Scholte's "critical introduction" on "Globalization" is much more an "introduction" in that there isn't really anything critical about it. His goal of clarifying "what is happening?" "what is global about globalization?" etc. are useful entry points into the conversation, but Scholte seems too interested in synthesizing and equivocating amongst these various strains, carving a path down the "radical middle," that he doesn't really say much more than what we hear in the popular press but in a more academic, well-researched fashion.
In many ways it follows from his earlier discussion on "International Relations and Social Change" in its focus on the macro level of change to show the inadequacy of former, disciplinary frameworks of understanding. However, one of his first moves is to try to limit what globalization means as a word which, ultimately, limits what he's talking about. At the same time, his call for linguistic specificity and a change in intellectual frameworks makes the same assumption that he promotes in his earlier book, namely that what is needed is a change in thinking rather than a dramatic institutional shift in order to catch up with these changes.
On the first count, his first chapter is productive, as in the earlier book, in mapping the many debates over what globalization is, when it began, and what its possibilities are for policy changes. Most of these are very shallow descriptions and, of the few that I knew by name, I noted at least one that was miscategorized (p. 28 groups John Tomlinson with people critical of "cultural imperialism:" Tomlinson is actually on the other side of this debate, and is critical of people who think that cultural imperialism exists.) Nevertheless, he shows the general "territory" of this debate. This is productive in a sense, but it also reads much more like a catalog of positions, most of them grouped in terms of binary positions, most of Scholte evaluates as basically legitimate, though more or less popular. This balanced perspective attempts to set up the issues he will explore later in the book and, I imagine, on which will eventually take a position himself.
But this themetizing of the issues around the globalization debate becomes less productive when he does stake his first position. He says that the term suffers from inadequate theorizing, alternately meaning internationalization, liberalization, universalization, westernization/modernization/americanization and deterrirorialization (43-49). He evaluates what these terms refer to and says that the first four are redundant and the only one that is worthy of consideration as a true meaning of globalization is deterriorialization.
The reason for this is twofold and based in the central problematic of the use of the term. These terms are either pointing to a process that has been going on for quite a long time and are thus not unique, and/or the uniqueness of the process is simply one of degree meaning that the original term could suffice to describe it. This is parallel to the wider debate about whether there is continuity or change in what people are calling globalization (20-23), a subject that Scholte touches on, though again in the fragmented segments of "production, governance, culture, modernity."
In focusing on the possibility that something unique is occurring, dismissing this as an expansion of earlier patterns, and isolating "deterrirorialization" as the core innovation of globalization, Scholte also limits his ability to consider that there is a complex of changes that encompass all of these categories and that it is the structural articulation of these many continuities that signals the real change that people mean to point to when they speak of globalization. In other words, he lays out these many streams of debate in isolation, considers each individually, and obscures the totality he claims to be able to see with his interdisciplinary lens. This leads him to focus on the "history" and "causes" of globalization only in terms of deterritoriality or transnationalism and changes in conceptions of space. That this is what geographer David Harvey has already termed "The Postmodern Condition" doesn't seem to faze Scholte.
He then goes on to enumerate the many aspects of this deterritorialization in a linear fashion and with little consideration of the conflict that has ensued at just about every level in this process over the past 200 years. The upshot, it seems, is an account of globalization that wouldn't conflict much with someone like Thomas Friedman, even in his most ludicrous recent pronouncements. Here a certain technological determinism or at least a neo-liberal teleology drives the assumption of the basic naturalness of the current structuration of global capitalism. More importantly, the focus moves almost completely to the macro-level of analysis exemplified by the text box on page 86 which outlines the "indicators" of globaliation which talk about numbers of radio and TV sets, numbers of financial transactions, totals of FDI etc. all of which are basic indicators of development that the UN would use and all of which (save the last two on civic associations and extinct species) are most desireable for the global capital.
In other words, though there are some interesting moments, on the whole his explanation of what is going on is little better than a New York Times celebration of the expansion of the American Order. Normally, my main disappointment with this would be the fact that it overlooks the inequalities that are all but hard-coded into this transformation. Scholte sees transborder cultural practices as a part of the same movement as the "global sourcing" techniques of transnational corporations and, more importantly, considers the former only in the terms of the latter. Although he is much looser in his formulation and later in the text allows for some equivocation on this, his assumption is ultimately that this is something that should be happening and just needs a bit of tweaking in a social democratic direction so that everyone can get in on it. This leaves little room for alternative ways of life. I am looking forward to Rosenberg's critique of this because it seems that Scholte has made just the sort of elision of the fundamental "strategic relation" that would illuminate the drivers behind "globalization."
At the same time, I see that the focus on capitalism could cover over some fairly interesting movements--usually seen as oppositional but which seem to have a different character altogether. In this I refer to the kind of cultural and social analysis that is still missing from Rosenberg's book. In thumbing through a recent volume on "Transnational Muslim Politics" I have begun to question how this fits into the normative narratives of globalization which focus mostly on the material possibilities and consequences. I think that the Inyatullah and the Badie will also have some focus on this aspect.
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