In the name of the Father and of the Son and of
the Holy Spirit. Amen
Dear Lord and Father of all, Thank you for
today. Thank you for ways in which You
provide for us all. For Your protection and
love, we thank you. Help us to focus our
hearts and minds now on what we are
about to learn. Inspire us by Your Holy
Spirit as we listen and write. Guide us by
Your eternal light as we discover more
about the world around us. We ask all
this in the name of Jesus. Amen.
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IDEOLOGICAL
DIMENSION
IDEOLOGIES OF GLOBALIZATION
IDEOLOGIES are powerful systems of widely shared ideas and
patterned beliefs that are accepted as truth by significant groups in
society.
Serving as political mental maps, they offer people a more or less
coherent picture of the world not only as it is, but also as it ought to be.
In doing so, ideologies help organize the tremendous complexity of
human experiences into fairly simple claims that serve as guide and
compass for social and political action.
IDEOLOGIES OF GLOBALIZATION
The codifiers of ideologies— usually social elites—speak
to their audience in narratives that persuade, praise,
condemn, distinguish ‘truths’ from ‘falsehoods’, and
separate the ‘good’ from the ‘bad’.
Hence, ideology connects theory and practice by
orienting and organizing human action in accordance
with generalized claims and codes of conduct.
IDEOLOGIES OF GLOBALIZATION
THREE TYPES OF GLOBALISM compete for adherents around the
world:
1. Market globalism seeks to endow ‘globalization’ with free-market
norms and neoliberal meanings.
2. Justice globalism constructs an alternative vision of globalization
based on egalitarian ideals of global solidarity and distributive justice.
→ contesting market globalism from the political Left
IDEOLOGIES OF GLOBALIZATION
THREE TYPES OF GLOBALISM compete for adherents around the
world:
3. various religious globalisms struggle against both market globalism
and justice globalism as they seek to mobilize a religious community
imagined in global terms in defense of religious values and beliefs that
are thought to be under severe attack by the forces of secularism and
consumerism.
→ contesting market globalism from the political Right
The political spectrum
IDEOLOGIES OF GLOBALIZATION
IMPORTANT FUNCTION OF THE THREE GLOBALISMS:
they articulate and translate the rising global imaginary—a
background understanding of community and belonging increasingly
tied to the global—into concrete political programs and agendas.
Hence, it would be inaccurate to accuse the two ideological
challengers of dominant market globalism of being ‘anti-
globalization’.
Rather, their position should be described as ‘ALTER-
GLOBALIZATION’—subscribing to alternative visions of an integrated
world that resist neoliberal projections of universal free-market
principles.
1. Market globalism
dominant ideology of our time
Since the 1990s, it has been codified and disseminated
worldwide by global power elites that include corporate
managers, executives of large transnational corporations,
corporate lobbyists, influential journalists and public-
relations specialists, intellectuals writing for a large public
audience, celebrities and top entertainers, state
bureaucrats, and politicians.
1. Market globalism
They saturate the public discourse with idealized
images of a consumerist, free-market world.
Selling their preferred version of a single global
marketplace to the public, they portray
globalization in a positive light as an indispensable
tool for the realization of such a global order.
1. Market globalism
Market globalism has become what some social theorists call a
‘strong discourse’—one that is notoriously difficult to resist
and repel because it has on its side powerful social forces that
have already preselected what counts as ‘real’ and, therefore,
shape the world accordingly.
The constant repetition and public recitation of market
globalism’s core claims and slogans have the capacity to
produce what they name.
1. Market globalism
1. Market globalism
CLAIM 1
Like all ideologies, market globalism starts with the
attempt to establish an authoritative definition of its
core concepts.
For neoliberals, such an account is anchored in the
idea of the self-regulating market that serves as the
framework for a future global order.
1. Market globalism
CLAIM 1
But the problem with claim 1 is that its core message
of liberalizing and integrating markets is only realizable
through the political project of engineering free markets.
Thus, market globalists must be prepared to utilize the
powers of government to weaken and eliminate those
social policies and institutions that curtail the market.
1. Market globalism
CLAIM 2
Claim 2 establishes the historical inevitability and irreversibility of
globalization understood as the liberalization and global integration of
markets.
The portrayal of globalization as some sort of natural force, like
the weather or gravity, makes it easier for market globalists to convince
people that they must adapt to the discipline of the market if they are to
survive and prosper.
Hence, the claim of inevitability depoliticizes the public discourse
about globalization.
1. Market globalism
CLAIM 2
RECALL:
→former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher used to say,
‘There is no alternative.’
→If nothing can be done about the natural movement of
economic and technological forces, then political groups ought
to acquiesce and make the best of an unalterable situation.
→Resistance would be unnatural, irrational, and dangerous.
1. Market globalism
CLAIM 3
People aren’t in charge of globalization; markets and
technology are.
But those voices behind claim 3 are right only in a formal
sense.
→While there is no conscious conspiracy orchestrated by a
single, evil force, this does not mean that nobody is in
charge of globalization.
The liberalization and integration of global markets does not
proceed outside the realm of human choice.
1. Market globalism
CLAIM 4
globalization benefits everyone—lies at the
very core of market globalism because it
provides an affirmative answer to the crucial
normative question of whether globalization
should be considered a ‘good’ or a ‘bad’ thing.
1. Market globalism
CLAIM 4
Market globalists often connect their arguments to
the alleged benefits resulting from trade
liberalization:
rising global living standards
economic efficiency
individual freedom
unprecedented technological progress
1. Market globalism
CLAIM 4
DRAWBACK:
When market dynamics dominate social and political
outcomes, the opportunities and rewards of globalization
are spread often unequally, concentrating power and wealth
amongst a select group of people, regions, and corporations
at the expense of the multitude.
The same market logic also applies to access to information
via digital technology
1. Market globalism
CLAIM 5
Globalization furthers the spread of democracy in the world—is rooted in
the neoliberal assertion that free markets and democracy are synonymous
terms.
Persistently affirmed as ‘common sense’, the actual compatibility of these
concepts often goes unchallenged in the public discourse.
Indeed, claim 5 centers on a conception of democracy that emphasizes
formal procedures such as voting at the expense of the direct participation of
broad majorities in political and economic decision-making.
1. Market globalism
IN A NUTSHELL,
the five central claims of market globalism
suggests that the neoliberal language about
globalization is ideological in the sense that it is
politically motivated and contributes toward
the construction of particular meanings of
globalization that preserve and stabilize
existing power relations.
2. justice GLOBALIsm
Refers to the political ideas and values associated with the social alliances
and political actors increasingly known as the ‘global justice movement’
(GJM).
It emerged in the 1990s as a progressive network of international NGOs
defined as a ‘global civil society’.
Dedicated to the establishment of a more equitable relationship between
the global North and South, the GJM stressed for the protection of the
global environment, fair trade and international labor issues, human
rights, and women’s issues.
2. justice GLOBALIsm
Justice globalists believe that ‘another world is possible’
GJM emphasizes the crucial connection between globalization and
local wellbeing by envisioning the construction of a new world order
based on a global redistribution of wealth and power
It accuses market globalist elites of pushing neoliberal policies that are
leading to greater global inequality, high levels of unemployment,
environmental degradation, and the demise of social welfare.
2. justice GLOBALIsm
Justice globalists seek to protect ordinary people all over the world from a
neoliberal ‘globalization from above’ by calling for a ‘Global New Deal’ favoring the
marginalized and poor
2. justice GLOBALIsm
2. justice GLOBALIsm
3. religious GLOBALIsms
Justice globalists were preparing for a new wave of
demonstrations against the IMF and World Bank, when Al
Qaeda terrorists struck on 11 September 2001.
Nearly 3,000 innocent people perished in less than two hours,
including hundreds of heroic New York police and firefighters
trapped in the collapsing towers of the World Trade Center.
In the years following the attacks, it became clear that Islamist
extremists were not confining their terrorist activities to the
United States.
3. religious GLOBALIsms
Regional jihadist networks like ISIL, Al Qaeda, Jemaah Islamiya, Boko
Haram, Al Shabaab, and Abu Sayyaf targeted civilians and military
personnel around the globe, most recently in Paris (2015), Brussels
(2016), Dhaka (2016), Istanbul (2016), and Nice (2016).
In fact, jihadist globalists like Ahmed Omar, emir (leader) of the Somali
jihadist network Al Shabaab, encourage Muslims residing in the West
to organize their own independent terror cells in their ‘holy war’
against ‘unbelief’—another chilling example of the intensifying
‘glocalization’ of human activities.
3. religious GLOBALIsms
Other religiously inspired visions of global political community
include some fundamentalist Christian groups such as the Army
of God and Christian Identity, the Mormon Church, the Falun
Gong sect, the Aum Shinrikyo cult, and Chabad, an orthodox
Jewish movement with clear global ambitions.
Despite their deep conservatism, religious globalisms also
promote an alternative global vision.
CAUTION:
This is not to suggest that all religiously inspired visions of
global community are conservative, reactionary, or violent.
3. religious GLOBALIsms
Indeed, most religions incorporate a sense of a global
community united along religious lines, although in
general this is largely informal.
A key point about the religious globalist visions,
however, is that these groups desire their version of a
global religious community to be all-encompassing and
to be given primacy and superiority over state-based
and secular political structures.
3. religious GLOBALIsms
The term ‘Jihadist Islamism’ is meant to apply to those
extremely violent strains of Islam-influenced ideologies that
articulate the global imaginary into concrete political agendas
and terrorist strategies to be applied worldwide.
Jihadist Islamism is the most influential and successful attempt
yet to articulate the rising global imaginary into a religious
globalism—even after the killing of Osama bin Laden by US
Navy SEALs in Pakistan on 2 May 2011
3. religious GLOBALIsms
Jihadist Islamism is anchored in the core concepts of umma
(Islamic community of believers) and jihad (armed or unarmed
struggle against unbelief purely for the sake of God and his umma).
Indeed, jihadist globalists understand the umma as a single
community of believers united in their belief in the one and only
God.
Expressing a religious-populist yearning for strong leaders who
set things right by fighting alien invaders and corrupt Islamic
elites, they claim to return power back to the ‘Muslim masses’
and restore the umma to its earlier glory.
3. religious GLOBALIsms
Thus, jihadist globalism takes place in a global space
emancipated from the confining territoriality of ‘Egypt’, or the
‘Middle East’ that used to constitute the political framework of
religious nationalists fighting modern secular regimes in the
20th century.
Jihadist globalism’s core ideological claim—to rebuild a
unified global umma through global jihad against global
unbelief—echoes well with the dynamics of a globalizing world
3. religious GLOBALIsms
Notwithstanding their extremist rhetoric, jihadist
Islamists never lose sight of the fact that jihadist globalists
are fighting a steep uphill battle against the secular forces
of market globalism and justice globalism.
Despite its chilling and violent content, their vision
contains an ideological alternative to market globalism
and justice globalism that nonetheless imagines
community in unambiguously global terms.
THANK YOU VERY
MUCH!!!
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