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Comparative Politics and Government

Notes 6. It is not dissolving the state, but it has not left the state untouched either. New role of state in
super-territorial sphere should be examined.
7. It highlights interdependence of states in the international sphere.
After the disintegration of the Red Empire (USSR) in 1991, signifying the end of the Cold War, a new
world has emerged and globalisation is its ideology. According to the United Nations Development
Report, 1999, the ‘world has changed.’

Globalisation refers to processes whereby social relations require relatively
distanceless and borderless qualities, so that human lives are increasingly played
out in the world as a single place.

14.2 Globalisation and Comparative Politics

We have seen that globalisation is the ‘ideology’ of today having its definite impact on the socio-
cultural; economic and political spheres. For our purpose, the political dimension of globalisation is
particularly important. ‘It has affected the nature and working of the nation-state system and is
creating conditions for global governance. Its implications have their own significance in the domain
of comparative politics. The impact of globalisation on the operation of the state system may be seen
in these directions:
1. Modern state is regarded as a sovereign entity which, according to the interpretations of Hobbes,
Austin and Hegel is omnipotent. Globalisation has put a check on this assumption. The autonomy
of the states has been restricted to a considerable extent. They have to follow the directives of
international bodies like the World Trade Organisation, International Monetary Fund, World
Bank and the like. The nation-state is still a sovereign entity, but its sovereignty stands eroded
to a certain extent that is identified with their ‘loss of control’. In a true sense, it is not a diminution
of legal and actual control over the process of determining policy directions, but rather a
diminution of their capacity to achieve these policies once they have been set.
2. In the economic sphere, globalisation has created the model of a contracted and atrophied state.
As a result of the de-territorialisation of the nation-state, products and capital of rich countries
flow with least hindrance. The leaders of the multi-national corporations influence the policy-
makers of the poor and backward countries and their track-II diplomacy constrains the autonomy
of the planners of such states. It is endorsed in the UN Document that “national borders are also
breaking down in economic policy as multilateral agreements and the pressures of staying
competitive in global markets constrain the options for national policy and as multinational
corporations and global crime syndicates integrate their operation globally.”
3. The growing trend of globalisation has strengthened the case of ‘new social movements’ which
desire to establish a ‘civil society’ in the countries of the world where it is non-existent. The
movements of the human rights activists, the environmentalists and the feminists may be referred
to at this stage. Not only this, the powerful states of the world have invented the plea of interfering
in the internal affairs of a weak state in the name of protecting human rights there, or destroying
the forces of ‘terrorism’ sheltered there that pose a serious threat to the life and property of the
people living in other parts of the world.
4. Globalisation is creating a transnational state with trans-national citizenship. As the people of
one stock move and settle down in some other country as citizens, in the words of W.Kymlicka,
a kind of multi-cultural citizenship comes up. If the citizens of one West European country may
reside, serve and settle down permanently in any other country belonging to the European
Union, he would naturally have the benefit of post-national or trans-national citizenship in
course of time. If this process goes on unchecked, a day may come when Goldsmith’s dream of
‘man’s citizenship of the world’ and Tagore’s vision of a ‘universal man’ become a reality.

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