4.

1 A World of Regions

In this lesson, you will be amazed on how the world composed of various regions
interact with one another. The picture tells us about countries that responded to the
demand of globalization; these countries were grouped into regions desiring to promote
unity and cooperation in economic and political, health, culture and other
regional developments. Enjoy the lesson as you learn something new!
Governments, associations, societies, and groups form regional organizations and/ or
networks as a way of coping with the challenges of globalization. Globalization has made
people aware of the world in general, but it has also made Filipinos more cognizant of
specific areas such as Southeast Asia. While regionalism is often seen as a political and
economic phenomenon, the term actually encompasses a broader area. It can be
examined in relation of identities, ethics, religion, ecological sustainability and health.
Regionalism is also a process and must be treated as an "emergent, socially constituted
phenomenon." It means that regions are not natural or given; rather, they are
constructed and defined by policymakers, economic actors, and even social movements.
Edward D. Mansfield and Helen V. Milner state that economic and political
definitions of regions vary, but there are certain basic features that everyone can
agree on. First, regions are "a group of countries located in the same geographically
specified area" or are "an amalgamation of two regions or a combination of more than
two regions." Second, the words regionalization and regionalism should not be
interchanged, as the former refers to the "regional concentration of economic flows"
while the latter is "a political process characterized by economic policy cooperation and
coordination among countries."
How do countries in the region respond economically and politically to globalization?

1. China offers man power and low wages to workers to attract investors.
 2. Singapore and Switzerland developed their countries into financial and
banking hubs.

Countries also form regional organizations to pool their resources, get better
returns for their experts as well as expand their leverage against trading partners. For
example, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) was
established in 1960 by Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela to regulate the
production and sale of oil. This regional alliance flexed its muscles in the 1970s when
its member countries took over domestic production and dictated crude oil prices in
the world market. In a word highly dependent on oil, this integration became a
source of immense power. OPEC's success convinced nine other oil-
producing countries to join it.

State Regionalism
Most countries formed a regional alliance for various reasons. According to Claudio and
Abinales, there are common reasons why state leaders in the countries formed a
region.

1. For military defense . North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was

founded by the Western European countries and United States of America
during the Cold War to protect Europe against the Soviet Union while
the Soviet Union created a regional alliance known as Warsaw Pact alliance
composed of Eastern European countries.
2. To pool their resources, get better returns for their exports as well as expand
their leverage against trading partners. The organization of the Petroleum
Exporting Countries (OPEC) was founded in 1960 by Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi
Arabia and Venezuela to regulate the production and sale of oil. The OPEC
power was felt in 1970s when the production and price of oil was controlled
by the said organization.
3. To protect their independence from the pressure of the super politics. The
Non-Align Movement was founded by the president of Egypt, Ghana, India,
Indonesia and Yugoslavia to establish world peace, international cooperation,
human rights, national sovereignty, racial and national equality, non-
intervention and peaceful conflict resolution. It called itself non-aligned
because the association refused to side with either the First World capitalist
democracies in Western Europe and North America or the communist states
in eastern Europe.
4. Economic crisis compels countries to come together. The Thai economy
collapsed in 1996 after foreign currency speculators and troubled
international banks demanded that the Thai government pay back its loans.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) tried to reverse the crisis, but it was
only after the ASEAN countries along with china, Japan and South Korea
agreed to establish an emergency fund to anticipate a crisis that the Asian
economies established. The crisis made the ASEAN more "unified and
coordinated." The Association has come a long way since it was formed as a
coalition of countries which were pro-American and supportive of the United
States intervention in Vietnam. After the Vietnam war, ASEAN continued to
act as a military alliance to isolate Vietnam after it invaded Cambodia, but
there were also the beginnings of economic cooperation.
Non State Regionalism
Although state regionalism is very popular in advancing regional economic and political
stability, non state regionalism nowadays is also gaining its presence in addressing the
common problems confronted by the region in term of economic, politics, health,
culture, environment and ect.
Claudio and Abinales identified some forms and examples of Non State Regionalism;

1. Non State regionalism varies in forms. First, There are tiny associations that
focus on a single issue or huge intercontinental unions that address a
multitude of common problems. Second, organizations representing the non
state regionalism rely on the power of individuals, NGOs, Non-Government
Organizations and other associations. Third, non-state regionalism is identified
with reformists who shared the values.
2. Non State regionalism has different strategies and tactics. Some
organizations partner with governments to social change. For
examples, Citizen Diplomacy Forum (CDF) tries to influence the policies and
programs of the organizations of American
States.AsianParliamentarianforHumanRightwasinispushingtopreventdiscrimina
tion,uphold political freedom, promote democracy and human rights through
out the region.
3. Regional organizations dedicate themselves to specialized causes. For
examples, First, Rain forest Foundation was established to protect the
indigenous people and the forest in Brazil, Guyana, Panama and Peru. Second,
Regional Interfaith Youth Networks was formed to promote conflict
prevention, resolution, peace education and sustainable development. Third,
Migrant Forum in Asia is committed to protect and promote the rights and
welfare of migrant workers.
4. Non state regionalism differs from state regionalism in identifying social
problems. For instance, states treat poverty or environmental degradation as
technical or economic issues that can be resolved by refining the existing
programs of the state agencies, making minor changes in economic policies
and creating offices that address these issues. While non state regionalism
advocated these issues as reflections of flawed development and
environmental models.

Contemporary Challenges to Regionalism

• Regionalism faces multiple challenges, the most serious of which is the

resurgence of militant nationalism and populism.
• ASEAN members continue to disagree over the extent to which member
countries should sacrifice their sovereignty for the sake of regional stability.
• A final challenge pertains to differing visions of what regionalism should be
for.
• Western governments may see regional organizations not simply as economic
formations but also as instruments of political democratization.
• Singapore, China, and Russia see democracy as an obstacle to the
implementation and deepening of economic globalization because constant
public inquiry about economic projects and lengthy debate slow down
implementation or lead to unclear outcomes.
4.2 The Global City
Hello everyone! This lesson will give you a tour on various global cities around the
globe. I hope you will enjoy your journey from one global city to another. Enjoy the
lesson!
If you had the chance, would you move to New York? Tokyo? How about Sydney?
Chances are many of us would probably like to move to these major cities. And if not,
you would probably like to visit them anyway. Not all people have been to global cities,
but most know about them. Their influence extends even to one's imagination.
Why Study Global Cities?
First, globalization is spatial because it occurs in physical spaces. You can see it when
foreign investments and capital move through a city, and when companies build
skyscrapers. People who are working in these businesses - or Filipinos working abroad -
start to purchase or rent high-rise condominium units and better homes. As all these
events happen, more poor people are driven out of city centers to make way for the new
developments. Second, globalization is spatial because what makes it move is the fact
that it is based in places. Los Angeles, the home of Hollywood, is where movies are made
for global consumption. The main headquarters of Sony is in Tokyo and from there the
company coordinates the sale of its various electronics goods to branches across the
world.
In other words, cities act on globalization and globalization acts on cities. They are the
sites as well as the mediums of globalization. Just as internet enables and shapes global
forces, so too do cities. In the years to come, more and more people experience
globalization through cities. In 1950, only 30 percent of the world lived in urban areas.
By 2014, that number increased to 54 percent. And by 2050, it is expected to reach 66
percent.

Defining the Global City

Issues Illustrated: Global Cities (Links to an external site.)
Sociologist Saskia Sassen popularized the term "global city" in the 1990s. Her criteria for
what constitutes a global city were primarily economic. In her work, she initially
identified three global cities: New York, London and Tokyo, all of which are hubs of
global finance and capitalism. They are the homes, for instance, of the world's top stock
exchanges where investors buy and sell shares in major corporations.

• New York has the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).

• London has the Financial Times Stock Exchange (FTSE.
• Tokyo has Nikkei.

Indicators for Globality

• So what are the multiple attributes of the global city? The foremost
characteristic is economic power.
• Economic opportunities in a global city make it attractive to talents from
across the world.
• To measure the economic competitiveness of a city, The Economist
Intelligence Unit has added other criteria like market size, purchasing power of
citizens, size of the middle class, and potential for growth.
• Global cities are are centers of authority.
• The cities that house major international organizations may also be considered
centers of political influence.
• Finally, global cities are centers of higher learning and culture.
The Challenges of Global Cities

• Global cities conjure up images of fast-paced, exciting, cosmopolitan lifestyles.

• Global cities also have undersides.
• They can be sites of great inequality and poverty as well as tremendous
violence. Like the broader processes of globalization, global cities create
winners and losers.
• Cities, especially those with global influence, are obvious targets for terrorists
due to their high populations and their role as symbols of globalization that
many terrorists despise.

The Global City and the Poor People

In places like Mumbai, Jakarta, and Manila, it is common to find gleaming buildings
alongside massive shantytowns. This duality may even be seen in rich, urban cities. In the
outskirts of New York and San Francisco are poor urban enclaves occupied by African-
Americans and immigrant families who are often denied opportunities at a better life. As a
city attracts more capital and richer residents, real estate prices go up and poor residents
are forced to relocate to far away but cheaper areas. This phenomenon of driving out the
poor in favor or newer, wealthier residents is called gentrification.
In Australian cities, poor aboriginal Australians have been most acutely affected by
this process. Once living in public urban housing, they were forced to move farther away
from city centers that offer more jobs, more government services, and better
transportation due to gentrification. in France, poor Muslim migrants are forced out of
Paris and have clustered around ethnic enclaves known as banlieue. In most of the
world's global cities, the middle class is also thinning out. Globalization creates high-
income jobs that are concentrated in global cities. A large global city may thus be a
paradise for some, but a purgatory for others.

Module 4 Summary

To wrap up the discussion, you learned in this lesson the difference between countries,
region and globalization, state regionalism, non state regionalism and challenges of
regionalism. You noticed that countries responded differently to the challenges of
globalization while regions were also formed to address the problems confronted by the
regions. In confronting the regional problems, state and non state regionalism emerged
to promotes the common good and protect the interest of the region. However, the
world region encountered challenges that each member country can look into.
Global cities, as noted in this lesson are sites and mediums of globalization. They are,
therefore, material representations of the phenomenon. Through them, we see the best
of globalization; they are places that create exciting fusions of culture and ideas. They
are also places that generate tremendous wealth. However, they remain sites of great
inequality, where global servants serve global entrepreneurs. The question of how
globalization can be made more just is partly a question of how people make their cities
more just.