HAOL, Núm. 5 (Otoño, 2004), 113-126 ISSN 1696-2060
THE GLOBALIZATION OF INSECURITY: HOW THE INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC ORDER UNDERMINES HUMAN AND NATIONAL SECURITY ON A WORLD SCALE
Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed Institute for Policy Research & Development, United Kingdom. E-mail: [email protected]
Recibido: 15 Julio 2004 / Revisado: 13 Agosto 2004 / Aceptado: 15 Septiembre 2004 / Publicado: 15 Octubre 2004
Resumen: National and human security has throughout the world, largely in the South. The been fundamentally undermined by policies impact of globalization has also significantly promoted by the key institutions of exacerbated the emergence of conflicts largely globalization. Adopting a state-centred in the South, which directly undermines national conceptualization of security demonstrates how and individual security. globalization at once weakens and fragments the state, while militarizing both the state and sub- In the first chapter, I begin by outlining a state actors, contributing systematically to the theoretical framework for examining the impact emergence of intra- and inter-state conflicts. A of globalization on security at multiple of levels human-centred framework, however, focusing of analysis. I discuss two distinct but on the impact of globalization on individuals overlapping conceptualizations of security: and communities, shows that this process is firstly, economic security as a function of further linked to the generation of structural human security (at the level of individuals); and violence across national boundaries. Both these secondly, economic security as a function of national -and human- level processes are national security (at the level of the state). mutually interdependent and impact on one Thirdly, I put forward a description of another reciprocally. Hence, the world capitalist globalization and its international structure. In economy has created a phenomenon that can be the second chapter, I discuss data on how accurately described as the globalization of globalization generates economic insecurity insecurity, by firstly generating conflict thus affecting individuals on a world scale. In the destabilizing nations and communities, and third chapter, I review studies on how secondly escalating impoverishment, disease globalization generates economic insecurity and deprivation. affecting states by creating conditions conducive Palabras Clave: economic order, globalization, (both directly and indirectly) to inter- state and insecurity, national security, world scale. intra-state conflicts. This undermines both ______national and human security. In my conclusions, I summarize the implications of the preceding INTRODUCTION analysis for the security of people and states in the South. his paper is an attempt to outline the key contours of the international economic 1. A THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK FOR Torder and their impact on security at EXAMINING GLOBALIZATION AND national and individual levels. My thesis is that SECURITY globalization as an economic process promoting free-trade through a variety of international 1.1. Economic Security and Human Security institutions and agreements, has contributed significantly to the reduction of economic Traditionally, the concept of security has been security for vast sectors of the population articulated in neo-realist terms, where the
© Historia Actual Online 2004 113 The globalization of insecurity Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed primary unit of analysis is the sovereign state grasp the fundamentally interconnected and whose territorial integrity and internal cohesion cumulative nature of these global processes and must be protected. A rather different –though their detrimental impact on people's security on not wholly unrelated– conceptualization of a world scale. While globalization has on the security that is centered primarily on the one hand created new opportunities, it has also individual or community can be understood as generated "political and economic instabilities "human security"1. and conflicts within states." Whereas over 800,000 people a year lose their lives to The concept of human security is centered more violence, about 2.8 billion suffer from poverty, directly around the protection of people, the ill health, illiteracy and other maladies. Human scope of their freedom within society, their security recognizes the linkage between conflict access to market and social opportunities, and and deprivation –the latter provides a causal whether their society is in a state of peace or context to many conflicts. Conversely, conflict conflict2. Although economic security is, increases poverty and crime, and devastates therefore, a particularly prominent component of economies. A broad "all-encompassing" and human security, the latter encompasses many "integrated" approach is therefore required to other aspects of human existence. In 1994, the account for these complex interconnections6. United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) argued that: "Human security can be As Paris notes, the concept of human security is said to have two main aspects. It means, first, perhaps too broad. Its all- inclusive nature safety from such chronic threats as hunger, means that it serves as an unwieldy instrument disease and repression. And second, it means for policy- makers due to positing such a diverse protection from sudden and hurtful disruptions variety of threats and sometimes incompatible in the patterns of daily life -whether in homes, in solutions to them. This also lends the concept a jobs or in communities"3. The UNDP identified "definitional elasticity" that potentially hampers seven key components of human security: its application as a concrete analytical tool. Nevertheless, despite these flaws, human 1. Economic security (e.g., assurance of a security provides the beginnings of a theoretical basic income), framework for primarily analyzing "nonmilitary 2. Food security (e.g., access to food), threats to the safety of societies, groups, and 3. Health security (e.g., access to health individuals." Rather than focusing on military care and protection from diseases), threats to the state, human security emphasizes 4. Environmental security (e.g., protection the need to examine military and especially from harmful effects of environmental nonmilitary threats to individuals7. Arguably, degradation), the broad complexity of the concept is actually 5. Personal security (e.g., freedom from intrinsic to the wide variety of factors affecting threats by the state, groups, or the security of the object of reference – individuals), individuals– rather than indicative of a failure of 6. Community security (e.g., freedom from the concept itself. Therefore, because one of our harmful community practices, ), primary concerns here is to understand the 7. Political security (e.g., enjoyment of economic impact of globalization on individuals human rights, and freedom from and communities across national boundaries, as political oppression)4. opposed to the state alone, human security provides a useful conceptual launching point for These areas of concern illustrate that this study. globalization is intimately connected to the concept of human security, since they are From a human security perspective, there are affected by a wide variety of global processes, two fundamental forms of violence: "direct" including for example: the depletion of non- violence "killing swiftly through war"; and renewable resources; drug trafficking; human "indirect" violence "killing slowly and invisibly trafficking; the rapid spread of communications through poverty, hunger, disease, repression and technology; the growth of unsanctioned ecocide." Both forms of violence cannot be seen capitalist markets; poverty and inequality; and merely as the outcome of "isolated, random and the HIV/AIDS pandemic5. discrete process." Rather, they constitute a function of "interlocking dominant processes The concept of human security attempts to and structures at both intranational and 8 provide an overarching framework by which to international levels" .
114 © Historia Actual Online 2004 Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed The globalization of insecurity Here, we are primarily concerned with the three economic-human security in less developed economic components of human security countries. (economic-human security). Using the UNDP criteria established in 1994, it is clear that the 1.2. Economic Security and National Security first three components –economic security, food security and health security– are all directly In People, States & Fear, Buzan argues that the interconnected. Both food security and health almost exclusive focus of security studies on security can be directly undermined by the military threats that became standard during the 9 generation of economic insecurity . These three Cold War, had ultimately resulted in the areas of ultimately economic concern are, thus, underdevelopment of the conceptualization of forms of indirect or structural violence –in security. He therefore outlines a much broader Tickner's words: "the indirect violence done to theoretical framework, examining security from individuals when unjust economic and political three levels of analysis: the international system, structures reduce their life expectancy through the state and the individual. Nevertheless, he 10 lack of access to basic material needs" .– Lack adopts a fundamentally state-centred approach, of income (economic insecurity) equals lack of arguing that the sovereign state constitutes the purchasing power necessary to obtain sufficient most significant and effective guarantee of food (food insecurity), clean water and security, and should therefore remain the healthcare (health insecurity), all of which primary referent. He also extends the scope of constitutes structural violence, "the violence of the concept of security itself, including political, starvation and malnutrition [which] accounts economic, social and environmental annually for the death of upwards of 18 million dimensions15. people"11, and primarily affects individuals based in the South. To some extent, Buzan's state-centred framework acknowledges the significance of As Richard Falk argues, this is a consequence of human security by describing "the fate of human the hierarchical structure of the international collectivities" as the fundamental object of system of states operating in the framework of a security. In this context, "human collectivities" global capitalist economy, whereby economic are the citizens of a state which functions as the security for the transnational poor is primary provider of security to its citizens. From increasingly undermined by economic security this perspective, however, human security leads for transnational capital. Structural constraints us to recognize the state as the primary referent on the attainment of economic security for of security16. The underlying assumption here is individuals based in the poorest states are that any threat to citizens that the state may pose established by uneven development within the must be less significant than threats that would 12 global capitalist economy . This is because a emerge without the state. This assumption state's position in the international division of "grows in force as society develops around the labour determines its ability to respond to global state, becoming increasingly dependent on it as market forces. 'Hard' states –such as those a linchpin for social and economic structures"17. largely based in the North– are impervious to the potential negative impact of external market According to this state-centred perspective, forces, and instead are able to channel these economic security concerns "access to the forces to the advantage of their own economies. resources finances and markets necessary to On the contrary, 'soft' states are unable to sustain acceptable levels of welfare and state manage their economies effectively and are power"18. Buzan, moreover, equates economic subject to the dictates of external market 13 security "with the economic conditions forces . While economic globalization has necessary for survival"19. This potentially resulted in only limited benefits to the majority converts economic security at the state- level to of individuals and groups in 'soft' less developed a component of national security comprising countries, it has simultaneously exacerbated three areas of concern: military capability; deeply-rooted structural problems. This has led power in the international system; and domestic to slow or negative growth rates, extreme socio-political stability20. inequalities in the distribution of income, drastic falls in standards of living, and increasing 14 The most important area of concern here for our poverty . Thus, we can argue that globalization purposes concerns domestic socio-political and the international economic order undermine stability. Buzan recognizes that less developed states "find themselves locked into a cycle of
© Historia Actual Online 2004 115 The globalization of insecurity Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed poverty and underdevelopment from which there increased sharply over the last two decades. in is no obvious escape. 1960 our dependency averaged 54 percent. In fact, our dependency is 75 percent or more on "Terms of trade favour industrial products over foreign countries where war could. deny our raw materials, and late industrializers face supplies. These metals and minerals figure in the markets already saturated with goods of a higher manufacture of aircraft, motor vehicles, quality than they can produce for export. appliances, high-strength or stainless steels, Drawing in external finance to support magnets, jet engine parts, cryogenic devices, modernizing investments easily leads to gyroscopes, superconductors, capacitors. among insupportable debts, and a net drain of capital. other things... the United States relies on foreign Participation in the local global market economy sources to supply amounts in excess of 50 from such positions of weakness can lead to percent of its needs for some 32 minerals intolerable domestic pressures. Governments essential for our military and industrial base"23 can find themselves having to choose between their debt repayments, or fulfilling conditions Here, US military capability was only part of the for credit- worthiness, at the expense of equation. The other part concerned sustaining lowering living standards that are already on the the advanced technological requirements for the margins of survival for millions of people"21. functioning of US society in general. The critical significance of this issue is apparent Economic insecurity for less developed states as from the response to the 1973-74 oil crisis a consequence of their structural disadvantage in instigated by OAPEC (Organization of Arab the world capitalist economy thus contributes to Petroleum Exporting Countries). The latter cut their domestic socio-political instability by production leading to a quadrupling of world oil undermining human security. In this way, prices –"the most fundamental shake-up in human insecurity in relation to economic, food Western economies since the 1930s", which had and health security can generate socio-political a "major impact on US security perceptions"24. tensions that manifest in social unrest, civil In this context, energy security became an disorder, crime, and at most, the outbreak of increasingly significant component of US violent conflict. Together these phenomena can economic security under the overall umbrella of exacerbate the deterioration of other components national security25, to the point that in 1975, US of human security, namely personal, community contingency plans for military force to protect and political security, which in turn can vital oil supplies and guarantee the health of the aggravate economic-human security in a self- US economy in the event of "some actual reinforcing cycle the result of which is strangulation of the industrialized world" were potentially deleterious for state power and revealed by then Secretary of State Henry conducive to protracted intra-state conflict. Kissinger26.
Buzan's observations on the linkage between The projected impact of energy insecurity on economic and military capability are also worth economic insecurity for the major powers is noting here. Military capability depends on an therefore sufficient to exacerbate the potential industrial base capable of supporting a state's for international conflict over strategic armed forces, which in turn relies on access to resources, especially oil. However, the issue of key strategic resources. As such, maintaining the resources also has important ramifications which supply of strategic resources from abroad, are fundamentally connected to issues of human especially for the major powers, can be a and economic security in the less developed significant national security agenda22. However, states. access to resources can also extend to non- military facets of social organization. In this As Klare observes, less developed countries that context, Rogers and Dando note, within a few suffer from both economic insecurity at the years after 1974, "maintenance of the resource state-level due to their structural disadvantage in base of the United States came to be considered the world capitalist economy and human a major objective of military strategy." insecurity at the community and individual level According to the Pentagon's Military Posture as a consequence of this, are far more vulnerable Statement for Fiscal Year 1982: to intra- state and inter-state conflicts over resources than the major powers. Examples "The dependency of the United States on foreign include the Democratic Republic of Congo sources of non- fuels, minerals and metals has (formerly Zaire), "where several internal
116 © Historia Actual Online 2004 Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed The globalization of insecurity factions and foreign powers have been fighting not merely an economic process or a recent for control over the lucrative gold and copper historical phenomenon, but rather a multiplex of fields of the south and west", and Sierra Leone distinct processes spanning several centuries where there is "internal conflict over the which originated in Europe and now dominates country's valuable diamond fields." Such the world28. Seity, however, while agreeing that resource conflicts typically arise in globalization is a political, social, and cultural economically insecure "poor and process, sees it as "foremost an economic underdeveloped countries where possession of a process"29. mineral deposit or oil field is seen as the only viable route to the accumulation of wealth". For Ellwood, globalization refers to "the Klare also highlights the role of globalization in integration of the global economy that began in exacerbating the probability of such resource earnest with the launch of the colonial era five conflicts: centuries ago". The process, however, has dramatically accelerated "over the past quarter "Global market forces can only increase the century with the explosion of computer likelihood of conflict, most notably when a technology, the dismantling of trade barriers and contested resource is seen as being so valuable the expanding political and economic power of in monetary terms that none of the claimants multinational corporations"30. involved is willing to accept its loss. The risk of internal conflict over resources is further Indeed, as Luke observes, the current scale and heightened by the growing divide between the speed of economic globalization is rich and the poor in many developing countries unprecedented: a phenomenon widely ascribed to globalization. Those at the bottom are finding themselves "[...] a 'transnational' flow of goods, capital, increasingly barred from access to such vital people and ideas has existed for centuries; it commodities as food, land, shelter, and safe antedates even the rise of modern nation- states. drinking water. As supplies contract and the However, this historical flow [...] tended to price of many materials rises, the poor will find move more slowly, move less and more themselves in an increasingly desperate situation narrowly than the rush of products, ideas, and thus more inclined to heed the exhortations persons and money that develops with jet of demagogues, fundamentalists, and extremists transportation, electronic telecommunication, who promise to relieve their suffering through massive decolonization and extensive 27 revolt or ethnic partition" computerization"31
Hence, although the example of oil illustrates Economic globalization today, however, how control over resources can be elevated to a continues the process –begun centuries ago– of national security issue for the major powers, it is the internationalization of trade through the also clear that under the impact of global market entrenchment of an international division of forces, less developed countries are liable to be labour in the service of dominant capital. At the driven into various forms of intensifying conflict eve of the Cold War period, countries in the over resources due to the intensification of South emerging from colonial rule suffered from economic insecurity generated by these forces. economies fundamentally subordinated to "the Thus, we can argue that globalization and the needs of the mother country". Colonial rule had international economic order specifically thus created or exacerbated social and economic undermine the economic components of national distortions in the Southern states, the cumulative security (economic-national security) in less impact of which "constituted a vicious circle of developed countries. enduring structural impediments to progressive development". Two processes during the 1.3. Globalization and its International colonial era in particular served to reinforce this Structure structural disadvantage. Firstly, plantation cash crops and/or extraction of raw materials for Shaw argues that globalization is "a complex set export to the advanced industrial states in the of distinct but related processes –economic, North were favoured to the neglect of cultural, social and also political and military– agriculture. Secondly, forms of industrialization through which social relations have developed were introduced in some regions to support the towards a global scale and with global reach, imported primary products of the North, over a long historical period." Therefore, it is undercutting indigenous industries and
© Historia Actual Online 2004 117 The globalization of insecurity Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed exacerbating dependence on Northern centres of 'Third World' from the 15th to the early production. Northern-backed "modernization" 20th centuries36. programmes were designed to reinforce these 2. The second component is the global structural distortions32. economic regime's cultural or ideological underpinning, which is the In this context, the global free-trade regime "hegemonic and homogenizing" serves the interests of Northern developed discourse of neoliberalism37. economies by extracting wealth from the South. 3. The third component comprises the Whereas the advanced industrialized states global economic regime's formal continue to produce high-value goods, less decision-making structures including the developed countries are consigned to the supply World Bank, the International Monetary of raw materials and cheap labour for the North, Fund (IMF), regional banks such as the an inherently unequal division of labour whose European Bank for Reconstruction and consequence is the systematic widening of Development (EBRD), the Organization North-South inequalities. Northern access to for Economic Cooperation and "capital, technology, transportation and large, Development (OECD), the World Trade affluent markets" is unmatched by the South, Organization (WTO), the Group of lending the former a position of structural Seven, and the major trading blocs such dominance. The South is compelled to sell as ASEAN and NAFTA. This labour and land as primary commodities at low international structure is correlated with prices due to their large supply, such that national domestic structures such as increasing Southern participation in the global ministries of finance, treasury boards free-trade regime only continues to aggravate and central banks, the two sets of impoverishment33. structures being formally connected through international agreements and The post-Second World War international external conditionalities attached to 38 economic order thus bears some significant fiscal, monetary, and credit policies . parallels with its predecessor in the colonial era. 4. The fourth component consists of the Notwithstanding decolonization, there are key processes –facilitated by the above continuities in the relationships between mechanisms– by which transnational Southern postcolonial states and Northern economic elites negotiate policies that former colonial powers. The post-colonial serve their common class interest in the "world economic order is by far, more expansion and maximization of private 39 centralized, concentric, and institutionalized at capital accumulation . the top", according to Nef. "Its fundamental components are trade, finance, and the Perhaps the most prominent beneficiaries of protection of the proprietary rights of these processes are transnational corporations international business. Rules, actors, and (TNCs). It is here that the most striking mechanisms constitute a de facto functional continuities between the colonial and system of global governance where core elite postcolonial orders can be discerned. TNCs interests in the centre and the periphery are operate across national borders, planning, increasingly intertwined"34. Nef delineates four producing, and marketing on a global scale, central components of the global economic assigning various functions to different regions regime: of the world where the most considerable profits can be made. Many such corporations have 1. The first is its historical and structural more power than the states across whose borders context in the form of global they operate. Combined with the force of free- macroeconomic restructuring, which trade rules, this means that they often elude 40 includes the end of the Cold War and national laws . the collapse of the Soviet Union, "construed as a victory of capitalism"; The majority of corporations, despite being ever the "disintegration" and increasing more global in power, are based in the North. "marginalization" of the 'Third World'; More than half come from only five nations: and the unprecedented speed and scale France, Germany, the Netherlands, Japan and of globalization35. We may add to these the United States. There number has also issues the global economic and increased dramatically. In 1970, there were structural impact of imperialism on the about 7,000. By 1995, this figure became
118 © Historia Actual Online 2004 Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed The globalization of insecurity 40,000. Today, 51 of the largest 100 economies across the world, which to some extent is in the world pertain to TNCs –49 are countries. correct. Indeed, in 2002, the World Bank TNCs hold 90 per cent of all technology and optimistically argued that: patents worldwide, and monopolize 70 per cent of world trade –30 per cent of which is 'intra- "Globalization generally reduces poverty firm' (occurring between different units of the because more integrated economies tend to grow same corporation)41. faster and this growth is usually widely diffused... Between countries, globalization is TNC domination of the world capitalist now mostly reducing inequality. The number of economy translates effectively into domination extreme poor (living on less than $1 per day) in on behalf of their primarily Northern host states, the new globalizers declined by 120 million especially since they also exert significant between 1993 and 1998. Within countries, leverage on the latter's domestic and foreign globalization has not, on average, affected policies. TNCs are responsible for mining, inequality, although behind the average there is refining and distributing most of the world's oil, much variation"45 gasoline, diesel and jet fuel, as well as for extracting most of the world's minerals from the To its credit, the Bank conceded that "many ground. Hence, they build most of the world's poor countries –with about 2 billion people–" oil, coal, gas, hydroelectric and nuclear power are now "becoming marginal to the world plants; harvest much of the world's wood, economy, often with declining incomes and making most of its paper; grow many of the rising poverty." But the Bank's explanation for world's agricultural crops, while processing and this is that they "have been left out of the distributing much of its food; and manufacture process of globalization"46. Contrary to the and sell most of the world's automobiles, planes, Bank's position, however, data on economic- communications satellites, computers, home human insecurity show that the marginalization electronics, chemicals, medicines and of vast swathes of the population is a direct biotechnology products42. consequence of the policies of the global economic regime –not the lack thereof. Indeed, Two hundred TNCs now control well over a the Bank's claim that globalization has brought quarter of the world's economic activity. 120 million out of extreme poverty rests on the Anderson and Cavanagh note that the networks erroneous definition that population groups with of production, consumption, and finance they per capita income of 1$ per day or more are have created economically benefit about a third "nonpoor". However, in reality: "The one dollar of the entire human population. "Two-thirds of a day standard has no rational basis: population the world (the bottom 20 per cent of the rich groups in developing countries with per capita countries and the bottom 80 per cent of the poor incomes of two, three or even five dollars countries) are either left out, marginalized, or remain poverty stricken (i.e. unable to meet hurt by these webs of activities"43. basic expenditures on food, clothing, shelter, health and education)"47. As Sachs et al therefore observe, TNCs "are part of a global marketing system to which they are One of the most authoritative critiques of the subject whilst driving it onwards. This system global economic regime, particularly of the favours the rich, promotes concentrations of structural adjustment policies imposed on less power, and with the World Trade Organization developed countries by the World Bank and the (WTO), the World Bank (WB), and the IMF, has come from the Structural Adjustment International Monetary Fund (IMF) has created Participatory Review International Network institutions and rules that favour the global (SAPRIN) whose principal report was based on players"44. a five-year research collaboration between civil society groups and the World Bank itself48. 2. THE IMPACT OF GLOBALIZATION Specific data on the rise of poverty and 2.1. The Generation of Economic-Human inequality in less developed countries Insecurity demonstrates how these policies have systematically contributed to the Many analysts argue that globalization has impoverishment and marginalization of local succeeded in increasing wealth and prosperity populations, while increasing economic inequality. Notably, purported macroeconomic
© Historia Actual Online 2004 119 The globalization of insecurity Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed gains from these policies have been negligible. health of life, education and standard of living). The SAPRI Report concludes that the global Moreover, in the 1990s, 37 countries with high economic regime has produced "increased poverty rates experienced an increase in the current-account and trade deficits and debts; latter. In 19 countries, more than one person in disappointing levels of economic growth, four was hungry, a situation which is growing efficiency and competitiveness; the worse, to the point that in 21 countries hunger misallocation of financial and other productive increased. In 14 countries, under-five mortality resources; the 'disarticulation' of national rates increased. In 9 countries, more than one economies; the destruction of national person in four has no access to safe water, a productive capacity; and extensive situation which is growing worse. In 15 environmental damage". Rather than poverty countries, more than one person in four has no and inequality having been reduced under the access to sufficient sanitation, a situation which tutelage of Western-inspired economic is growing worse. Notably, in all these countries medicine, they are now "far more intense and the impact of globalization has failed even to pervasive than they were 20 years ago, wealth is produce reasonable growth rates, which are more highly concentrated, and opportunities are "appallingly slow". In 125 less developed and far fewer for the many who have been left transition countries, per capita income growth behind by adjustment"49. was less than 3 per cent –in 54 of them, average per capita income dropped, these including Indeed, the numbers of undernourished people countries across the South in Sub-Saharan in the world have been rising for several Africa, Eastern Europe and the CIS, Latin decades. According to the Food and Agricultural America and the Carribbean, East Asia and the Organisation (FAO), the hungry within the Pacific, and the Middle East54. 'Third World' countries outside the Eastern Bloc and China rose by approximately 15 million Of the 4 billion people who live in developing during the 1970s and by 37 million during the countries, almost a third –about 1.3 billion first few years of the 1980s50. According to the people– have no access to clean drinking water. United Nations Development Programme, the A fifth of all children in the world receive an gap between rich and poor nations doubled insufficient intake of calories and proteins. between 1960 and 198951. Since then, it has Around 2 billion people –a third of the human continued to widen. Thus in 1960, the income of race– suffer from anaemia. 2.4 billion lack the 20 per cent of the world's population living access to adequate sanitation. Thirty million in the richest countries was 30 times greater than people die of hunger every year, half of whom, that of the 20 per cent in the poorest countries. UNICEF estimates, are children. Over 840 By 1997 it was 74 times greater52. million suffer from chronic malnutrition, almost a sixth of the population. Three billion people – The sheer magnitude of this growing gulf that is half the world population– are forced to between rich and poor is highlighted by the fact survive on less than two dollars a day55. Of the 6 that by the late 1990s, the fifth of the world's billion people in the world, only 500 million live population living in the highest-income in comfort –that is approximately one-twelfth of countries had: the world population. This leaves a massive 5.5 billion people living in need –over five-sixth of 56 1. 86 per cent of world GDP –while the the population . bottom fifth had 1 per cent. 2. 82 per cent of world export markets – Thus, as the United Nations Development while the bottom fifth had 1 per cent. Programme concludes, although globalization 3. 68 per cent of foreign direct investment does produce clear opportunities and rewards, –while the bottom fifth had 1 per cent. these are increasingly "spread unequally and 4. 74 per cent of world telephone lines – inequitably –concentrating power and wealth in while the bottom fifth had 1.5 per cent53. a select group of people, nations and corporations, marginalizing the others"57. More By 2003, some 54 countries were poorer than in than 80 countries still have per capita incomes 1990. In 34, life expectancy fell. In 21, more lower than they were a decade or more ago, and people were hungry. In 14, more children were inequality within countries has risen in many dying before age 5. Some 21 countries regions. In China, for instance, disparities underwent significant decline in the human between export- oriented regions of the coast development index (which measures length and and interior are widening. Similar patterns are
120 © Historia Actual Online 2004 Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed The globalization of insecurity visible in Eastern Europe and the CIS, 2.2. The Generation of Economic-National undergoing the largest increases ever in income Insecurity inequality58. Indeed, subsequent to being opened up to global market forces, Russia now has the A number of studies demonstrate the connection greatest inequality in the world. Income between economic insecurity and intra-state inequalities have also rocketed within other conflict. Paul Collier and Ankie Hoeffler, for purported beneficiaries of the free market, example, argue that the lack of economic including China, Indonesia, Thailand, and other opportunities plays a greater role in civil wars East and Southeast Asian countries. than political grievances. Slow income growth, Surprisingly, even the industrialized countries, low per capita income, natural resource especially Sweden, Britain and the United dependence (proxied by primary commodity States, are no exception59. exports as a percentage of GDP), lower male secondary education enrollment, rebel military The growth of 'Third World' debts as a result of advantages (proxied by dispersed population), IMF loans during the past 20 years or so, along and total population are all significantly with the 'Third World' struggle to service them, positively associated with the onset of civil has been one of the most crucial factors wars. Particularly important is the role of maintaining the severity of deepening global economic opportunities of would-be rebels impoverishment. 'Third World' debts are now so (usually poor young men) from fighting the huge and interest rates so high, that for every state, relative to deterioration of other economic year since 1983 the South has paid out more to activities such as farming62. the North just to service its debt (i.e. repayments and interest charges), than it has received from James Fearon and David Laitin similarly find a the North in new investments and loans. This significant correlation between lower per capita greatly reduces the available funds that are GDP and the onset of a civil war. They argue, sorely needed for investment in health, however, that poverty and intra-state conflict are education, food subsidies and other critical areas connected by the economic weakness of the of public spending. For instance, between 1983 state, which inhibits its domestic monopoly of and 1993, the IMF received $2.9 billion greater violence. Poverty contributes to weak state than what it gave out in new loans. In 1973, the militaries and police, along with poor total international debt owed by the South was infrastructure such as roads, cumulatively $100 billion. Today this has quadrupled to $400 reducing the state's repressive capabilities63. billion60. These two factors –lack of economic opportunity and the decline of state power– are This data demonstrates that globalization and clearly complementary, and are both products of the international economic order have impacted the international economic order. Thus, detrimentally on economic-human security, surveying the literature, Sambanis concludes leading to a steady increase in poverty that "economic studies of civil war have (economic insecurity), hunger (food insecurity) successfully identified an empirically robust and disease (health insecurity). This generation relationship between poverty, slow growth, and of deepening human insecurity, moreover, an increased likelihood of civil war and establishes a fundamental causal context for prevalence"64. insecurity at national levels. As the former IMF chief Michael Camdessus observed in his As Kaldor notes, under the neoliberal policies of keynote address to the 10th United Nations the global economic regime –macroeconomic Conference on Trade and Development stabilization, deregulation and privatization– (UNCTAD): along with mounting foreign debt and structural adjustment programmes, state revenues have "The greatest concern of our time is poverty... It significantly declined. Unemployment, resource- is the ultimate systematic threat facing depletion and income disparities have increased humanity. The widening gap between rich and drastically. Growing economic, food and health poor within nations... is morally outrageous, insecurity at the human level across the South as economically wasteful, and potentially socially a consequence of globalization has contributed explosive. If the poor are left hopeless, poverty to an "an environment for growing will undermine the fabric of our societies criminalization and the creation of networks of through confrontation, violence, and civil corruption, black marketers, arms and drug disorders"61 traffickers, etc". Particularly in so-called
© Historia Actual Online 2004 121 The globalization of insecurity Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed 'transition' states which had previously global economic system that has, in effect, controlled large sectors of the economy lacking favored a form of warlordism"67. self-organizing market institutions, structural adjustment programmes eliminated regulation, Africa provides a powerful example. After more paving way for the rise of corruption, than a decade of land privatization, trade speculation and crime rather than new liberalization, the deregulation of currency productive enterprises. Identity politics provides transactions, the downsizing of the public sector, a mobilizing and legitimizing factor for these the defunding of social services, and other activities65. components of IMF-World Bank reforms, the only result is the collapse of local economies, In this manner, globalization creates conditions lack of foreign investment and the conducive to war economies. The impact of predominance in productive activity of mineral globalization exacerbates the decline of state extraction and export- oriented agriculture while power through the loss of control over and millions of Africans are hungry. In this context, fragmentation of the instruments of physical violent conflicts erupt between different ruling coercion. Deepening widespread economic factions struggling to access state power as a insecurity at human and national levels means to accumulate wealth by appropriating contributes to this weakening of the state's and selling national assets and resources, or physical control of territory as well as a decline assets of rival or weaker groups. As the majority in the ability to command popular allegiance, of the population becomes impoverished, the reducing the state's capacity to collect taxes. As struggle for survival is exploited by warring the criminalization of the economy continues, parties to recruit unemployed and impoverished new forces arise claiming 'protection money' young men in the service of local antagonisms. which further sustains widespread tax evasion. Such conflict is mediated through identity Combined with the impact of elite corruption, politics68. state revenue is significantly diminished. International financial institutions respond by The 1994 genocide in Rwanda is a case in point. advocating government spending cuts, Chossudovsky notes that the "restructuring of exacerbating further the fragmentation of the the agricultural system under IMF-World Bank military and state capacity to maintain physical supervision" precipitated the fall of the control. Thus, under the policies of the global population "into abject poverty and destitution." economic regime: "A downwards spiral of loss This economic deterioration immediately of revenue and legitimacy, growing disorder and followed the "collapse of the international coffee military fragmentation creates the context in market" and the imposition of macroeconomic which the new wars take place. Effectively, the reforms by the Bretton Woods institutions, 'failure' of the state is accompanied by a growing exacerbating "simmering ethnic tensions" and privatization of violence"66. accelerating the "process of political collapse"69.
Structural adjustment further reduces state In a critique of this thesis, Storey argues that it expenditures on education, health and amounts to asserting that the "genocide was infrastructure and commands the sale of state partly attributable to state weakness or collapse, enterprises, reducing income and weakening and the weakness or collapse was partly state capacity to deal with problems such as attributable to the policies of the World Bank food shortages or slow economic growth, as and the IMF." This, he asserts, is incorrect on well as with crises like the collapse of the price both counts70. Storey states firstly that Rwanda's of a main export commodity or the emergence economic crisis cannot be attributed solely or of warlords. Foreign investors cut services and even primarily to the impact of adjustment, may purchase protection from warlords who since the economic crisis preceded the exploit the environment of state decline by macroeconomic reforms71. However, as engaging in arms and drug trafficking. The latter Chossudovsky shows, prior to the World Bank- in turn become the last few forms of viable IMF intervention in 1990 although poverty economic activity. As Tirman thus observes, the levels were high, in the 1970s and early 1980s devastating intra-state conflicts in areas such as there was significant economic and social "Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Congo –altogether, progress: real GDP growth was at 4.9 per cent; places where millions of people have been killed school enrollment was markedly increasing; in the last 20 years– are consequences of a inflation was less than 4 per cent. Coffee was cultivated by 70 per cent of rural households,
122 © Historia Actual Online 2004 Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed The globalization of insecurity along with other commercial activities such as Storey's final principal criticism is perhaps the sale of traditional food staples and banana beer. most problematic. He argues that Local-level food self-sufficiency had been Chossudovsky's thesis "understates the principal realized to some extent with restrictions on food impact of adjustment. The potentially most imports to protect local producers72. grave aspect of Bank policy towards Rwanda Chossudovsky also acknowledges the during this period was the increase in state devastating impact of falling coffee prices – resources it helped facilitate and, relatedly, the noted also by Storey– preceding the World boost it offered to state legitimacy"76. Bank-IMF intervention, which led to a 50 per Chossudovsky, however, fully recognizes the cent decline in export earnings. With state influx from the World Bank of millions of revenues heavily dependent on coffee exports, dollars as the fighting began in October 1990 to this culminated in a crisis in state public Rwanda's Central Bank. A total of US$ 260 finances corresponding to the outbreak of million, he notes, was approved by the donors. famines throughout rural Rwanda. However, Whereas Storey argues that this influx of structural adjustment only increased the scale of resources served to financially strengthen the crisis73. state thereby boosting its domestic legitimacy, in reality as Chossudovsky documents most of this On this point, Storey further challenges donor assistance "was neither used Chossudovsky's argument, stating that "it is productively" nor channeled to "providing difficult to make any direct linkage. between relief" for famine. On the contrary, he notes, a adjustment and the bankruptcy of state sizeable portion of the funds was diverted by the enterprises, the collapse of public services, state to the military and paramilitary factions in increasing child malnutrition, or the absence of preparation for the genocide, a fact overlooked drugs in health centres"74. Chossudovsky, in by the World Bank and ignored thereafter77. fact, argues that the economic deterioration created by falling coffee prices (itself a function This did not amount to a strengthening of state of global market forces) prior to World Bank- legitimacy per se, but rather direct financial IMF intervention was deeply exacerbated into a sponsorship of state militarization. There can be catastrophe under structural adjustment. Storey little doubt that the impact of the global simply ignores his specific data and economic regime on Rwanda –both prior to and documentation: For instance, the Bank had including structural adjustment– generated proposed to eliminate over half the state's public previously unprecedented levels of investment projects. Devaluation triggered impoverishment, insecurity and desperation that inflation, collapsed real earnings and drastically aggravated ethnic tensions. Facing the potential increased prices of fuel and other consumer loss of state legitimacy due to this escalating essentials; the state's external debt which had insecurity, the state's violent response (also already doubled since 1985 increased by 34 per supported by the global economic regime) was a cent from 1989-92; the increase in health user classic case of top-down identity politics fees and partial privatization of the health promoting a genocidal militarism that fed off the system led to the inability to purchase anti- ranks of the new unemployed, including malarial drugs for public health centres, thousands of delinquent youths78 –what Kaldor precipitating an increase of 21 per cent in cases describes as "a reaction to the growing of malaria as well as a rise in child malnutrition; impotence and declining legitimacy of the the increase in education user fees and the established political classes" and "a form of system's partial privatization led to a substantial political mobilization, a survival tactic, for decline in school enrollment. As for state politicians active in national politics" by playing enterprises, coffee production almost totally to and inculcating "popular prejudices"79. collapsed, with its respective mixed enterprise Rwandex for coffee becoming largely The global economic regime has impacted inoperative; the state electricity enterprise similarly across African states. Federici notes Electrogaz was privatized, precipitating massive the pattern of devastating civil wars in Nigeria, price hikes and "paralyzing urban public Somalia, Algeria, Mozambique and countries in services"; the state telecommunications other regions immediately following the impact enterprise Rwandatel was privatized with similar of global market forces and structural effects75. adjustment, as well as the frequent correlation in Africa between anti-IMF protest and conflict. The sequence, she observes, of World Bank-
© Historia Actual Online 2004 123 The globalization of insecurity Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed IMF sponsored "destruction of infrastructure, imposition of market-reforms, forced 2 United Nations Development Programme, Human reconciliation with murderous, 'irreconcilable' Development Report. New York, Oxford University enemies, destabilization –is found, in different Press, 1994, 24. 3 degrees and combinations, everywhere in Africa Ibid., 23. 4 Ibid., 32. today, to such a point that several countries, like 5 Angola and Sudan, are in a state of permanent Keller, Edmond J., Globalization..., op. cit. 6 Final Report of the Commission on Human emergency, where their viability as political 80 Security, Human Security Now (New York, entities is now in question" . Commission on Human Security, 2003) [document on line] Available from Internet at: , 2-14. United CONCLUSIONS Nations Development Programme, <>..., op. cit., 24. 7 Paris, Roland, "Human Security: Paradigm Shift or Globalization and the international economic Hot Air?". International Security, XXVI-2 (Fall order, over the last several decades, have 2001), 92-96. Axworthy, Lloyd, Human Security: Safety for People in a Changing World. Ottawa, systematically generated human insecurity Department of Foreign Affairs and International throughout the world, particularly in the less Trade, April 19. developed countries in the South, as well as in 8 Kim, Samuel S., "Global Violence and a Just World regions of the advanced industrial countries in Order". Journal of Peace Research, XXI-2 (June the North. Most pertinently, globalization and 1984), 181. the international economic order have 9 See for example Tabb, William K., Unequal undermined economic-human security –that is Partners: A Primer on Globalization. New York, economic, food and health security– which in New Press, 2002, 44-158. Also see George, Susan, turn has contributed to the generation of How the Other Half Dies: The Real Reasons for personal, community and political insecurity. World Hunger. Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1978. 10 Tickner, J. Ann, "Re-visioning Security", in Booth, This general deterioration of human security Ken; Smith, Steve (eds.), International Relations throughout much of the South lays the causal Theory Today. Oxford, Polity Press, 1995, 18. groundwork for widespread societal unrest; the 11 Alcock, Norman, "Peace: Justice and Prosperity: undermining of state power and legitimacy; the Proposal for a Linkage Between Disarmament and emergence of parallel criminal economies Development". Bulletin of Peace Proposals, VIII-4 managed by rival warlords; the mutual (1977), 340. corruption and militarization of the state and 12 Tickner, J. Ann, "Re-visioning...", op. cit., 189. 13 society; and ultimately the eruption of violent Gilpin, Robert, The Political Economy of conflict fuelled by war economies. In this way, International Relations. New Jersey, Princeton, globalization and the international economic Princeton University Press, 1987. 14 Conteh-Morgan, Earl, "Globalization and Human order, generating economic-national insecurity, Security: A Neo- Gramscian Perspective". fundamentally destabilize the national security International Journal of Peace Studies, VII- 2 of less developed countries. (Autumn/Winter 2002). Avalaible from Internet at:
124 © Historia Actual Online 2004 Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed The globalization of insecurity
Context. Washington DC, Trilateral Commission, 40 Karliner, Joshua, The Corporate Planet: Ecology 1998, Introduction. and Politics in the Age of Globalization. San 26 Cited in Klare, Michael T., Resource..., op. cit., 33. Francisco, Sierra Club Books, 1997. 27 Ibid., 24. Also see Renner, Michael, "The Anatomy 41 Ibid. of Resource Wars". Worldwatch Paper 162 (October 42 Ibid. 2002). 43 Anderson, Sarah; Cavanagh, John, The Rise of 28 Shaw, Martin, "The State of Globalization: Global Corporate Power. Washington DC, Institute Towards a Theory of State Transformation". Review for Policy Studies, 1996. of International Political Economy, IV-3 (1997), 497. 44 Sachs, Wolfgang et. al., Greening the North: A Available from Internet at
© Historia Actual Online 2004 125 The globalization of insecurity Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed
Commentary (14 September 1999), [journal on line] "The authorities implemented, in 1991-92, most of Avalaible from Internet at. the agreed reform measures, except the coffee sector 60 Christian Aid, Still waiting - time for a new deal on reforms" (Cited in Storey, Andy, 'Structural Third-World debt. July 2000. Adjustment...', op. cit., 10). 61 Cited in Conteh-Morgan, Earl, "Globalization...", 76 Ibid., 16. op. cit. 77 Chossudovsky, Michel, The Globalization..., op. 62 Cited in Miguel, Edward; Satnayath, Shankar and cit., 109-110, 114. Sargentin, Ernest, "Economic Shocks and Civil 78 Ibid., 110. Conflicts: An Instrumental Variables Approach 79 Kaldor, Mary, New..., op. cit., 78. (Draft)". (Los Angeles, CA, UCLA Globalization 80 Federici, Silva, "War...", op. cit. Research Center-Africa, University of California, April 2003), [paper on line] Available from Internet at:
126 © Historia Actual Online 2004