Global Studies Final

Little ‘g’ globalization

• The actual concept of global interdependency on resources, power, and economics

• globalization is the extension, acceleration, and intensification of consequential worldwide interconnections

• Increasing, but uneven

• Early: imperialism + capitalism = globalization

  • Interconnected, unequal, and uneven economy

‘G’lobalization

• The political buzzword coined in the 80s by politicians and economists to describe and produce global interdependence

• Key traits: international trade, commodity chains, immigration, supranational institutions and governments, cross-border cultural hybridity, shared cross-border cultural products or norms, international financial flows, interdependent economic development

• Drivers: economic forces, competition, individuals

• Geography: flattening, shrinking, homogenizing, networked

• Neoliberal globalization adopts rules  that promote:

  • Cross-border flows of goods

  • Cross-border financial flows

  • Privatization of national industries

  • Limits on subsidies + other NTBs

• Causes of poverty: bad economic policies | Solution: embrace free market economic policy

Embedded liberalism/Keynesian liberalism

• Rise of social safety net, public education, subsidies, etc. 

• Promotion of international trade // limits on financial flows

• FDR - New Deal

Neoliberalism

• Not inherently anti-migration

• The concept of free-market economic policies that are pushed by this type of politicians

• Came about in the time of Reagan and Thatcher

• Neo = new // liberalism = free market, increasing global interdependence by shrinking government

• “Economic + personal freedom” go hand in hand

• Ex. Coup in Chile

  • Chicago Boys + neoliberalism in 197

Washington Consensus

• The agreement in  “washington” of committing to free-market policies (other countries had to commit if they wanted US aid)

• 10 traits:

  • Liberalize trade

  • Privatize public services

  • Deregulate business/finance

  • Cut public spending

  • Reduce taxes

  • Encourage foreign investment

  • De-unionize

  • Export-led development

  • Reduce inflation

  • Enforce property rights

Imperialism

• The broad movement beginning in the early 15th century of taking over other territories and countries

• Hand in hand with capitalism

• The extension of the power of one state beyond its border to control other people, place, and cultures

• Driven in large part by desire for cheap resources, cheap (coerced) labor, new markets

  • Rise of an interconnected, uneven + unequal capitalist global economy

Imperial legacies

• Twin processes of Capitalism + Imperialism produced a globalized world

• All following legacies obscured by methodological nationalism

• Economic:

  • Integrated markets, transnational commodity chains, uneven development

  • West: industrialized, higher wages + SOL // Rest: less industrialized, dependent on primary commodities, lower wages + standards

• Demographic:

  • “We are here because you were there!

  • Many impacted imperial colonies have people who end up going to imperial countries (i.e. Algerians in France)

    • National Borders: decolonization → new nation-states, less unity, border conflicts

    • Environmental: resource extraction, uneven carbon footprints, intensification of export-agriculture

“West and the Rest”

• The discourse beginning during imperialism that allowed the establishment of an “us” and “them”

• Binary categories → justifies treatment of inferior

• Stereotyping (simplification, essentialization, homogenization)

• Dualisms (binary categories, opposites, hierarchical)

• Produced: 

  • Imperial domination

  • Racialized social + labor hierarchies

  • European identity

  • And Western social science

    • Concept of “ladder” of development/progress

Structural adjustment programs

• The original methods used by the IFIs and West to give loans to the Global South struggling in the debt crisis

• They would loan them the money but with a plethora of “conditionalities” essentially requiring them to implement free-market policies in order to keep the money

• Essentially ruined whatever small economy mainly countries in Africa had succeeded in building during the 60s-70s

• Conditionalities:

  • Cut social spending: no more healthcare, education, infrastructure, etc. 

  • Privatize public goods

  • Encourage foreign investment

• Pretty much tanked Global South economy because they all started producing the same crops which led to inflation

Liberal International Economic Order (LIEO)

• The global understanding of economic practices and rules that every country should follow

• Established before neoliberalism

• US influences and benefits // for the rest it’s the best option

  • 3 key pillars:

    • Political liberalism

    • Economic liberalism

    • Liberal internationalism 

• The idea that if everyone is treated equally, they will become equal

• Created post WWII, best system for US economy and better for everyone else

• Demise: growing criticism of free trade, rise of BRICs, use of industrial policies + trade barriers

Challenges to the LIEO

• US Hegemony → critiques of new US imperialism, decline in economic power, US hypocrisy

• Political Liberalism → Chinese success (w/o democracy), criticism of US, selective support

• Liberal Internationalism (respect for borders/international governance) → international conflicts, disregard for treaties, failed global cooperation

• Economic Liberalism (“free markets”, open trade) → Chinese growth, 2008 financial crisis, criticism of free trade’s effects on rich countries

• Fairness as equal rules for all → persistent inequality, unequal effects of climate change, disconnect b/w rules + US interests

• ‘G’lobalization discourse - persistent inequality, increasing conflict, increasing authoritarianism

Political liberalism

• Western-style democracy

• Human rights

• etc.

Economic liberalism

• Free trade

• Open markets

Liberal internationalism

• Respect for state borders

• Inter-state cooperation

• Multilateral institutions (eg. UN, WTO, etc.)

BRICS

• Brazil, Russia, India, China (potential appeal of China model), South Africa

• Reorganization of global geopolitical + economic hierarchies // relative decline of US/West

• Cheaper goods than G7

• Not only China

Rise of China

• West thought China joining WTO would make China more economically + politically liberal → it hasn’t… 

  • Ended up hurting the WTO

• Heightened tension between two core systems of multilateral trading system

• Defining fairness as universal rules vs Defining fairness as making rules that will make things equal

“China paradox”

• Hopewell

• Rising China:

  • Declining US economic power

  • Declining US institutional power

→ changing US views on the LIEO

• China doesn’t want to change the rules of the LIEO; US has become revisionist

  • Increasing turn to unilateral trade deals

  • Growing protectionism (Trump, Biden, Trump) // industrial policies

Climate change as product of/crisis for globalization

• Global Warming: long-term, human-induced average warming across the planet

• Climate Change: warmer and colder temps, wetter and drier climates, more frequent and more extreme weather events

  • Risks for people everywhere

• Product of:       [MORE CARBON EMISSIONS]

  • Imperialism, capitalism, and the Industrial Revolution

  • Increased trade + transnational production

  • Improved health + global population growth

  • Increased standards of living and consumption levels

  • Global problem, uneven responsibility, uneven vulnerability

• Crisis for:

  • Increasing costs + economic disruptions

  • Declining standards of living

  • Increasing migration, within + between countries

  • Increasing urbanization, slum formation

  • Violent, intra- and international conflict

  • Resurgent nationalism, xenophobia, + border closures

  • Failures of international institutions + corporations

    • EXAMPLE: de-flooding measures in Bangladesh vs Netherlands // Singapore vs Global South heat

• Climate change is a product and a challenge to globalization ⇒ may require changes to the form of globalizationClimate change mitigation

Climate change mitigation

• Lowering overall energy use

  • Green energy transition, increasing energy efficiency, CO2 removal

• “Likely that warming will exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius and harder to limit warming below 2 degrees // finance flows fall short”

• Primarily a national responsibility

Climate change adaptation

• Reducing effects and dealing with the warming

  • Ecosystem restoration, green infrastructure, social safety nets

• “Current adaptation gaps will continue to grow … financial flows are insufficient, esp in developing countries” 

Paris Agreement

1. Temperature: Keep global temperature increase below 2C and pursue efforts to limit it to 1.5C

2. Greenhouse Gas Pollution: 186 countries submitted plans detailing how they reduce their greenhouse gas pollution through 2025 or 2030

3. National Plans: Overall assessment of how countries are doing in cutting their emissions compared to their national plans starting in 2023, every five years

4. $100 Billion: $100 billion a year in climate finance for developing countries by 2020, with commitment to further finance in the future

5. Rich Countries: Rich countries to engage in absolute reductions in emissions, developing ones to continue enhancing their mitigation efforts

6. Greenhouse Gas Emissions: Countries should reach global peaking of greenhouse gas emissions asap

US v China on climate change

• US:

  • World’s largest per capita emitter // biggest oil and gas producer

  • 2022 - Inflation Reduction Act → nearly 400 billion (over several years)

    • Currently being challenged by China at the WTO

• China:

  • World’s biggest carbon emitter

  • set aim for peak emissions in 2030

  • World’s biggest user and investor in renewable energy // produces most of world’s clean energy equipment

  • 2022 - spent 546 billion on energy transition // 2023 - 300 gigawatts of wind + solar

  • Over half new cars are electric

Renewable energy fix

• Can solve the problem primarily by switching to renewable energy (solar, wind, etc)

• Problems:

  • We need to reduce total energy use

  • Already carbon in atmosphere

  • Needs huge amount of resources

  • Paradox: increasing efficiency/cheapness off a resource → increasing consumption

Technological fix

• We can innovate our way out of climate problems

  • Green energy improvements, carbon capture at source, CO2 removal from atmosphere, geo-engineering options

• Problems:

  • Expensive (might not exist yet)

  • Ecological consequences // Techno-utopianism?

Market fix

• Can incentivize our way out fo climate change (i.e. carbon tax, carbon markets)

• Problems:

  • Basically “redistributing carbon” 

  • What price? ⇒ financialization of climate crisis

  • Failed so far

  • Subsidies as government intervention

Socio-economic fix

• Must transform society to reduce energy needs + support sustainable development

  • Change consumption habits? Reject capitalism? Reject neoliberalism? Embrace indigenous approaches?

Anthropocene

• People → Climate Change

• Refers to the period when humans have had a substantial impact on / become the dominant force shaping the environment

• Geological // Popular Anthropocene

• Some humans are responsible: owners of capital, imperial powers, owners of plantations/slaves/factories/ banks

Capitalocene

• Capitalism → Climate Change

• Refers to the period during which a small # of people engaged in the capitalist pursuit of profit (+imperialism) become the dominant force shaping the environment

• To understand planetary crisis today, must look at capitalism as a world-ecology of power, production, + reproduction (includes social movement)

• Great innovation was practice of appropriating nature

• Commodity + Civilizational Fetishism ⇒ Cheapen most humans

• Industrial Revolution + Capitalism → Planetary Crisis + Insane Waste

Climate debt

• Global North:

  • Produced most carbon

  • Extracted resources from South

  • Grew wealthy

• Global South:

  • Lost ecological resources

  • Suffers most from climate change

  • Needs fuel most to catch up

• Should South be asked to give up economic growth? Will North pay for South?

Climate reparations

• Facilitate sustainable development:

  • Reducing climate change lessens risks to vulnerable populations, increases food + water insecurity, etc. 

  • Reducing fossil fuels → reduces pollution

• Impeded sustainable development:

  • Biofuels competing with food supply

  • Reduction in fossil fuels for dependent economies w/o global investment in green energy

• The idea that wealthy countries have the responsibility to repay this debt by:

  • Funding green energy + sustainable development in Global South

  • Make climate friendly teach developments freely available + relax migration policy

• [EXAMPLE:] Ecuador would not drill for oil as long as international community paid them to keep it in the ground

• Challenges: in slides

Global health

• Area of study/practice focusing on transnational health issues + solutions (interdisciplinary: biological + social factors)

• Emphasizing local + global health problems and inequalities // population + individual-level care

Health and globalization

• Increases average wealth + living standards

• Technological improvements in medicines, vaccines, etc. 

• Rise of global health institutions + NGOs

• Global supply chains for medicine, equipment, etc. 

• Also: colonial legacies, uneven development (profiting off of inequalities), ‘G’lobalization policies

• Modern vs traditional medicine // top-down vs bottom-up (states/medical organizations vs grassroots)

• Vertical (disease specific) vs horizontal (broad, basic healthcare)

  • State run vs private vs community-organized → human rights vs commodity

Alma-Ata conference

• Middle of Cold War (both sides agree)

• General agreement on limits of → medical elitism, urban bias, top-down approach

• Forged international support for universal healthcare access by 2000 → calling for “primary healthcare (PHC)”

• NEVER ACTUALLY IMPLEMENTED

  • Lack of specific plans for funding + rise of neoliberalism (1980s debt crises)

Primary Health Care (PHC)

• Health care as human right

• Horizontal comprehensive approaches // equal access for urban + rural residents

• Local doctors + community based medicine (bottom-up), combination of Western and local medicine → China + India

• Health seen as key marker of “development”

• Requiring: public health education, sufficient food supply, safe water + sanitation, emphasis on child + maternal care, immunization, control of local, endemic cases

Vertical v. horizontal health care

• Vertical healthcare addresses specific diseases

• Horizontal healthcare establishes broad programs

Selective Primary Health Care (SPHC)

• Supposed to be “inter-rim measure” → became dominant model under neoliberalism

  • Framed in market terms / cost-benefit analysis / highest health return per dollar / health as driver of economic development

• Key Successes:

  • Widespread immunizations against important diseases

  • Big reductions in child mortality

• Limited scope

  • top-down/vertical

  • Technical fixes rather than community development

  • Ignored broader health improvements

GOBI-FFF

• Growth Monitoring, Oral Rehydration Therapy, Breastfeeding, Immunizations

• Easy to monitor/measure

• Low cost/high impact

• Critics say GOBI was a Band-aid covering deficient health systems

• Implemented by UNICEF- health based international organizations 

• one set of priorities 

• FFF- was added later in 1990s (food supplementation, female education, family planning)

Structural adjustment/neoliberalism/’G' and health

• Structural adjustment:

  • Reduced spending on public health, infrastructure, sanitation

  • Privatization of health services

  • User fees for health services

  • Overall drop in → # of gvmt. Spending on healthcare, # of doctors per capita, health coverage, underconsumption of existing health services

• Neoliberalism:

  • Market-based healthcare

    • Health as commodity, cost-effectiveness, preference for privately-run health services

  • US (1980s):

    • Widespread privatization of US healthcare

    • More choice in amount + types of insurance, doctors, etc.

    • Shorter wait times for some services

    • US spends the most of healthcare: per capita + in total BUT has performed worse than most nations/low satisfaction

• ‘G’ and health (complicated)

  • Trade liberalization → better access to medicine + foods for some, exports of cheap food

  • BUT subsidized exports of cheap crops from wealthy countries to low-income countries (i.e. corn syrup)

    • Undermined local farmers + food production

    • Increasing rural to urban migration → slum conditions

    • Turned some net food exporters to food importers

    • Increased vulnerability to global market volatility

  • Strong intellectual property rights (pharmaceuticals)

PEPFAR

• US-run global health-program, initiated 2003

• Invested over 100 billion

• Provides anti-retroviral treatments, testing, clinical services

• Helped reduce AIDs related deaths by 45%

• Saved 25 million lives

Covid pandemic as crisis of/for globalization

• As product of:

  • Pathogens made more likely through — industrialization/urbanization density/destruction of urban interface (Covid took short time to spread)

  • Spread rapidly via trade + travel

• As crisis of:

  • Massive disruptions to trade

  • Declining global economic growth (efficiency created challenges - “just in time”)

  • Huge decreases in travel

  • Strain on global health infrastructure

  • Failures of international cooperation

Covid health impacts (global patterns of)

• Death rates varied widely by country

• No simple geological pattern

• Largely due to demographic differences + specificity of the disease (i.e. more old people in the North)

• As well as different public health responses

• Access to vaccines did largely mirror North-South/rich-poor divides

US very unprepared for pandemic (African lowest # of deaths! / US highest!)

COVAX

• COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access

• Global initiative to promote equitable access to Covid tests, therapists, + vaccines

• Led by WHO, UNICEF, + others

• Aim: to overcome longstanding global inequalities in accessing drugs + supplies

• Limited success

• Key Obstacles:

  • Vaccine Nationalism - rich countries hoard drug + medical supplies (reduces herd immunity) 

  • Pharmaceutical Industry - companies refused to not patent vaccine technology

Covid socio-economic impacts and responses (global patterns of)

• Global North faced significant but much less economic damage, + recovered more quickly than Global South → disparities in size of national budgets

• Large global economic crisis

• Major trade disruptions, skyrocketing unemployment, major + uneven educational impacts, global poverty increased for first time in a generation, dramatic rise in inequality

• Pandemic confirmed and deepened existing inequalities (lost decade for development)

Covid response and neoliberalism (domestic policy)

• Government health + social interventions

• Renewed health care debates about

  • State-funded income vs private healthcare provision

• Massive economic interventions (stimulus spending, monetary easing policies)

• Major challenge to neoliberal ideas about “free-market”, small gvmt.

• Different story for Global South (constrained budgets, high debts)

  • Much less stimulus spending

Covid and neoliberal globalization

• Trade + supply chain disruptions were short-lived but had major impacts on policy debates

  • Increasing concerns about national “economic security”

  • Another spun to “re-” and “friend-shoring” policies

  • Increased national competition for key supply chains, minerals, etc.

Migration, primary recent patterns of

• MISCONCEPTION: most migrants move from poor countries in the Global South to rich countries in the Global North

• At least ⅓ of migration is South-South (outpacing South-North migration)

Migration as product of/crisis for globalization

• Migration as product and key characteristic of globalization

  • Central to increasing economic, cultural, + political integration + interdependence

• Migration as challenge to globalization, leading to increased xenophobia, resurgent nationalism, increasing border walls

• Migration is at an all time high

  • Overall trend and concentration in the US → different distribution

• Legal definitions shape available protections in international + domestic law

Migrant

• “Any person who is moving or has moved across an international border or within a state away from his/her habitual place of residence”

Refugee

• “Someone who has been forced to flee his or her country because of persecution, war, or violence”

Internally displaced person

• People who “have been forced or obliged to flee or to leave their homes … and who have not crossed an internationally recognized State border”

Labor/economic migrant

• Person who moves from home state to another state “for purpose of employment”

Climate/environmental migrant

• New category - forced to flee due to climate disasters or warming temperatures (RISING)

Migration: push/pull explanations

• Push Factors: drive people to leave their home countries

  • Poverty, famine/drought, discrimination, conflict, Ecological disasters

• Pull Factors: attract people to host countries

  • Economic opportunities, access to land or food, educational opportunities, safety, tolerance

• Examples of methodological nationalism // treated as separate

• Inequality: bc there is poverty in one place, people move to another place

• Imperial legacies still influence migration patterns

Migration: relational explanations

• Transnational processes, historical processes, relationships b/w home + host country societies

• Examples: imperial legacies, global pandemic, transnational wars + arms trade, climate change, drug trade + organized crime, uneven development

• Uneven development - the wealth of some places depends on/exacerbates the poverty of other places, while simultaneously attracting people from the latter to the forms

• [EXAMPLE] NAFTA situation with Mexico

‘G’lobalization/globalization and migratio

• Trade, financial liberalization, SAP’s → increased differences between places (uneven development)

• Growth of certain high tech, transnational industries → highly skilled, highly paid migration

• Migration has always been central to globalization and easier for some than others (patterned, not evenly distributed

Differential mobility [NEED EXAMPLES]

• Easier for goods + money than for people to cross borders

• Easier for some people than for others to cross borders

Golden visas/passports

• H1-B VISAS:

  • US work visa, 3-6 year term

  • For “specialty occupations” - highly educated, highly paid

• Golden visas/passports:

  • visas or passports in exchange for direct “donations”, real estate investment, other capital investment

• “Economic citizenship programs”

• US: EB-5 VISAS:

  • Allows immigrant investors to become US permanent residents (minimum investment: $1,000,000 in “new commercial enterprise”)

Border securitization

• Policing mechanisms:

  • walls/checkpoints

  • Surveillance technology

  • Travel documents (passports, visas, ID cards)

  • Legal rules on migrant status

• Causes?

  • Inter-state conflicts? Terrorism? Drug trade? Rightwing nationalism? Migration levels? Refugee crisis? Economic inequality? Uneven development?

Bracero Program

• Agreements b/w US and Mexican gvmt. allowing Mexican workers to come to the United States for temporary agricultural work, primarily during World War II and the immediate postwar period, from 1942 to 1964

• Addressed labor shortage in the US

NAFTA, migration, border securitization

• 1994 free trade agreement b/w US, Mexico, and Canada → eliminated tariffs + NTBs on trade

• Increased cross-border flows of goods + services

• Increased transnational economic integration

• Increased wealth of some Mexican people

• Exposed Mexican farmers to heavily subsidized US + Canadian grain exports

  • Put many small Mexican farmers out of business

  • Increased rural to urban migration (Mexico) → maquiladoras AND transnational migration to US

• Framed by discourses of “borderless economic regions” + simultaneous hardening of border for people

Maquiladoras

• Mexican factories - special economic zones (mostly near the border)

  • Many went after NAFTA bankruptcy

• Examples of internal migration + uneven development

“Prevention through deterrence”

• Jacon de Leon

• Intentional government strategy

• Intensified security at most common urban crossing points (deflect migrants to harsher crossings)

  • Has not significantly reduced the # of migrants attempting to cross

  • Has increased migrant deaths

  • Has encouraged more people to remain long-term in the US (not seasonally)

  • A killing machine that uses and hides behind the viciousness of the Sonoran Desert

  • Goal is to render invisible the innumerable consequences 

Resurgent rightwing (populist) nationalism

• Over past 20 years or so, resurgent rightwing nationalism in US, UK, Austria, India, South Africa, Brazil, Hungary, etc. 

  • Generally anti-immigrant

  • Promoting border walls, policing, etc.

• Backlash against NAFTA + immigration

Resurgent nationalism as crisis of/for globalization

• Product of:

  • Backlash against increasing interconnection (isolation)

  • Economic discontentment: offshoring + outsourcing

  • Increased migration: “we are here because you were there”

  • Multiculturalism, gender iinequality, international law

• Crisis for:

  • Rhetoric is inherently “anti-globalization”

  • New trade flows/economic policies (tariffs)

  • Trump leaving Paris climate agreement

  • Anti-immigrant restrictions/border security

  • Withdrawal from international institutions

  • Undermining public health instutions 

State v. nation-state

• State: fixed territory; within which a monarch/gvmt. Has sovereign + exclusive authority

• Nation: group of people who identify as belonging together

• Nation-state: territorial state + national identity (in theory)

  • Very new concept/model (18th century) → nationalism is very recent

• Nationalism: a project or movement that attempts to bring state + nation into agreement

“Imagined community”

• Benedict Anderson

• Forging national identity requires: origin myths, selective memory

• Nation-state is based on:

  • “Imagined community” among strangers (not fake/false - socially built)

  • Limited communities (in/out distinction - not everyone is allowed)

• People always operate with multiple forms of identity → the most prominent part can change/be encouraged or suppressed 

• Nation-states are depend on imagined community BUT not just one “community”, always competing versions

• Applies not only to current nationalisms but anti-colonialism, German fascism, etc.

Nationalism

• in/out boundary || citizen vs foreigner (citizen vs minority)

  • Right to citizenship, vote, democracy + globalization

• Blurry lines between “patriotism” and “nationalism”

Populism

• up/down || people vs elites (of all kinds)

• Anti-establishment (critical of government)

• Claim to speak for “the people”/”silent majority”

• Can be “left” or “right” (Bernie vs Trump)

Nationalist Population is a combination of both

Rightwing

• Socially conservative (traditional/religious morals, traditional gender/family traditions)

• Illiberal/authoritarian

• Rightwing nationalist populist parties = populism + exclusionary nationalism (illiberal/authoritarian tendencies)

Many common tendencies = more mixed on economic nationalism vs free-trae globalization

Illiberalism

• skeptical/contemptuous of key liberal institutions (courts, separation of powers, free press)

Authoritarianism

• Tending towards strong men leaders, expected/enforced obedience (police, military, etc)

• Often emphasizing miilitary/police power

Resurgent nationalism, general timeline of

• 9/11

• Goes back to 90s but didn’t start in US or the West (India, SA, Russia, Israel…)

  • → mainstream media bigger bc of West 

• More taking off since mid-2010s (US, UK, Brazil, France, Philippines, Hungary…)

• Last 5 years or so (Bukele (El Salvador), Milei (Argentina)

• Middle East is a different category

• Nationalism is unique in each country ⇒ part of a collective phenomenon

• Global North

  • End of Bretton Woods “welfare state”

  • Rising inequality

  • Stagnant wages

  • Great Recession

• Global South

  • End of Cold War →

  • Aid to many countries ⇒ sudden/intensified market liberalization (“shock factor”)

  • Resurgent nationalisms; often populist (some left, some right)

  • National leaders have lots of money in global capital markets

• US

  • Fordism → post-fordism

    • 1970s-today

      • Lower wages, declining unions, etc. 

      • Neoliberal rationality: marketization of anything, distrust of the state, distrust of politics/politicians

  • 9/11 → Great Recession

    • Bannon, Breibart, Fox News → powerful meaning makers

    • Nationalist rhetoric

    • Racialized attack on the “undeserving poor”

  • Evident failure of wars in Iraq + Afghanistan

  • Obama’s election + racism

  • Reaction against BLM, #MeToo, Immigrant Rights Activism

Nationalism and globalization (different perspectives on)

• Two contrasting framings:

  • Nationalism as opposite to globalization? (Globalization vs Nationalism?)

  • Effects of globallization? (Globalization → Nationalism)

• Ray + Hart see neoliberal globalization as producing two simultaneous processes (proccesses of market integration - economic + social disruptions)

  • Rise of new nationalist + populist movements in response

Crisis of liberal democracy

• Weakening of independent judiciaries

• Collapsing separation of powers

• Dismantling administrative state + public services

• Attacking education

• Criticizing mainstream media

• Undermining voting rights

Crisis of globalization

• New nationalism under Trump + others

  • weaking/dismantling supranational institutions

  • Undercutting global aid and thus → more inequality

  • Hardening borders/restricting immigration

  • Turning back refugees

  • Heightening military tensions

  • Questioning established borders

  • Increasing trade protectionism/competition for resources

Hopewell, Kristen. (2023). “Tumult in the Trading System”

• 2 core principles in the multi-lateral trading system

  • Reciprocity + universality

  • Preferential treatment for developing countries (“Special Differential Treatment”)

• US economy is NOT in a decline; fallacy; US is richer than ever

  • Lower skilled workers have been losing employment

  • US hegemony is under decline due to rising powerful countries (BRICS)

• China Paradox: developing + economically powerful

• BRICS are not fully dependent on the US; have some economic power

Táíwò & Cibralic .(2020). “The case for climate reparations”

• Great climate migration is approaching

• Climate reparations: use international resources to address inequalities caused/exacerbated by climate crisis

  • Climate change mitigation

  • Climate migration policy

    • Green Climate Fund

• Climate colonialism: survived for wealthiest + devastation for vulnerable people (climate apartheid on an international scale)

• Refugee crisis → status quo makes climate colonialism a near certainty

• Corrective, distributive justice demands recognition of the entitlement of “Third Persons” to a “formal first world citizenship” → political exclusion of climate refugees is unjust

• Transition of eco-fascism from fringe extremism to ruling ideology

Farmer et al. (Eds.). (2013). Reimagining global health

• “Age of extremes” for global health

• PHC’s combine Western + local medicine traditions // “health by the people”

• Demonstrate that basic health care services are deliverable at low cost by encouraging community participation + integrating western + local medical practices

• Alma-Ata → health as an avenue for social + economic development

  • Reasons for failure:

    • Who’s paying? Who’s implementing?

    • Debt crisis

    • Rise of support for “selective primary health care”

• GOBI: Growth monitoring, Oral rehydration therapy, Breastfeeding, Immunizations

  • Critics say it was a Band-aid covering deficient health systems

• World Bank privatization of health sector was user fees

  • Generate revenues (produced underconsumption - extreme poverty)

  • Increase efficiency by reducing “overconsumption” (did not raise revenues)

  • Subsidize rural healthcare with revenue from urban fees

• Thought that privatization would mean more private providers would enter the market

  • Not mitigating the effects of poverty

• Premium was placed on economic knowledge above other knowledge

De Leon, Jason. 2015. The Land of the Open Graves

• State of exception: process whereby sovereign authorities declare emergencies ino order to suspend the legal protections afforded to individuals while simultaneously unleashing the power of the state upon them

• Spaces of exception: physical + political locations where an individual’s rights + protections under law can be stripped away upon entrance

• Bare life: individuals whose deaths are of little consequence

• Sonoran Desert is remote, sparsely populated, and largely out of American Public’s view

  • “Victims of the desert”

• Nature has been conscripted by the broder patrol to act s an enforcer while simultaneously providing this federal agency with plausible deniability regarding blame for any victims the desert may claim

• 1993 “Operation Blockade” → response to racial profiling + dangerous neighborhoods in El Paso, Texas

  • “Make attempts to cross the border dangerous”

• Migrants fleeing hostility met with hostility

Polgreen. (2025). “Something Extraordinary Is Happening All Over the World.” The New YorkTimes.

• Themes: neoliberalism, Borders/movement, Flattening, selective independence/nationalism

Anon. (2024). “The Liberal International Order is Slowly Coming Apart.” The Economist.

• World economy looks resilient → actually fragile (eroding + close to collapse_

• Disintegration of old order is visible

  • Sanctions used 4 times as much as 1990s

  • Subsidy war underway

  • Global capital flows are starting to fragment (dollar still dominant)

  • Instutions that safeguarded system are defunct/losing credibility (WTO, IMF, UN, ICOJ)

• Donald Trump returns → erosion of institutions/norms → 2nd wave of cheap Chinese imports → war b/w America + China (over Taiwan)/West + Russia ⇒ almighty collapse + profound loss!

• People like to criticize globalization regarding inequality, its achievement sa re incredible (infant-mortality rate, Chinese poverty, state conflicts, washington consensus good, etc.)

• Once system is broken, it is unlikely to be replaced by new rules → anarchy!

  • Problems will be tackled by clubs of likeminded countries → coercion + resentment

• Liberal order brought vast benefits into the rest of the world [COMBINED WITH] US internationalist principles strategic interests

• World economy cannot survive everything thrown at it

Malik, K. (2025). “Despite the eulogies, the postwar order did little for peace – and fuelled the rise of populism.” The Guardian.

• Is the liberal international oder actually liberal? || “America’s greatest contribution to peace + progress?” → questionable

• Donald Trump is actively hostile to liberal internationalism (no more hegemonic leadership)

• LIO interwove the economic + geopolitical ⇒ desire for order took precedence over belief in “liberalism”

• Keep world safe for global free markers (not using laissez-faire) by designing institutions to inovulate capitalism against threat of democracy ⇒ project of neoliberalism

• Consequences of SAPs in the Global South:

  • Growth of inequality 

  • Erosion of civil society

  • Burgeoning sense of resentment within sections of electorate globally at being “politically voiceless”

• Trump benefits from backlash towards the “liberal elite” – celebrate “end of nationalism”

• Many components of neoliberalism are now being refracted through the lens of an assertive nationalism

• Western leaders preached liberalism, democracy, + rule of law (geopoltics) but underwrote illiberalism + authoritarianism when it suited their needs

• Peace has not meant “no war”, just prevention of direct war (kinetic dimplomacy)