Beyond the Great Divide: globalization and the theory of international relations

Abstract

This article assesses the general significance for International Relations theory of the literature on globalization. It argues that globalization is a pervasively unsettling process which needs to be explained not only as an issue in its own right but for the insight which it affords into cognate areas of theory. In short, it advances an analytical model whereby globalization itself can be understood and utilizes this as a theoretical scheme that may be applied more generally. The predominant conceptualization of the globalization issue within International Relations has been the debate between the proponents of state redundancy and the champions of continuing state potency. In turn, these arguments rest upon an image of state capacities being eroded by external forces, or alternatively of external forces being generated by state action. In either case, there is the assumed duality of the state(s) set off from, and ranged against, a seemingly external environment. Instead, this article argues that the state occupies a middle ground between the internal and external and is itself both shaped by and formative of the process of globalization.

State spatiality in an era of global and regional interdependence: The linkage governance approach

“…Put a different way, states are 'brokers',attempting to mediate and accommodate the various competing demands from the global and local. Clark (1998Clark ( , 1999 suggests that, on occasion, states may join up these two levels if it is perceived to be in their interests to do so .…”

The reflexive modernization of Australian universities

“…(Dannreuther & Lekhi, 2000) Critics of the hyperglobalist position argue that rather than being an autonomous process driven by markets and technology, globalization reflects actual relations and distributions of power between individual nation states. Clark (1998) contends that the hyperglobalist position misses the point: nation states are not only the vehicles of globalization, but are also reconstituted by it through a discontinuous and reversible process that is politically driven and sustained. Indeed, Beck (2000) and Zincone and Agnew (2000) argue that the hyperglobalist thesis is grounded in neo-liberalism-the high politics of hyperglobalism-even though it presents itself as being non-political.…”

“…Many agree that both reflexive modernization and globalization are surrounded by imprecision and conceptual confusion (Beck, 1998;Dannreuther & Lekhi, 2000). They are, however, key ideas that may help generate greater understanding of the multi-dimensional social, economic, political and cultural transformations currently taking place (Clark, 1998). Moreover, both have become major ideas informing policy development around the world (Dannreuther & Lekhi, 2000).…”

Transformation of International Relations—between Change and Continuity: Introduction

“…It is an opportunity to rediscover conceptual categories such as humanity and cosmopolitanism (see the contribution of Andrew Linklater in this issue; see also Albert, Brock, and Wolf, 2000). Understood as a "process of time and space compression," globalization constitutes a challenge for the great divide (Clark, 1998); it had transformed the context, the forms, and the actors of international relations. The technological, economic, political, and cultural reconfiguration of international relations is so important that the label is sometimes contested: James Rosenau has suggested the replacement of "international relations" by "post-international politics" (Rosenau, 1989: 1-20); Gillian Youngs (1999: 1-11) observes an evolution "from international relations to global relations.…”