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Globalization: a Very Short Introduction VERY SHORT INTRODUCTIONS Are for Anyone Wanting a Stimulating and Accessible Way in to a New Subject

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Globalization: a Very Short Introduction VERY SHORT INTRODUCTIONS Are for Anyone Wanting a Stimulating and Accessible Way in to a New Subject Globalization: A Very Short Introduction VERY SHORT INTRODUCTIONS are for anyone wanting a stimulating and accessible way in to a new subject. They are written by experts, and have been published in more than 25 languages worldwide. The series began in 1995, and now represents a wide variety of topics in history, philosophy, religion, science, and the humanities. Over the next few years it will grow to a library of around 200 volumes- a Very Short Introduction to everything from ancient Egypt and Indian philosophy to conceptual art and cosmology. Very Short Introductions available now: ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY CONTINENTAL PHILOSOPHY Julia Annas Simon Critchley THE ANGLO-SAXON AGE COSMOLOGY Peter Coles John Blair CRYPTOGRAPHY ANIMAL RIGHTS David DeGrazia Fred Piper and Sean Murphy ARCHAEOLOGY Paul Bahn DADAAND SURREALISM ARCHITECTURE David Hopkins Andrew Ballantyne DARWIN Jonathan Howard ARISTOTLE Jonathan Barnes DEMOCRACY Bernard Crick ART HISTORY Dana Arnold DESCARTES Tom Sorell ARTTHEORY Cynthia Freeland DRUGS Leslie Iversen THE HISTORYOF TH E EARTH Martin Redfern ASTRONOMY Michael Hoskin EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY ATHEISM Julian Baggini Geraldine Pinch AUGUSTINE HenryChadwick EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY BARTHES Jonathan Culler BRITAIN Paul Langford THE BIBLE John Riches THE ELEMENTS Philip Ball BRITISH POLITICS EMOTION Dylan Evans Anthony Wright EMPIRE Stephen Howe BUDDHA Michael Carrithers ENGELS Terrell Carver BUDDHISM DamienKeown ETH ICS Simon Blackburn CAPITALISM James Fulcher THE EUROPEAN UNION THE CELTS Barry Cunliffe John Pinder CHOICETHEORY EVOLUTION Michael Allingham Brian and Deborah Charlesworth CHRISTIAN ART Beth Williamson FASCISM Kevin Passmore CLASSICS Mary Beard and THE FRENCH REVOLUTION John Henderson William Doyle CLAUSEWITZ Michael Howard FREUD AnthonyStorr THE COLD WAR GALILEO Stillman Drake Robert McMahon GANDHI BhikhuParekh GLOBALIZATION PLATO Julia Annas Manfred Steger POLITICS Kenneth Minogue HEGEL Peter Singer POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY HEIDEGGER Michael Inwood David Miller HINDUISM KimKnott POSTCOLONIALISM HISTORY John H. Arnold Robert Young HOBBES Richard Tuck POSTMODERNISM HUME A.J. Ayer Christopher Butler IDEOLOGY Michael Freeden POSTSTRUCTURALISM INDIAN PHILOSOPHY Catherine Belsey Sue Hamilton PREHISTORY Chris Gosden INTELLIGENCE Ian J. Deary PRESOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY ISLAM Malise Ruthven Catherine Osborne JUDAISM Norman Solomon PSYCHOLOGY Gillian Butler and JUNG Anthony Stevens Freda McManus KANT Roger Scruton QUANTUM THEORY KIERKEGAARD Patrick Gardiner John Polkinghorne THE KORAN Michael Cook ROMAN BRITAIN PeterSalway LINGUISTICS Peter Matthews ROUSSEAU Robert Wokler LITERARY THEORY RUSSELL A. C Grayling Jonathan Culler RUSSIAN LITERATURE LOCKE John Dunn Catriona Kelly LOGIC Graham Priest THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION MACHIAVELLI Quentin Skinner S. A. Smith MARX Peter Singer SCHIZOPHRENIA MATHEMATICS Timothy Gowers Chris Frith and Eve johnstone MEDIEVAL BRITAIN SCHOPENHAUER John Gillingham and Christopher Janaway Ralph A. Griffiths SHAKESPEARE Germaine Greer MODERN IRELAND SOCIAL AND CULTURAL Senia PaŠeta ANTHROPOLOGY MOLECULES Philip Ball John Monaghan and Peter Just MUSIC Nicholas Cook SOCIOLOGY Steve Bruce NIETZSCHE Michael Tanner SOCRATES C. C.W.Taylor NINETEENTH-CENTURY SPINOZA Roger Scruton BRITAIN Christopher Harvie and STUART BRITAIN John Morrill H. C. G. Matthew TERRORISM Charles Townshend NORTHERN IRELAND THEOLOGY David F. Ford Marc Mulholland THE TUDORS John Guy PAU L E. P. Sanders TWENTIETH-CENTURY PHILOSOPHY Edward Craig BRITAIN Kenneth O. Morgan PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE WITTGENSTEIN A. C. Grayling SamirOkasha WORLD MUSIC Philip Bohlman Available soon: AFRICAN HISTORY HIEROGLYPHS John Parker and Richard Rathbone Penelope Wilson ANCIENT EGYPT Ian Shaw HIROSHIMA B. R.Tomlinson THE BRAIN Michael O'Shea HUMAN EVOLUTION BUDDHIST ETHICS Bernard Wood Damien Keown INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS CHAOS Leonard Smith Paul Wilkinson CHRISTIANITY Linda Woodhead JAZZ Brian Morton CITIZENSHIP Richard Bellamy MANDELA Tom Lodge CLASSICAL ARCHITECTURE MEDICAL ETHICS Robert Tavernor Tony Hope CLONING Arlene Judith Klotzko THE MIND Martin Davies CONTEMPORARY ART MYTH Robert Segal Julian Stallabrass NATIONALISM Steven Crosby THE CRUSADES PERCEPTION Richard Gregory Christopher Tyerman PHILOSOPHYOF RELIGION DERRIDA Simon Glendinning Jack Copeland and Diane Proudfoot DESIGN John Heskett PHOTOGRAPHY DINOSAURS David Norman Steve Edwards DREAMING J. Allan Hobson THE RAJ Denis Judd ECONOMICS Partha Dasgupta THE RENAISSANCE THE ENDOFTHE WORLD Jerry Brotton Bill McGuire RENAISSANCE ART EXISTENTIALISM Thomas Flynn Geraldine Johnson THE FIRST WORLD WAR SARTRE Christina Howells Michael Howard THESPANISH CIVILWAR FREEWILL Thomas Pink Helen Graham FUNDAMENTALISM TRAGEDY Adrian Poole Malise Ruthven THETWENTIETH CENTURY HABERMAS Gordon Finlayson Martin Conway For more information visit our web site www.oup.co.uk/vsi Manfred B. Steger GLOBALIZATION A Very Short Introduction OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS OXPORD UNIVERSITY PRESS Great Clarendon Street, Oxford o x 2 6 D p Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York Auckland Bangkok Buenos Aires Cape Town Chennai Dar es Salaam Delhi Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kolkata Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai Nairobi Sao Paulo Shanghai Taipei Tokyo Toronto Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York © Manfred B. Steger 2003 The moral rights of the author have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker) First published as a Very Short Introduction 2003 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organizations. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Data available ISBN 13: 978-0-19-280359-7 ISBN 10: 0-19-280359-X 9 10 Typeset by RefineCatch Ltd, Bungay, Suffolk Printed in Great Britain by Ashford Colour Press Ltd., Gosport, Hampshire For my students at Illinois State University and the University of Hawai'i-Manoa. This page intentionally left blank Contents Preface xi Abbreviations xv List of illustrations xvii List of maps xix 1 1 Globalization: a contested concept 1 2 2. Is globalization a new phenomenon? 17 3 3 The economic dimension of globalization 37 4 4 The political dimension of globalization 56 5 5 The cultural dimension of globalization 69 6 6 The ideological dimension of globalization 93 7 7 Challenges to globalism 113 8 8 Assessing the future of globalization 131 References 137 Index 143 This page intentionally left blank Preface It is a daunting task to write a short, accessible introduction to such a complex topic as 'globalization'. This challenge becomes even more formidable in the case of a very short introduction. Hence, it is not surprising that the authors of the few existing short introductions to the subject have opted to discuss only one aspect of globalization - usually the emerging global economic system, its history, structure, and supposed benefits and failings. While helpful in explaining the intricacies of international trade policy, global financial markets, worldwide flows of goods, services, and labour, transnational corporations, offshore financial centres, foreign direct investment, and the new international economic institutions, such narrow accounts often leave the general reader with a shallow understanding of globalization as primarily an economic phenomenon. To be sure, the discussion of economic matters must be a significant part of any comprehensive account of globalization, but the latter should not be conflated with the former. The present volume makes the case that globalization is best thought of as a multidimensional set of social processes that resists being confined to any single thematic framework. Indeed, the transformative powers of globalization reach deeply into the economic, political, cultural, technological, and ecological dimensions of contemporary social life. In addition, globalization contains important discursive aspects in the form of ideologically charged narratives that put before the public a particular agenda of topics for discussion, questions to ask, and claims to make. The existence of these narratives shows that globalization is not merely an objective process, but also a plethora of stories that define, describe, and analyse that very process. The social forces behind these competing accounts of globalization seek to endow this relatively new buzzword with norms, values, and meanings that not only legitimate and advance specific power interests, but also shape the personal and collective identities of billions of people. In order to shed light on these rhetorical manoeuvres, any introduction to globalization ought to examine its ideological dimension. After all, it is mostly the question of whether globalization ought to be considered a 'good'
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