Introduction to “The Contemporary World”

Globalization
● According to Manfred Steger, he described globalization as “the expansion and
intensification of social relations and consciousness across world-time and
across world-space”
○ Expansion refers to “both the creation of new social networks and the
multiplication of existing connections that cut across traditional political,
economic, and geographic boundaries.” These various connections occur at
different levels
○ Intensification refers to the expansion, stretching, and acceleration of these
networks
● Stager notes that “globalization processes do not occur merely in an objective,
material level but they also involve the subjective plane of human
consciousness.”
○ In other word, people begin to feel that the world has become a smaller place
and distance has collapsed from the thousand miles to just a mouse-click away.

Conclusion:
● Globalization is a complex phenomenon that occurs at multiple levels.
● It is an uneven process that affects people differently
● Because Globalization has multiple process, scholars would rather not talk about
globalization as a whole but to discuss “multiple globalizations”
○ Ethnoscape
○ Mediascape
○ Technoscape
○ Finanscape
○ Ideoscape
● Appadurai’s argument is simple:
○ There are multiple globalizations. Hence, even if one does not agree that
globalization can be divided into five scapes, it is hard to also deny his central
thrust of viewing globalization through various lenses.
● While it is important to ask “what is globalization?” it is likewise important to ask “what
is/are being globalized”.
The Globalization of World Economics

Economic Globalization
● According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), economic globalization is a
historical process representing the result of human innovation and technological
progress.
● Characterized by the increasing integration of economies around the world through
the movement of goods, services, and capital across borders.
● As with all the other processes of globalization, there is a qualitative and subjective
element to this definition.

Drastic Economic Change

● According to IMF, the value of trade (goods and services) as a percentage of world GDP
increased from 42.1 percent in 1980 to 62.1 percent in 2007.
● Increased trade also means that investments are moving all over the world at a faster
speed.
● Investment flows was 57 billion US Dollars in 1982 and 1.76 trillion US dollars in 2015
according to United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.
● The frequency of trading also increased and the product being sold also changed (ex.
Books to e-books. CDs to mp3 on iTunes.

Historical Context: International Trading Systems

● International trading systems are not new.
● The oldest known trade route was the Silk Road – a network of pathways in the
ancient world that spanned from China to what is now the Middle East and to
Europe.
○ Silk Road
■ The Silk Road was a 5,000 mile trade route that started it’s operation in
the 130 BCE when the Chinese Han dynasty opened trade to the Western
world. It ended at around 1435 when the Ottoman Empire closed it.
■ The road was called as such because of the product being the primary
goods being traded. Silk, which was in demand in the west.
■ Silk was so in demand that Gold, which was used for trading, became a
scarce resource and eventually banned the selling of the item in Europe.
■ However, while the Silk Road was international, it was not truly global
because it had no ocean routes that could reach the American continent.
When Did Economic Globalization Begin:
● Amy, the puppy, is keenly observing how many times her human ordered chicken
nuggets for the month of February this year as part of a larger study on health choices.
She gathered the data below (hypothetical). Using frequency distribution table and
graph, summarize the data she was able to collect.
● They trace this back to 1571 with the establishment of galleon trade that connected
Manila in the Philippines and Acapulco in Mexico.
● This was the first time that the Americas are directly connected to Asian trading routes.
● For Filipinos, it is crucial to note that economic globalization began on the country’s
shore.

Economic Ideology At The Time

● The galleon trade was part the age of mercantilism. From the 16th century to the 18th
century, countries, primarily in Europe, competed with one another to sell more goods as
means as to boost their country’s income.
● To defend their products from competitors who sold goods more cheaply, these regimes
imposed high tariffs, forbade colonies to trade with other nations, restricted trade routes,
and subsidized its export.
● Mercantilism was thus also a system of global trade with multiple restriction.

Standardizing Trade
● A more open trade system emerged in 1867 when, following the lead of the United
Kingdom, the United States and other European nations adopted the gold standard at an
international monetary conference in Paris.
● Its goal was to create a common system that would allow for more efficient trade and
prevent the isolationism of the mercantilist era.
● The countries thus established a common basis for currency prices and fixed exchange
rate system – all based on the value of gold.

The problem with the gold standard

● Despite facilitating simpler trade, the gold standard was still very a restrictive system, as
it compelled countries to back their currencies with fixed gold reserves.
● During World War I, when countries depleted their gold reserves to fund their armies,
many were forced to abandon the gold standard.
● Since European countries had low gold reserves, they adopted the floating currencies
that were no longer redeemable in gold.
The Difficulties of implementing the Gold Standard
● The Great Depression started during the 1920s and extended to the 1930s.
● The gold standard was one of the contributors to this event.
● Economic historian Barry Eichengreen argues that the recovery of the US really began
when having abandoned the gold standard, the US government was able to free up
money to spend on reviving the economy. At the height of the WW2, other major
industrialized countries followed suit.

From gold to fiat

● Though more indirect versions of the gold standard were used until as late as the 1970s,
the world never returned to the gold standard of the early 20th century.
● Today, the world economy operates based on what are called fiat currencies –
currencies that are not backed by precious metals and whose value is determined by
their cost relative to other countries.
● This system allows the government to freely and actively manage their economies by
increasing or decreasing the amount of money in circulation as they see fit.

The Creation of the Bretton Woods System

● • After the two world wars, world leaders sought to create a global economic system that
would ensure a longer-lasting global peace.
● They believed that one of the ways to achieve this goal was to set up a network of global
financial institutions that would promote economic interdependence and prosperity.
● Thus, the Bretton Woods system was inaugurated in 1944 during the United Nations
Monetary and Financial Conference to prevent the catastrophes of the early decades of
the century from reoccurring and affecting international ties.

The inspiration for the Bretton Wood System

● It was influenced by the ideas of British economist John Maynard Keynes who believed
that economic crises occur not when a country does not have enough money, but when
money is not being spent, and thereby, not moving.
● Governments have to reinvigorate markets with infusions of capital if economies slow
down according to Keynes.
● This idea is known as global Keynesianism.

Two financial institutions from Bretton Wood System

● International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD or World Bank).
Responsible for the funding of postwar reconstruction projects.
● International Monetary Fund (IMF) which was to be the global lender of the last resort to
prevent individual countries from spiraling into credit crises. If economic growth in a
country slowed down the IMF would step in.
● To this day, both institutions remain key players in economic globalization.
The Fall of Bretton Wood System
● “Stagflation” became a problem in the 70s due to the imposed embargo of oil by the
OAPEC to the US because of their military support to Israel during the Yom Kippur War.
● Stagflation is the decline in economic growth and employment (stagnation) takes place
alongside sharp increase in prices (inflation).
● Economists Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman argued that the government’s practice
of pouring money into their economies had caused inflation by increasing demand for
goods without necessarily increasing supply.
● More profoundly, they argued that government intervention in economies distort the
proper functioning of the market.

The Rise of Neoliberalism

● Neoliberalism believed that minimal government involvement and the privatization of
some services, and free market can produce best results in terms of economic growth. •
● From 1980’s onward, neoliberalism became the codified strategy of the US Treasury
Dept, World Bank, the IMF, and eventually the World Trade Organization (Previously
GATT).
● They pressured developing countries to reduce tariffs and open up their economies,
arguing that it is the quickest way of progress. • It was known as the Washington
Consensus.
● Advocates of Neoliberalism:
○ Roland Reagan
○ Margaret Thatcher

Defects if Neoliberalism
● After the collapse of the USSR in the 1990s, government industries were privatized as
mandated by IMF.
● But those who had accumulated wealth from the previous communist order only had the
money to purchase these industries. In some cases, the economic elites relied on easy
access to government funds to take over the industries.
● The practice has entrenched an oligarchy that still dominates the Russian economy to
this very day.
● Other example is the 2008 Global Financial Crisis.

Economic Globalization Today

● Economic Globalization has ushered in an unprecedented spike in global growth rates.
● According to the IMF, the global per capita GPD rose over five-fold in the second half of
the 20th century. It was this growth that created the large Asian economies like Japan,
China, Korea, Hong Kong, and Singapore.
Conclusion
● International economic integration is a central tenet of globalization. But economics is
just one window into the phenomenon of globalization; it is not the entire thing.
● Nevertheless, much of globalization is anchored on changes in the economy. Global
culture is an example. • Given the stakes involved in economic globalization, it is
perennially important to ask how this system can be more made just.
A History of Global Politics: Creating A New World Order

International Relations vs Internationalization

● International Relations is the study of political, military, and other diplomatic
engagements between two or more countries.
○ It can also include studying the bureaucracy of one country, interactions between
states, and also trade deals between states.
○ “The study”
● Internationalization, on the other hand, is a phenomenon in which the deepening
interactions between states is explored.
○ “The process”

Internationalization is not Globalization

● Internalization does not equal globalization, although it is a major part of globalization.
● Globalization, as discussed in the previous lesson, encompasses a multitude of
connections and interactions that cannot be reduced to the ties between the
governments.
● Nevertheless, it is important to study international relations as a facet of globalization,
because state/governments are key drivers of global processes.

Internationalization as one window

● We will examine internationalization as one window to view the globalization of politics.
● Again, though we are studying the contemporary world, we cannot avoid history. What
international relations are today is largely defined by the events that occurred as far back
as 400 years ago.
● We will discuss eventually contemporary world politics. But to do that, we need first to
word backward.

The Attributes of Today’s Global System

● First, there are countries or states that are independent and govern themselves.
● Second, these countries interact with each other through diplomacy.
● Third, there are international organizations that facilitate in these interactions. Ex. United
Nations (UN).
● Fourth, beyond simply facilitating meetings between states, international organizations
also take on lives of their own.
○ Ex. The UN, apart from being a meeting ground for presidents and other heads of
state, also has task-specific agencies like the World Health Organization (WHO)
and the International Labour Organization (ILO).
Nation-State, what is it?
● Nation-State is a concept that is not as simple as it seems.
○ is relatively a modern phenomenon in human history, and people did not
organize themselves as countries.
● At different parts of humanity, people in various regions of the world have identified
exclusively with the units as small as their village or tribe, and at other times, they see
themselves as members of larger political categories like “Christendom” (the entire
Christian World).

Nation-State in Depth
● The nation-state is composed of two noninterchangeable terms:
○ Nation
○ State
● Not all states are nations and not all nations are states.
○ Examples
■ Scotland is a nation but is under the state of United Kingdom.
■ The Bangsamoro consider themselves as a nation but still under the state
of the Philippines.
■ There is One Korean nation but divided into two states, North and South
Korea.
● What is the difference then?
○ State refers to a country and its government. A political concept.
○ A state has four attributes or elements:
■ People – the citizens.
■ Territory – a fixed placed. Government – the agent of the state’s will.
■ Sovereignty – internal and external authority.
○ Nation, on the other hand, according to Benedict Anderson, is an “imagined
community”. An ethnic concept.
○ It is limited because it does not go beyond a given “official boundary”, and
because rights and responsibilities are mainly the privilege and concern of the
citizens of that nation.
○ Being limited means that the nation has its boundaries.
Nation different from our imagined community
● The nation should not be confused with other “Imagined community”.
○ “Imagined” doesn’t not mean that it is not real.
■ Calling it “imagined” does not mean that the nation is made-up. Rather,
the nation allows one to feel a connection with a community of people
even if he/she will never meet all them in his/her lifetime.
● Ex. Cheering in an Olympic event.
■ Nations strive to become states themselves
● For example, anyone can become a Catholic. In fact, Catholics wants more people to
join their community’ they refer to it as the call to discipleship.
● An American cannot simply go to the Philippine Embassy and “convert” into a Philippine
citizen, Nations often limit themselves to people who have imbibed a particular culture,
speak common language, and live in a specific territory.

Nation and State

● Nation and state are closely related because it is nationalism that facilitates states
formation. in the modern contemporary era, it has been the nationalist movements that
have allowed for the creation of the nation-state.
● States become independent and sovereign because of the nationalist sentiment that
clamors for this independence.
● Sovereignty is, thus, one of the fundamental principles of modern state politics.
Understanding how this became the case entails going back as far as 400 years ago.

The Interstate System

● The origins of the present-day concept of sovereignty can be traced back to the Treaty of
Westphalia, which was a set of agreements signed in 1648 to end the Thirty Years’ War
between the major continental powers of Europe.
● After a brutal religious war between the Catholics and the Protestants, the Holy Roman
Empire, Spain, France, Sweden, and the Dutch Republic designed a system, that would
avert wars in the future by recognizing that the treaty signers exercise complete control
over their domestic affairs and swear not to meddle in each other’s affairs.
● The Treaty did not last…
○ The Westphalian system provided stability for the nations of Europe, until it faced
its first major challenge by Napoleon Bonaparte.
○ Bonaparte believed in spreading the principles of the French Revolution – liberty,
equality, and fraternity – to the rest of Europe and thus challenged the power of
the kings, nobility, and the religion in Europe.
○ The Napoleonic Wars lasted from 1803-1815 with the Napoleon and his armies
marching all over much of Europe.
Napoleonic Code
● In every country they conquered, the French implemented the Napoleonic Code that
forbade birth privileges, encouraged freedom of religion, and promoted meritocracy in
government service.
● This system shocked the monarchies and the hereditary elites (dukes, duchesses, etc.)
of Europe, and they mustered their armies to push back against the French emperor.

The End of the Napoleonic Wars

● Anglo and Prussian armies finally defeated Napoleon in the Battle of Waterloo in 1815,
ending the latter’s mission to spread liberal code across Europe.
● To prevent another war and to keep their systems of privilege, the royal powers created
a new system that, in effect, restored the Westphalian system.
● The Concert of Europe was an alliance of “great powers” – the United Kingdom, Austria,
Russia, and Prussia – that sought to restore the world of monarchial, hereditary, and
religious privileges of the time before the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars.
● More importantly, it was an alliance that sought to restore the sovereignty of states.
● Under this Metternich system ( named after Austrian diplomat, Klemens von Metternich,
who was the system’s main architect), the Concert’s power and authority lasted from
1815 to 1914, at the dawn of World War I.

The Legacy Of These Systems To Today’s Times

● Despite the challenge of the Napoleon to the Westphalian system and the eventual
collapse of the Concert of Europe after World War I, present-day international system
still has traces of this history.
● Until now, states are considered sovereign, and the Napoleonic attempts to violently
impose systems of government in the other countries are frowned upon.
● Moreover, like the Concert system, “great powers” still hold significant influence over the
world politics.
● For example, the most powerful grouping in the UN, the Security Council, has a core of
five permanent members, all having veto powers over the council’s decision making
process.

A New System Rising

● The Westphalian and Concert systems divided the world into separate, sovereign
entities. Since the existence of this interstate system, there have been attempts to
transcend it.
● Some, like Bonaparte, directly challenged the system by infringing on the other state’s
sovereignty, while others sought to imagine other systems of governance that go
beyond, but do not necessarily challenge, sovereignty.
● Still, others imagine a system of heightened interaction between various sovereign
states, particularly the desire for greater cooperation and unity among states and
peoples. The desire is called internationalism.
Internationalism
● Internationalism comes in different forms, but the principle may be divided into two broad
categories:
○ Liberal internationalism
○ Socialist internationalism

Proponent of Liberal Internationalism

● The first major thinker of liberal internationalism was the late 18th century German
philosopher Immanuel Kant likened states in a global system to people living in a given
territory.
● If people living together require a government to prevent lawlessness, shouldn’t that
same principle be applied to states?
● Without a form of world government, he argued, the international system would be
chaotic.

A Global Government…
● Therefore, states, like citizens of countries, must give up some freedoms and “establish
a continuously growing state consisting of various nations which will ultimately include
the nations of the world”.
● In short, Kant imagined a form of global government.

The Birth Of The Concept Of International Law

● Writing in the late 18th century aw well, British philosopher Jeremy Bentham (who
coined the word “international” in 1780) advocated the creation of the “international law”
that would govern the interstate relations.
● Bentham believed that objective global legislators should aim to propose legislation that
would create “the greatest happiness of all nations taken together”.

Global Government, a challenge?

● To many, these proposals for global government and the international law seemed to
represent challenges to states.
● Would not a world government, in effect, become supreme?
● And would not its laws overwhelm the sovereignty of individual states?
The Reconciliation Of Nationalism And Liberal Internationalism
● The first thinker to reconcile nationalism with liberal internationalism was the 19th
century Italian patriot Giuseppe Mazzini.
● Mazzini was both and advocate of the unification of the various Italian-speaking`
mini-states and a major critic of the Metternich system.
● For Mazzini, free, independent states would be the basis of an equally free, cooperative
international system.

Unity As A Mean To Power

● Mazzini argued that if the various Italian mini-states could unify, one could scale up the
system to create, for example, the United States of Europe.
● Mazzini was a nationalist internationalist, who believes that free, united nation-states
should be the basis for global cooperation.

Continuing Sentiments Of Internationalism

● Mazzini influenced the thinking of United States president (1913-1921) Woodrow Wilson,
who became one of the 20th century’s most prominent internationalist.
● Like, Mazzini, Wilson saw nationalism as a prerequisite for internationalism.
● Because of his faith in nationalism, he forwarded the principle of self-determination – the
belief that the world’s nations had a right to a free and sovereign government. He hoped
that these free nations would become democracies, because only by being such would
they be able to build a free system of international relations based on international law
and cooperation.

The Formation Of A Global Organization

● Wilson became the most notable advocate for the creation of the League of Nations.
● At the end of World War I in 1918, he pushed to transform the League into a venue for
conciliation and arbitration to prevent another war.
● For his efforts, Wilson was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1919

The Dissolution Of The League Of Nations

● The League came into being that same year. Ironically and unfortunately for Wilson, the
United States was not able to join the organization due to strong opposition from the
Senate.
● The League was also unable to hinder another war from breaking out. I was practically
helpless to prevent the onset and intensification of the World War II.
The World Divided Into Two Side
● During WW2, world powers were divided into two.
● On one side of the war were the Axis Powers:
○ Hitler’s Germany, Mussolini’s Italy, and Hirohito’s Japan.
○ They were ultra-nationalists that had an instinctive disdain for internationalism
and preferred to violently impose their dominance over other nations.

The Allied Powers

● On the other side there were the Allie Powers:
○ United States,
○ United Kingdom,
○ France,
○ Holland,
○ Belgium

The Legacy Of The League Of Nations

● Despite its failure, the League gave birth to some of the more taskspecific international
organizations that are still around until today, the most popular which are the World
Health Organization and International Labour Organization.
● More importantly, it would serve as the blueprint for future forms of international
cooperation.
● In this respect, despite its organizational dissolution, the League of Nations’ principles
survived World War II.

Socialist Internationalism
● One of Mazzini’s biggest critics was German socialist philosopher Karl Marx who was
also an internationalist, but who differed from the former because he did not believe in
nationalism.
● He believed that any true form of internationalism should deliberately reject nationalism,
which rooted people in domestic concerns instead of global ones.
● Marx placed a premium on economic equality; he did not divide the world into countries,
but into classes.
● The capitalist class referred to the owners of the factories, companies, and other “means
of production.” in contrast, the proletariat class included those who did not own the
means of production, but instead worked for the capitalist.
Socialist Revolution As A Means To Internationalism
● Marx and his co-author, Friedrich Engels, believed in a social revolution seeking to
overthrow the state and alter the economy, the proletariat “had no nation”.
● Hence, their now famous battle cry, “Workers of the world, unite! You have nothing to
lose but your chains.”

A Formation Of Another International Organization

● Marx died in 1883, but his followers soon sought to make his vision concrete by
establishing their international organization.
● The Socialist International (SI) was a union of European socialist and labor parties
established in Paris in 1889.
● Although short-lived, the SI’s achievements included the declaration of May 1 as Labor
Day and the creation of an International Women’s Day.
● Most importantly, it initiated the successful campaign for an 8-hour workday

A More Radical Socialist International Emerged

● As the SI collapsed, a more radical version emerged. In the so-called Russian
Revolution of 1917. Czar Nicholas II was overthrown and replaced by a revolutionary
government led by the Bolshevik Party and its leader, Vladimir Lenin.
● This new state was called the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic, or USSR. Unlike the
majority of member parties of the SI, the Bolsheviks did not believe in obtaining power
for the working class through elections.
● Rather, they exhorted the revolutionary “vanguard” parties to lead the revolutions across
the world, using methods of terror if necessary. Today, parties like this are referred to as
Communist parties.

A Unifying International Organization For The Socialist Revolution

● To encourage these socialist revolutions across the world, Lenin established the
Communist International (Comintern) in 1919.
● The Comintern served as the central body for directing Communist parties all over the
world. The International was not only more radical than the Socialist International, it was
also less democratic because it followed closely the top-down governance of the
Bolsheviks.
Cominterm’s Dissolution
● Many of the world’s states feared the Comintern, believing that it was working in secret
to stir up the revolutions in their countries (which was true).
● A problem arose during World War II when the Soviet Union joined the Allied Powers in
1941.
● The United States and United Kingdom would, of course, not trust the Soviet Union in
their fight against Hitler’s Germany.
● These countries wondered if the Soviet Union was trying to promote revolutions in their
backyards. To appease his allies, Lenin’s successor, Joseph Stalin, dissolved the
Comintern in 1943.

After WW2
● After the war, however, Stalin re-established the Comintern as the Communist
Information Bureau (Cominfom).
● The Cominform like the Comintern before it, helped direct the various communist parties
that had taken power in Eastern Europe.
● Then USSR collaped in 1991, the Cominform does so too.
● The SI revived in 1951 but never became a major player in international relations.
● For the post war period, however, liberal internationalism would once again be
ascendant. And the best evidence of this is the rise of the United Nations as the center
of global governance.

Conclusion
● Internationalism is a window to globalization.
● International Relations is the primary discipline that studies this topic.
● International organizations are the facilitators of global norms and policies