Global Politics E-Book

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 828

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

This innovative new text is derived from a highly successful Open University course of the same title. It takes as a dominant theme the contested issue of ‘globalization’ (the apparent intensification of global patterns of inter-dependence) and its implications for the autonomy of the modern nation-state.

Following a conceptual introduction, which critically examines the theoretical debates framing the study of world politics, the work is structured around four key processes of globalization which the authors identify as being the central determinants of contemporary global politics. These key processes are: the global impact of great power relations; the globalizing tendencies of technological innovation; the existence of a global economy; and the globalizing force of modernity.

Reflecting this structure the text is organized into four discrete sections. Each section explores, both theoretically and empirically, one of the four processes of globalization. Throughout, particular attention is paid both to a critical evaluation of these globalizing processes as well as to their consequences for the sovereignty and autonomy of the modern nation-state. Moreover, the authors combine a lucid treatment of theoretical debates with topical case-study material to produce a text which is extremely accessible to undergraduate students studying international relations and politics and to those readers with little prior knowledge of world affairs.

Leseprobe

Global Politics

Globalization and the Nation-State

Anthony G. McGrew, Paul G. Lewis et al.

Polity Press

Copyright © this edition Polity Press 1992

Copyright Parts I, II, III The Open University 1988; Part IV The Open University 1989

First published in 1992 by Polity Press in association with Blackwell Publishers

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Contents

Preface

Acknowledgements

List of Contributors

1   Conceptualizing Global Politics

Anthony G. McGrew

Part I Great Power Rivalry and Globalized Conflict

2   Superpower Rivalry and the End of the Cold War

Paul G. Lewis

3   Superpower Rivalry in South Asia and Southern Africa

David Potter

4   Superpower Rivalry and US Hegemony in Central America

Anthony G McGrew

Part II Technology and Global Political Integration

5   Military Technology and the Dynamics of Global Militarization

Anthony G. McGrew

6   Regimes and the Global Commons: Space, Atmosphere and Oceans

John Vogler

7   Global Technologies and Political Change in Eastern Europe

Nigel Swain

Part III A Global Economy?

8   The International Economic Order between the Wars

Richard Bessel

9   The Nature and Government of the Global Economy

Jeremy Mitchell

10   Economic Autonomy and the Advanced Industrial State

Grahame Thompson

11   The Autonomy of Third World States within the Global Economy

David Potter

12   Conceptualizing the Global Economy

Roger Tooze

Part IV Modernity and the Transition to a Global Society

13   Modernization, Globalization and the Nation-State

Michael Smith

14   Modernity and Universal Human Rights

John Vincent

15   Islam as a Global Political Force

Brian Beeley

16   Global Politics in a Transitional Era

Anthony G. McGrew

Index

Preface

This volume has its origins in an Open University course entitled D312 Global Politics. Indeed all the chapters in this work are substantially revised versions of papers originally published as part of the teaching package for Global Politics. We would therefore like to thank the Open University for granting us permission to utilize elements of the existing teaching texts.

During the writing of this volume we were saddened to learn of the death of John Vincent, a highly regarded scholar in the British international relations community and a valued contributor to the original D312 course team. We would like to dedicate this volume to his memory.

Paul Lewis

Tony McGrew

The Open University

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the following for giving their permission to include previously published material in this work: Yearbook of International Organizations, for figures 1.4, 1.6, tables 1.1, 1.2; Transnational Associations, Brussels, 1978, for table 1.3; International Organization, for figure 1.6; International Institute for Strategic Studies, The Military Balance, for tables 5.1, 5.2, 5.5, figure 5.1; Stockholm International Peace Research Institute Yearbook, for tables 5.6, 5.7, 5.8, figure 5.2; International Organization, for figure 6.1; the OECD, World Bank Development Report and EEC Statistics, for tables 9.1, 9.2, 9.3; Buzan, B. (1987) Strategic Studies, London: Macmillan; Mackenzie, D. (1990) Inventing Accuracy, London: MIT Press; Axelrod, R. (1984) The Evolution of Cooperation, New York, Basic Books, for figure 6.2; Keohane, R. (1984) After Hegemony, Princeton: Princeton University Press, for table 9.5; Gilpin, R. (1987) The Political Economy of International Relations, Princeton: Princeton University Press, for table 9.6; International Organization, for table 9.7; Lewis, W.A. (1984) The Rate of Growth of the World Economy, Taipei: Institute of Economics, for figure 9.1; Rosenau, J.S. (1990) Turbulence in World Politics, London: Harvester Wheatsheaf.

List of Contributors

Dr B. Beeley, Staff Tutor in Geography, The Open University

Dr R. Bessel, Senior Lecturer in History, The Open University

Dr P. Lewis, Senior Lecturer in Government, The Open University

Dr A. McGrew, Senior Lecturer in Government, The Open University

Dr J. Mitchell, Lecturer in Government, The Open University

Professor D.C. Potter, Professor of Political Science, The Open University

Professor M. Smith, Professor of International Relations, Coventry Polytechnic

Dr N. Swain, Research Fellow in Economic History, Liverpool University

Dr G. Thompson, Senior Lecturer in Applied Social Sciences, The Open University

Professor R. Tooze, Professor of International Relations, Nottingham Polytechnic

The late John Vincent, Montague Burton Professor of International Relations, London School of Economics

Dr J. Vogler, Principal Lecturer in International Relations, Liverpool Polytechnic

1

Conceptualizing Global Politics

ANTHONY G. McGREW

INTRODUCTION

As the Cold War era of conflict and rivalry fades it is being replaced with an expanding awareness of global independence. This is reflected in the language of contemporary politics which is increasingly suffused with references to global problems, appeals to universal values and visions of a global community. Equally it finds expression in the academic study of politics, most visibly in the fascination with the future viability of the modern nation-state in an increasingly interdependent world system. Certainly the fact that no modern society can insulate itself from the vagaries of the world market, or transnational movements of capital, ideas, beliefs, crime, knowledge and news, seems evidence enough of the emergence of a truly global society. Moreover our everyday existence, as a glance in any kitchen cupboard will confirm, is to varying degrees sustained by a complex web of global networks and relationships of production and exchange of which we remain largely unaware. Because of this, events and actions in one part of the world can come to have significant ramifications for communities in quite distant countries. When Iraq entered Kuwait on 2 August 1990, causing a steep rise in oil prices, the headline in a Coventry paper read ‘Iraq invades Kuwait – bus fares in Coventry set to rise’. More significant than the humorous nature of this headline is the unstated assumption that the paper’s audience readily understood: namely that, in an interdependent world, domestic matters are in some mysterious way partly governed by external factors. As McLuhan remarked many years ago, one of the defining characteristics of the modern age is the developing realization that we live in a ‘global village’ (1969, p. 302). Yet the world still remains organized into over 170 separate nation-states each jealously guarding its national independence. Accordingly, whilst few would doubt that within the Western political imagination there is a widespread belief that the world is becoming progressively more interdependent, the actual evidence warrants a more critical and substantive interrogation. That in part is the purpose of this volume.

CONSTITUENT FEATURES OF GLOBAL POLITICS

The apparent emergence, in the late twentieth century, of an increasingly tightly interconnected and self-conscious global community does not necessarily imply, as some have argued, the arrival of some kind of world society. Whilst the infrastructure of a global social system may be evident, most visibly in the globalization of communications, the media and production, the fact remains that the world is organized into sovereign nation-states. Although historically only a relatively modern phenomenon, the nation-state is today the supreme territorial, administrative and political unit which defines the ‘good community’. National sovereignty and the territorial integrity of the nation-state are jealously guarded, most particularly in the Third World where the struggle to achieve independent statehood is still fresh in the collective consciousness. War and permanent preparation for war, political fragmentation, cultural diversity, and the immense gap between the advanced states and the poorest states remain central features of the contemporary global system. Accordingly, whilst from the vantage point of the affluent West there is a temptation to view the world in terms of intensifying patterns of global interconnectedness, at best this is only a partial and superficial perspective. Nor is there any overwhelming evidence to support the frequently asserted proposition that processes of globalization are precipitating a ‘crisis of the territorial nation-state’ (Hertz 1969). On the contrary, the preponderance of the nation-state as the primary unit in world politics is itself a product of globalizing forces.

What seems somewhat less contentious is the observation that political processes, events and activities nowadays appear increasingly to have a global or international dimension. In an age of rapid communications it is fairly commonplace for political events or developments in one part of the world to impinge directly or indirectly on the political process in quite distant communities. Such linkage is articulated most acutely in crisis situations, like that of the 1991 Gulf War or the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, where distant events come to acquire a powerful hold over domestic politics in scores of nations and where the actions of only a handful of decision makers can have truly global consequences. Yet equally significant, although certainly less sensational, are the enormous transnational flows of finance, capital and trade which bind together the well-being of communities spread across the globe. During the early 1990s, for instance, the virtual ending of coal mining in Wales could be attributed in part to the import of more cheaply produced Australian and South African coal. The interconnection between the local, national and global political economy of coal is a vital element in understanding the decline of the Welsh coal industry. But the globalization of markets is only one, albeit important, determinant of the globalization of political life. Of equal significance is the internationalization of the state itself. In the post-war period especially there has been an enormous expansion in both the numbers and the functional scope of international institutions, agencies and regimes. This expansion has been engineered in part by governments recognizing that, in a highly interconnected world system, simply to achieve domestic policy goals requires enhanced levels of international cooperation. In the post-war period the growth of the welfare state and the intensification of patterns of international cooperation were intimately related. Moreover, the revolution in communications and transport technologies has facilitated greatly the global interplay of cultures, values, ideas, knowledge, peoples, social networks, elites and social movements. That this is a highly uneven and differentiated process does not detract from the underlying message that societies can no longer be conceptualized as bounded systems, insulated from the outside world. How could one possibly account for the contemporary drugs problem in most major cities without acknowledging the role of global networks of organized crime and the global trade in narcotics? In modern society the local and the global have become intimately related.

Writing some years ago Rosenau observed that, in the modern era, ‘Politics everywhere, it would seem, are related to politics everywhere else . . . now the roots of . . . political life can be traced to remote corners of the globe’ (in Mansbach et al. 1976, p. 22). In identifying the globalization of the political arena, as a distinctive feature of contemporary politics, Rosenau articulated what can be observed almost daily, namely the declining significance of territorial boundaries and place as the definitive parameters of political life. Politics within the confines of the nation-state, whether at the neighbourhood, local or national levels, cannot be insulated from powerful international forces and the ramifications of events in distant countries. In the late twentieth century, politics can no longer be understood as a purely local or national social activity but must be conceived as a social activity with a global dimension. This invites abolition of the traditional distinction between domestic and international politics, between the foreign and the domestic. It also demands a certain conceptual readjustment: thinking of politics as an activity which stretches across space (as well as time) rather than as a social activity which is confined within the boundaries of the nation-state, or at the international level as an activity confined to interactions between governments. Such a readjustment is realized in the concept of global politics.

To talk of global politics is to acknowledge that political activity and the political process, embracing the exercise of power and authority, are no longer primarily defined by national legal and territorial boundaries. In the twentieth century there has occurred a stretching of the political process such that decisions and actions in one part of the world can come to have world-wide ramifications. Associated with this stretching is also a deepening of the political process such that developments at even the most local level can have global ramifications and vice versa. Moreover, the stretching and deepening have been accompanied by a broadening of the political process. ‘Broadening’ refers to the growing array of issues which surface on the political agenda combined with the enormously diverse range of agencies or groups involved in political decisionmaking processes at all levels from the local to the global. The concept of global politics thus transcends the traditional distinction between the international and the domestic in the study of politics, as well as the statist and institutionalist biases in traditional conceptions of the political. It also suggests that there is an identifiable global political system and global political process which embraces a world-wide network of interactions and relationships between ‘not only states but also other political actors, both “above” the state and “below” it’ (Bull, 1977, p. 276).

George Modelski (1974) has devised a useful analogy for thinking through some of the distinctions and the connections between different levels of political interaction and activity in the contemporary world. His layer cake model provides a powerful heuristic device for simplifying the complex patterns of political interaction which define global politics. There are, he suggests, three distinct layers of political activity, from the local through the national to the global. To this might be added a fourth, the regional, which sits between the global and the national (see figure 1.1). Each layer, he argues, constitutes a defined political community with its own particular aspirations and needs. Each also embraces an identifiable set of political processes and institutions which exist to facilitate the taking of authoritative decisions. Whilst there are discontinuities between each of these layers, Modelski’s model points to the systemic interdependencies between them; they are porous membranes rather than impermeable barriers to political interaction.

Figure 1.1 Modelski’s layer cake model

Media reports bring to public attention almost daily the evidence of the linkages between these different layers of political activity. When, in early 1991, the German Bundesbank raised domestic interest rates in response to the problems created by reunification, the consequences were felt not just in Europe but globally too. Because of Britain’s membership of the European exchange rate mechanism, such a move meant sustaining high interest rates, exacerbating an already dire picture of rising domestic bankruptcies, unemployment and a housing slump. In the US the same event triggered a run on the dollar, requiring coordinated international action by the world’s major central banks to prevent a further slide which would have had serious ramifications for the American economy. In 1988 the British novelist Salman Rushdie published The Satanic Verses which, because of its characterization of Muhammad, provoked a wave of street protests within Muslim communities across Europe, Asia and the Middle East. Many deaths were reported in these incidents, and the furore led to a Fatwah being issued by the Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran calling for the assassination of Rushdie. This instigated a major diplomatic confrontation between Western governments and Islamic states, resulting in the termination of Britain’s diplomatic relations with Tehran. The Rushdie affair was a clash of cultures and civilizations and played out across the globe, from the street level to the General Assembly of the United Nations. Both of these illustrations give some insight, albeit partial, into the nature of global politics as well as the complex interactions between the layers in Modelski’s layer cake model. Some further systematic exploration of the terrain of global politics is therefore warranted.

Isolating the global layer in Modelski’s model requires us to distinguish between two particular forms of political interaction: interstate or international relations, and transnational relations. Since, as noted earlier, nation-states are the predominant form of political and legal organization in the modern world, the first step towards understanding the dynamics of global politics brings into focus the interactions and relations between sovereign nation-states, or more simply put international relations. In effect, since nation-states are taken to be synonymous with the governments or regimes which rule them, international relations are conventionally understood as the official relationships and diplomatic interactions between national governments, including relations between governments and intergovernmental organizations such as the United Nations. This is the domain of foreign and defence policy and the preserve of foreign ministries and diplomats. It is also a domain which is inherently political because it involves the exercise of influence, power and force by governments in the pursuit of their own national interests. International politics can therefore simply be defined in terms of conflict and cooperation between sovereign nation-states. This definition clearly embraces international organizations in so far as these have become the new arenas within which governments bargain and negotiate with one another (see figure 1.2).

The contemporary world order is historically unique because there now exists a truly global interstate system. In the post-war period, the nation-state has become the dominant form of political organization at the world level. One of the consequences of this globalization of the nation-state form has been the creation, as Bull suggests, of a global political system:

What is chiefly responsible for the degree of interaction among political systems in all continents of the world, sufficient to make it possible for us to speak of a world political system, has been the expansion of the European states system all over the globe, and its transformation into a states system of global dimension.

(1977, pp. 20–1)

Bull’s argument is that the emergence of a global states system, replacing a bifurcated system of states and colonies, has exposed in a very tangible form the ways in which the actions or decisions taken by one government can easily intrude upon the interests and policies pursued by other governments. As a consequence, relationships and issues can be instantly politicized and opposing political coalitions of states readily mobilized. A global states system inevitably entails a high degree of sensitivity among its constituent units to the actions of each other, a situation which Morse (1976) has referred to as strategic interdependence (as opposed to economic, technological or other forms of interdependence). An interesting illustration of this kind of primitive politics amongst states, which exposes the strategic interdependencies between governments, is the case of international economic sanctions against South Africa.

In the mid 1980s the international controversy about how the world community should deal with apartheid in South Africa reached a critical watershed. A significant majority of states within the United Nations desired the imposition of international economic sanctions, whilst many of the more powerful Western states opposed such action. Using bilateral and multilateral diplomacy within many different international forums, such as the UN, the EC and the Commonwealth, black African states, together with their supporters, put international sanctions on the global diplomatic agenda. Those governments pressing for international sanctions recognized that without coordinated international action their own policy objectives could never be achieved. Despite the opposition of the United States and the UK governments, vigilant and concerted political action brought limited success with a combination of nationally imposed and internationally agreed economic sanctions against the Pretoria government. By the early 1990s, with the beginnings of the abandonment of apartheid in South Africa, the debate on sanctions had been transformed into the issue of whether or not they should be sustained. This new debate was as acrimonious as the original controversy over the imposition of sanctions, although the politics were decidedly more complicated. Both cases are instructive examples, not only of politics between states, but also of strategic interdependence between states in a global states system. Moreover, the sanctions issue vividly illustrates the interconnections between the domestic (apartheid) and the global (sanctions diplomacy), a connection which Bull’s remarks suggest is itself a product of the globalization of the states system. Finally, the sanctions issue is also revealing because it cannot be fully understood or explained without reference to transnational relations – the other strand of political activity encompassed within the global layer in Modelski’s layer cake model.

Figure 1.2 International politics

Transnational relations describe those networks, associations or interactions which cut across national societies, creating linkages between individuals, groups, organizations and communities within different nation-states. A distinguishing feature of transnational relations is that in effect they bypass governments because they operate within the societal domain and beyond direct state control (see figure 1.3). It is no longer simply the case that only governments interact with one another at the international level; the revolution in transport and communications technologies supports a staggering array of transnational activity. Modern societies display an incredible permeability to transnational forces, as evidenced in the massive flows of goods, ideas, knowledge, people, capital, services, crime, cultural tastes, values, fashions, social movements and even social problems, which cut across or fail to respect national territorial boundaries. Where such transnational interaction or activity has deliberate or unintended political consequences it is normally described as transnational politics. Indeed, transnational politics refers to all those relationships, associations, networks, interactions and organizations which cut across national societies and which intervene deliberately or unintentionally in domestic and international political processes (see figure 1.3). The global environmental movement, exemplified by Greenpeace, comes to mind here as a significant transnational force in contemporary politics both domestically and internationally.

Whilst many transnational networks and relationships operate in a rather informal or unofficial manner, many others are institutionalized. It is possible to identify a vast array of transnational organizations operating simultaneously across and within many nation-states (see figure 1.4). Transnational organizations are non-governmental bodies operating ‘across national boundaries, sometimes on a global scale, which seek as far as possible to disregard these boundaries, and which serve to establish links between different national societies, or sections of those societies’ (Bull 1977, p. 270). Good examples of transnational organizations are multinational or transnational corporations, such as General Motors, Ford, IBM, Lonrho, ICI, Nestlé, Unilever or Shell, which conduct their operations in many states and organize production on a transnational basis. Besides corporations, there are also a whole host of other types of transnational organizations: political bodies, such as the Inter-Parliamentary Union which links members of national legislatures across the world; environmental pressure groups, such as Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth; professional associations, such as the International Political Science Association and the International Chamber of Commerce; trade unions, such as the International Confederation of Trade Unions; religious bodies, such as the World Council of Churches, the Catholic Church, the World Muslim Congress and the International Council of Jewish Women; sports organizations, like the International Olympic Committee and UEFA; welfare organizations, such as the International Red Cross, Cafod and Oxfam; and scientific bodies, such as the International Association on Water Pollution Research and the International Union of Nutritional Sciences. Throughout the post-war period, there has been an exponential growth in the number of transnational bodies. As figure 1.4 illustrates, since 1958 alone their number has increased at least fourfold. They also cover, as table 1.1 shows, every single aspect of social life. Despite this phenomenal growth, they tend towards a certain geographical and functional concentration. As tables 1.2 and 1.3 indicate, the Western developed states are the home of many of these bodies, even though their activities may be global in scope.

Figure 1.3 Transnational politics

Figure 1.4 Growth of transnational bodies (data from Yearbook of International Organizations, 19th edn, 1981)

Alongside transnational relations, there exists also the phenomenon of transgovernmental relations. Transgovernmental relations refers to those networks of direct contacts between departments within different national governments that are not under complete central control (see figure 1.5). For example, direct contacts exist between the environ- mental agencies of national governments, between the central banks and between the education departments. The complexity of modern government sometimes requires officials from government bureaucracies to be in frequent contact with their opposite numbers in other foreign governments in order to acquire information, coordinate responses to common policy problems, or harmonize national policies where this has been agreed at a higher political level. The British Treasury and the Bank of England, for instance, are in constant contact with their opposite numbers in other Western industrialized states in order to maintain stability in the currency markets and alert each other to official changes in interest rates, exchange rates etc. These functional bonds between officials are facilitated by the phenomenal expansion in the number and coverage of international governmental organizations (IGOs) (see figure 1.6). IGOs provide forums within which bureaucratic contacts and networks are cultivated and strengthened. Thus, for instance, the finance ministers of all the major Western industrial states meet at least twice a year under the auspices of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to discuss and agree on cooperative action on common policy problems. Governments in reality do not appear as coherent, monolithic actors on the world stage, but rather more frequently as incoherent associations of bureaucratic agencies pursuing their own conceptions of the national interest in concert with their opposite numbers abroad.

Table 1.1 Transnational organizations by sector of activity

Bibliography, press, documentation72Religion, morality112Social sciences10International relations144Politics27Law, administration58Social aid104Employers’ organizations119Trade unions70Economy, finance47Commerce, industry251Agriculture88Travel89Technology133Science184Health, medicine256Education, youth116Arts, literature, radio89Sports, leisure110Occupational groups and commerce in the EC and EFTA283Total2,456

Source: Yearbook of International Organizations, 15th edn, 1974

Table 1.2 Countries represented in over 1000 transnational organizations

France1,898West Germany1,820UK1,796Belgium1,739Italy1,734Netherlands1,706Switzerland1,554Denmark1,467Sweden1,449Spain1,410USA1,366Austria1,360Norway1,283Finland1,256Canada1,219Japan1,111Australia1,062Total25,230

Source: Yearbook of International Organizations, 19th edn, 1981

Of course, the strength of these transgovernmental networks can vary from policy sector to policy sector, and from issue to issue. On some occasions, professional and functional bonds can override the central organs of national foreign policy. During the 1982 Falklands War, for instance, the Pentagon provided direct assistance to the UK Ministry of Defence and the British armed forces, even though this contravened official State Department policy, and was without the endorsement of the British War Cabinet or the US President. Transgovernmental networks also facilitate the emergence of transgovernmental coalitions on policy issues, in which the common interests of ministers or officials from different national governments lead to mutual support in their respective bureaucratic struggles over policy. According to one study of British foreign policy:

Foreign governments intervene in Whitehall discussions, supporting some ministers or departments, combating the arguments of others. Coalitions of interest occasionally cut across the formal barriers of national sovereignty and evade the apparatus of central coordination; the common interest of finance or of defence ministers and their subordinate officials has often proved strong enough to support intervention in each other’s domestic discussions.

(Wallace 1977, p. 270)

We have now sketched in the salient features of the global layer in Modelski’s layer cake model. Trying to assemble these features into a meaningful pattern or picture is not easy, but there is one striking image which can capture the complexity we are seeking to portray: the image of a cobweb (Burton 1972). As we have described it, the global layer encompasses not just political relations between states, and relations between states and international organizations, but also a vast array of transnational interactions which cut across national societies, as well as transgovernmental relations which permeate the institutional structures of the state itself. One way to picture the incredible variety of political activity which constitutes the global layer is as a cobweb of interactions and relations which cut across national boundaries and which are superimposed upon the already complex pattern of global interaction between states (see figure 1.7). This cobweb image provides three valuable insights into the dominant characteristics of global politics.

Table 1.3 Congresses held by transnational organizations, 1976

By continent Europe2,327America791Asia360Africa146Australasia75 3,699By country USA467France384UK349Switzerland218West Germany170Belgium169Canada140Austria138Netherlands85

Source: Transnational Associations, Brussels, February 1978

Figure 1.5 Transgovernmental relations

Figure 1.6 The growth of international governmental organizations in the global political system, 1815–1989 (Wallace and Singer 1970; Yearbook of International Organizations, 15th edn, 1974)

Firstly, in highlighting the richness and complexity of the interconnections between states and societies in the global system, the image makes more tangible the fact that developments or decisions in one part of the globe can come to have significant reverberations elsewhere. A particularly good illustration of this is the way in which Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990 created short-term instabilities in world oil and financial markets which in turn had serious economic and welfare consequences for many countries but especially the world’s poorest nations.

Secondly, the image of a cobweb, with no single focal point around which relations and interactions revolve, well describes the decentred character of global politics. This process of decentring has been articulated in a number of domains:

Figure 1.7 The cobweb image of global politics

1   With the demise of the Cold War and the relative decline of both the US and the Soviet Union, the superpower era is coming to a close. Accordingly the notion that there are only two centres of power which count in global politics, namely Washington and Moscow, no longer rings true. New concentrations of power, such as Germany and Japan, are emerging and represent a transformation in the global power structure. This, together with the increasing importance of economic and industrial power, is beginning to erode the conventional conception of international politics as an activity centred around or contingent upon the actions of the two superpowers.2   Although governments remain powerful actors in the global system, they share the stage with a vast array of other agencies and organizations. Above the state there stand quasi-supranational institutions like the EC, whilst alongside it there exist an enormous number of intergovernmental organizations, agencies and regimes which operate at the global level. Moreover, non-state actors such as multinational corporations, transnational pressure groups and transnational professional associations participate intensively in global politics. Below the state too the activities of a considerable range of subnational actors, such as city governments, local authorities, national political parties and national pressure groups, can spill over into the international arena. Accordingly the global arena is best described as a mixed-actor system. This implies that states should no longer be conceived as the primary or dominant actors at the global level. Such a conclusion directly challenges the conventional characterization of the global political system as essentially state-centric.3   Technological changes combined with economic and political developments have thrust a whole new set of problems on to the global agenda. Pollution, drugs, space, human rights and terrorism are amongst an increasing number of transnational policy issues which cut across existing global political alignments and which demand international cooperation.

Thirdly and finally, the cobweb image underlines the permeability of the nation-state to external influences. In doing so it challenges the traditionally held distinction between the domestic and the international, since developments abroad may be inserted into the domestic political process whilst, alternatively, even local actions may come to have significant repercussions abroad.

To illustrate these three points and the heuristic value of the cobweb image, we shall return to the case of economic sanctions against South Africa. It has been noted already that the imposition and maintenance of international economic sanctions against Pretoria in the 1980s and early 1990s deliver a striking example of how a primarily domestic matter, namely apartheid, has become a significant global political issue. Indeed it provides unambiguous evidence of how any attempt to separate politics within states from politics between states is nowadays fraught with such conceptual difficulty. But equally as important, it demonstrates the significant role of transnational networks, organizations and forces in global politics.

Throughout the early 1980s, the Anti-Apartheid Movement in Britain and the anti-apartheid lobby in the US (which is a coalition of organized interests) sought to undermine, both domestically and in international forums, their own governments’ official opposition to sanctions. This was done by forcing sanctions on to the domestic political agenda, raising public consciousness about Western corporate investment in South Africa, and supporting those pressing for sanctions in Congress, Parliament and within international forums, such as the Commonwealth, the UN and the European Parliament. In addition, Western anti-apartheid organizations were assisted and supported in their efforts by black South African anti-apartheid organizations, such as the ANC. Equally, the strong transnational connections between the established churches in South Africa and their ‘sisters’ abroad provided a further channel for influencing public opinion and the policies of foreign governments. Church leaders, like Archbishop Desmond Tutu, became significant players at the global level. Transnational corporations and banks too were implicated in the politics of sanctions and could not remain neutral, with the consequence that a number of major US corporations, such as Ford, took the opportunity to divest themselves of their South African subsidiaries, whilst others introduced non-discriminatory policies in an effort to look clean at home. And the media, despite the imposition of reporting restrictions by the South African government, continued to fuel the global awareness of political developments in the country and the internal divisions concerning the Western threat to impose economic sanctions.

The politics of economic sanctions thus does not fit neatly into any preconceived categories of international or domestic politics. Rather, it cuts across these conventional distinctions. Moreover, it is not an issue on which states were the only, or the dominant, political actors. On the contrary, it involved domestic pressure groups with transnational ties, transnational banks, churches, church leaders, transnational corporations and the media, as well as international organizations such as the UN, the Commonwealth and the EC. Even within governments, there were major policy differences between different arms of the state, as well as between different departments of government. All this underlines the importance of a global perspective in attempting to describe the complex politics of economic sanctions against South Africa. But the unwillingness of the key actors, namely the US and the UK governments, to adopt economic sanctions, despite the overwhelming and united global pressure for them to do so, raises the fascinating issue of the relationship between power and politics in the global arena.

Although our short diversion into the global politics of apartheid illustrates vividly the global side of the global politics equation, it provokes an equal fascination with the politics side of the equation. Like the TV advert which poses the question ‘Who put the T in Typhoo?’, we need here to ask: what form does the ‘polities’ in ‘global polities’ actually take? Is it somehow different in kind or nature from politics at the neighbourhood, local and national levels with which we are all familiar? Does it distinguish itself purely by its defiance of territorial boundaries, or is it somehow qualitatively and historically different from our traditional understanding of what politics is about?

As one might expect, the answers to these difficult questions are contingent upon the theoretical framework of enquiry which one adopts. There is no universally accepted definition of politics, since it is both a highly contested concept and one which is conditioned by normative considerations, i.e. questions of value, or what should be as opposed to what is the case. Throughout this volume we therefore offer three distinctive, but by no means mutually conflicting, paradigms or traditions of enquiry as modes of interpreting and explaining the substance of global politics. These three paradigms, which in the academic literature are often referred to as realism, liberal-pluralism and neo-Marxism, have deep intellectual roots in the three major strands of modern (as opposed to classical) political theory: conservatism, liberalism, and Marxism. Indeed, since they represent different traditions in the study of politics, it seems perfectly natural to exploit them as we attempt to map the relatively new terrain of global politics.

Realism starts from the assumption, to paraphrase its now deceased but leading exponent, Hans Morgenthau, that politics is conceived as interest defined in terms of power. With power comes the ability of the state to protect and promote its national interest, and if necessary to impose its will on others. For realists, national power is particularly crucial to the defence of national interests since, in a world which is constituted by sovereign nation-states, no single state can rely on any others to promote its interest. The global states system is consequently one in which self-help dominates, because there is no body above the state to ensure its interests are defended, or even to guarantee its survival or existence. In realist terms then, the politics in global politics can be viewed essentially as a struggle between states to protect and defend the national interest in the global system. This may involve bilateral and multilateral diplomacy, processes of negotiation and bargaining, as well as the use of military force, and it is this latter fact that for realists distinguishes global politics from all other forms of politics. For the use of force by the state to protect its core interests is an institutionalized feature of the global states system. The political element in global politics thus revolves around the exercise of power by states to promote and defend their national interest in the global arena.

Returning to our discussion of sanctions against South Africa, a realist analysis would highlight that the real politics concerned the conflict between states, underwritten by their very different national interests. Although realists would accept that there were many players, other than governments, trying to shape international policy on this issue, they would argue that only the states were the significant players, since only the states involved had any effective power to determine the political outcome. What for the realist is therefore political about the global activity which surrounds the issue of international sanctions against South Africa is that it involves conflict and cooperation between governments, each pursuing its own national interests. Global politics thus concerns conflict and cooperation between sovereign states, in which national power is a crucial variable.

A rather different interpretation of this same case would be given from within the liberal-pluralist paradigm. Politics in this paradigm is centrally about authoritative decision making or ‘who gets what and why’, so that few distinctions are made between local, national and global politics. Although the global system lacks any form of world government, liberal-pluralists would argue that the increasing degree of interconnection between societies has led to the creation of a vast array of international organizations and international arrangements for managing the consequences of high levels of interdependence. Global politics, like national politics, is thus conceived essentially as pressure group politics. The political world is conceived as a complicated patchwork of issue areas or policy sectors, such as trade relations, monetary relations, North–South relations, human rights etc., within which there are a multiplicity of groups (states, bureaucratic fragments of states, transnational corporations, transnational organizations, international organizations, individuals etc.) attempting to influence the direction of international policy outcomes. Since, in this view, power is fragmented amongst a plethora of states, transnational organizations, international bureaucracies, national pressure groups, transnational corporations etc., politics involves a process of bargaining, mutual adjustment of interests, and the making of authoritative decisions legitimized largely through an acceptance of consensual modes of decision taking. Global politics is thus cast in terms of pressure group activity and authoritative decision making within a pluralistic (polyarchical) global system.

This liberal-pluralist conception of the political would find in our chosen case of economic sanctions an almost perfect illustration of global politics. For, as we have noted previously, here is a global issue which involved an enormous variety of governmental and non-governmental, national and transnational organizations, each attempting to influence the outcome of international policy making on the sanctions issue and the subsequent implementation of any policy. The global politics of sanctions is thus the politics of pressure and influence amongst the complex array of participants in the global policy process on this specific issue.

Finally, we conclude this exploration of the political by reviewing the neo-Marxist conception of global politics. Whilst neo-Marxists would not discount the existence at the global level of a plethora of actors other than the state, what they would regard as quintessentially political about global politics is rather different from that suggested by the other two paradigms. For the neo-Marxist paradigm stresses the underlying conflicts and contradictions between the global economic order, in which capitalism is increasingly organized on a transnational basis, and the political order which is still organized (vertically) into a myriad of nation-states. Global politics is thus conceived as a product of global economic forces, which generate conflict and contradictions between national and transnational capital, between national and emerging transnational class forces, and between states and emerging supranational state structures. It is concerned with the ideological, material and institutional forces by which capital continuously extends the boundaries to, and sustains the legitimacy of, a global economic order which is essentially exploitative of the majority of states and a significant proportion of the world’s population. In simple language, global politics is about how far and in what ways capital has come to rule at the world level, and in this sense the explanation differs little from neo-Marxist interpretations of local or national politics.

Returning briefly to the case of sanctions, a neo-Marxist interpretation would cut through the surface appearances of conflicting national interests and pressure group activity, given so much credence by the other paradigms, to reveal the real forces determining the political outcomes on this issue. The politics here, it would be argued, reflect the underlying structure of power relationships between the states involved and transnational, as well as national, capital. In this particular case, the interests of capital seem to have prevailed. But neo-Marxists would not consider this was in any sense inevitable. What they would argue is that the states involved operate under the structural constraints imposed by the workings of transnational and national capitalism. Within these constraints, each state can act relatively freely, even ignoring the demands of any particular sector of capital. It is the tensions and contradictions resulting from the disjuncture between global capitalism and the existence of a global states system which is, for neo-Marxists, the essence of global politics.

THE ANATOMY OF GLOBAL POLITICS

Attempts to offer a coherent account of the dynamics of global politics risk the twin danger of oversimplification and reification. Yet simply to identify the important features of global politics requires some implicit or explicit conceptual framework of enquiry. This poses a real intellectual dilemma for the student of global politics. One strategy for managing, although by no means resolving, this dilemma is to explicate the theoretical traditions which frame the study of global politics. For pedagogic reasons this is the strategy already adopted here. However, before a more systematic overview of the three traditions introduced above – namely realism, liberal-pluralism and neo-Marxism – is offered, a few important caveats must be voiced.

In the 1980s social science was permeated by a new brand of relativism best described as the doctrine of competing perspectives. Underlying this doctrine was a particular approach to explanation in the social sciences, an approach which emphasized the impossibility of establishing a single valid explanation of social phenomena because of the diversity of theoretical traditions. At its crudest it contributed to the rather formulaic response to the question of explanation: ‘It all depends upon the theoretical perspective one uses.’ More sophisticated analyses recognized that the existence of competing explanations did not deny the possibility of establishing criteria for judging between them even if such judgements were of a relative nature, i.e. explanation x is better than explanation y. This is a line of reasoning with which the authors in this book have much sympathy. However, in wishing to ensure that the pedagogic approach adopted here (and throughout this book) is not misinterpreted or misconstrued as the cruder version of relativism, some vital points need to be aired. More specifically, the approach adopted here is guided by a particular set of assumptions about the nature of paradigmatic enquiry. These assumptions include:

1   A recognition that the three traditions or theoretical paradigms elaborated in this chapter should not be conceived as hermetically sealed intellectual discourses posed in complete opposition to one another. Rather they are quite open disquisitions, in dialogue and debate with each other. Moreover, in some areas their theoretical concerns and conclusions overlap although their reasoning and basic assumptions may fundamentally differ.2   An acknowledgement that within each of the three traditions there is a considerable theoretical diversity and even debate between alternative theoretical positions. However, despite such diversity intellectual disagreements within each paradigm operate within a context of shared assumptions about the social world and shared concepts; each paradigm can be said to embrace a distinctive meta-narrative (theoretical storyline).3   An emphasis upon the dynamic nature of these paradigms and traditions. They are not static theoretical entities but evolve in relation to changing objective conditions in global politics. Moreover, the intellectual dialogue within and between paradigms represents a constant pressure for critical thought and conceptual refinement.4   An acceptance that realism, liberal-pluralism and neo-Marxism do not exhaust all the potential traditions in the study of global politics. However, they do represent the dominant traditions in Western thinking. In addition these traditions have operated as powerful guides to political praxis in the global arena.5   A recognition that paradigmatic explanations of global political phenomena can be evaluated according to certain strict criteria.

Accepting that this particular set of assumptions prefigures the pedagogic approach adopted here, the next step demands the unfolding of the paradigms themselves. Each of the paradigms will be reviewed with regard to its characterization of global politics and the presuppositions embedded in its meta-narrative concerning the four critical parameters of the global system: the nature of the actors; the nature of the global political process; the characterization of the global political order, and the characterization of the dominant forms of global power relations and processes of globalization.

Realism and Neo-realism

Realism asserts the primacy of the state in global politics. Although realism acknowledges the existence of other actors in the global system, such as international organizations, multinational corporations and individuals, it posits that states are the dominant actors. The reason for this is simply that realists attach great importance to sovereignty: the ultimate legal authority which a state exercises over a defined territory and the people within it. There is thus no authority above the state, no equivalent of domestic government, which can require states to act in certain ways. Even international organizations are regarded as subservient to states, since they are creatures of states. All other actors in the global system too, realists argue, must either work through states or influence state policy if their interests are to be fulfilled. For realists, the global system is a global states system.

If states are the dominant actors, realists would argue that the political process at the global level involves competition, conflict and cooperation between the representatives of states. With no overarching authority in the global system, a situation of anarchy exists in which states must acquire power to defend and protect their vital interests. Politics between states thus takes on the requirements of a struggle for power. But this does not mean that war and conflict are necessarily the only means through which states can pursue their interests. On the contrary, realists emphasize that, through diplomacy and negotiation, states cooperate to achieve common ends.

Although they stress the absence of government in the global system, realists nonetheless argue that political order is maintained through various mechanisms. The struggle for power does not lead to all-out conflict, since peace and stability is established through the mechanisms of global and local balances of power. In addition, neo-realism, which has emerged recently as an attempt to update classical realism, gives particular weight to the role of hegemonic powers (dominant powers such as the United States or the Soviet Union) in establishing and maintaining order in the global system. For instance, both superpowers attempt to police their own spheres of influence and to control their subordinates’ actions where these threaten to undermine global peace and security. And, in the post-war period, the US, as the world’s hegemonic economic power, established (as we noted earlier) the basic framework of international economic order which has to this day shaped the conduct of global economic relations. Neorealism stresses the significance of the structure of power in the global system in shaping the character of the political order which exists. Thus, a world of only two great powers has a more stable political order than a world in which there are three or more powers, since the Soviets and the Americans are in no doubt as to whom to defend themselves against. The structure of power is thus important to the durability of the global political order.

Furthermore, states have institutionalized cooperative relations, where the national interest dictates, through the creation of a vast array of international organizations. It is therefore possible, most realists would suggest, to conceive of the global states system as very much a society of states. It is a society because, as Bull (1977) argues, there are agreed rules, principles, norms, laws, mechanisms and institutions for creating and maintaining order amongst its members.

Finally, realism places great stress upon the significance of military power in shaping global politics. Since there is no overarching authority in the global system, states are reliant upon their own resources to ensure their security and survival. In the end, military power becomes the essential ingredient of state power, since without it states cannot defend their own core interests. The acquisition and the exercise of military and coercive power are thus essential ingredients of the realist interpretation of global politics. Similarly, in terms of the dominant processes of globalization, realists stress the significance of the competition and struggle for power between all states as being a crucial factor in creating a more politically interdependent world. In particular, the emergence of global rivalry between the superpowers has transformed the world into one unified strategic arena in which political developments everywhere are interpreted by the superpowers and their allies in terms of how they may affect the global balance of power. Politics everywhere thus takes on a global dimension.

Liberal-Pluralism

A rather different conception of global politics is proffered from within the liberal-pluralist paradigm. Although not as coherent a body of theory as realism and neo-realism, liberal-pluralism starts from the assumption that the state is no longer the primary actor on the world stage. Rather, the growth of transnational relations points to the significance of non-state actors, such as multinational corporations, and a myriad of other transnational associations. Alongside these actors, liberal-pluralism also stresses the importance of international organizations which are considered actors in their own right and not simply creatures of states. Indeed, the state itself is conceived as a rather fragmented entity, constituted by an array of bureaucratic organizations and institutions, each of which has the potential to become a player in the global political process. As a consequence, liberal-pluralists often describe the global system as a polyarchical, mixed-actor or complex conglomerate system to denote the incredible variety of actors.

Rather than viewing the global political process as one which only embraces states, liberal-pluralists argue that it involves processes of bargaining and the exertion of influence amongst a variety of actors, each pursuing its own interests. The global system is viewed as an agglomeration of different issue areas or policy sectors, such as trade, finance, energy and human rights, in which domestic and international policy processes, because of growing interdependence, merge into one another. The political process is therefore largely concerned with the management of global interdependencies, and takes the form of bargaining, negotiation and consensual decision making amongst the participants in each issue area.

For liberal-pluralists, order is maintained in the global system not through states or the balance of power. Rather, as in domestic society, order is maintained through commonly accepted values, a recognition of a high degree of interdependence between national societies, and the existence of accepted rules and norms of behaviour, as well as institutions or processes of governance. Great significance is attached to the existence of the vast array of international organizations and regimes which govern every single sector of global activity, from military relations to monetary relations. Order is thus achieved and maintained through a complex web of criss-crossing governing arrangements which bind states and societies together.

Finally, liberal-pluralism identifies technological and economic forces as the most important harbingers of global interdependence. Technology, particularly the revolution in communications and transport technologies, is regarded as being responsible for the growing insignificance of territorial boundaries. Linkages and channels of communication between societies have now become so extensive that every state is penetrated by external forces and pressures. Also, the emergence of a world-wide system of production and exchange has enmeshed all states in webs of complex interdependence over which individual national governments can exert little control. For liberal-pluralists, therefore, economic forces and technological forces are regarded as primarily responsible for bringing about increasingly higher levels of global political interdependence. Not surprisingly, they also identify economic and technological power as the most crucial forms of power in the global system.

Neo-Marxism

Whilst neo-Marxism, as an explanation of global politics, shares some common ground with realism and liberal-pluralism, it also has many quite significant points of divergence. Whereas classical Marxism conceived of capitalism largely in terms of separate national capitalisms, which had to engage in foreign trade and investment (colonialism and imperialism) in order to overcome their own internal contradictions, neo-Marxist theorists have come to view the world in terms of a global capitalist system. Moreover, neo-Marxists consider that the structure of this global capitalist system imposes its own constraints upon the behaviour of all the key actors in the global system: states, classes, international economic organizations and transnational corporations. But unlike realism, which considers that the state acts in the national interest, neo-Marxism considers that states and international organizations are largely the expressions of dominant class interests at the world level. This does not mean that states, or bureaucratic fragments of states, or international organizations cannot operate independently of dominant class interests, but rather that they are subject to strong structural requirements to ensure that the long-term interests of transnational capitalism are met, i.e. sustaining a hospitable environment for global capital accumulation and expansion. But these structural requirements have to be balanced against the need of states and international organizations to be seen to be acting in the national or international interest. Neo-Marxist analyses of global politics (unlike classical Marxist theories) therefore stress the scope for states and international economic institutions to act relatively autonomously from the demands of capital, whether national or transnational.

Neo-Marxists conceive of global politics as constrained by the needs of transnational capitalism, with the consequence that the dominant political processes at the global level are viewed essentially as expressions of underlying class conflicts on a world scale. Obviously the situation is far more complex than this, and most neo-Marxists would accept that conflicts and tensions between national and transnational capital also shape the political process. Moreover, they also share with liberal-pluralists a recognition of the importance of international organizations and regimes, and thus of the processes of collective decision making which they embody. However, the difference is that these governing arrangements are considered by neo-Marxists to reflect the requirements of transnational corporate capitalism. This brings us directly to the question of the global order.

Like their neo-realist and liberal-pluralist counterparts, neo-Marxists also share the belief that the global system is highly ordered. But, unlike neo-realists, they do not conceive of that order as based upon the structure of military power; nor do they accept that it is sustained by webs of interdependence as do liberal-pluralists. Rather, neo-Marxist analyses assert that the prevailing world order is a capitalist order based upon a global structure of production and exchange established by transnational corporations. One of the dominant characteristics of this order is the structural differentiation of the world into core, peripheral and semi-peripheral centres of economic power: in simple terms, the division between North, South and the Eastern bloc. This structure is mirrored internally within states in the polarization between those sectors of national society integrated into the transnational capitalist system and those sectors which are marginalized. Thus, the expansion of transnational capitalism contributes directly to the combined processes of global integration and national disintegration.

Global order is maintained through the hegemonic capitalist state, international state agencies, transnational corporations, international regimes and international networks, and is legitimized through the global diffusion of a dominant ideology of liberalism and Western-type modernization.

Finally, it will come as little surprise to learn that, in explaining the regularities and patterns in global politics, neo-Marxist interpretations give primacy to economic determinants. In particular, such interpretations stress the significance of economic power in accounting for global politics. Similarly, they identify the global spread of capitalism and the ideology of modernization as the primary processes of globalization.

Although each of the paradigms has been described here in a somewhat impressionistic manner, nonetheless it should be evident that each delivers a quite distinct account of global politics (see table 1.4). But even these accounts have to be supplemented by an appreciation of the dominant processes of globalization which nurture global politics.

Table 1.4 A summary of the three paradigms

PROCESSES OF GLOBALIZATION

To talk of global politics is to assert that there are processes of globalization at work which in some way contribute to the globalization of political activity. Globalization refers to the multiplicity of linkages and interconnections between the states and societies which make up the modern world system. It describes the process by which events, decisions, and activities in one part of the world can come to have significant consequences for individuals and communities in quite distant parts of the globe. Globalization has two distinct dimensions: scope (or stretching) and intensity (or deepening). On the one hand it defines a set of processes which embrace most of the globe or which operate world-wide; the concept therefore has a spatial connotation. Politics and other social activities are becoming stretched across the globe. On the other hand it also implies an intensification in the levels of interaction, interconnectedness or interdependence between the states and societies which constitute the world community. Accordingly, alongside the stretching goes a deepening of global processes.

Far from being an abstract concept, globalization articulates one of the more familiar features of modern existence. As noted earlier, a moment’s reflection on the contents of our own kitchen cupboards or fridges would underline the fact that, simply as passive consumers, we are very much part of a global network of production and exchange. But of course globalization does not mean that the world is becoming more politically united, economically interdependent or culturally homogeneous. Globalization is highly uneven in its scope and highly differentiated in its consequences. For example, urban life in the capital cities of most Latin American countries is perhaps much more deeply implicated in global processes than, for instance, is rural life in the Orkneys or the Shetland Islands. Moreover, far from being a completely novel or primarily twentieth-century phenomenon, a globalizing imperative has been evident in many previous periods of history, and is perhaps most powerfully visible in nineteenth-century imperialism (see chapter 13).