Globalisation and Regionalisation in the Asia-Pacific (GE3219)
Semester II, 2001/2002
Lecturer: Dr. Park Bae-Gyoon, Department
of Geography, National University of Singapore
For the last decade, "globalization" has been one of the most frequently used
words not only in academe, but also in media and our everyday conversations.
In this context, social, political, and economic aspects of globalization have
been frequently discussed in many disciplines of social science, such as political
science, sociology, and economics. However, there has been lack of attention
given to the geographical and spatial aspects of globalization. With this problem
orientation, this module aims to provide students with an in-depth understanding
of the social, political, and economic changes at various geographical scales
with respect to globalization.
More specifically, this module focuses on developing understandings of:
1. Lectures
Lecture 1. Introduction and Overview to Module (11 January)
Lecture 2. What is Globalization? (18 January)
Lecture 3. The Globalization Debate I: Continuity or Change?; Real or Imagined? (25
January)
Lecture 4. The Globalization Debate II: Causal Logics (1 February)
Lecture 5. Theories of Scalar Restructuring in a Globalizing Era (8 February)
Lecture 6. Globalization and Regionalization I: Theoretical Discussions (15 February)
Lecture 7. Globalization and Regionalization II: Concrete Cases (22 February)
Lecture 8. Globalization and the Transformation of Urban Governance (8 March)
Lecture 9. Globalization and Regional Development (15 March)
Lecture 10. Globalization and Urban Change I: The Emergence of Global Cities (5 April)
Lecture 11. Globalization and Urban Change II: Social, Cultural, and Political Geographies of
Global Cities (12 April)
Lecture 12. Review (19 April)
2. Fieldtrip
There will be no lecture on 22 March because the lecturer will be out of town to participate in a conference. The lecture, however, will be substituted with a fieldtrip, the description of which is given here. To provide a more concrete understanding of regionalization happening in the Asia-Pacific context, we will take a field trip to the APEC Secretariat headquarters on Alexandra Rd. Since it substitutes one lecture, every student is expected to participate in the trip. The date of the trip has not been decided yet.
3. Tutorials
Tutorials take place: Wednesday from 3 – 5 pm (two different tutorial groups) @ AS2/0204 (First Year Lab)
There will be seven tutorial sessions in total. Tutorial details to be provided one week before each tutorial.
Tutorial 1: 23 January
Tutorial 2: 30 January
Tutorial 3: 6 February
Tutorial 4: 20 February
Tutorial 5: 6 March
Tutorial 6: 3 April
Tutorial 7: 10 April
Lecture 2. What is globalization? (18 January 2002)
What is Globalization?
- Globalization
: "the social, political, and economic changes at various geographical scales
enhanced by the growing interconnections between all parts of the world".
- 3 dimensions of globalization
1) economic, 2) cultural, and 3) political
Economic Globalization
1. Global Production
- internationalization vs. globalization
- Internationalization processes
: involve the simple extension of economic activities across national boundaries.
: International trade developed primarily as an exchange of raw materials and foodstuffs with products manufactured and finished in single national economies
: low levels of functional integration of economic activities across national boundaries
- Globalization processes
: qualitatively different from internationalization processes.
: not merely the geographical extension of economic activity across national boundaries, but also the functional integration of such internationally dispersed activities.
: based on "new international division of labor" and "global production"
: Two important consequences of globalization
1) the increasing significance of TNCs (Trans-national Corporations)
2) the emergence of NIEs (Newly Industrialized Economies)
2. Global Markets
- Rapid increase in the volumes of international trade
- Increasing significance of some Asian countries in international trade
: due to the development of global production
3. Global Finance
- the globalization of finance
: the increasing freedom of movement, transfer, and tradability of money and finance capital across the globe
- increasing volumes of direct investment & portfolio investment crossing national boundaries
4. Limits to economic globalization
- "the end of geography"; "the death of distance"
: dramatic developments in the technologies of transport and communication => "time-space compression" => increasing capital mobility => capital and economic activities are no longer tied to ‘place’
- Some counter-arguments to these discourses
1) capital and firms are not always footloose / some remain firmly in place.
2) the ‘global’ economy encompasses only a few selected countries.
Cultural Globalization
1. deterritorialization of culture
- increasing disconnection between original identity and culture and traditional
location
2. Cultural homogenization
- The growth of cultural flows has increased sameness between distant places.
- "cultural imperialism" or "Americanization".
3. Limits to cultural globalization
- the strong presence of indigenous, traditional cultural traits through the world has mad it difficult to claim that the world has become culturally unified.
4. "Reterritorialization" of culture
- Globalization is not a one-way process, but the global is adapted to differentiated local conditions.
Political Globalization
1. Economic and cultural globalization => increasing significance of TNCs & decreasing significance of nation state in controlling transactions crossing borders
: "the End of State" thesis – the state is not important any more as an entity of economic regulation, political power, and cultural formation.
2. Counter-arguments to the "globalized end-state" discourses
- the state’s position still remains important because of its various roles in the economy.
- the state as a generic form of governance is still very important, but the forms of the
governance have been changed.
3. entrepreneurial state
4. increasing significance of international organizations (e.g. IMF, the World
Bank, the
WTO, EU, ASEAN…)
Politics of Globalization
1. Dominance of a neo-liberal version of globalization discourse
- Globalization = imposing financial liberalization, lifting barriers to international trade and capital movement, decreasing state intervention in economic activities ….
- increasing resistance against this neo-liberal version of globalization
2. Uneven nature of globalization
- increasing gap between the rich and the poor & between the developed countries and the developing countries
Lecture 3. Globalization Debate I: Continuity or Change?; Real or Imagined?
(25 Janauary 2002)
1. The Hyperglobalist Thesis
- Globalization tendencies are seen as being all-encompassing, all powerful, and everywhere.
- Privileging an economic logic: technological development in transport and communication => hyper-mobility of capital => increasing significance of market forces & the emergence of a single global market => a ‘denationalization’ of economies => decreasing significance of the national government as an entity of regulating economic activities and transactions
- The demise of the nation-state
: globalized economy => national governments are increasingly unable to control and regulation economic activities and transactions
- Economic globalization is generating a new pattern of winners and losers in the global economy.
- Decreasing significance of territoriality and nationality in economic, social, cultural, and political
activities
1) TNCs – truly global firms
2) Emergence of a new global (and transnational) culture
3) An emerging global civilization (‘global civil society’)
2. The Skeptics
- Comtemporary levels of economic interdependence is nothing new
: not globalization, but only heightened levels of internationalization
- Economic activity is undergoing a significant "regionalization" (not globalization)
: centered on three regional trading blocs (Europe, Asia-Pacific and North America)
- The enduring power of national governments to regulate international economic activity
- Existing patterns of stratification (inequalities) have not changed
: continuing North-South inequalities
- Myth of transnationalism
1) the myth of the "global corporations"
2) the myth of a global culture
3) No sign of emerging ‘global civilizatioin’ / but the clash of civilizations
3. The Transformationalists
- Both the hyperglobalists and the skeptics are "ideal type" approaches
: ideal forms of globalization – 1) the infinite mobility of capital, 2) the prevalence of unregulated market forces, 3) the attainment of absolute power by TNCs, 4) the demise of the nation-state, 5) homogenezation in social, political, and economic conditions across the globe
: But, globalization is much more complicated and dynamic processes than these ideals forms.- Admitting that globalization is a central driving force behind the rapid social, political and economic changes that are reshaping modern societies and world order
: contemporary processes of globalization are historically unprecedented
: globalization is a powerful transformative force
- But, the direction of this transformation remains "UNCERTAIN"
1) globalization is an essentially contingent historical process
2) globalization processes are intrinsically uneven and heterogeneous rather than homogeneous (denying the notion of a single global society)
3) Globalization is not about one scale becoming more important than the rest, but multi-scalar processes
- Reconstruction of the nation-state (not the end of the nation-state)
1) globalization is associated with a qualitative reorganization of the structural capacities and strategic emphases of the nation-states
2) the reconstruction of the nation-state is juxtaposed with the increasing power of international governance
3) emergence of a new ‘sovereignty regime’: sovereignty today is ‘less as a territorially defined barrier than a bargaining resource for a politics characterized by complex transnational networks’
- "Globally regionalized" economic activities (not a global economy)
: TNCs are not truly global / globally networked, but locally responsive
- Increasing problems of territorial boundaries
: due to increasing trans-border migration and economic transactions
- New patterns of global stratification
: in this new globalizing era, new hierarchies cut across and penetrate national boundaries
IN SUM,
* Globalization is a complex of processes, not an end-state or a new order.
* Globalization is a contradictory process, not an unbending force or unidirectional trend.
* Globalization will proceed hand in hand with uneven spatial development.
* Globalization processes do not float in the air, but are realized in specific institutionally, historically, and geographically specific sites.
* Globalization implies qualitative as well as quantitative change, in the sense that there are changes in the relationships between scales, social structures and agents.
* Globalization involves the complex diffusion, rearcitulation and reconstitution of power relationships, not simply a zero-sum redistribution among nation-states and TNCs.
PART I. GLOBALIZATION DEBATES
This part examines the many-stranded debates and struggles over the term "globalization" and its perceived implications.
Lecture 1. Introduction and Overview to Module (11 January)
No required readings
Lecture 2. What is Globalization? (18 January)
Mahathir, Dr. M.B. (1996) "Globalisation: what it means to small nations,"
Third World
Resurgence, 74: 27-30.
Held, D., McGrew, A., Goldblatt, D., and Perraton, J. (1999) Global Transformations:
Politics, Economics and Culture, Cambridge: Polity Press, pp. 1-28.
Short, J. R. and Kim, Y-H. 1999. Globalization and the City. Longman,
Essex. Chapter 1,
2 (pp.3-23), Chapter 5 (75-79), Chapter 8 (111-116).
Lecture 3. The Globalization Debate I: Continuity or Change?; Real or Imagined?
(25 January)
Globalisation: It's a Fraud
Hirst, P., and Thompson, G. (1997) "Globalization in question: international economic relations and forms of governance", in J.R. Hollingsworth and R. Boyer (eds.) Contemporary Capitalism: The Embeddedness of Institutions, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 337-360. [this is a summary of their influential book Globalization in Question that is noted below]
Globalisation: Its for Real (with an Asia-Pacific flavour)
Luke, T. (1997) "Localized spaces, globalized places: virtual community and geo-economics in the Asia-Pacific," in M. Berger and D. Borer (eds) The Rise of East Asia: Critical Visions of the Pacific Century, Routledge: London, pp. 241-259.
Globalising Tendencies of an Uneven Nature
Dicken, Peter, Peck, Jamie, and Tickell, Adam (1997) "Unpacking the global,"
in Roger Lee and Jane Wills (eds) Geographies of Economies, London: Arnold,
pp. 158-166.
Held, D., McGrew, A., Goldblatt, D., and Perraton, J. (1999) Global Transformations:
Politics, Economics and Culture, Cambridge: Polity Press, pp. 414-435.
Lecture 4. The Globalization Debate II: Causal Logics (1 February)
Appadurai, A. (1990) "Disjuncture and difference in the global cultural economy," Theory, Culture and Society, 7: 295-310.
Castells M. (1993) "The informational economy and the new international
division of labor," in M. Carnoy, M. Castells, S. Cohen and F.H. Cardosa,
The New Global Economy in the Information Age, University Park, PA: The
Pennsylvania State University Press, pp. 15-43.
Giddens, A. (1990) The Consequences of Modernity, Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, pp. 55-78.
Harvey, D. (1989) The Condition of Postmodernity, Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 173-188.
Thrift, N. (1995) "A hyperactive world," in R. Johnston, P. Taylor, and M. Watts (eds) Geographies of Global Change: Remapping the World in the Late Twentieth Century, Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 18-35.
PART II. GLOBALIZATION AND SCALAR RESTRUCTURING
The second part focuses on the "scalar restructuring" of political
and economic organizations occurring in the context of globalization. More specifically,
based on the notions of "glocalization" and "regionalization",
this part discusses the ways in which social, political, and economic activities
and organizations have been restructured at various geographical scales.
Lecture 5. Theories of Scalar Restructuring in a Globalizing Era (8 February)
Brenner, N. 1998. Between fixity and motion: accumulation, territorial organization and the historical geography of spatial scales. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 16: 459-481.
Short, J. R. and Kim, Y-H. 1999. Globalization and the City. Longman, Essex. Chapter 8 (111-116).
Swyngedouw, E. (1997) ‘Neither Global nor Local: "Glocalization"
and the Politics of Scale’, In K. Cox (ed) Spaces of globalization:
reasserting the power of the local. London: Guilford.
Lecture 6. Globalization and Regionalization I: Theoretical Discussions (15 February)
Held, D., McGrew, A., Goldblatt, D., and Perraton, J. (1999) Global Transformations: Politics, Economics and Culture, Cambridge: Polity Press, pp. 32-86.
Ohmae, K. (1995) The End of the Nation State: The Rise of Regional Economies,
London: Harper Collins. [Introduction, Chapter 7, and the Epilogue]
Lecture 7. Globalization and Regionalization II: Concrete Cases (22 February)
Berger M. (1999) 'APEC and its enemies: the failure of the new regionalism in the Asia-Pacific', Third World Quarterly, 20(5): 1013-1030.
Higgott, R. (1999) 'The political economy of globalisation in East Asia: the salience of 'region building', in K. Olds et al (eds) Globalisation and the Asia-Pacific: Contested Territories, London: Routledge, pp. 91-106.
Katzenstein, P. (1997) 'Asian regionalism in comparative perspective', in P. Katzenstein and T. Shiraishi (eds) Network Power: Japan and Asia, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, pp. 1-44.
Sidaway, J. D. (2000) 'Imagined regional communities: Undecided geographies',
in I. Cook, D. Crouch, S. Naylor, and J. R. Ryan (eds) Cultural Turns/Geographical
Turns, Harlow: Prentice Hall, pp. 234-258.
Lecture 8. Globalization and the Transformation of Urban Governance (8 March)
Akizuki, K. 2000. Decentralization Comes to Japan. In Local Dynamics in an Era of Globalization. Eds. S. Yusuf, W. Wu, and S. Evenett, 110-113. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Hall, T. and Hubard, P. (1998), ‘The Enterpreneurial City and the New Urban Politics’, In T. Hall and P. Hubbard (eds), The Enterpreneurial City: Geographies of Politics, Regime and Representation. New York: John Wiley and Sons.
Short, J. R. and Kim, Y-H. 1999. Globalization and the City. Longman,
Essex. Chapter 8 & 9 (pp.111-130).
PART III. GLOBALIZATION AND URBAN AND REGIONAL CHANGES
The third part of the module discusses the impacts of these political and economic
changes on urban and regional development.
Lecture 9. Globalization and Regional Development (15 March)
Cumbers, A. 2000. The national state as mediator of regional development outcomes in a global era: A comparative analysis from the UK and Norway. European Urban and Regional Studies 7(3): 237-252.
Dunford, M. and Perrons, D. 1994. Regional Inequality, Regimes of Accumulation and Economic Development in Contemporary Europe. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 19(2): 163-182.
Lin, G. C. S. 1999. State Policy and Spatial Restructuring in Post-reform China, 1978-95. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 23(4): 670-696.
Fujita, M. and Hu, D. P. 2001. Regional Disparity in China 1985-1994: The effects
of globalization and economic liberalization. Annals of Regional Science
35(1): 3-37.
Lecture 10. Globalization and Urban Change I: The Emergence of Global Cities (5 April)
Scott, A. J., Agnew, J., Soja, E. W., and Storper, M. 2001. Global City-Regions. In Global City-Regions: Trends, Theory, Policy, ed. A. J. Scott, 11-32. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Short, J. R. and Kim, Y-H. 1999. Globalization and the City. Longman, Essex. Chapter 3 & 4 (pp.24-72).
Lecture 11. Globalization and Urban Change II: Social, Cultural, and Political Geographies of Global Cities (12 April)
Fainstein, S. S. 2001. Inequality in Global City-Regions. In Global City-Regions: Trends, Theory, Policy, ed. A. J. Scott, 285-298. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Holston, J. 2001. Urban Citizenship and Globalization. In Global City-Regions: Trends, Theory, Policy, ed. A. J. Scott, 325-348. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Short, J. R. and Kim, Y-H. 1999. Globalization and the City. Longman, Essex. Chapter 6 (pp.80-94).
Yeoh, B. S. and Chang, T. C. 2001. Globalising Singapore: Debating Transnational
Flows in the City. Urban Studies 38(7): 1025-1044.
Lecture 12. Review (19 April)
The final mark will be derived from course work (40%) and an end-of-semester
exam (60%).
The course work will be comprised of:
1. Participation in all tutorial exercises and presentations.
2. Participation in the fieldtrip to APEC.
3. Completion of one essay. Your essay title and guidelines will be assigned
to you
during class on 18 January.
4. An examination consisting of three essay style questions to be answered in
two hours.
There is no single text for the module; instead selected chapters, articles, and websites will provide the basic source material. For the readings, refer to syllabus.
Last Modified: 8February 2002