GLOBALIZATION AND GOVERNANCE

Learning Objectives:

3)Describe globalization and its impacts and

challenges on governance
4)Identify governance strategies to
manage/respond to forces of globalization
“We believe that the
central challenge we face
today is to ensure that
globalization becomes a
positive force for all the
world's people.”
 Globalization….

is an umbrella term for a complex series

of economic, social, technological,
cultural and political changes seen as
increasing interdependence, integration
and interaction among people and
companies in disparate locations.
As a term 'globalization' has
been used as early as 1944
but economists first began
applying it around 1981
Theodore Levitt is usually
credited with its coining
through the article he wrote in
1983 for the Harvard Business
Review entitled "Globalization
of markets".
(International Monetary Fund)

Globalization stresses the growing

economic interdependence of
countries worldwide through
increasing volume and variety of
cross-border transactions in goods
and services, free international
capital flows, and more rapid and
widespread diffusion of technology.
“A process in which business decisions,
production processes, and markets
gradually exhibits more “international”
characteristics and less “national”
ones.”

It implies a wide range of

underlying structural reforms (e.g.,
business organization, the public-
private interface, and altered
consumption patterns.
Globalization is tied to many
salient features of modernity.

Driven by capitalism, it carries

forward the alliance of modern
science, technology and markets
in shaping society.
Another definition:

“Globalization is the erosion of

the barriers of time and space
that constrain human activity
across the earth and the
increasing social awareness of
the these changes.”
Globalization involves an increasing
diffusion and penetration of global
connections into social life, about
which we are becoming more and
more self-aware in the “every day”
of life.
 POWERFUL ACTORS

International Monetary Fund (IMF)

World Bank (WB)
World Economic Forum (WEF)
World Trade Organization (WTO)
 3 Major Perspectives on Globalization

Globalization’s Advocates: the

neo-liberal-cornucopian
consensus

Reform-minded skepticism

Global justice
 ASPECTS OF GLOBALIZATION
industrial globalization (alias trans-nationalization) - rise
and expansion of multinational enterprises

financial globalization - emergence of worldwide

financial markets and better access to external financing
for corporate, national and sub-national borrowers

political globalization - spread of political sphere of

interests to the regions and countries outside the
neighborhood of political (state and non-state) actors

informational globalization - increase in information

flows between geographically remote locations

cultural globalization - growth of cross-cultural contacts

 4 Major Changes associated with
Globalization
Rapid spread of information
technology
Internationalization of capital
Increased pace of change
Design of rules, standards and
norms
 A DEBATE:

PRO-GLOBALISTS VS.
ANTI-GLOBALISTS
 POSITIVES:
•Strong and organized voice of civil
society
•Desire for “good governance”
•Public expectations and corporate
responsibility
•Convergence of thinking about human
rights, rights to development and
sustainable development
 NEGATIVES:
•Widening gap between rich and poor
(countries as well as people)
•Power concentration
•Challenged national sovereignty
•Undermined authority of governments
and of intergovernmental organizations
•Triggered protest movements for
legitimacy and accountability
 Discussions:

What then are the challenges of

globalization to governance?

How can governance respond to

these challenges?