Community Development and Globalization - Essay Example

Community Development and Globalization 2008 Introduction Although globalization has existed since colonial times, through trade relations between nations, present day globalization has been enabled through modern technology and international trade. The main agent of globalization has been the multinational corporations in the private sector where companies, fueled by the bottom line, expand globally in search of new markets, low cost labor and a fewer restrictions on production. Globalization is seen in much of the world as a double edged sword. There are positive elements of globalization that benefit stakeholders; investing companies can tap new markets and achieve low production costs while host countries can increase employment and investment capital. In this way benefits are said to trickle down into the various communities. Yet, the disadvantages of globalization can have a profound impact, distorting labor and financial markets in host countries and causing undesirable changes in traditional communities (Serano 2005). The negative aspects of globalization appear to overpower the positive. Globalization, as argued by Serrano (2005) can result in adverse effects like world poverty, a greater divide between rich and poor countries, increased inequities of income within economies, discontent leading to conflict, international crime, loss of biodiversity, global warming and loss of community values. Community development, which aims to improve communities, often works in opposition of globalization by frequently adopting a bottom up approach. Community development in this sense is based on the perception of meeting the requirements of individuals who belong to a certain geographical space and have common interests and therefore, functionally, require common physical and human services (Fulcher, 1989). The above taken into consideration, this paper aims to discuss the positive and negative elements of globalization that have affected self-determination in community development. Conceptualizations of Community Prior to 1910 the concept of 'community' rarely appeared in the literature, the first identifiable social definition was constructed by C. J. Galpin in 1915. It related to rural communities in terms of the trade and service areas surrounding a central village (Harper and Dunham 1959 cited in Smith 2002). As a result various definitions of community followed, focusing on concepts of geographical area, groups of people in a particular location and sharing interests. According to Frazer cited in Smith (2002) community can be conceptualized as a value incorporating a number of elements, such as, trust, commitment, solidarity, mutuality and fraternity. Community can also be approached as a descriptive category or as a set of variables, however, in reality the two are interconnected and cannot be separated (Frazer 2000 cited in Smith 2002). This is exemplified in the concepts of communities of place (Barnett and Cavanagh, 1994, cited in Serrano, 2005) and communities of interest (Fulcher, 1989) sharing common defining characteristics. For example there can be an academic community or a Muslim community in which identity is the crucial social relationship. In this sense, communities are not limited geographical boundaries. The increase of international exchange brought on by globalization has given rise to specific social communities in most multi-cultural countries. For example, Chinese communities in Toronto or Indian communities in Sydney are both "communities of place" and "communities of interest" (Serrano, 2005). The broader term, "community of interest", has also undergone various changes with the evolution of globalization. Originally based on the sharing of common identities, affinities, concerns and purposes, and a sense of belonging to a common economic, social and political environment, the concept now includes geography and interests as defining characteristics (Fulcher, 1989). Recently this conceptualization of community has developed to incorporate elective and intentional notions of identity and self within which new forms of community have sprung such as cyber communities (Hoggett 1997, Lee and Newby 1983 cited in Smith 2002). Political scientists, sociologists, social geographers and community development professionals all define "community" in various ways. The most basic definition has been; that which "consists of persons in social interaction within a geographic area and having one or more additional ties" (Hillery, 1955, quoted in Fulcher, 1989). Community development workers usually focus their concept of community on factors such as class position, geographical area, age, culture, gender, race, belief systems, ethnicity, disability, workplace and political and special interests(Kenny 2007). Community development, then, may be considered narrowly as development that provides social infrastructure for communities, or broadly as development of social capital that includes problem-solving for collective issues. Increasingly in today's world many of the common problems and issues in community development are related to issues surrounding globalization and the new world economic order. Globalization and Changing Concept of Communities Globalization entails free movement of capital, labor and production capacities across national boundaries. According to the Human Development Report 1999 (UNDP cited in Serrano, 2005), globalization refers to shrinking space and time and disappearing borders. Globalization also means increased trade and investments. While this is generally beneficial to businesses, it may not necessarily be so for the common man. Globalization is most typically based on free trade between countries and removal of tariff and non-tariff barriers which had earlier protected local industries in many nations, particularly the poorer ones. According to Stiglitz (2002) the discontent over globalization has been due to unfair practices and mismanagement which has not enabled all countries and stakeholders to reap the potential benefits of globalization to the same extent. Present day globalization which is essentially based on industry and services has wreaked havoc on many local communities, particularly the cultural aspects of rural and indigenous communities. Since America leads in the globalization process, the resultant 'global village' has become steeped in American culture and the consumerist way of life. The wealthy in developing countries have the same standards of living as those in developed countries while the poor in these countries become increasingly marginalized. Globalization has therefore resulted in an 'international consumer community', which in a sense is based on Fulcher's 'community of interest'. Communities now are based less on geographical locations than cultural identification and economic relationships (Serrano, 2005). Globalization has resulted in increased urbanization resulting in outflow from rural communities, which have gained little and are increasingly impacted by the process. This phenomenon is largely the result of accelerated trade flows in manufactured goods and a decrease in local agricultural goods trade, the latter having the potential to empower rural communities. At the same time, the disproportionate claims on food, energy, education, health facilities, communication, shelter and other civic facilities by urban communities have left rural communities in all countries by the wayside. Farming communities have been heavily affected in the globalization process, enduring high costs of land, seeds, water, farm machinery and capital without a commensurate rise in prices for their produce. Additionally the entry of multinational companies into commercial production and international retailing chains has further marginalized local farming communities (McKenzie, 2005). Thus, due to the fall out of globalization some communities are left with little in terms of traditional economies and find themselves increasingly in need of alternative livelihoods and hence development programs since much of their basic and familiar human based infrastructures have been affected. As stated by Sivanandan (2003, cited in Craig 2003) globalization of capitalism is what in essence happens through a movement of global capital and labor. It has been noted that globalization occurs mostly in economic relationships between rich and poor countries and less so between rich countries (Hirst and Thompson, 1999, cited in Craig 2003). While wealthy countries, through multilateral organizations like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, dictate structural adjustments in poor countries, such policies essentially entail free trade and markets with reduction of welfare programs in the latter. Structural adjustment measures are geared to provide access to new markets for multinational companies, almost all of which originate in the developed world. These companies typically pay little attention to the existing community values in the countries they enter (Craig, 2003). The main beneficiaries of globalization have been the multinationals, the rich economies and the richer sections of the population in the poorer nations who have partnered with or are employed by multinational corporations. The rest of the population, forming the bulk of local communities receive little or are adversely affected by the process. In areas such as Latin American and Asia with higher relative poverty, lower literacy and health indicators the negative impact of globalization is rapidly being felt, increasing the need for community development programs. However, structural adjustment programs imposed on some of these nations are biased towards supporting the private sector and funds for welfare programs are severely limited. The argument for the trickle down benefits of globalization is lost in the face of increasing disparity between the rich and poor in the developing world and sadly there are few voices heard in favor of a bottom-up approach to community development (Craig, 2003). Globalization results in new communities as a result of large-scale migration from developing to developed nations (Craig, 2003). The UN has acknowledged that globalization has "contributed to migration and the accompanying phenomenon of growing racism by weakening the ability of 'Southern' countries to; generate adequate employment, invest in basic infrastructure, support their own industries and allocate resources for health, education and social security" (UN Non-Governmental Liaison Service, 2002, quoted in Craig, 2003). Increased migration, for example from Africa to Europe, from eastern to western Europe, from the Middle East and Latin America to the United States has resulted in a number of host countries turning increasingly multi-cultural and elevating pressures on community development and social security programs as well as increasing racial tensions (Craig, 2003). The process of globalization then generates tension between communities not only between wealthy and impoverished countries but also within wealthy nations. In western developed nations there is a rift within the populations resulting in many political establishments opposing policies targeted for community development, focusing instead on an 'international community', which essentially is a disguise to western neo-liberal market-driven approaches effectively taking local community development programs and policies off the agenda (Serrano, 2005). Globalization and Community Development The concept of community development may be conservative or radical. Conservative community development approaches local issues and problems closest at hand while ignoring to a large extent the broader national issues. The radical approach to community development assumes citizen participation and inclusive decision-making rather than the bureaucratic administration that is prevalent at the national level in order to address issues of oppression or injustice to bring about social change (Ledwith and Campling, 2005). Radical community aims to bring about social justice by creating equal rights and opportunities and to eliminate poverty. The process of community development, therefore, begins with development of the community's confidence and mobilization for collective action. According to Ledwith and Campling (2005), the critical approach to community development is to expose the structures of common lives, how they are oppressed by the greater powers of the society and to engage in collective action to bring about change. However, the typical tendency of community development has been to keep it local, in the conservative approach, and to dissociate the theory of the aims of community development from what is practiced. What is then practiced is then mere tokenism. The process of globalization has resulted in a system of exploitation at a scale much larger than it ever was. Fisher and Ponniah (2003, p 28, quoted in Ledwith and Campling, 2005) defines globalization as "the market-organized and imposed expansion of production that emphasizes comparative advantage, free trade, export orientations, the social and spatial divisions of labor, and the absolute mobility of corporations". As a result of globalization, people all over the world as well as the environment become vulnerable to the dominance of a few, particularly the corporations. "Capitalism, imperialism, monoculturalism, patriarchy, white supremacism, and the domination of biodiversity have coalesced under the current form of globalization" (Fisher and Ponniah, 2003, quoted in Ledwith and Campling, 2005). There are a growing number of social and cultural problems associated with relative deprivation in industrialized countries, much of which emerge from globalization and marginalization of the poor from the global corporate structure. In the United Kingdom, where absolute poverty has been on the decline over the recent past, relative deprivation has increased because of growing inequalities, much of which is related to globalization and inward migration. The New Right Thinkers, like Charles Murray (1989) have argued that this is due to the existence of a new class of urban people - the 'New Rabble' or the 'underclass' - who are poor because they prefer to be dependent on welfare benefits. To Murray, many of the social ills of urban Britain, like drug abuse, family instability, crime and illiteracy, are all related to dependence on welfare schemes, which act as a deterrent towards work and perpetuate relative deprivation. On the other hand, the structuralist view is that most of Britain's urban poor are prevented from working either because there is not enough employment opportunities or because the labor market is distorted such that the poor are restricted to casual labor forms of employment (Cox, 2003). Thus Right and Left thinkers have diametrically opposing views on community development and welfare programs. While the Right wants marginalized urban poor to be empowered through employment, the Left views them as socially marginalized purely because of the existence of welfare and community development programs. In the latter view, empowerment of the marginalized poor is the main aim of radical community development (Ledwith and Campling, 2005). New Public Management (NPM) and Community Development While globalization essentially involves the private sector which has adopted policies and strategies to increase efficiency and reduce costs, since the 1980s, the public sectors of many countries have also focused towards similar policies by adopting the New Public Management (NPM) philosophy. NPM is oriented towards outcomes and efficiency through better management of public monies. It is achieved by introducing competition, to organizations in the public sector which is thought to enhance economic efficiency and promote leadership (Sanford 2000). As a result community development has undergone considerable changes in many advanced countries, including Australia (Miranda, 2005). The basic theme of the reform movement is based on greater decentralization and incorporation of market forces in the administration process that extends to the lowest levels, i.e. to the hierarchy of municipalities. The movement is rooted in the drive towards excellence in the face of globalization in the world political economy, following examples from the private sector. It has been noted that excellence in an organization could be achieved through decentralization of authority, de-layering of hierarchies and introducing a spirit of competition among workers and managers (Peters, 1992 cited in Robinson, 2003). The model, already in great favor in the private sector, was advocated for the public sector by Osborne and Gaebler (1992, cited in Robinson, 2003), who said that the government had to be 'catalytic' and 'steering rather than rowing' in an administration that empowered lower levels of the hierarchy such that federal employees could become more innovative in operational strategies. In the backdrop of the economic recession in the 1980s, the movement aimed to reduce costs and make the administration more efficient through a decentralized structure. However, critics of the movement fear the loss of control and accountability that decentralization would result in. Besides, such efficiency considerations are pegged on economic parameters rather than social welfare requirements because there is no differentiate between the contradictory roles of the two agents i.e. the government that is to provide social welfare and public goods and the marketplace. The result has been neglecting the government's social welfare role and instead focusing on establishing market mechanisms, separating buyers and sellers of goods and services, instituting agencies that function like business enterprises, decentralizing management authority, introducing performance-linked incentives, tenured civil services and contracting out customer-oriented services. According to the principle of market forces, citizens essentially assume the role of customers to the administrative services (Box et al, 2001). Benefits of globalization and NPM However, there have been some benefits arising out of NPM. For example, the Australian government administration has become less rigid and the management authority of the bureaucracy less hierarchical. Ebner (2004) finds that outsourcing of contracts has proliferated as a result of the New Public Management movement in countries ranging from New Zealand, Australia and Scandinavia as well as local governments in the United States. The private-styled work culture, according to Ebner (2004), has largely been motivated by the pressures of globalization and the imperative to reduce costs, just as outsourcing has been the savior in the private sphere. This has resulted in concerns over control and security in the public administration much more than it has in the private sector. Additionally community development workers see their roles in community development changing. In Australia, as a result of NPM, community development workers find their work closely associated with the private sector. The corporate culture imbued into the public sector and the fragmentation of the work profiles as a result of outsourcing of key activities of the administration make the workers insecure and demand financial guarantees that could be at par with the private sector (Miranda, 2005). Example of the effect of globalization on a community development project Perhaps the most serious victim of globalization has been the rural communities. In Australia, globalization has resulted in demographic challenges, which have had repercussions on community programs (McKenzie, 2005), particularly in the non-development areas. There have been changes in traditional industries, service deliveries, infrastructure and demographic patterns as well as changes in the cultural mix of the population and their leadership. Agricultural communities have faced significant depopulation, while coastal communities have seen a significant increase in population, creating pressures on housing, infrastructure and traditional cultural and social ties. Communities have coped or not with theses changes to varying degrees signifying an on going need to build social capital within communities, particularly those that are experiencing change due to globalization. However, with the essential focus of globalization on private business, building social capital tends to get a back seat on government agendas (McKenzie, 2005). The efforts of a bottom-up approach to local governance through self-help and self-governance of community development projects in Queensland are found to be less effective because of the neo-liberal approach in which less control and more responsibility is imposed on the local people. Thus, most community development projects that are mediated by the government, like the rural projects in Queensland, fail to empower the community because dominance of the government and the business interests remain overpowering (Herbert-Cheshire, 2000). Conclusion Community development hinges on the issues raised by communities defined by geographies as well as common identities and interests. Globalization has blurred the geographical barriers between communities and also given rise to new communities that result from movement of labor across national barriers. Community development programs, which so long addressed localized human infrastructure issues like health, education, family and so on, now have the additional burdens of dealing with stress related to multi-cultural identities, work-related issues and so on. Globalization, which essentially is free movement of labor and capital, the latter being the stronger force, has altered communities in both developing and the developed nations. In particular, since globalization has occurred due to the agenda of global capital and multinational corporations, communities in developing countries, particularly rural communities, find themselves marginalized in the process. Further, with globalization resulting in additional tension in the form of income inequalities, racial tensions, global warming and loss of bio and cultural diversity, already marginalized communities find themselves increasingly in need of community development programs and policies. This is particularly true in situations where lack of employment opportunities partly as a result of globalization, have induced increased migration towards rich countries, thereby developing multi-cultural communities and provoking racial tensions. However, globalization has resulted in an overpowering market-oriented ethos that has little place for community and welfare programs. Even local administrations, which have traditionally been in charge of community development, find themselves fund-starved for new programs. Further, the New Public Management programs in vogue in many countries including Australia, have adopted strategies for the public sector that are akin to those in the private sector. With greater outsourcing of activities to the private sector, community development workers feel insecure while the overarching emphasis on efficiency in the public sector has replaced the interests of communities in most countries. References Barnett, R and J Cavanagh, Global Dreams: Imperial Corporations and the New World Order, Simon and Schuster, 1994 Box, Richard C et al, New Public Management and Substantive Democracy, Public Administration Review. September/ October. Vol 61. 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