Globalization - ON POLITICAL PROCESSES AND FLOWS

While the focus in this chapter will be on the development and nature of a wide range

of political structures relevant to globalization, there certainly are a number of separable

political processes and flows of various sorts that are relevant to an understanding of

contemporary

globalization. In fact, it could be argued that virtually all of the flows

discussed

throughout this book are political and of great relevance to political structures of

all sorts. Some, of course, are of more direct political relevance than others.

• The global flow of people (Chapter 10), especially refugees and undocumented immigrants,

poses a direct threat to the nation-state and its ability to control its borders.

• The looming crises associated with dwindling oil and water supplies (Chapter 7) threaten

to lead to riots and perhaps insurrections that could lead to the downfall of existing

governments.

• The inability of the nation-state to control economic flows dominated by MNCs, as well

as the current economic and financial crisis that is sweeping the world (Chapter 7), is

also posing profound threats to the nation-state (e.g. in Eastern Europe).

• Environmental problems of all sorts (Chapter 11), especially those related to global

warming, are very likely to be destabilizing politically.

• Borderless diseases (Chapter 12), especially malaria, TB, and AIDs in Africa, pose a

danger to political structures.

• War (Chapter 12) is the most obvious global flow threatening the nation-states involved,

especially those on the losing side.

• Global inequalities (Chapters 13 and 14), especially the profound North–South split,

threaten to pit poor nations against rich nations.

• Terrorism (Chapter 12) is clearly regarded as a threat by those nations against which it

is waged.

Thus, a significant portion of this book deals with political processes, or with many processes

that are directly or indirectly related to politics. In addition, there is a discussion

(especially in Chapter 15) of various efforts to deal with global problems, many of which (e.g.

trade protection and liberalization; efforts to increase political transparency and accountability)

are political in nature. Finally, political structures (e.g. nation-states, UN) initiate a wide range of global
flows (e.g. the violence sponsored by Robert Mugabe’s government in

Zimbabwe has led to the mass migration of millions of people from the country).

NAT ION-STATE

A series of treaties, known as the Peace of Westphalia (1648), ended the Thirty (and Eighty)

Years’ War(s) in Europe and instituted an international system which recognized sovereign

states as its core. Thus, it is not sovereign states that were new (absolutist states, for example,

had long existed), but rather the recognition accorded them at Westphalia. The treaties

were widely interpreted as giving states the right to political self-determination, to be considered

equal from a legal point of view, and as prohibiting them from intervening in the

affairs of other sovereign states. Critics of the traditional interpretation of Westphalia contend

that none of these things were inherent in the original treaties, but were read into it

later by those who wanted to buttress the state system. Furthermore, it is argued that this

interpretation set in motion an anarchic and conflictive relationship between states and

perhaps set the stage for inter-state wars, especially WW I and WW II. Nevertheless, nationstates2,3

remained preeminent until the current era of globalization when global processes

began, at least in the eyes of many observers (including ours4), to undermine the nationstate

(Hayman and Williams 2006).

The nation-state, of course, has two basic components – “nation” and “state.” Nation

“refers to a social group that is linked th[r]ough common descent, culture, language, or territorial

contiguity” (Cerny 2007: 854). Also important in this context is national identity,

the “fluid and dynamic form of collective identity, founded upon a community’s subjective

belief that the members of the community share a set of characteristics that make them different

from other groups” (Guibernau 2007: 849–53; Chua and Ser Tan 2012). While the

notion of a nation was highly circumscribed (e.g. regionally) in the Middle Ages, from the

seventeenth century on the idea of nation was broadened and enlarged by a number of

forces (political leaders, bureaucrats, the bourgeoisie, the proletariat, intellectuals, etc.) that
pushed for nationalism, a doctrine and/or political movement that seeks to make the

nation the basis of a political structure, especially a state (Hobsbawm 2012). The state

emerged as a new institutional form in the wake of the demise of the feudal system. The

state offered a more centralized form of control (in comparison to, say, city-states) and

evolved an organizational structure with “relatively autonomous office-holders outside

other socioeconomic hierarchies, with its own rules and resources increasingly coming

from taxes rather than from feudal, personal or religious obligations” (Cerny 2007: 855).

Also coming to define the state was its claim to sovereignty. This involved the ability to

engage in collective action both internally (e.g. collect taxes) and externally (e.g. to deal

with other states, to engage in warfare, etc.). The nation-state can therefore be seen as an

integration of the sub-groups that defined themselves as a nation with the organizational

structure that constituted the state.