POLITICAL GLOBALIZATION

By

Gerald Delanty and

Chris Rumford
(1) Globalization of the nation-
state with democracy as its
framework;

(2) Global normative culture

and human rights;

(3) Global civil society and its

new model of governance.
 Review of Definitions
• State
For an entity to be considered a state, 4
fundamental conditions must be met
1)Must have a territorial base,
geographically defined boundaries
2)A stable population must reside w/n its
borders
3)There should be a government w/c this
population owes its allegiance
4) Has to be recognized diplomatically by
other states
***these legal criteria are not absolute; some
entities that do not fulfill all the legal criteria
are still states (ex:until the Palestinian
Authority was given a measure of control
over the West Bank and Gaza, Palestine was
not territorially based; most states have
stable populations but migrant communities
and nomadic peoples cross borders,etc.)
 Definition
• Nation – a group of people who share a set of
characteristics
-people who share a common history and
heritage, a common language and customs or
similar lifestyles
***At the core of the concept of nation is the
notion that people with commonalities owe
their allegiance to the nation and its legal
representative, the state
 Definition
• Nation-state – the entity formed when people
sharing the same historical, cultural or
linguistic roots form their own state with
borders, a gov’t and international recognition;
trend began with French and American
revolution
- The coincidence between nation and state is the
foundation for national determination, the idea
that people sharing nationhood have the right
to determine how and under what conditions
they should live
*** Other nations are spread among several states
Ex: Germans resided and still live not only in United
Germany but in the far-off corners of Eastern
Europe
Somalis live in Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti
***Other states have w/n their borders several
different nations ex: India, Russia and South Africa
***in these cases, the state and the nation do not
coincide; sometimes there is congruence between
state and nation (Denmark and Italy)
Globalization refers to the
multidimensional, accelerated and
interconnected organization of
space and time across national
borders
With respect to political
globalization it concerns an
approach to the social world that
stresses postnational and
transnational processes as well as
the consciousness of the
compressed nature of space and
time
 Definition
• Postnational or non-nationalism is a process
or trend by which nation-states and
national identities lose their importance
relative to cross nation and self-organized
or supra-national and global entities;
factors that contribute to this: political
powers is partially transferred from
national authorities to supranational
entities such as UN, NAFTA
media and entertainment industries are
becoming increasingly global and facilitates
trends and opinions in supranational scale

Transnational – extending or operational

across national boundaries
 Challenges to the State
The state despite its centrality is facing
challenges from the
a)Processes of globalization (in political term,
the state is confronted by transnational issues-
environmental degradation and disease – that
gov’t could not manage alone ex: 2003 SARS
epidemic in China; in economic term, states
and markets are increasingly tied
Together; multinational corps and the
internationalization of production and
consumption that make it difficult for states
to regulate their own economic policies;
national cultures are changing as new and
intrusive technologies –email, Facebook,
Twitter, satellite broadcasting and
worldwide TV networks – undermine the
state’s control over information
• Transnational Crime - illicit activities
made easier by globalization; facilitated
by more and faster transportation routes,
rapid communication and electronic
financial networks; ex: illegal drugs,
counterfeit goods, smuggled weapons,
laundered money, trade in body parts,
piracy and trafficking in poor and
exploited people
b) religiously and ideologically based
transnational movements (Christian cults
such as The Covenant, the Sword and the
Arm of the Lord, extremist Islamic
fundamentalism such as Osama bin Laden’s
Al Qaeda)

c) ethnonational movements (may lead to

civil conflict and war (ex: India – Kashmiris,
Burundi, Rwanda – Hutus, Tutsis)
Political globalization as discussed
in globalization literature
emphasized the decline of the
nation-state under the impact of
global forces which created
different kinds of politics. This is
due to the transnational networks
and flows as well as processes of de-
and reterritorialization
 Definition
• Deterritorialization – the eradication of
social, political or cultural practices from
their native places and populations

• Reterritorialization – when people w/n a

place start to produce an aspect of
popular culture themselves, doing so in
the context of their local culture and
making it their own
• The approach of political globalization in
this chapter highlights the multi-faceted
nature of globalization, seen as a relational
dynamic;
• Political globalization can be understood as
a tension between three processes which
interact to produce complex field of global
politics:
a)Global geopolitics
b)Global normative culture
c)Polycentric networks
 Definition
• Geopolitics – a study of the influence of
such factors as geography, economics,
and democracy on the politics and
especially the foreign policy of the state
• Global normative culture – provides
normative reference points for states
and an orientation for political actors
example: human rights, environmental
concerns
• Polycentric networks – in regards
to public policy is a network of
communities, regions, nations, etc.
who join together for a shared or
common goal; these networks can
cross borders and create a more
connected global community
example: global civil society
 1st dimension of Political G: Geopolitics of
Global Power

• Most pervasive form of political

globalization – worldwide spread of
democracy based on nation-states
• Political G which is based on territory;
largely confined to the political form of
nation-state; G does not undermine the
democratic nation-state but give it
worldwide acceptability;
• Democratic nation-states in many parts of the
world resulted to different kinds of political
cultures
• G of democratic politics is the basis for the
“New World Order” - associated with the bid
for worldwide supremacy by the US and
legitimization of global wars
• Global geopolitics is not Pax Americana –US
will not be able to establish worldwide
supremacy; will be challenged by many
centres of power – centres w/c are mostly
states
New World Order
 2nd dimension of Political G: Global
Normative Culture
• Rise of global normative culture which is
independent of geopolitics and is largely legal
but diffused in global political communication
• Main expression of this is human rights w/c lies
at the centre of a global cosmopolitanism
• Also includes environmental concerns; dimension
of G that is not specifically Western
• Political communication is now global in
scope as a result of global communication
and popular culture
- Has become the basis of global normative
culture in opposition/support to
geopolitics
- Central to this are the rights of the
individual as well as environmental
concerns such as sustainable environment
• Sovereignty of the state has been
challenged by the rights of individual
leading to tensions between peoplehood
and personhood
• States were once the main agents of global
norms; today a global normative culture
has come into existence beyond the state
system and exists in a relation of tension
with states.
• John Meyer and his colleagues have
argued that there is now a global culture
w/c provides a frame of reference for all
socities (normative reference points for
states and an orientation for political
actors)
• For politics this means that political
struggles and legitimation are more
connected to global issues
 Polycentric networks
• Dimension of globalization that is less
related to states and are not reducible to
global normative culture
• These processes of political G are
associated with networks and flows, new
sources of mobility and communication
and denote new relationship between the
individual, state and society
• Associated w/ emerging forms of global
governance; associated with the notion of
global civil society
 Civil Society
• Concept of civil society is much contested;
simply refers to political domain between
the state and the market where informal
politics takes place
• In global terms, correspond to new spaces
beyond the state and the inter-governmental
domain and independent of global
capitalism
• Has come into existence around
internationa nongovernamental orgs
(INGOs), various grass-roots orgs and
Social movements of all kinds from globally
organized anti-capitalist protests and global
society movements such as World Social
Forum, anti-sweat shop movements, terrorist
movements
***Distinctive features of global society is
that: does not have one space but many;
polycentric and not based on any single
principle of org other than it is globally
organized through loosely structured
horizontal coalitions & networks of activists
 3 dimension of political G
• Are all products of G and are interrelated
hence do not exists separately from each
other
• Many scholars view these dimensions or
processes of G (geopolitics and global
normative culture in particular) as
amounting to global polity (political unit)
The argument in this chapter question the
assumption of global polity
• Political G is not leading in the direction
of a new global order of governance or
world society but to transnational political
action w/c challenges neoliberal politics
• The 3 dynamics of political G will be
examined around 4 examples of social
transformation
 Social Transformation

• Transformation of the Nation-state,

Nationality and Citizenship
• Public sphere and political
communication
• Civil Society
• Space and borders
 I. Transformation of the nation-state,
nationality and citizenship
• Ohmae (1996) – the notion of the decline
of nation-state should be replaced by the
idea of the continued transformation of
the nation-state
• Sorensen (2004) – states continue to be
powerful actors but exist in a more
globally connected world that they do not
fully control
 Transformation of nation-states

*states share sovereignty with other

global players
*State is only one source of political
power
Under conditions of economic G
Strange (1996) –transition from a world
economy dominated by national economies to
global economy leads into economic forces
challenging the power of nation-states
*States are struggling to control firms that has
become rivals to states
On the impact of global civil society

•Argument is that nation-state must share

sovereignty with non-governmental actors
leading to multi-governance
• Arguments revolves around the question
of whether states are getting weaker or
stronger as a result of global forces
Ex: on Europeanization, 2 positions:
1)Transnationalization enhances power of
the nation-states
Movement towards transnational authority
allows a more functional state system to
operate since only those functions that the
state is less equipped to perform
are transferred to transnational level (regulation
of finance markets and cross-border trade)
 Results to loss of sovereignty but does
not necessarily translate into loss of
autonomy
 Europeanization
2) Thesis of the rise of regulatory state
Majone (1996) – Transnationalization of the
state in Europe is best seen in terms of a
regulatory kind of governance rather than
creation of new state system that challenges the
nation-state
*EU has a large no. of independent regulatory
authorities (environment, drugs and drug
addiction, racism and xenophobia, food safety,
etc.
• States always have regulatory functions;
today these functions are performed at the
transnational level through cooperation
with other states
• Robinson (2001) - transnational state has
come into existence; it is a multilayered
and multi-centered linking together of the
many functions of statehood on a
transnational level
Nation-state continues to be the principal
form of societal org
• In Asia, Africa, Central and South
America, nation-states are the main
expression of political mobilization and
identity; G has enhanced them
• In Europe, new countries in central and
eastern Europe will enhance the nation-
state because most of these countries join
the European transnational order as a
means of asserting national sovereignty
 States vs nation-states
• From Weber’s definition
States – centres of the monopoly of
legitimate violence in a given territory
Nation-state – coincidence of the state with
defined political community
**States are more flexible in responding to G
than nation-states;
• G has put tremendous pressure on nation-
states particularly on the relationship
between political community and the
exercise of legitimate violence
• The resulting crisis of the nation-state is
apparent in the transformation of
nationality resulting to:
• A) decoupling of nationality and citizenship
attributed to the impact of global normative
culture; led to a blurring of boundary
between national and international law
• International law progressively incorporated
into national law (workers can make direct
appeal to international law; international legal
tribunals playing a growing role in national
politics)
• Rights of citizenship no longer perfectly mirror
the rights of nationality despite the efforts of
the state to create lines of exclusion
• Due to the conditions of G, the nation-state has
become dislocated from the state ex: French
electorate’s rejection of European constitutions
• Sassen (2002) and others argued that
further transformation of nation-state is
the rise of subnational politics
Ex: Global cities are products of de-
nationalization of the nation-state and the
rise of non-territorial politics
II. Transformation of the Public Sphere
and Communication
• Communication is central in politics
• Nation-states have been based on
centralized systems of communication,
from national systems of education and
science, national newspapers and media,
national commemorations and popular
culture in w/c national narratives and
collective identities were codified,
reproduced and legitimized
• Most nation-states have been based on a
national language w/c was increasingly
standardized over time
• Political parties at the center of large-scale
apparatuses of political communication
w/c they have used for social influence
• The public today is based on professional
political communication and mass
persuasion thru systemic advertising and
lobbying: for Mayhew (1997) this amounts
to a “new public”
• Habermas (1989) argued that
communication is an open site of political
and cultural contestation and is never
fully institutionalized by the state or
entirely controlled by elites and their
organs of communication
• Calhoun (1992); Crossley and Roberts
(2004) – public sphere is a site of politics; it
is not just a spatial location but a process
of discursive contestation
• The idea of the public sphere was
theorized in terms of the decline as a
result of the rise of commercial mass
media
• The new social theory of the public sphere
has now moved into a wider view of
public sphere as cosmopolitan;
• Global public spheres constituted by
global civil society and cosmopolitan
trends
• While there is debate on the question of a
global public sphere as a transnational space;
more important is the emergence of global
public discourse
• Public sphere is now pervaded by “global
public” -a global context in w/c communication
is filtered
• The global public is a present sphere of
discourse that contextualizes political
communication and public discourse today (ex;
Human rights, environmental concerns, health
and security)
• The global is not outside of the social
world but is inside in numerous ways.
• Maybe suggested that global normative
culture is playing a leading role in shaping
political communication; due to global
civil society w/c has amplified global
normative culture
• However, global normative culture is
diffused w/n public spheres and is carried
by many social agents, including the state
***Political globalization is most visible in
terms of changes in political communication
and in wider transformation of public
sphere
 III. The Centrality of Civil Society
• The idea of civil society has come to
symbolize the political potential of G, and
signals the onset of G from below
• “Civil societalization” of politics is a
development stimulated by a) the spread
of governance practices w/c coordinate
policy beyond the nation-state and in
partnership w/ a range of social actors not
traditionally involved in the mechanisms
Of the government and b) shifts in the scale
of the local, w/ social movements and grass-
roots politics increasingly coordinated
across national boundaries (Tarrow and
McAdam, 2005).
•“Civil Societalization” has spread into
international relations and nation-states
increasingly choose to mobilize actors in
global civil society
•The hopes and aspirations contained in the
idea of global civil society often lead
Into inflated claims as to its importance; for
many, the importance of global civil society
to political G lies in its potential to organize
resistance to the global hegemony of
capitalism and/or the US
•Global Civil Society holds the promise of
resolving contradictory tendencies w/c has
become central to the experience of globality
- Covers a very broad field of political
activity including (see page 8; 1st paragraph)
• Keane (1988) defines civil society as the
real of social activities w/c are legally
recognized and guaranteed by the state.
• The idea of civil society resonates most
strongly with the democratic need for
check and balances; to ensure that the
state does not become too controlling or
intrusive (totalitarianism implies the
elimination of civil society)
• Global civil society is not defined in
relation to a state (page 8; 2nd paragraph)
• Scholte (2002) defines GCC as a realm of
civic activity w/c is global in organization
scope, where trans-world issues are
addressed, trans-border communications
are established, and in w/c actors organize
in the basis of supra-territorial solidarity
• Tension between national and global civil
societies enduring feature of literature
• Growth of GCC is the result of increasing
opportunities for interaction between
domestic and international politics
• GCC works to undermine the importance
of the territorial state in favour of new
forms of networked opposition;
encourages individuals to see themselves
less exclusively as national citizens but as
cosmopolitan individuals endowed w/
natural rights
 4. The transformation of Spaces and
Borders
• Image of borderless world has been
associated w/ G
• Leads into paradox:
a)Shrinking dimension of interconnected world
and brings it w/in grasp of all individuals
b)Frictionless flow represent threat to the states
(econ & political processes not controlled)
• It would be too simple to reduce the
spatial dynamics of political G to conflict
between a) flows and mobilities associated
w/ global processes b) spaces and borders
of existing political realm
• There is an interpretation of global
transformation that focus on the
emergence of multiple and mutually
dependent “levels’ of political org: G as a
continuum w/ local at one end and the
global at the other
• This both relativize nation-state and at the
same time render it “as the normal, abiding
state of society and the new as something
derived from G” (Albrow 1998)
• A view of G as social transformation requires
rethinking of the nature and meaning of
political spaces and borders
• Transformative potential of G has encouraged
“spatial turn” – process by w/c social space id
constructed and way space is constitutive of
social and political relations
This thinking has been simulated by a) blurring of
boundaries between and existing territorial
entities fostered by processes of political,
economic and social G and b) rise of political
forms w/c are neither territorially based nor
possessing a central center or origin (global civil
society)
Relationship between G and new political spaces
and borders revolve around 2 key spatial
dynamics
a) Castells (2000a) space of flows vs space of
places (see page 10, second paragraph)
b) Beck – nature of state and society is
undergoing change as a result of G,
inside/outside, domestic/foreign assume new
meaning
These dynamics resulted into 2 central themes in
the study of political G
a)Emergence of new political spaces and
opportunities for bordering/re-bordering w/c
accompany them
b)Increased emphasis on mobilities, flows and
networks w/c connect existing places or
representing emerging spatial forms
• Spaces and borders do not have to be
conceived as unitary and exclusive; they can
be plural, overlapping and experiential
• An important consequence of this shift to
spaces of flows is that mobility is increasingly
seen as independent of space: postnational
and cosmopolitan notions of mobility
emphasizes the ways in w/c we regularly
move between communities, identities and
roles, and across borders in w/c that cannot
be mapped onto geographical space
• Balibar (1998) – under conditions of
globalization the quantitative relation
between borders and territory has been
inverted
There a re 2 dimensions to this:
a)Borders are to be found everywhere, existing
both w/in and between polities
b)Borders have become important spaces w/in
their own right and often take the form of
zones of transition or borderlands
• Borderlands are zones of interpenetration
which ‘cut across discontinuous system
(Sassen, 2002). Borders transform relations
between inside and outside, us and them
• The idea of a “borderless world” w/c is
seen as symbol of globalization is revealed
as chimera (a thing that is hoped or
wished for but in fact an illusion or
impossible to achieve
https://youtu.be/UMIrz6sUJPI
 CONTEMPORARY WORLD Atty. Rene Alexis P. Villarente, MBA
Economics Department, Social Science Program

( (2) Summary of Article (The Blackwell companion to

Globalization, George Ritzer (ed.) UK Blackwell Publishing
Ltd. 2007)
 CONTEMPORARY WORLD Atty. Rene Alexis P. Villarente, MBA
Economics Department, Social Science Program

( Sample issues in political globalization

(1) Globalization of the nation-state with

democracy as its framework;

US sponsored regime change in Syria,

Afghanistan;
Saudi Arabia proxy war in Yemen
Fishing problem at the West Philippine
Sea and the trash from Canada
 CONTEMPORARY WORLD Atty. Rene Alexis P. Villarente, MBA
Economics Department, Social Science Program

( Sample issues in political globalization

(2) Global normative culture and human

rights;

Global pressure over the death of

Jamal Khashoggi
The plight of the Rohingya Refugees
The global resistance over PRRDs
policy of extra-judicial killings
 CONTEMPORARY WORLD Atty. Rene Alexis P. Villarente, MBA
Economics Department, Social Science Program

Sample issues in political globalization

(3) Global civil society and its new model

of governance.

Mark Zuckerberg and facebook before

US congress and British Parliament;
ISIS and the Islamic Caliphate;
Peace talks, Bangsa Moro Basic Law
and the Marawi siege