Read the following list of reading and answer the questions:
Steger
Ch.6 “Ideological Dimension of Globalization”
Rodrick
Ch. 7 & 8
Wade vs Wolf
H&M Ch. 37
Dollar & Kraay
H&M Ch. 38
So just try to extract from these/across them thoughts on the following questions: 
-How did underdeveloped countries develop themselves? What was the “right” or
the “optimal” approach? 
-What role did globalization play in this sphere – “essential”, “supporting”, “minor”, etc?
-What other factors or actors were important, besides globalization?
-Anything you’d like to add or to critique?
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Manfred B. Steger
GLOBALIZATION
A Very Short Introduction
OXFORD
UNIVERSITY PRESS
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© Manfred B. Steger 2003
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First published as a Very Short Introduction 2003
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without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press,
or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate
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Oxford University Press, at the address above
You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover
and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer
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ISBN 13: 978-0-19-280359-7
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9 10
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Printed in Great Britain by
Ashford Colour Press Ltd., Gosport, Hampshire
For my students at Illinois State University
and the University of Hawai’i-Manoa.
This page intentionally left blank
Contents
Preface xi
Abbreviations xv
List of illustrations
xvii
List of maps xix
1
1 Globalization: a contested concept 1
2
2. Is globalization a new phenomenon? 17
3
3 The economic dimension of globalization 37
4
4 The political dimension of globalization 56
5
5 The cultural dimension of globalization 69
6
6 The ideological dimension of globalization 93
7
7 Challenges to globalism 113
8
8 Assessing the future of globalization 131
References 137
Index 143
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Preface
It is a daunting task to write a short, accessible introduction to such a
complex topic as ‘globalization’. This challenge becomes even more
formidable in the case of a very short introduction. Hence, it is not
surprising that the authors of the few existing short introductions to the
subject have opted to discuss only one aspect of globalization – usually
the emerging global economic system, its history, structure, and
supposed benefits and failings. While helpful in explaining the
intricacies of international trade policy, global financial markets,
worldwide flows of goods, services, and labour, transnational
corporations, offshore financial centres, foreign direct investment, and
the new international economic institutions, such narrow accounts
often leave the general reader with a shallow understanding of
globalization as primarily an economic phenomenon.
To be sure, the discussion of economic matters must be a significant part
of any comprehensive account of globalization, but the latter should not
be conflated with the former. The present volume makes the case that
globalization is best thought of as a multidimensional set of social
processes that resists being confined to any single thematic framework.
Indeed, the transformative powers of globalization reach deeply into the
economic, political, cultural, technological, and ecological dimensions
of contemporary social life.
In addition, globalization contains important discursive aspects in the
form of ideologically charged narratives that put before the public a
particular agenda of topics for discussion, questions to ask, and claims
to make. The existence of these narratives shows that globalization is
not merely an objective process, but also a plethora of stories that
define, describe, and analyse that very process. The social forces behind
these competing accounts of globalization seek to endow this relatively
new buzzword with norms, values, and meanings that not only
legitimate and advance specific power interests, but also shape the
personal and collective identities of billions of people. In order to shed
light on these rhetorical manoeuvres, any introduction to globalization
ought to examine its ideological dimension. After all, it is mostly the
question of whether globalization ought to be considered a ‘good’ or a
‘bad’ thing that has spawned heated debates in classrooms, boardrooms,
and on the streets.
This book has been written with a keen awareness that the study of
globalization falls outside currently established academic fields. Yet, the
lack of a firm disciplinary home also contains great opportunity.
‘Globalization studies’ is emerging as a new field that cuts across
traditional disciplinary boundaries. This strong emphasis on
interdisciplinarity requires students of globalization to familiarize
themselves with literatures on subjects that have often been studied in
isolation from each other. The greatest challenge facing today’s
globalization researcher lies, therefore, in connecting and synthesizing
the various strands of knowledge in a way that does justice to the
increasingly fluid and interdependent nature of our postmodern world.
In short, globalization studies calls for an interdisciplinary approach
broad enough to behold the ‘big picture’. Such a comprehensive
intellectual enterprise may well lead to the rehabilitation of the
academic generalist whose status, for too long, has been overshadowed
by the specialist.
Finally, let me add a word of clarification. While the main purpose of
this book lies in providing its audience with a descriptive and
explanatory account of the various dimensions of globalization, the
careful reader will detect throughout the chapters a critical undertone.
However, my sceptical perspective on the nature and the effects of
contemporary forms of globalization should not be interpreted as a
blanket rejection of the phenomenon itself. I believe that we should take
comfort in the fact that the world is becoming a more interdependent
place that enhances people’s chances to recognize and acknowledge
their common humanity. I welcome the progressive transformation of
social structures that goes by the name of globalization, provided that
the global flow of ideas and commodities, and the rapid development of
technology, go hand in hand with greater forms of freedom and equality
for all people, as well as with more effective protection of our global
environment. The brunt of my critique is directed at particular
manifestations and tendencies of globalization that strike me as being at
odds with the noble cosmopolitan vision of a more egalitarian and less
violent global order.
It is a pleasant duty to record my debts of gratitude. First, I want to
thank my colleagues and friends at the Globalization Research Center at
the University of Hawai’i-Manoa for their consistent support of my
research agenda. Special thanks are also due to my colleagues at Illinois
State University, particularly Jamal Nassar and Lane Crothers, for their
willingness to read parts of the manuscript and offer helpful
suggestions. I am grateful to Kay Stults, a graphic designer at ISU, for
her excellent work on the maps. I also want to express my deep
appreciation to numerous readers, reviewers, and audiences around the
world, who, over several years, made insightful comments in response to
my public lectures and publications on the subject of globalization.
I am grateful to Eldon Wegner, chair of the department of sociology at
the University of Hawai’i-Manoa, for his efforts to provide me with
valuable office space as well as with the opportunity to teach relevant
summer courses in social theory. I also appreciate the enthusiastic
research assistance provided by my graduate assistant Ryan Canney.
Franz J. Broswimmer, a wonderful friend and hard-working research
specialist at the Globalization Research Center in Honolulu, deserves
special recognition. He supplied me with valuable information on the
ecological and historical aspects of globalization. Shelley Cox, my editor
at Oxford University Press, has been a shining example of
professionalism and competence. Finally, as always, I want to thank my
wife, Perle Besserman, for her untiring support. Many people have
contributed to improving the quality of this book; its remaining flaws
are my own responsibility.
Abbreviations
AOL
APEC
ASEAN
BCE
CE
CEO
CFCs
CITES
CNN
CNBC
EU
FTAA
G8
GATT
GDP
GNP
INGO
IMF
MAI
MERCOSUR
MTV
NAFTA
America Online
Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation
Association of South East Asian Nations
Before the Common Era
Common Era
Chief Executive Officer
Chlorofluorocarbons
Convention on International Trade in
Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna
Cable News Network
Cable National Broadcasting Corporation
European Union
Free Trade Area of the Americas
Group of Eight
General Agreement of Tariffs and Trade
Gross domestic product
Gross national product
International non-governmental organization
International Monetary Fund
Multilateral Agreement on Investment
Mercado Comun del Sur (Southern Common
Market)
Music Television
North American Free Trade Agreement
NATO
NGO
OECD
OPEC
TNCs
UN
UNESCO
WTO
North Atlantic Treaty Organization
Non-governmental organization
Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development
Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries
Transnational Corporations
United Nations
United Nations Educational, Scientific and
Cultural Organization
World Trade Organization
List of illustrations
1
Osama bin Laden on AlJazeera Television,
7 October 2001
3
Al-Jazeera TV, Rex Features
2 The globalization scholars
and the elephant
15
Kenneth Panfilio and
Ryan Canney
3 Assyrian clay tablet
with cuneiform writing,
c. 1900-1800 BCE
23
© Christie’s Images/Corbis
4 The Great Wall
of China
25
5 The sale of the island
of Manhattan, 1626
30
34
Bentley Historical Library,
University of Michigan, Theodore
Koch Collection, box 12,1-US
Immigration. Photo: Underwood
& Underwood, NY
7 Bretton Woods
Conference, 1944
39
UN/DPI photo
8 The New York Stock
Exchange
© Corbis
© Corbis/Bettmann
6 Eastern European
immigrants arriving
in New York City,
late 1800s
46
© Gail Mooney/Corbis
9 The Security Council
of the United Nations
in session
60
UN photo
10 Jihad vs McWorld:
selling fast food in
Indonesia
© AP Photo/Firdia Lisnawati
74
11
The Greenhouse
Effect
89
Union of Concerned Scientists,
USA
12
Microsoft CEO
Bill Gates
© Nick Cobbing/Rex Features
94
© Ethan Miller/Corbis
13
Patrick J. Buchanan
117
© Najlah Feanny/Corbis SABA
14
Ralph Nader
Brendan McDermid,
© Reuters 2000
15 WTO protestors in
downtown Seattle,
30 November 1999 125
120
16 The burning twin towers
of the World Trade
Center, 11 September
2001
129
Sean Adair/STR, © Reuters 2001
List of maps
1
Early human migrations 21
2
Major world trade networks, 1000-1450 27
3
Volkswagen’s transnational production network SO
4
The eastward expansion of the European Union 66
5
The world by income, 1999 1O6/1O7
This page intentionally left blank
Chapter 1
Globalization: a
contested concept
In the autumn of 2001,I was teaching an undergraduate class on
modern political and social theory. Still traumatized by the recent
terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, most
of my students couldn’t quite grasp the connection between the
violent forces of religious fundamentalism and the more secular
picture of a technologically sophisticated, rapidly globalizing world
that I had sought to convey in class lectures and discussions. ‘I
understand that “globalization” is a contested concept that refers to
sometimes contradictory social processes,’ a bright history major at
the back of the room quipped, “but how can you say that the TV
image of a religious fanatic who denounces modernity and
secularism from a mountain cave in Afghanistan perfectly
captures the complex dynamics of globalization? Don’t these
terrible acts of terrorism suggest the opposite, namely, the
growth of parochial forces that undermine globalization?’
Obviously, the student was referring to Saudi-born Al Qaeda leader
Osama bin Laden, whose videotaped statement condemning the
activities of’international infidels’ had been broadcast worldwide
on 7 October.
Struck by the sense of intellectual urgency that fuelled my student’s
question, I realized that the story of globalization would remain
elusive without real-life examples capable of breathing shape,
colour, and sound into a vague concept that had become the
1
buzzword of our time. Hence, before delving into necessary
matters of definition and analytical clarification, we ought to
approach our subject in less abstract fashion. I suggest we begin
our journey with a careful examination of the aforementioned
videotape. It will soon become fairly obvious why a
deconstruction of those images provides important clues to
the nature and dynamics of the phenomenon we have come to
call ‘globalization’.
Deconstructing Osama bin Laden
The infamous videotape bears no date, but experts estimate that the
recording was made less than two weeks before it was broadcast.
The timing of its release appears to have been carefully planned so
as to achieve the maximum effect on the day the United States
commenced its bombing campaign against Taliban and Al Qaeda
(‘The Base’) forces in Afghanistan. Although Osama bin Laden and
his top lieutenants were then hiding in a remote region of the
country, they obviously possessed the hi-tech equipment needed to
record the statement. Moreover, Al Qaeda members clearly
enjoyed immediate access to sophisticated information and
telecommunication networks that kept them informed – in
real-time – of relevant international developments. Bin Laden
may have denounced the forces of modernity with great conviction,
but the smooth operation of his entire organization was entirely
dependent on advanced forms of technology developed in the last
two decades of the 20th century.
To further illustrate this apparent contradiction, consider the
complex chain of global interdependencies that must have existed
in order for bin Laden’s message to be heard and seen by billions of
TV viewers around the world. After making its way from the
secluded mountains of eastern Afghanistan to the capital city of
Kabul, the videotape was dropped off by an unknown courier
outside the local office of Al-Jazeera, a Qatar-based television
company. This network had been launched only five years earlier as
2
1. Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden addressing a global audience on 7 October 2OO1.
a state-financed, Arabic-language news and current affairs channel
that offered limited programming. Before the founding of AlJazeera, cutting-edge TV journalism – such as free-ranging public
affairs interviews and talk shows with call-in audiences – simply
did not exist in the Arab world. Within only three years, however,
Al-Jazeera was offering its Middle Eastern audience a dizzying
array of programmes, transmitted around the clock by powerful
satellites put into orbit by European rockets and American
space shuttles.
Indeed, the network’s market share increased even further as a
result of the dramatic reduction in the price and size of satellite
dishes. Suddenly, such technologies became affordable, even for
low-income consumers. By the turn of the century, Al-Jazeera
broadcasts could be watched around the clock on all five continents.
In 2001, the company further intensified its global reach when
its chief executives signed a lucrative cooperation agreement
with CNN, the leading news network owned by the giant
multinational corporation AOL-Time-Warner. A few months
later, when the world’s attention shifted to the war in
Afghanistan, Al-Jazeera had already positioned itself as a truly
global player, powerful enough to rent equipment to such
prominent news providers as Reuters and ABC, sell satellite time
to the Associated Press and BBC, and design an innovative Arabiclanguage business news channel together with its other American
network partner, CNBC.
Unhampered by national borders and geographical obstacles,
cooperation among these sprawling news networks had become so
efficient that CNN acquired and broadcast a copy of the Osama bin
Laden tape only a few hours after it had been delivered to the AlJazeera office in Kabul. Caught off guard by the incredible speed of
today’s information exchange, the Bush administration asked the
Qatari government to ‘rein in Al-Jazeera’, claiming that the swift
airing of the bin Laden tape without prior consultation was
contributing to the rise of anti-American sentiments in the Arab
4
world and thus threatened to undermine the US war effort.
However, not only was the perceived ‘damage’ already done, but
segments of the tape – including the full text of bin Laden’s
statement – could be viewed online by anyone with access to a
computer and a modem. The Al-Jazeera website quickly attracted
an international audience as its daily hit count skyrocketed to over
seven million.
There can be no doubt that it was the existence of this chain of
global interdependencies and interconnections that made possible
the instant broadcast of bin Laden’s speech to a global audience. At
the same time, however, it must be emphasized that even those
voices that oppose modernity cannot extricate themselves from the
very process of globalization they so decry. In order to spread their
message and recruit new sympathizers, antimodernizers must
utilize the tools provided by globalization. This obvious truth was
visible even in bin Laden’s personal appearance. The tape shows
that he was wearing contemporary military fatigues over traditional
Arab garments. In other words, his dress reflects the contemporary
processes of fragmentation and cross-fertilization that globalization
scholars call ‘hybridization’ – the mixing of different cultural forms
and styles facilitated by global economic and cultural exchanges. In
fact, the pale colours of bin Laden’s mottled combat dress betrayed
its Russian origins, suggesting that he wore the jacket as a symbolic
reminder of the fierce guerrilla war waged by him and other Islamic
militants against the Soviet occupation forces in Afghanistan
during the 1980s. His ever-present AK-47 Kalashnikov, too, was
probably made in Russia, although dozens of gun factories around
the world have been building this popular assault rifle for over
40 years. By the mid-1990s, more than 70 million Kalashnikovs
had been manufactured in Russia and abroad. At least 50 national
armies include such rifles in their arsenal, making Kalashnikovs
truly weapons of global choice. Thus, bin Laden’s AK-47 could have
come from anywhere in the world. However, given the astonishing
globalization of organized crime during the last two decades, it is
quite conceivable that bin Laden’s rifle was part of an illegal arms
5
deal hatched and executed by such powerful international criminal
organizations as Al Qaeda and the Russian Mafia. It is also possible
that the rifle arrived in Afghanistan by means of an underground
arms trade similar to the one that surfaced in May 1996, when
police in San Francisco seized 2,000 illegally imported AK-47s
manufactured in China.
A close look at bin Laden’s right wrist reveals yet another clue to the
powerful dynamics of globalization. As he directs his words of
contempt for the United States and its allies at his hand-held
microphone, his retreating sleeve exposes a stylish sports watch.
Journalists who noticed this expensive accessory have speculated
about the origins of the timepiece in question. The emerging
consensus points to a Timex product. However, given that Timex
watches are as American as apple pie, it seems rather ironic that the
Al Qaeda leader should have chosen this particular chronometer.
After all, Timex Corporation, originally the Waterbury Clock
Company, was founded in the 1850s in Connecticut’s Naugatuck
Valley, known throughout the 19th century as the ‘Switzerland of
America’. Today, the company has gone multinational, maintaining
close relations to affiliated businesses and sales offices in 65
countries. The corporation employs 7,500 employees, located on
four continents. Thousands of workers – mostly from low-wage
countries in the global South – constitute the driving force behind
Timex’s global production process.
Our brief deconstruction of some of the central images on the
videotape makes it easier to understand why the seemingly
anachronistic images of an antimodern terrorist in front of an
Afghan cave do, in fact, capture some essential dynamics of
globalization. Indeed, the tensions between the forces of
particularism and those of universalism have reached
unprecedented levels only because interdependencies that connect
the local to the global have been growing faster than at any time in
history. The rise of international terrorist organizations like Al
Qaeda represents but one of the many manifestations of
6
globalization. Just as bin Laden’s romantic ideology of a ‘pure Islam’
is itself the result of the modern imagination, so has our global age
with its obsession for technology and its mass-market commodities
indelibly shaped the violent backlash against globalization.
Our deconstruction of Osama bin Laden has provided us with a
real-life example of the intricate – and sometimes contradictory social dynamics of globalization. We are now in a better position to
tackle the rather demanding task of assembling a working
definition of globalization that brings some analytical precision to a
contested concept that has proven to be notoriously hard to pin
down.
Toward a definition of globalization
Since its earliest appearance in the 1960s, the term ‘globalization’
has been used in both popular and academic literature to describe a
process, a condition, a system, a force, and an age. Given that these
competing labels have very different meanings, their indiscriminate
usage is often obscure and invites confusion. For example, a sloppy
conflation of process and condition encourages circular definitions
that possess little explanatory power. For example, the oftenrepeated truism that ‘globalization [the process] leads to more
globalization [the condition]’ does not allow us to draw meaningful
analytical distinctions between causes and effects. Hence, I suggest
that we use the term globality to signify a social condition
characterized by the existence of global economic, political,
cultural, and environmental interconnections and flows that make
many of the currently existing borders and boundaries irrelevant.
Yet, we should not assume that ‘globality’ refers to a determinate
endpoint that precludes any further development. Rather, this
concept points to a particular social condition that, like all
conditions, is destined to give way to new, qualitatively distinct
constellations. For example, it is conceivable that globality might be
transformed into something we could call ‘planetarity’ – a new
social formation brought about by the successful colonization of our
7
solar system. Moreover, we could easily imagine different social
manifestations of globality: one might be based primarily on values
of individualism and competition, as well as on an economic system
of private property, while another might embody more communal
and cooperative social arrangements, including less capitalistic
economic relations. These possible alternatives point to the
fundamentally indeterminate character of globality; it is likely that
our great-grandchildren will have a better sense of which
alternative is likely to win out.
Conversely, the term globalization should be used to refer to a set of
social processes that are thought to transform our present social
condition into one of globality. At its core, then, globalization is
about shifting forms of human contact. Indeed, the popular phrase
‘globalization is happening’ contains three important pieces of
information: first, we are slowly leaving behind the condition of
modernity that gradually unfolded from the 16th century onwards;
second, we are moving toward the new condition of (postmodern)
globality; and, third, we have not yet reached it. Indeed, like
‘modernization’ and other verbal nouns that end in the suffix
‘-ization’, the term ‘globalization’ suggests a sort of dynamism best
captured by the notion of’development’ or ‘unfolding’ along
discernible patterns. Such unfolding may occur quickly or slowly,
but it always corresponds to the idea of change, and, therefore,
denotes the transformation of present conditions.
Hence, scholars who explore the dynamics of globalization are
particularly keen on pursuing research questions related to the
theme of social change. How does globalization occur? What is
driving globalization? Is it one cause or a combination of factors? Is
globalization a uniform or an uneven process? Is globalization
extending modernity or is it a radical break? How does
globalization differ from previous social developments? Does
globalization create new forms of inequality and hierarchy? Notice
that the conceptualization of globalization as an ongoing process
rather than as a static condition forces the researcher to pay
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close attention to shifting perceptions of time and space. This
explains why globalization scholars assign particular significance
to historical analysis and the reconfiguration of social
space.
To argue that globalization refers to a set of social processes
propelling us towards the condition of globality may eliminate the
danger of circular definitions, but it gives us only one defining
characteristic of the process: movement towards greater
interdependence and integration. Such a general definition of
globalization tells us very little about its remaining qualities. In
order to overcome this deficiency, we must identify additional
qualities that make globalization different from other sets of social
processes. Yet, whenever researchers raise the level of specificity in
order to bring the phenomenon in question into sharper focus, they
also heighten the danger of provoking scholarly disagreements over
definitions. Our subject is no exception. One of the reasons why
globalization remains a contested concept is because there exists no
scholarly consensus on what kinds of social processes constitute its
essence.
Despite such strong differences of opinion, however, it is possible to
detect some thematic overlap in various scholarly attempts to
identify the essential qualities of globalization processes. Consider,
for example, the following five influential definitions of
globalization. They suggest that four distinct qualities or
characteristics lie at the core of the phenomenon. First,
globalization involves the creation of new and the multiplication
of exi