Untitled Flashcards Set

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 (FDR - New Deal)

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

• Promotion of international trade // limits on financial flows

Neoliberalism (Reagan - “deregulation”)

• 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 1973

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

Colonialism

• A specific instance of imperialism

• Exploiting land, resources, and people

• Formal control over one territory and its people by another

Capitalism

• 4 economic characteristics:

  • Depends on growth

  • Constant search for new markets to expand

  • Cut costs for cheaper raw materials and cheaper labor

  • Driver by competition to speed up production

1st Age of Empire

• Formal colonization of Americas with “settler + plantation colonies”

• The “great dying”

• Age of exploration

Age of informal empire

• Fewer formal colonies ( cheaper)

• More asia and africa

• “Spheres of influence” and industrial revolution

• US becomes imperial power // Latin America mostly independent

2nd/High/Classic Age of Empire

• Formal colonization of Africa and Asia

• Some settler colonies (South Africa) / most governed by small # of European elites

• Industrial revolution in full swing

• Pacific asia, fall of ottoman empire → carving of Middle East, US expands West

Scramble for Africa

• The very end of the 19th century when everyone realized how lucrative it would be to have a stake in Africa

• 1884 conference of Berlin

• By 1990, Europe controlled 90% of Africa

Industrial Revolution

• Period in the West of industrializing industries

• Rural → urban

• Poor working conditions // unions

• Led to a need for cheap labor and raw materials

  • Need industrial inputs and new markets

  • Rising western living standards ⇒ need to feed new consumption (rubber, oil, copper, coffee, sugar, etc.)

Methodological nationalism

• Understanding a nation’s economic success ONLY from its own history and understanding

• Nation-state as primary unit of analysis // blank slate, fresh beginning

• VS relational approach - connections among places, transnational dynamics

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”/”Noble vs Ignoble” - Stuart Hall

• 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

Discourse/discursive practice

• A group of statements that provide a language for talking about a particular kind of knowledge about a topic (discursive formation)

• Can be produced by many individuals in different settings

• Not closed systems and never neutral

• They don’t even need to be the same statements, just systematic

• Produce a “regime of truth”

Liberal International (Economic) Order / “rules based order”

• 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

(US) hegemony

• US standards and expectations enforced on all other countries (McDonaldization / Coca-Colonization ⇒ consensual hegemony-building orchestrated by American corporate interests abroad

• There is military hegemony  and social hegemony

• Military hegemony abroad + social hegemony at home

• Locked in through IMF and WB

New International Economic Order

• Developed after the LIEO by countries who believe that treating everyone equally will perpetuate inequality // never actually implemented as a full package

• Post-colonial plan 

  • Key Pillars:

    • Right to national resources, nationalizing property

    • Negotiating better (nonmarket) prices for raw commodities

    • Greater power in international institutions

    • Promoting transfer of tech, knowledge + skills, to developing countries

    • Debt relief

World Trade Organization

• One of the major International Institutions

• Essentially the mediary between countries with trade disputes

• Countries can sue for infringement of trade rights and WTO will decide who is right

  • Ex. Australia tried to put black lungs on their cigarette packages and tobacco countries sued them saying that they are infringing on their main source of income. WTO sided with Australia

• Institutionally designed to:

  • Liberalize international trade

  • Enforce free trade rules

  • Arbitrate trade disputes

• One country one vote // same rules for all members

Tariffs

• Taxes on imports and exports

Non-tariff Barriers

• Any other policies that might affect trade… including:

  • Labeling and origin requirements, consumer protection laws, subsidies to particular industries, etc. 

“Myth of the free market”

• Mainly discussed by Hajoon Chang from South Korea

• Primary argument:

  • Cornerstone of the free market is that there are “no rules”, however, every market has rules and has to have rules to function effectively

  • We have just become so desensitized to the rules of our free market that we don’t realize the rules are there

    • Ex. labor laws, environmental laws, health laws, regulatory agencies (FDA, EPA), etc. 

Developed/Undeveloped

• Creates binary categories to compare other countries to the standards set by the west

• Underdeveloped implies that the country is working towards it and can be aided

• Underdeveloped implies “someone” is causing it, form of agency

  • The West underdeveloped the rest

Uneven development

• A concept in globalization used by corporations to use and reproduce the differences in development in various countries

• Ex. a phone company could use the development of tech in Belgium but knows it would be too expensive to produce the phone hardware there so they would turn to a country like India which is less developed and would do it cheaply 

• Often increased by “differential mobility”

  • Money and goods move evenly across borders but workers and places cannot move (easier to offshore than to bring the workers in)

• The idea that the free market contributes to continued inequality

Global commodity chains

• Every product goes through a long process in being created and often goes through different stages in different countries

• Foster uneven globalization

• Basic commodity chain:

  • Movement of raw materials from source to one or more sites to consumption + factory

  • Raw materials → manufacturing → shipment → consumer

• Complex commodity chain: 

  • Movement of multiple raw or intermediate goods to one or more destinations for further manufacturing/assembly

  • Raw materials → separate manufacturing → assembly → shipment → consumer

Offshoring/Outsourcing

• Using sub-national differences for profit

• Offshoring: companies setting up a factory in another country because it is cheaper or there are less regulations 

  • Ex. Nike sets up a Nike factory in India

• Outsources: companies buying cheap materials from factories other countries own

  • Ex. Nike buys materials from an Indian factory

Special Economic Zones

• Typically fenced off areas in countries with different regulations and policies

• Could have to do with working conditions, health regulations, tax regulations

  • Essentially normal laws don’t apply so it’s cheaper

• Fundamental to global economy

• 70-90% female // sexual harrassment, lack of social services

• “Race to the Bottom”

International Spatial Division of Labor

• Companies using different countries’ people to accomplish different tasks for the same goal

  • Ex. Cargo boat: captain is Dutch, mechanics are Chinese, cleaners are Thai, etc. 

• Stages of economic production distributed across space

  • By type of labor and laborer: nationality, class, race, gender

• Places “value” on certain kinds of labor

Poverty v. inequality

• Poverty is the level to which an individual cannot afford to sustain themself whereas inequality is the difference in levels that individuals around the world are able to sustain themselves. 

Development

• The process of reducing poverty and/or inequality

• Strategies depend on how we explain P+I

Human Development Index

• The United Nations, well-respected index of international poverty levels and inequality

• 3 key features:

  • Long + healthy life

  • Good education

  • Decent standard of living

International Monetary Fund (IMF)

• One of the two main International Financial Institutions

• Originally established for the West after WWII (Britain in particular), but now primarily used by the Global South for loans

• Shorter term loans and projects // i.e. countries in financial crisis

• US hegemony, one dollar one vote, profits for US businesses

World Bank

• One of the two main International Financial Institutions

• Also originally established for the West after WWII

• Longer term loans and projects

• US hegemony, one dollar one vote, profits for US businesses

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

Third World Debt Crisis

• Occurred in the 1980s and caused many countries to have to turn to the IFIs and implement free-market policies

• Opening of post-colonial world to integrate into global economy

     Nation-State + International community

• Each nation-state has the sovereign authority to determine its own internal affairs

• External authority: ability to be recognized as an equal player by other nations

Stuart Hall – “The West and the Rest”

• Discourse started by the West to create binary categories

  • Once you have a superior and inferior, it is easier to justify atrocities

• Exoticization, exploitation, colonization of the Rest by the West

• The west is a historical, not geographical construct

• Began with European barriers (Barrier of Fear, etc.) until first encounter

  • Encounter with “new worlds” —with difference—reinforced new identity of superiority // “Eurocentric view”

  • Europe tried to fit the new world into existing cultural frameworks

• Those who produce the discourse also have the power to make it true

• Juxtaposition of the New World as close to nature but almost barbaric 

• Discursive Strategies:

  • Idealization

  • Projection of fantasies of desire and degradation

  • Failure to recognize and respect difference

  • Tendency to impose European categories and norms

• Stereotypic Dualism: split into 2 opposing elements

Ha-Joon Chang – 23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism (Things 1, 7, 11)

• 1: The free market is a myth: all markets have rules, we have just become blind to the rules of ours // prices politically determined

• 2: free market policies rarely make poor countries rich and virtually ALL of today’s rich countries used protectionism and subsidies to promote their infant industries 

  • Developing countries need to protect + nurture their producers before being capable to compete in world market unassisted

  • America to developing countries: “Do as I say, not as I did”

• Africa did not stay poor due to corruption, culture, resources, climate, geography, etc. 

  • Africa stayed poor due to meddling by the West and the policies they were compelled to implement after the debt crisis

  • Other wealthy countries have malaria, are land-locked, and have abundant resources → used other forms of market policy to get rich then implemented free market 

  • “Structural handicaps” = scapegoats

  • Rhetoric of Africa’s inability to succeed economically was proliferated after free-market policies failed and economists couldn’t explain why!

Matthew Sparke – Introducing Globalization (Chapters 1, 7)

Chap 1:

• globalization and ‘G’lobalization are different

  • One is the concept and one is the buzzword

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

• ‘G’lobalization describes and produces inequality

• Introduced by Reagan and thatcher as TINA

  • Promote radical reformations of the economy + trade to be globally competitive

• Freedom from want/fear = free market

    Chap 7:

• There is no such thing as the “end of the nation-state”, tied to ‘G’lobalization rhetoric myths

• Governance - umbrella term for diverse forms of formal and informal systems of control

• Governmentality - social systems of political control

• Hegemony - US influence

• “Shock therapy” of overnight neoliberalization (TINA)

• Global market discipline

• IFI’s designed to maximize US influence + minimize budgetary burden (not international aid organizations)

  • Fund: short term balance of payments [Fund > Bank]

  • Bank: longer-range challenges of development

  • One dollar one vote

• IMF:

  • Regulate the rates at which currencies were exchanged among member countries

  • Ensure international monetary stability by making short-term loans to countries suffering ba;ance of payment crises

  • Discipline through debt

• “Obedience = good governance” //NO// conditionality = disempowering (externally imposed neocolonial control)

• WB:

  • Development Bank → Knowledge Bank (‘poverty-fighting’)

  • Pattern of market-responsive “responsibilization”