What Was the Connection Between Globalisation And the 'Third Wave of Democracy' - Essay Example

Order 142019 Topic: what was the connection between globalization and the third wave of democracy? This paper seeks to analyse and discuss the connection between globalisation and the third wave of democracy First, let us define globalization and third wave of democracy. We define globalization as a world phenomenon where transactions by nations are done across the globe, where multinational enterprises exist and where each country can freely trade each other as result of the GATT (Wikipedia, 2006) and international arrangements (Eichengreen,1994). Samuel Huntington has called "the third wave of democratization in the Modern era" as a phenomenon where some authoritarian governments turned democratic starting in the1970’s according to Simensen, J. (n.d.). The author explained, “In his scheme of periodization, the first wave started with the revolutions in the Americas in the early nineteenth century and culminated with the establishment of the new democracies at the end of World War I. The second wave is represented by the Allied victory in 1945 and the subsequent decolonization process in the Third World.” Simensen, J. (n.d.). continued, “Both waves, however, were followed by reverse movements toward authoritarianism. The third wave began with the fall of the dictatorships in Spain and Portugal in 1975-76 and culminated in the years immediately after 1989. On the face of it, the extent of this wave is impressive: the number of democratic countries--we will return to definitions--rose from 78 to 138, and the percentage of democracies out of the total number of countries rose from 44% to 72%. However, the notion of a "third wave" needs to be broken up. The process of democratization differed in rhythm and chronology. In Latin America, several countries had experienced a pendulum change between forms of democracy and authoritarianism ever since independence in the nineteenth century and the "third wave" there had already begun in the first half of the 1980s, influenced inter alia by the events in Spain and Portugal. In Asia as well, the pressure for democratic reform as, as we have seen, apparent before 1989, stimulated by specific local conditions.” (Simensen, n.d.). Now can we say that one is promoting or restricting the other? The increase in the number of democratic countries from 78 to 138 would seem to confirm that globalization increases the number the democratic countries, but how would we reconcile with the second wave of democracy were democratic institutions returned to authoritarian rule? An article by Beliaev (n.d.) said that globalization threatens democracy. His thesis is based on the following arguments. What are the arguments of the author? Beliaev (n.d) said the two main arguments supporting the thesis that economic globalization threatens democracy are present in the literature: 1) Globalization erodes the ability of nation-states to exercise the effective control over the political agenda; 2) Globalization eliminates the social correctives to the market economy. This loosening of the social safety net together with the on-going restructuring of the economic system (frequently labeled as “New Economy”) increase social inequality: the rich richer and the poor poorer. A result of these developments is the threat to the very social foundations of contemporary democracies. Beliaev (n.d) inferred that modern democracy seems to be in the squeeze between the external pressure and unfavourable internal shifts in the domestic social structures. In explaining external pressure, Beliaev (n.d) discussed that the impact of globalization on modern democracies is usually debated under the name “crisis of the state”: “Globalization increases the potential mobility of financial capital, real investments, goods and services, and to a more limited extent, highly skilled labour. He argued that consequently, mobile economic actors are better able to avoid undesirable state regulations, or to profit from ones that are more advantageous. Thus, he said that “to the extent that countries depend on these actors, or on the resources they control, they are forced into a competition for locational advantage that has all the characteristics of a Prisoner’s Dilemma game, and that reduces the capacity of the territorial state to shape the conditions under which capitalist economies must operate” citing Scharpf (1998). What Beliaev (n.d) saw as widespread vision is that globalization has directly challenged the ability of states to govern autonomously, even in the domain of domestic policy? He believed that states are losing their control over: * financial flows and transnational organization of production, due to the huge worldwide electronic money transfers, growing significance of off-shore zones, increasing ability of transnational corporations decide upon organization of production across national borders; * information flows, because of the rise of satellite communications, computer data transmissions, international mass-media, which cover ever larger parts of the world. The author saw the lack of the ability to control information flows which has an increasing importance in the ostensible information age. He argued that in the 20th century, the means of mass communication (cheap newspapers, radio translators, TV-sets, computers) became more and more ubiquitous and the control over the centers transmitting this information became an effective tool of manipulating the public opinion. With the growth of international mass-media and consequent decline in governmental ability to control information being delivered to almost every house is therefore not only apparently challenging for authoritarian regimes, but it also created some risks for a democracy since the latter can hardly guarantee access of different social groups to leading mass-media (Paraphrasing made). However, the author paradoxically saw that these two trends may have different effects on democratic and authoritarian political regimes. He explained that increased information flows challenge autocracies and, perhaps, was a cause of the major democratization wave in the late twentieth century and that at the same time, financial flows and transnational organization of production may jeopardize democratic governance at the national level. As how is this possible, Beliaev explained that because the financial autonomy and ability to modify systems of taxation according to recognized social needs has been considered as a fundamental property of a modern sovereign state, the relative release of financial flows from direct national regulation is expected to undermine the authority of nation-states. What he found is that, in the case of contemporary democratic regimes, these developments are likely to weaken one of their basic pillars, namely, the social safety net. Thus, the author correctly stated that globalization is expected to challenge the basic principle of democratic governance, the authority of representative institutions to establish the rules of wealth re-distribution in a country (Beliaev, n.d ) (Paraphrasing made). In explaining the internal shift, the Beliaev said, “As the above analysis indicates, the neoliberal theory is questionable, but even if it had accurately predicted that the effects of governmental policy and economic openness and liberalization are prerequisites for growth, there is no actual threat for democratic decision-making. Political decisions were always supposed to be made in the frame of rational choice. Democratic governance never meant that the public should be inconsiderate of economic realities. On the contrary, the development of representative democracy is a system of checks and balances aimed at binding the popular vote by reasons of economic rationality and the preservation of human rights. The goal of unlimited democratic sovereignty was never pursued in modern democracies after the Jacobin period of the French revolution. Even if the neoliberal theory were true, this would not mean that democracy should be replaced by a “technocratic government” of economic experts.” In so pursuing his theory, the author said, old contradictions have always been there. He thus said, “The issue presently confronting democracy is not the narrowing of the democratically controlled political agenda, but the new urgency of the old contradictions between economic rationality and other democratic values: equality and solidarity. These contradictions encompass the whole history of democratic development in capitalist society, and contemporary urgency over the problem is not caused by the (envisaged) reduction of opportunities for the democratic regulation of economic affairs, but rather by the complication of the political agenda; while the latter is a result of globalization processes.” What could be learned from the conclusions of the author? Beliaev concluded that the linkage between economic globalization and erosion of the democratic nation-state is more political than economic in nature, thus he saw the problem is not the negative effects of the increasing influence of financial market players, but the structural crisis of deliberative democracy caused by: 1) Inadequacy of the traditional representative institutions in managing the complication of policy tasks brought about by globalization; 2) erosion of the linkage between representative institutions and represented social groups due to the shifts in social structure as well as the structural weakness of the institutions themselves; 3) Neoliberal ideological reaction to globalization, whose assumptions are often used by the political elite for the legitimization of its functional failure. To conclude, the relations between them is complex, hence one could not be taken lightly hence it could not simply be said the globalization promotes democracy. As we have seen globalization could restrict nations dream for autonomy (Lipson, 1995) as democratic institutions. This must not be surprising as what could be observed of democracies returning to authoritarianism. What then is the relation between the two is governing by old contradictions between economics and politics. Since they politics and economics belong to different fields, so are globalization and democratization. These could not just be put together as one to influencing the other without really conducting further studies References: Beliaev, M. (n.d ) Democracy and Globalization: Sources of Discontent, Department of Cultural Studies, Saratov State University, Russia, {www document} URL http://globalization.icaap.org/content/v3.1/04_beliaev.html, Accessed November 27,2006 Eichengreen, B. (1994) International Monetary Arrangements for the 21st Century, Brookings Institution Foreign Exchange Lipson, M. (1995) Autonomy and Democracy ,Yale Law Journal, Vol. 104 Scharpf, F.W. (1998). Globalization: The Limitations on State Capacity, in: Schweizerische Zeitschrift fuer Politikwissenschaft, 1998, vol. 4, issue 2. http://www.ib.ethz.ch/spsr/debates/debat_global/art-2-1.html. Simensen, J. (n.d.) , Democracy and Globalization: Nineteen Eighty-nine and the "Third Wave", {www document} URL http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/APCITY/UNPAN017600.pdf, Accessed November 27,2006 Wikipedia, (2006) General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, {www document} http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GATT , Accessed November 27,2006 Read More