GLBL210 Midterm Review

Ideology

A system of ideas, beliefs, and values that shape how individuals perceive the world. They can impact particular social arrangements and power relations. Different ideologies and frameworks can change the conditions of inequality and influence policies and practices that affect economic and cultural exchanges across borders.

Globalization/globalism

This is the project vs the process. Globalization is the historical and ongoing process of increasing interconnectedness in economic, political, cultural, and technological domains.

Globalism is the ideological project that promotes globalization as desirable and inevitable, often emphasizing free markets and liberal democracy. As a process, globalization describes material and structural changes; as a project, it reflects particular political and economic agendas.

Race and Racism

Race is a social construct that categorizes people based on perceived physical differences, historically used to justify hierarchies of power and privilege.

Racism refers to the systematic discrimination and oppression of certain groups based on these constructed racial categories, operating both at individual and institutional levels.

Racialization

The social and historical process through which groups come to be defined and treated as racial categories. It highlights how race is actively produced through discourse, policy, and everyday practices rather than naturally existing. Understanding racialization is crucial for analyzing the persistence of racial inequalities. 

Colonialism/Neocolonialism/White man’s burden

Colonialism is the political and economic domination of one nation over another, often justified through ideologies of civilization and progress.

Neocolonialism describes the continuation of such domination through economic, cultural, and institutional means rather than direct political control. This can be even after formal independence.

White man’s burden is a colonial ideology that framed imperialism as a moral duty to civilize non European peoples. 

Representation

Involves the ways in which ideas, identities, and realities are depicted through language, media, and culture. These representations shape public perceptions and can reinforce or challenge existing power structures. Analyzing representation helps in understanding how certain groups are portrayed or treated in society. 

Magnificent African Cake

A phrase referring to the late 19th century Scramble for Africa, when European powers divided the continent as if slicing a cake. It encapsulates the extractive logic of colonialism and its disregard for African sovereignty. Also had the imposition of artificial borders.

Cultural Imperialism

The dominance of one culture over others through media, education, and ideology, often accompanying economic and political control. It promotes the values and practices of powerful nations as universal, marginalizing local cultures. Can lead to the erosion of local cultures and identities. 

Principle and logic of white supremacy

A belief system that positions whiteness as the normative and superior standard of humanity. It underpins historical and contemporary forms of racial hierarchy, shaping global relations, institutions, and cultural representation. 

Whiteness

A socially constructed category associated with privilege, normativity, and power. It operates as an invisible standard against which other identities are defined and often devalued.

End of History Hypothesis

A theory suggesting that liberal democracy and capitalism represent the culmination of humanity’s sociopolitical evolution, implying no viable ideological alternatives remain. 

Naturalization

The ideological process through which social relations and inequalities are presented as natural or inevitable, rather than historically produced and subject to change.

Economic Liberalism

An ideology emphasizing free markets, private property, and minimal state intervention. It assumes that individual self interest and economic freedom leads to collective prosperity through market mechanisms. Critics argue that economic liberalism can excacerbate inequalities and neglect social welfare.

Money as debt

Money is created primarily through credit and debt rather than intrinsic value. It represents a promise of repayment, making debt a structural component of capitalist economies. It enables economic growth, but also leads to cycles of debt and financial crisis. s

Economics

Classical economics (adam smith and karl marx) examines production, labor, and value as central to wealth creation. 

Econocentrism

critiques the dominance of economic reasoning in interpreting all social life, reducing complex relations to market logic. 

Adam Smith

18th century economist considered the father of classical economics. He argued that individual self interest could promote societal benefit through market exchange, especially under conditions of free competition.

Invisible hand

A metaphor from Adam Smith describing the self regulating nature of markets, where individual pursuit of profit unintentionally benefits society as a whole. 

Labor theory of value

A classical economic theory proposing that the value of a commodity is determined by the amount of socially necessary labor time required to produce it.

Karl Marx

A 19th century philosopher and economist who critiqued capitalism, arguing that it exploits labor and alienates workers. He sought to uncover the social relations hidden beneath economic exchange. 

Alienation/Estrangement

In Marxist theory, the condition in which workers become disconnected from the products of their labor, from themselves, and from others, due to the commodification of work under capitalism.

The Problem of Value: Use Value/Exchange Value/Theories of Value

Use value refers to the utility of a good, while exchange value is its market worth. The problem of value concerns how capitalist systems prioritize exchange value, obscuring social and labor relations. 

Components of the culture of capitalism (Nation state triangle)

Refers to the interdependent roles of consumers, laborers, and capitalists, supported by the nation state. Together, they sustain capitalist accumulation through cultural and institutional practices. 

Karl Polanyi

A 20th century economic historian who argued that markets are socially embedded institutions. He critiqued the idea of a self regulating market as a dangerous myth. 

The Great Transformation

Polanyi’s term for the shift to market society in the 19th century, where economic relations became disembedded from social and moral regulation. 

Myth of the self regulating market

Polanyi’s critique of the belief that markets can autonomously organize society without social harm. He argued that unregulated markets inevitably produce crises and inequality.

Embeddedness/Disembeddedness of the Economy

Describes whether economic activities are integrated within social relations (embedded) or separated and governed by market logic (disembedded)

Market Society

A social order in which market principles govern not only production and trade but also social relations, values, and identities. 

Fictitious Commodities

Polanyi’s term for land, labor, and money- things not originally produced for sale but treated as commodities under capitalism.

Homo Economicus

The model of the rational, self interested individual assumed by neoclassical economics. It simplifies human behavior to economic calculation, ignoring social and moral dimensions. 

Enclosures of the Commons

The historical process by which communal lands were privatized, forcing peasants into wage labor. It marks the beginning of capitalist property relations.

Primitive Accumulation

Marx’s concept describing the violent processes- such as enclosure, colonization, and dispossession that created the conditions for capitalist production. 

John Maynard Keynes

20th century economist who argued that government intervention is necessary to stabilize markets and mitigate recessions through fiscal and monetary policy.

Milton Friedman

A leading neoliberal economist advocating free markets, monetarism, and minimal government intervention, emphasizing individual freedom through market choice. 

Friedrich Hayek

An Austrian economist who defended free markets as essential to individual liberty, arguing that state planning threatens freedom and efficiency. 

Corporation

A legal entity that concentrates capital, allowing for collective investment and limited liability. It functions as a central actor in global capitalism, often prioritizing profit over social or environmental concerns. 

Externalities (externalizing machines)

Unintended social or environmental costs of economic activity that are not reflected in market prices. Corporations externalize these costs to maximize profit. 

Nation states, Nationalism, Imagined Communities

Nation states are political entities defined by territorial sovereignty and shared identity.

Nationalism is the ideology that binds people to these imagined communities, often used to justify state power and cohesion. 

Keynes and Keynesianism

Economic theory advocating state management of demand to ensure full employment and stability.This shaped mid 20th century welfare state policies and the Bretton Woods order. 

Bretton Woods and Bretton Woods Institiutions

The post WW2 financial framework that established the IMF and World Bank and WTO to stabilize currencies and promote development. It institutionalized US led economic governance. 

Development Discourse

The body of ideas and practices that frame global inequality as a problem to be solved through modernization, often reproducing colonial hierarchies under new terms. 

Neoliberalism

An ideology and policy model promoting deregulation, liberalization, and privatization as a solution to social problems. It seeks to extend market logic to all aspects of life.

Structural Adjustment Programs

Economic policies imposed by the IMF and World Bank on indebted nations, requiring austerity, privatization, and liberalization in exchange for loans. They often deepened inequality and dependency.

Golden Straitjacket

Thomas Friedman’s metaphor for the constraints globalization imposes on national policy: states must adopt neoliberal reforms to attract investment, limiting democratic choice.

Washington Consensus

A set of neoliberal policy prescriptions like fiscal discipline, trade liberalization, and privatization promoted by Washington based institutions as the model for economic development.