Nation-States and Globalization.1
November 6, 2002

Overview of Lecture

1. Inter-related events that have lead to globalization

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1. Inter-related events that have lead to globalization

1. Breakup of the “stability” of the 3 “worlds” (Monday’s lecture)

2. development of technology industries: widespread acceptance of their innovations

--> rise of information technology companies themselves forming an important sector in the global economy.

PLUS
--> their innovations being adapted by “practically all businesses because it expands their geographical and organizational horizons making possible more profitable production, distribution and exchange relations.” (Mosco, www.carleton.ca/~vmosco/citizenship.html)

3. growth of non-governmental agencies; shrinking of governmental agencies

look at the Main Players within global politics:

nation-states and their regulatory bodies (e.g., the CRTC - Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission) and govt. appointed bodies (e.g., IHAC, The Information Highway Advisory Council)

TNC’s = transnational corporations (aka MNC’s = multinational corporations)
examples, Disney Corporation, Time-Warner, etc.

transnational bodies: economic regulatory bodies, like the World Bank, GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade), the IMF (International Monetary Fund): "an invisible government" (according to Menzies), the proposal for the MAI (Multilateral Agreement on Investment)

this latter agreement would elevate the rights of transnational investors far above those of federal governments. There would be limits on the laws that national governments could pass requiring conditions on, say, environmental controls.
--> suggested that this was not promoted given the amount of dissent voiced on the Internet...

UN (United Nations)
--> look for their ‘nonbinding’ Conventions on Human Rights for example..

EU (European Union)
--> creation of new monetary control and new common currency--the “euro”

global news: CNN (“the town crier of the global village” according to its founder, Ted Turner)

NGO’s = Non Government Organizations (Or INGO’s)
International Committee of Red Cross, Amnesty International, Médecins sans Frontières, International Jesuit Refugee Service, International Commission of Jurists, etc.

lobbying groups: traditionally groups of people bound together by mutual interest, to put pressure on governments to pay special attention to their needs (e.g., I.O.D.E., tobacco lobby, telecommunications companies)

--> question to be asked: how powerful is each “player” becoming in replacing power of nation-state?

4. nation-state policy implementations: interventionist model or neo-liberal model

Interventionist Model (Singapore**, China, Korea, Malaysia, Japan)

--> policy implementation is driven by the state: govt. is leader in investing funds in enterprises

--> from film on Singapore: govt. spokesman says that “the role of govt. is to provide highway for business.”

--> note how many databases are set up to expedite business--another example, the expert system to unload cargo from ships in 6 hours rather than 2 days).

**(according to Moore, in 1993, Singapore was the only country to have a clearly articulated set of goals concerned with information and its use in the nation-state; in 2000, 50 countries ranked to determine their “Globalization Index: Singapore #1)

Neo-liberal model

Claim of Chodos, et al: “The destabilizing force of the new technologies is intensified by the economic ideology currently dominant in the western world: classical liberalism.”

the nation-state facilitates the goals of the market-economy:

* laissez-faire doctrines unfettered by government controls of trade and commerce (so “free trade” agreements)

* removal of regulations (see attempts to remove power of the CRTC in Canada)

* privatize state-controlled industries or services

and yet make sure relatively cheap and efficient telecommunications infrastructures exist for schools and industries to use so that there is an educated (in ways of IT) work force and commerce can be facilitated.

References for Lectures on Nov. 4,6, and 13 2002

Chodos, Murphy & Hamovitch, Canada and the Global Economy, 1993.

Gutstein, D. 1999. E.con: How the Internet Undermines Democracy.

Holton, R. Globalization and the Nation-State, 1998.

Menzies, H. Whose Brave New World: The Information Highway and the New Economy, 1996.

Moore, N. 1998. Confucius or Capitalism? Policies for an Information Society, in Cyberspace Divide, Ed. B. Loader. London and New York: Routledge.

Mosco, V. http://www.carleton.ca/~vmosco/citizenship.html
“Citizenship and the Technopoles” (specific mention of Malaysia)

R.F. M. Rudders (1998): http://www.globalize.org/dynamic.html
“The Dynamic of Globalization”