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International Relations Final Exam Summary - all lectures 112
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International Relations Final Exam SummaryLecture 7
Agents are limited by structure. If globalisation is this structure, do states have
power? Can they shape this environment/structure? What is our place in
globalisation?
Globalisation
- Structure is dominant.
- “McWorld” = homogenisation, Westernisation of culture, “Jihad” = (nationalist)
reaction (Barber).
o Critiques: orientalist and western-centric (democracy at heart of globalisation),
democracy vs globalisation, religion as negative, self-determination and
religion (=UN foundations), Barber’s analysis is not new and he ignores
history (impact Cold War on post-Cold War order).
- We can think about globalisation from different perspectives: e.g. importance of
technology (connecting people around the world), power of brands/TNCs.
- Globalisation as:
1. Westernisation (Barber’s McWorld)
2. Liberalisation, freeing of trade barriers = decline of state (Ohmae’s Borderless
World)
3. Supraterritoriality.
- Supraterritoriality = a reconfiguration of geography, so that social space is no longer
wholly mapped in terms of territorial places, territorial distances/borders.
- A world in which states remain important, but way less so. The world is changing.
o Relative deterritorialisation (borders less important)
o Space-time compression (sense of world is shrinking)
o Transcendence of territorial space
- Structurationist approach
McWorld = structuralist hard, globalisation as homogenisation, states are helpless.
1
, ‘Catalytic’ States: state retains control/coordinates with MNCs, states still have
substantial power (=Agent-centric soft).
‘Competition State’: state relinquishes control, race to the bottom (=Structuralist
soft).
- Globalisation
How did it become possible?
- Growing economic interdependence between states, hard to be separate from
other states in the system.
- Information, technology and material infrastructure are important.
- Growing global consciousness and identity (cosmopolitanism, ethical
dimension, single society) (Heywood 83)
Evolution
- Up to 18th C – concept of globe as single, unified space
- 1850s-1950s – incipient globalisation
- 1960s – full-scale globalisation
- 1970s – Collapse of Bretton Woods, advance of neoliberalism, emergence of
floating exchange rates, TNCs, financial markets etc.
- Technology is key! Telegram, telephone etc…
- It’s an ever chancing world.
Globalisation:
- Leaves capitalism as entrenched as ever.
- Has been experienced unevenly, it is not flattening the world.
- Does not spell the end of cultural diversity, but aspects of homogenisation.
- Does not equal emancipation.
- Is driven by a multitude of forces; state, NGOs, TNCs.
- Territory and state remain significant/important.
Origins of Neoliberalism
- Nixon Shocks (development of neoliberalism):
o Withdrawal from Vietnam (failure to win).
o Pressure on avoiding intervention.
o End of Bretton Woods (used to maintain fixed exchange rates).
o Détente with SU, alliance with China.
o Leave Global Standard.
- End of opening economic system which used to have a fixed exchange rate (USD-
Gold). This raised importance of private banks in & reduced government regulation of
global finance (financial industry). States give up regulation, start of neoliberalism.
2
, Neoliberal core tenets:
- Trade liberalisation.
- Financial deregulation, remove barriers to trade.
- Privatisation & support rise of TNCs/ don’t restrict them.
- Flexible exchange rates and balanced budgets, SAPs.
- Laissez-faire.
Neoliberal globalisation promoting prosperity (key points)
1. Magic of the Market (efficiency, incentives)
2. Everyone wins (comparative advantage, distributed more and better products at
lower prices)
3. Economic freedom promotes other freedoms (democracy, career opportunities)
(Heywood page 101)
- Neoliberal world order stresses the efficiency, welfare and freedom of the market, and
self-actualisation through the process of consumption. We’re locked into neoliberal
order through consumption.
The Liberalist Game of Globalisation (What states should do/what kind of actors are
states?)
- Exploiting geography and technology, attraction factors (capital/finance) and
technology transfer to ‘advance’.
- Firms can be mutually supported, regionalised economy.
- Tax breaks, infrastructure, educated workforce, low wages = how to make yourself
attractive.
Impacts of Neoliberalism (proponents, all good)
- Long-term economic growth.
- Expansion of the financial sector.
- Growth of public & private debt = sustainable because of economic growth it leads to.
- Integration of domestic markets into the global economy.
Japans growth is not rooted in neoliberalism.
Neoliberalism & Enterprise Capitalism
- Division between state and business.
- Weak bureaucratic interference.
- Privatisation and deregulation.
- Open economies/free trade.
Developmental States & State Capitalism (Japan/Chinese as alternative for global
south/ alternative for neoliberalism?)
- Strong state-business relations, state helps to channel finances to businesses, to help
them become world beaters.
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