THE GLOBALIZATION DEBATES AND STATE’S AGENTIAL POWER

Abstract

This study argues that there are many different perceptions concerning state’s agential power and impacts of globalization on state that both define and shape the debates on globalization and the meanings of globalization. The globalization with social, cultural, economic and political dimensions has become a buzz word since 1990s in international relations. There have been many debates and discussions on the meaning of globalization over the last two decades. For example Held and McGrew (1999) have classified the definitions of globalization as globalists and skeptics. According to Held and McGrew, globalists believe that globalization is a real and significant historical process that has been emerging from structural changes in world history. On the contrary skeptics argue that globalization is a kind of ideological fiction or myth referring to European colonial expansion from 1870s. They also believe that the process we have been experiencing is not substantively new. To define globalization in their analyses both sides have focused on market economy. Globalization is composed of three different aspects. First aspect of globalization is idealist referring to a set of beliefs. Second aspect is behavioral issues meaning a set of rules, activities and principles. The third aspect is material issues referring to a set of results. Idealists believe that the world has been transforming into wealthier and happier than before with the effects of globalization. Behaviorists considering globalization as behavioral issues believe that old and new social institutions have been reorganized therefore “all that solid melting into air”. Materialists have focused on the mobility and velocity of the technology, capital, commodities, and people/workers. Although there are many different definitions of globalizations, every part of the debate means that the term of globalization is a cliché of our time. This cliché embraces free movements of goods, capital and knowledge, transnational decision making process and negotiation, interdependence between states, historical evolution of the state system, ramification of the global problems, and global responsibilities of people and states all over the world. Scholte (2000) identified four notions of the globalization. These are internationalization, universalization, westernization, and liberalization. Internationalization refers to the growth of interstate and cross-border interactions, and interdependence between states and people; liberalization refers to a process of removing restrictions on movements in order to create an open world economy; universalization refers to a process of spreading various objects and experiences to people all over the world and universalization suggests that the world is becoming homogenized; westernization in these cases globalization is associated with a process of homogenization, as all the world becomes western, modern and, more particularly, American. Scholte points out that these four notions of the globalization are outmoded definitions thus we need conceptual development to properly characterize today’s world. Scholte defines globalization as deterritorialization or the growth of supraterritorial relations between people. In this usage, globalization refers to a far-reaching change in the nature of social space. According to Scholte transnational connections and interdependence between people and states with the effects of globalization have ended the age of territorialism that is a situation where social geography has been entirely territorial since the very beginning of the modern age. Scholte points out that even though territory still matters very much in our world; it no longer constitutes the whole of our geography. Additionally Kaloudis (2003) believes that the concept of “global transformation” is more useful to define the dramatic changes that we are facing today. He argues that the concept of global transformation can easily describe many different problems such as the changing nature of the world and conflict, the role of international law, the role of United Nations in international relations. We should address to declining role of the state in international relations in debates on globalization. Globalization has affected and shaped how we define the international relations. There are many debates on the effects of globalization on state since 1990s. On the one side of the debate many scholars argue that state has not adapted to meet new challenges of globalization and rapid change in international relations. They also claim that state is outmoded and obsolete as a political form. The role of the state has declined to solve new global problems such as international financial crises. On the other side of the debate scholars believe that state is still able to meet challenges of globalization successfully and effects of globalization doesn’t challenge the state but reinforces it. To sum up debates on impacts of globalization on state can be classified into two perspectives. These are strong globalization versus weak state and weak globalization versus strong state. These approaches can also be called as structure centric and agent centric approaches. According to structural theories of globalization, the world economy has been shaped by capitalist structure and nation states should adapt the order that based on this structure. While the radical interpretation of the structural approach argues that global structure isolate state, moderates believe that the effects of global structure erode the role of the state. Radicals argue that relations between globalization and state capacity are zero-sum games thus the traditional sovereign state is on the brink of death as a result of the impacts of globalization. According to Hobson and Ramesh (2002) these approaches produce a lop-sided analysis of the relationship between state and effects of globalization. They offer an emergent third way which they call structurationist approach. They believe that structurationist approach enables us to go beyond the antinomies of agent-centrism and structuralism. This approach includes a new theory of the state which accords it agential power but also recognizes that the state is embedded within, and shaped by, domestic and global social forces/structures. The structurationist approach has the following assumptions: human beings and their organizations are purposeful units whose actions transform the society in which they live; both domestic and global society is made up of social relationships. Therefore state is neither a victim of the global institutions nor a kind of autonomous agent which is independent from those institutions. Additionally structurationist approach argues that the relationship between state and global structure should not be envisaged as a zero-sum game. The states are nested or socially embedded within domestic and global social structures.

Keywords

• State, Globalization, Structurationist Approach, Deterritorialization, Global Society

KÜRESELLEŞME TARTIŞMALARI VE BİR AKTÖR OLARAK DEVLETİN GÜCÜ

Abstract

Bu çalışma, küreselleşme tartışmalarının özünde ve bu tartışmaların çeşitlenmesinde temel belirleyici olarak devletin etkinliği ve küreselleşme karşısındaki gücüne ilişkin farklı algıların olduğunu iddia etmektedir. Küreselleşme, uluslararasılaşma; liberalleşme, evrenselleşme; batılılaşma gibi çok farklı şekillerde ve bağlamda tartışılmaktadır. Bu tartışmalar, devletin etkinliği ve gücü bağlamında, güçlü küreselleşmeye karşı zayıf devlet ve zayıf küreselleşmeye karşı güçlü devlet şeklinde ya da başka bir ifade ile yapı merkezli yaklaşımlar ve aktör merkezli yaklaşımlar şeklinde sınıflandırılabilir. Bu çalışma, devleti etkileşimde bulunduğu yerel, bölgesel ve küresel toplum karşısında ne pasif bir kurban ne de tam otonomi sahibi olarak görmek yerine, hem bu yapıları etkileyen hem de onlardan etkilenen yerel, bölgesel ve küresel otonomisi olan bir aktör olarak değerlendirmektedir.

Keywords

• Devlet, Küreselleşme, Yapılanmacı Yaklaşım, Ülkesizleşme, Küresel Toplum