Globalization: the obsession with measurement

We shall spend relatively little space on this issue, although it is the one that has attracted most attention. As we have already indicated, there is consid­erable controversy about the extent, nature and impact of globalization.

These issues are certainly important, but they should also not distract us from three main points. First, all countries are much more exposed to inter­national, that is non-domestic, economic pressures than they were previously. This is something that none of the authors discussed above would dispute. Second, all countries are exposed in different ways and to different extents to external economic pressures; so what matters when examining each country is its position rather than the overall ‘global’ picture. Third, and here Hirst and Thompson, Held et al. and Hay would agree, the effect of these changes on policy outcomes is not automatic. In any given country the impact of external economic pressures is shaped partly by the economic and political institutional structures of that country and partly by policy-makers’ perceptions of the extent of the country’s exposure to international forces and the economic and political structural constraints.

Our major argument here bears reiteration. Let us not become obsessed with arguments about measuring globalization to the extent that we ignore other important issues.