000 elections. The mode of organization in the indigenous communities committed to autonomy conformed more to the pattern evident in the Northern Frontier than to the EZLN action in the Lacandón. “Abu’ Xu” in the native Tzeltal, (or The Bees, Las Abejas in Spanish) a group organized as a Christian Base Community in Acteal, a hamlet of Chenalhó, exemplifies this type of organization. The Bees are explicit in the metaphoric connections for naming their group in accord with its collective action, as the following notice of their organization indicates. We came together in 1992 because we are a multitude and we want to build our house like the honeycomb where we all work collectively and we all enjoy the same thing, producing honey for everyone. So, we are like the bees in one hive. We don’t allow divisions, and we all march together with our queen, which is the reign of God, although we knew from the beginning that the work would be slow but sure. (Members of Las Abejas, cited in SIPAZ April 1998).

My students and I first caught sight of a group of The Bees when we attended a meeting in Oxchuc with President Salinas de Gortari in March 1993. Thousands of Indians from throughout the highlands were bussed into show support for the PRI. Twenty-five of these Christian Base Communities in the municipality of Chenalhó came together to object to the attempts of PRI officials and paramilitaries to force them to take up arms against the EZLN. When they refused, they became the target of paramilitary bands operating in the Northern region. As one member stated to Christine Eber (n.d.). It’s that God is all powerful. He gave one group [the EZLN] arms. He gave another group [the Bees] the peaceful path. When the shooting starts the other group comes by the peaceful way to urge a solution. However, if we only use the peaceful way, the oppressors don’t understand. That’s when the first group comes with arms to organize so that the government listens. It’s that the government needs a slap in the face to make it listen.

864

J. Nash

And another representative of Las Abejas told Eber: (n.d.). So just as our body has two eyes, two hands, two feet, the society must have its two legs [the armed EZLN and the peaceful Abejas support group]. This notion of a society as an organic whole enters into and inspires some of the collectivist approaches to autonomy that are fundamental to the practice of Christian Base Communities. Their expressed lack of confidence in electoral politics comes from their experience with PRI forms of governance imposed in their communities. The growing strength of The Bees attracted the attention of the government, which strengthened the military forces in the area. Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas of the Center for Human Rights warned security agents of the gathering storm throughout the months of escalating attacks in 1997. The Diocese mobilized a peregrination to the Northern Frontier for Peace in Easter week of 1997. All this was to no avail, as the Peace and Justice members extended their attacks through a counterpart organization, the Red Masks; that began to operate in Chenalhó. On December 22, 1997, the Red Masks assisted local paramilitaries in the Acteal massacre, killing 45 women, children, and men. When international attention was alerted to the event, the PRI government was forced to carry out an investigation with the result that a sergeant, on leave from the army, and a retired general were indicted along with the mayor of Chenalhó, and civilians armed and trained by these agents of the federal army. The massacre crystallized the divisions among civil society formations, with The Bees becoming a leading advocate for civil rights against the paramilitaries. The Bees launched their protests wherever the military arm of the government was found, their protests escalating along with government attacks. On November 22, 2010, the council of Las Abejas wrote: “Our land, territory, and natural resources are threatened by the mining companies, dams, highways, and rural towns. These projects are a joke and the death of our communities and people.” (Moksnes 2012: 250). On August 3, 2000, they showed up in Georgia, U.S.A., where they demonstrated against the School of the Americas, where troops of the Mexican Army, whom they implicated in the Acteal massacre, had been trained (Cuarto Poder, August 4, 2000b). In the fall of 2012, they targeted Zedillo as the intellectual author behind the army’s engagement in a request to the Connecticut judiciary in New Haven; where he was given a post by Yale University. They urged the New Haven courts to subpoena him on charges of human rights violations, a request that was rejected by the New Haven courts which stated that it was outside of their jurisdiction. Concomitant with this process of mobilizing civil society in the parallel governments in the Highland Communities, the Zapatistas convoked the National Democratic Convention (Convención Nacional Democrático CND) in August 1994. This group of civil society activists linked indigenous with ladino and mestizo supporters, which probably contributed to their survival in the months following the rebellion. During the convention, this group modified and deepened their proposal for a new pact between indigenous pueblos and the national government. They defined three levels of community, municipal, and regional government that would operate simultaneously, drawing up proposals and issuing invitations to support groups (Ruiz

45 Indigenous People in Pluricultural Nations of Latin America

865

Hernandez 1994: 33). It was an extraordinary event, bringing together an international audience from Europe and the American hemisphere as well as many national indigenous regions in Mexico. It proved beyond dispute the ability of indigenous society to exercise autonomous government. This inspired fear in the hierarchy of established political power that could only respond with militarism. Subsequent negotiations between the government, the EZLN, and civil society mediators were a foil to give time for the government to train and deploy ground forces. In a war of attrition that had persisted since the military invasion in the Lacandón in February 1995, two encounters were held between the EZLN, COCOPA, and CONAI in San Andrés Sacamch’en, the first aborted because the government said too many indigenous people had arrived, and the second that resulted in the San Andrés Accord, later negated by Zedillo. The alliance between indigenous people and the guerrilla band resulting in the Zapatista uprising could only have taken place in the new territory of the Lacandón rain forest, where settlers were reshaping their society in accord with communal norms as they reacted against the PRI’s neoliberal practice. Their rebellion stems both from their historical memory of exploitation in the plantations from which many migrated, as well as their desire to retrieve a sense of themselves in the new settlements. This was nourished by the evangelical approach of deacons schooled in Liberation Theology in the diocese led by Bishop Samuel Ruíz. The settlers identified with the teachings of evangelical deacons of the Liberation Catholic faith, seeing themselves like the Israelites of the biblical Exodus, who had come to the jungle to find a new future (Solano et al. 1995). The mutual exchanges among villages necessitated by their frontier life and their peregrinations to other settlements for religious celebrations brought them into continual interaction with other settlers (Earle and Simonelli 2005). Instead of the old endogamous boundaries of the highland villages, there were many marriages contracted among indigenes of different hamlets. Sharing their meager hospitality, they were constructing a new society with commonly shared elements of culture and facing similar problems. As EZLN commander David said in his January 1996 speech at the national convention, they realized that as a marginalized group “without faces and without names” they had no future in a nation under the banner of the PRI. Zapatistas were not counted in the realms of power and had no response to their requests for fulfillment of land titles promised when they colonized the Lacandón. In the encounter between university rebels and the indigenous pueblos schooled in the radical Christian tradition, the teachings of the indigenous groups prevailed over the lessons of Marxism. Despite the diversity of Mayan linguistic groups in the new setting of the Lacandón, they have shown a greater ability to coordinate political action than the corporate communities they left behind. The general poverty of the colonists contrasts with the growing differences in wealth in corporate communities in the highlands, where “tradition” is invoked to validate the arbitrary rule of caciques. The neglect of the settlements by the federal government, which had never delivered voting urns to the settlements before the uprising, meant that none of the co-optive strategies that divide these highland communities were even put into operation in this context. The regional organizations formed in the troubled areas of both the Northern Region and

866

J. Nash

the Lacandón prior to the uprising provided a cohesive base for putting autonomous local councils into place. The principle of autonomy was intrinsic to the indigenous movement before the Zapatista uprising, but it took months of mobilization and dialogue to persuade the revolutionary forces to adopt the ideas developed by ANIPA on autonomy for indigenous pueblos. Civil Society supported the parallel government of their candidate, Amado Avendaño, who worked with the State Council of Indigenous and Campesinos Organizations (Consejo Estatal de Organizaciones Indígenes y Campesinos CEOIC), and the State Democratic Assembly of Chiapas (AEDPCH) to establish the legal basis for the autonomy of indigenous pueblos in Chiapas (Harvey 1998: 211–212). The federal government’s apparent compliance in the negotiations of San Andrés in April, and following that in October of 1995, was unmasked when Zedillo extended and deepened the military invasion of the Lacandón and the paramilitary operations in the Northern Frontier and the Central Highland in 1996.

Autonomy and Regional Differences in Chiapas The realization of autonomy takes on distinct meanings in the regions where indigenous people predominate. The historical memory of people in conflict areas of Chiapas, which includes the Northern Frontier, the Lacandón Rainforest, and the Central Highland Communities, provides the contexts for comparing the ways in which Mayas “look into the past as they direct their future” (Nash n.d.). During the volatile changes that have occurred in the past three decades, indigenous pueblos in each of these areas have reinvigorated their commitment to autonomy as they see the governing bodies shredding democracy of the meaning they envision. Comparison of these distinct ways of realizing autonomy while responding to a national framework provides a basis for rethinking the necessary conditions for ensuring the process of democratization. In March 2002, when Lacandón Indians requested that the Federal Preventive Police dislodge residents of 35 of the Tzeltal hamlets. The authorities of the autonomous communities claimed that they would not permit the forced eviction of the communities since many were legal residents. The Lacandón pueblos continue to be contained within view of militarized encampments that obstruct movements of the settlers. Many of the men are forced to migrate to find wage work in cities that have developed around tourist centers such as Cancun, or to the United States. As a result, women are the main links sustaining community services called for in the practice of autonomy, despite the fact that they occupy the poorest, most isolated parts of the country. Women’s entry into politics, through their participation in Catholic Base Communities promoted by Bishop Samuel Ruiz, involves them in the maintenance of peace in the face of constant provocation by soldiers. Their efforts involved the energetic involvement of the entire community, provoking abuse by local authorities or thrown into court systems, where there are few if any translators for their languages.

45 Indigenous People in Pluricultural Nations of Latin America

867

Indigenous pueblos in the central highlands of Chiapas have been incorporated in the hegemonic PRI in relations with the Party and the government in distinct ways. Religious congregations have mobilized the greatest outreach beyond Chiapas and Mexico to engage support internationally. Federal instigation of aggression in the Northern Region resulted in the massacre of indigenous officials who complained about corruption among party officials in the allocation of funds. The government’s allocation of funds to paramilitary bands disrupts the daily administration of pueblos in the Northern Frontier that spills over into adjacent highland pueblos. Local civil society groups appeal to United Nations Human Rights operations, basing their claims on Convention 169 on the rights of cultural diversity, and Convention 4 on aboriginal patrimonial rights. The federal government in retaliation uses the discourse of international conservation groups to dislocate indigenous groups from their traditional lands. Although the government relies on military force to gain its ends, indigenous communities gained international support. The Mexican federal government chose to wage an undeclared war against the indigenous bid for democratic participation in the nation’s polity. Political parties have engaged federal troops and paramilitary gangs to demobilize and physically annihilate this broadly based autonomy movement. National leaders who have gained their office through fraud, theft of ballots at the polls, and assassination of candidates who refuse to follow their power plays, use the discourse of human rights and national resource conservation to dislodge indigenous communities from their land and resources. In thwarting the bid of indigenous people for inclusion, the governing parties have systematically negated the democratic principles enunciated in the Constitution of 1917. The indigenous movement invokes its base in “usos y costumbres”—uses and customs—to fortify the exercise of autonomy based on cultural roots. This exercise of autonomy is not always positive. While it creates the stability associated with cement in construction projects, it also conduces to a rigidity that might combat adaptive change in response to changes in the world. Consensus as the groundwork of democracy, conceived of as a collective project, requires an enormous input of participation that can be inimical to adaptive change. Since autonomous communities do not accept majority opinion, consensus means universal acceptance. The demand for land as a means of work and subsistence became fused with ancient commitments to autonomy that expanded the horizons of the Zapatistas and their alliances with civil society. The force of this expanded base generated both new symbolic and traditional cultural imaginaries for a change in governance that became central to the objectives of a conjuncture of diverse social entities. The new, more complex conjuncture of interests and motivations has the potential to relate the gathering struggle of indigenes and campesinos to a national level as they become the core for even larger groups that constitute civil society in favor of a more inclusive democratic government.

868

J. Nash

References Aguirre Beltran, Gonzalo. 1967. Regiones de refugio: El desarrollo de la comunidad y el proceso dominical en Mestizo América. México, D.F: Instituto Indigenista Interamericano. Aracely Burguete Cal y Mayor Title. 1999. Mexico, experiencias de autonomia indigena; published by Grupo Internacional de Trabajo Sobre Asuntos Indiginas. Cohen, Carl. 1971/2013. Democracy. Athens: University of Georgia Press. Cuarto Poder. 2000a. Rudolfo Sol, “Reubicación del 50%: ARIC-ID, Apr 5, 9. Cuarto Poder. 2000b. Vera Herrera, No más masacres esperan Las Abejas, Aug 4, ll. Diaz-Polanco, Hector. 1992. “Indian Communities and the Quincentenary”. Latin American Perspectives issue 74 19 (3) (Summer): 6–24. Diaz-Polanco, Hector. 1997. La Rebelión Zapatista y la Autonomía. Mexico D.F.: Siglo XXI. Earle, Duncan and Jeanne Simonelli. 2005. Uprising of Hope: Sharing the Zapatista Journey to Alternative Development. Altamira Press. Eber, Christine. n. d. (no date). “Buscando una nueva vida (searching for a new life)”: Liberation Through Autonomy in San Pedro Chenalhó, 1970–1998.” Forthcoming in a special issue on autonomy in Chiapas in Latin American Perspectives. Harvey, David. 1988. The Conditions of Postmodernity: An Enquiy into the Origins of Cultural Change. Cambridge, MA and Oxford: Blackwell. Harvey, Neil. 1998. The Chiapas Rebellion: The Struggle for Land and Democracy. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press. Kovic, Christine. 1995. Con un solo corazón’: La iglesia católica, la identidad indígena y los derechos humanos en Chiapas, ed. J. Nash et al., La Explosión de Comunidades en Chiapas. Copenhagen: IWGIA l6. Mattiace, Shannon. 1997. !Zapata Vive! The EZLN, Indian Politics and the Autonomy Movement in Mexico. Journal of Latin American Anthropology 3 (1): 32–71. Moksnes, Heidi. 2012. Maya Exodus: Indigenous Struggles for Citizenship in Chiapas. Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press. Nash, June C. l993. Introduction, 1–22; Maya Household Production in the World Market: The Potters of Amatenango del Valle, Chiapas, Mexico, ed. June Nash, l27–155, Crafts in the World Market. Albany: SUNY Press. Nash, June C. 1997. The Fiesta of the Word: The Zapatista Uprising and Radical Democracy in Mexico. American Anthropologist 99 (2): 261–274. Navarro, Hernandez and Vera Herrera (eds.). 1998. Acuerdos de San Andrés. Ediciones Era. Mexico. Nugent, David. 2013. Towards a Pre-History of Post- Democratic Thought: The Political Underground and Priests of Democracy in Northern Peru. Paper presented in the Post-Democracy Conference, Cambridge, U.K. April 13–29. Ruiz Hernández, Margarito.1994. The “Comunidad Revolucionaria Institucional.” The Subversion of Native Government in Highland Chiapas, 1936–1968. In Everyday Forms of State Formation, ed. Joseph Gilbert and Daniel Nugent, 265–300. Durham: Duke University Press. Santana Echeagaray, Maria Eugenia. 1996. Mujeres indígenas y derechos reproductivos, el caso de las mujeres de San Juan. Anuario de Estudios Indígenas 6: l93–222. San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Universidad Autonoma de Chiapas, Instituto de Estudios Indígenas. Solano, Leyva, Xochitl and Gabriel Ascencio Franco. 1995. Del Comón al Leviatán: Síntesis de un proceso socio politico en el medio rural mexicano. América Indígena l–2, (January to June): 20, l–34. Weinberg, William. 2002. Homage to Chiapas: The New Indigenous Struggles in Mexico. Verso.

June Nash was a Distinguished Professor Emerita from the City University of New York, who has done fieldwork in Bolivia, Mexico, and Guatemala. Among her publications are: We Eat the Mines and the Mines Eat Us: Dependency and Exploitation in Bolivian Tin Mines. 11979. New York: Columbia University Press; Mayan Visions: The Quest for Autonomy in an Age of Globalization.2001. New York and London: Routledge.

Part IV

DESIGNS FOR A FUTURE WORLD ORDER

Introduction

The essays of the second part have provided strong documentation on both enriching and debilitating aspects of the globalization experience. I use purposely the term “experience” because globalization is best evident in the impact on people’s life. I limit myself to the most salient themes and refer the reader to the essays themselves for more explanation and documentation. The aim of this overview is to prepare the reader for the essays of part four on possible strategies and paths to a more viable world order. Following are some of the most salient elements of the positive and negative impacts of globalization emerging from the essays of the second part of the volume: 1. Cultural Developments 1.1. Primary and secondary relations have been extended by tertiary or global relations via digital communication among distant actors (Albrow essay) and transborder relations and solidarities (Albrow and Buhar essays). 1.2. Culture has become more autonomous from other institutions, has been redefining and strengthening traditional cultural forms and creating new ones, and has become accessible to all people (Albrow essay). 1.3. An emerging global culture has produced a dynamic sense of a single world characterized by a collective experience and a sense of universal human condition (Albrow). 1.4. A rooted cosmopolitanism (Albrow) has promoted shared values and a common good through a negotiation among local and national differences(Zhang); relatedly, a cosmopolitan citizenship has become a force shaping national agenda and empowering disadvantaged groups vis a vis of the elites (Albrow, Zhang). Concurrently, a pragmatic universalism has been developing on issues of material growth, health improvement, and preservation of the planet (Albrow). 2. A New Political Order 2.1. Increased hybridity and blurring of boundaries have produced a denationalized order of global governance (Zhang).

872

Part IV: DESIGNS FOR A FUTURE WORLD ORDER

2.2. National sovereignty is not abolished but transformed from an external to an internal self-determination: the former excludes interferences into one’s own territorial boundaries, the latter consists in power-sharing and non-dominating relationship among the interrelated and co-constitutive units of the global system (Robertson and Buhari-Gulmez). 2.3. Because of the globalization of liberal values the recognition of sovereignity is based on the enforcement of the rule of law and human rights (Buhari). New definition of state 2.4. The deterritorialization or decoupling from territory entails a notion of a virtual state relying more on internationalization and the mobility of the factors of production and foreign investment than on raw materials and economic self-sufficiency (Buhari). 2.5. A post-regulatory state has emerged which relies less on formal hierarchies and more on non-state institutions and norms in dealing with a complex society where multiple actors at subnational, national, and supranational levels express varying, if not conflicting, demands (Buhari). New world Politics 2.6. In an environment of ongoing negotiations and validations, a world politics has emerged based on “the establishment of an harmony of interests, a culture of compromise, dialogue and multilateral diplomacy” (Buhari). 2.7. The key mechanisms to a succesful world politics are democratization, free trade, and identity politics (Buhari). 2.8. War is no longer based on geopolitics and ideologies and fought in battle fields and on limited terms. A a new type of never ending war has emerged to preserve the resources for one’s own nation, tribal as well as group identity (Buhari). 2.9. War is no longer inevitable because it is linked to issues of economic, political, and community security which are attended through transnational regulatory activites via sector-specific regimes, intergovernmental organizations, and private governance (Buhari). 2.10. The European Union. stands out as an example of transnational governnce that entails the coordination of policy decision-making and implementation at local, regional, national, and global levels involving both non-state and supranational actors like the IGOs. Europe is also a normative power in the global arena with its promotion of global values and norms enshrined in the United Nations Charter. The Europen Community is a regional oranization which economically integrates the memer states into a single market by allowing a free movement of goods, services, capitals, and people inside its borders. 2.11. The following negative political traits are preeminent: (a) New forms of terrorism have emerged with global membership, global intentions, and a horizontal network structure without hierarchical order or leader or center (Buhari); (b) human security now depends on economic, environmental, educational, and health policies. Hence, migration is perceived as security threats

Part IV: DESIGNS FOR A FUTURE WORLD ORDER

873

(Buhari); and (c) viable structures and mechanism for word political governance are absent. Governmentality and Threat to Democracy Since the mid-90s, the pre-eminence of high finance, high tech, and value chains in wealth production transformed the state into primarily an economic state. As a result, the intra-state politics of the economic state was about promoting “governmentality” or the control of all citizens’ activities to subordinate them to the enhancement of economic performance. Relatedly, the provision of public goods, which are costly and offer no direct payout, became a subordinated task and the same happened to the promotion of citizen’s rights. In this sense, capitalism undermines democracy (Wu). 3. A One-sided Economic Order 3.1. In the first round of neoliberal economy, global corporations lobbied politicians to push for an open trading system to reduce the marginal costs of FDI inflows and the costs of trade. From 1970 to mid-1990, consumption goods were traded between firms and people located in different countries. This kind of international exchange prices were determined by the balance of supply and demand of undifferentiated (not branded) products. From 1970 to 2008, the volume of international trade across countries went from less than 30% to more than 50% of the total global gross domestic product {Dreiling and Babones). 3.2. De-industrialization of the Global North in first phase of neoliberalism: A class neoliberal project of trade liberalization, privatization, and cost efficiency was launched with low priority for workers’ needs (Babones): the offshoring of manufacturing to developing countries with low taxation and low wages produced in developed countries, de-industrialization, loss of jobs, decline of union membership, massive increase of financiers compensation together with tax reduction, and consequent sharp increase of economic inequality (Dreiling). 3.3. Global Inequality: 3.3.1. An Historical Increasing Trend Contrary to the prediction of modernization theory, from the sixteenth century to the present, world economy has experienced further polarization between the rich and poor countries during periods of financial globalization. Global inequality temporarily declined during periods of “financial expansion,” but in the long-run greater “divergences” in the periphery have occurred (Katasli). Even from 1990 to 2015, the world countries have clustered in terms of distribution of Gross National Income per capita in a global hierarchy of core, semi-periphery, and periphery which has remained rigid and difficult to overcome (Greller and Chase-Dunn). 3.3.2. Inequality within the Global North. The level of income inequality in terms of the share of national wealth owned by the top 1% has been fluctuating sharply in the last two centuries (a) increasing from 43% ca to 57% ca in the period 1820–1910 or so in France’s period of industrialization when European wealth inequality was greater than American inequality; (b) sharply decreasing from 1920 to 1970 to less than 20 % in France, UK, China, and a bit higher in the USA period of state welfarism between the two world wars;

874

Part IV: DESIGNS FOR A FUTURE WORLD ORDER

(c) a progressive increase in all four countries after 1970 with the highest inequality in USA: 2015 OECD data from 2010 show that the top 10% in the US own 76% of the wealth, compared to around 60% for Germany and the Netherlands, 50% in France, and 47% in the UK (Holton). 3.3.3. Global Value Chains and Wealth Concentration Globally Recently, global value chains have emerged which concatenate all the activities of the many different companies involved in the research, design, production, and distribution of a product, no matter which country they are located, but typically in low costs and low taxation countries with skilled labor. Notice that the final price of the product is set by the “lead firm” which brands the product for the consumer (typically located in the commissioning industrialized country). This worldwide intrafirm trade entails a greater transnational integration than the exchange of goods among nations which was typical in the previous phase of international trade (Babones and Dreiling). The major value chains of the contemporary digital economy are concentrated in the extreme sides of the Pacific region, namely, in the West coast of the US, especially in the Silicon Valley, and the east coast of the Pacific, namely, in China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore (Babones). It is important to realize, however, that until the recent trade dispute between the USA and China, most of the computer systems have been operating with American software systems (Babones). 3.3.4. Intraregional Concentration of Wealth Meanwhile, the financial world continues to be controlled by the US, with NYC as the major center and London as a secondary center, at least before Brexit. The dominance in the financial and technological sectors by the large US companies represents an unprecedented clout in the world economy (Babones). It follows that the peak of the wealth produced in the world is located primarily in the east and west coasts of the United States, with secondary centers in Western Europe and East Asia. IMF data on GDP per capita tell us that California and the Northeastern US are roughly 20% richer than the Netherlands, 33% richer than Germany, and 50% richer than France and Japan (Babones). 2012 OECD’s calculations tell us that sixteen of the richest twenty richest metropolis (out of a total of 281 largest metropolis in the world) were in the United States and two were in Canada. San Francisco ($82,112 GDP per capita) is roughly twice as rich as Tokyo ($41,636) and Pittsburgh ($68,940) is richer than Munich ($63,592), Zurich ($62,798), and Stockholm ($62,464). Moreover, the already-rich northeast and west coasts of the US are growing much faster than the rest of the country. For example, in 1997, California's Gross State Product (GSP) per capita was 46% higher than that of the poorest state, Mississippi. By 2016, it was 84% higher (Babones). 4. Impact of Inequality and Other Forms of Disenfranchisement on People’s Lives in Developed Countries 4.1. Increased Awareness of the Gap between Ideals and Real Opportunities In discussing people’s experience of globalization Durrschmidt focuses on people’s concern with the gap between the many expectations generated by a

Part IV: DESIGNS FOR A FUTURE WORLD ORDER

875

mobile world, on the one hand, and the incapacity to control the social settings to access social opportunities. This central concern is discussed in different but complementary ways by different authors: (a) as the squeeze of the Middle class in American and Western Europe with a polarization between the winners of the Metropolites and the aspiring middle class mainly in Asia and the rest of the countries (Milanowich 2016, see reference in Durrschmidt paper); (b) as a lost affinity between capitalism and democracy or as a threat to the status and professional identity of the working middle class (Therborn, Benski, Langman, see references in Durrschmidt paper). 4.2. Resentment and New Individualism Durrschmidt contends that the conflict between the inner life-ethos and the reality of a complex and uncontrollable society produces a deep resentment which is the source what Elliott and Lemert call new individualism or “a relentless emphasis on self-reinvention,” an endless hunger for change, social acceleration, and a preoccupation with short-termism. These are the characteristics of the “global individualist culture” which prevails in expensive cities and consists of “corporate networking, short-term project work, organizational downsizing, self-help manuals, compulsive consumerism, cybersex, instant identity makeovers and therapy culture” (Elliott https://www.researchgate.net/publication/290731137_The_theory_of_ new_individualism. 4.3. Is the Global North Evolving Southward? Durrschmidt contends that resentment is behind the many forms of middle class discontents, including the Tea party, the Arab Spring, and to world mass migration. The resentment toward the “strangers at our door” might thus finally testify to a generalized demoralization of “Euromodern” society, which senses that its heydays are over under the impact of the following phenomena: experience of deskilling, flexibilization of labor, new forms of urban polarization and poverty, new forms of uncontrolled and sudden migration, corruption in politics and economy alike, and democratic deficit and xenophobic particularism. With the process of neoliberal globalization “the North appears to be ‘evolving’ southward” (Comaroff and Comaroff 2012, see reference in Durrschmidt paper). 4.4. Socio-economic Polarization in Western Society It is not difficult to conclude that all social evils and movements are connected with these kinds of resentment which lay behind what Albrows calls the great socio-economic polarization in Western society, the decline of public services infrastructures, populism, nativism, and the dispute about citizenship and human rights (Albrow). 5. Social Movements and Other Agents of Change These sentiments of disenchantment are channeled and fomented by various forms of protests and social movements: 5.1. A Plethora of Social Movements Pleyer discusses social movements as agents of change under the following categories: indigenous people [see also Laura Nash and Chase-Dunn’s essays] and small famers, activists in critical consumption, global environmentalists, civil

876

Part IV: DESIGNS FOR A FUTURE WORLD ORDER

society activists; (a) in Alvarez and Chase-Dunn’s essay, the agents of change are activists in human rights (and collective rights), anti-racism, environmentalism, feminism, peace/anti-war movements, anti-corporate, and alternative globalization, and they have been meeting since 2001 in yearly World Social Forums which are an antithetical to the yearly World Economic Forums. 5.2. Populism of Modern and Postmodern Variety Axford discusses postmodern populism as a contested glocality or a medium through which the local reacts to the strains of neoliberal globalization. The varieties of tight, left, transformative, chameleonic populisms he describes are forms of rhetoric that construct politics as an ethical struggle between the people and the elites. Populism per se is characterized by a strong attachment to the local suspicion and distrust of international and domestic elites, and by a tenacious hostility to the incursions from the outside world (migration, capital, labor, and cultural items). Jonathan Friedman argues that populism is a form of “sovereigntism” aimed at regaining control over life one’s conditions of existence and tends to be nationalist, conservative, monocultural, pro-indigenous, and anti-immigration. But there are plenty of ambiguities in populist discourse with elements of globalism and multiculturalism. Axelrod argues that a postmodern populism has recently emerged under the influence of postmodernism with its cultural depthlessness; erasure of distinction between reality and fiction; the end of universal truths; and centered ideologies which are replaced by emotional void, anxieties, and the postmodern ideology of consumption. The universalization of market capitalism has abolished the distinction of economy versus culture and everything has become culture or subject to the universal “logic” of commodification, marketization, and mediatization. Postmodernity is a world relativized by global forces and full of risks (witness Trumpian supporters who want relief from the insecurity of jobs and communitarian values). Postmodern populists feed their insecurity, valorize their sense of powerlessness, and offer redemption through a return to fundamental certainties. Following are the traits of postmodern populism: (a) a radical change of contemporary politics (with the end of modernity and nation-state); (b) rebalance and transformation of the market globalization; (c) rejection of any transcendental meaning and form while trumpeting the absolutes of sovereignty and uni-culturalism; (d) antidemocracy, for rejecting the role of independent authorities in tempering political agendas; (e) populist politics while social media produce incomprehension, fragmentation, and intolerance; (f) transcending left-right politics and any established political model in favor of a politics of palpable communities, a politics in which all kinds of identities are relativized or mutable under the impacts of digital media. Everything can be seen as either good or bad depending on context, perspective, or circumstance, and the politics that results is always contingent; (g) postmodern populism reflects a mediatization of politics, namely, a construction of social processes by media with an infusion of glocalities (the fascinating analysis goes on for a while and even offers an hint of optimism).

Part IV: DESIGNS FOR A FUTURE WORLD ORDER

877

5.3. Global ethics for social change are mostly the subject matter of part four of the book, but Buhari-Gomez suggests an important concept in stating that cosmopolitanism intends to establish a global ethics to shape politics and society. She assersts that globalism as an ideology affects politics in terms of looking for political solutions and support across national borders. In discussing the three ideological stances, hypergloalis, antoglobalism, and alter-globalism, she asserts that the latter wish to alter the trajectory of globalization toward a more humane and just system by establishing a more egalitarian, just and fair globalization. 6. The Plight of the Global South The essays of part two deal mostly with the impact of neoliberal globalization in the countries of the Global North. However, the depth of the problems that emerged in the Global South (part three of the volumes) is clearly outlined in three essays of part two of the volume. 6.1. Cut off the Global Value Chains Salvatore Babones forcefully demonstrates how the intrafirm trade of intermediate goods along the global value chains effectively bypasses the countries outside North America, Europe, and East Asia, including Australia. 6.2. Endemic Poverty Robert Holton states that a decrease of absolute poverty has occurred from 44% in 1980 to 35% in 1990, to 11% in 2013. However, in 2013, still 11% of the world population were in absolute poverty for a total of 782 million, of which 400 million are in Sub-Saharan Africa, 257 millions in South Asia, 73 million in East Asia and Pacific, and 28 millions in Latin America and Caribbeans. 6.3. Marginalized as an “External Area” Robert K. Schafer explains that continued reliance of Sub-Saharan countries on the export of raw material, combined with the fall of commodity prices and a high level of debt, has locked many of them in a “low-level equilibrium trap” that has prevented any real economic development. Poverty and ethnic conflicts have led these populations to attempt migration escape so that in effect, these countries have become marginalized at the periphery. At the same time, Western countries have been reducing investments, foreign aid, trade, and now further isolate themselves by limiting or preventing migration from these countries, which have become “external areas” to the world economy. At this point, I encourage the reader to delve into the rich documentation offered by the essays of part three of this volume which add specific documentation on the cultural, political, and economic impact of neoliberal globalization in key countries of the Asian and African continents and in the subcontinent of Latin America. I have demostrated what kind of synthesis one can generate from a comparative and cumulative reading of the essays of part two. Having run out of time, I encourage the reader to pursue in this effort with the wealth of the essays of part three, which I had a chance to appreciate in my reading and re-reading of the various drafts.

TOWARD A DEMOCRATIC GLOBALIZATION

Chapter 46

Re-embracing the Masses Economically by Financialization Jürgen Schraten

Abstract The chapter addresses the emergence, problems, and unrealized options of financialization as an economic activity that actively performs globalization. It starts by reconstructing the emergence of financialization from a long-lasting trialand-error process, in which politicians and economic actors tried to overcome longlasting and multifaceted economic problems. Reluctantly, they removed legal limitations from commercial papers and credit. Their expectation that the demand for expensive credit would drop did not materialize. Instead, trans-border investments in a now international financial world provided unexpected amounts of capital. The chapter elaborates on core concepts of financialization like shareholder value orientation, derivatives, and the cultural financialization of everyday life. The second section analyzes the core mechanisms of financialization, which is seen in a transformation of the hitherto unknown future into a realm of calculable probabilities. This transformation increases the mutual dependency of actors, but it evolves into the cause of financial crashes as well. The last section discusses the unrealized options of financialization because it basically contains the option of overcoming the reverse dynamic of the capitalistic prosperity development. Therefore, the chapter will outline suggestions for a regenerated institutional and legal framework that would allow to make use of the progressive potentials of financialization.

The term financialization refers to those economic activities, which caused the growth in size and importance of financial markets since the 1960s and 1970s. The process of financialization turned these markets from rather marginal institutions, which served the purpose of trading scarce capital, into the centers of the world market. Meanwhile, the products, practices, and norms of financial markets have penetrated the whole of society. As a consequence, many people experience globalization as a world market in the first place (Hart 2000: 8). This chapter will begin with the explanation of the new dynamic of financial markets. In the second section, the sociological discussion of its core mechanisms J. Schraten (B) University of Giessen, Giessen, Germany e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 I. Rossi (ed.), Challenges of Globalization and Prospects for an Inter-civilizational World Order, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44058-9_46

881

882

J. Schraten

will be outlined, and the last part of the chapter will elaborate on its unrealized potentials.

The Emergence of Financialization Financialization designates a set of activities that actively perform globalization. They do so by mediating monetary transactions, e.g., the exchange of currencies, external financing, or insuring against unfavorable developments, bad luck, or future dangers. Due to the usage of money as a medium of exchange, financial markets facilitate international trade, because money transforms qualitative values into quantitative figures, makes them comparable and calculable. For money, it is easy to overcome borders (Simmel 1990: 76–99). The transformation of every value into a monetary quantity fosters the economic focus on short-term profits in preference to long-term investment because it is effortless to abandon a participation (Esposito 2011: 63–68). Indeed, financial markets are as old as market economies themselves, and they mediated international trade from the beginning (Braudel 1992). Beginning in the 1960s in the United States, financial markets gained the right to trade abstract and speculative commercial papers, a practice that spread across the globe until the 1990s (Krippner 2005). Today, the size, structure, and impact of financial markets is distributed very unevenly across the globe (Langley 2002: 81–124). Financial markets are performed at concrete locations, with employees, infrastructure, and a neighborhood (Sassen 1991, 2006). However, financial markets do not require a single marketplace, on which human beings interact. Instead, they can be performed electronically, with distributed computer monitors as the only location on which they appear (Knorr Cetina 1997, 2006). Each financial market trades a specific set of commercial papers under the legal conditions of the nation state it is located in. Therefore, it is difficult to measure the size, volume, and turnover of financial markets on a global scale. There exist only approximate figures (Crotty 2008). To give an example: the trade of options, which are a specific kind of commercial papers dealing with the future exchange of commodities, has grown from 190 million contracts in 1990 to more than 3550 million contracts in 2003 (Pilbeam 2006: 324). However, all figures for the number of contracts, the volume of monetary value, and the profits derived from financial trade show a long-term growth since the 1960s, a process called financialization of the economy. As a consequence of the diversity of financial markets, each measurement has to decide on the range of products, the unit of the data collection, and on the concrete places of exchange, it includes. In this chapter, I focus on the financial markets of the United States for three reasons: they represent the historic origin of financialization, they still dominate on a global scale (though not uncontested), and they are the most investigated ones. Greta Krippner decided to define the scope of her analyses of financialization to a specific set of financial activities abbreviated as FIRE (finance, insurance, real estate). She showed that the increase of corporate profits drawn from financial markets exceeds all other economic gains by far (Krippner 2005: 177–181).

46 Re-embracing the Masses Economically by Financialization

883

More important than the figures themselves is the finding of a qualitative change of financial markets due to the massive increase in capital amounts: ‘In the 1960s and 1970s, policymakers operated under the assumption that they lived, and would always live, in a credit-short and capital-starved world.’ (Krippner 2011: 59) This expectation was rational because financial markets, and the commercial papers traded in them, had been invented because of the scarcity of capital in the first place: e.g., economic actors were looking for foreign currencies to be able to pay abroad or, vice versa, wanted to exchange it for their domestic money after being paid. This practice initially developed in the environment of harbors and market fairs from the thirteenth century on, and the bench (Italian: banco) the transformation was performed on resulted in the term ‘banking’ for the practice itself (Kindleberger 1984: 35–54; Braudel 1992: 2, 26–80). As another example, long-distance traders were looking for external financing of their expensive endeavors. To ease the involvement, the Dutch East India Company began in 1602 to split the shares in their company into equal pieces, sold them to more than 1800 investors, and paid them dividends from the returns. These shares became soon known as stocks, and they could be traded on marketplaces called stock exchanges (de Vries and van der Woude 1997: 382– 396; Langley 2002: 39–59; Arrighi 2010: 86–162). These and similar other practices intensified in the process of industrialization and colonization, expanding market economies across the globe (Weber 1961; Wallerstein 1974; Kindleberger 1984). However, it was always the lack of capital that generated a demand for commercial papers, and this still was true in the reconstruction period after World War II. In the course of the 1960s and the 1970s, however, politicians and actors in the economic institutions of the North Atlantic countries were confronted with multifaceted crises. Internally, they were confronted with decreasing growth rates, increasing inflation rates, rising unemployment figures, high expenses for domestic infrastructure and welfare, and for external wars; internationally, they lost control over their complex system of trade and currency exchange rates agreed upon in Bretton Woods and faced growing competition from the hitherto subjugated or sidelined semi-peripheral and peripheral countries (Prashad 2014: 15–83). Most political attempts to counteracting these political crises required capital, and the competition for it further increased its scarcity. This scarcity was aggravated by the legal order of finance. In 1929, a financial crash had infected huge parts of the global economy with the Great Depression (Kindleberger 1984: 364–400). As a consequence, the United States had regulated its banking business, and the two most important parts consisted of the Regulation Q and the Glass–Steagall Act. The first forbade to pay interest on demand deposits and imposed interest rate ceilings on other deposits, and the latter separated commercial banking from investment banking and implemented a deposit insurance. The limitation of interest rates was intended to remove incentives from speculating with deposits, and the Glass–Steagall Act aimed at securing the savings. They resulted in a compartmentalization of financial markets into areas of different sorts of capital: the savings of citizens could not be used for mortgages, the central bank money supposed to serve as credit for industrial investments could not be used as capital stock for insurance, and so on. Ordinary citizens looking for an opportunity to borrow money

884

J. Schraten

were referred to specialized savings and loan associations, also known as thrifts (Calder 1999). The idea of alleviating the financial constraints, which affected governments, companies, and citizens alike, by loosening these regulations of monetary exchanges was not far-fetched. Gradually, political actors started to remove the fetters from credit and commercial papers. In 1961, they allowed the issuance of negotiable certificates of deposit, which tapped the hitherto protected savings of consumers. By December 1962, certificates worth US-$6.2 billion had been sold (Lindsay 1963). In 1968, secondary mortgage markets were introduced, which means that commercial papers on the claims of mortgage repayments were sold, i.e., derivatives of the original mortgages (LiPuma and Lee 2005). By passing them on, the financial institution could refinance itself quickly and return to selling loans and mortgages (Krippner 2011: 69). Commercial banks introduced new products, e.g., Citicorp used a legal loophole to issue the predecessor of the MasterCard in 1967, and Meryll Lynch allowed its customers to write checks against their accounts in 1977. Finally, almost all limitations of interest rates on consumer deposits were removed with the Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act of 1980. The formal rejection of the Glass–Steagall Act in 1999 can be understood as the endpoint of this gradual deregulation. This was paralleled by a change of monetary policies. For a short period between 1979 and 1982, the monetary supply was managed by the market mechanism of supply and demand. As a consequence, the interest rate began to fluctuate and to rise. It had a double effect: On the one hand, domestic credit became very expensive. Many companies reacted with job cuts, and consumer demand dropped. On the other hand, high interest rates attracted investors—and in an environment of electronically interconnected financial markets, it attracted investors from abroad, in the case of the United States, especially from Japan (Krippner 2011: 83–97). The expectation of policymakers had been that the provision of expensive credit would lower the demand, but this turned out to be a miscalculation. This astonishment was accompanied by the influx of foreign capital due to high interest rates: instead of limiting the monetary supply, the financial markets were flooded with money. Governments had found a new source for financing their budget deficits, and commercial banks could turn money into a commodity that could be consumed like any other (Langley 2014). In the 1980s, at the latest, financial markets had turned from a marginal area performed by specialists into the center stage of the world economy. In October 1987, the first major financial crash since 1929 shocked the world economy but was quickly contained. From then on, euphoria about the possibilities of wealth creation on financial markets alternated with financial meltdowns and crises.

The Interpretation of Financialization The first part of this section offers a brief overview of the multifarious and complex discussions of financialization in social sciences (Engelen 2008; Montgomerie and

46 Re-embracing the Masses Economically by Financialization

885

Williams 2009; van Treeck 2009; van der Zwan 2014). The second part intends to support the argument that financialization basically refers to a different treatment of the future in the economy by transforming it from a realm of unknown uncertainty into a period of calculable risks and probabilities (Shackle 1970; Esposito 2011). One of the first characteristics of financialization that catched the attention of social scientists was the mode change of corporate strategies, which became known under the term shareholder value orientation (Froud et al. 2006; Davis 2009: 31–101). This refers to the increasing importance of external finance of corporate investment. Such a strategy makes sense in a productive sphere that requires high investments and quick implementation of technical innovations. Under these circumstances, new investments cannot wait until enough profits from sales are accumulated. However, attracting more shareholders to higher risks requires the promise of higher returns. Hence, the payout of dividends gained importance in relation to the costs of production. This reorientation is blamed for a deterioration of the working conditions of employees and a general lowering of social standards (Martin et al. 2008; Thompson 2013). The critical argument is that companies are forced into the strategy of a shareholder value orientation to prevent a take-over by foreign investors (Aglietta and Breton 2001). As a consequence of this development, some financial markets actors began to exert extraordinary market power, which allowed them to avoid competition and create allegedly risk-reducing products for the rest of the market (Froud et al. 2002; Lapavitsas 2009; Arrighi 2010; van der Zwan 2014; Davis and Kim 2015). Meanwhile, Randy Martin and Paul Langley revealed how the products, practices, and norms of financialization have penetrated deeply into society. In some countries, social welfare systems have been replaced or supplemented by private investment options (Cutler and Waine 2001). The usage of consumer credit has increased in various forms (Montgomerie 2006; Burton 2008; Langley 2008, 2010). Generally, mass media grant huge attention to the development of financial markets and everyday life has incorporated some of its characteristics (Martin 2002; Aitken 2007). However, reviewing all of these important studies, the initial reason for financialization seems unsolved. The question is, which ‘spirit’ of capitalism has motivated these developments (Weber 2001; Schraten 2015)? A convincing theoretical answer is provided by Elena Esposito, referring to the economists George L.S. Shackle and Frank H. Knight: it deals with the treatment of future uncertainty. To begin with, the actors in an economy serve a specific purpose in society, i.e., the provision of needs (Parsons and Smelser 1964; Luhmann 1989: 51– 62). This means, the economy always refers to the unknown future. Yet, the analysis of the economic problems of the 1960s and 1970s as performed by Krippner and others, revealed a single core question: how to proceed? Politicians, economic actors, and citizens of the North Atlantic countries were desperately looking for a way into the future in the face of failing recipes of the past. This seems to be the core of a monetary economy: creating a future by making decisions in the present, which will inevitably create the conditions of the time to come. Without knowing about the future, it shapes these present conditions by expectations. Obviously, monetary exchange is based on the promise of the society that the receiver of payments will be able to satisfy needs in the future (Shackle 1970).

886

J. Schraten

The uncertainty about this future is the precondition of economic profits because it is the source of risks (Knight 1921; Luhmann 1993). The multiplication of credit sources and the creation of derivatives, which represent contracts about future payments (LiPuma and Lee 2005; Esposito 2011: 107– 121) obviously served the main purpose of creating a capacity to act (Esposito 2011: 9–89). However, this new form of economic interaction on financial markets is performed according to calculatory models, which do not take care of the concrete economic conditions of society (Callon 1998a; MacKenzie 2006; Beunza and Garud 2007). They are dominated by powerful actors (Crotty 2008), and we are far from democratization of finance (Hart 2000; Erturk et al. 2007). However, the option exists. This conviction derives from the very interesting core procedure of financialization, which distinguishes it from industrial capitalism: Financialization creates time by utilizing future capacities and options. The most simple example is a loan: a sum of money to provide the capacity to act in the present is granted due to the prospect of the future willingness of repayment. Yet, this future repayment may become possible only because of the capacity to act in the present, i.e., the loan. This means that the possible future comes into being only by lending against it in the present (Esposito 2011: 93–152). The advantage of financialization is that it enables economic activity without already existing fortunes because it calculates with future gains. Yet, this becomes dangerous if the options of a different future are not taken into account. This problem could be alleviated by socializing finance (Esposito 2011: 62–89).

The Unrealized Potentials of Financialization This last part of my chapter is not about optimism or a political program, but about the obvious capacities that are included in the economic practice of extracting value from the future prospects of a collaborative economy. And this is what happens in financial markets, economic actors share risks by promising each other to act in a defined way in the future. The problem of financialization so far consists of its inherent social inequality. Those already in possession of money have advantages in taking opportunities and sharing risks. Their success constantly increases their wealth and social distance from the average citizens (Piketty 2014). However, financialization is based on the detachment of liquidity from the property and it distributes risks among shareholders. Due to these techniques, its potential could be used to include marginalized and excluded populations into the global market economy if it would be incorporated into a politically created framework. The first argument I want to support was made by Callon (2007). According to him, the profit-seeking homo oeconomicus who is interested in his individual benefits alone, and who does not care about the externalized damages of his actions or the social fate of others, is an artificial social type, because everybody cares about family, friends, and neighbors at some point. In other words, individuals can be made to act egoistically, but only under specific conditions and for a limited period of time. Yet,

46 Re-embracing the Masses Economically by Financialization

887

the equipment and the technologies which allow him to act that way can be subjected to social and political treatments. For instance, policymakers began (too reluctantly) to include the costs of environmental damages into the costs of production, which entailed a different calculation of costs and profits (Callon 1998b). Callon argues that the contracts, which are traded on financial markets and elsewhere in the financialized economy, dissolve the strong link between economy and politics, allowing us to negotiate the common good in the realm of the economy. An example would be the contractual inclusion of local developmental benefits in investment contracts. Such an opportunity possibly pays off for investors that have to take care of their public image. The second argument I want to share is that of Shiller (2003) about the potentials of a politically consciously created social realm of finance. First of all, in his book, which was published before the financial crash of 2008, Shiller emphasizes that most financial products are effective most of the time. This seems to be the main reason why financial markets recovered from the crisis of 2007–09. I do not want to be misunderstood: there are a lot of problematic and unsustainable products, but the majority obviously work. Shiller proposes that instead of limiting commercial papers to the profitable interests of financial institutions, we should apply them also ‘to cover the risks that really matter in our lives’ (Shiller 2003: 2). Shiller emphasizes, here in accordance with Hart (2000), that the Internet and digital technologies allow us to easily exchange information and build databases so that we can exchange risks socially. He continues by outlining that finance cannot remove the uncertainty and the probability of failure from the future, but it can limit its effects. This is achieved by distributing the risks among many shareholders. Basically, this is the application of the principle of social insurance to the future. In social insurance, many participants invest tiny sums, expecting that the majority of activities will succeed (finding a job, staying healthy, not having accidents). A smaller part of the accumulated money can be used to support those rare cases in which need arises (unemployment, illness, accidents), and the rest of the money can be paid out as interest to the investors. Shiller’s examples are based on the principles of financial markets: pooling investments, distributing the risks among many investors so that each takes only a small risk of default, and evaluating the prices according to indices. The function of indices is to measure the development of prices of a certain kind of papers, i.e., indices are macro-observations of prices. For instance, the Dow Jones Index measures the price development of 30 important stocks at the New York Stock Exchange. It does not deliver information about the prospects of a single company but of this important segment of the American economy. If the Dow Jones Index rises, this indicates that the American economy is growing because its most important companies grow on average. It is possible that a single company is declining, but this would not change the overall outlook. Many financial institutes create bonds of commercial papers based on indices. This allows economic actors to invest in broad developments instead of single companies. Shiller wants to make use of indices derived from everyday economic enterprises, like education, housing, or income development. To refer to one of his examples: a young woman wants to become a violinist, but cannot pay for the training. The

888

J. Schraten

outlook on the future earnings of violinists is uncertain, so she does not dare to borrow the money. There is a likelihood that she decides against this kind of career, despite her impressive talent. This would be different if there would exist an index-based market offering the option to invest in the education of the next generation, with low dividends for training in low-risk jobs, and higher rewards on the risky ones. The indices would measure the income prospects of occupations and adjust them over time. Under these circumstances, the violinist could borrow money with an interest rate according to the index. She only would have to pay back in full if the future income expectations would materialize, because the purpose of the indices would be to estimate the relative prospect of educational careers and to reflect the changes over time. If, e.g., the income prospects of violinists would deteriorate over time, the young woman would have to pay back a lower amount, and investors would get a higher return. The purpose of the index is to balance this change in relation to other occupations. For example, if the income prospects of programmers would improve, they would have to pay back more due to their higher income, and investors would receive relatively smaller gains due to lower risks. This sum of higher payments and lower dividends could be used to settle the lower returns of violinists. The participation of apprentices would be rational, because they would only have to pay more if they earned more, but lower their personal risk in case of failed hopes. The investors of such a model would not invest in a defined educational career of an individual, but in a kind of occupation according to indices. For example, of a total sum of money 90 percent of investments would be directed to low-risk occupations with low interest, and ten percent to higher risk occupations like violinists or sociologists. Investing in plumbers, doctors, violinists, bank managers, lawyers, sociologists, and nurses might be disappointing in one case and worthwhile in another, but the overall outlook of these investments should be solid in the growing economy of modern society. There is a very high probability that the total of all borrowers will be able to pay back their loans with interest; under these circumstances, the total stock of money would grow, even if a few careers would fail. It should be emphasized that the purpose of this kind of social insurance would not be a maximization of profits but the safeguarding of future income: The investments of the present are made with the prospect of receiving a fair share of average future income. It would be suitable as a pensions scheme, for instance. The advantages are clear: young individuals can borrow without knowing precisely about their future income, and investors can invest in education without knowing about the prospects of different occupations in advance. The amounts of money are shifted according to the gradual changes over time, and the whole model works as long as a broad majority of apprentices will find a job. Shiller proposes other examples like a livelihood insurance, financed by the whole society (Shiller 2003: 107–120). Another interesting idea of Shiller is the introduction of a social inequality insurance (Shiller 2003: 149–164), in which taxes are used to reduce inequalities instead of confirming them. In fact, in the existing tax systems, poor people contribute to the overall fiscal revenue far above average.

46 Re-embracing the Masses Economically by Financialization

889

The question, which remains open after reading the book of the Nobel laureate Shiller, is: why did these ideas not materialize? To answer this question I want to proffer the arguments of Keith Hart and his human economy approach. We need to democratize the economy, and we can do so only on the local level, by changing the concrete ways people interact with money, finance, and the economy as a whole (Hart et al. 2011). These arguments rest on the insight that every economic model, technology, tool, or plan requires the implementation by concrete people in their local environment. To explain this by reference to Shiller’s examples: only if a critical mass of young people would be willing to borrow from ‘social education insurance,’ and only if many adults would be willing to invest their pension scheme money in the same institution, the model could take off. Yet, financialization may open new spaces for solidarity and self-organization, as Krige (2014) argued. He analyzed how a group of young men in poverty-stricken Soweto combined the traditional South African form of a savings club (a stokvel) with a ‘financialization from below’ (Krige 2014: 62). A stokvel is an autonomously organized group of people, in which each participant contributes a small amount of money on a regular base. Summed up, this significant amount of money can be used by a single member to acquire more expensive goods. The right to consume the money circulates through the group (James 2012: 26). In Krige’s example, this money is not used for consumption but to invest. Collective saving is used to collect the resources for a start-up that would not be possible for individuals. By and large, this is a combination of a cooperative economy with financialization, and if decisions are made wise and defensive, it could become a role model for economic emancipation. In South Africa, stokvels are of such importance that they are exempted from the banking laws. From Krige’s example, it becomes clear how financialization works, and how it could be copied, extended, and adjusted to other situations. The money of industrial capitalism had two pillars on which it rested: the work and effort that had been invested to generate a value, and a network of trust and guarantee, which promised to exchange it for the same (or, at least, a similar) value at a later date. Or, as Hart (1986) brilliantly formulated: every coin has heads and tails, with the head representing an authority that guarantees the value, and tails as a figure representing the amount of value. For a long time in history, it was difficult to keep these two mechanisms together in reliable forms, but this is what is changing through the application of communication technology, data processing, mass media and financial markets. The guarantee of a future exchangeability need not be secured by gold or the state any longer—it can be secured by the personality of the promisor. This is what is already happening in case of an unsecured loan. The decisive step undertaken by the young men of Krige’s example is to spread the promise among a group, reducing the risk of default. In another example, Farré (2015) showed how women in post-war Mozambique managed to transform their bridewealth into an asset, with which they could act economically. The mechanism is similar: a token represents the value, and a group guarantees its exchangeability. Or, Hadrien Saiag analyzed the local reconstruction of an Economy in Argentina after the collapse of the currency (Saiag 2015).

890

J. Schraten

There are more examples of attempts—failed, ailing ones, and some successful— to turn a globalized economy of large companies and institutions into a democratic, solidary, and more human economy (Hart et al. 2011: 1–17; Hart and Sharp 2014; Hart 2015). However, still a majority of citizens is deprived of the personal and collective autonomy to decide upon their economic matters. People are placed into an environment of scarcity; yet, this scarcity is nothing natural but exists due to a competing access of others (Esposito 2011, 43–46). In other words, most citizens of the world society are born into an economic situation, in which the resources of their environment have been unevenly distributed, forcing them to fight, struggle and work for their share. If we want to turn the social inequality of globalization into a human economy, we need to democratize our economy. Financialization can be a tool for it.

References Aglietta, Michel, and Régis Breton. 2001. Financial System, Corporate Control and Capital Accumulation. Economy and Society 30: 433–466. Aitken, Rob. 2007. Performing Capital: Toward a Cultural Economy of Popular and Global Finance. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. Arrighi, Giovanni. 2010. The Long Twentieth Century. Money, Power and the Origins of our Times. London and New York, NY: Verso Books. Beunza, Daniel, and Raghu Garud. 2007. Calculators, Lemmings or Frame-Makers? The Intermediary Role of Security Analysts. Market Devices, Michel Callon, Yuval Millo, and Fabian Muniesa, 13–39. Malden, MA, Oxford and Victoria: Blackwell Publishing. Braudel, Fernand. 1992. The Wheels of Commerce. Civilisation and Capitalism 15th–18th Century, vol. 2 (3 vols.). Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press. Burton, Dawn. 2008. Credit and Consumer Society. London and New York, NY: Routledge. Calder, Lendol. 1999. Financing the American Dream. A Cultural History of Consumer Credit. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Callon, Michel. 1998a. Introduction: the Embeddedness of Economic Markets in Economics. In The Laws of the Markets, ed. Michel Callon, 1–57. Oxford and Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers. Callon, Michel. 1998b. An Essay on Framing and Overflowing: Economic Externalities Revisited by Sociology. In The Laws of the Markets, ed. Michel Callon, 244–269. Oxford and Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers. Callon, Michel. 2007. An Essay on the Growing Contribution of Economic Markets to the Proliferation of the Social. Theory, Culture & Society 24: 139–163. Knorr Cetina, Karin. 1997. Sociality with Objects. Social Relations in Postsocial Knowledge Societies. Theory, Culture & Society 14: 1–30. Knorr Cetina, Karin. 2006. How are Global Markets Global? The Architecture of the Flow World. In The Sociology of Financial Markets, ed. Karin Knorr Cetina and Alex Preda, 38–61. Oxford and New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Crotty, James. 2008. If Financial Market Competition is Intense, Why are Financial Firm Profits so High? Reflection on the Current “Golden Age” of Finance. Competition & Change 12: 167–183. Cutler, Tony, and Barbara Waine. 2001. Social Security and the Retreat from Social Democracy: Occupational Welfare in the Long Boom and Financialization. Review of International Political Economy 8: 96–118. Davis, Gerald F. 2009. Managed by the Markets. How Finance Re-Shaped America. Oxford and New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Davis, Gerald F., and Suntae Kim. 2015. Financialization of the Economy. Annual Review of Sociology 41: 203–221.

46 Re-embracing the Masses Economically by Financialization

891

de Vries, Jan, and Ad van der Woude. 1997. The First Modern Economy. Success, Failure, and Perseverance of the Dutch Economy, 1500–1815. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Engelen, Ewald. 2008. The Case for Financialization. Competition & Change 12: 111–119. Erturk, Ismail, Julie Froud, Sukhdev Johal, Adam Leaver, and Karel Williams. 2007. The Democratization of Finance? Promises, Outcomes, and Conditions. Review of International Political Economy 14: 553–575. Esposito, Elena. 2011. The Future of Futures. The Time of Money in Financing and Society. Cheltenham and Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar. Farré, Albert. 2015. Women as Mediators in Postwar Mozambique: Pushing Lobolo from Price to Property. In Hart, Keith, ed. Economy For and Against Democracy, 83–102. Oxford and New York, NY: Berghahn. Froud, Julie, Sukhdev Johal, Adam Leaver, and Karel Williams. 2006. Financialization and Strategy. Narrative and Numbers. London and New York, NY: Routledge. Froud, Julie, Sukhdev Johal, and Karel Williams. 2002. Financialization and the Coupon Pool. Capital & Class 78: 119–151. Hart, Keith. 1986. Heads or Tails? Two Sides of the Coin. Man, New Series 21 (4): 637–656. Hart, Keith. 2000. The Memory Bank. Moneys in an Unequal World. London: Profile Books. Hart, Keith (ed.). 2015. Economy For and Against Democracy. Oxford and New York, NY: Berghahn. Hart, Keith, and John Sharp (eds.). 2014. People, Money, and Power in the Economic Crisis. Oxford and New York, NY: Berghahn. Hart, Keith, Jean-Louis Laville, and Antonio David Cattani (eds.). 2011. The Human Economy. A Citizen’s Guide. Cambridge and Malden, MA: Polity Press. James, Deborah. 2012. Money-Go-Round: Personal Economies of Wealth. Aspriration and Indebtedness. Africa 82 (1): 20–40. Kindleberger, Charles P. 1984. A Financial History of Western Europe. London, Boston, MA and Sydney: George Allen & Unwin. Knight, Frank Hyneman. 1921. Risk, Uncertainty and Profit. Boston, MA and New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin Company. Krige, Detlev. 2014. Letting money Work for Us: Self-Organisation and Financialisation from Below in All-Male Savings Clubs in Soweto. In People, Money and Power in the Economic Crisis, ed. Keith Hart and John Sharp, 61–81. New York, NY: Berghahn Books. Krippner, Greta R. 2005. Financialization of the American Economy. Socio-Economic Review 3: 173–2008. Krippner, Greta R. 2011. Capitalizing on Crisis. The Political Origins of the Rise of Finance. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press. Langley, Paul. 2002. World Financial Orders. An Historical International Political Economy. London and New York, NY: Routledge. Langley, Paul. 2008. Financialization and the Consumer Credit Boom. Competition & Change 12: 133–147. Langley, Paul. 2010. The Everyday Life of Global Finance. Oxford and New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Langley, Paul. 2014. Consuming Credit. Consumption Markets & Culture 17: 417–428. https://doi. org/10.1080/10253866.2013.849594. Lapavitsas, Costas. 2009. Financlialised Capitalism: Crisis and Financial Expropriation. Historical Materialism 17: 114–148. Lindsay, Robert. 1963. Negotiable Time Certificates of Deposit. Federal Reserve Bulletin 49. Washington D.C. LiPuma, Edward, and Benjamin Lee. 2005. Financial Derivatives and the Rise of Circulation. Economy and Society 34: 404–427. Luhmann, Niklas. 1989. Ecological Communication, trans. John Bednarz, Jr. Cambridge: Polity Press. Luhmann, Niklas. 1993. Risk: A Sociological Theory. Berlin and New York, NY: Walter de Gruyter. MacKenzie, Donald. 2006. An Engine, Not a Camera. Cambridge, MA and London: The MIT Press.

892

J. Schraten

Martin, Randy. 2002. The Financialization of Everyday Life. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. Martin, Randy, Michael Rafferty, and Dick Bryan. 2008. Financialzation, Risk and Labour. Competition & Change 12: 120–132. Montgomerie, Johnna. 2006. The Financialization of the American Credit Card Industry. Competition & Change 10: 301–319. Montgomerie, Johnna, and Karel Williams. 2009. Financialised Capitalism: After the Crisis and Beyond Neoliberalism. Competition & Change 13: 99–107. Parsons, Talcott, and Neil J. Smelser. 1964. Economy and Society. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd. Piketty, Thomas. 2014. Capital in the 21st Century, trans. Arthur Goldhammer. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press. Pilbeam, Keith. 2006. International Finance, 3rd ed. Basingstoke and New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. Prashad, Vijay. 2014. The Poorer Nations. A Possible History of the Global South. London and New York, NY: Verso Books. Saiag, Hadrien. 2015. Money for a Human Economy: A Reflection from Argentina. In Economy For Against Democracy, ed. Keith Hart, 182–200. Oxford and New York, NY: Berghahn. Sassen, Saskia. 1991. Global Cities. New York, London, Tokyo. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Sassen, Saskia. 2006. The Embeddedness of Electronic Markets: The Case of Global Capital Markets. In The Sociology of Financial Markets, ed. Karin Knorr Cetina and Alex Preda, 17–37. Oxford and New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Schraten, Jürgen. 2015. Habits of Austerity. Financialization and New Ways of Dealing with Money. In Economy for and Against Democracy, ed. Keith Hart, 19–38. Oxford and New York, NY: Berghahn. Shackle, George Lennox Sharman. 1970. Expectation, Enterprise and Profit. The Theory of the Firm. London: George Allen & Unwin. Shiller, Robert J. 2003. The New Financial Order. Risk in the 21st Century. Princeton, NJ and Oxford: Princeton University Press. Simmel, Georg. 1990. The Philosophy of Money, Third enlarged ed., ed. David Frisby. London and New York, NY: Routledge. Thompson, Paul. 2013. Financialization and the Work Place: Extending and Applying the Disconnected Capitalism Thesis. Work, Employment & Society 27: 472–488. van der Zwan, Natascha. 2014. Making Sense of Financialization. Socio-Economic Review 12: 99–129. van Treeck, Till. 2009. The Political Economy Debate on “Financialzation” - A Macroeconomic Perspective. Review of International Political Economy 16: 907–944. Wallerstein, Immanuel. 1974. The Modern World-System. Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World-Economy in the Sixteenth Century. New York, NY, San Francisco, CA, London: Academic Press. Weber, Max. 1961. General Economic History, trans. Frank Hyneman Knight. New York, NY: Collier Books. Weber, Max. 2001. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, trans. Talcott Parsons. London and New York, NY: Routledge Classics.

Jürgen Schraten is a sociologist at the University of Giessen (Germany) and funded by the Fritz Thyssen Foundation under Grant Az. 10.17.2.002SO. He works on economic sociology, sociology of law and social theory. His publications include “Credit and Debt in an Unequal Society: Establishing a Consumer Credit Market in South Africa. Oxford and New York, NY: Berghahn.

Chapter 47

A Manifesto for Good Globalization: Or, the Manifesto as Method Paul James

Abstract Global relations remain uneven and contested, but the contemporary world is experiencing the highest intensity of globalization in human history. Now, following a global financial crisis, the emergence of local versus global populism, the continuing intensification of global ecological crisis, and the Covid crisis, it is important to reflect on both the positive possibilities and confronting challenges of globalization. This essay examines the complexity of contemporary globalization focusing on questions of what makes for a positive world. A manifesto for sustainable globalization needs to confront the contemporary human condition, ecologically, economically, politically, and culturally. In ecological terms, this means more than setting up carbon-accounting schemes and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. In economic terms, it means rethinking the ever-expanding reach of global capitalism, particularly its more rapacious modalities. Politically, though the usual response is to argue for more cosmopolitanism, this has become complicated by the ‘return’ to reactionary forms of localism. And in cultural terms, we need principles for celebrating differences while recognizing rather than overcoming the continuing boundaries of identity and meaning. In these terms, this essay seeks to respond to present challenges and set out a matrix of principles—principles in tension—for living in a complex global world.

Globalization today is intense, uneven, contentious, and contested. With the recent rise of right-wing populism, the sounds of anti-globalist rhetoric and threats to withdraw from global political and economic agreements are now at their most vociferous since World War II. At the same time, contradictorily, but in clear relationship to that anti-globalism, the contemporary world is experiencing the highest intensity of globalization in human history. Downward fluctuations in trade figures and the Covid crisis notwithstanding, flows of digital communications and coded capital continue to intensify. Across the turn of the twenty-first century, recognition of this intensity

P. James (B) Western Sydney University, Penrith, Australia e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 I. Rossi (ed.), Challenges of Globalization and Prospects for an Inter-civilizational World Order, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44058-9_47

893

894

P. James

has led to a flurry of writings on particular aspects of globalization (e.g., Juergensmeyer et al. 2019). Now, nearly two decades on—with the intensifying challenge of economic and political inequities, the continuing march of a global ecological crisis, a nuclear standoff, and a global refugee crisis—it is important to reflect on both the positive possibilities and the confronting challenges of globalization. This essay examines the complexity of contemporary globalization, focusing on questions of positive relationality, sustainability, productivity, and vitality. These four domains discussed below are taken to be key capacities for human flourishing. The argument presented here is that a manifesto for positive globalization needs to confront the contemporary human condition in all its manifold and interconnected crises and wonders—ecologically, economically, politically, and culturally. It needs to be able to project into the future as well as provide guidance for present activities. It needs also to remain a heuristic and negotiable framework for continuing dialogue over principles rather than being fixed as a set of edicts or targets. As this essay will suggest, this requires much more than a long list of sustainable development goals. In ecological terms, it means more than setting up carbonaccounting schemes and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. In economic terms, it arguably suggests something quite different than just civilizing the ever-expanding reach of global capitalism, particularly its more rapacious modalities. Rather, it based on the consideration that capitalism might be contained and limited, allowing other forms of economic relations to flourish, including local forms of communing and co-operation. In political terms, it means other than arguing for more cosmopolitanism or more global governance. Here, abstracted cosmopolitanism, the generalized claim that being global is essentially better than orienting practice toward the local or national (for example, Beck 2016), has been deeply challenged both by Left critiques of empty or ungrounded globalism and by a Right ‘return’ to reactionary forms of localism. And, in cultural terms, a systematic manifesto for positive globalization suggests principles for celebrating difference while recognizing rather than dissolving the continuing boundaries of identity and meaning. Responding to these considerations, this essay seeks to establish the means by which we might work collectively on a matrix of principles—principles in tension—for living in a complex globalizing and localizing world. Developing such a manifesto is therefore an exercise in practical (rather than pragmatic) utopianism. It is intended to be radical and demanding rather than just ameliorative. There is no chance that this short essay will develop a fully realized Manifesto for Good Globalization, and nor should it. It can only suggest a way of beginning this process and establishing some draft principles. The essay focusses on the way in which a manifesto might be best developed while making some preliminary suggestions for possible principles for good globalization. By the end of the chapter, the method will be linked to a major ongoing project called the Sustainable Cities Collaboratory that brings together the cities of Berlin, Brussels, Buenos Aires, Cordoba, Dakar, Guangzhou, Johannesburg, Mexico City, Montreal, Nanjing, and Quito, in common purpose around a common manifesto of principles. In the work of these cities can be seen the hopes of real change, tempered (that is, made stronger in the long run) by reflexively recognizing the practical limits of what is possible across

47 A Manifesto for Good Globalization: Or, the Manifesto as Method

895

different extensions of time. The terms of the Manifesto might be big and global but the work begins small and local.

Pitfalls in Establishing a Set of Principles The concept of ‘manifesto’ is a big one, with an extraordinary lineage of expressions. While most of them have barely caused a ripple, some are well known—from Marx and Engels’ Communist Manifesto (1848) and Kelso and Adler’s Capitalist Manifesto (1958) to Haraway’s Cyborg Manifesto (1991). Where do we start? The issues are so incredibly complex and multifarious. And the complexity bears back upon people’s lives in such powerful and consequential ways. Across recent decades, inequalities of wealth and income have been intensifying across almost all regions of the planet. The latest well-known statistics tell that the rich are getting relatively richer with the wealthiest 1% owning nearly 50% of global wealth. At the same time, children continue to die of easily preventable diseases, with half-a-million children under 5 years old currently dying of diarrhea per annum. Current annual figures also present us with an estimated 4,000 refugees dying in transit as they crossed oceans and deserts in search of better lives. In response to these kinds of issues, the United Nations developed the Sustainable Development Goals (UN 2015), itself a kind of manifesto for future development activity. The United Nations’ SDGs process certainly picked up on the first two of those critical issues. However, because the Sustainable Development Goals were developed prior to the current Middle Eastern and Latin American refugee crisis, they completely missed the third critical issue, the consequence of the intense movement of people, including issues of settlement and negotiating cultural differences in a globalizing world. It is worth dwelling on this point for a moment as part of our manifesto-making methodology because it alerts us to four of the many inter-related pitfalls in setting up any set of principles: presentism, methodological globalism, proclamationism, and negativism. Presentism is the impulse to pick up on critical issues that are prominent now and to treat them as ‘obviously’ central to everything, anytime. Concomitantly, themes that have a low profile on the global political agenda tend to be missed. Presentism includes ideological presentism or framing by the dominant understandings of what is ‘good.’ For example, the contemporary ideology of freedom has become part of the global imaginary, both Left and Right, and has thus come to dominate almost every set of principles, mostly in the form of ‘freedom from’ constraints, or what is called following Berlin (1969) ‘negative liberty.’ Sen (1999) made freedom the grounding condition of his capabilities approach global development, and this is now the unstated basis of the Human Development Index. Later in the essay, this simple concern prompts our complete rethinking of that whole approach. The problem is not ‘freedom’ itself, but rather that it is presented as a given virtue and not interrogated for its goods, bads, and nuanced limitations. It is that it emphasizes the virtue of

896

P. James

‘freedom from’ rather than having something to say about the content of what we might have ‘freedom to’ do in positive terms. Presentism also includes issue-based presentism, exemplified in the case of the Sustainable Development Goals missing the refugee crisis because it was not then prominent in the world’s headlines or state department briefings. Somehow, a global consultation process bringing together the world’s most attentive practitioners missed the fact that the forced displacement of peoples across has the globe had been chronically a crisis-ridden process for at least the last half-century. To be sure, the recent war in Syria with 12 million people displaced is the largest single civic disruption since World War II, but the previous decades tell an equally bleak global–local story: the Rwandan genocide (3.5 million displaced, 1994); the war in Bosnia–Herzegovina (2.5 million, 1994–1995); the civil war in Mozambique (5.7 million, 1976– 1992). the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (6.3 million, 1979), the Bangladesh war of independence (10 million, 1971), and so on. This problem is extended by domain-based presentism, the tendency to focus on certain domains of social life rather than others. Currently, across the globe, we are obsessed with the domain of economics, treating the ecological domain as a close second, albeit reducing ecological issues to externalities to be largely handled by negative sustainability claims. The Sustainable Development Goals comprehensively succumb to this problem. Figure 1, gives an indication of the spread of the Goals, particularly in the domains of politics and culture. In this figure, the different goals have been mapped against their primary orientation (with further domain connections assumed by the circular figure), bringing all the domains into an integrative relation. Arguably, for example, Goal 12 could go under the domain of ‘ecology’ into the subdomain of ‘materials and energy,’ but that makes little difference to the map, which is intended to illustrate the dominant orientation of the United Nations toward ecological and economic issues. This point, in fact, raises a further problem with such sets of goals. Each of the Sustainable Development Goals tends to aggregate a number of concerns that overlap other Goals. The emphasis and choice of Goals are based on an intuitive political sense of what is important. This means, however, that issues that have been left out become paradoxically hidden in the laudable concern for comprehensiveness. The integration occurs messily inside each Goal rather than as a systematic outcome of the sum of the parts. Yes, it could be argued that the whole United Nations process is political and therefore the political domain is covered, but that does not help us with what should be done. Goal 17 ‘Strengthen the Means of Implementation’ partially qualifies this issue, but even when we drill down into the targets, Goal 17 makes no claim about what is good politics. This means that a totalitarian regime could respond to the targets as well, if not more efficiently, than a consultative democratic polity. The scale in the ‘Circles’ figure ranges from critical (and therefore unsustainable in its immediate consequences) to vibrant—and therefore contributing to a flourishing world over at least the next 30 years, defined by the United Nations as the horizon of the next generation. This approach was developed over a 5-year consultation period with participants in more than a dozen cities across the world from Berlin and Brussels to Johannesburg, Mexico City, and Buenos Aires. The framework thus

47 A Manifesto for Good Globalization: Or, the Manifesto as Method

897

Fig. 1 Mapping the sustainable development goals using the four domains of the circles approach (The subdomains for each domain are arranged top to bottom within the figure of the circle. The assessment of sustainable development marked on a ‘critical’ to vibrant’ scale was conducted as a thought experiment in relation to global–local standing on these subdomains. The Circles method is outlined in James et al. 2015)

begins and is based on qualitative assessment. However, as different cities have used the approach (see www.circlesofsustainability.org) they have linked the subdomains to empirical indicators that support their qualitative assessments. The second pitfall, methodological globalism, is the tendency to generalize a set of claims so that they apply globally and abstractly to all people across all different settings without at the same time allowing for social differences in different local and regional settings. The problem is not the abstraction of generalities, but its dominance as a method. The Sustainable Development Goals begin as appropriately global in their claims. For example, Goal 1, ‘End poverty in all its forms everywhere,’ appears to be an important and core aspiration for any global manifesto. However, given the nature of poverty—culturally and politically relative in its expression—it sets itself up to fail. Just as the less ambitious Millennial Goals largely did not achieve their aspirations, the Sustainable Development Goals are bound to fall short of such totalizing aims. Secondly, as the Goal is elaborated into targets it misses out on the cultural and geographical variations in the meaning of poverty. The translation into quantitative targets takes the general down to the particular in a fashion that fails the global–local translation test. It also relates to the further problem of false quantitative–qualitative equivalence that we will not have time to more than note here. If we take the first couple of targets under this goal as test examples, the emphasis

898

P. James

on abstract metrics or non-local considerations is readily apparent. The first target is precise: ‘By 2030, eradicate extreme poverty for all people everywhere, measured as people living on less than $1.90 a day.’ The figure US$1.90 is that strangely precise measure called the ‘international poverty line’ set by the World Bank as the global poverty line in 2015. But what does it mean that, in many places around the world, $1.90 would not buy a basic meal? By comparison, in 2015, in the United States, the poverty threshold for a single person under 65 was $32.25 a day. Accordingly, the second target for Goal 1 is an attempt to bolster the first target: ‘By 2030, reduce at least by half the proportion of men, women and children of all ages living in poverty in all its dimensions according to national definitions.’ But why are we giving authority to national definitions of poverty when they tend to be narrowly politicized and no more sensitive to local needs than the global poverty index. For someone living in New York, $32.25 a day to cover all basic needs including rent and food would mean that they are living homeless on the street and eating junk food. For someone living a subsistence life on a smallholding, enacting any one of the seven principles of La via Campesina (Oosteveer and Sonnefeld 2012), would make more difference than even $32.25 a day. The third pitfall, proclamationism, can also be illustrated through the same United Nations’ charters and processes. There is a tendency to aspire to absolutes when the issues are in practice caught between relative outcomes and conditional concerns. For example, despite poverty being largely a relative question—while recognizing there are basic conditions of human security that are fundamental to living (Shaw 1988)— there is a contemporary tendency to make absolute claims such as ‘Make Poverty History.’ This movement coalesced about the first Millennium Goal: ‘To eradicate extreme poverty and hunger.’ The adjective ‘extreme’ helps here to specify what is being challenged but it also limits the claim. Moreover, because the proclamation left behind an earlier qualitative and relative definition, it led to the projection of an absolute outcome rather than a relative–conditional dialectic. Here, a relative claim such as ‘minimizing of inequities of wealth associated with global development’ would not pose the same issues. The translation into targets made this worse for reasons previously discussed. Here, the 1990 target was to halve the proportion of people living on less than $1.25 a day by 2015. Later, the metrics were changed, and then dropped, and this injunction turned into the absolute and unachievable proclamation of the SDGs, ‘Goal 1, ‘End poverty in all its forms everywhere.’ The fourth tendency that is worth avoiding is negativism, that is, the drift toward sets of principles emphasizing what needs to be stopped rather than to also make positive claims for what would make for a flourishing world. In the current world of the climate change, species depletion and accumulating ‘bads’ such as consolidating poverty, continuing emissions, and destabilizing localized transnational violence, a useful manifesto has to attend to the negative but it still needs to get past just saying what it is against or wants to mitigate. On the other hand, the present Manifesto for Good Globalization cannot afford to be beautiful. It cannot, for example, have the simple elegance of Bertrand Russell and Albert Einstein’s manifesto. Theirs was one of the foundations for the late twentieth-century peace movement: ‘In the tragic situation which confronts humanity, we feel that scientists should assemble in conference

47 A Manifesto for Good Globalization: Or, the Manifesto as Method

899

to appraise the perils that have arisen as a result of the development of weapons of mass destruction.’1 That manifesto did no more than vaguely evoke another world. And it cannot have the poetical elusiveness of Breton’s (1924) Manifesto for Surrealism: ‘So strong is the belief in life, in what is most fragile in life—real life, I mean—that in the end this belief is lost’ (1924: 3). Today, we know that it is the future of humanity that is at stake in the context of a world that we are destroying. Elusive evocation is not enough. The stakes have been confirmed, time and again. A manifesto needs a structural base for constructing what should be an integrated matrix of largely positive principles. The present approach thus begins in an unusual place by first establishing the matrix that structures the manifesto before formulating the principles. That is, the method begins by choosing the framework through which the principles will be organized. At this stage, we are working deductively from first principles, and still, responding to the question ‘What are the critical themes that need to be covered in a manifesto?’ But first, we need a common framework for deciding on those issues that allows for continuing contestation and rewriting for different places and cultures. Here, we have chosen to work provisionally with the ‘Circles of Social Life’ approach which argues that social life, at least at an empirical level, is most usefully, coherently, simply, and reflexively understood in terms of four domains: economics, ecology, politics, and culture (I will expand upon each of those terms—useful, coherent, simple, and reflexive—in a moment). The present task will take us through a number of steps: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Establish the analytical basis for a matrix that locates the principles; Establish the grounding basis for the domain structure of the matrix; Establish the grounding basis for projecting positive principles; Begin to give content to the matrix; and Take the manifesto out into the world for debate and amendment (or, if necessary, for complete rewriting).

Establish the Analytical Basis for a Matrix that Locates the Principles Circles of Social Life uses four tests for assessing the practical and theoretical values of any method (and therefore manifesto), including its own adequacy. The first test, ‘Is the approach practical and useful?’, is most suitably judged through the longterm use of an approach and the positive outcomes of its use. It is surprising how quickly a badly conceived or reductive set of principles fails to pass the test of time, even if they linger in conventional use for much longer than they should. In 2016, responding to the current global refugee crisis, the United Nations declared Resolution 71/1, the ‘New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants,’ referring to its prime Resolution 70/1 only a year after the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development was set. However, as already noted, that prior resolution enunciating 1 https://pugwash.org/1955/07/09/statement-manifesto/

last accessed 23 July 2018.

900

P. James

the Sustainable Development Goals had no goals or targets that discussed refugees or even the consequences of global human mobility (see Fig. 1). Questions of social cohesion, responses to cultural differences or to the fracturing and contestation over identity formation in a globalizing world were all left out of contention, even though now they seem obviously relevant to sustainable development. The test of practical usefulness can thus be judged over time through careful analysis and comparison. In this sense, ‘Circles of Social Life’ approach is no more than a heuristic mechanism for sensitizing researchers and practitioners to different ways of life and different constituent perspectives and aspects of a place, a people, or a thematic. The second test, ‘Is the framework analytically coherent?’, is assessed by asking if the various parts of a method and its conceptual expression fit together consistently in themselves, and can they be applied across different locales, themes, and times in history. Most charters and manifestos do not have a systematic underlying method or analytic framework at all. They are most often based on a governing sensibility and some connected principles. The third test of simple complexity can be tested by asking how can the method be made as simple as possible without being simplistic. It is the social theory version of science’s Ockham’s razor, a parsimony principle. This has interesting consequences for a manifesto. For example, the New Urban Agenda (United Nations 2017) for all of its far-reaching contentions is too messy in its organizational form to be simply used as a guide to practice. The New Urban Agenda has so many overlapping and repeated refrains that it becomes impossible to do more than choose a few focused elements to act upon. In other words, a manifesto that can account for the complex realities within a relatively simple structure is much more operationalizable and analytically more powerful. The fourth test of normative reflexivity requires awareness of the often-hidden assumptions and normative values built into any method. By bringing to the fore these assumed ideals and values that (always) frame a method, it both makes criticism easier and the method potentially more robust.

Establish the Grounding Basis for the Domain Structure of the Matrix Using these tests, the Circles method (expressed in Fig. 1) adopts the now familiar use of domains represented by a circle divided by four quadrants, with each reflecting each of our four domains: ecology, economics, politics, and culture. The approach employs the circular form to maximize visual and conceptual recognition for practitioners and researchers. At the same time, it takes a more radical approach to understand how these domains are relational. The most significant step is that the ‘social’ is entirely omitted from the diagram. The social is not treated as a distinct domain, but instead, it is understood as the grounded field in which all the different domains

47 A Manifesto for Good Globalization: Or, the Manifesto as Method

901

of social activity are deployed, including economics. In turn, the four domains themselves are not the dimensions of some abstracted concept called ‘sustainability’ or ‘sustainable development.’ Instead, they are the segments that we consider most relevant for how we adjudicate our collective efforts to producing flourishing social life worlds. The same orientation also predisposes the Circles method to consider the earthbound ‘social’ as the ontological ground2 from which other practices, grouped by domains, are analytically derived and are given meaning. More than its epistemological considerations, this ground needs to be treated as significant for it addresses what have been left as unresolved issues in earlier models of sustainability such as the Triple Bottom Line approach. It makes no sense, given this approach, to discuss tensions, for instance, between the economic and the social (as such). The economy is always already social. The economy, dominant though it has become in late modernity, is just one of the ways that social beings enact their sociality. The ‘economy’ as a category cannot come into tension with the social as such since the economic activity is an element of social life. Different economic practices can, of course, come into tension, and indeed conflict and contradiction, with other practices of social life; and in our interpretation, this is one of the ways that the social becomes unsustainable—that is, when certain of its practices curtail the possibility of other practices, or indeed—in apocalyptic ecological scenarios such as nuclear winter or critical climate change—of any meaningful social life at all. Beyond this analytical point, the division into four domains also permits a more flexible articulation of social practices and relations. By ‘economy’ we do not mean simply a system that invests capital and employs labor to produce products and services that generate profit for a limited pool of shareholders. We intend, rather, the broad variety of practices, discourses, and material expressions that encompass both capitalism and other forms of production, use, and management of resources. These include barter, gift-giving, gathering, time-sharing, public industries, and distribution of commonly held property. As we have shown at greater length elsewhere (James et al. 2015), similar definitional generosity can be extended to the other domains of ecology, politics, and culture. This allows us to understand the full complexity of those domains rather than reducing them, respectively, to environmental habitat, political governmentality, and cultural expressions of high symbolism.

2 Here,

to be precise, ‘the social’ itself is grounded in this earth, this planet, and is therefore treated as always in tension with ‘the natural’. The natural in turn is understood as the infinite extension of time/space that carries far beyond human social engagement on planet earth, including beyond what we are calling the social domain of ecology—namely, that part of the natural which encompasses the human. Hence, we are more comprehensively pointing to a contradictory social/natural grounding. These tensions, expressed in the classical nature/culture trope, concern the place of humans as both part of the natural world, but simultaneously makers of enduring social meaning that abstracts humans from nature.

902

P. James

Establish the Grounding Basis for Projecting Positive Principles If the domain structure of the approach to this manifesto is grounded in our social– natural engagement with each other, and with other beings, objects, and events in this world (expressed as a matrix of domains), then what is the basis for projecting a set of positive principles? This question sets manifesto writers a complementary task to the first one. We now need to know how to judge what is good. One way of achieving this is to define an integrated set of capacities that people and communities need in order to produce a flourishing world. In other words, if a manifesto is to project a positive set of principles about anything—in this case, globalization—then it needs to be able to align those principles with the set of activities that enhance that flourishing social–natural world. As part of the foundational work on the Circles of Social Life approach, we turned initially to the Nussbaum’s and Sen’s (1999) Capabilities framework. The United Nations Human Development Index, based on their approach, suggests that the three domains of human development are having a ‘long and healthy life,’ ‘being knowledgeable,’ and having a ‘decent standard of living.’ This unfortunately both leaves out too many considerations and is too prosaic for such a complex set of processes as globalization. To cut a long story short, in rewriting Nussbaum and Sen, a four-domain structure of capacities has been chosen: vitality, relationality, productivity, and sustainability (James 2018). This is elaborated in Fig. 2. Here, the theme of vitality is the capacity to enjoy embodied life to the full, where the concept of ‘enjoyment’ does not depend on the contemporary thin concept of ‘happiness.’ The Aristotelian concept of eudaimonia comes closest to this deeper sense of ontological wellbeing than the term ‘happiness,’ but ‘vitality’ also carries a broader sense of flourishing than Aristotle’s emphasis on the development of an ethos or spirit of wellbeing. For the framework being developed here, vitality is as much about human embodiment as it is about spirit. The theme of relationality refers to more than just interconnectivity through technologically mediated communications, a dominant obsession in the globalization literature. Here, it is defined as the capacity to relate to others, to nature, and to objects, in a meaningful way, recognizing the complexity of difference while establishing regimes of mutual care, trust, and reciprocity. In the same vein, sustainability refers to much more than ecological sustainability in the face of economic pressures on the planet. It is defined as the capacity to adapt to change, recover, and flourish in an enduring way, particularly in the face of social forces that threaten basic conditions of social life. Here, the four domains of relationality, vitality, productivity, and sustainability were derived by an analytical process involving seven considerations: 1. The first-order categories were chosen as the most critical ways of describing the complex range of capacities—and needed to operate at the same level of generality as each other. They needed to be able to encompass a constellation of

47 A Manifesto for Good Globalization: Or, the Manifesto as Method

903

Fig. 2 Circles of capacities: a thought experiment mapping the capacities globally

2. 3. 4.

5. 6.

7.

second-order capacities and to operate consistently in relation to those secondorder categories; The normative grounding of all the chosen capacities needed to avoid a reductive emphasis on a singular normative value such as freedom; The constitutive grounding of those capacities needed to be understood as always already social rather than intrinsic to individuals; The domain structure and the assessment structure needed to be consistent, allowing the named core capacities to be mapped consistently onto a nonreductive and non-distorting set of indicators of positive human development; The chosen first-order capacities, taken together, need to provide a minimal basis for human flourishing; The chosen capacities needed to encompass the full range of human capacities from creative play and imagination to those technical and technological capacities required to reproduce the basic conditions of existence; The chosen capacities needed to be able to be mapped onto positive outcomes or conditions without presuming a single blueprint for living or a set politics.

904

P. James

Begin to Give Content to the Matrix Based on that extensive background analytic process, the Manifesto for Good Globalization is intended to work for from the global to the local (and back again) as a guide to integrated activism, planning, and governance. At the top level—the domain level—the principles are expressed in terms of the four domains of social life: ecology, economics, politics, and culture (considering the four grounding domains of social capacities). While at this top level, the principles are expressed generally and philosophically, the matrix will become more pointed and practical when it gets to the next level. We begin with four principles organized by the domain matrix: Ecology Processes of global–local productivity and relationality should sustainably contribute to a deeper and more integrated human engagement with the natural world, enhancing our life worlds through basic capacities such as emotion, reciprocity, knowing, and stewardship. Economics Processes of global–local extraction, exchange, and production should contribute to prosperity for all, organized primarily around fulfilling productive social needs and conditions of vitality rather than the current misplaced logic of growth. The qualifier used here, ‘for all,’ is critical, emphasizing the relational conditions of reciprocity, care, and justice—though as guiding orientations; not as absolute conditions. It is an article of faith that in the economic domain we need to attend to the needs of the most vulnerable. Politics Processes of global–local interchange should be conducted through a primary emphasis on relational civic involvement, supported by consistent and articulated cross-boundary legal frameworks, working toward justice for all. ‘Civic involvement’ is defined here, not in the sense of being directed toward formal citizens, but rather toward all people as they live in and move through places. Culture Processes of global–local relations should actively promote vibrant cultural interrelations, including supporting ongoing processes for dealing with the uncomfortable intersections of identity and difference. These top-level principles perforce remain very general, and in their current form are perhaps expressed in an overly complicated way. As the manifesto is refined through public negotiation, it will be important to translate these into ordinary language. It is at the next level down that the principles become policy-oriented and more open to being rewritten to accentuate local issues (see Table 1). These principles are cross-cutting, and it is acknowledged that the principles sometimes act in tension with each other across different domains. This is the way

47 A Manifesto for Good Globalization: Or, the Manifesto as Method

905

Table 1 Principles for good globalization expressed at the subdomain level 1. Ecology 1.1 Materials and Energy

With the sustainable use of materials and resources for all projects and practices, including through locally distributed renewable energy

1.2. Water and Air

With all development contributing positively to maintaining or enhancing local-global air-and-water quality, with, for example, the world’s oceans treated as ecological commons connected to the capacities for stewardship and custodianship

1.3. Flora and Fauna

With all development seeking to engage positively with ecosystem complexities and/or to re-establish natural diversity, including through establishing or consolidating ecoregions, and providing habitat for indigenous plants, animals, and birds

1.4. Habitat and Settlements

With urban and rural settlements organized into planned regional clusters, attending to the natural limits of topography and using fixed urban-growth boundaries to contain sprawl and renew ecological urban–rural divides

1.5. Built-Form and Transport

With the built-form enhancing sustainable living by minimizing motorized and long-distance travel, with any necessary mobility conducted by ecologically sensitive transport systems

1.6. Embodiment and Sustenance

With all development working to sustain or enhance the means of physical vitality, including through food production being invigorated in urban precincts and rural agriculture being returned to an organic connection to local ecologies

1.7. Emission and Waste

With the production, construction, and consumption directed toward zero net global carbon emissions, including through an emphasis on a systematic reduction of local resource use, recycling, re-use of basic materials, and hard waste mining

2. Economics 2.1 Production and Resourcing

With production and resourcing shifted from an emphasis on production for global consumption to an orientation to economics for sustainable local living

2.2 Exchange and Transfer

With the global financial exchange, including Over-the-Counter transactions, monitored and subject to a cross-border (Tobin) tax, with the proceeds used for just redistribution across the globe

2.3. Accounting and Regulation

With accounting procedures and regulation processes promoting responsive, transparent, and just systems of global–local development (continued)

906

P. James

Table 1 (continued) 2.4. Consumption and Use

With the consumption of goods minimized and shifted toward those goods that are produced regionally and for the reproduction of basic local living—food, housing, clothing, music, and so on

2.5. Labour and Welfare

With an emphasis on employment opportunities for all, recognizing that the informal sector and sharing economy provides indispensable income opportunities for many people across the globe

2.6. Technology and Infrastructure

With the technology used primarily as a tool for good living, rather than a means of transcending the limits of nature and embodiment, making sure that ‘digital solutions’ successfully meet social requirements and that these solutions can be integrated into comprehensive, sustainable approaches geared toward overall global benefit

2.7. Wealth and Distribution

With a minimizing of inequities of wealth associated with global development, including through processes for supporting the poor such as promoting security of property tenure, active teaching, and learning regimes, and assured basic provision of health services

3. Politics 3.1. Organization and Governance

With all development policies developed through deep deliberative and democratic processes (both global and local) based on expert knowledge, extensive data collection, transparent reporting of statistical patterns, and extended public debate

3.2. Law and Justice

With integrated legal systems articulated across various levels of government and political borders, and harmonized with agreed positive global norms for all development processes and projects

3.3. Communication and Critique

With cross-border public debate supported through various media on questions concerning policy and design in relation to all development practices and processes

3.4. Representation and Negotiation With non-discriminatory participation and inclusion in development projects ensured through global governance institutions and protocols, linked to appropriate policy and legislation at the national level 3.5. Security and Accord

With resilience to natural and human-generated risks and hazards enhanced through risk-conscious planning and mediation by institutions of global governance

3.6. Dialogue and Reconciliation

With reconciliation actively negotiated between groups experiencing relations of contestation and tension, including over historical questions of land sovereignty between settler communities and Indigenous peoples (continued)

47 A Manifesto for Good Globalization: Or, the Manifesto as Method

907

Table 1 (continued) 3.7. Ethics and Accountability

With the negotiation and promotion of a global covenant of ethics and the development of an engaged form of cosmopolitanism, all drawn up through global–local consultation

4. Culture 4.1. Identity and Engagement

With active public recognition during all development projects and practices of the complex layers of community-based identity and difference

4.2. Creativity and Recreation

With active global and local support for creative pursuits through measures that include legislation for work–life balance such as a ‘Guaranteed Minimum Income’ for creative workers

4.3. Memory and Projection

With significant public and common spaces dedicated to the place’s own cross-cutting global–local histories—public spaces which at the same time actively seek to represent visually alternative trajectories from the present into the future

4.4. Beliefs and Ideas

With locally relevant cultural beliefs from across the globe (except for those that vilify and degrade) woven into the physical fabric of local public life: symbolically, artistically and practically

4.5. Gender and Generations

With active recognition of different needs across the various divides of gender and age against a background of prioritizing conditions of gender equality, with, for example, design principles encouraged that facilitate the comfortable usability of private and public spaces for all people across all embodied differences, including disability, divides

4.6. Enquiry and Learning

With research, teaching, learning-exchange, and training in all aspects of sustainable development encouraged through increased targeted social investment in education, both formal and informal

4.7. Wellbeing and Health

With places and precincts aesthetically designed and actively curated to enhance the emotional wellbeing of people, including, where possible, by involving local people in that design and development

of the world. It will always be the case that good globalization requires intense negotiation over changing practices and directions, including basic tensions. It will also always be the case that good globalization is interwoven with good localization, and this set of principles has endeavored to reflect the fact that globalization always occurs in place.

908

P. James

Conclusion: Take the Manifesto Out into the World for Debate and Amendment The present set of principles works on a three-level framework. At the top level (namely, the domains of social life: ecology, economics, politics, and culture), the principles are intended to be global and inter-civilizational. This level of the manifesto needs to be negotiated in the present, but that negotiation has been done by people attempting to think beyond their own places and times—that is, thinking in relation to all settings in which humans have lived both across the world and across human history. At the second level of subdomains (Table 1), the manifesto seeks to maintain this generality but brings the global into a more acute relation to the local. In its increasing detail, at this second level, the principles become increasingly attuned to this world, now. The second level is still global in its framing, but it is more pointedly directed toward what can be done in practice. The third level (sub-subdomains) not elaborated here (but see Table 2 for an example), would still be framed and informed by the top two levels, would move down to local engagement and work at a precinct level. Here, such a manifesto is built on the expectation—the active hope—that individuals, communities, social movements, cities, regions, and nation-states would take the suggested principles, discuss them, rewrite them for local conditions and differences, and enact them. (See www.circlesofclimate.org/principles-in-practice). For example, if we take the subdomain of ‘identity and engagement’ in the cultural domain, an area completely left out of the Sustainable Development Goals, the three levels would cascade down from the more general to the more particular (Table 2). Lest this kind of approach to making manifestos, charters, and goals be seen as either unpractical or too demanding, it is worth concluding with a couple of examples of the method in practice. The first is the No Regrets Charter, and the second is the Principles for Better Cities, both led by the City of Berlin and Metropolis—the World Association of Major Metropolises. These initiatives used the Circles method to develop a comprehensive set of principles for local and global actions. The No Regrets Charter, a set of guiding objectives on climate change adaptation, was initiated in the context of the disappointments associated with the United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP19. Seeking a broader and more systematic approach that linked the urban and global, a group of urban activists and city officials came together through a Metropolis Initiative on integrated urban governance. It involved an extensive period of consultation, including two initiating conferences, Berlin (2013) and Brussels (2014), and follow-up meetings held in Hyderabad (2014) and Buenos Aires (2015). In Buenos Aires, the Metropolis Board of Directors adopted the following declaration: We, the Metropolis network, representing 685 million citizens worldwide, pledge to support our members in controlling their greenhouse gas emissions, setting a quantitative target for every city compatible with limiting the global temperature rise to two degrees Celsius by 2050, taking into account the specific nature and level of development of each metropolis, subject to the approval of enhanced frameworks and measures.3 3 www.metropolis.org

last accessed 9 January 2019.

47 A Manifesto for Good Globalization: Or, the Manifesto as Method

909

Table 2 Identity and engagement: principles for good globalization expressed across three levels Level 1. Domain Culture

Processes of global–local relations should actively promote vibrant cultural inter-relations, including supporting ongoing processes for dealing with the uncomfortable intersections of identity and difference

Level 2. Subdomain Identity and Engagement

With active public recognition during all development projects and practices of the complex layers of community-based identity and difference

Level 3. Sub-subdomains 1. Diversity and Difference

By respecting local and global cultural diversity, heritage, and difference through all aspects of development planning, design, architecture, and construction at the local level

2. Belonging and Community By creating precincts for living and working that promote a rich sense of place and community belonging 3. Ethnicity and Language

By being aware of and/or acting practically upon local needs for diverse language use, from education practices to street signage and public transport announcements

4. Religion and Faith

By negotiating openly and positively through inclusive planning processes to include the diverse architectures, spatial configurations, and aural ecologies associated with different kinds of religious and ritual observance, from places of worship and pilgrimage sites to multi-faith spaces

5. Friendship and Affinity

By designing public spaces and places to promote comfortable hospitality and intimate conviviality, including across the boundaries of cultural difference

6. Home and Place

By supporting processes through which places and precincts—both public and private—work to enhance the layers of ‘place’ in each neighborhood from the local to the global, including a strong cultural relationship to nature

7. Monitoring and Reflection

By using transparent mechanisms for monitoring the effects of development on local–global cultural identity, diversity, and expression

The No Regrets Charter provides a background set of objectives to that declaration concerning the continuous and complex process of climate change adaptation. It was actively developed by the cities of Barcelona, Berlin, and Lyon and was important for the Liverpool climate plan (www.circlesofclimate.org/principles-in-practice). The Principles for Better Cities Charter grew out of those same meetings and forums and was confirmed with the launch of the Sustainable Cities Collaboratory in Berlin in 2018. The Collaboratory brings together the cities of Berlin, Brussels, Buenos Aires, Cordoba, Dakar, Guangzhou, Johannesburg, Mexico City, Montreal, Nanjing, and Quito, framed by the Principles. It came to be organized around local urban projects in each of those cities: Brussels, for example, is converting a former military barracks into a new district combining heritage development with a circular

910

P. James

economy; Johannesburg is focusing on its Separation at Source program to manage waste; Cordoba is regenerating their old General Belgrano railway premises and surrounding public spaces; and Quito is developing community land-use around the stations of its first metro line. Each of these projects is being developed with reference to the Principles for Better Cities. This charter is again supported by Metropolis for making better cities and developed in response to the urgent need for tools to support the process of working with local–global complexity. It is a set of integrated guidelines for practice framed by the Circles method that links highlevel aspirations to on-the-ground practical protocols. Better cities, it suggested, are best realized through recognizing the force of global and generalizing patterns while being sensitive to local particularities and priorities (www.citiescollaboratory.org/pri nciples-for-better-cities). All of this is, in effect, to operationalize a grounded form of engaged cosmopolitanism. If we are to get beyond ethics (the act of reflecting upon and making principles for good practice) being the purview of philosophers, and politics being the realm of policymaking and activists,4 then institutionalizing debates about fundamental principles of social life is crucial, as is developing regimes of practice. In this process, the radical organizational transformation of the nature of global governance and state borders will be necessary, but this does not mean that approaches to good globalization should focus only on regimes of global governance. Power extends in different ways at different levels, and this too should be the horizon of a Manifesto for Good Globalization.

References Beck, U. 2016. The Metamorphosis of the World. Cambridge: Polity Press. Berlin, I. 1969. Four Essays on Liberty. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Breton, A. 1924. ‘Manifesto for Surrealism’ in Manifestoes of Surrealism, 1972 edn. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Haraway, D.J. 1991. Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. New York: Routledge. James, P. 2018. Creating Capacities for Human Flourishing: An Alternative Approach to Human Development. In Cultures of Sustainability and Wellbeing: Theories, Histories, Policies, ed. Paola Spinozzi and Mazzanti Massimiliano. London: Routledge. James, P., L. Magee, A. Scerri, and M.B. Steger. 2015. Urban Sustainability in Theory and Practice: Circles of Sustainability. London: Routledge. Juergensmeyer, M., M. Steger, and S. Sassen (eds.). 2019. The Oxford Handbook of Global Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kelso, L.O., and M.J. Adler. 1958. The Capitalist Manifesto. New York: Random House. Marx, K., and F. Engels. 1848. The Communist Manifesto. London: Lawrence and Wishart. Nussbaum, Martha C. 2011. Creating Capabilities: The Human Development Approach. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

4 For

a sense of the range of persons involved in this project see www.circlesofsustainability.org/ about/about-us/.

47 A Manifesto for Good Globalization: Or, the Manifesto as Method

911

Oosteveer, Peter, and David A. Sonnefeld. 2012. Food, Globalization and Sustainability. Abingdon: Routledge. Sen, A. 1999. Development as Freedom. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Shaw, B. 1988. Poverty: Absolute or Relative? Journal of Applied Philosophy 5 (1): 27–36. United Nations. 2015. Transforming Our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. New York: United Nations. United Nations. 2017. New Urban Agenda. New York: United Nations. www.citiescollaboratory.org/principles-for-better-cities. www.circlesofclimate.org/principles-in-practice. www.circlesofsustainability.org/about/about-us/. www.metropolis.org.

Paul James is a Professor of Globalization and Cultural Diversity at Western Sydney University. He is the author andor editor of over 30 books including Nation Formation (SAGE) and Globalism, Nationalism, Tribalism (SAGE). Other books include 16 volumes mapping the field of globalization (SAGE). That collection is the most comprehensive and systematic representation of the field of globalization studies, comprising 7,000 pages or 3.5 million words.

Chapter 48

Forging a Diagonal Instrument for the Global Left: The Vessel Rebecca Álvarez and Christopher Chase-Dunn

Abstract This article proposes a project to build a diagonal political organization for the Global Left that will link local and national networks and prefigurational communities to contend for power in the world-system during the next few decades of the twenty-first century. The World Social Forum (WSF) process needs to be reinvented for the current period of rising neo-fascist and populist reactionary nationalism and to foster the emergence of a capable instrument that can confront and contend with the global power structure of world capitalism and the popular reactionary movements that have emerged. This will involve overcoming the fragmentation of progressive movements that has been one outcome of the rise of possessive individualism, the Internet, and social media. We propose a holistic approach to organizing a vessel for the Global Left based on struggles for human rights, anti-racism, queer rights, climate justice, feminism, sharing networks, peace alliances, taking back the city, progressive nationalism, and confronting and defeating neo-fascism. This approach is diagonally structured, combining the horizontalism of many current social movements with a centralized formal organization that is itself democratic and flexible.

R. Álvarez (B) New Mexico Highlands University, Las Vegas, NM, USA e-mail: [email protected] C. Chase-Dunn Institute for Research on World-Systems, University of California-Riverside, Riverside, CA, USA © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 I. Rossi (ed.), Challenges of Globalization and Prospects for an Inter-civilizational World Order, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44058-9_48

913

914

R. Álvarez and C. Chase-Dunn

Social movements have been important drivers of social change since the Stone Age. They both reproduce and alter social structures and institutions. In this essay, we use the world-systems perspective to examine the possibilities for increasing the cohesiveness and capability of progressive global social movements. The comparative evolutionary world-systems perspective studies the ways that waves of social movements have driven the rise of more complex and more hierarchical human societies over the past millennia. A long-run historical and global perspective is helpful for comprehending the current moment and for devising political strategies that can help mitigate the problems that must be addressed in the twenty-first century so that humanity can move toward a more just, peaceful, and sustainable global future. The contemporary world-system is entering another era like, but also different from, the “age of extremes” that occurred in the first half of the twentieth century (Hobsbawm 1994). Devising a helpful political strategy for the Global Left requires that we understand the similarities and differences between the current period and the first half of the twentieth century. It also requires that we understand the cultures of the movements and countermovements that have emerged in the past few decades. The current period is daunting and dangerous, but it is also a period of great opportunity for moving humanity toward a qualitatively different and improved world society.1

1 This is an update of an earlier article that reviewed the sociological literature on coalition formation,

the history of united and popular fronts in the twentieth century, and considered which of the central tendencies of the new Global Left might be in contention for providing leadership and integration of the network of anti-systemic movements that have been participating in the World Social Forum process (Chase-Dunn et al. 2014).

48 Forging a Diagonal Instrument for the Global Left: The Vessel

915

The Global Social Justice Movement and the World Social Forum Process The global social justice movement that emerged beginning in the 1990s with the regional successes of the Zapatistas in Southern Mexico formed in response to the neoliberal globalization project. The Pink Tide which followed was the advent of leftist-populist political regimes in most Latin American countries based on movements against the neoliberal structural adjustment programs promoted by the International Monetary Fund (Chase-Dunn et al. 2015). In 2001, the World Social Forum (WSF) was founded as a reaction to the exclusivity of the neoliberal World Economic Forum. Its purpose was to provide a global venue for popular progressive movements that were opposed to the neoliberal globalization project. The founding conferences were held in Porto Alegre, Brazil with the support of the Brazilian Workers Party who had just won the presidency under the leadership of Ignacio de Lula Silva, a former auto worker. The WSF adopted the slogan “Another World Is Possible” to counter Margaret Thatcher’s claim that there was no alternative to neoliberal globalization. The WSF held most of its global meetings in the Global South but also sponsored important local and national meetings in all the world regions. This was an important venue for the emerging New Global Left and the global justice movement, but it did not include all of the movements of the Left (see below). It was intended to be a venue for activists from grassroots social movements to collaborate with one another. The social forum process eventually spread to most regions of the world. Just a few months after the first annual event in 2001, the World Social Forum’s International Council approved a 14-item Charter of Principles. It identified the intended use of the forum space by “groups and movements of civil society that are opposed to neoliberalism and to domination of the world by capital and any form of imperialism” (World Social Forum Charter of Principles 2001). The Charter did not permit participation by those who wanted to attend as representatives of organizations that were engaged in or that advocated armed struggle. Nor were governments or political parties supposed to send representatives to the meetings. There was a great emphasis on diversity and on horizontal, as opposed to hierarchical, forms of organization. The use of the Internet for communication and mobilization made it possible for broad coalitions and loosely knit networks of grassroots movement activists to engage in collective action projects. The participants in the social forum process engaged in a manifesto/charterwriting frenzy as those who sought a more organized approach to confronting global capitalism and neoliberalism attempted to formulate consensual goals and to put workable coalitions together (Wallerstein 2007). One issue that was debated was whether the World Social Forum should itself formulate a political program and take formal stances on issues. A survey of 625 attendees at the World Social Forum meeting in Porto Alegre, Brazil in 2005 asked whether the WSF should remain an open space or should take political stances. Almost exactly half of the respondents favored the open space idea (Chase-Dunn

916

R. Álvarez and C. Chase-Dunn

et al. 2008). Thus, trying to change the WSF Charter to allow for a formal political program would have been very divisive. But this was deemed not to be necessary. The WSF Charter also encouraged the formation of new political organizations. Those participants who wanted to form new coalitions and organizations were free to act, as long as they did not do so in the name of the WSF as a whole. The Assembly of Social Movements and other groups issued calls for global action and political manifestoes in Social Forum meetings at both the global and national levels. Meeting in Bamako, Mali in 2006 a group of participants issued a manifesto entitled “the Bamako Appeal” at the beginning of the meeting. The Bamako Appeal was a call for a global united front against neoliberalism and United States neo-imperialism (see Sen et al. 2007). Samir Amin, the famous Marxist economist and co-founder of the world-system perspective (along with Immanuel Wallerstein, Andre Gunder Frank, and Giovanni Arrighi), wrote a short paper entitled “Toward a fifth international?” in which he briefly outlined the history of the first four internationals (Amin 2008). Waterman (2006) proposed a “global labor charter.” And a coalition of women’s groups meeting at the World Social Forum produced a feminist global manifesto that tried to overcome divisive North/South issues (Moghadam 2005). Ultimately, there was an impasse in the global justice movement between those who wanted to move toward a global united front that could mobilize a strong coalition against the powers that be, and those who preferred local prefigurative horizontalist actions and horizontalist network forms of organization2 that renounce organizational hierarchy and refuse to participate in “normal” political activities such as elections and lobbying. These political stances had been inherited from the antiauthoritarian and anti-bureaucratic New Left movements of the world revolution of 1968. The New Left of 1968 embraced direct democracy, attacked bureaucratic organizations and was resistant to the building of new formal organizations that could act as instruments of revolution (Arrighi et al. 1989 [2012]). Institutions that had been instruments of revolutionary change and challengers to existing power structures were thought to have become sclerotic defenders of the status quo when they got old. This was understood as an important lesson of the waves of class struggle and decolonization that had occurred in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Arrighi et al. (1989 [2012]: 64) said: … the class struggle “flows out” into a competitive struggle for state power. As this occurs, the political elites that provide social classes with leadership and organization (even if they sincerely consider themselves “instruments” of the class struggle) usually find that they have to play by the rules of that competition and therefore must attempt to subordinate the class struggle to those rules in order to survive as competitors for state power.

This resistance to institutionalized politics and contention for state power has also been a salient feature of the world revolution taking place today. It is based 2 Prefigurationism

is the idea that small groups can intentionally organize social relations in ways that can provide the seeds of transformation to a more desirable form of future human society. Horizontalism abjures hierarchy in organizations. It is inspired by Michels’s (1968 [1915]) observation that all organizations become conservative because the leadership ends up only trying to defend their own interests and the survival of the organization.

48 Forging a Diagonal Instrument for the Global Left: The Vessel

917

on a critique of the practices of earlier world revolutions in which labor unions and political parties became bogged down in short-term and self-interested struggles that were seen to have reinforced and reproduced the global capitalism and the interstate system. This rejection of formal organization is reflected in the charter of the World Social Forum as discussed above. And the same elements were strongly present in the Occupy movement as well as in most of the popular revolts of the Arab Spring (Mason 2013). Mason’s (2013) analysis contended that the social structural basis for horizontalism and anti-formal organization, beyond the disappointment with the outcomes of the struggles carried out by the Old Left, was due to the presence of a large number of middle-class students as activists in the movements. The world revolution of 19683 was led mainly by college students, who had emerged on the world stage with the global expansion of higher education since World War II. Meyer (2009) explained the student revolt and the subsequent lowering of the voting age as another extension of citizenship to new and politically unincorporated groups demanding to be included, analogous to the earlier revolts and incorporations of men of no property and women. Mason pointed out the similarities (and differences) with the world revolution of 1848, in which many of the activists were educated but underemployed students. He also argued that the composition of participation in the current world revolution has been heavily composed of highly educated young people, who are facing the strong likelihood that they will not be able to find jobs commensurate with their skills and certification levels. Many of these “graduates with no future” have gone into debt to finance their educations, and they are alienated from politics as usual and enraged by the failure of global capitalism to continue the expansion of middle-class jobs. These graduates can be considered part of Standing’s (2014) “precariat,” as they are increasingly forced to participate in the gig economy with little hope of future stable employment. Highly educated young people share an uncertain economic future with poor workers across the globe which could produce a transnational alliance of globalized precariats. Mason also pointed out that the urban poor, especially in the Global South, and workers in the Global North whose livelihoods have been attacked by globalization were important elements in the revolts that occurred in the Middle East, Spain, Greece, and Turkey. Mason also stressed the importance of the Internet and social media for allowing disaffected young people to organize and coordinate large protests. He sees the “freedom to tweet” as an important element in a new level of individual freedom that has been an important driver of these middleclass graduates, who enjoy confronting the powers-that-be in mass demonstrations. This new individual freedom is cited as another reason why the activists in the global justice movement have been reticent to develop their own organizations and to participate in legitimate forms of political activity such as electoral politics. But Mason and other participants/observers in the global justice movement overemphasize the extent to which the movement has been incoherent regarding 3 World

revolutions are named after a symbolic year in which important events occurred that characterize the nature of the constellation of the rebellions designated.

918

R. Álvarez and C. Chase-Dunn

goals and shared perspectives. Surveys of attendees at both world-level and nationallevel Social Forums have found a relatively stable multicentric network of movement themes in which a set of more central movements serve as links to all the movements based on the reported identification of activists with movements (Chase-Dunn and Kaneshiro 2009). All the 27 movement themes used in the surveys were connected to the larger network by means of co-activism, so it was a single-linked network without subcliques. This multicentric network was quite stable across venues.4 This suggests that there has been a fairly similar structure of network connections among movements that is global in scope and that the global-level network of movements is also very similar to the network that exists among Social Forum activists from grassroots movements within the U.S. (Chase-Dunn et al. 2019a, b). The central cluster of movement themes to which all the other movements were linked included human rights; anti-racism; environmentalism, feminism, peace/anti-war, anti-corporate, and alternative globalization (see Fig. 1). Amory Starr (2000) identified anti-corporate activism as a powerful sentiment that has had wide support among activists of the Global Left. Whereas the Global Left contained both anti-globalizationists who advocated greater local autonomy (Amin 1990; Bello 2002) as well as those who favored an alternative and more egalitarian form of globalization (Pleyers 2011); the whole issue of anti-globalization has taken a turn with the rise of right-wing populism and hype-rnationalism supported to a great extent by some who were losers in the neoliberal globalization project.

Justice Globalism as a Discourse An organizational structure that can gain the allegiance of large numbers of activists, especially young ones, will need to consider the culture of the Global Left that has emerged since the World Revolution of 1968. The results of two important studies have empirically studied this culture are reviewed here. Steger et al. (2013) presented the results of a systematic study of the political ideas employed by 45 NGOs and social movement organizations associated with the International Council of the World Social Forum. Using a modified form of morphological discourse analysis developed by Freeden (2003) for studying political ideologies, Steger, Goodman, and Wilson analyzed texts (websites, press releases, and declarations) and conducted interviews to examine the key concepts, secondary concepts and overall coherence of the political ideas expressed by these organizations as proponents of “justice globalism”. The key concepts of justice globalism extracted by Steger et al. (2013: Table 2.1, pp. 28–29) are the following: • participatory democracy, • transformative rather than incremental change, 4 The

surveys were conducted at Social Forum meetings in Porto Alegre, Brazil in 2005, Nairobi, Kenya and Atlanta, Georgia in 2007 and Detroit, Michigan in 2010.

48 Forging a Diagonal Instrument for the Global Left: The Vessel

919

Fig. 1 Movement links: the number of affiliations based on active involvement in 27 movement themes from the Social Fora surveys in Nairobi, Atlanta, and Detroit (Fig. 1 displays the network connections for the 27 movement themes using data from Nairobi, Atlanta, and Detroit. In order to produce this figure it was necessary to dichotomize the distribution of affiliations because formal network analysis requires it. We use the same cutting point that we have used in earlier studies of the network of movement ties: 1.5 standard deviations above the mean number of affiliations. Using this cutting-point results in a figure that indicates that anarchism and the other movement themes in the upper left-hand corner of the figure are below the threshold for showing their connections with the other movements. This happens because these are relatively small movements in terms of numbers of activists and so when we use the mean of the whole distribution as the cutting point the ties are coded as zero because the number of their connections was below the cutting point. This figure is good for showing the relative location of the largest and most central movement themes such as human rights, anti-racism, environmental, fair trade, and anti-corporate and the overall multicentric structure of the movement of movements. But the implication that the movements in the upper left-hand corner were disconnected with the rest of the network is incorrect. All the movement themes had some connections with the larger network)

• • • • •

equality of access to resources and opportunities, social justice, universal human rights, global solidarity among workers, farmers, and marginalized peoples, and ecological sustainability.

More detailed meanings of each of these concepts have emerged in an ongoing dialectical struggle with market globalism (neoliberalism). Steger et al. discuss each of these and evaluate how much consensus exists across the 45 movement organizations they studied. They find a large degree of consensus, but their results also reveal a lot of ongoing contestation among the activists in these organizations regarding the definitions and applications of these concepts. For example, though most of the organizations seem to favor one or another form of participatory democracy, there is awareness of some of the problems produced by

920

R. Álvarez and C. Chase-Dunn

an overemphasis on processes of participation and there are ongoing debates about forms of representation and delegation. The important notion of “horizontality” was not examined in detail in the Steger et al. study, but it is well-known that “structureless” networks of equal and leaderless individuals have often been preferred over formalized decision-making and hierarchical structures of control. Some of the organizations studied by Steger et al. eschew participation in established electoral processes, while others do not. Steger et al. highlight the importance of “multiplicity” as an approach that values diversity rather than trying to find “one size fits all” solutions. They note that the Charter of the World Social Forum values inclusivity and the welcoming and empowerment of marginalized groups. The idea of prefiguration—“building the new society inside the shell of the old,”5 has found wide support from many important global justice social movement organizations. The Zapatistas, the Occupy activists, and many in the environmental movement have engaged in efforts to construct more egalitarian and sustainable local institutions and communities rather than mounting organized challenges to the global and national structures of power. While human rights is a very central movement theme in the movement of movements as shown in Fig. 1, the global indigenous movement contests the version of human rights that is enshrined in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948. The indigenistas stress the importance of community rights over the rights of individuals and the idea that “Mother Earth” has rights.6 And these contentions have been shared by the many activists who sympathize with and identify with indigenous peoples (Chase-Dunn et al. 2019a, b). The discussion of global solidarity in Steger et al. emphasizes the centrality of what Reitan (2007) has called “altruistic solidarity”—identification with poor and marginalized peoples—without much consideration of solidarity based on common circumstances or identities. Steger et al. do, however, mention the important efforts to link groups that are operating at both local and global levels of contention. Steger et al. also designate five central ideological claims that find much consensus among the global justice activists: • neoliberalism has produced a global crisis, • market-driven globalization has increased worldwide disparities in wealth and well-being, • democratic participation is essential for solving global problems, • a more egalitarian and sustainable world is possible and is urgently needed, and • transnational corporations and core states have too much power. These assertions shape many of the policy alternatives proposed by the global justice activists. 5 Prefigurationism

is the idea that small groups and communities can intentionally organize social relations in ways that can provide the seeds of transformation to a more desirable form of future human society. 6 World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth held in Cochabamba, Bolivia in 2010.

48 Forging a Diagonal Instrument for the Global Left: The Vessel

921

The Steger et al. study is a useful example of how to do research on political ideology and it provides valuable evidence about ideational stances and culture of the New Global Left. It and the movement network results summarized above imply that the New Global Left has a degree of coherence that can be the basis of greater articulation. Carroll’s (2016) study of global justice transnational alternative policy groups examines the problem of how to build a transnational counter-hegemonic bloc of progressive social forces (Carroll 2016: 23). Carroll’s study examined 16 progressive transnational think-tanks from both the Global North and the Global South. He agrees with the results of the Steger et al. study summarized above regarding the discursive content of the global justice movement and notes that the progressive counter-hegemonic think-tanks that he has studied7 have been trying to produce knowledge that is useful for prefigurative social change and a democratic and egalitarian forms of globalization in contrast to the neoliberal globalization project. Carroll critiques localist and anti-organizational approaches and proposes: counter-hegemonic globalization: a globally organized project of transformation aimed at replacing the dominant global regime with one that maximizes democratic political control and makes the equitable development of human capabilities and environmental stewardship its priorities (Carroll 2016: 30).

The Steger et al. study and Bill Carroll’s research on progressive think-tanks have not produced the last word on the culture of the contemporary Global Left, but they are valuable beginnings. We have been fortunate to have a global forum process as a central venue to study, but some important progressive social movements have been excluded or have excluded themselves from the Social Forum process. Nevertheless, the Social Forums (global, national, and local) have provided convenient opportunities for studying progressive activists, but how representative these are of all the progressive forces in world politics remains an important issue.

Arab Spring, Pink Tide, and Deglobalization The global political, economic, and demographic situation has evolved in ways that challenge some of the assumptions that were made during the rise of the global justice movement and that require adjustments in the analyses, strategies, and tactics of progressive social movements. The Arab Spring, the Latin American Pink Tide, the Indignados in Spain, and the rise of New Leftist social media based parties in Spain (Podemos), Italy, and in Greece and the spike in mass protests in 2011 and 2012 were interpreted as the heating up of a world revolution against neoliberal globalization that had started in the late twentieth century with the rise of the Zapatistas (ChaseDunn et al. 2014). But the outcomes of some of these movements have brought 7 Some

well-known examples are the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, the Third World Forum, the Centre for Civil Society, Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era and Focus on the Global South.

922

R. Álvarez and C. Chase-Dunn

the tactics of the global justice movement into question. The left-wing Syriza Party, elected in Greece in 2015, was a debacle that was crushed by the European banks and the EU. They doubled down on austerity, threatening to bankrupt the pensioners of Greece unless the Syriza regime agreed to new structural adjustment policies, which it did. This was a case in which another world was possible but did not happen. This disappointment was a poke in the eye of the other new leftist social media parties in Italy and Spain as well as the global justice movement. The huge spike in global protests in 2011–2012 was followed by a lull and then a renewed intensification of citizen revolts from 2015–2016 (Youngs 2017). The Black Lives Matter movement, the Dakota Access Pipeline protest, the #MeToo movement, the global Women’s Marches, and the Antifa rising against neo-fascism show that the World Revolution of 20xx is still happening but that the powers that be have resources that can defeat these mass protests. The mainly tragic outcomes of the Arab Spring and the decline of the Pink Tide progressive populist regimes in Latin America were bad blows for the Global Left. The Social Forum process was late in coming to the Middle East and North Africa, but it eventually did arrive. The Arab Spring movements in the Middle East and North Africa were mainly rebellions of progressive students and young people using social media to mobilize mass protests against aging authoritarian regimes. The outcome in Tunisia, where the sequence of protests started, has been fairly good thus far. But the outcomes in Egypt, Syria, and Bahrein were disasters (Moghadam 2018).8 Turkey and Iran should also be added to this list. The mass popular movements calling for democracy were defeated by Islamist movements that were better organized and by military coups and/or outside intervention. In Syria, parts of the movement were able to organize an armed struggle, but this was defeated by the old regime with Russian help. Extremist Muslim fundamentalists took over the fight from progressivists, and the Syrian civil war produced a huge wave of refugees that combined with economic migrants from Africa to cross the Mediterranean Sea to Europe. This added fuel to the already existing populist–nationalist movements and political parties in Europe, propelling electoral victories inspired by xenophobic and racist anti-immigrant sentiment. In Iran, the green movement was repressed. In Turkey, Erdogan has prevailed, repressing the popular movement as well as the Kurds. All these developments, except Tunisia, have been major setbacks for the Global Left. The replacement of most of the Pink Tide progressive regimes and Latin America by reinvented local neoliberals and/or Trump-like strongmen has largely been a consequence of falling prices for agricultural and mineral exports because Chinese demand slackened. The social programs of the leftist populist movements were dependent on their ability to tax and redistribute returns from these exports. But this may also represent an improved new normal for Latin America because almost all earlier transitions involved military coups and violent repression, whereas most of these recent rightward regime transitions have been relatively peaceful and have 8 Moghadam

(2018) shows how gender relations and women’s mobilizations prior to the protest outbreaks, along with differences in political institutions, civil society, and international influences, explain most of the variance in the different outcomes of the Arab Spring.

48 Forging a Diagonal Instrument for the Global Left: The Vessel

923

not involved takeovers by the military or violent repression (at least so far). In Brazil, the threat of military rule continues to play a role in politics, but at least so far, the rightward shift has been less violent than it was in earlier regime transitions. Stable parliamentary democracy to have finally arrived in most of Latin America. This is not utopia, but it is progress. Leftists can contend for power again in the next round. The continuing rise of right-wing populist and neo-fascist movements and their electoral victories in both the Global North and the Global South9 have added a new note that is reminiscent of the rise of fascism during the World Revolution of 1917 (Chase-Dunn et al. 2019a, b). This raises the issue of the relationships between movements and countermovements and the possibility that the instrumentation and articulation of the Global Left could be driven by the need to combat twenty-first-century fascism. The glorification of strong leaders in the right-wing populist and neo-fascist movements was also seen in the twentieth century. But charismatic leaders have also been important in progressive movements in the past. The Democratic Socialists of America (D.S.A.) in some ways seem to be reacting against the “leaderless” ideology of the horizontalists by capitalizing on the extraordinary popularity of their most famous member, Bernie Sanders, currently the most popular politician in the U.S., with 63% public approval. The platform proposed by Sanders incorporates many of the tropes of the New Left and the global justice movement. Rodrik (2018) has contended that two kinds of populism arose to contest the neoliberal globalization project. In Latin America, in the 1980s and the 1990s, the structural adjustment policies of the International Monetary Fund that required austerity and privatization were supported by neoliberal national politicians who attacked the labor unions and parties of formal sector workers, but this produced a populist reaction in many countries in which progressive politicians were able to gain election by campaigning against these policies and by mobilizing the residents of the “planet of slums” (Davis 2006)—the urban informal sector population. This phenomenon was called the “Pink Tide.” Regimes based on left-wing populism emerged in most Latin American countries, and Rodrik rightly sees this as a reaction against the neoliberal globalization project. Right-wing populism emerged, and is still emerging, in countries of the Global North in which neoliberal globalization produced deindustrialization and many workers lost their jobs. This occurred in contexts in which it was easier for politicians to blame immigrants and minorities than to point the finger at the big winners of global capitalism—finance capital and transnational corporations. And some of the big winners provided support for the politics of hyper-nationalism, xenophobia, racism, and sexism that are the working muscles of right-wing populism and neo-fascism.

9 The

terminology of the world-system perspective divides the Global South into the periphery and the semiperiphery. This turns out to be an important distinction for comprehending political developments in the Global South. Activists from the semiperiphery have been far more likely to participate in the Social Forum process, and activists from the periphery have been much more critical of international political organizations than those from either the Global North or the semiperiphery (Chase-Dunn et al 2008).

924 Table 1 Trade globalization: sum of global imports divided by global GDP. Source World Bank (2018)

R. Álvarez and C. Chase-Dunn Trade globalization Year 2012

29.98%

2013

29.73%

2014

29.66%

2015

28.51%

2016

27.69%

Right-wing populist politicians have exploited cleavages along cultural lines, rallying individuals against foreigners and minorities. Left-wing populist movements, on the other hand, tended to garner support based on economic cleavages. They pointed to the wealthy 1% and large corporations as responsible for the economic crises and austerity policies. Thus, the neoliberal globalization project and the crises of late global capitalism have produced increasing political polarization as the context in which the New Global Left needs to reconsider its culture and attitudes toward organizational issues. Globalization is understood to be two rather different things. Sometimes, this word refers to the neoliberal globalization project, collection ideas, and policies that emerged in the 1970s and spread across the world. But it also has been used to mean an increase in the degree of integration in the world-system. This is called structural globalization (Chase-Dunn 1999). Long-term quantitative studies show that there have been waves of globalization and deglobalization since the nineteenth century (Chase-Dunn et al. 2000). What is usually referred to as globalization has been a bumpy upward trend in trade globalization since 1945. Earlier periods of trade deglobalization occurred from 1880 to 1900 and from 1930 to 1945. There was a drop in the measure of trade globalization (the sum of global imports divided by global GDP) in 2008 and then a recovery but this indicator fell from 2012 to 2016 (see Table 1). This may indicate that the world-system has entered another period of structural deglobalization, though this is not certain because there have been short-term downturns before that were followed by recoveries of the upward trend since 1945. If indeed we have entered another period of deglobalization this has implications for political strategies that assumed that structural globalization was going to continue increasing. There has always been a tension within the Global Left regarding antiglobalization versus the idea of an alternative progressive form of globalization. Amin (1990) and Bello (2002) are important socialist advocates of deglobalization and delinking of the Global South from the Global North in order to protect against neo-imperialism and to make possible self-reliant and egalitarian development. Alter-globalization advocates an egalitarian world society that is integrated but without exploitation and domination. The alter-globalization project has been studied and articulated by Pleyers (2011) as an “uneasy convergence” of largely horizontalist autonomous and independent activist groups and more institutionalist

48 Forging a Diagonal Instrument for the Global Left: The Vessel

925

actors like intellectuals and NGOs. In our proposal for a way forward for the Global Left, we advocate combining horizontalism and capable coordination in an instrument that can support and defend egalitarian projects and communities and struggle effectively against the power of reactionary states and firms. The unhappy outcome of the Arab Spring, the demise of the Pink Tide, the rise of populist right-wing and neo-fascist movements and parties and the possible arrival of another period of deglobalization are developments that suggest that the Global Left needs to reexamine its culture and devise strategies that can be more effective in confronting the crises of global capitalism and building a more egalitarian, democratic and sustainable world society.

The Vessel10 : Forging a Diagonal Instrument for the Global Left A new discourse has emerged in the past few years regarding possibilities for greater articulation among the movements of the Global Left and around the ideas of united fronts and popular fronts and new forms of organization. The tendency of progressive social movements to form around single issues and identity politics is increasingly seen as a problem that stands in the way of mobilizing more effectively to both allow people to construct more egalitarian and sustainable projects and communities and to become a significant and consequential player in world politics. This has been recognized and addressed in different ways by both activists and political theorists for the past 20 years. Sanbonmatsu’s (2004) defense of a global counter-hegemonic project of the Left locates the roots of horizontalism and the celebration of diversity in the rise of the new social movements and postmodern philosophy in the years following the world revolution of 1968. He contends that the postmodern emphasis on differences, inspired by the critical philosophy of Michel Foucault, undercuts the ability of progressive forces to join to struggle for social change. This was a somewhat understandable reaction against Stalinism and the primary focus on taking state power that became the modus operandi of the Old Left. But Neo-Leninists such as Jodi Dean (2012, 2016) have pointed out the limitations of leaderless mass protests as a method for producing political change. Sharzer (2012, 2017) recounts the fate of utopian communities of the past that demonstrate the reincorporation of local projects and communities back into the capitalist business as usual. Amin (2008, 2018) proposed a new communist international that would permit participation from more than one legitimate group per country. Amin’s proposed new international has other features

10 The

instrument should be named by those who do the work to create it. Vessel is a suggestion meant to be inclusive and supportive. Others have suggested the Fifth International (Amin 2008) International of Workers and Peoples (Amin 2018) the Postmodern Prince (Gill 2000; Sonbonmatsu 2004) and the World Party (Wagar 1992).

926

R. Álvarez and C. Chase-Dunn

that differentiate it from the Third International, but it seems to remain a hierarchical organization like earlier Leninist vanguard parties.11 The World Social Forum held in Salvador, Brazil in 2018 focused on how the Social Forum process could be reinvented to more effectively confront the rise of right-wing forces (Mestrum 2017, 2018). The demise of the U.S. and European Social Forums may mean that the Social Forum process is over. If that is the case the question is: What can replace and improve upon the Social Forum? Given the numerous competing interest groups, all with legitimate claims, the puzzle is how to unite them all, or most, of them in a global social justice movement that does not privilege one interest group above the others. Intersectionality as a theoretical paradigm in sociology can be helpful in identifying the interlocking layers in the matrix of oppression and thusly providing a blueprint for avoiding the reproduction of social hierarchy within such a global social justice movement (Hooks 2014). However, intersectional ideology alone cannot serve as a unifying motivator for a global political movement. Political movements need to “name the enemy” (Starr 2000). The global right has been so tremendously effective in large part because it has constructed its own enemies as “the globalists,” “the establishment,” and “immigrants.” A truly successful global social justice movement will need to construct the predations of the transnational corporate class and the neo-fascist Global Right as enemies and to make evident the connections between these enemies and the oppression and exploitation of the majority of the human population of both the Global South and the Global North. We contend that the anti-organizational ideologies that have been a salient part of the culture of progressive movements since 1968 have been a major fetter restricting the capability of these movements to effectively realize their own goals. But these ideas and sentiments run deep and so any effort to construct organizational forms that can facilitate progressive collective action must be cognizant of this embedded culture. The Internet and social media, allowing cheap and effective mass communications, have been blamed for producing specialized single-issue movements. We suggest that virtual communication can be harnessed to produce more sustained and integrated organizations and effective tools that can be used to contend for power in the streets and institutional halls of the world-system. We also think that the old reformist/revolutionary debate about whether to engage in electoral politics is a fetter on the ability of the Global Left to effectively contend. We agree that changing the policies of states or taking power in them should not be the only goal of progressive social movements. States are not, and have never been, whole systems. They are organizations that exist in a larger world economy and interstate system. And while they should not be to the sole target of progressive movements, their organizational resources can be used to facilitate the building of a postcapitalist global 11 The Amin and Dean versions differ in some respects regarding their notions of agency––Amin was a Third Worldist who saw the workers and peasants of the Global South as the agents of progressive social change that had to be protected from the neo-imperialism of the global core by delinking. Dean is more of a workerist who thinks that organized workers and their leaders can be mobilized to transform global capitalism despite the technological reorganizations and cultural penetrations that have produced the precariats of the era of neoliberal globalization.

48 Forging a Diagonal Instrument for the Global Left: The Vessel

927

society. The autonomists correctly perceive that dependence on state resources and support, as well as on funding from mainstream foundations, often compromises the integrity and flexibility of social movement organizations in their ability to challenge existing power structures. But the progressive transnational social movements should be prepared to work with progressive state governments in order to try to change the rules of the global economic order (Evans 2009, 2010). When social movement organizations become part of the problem rather than part of the solution, new less dependent or compromised social movement organizations can take up the struggle. Progressive transnational social movements should also be willing to work at the local level with city governments to implement progressive goals such as a universal basic income, as these cities can then serve as progressive examples (Wright 2010; Lowrey 2018; Van Parijs and Vanderborght 2017). This includes learning from cities in the Global South and applying lessons learned in the Global North. For instance, a universal basic income has been piloted in the twenty-first century in Kenya and Brazil and is now being introduced in Stockton (California) and Chicago. We agree with Paul Mason (2013) that the anti-utopianism of the Old Left and some in the New Left was somewhat misplaced.12 Prefiguration is a good idea. Sharing networks, coops, community banks, zero-emissions homes, farms, and industries are worthwhile endeavors for activists of the Global Left (Wallerstein 1998). But these local projects need to be linked and coordinated so that they can effectively contend in national and world politics.

Organizational Structure The idea of leaderless movements and organizations is an anarchist trope that has been critiqued by both Marxists (Epstein 2001) and feminists (Freeman 1972–73). Political organizations need to have institutionalized procedures for making decisions and ways to hold leadership accountable so that mistakes can be rectified. These requisites are not so important when the world-system is humming along with business as usual, but when systemic crises erupt, and powerful popular right-wing social movements and regimes emerge, leaderlessness becomes an unacceptable luxury. An alternative to Leninist “march-in-line” must be found. While the culture of the contemporary Global Left usually equates the idea of a political party with vanguard parties or electoral machines, there is a recent literature that argues that new forms of party organization are possible in the age of internet communication (Dean 2012, 2016; Carroll 2015).

12 We

doubt that Mason’s (2015) transitional program to postcapitalism, a global society in which wage labor has been replaced by the provision of free goods produced by networked machines, is a possibility for the next few decades, but we agree that this is a desirable goal for humanity.

928

R. Álvarez and C. Chase-Dunn

Wiki farms13 facilitate the formation of virtual organizations that combine the merits of open networks with leadership structures (data stewards) that allow groups to collectively author documents and to make group decisions (Wiki Organization n.d.). Horizontalism valorizes leaderlessness and informality, usually paired with consensual decision-making. Horizontalist organizations, also called “selforganization” (Prehofer and Bettstetter 2005) have several advantages: resilience (you can kill some of them but there is redundancy), flexibility, and adaptability, individual entities interact directly with one another, and there is no larger hierarchy that can be disrupted. These desirable characteristics are those that are stressed by advocates of horizontalist networks. But critics of horizontality point out that structurelessness does not prevent the emergence of informal structures among groups of friends, and participants that are not linked to these friendship nets have no mechanisms for regulating the power of the informal networks (Freeman 1972–73). Diagonalism combines horizontalism with a semi-centralized formal organizational structure that is itself democratic and flexible.14 A diagonal organization is a complex of horizontally connected individuals, small groups, and larger regional organizations with a decision-making structure by which groups can discuss and adopt policies and implement them. Hierarchies are as flat as is possible consistent with organizational capacity and composite groups may report to more than one leadership group.15 Leadership is rotational and maximizes opportunities for participatory democracy. Organizational bureaucracy is kept to a minimum, but legitimate representatives or delegates from horizontal groups make collective decisions and help to formulate policies and plan actions for the whole organization. Degrees of hierarchy can be flexible depending upon the nature of the task. High stakes, high-risk tasks usually require more hierarchy. Local groups can adjust their organizational structures, the context, and the nature of the task. The Vessel itself should maintain democratic and flexible decision-making and implementation structures. The Vessel is a diagonal network formed of project affinity groups and local communities that share the results of their experiments and constructions and coordinate with one another for political actions, included mass demonstrations, electoral campaigns, and mobilizations of support and contention. Diagonalism links horizontal networks of individuals and groups with a legitimate leadership structure composed of designated delegates, who are empowered to carry out the decisions of the organization that appoint them. Delegates make group decisions by means of both consensus and voting. Multiple organizations can represent communities and nations. The Council of the Vessel will be a compromise between horizontal leaderless and hierarchical command structures in which leadership is held by delegated individuals or groups. The Vessel will focus on the articulation of central issues 13 A wiki farm is a collection of wikis running on the same web server and sharing one parent wiki engine. 14 Hayson (2014: 48–520) outlines an agenda for building an organizational diagonalism that is intended to produce a useful compromise between anarchistic horizontalism and organizational hierarchy that makes leadership and accountability possible. 15 In management theory control structures with multiple reporting lines are called matrix organizations (Gottleib 2007).

48 Forging a Diagonal Instrument for the Global Left: The Vessel

929

and will formulate visions, strategies, and tactics for the Global Left. It will promote communication and collaboration among transnational, national, and local projects.16 The Vessel should not be a political party in the old sense, but it should be allowed, unlike the World Social Forum, to adopt resolutions and to support candidates and campaigns. It should have a designated structure composed of a chosen facilitating delegate council to coordinate collective decision-making and to deal with problems of security and communications.17 Existing progressive global organizations should be encouraged to join. Functions of the vessel and member organizations will vary depending upon circumstances, but he vessel level should specialize in the politics of international organizations and global issues, whereas the local, national, and world regional organizations can focus on those issues which are salient in their contexts.

Issues The main issues that we think should constitute the focus of the Vessel are the following: • • • • • • • • •

Human rights, Anti-racism, decolonization, indigenous rights; gender orientation, etc., Climate justice, Feminism, Sharing networks, Peace/anti-war alliances, Local and city-based progressive grassroots activism, Anti-corporate transnationalism (tax justice, etc.), and Democratic global governance.

The Vessel should also coordinate efforts to combat twenty-first-century fascism and right-wing populism and should encourage participation with and make alliances (united fronts; popular fronts) with NGOs and political parties that are willing to collaborate with these efforts.18

16 Digital organizations and the discourse on net governance make new forms of network organizations possible. Organizations need to be able to make decisions. This can be done hierarchically or by means of group voting or discussions, or various combinations of these. The Vessel will recognize both horizontal authority structures and allow subgroups to adopt the structures that they need. Organizations also need to specify their boundaries and protect themselves against those who would like to disrupt them, or worse. These jobs are best done by all active members, but it may be found necessary to delegate security jobs to individuals or subgroups. The best practices can be developed as things progress. 17 Forging the Vessel should be begun at a meeting held under the auspices of the World Social Forum in 2019. 18 This is list is a proposal for discussion. The development of a set of central issues should be among the first matters of discussion at the forging meetings.

930

R. Álvarez and C. Chase-Dunn

Human rights and anti-racism have been central in the network of movements participating in the social forum process (Fig. 1 above) Global Indigenism (Hall and Fenelon 2009; Chase-Dunn et al. 2019a, b) has been an increasingly important issue for the Global Left. The rights of colonized peoples, racial and ethnic minorities, indigenous peoples, and people with minority gender and sexual orientations are central to the inclusive concerns of the Global Left. The climate justice movement is already a collaborative project combining environmentalists with those who focus on the most vulnerable communities (Bond 2012; Foran 2018; Foran et al. 2017). Feminism has been one of the central movements in the social forum network of movements (Moghadam 2018). Sharing networks are a potentially potent tool for organizing postcapitalist institutions that can transform the logic of global capitalism (Mason 2013; Danaher and Gravitz 2017). The peace/anti-war movements need local and national mobilization against militarism (Benjamin 2013) as well as engagement with international governmental organizations in order to prevent the emergence of wars among core states in the coming multipolar world. The existing international political organizations are under attack from right-wing forces. The Vessel needs to advocate the strengthening and democratization of global governance institutions that can help keep the peace as humanity passes through the coming multipolar phase of inter-imperial rivalry and to move in the direction of an eventual democratic and collectively rational form of global governance. The take back of the city movement is an important venue for activists’ fight for social justice in both the Global North (Harvey 2012; Fasenfest 2018) and the Global South (Evans 2002; Davis 2006). Progressive nationalism is an important defensive tactic against the appropriation of nationalism by the right-wing populists and neo-fascists. For example, how could the national economy of the United States be reorganized to produce things needed abroad without destroying the environment and in a fashion that uses the skills of those who have been left out of neoliberal globalization? The deglobalizing world is reinventing nationalism as a response to the crises produced by the neoliberal globalization process. In many cases, this nationalism has verged into neo-fascism. The Global Left has been resolutely cosmopolitan and internationalist, but how could it engage the rising wave of nationalism to propose more cooperative relations with peoples abroad and with the Global South? The Vessel also needs to provide support help to formulate analyses and strategies for movements at the local and national levels, who are fighting against the rise of right-wing authoritarianism and the suppression of progressive popular movements.

Conclusion Rather than giving way to cynicism and resignation, the Global Left needs to face up to the setbacks that have occurred and devise a new strategy for moving humanity in a better direction. The next few decades will be chaotic, but the movements and institutions we build can make things better. Whether or not the big calamities all come

48 Forging a Diagonal Instrument for the Global Left: The Vessel

931

at once or sequentially, we need to pursue a strategy of “disaster postcapitalism”19 that plants the seeds of the future during the chaos. It is not the end, just another dark age, and an opportunity for transition to a much better world-system. The Vessel can take us there.

References Amin, Samir. 1990. Delinking: Towards a Polycentric World. London: Zed Books. Amin, Samir. 2008. Towards the Fifth International? In Global Political Parties, ed. Kat SehmPatomaki and Marko Ulvila, 123–143. London: Zed Books. Amin, Samir. 2018. Letter of Intent for an Inaugural Meeting of the International of Workers and Peoples. IDEAs Network, July 3. http://www.networkideas.org/featured-articles/2018/07/it-isimperative-to-reconstruct-the-internationale-of-workers-and-peoples/. Accessed 17 Sept 2018. Arrighi, Giovanni, T.K. Hopkins, and I. Wallerstein. 1989 [2012]. Antisystemic Movements. London: Verso. Bello, Walden. 2002. Deglobalization. London: Zed Books. Benjamin, Medea. 2013. Drone Warfare. London: Verso. Bond, Patrick. 2012. The Politics of Climate Justice: Paralysis Above, Movement Below. Durban, SA: University of Kwa-zulu Natal Press. Carroll, William K. 2015. Modes of Cognitive Praxis in Transnational Alternative Policy Groups. Globalizations 12 (5): 710–727. https://doi.org/10.1080/14747731.2014.1001231. Carroll, William K. 2016. Expose, Oppose, Propose: Alternative Policy Groups and the Struggle for Global Justice. New York: Zed. Chase-Dunn, C. 1999. Globalization: A World-Systems Perspective. Journal of World-Systems Research 5 (2): 187–215. Chase-Dunn, C., Yukio Kawano, and Benjamin Brewer. 2000. Trade Globalization Since 1795: Waves of Integration in the World-System. American Sociological Review 65 (1): 77–95. Chase-Dunn, C., and M. Kaneshiro. 2009. Stability and Change in the Contours of Alliances Among Movements in the Social Forum Process. In Engaging Social Justice, ed. David Fasenfest, 119– 133. Brill: Leiden. Chase-Dunn, C., E. Reese, M. Herkenrath, R. Giem, E. Gutierrez, L. Kim, and C. Petit. 2008. NorthSouth Contradictions and Bridges at the World Social Forum. In North and South in the World Political Economy, ed. R. Reuveny and W.R. Thompson, 341–366. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Chase-Dunn, C., A. Stäbler, I. Breckenridge-Jackson and J. Herrera. 2014. Articulating the web of transnational social movements. In Presented at the World Congress of Sociology in Yokohama. http://irows.ucr.edu/papers/irows84/irows84.htm. Accessed 17 July 2018. Chase-Dunn, C., A. Morosin, and A. Álvarez. 2015. Social Movements and Progressive Regimes in Latin America: World Revolutions and Semiperipheral Development. In Handbook of Social Movements Across Latin America, ed. P. Almeida and A. Cordero Ulate, 13–24. Dordrecht, NL: Springer. Chase-Dunn, C., J.S.K. Dudley and Peter Grimes. 2019a. The global right in the 20t and 21st Centuries. Special issue of the Canadian Sociological Review. Chase-Dunn, C., James Fenelon, Thomas D. Hall, Ian Breckenridge-Jackson and Joel Herrera. 2019b. Global Indigenism and the Web of Transnational Social Movements. In 2019 New Frontiers of Globalization Research: Theories, Globalization Processes, and Perspectives from the Global South, ed. Ino Rossi. Springer. Danaher, Kevin, and A. Gravitz (eds.). 2017. The Green Festival Reader. London: Routledge. Davis, Mike. 2006. Planet of Slums. London: Verso. 19 This

is a play on Klein’s (2007) idea of disaster capitalism.

932

R. Álvarez and C. Chase-Dunn

Dean, Jodi. 2012. The Communist Horizon. London: Verso. Dean, Jodi. 2016. Crowds and Party. London: Verso. Epstein, B. 2001. Anarchism and the Anti-globalization Movement. Monthly Review 53 (4): 1–14. Evans, Peter B. 2002. Livable Cities?: Urban Struggles for Livelihood and Sustainability. Berkeley: University of California Press. Evans, Peter B. 2009. From Situations of Dependency to Globalized Social Democracy. Studies in Comparative International Development 44: 318–336. Evans, Peter B. 2010. Is it Labor’s Turn to Globalize? Twenty-First Century Opportunities and Strategic Responses. Global Labour Journal 1 (3): 352–379. Fasenfest, David. 2018. Detroit and New Urban Repertoires: Imagining the Co-Operative City. Bristol, UK: Policy Press. Foran, John. 2018. Taking or (re) Making Power?: The New Movements for Radical Social Change and Global Justice. London: Zed Books. Foran, John, S. Gray, and C. Grosse. 2017. ‘Not Yet the End of the World’: Political Cultures of Opposition and Creation in the Global Youth Climate Justice Movement. Interface: A Journal for and About Social Movements 9 (2): 353–379. Freeden, Michael. 2003. Ideology: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Freeman, Jo. 1972–73. The Tyranny of Structuralessness. Berkeley Journal of Sociology 17: 151– 165. Gill, Stephen. 2000. Toward a Post-modern Prince?: The Battle of Seattle as a Moment in the New Politics of Globalization. Millennium 29 (1): 131–140. Gottleib, Marvin R. 2007. The Matrix Organization Reloaded. Westport, CT: Praeger. Hall, Thomas D., and J.V. Fenelon. 2009. Indigenous Peoples and Globalization: Resistance and Revitalization. Boulder, CO: Paradigm Press. Harvey, David. 2012. Rebel Cities: From the Right to the City to the Urban Revolution. London: Verso. Hayson, Keith. 2014. A Brief for Diagonalism - A Dialectical Take on David Graeber’s The Democracy Project. https://www.academia.edu/7289524/A_Brief_for_Diagonalism_-_A_Dial ectical_Take_on_David_Graebers_The_Democracy_Project. Klein, Naomi. 2007. The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. New York: Henry Holt. Hobsbawm, Eric J. 1994. The Age of Extremes: A History of the World, 1914–1991. New York: Pantheon. Hooks, Bell. 2014 [1984]. Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center, 3rd ed. New York: Routledge. Lowrey, A. 2018. Give People Money: How a Universal Basic Income Would End Poverty, Revolutionize Work, and Remake the World. New York, NY: Crown. Mason, Paul. 2013. Why It’s Still Kicking Off Everywhere: The New Global Revolutions. London: Verso. Mason, Paul. 2015. Postcapitalism. New York: Farrer, Straus and Giroux. Mestrum, F. 2017. Reinventing the World Social Forum: How Powerful an Idea Can Be. Open Democracy. https://opendemocracy.net/francine-mestrum/reinventing-world-social-forum-howpowerful-idea-can-be. Accessed 11 May 2018. Mestrum, F. 2018. The World Social Forum is dead! Long live the World Social Forum? Alternatives International. http://www.alterinter.org/spip.php?article4654. Accessed 20 May 2018. Meyer, John W. 2009. World Society: The Writings of John W. Meyer. New York: Oxford University Press. Michels, Robert. 1968 [1915]. Political Parties. New York: Simon and Schuster. Moghadam, Valentine M. 2005. Globalizing Women: Transnational Feminist Networks. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Moghadam, Valentine. M. 2018). Feminism and the Future of Revolutions. Socialism and Democracy 32 (1): 31–53. https://doi.org/10.1080/08854300.2018.1461749. Accessed 11 June 2018. Pleyers, Geoffrey. 2011. Alter-Globalization. Malden, MA: Polity Press.

48 Forging a Diagonal Instrument for the Global Left: The Vessel

933

Prehofer, C., and C. Bettstetter. 2005. Self-organization in Communication Networks: Principles and Design Paradigms. IEEE Communications Magazine 43 (7): 78–85. Reitan, Ruth. 2007. Global Activism. London: Routledge. Rodrik, Dani. 2018. Populism and the Economics of Globalization. Journal of International Business Policy. https://doi.org/10.1057/s42214-018-001-4. Sanbonmatsu, John. 2004. The Postmodern Prince. New York: Monthly Review Press. Sen, J., and M. Kumar, P. Bond, and P. Waterman. 2007. A Political Programme for the World Social Forum?: Democracy, Substance and Debate in the Bamako Appeal and the Global Justice Movements. Indian Institute for Critical Action: Centre in Movement (CACIM). New Delhi, India & the University of KwaZulu-Natal Centre for Civil Society (CCS), Durban, South Africa. Sharzer, Greg. 2012. Nolocal: Why Small-Scale Alternatives Will Not Change the World. Aireford, Hants, UK: Zero Books. Sharzer, Greg. 2017. Cooperatives as Transitional Economics. Review of Radical Political Economics 49 (3): 456–476. https://doi.org/10.1177/0486613415627154. Accessed 1 Dec 2018. Standing, Guy. 2014. A Precariat Charter: From Denizens to Citizens. London: Bloomsbury. Starr, Amory. 2000. Naming the Enemy: Anti-corporate Movements Confront Globalization. London: Zed Books. Steger, Manfred, J. Goodman, and E.K. Wilson. 2013. Justice Globalism: Ideology, Crises, Policy. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Van Parijs, P., and Y. Vanderborght. 2017. Basic Income: A Radical Proposal for a Free Society and a Sane Economy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Wagar, W.Warren. 1992. A Short History of the Future. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Wallerstein, Immanuel. 1998. Utopistics: Or Historical Choices of the Twenty-First Century. New York: New Press. Wallerstein, Immanuel. 2007. The World Social Forum: From Defense to Offense. http://www.soc iologistswithoutborders.org/documents/WallersteinCommentary.pdf. Waterman, Peter. 2006. Toward a global labour charter for the 21st century. https://laborstrategies. blogs.com/global_labor_strategies/global_unionism/page/4/. Accessed 1 May 2018. World Bank. 2018. World Development Indicators. Washington DC: World Bank. http:// databank.worldbank.org/data/reports.aspx?source=world-development-indicators. Accessed 26 June 2018. World Social Forum Charter of Principles. 2001. http://www.universidadepopular.org/site/media/ documentos/WSF_-_charter_of_Principles.pdf. Accessed 1 May 2018. Wright, Erik O. 2010. Envisioning Real Utopias. London: Verso. Youngs, Richard. 2017. What are the meanings behind the worldwide rise in protest? openDemocracy, October. https://www.opendemocracy.net/protest/multiple-meanings-global-protest. Accessed 1 Dec 2018.

Rebecca Álvarez is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at New Mexico Highlands University. Her work focuses on the structural factors that precipitate mob violence against women. She is the author of the forthcoming book Vigilante Gender Violence: Social Class, The Gender Bargain, and Mob Attacks on Women Worldwide (Routledge, 2021). Christopher Chase-Dunn is a Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Director of the Institute for Research on World-Systems at the University of California, Riverside, USA. He is the author of Rise and Demise: Comparing World-Systems (with Thomas D. Hall), and Social Change: Globalization from the Stone Age to the Present (with Bruce Lerro). He is the founder and former editor of the Journal of World-Systems Research. Chase-Dunn is currently doing research on transnational social movements. He also studies the rise and fall of settlements and politics since the Stone Age and global state formation.

Chapter 49

Alternatives to Neoliberal Globalization Vishwas Satgar

Abstract Neoliberalism is a class project that displaced social democracy, defeated revolutionary nationalism in the Global South and prevailed over the failed Soviet second world. This chapter seeks to understand the material power that has constructed and reproduced the neoliberal class project. Such an analysis highlights that capital’s power such as structural, direct, discursive, constitutional, and imperial creates the conditions for neoliberalism to persist despite its failures, limits, and crises. At the same time, neoliberalism has engendered variegated and widespread resistance. This chapter focuses on the forms of resistance to the neoliberal class project that seeks to advance emancipatory alternatives. Religious fundamentalism and ethno-nationalist responses do not form part of the purview of this chapter. Moreover, this chapter provides an analytical lens to conceptually situate historical capitalism, conjunctures, and forms of counter-hegemonic resistance—both defensive and offensive. A typology of counter-hegemonic resistance is provided as part of three cycles of counter-hegemonic resistance to neoliberalism. More concretely, the article provides a case study, in each of these cycles, of alternatives being pursued. This includes a focus on water wars and constitutionalism in Bolivia (2000) (counterhegemonic deglobalization), climate jobs campaigning (2011–the present) (systemic alternative) and #feesmustfall (2015–2017) (anti-commodification).

Introduction For more than three decades, neoliberal globalization has been resisted but yet it has not disappeared and still holds sway as a class project of finance and transnationalizing capital. At the same time, the forms of resistance challenging neoliberal globalization have been variegated, sometimes episodic and generally seem like disjointed flashpoints. This chapter seeks to give analytical coherence to the forms of resistance against neoliberal globalization and the alternatives that have been championed. The V. Satgar (B) International Relations Department, University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 I. Rossi (ed.), Challenges of Globalization and Prospects for an Inter-civilizational World Order, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44058-9_49

935

936

V. Satgar

starting point for this chapter is recognizing the internal contradictions of a crisisridden neoliberal globalization project, which is at the same time being constituted and advanced by material forms of power centered on corporations and the US state. Despite financialized booms and busts marking the history of neoliberalism and deeper systemic instability due to the power of finance, as witnessed between 2007 and 2009 in the US and globally, crisis has been institutionalized within the global political economy. The forms of class power buttressing and reproducing neoliberal globalization need to be understood in order to appreciate the challenges confronting alternatives to neoliberal globalization. Moreover, this chapter explores and elaborates on a Marxist and Neo-Gramscian approach to global resistance and the alternatives being championed as part of these struggles. While recognizing the labor–capital dialectic in Marx and Gramsci’s emphasis on aggregating power on the terrain of civil society, these theoretical approaches are developed further to locate resistance conjuncturally (in relation to the neoliberal class project) and within cycles of resistance. In a sense, a broader optic is developed to understand the agency of contemporary resistance while also being more historically specific. This chapter delineates forms of counter-hegemonic resistance to neoliberal globalization. Such an analysis demonstrates that struggles are occurring on a wide range of fronts and are imbricated in challenging various contradictions of contemporary capitalism thus affirming a post-neoliberal imagination that is anti-capitalist and transformative. Counter-hegemonic resistances, while affirming crucial alternative possibilities and pathways, are still contingent. They are in the process of being realized and have been expressed through three cycles of resistance, over the past three decades, that have not been able to displace neoliberal globalization on a global scale. Instead, inequality and climate crises are worsening. Moreover, right-wing forces part of ethno-nationalist movements, religious fundamentalist forces, pro-neoliberal parties, and authoritarian societies are also contesting to shape the direction of the crisisridden neoliberal global political economy in the current conjuncture. Finally, this chapter concludes by situating the limits and challenges facing transformative alternatives. As counter-hegemonic class projects, new horizons of thinking have been opened up, together with capacities and political practices. However, the challenge of capitalist class power reproducing neoliberal globalization still remains, albeit being contested at this moment in history by a broader array of right-wing forces.

Neoliberalisms and Class Power The history of neoliberalism reveals it to be more than a set of ideas about championing markets. Instead, it is a capitalist class project seeking to remake the global economy through restructuring the state, national economy, state–civil society relations, ecological relations, and international relations. It has impacted on both the center and peripheries of the global capitalism. The question of how it became a class project remaking the global political economy has given rise to various explanatory

49 Alternatives to Neoliberal Globalization

937

approaches. For some analysts, it was a mental model that diffused to different parts of the world from the centers (Roy et al. 2007). Klein (2007) argues the ascendance of neoliberalism has to do with the advent of disaster capitalism. This means a capitalism introduced in the context of coups, climate shocks, wars, and deepening economic crisis. Disaster capitalism harnesses a “shock and awe” approach to imposing an inherently unstable form of financialized capitalism. For other analysts, neoliberalism as a class project reflected a conjunctural shift in which capitalist class power was being remade.1 This was informed by the overaccumulation crisis of the early 1970s, the end of the gold standard, the emergence of OPEC, the call for a New International Economic Order by newly independent states in the Global South and the vicissitudes of the Cold War, including the rise of military dictatorships like in Chile, the ascendance of Reagan and Thatcher in the 1980s, and the fall of the Soviet Union. In this conjuncture, the rise of neoliberalism as a class project remade the global political economy such that the twentieth-century left projects and imaginations were completely defeated. Besides Sovietized socialism (and all its copies), social democracy and revolutionary nationalism were also pushed back. The Fordist mode of accumulation gave way to a globalized, flexible, and a post-Fordist mode. The division of labor was remade and trade union power has been increasingly undermined through precariatization. State–civil society relations have also been remade in the context of structurally adjusting societies to the imperatives of transnationalizing capital. For the US, this has meant globalizing the power of the dollar-wall street regime and remaking finance as a crucial coefficient of US imperial power (Gowan 1999). In this context, neoliberalism has taken on various meanings and valences in different institutional settings. Within the IMF and World Bank, for instance, neoliberalism went through various iterations from debt-based adjustment in the 1980s and 1990s, to post-2000 approaches centered on “good governed states” and poverty reduction approaches. This is different from the competitiveness-centered neoliberalism of the World Economic Forum, for instance (Carrol and Carson 2006). Moreover, in national contexts neoliberalism has been mutating and articulating with national ideologies in complex ways. Neoliberalism has had to speak in local vernaculars, drawing on local political traditions, while affirming its core ideological tenets to achieve deep globalization. In South Africa, this has certainly been the case with the ruling ANC talking the language of “National Democratic Revolution” while implementing neoliberal structural reforms, consistently over the past two decades. Essentially, neoliberalism can only be understood in the plural as neoliberalisms and it is a class project to achieve the deep globalization of societies while reproducing the power of transnational capital and the US imperial state. Below is an attempt to map various forms of neoliberal class power at work in advancing neoliberalism as a class project. These forms of power work through social forces and are expressed through political and ideological practices (Table 1). 1 There

is a vast body of the literature affirming this analytical approach. See Plehwe et al. (2006), Leys (2008) and Gill and Cutler (2014). [Editor’s note: Jonathan Friedman’s paper in this volume shares this view].

938

V. Satgar

Table 1 Typology of neoliberal power Forms of capital’s class power

Social forces constituting forms of class power

Political and ideological practice

Structural power

Corporations, multilateral institutions

Use of market power, global mobility, and regulatory standards

Direct power

Super lobbies, business organizations

Financial influence on policy, politicians, and parties

Discursive power

Think-tanks, sections of the media, academics, social media

Legitimizes neoliberal discourses and ideas, while also constructing counter-narratives to alternatives

Constitutional power

Political parties, judiciaries, technocrats in the state

Treaties, new constitutions, and laws that reshape the role and functions of the state in keeping with marketisation

Imperial power

US State and its allies

Diplomacy, standard-setting, coercive power (through coups and military interventions) and active undermining of alternatives

Power in a capitalist society is relational and is constituted in the capital–labor relationship. Power does not automatically grow out of capital’s ownership of material resources. Instead, capital uses its ownership of material resources to constitute power through various social practices. Empirically, there are five forms of capitalist class power reproducing neoliberal globalization.2 These forms of power have remade national, regional, and global political economies. Put differently, states, accumulation strategies, state–civil society relations, and international relations have been remade to incorporate the financial- and market-centered imperatives of neoliberal globalization. Various social forces, from corporations, multilateral institutions, business organizations, political parties, judiciaries, technocrats, the US-state, and its allies have all played a role in advancing financialized market reforms while undermining any alternatives that threaten this class project. The first form of constituted class power is structural power. This relates to the control corporations have of market share, value chains, and their global mobility. This gives transnational corporations leverage over states to bargain conditions and terms for investments. Regulatory standards set by multilateral institutions also ensure property relations and risk to capital is always mitigated. For instance, intellectual property rights regimes promoted through the World Trade Organization. The second form of constituted class power can be termed direct power. This entails the use of finance to buy out policy agenda’s through enlisting political support 2 Gill

(2003: 93–108), a neo-Gramscian theorist, develops in his work the idea of structural and direct power of capital. Much later with Cutler (2014) he introduces constitutional power. I expand on this to include discursive and imperial power.

49 Alternatives to Neoliberal Globalization

939

through politicians and parties. For instance, in the United States super lobbies, bringing together the power of big corporations in particular sectors of the economy, to shape various policies in pharmaceuticals, food, finance, and military. This skews decision-making and resource allocations. The third form of constituted class power is discursive power. Discursive power has been about building capacities to shape narratives and discourses that legitimate neoliberal globalization and concomitant reforms as solutions to national economic challenges, while at the same time, discrediting alternatives. The role of think-tanks, sections of the media, academics, and social media has been central in this regard (Carroll and Carson 2006). A good example is the World Economic Forum (WEF), made up of the thousand most powerful corporations in the world. The WEF is also a think-tank for transnational capital and its knowledge tools such as its Competitiveness Reports or its Davos forum deliberations are constantly transmitted into global public spheres. Its discourses are framed as in the interest of the global and national economies. The fourth form of constituted class power is about constitutionalizing the legal arrangements that lock in and deepen neoliberal market reforms. New constitutions part of the third democratization wave, since 1974, have locked in the independence of the Reserve Bank of most countries to manage inflation targeting as the core of monetary policy, for instance. Regional treaties like the Lisbon Treaty have been crucial in locking in neoliberal reforms within the contemporary European Union (EU). This has had serious implications for the redistribution of power between European states and the EU. The fifth form of constituted power is imperial power wielded through the most powerful capitalist state in the interstate system, the US state (Soederberg 2004), and its allies. This has entrenched and secured the reproduction of neoliberal globalization as a class project. The US as the dominant capitalist state has effectively utilized various coefficients of power to reproduce the “Washington consensus” since the end of the Cold War. For countries like Venezuela, championing twenty-first-century socialism, the US has actively supported a coup against one of its democratically elected Presidents in 2002 and it has continued to try to destabilize Venezuela (Wilpert 2007). In counterfactual terms, if these five forms of class power were not constituted then the neoliberal class project cannot be reproduced. These forms of power have enabled and facilitated the neoliberal class project, despite its failures as expressed through inequality, unemployment, underdevelopment, climate crisis, and precariatization.

Historical Capitalism, Conjunctures, and Counter-Hegemonic Resistance Capitalism is a historical system or civilization. While thinkers like Marx have understood capitalism in terms of its abstract “laws of accumulation”, historical capitalism has been shaped by different dynamics in different historical periods. What follows

940

V. Satgar

is a periodization of capitalist civilization (Satgar 2015: 28–29). Each of the stages of historical capitalism delineated here can be further delineated into conjunctures and phases based on historical, political, geographic, and economic contingencies. Conjunctures and phases shape these stages of capitalism and will be elaborated on further below. For our immediate purposes, the important point relates to the making and existence of capitalist civilization and more specifically recognition that this takes place through particular non-teleological historical stages. Capitalist civilization has been constituted over the past five hundred years and has been marked by three major historical stages that include developments in the forms of imperial power, technological development, ideational shifts, and struggles from below: (1) Mercantile accumulation (1400s–1800s) involved a prototype of capitalism linked to slavery, colonial conquest, trade, and exchange. Sea-based expansion takes off in this period, supported through merchant capital and empires such as the Spanish, Dutch, and British. The Reformation happens in Europe which challenges the control of the Roman Catholic Church, the Dutch Revolution (1566– 1609), English Revolution (1637–60), and the Enlightenment (c.1650–1800) all shape this stage of expansion; (2) Monopoly industrial accumulation (c.1750s–1980) involved struggles against land enclosures, technological innovation such as the steam engine, the emergence of factories, and increasing concentration and centralization of capital. Colonial expansion continued but was also rolled back by the American Revolution (1775–83), the Slave Revolution in Haiti (1791–1804), and the “Bolivarian Revolutions” (1810–30) against Spanish rule in South America. The French Revolution (1789–94) also shakes up the heartlands of capitalism. Mid-Victorian competitive capitalism gives way to national monopolies. The Italian nation state is founded (1859–70), Germany is unified (1864–71), the American Civil War (1861–65), the Paris Commune (1871), the ‘Scramble for Africa’ (1870– 1914) and the ‘first Great Depression’ (1873–96) happen. National monopolies displace competition into national rivalries. The period sees World War I (1914– 18), the “second Great Depression” (1929–41), World War II (1939–45), and the end of British hegemony and the Ottoman Empire. The Mexican Revolution (1910–20) and a wave of socialist revolutions including Russia (1917), China (1949), and Cuba (1959) and national liberation struggles shape the peripheries. US-centered hegemony, the Cold War (1947–91), Fordism, the Keynesian welfare state, and the end of colonialism also determine the character of this stage; (3) Transnational techno-financial accumulation (1973 to the present) emerges as social democracy reaches its limits and stagflation kicks in (1973); there is a wave of struggle (1968–75) in Western Europe, Prague, and the US. The US suffers a defeat in Vietnam and the Nicaraguan revolution (1979) takes place. There is a shift to containerization, information, and communications technology, post-Fordism, and global financialized restructuring. Transnational class structures emerge, the Cold War ends, formal political apartheid ends in

49 Alternatives to Neoliberal Globalization

941

South Africa (1996), democratization sweeps through Africa, parts of Asia, Latin America, and the former Soviet Union, while US hegemony is tenuous but increasingly centered on financialized expansion and military power. Power is increasingly diffused with the rise of regional state-society complexes such as China and Russia and since 9/11 the war on terror expands. Global rivalries come to the fore in this phase as systemic crisis tendencies deepen. Antineoliberal and anti-“globalization” movements emerge as central to rolling back neoliberalization and saving planetary life. In the twentieth century, the dominant form of social-democratic capitalism, in the west, was organized through a social contract encompassing the welfare state, Fordist accumulation, and mass consumption. Imperial power also buttressed this class project. Moreover, social democracy as a class project defined a conjuncture for Western democracies. This meant social and political forces in these societies operated within a consensus to manage and lead these societies to achieve the values, goals, and institutional basis of these class projects. Economic, political, and military relations of force were conditioned by these class projects; social democracy was a terrain of struggle for social forces. In this context, hegemonic and counterhegemonic struggles emerged, based on the building of class and social alliances, within rival historic blocs. Hegemony was never permanent and democratic conditions allowed for rivalries. This also meant that each conjuncture, with its own class project, went through various phases. Social democracy in the West as a class project lasted for about 3 decades since post- World War II and was contested by socialists, liberals, and communists, each bringing different class and social interests to the fore to shape social democracy. In the end, social democracy was co-opted by neoliberalism. Neoliberalism emerged as a hegemonic class project through the political ascendance of Reagan and Thatcher in the 1980s (Gallas 2016). They valorized possessive individualism (for Thatcher society was over), competition, and the power of markets. A program of social engineering was unleashed, which destroyed the main ideological planks of social democracy. The neoliberal conjuncture in turn has been through various phases and defining moments of struggle. The first phase (1980–1990) was marked by the hegemonic response of neoliberalism to the economic crisis. Unions were pushed back in the US and the UK, revolutionary nationalisms in the periphery’s were defeated through debt-based financing and the Cold War arms race was used effectively to outspend the Soviet Bloc and bankrupt it. The second phase (1990– 2007) ensured the deepening and expansion of liberalized financial markets, the ‘Washington consensus’ was exported with post-Cold War triumphalism as the “end of history” and through shock therapy in places like Russia, social democracy was completely co-opted as “Third Way” neoliberalism, neoliberal crisis management was used to open up economies in Asia, free trade areas expanded, and poverty reduction, “good governance” agendas and the Millennium Development goals became central to modest redistributive efforts to ensure trickle down from above in countries of the global south. The third phase (2007-present) is characterized by a general crisis and stagnation. Bailouts for banks and finance institutions maintained the power of

942

V. Satgar

finance, austerity measures kicked in to pass on costs of the crisis to workers and the poor, inequality and precariousness has led to major fault-lines in neoliberal Europe including the British decision to leave the European Union through BREXIT, the rise of ethno-nationalist movements, racist border regimes, and authoritarian politics in various countries. Neo-fascism is on the rise in the world which is still committed to neoliberal capitalism. Counter-hegemonic resistance to neoliberalism has been both defensive and offensive. This is for two reasons. First, neoliberalism, as a class project, has been about ensuring the state, economy, society, and ecological relations are subsumed by the market. The role of capital to organize all these spheres has been enabled by the power of capital. This means the commodifying logic of neoliberal capitalism has no limits. Defending the gains of the welfare state or decent work has been crucial defensive struggles to place limits on neoliberal capitalism. As a result, these struggles have also been about defending alternatives. Second, neoliberalization, as a process of marketizing everything, has engendered new contradictions as a crisis-ridden neoliberalism has pressed ahead. Many of these contradictions cannot be resolved by neoliberalism as they are central to its reproduction. Inequality and climate change are two crucial examples. This, in turn, has enabled more offensive struggles to emerge to advance counter-hegemonic alternatives.

Forms of Counter-Hegemonic Resistance and Alternatives See Table 2. Counter-hegemonic resistance to neoliberal globalization has expressed itself around various contradictions within the financialized form of capitalism engendered. This has happened at different levels of the global political economy, sometimes in national, regional, or global spaces.3 Moreover, different forms of social agency have to come to the fore ranging from movements, communities, activist groups, policy NGOs, public intellectuals, trade unions, and even governments. Some have transnational, cross-country, or just international reach. The types of alternatives that have emerged are shaped by the contradiction being confronted. In the case of defensive struggles against neoliberal power, alternatives have been more about defending gains made historically. For example, anti-commodification struggles have been about defending public goods like health, education, and welfare. Gender oppression has led to affirming rights against discrimination, for instance. Anti-exploitation struggles have confronted precarious work with demands to affirm worker rights and descent work. Offensive struggles against neoliberal class power have engendered systemic alternatives from below and above. From below, social forces have championed pathways for solidarity economies, food sovereignty, energy 3 There

is a vast literature on the agentic forces, resistance practices, levels of contestation, and alternatives that have been championed. See Houtart and Polet (2001), Fisher and Ponniah (2003), Cavanagh and Mander (2004) and Carroll and Sarker (2016).

49 Alternatives to Neoliberal Globalization

943

Table 2 Counter-Hegemonic Resistance and Alternatives Form of resistance

Social forces

Alternatives to neoliberalism

Anti-commodification

Movements, communities, activist groups, policy NGOs

Public goods, defense of the commons and peoples land

Anti-oppression

Communities, movements, activist groups, policy NGOs, public intellectuals, trade unions

Anti- discrimination, solidarity, affirming rights, recognize unpaid labor, gender consciousness, economic inclusion

Anti-exploitation

Trade unions, worker committees, activist groups, policy NGOs

Descent work, insourcing, worker rights

Anti-extractivism

Communities, cross country networks, movements, activist groups, policy NGOs

No to mining, ‘keep the coal and fossil fuel in the ground’, divestment, polluter pays

Confronting global power

Movements, transnational networks, activist groups, international policy NGOs, public intellectuals

Reform of multilateral institutions, scrap debt, development not free trade

Advancing deep just transitions through systemic alternatives

Community organizations, Food sovereignty, solidarity networks, movements, trade economy, climate jobs, basic unions, policy NGOS, parties income grant, socially owned renewable energy, clean energy public transport systems

Counter-hegemonic deglobalization/delinking

Governments, parties, alliances, movements, policy NGOs, communities, public intellectuals

Reclaim sovereignty, alternative accumulation models, new regional blocs, and deep democracy

democracy, clean energy public transport systems, and more as part of system change in the context of the climate crisis. These systemic alternatives are about advancing a deep just transition to sustain life in the context of the climate crisis. On the other hand, some offensive struggles from above constituted fully fledged class projects in opposition to the neoliberal class project. This has entailed rejecting deep globalization while managing relations with global capitalism on the terms of national and regional interests. Venezuela’s rejection of the Free Trade Area of the Americas, an extension of NAFTA, is one example. At the same time, the increasing role of Mercursor and ALBA in defining regionalization in opposition to the free trade model of NAFTA are also instructive.

944

V. Satgar

Three Cycles of Counter-Hegemonic Resistance and Alternatives

Conjunctural Cycles of Counter-Hegemonic Resistance Cycle 2

Cycle 3

Protest AcƟvity*

Cycle 1

1989

2001

2011

Present

Key Moments of Conjunctural Resistance *This verƟcal axis is depicƟng an increase and decrease relaƟve to the previous period. It is not depicƟng absolute numbers nor is it suggesƟng peaks and troughs are equivalent in numbers, but is rather demonstraƟng cycles.

Counter-hegemonic struggles are forms of resistance that have to be understood as part of cycles of resistance. While individual struggles are important, whether defensive or offensive, such struggles need to be located in a larger framework of understanding resistance. Generally, counter-hegemonic struggles are given a national or particular salience. However, as part of confronting neoliberal globalization, over three decades, certain struggles have shaped the conjuncture. This means such struggles have given momentum to political forces and have shifted relations of force to some extent against capital, have inspired other struggles, incited a broader imagination, and have laid the basis for political capacities to be developed for more transformation.

Cycle 1: 1989–2001 The first cycle of resistance begins with the “Caracazo” in Venezuela in 1989, which was against the imposition of an IMF-led structural adjustment program, particularly increases in the price of gasoline and transport (Robertson 2014). Hundreds were killed in the week of mass protests. In this context, Hugo Chavez emerges as a coup leader. The rise of the Zapatista’s in 1994 against the North American Free Trade Agreement, and their declaration of war against the Mexican state, heralded the emergence of a movement that was willing to consider armed struggle defensively to protect land and ensure indigenous control of local resources (Collier and Quarateillo

49 Alternatives to Neoliberal Globalization

945

2005). The Zapatista’s have gone on to also use civil resistance tactics creatively. In 1996, in Kerala, India, the left in power decentralized 40% of the provincial state budget, as part of the Peoples Campaign for Democratic Decentralization and laid the basis for a participatory form of local governance (Parayil 2000). In the same year, indigenous movements in Ecuador also openly challenged and created a crisis for the neoliberal state. In South Africa, in 1998, the Treatment Action Campaign succeeded in securing HIV treatment to prevent mother to child transmission and secured a legal victory to compel the South African state to decommodify aids drugs and produce generics. This was a challenge for global pharmaceutical corporations. The rise of transnational activism makes its mark in 1999 when Seattle became the theater of mass street protests against the newly formed World Trade Organization and its liberalizing approach to global trade (Mertes 2004). In the same year “water wars” begin in Bolivia against a transnational and privatized control. This struggle has dramatic consequences for the realignment of forces in Bolivia, particularly the indigenous movement. In 2001 Argentina’s economy collapses, after two decades of intense neoliberalization, mass street politics bring down several governments while workers take over stressed or abandoned factories, neighborhood assemblies emerge and new movements of the unemployed also shape pathways for alternatives (Starr 2005).

Case Study From “Water Wars” to a New Constitution for Bolivia (2000) (Counter-Hegemonic Deglobalization) Bolivia has a long history of left resistance and mass politics. In the twentieth century, this was marked by a programmatic and strategic politics centered on class, nation, and much later democracy. Underpinning this was the power of organized workers in trade unions, who in turn, provided programmatic support to left parties that represented their interests. Nationalization and land reform have been crucial ideological pillars of the left project. At the same time, Bolivia has a majority indigenous population, which has never ruled their society since colonialism. However, from the 1980s this began to change as indigenous peasant farmers and communities started to organize their own mass organizations. Bolivia also experienced rampant neoliberalization and indigenous resistance was crucial against this. One of the most iconic and decisive battles was against the privatization of a water utility in the city of Cochabamba, in 2000 (Dangl 2007). Famously, this is also known as the “water war”. This struggle was waged by an amalgam of democratic mass forces, brought together by the Coordinator for the Defense of Water and Life. This coalition married forms of networked and direct democracy amongst various social forces. The struggles that ensued against Bechtel, a US transnational, given a contract by the Bolivian government to privatize the water system, led to a reversal of this arrangement. The mass mobilization and pressure from this also realigned political forces in Bolivia and gave momentum

946

V. Satgar

for the organizations in this struggle to demand a Constituent Assembly to secure a constitution that affirmed direct and representative democracy. While the story of Bolivia does not end here, it does reveal how democratic mass agency can defend vital resources central to the needs of a society against neoliberal commodification. However, in the Bolivian case the rise of the Movement for Socialism and Evo Morales, to the Presidency, in 2005 threw up many challenges. First, the space for independent mass organizing. Second, the disabling effect of state-centric practices through a post-neoliberal state. Third, the challenge of keeping democratic practices alive.

Cycle 2: 2001–2011 The formation of the World Social Forum in 2001 gave a major boost to transnational activism (Fisher and Ponniah 2003). It provided a space for the solidarity of national and transnational social movements and advanced an emancipatory utopian imagination that strengthened various systemic alternatives to neoliberal globalization and affirmed an alter globalization practice in various national contexts. At the same time, various left and center-left governments were elected into power in different countries in Latin America (Brazil, Venezuela, Bolivia, Uruguay, for instance) and this inaugurated what has been termed the “pink tide” (Sader 2011). These governments were not united in their approach to resisting neoliberalism but where certainly wanting to affirm national and regional development priorities. For Brazil’s PT government, this was about a “neo-developmentalism” that included more redistributive reforms, active industrial policy, limited land reform while maintaining a globalized posture. For Venezuela’s government, this was about a break with neoliberalism and the advance of a twenty-first-century socialism. In 2003, based on the momentum developed by the solidarity economy network in Brazil, the Brazilian Forum for Solidarity Economy was established. Together, with the Secretariat for the Solidarity Economy in government, Brazil began trailblazing a new way forward for self-managed and democratic enterprises to achieve a structural space of their own in the Brazilian economy. Another crucial systemic alternative championed by La Via Campesina gained further momentum with the adoption of the Nyeleni Declaration of 2007, by 500 delegates from 80 countries, who committed to advancing food sovereignty. This is an alternative to food security and corporate control of food systems. The year 2009 intensified protests against the financial crisis in Iceland, also referred to as the “pots and pans revolution”. This leads to the largest protests in Icelandic history, the fall of a right-wing government and eventually lead to a new constitution. Given the deepening crisis of climate change multilateral negotiations, with Obama hijacking the process in Copenhagen and shifting more countries to a pledge and review approach, Bolivia hosted the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth, in April 2010. This catalyzed the climate justice movement, affirmed the patriarchal nature of climate injustice, and provided a platform

49 Alternatives to Neoliberal Globalization

947

for various systemic alternatives to be championed. Bolivia attempted to lock in industrialized countries into a climate debt framework to legally compel them to bring down their emissions, while affirming the rights of mother earth for all living creatures. In 2010 several movements came to the fore in the uprisings in Arab and North African countries (Hanieh 2013).

Case Study: Climate Jobs (2001) (Systemic Alternative) The one million climate jobs campaign emerged out of the organizing efforts of 8 trade unions in the United Kingdom. As a campaign, there was a strong realization about the need to connect the climate crisis to the challenge of high levels of unemployment, particularly amongst youth. The proposal envisaged the decarbonization of work through renewable energy, efforts to increase the energy efficiency of homes and public buildings by insulating them, the implementation of cheap, clean, public transport, and the development of “green skills” through training programs. The research agenda of the campaign has scanned and mapped the carbon-based sectors of the UK economy and has tried to demonstrate alternative pathways for climate jobs. The first research report was published in 2009 and a more recent report has been put out in 2014. For trade unions, this has entailed having discussions about the science of climate change, the challenges of a heating world and thinking about practical solutions like climate jobs. Union structures have also been invited to adopt motions in support of the campaign. The campaign platform has grown to also tackle fossil fuel extraction, disinvestment, and aviation. For trade unions, this has placed them at the center of climate justice struggles. The campaign had its first event, a protest against Bush’s rejection of the Kyoto protocol in 2001, and since 2005 they have held an annual march for Climate. Moreover, the campaign for climate jobs was then embraced by South Africa in 2011 by an environmental, labor, and social movements coalition. A similar process of research, trade union education, and public engagement has emerged in South Africa (Ashley, 2018). In short, the climate jobs alternative is about descent work, while seeking to bring down carbon emissions and address the climate crisis as part of the deep just transition. It is an idea whose time has come, but is plagued by one big challenge. This relates to winning government support, resources, and policy commitment to roll out climate jobs.

Cycle 3: 2011 to the Present The year 2011 witnessed a massive upsurge of mass resistance against authoritarian and neoliberal regimes in the Arab world. Some have referred to this as the “Arab Spring”. Assemblies in Tahrir Square, in Egypt, also had a knock-on effect globally

948

V. Satgar

(Mason 2012). In Spain, the Indignados (also known as the anti-austerity movement), grew out of various youth and social networks and occupied squares in Spain from May 15 (Della Porta 2015). They challenged the high unemployment rates and precariousness amongst youth in a crisis-ridden Spanish economy. This struggle also spawned a left party, PODEMOS, which contributed to the end of two-party control in the Spanish political system. In April in India, an anti-corruption movement rose using nonviolent tactics like fasts and demanded reforms to give citizens more power to hold government officials accountable. Systemic corruption in India needed to be confronted with greater transparency, accountable, and citizens power. The civil resistance of this movement, rolled on for months, even into 2012. Coming out of this movement was the formation of the Common Person’s Party. In September 2011, the Occupy Wall Street movement took off in Zuccotti Park (Chomsky 2012). This occupation garnered symbolic power against the power of finance on Wall Street. After the Zuccotti Park Assembly was shut down by the authorities in early November, #Occupy gained expression in local struggles against foreclosure, student debt and continued to challenge banks and corporations. The meme: we are the 99% versus the 1%, was globalized and drew attention to the deep inequalities in the US and globally. In South Africa, the climate justice movement, gathered in the Peoples Space, alongside the UN-COP17, also made a compelling case for system change. Moreover, the crisis of multilateral negotiations, the commitment to false solutions, and the lack of systemic alternatives where confirmed in this COP. Climate Justice forces increasingly were looking to national spaces to advance deep just transitions. Continued state violence against African-American’s and systemic racism gave rise to the #BlackLivesMatter (BLM) network in 2013. BLM is considered the new civil rights movement in the US. Powerful student protests rocked South Africa in 2015 with demands for decolonization, decommodification, and #insourcing. The Dakota Access Pipeline project, with its ambitions to move fossil fuels across various communities, evoked massive grassroots resistance. The Standing Rock Sioux community established an encampment, in April 2016, as a point of convergence of resistance, attracting thousands of supporters. Standing Rock has become an iconic struggle of indigenous peoples struggling against ecocidal fossil capital in different parts of the Americas. On June 23, 2016, an overwhelming majority of British citizens chose to leave the European Union. This has come to be known as #BREXIT. It is generally understood as a deeply nationalist response to a failed project of neoliberal regionalization. However, in the complex cauldron of UK politics, the British Labour Party is going through a grassroots-driven resurgence led by left leader Jeremy Corbyn. Across the Atlantic, Bernie Sanders has continued to build a “new deal” style movement within US society.

49 Alternatives to Neoliberal Globalization

949

Case Study: #FeesMustFall (2015–2017) (Anti-commodification) The #FeesMustFall protests in South Africa took off in October of 2015 (Booysen 2016). This was preceded by decades of financial exclusions at universities in South Africa as a result of creeping cuts in state funding. Neoliberal macroeconomic management put a massive squeeze on universities, such that cost-cutting and fee-based financing became central to how universities functioned. The protests demanded free and quality education, insourcing of outsourced workers, and epistemological decolonization. On the latter demand, students wanted an education that spoke to the realities of their societies and drew on thinkers, theories, and disciplinary knowledge informed by South African society. After three years of struggle, the #FeesMustFall movement successfully secured insourcing of university service staff at some universities, like the University of Witwatersrand, a declaration by the national government that free higher education would be introduced and major decolonizing initiatives at numerous universities around curriculum, culture, and changing names of buildings. #FeesMustFall united university constituencies in 2015 and became a symbolic rallying point across society. However, by 2016 and into 2017, the use of violent tactics, particularly the demand for universities to shut down, was met with strong force by the state, including the incarceration of numerous student activists and securitization of many university campuses. Public support was also lost for students in the context of the firebombing of libraries and university buildings. In many ways, the student struggle became a battleground between the ruling party and opposition parties, some of whom tried to instrumentalize the student struggle.4 However, reclaiming the public university in the context of rampant commercializing of public enterprises, reforms promoting marketization and in the context of a society that has been on a neoliberal trajectory for over 20 years, while inequalities have been worsening, is a massive victory. However, this victory is accompanied by three challenges. First to ensure the state provides the necessary resources for higher education in general (including training colleges) and such measures are phased in so that universities are not undermined. Second, solidaristic action with trade unions more broadly to win insourcing of labor across the economy. Third, advancing intellectual decolonization recognizes that there is a universalistic aspect to knowledge; that is, knowledge does not belong to a particular race group but is human knowledge. Resisting the commodification of higher education is about defending a public good for the benefit of society. Neoliberalism stands against the needs of society and for privatizing everything including education. This reinforces exclusion and inequality.

4 See https://mg.co.za/article/2017-04-04-the-effs-wrecking-ball-politics-is-fascist-rather-than-left.

950

V. Satgar

Limits to Counter-Hegemonic Alternatives While counter-hegemonic resistance has spawned various alternatives to neoliberal globalization this has not been sufficient to ensure the success of these alternatives. At the same time, as inequality and climate crises intersect, such transformative alternatives are not necessarily being embraced as the way forward for societies. In this regard, various limits stand in the way of realizing such alternatives. The first limit, already eluded to, is the forms of capitalist power that reproduce neoliberal globalization. Despite neoliberalism inducing the worst economic crisis in the history of modern capitalism (2007–2009), sometimes referred to as the “Great Financial Crisis”, it has not been displaced or even abandoned by dominant forces. Instead, the forms of class power underpinning neoliberal globalization—structural, direct, discursive, constitutional and imperial—have continued to buttress neoliberalism. The outcome of the recent economic crisis was further austerity and a squeeze on workers, the precarious, and the poor. Banks were bailed out, bonuses were given to CEOs of investment houses, the US ensured global coordination of macroeconomic policies through G20 countries and the underlying financial dynamics that caused the crisis have not been addressed. The world is now expecting the next big financialized bubble to grow and burst. The second limit on the realization of counter-hegemonic alternatives is the emergence of an ethno-nationalist and religious right wing. The precariousness and deep inequality that has accompanied three decades of marketization of societies have made sections of many societies extremely desperate. In this context fear-mongering, nationalist fervor, and othering are used to realign political constituencies. Combined with a post-truth public sphere, media spectacle and rampant populism, new rightwing forces are emerging against neoliberal globalization. This is happening in Europe, the US itself with Trump giving rise to white nationalism, in India, and in Israel. This is also converging with a turn to authoritarianism in countries like Russia, Turkey, Philippines, and Brazil. In many ways, this can be explained as an outcome of failed neoliberalization and the emergence of market democracies that have not worked. The third limit on realizing counter-hegemonic alternatives has to do with the constitution of a new mass politics to champion counter-hegemonic alternatives. While such a politics is agentially diverse and is challenging jaded notions of political subjectivity, it has not been able to institutionalize itself and generate democratic leadership for society in most instances. Some of these forms of resistance are issue centered, localized, and in some cases movement centered but have not built sufficient capacities for scale and mass support. Put simply, the social forces championing such alternatives have not been able to generate a counter-hegemonic class project. This does not mean being state centric but it does mean constituting alternatives from below as part of building new forms of mass power (direct, structural, movement, symbolic, and constitutional) that can transform the state. Hence, the state is also a site of contestation to deepen space and create conditions for more. In a sense, the

49 Alternatives to Neoliberal Globalization

951

challenge is to be with, against, and beyond the state from below without surrendering the logic and momentum for change from below. A corollary to this point relates to a fourth limit. This has got to do with ensuring the democratic thrust in the counter-hegemonic alternatives emerging from energy democracy, food sovereignty, rights of nature, solidarity economies, and more grow out of a deeply democratic institutional practice. Many of these alternatives are premised on the realization of deep democracy as part of a post-neoliberal imagination. This is contrary to the shallow market democracies of neoliberalism that privilege the sovereignty of capital over state and society. Moreover, this democratizing impulse is a fundamental challenge to the authoritarian forces also rising on the right. However, the limit it faces is the ability of the social forces championing such alternatives to ensure a deep anti-authoritarianism in their own practice. Many social forces are democratic but have to build deep democratic institutional cultures and an internal reality of genuine democracy to even realize their own alternatives. This is a necessary condition for such social forces to also be democratizing forces in a world that is increasingly becoming authoritarian and neo-fascist.

References Ashley, B. 2018. Climate Jobs at Two Minutes to Midnight. In The Climate Crisis: South African and Global Democratic Eco-Socialist Alternatives, ed. V. Satgar, 272–292. Booysen, S. (ed.). 2016. Fees Must Fall: Student Revolt, Decolonisation and Governance in South Africa. Johannesburg: Wits University Press. Carroll, W.K., and W. Carson. 2006. Neoliberalism, Capitalist Class Formation and the Global Network of Corporations and Policy Groups. In Neoliberal HEGEMONY: A GLOBAL CRITIQUE, ed. D. Plehwe, B. Walpen, and G. Neunhöffer, 51–69. London and New York: Routledge. Carroll, W.K., and K. Sarker (eds.). 2016. A World to Win: Contemporary Social Movements and Counter-Hegemony. Manitoba: Arbeiter Ring Publishing. Cavanagh, J., and J. Mander (eds.). 2004. Alternatives to Economic Globalization: A Better World is Possible. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers. Chomsky, N. 2012. Occupy. London: Penguin Group. Collier, G.A., and E.L. Quarateillo. 2005. Basta! Land and the Zapatista Rebellion in the Chiapas. Oakland: Food First Books. Cutler, A.C. 2014. New Constitutionalism and the Commodity. In New Constitutionalism and World Order, ed. S. Gill and A.C. Cutler. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dangl, B. 2007. The Price of Fire: Resource Wars and Social Movements in Bolivia. Oakland and Edinburgh: AK Press. Della Porta, D. 2015. Social Movements in Times of Austerity: Bringing Capitalism Back into Protest Analysis. Cambridge: Polity Press. Fisher, W.F., and T. Ponniah (eds.). 2003. Another World is Possible: Popular Alternatives to Globalization at the World Social Forum. Nova Scotia: Fernwood Publishing Ltd. Gallas, A. 2016. The Thacherite Offensive: A Neo-Poulantzian Analysis. Chicago: Haymarket Books. Gill, S. 2003. Power and Resistance in the New World Order. New York: Palgrave MacMillan. Gill, S., and A.C. Cutler (eds.). 2014. New Constitutionalism and World Order. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

952

V. Satgar

Gowan, P. 1999. The Global Gamble: Washington’s Faustian Bid for World Dominance. London and New York: Verso. Hanieh, A. 2013. Lineages of Revolt: Issues of Contemporary Capitalism in the Middle East. Chicago: Haymarket Books. Houtart, F., and F. Polet (eds.). 2001. The Other Davos: The Globalization of Resistance to the World Economic System. London and New York: Zed Books. Klein, N. 2007. The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. London: Penguin Books. Leys, C. 2008. Total Capitalism: Market Politics, Market State. New Delhi: Three Essays Collective. Mason, P. 2012. Why it’s Still Kicking Off Everywhere: The New Global Revolutions. London and Brooklyn: Verso Books. Mertes, T. (ed.). 2004. A Movement of Movements: Is Another World Really Possible?. London and New York: Verso. Parayil, G. (ed.). 2000. Kerala: The Development Experience: Reflections on Sustainability and Replicability. London and New York: Zed Books. Plehwe, D., B. Walpen, and G. Neunhöffer (eds.). 2006. Neoliberal Hegemony: A Global Critique. London and New York: Routledge. Robertson, E. 2014. Venezuela marks 25 years since “Caracazo” uprising against neoliberalism. Venezuelanalysis. https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/10431. Accessed 30 Apr 2018. Roy, R.K., A.T. Denzau, and T.D. Willett. 2007. Neoliberalism: National and Regional Experiments with Global Ideas. Abingdon and New York: Routledge. Sader, E. 2011. The New Mole: Paths of the Latin American Left. London and New York: Verso. Satgar, V. 2015. From Marx to the Systemic Crises of Capitalist Civilization. In Capitalism’s Crises: Class Struggles in South Africa and the World, ed. V. Satgar. Johannesburg: Wits University Press. Soederberg, S. 2004. American Imperialism and New Forms of Disciplining the “Non-Integrating Gap”. Research in Political Economy 21: 31–60. Starr, A. 2005. Global Revolt: A Guide to the Movements Against Globalization. London and New York: Zed Books. Wilpert, G. 2007. Changing Venezuela by Taking Power: The History and Policies of the Chávez Government. London and New York: Verso.

Vishwas Satgar is an Associate Professor at the International Relations Department, University of Witwatersrand, South Africa. He is the Board Chairperson of the Cooperative and Policy Alternative Centre, the editor of the Democratic Marxism series, and the principal investigator for the Emancipatory Futures Studies in the Anthropocene project at WITS. He recently edited Racism after Apartheid—Challenges for Marxism and Anti-racism (2019, WITS University Press) and Cooperatives in South Africa-Advancing Solidarity Economy Pathways From Below (2019, UKZN Press).

ALTERNATIVE CIVILIZATIONAL DESIGNS

Chapter 50

Global Mobilization in the Name of Islam: the Global Imaginary of Political Islam Amentahru Wahlrab and Rebecca A. Otis

Abstract This chapter steps back to view the narrative of Islamism through the lens of globalization. From this, it envisions an Islamicate global imaginary that seeks to include Islamism as a part of a holistic vision of a peaceful global society and alternative to the traditional binary of “West is best.” The unity of Islam is expressed through the global Islamicate imaginary which is understood in terms of seeking a good society and in creating a Muslim identity and shows how this makes possible a primarily peaceful, globalized mobilization of Muslims in the name of Islam. The chapter also responds to those who see only terrorism in the political discourse of Islamism and contributes to the literature on globalization by illustrating how global studies allow researchers to see pathways toward a less violent world. Policy writers will benefit from the analysis because it shows that the standard approach to Islamic societies, which Edward Said summarizes as “essentialist, empiricist and historicist,” is actually the source of conflict in the world today (Said 1979).

Introduction The actions of religious terrorist groups such as Al-Qaeda and Islamic State (ISIS) have done much to increase the level of animosity directed at Muslims throughout the world. This has effectively denied the role that Islam can play in contributing to a framework for moral governance on a global scale. Overlooking the fact that one in five people in the world today is Muslim, it is now commonly presumed in the West that Islam and its adherents are responsible for most of the terrorism of our time. For obvious reasons, this is a faulty premise, for if Islam is truly the root of global terrorism there would be significantly more terrorism and instability in the world today. Yet the lack of Islamically inspired terrorism per capita throughout the world A. Wahlrab (B) University of Texas at Tyler, Tyler, TX, USA e-mail: [email protected] R. A. Otis University of Denver, Denver, CO, USA e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 I. Rossi (ed.), Challenges of Globalization and Prospects for an Inter-civilizational World Order, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44058-9_50

955

956

A. Wahlrab and R. A. Otis

may have something to do with how Muslims relate to and use Islam, specifically as a source of good governance that animates the societies, if not the governments, in which they live. This chapter explores the role of Islam in creating a Muslim identity that makes possible the peaceful and global mobilization of Muslims in the name of Islam. Countering the likes of Al-Qaeda and ISIS, the unity of Islam is expressed in terms of the rise of an “Islamicate global imaginary” that explains the peaceful role that Islam plays in creating a Muslim identity that extends into public life (See: Hodgson 1974; Hodgson 1993; Lawrence 2014, 2015). This identity makes possible the mobilization of Muslims in the name of a commonplace interpretation of Islam that seeks to live the “good life” in a contemporary global society. This chapter envisions the possibility of a more peaceful world by implicitly responding to the Islamophobic narrative that sees Islam and its approaches as anathema to peaceful contemporary political space and only through the lenses of terrorism and threat. It adds to the body of literature that disassembles Eurocentric assumptions about the primacy of Western civilization and its binary existence vis-a-vis the Islamic world. Finally, this chapter contributes to the literature on globalization by enabling researchers to see alternative pathways toward a less violent world. It does this by viewing Islam and Muslim identities through an alternative understanding of how these identities are actually already embedded in the fields of global history and global studies (Steger and Wahlrab 2017). Policy writers will also benefit from the analysis because it demonstrates a more inclusive approach to countering violent Islamic extremism at its roots.

Islamism as Asserting a Muslim Identity Contemporary Islamism can be traced to the late nineteenth-century European colonial era and early twentieth-century dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire by nonMuslim colonial powers. The terms “political Islam” or “Islamic fundamentalism” are commonly used interchangeably with Islamism to describe a diverse array of social and political approaches that advocate for the full implementation of Islamic law (“sharia”) in public life. Initially espousing a local form of social and political resistance to European hegemony in the Muslim world, Islamist thinkers have since diversified into a wide array of approaches, which have “arguably altered the Middle East more than any trend since the modern states gained independence,” and this has redefined “politics and even borders” (Wright 2015). Cemil Aydin refers to the “Muslim world” as a global idea that came to exist only after the end of the Ottoman Tanzimat or reform era in the 1880s. According to Aydin, Islamism became the “basis of the ideal of Pan-Islamism” (Aydin 2013, p. 168). And, according to Ibrahim M. Abu-Rabi’, Islamism and/or Pan-Islamism was imagined as “an alternative, in Islamic terms, to the world system and its exploitation of the Third World” (Abu-Rabi‘ 2010, p. xi). While many Muslims had hoped the Ottoman Empire would inevitably satisfy the demands of a Pan-Islamic movement of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries,

50 Global Mobilization in the Name of Islam …

957

European powers saw the collapse of the Ottoman Empire as an opportunity to revitalize their imperial quests (Sayyid 2015). Indeed, one could argue that the armistice of October 31, 1918, ended the fighting between the Ottoman Empire and the Allies but catapulted the Middle East into decades of instability that exists to the present day. The Cold War and post-Cold War worlds continued to afford the West opportunities to exploit the Arab and Muslim worlds. Abu-Rabi acknowledges these exercises of imperial power, conducted under the thin guises of noble-sounding causes, provoked a socioculturally grounded response in the Arab and Muslim world. He writes, “Islamism was born in the Arab and Muslim worlds from the womb of colonialism,” and describes Islamism as a “modern phenomenon that sought to end the chaos unleashed by colonialism and the exploitation of modern Muslim societies” (Abu-Rabi‘ 2010, p. x). Seeing Islamism as ranging from “the assertion of a Muslim subjectivity to a fullblooded attempt to reconstruct society on Islamic principles,” critical Muslim studies scholar Salman Sayyid squarely positions Islamism in the contemporary global order as a political project that has “come to occupy an increasingly prominent place within Muslim imaginings” in the past several decades (Sayyid 2015, p. 18). Sayyid’s work holistically views Islamism as articulating and asserting a Muslim narrative (or subjectivity) within a history of Islam (Sayyid 2015) (See also: Aydin 2013, p. 169) (and see: Coller 2011; Kennedy 2016). In doing so, Sayyid sees Islamism as a political discourse born from the specific ingredients and experiences of Muslim societies and addresses an alternative possibility of global order by provincializing Europe as simply one of the multiple civilizations, a vision which implicitly rejects the exceptionality of the West (See also: Hodgson 1974). “Islam has emerged as the means of articulating a multiplicity of positions without losing its specificity,” Sayyid writes, and this is made possible by “decentering” the West (Sayyid 2015, pp. 45–47). Put simply, there are many ways to be Muslim just as there are many ways to be Buddhist or Jewish. These differences may provide grounds for internal debates among the faithful but they do not detract from their specific relationship to Islam. For Sayyid, Western exceptionalism constructs Islam and Muslims as one-dimensional others who are backward thinking and incapable of being agents of progressive change. Rejecting this ideational view that Islam is stuck in the past, Islamism initially aspired to bring to an end the problem of imperial exploitation not by re-embodying an ideational “Islamic past” but by “build[ing] a modern and aggressive Islamic political and economic system that reflects Islamic ideals” (Abu-Rabi‘ 2010, p. x). Turning to the merits of an Islamist-inspired form of governance, Sayyid asserts that since for Muslims, Islam is another word for ‘Goodness incarnate,’ when Islamists claim that the “best government is an Islamic government, the word ‘Islamic’ refers to the “incarnation of goodness” (Sayyid 2015, p. 48). Thus, the vision of an Islamic government is understood as embracing the ideal that the best government is good government (Sayyid 2015, p. 48). By more deeply understanding the interpretation of good governance through the lens of Islam, we see that Muslims who view well-governed societies as “goodness incarnate” are not unlike their Western counterparts who prefer to live in societies in which citizens have a voice in the decisions made by governmental institutions who represent their

958

A. Wahlrab and R. A. Otis

interests. On par with their Western counterparts, Islamists regard good government as one that promotes participation, rule of law, transparency, responsiveness, equity and inclusiveness, efficiency, accountability, dignity, and justice. This is difficult for those whose understanding of democracy is ideologically grounded in the West to understand since Islam and Muslims are framed as “other” by academics, media, and politicians. As Sayyid argues, however, there is nothing but ideology separating a Western and a Muslim conception of democracy. “For in these [Western] instances Democracy can be used as a means of violent repression. In the name of Democracy (either actually existing or that is to come) many regimes have excluded and repressed Islamists, asserting that the anti-Western nature of Islamism is a threat to Democracy” (Sayyid 2014, p. 75). What makes political communities in the West and what Sayyid artfully calls “Muslimistan” similar, however, is their overlapping attempts to close the “gap” between the rulers and the ruled (Sayyid 2014, p. 78).

Rejecting Conceptual Flaws Used to Combat Fundamentalism The embedded anxiety aroused by the so-called “Islamic threat” today is, unfortunately, more than a consequence of terrorism and fundamentalism. In fact, long before the rise and existence of contemporary Islamic terrorist groups, Hassan al-Banna’s Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt served as a precursor to contemporary Islamism and as a confrontation with the uncontested notion of “West is best” (Munson 2001). The rise of Islamism as a competitive alternative to the ideology of the West, in turn, reveals the many ways that “Western” is often used as code for “Christian.” European reactions and attempts to remove indicators of Islam from the public presence and space exposes the limits of Europe’s presumed secularism (Roudometof 2016, p. 514). Prohibitions on the wearing of headscarves and niqabs, Sharia bans, injunctions to prevent muezzin loudspeakers, and the insistence that European Union documents emphasize the “Christian” nature of European culture show that so-called European secularism is better understood as the normalcy of Christianity. In this realm, the presence of Christian identities such as the personal choice to wear a cross, private and public Christmas gardens, and the public ringing of church bells to indicate prayer times does not provoke conflict in the way that the presence of Muslim identities does. As Hamid Dabashi writes, this is due to the “autonormativity” of the West whereby the West reinvents “itself and all its inferior others” (Dabashi 2012, p. 15). In this Western ideological perspective, anything that opposes the West or Modernity is understood as “backward” and identities other than Christian as “fundamentalist” (Appiah 2018). Concepts and categories like fundamentalism in general and Islamic fundamentalism, in particular, should be critically evaluated and viewed with a fair amount of skepticism since they are usually employed more as epithets than as signs of reality. “Media, policymakers, and academics” interchangeably use the terms

50 Global Mobilization in the Name of Islam …

959

“Islamist,” “Islamic terrorism,” “jihadist,” “Salafist,” “Wahhabi,” and “fundamentalist terrorism,” in a “manner that presents the Muslim world and Islamic culture as monolithic and homogenous” (Tellidis 2018, p. 134) (For a critical evaluation of this kind of manipulative practice see: Artz 2017). Furthermore, drawing from Beverly Milton-Edwards’ work on Islamic politics in Palestine, the terms “fundamentalist” and “fundamentalism” are often pejoratively tainted or distorted in their usage. As Milton-Edwards states these terms fail to characterize those who are truly ‘fundamentalist’ from the groups and organizations that promote or purvey an Islamic ideology that is based on certain political objectives, strategies, and political phenomenon (Milton-Edwards 1999, p. 3). Citing Sami Zubaida and Yousef Choueiri, MiltonEdwards also notes that Islamic fundamentalism has “become a catch-phrase which is supposed to define and describe all active involvement of Muslims in politics” (Milton-Edwards 1999, p. 3). Similarly, John Esposito notes that the use of the term is both controversial and has pejorative implications, but adds, “there is general recognition that activist movements of Mulsim revival are increasingly important and reference must be made to them” (Esposito 1995, p. 32). Islamic studies scholars tend to agree with Jan Nederveen Pieterse‘s conclusion that the use of the term “Islamic fundamentalism” implies bad analysis and bad politics (Pieterse 1994; Sayyid 2015, p. 16). The flawed assumption that Islamism is a one-way intellectual springboard for the development of fundamentalism and violent extremism is regularly relied upon to minimize and/or dismiss alternative approaches to seeing Islamism as a peace-seeking narrative for good governance, especially in Islamic societies today. Najib Ghadbian points out that often overlooked is the fact that “Islam is neither violent nor pacifist” (Ghadbian 2000, p. 77). “Some adherents of the Islamic movements use and believe in violence as a legitimate means to pursue their political goals while others do not,” Ghadbian writes. Importantly, however, Ghadbian notes political and socioeconomic conditions dictate the use or the renunciation of violence (Ghadbian 2000, p. 77). Empirical evidence of heavyhanded dictatorships, coercion, and the political repression in predominantly Arab Muslim countries speaks to this observation. Here, violence and counter-violence are driven by the most disenfranchised and marginalized groups in these societies. According to Ghadbian, “economic disparity and rising unemployment among the semi-educated and young people is the base from which the extremist groups recruit their members” (Ghadbian 2000, p. 77). Islamic extremism is the result and not the cause of violence in these cases. Ghadbian admits, “Both those who use violence and those who reject it find support for their arguments in Islamic texts” but also stresses that the prospect for reducing violent extremism “lies in addressing the political and economic grievances of those who resort to violence” (Ghadbian 2000, p. 77). The rise and unfolding of what is variously and interchangeably referred to as political Islam, Islamism, or Islamic fundamentalism follows a path that is bestunderstood “contrapuntally,” that is “from a perspective that takes account of the imperialist dimension of a situation or text and also attends to resistances to it” (LeBlanc 2013, p. 9). Islamism arises first as a response to colonialism and evolves, over time, with each new incarnation of imperialism up to the present moment characterized by globalization and existing now in what many refer to simply as the Global

960

A. Wahlrab and R. A. Otis

Era. Policy responses to any one thing called political Islam or Islamic extremism must take seriously this history or risk fueling the perpetual war between power and resistance. Further, while the material conditions of imperialism have produced a series of injustices, the ideational frames of orientalism(s) have been used to justify each new cycle of violence (Barkawi and Stanski 2012; Dabashi 2009; Dallmayr 1996; Kerboua 2016; Nayak 2006; Said 1979). Today’s versions of Islamism must, therefore, be seen as historically informed responses to colonialism, capitalism, and imperial globalism. These versions share features, most notably the view that an alternative world must be created as a response to imperial globalism. It is, however, the recent past that helps us understand the ways that Islam can be used to mobilize Muslims around the world to deal with local and global challenges.

Envisioning a Global Islamicate Imaginary At this point, it makes sense to justify what we call the “Islamicate global imaginary” as it attempts to describe an important element of contemporary political Islam situated within globalization processes. Specifically, the “global imaginary” is first discussed at length by Manfred Steger who argues that globalization is transforming the “background” that makes possible communal practices and a widely shared sense of their legitimacy (Steger 2008, p. 6). Social imaginaries pervasively reflect our shared understanding and even our collective consciousness (Anderson 1991; James and Steger 2016; Robertson 2003; Robertson 2011; Robertson and Buhari-Gulmez 2016). Whether they be local, national, or global in nature, social imaginaries operate as backgrounds to “our communal existence” (Steger 2008, p. 9). This pertains to Sayyid’s discussion of Muslim identity as a “global” identity insofar as Muslims are aware of their collective identity as one that transcends the limits, for example, of the state of Egypt or Indonesia. Muslims may live and identify as Egyptians in important ways but they likely also share global connection and relationship with Muslims in other parts of the world. Coined by Marshal Hodgson, the term “Islamicate” refers specifically to the culture of the people who predate Prophet Mohamad and ultimately embrace the cultural, political, social, and spiritual elements of what it means to be Muslim. In simplest terms, Hodgson shows that by becoming Muslim and “worshiping God according to the teaching of Mohammad of Arabia and of the Quran which he brought” one does not delete their past (Hodgson 1993, pp. 97–98). More than this, however, being culturally, socially, and politically Muslim transcends a mere practice of faith. As Hodgson posits, Muslims also become agents of a future Islam rather than being rigidly bound by their present and past. A global Islamicate imaginary is therefore predicated on Islamicate civilization as it exists in the world today. Islamicate civilization tethers Islamic faith, social, cultural, and political norms to the geographical location of the religion’s birth. It includes both the cultural environment of Arabia and the wider region in which it has ultimately come to exist without diminishing the local context of Arabia or Islam’s

50 Global Mobilization in the Name of Islam …

961

founder. As Hodgson explains, “Islam was first established, as the allegiance of a major community, in the extensive zone of Semitic and Iranian lands between the Nile and the Oxus rivers.” He also disagrees with the characterization that any elements that can be linked to cultures outside of Arabia are simply “borrowings.” Instead, he interprets Islam’s “development” as a process that begins before the birth of Prophet Mohamad and therefore “presupposed and built upon the cultural resources of the whole wider region” (Marshall G. S. Hodgson 1993, p. 104). Hodgson thus argues that history is quilted rather than segmented according to periodizations that make convenient heuristic devices. In other words, Islam comes into being by quilting together threads of the past that predate Islam with new ones to make history at the moment. By employing Hodgson’s conception of “Islamicate,” which refers to more than simply what people did in the lands initially occupied by Muslims, it is easy to see that Islam has been dehistoricized in the majority of mainstream policy discussions. Such discussions are shown to be unreasonable by considering a parallel argument that Christian or Jewish culture should only be understood in the context of the Arab lands since they both originate in Palestine. Islamicate civilization is opposed to the West, and on the other hand, projects a future where justice and good governance reign. Though seemingly vague, this is no different than the many ways in which any other religion is used (Yamane 2016). While Hodgson’s work anchors Islam in history and demonstrates how Muslims helped to shape history, it is the work of Salman Sayyid that points us in the direction of how an Islamicate global imaginary might help the present and the future. Sayyid’s special contribution to this discussion is also that he unapologetically asserts the view that Islam is a counterhegemonic discourse. To do this, he uses the metaphors of “centering” and “decentering.” Specifically, he wants to avoid, as much as possible, making justifications for Islam in terms defined by the West. Thus, the West should not be viewed as the defining element of all life and politics but rather one perspective among many. He does not accept the view that the West is any more exceptional than other civilizations simply because it holds a particularly powerful position today. Those who follow this approach decenter the West and metaphorically push it out of focus (Nayak and Selbin 2010). Those who critique the West from within, he argues, may in fact reify and center the West at the expense of the Rest. For example, there is a long and ongoing debate among scholars about the compatibility of Islam and democracy. This debate, which focuses on Western definitions and uses of democracy within the context of neoliberalism (with its emphasis on capitalist democracy), forecloses the possibility of alternative forms of good governance. As Sayyid argues, “the quest for Democracy forecloses the possibility of articulating benevolent governance within an Islamicate register” (Sayyid 2014, p. 80). Thus, a global Islamicate imaginary is one that “attempts to conceptualise a closure of the gap [between the rulers and the ruled] by formulating a benevolent governance in the shape of a rather nebulous vision of an Islamic order” (Sayyid 2014, p. 78). By decentering “Westernese,” the Western supremacist language that insists that Democracy is the only signifier of a more just world, an Islamicate global imaginary “dare[s] to imagine a world

962

A. Wahlrab and R. A. Otis

in which various societies and histories can produce notions of good governance that are commensurate with the fundamental pluralism of this planet” (Sayyid 2014, p. 82). The West’s assault on Islam is as much about Islam as it is simply about those who get in its way (Oren 2003). While framed in terms of human rights and democracy, its use of force universally makes the world a more violent place (Kinzer 2006). The persistence of what the West has dubbed Islamic terror should give policymakers pause to wonder why are these resistive forces so persistent?—The literature criticizing US foreign policy in the MENA [Middle East and North Africa] region is vast—with even the more moderate critics offering damning accounts of its intervention (Ricks 2007). Muslims have defended themselves against these Western interventions in a variety of ways that have included the use of force but the most dramatic recent examples of resistance were the Arab Spring uprisings in the MENA region (Gerges 2014; Roberts 2016; Wahlrab and McNeal 2018). The Arab Spring brought down many of the authoritarian “Muslim” regimes of the MENA region through nonviolent means (Roberts et al. 2016; Wahlrab 2014a, b). However, the interplay between the old regimes, the protesters, and the various states that had supported these authoritarian governments put up barriers to meaningful revolution (Achcar 2016; Achcar and Matta 2015; Wahlrab 2018). Thus, failing to bring real change through nonviolent means, frustrating elements within Arab Spring countries joined forces with those who advocated for change through violent means (Worth 2016). Seyla Benhabib, though critical, heralds the Arab Spring as bringing about “the end of a state system introduced into the Middle East and North Africa by imperialist powers after the First World War” (Benhabib 2014, p. 349). She goes on, with perhaps too much equanimity, to suggest that the real threat to positive social change in the Arab world are regimes “[c]haracterized by an authoritarian model of modernization and secularization from above” which are also “challenged by the rise of political Islam and its ideology of a transnational ‘ummah’” (Benhabib 2014, p. 349). The transnationality of this community is freighted with accusations that it does not exist at all (Aydin 2013, 2017). The point, however, is not that there is one “Muslim” voice or view but rather that there is an increasing and growing global consciousness among Muslims as Muslims (James and Steger 2016; Marzouki and Oullier 2012; Patomäki and Steger 2010; Robbie Robertson 2003; Roland Robertson 2011; Roland Robertson and Buhari-Gulmez 2016; Wahlrab 2019). Perhaps most prominent for Sayyid is the occasional contradiction within the globalization literature between the disruptive power of globalization in the cases of colonialism and later expansions of globalization processes in the contemporary period. In his insightful discussion of “Diaspora,” Sayyid critiques elements within the globalization literature, especially Manuel Castell’s discussion of “flows.” In the second volume of his three-volume trilogy on The Information Age, Castells discusses the power of identity and suggests an Orientalist reading of Islam and Muslims: “for a Muslim, the fundamental attachment is not to the watan (homeland), but to the ummah, or community of Believers, all made equal in their submission to Allah” (Castells 1997, p. 15). On the one hand, it is useful to consider the potential transgression brought by Islam against the nation (watan) (and, one should add, any

50 Global Mobilization in the Name of Islam …

963

similarly constructed social arrangement). For example, Sayyid Qutb valorized this when he asserted, “There is no nationality for a Muslim except his creed which makes him a member of the Islamic Ummah in the abode of Islam” (quoted in Sayyid 2014, p. 99). Sayyid continues by noting that, unfortunately, Castells essentially throws up Islam as an anachronism: “a reaction to the world of flows characterised by globalisation” (Sayyid 2014, p. 101). But what is so interesting and contradictory about Islam is its ability to both transgress the national spatial boundary and its seeming ability to block the globalization of flows as articulated by Castells. Put differently, “Islamism undermines the logic of the nation at the same time as it seeks to transcend the logic of the nation” (Sayyid 2014, p. 103). The ummah is not a nation, however, and, for this reason, Sayyid reconceptualizes “diaspora.” Muslims exist as majority populations and as minority populations depending on their location. Unlike standard conceptualizations of diasporic communities, Muslims do not have a place of redemptive return. Further, there is no single act of displacement that unites all Muslims: “for the ummah is not only reducible to displaced population groups, it also includes the Muslim population in Muslim countries” (Sayyid 2014, p. 107). And yet, Sayyid offers the concept of diaspora anyway explaining that it operates as a kind of “anti-nation” by which he means “[n]ations define ‘home’ whereas diaspora is a condition of homelessness; in the nation the territory and people are fused, whereas in a diaspora the two are disarticulated” (Sayyid 2014, p. 108). Following Hannah Arendt’s discussion of the two subject positions available to European Jews, that of “parvenu” or “pariah” (Arendt 1976; Sayyid 2014, p. 108), Sayyid notes that the “figures of the parvenu or pariah both have problematic relationships with the idea of the nation, as both suggest that the nation is not home.” It is in this sense that Muslims live as “homeless” in the current age. For Sayyid, the “process of globalisation is an attempt to make a home for some. This settlement implies that others have to be unsettled” (Sayyid 2014, p. 113). The ummah is thus understood as diasporic because it does not find a home in the modern nation-state (states in the West or states on the periphery). The global Islamicate imaginary is, finally, inchoate insofar as the ummah is trapped in the logic of diaspora even as it offers hope for a world beyond the decentered modern state and the homelessness that it creates. Interpretations of diaspora that focus on the nation, unfortunately, rely too heavily on a discourse that centers the Western view of democracy and fail to reflect Hodgson or Sayyid’s global historical view of “Islamicate” and its corresponding “social phenomena that were informed by Islam but were not reducible to it” (Sayyid 2013, pp. 127, ff121). Further, it fails to connect Islam and its followers to the past, present, and future of the world. Thus, Hodgson’s and Sayyid’s views see Islam not as “other” but “brother” to the West. Their genre of anti-colonial and Islamist responses are, however, downplayed in a hegemonic language Sayyid calls “Westernese.” The post9/11 world, with the subsequent global war on terror, has become the most prominent

964

A. Wahlrab and R. A. Otis

example of the imposition of power and the resulting resistance to it in the Islamic world.1 A further problem with the varied instances of Westernese commentary is that it continues to adapt and center the civilizational discourse that insists that civilizations are separate and do not, in fact, coevolve and become enmeshed and quilted over time. Indeed, Mahmood Mamdani makes this point in his attempt to understand the politics of Islam in both the post-9/11 and post-Arab Spring contexts: both of which address precisely this civilizational discourse: “Democracy in the public sphere requires that you leave Islam at home. Only secular Muslims could be worthy citizens of a democratic republic” (Mamdani 2011, p. 562). In other words, Muslims do not get to write their own history or engage politically as actors and writers of history, and any attempt to do so will invoke the repressive forces of the modern state. Since Islam is understood to be anti-modern (the opposite, in fact, of the West), then the only appropriate response is to eliminate it: “pre-modern primitive was open to conversion, but the anti-modern was not; it would have to be eliminated” (Mamdani 2011, p. 563). By focusing on the politics of Islam rather than the religion of Islam Sayyid’s project of recalling the caliphate draws attention to the need to tame the political through politics: recalling the caliphate or promoting an Islamicate great power. The gloomy view that Islam is something other than the West is belied by its interweaving throughout history with other civilizations (Europe, Asia, Africa, and the pre-Islamic Arab region). Indeed, seen in this global historico-political perspective Islam is both vital and essential for the development of the modern and contemporary era. The global imaginary of Islamism cannot be contained within a single vision of, for example, a man like al-Baghdadi whose claim to be Caliph is a provocation for many Muslims.2 Whereas the activities of ISIL have limited and divided Muslims living within its controlled space, those Muslims living outside of it seem solidly united against it. This suggests further and more evolved elements of Muslim unity. Additional evidence for something like a global Islam is seen in the increase in the use of the term Muslim as an identity. As Sayyid notes, until very recently minority populations organized themselves as Kurds, Kashmiris, Somalis, and other ethnic signifiers. Today, those communities identify simply as Muslims.3 He notes that the effects are pretty profound. For example, he reminds his audience that in the 1960s the Tunisian government (along with others) tried to ban fasting during the month of Ramadan. Now, he says, it is impossible to imagine any government where large Muslim populations are trying to do that. Transformations like this one give one image of the possibility contained within the quest for the good life that is the global imaginary of Islamism.

1 Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels and, later, Michelle Foucault have articulated this phenomenon in

historical and theoretical terms. Power begets resistance. See: Foucault and Gordon (1980), (Tucker 1978). 2 Ab¯ ; born Ibrahim Awad Ibrahim al-Badri. u Bakr al-Baghdadi (Arabic: 3 See Sayyid’s talk at the International Muslim Human Rights Center: https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=OJXPO-6JCEk.

50 Global Mobilization in the Name of Islam …

965

Finally, there is the sticky issue of all those people who were conned or convinced that ISIS was the answer. As this chapter indicates, Islam holds out hope for a just world. It is precisely this hope in the future that inspires political action, violent, nonviolent, and everything in between. Azadeh Moaveni observes with considerable realism that this hope is not going away. The demand for some kind of force that protects Muslims throughout the world is high: “The intervening period has seen a broad mainstream embrace of a collective Muslim identity that is global and overtly political and that has prompted young Muslims to view themselves as a collective community, for whom a homeland would provide solutions to trying circumstances” (Moaveni 2018). The future is unwritten but given the discussion offered herein, there is considerable reason to think that a single nation-state will not be enough to protect all Muslims everywhere. Thus, the rising global imaginary of Islamism will continue to mobilize hopeful Muslims around the world to create some kind of global Islamicate great power or Caliphate.

Conclusion: Seeing Islamism Through the Lens of Globalization In this chapter, we have employed a global studies perspective to investigate and theorize the rise of a global Muslim imaginary. By looking at Islamism through the lens of globalization, it is easier to see the vast global population of those who identify as Muslims and the political mobilizations they engage in. In its most clearly articulated form, Muslim identity is called into being by Islam. Thus, “Islam is the name that gives Muslims a name” (Sayyid 2014, p. 1). Whereas numerous accounts of Islamism look only to instances of political violence and the “Islamic threat,” this essay takes a global view in order to understand what is mobilizing Muslims to engage politically. Furthermore, the politics of Islam is easier to see when looking through the lenses of global history and global studies because it allows the viewer to see the decentering of the West (Nayak and Selbin 2010). This decentering shifts the focus from the “West” and onto those mobilizing around Islam to pose an alternative, or sets of alternative, answer(s) to the question of good governance. The working out of this question of good governance occurs within a struggle, hence “politics” and not “theology” is the appropriate way to understand what good governance means to Muslims. After all, “the politics of religious affiliation and how in practice Muslims perceive their religion in relation to democratic [or other] ideas” is at least as important if not more important than what the holy texts actually say (Bayat 2009, p. 43). The realistic optimism contained in this essay derives from the empirical finding that Muslims seek well-governed, just societies and that they are motivated and mobilized by this very political project.

966

A. Wahlrab and R. A. Otis

References Abu-Rabi‘, I.M. 2010. Editor’s Introduction. In The Contemporary Arab Reader on Political Islam, ed. I.M. Abu-Rabi‘, vii–xxv. London and Edmonton: University of Alberta Press. Achcar, G. 2016. Morbid Symptoms: Relapse in the Arab Uprising. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Achcar, G., and N. Matta. 2015. What Happened to the Arab Spring? Jacobin. jacobinmag.com website: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/12/achchar-arab-spring-tunisiaegypt-isis-isil-assad-syria-revolution/. Anderson, B. 1991. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin And Spread Of Nationalism, Rev. and extended ed. London and New York: Verso. Appiah, K.A. 2018. The Lies That Bind: Rethinking Identity. New York and London: Liveright Publishing Company. Arendt, H. 1976. The Origins of Totalitarianism, New Edition with Added Prefaces ed. New York: Harcourt Brace and Company. Artz, L. 2017. Neoliberalism and Capital Accumulation: Media Framing of Resistance and the Global Culture of Fear. Perspectives on Global Development and Technology 16 (1–3), 105–130. https://doi.org/10.1163/15691497-12341423. Aydin, C. 2013. Globalizing the Intellectual History of the Idea of the “Muslim World”. In Global Intellectual History, ed. S. Moyn and A. Sartori, 159–186. New York: Columbia University Press. Aydin, C. 2017. The Idea of the Muslim World: A Global Intellectual History. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Barkawi, T., and K. Stanski. 2012. Orientalism and War. New York: Columbia University Press. Bayat, A. 2009. No Silence, No Violence: A Post-Islamist Trajectory. In Civilian jihad: Nonviolent Struggle, Democratization, and Governance in the Middle East, ed. M.J. Stephan. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Benhabib, S. 2014. The New Legitimation Crises of Arab States and Turkey. Philosophy & Social Criticism 40 (4–5): 349–358. https://doi.org/10.1177/0191453714529770. Castells, M. 1997. The Power of Identity, vol. 2. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell. Coller, I. 2011. Arab France: Islam and the Making of Modern Europe, 1798–1831. Berkeley: University of California Press. Dabashi, H. 2009. Post-Orientalism: Knowledge and Power in Time of Terror. New Brunswick N.J.: Transaction Publishers. Dabashi, H. 2012. The Arab Spring: The End of Postcolonialism. New York: Zed Books. Dallmayr, F. 1996. Beyond Orientalism: Essays on Cross-Cultural Encounter. New York: State University of New York Press. Esposito, J.L. 1995. The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World. New York: Oxford University Press. Foucault, M., and C. Gordon. 1980. Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972–1977 (1st, American ed. New York: Pantheon Books. Gerges, F.A. (ed.). 2014. The New Middle East: protest and revolution in the Arab World. New York: Cambridge University Press. Ghadbian, N. 2000. Political Islam and Violence. New Political Science 22 (1): 77–88. https://doi. org/10.1080/713687889. Hodgson, M.G.S. 1974. The Venture of Islam: Conscience and History in a World Civilization. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Hodgson, M.G.S. 1993. Rethinking World History: Essays on Europe, Islam, and World History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. James, P., and M.B. Steger. 2016. Globalization and Global Consciousness: Levels of Connectivity. In Global Culture: Consciousness and Connectivity, ed. R. Robertson and D. Buhari-Gulmez, 21–39. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate. Kennedy, H. 2016. Caliphate: The History of an Idea, 1st ed. New York: Basic Books.

50 Global Mobilization in the Name of Islam …

967

Kerboua, S. 2016. From Orientalism to Neo-Orientalism: Early and Contemporary Constructions of Islam and the Muslim World. Intellectual Discourse 24 (1): 7–35. Kinzer, S. 2006. Overthrow: America’s Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq, 1st ed. New York: Times Books/Henry Holt. Lawrence, B.B. 2014. Genius Denied and Reclaimed: A 40-Year Retrospect on Marshall G.S. Hodgson’s The Venture of Islam. Los Angeles Review of Books, Nov 11. Lawrence, B.B. 2015. Islamicate Cosmopolitan: A Past Without a Future, Or a Future Still Unfolding? Humanities Futures. LeBlanc, J.R. 2013. Edward Said on the Prospects of Peace in Palestine and Israel. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Mamdani, M. 2011. An African Reflection on Tahrir Square. Globalizations 8: 559–566. Marzouki, Y., and O. Oullier. 2012. Revolutionizing Revolutions: Virtual Collective Consciousness and the Arab Spring. Huffington Post, July 17. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/yousri-marzouki/ revolutionizing-revolutio_b_1679181.html. Milton-Edwards, B. 1999. Islamic Politics in Palestine. London and New York: I.B.Tauris. Moaveni, A. 2018. The Lingering Dream of an Islamic State. New York Times, Jan 12. https://www. nytimes.com/2018/01/12/opinion/sunday/post-isis-muslim-homeland.html. Munson, Z. 2001. Islamic Mobilization: Social Movement Theory and the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. The Sociological Quarterly 42 (4): 487–510. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1533-8525.2001. tb01777.x. Nayak, M. 2006. Orientalism and ‘Saving’ US State Identity After 9/11. International Feminist Journal of Politics 8 (1): 42–61. https://doi.org/10.1080/14616740500415458. Nayak, M., and E. Selbin. 2010. Decentering International Relations. New York: Zed. Oren, I. 2003. Our Enemies and US: America’s Rivalries and the Making of Political Science. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Patomäki, H., and M.B. Steger. 2010. Social Imaginaries and Big History: Towards a New Planetary Consciousness? Futures: A Journal of Policy, Planning, and Futures Studies 42: 1056–1063. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.futures.2010.08.004. Pieterse, J.N. 1994. Fundamentalism Discourses: Enemy Images. Women Against Fundamentalism Journal 5: 2–6. Ricks, T.E. 2007. Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq: With a New Postscript. New York: Penguin Press. Roberts, A. 2016. Civil Resistance and the Fate of the Arab Spring. In Civil Resistance in the Arab Spring: Triumphs and Disasters, ed. A. Roberts, M. J. Willis, R. McCarthy, and T. Garton Ash, 270–326. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Roberts, A., M.J. Willis, R. McCarthy, and T. Garton Ash (eds.). 2016. Civil Resistance in the Arab Spring: Triumphs and Disasters. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Robertson, Robbie. 2003. The Three Waves of Globalization: A History of a Developing Global Consciousness. New York: Zed Books. Robertson, Roland. 2011. Global Connectivity and Global Consciousness. American Behavioral Scientist 55 (10): 1336–1345. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764211409562. Robertson, R., and D. Buhari-Gulmez (eds.). 2016. Global Culture: Consciousness and Connectivity. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate. Roudometof, V. 2016. Globalization. In Handbook of Religion and Society, ed. D. Yamane, 505–524. New York, NY: Springer. Said, E.W. 1979. Orientalism, 1st Vintage Books ed. New York: Vintage Books. Sayyid, S. 2013. Empire, Islam, and the Postcolonial. In The Oxford Handbook of Postcolonial Studies, 1st ed, ed. G. Huggan, 127–141. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sayyid, S. 2014. Recalling the Caliphate: Decolonisation and World Order. London: C. Hurst. Sayyid, S. 2015. A Fundamental Fear: Eurocentrism and the Emergence of Islamism. London: London: Zed Books. Steger, M.B. 2008. The Rise of the Global Imaginary: Political Ideologies from the French Revolution to the Global War on Terror. New York: Oxford University Press.

968

A. Wahlrab and R. A. Otis

Steger, M.B., and A. Wahlrab. 2017. What is Global Studies?: Theory & Practice. London and New York: Routledge. Tellidis, I. 2018. Religion and Terrorism. In Routledge Handbook of Critical Terrorism Studies, ed. R. Jackson, 134–144. New York: Routledge. Tucker, R.C. 1978. The Marx-Engels Reader, 2nd ed. New York: Norton. Wahlrab, A. 2014a. Nonviolence and Globalization. In The Sage Handbook of Globalization, vol. 2, 1st ed, ed. M.B. Steger, P. Battersby, and J.M. Siracusa, 727–738. Los Angeles: SAGE. Wahlrab, A. 2014b. Speaking Truth to Power: Hip Hop and the African Awakening. In Hip Hop and Social Change in Africa: Ni Wakati, ed. M.K. Clark and M.M. Koster, 49–63. New York: Lexington Books. Wahlrab, A. 2018. Making Revolutionaries Out of ‘Safe Citizens’: Sovereignty, Political Violence, and the Arab Uprisings. In U.S. Approaches to the Arab Uprisings: International Relations and Democracy Promotion, ed. A. Wahlrab, and M.J. McNeal, 183–205. London: I. B. Tauris. Wahlrab, A. 2019. Imagining Global Nonviolent Consciousness. In Revisiting the Global Imaginary: Theories, Ideologies, Subjectivities: Essays in Honour of Manfred Steger, ed. C. Hudson and E. Wilson. New York: Palgrave MacMillan. Wahlrab, A., and M.J. McNeal (eds.). 2018. U.S. Approaches to the Arab Uprisings: International Relations and Democracy Promotion. London: I. B. Tauris. Worth, R.F. 2016. A Rage for Order: The Middle East in Turmoil, from Tahrir Square to ISIS, 1st ed. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Wright, R.B. 2015. A Short History of Islamism. Newsweek, Jan 10. Yamane, D. 2016. Handbook of Religion and Society. New York, NY: Springer.

Amentahru Wahlrab is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Texas, at Tyler. His research interests lie at the intersection of globalization, political economy, political violence, and political social theory. He is the coauthor, with Manfred B. Steger, of What is Global Studies? Theory and Practice (Routledge 2017) and coeditor, with Michael J. McNeal, of U.S. Approaches to the Arab Uprisings: International Relations and Democracy Promotion (I.B.Tauris, 2018). He is also the book review editor for the journal Populism published by Brill. Rebecca A. Otis earned her MA and Ph.D. from the Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver. Her fieldwork in Palestinian refugee camps enabled her to develop an understanding of the evolution of female Palestinian political identity within the emergence of political Islamic extremist groups such as Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. She has lived and worked throughout the Middle East, as a U.S. Foreign Service Officer with the Department of State, most recently serving in Cairo, Egypt.

Chapter 51

Tian Xia: A Confucian Model of State Identity and Global Governance Tongdong Bai

Abstract To address the issues of how to bond a large state of strangers together, and of how to deal with state–state relations, early Confucians developed a tian xia model, while the Westerners developed the nation-state model and later, in response to its problems, the cosmopolitan model. According to the Confucian model, state identity is based on culture (rather than race) and is also based on a Confucian conception of universal but unequal compassion. Among states, a key distinction is between the civilized and the barbaric, and civilized states should form an alliance to protect the civilized way of life against the barbarian threat. A general principle of the Confucian world order is that it recognizes the sovereignty and the primacy of one’s own state’s interests, but limits both with humane or benevolent duties. An updated tian xia model, I will argue in this paper, can address the issues of state identity and international relations better than both the nation-state model and the cosmopolitan model can. (165 w)

1. The necessity and possibility of an alternative global order. China has been rising very quickly in the past few decades. To ease the concerns from the rest of the world, it keeps claiming that the rise is going to be peaceful, but to little effect. Many Chinese people and governmental officials are puzzled by this, and often interpret it as a misunderstanding, mistrust, or even hostility. But if we look at the language they typically use, such as no interference, absolute sovereignty, and the supremacy of national interests, which are the language of nation-state, it is not puzzling at all that the rest of the world is suspicious of the alleged peaceful rise of China. For it is against the very logic of a nation-state that it should rise peacefully. A The term “tian xia” is often written as “tianxia.” “Xia” means under, and “tian” means “heaven” or “sky.” Therefore, “tian xia” means “under heaven” or “all under heaven,” that is, the world or the people of the world. For a more detailed version, see Bai (2019), Chap. 7. T. Bai (B) School of Philosophy, Fudan University, 220 Handan Road, Shanghai 200433, China e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 I. Rossi (ed.), Challenges of Globalization and Prospects for an Inter-civilizational World Order, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44058-9_51

969

970

T. Bai

nation-state, or a nationalist version of it, is supposed to pursue its national interests ruthlessly. When it rises, it will naturally demand more from the rest of the world, and use all means possible, including force, to get it if the demand is not met. The two World Wars that were partly caused by the rise of two major nation-states, Japan and Germany, are very good examples of this. One could argue that, partly due to these experiences, we have established international institutions and laws. The EU in reality and cosmopolitanism in theory seem to offer an even more radical alternative in which states will be eventually transcended. As Duara (2017) argues, however, much of the existing global order is rooted in nation-states, and there are conflicts between nation-states that claim agency and sovereignty (that is, to be an autonomous unit that has its own will and liberty) and limit sympathy to the people and their interests of the national community (that is, care about the wellbeing of one’s own compatriots only without any concern to the wellbeing of people from other states), on the one hand, and globalism that is meant to transcend these on the other. The power and legitimacy of these international institutions and laws are both offered and challenged by nation-states. In reality, the nation-state side of this dichotomy seems to be winning, as we witness the disruptions of various world institutions and norms; for example, the troubles with the EU and recent trade wars started by the Trump administration, and, generally, the rise of nationalism all over the world, including the developed West. Therefore, the search for a better world order is a pressing issue, for both a rising China and for the rest of the world that experiences, and is troubled by the rise of nationalism. As often mentioned, a Chinese idea that can allegedly address the conflicts in the contemporary world is the idea of he, often translated as “harmony”. But first, it is an idea from Confucianism, and Confucianism was but one of many teachings of traditional China, although it was an important and even arguably the dominant one in traditional China. Second, harmony, as it appears in the Analects, means something like unity with diversity (see, for example, 13.23 of the Analects).1 But it is not an important concept in early Confucianism (perhaps even less so in its later development), and its implications to world order cannot be clearly drawn from the context in its occurrence in Confucian texts. Third, it is often used today by the Chinese government to cover up or look away from conflicts. In a contemporary Chinese context, “being harmonized” often means, in a sarcastic sense, being censored. In a more positive setting, it is used to mean not having conflicts, and being in a win–win situation, but it doesn’t really address the root of conflicts. It is then as useful as slogans like “all you need is love,” perhaps lacking the rhetoric power of the latter. In short, it is used as a kind of propaganda, out of ill- or good-will. Those who claim the Chinese root and the usefulness of this idea often point to the alleged peaceful history of the post-Qin traditional China (from 206 B.C.E. to 1911 C.E.). Indeed, in the contemporary tian xia discourse,2 which is also an 1 For

an English translation of various passages of the Analects mentioned in this chapter, see the corresponding parts of Lau (2000). The translations in this chapter are all mine. 2 See an earlier note for an explanation of this term. The Pin Yin form of this term is widely used in the related discourse, and so I will use it throughout this chapter.

51 Tian Xia: A Confucian Model of State Identity …

971

attempt to find inspirations of alternative world orders from traditional China, a serious and common problem with both those who make constructive proposals and their critics is that the focus is often the tian xia order in post-Qin China.3 But how peaceful traditional China was is a controversial question. More importantly, the contemporary political reality of the world is that it is a multi-state system, whereas, in post-Qin China, the tian xia system we look at is a system in which there was a clear political center, the Chinese regime, with some culturally, economically, and politically periphery political entities. From today’s perspective, post-Qin China was but one empire among many. But to the Chinese in traditional China, it was the whole world, for the Mediterranean world, for example, didn’t come to the vision of traditional Chinese. Post-Qin Chinese regime, when it was a unified regime, was a de facto “world” government in the eye of the Chinese. As Lucian Pye put it, China is not just another nation-state in the family of nations. China is a civilization pretending to be a state.4 The story of modern China could be described as the effort by both Chinese and foreigners to squeeze a civilization into the arbitrary, constraining framework of the modern state, an institutional invention that came out of the fragmentation of the West’s own civilization.5 Viewed from another perspective, the miracle of China has been its astonishing unity. In Western terms the China of today is as if the Europe of the Roman Empire and of Charlemagne had lasted until this day and were now trying to function as a single nation-state (Pye 1990, 62).

Pye’s claim is quite representative. While insightful, a problem with this claim is that it fails to make explicit the fact that post-Qin traditional China was (oftentimes) a world system controlled by a world government—in the mind, of course, of the traditional Chinese. It is then a small wonder that it has been difficult for this system to become a member of the (larger) world that has many states as its members. Another problem with this account is the implicit belief that nation-state is the only form of state that can become members of the contemporary world community. Indeed, many, if not most, scholars and politicians, especially those in post-traditional China, believe that nation-state is the only path to modernity, which is why both Chinese and foreigners have tried to squeeze China into the framework of nation-state. But there was a period in Chinese history in which there was a multi-state system, and it is the so-called Zhou–Qin transition, or the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods (SAWS for short, roughly from 770 B.C.E. to 221 B.C.E., which were also referred to as the “pre-Qin periods6 ). There were not as many states as there are today, and in this sense, today’s world is an enlarged version of the Warring States. Of course, there was a world outside of these waring Chinese states, but again, to the 3 See

the anthology by Wang (2017), in which there are chapters that offer historical reviews of the evolution of the term tian xia, and there are also chapters in which this term is used to refer to the post-Qin imperial order. For a critical review, see Bai (2018). 4 In Pye (1993), the same sentence is almost exactly repeated with one important revision: the last occurrence of “state” is replaced with “nation-state” (130). 5 According to Pye, nation-state has been developed (“invented”) in the West, which is widely shared by political scientists and historians. 6 “Pre-Qin” means, literally, before the Qin dynasty (221 B.C.E.–206 B.C.E.). But in this chapter and in much of the literature, “pre-Qin” is used to refer to the SAWS.

972

T. Bai

Chinese, who considered themselves the only civilized people in the known world, the world they lived in was the whole world, or at least the center of it. Before this transition, the old “world” order during the Western Zhou dynasty (roughly from 1150 B.C.E. to 770 B.C.E.) was built on a hierarchy of nobility, and through the pyramid of nobility, a large empire was divided into small, close-knit feudal communities. The noblemen ran their fiefdoms with some autonomy, and the legitimacy was offered by their pedigree. This order has some resemblance to that of Medieval Europe. But it eventually collapsed, and through wars of all against all, large, populous, well-connected, and plebeianized societies of strangers emerged during the Zhou–Qin transition. A few de facto sovereign states emerged in the newly “globalized world.” This transition may be a forerunner of the European transition to modernity, and even of the globalization in our times.7 Common to all these transitions is the need to answer three key political issues in this new world: the bond of a large state of strangers, the principles of international relations among independent states, and the selection of the ruling members of the state and even the world (and the legitimacy of the selection). These questions were also faced by early modern European thinkers.8 With this understanding, we can argue that nation-state is one possible answer to the first two questions: through an imagined nation or national identity, a large society of strangers is bonded together. The principle of dealing with international relations is the ruthless pursuit of national interests. 7 The

claim that the Zhou–Qin transition resembles the European transition to early modernity is a very unorthodox claim. I can’t defend this thesis in this chapter. It depends on how we understand modernity, over which many great thinkers differ. In this anthology, for example, according to Rudolf Stichweh (see his chapter in this volume), human society has experienced the following stages: small hunter-gatherer societies, larger and unified states with political and religious institutions, empires, territorial and national states, and eventually the emergency of world society and global function systems. We can then argue that the Warring States are in the second stage of the development of human society. But as I just showed, there was an intra-state system before the Warring States period, which could be described as an empire. If so, then the Warring States system would resemble the emergence of territorial states. This would support my argument that the Warring States period resembles European modernity, which would shed light on the world system we are working on here. Again, after all, for the Chinese, the land of the Warring States was the world. In this sense, different from Stichweh, China during the Zhou–Qin transition and afterwards was a world system, and not merely an empire. Or perhaps the line between empire and world system is not very clearcut, and the lessons from them are thus often significant to each other. But again, whether I can use Stichweh’s, or, for example, Max Weber’s understanding of modernity to support my own thesis cannot be explained adequately in this chapter—I mentioned Weber because, according to Francis Fukuyama, if we use Weber’s understanding of modernity, the Qin dynasty that emerged from the Zhou–Qin transition is the first politically modern state in human history (Fukuyama 2011, 125– 126). Fortunately, all I actually need is the following resemblance between early modern Europe and China during the Zhou–Qin transition: it is a multi-state system in which each state has a large population of strangers who are not born unequal anymore, and there is no trans-state authority or authority within the state that can effectively challenge the authority of the central government—that is, these states are de facto sovereign states, with or without the Westphalian treaties. 8 Again, I don’t deny the possibility that there is something unique about European modernity. All I need is that the pre-Qin thinkers and early modern European thinkers share the above questions, and therefore nation-state is but one possible answer to them.

51 Tian Xia: A Confucian Model of State Identity …

973

But even in the West, a nation-state is not the only answer offered. For example, in Karl Marx’s The Civil War in France, he introduced the concept of class to replace the nation as the social glue for strangers in modern societies (Sun 2014). Facing similar problems, pre-Qin Chinese thinkers offered their own answers, including the Confucian model. It is simply wrong to claim that to become a nation-state is the only path to modernity and the only root of the global order. Among all the different paths, a question that a normative theorist needs to answer is which model addressing the aforementioned issues of modernity is the best, and I will argue that the Confucian New Tian Xia Order, which is inspired by the early Confucians’ answers but is reconstructed and updated, is one of the best answers. 2. The Confucian New Tian Xia Order9 Facing the issue of how to bond strangers together, the early Confucian thinker Mencius developed Confucius’s idea of ren 仁 (humaneness or benevolence) into his concept of cei yin zhi xin恻隐之心 (compassion). In a famous “thought-experiment” (2A6 of the Mencius), Mencius asked how one would react to suddenly seeing a small child who is about to fall into a well (and to get killed).10 “Seeing suddenly” suggests that this small child is in effect a total stranger, and in this situation, the fact that we would all feel a sense of alarm and distress (the original meanings of cei yin 恻隐) shows that care for strangers is a universal sentiment. Of course, the compassion we naturally possess is merely the beginning of humaneness, and for it to become strong enough to hold strangers together, it needs to be cultivated. To do so, the methods early Confucians introduced are “to take as analogy what is near at hand” (6.30 of the Analects) and to expand one’s care for those who are close to him or her to those who are not. They took family as a central place of moral cultivation. For, on the one hand, we feel naturally close to it, and it is something very private. On the other, it is the place where we make the 9 Confucianism is a long tradition, in which there are diverse views that are not necessarily compat-

ible with each other. In the following reconstruction, I will use mostly texts from the Zhou–Qin transition, in particular, the Analects and in the Mencius. I believe that the ideas from these texts are compatible with each other, but I cannot defend their coherence in this short chapter. Therefore, all the occurrences of “Confucianism” and its variants should be understood as ideas that are based on a coherent set of mostly pre-Qin Confucian texts. There are important stages of development of Confucianism, such as the Neo-Confucianism in the Song, Yuan, and Ming dynasties (roughly from 960 A.D. to 1644 A.D.), but I will not resort to them in this chapter. In the 20th century, there are so-called New Confucians and later overseas New Confucians (for most of them left the mainland after the Chinese Communist Party took over much of China in 1949). In the twenty-first century, there have arisen the so-called mainland New Confucians. This is not the place to discuss all the distinctions. To put it very simply, the mainland New Confucians have a more positive view of the political aspect of traditional China and traditional Chinese thoughts, Confucianism included, and they believe that these thoughts still have contemporary relevance, either to China or to the whole world. In this sense, the spirt of this chapter is in line with the mainland New Confucian camp, as its focus is to show the contemporary relevance of the political aspect of some early Confucian ideas. Indeed, I myself am labelled as a member of the mainland New Confucian group. 10 For an English translation of various passages of the Mencius mentioned in this chapter, see the corresponding parts of Lau (2003). The translations in this chapter are all mine.

974

T. Bai

first step outside of our narrow self because, in family, we learn to care for others. Through the care we cultivate in family, and through “treating the elderly of my own family [as they should be], and extending this treatment to the elderly of other families” (1A7 of the Mencius), we can extend our care to all strangers and even everything in the world, arriving at a stage in which, as the later Confucian Zhang Zai 张载 (1020–1077) put it, “all people are my siblings, and all living things are my companions.”11 This idea of universal care cannot, however, be read as a complete denial of patriotism, for there is another aspect of the Confucian universal care. That is, even if some people, perhaps the Confucian exemplary persons, whom early Confucians believed to be few in number, achieve the universal care, the care will have to be graded or hierarchical. Our care for more distant objects comes from the care for closer ones, and the latter is the root of and thus should be stronger than the former. One’s care for one’s own state and its people, then, will have to be stronger than the care for foreign states and their people.12 This means that we are justified to put the interests of our own state above those of other states’. But we cannot defend our national interests by all means, especially by totally disregarding the wellbeing of other people. For this total disregard means no compassion for our fellow human beings, and according to Mencius’s criteria of what makes humans human, we then cease to be human and become beasts instead (4B19 of the Mencius). In short, our patriotism should be limited by our humanity or humaneness. In addition to the universal and unequal compassion, pre-Qin Confucians introduced another idea to bond strangers and deal with international relations, i.e., the distinction between the civilized (xia夏) and the barbaric (yi夷). This distinction is sometimes misinterpreted as racially based, but early Confucian texts clearly indicated that it is based on whether one adopted a civilized way of life, and not on race or country of origin.13 Therefore, in this chapter, the term “civilized” and its variants, as the translation of the Confucian idea of xia, are used to refer to something all human societies ought to share if they deserve to be called human societies. Sometimes, people use “civilization” to refer to what belongs to a particular people and to distinguish it from how the term “civilized” is used in this chapter, and I will use “culture” to refer to what belongs to a particular group of people that is not universally shared by human societies (qua human societies). During the SAWS, there were more than one civilized state, and each civilized state could use its own special identity (geographical, historical, linguistic, etc.)— what we can call “cultural identity”—as a bond within the state. Then, the Confucian international structure can be summarized as the following: a people should “give

11 The

translation is mine. For the Chinese version, see Zhang (1978), 62–63. question here is why states are necessary. This is a question I cannot address in this short chapter. 13 See, for example, Mencius’s claim that Chen Liang should be considered xia because of his love of the civilized way of life, in spite of that fact that his home state was often considered a barbaric state (3A4 of the Mencius). 12 A

51 Tian Xia: A Confucian Model of State Identity …

975

preferential treatment to their own state over other civilized states, and give preferential treatment to all civilized states over barbaric ones” (The Gong Yang Commentaries 《春秋公羊传·成公十五年》 ).14 Now, with the early Confucian answers to the bond within a state and international relations explained, let me construct a “New Tian Xia” system inspired by these answers. In the contemporary world, according to the Confucian theory, geography, history, language, customs are the cultural elements that constitute state identity. Above states, all civilized states should form an alliance through their shared endorsement of the civilizedness. As an entity, they should defend the civilized way of life, and guard against and exert a positive influence on the barbaric states. I cannot offer an adequate account of the meaning of “civilized,” but it should include the following Confucian values: the legitimacy of the state lies in the service to the people (humane governance), and compassion, thinly and broadly construed (which can function as an overlapping consensus among people with plural values), should be a key virtue.15 In this civilized system, the people of one civilized state should “give preferential treatment to their own state over other civilized states,” and people of all civilized states should “give preferential treatment to all civilized states over barbaric ones.” To love one’s own state and to love all civilized states are justified, and to put one’s state’s interests above other states’ and to put all civilized states’ above the barbaric ones’ are also justified. In the meantime, however, the preferential treatments don’t mean a total disregard of the interests of “the other.” Rather, people have a moral duty (based on Confucian compassion) to the other. Civilized states can justifiably intervene with the business of the barbaric states—a “barbaric” state is defined as one that is not humane to its people, i.e., one that either tyrannizes its people, or out of incompetence or indifference, fails to offer basic services to its people, and is not humane to other people, such as the total neglect of the duty to control greenhouse gas emissions that will endanger the lives of countless foreigners. Of course, we should first try to be a moral exemplar, “the city on the hill,” as a way of moral intervention, and only under some extreme circumstances, can military interventions be justified. In the latter case, the sovereignty of a tyrannical state should not be protected, and the defense of this state can be unjust. For Confucians, the ultimate principle is “humane duties override sovereignty” (rather than “human rights override sovereignty”). Among civilized states, although a civilized state can prioritize its own state interest over another civilized state’s, and they can even be in fierce competitions with each other, the competitions can never become violent (thus leading to a “civilized peace” rather than democratic peace). One may suspect that the tian xia discourse is a secret expression of China’s will to become the hegemon of East Asia again and even in the world. But although the 14 This

commentary was considered one of the core Confucian classics in the level of the Mencius (sometimes even higher than the latter), and these classics are considered to offer a coherent message. We can also find similar ideas in the Mencius as well, although they are not put as succinctly as the ones quoted above. 15 Other elements of being civilized should include the protection of some basic rights and liberties, and the preservation of and education through the classics, not only the Confucian ones, but works such as Plato’s Republic.

976

T. Bai

understanding of “civilized” has its Chinese root, this doesn’t mean that contemporary China automatically should be considered a “xia” state. Rather, it has to earn this “membership” through conducting human governance to its own people and taking up humane duties in the world. To earn membership by taking up the Confucian view of the global order would also offer the real answer to the question of whether China can rise peacefully. To be clear, the Confucian international order is different from today’s U.N. model if we take it as a community of equal member-states because the Confucian order is hierarchical. It is also different from the U.N. model if we understand it as a hierarchy with the five permanent members of the security council on top because the Confucian hierarchy is determined by the humaneness of the states (that is, for example, whether the people of this state are served, and whether this state pays attention to climate change that affects other people, and not by some historical contingencies that may not be relevant anymore). 3. The New Tian Xia Model Versus the Nation-State Model As mentioned, facing with the “modern” issue of how to bond a large number of strangers together, another model, which is often (wrongly) considered the model of modern states, is the so-called nation-state model. That is, the people of a state should form a unified whole because they belong to the same “nation.” But there are different understandings of what constitutes a nation, and as a result, there are many different versions of nation-state that have emerged in modern Europe. In this short chapter, I cannot compare the Confucian model with all of them. In the following, I will focus on the nationalist version of it. According to this version, although a nation can have cultural, linguistic, and geographic elements, the defining element of a nation is blood relations or race, which are often imagined and politically manipulated rather than real.16 But imagined or not, the idea of blood relations is intuitive and strong, more so than, for example, the kind of state identity offered by the Confucian cultural identity and the hierarchical care. Since it treats all people in it as a big family, a nation-state can have a strong motivation to protect its people, and even promote individuals’ rights within the state. But in the merits of this model lie also its drawbacks. The bond is strong in this kind of nation-state because it is using blood relations, but these relations are exclusive and the distinction between the self and the other is firm. A nation-state can then pursue its interests at all costs, including ignoring international institutions, violating international laws, and even waging wars whenever necessary. Internally, ethnic cleansing or a milder form of oppression of those who don’t belong to the same “nation” (race) can also be accepted. One can argue that this version is an extreme version. But historically, this is a model that many states have followed, and it has been emulated by many nonWestern countries, including China. Even in the West, there is a recent rise of rightwing nationalism that embodies this version of the nation-state. Thus, to evaluate the merits and problems of this version and compare it with the Confucian model is still an important task. 16 See,

for example, Anderson (2006).

51 Tian Xia: A Confucian Model of State Identity …

977

Different from this version of the nation-state model, although the Confucian model acknowledges the (conditional) sovereignty and sanctity of individual states, instead of using a race that is exclusive, in the Confucian model, the bond is the hierarchical care and culture. The drawback of this kind of bond is that it is not as strong as blood relations, but because of this, it is also more inclusive than race. The Confucian New Tian Xia Order doesn’t eliminate states but offers a more inclusive foundation to them than nation-states do. But a nationalist and realist criticism of the Confucian model is that what each state will actually follow is its national interests, and the talk of humaneness or, in the case of the US and Western powers, the talk of human rights is just empty talk. The realist has a point: it may well be true that any state in the real world can’t help but take national interests as the primary concern. But as Mencius put it, what distinguishes us from beasts is rather slight (4B19 of the Mencius). To a large extent, we are rational animals, and we, either as individuals or as a group in the form of a state, will take our own material interests as the priority. But if we or our state is human in Mencius’s sense, it has to show a slight distinction from desire- or interests-driven animals. Failing to understand this, and evaluating the moral dimension of a state’s policies by looking into whether they are driven by national interests, we will embrace the relativist view that no state is moral. A really meaningful and realistic perspective, in contrast, is to look at whether this state takes anything else than national interests into account (the “slight” but crucial difference between a human state and a state of beasts), especially when the sacrifice of national interests is not great. Therefore, in a more realistic Confucian order, we can acknowledge the fact that it is not possible for a state to transcend its interests, and it is extremely difficult and rare for a state not to take its interests as the priority. A more realistic Confucian can even accept the realist idea that the peace between two states, even between two civilized states, in reality, can only be maintained for good if these two states have a balance of power. There can even be competing unions of civilized states, which is actually good for the flourishing of human civilizations. Indeed, such competing unions may offer a realistic path for the Confucian order to become reality. But the realistic Confucian differs from a typical realist in that the former argues that the “slight” difference between a state purely driven by national interest and a state with a sense of moral obligations matters. It may be just the icing on the cake, but sometimes, icing can make a difference with regard to the taste of the cake! Put less metaphorically, all the realistic Confucian expects is for a state with a Confucianstyle ideal to have restrained on its interests with humaneness. Such a state will do the right thing (reducing greenhouse gas emissions or intervene with another state in which the people suffer from famine or civil wars), when the reduction doesn’t hurt its production much, or when the intervention is also good for the intervening state’s geopolitical interests or doesn’t affect its interests in any serious manner.

978

T. Bai

4. The New Tian Xia Model Versus Cosmopolitan Models Recognizing the danger of the nationalist version of the nation-state model, some cosmopolitanists wish to transcend nations and nation-states—let us call it the noidentity model, that is, the ultimate rejection of state identity. For them, the existence of states is neither desirable nor necessary, and institutions should be developed, such as a world government, that address the concerns of all human beings equally, without the intervention of states. Some more moderate liberal thinkers try to make the state identity as thin as possible, grounding it, for example, in constitutional identity—let us call it the thin-identity model. Although states can still be preserved, yet the identity is so thin that a state can easily assimilate those who wish to join it, making the boundaries of a state easily “transcend-able.” The thin-identity model is in a sense similar to the way the Romans bonded their empire through laws and institutions. The pre-Qin Chinese Legalists such as Han Fei Zi韩非子also advocated similar means of control and bond (minus the cultural tolerance part). The beauty of the thin-identity model is that it is very inclusive, but this comes from the fact that its bond is rather thin. For example, when the Roman empire expanded, it could expand quickly; but when its center fell, the whole empire fell with it equally quickly as well. The quick demise of the Legalist Qin dynasty also testified to this problem.17 One can argue, however, different from the Legalist Qin dynasty and the Roman empire, the liberal version of the thin-identity model uses equality, universal rights, universal and equal love, and respect for and endorsement of diversity to bond human beings together, that is, diversity produces unity.18 But obviously, this kind of bonding cannot help distinguish between two equally liberal and pluralistic states. Generally, the identity based on liberties and pluralism seems to be too weak to hold a people together. Moreover, the liberal commitment to pluralism can sometimes evolve into an active promotion of different kinds of intra-state identities (racial, gender, sexual orientation, etc.). This kind of promotion leads to thicker and thicker intra-state 17 In his contribution to this anthology, Jonathan H. Turner explains why it is hard for a political entity to expand and dominate other political entities for too long. Of course, although such geopolitical formations almost always eventually collapse under their own weight, their demise doesn’t mean the long life of autonomous and relatively equal political entities, if we realize that expansion is a natural drive for a political entity. More relevant to this chapter, we need to distinguish between the Roman Empire and Chinese empires, and even among different Chinese empires. As I just mentioned in the main text, both the Roman empire and the Qin empire achieved quick expansion through military dominance, and unified the empires through military force, as well as political institutions and laws. This is an early and non-liberal form of “thin-identity” model. The good thing about such a model is that it can expand quickly. The bad thing, however, is that it doesn’t form a very cohesive whole on its own, and the external forces have to be exerted, which is costly. Therefore, the fact that such forces need to be exerted constantly brings in destabilizing elements to this formation. In contrast, Chinese empires (dynasties) after the Qin dynasty engaged in various forms of cultural assimilations, which may have been partly inspired by the Confucian treatment of the identity issue, and could balance the impact of the destabilizing factors. The price, however, is that assimilation takes time, and the expansion has to be slow. 18 I thank Theodore Hopf for making this point to me.

51 Tian Xia: A Confucian Model of State Identity …

979

identities, while the state identity remains thin, and even has been made thinner and thinner by the liberal suspicion of any form of state identity, taking it as the root of racism and nationalism. This kind of liberal or left-wing identity politics (promoting sub-state identities while ignoring or even suppressing state identity) that is once popular in many Western countries now leads to right-wing, nationalistic backlashes throughout the West, partly due to its failure to pay sufficient attention to state identity.19 The Chinese Communist ethnical policies have a similar problem—this shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone because the Communist Party is an ultra left-wing party: the government invents (in some cases) and then tries to preserve ethnic identities through political measures, but it fails to offer a sustainable discourse on state identity. Under Mao, the hope is that all national (ethnical) identities will be transcended under communism when all workers in the world unite. But after the death of Mao and the fall of the Soviet Union, the Chinese government doesn’t seem to consider this a viable solution. But it keeps the Mao-era left-wing ethnic identity policies. At the same time, it doesn’t tolerate the cultural practices each ethnic group wishes to conduct. When the government promotes ethnic identities politically on the one hand and suppresses cultural practices on the other, chaos seems to be the natural result. An argument can be made that the ethnic issues in democracies such as France may have similar roots (protecting the identity of Muslims politically, but culturally, forbidding them to dress like one). A solution to the problem that the cosmopolitan thin-identity model fails to offer an identity that is binding is to make the state identity thicker without violating liberal principles. This may lead to a form of liberal nationalism, proposed by thinkers such as Miller (2000) and Tamir (1993). Indeed, it may also offer an alternative to the nationalist version of nation-state. An adequate analysis of this alternative and a comparison between it and the Confucian model is beyond what this chapter can handle. If it turns out that there is little difference between the two models, I am happy to accept the idea that the Confucian New Tian Xia model is one of the best models available and not the only best model. That is, a liberal nation-state model, a “thickened” cosmopolitan model, and a Confucian New Tian Xia model can share some fundamental features with each other and are equally desirable, in spite of some possibly remaining differences. As was mentioned, another version of the cosmopolitan model is the no-identity version of cosmopolitanism. On this version, let us leave aside the issue of this version’s rejection of the necessity of states, there is still a Confucian objection to it. A possible theoretical foundation for this kind of cosmopolitanism is a demand to treat everyone with equal care, but the Confucian universal care is hierarchical. The Confucian argument is that our care for those farther away is built on or rooted in our care for those closer to us. To care for everyone equally sounds wonderful, but is rootless and too demanding for human beings to keep up with over a long period of time. Human beings could achieve this status with quasi-religious zeal, as the Chinese did in the Cultural Revolution, but this universal and equal love can’t 19 See

Lilla (2016) for a criticism of “identity liberalism.”

980

T. Bai

sustain itself for too long and will be busted. When it does, one will go from one extreme to the other, from complete selflessness to extreme selfishness, which was what happened to many Chinese people after the Cultural Revolution.20 Moreover, since the ideal of equal care is too demanding, and a state often cannot achieve it even to a very limited degree, other countries will quickly grow suspicious of the state that waves such a banner as “human rights override sovereignty,” and become cynical. Let us take the immigration and refugee issue as an example. The general Confucian principle is that immigrants and refugees can only be allowed in when the life of the citizens of the host state is not seriously disrupted. Of course, a clear mechanism to evaluate the influence on the life of the citizens, and to decide on how serious is too serious needs to be worked out, but it is clear that the Confucian model will reject open borders. In contrast, according to some no-identity version of cosmopolitanism, all human beings should be treated equally, and this implies a rejection of borders, for borders make people unequal (those who are inside of the borders and who are outside of them). Refugees, then, should be taken in, whereas, in the Confucian model, this is not unquestionably so. The Confucian principle may sound coldblooded. But as the anti-refugee, anti-immigrant backlashes in the West show, to strive for an ideal by putting an unreasonable demand on the citizens will likely be counterproductive. Moreover, as the cultural identity in the Confucian model— expressed by the Confucian tenet “unity with diversity”—requires, the immigrants need to be absorbed into the culture of the host state. This means at least two things. First, the admission of the refugees and immigrants, if it is not a temporary solution of some crisis, has to be gradual; otherwise, the influx of a large group of people with alien cultures is hard to be absorbed into the state with a different cultural identity. Second, while tolerant of their diverse cultures, the host state should actively use soft means, such as promoting the education of national language(s) and national history, to encourage cultural assimilation. But what about the influx of a very large number of refugees due to some natural and political catastrophes? I don’t have a good answer to this challenge and can only suggest that maybe something like a charter city can be a solution.21 That is, some international organization or alliance of states can use an unclaimed island, or create a safe zone in a refugee-producing state, to receive the sudden influx of refugees due do some grave natural and political disasters. This chartered place will be administered by the alliance, and aids will be offered by the states in the alliance. Factories may be set up to make this place economically sustainable to some extent. To conclude, I have argued that the Confucian New Tian Xia order that is based on a universal but hierarchical care may be a better alternative than what are presently available, such as the nationalist version of the nation-state model, still dominant in today’s world, and organizations such as the EU that have a cosmopolitan tendency to transcend states. It is more idealistic and compassionate than the nationalist version 20 This criticism can be applied to communism as well, which is but a radical form of cosmopolitanism. We have seen that in the real world, instead of “all workers unite,” workers from different states are fighting against each other, creating an environment of “all workers divide!” 21 See Sagar (2016) for a detailed analysis of the idea of charter cities.

51 Tian Xia: A Confucian Model of State Identity …

981

of the nation-state model, and can thus solve the dichotomy between nation-states and globalism. It is also more realistic than some cosmopolitan models, giving us hope that it can avoid the trap of mistrust and cynicism that is caused by the unrealistic demand of cosmopolitanism. Using Rawls’s terminology, the Confucian New Tian Xia order may be a “realistic utopia” (Rawls 1999).22 Acknowledgements The research for this chapter is supported by the Program for Professor of Special Appointment (Eastern Scholar, second term) at Shanghai Institutions of Higher Learning.

References Anderson, Benedict. 2006. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (revised edition). New York, NY.: Verso. Bai, Tongdong白彤东. 2013. “Humane Rights Override Sovereignty – A Mencian Theory of Just War” 仁权高于主权—孟子的正义战争观. Journal of Social Sciences社会科学, Issue 1 (2013): 131–139. Bai, Tongdong. 2018. “Mao’s, China’s, or Confucius’s Tianxia? – Reflections on Chinese Visions of World Order”, Featured Review (Wang, Ban (ed.), Chinese Visions of World Order). China Review International, Vol. 25, Issue 4 (2018), 334–344. Bai, Tongdong. 2019. Against Political Equality: The Confucian Case. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Duara, Prasenjit. 2017. The Chinese World Order and Planetary Sustainability. Wang 2017: 65–83. Fukuyama, Francis. 2011. The Origins of Political Order. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Lau, D., and C.刘殿爵 (tr.), 2000. Confucius: the Analects (first, paperback ed. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press. Lau, D.C. 2003. Mencius, revised and, bilingual ed. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press. Lilla, Mark. 2016. “The End of Identity Liberalism,” New York Times, Nov. 20, 2016. Miller, David. 2000. Citizenship and National Identity. Oxford: Blackwell. Pye, Lucian. 1990. “China: Erratic State, Frustrated Society,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 69, Issue 4 (Fall, 1990), 56–74. Pye, Lucian. 1993. “How China’s Nationalism was Shanghaied,” The Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs, No. 29 (Jan 1993), 107–133. Rawls, John. 1999. The Law of Peoples with “The Idea of Public Reason Revisited”. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Sagar, Rahul. 2016. Are Charter Cities Legitimate. The Journal of Political Philosophy 24 (4): 509–529. Sun, Xiangchen孙向晨. 2014. “Nation-State, Civilized State, and the Idea of Tian. Xia” 民族国家、文明国家与天下意识, Exploration and Free Views探索与争鸣, September 2014, 64–71. 22 I am merely borrowing this phrase here, and do not mean to offer a comparison between the Confucian model and the Rawlsian one as presented in Rawls’s The law of Peoples Rawls (1999). But this comparison can be made. In his book, Rawls seems to advocate an alliance of the wellordered peoples, similar to the alliances of the civilized peoples in the Confucian model. The well-ordered peoples have some duty to address the miseries of outlawed and failed states. On this basis, his system is also hierarchical, which is based on governance and dutifulness, and his qualified endorsement of intervention is also comparable with the Confucian support of just war. Of course, the meaning of “well-ordered” is not necessarily the same as the Confucian idea of “civilized,” and how aggressive their intervention policies are is also a serious issue that is worth pursuing.

982

T. Bai

Tamir, Yael. 1993. Liberal Nationalism. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Wang, Ban (ed.) 2017. Chinese Visions of World Order—Tianxia, Culture, and World Politics. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Zhang, Zai, and 张载. 1978. The Collected Works of Zhang Zai 张载集. Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju 中华书局.

Tongdong Bai is the Dongfang Chair Professor of Philosophy at Fudan University in China, Director of an English-based MA and visiting program in Chinese philosophy, and a Global Professor of Law at NYU’s Law School. He is the author of China: The Political Philosophy of the Middle Kingdom (Zed Books 2012) and Against Political Equality: the Confucian Case (Princeton University Press, 2019).

Chapter 52

Russian Civilization and Global Culture: Alternative or Coexistence? Ilya Ilyin and Olga Leonova

Abstract The Russian civilization embodies the cultural codes of the Byzantine civilizations, East Slavic tribes, and Orthodox Christianity. The church doctrine of the divine monarchy became the main spiritual foundation of Russian statehood which is characterized by a “symphony of powers,” namely, a synergy of sacred and spiritual powers as well as the theocratic principle embodied in the Byzantine model of the state. The ancient, medieval, and contemporary Russian political traditions have been grounded on the same notion of political power: a strongly centralized power personified by the supreme autocratic ruler, a rigid hierarchy of power and a domination of the executive over the legislative branch. The dominant cultural archetypes of the Russian civilization have always been Christocentrism, conservatism, patriarchalism, love for the good, patriotism, sobornost, and tolerance. Russian civilization has nourished different interpretation of such important concepts as freedom, justice, progress, and meaning and purpose of life and at the same time has perpetuated a tradition of dialogue and cooperation with the Islamic civilization. This historical experience establishes Russia as a multicivilizational model for the global world where inter-civilizational dialogue ought to provide the basic framework and the propeller for international communication, coexistence, and cooperation.

Multiculturalism in Russian Civilization The historical experience of state-building is truly sacred for Russia. As early as in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the Russian scholars tried to create a scientific concept of the Russian national statehood by ascertaining the essence, sources and objectives of state power, and the optimal form of state structure. Prior to the 1917 Revolution, these issues had been widely covered in the literature, and the Russian I. Ilyin (B) Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia e-mail: [email protected] O. Leonova Department of Globalistics, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 I. Rossi (ed.), Challenges of Globalization and Prospects for an Inter-civilizational World Order, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44058-9_52

983

984

I. Ilyin and O. Leonova

people believed that they had succeeded in establishing a special form of statehood agreeable to God. The Russian civilization combined the cultural codes of the Byzantine civilizations and the Eastern Slavic tribes to create a common polity—the “Kievan Rus”.

Tribal Origins of the Kievan Rus The civilization of Russian began in the ninth century in the form of a federation among Slavic, Finno-Ugric, and Scandinavian (Vikings) tribes, although this matter is still debated among historians (Kievan Rus. Historical State). According to the tradition, the first Prince of Ancient Russia was Varyag Rurik, who founded the state in ancient Novgorod in 862 and is considered the ancestor of the first Royal dynasty of Russia. His descendants began to rule in Kiev and created the political federation called Kievan Rus, which encompassed modern Ukraine, Belarus, and a section of northwest Russia. East Slavic tribes are reflected in Russian culture by a special spirit of inner freedom and creativity as well as a desire and courage to defend the Fatherland even at the cost of life. Ancient Slavic tribes endowed Russian culture with paternalism (a special care of the subjects by the supreme power), a specific kind of democracy and civil society (which are embodied in the Russian peasant community), gender equality and an important role of women in society, and the ability to bear the hardships of war and isolation in a hostile external environment.

Christian Orthodoxy and Byzantium as the Foundation of the Russian Society and State Orthodox Christianity played a major role in the shaping of the Russian civilization, as the people lived for over 1,000 years (with the exception of the 60 years of the Communist rule which prohibited religion) in the realm of moral and ethical values, guides, and goals determined by Orthodox faith. It was Orthodox Christianity that enabled the Russian ethnicity to preserve its sovereignty and integrity, develop its unique ethno-cultural and psychological character, values, and ideals, and to establish its unique lifestyle.. From Orthodox Christianity, Russian civilization took the idea of “Symphony of Church and State” which entailed a dedication of all life activities to God, a Divine inspiration to everyday activities, contemplation, humility and submissiveness to fate, as well as the great Russian philosopher I. Ilyin called it: “the invisible revival in the visible dying.” (Ilyin 1991: 23). Orthodox Christianity enjoyed the status of official religion in Russia for a long time and provided the first foundation of the political culture of the Russian state. The Russian state always identified itself and acted as a Christian statehood drawing its ideals and raison d’être from the Orthodox doctrine which drew from Divine

52 Russian Civilization and Global Culture …

985

Revelation, the blueprints of social life and the state. In the end, the religious and moral content of life served as the crucial carrying component of the entire power structure. The influence of the Byzantine Empire reinforced the concept of state power, for instance, the tradition of a single person’s sovereign power over millions of subjects and the doctrine of the divine monarchy. K. N. Leontiev highlighted that all forms and institutions of state power in Russia embody Byzantine ideas: “Byzantism …when referring to the state stands for autocracy, and when referring to religion— for Christianity, minding the specific features making it different from the Western churches.” (Leontiev 1993a, b: 19). The model of the Eastern Byzantine Christian theocracy was implemented in Muscovy, but not as a theocracy implying a dictate and abuse on the part the state, but rather as an Orthodox commune headed by the Holy Orthodox czar who somehow combined political absolutism and the salvation doctrine. After the fall of the Byzantine Empire to the Turks in 1453, Russian rulers, such as Basil II, Ivan III, Basil III, Ivan IV, and theologians were guided not by established historical record but rather by their own reflections on the country’s history. We refer to the works of Metropolitan Filaret (1992), Metropolitan Ioann (2004), Khomyakhov (2011), Leontief (1993a, b), Tikhomirov (1998), Uspensky (1998). The and a centralized state were clearly formed in the late 15th—early 16th century and then served as a certain embodiment of the Russian national idea: “Moscow is the third Rome”. This motto was formulated by the monk Filophey in 1523, and this idea soon became very popular. In sixteenth century, Christian Orthodoxy took over and modified the Byzantine doctrine of the divine monarchy which entailed the perception of social structure as an image of the spiritual cosmos: “One czar—one God.” The emperor and the monarchy were considered as an image of heavenly hierarchy in the social world whose hierarchical order was believed to be ordained by God and, as such, inviolable. Analysis of the Russian political traditions demonstrates that the ancient, medieval, and contemporary Russia is characterized by the same type of political power and political organization: a centralized power personified by the supreme autocratic ruler, a rigid hierarchy of power, and a domination of the executive over the legislative branch. At a certain point, the revolutions (the February and the October Revolutions of 1917, and later the Perestroika of the 1990s) touched only the symbols, like the Regal scepter, the flag, the Constitution, the names of the institutions of power, but its autocratic/authoritarian form has been preserved. Yet, the czar was viewed as the carrier of divine power and truth so that he personified the unity, strength, and integrity of the country: there was no authority about the monarch; the monarch’s power was the source of all effective laws; the monarch was the father of all citizens who where united to him by love and trust rather than by law; consequently, the czar was supposed to perform duties obediently by renouncing to personal interests. This was the doctrine proposed by such people as (Metropolitan Filaret 2004; Metropolitan Ioann 2004; Khomyakhov 2011; Tikhomirov 1998, Uspensky 1998).

986

I. Ilyin and O. Leonova

This perception of the head of a nation as the representative of God and as Father and Defender of the nation is being transferred to the present-day head of state, including the Soviet and present regimes. Hence, it is not surprising that despite a variety of historical upheavals and radical socio-economic and political reforms, the relationship between the population and government in Russia has been characterized by stability, consistency, and continuity as in the czar times and after. People’s political culture has been characterized by dependence on the government from whom they expect a paternalistic attitude and policies providing material and social well-being as well as security.

Paternalism of the Czar This paternalistic policy and culture of loyalty to the Supreme power is attributable to several historical factors: Firstly, the concentration of state power in the hands of a narrow political elite which was necessary because of the exploration of vast territories controlled by the multi-ethnic and multi-religious groups and their development in the Russian Empire. Secondly, the notion of Christian “sobornost” as a crucial foundation of statehood and social structure in Russia. Khomyakhov Dmitry Alexeevich (1841–1919), a lay theologian of the Russian Orthodox Church, introduced this term to argue for the superiority of the Orthodox church which preserved a balance between authority and freedom by proclaiming a “sobornost” or a spiritual unity of people connected by faith and love. The Western interpretation of Christianity ended up with individualism, capitalism, and socialism and could not reconcile authority with freedom: Rome preserved unity but lost freedom, whereas the Protestants preserved freedom but lost unity. Only the Orthodox church preserved a balance between the two by positing an organic community that protects the liberty of its members and bases progress not on competition but on cooperation. Thirdly, with the fall of the Byzantine Empire, the young Russian state continued the Byzantine tradition of a Christian state as a form of communal autocracy to which obedience is due as a religious duty. In fact, the power of the “communal statehood” was based on religious and moral foundations as much as were national ideology, social order, household life, and the personal conduct of citizens. The notion of a spiritual unity between the Russian state and its people entailed a spiritual unity of all social classes, a united national outlook, and a national will to survive as a nation vis a vis of hostile neighbors and various internal threats. This religious foundation of the Russian statehood prompted K.P. Pobedonostsev to claim that the state is the body of a nation and the church is its spirit (Pobedonostcev 1993: 20).

52 Russian Civilization and Global Culture …

987

Cultural Archetypes of the Russian Civilization The predominant cultural archetypes of the Russian civilization (the Russian ethnos) were Christocentrism, conservatism, and patriarchal character, love for the good, patriotism, sobornost, and tolerance. The essential spiritual principle of life for the Russian civilization was the principle of Christocentrism. As already mentioned, the Russian civilization is based on the traditional system of Christian morality as the prevalent form of national culture which engendered the feeling of indefatigable intercession before God, walking while thinking about God, and feeling responsibility to God. The other archetypes constituting the spiritual heart of the Russian civilization were conservatism. Russia has been conservative and faithful to its spiritual traditions; prioritizing the interior (intrinsic) over the exterior forms of activities, Russian civilization evolved through a gradual development. Yet another distinctive feature arose from the prevalent archetype that can be referred to as “love for the good”. Paul the Apostle writes that a Christian life is faith expressing itself through love (Galatians: 5, 6) so that each person freely chooses to continuously serve other people as an internal need of “doing good” or benefiting other fellow human beings. This criterion of true Christian life and a key prerequisites for salvation shows how much faith in God as the Good and approaching God by doing good are woven into the fabric of the Russian national conscience. Patriotism construed as love for and protection of the Motherland from external and internal enemies is an important cultural archetype and specific feature of national character. The well-known Moscow hierarch Metropolitan Philaret defined patriotism as a religious duty: “Despise the enemies of God, fight the enemies of your Motherland, love your enemies.” This is why the concept of Motherland was mystical and sacred in nature. The cultural archetype of the already discussed sobornost (communal spirit) entailed a priority of collective interests and values over personal interests and values; hence, the communal character of Russian culture. Tolerance, already mentioned entailed a resolution of life challenges predominantly by means of internal and spiritual effort rather than by abusing nature and wasting its resources. As Nature is a creation of God, we must not destroy it. Christian humility before God is the key to understanding the Russian typical phenomenon of patience in grief, passivity in hardships, and loyalty to authorities. Hence, the astonishing skill of the Russian people to tolerate economic deprivation, hardship, and other adversities. Patience is among the most typical traits of the character of the Russian people whose traditions include a strong stereotype that can be worded as follows: “it is better to ‘hang in there’ than to do something and change one’s life.”

988

I. Ilyin and O. Leonova

Communalities Between Orthodox Christianity and Islam in Russian Civilization Christian Orthodox and Muslim people have coexisted for many centuries, fought shoulder to shoulder against external enemies, shared the hardships of war and ruin, and sacrificed to a totalitarian regime thus developing strong feelings of cooperation and forming the mega-civilization called Russia. Over the course of its history, Russia avoided acute religious conflicts and ensured a meaningful ethno-religious dialogue. Kirill, Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia, portrayed this dialogue as follows: “Our dialogue with non-Orthodox Christian faiths and non-Christian religions is not aimed at any kind of doctrinal alignment. This dialogue involves the people who, similar to us, are concerned about the trend involving the rethinking of moral premises in the public conscience and aims at preserving peace and justice and protecting religious people’s right to live in accordance with the requirements of their faiths.” (“Unknown” Patriarch Kirill 2009:104) Importantly, as Russia perpetuated the traditions of multiple civilization, Russian people hold strongly that Russia should be restored to great power by integrating the best components of these civilizations. Russia enabled each nation and each ethnic group to develop freely according to its own religious and cultural traditions; this was true of Islam, Christianity, and Buddhism, which peacefully coexisted in the Russian Empire, and which, alongside with secular humanism of the eighteenth century, are the cornerstones of the Russian civilization and Russian identity. To preserve the unity and integrity of the country as a great power, it is crucial that people brought up in the cultural traditions of different civilizations respect and understand each other. Being in close communication, people realized that Christianity and Islam share certain ethical and moral principles such as patience, obedience, faithfulness, magnanimity, patriotism, tolerance, goodwill, justice, modesty, benevolence, generosity, and respecting parent. These are the qualities named among the core principles of Muslim ethics and morality by Professor Haydar Bash, major contemporary researcher of the Quran (Bash 2000: 226). Surely, theologians often call Christianity the religion of love, and Islam the religion of justice. These words have become a motto of the official website of the spiritual administration of the Muslims of the Russian Federation. However, they are quick to note that love in our life is not opposed to justice and, we may add, love without justice is worthless. Besides spiritual and moral views, Orthodox Christianity and Islam share also a clear-cut support for a spiritual and moral view of social life as exemplified by the following principles: (a) worldly and material well-being is not the ultimate meaning and purpose of human existence; (b) national solidarity and solidarity with the state are just as important as self-fulfillment; (c) spiritual values are as important as economic success; (d) justice is just as important as technological progress and material prosperity; and (e) the good of mankind has priority over personal benefit.

52 Russian Civilization and Global Culture …

989

Russia Civilization and the East–West Interface Russia as a Distinct and Multicultural Civilization There is a contemporary notion that Russia, due to its geographic location on the borderline between the East and the West, represents an “intermediate civilization” as a hodgepodge of values from two major civilizations. On the contrary, the previous discussion amply documents that Russia represents a distinct civilization with its own spiritual values, national mindset, and national political culture. Moreover, its multicultural origin and orientation is of particular importance. Located on the borderline between the East and the West, Russia has encapsulated the features and controversies of various world cultures, has reworked them in a creative way, and has created a unique civilization of its own based on its historical and mystical experience. The Russian civilization is profoundly original not only because of its unparalleled spiritual foundation, but also because of its open attitude toward the faiths, cultures, and languages of the other peoples. The ethnicities of Siberia, Altai, Far East, and Far North have preserved their being in the Orthodox civilization even though they had not even a written language; they acquired it after they joined the Russian civilization. The multi-national structure of the society enriched the traditions of life, household, and labor of people and contributed to the development of tolerance. The idea of equality of the peoples and synthesis of cultures was considered a natural necessity for survival in a hostile environment. Russia had gradually developed into a multi-national country with the Russian distinct statehood which has united and consolidated a variety of tribes, peoples, and societies. Different languages, faiths, modes of thinking, and conceptions of good and beauty have enriched the culture of the Orthodox civilization making it original and unique. Even though the ancient Russian civilization does not exist today exactly as it was in XVI–XIX centuries, its models and spiritual values have been preserved at the deep level of the Russian cultural code and in the national conscience of the Russian people. Central to the Russian cultural code is precisely its multicultural orientation.

Comparing Western and Eastern Civilizations See Table 1.

Russia and the West: Two Different Mindsets As already mentioned, the Russian civilizational model was shaped by Orthodox Christianity which served as its spiritual regulator throughout all its history. The

Spiritual successor of the Western Roman Empire

Western Christianity (Catholicism)

Aristotelian man (rational Intuitive-sensual type of type) personality

Domination of rational thinking

Individual personality

Liberal values (property and freedom), priority of the material values

Philosophy of success

Anglo-Saxon (Atlantic) development model → : technological growth

(A) historical code

(B) conceptual archetypes shaped on the base

2. Mindset

(A) mode of thinking

(B) prevalent archetype

(B) priorities and values

(C) understanding of the purpose of Being

3. Civilization models

Ummah, community

Propensity for mysticism and the irrational

Intuitive-sensual type of personality

Islam

Spiritual successor of ancient Arab culture of the Arabian Peninsula

Arab civilization matrix

Islamic civilization

Continental development model: personal and social development

Harmonization of the person’s spiritual being

Continental development model: personal and social development

Harmonization of the person’s spiritual being

Conservative and patriarchal Conservative and patriarchal values, priority of spiritual values, priority of the spiritual values

Community, state

Propensity for mysticism and the irrational

Eastern (Orthodox) Christianity

Spiritual successor of the Byzantine Empire

Byzantine civilization matrix

1. Civilization matrix

Russian civilization

West civilization

Western Roman civilization matrix

Criteria

Table 1 Western and Eastern Civilizations in comparative perspective

Continental development model: personal and social development == personal and sociall development ??

Harmonization of the person’s spiritual being

Conservative and patriarchal values, priority of the spiritual

Community, state

Rational (Confucianism) and Mystical (Taoism) thinking

Atheistic man (rational type)

Ancient Chinese philosophy (Taoism and Confucianism)

Spiritual successor of ancient Chinese civilization

Chinese civilization matrix

Chinese civilization

990 I. Ilyin and O. Leonova

52 Russian Civilization and Global Culture …

991

differences between the Russian and the Western civilizations are most visible when we consider the values emphasized by the Protestant doctrine, which is the spiritual foundation of most European countries and the U.S: private property, autonomy and self-fulfillment of the individual, competition with peers, and continuous innovation. Parsimony and propensity for methodical work effort were also emphasized as necessary for the successful management of a capitalist business. The stress of the Protestant Etic on worldly economic success led to the rise of an ethical system and understanding of the meaning of human life that are opposite to the Orthodox view. The Russian civilization has prioritized the spiritual over the material values bringing it closer to other Eastern civilizations. The objective of social policies for the traditional civilization of Russia was to strive for a better social order rather than to produce and consume an increasingly larger amount of material assets. The Western mindset has a utilitarian notion of social progress as consisting exclusively in socio-economic and scientific technological progress. The Russian national mindset perceives social progress predominantly through perfection and transformation of life by means of embracing the Christian values more fully. The difference in the mindsets of the two civilizations is reflected in the fact that the European culture created an Aristotelian man with a domination of rational thinking and a conscience of an atomized individual, and a priority of liberal values and ideals. In Russia, by contrast, the intuitive-sensation type of personality with a propensity for mysticism is the dominant type of individual whose specific features are propensity for submission to the community, to paternalism, and to statism, and with a priority (at the genetic level) of spiritual over material values.

Russia as a Link Between Western and Eastern Civilizations Table 1 offers also interesting comparisons between Eastern and Western civilizations. 1. Islam, Russia, and China have historically dominated conservative and patriarchal values. The “community” and communal values as well as the state have always been the dominant archetypes of these cultures. 2. In Russian and Islamic civilizations, there are stable priorities of the ideal values over the material ones. There the intuitive and sensory-based knowledge prevails as well as mysticism and an irrational mode of thinking. In these cultures, the orientation toward Being and basic universal values with transcendent (Divine) meaning are preserved. For them, the purpose of life and the meaning of progress are based on the reflection on good and evil as well as the search for a truth “transcending” the material world. 3. Whereas the Western cultural tradition is heavily based on rationality, the Chinese civilization is based on the harmony of material and ideal principles, Confucianist rationality and mystical Taoism.

992

I. Ilyin and O. Leonova

4. E. Fromm wrote about two main modes of life of the individual. One is focused on Being and the desire to realize the meaning of life in the service of society and creation. The second mode is a life oriented to “possession,” the desire to own certain resources. The first mode is more typical for the Russian culture and civilization of Islam. The dominant motivator for the development of Western civilization is technological progress, material and financial incentives. The dominant motivator of the development of modern Chinese civilization is the progressive economic development (Fromm 1986: 238 → like this, page number belongs here). Russian civilization and Islam have more close characteristics than other civilizations probably due to their close ties and mutual influence for many centuries. Western and Chinese civilizations seem to have more common features than others, although there is a controversy among scholars about the true nature of Ancient Chinese culture and the issue of political correctness with New Confucianism. However, the convergence of these values indicates the unity of human civilization and the possibility of cooperation and peaceful interaction of different traditions and cultures.

On the Coexistence and Dialogue Among Different Civilizations Do we have a convergence of the Western, Russian, and Chinese civilizations? We believe that at this stage of globalization, it is impossible to merge these civilizations and create a global universal planetary civilization. Why? Each civilization is based on its own civilization matrix, namely, codes and algorithms, which determine its structure and development. The civilization matrix represents the main, the most ancient base or core of existence of the contemporary civilizations, which are imprinted in the minds of people at the level of their genetic memory and archetypes. In practice, they appear as specific ethno-cultural and ethno-psychological peculiarities unique only to each nation and have a significant impact on its historical development. Firstly, a civilization code manifests is the totality of the archetypes of the ethnic group (nation), established and entrenched in the minds and behavior of people throughout the history and existence of this civilization. It is the civilization code that defines the essence of a civilization and the direction of its development. Secondly, each civilization develops according to its own algorithms or repetitive rules, models yielding constant cultural contents. There are economic, political, sociocultural, informational, technological, ethno-psychological, religious, aesthetic, and environmental algorithms. For example, civilization algorithms in economics determine the content of economic categories, the hierarchy of the goals of economic development, the content of economic activities, the specific forms of its interaction with the political structure of a society, the economic and social activities of a man, the nature of human needs, and the means and degree of their satisfaction.

52 Russian Civilization and Global Culture …

993

Civilization algorithms in politics determine the interpretation of political institutions, the content of political institutions and political culture, means, forms, and vectors of the external and internal policies, and so on. Thirdly, there are civilization filters and barriers. Civilization barriers reject the economic, political, and sociocultural phenomena, which are the most inauthentic for the civilization matrix of the country and act at the level of the archetypes of national consciousness. For instance, the Russian society rejects the cult of “strong personality,” “lone ranger,” “sexual revolution” (in the Islamic republics of Russia), “career, money, and success first of all” (as young people prefer family relations). Civilization filters are instruments of interpretation and adaptation of economic, political, and sociocultural phenomena, which are outside of the civilization matrix but when they enter in interaction with the civilization algorithms they can be adapted to the cultural archetypes. For instance, civilization filters produce Russian interpretations of the theory and practice of Western parliamentarism, the presidential system, the electoral system, the party system, the banking system, and so on.

Spiritual Mission of Russia in the Twenty-First Century World Considering the role of civilizational barriers and filters, what civilizational role can Russia play in the global world? A large sector of the Russian public opinion believes that Russia’s mission is to try to stop the dangerous processes that are currently unfolding in our global world, including the permanent financial and economic crises. The Greek word “crisis” is translated into the Russian as “trial”. People in Russia believe that these crises are God’s judgment for human greed, consumption hunger, and desire of wealth by all means through abandonment of true values and ideas. Morality is the prerequisite for the survival of human civilization in the post-industrial era and, therefore, we must correct the vector of civilizational development. Such a correction requires a solution of several related tasks: The first task is to confront sin and stop evil. The Russian Patriarch Kirill claims that the political, economic, and social system should no longer be guided by the law of instinct which makes human civilization non viable (“Unknown” Patriarch Kirill 2009:81) However, no legal framework is capable of regulating human conduct, except the voice of conscience. The Russian church by providing the standards of virtue and morality inculcated by the Russian Church provides a creative impetus for self-perfection in humans and, therefore, protects society from self-destruction. Hence, the civilizational crisis in the global world will be overcome if we can establish a spiritual culture, which does not make the accumulation of material valuables the primary purpose of life nor replace the notion of sin with the notion of freedom; in fact, the later will lead the world to self-destruction. This is why it is so important to preserve our traditional values and our lifestyle that provide the possibility of confronting the sin.

994

I. Ilyin and O. Leonova

Yet another task is to educate a moral person to conform to our values. Such a task entails two specific subtasks: educate the mind of each individual to identify what is right and what is wrong, and to be oriented to God because God’s presence in the world will protect us from destruction. This intercultural message should be presented to the world community as an ideal benchmark for all nations to measure up to it. All nations of the world ought to become engaged in a dialogue with other world religions and cultures if such dialogue offers positive solutions toward preserving peace, justice, and the protection of people’s rights to live according to their national traditions. We invite the skeptics nourishing doubts about the just proposed benchmark to reflect on the following civilizational heritages. As we all know, in the West, the meaning and purpose of life for the majority of the people is not attainable without an occupation with decent material benefits, and the more one is successful in worldly undertakings, the more successful he feels. In traditional Orthodox Russia, the meaning and purpose of life lies in the effort of approaching God. The meaning of life is also associated with love for God, family, and a neighbor. According to the Islamic culture, the meaning and purpose of life is to worship Allah, to obey his will and fear his wrath. The purpose of life is to get to Paradise, to deserve it as a reward. In Ancient China, the meaning and purpose of life is to lead a “right life” that includes self-improvement of the person as well. Admittedly, the meaning and purpose of life is one of the most difficult and complex concepts and has been debated and redefined throughout the history of civilizations. Yet, the spiritual and philosophical heritage of our classic civilizations has been consistently centered around the eternal question: “What are the true values of life?” and “Why do we exist?” Traditional Russia and Islam converged on a definition of the meaning and purpose of life inextricably linked with the spiritual world of man and his service to God. What about the central message of the pluri-millennial Chinese civilization? The goal of life is to achieve internal and external harmony, especially harmonious relations with society.

Conclusion: Toward a Multicivilizational Dialogue This multicivilizational tradition established Russia as a multicivilizational model for the global world which should make civilizational dialogue a key process of contemporary cultural globalization. We must overcome dangerous international confrontations nourished by nationalistic barriers. We submit that the spiritual foundations of the Russian civilization have provided a common platform for many civilizations whose deep cultural codes have not come in conflict with each other. We submit that there should be not a clash but an interaction among civilizations and such interaction should unfold along the following track:

52 Russian Civilization and Global Culture …

995

The first step is to accept the very fact that civilizations unlike our own do exist and are entitled to exist. Suppose that an earth civilization come into an encounter with an extraterrestrial civilization, would a wise course of action be to impose on “aliens” a Westminster-inspired political system based on the belief that that is the best system for the whole Universe? Similarly, on what grounds can any great earthly civilization pretend to have the right to impose on all other civilizations and cultures of planet Earth meet its political institutions, even if they have proved to be effective in its own civilizational milieu? Never mind where the right to such a pretense would come from, what guarantee is there that such an imposed system would work in “alien civilizations”? Were not many non-Western cultures and countries destroyed by Westernization attempts without been replaced by Western cultures? Cultural globalization may destroy the traditional character of non-Western societies without making them “Western”. The second step is to abandon stereotypes and preconceived notions and try to understand the core values, ideas, and meaning of “alien civilizations”. We must recognize the fact that none of the civilizations came into being by a mere accident, but were based on human efforts in trying to deal with the challenges presented by their environment. The third step is to accept other civilizations and cultures as they are, after we have learned the circumstances from where they emerged and their strengths. Russia has thousands of years of experience of interaction among different civilizations and cultures. The historical experience shows that the right way is not implantation, but adaptation and interpretation of the most essential economic, political, and sociocultural elements of the various cultures of one’s own country.. Further developments of globalization can be based on interpretation of the achievements of diverse cultures and the adaptation of their scientific and technical, managerial, and cultural strengths. By Interpretation we mean the skill to use creatively alien intellectual heritage in one’s own authentic cultural space and social time. The creative interpretation of the alien experience and its use in the native practice is more productive than passive imitation. The other suggested mechanism is the attempt to adapt those elements of the “alien culture”, which do not contradict the civilization standards of one’s own country and can be combined with one’s own country’s national historical experience. The synthesis of Western values with the values and traditions of Chinese, Russian, and Islamic civilizations as well as the correlation of their achievements with the native civilization standards may become an important strategy for creative civilizational development. So an important goal of each country is to generate resources of endogenous development based on its own experiences and combine with interpretation and adaptation, without implantation, of models from different societies. We think that the future of the global world will be defined by the possibility of the creative integration of different national cultures based on these principles.

996

I. Ilyin and O. Leonova

References Bash, Haydar. (2000) Islam. The secret of becoming. Yaroslavl: Remder). [In Russian]. Fromm, Erich. (1986). To Have or to Be? M.: Progress P.238. [In Russian]. Ilyin, Ivan. 1991. About Russia. Moscow: Russian archive. Khomyakhov, Dmitry. (2011) Autocracy. Orthodoxy. People. Moscow: Institute of Russian civilization. [In Russian] xx Kievan Rus. Historical State. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Kievan-Rus (date accessed 17.07.19). Leontief, Konstantin. Byzantium and Slavs. (1993). M.: Dar. P.19 [In Russian] (There is no exact paper. He mentioned it many times). Leontief, Konstantin. Selected works. (1993). P.19 M.: Moscow worker. [In Russian Metropolitan Filaret. About a State. (1992). Tver. [In Russian] (There is no exact paper. He mentioned it many times). Metropolitan Ioann. Russian Symphony. Essays on the Russian philosophy of history. (2004). Sankt-Petesberg. [In Russian] (There is no exact paper. He mentioned it many times). Muslims of Russia. Official website of the spiritual administration of Muslims of the Russian Federation. Retrieved from http://dumrf.ru/common/interview/2184 [In Russian]. Pobedonostcev, Konstantin. 1993. The Great Lie of our time. Moscow: Russian book. [In Russian]. Tikhomirov, Lev. (1998). Monarchic statehood. M.: Oblisdat, Alir. [In Russian] (There is no exact paper. He mentioned it many times). Uspensky, Boris. (1998). The King and Patriarch: charisma of power in Russia (the Byzantine model and its Russian rethinking). M.: Languages of Russian culture. [In Russian] (There is no exact paper. He mentioned it many times). “Unknown” Patriarch Kirill”. (2009). Moscow: Danilovsky blagovestnik. [In Russian].

Ilyin Ilya is the Dean and Professor of the Faculty of Global Studies since its foundation in 2007 and the chairholder of the Department of Globalistic, at the Lomonosov Moscow State University. Among his publications are Political Globalistics coauthored with Olga Leonova (Moscow: Urite, 2017, in Russian), and his articles have appeared in the journal Comparative Politics and in the Proceedings of the Congresses on “Globalistics”. Olga Leonova is a Professor in the Faculty of Global Studies, Department of Globalistics, of the Lomonosov Moscow State University, She has coauthored with Ilyin Ilya Political Globalistics (Moscow: Urite, 2017, in Russian) and articles in the Journal of ‘Economics and Management: Problems and Decisions and the Age of Globalization [both in Russian].

Chapter 53

(Re)Constructing Neo-Confucianism in a “Glocalized” Context Ning Wang

Abstract The present chapter argues that globalization has made tremendous impact on China in an overall way, but it has also provided Chinese people with precious opportunities to promote its culture and thought in the world. International academic community may well wonder that since China is such an old country with a long history and splendid cultural heritage, and the Chinese revolution has achieved huge victory led by the Communist Party and guided by Marxism and Maoism, China should contribute a great deal to the world. In this chapter it is argued that the international academic community has recognized China’s contribution to global economy and politics, but not its potential contribution in culture and thought. The author argues that Chinese culture and thought will contribute more to the world than expected, especially in the renewed Confucianism and the “Sinicized” Marxism, which finds particular embodiment in the “Belt and Road” initiative and “Building up the Community of Shared Interests for Mankind” by Xi Jinping.

Since I have already elaborated my reconstruction of globalization chiefly from a cultural and intellectual perspective with regard to its “globcalized” practice in China, in this chapter, I will mainly deal with what China could contribute to the world, also from a cultural perspective. As I have pointed out elsewhere (Wang 2012), the so-called “singular modernity” is nothing but a myth in such an age of globalization since different countries have different conditions and different modes of development in the contemporary era. Then Chinese modernity is both an imported one from the West which is characterized by science and democracy and constructed one according to the “glocalized” or “Sinicized” practice, and it could thus by no means be in a singular form. Even within the broad Chinese context, we could easily find that modernity in different areas and different periods appears in different forms, which finds particular embodiment in the so-called Shanghai modern (Lee 1990) and Shanghai postmodern (Wang 2017) which I will elaborate a bit more in the latter part of this chapter. N. Wang (B) Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, People’s Republic of China e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 I. Rossi (ed.), Challenges of Globalization and Prospects for an Inter-civilizational World Order, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44058-9_53

997

998

N. Wang

We may easily notice that the grand and magnificent spectacle of the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games displays such a transnational spirit: on the one hand, there is the unprecedented highlight of Confucian ideas, but on the other hand, all these are realized by means of postmodern high technologies in sound, light, and electricity. So we cannot deny that to promote traditional Confucianism worldwide in the present era, we could make it possible by means of postmodern and global high technologies. Here Confucianism encounters with postmodernity and has produced some new versions in the age of globalization. That is, according to Confucius, Chinese people, who are very hospitable and friendly, are particularly delighted to have friends from all over the world and welcome them warmly (You peng zi yuanfang lai, buyi le hu.) Also according to the Confucian doctrine, within the four seas all men are brothers (sihai zhinei jie xiongdi), for we are living in a harmonious world with different cultural traditions coexisting rather than conflicting one another. Similarly, in doing cross-cultural literary studies, we cannot always stick to the old-fashioned nationalism either, for it will do harm to China’s project of opening up to the outside world and international cultural and academic exchange. Thus in this sense, a dynamic and global cultural theory could function not only at the center but also at the periphery. On the other hand, globalization has also brought about possibilities for Asian or other non-Western scholars to “globalize” their own culture and reconstruct their cultural identity as well as critical and theoretical discourse. But people might well raise this question: what are typical Chinese theoretical discourses? I think there are at least two: Confucianism, which was produced on the Chinese cultural soil and later developed in different historical periods to appear as the so-called Neo-Confucianism through various constructions and reconstructions by the Confucian theorists of later generations; and (Maoist) Marxism, which is also a sort of “Sinicized” Marxism. It is characterized by the combination of Marxist fundamental principles with concrete Chinese revolutionary practice. It has long been proved that it is a high stage of Marxism, or a sort of Maoist Marxism in the age of globalization (Liu 2015). Since I already discussed the possible reconstruction of a Neo-Confucian discourse in the age of globalization elsewhere (Wang 2010), I will, in this section, further elaborate a bit more about the significance of such theoretical reconstructions before dealing with the “Sinicized” Marxism. For according Mao, Marxism cannot be practiced in China in a dogmatic way, but rather it could be practiced in a creative way according to the concrete Chinese condition. In this sense, Marxism has been “glocalized” or “Sinicized” producing a sort of Maoist Marxism in the Chinese context. As we may well notice that in contemporary China, Confucianism is very popular and influential, which is not only taught in high schools and universities throughout the country but also researched and discussed by scholars of different levels. Some popular TV stars, especially Yu Dan, a professor of Chinese and mass media at Beijing Normal University, became well known simply because they interpret the Confucian doctrines from today’s perspective in a popular way thereby enabling some of the traditional Confucian doctrines to be accepted by ordinary people. Although the Chinese government has by various means set up hundreds of Confucius Institutes worldwide for the purpose of globalizing Chinese language and culture, it will by

53 (Re)Constructing Ne-Confucianism in a “Glocalized” Context

999

no means offer any help to promote Confucianism in the world. For “Confucius” here is only used as a symbolic of Chinese language and traditional Chinese culture simply because of his wide reputation and profound influence among non-Chinese people. As we know, Confucianism often refers to both the culture and thought, sometimes even a sort of religious doctrine since China does not have any religion. It had long been popular and dominant in the ancient time, but it was severely castigated during the New Culture Movement (1915–1923). During that movement such important thinkers and scholars as Hu Shi (1891–1862), Chen Duxiu (1879– 1942), Lu Xun, Cai Yuanpei (1868–1940), Qian Xuantong (1887–1939), and Li Daozhao (1889–1927), who either received education in the Western countries or had a profound attainment of Western learning, took the initiative in launching an ideological and cultural movement of “anti-tradition, anti-Confucianism and anticlassical Chinese” in an attempt to modernize China in an overall way. Thus we could say that Confucian doctrines in China have undergone twists and turns in the history of modern Chinese culture and thought. It was even more severely criticized during the Cultural Revolution, as it was regarded as an oppositional force to China’s cultural modernity and the communist belief. It is true that as compared with Daoism, another important and influential traditional Chinese philosophical and cultural doctrine, traditional Confucianism is more totalitarian and exclusive close to the modernist either/or mode of thinking. That is, both the Confucianists and the Neo-Confucianists are very active in participating in social reform and intervening in politics and governing the country. In contrast, the Daoists are characterized by observing social reform and turmoil with indifferent attitudes just minding their own business and enjoying themselves without intervening in social reform and governing the country. Furthermore, Confucianism is also known for its feudalist ideology and male-centric tendency. As we know, Confucianism is not liked by women, for according to the Confucian doctrine, women in China should observe the so-called San Gang (three cardinal guides, namely, ruler guides subject, father guides son, and husband guides wife), and Wu Chang (Five Constant Virtues, namely, benevolence, righteousness, propriety, knowledge, and sincerity), as specified in the feudal ethical code, which make up the major principle of feudal moral conduct. So it is not surprising that such a male-centric ideology was long challenged and opposed by women. It was especially criticized by both male and female intellectuals during the New Culture Movement. One of the very reasons why the New Culture Movement has always been viewed so important and valuable simply lies in the fact that it attracted almost all the leading Chinese intellectual figures as indicated above, from the left, right, and middle sides at the time. Confucianism was thus regarded as a reactionary ideology against the discourse of modernity, democracy, and communism, so it is not surprising that all the above eminent Chinese intellectuals joined together in criticizing this “feudalist” doctrine. Of course, from today’s point of view, that “cultural” movement also marked the beginning of Chinese modernity and actually paved the way for the revolutionary cause led by the Communist Party of China. Perhaps that is why the centenary of the May Fourth movement is celebrated in 2019, which is the climax of the New Culture Movement, in China and elsewhere. In my opinion, the NCM could be divided

1000

N. Wang

into three stages: the first stage is from 1915 to 1919, which is more culturally and intellectually oriented with the founding of the revolutionary journal New Youth (Xin Qingnian); the second stage is from 1919 to 1921, in which the movement was developing in a more and more politically oriented direction which culminated in the start of the May 4th movement in 1919 and the founding of the Communist Party of China; and the third stage marked the decline of the NCM with its leading group gradually dissolved. In any event, we cannot deny that the NCM has won tremendous victory, especially in the field of culture and language which certainly anticipated the rise of globalization in culture in the 1990s in China as that is one of the most open periods in the twentieth century. But unfortunately, what is even more radical is that many of the Confucian temples were either burned or damaged during that movement. After the New Culture Movement China suffered a great deal from a series of domestic and world wars, and finally the Communist Party defeated the Chiang Kaishek Nationalist regime and found the People’s Republic of China in 1949. According to Mao Zedong, founder of the PRC and chairman of the CPC, the fundamental theory guiding the Chinese people’s thinking is Marxism-Leninism. Since Confucianism is opposed to such a guiding ideology, it was certainly criticized violently being exiled to the periphery. Those Confucian scholars who remained in mainland China were also criticized and marginalized. Confucianism was even more severely criticized as a decadent, feudal, and bourgeois ideology during the unprecedented Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) launched by Mao as a massive practice of continuing the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat. In fact, Confucianism was almost totally outlawed or largely distorted at the time. Although Confucianism was more severely criticized together with Lin Biao, who had been appointed by Mao as his successor, in the so-called “Movement to Criticize Lin Biao and Confucius” (pi lin pi kong yundong) launched by Mao, the Confucian doctrine quickly revived in the era of China’s opening up to the outside world and economic reform. It is true that after hundreds of years’ revisions, reinterpretations, and reconstructions, especially those made by Mou Zongsan, Feng Youlan, and Rao Zongyi in the contemporary era and other overseas Chinese Confucian scholars, such as Tu Wei-ming and Cheng Chung-ying, dramatic changes have taken place in today’s Neo-Confucianism. Of course, these historical glocalizations have produced different forms of Confucianism. For instance, Tu’s version is more humanisticoriented and expresses his concern for the ecology and environment (Tu 2001), and Cheng’s version is more postmodern-oriented characterized by dialoguing with his continental counterparts (Cheng 2007). In the reconstructed Neo-Confucianism from a postmodern perspective by myself (Wang 2010), the feudal and totalitarian elements such as I have mentioned in the previous part of this chapter have largely been excluded while the eclectic, such as the dialogic and harmonious, and ethic elements are preserved or even highlighted (Wang 2010). Also, contemporary NeoConfucian theorists such as Tu Wei-ming called for a sort of “ecological turn” (Tu 2001) in the process of modernity which is absolutely necessary for current China’s

53 (Re)Constructing Ne-Confucianism in a “Glocalized” Context

1001

project of environmental protection and sustainable development of its economy.1 In this way, a sort of postmodern Neo-Confucianism has already incorporated a lot of Daoist and other doctrines of traditional Chinese thought, which, as being symbolic of traditional Chinese philosophical and cultural thought as exemplified by both Confucius and Laozi and Zhuangzi, could move from periphery to center and utter its stronger and stronger voice among major international theoretical discourses. From today’s point of view, I hold that the significance of reconstructing NeoConfucianism, or the new Neo-Confucianism, or the “glocalized” postmodern Confucianism, lies in that it will function as another forceful theoretical discourse of typical Chinese characteristics, such as building up a harmonious atmosphere and attempting to achieve a win-win result, etc., in the era of globalization in which more and more people intend to live comfortably and harmoniously. So I want to re-emphasize here that in the past centuries Neo-Confucianism, through hundreds of years of twists and turns and glocalized practices, has gradually become a powerful and influential discursive force dominating Chinese culture and civilization although it has been revised and reinterpreted by one generation after another of philosophers and cultural theorists. It cannot replace any dominant Western theoretical doctrines, but it will at least carry on equal dialogues with such Western-centric doctrines as modernity, postmodernity, and globalism, inserting in these typical Western discourses some fresh Chinese elements. Confronted with the Western influence and globalism, to get Confucianism revived is of great positive significance as this doctrine was produced on the Chinese soil and chiefly developed in different periods of Chinese history. But we should also realize that it is a double-edged sword: on the one hand, it will contribute a great deal to the promotion of Chinese culture and civilization worldwide, but on the other hand, it, if emphasized to an inadequate extreme, might well stimulate the rise of a certain nationalistic sentiment, thereby setting another binary opposition to the dominant Western theories (Wang 2010). For instance, in current China, along with the rapid development of Chinese economy, some radical Chinese humanities intellectuals try to argue that Chinese philosophy and culture will replace Western culture and philosophy, especially in the Chinese context. Obviously, the current inadequate display of nationalistic sentiment in China has caught the critical attention of international academia. This is perhaps what we should pay serious attention to in reconstructing the Neo-Confucianist doctrine in the age of globalization, especially in China where Marxism has always been the leading ideology since the founding of the People’s Republic of China. So people might well be interested in what the key old Confucianist and neoConfucianist canons, philosophical and cultural principles are. As for this, I will say a few more words about them although they are just common sense to Chinese people. 1 One

of the typical examples for contemporary new Confucianism to be incorporated into the Communist ideology is the fact: Xi Jiping has just published an article entitled “Tuidong woguo shengtai wenming jianshe maishang xin taijie”(Promoting the construction of ecological civilization in China)in the journal Qiushi (Seeking Truth), organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, No. 3, 2019. http://politics.people.com.cn/n1/2019/0201/c1024-30604177.html.

1002

N. Wang

First of all, I will describe some of the core ideas of old Confucianism. The core of Confucianism is the “golden mean.” That is, the main purpose of Confucian thought is benevolence and righteousness. Confucius used righteousness, benevolence, and filial piety to govern the country, and take an active part in worldly affairs. Developed and summed up by his disciples, Confucianism refers to the subsequent gradual development of the ideological system with benevolence as the core created by Confucius himself who also described it as self-cultivation, to establish a harmonious relationship with the people around. That is, it is necessary to be good and friendly to other people than our country fellows, and even to express our broad concern for entire humanity. Thus the core idea of Confucianism is characterized by self-cultivation and family governance. The golden mean or the middle way does not necessarily mean doing nothing, but to grasp the great wisdom of Yin and Yang. It lays particular emphasis on flexibility in dealing with people and worldly affairs. Since one cannot master the whole at the same time, the middle becomes reasonable. When it is large and reasonable, this middle represents large. When it is small and reasonable, this middle represents small. It just stands between the two. When it is extreme and reasonable, it represents extreme. The middle way is how to find this reasonable point and achieve the purpose of virtual control. In this sense, benevolence is just a way of balancing the heart and mind. Also it tries to balance family and social issues. That is, a good leader should also keep his family relation harmonious with good qualities and virtues. Of course there is also the way of using power. In international relations, it is necessary to find a common ground on which each country could be benefited without doing harm to other countries or nations. Although it might be difficult to practice it, it at least is worth trying. Obviously, Confucianism was chiefly founded by Confucius (551 BC-479 BC) himself and developed, interpreted and reconstructed by generations of his disciples. It originally referred to the master of ceremonies, and later gradually developed into a hierarchy of human beings. It is true that it does not give any space to individualism, so that is why it has been moderated in the Neo-Confucianism in which both the individual and society’s interest should be taken into consideration. The core ideological system, the Confucian doctrine, referred to as Confucianism, is the most influential school in China and had also been the mainstream consciousness of ancient China. Confucianism has had a profound influence on people of China, East Asia, and the rest of the world. It basically adheres to the legislative principles of respecting other people, especially respecting old people and taking care of week people, maintains “courtesy,” advocates the “rule of virtue,” and attaches importance to the “rule of people.” Confucianism thereby had a great influence on feudal society and was long regarded as Orthodox by various feudal rulers. It is exclusively practiced by the disciples and practitioners of Confucius’ doctrines. During the Confucian domination, other traditional Chinese philosophical doctrines, such as Daoism, were largely “marginalized.” So that is why when people today talk about traditional Chinese culture and thought they could not but think of Confucianism thinking it represents the essence of traditional Chinese culture and thought.

53 (Re)Constructing Ne-Confucianism in a “Glocalized” Context

1003

The fundamental meaning of Confucianism’s “courtesy” doctrine is “differently” understood or defined by different people, even if each of them has its own special behavior norms. Only when you are noble, superior, young and old, and close to each other can you achieve the ideal society of monarchs, courtiers, fathers, sons, brothers, husbands, and women in the eyes of Confucianism. Thus the governance of the country largely depends on the stability of the hierarchical order. People might well think it opposed to liberal democracy. That is why it was strongly attacked during the New Culture Movement in which Western model of development was promoted. Confucian “courtesy” is also a form of law. It is based on the maintenance of the patriarchal hierarchy. If anyone violates the “ritual” norm, he or she will be punished. Of course it was later moderated by the Neo-Confucianists since it emphasizes too much about the hierarchy. Thus Confucianism’s “rule of virtue” theory advocates that morality, the foundation of which is benevolence, should be used to influence and educate people. Confucianism believes that regardless of human nature, good and evil can be used to influence and educate people according to its standard. This method of education is a psychological transformation that makes people’s hearts good, for instance, no selfishness or egoist mind and knows shame without evil spirits. This is the most thorough, fundamental, and positive approach that can be taken without legal sanction. Obviously, in Confucianism, the country is not ruled by law, but rather by the ruler himself. That is why it is not accepted by the political parties in the feudal society. Confucianism’s “rule of man” doctrine is to attach importance to the specialization of man, to the possible moral development of man, and to the compassion of man. It thinks of people as changeable and can have a complex choice of initiative and ethical nature of “people” to manage the idea of domination. From this point of view, there is a great connection between “rule by virtue” and “rule by man.” The former emphasizes the process of education, while the latter emphasizes the moral person itself and is a kind of sage politics. Because old Confucianism believes that “personality” has great appeal, on the basis of which, it has developed into extreme “rule of people” such as “political people,” “rule of people, no rule of law,” and so on. As Confucianism is opposed to law, it puts emphasis on man, that is, it appeals to a good and virtuous ruler. This idea is still deep-rooted in the minds of ordinary Chinese people. Even in modern China, there was a popular song in Yan’an, which goes: The east is red, the sun rises. China has had a Mao Zedong. This popular song at least indicates the Chinese people then would rather have a wise and good leader than have an adequate governing system. Now let me talk a bit about Neo-Confucianism and the New (Neo)Confucianism in the contemporary era. Then, what are the essence and characteristics of contemporary New Confucianism? According to Tu Wei-ming (1940-), ethicist at Peking University and professor emeritus at Harvard University, who is usually regarded as one of the pioneering figures and spokesmen of contemporary Neo-Confucianism overseas, also called New Confucianism, what we should take from Confucianism is not the spirit of political participation, but rather its humanistic spirit, for the Confucian “calling” in the contemporary era “addresses a much more profound humanistic vision than

1004

N. Wang

political participation alone, no matter how broadly conceived, can accommodate. The symbolic resources that the Confucians tap for their own personal development and for the realisation of their communal idea of humanity is ethico-religious as well as political. In fact, their perception of ‘politics’ not only as managing the world in economic and social terms but also as transforming the world in the educational and cultural sense impels them to root their political leadership in social conscience. Confucian intellectuals may not actively seek official positions to put their ideas into practice, but they are always engaged politically through their poetic sensitivity, social responsibility, historical consciousness and metaphysical insight” (Tu 1993: “Preface,” ix-x). Perhaps non-Western people might well be puzzled. But I should emphasize that here, we can clearly see that the Neo-Confucianism in the present era is no longer “dominant” or “exclusive” or “totalitarian” as it used to be, but rather, it has given up all its original feudalist ideas, such as male superiority and female inferiority, and absorbed some elements of Daoism such as non-exclusiveness and indifference to the changes, close to the postmodern pluralistic spirit as are expressed in the following new ideas. Thus the great efforts made by Tu in the past decades have proved his selective and compromising endeavor to “globalize” Neo-Confucianism in an attempt to give full play to its universal significance. We could find that the global significance of Neo-Confucianism is different from that of a totalitarian tendency: the former is more dialogic than exclusive. Cheng Chung-Ying (1935-), Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Hawaii, another important Neo-Confucian scholar and philosopher who is more enthusiastically interested in reconstructing Confucianism in a global postmodern era, not only promotes Neo-Confucianism in some Chinese-speaking countries or regions, but also publishes extensively in the English-speaking world in an attempt to promote a sort of postmodern Neo-Confucianism in a global context. In one of the issues of the Journal of Chinese Philosophy edited by himself, he not only discusses in detail about the relationship between democracy and Chinese philosophy in general, but also offers his own paradigm on democracy from the perspective of Neo-Confucianism. To him, the purpose of democracy is “twofold”: “It aims at achieving an enduring order and harmony of a community in which individual members may enjoy self-expression and other freedoms without dominance of others; it also aims at producing and supporting free individuals whose freedoms will be the basis for building an orderly and harmonious society and community. I believe that both aims should be achieved at the same time” (Cheng 152).As for how is this order and harmony consistent with the endorsement of a modified version of the capitalist spirit, Cheng does not elaborate it in detail. Thus we could clearly see that through the constructions and reconstructions by different generations of Confucianists and neo-Confucianists, especially by the above contemporary New Confucianists, Confucianism has got rid of its feudal and totalitarian elements and incorporated some modern progressive elements, such as women are not looked down upon but treated equally, from other schools of Chinese culture and thought, such as from Daoism, which is no longer so active and intrusive as it used to be. It is also intended, according to its advocates, to carry on equal dialogue with Western theoretical discourses, especially that of modernity and

53 (Re)Constructing Ne-Confucianism in a “Glocalized” Context

1005

postcoloniality. That is why it has been more or less accepted by the current Chinese leaders in constructing the Chinese theoretical discourse, such as constructing harmonious interpersonal relations, building up a harmonious society and governing the country by means of virtue. In recent years, the Chinese Party and government have been increasingly paying attention to building a sort of eco-civilization and harmonious relations between man and nature, which finds particular embodiment in Xi’s recent article on this issue (Xi 2019).

A Cosmopolitan Vision of the “Belt and Road” Initiative In today’s China as well as elsewhere, the topic of “Belt and Road” has been increasingly talked about, which has attracted the attention of not only government officials and entrepreneurs but also scholars of both humanities and social sciences. The socalled “Belt and Road” initiative was officially put forward by Chinese leader Xi Jinping in 2013, which chiefly refers to “the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21stCentury Maritime Silk Road.” It points to a new orientation not only for Chinese economy, but also for Chinese culture which should “demarginalize” itself in an attempt to make wider influence in the world. As we know, in history, there was a “silky road” (sichou zhi lu) starting from the northwestern part of China to the AsianEuropean countries for business and economic exchange in the ancient time. If we say that the discovery of the Americas by Christopher Columbus in 1492 marked the beginning of (economic) globalization and cultural and political globalization as well from the West to the entire world, then we should further indicate that the “silky road” started in China is much earlier and more comprehensive covering not only economy but also culture. According to this initiative, China will help the countries along the belt and road to develop in an overall way rather than to take their resources as the Chinese government never imposes its ideological doctrines or social system upon any other countries, be they big or small, and socialist or capitalist. The so-called “Silk Road,” in a broad sense, is divided into the Land Silk Road and the Maritime Silk Road. The Land Silk Road originated in the Western Han Dynasty (202 BC-8 AD). Han Wudi (Emperor Wudi in the Han Dynasty) sent Zhang Jian to open up the capital Chang’an (now Xi’an) in the western regions as a starting point, passing through Gansu and Xinjiang, to Central Asia and West Asia, and connecting Mediterranean countries. Its initial role was to transport ancient Chinese silk. Later, it was described as that from 114 BC to 127 AD, China and Central Asia used the silk trade as a medium. This term was quickly accepted by the academic community and the public and formally used. The “Maritime Silk Road” is a maritime channel for ancient China’s transportation, trade, and cultural exchanges with foreign countries. The road is mainly centered on the South China Sea, so it is also called the South China Sea Silk Road. The Maritime Silk Road was formed during the Qin and Han dynasties, developed during the Three Kingdoms to the Sui Dynasty, flourished during the Tang and Song dynasties. It is the oldest known maritime route. That is how the “Belt and Road” comes from.

1006

N. Wang

As some Western media have noticed that the “Belt and Road initiative” is indeed important but surrounded by a host of successes as well as controversies and publications, as scholars of globalization studies, we certainly should not ignore them. In September 2013, Xi Jinping proposed the initiative of building a new economic belt along the Silk Road. On March 28, 2015, China’s State Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Commerce jointly issued the Vision and Action for Promoting the Construction of the Silk Road Economic Belt and the twenty-first-Century Maritime Silk Road. The grand project has thus started and quickly impacted the countries along the Silk Road. We should say that the “Belt and Road” initiative is actually another way of globalization, from the East to the West, or more specifically, from China to the rest of the world. It has undoubtedly linked China with the world more closely and strengthened the economic, political, and cultural exchange between China and the rest of the world. In this sense, we should say that it has achieved preliminary success, at least enabled China to open more widely to the world. It indicates to a certain extent the cosmopolitan vision of Chinese leaders and humanity intellectuals characterized by building up a community of shared interest for mankind. Although it is more or less indebted to Confucianist harmoniousness and golden mean doctrine, it has incorporated more elements of Marxist internationalism or cosmopolitanism. As we know, in ancient Chinese philosophy, especially in traditional Confucian philosophy, there was a so-called “tianxiaguan” which is a unique Chinese version of cosmopolitanism. For in the ancient time, Chinese people always thought that their country was the middle kingdom, located in the very center of the world, whereas all the other countries were barbarian ones. That is why when the concept “cosmopolitanism” was officially translated into Chinese as “shijiezhuyi” in the 1920s from the West, it was immediately accepted and promoted by such major Chinese elite intellectuals and political figures as Li Dazhao, Hu Shi, Cai Yuanpei, and Zheng Zhenduo. It even attracted Sun Yat-sen, a democratic leader and pioneer in modern China who helped overthrowing the last imperial dynasty of China and in 1912 he was appointed Provisional President of the Republic of China, and who however became calm both intellectually and politically soon when he had realized the then Chinese condition. To Sun, modern China was too poor and backward to talk about cosmopolitanism. Maybe in the future, when China becomes rich and powerful enough, Chinese people would be qualified enough to talk about this topic. Now as we know, China has rapidly developed itself in the process of globalization and become the second largest economic entity. It is not surprising that talking about cosmopolitanism has become another academic fashion in association with the so-called “goujian renlei mingyun gongtongti” (building up a community of shared future for mankind) officially proposed by Xi Jinping in October 2017 in the 19th Congress of the Communist Party of China. According to this idea, human beings will develop together for a better future. Since China has already developed more or less, it should also help other countries to develop in their own way rather than following the Chinese model. This proposal should be viewed as another type of cosmopolitanism in the current era, which is

53 (Re)Constructing Ne-Confucianism in a “Glocalized” Context

1007

known as the “new Xi Jinping Era of constructing the socialism with Chinese characteristics” in China. According to the mainstream Chinese media, the main contents of Xi’s thought of socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era can be summarized into twelve aspects. They include historical orientation, clear themes, goals, development patterns, overall layout, strategic layout, development dynamics, development guarantees, security and safety, external environment, political guarantees, methodology of governance and world outlook, values, etc. (Fan 2018) Due to the limit of space, I will not go into detail. When we talk about cosmopolitanism in the age of globalization, we are actually talking about a sort of attitude and horizon. That is, it does not necessarily mean to unify the whole world, but rather, to embrace the whole world and keep harmonious relations among different countries. Here I just spend some space elaborating a bit about cosmopolitanism in its contemporary form. To my understanding, first of all, cosmopolitanism in culture does not necessarily mean cultural homogenization.2 From a cultural point of view, even if we discuss the same topic like cosmopolitanism it is still of more diversity than similarity. In such cosmopolitan cities like New York, London, Paris, and Shanghai, there might be different ethnic groups coexisting and learning from each other. They could get along with each other without giving up their own social and cultural conventions and ways of life (Wang 2017). Just take Shanghai for example. All the foreign residents in the city, no matter where they are from, could get along with each other. They do not have to change their habits or cultural conventions as people in the megacity are very tolerant toward differences. They do not even have to learn either mandarin or Shanghai dialect as most people in the city understand English, the lingua franca in the age of globalization. Now let me say a few more words about the characteristics of Shanghai cosmopolitanism of both modern and postmodern periods. Of all the Chinese metropolises, Shanghai is perhaps the most modern and most cosmopolitan, with both local and transnational characteristics, partly for its past colonial legacy, and more importantly, for its open and embracing style. In the modern period, we could easily find the buildings of different architectural styles, German, French, Russian, Japanese, etc., and even the old concessions in today’s Changning district, especially Xinhua Road where I have bought my apartment. Since these buildings are not tall at all no tall buildings are allowed to be built in order to keep the harmonious style with these old buildings. Today, we could easily find, in this city, lots of foreigners eating with their families or friends in well-decorated restaurants or cafeterias or riding bicycles in the streets or speaking a sort of China English with local people. That is, the city is more open to a sort of ubiquitous modernity, or an alternative modernity of Chinese characteristics, in the process of which Shanghai has long become a world-renowned metropolis, known as the “Paris of the East” for Westerners, or another center in China only next to Beijing. And in economy and finance, it is even more important, for the Chinese government has recently officially approved of establishing a free trade zone in Shanghai. Therefore, its status as the country’s 2 As

far as the relations between cosmopolitanism and China, cf. Ning Wang ed., Cosmopolitanism and China, a special issue in Telos, 180 (2017).

1008

N. Wang

economic and financial center has been more and more established. It is true that in this megacity, everything, both modern and postmodern, both local and transnational, both colonial and postcolonial, and sometimes even premodern, such as the huts and old houses inhabited by those who work as manual laborers, could easily be seen among people of different walks of life. But in Pudong today, “one cannot help but see how dramatic the changes have been in China in the last two decades (Guthrie 1), which is obviously a direct result of China’s reform and practice of globalization. With so many skyscrapers springing up, it makes one imagine as if he or she were in New York, perhaps even more postmodern than the latter. The city is also politically hybridized: it used to be a financial center under the Nationalist regime, which is thereby still the very financial center in socialist new China. It has all the imperialist concessions and buildings of European colonial architectural styles, and it is also the very cradle of the working-class uprisings with the country’s biggest contingent of industrial workers in it. It is the birth place of the Communist Party of China, and it is also the very place where its worst enemy, Chiang Kai-shek, and his clique rose. All the progressive and reactionary forces came here, now coexisting each other, now fighting against each other, and now holding negotiations over issues of common interest in this megacity, with the Communists finally taking over the power in 1949. All these features would be viewed as a sort of “glocalizations” of economy and culture. But after liberation, along with the political and cultural centralization in Beijing, capital of new China, and the political and administrative decentralization in Nanjing, capital of old China, Shanghai still keeps its unique metropolitan status and modern characteristics, becoming more and more modern and open to the world toward the replacement of Hong Kong as another more forceful and dynamic economic and financial center in China as well as in Asia (Wang 2017: 88-89). If we regard Shanghai as the window through which we could see the entire country, then the so-called Shanghai modern with lots of colonial legacies and “Westernized” phenomena should be regarded as the typical example of the alternative Chinese modernity and modernities characterized by more cosmopolitan atmosphere and conditions (Lee 1999, Guthrie 2012). Secondly, cosmopolitanism does not necessarily intend to promote a sort of universalism: the former refers to a degree of endurance and moral attitude, and the latter appeals to a sort of consensus, no matter what different opinions different countries might have. Of course, people from different countries or nations could sometimes agree with certain issues, but not necessarily exactly the same. In this sense, any country, be it powerful or weak, be it rich or poor and be it Western or Eastern, should all be equally treated, and their social convention and cultural tradition should be respected since they belong to a larger community of humankind. Then another question may be raised: why should Chinese people spread Confucianism or New Confucianism? Since people in this world should not necessarily utter one voice there should be no such thing as only one theoretical doctrine, be it Marxism or Freudianism or Confucianism. The spread of Confucianism does not necessarily mean writing off other cultures and thoughts as well as theoretical discourses. The same is even truer of human beings. No matter one is rich or poor, high or low in rank, and male or female in gender, he/she should be viewed equally relevant to our

53 (Re)Constructing Ne-Confucianism in a “Glocalized” Context

1009

earth as we all live in such a “global village.” In this sense, it agrees more or less with the terms from the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Then people may ask this question: is then Neo-Confucianism consistent with liberal democracy? My answer is yes to a certain extent although it is not exactly the same. If we apply this to the present mapping of global culture, we can easily find that non-Western cultures are far from being equally treated in a Western-centric cultural context. So to call for a sort of new cosmopolitanism is to appeal to an ideal global community in the contemporary era with different national cultural differences and characteristics preserved. Thirdly, cosmopolitanism should not necessarily be opposed to patriotism or nationalism, for a person might love both his own country as well as the entire world. He, as a citizen of the world, should also love people of other countries apart from loving his own motherland. Furthermore, good human beings should not only love mankind, but also love every living thing on the earth. As writers or humanity intellectuals, they not only write for domestic readers, but also for entire mankind. In this way, through the intermediary of translation, their works will be of cosmopolitan significance. And their broad vision is naturally a sort of “rooted” cosmopolitan vision. It will be both good and true if we share certain values, but to call for cosmopolitanism should also take into consideration different conditions in different countries or nations. Fourthly, to call for a sort of cosmopolitanism does not necessarily mean writing off the boundary of countries and even national sovereignty. Thus to me, as well as to other people who have a cosmopolitan horizon, there are two forms of cosmopolitanism: the rooted cosmopolitanism and rootless cosmopolitanism. The former refers to those solidly nation-state based but who also have rich experiences in other countries like myself and many of my Western colleagues. They are still deeply rooted in their own countries and have close relations with their native country fellows. The same is true of writers or humanity intellectuals, who should not only write for their domestic readers, but also for their potential international audience. The present article is written not only for Chinese readers, but more for international readers who do not necessarily have a good command of Chinese or a good knowledge of China but who are very interested in knowing about China and Chinese culture. Last but not least: there should be no such thing as singular universal cosmopolitanism as it manifests itself in different forms and should thereby develop in a pluralistic orientation. In modern China, there once appeared a sort of New Humanist movement as a counter-narrative to the New Culture Movement. That movement’s “central mission was to find a universally applicable code for humanity based on traditional philosophical teachings of the East and the West” (Li 2008 62), that is, the broad human concern or humanism which is recognized both in the East and West as universal. Of course there are many versions of humanism. But the Chinese humanism is characterized by Confucian benevolence and righteousness always taking care of other people and living things on the earth. Even when we have different opinions or ways of looking at things, we still try to keep a harmonious relationship with those who have different opinions from us.

1010

N. Wang

As we might imagine, due to the inappropriate “universal” intention, the New Humanist movement gradually faded before dominating the then Chinese cultural and intellectual circles. For China’s humanism is both a “translated” humanism from the West3 as well as a natural born one from the Confucian doctrine characterized by seeking harmony with differences kept (he er butong). So when we talk about cosmopolitanism in the Chinese context, we are actually rooted in the Chinese cultural soil but, at the same time, have a broad global human concern for people of the world. That is, we should not only work for our own interest but also think about the interest of other countries or nations when there is conflict between the two. As we all know, Chinese people like to have various dreams, and classical Chinese literature is best known for its masterpiece Honglou Meng (A Dream of Red Chambers). The same is true of contemporary Chinese people. We still remember that in 2008, the slogan of Beijing Olympic Games is “One World, One Dream.” That is, people of all countries live in one world although in different regions and continents with different cultural conventions and religious beliefs. They all have one common dream of becoming peaceful and flourishing although there might be different ways of realizing this dream. The China Dream we are talking about in the Chinese context now appeals to the collective prosperity of the whole Chinese nation although individual Chinese citizen also wants to realize personal prosperity. But the national interest is obviously superior to individual interest in China when the two conflict each other. In contrast, the American Dream appeals to the success of individuals who work hard and achieve success at last no matter what their class origin or ethnicity might be. Then people may well raise such a question: Can collectivism and individualism coexist? Of course, they can if they should not necessarily be opposed to each other or intend to control the other’s interest. Now I would like to elaborate a bit about China’s literary and cultural studies in the context of the “Belt and Road” since I am mainly a literary and cultural scholar. On October 15, 2014, Xi Jinping presided over another forum on literature and art in Beijing after Mao’s earlier forum in the 1940s in Yan’an. Xi also gave an important speech to the audience, composed of old and young writers and artists and the party and government officials in charge of literature and art work. In his speech, Xi addressed the following five topics: (1) To realize the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation requires the flourishing and prosperity of Chinese culture; (2) It is necessary to create excellent works worthy of the times; (3) It is indispensable to adhere to the people-oriented creative orientation; (4) The spirit of China is the soul of socialist literature and art; (5) It is important to strengthen and improve the Communist Party’s leadership in literary and art work (Xi 2014). Obviously, Xi and his comrades have largely inherited Mao’s legacy in literature and art, that is, both 3 Humanism could be translated into Chinese in three versions: rendao zhuyi (caring for, respecting,

and focusing on the world view of advocating the equality of personality and mutual respect), renwen zhuyi (concern for the human personality, emphasizing the preservation of human dignity), and renben zhuyi (recognizing the value and dignity of the human being as the measure of all things and emphasizing human value and interest), each version of which emphasizes one aspect of humanism in the Western sense. In the present chapter, I just use its second version: renwen zhuyi which is closest to humanism in the Western sense.

53 (Re)Constructing Ne-Confucianism in a “Glocalized” Context

1011

Mao and Xi emphasize that literature and art should serve the people, especially the interest of the broad Chinese people. But Xi has a broader concern for world people as he widely quotes world literary masterpieces in his talk. This also finds particular embodiment in the recent holding of the 19th National Congress of the CCP which has ushered a new era, the Xi Jinping Era in which Mao Zedong thought is still attached importance to and has been developed to a new stage. In his Beijing talk, Xi certainly developed Mao’s literary and art theory and tried to highlight it as the guiding principle for China’s socialist literary and artistic production and criticism. If we compare the two talks, we may easily find the marks of the time are very clear: in Mao, the national sense is more emphasized, while in Xi, the international and cosmopolitan significance of Chinese literature and art is particularly emphasized. And in Xi’s talk, numerous world literary masterpieces are mentioned which indicate that China’s literary and artistic works are not only produced for Chinese people, but also for people of the entire world. In this sense, I should say that Xi will continue Mao’s aspiration that China ought to make greater contributions to humanity, not only in global economy and politics but also in world literature and culture since China was also once a great cultural power for a long time in history. I here just want to re-emphasize that Chinese art and letters as well as humanities studies should first work in the interest of Chinese people. But it is not enough as excellent literature and art belong to entire humankind. In this sense, Chinese literature and art should also be produced for people of the world who are interested in China and Chinese literature and art. The same is true of humanities studies in China. As a humanity scholar myself, I shall not only write in Chinese for my country fellows, but also write in English for international audience. In this sense, I am actually working for the interest of entire humankind. Perhaps it is where the significance of talking about cosmopolitanism in the present era.

References Cheng, Chung-ying. 2007. “Preface: the Inner and the Outer for Democracy and Confucian Tradition” to the special issue on Democracy and Chinese Philosophy. Journal of Chinese Philosophy 34 (2): 151–54. Fan, Wen. 2018. Xi Jinping xin shidai zhongguo tese shehuizhuyi sixiang de lilun kuangjia (The Theoretical Framework of Xi Jinping’s Thought of Socialism with Chinese Characterisitics in the New Era). Guojia Xingzheng Xueyuan Xuebao (Journal of the National Administrative Institute) 2 (1019): 17–20. Guthrie, Doug. 2012. China and Globalization: The Social, Economic, and Political Transformation of Chinese Society, 3rd ed. New York: Routledge. Lee, Leo Ou-fan. Shanghai Modern: The Flowering of a New Urban Culture in China, 1930–1945. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999. Li, Tonglu, “New Humanism,” Modern Language Quarterly, Vol. 69, No. 1(2008), 61–79. Liu, Kang. 2015. Maoism: Revolutionary Globalism for the Third World Revisited. Comparative Literature Studies 52 (1): 12–28.

1012

N. Wang

Mao, Zedong. 1996. “Talks at the Yan’an Forum on Literature and Art”, originally published in Chinese in 1942. In Modern Chinese Literary Thought: Writings on Literature, 1893-1945, ed. Kirk A. Denton, 459–484. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Tu, Weiming. 1993. Way, Learning, and Politics: Essays on the Confucian Intellectual. Albany: State University of New York Press. Tu, Weiming “The ecological turn in new Confucian humanism: Implications for China and the World,” Daedalus, 130.4(Fall 2001), pp. 243–64. Wang, Ning. “Reconstructing (Neo)Confucianism in ‘Glocal’ Postmodern Culture Context,” Journal of Chinese Philosophy, Vol. 37, No. 1 (2010): 48–62). Wang, Ning. 2012. Multiplied Modernities and Modernisms? Literature Compass 9 (9): 617–622. Wang, Ning. “From Shanghai Modern to Shanghai Postmodern: a Cosmopolitan View of China’s Modernization,” Telos, 180(Fall 2017): 87–103. Xi, Jinping. Xi Jinping zongshuji zai wenyi zuotanhui shang de zhongyao jianghua xuexi duben (Reader’s Guide to General Secretary Xi Jinping’s Important Speech at the Forum on Literature and Art), ed. Central Department of Publicity of CCP, Beijing: Xuexi chubanshe, 2014. Xi, Jinping. “Tuidong woguo shengtai wenming jianshe maishang xin taijie”(Promoting the construction of ecological civilization in China to a new stage), Qiushi (Seeking Truth), organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, No. 3, 2019, pp. 4–19.

Wang Ning is a Distinguished University Professor of Humanities and Social Sciences at Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China. Apart from his 20 more books and hundreds of articles in Chinese, he has authored two books in English: Globalization and Cultural Translation (2004), and Translated Modernities: Literary and Cultural Perspectives on Globalization and China (2010), and published extensively in English on such topics as globalization, cosmopolitanism, comparative and world literature and Chinese literature.

TOWARD AN INTER-CIVILIZATIONAL AND COSMIC WORLD ORDER

Chapter 54

From Cultural Pluralism and Civilizational Disintegration to a Global Cultural-cum-civilizational System Alexander N. Chumakov Abstract By the early twentieth century, mankind has become global in shape and geographically close to the planet. A hundred years have passed since then. The world community has finally become a single global system. However, as before, it represents a variety of different social systems, each of which has a unique and inimitable culture. At the same time, all these social systems are at different stages of civilizational development. All attempts to explain the new global world by using old categories and established approaches do not give the desired result. Such concepts as” culture “or” civilization “ reflect only certain aspects of social life. The author proposes to use a new integrative category—”cultural and civilizational system,” which allows to see all social systems simultaneously in their difference and unity. According to the author, humanity will always be divided on cultural grounds. At the same time, as the level of civilization increases, it will increasingly become a single cultural and civilizational system, where mutual understanding, tolerance, and dialogue will become the rule, not the exception.

Introduction By the beginning of the twentieth century, humanity had become globalized with a mastery over the entire earthly continent. It is true that at mid-century humans left the earthly domain with space explorations, thus breaking the closed circle of earthly gravitation. However, those explorations did not create opportunities to expand the real life of people beyond the planet Earth. In fact, the development of the world community had reached its territorial limits so that social life had finally become a planetary phenomenon. When in the 1960s we became aware of this situation, global issues became the center of attention and the subject matter of a special study. At first, civilizational approaches appeared the most useful for describing the new reality, especially the cultural approach of Oswald Spengler (1880–1936) and the A. N. Chumakov (B) Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 I. Rossi (ed.), Challenges of Globalization and Prospects for an Inter-civilizational World Order, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44058-9_54

1015

1016

A. N. Chumakov

civilizational approaches of Arnold Toynbee (1889–1875) and Samuel Huntington (1927–2008). Spengler found in culture, the fundamental elements of social life. He was influenced by J. G. Herder’s reaction to the Enlightenment notions on the psychic unity of mankind and universal progress. For J. G. Herder, each culture has its own unique set of meanings and values so that different cultures cannot be compared or ranked on a universal scale. Spengler followed this notion and elaborated that the elements of each culture (religion, art, mathematics, science, politics) are patterned on the basis of unique underlying principles which originate with the birth of religion. For Spengler each culture is spiritual or ideational in nature and grows independently like an organism through a cycle of rise and decline under the guidance of those underlying principles. The culture remains “in form” are authentic, as long as it expresses people’s needs, virtues, and aspirations, and keeps on producing works of inspiring art. The task of history is to discover the inward relations or patterned principles that bind together all forms of cultural expression. Spengler emphasized the uniqueness of each culture in opposition to civilization. When a culture reaches the phase of civilization, it breaks down because cultural distinctions became blurred; past shared principles are questioned, including religious ones; science no longer produces firm findings; politics is based on money and produce despots and imperialism; the arts follow faddish styles and become disconnect from people. For Spengler “civilization” is the inevitable stage of each cultural development, but it is an external and artificial stage: “Civilizations…. are a conclusion, the thing-become succeeding the thing becoming, death following life, rigidity following expansion, intellectual age and the stone-built, petrifying world-city following mother-earth and the spiritual childhood of Doric and Gothic. They are an end, irrevocable, yet by inward necessity reached again and again.” (Spengler 1991). Toynbee Arnold Joseph (1889–1975) argued that the history of a nation can be understood only in the context of the civilization of which it is a part. A civilization develops when a society responds to a physical challenge by copying the ideas of the elite leaders of creative minorities. He stated that 16 out of 23 civilizations are dead and the seven surviving civilizations have broken down, except for Western European civilization. However, Toynbee rejected Spengler’s deterministic notion that a fall of civilization is part of a natural and inevitable cycle. Instead civilizations, as networks of social relations, can make wise or unwise decisions and will continue to thrive if its leaders continue to respond creatively to the emerging challenges. When the creative minority fails to innovate, it becomes a “dominant minority” followed by a loss of allegiance and a rebattle by the majority with a consequent loss of social unity; a take-over by despotic minorities, nationalism, and militarism will inevitably follow. Hence, civilizations decline not by murder but by suicide or rather by moral failure. Interestingly, like Spengler, Toynbee held that spiritual and not economic forces guide history so that only a return to Christianity will revert the breakdown of Western civilization which began with the Reformation. In his early works, Toynbee held the equivalence of civilizations—as Spengler held the equivalence of cultures. Toynbee detected similar patterns of growth, breakdown, and decay via loss of creativity and standardization in the Chinese, Sumerian, Hindu, and

54 From Cultural Pluralism and Civilizational Disintegration …

1017

Greek-Roman civilizations. Toynbee had a unitary view of history as he saw in the “Higher Religions,” of Mahayana Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism the propellers of high civilizations. Accordingly, we must determine whether these four religions provided a spiritual unity to mankind via a connection to a transcendent reality since this is the very purpose of religion. In the latter part of his career, however, Toynbee abandoned the religious message. Huntington believed that we are in an era of conflicts along cultural and religious lines rather than conflicts among classes. He found the concept of “Civilization” particularly useful to analyze cultural conflicts and, especially, the severe conflicts among Islamic and non-Islamic civilizations. I argue that neither the cultural nor the civilizational approach when used separately can provide an adequate understanding of the contemporary global world because the cultural cannot be separated from the civilizational context of social development. In twenty-first century emerged a pressure to find new approaches, which would take into consideration not only cultural pluralism and civilizational disintegration, but also the universal unity of the world community. In fact, as rational beings we need to confront as one whole everything that surrounds us, because we realize that we can survive only as a whole humanity, as one single system. Our global condition is grounded on universal cultural values, such as the universal human rights; and on civilizational foundations, such as the rule of law, the separation of powers, freedom of conscience, and the legal protection of human rights. As we become cognizant of the fact that global processes embrace all spheres of social life, we realize that we need a new vision of history, culture, and civilization—a cultural-cum-civilizational vision, where a common civilization with many cultures is asserted. I emphasize that the modern world consists not of separate civilizations or cultures, but of separate cultural-cum-civilizational systems. The term “culture” refers to the creative activity of people based on language, beliefs, and traditions. Culture encompasses everything that people do as a result of such activity, hence we have not only an ideational, but also a material culture. At the same time, I understand for “civilization” a culture has developed up to the point of producing legal and political relationships as well as rules of economic production and exchange. My approach has the advantage of focusing our attention on the continuity or harmonious development of culture into civilization, rather than on the suppression of the culture by civilization. I emphasize the inherent ability of people to continue living in the culture while it develops into civilization. All human groups live in their own cultural contexts, but not all of them have assimilated civilizational norms to the same degree. Some of them are found to be at the stage of barbarism, such as the Talibans and ISIS, while others are functioning at the stage of savagery as contemporary episodes of cannibalism demonstrate. My central point of contention is that cultural diversity, together with the common norms of civilizational development, makes every social body a unique and unrepeatable cultural-cum-civilizational system. If one would ask the question of how diverse culture can share common norms of development, I would answer. Look how the French, Chinese, Russian, Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, and atheists share certain manners, etiquettes, modus operandi at conferences, at the airports, at Universities. Unfortunately, the dominant mode

1018

A. N. Chumakov

of behavior of the largest contemporary nations-states does not show any lack of understanding and appreciation for the need to sustain both the cultural diversity and the civilizational unity of the world community.

Planetary Dimension of the World Community We don’t need to demonstrate that contemporary humanity is one dynamically developing system. Yet, it is not at all evident that the oneness and interacting totality of this system is presupposed by the very course of contemporary historical events. On the contrary, the very cultural-cum-civilizational foundation of such unity is concealed. Every human event and relation exist first at the local and, then, at the regional level. Human events became globalized since the era of the great geographic discoveries with the processes of localization, regionalization, and globalization of culture. I am referring not only to the exchange among cultures, at the local, regional, and global level but to the formation of a global civilization with the transition from savagery to barbarism to a civilized society. Let us avoid misunderstandings. I am far from arguing that an unconditional sociocultural uniformity was established for the whole world community. Yet some sort of universal unity (panhuman) of humankind was established by the interaction between the most important elements of the world social system,- transnational corporations, national States, and international organizations. No universal uniformity of all human groups ever existed nor is there any reason to suggest that it can ever emerge. In fact, we witness an endless diversity of forms of human living, which are generated by the diversity of everyday lives and the multiplicity of human behavior. The ultimate reason is that the human person is by its own nature multilayered, full of contradictions and, therefore, non predictable in its multifaceted creative activity. At this point a question of fundamental importance for humanity arises: how can we provide not just for the survival, but also for the sustainable development of the world community in this fragmented and conflicting world that faces increasing global threats? How can we create the awareness that a common or universally shared strategy to move forward is necessary, if we want to secure a future for humanity? A final question is can people really take responsibility not only for the development of society, but also for the biosphere as a whole since humanity is part of the biosphere. [1] footnote: See Sklair and Pleyers’s essays in this volume]. My argument is that we cannot answer such questions outside of the cultural-cum-civilizational context. In fact, what is the deep meaning of the planetary unity of this diverse world? We must realize that such a unity is based not only on the links and interactions among the constituent elements of our planet, but also from the interaction between nature and society. At a superficial look, the contemporary world would appear to have changed abruptly in the short span of the last ten years or so. But at a closer reflection, we should ask ourselves whether we are witnessing the culmination of complex, longenduring, and hidden processes. In fact, globalization and global problems did not

54 From Cultural Pluralism and Civilizational Disintegration …

1019

appear important immediately as they occurred; on the contrary, we became aware of them too late since our attention went first to the problems of ecology, available resources, demography, and the like. Still, already in the first half of the previous century the transition from fragmentation, divisiveness, and disunity of the world social relations to their unity, integrity, and globality became a subject of special attention for the most outstanding minds. It is enough to mention the works by V. I .Vernandskii, Teilhard de Chardin (1881–1955), K. Jaspers (1883–1969), the Russell\Einstein Manifesto, and so on. (Global Studies Directory, 2017: 151–155; 270–271). The general public opinion adverted these changes only in the last decade and mostly, thanks to the emerging information revolution. However, the information revolution proceeds so rapidly and radically that humanity is simply not able to react to it adequately or even to conceptualize what is the essence of what is going on. The deep roots of this problem lie in the fact that we try to explain the new, transformed world with the help of old and well-established concepts such as civilization, democracy, sovereignty, universal values, and the like. Regrettably, we do not pay attention to the fact that each one of these terms as well as the current system of values and ethical and legal norms emerged and acquired their specific formulations in cultural and political conditions different from the contemporary ones. For instance, the basic principles of democracy were formulated in the era of bourgeoisie and became the basis for modern democratic institutions but it acquired sustainable forms only in a few countries. These categories should be rethought before we can discuss whether they should be disseminated throughout the whole planet in the context of cultural-cum-civilizational unification of the world community: this is, probably, one of the most important tasks of humanity in the twenty-first century. It is true that the world community nowadays has a common planet, a common destiny as well as a common responsibility for what goes on in the world. However, this does not necessarily mean that democratic values and principles of organizing social life, which currently the only part of humanity lives in accordance with, can be automatically adopted by the rest of the world community. The imposition of democratic values onto other cultures, often incompatible with them, mostly leads to rejection, non-understanding, or even to backlash reactions. Our inescapable and growing interdependence in overcoming our common problems exacerbate the debate over our sharing in the responsibility for the worsening situation and in the effort to cope with it. Contradictions will multiply and become more acute as long as the contemporary world face globalization under the guidance of divided nations. Meanwhile, the gap in the life standards and socio-economic development of various nations will grow posing a serious obstacle to democratic transformations and the formation of the global civil society. The later is needed if we are to overcome the present fragmentation and build a united world. There is no alternative to an integrated and united humankind. Therefore, in order to preserve civilization, a common civilization, we should establish not only common principles and rules of cohabitation on the planet, but also the firm principle of a common responsibility for the destiny of every person. In a global world, which is culturally and civilizationally interwoven, not only global problems, but also individual outcasts, such as pariah states (for example, North Korea), pose serious

1020

A. N. Chumakov

dangers. It is not clear, whether a society responsible for each person or group may become a factual reality. It is also unclear, if humanity is capable to, first, understand its unity and, then, to become a unity functioning as an open-world socio-system; a world system is open when it preserves national and community identities, or, at least, makes a firm step on the path of democratic transformations. This realization will depend on many factors, including the correct understanding of the phenomena of culture and civilization. Voltaire was one of the first authors, who moved beyond the narrow frames of cultural perception by paying attention not only to the Western civilization, but also to the cultures of those of India and China. In doing so Voltaire substantially broadened the field of history. Besides him and many other enlighteners, we also have such outstanding specialists in civilizations as A. Toynbee and K. Jaspers who spoke in support of the idea of the formation of a world civilization. However, the most important contribution into working out and further understanding of this issue was done by W. H. McNeil (1917–2016), I. Wallerstein (1930), Ch. Chase-Dunn (1944), A. G. Frank (1929–2005), D. Wilkinson and others Thanks to their efforts, such concepts emerged and became widely used, as integral (single, common) civilization, civilizational unity, central civilization, universal civilizational principles, global civilization, universal civilization, integral world civilization, etc. (Global Studies Encyclopedic Dictionary, 2014: 70–75). All these concepts point out to processes characteristic of humanity as a whole. These processes are at the foundation of regulating social relations, and signify civilizational unity as they are principles of civilized relations shared by the different countries and peoples, making the world community. It is evident for the supporters of this approach that after the era of the great geographic discoveries all nations eventually were dragged into world history and, by the end of the twentieth century, they shared in common experiences such as nation state, sovereignty, rule of law, democracy. There are, however, many scholars who continue to use the prism of local civilizations and see a fragmented world without commonalities and principles uniting different cultures. Such a fragmented perspective is mostly a result of associating the notions of civilization and culture or substituting the latter for the former. Such a vision was characteristic, for example, of the political scientist S. Huntington. In answering the question, what the idea of world civilization means, he wrote: “…if a universal civilization common to all humanity exists, what term do we then use to identify the major cultural groupings of humanity short of the human race? Humanity is divided into subgroups—tribes, nations, and broader cultural entities normally called civilizations… Only semantic confusion, however, is gained by restricting “civilization” to the global level and designating as “cultures” or “subcivilizations,” those largest cultural entities which have historically always been called civilizations” (Huntington S., 2003: 75). Rather I argue that we are involved into a real semantic misunderstanding, if we still use the terms culture or civilization to describe the transformed and essentially global world, without drawing any distinction between the two terms.

54 From Cultural Pluralism and Civilizational Disintegration …

1021

Culture and Civilization in Their Unity and Diversity Culture and civilization are the most important characteristics of social systems that allow to fully express their internal (culture) and external (civilization) conditions. “Culture” is sort of a code of society, where all the basic peculiarities of its development are written and, therefore, transmitted from generation to generation. In the literature dedicated to the issues of culture and civilization one can find different approaches that explain the interconnection of these two phenomena. For example, there is a widely known idea of distinguishing between culture and civilization, or even contrasting them, seeing them as antagonistic phenomena excluding one another. Here “civilization” is often understood as a specific stage of cultural self-destruction when the emergence and development of civilization are directly connected with the degradation of culture, which leads to its dying out and, eventually, elimination. In its turn, the emergence and development of culture within this approach is represented only in the space free from the “chains” of civilization. This view of the relationship between culture and civilization is typical of the supporters of irrational philosophy, such as F. Nietzsche, O. Spengler, and N. A. Berdiaev. Seemingly, the brightest juxtaposition of culture and civilization was for the first time demonstrated in the works of the German historian and philosopher O. Spengler, who authored the book The Twilight of Europe (Oswald Spengler, 1918)) that caused fierce debates and attracted public attention to this problem. Although there has not been a unity of opinions among scholars of culture, many Spengler’s followers, expressed the viewpoint that civilization is a concluding stage in development of cultures. As we discussed above, the supporters of this position suggest that having exhausted its creative power, culture eventually loses its life’s “spirit” as it ceases to contribute to literary and artistic developments. Finally, culture degrades to a type of social structure where most of attention is focused on material welfare; nations and empires decay in fragmented and impersonal societies, where social stagnation replaces former “epos” and heroic deeds. On the issue of a balance between culture and civilization, I would like to mention that the need to introduce the notion of culture was evident as early as in the philosophy of the Ancient Rome, where the need emerged for differentiating between nature as such, and artificial nature, or nature transformed by people (See: Kagan 1996; Kroeber et al. 1952). What is important is that this term emerged at the stage of active differentiation among the various forms of theoretical knowledge. As we know, the blossom of philosophy was the birth of various sciences. The differentiation among forms of knowledge reached its apogee in the Modern Age, in the period when science differentiated from philosophy. The process of differentiation took place in the sphere of knowledge and in the sphere of social life by enabling people to see in a better light some previously unnoticeable nuances and details. At the same time, increased differentiation rendered the general contour of the whole more faded, since phenomena and processes could not be seen any longer in their unity and integrity. Very soon this condition inevitably led to the need for

1022

A. N. Chumakov

integration, and, first of all, to the need for understanding the conditions and processes of human environment. In the Modern Age, the term “civilization” was introduced to articulate the integrative trends and processes. The emphasis was not on diversity, but on unity; not on the private and the separate, but on the common; not on the specific, but on the universal; not on the limited, but on the generalized; not on qualitative characteristics and conditions, but on networks and relations. In this context, the concept of culture, both spiritual and material, provided an opportunity to articulate the various outcomes of the creative activity of society. The word “culture” is found for the first time in ancient Latin texts. Marcus Porcius Cato, the Elder (234–148 BC) wrote on farming around 160 BC (Cato 1998). There “culture” meant cultivation, process, transformation. The Roman orator and philosopher Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 BC) in his “Tuskulan conversations” used the word “culture” in a figurative sense, calling philosophy “cultura animae” or cultivation of the soul, as he believed that a person engaged in philosophy cultivates the human mind. Approaching the Modern Age, the results of this creative activity became massive, and the term culture became overloaded with different meanings. A new term emerged—civilization—tightly connected with culture, which allowed to concentrate the attention on social relations, and the level of technospheric development. The concept of culture expresses the world view and other ideational and material products through which people express their aspirations and interact with each other and with nature. The term civilization describes an advanced stage of cultural development in the areas of philosophy, religion, literature, art as well as in scientific, technological, political, legal, and economic processes and structures. Culture is an internal feature of society because it expresses the essential needs and aspirations of people. Civilization is the form, the external frame of culture that characterizes society from the viewpoint of its forms of governance, technological apparatus, and economic networks and relations. At the same time, both terms— culture and civilization—relate to different functional levels of the same society. It is important to stress that culture is a necessary component of human personality, almost a second human nature, of no less importance than biology or physiology. In this regard, it seems clear that culture existed as long as humanity existed, since it is impossible to think or explain the functioning of the person independently from its culture, or to explain culture without reference to the people who produce and sustain culture. There is a main difference between culture and civilization. The latter emerges only at a specific stage of historical development and does not necessarily have the support of human communities. I have many historical arguments in support of this position. In particular, we have plenty of archeological knowledge to assert that prior to the Neolithic revolution, when no civilization existed, there were plenty of human communities with well-developed cultures in terms of mythological and kinships systems and meaningful human relations. Archeological findings document also that people possessed well-developed abilities to produce arts as well as tools and economic activities well adapted to their environment. This means that culture is able to exist before civilization, whereas civilization does not exist outside culture. As a

54 From Cultural Pluralism and Civilizational Disintegration …

1023

matter of fact, when civilization for any reason moves away from culture, it becomes amoral and looses its human character as exemplified by excessive bureaucracy and unjustified formalism which emphasizes form over content, civilization over culture. It is also important to notice that civilization can emerge and be reproduced only on the basis of some historically developed culture that encompasses a variety of less complex cultures and subcultures. The stronger the civilizational networks and connections that emerge in a given society, the higher is the developmental level of culture, civil society, democracy, and civil liberties. At the same time, the higher is the level of development of culture, civil society, democracy, and civil liberties in a given society, the stronger are the civilizational ties and relations of any given society. The above-mentioned principle can be confirmed by the fact that as soon as the West reached a high enough level of democratic development and affirmation of the liberal values in the mid-twentieth century, the colonial system which was based on different values immediately collapsed. At the same time, when countries became liberated from colonial dependency, they were mostly dominated by uncivilized regimes. This only proves that civilization is an external layer of human existence when compared to cultures. Historical experience shows that a rapid and radical introduction of civilization into any given culture without proper cultural development leads to the fall and degradation of such cultures. This is what happened with the rushed introduction of democracy to civilize Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, without paying attention to the fact that the necessary pre-conditions were not there.

Sources and Trends in the Formation of an Integral and Balanced Civilization Time has come to discuss the real unity and diversity in my conceptualization of culture and civilization. It is important to dissolve the myth about multiple civilizations, because it prevents us from understanding history as an integral and holistic process involving all humanity. This does not mean that a discreet vision of historical processes is illegitimate or lost its epistemological value, but one should understand that a concern with details is of less importance. A continuous and purposely concentration on details prevents to see the general trends of social development, or the similarities in the civilizational processes typical of different social systems. The logical result of this fragmented vision of civilization and, subsequently, of general history, would prevent an understanding of globalization as an holistic process involving all humanity. The historical past does not change regardless of whether we distinguish between separate civilizations, socio-economic formations, or stages of development. These concepts represent nothing but our attempts to schematize the living process of historical events with the help of “frozen” concepts. It is easy to be misled with regard to the actual vectors of social development if we do not take into consideration

1024

A. N. Chumakov

the relativity of these approaches, their unavoidable schematicism, and the fact that they simplify the most complex dynamic processes, on which they are called to reflect. However, these concepts enable us to speak about civilizational features which are common to different societies. In fact, sooner or later these civilizational characteristics become visible in every nation which reaches some level of maturity in its cultural development. In other words, every society is in a way programmed not only for cultural, but also for civilizational development, which, sooner or later, becomes a reality. It goes without saying that this natural course of events cannot be somehow disrupted. This is happening, for instance, when a society not yet standing on the path of civilizational development receives some external impacts to develop earlier than it would naturally occur. Thanks to such external impulses even societies that have already entered the civilizational path, but not yet achieved any substantial results, can move significantly faster along this path. But to understand the essence of the oneness of human civilization one needs to consider two different approaches. One approach holds that civilization is born at some particular place and, then, like a hydra, it spreads its tentacles to everywhere around the world. During this process, it gradually devours the weaker cultures, or it implants its specific norms and principles into societies, which otherwise would never enter the path of civilizational development. This approach is hard to sympathize with. Another much different approach seems to be more consistent with the reality. It stresses that the one civilization common to all cultures does not grow from one center. Civilization eventually becomes visible everywhere, but it emerges in different parts of the world at different times. A similar process occurs in a pond overgrown with lilies: lilies emerge at different places and at different times as soon as the conditions of those places become favorable for the blossoming of these flowers. Eventually the separately grown beds of green become a single unbroken green carpet that covers all the lake. This is how a single civilization emerges and tends to embrace the whole world. Thus, under the influence of the March of civilization humanity became a planetary phenomenon and by the beginning of the twenty-first century we had a multidimensional globalization. Unfortunately, this notion for many is still unclear since it entails a completely new interdisciplinary knowledge. My view preserves some relative autonomy and partial self-sufficiency to the building blocks of globalization at the level of separate regions and local cultures. Now we can see the need to grasp the unity of this social body in its diversity and interconnections. When global humankind is observed through the prism of the concepts culture and civilization that overlap one another, one can see much better how the small is in the large and the large in the small; the accidental in the logical, and the logical in the accidental; the particular in the general, and the general in the particular; the evident in the hidden, and the hidden in the evident, etc. Such a conceptualization is extremely important for understanding the contemporary global world as well as the true nature of the process of globalization and its natural occurrence. We need a language that reflects this holistic view of the and a specific terminology which enables one to speak

54 From Cultural Pluralism and Civilizational Disintegration …

1025

about the unity in diversity, and the diversity in unity. The expression “cultural-cumcivilizational systems” is exactly such a complex notion that helps to understand large social systems and humanity as a whole in their unity and integrity.

Cultural-Cum-Civilizational Dimension of the Contemporary World Observing such phenomena as culture and civilization from the position of global humankind, it is legitimate to speak not just about universal culture, for example, the world cultural heritage, but also about global civilization. The latter term encompasses not just the technological and political structures of the world social system, but also universal values and standards of behavior based on respect for human rights and the rule of law. Something similar has already taken place in the sphere of history. Albert Einstein saw the world differently, namely, through the prism of a temporal-cum-spatial continuum which bounds space and time together. In the beginning, this looked strange and seemed to transcend the borders of common sense. By analogy, I am arguing that culture and civilization must now be seen together as space and time rather than separately or independently from each other as we did before Einstein. A famous historical sociologist I. Wallerstein also used the same approach in his historical analysis of social processes by using the single temporal-cum-spatial continuum to describe them. In this regard, Wallerstein mentioned that time and space are not two separate categories, but one category that he called time–space (Ballepctan I./Wallerstein 2001: 106). He argued that the capitalist system must be analyzed in terms of the TimeSpace form, namely, in terms of the coordination between long-term historical systems and large spatial configurations. I would like to recall that the twentieth century science was dominated by discrete, as opposed to holistic, approaches in the analysis of culture and civilization. It is enough to remember the most authoritative figures of O. Spengler, A. Toynbeen, A. Schweitzer, S. Huntington, and many others. The discrete approach is not yet overcome in our times. Isn’t the failure of multicultural policies rooted here, including the endless and failed attempts to divide the indivisible connection between culture and civilization? For centuries social scholars were interested mostly in local, or, at best, regional problems. Only in the last decade the notion has emerged to observe culture and civilization through the prism of humanity as a whole, envisioning them as a single cultural-cum-civilizational continuum immanent to any society, including our planetary society. Why did the idea of an integrative (holistic) approach to understand humanity has become seriously attractive for some specialists only in the last 10–15 years? Because the multifaceted globalization reached its full strength in our times. (See for instance Chumakov et al. 2016: 9–22). To describe the various social systems of the global world at their different levels (from small groups to all mankind) I have suggested a new synthetic category— cultural-cum-civilizational system. In some contexts, and pursuing slightly different

1026

A. N. Chumakov

goals, one can use other categories with similar meanings: cultural-cum-civilizational type of historical development, cultural-cum-civilizational education, cultural-cumcivilizational integrity, and so on. It is important to keep in mind that most of the attention should be delivered to the integrative term “cultural-cum-civilizational” as an apt tool to reflect on the totality and oneness of the social system and of its development. History can provide only a unilateral vision of a complex and growing organism because it deals with culture and civilization separately and apart from their dynamics and development. In other words, culture and civilization considered separately and independently of their interrelated dynamics and development give only a one-sided view of the complex developing organism. As soon as we start observing the world by differentiating its cultural-cumcivilizational systems, what we nowadays call self-sufficient cultures and civilizations become parts of one system consisting of interacting actors of the global world. The actors are comparable on the basis of their civilizational foundations, but remain authentic and unique according to cultural criteria. At this point, there is no more problem of precisely defining the terms of culture and civilization and the problem of distinguishing and classifying different types of cultures, and civilizations ceases to be the eternal, “cursed” issue. Let me add that the more cultural-cum-civilizational similarity can be found between various nations, the easier becomes their interaction. For example, Europe, America, or even Japan and Taiwan, are culturally different from one another. At the same time, they are at the highest level of civilizational development; their culturalcum-civilizational systems, thus, according to many parameters, are easily comparable. As a result, these very different countries engage with relative easy in fruitful interaction and cooperation. During the last decades, we have observed that although China, India, Russia, and Brazil have distinct cultures, they increased their paces of civilizational development so that they could join the rank of the countries that are able to improve and enforce their cultural-cum-civilizational connections and constructive cooperation. It is important to emphasize that the emerging unprecedented world system does not eliminate the separate sources and forms of civilization, neither it denies the diversity of authentic national cultures. The world system grows out of them to crystallize and to make a unique body, having no historical analogies. At the same time, the new global cultural-cum-civilizational organism is a strong hyper-system so that different types of local and regional cultural-cum-civilizational systems that were built in a fragmented world embrace norms, rules, prescriptions, and bans, common to all humankind. As I see it, the formulation of these universal norms and their implementation are the main task of the historical process of the twenty-first century. There is no doubt that this process will not go smoothly and that it will generate a lot of new conflicts and contradictions for the world community. Cultures have always been and will be diverse; therefore, culture as such will always not just separate, but divide people. Civilization, in its turn, substantially carries a unifying element. Thus, differentiations and contradictions will always accompany the world community, where various cultural-cum-civilizational systems (subsystems) will inevitably and

54 From Cultural Pluralism and Civilizational Disintegration …

1027

necessarily compete and be in conflict with each other. Global studies—a new sphere of academic research, as well as humanitarian knowledge as a whole and philosophy in particular—should, make available their best resources to anticipate and, at least, alleviate, if not prevent, the negative consequences of these conflicts.

Toward the Global Cultural-Cum-Civilizational System As the world community enters the twenty-first century, a new page in history is open on a new topic which must be written in a different language. The new topic is the completion of the external processes of globalization of the world (above all territorially) and, to a certain extent, the completion of economic and political globalization. But the major project consists in building the integrity and unity of globalization via the process of cultural-cum-civilizational integration which dominates all other processes characteristic of the emerging global humankind. The need of a new language does not refer just to the new means of communication, such as the Internet, e-mail, satellite television, cell phone, and so on, but also to morality, ethics, law which must be adjusted to the global changes. We must also generate a different terminology that presupposes rethinking previous values, and make all this accepted by the absolute majority of the world community as adequate to the new reality. Not attending seriously to the formulation of new ethical and legal principles in the implementation of national, domestic, foreign, or international policies means to react inadequately to the emerging threats, or even to create new ones. Examples of such incorrect decisions made both by separate states and consolidated communities are the military invasions of Czechoslovakia (1968) and Iraq (2003), and the politics of implementing the principle “one country— one language—one people,” which is overtly or covertly put into practice by some countries. The continuation of these policies results from non-understanding how serious are the philosophical and ethical implications deriving from the cultural-cumcivilizational systems. Any political effort is meaningless when complex culturalcum-civilizational problems, together with interwoven contradictions emerging on their basis, are torn up, split, or tightened instead of finding effective ways to loosen them. For the same reason, a policy directed toward a forced and accelerated assimilation of large numbers of migrants in short time spans fails to take in due consideration a cultural diversity which is not bonded by common civilizational ties, for instance, Switzerland. The younger generation of West European citizens born in wealthy European countries is, simultaneously, the first, or second generation born in the Muslim emigrant environment of the West. These people inherit the culture of their ancestors without having an adequate civilizational “inoculation” via relevant education and upbringing as well as without integration into the contemporary life of the European community. They are an explosive material which intermittently undermines the routine and established life of the native Europeans. I should mention that previously the parents of these “new Europeans” could not act this way, although they fully realized that they were strangers (they still cannot act like Europeans due

1028

A. N. Chumakov

to long-established customs). In the strange land, they found better life than at home; they highly valued it, and did not protest against evident social inequality. But those born in the new cultural-cum-civilizational system but determined to exist in the old cultural-cum-civilizational context, experience serious psycho-emotional strains which they do not want to endure. As a result, the increasing old contradictions and the emerging ones are able to question cultural-cum-civilizational achievements of both separate nations and of whole humankind. On the example of modern Europe, we have the strengthening of the former and the emergence of new contradictions that can call into question the cultural and civilizational achievements of both individual Nations and the whole of humanity. In this context, it is evident that overcoming socio-economic backwardness and raising quality of life for a larger part of human population are the most acute problems of modernity. Without solving them, there can be no global civilization possible to build. But what is even more important and a more difficult task is forming the new thinking, and relevant world outlook for people, who mostly just do not catch up with the dynamic changes taking place around them. Many people, and especially adults, have problems in adjusting to the new world, which is an open arena for freely competing and colliding ideas, paradigms, and values. It is even more difficult to leave the familiar cave of the established opinions, myths, and ideologies. But it seems inevitable. We are facing the second “axial time,” the Era of Dialog. It requires deep transformation of our consciousness, similar to the transformation of a nymph into a butterfly. An important step on this path of changes is the transition from a discrete vision of society described in self-sufficient categories of culture, civilization, or globalization to a complex, systemic vision of it, when a dynamic social body is perceived in a different way: through the prism of cultural-cum-civilizational development, including its global level.

References Chumakov, A.N., and W.C. Gay (eds.). 2016. Between Past Orthodoxies and the Future of Globalization: Contemporary Philosophical Problems (Leiden, 9–22. Boston: Brill-Rodopi. Global Studies Directory. (2017). People, Organizations, Publications. Edited by Alexander N. Chumakov, Ilya V. Ilyin and Ivan I. Mazour. Editions Brill/Rodopi, Leiden/Boston, pp. 151–155; 270–271. Cato, Marcus Porcius. 1998. On Farming. Prospect Books. Global Studies Encyclopedic Dictionary. (2014). Edited by Alexander N. Chumakov, Ivan I. Mazour and William C. Gay. With a Foreword by Mikhail Gorbachev. Editions Rodopi B.V., Amsterdam/New York, NY, P. 70–75. Huntington S. (2003). Stolknovenie tsivilizatsii (Clash of civilizations)—Moscow: AST, P. 75. Kagan M. S. Philosophy of culture. – Saint-Petersburg, too TK “Petropolis”, 1996. Kroeber A. L. and C. Rluckhohn. Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions. Peabody Museum papers. Vol. 47. №. 1. Cambridge, Mass, 1952. Spengler, Oswald. 1991. The Decline of the West. Oxford University Press. Wallerstein I. (2001). The Invention of the realities of time-space: an understanding of our historical systems. // Time of the World. Almanac. Issue. 2: Structures of history. Novosibirsk, P. 106.).

54 From Cultural Pluralism and Civilizational Disintegration …

1029

Alexander N. Chumakov is a Professor of Philosophy at the Moscow State University, first Vicepresident of the Russian Philosophical Society, and Member of the Russian Ecological Academy. He is the editor in chief of Age of Globalization and Vestnik, journals of the Russian Philosophical Society. He has authored more than 650 research works in Russian and English, and edited many scholarly volumes including encyclopedic ones. Among his books are Philosophy of Globalization (Moscow, 2015) and Between Past Orthodoxies and the Future of Globalization, coedited with W.C. Gay (Leiden 2016)

Chapter 55

From World Politics to a World Political System Olga Leonova and Ilya Ilyin

Abstract Political globalization deals with the dynamics of political processes in the global arena. World politics has become more complex with the emergence of regionalization, new institutions of global governance, and the formation of a hierarchy of global actors. The latter is determined on the basis of the strength of economic, political, and military poles as well as global and regional powers. The competition for Centers of Powers form an hierarchical pyramid of power, and is the major sources of emerging political processes: the formation of new economic, political, and military blocs; conflicts between nationalistic interests and global needs; competition between democratic and authoritarian states, and the changing role of the periphery of the global world. The paper ends with an outline of principles and mechanisms of a democratic global governance.

On Globalization Globalization connotes a growing interconnectedness and interdependence among world’s actors, but not necessarily a growing integration of the world. Ideally, the end state of the globalization process could be a coherent and harmonious state of humankind in all its spheres’ activity and a transition to a co-evolutionary relationship with nature and the outer space. As Chumakov (2011) states, coherent planetary civilization should complete the globalization process. (See also Chumako’s essay in this volume). However, we are far from this ideal state and the world of politics is the main culprit. Globalization is a plural phenomenon (Therborn 2000) consisting of economic, political, sociocultural, informational, and environmental dimensions. Although the

O. Leonova (B) Department of Globalistics, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia e-mail: [email protected] I. Ilyin Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 I. Rossi (ed.), Challenges of Globalization and Prospects for an Inter-civilizational World Order, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44058-9_55

1031

1032

O. Leonova and I. Ilyin

political aspect of globalization has been less investigated, it has increased in importance in academic research which has been exploring the driving forces of worldwide political processes but has not produced an agreed framework of a global political system.

New Features in the Sphere of the World Politics The Structure of the Global World and Hierarchy of Global Actors With the acceleration of globalization processes, the “pole” and “centre of power” have become important categories to explain the dynamics of the modern multipolar world. In the Greek and Latin etymology, a pole is the end of the rotational axis of the Earth’s sphere; hence, in social terms, a pole connotes a major factor which organizes and sustains a sphere of global society. We argue that the structure of global society is best understood if analyzed in terms of the strength of military, economic, political, and cultural poles. The Economic Pole consists of the following elements: strength of the economic policy; number of small and medium size businesses; level of domestic investments; capability of high technology development; sustainable reproduction of the social and economic resource of the region; development of market relations; state of the infrastructure; growth rate of industrial production; GDP level and standards of living. The World’s biggest economies in the 2019–2020 were the following in this rank order: US, which in 2019 is expected to exceed 21 trillion US dollars in GDP (excluding inflation prices), China with an expected 14 trillion, Japan 5 trillion, Germany 4 trillion, UK 3 trillion, India 3, France 3, Italy 2.1, Brazil 2.0, Canada 1.8 trillion (Focus Economics 2019: https://www.focus-economics.com/blog/the-lar gest-economies-in-the-world) Political Pole. A political pole refers to a state’s capabilities in issues of global governance Examples of political poles are the Group of Seven (G7) which comprises countries with the highest GDP in the world and at the same time are also members of the military alliance NATO: US, Japan, UK, Germany, France, Italy, Canada. Economic and military power tend to provide a political superiority over other states or to produce Centers of global power. To be labeled as a “political Pole” a state must possess certain internal and external characteristics. The most important internal characteristics are political stability, sustainable development, social solidarity, and people’s support of the national foreign policy. Of prominent importance are also the following external characteristics: (a) political self-sufficiency or the country’s ability to pursue an independent foreign policy based on national interests even in the face of contrasting interests of other militarily stronger powers; (b) political self-sufficiency entails not only political stability but also economic self-sufficiency

55 From World Politics to a World Political System

1033

based on a vast territory rich in natural resources and a large and young population; (c) power to influence other states in the sphere of national interests, including the capability of determining their domestic and foreign policy by ways of sanctions or direct military influence. The influence of a political pole can extend over a vast geopolitical space, such as the case in the Atlantic Alliance or the Belt and Road initiative, or it can entail a control over an area of geostrategic importance such as the Suez and Panama canals, the Strait Moluccas, and the Strait of Hormuz; (d) ability to respond adequately to global challenges and contribution to the solution of global political problems, including the development of a globally agreed framework. The Military Nature of a Pole State is defined on the basis of the following criteria: the national security doctrine, as expressed in the state’s foreign policy; the official statements and behavior of political leaders; support of the public opinion for the country’ military capability and use of force. It goes without saying that a strong military capability is not sustainable without a strong economic capacity. Hence, following is a possible rank order among military poles: rank 1 (the lowest rank): a state which has a considerable conventional power to repel any conventional army; rank 2: a state which has enough conventional military power to carry out an invasion in defense of national interests; rank 3: a state with some nuclear power but economically and politically weak such as North Korea, Pakistan, and India; 4:a state which possesses sizable nuclear capacity and solid economic and political structure such as England, France, and China; 5: states with massive nuclear powers, like USA and Russia, though the latter is economically less powerful. The aggregation of more than one type of pole in a single local state constitutes a Center of Power which is located at the peak of the multipolar world (see Fig. 1). In other words, the center of power is a combination of military, economic, political, and sociocultural resources. Today, perhaps, only the United States has the full range of the characteristics of the economic, political, and military poles so as to be the center of power of the global world (Podliska 2010). The next level down in the global hierarchical pyramid (See Fig. 1) are the Contenders for the Center of Power. For example, China can be considered to be a contender for the center of power of the global world. If China reaches the status of a center of power, we shall have the formation of a polycentric global world model (Keith 2005), and this will be more so if the European Union will gain economic and political strength.

Transformation of the Geopolitical Space and Actors of Global Power A competition for a place in the hierarchy of the global world emerges as the major factor of future developments in the global political system. Following are some emerging trends of the future architecture of the global political order:

1034

O. Leonova and I. Ilyin

Center of Power (USA)

Contenders for the status of Center of Power ( China and EU) )

Transregional Powers and Regional Powers (Russia, India, Brazil, South Africa)

Poles ( Japan, Republic of South Korea, Turkey, Iran, Israel, Pakistan, Indonesia, Australia, Mexico, Canada)

Fig. 1 Pyramidal Structure of World Powers

Multipolarity or a significant increase in the number of economic, military, and political poles, which occurred especially since the post-world war II movements of political independence, nuclear expansion, and the push for neoliberal trade with related economic growth. A multipolar world is characterized by the absence of an hegemonic pole and the presence of many poles seeking to maintain a balance of power. (b) Polycentricity is a more recent notion connoting a world of more than one state with autonomous but limited decision-making for operating within a single framework of rules or in peaceful coexistence. Historians have used the term “Great Power” to refer to the leading powers after the Vienna Congress, namely, Russia, Prussia, Austria, France, and Great Britain. Recently, International Relations scholars have used the term “Global Power” (Volgy et al. 2011). A “global power” is an evolution of the “great power” in the globalization era and is defined by the following features: ability to influence the development of the world system politically, economically, and socioculturally as well as via “soft” power; leadership in securing partners and alliances in all regions of the world; feeling responsibility for what is happening in the world and for serving as a world arbitrator; exercising a key role in determining the oil price; enjoying access to major communications (which ones?) and global energy resources. (Ilyin and Leonova 2017: 39-41). Given the economic, political, and military clout of a “Global Power,” the latter can be considered a synonym of “Center of Power.”

55 From World Politics to a World Political System

1035

A Regional Power connotes another level in the global hierarchy of power. A country becomes a regional power in two stages. Firstly, a country accumulates economic and/or political, and/or military powers by expanding the market for its products, pursuing allied foreign policies, guaranteeing economic assistance and security. At this point that country becomes the center of soft power for other countries in its region and, eventually, it becomes a “geopolitical pivot” of the regional system by moving regional countries from the global periphery to the main sphere of global politics. Examples of Regional Powers include Brazil, India, Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Nigeria. Regional powers vie to move up to the position of “Center of Power” so that we have a pyramid of regional systems and subsystems. Russia is a TRANS-regional power, as its influence extends far beyond the geographical region to which it belongs (see Fig. 1). A regional system operates as a large geopolitical area made up by contiguous states which are united around a leading state pursuing a common strategy in the geopolitical space. The strength of a regional system is measured by the number of regional states, the aggregate of demographic and trade resources, complementarity of regional economies, aggregate GDP, regional self-sufficiency in terms of energy resources and other strategic commodities, a single security system and a single military strategy. Political observers are noticing that the competition among European, Asian, and American regional alliances leads to changes in the world’s geopolitical landscape. “Global influence is shifting eastward, pushing the United States and Europe into second place.” (Friedman and Rapp-Hooper 2018). Another important trend of the twenty-first century is the ongoing competition among civilizations with perhaps the transition from the current monocentric world of a dominant currency (USD) and one international language (“global English”) to large competing regional systems, i.e., North American, East Asian (Chinese), Russia Eurasian, Arab-Muslim, South Asian, and Latin American. The idea of the so-called “responsible” nationalism becomes an incentive for the formation of these regional systems.-

Globalization and Regionalization A process of economic coordination of countries in macro-regions has been going on for quite a while. For example, in the Asia-Pacific region we can distinguish two economic macro-regions: Northeast economic area-(East Asian Summit) and the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN). In Latin America, there are also two macro-regions, which coincide with economic blocks: Continental (which includes MERCOSUR, PROSUR,1 and ALBA) and Pacific (Andean community and Pacific Alliance). 1 PROSUR—Forum

for Progress in South America, which was launched in March 2019 after the dissolution of UNASUR.

1036

O. Leonova and I. Ilyin

The integration processes in macro-regions are asynchronous, since, for instance, economic integration is almost always significantly ahead of political integration. As a matter of fact, most macro-regional associations were formed mainly as a result of economic integration, for example, the European Coal and Steel Community later evolved into the European Economic Community, and then into the EU. Other examples of macro-regions are the Southern Common Market (MERCOSUR), the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). Economic integration, which can be measured in terms of trade, finances, and other quantitative indicators, has been sufficiently documented as creating some kind of a single complex out of different national economic systems: for instance, a free trade zone, a custom union, a common market, an economic and monetary union, which represent as many progressive steps of integration. On the contrary, we cannot really talk about political integration of different political systems since they are all grounded on national sovereignty. Still one can observe in successful regional integrations a series of evolutionary steps toward political coordination: – Mutual communications and coordination of domestic and foreign policies by the members of the association; – Policy coordination; – Establishment of a regional security system; – Creation of supranational (international??) agencies and commissions; – National Adoption of a Common Market (Europe); – A regional Parliament elected by all member states (Europe). Yet, where are we in terms of political coordination on a world scale?

Growing Conflicts and Ineffectiveness of Inter-Governmental Organizations When effective governing mechanisms are lacking, the centers of power of the global world are becoming the most efficient leaders of global governance. Global centers will have an upper hand in bargaining for a division of the global space into respective areas of interest and influence until new contenders for centers of power will emerge. Competition between the existing centers of power and contenders for center status produces acute conflicts. There is evidence that such competition will take place in the form of regional conflicts and hybrid warfare, and not necessarily on the competitors’ territory. There is also evidence that the recognition of some sort of global governance much depends on charismatic leadership as much as its demise is affected by idiosyncratic and autocratic leaders. The evolution of international relations and the global political system might well be characterized by an increasing degree of instability and unpredictability as a multipolar centric world is consolidating. In the twenty-first century it will be difficult

55 From World Politics to a World Political System

1037

to maintain a balance of power and strategic stability. Given the ineffectiveness of the UN and other international institutions, a multipolar chaos is possible The United Nations, the European Parliament, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), G7 and G20, the World Bank and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the World Trade Organization, and other inter-governmental organizations have been criticized for their inability in resolving political conflicts. Many people in Western and non-Western countries share Ikenberry’s notion that “the global multilateral institutions—from the UN and IMF downwards— need to be reformed to reflect this new global reality” (Ikenberry 2018: 23). Undeniably, these organizations were created at a different historical times and to resolve issues of different nature and complexity than contemporary global ones. What are the major global issues currently facing global political actors?

New Global Challenges in the Sphere of Global Governance Emerging Nationalism and Anti-global Sentiments The ongoing strand of nationalism, exemplified, for instance, by Brexit and Trumpism, is a major challenge to a global order of supranational nature. Unquestionably, post-world war II Inter-governmental organizations have inevitably entailed explicit or implicit a delegation of some sovereign prerogatives to supranational entities. A further reduction of national sovereignty has been a recent consequence of the formation of national blocs. It is of no surprise that the widespread inequality produced by neoliberal globalization has occasioned angry resolution to rescue the welfare of nations from the global mantra. Such a reaction has been aggravated also by the realization that conflicting national interests cannot be solved by intergovernmental structures such as the UN, Organization for Security Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the European Parliament, and so on. Even outside of the sphere of militant nationalism, we do not have a clear instance of a state forgoing its national interests for the sake of the “unity of mankind.” It is safe to say that the feared decline of the state has not yet occurred and is unlikely to take place in the foreseeable future (Holton 2011: 124, 7). Given the bitter competition for scarce resources, the economic interests of the state will largely determine the trajectory of foreign policy. As Stephen Kotkin (2018) states “In reality…states rise, fall, and compete with one another along the way. And how they do so determines the world’s fate.”

1038

O. Leonova and I. Ilyin

Regionalism and Geopolitical Pluralism With enhanced trade and economic development various countries which until recently were considered at the periphery of the world have become significant voices in world affairs. So Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, Chile, not to mention China, not only provide the world economy with raw materials and industrial goods, but gradually become investors in Western countries (Friedman and Rapp-Hooper 2018). In 2017, the top 10 investors were Argentina, Indonesia, Brazil, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Vietnam (Friedman et al. 2018). These and many other countries have succeeded in forming solid treaties and profitable blocks engaging a large number of partners in various sectors. Those countries will be stronger, which are most active in pursuing new alliances and, concurrently, a country’s global influence will increase in direct proportion to the number of secured strategic alliances of economic and political nature. Yet, the economic and political coordination of countries in large regions inevitably entails a fragmentation of the world into large self-sufficient economic and political segments (Ohmae 2005). Gradually, the geopolitical positions and interests of the regions of the world are becoming increasingly differentiated. For example, Russia has recently been building up its “geopolitical pluralism” by developing relations with the countries of Central Asia in the post-Soviet space. The Russian Federation strengthens the ties and increases the pace of relations with the Middle East, Asia-Pacific Region, and Latin America. At the same time, the European vector of foreign policy has remained the most important and significant for Russia for a long time. Another example of geopolitical pluralism is the Belt and Road of China. Many countries in Asia-Pacific region, Africa, Latin America, and Central Asian also pursue a multi-vectoor foreign policy, expanding the range of their partners regardless of their gideological affiliation, economic systems, and political regimes. As a result, the sphere of international relations is multipolar because it consists of an aggregate of regional powers which are loosely interconnected and in a precarious balance of power. Such a geopolitical pluralism is far from facilitating an integrated and dynamic system of global governance.

Ideological Splitting of the World in Two Major Blocks The geopolitically pluralistic world seats on top of a deep ideological cleavage which divides the world into an authoritarian and democratic camp… and this is not totally unrelated to the colonialist zeal of the proponents of liberal democracy. In 1961, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) was established by 18 European countries, the US and Canada to assist industrial democracies to promote free market policies and trade. Today there are 34 members which include more Western European countries, Turkey, Japan, Korea, Australia, New Zealand, some Latin American countries, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Tunisia.

55 From World Politics to a World Political System

1039

However, there is a political precondition to membership in the OECD,- the endorsement of a democratic form of government, so that Russia, Iran, North Korea, and China are not part of the OECD. So the OECD is a strong Western economic and political block opposed to authoritarian trends. However, a number of states, whose political system is labeled “authoritarian” by Western countries have demonstrated their own economic and political efficiency so as to become strong competitors of democratic European states. « Led by China, authoritarian countries are openly challenging global rules and ideas about freedom and making the case that their sociopolitical systems work better than liberal democracy »(Daalder and Lindsay 2018). Russia, North Korea, Iran, and nowadays even Turkey share this ideological position. Moreover, the proponents of ultra-nationalist trends that are emerging all over the world are ready to argue that democracy proved effective in the twentieth century, but has now become dysfunctional. J. G. Ikenberry writes that “Today, this liberal international order is in crisis.” (Ikenberry 2018: 7) and “…today’s crisis of (is about?) the western liberal order.” (Ikenberry 2018: 9). At the same time, in the twenty-first century the non-liberal path of development has proved successful also (Kotkin 2018).To save the existing world order, Daalder and Lindsay propose to create a new organization—the G-9. They wrote that “The major allies of the United States can leverage their collective economic and military might to save the liberal world order. France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the EU in Europe; Australia, Japan, and South Korea in Asia; and Canada in North America are the obvious candidates to supply the leadership…By acting now, the G-9 will lay the basis for a more stable and enduring world order—one that is better suited to the power relations of today and tomorrow…” (Daalder and Lindsay 2018). According to I. H. Daalder and J. M. Lindsay, the G-9 should take the role of a global leader: countries should “invest more in their own security” and “have to use military force independent of Washington”; there is a need “to flex its economic muscles” too. (Op. Cit.: 4, 5) “To be effective, the G-9 will have to institutionalize in some form” without excluding the participation and support of like-minded countries (Op. Cit.: 6). Who are like-minded countries? Those sharing the principles of liberal democracy. So, clearly the G-9 might bring some easement in the camp of the liberal democracy but not across the world divide. Obviously, authoritarian regimes have a future in the context of global development trends, given the pre-eminence of the state in economics and political matters even in liberal democracies. The question of which regime will have a longer term endurance will be a matter of historical record. Where the world will move in the short term? The growing role of Asian and other economies of the periphery and the resulting increase in their political influence may eventually lead to rules and standards of behavior in the global world different from those designed by Western countries. Would this occurred via a gradual evolution or through an aggravated, and perhaps, military confrontation? A revisiting of the foundations of the liberal world is much needed indeed, but equally important—and because of it—is its openness to a constructive dialogue with the rest of the world.

1040

O. Leonova and I. Ilyin

Let us start from an elaboration of clear and hopefully universally shared principles of global governance.

A Programmatic Manifesto for Global Governance2 The Need of a Globally Shared Platform The competition among states for positioning in the global hierarchy of command imposes restrictions on the development of the world political system, especially on the forms of cooperation and competition among countries. The resulting frustrations generate nationalistic trends and attempts at unilateral solutions which threaten the survival of humankind. This danger is particularly acute because of the geopolitical competition between democratic and totalitarian regimes. It is urgent that we develop a transnational consensus on principles of conflict resolution based on the values of peace, security, freedom, and fair access to the benefits of globalization. International conflicts must be replaced with a globally agreed framework based on reciprocally accepted differences and complementarities. Such a framework is consistent with the contemporary trends of regionalism, multilateralism and multicivilizationalism and is an indispensable precondition for a transition of “world politics” to a well functioning political system.

Polylogue as a Master Strategy What kind of institutionalized mechanism is needed for the formation of a consensual framework on global governance? Past practices have shown that attempts to conduct a dialogue between a global leader (e.g., the USA) and another global leader or an ordinary country prove to be ineffective. The “dialogue” usually turns into a monologue of the global leader (the USA), whose communicative superiority is supported by his strategic allies and partners (EU countries). In such a communicative model the national interests of the countries are not voiced and cannot be heard. Instead of a monologue, we need a Polylogue or a “conversation among many” which consists of a communicative interaction among all interested parties, including those at the periphery, in decisions which affect the fate of the entire world. Such a mode of communication can facilitate mutual understanding and, conceivably, some mutual control so as to bring legitimacy and stability to the process of global governance.

2 Many of these ideas in this section were proposed by the editor of this volume and jointly finalized.

55 From World Politics to a World Political System

1041

Core Principles to Be Universally Shared The importance of the polylogue stems from the assumption that general principles of universal coexistence are not only possible but necessary, and this requires that all political actors, and especially the leading global actors of the world, change their political mentality. First, the present escalation toward nuclear armaments should convince anyone that military solutions are not the way to face conflicts because they can lead to ultimate annihilation. Secondly, all must agree that the common good of mankind, if we can all agree upon it, is more important than anybody’s national interest. Hence, the latter must submit to the common good in cases of incompatibility between the two. Thirdly, the escalation of economic conflicts is not a viable strategy either. The negative impact of the ongoing trade conflict should convince everybody that no nation is totally self-sufficient in resources, whereas every nation could gain from a balanced multilateral trade. Hence, every country must agree that economic globalization should be supported as some sort of common good, if we can steer it away from excesses and abuses. Fourthly, from the previous principles follows that diplomacy and negotiations are the ways to deal with political and economic conflicts. There are two main negotiation strategies: a) first should come a search for areas of complementarities in giving and taking among nations so that the loss for a country in one area is compensated by gains in another area. b) When complementary exchanges are not possible, compromise should be the main strategy, and the first move toward compromise should come first by the country endowed with more resources. A rotation in offering compromises will greatly contribute to the creation of international trust. The principles of submission to the common global good, negotiation, and compromise will avoid the tyrannies of the Veto by any single power as well as the tyranny of the majority rule. Moreover, the principle of complementarity and rotational compromise may contribute to the long-term preservation of the balance of power. Organizational Structures and Enforcement Guidelines We do not need many new types of organizations, which would end up accruing new levels of bureaucratic dysfunctions to the existing ones. The implementation of the principles listed above requires some reorganization of the existing inter-governmental organizations (IGOs) and of International organizations as well as changes in their operational procedures. The World order should be structured around a hierarchical, horizontal, and rotational axes: 1. a. Hierarchic order and leadership: As we have seen above, the current world order has evolved into a global political system, which functions not as a community of equal nations, but as a polycentric system of command with a hierarchy of states and regional political systems. Hence, the strongest poles, which contribute

1042

O. Leonova and I. Ilyin

most to the financial capital, economic output, and technological innovation, must be given some leadership role in the organization and support of the polylogue process. b. Inclusive and rotational leadership in the UN. • The global centers of power (the US + EU, China + Russia) and other politically vocal countries should take the initiative within the UN General Assembly to discuss the reorganization of all UN organs according to the principles of inclusive, hierarchical, and rotational leadership. Perhaps in addition to the six existing Committees of the UN General Assembly there should be an elected General Committee for implementing the abovementioned principles across the spectrum of the UN organizations, including the UN Security Council. In general, there should be elected representatives from the first and second tiers of Centers of powers: one-third of the representatives should be elected every three years so as to assure continuity of policies and procedures. c. The IGOs and other international organizations should also be reorganized by the criteria of the hierarchical, inclusive, and rotational leadership. d. Enforcement mechanisms: The General Committee of the General Assembly should have supervising functions on the organizational structure and functioning of all the UN organizations and to report non-compliance to the Security Council. The latter should have informal and formal policing capabilities. e. Dialogue and cooperation should be fostered between Western and non-Western organizations and coalitions such as the NATO and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), the G–7 and BRICS group, EU and Association of Southeast Asian Nations, and so on. “The outcome may be one many U.S. leaders have long sought— a more balanced partnership with European and Asian allies in which everyone contributes their fair share and has a say in how the order should evolve to meet the new challenges” » (Daalder and Lindsay 2018). f. The UN General Assembly should also discuss new principles of peaceful coexistence as well as new system of rules of interaction between global powers and regional structures. J.G Ikenberry suggests new ideas for reforming the institutions of global governance. The main principle must be “a vision of an open, loosely rules-based and progressively oriented international order…. the global international order is capable of reform. This separates liberal internationalism from various alternative ideologies of the global order—political realism, authoritarian nationalism, Social Darwinism, revolutionary socialism and post-colonialism.” (Ikenberry 2018: 9). The bracketing of ideologies is a very important pragmatic suggestion and a prerequisite to dismantle a great deal on international animosity. Ch. Chase-Dunn and H. Inoue refer to the interstate system, the hegemonic sequence, and international organizations as the three institutional legs of contemporary global interpolity. They also argue that “the institutional elements of a global democratic state already exist. But they would need to be restructured and rearranged.” They write that “the task at hand is how to move these pieces around

55 From World Politics to a World Political System

1043

quickly and to avoid the worst excesses of the kind of interregnum that occurred during the first half of the 20th century, what Eric Hobsbawm (1995) has called ‘the Age of Extremes’ However, they admit that we have not attained our goal of developing a plan for accelerating democratic global governance, while claiming to have explained the perspective from which such a plan needs to emerge.” (Chase-Dunn and Inoue 2010: 18). It is apparent that most of the world’s nations are not happy with this state of affair as they claim their right to be heard. The crucial question is whether this universal longing for democratic governance can lead to a coordinated global governance considering the fact that political tensions and imbalances seem to be increasing in frequency and complexity.

Conclusion: Balancing Power with Partnership The complex nature of global issues, including their civilizational and national sensitivity, is best approached by ways of persuasion and role modeling rather than by force. In his book “World Order: Reflections on the Character of Nations and the Course of History” H. Kissinger H. writes: “Order always requires a subtle balance of restraint, force, and legitimacy. In Asia, it must combine a balance of power with a concept of partnership” (Kissinger 2014: 233). Obviously, the idea of balancing power with partnership is relevant not only for Asia but the global world as a whole. The good example has been set recently by the European countries, which “are considering how to restore some semblance of international cooperation in a world left,” “they are working with China to safeguard globalization” and “whatever their qualms about China’s rise, European leaders are willing to partner with the country to prevent global economic fragmentation and preserve a fragile planet” (Patrick 2018). All this does not give reason to expect rapid success, since in this era of strives and transformations a long period of rethinking and enlightenment is very much needed. However, if competition among countries is inevitable, let it be a competition of soft power. Joseph Nye, (Jr.) stated in his famous book “Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics” that “a country may obtain the outcomes it wants in world politics because other countries—admiring its values, emulating its example, aspiring to its level of prosperity and openness—want to follow it.” “This soft power—getting others to want the outcomes that you want—co-opts people rather than coerces them.” (Nye 2004: 5). Such an approach is the best hope for the global world to become “a community of shared values, interests, and institutions” (Patrick 2018). So which country is unassumedly aiming to be the mostly sought out and admired in the world?

1044

O. Leonova and I. Ilyin

References Chase-Dunn, C. and H. Inoue. 2010. Global state formation and global democracy. Retrieved from http://irows.ucr.edu/papers/irows55/irows55.htm?fbclid=IwAR2LSNa_ iBHB3u_J7kiqAVhsj2TBiirlsRjkT_E_wZj11-FSO8g_fEpdAi0) Chumakov, A. 2011. Globalization: The outlines of the integral world. Moscow: Prospect. [In Russian] Daalder, I. and J. Lindsay. 2018. The Committee to save the world order. America’s allies must step up as America steps down. Foreign Affairs, 30 September. Retrieved from https://www.foreignaf fairs.com/articles/2018-09-30/committee-save-world-order?cid=nlc-fa_twofa-20181004 Friedman L.R. and M. Rapp-Hooper. 2018. The liberal order is more than a myth. But It Must Adapt to the New Balance of Power. Foreign Affairs, 31 July. Retrieved from https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/world/2018-07-31/liberal-order-more-myth?cid= nlc-fa_fatoday-20180731. Accessed on 10.12.2018 Focus Economics. 2019. The World’s top 10 largest economies. Retrieved from https://www.focuseconomics.com/blog/the-largest-economies-in-the-world Hobsbawm, E. 1995. Age of extrenes. The short twenties century 1914–1991. London: Abacus Holton, R. 2011. Globalization and the national state. Second Edition. London: Palgrave Macmillan Ikenberry, J. 2018. The end of liberal international order? International Affairs 94(1):7–23. Retrieved from https://www.chathamhouse.org/publication/ia/end-liberal-international-order Ilyin, I. and O. Leonova. 2017. Political globalistics. Moscow: Uright. [In Russian] Keith, R.C, ed. 2005. China as a rising power and its response to ‘Globalization’. London and New-York: Routledge. Taylor and Francis Group Kissinger, H. 2014. World Order: Reflections on the character of nations and the course of history. London: Allen Lane Kotkin, S. 2018. Realist world. The Players change, but the game remains. // Foreign Affairs, 14 June. Retrieved from https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/world/2018-06-14/realist-world? cid=nlc-fa_fatoday-20180614 Nye, J. 2004. Soft power: The means to success in world politics. New York: Public Affairs Ohmae, K. 2005. The next global stage. Challenges and opportunities in our borderless world. New Jersey, Upper Saddle River: Wharton School Publishing Patrick, S. 2018. The World order is starting to crack. America’s allies and adversaries are adapting to Donald Trump in ways that can’t easily be reversed. Foreign Policy, 25 July. Retrieved from https:// foreignpolicy.com/2018/07/25/the-world-order-is-starting-to-crack/. Accessed on 10.12.2018 Podliska, B.F. 2010. Acting alone. A scientific study of American hegemony and unilateral use-offorce decision making. Plymouth: Lexington Books Therborn, G. 2000. Globalizations: Dimensions, historical waves, regional effects. Normative Governance. International Sociology 15(2):151–179 Volgy, J.T., R. Corbetta, K.A. Grant, and R.G. Baird, (eds.). 2011. Major powers and the quest for status in international politics. Global and regional perspectives. New York: Palgrave

Olga Leonova is professor in the Faculty of Global Studies, Department of Globalistics, of the Lomonosov Moscow State University, She has coauthored with Ilyin Ilya “Political Globalistics. Moscow: Urite, 2017 [In Russian} and articles in the Journal of ‘Economics and Management: Problems and Decisions’ and the “Age of Globalization” [both in Russian].

Chapter 56

The Final Frontier of Global Society and the Evolution of Space Governance Eytan Tepper

Abstract This chapter discusses the impact of space exploration and utilization on global society and globalization. Globalization, with its cross-border interconnection, interdependence, and engagement, increases the need for supranational regulation, i.e. global governance. The chapter, therefore, continues with a review of global space governance and how it evolves over time. Space applications have revolutionized communication and transportation, facilitating the interconnections that drive globalization. The original monocentric system of space governance is stagnating since the 1970s and fails to keep up with the technological and commercial developments. The way forward is by the evolution of separate, issue-specific governance centers and legal instruments (regimes), conforming to common basic principles. Thus, the issue of militarization will have a separate forum and legal instruments that conform to the Outer Space Treaty. Together, these regimes will incrementally build a decentralized—and updated—space governance. In fact, space governance is already on track to become decentralized. Looking down the road, space habitation will be the most important spatial expansion since humans spread from Africa, with implications also to those left behind on Earth. And if the ongoing search for extraterrestrial intelligence ever results in detection, it will affect our lives and cognition.

Introduction Space exploration and utilization brought about many applications, notably satellitebased communication and navigation. Space applications are long drivers of globalization and they are on track to revolutionize human life on earth and beyond in ways we still do not fully know. Spatial expansion, migration, and technological breakthroughs were always milestones in human evolution. Space exploration and utilization engulf both these types of revolutions in human life with (i) new technologies and space applications, and (ii) expansion and migration to new territories. E. Tepper (B) McGill Institute of Air and Space Law, Montreal, QC, Canada e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 I. Rossi (ed.), Challenges of Globalization and Prospects for an Inter-civilizational World Order, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44058-9_56

1045

1046

E. Tepper

Space applications promoted globalization by enabling faster, cheaper, and safer transportation, and by making communication across the globe swift and low cost. These applications, together with technological advancement in other fields, notably computer and internet technologies, bridge geographic distances and make the world smaller in many aspects. New space applications said to be introduced in the coming years or decade will make the world ever smaller, further promoting globalization. These include suborbital flights that will reduce the duration of cross-Atlantic flights to 1 h and constellations of small satellites that will provide broadband internet everywhere on Earth, not depending on ground infrastructure. Activities performed within the territory of a nation-state are bound by the domestic laws of this state as well as by its governance mechanisms. However, activities that cross national boundaries, like international trade, or are performed beyond any national jurisdiction, e.g. in the open seas and outer space that are not part of the territory of any state, require regulation at the supranational level. International law and global governance provide such supranational regulation, however, absent a global government or supreme authority—the state of anarchy in international relations—they do so with a limited, though still substantial, success. The governance of space activities has a solid base, with several widely accepted space law treaties and dedicated UN organs. However, due to political gridlock, this base, introduced in the 1960s–1970s, has largely remained unchanged, and space governance fails to keep up with the technological, engineering, and commercial developments of space exploration and utilization. While some sectors are well regulated—e.g. the placement and operation of communication satellites—others, e.g. military uses of space— are hardly regulated. Geopolitics still plays a role in space activities and, despite space once perceived as the place in which national rivalries will be put aside—the role of states is even increasing. Space governance is becoming decentralized and eclectic, varying across sub-issue-areas (i.e. specific issue-areas within the issuearea of space activities, such as militarization of space and space debris): while some sub-issue-areas exhibit a well-developed and organized multilateral regime, others exhibit a partial and voluntary regime complex and yet others hardly any at all, with recourse to national actions. The governance deficit may bring—and perhaps already brought—a space arms race and insufficient address of the problem of space debris. It also brings about reliance on national legislation with regard to space mining. To date, space governance is Earthbound and suffers from the maladies of global politics. The breakthrough will come when, way down the road, space colonies will be self-sufficient and adopt governance systems independent from Earth. Looking further down the road, space habitation will have a profound impact on humanity. Human migration to new territories has through history had a profound impact on humanity—on those who emigrate and the societies they create, join, or subordinate, and, potentially, on those left behind. The great migration to North America resulted in the creation of the US which long has a critical influence on Europe and the other places from which migrants came to the US. We can only start to contemplate the ramifications for global society from the colonization of space and from the discovery of extraterrestrial intelligence, should that ever materialize. Existing theories of criminology may not explain the potential deviant behavior of

56 The Final Frontier of Global Society and the Evolution …

1047

astronauts and crimes in space in general. Future study of social sciences in space may result in new theories that apply to social sciences phenomena in space (e.g. crimes in space, governance in space), theories different to a certain extent from theories that may adequately explain social sciences phenomena on earth. Space exploration and utilization bring global society to new frontiers of globalization, and it is on track to take it one notch beyond the known frontiers.

Space Applications as Drivers of Globalization Space applications, especially telecommunications, global navigation, and Earth observation, play a vital role in the process of globalization. Globalization is the process by which the world moves toward an integrated global society and the significance of national borders decreases (Zürn 2013). It is a result of the interconnections and interdependence of and across human societies that is facilitated by the developments of communication, transportation, and computer technology that bridge geographic and cultural distances. The four main types of satellites are communications, remote sensing, navigation, and meteorology (Pelton et al. 2017). Space applications and their uses are numerous, including communication and data transfer, navigation, meteorology (weather forecast), disaster warning and management (e.g. earthquakes, storms), remote sensing including Earth observation, tracking, and logistics. They even influence international diplomacy (Bjola 2017; Bjola and Holmes 2015). Nevertheless, I will focus herein on their effect on transportation and communication, the drivers of globalization.

Transportation Revolutionized Space applications have revolutionized transportation, whether international or domestic, maritime, air, rail, and road. By that they also revolutionized logistics. Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) provide accurate and easy positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) (Hofmann-Wellenhof et al. 2007). The US GPS is the widely known and used GNSS, but there are other global or regional GNSSs in various stages of erection and use—Russia’s GLONASS, China’s BeiDou, Europe’s Galileo, India’s NAVIC, and Japan’s QZSS. GNSS-enabled services transformed, inter alia, mass transportation of people—and goods. GNSS applications transformed marine transportation by providing ships with an easy, fast, and accurate way to determine their position, speed, and direction and to navigate to their destination. They have greatly improved railroad transportation, being used to track trains in real time, increasing safety, and operational effectiveness. Road travel became easier and more effective with the use of navigation applications and the operation of car fleets is more efficient using positioning applications for real-time tracking of the various vehicles. GNSS applications are likewise used in aviation, allowing pilots and air

1048

E. Tepper

traffic control to track, in real time, the position of aircraft, and to navigate them easily and securely to their destination. GNSS, notably GPS, is used in every type of transportation, making it easier, faster, safer, and more efficient and therefore also cheaper. Space flight, long a venerable industry, has become profitable, with private companies like SpaceX providing launch services placing satellites in orbit, sending payloads to the ISS, and soon also carrying humans to Earth orbit and beyond. A new mode of flights developed by the space industry—suborbital flights—carries a promise to dramatically decrease travel duration. Suborbital flights will take off or launch (depending on the technology), reach the edge of space (the Kármán line, about 62 miles/100 km above sea level), and then plummet toward their destinations on earth. A cross-Atlantic suborbital flight would last an hour and a New York–Beijing suborbital flight 2 hours. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic and X-Cor are prominent actors in this industry. While 2019 may see the first commercial suborbital flights (Foust 2018), the initial cost—US$ 100,000–250,000—means it is still not a viable alternative except for the ultra-rich. However, if prices fall significantly, it will revolutionize long-distance transportation and human life in general. If Sydney is a 1–2 h flight away from London or New York, geography will mean different things than it is now. Reasonably priced suborbital flights may change where people live and work and drive deeper globalization. UBS, the Swiss multinational investment bank, published a report suggesting that within a decade the market for high-speed travel via outer space will surpass US$20 billion annually and it will compete with long-distance airline flights (Sheetz 2019). Like with many technologies, there are adverse effects, including concerning privacy. The EU has established “the right to be forgotten,” a person’s right to have information on her removed from the internet.1 However, there is yet no “right to be lost,” a right not to be tracked. Each of us carrying a smartphone shares hers/his whereabouts in any given moment with Google, Apple, and other, perhaps less friendly, organizations or governments. Indeed, “the ability to track individuals on a continual basis also raises important societal, ethical, and legal implication” (Jakhu and Pelton 2017a, p. 194). For better or for worse, GNSSs are critical to military operations and are usually sponsored and operated by the defense administration, in the case of the US—by the Department of Defense (DoD).

1 Initially, by the Court of Justice of the European Union in the case of Google Spain SL and Google

Inc. v Agencia Española de Protección de Datos (AEPD) and Mario Costeja González, 2014, and subsequently in Article 17 of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) (General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), 2016) titled “Right to erasure (‘right to be forgotten’)”.

56 The Final Frontier of Global Society and the Evolution …

1049

Telecommunication Revolutionized Communication satellites revolutionized telecommunication and space-based communication is long a viable and profitable industry. Satellite-based telecommunication was the first space sector to commercialize, starting from the 1960s, and become a profitable industry (Jakhu and Pelton 2017b; Pelton 2012; Pelton et al. 2017). Around 2,000 such satellites orbit Earth relaying analog and digital signals carrying voice, video, and data. They are connecting an enormous number of locations worldwide, including ground stations and home satellite dishes. Communication satellites are used for radio and TV broadcasting, voice communications, and data transfer, including the provision of internet connection to places with insufficient infrastructure. Using satellites, communication has become swift and low cost. The ability to deliver images across the world, and broadcast news events to viewers worldwide enables them to know in real time on developments everywhere and participate in the joy, anxiety, or mourning on those events. This, in turn, creates shared experiences for people worldwide who become a little bit more of a global society. Furthermore, there is synergy with other space technologies, e.g. digital photography. Digital photography was invented for space exploration and is long in the center of our ability to instantly take pictures and video and send them to the other side of the globe at low or even zero cost. With an analog camera, it would take 1–2 weeks and cost dozens of dollars for the film, its development, and shipment by snail mail (but we would hardly do that for this reason). We cannot imagine globalization without the option to make a voice, video, or even a video-conference call with people on the other side of the world instantly, constantly, and with low cost, or even for free. Indeed, “[t]he capacity to communicate around the world and into space almost instantaneously is a technological achievement that makes global cultural integration not merely possible but inevitable” (Wolfe 1979). The communication revolution is not over. Within 2–5 years, constellations of hundreds of small satellites are about to provide a broadband internet connection to nearly every point on earth, connecting many currently unserved or underserved users. The leading actors here are OneWeb, financed by a consortium of deeppocketed investors, and Elon Musk’s SpaceX (Forrester 2018). The service will soon bring the internet and connectivity revolution to remote and so far disconnected parts of Earth and drive deeper globalization.

Affordable Access to Space Applications CubeSats, or cube satellites, are the equivalent of the evolution from mainframe computers to smartphones (Kane 2013). Regular size satellites weigh hundreds of kilograms to several tones, span meters to dozens of meters, and cost US$ hundreds of millions to purchase and launch to Earth orbit. Smallsats are smaller and cheaper,

1050

E. Tepper

nanosatellites even more, and CubeSats are the smallest so far. CubeSats are miniature satellites, a 10-cm (4-in.) cube with a mass of fewer than 1.33 kg (2.93 lbs.) (NASA 2017). With a cost to orbit of less than US$ 100,000 (Selva and Krejci 2012) and availability for purchase as a kit,2 they make remote sensing and satellite communication accessible to mid-size firms, universities, and many other new users. Hundreds of CubeSats have already been successfully deployed in Earth orbit in the past 15 years and they provide ongoing and relatively inexpensive access to space applications with a life span of anywhere from weeks to 5 years. Initially used primarily for education and capability demonstration, they were later put to use for scientific missions by NASA and other actors as they are now capable of performing functions of Earth observation missions, including disaster monitoring (Selva and Krejci 2012). CubeSats raise substantial concerns for orbital crowding and space debris (Jakhu and Pelton 2017) and questions as to their regulatory status (Jakhu and Pelton 2013). Yet, they provide a simple and cheap option for Earth photography and they are making orbital experiments affordable to even the smallest research groups and were therefore called “citizen satellites” (Pang and Twiggs 2011).

Uses of Space that Thwart Globalization To be sure, space applications can and are also used for ideas and activities that thwart globalization. The communication that runs through satellites includes a spectrum of ideas, including those questioning globalization. In addition, space applications are already part of warfare, e.g. with the use of satellite imaging of enemy forces, satellite communication, GPS guided missiles, GPS-based tracking, and positioning of aircrafts and vehicles. Indeed, “technologies for intelligence, reconnaissance, surveillance, and communication purposes have become fully integrated into military operations on Earth” (Jakhu and Pelton 2017b). Moreover, with the development of space weapons and a threat of militarization of space, space warfare cannot be ruled out (Blake 2014; Dawson 2019; Klein 2012). Yet, all these contra-globalization forces are using space applications for previously held ideas and rivalries. In contrast, the new capabilities in transportation and communication are independent—and powerful— drivers of globalization. While satellite communication spreads ideas that support and oppose globalization, by making the world smaller the net effect of space applications is a new level of globalization.

Capabilities Drive Globalization Technological developments drive globalization at least as much as global politics (e.g. wars and their aftermath) and zeitgeist do. Globalization is, to a large extent, the 2 See

http://www.cubesatkit.com.

56 The Final Frontier of Global Society and the Evolution …

1051

result of the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) revolution, particularly the wave of globalization of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Globalization is as much about capabilities as it is of ideas. Give humans capabilities and they will exploit them. At the same time, ideas bring about the new capabilities in computer and internet technology and certainly in space exploration. Space exploration and utilization, and its resulting space applications, provide the capabilities that sprung deeper levels of globalization and promise to bring yet another wave of globalization. The cumulative effects are key to globalization, and of no less importance than trade agreements and international institutions like GATT, WTO, IMF, and the World Bank. Their combined effect is the legal, institutional, and physical infrastructures of globalization.

The Evolution of Space Governance Over Time Globalization, with its cross-border interconnection, interdependence, and engagement, increases the need for supranational regulation, i.e. for global governance. Global governance is the process by which the repertoire of norms and rules that guide the behavior of actors in global affairs is established, implemented, and reformed.3 The main building blocks of global governance are norms, rules, policies, institutions, and fora that all influence the behavior of the actors in global affairs. Global space governance, or space governance, is what guides the behavior of actors in space affairs and the execution of space activities. The main building blocks of space governance include a dedicated UN committee and office and five space law treaties which were introduced in a 20-year span pursuing the launch of the first artificial earth satellite, Sputnik1, by the Soviet Union on October 4, 1957. However, no new space law treaty was adopted since 1979, none is expected in the foreseeable future and even non-legally binding understandings are difficult to achieve, let alone enforce. Space governance is in critical need of an update and it becoming decentralized is the best hope for such an update.

The Evolution of Space Law and Governance Space law and space governance apply to space activities—those performed on Earth, and especially those performed beyond Earth, in space. The application of space law to activities in space is extraterritorial, as space may not become the territory of any country, and extraterrestrial, being beyond Earth. Soon after the Soviet launch of the Sputnik1, the two superpowers of the Cold War, the US and the Soviet Union, led an effort to establish basic principles and rules for the exploration and use of 3 Compare

these influential definitions of “global governance”: (Governance 1995; Rosenau 1995; United Nations Development Programme [UNDP] 1999; Weiss and Thakur 2010).

1052

E. Tepper

outer space. In 1959, the UN established the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (UN-COPUOS), still to date the main multilateral forum to discuss and address all issues relating to space exploration and utilization, and which holds yearly sessions. The United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UN-OOSA), in addition to serving as the secretariat of UN-COPUOS, is very active on capacity building initiatives around the world. The US and the Soviet Union led the discussions leading to the adoption of the first space law treaties, with UN-COPUOS playing an instrumental role. The 1967 Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies (OST) (Outer Space Treaty, 1967) is, to date, the most important legal instrument on space law. It introduced the basic principles and rules that are to date the basis of space law and governance. Three more treaties are an elaboration on specific OST provisions on the rescue of astronauts and space crafts (Rescue Agreement 1968), liability (Liability Convention 1972), and registration of space objects with the UN (Registration Convention 1974). The fifth and last space law treaty is an agreement on the utilization of natural resources on celestial bodies in the solar system (Moon Agreement 1979). However, this treaty, unlike the previous four, failed to gain wide support with less than 20 states ratifying it, and none of the major spacefaring nations (UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, 2018). As a result, only the first four treaties bind most of the actors in space. The Moon Agreement was the last space law treaty to be adopted and none is expected in the foreseeable future. It is fair to say that the ability to adopt legally binding multilateral regimes on space exploration and use has been lost as of the late 1970s. There were attempts to adopt ‘soft law,’ i.e. non-legally binding instruments such as ‘guidelines,’ instead of legally binding treaties. Such were the guidelines on space debris (Space Debris Mitigation Guidelines 2007). However, they failed to prevent a sharp increase in space debris soon after their introduction and by states party to the preparation and adoption of the guidelines (ESA 2018). Moreover, another attempt to introduce another soft law instrument, the International Code of Conduct for Outer Space Activities, failed after almost a decade of work since 2006. There are several other treaties and organizations that relate, at least in part, to space activities. The Partial Test Ban Treaty bans nuclear weapon tests in outer space, as well as in the atmosphere and under water (Partial Test Ban Treaty 1963). The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) administers the slots in orbit around Earth and radio frequencies used, inter alia, to communicate with satellites.

The Crisis in Space Governance Since the dawn of the century, the commercial sector has quickly expanded, and it has already taken the lead from national space agencies. In what is known as “New Space,” the commercial sector has made access to space easier and cheaper. It enhances the capabilities and uses of existing space applications and develops new

56 The Final Frontier of Global Society and the Evolution …

1053

ones, including many disruptive or game-changing applications. The new developments in space exploration and utilization are pushing the boundaries of space law and putting a strain on the outed system of space governance, which is in dire need to evolve to accommodate and regulate the new space activities. While the adoption of new space law treaties or the amendment of the old ones is no longer feasible, space governance can evolve in several parallel different paths. In this regard, space governance is part of a long and escalating trend in global affairs of retreat from binding multilateral arrangements. Anarchy—the absence of a world government or supreme authority—is the basic condition of global politics that defines the study of international relations (Lechner 2017a, b; Milner 1991). International politics in general sees diffusion of power, difficulty to establish, and even maintain multilateral arrangements as States strategically refrain from binding multilateral regimes (Benvenisti and Downs 2007) and multilateralism, in general, being contested (Morse and Keohane 2014). Global governance architectures, both legal and institutional, are fragmenting (International Law Commission 2006; Jakhu and Pelton 2017; Ruggie 2014). There are also space-specific causes of the stagnation of space law. UN-COPUOS has long lost its rulemaking capability, for several reasons. It has become one of the largest UN committees, with nearly 90 members. The procedure in UN-COPUOS is such that decisions are made by consensus, which provides them wide acceptance but also stalls or even prevents decision-making (Lyall and Larsen 2009). Furthermore, some states strategically refrain from binding multilateral regimes. The committee is also fraught with disputes, notably along the North– South lines on the distribution of the benefits from space exploration. The combination of substantive division, a large committee, and a procedure of consensus, results in decades-long gridlock. As the Chair of UN-COPUOS noted, “the rules that have been codified in the series of treaties signed and ratified almost 60 years ago… are showing their age” (Kendall 2017). Yet, UN-COPUOS no longer develops space law and governance (Brisibe 2016; Galloway 1979; Rajagopalan 2018) and even the most pressing challenges—space debris, weaponization of space, and mining space resources—are left unanswered. The Montreal Declaration, adopted at the end of a conference dedicated to space governance, noted that “the current global space governance system that was created during the 1960s and 1970s has not been comprehensively examined since…[although] numerous developments have [since] occurred … with serious implications for current and future space activities and for the sustainable use of space … [T]he time has come to assess the efficacy of the current regime of global space governance and to propose an appropriate global space governance system that addresses current and emerging concerns” (Montreal Declaration 2014; Jakhu and Pelton 2017). Space governance is in a crisis (Tepper 2017), there is a clear need for change but no emerging consensus on how to accomplish it (Schrogl 2014).

1054

E. Tepper

Toward Decentralized Space Governance In many issue-areas in global affairs, including in outer space affairs, it is no longer feasible to negotiate a comprehensive and legally binding treaty. Alternatives include a ‘building blocks’ approach of negotiating partial arrangements that together may, gradually and incrementally, cover a substantial part of the issue-area (Falkner et al. 2010; Ruggie 2014). Indeed, some issue-areas already exhibit multiple and partly overlapping legal instruments and fora, what international relations scholars call ‘regime complexes’ (Raustiala and Victor 2004; Keohane and Victor 2011; Nye 2014) and international law scholars call ‘fragmentation’ (International Law Commission 2006). These are various versions or conceptualizations of decentralized governance, another one being polycentric governance. “Polycentric systems are characterized by multiple governing authorities at differing scales rather than a monocentric unit” (Ostrom 2010a, 2010b; Ostrom et al. 1961). Decentralized governance features a multiplicity of decision-making centers’ (‘governance centers’) and legal instruments in a single issue-area. It is the inevitable future of space governance and the best, if not only, way forward from the crisis in space governance. Space governance is already on track to become decentralized. It started as a fairly centralized system, with a single forum—UN-COPUOS—introducing a set of comprehensive and legally binding treaties. However, in the many years since the last space law treaty, space governance started to decentralize. As demonstrated hereinbelow, various sub-issue-areas have separate governance centers and legal instruments of different types and levels of coherence, comprehensiveness, and legal force. The allocation of slots in orbit around Earth and of radio frequencies that are used, inter alia, to command satellites and use them for communication, is regulated by a multilateral, legally binding, comprehensive, and elaborate regime in accordance with the Constitution and Convention of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) (Constitution and Convention 1992) and the ITU regulations. Practically, all states are party to this regime, which is the best-regulated sub-issue-area of space activities. The issue of military uses of outer space has multiple, partial, and scattered regulations and fora. The OST prohibits the placement of weapons of mass destruction in orbit around Earth and the establishment of military bases on celestial bodies. The 1963 Partial Test Ban Treaty (PTBT) bans nuclear weapon tests in outer space. Many of the ‘laws of war,’ part of public international law, are applicable to military uses of outer space. Relevant fora include, in addition to UN-COPUOS, the UN Security Council, and the Conference on Disarmament (CD). Yet, “[t]he principles of space law and current proposals to address the challenges of space security do not currently provide an effective normative framework to address the initiation and possible conduct of hostilities” (Jakhu and Pelton 2017, p. 298). The MILAMOS is an international study working to identify all the rules of international law applicable to military uses of outer space and organize them in a single manual (“MILAMOS”

56 The Final Frontier of Global Society and the Evolution …

1055

2019). It will not introduce new rules but rather identify existing rules in various treaties and other legal instruments. The issue of space debris is governed by non-legally binding ‘guidelines’ (Space Debris Mitigation Guidelines 2017) and an inter-governmental forum Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee. However, as noted before, the quantity of space debris has sky-rocketed after the adoption of the guidelines, rendering the record of effectiveness of this voluntary regime quite dubious. Another issue that has gathered significant attention—from the industry, scholars, and governments—is the extraction and utilization of space resources, e.g. titanium and other precious minerals on near-Earth asteroids, and water or helium on the Moon. The OST is vague about such operations and even the right to mine is contested (Jakhu et al. 2016; De Man 2016). Instead, states are going at it alone. The US Act of 2015 recognizing the right to mine and also private ownership overextracted space resources (U.S. Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act 2015) was already followed by Luxembourg in a law it adopted in 2017 (The Grand Duchy of Luxembourg 2017). The UAE intends to do the same and other states wishing to engage in space mining will have the incentive to follow through. The combined result is that the governance of the utilization of space resources, clearly in the global level, evolves by States’ unilateral acts, almost skipping the multilateral level. An independent research group that include members from the academe, government, and industry, is working on voluntary “Building Blocks for the Development of an International Framework on Space Resource Activities” (UN-COPUOS 2018). The issue of space traffic control, i.e. preventing collisions between space crafts and between a spacecraft and space debris, is another issue of growing importance (Eves 2017). The apparent need for space traffic control was demonstrated by two recent collisions. In 2009, a commercial US satellite Iridium 33 collided with the Russian deactivated Kosmos-2251 satellite (Weeden 2010). In 2013, Ecuador’s first satellite, NEE-01 Pegaso, collided with space debris, was severely damaged, and became defunct (Nader and Kelso 2014). Currently, it is the US that manages a space situational awareness (SSA) system that tracks all objects larger than a softball and alerts all actors in space for possible collisions. There is still no agreement if space traffic control will be joined to existing mechanisms of air traffic control or will be independent but the issue of space traffic control is undergoing fundamental transformations. In June 2018, the US President signed Space Policy Directive3 adopting a National Space Traffic Management Policy (“National STM Policy,” 2018), the responsibility for the SSA system recently transferred from the DoD to the US Department of Commerce, and the European Space Agency (ESA) is working on its own SSA system. Furthermore, in view of the upcoming civil space flights, there are also discussions whether to include space traffic control under the mandate of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), which has already started working on the subject (“ICAO Space Programme” n.d.). As this review demonstrates, space governance is no longer developed by a single forum introducing comprehensive, multilateral, and legally binding treaties. Instead, it is developing by various forums, including those established by various stakeholders, introducing different types of instruments, with partial coverage and

1056

E. Tepper

varying legal authority. As partial and scattered as they are, they update and spread the coverage of space governance, and with more efforts directed to developing governance in this way, we can expect greater success at filling the gaps in space governance. In terms of policy recommendations, promoting space governance requires promoting decentralized governance, i.e. by facilitating and encouraging the evolution of separate governance centers on each sub-issue-area and the introduction of specialized regimes providing rules for sub-issue-areas. This means that the evolution of one for weaponization and militarization, another one for space debris, a separate one for the utilization of space resources, and yet another one for space traffic control. Moreover, there could be more than one regime on each issue, just as there are five international regimes on the issue of export controls (Federation of American Scientists (FAS) 2019; Nikitin et al. 2012). By dividing space governance to sub-issue-areas and promoting the introduction of separate regimes for each one, there are greater chances for the evolution of regimes that, in the aggregate, will amount to a decentralized, yet developed and updated governance system. A decentralized governance system preferably has overarching institutions and basic principles that, like a constitution, run along with all the various governance centers and institutions. In the context of space activities, it is the 1967 Outer Space Treaty that can and should still be the basis for all separate issue-specific regimes. UNOOSA can provide crucial support and coordination between the various governance centers, though partial overlap and conflicts may exist, as they do in regime complexes and wherever there is fragmentation. Nevertheless, like with regime complexes, the merits outweigh the disadvantages, as it is better to have up-to-date rules on an issue than outdated rules or none at all. Moreover, borrowing Nye words on regime complexes, I suggest that what decentralized governance systems “lack in coherence, they make up in flexibility and adaptability” which is “[p]articularly [important] in a domain with extremely volatile technological change” (Nye 2014). Needless to say, flexibility and adaptability are important, especially in the issue-area of space activities which periodically sees significant breakthroughs in technology and commercial models. UN-COPUOS, which already “is arguably… at a crossroad, looking for its raison d’etre in the new Millennium” (Brisibe 2016), will need to adapt its functions, e.g. by serving as an overarching institution and a forum for multilateral discussions on broad systemic principles that apply across the issue-specific regimes. The roles, procedures, and goals of UN-COPUOS, of course, deserve a separate thorough discussion. UN-OOSA already works and assists all actors in space governance and therefore serves in practice as coordinator, bringing the accumulated knowledge and practices to each new actor. This bottom-up evolution of a decentralized governance system is a kind of ‘spontaneous order,’ the emergence of order as a result of the voluntary activities of individual actors with no single guiding hand (Hayek 1945; Smith 1776).

56 The Final Frontier of Global Society and the Evolution …

1057

The Future of Space Governance Globalization and governance seem to work in opposite directions. On the one hand, the world is ever smaller and connected, with a continuous decrease in time, cost and ease of transportation, and the explosion of free, instant, and sophisticated communications. On the other hand, global governance, which is supposed to complement globalization with regulation, is recently in retreat. Yet, despite and alongside the retreat of multilateralism, global governance expands. Multilateral regimes are still present and when they are not, the void is filled by regime complexes and other versions of decentralized governance. Indeed, despite the basic constraint of anarchy in global politics, inter-state relations are not lawless. Since ancient times, and to an increasing extent, they are organized and regulated by elaborate rules and practices (Watson 1992). The scope of the rules and their enforcement may not be sufficient, but the existence of a wide array of principles, rules, and enforcement mechanisms and practices cannot be denied, as the review hereinabove of various issue-specific regimes demonstrates. Space governance is becoming increasingly decentralized and polycentric, with multiple regimes established by various, subject-specific forums with various membership. Significantly, and although space activities transcend national borders and seemingly render national solutions inadequate more than any other global issue, national legislation, and action do have a key role in the evolution of space governance, as the case of mining space resources demonstrates. Space governance is also becoming eclectic with each sub-issue-area having a separate and different regime. And while some sub-issue-areas exhibit a well-developed and organized multilateral regime, others may exhibit a partial regime or a regime complex and others yet reliance on national legislation and action. The major breakthrough will come when, way down the road, space colonies will be self-sufficient and adopt governance systems independent from Earth. It is likely that some space habitats will become fully independent from the Earth, have their own laws and governance systems, and possibly be detached from the Earth-based global society.

New Frontiers of Human Habitation and Global Society Space Habitation “[H]uman migration is so fundamental an element of our behavior that it needs to be considered in the study of every aspect of our experience” (Manning 2012). Looking down the road, the exploration and use of space, initially to serve life on earth, will eventually also bring about the habitation of space. Humans have been constantly living in space since 2000, aboard the international space station (ISS), but full-scale space habitats are still ahead. Space habitation may start sometime in the next two

1058

E. Tepper

decades or it may take longer, but the race—and there is one—to colonize space will likely end in a human colony in space in this century. Participants in this include national space agencies of the US, Russia, China, the UAE, and the European Space Agency (ESA) with the EU supporting another project through its seventh framework program. There are international collaborations, mainly of the US with Russia and China with ESA. Prominent participants in this race are private companies, notably Lockheed Martin, SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Bigelow Aerospace. There are several concepts and technologies for space habitats, i.e. a habitat on a celestial body, a habitat module floating in space, or a habitat module orbiting a celestial body, but a major obstacle is the costs. Indeed, one of the major goals and contributions of the commercial space industry is lowering the costs for existing operations. SpaceX has already reduced the cost of launch to low earth orbit (LEO) by a factor of 20(!) (Jones 2018) and the race is on for further reduction of costs. Space habitation will be the most important human spatial expansion since modern humans (Homo sapiens) spread from Africa to other continents anywhere between 50,000 and 130,000 years ago (López et al. 2016) and certainly since the European migration to America. Modern humans’ migration from Africa is a major milestone in human history and it eventually resulted in modern humans’ domination of the entire world (after the Neanderthals and Homo erectus went extinct). The migration from Africa was initially a minor event, as the number of migrants was anywhere from 1,000 to 50,000 people. For comparison, the Great Atlantic Migration saw some 37 million Europeans migrating to the US during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in what is the largest human migration in history. Similarly, a sustainable migration of even a small group of humans which is self-sufficient in space may be the start of a momentous turn in human history. Human migration to new territories has through history had a profound impact on human society—on those who emigrate and the societies they create, join or subordinate, and, potentially, on those left behind. One cannot deny the influence that the US long has on Europe and the other places from which migrants came to the US. Likewise, migration to Europe in recent decades exposed people in the originating societies to alternative lifestyles and conditions and may have contributed to social and political processes in the countries of origin. A self-sufficient and strong colony is expected to significantly affect life on Earth in many ways, from a destination for immigration to trade and security alliances or conflicts. We can expect the first to inhabit space habitats to be elite population—scientists, astronauts, wealthy people—from various nations on Earth. Despite such ‘space societies’ being based on elite migrants, we can expect deviant behavior to occur, as a Russian experiment demonstrated. The experiment included six Russian male astronauts, one Japanese male astronaut, and one Canadian female astronaut living in a replica of the Mir space station. Habitants in this experiment committed crimes— notably battery, assault, attempted murder, and sexual harassment of the female astronaut, and the Japanese astronaut left the experiment sooner than planned, for fear of further assault. Hermida (2006) suggests that none of the existing theories of criminology can explain such deviant behavior committed by carefully selected individuals and that we lack understanding of the nature and causes of criminality

56 The Final Frontier of Global Society and the Evolution …

1059

in outer space. He argues that we will need a new approach to criminal behavior in space. We will, therefore, need to study deviant behavior in space and how to address it. If indeed current theories of criminology cannot explain deviant behavior in space, we might also find that other aspects of socializing in space are different. This may lead to the study of criminology, sociology, and other social sciences as they are in space. We can expect that sometimes in this century Homo sapiens will establish space colonies, become a multi-planetary species, and perhaps attempt to establish dominance in parts of space. It will take time, but once a human colony is established in space and becomes self-sufficient, it is only a matter of time until the inhabitants of such a colony decide not to continue to receive ‘orders’ from Earth and opt to take their destiny in their own hands. When this happens, ‘space governance’ will mean a totally different thing than it means today.

SETI and Dangerous Encounters There is an ongoing effort to find extraterrestrial intelligence (ETI). The search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) is the quest to find if we are alone in the universe by looking and listening, notably using telescopes, for signs of ETI. There is also active SETI, also known as messaging to extraterrestrial intelligence (METI), which involves sending signals into space with the intention that they will be picked up by ETI. Contemplation of the existence of ETI and how to search for them dates back to Nikola Tesla and even before, but comprehensive scientific discussion of SETI emerged in the 1960s (Shklovsky and Sagan 1966) and search projects were launched soon thereafter. Theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking asserted that statistically, ETI should exist (Hickman 2010). The are several ongoing projects and institutes that search for ETI, notably the California-based SETI Institute, the Ohio State University SETI program, the Berkeley SETI Research Center. The Planetary Society, a US-based NGO has several SETI projects, some in collaboration with Harvard University. China’s FAST, the world’s largest radio telescope, has SETI as one of its science missions and the UK Space Agency just announced a search for Earth-like planets that may hold alien life (Knapton 2019). NASA is currently resuming interest in SETI pursuant to expected congressional funding (Koren 2018), years after its SETI program was canceled in 1993 following a decision of Congress (Garber 1999). In 2015, Stephen Hawking and Yuri Milner launched another SETI project—Breakthrough Listen—with initial funds of US$100 million that soon became the largest and most comprehensive and intensive SETI project. The search for alien life has significantly advanced since its early years with breakthroughs in technologies, theories, and projects (Jayawardhana 2013). Lamb discusses whether SETI is a genuine scientific research program as well as the benefits and drawbacks of establishing communication with ETI (Lamb 2001). Encounter with ETI may be dangerous. A Nature editorial suggested that “the risk posed by active SETI is real. It is not obvious that all extraterrestrial civilizations

1060

E. Tepper

will be benign—or that contact with even a benign one would not have serious repercussions for people here on Earth” (“Ambassador for Earth” 2006). Hawking himself warned from the possibility that an ETI more advanced than us will treat us the way some societies on Earth treated less technologically advanced societies they encountered (Hawking 1998; Hickman 2010). Others, however, dismiss these concerns (Finney 1990). If we ever detect—or be detected by—an ETI, then even if it proves peaceful, the mere detection may have a profound impact on global society. The discovery of ETI is expected to have social as well as scientific consequences (Dominik and Zarnecki 2011). We can expect a range of human reactions, from joy to fear to chaos (Harrison 2011). Such detection may lead to further scientific discoveries, but we may need to reconsider numerous conceptions across the social sciences and the humanities. There will surely be philosophical implications (Davies 1996), yet Peters suggests that none of Earth’s major religious traditions will collapse or even confront a crisis as a result of the discovery of ETI (Peters 2011). Recent empirical studies assessing psychological reactions to the discovery of extraterrestrial life suggest that they are likely to be fairly positive (Kwon et al. 2018). There are also policy and legal considerations. There are some initial efforts to think ahead of the first steps to be taken if and when ETI is discovered. The International Academy of Astronautics (IAA) has addressed the issue and published the Declaration of Principles Concerning Activities Following the Detection of Extraterrestrial Intelligence, focusing on when and how to break the news to people on earth (International Academy of Astronautics (IAA) 1996). The IAA also published the Draft Declaration of Principles Concerning Sending Communications with Extraterrestrial Intelligence, which addresses who will handle such communication in the name of Earth (International Academy of Astronautics (IAA) 1996). While these are not legally binding instruments, the first Declaration has subsequently been endorsed by the International Institute of Space Law (IISL), the Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) of the International Council for Science (ICSU), the International Astronomical Union (IAU), and the International Union of Radio Science (URSI). The space law treaties do not specifically reference SETI, but it seems that SETI activities are in conformity with these treaties (Kopal 1990). Should we discover ETI, we will need, inter alia, to adjust our space law and space governance thinking (Kopal 1990). There is also a proposal for a totally new body of law—metalaw—one that will apply to the relations between humans and ETI (Fasan 1970; Haley 1956; Sterns 2004). ETI may not exist, and even if it does, we may never discover it, let alone contact or encounter it. But as SETI continues and humans are on track to become a multiplanetary species, and considering the statistical odds of the existence of ETI, a detection of ETI is possible. Such detection of ETI is expected to impact our actions and our understanding of the universe, our place within it, and various concepts from the social sciences and humanities.

56 The Final Frontier of Global Society and the Evolution …

1061

Conclusion and Looking Forward Space applications have transformed transportation and communication, serving as powerful drivers of globalization of no less importance than trade agreements and international institutions like GATT, WTO, IMF, and the World Bank. Their combined effect is the legal, institutional, and physical infrastructure of globalization. Globalization, with its cross-border interconnection, interdependence, and engagement, increases the need for supranational regulation, i.e. global governance. However, power in international politics is increasingly diffused, multilateral arrangements are ever more difficult to establish and even maintain, and multilateralism, in general, is contested. Space governance suffers from these trends in addition to space-specific hurdles, notably UN-COPUOS being one of the largest UN committees, fraught with disputes and working by consensus, and practically paralyzed. The result is that the increase in the need for global governance in general and space governance, in particular, faces a decrease in capacity to introduce multilateral, comprehensive, and legally binding regimes. Since the dawn of the century, the commercial space sector has quickly expanded, and it has already taken the lead from national space agencies in what is known as “New Space.” The new technological and commercial developments are pushing the boundaries of space law and putting a strain on the outed system of space governance. While the adoption of new space law treaties or the amendment of the old ones is, since the 1970s and for the foreseeable future, not feasible, space governance can evolve in several parallel different paths. Presently, the way forward is by the evolution of separate, issue-specific governance centers and legal instruments (regimes), conforming to common basic principles, together incrementally building a decentralized space governance. These regimes, although partial and partly overlapping, will update and spread the coverage of space governance to a flexible decentralized system. All this happens and will happen in a kind of spontaneous order—as reviewed above, space governance is already on track to become decentralized, as various sub-issue-areas see separate regimes with different degrees of elaboration, legal authority, and effectiveness. The aggregate of all these regimes will be a more comprehensive and updated governance system than what a centralized system of global governance can yield. Humankind is doing its first steps outside its cradle, Earth, and with an already significant impact on global society and almost every aspect of our lives. We can expect that space exploration and utilization will further transform human life and global society, from 1-hour cross-Atlantic suborbital flights to broadband internet everywhere in the near future to space habitation in the medium range and, potentially, to the detection of extraterrestrial intelligence.

1062

E. Tepper

References Ambassador for Earth. 2006. Nature 443: 606. Benvenisti, E., and G.W. Downs. 2007. The Empire’s New Clothes: Political Economy and the Fragmentation of International Law. Stanford Law Review 60 (2): 595–632. Bjola, C. (2017, October 14). Satellite Remote Sensing and Diplomatic Crisis Management. Retrieved February 14, 2019, from https://medium.com/digital-diplomacy/satellite-remote-sen sing-and-diplomatic-crisis-management-286651c83cb. Bjola, C., and M. Holmes (eds.). 2015. Digital Diplomacy: Theory and Practice (1 edition). London; New York: Routledge. Blake, D. 2014. Military Strategic Use of Outer Space. In New Technologies and the Law of Armed Conflict, ed. H. Nasu and R. McLaughlin, 97–114. The Hague: T.M.C. Asser Press. Brisibe, T. 2016. Parliamentary Diplomacy in the United Nations and Progressive Development of Space Law. European Journal of Law Reform 18 (1): 6–34. Davies, P. 1996. Are We Alone?: Philosophical Implications Of The Discovery Of Extraterrestrial Life. New York: Basic Books. Dawson, L. (2019). War in Space: The Science and Technology Behind Our Next Theater of Conflict (1st ed. 2018 edition). New York, NY: Springer. De Man, P. 2016. Exclusive Use in an Inclusive Environment. Cham: Springer International Publishing. Dominik, M., and J.C. Zarnecki. 2011. The Detection of Extra-Terrestrial Life and the Consequences for Science and Society. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society 369 (1936): 499–507. The Economic Sciences Prize Committee of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. (2009). Scientific Background on the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2009: Economic Governance. Retrieved September 29, 2018 from https://www. nobelprize.org/prizes/economics/2009/advanced-information/. ESA. (2018, February 21). About Space Debris. Retrieved February 19, 2019, from http://www. esa.int/Our_Activities/Operations/Space_Debris/About_space_debris. Eves, S. 2017. Space Traffic Control. Reston, Virginia: American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Falkner, R., H. Stephan, and J. Vogler. 2010. International Climate Policy after Copenhagen: Towards a ‘Building Blocks’ Approach. Global Policy 1 (3): 252–262. Fasan, E. 1970. Relations with Alien Intelligences: The Scientific Basis of Metalaw. Berlin: Berlin Verlag. Federation of American Scientists (FAS). (n.d.). International Export Control Regimes. Retrieved March 15, 2019, from https://fas.org/nuke/control/export/regime.htm. Finney, B. 1990. The impact of contact. Acta Astronautica 21 (2): 117–121. Forrester, C. (2018, February 22). SpaceX vs OneWeb; Battling to Connect the Planet. Retrieved January 25, 2019, from https://advanced-television.com/2018/02/22/inside-satellite-spacex-vsoneweb-battling-to-connect-the-planet/. Foust, J. (2018, January 2). 2018 May (Almost) Be the Year for Commercial Human Suborbital Spaceflight. The Space Review. Retrieved from http://www.thespacereview.com/article/3400/1. Galloway, E.M. 1979. Consensus Decisionmaking by the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space. Journal of Space Law 7 (1): 11. Garber, S.J. 1999. Searching for Good Science: The Cancellation of NASA’s SETI Program. Journal of the British Interplanetary Society 52: 3–12. General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR): Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Directive 95/46/EC, Pub. L. No. Official Journal of the European Union 4.5.2016, L 119/1 (2016). Google Spain SL and Google Inc. v Agencia Española de Protección de Datos (AEPD) and Mario Costeja González, Case No. C–131/12 (Court of Justice of the European Union May

56 The Final Frontier of Global Society and the Evolution …

1063

13, 2014). Retrieved February 27, 2019 from https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/? uri=CELEX%3A62012CJ0131. Governance, C. 1995. Our Global Neighbourhood: The Report of the Commission on Global Governance. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press. The Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. Law on the Exploration and Use of Space Resources, Official Gazette of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg 674 § (2017). Retrieved January 21, 2019 from http://data.legilux.public.lu/file/eli-etat-leg-loi-2017-07-20-a674-jo-fr-pdf.pdf. Haley, A. G. (1956). Space Law and Metalaw: A Synoptic View. Associazione Italiana Razzi. Harrison, A.A. 2011. Fear, Pandemonium, Equanimity and Delight: Human Responses to ExtraTerrestrial Life. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society 369 (1936): 656–668. Hawking, S. 1998. A brief history of time (Updated and expanded tenth, anniversary ed. New York: Bantam Books. Hayek, F.A. 1945. The Use of Knowledge in Society. The American Economic Review 35 (4): 519–530. Hermida, J. 2006. Crimes in Space: A Legal and Criminological Approach to Criminal Acts in Outer Space. XXXI: Annals of Air and Space Law. Hickman, L. (2010, April 26). Stephen Hawking Takes a Hard Line on Aliens. The Guardian. Retrieved January 25, 2019 from https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/apr/26/ste phen-hawking-issues-warning-on-aliens. Hofmann-Wellenhof, B., Lichtenegger, H., & Wasle, E. (2007). GNSS – Global Navigation Satellite Systems: GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, and more. Springer Science & Business Media. ICAO Space Programme. (n.d.). Retrieved February 18, 2019, from https://www.icao.int/airnaviga tion/AeroSPACE-Transport/Pages/default.aspx. International Academy of Astronautics (IAA). (1996). A Decision Process for Examining the Possibility of Sending Communications to Extraterrestrial Civilizations: A Proposal. Retrieved January 25, 2019 from https://iaaweb.org/iaa/Studies/seti.pdf. International Law Commission. (2006). Report of the Study Group, Fragmentation of International Law: Difficulties Arising from the Diversification and Expansion of International Law (A/CN.4/L.682). New York. ITU Constitution and Convention, 1992: Constitution and Convention of the International Telecommunication Union, 1825, 1826 UNTS § (1992). Jakhu, R., & Pelton, J. N. (Eds.). (2017). Global Space Governance: An International Study. Springer. Jakhu, R. S., & Pelton, J. N. (2013). Small Satellites and Their Regulation. Springer Science & Business Media. Jakhu, R., Pelton, J. N., & Nyampong, Y. O. M. (2016). Space Mining and Its Regulation. Springer. Jayawardhana, R. (2013). Strange New Worlds: The Search for Alien Planets and Life Beyond Our Solar System. Princeton University Press. Jones, H. W. (2018). The Recent Large Reduction in Space Launch Cost. Presented at the 48th International Conference on Environmental Systems, Albuquerque, New Mexico. Kane, V. (2013, October 23). The Potential of CubeSats. Retrieved January 25, 2019, from http:// www.planetary.org/blogs/guest-blogs/van-kane/20131023-the-potential-of-cubesats.html. =Kendall, D. (2017). Second Foreword. In R. S. Jakhu & J. N. Pelton (Eds.), Global Space Governance: An International Study (p. xi). Springer International Publishing. Keohane, R.O., and D.G. Victor. 2011. The Regime Complex for Climate Change. Perspectives on Politics 9 (1): 7–23. Klein, J.J. 2012. Space Warfare: Strategy. Principles and Policy: Routledge. Knapton, S. (2019, March 8). Hunt for Alien Life Given £25 m Boost by Government. The Telegraph. Retrieved from https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/03/08/hunt-alien-life-given-25m-boostgovernment/. Kopal, V. 1990. International law implications of the detection of extraterrestrial intelligent signals. Acta Astronautica 21 (2): 123–126.

1064

E. Tepper

Koren, M. (2018, May 9). Congress Is Quietly Nudging NASA to Look for Aliens. Retrieved January 25, 2019, from https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/05/seti-technosignat ures-nasa-jill-tarter/558512/. Kwon, J.Y., H.L. Bercovici, K. Cunningham, and M.E.W. Varnum. 2018. How Will We React to the Discovery of Extraterrestrial Life? Frontiers in Psychology 8: 2308–2308. Lamb, D. (2001). The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence: A philosophical Inquiry. London ; New York: Routledge. Lechner, S. (2017a). Anarchy in International Relations (Vol. 1). Oxford University Press. https:// doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190846626.013.79, retrieved January 25, 2019. Lechner, S. 2017b. Why Anarchy Still Matters for International Relations: On Theories and Things. Journal of International Political Theory 13 (3): 341–359. Liability Convention, 1972: Convention on International Liability for Damage Caused by Space Objects, 961 UNTS 187 § (1972). López, S., van Dorp, L., & Hellenthal, G. (2016). Human Dispersal Out of Africa: A Lasting Debate. Evolutionary Bioinformatics Online, 11(Suppl 2), 57–68. https://doi.org/10.4137/EBO.S33489, retrieved January 22, 2019. Lyall, F., & Larsen, P. B. (2009). Space Law, A Treatise. Farnham, Surrey, England ; Burlington, VT: Ashgate. Manning, P. (2012). Migration in World History (2 edition). London ; New York: Routledge. MILAMOS: Manual on International Law Applicable to Military Uses of Outer Space. (n.d.). Retrieved February 19, 2019, from https://www.mcgill.ca/milamos/. Milner, H. 1991. The Assumption of Anarchy in International Relations Theory: A Critique. Review of International Studies 17 (1): 67–85. Montreal Declaration, adopted at the 2nd Manfred Lachs International Conference on Global Space Governance, held in Montreal. (2014). Retrieved February 17, 2019 from https://www.mcgill.ca/ iasl/files/iasl/montreal-declaration-2nd-manfred-lachs-conference.pdf. Moon Agreement, 1979: Agreement Governing the Activities of States on the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies, 1363 UNTS 3 § (1979). Morse & Keohane, 2014: Morse, J. C., & Keohane, R. O. (2014). Contested multilateralism. International Organizations, 94(4), 385–412. Nader, R., & Kelso, T. S. (2014). The Pegasus Incident: The Loss of the First Ecuadorian Satellite and its Recovery. In Our world needs space: 65th International Astronautical Congress 2014 (IAC 2014) ; Toronto, Canada, 29 September - 3 October 2014 (Vol. 1). Toronto: Curran. NASA. (2017). CubeSat 101: Basic Concepts and Processes for First-Time CubeSat Developers. NASA. Retrieved January 25, 2019 from https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/ nasa_csli_cubesat_101_508.pdf. National STM Policy: Space Policy Directive-3, National Space Traffic Management Policy. (2018, June 18). Retrieved February 18, 2019, from https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/ space-policy-directive-3-national-space-traffic-management-policy/. Nye, J. S. (2014). The Regime Complex for Managing Global Cyber Activities (Global Commission on Internet Governance Paper Series, 1). Centre for International Governance Innovation. Retrieved February 27, 2019 from https://www.cigionline.org/sites/default/files/gcig_paper_no1. pdf. Ostrom, E. 2010a. Beyond Markets and States: Polycentric Governance of Complex Economic Systems. The American Economic Review 100 (3): 641–672. Ostrom, E. 2010b. Polycentric Systems for Coping with Collective Action and Global Environmental Change. Global Environmental Change 20 (4): 550–557. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha. 2010.07.004. Ostrom, V., C.M. Tiebout, and R. Warren. 1961. The Organization of Government in Metropolitan Areas: A Theoretical Inquiry. The American Political Science Review 55 (4): 831–842. Outer Space Treaty: Treaty on the Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, Including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies, Jan. 27, 1967, 18 UST 2410; 610 UNTS 205; 6 ILM 386 § (1967).

56 The Final Frontier of Global Society and the Evolution …

1065

Pang, A.S.-K., and B. Twiggs. 2011. Citizen Satellites. Scientific American 304 (2): 48–53. Partial Test Ban Treaty: Treaty Banning Nuclear Weapon Tests in the Atmosphere, in Outer Space and Under Water, 480 UNTS 43 § (1963). Pelton, J.N. 2012. Satellite Communications. New York: Springer-Verlag. Pelton, J.N., S. Madry, and S. Camacho-Lara (eds.). 2017. Handbook of Satellite Applications, 2nd ed. Cham: Springer. Peters, T. 2011. The Implications of the Discovery of Extra-Terrestrial Life for Religion. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society 369 (1936): 644–655. Rajagopalan, R.P. 2018. Space Governance. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Planetary Science. https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190647926.013.107. Raustiala, K., and D.G. Victor. 2004. The Regime Complex for Plant Genetic Resources. International Organization 58 (2): 277–309. Registration Convention: Convention on Registration of Objects Launched into Outer Space, 1023 UNTS 15 § (1974). Rescue Agreement: Agreement on the Rescue of Astronauts, the Return of Astronauts and the Return of Objects Launched into Outer Space, 672 UNTS 119 § (1968). Rosenau, J.N. 1995. Governance in the Twenty-first Century. Global Governance 1 (1): 13–43. Ruggie, J.G. 2014. Global Governance and “New Governance Theory”: Lessons from Business and Human Rights. Global Governance 20 (1): 5–17. Schrogl, K.-U. 2014. The new debate on the working methods of the UNCOPUOS Legal Subcommittee. Acta Astronautica 105 (1): 101–108. Selva, D., and D. Krejci. 2012. A survey and assessment of the capabilities of Cubesats for Earth observation. Acta Astronautica 74: 50–68. Sheetz, M. (2019, March 18). Super fast travel using outer space could be $20 billion market, disrupting airlines, UBS predicts. CNBC. Retrieved from https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/18/ ubs-space-travel-and-space-tourism-a-23-billion-business-in-a-decade.html. Shklovsky, I.S., and C. Sagan. 1966. Intelligent Life in the Universe. San Francisco: Holden-Day. Space Debris Mitigation Guidelines of the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, A/62/200, paras. 118 and 119 § (2007). Space Policy Directive-3, National Space Traffic Management Policy. (2018, June 18). Retrieved February 18, 2019, from https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/space-policy-direct ive-3-national-space-traffic-management-policy/. Smith, A. (1776). An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. London: W. Strahan and T. Cadell. Sterns, P.M. 2004. Metalaw and Relations with Intelligent Beings Revisited. Space Policy 20 (2): 123–130. Tepper, E. 2017. Global Space Governance: The Crisis and the Search for Innovative Governance Models. In Aviation and Space Law and Technology, ed. E. Dynia and L. Brodowski. Poland: Rzeszów University Publishing. Tepper, E. (2018). Structuring the Discourse on the Exploitation of Space Resources: Between Economic and Legal Commons. Space Policy. UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, 2018): UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space. (2018). Status of International Agreements relating to Activities in Outer Space as at 1 January 2018 (No. A/AC.105/C.2/2018/CRP.3). UN-COPUOS. (2018). The Hague Space Resources Governance Working Group: Information Provided by the Netherlands (U.N. Doc. A/AC.105/C.2/2018/CRP.18). United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). (1999). Human Development Report. Oxford University Press. U.S. Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act, Pub. L. No. 114–90, 129 STAT. 704 (2015). Retrieved January 25, 2019 from https://www.congress.gov/114/plaws/publ90/PLAW-114pub l90.pdf. Watson, A. (1992). The Evolution of International Society: A Comparative Historical Analysis. Routledge.

1066

E. Tepper

Weeden, B. (2010). 2009 Iridium-Cosmos Collision Fact Sheet. Retrieved February 24 from https:// swfound.org/media/6575/swf_iridium_cosmos_collision_fact_sheet_updated_2012.pdf. Weiss, T. G., & Thakur, R. (2010). Global Governance and the UN: An Unfinished Journey. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Wolfe, A. W. (1979). Emergence of Global Society: Introduction. Presented at the 78th Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Cincinnati, Ohio. Retrieved January 21, 2019 from http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/ant_facpub/17?utm_source=scholarcommons.usf. edu%2Fant_facpub%2F17&utm_medium=PDF&utm_campaign=PDFCoverPages. Zürn, M. (2013). Globalization and Global Governance. In W. Calsnaes, T. Risse, & B. A. Simmons (Eds.), Handbook of International Relations (pp. 401–425). London: SAGE Publications Ltd. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781446247587.

Eytan Tepper from the McGill Institute of Air and Space Law, Montréal, Canada, is a legal academician with a background in economics and a lawyer that served the Bank of Israel, and the Israeli Foreign Trade Administration, as well as the private sector . His essays have appeared in the journal Space Policy (2018) and in Aviation and Space Law and Technology, edited by Elzbieta Dynia and Lidia Brodowski (2017). His forthcoming book is entitled, The Case for Polycentric Global Space Governance.

CONCLUSION

Chapter 57

Toward a New Globalization Paradigm and a UDHR-Based Inter-civilizational World Order Ino Rossi

Abstract The globalization discourse is in dire need of policy frameworks to readdress the distortions of globalization. The 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and the International Bill of Rights are shown to provide universal standards of fairness and equity, whereas Putin and JinPing’s civilizational exceptions to the UDHR are based on disputed ideologies and a selective reading of history. A strong affinity exists in core tenets of the classical Confucian thinkers of the civilizational “Tianxia” exalted by Xi Jinping and core tenets of the 1948 UDHR, including the notions of universal benevolence and a self-determining individual. A UDHR-based “Tianxia” together with a certain integration of Eastern communalism and Western individualism are the best hopes for a democratic and human-focused globalization and the inter-civilizational resolution of global conflicts.

In the introduction I have stated that in this volume we intended to advance our understanding of globalization as a process (Part one), to assess its impact on the various regions of the world (Parts two and three), and finally to discuss alternative strategies for a more equitable and peaceful world order (Part four). The essays at Part one on theorizing globalization have sensitized us to the analytical importance of such concepts as glocalization, mediatization, media logic, media ecology, meta-culture, synthetic situation, figuration, global systemic analysis, assemblage approach, generative mechanisms of social complexity, eigenstructures of world society, epistemic communities, and others. Moreover, the essays of Parts two and three have considerably increased the list of new terms, and the list has augmented further when I have consulted a few recent volumes at hand. In this conclusion I shall discuss, first, whether the new language points to new dimensions of globalization in the age of information revolution and, then, I shall deal with another complex but more practical issue, how to realign capitalist globalization with core values we have inherited from millennia of inter-civilizational encounters.

I. Rossi (B) St. John’s University, New York City, USA © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 I. Rossi (ed.), Challenges of Globalization and Prospects for an Inter-civilizational World Order, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44058-9_57

1069

1070

I. Rossi

DO WE NEED AN EXTENDED OR A NOVEL GLOBALIZATION PARADIGM? The cultural, political, economic, and ecological impacts of neo-liberal globalization documented in Parts two and three of this volume have occurred during the information revolution of post-World War II. We now turn our attention to the role of digital communication in social interaction to understand the new global theorizing and, relatedly, to gain some insights into the reasons for the pervasiveness and rapid expansion of globalization processes.

The Mediation of Digital Media of Communication The communication of information has gone through four phases of development: immediate interpersonal communication; interpersonal communication mediated by material artifacts in the sixteenth century (graphic mediation via mechanization); communication through print mediation from the late fifteenth to the nineteenth century; communication through audiovisual mediation in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries of the electrification era; finally, communication via digital mediation and computerization in the internet age of post-World War II. Digitization has made possible the compression of a large amount of information on a tiny space, the joint production and distribution of information, and the transmission of information at high speed and at great distances. The impact of digital information on the daily life of people as well as on the structuring and functioning of transnational corporations and state governments has been truly revolutionary. In the words of Livingstone (2009), we have been moving “to a social analysis in which everything is mediated [by media], the consequence being that all influential institutions in society have themselves being transformed, reconstituted, by contemporary processes of mediation.” As a result, “globalization at its core is about the extension and intensification of social practices and consciousness across world-space” (Steger and James 2019: 116). Martin Albrow has discussed in this volume (Chap. 9), the dramatic impact of the information revolution on cultural relations, underlining, among others, the fluidity and transbordering of social entities, the negotiation of identities, the creation of new cultural forms, and the emergence of a global culture and global citizenship. York Kautt, also in this book (Chap. 4), discusses the mediatized constitution of the social and the consequent creation of new cultural forms and institutions. Jorge Dürrschmidt, another contributor to this volume (Chap. 10) who has co-authored a recent book with Kautt on the mediatization processes in the globalized eating cultures (Dürrschmidt and Kautt 2019), has underlined two characteristics of our digital era. The first one suggested by Elliott and Turner (2012) is the extension of social relations across time and space which may produce “thin” but not necessarily “fragile” social relationships. Hence, we have an “elastic society” in the sense that our

57 Toward a New Globalization Paradigm …

1071

contemporary society experiments with the translocal “stretchability” of social relations via transportation and communication means, with sometimes positive results (e.g., in the economy) and sometimes with considerable moral losses. Secondly, Dürrschmidt suggests that the notion of transclusion (Bude and Dürrschmidt 2010: 488) indicates the precarious balancing of opening and closure we experience in a translocal landscape of opportunities and obligations. Besides the processes of inclusion or exclusion, globalization often produces ambivalent feelings; for instance, when people are formally included in the structure of a society but they internally distance themselves from the moral implications of the inclusion. Appadurai (2001) has coined a nice metaphor for this, referring to the mindset of the migrant as “morally surviving in the belly of the beast,” that is the American society. In several essays of this volume we have also encountered many references to digitally mediated processes of globalization with concepts which are absent from the early globalization literature inspired by Robertson’s (1992) definition of globalization as global connectivity and global consciousness. The frequency of the new terminology has prompted me to explore how far it goes in covering the micro and macro globalization processes. I compiled a list of terms related to digitally mediated processes and juxtaposed them to corresponding terms prevalently in use in more traditional globalization literature (see Table 1). After entering terms used by Albrow (2014), I added terms from the first 15 essays of this volume and, finally, I included terms from other recent volumes I could get hold of. Being limited in time, I stopped my exploration when most of the micro and macro processes of globalization appeared to be mapped out. By listing more recent concepts next to the more traditional ones, I intend to raise the question of whether we should begin to think about an extended globalization paradigm or, perhaps, an emerging one. I take the concepts at their face value, that is, independently of their theoretical or ideological context, as concepts sensitizing us to mostly digitally mediated aspects of globalization processes. As already mentioned, the key question is whether this already quite extensive list of concepts in the second column of Table 1 amounts to an extension of the conceptualizations of the early globalization literature (exemplified in the terms of column 1) and/or whether it calls for the formulation of a new paradigm.

The Input of Mediatization Theory One might expect that the extensive research which has focused on the mediation of digital media of communication in globalization processes would shed some lights on the significance of the concepts listed in column two. The term “mediation” refers to communication via a medium intervening between sender and receiver, whereas “mediatization” seeks to understand the interrelationship between the communication media and the changes in social interaction and social institutions. The mediatization literature traces its origins to the early twentieth century era of mass communication research and has mushroomed in the last 20 years or so, especially in Europe

Digital communication: compression of large pieces of information, joint production and distribution of information, transmission at high speed and long distances. Mediatization (Lundby 2009) social changes rooted in the growing influence of modern media (Lundby 2009) which are independent institutions with their own logic and producing virtual reality (Hjarvard 2008); Global mediatism (Steger & James 2019:128); communication media, dissemination media, and the system of the mass media (Luhmann, in Kautt, Chap. 4); media logic, media ecology (in Kautt’s essay, Chap. 4). Tertiary or global relations such as relations of identity with strangers (Albrow in Rossi 2007:323); tertiaries relations are disembedded from territorial boundaries, but not abstract: (Albrow 2014:98] and transforming because of travel, migrations, distant communication. Place as lateralization: diversity of people with ties to social units existing beyond the place (Loc. Cit.). Adam Ferguson (1995:38): “people can have identity irrespective of place”; in pre-modern society there were people/nations/communities with no necessary territorial basis; Occupancy of space is defined in terms of social relations (Ibid. 117). The quality of life of a social location is determined by people’s relations (not necessarily contact), not only with the occupants of that location but also with the many absent others (visitors, workers). The reason for their interaction is not the locality, but the social relations with absent others. A ball park, Soho, a theatre, a mall, a street locality are defined by absence of others: these are socio-scape which are located in but not determined by a territory (Ibid: 118; Albrow in Rossi 2007:328–329): The wider relations of the occupants of the socio-scape are the socio-sphere or networks of people engaged with others without territorial boundaries, hence having potential for global movement.The latter, however, does not consists of abstract relations, since space and material conditions are required (Albrow 2014: 114, 119). Hence globalization is an experience not of space and time but of power, control, sovereignty of frontiers, boundaries, barriers to movements, and communication. We have no abstract globality but new types of specific, concrete, and experienced social relations among global citizens, and not abstract social relations consisting of just thought; the globe is decentered (Ibid.119). Global village because of less community attachment and compression of time and space (Ibid.112). Spatial universality (Stichweh’s essay, Chap. 6). Glocalization as a synthesis of the global and local (Robertson essay, Chap. 2) Synthetic situation (Knorr 2009) Micro globalization (Knorr in Rossi 2007) Network of social relations with “absent” others Sensory experience, practical consciousness, reflective consciousness, reflexive consciousness (Steger and James 2019: 121 ff.); media-based “ambient intimacy” (Zhang and Ling 2015: 16)

Earlier forms of communication: interpersonal, via graphic, print, audiovisual mediation Mediazation (Thompson 1995): changes with institutional basis in the development of media organization; “mediation” (Silverstone 2005) to analyze transformations in society and culture-over comprehensive

Primary relations based on intimacy; Secondary relations as in formal organizations, based on instrumentality Place as localization or physical gathering of people; people belonging only to one place form a homogeneous group; this is the basis of the “archetypical community” (Albrow 2014:117); Social relations are defined in terms of location—as quality of social relations depends on spatial proximity, spatial distance entails loss of community (Ibid. 113). Space and time are invariant shapers of social relations as territorial expansion requires central control, community cohesion depends on proximity of interaction, and geographical mobility weakens community attachment (Loc. Cit.). Hence, the importance of community, nation, and territory in traditional social sciences analysis (Albrow in Rossi 2007:329) See Tsai’s chapter (Chap. 31) for a description of neighborhood and kin networks.

Definition of the situation: W.I Thomas

Social role

Subjective meaning

(continued)

New categories for the study of globalization in the digital age

Traditional categories

Table 1 A preliminary glossary of sensitizing concepts used in traditional and recent globalization literature

1072 I. Rossi

Fluid relations and flows of relations (Castells 2009, Sassen 2000); Scape, mediascapes, ethnoscapes, and finanscapes (Appadurai 1993); liquid life (Bauman 2005); individualizing structure (Beck in Rossi 2007:407) Imagined communities (Anderson), virtual communities Global cities Virtual state (Didem Buhari essay); transnational governance; global techno-space (Axford 2018:164) Assemblages of the global digital age (intersections of digital technologies with territory, authority, and rights (Sassen 2000); network state (Axford 2018: 169). Civilizational state (Putin, Xi Jinping) Global citizenship governed by collective goals and by “governance-objects” rather than by governing institutions (Zhang’s essay, Chap. 11) Methodological cosmopolitanism (Beck in Rossi 2007: 408 ff.) Culture is transnational, conflictual, autonomous, creative, and global; global culture as transnational and transcultural (Albrow’s essay, Chap. 9) Transculturality, hybrid transnational cultural relations; conflicting universal values and universal pragmatism (Albrow’s essay, Chap. 9); Relativization as one type of glocalization (Robertson’s essay, Chap. 2)

Social structure

Community as primordially local

Metropolis

National territorial and sovereignty introduced by modernity (Albrow 2014:100)

Nation-state

National citizenship

Methodological nationalism in societal analyses

Culture: local and national

Universal values

Global social movements Post-modern populism (Axford’s essay, Chap. 14) Global civil society

Social movements

Modernism and post-modernism

Civil society

(continued)

Networked cosmopolitan, rooted cosmopolitanism (Zhang’s essay, Chap. 11)

Mediatized institutions (Kautt’s paper); Institutionalist theorizing (Knorr Cetina et al. 2017).

Social institutions

Intergovernmental organizations (UN, IMF, WB); global governance (Albrow’s essay, Chap. 9)

Hybrid social relations, negotiated and hyphenated identities, liberating identity (Zhang essay), fungible identity (Albrow essay). Structural quasi-subject (Beck in Rossi 2007: 403ff)

Socio-cultural identity

International organizations

New individualism (Elliott and Turner 2012); projective individualism (Dürrschmidt essay); liberating Wellman’s networked individualism (Rainie and Wellman 2014)

Individualism

Internationalism

New categories for the study of globalization in the digital age

Traditional categories

Table 1 (continued)

57 Toward a New Globalization Paradigm … 1073

Civilizational cycle (Friedman’s essay, Chap. 3) Civilizing process (Elias 1994) Inter-civilizational framework (Rossi’s conclusion, Chap. 57)

Civilization

Global systemic analysis (Friedman’s essay, Chap. 3) Transdisciplinarity and post-disciplinarity of global studies (Steger’s essay, Chap. 8) Mediatization theory (Luhmann in Kautt’s essay, Chap. 4); Actor network theory (Latour 2005), Assemblage (Deleuze & Guattari in Friedman essay); chaos theory and self -organizing global hybrids; global fluids, global integrated networks (Urry in Rossi 2007: 51-164)

Functionalism

Modernity

Interdisciplinarity and multidisciplinarity

Second modernity (Beck and Lau 2005); global age (Albrow 2014) Global turn of modernity (Robertson’s essay, Chap. 2)

Social justice

System theory

Globalization theory; methodological glocalism; glocal analysis (Robertson’s essay, Chap. 2) Global justice; global ethics

Geo-political theory, geo-economic theory, theory of inter-societal dynamics (Turner’s essay, Chap. 7)

– Cosmic order; space governance; multipolar order (Nederveen Pieterse 2011)

Generative mechanisms of social complexity (interrelatedness, connectivity, ubiquity); Emerging eigenstructures of world society, scale-free networks, world organizations, epistemic communities, global interaction systems, world events (Stichweh’s essay, Chap. 6)

Processes of social change

– Ontological insecurity; indeterminacy of social objects (Albrow 2014: 96); Risk society (Beck in Rossi 2007); – Structural resentment (Dürrschmidt’s essay, Chap. 10); – Emerging third space (deferral of responsibilities) in Dürrschmidt’s essay, Chap. 10.

Global capitalism; Anthropocene (Sklair’s essay, Chap. 5, Axford 2018, 165); Generic, capitalist, and alternative Anthropocene (Sklair’s essay, Chap. 5); Relativization of the planet (Robertson’s essay, Chap. 2)

International capitalism; core, periphery, semi-periphery (Wallerstein)

Instrumental rationality in social life; meaninglessness, anomie, alienation

Global commodity chains of production and consumption; global value chains; flexible economy

Trade between nations

Human condition

New categories for the study of globalization in the digital age

Traditional categories

Table 1 (continued)

1074 I. Rossi

57 Toward a New Globalization Paradigm …

1075

(Lundby 2009: 121). Ernest Manheim was the first author to use the term “mediatization” to describe the deep transformation of society by media concurrently with the transformations produced by industrialization, urbanization, and democratization. He studied communication processes in the broader public of civic communities, clubs, and literacy circles to understand how their ideas were mediatized by the bourgeoisie and, since the late eighteenth century, by semi-public communities, then by newspapers and the press. According to Ernst Mannheim, communication media intermingle with interpersonal relations so that they need each other to exist. “Mediatization” consists in the reshaping and alteration of interpersonal relations by technical media of communication. Habermas wrote about the dependency of people which results from the “mediatization” of the life-world by system imperatives (1988). He explained how former institutions of the Reich became mediated with reference to the modern understanding of the state. For Habermas mediated communication is a process integrating a person into the systemically structured world of society and economics. The steering media (money and administrative power) are the tools through which the market and the state produce a systemic colonization of the life-world. According to Baudrillard (1983), the media do not represent reality, but constitute a (hyper)reality, which is “more real than real.” He argues that the proliferation of signs and information in the media neutralizes meaning, dissolves all content, and eliminates the distinction between media and reality. Information and meaning “implode” into meaningless “noise” and the social is rendered into a sort of nebulous state leading toward total entropy. Bourdieu (1993) studied media production, content, and use as mediated by the habitus and the position of the agent in the social space of multilevel power relations. More recent forerunners of this trend of thought are Ulf Hannerz (1990) on culture as mediatization: for him human lives are impregnated by media as to what we believe and to what consciousness we form. Luhmann (2000/1996) attributed to communication and dissemination media a decisive importance in the development and solution of problems through forms of symbolic generalization. (Luhmann’s position on this issue is discussed in Kautt’s essay, Chap. 4). As to the use of the term itself, Thompson (1990, 1995) used the term “mediazation” to study changes with institutional basis in the development of media organization. He also discusses the mediatization of modern culture in the sense that the transmission of symbolic forms is more and more mediated by the technical and institutional apparatus of media industries. On the other hand, Silverstone (2005) used the term “mediation” to analyze transformations in society and culture. He also narrowed the concept of mediation to the continuous transformation of meaning for moving from one text to another, from one vent to another. The Swedish media researcher Asp (1990) was the first to speak on the mediatization of political life, by which he meant the process of adjustment by a political system to the demands of political media coverage. The Danish media scholar Hjarvard (2008) used mediatization to conceptualize the social process by which society is saturated by the media to the point that the media cannot any longer be thought as being separated from other social institutions.

1076

I. Rossi

The usage of the terms “mediation” or “Mediatization” or “mediazation” may have not been consistent, but did the research findings produce a body of cumulative knowledge? The institutional approach has advocated a strong form of mediatization consisting of a double process whereby media are alleged to operate as independent institutions with a logic of their own and the other social institutions have to adjust. At the same time, media become integrated in social institutions which perform their activities through both an institutional mediation and a medialogic mediation. “Medialogic” refers to the ways media distribute material and symbolic resources as well as to their formal and informal rules (Hjiarvard 2017). Other scholars caution against the deterministic danger of elevating the power of media technology over human agency, whereas still others are ambivalent about studying new media technology closely and sympathetically (Miller 2019). Non-institutionalist scholars simply deny the existence of a medialogic and endorse a cultural materialist approach. According to the latter, culture is the set of meanings and practices mediating material relations. Media are considered to be embedded cultural forms which transform social interaction in the process of embedding. André (2013) has elaborated the notion of mediatization as the process of transmission, dissemination of information between sources which entails a socio-space transformation. He elaborates his theory of mediatization as a socio-spatial concept by taking inspiration from Lefebvre’s notions of perceived space, conceived space, and lived space. According to Jansson, the appropriation of new means of communication may alter or mold social life, but the modalities of alterations are not technologically determined since they depend on previous social arrangements and deep-seated values. Yet, there are authors who argue that even “the weaker version of mediatization is itself problematic, since its advocates have failed to produce a clear explanatory framework around the concept” (Ampuia 2014). In a recent essay Jansson (2018) has stated that mediatization has not gained the status of a new paradigm, but it is considered by some scholars as a “sensitizing concept” useful to guide empirical research and interpretation. Yes, there are authors who consider “mediatization” to be a flexible “research program” which can encompass different theories and research programs. However, Jansson himself concludes that “mediatization” does not offer any direction of theoretical, meta-theoretical, paradigmatic research with a clear independent identity. Concurrently, Formas (2014) states that “further theoretical work is needed to fully develop ‘mediatization’ into a comprehensive model.”

A Different Way Forward Although mediatization research does not add up to a coherent and comprehensive paradigm, it has provided some important documentations on cultural and social changes related to digitized media of communication as indicated by the following statements: “media structures… contribute to socio cultural change, to the creation of new cultural forms such as image communication or mediatized food semantics and—last not least—contribute to new institutions like modern, professionalized

57 Toward a New Globalization Paradigm …

1077

advertising or journalism… and contribute to the emergence of a globalized meta culture” (Kautt essay); synthetic interactions related to scopic media (Knorr Cetina 2008, 2014a, b) and synthetic institutions have emerged (Knorr Cetina et al. forthcoming); all social institutions are transformed by the role of media (Livingstone 2009) and through them new identities and a global citizenship are formed (Albrow’s essay, Chap. 9). This kind of research findings provide credence to Ulrich Beck’s claim that we need new concepts to replace the zombie old ones (Beck and Lau 2005). But how can we determine whether the concepts of column two in Table 1 are logical extensions of the more traditional ones in column one because they attempt to account for new cultural forms and social practices mediated by digital media of communication? I proceeded inductively by cross-tabulating traditional and digitally-based concepts of globalization research to see whether meaningful insights emerge and complement (extend) the explanatory scope of traditional concepts. For Roland Robertson (1992) and many others after him, including Steger and James (2019), globalization consists in a “increasing connectivity (sometimes called interconnectedness) and increasing global consciousness” (Robertson and White 2007:56); the latter characteristic refers to “the intensification of consciousness of the world as a whole” (Robertson 1992). On the other hand, David Held et al. (1999) defined globalization as “a process (or set of processes) which embodies a transformation in the spatial organization of social relations and transactions, assessed in terms of their extensity, intensity, velocity and impact—generating transcontinental or interregional flows and networks of activity, interaction and the exercise of power.” I crosstabulate the dimensions of the two definitions to see what insights they produce in interface with homogeneous and heterogeneous entities entering in global interaction. We can see that Table 2 produces a systematization of a large number of social groupings and socio-cultural identities, including a theoretical prediction of types of Table 2 Types of social arrangements and identity generated by the interface of classic and digitally mediated definitions of globalization Digital mediation

Global connectivity among

Global consciousness of

Social relations

Homogeneous social entities

Heterogeneous social entities

Homogeneous social entities

Heterogeneous social entities

Extended in space

Expanded solidarities

New social arrangements

Widened identity

Individuation

Extended in time

Regional associationism

Global society

National identity

Historical consciousness

Intensified through space

Federations

Alliances

Reinforced identity

Multiple identities

Intensified through time

Civilization-state

Imperialism

Exceptionalism

Global identity

Velocity

Elastic society

Transclusive society

Fleeting identity

Confused identity/ties

1078

I. Rossi

societies and identities unknown via classical conceptualizations (see items in italics). We could produce many more tables by introducing specific types of homogeneous or heterogeneous entities interacting globally, such as culture, ideology, political system, ethnicity, class, and so on, and we would likely be able to predict new types of social practices and identities; by “new” I mean absent from classical or traditional globalization literature. Then, the analysis could continue in a step-by-step process by cross-tabulating many other classical and digitally mediated concepts of Table 1, especially concepts like “individualization of social structure,” “structural quasisubject,” “Anthropocene,” “risk society,” “civilizational state,” and so on. This long process could produce a series of positive results so as to be able to conclude that digitally based conceptualizations are extensions of the classical ones. On the other hand, if we find that quite a few classical concepts and new concepts are at odds with each other, then we would have to raise the question of whether we need a new paradigm. Is the latter outcome a remote possibility? I glanced at the indexes of few recent books within my reach and I found myself in the midst of a thick forest of novel terms (although I concede that there is a bit of leeway as to what can be called a traditional or a novel concept). In Dürrschmidt and Kautt York (2019), I found the terms such as assemblages, anonymization, cosmopolitan consumption, media ecology, and ontological insecurity. In Steger and James(2019) I found world-space, world-as-known, modernity of time, ontological time, modern spatiality, transculturalism, transcalarity, eigenstructure, deterritorialization, abstracted time, space-age, spatial turn, ontological territory, abstraction of territory, phases of glocalization, exterminism, ontological security, ontological formations, abstraction of power, disembodied power, reflexive translation, presentism, ontological globalization, imaginary, liquid modernity, market globalists, deglobalization, time–space compression, ethic-political critique, localization, decontestation, anthropozoic era. In Paul (2006), I found: world-time, ontology, ontological socialism, ontological security, historicalism, globality, globalism, disembodied, and constitutive abstraction. In Albrow (2014) I found the terms: ethic of conscience and ethic of responsibility, facticity, focalization, foundationalism, global shift, inevitabilism, methodological individualism, methodological nationalism, methodological globalism, morphogenesis, new age, nuclear universalism, post-global age, spirit of the age, time–space compression, transethnicity, and transvaluation. In Hepp and Krotz (2014) one can read the following terms: abductive reasoning, actor-network theory, affordance, augmented reality, culturalization, cultural mediation, digital narration, digital natives, digital storytelling, digitation, discursive participation, e-democracy, e-mail, evocative objects, figuration, hybrid spaces, institutional logics, invisibility of media, media age, media capital, media communicative change, media culture, media ensemble, media institution, media integration, media logic, mediascape, mediation, medialization, mediatization, mediatized cosmopolitanism, mediatized life-worlds, meta-capital, meta-process, multimediatization, networked individualism, network society, placeworlds, polymedia, scopic, social network sites, system world, techno-cultural races, territorialization, and visionary pragmatism.

57 Toward a New Globalization Paradigm …

1079

These terms derived from just five books could lengthen Table 1 by several pages where we could identify discordant concepts. Suffice to consider what kinds of insights the new epistemological and methodological terms could produce. For instance, the terms “ontology, ontological socialism, ontological security, historicalism, constitutive abstraction” from Paul James (2006); the terms “facticity; focalization; foundationalism; global shift; inevitabilism; methodological individualism, methodological nationalism, methodological globalism, universal pragmatism” from Albrow (2014); the terms of “abductive reasoning, actor-network theory, augmented reality” from Hepp and Krotz (2014). Do we have here emerging new epistemologies and methodologies, and if so, are they promising preludes to a new globalization paradigm? Obviously, some of the new vocabulary is related to the multidisciplinary nature of the scholarly research on globalization, and our volume includes a Steger’s essay which strongly advocates multidisciplinarity in globalization studies. Then, the question to be answered is the following: are these multidisciplinary efforts contributing sensitizing concepts which are logically consistent with each other and have empirical referents in the global field? If this were the case, we could conclude that we are in an age of “progressive problem shifting” or progressive theorizing (Lakatos 1980). If the results of Table 2 were to be replicated with several of the traditional and novel concepts paired up in Table 1 (and with the many additional ones found in the rest of the literature), then we could conclude that old and new global theorizing coalesce into an holistic conceptualization of the field. If, however, cross-tabulations and other theoretical experiments would leave us with a lot of unrelated and ad hoc conceptualizations, we would have to conclude that we live in an era of “regressive problem shift” and we are in need of a new paradigm. This is a major open question in the field of global theorizing. Possibly, new theoretical vistas could have implications for a deeper understanding of the causes of the many social problems generated by cultural, political, economic, and ecological globalization. Let us, next, address the issue of how we can rescue globalization from a trajectory of distortions, exclusions, and inequalities, as well as from the path of hegemonic confrontations.

READDRESSING GLOBALIZATION THROUGH AN INTER-CIVILIZATIONAL IMPLEMENTATION OF THE INTERNATIONAL BILL OF RIGHTS The globalization of news, fashions, ways of life, and wealth production will be propelled forward by the mighty of the information revolution, global production and consumption chains, and corporate megamergers even amidst of increasing social turbulences, populist revolts, and episodic Brexits. As Salvatore Babones shows in his paper, transnational value chains have concentrated in both sides of the Pacific with the subsidiary financial chains located in the two sides of the Atlantic. These are the regions where much of the new wealth is accumulating and is propping up

1080

I. Rossi

in the life styles of a selected few. How much of the developing world shares into this transnational—and now virus-jolted—chains of prosperity? Should the entire world continue to be at the mercy of a few financial mega speculators? Finally, how can this twisted mega world of ours find the way to turn its attention to the millions of homeless worldwide, including the many straddling in the very places of new accumulating wealth? These are some of the small questions that scholars and policy makers face in their study of four decades of neo-liberal globalization. Our scintilla of contribution in this final section shall proceed as follows: First, I shall discuss how various strategies proposed to confront globalization problems are grounded on ideological assumptions which are divisive rather than conducive to overarching and agreed solutions; secondly, I will argue that the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and related International Bill of Rights are universally agreed upon and effective guidelines to drastically decrease the inequalities and distortions of the present world order; thirdly, I shall interpret the recommendation of the 1993 Declaration on human rights to take into consideration countries’ specific particularities in the enforcement of human rights as an issue of cultural appropriateness in their enforcement; fourthly, I will show that the civilizational claims put forward by Vladimir Putin and Xi JinPing as alternatives to the UDHR are not historically sustainable and, worst, full of contradictions; fifthly, through an inter-civilizational analysis I will suggest that a UDHR-based “Tianxia,” which is faithful to the thought of classic Confucian thinkers and integrates principles of Eastern communalism, could re-orient cultural, economic, and political globalization toward more democratic and human-focused directions and resolve conflicting civilizational claims as well.

Alternative Proposals and Sources of Guidance The 2010 Developmental Manifesto After the 2008 financial crisis two major camps have retooled their positions and formulated opposite strategies. A group of developmental economists met in Brazil to launch a ten-point manifesto to move forward on the basis of Keynesian and structuralist principles of economic development, while avoiding the dangers of financial globalization and financial deregulation (Brazilian Journal of Political Economy 2012). However, they kept the all too familiar faces of the market and the state in charge of the new economy. The result has been that, even after sharp critiques of the capitalist economy by the Piketty (2020), Harvey (2015), Stiglitz (2012, 2017, 2019), Milanovic (2019), and many others, the transnational control of the world economy by mega corporate actors has increased via the just mentioned chains of global production, consumption, and finances. The accelerating global inequalities and dislocations are behind the massive migrations from poor countries toward Europe

57 Toward a New Globalization Paradigm …

1081

and the United States (see Schaeffer’s essay, Chap. 22), the challenges of populist movements of modern and post-modern kind (see Axford’s essay, Chap. 14), and the global widespread of anti-globalization movements (see Pleyers and Dürrschmidt essays, Chaps. 21, 10). So much for the hopes raised by the 2010 neo-developmental manifesto.

The Global Left An opposite camp to the 2010 Manifest is represented in this book by what Alvarez and Chase-Dunn call “the culture of the global left” which has retooled his opposition to capitalism with such concepts as global justice (see the Alvarez and Chase-Dunn’s essay, Chap. 48) and global ethics (see Buhari’s essay, Chap. 12) and has found expression in a variety of anti-globalization movements (see Pleyers and Satgar’s essays, Chaps. 21, 49) as well as forums and strategies for action (see Alvarez and Chase-Dunn’s essay, Chap. 48). What has been the success of these ideas and movements so far? Satgar offers a systematic analysis of the various phases of resistance to capitalist globalization with a typology of strategic targets and related movements to conclude that capitalism presents insurmountable obstacles. Hence, if we are serious in reducing the massive inequalities and dislocations produced by the ongoing globalization, we are left with two choices, either abolish capitalism or reform it. In the essay on “global indigenism,” Chase-Dunn et al. tell us that the clear majority of the activists which have been attending the four social forums have opted for the abolition of organized capitalism, whereas 39% have been in favor of reforming it. If we agree with Vishwas Satgar that the abolition of capitalism is a utopian project, we are left with the question of what kind of tools are available to reform capitalism. Three types of reform are suggested in our volume.

Extension and Novel Applications of Capitalist Principles Jürgen Schraten’s essay shows how financialization concepts and mechanisms can become emancipatory tools by designing social insurance programs to protect future income rather than to maximize profits. Ingenious this model really is, but how many other capitalist tools are amenable to such magic transformation into social welfare tools? Moreover, and crucially, one must face the realistic possibility that much of the corporate world is much more inclined to put its bets into the production of “societal wealth” rather than in support of “social experiments.”

1082

I. Rossi

Introducing a Communitarian Ethics Based on Sentiments of Social Empathy Collier (2018) argues that political ideologies, like liberalism, communism, socialism, and religious fundamentalism, endorse absolutist views, embedded with deep passions and sentiments; therefore, they polarize the internal dynamics of nations as well as international relations. Collier argues that populism is rooted also in deep resentments and is intolerant and divisive as well. For these reasons Collier endorses a communitarian ethics as a platform for social order, an ethics based on the acceptance of instinctive moral values and on a pragmatic trade-off among diverging moral values (p. 20). The moral values that Collier is talking about are based on the philosophies of David Hume and Adam Smith, which we have discussed in the Introduction to this volume. Humans are not mere “economic beings” because they are hard wired to crave for social belonging and esteem, besides food and wealth. Therefore, human beings are rational in the sense that they pursue a “utility” not just of consumption but also of esteem (p. 27). Our sentiment of empathy for others compels us to “rescue” them when they are in trouble, and we do so to avoid social shame. Hence, our actions are motivated by the “oughts-to-do” or moral obligations. These oughts-to-do are conceptualized as deriving from values rather than from reason, which is the source of divisive ideologies. Moral behavior ensures social esteem and, at the same time, engenders expectations of reciprocity; in turn, reciprocal obligations enhance the sense of community. Collier finds support for this pragmatic and communitarian ethics in the social psychology of Haidt (2012) who has found that loyalty and fairness are among six basic values shared worldwide. Collier is perhaps right in scorching the divisiveness of ideologies but his communitarian ethics is based on human sentiments which are subject to ideological manipulations of various kinds. We need a more solid and consensual ground on which we can anchor positive human sentiments.

Tempering the Excesses of Capitalism with Communal and Cooperative Principles Paul James has offered in this book a “manifesto of good globalization” based on the consideration that capitalism might be contained to allow other forms of economic relations to flourish, including local “forms of communing and co-operation.” He argues that the recent financial crisis, the rise of populism, and the worsening of ecological crises demand that we forge a manifesto for a sustainable globalization in its ecological, economic, political, and cultural facets. In economic terms, this means rethinking the ever-expanding reach of global capitalism, particularly its more rapacious modalities. Politically, though the usual response is to argue for more cosmopolitanism, this has become complicated by the “return” to reactionary forms of localism. In cultural terms, we need principles for celebrating differences while

57 Toward a New Globalization Paradigm …

1083

recognizing continuing boundaries of identity and meaning. In consultation with more than dozens of major cities across the world, James has developed, over five years, a matrix of principles applicable in the areas of cultural, political, economic, and ecological globalization with the intent of producing a “radical and demanding” form of “good globalization.” James’ manifesto is quite impressive, is being tested in the urban setting of major cities across the globe, and comprehensively addresses all four domains of globalization. Importantly, he has grounded his social thinking in an interesting ethical foundation of rights (James 2006). However, the field of social ethics is highly controversial: in Western philosophy alone at least four categories of ethical theories are in competition with each other—deontology, utilitarianism, rights, and virtues. Moreover, Confucianism and other Eastern traditions also emphasize human benevolence and the centrality of relationships and mutual duties in social relations. Unfortunately, a universal consensus on this issue cannot come from philosophical or theological undertakings. For instance, efforts to formulate a consensual global ethic have not produced a global ideology or a unified single religion or a domination of one religion over others. A set of values and ethical standards were formulated in 1993 by the “Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions,” which on face value seemed to offer reasonable universal standards (Declaration Toward a Global Ethic 1993). However, are these standards endorsed by all world’s governments, and couldn’t they be suspended for political or other reasons, and, finally, don’t we lack a recognized over all ethical or religious authority to interpret and enforce those standards? But 1993 was the year also when the UN General Assembly of world governments endorsed the “Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action” which was a reiteration and clarification of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). As a set of guidelines that all state governments agreed to enforce in their policies and legislations, these two documents represent a mandatory starting point for any policy discussion of global dimensions. Let us explore their relevance in dealing with the inequalities and distortions connected with globalization.

“The International Bill of Human Rights” as a Guideline of a Human-Focused and Democratic Globalization As I have argued in the Introduction to this volume, the UDHR is the culmination of millennia of civilizational developments and the current Magna Carta of ideal standards that all states have committed to enforce in their legislations. These standards ought to be universally implemented for three reasons: as the culmination of millennia of civilizational developments, as principles unanimously agreed to by state governments, and, as we shall shortly see, for having the overwhelming support of the world public opinion. The International Bill of Rights is a trilogy consisting of the 1948 UDHR, the 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social Civil and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), and the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and

1084

I. Rossi

Political Rights (ICCPR). I briefly highlight their major principles by grouping them in separate categories and leaving up to the reader to study the full text of these documents which are easily accessible online.

The 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) Of 195 states members of the UN General Assembly, 192 voted in 1948 in favor of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UN 1948/2019), the Holy See and Palestine being present as non-members of the UN. Hence, these basic and inalienable rights of each individual have become part of the global culture that should guide policies and legislations of all state governments. The preamble of the UDHR states that everyone is born free and equal, and therefore each individual, regardless of gender, race, color, religion, national origin, political opinion, or other social statuses, is entitled to the following rights: Individual Cultural Rights: Rights of freedom of thought, conscience, religion (art. 18); right to freedom of opinion and expression (art. 19); rights to education (art. 26) and to participate in the cultural life of the community (art. 27) Individual Political Rights: Rights to liberty and security (art. 3), rights to the equal protection of the law (art. 6 and 7) and impartial tribunal (art. 10), and right to freedom from slavery (art. 3), torture (art. 5), and arbitrary interferences in private life (art. 12). Everyone has the right to be a citizen of a country (art. 15), to have access to public services, political life, and a government elected by people via universal and secret suffrage (art. 21) Individual Economic Rights: Everyone has the right to work, free choice of employment, favorable conditions of work, protection against unemployment; everyone has the right to equal pay for equal work and to a just and favorable remuneration which ensures for oneself and one’s own family to have an existence worthy of human dignity, supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection (art. 23); everyone has the right to property alone or in association with others (art. 17), and to rest and have leisure time (art. 24) Social Rights: Everyone has the right to nationality (art. 15), peaceful assembly and association (art. 20), to move in and out of her/his own country (art. 13), to marry and have the family, and all these rights should be protected by the state (art. 16); “everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized” (art. 28) Individual Duties: Everyone has duties toward the community in which alone a free and full development of one’s own personality is possible. In exercising rights and freedoms, everyone should respect the rights and freedoms of others and meet the requirements of morality, public order, and the general welfare of a democratic society (art. 29). Education shall contribute to the respect for human rights and to promote understanding among all nations, races, or religions. Standards of Achievement: The international community has laid down a clear measure of accomplishment by stating that every member of a society has a right

57 Toward a New Globalization Paradigm …

1085

to social security and to national and international cooperation for the “realization of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his/her dignity and the free development of his/hers personality” (art. 22). Moreover, “everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his/her family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age, or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control” (art. 25.1). If state governments would measure up in their legislation and social policies to these standards of equal opportunity for each individual, we would eliminate most of the contemporary social dislocations and sufferings we have documented in this volume. It is important to notice that the UDHR avoids individualistic pitfalls for spelling out not just individual rights, but also obligations to other individuals and to society. The 1948 Declaration stated that the members of the international community should recognize that “human rights should be protected by the rule of law” (third paragraph of the Declaration’s preamble). For being a declaration and not a treaty, the UDHR “does not of its own force imposes obligations as a matter of international law,” as stated by the US Supreme Court (2004). However, some international law scholars believe that the UDHR has the status of a customary international law, while other scholars attribute such a status only to the articles on the right to life (Article 3), prohibitions against slavery (Article 4), torture (Article 5), arbitrary imprisonment (Articles 9, 10, and 11), and systematic racial discrimination (Article 2) (Lawyers’ Rights Watch Canada 2019).

The 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) The UN established the Human Rights Commission to facilitate the formulation of international human rights laws on the basis of the 1948 Declaration together with mechanisms of implementation. The Commission produced two major documents: the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) which were approved by the UN General Assembly in 1966 and became international law in 1976. As the two documents can be easily accessed online, I highlight what can be considered universal standards of achievement: The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) asserts people’s right to selfdetermination by freely pursuing economic, social, and cultural development (art. 1) and the right to be assisted in this endeavor by the state with all available resources (art. 2). The rights of the UDHR were reasserted, including the right to adequate

1086

I. Rossi

standards of living for himself and one’s family as well as a “continuous improvement of living conditions” (art. 11) and “the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standards of physical and mental health….” (art. 12).

The 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) ICCPR reiterated the civic and political rights of the UDHR, including the protection of the rights of ethnic, religious, and linguistic minorities and established a Human Rights Committee to supervise the implementation of civic and political rights. As of 2012, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) was ratified by 167 states. Several countries have raised reservations against the ICCPR Covenant, including the USA who ratified the Covenant in 1992 but has made five reservations, five understandings, and four declarations to the Covenant so that its domestic impact is very small. Over for decades the US Senate has considered five times the 1976 Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), but has failed to vote on it so that the USA is one of the six UN member states that have withheld ratification out of 192 member states. However, the UN reports that UDHR has inspired 80 international treaties and declarations, regional conventions, and domestic bills which constitute the body of the international human right law. All member states of the UN have ratified at least one of the nine core human rights treaties, and 80% of them have ratified four or more of them, giving concrete expression to the universality of the UDHR.1

UN Documents on Social and Redistributive Justice It is worth adding that the UN moved the discourse on international justice from the protection of national sovereignty to the economic development of ex-colonial countries and then to a discourse on international “social justice.” The latter notion was proposed in the 2006 when the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs organized an international forum for social development entitled, “Social Justice in an Open World” (DESA 2006). That document states that the concept of “social justice” emerged after mid-1800 in the wake of industrial exploitation as a

1 Information

on date and place of adoption of UN documents can be found at the UN Office of Legal Affairs (OLA) http://legal.un.org/ola/Default.aspx. For information on treaty ratifications, see: https://www.jbi-humanrights.org/jacob-blaustein-institute/ratification-of-un-treaties.html.

57 Toward a New Globalization Paradigm …

1087

rallying point for revolutions. Currently, however, social justice means redistributive justice as per the 1995 Copenhagen Declaration & Program Action.2 Economic or redistributive justice entails equal opportunity to meaningful employment and fair reward for productive activities. These principles were recast in the 2009 “Manifesto: Global Economic Ethic Consequences for Global Business” which was issued by the UN Global Compact (1993/2019). This Manifesto recasts the fundamental principles of the already mentioned “Declaration toward a Global Ethics” issued by the 1993 Parliament of World Religions held in Chicago.

The International Public Opinion is in Syntony with the UDHR The world’s public opinion as reported by the “World Value Survey” raises a strong appeal to the international community to be serious about its obligation to foster “the dignity and free development” of human personalities and their families. The World Value Surveys have since 1981 polled national representative samples of a large number of countries through a common questionnaire; the latest wave of interviews was conducted in 100 countries representing 90% of the world population. Much of the reported findings in the web site of the World Value Surveys document the fact that with economic and cultural development human societies shift from traditional values (respect for authority, patriotism, and traditional family) to secular and rational values which de-emphasize traditional values; they also shift from survival values (emphasis on economic and physical security, ethnocentrism, and low social trust) to self-expressive values (demanding gender equality and participation in societal decision-making, environmental concerns, and tolerance for foreigners and the LGBTQ community). Of particular relevance to our argument is the WVS’ documentation on a subset of self-expressive values which are common to both Western and non-Western cultures. These self-expressive or “emancipative values” are said to be the components of the process of human empowerment which emphasizes life style liberty, gender equality, personal autonomy, and equality of opportunities. More specifically, human empowerment is sought worldwide at three levels: (1) at the socio-cultural level, human empowerment occurs when emancipative values increase people’s aspirations to exercise freedoms. This is in line with the personality development sought in the UDHR; (2) at the legal-institutional level, human empowerment occurs when “widened democratic rights increase people’s entitlements to exercise freedoms”; (3) at the socio-economic level, human empowerment occurs when “growing action resources increase people’s capabilities to exercise freedoms” (World Value Surveys 2019). We can see here that the UDHR’s notion of human dignity and personality development that must be protected by state governments find expression 2 https://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/migration/generalassembly/docs/globalcom

pact/A_CONF.166_9_Declaration.pdf.

1088

I. Rossi

in people’s aspirations to freedom (cultural level), people’s entitlements to exercise democratic rights (political level), people’s increased capabilities to exercise freedom via increased action resources. In other words, people’s aspirations seek an implementation of the cultural, political, and economic rights asserted in the UDHR. Criticisms have been leveled against the methodology of the World Value Surveys, but their findings have been confirmed by other studies. In 2009 the Council on Foreign Relations (2009) reported the result of a public opinion polls in 21 nations by the “WorldPublicOpinion.org” and stated that Majorities or pluralities in all nations polled express support for the United Nations (UN) playing an active role in promoting human rights: in France (76 percent), the United States (70 percent), Great Britain (68 percent), and China (62 percent), though the Russian majority was relatively modest (55 percent). The Palestinians expressed the lowest level of support and the majority-of Muslim populations tended to express lower than average support, although in Turkey the majority was in favor of a greater UN role (69 percent).

Drawing on surveys in India, Mexico, Morocco, and Nigeria, Ron et al. (2017) found that most people support the human rights discourse, trust rights-promoting organizations, and do not view human rights as a tool of foreign powers.” The findings were based on hundreds of qualitative interviews and thousands of randomized survey responses by ordinary people in Mexico, India, Morocco, and Nigeria. The World Public Opinion (2011), a consortium of research centers on the public opinion of international issues in more than 25 countries across all of the major continents, has reported that large majorities of the public in most countries are in favor of the following practices and rights: favoring a UN larger role in promoting human rights, including women’s rights; right to freedom of expression–including criticism of government and religious leaders; the media should be free of government control and citizens should even have access to material from hostile countries; people of different religions, races and ethnicities should be treated equally. “Large majorities in every country say their government should be responsible to take care of the poor and for ensuring that citizens can meet their basic needs for food, healthcare, and education”. The convergence of all these surveys on the existence of a worldwide opinion in favor of human rights provides a strong additional reason to consider the 1948 Declaration as a master guideline to be seriously enforced in the legislation and policies of all world’s countries. We have already seen some objections raised by the USA; do other nations of the world have the same understanding of the UDHR and show determination in its implementation?

57 Toward a New Globalization Paradigm …

1089

Spotty Implementation of the Bill of Rights and Strong Reaffirmation of the UDHR at the 1993 Vienna Declaration, and Lingering Oppositions The implementation of the UDHR has been conditioned by the democratic versus authoritarian nature of political regimes: by and large, the less democratic a country has been, the lower has been its acceptance and implementation of the UDHR. Hence, a threefold pattern has emerged: (a) a strong legal commitment to human rights in Western countries, with some exceptions especially by the USA, and minor reservations in the Asian democracies of Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan; (b) a partial and distorted acceptance of the notion of human rights in Islamic countries and in South East Asian countries; (c) a strong rejection of the universal validity of human rights by the political regimes of China and Russia.3

The Divided and Mixed Reactions of the Islamic World to the 1948 UDHR In 1948, Pakistan ratified the UDHR, whereas Saudi Arabia did not ratify it for violating Sharia law, and in 1982, the Iranian representative to the UN argued the same point. In 1990, the “Organization of Islamic Cooperation” approved an alternative declaration to the UDHR, the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam (CDHRI), which endorsed the rights of the UDHR only within the limits of the Sharia law, empowers states rather than individuals, and contradicts the UDHR in providing a subordinated status to religious minorities, prohibiting conversion from Islam, and providing rights of freedom of movement and marriage only to men. In 1992, the Cairo Declaration was rejected by the UN Commission on Human Rights. Turkey and other Islamic countries have recognized the need to revise the Cairo Declaration. The League of Arab States approved in 2004 an Arab Charter of Human Rights which recognized key civil, political, economic, social, and cultural rights, but allowed restrictions of freedom of thought, conscience, and religion and leaves important rights up to national legislations. The attitude of serving to two patrons is followed also by three nation members of the Council of Europe: Albania, Azerbaijan, and Turkey, who have ratified both the European Convention on Human Rights and the Cairo Declaration. One must add that the Russian Federation and Bosnia and Herzegovina have not signed the Cairo Declaration but are members observers of the Organization of the Islamic Conference and they have signed the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). Such an ambiguous and inconsistent attitude is not surprising given Petersen’s (2018) findings that there are four Islamic positions on 3 Information

on the status of implementation or violation of human rights in various countries can be found in the yearly reports of Amnesty International: https://www.un.org/en/development/desa/ population/migration/generalassembly/docs/globalcompact/A_CONF.166_9_Declaration.pdf.

1090

I. Rossi

the issue of human rights ranging from a total rejection of human rights to the liberal position of the Islamists. The latter consider the Qur’an not to be a set of legal rules, but rather a set of ethical and religious values, which can be interpreted as providing a rationale for the legal standards of human rights.

South East Asia at Issue with the 1948 UDHR In the 1990s, the “Singapore School” put forward the notion of “Asean Values” as an alternative to the Western emphasis on human rights and democracy whose excessive emphasis on capitalist individualism was seen as a threat to social order. The successful development of the region was attributed to the Confucian emphasis on hard work, thrift, education, communitarianism, and a balance between societal and individual needs. Priority was also given to economic development rather than to cultural modernization. Western critics found these claims to be an ideology in support of the authoritarian regimes of South East Asia which saw themselves challenged by the winds of modernity. In response to the UN General Assembly invitation to prepare for the World Conference on Human Rights, a regional meeting of the Asian states approved the 1993 “Bangkok Declaration” which “recognizes that while human rights are universal in nature, they must be considered in the context of a dynamic and evolving process of international norm-setting, bearing in mind the significance of national and regional particularities and various historical, cultural and religious backgrounds.” Among the states who signed the Bangkok Declaration were countries with Islamic, Confucian, and Buddhist influences and included China, India, and Iran.

The 1993 “Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action” The apparent limitation to the notion of universal human rights suggested in the Bangkok Declaration found a strong rejection in the UN 1993 World Conference on Human Rights where European governments criticized Asian states for cultural relativism, weak democratization, and abuses of human rights. The US Secretary of the USA, Warren Christopher, was particularly strong in backing the universality of human rights, which was also supported by the NGOs. The conference issued the “Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action” which “reaffirmed the commitment to the purposes and principles contained in the Charter of the United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights” and was approved unanimously by 171 states in June 1993. In view of the following discussion the following points are worth noticing: (1) the introduction underlines that “by challenging the artificial hierarchy according to which social, economic and cultural rights were viewed by some as being less important than civil and political rights, the conference succeeded in dismantling a second wall that had divided States.” Hence, no Islamic or Confucian

57 Toward a New Globalization Paradigm …

1091

or any kind of political principles can provide exceptions to universal individual rights; (2) every individual has the right to self-determination, and hence, the right to freely determine one’s own political status as well as one’s own economic, social, and cultural development (art. 2); (3) “while development facilitates the enjoyment of all human rights, the lack of development may not be invoked to justify the abridgement of internationally recognized human rights…” (art. 10); (4) “while the significance of national and regional particularities and various historical, cultural and religious backgrounds must be borne in mind, it is the duty of States, regardless of their political, economic and cultural systems, to promote and protect all human rights and fundamental freedoms.” This must be seen as a reply to article 8 of the 1993 “Bangkok Declaration.” This solemn declaration also did not find an easy universal audience.

Lingering Objections in the South Eastern Asian and Islamic World In 2012, the ten members states of the South East Asia (ASEAN), which included Islamic and authoritarian states, approved the “ASEAN Human Rights Declaration,” which states that human rights can be limited on consideration of “national security,” “public order,” and “public morality.” The reaction of the UN High commission was to express a hope in a future improvement of language. The controversy engendered from the 1990 “Cairo Declaration” is still, of course, an open chapter. The question remains as to the full meaning of art 5 of the 1993 Vienna conference of the UN. While the significance of national and regional particularities and various historical, cultural, and religious backgrounds must be borne in mind, it is the duty of the States, regardless of their political, economic, and cultural systems, to promote and protect all human rights and fundamental freedoms.” If there are no civil or political rights superior to universal individual rights and if the latter must be implemented always and regardless of any economic development and political and cultural systems, how can national and regional peculiarities be kept in mind in enforcing the protection of universal individual rights? This controversy has assumed new importance in the light of the recent weaponization of civilizational heritages by Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin in opposition to the universal validity of human rights.

1092

I. Rossi

The Recent Civilizational Challenges of Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin Xi Jinping View of World Order: National Rejuvenation and Building a Global Community in the Image of the Ancient “Great Harmony Under Heaven” The Australian scholar Zhang (2019) has examined Jinping’s writings and speeches on the mission of the Chinese Communist Party in China and in the world and has concluded that they are framed by two major concepts: national rejuvenation and global community. “National rejuvenation” refers to the need of restoring China’s international status which was lost with the Western dominance in the modern era. The international status must be regained in terms of wealth and power which are the two most important of 12 socialist core values among which are democracy, civility, and harmony. Xi’s stress on the need of reinstating international status began in 2011 when he was elevated to party general secretary and chairman. Then, he set two centenary goals for China, making it a moderately prosperous country by 2020 and a modern socialist and rejuvenated country by mid-century. Xi strongly reiterated the communist party’s historic mission of achieving a national rejuvenation at the 2017 Congress of the Communist Party asserting that “China’s dream” is to concentrate both on China’s development and on bringing benefits to the people of the whole world (Jinping 2014a). The whole world will benefit if we “work together to build a community with a shared future for mankind, to build an open, inclusive, clean, and beautiful world that enjoys lasting peace, universal security, and common prosperity” (Xi 2017). This concept of a “shared future for mankind” is Xi’s leading concept of foreign policy as well as an “abiding mission” of the party. This concept was reasserted in 2015 at the UN meeting and in 2013 in a speech to the Indonesian government. What at the 18th party Congress in 2012 was a passing reference for President Hu Jintao (“raising an awareness of a global community with a shared future”) became policy with Xi Jinping, although previous Presidents had spoken of a close link between China’s future and the world’s future and of “safeguarding of the common interests of all humankind.” Zhang (2019) notices that this represented a departure from Mao’s focus on the common interests of world proletariat and from the 1980s focus on development. From 1987 to 1997 emerged the discovery of global interests above proletariat, class, or country interests and the discovery of the global community, which is linked by Zhang to the “Tianxia” of the Zhou dynasty (1045– 771 BCE). The latter refers to the shared principles of justice and morality which united different cultural and ethnic units of a politically fragmented dynasty into a harmonious family. The Zhou king was considered to have a mandate from heaven to serve the interests of people; that mandate lasted as long as the king served people’s interest instead of his own interests.

57 Toward a New Globalization Paradigm …

1093

Xi Jinping has made an explicit link to this ancient notion of “Tianxia” in his recent speech at the 40th Anniversary of the “Reform and Opening-up” which commemorated the successful blending of market and socialist policies initiated in 1978. Xi stated that “though the Kingdom of Zhou is ancient, its mission is still innovative,” creating the magnificent practice of Chinese civilization. Since ancient times, the Chinese nation has not only firmly believed in but also carried out interactions and cultural exchanges with other nationalities the broad-minded ideals of “Great Harmony under Heaven” and “bringing countries together” (translated from the Chinese by Zoglmann 2019).4 Is the notion of China as a country which uninterrupted lived the ideal of “Great Harmony under Heaven” throughout its entire history an ideological construct or an historical fact?

Xi Jinping’s Idealization of a Superior Confucian Civilization In 2014, Xi Jinping (2014) launched a strong Confucian manifesto in a lengthy speech delivered on the 2,565th Anniversary of Confucius’ Birth at the Fifth Congress of the International Confucian Association (September 24, 2014). Here is the outline of the major points of that speech: 1) The study of Confucianism is indispensable to understand “the spiritual world of the present-day Chinese” because Confucianism has been one of the major intellectual schools of thought in a pluralistic cultural tradition which developed harmoniously for 2000 years as a “unity of opposites.” [The period running from the first centralized feudal empire, the Qin Dynasty, established in 221 BC until the collapse of the Qing Dynasty in 1912 is known as the imperial era of China and makes the bulk of Chinese history.] Xi continued that the Chinese civilization has cultivated fine personalities by inculcating moral qualities, and at the same time, has preserved political unification and facilitated social progress. The harmonious nature of Confucianism has consistently inculcated in China a deep love for peace and coordination with every nation. “Within the four seas, all men are brothers.” 2) Today Confucianism can make a unique contributions to the progress of human civilization by emphasizing spiritual and moral values in an era when “contemporary human beings face such outstanding problems as widening wealth gaps, endless greed for materialistic satisfaction and luxury, unrestrained extreme individualism, continuous decline of social credit, ever-degrading ethics, and an increasing tension between man and Nature.” In particular, Confucianism can help to rediscover the moral unity of the universe (man and nature), “the whole world as one community,” and to work toward a world of full equality and moral character so as to enrich and please humans beings. At the same time, rulers should govern with moral principles, treat people with sincerity, and practice what they preach, while attending to a public 4 https://scholar.colorado.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cghttps://scholar.colorado.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?

article = 3150&context = honr_thesesi?article = 3150&context = honr_theses.

1094

I. Rossi

social agenda of continuous reforms. Harmony ought to be sought and not democracy and we must seek common ground while preserving differences. Hence, Chinese and overseas scholars ought to collaborate to ascertain which elements of the Chinese cultural heritage can be beneficial to China and to the rest of the world. 3). An inter-civilizational project ought to be established to promote “exchanges and mingling as well as mutual learning and reference” among different civilizations. This civilizational exchange and mutual learning ought to be guided by the following principles: “Civilization, ideology and culture in particular, is the soul of a nation” so that “each country or nation must recognize and respect others’ ideology and culture, while valuing and preserving its own”; no civilization can be considered superior to any other civilization so that other countries’ civilizations must be not only respected but also preserved rather than being disparaged, transformed, assimilated, or replaced; we must seek common ground while preserving differences and we must learn from others to make up for one’s own deficiencies. We should be ready to learn and borrow from all civilizations that humanity has created.…” Yet, mutual learning among civilizations should proceed from the reality of one’s own country’s tradition which ought to be studied scientifically so as to creatively transfer elements of traditional culture and integrate them with contemporary culture. In the case of China this means to cultivate a scientific Marxism which does not eliminate history or culture but develops “Socialism with Chinese characteristics.” This is the official terminology used to describe the economy of the People’s Republic of China as consisting of private and public enterprises competing within a market environment. One can find in Xi’s manifesto plenty of Chinese lessons to the world, but I am not able to detect any indication whatsoever that China can learn anything from other countries and certainly not from Western countries, given Xi’s insistence on the superiority of the moral character of Confucianism over the consumeristic and the alienating and corrupted characteristics of the so-called liberal democracies. In conclusion, what Xi Jinping accepts from Western liberal democracies is not democracy but capitalism combined with a “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics,” which means a form of state capitalism which is antithetical to a competitive form of capitalism based on private capital. Branco Milanovic (2019:2) has recently written that “the entire globe now operates according to the same economic principles: production organized for profit using legally free wage labor and mostly privately owned capital, with decentralized coordination.” Actually, this is not quite true as he himself contrast the “political capitalism” of China to the “liberal capitalism” of the West,-an altered form of capitalism based mostly on public capital and centralized coordination.

57 Toward a New Globalization Paradigm …

1095

The Real History of the Chinese “Tianxia”: from civilizational benevolence to domination to national self-consciousness There is no doubt that for Xi Jinping “Tianxia” refers to the “magnificent practice of Chinese civilization…firmly believed in but also carried out in interactions and cultural exchanges with other nationalities” (Xi 2018); “and its [Chinese civilization] uninterrupted continued in the past thousands of years as a big harmonious family of dozens of nationalities” (Xi 2014); “China has an uninterrupted civilization of more than 5,000 years” (Xi 2017). The first question is whether Xi Jinping endorses all the elements of the historical “Tianxia” which appeared during the Zhou dynasty (1046–256 BCE) when various feudal kingdoms had their own power, but pledged allegiance to the Zhou dynasty. During the “Spring and Autumn” period (770–403 BCE) and the “Warring States” period (403–221 BCE) the terms Tianchao “Celestial Empire” and Tianxia “all under heaven” were used. In that context of civil wars whoever succeeded in reuniting China was said to be a divine-appointed leader and to rule “everything under heaven,” namely the entire world and not just China, since China was considered the center of the world. The atmosphere of harmony, benevolence, morality, and justice characterizing “Tianxia” was held as antithetical behavior of foreign merchants focused on their own interests. The Zhou dynasty reigned at the peak of the Bronze period when the classic thinkers like Confucius, Lozi, Mozy, and Mencius lived and calligraphy developed. It was the literates and other elites which elaborated political beliefs to legitimize the ruling dynasty. We must be aware, however, that there were government-controlled elites as well as persecuted elites. Then, praising the emperor could have been a strategy to make the emperor to conform to the image of the sage. At times, court scholars perpetuating the image of sage governance were salaried people called “Confucians” (Kern 2015: 150-151).5 In his 2019 speech, Xi Jinping referred to the “Tianxia” of the Zhou period as “the Great Harmony under Heaven” without mentioning that the mandate from heaven to the emperor could have been revoked if the emperor was not wise, courageous, and conforming to the principle of universal benevolence. The Zhou dynasty did not come into power exactly in amicable ways, but it proved to have received a mandate from heaven once they took care of the people (Qian 2016:78). Similarly, when the Mongols came in power the question was raised of whether they were civilized enough to be included in the “Tianxia” and moral enough to rule. Hence, any form of ethnic nationalism could have ended the moral order of the “Tianxia” (p. 78). Secondly, Xi’s statement makes no reference to the universal claims of Tianxia, apparently because that would entail hegemony in contradiction to Xi’s verbal reassurances that he rejects hegemony. Thirdly, no reference is made in Xi’s statement to the “tributary” respect that all nations had to pay to China (on this point see below). 5 https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mkern/files/canon_of_yao.pdf.

1096

I. Rossi

Then, the question to be determined is whether the historical “Tianxia” of China was a political construct which changed with changing political situations or whether it was really all along a divine mandate of benevolence which was preserved by all emperors. To begin with, historians tell us that most emperors were mediocre and oftentimes had a non-cooperative bureaucracy (Jingbin Wang 2014). Some scholars make the claim that “populist nationalists have produced a sensational history of China, which portrays Imperial China as benevolent, strong and more advanced than the Western world. The Chinese government is under heavy pressure to follow distorted memories and restore China’s historical glory” (Haiyang Yu 2014). Still other scholars argue that “Tianxia” is associated not only with an ideal civilizational order but also with a spatial imaginary of the world with China’s central plains at the core (Xu Jilin 2018). According to Ban Wang (2017) “Tianxia” has wavered between the normative claim to values and culture, on the one hand, and coercive mechanisms of domination, on the other hand. “The concept has played out between an impulse toward universal principles and an ideological cover for power politics” (Wang 2017, Introduction by Wang). It is also significant that “Tianxia” is officially defined in the Contemporary Chinese Dictionary as “land under heaven; realm; world or China” but also as “rule and domination” (Yuan et al. 2012: 189). The claim of an uninterrupted moral “Tianxia” throughout Chinese history goes against the fact that there were at least 184 “marginal dynasties” which overlapped and fought against each other (Foster 2013). Some of these marginal dynasties succeeded in bringing peace in a section of the realm and some lasted up to three years, assuming a dynasty name and even appointing their own courts and officials. The official historiography held these marginal dynasties to be illegitimate and called them “states” (Goo) which were ruled by kings and not by legitimate emperors. Hence, it is of no surprise that both the terms “Tianxia” and “Guo” are found frequently in use during the history of ancient China (Shijun 2006). The Israeli scholar Pines (2002) has clarified this apparently controversial or contradictory usage of the term “Tianxia” with an historical perspective. He states that in imperial times the term “Tianxia” was used in loose way, like we use the terms “nation,” ‘humanity,” and “world.” Pre-imperial texts show that the use of the term “Tianxia” was intensive during the first period of the Eastern Zhou, “The Spring and Autumn” period (722–479 BCE) when many vassal states were competing for supremacy. As already mentioned, the term “Tianxia” referred to the cultural values of the ruling aristocracy and to the desired behavior by “All under heaven” and served to provide cultural unity to politically competing states. The term was also in common use during the “Warring States” period (453–221 BCE) when “Tian” was the highest deity of the Zhou pantheon and “Tianzi” (Son of Heaven) was the designation of the Zhou king. A new meaning of the term appeared around 541 BCE to indicate the political dominance of the king of the Chu state (541–529 BCE) in the Zhou era. At that point, “Tianxia” no longer indicated a public opinion or a cultural value, but a territory under the jurisdiction of the Chu king in his struggle to attain the “all under Heaven” mandate, which at that point was the imposition of his dominance on the Central States. In the fifth century BCE “Tianxia” was in use even more frequently, half of

57 Toward a New Globalization Paradigm …

1097

the time to indicate a regime of value (a return to benevolence) and half of the time to the territorial possession of the king “all under heaven.” Confucius (551–479 BCE??) stated that “all under heaven” ought to be ruled by the Son of Heaven: this was the first juxtaposition of “state” (GUO) and “All under heaven” (“Tianxia”). Confucius praised Guan Zhong (dead ca. 645 BCE) for bringing unity to “All under heaven,” namely to the Central States which were considered to be the civilized world or the universe. With the thinker Mozi (400–300 BCE) “Tianxia” primarily meant all the ruled by the king under heaven, but it also referred to a cultural propriety (Yi) and also to an economic unit, namely the common resources that should be protected by proper governmental policies. Hence, “Tianxia” became equal to society in general: the same is true also in the texts of Mencius (ca. 379–304), Xunzi (ca. 310–218), and Feizi (d. 233). In summary, during the “Warring States” period (Zhanguo; 403–221 BCE) of Mencius and Kunzi the cultural meaning of Tianxia was still strong but it was overshadowed by the political use of the term, namely the establishing of the proper rule in “All under heaven.” “Tianxia” and “Guo” were juxtaposed and “Guo” became a unit of the former. “Tianxia” was no longer a mere oikoumene (the known, the inhabited, or habitable world) but a “potentially unified political rule, an imperium.” “Tianxia” was first of all the realm of proper rule and only then was also a regime of value. We should mention that with Laozi, founder of Taoism (ca. 500 BC), “Tianxia” assumed also a cosmic meaning, but in no other texts this meaning is found. Why was there this shift to a predominant political meaning of “Tianxia”? Because in the early period of “Spring and Autumn” there was a disintegration of dozens of small polities so that the Zhou cultural unity was kept via a common ritual culture and by the migration of aristocrats from one state to another. With the late “Spring and Autumn” period and the early “Warring States “period, five trends emerged which demanded political unification for stability: there was a demise of the aristocracy with a decline of common ritual norms, peripheral states pushed their own identity breaking down the ritual unity, some economic unity among states emerged, in the late sixth century penetrating interstate military operations occurred, and finally a migration of thinkers looking for better appointment created one focus of interest. As a result, a politicized “Tianxia” became dominant. In conclusion, different definitions of “Tianxia” emerged in different socio-political situations. Which one of these definitions provides the core civilizational identity to China and defines its role in the world today?

1098

I. Rossi

Conflicting Claims of the Chinese Dream: International Cooperation Vs Rejection of the UDHR, Civilizational Superiority Vs National Sovereignty Xi Jinping’s address to the UN in 2015 apparently offers a model of international cooperation by exhorting all nations to cooperate with the UN to “create a community of shared future for mankind.” All nations should be equal partners in this endeavor because the principle of sovereign equality underpins the UN Charter. According to Xi Jinping, “the principle of sovereignty not only means that the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries are inviolable and their internal affairs are not subjected to interference. It also means that all countries’ right to independently choosing social systems and development paths should be upheld and that all countries’ endeavors to promote economic and social development and improve their people’s lives should be respected.” This last statement explicitly rejects the universal validity of the liberties and rights asserted in the 1948 UDHR, which was drafted precisely in rejection of Fascism, as Xi himself underlines. Obviously, the whole raison d’être of the UDHR was to prevent any dictatorial suppression of individual rights so that Xi Jinping’s interpretation of sovereignty contradicts the whole trust of the UN Charter: “We, the people of the United Nations determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small….” Moreover, article 55 of the UN Charter states: With a view to the creation of conditions of stability and well-being which are necessary for peaceful and friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, the United Nations shall promote: (a) higher standards of living, full employment, and conditions of economic and social progress and development; (b) solutions of international economic, social, health, and related problems; and international cultural and educational cooperation; and (c) universal respect for, and observance of, human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion.6

Xi Jinping arbitrarily bypasses the last one of the three goals of the UN Charter so much that in the “South Human Rights Forum” held in Beijing in 2017, human rights were defined as rights to development, health, nutrition, and housing (China Focus 2017). How can we reconcile such a rejection of core principles of the UN Charter with Xi’s statements that “China was the first country to put its signature to the UN Charter” and that “no civilization is superior to others Different civilizations should have dialogue and exchanges instead of trying to exclude or replace each other”? But isn’t the rejection of universal human rights a rejection of the core of Western civilization at its stage of development? The claim of the moral superiority of Chinese civilization is important to Xi to buttress domestic legitimacy, but the political demise of the Opium wars and 6 UN

1945 at https://www.un.org/en/sections/un-charter/un-charter-full-text/.

57 Toward a New Globalization Paradigm …

1099

the current global competition forces him to also revenge a national sovereignty of the Westphalian type. Then, we are faced with another contradiction: Westphalian sovereignty does not get its legitimacy from any moral civilizational principle. Is, then, China sovereign because of its presumed civilization superiority or because of its regained status in the international system of nation-states? If the latter is true, is Xi really opting for a political “Tianxia” rather than for the civilizational “Tianxia” of the Zhou period as he stated in 2019? I submit that the way how of this dilemma is to opt for a UDHR-based “Tianxia” which can reconcile the civilizational claim with the claim to the status of nation-state if we make some inter-civilizational adjustments and modifications. I shall explain this point in the section following the paragraph on Vladimir Putin.

Vladimir Putin on the Presumed Superiority of the Russian “Civilizational State” Wilson (2016) states that China is not the only nation to revenge the status of a unique civilization. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Yeltsin attempted to give Russia a Western identity and Putin followed suit during his first presidential term (2000–2004) by reminding the Russian Federal Assembly that “for three centuries, we—together with the other European nations—passed hand in hand through reforms of Enlightenment, the difficulties of emerging parliamentarism, municipal and judiciary branches, and the establishment of similar legal systems” (Putin 2015). However, during the Chechen wars Putin adopted authoritarian policies which became more accentuated when the strong protests (color revolutions) of Georgia, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan overturned the authoritarian governments of the post-Soviet Russia. A strong protest accompanied Putin’s third presidential election (2012–2018) and Putin decried the protests in Ukraine and elsewhere as intrusions of the West. Tsygankov (2016) contends that Putin’s emphasis on Russian civilizational identity is aimed at projecting an image of great power for domestic and external legitimation. As Silvius (2015) argues, Putin has consolidated the state apparatus, constructed a state-guided capitalism, and attempted to achieve great power in a multipolar world by using “the language of cultural particularity and Russian distinctiveness.” He has used references to Eurasianism and Russian civilization to demonstrate that he follows the Russian tradition of statecraft, and to show that liberal democracy and unfettered capitalism are hegemonic projects of the USA. He incorporates in his state-sanctioned discourse the notion of civilization as a sort of “embedded civilizationalism” to provide the parameters within which to understand Russia’s role in the contemporary world. Putin does not offer a “civilizational” project of anti-modern and counter-systemic Eurasianism, but a co-optation of radical Eurasianist themes to establish an ideological hegemony and legitimacy. Selective references to Putin’s statements will suffice to illustrate the nature of Putin’s civilizationalism.

1100

I. Rossi

In the first year of his third presidential term (2012–2019), Putin addressed the Russian Federal Assembly by stating that Russia must be a sovereign and influential nation amid a new balance of economic, civilizational, and military forces (Putin 2012). Putin’s 2012 manifesto has striking similarities to the 2014 Xi Jinping one: “(1) Russia must achieve unity and identity from its civilization, namely its spiritual and religious values which are now defective around the world, such as charity, empathy, compassion, support, and mutual assistance; (2) Russia was a civilizationstate bonded by the Russian people, Russian language, and Russian culture; (3) Russian ethnic diversity has always been and remains the source of our beauty and our strength….; 4) Russia has always been among the nations that not only create their own cultural agenda, but also influences the entire global civilization….” As in the case of Xi Jinping’s civilizational claim, I have not seen any indication that Russia could learn anything from other civilizations. But why should we nurture such expectations, considering Putin’s claims about the historical treasure of Russian moral values? The law can protect morality and should do so, but a law cannot instill morality. We must not follow the path of prohibition and limitations, but instead, we must secure a firm spiritual and moral foundation for our society. That is precisely why issues of general education, culture and youth policy are so significant … they are the environments for creating a moral, harmonious person, and responsible Russian citizens… (Loc. Cit.)

In 2019, Putin asserted that Russia follows its own civilizational and developmental model “that will allow us to ensure the best conditions for the self-fulfillment of our people …. and preserve Russia as a civilisation with its own identity, rooted in centuries-long traditions and the culture of our people, our values and customs” (Putin 2019). Again, the moral superiority of ancient civilizations is based on moral (Confucian) or spiritual (Russian Orthodox) values. Putin has been quite explicit in stating that “the culture, civilisation and human values that unite the peoples of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus” are connected to the Orthodox Church; he made this statement in 2014 at the time of the Crimean invasion. He also stated that Russia’s strength lies in the free development of all its peoples, its diversity, the harmony of cultures, languages and traditions, mutual respect for and dialogue between all faiths, including Christians, Muslims, Judaists, and Buddhists (2015 statement to the Russian Federation). The political aims of Putin’s civilizational messages are also quite explicit: (a) “Russia attaches great importance to the idea of building a multilevel integration model for Eurasia in the form of a Greater Eurasian Partnership” (Putin 2016); (b) “a Russian exceptionalism is disclaimed with a willingness to observe international law and accept the inviolable central role of the UN. However, Russia must continue charting Russian history and to change the world and Russia for the better” (Putin 2018); (c) In 2019 Putin exhorted Russia to follow its own trajectory in seeking “a socio-economic development that will allow us to ensure the best conditions for the self-fulfillment of our people …and preserve Russia as a civilisation with its own identity, rooted in centuries-long traditions and the culture of our people, our values and customs…” (Putin 2019).

57 Toward a New Globalization Paradigm …

1101

What, then, about human rights in our global age? In a 2019 interview to the Financial Times, Putin has explicitly stated that in the second half of the twentieth century Western liberal values have become obsolete because of immigration policies and multiculturalism. According to him, the overwhelming majority of people in Western nations have rejected liberal values and support national populism.

From Civilizationism to Inter-civilizational Analysis Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin’s language exemplifies what Kapustin (2009) calls a “small or impoverished discourse” of civilization which is ideologically used in public discourse as a neo-conservative tool of cultural politics. Other people who used such impoverished language were George W. Bush in his post 9/11 rhetoric, and recently, Trump in his anti-ISIS and anti-immigration rhetoric. Such a discourse and Putin’s embedded civilizationalism are in sharp contrast to the “big discourse” on civilizations which has developed in the past two centuries in the humanities and social sciences.

On the Eurocentric Notion of “Civilization” As Smith (2017:4) states, much of the Western human and social sciences took national societies as the principal unit of inter-societal research. However, at the origins of modern history, philosophy, and social sciences, there was a concomitant scholarly focus on “civilizations” which is an older and more comprehensive category than nation-state and empire. Emile Durkheim, Marcel Mauss, Max Weber, Oswald Spengler, Pitirim Sorokin, Karl Jaspers, Eric Voegelin, and Arnold Toynbee were among the major pioneers of civilizational scholarship. The term “civilization” had appeared much earlier in the eighteenth-century Europe to indicate the progression to a “civilized” state of mankind beyond barbarism and in line with the progressivist ideology of the Enlightenment. A progressivist usage of the term was adopted by Adam Ferguson in his 1767 Essay on the History of Civil Society and during the French Revolution. However, Rousseau in Emile used the term “civilization” to indicate a rational development of society not fully in accord with nature. For Rousseau the wholeness of the human nature is achievable through the recovery of the pre-rational natural unity of the “noble savage.” Hence, European Romanticism was critical of the idea of civilization. Later on Johann Gottfried Herder, and the philosophers Kierkegaard and Nietzsche saw cultures as natural organisms of a pre-rational “folk spirit,” whereas civilization represented a rational and material progress, which is unnatural and leads to social vices, like guile, hypocrisy, envy, and avarice. Echoes of this thinking are found in the post-World War II writings of Leo Strauss on Nazism and German militarism and nihilism.

1102

I. Rossi

In the second half of the nineteenth century, romantic critiques were countered by the evolutionism of Lewis Morgan, Herbert Spencer, Friedrich Engels, and the early Marx. Then, re-emerged a progressivist image of development based on the push of civilization. Europe was imagined to have a monopoly of civilization and other nations were scrutinized for criteria of inclusion in the club of civilized nations. The post-World War I pro-independence movements in Japan, Turkey, India, China, and Indonesia confronted the Western idea of civilization by championing the worth of other civilizations. Then, the discourse on civilization was blended with that of “nation” to contest colonialism. From this perspective we understand the correctives of post-Orientalist scholars who reconstructed the discourse on civilizations. However, post-colonial sociologists criticize contemporary civilizational analysis and the related notion of multiple modernities for being still Eurocentric: the originality of European modernity was presumed, while at the same time recognizing a diversity of historical trajectories.

From an Essentialist to a Relational Study of Civilizations Besides the lingering problem of Eurocentrism, we still have with us the issue of the basic conceptualization of civilization. Jeremy C. A. Smith (2017) argues that past civilizational analyses in the humanities and social science are based on three conceptual images of civilization which represent as many phases of the “big” discourse in civilizational analysis. The first wave of foundational studies assumed an “integrationist” view of civilizations as clusters or blocks of socio-cultural units. Smith places Oswald Spengler and Arnold Toynbee’s works squarely in this camp together with some works by Max Weber. According to Spengler, culture flourishes and solidifies up to the phase of civilization until the latter slowly but inexorably falls in a state of atrophy where it ossifies and renders any contingency irrelevant (see Chumakov’s essay, Chap. 54). Toynbee catalogued 31 civilizations as identifiable unities in world history as if they were a sort of closed monads. Durkheim and Marcel Mauss linked societies and tribal formations to larger and more durable civilizations as kindred groups of societies, but, according to Smith, they skirt the boundaries between an integrationist and a relational concept of civilization. Max Weber saw China’s attributes as cognitively deficient because they presumably lacked the Occidental rationalism in law, economy, religious heterodoxy, and ethics, although some works of Weber are open to alternative interpretations. The problem with the early civilizational analysis, according to Smith, is a lack of attention to the cross-flow of ideas, customs, and other forces which formed and indefinitely changed civilizations. Moreover, civilizational analysis between the 1930s and the 1970s often did not examine stateless societies. Leaving up to the reader of this volume to further delve into the critiques of generations of classical as well as recent civilizational studies (see Arjomand 2014; Arjomand and Tiryakian 2004; Arnason 2003, 2010), I now attempt a contribution to a more recent phase of civilizational analysis in support of my critique of recent

57 Toward a New Globalization Paradigm …

1103

civilizationalism. Some recent comparative sociologists and scholars from the field of International Relations, like Hall and Jackson (2007), have begun to develop a research agenda on inter-civilizational processes based on the notion that civilizations are by their very nature contradictory, contested, and in flux. Constructivist scholars also have started examining the shifting boundaries of civilizations caused by transformations in power relations. Political scientists, like Katzenstein (2010), have discussed the pliability of civilizations as pluralist complexes which are internally differentiated and culturally loosely integrated; hence, generating debates and contestations. “Civilizations are weakly institutionalized social orders and shaped by a variety of practices and processes.” The historian Mazlish (2004) was also interested with cross-order and trans-civilizational encounters as constitutive of civilizations. Arnason (2003:16) links the origin of this new research focus to Benjamin Nelson’s interest in the emergence of the Western structure of consciousness. Arnason himself is interested in the openness to encounters as vital parts of civilizations: “If civilizations are to be analysed as interconnected constellations of meaning, power, and wealth, the same applies to the processes that unfold across civilisational boundaries.” He pioneered a synthesis of inter- and intra-civilizational processes, which, however, has not succeeded in satisfying the critics (see Hall and Jackson 2007). As a result, inter-civilizational analysis is a much incomplete project.

Toward a New Inter-civilizational Approach Let me offer preliminary elements of a workable methodology for an intercivilizational analysis, and then test it in dialogue with the contributors to this volume who defend the superiority of non-Western civilizations as models for the world. I begin with the operational definition of “civilization” by Gordon Childe which is condensed by the Cambridge English Dictionary from ten characteristics into the following statement: “civilization is a highly developed culture, including its social organization, government, laws, and arts.”7 After I transformed this definition of civilization into “a highly developed cultural, economic and political system,” I encountered Arnason’s (2010) concurring statement that “traditional civilizations … can be analyzed as constellations of cultural, political and economic patterns.” On the basis of this definition I formulate the following propositions as research hypotheses to guide the analysis of inter-civilizational processes: First proposition: Inter-civilizational dialogue and exchange can occur at any one of the three spheres of civilization: the cultural, economic, and political, or in any combination of them. Inter-civilizational exchanges at the cultural level can occur in the areas of religion, values, life style, and consumerism. Dialogue and exchange among different economic spheres typically occur via a diffusion of technologies and know-how in 7 https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/civilization.

1104

I. Rossi

Table 3 Types of inter-civilizational dialogues and exchanges Civilization A

Civilization B Cultural sphere

Cultural sphere

Economic sphere

Political sphere

Cultural dialogue and exchange

Economic sphere

Economic dialogue and exchange

Political sphere

Political dialogue and exchange

the production and distribution of goods. Significant inter-civilizational exchanges among different political spheres typically occur via the diffusion of political ideologies and technologies of government. This is, of course, an illustrative rather than an exhaustive list of possible inter-civilizational processes. The empty cells can help to identify sub-combinations of inter-civilizational exchanges. One can also adapt the table to indicate whether the interchange is primarily cultural or economic or political, and also to indicate that inter-civilizational exchanges become progressively more difficult as we move from the cultural to the economic to the political civilizational spheres. This can be easily demonstrated by pointing out that declared appreciations for other civilizations are accompanied in our times by difficult trade disputes and strained relations between democratic and authoritarian regimes. The impasse produced by opposite political regimes is sanctioned by the veto practice at the Social Security Council. Second proposition: There are at least three levels of intensity of intercivilizational dialogue ranging from the most limited (inter-civilizational understanding and communication), to a more involved (inter-civilizational learning of different cultural political and economic models), to the most thorough form of dialogue and exchange (economic and political cooperation among countries which entails compromising or blending of different cultural, economic and political models at the operational level of policies, treaties and collaboration in joint organizations). The difficulty in initiating and entertaining an inter-civilizational dialogue and exchange increases as we move from inter-civilizational understanding to inter-civilizational learning to inter-civilizational cooperation: inter-civilizational learning presupposes inter-civilizational understanding, whereas inter-civilizational cooperation presupposes both inter-civilizational learning and understanding. Table 4 Degrees of inter-civilizational dialogue and exchange Civilization A Understanding Civilization B

Understanding Learning Cooperating

Learning

Limited dialogue Moderate dialogue Thorough dialogue

Cooperating

57 Toward a New Globalization Paradigm …

1105

The dialogue and interchange among different civilizational spheres can take mixed forms; for instance, cultural openness can occur in one civilizational tradition but not in the cultural sphere of another civilization. There can also be higher levels of interchange among the cultural, economic, and political spheres, like in a fusion of civilizations. The proof of the pudding of Table 4 can be seen in the fact that in the post-World War II, it was relatively easy for all world governments, of no matter what civilizational tradition, to communicate with each other and to agree on a need of some mechanism to prevent future genocides; they all ended up endorsing the 1948 UDHR. But, subsequently some non-Western countries realized how difficult it was to implement certain articles of that Declaration and engaged in exception making or in proposing different interpretations of parts of the Declaration. A deep analysis of inter-civilizational processes would lead us to examine a double level of complexity: one complexity entailed in the progression of inter-civilizational exchanges among cultural spheres, then among economic spheres, and then political spheres; the second complexity emerging in the exchange among similar civilizational spheres (either cultural or economic or political) as it progresses from intercivilizational understanding to learning to cooperating. We leave this exercise to the civilizational imaginary of the reader to offer a relatively simple table on the crux of contemporary global confrontations. Current confrontations (Table 5) do not derive so much from cultural differences as rather from using them to justify or rationalize national interests in economic and political matters. Yet, our strategy precisely consists in engaging a cultural dialogue among different civilizations with the hope of facilitating understandings and compromises at the economic and political level. Table 5 Dialogue among Civilizational Spheres in Autocratic Regimes and in Liberal Regimes CIVILIZATIONS SPHERES IN AUTOCRACIES

CIVILIZATIONAL SPHERES IN LIBERAL DEMOCRACIES

Cultural sphere

Open dialogue

Economic sphere Political sphere

Cultural sphere

Economic sphere

Political sphere

Difficult negotiations Rejection of opposite regimes

Third Proposition: The cultural sphere has a greater role than other civilizational spheres in the origin, development, and conclusion of inter-civilizational dialogues. Hence, it ought to be counted on for impasse resolutions in the economic and political spheres. The analytical priority I give to the cultural sphere as the last and best hope to move our current international impasses forwards is in line with the strong program for the sociology of culture proposed by Alexander and Smith (2003). The latter authors underlined the constitutive role of culture in all social domains without

1106

I. Rossi

endorsing the apparent determinism of certain aspects of the Parsonian functionalism. I leave open the issue of the ontological priority of cultural or economic or political factors in explaining social change because this may vary from case to case. But I am advocating an analytical priority of cultural explanations of social change because political and economic factors and explanations are inevitably interpreted and mediated by civilizational and national perspectives. In this sense we can speak about the autonomy of culture as the initiating and/or mediating factor of any inter-civilizational and international process. As Jeremy C. A. Smith (2017: 140) argues, each society has as an image or “a more or less structured vision of the whole in which we arrange all elements of human experience and subordinate them to significations which themselves do not belong to the rational order (nor, moreover, to a positive irrational order), but to the imaginary.” Examples of such imaginary are the beliefs of archaic societies, the religious conceptions of historic societies, and also the extreme rationalism of modern societies (p. 149). Alexander and Smith (2003: 22) accept the “vision of culture as webs of significance that guide action. And understand culture not just as a text (à la Geertz), but rather as a text that is underpinned by signs and symbols that are in patterned relationships” (2003: 24). This view is inspired by Levi-Strauss’ interpretation of structural linguistics and his application to uncover universal structures underlying the observable variety of socio-cultural experiences (see Rossi 1974). I disagree, however, with the assessment that Levi-Strauss’ method inevitably leads to the blind alley of an abstract systemic logics, as J. C. Alexander and P. Smith assert. Rather, the notion of deep structures suggests exploratory hypotheses for identifying recurring constellations of meaning underlying a variety of messages, including apparently contradictory messages. Let us proceed with our analysis on the relations among different civilizational spheres in three steps: first, we establish an inter-civilizational perspective of core values of different civilizations, then we enter into an inter-cultural dialogue between Western and non-Western core values. Table 6 is designed to provide a neutral, as if it were, inter-civilizational point of view from which to examine core values of different civilizations so as to facilitate the task of ascertaining differences and similarities as well as possible elements of complementarity among values of different civilizations.

A Comparative View of Core Civilizational Values This comparative overview is inevitably schematic since it does not take into account variations within each tradition nor changes over time. It is, however, useful to attain a civilizationally impartial overview of core cultural differences which is a necessary prerequisite to understand the terms of the controversies between the proponents of Confucianism and other non-Western civilizations, on the one hand, and the

57 Toward a New Globalization Paradigm …

1107

Table 6 Core values of different civilizations Civilizational Traditional beliefs, values, Confucianism norms

Russian Orthodoxy

Islamic Civilization

Western Civilization

Core value

Moral cultivation Spiritual and of humans moral life

Religious beliefs

Liberties, rights; material success

Origin of authority

Mandate of heaven

Divine authority

God’s law (Shahri’a)

Delegated by people

Authority Legitimation

The virtue of leader

Preserving “Sobornost”

Preserving moral order

Delivering political promises (serving people)

Leader’s trait

Benevolent, virtuous

Father and defender

Protector of civilization.

Technical competence; visioners

Social relations Harmony, cooperation Core social unit

Family, filial piety

Social Norms

Rules from virtuous ruler VN; Morality

Church and State

Spiritual unity Spiritual unity of state and of state and people people “Ummalf”

Conflict, competition//democratic peace Social classes; individuals

Orthodox ethics

Moral, religious Rule of law norms.”Sunnef”

Unity

Communal statehood

Separation of the two

Society and individual

Collectivism

“Sobornost”, “Ummah”, all Preeminence of the spiritual unity Muslims tied by individual of state and religion people

Individual’s duties/rights

Responsibilities; Moral and human duties religious duties

Duties to conform to moral/social norms

Individual rights over sovereignty

Human development

Moral development

Spiritual and moral development

Pursuit of ethical and social welfare

Prosperity

Hierarchical relations

Patriarchal hierarchy

Hierarchical

Hierarchical

Egalitarianism, democracy

proponents of Western values, on the other hand. The following inter-civilizational discussion is also a test of the validity of the second and third proposition of the inter-civilizational approach I have outlined.

1108

I. Rossi

East Meet West: On the Notion of a UDHR-Based “Tianxia” An Inter-civilizational Dialogue with Our Confucian Friends on a UDHR-Based “Tianxia” Wang Ning’s essay in this volume (Chap. 30) presents Neoconfucianism as a glocalized process centered on an ethico-religious and political humanism which is characterized by the following elements: de-emphasis on hierarchical relations, elimination of male superiority, absorption of Daoist elements such as indifference to changes, openness to a discourse on modernity and post-coloniality, integration of post-modern, dialogic elements and ecological concerns (in reference to Xi Jinping), and, finally a peculiar notion of democracy as consisting in building an harmonious society where individual self-expression is allowed but without domination over others. Wang Ning also states that the Belt & Road project helps countries’ development while protecting their sovereignty, although we cannot ignore various documented episodes of unrepayable debts, Chinese takeovers as well as some big Chinese financial defaults. Ning underlies also Jinping’s favored slogan “shared future for mankind,” a socialism with Chinese characteristics and a cosmopolitan coexistence which respects different cultures but which denies universal validity to the UDHR. Ning says that cosmopolitanism must be rooted in local identity, benevolence, and righteousness. He also argues that collectivism and individualism can coexist as long as one does not control the other, although we have seen that Xi Jinping affirms the superiority of Confucian civilization with a global mission. Van Ning sponsors a cosmopolitanism based on the ancient Confucian notion of human benevolence and moral righteousness. Tongdong’s view of a possible Confucian world order is also based on the feudalistic period of the Zhou dynasty when, according to Tondong, a multistate system allegedly modernized not by becoming a nation-state but by establishing a “Tian Xia’” civilizational order. Tongdong spells out for us a distinguished list of traits of that “Tianxia” order: universal benevolence, patriotism limited by humaneness, preference for civilized states (a state being “civilized” if it serves people), civilized states forming an alliance and intervening in barbaric states. However, we have seen that the historical Chinese “Tianxia,” which was forged by the elite to legitimize dynasties at service of people, changed with changing political conditions into a legitimation of territorial domination and into national consciousness. Moreover, we have pointed out to an unresolved tension between civilizational Tianxia and the state (Guo) and, relatedly, the difficulty of reconciling a universal benevolent Tianxia with an emphasis on national sovereignty. Finally, how would the notion of universal benevolence square with the digitized national surveillance and the social credit system developed in China for each individual? Yet, the description of the “Tianxia” proposed by Xi Jinping and the scholars Wang Ning and Tongdong is too appealing to be simply discarded because of contradictory claims. I invite our Confucian friends to consider how their notion of “Tianxia” would be complemented and strengthened by the much criticized UDHR that emerged

57 Toward a New Globalization Paradigm …

1109

in the modern stage of Western civilization. To begin with, the UDHR obliges all nation-states to universal benevolence, not as a tool of political legitimation but because of the intrinsic dignity of each individual. There is no more morally sound foundation of universal benevolence by political leaders than the one demanded by the intrinsic worth, equality and freedom of each individual. Secondly, the UDHR-based benevolence is guaranteed in its existence by two declarations worldwide agreed to and ratified by two 1966 International Covenants. Hence, the UDHR-based “Tianxia” is not a gift from heaven or a product of political expedience and it has the potential of remaining valid in any kind of civilization or political regime and regardless of any cultural or political change. It is interesting to notice that the legal foundation of a UDHR-based “Tianxia” provides strength rather than detracting from the principle of a harmonious society. Thirdly, the UDHR-based “Tianxia” is not about a general benevolence toward humanity, but it is about the protection of the rights and interests of each individual. Fourthly, a strongly implemented UDHR-based “Tianxia” is the best guarantee of social harmony since the latter would spontaneously emerge from the attainment of personal and family fulfillments by each individual. Fifthly, we wouldn’t need Tondong’s principle that society is more important than the individual; actually, quite the contrary is true since an harmonious and equal society would be guaranteed by the attainment of individual rights.Sixthly, even the principle that in civilized states “humane duties override sovereignty,” as per Tongdong’s formulation, is also of questionable usefulness because in liberal democracies the right of each individual entails a duty to respect other people’s rights. At this point, it is quite clear that the major difference between the civilizational “Tianxia” proposed by Xi Jinping and Confucian scholars of Mainland China, on the one hand, and the UDHR-based “Tianxia” I am suggesting, on the other hand, lies in the fact that the UDHR recognizes not only the intrinsic dignity and equality of each individual but also his/her rights to freedom and equality of opportunities. In other words, the core difference between the “Tianxia” proposed by our friends from Mainland China and a UDHR-based “Tianxia” lies in the issue of whether the individual is capable of self-determination in deciding what human rights and needs are. Then, the real question to be determined is whether in the early Confucianism of the civilizational “Tianxia” the individual was considered just a passive pawn at the mercy of a benevolent ruler and/or the literate elite or rather it was an individual capable of self-determination.

An Unsuspected Help: The Notion of a Free and Self-determining Individual in the Early Confucian Masters I have done some readings in philosophical journals on this issue, and I have found a range of opinions with a balance clearly in support of a self-determining individual in classic Confucian thinkers. There is a somewhat older and negative opinion of

1110

I. Rossi

such Western scholars as Herbert Fingarette (1972), Joel Kupperman (1981), and Henry Rosemont (1998) who thought that early Confucians did not think in terms of such concepts as agent, choice, decisions, action, and made no distinction between human actions and natural events. However, the rest of the authors I found dealing with this issue express the opposite view in a variety of formulations. The well-known author Joseph Chan (2002 and 2013) has provided an affirmative answer using the tools of Western scholarship. He finds that “zhi” is the Chinese equivalent term of “free will” and that in ancient Confucianism the individual was a master of his moral life; that is he was in possession of “moral autonomy.” As per Emmanual Kant’s definition, “moral autonomy” entails two characteristics: a) a voluntary endorsement of moral life, that is a will-based endorsement; b) “a reflective engagement in moral life,” that is a moral understanding developed through “personal reflection, deliberation and judgment” (Chan 2013:134). Would any individual need more autonomy to be capable of self-determination? Chan asserts that moral autonomy supports civil liberties to a certain degree and to a certain point, although it is not sustained enough to support an oppressive moral community nor a liberal-open society (2013:133). Here I rest my case, since some support of civil liberties seems more in line with a liberal democracy than an oppressive community. Joseph Chan contends that Confucianism could adapt to new circumstances and can support even a “liberal open society,” if it would incorporate a “personal autonomy.” The latter consists in the recognition of morality as self-legislation, and the recognition of morality as a radical-free expression of the individual’s will, but the former is a Kantian notion and the second one is based on the modern theory of expressivism. As both of these notions are beyond the socio-political and intellectual milieu of ancient Confucianism, one should expect them to be missing in early Confucian thinkers. We cannot judge how progressive their thought was on the basis of Kantian categories developed in later millennia, although it would be a different matter if one were to formulate neo-Confucian theories. Another group of scholars provides an unqualified affirmative answer by stating that the early Confucians had the notions of subject, action, intentions, and mental states affine to the same notions of Western Christian, Cartesian, Kantian philosophies (Nivison 1996, Schwartz 1985 and other authors). The Seoul-based scholar MyeongSeok Kim (2013) found in the texts of the three major early Confucian thinkers, Confucius, Mencius, and Xunzi, if not the terms, clearly expressed the notions of “freedom, choice, and responsibility” in a way comparable to the Western usage of the terms. He argues the following points: (1) a sensible reading of the Analects supports the interpretation that Confucius thought about choices among different ends or alternatives, that (2) the notion of choice through deliberation involving the assessment of the relative weight of different alternatives is quite explicit in Mencius and Xunzi, and that (3) these thinkers well discussed the concept of freedom from external and internal constraints in the agent’s choice behavior and they also discussed the responsibility entailed by such free choices.

57 Toward a New Globalization Paradigm …

1111

George Tsai (2019) of the University of Hawaii has recently provided a positive answer also to this question, but one more attuned to the socio-political and intellectual milieu of the early Confucians. In fact, he states that early Confucian thinkers had the notion of human actions with intentions, purpose, and deliberation without the notion of a subject as distinct from the actions or without the notion of a will as a mental action mediating between decisions. Stated differently, early Confucians had the notion of human actions but not the notion of an inner subject behind, before and causative of the actions. So, the subject exists in the action and the action is a manifestation of self, which, however, is not considered a cause of the action. After analyzing texts of the “Analects,” George Tsai concludes: “I have argued that, insofar as the early Confucians were capable of distinguishing between actions and mere natural events, they did have the notions of agent, action, and choice. But, crucially, this does not mean that they conceived of the relation between agent and deed in either ‘inner’ or causal terms. Instead, for the early Confucians, the relationship between agent and deed was seen as one of expression (or actualization). On this picture, the agent is not ‘behind’ and ‘before’ the deed, but rather comes to be realized through the deed.” Again, we cannot judge Confucian thinkers by much later developments. In fact, we saw in the introduction that the notion of “subjective human right” in the sense of a quality or a capability possessed by a subject did not emerge until the Middle Ages. Similarly, only then emerged the notion of a “will” as a mental action of a subject in decision-making. Speaking of explanations attuned to the Confucian milieu, I find particularly convincing the contention of the Hong Kong-based scholar Rina Marie Camus (2018) that the best way to clarify this issue is not to use concept extraneous to Confucianism but to study in the early Confucian texts the practices and beliefs surrounding the archer’s metaphor. Archery was very pervasive during the Zhou dynasty as it appeared in hunting, rituals and examination, sports, and warfare. Confucius stated that student should attend to self-cultivation by practicing six noble arts, among which were morality, ritual dance, and archery. One important function of archery was to develop the spirit of gentleman by performing it in ritualistic manner, gracefully, and elegantly. Camus shows how passages of the “Analects” or “Selected Sayings” of Confucius exhibit the archer as a model of exemplary conduct and self-cultivation and as exhibiting in his ritualistic performance “a strong sense of self, autonomy, and responsibility.” For Mencius also archery was an important part of education aimed at enlightening human relations. Camus endorses the thick notion of agency proposed by Erica Brindley’s (2010), affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania, to describe early Chinese thought as one that “grants individuals the freedom to make decisions for themselves and to shape the course of their own lives to the fullest degree that they can and should—all from within a complicated and rich system of interrelationships.” Camus concludes that in the early Confucian texts one can find a clear usage of agency and freedom in their common meaning as well as “purposeful activity and self-determination.” Regrettably, my limited search has not come across recent discussions of this issue by Mainland Chinese authors.

1112

I. Rossi

As to the notion of civil liberties, we already saw that Chan finds them supported by the Confucian notion of “moral autonomy.” Victoria Tin-bor Hui (2005), a Columbia University-trained scholar, studied the “Spring and Autumn” and “Warring States” periods of China, invoked by Xi Jinping as well as Van Ning and Bai Tongdong, and asserted that at that time prevailed a system of sovereign territorial states similar to the early modern European period. She finds that in both cases war was prominent with the formation of alliances, centralized bureaucracy, and trade expansion, but she also finds the notion of citizenship rights. The Singaporean scholar Chenyang Li (2014) finds in Confucian philosophy a clear notion of freedom, but not a freedom entailing free will as rather a freedom of making choices, including choosing the good. Still, such a competence-based freedom leaves plenty of room for civil liberties. To be sure Confucian civil liberties are communally based in the sense that the liberties can be realized in societal interaction and they derive their validity from their effect on society. This notion was certainly a good step in the right direction and can be incorporated in the UDHR-based “Tianxia.” I interpret May Sim’s (2013) position to be close to my way of thinking on a possible complementarity between a Confucian and a UDHR-based notion on the role of the individual in society, once we avoid extreme formulations of either one of them. In fact, Sim argues that Confucian values can accommodate both the first and second generation rights without succumbing to a pluralism of values, especially those which glorify an individual’s rights and freedoms without regard for the good of the community. By the same token, Western thinkers can hold on to their civil and political rights and reexamine whether values like the Confucian’s approach to education and civic virtues may offer resources to remedy their moral and social problems. If and until all the cited authors remain unchallenged, we can argue that the ancient civilizational “Tianxia” and the UDHR have in common the following principles: 1) rulers must be benevolent toward each one of their subjects on moral grounds (which in the West is the intrinsic dignity of each individual); 2) rulers’ benevolence should take care not only of socio-economic needs, as Xi Jinping holds, but also of cultural and political rights which purposeful and self-determining individuals demand. This UDHR-based “Tianxia” is strengthened by two additional principles, which are missing in the “civilizational” or classic notion of Tianxia: a) rulers’ benevolence is insured to continue because it is demanded by law. Hence, there is no contradiction between morality and law, as stated by some Confucian scholars; b) human benevolence and its legal enforcement takes place within the context of the nation-state, which is in charge of protecting the law. Hence, the tension between civilizational “Tianxia” and nation-state, which is present in Xi’s statements, is eliminated. Tongdong Bai (2019) deserves credit for attempting to reconcile Confucianism with liberal democracy with the help of the early Confucian thinkers who, in his words, have embraced the ideas of equality, upward mobility, and accountability, although allegedly they had reservations about the notion of democratic self -governance (“rule by the people”). In Bai’s estimation the dangers of a democratic self-governance would be avoided by the intervention of the meritocratic elite

57 Toward a New Globalization Paradigm …

1113

who would promote virtues in people. The issue of joining meritocracy with democracy, which was pioneered by Daniel Bell and other writers, would take us into a new controversial territory. Suffice to say that we wouldn’t need to educate people via a literate elite because the UDHR clearly states that individuals have no just rights but also duties, that the state has the duty to help the individual in the fulfillment of her/his potential, and that the educational system ought to attend to this task also. At this point, we should exhort Bai to further develop his line of inquiry without abandoning the notion of emerging civil liberties of the “Warring States” period of China whose presence at those historical times he forgets to mention.

On Further Civilizational Complementarities in Support of a UDHR-Based “Tianxia” A universal acceptance of a UDHR-based “Tianxia” would entail the incorporation of additional civilizational elements. It is apparent from Table 6 that collectivism and moral and religious values of the first three columns can be helpful in mitigating the excesses of individualism and materialism at times present in countries supporting liberal democracy and the UDHR. Hence, Van Ning is correct in stating that collectivism and individualism can coexist if they avoid extreme formulations. Amentahru Wahlrab and Rebecca A Otis state in their contribution to this volume that “Islamists regard good government as one that promotes participation, rule of law, transparency, responsiveness, equity and inclusiveness, efficiency, accountability, dignity, and justice.” These social standards are fine as programmatic principles and are compatible with a UDHR-based “Tianxia” as long as they are not authoritatively imposed by political leaders in suppression of individual rights. But what about the proclaimed superiority of civilizations based on religious and ethical-foundations? One should attribute some merits to Xi Jinping’s and Putin’s emphases on the need to inject moral and religious values in the contemporary world. But there are plenty of ethical principles in countries of liberal democracy so that there is no need to borrow ethical and religious principles of imperial and absolutist eras which were designed to support political authorities all too often trespassing ethical and religious norms. Moreover, those ethical and religious principles did not prevent warfare and bloody repressions throughout the history of the Hindu, Orthodox, Islamic civilizations and not even during the Confucian civilizations. In regard to the latter, Yuri Pines (2012) discusses tensions among the many internal political actors of China, including the emperor, the literati, local elites, and rebellious commoners; moreover, the imperial rule was continuously negotiated on its details. Both modern and traditional scholars recognize that “periodic disastrous collisions, widespread corruption, the inadequacy of many rulers and of their officials” were persistent weaknesses of China. Hence, the ethical or religious nature of, respectively, the civilizational “Tianxia” of the Zhou dynasty era and of the “Sobornost” of the Russian Orthodox civilization (see Ilia and Leonova’s paper) would hardly demonstrate the inferiority of a UDHR-based

1114

I. Rossi

“Tianxia” because the latter is based on the ethical view that each individual has an intrinsic dignity; it recognizes freedom of religious expression and ensures the enduring protection of individual rights by sanctioning them with the force of law. One could argue in favor of Xi’s claim that Confucian civilization can offer a moral antidote to the materialistic values of the West. However, we must avoid gross oversimplifications. Religious and other non-materialistic values have been playing a role all along in liberal democracies as exemplified by home-grown criticisms of materialistic and exploitative tendencies of capitalism. Both social critics and religious thinkers and authorities have raised those criticisms, although religion plays no longer a political role in Western public life following the end of the absolutist era. The need for an elite to control public morality has been replaced by the principles of accountability which applies to both rulers and ruled people so that a return to the past abuses by secular and religious elites is prevented. In summary, the claim that in the West only materialistic values prevail is plainly false in practice as well as acceptable standards. Finally, how can we omit that Westerners have been observing plenty of replicas all over the world of the Western strives for economic growth and material consumption? As to the presumed evils of the separation of Church and state as vented by many Islamists, we do not need to remind our interlocutors of the political atrocities of the era when kings pretended to be appointed by God, made the church subservient to their need and co-owned with religious authorities most of the material wealth of their countries? And what about the soaring issue of the absence of individual rights and social equities in Islamic theocracies and the other autocracies? Rightly, Alexander Chumakov states in his essay that “all attempts to explain the new global world by using old categories and established approaches do not give the desired result.” We can conclude our inter-civilizational experiment with the following conclusions: 1) Inter-civilization dialogue among different cultural spheres is possible even in the case of civilizations with incompatible political systems; 2) an open-minded dialogue among different and even opposite cultural systems can lead to less extreme cultural formulations and to the discovery of cultural complementarities among different civilizations; 3) a UDHR-based “Tianxia” which integrates the moral tenets of the civilizational “Tianxia” with a non-overtly individualistic interpretation of human rights is consistent with the writings of the classic Confucian masters and would clear the conflict between civilizational superiority and national sovereignty from the Chinese Dream as formulated by Xi Jinping. Roland Robertson (1987) has stated that “intercivilizational encounters have now come to contribute an almost globally institutionalized and thematized phenomenon. Such encounters set civilization within the context of the world as a single place.” Inglis (210:160) states that “interacting civilizations make “globalization”, but “globalization” makes and remakes those very civilizations themselves.” Our intercivilizational approach has produced a UDHR-based “Tianxia” which has the potential of resetting contemporary civilizational claims and counterclaims on a constructive path.

57 Toward a New Globalization Paradigm …

1115

Let me formulate principles for further inter-civilizational endeavors.

Principles for Inter-civilization Dialogue and Learning 1.

Every civilization has enriched humankind with systems of meaning, governance, and technology, all of which are essential components of a civilization; 2. As a product of human inventions and aspirations, each civilization ought to be not only respected but also treasured by all humans; 3. Historically, civilizations have influenced and enriched each other and they ought to continue to do so as to strengthen the civilizational heritage from which all have benefited; 4. No civilization can claim to be a superior role model for other civilizations to follow; 5. Each civilization has the right to set the path of its own development as long as it recognizes the same right to all other civilizations; 6. Hardly any contemporary civilizational development can occur on the basis of values formulated in pre-modern and pre-technological societies; 7. Assessments about the strengths and weaknesses of different civilizations are encouraged as long as the historical context and the value systems of the civilization being assessed are taken into account; 8. The principles of historical and cultural specificity of each civilizational development prevent outright transplantations of civilizational traits from one civilizational era to another, such as, for instance, from the civilizations of imperial and Absolutist eras to post-Enlightenment democratic civilizations; 9. By the same token, we should not violate the principles of historical and cultural specificity by using concepts explaining traits of one civilizational era to describe traits of a different civilizational era. For instance, the terms “democracy,” “liberty,” “modernization,” and “human rights” may have different meanings in different historical contexts. 9. Inter-civilizational learning must be encouraged as long as the borrowed civilizational traits are not altered or corrupted to enhance the competitive advantages of the borrowing civilization, as, for instance, if a country adopts capitalism with the exclusions of private property and free competition. Civilizational innovations are, of course, to be expected and encouraged, but let us not pretend that “state capitalism” is not a form of monopoly capitalism which is incompatible with market capitalism. 10. An outstanding example of inter-civilizational exchange is the strengthening of civilizational “Tianxia” with a self-determining individual and legal enforcement within the parameters of nation-state. Another good example is the balancing out of the UDHR with the communal and moral concerns of “Tianxia.”

1116

I. Rossi

Finally, let us remember that a UDHR-based “Tianxia” is about individual benevolence toward every human being by supporting each individual’s fulfillment on an equal basis. Hence, a UDHR-based “Tianxia” provides also a master path to resolve the distortions produced by capitalist globalization.

Whither Capitalism Under the Guidance of a UDHR-Based “Tianxia”? New Trajectories for a Democratic and Human-Focused Globalization In my inter-civilization approach capitalism is the core of the economic sphere of civilizations and, as we have seen, it is at the center of the contemporary confrontation between nations sponsoring state capitalism and those sponsoring market capitalism. Smith (2017: 90 ff.) argues that a “deep engagement in economic relations’ has been one of the four dimension of inter-civilizational exchange together with migration and cultural and political exchanges. Economic relations have taken the forms of commerce, practices of trust building, networks of long-distance trade, and, in the last five hundred years, “the imaginary institution of forms of capitalism” (p. 82). Various forms of capitalism have emerged from confrontation between capitalist expansion and the resistance from other institutions of modernizing Western civilization. Jeremy C. A. Smith argues that the Chinese civilization has been more porous, for learning from others civilizations as well influencing them, than older Eurocentric nations (p. 105). Then, one wonders why contemporary China is not open to universal human rights. Moreover, capitalism is expanded in interaction with modernizing cultural and political institutions; it would be an historical nonsense to force it to interact and be submitted to autocratic regimes, which are continuation of old/pre-modern traditions. There is, however, a common task facing both totalitarian and democratic forms of capitalism: how to cope with inequalities, exclusions, and other forms of social dysfunctions which have become a universal human condition (see Holton essay). World nations must also deal with the threat to democracy stemming from the steep inequalities produced by capitalism, as discussed by Wu (2017) and is also amply documented in this volume. There is an additional negative impact of capitalism which is specific to developing nations: capitalism not only prevents a de facto equal access to resources, but even corrupts the notion of democracy and the principle of equality of opportunities by co-opting procedural forms of law and liberal democracy rather than implementing substantive reforms (see the essays by Arceneaux and Tan, respectively, on Latin America and Indonesia). For all these reasons all world countries ought to accept a UDHR-based “Tianxia” as an effective path for striving toward individual equality and dignity in a framework of inter-cultural sensitivity. A strongly enforced UDHR-based “Tianxia” would reorient cultural, economic, and political globalization as follows: (a) all states would finally attend to the urgency of guaranteeing equality rights, freedom and equality of opportunities for each individual; this is a clear direction for cultural globalization;

57 Toward a New Globalization Paradigm …

1117

(b) all states would empower people with legal and political means to pursue their rights to equal opportunities; this is a clear trajectory for political globalization as indicated in the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR); (c) all state governments would enable each individual to de facto secure access to the socio-economic resources necessary for personal fulfillment and for family life standards respectable in the respective communities; this is a clear and robust trajectory for economic globalization as indicated in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). We saw at the beginning of this introduction that several surveys of the world opinion document that this triple enhancement of human capabilities is central to people’s aspirations everywhere. We must notice that there is a clear progression of human enhancements from endorsing the principle of equal rights (cultural globalization) to enabling people with political and legal means to achieve them (political globalization) to a de facto accessing individual socio-economic resources (economic globalization). This triple level of implementation entails an increasing level of commitment by state governments and an increasing difficult achievement by people as well. This is illustrated in Fig. 1. I add ecological globalization because it is a prerequisite for a long-term sustainability of the trajectories of political and economic globalization. 1. On the vertical line are represented individual rights which must be eventually supplemented by collective rights as we move upward from the implementation of cultural rights to the political rights and, then, to real access to socio-economic resources. To overcome the increasing difficulty of this progression in rights attainment, we should add communal or collective or group rights in support of

Individual Rights

Collecve Rights

Fig. 1 Levels of implementation of universal human rights

Societal Sustainability (Ecological globalizaon) Economic

Gained

globalizaon

resources

Polical

Legal rights

globalization Cultural

Values,

globalizaon

aspiraons

LEVELS OF IMPLEMENTATION

1118

I. Rossi

individual rights, especially when dealing with the attainment of political and economic rights, and especially in the case of minorities. 2. The bottom horizontal line ranges from a 0 level of implementation to a 100 level of implementation in the form of a Guttman scale which shows that it is easier to endorse the principles of individual rights than to implement them as a political and legal rights, and even more difficult to guarantee real access to adequate resources for everybody. 3. The diagonal line ranges from a 0 level of societal sustainability to a 100 level of sustainability. The theory is that a society with a clear notion and full acceptance of individual rights and with legislated rights and with real people’s access to adequate resources is the most sustainable of all, because of absence of discontent, conflictuality, and crime. Less sustainable is a society with no individual access to resources, and least sustainable is a society without access to political right as well as no access to resources. As already mentioned, the implementation of human rights would go a long way in the effort of reorienting globalization along more equalitarian, democratic, and human-focused directions. Beyond these basic policy corrections, we would also need to formulate policy guidelines for governmental and corporate agencies in the areas of climate change, extractivism, trade, financial markets, and taxation. Satgar’s paper offers important strategic guidelines, and the paper by Ola Leonova and Ilyin discusses principles of global governance. Moreover, the inter-governmental agreement “The Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration,” which was signed on December 19, 2018 is of particular importance considering that there are more than 258 million migrants living outside their country of birth. Migration is an important right for the individuals and would provide opportunities for the host country if supported by needed structural reforms. Not to mention the huge vulnerabilities and inequalities which are connected to the problem of illegal migration as discussed in the papers by Dürrschmidt and Schaeffer. The issue of sustainability and ecological globalization demands that we include explicit references to survival strategies of our Planet Earth, which are the focus of Sklair and Tepper’s essays. I propose the following elaborations and extensions of principles discussed in UN documents to ensure that space explorations contribute to the survival and betterment of humankind.

Guidelines for a Sustainable Cosmic Order 1.

2.

Cosmic space or any part thereof may not be the subject of national appropriation or ownership by any person. There shall be free access to cosmic space for all, and withdrawal and management rights may be allocated to states or persons on a temporary basis. The exploration and scientific investigation of outer space is open to all.

57 Toward a New Globalization Paradigm …

3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

1119

Activities of exploration and scientific investigation of outer space shall not be made in a way to interfere or prevent other such activities. Every activity and scientific exploration in space should have peaceful purposes. Every state should have free access to the research findings of space exploration. International cooperation and mutual assistance in space research, including possible space accidents or hazardous missions, should be encouraged. Every state should ratify the 1967 Outer Space Treaty and consider ratifying the other space law treaties. Every state should comply with ratified space treaties and consult with the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) when unanticipated issues or controversies may arise. Special attention should be placed on avoiding harmful contaminations of space so that states ought to carefully regulate and monitor activities in space including those carried out by non-state entities and commercial activities. Any contamination will be immediately reported to nearby persons and installations and to UNOOSA. The source of contamination shall remedy the situation and report on the effectiveness of the remedy to the UNOOSA. The executor of potentially harmful or controversial activities shall notify UNOOSA in advance of the activity and shall carefully monitor the activity and its outcomes and provide UNOOSA with report thereupon. The UN shall transform the UN committee on space into a UN space agency and, besides being a member of the UN space agencies, each state should have a scientific agency for space exploration. The main task of the scientific agency is to ensure that space exploration contribute to the betterment of humankind on earth as well as to the preservation and enhancement of the cosmos. The UN shall establish a UN scientific space agency and, besides being a member of the UN space agencies, each state may have a scientific agency for space exploration. The main task of the scientific agency is to ensure that space exploration contribute to the betterment of humankind on earth as well as to the preservation and enhancement of the cosmos. Every year the UN international scientific space agency should submit to the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) a report on the successes, failures, and prospects of space exploration. Any issue concerning the scientific validity and legality of any space project, its execution, and outcomes should be submitted to the scientific and technical sub-committee and to the legal sub-committee of the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (UN-COPUOS).8

As a general principle, cooperation in space will be difficult without cooperation and harmony on Earth.

8 Information

on the UN “Space Law Treaties and Principles” can be found at http://www. unoosa.org/oosa/en/ourwork/spacelaw/treaties.html. For proposed “Articles of Collaboration” and “Guiding Principles for Commercial Rendez-wous and Proximity Operations” see https://www.ame ricanbar.org/groups/air_space/events_cle/2019_space_law/. I thank Eytan Tepper for his comments and suggestions on these guidelines.

1120

I. Rossi

We end our itinerary with the reaffirmation of the basic law we began with in this volume: “the more complex and intrusive social institutions have become in human history, the greater the efforts at human enhancement have been.” We have discussed how that law is based on the balanced combination of the principle of individuation and social integration as co-constitutive principles of human societies. The individual develops its identity by enacting social roles, while social groups would not exist without interlocking social roles; globalization would not take place without glocalizing individuals; and in the absence of non-Western communalism it would be difficult to balance out Western individualism. In this sense the best chance of survival for humankind is the marriage of the “odd couple,”—the Eastern societal bride of Confucian, Islamic, Russian Orthodox provenance, which emphasizes relational and communal concerns, and the macho groom of the individualistic West so much programmed to individual achievement and entrepreneurial undertakings. Alexander Chumakov reminds us in his essay that “there is no alternative to integrated and united humankind. Therefore, in order to preserve civilization, a common civilization, we should establish not only common principles and rules of cohabitation on the planet, but also the firm principle of a common responsibility for the destiny of every person. In a global world, which is culturally and civilizationally interwoven, not only global problems, but also individual outcasts, such as pariah states (for example, North Korea) pose serious dangers. It is not clear, whether a society responsible for each person or group may become a factual reality”. Let us hope that humankind will rise to the level of a heightened inter-civilizational awareness and endorse a UDHR-based “Tianxia”: the latter looms as the only hopeful pathway to correct the inequalities of globalization as well as to replace global confrontations with inter-civilizational principles of world order.

References Albrow, Martin. 2014. Global age essays on social and cultural change. Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann. Alexander, Jeffrey C., with Philip Smith (2003) ‘The Strong Program in Cultural Sociology’. In: Jeffrey C. Alexander, The Meanings of Social Life: A Cultural Sociology, pp. 11–26. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ampuja, Marko (2014) Strong and weak forms of mediatization theory: A critical review. Nordicom Review 35:111–123 · September 2014. Appadurai, A. (1993) The Production of Locality. Paper presented at the ASA IV Decennial Conference. Oxford, July. Appadurai, A. (2001) Grassroots Globalization and the Research Imagination. In: Globalization, edited by Arjun Appadurai, 1–21. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, p 1–20. Arjomand, S.A. 2014. Three Generations of Comparative Sociologies. In Social Theory and Regional Studies in the Global Age, ed. S.A. Arjomand, 23–61. New York: SUNY Press. Arjomand, S.A., and E. Tiryakian (eds.). 2004. Rethinking Civilizational Analysis. London: Sage. Arnason, Johann P. 2003. Civilizations in dispute: historical questions and theoretical traditions. Leiden: Brill. Arnason, Johann P. (2010a). Civilizational Analysis: A Paradigm in the Making. In: Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems. World Civilizations and History of Human Development. Paris: UNESCO.

57 Toward a New Globalization Paradigm …

1121

Arnason, Johann P. (2010b). Domains and perspectives of civilizational analysis. European Journal of Social Theory, 13 (1), 5–13. Asp, K. 1990. Medialization, media logic and mediarchy. Nordicom Review 11 (2): 47–50. Axford, Barrie. 2018. The World Making-Power of New Media: Mere Connection?. New York: Routledge. Bai, Tongdong (2019) Against Political Equality: The Confucian Case. Princeton. NY: Princeton University Press. Bai, Tongdong. 2020. Against Political Equality: the Confucian Case. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Baudrillard, J. 1983. Simulations. New York: Columbia University Press. Bauman, Zygmunt (2005). Liquid Life. Polity Press. Beck, U., and C. Lau. 2005. Second modernity as a research agenda: theoretical and empirical explorations in the ‘meta-change’ of modern society. British Journal of Sociology 56 (4): 525–557. Bolt, Paul J., and Sharyl N. Cross. 2018. China. Russia and Twenty-First Century Global geopolitics: OXFOD University Press. Bourdieu, P. 1993. The Field of Cultural Production. Cambridge: Polity Press. Brazilian Journal of Political Economy “Ten theses on new develop mentalism* . 2011. Vol 31 (5) 9 NO PAGE NUMBER Available http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S010131572012000200011. Brindley, Erica F. 2010. Individualism in Early China: Human Agency and the Self in Thought and Politics. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. Bude, H., and J. Dürrschmidt. 2010. What’s wrong with globalization contra ‘flow speak’—towards an existential turn in the theory of globalization. European Journal of Social Theory 13 (4): 481–500. Camus, Marie. 2018.“I am Not a Sage but an Archer: Confucius on Agency and Freedom” Philosophy East and West, Vol 68, pp. 1042–1061. Carrai, Maria Adele. 2017a. “Translating Authority. In Search of Commensurability between Tianxia World Order and Western Sovereignty” in Translation and Modernization in East Asia in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries, ed. Lawrence Wang-chi Wong. Chinese University Press: Published by. Carrai, Maria Adele. 2017. 2019. Sovereignty in China, A Genealogy of a Concept Since 1840. Cambridge Studies in International and Comparative Law Series. Cambridge University Press. Castells, Manul. 2009. The Rise of Network Society. New York: Wiley-Blackwell. Castoriadis, Cornelius.1998. The Imaginary Institution of Society. French original 1975. MIT Press. Chan, Joseph. 2002. Moral Autonomy, Civil Liberties, and Confucianism. Philosophy East and West 52 (3): 281–310. Chan, Joseph. 2013. Confucian Perfectionism: A Political Philosophy for Modern Times. Princeton University Press. China Focus: South-South Human Rights Forum calls for protection of people’s right to development. 2017. Xinhua Net. 2017-12-08. http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2017-12/08/c_1368 11879.htm accessed October 20, 2019. Collier, Paul. 2018. The Future of Capitalism: Facing the New Anxieties. New York: Harper Collins Publisher. Council on Foreign Relations. 2009. “Public Opinion on Global Issues.Chapter 8: World Opinion on Human Rights” www.cfr.org/public_opinion. November 2009; file:///C:/Users/InoHP/Downloads/POPCH8HumanRights.pdf. Declaration Toward a Global Ethic. 1993. Global Ethic Foundation at https://www.global-ethic.org/ declaration-toward-a-global-ethic/ Accessed August 25, 2019. DESA- Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations Secretariat. 2006. https:// www.un.org/esa/socdev/documents/ifsd/SocialJustice.pdf. Dürrschmidt, Jörg, and Kautt York (eds.). 2019. Globalized Eating Cultures. Mediation and Mediatization. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

1122

I. Rossi

Elias, Norbert. 1994. The Civilizing Process: Sociogenetic and Psychogenetic Investigations. Oxford, Uk: Blackwell. Elliott, Anthony, and Bryan S. Turner. 2012. On Society. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. Ferguson, Adam. 1995. An Essay on the History of Civil Society. In Cambridge, ed. Fania OzSalzberger. UK: Cambridge University Press. Fingarette, Herbert. 1972. Confucius: The Secular as Sacred. New York: Harper and Row. Formas, Johan. 2014. “CUlturalizing Mediation” in “Mediatized Worlds: Culture and Society in a Media Age” edited by Andreas Hepp and. Friedrich Krotz. 2014. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, pp. 38–53. Foster, Max Jakob. 2013. Legitimation of a ‘Marginal Dynasty’: The Great Xia in Sichuan 1362– 1371—A case study. Ming Qing Studies, pp. 71–116. https://www.academia.edu/4426636/Leg itimation_of_a_Marginal_Dynasty_The_Great_Xia_in_Sichuan_1362-1371_A_case_study Habermas, J. 1988. Theorie des Kommunicativen Handelns. Bd II. Zur Kritik des funktionalistischen Vernunft. Frankfurt am Main:Suhrkamp. Haidt, J. 2012. The righteous mind: why good people are divided by politics and religion. New York: Vintage. Hall, M., and P.T. Jackson. 2007. Introduction: Civilizations and International Relations Theory’. In Civilizational Identity: The Production and Reproduction of ‘Civilizations’ in International Relations, ed. M. Hall and P.T. Jackson, 1–12. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Hannerz, U. (ed.). 1990. Medier och Kuturer. Stockholm: Carlsson. Harvey, David. 2015. Seventeen Contradictions and the End of Capitalism. Oxford University Press. Held, David and Anthony McGrew, Donald Goldblatt and Jonathan Perraton. 1999. Global Transformations: Politics, Economics, Culture Stanford, Ca: Stanford University Press. Hepp, Andreas and Friedrich Krotz. 2014. “Mediatized Worlds- Understanding Everyday Mediatization” in Mediatized Worlds: Culture and Society in a Media Age, pp. 1–18. Hjarvard, S. 2008. The Mediatization of society. A Theory of the Media as Agents of Social and Cultural Change. Nordicom Review 29: 105–34. Hjarvard, S. 2017. “The Mediatization of Society” in Nordicon Review, Vol.19, issue 2, Feb. 14. Hui, Victoria Tin-bor. 2005. War and State Formation in Ancient China and Early Modern Europe..Cambridge University Press. Inglis, David. 2010. Civilizations or globalization(s)? Intellectual rapprochements and historical world-visions. European Journal of Social Theory 13 (1): 135–152. James, Paul. 2006. Globalism, Nationalism, Tribalism: Bringing Theory Back in. London: Sage. Jansson. Andre’. 2013. Mediatization and Social Space: Reconstructing Mediatization for the Transmedia Age. Communication Theory 23: 279–296. Jansson. Andre’. 2018. “Mediatization as a Framework for Social Design: For a Better Life with Media” The Journal of the Design Studies Forum. Volume 10, Issue 3. February 14, pages 233– 252. Kapustin, B. 2009 “Some political meanings of ‘civilization’, Diogenes, 222 & 223, 151–69. Katzenstein, P.J. 2010. A World of Plural and Pluralist Civilizations: Multiple Actors, Traditions, and Practices. In Civilizations in World Politics: Plural and Pluralist Perspectives, ed. P.J. Katzenstein, 1–40. London: Routledge. Kern, Martin. 2015 ”Language and the Ideology of Kingship in the “Canon of Yao” in Ideology of Power and Power of Ideology in Early China edited by Yuri Pines, Paul. Goldin, Martin Kern. Leiden: Brill, p 31–48. Kim, Myeong-Seok. 2013. “Choice, Freedom, and Responsibility in Ancient Chinese Confucianism”, Philosophy East and West, Vol 63, Number 1, January 2013, 17–28. Knorr-Cetina, K. 2008. “Microglobalization” in Frontiers of Globalization Research, edited by Ino Rossi. Springer, pp. 65–92. Knorr-Cetina, K. 2009. The Synthetic Situation: Interactionism for a Global World. Symbolic Interaction, Vol. 32, Issue 1, pp. 61–87.

57 Toward a New Globalization Paradigm …

1123

Knorr-Cetina, K. 2014a: Institutionalist theorising. In R. Swedberg (ed.), Theorizing the Social Sciences: Turning to the Context of Discovery, pp. 121–136. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press. Knorr-Cetina, K. 2014b “Scopic Media and Global Coordination: The Mediatization of Face-toFace-Encounters.” In Handbook Mediatization of Communication, edited by Knut Lundby, 63– 86. Berlin: De Gruyter. Knorr Cetina, Karin; Werner Reichmann and Nico Woermann. Forthcoming. Dimensionen und Dynamiken Synthetischer Gesellschaften” In: Friedrich Krotz, Cathrin Despotovic and MerleMarie Kruse (eds.), Mediatisierung als Metaprozess. Wiesbaden. Knorr Cetina, Karin; Reichmann, Werner; Woermann, Niklas (2017): Dimensionen und Dynamiken synthetischer Gesellschaften.Mediatisierung ALS Metaprozess: Transformationen, Formen der Entwicklung und die Generierung von Neuem/ Krotz, Friedrich; Despotovi´c, Cathrin; Kruse, Merle-Marie (Hrs.).Wiesbaden: Springer VS, 2017. Kupperman, Joel. 1981. Confucian Ethics and Weakness of Will. Journal of Chinese Philosophy 8 (1): 1–8. Lakatos, Irme. 1980. The Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes: Philosophical Papers Volume 1. In Cambridge, ed. John Worrall. UK: Cambridge University Press. Latour, Bruno. 2005. Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory. Oxford University Press. Lawyers’ Rights Watch Canada. International Human Rights Law: Non-Treaty Standards”. https:// www.lrwc.org/education/international-law/non-treaty-standards/ accessed July 21, 2019. Levenson, Joseph R. 1952. ‘T’ien-hsia and Kuo, and the “Transvaluation of Values”’, The Far Eastern Quarterly, Vol. 11, No. 4 (August): 447–451. Li, Chenyang. 2014.”The Confucian Conception of Freedom.” Philosophy East and West, vol. 64 no. 4, pp. 902–919. Livingstone, S. M. 2009; in Journal of Communication 59 (1), quoted in “Mediatized Worlds: Culture and Society in a Media Age” edited by Andreas Hepp and Friedrich Krotz. 2014. New York: Palgrave MacMillan. Luhmann, Niklas. 2000 [1996]. The reality of the mass media. Cambridge: Polity Press. Lundby K. 2009. “Mediatization” as Key. Mediatization: Concepts, Changes, Consequences. New York: Peter Lang, p. 1–18. Mazlish, B. 2004. Civilization and Its Contents. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Milanovic, Branco. 2019. Capitalism, Alone: The Future of the System That Rules the World. Cambridge, Ma: Belknap Press. Miller, J. 2019. Mediatization and the Internet of Things. Cultural Science Journal 11 (1): 1–12. Nederveen Pieterse, J. 2011. Global Rebalancing: Crisis and the East-South Turn. Development and Change 42 (1): 22–48. Nivison, David S. 1996. The Ways of Confucianism: Investigations in Chinese Philosophy. In Norden, ed. Bryan W. Van. Chicago: Open Court. Petersen, Marie Juul..June 11th, 2018. Islam and human rights: Clash or compatibility? https:// blogs.lse.ac.uk/religionglobalsociety/2018/06/islam-and-human-rights-clash-or-compatibility/. Piketty, Thomas, 2020.Capital and Ideology. Translated by Arthur Goldhammer. Cambridge, Ma: Harvard University Press. Pines, Yuri. 2002. “Changing Views of “Tianxia” In: Pre-imperial Discourse”. Paper based on a presentation to the 14th EACS Conference in Moscow, August 2002 found in http://yuri-pinessinology.com/files/tianxia-oe.pdf accessed on Oct 25 2019. Pines, Yuri. 2012. The Everlasting Empire: The Political Culture of Ancient China and Its Imperial Legacy. Princeton University Press. Putin, Vladimir. 2012. Annual Address to the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation. Moscow: The Kremlin. http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/17118 Putin, Vladimir. 2016. Presidential Address to the Federal Assembly. Moscow: The Kremlin. http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/messages/53379.

1124

I. Rossi

———. 2018. Presidential Address to the Federal Assembly. The Kremlin, Moscow. http://en.kre mlin.ru/events/president/news/56957. Putin, Vladimir. 2019. Presidential Address to the Federal Assembly. Moscow: The Kremlin. http:// en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/59863 Qian, Kun 2016. Imperial-Time-Order: Literature, Intellectual History, and China’s Road to Empire. Brill. Rainie, Lee and Barry Wellman. 2014. Networked: the New Social Operating Sytem. MIT Press. Robertson, Roland (1987) “Globalization Theory and Civilization Analysis,” Comparative Civilizations Review”, Vol. 17: No. 17, (3). Robertson, Roland 1992. Globalization: Social Theory and Global Culture. London: Sage. Robertson, Roland 2014 “Civilization(a), Ethnoracism, Antisemitism, Sociology”. In: Antisemitism and the Constitution of Sociology edited by Marcel Stoetzler. Nebraska University Press. p. 2006– 2008. Robertson, Roland and Kathleen E. White. 2007 “What is Globalization?” in The Blackwell Companion to Globalization, edited by George Ritzer, Malden, Ma: Blackwell, p 54–66. Ron, James; Shannon Golden, David Crow, and Archana Pandya. 2017. Taking Root: Human Rights and Public Opinion in the Global South. Oxford University Press. Rosemont, Henry. 1998. Why Take Rights Seriously? A Confucian Critique. In Human Rights and the World Religions, ed. S. Leroy. Rounder. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press. Rosemont, Henry, Jr. 1991. Chinese Texts and Philosophical Contexts: Essays Dedicated to Angus C. Graham. La Salle, IL: Open Court. Rossi, Ino. 1974. The Unconscious in Culture: the Structuralism of Claude Levi-Strauss in Perspective. Ney York: Dutton. Rossi, Ino. (ed.). 2007. Frontiers of Globalization Research: Theoretical and methodological Approaches. Springer. Sassen, Saskia. 2000. Territory, Authority, Rights: from Medieval to Global Assemblages. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Schwartz, Benjamin. 1985. The World of Thought in Ancient China. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Shijun, Tong. 2006. “Chinese thought and dialogical universalism,” a chapter in Europe and Asia Beyond East and West, edited by Gerard Delanty. Routledge. Silverstone R. 2005. The sociology of mediation and communication. The Sage Handbook of Sociology. London: Sage, 2005. Silvius, R. 2015. Eurasianism and Putin’s Embedded Civilizationalism. In The Eurasian Project and Europe, ed. D. Lane and V. Samokhvalov. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Sim, May. 2013. “Rights”. Review 67 (1):3–2. Smith, Jeremy C.A. 2017. Debating Civilizations: Interrogating Civilizational Analysis in a Global Age. Manchester University Press. Steger, Manfred B., and Paul James. 2019. Globalization Matters: Engaging the Global in Unsettled Times. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Stiglitz, Joseph. 2012. The Price of Inequality: How Today’s Divided Society Endangers Our Future. NY: Norton. Stiglitz, Joseph. 2017. Globalization and Its Discontents Revisited: Anti-Globalization in the Era of Trump. New York: Norton. Stiglitz, Joseph. 2019. People, Power, and Profits: Progressive Capitalism for an Age of Discontent. New York: Norton. Thompson, J.B. 1990. Ideology and Modern Culture: Critical Social theory in the realm of mass Communication. Cambridge: Polity press. Thompson, J.B.Thompson. 1995. The Media and Modernity: A Social Theory of the Media. Cambridge: Polity Press. Tsai, George. 2019. Agent and Deed in Confucian Thought. Philosophy East and West 69 (2): 495–514.

57 Toward a New Globalization Paradigm …

1125

Tsygankov, Andrei. 2016. “Crafting the State-Civilization Vladimir Putin’s Turn to Distinct Value” in Problems of Post-Communism, May/Jun, Vol. 63, Issue 3. UN, United. 1945. Shaping Our Future Together. Full text: UN Charter. At https://www.un.org/en/ sections/un-charter/un-charter-full-text/ accessed Nov 15, 2019. U.N. 1948/2019. Universal Declaration of Human Rights. https://www.un.org/en/universal-declar ation-human-rights/ accessed July 24, 2019. UN Global Compact. 1993/2019“The Ten Principles of the UN Global Compact” https://www.ung lobalcompact.org/what-is-gc/mission/principles. UNPFA- United Nations Fund. 2015 “Core International Human Rights Instruments”. https://www. unfpa.org/resources/core-international-human-rights-instruments. Vladimir. 2015. Annual Address to the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation. The Kremlin, Moscow. http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/22931. Wang, Ban (ed.). 2017. Chinese Visions of World Oder: Tinxia, Culture, and World Politics. Durham: Duke University Press. Wang Hui. 2015.The Rise of Modern Chinese Thought (four volumes). SDX Joint Publishing Company; 3rd edition. Wang, Jingbin.2014. Review of Yuri Pines. The Everlasting Empire: The Political Culture of Ancient China and Its Imperial Legacy. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012 published in HEmpire. Weiwei, Zhang, 2011. “An Apt Example of ‘Civilizational –state’”. China Daily, 04/27, page 9. http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/opinion/2011-04/27/content_12401986.htm. Wendy Wu, Wendy; Amanda Lee; Louise Moon. 2019 “ China wants a US trade deal—but will fight back if necessary, says President Xi Jinping”. South China Morning Post. 22 Nov, 2019. https://bit.ly/2Dmn9qx; accessed Nov23 2019. Wilson, Jeanne L. 2016 “Cultural Statecraft in the Russian and Chinese Contexts: Domestic and International Implications” in Problems of Post-Communism, Volume 63, 2016 - Issue 3 y”, 135–145. Wong, Ka-Ho. 2018.Analysis of Chinese Narrative of World Order and Foreign Policy: Is China a Revisionist or Reformist Power?// Comparative Politics Russia, 2018,. No. 3, pp. 154–161. World Public Opinion.org. 2011.” Polls Find Strong International Consensus on Human Rights …D December 7, 2011. Public Opinion on Global Issues. Stewart Patrick analysis. http:// worldpublicopinion.net/polls-find-strong-international-consensus-on-human-rights/World Value Surveys 2019. “Findings and Insights”. http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/WVSContents.jsp. Wu, Guoguang. 2017. Globalization against Democracy: A Political Economy of Global Capitalism after its Global Triumph Cambridge University Press. Xi, Jinping. 2014. “Xi Jinping’s Speech in Commemoration of the 2,565th Anniversary of Confucius’ Birth”, September. http://library.chinausfocus.com/article-1534.html. Xi, Jinping.2014 a. Xi Jinping: The Governance of China, vol. 1 (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 2014. Xi, Jinping. 2015. “Working Together to Forge a New Partnership of Win-win Cooperation and Create a Community of Shared Future for Mankind “Address to 70th Session of the UN General Assembly New York, 28 September 2015. https://gadebate.un.org/sites/default/files/gastateme nts/70/70_ZH_en.pdf. Xi, Jinping 2017. “Juesheng quanmian jiancheng xiaokang shehui, duoqu xinshidai Zhongguo tese shehui zhuyi weida shengli” [Winning a Comprehensive Well-Off Society, Seize the Great Victory of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics in the New Era], report to the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC), October 18, 2017 ≈ http://jhsjk.people.cn/article/296 13458?isindex=1. Xi, Jinping 2017a. Xi Jinping: The Governance of China, vol. 2 (Beijing: Xi Jinping’s Speech on 40th Anniversary of China’s Reforms, Opening Up–Full Text. Foreign Languages Press, 2017 Xi, Jinping 2018. Xi Jinping’s Speech on 40th Anniversary of China’s Reforms, Opening Up–Full Text. BRICS, 24 DECEMBER. Transcend Media service https://www.transcend.org/tms/2018/ 12/xi-jinpings-speech-on-40th-anniversary-of-chinas-reforms-opening-up-full-text/ etc.

1126

I. Rossi

Xing, Yitian. 2011. The Tianxia as One Family: Emperor, Bureaucrats and Society]. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju. Xu Jilin. 2018. “The New Tianxia: Rebuilding China’s Internal and External Order” in MCLC RESOURCE CENTER. Modern Chinese Literature and Culture. Ohio State University. https:// u.osu.edu/mclc/2018/10/18/xu-jilin-the-new-tianxia/. Xu, Jilin.2015. “The New Tianxia: Rebuilding China’s Internal and External Order” in Xu Jilin and Liu Qing, eds. New Tianxia, Intellectuals Series no. 13: Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe; Reprinted in https://u.osu.edu/mclc/2018/10/18/xu-jilin-the-new-tianxia/. Yuan Ling, Xiandai Hanyu Cidian. 2012. The Contemporary Chinese Dictionary, Chinese English Edition, (Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press. Zhang, Feng. 2019. “The Xi Jinping Doctrine of China’s International Relations.” Asia Policy, vol. 26 no. 3, p. 7-23. Project MUSE, d. Zhang, Lei and Zhengrong Hu.2017. “Empire, Tianxia and Great Unity: A historical examination and future vision of China’s international communication”. Global Media and China, Volume: 2 issue: 2, page(s): 197–207,. Zhang, Y., and Q. Ling. 2015. SNS as Intimacy Zone: Social Intimacy, 13. Global Media Journal: Loneliness and Self-Disclosure on SNS. Zoglmann, Makenna. 2019. “Xi Jinping and Confucianism: Legitimacy and a National Moral Identity” (2019). Honors thesis at the University of Colorado. https://scholar.colorado.edu/honr_t heses/1868.