The globalisation challenge: Surviving at the margins

Abstract

Globalisation is crucial to understanding international political economy, for it directs attention to fundamental changes underway in the post-Cold War era. The manifestations of globalisation include the spatial reorganisation of production, the interpenetration of industries across borders, the spread of financial markets, the diffusion of identical consumer goods to distant countries, massive transfers of population within the South as well as from the South and the East to the West, resultant conflicts between immigrant and established communities in formerly tight-knit neighbourhoods, and an emerging worldwide preference for democracy. A rubric for varied phenomena, the concept of globalisation interrelates multiple levels of analysis-economics, politics, culture and ideology. But what explains globalisation? What are its causes, mechanisms, and possibilities for transformation? Where to focus an analysis? On the inner workings and logic of capital itself? On strategies and actors seeking to optimise their positions? On empirical indicators or trends said to comprise this process? On the complementary and contradictory interactions among localisation, regionalisation and globalisation? On the social and political consequences? I contend that world society is entering a new era in the relationship between power and the division of labour, which is globalised. What sets the context for conflict and cooperation in the post-Cold War period is an integrating and yet disintegrating process known as globalisation. Although any given world problem has many sources, globalisation establishes novel opportunities and challenges for solving it. In developing this argument, I will first explore varied meanings of the concept of division of labour and the multilayer character of the globalisation process. The next section anchors the discussion by examining one region-East Asia-within this framework. This section is obviously not a detailed account but a synopsis of the impact of globalisation on a specific regional division of labour. Finally, I will turn to the seeds of future conflict sown by globalisation and, also, the implications for adaptation to a rapidly changing and highly competitive environment.