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Understanding Globalisation
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Introducing Globalisation
In this course, Dr Zaki Nahaboo (Birmingham City University) explores globalisation. In the first lecture, we think about globalisation and how it relates to the 20th century formation of nation states. In the second lecture, we think about international society in the context of globalisation as the development of nation states in a post-colonial era. Next, we think about the globalisation of rights, with a focus on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Refugee Convention. In the fourth and final lecture, we think about neoliberal economic growth from the 1970s, which fed into a globalised economy.
Understanding Globalisation
In this lecture, we think about globalisation and how it relates to the 20th century formation of nation states, focusing in particular on: (i) understanding globalisation as a narrative of the connections between and movement of people, rather than seeking a singular definition; (ii) understanding the narrative of globalisation to define its meaning; (iii) narrating globalisation as the idea that certain nation states hosting ‘native peoples’ have their prosperity threatened by other states, people and/or corporations; (iv) narrating globalisation as a cooperative venture of joining states and people to solve worldwide issues; (v) the transition from empire states to nation states after the second world war, in post-colonial times, as the way to organise international relations; (vi) Anthony Giddens’ typology of three aspects of globalisation, the hyperglobalists, sceptics and transformationalists; (vii) the hyperglobalist position, which posits that transnational corporation economies are no longer tied to the economies of specific nation states; (viii) the sceptic position, which posits that the nation state is still important for deciding policies which shape local economies and regimes; (ix) the transformationalist position, which posits that states and new globalist economies are mutually shaped; (x) Milton Friedman, David Harvey, Walter Rodney and David Held as thinkers and speakers on these positions; (xi) the role of civil society organisations to inform nation states on the treatment of their citizens; (xii) how individuals can play a role in influencing nation state actions, transcending their own citizenship.
Hello.
00:00:06My name is Zaki Naha,
00:00:07and I'm a lecturer in sociology at Birmingham City University.
00:00:09In this first talk, I'm going to be giving an overview of the term globalisation
00:00:13and how this concept and practise relates to
00:00:19the 20th century formation of nation states
00:00:23and the inequalities that it's produced.
00:00:26So globalisation is a contested concept and
00:00:29practise a singular definition is not possible.
00:00:31Instead of beginning with the typical
00:00:35definitions that circulate introductory textbooks,
00:00:37it can instead be approached as a narrative as a story,
00:00:40a story that there exists ideals and practises of connecting states and
00:00:45peoples across large swathes of planet Earth in terms of political,
00:00:49economic, cultural and ecological relations.
00:00:55In turn,
00:01:00how globalisation is narrated
00:01:01and reflected upon
00:01:03enables certain ways of
00:01:05conceiving,
00:01:08perceiving and acting
00:01:09upon social relations.
00:01:11For instance,
00:01:13there is the idea that certain nation states are bounded political communities
00:01:15hosting native peoples.
00:01:21However, these may be defined
00:01:23whose prosperity
00:01:25is being unjustly threatened by other states, peoples and corporations,
00:01:27and Brexit falls into this category of examples here.
00:01:32Alternatively,
00:01:37globalisation is sometimes narrated as a
00:01:38cooperative venture of joining states and peoples
00:01:42to solve the pressing issues facing humankind
00:01:46climate activism is 11 prominent example. Today,
00:01:49many more narratives of globalisation circulate.
00:01:54Yet this suffices to illustrate that the term globalisation conveys
00:01:57but also reflects the problem of how to gain control over one's fate.
00:02:02In a world where relations
00:02:07between peoples
00:02:09are becoming connected across the borders of nation states
00:02:11and yet are not being steered by singular, overarching government,
00:02:15nor by a global people acting as a singular political community in unison
00:02:19with a global democratic mandate.
00:02:26So globalisation becomes an issue in our current post 1945 context,
00:02:31since it is from here that the nation state
00:02:36becomes globalised as a result of anti colonialism,
00:02:40the nation state
00:02:45becomes the global form for organising government, people and territory,
00:02:47not the national imperial state or the Empire State of Britain, France, Germany,
00:02:53Spain, et cetera.
00:03:00And the nation state,
00:03:02without an imperial government,
00:03:05becomes the accepted norm for organising international relations.
00:03:07And during the 19 eighties and 19 nineties,
00:03:13there were attempts to map out globalisation
00:03:16and its relationship to nation states.
00:03:19Anthony Giddens conveyed the classic positions, and he he's a prominent, um,
00:03:22sociologist of the eighties and nineties,
00:03:27and he comes up with a typology of three aspects
00:03:31of globalisation and how it relates to nation states.
00:03:34First, the hyper globalist or the globalists.
00:03:37This group of people
00:03:41argue that nation states are less significant in determining individual lives.
00:03:43Transnational corporations from at least the 19 seventies onwards
00:03:50have eroded the borders of nation states, according to
00:03:55the hyper globalists,
00:04:00and
00:04:03the economies now are increasingly interconnected and
00:04:04not directed by nation state economies.
00:04:08So
00:04:11we see the rise of transnational elites, uh,
00:04:11transnational global capitalist class operating across
00:04:14the borders of nation states.
00:04:19And they have commonalities in terms of their culture in terms of what they want,
00:04:21um, in terms of making
00:04:26lots of profit
00:04:28in poorer countries
00:04:30through exploiting labour.
00:04:32So we see little difference between the transnational classes in Dubai in Lagos,
00:04:34New York, Shanghai or London.
00:04:38So there's a certain convergence here.
00:04:41Now Capital has become decoupled from a national reliance on territory and labour,
00:04:44and some see this as positive, like Malton Friedman,
00:04:50whereas others see this as enabling exploitation.
00:04:53If companies go overseas and exploit poorer
00:04:56labour conditions and governmental regulation of labour
00:04:59such as David Harvey,
00:05:03Now the sceptics offer another position on globalisation.
00:05:07They argue that the nation state is still very important
00:05:11for determining policies
00:05:15that shape the local economy's citizenship and
00:05:19the instability or stability of the regime.
00:05:23Walter Rodney might find himself in this position, and he was a historian of um
00:05:28economic exploitation in Africa.
00:05:34His book
00:05:37Europe. How Europe Underdeveloped Africa in the 19 seventies,
00:05:38is illustrative of not the amorphous flow of capital and labour across borders,
00:05:43but rather the extraction and dispossession of certain
00:05:49northern nations against nations in the global South.
00:05:53So nation states are still very important for organising economy,
00:05:58and maintaining hierarchies after formal
00:06:02imperial administrative rule has ended.
00:06:05So the borders of nation states regulate the rights
00:06:10of people and movement of people as well.
00:06:12There's a birthright lottery of rights that one is bestowed upon birth,
00:06:15where one is born in a nation state, and they have particular rights.
00:06:21Yet
00:06:25that determines one's likelihood of experiencing inequality or equality.
00:06:26If one is born in a poorer nation, one has less
00:06:32likelihood of achieving what they want in terms of
00:06:35the good life than one in a richest nation.
00:06:38So nation states still matter.
00:06:42The transformations make another argument,
00:06:45and the third this third position of the transformational lists.
00:06:48They argue that states and the new global economies are mutually shaped.
00:06:51It's not that nation states are no longer
00:06:57important or that nation states are still important,
00:07:00but rather nation states are transformed.
00:07:03Regional,
00:07:05national international scales of government
00:07:06and governance are all interconnected,
00:07:09and this transforms how nation states operate.
00:07:12International organisations such as the European Union
00:07:17have modified state laws
00:07:21and states modify the agendas of these international organisations.
00:07:23These intergovernmental organisations coexist alongside non
00:07:28intergovernmental organisations such as Oxfam,
00:07:33Amnesty International and these broader civil society organisations.
00:07:37And
00:07:43these are important for putting pressure on governments to change
00:07:44their policies in terms of how they treat their citizens,
00:07:48they can be effective or they may not be effective.
00:07:51But the point is
00:07:54that the nation state is informed by other civil
00:07:56society organisations across the borders of their own territory.
00:07:59And David, how's work sociologist of the 19 nineties and onwards,
00:08:04was really interested in this
00:08:09thinking about how individuals are increasingly involved in these processes
00:08:11of enabling cosmopolitan forms of citizenship and civil society.
00:08:16And by that I mean how interesting actions of individuals, their struggles,
00:08:22their interests
00:08:28transcend the borders of their particular national community.
00:08:29So with the transformation is state borders
00:08:34are neither disappearing nor remaining in place,
00:08:37but rather transforming.
00:08:40So in the context of migration, for example,
00:08:43they're not simply at the edges of territories, the borders of nation states,
00:08:46but rather through complex visa checks.
00:08:50Um,
00:08:53that take place before even one arrives at a destination point.
00:08:53Um,
00:08:59the borders are there outside the territory, the formal territory of the state.
00:09:00In addition, one can be inside the territory of a nation state,
00:09:05yet be cast outside the political community
00:09:09of citizens
00:09:13by denials of rights,
00:09:15social rights, political rights and civil rights, for instance,
00:09:17those who are classified as illegal migrants.
00:09:20So the hyper globalists,
00:09:24the sceptics and the transformations.
00:09:26These are all important prisms,
00:09:29ways of seeing and narrating our understanding of globalisation today.
00:09:32
Cite this Lecture
APA style
Nahaboo, Z. (2023, June 01). Introducing Globalisation - Understanding Globalisation [Video]. MASSOLIT. https://massolit.io/courses/globalisation-43e01317-1f5a-4f5b-8feb-7b996d4b8f9f
MLA style
Nahaboo, Z. "Introducing Globalisation – Understanding Globalisation." MASSOLIT, uploaded by MASSOLIT, 07 Jun 2023, https://massolit.io/courses/globalisation-43e01317-1f5a-4f5b-8feb-7b996d4b8f9f