Globalization and Marginality in Geographical Space

Political, Economic and Social Issues of Development at the Dawn of New Millennium

Heikki Jussila, Roser Majoral, Fernanda Delgado-Cravidao

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351766289
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: History of Religion

This title was first published in 2001. An examination of globalization and marginality in geographical space, it discusses the issue of marginalization and the effects that economic globalization have on marginal and critical regions from the point of view of politics and policies and the shift from economic to social issues of development.

1 Introduction

HEIKKI JUSSILA AND ROSER MAJORAL

 

 

 

This book on issues of globalization and marginalization is based on the papers of the Coimbra 1998 conference of the IGU Commission on Dynamics of Marginal and critical regions. The aim of the conference was to look at the various aspects and faces of globalization and to see what kinds of effects they have on the ‘weaker’ regions of the world. The topic produced more than 40 papers and out of them 20 are presented in this book of Globalization and Marginality in Geographical Space: political, economic and social issues of development in the new millennium.

This book is the fourth in the Spatial Aspects of Marginality-series of books produced from the research work done under the programme of the IGU Commission on Dynamics of Marginal and Critical Regions. The aim of this book is the same with the previous books, to develop and give new visions for the readers about the marginal regions of the world. The articles in this volume look into an issue that is becoming an increasingly important: ‘Globalization of World Economies’. The issues touched, discussed and analysed in this book do not cover all the aspects of the issue, but they do, however, show that geographical research can contribute significantly onto the understanding of the effect policies and politics of globalization have on the more marginal areas of the world.

This book on Globalization and Marginality in Geographical Space recalls the importance of the processes of globalization that have changed the way marginal and critical regions are seen in the world of today. The book consists of articles that deal the issue of globalization from different perspectives.

The first main part of the book deals with the general issue of globalization as seen from the general perspective and then approaching a closer, i.e., more micro-perspective. The articles grouped under the title Effects of Globalization look at the question of globalization from a ‘general’, although each article in the section uses a slightly different point of view. The first opening article of Leimgruber is the most theoretical, although ithas concrete empirical cases that manifest the various effects that globalization process has on a given region.

The discussion of the articles in this book starts with general theoretical issues. It then moves to the issues of the economic importance and the role of transnationals (see articles by Archer and Lonsdale, by Cepparo de Grosso and by Sommers et al.) and nation blocs (article of Goverde) in the current globalization process of the world economy.

According to these articles this globalization process will probably lead to a situation where commodity markets are increasingly controlled by a small number of large transnational corporations with little loyalty to any particular nation or region. Consequently this may lead to an isolation of producers and other residents of ‘marginal lands’, since the producers operate on ‘global’ and the other residents on ‘local’ scale and yet they both would be isolated from the centres of power and authority.

The second main part of the book Policies and Politics of Change contains six articles that discuss the policy aspects of globalization. The articles in this section stress that in many cases the direct impacts are taken into account, but the hidden ‘indirect’ effects are those that in the long run may have the most important effect on development. These can bring in new resources for development or they can even create new development enclaves, the so-called pocket development, which e.g., Tykkyläinen (1998; 1999) and Tykkyläinen and Jussila (1998) have discussed in the case resource utilisation areas. These development enclaves can be of importance for marginal regions, since they might be the forerunners of a new era in marginal regions, an era that despite of globalization and its negative effects brings a hopeful tone for the development of these regions in the next millennium.

The second section is based on case studies of different policy options. The articles look also at the implementation of these policies in specific regions (see articles by Moreno and by Berg). The articles focus on various policy agents that have emerged due to the process of globalization and deregulation (see articles by Andreoli et al., by Muilu, and by Häkkilä). The specific cases of individual articles address the issues of policies and politics from different points of view, but the common undertone is that there is a need to implement a more ‘fine tuned’ policy action when regarding marginal areas of the world. The politics and policies have in many cases both direct and indirect impacts on regional development (see articles by Kale and by López-Palomeque).

The third part of this book From Economic to Social Issues is the part that has attracted a larger number of articles than the previous parts, eight articles. The articles in this part look at issues of globalization and marginalization from the point of view of a change within the contents of measuring the effects of globalization within a region. The emphasis is on the change from economic issues toward social issues and even to individual aspects of understanding the processes of globalization and marginalization. Articles in this section produce images on the effects of marginalization and globalization in different parts of the world.

Articles in the third section From Economic to Social Issues are sequenced in the book by their generality in respect to the topic and the region they examine. Consequently the articles discussing more specifically issues on ‘nation state’ level are grouped as one block. These include the articles by Marques and Delgado, by Sanchez-Aguilera and Majoral, and by Rusanen et al.. These articles approach the issue from different points of view, but the main question taken up is that of population, migration or economic development. The second grouping of articles in this section has a more ‘local’ or ‘individual’ connotation. These articles include the articles by Andreoli et al., by Caetano, by Scott, and by Mehretu et al.. The questions analysed by these writers range from the quality of life and labour issues to the question of minorities and the role of women in a society.

The basic tone of this part is the concern about the weaker in society, may it be an individual or regional images. This concern can be crystallised by the words of Scott who, when speaking about Aboriginals, says that ‘without the same respect as human beings, and the same socio-economic conditions’ it is difficult to obtain balanced development pattern. In this respect one needs to look for policies and politics that do go into the roots.

The three sections of this book of Globalization and Marginality in Geographical Space discuss the phenomenon of marginalization and how it has changed or is going to change in the next millennium. This book does not give definite answers. However, the individual articles of the book all point out the need to look for more accurate information in order to understand the various direct and especially the hidden indirect effects of globalization to the development horizons of marginal regions.

References

Tykkyläinen, M. (1998), A multicausal theory of local economic development, in C. Neil and M. Tykkyläinen, M. (eds.), Local Economic Development, A geographical comparison of rural community restructuring, United Nations University Press, Tokyo, pp. 347–355.

Tykkyläinen, M. (1999), The emergence of capitalism and struggling against marginalization in the Russian North, in H. Jussila, R. Majoral and C. Mutambirwa (eds.), Marginality in Space, Ashgate, Aldershot.

Tykkyläinen, M. and Jussila, H. (1998), Potentials for innovative restructuring of industry in Northwestern Russia, Fennia 176:1, pp. 223–245.

Part 1 – Effects of globalization

2 Globalization, deregulation, marginalization: Where are we at the end of the millennium?

WALTER LEIMGRUBER

The problem

Looking at the 20th century, one is inclined to assert that there have been few epochs in the history of mankind, which have lived through more dramatic changes in such a short time. Within a few generations, man has freed himself from many physical and biological constraints through the application of technology: not only do we cover almost unlimited distances in less and less time, we also communicate in real time around the world, we can buy almost everything – whether we need it or not – and eternal life at good health with a youthful look seems to be at the doorstep. Our scale of action both in space and time has become global; the term for this phenomenon is globalization.

In this same period, however, the gap between rich and poor, privileged and underprivileged has widened, and the image of an 80–20 or even 90–10 society is becoming reality. While neo-classical theory suggests that free market forces will even out disparities, events in fact point to the opposite direction, and polarisation theory seems to provide a more appropriate model: the rich are becoming richer, the poor poorer. As a result, a growing number of people all over the world are becoming marginalized, and conflicts at different scales around the globe have become part of the daily news similarly to the weather forecast.

As a result of globalization, pressure on the political forces towards liberalization has been increasing. The traditional role of the state as protector of a territory and its people is giving way to new public management: the state is being transformed to an enterprise, but it remains non-profit-oriented. Its chief task is to occupy itself with those segments of policy, which cannot be furnished by the private sector, i.e., which yield no monetary profit. Parallel to this, however, the state is deprived of a considerable part of its income through the reduction of tariffs and the privatization of profitable segments of its infrastructure such as telecommunication services. This process is termed deregulation.

It would be easy but also fruitless to blame our current problems simply on globalization and the weakness of the political system. In order to find their roots, we have to dig deeper. We shall try to explore both globalization and deregulation into some depth and look at their significance for the process of marginalization at different scales and from different thematic perspectives. The use of these two terms has become commonplace, and simultaneously, they are considered both the hope for the future of mankind and the root of all evil. What do they really stand for?

The global scene

Globalization first of all evokes a scale, meaning world-wide or global, but the word also means ‘all-embracing’ or ‘general’. An enterprise can therefore be global when its activity space covers the whole world, or when its activity covers the totality of a production process or of a service.

The term globalization originates in the economy, and in this context it is still widely used. It stands for the world-wide activity-space of enterprises, whose decision centres and research and development departments are located in the Triad, whereas the production units are shifted around the globe according to the credo of profit-maximization/cost-reduction.

This economic definition of globalization is only part of the story. The German sociologist Ulrich Beck (1997) looks at it from a much wider perspective. In fact, every individual on the globe, without exception, is in some way or another a global actor or player. This is so obvious that we tend to overlook it. As consumers of goods and information, we are linked to the whole world every day, and as scientists we would be at a loss without our global networks.

Globalization in its economic definition is therefore an inadequate term for the description of the global phenomenon. As a consequence, Beck (1997) widens the field of notions. Thus, globalism is ‘the idea that the world market ousts or replaces political actions, i.e. it is the ideology of the domination of the world market or of neoliberalism’ (p. 26) whereas globality is ‘the global society in the sense that the idea of closed spaces becomes fictitious. No country, no group can shut itself off from others’ (p. 27). Globalization, then, is defined as ‘the processes, as a consequence of which nation states and their sovereignty are suffused and linked by transnational actors, their chances of power, their orientations and their networks’ (p. 28; emphasis in the original). Applied to humans, this means that we all take part in globality (we live in the global village) and are victims to the process of globalization which leads to globalism.

Many people suggest that the world’s problems can be solved by acting globally, and in a way this may be true. However, this discourse is coloured by a variety of ideological backgrounds (Bertrand, 1994, p. 1), ideologies which lead to numerous and often contradictory moral and political prescriptions (liberal, developmental, ecological, federalist or Marxist political views). In addition, by privileging the global scale, the importance of all other scales is ignored and the arguments become extremely simplistic. There are many local and regional problems, which have little impact on the global system, and a global problem may not be felt at the local level. This holds good even if we agree that there is a global unity, that everything is tied to everything, that the transformation of one tiny element in the system influences all other elements. After all, as geographers we have always been thinking in different scales, and we are used to comparing them – global problems are not new to us:

The heritage of the various geopolitics and the continuing study of the world political map will make any political geographer wary of the recent ‘discovery’ of the global scale in both the popular perception and modern social science (Taylor, 1996, p. 3).

The political scene

The term deregulation takes us into the domain of politics...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• List of Contributors
• Preface
• 1. Introduction
• Part 1 – Effects of Globalization
• Part 2 – Policies and Politics of Change
• Part 3 – From Economic to Social Issues
• Part 4 – Conclusions and Summary