Globalisation and ModernityRashid Menhas

Objective of Lecture To offer an critical introduction to the work of Giddens and Beck

Structure of Lecturer Section One: What is liberalism?

Section Two: Introduction to Giddens work

Section Three: Introduction to the distinctive features of Becks work Section Four: Critique and Conclusion

Section One:What is Liberalism?

Mainstream Political Debates tend to between different forms of liberalismThe next Prime Minister of UK will be a liberal None of Scholars we engage with today are Ohmae type liberals In fact they would regard Ohmae as a market fundamentalistThere work is reprehensive of wider body critical liberal scholarship

Section Two Tony GiddensTony Giddens is close to Tony Blair (has acted as policy advisor). Wrote a book entitled the The Third Way and has acted as a policy advisor. Ennobled! Sociologist and a Polymath. Famous in 1970s for serious engagement with Marxism, work on classical social theory and the nation state and violence

The argument:Globalisation is high modernity Modernity itself is marked by: (1)Increased Pace of Change(2) Increased Scope of Change(3) The Creation of Modern Institutions

The Institutions of Modernity

Giddens argues that phenomena of modernity has been poorly understood by social theory for four reasons(1) Reliance on monocausal explanation(2) Failure to embrace radical reflexivity (3)They take the concept of society for given. For Giddens the key point to examine the creation of time and space to uncover how society is formed (4)Failure to recognize fully the problems of modernity. Nature of Risk and Danger.

The third process is most interest to us for the time beingModernity is accompanied by process of time-space distanciationThis involves the emptying of time and space. The separation of place from space and the creation universal framework of timeThe establishment of symbolic token and expert systems. Money passed around without regard to the specific characteristics of individuals and groups

Globalisation essentially represents stretching process, in so far as the modes of connection between different social contexts or regions become networked across the earths service as a wholeModernity is inherently globalising.. But what exactly is globalisation and how might we best conceptualise the phenomenon?Analysis must go beyond bounded entities

Dimensions of Globalisation(1) Nation-state system(2) World Capitalism Economy(3) World Military Order(4) International Division of Labour

Globalisation can thus be defined as the intensification of worldwide social relations which link distinct localities in such a way that local happenings are shaped by events occurring many miles away

Giddens view on nation state complexOn one hand maintains monopoly on key types of power and one the other.. In circumstances of accelerating globalisation, the nation-state has become too small for the big problems of life, and too big for the small problems of life

It is difficult to see what is distinctive about globalised military order. Arguments about global military first world are problematic Can International Division of Labour and Capitalism really be treated separately? Is globalisation really anything more than capitalism? Does Giddens pluralism stand up

Ulrich Beck

According to Theorycards.org.uk Beck is like Giddens but not so readable. Second modernity. First modernity national state project modernity, the second is global project/ reality.

Argee with much of Giddens framework. I would argue he is significantly to the left of GiddensThe various autonomous logics of globalization the logics of ecology, culture, economics, politics and civil society- exist side by side and cannot be reduced or collapsed into one another

His big ideas are transnational social spaces, world risk society, glocalization, the decline of work and the creation of global rich and a local poor, and world society

Transnational Social Space. New transnational (Imagined) Communities (African British, Mexican Americans).

World Risk Society: Acid Rain, Mad Cow Disease, Rain Forests, AIDS. Politicisation of previously de-political issues. Three types of risk. Risks of affluence, poverty and Weapons of mass destruction. War is no longer localised.

Glocalisation rather than McDonalisation of Culture: British Grime Scene Decline of work: As result of technological change the decline in need for labour and fortunes global rich and local poor become completely separate. In a world were increasingly defined as consumers the poor become non-people

World Society comes into existence when people conceive of themselves as global subjects. The emergence of global risk and transnational social spaces provides material basis for the development of world society Normative Solution to these problems is a world state. Although its not exactly clear what he means by world state

Criticisms of Critical Liberal Approach Giddens: Does not really explain globalisation. Globalisation is a project of high modernity? So whatHis reading of classical social theory and modernity is questionableMarx on Circulation Bursts through all the temporal, spatial and personal; barriers imposed by the direct exchange of products, and it does so by splitting up the direct identity present in the case between the exchange of ones own product and the acquisition of someone elses

Weber No age has never experienced, in the same sense as the modern Occident the absolute and complete dependence of its whole existence on a specially trained organisation of officials

Problems with his pluralist framework.Ultimately time-space distinction itself becomes source of explanation not the phenomena to be explained. The undue reliance which sociologists have placed upon bounded systems, should be replaced by a starting point upon analysing how social life is ordered across time and space- the problematic of time-space distantiation

Ulrich Beck: Does really attempt to establish cause of globalisation. Again Globalisation theory rather than a theory of Globalisation. Ultra-pluralism More commentary than theory. No real depth. Analysis is fragmentary Some arguments are just plain wrong. For example, the End of Work

His ideas about the contents of First Modernity are problematic Underestimates conflicts of interest between different state based groupsSome of his arguments are vague beyond belief. For example, the world state argument. Again an undue privileging of space.

ConclusionIn certain respects Giddens arguments are unproblematicEqually the idea world risk society is fairly unproblematic and he is correct in highlighting transnational social spacesHowever, it is questionable if his arguments really contain any great analytical depth or originality, arguably they are simply tautological

Next week we seek to assess Marxist accounts of Globalisation (which oddly enough share a certain amount in common with free market accounts)Whatever their weaknesses at least these accounts give us a clear argument to react against

*******************1960 1.3 1994 18.8. Guadeloupean immigrants *****For example Giddens analysis Money. Today money proper is independent of the means whereby it is represented, taking the form of pure information lodged as figures in a computer printout. Money in its developed form is defined above all in terms of credit and debt ******