Globalisation as a Shift in the Scale of Human Organisation

Held views contemporary globalisation as a global macro-organisational shift. For him, “Globalisation, at its simplest, refers to a shift or transformation in the scale of human organisation that links distance communities and expands the reach of power relations across the world’s regions. …While globalisation generates dense patterns of transborder activities and network… it does not necessarily prefigure the emergence of a harmonious world society or a process of integration among nations and cultures.”¹⁷⁴ In another sense, globalisation has not created a harmonious world society, that integrates national societies into a wider world society, but it has re-organised national societies in the context of a transnational social order.

Held argues that the existing form of globalisation is a new phase of a long-term economic and political change in the world order. While contemporary globalisation shares much in common with past phases, it is distinguished by unique spatial-temporal and organisational attributes i.e. by distinctive measures of the intensity,

172 Regarding this classification, see ibid, pp.175-176.

173 Ibid., p.16.

174 Ibid., p.1.

velocity and impact of global flows of capital, power, and ideas. In addition, since contemporary globalisation overlaps networks and constellations of power that cut across territorial and political boundaries, it presents a unique challenge to a world order designed in accordance with the Westphalian principle of sovereignty.¹⁷⁵ Held rightly regards contemporary globalisation as a new phase of global integration which is a unique challenge to the Westphalian world order.

To show the qualitative nature of this global shift in human organisation, Held situates his account of globalisation--what he calls a transformative approach-- between two extreme positions: the first is taken by the hyperglobalisers, like K.

Ohmae who claims contemporary globalisation has led to the demise of the sovereign statehood and has undermined the world order constructed on the basis of Westphalian norms.¹⁷⁶ The second is taken by skeptics who believe that globalisation is the great myth of our time and accordingly, the emergence of a new less state-controled world order is not a global reality.¹⁷⁷

Held’s middle position argues that globalisation is reconstituting or transforming the power, functions and autonomy of nation-states. He introduces Anthony Giddens and James Rosenau, among others, as the proponents of this middle way.¹⁷⁸ For this approach, “globalisation is associated with the emergence of a post-Westphalian world order in which the institutions of sovereign statehood and political community are being reformed and reconstituted. In this post-Westphalian order, there is marked shift towards heterarchy -- a divided authority system-- in which states seek to share the tasks of governance with a complex array of institutions, public and private, local, regional, transnational and global.”¹⁷⁹ To explain such an institutional shift in global organisation from the Westphalian to the post-national order, Held creates a distinction between the two conceptions of sovereignty. On the one hand, sovereignty refers to “the rightful exercise of political power over a circumscribed realm. It seeks

175 David Held and Anthony McGrew, "The End of Old Order? Globalisation and the Prospects for World Order," British International Studies Association, (1998), p.220.

176 See for example K. Ohmae, The End of the Nation-State (New York, 1995) and H.V. Perlonotter, 'On the Rocky Road to the first Global Civilisation, Human Relations, 44 (1) (1991), pp.992-6.

177 See for instance, C. Brown in K. Booth and S. Smith (eds.) International Relations Theory Today, (UK, Cambridge University Press: 1995), pp.90-109.

178 See for instance, Anthony. Giddense, The Consequences of Modernity (UK, Cambridge University Press: 1999); D. J. Elkims, Beyond Sovereignty: Territory and Political Economy in the Twenty First Century (Toronto, 1995); David Held, Cosmopolitan Democracy and Global Order, Alternatices, (20) (1995), pp.415-429, and J. Rosenau, The Domestic-Foreign Frontier (UK, Cambridge University Press: 1997).

179 Held, op. cit., The End of Old Order?, p.220.

to specify the political authority within a community which has the right to determine the framework of rules, regulations and policies within a given territory and to govern accordingly…”¹⁸⁰, and on the other hand, there is another concept of sovereignty that does not refer to the entitlement to rule over a bounded territory. It refers to state authority in terms of the central power of the nation -- state possesses to articulate, and achieve policy goals independently. Globalisation as a shift in the scale of human organisation from the states-system toward the post-Westphalain order means that a nation-state's authority to articulate, manage, and achieve its national policy goals has been substantially undermined by transnational economic and political forces.¹⁸¹ Held argues about some qualitative changes in global organisation of production, trade and finance as important mechanisms of undermining nation state’s sovereignty.

Economic globalisation has created a transnational economic organisation of the productions through rapidly developing multinational corporations. He points out: “A new highly specialized geographic division of labour has emerged, recasting the nature and form of production systems. Multinationals span every sector of the global economy--from agriculture to manufacturing and finance.”¹⁸² With respect to the transformation in global trade, Held argues that in the past, international trade formed largely isolated from the rest of national economy. However, economic globalisation has integrated transnational trade into the national system of production in modern national economies as if now international trade is a significant proportion of their domestic product. The world’s financial flows have grown exponentially, especially since the 1970s. ¹⁸³

From a political view point, Held believes that it is important to explore the way in which the sovereign state is now criss-crossed by a vast array of networks and organisations that have been established to regulate and manage divers areas of international and transnational activity—trade, etc. The rapid growth of transnational issues has generated a multi-centric system of governance.¹⁸⁴ Held recognises the collapse of the Cold War order as an important political mechanism of contemporary

180 Ibid., p.221.

181 Ibid.

182 Held, Global Covenant, pp.22-23., Also see, Vincent Cable, "The Diminished Nation-State: A Study in the Loss of Economic Power," Daedalus, 124 (2) (1995), pp.23-35.

183 Held, Global Covenant, p.25. Also see David Held, "Globalisation and Global Democracy," Peace Review, 9 (3) (1997), p.311.

184 Held, Global Covenant, pp.74-75., Also see Held, Cosmopolitan Democracy,(1995), pp.418-419.

globalisation. In his words: “The end of the Cold War and of the division of the world by two superpowers marks a new distribution of power among states, markets and civil society.”¹⁸⁵ As such, a major shift in the world politics is a shift from the hierarchical organisation of nation-states system to a horizontal and multicentric political organisation. Through diversifying the distribution of political power across different layers and centres, political globalisation has undermined the nation-states’

sovereignty and their capacity for national policy-making.