GOVERNMENTS AND CITIZENS IN A
ECONOMIC INTERDEPENDENCE
GLOBALLY INTERCONNECTED
WORLD OF STATES
By: Hans Schattle
INTRODUCTION
Speculations on globalization:
Because of globalization, the state (or nation-state):
- is losing its function; on its last legs (Apparudai, 1996)
- has been rendered as a nostalgic fiction
BUT, according to political science, the states:
- are gaining new sources of power
- has new sources of collaboration in world politics revolving
around it
Downsides of Globalization
1. States want economic advantage in international institutions,
organizations and corporations; therefore
2. States will have diminished capacity to protect economic
well-being of own population
3. States will be pressured from supranational integration and
local fragmentation.
The STATE according to:
Weber:
“A compulsory political organization with continuous operations
will be called a ‘state’ if and in so far as its administrative staff
successfully upholds a claim on the monopoly of the legitimate
use of physical force in the enforcement of its order”
Bull:
“Independent political communities each of which possesses a
government and asserts sovereignty in relation to a particular
segment of the human population”
The concept of NATION
1. Nation as organic ties that hold groups of people together
and inspire senses of loyalty and belonging.
2. Nation as socially constructed political communities that
hold together citizens across many kinds of cross-cutting
identities like ethnicity, language, religion and so forth.
3. According to Anderson (1991), the nation is “an imagined
political community- and imagined as both inherently limited
and sovereign”
NATION-STATES (According to Joppke, 1998)
“Membership associations with a collective identity and a
democratic pretension to rule”
THE STATE IN A WORLD OF
According to the champions and critics of Washington
Consensus and neoliberalism, globalization is imposing a
forced choice upon states.
a. Conform to free-market principles
b. Run the risk of being left behind
Golden Straightjacket
• Coined by Thomas Friedman
• Describes how states are now forced into policies that
suit the preferences of investment houses and
corporate executives (“Electronic Herd”)
Electronic Herd
• Thomas Friedman
• Grown exponentially due to the democratization of
finance, technology and information
• Moves money swiftly, and resources into countries
favoured as adaptable to the demands of international
business
• However, they withdraw money, more rapidly, from
countries who are deemed uncompetitive.
According to Friedman,
• States have lost an important element of economic
sovereignty and neoliberalism is beyond contestation
• Electronic Herd reward and punish states and their
governments in same ways that they buy and sell
shares of individual companies (as stated in his book,
“Buy Taiwan, Hold Italy, Sell France”)
Important changes within world Economy
1. State policies mattered greatly
• Laissez-faire economics (of Friedrich Hayek
and Milton Friedman) was pursued by Ronald
Reagan and Margaret Thatcher and led to the
following:
✓ Fall of Soviet communism
✓ Created the conditions for deregulation,
privatization, free trade to spread around the
world
✓ Prompted the world’s poorer states to orient
their production and attract world’s wealthiest
banks, corporations and investors to improve
their citizen’s standards of living.
✓ Examples: Mexico (good market for auto
parts), Argentina and New Zealand (sells
winter fruit and vegetables to Northern
Hemisphere), Thailand and Turkey (had
access to cheap and plentiful foreign finance)
According to Rafael Barajas Duran,
• The main impact of globalization is exploitation
• Neoliberal theory is a product packaged for export to
underdeveloped nations.
• It makes sure that rich countries maintain control of
the third world’s wealth and raw materials and have
access to their (cheap) labor.
Current situation of states
• National governments place the interests of external
stakeholders and trading partners ahead of the
interests of their own citizens
Example: South Korea
✓ South Korea conglomerates overcharge their
citizens for the same kind of cars, computers
and mobile phones that it exports to other
countries
✓ Charted its own economic course and
deviated from the orders of “Electronic Herd”
✓ They concentrated on developing world
class capabilities where before they had
none.
• Working class citizens (in countries who are losing its
ground on the global market) must:
✓ find their ways into the remaining industries
in their hometowns
✓ moves (if they can) to places with more
opportunities
✓ become part of the growing segment of
dislocated and underemployed workers
• Rock-bottom wages, terrible working conditions, and
negligible economic standards attract multinational
corporations to set up factories. However, they were
only get noticed when startling incidents occur.
Example: Bangladesh (series of fire in 2012 followed
by a collapse of building in April 2013).
According to Tony Clark,
• Citizens should be involved in international
policymaking on trade, investment and finance
• The standards that good states uphold to protect their
citizens are likely to remain elusive more widely in the
global economy for some time to come.
ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL INTEGRATION:
THE CASE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION
Whilst there’s uprising economic interdependence of
the past century, states have formed regional partnerships to
promote trade and economic cooperation.
Examples:
▪ African Union (AU)
▪ Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)
▪ North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)
European Union (EU)
Has 27 member states (in July 2013, Croatia became a
member as 28th state)
Have a single monetary currency (Euro) among 17
member states
Supranational government with growing legislative power
alongside with the Council of Members.
EU legislative institution is comprised of official
representatives from national governments.
Shows on how international collaboration creates new
roles and obligations for states, and how states now
delegate specific elements of sovereignty in absolute
terms.
Expands foreign and security policy in recent treaty
revisions
Maastricht Treaty (1992)
• A common citizenship
• Affords citizens of the member states the rights to
live, work, vote, and even run for office in European
parliamentary elections outside their native member
state.
Had a dramatic rise in continental jurisprudence with the
two key institutions:
1. European Court of Justice (ECJ) - 1952
- The top dispute resolution body for the EU and its
predecessors
- has set provisions such as ‘direct effect’ and
‘supremacy’
- It resolves two sets of laws that came into conflict
that must follow the EU law
- Had been forced by a lot of states to follow their own
laws to fit supranational norms
2. European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR)
- Part of a larger organization which is Council of
Europe
- Issued landmark decisions in areas such as freedom
of religion, protection from discrimination, and the
right to a fair trial which is the provision in the
European Convention of Human Rights most often
been violated by member states.
Council of Europe
• Upholds the European Convention of Human
Rights (ECHR)
• Has 47 member states, 28 of which are
members of the EU
 According to Moravesik (1994 & 2002), EU is regarded by
some leading scholars strengthening the state because it
empowers the member states to project their interests into
the int’l arena, enables nat’l governments to build
resources towards int’l negotiations, and bolsters nat’l
regulatory mechanisms to fulfill the resulting int’l
commitments.
Member states routinely engaged in democratic debates
over how to position themselves in the European Union
a) MARGARET THATCHER (The Iron Lady)
- Served as the first female Prime Minister of UK from
1979 to 1990
- Britain’s Conservative Party forced her out of office
as PM after an internal row over Europe
b) ALAN MILWARD (Historian)
- Has shown early stages of European integration
- Provided the member states with a crucial vehicle to
rehabilitate themselves and liquidation of their empires
abroad during post-World War II (Milward, 1994)
Limitations of European Union:
▪ In spite of being continent’s political elites, EU still has
lack of policies that may bring political and economic
uncertainty on its member states.
▪ The financial crisis exacerbated the ‘democratic deficit’
which now encompasses the lack of popular
representation in European policy making.
▪ Couldn’t address and resolve decisively such demands
and needs of member states’ citizens without most of their
agreement.
THE RISE OF INTERNATIONAL LAW AND
UNIVERSAL PRINCIPLES
Peace of Westphalia (1648)
Peace settlement or treaty where a number of countries
were confirmed in their sovereignty (power or authority)
over territories.
After World War II, there was a turn away from the model
of state sovereignty.
United Nations (1945)
Failure of the League of Nations strengthened collective
will to start a new international organization.
Set up in the summer and autumn of 1945 in the San
Francisco Conference.
Limitations of UN:
▪ UN does not transcend states system; operates only as a
forum for states to air their differences and try to resolve
them
▪ The UN Security Council has outdated composition
▪ The UN General Assembly’s lack of power and its state-
based configuration
▪ First cold war (between US and the Soviet Union) made it
difficult for UN’s security council to reach collective
decisions
▪ UN being unable to prevent many atrocities and
genocides around the world
International Criminal Court (2002)
Limitations of UN lead to the formation of ad hoc tribunals
(court of justice) such as the ICC
ROLE: to prosecute individuals accused of genocide
(massacre) and other crimes against humanity
Limitation of ICC:
▪ There are countries, such as China, India and the US,
which are not members of the ICC (this manifests global
limitation, where countries may choose not adhere to
international law and international covenants on political,
social, economic and cultural rights).
The Responsibility to Protect (R2P) Doctrine
Resulted from a consensus made by the Security Council
A global political commitment to address its four key
concerns to prevent genocide, war crimes, ethnic
cleansing and crimes against humanity.
Signals growing willingness on the part of states to
intervene in the affairs of regimes cast as illegitimate or
unable to protect their own people.
Example:
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) with 29
members being led by Britain, France and the United
States intervened in Libya’s civil war.
Transgovernmental Networks (TGNs)
A horizontal linkage among national governments where
they share information, agree to common standards and
work side by side in different areas
Slaughter (2004) believes that trans governmental
networks improve competence and regulatory
effectiveness of governments and also bring governments
 around the world into greater harmony with international
norms and treaties
Downside: while collaboration of some states improves
the delivery of government services, in other cases it can
mean intrusions into civil liberties and privacy rights
LEAGUE TABLES
- Rankings or annual indexes that national elites seek for
global appeal for their countries
- Where states compete for moral credibility
Examples:
• Corruption perceptions index (by Transparency Int’l)
• Freedom in the World, index for political rights and
civil liberties (by Freedom House)
• Democracy index (by the Economist Intelligence Unit)
• Press freedom index (by Reporters without Borders)
• Failed states index (by Foreign Policy Magazine)
• Better life index (by the Organization for Economic
Co-operation and Development)
STATES AS TARGETS:
THE RISE OF TRANSNATIONAL ACTIVISM
A. MARGARET KECK and KATHRYN SIKKINK
Activist Beyond Borders
- Illustrated how transnational activism has deep roots
that to go back to 19th century campaigns against
slavery, foot-binding in China and for women’s voting
rights.
‘Boomerang pattern influence’
- describes what happens when domestic civil society
organizations on losing ends of political struggles
within their respective countries join forces with
compatible advocacy groups overseas that can
pressure the national governments in question.
“Network practices instantiate new norms when a state
recognizes the legitimacy of international interventions and
changes its domestic behavior in response to international
behavior.”
B. JODY WILLIAMS
- local symbol for the larger dynamic of global activism
C. SIDNEY TARROW
- ‘global framing’
- linked particular local or national claims with more
widely recognized claims, causes, and symbols.
“The new transnational activist, is a multifaced as the
intuitionalism within which it has emerged.”
D. JOSHUA BUSBY
- Moral Movements and Foreign Policy
o To have a better shot at success when
activist and their network partners can
conceive key “gatekeepers”
“The social media revolution has lifted advocacy groups
and social movements into am exciting new phase and social
movements. It has also eased the way for citizens groups
across the ‘global south’ to build net-work partners.”
1. Norwegian Nobel Committee
- attention to the rising trend of internet activism
2. 1997 Peace Prize
- reminds the centrality of states
3. Global Justice Movement (1994)
- Launched in Chiapas, Mexico by the Zapatista Army
of National Liberation
- Launched in response to the North American Free
Trade Agreement
- In 1998, citizens stopped the Multilateral Agreement
on Investments dead
- In 1999, ‘after globalization’ movement’s single mos
celebrated event: meeting the Wiorld Trade
Organization
- Media deceptively framed the movement as “anti-
globalization’
ROLES:
- To sustain global citizens campaign
- To call for alternatives to neoliberal economic
globalization
“Transnational activism has opened up new points of
interaction between domestic politics and international
relations.”
 COMMUNICATION NETWORKS, NEW MEDIA
AND THE STATE
Network Society
• Pioneered by Manuel Castells
• Citizens and civil society organizations can
increasingly use networks to gain power relative to
states
According to Castells,
• States are making pragmatic transformation by
adapting to fit in among other socially decisive global
networks in arenas
✓ National governments view themselves as
representing their immediate and particular
interests instead of working for a common
good
✓ Global governance is seen as a field of
opportunity to maximize one’s own interests
rather than sharing governance around
common projects
• To address this problem, the global civil society
should act on the public mind via media and
communication networks
According to Evgeny Morozov (in his book, The Net Delusion:
The Dark Side of Internet Freedom),
• Constitutional democracies are not always careful
enough to avoid unintentional outcomes when
advocating dissidents in countries like Iran and China
Example: United States (when US State Department
sent an email asking Twitter to delay routine
maintenance to its network during massive street
demo in Tehran following a disputed result in Iran’s
presidential election)
• Internet has empowered the secret police, the
censors and the propaganda offices of a modern
authoritarian regime.
Example: Russia, Saudi Arabia and Myanmar
(silenced pesky bloggers using software programs
that filter Internet content and denial-of-service
attacks)
• It is the intermediaries and sympathizers who carry
out cyberattacks and censorships
Censorship
• It was expensive and could only be carried out by the
government
• However, some are still expensive (e.g. Greendam)
but some are already cheaper (e.g. DDoS attacks)
• The democratization of access to launching
cyberattacks has resulted to the democratization of
censorship
Other ways of how states have been trying to become
strong and effective in media globalization:
• States now compete in all sorts of ways for economic
advantage and moral credibility
• States now expend vast resources in communicating
their point of views
• They are trying to leg up on their counterparts in the
court of global public opinion
Public diplomacy
• Taken by many ambassadors by maintaining
Facebook groups, Twitter feeds, and dual blog
postings
Interactive “e-government” sites
• Where citizens can communicate back and forth with
government officials online
• Where citizens can gain information about
government policies and initiatives
• Where they can articulate their concerns
State-funded television networks
• Diversifies the global electronic newsgathering
Examples: BBC World (UK), Al Jazeera English
(Qatar), Al Arabiya (Saudi Arabia), France 24,
Russia Today, CCTV (China), NHK World (Japan)
• National leaders get first wind of momentous events
through these broadcasters
Example: Dismantling of the Berlin Wall (1989), Arab
Spring revolutions
• Reinforce world views and strategic interests of their
rulers more than the viewpoints and needs of their
publics
• Hold countries to critical scrutiny while downplaying or
even ignoring domestic controversies
Publicly subsidized journalism
• Needed to sustain an informed democratic citizenry
• The lines between journalism and propaganda are
often blurred and concealed
Participatory News Organizations
• Volunteer activists as correspondents
• Important players in global public space
• Examples: indymedia.org, Wikipedia and WikiLeaks
CONCLUSION

✓ Europe dominates as the continent’s political elites

✓ Made leap into market shortly after World War II with
the launch of the European Coal and Steel
Community.
✓ Despite of being continent’s political elites, EU still
has lack of policies that may bring political and
economic uncertainty on its member states.
✓ According to Marquand (2011), the cold public
discontentment in Europe and the prospect of still
more economic integration on the way has
strengthened the case of Europe to address its
democratic deficit more decisively with bold steps.
✓ More states are professing commitment to human
rights and the rule of the law
✓ States are holding themselves accountable to
international norms and principles
✓ Globalization has spurred the creation of new states
✓ Globalization shapes states, and states in turn shape
globalization
✓ States set the agendas and also drive cooperation
that govern the world’s leading international
organization (like UN and WTO)
✓ Globalization places states into competition in fronts
such as: economic policies for own incentives,
tourism campaigns for income and political systems
to meet standards
✓ Globalization has sparked competing dynamics of
power diffusion and power consolidation
✓ Globalization has left us with “citizenship gap”- it is
when rights are constructed without sufficient
institutions to enforce them.