The Global Interstate System

LEARNING OUTCOMES:
At the end of this lesson, students should be able to:
• explain the effects of globalization on governments;
• identify the institutions that govern international relations; and
• delineate informationalism from industrialism through analysis of real scenarios depicting technological
existence in the society.

INTRODUCTION
The focal concern in this chapter is the political structures involved in globalization. However, these structures,
like all structure, are often better seen as flows or as encompassing sets of flows. For example, a nation-state or a
bureaucracy is often thought of as a structure, but in the main it is the sum of the processes that take place within it. To
put this way, structures can be seen as “congealed flows.” In that sense, the bulk of this chapter also deals with political
processes (and flows). However, before we get to our focus on political structures, we need to be more explicit about the
political flows themselves.

Political Globalization While the focus

While the focus in this chapter will be on the development and nature of a wide range of political structures
relevant to globalization, there certainly are a number of separable political flows of various sorts that are relevant to an
understanding of contemporary globalization. In fact, it could be argued that virtually all of the flows discussed throughout
this book are political and of great relevance to political structures of all sorts. Some are of more direct political relevance
than others.

• The global flow of people, especially refugees and illegal immigrants, poses a direct threat to the nation-
state and its ability to control its borders.
• The looming crises associated with dwindling oil and water supplies threaten to lead to riots and perhaps
insurrections that could lead to the downfall of extant governments.
• The inability of the nation-state to control economic flows dominated by MNCs, as well as the current
economic and financial crisis that is sweeping the world, also poses a profound threat to the nation-state
(e.g., in Eastern Europe).
• Environmental problems of all sorts, especially those related to global warming, are very likely to be
destabilizing politically.
• Borderless diseases, especially malaria, TB, and AIDs in Africa, pose a danger to political structures.
• War is the most obvious global flow threatening the nation-states involved, especially those on the losing
side.
• Global inequalities, especially the profound and growing North-South split, threaten to pit poor nations
against rich nations.
• Terrorism is clearly regarded as a threat by those nations against which it is waged, hence, the so called
“war on terrorism” in the US.
Thus, a significance portion of this book deals with political processes or with many processes that are directly or
indirectly related to politics. In addition, there is a discussion of various efforts to deal with global problems, many of
which are political in nature such as trade protection and liberation and efforts to increase political transparency and
accountability.
 Finally, political structures initiate a wide range of global flows. Example of this is the violence sponsored by Robert
Mugabe‘s government in Zimbabwe that led to the mass migration of millions of people from the country.

Political Institutions in International Relations

This section will describe the different institutions that govern international relations. We will begin with the
nation-state with emphasis on its conceptualization from the link of its two components: nation and state. The next
discussion will be devoted for the civil society and international nongovernmental organization (INGOs). How these actors
interact with one another shapes the global interstate system.

The Nation-State
The Treaty of Westphalia (1648) ended the Thirty Years' War and the Eighty Years' War in Europe and instituted
an international system which recognized sovereign states at its core. Thus, it is not sovereign states that were new
(absolutist states, for example, had long existed), but rather the recognition accorded them at Westphalia. The treaty was
widely interpreted as giving states the right to political self-determination, to be considered equal from a legal point of
view and as prohibiting them from intervening in the affairs of other sovereign states. Critics of the traditional
interpretation of Westphalia contend that none of these things were inherent in the original treaty, but were read into it
later by those who wanted to buttress the state system. Furthermore, it is argued that this interpretation set in motion
an anarchic and conflictive relationship between states and perhaps set the stage for interstate wars, especially WWI and
WWII. Nevertheless, nation-state remained preeminent until the current era of globalization when global flows began, at
least in the eyes of many observers (including mine), to undermine the nation-state (Hayman and Williams 2006:52-41).
The nation-state has two basic components: nation and state. Nation "refers to a social group that is linked
through common descent, culture, language, or territorial contiguity" ( Cerny 2007:854). Also important in this context is
national identity, the "fluid and dynamic form of collective identity, founded upon a community's subjective belief that
the members of the community share a set of characteristics that make them different from other groups" (Guibernau
2007:849-53). While the notion of a nation was highly circumscribed in the Middle Ages from the seventeenth century on
the idea of nation was broadened and enlarge by a number of forces (political leaders, bureaucrats, the bourgeoside, the
proletariat, intellectuals, etc.) that pushed for "nationalism," a doctrine and/or political movement that seeks to make the
nation the basis of a political structure, especially a state.
The state emerged as a new institutional form in the wake of the demise of the feudal system. The state offered
a more centralized form of control (in comparison to, say, city-states) and evolved an organizational structure with
"relatively autonomous office-holders outside other socioeconomic hierarchies, with its own rules and resources
ingcreasingly coming from taxes rather than from feudal, personal, or religious obligations" (Cerny 2007:855). Also coming
to define the state was its claim to sovereignty. This involved the ability to engage in collective action both internally such
as collecting taxes and externally such as dealing with other states, to engage in warfare, among others. The nation-state
can therefore be seen as an integration of the subgroups that define themselves as a nation with the organizational
structure that constitutes the state.

Civil Society
While civility and civil society have ancient roots and examples (e.g., in Aristotle), John Keane (2003) traces what
we now consider civil society to the appearance of the West on the global stage beginning around 1500. Until the
nineteenth century (Lipshutz 2007:304-8), civil society was not distinguished from a state dominated by laws. The
philosopher G. W. F. Hegel played a key role in redefining civil society as that which exists between the family and the
state; a realm that is not only separated from them, but one where an individual can participate directly in various social
institutions. To Hegel, like Marx, Engels and Keane, the economy was considered part of civil society.
The major figure in social theory associated with the idea of civil society is Alexis de Tocqueville. Tocqueville lauded
the early American propensity to form a wide range of associations that were not political in nature and orientation. Such
civil associations also allowed people to band together and act. Without such associations, they would be isolated and
weak in large-scale contemporary societies (Tocqueville 1825-1840/1969:513,515).
The distinction between the market and civil society is a twentieth-century innovation usually associated with the
Italian Marxist thinker Antonio Gramsci (1192). In his view, to challenge the hegemony of the state (controlled by the
market which, in turn, dominated the family), the opposition had to gain positions in civil society in order to generate their
own ideas to counter the hegemonic ideas emanating from the capitalist economic system.
While the West often conquered the world through uncivilized, even violent means, it "gave birth as well to
modern struggles for liberty of the press, written constitutions, religious toleration, new codes of 'civil manners' (often
connected with sport), nonviolent power-sharing, and talk of democracy and human rights, whose combined 'ethos'
gradually spawned the growth of civil society institutions" (Keane 2003:44). A robust civil society was already in existence
by the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (e.g., peace societies, cooperatives, workers' movements), but it was soon
set back dramatically by the two world wars. It was largely in the aftermath of WWII that the modern civil society
movement took shape and expanded dramatically.
Mary Kaldor (2003, 2007:153-7), accords central importance to the 1970s and 1980s, especially in Latin America
and Eastern Europe. In both regions, there was opposition to military dictatorship and efforts to find an autonomous and
self-organizing base outside of the state in order to oppose the military. It was also during this period that civil society
became increasingly global as improved travel and communication made linkages among various civil society groups
throughout authorities and were able to create a global political space for themselves where they argued for, and helped
bring about international agreements on such issues as human rights.
Of great importance in the 1990s ―was the emergence of transnational networks of activist who came together
on particular issues, including landmines, human rights, climate change, dams, HIV/AIDS, or corporate responsibility‖
(Kaldor 2007:155). Much of the contemporary globalization from below or “alter-globalization,” movement is now an
integral part of global civil society.
Following Kalor (2007:154), civil society is defined as: ―the process through which individuals negotiate, argue,
struggle against, or agree with each other and with the centers of political and economic authority.‖ It is a realm in which
people can engage each other more or less directly and in which they can, among other things, analyze and criticize their
political and economic institutions. People can do this, and thereby act publicly through “voluntary associations,
movements, parties, and unions” (Kaldor 2007:154). Thus, civil society involves both settings and actions that take place
within those settings. It also represents an ideal toward which many people and groups aspire-an active, vital, and
powerful civil society that can influence, and act as a counterbalance to, potent forces in the realm of the polity and the
economy (Seckinelgin 2002:357- 76). It is particularly the case that civil society stands as a counterbalance and an
alternative to both the nation-state and the economic market, especially the capitalist market.
While historically civil society was nation-state-centered, that is, linked to groups and actions within states, in
more recent years it has been associated with more global actions and therefore with a somewhat different set of
organizations including “social movements, nongovernmental organizations(NGOs), transnational networks, religious
organization, and community groups”(Kaldor 2007:153). In other words, we have moved increasingly toward the notion
of a global civil society (Alexander 2006), although civil society remains a force within states and societies, as well (Smith
and West 2005:621-52).

Global Civil Society

John Keane (2003:8, italics in original) offers a definition of global civil society as: ―a dynamic nongovernmental
system of interconnected socioeconomic institutions that straddle the whole earth, and that have complex effects that
are felt in its four corners. Global civil society is neither a static object nor a fait accompli. It is an unfinished project that
consists of sometimes thick, sometimes thinly stretched and networks, pyramids and hub-and-spoke clusters of socio-
economic institutions and actors who organize themselves in new ways. These nongovernmental institutions and actors
tend to pluralize power and to problematize violence; consequently, their peaceful or ‘civil‘ effects are felt everywhere,
here and there, far and wide, to and from local areas, through wide regions, to the planetary level itself. This definition
emphasizes five tightly linked characteristics of global civil society: it is nongovernmental, a form of society composed of
interlinked social processes, oriented to civility (nonviolence), pluralistic (including the strong potential to reduce conflict),
and global.
Keane gives us a good feel for global civil society, as well as both its unfinished and varied character. However,
one of the things that sets Keane‘s view on civil society apart is his argument that the economic market is deeply implicated
in civil society. While many see civil society as distinct from both the nation-state and the market, Keane (2003:76) puts
forth the “market, no civil society‘s rule.”
Civil society could not survive without the market, money, and the money economy. Indeed, there is no clear
dividing line between civil society and the market; the market is embedded in civil society and vice versa. For example,
those who work in the market draw upon the civil society‘s norms of sociability such as “punctuality, trust, honesty,
reliability, group commitment and non-violence” (Keane 2003:77).
Keane (2003:78) draws three basic conclusions from this relationship: ―market are an intrinsic empirical feature,
a functionally intertwined prerequisite, of the social relations of actually existing global civil society:‖,“global civil society
as we know and now experience it could not survive for more than a few days without the market forces unleashed by
turbocapitalism: ” and “the market forces of turbocapitalism could themselves not survive for a day without other civil
society institutions, like households, charities, community associations and linguistically shared social norms like
friendship, trust and cooperation.”
Civil society is not a reality that is ever, or could ever be, completed. Rather, it is an ongoing and ever-present
project. This is especially the case in the era of globalization where civil societies that were created in nation-state now
must be extended to the global level. In fact, it could be argued that without a global civil society, the promises of national
civil society may die. The challenges and the dangers of today‘s world have become global with the result that civil society
must itself become global if it is to have any chance of countering them and, more generally, of creating a true civil society.
In practice, civil society has been dominated for decades by critical agents and agencies, but more recently
neoliberalism and neoliberal organizations have picked up on the idea to create organizations (NGOs), often funded by
government and international agencies oriented to reforming the market and government. Some see these NGOs as
compromising the very notion of civil society and argue that they should not be thought of as part of it.
A variety of movements and organizations have come together since the 1990s to become significant components
of the global civil society. One type involves various groups of transnational activists participating in efforts to deal with
global warming, AIDs, landmines, and so forth. Then, there is the global alter-globalization movement as well as the anti-
war movement, especially its most recent iterations spurred by the invasion of Iraq. Of growing significance in the realm
of global civil society is the wide range of organizations dealing primarily with issues that relate to the environment, human
rights, and economic development. Among the most notable of these are INGOS, CARE International, Worldwide Fund for
Nature, Greenpeace, Amnesty International, Friends of the Earth, Medecins Sans Frontieres, Oxfam, and so on. Perhaps
of greatest importance today in thinking about civil society are groups that represent the poor, especially those in less
developed countries, and their efforts to improve the position of the poor within the global economy.

International Nongovernmental Organization (INGOS)

It is an international not-for-profit organizations that perform public functions but are not established or run by
nation-states. INGOs are advocates for any number of things, but they also “routinely influence the domestic policies of
states, participate in multilateral forums and institutions, promote interstate cooperation, and facilitate political
participation on the part of governments and the public” (Warkentin 2007:883-7).
The first modern INGOs are traceable to the nineteenth century (the International Red Cross was founded in
Switzerland in 1865), but they have boomed in recent years. As their number, influence, and power have grown, they have
become highly controversial. Some see them as the harbingers of a future democratic civil society. Others are highly critical
of them. While many INGOs have grown highly influential, their power does not involve rational-legal authority (Weber
1921;1968) such as having their leadership elected, but rather comes from rational-moral authority (Thomas 2007:84-
102).
This stems from the fact that they claim that they represent and express universal human interest, are democratic
both as organizations and in terms of their goals, and are committed to global progress and the creation of a more rational
world. Their great moral power also comes from their neutrality: their disinterestedness. At the most general level, they
serve to frame global policy issues in areas such as women's right, population, education, and the environment. As moral
powers, they exist less as actors on the world stage, and more to advise states, firms, and individuals on how they ought
to act on various issues and under an array of circumstances. INGOs have several characteristics that make them in valuate
in the global arena. First, they are often grassroots organizations and therefore are much more in touch with the needs
and interest of their membership than larger, more formal, and more bureaucratized organizations associated with nation-
states or the international community. Second, they are often more effective in achieving their goals than other types of
organization, for example, they are often able to get relief faster to people in poor countries or to victims of disasters.
Third, they are very good at garnering media attention in efforts to force more formal organizations into action. One of
the most notable successes of INGOs was an international treaty spearheaded by the International Campaign to Ban
Landmines (ICBL).
The treaty was signed in 1997 by 122 nations, which agreed to stop selling and using landmines. On the surface,
the fact that so many nation-states were involved in signing the treaty would seem to indicate that this was an
accomplishment linked to the old state-centered system. In fact, however, much of the credit went to the approximately
one thousand NGOs that had been involved in lobbying in about 60 countries for such a treaty (Bond 2000). However,
there are negative sides to the growth of INGOS and civil society.
Fundamentally, INGOs are special interest groups and therefore they may not take into consideration wider sets
of concerns and issues. In addition, they are not democratic, often keep their agendas secret, and are not accountable to
anyone other than their members. They are elitist (many involve better-off and well-educated people from the North)-
undemocratic-organizations that seek to impose inappropriate universal plans on local organizations and settings. Thus,
they have the potential to be "loose cannons" on the global stage. They are seen as annoying busybodies that are forever
putting their noses in the business of others (Thomas 2007:84-102).
This stems from the fact that they claim that they represent and express universal human interest, are democratic
both as organizations and in terms of their goals, and are committed to global progress and the creation of a more rational
world. Their great moral power also comes from their neutrality: their disinterestedness. At the most general level, they
serve to frame global policy issues in areas such as women's right, population, education, and the environment. As moral
powers, they exist less as actors on the world stage, and more to advise states, firms, and individuals on how they ought
to act on various issues and under an array of circumstances. INGOs have several characteristics that make them in valuate
in the global arena. First, they are often grassroots organizations and therefore are much more in touch with the needs
and interest of their membership than larger, more formal, and more bureaucratized organizations associated with nation-
states or the international community. Second, they are often more effective in achieving their goals than other types of
organization, for example, they are often able to get relief faster to people in poor countries or to victims of disasters.
Third, they are very good at garnering media attention in efforts to force more formal organizations into action. One of
the most notable successes of INGOs was an international treaty spearheaded by the International Campaign to Ban
Landmines (ICBL).
The treaty was signed in 1997 by 122 nations, which agreed to stop selling and using landmines. On the surface,
the fact that so many nation-states were involved in signing the treaty would seem to indicate that this was an
accomplishment linked to the old state-centered system. In fact, however, much of the credit went to the approximately
one thousand NGOs that had been involved in lobbying in about 60 countries for such a treaty (Bond 2000). However,
there are negative sides to the growth of INGOS and civil society.
Fundamentally, INGOs are special interest groups and therefore they may not take into consideration wider sets
of concerns and issues. In addition, they are not democratic, often keep their agendas secret, and are not accountable to
anyone other than their members. They are elitist (many involve better-off and well-educated people from the North)-
undemocratic-organizations that seek to impose inappropriate universal plans on local organizations and settings. Thus,
they have the potential to be "loose cannons" on the global stage. They are seen as annoying busybodies that are forever
putting their noses in the business of others (Thomas 2007:84-102).
They often pander to public opinion and posture for the media both to attract attention to their issues and to
maintain or expand their power and membership. As a result, they may distort the magnitude of certain problems (e.g.,
overestimating the effects, and misjudging the causes, of an oil spill) in order to advance their cause and interests. Their
focus on one issue may adversely affect the interest in, and ability to deal with, many other important issues. The nature
of the focus, and indeed the very creation, of an INGO may be a function of its ability to attract attention and to raise
funds. As s result, other worthy, if not more worthy issues (e.g., soil erosion, especially in Africa) may fail to attract much,
attention and interest. In some cases, well-meaning INGOs conflict with one another, such as those wishing to end certain
practices (e.g. logging) versus those that see those practices as solutions (e.g. logging producing wood as a sustainable
resource that is preferable to fossil fuels).
The North's control over INGOs has actually increased, leading to questions about their relevance to the concerns
of the South. However, perhaps the strongest criticism of INGOs is that they "seem to have helped accelerate further state
withdrawal from social provision" (Harvey 2006:52). In that sense they can be seen as neo-liberalism's Trojan horses,
furthering its agenda while seeming to operate against some of its worst abuses. Thus, global civil society is extremely
broad and includes organizations and parties that may well be in conflict with one another (e.g., the Western neoliberals
who dominate the major INGOs and the often non-Western critics of neoliberalism, including radical religious
fundamentalist.

Globalism
Globalism, at its core, seeks to describe and explain nothing more than a world which is characterized by networks
of connections that span multi-continental distances. Without science neither globalism nor globalization would be
conceivable; without technology they would not be practical possibilities. The extent to which the internal ethics of science
and the codes of behavior of various engineering professions influence globalism and globalization, or the degree to which
independent ethical assessments should be brought to bear on all science, technology, and globalist synergies, remains
open to critical discussion. What follows is an analysis that aims to provide a background for such considerations.
The terms globalism and globalization came into use during the last half of the twentieth century. The question of
when, and by whom, is contentious. But irrespective of origins the two terms are used in distinct ways. Globalization refers
to a multidimensional economic and social process beginning in the late 1970s and early 1980s and that embraces a variety
of interlinked economic, communicational, environmental, and political phenomena. Globalism, although it has older
roots as a synonym for internationalism, has come to be used as the name of a broad ideological commitment in favor of
the process of globalization—that is, of a view that sees the process of globalization as entirely or predominantly positive
in its implications for humankind (Steger 2002).
Globalists are people who wish the process of globalization to continue, and indeed intensify, although they may
also wish to have it politically regulated or controlled in various ways. Globalists are often (though not always) also
convinced that globalization, whatever its implications for human welfare, is an inevitable process that cannot, and should
not, be reversed. They are often contrasted with "localists," who seek to escape or overcome the problems posed by
globalization through small-scale forms of economic and cultural development and political organization that minimize
involvement in the global economy (Mandle 2003).
In short then, there are theorists and writers on globalization both for and against the process they are analyzing,
but those in favor of the process are generally called "globalists" or advocates of "globalism." In the early twenty-first
century, enthusiasts for globalization do not call themselves "globalists" (this terminology is used only by globalization's
opponents), although there is the potential for this to change as the debate unfolds further.
Globalization: Its Characteristics
There are innumerable definitions of the term globalization in the academic literature, but all, in one way or
another, refer to essentially the same phenomena.

These are:
• The increased depth of economic integration or interdependence in the world economy as a whole. Increased
depth here usually refers to the integration of different parts of the world and different working populations in
the world in the process of economic production itself (Dicken 2003).
• The central role played by electronic means of communication and information transmission in facilitating this
new deep integration of the world economy.
• The much increased importance of global markets in both money and capital in the world economy as a whole
(Thurow 1996).
• The historically unprecedented scale of international population migration occurring in the world economy in
response (primarily) to new work opportunities created by the development of a genuinely global economy.
Sharply increased economic inequalities both within and between different parts of the globe occurring primarily
as a result of the very social and spatial "unevenness" of the globalization process.

Globalization: Its Causes

There is broad unanimity on the origins and causes of globalization. As an economic process globalization dates
from the mid- or late 1970s when the postwar "long economic boom" came to an end. The ending of the boom, and the
initiation of a much slower growth trajectory for the world economy as a whole, created much more competitive
conditions for all firms operating in that economy. The most common firm responses to these heightened competitive
conditions were to:
Reduce labor costs by increased automation and "technologization" of production; Subcontract or "outsource"
design, transport, customer service, and even some managerial functions to "independent" consultancy or other firms,
thereby reducing "core" labor and payroll costs; Transfer labor-intensive production activities, that could not be
automated to lower wage regions, either in the "home" country or outside the home country altogether.
In practice therefore, debates and disputes over globalization are most often focused, not on entirely "undoing"
its economics, but on the possibility and desirability of politically regulating it so as to reduce its economic volatilities,
inequalities, and negative environmental impacts. The central issue at the heart of such debates (aside from whether such
regulation is desirable or possible at all) is whether nation-states can continue to be the prime political regulators of the
global economy or whether globalization has passed beyond the regulatory capacity of states, so that the task must be
turned over to supranational economic and political bodies such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank,
World Trade Organization(WTO), and International Labour Organization (ILO). But if the latter are to do so, many believe
that their responsibilities and powers will have to be enhanced. Advocates of the supranational regulation of globalization
are often (though not always) also advocates of a more or less radical restructuring of such bodies in order to make them
more genuinely responsive to global public opinion and not simply to the views and preferences of the richest and most
powerful states in the world (Stiglitz 2002).
The latter notion recalls the original post-World War II understanding of globalism as a promotion of
internationalism in response to the threat of nuclear warfare. Proposals for the international control of nuclear weapons
were, for instance, often promoted and stigmatized as oneworldism. To what extent, one may ask, were mid-twentieth
century efforts such as the creation of the United Nations and the formulation of the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights the foundations for subsequent economic globalization or institutions and ideals that may help guide it.

INFORMATIONALISM
 Technology, understood as material culture, is a fundamental dimension of social structure and social change
(Fischer, 1992: 1-32). Technology is usually defined as the use of scientific knowledge to set procedures for performance
in a reproducible manner. It evolves in interaction with the other dimensions of society, but it has its own dynamics, linked
to the conditions of scientific discovery, technological innovation, and application and diffusion in society at large.
Technological systems evolve incrementally, but this evolution is punctuated by major discontinuities, as Stephen J. Gould
convincingly argued for the history of life (Gould, 1980).
These discontinuities are marked by technological revolutions that usher in a new technological paradigm. The
notion of paradigm was proposed by Thomas Kuhn (1962) to explain the transformation of knowledge by scientific
revolutions, and imported into the social and economic formations of technology by Christopher Freeman (1988) and
Carlota Perez (1983).
A paradigm is a conceptual pattern that sets the standards for performance. It integrates discoveries into a
coherent system of relationships characterized by its synergy that is by the added value of the system vis-a-vis its individual
components. A technological paradigm organizes a series of technological discoveries around a nucleus, and a system of
relationships that enhance the performance of each specific technology.
Informationalism is the technological paradigm that constitutes the material basis of early 21st century societies.
Over the last quarter of the 20th century of the common era it replaced and subsumed industrialism as the dominant
technological paradigm. Industrialism, associated with the Industrial Revolution, is a paradigm characterized by the
systemic organization of technologies based on the capacity to generate and distribute energy by human-made machines
without depending on the natural environment - albeit they use natural resources as an input for the generation of energy.
Because energy is a primary resource for all activities, by transforming energy generation, and the ability to distribute
energy to any location and to portable applications, humankind became able to increase its power over nature, taking
charge of the conditions of its own existence (not necessarily a good thing, as the historical record of 20th century
barbarian acts shows).
Around this energy nucleus of the industrial revolution, clustered and converged technologies in various fields,
from chemical engineering and metallurgy to transportation, telecommunications, and ultimately life sciences and their
applications. A similar structuration of scientific knowledge and technological innovation is taking place under the new
paradigm of informationalism. To be sure, industrialism does not disappear. It is subsumed by industrialism.
Informationalism presupposes industrialism, as energy, and its associated technologies, are still a fundamental
component of all processes. Informationalism is a technological paradigm based on the augmentation of the human
capacity of information processing and communication made possible by the revolutions in microelectronics, software,
and genetic engineering. Computers and digital communications are the most direct expressions of this revolution. Indeed,
microelectronics, software, computation, telecommunications, and digital communications at large, are all components
of one same and integrated system. Thus, in strict terms, the paradigm should be called “electronic informational-
communicationalism”. Reasons of clarity and economy advise however, to keep the concept of informationalism, as it is
already widely employed, and resonates in close parallel to industrialism. Because information and communication are
the most fundamental dimensions of human activity and organization, a revolutionary change in the material conditions
of their performance affects the entire realm of human activity.

The Network Society

A network society is a society whose social structure is made of networks powered by microelectronics-based
information and communication technologies. By social structure I understand the organizational arrangements of
humans in relationships of production, consumption, reproduction, experience, and power expressed in meaningful
communication coded by culture. A network is a set of interconnected nodes. A node is the point where the curve
intersects itself.
A network has no center, just nodes. Nodes may be of varying relevance for the network. Nodes increase their
importance for the network by absorbing more relevant information, and processing it more efficiently. The relative
importance of a node does not stem from its specific features but from its ability to contribute to the network´s goals.
However, all nodes of a network are necessary for the network´s performance. When nodes become redundant or useless,
networks tend to reconfigurate themselves, deleting some nodes, and adding new ones. Nodes only exist and function as
components of networks. The network is the unit, not the node. ―Communication networks are the patterns of contact
that are created by flows of messages among communicators through time and space‖ (Monge and Contractor, 2003: 39
) So, networks process flows. Flows are streams of information between nodes circulating through the channels of
connection between nodes. A network is defined by the program that assigns the network its goals and its rules of
performance. This program is made of codes that include valuation of performance and criteria for success or failure. To
alter the outcomes of the network a new program (a set of compatible codes) will have to be installed in the network –
from outside the network.
Networks cooperate or compete with each other. Cooperation is based on the ability to communicate between
networks. This ability depends on the existence of codes of translation and inter-operability between the networks
(protocols of communication), and on access to connection points (switches). Competition depends on the ability to
outperform other networks by superior efficiency in performance or in cooperation capacity. Competition may also take
a destructive form by disrupting the switchers of competing networks and/or interfering with their communication
protocols.
Networks work on a binary logic: inclusion/exclusion. Within the network, distance between nodes tends to zero,
as networks follow the logic of small worlds´ properties: they are able to connect to the entire network and communicated
networks from any node in the network, on the condition of sharing protocols of communication. Between nodes in the
network and outside the network, distance is infinite, since there is no access unless the program of the network is
changed. Thus, networks are self-reconfigurable, complex structures of communication that ensure at the same time the
unity of the purpose and the flexibility of its execution, by the capacity to adapt to the operating environment. Networks,
however, are not specific to 21st century societies or, for that matter, to human organization. Networks constitute the
fundamental pattern of life, of all kinds of life. As Fritjof Capra writes “the network is a pattern that is common to all life.
Wherever we see life, we see networks” (2002: 9).
In social life, social networks analysts have investigated, for a long time, the dynamic of social networks at the
heart of social interaction and the production of meaning, leading to the formulation of a systematic theory of
communication networks (Monge and Constructor, 2003). Furthermore, in terms of social structure, archeologists and
historians of antiquity have forcefully reminded us that the historical record shows the pervasiveness and relevance of
networks as the backbone of societies, thousands of years ago, in the most advanced ancient civilizations in several regions
of the planet. Indeed, if we transfer the notion of globalization into the geography of the the ancient world, as determined
by available transportation technologies, there was globalization of a sort in antiquity, as societies depended for their
livelihood, resources, and power, on the connectivity of their main activities to networks transcending the limits of their
locality (La Bianca, ed. 2004).

The Genesis of the Network Society

Every new social structure has its own genesis, dependent on spatio-temporal contexts. Naturally, there is a
relationship between the historical process of production of a given social structure, and its characteristics. However, it is
analytically possible to analyze this social structure as a given, without considering in detail the processes that led to its
upbringing. In fact, this is the option taken in this chapter, that is focused on the theory of the network society rather than
on its history. Nonetheless, I will summarize some of the analysis of the genesis of the network society, presented in my
earlier writings (Castells, 1996, 2000a, 2000b) with one specific purpose: to dispel the notion that either technology or
social evolution led inevitably to the network society, as the later incarnation of modernity, in the form of postmodernity,
or as information/knowledge society as the natural outcome of a long evolution of the human species.
We have ample evidence that there is no predetermined sense of history, and that every time and every power,
claims ethnocentrically and historicentrically its right to be the supreme stage of human evolution. What we observe
throughout history is that different forms of society came and went by accident, internal self-destruction, serendipituous
creation, or, more often, as the outcome of largely undetermined social struggles. True, there has been a long term trend
towards technological development that has increased the mental power of humankind over its environment. But the jury
is still out to judge the outcome of such process measured in terms of progress, unless we consider minor issues the highly
rational process of mass murder that led to the holocaust, the management of large scale incarceration that created gulag
out of the hopes of workers‘ liberation, the nuclear destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to finish off an already
vanquished nation, or the spread of AIDS in Africa while pharmaceutical corporate labs and their parent governments
were discussing the payment of their intellectual property rights.
And if we remain in the analytical ground, nothing predetermined the trajectory taken by the information and
communication technology revolution. Personal computers were not in the mind of governments and corporations at the
onset of the revolution: people did it. And the crucial technology of the network society, the Internet, would have never
come to be a global network of free communication if ATT had accepted in 1970 the offer of the Defense Department to
give it free to that corporation; or if Vint Cerf and Robert Kahn would have not diffused over the net the source code of
the IP/TCP protocols on which the Internet is still based.
Historical evolution is an open ended, conflictive process, enacted by subjects and actors that try to make society
according to their interests and values, or more often, produce social forms of organization by resisting the domination of
those who identify social life with their personal appetites enforced through violence. So, how the network society came
to be? At its source there was the accidental coincidence, in the 1970s, of three independent processes, whose interaction
constituted a new technological paradigm, informationalism, and a new social structure, the network society, inseparably
intertwined.
These three processes were: the crisis and restructuring of industrialism and its two associated modes of
production, capitalism and statism; the freedom-oriented, cultural social movements of the late 1960s and early 1970s;
the revolution in information and communication technologies, as described above. Given the analytical purpose of this
chapter I will not enter in the detail of the analysis of these three complex historical processes, taking the liberty to refer
the reader to earlier writings on the matter.

Technology, Economy, and Culture

The effects of technological change on the global economic structure are creating immense transformations in
the way companies and nations organize production, trade goods, invest capital, and develop new products and processes.
Sophisticated information technologies permit instantaneous communication among the far-flung operations of global
enterprises. New materials are revolutionizing sectors as diverse as construction and communications. Advanced
manufacturing technologies have altered long-standing patterns of productivity and employment. Improved air and sea
transportation has greatly accelerated the worldwide flow of people and goods.
All this has both created and mandated greater interdependence among firms and nations. The rapid rate of
innovation and the dynamics of technology flows mean that comparative advantage is short-lived. To maximize returns,
arrangements such as transnational mergers and shared production agreements are sought to bring together partners
with complementary interests and strengths. This permits both developed and developing countries to harness technology
more efficiently, with the expectation of creating higher standards of living for all involved.
Rapid technological innovation and the proliferation of transnational organizations are driving the formation of a
global economy that sometimes conflicts with nationalistic concerns about maintaining comparative advantage and
competitiveness. It is indeed a time of transition for firms and governments alike. This book provides a broad overview of
these issues and seeks to shed light on such areas as the changing nature of international competition, influences of new
technologies on international trade, and economic and social concerns arising from differences in national cultures and
standards of living associated with adoption and use of new technologies.
 Today globalization is constant and even irreversible. Globalization influences to changing cultural patterns too.
In addition, there is happening a mutual penetration of various trends in art and their exchange. Globalization describes
the acceleration of the integration of nations into the global system. It contributes to the expansion of cultural ties
between the peoples and human migration. But there is a disadvantage too. Preferring a unified type of art, unfortunately,
is sometimes forgotten their own culture. Young people no longer take an interest to own culture. In addition, less
attention is paid to the development of the art of the country in its own unique way. Art also begins to serve the interests
of the economic market. In connection with this, it becomes important to study the interaction processes of globalization
and culture.
The concept of globalization is in modern science the most popular term for the analysis of social processes. The
term ―globalization‖ in sociology refers to a broad range of events and trends: the development of world ideologies,
intense struggle for the establishment of world order; spike in the number and influence of international organizations,
the weakening of the sovereignty of nation states, the emergence and development of transnational corporations, the
growth of international trade, intensive mass migration and the formation of multicultural communities, the creation of
planetary mass media and the expansion of Western culture in all regions of the world, etc. The analysis of relevant
theories of globalization trends shows that they have become a kind of synchronous social change in the early - mid XX
century, and there was this transformation so that it can be characterized as a social and cultural shift (Arystanbekova,
2007). The last decade of XX and beginning of XXI centuries, characterized by major events in international relations, which
affected all the European and Eurasian region. The ends of the «cold war», the emergence of a unipolar world, the new
world order of globalization and the development of standards for the United States and other Western countries have
wrought profound changes in the political situation in Europe and the world in general.
Globalization, as an integration event, as the main line and the trend of world development is an objective process.
This groove at the global level information, financial, economic, trade and exchange, and this process of global economic,
political and cultural integration and unification (Lebedeva, 2007). The main consequence of this is the international
division of labor, the international movement of capital, human and industrial resources, standardization of legislation,
economic and technological processes, as well as convergence and fusion of cultures of different countries. This is an
objective process that is systemic, that is, covering all aspects of society. As a result of globalization, the world is becoming
more connected and more dependent on all his subjects. Is the increase in the number of common groups of problems,
and expanding the number and types of integrating subjects? Background study is determined by several factors, among
which, first of all, you need to call that globalization is today a determining factor in the world's economic, political and
cultural development. It covers the most important processes of social and economic development in the world, helping
to accelerate economic growth and modernization, cultural exchange. At the same time, globalization creates new
contradictions and problems in the world economy. Today, all countries of the world are covered in varying degrees of
globalization. One of the areas in which activity showed the impact of globalization is culture.
Technology and culture are two forces that greatly influence one another. As new technology is introduced into a
society, the culture reacts in a positive or negative way and is thus changed forever. Consequently, as cultures change so
does the technology they develop. ―Anthropologists have noted that culture consists of all learned beliefs and behaviors,
the rules by which we order our lives, and the meanings that human beings construct to interpret their universes and their
place in them‖ (Robbins, 2008). The technology created to make life better often has negative effects on cultures even if
it initially appears to provide benefits. Ultimately, advances in technology directly affect how cultures evolve; thus, when
cultures evolve, they tend to create new technology.