Impact of Globalisation on the State
Globalization has transformed the role of the state by diminishing its sovereignty and increasing interdependence among nations. This has led to a shift in power dynamics, with non-state actors gaining influence. States now face challenges in regulating global economic activities and maintaining control over their domestic affairs, leading to debates about the impact of globalization on state authority and governance.
7 Key excerpts on "Impact of Globalisation on the State"
eBook - ePub- Luke Martell(Author)
- 2016(Publication Date)
- Polity(Publisher)
...Governments and their policies are part of society and shape it. Sociologists should be interested in this form and not shunt its role away as something not relevant to their discipline. The role of the nation-state in globalization has a historical context. The nation-state differed from previous political forms in a number of ways, as well as developing out of them. It became what represented people, both politically and in terms of their identities in the modern period, and it is not clear that globalization has pushed this aspect out of the picture. Dicken (2015: ch. 6) argues that states are containers of distinctive institutions and practices, and regulators of economic activities and practices. As far as the outside world is concerned, they are competitors with other states and also collaborators with them in international fora and relations. It is within and through states that these things happen. The economy is important and is often a causal factor behind globalization, but non-economic actors, such as the nation-state, are agents in this process. Economic determinism need not imply determination by impersonal economic structures. Power, inequality and conflict are a big part of the story of nation-states in relation to globalization: their autonomy from, or integration into, globalization is heavily affected by how powerful or weak they are. Some are proactive agents of globalization; others are more passive recipients of it. Globalization undermines some but others, more powerful, are its hegemons or subjects. There are enormous inequalities between nation-states...
- Andreas Bieler, Richard Higgott, Geoffrey Underhill(Authors)
- 2004(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...Introduction Globalisation and non-state actors Richard A.Higgott, Geoffrey R.D.Underhill and Andreas Bieler Traditionally, in International Relations (IR), power and authority were considered to rest with states. This has recently come under scrutiny empirically and theoretically due to the changes associated with ‘globalisation’. Globalisation is a complex concept. Two extreme versions oppose each other. Globalists, especially prior to the economic meltdown of 1997–8, regard globalisation as moving inevitably to a borderless world and economic ‘level playing field’, on which truly global companies are the primary actors. There is little or no role left to states beyond the provision of infrastructure and public goods required by business (Ohmae 1990 and 1995). In more nuanced fashion, Strange talks about an increasing hollowness of state authority or a ‘retreat of the state’ (Strange 1996). Conversely, internationalists consider states to be still the main actors in international economics and politics. Hirst and Thompson argue that the economy is predominantly international, not global, and that therefore states, although in a slightly different way, still play a central role in its governance (Hirst and Thompson 1996:178–89). The changes are called internationalisation, not globalisation, and are defined as a drastic increase in cross-border flows of goods, services and capital (Keohane and Milner 1996). This collection of original essays demonstrates that neither of the two extreme positions adequately conceptualises the role of states and non-state actors under conditions of globalisation. The state has been strengthened in some areas, while it has clearly lost power in others. The role of the state has not diminished, but it has changed. The state has been and continues to be restructured (Weiss 1998)...
eBook - ePub- Paul Hirst, Grahame Thompson, Simon Bromley(Authors)
- 2015(Publication Date)
- Polity(Publisher)
...8 Globalization, Governance and the Nation-State Introduction So far we have been concerned mainly with the economic aspects of globalization, and have considered governance primarily in terms of its economic necessities and possibilities. In this chapter we consider the wider political issues raised by globalization theorists and, in particular, the role of the nation-state in the future of international and global governance. We begin with a reminder that the modern state is a relatively recent phenomenon, and that ‘sovereignty’ in its modern form is a highly distinctive political claim – to exclusive control of a definite territory. We emphasize the international aspects of the development of sovereignty, that agreements between states not to interfere in each other’s internal affairs were important in establishing the power of state over society. We go on to consider the development of the nation-state’s capacity for governance and how these capacities are changing in the modern world, especially after the end of the Cold War, and the turn towards more liberalized and open markets both domestically and internationally. While the capacities of states for governance have changed in some respects (especially as national macroeconomic managers), and many states have lost the ability to act independently, they remain pivotal institutions, especially in terms of creating the conditions for effective international governance...
eBook - ePub- Malcolm Waters(Author)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...These processes coincided with the rise of an industrial bourgeoisie which vigorously advocated principles of laissez-faire yet also promoted the development of the sovereign, authoritative state. The progressive constitutionalization of absolutist states became the instrument by which this capitalist class achieved its own technical and economic goals, not least by using the state to establish external colonies and thus to affect international competition by seeking to control global flows of resources. The modern industrial state became the vehicle for the export of the state idea beyond its European origins and for establishing the global flows of trade discussed in Chapter 3. TRANS-NATIONAL CONNECTIONS If globalization is a reality, it presents the discipline of political science with a considerable problem. 1 The chief focus of political science analysis is the nation-state, and if globalization genuinely takes effect, the nation-state will be its chief victim. The main vehicle for the political analysis of global trends is the subdiscipline of International Relations (IR). 2 IR, with its focus on diplomacy, imperialism and war has always taken a global view of politics. The traditional IR view of these processes takes the form of what we might, after Burton (1973: 28–32), call the ‘snooker-ball model’. 3 Here each state is its own little globe and these balls are of various weights and colours. As they change through time – or move across the surface of the table – they interact with each other. Each ball has some ‘autonomy’ exerted upon it by the player (equivalent to the agency of its own government) but as it moves its autonomy is limited by the positions and actions of the other balls (other states). In an extension of this model, the white ball might be a superpower. IR has gone through many changes as it has adapted to transformations in the shape of international politics...
eBook - ePub- Aeron Davis(Author)
- 2010(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...National security, trade and migration have been of regular concern to national leaders. Over time, a wider range of international issues have emerged that require national political responses, including: competition over finite natural resources and the consequences of environmental degradation; international labour markets, industrial production, trade and finance; transnational flows of media, culture and human migration; international crime, conflict and human rights. A large number of international institutions, transnational corporations and International Non-Governmental Organisations (INGOs) have developed accordingly. The question is, has modern society reached a tipping point whereby even the most powerful nation states are losing their autonomy to the transnational actors and forces of globalisation? If so, what does this mean for the democratic and communicative processes that still remain tied to nation-state frameworks? Debate about the continued existence of the nation state has wandered over several disciplinary territories. Starting with the issue of political autonomy it seems clear that an increasing amount of state politics is bound up with intergovernmental and transgovernmental exchanges. Held (2002) describes how, since the mid-nineteenth century, there has been a proliferation of international laws and treaties which, in various ways, have come to impinge on or challenge national sovereignty. These, covering warfare, war crimes, human rights and the environment, have merged many areas of state law with international systems of governance. Alongside these treaties have sprung up a rapidly expanding set of International Government Organisations (IGOs) such as the United Nations (UN), World Trade Organisation (WTO) and International Monetary Fund (IMF)...
eBook - ePub- Stephanie Lawson(Author)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- Polity(Publisher)
...98). Another study points out that a key driver of globalization is the role of ‘strong states’ which, by virtue of their integration into international markets as well as the ability to penetrate the markets of other states where they have a competitive advantage, means that they can readily exploit their opportunities, including promoting the transnationalization of their own national firms. Thus, ‘economic globalization can be used by strong states as a form of “soft power” when pursuing geo-political objectives using competitive and coercive political and economic tactics ’ (Tonnaer, 2013, p. 4). The foregoing suggests that there are very different views on how sovereignty and the state have been faring under the impact of globalization, especially, although not exclusively, in relation to economic matters. However, these issues do not exhaust the general subject of the impact of globalization in the contemporary period. Another aspect concerns the fate of local or national cultural practices under the conditions of globalization. Culture and Globalization There are three distinct approaches to the question of the relationship between culture and globalization – each operating under a different assumption. First, there are those who assume that, under the present conditions of globalization, the dominant economic paradigm of global capitalism creates a version of cultural globalization in its own image. A second approach rejects this, and views the prevalence of nationalism and ethnic politics as evidence of resistance to globalizing forces – both economic and cultural (and one could probably add political as well). Third, there is a perspective which repudiates both of these, promoting instead an approach that sees transnational cultural forms emerging, but these are not dominated by the logic of global capitalism (see Holton, 1998, p. 161)...
eBook - ePub- David A. Smith, Dorothy J. Solinger, Steven C. Topik, David A. Smith, Dorothy J. Solinger, Steven C. Topik(Authors)
- 1999(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...8 Embedding the global in the national Implications for the role of the state 1 Saskia Sassen Two notions underlie much of the current discussion about globalization. One is the zero-sum game: whatever the global economy gains, the national state loses, and vice versa. The other is that if an event takes place in a national territory, it is a national event, whether a business transaction or a judiciary decision. These assumptions about zero-sums and geography influence experts on the global economy as well as the general public. For experts it has meant that they have typically confined the concept of the global economy to cross-border processes, notably international trade and investment; and to a debate between those that think that globalization is destroying the national state and those that think that state sovereignty remains unchanged. This has produced a rather empirically and theoretically thin account about the features of economic globalization. One of the roles of the state vis-à-vis today’s global economy, unlike earlier phases of the world economy, has been to negotiate the intersection of national law and foreign actors—whether firms, markets, or supranational organizations. This condition makes the current phase distinctive. We have, on the one hand, the existence of an enormously elaborate body of law that secures the exclusive territoriality of national states to an extent not seen in earlier centuries, and on the other, the considerable institutionalizing of the “rights” of non-national firms, cross-border transactions, and supranational organizations. This sets up the conditions for a necessary engagement by national states in the process of globalization. We generally use terms such as “deregulation,” “financial and trade liberalization,” and “privatization,” to describe the outcome of this negotiation. The problem with such terms is that they only capture the withdrawal of the state from regulating its economy...
