The complex globalization thesis

However, for authors such as Held, etal. (1999) and Dicken (2003), we should conceptualize globalization rather differently. Rather than seeing globalization as an end-state (i.e.

For these authors, then, the world today is different from what it was like a century ago. Whilst the level of integration is similar, the nature of integration is not. This is because it is much deeper, including not only the trade of goods and services between countries, but also the production of goods and services in other countries. For example, three-quarters of Ford cars used to be made in the US, but now less than one quarter are made there. Indeed, the name ‘Mondeo’ means ‘world car’. However, this does not mean that the world is now ‘borderless’. Rather, authors such as Dicken (2003) emphasize the considerable unevenness of the world economic

map, with each activity being ‘grounded’ in a specific location. Yet, this is in itself seen as part and parcel of the globalization process, which entails: ‘a reconfiguration of power at all levels and the production of new spaces’ (Bernard 2000: 153).

In this sense, the complex globalization theorists argue that the world is undergoing a fundamental transformation. However, this is quite different from that envisaged by the hyperglobalist theorists, not least because it is not primarily economic. Rather, authors such as Held etal.

For the complex globalization theorists, this has important implications for the role of nation-states. Whilst they reject claims that globalization has laid waste the nation-state, they do believe that it has changed their role (Cerny 1997; Giddens 1999; Scholte 2000). As Dicken (2003) writes: ‘the position of the state is being redefined in the context of a polycentric political- economic system in which national boundaries are more permeable than in the past’. State power is seen to have shifted not only upwards (to interna­tional organizations and movements) and downwards (for example to local pressure groups) but also sideways to market actors (such as multinational corporations). This shift in power from states to markets is believed to have heightened competitiveness between nations, so that governments must increasingly give priority to the need to compete in economic terms rather than to social issues such as the distribution of wealth (Cerny 1997). As evidence of this, complex globalization theorists point to a variety of neo-liberal (or market-oriented) measures such as privatization within and outside Europe. Nor is government spending as generous as the sceptical theorists imply. As Rhodes (1997) contends, increased welfare spending can largely be explained in terms of such factors as demographic pressure and low economic growth. Once these factors are accounted for, a process of welfare retrenchment is in fact evident. In this sense, whilst there has been no ‘triumph of neo-liberalism’, there has nevertheless been a shift towards neo-liberalism across the world.