How is the State Affected by Globalization

Globalization has changed the role of the state in many ways, politically through
interdependence and independence of states, socially through the problems and threats of
terrorism and deadly diseases, technologically through the media and internet and economically
through the change from national to global economies. Globalization is compressing the world
through changes in the ‘spatial organization of social relations and transactions creating
transcontinental and interregional flows and networks’. It has changed the role of the state
politically because of strengthened interstate relationships and dependence on one another. States
were created to be sovereign but now, due to globalization, often give their sovereignty away to
‘pooling’ in conventions, contracting, coercion and imposition. This has led to increasingly
similar jurisdictions across states and to power being seen as economic rather than political
progress because states now make political progression and regression together, causing states to
become more developmental, and have high dependence on others.
Even the state’s role has changed due to the forming of an interstate shared media
because it now has reduced control over the information being provided to the state’s people.
Globalization is often seen to have lowered the importance of the state, but in the end, the states
that will remain the most successful in the face of globalization is those who adapt to the changes
their role makes.
 “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but rather the one
most responsive to change.”
Charles Darwin (1809 – 1882)

The saying tells us about the one who adapts quickly, the state that is adapting through
time and technological advancement is the one that will be most affected to change. The state
that is affected by globalization will intensify and speeds-up in advancing to a new age. The state
is affected by the global mass media, where-in educating citizens is not completely relied on.
The impact of globalization varies with regard to the strength of the state. All states are
affected in the entire process of globalization but a threat to the sovereignty and autonomy of the
state gets more affected in respect of weak states than strong ones.
Such strong states need not always be industrialized countries, it is the ideology and the
rationale to reject what some call the Anglo-American capitalism that makes some countries
strong, though not advanced. Though globalization has a powerful effect, yet states pursue
policies in such a way that these policies restructure the national and private industries. The
competence in making such policies depends upon the size, resources, geography location and
the advantages therein, economic strength, national ideology and domestic power of the state, be
it coercive or consensual.
Weak states, on the other hand, do not have much of a choice in their international
economic relations. They neither have any influence on creation and enforcement of rules in the
system, nor a choice to decide about their integration into the world economy. Most of the weak
states opened up their economies because of coercive liberalization than of democratic policy
choices.
The aftermath of globalization in the form of political and social turmoil, the incapability
of the governments in dealing with the situation weakened the weak states. Often, deregulation
and liberalization have certainly reduced the role of the state both in society and economy in a
developing society. The impact of globalization on the concept of erosion of nation- state and
sovereignty varied according to the strength of the state.
The wide income gap between high income and low income countries is a matter for
concern. And the number of the world’s citizens in abject poverty is deeply disturbing. But it is
wrong to jump to the conclusion that globalization has caused the divergence, or that nothing can
be done to improve the situation.
Economic growth in globalization is often due to rapid technological advancements and
changes in the gathering of information and communications. Globalization has always existed
but today's globalization has been a much more rapid and intense process than in the past. The
question here is whether today's globalization weakens the nation state and whether or not it
undermines national control over the economy. We are trying to determine whether or not
globalization leads to a greater social and economic inequality in society. We will begin by
discussing how the globalization of economy has played the largest role in changing today's
world.
States have loosened their policies in order to encourage other nations to invest and take
part in their markets. As previously mentioned, the social impact on labor workers within
developed nations is becoming more and more negative. Labor workers no longer have the same
sense of stability. They are increasingly impacted by low wages and unemployment.
The importance of culture within the state is also diminishing, the movement towards an
international culture is becoming greater and individual cultures are being forced to adapt.
Language, religion and lifestyles are ever changing due to information technology such as the
Internet and international commerce. Values, culture and ways of life are becoming more and
more homogenized; they are losing their distinctive aspects in order to keep with global changes.

Globalization had some crucial characteristics which had major impact on the nation-
state. They categorized the factors in economic terms where there is rise in internationalized
advertising and consumption patterns; a reduction in barriers to the free flow of goods, workers
and investments across national borders; and, correspondingly, new pressures on the roles of
worker and consumer in society, political terms whereby, there is a certain loss of nation-state
sovereignty, or at least an erosion of national autonomy and correspondingly and weakening of
the notion of the “citizen” as unified and unifying concept, which can be characterized by the
precise roles, rights, obligations and status, cultural terms where tension grows because of the
manner in which globalization brings forth more standardization and cultural homogeneity, while
also bringing more fragmentation through the rise of locally oriented movements.
 Globalization of the nation-state challenges the traditional view of national boundaries,
and also challenges governments to develop global strategies to deal with growing array of
“intermistic” political, economic, and cultural issues. These socio-economic and political
challenges of globalization ought to be addressed with a critical view point if at all change for
the better is to suffice.

The nation-state, under the globalization breeze is compelled to organize the domestic
agendas to fit the economic, social and political global scope. The issue here therefore, is that
local matters that could be given more attention to uplift the standards of living, within the
nation-state get overtaken by the prioritization of the global oriented activities. As so, the welfare
of those within the nation-state becomes a secondary matter.

Global competitiveness compromises the provision of sound social services that under
normal economic circumstances would be provided to the civil society as a matter of priority. So
what we see is a scenario, whereby the nation-states decide to dash to sweeping the streets whilst
that their living rooms need some serious cleaning. It is this failure by the nation-state to realize
the importance of the immediate home environment within the global context that has led to
further impoverishment in the GS. Lack of independent global consciousness is indeed a
cancerous intellectual and administrative deformity, whose repercussions have proved to be
socio-economic and politically deadly. Globalization suffocates the nation-state’s potential to
formulate vibrant and viable domestic policies geared towards development.