Understanding of Terms Globalization and Citizenship - Report Example

Running Head: Globalization and Citizenship Globalization and Citizenship [Institute’s Globalization and Citizenship Introduction In the last three decades, the social, political, & economic processes of globalization have been radically transforming the lives of people all around the world. Not only the production processes and nature of the labor market have confronted drastic alteration, but state policies, individual life styles, collective values, and social practices have undergone drastic changes. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the impact of contemporary globalization on the state and conventional citizenship ties. How the traditional concept of citizenship is loosing its significance in globalized world and giving rise to new forms of commitments will be under evaluation. For this purpose, an understanding of terms globalization & citizenship will be developed and the reasons for the crisis of citizenship identity in the global era will be explored. Globalization Globalization is an extensively prevailing notion with a substantial variety of perspectives and dimensions, depending on interests, subject areas, and scope. Globalization, for the purpose of this paper will be defined as a phenomenon that accelerates a number of processes, altering the nature of human interaction in different spheres including the economic, political, social, technological, and environmental. In addition, it is recognized as the process of integration of the world community into a common structure either economic or social (Erinosho, 2004). Hence, it can be said that globalization calls up a picture of a borderless world, majorly assisted by the junction of information and communication technologies. “Two essential characteristics appear, while conceptualizing globalization: the first is that the world is viewed as a single space, a whole and the second revolves around the concept of time-space reordering” (Naidoo, 2007). Featherstone (1996) believes that globalization “entails the sense that the world is one place that the globe has been compressed into a locality, that others are neighbors with whom we must necessarily interact, relate, and listen” (Rubenstein, 2004). Hence, beside global transportation and migration of people or greater than before transportation of labor across the globe, globalization entails some of the important socio-economic dimensions. Citizenship Since ancient Athens, theories of citizenship have been based on the idea of an autonomous polity (Klumeyer, 1996). Common association of a political body forms the foundation of most discussions of citizenship from Aristotle onwards. Since the Enlightenment, national sovereignty has been the theoretical basis of this freedom, and its subject, the modern state. In its classical form, the principle of sovereignty describes a world in which supreme power is exercised within a particular territorial unit (Camilleri J and Falk J, 1992). The traditional ideal of citizenship has been challenged seriously in the last three decades by the processes of neo-liberal globalization. The extension of market logic to ever-wider spheres of human activity has been reducing more and more varieties of social actions to the status of market exchange. The wide acceptance of individualistic ethics by the world’s societies has led to the corrosion of communitarian ties. The suspension of citizenship bonds and the loss of commitment and loyalty towards the state on the part of citizens have posed a severe threat to the survival of the social body. Globalization and Citizenship One of the major axes of discussion in the contemporary literature on globalization is the changing role of the state in the global era. While some scholars argue globalization has rendered the state obsolete and impotent (Ohmae, 1990), others assert that state is still a key factor in global relations though its structure has been transformed and its responsibilities have been redefined under the influence of globalization and international economic integration (Weiss, 1998). Beginning with 1973, but increasingly by the late 1970s, the economic globalization based on the hegemony of the market economy began pushing for neo-liberal monetary and financial policies on the national scale. The focus of macro-economic policies shifted from ensuring fairly distributed economic growth to the improvement of international competitiveness, to ensure which, suppressing domestic wages became perfectly legitimate (Costilla, 2000). The changes in international labor market led to the profound casualization of labor (by the growing numbers of temporary and part-time jobs), under-employment (Turner, 2001), and increasing rates of unemployment. The shrinking welfare state, deregulation on the national scale and economic privatization have become the domestic counterparts of the globalizing economy. It is not only the marginalised worker-citizens of the state that suffer from the adverse effects of the global economic integration, but many sectors of the society have been considerably affected by the retreat of the state from its social obligations such as the provision of free health care and retirement benefits. The withdrawal of the state from essential spheres of citizenship entitlements, in return, has instigated “the dilution of the loyalty to the state by the citizens” (Sassen, 2002). This also explains the William twining inclination for using the term cosmopolitan (‘citizen of the world’) (Rubenstein, 2004). “The idea of citizenship, in its traditional meaning of participation in and membership of the nation state, has been considerably changed by globalization” (Rubenstein, 2004). All these contemporary transformations taking place under the impact of globalization pose serious threats to the very existence of the society. First, the nation-state is no longer the only locus of citizenship (Falk, 1993; Isin and Turner, 2002; Sassen, 2002). The emergence of new global forms of political organization, such as transnational NGOs, as well as the rise of locally based social grassroots movements challenges the exclusive authority of the state over citizenship. Consequently, the citizenship has started to be understood not simply as legal status, but as social and political processes through which different groups make their claims for recognition (Isin and Turner, 2002). Civil society, accordingly, has gained importance in citizenship discussion since it presents the platform for the active engagement/participation of the citizens in everyday politics. This takes us to the final revision required in the definition of citizenship, that it is no longer confined to civil, political and social rights (Marshall, 1950), but extended to ever wider spheres of everyday life to incorporate sexual, aboriginal, environmental and cultural rights to the discussion of citizenship as such (Isin and Wood, 1999; Turner, 2001). Citizenship is no longer legally the chief basis upon which rights are constrained and determined, even within the nation state. This point is highlighted by Yasemin Soysal (1994). By analysing the incorporation of guest workers in Europe, she “reveals a shift in the major organizing principle of membership in contemporary politics; the logic of personhood supersedes the logic of national citizenship”. She further argues, “This trend is informed by a dialectical tension between national citizenship and universal human rights” (Soysal, 1994). Fortunately, though, globalization is not all about neo-liberalism; it is not a uniform process progressing in one particular direction. It is a mixture of standardization and hybridity, convergence and divergence. The dynamics of globalization give impetus to developments —that homogenizes and standardizes the policies of national states. Although it challenges the capacity and capability of the state to preserve the uniqueness of national culture, it also gives rise to new social movements through which different social actors/groups can challenge the global cultural hegemony and reinforce their cultural identity through active, creative, and effective engagements. Despite the challenges of neo-liberal globalization, therefore, cultural citizenship, fostered by responsive civil society, has the potential to help in the construction of new forms of solidarity by strengthening the communitarian bonds. Conclusion The history of citizenship can be seen as a history of claim making. Today the polity with reference to which citizens make their claims is not only the nation-state, but also new sites of power attached to global firms and markets. Civil or political rights of the citizens are not under threat, but cultural values and communitarian identities are. The rise of collective actions undertaken by civil society initiatives, may be signaling the possibility of new citizenship practices based on the active and effective participation of citizens in the reproduction of the community and the construction of the collective identity (Isin and Turner, 2002; Sassen, 2002). Such an ideal of citizenship - embedded in cultural bonds and embodied by active engagements of new social movements can embrace the cultural diversity that strives to survive in the globalised world and resist the devastating factors of the global market economy, hence ensuring the survival of society. References Camilleri, J., and Falk, J. (1992). The End of Sovereignty? Edward Elgar. Costilla, L. F. O. (2000). ‘The reconstitution of power and democracy in the age of capital globalization’, Latin American Perspectives, Volume 27, pp. 82–104. Erinosho, Layi. (2004). “Globalization and its Paradoxes” The Guardian. Issue of winter 2004. Falk, R. (1993). ‘The making of global citizenship’ Global Visions. South End Press. Featherstone, M. (1996) ‘Localism, globalism and cultural identity.’ Global/Local. Duke University Press. Isin, E. F., and Wood, P. K. (1999). Citizenship and Identity. Sage. Isin, E. F., and Turner, B.S. (2002). ‘Citizenship studies: an introduction.’ The Handbook of Citizenship Studies. Sage, pp. 1–10. Klumeyer, D. (1996). Between Consent and Descent. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Marshall, T.H. (1950). Citizenship and Social Class and Other Essays. University of Cambridge Press. Naidoo, Loshini. (2007). “Re-negotiating identity and reconciling cultural ambiguity in the Indian Immigrant community in Sydney, Australia.” Anthropologist Special Issue. Volume 2, pp. 53-66. Ohmae, K. (1990). The Borderless World: Power and Strategy in the Interlinked Economy. Harper Business. Rubenstein, Kim. (2004). Globalization and Citizenship and Nationality. Retrieved on March 13, 2010: http://ssrn.com/abstract=530382 Sassen, S. (2002) ‘Towards post-national and denationalized citizenship.’ The Handbook of Citizenship Studies. Sage, pp. 277–88. Soysal, Y. N. (1994). Limits of Citizenship. University of Chicago Press. Weiss, L. (1998) the Myth of the Powerless State. Polity Press. Read More