I’ll be teaching a Ph.D. level class on globalization this semester – the draft syllabus is below. The direct aim of the class is to provide doctoral students in both international relations and comparative politics with an understanding of broad debates about globalization, without duplicating the materials of the (separately taught) class in international political economy. The indirect aim is to get them reading at least some material outside the field of political science (specifically: sociology and financial history – they get plenty of economics elsewhere). Comments and suggestions gratefully received.
Week 1 – Introduction: Debating Globalization
Suzanne Berger (2000), “Globalization and Politics,” Annual Review of Political Science (3):43-62.
Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman (2017), “The New Interdependence Approach: Theoretical Development and Empirical Demonstration,” Review of International Political Economy (23)5:713-736.
Miles Kahler and David Lake (2003), “Globalization and Governance,” in Governance in a Global Economy: Political Authority in Transition (eds. Kahler and Lake), Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye (2000), “Globalization,” Foreign Policy (118):104-119.
Jeffry Frieden and Ronald Rogowski, “The Impact of the International Economy on National Policies: An Analytical Overview,” Internationalization and Domestic Politics, eds. Robert O. Keohane and Helen Milner, Princeton NJ, Princeton University Press.
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Week 2 – What is Globalization 1: Globalization as Market Forces
Karl Polanyi (1944), The Great Transformation, New York, Octagon Books. Read Chapters 3,4,5,6.
Dani Rodrik (2011), The Globalization Paradox New York: Norton, pp.3-66.
Jagdish Bhagwati (2007), In Defense of Globalization, New York: Oxford University Press, pp.1-27, 267-286.
Quinn Slobodian (2018), The Globalists: The End of Empire and the Birth of Neoliberalism (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press), Introduction, Chapter 2.
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Week 3 – What is Globalization 2: Globalization as Ideas
Cornel Ban (2016), “Chapter One: The Ruling Power of Neoliberal Ideas,” Ruling Ideas: How Global Neoliberalism Goes Local, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Jeffrey M. Chwieroth and Timothy Sinclair (2013), “How You Stand Depends on How We See: International Capital Mobility as Social Fact,” Review of International Political Economy (20)3:457-485.
Daniel Hirschman and Elizabeth Popp Berman (2014), “Do Economists Make Policies? On the Political Effects of Economics,” Socio-Economic Review 779–811.
Stephen Nelson (2014), “Playing Favorites: How Shared Beliefs Shape the IMF’s Lending Decisions,” International Organization (68)2:297-328.
Sell, Susan K., and Aseem Prakash (2004), “Using Ideas Strategically: The Contest Between Business and NGO Networks in Intellectual Property Rights,” International Studies Quarterly (48):143–75.
Quinn Slobodian, The Globalists, Conclusion.
Week IV: What is Globalization 3: Globalization as Institutions
Michael Barnett and Martha Finnemore, Rules for the World: International Organizations in Global Politics, Chapter Three, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Marion Fourcade and Kieran Healy (2016), “Seeing Like a Market,” Socio-Economic Review (15)1:9-29.
Judith Goldstein (2017), “Trading in the Twenty-First Century: Is There a Role for the World Trade Organization?,” Annual Review of Political Science (20):545-564.
John Ikenberry (2018), “The End of Liberal International Order?,” International Affairs (94)1:7-23.
Dani Rodrik, The Globalization Paradox, pp.67-111.
Quinn Slobodian, The Globalists, Chapter Seven.
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Week V: How Globalization Works 1: Globalization from the Bottom Up
Adam Dean (2018) Arresting the Opposition: Labor Repression and Trade Liberalization in Developing Countries (unpublished paper).
Jeffry Frieden (1988), “Capital Politics: Creditors and the International Political Economy,” Journal of Public Policy (8)3-4:265-286.
David Lake (2009), “Open Economy Politics: A Critical Review,” Review of International Organizations 4(3):219-244.
Helen Milner and Keiko Kubota (2005), “Why the Move to Free Trade? Democracy and Trade Policy in the Developing Countries,” International Organization (59)1:107-143.
Ronald Rogowski (1987), “Political Cleavages and Changing Exposure to Trade,” American Political Science Review (81)4:1121-1137.
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Week VI – How Globalization Works 2: Globalization as Structure and System
Mark Blyth and Matthias Matthijs (2017), “Black Swans, Lame Ducks, and the Mystery of IPE’s Missing Macro-Economy,” Review of International Political Economy (24)2:203-231.
Seva Gunitsky (2013), “Complexity and Theories of Change in World Politics,” International Theory (5)1:35-63.
Thomas Oatley, W. Kindred Winecoff, Andrew Pennock, and Sarah Bauerle Danzman (2011), The Political Economy of Global Finance: A Complex Network Model. Unpublished paper.
Leo Panitch and Sam Gindin (2004), “Global Capitalism and American Empire,” Socialist Register (40):1-42.
Adam Tooze (2018), Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World, Chapters 3,4,5 (New York: Penguin).
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Week VII – How Globalization Works 3: Globalization as a Web of Diffusion
Marion Fourcade-Gourinchas (Fourcade) and Sarah L. Babb, “The Rebirth of the Liberal Creed: Paths to Neoliberalism in Four Countries,” American Journal of Sociology (108)3:533-79.
Witold J. Henisz, Bennet A. Zelner and Mauro F. Guilen, “The Worldwide Diffusion of Market-Oriented Infrastructure Reform, 1977-1999,” American Sociological Review (70)6:871-897.
John Meyer, John Boli, George M. Thomas, and Francisco O. Ramirez (1997), “World Society and the Nation-State,” American Journal of Sociology (103)1:144-181.
Layna Mosley (2010), “Regulating Globally, Implementing Locally: The Financial Codes and Standards Effort,” Review of International Political Economy (17)4:724-61.
Beth A. Simmons and Zachary Elkins (2004), “The Globalization of Liberalization: Policy Diffusion in the International Political Economy,” American Political Science Review (98)1:171-189.
Fabrizio Gilardi and Fabio Wasserfallen (forthcoming), “The Politics of Policy Diffusion, European Journal of Political Research.
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Week VIII: What Globalization Does 1: Globalization and Convergence
Suzanne Berger, “Introduction,” National Diversity and Global Capitalism, eds. Suzanne Berger and Ronald Dore, Ithaca NY: Cornell University Press.
Nancy Brune and Geoffrey Garrett, “The Globalization Rorschach Test: Economic Integration, Inequality and the Role of Government,” Annual Review of Political Science (8):399-423.
Daniel Drezner, “Globalization and Policy Convergence,” International Studies Review (3):53-78.
Peter Hall and David Soskice (2001), “An Introduction to the Varieties of Capitalism,” Varieties of Capitalism, eds. Peter Hall and David Soskice (New York: Oxford University Press).
Edmund J. Malesky and Layna Mosley (2018), “Chains of Love? Global Production and the Firm-Level Diffusion of Labor Standards,” American Journal of Political Science (62)3:712-728.
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Week IX: What Globalization Does 2: Globalization and Security
Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman (2019), “Weaponized Interdependence,” International Security (forthcoming, Summer 2019 Issue).
Harold James (2014), “Cosmos, Chaos: Finance, Power and Conflict,” International Affairs (90)1:37-57.
Robert D. Blackwill and Jennifer Harris (2016), War By Other Means: Geoeconomics and Statecraft, Chapters 1,2,3, Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.
Thomas Wright (2016), All Measures Short of War: The Contest for the 21st Century and the Future of American Power, New Haven, Yale University Press, Chapter 5.
Adam Tooze (2018), Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World, Chapter 21.
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Week X – What Globalization Does 3: Globalization and Democracy (in the European Union and Elsewhere)
Christopher Bickerton (2018), “Beyond the European Void? Reflections on Peter Mair’s Legacy,” European Law Journal (24)4-5:268-280.
Helen V. Milner and Bumba Mukherjee, “Democratization and Economic Globalization,” Annual Review of Political Science (12):163-181.
Kate McNamara (2014), The Politics of Everyday Europe: Constructing Authority in the European Union, Chapter 5, New York: Oxford University Press.
Dani Rodrik, The Globalization Paradox, Chapter 9.
Quinn Slobodian, The Globalists, Chapter 6.
Adam Tooze (2018), Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World, Chapter 22.
Week XI – What Globalization Does 4: Business Power
Charles Lindblom (1982), “The Market as Prison,” Journal of Politics (44)2:324-336.
John B. Goodman and Louis W. Pauly (1993), “The Obsolescence of Capital Controls?: Economic Management in an Age of Global Markets,” World Politics (46)1:50-82.
Adam Przeworski and Michael Wallerstein (1988), “Structural Dependence of the State on Capital,” American Political Science Review (82)1:11-29.
Pepper Culpepper (2015), “Structural Power and Political Science in the Post-Crisis Era,” Business and Politics (17)3:391-409.
Cornelia Woll (2016), “Politics in the Interest of Capital: A Not-So-Organized Combat,” Politics and Society (44)3:373-391.
Week XII – What Happens Next 1: The Globalization Backlash
David Autor, David Dorn, Gordon Hanson and Kaveh Majlesi (2017), Importing Political Polarization? The Electoral Consequences of Rising Trade Exposure. Unpublished paper.
Italo Colantone and Piero Stanig (2018), “Global Competition and Brexit,” American Political Science Review (112)2:201-218.
Jeffry Frieden (2018), The Backlash against Globalization and the Future of the International Economic Order. Unpublished Paper.
Dani Rodrik (2017), “Populism and the Economics of Globalization,” Journal of International Business Policy available at https://drodrik.scholar.harvard.edu/files/dani-rodrik/files/populism_and_the_economics_of_globalization.pdf.
Adam Tooze, Crashed, Chapter 23.
Week XIII – What Happens Next 2: The Crisis of Global Liberalism?
Stephen Chaudoin, Helen V. Milner and Dustin Tingley (2018), “Down But Not Out: A Liberal International American Foreign Policy,” in Chaos in the Liberal Order: The Trump Presidency and International Politics in the 21st Century, eds. Robert Jervis, Francis J. Gavin and Joshua Rovner, New York, Columbia University Press.
Jonathan Hopkin and Mark Blyth (2018), “The Global Economics of European Populism: Growth Regimes and Party System Change in Europe,” Government and Opposition (First View).
Robert O. Keohane, International Institutions in an Era of Populism, Nationalism and Diffusion of Power. The Warren and Anita Manshel Lecture in American Foreign Policy.
David Lake (2018), “International Legitimacy Lost? Rule and Resistance When America is First,” Perspectives on Politics (16)1:6-21.
Adam Tooze, Crashed, Chapter 25.
Week XIV – What Happens Next 3: Globalization 2.0 – Globalization after the West?
Bentley B. Allan, Srdjan Vucetic and Ted Hopf, “The Distribution of Identity and the Future of International Order: China’s Hegemonic Prospects,” International Organization (72)4:839-869.
Cornel Ban and Mark Blyth (2013), “The BRICs and the Washington Consensus: An Introduction,” Review of International Political Economy (20)2:241-255.
Naazneen Barma, Ely Ratner and Steven Weber (2014), “Welcome to the World without the West,” The National Interest, https://nationalinterest.org/feature/welcome-the-world-without-the-west-11651.
Peter Ferdinand (2016), “Westward Ho – The China Dream and ‘One Belt, One Road’: Chinese Foreign Policy under Xi Jinping,” International Affairs (92):914-957.
John Ikenberry and Darren J. Lim (2017), China’s Emerging Institutional Statecraft: The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the Prospects for Counter-Hegemony (Washington DC: Brookings Institution Project on International Order and Strategy).
Dani Rodrik, The Globalization Paradox, Chapter 8.
{ 23 comments }
LFC 01.09.19 at 11:02 pm
Instead of making a lot of general comments about how you’ve structured this and what you’re covering and not covering (though some occur to me), I’ll just make a couple of specific suggestions:
(1) Immanuel Wallerstein, “Globalization or the Age of Transition?,” International Sociology v. 15 (June 2000). First words of the abstract are: “Globalization is a misleading concept…” Might be provocative at any rate, Wallerstein not infrequently is. And possibly related: I. Wallerstein et al., Does Capitalism Have a Future? (2013)
(2) G. Arrighi and Lu Zhang, “Beyond the Washington Consensus: A New Bandung?” I have it downloaded in draft form, but it was published in J. Shefner and P. Fernandez-Kelly, eds., Globalization and Beyond (2010, or thereabouts). Might fit well into your last section on “globalization after the West?”
For now, I’ll it leave there and let others chime in who actually keep up w the relevant literature (which I don’t).
Faustusnotes 01.10.19 at 5:39 am
Henry your week 12 on resistance seems, just from the title and age of the readings, to be focused on recent electoral resistance to globalization(trump, brexit and all the other dickheads). (Sorry if I’m wrong about this based on the titles). But in the 1990s there was a genuinely community driven opposition to globalization that manifested as huge demonstrations at g20 meetings and a wide body of political opinion. At times it was a severe confrontation between the state and its people, that was very violent (in Italy police violence was ferocious, and British police murdered a bystander in 2009). It was also linked to state abuses like the undercover police scandal in the uk, mclibel, etc. will you cover any of that? Because it’s worth bearing in mind that modern electoral resistance is actually a Russian intelligence operation whereas that earlier generation of anti globalization politics was a genuine grassroots response to the erosion of labour rights and the financialization of ordinary life.
(And will you be covering Russian involvement in these populist movements? I think it would be weird to present them as genuine political resistance if they’re actually an intelligence operation, but I have no clue how you could or should handle that issue)
Z 01.10.19 at 10:06 am
An angle that could be interesting to fit in your week on The Globalization Backlash and/or Globalization and Convergence would be Globalization and Divergence. It’s a pretty active subject of study in the French intellectual scene at the moment (I’m thinking of people like David Cayla or Emmanuel Todd, among many others), but if you want to stick to English sources (an understandable limitation, but one that might be detrimental in a course on Globalization) I can think of Joseph Stiglitz The Euro: How a Common Currency Threatens the Future of Europe (2016) or chapter 5 or François Bourguignon The Globalization of Inequalityfor economical takes on the question.
Neville Morley 01.10.19 at 11:41 am
This may be unhelpfully irrelevant, as my sense of your syllabus is that you’re not engaging much with the cultural/sociological tradition coming out of e.g. Giddens and Robertson, but I’ve got a lot out of David Grewal’s Network Power as a way of thinking about this, and in particular thinking about the way that a free choice to adopt new habits, abandon traditional practices etc can nevertheless feel constrained. Maybe because it’s one of the elements of modern globalisation theory that’s fairly easily adapted for the sort of pre-modern globalisation I work with.
rar 01.10.19 at 12:24 pm
Susan Sell’s “Multinational Corporations as Agents of Change: The Globalization of Intellectual Property Rights” would seem to fit well into the “business power” week. She shows how MNCs successfully pushed reticent trade negotiators to build a global IP regime. It’s in the edited volume Private Authority and International Affairs.
Louis N. Proyect 01.10.19 at 12:57 pm
https://www.amazon.com/Origins-Globalization-1500-1800-Approaches-Economic/dp/1108447139
bob mcmanus 01.10.19 at 12:57 pm
2:”modern electoral resistance is actually a Russian intelligence operation”
Please, tell us more. I see that words like “entirely” or “completely” are missing, but maybe are unnecessary? Was everyone who voted Leave, all the Yellow Vest demonstrators in France, and likely every voter for Trump (and Sanders in the primaries?) conscious Russian agents or merely unwitting dupes?
1) I didn’t expect the World Systems crowd to be in Henry’s reading list. For one thing, now that Arrighi and Samir Amin are gone, the school is fading. I also suspect there are ideological and methodological differences.
I do find interesting, with no intended judgement or criticism, how much my reading, limited eclectic and dilettantish as it is, overlaps with Henry’s in subject matter with very little match in authors. Current reading: James Blaut, The Colonizers Model of the World and Zygmunt Baumann Liquid Modernity. Recently Eduard Soja, William Carroll, Kees van der Pilj. Part of this is that if you read Samir Amin or Abu Lughod they cite and reference approvingly a different set of authors than what Henry cites. And I presume that with limited time Henry has to read what his peers read in order to engage the professional discourse productively. In addition, I notice the recency of much of the material, implying that we are doing science here, with accumulation of truth and correction of the errors and inadequacies of material more than ten years old.
PS: The Slobodian, initially attractive and to be read, is gradually losing its appeal.
LFC 01.10.19 at 2:31 pm
@mcmanus
If you think, as your comment implies, that H Farrell only assigns readings that he agrees with methodologically and ideologically, then you have a much lower opinion of Farrell as an academic than I do. The point of the fricking course is to give students a sense of the debate (the word “debate” is right there in the OP). Btw as a first year grad student I took a required seminar taught by someone who had written a lot about globalization (not on Henry’s syllabus and I’m not going to mention the name here). I thought his scholarship was well done but as a teacher he was too concerned w persuading students to see the world the way he did. I don’t like that style of teaching and think the majority of profs try to avoid it. They present their own views but also encourage students to come to their own conclusions. My guess is that is probably what H Farrell does.
Faustusnotes 01.10.19 at 2:39 pm
Bob, have you noticed the behavior of the yellow vests in London? Do you think they are allies of the left? Do you think the yellow vests in France are free of manipulation? I notice you skipped over my point about genuine grassroots resistance to globalization in the 90s, and I wonder why. Because it didn’t happen much in America? Because you weren’t there? Or because your idea of “resistance†is a poseur like Bernie, a solitary old man for everyone else to idolize rather than an organized group of dedicated nobodies who don’t hog the limelight begging for credit?
The 1990s opposition to globalization had very few heroes and a lot of victims. It spawned the black bloc, and their violence in Seattle and elsewhere scared the authorities enough to make them finally make some concessions. But nobody ever took credit or gained political influence by it. There was no hero worship and no political careers were built. People died and went to prison. But now we see the arguments those people made repeated in disingenuous speeches and twitter rants by berners and fascists alike, with no credit given. It would be nice to see some of those new political leaders give credit to the movement whose politics they are aping.
Also, don’t you think at this late stage it’s time to stop the Russia denialism?
bob mcmanus 01.10.19 at 3:54 pm
as your comment implies, that H Farrell only assigns readings that he agrees with methodologically and ideologically
Crowd is hostile, but that was not my intention or implication. Rather my point is that there is far too much material printed every year to do justice to it all, and the scope has to be narrowed somehow. I find nothing wrong with ideological and methodological criteria being used as filters. And within the range of material that Henry will encounter in his journals and conferences there will be plenty to disagree with and diversity and difference to work with.
As I said, I read associated material and have not encountered most of the authors HF cites. This does not mean I am deliberately excluding ideas, but that discourses in our oversaturated intellectual world have to consciously limit themselves. I did not expect HF to include world-systems, or adequately cover post-colonial or feminist Marxian perspectives. As in most such endeavors, he should give his students what they need for professional credibility among a limited group of peers.
This also means of course that there is no totality or completeness or even adequate coverage, but only localized discourses attempting to find small truths with humility.
No faustusnotes, I won’t give you the response you deserve.
Antonin Boileau 01.10.19 at 4:07 pm
“a poseur like Bernie, a solitary old man”
“twitter rants by berners and fascists alike”
“it’s time to stop the Russia denialism”
I give you the political discourse in America circa 2019.
Matt L 01.10.19 at 6:47 pm
Henry, this looks like an interesting and wide ranging reading list. My one criticism might be an unfair one. Besides Polanyi, you do not seem to have any historians on the list. (I will admit I am not familiar with some of the authors here). LFC has already recommended Wallerstein.
I would highly recommend, Sarah Abrevaya Stein, _Plumes: Ostrich Feathers, Jews, and a Lost World of Global Commerce_ (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008). It is a really short book (154 pages!), but gives a great case study of globalization in the nineteenth century. Some of the chapters or the introduction and conclusion might be worth excerpting for your students.
Other people have mentioned Janet Abu-Lughod and her book _Before European Hegemony_ (Oxford, 1991). You might consider assigning an essay she wrote that was published by the American Historical Association, where she addresses the problems of comparative history. Janet L. Abu-Lughod, “The World System in the Thirteenth Century: Dead-End or Precursor?,” Essays on Global and Comparative History. (Washington, D.C.: American Historical Association, 1993).
Thank you for sharing your syllabus and I will have to carve out some time this summer to take a look at some of the readings you are using. Good luck and have a wonderful class!
Tom 01.10.19 at 9:23 pm
What is taught in the IPE course? There seem to be potentially a lot of overlap with that course too. In any event, one major omission for me is the topic of immigration. There are different angles one could take here:
– the economic one, that usually finds big gains from open borders (See Michael A. Clemens. Economics and Emigration: Trillion-Dollar Bills on the Sidewalk? Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 25, No. 3, Summer 2011)
– the political one (you probably know this best)
– the more philosophical one (ask Chris B., I guess)
Another theme one may include is the role of internet, faster diffusion of news (and fake news) on politics. I believe this topic is up your alley of research and you could plug it in here (not sure if this is already included in some of the readings, I am not familiar with many of them unfortunately).
Good luck!
LFC 01.11.19 at 1:44 pm
On the topic of resistance, in addition to what Faustusnotes mentioned @2, there’s been civil-society-based and/or grassroots resistance in various places/countries to, e.g., privatization of water systems or other state functions, construction of dams or other projects in certain areas when they would displace people, etc etc. Can all go under heading of ‘resistance to [neoliberal] globalization’. A fair amount has been written on this, some case studies (for lack of better phrase), some broader-gauged. However, as has been pointed out, you can only cover so much in one course/one semester.
Rapier 01.11.19 at 5:48 pm
All of this seem to omit China and thus the Chinese vision of a commercially and diplomatically connected Eurasia. Instead somehow trying to shoehorn globalization into the Treaty of Westphalia. If perchance there are some academics who study China today who are not Chinaphobes, an unlikely thing I know, perhaps you might consult them about what China means by globalization and provide some source material.
Ignore this as rote propaganda at your own peril.
https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/wjb_663304/wjbz_663308/2461_663310/t1489143.shtml
LFC 01.11.19 at 8:04 pm
@Rapier
It’s peculiar to suggest that HF’s syllabus omits China when almost the entire last session (Week XIV) seems to be focused on China. Now perhaps the “official” Chinese perspective should be added, but that’s a different point.
Ronan 01.11.19 at 8:08 pm
Ivan Krastev’s ‘After Europe’ gives a convincing(and short) holistic explantion of the backlash imo. (incorporates nativism, demography, class division, elite contempt, declining national economic control etc)
Robert 01.12.19 at 7:48 pm
Arundhati Roy’s “Power Politics” is critical of globalism and gets at the relationships between globalism, ethnic nationalism, and crony capitalism. Her analysis of the “big dam” projects, in particular, is excellent. She’s also a fantastic writer and I’m sure your students would tear through her stuff.
Rapier 01.12.19 at 10:36 pm
@LFC
Perhaps I am wrong but all those seem to be based upon opposition to China or at least its vision of globalization. Us or them. The dynamic 500 years of European history replayed. Anti globalization.
How many countries does China have sanctions against? How many governments has it actively tried to undermine? How many foreign military bases does it have? How many other countries has it bombed?
carld 01.13.19 at 1:34 am
Consider adding ‘The Brussels effect’ by A Bradford during week 10. This is a very important issue that students are usually totally unaware of. For instance, many UK students really do believe that the UK may set its own product regulations after Brexit. Like M Jänicke, it outlines how gobalization may in soem cases promote a ‘race to the top’.
Cranky Observer 01.13.19 at 3:25 pm
In the context of formal multi-national globalization treaties and trade agreements I would suggest mentioning, or perhaps challenging the class, with Daniel Davies’ observation that “Good ideas do not need lots of lies told about them in order to gain public acceptance. “. Ordinary citizens – who in some nations are voters nominally tasked with setting the general policy direction of their nation – are told by the experts they have (indirectly) hired that such trade agreements are of positive benefit to the nation and population as a whole, yet whenever the details of such agreements are revealed there are many provisions (often held secret by the terms of the treaty) that very few individual citizens would voluntarily agree to imposing on themselves. Whence comes the discrepancy?
Aqueil Ahmad 01.13.19 at 6:05 pm
Hello Henry: I am much pleased to see you will be teaching a graduate level course on globalization after, apparently, much neglect, even denigration of the concept as well as the reality of globalization by many naysayers in America and elsewhere. Of course, I have not seen your syllabus; only some aspects of globalization you intend to cover weekly. But your reading list seems to wander all over the place, generally speaking. I am much intrigued, and confused with the recommended readings for the sub-topic, What is globalization; for none of these seems to tell the reader what the multidimensional phenomenon of globalization really is.
This brings me to my own experience as an early globalization teacher and researcher. I developed and taught an undergraduate course, The Global Society for three years, 2003-2005 as a sociology professor at the University of North Carolina – Greensboro UNCG). My basic objective was to explain to my students the multidimensional reality of globalization beyond its economic dimensions. Informed largely by my class notes/lectures and the (then) current literature on the subject, I published my first book, a 2010 paperback, Exploring Globalization: Structure and Processes, Impacts and Implications. An updated version was subsequently published in 2013 by Palgrave-Macmillan as a hard cover. I wish to bring these publications to your attention. Both are currently available via Amazon.
I am now retired and work as a freelance scholar out of my home office in Hillsborough, North Carolina. If you so wish, I would be delighted to further communicate about a subject I have worked on for nearly quarter of a century, a subject too often denigrated and ignored in contemporary intellectual/academic circles. Thank you!
likbez 01.14.19 at 3:44 am
My impression is that it is impossible to separate the current backlash on globalization from the backlash on neoliberalism as an ideology.
Crumbling of neoliberal ideology now is an undisputable scientific fact. While neoliberal practice continues since 2008 unabated, and neoliberalism even managed (not without help from some three-letter agencies) staged counterrevolutions in several countries such as Ukraine, Argentina, and Brazil (the phenomena known as “Strange non-death of Neoliberalism”).
One of the fundamental forces behind the last 25 years of neoliberal globalization is the availability of cheap oil. If this period is coming to an end in a decade or two (as in prolonging period of over $100 per barrel prices) the reversal of neoliberal globalization might acquire a completely different pace and scale.
The current level of degeneration of the neoliberal elite is another interesting factor. Essentially neoliberal oligarchy (and this is first of all financial oligarchy) and their political stooges lost the legitimacy in the minds of the majority of the electorate in the USA (Trump+Sanders supporters).
In this sense, I would like to emphasize an amazing and unexplainable (given Fox news owner) speech by Tucker Carlson on Jan 2, 2009.
He offered this blunt advice to Republicans:
This is probably the first statement that neoliberalism is the enemy of healthy society on Fox.
This might not end well as financial oligarchy is entrenched and does not was to share power with anybody. Indeed, Carlson anticipated the resistance to his views in the way similar to FDR:
This also shed additional light of Russiagate, as an attempt to cement cracks in the neoliberal society by uniting the nation against the common enemy. In no way Russiagate is only about Trump.
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