Volume 24, Number 2, November 2014
Global politics
Does globalisation make the
world a better place?
Hywel Jones
This A2 article focuses on the process of globalisation. How can it be defined? Why are
opinions so sharply divided between those who claim it is a positive force in the world and
those who believe its impact is negative? What are the arguments of the two camps?
Globalisation can be defined as the eroding of territoriality through political, economic and financial
forces. Jan Aarte Scholte defined this succinctly as ‘de-territorialization — or…the growth of
supraterritorial relations between people’. This deterritorialisation has emerged through the
intensification of social relationships through technological development.
I always advise my Year 13 pupils to be careful with any question on globalisation at A2, because as a
concept it is hard to pin down. Yet if we accept that globalisation is best defined as the gradual erosion
of the territoriality of the sovereign state, then we are left with two main ways that globalisation has
been analysed and debated by academics within international relations or global politics:

considering the extent of globalisation versus the primacy of state sovereignty

assuming globalisation has eroded state sovereignty to some extent, whether this is a positive
or negative phenomenon
I want here to focus on the second approach, which assumes that globalisation has substantively
eroded the sovereign state through the emergence of supraterritorial relations. In this view, global
political, economic and financial forces have created a global sphere where the state is in retreat, and
global norms, institutions and social forces are growing. However, opinions are divided as to whether
this is a good or bad thing.
Globalisation as a positive force
The proponents of globalisation usually focus on how it has weakened the sovereign state’s ability to
shape events. This has occurred through two main processes:

the creation of a global, universal human rights agenda

the creation of a global economic management system, which started with Bretton Woods and
has developed into the Washington Consensus
Global human rights
Pro-globalisation theorists would point to the immediate aftermath of the post-Cold War era, when the
universal human rights agenda triumphed over the Communist bloc’s clear transgressions of political
and civil rights. This triumphalist view held sway between the end of 1989 to the beginning of 1994,
and its best expression is in Francis Fukuyama’s End of History thesis. At the root of this narrative is
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the explicit understanding that the attempts to make a Communist politico-cultural identity, fully
enforced through a closed-door state sovereignty, had failed due to the flourishing of demands for
civil–religious rights in Eastern Europe from the late 1970s onwards.
Christopher Andrew, in the Mitrokhin Archive, points to the signing of the Helsinki Accords by the
Brezhnev regime as the first stage of the beginning of the end. Grass-roots civil rights movements, in
particular within the Catholic Church in Eastern Europe, could use the Helsinki Accords to hold all
Eastern bloc states to account. The rapid development of communications spread Western cultural
influences far into the Eastern bloc. This analysis describes how a global agenda for politico-civil
rights, combined with the shrinking of time and space, and the expansion of Western cultural
influences, established a coherent and firm universal human rights agenda.
It is important to note that from 2001 this confident pro-globalisation human rights agenda has
weakened due to the impact of the war on terror, and perhaps more importantly the growing
resurgence of a confident China and a belligerent Russia.
Global economic management
The second main positive impact cited by pro-globalisation theorists is the emergence of a global
economic architecture that has imparted stability to the international system. This narrative is perhaps
best expressed by Robert Keohane in his seminal work After Hegemony. This argument has its roots
in the historical analysis of the interwar period, when the Wall Street crash unleashed seismic
international economic instability leading to the rise of fascism in Western Europe and ultimately
worldwide conflict. The lack of international economic architecture and the failure of the League of
Nations to provide an effective international security architecture enabled Nazi Germany, Italy and
Japan to wreak havoc on the international system.
In the aftermath of the Second World War, the global system of international economic management
was set up in Bretton Woods through the creation of the International Monetary Fund, World
Bank/International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and General Agreement on Tariffs and
Trade/World Trade Organization. This economic architecture, although propelled by sovereign states
(particularly the USA and France), is claimed to have grown and operated beyond the territoriality of
sovereign states.
Keohane and other neo-liberal theorists stress that there is no contradiction in how this global
economic architecture serves the self-interest of the USA and at the same time creates incentives for
all sovereign states to become enmeshed within this neo-liberal global order. The global system has
not only moderated the actions of sovereign states but also created norms of international economic
behaviour that work beyond the territory of states. There is a clear counterargument to this, however:
the international economic architecture has worked without China and Russia being co-opted. Russia
in particular has actively tried to frustrate the workings of the World Trade Organization from the mid1990s onwards.
Globalisation as a corrosive force
It is important to note that anti-globalisation theorists have an audience beyond the realms of
academia. Writers such as Naomi Klein and Noam Chomsky write mainstream books, and their
arguments are well known.
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Klein’s critique
In Shock Doctrine, Klein claims that neo-liberal economic strategy, which originated in Milton
Friedman’s Chicago school, effectively had an ideological stranglehold over the International Monetary
Fund and World Bank. Klein develops this further, arguing that the International Monetary Fund, in
reaction to the Latin American debt crisis of the 1980s, effectively prised open the sovereign control of
states such as Bolivia and Mexico, enabling multinational corporations to take advantage of their
resources, labour and sales markets.
Klein argues that the globalisation and deterritorialisation of the international economy is the result of
an intentional drive by big businesses and Western states to take advantage of the developing world’s
collective suffering from man-made and natural disasters.
Chomsky’s critique
Chomsky’s critique of globalisation is more varied and has changed over time. Initially, Chomsky
attacked globalisation as a process of transnational corporate power exerting global reach to exploit
developing states. Chomsky developed this critique over time into a more focused analysis of how the
Bretton Woods system forces austere economic policies on to poor developing states, which secures
the interests of elites in both the West and the developing world. It is interesting to note that Klein and
Chomsky share a similar intellectual position.
Chomsky has also criticised the term ‘anti-globalisation’ as he believes it obscures the real issue. For
Chomsky, groups such as the Zapatistas in Chiapas, Mexico, are not opponents of globalisation in
itself, but opponents of elite interest.
Questions to consider
1. Why is globalisation a difficult concept to define?
2. What are the main points outlined here for both the pro-globalisation and anti-globalisation
arguments?
3. Which argument do you find most convincing and why?
4. Why do you think anti-globalisation theorists Naomi Klein and Noam Chomsky have a large
popular following?
Hywel Jones is a headteacher and an experienced politics teacher.
This resource is part of POLITICS REVIEW, a magazine written for A-level students by subject experts.
To subscribe to the full magazine go to www.hoddereducation.co.uk/politicsreview
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