Lecture_Week_1_(What's_hot_right_now).ppt

Global Politics: What?s hot right now? GPOSC 200 Professor: Dr Bernie Kaussler Week 1 Overview Definition of globalization Implications for World Politics Reflection upon normative issues posed by globalization for the study of world politics Globalization: What?s it all about ? Intensification of worldwide economic, political and social integration: crisis in one region may affect rest of the world Proliferation of MNCs: key players in global economy New modes of communication infrastructure Migration Growth of transnational organizations Conflict, Security, Terrorism Conceptualizing Globalization ?Stretching? of social, economic and political activities ?Intensification? of growing magnitude of interconnectedness ?Accelerating pace? of global interactions and processes Globalization: a process of deterritorialization (process of time and space compression) Power increasingly being exercised at distance Attempt at defining: ? A historical process involving a fundamental shift or transformation in the spatial scale of human social organization that links distant communities and expands the reach of power relations across regions and continents.? Distinction betweeb domestic arena and the external breaks down Patterns of contemporary globalization Economic: global capitalist expansion (wealth still in developed states) Military: Proliferation of WMDs, terrorism, global arms trade, global insecurity Legal: Expansion of internationa law Ecological: Shared ecology / shared problems Cultural: homogenization as well as rejection Social: Issue of migration Engines of globalization Technology: without communication, global system of today would not be possible Economics: Capitalism?s inherent requirement for expansion (new markets and profits) Politics: Shorthand here for ideas, interests and power (normative infrastructure) BUT: globalization highly asymmetrical !! Global Politics Peace Treaty of Westphalia (1648): established legal basis of modern statehood Territoriality: Humankind is principally organized into exclusive (political) communities with fixed borders. Sovereignty: Within its borders the state has an entitlement to supreme, unqualified and exclusive political and legal authority. Autonomy: No ruler has the right to intervene in the soveign affairs of other states Clinton: ? End of Domestic and Foreign Policy? but rather: economic, security and environmental policy. States increasingly lose ?privileged: status in IR States increasingly embedded in webs of: International organizations Transnational networks Global policy networks of officials, corporate and NGOs Proliferation of international organizations( global governance, international regimes, int. law) Embryonic form of transnational civil society Global issues: (Pollution, terrorism, human rights, migration) transcend national boundaries Old diplomacy based on geopolitical logic and power seems poorly adapted ? POWER IS BEING DISTRIBUTED AMONGST MANY ACTORS Post-Westphalian Order State Sovereignty: sovereign power (to rule within own space) is being transformed but not necessarily being eroded completely. State Autonomy: In a more interdependent world: states are forced to cooperate Territoriality: border/ territory remain important, but a new geography of political organizations and political power is emerging Conclusion Globalization seen by some as perpetuating global inequalities and injustice ?Cosmopolitan democracy?: towards a more humane and just world; requires a reformed and more democratic system of global governance regulate global markets Prevent transnational harm to most vulnerable Extending democracy within states to relations between states