INTRODUCING

GLOBAL POLITICS 1

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PREVIEW
How should we study politics? Traditionally, there was a tendency to focus on political actors and institutions at
the local and national levels. Beyond this, students and scholars in the political subfield of international relations
(IR) tend to consider ‘the international’ as the political space in which these local and national political interests are
represented in the form of interaction between states, regions of states, and a worldwide ‘states system’. But since
the late twentieth century, the concept of globalization has challenged these narrow, state-centric ways of thinking
about politics. This book is about global politics, which is to say it is about how politics – struggles over power, how it
should be distributed, and how we might best organize ourselves and live together as societies – works at the global
level.

But what is ‘the global’ when it comes to politics, and why does it matter? How does it differ from ‘the international’
as a way of seeing or imagining our world? What kinds of actors, institutions, and processes contribute the most
to the globalization of politics, and which ones try to hold back its tide, and why? This chapter explores the rise of
a global imaginary in discussions of politics and international relations, considers its implications for the study and
practice of world politics – including issues ranging from state sovereignty to the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic –
and reflects upon continuity and change in global politics.

KEY ISSUES
z What is ‘the global’ and how does it relate to ‘the international’?
z How have the contours of world politics changed in recent decades?
z What have been the implications of globalization for world politics?
z How do mainstream approaches to global politics differ from critical approaches?
z Which aspects of world politics are changed by globalization, and which remain the same?

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 2 GLOBAL POLITICS

FROM ‘THE INTERNATIONAL’ TO ‘THE

GLOBAL’?
State: A political The aim of this book is to provide an up-to-date, integrated, and forward-looking
institution that introduction to global politics. It seeks to be genuinely global while not ignoring the
successfully claims
international dimension of world affairs, accepting that ‘the global’ and ‘the international’
sovereign jurisdiction
within defined territorial complement one another and are not rival or incompatible modes of understanding.
borders. In this view, global politics encompasses not just politics at the ‘global’ level – that
is, worldwide processes, systems, and institutional frameworks – but politics at, and,
crucially, across, all levels – the worldwide, the regional, the national, and the subnational
(see Figure 1.1). Such an approach reflects the fact that while, over an increasing range of
issues, states interact with one another in conditions of global interconnectedness and
interdependence, they nevertheless remain the key actors on the world stage.

The worldwide

The The
international regional

The subnational

Figure 1.1 The domain of global politics

However, if the international paradigm, in which world affairs boil down, essentially,
to relations between and among states, no longer constitutes an adequate basis for
understanding, what has changed, and how profound have these changes been? How
have the contours of world politics changed in recent years? The most significant
changes have been the following:
z the emergence of new global actors;
z the growth of interdependence and interconnectedness;
z the erosion of the domestic/international divide; and
z the rise of global governance.
 INTRODUCING GLOBAL POLITICS 3

1
FOCUS ON . . .
DEFINING GLOBAL POLITICS?
What does it mean to suggest that politics has ‘gone global’? How does ‘global’ politics differ from ‘international’
politics? The term ‘international’ means between nations, and is today commonly understood to mean between nation
states or simply ‘states’. The term ‘global’, on the other hand, has two meanings. In the first, global means worldwide,
having planetary (not merely regional or national) significance. The globe is, in effect, the world. Global politics, in
this sense, refers to politics that is conducted at a global rather than a local, national, or regional level. It therefore
focuses primarily on the work of organizations such as the United Nations (UN) and the World Trade Organization
(WTO), which have a near universal membership, and on issues (such as the environment and the economy) where
interconnectedness has gone so far that events and developments affect, actually or potentially, all parts of the world
and so all people on the planet.
In the second meaning (the one used in this book), global means comprehensive; it refers to all elements within a
system, not just to the system as a whole. While such an approach acknowledges that a significant (and, perhaps,
growing) range of political interactions now takes place at the global level, it rejects the idea that the global level has,
in any sense, transcended politics at the national, local, or, for that matter, any other level. In particular, the advent of
global politics does not imply that international politics should be consigned to the dustbin of history. This is important
because the notion that politics has been caught up in a swirl of interconnectedness that effectively absorbs all of its
parts, or ‘units’, into an indivisible, global whole is difficult to sustain.

FROM STATE-CENTRISM TO THE MIXED-ACTOR

MODEL AND INTERDEPENDENCE?
World politics has conventionally been understood in international terms. Although
the larger phenomenon of patterns of conflict and cooperation between and among
territorially based political units has existed throughout history, the term ‘international
relations’ was not coined until the UK philosopher and legal reformer Jeremy Bentham
(1748–1832) used it in his Principles of Morals and Legislation ([1789] 1968). Bentham’s
use of the term acknowledged a significant shift: that, by the late eighteenth century,
territorially based political units were coming to have a more clearly national character,
making relations between them appear genuinely ‘inter-national’. However, although
most modern states either are nation states (see p. 236) or aspire to be nation states, it is
their possession of statehood rather than nationhood that allows them to act effectively
on the world stage. ‘International’ politics should thus, more properly, be described
as ‘interstate’ politics. But what is a state? As defined in international law by the 1933
Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States, a state must possess four
qualifying properties:
z a defined territory;
z a permanent population;
z an effective government; and
z the ‘capacity to enter into relations with other states’.
 4 GLOBAL POLITICS

State-centrism: An In this view, states or countries (the terms can be used interchangeably in this context)
approach to political are taken to be the key actors on the world stage, and perhaps the only ones that warrant
analysis that takes the
serious consideration. This is why the conventional approach to world politics is seen
state to be the most
important actor in the as state-centric, and why the international system is often portrayed as a states system.
domestic realm and on The origins of this view of international politics are usually traced back to the Peace of
the world stage. Westphalia (1648), which established sovereignty as the distinguishing feature of the
state. State sovereignty thus became the primary organizing principle of international
politics.

C E PT
CON

SOVEREIGNTY
Sovereignty is the principle of supreme and unquestionable authority, reflected in the claim by the state to be
the sole author of laws within its territory. External sovereignty (sometimes called ‘state sovereignty’ or ‘national
sovereignty’) refers to the capacity of the state to act independently and autonomously on the world stage. This
implies that states are legally equal and that the territorial integrity and political independence of a state are
inviolable. Internal sovereignty refers to the location of supreme power or authority within the state. The institution
of sovereignty is nevertheless developing and changing, both as new concepts of sovereignty emerge (‘economic
sovereignty’, ‘food sovereignty’, and so on) and as sovereignty is adapted to new circumstances (‘pooled sovereignty’,
‘responsible sovereignty’, and so forth).

However, the state-centric approach to world politics has become increasingly difficult
States system: A pattern to sustain. This has happened, in part, because it is no longer possible to treat states as
of relationships between the only significant actors on the world stage. Transnational corporations (TNCs) (see
and amongst states that
p. 149), non-governmental organizations (NGOs) (see p. 8), and a host of other non-
establishes a measure of
order and predictability state bodies have come to exert influence. In different ways and to different degrees,
(see p. 170). groups and organizations ranging from ISIS (see p. 390), the #MeToo movement (see
Mixed-actor model: The
p. 107), and Black Lives Matter (see p. 103) to Google (see p. 211) contribute to shaping
theory that, while not world politics. Since the 1970s, indeed, pluralist theorists have advocated a mixed-actor
ignoring the role of states model of world politics. However, although it is widely accepted that states and national
and national governments, governments are merely one category of actor amongst many on the world stage, they
international politics is may still remain the most important actors. No TNC or NGO, for instance, can rival the
shaped by a much broader
range of interests and
state’s coercive power, either its capacity to enforce order within its borders or its ability
groups. to deal militarily with other states. (The changing role and significance of the state are
examined in depth in Chapter 5.)
‘Billiard ball’ model:
A way of seeing global While the state unquestionably retains a significant degree of power in global politics as
politics, particularly compared to other actors, the so-called ‘billiard ball’ model – according to which states
among ‘realist’ thinkers,
as a set of interactions are essentially discrete, bounded entities interacting with (or ‘bouncing off ’) one another
between territorially in international relations – is less sustainable. This model, traditionally advocated by
bounded, discrete states; ‘realist’ thinkers has lost ground to the ‘neoliberal institutionalist’ (see p. 88) claim that
it is a state-centric model global politics is in fact characterized by ‘complex interdependence’ (Keohane and Nye
(see p. 171). 1977), but also to ‘critical’ explanations (see Chapter 4) that suggest the international
 INTRODUCING GLOBAL POLITICS 5

relations are really social relations, and thus were never entirely contained by the state. Global imaginary: An 1
The mixture of actors and the range of issues over which they interact, the non-state and ‘imaginary’ is a way of
seeing or imagining things.
substate channels of interaction, and the increasing primacy of economic activity have
A global imaginary is a
all brought the global imaginary of a state-centric ‘Westphalian’ order (see p. 6) into holistic way of imagining
question. social, political, and
economic life, at the level
of the whole world rather
than the local, national, or
even international.
C E PT
CON

INTERDEPENDENCE
Interdependence refers to a relationship between two parties in which each is affected by decisions that are taken
by the other. Interdependence implies mutual influence, even a rough equality between the parties in question,
usually arising from a sense of mutual vulnerability. Interdependence, then, is usually associated with a trend
towards cooperation and integration in world affairs. Keohane and Nye (1977) advanced the idea of ‘complex
interdependence’ as an alternative to the realist model of international politics. This highlighted the extent to which
(1) states have ceased to be autonomous international actors; (2) economic and other issues have become more
prominent in world affairs; and (3) military force has become a less reliable and less important policy option.

Some argue that the state’s special status as a global actor is preserved because it
retains what the political sociologist Max Weber famously called the ‘monopoly of
the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory’ (Weber [1919] 1948).
The state’s role as the entity that wages war, and maintains domestic law and order,
is supposed to render it unique. But even this seems less certain in the early twenty-
first century, with the rise of private military and security companies (PMSCs) –
the modern form of what have been known as ‘mercenaries’ – on the one hand,
and the increasing privatization of policing and prisons, on the other. In their
international relations, states have increasingly relied on PMSCs in armed conflicts,
such as the United States in the Iraq War, while PMSCs have also been involved as
paramilitary and covert forces in attempted coups d’état. An example of the latter
is the unsuccessful attempt by former US Special Forces soldiers employed by a
PMSC called Silvercorp USA to overthrow Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro
in May 2020 (these mercenaries were ultimately captured and jailed by Venezuelan
forces). Within states, meanwhile, armed and state-sanctioned private security firms
have offered everything from the guarding of majority-white ‘gated communities’
in Johannesburg, South Africa, to the routine running of prisons and immigration
detention centres in the United States and the United Kingdom. While states may
retain the greatest quantity, and perhaps quality, of the means of ‘legitimate’ violence,
they no longer appear to have a monopoly. The expanded role of substate and private
actors in expressions of ‘war power’ and ‘police power’ (Neocleous 2014) lends further
weight to the claim that we live in a ‘post-Westphalian’, global order characterized by
complexity and interdependence.
 6 GLOBAL POLITICS

FOCUS ON . . .
THE WESTPHALIAN STATES SYSTEM
The Peace of Westphalia (1648) is commonly said to mark the beginning of modern international politics. The Peace
was a series of treaties that brought an end to the Thirty Years’ War (1618–48), which consisted of a series of declared
and undeclared wars throughout central Europe involving the Holy Roman Empire and various opponents, including
the Danes, the Dutch, and, above all, France and Sweden. Although the transition occurred over a much longer period
of time, these treaties helped to transform a medieval Europe of overlapping authorities, loyalties, and identities into a
modern states system. The so-called ‘Westphalian system’ was based on two key principles:
z States enjoy sovereign jurisdiction, in the sense that they have independent control over what happens within their
territory (all other institutions and groups, spiritual and temporal, are therefore subordinate to the state).
z Relations between and among states are structured by the acceptance of the sovereign independence of all states
(thus implying that states are legally equal).

FROM THE DOMESTIC/INTERNATIONAL DIVIDE TO

TRANSNATIONALISM?
One of the key implications of approaching study from the perspective of ‘the international’
is that politics has a distinct spatial or territorial character. In short, borders and boundaries
matter. This applies especially in the case of the distinction between domestic politics, which
is concerned with the state’s role in maintaining order and carrying out regulation within its
borders, and international politics, which is concerned with relations between and among
states. In that sense, sovereignty is a ‘hard shell’ that divides the ‘inside’ of politics from the
‘outside’. This domestic/international, or ‘inside/outside’, divide also separates what have
conventionally been seen as two quite different spheres of political interaction. Whereas
politics ‘inside’ has an orderly and regulated character, stemming from the ability of the state
within the domestic sphere to impose rule from above, order of this kind is absent from
politics ‘outside’, in that there is no authority in the international sphere higher than the
sovereign state. According to John Agnew (1994), such thinking had created a ‘territorial
trap’ within the discipline of international relations, reflected in three assumptions. First, the
state is a clearly bounded territorial space. Second, domestic and foreign affairs are entirely
Globalization: different realms. Third, states are ‘containers’ of society, implying that the boundaries of the
The emergence of state coincide with the boundaries of society.
a complex web of
interconnectedness that Such an emphasis on borders and clear territorial divisions have nevertheless come
means that our lives are under pressure as a result of recent trends and developments, not least those associated
increasingly shaped by with globalization. In particular, there has been a substantial growth in cross-border
events that occur, and
flows and transactions – movements of people, goods, money, information, and ideas.
decisions that are made, at
a great distance from us. This has created the phenomenon of transnationalism. As state borders have become
increasingly ‘porous’, the conventional domestic/international or ‘inside/outside’ divide has
Transnationalism:
Political, social, become more difficult to uphold. This can be illustrated by both the substantially greater
economic, or other forms vulnerability of domestic economies to events that take place elsewhere in the world (as
of action and interaction demonstrated by the wide-ranging impact of the 2007–8 global financial crisis, and of the
that transcend or cut 2020 global coronavirus pandemic) and by the wider use of digital technologies that enable
across national borders. people to communicate with one another through means (such as mobile phones and the
 INTRODUCING GLOBAL POLITICS 7

internet) that national governments find difficult to control. It is also notable that issues 1
that are prominent in world affairs, such as environmental politics and human rights, tend
to have an intrinsically transnational character. However, claims that the modern world
is effectively ‘borderless’ are manifestly absurd, and, in some ways, territorial divisions
are becoming more important, not less important. This is evident, for instance, in the
greater emphasis on national or ‘homeland’ security in many parts of the world since the
terrorist attacks of September 11, and in attempts to constrain international migration by
strengthening border and other immigration controls.

FROM INTERNATIONAL ANARCHY TO GLOBAL

GOVERNANCE?
A key assumption of the traditional approach to international politics, and especially
‘realist’ thinking (see p. 72), has been that the states system operates in a context of
anarchy. This reflects the notion that there is no higher authority than the state, meaning
that external politics operates as an international ‘state of nature’, a pre-political society. The
implications of international anarchy are profound. Most importantly, in the absence of any
other force attending to their interests, states are forced to rely on themselves in a system
of ‘self-help’ (see p. 80). If international politics operates as a ‘self-help system’, the power-
seeking inclinations of one state are only tempered by competing tendencies in other states,
suggesting that conflict and war are inevitable features of the international system. In this
view, conflict is only constrained by a balance of power, either developed as a diplomatic
strategy by peace-minded leaders or occurring through a happy coincidence. This image of
anarchy has been modified by the idea that the international system operates more like an
‘international society’ (see p. 641). Hedley Bull ([1977] 2012) thus advanced the notion of Anarchy: Literally,
an ‘anarchical society’, in place of the conventional theory of international anarchy. without rule; the absence
of a central government
However, the idea of international anarchy, and even the more modest notion of an or higher authority,
‘anarchical society’, has become more difficult to sustain because of the emergence, sometimes, but not
especially since 1945, of a framework of global governance (see Chapter 20) and sometimes necessarily, associated
with instability and chaos.
regional governance. This is reflected in the growing importance of organizations such
as the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) (see p. 584), the World Balance of power: A
Trade Organization (WTO) (see p. 588), the European Union (see p. 623), and so on. condition in which no one
state predominates over
The growing number and significance of international organizations has occurred for
others, tending to create
powerful and pressing reasons. Notably, they reflect the fact that states are increasingly general equilibrium and
confronted by collective action problems; issues that are particularly taxing because they curbing the hegemonic
confound even the most powerful of states when acting alone. This first became apparent ambitions of all states.
in relation to the development of technologized warfare and particularly the invention Collective action
of nuclear weapons, but has since been reinforced by challenges such as financial crises, problems: A problem
pandemics, climate change, terrorism, crime, migration, and development. Such trends, that stems from the
interdependence of
nevertheless, have yet to render the idea of international anarchy altogether redundant.
states, meaning that any
While international organizations have undoubtedly become significant actors on the solution must involve
world stage, competing, at times, with states and other non-state actors, their impact international cooperation
should not be exaggerated. Apart from anything else, they are, to a greater or lesser rather than action by a
extent, the creatures of their members: they can do no more than their member states, single state.
and especially powerful states, allow them to do.
 8

GLOBAL ACTORS . . . NON-

GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS

A non-governmental organization (NGO) is a private, alone, registered 11,262 new NGOs between 2001
non-commercial group or body that seeks to achieve and 2019. The major international NGOs have
its ends through non-violent means. The World Bank developed into huge organizations. For example, Care
(see p. 480) defines NGOs as ‘private organizations International, dedicated to the worldwide reduction
that pursue activities to relieve suffering, promote of poverty, controls a budget worth more than $970
the interests of the poor, protect the environment, million, Greenpeace has a membership of 2.8 million
provide basic social services, or undertake community and a staff of over 2,400, and Amnesty International
development’. Very early examples of such bodies were is better resourced than the human rights arm of
the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade (formed the UN.
by William Wilberforce in 1787) and the International
There can be little doubt that major international
Committee of the Red Cross, founded in 1863. The
NGOs and the NGO sector as a whole now constitute
first official recognition of NGOs was by the United
significant actors on the global stage. Although lacking
Nations (UN) in 1948, when forty-one NGOs were
the economic leverage that TNCs can exert, advocacy
granted consultative status following the establishment
NGOs have proved highly adept at mobilizing ‘soft’
of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (indeed,
power and popular pressure. In this respect, they have a
some NGO activists believe that only groups formally
number of advantages. These include that leading NGOs
acknowledged by the UN should be regarded as
have cultivated high public profiles, often linked to public
‘true’ NGOs). A distinction is often drawn between
protests and demonstrations that attract eager media
operational NGOs and advocacy NGOs:
attention; that their typically altruistic and humanitarian
z Operational NGOs are those whose primary objectives enable them to mobilize public support
purpose is the design and implementation of and exert moral pressure in a way that conventional
development-related projects; they may be either politicians and political parties struggle to rival; and that,
relief-orientated or development-orientated, over a wide range of issues, the views of NGOs are
and they may be community-based, national, or taken to be both authoritative and disinterested, based
international. on the use of specialists and academics. Operational
NGOs, for their part, have come to deliver about 15 per
z Advocacy NGOs exist to promote or defend a cent of international aid, often demonstrating a greater
particular cause; they are sometimes termed speed of response and level of operational effectiveness
‘promotional pressure groups’ or ‘public interest than governmental bodies, national or international, can
groups’. muster. Relief- and development-orientated NGOs
may also be able to operate in politically sensitive areas
Significance: Since the 1990s, the steady growth
where national governments, or even the UN, would be
in the number of NGOs has become a veritable
unwelcome.
explosion. By 2021, 5,593 groups had been granted
consultative status by the UN, with estimates Nevertheless, the rise of the NGO has provoked
suggesting a total of around 50 large (multi-country, considerable political controversy. Supporters of NGOs
multi-mandate) international NGOs and as many argue that they benefit and enrich global politics.
as 300,000 smaller internationally focused NGOs They counterbalance corporate power, challenging
globally. If national and local NGOs are taken into the influence of TNCs; democratize global politics by
account, the number grows enormously: as of articulating the interests of people and groups who have
2021, the United States has an estimated 1.5 million been disempowered by the globalization process; and
NGOs; in 2017, Russia reportedly had 224,500 act as a moral force, widening people’s sense of civic
NGOs; and Kenya, to take one developing country responsibility and even promoting global citizenship. In
 9

these respects, they are a vital component of emergent scandals, some major Western international NGOs have
global civil society (see p. 221). Critics, however, argue been found to be involved in sexual exploitation and
that NGOs are really self-appointed ‘pressure’ or violence in developing countries and institutionally racist,
‘interest’ groups that have limited democratic credentials. bullying and abusive employment practices in their home
NGOs have also faced criticism for cynical fund-raising countries, spawning the social media hashtag campaign
and campaigning tactics, and for blunting the radical #CharitySoWhite in 2019. (The impact and significance
edge of social movements. Amid a series of recent of NGOs are examined further in Chapter 6.)

GLOBALIZATION AND ITS IMPLICATIONS

No development has challenged the conventional state-centric image of world politics more radically than the
emergence of globalization. By the 1990s, globalization had become a key ‘buzzword’ from the social sciences to
politics and pop culture, although its use has been in decline since the mid-2000s. The twenty-first century was
supposed to be the ‘global century’, but what is ‘globalization’? Is it actually happening, and, if so, what are its
implications?

DEFINING AND DEBATING GLOBALIZATION

Globalization is what W. B. Gallie (1955/6) would have called an ‘essentially contested
concept’. That is to say that it has many definitions, some of which overlap and some of
which conflict with one another. It has been variously defined as:
z ‘[T]he intensification of worldwide social relations that link distant localities in a way
that local happenings are shaped by events occurring many miles away and vice versa’
(Giddens 1990).
z ‘The integration of national economies into the international economy through trade,
direct foreign investment, short-term capital flows, international flows of workers and
humanity generally, and flows of technology’ (Bhagwati 2004).
z ‘The processes through which sovereign nation states are criss-crossed and
undermined by transnational actors with varying prospects of power, orientations,
identities and networks’ (Beck 2000).
z ‘A process (or set of processes) which embody the transformation of the spatial
organization of social relations and transactions’ (Held et al. 1999).

C E PT
CON

GLOBALIZATION
Globalization is the emergence of a complex web of interconnected­ness that means that our lives are increasingly
shaped by events that occur, and decisions that are made, at a great distance from us. The central feature of
globalization is therefore that geographical distance is of declining relevance and that territorial borders, such as
those between nation states, are becoming less significant. By no means, however, does globalization imply that ‘the
local’ and ‘the national’ are subordinated to ‘the global’. Rather, it highlights the deepening as well as the broadening
of the political process, in the sense that local, national, and global events (or perhaps local, regional, national,
international, and global events) constantly interact.
 10 GLOBAL POLITICS

Globality: A totally z ‘A reconfiguration of social geography marked by the growth of transplanetary and
interconnected whole, supraterritorial connections between people’ (Scholte 2005).
such as the global
economy; the social z ‘A process of time-space compression – literally a shrinking world – in which the
domain created by sources of even very local developments, from unemployment to ethnic conflict, may
globalization.
be traced to distant conditions or decisions’ (McGrew 2017).
z ‘[T]he fad of the 1990s, and […] made in America’ (Waltz 1999).

Globalization is a complex, elusive, and controversial term. Recent analysis of the

literature on globalization has suggested its sometimes confused and contradictory
definitions result from the tautology underpinning it: those who theorize globalization
often do so by reference to claims about the existence of ‘the global’ (Kamola 2013,
2019). ‘Globalization’ has been used to refer to a process, a policy, a marketing strategy, a
predicament, or even an ideology. Some have tried to bring greater clarity to the debate
about the nature of globalization by distinguishing between globalization as a process or
set of processes (highlighting the dynamics of transformation or change, in common
with other words that end in the suffix ‘-ization’, such as modernization) and globality as
a condition (indicating the set of circumstances that globalization has brought about, just
as modernization has created a condition of modernity) (Steger 2003). The problem with
defining globalization may be that it is not so much an ‘it’ as a ‘them’: it is not a single
process but a complex of processes, sometimes overlapping and interlocking as well as,
at times, contradictory and oppositional. Nevertheless, the various developments and
manifestations that are associated with globalization, or indeed globality, can be traced back
to the underlying phenomenon of interconnectedness between previously unconnected
people and institutions. Held et al. (1999) thus defined globalization as ‘the widening,
intensifying, speeding up, and growing impact of world-wide interconnectedness’.
Although globalization theorists have championed particular interpretations of
globalization, these are by no means all mutually exclusive. Instead, they capture
different aspects of a complex and multifaceted phenomenon. Globalization has been
interpreted in three main ways:
z Economic globalization (see p. 147) is the process through which national economies
have, to a greater or lesser extent, been absorbed into a single global economy
(examined in greater depth in Chapter 5).
z Cultural globalization (see p. 217) is the process whereby information, commodities,
and images that have been produced in one part of the world enter into a global flow
that tends to ‘flatten out’ cultural differences between nations, regions, and individuals
(discussed more fully in Chapter 7).
z Political globalization (see p. 178) is the process through which policy-making
responsibilities have been passed from national governments to international
organizations (considered in greater detail in Chapter 6).

But is globalization actually happening? Although globalization has been a buzzword

in the social sciences, and among politicians and journalists, for decades, its very
existence remains open to question. The most influential early attempt to outline the
various positions on this globalization debate was set out by Held et al. (1999). They
distinguished between three positions:
 INTRODUCING GLOBAL POLITICS 11

z the hyperglobalists; Hyperglobalism: The 1

view that new, globalized
z the sceptics; and economic and cultural
patterns became
z the transformationalists. inevitable as a result of
fast-paced information
Hyperglobalism is arguably something of an intellectual ‘straw man’, since its rather and communication
extreme position – that globalization makes the state obsolete – is found more often technological (ICT)
in arguments against globalization theory than it is as a coherent theoretical position innovations in the
of its own. In fact, the one text that is almost always mentioned in the same breath twentieth century,
as hyperglobalism is Keniche Ohmae’s (1990) The Borderless World. Ohmae’s book is and that globalization
makes states obsolete,
aimed at corporate managers, but nevertheless became treated as a serious work of producing a ‘borderless
globalization theory, if only because its central arguments are easily refutable. Ohmae world’.
argued that the globalization of trade, led by the ‘Triad’ of the United States, Europe,
and Japan, meant that ‘national borders have effectively disappeared’ between these
countries. Even in the 1990s this claim was hyperbolic, but in the twenty-first century,
with the reassertion of state power through the ‘war on terror’ (see p. 303), the rise of
anti-immigration politics, and increasingly tough and complex immigration regimes, it
is impossible to sustain.
Globalization sceptics for their part, including many Marxist (see p. 111) and realist
(see p. 72) thinkers, argue that globalization either does not exist at all or is not what
hyperglobalists and other globalists think it is. Hirst and Thompson (1999) argue that
claims about ‘economic globalization’, in particular, do not stand up to scrutiny, since
‘free’ transnational capital flows tend to be amongst major powers in general and the
USA-Europe-Japan ‘Triad’ in particular. Realist sceptics, on the other hand, emphasize
the fact that what liberal globalists and hyperglobalists call ‘globalization’ may actually
be simply expressions of America’s global ‘hegemonic’ power. On this view, it is US-
dominated capital and US interests that benefit from the outsourcing of manufacture
from West to East, and the influence of the international organizations that carry out
‘global governance’. For realists, an iron fist of military might lies within the velvet glove
of ‘globalization’ talk; as Kenneth Waltz (see p. 80) noted of the fevered globalization
theories and predictions that followed the end of the Cold War: ‘America continues to
garrison much of the world and to look for ways of keeping troops in foreign countries’
(Waltz 2002).
‘Transformationalists’, meanwhile, are supposed to represent a ‘third way’ between those
who embrace and those who reject claims about globalization. A transformationalist
position on globalization admits that there have been profound changes – transformations
– as a result of technological innovation and increased interconnectedness, but takes
care to specify these changes closely rather than bundling them up as ‘globalization’.

ANTI-GLOBALIZATION POLITICS
Globalization has been subject not only to intellectual critiques by those who would
suggest it does not exist, or is not what we think it is, but also to opposition in practice
by a range of global political movements and actors opposed to its perceived ill-effects.
There have been two broad trends in this politics of anti-globalization. The first is
12 GLOBAL POLITICS

associated loosely with the transnational political left: activists, politicians, and NGOs
arguing that globalization is really an intensification of the exploitation and violence
done to working-class and marginalized people, and to the environment, around the
world. The second is associated with a broadly right-wing tradition that can, ironically,
be characterized as a ‘transnational nationalist’ movement. This right-wing movement
opposes the immigration and racial mixing enabled by globalization, and laments how
particular social groups it identifies with ‘the nation’ have ‘lost out’ or been ‘left behind’
by economic globalization.

Left-Wing Anti-globalization
The first wave of left-wing anti-globalization politics coalesced around mass
demonstrations against the institutions of ‘global governance’ (see Chapter 20) at
the turn of the millennium. Precipitated by the Zapatista uprising in Mexico in the
mid-1990s (see p. 465), this transnational social movement was partly enabled by the
rise of the internet, which provided new channels for activist organization and the
planning and promotion of direct action and protest. Major demonstrations included
those against the World Trade Organization (WTO) at the ‘Battle of Seattle’ in 1999,
and at the ‘Group of Eight’ (G8) major economies meeting in Genoa in 2001. Each of
these demonstrations attracted many tens of thousands of protestors from around the
world, campaigning across a huge range of issues, from ecological protection to the
need to replace capitalism with a more humane economic system. This movement was
associated with the World Social Forum (WSF), an alternative to the World Economic
Forum (WEF), which was seen as a key global governance institution bringing the
global economic and political elite together in Davos, Switzerland each year to discuss
the future of the global economy. The WSF has instead met each year from 2001 in
the ‘Global South’ (see p. 464), initially in Porto Alegre, Brazil, and brings together
activists concerned with achieving ‘global social justice’ for workers, marginalized
and minoritized groups, indigenous peoples, and the natural environment. As the
movement developed in the 2000s and 2010s it became more closely associated with
‘alter-globalizations’ – recognizing that globalization may be both inevitable and a
force for good, but emphasizing that the US-led, corporate, culturally homogenizing,
and violently militaristic model of globalization, associated with undemocratic and
unaccountable elites and their global governance institutions, is the ‘wrong’ kind of
globalization. This broadly left-wing anti-globalization movement instead advocates a
more open global immigration regime, or even an end to national borders altogether,
more global cooperation to slow or reverse climate change and environmental
degradation, and global cross-racial and working-class solidarities. After the onset of
the 2008 global financial crisis, a series of related global movements and demonstrations
emerged to contest the targeting of the crisis’s costs at vulnerable populations in the
form of ‘austerity’ policies, often mirroring or overlapping the left-wing anti/alter-
globalization movement. These included the anti-austerity ‘Indignados’ movement
in Spain, the ‘Occupy’ movements, beginning with Occupy Wall Street, in 2011 and
spreading to cities around the world, and the rise of leftist anti-austerity parties such
as Syriza, which was elected to government in Greece in 2015. Between 2015 and
 INTRODUCING GLOBAL POLITICS 13

2020, left-wing veterans of the anti/alter-globalization and anti-austerity movements, 1

including the US Senator Bernie Sanders and the British MP Jeremy Corbyn, became
‘mainstream’ political leaders in their respective national legislatures, although both
ultimately failed in their ambitions to be elected to government.

Right-Wing Anti-globalization
The right-wing anti-globalization movement emerged as a relatively coherent, though
less united and coordinated, global network much more recently. While the idea of
transnational nationalist solidarity might appear contradictory or oxymoronic, given
the investment of nationalist groups in ‘their’ respective national identities, and their
hostility to foreigners, the situation is not so simple. In fact, historically speaking,
nationalists have been at least as oriented towards transnational organizing and
solidarity as liberal and left-wing global actors – think of the alliances and collaborations
between Germany, Italy, and Spain when those three countries were under fascist rule,
for example, and of the ‘Axis’ powers’ alliance in the Second World War (see p. 42).
In the 2010s, parallel to the anti/alter-globalization left’s anti-austerity movement,
there emerged an increasingly widespread and successful transnational right-wing
movement, which argued against globalization and especially against ‘globalism’ (see
p. 14). These consisted of local, national, and regional-level movements in Europe
and North America, including organizations and political parties such as the UK
Independence Party (UKIP) in Britain, Alternatif fur Deutshland (AfD) in Germany,
Generazione Identitaria (Generation Idenity) in Italy, and the movement around the
presidential candidacy of Donald Trump in the United States. Outside of the ‘West’
(see p. 33), similar movements emerged around the political leadership of Narendra
Modi in India and Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil. While, like those involved in left-wing anti-
globalization movements, these global political actors differ over the details of precise
political goals and methods, they are united by the claims that ‘their’ people have lost out
in various ways through globalization and liberal, globalist policy, and by their advocacy
of racially or ‘ethnically’ defined concepts of national identity. Their politics at both the
national and the global level tends to centre on the demonization of the political left,
and of racialized, gendered, and sexual minorities, and especially on opposition to
‘mass’ immigration. If the first wave of left-wing anti-globalization politics was enabled
by the dawn of the internet – a technology so shrewdly exploited by the Zapatistas
and other parts of the anti-capitalist left – then the more right-wing turn against
globalization could not have happened without social media. The transformative effects
of social media, as internet content began to be created by individual users rather than
predominantly by big businesses, were so dramatic that the term ‘Web 2.0’ was coined
to describe the new social media model. Political organizing and political argument in
general became core features of social media, with platforms such as Twitter becoming
especially politicized. While both left and right organize and propagandize through
social media, the transnational anti-globalization right was really born through these
platforms, which allowed disparate and distant right-wing activists to communicate and
organize around the shared views discussed above, across their otherwise very different
national and local contexts.
 14 GLOBAL POLITICS

Globalism: The GLOBALISM, WORLDING AND WORLDISM:

belief – most closely
associated with liberal IMAGINING GLOBAL POLITICS
thought (see p. 83) – A popular slogan associated with the first wave of anti-globalization movements was ‘think
that globalization is an
global, act local’. This emphasized the need for people to be conscious of globalization (and
inevitable and benevolent
force in the world, what its critics view as the exploitation and inequality it perpetuates and extends), but to
modernizing, developing, direct their anti-globalization activism at their local contexts. Apart from the comparatively
and ultimately integrating straightforward case for studying the global as a ‘domain’ of politics, on the grounds that the
the world’s many national, regional, and international domains no longer capture everything that constitutes
societies.
‘the political’, there is a wider question around what it means to ‘think global’. It is now widely
argued that one of the key drivers of globalization and the emergence of ‘the global’ as a
political space is imagination. This does not mean that global politics are not ‘real’, but rather
that the increased focus on the global is the result of an imaginative shift in societies across
the world, from the level of our own local and national contexts – the things that matter to
us at a relatively ‘micro’ level – to more ‘macro’-level imaginaries.
Studying global politics is, in this sense, first of all about ‘thinking international relations
differently’ (Tickner and Blaney 2012), moving away from the traditional focus on interstate
relations. Isaac Kamola (2019) argues that the process of ‘making the world global’, which
consists first of all in the social construction (see p. 120) of a ‘global imaginary’, is closely
linked to the rise of neoliberalism (see p. 143) in the 1980s and 1990s. The rise of ‘the
global’, on this view, results from the increasing influence of multinational corporations,
university business schools, international financial institutions, and politicians advocating
market-driven politics, all of whom pushed a ‘globalist’ way of seeing the political that
was attached to their particular vision of the global economy.
RE
FIG U

L. H. M. LING (1955–2018)
L. H. M. (Lily) Ling became a highly influential scholar of
postcolonial international relations theory (see p. 99) in the
early twenty-first century. Ling’s work challenged many of the
dominant, ‘traditional’ understandings of global politics in the
West, including what she called ‘Westphalia world’ – the view that
the world consists of a lot of territorially bounded states of various
sizes and capabilities interacting with one another under conditions
of anarchy. Importantly, whereas this vision of global politics was
rooted in exclusively Western sources, from Thucydides and
Thomas Hobbes to Immanuel Kant, Ling’s ‘worldist’ alternative
drew also upon Chinese sources, including Daoist philosophical
texts and dialectical reasoning. Ling was also a feminist scholar,
contributing to ‘non-Western’ feminist thinking on international
An extract from the Hereford ‘Mappa Mundi’
relations. In a 2015 interview Ling said: ‘I am a product of both (1280 CE), one of the first renderings of a
East and West. Growing up in this hybrid space has allowed me European ‘global imaginary’. The map included
to see the possibilities and drawbacks of both traditions; […] to places roughly equivalent to Europe, Asia, and
syncretize the best of both worlds, thereby leaving behind the North Africa, but not the Americas, which
worst of each.’ Her key works include Postcolonial International Europeans were yet to have any contact with at
Relations: Conquest and Desire between Asia and the West this point
(2002), Transforming World Politics: From Empire to Multiple Source: Universal History Archive/Getty Images
Worlds (2009, with Anna M. Agathangelou), The Dao of World
Politics (2014), and Imagining World Politics (2014).
 INTRODUCING GLOBAL POLITICS 15

To think globally when we think about politics is to imagine the world as a world, rather Worlding: The process by 1
than simply as a set of states interacting in a system (see the ‘billiard ball’ model, p. 4). But which different societies
construct their imaginaries
this imaginative shift is not necessarily a ‘natural’, neutral, or inevitable process, simply
of the world, including
reflecting the emergence of the global as a ‘new’ space or domain of politics, and our how they envisage its
need to understand and explain it. Thinking globally is rather about adopting a particular structure and constituent
world view or ‘ontology’ (see p. 67) of social relations – including politics – and one that, parts, such as which are
as much as any other perspective on the social, is rooted in our own more local contexts. the key global actors and
processes.
One of the big questions that this chapter will return to is the extent to which it is possible
to truly ‘think globally’, given the profoundly different cultural and social contexts that Worldism: A theory of
exist in the world, into which we are all born and by which we are all conditioned and ‘multiple worlds’ – the
differing global visions that
constrained to think in particular, rather than universal, ways. For example, it has been have emerged from the
pointed out that in major Western studies of globalization, and ‘globalist’ theories, Africa different local, national,
either does not feature at all or, where it is discussed, is ‘almost always as a problem’ and regional processes of
(Kamola 2012: 183). The Western globalist imaginary therefore tends to deny African worlding.
people agency and significance in the making of the global world.
We must recognize that the ‘global imaginary’ might be very different for, say, Chinese
and American people, or Europeans and Africans, while there will also likely be
significant divergence over the meaning of the global within those national and regional
groupings. In recent years ‘postcolonial’ (see p. 99) thinkers have proposed alternate
paradigms to the ‘globalist’ vision, which is itself closely associated with a Western – and
especially North American – imaginary of the world. The concept of ‘worlding’ has
been used to describe the ways in which different societies imagine global politics, while
L. H. M. Ling (1955–2018) uses the term ‘worldism’, or ‘the theory of Multiple Worlds’,
to describe the existence of a plurality of visions of the world, among which Western
globalism is but one (Ling 2014a). Particular people and societies often seek to impose a
universal global imaginary on the world, based on their local, national, and/or regional
experiences, including their more ‘internal’ and spiritual life and imagination. Ling
offers an alternative to Western models, rooted in the Chinese philosophical traditions
of Daoism, along with the Chinese intellectual traditions bequeathed by the philosopher
Confucius (551–479 BCE) and the strategist Sun Tzu (544–496 BCE). She shows that
through these different lenses the nature and behaviour of people, societies, the earth,
and thus also ‘the global’, can be seen very differently than they are through the Western
paradigm. Among other things, this alternate vision of the global does not necessitate
viewing the ‘rise of China’ in world order as the intrinsic ‘threat’ it has been represented
as by Western, liberal, globalist rhetoric.

LENSES ON GLOBAL POLITICS

Making sense of global politics also requires that we understand the theories, values,
and assumptions through which world affairs have been interpreted. How do different
analysts and theorists see the world? What are the key ‘lenses’ on global politics? The
theoretical dimension of the study of global politics has become an increasingly rich and
diverse arena in recent decades. The substantive ideas of the growing range of theoretical
traditions are examined in Chapters 3 and 4. This introduction, nevertheless, attempts
to map out broad areas of debate among the traditions, in particular by distinguishing
between ‘traditional’ perspectives and ‘critical’ perspectives.
 16 GLOBAL POLITICS

Positivism: The theory TRADITIONAL PERSPECTIVES

that social and indeed all
forms of enquiry should The two ‘traditional’ perspectives on global politics are realism and liberalism. What do
conform to the methods they have in common, and in what sense are they ‘traditional’? Realism and liberalism
of the natural sciences can be viewed as mainstream perspectives in the sense that they, in their various
(see p. 68). incarnations, have dominated conventional academic approaches within the discipline
or field of ‘international relations’ (IR) theory. They are also ‘traditional’ in the sense
attributed to ‘traditional theory’ by Max Horkheimer (see p. 98), offering explanations
and predictions about global politics that tend to reproduce or ‘explain away’ the status
quo of existing world order. Realist and liberal theories have two broad things in common.
In the first place, they are both – in their contemporary forms – grounded in positivism.
This suggests that it is possible to develop objective knowledge, through the capacity to
distinguish ‘facts’ from ‘values’. In short, it is possible to compare theories with the ‘real
world’, the world ‘out there’. Robert Cox (1981) thus describes such theories as ‘problem-
solving theories’, in that they take the world ‘as it is’ and endeavour to think through
problems and offer prudent advice to policymakers trying to negotiate the challenges of
the ‘real world’. (These issues are discussed in greater detail in Chapter 4.) Second, realist
and liberal theorists share similar concerns and address similar issues, meaning that they,
in effect, talk to, rather than past, one another. In particular, the core concern of both
realism and liberalism is the balance between conflict and cooperation in state relations.
Although realists generally place greater emphasis on conflict, while liberals highlight
the scope for cooperation, neither is unmindful of the issues raised by the other, as is
evidenced in the tendency, over time, for differences between realism and liberalism
to have become blurred (see ‘Closing the Realist/Liberal Divide?’ p. 86). Nevertheless,
important differences can be identified between the realist and liberal perspectives.
RE
FIG U

THOMAS HOBBES (1588–1679)

English political philosopher. Hobbes was the son of a minor clergyman who subsequently
abandoned his family. Writing at a time of uncertainty and civil strife, precipitated by the
English Revolution, Hobbes theorized human nature, and explored its social and political
implications, chiefly in his great work, Leviathan (1651). Here Hobbes extrapolated from
his philosophical belief – influenced by his French contemporary and interlocutor, the
philosopher René Descartes (1596–1650) – that human beings are fundamentally wired
to avoid pain and to seek out pleasure. Hobbes argued that this motivates people to
accumulate power, which enables the avoidance of painful experiences and the proliferation
of pleasant ones. Human nature is thus the seeking of ‘power after power’, and life in what
Hobbes called the ‘state of nature’ would be violently selfish, ‘nasty, brutish and short’. For
this reason, the sovereign power of the state and government are required to protect us Source: Hulton Archive/
from ourselves and one another. Handout/Getty Images

Power politics: An
approach to politics How do realists see global politics? Deriving from ideas that can be traced back to
based on the assumption thinkers such as Thucydides, Sun Tzu (author of The Art of War), Machiavelli (see p. 74),
that the pursuit of
and Thomas Hobbes, the realist vision is pessimistic: international politics is marked by
power is the principal
human goal; the term constant power struggles and conflict, and a wide range of obstacles standing in the way
is sometimes used of peaceful cooperation. Realism is grounded in an emphasis on power politics, based
descriptively. on the following assumptions:
 INTRODUCING GLOBAL POLITICS 17

z Human nature is characterized by selfishness and greed. Internationalism: 1

The theory or practice
z Politics is a domain of human activity structured by power and coercion. of politics based on
cooperation or harmony
z States are the key global actors. among nations,
z States pursue self-interest and survival, prioritizing security above all else. as opposed to the
transcendence of national
z States operate in a context of anarchy, and thus rely on self-help. politics.

z Global order is structured by the distribution of power (capabilities) among states.

z The balance of power is the principal means of ensuring stability and avoiding war.
z Ethical considerations are (and should be) irrelevant to the conduct of foreign policy.
By contrast, how do liberals see global politics? Liberalism offers a more optimistic
vision of global politics, based, ultimately, on a belief in human rationality and moral
goodness (even though liberals also accept that people are essentially self-interested and
competitive). Liberals tend to believe that the principle of balance or harmony operates
in all forms of social interaction. As far as world politics is concerned, this is reflected
in a general commitment to internationalism, as reflected in Immanuel Kant’s belief in
the possibility of ‘universal and perpetual peace’. The liberal model of global politics is
based on the following key assumptions:
z Human beings are rational and moral creatures.
z History is a progressive process, characterized by a growing prospect of international
cooperation and peace.
z Mixed-actor models of global politics are more realistic than state-centric ones.
z Trade and economic interdependence make war less likely.
z International law helps to promote order and fosters rule-governed behaviour among
states.
z Democracy is inherently peaceful, particularly in reducing the likelihood of war
between democratic states.
RE
FIG U

IMMANUEL KANT (1724–1804)

German philosopher. Kant spent his entire life in Königsberg (which was then in East Prussia),
becoming professor of logic and metaphysics at the University of Königsberg in 1770. His
‘critical’ philosophy holds that knowledge is not merely an aggregate of sense impressions;
it depends on the ‘a priori’ conceptual apparatus of human understanding, which precedes
our experiences. Kant’s political thought was shaped by the central importance of morality
and is closely associated with ‘Enlightenment’ thinking and ‘universalist’ claims about our
rights and obligations. That said, despite his arguments for the ‘cosmopolitanism’ (global
citizenship) of political communities, Kant is now viewed also as a variety of ‘scientific
racist’ for writings in which he sought to intellectually establish the cultural superiority of
white Europeans over Asians and Africans. Kant’s most influential works include Critique
of Pure Reason (1781), Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose (1784),
Groundwork for a Metaphysics of Morals (1785), and To Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Source: Culture Club/Getty
Sketch (1795). Images
18 GLOBAL POLITICS

CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES
Since the late 1980s, the range of critical approaches to world affairs has expanded
considerably. Until that point, Marxism had constituted the principal alternative to
mainstream realist and liberal theories. What made the Marxist approach distinctive
was that it placed its emphasis not on patterns of conflict and cooperation between states
but on structures of economic power and the role played in world affairs by international
capital. It thus brought international political economy, sometimes seen as a subfield
within IR (see p. 139), into focus. However, hastened by the end of the Cold War, a wide
range of ‘new voices’ started to influence the study of world politics, notable examples
including social constructivism, critical theory, post-structuralism, postcolonialism,
feminism, and green politics. What do these new critical voices have in common, and in
what sense are they ‘critical’? In view of their diverse philosophical underpinnings and
contrasting political viewpoints, it is tempting to argue that the only thing that unites
these ‘new voices’ is a shared antipathy towards traditional thinking. However, two broad
similarities can be identified. The first is that, albeit in different ways and to different
degrees, they have tried to go beyond the positivism of traditional theory, emphasizing
instead the role of consciousness in shaping social conduct and, therefore, world affairs.
These so-called post-positivist theories are therefore ‘critical’ in that they not only take
issue with the conclusions of traditional theory but also subject these theories themselves
to critical scrutiny, exposing biases that operate within them and examining their
implications. The second similarity is linked to the first: critical perspectives are ‘critical’
in that, in their different ways, they oppose the dominant forces and interests in modern
world affairs, and so contest the global status quo by (usually) aligning themselves with
marginalized or oppressed groups. Each of them, thus, seeks to uncover inequalities and
asymmetries that traditional theories tend to ignore.
However, the inequalities and asymmetries to which critical theorists have drawn
attention are many and various:
z Postcolonial thinkers have highlighted the historical centrality of colonialism to
producing our present world order, and the ways in which its intellectual legacies
– including racism, as a system of both structural inequality and belief or ideology –
continue to shape global politics today.
z Feminists have drawn attention to systematic and pervasive structures of gender
inequality that characterize global and, indeed, all other forms of politics. In particular,
they have highlighted the extent to which mainstream, and especially realist, theories
are based on ‘masculinist’ assumptions about rivalry, competition, and inevitable
conflict.
z Marxists (who encompass a range of traditions and tendencies that in fact straddle the
positivist/post-positivist divide) highlight inequalities in the global capitalist system,
through which developed countries or areas, sometimes operating through TNCs
or linked to ‘hegemonic’ powers such as the United States, dominate and exploit
working-class populations overseas just as they do at home.
z Post-structuralists emphasize that all ideas and concepts are expressed in language
that itself is enmeshed in complex relations of power. Influenced particularly by the
 INTRODUCING GLOBAL POLITICS 19

writings of Michel Foucault, post-structuralists have drawn attention to the link 1

between power and knowledge using the concept of ‘discourse’.
z Constructivists have thrown traditional theory’s claim to objectivity into question, in
arguing that people, in effect, ‘construct’ the world in which they live, suggesting that
the world operates through a kind of ‘inter-subjective’ awareness. Constructivism is
not so much a substantive theory as an analytical tool.
z A range of new critical theoretical approaches have emerged in the early twenty-
first century, drawing on insights from ‘green’ or ecological theory, and sociological
theories focused on the ‘materiality’ of social practices, the relationship between
‘actors’ and ‘networks’ in global politics, and the role of ‘necropolitics’ – the politics of
death – in the epoch known as the ‘Anthropocene’.

RE
FIG U

MICHEL FOUCAULT (1926–84)

French philosopher and radical intellectual. Foucault was initially a member of the French
Communist Party (PCF) and remained a lifelong political activist, though his academic work
turned away from Marxism and towards what came to be called ‘post-structuralism’. His
books and popular public lectures, which ranged over the histories of madness, of medicine,
of punishment, of sexuality, and of knowledge itself, proceeded on the basis that ‘universal’
truths about such subjects do not exist, and that instead we should understand these fields
as ‘discourses’: structured ways of representing the world and interacting in it. This suggests
that power relations can largely be disclosed by examining the structure of knowledge, since
‘“Truth” is […] produced and transmitted under the control, dominant if not exclusive, of a
few great political and economic apparatuses’ (Foucault [1972] 1984: 73). Foucault’s most
important works include The Order of Things (1966) and The Archaeology of Knowledge
(1969). Source: Bettmann/Getty Images
20

APPROACHES TO. . .

REALIST VIEW
Realists are state-centric thinkers. They are sceptical about globalization in general, and about the notion that it
reduces the power and significance of states as global political actors in particular. Following the outbreak of the
global Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic in early 2020, one of the most prominent American realists, Stephen
Walt, suggested that the virus showed that ‘the high water mark of contemporary globalization is now behind
us’ (Walt 2020). Drawing on the classical realist source, Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War, which
describes the effects of a lethal plague on the international relations of Athens with its neighbouring city states,
Walt argues that the more recent pandemic ‘reminds us that states are still the main actors in global politics’
(Thucydides 1963). Realists also suggest that the pandemic crisis will likely contribute, in the longer term, to
what they see as the decline of the trends others have labelled ‘globalization’, and that a consequence of the
pandemic will be, in Walt’s (2020) words: ‘borders between states will become a bit higher’.

LIBERAL VIEW
Liberals, who generally embrace globalization as a real and necessary process that they believe will lead
to greater security and stability in the world, were frustrated by state responses to the global coronavirus
pandemic but hopeful for a solution through global governance. For liberals, institutions such as the World
Health Organization are central to the ‘liberal world order’ and were designed precisely to provide the
necessary governance to guide societies through crises like this. Alleged state secrecy around the scale of
risk the pandemic posed, first in China and then elsewhere, was, on the liberal view, the enemy of effective
solutions. More open, democratic, global cooperation is the only means to solve collective action problems
(see p. 7) like a pandemic, from the liberal perspective. As the virus spread in 2020, the influential American
‘neoliberal institutionalist’ (see p. 88) Joseph Nye (2020) argued that:
On transnational threats like COVID-19 and climate change, it is not enough to think of American
power over other nations. The key to success is also learning the importance of power with others. Every
country puts its national interest first; the important question is how broadly or narrowly this interest is
defined. COVID-19 shows we are failing to adjust our strategy to this new world.

POSTCOLONIAL VIEW
From a postcolonial perspective, the global pandemic threw into even sharper relief the structural inequalities
that globalization has failed to resolve, or has even exacerbated. Like the global financial crisis that struck thirteen
years earlier, the societies that were positioned to be highly vulnerable were those with weaker economies and
infrastructure. These societies, largely located in the ‘Global South’ (see p. 464) are, for the most part, countries
that were once subjected to European colonialism (see p. 31), a major cause of their relative economic and
infrastructural problems. As it transpired, powerful ‘Global North’ countries with major economies also suffered
greatly, with Italy, the United States, and the UK seeing among the very highest proportions of deaths from
the virus in the world. But postcolonial analysis would point to the internal dynamics within these states, where
– especially in the United States and UK – official statistics showed that those racialized as minorities were far
more likely to die from the virus than the white majority. Postcolonial thinkers such as Gurminder Bhambra
 21

THE 2020 GLOBAL

CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC
noted that disproportionate deaths among people racialized as minorities in the West correlated to their over-
representation in frontline health and care work – among national working classes – itself a colonial legacy.

MARXIST VIEW
For Marxists, the pandemic is another crisis of capitalism, and one that starkly highlights the structural
violence done in the name of capitalist ‘globalization’. The American Marxist historian Mike Davis published
a book fifteen years prior to the global pandemic, warning that global pharmaceutical corporations neglect
vaccine research as ‘unprofitable’, while the rise of factory farming and ‘megaslums’ provide fertile conditions
for a new global plague. Capitalism is an economic system driven by the profit motive alone and, in the
Marxist view, has something of a track record in degrading, endangering, and extinguishing human life in the
pursuit of profit. In 2020, Davis suggested that: ‘This new age of plagues, like previous pandemic epochs,
is directly the result of economic globalization’ (Davis 2020), since it was the global interconnectedness
necessitated by capitalist markets, industry, and trade that spread the virus.

CONSTRUCTIVIST AND POST-STRUCTURALIST VIEWS

From both constructivist and post-structuralist perspectives, the global pandemic is of interest in the way
that it is interpreted and acted upon by states and non-state actors in global politics. The dominant ‘symbolic
order’ of global politics has tended to prioritize military forms of security as the ultimate concern of such
actors, depicting issues like terrorism as the most significant threats. For example, Dan Stevens and Nick
Vaughan-Williams (2020) noted that while the UK’s National Security Strategy had listed pandemics as a
key threat since at least 2010, this perception was not shared by the public, and in any case no equivalent
funding or infrastructure was forthcoming to deal with pandemics to that surrounding the ‘war on terror’
(see p. 303). ‘Discourses’ on the pandemic (see p. 116), meanwhile, have been ‘securitised’, with politicians
and media outlets depicting the virus as an ‘invisible enemy’, and the global response as a ‘war’ or ‘battle’,
underlining the post-structuralist emphasis on language as the medium of politics.

FEMINIST VIEW
For feminists, the pandemic highlighted, first of all, the fact that a ‘human security’ lens, rather than narrowly
state-centric approaches to security, is necessitated by globalization. Feminist theorists of global politics
have long pointed out that patriarchal violence, including domestic abuse, is quantifiably a much greater
security threat to women than, say, terrorism. The pandemic intensified such violence, with a global surge in
reports of domestic abuse as women and girls were ‘locked down’ at home with abusive partners and families.
Feminists concerned with gender and sexuality also expressed concern at the impact of the pandemic on
transgender people. Some places, such as Panama City, operated gendered lockdown policies, where men
and women were allowed outside at separate times, and transgender people were subject to harassment
 22

and abuse. In other countries, for instance Kenya and the United States, transgender people suffered as
hormone treatments and gender reassignment surgeries were deprioritized in favour of pandemic-related
health care. From a feminist perspective, this sort of reprioritization is a result of patriarchy (see p. 107)
and prevailing ‘heteronormative’ values, in which women’s, girls’, and LGBTQIA (lesbian, gay, bisexual,
transgender, queer, intersex, and asexual) people’s needs are systematically accorded less significance than
‘cishet’ (cisgendered – i.e. of the gender assigned at birth – and heterosexual) men. Black feminist thinkers,
meanwhile, including Kimberlé Crenshaw (see p. 111), highlighted the intersectional nature of racialized and
gendered experiences of the global pandemic.

World order: The

perceived hierarchy of
CONTINUITY AND CHANGE IN GLOBAL
states in the world, which
varies according to when, POLITICS
where, and whom the
‘orderer’ is, and tends While global politics is an ever-shifting field, it is also characterized by certain key
to relate to perceived continuities. Dramatic, globally significant events of recent decades, from the fall of the
economic, political, Berlin Wall (see p. 54) and 9/11 (see p. 23) to the 2020 global coronavirus pandemic, can
cultural, and military power.
change the course of national foreign policies, and the domestic political and economic
Security: In a global fortunes of states. These events may reshape international organizations and the
political system where institutions of global governance, and even the fabric of societies themselves. But certain
states remain among the
key themes remain relevant to any analysis of global politics. World order persists as a
most important actors,
security – the condition fundamental goal or principle informing much global political activity. Indeed, Cedric
states are supposed to J. Robinson (1980) identifies the ‘myth of order’ as the defining feature of the Western
be able to provide for notion of the political, and ideas about ‘world order’ continue to shape much of the
citizens – looms large theory and practice of global politics today. The related concept of security, and its
in politics and policy,
obverse – insecurity – looms large over debates on international relations in a global
while insecurity arguably
remains a pervasive political age, just as it did before the concept of globalization emerged. Similarly long-
feature. standing concerns about social justice, and concomitant concerns with rights, equality,
Justice: Any analysis and inequalities, remain equally pertinent in a global era. And above all power – arguably
of global politics the essence of politics itself – in all of its locations and distributions, is at stake in all
reveals differences and discussions of global politics, including those on order, security, and justice.
inequalities within and
between societies, and
this leads on to questions
of fairness and justice.
Alter-globalisation
movements (see p. 12),
for instance, fight for
‘global social justice’.
Power: Can be conceived
of in several ways,
including the ability to
make others do what we
want done, the ability to
set political agendas and
define what is seen to be
possible, or as productive
‘empowerment’ –
becoming able to speak
and act for oneself.
 23

GLOBAL POLITICS IN ACTION . . .

9/11 and Global (In) Security
Events: On the morning of 11 September 2001, a
coordinated series of terrorist attacks were launched
against the United States using four hijacked passenger
jet airliners (the events subsequently became known as
‘9/11’). Two airliners crashed into the Twin Towers of the
World Trade Center in New York, leading to the collapse
first of the North Tower and then the South Tower. The
third airliner crashed into the Pentagon, the headquarters
of the US Department of Defence in Arlington, Virginia,
just outside Washington DC. The fourth airliner, believed
to be heading towards either the White House or the US
Capitol, both in Washington DC, crashed in a field near
Shanksville, Pennsylvania, apparently following passenger
action to stop the attack. There were no survivors from any Shortly before their collapse, smoke billows from
of the flights. A total of 2,995 people were killed in these the World Trade Center’s ‘Twin Towers’ in New York
attacks, mainly in New York City. In a videotape released in City, which were struck by two hijacked airliners on 11
October 2001, responsibility for the attacks was claimed September 2001
by Osama bin Laden, head of the al-Qaeda organization, Source: Robert Giroux/Getty Images
who praised his followers as the ‘vanguards of Islam’.
However, rather than marking the beginning of a new
Significance: 9/11 has sometimes been described as ‘the
era in global security, 9/11 may have indicated more
day the world changed’. This certainly applied in terms of
a return to ‘business as normal’. In particular, the
its consequences, notably the unfolding ‘war on terror’
advent of a globalized world appeared to underline
and the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, and their
the vital importance of ‘national’ security, rather than
ramifications. It also marked a dramatic shift in global
‘international’ or ‘global’ security. The emergence of
security, signalling the end of a period during which
new security challenges, and especially transnational
globalization and the cessation of superpower rivalry
terrorism, re-emphasized the core role of the state
appeared to have been associated with a diminishing
in protecting its citizens from external attack. Instead
propensity for international conflict. Globalization
of becoming progressively less important, 9/11 gave
appeared to have ushered in new security threats and
the state a renewed significance. The United States,
new forms of conflict. For example, 9/11 demonstrated
for example, responded to 9/11 by undertaking a
how fragile national borders had become in a
substantial build-up of state power, both at home
technological age. If the world’s greatest power could
(through strengthened ‘homeland security’) and
be dealt such a devastating blow to its largest city and
abroad (through increased military spending and the
its national capital, what chance did other states have?
invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq). A unilateralist
Further, the ‘external’ threat in this case came not from
tendency also became more pronounced in its foreign
another state but from a terrorist organization, and one,
policy, as the United States became, for a period at
moreover, that operated more as a global network than
least, less concerned about working with or through
a nationally based organization. The motivations behind
international organizations of various kinds. Other
the attacks were also not conventional ones. Instead
states affected by terrorism have also exhibited similar
of seeking to conquer territory or acquire control over
tendencies, marking a renewed emphasis on national
resources, the 9/11 attacks were carried out in the name
security sometimes at the expense of considerations
of a religiously inspired ideology, and revenge for US
such as civil liberties and political freedom. In other
foreign policy outside the West, and aimed at exerting
words, 9/11 may demonstrate that state-based power
a symbolic, even psychic, blow against the cultural,
politics is alive and kicking.
political, and ideological domination of the West.
24 GLOBAL POLITICS

While there have been many dramatic events and changes in the first decades of the
twenty-first century, from 9/11 to the global coronavirus pandemic, struggles for power,
security, world order, and justice remain the key forces behind global politics. How can
we theorize, explain, and understand global politics? How does the global economy
work, and for whom does it work best? What roles can states and non-state actors
play in a globalized world? Is war a permanent feature of international relations? How
important are international organizations to world order? And how are social structures
and identities of gender and ‘race’ at stake in global politics? These questions, which
continue to animate global politics, are all about power, security, world order, and justice.
And they are just some of the key questions explored throughout the remainder of this
book.
 INTRODUCING GLOBAL POLITICS 25

1
USING THIS BOOK
Global politics is, by its nature, an overlapping and interlocking field. The material
encountered in this book stubbornly resists compartmentalization, which is why,
throughout, there is regular cross-referencing to related discussions that occur in other
chapters and particularly to relevant boxed material found elsewhere. Nevertheless,
the book develops by considering what can be thought of as a series of broad issues or
themes.
The first group of chapters is designed to provide background understanding for the
study of global politics:
z This chapter has examined the nature of global politics and considered the
developments that make a global politics approach to world affairs appropriate, as
well as providing an introduction to contrasting mainstream and critical perspectives
on global politics.
z Chapter 2 examines the historical context of modern global politics, particularly by
looking at key developments in world history during the twentieth and twenty-first
centuries.
z Chapter 3 outlines key ‘traditional’ theoretical approaches to global politics. These
influential accounts remain central to many commonplace concepts we use when we
talk about the international and the global today, from anarchy and security to conflict
and cooperation.
z Chapter 4 introduces a set of ‘critical’ theories of global politics. These popular and
increasingly ‘mainstream’ approaches challenge the traditional theories and practices
of global politics and invite us to consider our own positions as theorists and analysts
embedded in the social and political practices we study.
The next group of chapters discusses the various transformations that have occurred,
and are occurring, as a result of the globalization of world politics:
z Chapter 5 discusses the nature, extent, and implications of economic globalization
and considers, amongst other things, the crisis tendencies within modern global
capitalism.
z Chapter 6 examines the role and significance of the state in a global age, as well as the
nature of foreign policy and how foreign policy decisions are made.
z Chapter 7 considers the social implications of globalization and whether or not it is
possible to talk of an emergent global civil society.
z Chapter 8 examines the ways in which nations and nationalisms have been shaped
and reshaped in a global world, including the ways in which nationalism has been
both weakened and strengthened.
z Chapter 9 examines the significance of identity culture to politics in a global age.
The following group of chapters considers the broad themes of global order and
conflict:
26 GLOBAL POLITICS

z Chapter 10 looks at the nature of global power and the changing shape of twenty-
first-century world order, as well as at the implications of such changes for peace and
stability.
z Chapter 11 examines how and why wars occur, the changing nature of warfare, and
how, and how successfully, war has been justified.
z Chapter 12 considers the nature and implications of weapons of mass destruction and
their impact on global politics past and present.
z Chapter 13 discusses the nature of terrorism, the various debates that have sprung up
about its significance, and the strategies that have been used to counter it.
The next group of chapters focuses on various issues to do with the theme of global
justice:
z Chapter 14 considers the nature and significance of international human rights,
how, and how effectively, they have been protected, and debates about humanitarian
intervention and its implications.
z Chapter 15 addresses the issue of international law, in particular examining the
changing nature and significance of international law in the modern period.
z Chapter 16 considers the issues of global poverty and inequality and also looks at
development and the politics of international aid.
z Chapter 17 focuses on global environmental issues and examines the challenge of
climate change in depth.
z Chapter 18 discusses feminist approaches to global politics and how gender
perspectives have changed thinking about war, security, and other matters.
The following group of chapters considers attempts to address global or transnational
issues through the construction of intergovernmental or supranational institutions:
z Chapter 19 examines the nature and growth of international organizations and looks
in particular at the role and effectiveness of the United Nations.
z Chapter 20 discusses the idea of global governance and examines its development in
the economic sphere through the evolution of the Bretton Woods system.
z Chapter 21 focuses on the causes and significance of regionalism, focusing especially
on the nature and significance of the European Union.
z The final chapter, Chapter 22, provides a conclusion to the book by considering some
of the possible futures of global politics, through a range of different lenses.
 INTRODUCING GLOBAL POLITICS 27

1
SUMMARY
y Global politics is based on a comprehensive approach to world affairs that takes account of
political developments not just at a global level but also at and, crucially, across, all levels
– global, regional, national, subnational, and so on. In that sense, ‘the global’ and ‘the
international’ complement one another and should not be seen as rival or incompatible modes
of understanding.
y ‘International’ politics has been transformed into ‘global’ politics through a variety of
developments. New actors have emerged from the world stage alongside states and national
governments. Levels of interconnectedness and interdependence in world politics have
increased, albeit unevenly. And international anarchy has been modified by the emergence of
a framework of regional and global governance.
y Globalization is the emergence of a complex web of interconnectedness that means that our
lives are increasingly shaped by events that occur, and decisions that are made, at a great
distance from us. Distinctions are commonly drawn between economic globalization, cultural
globalization, and political globalization. However, there are significant debates about whether
globalization is actually happening and how far it has transformed world politics.
y The two traditional perspectives on global politics are realism and liberalism; these are both
grounded in positivism and focus on the balance between conflict and cooperation in state
relations, even though they offer quite different accounts of this balance. Critical perspectives,
by contrast, tend to adopt a post-positivist approach to theory and contest the global status
quo by aligning themselves with the interests of marginalized or oppressed groups.
y Global politics is an ever-shifting field, with, if anything, the pace of change accelerating over
time. Debates have emerged about the changing nature of power and the shifting configuration
of global power, about whether national security has been displaced by international, global,
or even human security, and about the extent to which justice now has to be considered in
cosmopolitan or global terms.

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

y How does ‘global’ politics differ from ‘international’ y Has the impact and significance of globalization been
politics? exaggerated?
y In what ways is the international dimension of politics y What are the key differences between traditional and
still important? critical approaches to global politics?
y To what extent have non-state actors come to rival y Over what do realist and liberal theorists disagree?
states and national governments on the world stage? y To what extent has global power become more diffuse
y Does interdependence always lead to cooperation and and intangible in recent years?
peace, or can it generate conflict? y Why has there been growing interest in the notion of
y Which definition of globalization is most persuasive, and ‘human’ security?
why? y Does the idea of ‘global’ justice make sense?
FURTHER READING
Brown, C. and K. Ainley, Understanding International Relations Kamola, I., Making the World Global: U.S. Universities and the
(2009). A highly readable and thought-provoking Production of the Global Imaginary (2019). A critical
introduction to the theory and practice of international analysis of how the idea of ‘the global’ rose to such
relations. prominence in the social sciences.
Held, D. and A. McGrew, Globalization/Anti-globalization: Ling, L. H. M., The Dao of World Politics: Towards a Post-
Beyond the Great Divide (2007). A comprehensive Westphalian, Worldist International Relations (2014a).
and authoritative survey of contemporary political and A path-breaking reimagining of global politics from a
intellectual debates over globalization. non-Western perspective.

 inks to relevant web resources can be found on the Global Politics website:
L
[Link]/heywood-global-politics-3e