Globalisation, Public Opinion and the State

Western Europe and East and Southeast Asia

Takashi Inoguchi, Ian Marsh

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2007
• Print ISBN:
  9780415399883
• eBook ISBN:
  9781134147809
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Globalisation
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This is first integrated book-length account of citizen responses to the new global order. Based on a comprehensive survey, administered at the end of 2000, in nine European and nine Asian countries, this book demonstrates the diverse responses to globalization, within, and between, two of the world's major – and most globally integrated – regions.

Globalization, Public Opinion and the State is a pioneering empirical study, drawing on 18,000 interviews across these 18 European and Asian countries supported by the Japanese Ministry of Education. The Asian-Europe Survey is one of the largest of its kind ever conducted, and provides the book with a wealth of novel data on public opinion and social attitudes that identify the linkages between national/regional policy responses and the political and policy orientations of the publics affected.

The book uses theoretical insights to situate these public responses and reactions to globalization; and it addresses one question in particular: do nation states matter in how citizens come to view regional and global engagement? Rather than offering another theory about globalization, this book presents much-needed empirical findings that help us decide between arguments about the public impact of globalization cross-nationally. This book breaks new ground as there no other comprehensive study in this field.

1 Globalisation and public opinion in Western Europe and East and Southeast Asia

Ian Marsh

Introduction

Globalisation is increasingly seen as a critical dynamic element in the life of citizens in the early twenty-first century. Yet what globalisation means to ordinary citizens and how they evaluate it is far from clear. Nor, indeed, is it clear how pervasive is its impact. Above all the controversies about its nature, spread and value, how the citizens of the countries of the contemporary world perceive it remains largely uncharted. There may be vocal and even furious declarations against globalisation in various corners of the (developed) world, but there is almost nothing about what the people, on the whole, feel on the topic.

It may be argued that the views of the people on the subject do not matter and that the ‘march of history’ towards a ‘globalised world’ will take place irrespective of whatever attitudes are held by citizens: if this was the case, there would be only anecdotal reasons for studying citizens’ attitudes. Yet such a position is not seriously tenable: it cannot be held as axiomatic that popular attitudes, on this or any other matter, do not have any impact, whatever is felt of the relationship between attitudes and behaviour. This is so in this particular context, as attitudes to globalisation are particularly likely to affect—indeed cannot but affect—the set of relationships which have existed previously between the citizens and the institutions with which these citizens are the most familiar and are expected to be most closely connected, that is the relationship between citizens and the state to which they belong.

Over and above what can be regarded as a controversy about power—namely whether the state is ‘on the way out’ and international structures of one kind or another are gaining—lies the question of the attitudes of citizens towards politics and the state. For instance, what is generally described as ‘state capacity’ depends ultimately, even if only in part, on the degree to which the state is able to ‘mobilise’ its citizens behind its policies and, in the specific context of globalisation, on the degree to which citizens hold views which are at variance with those which the government is holding. While it is not the aim here to examine such a question, this can of course be tackled only if it is preceded by an analysis of the attitudes of citizens to globalisation—and this is the object of this volume.

In order to start exploring the views of citizens, the nature of globalisation itself has to be explored: what does it consist of and how widely does it extend over human affairs? Is its perceived impact mostly derived from developments in the financial and economic area or are other fields, social, cultural or political, seen to be no less significant? The matter is far from being uncontroversial, both in terms of the scope of the concept and in terms of the relative importance of its component parts. Yet only if the question is given an adequate answer does it become possible to tackle two key matters which the study of the attitudes of citizens to globalisation poses. First, to what extent are citizens exposed to globalisation and how do they assess it? Second, what are the relationships, possibly reciprocal, between the exposure of citizens and their assessments of globalisation, on the one hand, and, on the other, a number of key elements of the political attitudes of citizens ranging from their feeling of identity to their participation in politics.

Strictly speaking, however, no truly satisfactory answer can be given to these questions unless longitudinal studies are available: yet such longitudinal studies do not exist, this study being a first attempt at assessing what are the attitudes of citizens to the globalisation process. One has therefore to rely on what is unquestionably an unsatisfactory substitute, namely asking citizens whether and where they experience a greater impact of globalisation currently than in the past. While this strategy had to be adopted in this research, it is to be hoped that further studies will gradually build the basis for the longitudinal analyses which are required.

There is yet another problem, but it is of a different and wholly ‘contingent’ character. Studies of the impact of globalisation on citizens must cover more than one country, especially in the current context in which longitudinal studies are precluded; on the other hand, worldwide studies are equally precluded. They would indeed be unwieldy; they would be even theoretically unsatisfactory. For it is not valuable to examine, at any rate in the first instance, citizens’ attitudes to globalisation in the context of states which are very weak. States are weak as a result of their very limited ability to mobilise resources and, among these resources, are those provided by the support of the citizens. Such cases would not therefore constitute satisfactory—indeed even useful—examples of what the relationship may be between globalisation and citizens.

One should on the contrary concentrate on countries in which the national and political life is well established, in other words where the authority and effectiveness of the state is (broadly speaking) established and respected. Countries of this kind are to be found in two regions of the globe only, the Western area and East and Southeast Asia. States in these two regions are also those whose citizens are, on most standard measures, most engaged in the global economy. Further, given that it is valuable to be able to draw comparisons from a substantial number of states which are typically regarded as having many similar characteristics, it follows that the best strategy consists of examining the impact of globalisation on the attitudes of citizens in Western Europe, on the one hand, and East and Southeast Asia, on the other. This is what is being done in this study, which covers eighteen countries, nine from each of the two regions. These are, in Europe: Germany, France, Italy, the UK, Sweden, Spain, Greece, Portugal and Ireland and in Asia, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, China, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines and Singapore. The following sections of this chapter look first at broad definitions of globalisation, then at developments in those domains where its affects have been most prominent. These determined the content and scope of the survey instrument on which this study is based (reprinted in Appendix 1). This introductory chapter concludes with a discussion of the way globalisation had figured in political discourse in individual states and of the political culture variables through which impacts on citizen’s attitudes to politics and the state are assessed.

Definitions of globalisation

Despite the flow of words devoted to the subject, globalisation remains an elusive phenomenon. As a set of processes many of its components are old. Trade, migration and capital movements were all features of the nineteenth century. The depression of the 1930s ended this outward-oriented phase but the 1945 Bretton Woods settlement provided the framework for its progressive renewal. World trade and capital movements revived in combination, in the West, with the emergence of the Keynesian social democratic state. Thereafter a variety of developments progressively extended the potential for and scope of trans-national economic engagement. At a monetary level, the fixed exchange rate system was broken in the 1970s. At the level of trade, Japan pioneered the development of an export-led growth strategy. The success of Japan’s approach led to its imitation by other East and Southeast Asian states. Meantime, European integration, which began in 1949, progressively provided a framework for deepened economic relationships between member countries. Roughly parallel developments in communications and manufacturing technologies and, later, the end of the Cold War, all contributed to the distinctiveness of the contemporary phase in extended international linkage. Other cultural, political and social features, such as the development of US hegemony, also help to distinguish current dynamics. The complexity and interdependence of these elements makes the search for a universally accepted definition problematic.

Moreover, the question of the definition is highly controversial, as some view globalisation as a process restricted to the economic area, while others include cultural, social and political processes. Some see it as confined to rich countries and some ultimately as a truly worldwide development. Some see regional institutions as an aspect of globalisation and some as a defence against globalisation. There is thus ambiguity about substance, geography and politics.

Major surveys of globalisation have multiplied in recent years (Held and McGrew, 2002; Dicken, 2002; Braithwaite and Drahos, 2000). A glance at any of the principal readers on this topic suggests its scale and scope. One of the most widely cited, Global Transformations (Held et al., 1999), is a study of nearly 500 pages with nine major sections covering the following topics: The Territorial State; Organised Violence; Global Trade, Global Markets; Global Finance; Corporate Power and Global Production Networks; Migration; Culture; and the Environment. As the text makes clear, many aspects of globalisation are remote from daily experience and unlikely to register in everyday attitudes and awareness. Yet the subjects covered indicate the variety of areas where international developments have ‘penetrated’ what was formerly a more or less sovereign state political space.

Whether such developments register in the perceptions of citizens is another matter. Anthony Giddens defines globalisation in terms that leave it unclear whether or not to expect this outcome: ‘(Globalisation is) the intensification of world wide social relations … in such a way that local happenings are determined by events occurring many miles away’ (Giddens, 1990, p. 64). In this reading, globalisation is a process leading to spatial and temporal shrinkage: it involves, amongst other features, a diminished distance between political and economic decision-making units. Through their increasingly temporal and spatial integration, local events are also increasingly critically affected, if not determined, by more remote happenings. How such developments are interpreted by individual citizens remains to be clarified.

Held et al. offer a more elaborate definition which nevertheless also emphasises systemic effects rather than an impact on citizen attitudes. Globalisation is

an historical process which engenders a shift in the spatial reach of networks and systems of social relations to transcontinental or interregional patterns of human organisation, activity and the exercise of social power … it is a multi-dimensional phenomenon applicable to a variety of forms of social action—economic, political, legal, cultural, military and technological—and sites of social action such as the environment

(Held et al., p. 258)

This definition points to the differentiated character of the forces—economic, political, cultural, technological and geographic—that might be impinging on nations and individuals.

This definition also distinguishes regional from transcontinental linkage, thus inviting attention to the degree to which regional sentiment might have developed independently of more cosmopolitan orientations. Moreover, this definition suggests that modes of linkage and impact can vary within particular domains of experience—but it again leaves open the question of individual interpretation, which can presumably be affected not just by the views of political elites but also by such factors as occupation, education or access to communications media. Finally, this definition suggests that globalisation is a process whose consequences can be observed with differing intensities at different sites. For example, reference to the environment invites attention to the extent to which this is seen as a global or at least a transnational, issue, distinct from one that is primarily local in character. A variety of economic, migration, cultural and other issues might be similarly regarded.

Held et al. invite attention to variations that are likely to occur in national and individual experience. Three dimensions of variation are specifically identified: first, geographical extent (‘how much of the world is covered’); second, the intensity of flows and interactions (‘how far have they become enmeshed with associated social relations within each country, area or locality’); and third, the impact of these flows (‘on the activities and power of local and national actors’). This study will map some of these differences at least at the level of individual citizens.

Economic globalisation

Economic forces are generally regarded as the primary motor of globalisation (Friedman, 2000, 2005). Indeed an assessment by an organization that is influential in business circles, the McKinsey Global Institute, implies that full economic integration as the (desirable) ultimate outcome:

Globalisation is the process by which the world’s economy is transformed from a set of national and regional markets to one that operates without regard to national boundaries. The transformation is occurring through the accelerated availability of global capital and advances in computing and communications technologies. The change is associated with significant growth in the scale, mobility and integration of the world’s capital markets, deregulation and the disappearance of trade barriers and the ability to leverage knowledge and talent world-wide through technological means.

(Fraser and Oppenheim, 1997; also Farrell, 2005)

Trade and finance have been the primary drivers of economic integration. The case for trade-based linkages draws on the oldest and perhaps the strongest economic ‘law’, that of comparative advantage. Of course market distortions can tip the balance of advantage in one direction; and comparative advantage is demonstrably not static, as the experience of the Asian states covered in this survey demonstrates. But open regional and/or global trade has demonstrably delivered considerable economic benefits to the countries in the two regions covered in this study. The liberalisation of capital markets has been a separate development. Whereas geography and non-tariff barriers continue to affect trade, they do not constrain capital markets. Capital markets have mushroomed since 1993—from $53 trillion in 1993 to $118 trillion in 2003, that is an overall growth of 123 per cent and an annual average growth rate around 12 per cent. Proponents argue that the hedging of risk that these markets have facilitated underwrites the continued expansion of trade and investment.

Others ask wheth...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• List of illustrations
• List of contributors
• Preface
• Acknowledgement
• 1 Globalisation and public opinion in Western Europe and East and Southeast Asia
• PART I Encountering and assessing globalisation
• PART II Encountering and responding to globalisation
• PART III Conclusion
• Appendix I: Characteristics of the Asia—Europe Survey
• Appendix II: Profiles of the eighteen countries of the Asia—Europe Survey
• Appendix III: The Asia—Europe Survey