Chapter 1: Globalisation: An overview

“To whatever extent globalisation (however defined) actually is occurring (and

to whom), its alleged positive benefits or negative costs are difficult to assess.
The deeper questions are: ‘cui bono?’ and ‘who is being globalised (or de-
globalised), to what extent and by whom?’
(Ferguson, 1992,:62)

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1.1. Introduction

Globalisation is not new, but the present era has distinctive features.
Disappearance of borders, shrinking of space and time are linking people’s lives
more deeply, more intensely, more immediately than ever before. It affects all
aspects of human life.

David Korten (1998) categorises globalisation into five broad areas "One face is a
globalising civil society. Another is an emerging global consciousness of our
mutual dependence on the life support systems of a small planet. A third is the
globalisation of communications. A fourth is the globalisation of the consumer
culture. A fifth is economic globalisation...the erasing of economic borders to
allow the free flow of goods and money"( Korten 1998:).

This complex process, involves an interplay between economic and cultural

dynamics. New international cultural elements are brought together with
historical national elements, leading to a necessity to consider it in terms of both
change and continuity (Du Gay1997). The result is a process that feeds both the
contest and the struggle of globalisation.

Governance and technology when added to the interplay has resulted in people
everywhere becoming connected—affected by events in far corners of the world.
The collapse of the Thai baht, for example, caused a dramatic increase in
unemployment in Southeast Asia. This in turn resulted in a decline in global
demand with ensuing slowdowns in social investment in Latin America and
sudden increases in the cost of imported medicines in Africa (UNDP1999).

Economic globalisation undoubtedly holds the spotlight. In particular the

integration of national economies driven by market expansion which dominates
social and political outcomes and impacts not just on the economic well being of
people but on every aspect of their livelihoods

This chapter will consider the global economy in the context of livelihoods. It will
analyse the many aspects of globalisation (economic, social, cultural and
technological) in order to understand future development prospects of the South
and its effect on Southern countries.

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 ‘globalisation as a recognition of what is conceived as increasingly worldwide
interconnections, interchanges and movements of people, images and commodities.’
(Friedman 1994: 194)

1.2. The evolution of Globalisation

The old duality of First and Third Worlds has not been modified by ‘globalising ‘ forces
but has been reinforced, even exaggerated (Marflet1998).
Probably the most dominant view of globalisation is as the organisation of economic
production and the exploitation of markets on a world scale. It has a long history. One
which shows us that the fate of most of Africa, Latin America, Asia and elsewhere has
been closely tied to the expansion of Europe since 1492 (Stavrianos 1981). From a
European perspective, world economic development dates back to the fifteenth
century. It can be clearly associated with the economic and imperial expansion of the
great powers1. From the fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries, mercantile companies
were globally institutionalised structures. Their existence included virtual diaspora’s of
trade colonies employed by single companies (Bauman 1998)2.

From the late nineteenth century, European and American multinational and
transnational corporations emerged as the key shapers of the international
economy. For many, it was the increasing integration of their business activities
that set in motion the dynamics of the globalisation process. (Hoogvelt 1997,
Friedman 1994, Robertson 1994). The advent of global corporations in the
twentieth century is a continuation of this process of overcoming national
boundaries and achievement of world scale advantages. Robertson (1994)
tracked this progression as a ‘temporal historical path’ of ‘ global circumstance’
(see Box 1). Within this he argues the need to consider the interrelationships
between four reference points: national systems and the system of international
relations needs to be considered with the conceptions of individuals and human
kind as illustrated below:

Box 1 Temporal Historical Path of Global Circumstance

 The Germinal Phase: 1400s to the 1750s Century Europe; Growth og national communities,
downplay of medieval ‘transnational’ system, Expansion of the Catholic Church, Heliocentric theory of
the world, Gregorian Calendar

1
European period of discovery dominated by, Portugal, Spain, Netherlands and UK.
2
This familiar characteristic of commercial organisations is, however a concept that predates European domination reaching back to
the ancient world of great empires of powerful globalised organisations and powerful globalising cultures

3
 The Incipient phase: Europe 1750s until 1870s; Shift towards homogenous, unitary state, formalised
international relations, increase in legal conventions and agencies concerned with international and
transnational regulation and communication.

 The Take Off Phase: Global 1870s until 1920s focus on four reference points of globalisation; national
societies, generic individuals, a single international society, singular concept of humankind,
globalisation of immigration restrictions, sharp increase in number and speed of global forms of
communication, global competitions (olympics and Nobel prizes), implementation of world time and
near global adoption of gregorian calander, first world war.

 Struggle for Hegenomy Phase: 1920s to late 1960s; disputes and wars, League of Nations, United
Nations, principle of national independence established, the Holocaust, atomic bomb, cold war,
crystallization of the third world

 The Uncertainity Plhase: 1960s until 1990s; heightening of global consciousness, moon
landing,postmaterialism,end of cold war, spread of nuclear and thermonuclear weaponry,sharp
increas in global institutions and movements, global communication explosion, societal problems of
multiculturality and polyethnicity, individual concepts complexed by gender, sexual and ethnic
considerations, civil rights a global issue, islam as a global movement, earth summit in Rio
Robertsons(1994)

Walter Mignola (1998) refines this, attributing the Globalisation process solely to
the Western expansion of order since 1500. He linked Wallerstein’s world system
3
(1979) and Elias’ “civilising process” (1982). In a similar way to Robertson,
Mignola combines Wallerstein’s modernist view of global economy with Elias’
allurement to the enlightenment. Through this he links power and order with
economic gain and cultural dominance. Where Robertson writes of five phases ,
Wallerstein distinguishes between National, imperial and global economies,
Mignola quite simply attributes globalisation to three previous stages of Western
expansion under the banners of Christianisation (Spanish Empire) Civilising
Mission (British Empire and French Colonisation) and Development/
Modernisation (US Imperialism).

Esteva, Frank, Rodney at al support Mignola’s stance. They claim the social and
economic problems of Africa, Asia and Latin America were caused by the capitalistic
3
Wallerstein (1979) distinguished between a National, Imperial and world / global economy, he defined three systems:

• Mini systems- social systems agrarian or hunter gatherers, complete labour division and single cultural framework, independent of
a world system
• Empire systems- social system with single division of labour, common political system but multiple cultural systems
• World/Global system- combination of capitalism and world economy focused on the west with single division of labour but multiple
polities and cultures

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penetration of European imperialism with attendant transfers of wealth through
plantations and mining from formerly prosperous, advanced and self-sufficient nations
to Europe.
Since the 1950s different terms have been invented, almost entirely by the West to
define the global condition, in turn promoting Modernity, the Euro-centric order:
developed/ underdeveloped/developing, first/ second/ third, core/ periphery/semi
periphery, North/South and so on. Use of first, second, third categories were based on
Western social and economic indicators to measure the process of development in
different centrally planned and market economies. (Schelling 1998). Interestingly, if
such classifications referred historically to those societies which, ethnically, racially,
socially and culturally first approximated to today’s multicultural, economic and social
spatially polarised cities in the West, what is now the Third World would historically be
labelled the First World. Anthony King (1993) illustrates this comparing the society,
culture and space of early twentieth century Calcutta with London. King claims that
Modernity wasn’t born in Paris but Rio.

‘The Euro American paradigm of Modernity have neither meaning nor Salience
outside the narrow geographical confines of Euro-America where they developed’
Anthony King 8:93

1.3. Globalisation and sociocultural change

“Globalisation opens people’s lives to culture and all its creativity—and to the
flow of ideas and knowledge, but the new culture carried by expanding global
markets is disquieting.”

Human Development Report 1999

Social change is an essential element of the Globalisation process. Historically social

change is believed to occur in a linear or cyclical fashion, both combining pessimistic
conceptions and optimistic views (Midgely1995). These views are summarised in Box
2Box 2 The history of Social change
• The globalising ancient world of the Greeks, Chinese, Indians attributed social change to a cycle of
progress and decline from or towards a ‘ Golden Age (Chambliss 1954). Whereas Judaism
Christianity and Islam broadly believed in a decline from a Golden Age (Adam and Eve’s expulsion
from Eden) and a linear progression towards redemption and a new Golden age

5
• Auguste Comte 1789-1857) viewed social change as a progressive process, dividing historical time
into a series of six epochs towards social perfectibility .(Mill 1989; Midgley 1995; Sbert113), defining
progress as ‘the development of order under the influence of love’ with development as the precursor
to improvement

• His work was acknowledged by Emile Durkenheim (1858-1917) Karl Marx(1818-1883) and Max
Wber (1864-1920) Whose different approaches subsequently had considerable impact on the theories
of social change (Martinussen 1997)

• Durkenheim was concerned with processes of social change in the long term, in particular the division
of labour in society as part of the industrialisation process, advocating that division of labour would
eventually replace religion as the most important force of social cohesion. His approach has a
profound impact on the modernisation theory of the post war era.

• Marx focused on the totality of society and the ways in which this changed over sustained long
periods. He believed that social change is prompted primarily by economic forces, which through
technological progress and forces of production would determine societal change in social and political
spheres.

• Weber opposed both of these view points, refusing to attribute social change to economic processes
alone, citing protestant Calvinism as the critical element in the breakthrough of capitalism in western
Europe (Weber 1965; Matinussen 1994) He focused on human motivation and rationality as
determinants of social change. This was also the view of the fourteenth century Islamic scholar Ibn
Khaldun who attributed the cause of social change to human activities, a cyclical process of human
conflict between the sedentary farmers and urbanites and war like nomads. [an interesting view point
when regarding the events of September 11th 2001] (Midgely 1995)

• Where Marx wrote society Weber wrote individual, where Durkenheim focused on division of labour,
Weber focused on modes of organisation and rationality citing a logical gap between ‘is’ and ‘ought’
between how society exists and how it is perceived.

• Talcot Parsons (1902-1979) was heavily influenced by all three. He reduced Webers complex theory
to functionalism, replacing Marx who he regarded as superfluous (Parsons 1937) and adopted
elements of Durkenheim to develop a theory of social change towards a eurocentric ideal in which
any social system comprises of four sub systems that relate functionally to maintain the whole. A
collective of sub systems relating functionally to maintain a whole. Within this whole, events,
decisions and activities in one part result in significant consequences for individuals and communities
in quite distant parts:
• The economic (adaptive function)
• The political (mobilisation fot collective purposes)
• The social ( integrative function)
• The cultural (provision of governing value system necessary for reproduction of the system through
time) (Appadurai, Hoogvelt, Hannerz, Friedman, Robertson, Waters et al)

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The revival in interest in large-scale transformation of the late 1940s and early 1950s
focused on the economic and societal development of the South (what was then
labelled as the developing world). Modernists such as Harry Truman and Talcot
Parsons strove to emulate the Great transformation of nineteenth century Europe as
the potential transformation of the developing world in its\ own image…
Modernisation, progress and order… (Gertz 1963) with little or no consideration to the
globality of this proposed social change.

Parsons’s work became the backbone of modernisation in the 1950s, economic

progression towards a European idea. He dealt simultaneously with continuity in
western theory and ‘ the system of modern societies’ (Parsons 1971). He argued that
western societies had differentially acquired greater ‘ adaptive capacity’ than ‘all
others’ emphasising that adaptive capacity is not necessarily, the paramount object of
human value (Parsons 1971:3). He maintained that his ‘assessment of the superiority
of a western adaptive capacity did not preclude the possibility that a post modern
phase of development may somehow emerge from a different social and cultural
origin and with different characteristics’ (Parsons 1971:3). According to Cuddihy,
Parsons captured modernity with from within the eye of calm of the modernisation
hurricane where all is calm and intelligible, but for the ethnic outsiders Cuddihy
regards modernism as a trama (1987:14). Toye defined the outcomes of
Modernisation as ‘typical social patterns of demography, urbanisation, and literacy;
typical economic patterns of production and consumption, investment trade and
government finance; and typical psychological attributes of rationality, ascriptive
identity and achievement motivation’ ( Toye 1993:31)

Parsons (1968) endorsed a liberal interpretation of global society. He described a

global order of organised collectives operating in a framework of institutionalised
norms with consensus only on broad principles. His theories of the interplay of
particularism and universalism rendered the world as a single society, suggesting
global expectations of distinct identities within society4. Robertson supports Parsons in
that a global social system has emerged, a product of compression of ‘civilised
structures, national; societies, intra and cross national movements and organisations,
sub societies and ethnic groups, intra-societal groups, individuals and so on
4
Particular interpretations of the human condition are marked by their place in the global field , says Robertson. There is a
simultaneous process underway in which universal and particular (local) elements are both active the result is the particularisation of
universalism (the rendering of the world as a single space) and the universalism of particularism(the globalised expectations that
societies…. Should have distinct identities)’

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(Robertson 1992:61). Such views pave the way for global fundamentalism
movements attempting to define the globe exclusively in terms of one set of value
principles. They also highlight the importance of principles legitimising pluralism and
the danger of global order as more and more parts of the world become affected by
what happens elsewhere, if not through communication technologies, through physical
and financial exposure.

‘Globalisation concerns the intersection of presence and absence, the interlacing of

social events and social relations “at a distance” with local contextualities’ (Giddens
1992:21)

Giddens, together with Harvey relate to a competing theory of Globalisation, one that
builds on an understanding that ‘world compression’ is based around the compression
of time and space. Using this as a starting point they contrast the subsystem
approach of Parsons with the work of Pierre Bordieu. He viewed the symbolic
orderings of space and time as a framework for experience through which we learn
who or what we are in society. Giddens and Harvey see the organisation of space
defining relationships, between activities, things, concepts and people, in turn
becoming a key to power. For example, the freedom to move capital wherever needed
world-wide provides a decisive advantage to the capital owning international
bourgeoisie over the mass workers who are restricted in their movements and
migrations by the passports they carry. In capitalistic economies space is expressed in
time, echoing Marx’s economy of time ‘ to this all economy reduces itself’(Marx 1865).
The distance needed to travel in order to do business or to transport commodities to
their final destination. Harvey argues that time defines the value of space and
ultimately money itself. Giddens refers to this as time space distantiation, the
measure of the degree to which friction of space has been overcome to accommodate
social interaction. The impact of technological advances in compressing time and
space again defining globalisation as the intensification of world wide social and
economic relations, linking distant localities in such ways that local happenings are
shaped by events occurring many miles away and visa versa.

The most dynamic of many of today’s global corporations transport weightless goods
comprising of information rather than material through global media networks and
satellite communication technologies. As with the first missionaries to Africa, the
communicational concept acquires a cultural significance biased towards the provider

8
of the information. (the number of television sets per 1,000 people almost doubled
between 1980 and 1995, from 121 to 235.) Cable News Network, CNN, is a global
organisation producing reality for viewers in most of today’s world. One of its own
advertisements romantically depicts examples of its viewers from various parts of the
world – its different cultures and physical appearances in an imaged argument for the
unity of humankind under CNN (Hall 1992). Entertainment as the USA’s largest export
industry, grossing over $30 billion world-wide in 1997 supports Halls ascertation that
USA as the dominating power of what he terms Global Mass Culture. A modern means
of cultural production centred on the West, with respect to the language, the
technology, concentration of capital, techniques, imagery and stories of Western
societies, to recognise and absorb cultural difference with a framework of an American
conception of the world, stage managing interdependence. The spread of global
brands—Coke, Sony, Nike—is setting new social standards from Dar es Salaam to
Prague to Buenos Aires. Friedman (1994) feared that such onslaughts of foreign
culture threaten to annihilate both the plurality and the diversity of culture, supporting
the fear among the cultural elite’s of the 1960’s of the defi americain and the
hegemony of coca cola culture, spanning large regions of the world.

9
 ‘cultural imperialism as the order of the day, but at the same time being
deployed as an instrument of imperialism…. Becoming both a mask and a sword
in the imperialist armoury.’ Panikkar 375:1995

The return to the local - Support for indigenous and national cultures, enabling
them to flourish despite western cultural dominance – is the alternative
response. This has been the response of many Islamic nations that feel
threatened by the process and the systems. Hall (1992) refers to this as a social
and cultural “flux”. According to others, globalisation is fragmenting as it co-
ordinates, resulting in a search for authentic secure locations in an increasingly
fluid social environment. Giddens, for instance, argues that: “Globalisation is
experienced in different ways throughout the globe withstanding its main thrust
towards inter relatedness” (1990:175). Others ( e.g. Hall 1992; Harvey 1989;
Morley and Robins1995 ) support the view that globalisation should not be
merely the imposition of a single social order or cultural practice – not merely
Westernisation or the spread of consumerism- but a process that brings into
being new social and cultural locations. As Featherstone (1990: 2) writes, a
‘generative frame of unity within which diversity can take place’ or in the
eloquent words of Mahatma Gandhi:

“I do not want my house to be walled in on all sides and my windows to be

stuffed. I want the cultures of all the lands to be blown about my house as freely
as possible. But I refuse to be blown off my feet by any.” (Gandhi 1910)

1.4. Global governance

“... a cosmopolitan or global democracy would take an integrated and systemic
approach to issues; build on effective decision-making at local, national and regional
levels; and develop networks of institutions and processes that enable global actors to
develop joint policies and practices on issues of common concern.” (John Huckle
2001:2)

The post war period signified a new alignment of global power and the beginning of a
global governance structure. The ensuing fifty years, as described above, saw social
transformation and political struggle, predominantly mediated by changes in the
emergent and increasingly powerful global economy (Allen &Thomas 1999)
The move towards internationally co-ordinated finance and trade from national
centred economic behaviour was negotiated at Bretton Woods in 1944. It resulted in

10
the ‘Marshall Plan’, a framework for a new world system, to regulate the financial,
economic and political workings of the world through global institutions.

Bretton Woods Institutions

• The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), to provide long term finance for
investment, later known as the World Bank,
• The International Monetary Fund (IMF) source of short term finance;
• The United Nations (UN) forum for international political and military stability
• The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) to regulate international trade and commodity
prices, later known as the World Trade Organisation (WTO)
Adapted from AlKanaan and Cooper 2001

Contrary to statements at the time this restructuring of the world economy and
system of global governance was dominated by the North. The UN in particular was an
opportunity for Southern Countries to effectively participate in international affairs but
Northern Countries opposed UN involvement in economic issues. The OECD
(Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development), dominated by the G85
became the arbiter of global power and trade. This was challenged an expression of
solidarity by the Southern States, the G77, now with a membership that exceeds 120,
a caucus within the UN to represent and promote the interests of Southern States
across the whole agenda of global issues. The increasing globalisation of the world
economy and the growth in power of global production networks have reinforced the
need for a global governance structure as Ravenhill states “a growing number of
issues on which there are mutual interests between North and South and on which the
cooperation of Southern Countries will be necessary if the industrialised countries are
to attain their goals” (Ravenhill 1990) Undoubtedly, Globalisation today, is driven by
market expansion. Trade in capital and information concentrates power and wealth
within a select group of nations, corporations and people who dominate social and
political outcomes. Boom and bust economies indicate market instability with profit
challenging ethics and equability. The increasing power of global corporations that
seek to operate as if there are no national boundaries with what Kenichi Ohmae
(1989) refers to as ‘equidistance of perspective’

Trans-national corporations are increasingly taking decisions about resource

ownership. For example, the patenting of Basmati rice has lead to a lot of discussion
around intellectual property rights and patenting regimes. These new patterns of
ownership over resources that are locally held have important consequences for the
5
The Group of eight (G8) comprises of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, UK and
USA is the most powerful grouping within the OECD.

11
sustainable use of resources by the communities that “own” them. This requires a
governance framework that develops a supportive environment for sustainable
livelihoods at all levels at which decision-making takes place. It calls for co-ordinated
and effective decision-making requiring new channels of communication and
representation between the global and the local. The Commission on Global
Governance describes governance as:
. . . the sum of the many ways individuals and institutions, public and private,
manage their common affairs. It is a continuing process, through which conflicting or
diverse interests may be accommodated and co-operative action may be taken. It
includes formal institutions and regimes empowered to enforce compliance, as well as
informal arrangements that people and institutions either have agreed to or perceive
to be in their interest. (CGG, 1995, p.2)

Governance operates at all levels from the local to the global and its agents include
not only governments and intergovernmental institutions, but also non-governmental
organisations, workers’ and citizens’ movements, transnational corporations, and the
mass media. Political-economic and technological advancement of the last thirty years
has superseded previous developments in driving the transformation of economic and
cultural globalisation processes resulting in today’s global information economy
characterised by:

New markets—foreign exchange and capital markets linked globally, operating

24 hours a day, with dealings at a distance in real time.

New tools—Internet links, cellular phones, media networks.

New actors—World Trade Organisation (WTO) with authority over national

governments, the multinational corporations with more economic power than
many states, the global networks of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and
other groups that transcend national boundaries.

New rules—multilateral agreements on trade, services and intellectual property,

backed by strong enforcement mechanisms and more binding for national
governments, reducing the scope for national policy (UNDP 1999:78)

Mohan questions whether this increasing interconnectedness if not through

communication technologies, through physical and financial exposure signals greater
interdependence Mohan(1997). He regards the disparity of economic and political

12
power and a key factor in the reduced autonomy of many Southern Nation States.
Hirst and Thompson (1992,1999) refer to the emergence of this era of globalisation as
a process determined by primarily international processes rather than differential
performance of national economies, corporations and govt elites. In their globalised
world there is no single hegemony or guarantor state, economics and politics would be
entirely separate. There would be a rejection of dominant logic of economic efficiency
with a world of industrial rather than political or military order. Culture would be totally
disregarded with ICT as the basis of international civil society.
Global enterprises seemingly paying little or no heed to national economies or their
governments Northern or Southern, who are in turn increasingly powerless to control
and regulate its activities. Looking at the recent experiences of the UK Government
with BMW ‘s purchase and consolidation of the UK motor production industry and
more recently Corus steel, it raises the question: Who is the Hegemon of our Global
Society?6

Global Governance is clearly wider than government and makes use of markets and
market instruments as well as laws, regulations and planning. This suggests that
contrary to the democratic processes recommended by Commission on Global
Governance and the Real World Coalition7, Global Governance is becoming
increasingly controlled by the financial superpowers of global commerce. Challenging
this power has been the focus of global civil action, demonstrations at WTO summits,
meetings of African nation states to agree a consensus prior to these meetings have
been another. Trans National Corporations such as Chiquita Bananas sponsoring
Clinton’s presidential campaign resulted in a lot of pressure to challenge GATT
agreements between the EU and the windward isles. (Oxfam 2000). Hence,
involvement of a wide range of actors in governance domains is regarded as essential
if any development is to remain sustainable. (Huckle 2001)

Good Governance
The World Bank (1992) defined good governance as “synonymous with sound development management”
in four areas:

6
The assets of the top three billionaires are more than the combined GNP of all least developed countries and their
600 million people. The recent wave of mergers and acquisitions is concentrating industrial power in
megacorporations —at the risk of eroding competition. By 1998 the top 10 companies in pesticides controlled 85% of a
$31 billion global market—and the top 10 in telecommunications, 86% of a $262 billion market.
(UNDP1999)
7
The Real World Coalition suggests that good governance results from well functioning and accountable institutions
(economic, political, judicial, educational, etc) that citizens regard as legitimate and worthy of support. Such
institutions allow them to participate in the decisions that affect their lives and empower them as critical and active
citizens. Stronger international bodies are needed to guide and manage globalization and these should address gaps
between national and global governance, and between the rhetoric and reality of democracy and active citizenship

13
• Public Sector management: Government must manage its financial and personal resources
effectively through appropriate budgeting, accounting and reporting systems and by rooting out
inefficiency, particularly in the parastatal sector

• Accountability: Public Officials must be held responsible for their actions. This involves effective
accounting and auditing, decentralisation, ‘micro-level accountability’ to consumers and a role for non
governmental organisations.

• The legal framework for development: There must be a set of rules known in advance, these
must be enforced, conflicts must be resolved by independent judicial bodies and there must be
mechanisms for amending rules when they no longer serve their purpose

• Information and transparency: There are three main areas for improvement, a) information on
economic efficiency; b) transparency as a means of preventing corruption; and c) publicly available
information for policy analysis and debate
Adapted from Turner & Hulme (1997 :231)

The DFID White Paper on Globalisation supports this placing considerable emphasis on
good governance – transparency, accountability, participation; reducing those areas of
public life where corruption can thrive. For example, widespread ratification of global
human rights treaties, such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the
Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, hold
little meaning if governments continue to fail to abide by the obligations those treaties
place on states. Efforts are being made to get beyond these circumstances. Civil
society groups, particularly NGOs often play a valuable role because they operate
outside the accepted institutional roles and conventions. Local government reform
programmes are designed to give ordinary citizens more purchase on decisions that
affect their lives, and more chances to give their grievances a voice.
The importance of understanding both the formal and informal systems of governance
should not be underestimated. Governance institutions and power structures through
the reform procedures, rules and routines guide the customers, norms and
expectations and resultant behaviour. In order to facilitate participation and support
positive interaction between state, market and civil society, it is essential that there is
clarity as to the specific roles, responsibilities, rights and relations between these
processes.

1.5 Globalisation and technology

“globalisation is a communicational concept, which alternately masks and transmits
cultural or economic meanings” Jameson (1998:55)

14
Changes in means of communication, flows of resources and of people have further
contributed to the erosion of social boundaries and bring greater interconnectedness.
As already described, such processes have been at work for centuries.
Communication technology can be viewed as a double-edged sword. From an
economic and historical perspective, it has added to the continuum of such power and
order with access to information replacing religion and military prowess, the
controllers also shifting from nation states to global corporations. The necessary
connection between buyers and sellers is becoming a virtual connection, with
economic prowess being related not to being in the right neighbourhood but as
Mitchell (1990) surmises ‘having the right lists for sending out advertising. Allen
(1992) transposes Mc Cluhans phenomenon of ‘Global Village’ as a cyber village in
which the information and communication networks are the main conduits of all
economic activity and function. The other edge is the ability of these remarkable
innovations in information and communication technologies to potentially laid the
foundations of a greater degree of modernisation in all the countries of the world.
Through technological innovation, people today can have social relations and
organised community relations regardless of space; or the territory they share. This in
turn permits the emergence of imagined communities, cultures and even systems of
authority and social control across borders.

15
 The global corporations have secured control of an organisational and
technological capacity that combines instantaneous electronic transactions with
the accelerated distribution of physical goods through ‘just in time’ delivery
systems. ‘Production in the advanced capitalistic societies’, Castell and Carnoy
(1993) argue, shifts from material goods to information processing activities,
fundamentally changing the structure of these societies to favour economic
activities that focus on symbolic manipulation in the organisation of production
an in the enhancement of productivity. It has heavily influenced the economic
direction of information. The communicational concept has become filled with
financial transfers and investments all over the world. The with networks are
swollen with e-commerce of flexible capitalism, which again raises issues with
how all over the world is defined and who actually participates. Technological
advance, as a basis for reconstructing and democratising social relations
throughout the globe is a common assertion. However, as Vincent writes ‘ it is
the technology rather than the communication that has become global.’ Vincent
1997

Despite the plummeting costs of communications and easy to use innovative tools
people with more than 140 million users of the Internet in 1998,approximately 80% of
the world’s population still lack access to the most basic communication technologies.
20% of the population of Northern countries had almost 80% of world telephone lines
—the bottom fifth just 1.5%. The disparity in access to ICT is growing. In 2001 96 per
cent of Internet host computers reside in the highest income nations with only 16 per
cent of the world’s population. There are more Internet hosts in Finland than the
whole of Latin America and the Caribbean, more in New York City than on the entire
continent of Africa. (UNDP 2001)

16
 Giddens, together with Harvey (1994) relate to information technology as the
new force of Globalisation. As Vincent writes the market place can be easily used
to control access to the information superhighway. The greater expense of
access, the higher the likelihood that larger portions of the worlds population –
both developed and developing- will remain ‘information poor’’ (Vincent
1997:187). ‘Electronic ghettos’ have been produced in which access is restricted
to VDUs and television screens resulting in varying experiences of time-space
compression across the globe. For those excluded’ this is not even life in the slow
lane. It is life on the hard shoulder’ (Thrift 1995:31). UNDP recognise the
immense scale of the challenge of achieving universal access. The consistent
illusiveness of the global information infrastructure despite public policy reform
and market liberalisation has prompted a renewed focus on “making technologies
work for human development” (UNDP2001) They perceive now as the time for
collective action to transform the growing digital divide into a digital opportunity.
Yet there has never been a better time for collective action and to build of their
efforts to nurture a willingness amongst all stakeholders including multinational
companies, governments and non governmental organisations and communities
to “work together to eradicate digital inequity among rich and poor, young and
old, men and women.” (UNDP 2001:10)

1.6 Global Poverty and Growth

In 1949 US President Truman’s infamous inaugural speech declared that the vast
majority of the worlds population was ‘underdeveloped’, building on the last two
centuries of Europeans industrial development and colonising of the ‘untamed’ world.

Post war restructuring of the 1950s and 1960s resulted in a boom for the North,
based on employment and low inflation, aka the Golden Years for the USA, Western
Europe and Japan. An emphasis was placed on economic development support and
growth in the South towards a modernity goal emanated by the USA. None of the
Southern countries had industrial bases insufficient to sustain the predicted social and
economic development through trickle down effects. The end of the 60s attributed the
lack of economic development in the South to an historical condition of blocked,
distorted and dependent development (Toye 1987)
The 1970s saw a shift away from growth-at-all-costs as the way forward in
development thinking towards an emphasis on employment and redistribution with
growth. An increase in oil prices resulted in some oil producing nations like Saudi

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Arabia made vast profits, which were deposited in commercial banks of the USA,
Europe and Japan. Increased oil prices together with a decline in commodity prices
saw a reduction in demand for credit. Desperate to lend this money, commercial and
official lending to Southern countries at low interest rates grew to support industrial
development increased service provision.

In an attempt to reduce inflation, OECD countries slowed their economies, depressing

prices and demand for commodities, allowing interest rates to rise. For much of the
South, now dependent upon commodity, exports and borrowing as a source of foreign
exchange the consequences were dire. Interest soared to 18 to 20 % raising annual
debt burden on Southern countries six fold. In 1982 Mexico became the first country
to demand a longer period to repay its debts. The banks agreed, but insisted that
debtor countries should first reach agreement with the IMF on an adjustment
programme. Poorer indebted countries grew from 31 to 42 in the 1980s while, the
gradual increase in aid linked to donor GNP since the 60s saw a gradual decline.
Western Banks turned to lending at home, enjoying the consumer credit boom of the
1980s (Allen 1999)

IMF Structural Adjustment programmes followed a three-point programme: to control

inflation, to boost exports and reduce imports.
• Control inflation: Make borrowing more expensive, cut public expenditure, raise
the cost of public services, abolish subsidies, for example on basic food stuffs and
hold back or reduce real wages
• Boost exports: Usually near impossible, with the world economy in recession and
Southern countries in competition with each other
• Reduce imports: Many Southern countries are heavily dependent on imported
goods, particularly machinery and equipment. As imports are cut, local economies
are thrown into complete disarray

Increasing global concern with poverty and sustainable development became visible
with a multitude of World Summits during the 1990s, from the 1992 Rio Summit on
Sustainability, the 1995 Beijing Summit to 1995 World Summit for Social
Development (WSSD) to the 1999 World Trade Summit in Seattle. Each summit
framed its reflections with the global implications of trade and development of the
environment, the social and economic structure of the world.

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Alongside this forum, major institutions such as the World Bank reviewed their
definition of poverty as an income based issue and instituted a process of participatory
poverty assessments. From these and other work by leading academics (Moser, Sen
Chambers, Holland) came the accepted realisation that poverty is complex and
multidimensional and that an integrated approach that links the micro (local) to the
meso (national) and macro (global) level is needed if poverty is ever to be eradicated.
From the standpoint of many Southern countries the implementation of World Bank
and IMF structural adjustment and stabilising policies forced them into the globalising
process. (Asfar 1999) Structural adjustment, in particular through its emphasis on
free markets and free trade resulted in the South becoming institutionalized in the
global development process. Finally in 1998, the World Bank president (Wolfensohn
1998) admitted that Structural Adjustment Policies have failed to deliver sustainable
development to those living in poverty

According to the Human Development Report (1999) in order to pursue human

development, globalisation has to mean:
• Ethics—less, not more violation of human rights and disregard of human values.
• Development—less, not more poverty of countries and people.
• Equity—less, not more disparity between and within nations and generations.
• Inclusion—less, not more marginalisation and exclusion of countries and people.
• Human security—less, not more vulnerability of countries and people.
• Sustainability—less, not more depletion and degradation of the environment.
(HDR1999:39)

The global forums and summits, through their discussions and understandings of our
global interdependence prompted the shift in paradigm within the development
agenda from the modernist economic growth at any cost to sustainable livelihoods
and rights based approaches to development. The UN Millennium Summit purpose was
to consolidate the goals and commitments of these Global conferences and summits of
the 1990’s at the highest level.
The UN Assembly adopted the following “Millennium Declaration”

"We are committed to making the right to development a reality for

everyone…""We resolve therefore to create an environment – at the national and
global levels alike – which is conducive to development and to the elimination of
poverty …"

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 "We are concerned about the obstacles developing countries face in mobilizing the
resources needed to finance their sustained development …"

Discussions were dominated by globalisation as the major factor that the

international system had to face but commitment focused on poverty eradication
as the primary goal of policy, particularly development cooperation policy as it
acknowledged that the world is becoming increasingly global yet inequality is
rising.

• 50 years ago, the world traded around a billion dollars a day; today, the same one-billion-dollar-
trade is happening every 90 minutes.

• Today, 2 billion dollars of foreign direct investment (FDI) moves around the world every day.
Africa receives 6 to 8 billion dollars of FDI a year – which means investors spend at most 4 days
a year thinking about Africa!

• 20% of world’s population commands 80% of its income

"it would be wrong to be blind to the economic benefits that globalisation has
brought to some. It would also be wrong to imagine that we can turn back the
clock on globalisation. The real question I see is how can we humanize
globalisation, how can we shape it in such a way that it can benefit all instead of
some?". (OHCHR 2000)

The most recent DFID White Paper on globalisation stated that making globalisation
work for the poor is a moral imperative and also a matter of common interest in that
many of today’s contemporary global challenges8 are exasperated by inequality and
poverty. It states, “Its purpose is to focus on the challenges of globalisation and to
define a policy agenda for managing the process in a way that will systematically
reduce poverty.” (DFID 2000:14)

1.7 Summary
In this chapter, we have reviewed globalisation as an historical and continuing process
of sociocultural and political economic transformation. We have seen how globalisation
as a term is used to characterise the growing interconnectedness of today’s world.
The increasing ease of flow of goods, capital services, information and people across
national borders feeding a budding single global economy. Globalisation has
undoubtedly influenced the process of social change and with it anxiety and public

8
War and conflict; refugee movements; violation of human rights; international crimer;
terrorism ; illicit drugs trade, HIV/AIDS and environmental degradation

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concern regarding the globalisation or homogenisation of the world’s culture into a
modernist ideal. The speed of Globalisation is what clearly distinguishes the present
day with past eras. This has been driven by the emergence of information and
communication technologies and its resultant influence of world trade, mobility of
capital diffusion of global norms and proliferation of global treaties.

As with all processes there are winners and losers and today globalisation has
undoubtedly favoured the growth of trans national corporations and their power over
both the political and economic markets of the world. In parallel global society and
global concern and empathy have also been strengthened.
In the following chapter, we will further examine the role of globalisation and in the
reduction of world poverty and the development of global poverty reduction strategies
to manage globalisation.

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