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British Journal of Politics and International Relations, Vol. 5, No. 3, August 2003, pp. 455466

De-globalisation or further globalisation?

LUCIANA MELCHERT SAGUAS PRESAS

Books reviewed Drabek, Z. (ed) (2001) Globalisation under Threat: The Stability of Trade Policy and Multilateral Agreements. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, xiii + 235 pp., ISBN 1-84064-658-6 Hardt, M. and Negri, A. (2000) Empire. London: Harvard University Press, xvii + 478 pp., ISBN 0-674-25121-0 (cloth) 0-674-00671-2 (pbk.) Mol, A. P. J. (2001) Globalization and Environmental Reform: The Ecological Modernization of the Global Economy. London: MIT Press, x + 273 pp., ISBN 0-262-13395-4 As a new century begins, few topics have been as polemical as those related to the globalisation of the economy and its repercussions for all governance elds, particularly with regards to the Third World. Proponents have explained that economic globalisation and its variantssuch as those concerning neo-liberalismmake national companies more competitive, reduce the price of products and create jobs, thereby praising globalisation for providing Third-World countries with the opportunity to develop economically and eventually enforce democracy and human rights. On the other hand, and contradicting a wealth of statistics that point at a positive correlation between global economic exchanges and local economic
Political Studies Association 2003. Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA

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prosperity (i.e. those related to macroeconomic stabilisation, increases in national GDP levels, and so forth), the gap between rich and poor nations has more than doubled during the past 40 years. According to the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), in 1997 the 20 per cent of the worlds population living in the wealthiest countries received 74 times as much income as the 80 per cent in the poorest countries. This ratio was 60 to 1 in the 1990s, against 30 to 1 in the 1960s. Promises of better economic and social conditions worldwide, as well as the global spread of democratic principles remain illusory in the face of continuous unemployment, unfair labour practices, a north-south wage gap and diminishing environmental standards in the Third World. If not the cause of it, the globalisation of economic exchanges remains up to now far from being the panacea for making the world more homogeneous and fair. In this context, summits of international monetary, trade, and environmental organisations, which in the past incited little or no protest, are now drawing the attention of thousands of political campaigners. These activists, which can be perceived as a new left (or a neo-Marxist alternative after the fall of communism) do in fact object to the corporate power of multinationals (the real players of the globalised economy), and protest against the full support these receive from multilateral institutions (the major rulers of the game)such as the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the World Bank (WB), and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Although referred to as anti-globalists, sometimes in negative ways, these movements do not contest globalisation as a project for increasing the interconnectedness of people and goods over space and time per se, in view of the enormous opportunities that such interconnectedness may provide for the enhancement of the worlds recurrent problems, e.g. famine, poverty, abuse, repression and war. As explained by Canadian Naomi Klein, a leading activist and author of two books on the subject (Klein 2000 and 2002), their argument is simply that neo-liberal policies, including corporate investment and global trade, which were seen as a solution for relieving poverty and misery, have too often permitted governments to encourage and protect lucrative investments by neglecting the violations of rights against their own people and environment. Moreover, such policies have many times led to a decline in the national sovereignty for deciding over local developmental issues. She concludes that at the heart of this convergence of anticorporate activism ... is the recognition that corporations are much more than purveyors of the products we all want; they are also the most powerful political forces of our time (Klein 2000, 339). Against this backdrop, major multilateral institutions, including the UN, 456
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have become the backbone for the establishment, the monitoring, as well as the rendering of judgement on global exchange practices, enjoying more power than any elected government. If we look at the literature on the subject, academic works highlighting the contradictions of economic liberalisation are not as new as one might think. As early as the 1940s, Karl Polanyis The Great Transformation (1944) elaborated on the social externalities of a globalising market economy resulting from migratory pressures and related social discrimination, the shift in social values with the creation of social spectacles, and nally the loss of autonomy of institutional structures in view of market forces. More recent authors have provided interesting updates of Polanyis analysis. These include Robert B. Reich, who focuses on the dangers posed by globalisation to Americas sense of community in The Work of Nations (Reich 1991). One should also mention the work of Saskia Sassen, who speculates about the declining sovereignty of nation states in the contemporary global system and the inequities generated by the worldwide overmobility of people and money in volumes such as Losing Control? Sovereignty in an Age of Globalisation and Globalisation and its Discontents (Sassen 1996 and 1998). Other authors such as David Harvey, Arjun Appadurai, and Fredric Jameson have also added important contributions in the eld. But probably few publications, to date, have discussed this topic so passionately as Michael Hardt and Antonio Negris Empire. This volume is an outspoken neo-Marxist review of the current world, which scrutinises the global economy in a great deal of detail in view of its political foundations and intervention mechanisms as well as its local consequences. It argues that sovereignty itself has not declined, as other authors may suggest, but has rather taken a new shape. In essence, globalisation is composed of a series of national and supranational organisms united under a single logic of rule, something that they call Empire (p. xii). The authors claim that there is not a single power or a centre of an imperial project (such as the United States, due to its position in the worlds new political geography) that undermines the sovereignty of other nations. According to them there is instead an interconnection of national and supranational powers that exerts a new form of sovereignty, which acts on behalf of and articulates the cold logic of capitalist prot (p. i). Unlike the imperialistic age centred on Europe, Empire is now a decentred and deterritorialised apparatus of rule (p. xii) that succeeds in expanding its frontiers, operating in the name of democracy and human rights. By quoting Foucault, the authors explain that one of Empires main assets is a regime of
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biopoweri.e. a form of power that controls and manipulates the intrinsic nature of social life (such as the beliefs and choices of individuals, through the media, marketing mechanisms, and even by checking private life through credit card bills or Internet preferences). With it, Empire brings new producers into the system, strengthening and enlarging itself. In this context, and while the three-world division dissipatesas one nds the First World expanding in the Third and vice versaso too does our ability to evade this Empire that is slowly but surely materialising before our very eyes (p. i). The volume is divided into four densely written parts. In the rst one, readers will nd an overall elaboration of the general conditions under which Empire is being institutionalised around the globe. Here the authors explain the physical as well as the juridical constitution of the new world order. Hardt and Negri devote considerable space to the role of the United Nations, arguing that, despite supporting the sovereignty of individual states, its legitimation is only effective insofar as these individual states transfer their sovereign right to a supranational organisation. The authors demonstrate that this represents a major change from traditional international law, dened by conventional contracts and treaties, to a new supranational world authority with totalitarian powers. One of the concepts that has thereby been ratied is the one of bellum justum, i.e. the right to intervene through military actions in societies that might put at risk the order of Empire. Therefore, as Hardt and Negri alert us, the rst task of Empire ... is to enlarge the realm of the consensuses that support its own power (p. 15), but in a context in which supranational law powerfully overdetermines domestic law (p. 17). In the second and third parts of the book, Hardt and Negri are meticulous in their historical description of the fall of imperialism and Eurocentrism and the rise of a decentralised Empire, which is analysed against the background of the transformation of modernity (as a European project) to post-modernity (as an American project). In this description, the authors demonstrate how power has no longer a localisable centre, as it had previously in Europe, but is now distributed in (economic) networks that effectively supersede the traditional systems of rule around the world. In support of their arguments, Hardt and Negri rst provide an historical overview of the issue of sovereignty (Part 2), starting with a description of how European nations built their political autonomy, developed their national identities, and engaged in their imperialistic projects. This review goes on to analyse how European imperialism and Eurocentrism came to an end after the Second World War, and how a new imperial regime 458
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ascended, making room for the emergence of a new type of sovereignty the one of Empire. Although this new form of sovereignty was indeed triggered by the United States, Hardt and Negri make it clear that Empire is more than just an American project, to the extent that it is also exercised by the different economic elites of the world. Carrying on with this argument, Part 3 explores the capitalist production processes that are at the core of Empire. Hardt and Negri refer to the analyses of Marx and Luxemburg as a way of explaining the origins of these economic processes, as well as the structural weakness of capitalism (that is, its need for expansion to survive leading not only to the decline of non-capitalist societies, but ultimately also to its self-destruction once the earth is nite). The essence of their argument here is that, insofar as colonisation and centralist mechanisms of power and production dissipated after the Second World War, a new system of decentralised production and government has in turn been imposed through Empire ever since, according to the Fordist discipline. In this process, the Third World elite, which was an inuential force behind anti-colonial struggles, should in fact be seen as a prime ally in the construction of Empire, allowing the institutionalisation of new domestic structures of domination equally severe when compared with former imperialistic ones. The authors nally give an account of the development of digitisation processes and the consolidation of transnational corporations in contributing to the continuity of capitalism in the past decades which, in turn, were also major steps in reinforcing the rule of Empire. All in all, and despite inciting much criticism, the volume adopts a statist line of reasoning, where the authors attempt to demonstrate how the state has been defeated and corporations now rule the earth (p. 306). To support their arguments they propose a hierarchical pyramid to describe the current world order, with the US and the UN at the top, transnational corporations at the centre, and civil society organisations such as NGOs at the bottom. They nally suggest that this pyramid is enforced by the three major imperial commands: the bomb (thermonuclear weapons and their concentration limiting the sovereignty of most countries), the money (the construction of a world market that has become the global reach of absolute control), and the ether (the structuring, management, and regulation of communication and education systems, which eventually dene culture) (p. 346). The volume also elaborates a conclusive part, The Decline and Fall of Empire, in which it sketches how the multitude should ght against Empire. Although this conclusive part is somewhat disappointing for the reader in
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terms of dening a concrete political programme against Empire, the general message is that globalisation mechanisms should be put to work for the benetnot againsthumankind. The authors claim that although Empire as it currently exists is something bad, it may pave the way for something better. But in my opinion, questions that should perhaps be raised are: how will the multitude in fact awaken to ght against the detrimental effects of Empire? To what extent can individuals indeed ght against biopower and revert it for their own benet? The answers are of course far from evident, but perhaps an indicator that things may change is manifesting these days with millions of peace campaigners, supported by a number of nation states, ghting against the illegitimate claim for bellum justum against Iraq. Let us see if the ne-tuning of the current world order as put forward by Hardt and Negri will materialise before anti-Empire sentiments lead to the severe disruption of the international system. But in any case there is little doubt that this book deals with important issues and provides a broad and multidisciplinary reference source of the worlds globalised order. It is thus one of the most essential readings on the topic of globalisation, whose arguments, despite massive criticisms, are hard to ignore. In response to the arguments put forward by Empire, Zdenek Drabek, a high-level adviser to the World Trade Organisation, edited the volume Globalisation under Threat: The Stability of Trade Policy and Multilateral Agreements, that gathers articles by major academics and economists, mostly connected to multilateral organisations. Focusing on international trade and multilateral agreements, the book aims to respond to the criticisms levelled at the WTO and resulting in trade policy reversals or backslidings, i.e. those related to labour interests, environmental groups, anti-competitive practices, and (poor) macroeconomics policy conduct. The essence of Globalisation under Threat, in this regard, is that there are many intricate linkages between multilateral trade and macroeconomic strategies, environmental policies, competitive practices, and, to a more limited extent, specic labour interests, which altogether may enhance the ability of countries to improve their economic performance and upgrade social standards. The threats against international trade practices, which have led to questions about the role of the WTO, stem from strands both inside and out of the current system of WTO agreements. External threats comprise those referring to issues that in principle do not pertain to existing trade agreements nor constitute the agenda of the WTO and its working groups (such as those related to labour, culture, and human rights). Internal threats are those demanding reforms in topics already included in the current framework of trade agreements, namely macro460
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economic strategies, environmental interests, and competition policies. To describe such threats, Globalisation under Threat contains four themes, which altogether constitute key reading for economists. One of these regards the potential of macroeconomic policies for provoking trade policy reversals. The authors Howard Shatz and David Tarr (pp. 4374) elaborate in particular on the relationship between xed exchange rate systems and trade policy reversals. They show how xed exchange rate systems do often result in an overvaluation of the real exchange rate, whereas governments involved in defending the exchange rate create protectionist trade policies that may go against the long-term interests of the economy. The chapter describes a number of case studies (spanning from Chile to Kazakhstan), although it somehow fails to provide a full picture of what the real benets of global trade and exible exchange rate regimes are, particularly for less privileged people within these countries. Following more or less the same line of reasoning, Piritta Sorsa (pp. 7597) analyses the effects of import surcharges in transitional economies. She argues that import surcharges in transitional economies, although improving the current account balance in the short term, may result in uncertain long-run economic implications. In the second theme explored in the booktrade and labourArvind Panagariya (pp. 101123) explores the contested issue of the harmonisation of labour standards. While the United States (supported by other developed countries) defend the creation of a working group on labour standards within the WTO, countries such as Brazil, Egypt, India and Malaysia (supported by a few developed countries, including Australia, Great Britain, Germany and Switzerland) do not. In reality, the arguments put forward by the Americans revolve around the fact that lower labour standards in developing countries give them an unfair comparative advantage through lower production costs. In his account, the author evaluates the appropriateness of pursuing labour standards within the WTO system, also in view of more specic organisations such as the International Labour Organisation (ILO). Max Corden and Neil Vousden (pp. 124143) take this argument further and analyse the implications of lowering social dumping practices (i.e. the practices of less developed countries to export products that are produced in poor working conditions) in less privileged countries. They argue that antisocial dumping measures, advocated above all by the United States and western Europe, may follow three paths: (1) stricter labour standards conditions in trade agreements; (2) boycotts by civil society; and (3) pressures on multinationals to raise wages, improve working conditions, and encourage trade unions in Least Developed
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Countries (LDCs). With the aid of a theoretical model, the authors elaborate on the net implications for LDCs if employment conditions in concerned industries indeed improve. Their conclusions are nevertheless disappointing. They argue that by raising employment conditions in LDCssuch as through better salaries, and establishing minimum age, better working schedules, installations, and the likethe consequences are a reduction in employment rates, with its obvious detrimental effects for society. The third theme of the book comprises the relationship between trade, environment and competition. The chapter on competition is provided by Edward Graham (pp. 172199), who reects on the linkages between liberal trade and competition policy and on the implications of not harmonising competition standards for the WTO system. He suggests that anti-competitive practicessuch as mergers, cartels, price discrimination and so forthaffect not only prots but also market access, thereby hampering global trade and WTO objectives. Concerning environmental policies, Scott Vaughan (pp. 147171) presents arguments for and against the harmonisation of environmental policies in view of global trade practices, given that the WTO in fact encourages the harmonisation of international environmental standards. He asserts however that while uniform trade rules are applied in the same manner across countries, environmental policies rarely can be, reecting an obvious point that economic markets are not synonymous with diverse ecosystems (pp. 154155). He concludes that pressures by civil society to further reform WTO agreements on environmental standards may create situations of conict among different parties, not to mention a decrease in the quality of the different approaches required to deal with environmental issues according to the different ecosystems or environmental priorities. In short the homogenisation of environmental standards for the sake of global trade is to a large extent undesirable, insofar as different ecosystems require the use of different local environmental standards. Globalisation under Threat nishes with a conclusion on multilateral agreements, which is the fourth theme of the book. It suggests that multilateral agreementsi.e. the harmonisation of trade standards within the WTO systemcan be very helpful in creating positive conditions for enhancing equity in trade businesses and some space is devoted to discussing the case of the EU. That said, it should be noted that complete success should only be achieved once the controversial and politically sensitive divergences regarding the harmonisation of labour, environment and competition standards are overcome. Seen from this perspective, 462
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Globalisation under Threat is a useful book for clarifying the role opportunities, constraints, and also limitationsof the WTO system in promoting a fairer trade environment, especially for those involved with policy-making in the spheres of international trade. Without doubt, however, readers who would like to make a better judgement on the topics dealt with in Globalisation under Threat (as well as those contesting globalisation) should be encouraged also to consider other sources, which approach such topics individually. For those looking for insights into issues related to globalisation and the environmentand also for taking one step further from the good/bad dichotomya sound option is the book by the environmental sociologist Arthur Mol. In Globalization and Environmental Reform: The Ecological Modernization of the Global Economy, Mol speculates about the whole spectrum regarding the contents and discontents of global exchange processes and local environmental conditions. Globalization and Environmental Reform provides not only detailed and multi-perspective theoretical discussions, introducing the reader to various references and theoretical approaches, but it also presents signicant empirical research ndings, in which the author analyses environmental gains and hazards both in and out of Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) circles. The volume begins with a general discussion about concepts revolving around the relationship between globalisation and the environment. The purpose here is to provide a better understanding of the underlying reasons for the rise of anti-globalisation supporters in the eld of environmental issues. These discussions are followed by a detailed interpretation of different theories of globalisation (again in relation to their environmental implications), not only reviewing the continuist/discontinuist and homogenisation/heterogenisation dialectics, but also issues relating to global capitalism, the role of transnational corporations, cultural globalisation, and global governance as environmental reform vehicles. A strong element in Globalization and Environmental Reform is the reference to the theory of ecological modernisation of production and consumption. This theory, which focuses on a reinvention of environmental policy (by shifting from command-and-control regulations to more market-based approaches), has so far largely focused on the European Union. With this book, Mol extends its explanatory potential by applying it to the global level. The books main hypothesis is that although processes of modernisation and globalisation have often disrupted the (global) environment, they can also be put to work for the improvement of the (global) environmental conditions. Mol thereby provides a broad theoretical dis Political Studies Association 2003.

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cussion about the three main historical phases of the environmental discourseso as to bring the reader to an understanding of the current global change phase, centred on concepts such as high consequence risks and global environmental issues, as well as the role of ecological modernisation theory in leading to environmental reforms. Mol is convinced that, as a dominant descriptive and normative environmental policy model, at least as far as the national level of European countries is concerned, ecological modernisation can also provide important contributions for speculating about global environmental reform issues. Before approaching its empirical content, Globalization and Environmental Reform explores the relationship between globalisation and environmental degradation. One chapter investigates the interpretations of globalisation as a process that contributes to the decreasing possibilities of environmental management, thus leading to the dangers of an environmental apocalypse. A second chapter reects on how globalisation mechanisms may also be put to work for environmental reform at large, analysing the role of transnational corporations, multilateral institutions, political innovations and global civil society movements in bringing about such a development. Following these theoretical reections, the volume focuses on three empirical cases, where the author analyses environmental reform in several economic regions. The rst one concentrates on the Triad (namely Europe, North America, and Japan/East and South-East Asia), the major region of economic globalisation, and on the global institutions that are closely connected to it (such as EU, NAFTA, ASEAN, and APEC). With this case, Mol provides more insights into how globalisation processes connect with processes of environmental degradation in this region and detects types of innovations that are currently in place to curb environmental drawbacks. The second case study revolves around the environmental consequences of globalisation for non-Triad regions, by discussing the role of the WTO, the framework of the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI), and the diverse Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs) on issues concerning pollution relocation or the creation of pollution halos in less developed countries. The third empirical case deals with three specic countries which the author uses to demonstrate how environmental reform is being conceptualised and effectively conducted in different state-economy combinations in view of globalisation forces: Vietnam (a newly industrialising economy), the Netherlands Antilles (an example of a small island development state with an open economy), and Kenya (an African state with an economic regime barely integrated into the global economy). 464
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Globalization and Environmental Reform concludes with a discussion centred on how an ecological modernisation heuristic is developing in the age of globalisation, and suggests that generalising concepts such as global environmental governance are inadequate for dealing with the specicity of each country or economic region as far as environmental restructuring issues are concerned. The volume nally puts forward the view that analysing and dening regional variations of ecological modernisationi.e. how far the commonalities of ecological modernisation reach, where the specics of the regional variation start, and how the two change in time (p. 225)would be a promising course for better grasping how environmental innovations could be deployed in different state-economy contexts under globalisation. In this sense, Globalization and Environmental Reform is a particularly important contribution, not only for adding theoretical insights into how globalisation is or may be connected to environmental disruption/reform, but also for providing empirical evidence conrming how it is in fact positively correlated to environmental issues. Together with Globalisation under Threat and Empire, all three books certainly help to further our critical understanding of globalisation, despite the fact that opinions revolving around this topic are often so emotional that providing arguments to persuade both the sceptical and the convinced researcher still remains a difcult task. As a nal remark, these three volumes seem to suggest that the authors converge on the idea that a de-globalisation of the world is no longer possible, and (if it was) it would probably be inadequate as a strategy for solving the recurrent problems of the planet. If globalisation is here to stay, in my opinion further research should focus on two connected issues. First, more attention needs to be paid to the normative question of how, and to what extent, it is possible to promote a ne-tuning of globalisation so that it benets different societies and different social classes, in both First and Third Worlds. In particular, consideration should be given to the role of the United Nations and whether it is possible to strengthen a more impartial transnational code of ethics. A second, fruitful line of research should concentrate on enhancing our knowledge ofand subsequently put more pressure onpolicy-making decisions of multilateral institutions, particularly the WTO. One aim here is not only to better dene the economical, social, environmental and political opportunities/constraints of globalisation, but also to explore how the disadvantages of Third World countries in the global economy can be managed with more fairness.
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Bibliography
Klein, N. (2000) No Logo (New York: Harper Collins). Klein, N. (2002) Fences and Windows: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Globalization Debate (New York: Picador). Polanyi, K. (1944) The Great Transformation (New York: Rinehart and Co.). Reich, R. (1991) The Work of Nations: Preparing Ourselves for the 21st Century Capitalism (New York: Knopf). Sassen, S. (1996) Losing Control? Sovereignty in an Age of Globalization (New York: Columbia University Press).

Luciana Melchert Saguas Presas Wageningen University and Research Centre Department of Social Sciences Environmental Policy Group Bode 175 Postbus 8130 6700 EW Wageningen The Netherlands Email: Luciana.melchert@wur.nl

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