W10. Political Globalization / Jungho Kang

1. Summary

 Political globalization is about access to a social world that emphasizes post national and transnational processes. Political globalization opens new possibilities to any country, while a country causes loss of autonomy and division of society. In general, the most pervasive form of political globalization is the spread of democracy. This spread of democracy has become the basis for so - called 'New World Order' such as the ‘US global hegemony(Bushism)’ and the ‘Gulf War’. Today, political communication is taking place all over the world and not limited to the geographical conditions of the border. This global political communication has become the basis of world normative culture. In the past, the state itself was the norm, but today the world norm exists beyond the state. These global norms provide role model. Apart from this, there exists a polycentric network in the form of non-national politics. The world political order provided by the United Nations (UN) is based on leading countries, but a polycentric network is creating a new space beyond the boundaries of the state and government through the concept of civil society. This global civil society character is centered on INGO, various grass-roots organizations and numerous social movements. In summary, political globalization consists of three things. Global geopolitics, global normative culture, and polycentric networks. This is seemingly remote, but in fact they are related.

 As Iron Curtains disappear and democracy becomes universal throughout the world, there are two positions on the nation states. The first position is that new economic forces are challenging the nation-state as the state-led economy is transformed into a world-led economy. Nations are not fighting for territory anymore, but fighting for control power. So, the government must share sovereignty with the governments of other worlds. On the other hand, it is argued that the national state should share its sovereignty with the non-governmental bodies, and therefore move toward a multi-governance structure, which places more emphasis on the influence of global civil society. Both arguments agree that the state is the sole source of political power. These two positions are driven by the question of whether the state is becoming weaker under the process of globalization. In the case of Europe, it is generally interpreted that the transnationalization represented by the EU is stronger than the country.

 Communication has been the center of politics since ancient times. And now globalization has a more complex and advanced communication system than any other time. Global communication has continued to expand, and these communications have formed a global public discourse that goes beyond the public domain that Habermas advocated. This global discourse contributed to creating a world normative culture. The world normative culture is spreading in various ways in the public domain, and in the communication aspect, it is different from the world designated department which led to the rise of the world economy and the Global geopolitics

 The background of transnationalization and world normative culture mentioned above is global civil society. In order to understand this global civil society, it is necessary to understand ‘Civil Socialization’ first. 'Civil socialization' means the commonality of political forms at regional, global, national and transnational level. Global civil society provides a model for new forms of state governance, but at the same time has new instability and risks. The reason for this is that not only do the subjects that make up the global civil society work for peace and freedom, but also for undermining world politics such as crime and terrorism.

 Due to political globalization, we now deal with more subjects. Political globalization is working to spread various political conflict places where we can talk about the various worries around us.


2. Interesting Point

 At the same time as working to individuate and fragment, these processes also open the possibilities of new cosmopolitan collectivities created in the recognition that the needs of humanity are prior to those of democracy, and new communities of fate emerging from the recognition that we live in a ‘world risk society’ (Beck 1999). I was interested in Ulrich Beck's ‘world risk society’. According to Ulrich Beck, we are now living in many dangers from industrialization and technological advancement. In the case of Korea, we are living with danger of North Korea's nuclear weapons, but we don’t realize this risk. However, this risk is not a problem of one 's own but a whole society. Ulrich Beck insisted on 'transnational cooperation' to address this danger. If the state is not able to resolve the problem on its own, the other way to solve it is to have a global city with many people. This means that if you look small, you have a way to get a lot of citizens involved in the national policy, and that you must come up with global citizenship solutions internationally. I also agree with Ulrich Beck's idea. However, to set up a global civilian solution, it is possible to overcome conflicts of interests and the difference in the speed of national development among countries that regard their own interests as the most important.


3. Discussion Point

 Global civil society contributes to the creation of universal human rights humanism. At the same time, however, terrorists such as drugs, traffickers and organized crime are creating new political spaces and multinational networks in a way that undermines early world politics. I would like to ask, "Can drugs, traffickers and organized crime be part of global civil society?" Of course, I think that human trafficking, crime, and terrorism, which are damaging to innocent people, cannot be part of the global civil society. But I think differently about in the case of drugs. The reason why drugs are regulated nationally is attributed to the legitimacy of drugs that harm social order. But I think that I can interpret it as a national policy to control the change from drug to so-called "madness" as seen in Foucault's "History of madness(1961)". I don't think that ‘universal-justice’ is always correct in political globalization. What do you think?