THE CONTEMPORARY

WORLD
LEARNER'SGUIDE
AY 2020 -2021

WEST VISAYAS STATE UNIVERSITY

COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES
SOCIAL SCIENCE DEPARTMENT

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Unit One: Introduction to
Globalization
Learning Outcomes:

At the end of the unit, the student must have:

1. Differentiated the competing conceptions of globalization

2. Agreed on working definition of globalization for the course
3. Understood the key features of globalization.
4. Discussed the periodization of globalization by considering when
globalization began.
5. Identified and discussed the different theories of globalization

Introduction

Globalization is not a single concept that can be defined and encompassed

within a set time frame, nor is it a process that can be defined clearly with a
beginning and an end. Swedish journalist Thomas Larsson, in his book The Race to
the Top: The Real Story of Globalization (2001), stated that globalization: “is the
process of world shrinkage, of distances getting shorter, things moving closer. It
pertains to the increasing ease with which somebody on one side of the world can
interact, to mutual benefit, with somebody on the other side of the world.”
According to Anthony Giddens, 1990). “Globalization is the intensification of
worldwide social relations which link distant localities in such a way that local
happenings are shaped by events occurring many miles away and vice versa.”
The most important challenges facing the world in the 21st century are
associated with globalization, the growing interconnectedness of
people and places through converging processes of economic, political, and cultural
change. Once distant regions are now increasingly linked together through
commerce, communication, and travel.
This unit introduces the various definitions of globalization, understand its key
features, and familiarize you to a variety of factors that have contributed to the
process of globalization, its benefits and disadvantages, and its history and
ideologies.

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Lesson 1. What is Globalization?
The Meaning of Globalization
“Globalization” is a catchphrase familiar to anyone tuned in to social media.
Every day we hear the term globalization on the news, read it in the papers, and
overhear people talking about it. What does this term mean? There is no definite
definition globalization and the term is used to denote a variety of ways in which
nation-states, regions and people, due to advances in transportation and
communication systems, are becoming more and more closely connected and
interdependent, not only in the economic sense, but also in the cultural, political,
social, technological, environment and spatial aspects.

Below are definitions of globalization:

“Globalization represents the triumph of a capitalist world economy tied
together by a global division of labour.”- Immanuel Wallerstein
“ …all those processes by which the peoples of the world are incorporated
into a single world society.”-Martin Albrow
The critical point is that both sides of the coin of global cultural process today
are products of the infinitely varied mutual contest of sameness and difference on a
stage characterized by radical disjunctures between different sorts of global flows
and the uncertain landscapes created in and through these disjunctures.”- Arjun
Appadurai,
“…understood as the phenomenon by which markets and production in
different countries are becoming increasingly interdependent due to the dynamics of
trade in goods and services and the flows of capital and technology.”-OECD
“The characteristics of the globalization trend include the internationalizing of
production, the new international division of labor, new migratory movements from
South to North, the new competitive environment that accelerates these processes,
and the internationalizing of the state…making states into agencies of the globalizing
world.”- Robert Cox

Activity

What is globalization to you?

My Definition of Globalization.
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Converging Currents of Globalization

Most scholars agree that the most significant components of globalization is
the economic reorganization of the world. The characteristics of this new world

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arrangement are:
1. Global communication systems that link all regions of the planet
instantaneously and global transportation systems capable of moving goods quickly
by air, sea, and land;
2. Transnational conglomerate corporate strategies that have created global
corporations more economically powerful than many nation-states;
3. International financial institutions that make possible 24-hour trading with
new and more-flexible forms of monetary flow;
4. Global agreements that promote free trade;
5. Market economies that have replaced state-controlled economies, and
privatized firms and services, like water delivery, formerly operated by governments;
6. An abundance of planetary goods and services that have arisen to fulfill
consumer demand(real or imaginary); and, of course,
7. An army of international workers, managers, executives, who give this
powerful economic force a human dimension. (Rowntree, Lewis, Price & Wyckoff,
2008)

Advocates and Critics of Globalization

Globalization is one of the most controversial issues of our times. Supporters
generally believe that it brings in greater in greater economic efficiency that
eventually result in bring prosperity for the entire world. Critics think that it largely
benefit those who are already rich, leaving most of the world poorer than before.
Economics globalization is generally applauded by corporate leader and economists.
But opposition to economic globalization is widespread in the labor and
environmental movements for it has promoted exploitation of workers, children, and
the environment.
Globalization is one of the most important and complicated issues of our time.
Now it’syour turn to take a position. Are you in favor or against globalization?

Activity

My Stance on Globalization
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Essay: “Globalization I-The Upside” Video Evaluation Chart
Watch Crash Course World History #41: Globalization I- The Upside Hosted by John
Green. Use this link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SnR-e0S6Ic and answer the
following questions below.

1. Your response to the video in 10 words:

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2. In 10 words, explain the purpose/theme/aim of the video.

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3. Make a summary of the video in 20 words.

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4. In ten words, what are the values you learned from video?
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 Quiz: Essay

Explain the process of globalization in the given figure below. Answer in exactly 150
words.

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Lesson 2. History/ Theories of
Globalization
Globalization is not new phenomenon because there have been many
instances in the periods in history when there were contacts between diverse
individuals and countries. To know more about history and theories of globalization,
read the following articles.

A Brief History of Globalization

From World Economic ForumBy Peter Vanham

When Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba in 2018 announced it had chosen

the ancient city of Xi’an as the site for its new regional headquarters, the symbolic
value wasn’t lost on the company: it had brought globalization to its ancient
birthplace, the start of the old Silk Road. It named its new offices aptly: “Silk Road
Headquarters”. The city where globalization had started more than 2,000 years ago
would also have a stake in globalization’s future.

Alibaba shouldn’t be alone in looking back. As we are entering a new, digital-

driven era of globalization – we call it “Globalization 4.0” – it is worthwhile that we
do the same. When did globalization start? What were its major phases? And where
is it headed tomorrow?

This piece also caps our series on globalization. The series was written ahead
of the 2019 Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, which focuses
on “Globalization 4.0”. In previous pieces, we looked at some winners and losers of
economic globalization, the environmental aspect of globalization, cultural
globalization and digital globalization. Now we look back at its history. So, when did
international trade start and how did it lead to globalization?

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Silk roads (1st century BC-5th century AD, and 13th-14th centuries AD)

People have been trading goods for almost as long as they’ve been around.
But as of the 1st century BC, a remarkable phenomenon occurred. For the first time
in history, luxury products from China started to appear on the other edge of the
Eurasian continent – in Rome. They got there after being hauled for thousands of
miles along the Silk Road. Trade had stopped being a local or regional affair and
started to become global.

That is not to say globalization had started in earnest. Silk was mostly a
luxury good, and so were the spices that were added to the intercontinental trade
between Asia and Europe. As a percentage of the total economy, the value of these
exports was tiny, and many middlemen were involved to get the goods to their
destination. But global trade links were established, and for those involved, it was a
goldmine. From purchase price to final sales price, the multiple went in the dozens.
The Silk Road could prosper in part because two great empires dominated much of
the route. If trade was interrupted, it was most often because of blockades by local
enemies of Rome or China. If the Silk Road eventually closed, as it did after several
centuries, the fall of the empires had everything to do with it. And when it reopened
in Marco Polo’s late medieval time, it was because the rise of a new hegemonic
empire: the Mongols. It is a pattern we’ll see throughout the history of trade: it
thrives when nations protect it, it falls when they don’t.

Spice routes (7th-15th centuries)

The next chapter in trade happened thanks to Islamic merchants. As the new
religion spread in all directions from its Arabian heartland in the 7th century, so did
trade. The founder of Islam, the prophet Mohammed, was famously a merchant, as
was his wife Khadija. Trade was thus in the DNA of the new religion and its
followers, and that showed. By the early 9th century, Muslim traders already
dominated Mediterranean and Indian Ocean trade; afterwards, they could be found
as far east as Indonesia, which over time became a Muslim-majority country, and as
far west as Moorish Spain.

The main focus of Islamic trade in those Middle Ages were spices. Unlike silk,
spices were traded mainly by sea since ancient times. But by the medieval era they
had become the true focus of international trade. Chief among them were the
cloves, nutmeg and mace from the fabled Spice islands – the Maluku islands in
Indonesia. They were extremely expensive and in high demand, also in Europe. But
as with silk, they remained a luxury product, and trade remained relatively low
volume. Globalization still didn’t take off, but the original Belt (sea route) and Road
(Silk Road) of trade between East and West did now exist.

Age of Discovery (15th-18th centuries)

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 Truly global trade kicked off in the Age of Discovery. It was in this era, from
the end of the 15th century onwards, that European explorers connected East and
West – and accidentally discovered the Americas. Aided by the discoveries of the so-
called “Scientific Revolution” in the fields of astronomy, mechanics, physics and
shipping, the Portuguese, Spanish and later the Dutch and the English first
“discovered”, then subjugated, and finally integrated new lands in their economies.

The Age of Discovery rocked the world. The most (in)famous “discovery” is
that of America by Columbus, which all but ended pre-Colombian civilizations. But
the most consequential exploration was the circumnavigation by Magellan: it opened
the door to the Spice islands, cutting out Arab and Italian middlemen. While trade
once again remained small compared to total GDP, it certainly altered people’s lives.
Potatoes, tomatoes, coffee and chocolate were introduced in Europe, and the price
of spices fell steeply.

Yet economists today still don’t truly regard this era as one of true
globalization. Trade certainly started to become global, and it had even been the
main reason for starting the Age of Discovery. But the resulting global economy was
still very much siloed and lopsided. The European empires set up global supply
chains, but mostly with those colonies they owned. Moreover, their colonial model
was chiefly one of exploitation, including the shameful legacy of the slave trade. The
empires thus created both a mercantilist and a colonial economy, but not a truly
globalized one.

First wave of globalization (19th century-1914)

This started to change with the first wave of globalization, which roughly
occurred over the century ending in 1914. By the end of the 18th century, Great
Britain had started to dominate the world both geographically, through the
establishment of the British Empire, and technologically, with innovations like the
steam engine, the industrial weaving machine and more. It was the era of the
First Industrial Revolution.

The “British” Industrial Revolution made for a fantastic twin engine of global
trade. On the one hand, steamships and trains could transport goods over thousands
of miles, both within countries and across countries. On the other hand, its
industrialization allowed Britain to make products that were in demand all over the
world, like iron, textiles and manufactured goods. “With its advanced industrial
technologies,” the BBC recently wrote, looking back to the era, “Britain was able to
attack a huge and rapidly expanding international market.”

The resulting globalization was obvious in the numbers. For about a

century, trade grew on average 3% per year. That growth rate propelled exports
from a share of 6% of global GDP in the early 19th century, to 14% on the eve of
World War I. As John Maynard Keynes, the economist, observed: “The inhabitant of
London could order by telephone, sipping his morning tea in bed, the various
products of the whole Earth, in such quantity as he might see fit, and reasonably
expect their early delivery upon his doorstep.”

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 And, Keynes also noted, a similar situation was also true in the world of
investing. Those with the means in New York, Paris, London or Berlin could also
invest in internationally active joint stock companies. One of those, the French
Compagnie de Suez, constructed the Suez Canal, connecting the Mediterranean with
the Indian Ocean and opened yet another artery of world trade. Others built railways
in India, or managed mines in African colonies. Foreign direct investment, too, was
globalizing.

While Britain was the country that benefited most from this globalization, as it
had the most capital and technology, others did too, by exporting other goods. The
invention of the refrigerated cargo ship or “reefer ship” in the 1870s, for example,
allowed for countries like Argentina and Uruguay, to enter their golden age. They
started to mass export meat, from cattle grown on their vast lands. Other countries,
too, started to specialize their production in those fields in which they were most
competitive.

But the first wave of globalization and industrialization also coincided with
darker events, too. By the end of the 19th century, the Khan Academy notes, “most
[globalizing and industrialized] European nations grabbed for a piece of Africa, and
by 1900 the only independent country left on the continent was Ethiopia”. In a
similarly negative vein, large countries like India, China, Mexico or Japan, which
were previously powers to reckon with, were not either not able or not allowed to
adapt to the industrial and global trends. Either the Western powers put restraints
on their independent development, or they were otherwise outcompeted because of
their lack of access to capital or technology. Finally, many workers in the
industrialized nations also did not benefit from globalization, their work
commoditized by industrial machinery, or their output undercut by foreign imports.

The world wars

It was a situation that was bound to end in a major crisis, and it did. In 1914,
the outbreak of World War I brought an end to just about everything the burgeoning
high society of the West had gotten so used to, including globalization. The ravage
was complete. Millions of soldiers died in battle, millions of civilians died as collateral
damage, war replaced trade, destruction replaced construction, and countries closed
their borders yet again.

In the years between the world wars, the financial markets, which were still
connected in a global web, caused a further breakdown of the global economy and
its links. The Great Depression in the US led to the end of the boom in South
America, and a run on the banks in many other parts of the world. Another world
war followed in 1939-1945. By the end of World War II, trade as a percentage of
world GDP had fallen to 5% – a level not seen in more than a hundred years.

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 Second and third wave of
globalization

The story of globalization, however, was not over. The end of the World War
II marked a new beginning for the global economy. Under the leadership of a new
hegemon, the United States of America, and aided by the technologies of the
Second Industrial Revolution, like the car and the plane, global trade started to rise
once again. At first, this happened in two separate tracks, as the Iron Curtain
divided the world into two spheres of influence. But as of 1989, when the Iron
Curtain fell, globalization became a truly global phenomenon.

In the early decades after World War II, institutions like the European Union,
and other free trade vehicles championed by the US were responsible for much of
the increase in international trade. In the Soviet Union, there was a similar increase
in trade, albeit through centralized planning rather than the free market. The effect
was profound. Worldwide, trade once again rose to 1914 levels: in 1989, export
once again counted for 14% of global GDP. It was paired with a steep rise in middle-
class incomes in the West.

Then, when the wall dividing East and West fell in Germany, and the Soviet
Union collapsed, globalization became an all-conquering force. The newly created
World Trade Organization (WTO) encouraged nations all over the world to enter into
free-trade agreements, and most of them did, including many newly independent
ones. In 2001, even China, which for the better part of the 20th century had been a
secluded, agrarian economy, became a member of the WTO, and started to
manufacture for the world. In this “new” world, the US set the tone and led the way,
but many others benefited in their slipstream.

At the same time, a new technology from the Third Industrial Revolution, the
internet, connected people all over the world in an even more direct way. The orders
Keynes could place by phone in 1914 could now be placed over the internet. Instead
of having them delivered in a few weeks, they would arrive at one’s doorstep in a
few days. What was more, the internet also allowed for a further global integration
of value chains. You could do R&D in one country, sourcing in others, production in
yet another, and distribution all over the world.

The result has been a globalization on steroids. In the 2000s, global exports
reached a milestone, as they rose to about a quarter of global GDP. Trade, the sum
of imports and exports, consequentially grew to about half of world GDP. In some
countries, like Singapore, Belgium, or others, trade is worth much more than 100%
of GDP. A majority of global population has benefited from this: more people than
ever before belong to the global middle class, and hundred of millions achieved that
status by participating in the global economy.

Globalization 4.0
That brings us to today, when a new wave of globalization is once again upon
us. In a world increasingly dominated by two global powers, the US and China, the
new frontier of globalization is the cyber world. The digital economy, in its infancy

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during the third wave of globalization, is now becoming a force to reckon with
through e-commerce, digital services, 3D printing. It is further enabled by artificial
intelligence, but threatened by cross-border hacking and cyber attacks.

At the same time, a negative globalization is expanding too, through the

global effect of climate change. Pollution in one part of the world leads to extreme
weather events in another. And the cutting of forests in the few “green lungs” the
world has left, like the Amazon rainforest, has a further devastating effect on not
just the world’s biodiversity, but its capacity to cope with hazardous greenhouse gas
emissions.

Activity: Essay Analysis Chart

Assessment
1. In ten words, what is globalization 4.0?
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2. In fifty words, compare and contrast the three waves of globalization.

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Theories of Globalization
From Political ScienceNotes.com

All theories of globalization have been put hereunder in eight categories:

liberalism, political realism, Marxism, constructivism, postmodernism, feminism,
transformationalism, and eclecticism. Each one of them carries several variations.

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 1. Theory of Liberalism:
Liberalism sees the process of globalization as market-led extension of
modernization. At the most elementary level, it is a result of ‘natural’ human desires
for economic welfare and political liberty. As such, transplanetary connectivity is
derived from human drives to maximize material well-being and to exercise basic
freedoms. These forces eventually interlink humanity across the planet.

They fructify in the form of:

(a) Technological advances, particularly in the areas of transport, communications
and information processing, and,

(b) Suitable legal and institutional arrangement to enable markets and liberal
democracy to spread on a trans world scale.

Such explanations come mostly from Business Studies, Economics,

International Political Economy, Law and Politics. Liberalists stress the necessity of
constructing institutional infrastructure to support globalization. All this has led to
technical standardization, administrative harmonization, translation arrangement
between languages, laws of contract, and guarantees of property rights.

But its supporters neglect the social forces that lie behind the creation of
technological and institutional underpinnings. It is not satisfying to attribute these
developments to ‘natural’ human drives for economic growth and political liberty.
They are culture blind and tend to overlook historically situated life-worlds and
knowledge structures which have promoted their emergence.

All people cannot be assumed to be equally amenable to and desirous of

increased globality in their lives. Similarly, they overlook the phenomenon of power.
There are structural power inequalities in promoting globalization and shaping its
course. Often they do not care for the entrenched power hierarchies between states,
classes, cultures, sexes, races and resources.

2. Theory of Political Realism:

Advocates of this theory are interested in questions of state power, the pursuit of
national interest, and conflict between states. According to them states are
inherently acquisitive and self-serving, and heading for inevitable competition of
power. Some of the scholars stand for a balance of power, where any attempt by
one state to achieve world dominance is countered by collective resistance from
other states.

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 Another group suggests that a dominant state can bring stability to world order.
The ‘hegemon’ state (presently the US or G7/8) maintains and defines international
rules and institutions that both advance its own interests and at the same time
contain conflicts between other states. Globalization has also been explained as a
strategy in the contest for power between several major states in contemporary
world politics.

They concentrate on the activities of Great Britain, China, France, Japan, the USA
and some other large states. Thus, the political realists highlight the issues of power
and power struggles and the role of states in generating global relations.

At some levels, globalization is considered as antithetical to territorial states.

States, they say, are not equal in globalization, some being dominant and others
subordinate in the process. But they fail to understand that everything in
globalization does not come down to the acquisition, distribution and exercise of
power.

Globalization has also cultural, ecological, economic and psychological dimensions

that are not reducible to power politics. It is also about the production and
consumption of resources, about the discovery and affirmation of identity, about the
construction and communication of meaning, and about humanity shaping and being
shaped by nature. Most of these are apolitical.

Power theorists also neglect the importance and role of other actors in generating
globalization. These are sub-state authorities, macro-regional institutions, global
agencies, and private-sector bodies. Additional types of power-relations on lines of
class, culture and gender also affect the course of globalization. Some other
structural inequalities cannot be adequately explained as an outcome of interstate
competition. After all, class inequality, cultural hierarchy, and patriarchy predate the
modern states.

3. Theory of Marxism:
Marxism is principally concerned with modes of production, social exploitation
through unjust distribution, and social emancipation through the transcendence of
capitalism. Marx himself anticipated the growth of globality that ‘capital by its nature
drives beyond every spatial barrier to conquer the whole earth for its market’.
Accordingly, to Marxists, globalization happens because trans-world connectivity
enhances opportunities of profit-making and surplus accumulation.

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 Marxists reject both liberalist and political realist explanations of globalization. It
is the outcome of historically specific impulses of capitalist development. Its legal
and institutional infrastructures serve the logic of surplus accumulation of a global
scale. Liberal talk of freedom and democracy make up a legitimating ideology for
exploitative global capitalist class relations.

The neo-Marxists in dependency and world-system theories examine capitalist

accumulation on a global scale on lines of core and peripheral countries. Neo-
Gramscians highlight the significance of underclass struggles to resist globalizing
capitalism not only by traditional labor unions, but also by new social movements of
consumer advocates, environmentalists, peace activists, peasants, and women.
However, Marxists give an overly restricted account of power.

There are other relations of dominance and subordination which relate to state,
culture, gender, race, sex, and more. Presence of US hegemony, the West-centric
cultural domination, masculinism, racism etc. are not reducible to class dynamics
within capitalism. Class is a key axis of power in globalization, but it is not the only
one. It is too simplistic to see globalization solely as a result of drives for surplus
accumulation.

It also seeks to explore identities and investigate meanings. People develop

global weapons and pursue global military campaigns not only for capitalist ends,
but also due to interstate competition and militarist culture that predate emergence
of capitalism. Ideational aspects of social relations also are not outcome of the
modes of production. They have, like nationalism, their autonomy.

4. Theory of Constructivism:
Globalization has also arisen because of the way that people have mentally
constructed the social world with particular symbols, language, images and
interpretation. It is the result of particular forms and dynamics of consciousness.
Patterns of production and governance are second-order structures that derive from
deeper cultural and socio-psychological forces. Such accounts of globalization have
come from the fields of Anthropology, Humanities, Media of Studies and Sociology.

Constructivists concentrate on the ways that social actors ‘construct’ their world:
both within their own minds and through inter-subjective communication with
others. Conversation and symbolic exchanges lead people to construct ideas of the
world, the rules for social interaction, and ways of being and belonging in that world.

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Social geography is a mental experience as well as a physical fact. They form ‘in’ or
‘out’ as well as ‘us’ and they’ groups.

They conceive of themselves as inhabitants of a particular global world. National,

class, religious and other identities respond in part to material conditions but they
also depend on inter-subjective construction and communication of shared self-
understanding. However, when they go too far, they present a case of social-
psychological reductionism ignoring the significance of economic and ecological
forces in shaping mental experience. This theory neglects issues of structural
inequalities and power hierarchies in social relations. It has a built-in apolitical
tendency.

5. Theory of Postmodernism:
Some other ideational perspectives of globalization highlight the significance of
structural power in the construction of identities, norms and knowledge. They all are
grouped under the label of ‘postmodernism’. They too, as Michel Foucault does strive
to understand society in terms of knowledge power: power structures shape
knowledge. Certain knowledge structures support certain power hierarchies.

The reigning structures of understanding determine what can and cannot be

known in a given socio-historical context. This dominant structure of knowledge in
modern society is ‘rationalism’. It puts emphasis on the empirical world, the subordi-
nation of nature to human control, objectivist science, and instrumentalist efficiency.
Modern rationalism produces a society overwhelmed with economic growth,
technological control, bureaucratic organization, and disciplining desires.

This mode of knowledge has authoritarian and expansionary logic that leads to a
kind of cultural imperialism subordinating all other epistemologies. It does not focus
on the problem of globalization per se. In this way, western rationalism overawes
indigenous cultures and other non-modem life-worlds.

Postmodernism, like Marxism, helps to go beyond the relatively superficial

accounts of liberalist and political realist theories and expose social conditions that
have favored globalization. Obviously, postmodernism suffers from its own
methodological idealism. All material forces, though come under impact of ideas,
cannot be reduced to modes of consciousness. For a valid explanation,
interconnection between ideational and material forces is not enough.

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 6. Theory of Feminism:
It puts emphasis on social construction of masculinity and femininity. All other
theories have identified the dynamics behind the rise of trans-planetary and supra-
territorial connectivity in technology, state, capital, identity and the like.

Biological sex is held to mold the overall social order and shape significantly the
course of history, presently globality. Their main concern lies behind the status of
women, particularly their structural subordination to men. Women have tended to be
marginalized, silenced and violated in global communication.

7. Theory of Trans-formationalism:
This theory has been expounded by David Held and his colleagues. Accordingly,
the term ‘globalization’ reflects increased interconnectedness in political, economic
and cultural matters across the world creating a “shared social space”. Given this
interconnectedness, globalization may be defined as “a process (or set of processes)
which embodies a transformation in the spatial organization of social relations and
transactions, expressed in transcontinental or interregional flows and networks of
activity, interaction and power.”

While there are many definitions of globalization, such a definition seeks to bring
together the many and seemingly contradictory theories of globalization into a
“rigorous analytical framework” and “proffer a coherent historical narrative”. Held
and McGrew’s analytical framework is constructed by developing a three part
typology of theories of globalization consisting of “hyper-globalist,” “sceptic,” and
“transformationalist” categories.

The Hyperglobalists purportedly argue that “contemporary globalization defines a

new era in which people everywhere are increasingly subject to the disciplines of the
global marketplace”. Given the importance of the global marketplace, multi-national
enterprises (MNEs) and intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) which regulate their
activity are key political actors. Sceptics, such as Hirst and Thompson (1996)
ostensibly argue that “globalization is a myth which conceals the reality of an
international economy increasingly segmented into three major regional blocs in
which national governments remain very powerful.” Finally, transformationalists such
as Rosenau (1997) or Giddens (1990) argue that globalization occurs as “states and
societies across the globe are experiencing a process of profound change as they try
to adapt to a more interconnected but highly uncertain world”.

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 Developing the transformationalist category of globalization theories. Held and
McGrew present a rather complicated typology of globalization based on
globalization’s spread, depth, speed, and impact, as well as its impacts on
infrastructure, institutions, hierarchical structures and the unevenness of
development.

They imply that the “politics of globalization” have been “transformed” (using
their word from the definition of globalization) along all of these dimensions because
of the emergence of a new system of “political globalization.” They define “political
globalization” as the “shifting reach of political power, authority and forms of rule”
based on new organizational interests which are “transnational” and “multi-layered.”

These organizational interests combine actors identified under the hyper-globalist

category (namely IGOs and MNEs) with those of the sceptics (trading blocs and
powerful states) into a new system where each of these actors exercises their
political power, authority and forms of rule.

Thus, the “politics of globalization” is equivalent to “political globalization” for

Held and McGrew. However, Biyane Michael criticizes them. He deconstructs their
argument, if a is defined as “globalization” (as defined above), b as the
organizational interests such as MNEs, IGOs, trading blocs, and powerful states, and
c as “political globalization” (also as defined above), then their argument reduces to
a. b. c. In this way, their discussion of globalization is trivial.

Held and others present a definition of globalization, and then simply restates
various elements of the definition. Their definition, “globalization can be conceived
as a process (or set of processes) which embodies a transformation in the spatial
organization of social relations” allows every change to be an impact of globalization.
Thus, by their own definition, all the theorists they critique would be considered as
“transformationalists.” Held and McGrew also fail to show how globalization affects
organizational interests.

8. Theory of Eclecticism:
Each one of the above six ideal-type of social theories of globalization highlights
certain forces that contribute to its growth. They put emphasis on technology and
institution building, national interest and inter-state competition, capital
accumulation and class struggle, identity and knowledge construction, rationalism
and cultural imperialism, and masculinize and subordination of women. Jan Art

PAGE 22
Scholte synthesizes them as forces of production, governance, identity, and
knowledge.

Accordingly, capitalists attempt to amass ever-greater resources in excess of their

survival needs: accumulation of surplus. The capitalist economy is thoroughly
monetized. Money facilitates accumulation. It offers abundant opportunities to
transfer surplus, especially from the weak to the powerful. This mode of production
involves perpetual and pervasive contests over the distribution of surplus. Such
competition occurs both between individual, firms, etc. and along structural lines of
class, gender, race etc.

Their contests can be overt or latent. Surplus accumulation has had transpired in
one way or another for many centuries, but capitalism is a comparatively recent
phenomenon. It has turned into a structural power, and is accepted as a ‘natural’
circumstance, with no alternative mode of production. It has spurred globalization in
four ways: market expansion, accounting practices, asset mobility and enlarged
arenas of commodification. Its technological innovation appears in communication,
transport and data processing as well as in global organization and management. It
concentrates profits at points of low taxation. Information, communication, finance
and consumer sectors offer vast potentials to capital making it ‘hyper-capitalism’.

Any mode of production cannot operate in the absence of an enabling regulatory

apparatus. There are some kind of governance mechanisms. Governance relates
processes whereby people formulate, implement, enforce and review rules to guide
their common affairs.” It entails more than government. It can extend beyond state
and sub-state institutions including supra-state regimes as well. It covers the full
scope of societal regulation.

In the growth of contemporary globalization, besides political and economic

forces, there are material and ideational elements. In expanding social relations,
people explore their class, their gender, their nationality, their race, their religious
faith and other aspects of their being. Constructions of identity provide collective
solidarity against oppression. Identity provides frameworks for community,
democracy, citizenship and resistance. It also leads from nationalism to greater
pluralism and hybridity.

Earlier nationalism promoted territorialism, capitalism, and statism, now these

plural identities are feeding more and more globality, hyper-capitalism and
polycentrism. These identities have many international qualities visualized in global

PAGE 23
diasporas and other group affiliations based on age, class, gender, race, religious
faith and sexual orientations. Many forms of supra-territorial solidarities are
appearing through globalization.

In the area of knowledge, the way that the people know their world has
significant implications for the concrete circumstances of that world. Powerful
patterns of social consciousness cause globalization. Knowledge frameworks cannot
be reduced to forces of production, governance or identity.

Mindsets encourage or discourage the rise of globality. Modern rationalism is a

general configuration of knowledge. It is secular as it defines reality in terms of the
tangible world of experience. It understands reality primarily in terms of human
interests, activities and conditions. It holds that phenomena can be understood in
terms of single incontrovertible truths that are discoverable by rigorous application
of objective research methods.

Rationalism is instrumentalist. It assigns greatest value to insights that enable

people efficiently to solve immediate problems. It subordinates all other ways of
understanding and acting upon the world. Its knowledge could then be applied to
harness natural and social forces for human purposes. It enables people to conquer
disease, hunger, poverty, war, etc., and maximize the potentials of human life. It
looks like a secular faith, a knowledge framework for capitalist production and a cult
of economic efficiency. Scientism and instrumentalism of rationalism is conducive to
globalization. Scientific knowledge is non-territorial.

The truths revealed by ‘objective’ method are valid for anyone, anywhere, and
anytime on earth. Certain production processes, regulations, technologies and art
forms are applicable across the planet. Martin Albrow rightly says that reason knows
no territorial limits. The growth of globalization is unlikely to reverse in the
foreseeable future.

However, Scholte is aware of insecurity, inequality and marginalization caused by

the present process of globalization. Others reject secularist character of the theory,
its manifestation of the imperialism of westernist-modernist-rationalist knowledge.
Anarchists challenge the oppressive nature of states and other bureaucratic
governance frameworks. Globalization neglects environmental degradation and
equitable gender relations.

PAGE 24
 Activity
Video Analysis: Why Early Globalization Matters
Watch Crash Course Big History #206: Why Early Globalization Matters hosted by
Emily Grasile. Use this link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1esRyRV8H2M and
answer the questions below.

1. Your response to the video in 10 words:

____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________

2. In just 10 words, explain the purpose/theme/aim of the video.

____________________________________________________________________
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________________________________________________________________

3. Make a summary of the video in 20 words.

____________________________________________________________________
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__________________________________

4. In ten words, what are the values you learned from video?

____________________________________________________________________
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Quiz

Compare and Contrast the following ideologies of Globalization.

1. Theory of Liberalism and Theory of Political Realism

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PAGE 25
____________________________________________________________________
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2. Theory of Marxism and Theory of Constructivism

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3. Theory of Postmodernism and Trans-formationalism

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4. Theory of Feminism and Eclecticism

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Unit Two: The Structure of

Globalization
Learning Outcomes:

At the end of the unit, the student must have:

1.Identified the global actors/international financial institutions and explained

their roles in the creation of a global economy.
2. Explained what is global corporation and identified the challenges
encountered by multinational corporations (MNCs)
3.Discussed the international organization and the various types of NGOs
4. Identified the issues and challenges of global governance in the 21st
century.

PAGE 26
Introduction

Advances in communication and transportation technology, combined with

free-marketideology, have given goods, services, and capital unprecedented
mobility. Northern countrieswant to open world markets to their goods and take
advantage of abundant, cheap labor in theSouth, policies often supported by
Southern elites. They use international financial institutions and regional trade
agreements to compel poor countries to "integrate" by reducing tariffs,privatizing
state enterprises, and relaxing environmental and labor standards. The results
haveenlarged profits for investors but offered pittances to laborers, provoking a
strong backlash fromcivil society. (Global Policy Forum, 2005)
What is included in the “global economy”? Those who organize and sustain it
such as states and governments, international organizations and associations; those
who play a role in it like capitalists and investors, international financial institutions
(IFIs), production managers,consumers and labor; those marginal but connected to
it. For instance, the global poor, small farmers, gray and black marketers; and trans-
border flows of goods, information, money, peopleand other things.
Four separate lessons make up this unit on “The Structures of Globalization.”
The first lesson tackles economic globalization and identifies the global
actors/international financial institutions and explains their roles in the creation of a
global economy. The lesson also focuses on international trade, the concept of
comparative advantage,and the benefits and drawbacks of free trade.
The second lesson centers on market integration, its three basic types, and
theadvantages and disadvantages of each type of market integration.
The third lesson concentrates on institutions that govern international
relations and the effects of globalization on governments. The lesson also
differentiates internatonalism from globalism.
Finally, the fourth lesson deals with global governance, its form, format,
techniques and the challenges of global governance in the 21st century.

Lesson 3: Global Economy

Economic Globalization

- refers to the increasing integration of economies around the

world, particularly through the movement of goods, services, and
capital cross borders.

Economic globalization is a spread of trade, transportation, and

communication systems on a global scale in the interest of promoting
international commerce. There are two different economies we should

PAGE 27
know about economic globalization. These are protectionism and trade
liberalization. Protectionism is protecting one’s economy from foreign
competition by creating trade barriers while trade liberalization is the act of
reducing trade barriers to make international trade easier between countries.
These trade barriers are usually tariffs which are required fees on imports or
exports and quota which is the limited quantity of a particular product
that under official controls can be produced, exported, or imported.

-a historical process, the result of human innovation and

technological progress.

In ancient times, traders traveled vast distances to buy rare

commodities such as salt, spices and gold, which they would then sell
in their home countries.

According to Gills and Thompson (2006), globalization processes have

been ongoing ever since Homo sapiens began migrating from the African
continent ultimately to populate the rest of the world. Minimally, they have been
ongoing since the sixteen-century’s connection of the Americas to Afro-Eurasia.

Silk Road- best known example of old-fashioned globalization

The Silk Road was an ancient network of trade routes, formally established
during the Han Dynasty of China, which connected Asia, Africa, and Europe.

Adam Smith- magnum opus, An inquiry into the nature and causes of the
wealth of nations (1776)

When he wrote this masterpiece, he considered the discovery of America by

Christopher Columbus in1492 and the discovery of the direct sea route to
India by Vasco de Gama in 1498 as the two greatest achievements in human
history which serve as pathways to network and trade. However, in
the course of a couple of decades these remarkable achievements were
overshadowed by the breathtaking technological advances and organization
methods of the British Industrial Revolution
1800s- industrial revolution

From the early 1800s, following the Napoleonic wars, the industrial
revolution spread to Continental Europe and North America, too. This time period
saw the mechanization of agriculture and textile manufacturing and a
revolution in power, including steam ships and railroads which affected
social, cultural and economic conditions.

The British and the Dutch East India Companies- established in

1600 and 1602,respectively

The economic nationalism of the 17th and 18th centuries, coupled

with monopolized trade (such as the first multinational corporations, the British and

PAGE 28
the Dutch East India Companies, established in 1600and 1602,
respectively) did not favor, international economic integration.

Between 1500 and 1800- total number of ships sailing to Asia from major
European countries rose remarkably

The total number of ships sailing to Asia from major European

countries rose remarkably between1500 and 1800 (in numbers: 770 in the 16th,
3,161 in the 17th and 6,661 in the 18th century).

World export to world Gross Domestic Product (GDP)

However, world export to world GDP did not reach more than one to
two per cent in that period. Gross domestic product (GDP) is the monetary value of
all the finished goods and services produced within a country's borders in a specific
time period. GDP is commonly used as an indicator of the economic health
of a country, as well as a gauge of a country's standard of living.

19th Century

The real break-through came only in the 19thcentury. The annual

average compound growth rate of world trade saw a dramatic increase of 4.2
percent between 1820 and 1870, and was still relatively high, at 3.4 per cent
between 1870 and 1913.

1870 to 1913- golden age of globalization.

The relatively short period before World War I is often referred to as the
‘golden age’ of globalization, since it was characterized by relative peace,
free trade and financial and economic stability.

1913- trade equaled to 16-17 %

By 1913, trade equaled to 16–17 per cent of world income, due
to the transport revolution: steamships and railroads reduced transaction cost
sand strengthened both internal and international exchange.

- The phenomenon has several interconnected dimensions such as

the globalization of trade of goods and services, the globalization of financial
and capital markets, the globalization of technology and communication, and the
globalization of production.

Transnational Corporations (TNCs)

- the major players of present-day global economy

- the main driving forces of economic globalization of the last 100

years, accounting for roughly two-thirds of world export

PAGE 29
 Transnational corporations (TNCs) are incorporated or unincorporated
enterprises comprising parent enterprises and their foreign affiliates such as
Procter & Gamble and Coca-Cola Company. A parent enterprise is defined as
an enterprise that controls assets of other entities in countries other
than its home country, usually by owning a certain equity capital stake.
A foreign affiliate is an incorporated or unincorporated enterprise in which
an investor, who is resident in another economy, owns a stake that permits a
lasting interest in the management of that enterprise. Multinational
Corporation has an international identity as belonging to a particular home country
where they are headquartered. A transnational company is borderless, as it
does not consider any particular country as its base, home or
headquarters. Transnational Corporation is a type of multinational corporations.

Global commodity chain

- an idea that reflects upon the increasing importance of global

buyers in a world of dispersed production.

As economic integration is becoming more intensive, production

disintegrates as a result of the outsourcing activity of multinationals (Feenstra,
1998). This move induced Gereffi (1999) to develop the concept of global
commodity chains. A commodity chain is a process used by firms to
gather resources, transform them into goods or commodities, and finally,
distribute them to consumers. It is a series of links connecting the many places of
production and distribution and resulting in a commodity that is then exchanged
on the world market.

Issues about Globalization

Economic globalization fosters universal economic growth and

development but we cannot ignore the fact that it still result into issues affecting
the society.

Capitalism
Capitalism, also known as the free-enterprise or free-market system, is an
economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are
controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state. According to
Wallerstein, capitalism is a historical social system which created the
dramatically diverging historical level of wages in the economic arena of the
world system. Powerful Transnational Corporations tend to transfer
manufacturing jobs from developed nations to less developed countries through
outsourcing in order to reduce the cost of products because economically
disadvantaged countries have less government regulations and cheaper labor
cost. Workers in these countries work for very little money therefore they
often remain poor and sometimes they do not have sufficient social and health
insurance cover. Capitalism is exploitative in nature which divided society
and the rich has more power over the working class posing threats to human
rights.

PAGE 30
 Income Inequality
Income inequality is the unequal distribution of household or individual
income across the various participants in an economy. It is often presented as
the percentage of income related to a percentage of the population. Over the past
two decades, income inequality has risen in most regions and countries. The ratio
of the richest region’s GDP per capita to that of the poorest was only 1.1 in 1000, 2
in 1500and still only 3 in 1820. It widened to 5 in 1871 and stood at 9 at the
outbreak of World War I. In 1950 it climbed to 15 and peaked at 18 at the turn of
the new millennium. Less equal societies have less stable economies. High
levels of income inequality are linked to economic instability, financial crisis,
debt and inflation.

Environmental Problems
Globalization has produced ecological problems such as global warming,
climate change, and the abuse of natural resources. The use of
airplanes, ships and trucks to transport goods over international borders is
constantly on the increase. Manufacturing companies and factories release chemicals
into the atmosphere. This causes more carbon dioxide to be released into the
atmosphere which in turn is the main cause of global warming which is the
gradual increase in the overall temperature of the earth's atmosphere
generally attributed to the greenhouse effect caused by increased levels of
carbon dioxide, chlorofluorocarbons, and other pollutants

INTERNATIONAL MONETARY SYSTEMS

Regimes - all the implicit and explicit principles, norms, rules, and
decision-making procedures around which actors’ expectations
converge(Krasner, 1983)

International monetary system or regime(IMS) - refers to

the rules, customs, instruments, facilities, and organizations for effecting
international payments (Salvatore, 2007).

In the liberal tradition, IMS facilitates cross-border transactions,

especially trade and investment. However, it also reflects economic power
and interests, as money is inherently political, an integral part of “high politics” of
diplomacy (Cohen, 2000)

THE GOLD STANDARD

The gold standard functioned as a fixed exchange rate regime,
with gold as the only international reserve. Participating countries
determined the gold content of national currencies(fixed exchange rates).
Common adherence to gold convertibility … linked the world together
through fixed exchange rates (Bordo and Rockoff, 1996).
The modern-day IMS originated back to the early19th century, when the
UK adopted gold mono-metallism in 1821. In 1867, the European nations &the
United States, propagated a deliberate shift togold at the International

PAGE 31
Monetary Conference in Paris.

Gold - believed to guarantee a non-inflationary, stable economic

environment, a means for accelerating international trade (Einaudi, 2001)
In 1872, Germany joined the monetary regime with gold as standard,
then France (1878), United States (1879), Italy (1984) and Russia
(1897).Roughly 70 percent of the nations participated in the gold standard just
before World War I (Meissner,2005).
One of the main strengths of the system was the tendency for trade
balance to be in equilibrium. Nations with trade surpluses exports
(accumulates gold) to nations with deficits (decrease in gold reserve). But
deficit nations were enforced to initiate serious deflationary policies. The regime was
indeed able to create stability, restore equilibrium and provided an almost
unlimited access to world finance.
World War I ended the classical gold standard. Participating nations gave
up convertibility and abandoned gold export in order to stop the depletion of
their national gold reserves. UK attempted to return the gold standard but
did not succeed due to overvalued pound sterling and the emergence of new
rivals (United States and France)
1930s became the darkest period of modern economic history.
Competitive devaluations, along with tough capital controls and the
imposition of tariffs, induced a race to the bottom. (Eichengreenand Irwin, 2009).
The deep structural changes of the time, which were the causes and the
consequences of universal suffrage made the governments reluctant to defend a
pegging system at any cost. (KarlPolányi, 1944). In the classical gold
standard regime, deflationary policies were endorsed without much
hesitation. After World War I, however, labourers became more and
more successful in preventing incumbents from adopting welfare reducing
austerity measures.

THE BRETTON WOODS SYSTEM AND ITS DISSOLUTION

Inter-war period consequences and the wish to return to peace and
prosperity impelled the allied nations to start a new IMS in the framework of the
United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference in Bretton Woods, New
Hampshire (US), in July1944. Delegates of 44 countries agreed on adopting the
gold-exchange standard. The US dollar was the only convertible currency of the
time, so the United States committed itself to sell and purchase gold
without restrictions at US$35 dollar an ounce. All other participating but
non-convertible currencies were fixed to the US dollar.
Delegates also agreed on the establishment of two international institutions:
1. International Banks for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) -
responsible for post-warreconstruction
2. International Monetary Fund (IMF) -promotes international
financial cooperation and buttress international trade. The IMF was expected to
safeguard the smooth functioning of the gold-exchange standard by
providing short-term financial assistance in case of temporary balance of payments
difficulties.
The Bretton Woods system did not prevent countries from running

PAGE 32
large and persistent deficits(or surpluses) in their balance of payments and were
allowed to correct the official exchange rate in order to eliminate deficits.

During the first few years of the new regime, US managed to maintain a
surplus in its balance of payments. As soon as Europe regained its pre-World
War II economic power, the external position of the United States turned into
a persistent deficit as a natural consequence of becoming an
international reserve currency. Nevertheless, by the mid-1960s,the dollar
became excessively overvalued vis-à-vis major currencies. As a response,
foreign countries started to deplete the US gold reserves. Destabilizing speculations,
fed by the huge balance of payments and trade deficit, along with inflationary
pressures, forced the United States to abandon the gold-exchange
standard on 15 August, 1971.
In early 1973, industrialized countries decided to float their currencies
and intervene in financial markets. But managed floating did not perform any
better, either that advanced countries had to interfere on a few occasions in order to
avoid calamity.
The 1990s saw the triumph of the Washington Consensus. Its programme
points were advocated and disseminated by the major international financial
institutions such as IMF. Several countries, such as Mexico, Brazil or the East Asian
tigers, deregulated their financial sectors and fully liberalized capital
transactions. However, reforms were not supplemented by strengthened
monitoring and these currencies were pegged to the US dollar, which
appreciated substantially during the 1990s and caused a financial crisis that
first hit Mexico in 1994and reached East Asia in 1997–8.

EUROPEAN MONETARY INTEGRATION

In the post-World War II era, the United States advocated an economically
and militarily strong Germany and Western Europe. It activated its post-war
reconstruction programme, the Marshall Plan, in1948, which was administered by
the Organization for European Economic Cooperation. European Economic
Community (EEC) was established and was the first major step towards an
ever-closer union.
European six (Germany, France, Italy, Netherlands, Belgium and
Luxembourg) aimed at the creation of a common market, where goods,
services, capital and labor moved freely but not in the field of finance or exchange
rate policies. But the collapse of the Bretton Woods system pressured EEC
to set up a regional monetary regime—the European Monetary System
(EMS) in 1979. The EMS was a unique system, since neither the US
dollar, nor gold could play a role in the stabilization process of exchange rates.
Instead, a symmetric adjustable peg arrangement, the European Exchange
Rate Mechanism, was created (Gros and Thygesen, 1998).

PAGE 33
 Activity

Global Products Survey: How globalized are you.

Direction: List things that you posses that are made in foreign country.

Item Country Company

Quiz

Essay: Answer each question in exactly 140 words:

(1) What is your own stance with the statement “The global free trade has done
more harm than good.”

(2) Do you believe in “buying Filipino” even if you have to pay a higher price? Why?

1.___________________________________________________________________
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2.___________________________________________________________________
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____________________________________________________________________
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PAGE 35
Lesson 4: Market Integration
Defining Market Integration
Markets are said to be integrated if they are connected by a process of
arbitrage. A well-integrated market system is central to a well-functioning market
economy. The economic proposition of integration is that an element of efficiency is
attainable in the unifed operation than in independent actions. According to
McDonald (1953), “the integrated economy is one inwhich various economic
processes are so functionally related to every other process that the totality of
separate operation forms a single unit of production with characteristics of its own.
He gave some of the signs of integration as below:

(a) Many diverse, specialized and independent economic processes or

operations, none of which is complete or self-sufficient.
(b) A system of relations between the various processes which serves to
register this interdependence upon the conduct of each process so that all are
caused, in some manner to fall under the overall plan.
(c) A concatenation of processes in unifed pursuance of the aims and
purposes of the larger scheme of things.
(d) A mutual replenishment to spent resources to the end that the continuity
of each and all processes shall not be jeopardized”.

Market integration is the phenomenon by which price interdependence takes

place. As per Faminow and Benson (1990) integrated markets are those where
prices are determined interdependently; which is assumed to mean that price
change in one market aspects the prices in other markets. Goodwin and Schroeder
(1991) described that markets that are not integratedmay convey inaccurate price
information which might distort producer marketing decisions and contribute to
ineffecient product movements.

What market integration delivers to the economy will be clear from the
following views. Information on market integration presents specifc pieces of
evidence as to the competitiveness of the market, the effectiveness of arbitrage
(Carter and Hamilton, 1989) and the effciency of pricing (Buccola, 1983). Monke and
Petzel (1984) defned,“integrated market in which prices of differentiated products do
not perform independently.Spatial market integraon refers to a situation in which
prices of a commodity in spatiallyseparated markets move together and price signals
and information are transmitted smoothlyacross the markets. Spatial market
performance can be evaluated by the knowing relationshipbetween the prices of
spatially separated markets and spatial price behavior in regional marketsmay be
used as a measure of overall market performance (Ghosh, 2000)”

The main types of integration are:

1.Backward vertical integration.
This involves acquiring a business operating earlier in the supply chain – e.g.
a retailer buys a wholesaler, a brewer buys a hop farm.
2.Conglomerate integration.

PAGE 36
 This involves the combination of firms that are involved inunrelated business
activities.
3.Forward vertical integration.
This involves acquiring a business further up in the supply chain – e.g. a
vehicle manufacturer buys a car parts distributor.
4.Horizontal integration.
Here, businesses in the same industry and which operate at the same stage
of the production process are combined. (Riley 2018)

Pros and Cons of each Type of Market Integration

HORIZONTAL INTEGRATION
Advantages Disadavantages
Larger Market Share Increasing the size of the company also
Bigger Base of Customers increases the size of the problems,
Increased Revenue bigger companies are harder to handle
Reducing Competion
Increasing other synergies such as Does not always yield the synergies and
marketing added value that was expected
Creating economies of scale and
economies of scope Can even result in negative synergies
Reducing other production costs which reduce the overall value of the
business

VERTICAL INTEGRATION
Decrease transportation costs and Companies might get too big and
reduce delivery turnaround times mismanage the overall process

Reducing supply disruptions from Outsourcing to suppliers and vendors

suppliers that might fall into financial might be more efficient if their expertise
hardship is superior

Increase competitiveness by getting Costs of vertical integration such as

products to consumers directly and purchasing a supplier can be quite
quickly significant

Lower costs through economies off scale, Increased amounts of debt if borrowing
which is lowering the per-unit cost by is needed for capital expenditures
buying large quantities off raw materials
or streamlining the manufacturing
process

Improve sales and profitability by

creating and selling its own brand.

PAGE 37
 CONGLOMERATE INTEGRATION
Through diversification, the risk of loss Diversification on can shift focus and
lessens resources away from core operations,
An expanded customer base contributing to poor performance.
Cross-selling of new products, leading to
increased revenues. If the acquiring firm is inadequately
The new firm benefits with increased experienced in the industry off the
effeciencies with the merged company acquired firm, the new firm is likely to
develop ineffective corporate governance
policies and an inexperienced,
underperforming workforce.

It can be challenging for firms to

successfully develop a new corporate
culture.

Global Corporations (from lumenlearning.com, 2019)

A global company is generally referred to as a multinational corporation

(MNC). An MNC is a company that operates in two or more countries, leveraging the
global environment to approach varying markets in attaining revenue generation.
These international operations are pursued as a result of the strategic potential
provided by technological developments, making new markets a more convenient
and profitable pursuit both in sourcing production and pursuing growth.

International operations are therefore a direct result of either achieving higher

levels of revenue or a lower cost structure within the operations or value-chain. MNC
operations often attain economies of scale, through mass producing in external
markets at substantially cheaper costs, or economies of scope, through horizontal
expansion into new geographic markets. If successful, these both result in positive
effects on the income statement (either larger revenues or stronger margins), but
contain the innate risk in developing these new opportunities.

Opportunities

As gross domestic product (GDP) growth migrates from mature economies,

such as the US and EU member states, to developing economies, such as China and
India, it becomes highly relevant to capture growth in higher growth markets. is a
particularly strong visual representation of the advantages a global corporation
stands to capture, where the darker green areas represent where the highest GDP
growth potential resides. High growth in the external environment is a strong

PAGE 38
opportunity for most incumbents in the market.

Challenges

However, despite the general opportunities a global market provides, there are
significant challenges MNCs face in penetrating these markets. These challenges can
loosely be defined through four factors:

• Public Relations: Public image and branding are critical components of most
businesses. Building this public relations potential in a new geographic region
is an enormous challenge, both in effectively localizing the message and in the
capital expenditures necessary to create momentum.
• Ethics: Arguably the most substantial of the challenges faced by MNCs, ethics
have historically played a dramatic role in the success or failure of global
players. For example, Nike had its brand image hugely damaged through
utilizing ‘sweat shops’ and low wage workers in developing countries.
Maintaining the highest ethical standards while operating in developing
countries is an important consideration for all MNCs.
• Organizational Structure: Another significant hurdle is the ability to efficiently
and effectively incorporate new regions within the value chain and corporate
structure. International expansion requires enormous capital investments in
many cases, along with the development of a specific strategic business unit
(SBU) in order to manage these accounts and operations. Finding a way to
capture value despite this fixed organizational investment is an important
initiative for global corporations.
• Leadership: The final factor worth noting is attaining effective leaders with the
appropriate knowledge base to approach a given geographic market. There are
differences in strategies and approaches in every geographic location
worldwide, and attracting talented managers with high intercultural
competence is a critical step in developing an efficient global strategy.

Combining these four challenges for global corporations with the inherent
opportunities presented by a global economy, companies are encouraged to chase
the opportunities while carefully controlling the risks to capture the optimal amount
of value. Through effectively maintaining ethics and a strong public image,
companies should create strategic business units with strong international leadership
in order to capture value in a constantly expanding global market.

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 Activity

Film Review: Watch the movie “The Price of Sugar” and let’s discover the facts
behind it.

Answer the following questions:

Who are the protagonist and antagonist
in the film?

Does this film remind you of anything?

Which part of this film do you like? Why?

If you could change one thing about this

film, what would you change?

If you would describe this film to a

friend, what kind of words would you
use?

Quiz

Answer the question in exactly 140 words.

How can a small local business enterprise compete against a global corporation?
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Lesson 5: Interstate System

International System (excerpt)

From Encyclopedia of Life Support System (EOLSS)
By Ryuhei Hatsuse

An international system] are “groups of independent states held together by

a web of economic and strategic interests and pressures so that they are forced to
take account of each other and those which make a conscious social contract by
instituting rules and machinery to make their relations more orderly and predictable
and to further certain shared principles and values.” – Hedley Ball and Adam Watson
– The Expansion of International Society

1.1 The Concept of System

In studies of international politics, the conception of “system” has been used
mainly in two ways, international system, and world system(s). First, the term
“international system” is a concept for analysis or description of international politics
or relations, but therein lies a sense of prescription for diplomatic or military action
too. Used as an analytical term, it is predicated upon a definite notion of system. But
it is not necessarily so when it is used to describe situations of international relations
at a given time. Second, the term “world system(s)” is a concept with which to
analyze or describe mainly politico-economic global situations, while its implications
for political action are derived but only indirectly. Third, “international system” came
to be accepted as an academic term in the late 1950s, soon becoming fashionable,
but more or less obsolete in the late 1990s. “World system(s)” began to be
discussed in the 1970s, still maintaining popularity in the academia. Terms such as
“international regimes” and “global governance” seem to have taken the place of
“international system” as an academic key word in the 1990s, although the latter still
holds validity. The new terms are more normative and descriptive than analytic,
having explicit implications for promoting international cooperation.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines “system” to be (a) a set or assemblage

of things connected, associated, or interdependent, so as to form a complex unity,
or (b) a whole composed of parts in orderly arrangement according to some scheme
or plan. This is a well-conceived definition, but when we apply this to these systemic
approaches, we find it insufficient. As a basic definition, it is fairly useful and
satisfying, but it is not fully sufficient, in that it does not take into consideration what
powers, military, economic, political or cultural, circulate among the parts so as to
connect or disconnect them. Besides, it greatly matters how deeply a structure
exerts influences on its constitutive units. Here the problem is whether the
influences reach just the surface only to change the behavior patterns of the units,
or whether they penetrate deeply enough to transform even the inner structures.
Within the framework of international system, they are assumed to impose restraints
on the freedom of action of states, and in terms of world system(s), to change the

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nature of the units. The conception of system in the former is, so to speak,
mechanical or of the modern Western origin, but that in the latter can be said to be
organic, and of the classical Asian origin.

1.2 International System and Society

While the first part of OED definition is more extensive in usage, the second is
limited to such cases as can be related to a preconceived scheme or plan. When we
extrapolate this contrast to international relations, we reach the argument developed
by Hedley Bull in elaborating on the distinction between international system and
society. As to the former, he defines: a system of states (or international system) is
formed when two or more states have sufficient contact between them, and have
sufficient impact on one another’s decisions, to cause them to behave—at least in
some measure—as parts of a whole. This corresponds very well to the first definition
of system noted in the above. Turning to international society, he defines: a society
of states (or international society) exists when a group of states, conscious of certain
common interests and commonvalues, form a society, in the sense that they
conceive themselves to be bound by acommon set of rules in their relations with one
another, and share in the working ofcommon institutions. Thus he notes that an
international society in this sensepresupposes an international system, but an
international system may exist that is not aninternational society. This usage is quite
similar to the second definition of system citedfrom the OED in the above. His
distinction between the two is more persuasive in thelight of the change in
international relations since the end of the Cold War (1989).

The term “international system” in Bull’s sense was very popular among the
academics of all nations during the Cold War period. But it has increasingly lost
popularity in the 1990s, the role of which is beginning to be taken over by such
terms as international regimes or global governance, reflective of formative changes
in international society. We see international schemes or plans more activated in the
post-Cold War world than ever before. If we borrow Bull’s concepts, international
relations have been rapidly changing from international system to international
society. However, we should not forget that the notion “international system” still
holds some validity, regardless of changes in real politics and academic fashions,
because inter-state relations compose an integral part of the current international
relations. So, to analyze or depict them, we need both the terms of international
system and international society in Bull’s sense (Hatsuse, 2004).

History of the International System

from sparknotes.com

States engage with one another in an environment known as

the International System. All states are considered to be sovereign, and some
states are more powerful than others. The system has a number of informal rules
about how things should be done, but these rules are not binding. International
relations have existed as long as states themselves. But the modern international

PAGE 43
system under which we live today is only a few centuries old. Significant events have
marked the milestones in the development of the international system.

The Peace of Westphalia (1648)

In 1648, the Peace of Westphalia, which ended the Thirty Years’ War between
Catholic states and Protestant states in western and central Europe, established our
modern international system. It declared that the sovereign leader of each nation-
state could do as she or he wished within its borders and established the state as
the main actor in global politics. From that point forward, the international system
has consisted primarily of relations among nation-states.

Shifting Balances of Power (1600–1800)

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the nation-state emerged as the
dominant political unit of the international system. A series of powerful states
dominated Europe, with the great powers rising and falling. Weaker states often
banded together to prevent the dominant power from becoming too strong, a
practice known as preserving the Balance Of Power. Frequent wars and economic
competition marked this era. Some nations—notably France and England—were
powerful through most of the modern age, but some—such as Spain and the
Ottoman Empire—shrank in power over time.

Emergence of Nationalism (1800–1945)

The nineteenth century brought two major changes to the international system:

1. Nationalism emerged as a strong force, allowing nation-states to grow even

more powerful.
2. Italy and Germany became unified countries, which altered the balance of
military and economic power in Europe.

The problems raised by the unification of Germany contributed to World War I

(1914–1918). In the aftermath of the war, the international system changed
dramatically again. The major powers of Europe had suffered greatly, whereas the
United States began to come out of its isolation and transform into a global power.
At the same time, the end of the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires created a
series of new nations, and the rise of communism in Russia presented problems for
other nations. These factors contributed to the Treaty of Versailles, the rise of
Nazism and communism, and World War II (1939–1945)

New World Orders (1945–Present)

The end of World War II marked a decisive shift in the global system. After
the war, only two great world powers remained: the United States and the Soviet
Union. Although some other important states existed, almost all states were
understood within the context of their relations with the two superpowers. This
global system was called Bipolar because the system centered on two great
powers.

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 Since the end of the Cold War and the fall of the Soviet Union, the nature of
the world has changed again. Only one superpower remains, leading some scholars
to label the new international system Unipolar. Others point to the increasing
economic power of some European and Asian states and label the new
system Multipolar. To some extent, both terms are accurate. The United States has
the world’s most powerful military, which supports the unipolar view, but the U.S.
economy is not as powerful, relative to the rest of the world, lending credence to the
multipolar view.

Contemporary International Systems

Number Of Nations
System With Power Nations With Power Dates
Unipolar One United States Post-1989
Bipolar Two United States and the Soviet Union 1945–1989
Multi- United States, United Kingdom, France, Pre–World
Polar Several Russia, Germany, Italy, Japan War I
United States, European Union, China,
India Post-1989

A Plethora Of Politics
Political scientists usually use the terms international politics and global
politics synonymously, but technically the terms have different
meanings. International Politics, strictly speaking, refers to relationships between
states. Global Politics, in contrast, refers to relationships among states and other
interest groups, such as global institutions, corporations, and political
activists. Comparative Politics seeks to understand how states work by comparing
them to one another. While international relations studies how states relate to one
another, comparative politics compare the internal workings of a state, its political
institutions, its political culture, and the political behavior of its citizens.

International Organizations

An international organization is an organization created either by a treaty or

other instrument governed by international law and possessing its own international
legal personality. There are two types of international organizations:

1. International Governmental Organizations (IGOs); and

2. International Nongovernmental Organizations (INGOs or,
more commonly, NGOs).
IGOs are formed when governments make an agreement or band together.
Only governments or nation-states belong to IGOs. On the other hand, INGOs are
made up of individuals and are not affiliated with governments. IGOs and INGOs

PAGE 45
exist for a variety off reasons, such as controlling the proliferation of conventional
and nuclear weapons, supervising trade, maintaining military alliances, ending world
hunger, and fostering the spread of democracy and peace, etc.
Types of NGOs

Below are a variety of acronyms to define specific types of NGOs:

INGO: International Nongovernmental Organization

BINGO: Business-oriented Nongovernmental Organization

RINGO: Religious-oriented Nongovernmental Organization

ENGO: Environmental nongovernmental Organization

GONGO: Government-operated Nongovernmental Organization

QUANGO: Quasi-autonomous Nongovernmental Organization

Quiz
Essay: Answer in 100 words, compare and contrast globalism and internationalism
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Lesson 6: Global Governance
The World Health Organization defines global governance as “…the way in
which global affairs are managed. As there is no global government, global
governance typically involves arrange of actors including states, as well as regional
and international organizations. However, a single organization may nominally be
given the lead role on an issue, for example the World Trade Organization in world
trade affairs. Thus global governane is thought to be an international process of
consensus-forming which generates guidelines and agreements that affect national
governments and international corporations. Examples of such consensus would
include WHO policies on health issues” (World Health Organization, 2015).

This lesson will discuss global governance and the role of government within
the context of globalization as well as the issues and challenges to effective global
governance.

Global governance brings together diverse actors to coordinate collective

action at the level of the planet. The goal of global governance, roughly defined, is
to provide global public goods, particularly peace and security, justice and mediation
systems for conflict, functioning markets and unified standards for trade and
industry. One crucial global public good is catastrophic risk management – putting
appropriate mechanisms in place to maximally reduce the likelihood and impact of
any event that could cause the death of 1 billion people across the planet, or
damage of equivalent magnitude.

The leading institution in charge of global governance today is the United

Nations. It was founded in 1945, in the wake of the Second World War, as a way to
prevent future conflicts on that scale. The United Nations does not directly bring
together the people of the world, but sovereign nation states, and currently counts
193 members who make recommendations through the UN General Assembly. The
UN’s main mandate is to preserve global security, which it does particularly through
the Security Council. In addition the UN can settle international legal issues through
the International Court of Justice, and implements its key decisions through the
Secretariat, led by the Secretary General.

The United Nations has added a range of areas to its core mandate since
1945. It works through a range of agencies and associated institutions particularly to
ensure greater shared prosperity, as a desirable goal in itself, and as an indirect way
to increase global stability. As a key initiative in that regard, in 2015, the UN
articulated the Sustainable Development Goals, creating common goals for the
collective future of the planet.

Beyond the UN, other institutions with a global mandate play an important
role in global governance. Of primary importance are the so-called Bretton Woods

PAGE 47
institutions: the World Bank and the IMF, whose function is to regulate the global
economy and credit markets. Those institutions are not without their critics for this
very reason, being often blamed for maintaining economic inequality.

Global governance is more generally affected through a range of

organizations acting as intermediary bodies. Those include bodies in charge of
regional coordination, such as the EU or ASEAN, which coordinate the policies of
their members in a certain geographical zone. Those also include strategic or
economic initiatives under the leadership of one country – NATO for the US or
China’s Belt and Road Initiative for instance – or more generally coordinating
defense or economic integration, such as APEC or ANZUS. Finally, global governance
relies on looser norm-setting forums, such as the G20, the G7, the World Economic
Forum: those do not set up treaties, but offer spaces for gathering, discussing ideas,
aligning policy and setting norms. This last category could be extended to multi-
stakeholder institutions that aim to align global standards, for instance the Internet
Engineering Taskforce (IETF) and the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).

In summary, global governance is essential but fragmented, complex and

little understood. In this context, the key questions raised by the Global Challenges
Foundation are, how to reform institutions, how to develop alternative institutions,
and how to use the new possibilities of technology to improve governance (Global
Challenges Foundation 2020).

Thematic Focus and Projects

Global Governance Reform

In a rapidly globalizing world, virtually everything is in flow: Information,

trade, finances, and people. Good global governance can serve as a beacon that
helps us negotiate these rapids of contemporary human interaction. The Institute
makes policy recommendations to overcome global governance challenges by
improving the efficiency, effectiveness, and legitimacy of collective actions
undertaken by relevant stakeholders.

Global Business, Labor, and Economic Governance

The core theme Global Justice through Business, Labor, and Economic
Governance focus on the role of the private sector, labor, and multilateral economic
institutions (for example, the G20, ASEAN, the EU, the WTO, and the UN system
including the IFIs, ILO, and WIPO) in strengthening the peace-security-justice
nexus, including by advancing and shaping global norms and principles as well as
the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.

Activities are undertaken under this theme aim to improve the global
governance of economic factors – including trade, financial flows, labor, and
intellectual property – by fostering innovation as well as by maximizing these factors
to advance global peace, security, and justice (for example, by strengthening the
role of international institutions in the transfer and utilization of climate-friendly

PAGE 48
technologies in developing countries). The role of climate change as a threat
multiplier that places human security and the global economy at risk is a cross-
cutting element of global governance that will frequently feature in research
activities conducted within this pillar. In addition, this core theme will prioritize
migration management, including vis-à-vis the current refugee and internally
displaced persons crisis.

Global Security, Justice, and Governance

The project departs from the insight that no single state or group of states
can manage current and emerging global challenges on their own. Since uncertain
governance begets insecurity and insecurity is a gateway to injustice, a renewed
effort to upgrade the global governance architecture so as to manage
interdependence effectively, justly, and with strategic vision is both a moral and a
practical imperative. Security, justice, and governance are inextricably linked

Activity
Issue/Challenge in Global Governance: A SWOT Analysis
A SWOT analysis is a strategic planning used to help a person or organization
identify strenghts, weaknesses, opportunities and threats related to business
competition or project planning.

Choose one issue/challenge in global governance from the following: rogue

state, ethnic conflict, infectious disease, terrorism, climate change, food and water
scarcity, international migration, human trafficking, piracy and proliferation of
weapon of mass destruction and then use the SWOT analysis below.
Identified Issue/Challenge in Global
Governance:___________________________________________

Strenghts Weaknesses

Opportunities Threaths

PAGE 49
 Unit Three: Tale of Two
Worlds
Learning Outcomes:

At the end of the unit, the student must have:

1. Defined the term “Global South”

2. Differentiated the Global South from the Third World
3.Analyzed how a new conception of global relations emerged from the
experiences of Latin America countries ;
4.Differentiated between regionalism and globalization
5.Identified the factors leading to a greater integration of the Asian region

Introduction
There are two lessons that make up this unit: “Global North-South Divide”
and “Asian Regionalism.

The first lesson explains the Global North-South dynamic and critically
examines the issues/challenges currently faced by the Global North and Global South
in order to bridge their gap or divide. The lesson also considers the experiences of
Latin American countries particularly the South-South connection.

The global North refers to developed societies of Europe and North America,
which are characterized by established democracy, wealth, technological
advancement, political stability, aging population, zero population growth and
dominance of world trade and politics. The global South represents mainly agrarian
economies in Africa, India, China, Latin America and others that are not as
economically sound and politically stable as their global North counterparts and tend
to be characterized by turmoil, war, conflict, poverty, anarchy and tyranny. In short,
the globalNorth is synonymous with development, while the global South is
associated with underdevelopment. (Odeh 2019)

The second lesson tackles Asian regionalism and the driving forces for

PAGE 50
regional cooperation among states in general, and in the East Asian region in
particular.

Regionalism and globalization are two very different concepts: yet they
inevitably work together. Regionalism is the process through which geographical
regions become significant political and/or economic units serving as the basis for
cooperation and possibly identify whereas globalization is the interconnectedness
and interdependence of states, forming a process of international integration arising
from the interchange of world views, products, ideas, and other aspects of culture.

Regionalism is inevitably linked with globalization. While globalization is the

increased interdependence of states, regionalism allows this dependence. Regional
economic blocs have tended to be formed in part because of the impact of
globaliza on on the economic independence of states. As borders have become
porous and economic sovereignty has declined, states have been inclined to work
more closely with other states within the same region.(wordpress.com 2014)

Lesson 7: The Global North-South Divide

What is the North-South Divide?

By Benjamin Elisha Sawe

Global Divide

-The concept of a gap between the Global North and the Global South in
terms of development and wealth (Royal Geographical Society).

The North-South Divide, also known as the Rich-Poor Divide, is an imaginary

line separating more economically developed and less economically developed
countries.

PAGE 51
 The “global divide” is caused by political power, economic dependency, and
importation/exportation of resources. The transition of industrial production to
cheaper labor sources, international media, and expanding international trade
and communication have in some ways made the world smaller, yet in other
ways made the gaps between nations larger by creating greater dependency of
poor nations to wealthy nations.

The North-South Divide is a socio-economic and political categorization of

countries. The Cold-War-era generalization places countries in two distinct groups;
The North and the South. The North is comprised of all First World countries and
most Second World countries while the South is comprised of Third World countries.
This categorization ignores the geographic position of countries with some countries
in the southern hemisphere such as Australia and New Zealand being labeled as part
of the North. North-South divide can be seen in:

*Economy

*Poverty

*Development

*Life expectancy

*Literacy

History

The origin of dividing countries into the North-South Divide arose during the
Cold War of the mid 20th century. During this time, countries were primarily

PAGE 52
categorized according to their alignment between the Russian East and the American
West. Countries in the East like the Soviet Union and China which became classified
as Second World countries. In the west, the United States and its allies were labeled
as First World countries. This division left out many countries which were poorer
than the First World and Second World countries. The poor countries were
eventually labeled as Third World countries. This categorization was later abandoned
after the Second World countries joined the First World countries. New criteria was
established to categorize countries which was named the North-South Divide where
First World countries were known as the North while Third World countries
comprised the South.

The North (First World Countries)

The North of the Divide is comprised of countries which have developed

economies and account for over 90% of all manufacturing industries in the world.
Although these countries account for only one-quarter of the total global population,
they control 80% of the total income earned around the world. All the members of
the G8 come from the North as well as four permanent members of the UN Security
Council. About 95% of the population in countries in The North have enough basic
needs and have access to functioning education systems. Countries comprising the
North include The United States, Canada, all countries in Western Europe, Australia,
New Zealand as well as the developed countries in Asia such as Japan and South
Korea.

There any several factors which allowed the countries in the North to gain a
better standard of living then the South. The North has always seemed to have an
advantage over the South, and the biggest advantage that allowed the North
colonize the South is the technological advancement in weaponry. Another factor is
the gap in the advancement of medicine.

*Economy was based on industries and major businesses, commerce and

finance.

*North had many manufacturing factories that dealt with textiles, lumber,
clothing, machinery, leather, and wooden goods.

*The biggest business of the north was in railroad construction.

*Transportation was easier because of railroads.

*North America, Western Europe, Australia, Japan.

*Known as First Class

*Home to four to five permanent members of the United Nations Security

Council

*Richer and developed region

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 *95% has enough food and shelter and functioning education system as well.

The South (Third World Countries)

The South is comprised of countries with developing economies which were

initially referred to as Third World countries during the Cold War. An important
characteristic of countries in the South is the relatively low GDP and the high
population. The Third World accounts for only a fifth of the globally earned income
but accounts for over three-quarters of the global population. Another common
characteristic of the countries in the South is the lack of basic amenities. As little as
5% of the population is able to access basic needs such as food and shelter. The
economies of most countries in the South rely on imports from the North and have
low technological penetration. The countries making up the South are mainly drawn
from Africa, South America, and Asia with all African and South American countries
being from the South. The only Asian countries not from the South are Japan and
South Korea.

Global South can be described as the following:

*Economy was based on cotton production which depended on slave labor

*Southern economy was weak and vulnerable because it depended entirely

on cotton but was still very profitable

*Africa, Latin America and Asia

*Poor and less developed region

*5% of the population has enough food and shelter
*It serves a source for a raw material for the north

Criticism

The North-South Divide is criticized for being a way of segregating people

along economic lines and is seen as a factor of the widening gap between developed
and developing economies. However, several measures have been put in place to
contract the North-South Divide including the lobbying for international free trade
and globalization. The United Nations has been in the forefront in diminishing the
North-South Divide through policies highlighted in its Millennium Development Goals.
(Sawe, 2017)

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Challenges

The accuracy of the North–South divide has been challenged on a number of

grounds. Firstly, differences in the political, economic and demographic make-up of
countries tend to complicate the idea of a monolithic South. Globalization has also
challenged the notion of two distinct economic spheres. Following the liberalization
of post-Mao China initiated in 1978, growing regional cooperation between the
national economies of Asia has led to the growing decentralization of the North as
the main economic power. The economic status of the South has also been
fractured. As of 2015, all but roughly the bottom 60 nations of the Global South
were thought to be gaining on the North in terms of income, diversification, and
participation in the world market. Globalization has largely displaced the North–
South divide as the theoretical underpinning of the development efforts of
international institutions such as the IMF, World Bank, WTO, and various United
Nations affiliated agencies, though these groups differ in their perceptions of the
relationship between globalization and inequality. Yet some remain critical of the
accuracy of globalization as a model of the world economy, emphasizing the
enduring centrality of nation-states in world politics and the prominence of regional
trade relations.

Activity
Essay: Global Stratification & Poverty” Video Analysis

Watch Crash Sociology #27: Global Stratification & Poverty hosted by Nicole
Sweeney. Use this link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rts_PWIVTU and
answer the following questions.

1. Your response to the video in 10 words:

____________________________________________________________________
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____________________________________________________________________

2. In just 10 words, explain the purpose/theme/aim of the video.

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3. Make a summary of the video in 20 words.

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4. In ten words, what are the values you learned from video?
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Quiz

Essay: Answer each question in 140 words.

1. In what ways did the global north-south divide?

2. What way or method do you recommend to resolve the gap/divide between the
Global North and the Global South?

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2.
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Lesson 8: Asian Regionalism

GLOBALIZATION, THE NEW

REGIONALISM AND EAST ASIA
Björn Hettne, Professor, University of Gothenburg, Sweden

I. The New Regionalism: A Conceptual and Theoretical Framework

Over the last decade the issue of regionalism has once again "been brought
back in", albeit in a different form compared to the debate on regional integration
some three decades ago. Thus, I shall argue that we are dealing with a "new"
regionalism. I shall also argue that this regionalism can be seen as a response to the
process of globalization and the social eruptions associated with this process. The
second part of the paper applies the framework to the case of East Asia.

Globalism versus Regionalism

Globalism can be defined as programmatic globalization, the vision of a
borderless world. I see globalization as a qualitatively new phenomenon. If
globalization implies a tendency towards a global social system, its origins may be
traced far back in history, but one could also argue that the process reached a new
stage in the post-Second World War era. The subjective sense of geographical
distance is dramatically changed, some even speak of "the end of geography". Also
in ecological terms the world is experienced as one. Economic interdependence was
made possible by the political stability of the American world order, which lasted
from the end of the Second World War until the late '60s or early '70s. Basically,
globalization indicates a qualitative deepening of the internationalization process,
strengthening the functional and weakening the territorial dimension of
development.

Globalism thus implies the growth of a world market, increasingly penetrating

and dominating the "national" economies, which in the process are bound to lose
some of their "nationness". This means dominance of the world market over
structures of local production, as well as the increasing prevalence of Western-type
consumerism. From this, there may emerge a political will to halt or to reverse the
process of globalization, in order to safeguard some degree of territorial control and
cultural diversity. One way of achieving such a change could be through the New
Regionalism.

The two processes of globalization and regionalization are articulated within

the same larger process of global structural transformation, the outcome of which
depends on a dialectical rather than linear development. It can therefore not be
readily extrapolated or easily foreseen. But rather it expresses the relative strength
of contending social forces involved in the two processes. They deeply affect the
stability of the Westphalian state system; and therefore they at the same time
contribute to both disorder and, possibly, a future world order.

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 There is an intricate relationship between regionalization and globalization.
Compared to "regionalism", with an impressive theoretical tradition behind it,
"globalism" is a more recent concept in social science. Whether its consequences are
seen as catastrophic or as the ultimate unification of the world, the concept of
globalization is often used in a rather loose and ideological sense.

However, there are also many definitions of the new regionalism, and, just as
is the case with globalization, some are enthusiastic, some more alarmist. For the
critics, the regionalist trend constitutes a threat to the multilateral system. For the
enthusiasts, on the other hand, the new regionalism could form the basis for an
improved multilateral system. The basic problem with globalization is its
selectiveness. Exclusion is inherent in the process, and the benefits are evenly
balanced by misery, conflict and violence. The negative effects are incompatible with
the survival of civil society, and thus in the longer run a threat to all humanity.

The New Face of Regionalism

What do I mean by the new regionalism? The new regionalism differs from
the "old" regionalism in a number of ways, and I want to emphasize the following
five contrasts:

1. Whereas the old regionalism was formed in a bipolar Cold War context, the
new is taking shape in a multipolar world order. The new regionalism and
multipolarity are, in fact, two sides of the same coin. The decline of US hegemony
and the breakdown of the Communist subsystem created a room-for-manoeuvre, in
which the new regionalism could develop. It would never have been compatible with
the Cold War system, since the "quasi-regions" of that system tended to reproduce
bipolarity within themselves. This old pattern of hegemonic regionalism was of
course most evident in Europe before 1989, but at the height of the Cold War
discernible in all world regions. There are still remnants of it here in East Asia.

2. Whereas the old regionalism was created "from above" (often through
superpower intervention), the new is a more spontaneous process from within the
regions, where the constituent states now experience the need for cooperation in
order to tackle new global challenges. Regionalism is thus one way of coping with
global transformation, since most states lack the capacity and the means to manage
such a task on the "national" level.

3. Whereas the old regionalism was inward oriented and protectionist in

economic terms, the new is often described as "open", and thus compatible with an
interdependent world economy. However, the idea of a certain degree of preferential
treatment of countries within the region is implied in the idea of open regionalism.
How this somewhat contradictory balance between the principle of multilateralism
and the more particularistic regionalist concerns shall be maintained remains
somewhat unclear. I would myself rather stress the ambiguity between "opened"
and "closed" regionalism.

4. Whereas the old regionalism was specific with regard to its objectives
(some organizations being security oriented, others economically oriented), the new

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is a more comprehensive, multidimensional process. This process includes not only
trade and economic development, but also environment, social policy and security,
just to mention some imperatives pushing countries and communities towards
cooperation within new types of regionalist frameworks.

5. Whereas the old regionalism was concerned only with relations between
nation states, the new forms part of a global structural transformation in which non-
state actors (many different types of institutions, organizations and movements) are
also active and operating at several levels of the global system.

In sum, the new regionalism includes economic, political, social and cultural
aspects, and goes far beyond free trade. Rather, the political ambition of
establishing regional coherence and regional identity seems to be of primary
importance. The new regionalism is linked to globalization and can therefore not be
understood merely from the point of view of the single region. Rather it should be
defined as a world order concept, since any particular process of regionalization in
any part of the world has systemic repercussions on other regions, thus shaping the
way in which the new world order is being organized. The new global power
structure will thus be defined by the world regions, but regions of different types.

Core and Periphery

A rough distinction can be made between three structurally different types of
regions: core regions, peripheral regions and, between them, intermediate regions.
How do they differ from each other?

• The core regions are politically stable and economically dynamic. They
organize for the sake of being better able to control the rest of the world, the
world outside their own region.
• The intermediate regions are closely linked to the core regions. They will be
incorporated as soon as they conform to the criterion of "core-ness", that is,
economic development and political stability.
• The peripheral regions, in contrast, are politically turbulent and economically
stagnant. Consequently they must organize in order to arrest a process of
marginalization. Their regional arrangements are at the same time fragile and
ineffective. Their overall situation makes "security regionalism" and
"developmental regionalism" more important than the creation of free trade
regimes. They are necessarily more introverted.

The core regions are those regions which are politically capable, no matter
whether such capability is expressed in the form of a political organization or not. So
far only one of the three core regions, namely Europe, aspires to build such an
organization. The other two, that is North America and East Asia, are both
economically strong, but so far they lack a regional political order.

Structurally close to core are the intermediate regions, all in preparation for
being incorporated in the core, the speed depending on their good, "core-like",
behavior. They are:

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 • Central Europe, obediently waiting first in line for membership in the
European Union,
• Latin America and the Caribbean, in the process of becoming "North
Americanized",
• China, South-East Asia and the "European Pacific", or Oceania (Australia, New
Zealand), all now being drawn by Japanese capital into the East Asia
economic space.

Remaining in the periphery are thus the following five regions:

• the post-Soviet area, the major parts of it now in the process of being
reintegrated in the form of Commonwealth of Independent States (perhaps
laying the ground for a future core region),
• the Balkans, where the countries have lost whatever little tradition of
cooperation they once might have been involved in,
• the Middle East, a region defined from outside and with a most unsettled
regional structure,
• South Asia, with a very low level of "regionness", because of the "cold war"
(sometimes getting hot) between the two major powers, India and Pakistan,
and finally, Africa, where in many countries the political structures called
"states" are falling apart.

Levels of Regionness
Thus, the peripheral regions are "peripheral" because they are stagnant,
turbulent and war prone. The only way for these regions to become less peripheral
is to become more regionalized, i.e. to increase their levels of "regionness".
Otherwise, their only power resource would rest in their capacity to create problems
for the core regions ("chaos power"), and thereby inviting some sort of external
engagement. What shall we then understand by "regionness"? It means that a
region can be a region more or less. There are five degrees of "regionness":

1. Region as a geographical unit, delimited by more or less natural physical

barriers and marked by ecological characteristics: "Europe from the Atlantic to the
Urals", "Africa south of the Sahara" or "the Indian subcontinent". This first level can
be referred to as a "proto-region", or a "pre-regional zone", since there is no
organized society. In order to further regionalize, this particular territory must,
necessarily, be inhabited by human beings, maintaining some kind of relationship.
This brings us to the social dimension.

2. Region as social system implies trans-local relations between human

groups. These relations constitute a security complex, in which the constituent units,
as far as their own security is concerned, are dependent on each other, as well as
the overall stability of the regional system. Thus the social relations may very well be
hostile. The region, just like the international system of which it forms a part, can
therefore be described as anarchic. The classic case of such a regional order is 19th
century Europe. At this low level of organization, a balance of power or some kind of
"concert", is the sole security guarantee. This is a rather primitive security
mechanism. We could therefore talk of a "primitive" region.

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 3. Region as organized cooperation in any of the cultural, economic, political
or military fields. In this case, region is defined by the list of countries which are the
formal members of the regional organization in question. In the absence of some
kind of organized cooperation, the concept of regionalism does not make much
sense. This more organized region could be called the "formal" region. It should be
possible to relate the "formal region" (defined by organizational membership) to the
"real region" (which has to be defined in terms of potentialities and through less
precise criteria) in order to assess the relevance and future potential of a particular
regional organization.

4. Region as civil society takes shape when the organizational framework

facilitates and promotes social communication and convergence of values throughout
the region. Of course the pre-existence of a shared cultural tradition in a particular
region is of crucial importance here, but culture is not only a given but continuously
created and recreated. However, the defining element here is the multidimensional
and voluntary quality of regional cooperation and the societal characteristics
indicating an emerging "regional anarchic society", that is something more than
anarchy, but less than society.

5. Region as acting subject with a distinct identity, actor capability, legitimacy

and structure of decision-making. Crucial areas for regional intervention are conflict
resolution (between and particularly within former "states") and creation of welfare
(in terms of social security and regional balance). This process is similar to state
formation and nation building, and the ultimate outcome could be a "region-state",
which in terms of scope can be compared to the classical empires, but in terms of
political order constitutes a voluntary evolution of a group of formerly sovereign
national, political units into a supranational security community, where sovereignty is
pooled for the best of all.

The five levels may express a certain evolutionary logic, but the idea is not to
suggest a stage theory but to provide a framework for comparative analysis. Since
regionalism is a political project it may, just like a nation-state project, fail. This,
similarly, means peripheralization and decreasing regionness for the region
concerned. Changes in terms of regionness thus imply changes of the structural
position in the centre-periphery order.

The Dynamics of Regionalization

The degree of "regionness" of particular areas can increase or decrease
depending on regional dynamics, in which global as well as national/local forces of
course have an impact. Regionalization affects and is affected by many levels of the
world system: the system as a whole, the level of interregional relations, and the
internal structure of the single region. It is not possible to state which of these levels
comes first or which is the more important, since changes on the various levels
interact. There are also different dimensions of the process relating to each other.

Regional integration was traditionally seen as a harmonization of trade

policies leading to deeper economic integration, with political integration as a
possible future result. The concept "new regionalism" refers to a transformation of a

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particular region from relative heterogeneity to increased homogeneity with regard
to a number of dimensions, the most important being culture, security, economic
policies and political regimes. The convergence along these four dimensions may be
a natural process or politically steered or, most likely, a mixture of the two. A certain
level of "sameness" is a necessary but not sufficient condition.

Culture takes a long time to change. Of importance here is rather the inherently
shared culture which usually is transnational, since national borders in many cases
are artificial divisions of a larger cultural area.
A transformation of the security regime (from security complex towards security
community) is perhaps the most crucial factor.
Changes in political regimes today typically mean democratization.
Changes in economic policies nowadays normally go in the direction of economic
openness.

The dynamics of regionalization thus constitute the interaction between these

dimensions and can, furthermore, be found at different levels of world society:

• On the global level, the changing structure of the world system provides
room-for-maneuver for the regional actors, at the same time as the process
of regionalization in itself constitutes a structural change towards
multipolarity.
• On the level of interregional relations the behavior of one region affects the
behavior of others. European regionalism is, for instance, the trigger of global
regionalization, at least in two different ways: one positive (in promoting
regionalism by providing a model) the other negative (in provoking
regionalism by constituting a protectionist threat).
• The regions themselves constitute arenas for sometimes competing,
sometimes converging "national interests". If the overall trend within a
particular geographical area is convergence of interests, we can speak of an
emerging regional actor.
• The actual process of regionalization is triggered by events on the sub-
national level as well. One example is the "black hole" syndrome or the
disintegration of nation states due to ethno-national mobilization. A less
violent form of national disintegration is the emergence of economic micro-
regions as the geopolitical environment creates a more direct access to the
macro economy for dynamic sub-national regions.

Although the region is slowly becoming an actor in its own terms, the nation
states typically still conceive it as an arena where so-called "national interests" could
be promoted, and these interests are, of course, differently conceived by different
social groups in society. Whereas certain groups may find it rewarding to move into
the supranational space, others cling to the national space where they have their
vested interests to protect. Regionalization thus creates its own counterforces.
The Crucial Role of State Behavior
Regionalization does not come about unless the states in a particular region
want it. It may come about through a more or less spontaneous or unintended
convergence in terms of political regime, economic policy or security, but often one

PAGE 62
can identify a triggering political event which sets the process in motion. Naturally,
this political event is related to the main players in the region, the policy makers, in
contradistinction to policy takers, the smaller players. In order to understand the
regionalization in various areas of the world, it is thus wise to observe the behavior
of the policy makers.

We can divide the policy makers into two categories, those whose influence goes
beyond a particular region, the world powers, and those whose influence is confined
to a particular region, the regional powers.

• World powers may not be able to achieve hegemony on the world level,
which, since the range of their influence is undefined and varying, means that
there will be a certain competition among them.
• The regional powers may be hegemonic in their own regions (which implies a
general acceptance or at least tolerance of their leadership throughout the
region) or simply dominant (which means that they are looked upon with
suspicion and fear among the minor players).

The policy takers can be further subdivided into:

• those who are supportive of the regionalization process (sometimes the

smaller players are the main proponents), the "supporters",
• those who try to find their own path or, rather, several paths (since they
would be welcome into more than one regional organization), "the multi-
trackers",
• and those who are left in the cold (since they are seen as liabilities rather
than assets), "the isolated".

In some cases regionalism grows from extended bilateral relations, for instance
in the Americas, where both Nafta and Mercosur resulted from a situation where
third parties (Canada and Uruguay) became anxious not to be left in the cold. The
regional powers (in these cases the USA and Brazil) usually prefer bilateralism to
regionalism. This is also the case in South Asia, where the small players softly
imposed regionalism on the regional power. India was always more in favor of
bilateralism. The same behavior seems to be repeated by China in East Asia.

The change from bilateralism to regionalism is thus one crucial indicator of

increasing regionness of a region, but as here defined, increasing regionness can
also result from overlapping bilateral agreements within a region, since such
agreements imply policy convergences in various fields. It is therefore important to
take the point of departure in the geographical area as such, and not from the
formal regional agreements.

The Impact of Regionalization

The final issue I want to discuss here concerns the consequences of
regionalization in terms of security and development. What are, first, the security
problems to which regionalization may provide a solution? They can be summarized
in the metaphor of "black holes", or what in UN terminology is referred to as "failed

PAGE 63
states". National disintegration seems to reinforce the process of regionalization via
threats to regional security, provoking some kind of reaction on the regional level. It
may even form part of the process of regionalization, since the enlargement of
political space provides opportunities for different sub-national and micro-regional
forces, previously locked into state structures, to reassert themselves.

The collapse of political authority at one level of society tends to open up a

previously latent power struggle at lower levels, and in a complex multi-ethnic polity
the process of disintegration may go on almost indefinitely. However, sooner or later
there must be some reorganization of social power and political authority on a higher
level of societal organization, most probably the region.

This is likely to be preceded by some form of external intervention with the

purpose of reversing the disintegration process. Again the region may play a role,
but there are also other, and so far more important, actors. A distinction can be
made between five different modes of external intervention: unilateral, bilateral,
pluri-lateral, regional and multilateral.

• The unilateral can either be carried out by a concerned neighbor trying to

avoid a wave of refugees or by a regional/superpower having strategic
interests in the region.
• In the bilateral case there is some kind of (more or less voluntary) agreement
between the intervener and the country in which the intervention is made.
• The pluri-lateral variety can be an ad hoc group of countries or some more
permanent form of alliance.
• The regional intervention is carried out by a regional organization and thus
has a territorial orientation.
• The multilateral, finally, normally means a UN-led or at least UN-sanctioned
operation.

These distinctions are not very clear-cut, and in real world situations several
actors at different levels may be involved, the number increasing with the complexity
of the conflict itself. However, it is my belief that future external interventions will be
a combination of regional and multilateral operations, but with an increasingly
important role for the former. The record of regional intervention in domestic
conflicts and regional conflict resolution is a recent one and therefore the empirical
basis for making an assessment is weak. However, in almost all world regions there
have been attempts at conflict resolution with a more or less significant element of
regional intervention, often in combination with multilateralism (UN involvement).
Perhaps the future world order can be characterized as regional multilateralism?

Secondly, the new regionalism may provide solutions to development problems,

which in fact can be seen as a form of conflict prevention, since many of the internal
conflicts are rooted in development problems of different kinds. Under the old
regionalism, free trade arrangements reproduced centre-periphery tensions within
the regions, which made regional organizations either disintegrate or fall into
slumber. Let me propose the following seven arguments in favor of a more
comprehensive development regionalism:

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 • Although the question of size of national territory might be of lesser
importance in a highly interdependent world, regional cooperation is
nevertheless imperative, particularly in the case of micro states, which either
have to cooperate to solve common problems or become client states of the
"core countries" (the "sufficient size" argument);
• Self-reliance, rarely viable on the national level, may yet be a feasible
development strategy at the regional, if defined as coordination of production,
improvement of infrastructure and making use of complementarities (the
"viable economy" argument);
• Economic policies may remain more stable and consistent if underpinned by
regional arrangements which cannot be broken by a participant country
without provoking some kind of sanctions from the others (the "credibility"
argument);
• Collective bargaining on the level of the region could improve the economic
position of marginalized countries in the world system, or protect the
structural position and market access of emerging export countries (the
"effective articulation" argument);
• Regionalism can reinforce societal viability by including social security issues
and an element of redistribution (by regional funds or specialized banks) in
the regionalist project (the "social stability" argument);
• Ecological and political borders rarely coincide. Few serious environmental
problems can be solved within the framework of the nation state. Some
problems are bilateral, some are global, quite a few are regional, the latter
often related to water: coastal waters, rivers and groundwater. The fact that
regional management programmes exist and persist, in spite of nationalist
rivalries, shows the imperative need for environmental cooperation (the
"resource management" argument);
• Regional conflict resolution, if successful and durable, eliminates distorted
investment patterns, since the "security fund" (military expenditures) can be
tapped for more productive use (the "peace dividend" argument).

In sum, development regionalism contains the traditional arguments for

regional cooperation such as territorial size and economies of scale, but, more
significantly, add some which are expressing new concerns and uncertainties in the
current transformation of the world order and world economy.

During the Cold War a common argument (the "common security" approach)
against nuclear armament was that the destructive capacity of the military
establishments was excessive and therefore irrational, and that whatever reduction
of the level of armament that could be negotiated might be used for civil
(development) purposes. Some regions, such as East Asia and Europe (and within
these regions Japan and West Germany in particular) were seen as "free riders" of
the security order since they could devote more resources to investment and
economic growth.

In the post-Cold War order these regions have been encouraged to take a
larger responsibility for their own security. At the same time the removal of the Cold
War "overlay" permitted latent conflicts to re-emerge, giving rise to costly

PAGE 65
(conventional) armaments races. The security situations differ from region to region,
with vacuum problems in East Asia and Europe, eruptions of older conflicts in South
Asia and the Middle East, breakdowns of political order leading to "tribal ism" in
Africa and the Balkans. The only region experiencing relative peace is Latin America,
which now may be said to have a comparative advantage in peace and political
stability. The peace in East Asia seems less stable, but in view of the high degree of
economic independence, the states have a high stake in regional security. Here the
circle is closed: regional cooperation for development reduces the level of conflict
and the peace dividend facilitates further development cooperation. This positive
circle can also be turned into a vicious circle, where conflict and underdevelopment
feed on each other. Security and development form one integrated complex, at the
same time as they constitute two fundamental imperatives for regional cooperation
and increasing regionness. The levels of regionness between regions in the process
of being formed will continue to be uneven. Only the future will decide where these
levels will be, and where the balance between regionalization and globalization will
be struck. However, political will and political action will certainly play their part in
breaking the vicious circle of regional conflict, insecurity and underdevelopment.

II. Regionalism in "the Pacific Age"

Asia-Pacific is becoming the new centre of global capitalism. It can also be

seen as an emerging trade bloc under the leadership of Japan, its distinctness
depending on the relative degrees of cooperation and conflict among competing
capitalisms: North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific. It contains several potential
regional formations, the shapes of which, due to unresolved security dilemmas, are
still uncertain. It is thus not so easy to tell what is intraregional and interregional in
the case of Asia-Pacific. So far the three regions within the Asia-Pacific area show a
low degree of regionness. East Asia lacks any kind of formal regionalist framework.
South-East Asia earlier contained two regional formations: the now more or less
post-Communist Indo-China and the previously anti-Communist ASEAN grouping.
The political rationales for these formations have thus completely changed, much
like in Europe, and there are new possible alignments. The "European Pacific"
(Australia and New Zealand) may turn Euro-Asian, but they may also be seen as
regional great powers in a fourth "region" of Pacific micro states: the South Pacific.
In the sections below we first describe the historical heterogeneity of the Pacific
region, secondly experiences of regional conflict and conflict resolution, and thirdly
integrative forces that nevertheless exist.

Pacific Regions and Regional Identity

In the first section of this chapter an argument was made that regionalization
is a worldwide process forming a part of global transformation. A crucial issue is thus
what regional formations can be found in this particular geographical area, and
what, if any, shared cultural basis there is to form a regional identity. The Asia-
Pacific area, which in itself hardly constitutes a region except in a purely
geographical sense, contains three more distinct regional formations: East Asia,
South-East Asia and Australia/New Zealand, which, although physically distant from

PAGE 66
Europe, have cultural European origins. Under the impact of successive immigrations
this heritage is becoming less distinct and economically the region is becoming part
of Asia. Sixty-five per cent of Asia-Pacific trade is now intraregional (compared to
62% in the EC). Also the embryonic security network (ASEAN Regional Forum) is
extended throughout the Asia-Pacific area. The Pacific also includes the South Pacific
islands of Polynesia, Melanesia and Micronesia, and reaches parts of the USA and
Latin America. Although not seen as "Asian" (being far away from the Asian
continent), the South Pacific is also becoming part of the East Asian economic space.
Thus regionalism can be discussed in terms of maximalist and minimalist regionalist
options (Öjendal 1996a).

East Asia is the most dynamic of the world regions, containing a hegemonic
contender (Japan), an enormous "domestic" market (China), three NICs (South
Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong) and a socialist autarky (North Korea), in the midst of
major changes which may fundamentally alter the pattern of cooperation within the
region. A reunification of Korea, a democratization of China and a more independent
Japanese role would release an enormous potential. These changes are admittedly
not imminent, but on the other hand quite feasible. At present the East Asian region
is a region largely in the geographical, economic and perhaps cultural (Confucian-
Buddhist) sense of the concept, while a regional security order is missing. Previous
experiences of "regionalism" have been rather imperialistic. The degree of
"regionness" is thus low in spite of the fact that unplanned economic integration is
now taking place due to the dominance of the yen. Regional integration thus takes
place without much formal institutionalization (Palmer 1991, p. 5). The end of the
Cold War opened up new possibilities for inter-subregional contacts, widening the
potential regional cooperation. The Confucian model provides a dominant pattern of
social and political organization, which now frequently is hailed as a cultural
alternative to Westernization (Herald Tribune, 13 July 1992). Many countries are
facing internal basic policy options which will have a crucial impact on further
regionalization and future regional configurations.

Perhaps the most complex issue in the region is the future role of Japan. Will
it remain number two in Pax Americana or take a more independent global or
regional role? The latter, and perhaps more likely option, would imply the
accumulation of military strength and a break with the introverted Japanese world
view. It also implies reversing the process of "de-Asianization" begun in the 19th
century. The former course presupposes that the US itself does not turn to
isolationism, which would create great confusion as far as Japan is concerned
(Tamamoto 1990). References to "global partnership" cannot hide the fact that the
old security order is defunct, due to the disappearance of the main threat, against
which the order was built, and the emergence of new threats which may necessitate
new approaches. There is, as yet, no national consensus in Japan regarding her
proper role in the world. The erosion of the hegemonic position of the Liberal
Democratic Party (LDP) implies that different options will be more politically
articulated and possibly that future lines of action will be based on a changing
pattern of political alliances. The pressure on Japan from outside also increases, due
to the regionalist and protectionist trend in the world economy.

PAGE 67
 Japan, not a great practitioner of but increasingly dependent on free trade,
has so far been rather negative or at least neutral to the idea of regionalism. It
would, if regionalization were to be the main trend, appear as a regional power in
more than one sense, which is bound to create suspicions throughout the region.
Some countries have the Greater East Asian Co-prosperity Sphere in vivid memory,
and even today the Japanese attitude towards Asia is not free from arrogance. As in
the case of Germany in the EC/EU, a comprehensive regional framework would help
protect Japan against itself, an Asianized Japan rather than a Japanized Asia. Japan
has, however, a rather weak identity as an Asian power, and the prospect of "re-
Asianization" does not seem to be very popular. At the moment, Japan has "a
regional policy for Asia but not a policy of regionalism" (FEER, 18 June 1992). The
latter would necessitate that Japan acted more like a powerful nation state, less like
an international trading firm (Pyle 1993).

Much will of course depend on the future behavior of China in the region.
China will continue the long road towards a more open economy in spite of the
temporary isolation which followed in the wake of the Tiananmen Square incident.
China's self-reliance-oriented economy built in the Cold War context is in need of
transformation, which (as in the case of Viet Nam) implies a change in the domestic
balance of power away from Beijing and towards the south, where foreign
investments flow. Guangdong Province is forging links with Hong Kong, Fujian with
Taiwan, Japan invests primarily in the Shanghai area, and South Korea in Shandong
Province. China as a centralized empire is probably doomed, but its eventual
dissolution could hopefully be less turbulent than the dissolution of the Soviet empire
proved to be.

Regional Conflict Management

Asia-Pacific is a Cold War era par préférence. This means that previous
conflicts have had a strong element of external superpower intervention in
accordance with the Cold War pattern. This situation is now changing quite
dramatically, and more traditional rivalries are resurging, more similar to a 19th
century Europe-type situation. The larger Asia-Pacific "region" (or rather
geographical area) was most affected by the Cold War, and the recent lifting of the
superpower overlay therefore has created a kind of vacuum and a great uncertainty
in the security field. Several powers (great powers and middle powers) have more or
less open regional ambitions, which must be related to turbulent and highly
unpredictable domestic situations in the countries concerned. Regarding the China-
Japan relation, Barry Buzan has made an interesting comparison with the role of
restless Germany, now played by China, in 19th century Europe, whereas the British
role as the global power fully satisfied with the status quo is played by Japan (Buzan
1996). The avoidance of a replay of this drama is obviously necessary for regional
peace. Korean unification is another key to real regional cooperation. Considering
the economic superiority of South Korea and the political lag in North Korea, such a
reunion may take different forms: war, a spontaneous process of the German type
(an "Anschluss") or a more organized path through preparatory negotiations.
Regional conflict management is thus an important step towards further
regionalization. At the same time the overall regional framework for conflict
resolution is weak, hardly existing in East Asia, and so far confined to one of the two

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sub-regions in South-East Asia.

Stable peace in the larger region would change the basic parameters for the
way ASEAN operates at present. As the superpowers pull out, old rivalries are
emerging, at the same time as the objective preconditions for a cooperation
encompassing the whole region in the longer run are improving. This trend will be
reinforced by great power ambitions in the larger Asia-Pacific area, where South-
East Asia is sandwiched between East Asian (China, Japan) and South Asian (India)
regional powers. There is a strong feeling of encirclement and external penetration
in the South-East Asian region, coexisting with a tradition of reliance on external
security support. Somehow this contradiction must be overcome.

The Cambodian conflict has been of major concern for the ASEAN countries,
and has been compared to a "Bosnia" in the region (FEER, 27 May 1993). The
history goes much further back, actually to the Viet Nam war. The ultra-leftist Khmer
Rouge regime pursued an extreme autarkic line which included the physical
elimination of urban ("cosmopolitan") elements. The first intervention was of the
unilateral (neighbourly) kind. The Vietnamese intervention led to a sharp polarization
both at the regional and the global level. In 1991, when the Soviet veto had
disappeared from international decision-making, an agreement in the Security
Council (permanent five) on the "framework for a comprehensive settlement of the
Cambodia conflict" was reached and the United Nations Transitional Authority in
Cambodia (UNTAC) was created. This, the largest UN operation so far, was the
beginning of the peace process and included a democratic election. The non-
participation of the Khmer Rouge in the elections fueled the fears that the guerrillas
planned a division of the country. However, their political strength was much less
than generally expected. They had become "rebels without a cause" (Theyer 1995).
The turnout of the voters, on the other hand, was much larger than expected and
was a triumph for the UN. The operation gave an opportunity for Japan to
participate in a large international operation, probably indicating a more far-going
security interest in the region. For Cambodia several question marks remain, above
all the question of how the Khmer Rouge may rejoin the national community and on
what conditions. Only when this problem has found a solution, is it possible to talk
about real conflict resolution. So far this is rather a case of multilateral conflict
management with a strong regional component. Cambodia has strongly declared its
intention to become a member of ASEAN, and this co-optation (which can be
compared to the inclusion of Greece, Spain and Portugal in the EEC) is also seen by
the regional organization as a stabilizing measure. Whether this implies the survival
of democracy (particularly of the kind imposed by the UN) remains to be seen
(Öjendal 1996b).

Towards Regional Cohesion?

East Asia and South-East Asia are, due to economic linkages, becoming hard
to separate from each other, and will be even more converging in the future, as
countries such as Malaysia and Thailand (apart from Singapore, which is already
known as an NIC) are more or less successfully trying to apply the NIC strategy.
Thus, the Asian core of the Pacific rim, east and south-east, will probably follow its
own economic course.

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 South-East Asia, like Europe, has been divided in two economic and political
blocs: ASEAN (Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines and Brunei)
which has existed since 1967, and the "Indochinese" area (Viet Nam, Kampuchea
and Laos). The latter sub-region has been under Communist rule, with Viet Nam
exercising sub-regional hegemony. This role is now played down at the same time as
market-oriented economic policies (doimoi) are implemented. Viet Nam, and behind
it the Soviet Union, was earlier seen as a threat by the ASEAN countries. This threat
was a crucial factor behind the relative cohesiveness of the organization in the Cold
War era. The source of common cause and identity was thus partly an external
threat, and there were few incentives for economic cooperation. Only recently
(January 1993) a free trade agreement, AFTA, within the 330-million-people ASEAN
region was agreed to be realized within a fifteen-year period. The planned tariff
slopes of the different countries differ according to starting point and speed, which
complicates the competitive situation in the intraregional trade of the constituent
countries. The more protectionist countries will probably use AFTA to dump into
more open economies. Many therefore doubt that this free trade zone will be
realized. ASEAN countries are direct competitors in many areas and it will take a long
time for them to develop into complementary economies. From the very beginning
ASEAN was a political, rather than economic, organization (Yamakage 1990), and
now the political preconditions have changed.

In fact there are strong inter-state, as well as intra-state, tensions in the two
sub-regions. The latter can be exemplified by ethnic tensions (Malaysia, the
Philippines) and the former by old territorial disputes (Indonesia vs. Malaysia), as
well as contrasting views on regional security (Singapore vs. Indonesia and
Malaysia). As in Europe, the dismantling of the Cold War system will change the
pattern of conflict rather than eliminate the conflicts. We can therefore expect more
relaxation between the two sub-regions, but more conflicts within them. Possibly the
ASEAN framework is now strong enough to deal with them. The recent ASEAN
meeting in Manila, for instance, addressed the tension over the Spratly Islands in the
South China Sea, which triggered a wider ASEAN interest to discuss a future security
arrangement "in the post-Cambodia era" (The Nation, Bangkok, 23 July 1992). Ad
hoc consultations may no longer be sufficient (Leifer 1992).

The countries in ASEAN could be described as capitalist in economic terms

and conservative in political terms, although, for instance, Singapore and Indonesia
differ significantly in their economic policies. The organization assumed importance
as a regional organization only after 1975, when there were increasing political
uncertainties in the region. The economic integration that has taken place so far is
rather modest, and the figure for intraregional trade is only about 20 per cent. The
external dependence on Japan is felt to be problematic.

The national economies are outward oriented, and the political systems are
formally democratic or semi-democratic but in practice more or less authoritarian.
The Confucian model has a strong impact on this region as well, so authoritarianism
in fact constitutes the homogenizing political factor. The ASEAN countries are in
various phases on an NIC-type development path. Problems in the international
market usually reinforce domestic authoritarianism due to the strong two-way causal

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relationship between economic growth and political stability. Economic growth and
redistribution are a pre-condition for ethnic peace, political stability a precondition
for the economic confidence expressed by international capital towards the region.

Australia and New Zealand, although geographically distant from Europe,

have European, and particularly British, origins. Under the impact of successive
immigrations, the European heritage is becoming less distinctive. Economically, they
are becoming part of Asia and dependent on Japan. Australia's exports to Britain
have fallen from 32% (in 1950) to a mere 3% today. Sixty per cent of exports now
go to Asia. The leaders are, consequently, promoting a republican Australia less
attached to Britain and more involved in Asia, but this involvement obviously has its
limits. The term "open regionalism" is often used for regional trade arrangements
that do not hurt third parties. The ASEAN countries are still not convinced about the
good will of the two European Asians, and as an editorial in The New Straits
Times puts it "first it must prove that it is proud to be part of Asia" (quoted from
EPW, 24 April 1993). Australia is publicly criticizing the regionalist project of creating
an East Asian Economic Caucus (EAEC), which is a proposition from the South-East
Asian region, while backing the much looser Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation
(APEC). Politically they are thus still not quite part of the region, and there has also
been a discussion on Australia joining NAFTA (Bangkok Post, 12 Sept. 1992). The
Australian attitude to Europe is becoming increasingly negative. Similarly, New
Zealand is one of the major victims of European agricultural protectionism.

In 1990 the Malaysian prime minister Mahathir (in frustration over drawn-out
GATT negotiations) urged Japan to act as a leader of an East Asian Economic
Grouping (EAEG), which would create an East Asian and South-East Asian superbloc
with a Sino-Japanese core. EAEG (it has since been modestly renamed the East Asia
Economic Caucus - EAEC) would be a sort of response to the European and North
American "fortresses". The EAEC proposal is slowly gaining support among other
ASEAN countries, whereas the East Asian countries, particularly Japan and South
Korea, have taken a more sceptical attitude. So have the USA and the World Bank.
According to a World Bank report (Sustaining Rapid Development) East Asia can
strengthen regional integration through trade liberalization and promotion of foreign
direct investment within the framework of the multilateral trading system. "A trading
block would more likely foster an inward orientation, impairing the world wide search
for market opportunities that has served East Asia so well" (quoted from
the Bangkok Post, 15 April 1993, p. 25).

A more comprehensive alternative is thus the 15-member-strong forum for

Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), which was set up in 1989 with regional
and interregional trade expansion as its main goal. Similar to the "Atlantic project" in
Europe, it is a trans-regional network providing a bridge for the USA in the area, and
therefore supported by US-oriented regimes and opposed by spokesmen for a
genuinely Asian regionalism. From the US point of view APEC, like NAFTA in the
Americas, is a continuation of its strategy of bilateralism. Again we meet the two
distinct understandings of regionalism: (1) a way of managing multilateralism and
(2) a challenge to multilateralism. So far, the first conception predominates in Asia-
Pacific. The idea of any kind of more introverted regionalism is thus very

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controversial in a region extremely dependent on unhindered world trade, and the
debate is carried out merely in terms of an "insurance policy" (FEER, 25 July 1991).

Conclusion
In order to test the argument that there is a worldwide process of
regionalization taking the shape of a new regionalism, it might have been simpler to
choose another example than Asia-Pacific. East Asian regionalism is often described
as de facto regionalism, whereas regionalization is supposed to take place de jure in
Europe and North America. This contrast may be due to differences in political
culture, but an alternative explanation could lie in the fact that the inter-state
relations in East Asia are rather tense and unsettled (albeit not openly hostile). Thus
a growing maturity of the regional security complex may lead to a more formal
regionalism, just as the normalization of the relations among the countries in South-
East Asia has been accompanied by a more formal and predictable regional
arrangement than presently seems to be possible in East Asia. This having been
said, it is obvious that on other levels than the inter-state level, there has been an
impressive process of regionalization. The future of the region is either very black -
in case the potential conflicts are translated into war - or very bright - if the degree
of interdependence proves to be a point of convergence of interests where every
state gets a stake in stable peace. In some of the South-East Asian states this
condition must apply also to various domestic groups, a condition which makes the
optimistic scenario somewhat unrealistic. Quite a few states may, due to domestic
problems, have fewer resources to devote to regional cooperation in the future. The
two giants China and Japan face different problems but the problems as such cannot
be easily dismissed. China is an old empire becoming a modern region-state, but the
level of regionness is far from sufficient to maintain a central legitimate authority
throughout the region ( i. e. the previous empire). In the case of Japan there is also
a lack of clear perception of regional policy, not because of isolation but too much
dependence on one of the former superpowers. Thus there is not only a lack of
formal regionalism (which is less serious), but a lack of policy makers with region-
wide authority, i.e. hegemony. In spite of that there are many reasons, particularly
in the areas of development and conflict management, to believe that the global
process of regionalization will have a deep impact also on East Asia and South-East
Asia in the future. The NICs are facing changes in those objective conditions which
originally made them into NICs. Their strategy in the 1990s will probably be betting
on the domestic market, preferably a regional market. The regional framework is
still, however, in a flux.

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 Activity
Essay Analysis Chart

Check your understanding of this essay by filling in the chart below. Apply this chart
to Björn Hettne’s “Globalization, The New Regionalism and East Asia” from the
United Nations University Global Seminar '96 Shonan Session. Check your
understanding of this essay by flling in the chart below. Use a separate sheet of
paper if necessary.

Introduction (Identify the work)

Thesis Statement

Conclusion

Essay: “Asia's rise -- how and when from” Video Evaluation Chart
Watch Hans Rosling’s talk Asia's rise -- how and when from TEDxIndia during
your freetime. Use this link
https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_asia_s_rise_how_and_when?language=en
and then read the instructions below carefully and answer the following questions.

1. Your response to the video in 10 words:

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2. In just 10 words, explain the purpose/theme/aim of the video.

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____________________________________________________________________
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3. Make a summary of the video in 20 words.

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4. In ten words, what are the values you learned from video?
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PAGE 74
Unit Four: A World of Ideas
Introduction

The twenty-frst century is evolving into a time of technological advancements.

There is constant edit and addition to the available technological resources. As it
advances, it also spreadsworldwide. The worldwide spread of technology creates
vast connections that create new opportunities on a larger scale. The current focus
of the globalization of technology is the connections created by networks of social
media. Social media is a brilliant tool that can be easily used by those who have
access to it. As access is gained globally, it creates opportunities to those who are
first experiencing the use to outsource ideas. ― Jessica Bieber

The so-called "information age" is gradually spreading its influence to the

realm of religion, namely, in the methods religions use for teaching, proselytizing,
and in belief systems.Particularly noteworthy developments include the fact that it is
now possible for any religion to spread beyond national borders, allowing even small
new religious movements to engage in overseas proselytization activities, and
leading to new, hitherto unseen religious developments.This rapid acceleration of the
"information age" is now producing a phenomenon which can becalled the
"globalization of religion."― Inoue Nobutaka

The mass media are seen today as playing a key role in enhancing
globalization, facilitating culture exchange and multiple flows of information and
images between countriesthrough social media sites, international news broadcasts,
television programming, new technologies, film, and music.

International flows of communication have been largely assisted by the

development of global capitalism, new technologies and the increasing
commercialization of global television,which has occurred as a consequence of the
deregulation policies adopted by various countries in Europe and the US in order to
permit the proliferation of cable and satellite channels. (ScribdInc. “Globalization and
Mass Media,” 2020)

Meanwhile, due to the advent of communication and transportation

technology and the roles played by the media, globalization has contributed to the
deterritorialization and the blurring of geographical spaces and boundaries. This has
resulted apparently in making the world a small village where people, cultures, and
identities come in daily face-to-face contact with each other. Undoubtedly, religion is
not immune from these changes and their burgeoning effects brought about by
globalization.

Today, most religions are not relegated to the few countries where they
began.Religions have, in fact, spread and scattered on a global scale. Thanks to

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globalization, religions have found a fertile milieu to spread and thrive. (El Azzouzi
2013).

Jan Aart Scholte makes the globalization of religion clear: “Accelerated

globalization of recent times has enabled co-religionists across the planet to have
greater direct contact with one another. Global communications, global
organizations, global finance and the like have allowed ideas of the Transworld
Umma of Musliams and the Universal Christian Church to be given concrete shape as
never before.” (Scholte 2005)

This unit is divided into two sections: “Global Media Cultures” and
“Globalization of Religion.”

The first lesson explores global media and its strong influence on the
globalization of culture.

The second lesson deals with the globalization of religion, paying particular
attention on how globalization has helped to spread religion and how globalization
affects religious practices and beliefs. The lesson also analyzes the relationship
between religion and global conflict and, conversely, global peace.

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Lesson 9: Global Media Cultures
In this Lesson

1. Discuss the role of the mass media in the globalization of culture.

2. Explain how various media drive various forms of globalization.
3. Explain the dynamics between local and global cultural production.

GLOBALIZATION OF CULTURE THROUGH THE MEDIA

MARWAN M. KRAlDY

The received view about the globalization of culture is one where the
entire world has been molded in the image of Western, mainly American, culture. In
popular and professional discourses alike, the popularity of Big Macs, Baywatch, and
MTV are touted as unmistakable signs of the fulfillment of Marshall McLuhan's
prophecy of the Global Village. The globalization of culture is often chiefly imputed
to international mass media. After all, contemporary media technologies such as
satellite television and the Internet have created a steady flow of transnational
images that connect audiences worldwide. Without global media, according to the
conventional wisdom, how would teenagers in India, Turkey, and Argentina embrace
a Western lifestyle of Nike shoes, Coca-Cola, and rock music? Hence, the putatively
strong influence of the mass media on the globalization of culture.
The role of the mass media in the globalization of culture is a contested
issue in international communication theory and research. Early theories of media
influence, commonly referred to as "magic bullet" or "hypodermic needle" theories,
believed that the mass media had powerful effects over audiences. Since then, the
debate about media influence has undergone an ebb and flow that has prevented
any resolution or agreement among researchers as to the level, scope, and
implications of media influence. Nevertheless, key theoretical formulations in
international communication clung to a belief in powerful media effects on cultures
and communities. At the same time, a body of literature questioning the scope and
level of influence of transnational media has emerged. Whereas some scholars
within that tradition questioned cultural imperialism without providing conceptual
alternatives, others have drawn on an interdisciplinary literature from across the
social sciences and humanities to develop theoretical alternatives to cultural
imperialism.

Cultural Imperialism and the Global Media Debate

In international communication theory and research, cultural
imperialism theory argued that audiences across the globe are heavily affected by
media messages emanating from the Western industrialized countries. Although

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there are minor differences between "media imperialism" and "cultural imperialism,"
most of the literature in international communication treats the former as a category
of the latter. Grounded in an understanding of media as cultural industries, cultural
imperialism is firmly rooted in a political-economy perspective on international
communication. As a school of thought, political economy focuses on material issues
such as capital, infrastructure, and political control as key determinants of
international communication processes and effects.

In the early stage of cultural imperialism, researchers focused their

efforts mostly on nation-states as primary actors in international relations. They
imputed rich, industrialized, and Western nation-states with intentions and actions
by which they export their cultural products and impose their sociocultural values on
poorer and weaker nations in the developing world. This argument was supported by
a number of studies demonstrating that the flow of news and entertainment was
biased in favor of industrialized countries. This bias was clear both in terms of
quantity, because most media flows were exported by Western countries and
imported by developing nations, and in terms of quality, because developing nations
received scant and prejudicial coverage in Western media.

These concerns led to the rise of the New World Information Order
(NWIO) debate, later known as the New World Information and Communication
Order (NWICO) debate. Although the debate at first was concerned with news flows
between the north and the south, it soon evolved to include all international media
flows. This was due to the fact that inequality existed in news and entertainment
programs alike, and to the advent of then-new media technologies such as
communication satellites, which made the international media landscape more
complex and therefore widened the scope of the debate about international flows.

The global media debate was launched during the 1973 General
Conference of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization
(UNESCO) in Nairobi, Kenya. As a specialized agency of the United Nations, the
mission of UNESCO includes issues of communication and culture. During the
conference, strong differences arose between Western industrialized nations and
developing countries. Led by the United States, the first group insisted on the "free
flow of information" doctrine, advocating "free trade" in information and media
programs without any restrictions. The second group, concerned by the lack of
balance in international media flows, accused Western countries of invoking the free
flow of information ideology to justify their economic and cultural domination. They
argued instead ·for a "free and balanced flow" of information. The chasm between
the two groups was too wide to be reconciled. This eventually was one of the major
reasons given for withdrawal from UNESCO by the United States and the United
Kingdom-which resulted in the de facto fall of the global media debate.

A second stage of research identified with cultural imperialism has

been associated with calls to revive the New World Information and Communication
Order debate. What differentiates this line of research from earlier cultural
imperialism formulations is its emphasis on the commercialization of the sphere of
culture. Research into this area had been a hallmark of cultural imperialism research,

PAGE 78
but now there is a deliberate focus on transnational corporations as actors, as
opposed to nation-states, and on transnational capital flows, as opposed to image
flows.
Obviously, it is hard to separate the power of transnational
corporations from that of nationstates, and it is difficult to distinguish clearly
between capital flows and media flows. Therefore, the evolution of the debate is
mainly a redirection of emphasis rather than a paradigm shift. It has become
fashionable in some international communication circles to dismiss cultural
imperialism as a monolithic theory that is lacking subtlety and increasingly
questioned by empirical research. Cultural imperialism does have some weaknesses,
but it also continues to be useful. Perhaps the most important contribution of
cultural imperialism is the argument that international communication flows,
processes, and effects are permeated by power. Nevertheless, it seems that the
concept of globalization has in some ways replaced cultural imperialism as the main
conceptual umbrella under which much research and theorizing in international
communication have been conducted.

Media, Globalization, and Hybridization

Several reasons explain the analytical shift from cultural imperialism to
globalization. First, the end of the Cold War as a global framework for ideological,
geopolitical, and economic competition calls for a rethinking of the analytical
categories and paradigms of thought. By giving rise to the United States as sole
superpower and at the same time making the world more fragmented, the end of
the Cold War ushered in an era of complexity between global forces of cohesion and
local reactions of dispersal. In this complex era, the nation-state is no longer the
sale or dominant player, since transnational transactions occur on subnational,
national, and supranational levels. Conceptually, globalization appears to capture this
complexity better than cultural imperialism. Second, according to John Tomlinson
(1991), globalization replaced cultural imperialism because it conveys a process with
less coherence and direction, which will weaken the cultural unity of all nation-
states, not only those in the developing world. Finally, globalization has emerged as
a key perspective across the humanities and social sciences, a current undoubtedly
affecting the discipline of communication. In fact, the globalization of culture has
become a conceptual magnet attracting research and theorizing efforts from a
variety of disciplines and interdisciplinary formations such as anthropology,
comparative literature, cultural studies, communication and media studies,
geography, and sociology. International communication has been an active
interlocutor in this debate because media and information technologies play an
important role in the process of globalization. Although the media are undeniably
one of the engines of cultural globalization, the size and intensity of the effect of the
media on the globalization of culture is a contested issue revolving around the
following question: Did the mass media trigger and create the globalization of
culture? Or is the globalization of culture an old phenomenon that has only been
intensified and made more obvious with the advent of transnational media
technologies? Like the age-old question about whether the egg came before the
chicken or vice versa, the question about the relationship between media and the
globalization of culture is difficult to answer.

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 One perspective on the globalization of culture, somewhat reminiscent
of cultural imperialism in terms of the nature of the effect of media on culture, but
somewhat different in its conceptualization of the issue, is the view that the media
contribute to the homogenization of cultural differences across the planet. This view
dominates conventional wisdom perspectives on cultural globalization conjuring up
images of Planet Hollywood and the MTV generation. One of the most visible
proponents of this perspective is political scientist Benjamin Barber, who formulated
his theory about the globalization of culture in the book Jihad vs. McWorld (1996).

The subtitle, "How Globalism and Tribalism Are Reshaping the World,"
betrays Barber's reliance on a binary opposition between the forces of modernity
and liberal democracy with tradition and autocracy. Although Barber rightly points to
transnational capitalism as the driving engine that brings Jihad and McWorld in
contact and motivates their action, his model has two limitations.

First, it is based on a binary opposition between Jihad, what he refers

to as ethnic and religious tribalism, and McWorld, the capital-driven West. Barber
(1996, p. 157) seemingly attempts to go beyond this binary opposition in a chapter
titled “Jihad Via McWorld," in which he argues that Jihad stands in "less of a stark
opposition than a subtle counterpoint." However, the evidence offered in most of the
book supports an oppositional rather than a contrapuntal perspective on the
globalization of culture. The second limitation of Barber's book is that he privileges
the global over the local, because, according to him, globalization rules via
transnational capitalism. "[T]o think that globalization and indigenization are entirely
coequal forces that put Jihad and McWorld on an equal footing is to vastly
underestimate the force of the new planetary markets .... It's no contest" (p. 12).
Although it would be naive to argue that the local defeats the global, Barber's
argument does not take into account the dynamic and resilient nature of cultures
and their ability to negotiate foreign imports.

Another perspective on globalization is cultural hybridity or

hybridization. This view privileges an understanding of the interface of globalization
and localization as a dynamic process and hybrid product of mixed traditions and
cultural forms. As such, this perspective does not give prominence to globalization as
a homogenizing force, nor does it believe in localization as a resistive process
opposed to globalization. Rather, hybridization advocates an emphasis on processes
of mediation that it views as central to cultural globalization. The concept of
hybridization is the product of interdisciplinary work mostly based in intellectual
projects such as postcolonialism, cultural studies, and performance studies.
Hybridization has been used in communication and media studies and appears to be
a productive theoretical orientation as researchers in international media studies
attempt to grasp the complex subtleties of the globalization of culture.

One of the most influential voices in the debate about cultural hybridity
is Argentinean-Mexican cultural critic Nestor Garcia-Candini. In his book Hybrid
Cultures (1995), GarciaCandini advocates a theoretical understanding of Latin
American nations as hybrid cultures. His analysis is both broad and incisive, covering
a variety of cultural processes and institutions such as museums, television, film,

PAGE 80
universities, political cartoons, graffiti, and visual arts. According to Garcia-Candini,
there are three main features of cultural hybridity. The first feature consists of
mixing previously separate cultural systems, such as mixing the elite art of opera
with popular music. The second feature of hybridity is the deterritorialization of
cultural processes from their original physical environment to new and foreign
contexts. Third, cultural hybridity entails impure cultural genres that are formed out
of the mixture of several cultural domains. An example of these impure genres is
when artisans in rural Mexico weave tapestries of masterpieces of European painters
such as Joan Mira and Henri Matisse, mixing high art and folk artisanship into an
impure genre.

In media and communication research, the main question is "Have

transnational media made cultures across the globe hybrid by bringing into their
midst foreign cultural elements, or have cultures always been to some extent hybrid,
meaning that transnational mass media only strengthened an already-existing
condition?" There is no obvious or final answer to that question, because there is not
enough empirical research about media and hybridity and because of the theoretical
complexity of the issue. What does exist in terms of theoretical understanding and
research results points to a middle ground. This position acknowledges that cultures
have been in contact for a long time through warfare, trade, migration, and slavery.
Therefore, a degree of hybridization in all cultures can be assumed. At the same
time, this middle ground also recognizes that global media and information
technologies have substantially increased contacts between cultures, both in terms
of intensity and of the speed with which these contacts occur. Therefore, it is
reasonable to assume that transnational mass media intensify the hybridity that is
already in existence in cultures across the globe. Consequently, the globalization of
culture through the media is not a process of complete homogenization, but rather
one where cohesion and fragmentation coexist. (Kraide, 2002)

Activity.
Create a short video about how you advertise local product in a global market.

PAGE 81
 Quiz: Political Cartoon

Explain the theme of this political cartoon in exactly 140 words.

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Lesson 10: Globalization of Religion
In this Lesson

1. Discuss how globalization has helped to spread religion.

2. Explain how globalizaton affects religious practices and beliefs.
3. Analyze the relationship between between religion and global conflict, and
conversely global peace

Religion and Globalization: New Possibilities, Furthering Challenges

Daniel Golebiewski

As a contested term, globalization has many definitions, each worthy of merit.

Generally, globalization is first thought of “in economic and political terms, as a
movement of capitalism spreading across the globe.”It calls to mind “homogenizing
exports of the US” such as Nike, McDonald’s, and MTV. However, since globalization
can be defined as a process of an “ever more interdependent world” where “political,
economic, social, and cultural relationships are not restricted to territorial boundaries
or to state actors,” globalization has much do with its impact on cultures.

As goods and finance crisscross across the globe, globalization shifts the
cultural makeup of the globe and creates a homogenized “global culture.” Although
not a new phenomenon, the process of globalization has truly made the world a
smaller place in which political, social, and economic events elsewhere affect
individuals anywhere. As a result, individuals “search for constant time and space-
bounded identities” in a world ever changing by the day. One such identity is
religion.

Generally, religion is a “system of beliefs and practices.” More specifically, the

word comes from the Latin “religare” which means “to bind together again that
which was once bound but has since been torn apart or broken.” Indeed, with the
globalization of economics and politics, individuals feel insecure “as the life they
once led is being contested and changed at the same time.” Hence, “in order for a
person to maintain a sense of psychological well-being and avoid existential anxiety,”
individuals turn to scripture stories and teachings that provide a vision about how
they can be bound to a “meaningful world,” a world that is quickly changing day-by-
day.

Nonetheless, the relationship between globalization and religion is one with

new possibilities and furthering challenges. On the one hand, while religion takes
advantage of communication and transportation technology, it is at the same time

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the source of globalization’s greatest resistance by acting as a haven for those
standing in opposition to its power. On the other hand, because globalization allows
for daily contact, religion enters a circle of conflict in which religions become “more
self-conscious of themselves as being world religions.” This essay argues that the
relationship between religion and globalization is complex, one with new possibilities
and furthering challenges. However, this essay cannot provide a comprehensive
overview of religion and globalization, as the terrain is too vast. Still, it does provide
several examples to illustrate the complex relationship between the two.

First, this essay explains how globalization engenders greater religious

tolerance across areas such as politics, economics, and society. Second, it explains
that as globalization does so, it also disrupts traditional communities, causes
economic marginalization, and brings individuals mental stress, all of which create a
backlash of religious parochialism. Third, although globalization paves the way in
bringing cultures, identities, and religions in direct contact, this essay also explains
that globalization brings religions to a circle of conflicts that reinforces their specific
identities. Finally, using three paradigmatic individuals and their use of religious
ideals in their human rights work, this essay provides some suggestions on how not
just religions but humanity can use existing religious principles as ways to overlook
religious and cultural differences.

Globalization Engendering Greater Religious Tolerance

Globalization brings a culture of pluralism, meaning religions “with

overlapping but distinctive ethics and interests” interact with one another.
Essentially, the world’s leading religious traditions—Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism,
Christianity, and Islam—teach values such as human dignity, equality, freedom,
peace, and solidarity. More specifically, religions maintain the Golden Rule: “what
you do not wish done to yourself, do not do to others.” Therefore, through such
religious values, globalization engenders greater religious tolerance in such areas as
politics, economics, and society.

In political areas, globalization has built global political forums that integrate
cultural, ethnic, and religious differences—ideologies that were once perceived as
dividing the world—through a large number of international organizations such as
the United Nations (UN) and the World Health Organization (WHO), as well regional
organizations like the European Union (EU), the Organization of the Islamic
Conference (OIC), or the African Union (AU). When discussing issues such as
international peace and security, health issues, poverty, and environment, these
organizations generally share many of the same basic commitments as religious
traditions—mainly peace, human dignity, and human equality, as well as conflict
resolution in which they actively engage in negotiation, mediation, and diplomacy.

In addition to these political organizations, religious communities such as the

Roman Catholic Church, the World Council of Churches, and the Jewish Diaspora
also take part in international affairs. For instance, they have taken part in events

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such the Jubilee 2000, an international effort advocating for cancelling Third World
debt by the year 2000, and the World Faiths Development Dialogue, an effort of
international faith leaders along with the World Bank to support development
agendas corresponding to the UN’s Millennium Development Goals. Furthermore,
religious organizations have, themselves, been involved in interreligious dialogue.
The Parliament of the World’s Religions of 1993, first conveyed during the 1893
Chicago World Exhibit, brought the world’s diverse faith traditions—from African
indigenous religions, the major religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam), to any
forms of faith that would agree to civil dialogue through mutual encounter—to use
their similar values and discuss world affairs.

In terms of economics, as the economy of the major countries of the world

has grown, the main religions of each of those countries have also grown financially,
providing more financial resources for religions to spread their beliefs. For example,
although it may seem as an old tactic, missionary work—especially in light of
globalization—is strong in many Third World countries where religious
representatives convert the natives. As a result, the major religions today have
scattered across the globe—Christianity turning “southern” and “black,” Islam
turning “Asian,” and Buddhism turning “white” and “western.” Still holding on to
their original territorial spaces where their shrines exist, religions are fulfilling their
general purpose of spreading their beliefs to people all over the world.

Finally, religion has tremendously benefited from technological advancements.

For example, websites provide information and explanations about different religions
to any person regardless of his or her geographical location, as well as provide the
opportunity to contact others worldwide and hold debates which allow religious ideas
to spread. Furthermore, television allows for religious channels that provide visual
religious teachings and practices. Hence, by making the leap onto the information
superhighway, which brings religious teachings into every home and monitor in a
global setting, religions have come together into one setting.

In short, globalization allows for religions previously isolated from one another
to now have regular and unavoidable contact. As a result, globalization brings to the
light the fact that since religions have similar values, not one of them is “correct”
and, therefore, can be changed. But as the next section shows, the same process
that engenders greater religious tolerance also creates a backlash of religious
parochialism.

Globalization Creating Backlash of Religious Parochialism

Since globalization is considered as “the first truly world revolution,” “all

revolutions disrupt the traditions and customs of a people”—that is, “people’s very
security, safety, and identity.” As globalization disrupts traditional communities,
causes economic marginalization, and brings mental stress, individuals feel these
less desirable consequences of globalization. With religion’s power to “convey a
picture of security, stability, and simple answers” through stories and beliefs—unlike
economic plans, political programs, or legal regulations—individuals turn to religion.

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 First, globalization breaks down traditional communities and replaces them
with larger, impersonal organizations. As globalization creates a “global village,” it
dramatically alters what individuals traditionally understood themselves by—
“citizenship,” “nationality,” and “immigration.” For instance, the European Union (EU)
does not call their members by country of origin but rather by their greater title,
European citizens. Moreover, such organizations set universal standards upon all
members, causing individuals to believe that they are not fairly represented. As a
result, feeling that these organizations have shattered their “protective cocoon” that
has shielded them in the past, many individuals find comfort in religion.

In giving individuals a sense of belonging, religious groups help them to find

themselves in modern times. For instance, religious leaders, pointing to modern
society’s loss of ethical values and increased corruption, preach, “the only answer to
the current ‘decay’ is a return to traditional values and religious norms.” Hence,
religion supplies these individuals with a feeling of being a part of a group that
represents their interests and allows them to regain their traditional sense of who
they are.

Second, globalization brings economic marginalization. For example, as

transnational corporations increasingly take over the role of the state’s involvement
in the economic sector, the government loses its status as a welfare provider.
Moreover, increasing the gaps between those who have benefit from the global
market (generally the West) and those who have been left behind (generally the
Global South), globalization is seen as “Western imperialism,” as well as
“Americanization.” For instance, globalization “encourage[es] people to buy
American goods and services, which ultimately “undermines deep-rooted communal
values.” Simply put, individuals are bombarded with McDonald’s, Nike, and MTV.

By responding to individuals’ desire for welfare, as well as acting as a cultural

protection against globalization, religion plays a social role and gains more
recognition from the marginalized, particularly those in Third World countries. For
instance, religious organizations such as Catholic Relief Services, World Vision
International, and Islamic Relief Worldwide help serve the disadvantaged in areas
such as poverty relief, health care, the HIV/AIDs crisis, and environment problems.
In fact, even if only promising prosperity and hope of economic relief, these
organizations draw massive followers as, by lacking “extensive transnational
bureaucracies and chains of command,” they provide “the strength of collective
identity and the depth of ethical commitments.”

Last but not least, globalization causes mental stress. Although globalization
allows for crisscrossing borders, it also leaves individuals worrying about losing work,
status, or other privileges. Moreover, since globalization favors material prosperity as
the aim of life over inner peace, individuals focus on attaining some material
possession such as a house, car, game, or simply any object. When they attain such
item(s), however, they find themselves empty inside and, therefore, realize that
inner peace can never be achieved through material possessions.

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 To these individuals then, religion provides them the way to inner peace and
the sense of personal fulfillment. For example, individuals who feel insecure in the
globalized world, in business or personal life, will often pray to God for his spiritual
support. In addition, these individuals realize that getting involved within their
communities and organizing together in social movements for a good cause brings
more satisfaction to them than do material possessions. They see themselves as
being part of something important and worthwhile.

In short, in face of rapid changes in the globalized world, to regain the sense
of certainty, many individuals turn to religion for a clear explanation of what is going
on in the world. With its strength as a powerful identity that brings the message of
unity and security in times of crisis, religion provides the idea of a “home.” But as
the last section demonstrates, this religious identity becomes a major ingredient that
reduces the self and the other to a number of cultural religious characteristics.

Religious Identity and Globalization: Furthering Challenges

As the previous section shows, since God has set the rules and has made
them difficult to challenge, religion provides answers to questions concerning self-
identity. However, in providing such answers, religion also institutes a notion of
“truth,” which implies an automatic exclusion of the one—called an “abject”—who
does not adhere to such “truth.” In times of uncertainty like globalization, therefore,
collective identity is reduced to a number of cultural religious characteristics —
“them” and “us” and “they” and “our.” In other words, the abject suddenly becomes
recognized as a threat.

For example, since the 9/11 attacks, there has been a tendency of the West
to link the religion of Islam with terrorist practices while Al-Qaeda links the US as
Christian or a Judeo-Christian nation. On the one hand, Al-Qaeda men who hijacked
the planes on 9/11 saw the passengers and those working in the World Trade Center
and Pentagon as “abjects” of Islam. On the other hand, the US-led invasion of
Afghanistan and then Iraq turned into wars of “Islamofacism” and a “crusade” to the
divine in getting rid of evil. Moreover, other attacks on innocent people based on
cultural religious characteristics occur today: Muslims in the United States, Western
Europe, or India, Kurds in Iraq, and Jews in France. In other words, though socially
constructed, these cultural religious characteristics become a unifying force against
others not adhering to a particular truth.

Interestingly then, the idea of religious identity in this era of globalization may
hold in-line with Huntington’s thesis. According to Huntington (1990), while conflict
during the Cold War occurred between the Capitalist West and the Communist Bloc
East, current and future conflicts are most likely to occur between the world’s major
civilizations, and not the states, including Western, Latin American, Islamic, Sinic
(Chinese), Hindu, Orthodox, Japanese, and the African. In a broader sense, having

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paved the way for religions to come in direct contacts with one another,
globalization has, indeed, brought religions to a circle of competition and conflicts.
As long as religions see themselves as “world religions” and reinforce their specific
identities, the chance for religions to avoid conflict among one another is grey.[55]
Luckily, the final section brings some hope on how religions can use their existing
principles as ways to overlook their differences.

Conclusion

In a time in which globalization has yet to fully complete its process, religions
must use the communication easily available through advanced technology to focus
more on the humane and pluralistic forms of their teachings—values such as human
dignity and human freedom—as means to manage religious diversity and avoid
violence. In other words, religious should be open to other traditions and what they
can teach. In fact, though having “fixed texts,” the major world religions do not have
“fixed beliefs,” “only fixed interpretations of those beliefs,” meaning their beliefs can
be “rediscovered, reinvented, and reconceptualized.”

As interesting examples, in their attempt to create the tradition of nonviolence

from diverse religions and cultures, three paradigmatic individuals—Leo Tolstoy,
Mohandas Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr.—have, indeed, “rediscovered,
reinvented, and reconceptualized” the beliefs of the world’s major religions. The
three individuals indicate that “it is possible for narrative diversity to generate a
shared ethic without sacrificing the diversity of particular religions.”

For instance, although coming from a gentry class in Russia and receiving
fame and fortune from his novels, Tolstoy converted to Christianity in part after
reading a story about how a Syrian monk named Barlaam brought about the
conversion of a young Indian prince named Josaphat, who gave up his wealth and
family to seek an answer to aging, sickness, and death. Deeply indebted in
Buddhism for his conversion to Christianity, Tolstoy, attempting to live his life by the
teachings of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, gave away all his wealth and spent the
rest of his life serving the poor. Nevertheless, the story about Barlaam and Josaphat
has “worked its way into virtually all the world’s religions.”

Similarly, Gandhi, when he encountered Tolstoy’s writings, drew his attention

to the power of the Sermon on the Mount. In encountering Jesus’ Sermon, Gandhi
became motivated to “turn the great Hindu narrative from the Mahabharata, the
Bhagavad Gita, in order to find the message of nonviolence within his own religion
and culture.” By finding that Tolstoy’s understanding of the Sermon on the Mount
lacked “nonviolence as an active rather than a passive virtue . . . capable of
producing an active resistance to evil,” he found it present in the Bhagavad Gita.[65]
As a result, Ghandi transformed the Bhagavad Gita from a story that authorized
killing to one of nonviolence reflected from the story of Jacob wrestling with the
stranger and Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount.

Lastly, Martin Luther King, Jr. also drew insight from Buddhism, Hinduism,
Christianity, and Judaism. For instance, connecting Gandhi with Jesus Christ, he saw

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Gandhi’s philosophy of nonviolence as similar to Jesus’ suffering on the cross.
Therefore, King’s theological theme was the idea that “unmerited suffering is
redemptive,” meaning he constantly reminded blacks that they would experience a
“season of suffering” before they would achieve justice. In general terms, King’s
theology focused on values grounded in religion—justice, love, and hope. In short,
as Tolstoy, Ghandi, and King illustrate, “narrative traditions are not mutually
exclusive.” They are connected through themes and, therefore, allow religions to
engage in interreligious dialogue.

As this essay’s previous sections show, religions have, indeed, taken part in
dialogues beforehand. As a further example, religious leaders gathered at the UN’s
Millennium Peace Summit in September 2000 to mark the turn of the millennium. A
milestone in itself, as the UN is not a common ground in the sense of a ecumenical
meeting inside a church, synagogue, or mosque but rather a global common ground,
the Summit’s conversation encouraged that world’s religious communities stop
fighting and arguing amongst themselves and begin working together for peace,
justice, and social harmony. As then UN Secretary General Kofi Annan addressed to
the Summit, “Whatever your past, whatever your calling, and whatever the
differences among you, your presence here at the United Nations signifies your
commitment to our global mission of tolerance, development, and peace.”

Moreover, as transnational corporations increasingly become actors in the

international system, one could argue that religious communities have agreed on
“the emerging global ethic” which consists of three major components: 1)
corporations are prohibited from involving in bribes and corruption, 2) corporations
are prohibited from discriminating on the grounds of race, religion, ethnicity, or
gender in the conduct of business, and 3) corporations are prohibited from activities
that pose a significant threat to human life and health. Simply put, these
components are, in themselves, religious values used to regulate the way transitional
corporations increasingly engage in the global market.

The bottom line is that the pieces of interreligious dialogue to manage

religious diversity and to avoid violence are there, but the problem may be of
globalization’s intentional and/or unintentional consequence of making religions
more conscious of themselves as “world religions,” as well as the undesirable
consequences of disrupting traditional communities, causing economic
marginalization, and bringing individuals mental stress—all reinforcing religious
cultural characteristics and identities. Hence, the relationship between religion and
globalization has brought new possibilities but also furthering challenges.

PAGE 89
 Activity: Film Review: The Rise of ISIS”
Background

Main Points of the Plot

General Comments and Opinions

Recommendations

Research: The World’s Religions Differentiated

Directions: To compare is to tell how two or more things are alike. To contrast is to
tellhow two or more things are different. Clue words such as like or as show
comparisons. Cluewords such as but or unlike show contrasts. Often authors don’t
use clue words. Readers must make comparisons for themselves. Use this chart to
compare any religion in the world.

MAJOR RELIGIONS
JUDAISM CHRISTIANITY

ISLAM HINDUISM

SIKHISM JAINISM

PAGE 90
Unit Five: Global Issues
Introduction

The twenty-frst century is evolving into a time of echnological advancements.

There is constant edit and addition to the available technological resources. As it
advances, it also spreadsworldwide. The worldwide spread of technology creates
vast connections that create newopportunities on a larger scale. The current focus of
the globalization of technology is the connections created by networks of social
media. Social media is a brilliant tool that can be easily used by those who have
access to it. As access is gained globally, it creates opportunities to those who are
frst experiencing the use to outsource ideas. ― Jessica Biebe

This unit is divided into four sections: “Global City”, “Global Population and
Mobility”, “Global Sustainability” and “Global Citizenship”

First Lesson is about global city. This will provide an explanation of how a
number of major cities around the world have grown in prominence and authority
because of the globalization of manufacturing and service industries, labor market
restructuring, the agglomeration of finance, business and money, and the rapid
development of information technology and telematics.

Second lesson substantive concepts of demography, how populations move,

change and grow or shrink, and the transitions that populations make in various
stages of their development.

Third lesson is introductory lesson that intend to build the foundation for
students to progress through the remaining components by defining food security
and discussing the major factors contributing to food insecurity today (climate
change, population growth, economic downturns, and change in global food
consumption/wealth).

The fourth lesson global citizenship which is about an individual’s awareness

and understanding of the world and their place.

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 Lesson 11: Global City

In this Lesson
1. Identify the attributes of a global city

2. Analyze how cities serve as engines of globalization

The Global City -- Saskia Sassen

Saskia Sassen is the leading urban theorist of the global world. Her The
Global City: New York, London, Tokyo (1991) has shaped the concepts and methods
that other theorists have used to analyze the role of cities and their networks in the
contemporary world. The core ideas in her theory of the global city are presented in
a 2005 article, "The Global City: Introducing a Concept". This article is a convenient
place to gain an understanding of her basic approach to the subject.

Key to Sassen's concept of the global city is an emphasis on the flow of

information and capital. Cities are major nodes in the interconnected systems of
information and money, and the wealth that they capture is intimately related to the
specialized businesses that facilitate those flows -- financial institutions, consulting
firms, accounting firms, law firms, and media organizations. Sassen points out that
these flows are no longer tightly bound to national boundaries and systems of
regulation; so the dynamics of the global city are dramatically different than those of
the great cities of the nineteenth century.

Sassen emphasizes the importance of creating new conceptual resources for

making sense of urban systems and their global networks -- a new conceptual
architecture, as she calls it. She argues for seven fundamental hypotheses about the
modern global city:

1. The geographic dispersal of economic activities that marks

globalization, along with the simultaneous integration of such geographically
dispersed activities, is a key factor feeding the growth and importance of
central corporate functions.
2. These central functions become so complex that increasingly the
headquarters of large global firms outsource them: they buy a share of their
central functions from highly specialized service firms.
3. Those specialized service firms engaged in the most complex and
globalized markets are subject to agglomeration economies.

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 4. The more headquarters outsource their most complex, unstandardized
functions, particularly those subject to uncertain and changing markets, the
freer they are to opt for any location.
5. These specialized service firms need to provide a global service which
has meant a global network of affiliates ... and a strengthening of cross
border city-to-city transactions and networks.
6. The economic fortunes of these cities become increasingly
disconnected from their broader hinterlands or even their national economies.
7. One result of the dynamics described in hypothesis six, is the growing
informalization of a range of economic activities which find their effective
demand in these cities, yet have profit rates that do not allow them to
compete for various resources with the high-profit making firms at the top of
the system.

Three key tendencies seem to follow from these structural facts about global
cities. One is a concentration of wealth in the hands of owners, partners, and
professionals associated with the high-end firms in this system. Second is a growing
disconnection between the city and its region. And third is the growth of a large
marginalized population that has a very hard time earning a living in the marketplace
defined by these high-end activities. Rather than constituting an economic engine
that gradually elevates the income and welfare of the whole population, the modern
global city funnels global surpluses into the hands of a global elite dispersed over a
few dozen global cities.

These tendencies seem to line up well with several observable features of

modern urban life throughout much of the world: a widening separation in quality of
life between a relatively small elite and a much larger marginalized population; a
growth of high-security gated communities and shopping areas; and dramatically
different graphs of median income for different socioeconomic groups. New York,
London, and Hong Kong/Shanghai represent a huge concentration of financial and
business networks, and the concentration of wealth that these produce is manifest:

Inside countries, the leading financial centers today concentrate a greater

share of national financial activity than even ten years ago, and internationally, cities
in the global North concentrate well over half of the global capital market.

This mode of global business creates a tight network of supporting specialist

firms that are likewise positioned to capture a significant level of wealth and income:

By central functions I do not only mean top level headquarters; I am referring

to all the top level financial, legal, accounting, managerial, executive, planning
functions necessary to run a corporate organization operating in more than one
country.

These features of the global city economic system imply a widening set of
inequalities between elite professionals and specialists and the larger urban
population of service and industrial workers. They also imply a widening set of

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inequalities between North and South. Sassen believes that communications and
Internet technologies have the effect of accelerating these widening inequalities:

Besides their impact on the spatial correlates of centrality, the new

communication technologies can also be expected to have an impact on inequality
between cities and inside cities.

Sassen's conceptual architecture maintains a place for location and space:

global cities are not disembodied, and the functioning of their global firms depends
on a network of activities and lesser firms within the spatial scope of the city and its
environs. So Sassen believes there is space for political contest between parties over
the division of the global surplus.

If we consider that global cities concentrate both the leading sectors of global
capital and a growing share of disadvantaged populations (immigrants, many of the
disadvantaged women, people of color generally, and, in the megacities of
developing countries, masses of shanty dwellers) then we can see that cities have
become a strategic terrain for a whole series of conflicts and contradictions.

But this strategic contest seems badly tilted against the disadvantaged
populations she mentions. So the outcomes of these contests over power and wealth
are likely to lead, it would seem, to even deeper marginalization, along the lines of
what Loic Wacquant describes in Urban Outcasts: A Comparative Sociology of
Advanced Marginality.

This is a hugely important subject for everyone who wants to understand the
dynamics and future directions of the globe's mega-cities and their interconnections.
What seems pressingly important for urbanists and economists alike, is to envision
economic mechanisms that can be established that do a better job of sharing the
fruits of economic progress with the whole of society, not just the elite and
professional end of the socioeconomic spectrum.

Activity: Video Analysis: urbanNext: Saskia Sassen | Global Cities (2018)

Watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZP2VE7ptKjIand answer the

following questions.

1. Your response to the video in 10 words:

____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________

2. In just 10 words, explain the purpose/theme/aim of the video.

____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________

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____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________

3. Make a summary of the video in 20 words.

____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________

4. In ten words, what are the values you learned from video?
____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________

Quiz

Essay: Answer each question in 140 words.

1.What are the challenges of global cities?

2. What makes a city “global”?

1.___________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________

2.
____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________

PAGE 95
Lesson 12: Global Population and
Mobility
In this Lesson
1. Analyze the political, economic, cultural, and social factors underlying the
global movements of people;
2. Display first-hand knowledge of the experiences of OFWs;
3. Explain the theory of demographic transition as it affects global population;
and,
4. Comments on the various population theories and their implications to socio-
economic and political condition of nation-states and the world.

International Migration and Globalization

In previous eras, population movements have taken place side by side with
the development of contacts and flows between different societies and cultures. In
particular, large human migrations played a fundamental role during the first phase
of globalization, which took place between the late nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries. In this respect, the present situation is paradoxical, because in a world
which is more interconnected than ever, in which financial and trade flows have
been liberalized, the mobility of persons runs up against severe barriers which
restrict it.

As Tapinos and Delaunay (2000) point out, international migration currently

seems to be excluded from the new globalization process. This exclusion is the
biggest difference between the new trends in the world economy and the two great
previous periods of globalization. This narrow view of “globalization”, leaving out the
human mobility factor, raises a threefold question of ethics, political realism and
economic efficacy, as well as the question of the long-term sustainability of this type
of world development strategy.

The difficulties placed in the way of migration just at a time when real-time
exchanges are being promoted —to which end barriers impeding the free circulation
of goods and ideas are being demolished— reveal the asymmetrical aspects of a
form of globalization which includes some individuals, population groups, countries
and regions but at the same time excludes others (Castells, 1999). Although the
number of migrants has always been small compared with the world population, at

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other times in the past —such as that of the boom in trade which accompanied the
first phase of globalization— it nevertheless represented a much larger proportion
than the present level of 3%. Clear signs of the limited nature of the present degree
of globalization of migration —compared with financial globalization— are that free
movement of persons between countries is limited almost exclusively to one region
of the world (the European Union) and is the subject of debates and case-by-case
negotiations on international agreements aimed at permitting only temporary
movements of persons with qualifications directly connected with business or the
provision of services.

The fact that most migrants move in spite of the persistent barriers to their
entry shows up the incompatibility between the restrictive approaches adopted and a
world which is advancing towards growing liberalization of other flows. It is this
inconsistency which is largely responsible for the big increase in the number of
migrants without official papers and the emergence of migrant transit areas, as well
as providing fertile ground for one of the most serious crimes against human rights:
the trafficking of persons across frontiers. The increase in such situations highlights
the need to promote broader agreements among countries to secure better
governance of international migration, to recognize the fundamental role of civil
society in formulating measures regarding human migrations, and to foster full
respect for the rights of migrants.

In recent decades Latin America and the Caribbean has become a source of
outward migration to the most varied destinations. At the present moment, one out
of every ten of the 150 million international migrants (IOM/United Nations, 2000)
was born in a Latin American or Caribbean country, and this is a minimum figure, for
it takes no account of the number of persons who migrate (and work) in an irregular
capacity, without official papers, and nor does it include temporary, circular or return
migrations. The available information indicates that nearly 20 million Latin Americans
and Caribbean are living outside their country of birth, and half of them emigrated
during the 1990s, especially to the United States, though during the same decade
new migration flows to Europe emerged which are on a smaller scale but are
registering unprecedented growth rates. The intraregional migration which
accompanied the different stages in the development of the Latin American and
Caribbean countries in the past still retains some of its traditional features, but it is
now on a smaller scale, due partly to the decline in the attractiveness of the main
countries of destination (Argentina and Venezuela).

Analyses show that there is an enormous gap between what is generally

imagined and what is really the case as regards the magnitude and consequences of
immigration. Although sounder and more general evidence is still needed, that which
exists is very different from the simple opinions which emphasize the negative
repercussions of migration and only serve to heighten prejudices and increase the
feeling of rejection against some immigrants. One example of how great this gap is
may be found in a study commissioned by the United States Congress from a broad
group of specialists (Smith and Edmonston, 1997). Leaving aside the inherent
complexity of the wide range of factors involved, this study concludes that the
existing evidence shows that immigration has had a relatively minor impact on the

PAGE 97
wage and job opportunities of the competing local groups ….. Immigration affects
above all the wellbeing of the immigrants themselves. In reality, the “condemnation”
that popular opinion applies to immigrants has no backing in scientific knowledge
(Mármora, 2001). Only very rarely has it been shown that immigrants adversely
affect working conditions —this would only appear to be the case in a context
favouring illegality— and social services. Why, then, are prejudices persisting and
even sometimes getting worse? The answer to this question calls for profound
reflection on aspects going beyond the ambit of migrtion itself.

I. The interactive nature of migration and globalization

1. Factors which promote mobility and heterogeneity

The complexity of the present international migration of persons from Latin America
and the Caribbean is due to the great diversity of factors which stimulate and
characterize it. It is no longer sufficient merely to identify countries as sources or
recipients, since it is also necessary to consider those which, because of their
geographical position, have become areas of transit towards a final destination, and
there has also been a big increase in the number of such destinations. Furthermore,
migration is no longer limited to such a clearly identifiable human group as in the
past: the range of the types of persons involved —whose migration affects the social
reproduction of their families and the development of their communities of origin—
is increasingly broad, and in their places of final destination they establish links with
diverse social groups, build up networks of contacts which stretch across national
borders, and use different strategies and means for their movements.

The basic determinants of international migration lie in the inequalities which

exist in levels of development, and the enormous magnitude, persistence and
flagrancy of those inequalities in the globalized world of today heighten the so-called
pressures for migration (UNFPA, 1998). Thus, in recent decades the Latin American
and Caribbean countries have registered an unstable economic performance, and
the modest recovery glimpsed in some of them during the 1990s has barely been
sufficient to reverse the serious consequences of the “lost decade” of the 1980s
(ECLAC, 2001a). The very uneven distribution of the benefits offered by the
international economy is very evident in the region, whether in terms of the
shortcomings in human capital and knowledge, the changes in the role of the State
in the social field or, more generally, the structural insufficiencies of development. At
the same time, the precarious nature of employment and the heightening of social
tensions have given rise to a generalized feeling of social vulnerability in the region;
in view of the widespread perception of insecurity, risks and defenselessness —
reflected in public opinion surveys widely disseminated by the mass media—,
emigration is being increasingly seen as an option for coping with difficult living
conditions, an uncertain employment outlook, and dissatisfaction with the results of
the prevailing development pattern. In the final analysis, the reduction of social
disparities and convergence of economic conditions are fundamental for reducing the
incentives for migration in the long term; meanwhile, the countries of the region will
have to live with international migration, facing up to its many consequences, but
also taking advantage of the opportunities it offers.

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 The developed economies have always needed workers from less developed
countries. This demand, which is sometimes beyond the immediate influence of
business cycles, operates through the establishment of dual labor markets which
offer opportunities for the employment of foreign workers at both extremes of the
range of skills. In theory, to the extent that the inflow of foreign workers helps to fill
the gaps in the domestic supply of labor, migration can be a means of adjustment in
the recipient countries, but it can also operate as a factor to keep down wage
increases and drive up capital surpluses, and this is basically why local workers are
against large scale immigration.

It is well known that the immigrants with the lowest levels of skills enter the
labor markets to occupy jobs that are usually scorned by the local population (in
sectors such as primary industries, agriculture or personal services, for example).
Through the possibility of reducing labor costs, some employers obtain benefits from
such migrant flows. At the same time, the foreign workers may build up social
capital and attain upward occupational mobility.

Although there is a demand for these workers and many of them carry out
activities which are vital for the expansion of the economy, they are generally
subject to strict regulations on migration —for example, through annual quotas or
temporary hiring programmes— and in a number of cases these represent barriers
to their entry and permanent residence; this causes some migrants to work without
the necessary official papers, thus heightening the negative perception of
immigration which often exists in the recipient countries. The migration of skilled
workers has other features. Although it is not a new phenomenon, the growing
demand in the developed countries for foreign workers with specific skills means
that the barriers impeding their mobility need to be reviewed. Those with high
qualifications are in a better position to take an active part in such mobility, as
reflected in the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), which, among the
ways of providing services, includes their provision by natural persons, with
emphasis on the temporary movement of skilled personnel.

Although this Agreement provides for quantitative restrictions and additional

requirements (such as a work permit), which are a source of controversy in its
application —since they involve the consideration of each case separately— the basic
idea is that such movements are complementary to trade and allow the developing
countries to increase their participation in world trade, which could help in the long
run to reduce the incentives for migration (Iredale, 2001; UNFPA, 1998). The
developed countries naturally make deliberate efforts to attract scarce specialists —
in some cases this forms part of their human resources policies— and these efforts
are welcomed in many segments of the societies of origin of the migrants.

Particularly striking is the increase in the demand by those countries for

immigrants with increasingly specialized skills —such as those connected with
engineering and technology in the general field of information processing— which
causes them to offer conditions that cannot be matched by the nations of our
region. At the beginning of the 1990s, some 300,000 Latin American and Caribbean
professionals and technicians —some 3% of the total number existing in the

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region— were living in countries other than those of their birth; over two-thirds of
that total were concentrated in the United States (Villa and Martínez, 2000), where it
is estimated that 12% of all persons with a degree in science or engineering are
foreigners, mostly from developing countries (Pellegrino, 2000).

The outflow of such human resources has given rise to very serious
discussions in the region, because their importance cannot be measured only in
quantitative terms. The traditional debate on the brain drain, which stresses its
negative repercussions —since it is a factor which helps to widen gaps, undermines
the formation of critical masses, and affects income distribution—, is now combined
with proposals designed to stimulate the circulation and exchange of highly skilled
human resources (“brain circulation” and “brain exchange”), with the aim of making
migrants into links between the local and global scientific and technological
development networks and agents for the transfer of knowledge and technology
(Pellegrino, 2000). From the point of view of the countries of origin, these proposals
seek to take advantage of the opportunities opened up by globalization, but their
practical application is hindered by the labor flexibilization practices of the big
corporations, the retention of the most outstanding students in the universities of
the developed world, the enormous disparity between the working conditions and
salaries offered by the two types of countries, and the absence of suitable
environments for the reinsertion of former migrants.

The growing opportunities for individuals abroad are all too obvious compared
with the very limited capacity of the developing countries to retain their most highly
qualified personnel. However, these opportunities do not always become a reality:
many skilled migrants do not succeed in maximizing their benefits because of
difficulties in securing official recognition of their qualifications, and in addition to the
requirements and limitations on free mobility they face obstacles in finding a suitable
place in their countries of destination (such as rules giving priority to local
personnel), so that their potential contributions are reduced (ECLAC, 2000g; Iredale,
1998; UNFPA, 1998). In some recipient countries, there is a debate on whether the
increase in the immigration of professionals and technicians is a factor tending to
depress wages among the most highly qualified groups in the labor force: an
association of events which was observed in the 1990s among scientists and
engineers in the United States (Espenshade and others, 2001).

Although these circumstances bring in a note of caution with regard to the

prospects of forming a global market of skilled human resources, they do not detract
from the role that these migrants can play in the transfer of technology, and their
importance should serve as an incentive to seek best practices —active policies—
through which the source countries to make better use of their potential. Some of
the integration processes in the region are instructive in this respect, since they
envisage measures to facilitate the mobility of professionals and the joint formulation
of postgraduate programmes. Thus, the creation of employment opportunities —
together with permanent training— for highly skilled workers is a priority task on the
regional agenda.

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2. Migrant culture and the formation of transnational communities
International migration has always aided in cultural exchanges and —
notwithstanding the challenges raised when individuals, groups and communities of
different cultures, ethnic groups and religions live together— it is reasonable to
expect that it will continue to forge multicultural spaces and spread ideas and
values. Globalization involves opposing movements, however: expectations of
mobility become widespread, but the restrictions on movement become tighter all
the time. The new technologies in the fields of communications and transport
facilitate international mobility, and moreover, thanks to better schooling, together
with more information on the situation in other countries —with messages on
standards of living and codes of values which heighten the perception of the
supposed advantages of migration— there are now many more persons interested in
migrating. In the final analysis, the right to migrate is an option for all those with a
minimum of human capital who are not able to materialize their aspirations to social
mobility in their countries of origin, whose restrictions on the exercise of economic
and social rights end up by undermining the right to stay. Thus, international
movements of persons and families —in search of something that their own
countries only offer them symbolically— are based on increasingly informed
decisions, accompanied by the perception that such moves involve decreasing risks
and costs. This is the current attitude to migration, the motives for which are now
relatively independent of purely economic considerations.

One of the cultural manifestations of globalization is the transition from

territorially-based national identities to others which are perhaps less comprehensive
but are of a trans-territorial nature. Migration has led to the emergence of new
actors who, organized in communities and linked together through networks,
maintain close links with their areas of origin (to which they send remittances and
information) and represent collective referents of identity in the areas of destination
(Portes, 1997a). These transnational communities are a clear example of the
interactive role of international migration and globalization within the context of the
explosion of identity marking the fragmentation of societies today (Castells, 1999,
vol. II). Social networks and communities form part of an affirmative strategy of
migrants in defense of their cultural features, the expression of their demands for
citizenship, and protection both from restrictive attitudes to immigration and
practices of social rejection (as exemplified in the working conditions of many
migrants and anti-immigration feelings). To a large extent, they act as feedback
factors promoting migration flows and further the diversification of human mobility.
The transnational communities benefit from the traditional associations of migrants,
but they are more complex than these: they promote cultural events —dances,
dinners, festivities and typical products— and they legitimize the diversity of the
recipient societies. They are geographically extended social units, with close relations
and supportive links, and even sponsor transnational micro-entrepreneurial initiatives
(Portes, 1997a and 1997b). They often function with tensions, conflicts and
contradictions that recreate the context of structural inequality of their communities
of origin, and thereby serve as a matrix for the social reproduction of their members
in their destination countries (Canales and Zlolniski, 2000).

The heterogeneity of their members, the potential of some of them for

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resistance and opposition, their different forms of organization, their international
links and their complex relations with the market and the State make these
transnational communities a mandatory element of reference of indisputable
importance for the design of measures to deal with the question of migration. Their
interactive relation with globalization is particularly evident in the case of Latin
American and Caribbean immigrants in the United States.

3. Persistence of barriers and institutional difficulties which restrict mobility

The restrictive logic underlying the measures applied by many governments
with regard to international migration is based on their responsibility for
safeguarding national sovereignty, which justifies institutional controls over the entry
and continuing presence of foreigners. The extension of this logic to the rules on
migration is not in keeping, however, with the international nature of this
phenomenon or the factors which stimulate it, both in the countries of origin and
those of destination. Entrusting migration policy to the police agencies responsible
for guarding the frontiers is undoubtedly an unsuitable option for dealing with a
phenomenon of such economic, social and cultural complexity. The result is the
aggravation of restrictive practices which are not in line with most governments’
declarations on migration and are in contradiction with what is happening with
international trade. Thus, States have agreed to eliminate many barriers to the
movement of capital and goods and services, without prejudice to negotiations on
specific matters, provided that the procedures followed do not run counter to the
rules laid down in the global agreements.

In the case of international migration, however, such general frameworks do

not exist, although the challenges raised by this phenomenon have led States to
acknowledge that unilateral action is not enough. How, then, can general
agreements be reached on migration, over and above the provisions governing
mobility in the field of business and the supply of services which are included in
some international instruments? In principle —leaving aside other polemical
objectives— strict regulation of migration is usually seen as a means of protecting
national labour markets. Only exceptionally, however, do foreigners come to account
for a major fraction of the labour force of a country; they are usually only a modest
proportion of the total and occupy positions left unoccupied by local workers, so that
they rarely displace the latter. It is possible, however, that their participation in the
labour market may help to depress wages in their destination country. The
probability that this will occur is greater when there is a substantial presence of
migrant workers without official papers, who, since they are outside the trade unions
and collective bargaining mechanisms, may help to produce a decline in real wages.
This has led to allegations that the employment of foreigners without official papers
at lower wages than those of local workers will undermine the existing collective
agreements, foster the replacement of local workers with foreigners in some sectors,
and weaken their contribution to national income (Abella, 2000).

Although the migration policies of most countries continue to be adopted on

the basis of their own unilateral criteria, there were some signs in the 1990s of
support for regional-level initiatives in this field. In line with this new spirit, it was
explicitly recognized at the Symposium on International Migration in the Americas

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that “international migration is a multi-faceted phenomenon which involves all
countries and which calls for international dialogue and cooperation, but that this
should in no way impinge upon national sovereignty in establishing the necessary
legal and political instruments to deal with international migration” (ECLAC, 2000g,
p. 7). This recognition, which does not deny each country’s right to regulate
immigration, is a promising sign of the gradual adoption of more flexible common
principles in the Americas. In order to deal with the many issues involved in
international migration it is necessary to move beyond official normative approaches
of an essentially restrictive nature, which extend to much of public opinion and feed
prejudices on this phenomenon; this means promoting a progressively more flexible
approach which facilitates migratory movements and protects the population groups
involved.

The task of making the rules on migration more flexible is particularly feasible
at the intraregional level (especially in border areas), since restrictions on the flow of
foreign workers should begin to slacken as integration processes gain greater depth
and it is recognized that migratory exchanges provide a complementary labour
component in strategic sectors. It is precisely within the traditional restrictive context
that the questions of undocumented migration, “illegal” workers and unfair
competition in the labor market become manifest (Mármora, 1997). The opportunity
provided by the subregional integration agreements for advancing in these areas
must be seized in a decided and systematic manner, recognizing the multisectoral
nature of the issues involved in international migration and adopting policies guided
by the pursuit of convergence. The restrictive logic, which means closing the door to
the possibility of settling in a country other than one’s country of origin, leads to
serious tensions: many migrants not only find it difficult to exercise their right to live
in their country of birth but also to settle in another country or return to their
country of origin.

4. Global forces and the future of migration

International migration is a historically important process which forms an

indissoluble part of human evolution. In the past, in response to changes in
economic, social and political circumstances, it has aided in the expansion of trade
and the economy, helped to create new nations and territories, fostered
urbanization, opened up new spaces for production, and made decisive contributions
to social and cultural change. In the second half of the nineteenth century and the
first decades of the twentieth, the world witnessed a type of migration
fundamentally consisting of two opposite flows: the voluntary migration of
Europeans, which played a key role in the economic convergence of some regions of
the Old and New World, and another flow involving the (often forced) migration of
workers of varying origins, but mostly Asians (coolies), to tropical regions, which
resulted in the further expansion of the inequality of the international order. These
flows, which were promoted by different forces, were readily accepted by the
destination countries.

Nowadays, however, there is concern over some conflictive aspects of

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migration affecting not only the countries of origin and destination but also the
migrants themselves (such as the risk of heightening inequalities and the risks
associated with undocumented status). Everything seems to indicate that, at least in
the short and medium term, migration will continue to be stimulated, in a highly
interconnected world in which the profound international economic disparities and
the acute structural shortcomings of the developing countries will become
increasingly visible. In addition, the developed countries, with their ageing
populations, will strengthen their strategies designed to attract skilled human
resources and will keep up their demand for less-skilled workers, the new
contingents of which cannot easily be absorbed by the labour markets of the
developing countries, although in some of the latter the labour supply will gradually
diminish as a result of demographic transition processes. In this context, the further
spread of values and information, typical of a migrant culture which reasserts the
legitimacy of the right to emigrate, together with the consolidation of organized
actors in this field, will make it easier to take the decision to migrate.

From a strictly economic standpoint, experience shows that the change of

countries from being sources of migrants to recipients of them will only take place in
a small number of cases; the developing countries which have made this transition
have done so by taking advantage of their low labour and manufacturing costs and
exporting labour-intensive products (Richelle, 1998). Most of the developing
countries, however, will suffer the disruptive effects associated with development
processes and will increase their outward flows of migrants in the short term,
especially when better wage levels continue to be the exception rather than the rule
in those countries. The strategies of the developed nations and the big corporations
aimed at increasing their competitiveness may erode the stock of skilled human
resources in the developing countries, thus further widening the economic gaps. In
view of this prospect, it would be worth investigating the repercussions that the
relocation of production activities could have on employment in the developing
countries; transfers of services would appear to be the most promising
developments in this respect, and this option could be strengthened in the
subregional integration processes, provided that wage differences do not increase
still further and the member countries of the agreements make effective progress in
assuming the commitments required for deeper integration.

II. Potential and problems of migration

1. Remittances
Monetary transfers by emigrants to their countries of origin form a close link
between migration and development. Although there is no doubt that these
remittances are an important source of foreign exchange, factors such as the
varying forms of the transfers (family or collective), the channels of transmission
(formal or informal), the costs of transmission and the ways the money is used
(consumption, saving or investment) make it difficult to evaluate their actual and
potential impact on the development of the recipient communities. Because of the
informal nature of many transfers —an unknown proportion travel in the pockets of
emigrants, relatives or friends— the central banks are unable to estimate their
amount accurately. Even so, it is calculated that in the region they totalled over US$
17 billion in the year 2000 (see table 8.8). Mexico, with almost US$ 7 billion, is the

PAGE 104
main recipient in the region and the second largest recipient in the world, after
India; although their incidence in the national economy is relatively low (1.1% of
GDP), remittances nevertheless bring in more money than that generated by most
export branches.

Their impact is much greater on the economies of El Salvador, Nicaragua, the

Dominican Republic, Ecuador and Jamaica (where they represent between 8% and
14% of the GDP of those countries and, in the case of El Salvador, are equivalent to
48% of the value of total exports). The amounts remitted to Brazil, Colombia and
Peru are also considerable, although their impact on GDP is small (0.2%, 1.3% and
1.3% respectively). In the 1990s there was rapid growth in the amount of
remittances, especially in Nicaragua, Ecuador, Peru and Honduras.

2. Lack of protection and vulnerability of migrants

Apart from the gravity of the trafficking of persons —a crime that countries
and the international community should punish most severely— migration also
involves other forms of lack of protection and vulnerability. These occur when
migration is not a voluntary action but is due to compelling political or environmental
reasons and exposes the migrants to the precarious status of being refugees and the
complex problems of resettlement and reinsertion. As these movements are due to
sudden unforeseen circumstances, it is hard to make conjectures about their future
evolution, but their incidence will probably go down insofar as countries advance in
their democratization processes and become better prepared to cope with natural
disasters. Undocumented status, due to overstaying the authorized period of
presence in a country, and consequent deportation, are two common features of
present-day migration. Both of them may involve the violation of human rights —as
for example through arbitrary arrest, extortion and abuse of authority— which is
usually accompanied by discriminatory treatment of migrants on account of their
origin, qualifications or ethnic background. Although irregular forms of hiring
workers are very widespread because of the more flexible labour rules now current,
foreigners are particularly exposed to abuses because they lack legal protection,
especially in the case of undocumented migrants.

3. Citizenship and human rights

Protection of the fundamental human rights of migrants in the countries of
destination is a matter of great concern at present. Awareness of the abuses and
hostile and discriminatory treatment suffered by many persons because they are
foreigners (non-citizens) has given rise to intensive discussions in civil society whose
content gradually seeps up to government circles. Effective recognition of the
instruments on migration which form part of international law is essential in order to
guide this discussion, but the reluctance of many governments to ratify those
instruments prevents their principles from being incorporated into national legislation
and policies. There is an extensive range of international instruments on migrants.
Under the leadership of the International Labour Organization (ILO), numerous
international labour standards have been formulated, a number of which have
received the approval of the international community and been incorporated in
conventions and agreements on the rights of migrant workers, but in view of the

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marked disparity observed between the letter of the treaties and their actual
application, the great challenge at present is to ensure that States obey the
agreements they have signed (Perruchoud, 2000).

Although some instruments probably need to be redesigned in order to

adapt them to the prevailing situations, there are others whose validity is beyond
doubt. Among these are the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights
of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families, which recognizes that many
migrant workers and their families are not protected by national legislation,
establishes international definitions of migrant workers, and lays down rules for
respecting the specific human rights of all migrants, whatever their origin or status.
Since it is aimed at putting an end to exploitation and to all irregular situations in
migration, its application would represent a decisive step forward towards
incorporating the question of the human rights of migrants in all initiatives dealing
with current international migration. The Convention was adopted by the United
Nations General Assembly on 18 December 1990, and in order for it to come into
force it needs to be ratified by at least 20 States. Up to the beginning of 2002, this
Convention had been ratified by 19 States, including six from the region (Belize,
Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico and Uruguay), while another three countries
(Chile, Guatemala and Paraguay) have signed it (www.december18.net). The large
number of provisions of the Convention, which mean that it must be analysed very
carefully before its ratification, and the concern of some States that its application
might encourage the arrival of still more persons in irregular situations, have
militated against its entry into force.

Strict adherence to the rules —and determination to follow the arduous

road to ensuring their strict application— is a necessary but not of itself sufficient
condition for advancing in the fulfilment of the agenda on migrants' rights.
Transnationalization and the new forms of citizenship made necessary by
international migration raise unprecedented challenges for the present globalization
process: among other aspects, they call for recognition of the role of transnational
migrant communities and promotion of the conscious intervention of civil society. In
the case of the communities, their action should not be allowed to become a de
facto policy for the defence of fundamental rights, since this could eliminate the
incentive of the fulfilment of obligations which are the responsibility of governments,
while with regard to civil society in the countries of destination, redoubled efforts
should be made to educate society in the field of non-discrimination, which is a long-
term task.

Global Demography
The increase in the number of population worldwide caused varying concerns
from different group of people and organization. There is a disagreement among
population experts and development planners on the effect and impact of population
in the welfare of the nation.

The Malthusian model is a classic explanation on population and welfare

where Thomas Malthus give details the effect in the increases in the population. He

PAGE 106
explains that increases in the population are in geometric sequence while the
resources are in arithmetic progression which mean the population increases
exponentially while the resources progresses one at a time in its production. In this,
he warned that increases in the population will result to the depletion of earth’s
resources.

In the 1960’s, the Erlich couple argued that overpopulation in the 1970s and
1980 will bring about the global environmental disasters that would, in turn, lead to
food shortage and mass starvation (Claudio, 2018). Because of the Malthusian and
Neo-Malthusian views of population, many governments all throughout the world
decided to have policies on control population and it was done through reproductive
health programs as a means of curtailing the growing population of their respective
nations.

As of 9:00pm of August 8, 2020, there is an estimate 7,803,547,443people in

the world (worldometers.info). There 84,771,280 birth this and there 35, 589,018
population growth. According to Claudio (2018) the use of population control to
prevent economic crisis has its critics. Betsy Harmann disagrees with the advocates
of No-Malthusian theory and accused governments of using population control as a
“substitute for social justice and much needed reforms – such land distribution,
employment creation, provision of mass education and health care, and
emancipation.” Others pointed out that the population did grow fast in many
countries in the 1960s, and this growth “aided economic development by spurring
technological and institutional innovation and increasing the supply of human
ingenuity.”

Activity
1. Interview an OFW’s asking about their experience on the global movement of
people.

2. Watch this video: Retrieved from:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVvsKx7R73M and answer the following
questions:

1. Your response to the video in 10 words:

____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________

2. In just 10 words, explain the purpose/theme/aim of the video.

____________________________________________________________________

PAGE 107
____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________

3. Make a summary of the video in 20 words.

____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________

4. In ten words, what are the values you learned from video?

Quiz

Look at the picture below. Answer the question that follows. Use the space provided

Photo source:
https://www.philstar.com/opinion/2019/12/30/1980667/editorial-slowing-down

What does the picture signify?

____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________

PAGE 108
Lesson 13: Global Sustainability

In this Lesson
1. Differentiate stability from sustainability
2. Articulate models of global sustainabledevelopment

3. Analyze the Sustainable Development Goals of the UNDP

Global Sustainability: Toward Definition

BECKY J. BROWN MARK E. HANSON DIANA M. LIVERMAN* ROBERT W. MERIDETH,
Jr. Institute for Environmental Studies University of Wisconsin-Madison Madison,
Wisconsin 53705, USA

Sustainability is clearly becoming a popular word in the environmental policy

and research arena. "Sustainable development,""sustained use of the biosphere,"
and "ecological sustainability" are terms increasingly used by institutions and
individuals concerned with the relationships between humans and the global
environment. Groups such as the International Union for the Conservation of Nature
and Natural Resources, the Global Tomorrow Coalition, and the World Resources
Institute establish sustainability as a desired goal of environmental management,
development, and international cooperation. Reports such as Global 2000 (CEQ
1980), Blueprint for Survival (Goldsmith 1972), and the Worldwatch Institute's
annual State of the World (Brown 1986) marshal a wide range of data to suggest
that we are on unsustainable development paths.

In recent years, much attention of the scientific and policy-making community

has become focused on global sustainability (Clark 1986). For example, the Man and
the Biosphere Program of UNESCO is concerned with integrated approaches to
global natural resources management, particularly in and around designated
biosphere reserves. The International Geosphere-Biosphere Program of the
International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU), the Earth Systems Science Program
of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and the Global
Environmental Monitoring System of the United Nations Environment Programme
(UNEP) have designed multinational and multidisciplinary research and monitoring
programs.

A strong focus on global environmental policy making comes from the World
Commission on Environment and Development of the UN; the Population, Resources,
and Environment Program of the American Association for the Advancement of
Science (AAAS); the Program on Analyzing Biospheric Change of the International
Federation of Institutes for Advanced Study (IFIAS); and the program on Ecologically
Sustainable Development of the Biosphere of the International Institute for Applied

PAGE 109
Systems Analysis (IIASA). Given such a prominent and increasing level of attention
directed toward these issues, exactly how is sustainability being defined in these and
other studies? Is it rapidly becoming one of those transcendent terms, like
"appropriate technology" or "environmental quality," which are cornerstones of
environmental policy and research, but difficult to measure and rarely defined
explicitly? In this article, we examine the concept of sustainability, review some of
the ways in which it has been defined, and attempt to clarify the use of the terms
sustainable, sustained, and sustainability in the global context.

Use of the Word Sustainability

While much of the current literature describes the necessary conditions for
sustainability, or ways of achieving sustainability, or what sustainability is not, few
writers actually define the term. The Oxford English Dictionary defines sustainable as
"capable of being upheld; maintainable," and to sustain as "to keep a person,
community etc. from failing or giving way; to keep in being, to maintain at the
proper level; to support life in; to support life, nature etc. with needs." The
etymology of the terms originates in the French verb soutenir, "to hold up or
support." Sustainable Biological Resource Use In resource management, the concept
of maximum sustainable yield has been used by foresters and fisheries biologists
since the early years of this century (Steen 1984). Tivy and O'Hare (1982) define
sustainable yield as the "management of a resource for maximum continuing
production, consistent with the maintenance of a constantly renewable stock." This
definition is applied to biological resources, which are seen as naturally self-
renewing.

The World Conservation Strategy defines nonsustainable utilization as

"overharvesting of a plant or animal to the point ... when the species is so depleted
that its value to man will be severely reduced or lost" (Talbot 1984). Sustained yield
has also been used as a management goal in range management and water
resource use (Tivy and O'Hare 1982). In forestry, maximum sustainable yield is
obtained by maximizing annual harvest while ensuring that the rate of felling equals
the rate of replacement in a given area. Exact rates for sustained yield are very
difficult to estimate because of the variability of natural regeneration rates due to
climate, soils, and disease, and because biomass harvest removes nutrients from the
site. In fisheries, maximum sustainable yield is even more difficult to manage
because of problems in assessing fish stocks, and because the oceans are a common
property resource. Often the first sign of unsustainable harvests is a drop in fish
catch, a decrease in fish size, or an increase in fishing costs.

Sustainable Agriculture The emphasis in agriculture is gradually shifting from

a goal of maximizing production in the short term to a perspective that also
considers long-term maintenance (that is, sustainability) of production. Conway
(1985) defines agricultural sustainability as "the ability of a System to maintain
productivity in spite of a major disturbance," and he points out that there may be
trade-offs between the goals of maximizing production and maximizing
sustainability. Sustainable agriculture must conserve the land resource base without
degradation and must be economically viable and socially acceptable as well. Recent
volumes on sustainable agriculture discuss the importance of soil and water

PAGE 110
conservation, genetic diversity, and appropriate technologies in insuring a continued
supply of food, a reasonable quality of rural life, and a healthy environment
(Douglass 1984, Jackson and others 1984, Lawrence and others 1984, Edens and
others 1985).

Carrying Capacity
Many people have defined sustainability in terms of carrying capacity, a
concept long used to describe the maximum population size that the environment
can support on a continuing basis. The concept of carrying capacity was developed
in the field of population biology, and can be transferred to human systems only by
analogy. Although the concept has generated considerable interest, "investigators
have experienced difficulty defining the term [and] . .. there is no... standard
approach of how it should be calculated" (Mitchell 1979).

Human carrying capacity has been defined simply as the "number of people
that a given amount of land can support" (WRI/IIED 1986). Nevertheless, Wart's
(1977) reference to an optimum, sustainable quality of life "within the carrying
capacity set by the milieu of local, regional, and even international resources"
suggests the complexity of this concept when applied to human systems. Odum
(1983) attempted to clarify the meaning of the concept by distinguishing between
maximum and optimal carrying capacity. He defined maximum carrying capacity as
the maximum allowable population size that, while theoretically sustainable, exists at
the threshold and is vulnerable to even small changes in the environment. Optimal
carrying capacity, on the other hand, is a smaller, more desirable population size
that is less vulnerable to environmental perturbations.

Ophuls (1977) writes that a sustainable level of human demand on the

environment is "perhaps as little as half" the maximum carrying capacity. He argues
that the carrying capacity has already been exceeded "whenever one can observe
dangerous levels of pollution, serious ecological degradation, or widespread
disturbance of natural balances." It is important to recognize that the carrying
capacity of any given region is subject to change. It may be increased through
investment of capital and technology, or through imports of energy and materials
from outside the region (Brown 1987). Studies of national carrying capacities are
often flawed because they do not consider the exchanges between countries
(WRI/IIED 1986). Urban-industrial zones, in particular, depend on much larger land
areas for their maintenance.

To estimate carrying capacity, one should take into account the total area
necessary to support a given region. The outside areas that provide the inputs
necessary to sustain a population have been called "ghost acres" (Borgstrom 1969).
The carrying capacity of an area may decrease as a result of declines in the
biological productivity of the land. The Global 2000 Report (CEQ 1980) describes the
feedback loop that leads to continuous declines in human carrying capacity through
complex interactions of social and economic factors: In this process, population
pressure causes environmental degradation, which results in poor living conditions.
This creates a situation in which it is not possible to reduce fertility rates, and
population tends to increase even more, leading to a vicious feedback cycle. On a

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global scale, human carrying capacity is finite. Although much recent discussion has
focused on whether the global human population has exceeded its limit, it is
generally agreed that the available data are not comprehensive or accurate enough
to precisely calculate the number of people the planet could support (WRI/IIED
1986, Meadows and others 1982). Although the term carrying capacity is not
precisely defined, the concept has been applied in several empirical studies that link
human population with resource use. UNESCO's Man and the Biosphere Program has
undertaken studies of the relationship between population density and resources in
several regions of the world (di Castri and Glaser 1986).

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization assessed the carrying capacities of

117 developing countries by estimating the maximum food-producing capability of
each nation (FAO 1984). The World Bank (1985a) determined the carrying capacity
of seven West African countries on the basis of available fuelwood and food supplies.
Sustainable Energy The term sustainable has not been widely used in the energy
literature, perhaps because it is antithetical to the concept of entropy. The concept
of sustainability in energy is, however, discussed in terms of renewable energy and
nondepletable or unlimited energy as well as in terms of the transition that must be
made from our current exhaustible sources of energy to renewable or practically
unlimited sources (Lovins 1979, Cooke 1976). Anderer and others (1981) refer to
this as a "transition from a global energy system based on consuming depletable
fossil fuels to a sustainable system based on non-depletable fuels." Sustainability has
been the focus of concern in a number of energy studies in response to the rapid
depletion of fossil energy resources (stored solar energy) that is occurring on a
global scale. Fossil energy resources, particularly oil, natural gas, and coal, have
been characterized as capital stocks, recognizing that these resources can be used to
produce goods and services, and are finite in extent. As these capital stocks are
used, in conversion devices that provide either mechanical energy or heat, higher
quality or concentrated energy is dissipated. Because all activity requires an energy
supply, the fossil stocks on which human activity is overwhelmingly reliant must
eventually be replaced by other energy sources.

In a recent book on energy, Gever and others (1986) make considerable use
of the terms sustainable and unsustainable. They initially define unsustainable
resource use in terms of exceeding carrying capacity, which is the use of resources
"faster than they are created or when we begin to deplete high-quality stocks." They
go on to argue that unsustainable resource use, and in particular fossil fuel use, can
only be a temporary phenomenon, as global carrying capacity will necessarily limit
population and economic activity. The issue becomes whether the adjustment from
unsustainable use will be smooth or with serious economic disruption.

Sustainable Society and Sustainable Economy

A more general vision of a sustainable society is provided by Brown (1981),
who sees a sustainable society as "an enduring one, self-reliant and less vulnerable
to external forces" and identifies its basis in harvest regulation, renewable and
efficient energy use, soil and water conservation, and a stationary, dispersed
population with less affluent lifestyles. Likewise, Daly (1973) views sustainable
conditions as those which ensure the existence of the human race on the earth for

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as long as possible. He suggests that such sustainability will be promoted by zero
population growth and what he terms a "steady state" economy in which
consumption is reduced and more equally distributed.

Goldsmith (1972) presents conditions for a stable society, "one that to all
intents and purposes can be sustained indefinitely while giving optimum satisfaction
to its members," as: minimal ecological disruption, conservation of energy and
materials, zero population growth, and sense of individual freedom. Pirages' (1977)
design for a sustainable society includes taking into account the physical and social
limits to economic growth, outlining sustainable preferred futures as positive visions,
developing strategies to reach these futures, and implementing these strategies. He
discusses a concept of sustainable growth, which is "economic growth that can be
supported by physical and social environments for the for seeable future,"
specifically supported by available Sources of energy. Milbrath (1984) suggests a
value structure for a sustainable society in which the central value, innate human
selfishness, is modified by empathy, compassion, and a sense of justice for all. This
value structure differs from one in which the central value is modified by aggression
and competitiveness, which he suggests characterize a non-sustainable society.
Many economists dismiss these notions of sustainability. Economic growth is seen as
the inevitable result of population growth, the acquisitive nature of people, and
technological innovation. Thurow (1980), reflecting the attitude of mainstream
economists, states that "worries about natural resource exhaustion are hard to
rationalize from the point of view of economics." He goes on to argue that a zero
economic growth (ZEG) society would lead to unemployment, greater inequality, and
a threat to peace. A dissenting minority of economists, including Georgescu-Roegen
(1971), Daly (1980), and Boulding (1966), refer to the second law of
thermodynamics and the concept of entropy as a major obstacle to continued
economic growth. Thus, a distinct split exists between economists who view
continued growth as an essential element of a sustainable economy and those who
view a steady-state economy or zero economic growth as essential.

Sustainable Development
The World Resources Institute (Repetto 1985), among others, sees
sustainable development as a "development strategy which manages all assets—
natural and human resources, as well as financial and physical assets--for increasing
wealth and wellbeing." Stating that "sustainable economic development depends on
sound environmental management," the World Bank (1985b) has outlined
environmental criteria it says will be systematically integrated into its projects.
Tisdell (1985) notes that, while sustainable development is an important goal of the
World Conservation Strategy, "sustainability is not defined." Pearson (1985) feels
that the concept of sustainable development is "elusive,.... [but] important and does
deserve attention."

He indicates that "the core of the idea of sustainability is the concept that
current decisions should not damage prospects for maintaining or improving living
standards in the future." O'Riordan (1985) believes sustainable utilization "... to be
an ambiguous concept ... with no time, space, ecological, technological, or
managerial dimension." And Caldwell (1984) states that the concept of ecologically

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sustainable development can be easily stated in theoretical detail, "but the ecological
and economic complexities of any actual situation are almost certain to make the
reality different from, and more difficult than, theory."

Another concept often used interchangeably or in parallel with sustainable

development is that of eco development. This term is defined by UNEP (Holdgate
and others 1982) as "ecologically sound development, a process of positive
management of the environment for human benefit." Dasmann (1985) identifies
three components of eco development: fulfillment of basic needs (food, clothing,
and shelter), self-reliance, and ecological sustainability. He defines sustainability as
"a symbiotic relationship with nature,' I or "... development.., within the constraints
of local ecosystems" and suggests that the search for sustainable development
needs to focus on the ideas of local, ecologically balanced, culturally sensitive eco
development."

Alternative Perspectives on Sustainability

Emerging from this broad review of the uses of sustainability are several
general perspectives, or contexts, in which the term is used: A social definition of
sustainability might include the continued satisfaction of basic human needs--food,
water, shelter--as well as higher level social and cultural necessities such as security,
freedom, education, employment, and recreation [that is, as suggested by Maslow
(1970)]. The social perspective is often more concerned with individuals than with
nations or the species. Hence, socially defined sustainability might specify the
survival and happiness of the maximum number of people, or the provision of
minimum needs to even the poorest groups. On the other hand, some feel that it is
against the long-term social good to aim at sustaining everyone because certain
social groups are too weak or are unwilling to control their populations (Hardin and
Baden 1977).

The ecological definition of sustainability focuses on natural biological

processes and the continued productivity and functioning of ecosystems. Long-term
ecological sustainability requires the protection of genetic resources and the
conservation of biological diversity (IRis 1983, BioScience 1986, Wilderness Society
1986). In many cases, short-term natural variability is necessary for the long-term
sustainability of the ecosystem. By attempting to reduce this variability through
technology and management, we may, in fact, threaten the long-term persistence of
the system. The classic example is the way in which attempts to control and stabilize
spruce budworm populations have actually led to a potentially vulnerable ecosystem
(Holling 1978).

An economic definition of sustainability is more elusive. Economists tend to

assume the inevitability of economic growth and do not, for the most part, address
the issue of sustainability. When they do, they must resolve the limitations that a
sustainable society must place on economic growth and must deal with
nonmarketable and often unquantifiable values of ecosystems and long-term global
health (Goldsmith 1972, Ehrenfeld 1976). Many discussions of sustainability give no
explicit definition of the spatial scale under consideration, and the implicit time scale
is usually forever. Clark (1985) has identified many problems in the study of

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environmental futures which originate in a confusion of different time and space
scales. Sustainability may have a different definition and different measures,
depending on the scale of concern. For example, social concerns might include a
special focus on certain minority, age, race, culture, or income groups, sometimes in
relation to specific geographic regions. Biologically, one may set out requirements
for sustainable resource units as small as a forest or lake, or as large as a
watershed, biome, or the whole planet. The economist often focuses on the nation,
on economic groups within nations, or on global level interactions between national
economies. Hence, any study of sustainability must make both contextual as well as
time and space assumptions explicit, especially where it involves the measurement
of conditions at different time periods and geographic scales, or from different
perspectives.

Essential Elements in Defining Sustainability

There are obviously many ways of defining sustain- ability. Among the studies
discussed above, the common themes that emerge include:
- The continued support of human life on earth
- Long-term maintenance of the stock of biological resources and the
productivity of agricultural systems
- Stable human populations
- Limited growth economies
- An emphasis on small-scale and self reliance
- Continued quality in the environment and eco-systems

If one accepts an anthropocentric view of sustain- ability, with the focus being
on indefinite and global sustainability, then there is a range of ways in which to
construct a definition from the essential elements.

In the narrowest sense, global sustainability means the indefinite survival of

the human species across all regions of the world.

A broader sense of the meaning specifies that virtually all humans, once born,
live to adulthood andthat their lives have quality beyond mere biological survival.
Finally, the broadest sense of global sustainability includes the persistence of all
components of the bio- sphere, even those with no apparent benefit to humanity.

Implications

Having defined a sustainable world as one in which humans can survive

without jeopardizing the continued survival of future generations of humans in a
healthy environment, what will ensure a sustainable future? Human survival requires
sufficient food, potable water, uncontaminated air, adequate shelter and clothing,
energy, and minerals. These needs are closely tied to the continued functioning of
the sup- porting ecological systems which maintain nutrient, air, and water cycles,

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and to the maintenance of renewable biological resources such as forests and
fisheries stocks. Beyond the basic, biological survival needs, however, there are
variations in social and cultural perspectives on what is needed for a quality
existence and in ecological perspectives on what is needed for a sustainable
biosphere.

We emphasize that each of the conditions for survival has its own complex set
of support systems which must be sustained. Adequate food requires an agricultural
system which can function on a continuing basis without losses of land area, soil
fertility, soil moisture, resistance to pests and disease, or nutritional quality. Safe
water requires functioning natural or manufactured supply and distribution systems,
as well as natural or manufactured waste water treatment systems for removal of
contaminants. Long-lasting shelter and clothing are necessary for those living in
harsh environments; and clean air combines with safe water and a nutritious diet to
improve health, decrease infant mortality, and increase life expectancy.

To maintain the operation of these basic support systems, sufficient inputs of

energy and other minerals are necessary. At all scales, food, water, air, shelter, and
clothing can be very closely linked to the sustained functioning of natural
ecosystems. It is important to recognize that widespread provision of even basic
survival needs will become increasingly unsustainable if population growth is not
controlled. In stating the goal of sustainability to be the survival of virtually all
humans to adulthood, the caveat "once born" recognizes that, without controlling
birth rates, sustainability is unlikely.

Finally, with population spreading across an earth of diverse physical

environments and varying re- sources, a sustainable future, in terms of widespread
human survival, must have social institutions to dis- tribute the basic needs,
particularly to less advantaged geographic regions or social groups. Thus, sustain-
ability also implies the existence and operation of an infrastructure (transportation
and communication), services (health, education, and culture), and government
(agreements, laws, and enforcement) that will encourage and support the
sustainable use of the bio- sphere and equitable resource use.

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 Activity

Instruction: What does the picture signify about global sustainability?

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Assessment

1. Go to the link this: https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/07/1069151. Read the

information provided thoroughly.

2. Answer:
a. Governments the world over, including our own, scrambled for
measures to minimize the spread of COVID-19. What SDG(s) is being
addressed here?

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b. Research on what has been done by our own government to address
the issue. Focus on ONE particular solution. How was it implemented?
Is it sustainable? Why or why not?
c. Can you think of a sustainable way to solve the problem on spreading
the virus? Be very specific.

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Lesson 14: Global Citizenship
In this Lesson
1. Articulate a personal definition of globalcitizenship
2. Appreciate the ethical obligations of globalcitizenship

Global Citizenship

Approximately as appears in Global Citizen – Challenges and Responsibility in an

Interconnected World, ed Aksel Braanen Sterri, Amsterdam: Sense Publisher 2014,
71-82.

Globalization describes the processes of widening and deepening relations

and institutions across space. Increasingly, our actions and practices systematically
and mutually affect others across territorial borders (Held 1995: 21). Since these
processes affect our opportunities and our possible impact, globalization also affects
what we ought to do – as ‘global citizens’. This paper explores some of the
implications for our conceptions of citizenship beyond the state. In particular, these
processes affect assertions about what our institutions should enable us to do, as
citizens of multiple political units.

I present a number of arguments to support the view that individuals should

be able to exercise some democratic voting rights and some human rights vis-à-vis
governance structures above the nation state under our conditions of globalization.
After a brief overview including a historical backdrop, section 2 sketches some
components of global citizenship, and section 3considers several objections to this
notion.

I start from the normative premise that human beings are rights-deserving
subjects of equal moral worth. I then ask: what are the appropriate normative
answers to globalization? Globalization challenges perceived obligations of states,
citizenship and non-state/private actors such as NGOs and corporations, and gives
rise to normative and institutional solutions of a varied kind. In particular, what are
the implications for our conceptions of citizenship beyond the state?

Globalization and normative cosmopolitanism

Global citizenship invokes the notion of citizenship. Such talk of citizenship
beyond state borders is not new (Follesdal 2002). Indeed, we find several competing
conceptions in ancient Greek and Roman political thought. When asked which was
his country, Socrates allegedly insisted that he was a citizen of the world, rather
than an Athenian or a Corinthian. Likewise, when asked where he came from,
Diogenes answered “I am a citizen of the world”. But their notion of citizenship
beyond the city-state was meagre and vague. For Socrates and Diogenes, citizenship
of the world did not include any legal rights beyond borders. In contrast, as Athenian

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citizens – the privileged set of free men – they would enjoy active rights to political
participation. Global citizenship was thus of a quite different kind than traditional
citizenship rights and duties.

In comparison, the Roman Empire recognized and even encouraged dual

citizenship, with loyalty both to the local community and to Rome. This arrangement
allowed citizens of Rome freedom of movement and trade within the Empire. Still,
the Roman notion of dual citizenship had its drawbacks, both for the individual and
for the political order. To be a citizen of Rome usually only provided status or
passive citizenship in the form of protection – some of what we now think of as
human rights – rather than active citizenship rights to political participation, enjoyed
only by the patrician class. Dual citizenship also created dual loyalties in the
populations of the Empire, which led to unresolved conflicts (Toynbee 1970, Clarke
1994).

Similar challenges face our own conceptions of citizenship as we seek

responses to the changing role of the unitary nation state in the global legal, political
and economic order. Two central changes to the capability set and responsibilities of
the state are often subsumed under ‘multilevel governance’, namely public
authorities at several territorial levels, and the roles of private actors in the exercise
of public authority (Caporaso 1996; Marks, Hooghe et al. 1996). Both of these
changes merit particular concern among empirical political scientists and for
normative political theory alike. We live as individuals under rules imposed by public
authorities at several territorial levels: the state, regional political orders such as the
EU, and the rules of international bodies such as those of the UN Security Council.
How - if at all - can we sustain political obligations towards several such units and
maintain influence over them as members of several ‘commonwealths’ (Erman and
Follesdal 2012)? What happens when these political orders conflict, and what ‘shared
identity’ does each require? Can and do all of them need to be democratically
accountable? Can this multiplicity of territorial sites of political authority enhance
human rights in ways that respect, protect and promote these rights? Or do these
developments hinder the prospects of democracy and human rights?

Second, multilevel governance is used to signify the increased formal and

informal influence of non-state, private actors in public regulations, in sectors
ranging from banking and investment to the Internet and the pharmaceutical
industry (Follesdal, Wessel et al. 2008). How can we best respond to the challenges
of fragmentation, dispersion or even evaporation of responsibility formerly firmly
placed with the state? There are risks that gaps emerge in the protection and
promotion of others’ vital interests as well as deep conflicts among different sites of
authority in the multilevel political order. As citizens of democratic states we are
both subjected to and co-authors of several of these changes. A brief sketch of some
of the normative premises I rely on in the following argument is also appropriate.
The invocation of ‘citizenship’ brings with it a normative commitment to political
equality, i.e. the equal standing of all individuals in the political order, including
democratic control over the institutions that shape their lives. We may call this
underlying normative commitment Normative Cosmopolitanism. It is universal in
scope, insisting that if someone is affected, he/she should receive equal

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consideration regardless of race, gender, social status or citizenship. How do we
specify such “equal consideration?” I here explicate this commitment to the equal
dignity of all individuals, as individuals’ “desire ... to arrange our common political
life on terms that others cannot reasonably reject.” (Rawls 1993, 124). A central
premise is thus the motivation of the individuals. For the purpose of developing
these normative standards for the notion of global citizenship, I assume that the
individuals act on a duty of justice. That duty entails that they are committed “to
support and comply with just institutions that exist and apply to us. It also
constrains us to further just arrangements not yet established, at least when this can
be done without too much cost to ourselves“ (Rawls 1971, 115). This commitment is
operative at least in circumstances where each citizen has reason to believe “that
others will do their part.” (Rawls 1971, 336).

Normative cosmopolitanism and the duty of justice in particular does not

require that citizens aim to establish global institutions. However, those equally
affected by practices and institutions should also have an equal say in how the
institutions should be shaped. Such arguments apply inter alia at the European level.
Europeans are now so interdependent due to their common institutions that they
must also have an equal say in how they are governed (Follesdal 1997b; Follesdal
and Hix 2006). The institutions of the Union, including Union citizenship, must be
shaped to ensure such democratic accountability.

This line of argument can serve as a model with regard to claims to

institutionalise global citizenship. Globalisation reduces and shifts the significance of
state borders, due largely to the digital and trans-national economy. Our decisions
increasingly affect others across borders, increasing the interdependency among
people in different states. Insofar as global regimes have global implications,
normative cosmopolitanism requires that they must also be under sufficient political
control where all have an equal say. The fact of globalisation, if indeed a fact with
drastic implications on individuals’ life chances, supports a normative requirement to
address the global democratic deficit.

The requisite legal protections and controls may take at least two forms,
reminiscent of the classical distinction between passive and active citizenship. Firstly,
there may be institutional arrangements that provide immunity to individuals and
communities against severe damage wrought by others. A wide range of human
rights and practices of a scope for state sovereignty are examples of such
protections. Secondly, individuals may enjoy institutionalised influence in the form of
political rights over the institutions and regimes.

National citizenship typically provides both forms of controls. Europeans also

enjoy both forms of controls: Passive rights are expressed in the form of European
human rights regimes – including the European Convention on Human Rights, and –
in the EU – the Union Charter on Fundamental Rights. Active rights are enjoyed in
the form of voting rights of two kinds. Firstly through democratic control over
domestic governments represented in the EU Council. Secondly by directly elected
representatives to the European Parliament. Union citizenship ensures Europeans
political influence residing in Member States other than their own through the latter

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institution.

Hitherto, insofar as global citizenship is institutionalized at all, it primarily

consists of passive rights in the form of universal human rights standards that
protect individuals regardless of which state they live in. Elements of the United
Nations may be enhanced to provide equal political influence over various regimes,
but such global political rights are not well developed yet, and it remains an open
question what sorts of institutions, with what sorts of democratic control, are
normatively required.

The discussion of Union citizenship indicates that institutionalizing active

global citizenship faces several challenges. Global political authorities do not
automatically alleviate the problems of globalization on the contrary, such bodies
can easily be abused to the further detriment of the powerless. To ensure that a
global political order expresses respect for all on a footing of equality, the
institutional design is of utmost importance. Moreover, if these decision-making
bodies are to enjoy compliance and support, they must be trusted to make just
decisions. If they are to be representative and effective, most global citizens must be
committed to a common normative basis. The account of global citizenship sketched
below suggests that such a basis need not draw on a broad shared history and
culture. Nevertheless, several commitments must be broadly shared, including a
conception of the proper tasks of state governments, regional bodies such as the
EU, and global institutions. Such a shared political culture must be fostered, and
maintained. The risks of abuse of such global institutions are obvious, particularly in
the absence of global arenas for political deliberation and habituation. But gradual
development in this direction may still be feasible – and the alternatives may be
even worse, judged from the point of view of normative cosmopolitanism.
In the following I first elaborate on some components of such a conception of global
citizenship, and then consider some objections to the concept.

Global citizenship: Democratic vote, human rights and participation in trust-

building institutions In this section I make a case for why individuals may claim some
democratic voting rights and some human rights vis-à-vis governance structures
above the nation state, under our conditions of globalization. I also argue that global
citizenship should help engender much needed trust: being a member of
organizations and a citizen of states that participate in international regimes are
components of ‘global citizenship’

Given the history of citizenship in the West, one central component of

multiple citizenship in multilevel governance seems to require some democratic
element. At the same time, we should not fall into the trap of blurring the distinction
between democratic theory and broader normative political theory. Instead, the
challenge is to contribute to a deeper dialogue between theories of global
democracy and theories of global justice.

We may have at least three reasons to value democratic institutions in

multilevel governance. First, they are intrinsically justified to the extent that they are
institutional arrangements that distribute fair shares of political influence over

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decision-making and over the shaping of our various shared institutions. Second,
they are instrumentally justified to the extent that they secure several of our other
interests. I submit that one of these is our interest in non-domination – that is, to
avoid being subject to the arbitrary will of others. Thirdly, they are also
instrumentally justified insofar as they help secure a just distribution of other goods
– material and legal resources, opportunities etc.

As regards the last two aims, non-domination and distributive justice might in
principle be realized without democratic institutions. Human rights may safeguard
against some forms of domination. Within states, international and domestic human
rights norms have constrained central authorities to protect individuals’ vital interests
against standard social risks. Furthermore, democratic institutions help constrain
drastically unequal distribution of benefits. There are empirical grounds for claiming
that democratic institutions are good practical devices to secure non-domination and
a fair distribution of other goods: Democratic institutions are somewhat more likely
to remain responsive to the best interests of all citizens - compared to alternative
decision-making institutions. Such claims are contested, but seem defensible at least
when it comes to democracy within unitary states (Sen and Dréze 1990; Przeworski,
Shapiro et al. 1999; Shapiro 2003).

In a multilevel political order, the case for democratic governance may arise
only for some issues, and the conditions for effective democratic decision-making
may be absent. We may first of all ask whether these three arguments are relevant
for multilevel governance. The arguments may indeed apply to some extent at
regional and global levels, to secure a fair share of control and influence and to
prevent domination. Consider the following: in a multilevel world order, it may well
be that only some issues and aspects of individuals’ wellbeing need to be heeded
globally – while many concerns will be the tasks of regional, national or sub-national
political bodies. Some optimistically point to evidence that for a number of issues
there are already signs of widespread if not global concern. Evidence ranges from
tax payer contributions and political party support for international development
assistance, emergency relief, environmental measures and political consumerism
action, to emerging transnational civil society organizations in areas such as human
rights and the environment (Keck and Sikkink 1998; Price 2003; Ruggie 2004).

Furthermore, some point to evidence that there is a sufficiently vibrant public

debate that shapes individuals’ preferences and sense of justice, necessary for
democracy, also at levels above the nation state – such as at the European level
(Risse 2014). Human rights may also serve similar roles against authorities above
the state. But we may have to consider carefully the reasons there might be to hold
that all of these regulations merit the label ‘human rights’ (Follesdal 2006). The
upshot of this brief sketch is that there may be a case for maintaining that
individuals may claim some democratic voting rights and some human rights vis-à-
vis governance structures above the nation state under our conditions of
globalization.

A further role of global citizenship may be to foster and maintain just global
institutions, based on the duty of justice mentioned above. Such institutions are of

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great value, not least in order to create and maintain the mutual, legitimate trust
required among individuals under conditions of globalization. I shall therefore
suggest that we should include among the components of ‘global citizenship’ being a
citizen of a state that helps establish and participates in such international
institutions and regimes.

Trust is important when individuals must co-operate, but often they will only
do so when they expect the others to do their part. Suspicion that others will exploit
rather than reciprocate one’s efforts can easily prevent or unravel complex practices
of co-operation. Trust is therefore crucial for ‘social capital’ - ‘social connections and
the attendant norms and trust’ (Putnam 1995: 665; Loury 1987; Coleman 1990).
Robert Putnam argues that the operative norm in trust is what he calls ‘generalised
reciprocity’, fostered in civil society: (N)ot ‘I’ll do this for you, because you are more
powerful than I,’ nor even ‘I’ll do this for you now, if you do that for me now,’ but
‘I’ll do this for you now, knowing that somewhere down the road you’ll do something
for me’. (Putnam 1993, 182-83) To prevent suspicion and ensure stable cooperation,
actual compliance is not enough: each individual must also appear trustworthy, so
that others can count on their compliance (Hardin 1996). I submit that some
normatively legitimate institutions at levels above the state can be an important
means for fostering just institutions among and within states, and may help foster
trust and trustworthiness even among strangers, by engendering impersonal
reciprocity, of the form: I’ll do this for you – or refrain from doing this to you -
knowing that somewhere down the road someone else will treat me in the
appropriate way.

A wide variety of treaties and international courts may serve to stabilize such
expectations (Helfer 2006). Impersonal reciprocity is fostered by confidence in the
general compliance with social institutions – including abstract, aggregated political
systems (Inglehart 1970, Giddens 1995). Institutions can monitor and sometimes
sanction defection, thus reducing the temptation to a free ride. In turn, this reduces
the likelihood of defection by those who are motivated by a duty of justice, and who
do not mind co-operating as long as they are assured that others do likewise. These
arrangements are especially important when establishing practices, as in the
European Union at present and in various sectors of international cooperation, where
institutions are crucial for facilitating stable co-operation.

Social practices and institutions rely on norms of impersonal reciprocity, but

can also foster them - though slowly. Institutions not only enable cooperation and
shape individuals’ strategies, but they can shape our identities: How we conceive of
ourselves, our values, norms and interests. This is another way that institutions can
create and sustain trust. They shape individuals’ interests and perceptions of
alternatives, and can foster trust in others’ benevolence (Becker 1996).
Trustworthiness is further enhanced if individuals do not only act on the basis of
calculations, but instead are socialised to regard certain behaviour as obvious and
appropriate (Stinchcombe 1986, March and Simon 1993, Olsen 2000).

I submit that we should include among the components of ‘global citizenship’

being a citizen of a state that helps create and participate in institutions that

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contribute to a more just international political and legal order. Such actions by
individuals and by their organizations and states also help stabilize fair cooperation.

Global Citizenship: a Fata Morgana?

An immediate objection to global citizenship as including political rights and
other human rights and as contributing to trust might be that this is implausible. It is
unrealistic to believe that individuals globally will act on feelings of solidarity and
charity across hundreds of miles (Preuss 1995: 275). The global shared culture and
common heritage seems too thin to support the required trust, especially when
compared to the national heritages bolstering compliance say within the European
welfare states (Miller 2000). There is no ‘demos’, not even in Europe: that is, no
population with a shared sense of destiny or broad set of common values.
However, I submit that a ‘thick’ common basis of shared beliefs, values and
traditions is not needed. There are states without ‘thick’ shared values and sense of
community. Indeed, the search for a common ethnic or cultural base for ‘belonging’
has worried many Europeans in discussions of the desirability of a ‘Union
Citizenship’, due to the memory of past wars based on such grounds. Instead, I
submit that a satisfactory account of global citizenship need not build on a broad
base of common identity, culture and history. Recall the normative premises laid out
in section 1, suggesting that the account assumes a shared sense of justice and
more limited commitments to the equal dignity of all individuals, motivated by a
“desire ... to arrange our common political life on terms that others cannot
reasonably reject.” (Rawls 1993, 124).

From this point of view, the motivating force is not a feeling of altruism, but a
sense of justice, a preparedness to comply with those institutions that apply to those
of us that are just (Rawls 1980: 540). Day-to-day compliance with laws and other
commands is required by the duty to honour others’ legitimate expectations, and by
the sense of justice as it binds us to the institutions that surround us. This is a
different motivation for individuals’ compliance than ‘sentiments of affinity’, the
emotional bonds between individuals.

A central question in this account is whether this inherently ‘abstract’ sense of

solidarity based on universalistic principles of social justice can motivate and be
sustained over time. However, this concern should be alleviated by considering that
also existing nation states are usually too large to foster empathy and sympathetic
concern for the wellbeing of all others (Calhoun 1996, 3; Goodin 1988). Yet many
such states still seem to enjoy support from their citizens – at least for the time
being. The account I sketch below assumes this more ‘impersonal’ motivation: a
sense of justice, an interest in doing our moral duty and expressing respect for
others, rather than from a sense of community, ‘thick’ identity, or empathy.

Global Citizenship: Commitment to institutions and to a political theory

For trust among global citizens, I submit that they must be habituated to three sets
of commitments.

Firstly, citizens must be committed to their institutions and the decisions and
rules that their officials make. In practice, this means that they must generally be

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prepared to abide by the laws and other rules that apply to them. In this way they
respect the legitimate expectations of those around them who depend on their
compliance. Citizens must also have reason to believe that others will continue to
comply in the future. Such trustworthiness, essential for stability, can be maintained
by a publicly known, generally shared commitment to comply for what each person
regards as good reasons.

The second commitment is therefore to principles of legitimacy for the shared

institutions. Such principles of legitimacy, duly worked out for multi-level political
orders, serve several roles in accounting for stability. One is to provide critical
standards for assessing existing, concrete institutions. Another is to secure some
shared bases for compliance with just institutions, since these principles provide
justification for such existing institutions.

I suggest that citizens must also share a third commitment, namely to some
of the premises that in turn support such principles of legitimacy. In other words, a
stable political order would seem to require agreement on a – vague – conception of
citizens as equal members of the multi-level political order. Above I sketched parts
of one such conception. To illustrate this commitment, consider John Rawls’
suggestion that the social institutions should be regarded as a system of co-
operation among individuals regarded for such purposes as free and equal
participants (Rawls 1971). That particular conception is insufficient for the
challenges facing us under globalization, - or indeed for the European Union. The
realistic scenarios are ones where States, regional and global institutions would
somehow split and share sovereignty. A shared conception of the proper
responsibilities of states, regional authorities and global institutions seems necessary
to allocate powers between them, for instance by specifying the principle of
subsidiarity further.

There are two reasons for this third kind of commitment. A consensus on
institutions and principles of legitimacy is insufficient to convince others of one’s
trustworthiness regarding future compliance with these procedures. Others’ present
compliance does not by itself give us reason to trust that they will continue to
respect the principles of legitimacy – we also need assurance that they regard
themselves as having reasons to continue to comply in the future. Moreover, the
trust needed now also seems to concern the creation and modification of
institutions. That is: citizens must be able to trust each other not only when applying
shared rules and following existing practices. They must also trust each other when
establishing such institutions, e.g. when they craft treaties or constitutions. Such
tasks must be guided and seen as guided by a sense of justice, including a
commitment to a shared conception of the equal standing of individuals within the
multilevel global political order.

Conflicting loyalties?
Historically, citizenship has often been regarded as exclusive. One is hopefully
a citizen of one state – but only of one. Thus many states have traditionally
prohibited multiple citizenships. One long-standing worry about multiple citizenships

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is that individuals will suffer from conflicting loyalties and split identities (Boll 2007,
Vink and de Groot 2010). Thus European Union citizenship is explicitly a second
citizenship, to supplement rather than replace citizenship in a Member State. By
extension: Should we fear that global citizenship, instead of bolstering trust, will
foster split loyalties? In response, note that the basis of citizenship sketched above is
not exclusionary. It does not rely on a broad cultural basis or a thick sense of
national identity and pride. It is thus – at least in principle—compatible with other
concurrent commitments and loyalties. Conflicts may still occur, of course, insofar as
the state government, regional and international institutions issue conflicting orders
or legislation, and there is no final judicial authority. Such occasions can be
drastically reduced in several ways, e.g. insofar as courts with regional and
international jurisdiction have the final word, on the basis of a sufficiently clear
delineation of authority and competences.

I have suggested that one important task that global citizenship can fulfill is
to facilitate the trust and trustworthiness required for stable compliance and support
of global institutions. To secure such trust, all global citizens must share some
common grounds that include the commitment to existing institutions and to shared
principles of legitimacy. Moreover, citizens must also share the immediate grounds
for principles, for instance conceptions of the ends of the political unity, and some
conception of the proper relationship between individuals and the various regional
and international political orders, which split and share sovereignty with the states.
These three commitments would seek to avoid contested parts of specific religious
or philosophical world-views. At the same time, the shared basis goes beyond
“Constitutional Consensus” or a “Constitutional Patriotism”, that would seem only to
require consensus on procedures for making and interpreting authoritative decisions
(Baier 1989; Habermas 1998). Agreement on procedures seems insufficient to
maintain the mutual trust necessary for constitutional changes and institutional
development.

Conclusion
I have laid out a number of arguments why individuals should be able to
exercise some democratic voting rights and some human rights vis-à-vis governance
structures above the nation state, under our conditions of globalization. The
normative premises supporting this conception of ‘global citizenship’ are basically a
commitment to political equality, i.e. the equal standing of all individuals in the
political order, including democratic control over the institutions that shape their
lives. Under globalization, I have argued that the same normative commitments
have such implications for our shared institutions that specify rights and obligations
above the level of the nation state.

Much remains to be done with regard to theories of global justice for multi-
level systems of governance. But what are we to say to critics who point out that
there are broad discrepancies between the institutions of the present world order –
the present ‘global basic structure’ (Follesdal 2011) - and the requirements of
normative international political theory? Such deviations do not necessarily entail
that the theory is flawed. Discrepancies between existing institutions and normative

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theories may equally well be weaknesses of the institutions, - weaknesses that a
normative theory highlights. That talk of global citizenship may increase conflicts,
and not only induce support, should come as no surprise: governments have often
discovered that citizenship rights have “the potential for exacerbating, as well as
diminishing the conflict of classes” (Goodin 1988). Under conditions of globalization,
we must expect even more such conflicts and contestation concerning the extent,
impact and improvement of international institutions that shape our lives across
state borders. As citizens of two or more commonwealths – domestic, regional and
global - our commitments to political equality and a duty of justice require us to
confront these challenges head on.

Activity

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 Quiz

Answer the following questions below.

What does it mean to be a global citizen? Use the spaces below to organize your
thoughts and ideas.
1. What is global citizen?
____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
2. What are the characteristics of global citizen?
____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
4. In ten words, what are the values you learned from poem?
____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________

Essay
1. What does it mean to be a global citizen, and what drives the need to adopt this
perspective?
____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
2. Why is it important to cultivate a global citizenship perspective especially in
youth?
____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________

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In the process of performing a human act the individual might encounter certain
obstacles which though may not nullify the human act and make it involuntary but
they may reduce the imputability or culpability of the individual, thereby making
him less responsible for the particular act. In this section, we shall elaborate some
of the main impediments which might affect either the intellectual or the volitive
constituent (or both together) of the humanaction.

6.3.1 Ignorance

This to a great extent affects the intellectual dimension of the human act. It is
elucidated as lack of adequate knowledge in an individual with regard to the
nature or moral quality of an act one is performing or proposes to perform.
Ignorance is mainly of two categories: Invincible ignorance and Vincible
ignorance. The former is explained as that ignorance which cannot be dispelled by
reasonable diligence a prudent individual would be expected to exercise in a given
situation. Such ignorance almost renders the act performed as involuntary and
consequently the individual may not be imputable for the act for what is
unknown cannot be the object of volition. On the other hand, Vincible ignorance is
that which could be eliminated by the application of reasonable diligence. Here the
agent has not put in enough effort to gain the required knowledge and as such the
concerned person is culpable or imputable for the act performed under such type
of ignorance. However the degree of imputability depends on the extent of the
individual’s cupablenegligence.

6.3.2 Passion

It is often connoted as a powerful or compelling emotion or feeling for instance an

experience of strong hate or sexual desire. Passion is said to be a strong tendency
towards the possession of something good or towards the avoidance of something
evil. The more the intensity of the emotions, the less the capability for making
balanced and objective deliberation. Thus passion is considered as an obstacle to
human act. One can enumerate two main kinds of passions: Antecedent and
Consequent. The former refers to passion elicited without the consent of the will.
Here the person might not be fully responsible for the passion and as such the
culpability is much less if not fully absent. Consequent passion is passion which is
within the control of the will, therefore the agent is responsible for the arousal of
the passion and as such imputable for theact.

6.3.3 Habit

Habit is an acquired tendency for doing something as a result of repeated practice.

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It may be voluntary or involuntary, depending on whether it was imbibed with
consent of a person or without. Habits usually do not render an act non-human,
because though they exert certain coercion they can be overcome by a committed
effort. As such imputability of acts from habit increases or decreases depending
upon the effort exerted.

6.3.4 Fear

It is defined as the shrinking back of the mind on account of an impending evil

considered to be difficult to avoid or even impossible at times. Fear may be grave
or mild according to whether it is caused by a grave evil whose avoidance is rather
difficult if not impossible, or only by a mild evil which can be easily avoided. Fear is
characterized as highly grave when it exercises great deterrence on an average
person for e.g. fear of killing. Fear is relatively grave when the threatened evil is
generally considered as objectively slight but it scares a particular person
subjectively depending on the person’s emotional disposition. Fear hampers the
use of reason and as such destroys voluntariness. Fear in general does not fully
destroy the voluntariness of action but merely reduces its gradation and as such
usually lessens its culpability. Only in extreme cases when the highly grave fear
totally impairs the two constitutive elements the act done out of fear may be
regarded asinvoluntary.

Activity

Instruction: Justify or prove: construct an argument for or against and support with
evidence while you identify what impediments of human acts might affect your
decision-making.

1. Your best friend is about to get married. The ceremony will be performed in one
hour, but you have seen, just before coming to the wedding, that your friend’s
fiancee has been having an affair. If your friend marries this woman, she is
unlikely to be faithful, but on the other hand, if you tell your friend about the
affair, you will ruin his wedding.

Question: Would you, or would you not, tell your friend of the affair?

2. There is a train that, much to your horror, is about to run over your grown up
son, who has been tied to its track. It just so happens that you have just enough
time to flip a switch that will send the train down a different track, saving your son.
However, tied to the other track, is your granddaughter, the daughter of the very
son in danger of being run over. Your son is begging and pleading with you not to

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flip the switch, not to kill his daughter.

Question: What would you do?

Lesson 15: Factors Determining the

Morality of Human Acts

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Analyzing the morality of the human act is said to be a complex enterprise since it
is affected by so many conditions which are within and without. Most of the
moralists agree that to judge the goodness or badness of any particular human
act, three elements must be weighed from which every act derives its morality.
They are: the Object of the act, the Circumstances surrounding the act, and the
End or Intention that the one performing the act has inmind.

1. The Object of the Human Act

It is that which the action of its very nature tends to produce. Or in other words it
refers to the effect which an action primarily and directly causes. It is necessarily
the result of the act without taking into account the circumstances or the end. For
example the object of setting fire to hut of a slum-dweller is to burn whereas the
end might be revenge. The object is usually regarded as the primary factor for
moral judgement of a human act. From the viewpoint of object an act is generally
classified as morally good, bad or indifferent. For a morally good act, the object of
it must be good.
2. The Circumstances contextualizing the Human Act

These include all the particulars of the concrete human action which are capable of
affecting its morality. They are such things as the person involved, the time, the
place, the occasion, which are distinct from the object, but can change or at
times even completely alter its moral tone. Circumstances can make an otherwise
good action better for e.g. giving food to a person who is almost dying of
starvation. They can make good an act which is otherwise indifferent, for e.g.
sitting with a person who is feeling lonely. But they can also make worse an act
which is evil in its object for e.g. robbing a beggar from his/her only meal of the
day. Since all human actions occur in a particular context i.e. at a certain time and
at a certain place, the circumstances must always be considered in evaluating the
moral quality of any humanact.

3. TheEndortheIntentionoftheAgentinperformingaHumanAct

The end or intention of a human act is the purpose that prompts one to perform
such an act.
Everyhumanact,nomatterhowtrivial,isdonewithsomeintention.Itisthereasonforwhich
the agent performs a particular act. It is the effect that the agent subjectively wills
in his/her action. At times it can so happen that the intention of the agent
coincides with the object of the human act, for e.g. offering a glass of water to a
thirsty person to quench thirst. However at other times both of them might be
different. For e.g. a captured spy may commit suicide in order to safeguard the

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secrets of the country. A human act to be morally good the agent or doer must
have a good intention—he must want to accomplish something that is good in one
way oranother.

The end too can affect the morality of the human act just as circumstances do. A
good intention can make better an act which is good in its object, for e.g. helping
a poor person to start a small business with the intention of making him
independent. Also the end can worsen a act which is already evil in its object, for
e.g. killing the father, who is the only breadwinner in the family, so that his
children might be on the street. To a great extent many of the actions that we do
which otherwise might be indifferent morally in themselves, but they receive their
moral quality from the intention behindthem.

According to the moralists a human act is said to be morally good when it is good
in its object, circumstances and also in the intention, for it is believed that an
action is good when each of these three factors is conformed to order (Bonum ex
integra causa). If even one of these determinants is contrary to order, the action
will be bad, at least in part (Malum ex quocumque defectu).

Activity

Instruction: Describe: provide a detailed account while you determine the different
Factors Determining the Morality of Human Acts based on the situation below.

Situation: Lea is a sophomore in high school and a member of a local

theater group in a nearby city. She likes school, but her passion for singing
and acting is huge.

Lately there has been talk going around that some members have been
exempt from auditions for the last few productions. Leah knew in the “real
world” that can happen sometimes. Some productions have such huge
numbers of applicants and so little time that the more experienced, well known
actors and singers sometimes get bumped up into the cast without having to
try out. But, this wasn’t Broadway, this was a local teen theater group and the
whole idea was to give everyone a chance to prove him or herself. She and her
friends talked about the rumor and how, if it was true, how unfair it was.

It’s one thing to know someone probably deserves to be cast in the

production, but another to just put that person in without letting others
compete for the same role. They felt close enough to their choir director to
talk to him about it. He said he couldn’t imagine that applicants were being

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exempt. Lea’s friends talked about going to the director, but didn’t want to
jeopardize their relationship with him. He was intimidating and, after all, what
if he took offense or got mad? Their future chances for good roles could be
compromised.

The first week of tryouts for the next musical production Lea was called into
the director’s office. He told her she was in for one of the main singing parts.
She was ecstatic at first. It was the role she had wanted more than any other.
It was a starring spot and would set her up for amazing roles in the future.
Then, she realized the director meant she didn’t have to audition. He
explained that they simply didn’t have enough time to see every performer’s
audition. They knew her work and knew she was right for the role.

Lea was conflicted. What would she say to her friends? How would she
explain this to them? What’s more, the choir director agreed with her and her
friends that everyone should audition. What would she tell him? She decided
she would raise the question to the head director before she left his office.
She asked, “ What do I tell my choir director or the rest of the cast?” He
replied, “ They don’t need to know. This is often done with the strongest
performers. Just skip the audition and we’ll take care of the rest.”

Questions:
a. What should Lea do? What would you do?
b. What position did the director put Lea in? Do you think it was fair of
him?
c. Do you think she should tellher choir director about all this? What
about her friends?
d. What do you think are the possible outcomes if Lea were to tell her
choir director? What if she were to tell her friends?
e. Would you talk to your parents about this if you were in Lea’s place?
What do you think they would do? Would you agree?

Unit Seven: Elements of Moral

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Maturity

Introduction

This unit offers an image of moral maturity that consists of seven elements: moral
agency, harnessing cognitive ability, harnessing emotional resources, using social
skill, using principles, respecting others, and developing a sense of meaning.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this unit, students must have:

• outlined the elements of moral maturity

• described the ability of oneself to make decisions and choices
• explained the importance of moral maturity

Lesson 22: Elements of Moral Maturity

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1. Moral Agency and Sense of Self

Moral agency means that people see themselves as having the right and the ability
to make decisions, and to act on them. Developing a sense of self and the authority
of one's voice is central to Belenky, Clinchy, Goldeberger, and Tarule's (1986)
developmental model. People whose identity is suppressed, such as women in
authoritarian cultures, or the emotionally or sexually abused (Hunter, 1990), may
not think they have a right to choose their own opinions.

A morally mature person is not only a moral agent, but is also aware that he or she
is a moral agent. Kegan (1994) refers to peoples' increasing ability to consider their
own cognitive processes as they develop. Their own thinking becomes an object of
thought, something to be understood, evaluated, and improved.

Accepting moral agency helps people appreciate their responsibility to act for the
good. This naturally leads to the question of what "the good" is, a search involving
other aspects of moral maturity. However, recognition that there is a self, the self
chooses behaviors, and behaviors affect the self and others, is fundamental to moral
maturity.

2. Harnessing Cognitive Ability

Cognitive ability is the cornerstone of moral reasoning (Kohlberg, 1976). For

instance, to resolve a moral dilemma, one needs to identify stakeholders, evaluate
their interests in a situation, appreciate conflicts between principles, and often make
tradeoffs. All of these steps involve abstract reasoning.

Cognitive skill also helps people identify situations that have a moral component
(Rest, 1986). A well-developed mind can better imagine the impact of various
courses of action. Further, mindfulness, where someone pays attention to otherwise
automatic activities (Langer, 1989), is a cognitively intentional act. Suppose a parent
realizes he or she habitually demeans a child who makes the normal mistakes of
childhood. Breaking the habit requires the parent to consciously monitor his or her
automatic behavior. This takes persistent cognitive vigilance.

More mature individuals also make better use of evidence (Perry, 1970). They move
from radical relativism - the notion that all opinions are equally valid - to the idea
that some beliefs are better supported by evidence than others. Using evidence
requires more cognitive effort than refusing to judge, or simply relying on intuitions.

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However, the morally mature person will use evidence as circumstances - and his or
her own principles - demand.

Finally, developmental models like Belenky et al. (1986), King and Kitchener (1994),
and Perry (1970) hold that cognitive development is triggered by "crises" in Erikson's
(1968) sense. That is, information that conflicts with current beliefs leads people to
revise their thinking. Cognitive skill enables this process, helping people recognize
conflicts and create new systems of meaning.

3. Harnessing Emotional Resources

Emotions drive much of our behavior. Emotions supply goals for rational thought,
and rational thought redirects and sometimes vetoes emotions (Plutchik, 2001).
Morally mature

people understand this complex interplay. They take their own and other peoples'
emotions into account when interpreting events. They know, for example, that initial
emotional reactions do not always reflect someone's deeper values.

Emotions are important in initiating and sustaining action. Resisting impulses - the
virtue of self-discipline - is critical to goal achievement (Lickona, 2000). Moral anger
can arouse someone to oppose injustice (Smith, 1759). To paraphrase Aristotle, the
morally mature person knows how to be angry with the right person at the right
time for the right reasons. Moral trespasses can also invoke disgust (Haidt, Rozin,
McCauley, and Imada, 1997). Empathy, where someone feels the emotions of others
(Hoffman, 2000), helps someone understand how events affect other people.
Elevation is another interesting emotion. It occurs when someone observes a moral
exemplar in action (Haidt, 2000). Elevation can prompt the observer to action.

4. Using Social Skill

Morally mature people have the skills to participate in the social world. They can
understand others, make themselves understood, and sometimes persuade others to
adopt their own point of view. Social skill is particularly important for connected
knowers, those who seek to better understand the world by integrating their views
with other peoples' (Belenky, et al., 1986).

Morally mature people know that group norms affect behavior, and that social
pressure is used to encourage obedience. They can detect untoward social pressure

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applied to themselves and others. They can maintain their commitment to their
principles in the face of group pressure. Some even build their own opposition
groups, creating social support for opinions that are out of the mainstream.

5. Using Principles

The ultimate sign of moral development in Kohlberg's (1976) model is principle-

based reasoning. A principle is an abstract moral idea applied across situations.
Influenced by Rawls (1967), Kohlberg thought that justice was the most important
principle. Other writers emphasize different principles. Gilligan's (1982) work on the
principle of care is perhaps the best-known modern example.

Morally mature people do not slavishly obey one principle, however. They are aware
of the conflicts between principles that underlie moral dilemmas. They understand
community standards and the relationships that bind communities together. This
sensitivity is the cornerstone of Aristotle's practical wisdom (Liszka, 2002).

6. Respecting Others

The morally mature person's respect for others shows itself in several ways. First,
other people are valued. Enlightenment philosophies, such as that enshrined in the
American Declaration of Independence, recognize the value of people simply
because they are people. Moral principles like justice and caring reflect the inherent
worth of people.

Second, morally mature people know they are part of an interdependent social
network (Love and Guthrie, 1999). People move from dependence, where they
define themselves by others' opinions, to independence, where they become their
own authority, to interdependence. In the last stage, people recognize the complex
web of relationships that tie us to each other. We are both supported by and
constrained by this network.

Third, a morally mature person recognizes that knowing is dependent to some

extent on the knower (King and Kitchener, 1994). Most people have more-or-less the
same experiences with things like gravity. However, social "facts" vary widely across
cultures. What sexual relationships are permitted? What gender roles have been
established? How are children best cared for? How is civil justice best administered?

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Acknowledging the effect of culture on knowledge does not mean accepting radical
relativism. An Australian might believe that bribery is wrong, while knowing it is
customary in many places. However, someone who recognizes that knowledge is in
part socially defined can better deal with the realities of interpersonal exchange.

Finally, a morally mature person can interact with others without feeling that his or
her own worldview is threatened. Belenky et al. (1986) write about "real talk:"
listening carefully, encouraging, exploring ideas, posing questions, arguing,
speculating, and sharing. In real talk, listening does not diminish one's capability to
hear one's own moral voice.

The metaphors people use for conversation shapes their expectations (Johnson,
1993). For instance, "discussion as war" means that one "defends a position" and
"shoots down the enemy's arguments." The goal is victory, not truth or
understanding. Morally mature people can use different metaphors as appropriate,
like "discussion as exploration," where participants cooperate to uncover new
intellectual territory. Other options are "discussion as play," and even "discussion as
dance." However, such openness requires a stronger sense of agency (or self) than
some people have.

7. Developing a Sense of Purpose

The final element of moral maturity is a sense of life purpose. Chickering (1969),
Frankl (1984), Maslow (1968), and other writers emphasize its importance. Purpose
can be a superordinate achievement goal, although it need not be (Ogilvy, 1995). It
might be a way of living life, a dedication to certain processes rather than specific
outcomes.

Service to others is one of the more common life missions among moral exemplars.
Some peoples' commitment to others is an integral part of their identity (Colby and
Damon, 1995). Service to a higher power is another recognizable life purpose, which
may or may not entail service to others.

A theme from various authors is that a sense of purpose makes life worth living, and
death easier to bear. Kushner (2001, p. 146) writes:

Over the course of my thirty years as a congregational rabbi, I have seen many
people come to the end of their lives... Most people are not afraid of dying; they are
afraid of not having lived... People can accept the inescapable fact of mortality.
What frightens them more is the dread of insignificance, the notion that they will be
born and live and one day die and none of it will matter.

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Finding life's purpose is a difficult philosophical task. It's easy to chant someone
else's slogans, of course. However, to choose one's own goals - and to respect
others while pursuing them, to use one's cognitive, emotional, and social skills well,
to keep fast to one's own principles – is not so easy.

Activity

Instruction: Discuss and Explain: Give reasons, facts, details that show you
understand the question presented below.

1. What is the most important element of moral maturity does our society need?

Unit Eight: Elements of Moral

Maturity

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Introduction

This unit discusses the importance of ethics in society. Its societal context presents
that the actions of humans can be analyzed by having ethical decision-making on
what is the right thing to do, and what the moral agent should do, since the ethical
values and principles response to the actual practices of life and to the needs of
humans in the society.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this unit, students must have:

• distinguished ethical issues from social issues

• reflected on the requirements for the smooth running of society
• considered the nature of social decision-making
• explained the principles that govern just societies
• analyzed the nature of political authority

Lesson 23: Right or Wrong in Context

In thinking ethically we are trying to decide which actions are right and wrong,
which actions we should or shouldn’t perform. But no man is an island, and the
decisions we make about how to act must be made in the context of the laws of the
land in which we live. Some of the most important ethical decisions, therefore, are

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not primarily decisions about how individuals should or shouldn’t act, but rather
decisions about whether a given action:

• should or shouldn’t be illegal

Nearly every country in the world has made it illegal to clone a human being for
reproductive purposes. Even if an individual believes that human cloning is morally
acceptable, therefore, he cannot rationally clone a human being without taking into
account the fact it is illegal and that the state will punish him if it discovers what he
is doing. (We shall be considering reproductive cloning in Chapter 8.)

• should or shouldn’t be regulated by law

In Britain and in some US states (e.g. Rhode Island, California and New Jersey) it is
legal to clone a human being as far as the blastocyst stage of embryo development
for the purposes of research (so-called ‘therapeutic’ cloning). Anyone wanting to
clone a human being for such purposes, however, must jump through the myriad
hoops by which such activities are regulated by the law. They will, for example, in
the UK, need a license from the Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority
(HFEA),whose job it is to subject requests for licenses to close examination, then
they will need to obey the various regulations governing the activity itself, then
finally they will have to destroy the clone by the 14th day.

• should or shouldn’t be funded by the public purse

In the United States, under President Bush, therapeutic cloning, though legal, could
not be carried out by anybody needing public funding. It was forbidden to use
money from the public purse for such activities. Only private organizations able to
fund their own research were therefore able to take advantage of the legality of
therapeutic cloning in the United States.

Such decisions cannot be made by ordinary individuals, they must be made by the
nation-states to which individuals belong as citizens or as subjects, or by the parts of
those nation-states to which the nation-state has delegated decision-making power.

Philosophical background: The state of nature

In deciding the principles by which the state should be governed political

philosophers talk about the ‘state of nature’. This is the condition human beings
were in before governments came into existence. The questions asked about the
state of nature include: how did humans act? Were there any rules all human beings
followed? Why did humans bring states into existence?

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There are different views about what life was like in the state of nature. Some, for
example British Philosopher John Locke (who was instrumental in writing the US
constitution), believed that in the state of nature human beings would be naturally
sympathetic and co-operative. He also believed there’d be a natural morality which
he called the ‘law of nature’. This law gave us, in Locke’s opinion, the right to self-
defense and to own those goods with which we ‘mixed our labor’ (for example, if we
plough some land, we become the owner of that land). Locke believed the state
would come into existence because we would soon see that this would be a better
way of making sure the law of nature is imposed fairly and in accordance with
majority rule.

Another British philosopher, Thomas Hobbes, rejected Locke’s benign view of human
nature. He believed that in the state of nature we would be constantly at war with
each other and that life would be ‘solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short’. Hobbes
believed our motivation for introducing the state would be our need to protect
ourselves from each other: we would want a single leader, one strong enough to put
down the insurrections, dis- agreements and infighting that would inevitably arise
without the rule of such a leader.

In making these decisions the state sometimes has a very difficult task. In every
society there are issues, often moral, that cause huge controversy. On such issues
most citizens believe themselves to be right, but they disagree with each other on
exactly what is right. Sometimes these disagreements can become very bitter. Those
who believe that experimentation on animals, or abortion, is wrong, for example,
have resorted to extreme violence to make their case

Most people who believe such things are wrong do not act so unreasonably. But
when reasonable people disagree the state cannot adjudicate.All it can do is to take
account of that controversy in making its decisions.

The decisions made by the state or its agents all involve the allocation of important
social resources such as freedom, power and public money. It is the state that
decides what its citizens are free to do and not to do, who should have the authority
to act on behalf of the state, and how state-sponsored activities should be funded.

Different nation-states have different decision-making processes. Some states are

dictatorships. In Zimbabwe, until recently, decisions have largely been made by one
man, Robert Mugabe,and by those he has appointed. The same is true in North
Korea.Other states, including most of those in the west, are democracies in which
decisions are made by those who have been elected by the people to represent
them. Different democracies go about the process of decision-making in different
ways. The decisions they make are sometimes very different.

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In a democracy individuals are able to participate in the process of deciding what
their government should or shouldn’t do. Some participate only to the extent of
voting for a representative, others don’t even do this. Some do far more than this. It
is clear that the more concerned one is about the decisions that the state makes
(and about the laws that one will therefore have to obey) the more one should
engage actively in the process of making these decisions.

In order to participate effectively in such decision-making, individuals must be

informed about the decisions to be made, must have reflected on the decisions they
think should be made and, ideally, will have put their reflections to the test by
engaging in debate with those whose views differ. Such debates provide an
opportun- ity for those involved to attempt to achieve a ‘reflective equilibrium’
between their different beliefs.This can be achieved by listening to others’
arguments and taking good arguments into account in their own thinking.

Democracies, ideally, will try to provide forums to help citizens participate in such
activities, expect schools to prepare citizens for participation, and perhaps provide
incentives for citizens to participate.

As biotechnology advances and makes it possible for us to engage in many activities

that have previously been impossible, it is not just individuals who must decide for
themselves whether or not the activities made possible are morally permissible,
required or forbidden: states must also make such decisions. The decisions made by
states will, of course, interact importantly with the decisions of individuals.

Activity

Instruction: Criticize and evaluate: Make a judgment about strengths and

weaknesses, positive or negative aspects. You can use the theories of the
abovementioned philosophers to contextualize your answers.

Situation: You should imagine that they are in the state of nature and must
therefore look out for themselves and their family group. There is no law and
therefore no protection from the law for individuals.

1. Try to identify the advantages and disadvantages of their situation;


2. Decide whether they would like to continue to live without benefit of the law
or whether they’d prefer to agree to live together according to the rule of
law.

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Lesson 24: Morality and the Law of the
Land
That the law of the land is quite different from what many have called the ‘moral
law’ can be seen in the fact that there are actions that are immoral but not illegal
and vice versa.

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Lying, for example, is not illegal, though most people would agree that lying is –
usually – morally wrong. There are types of lie, of course, that are illegal (fraud is
usually against the law and fraud is a type of lying), but no state would pass a law
forbidding you from falsely telling your friend you think she looks nice.

There are also actions that are illegal but not obviously immoral. In Britain it is illegal
to drive on the right, for example, in the United States it is illegal to drive on the left.
Morality, however, says nothing about the side of the road on which one should
drive. At least it doesn’t until a law is passed, then it might be argued that as
morality would say ‘obey the law’, then morality also says ‘drive on the left when in
Britain and on the right when in the United States’. Nevertheless it is easy to see
that here there is an arbitrary element to the law: this law is needed to co-ordinate
behaviour not to enforce morality.

Other laws, for example ‘do not kill’, seem to have a clear moral element. If human
beings have the right to life then morality would say ‘you must not kill’, and the law
of the land merely gives state expression to the moral requirement. In doing so the
state gives itself (or its agents) the power to punish anyone who kills another human
being. In deciding whether or not to kill someone, an individual who is not dissuaded
by the immorality of doing so, might be dissuaded by the illegality of it. If not, and
he is caught, he will be punished.

Another indication that the law of the land is not the same as the moral law is given
in the fact that morality can seem to require the making of, or the abolition of, a
law. Many people in the United States, for example, believe that the death penalty is
immoral. How could a law be immoral if there was no more to morality than the law
of the land? In Britain many people believe that morality demands that a law should
be passed permitting assisted dying. How could morality demand a law that doesn’t
exist if there was no more to morality than the law?

The making of the law, as an activity, is itself governed by morality. There are three
important moral considerations that must be taken into account in every decision the
state makes:

• public welfare;


• individual rights;


• justice between individuals.

As we work through this book we will see that it can be hugely difficult to balance
these considerations against each other: just as the values that guide the conduct of
individuals conflict, so the values that guide the decision-making of states conflict:
hard decisions cannot be avoided.

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 Activity

Instruction: Personal Reflection

Reflect on the different ways we punish those who have broken the law and those
who have acted immorally. Why should there be such different sorts of
punishment?

Unit Nine: Loób and Kapwa:

An Introduction to a
Filipino Virtue Ethics by
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Jeremiah Reyes

Introduction

This is an introduction to a Filipino virtue ethics which is a relationship-oriented

virtue ethics. The concepts to be discussed are the result of the unique history of the
Philippines, namely a Southeast Asian tribal and animist tradition mixed with a
Spanish Catholic tradition for over three-hundred years. Filipino virtue ethics is based
on two foundational concepts in Filipino culture. The first is loób, which can easily be
misunderstood when literally translated into English as “inside” but which is better
translated as “relational will,” and the second is kapwa, which is literally translated
as “other person” but is better understood as “together with the person.” These
serve as pillars for a special collection of virtues (kagandahang-loób, utang-na- loób,
pakikiramdam, hiya, lakas-ng-loób/bahala na) which are not individualistic virtues in
the same way as most of the cardinal virtues of the Western tradition (i.e.,
prudence, justice, temperance and fortitude) but are all directed towards the
preservation and strengthening of human relationships. This introduction to a Filipino
virtue ethics is articulated and organized through a dialogue with Aristotelian-
Thomistic virtue ethics.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this unit, students must have:

• reflected the Filipino Virtue Ethics

• explained the foundational concepts in Filipino culture and virtues
• evaluated the Filipino culture and ethics

Lesson 25: Glossary of Terms

Since one can easily get overwhelmed by the foreign vocabulary when encountering
ideas from another country or culture for the first time, perhaps it is best to begin
with a short glossary of concepts so that one can survey the landscape. Later on we

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will discuss each concept in detail.

1. Loób – (Pronounced as two syllables with short o’s, lo-ob.) This word is
literally translated into English as “inside”. It is used to describe the inside of
physical objects such as a house or a jar. However, when it talks about a
person, it talks about the person’s “relational will”, i.e. his will towards his
kapwa. This concept is fundamental because the Filipino virtues are mostly
compound words which say something about the kind of loób that a person
has.

2. Kapwa – This word is literally translated as “other” or “other person” but it is

in a way untranslatable into English. This is because it is embedded in an
entirely different worldview and web of meanings unique to Philippine culture
and history—namely, a Southeast Asian tribal and animist culture mixed with
Spanish Catholicism. It is tribal and Christian at the same time. Kapwa has
therefore been translated by local scholars as “shared self”, “shared identity”,
or “self-in-the-other.” I use “together with the person.”

3. Kagandahang-Loób – This word is literally translated as “beauty-of-will.” The

beauty of the will in this context is determined by one’s relationship towards
the kapwa. Someone who has an affective concern for others and the
willingness to help them in times of need is a person with kagandahang-loób.
It is best understood through the paradigmatic example of a mother’s love
and concern for her child, most especially during the child’s weakness in
infancy.

4. Utang-na-Loób – This word is literally translated as “debt-of-will.” It is the

natural response to kagandahang-loób. It is the self-imposed obligation to
give back the same kind of kagandahang-loób to the person who has shown it
to you. When utang-na-loób is returned “with interest”, i.e. more than what is
due, it can bring about a circular dynamic between two persons where the
one who previously showed kagandahang-loób is now the one with utang-na-
loób, and then vice versa; it continues to alternate and strengthen the
relationship in the process. This is where kapwa naturally develops into
mutually sacrificial friendships.

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 5. Pakikiramdam – The closest translation might be “relational sensitivity” or
“empathy.” It is about being skilled in reading the other person’s feelings and
correctly guessing his inner state. It requires receptivity to many non-verbal
cues, such as subtle facial expressions, tones of voice, and bodily gestures.
This indirect communication, though it might seem tedious or frustrating to
the foreigner, is a way of practicing a kind of “emotional intelligence”, a way
of evaluating and deepening the relationship with the other person.

6. Hiya – Hiya has been variously translated as “embarrassment” or “shame.” It

has often been negatively criticized when studied in isolation, especially for
the Filipino tendency to be roundabout and not direct to the point. But it is a
virtue when it controls and restrains selfish desires for the welfare of the
other (kapwa). One of the most common manifestations is withholding a
direct verbal confrontation that could embarrass the other, especially in
public.

7. Lakas-ng-Loób/Bahala na – Lakas-ng-loób is literally translated as “courage”,

bahala na is sometimes translated as “fatalism” or “resignation”, but it is
translated more positively as “courage to face uncertainty.” Like hiya, these
two can degenerate into negative concepts if separated from the principle of
kapwa. The unique history of the Philippines must also be taken into account
in order to see that this is not just any kind of courage, but a courage for self-
sacrifice for the kinship group. As we will see later, the Tagalog Pasyon
(Passion of Christ) play is the key to understanding this virtue and the ideal
Philippine hero (bayani).

This glossary is a survey of Filipino virtue ethics. Note that it is a Filipino virtue
ethics, and not the Filipino virtue ethics, since the words introduced here are derived
from Tagalog language and culture, primarily in the Northern island of Luzon and
dominant in the capital of the country, Manila. But if any investigation of Filipino
virtue ethics is to be undertaken, this would be the logical first step, not only
because the national Filipino language is almost completely based on the Tagalog
language, but also because the Tagalog culture has been the most thoroughly
Hispanicized during the three-hundred years of Spanish occupation and therefore
shows the most thorough synthesis of the two worlds.

After a primary study of Tagalog virtue ethics, one can investigate the similarities
with other regional groups in the Philippines. For example, Mercado has identified
the counterparts of the Tagalog loób in other language in the Philippines, specifically

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the Ilokano nakem and the Bisayan buot (Mercado, 1976, p. 54).

It is only now that these concepts are being presented as a virtue ethics.Since the
1970’s local scholars have only been presenting these as “values.” This is because
many of the pioneering anthropologists and psychologists embraced the value
orientation theory of Clyde Kluckholn and were completely unfamiliar with virtue
ethics as an interpretative option.For example, the American anthropologist Frank
Lynch famously coined the term “smooth interpersonal relationships” to describe the
greatest value of Filipino culture (Lynch, 1962, p. 89). The international revival of
virtue ethics had to wait for Alasdair MacIntyre’s After Virtue published in 1981. The
problem with “values” is that the concept is too broad, and is often simply conflated
with the notion of something “good” or “important.”It also carries with it a very
subjective understanding of what constitutes a “good.” To say that something like
utang-na- loób is a Filipino value is to merely say that it is something that Filipinos
find “good” or “important”, which is not really to say much, since Filipinos find a host
of other things important, such as family or a college education.It does not give a
clear definition of what something like utang-na-loób in fact is; it just says how we
feel towards it.

But with the concept “virtue” derived from the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition, one
has recourse to something much more defined than “values.” For Aquinas, a virtue is
the quality of a power (potentia) of the soul, (ex. the will). A virtue is also a habit
(habitus) that makes the person disposed towards the performance of good works.
As we shall see, Filipino virtues are similar in that they describe the quality of one’s
relational will (loób) which acts towards others (kapwa). The Thomistic scheme
provides a stable foundation for these concepts which were blurry when talked
about as values. What has often been called a “value system” is better understood
as a “virtue ethics.”

Now another thing needed before going into our discussion is a brief intellectual
history of the Philippines. This is necessary in order to show the significant
difference between the Filipino worldview and the Western worldview, and also, the
difference between the Philippines and its closest Southeast Asian neighbors. This is
due mainly to its unique mix of East and West.

Lesson 26: A Brief Philippine History

Before the explorer Ferdinand Magellan arrived in the islands in 1521, and was killed
by the tribal warrior Lapu-Lapu, the Philippines was composed of many different
tribes and chiefdoms scattered across the archipelago. Based on the artifact called
the Laguna Copperplate Inscription we know that Indian influences were already
present in the islands since 900 A.D. and this is verified by the many Sanskrit based

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words found in the Tagalog language (Francisco, 1964). Manila was also at the heart
of the trade network in the region, and had extensive trade dealings with the
th
Chinese. In the 14 century Arab traders arrived in the Southern islands of the
Philippines and spread Islam (Majul, 1999). One can imagine that if the Spanish had
not arrived, the Philippines would have become like its Islamic neighbours Malaysia
and Indonesia. However, in 1565 Miguel Lopez de Legazpi arrived following
Magellan’s Pacific route. Miguel Lopez de Legazpi was appointed by King Philip II as
the first governer-general of the Philippines (the islands were previously named Las
Islas Filipinas by Ruy Lopez de Villalobos, in honor of Philip II). This began three-
hundred thirty three years of Spanish colonization only to end in 1898 when the
Philippine revolutionaries declared independence and when the Americans acquired
the Philippines through the Treaty of Paris. After attempts at modernization and
democratization, the Americans finally granted the Philippines its national
independence in 1946.

A significant fact for us is that the words we are going to discuss (ex. loób and
kapwa) were present in the Tagalog language before the Spanish arrived and were
words used in a tribal and animist context. The basic structure of society was the
barangay, a group of people ruled by one datu or chief (Scott, 1994), and the
animist religion was led by a priestess class called babaylan who served as bridges
to the spirit world and also as the prime culture bearers (Salazar, 1999). The word
kapwa in this older context would have naturally referred to someone from the tribe.
Someone outside the tribe would not have been considered kapwa. The idea of loób
meanwhile was woven into a spiritual animist worldview. Benedict Anderson has
described the concept of power in Javanese culture as an “intangible, mysterious,
and divine energy which animates the universe” (Anderson, 1972, p. 7). Reynaldo
Ileto has drawn parallels with this and the notion of loób (Ileto, 1979, p. 32).

But when the Spanish missionaries arrived, the concept kapwa was impregnated and
enlarged by the Christian precept to “love your fellow man just like your own
body.”Tribal boundaries were stretched outward towards humanity in general.
Vicente Rafael describes how the Spanish chose to adopt a different strategy from
what they implemented in South America (Rafael, 1993). Instead of forcing the
native population to learn Spanish, they retained the native language and translated
the Christian doctrine into those languages. Rafael contends that many Filipino
words and concepts (ex. utang-na-loób) were exploited as mechanisms for control,
and other meanings were simply lost in translation. This may be true to a certain
degree; but on the other hand, it was advantageous for the concepts per se because
they were preserved rather than discarded, and then they were conceptually
enlarged.

The two traditions, Southeast Asian and Spanish, interacted, warred and mixed in

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various ways for more than three hundred years.And even until today one can still
feel the impact and influence of these traditions in Philippine culture and society.
The tribal datu was transformed into the principales or landed class during the
Spanish occupation, and they have kept their status as powerful family dynasties in
Philippine politics (McCoy, 1994). Roman Catholicism was heavily syncretized with
native beliefs and practices producing in a distinct brand of folk

Catholicism (Bulatao, 1992). Filipino virtue ethics must also be seen as a synthesis of
these two traditions as far as its matter and content goes. However, when it comes
to theory and explanation, a third tradition, the American tradition, plays a
significant role.

In order to achieve what President McKinley called the “benevolent assimilation” of

the Philippines, the Americans taught Filipinos the English language and established
the public school system including the University of the Philippines. Renato
Constantino lamented this as the “mis-education” of the Filipino (Constantino 1970),
but a distinction must be made between the Western values that the Americans tried
to inculcate, and the educational system and resources that they set in place.
Though values such as liberal individualism were inimical to older family values and
the concept of kapwa, the educational training the Americans provided allowed
Filipinos to eventually criticize certain Western ideas as being incongruent with
Filipino culture. Frank Lynch, the first pioneer in Filipino values, was an American
Jesuit. The Sikolohiyang Pilipino (Filipino Psychology) movement was born in the
American-founded University of the Philippines, and leading Filipino scholars such as
Virgilio Enriquez and F. Landa Jocano obtained their doctorates in the United States.
Despite the prominent anti-colonial rhetoric, there is still a significant debt (utang-
na-loób) to the American tradition. And so, though the matter of Filipino virtue ethics
comes from the two older traditions, the capacity for theorization comes from the
American tradition.

Before the Americans arrived however, the Philippines was largely insulated from the
modern developments in the West. The ideas of Protestantism, Cartesian philosophy
and the French Revolution reached the Philippines only towards the end of the 19th
century. It entered in trickles through the ilustrado class (wealthy Filipinos who
studied in Europe) and then in a flood through the American public school system.
For the longest time, the only Western philosophical system in the Philippines was
Thomism. The University of Santo Tomas was founded by the Dominicans in 1611
and is the oldest existing university in Asia. It was patterned after the University of
Salamanca in Spain. The curriculum was pure scholasticism (i.e., Aristotle, Aquinas,
Peter of Lombard), and most of the priests and clergy in the country were trained
there (Villarroel 2012). One can make a case for a pure scholastic age in the

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Philippines lasting from the 17th century to the 19th century.

There is justification in the use of Thomism in the exploration of Filipino virtue ethics
because it is a historical “insider” so to speak. Thomism is a part of the Catholic
tradition in the Philippines, and is not wholly incompatible with the earlier animist
one (for example, both share an adherence to spiritual realities which are dismissed
by modern materialism and secularism). As I will explain, grave errors can arise
when loób is interpreted through modern post-Cartesian philosophy. There is a kind
of anachronism in using the values orientation theory of Kluckholn or the
phenomenology of Max Scheler—both of which subscribe to a subjective-objective
dichotomy which is not present in the two earlier traditions.As one Filipino
philosopher claims, such a dichotomy did not exist in the Filipino worldview
(Mercado, 1994, p. 53). The advantage of using the virtue ethics of Aristotle or
Aquinas as a main dialogue partner is that they have more similarities with Filipino
concepts from a historical and intellectual point of view. And now that we have
provided all the preliminaries for understanding Filipino virtue ethics, we can discuss
each concept one by one.

Lesson 27: Loób

The literal translation of the word loób is “inside.” The word loób can mean the
inside of physical objects like houses or pots. But the literal translation can easily

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confuse when we talk about the loób of persons. It certainly does not mean the
physical insides of persons, such as their bodily organs which are called lamang-
loób, but the “will” of the person. The confusion starts when people latch on to this
literal translation of loób as “inside” and use all sorts of 20th century Western
philosophical and psychological theories to explain loób, with the subjective-objective
dichotomy of Descartes or Kant looming in the background. This leads to a serious
distortion of loób because as we have mentioned above, the concept of loób was
born and developed in traditions which were basically pre-modern, insulated from
the Western subjective turn in philosophy. In fact the discrepancy can be even more
glaring when we realize that the tribal and animist tradition in the Philippines is not
just pre-modern, it is in fact “pre-rational”, that is, more similar to the time of the
Homeric epics before the birth of philosophy than any other period of Western
history. Using modern theories to explain loób can therefore easily result in a gross
caricature of it.

One of the dangerous tendencies is to introduce a “bifurcation” or “dichotomy” on

loób, between the inner person and the outside world, between subjectivity and
objectivity, a trap that several Filipino scholars have fallen into.Regarding this
“dichotomizing” tendency, one of the pioneers of Filipino philosophy, Leonardo
Mercado, comments:

But the Filipino does not think in either-or categories. His is both/and in his spirit of
harmony. We said that since loob (and buot, as well as nakem) has a holistic
concept of the body, there is no dichotomy between the inside and the outside of
the person. (Mercado, 1994, p. 37)

Loób is not a disembodied, subjective view of the self such as in Descartes, but it is
a will always directed towards something, especially towards other people. It not
only presupposes an objectively real world (based on the two traditions it can only
be classified as “realist”), it even presupposes a world dense with spiritual entities
and spiritual connections. Loób is what it is only insofar as it is completely embedded
and integrated inside this web of connectivity. Jose de Mesa recognized this
relational nature of loób when he said: “Loób apart from referring to the core of
personhood, also states what kind of core that is in relationship. Loób, one may say,
is a relational understanding of the person in the lowland Filipino context” (De Mesa,
1987, p. 46). And Dionisio Miranda agrees when he says: “Loob needs kapwa even
to be loob: its continued responding to kapwa is the condition for its own existence
and authenticity as loob” (Miranda, 1992, p. 84). The term loób should therefore not
be investigated in isolation. An isolated and separated loób—something like a
monad—is vacuous and has no meaning. Rather, loób must be understood in
tandem with the concept of kapwa and the Filipino virtues that move in between
them.

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Leonardo de Castro has previously translated loób as “will” (De Castro, 1998). The
older Vocabulario de la Lengua Tagala also translated it as voluntad or will (De
Noceda & De Sanlucar, 1860, p. 193).This is accurate, but I would prefer to nuance
the translation as “relational will” if only to emphasize its thoroughly relational
character and to differentiate it from something like the autonomous will of Kant.
This will is always in relationship to something, either to the world, to spiritual
entities, or most of all to other people called kapwa.

We can account for how loób is connected to the word “inside” and yet is not the
“inside” of modern subjectivity by resorting to the concept of potentia from
Arisotelian-Thomistic philosophy. A seed has the potency (potentia) to become a
tree. When it finally becomes a tree this potency is actualized. A block of stone has
the potency to become a statue of David, but it requires a sculptor to turn this into
an actual statue. In a sense one can say that a tree is “inside” the seed, or a statue
of David is “inside” the block of stone, but it has yet to be actualized. When it is
finally actualized, this serves as conclusive proof that it was its hidden potentia all
along. Potency manifests itself through act.

The will too, according to Aquinas, is a potentia of the soul (Summa Theologiae I, Q.
77). It is a “power” that operates in act. It is the same power as free choice (liberum
arbitrium), the power to choose (Summa Theologiae I, Q. 83, A. 4). When we
choose we bring this potency into act. The potency is always there, but it needs to
manifest itself through choices and the concrete actions brought about by those
choices. Aquinas also indicates that the virtues of this power of the will are the ones
directed towards others (Disputed Questions on Virtue, Q.1, A. 5). Similarly we can
also consider loób as a potentia or power rather than think of it in terms of spatial or
subjective interiority. The virtues of the loób are also directed towards others
(kapwa). For Aquinas there are several powers of the soul, such as reason, the will,
and the sensitive powers, but for Filipino virtue ethics there is only one, the loób,
because this is what concerns relationships and relationships are the most important
thing in this ethics.

Loób as a potency that manifests itself through action makes sense in ordinary life.
Loób is not so much known through reflection more than by living in relationship
with others. How I treat others reveals who I am and what my loób is. And
conversely, I know the other person most when I am on the receiving end of his
own actions. As Wojtyla says: “Action reveals the person... Action gives us the best
insight into the inherent essence of the person and allows us to understand the
person most fully” (Wojtyla, 1979, p. 11). De Castro basically says the same thing
about loób when he says:

It is part of the meaning of loob—of what lies within—that it

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 must be ventilated. The kalooban lies inside but it must not be
kept inside. In a way, it is “what-lies-within-that-lives-without.” It
can only be manifested and perceived externally. (De Castro,
2000, p. 52)

In other words, the loób is known only through relationship and interaction. Even
your own loób cannot be determined by yourself in isolation, instead it is determined
by how you relate and act towards your kapwa.

Lesson 28: Kapwa

We mentioned earlier that Frank Lynch proposed “smooth interpersonal relationship”

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as the highest value of Filipinos in the 1960’s. This inaugurated scholarly interest in
Filipino “values” and provoked intense debate amongst Filipino scholars because of
the apparent superficiality of SIR. Was the greatest Filipino value just about
preserving harmony and getting along well? Surely, there must be something deeper
involved. Eventually Virgilio Enriquez, the founder of the Sikolohiyang Pilipino
(Filipino Psychology) movement, challenged SIR by identifying kapwa as the core
value of Filipinos and describing it in this way:

When asked for the closest English equivalent of kapwa, one word
that comes to mind is the English word “others.” However, the
Filipino word kapwa is very different from the English word “others.”
In Filipino, kapwa is the unity of the “self” and “others.” The English
“others” is actually used in opposition to the “self,” and implies the
recognition of the self as a separate identity. In contrast, kapwa is a
recognition of shared identity, an inner self shared with others.
(Enriquez, 1992, p. 52)

And later Enriquez also says:

The ako (ego) and the iba-sa-akin (others) are one and the same in
kapwa psychology: Hindi ako iba sa aking kapwa (I am no different
from others). Once ako starts thinking of himself as separate from
kapwa, the Filipino “self” gets to be individuated in the Western
sense and, in effect, denies the status of kapwa to the other. By
the same token, the status of kapwa is also denied to the self.
(Enriquez, 1992, p. 54) Katrin de Guia, a prominent student of
Enriquez, also writes:

The core of Filipino personhood is kapwa. This notion of a “shared

Self” extends the I to include the Other. It bridges the deepest
individual recess of a person with anyone outside him or herself,
even total strangers. (De Guia, 2005, p. 28)

The very title of de Guia’s book, Kapwa: The Self in the Other, also seems to be a
succinct definition the concept. But what does “self in the other” mean? Is it a mere
sentiment? Is it figurative imagination? As I have said, it translates to action within
the a relationship. To say that one is your kapwa means to interact with him or her
in a particular way, defined by the virtues which we will expound below.

My preferred translation of kapwa is “together with the person.”I prefer this over the
definitions of Enriquez and De Guia which mention a “self.” They have the right idea,
but their starting point is one where the self and other has already been opposed, it
is the “modern” starting point so to speak, and they wish to retrieve kapwa from

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such conditions. The English word “self” is loaded; it has been sculpted by a long
and complex history of ideas and upheavals in modern times as Charles Taylor has
shown (Taylor 1989). It is closely bound to concepts such as subjectivity, autonomy
and independence. But if you want to define kapwa on its own, there is no “self.”
There is loób to be sure, but loób as we have already pointed out is a relational will.
The starting point of kapwa is “together.” In fact if we could use only the word
“together” as the translation that would be better, were there no need to indicate its
specifically human context. It comes first before you break it apart into separate
“selves.” The animist tradition hangs in the background, which is why De Guia is
able to say that kapwa endorses “the deeper experiences of mankind, akin to an
ancient animist connectedness of feeling one with all creation” (De Guia, 2005, p.
173). On the other hand the Christian tradition moves it towards a communio
personarum, a communion of persons, which Filipinos call oneness or pagkakaisa—
“the highest level of interpersonal interaction possible” and “the full realization” of a
relationship with the kapwa (Enriquez, 1992, p. 64).

Of course, the translation is not as important as being aware of the traditions where
kapwa was born, and how at variance those traditions are with the Western modern
tradition. If one keeps this in mind one can just import the word kapwa into English
without a translation.

At first glance one may see similarities between the concept of kapwa and the Other
(L’autre) of Levinas, or the I and Thou (Ich und Du) of Martin Buber. An interesting
trend in 20th century was that philosophers tried to bring back the relational aspect
to an intellectual climate which has forgotten it. This was after the complete
negation of the other experienced in the Holocaust of World War II (Levinas and
Buber were both Jews). However for Levinas the

Other is completely different from the Self, like the concept of infinity (Levinas,
1961). And for Levinas there is no hope for anything like oneness in the same sense
as the Filipino pagkakaisa. Jaime Guevara has made a preliminary comparison
between kapwa and the philosophy of Levinas:

For Levinas, the other is infinitely irreducible. This is why the

relationship between the two is not about a unity of similarities.
Rather, Levinas describes the relationship as one of
asymmetry. Since, there is no essential similarity, but only an
essential difference between the self and the other, the other
cannot be said to be like the self and vice versa. The other is
merely different... For Levinas, there is nothing “shared”
between the self and the other. The notion of “shared identity”
does not fit in his philosophy. Yet, Filipinos do experience

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 “shared identity.” (Guevara, 2005, p. 13)

There is here an insurmountable gulf between the self and the other. The same is
the case, in a milder way, for Martin Buber. This can be explained by the
philosophical traditions that they inhabited. But for kapwa, relationship is the given,
it is taken for granted. It is the starting point, not something to be retrieved.

More similar is the Thomist Personalism of Norris Clarke and Karol Wojtyla, which at
least talks about the communio personarum. A philosophical basis is provided by
Norris Clarke’s explanation of Thomistic philosophy as substance-in-relation. Unlike
the “self-enclosed substance of Descartes” or the “inert, unknowable substance of
Locke”, to be a substance in the universe is to be ipso facto in relation with a host of
other things through the act of being and through secondary acts (Clarke, 1994).
Everything is caught up in this dynamic web of activity, with God as its source, both
as pure act (actus purus) and pure existence (ipsum esse subsistens). This has clear
affinities with the animist world view, which sees the world dense and alive with
spiritual connections. But Clarke goes a step further and applies this concept
specifically to the sphere of persons:

To be an authentic person, in a word, is to be a lover, to live a

life of inter-personal self-giving and receiving. Person is
essentially a “we” term. Person exists in its fullness only in the
plural. (Clarke, 1993, p. 218)

This orientation is congruent with kapwa. Karol Wojtyla also comes close when he
talks about “participation” (Wojtyla, 1993) and Norris Clarke acknowledges his debt
to Wojtyla (Clarke, 2009). However, Wojtyla has a stronger emphasis on the
subjective “I” than what would be naturally found in kapwa, and it is not surprising
because he acknowledges his debt to the phenomenology of Max Scheler and to the
ethics of Immanuel Kant (Wojtyla, 1979, p. 302). But the end goal for him is still the
same, that is, a unity and oneness between acting persons.

Now that we have explained both loób and kapwa, it is time to take a look at the
virtues which bring this whole dynamic to life, the virtues which must be practiced
within a relationship. Otherwise everything would only remain as mere theory.

Lesson 29: The Filipino Virtues

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What we aim to do—beside expounding the Filipino virtues themselves—is to roughly
compare the Filipino virtues with the Western cardinal virtues (prudence, justice,
temperance, and fortitude) and at least one theological virtue (charity). This
immediately provides us a structure and order for the virtues which offers
improvements over the arbitrary schemes proposed by some Filipino scholars.

Aquinas mentions only two virtues in his system which are properly in the will:
charity and justice (Disputed Questions on Virtue, Q.1, A. 5). These virtues are
properly directed towards another, either towards God or towards other people. He
conceives of the other virtues as being properly individual. These are prudence in
the reason, and temperance and fortitude in the sensitive appetites. Now when it
comes to the Filipino virtues, they are all in the will, in the loób, because that is the
only part of the soul that Filipino virtue ethics is concerned with.Perhaps one can say
that the Filipino idea of the soul is still compact and holistic, in that the faculty of
reason has not yet been extracted or separated. It is in this sense “pre-rational”.

However, there is a compatibility because insofar as all the Filipino virtues are found
in the loób, they are also all relational and directed towards others (kapwa), which
Aquinas would hold for virtues whose subject is the will. In addition, Aquinas
introduces the idea of potential virtues, that is, virtues which are somehow
connected to the cardinal virtues but directed to “secondary” matters, and which fall
short of the whole power of the cardinal virtue (Summa Theologiae II-II, Q. 48 & Q.
80; Disputed Questions on Virtue, Q. 5, A. 1, ad. 12). There is therefore room to
annex these Filipino virtues to the cardinal virtues of Aquinas while fully respecting
their difference.

We now begin with the Filipino virtues which are counterparts to those two virtues
properly in the will according to Aquinas (charity and justice): kagandahang-loób
and utang-na- loób. The dynamic of these two virtues presents us with the “beating
heart” of the Filipino system.

1. Kagandahang-loób

Kagandahang-loób is literally translated as “beauty-of-will” and is synonymous with

another term kabutihang-loób or “goodness-of-will”. According to Virgilio Enriquez:

The concept [kagandahang-loób] is manifested through an act of

generosity or kabutihan. Thus, one sees kagandahang-loób in the act
of lending utensils to neighbors or graciously accommodating a guest.
But to qualify as kagandahang-loób, such acts of generosity must
spring spontaneously from the person’s goodness of heart or

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 kabaitan. A display of kagandahang-loób must have no motive save
that of kindness and inherent graciousness. (Enriquez, 1992, p. 57)

Consider the act of giving money to someone because her father is in the hospital
and they can’t pay the bills. The act of buying a take-out meal and giving it to a
beggar sleeping on a sidewalk. The act of taking an extra effort to help an
unemployed friend find a job in the company you’re working in. These are all
examples of kagandahang-loób, but it is not only the act that counts, but also the
motivation. The act of kindness must not be guided by an ulterior motive to be paid
back. As De Castro explains:

An act can be considered to convey kagandahang loób only if it is

done out of kusang loób (roughly, free will); and can only be
considered to have been done out of kusang loób if the agent (1) is
not acting under external compulsion, (2) is motivated by positive
feelings (e.g. charity, love or sympathy) towards the beneficiary, and
(3) is not motivated by the anticipation of reward.

These conditions entail debt-of-good-will relationships where the benefactor has no

right to demand reciprocity but the beneficiary has a “self-imposed” obligation to
repay kagandahang loób with kagandahang loób. (De Castro, 1998)

Kagandahang-loób might seem just like any act of kindness or altruism. But this is
where the importance of the two background traditions comes into play. There is a
tribal and familial element involved. We help members of the tribe or clan for the
sake of the survival of the tribe or clan. When it comes to family we hardly question
at all why we need to help someone in the family—you do it simply because he or
she is a blood-relation, that is enough reason in itself. Kagandahang-loób towards
the kapwa is about treating him or her as part of your “primal group”, that is, your
family, clan or tribe. It is urgently manifested when the kapwa is weak or in need.
The greatest paradigm is the mother’s love for her weak and needy child. The
mother loves, protects and nourishes her child without asking for anything in return.
It is, especially in the earliest stages, a unilateral giving. As Dionisio Miranda says:

Maternal love is unconditional, or gratuitous. The mother loves

her child as her creature. It has not done anything to merit this
love; in fact, there is nothing that the child can do to obtain this
love. All that it can “do” is to be, to be her child. (Miranda, 1987,
p. 72)

The new-born infant needs his mother simply to survive. Likewise, the purest form
of kagandahang-loób is shown when the kapwa is in desperate weakness and need.
Disasters, illness, and extreme poverty provoke the need and the occasion for

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showing kagandahang-loób. Of course, even when the child is already grown up and
is less dependent on his mother, he is still the recipient of generous acts of love and
kindness, though it is no longer a matter of life and death. And so kagandahang-loób
manifests itself in various other minor gifts and services, like those mentioned by
Enriquez.

Presumably you are able to show kagandahang-loób to someone because you

already experienced kagandahang-loób yourself. The natural place to learn
kagandahang-loób is within the family—from the parents, especially the mother, and
then practiced towards siblings, and then towards cousins and relatives. As Miranda
says: “Maternal love means to insure that the child’s love also becomes
“maternal.”... It means to develop the love of the child so that it becomes itself a
source of life” (Miranda, 1987, p. 72). One common practice of kagandahang- loób
within the family is for the eldest sibling to postpone marriage and starting his or her
own family in order to financially support the younger siblings until they have
finished college. Another contemporary manifestation is the Overseas Filipino Worker
(OFW), usually a parent, but sometimes one of the children, who faces uncertain
prospects to get a job abroad in order to support the family back home.

In the past generations Filipino families usually had more than seven children, with a
wide circle of cousins and relatives, plus ritual kinship relations as well (ex.
godfathers and godmothers) (Jocano, 1998). This would certainly have provided a
lot of practice, forging one’s behaviour before he or she interacts with the society at
large. As Guthrie says: “The family pattern becomes, in many ways, the prototype of
interpersonal patterns... The tranquility and unanimity cherished within the nuclear
family is also cherished and idealized in nonfamily contacts” (Guthrie & Jacobs,
1966, p. 194).

Like we said, the Christian tradition is what was supposed to widen this exclusive
family instinct towards those who are not blood-related, and so religion obviously
plays an important role. As Modesto de Castro (1938) says in Urbana at Feliza: “the
love for the kapwa is the fruit of a love for God, so those who love God know how to
be kapwa” (De Castro, 1938, p. 3).But nevertheless the natural starting point is the
devotion and loyalty given towards family, clan, or tribe.

Because of the “maternal” element, it is not surprising that Leonardo de Castro has
called kagandahang-loób a “feminine” concept and identified similarities with the
feminist ethics of care of Nel Noddings (De Castro, 2000). But he also warns that
one should not reduce kagandahang-loób to a mere subclass of feminist thought,
and this is important because as we have stressed, this ethics was born in a unique
cultural and historical context and is properly understood only through that context.

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Is kagandahang-loób the same as the theological virtue of charitas? Charitas
according to Aquinas is foremost towards God and then loving the neighbor for
God’s sake (Summa Theologiae II-II, Q. 25, A. 1). And as we have said,
kagandahang-loób certainly has a Christian element. However, kagandahang-loób is
usually shown to someone in need. God is to be loved by us but not with
kagandahang-loób. Rather, God shows kagandahang-loób to us.Kagandahang-loób
comes from someone in better condition to help someone who is in an inferior
condition. In this sense it is more like a certain aspect of charity called benevolence
(benevolentia) and its exterior act of beneficence (beneficentia) since it involves a
movement from the superior to the inferior, like in the giving of gifts (Summa
Theologiae II-II, Q. 31, A. 1). However, Aquinas adds that among men, he who is
superior in one respect may be inferior in another, and so two people may still end
up showing kagandahang-loób to each other. Since a human being can be better off
compared to other human beings (but not to God), then kagandahang-loób can be
seen as a very human virtue in terms of its application.

2. Utang-na-loób

Kagandahang-loób inspires the reverse current of this dynamic which is called utang-
na-loób. Utang means “debt”, and so utang-na-loób means a “debt of will (loób).” It
can be understood once more by the parent-child relationship, most especially the
relationship with the mother. The mother has given the child his very existence,
carried him in her womb for nine months, and nourished and protected him into
adulthood. The child should acknowledge this and be grateful, and must strive to
repay her back somehow.

Children are expected to be everlastingly grateful to their parents not only for all the
latter have done for them in the process of raising them but more fundamentally for
giving them life itself. The children should recognize, in particular, that their mother
risked her life to enable each child to exist. Thus, a child’s utang na loób to its
parents is immeasurable and eternal. Nothing he can do during his lifetime can make
up for what they have done for him. (Holnsteiner, 1973, pp. 75- 76)

Therefore in Filipino society it is common for children to take care of their parents
when they are old and infirm. To send them to a “home for the elderly” is
considered a kind of negligence, and besides it is financially costly and not an option
for many households.

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As an example of utang-na-loób outside the family context, say I lack money to pay
my tuition for a semester in college. A friend hears about my situation and insists
that he lend me money rather than I postpone my studies. I gratefully accept his
offer. After the semester I save enough money to repay him back. However I do not
consider my utang-na-loób finished, but I am still open to help him should the
opportunity arise. Years later, as professionals, it does come. He loses his job and
has difficulties finding another one to support his large family. Being a manager in
my own company, I go the extra mile to secure him a good position, pulling some
strings along the way. He ends up with a better job than the one he lost. My utang-
na-loób has translated into a significant kagandahang-loób for him, such that now—
given the gravity of his situation—he is the one with an utang-na-loób towards me.

This example is one where there is a cyclical or alternating dynamic between

kagandahang-loób and utang-na-loób. It is a kind of repayment with interest, a kind
of “one- upmanship”, as Holnsteiner would say (1973, p. 73). Our exchange could
continue even further, and I could end up once more having a greater utang-na-loób
to my friend.

Since they constitute one dynamic, utang-na-loób is expected to possess many of

the same characteristics as kagandahang-loób, namely 1) its personal and
sympathetic character and 2) its being free from external compulsion. As De Castro
says “the obligation to pay the debt is a self-imposed one” (1998) and Miranda also
concurs that it is “self-binding” (1987, p. 37). One does not have utang-na-loób
because it is required by the other person (though they could hope for it), but rather
it should come from one’s self. To have utang-na-loób means that one values kapwa
relationships and seeks to prolong and strengthen these relationships. For Filipino
virtue ethics, the existence of healthy kapwa relationships are ends in themselves
and sources of happiness.

As scholars have pointed out, utang-na-loób should not be equated with mere
commercial transaction (Kaut, 1961, p. 260). It can perhaps involve some kind of
monetary contract (in the above example I knew just how much I needed to pay
back to my friend for the tuition), but the situation of need makes it much more than
that (Holnsteiner, 1973, p. 79). My friend is not an official “money lender”, but he is
just someone who saw my need and offered to help me. And therefore it is not the
money but rather the person behind the money—and my relationship with him—that
is the primary focus. In this way it is different from the commutative justice that
Aquinas speaks of. For Aquinas, commutative justice is only about the “arithmetical
mean” between individuals (Summa Theologiae II-II, Q. 61, A. 2). If two people
have 5, and one of them gives 1 to the other so that the other now has 6 and the
other 4, justice will be done if the one who has 6 gives 1 to the one who has 4, so
that the mean is restored. In terms of goods and services it is a bit like “I scratch

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your back and you scratch mine.” Utang-na-loób may also involve a “mean”, but
ideally it is not only about restoring the mean but also cycling the debt, in order to
strengthen the relationship and inter-dependence.

Some scholars have compared utang-na-loób with Marcel Mauss’ thoughts on gift-
exchange in tribal societies, where gift-giving serves as a kind of cohesive process
for relationships within the tribe.This is probably true, but one should not conclude
that the utang- na-loób now is exactly the same as its tribal version, given the three-
hundred year influence of Christianity. The tribal gift-giving, as Mauss describes it,
requires a return. But the dynamic of kagandahang-loób and utang-na-loób has
something “altruistic” about it, in that the return is hoped for, but cannot be and
should not be demanded.

Finally, one of the worst things to be called in Filipino society is to be called “walang
utang-na-loób”, that is, having no utang-na-loób. This is when someone has been
shown significant kagandahang-loób but does not acknowledge or repay it. A child
who has been brought up in comfortable circumstances by his parents but who ends
up neglecting them in their old age is walang utang-na-loób. Someone who has been
given a job when he needed it, but who ends up stealing from their company is
walang utang-na-loób. It is related to another derogative expression called walang
hiya (without hiya) which we will mention later.

3. Pakikiramdam

Pakikiramdam is the closest counterpart to “prudence” in Filipino virtue ethics. In the

Aristotelian-Thomistic system, prudence is the virtue that enables one to find the
“mean” or “middle way” according to right reason (Summa Theologiae II-II, Q. 46,
A. 7). The prudent person should be able to find “a mean between two vices, one of
excess and one of deficiency” (Nicomachean Ethics II.7, 1107a). Pakikiramdam also
looks for a kind of “mean”, but it is a mean within the relationship. The most literal
translation would be simply “feeling”, but perhaps it is better to call it “relational
sensitivity” or “empathy” towards the kapwa. Prudence in Aristotle and Aquinas is
based on the faculty of reason, but since reason is not a segregated faculty from the
loób, then it makes sense that “pakikiramdam is not so much cognitive but affective”
(Mataragnon, 1987, p. 479). Nevertheless it seems to require the most “cognition”
(still tied with feeling) than the other Filipino virtues. Rita Mataragnon was the first
to do a pioneering study of the concept:

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In Filipino social interaction, a concern for feelings and preference for indirect
expression gives rise to the phenomenon of pakikiramdam, a covert individual
process by which a person tries to feel and understand the feelings and intentions of
another. (Mataragnon, 1987, p. 479)

For example, in the dynamic between kagandahang-loób and utang-na-loób, what

should I do or how much should I give back in order to fulfill my utang-na-loób?
Sometimes there is no way of quantifying or calculating my utang-na-loób. I need to
feel or guess if I have repaid my debt to the other person, and this is accomplished
by knowing him and being sensitive to his behavior and to the wider context. This
“feeling” or “groping” around is part of pakikiramdam.

As Masunkhani says, “pakikiramdam is good training for emotional intelligence”

(Mansukhani, 2005, p. 200). Or perhaps it itself constitutes emotional intelligence.
Another related concept for it is “empathy”. Edith Stein would define empathy as
“how human beings comprehend the psychic life of their fellows” (Stein, 1989, p.
11). It is the capacity of decentering yourself and being able to replace it with the
inner state of another, in this case, the kapwa.

Pakikiramdam [is] a way of reconstructing another person’s feeling state or state of

being. Apart from being a mere sensitivity to nonverbal cues, pakikiramdam is also
the active attempt to reconstruct the speaker’s internal state. The sensitivity to cues,
therefore, has as its goal the appreciation for, and the understanding of, the other
person’s state of being. It is an act akin to empathy. What is constructed in
pakikiramdam, however, cannot be put into words. (Mansukhani, 2005, pp. 187-
188).

Someone tries to read the other person’s inner state without the help of words or
direct communication. Perhaps one of the easiest ways to understand pakikiramdam
is through jokes. Not all jokes are funny to all people. The same joke may be funny
for some, dull or obscure for others, and even offensive for some. It depends on a
lot of things. I could deliver a joke about former Philippine President Erap Estrada,
the action star who became president and who is described as being dull, but I
should know a little bit about my audience—do they know about Erap? Are they
willing to have fun at his expense? Would they consider such jokes too “cheap”?

The person telling a joke must know enough about his audience or else the joke
could fail. As Ted Cohen says, executing a joke requires a certain “intimacy”
between speaker and audience—a knowledge of the audiences’ backgrounds and
inner states—to make them laugh (Cohen, 1999). And when the joke is successful, it
strengthens that intimacy because it confirms a shared background. They
understand each other beyond the level of indicative statements to a level that

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allows them to manifest humor and laugh together. The more obscure the joke, the
greater the intimacy involved. But you know that something has gone awry when
the speaker ends up having to “explain” the joke to his audience.

Jokes are filled with other communication cues: tones of voice, facial expressions,
gestures, and the perfect timing to deliver the punchline. Some jokes, as good as
they are, will flop when delivered in monotone or in an uncertain voice. This whole
experience of jokes is a good introduction to pakikiramdam. Jokes, laughing and
teasing are a huge part of Filipino culture, especially around the dining table or
during feasts and celebrations.

We mention jokes because it is something that is universal, but there are other
forms of behaviour that are more unique to Filipino culture. Lambing is showing
exaggerated forms of affection (which to an outsider might look nauseous) to either
test or reconfirm the relationship. Tampo is the reverse of that, it is a show of
sulkiness when someone close has disappointed your expectations. However, one
usually does not tell the other directly, but expects him to discover and understand it
on his own (because figuring it out shows that he’s sensitive and aware to your inner
own state). Both forms are often reserved for very close relationships such as family
and romantic relationships. But for both forms to work requires a culture that is
familiar with, and maybe even encourages, both lambing and tampo. The
phenomenon of pakikiramdam thrives because of certain inarticulate elements in the
culture itself. As Maggay says:

The meaning of our movements and actions are imbedded in the culture and are not
indicated in an orderly, succinct, and written explanation. Its definition and grammar
is learned through unconscious observation as we grow and are shaped by the
culture.(Maggay, 2002, p. 135)

Pakikiramdam, like the other Filipino virtues, is supposed to be learned within the
family through the years. It is a virtue in a culture that values sensitivity that goes
beyond direct and spoken communication. Perhaps one can trace this to the native
tradition which also thrived on metaphors (talinhaga) and riddles (bugtong)
(Lumbera 2001). As Ted Cohen proposed, metaphors too, just like jokes, can be
thought of in terms of a “cultivation of intimacy” (Cohen, 1978). Under Spanish
colonization, where Filipinos where not encouraged to voice out their sentiments and
opinions, this tradition of receptivity to indirect communication could have continued.
In any case, pakikiramdam also features prominently in our next virtue called hiya
which involves, among other things, making sure you do not hurt the feelings of
others.

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4. Hiya

Hiya is often translated as “shame” or “embarrassment”, but this translation does

not make a distinction between the hiya that is suffered (let’s call this the “passion”
of hiya, from the Latin pati, to have something done unto you), and the hiya that is
a virtue. The virtue of hiya is a kind of “self-control” that prevents someone from
making another person suffer the passion of hiya. Let’s use one of the more extreme
examples of Bulatao:

Two men are drinking tuba in a sari-sari store. One of them jokingly pulls up the
back of other one’s undershirt and rubs the back with his palm. The other pulls out a
knife and kills him. Later, the lawyer in court justifies the killing by saying,
“Napahahiyâ siya e [He suffered hiya].” (Bulatao, 1964, pp. 424-425)

The first person wanted to have a laugh at the second person’s expense. This led to
the other person suffering hiya (embarrassment) in public. But if the first person
only had the virtue of hiya it would have kept him in check, and he would not have
made the other person suffer the passion of hiya. It would have also saved his life.
The passion of hiya is negative. Bulatao identifies this when he says that “hiyâ is a
painful emotion. It is something like fear or a sense of inadequacy and anxiety in an
uncontrolled and threatening situation” (Bulatao, 1964, p. 426). This corresponds to
what Aquinas would call verecundia (shame), which is not a virtue but a passion.
According to him it is a species of “fear” (Summa Theologiae II-II, Q. 144, A. 1).But
the virtue of hiya is something like temperance. For Aquinas temperance enables
one to control the natural desires (especially food, drink and sex) and make it
subject to the rule of reason. The virtue of hiya also involves a certain restraint, only
that it restrains the person from selfish impulses that would embarrass others or
make them feel uncomfortable. As Francis Senden, a Belgian priest, comments:

You have the hiya, which is again very beautiful. The hiya means sensitivity. Every
human being is sensitive, but there are degrees of sensitivity. And my experience is
that the Filipinos are very sensitive. But this is not a defect – it is a virtue... You
don’t insult people in public and you expect that nobody will insult you in public. If
you call a Filipino to your office and you are alone with him, you may tell him
everything; he will not resent it. But if you do it in public he cuts off relations with
you. If you call somebody in public loko, he severs relations with you. But because
he himself is so sensitive, he will avoid insulting others. He will, as a rule, not insult
people in public. (Senden, 1974, p. 50)

Certain complications arise when the Filipino is “overly” cautious or tactful, which
can confuse the Western foreigner who values direct communication and being
straight to the point;. Jocano recounts the frustration of one foreign executive who

PAGE 170
told him: “Sometimes they (Filipinos) say ‘yes’ to whatever you say. Oftentimes, they
do not tell you exactly what they think or how they feel. They just remain silent, and
you have to read their true feelings in the way they smile” (Jocano, 1997, p. 73). In
general saying “no” directly is avoided as it might offend another, and it causes the
Filipino to “beat around the bush.”

Hiya goes beyond verbal situations. In general the virtue of hiya is a quality of one’s
loób that makes him control or sacrifice an individual desire for the sake of the
kapwa’s welfare. Consider another very common expression of hiya. Imagine a
dinner gathering where a last piece of fried chicken is left on the serving plate on
the table. Even though one wants to eat that last piece of chicken, hiya dictates that
you should leave that for others. Someone else might want it. To get that last piece
of chicken reveals to the people around you that you are thinking primarily of
yourself. Of course if everyone had hiya then the last piece of chicken might remain
there for good. The standstill is usually resolved when the host insists that a
particular guest take the last piece and finish the food—“huwag ka nang mahiya
(come on don’t be shy).”

To be called walang hiya (without hiya) means that you are only thinking of yourself,
of how to satisfy your impulses and desires, even at the cost of your kapwa. It can
be when you don’t control your tongue and bluntly say what you feel, or when you
try to always squeeze in order to be first in line. You are willing to ignore others, or
worse, take advantage of them when it suits you. It is a violation of the spirit of
kapwa. A person without hiya is “one who has flagrantly violated socially approved
norms of conduct” (Lynch, 1962, p. 97) through an action that “involves a crassness
and insensibility to the feelings of others” (Bulatao, 1964, p. 429). But the one who
has hiya sacrifices himself for others, and this is also the same spirit that informs the
next virtue.

5. Lakas-ng-loób / Bahala na

A debate began when Lynn Bostrom equated the Filipino phrase bahala na with
American fatalism (1968). Her initial article was countered to by Alfred Lagmay who
argued that bahala na was instead “a functionally positive response to uncertainty”
(1993, p. 35). Michael Tan agrees with Lagmay when he says that: “[Bahala na] isn’t
automatic resignation but a way to embolden oneself, almost like ‘I’m going to do
what I can’” (2013). Miranda also says something similar:

When the Filipino says “Bahala na”, several things are implied: (a) he does not know
at that point how things will turn out, (b) he assumes responsibility nonetheless to
try and do something to influence events, (c) he assumes such responsibility

PAGE 171
knowing well that the case looks hopeless, (d) he hopes that luck will help when
other things fail. (Miranda, 1992, p. 218)

Bahala na, taken in its own right, is quite simply a positive confrontation of
uncertainty. But it has been given a negative reputation because it can also be said
in cases of indifference or irresponsibility. It can become similar to the English
expressions “whatever” or “who cares.” But its virtuous element is revealed when it
is not taken in isolation but is put in its proper place within Filipino virtue ethics. It
plays a very strong role in the virtue of lakas-ng-loób.

Lakas-ng-loób is literally “strength of will” and corresponds to the cardinal virtue of

courage or fortitude. But to say that it is simply “courage” might be misleading.
Again, a knowledge of the older traditions helps here. The tribal tradition considered
courage primarily in the form of the tribal warrior hero, such as those found in the
epics.The epics depict a heroic age similar to the time of Homer, and as MacIntyre
says, in this heroic age “courage is important, not simply as a quality of individuals,
but as the quality necessary to sustain a household and a community” (MacIntyre,
1999, p. 122). In other words courage was about the survival of the tribe, or about
those exploits which would benefit the tribe and the community as a whole.

This tribal form of courage was eventually transformed by the Pasyon (Passion of
Christ) play. The first Tagalog Pasyon play was written in 1703 by Gaspar Aquino de
Belen. A newer version in 1814, called the Pasyon Pilapil, became the most popular
version of the play. In a population with very low literacy this play was a tremendous
influence, and in fact, as Reynaldo Ileto has pointed out, the Pasyon is was what
shaped the sentiments of the masses who joined the Philippine revolution (in
contrast with the ilustrado or “enlightened” class who studied in Europe) (Ileto,
1979). The suffering Christ became the new tribal hero. But instead of killing and
pillaging he won through suffering and self-sacrifice. Nevertheless it was a sacrifice
for the collective, this time represented by Mother Country (Inang Bayan).

In the pantheon of Filipino national heroes Jose Rizal and Ninoy Aquino are given a
privileged place because they both closely fulfill the criteria for a Christ-like hero;
they both possessed a bahala na attitude which led to their martyrdom. They both
knew that their return to the Philippines could cost them their lives, but their
courage (lakas-ng-loób) was for the sake of nation. Both were killed, Rizal by the
Spanish authorities in 1896, and Aquino by the orders of the dictator Marcos in
1983. But their deaths were not in vain. Rizal’s death provoked the Philippine
Revolution and Aquino’s death led to the famous EDSA People Power of 1986.
Similarly, the Overseas Filipino Workers (OFW) are often hailed as Filipino “heroes”
because they also possess this bahala na for others, many of them leaving for
abroad with uncertain prospects in order to provide for their family back home. It is

PAGE 172
the same pattern, though on a smaller scale.

Lakas-ng-loób and bahala na should therefore be understood in the context of a

complete Filipino virtue ethics which values the sacrifice of self for the kapwa. Lakas-
ng-loób is not merely courage and bahala na is not merely fatalism. Their ideal
manifestations are kapwa- oriented. As De Mesa says: “Bahala na without active
concern for others is a superficial kind of risk-taking, but with malasakit [concern for
the other] it becomes a Christian risk-taking after the example of Jesus himself. We
find this in Jesus when he dares to risk his person out of concern for another” (De
Mesa, 1987, p. 168).

Conclusion

We have now finished an introductory overview of a Filipino virtue ethics based on

loób and kapwa. To summarize, the defining feature of this virtue ethics is that it
seeks to preserve and strengthen human relationships. It is a unique blend of East
and West, the result of two different traditions which have mixed together for more
than three hundred years. The use of Aristotelian- Thomistic philosophy (which is an
“insider” in one of the traditions) helps us to more properly understand these
concepts. First, it provides us the resources to explain loób as a potentia of the soul,
namely the “will”, and then the virtues as qualities of this loób. Second, it allows us
to organize the Filipino virtues in rough comparison with the cardinal virtues of the
West so that we can note their similarities and differences. This approach is a
significant improvement over the previous interpretation of “values” which was
philosophically vague. The dialogue with Aristotelian-Thomistic philosophy provides a
good starting point from where other philosophical approaches—which we certainly
do not discourage—can build upon.

One can identify the goal or telos of this virtue ethics as “oneness” or in Filipino,
pagkakaisa. As Enriquez says, “Pagkakaisa is also the highest level of interpersonal
interaction possible. It can be said that being one with another is a full realization of
pakikipagkapwa” (Enriquez, 1992, p. 64) Such a oneness is not theoretical but
practical, played out in daily life from within the most intimate setting of the family,
outward towards the kapwa—and then towards the greater body called the bayan
(country). One of the ideal manifestations of this pagkakaisa is what happened
during the events of the 1986 EDSA Revolution, when millions of Filipino People
came together to peacefully overthrow the dictator Marcos.

How is this Filipino virtue ethics relevant for the global ethical conversation? In a
world that is becoming increasingly individualist, where people are still looking for
ethical options that emphasize human relationships, Filipino virtue ethics presents a
unique and interesting viewpoint. And though this viewpoint is one which was

PAGE 173
fashioned by a specific culture and particular historical and geographical
circumstances, there are elements here which can go beyond those confines and
speak to what is universally human. Just as Enriquez envisioned

Filipino psychology contributing to a universal psychology (Pe-Pua & Protacio-

Marcelino, 2000, p. 50), we also envision Filipino virtue ethics contributing to the
wider conversation on ethics.

Activity

Instruction: Criticize and evaluate: Make a judgment about strengths and

weaknesses, positive or negative aspects of the Filipino Virtues. Provide specific
situation/example on each virtue.

1. Kagandahang-loob

2. Utang-na-loob

3. Pakikiramdam

4. Hiya

5. Lakas-loob/ bahala na

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