global studies paper

1 THINKING GLOBALLY

Your friends may have peeked over your shoulders at this book and asked why you are interested in global studies. And they might have added, just what is that, anyway? So what do you tell them? You could say that you are studying what goes on in the world that knits us all together—but that sounds sort of soft and squishy. Or you could tell them that you are studying the economic and technological networks that interact on a global plane. But that’s only part of the story. The honest truth is that “global studies” can mean a lot of different

things, both the hard and the squishy. It is usually defined as the analysis of events, activities, ideas, processes, and flows that are transnational or that can affect all areas of the world. These global activities can be studied as one part of the established disciplines of sociology, economics, political science, history, religious studies, and the like. Or global studies can be a separate course or part of a whole new program or department. As an academic field, global studies is fairly new. It blossomed largely

after the turn of the twenty-first century. But the intellectual roots of the field lie in the pioneering work of the many different scholars who have thought globally over many decades. These thinkers have attempted to understand how things are related and have explored the connections among societies, polities, economies, and cultural systems throughout the world. One could argue that the first global studies scholars were among the

founders of the social sciences. Over a hundred years ago the pioneering German sociologist Max Weber (1864–1920) wrote a series of works on the religions of India, China, Judaism, and Protestant Christianity. Weber was interested in finding what was distinctive about each of them, and what was similar among all of them. Weber also attempted to discern

universal elements in the development of all societies. He showed, for example, that a certain kind of rational and legal authority and its associated bureaucratization was a globalizing process. Though his intellectual interests were Europocentric, his curiosity spanned the globe. Other early social scientists were also global thinkers. The French

sociologist Émile Durkheim (1858–1917) focused first on something very local: case studies of tribal societies. What he found, however, was something he regarded as quite global: the rise of organic solidarity based on functional interdependence. The German philosopher and social critic Karl Marx (1818–1883) likewise assumed that his theories were universal. Marx showed that capitalism was a globalizing force, one that would cause both production systems and markets to expand to encompass the entire world. Ideas in Europe, North America, and the rest of the Westernized world

were influenced by thinkers such as these. At the same time, significant thinking about intercultural commonalities and global awareness was being developed in intellectual centers in other parts of the world. The tolerant ideals of the Muslim thinker Ibn Khaldun were influential in North Africa and the Middle East, and notions of universal brotherhood advocated by the Indian philosopher Rabindranath Tagore had an impact on the intellectual circles of South Asia as well as on his admirers in Western societies. All of these early thinkers, both European and non-European, focused

on two ways of thinking globally: comparison and universality. In some cases, they looked at comparative and non-Western examples to determine differences and similarities. In other studies, they adopted intellectual positions that assumed a universal applicability. Hence early European theorists such as Weber and Marx thought that the social forces that were transforming Europe in the nineteenth century would eventually have relevance globally. Current scholarship in all areas of the humanities and social sciences—including global studies—is indebted to these pioneering scholars. But the specific focus on globalization itself is fairly new. Only recently

have scholars begun to examine transnational and global networks, flows, processes, ideologies, outlooks, and systems both historically and in the contemporary world. In fact, the first explicitly global works of scholarship of this sort only emerged a few decades ago, at the end of the twentieth century. One of the pioneers of contemporary global studies was the sociologist

Immanuel Wallerstein, who helped to formulate world systems theory. He incorporated insights from political economy, sociology, and history in order

to understand global patterns of hegemonic state power. Other sociologists, including Roland Robertson, Saskia Sassen, and Manfred Steger, explicitly examined the concept of the global, as opposed to local, points of view. Perspectives from other disciplines have also contributed to global

studies. The anthropologist Arjun Appadurai broadened the understanding of global perspectives from landscape to a variety of “scapes”—culturally shaped understandings of the world. The political scientist David Held helped to formulate theories of politics in relation to globalization. William H. McNeill, Akira Iriye, and Bruce Mazlish, among other historians, helped to develop the subfields of world history and global history. Economists such as Joseph Stiglitz and Jagdish Bhagwati have analyzed economic interactions and changes in global terms. And in the field of religious studies, Wilfred Cantwell Smith and Ninian Smart moved beyond the study of particular religious traditions to the study of world theology and worldview analysis, respectively. Other scholars developed analytic approaches to describe new forms of global society: Mary Kaldor examined an emerging global civil society while Kwame Anthony Appiah and Ulrich Beck have described what they regard as a cosmopolitan strand in the new global order. By the first decade of the twenty-first century, an imposing body of

scholarly literature and a flurry of new journals, book series, and scholarly conferences and associations emerged under the label of global studies. The field had arrived. This book provides a road map to the emerging field. At the same time—to mix metaphors—it provides a sampling of the intellectual feast that the current field provides. Global studies uses the term transnational a lot. What this means is that

global studies focus not just on the activities and patterns that are international—among nation-states—but also on those that exist beyond the borders of nations and regions and stretch across the various areas of the world. This is one way of thinking of global activity—not that it is universal, found everywhere on the planet, but that it transcends the usual boundaries that separate nation from nation. Transnational relations can be confined largely within a particular area of the world (such as economic cooperation within Europe, for instance, or among the nations along the Pacific Rim) and not necessarily occur throughout the whole world. At the same time, there are phenomena that are truly global in that they

are found everywhere, such as satellite communication systems that can be accessed anywhere on the planet. These are by definition transnational, since they occur beyond the limitations of national boundaries or control. All global phenomena encompass transnational linkages, but not everything

that is transnational is global. Terms can be confusing, but it’s useful to try to be as clear as possible about what we mean. In the field of global studies, we tend not to use the term international

very often, since it implies interactions between nation-states. In common, everyday language, however, many transnational phenomena are described as international, as in the description of some environmental issues as international problems, even though the phenomena themselves—such as the pollution of the oceans and global warming—are transnational. The wording gets tricky when one considers that many of the efforts to deal with transnational problems like global climate change are international— such as the collaboration of nations in efforts to agree on limiting carbon emissions into the atmosphere. Global studies has to do with globalization, of course, but what does

that mean? Often, globalization is defined as the process of bringing the world together in more intense interaction through all of the transnational activity that we have been talking about—economic, demographic, social, cultural, technological, and so on. Scholars such as Roland Robertson began using the term globalization in the 1980s. And a book by Martin Albrow and Elizabeth King used the term globalization in its title in the early 1990s. What they meant by the term was the process of social change that involved transnational interactions in all aspects of social, economic, and technological relationships. Thus, the word globalization describes a process. The result of globalization is a more unified and interactive planet—a

globalized world. Some scholars have called this globalized society “globality” or the era of “the global.” The attitude that people adopt in this more intensely interactive world can be said to be one of “globalism,” or “global consciousness,” or one embracing the “global imaginary.” These are all ways of thinking about the new state of global awareness in a world where transnational activity is the norm and everyone is affected by everyone else everywhere on the planet. These broad global trends seem vast, and they are. But they also are

felt on a very local level. There are pockets of globalism, for example, in neighborhoods that are multicultural and contain different immigrant communities that interact with one another. Some cities are described as “global cities,” both because of their importance as global nodes of economic and cultural networks and because their own populations are a tapestry of peoples from different parts of the world. In Los Angeles, for instance, you can find areas that are entirely Filipino, and other areas where only Vietnamese is spoken. Los Angeles contains one of the largest Mexican populations in the world and also one of the largest groups of

Iranians. In many ways, it is a social microcosm of the world, and yet all of these immigrant neighborhoods interact in a common urban locale. Roland Robertson coined the term glocal to describe these examples of

globalism in a local setting. In his description, glocalization is a logical extension of globalization. It is the way that local communities are affected by global trends. The appearance of big-box stores selling Chinese- manufactured products in sleepy rural towns of Arkansas is one example of glocalization. An Internet café that I found on a remote segment of the Inca trail near Machu Picchu in Peru is another. At the same time that global trends influence local settings, the reverse

can also happen: global patterns can be reinterpreted on a local level. The spread of the McDonald’s fast-food franchise around the world is an example. When I visit the McDonald’s in Delhi, I find that none of the hamburgers are, in fact, beef burgers; they are chicken or veggie burgers, reflecting the predominantly vegetarian eating customs of people in India. In Kyoto’s McDonald’s, you can get a Teriyaki McBurger; and in the McDonald’s restaurant in Milan, the sophisticated Italians may choose pasta rather than fries. So when globalization is glocalized, global patterns can adapt to local situations. In the readings in this section, these concepts of globalization and

globalism are explored by several influential scholars in the field of global studies. The first essay is by Manfred Steger, a native Austrian who helped to create the School of Global, Urban and Social Studies at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia. Steger’s book Globalization: A Very Short Introduction is one of the most widely read books on the topic. In an excerpt from this book, Steger describes the phenomenon of globalization in the post–Cold War era—that is, since roughly 1990. He argues that globalization has increased even more since the turn of the century in 2000 and takes as his example the terrorist act on September 11, 2001. Steger shows that this incident, and the technology, media, and ideological elements related to it, exhibit the global interconnectedness of our contemporary world. The New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman also agrees that the

era of globalization is relatively recent. In his calculation, however, it begins around 1989, at the end of the Cold War, when the Berlin wall tumbled and the ideological confrontation between socialist and capitalist societies was replaced by a more fluid and varied concept of world order. In Friedman’s view, the wrestling matches between two huge lumbering superpowers has been replaced by the sprints to economic success by leaner independent economies. And though previous periods of globalization in history have shrunk the world from a size “large” to a size

“medium,” the current era shrinks the world to a size “small.” Paul James, a sociologist who helped develop the global studies program

at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, tries to put this global phenomenon in order. He describes the various aspects of globalization and the different approaches to studying it. In James’s comprehensive survey of the field, he shows that the study of globalization comes from all the major disciplines of the social sciences and humanities. Globalization is a basic feature of modern life. But is it always good? In

an essay from Foreign Policy, Steven Weber, a professor of political science and director of the Institute for International Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, argues that globalization often seems to have gone bad. This is especially true for those who expected America’s military and economic superiority in a post–Cold War era to give it unbridled control over the rest of the world. But Weber argues that globalization may not be such a bad thing after all. America’s security—and the world’s—depends not on just one superpower exerting its authority, but also on an interconnected set of relationships that reduces conflict through cooperation. Perhaps, Weber suggests, the best approach to dealing with a globalized world is not for one country to try to control it, but to let the political interconnectedness of the world provide for a mutual, collective security.

GLOBALIZATION: A CONTESTED CONCEPT

Manfred Steger

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 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 a state-financed, Arabic-language news and current affairs channel that offered limited programming. Before the founding of Al-Jazeera, 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 Arabic-language 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 Al-Jazeera 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 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 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 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.

THE WORLD IS TEN YEARS OLD

Thomas Friedman

On the morning of December 8, 1997, the government of Thailand announced that it was closing 56 of the country’s 58 top finance houses. Almost overnight, these private banks had been bankrupted by the crash of the Thai currency, the baht. The finance houses had borrowed heavily in U.S. dollars and lent those dollars out to Thai businesses for the building of hotels, office blocks, luxury apartments and factories. The finance houses all thought they were safe because the Thai government was committed to keeping the Thai baht at a fixed rate against the dollar. But when the government failed to do so, in the wake of massive global speculation against the baht—triggered by a dawning awareness that the Thai economy was not as strong as previously believed—the Thai currency plummeted by 30 percent. This meant that businesses that had borrowed dollars had to come up with 30 percent more Thai baht to pay back each $1 of loans. Many businesses couldn’t pay the finance houses back, many finance houses couldn’t repay their foreign lenders and the whole system went into gridlock, putting 20,000 white-collar employees out of work. The next day, I happened to be driving to an appointment in Bangkok down Asoke Street, Thailand’s equivalent of Wall Street, where most of the bankrupt finance houses were located. As we slowly passed each one of