Globalization and
Interdependence
Lsn 20
Origins of Global Interdependence
• People had long interacted with each other based on
established trade routes such as the Silk Roads and the
trans-Sahara caravan routes
• In the 1400s the process was accelerated when
European mariners began exploring sea routes to the
markets in Asia
– The result were globe-girdling networks that supported crosscultural interactions much more systematic and intense than
those of early years
• By 1500 peoples of the world had established intricate
transportation networks that supported travel,
communication, and exchange between societies
The Rise of the West
• Before 1500, contact between people of the
eastern hemisphere, western hemisphere, and
Oceania had only sporadic contact with each
other
• From 1500 to 1800, networks linked all the
world’s religions and peoples
• From 1800 to the present, national states, heavy
industry, powerful weapons, and efficient
technologies of transportation and
communication enabled “the West” to achieve
political and economic dominance in the world
The Change in Scope of
Globalization
• The collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of
the Cold War abruptly opened up possibilities for
trans-global connections that had previously
been limited
• Globalization is the increasing
interconnectedness of all parts of the world in all
areas, most notably communication, commerce,
culture, and politics
• It is welcomed by some and vilified by others
Interdependence
• The interrelatedness of national societies,
which are in varying degrees sensitive and
vulnerable to each other’s policies
• Refers to a condition or state of affairs
characterized by reciprocal effects among
countries or actors in different countries
• It can increase or it can decline
Interdependence Example: China,
USSR, North Vietnam, and US
• In 1971 the US was becoming increasingly frustrated
with the slow progress of peace talks with the North
Vietnamese
• President Nixon and Secretary of State Kissinger sought
to exploit the strained Sino-Soviet relations by making
plans to visit both countries in hopes of dissuading them
from continuing to provide support for North Vietnam
• This new development greatly concerned the North
Vietnamese and motivated them to launch a massive
conventional assault (the Easter Offensive) to try to win
the war on the battlefield and therefore negate any gains
that the US made in its diplomatic endeavor
Globalization
• Unlike interdependence which can
increase or decrease, the implication of
globalization is that it is increasing
• Thomas Friedman argues that
contemporary globalization goes “farther,
faster, deeper, and cheaper”
• Others explain contemporary globalization
as having “thickened”
Thickened Globalization
• Increased density of
networks
• Increased “institutional
velocity”
• Increased transnational
participation
Increased density of networks
• The “network effect” refers to a situation
where something becomes more valuable
or important the more people use it (like
the Internet)
• As globalization has thickened, systemic
relationships among different networks
have become more important and different
relationships of interdependence intersect
more deeply at more points
Increased density of networks:
EUFOR
• The European Union began as a political and
economic union in 1993
• After NATO intervened in the Kosovo crisis in
1999, it was decided that “the Union must have
the capacity for autonomous action, backed by
credible military forces, the means to decide to
use them, and the readiness to do so, in order to
respond to international crises without prejudice
to actions by NATO”
• In 2004 when SFOR ended its mission in
Bosnia, EUFOR picked it up with a force of
7,000 troops
Institutional Velocity
• How rapidly a system and the units within it change
• The critical factor in increasing institutional velocity has
been the reduced cost of communicating
– Between 1930 and 1990 the cost of a three minute
phone call from New York to London fell from $244.65
to $3.32
– By 2000, the Internet made global communication
virtually free
• Markets react more quickly than before because
information diffuses so much more quickly and huge
sums of capital can be moved at a moment’s notice
Institutional Velocity Example: The
News Cycle
• 1938: the first regular
broadcast of daily news began
on radio, with the World Today
program on CBS for 15
minutes every evening,
• 1948: the CBS TV News began
• 1963: CBS Evening News
expanded from 15 to 30
minutes, followed shortly by
NBC, and then by ABC in 1967
• 1968: CBS began the 60
Minutes news
magazine/documentary weekly
show
CBS News
correspondent Eric
Sevareid, 1955
Institutional Velocity Example: The
News Cycle
• 1980: Cable News Network
(CNN) became the world's
first 24-hour cable television
news channel
• 1996: MSNBC and Fox
News Channel began 24hour news
• Collectively, expanded
television news coverage
creates “the CNN effect”
which affects political,
diplomatic, and military
decision making on a global
level
Increased Transnational
Participation
• Reduced costs of communications have
increased the number of participating actors and
increased the relevance of “complex
interdependence”
– Complex interdependence is a condition in which
economic, environmental, and social complex
transnational connections (interdependencies)
between states and societies are increasing while the
use of military force and power balancing are
decreasing
– The decline of military force as a policy tool and the
increase in economic and other forms of
interdependence should increase the probability of
cooperation among states
Increased Transnational
Participation
• While traditional power remains important,
cheaper communications have vastly
increased the number and variety of
participants
• An example would be nongovernmental
organizations
Increased Transnational
Participation Example: The Ottawa
Convention
• Throughout the 1990s,
concern mounted over
the use of land mines
• Land mines left in place
after fighting stopped in
Cambodia, Afghanistan,
Angola, Nicaragua,
Bosnia, and elsewhere
were continuing to claim
victims, many of which
were children
Cambodia land mine victim
Increased Transnational
Participation Example: The Ottawa
Convention
• A new NGO, the International
Campaign to Ban Landmines
(ICBL) acted as the “master
NGO” for a group of over 1,000
NGOs from more than 60
countries
• A small core group of states, led
by Canada, provided the
necessary element of state
leadership
– Canadian Foreign Minister Lloyd
Axworthy told the delegates in
Ottawa the goal was to have a treaty
in 15 months
Lloyd Axworthy
Increased Transnational
Participation Example: The Ottawa
Convention
• The NGOs waged what
Axworthy called “the
mobilization of shame”
using faxes, email, cell
phones, and displays to
strengthen their
message and ridicule
opposition
• The US was left on the
sidelines and by the
time it recovered, the
momentum was
strongly with the NGOs
American Jody Williams and the
ICBL shared the 1997 Nobel
Peace Prize for their efforts to
ban anti-personnel land mines
Practical Exercise
Different Perspectives of
Globalization
Globalization: The Pro Argument
• The global economy delivers markets that
operate with maximum efficiency
• Globalization is the only way to bring
prosperity to the developing world
• Globalization is inevitable and should be
embraced
Globalization: The Con Argument
• The global economy is an untamed juggernaut
that rewards the few and impoverishes the many
• Globalization is neither inevitable or desirable
• It diminishes the sovereignty of local and
national governments and transfers the power to
shape economic and political destinies to
transnational corporations and global institutions
• It is responsible for the destruction of the
environment, the widening gap between rich and
poor societies, and the worldwide
homogenization of local, diverse, and
indigenous cultures
Technology
• “… Advances in technology just increase
our ability to do things, which may be
either for the better or for the worse. All of
our current problems are unintended
negative consequences of our existing
technology.”
– Jared Diamond, Collapse, 505
Conflict
• “The great divisions among humankind
and the dominating source of conflict will
be cultural…. The fault lines between
civilizations will be the battle lines of the
future.”
– Samuel Huntington, Clash, 1
West vs the Rest
• “The central axis of world politics is likely
to be… the conflict between ‘the West and
the Rest’ and the responses of nonWestern civilizations to Western power
and values.”
– Samuel Huntington, Clash, 11
Anti-Americanism
• “Throwing sand into the gears of
globalization is seen as a way to spit on
America’s hegemony, if not to limit the
exercise of it in the political, cultural, and
economic domains.”
– Jagdish Bagwati, Defense, 27
Western Dominance
• “…. The West has driven the globalization
agenda, ensuring that it garners a
disproportionate share of the benefits, at
the expense of the developing world.”
– Joseph Stiglitz, Discontents, 7
Yali’s Question
• “”Why is it that you white people
developed so much cargo and brought it to
New Guinea, but we black people had little
cargo of our own?”
– Jared Diamond, Guns, 14
The Environmental Explanation
• “History followed different courses for
different peoples because of differences
among people’s environments, not
because of biological differences among
peoples themselves.”
– Jared Diamond, Guns, 25
Eurocentric Explanation
• “In a world of relativistic values and moral equality, the
very idea of a West-centered (Eurocentric) global history
is denounced as arrogant and oppressive. It is intended,
we are told, ‘to justify Western dominance over the East
by pointing out European superiority.’ What we should
have instead is a multicultural, globalist, egalitarian
history that tells something (preferably something good)
about everybody. The European contribution– no more
or less the invention of and definition of modernity–
should be seen as accidental or to use the modish word,
contingent.”
– David Landes, Wealth, 513-514
McDonaldization
• “…. America’s enormous cultural vitality
and technological creativity, combined with
hegemonic status in world politics, make
her a net exporter of culture, giving her
therefore no sense of threat from that
direction either: it is her culture that
spreads. But this spread of American
culture threatens others to whom it goes.”
– Jagdish Bagwati, Defense, 120
Greed
• “Globalization has little to do with people
or progress and everything to do with
money.”
– Ignacio Ramonet, Debate, 118
Haves and Have-nots
• “A growing divide between the haves and
the have-nots has left increasing numbers
in the Third World in dire poverty, living on
less than a dollar a day.”
– Joseph Stiglitz, Discontents, 5
Different Realities
• “People in the West may regard lowpaying jobs at Nike as exploitation, but for
many people in the developing world,
working in a factory is a far better option
than staying down on the farm and
growing rice.”
– Joseph Stiglitz, Discontents, 4
Global Institutions
• “…. The current system run by the IMF
[International Monetary Fund] is one of
taxation without representation.”
– Joseph Stiglitz, Discontents, 20
Perspective
• “…. From one’s luxury hotel, one can
callously impose policies about which one
would think twice if one knew the people
whose lives one was destroying.”
– Joseph Stiglitz, Discontents, 24
The World is Flat
• “The world is flat… the global competitive
playing field was being leveled. The world
was being flattened.”
– Thomas Friedman, Flat, 7-8
Opportunity
• “Globalization has reduced the sense of
isolation felt in much of the developing
world and has given many people in the
developing countries access to knowledge
well beyond the reach of even the
wealthiest in any country a century ago.”
Joseph Stigltiz, Discontents, 4
Debate: Is globalization good or
bad?
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Global inequality
Free trade
Communications technology
Power
Culture
Why is there global inequality,
and is it getting worse?
• Pro: Globalization opens up new
opportunities for developing countries, and
only those countries who have not
embraced world trade have suffered.
• Con: Globalization has made the rich,
richer and the poor, poorer.
What are the costs and the benefits
of free trade?
• Pro: Free trade reduces prices for
consumers and creates jobs in developing
countries.
• Con: Free trade has primarily meant that
global corporations now are able to exploit
foreign markets in terms of cheaper labor,
low worker protections, and looser
environmental regulations. In the US, this
has cost workers their jobs as production
moves overseas.
What is the role of the internet
and communications technology in
globalization?
• Pro: The internet ensures everyone has
access to information.
• Con: The predominance of English on
the internet threatens other languages
and cultures, and transnational
corporations have made the internet a
tool for disseminating their marketing
information to the global economy.
Is globalization shifting power from nation
states to undemocratic organizations?
• Pro: Nation states will always be the center of the
international system because they control territory
and military power. International governmental
organizations are made up of individual nation
states so the nation state is in fact represented.
• Con: Under globalization, international
organizations such as the World Trade
Organization and NGOs have increased in power
at the expense of nation states. Some global
corporations have greater assets than the GDPs of
some nations. These powerful organizations are
not democratically elected and make decisions
behind closed doors.
How does globalization affect
culture? Is it ‘Americanization’?
• Pro: There is no way a world of over 6 billion
people can become a monoculture. In fact, some
forces of globalization such as the internet can be
used to project traditional cultures in a way
previously impossible.
• Con: America dominates the world economy to
such an extent that mass distribution of its
products have negatively impacted global cultural
diversity.
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