Globalization: Causes and Effects

David A. Deese, David A. Deese

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351932899
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Globalisation
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Globalization: Causes and Effects is the culmination of an eleven volume series that defines and explains the scholarly field of International Relations. Highlighting primary scholarly accomplishments in the field, this final title frames the sub-field of 'Globalization' and documents the fundamental milestones in thinking about and understanding this phenomenon. 'Globalization' is ripe for work integrating a wide range of leading research results and assessing its findings as a whole. Together, the pioneering articles selected for this book represent the most important scholarly contributions published to date on the main dimensions of globalization. The majority of the authors are political scientists, but a substantial number are economists, sociologists and historians. The volume covers Forms, Origins, and Causes; Political Dimensions and Implications; Economic and financial Impacts; Identity, Culture, and Civilization; and The Future of Globalization.

Part I
Forms, Origins and Causes

[1]

Transnational Relations and World Politics:

An Introduction

JOSEPH S. NYE, JR., AND ROBERT O. KEOHANE

STUDENTS and practitioners of international politics have traditionally concentrated their attention on relationships between states. The state, regarded as an actor with purposes and power, is the basic unit of action; its main agents are the diplomat and soldier. The interplay of governmental policies yields the pattern of behavior that students of international politics attempt to understand and that practitioners attempt to adjust to or control. Since force, violence, and threats thereof are at the core of this interplay, the struggle for power, whether as end or necessary means, is the distinguishing mark of politics among nations.¹ Most political scientists and many diplomats seem to accept this view of reality, and a state-centric view of world affairs prevails.²

It is obvious, however, that the interactions of diplomats and soldiers do not take place in a vacuum. They are strongly affected by geography, the nature of domestic politics in the various states, and advances in science and technology. Few would question that the development of nuclear weapons has dramatically altered the nature of twentieth-century international politics or deny the importance of internal political structure for relations between states. From the state-centric perspective geography, technology, and domestic politics comprise aspects of the “environment” within which states interact. They provide inputs into the interstate system but for considerations of analytic convenience are considered to be outside the system.

The environment of interstate politics, however, does not include only these powerful and well-known forces. A good deal of intersocietal intercourse, with significant political importance, takes place without governmental control. For example, among the major Western countries this includes most trade, personal contact, and communication. Furthermore, states are by no means the only actors in world politics. Arnold Wolfers noted more than a decade ago that “the Vatican, the Arabian-American Oil Company, and a host of other nonstate entities are able on occasion to affect the course of international events. When this happens, these entities become actors in the international arena and competitors of the nation-state. Their ability to operate as international or transnational actors may be traced to the fact that men identify themselves and their interests with corporate bodies other than the nation-state.”³

Although Wolfers and others have pointed out the importance of intersocietal interactions and “transnational actors” in international affairs, the impact of these phenomena on world politics has often been ignored both in policy-oriented writings and more theoretical works.⁴ When they have been recognized, they have often been consigned with the factors mentioned above to the environment of interstate politics, and relatively little attention has been paid to them or to their connections with the interstate system. This volume, by contrast, focuses on these “transnational relations”—contacts, coalitions, and interactions across state boundaries that are not controlled by the central foreign policy organs of governments. It treats the reciprocal effects between transnational relations and the interstate system as centrally important to the understanding of contemporary world politics.

A glance at the table of contents will reveal that we are interested in a wide variety of transnational phenomena: multinational business enterprises and revolutionary movements; trade unions and scientific networks; international air transport cartels and communications activities in outer space. Yet, we do not explore transnational relations simply “because they are there”; on the contrary, we hope to use our analysis to cast light on a number of empirical and normative questions that are directly related to the contemporary concerns of statesmen and students of international affairs.

These questions can be grouped into five broad areas of inquiry: I) What seems to be the net effect of transnational relations on the abilities of governments to deal with their environments? To what extent and how have governments suffered from a “loss of control” as a result of transnational relations? 2) What are the implications of transnational relations for the study of world politics? Is the state-centric view, which focuses on the interstate system, an adequate analytic framework for the investigation of contemporary reality? 3) What are the effects of transnational relations on the allocation of value and specifically on asymmetries or inequalities between states? Who benefits from transnational relations, who loses, who controls transnational networks, and how is this accomplished? 4) What are the implications of transnational relations for United States foreign policy? Insofar as the United States is indeed preponderant in transnational activity, what dangers as well as opportunities does this present to American policymakers? 5) What challenges do transnational relations raise for international organizations as conventionally defined? To what extent may new international organizations be needed, and to what extent may older organizations have to change in order to adapt creatively to transnational phenomena?

We elaborate these questions later in this introduction and return to them in the conclusion, drawing on evidence presented in the various essays to document our assertions, reinforce our speculations, and propose hypotheses for further research. We do not pretend to be definitive; we realize that we are just beginning to explore this field and that even our best-documented beliefs are only provisional. We hope to stimulate inquiry, not to codify knowledge.

Before considering these five broad questions in detail, however, it is necessary to define the two aspects of transnational relations on which we concentrate in this introduction—transnational interactions and organizations—and to analyze some of their effects on interstate politics. Definition and description therefore take priority at this point, although our broader and more speculative inquiries should not be forgotten. We return to them beginning with section III of this introduction.

I. TRANSNATIONAL INTERACTIONS AND ORGANIZATIONS

In the most general sense one can speak of “global interactions” as movements of information, money, physical objects, people, or other tangible or intangible items across state boundaries. We can distinguish four major types of global interaction: I) communication, the movement of information, including the transmission of beliefs, ideas, and doctrines; 2) transportation, the movement of physical objects, including war materiel and personal property as well as merchandise; 3) finance, the movement of money and instruments of credit; 4) travel, the movement of persons. Many international activities involve all four types of interaction simultaneously. Trade and warfare, for example, both require coordinated movements of information, physical objects, money, and persons; so does most personal participation by individuals in foreign societies—“transnational participation”—as discussed in Donald P. Warwick’s essay.

Some global interactions are initiated ...