Comprehensive study notes on the Ideological Dimension of Globalization

Ideological Dimension of Globalization

• This set of notes summarizes the key ideas, concepts, and details from the provided transcript on the ideological dimension of globalization, including definitions, major ideologies, the concept of social imaginary, and the emergence of globalism as an ideology.

What is ideology?

• The term ideology emerged within the globalization discourse in the early 1990s as scholars began asking about its ideological underpinnings.
• Early skepticism: many scholars doubted globalization had an ideological proclivity. Michael Freeden argued globalization should not be equated with ideology.
• Manfred Steger offered a nuanced view: globalization can be seen as having an ideological dimension, and the related concept of globalism represents a set of ideas guiding how countries relate to each other; globalization is the process of continuous increase in exchange of goods, services, and capital across borders, while globalism is the interrelated set of ideas shaping relations among nations.
• Globalism involves guiding disadvantaged countries on how to advance their positions in the international community within an interconnected world.

Globalization vs. Globalism

• Globalization: an ongoing process of uninterrupted exchange of goods, services, and capitals across borders.
• Globalism: a set of ideas and beliefs that guides how countries conduct their relations with similar countries; a worldview that can influence policy and international relations.
• In Steger’s view, globalism is an ideology that has developed into a dominant or emerging set of ideas in the modern period, shaped by economic, political, and social changes.

Two major scholarly perspectives on ideology

• Neutral conception (John Thompson): ideology as a descriptive, non-violent system of beliefs and practices that describe and guide action; it describes, not necessarily values or critiques power relations.
• Critical perception (John Thompson): ideology is tied to maintaining or challenging unequal power distributions; ideologies should critique prevailing power relations and advance the interests of adherents.
• The literature often reflects the ongoing tension between seeing ideology as a neutral description vs. a critical framework for critique and change.

What are the essential elements of ideology? (Leach)

• Leach identified three important elements that provide the basis for comparing ideologies:
  • $1$ An interpretation of the existing economic, social, and political arrangements.
  • $2$ A vision of the future.
  • $3$ A strategy for realizing the future.
• Start with interpreting the current economic, social, and political arrangements; then identify means to improve the current situation; then propose actions to realize the envisioned future.
• The realization of an ideology’s objectives can be limited or prevented by countervailing forces or the existing distribution of power.
• The conservative example in the Philippines illustrates that some groups resist drastic changes to the status quo, even when a new vision is proposed.

What are the two essential conditions in Heywood’s definition of ideology?

• Heywood (2003) frames ideology around two essential conditions:
  • $what ext{ }is$: the existing condition or order in society.
  • $what ext{ }should ext{ }be$: the desired future condition or the normative vision for society.
• A successful ideology provides a worldview that explains the present and prescribes actions to move toward a better future.
• The process involves evaluating the existing landscape across disciplines to identify practical recommendations for reform.

Traditional vs modern ideologies

• Traditional ideologies: liberalism, conservatism, socialism.
• Modern ideologies (as identified in Heywood and related texts): fascism, anarchism, feminism, environmentalism, religious fundamentalism.
• The modern period is characterized by changing social imaginaries and new responses to contemporary life, leading to the emergence of globalism as a prominent idea alongside or within globalization.

Liberalism

• Core principles include: $1$ Individualism; $2$ Freedom; $3$ Reason; $4$ Equality; $5$ Constitutionalism; $6$ Toleration; $7$ Consent.
• Liberalism emphasizes individual liberty, rationality, equal opportunities, and limited government.
• Liberalism’s historical development traces from challenging feudal absolutism toward a system of limited government and representative institutions.

Conservatism

• Conservatism rests on seven elements: $1$ Tradition; $2$ Pragmatism; $3$ Hierarchy; $4$ Organicism; $5$ Human imperfection; $6$ Authority; $7$ Property.
• Conservatism emphasizes stability, social order, and the value of institutional structures, often arguing that change should be gradual and guided by established norms.
• The emphasis on “a qualified few” in decision-making reflects a preference for structured governance and continuity.

Socialism

• Core components include: community; fraternity; common ownership; need; social equality; social class.
• Socialism emphasizes collective action, collective ownership, and addressing the needs of the working class, often in opposition to unregulated capitalist dynamics.
• The early appeal of socialism drew on the working class’s potential to lead a post-liberal society; over time, some socialist projects faced challenges in delivering on ideals.

Anarchism

• Anarchism centers on the belief that political authority, especially the state, is coercive and unnecessary.
• Divisions within anarchism: $2$ major strands - individualist anarchists and collectivist anarchists.
• Individualist anarchists favor a society of rational individuals without a centralized state; collectivist anarchists emphasize cooperative associations and voluntary organization.

Feminism

• Feminism is often discussed in terms of waves: first wave (mid-19th century, suffrage), second wave (mid-to-late 20th century, broader gender equality).
• Liberal feminism emphasizes liberty and equality for all genders.
• Socialist feminism links gender equality to broader class-based and economic justice frameworks.
• Radical feminism advocates for fundamental changes to social relations to achieve gender equality.
• Grigsby (2009) further categorizes feminism into liberal, socialist, and radical traditions.

Environmentalism

• Environmentalism elevates ecological concerns and seeks to protect the environment from human-induced degradation.
• It is often described as ecocentric (ecology-centered) rather than anthropocentric.
• Roots trace back to early pollution concerns in 1600s–1800s, with the rise of environmental organizations in the 20th century (e.g., World Wildlife Foundation, EPA, Greenpeace, etc.).
• Earth Hour movement (started 2007 by WWF) as a prominent environmental action that mobilizes public participation.

Religious Fundamentalism

• Religious fundamentalism emphasizes unwavering adherence to core religious principles deemed to be unchangeable truths.
• It is driven by the belief that religious tenets are the ultimate authority and should govern political and social life, often leading to conflict in some regions.
• Contemporary exemplars include groups like ISIS/ISIL and related movements in the Middle East; religious fundamentalism intersects with political and military struggles in many contexts.

Social Imaginary

• Manfred Steger (2017) argues that globalization should be understood through ideology, not just economics or politics.
• Social imaginary is a broad framework of shared understandings that shape how people imagine their communal existence, how they relate to others, and the norms that govern social life.
• Definitions across scholars:
  • Steger: social imaginary describes deep-seated modes of understanding that provide general parameters for communal existence.
  • Taylor (cited by Kelly): social imaginary refers to ways people imagine their social existence, how they fit with others, and the norms and imaginations underlying those expectations.
  • Bourdieu (cited by Patomaki and Steger): social imaginary is a pre-reflexive framework for daily routines and social repertoires, formed by history and shaped by past events.
• The social imaginary helps explain the explanation and evaluation functions of ideology, especially in the context of globalization.
• The concept also includes the national imaginary, which provides a backdrop for the practices and policies of nations.

Social imaginary and the global order

• The social imaginary shapes how people understand and engage with the nation-state and global interactions.
• National imaginary and global imaginary interact in ways that reconfigure how societies imagine governance, identity, and belonging.
• Hobbes’s Leviathan is used as an illustrative case of imagining a strong centralized state to secure social order, showing how imagined political structures influence real-world governance.

Traditional vs modern ideologies in historical perspective

• The history of ideology can be divided into two phases:
  • Traditional ideologies (liberalism, conservatism, socialism) with classical arguments about state control, free markets, and social order.
  • Modern ideologies (fascism, anarchism, feminism, environmentalism, religious fundamentalism) that emerge in response to new political, social, and economic realities and the changing social imaginary.
• The Cold War era polarized liberal-capitalist vs socialist-communist ideologies and shaped the discourse on governance and development.

The functions of ideology (Ball, Dagger, and O’Neill, 2014)

• Four main functions of ideology:
  • $1$ Explanation: provide means of describing the current social, economic, and political conditions and answering questions about why conditions exist and how they came to be.
  • $2$ Evaluation: offer standards or criteria to assess whether conditions are favorable or unfavorable for society.
  • $3$ Orientation: give adherents a sense of identity and alignment with a group or institution (a compass-like function that helps individuals locate themselves in a complex political world).
  • $4$ Political Program: provide practical directions and policies that implement the ideology’s principles (e.g., liberal democracy vs. welfare protections vs. feminist policies).
• Examples: policies like phasing out jeepneys in the Philippines illustrate how different ideological camps evaluate policy changes through those four functions.

Globalism as emerging ideology

• Freeden’s core-adjacent-peripheral concept: ideologies can be understood as a core set of ideas surrounded by adjacent and peripheral beliefs, organized like a room with core furniture and peripheral items.
• Steger’s globalism is discussed as an emerging ideology with a distinct structure that still needs to gain the status of a traditional or modern ideology.
• Freeden’s metaphor helps explain how globalism’s core concepts are organized and how peripheral ideas pressure or support the main claims.

Freeden and Steger on globalism

• Freeden (2006) uses the room metaphor to describe core, adjacent, and peripheral concepts in globalism.
• Steger (2005, 2014) distinguishes between market globalism and imperial globalism and emphasizes the process of ideological decontestation, which is the way concepts are fixed and linked with other ideas to form a coherent system.
• Decontestation involves the formation of six core claims that explain the substance and relationships of globalism with related concepts.

Six Core Claims of Globalization (Steger)

• The six core claims arise from ideological decontestation and provide the essential explanations of globalism’s substance and its relation to other concepts:
• The core claims (as identified by Steger) include $6$ core propositions about globalization and its effects.
• Core Claim 1: Globalization centers on liberalization and global integration of markets; market liberalization and market integration facilitate cross-border flows and the formation of a common market-like environment.
• Core Claim 2: Globalization is inevitable and irreversible; leaders like Clinton and others have described globalization as an unstoppable trend; major events (e.g., Arab Spring, Occupy Wall Street) are used to illustrate this trajectory.
• Core Claim 3: Nobody is in charge of globalization; the market self-regulates and there is no single governing authority; major analysts and corporate and state actors describe the market as largely self-organizing.
• Core Claim 4: Globalization benefits everyone in the long run; while immediate effects may be uneven, the process expands investment and trade, spreads information, creates jobs, and improves living standards over time.
• Core Claim 5: Globalization promotes democracy; openness and liberalization can support democratic practices in participating countries; democratic norms become more widespread as markets liberalize.
• Core Claim 6: Globalization requires a global war on terror in response to security challenges; a combined economic-political approach to security issues is needed, particularly after the September 11 terrorist attacks; this reflects the intertwining of economic liberalization with security concerns.
• These core claims illustrate how globalism presents a coherent, though contested, ideological framework for interpreting globalization’s past, present, and future.

Market Globalism vs Imperial Globalism; the decontestation process

• Globalism can be understood through two lenses:
  • Market Globalism: emphasizes deregulated markets, trade liberalization, privatization, and global economic integration.
  • Imperial Globalism: reflects how a leading state (e.g., the United States) uses power to shape global order; it can involve hard power and strategic alliances.
• The decontestation process fixes core concepts by linking globalization ideas to other related concepts and to geopolitical strategies, thereby stabilizing a particular interpretation of globalization.
• Steger and others argue that the globalist narrative has evolved since the post-9/11 era, with a shift toward a more inclusive global imaginary that encompasses a broader set of actors and pathways for global governance.

The emergence and evolution of the ideological landscape (21st century)

• The contemporary ideological landscape has shifted due to critical events and new developments:
  • September 11 terrorist attacks and subsequent global security concerns.
  • The rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS/ISIL) and its impact on radical religious fundamentalism.
  • The Earth Hour movement and broader environmental activism; climate-change diplomacy (e.g., Paris Agreement).
  • The Arab Spring and the rise of popular uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa.
  • Occupy Wall Street and Occupy Central as expressions of anti-inequality and democratic activism.
  • Global trade initiatives such as One Belt One Road (BRI) and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP); shifting attitudes due to U.S. policy changes (e.g., preference for re-negotiation or withdrawal from TPP).
  • geopolitics: shifts in relations among the U.S., Europe, China, and other key actors; events like Brexit and regional trade arrangements.
• These events partially rewrote the ideological landscape by reinvigorating liberalism, catalyzing environmental and feminist movements, and challenging or reinforcing religious fundamentalism depending on the context.

The emerging ideology of Globalism: core claims and debates

• Steger and Freeden provide frameworks to analyze globalism as an ideology:
  • The core claims provide a basis for arguing that globalization is an ideological system with its own logic and normative commitments.
  • The debate continues on whether globalism should be treated as a distinct ideology akin to liberalism or socialism, or as a component of globalization that interacts with traditional and modern ideologies.
• The core claims help explain how globalism justifies liberalizing policies, upholds the idea of inevitability, defends a leaderless market, and argues for the broad democratizing potential of global integration, while recognizing security concerns.

Emerging globalism and policy implications

• Globalism as an ideology emphasizes:
  • Liberalization and integration of markets to reduce barriers to trade and investment.
  • The role of soft power and culture in shaping global norms and practices, with occasional shifts to hard power in response to threats.
  • The democratic potential of global integration, albeit with caveats about how democracy is spread and implemented.
  • The need for a coordinated global response to terrorism and security challenges that acknowledges both economic and political dimensions.
• The ongoing evolution of globalism requires analyzing how new technologies, geopolitical shifts, and social movements shape the legitimacy and appeal of globalist ideas.

Changes in the ideological landscape: a synthesis

• The 18th–19th century ideologies (liberalism, conservatism, socialism) laid foundational ideas about the state, liberty, property, and social organization.
• The 20th century saw the emergence of fascism, anarchism, feminism, environmentalism, and religious fundamentalism as powerful critiques or alternatives to liberal-democratic and socialist frameworks.
• The 21st century brought rapid globalization, revolutions in information and communication, and new geopolitical alignments, leading to a more varied and interconnected set of ideological possibilities, including globalism as a legitimate, influential, and evolving ideology.

Connections to foundational principles and real-world relevance

• Foundational principles: liberty, equality, solidarity, social order, and democracy.
• Real-world relevance includes policy debates on trade liberalization, environmental regulation, gender equality, energy and climate policy, and security strategies.
• The evolving ideological landscape influences how governments design policies (e.g., environmental protections, labor rights, market reforms) and how international actors address global challenges (e.g., terrorism, climate change, cross-border governance).

Ethical, philosophical, and practical implications

• Ethical questions: How should economic globalization balance efficiency with equity? How can democratic governance be maintained in a highly interconnected world? What are the responsibilities of powerful states in shaping a just global order?
• Philosophical questions: To what extent can ideology guide legitimate political action without becoming coercive? Is a leaderless global market truly sustainable, or is state leadership necessary to manage crises?
• Practical implications: The adoption of globalism-inspired policies requires navigation of competing interests, potential inequality, environmental impacts, and political resistance; policy choices may emphasize market liberalization, democratic governance, security strategies, and environmental stewardship.

Key terms and concepts (quick glossary)

• Ideology: a coherent set of ideas that explain the social world and guide political action.
• Globalization: the ongoing process of increasing interdependence and exchange across borders.
• Globalism: the set of ideas that guide how globalization is pursued, including beliefs about market liberalization and global governance.
• Social imaginary: the collectively held set of normative assumptions and expectations that shape how people imagine their communal existence.
• Neutral conception: ideology as a descriptive framework.
• Critical perception: ideology as a critique of power and a driver of social change.
• Core/adjacent/peripheral concepts (Freeden): a metaphor for organizing the ideas that constitute an ideology.
• Decontestation: the process of fixing and linking core ideas with related concepts to form a coherent ideology.
• Six Core Claims of Globalization (Steger): the six claims that articulate the essential logic and implications of globalism.
• Market Globalism vs Imperial Globalism: two dominant interpretations of globalism—one focused on markets and liberalization; the other on power and geopolitics.

Questions for discussion (from the transcript)

• 1) What is the meaning of ideology?
• 2) Is globalization ripe enough to be considered an ideology in the same way as liberalism, socialism, etc.?
• 3) What is your understanding of the concept of social imaginary?
• 4) How is social imaginary related to treating globalization as an ideology?
• 5) How would you describe the changing landscape of current ideologies?
• 6) Does the changing landscape include the ideology of globalism? How would you describe the emerging ideology of globalism?
• 7) How does globalism perceive current practices of globalization in the international community?
• 8) What are the six core claims of globalization? Are these core claims sufficient to treat globalization as one of the contemporary ideologies?

Learning activity suggestion

• Using the internet, search for important, plausible, and acceptable literature that discusses the idea of ideology.
• Identify which literature best explains the connection between ideology and the evolving process of globalization.
• Discuss the meaning of ideology with the class, focusing on the essential functions of the concept and the elements that distinguish one ideology from another.
• Include past ideologies and recent developments that scholars regard as recent ideologies.
• End with articulation of the idea of globalism as a new ideology.