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Globalization and Government: combining global and comparative perspective upon the

state of modern government


Introduction
Globalization has made us realize that the world is getting smaller. With the speed of
communication people around the globe can interact with each other within minutes if not
seconds, wherever parts of the world they may be. Trade among countries has also become
easier with the free market, making them intertwined with each other. This awareness is most
evident in the independence of economies, the seeming faster communication exchanges, the
rapid dissemination of knowledge, the increasing managerial and technological innovations, the
spread of fast food chains around the world, tourism and migration of peoples, and the increased
use of English as the major language for the worlds of business, government, and transportation.
This awareness is perhaps best captured by the concept of globalization. It's surprising to
discover that, as far as we're aware, no study has looked at what a global outlook on governance
entails because a lot of the research on globalization focuses on economics, communication, and
other topics.
The author is not convinced of the negative impact of globalization. The latter allows for
more comparison between countries that could reinforce knowledge in and about different
societies. With such knowledge, people can easily point out what makes them distinct as a nation
and a culture and study good ideas that structure governance in other countries. It is also
important that the world today be understood from a global perspective with a comparative
perspective.
The authors of this article Vigoda-Gadot and Raadschelders approached this work from
their respective backgrounds. The former identifies himself as a political scientist while the
latter is a public administration scholar. In this work, the author integrates a global viewpoint
with the conventional comparative approach to government. We will observe that, in terms of
structural institutional arrangements, governments have been coming together to organize their
territories through the use of jurisdictional borders at all levels, from the local to the national, and
to rule them through the bureaucratic organization. It is crucial to gain a comprehensive
awareness of the similarities and contrasts among nations, policies, and organizations in today's
interconnected world. The author gives examples of public organizations, government structures,
and policies, illuminating each with instances from other nations.
The overarching strategy used in this work, which is founded on the notion that reality can be
captured and comprehended at multiple levels of abstraction, is outlined by the author in the
opening paragraphs. The most tangible expressions of "reality" are the operations and acts that
take place on a daily basis; these operations and actions take place within the boundaries of a
formally and informally defined decision-making arena. Who decides what decisions? Who has
the last say in who decides what? This is an intermediate level of research since the factors that
motivate, direct, affect, and alter daily operations and activities are not always observable.
Summary

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The article examined the many levels of analysis and comprehension of the global and
comparative context. Three levels of analysis were identified by the author: constitutional,
collective, and operational. In terms of formal legislation, such as a constitution and laws
produced from it, primary and secondary laws, as well as societal values and norms, the
constitutional level relates to the foundations of policy. The collective level focuses on the
institutions that support stakeholder interaction in the public space, such as politicians and
institutional frameworks. The operational level, meanwhile, is concerned with how government
functions on a daily basis (implementation, service delivery, and so forth). The author breaks
from the conventional disciplinary focus on government by using these three levels of analysis.
When seeking to understand social phenomena such as government that deals with complex,
wicked problems and realities rather than merely with simple problems and realities, the current
discipline structure of academia is not helpful.
The impacts of globalization on societies are numerous. As the most recent economic downturn
has shown, economic hardship in one nation not only affects nearby nations but also extends far
beyond. The impact of the technological revolution on society is extensive and multifaceted.
Because there is now more information available than ever before, technological advancements
have had an impact on society by encouraging people to skim information rather than fully ingest
a body of thought.
The article also examined combining a global and comparative perspective from psychological
opinions to historical viewpoints. Comparing is learning, psychologically speaking. Pretty soon
after birth, a person compares herself/himself to the environment, to other people, and to
significant peers in order to learn more about herself/himself and evolve as a result of the
learning and comparing processes. From a historical perspective, the comparison method
developed into a tool in the hands of the group to educate and develop.
Even before individuals started becoming sedentary, human cultures have been oppressing one
another from the beginning of time. In this environment of growing and dying communities and
polities, humans developed a comparativist mindset. Comparisons frequently spark a desire to
possess what the other nation has, which sparks acquisition wars. These human societies desired
to emulate each other's "best" practices as well as their possessions as they became more
politically distinct. A worldwide view of the function and place of governments in society
observes a trend toward confined territories governed by bureaucracies with horizontal and
vertical organizational structures. Cultural differences are taken into account while comparing
the function and position of governments in society.
When the topics of administration and politics are mixed, there is a significant overlap between
the two. The period in which the government and its elites could rule without taking the interests
of the ordinary populace into consideration is over. A strong ruler was necessary to maintain
order and safety in communities in the past because the government only provided basic
services. Additional to preserving law and order in general, this king was not meant to offer any
other duties. However, in the modern world governments are necessary for providing both
growth opportunities through welfare and well-being services, as well as for maintaining order
and safety through the provision of military, policing, and judicial services. Political science and

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public administration have considerable comparative literature, with the latter emphasizing
power, political systems, and policy substance while the former focuses on bureaucracy and
policy procedure.
Evaluation
With the globalizing world, the author provides a thorough examination of the state of
contemporary government from a comparative and global viewpoint. The author incorporates the
traditional comparative perspective on government in a global framework. According to current
research on governance discourse, globalization requires reexamining the idea of "governance"
and defining new governance views as alternatives to the traditional ones. The idea is that there
are new and growing forms of governance that our traditional concepts of it can no longer
provide. Despite being a pretty old notion, governance has undoubtedly acquired fresh
significance as a result of the changes brought about by globalization in many spheres of society.
The idea of globalization is a very potent idea today, it accurately captures what is happening
around the globe and, more specifically, in the realm of governments. This issue is crucial since
there is a wealth of research showing that globalization has enhanced people's awareness of and
desire for localization. People are more connected than ever primarily because of social media,
but it has also made them more conscious of "seeing" and "feeling" what sets them apart from
"others".
The combination of a global and comparative approach from psychological to historical
viewpoints was also covered in this book. At its core is the traditional belief that the state is the
sole agent capable of performing governing responsibilities since it has a monopoly on
governance. The governance discourse, however, emphasizes that "states are no longer the only
actor who initiate and dominate the cascades that radiate out from the epicenter. A theory needs
to be developed that treats globalized space as the location of the epicenter, as a vast arena
composed of actors and processes that are not limited by territorial boundaries of sovereign
rights, and as a bifurcated system composed of both state-centric and multi-centric actors." States
are actually only one of the numerous actors who participate in governance and "whose activities
cascade irregularly over amorphous ethnoscapes, mediascapes, ideoscapes, technoscapes, and
finance scapes," according to the developing pattern of governance.
These classic notions of governing systems are continuously being questioned as new channels
and processes of governance cascade into and out of national and international policy sectors.
The significance given to the function of nations in running governing systems is currently being
contested by new lines of argument within the governance discourse in connection to
globalization. New "governance" strategies have subsequently appeared in the literature. The
main contention is that governance, as it should be understood and practiced today, should have
a democratic component, despite the fact that different scholars define governance in various
ways.
Thus, the practice and understanding of governance should include the roles played by all parties
involved in governing systems as well as those outsides of them. As a result, attempts have been
made to reinterpret governance in connection to democracy, following the earlier premise that

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the transition to new forms of governance necessitates a transition to a new viewpoint on it.
Meaning that a governance perspective today is no less than one that supports and pushes for
"democratized governance," which operates inside and expands the democratic space to include
more players outside of the government.
Conclusion
A justification for global comparative understanding is given by the author. Every citizen
benefits from having a global and comparative perspective on the world that goes beyond the
stereotypical understandings that are produced by the bullet-point of news and information
format of today, especially in the hyper-connected world in which we live, where individual lives
at the local level are directly influenced by events and developments far away. We require
knowledge about our particular geographic and historical location in order to comprehend who
we are and how we came to be, and this cannot be done without a comparison viewpoint. This
article is much more of an examination and journey into a combined global and comparative
perspective because of the authors belief that it will fill the gap. There are significant structural
parallels between nations since the public sector is bureaucratically organized in every country
around the globe. However, how they operate differs according to culture, thus it is equally
important to consider variations in bureaucratic cultures. The most that comparative perspectives
can impart is an understanding of the distinctions and affinities between the modern governments
of the various civilizations. Additionally, the author urges us to link the comparative and global
perspectives while simultaneously emphasizing similarities and contrasts. The global viewpoint
differs because it considers the entire world rather than just one particular region or area of
policy. From that vantage point, we can observe the emergence of government in small sedentary
communities and its gradual expansion to all continents, to the point where nearly the whole
planet's landmass is now a politically defined community.

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