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MODULE 2
EFFECTS OF GLOBALIZATION
MODULE 2- LESSON NOTES
Every law enforcement agency in the world is expected to be the protector of the people’s
rights. Globalization has great impact on every human right.
The emergence of an “international regime” for state security and protection of human rights,
growing transnational social movement networks, increasing consciousness and information politics
have the potential to address both the traditional and emerging forms of law violations. Open
international system should free individuals to pursue their rights, but large numbers of people seem
to be suffering from both long-standing state repression and new denials of rights linked to
transnational forces like international terrorism and other acts against humanity.
The challenge of globalization is that unaccountable flow of migration and open markets
present new threats, which are not amenable to state-based human rights regimes, while the new
opportunities of global information and institutions are insufficiently accessible and distorted by
persistent state intervention.
What is Globalization?
— Globalization is a package of transnational flows of people, production, investment, information, ideas,
and authority.
— Alison Brysk in a digest paper stated that Globalization is the growing inter-penetration of
states, markets, communications and ideas. It is one of the leading characteristics of the
contemporary world.
— Anthony Giddens defined Globalization as the intensification of worldwide social relations
which link distant localities in such a way that local happenings are shaped by events occurring
many miles away and vice versa.
Some definitions of Globalization according to Jan Art Scholte (2000, 15-17)
a. Globalization as internationalization
— it describes the growth in international exchange and interdependence. With growing flows of trade
and capital investment there is a possibility of moving beyond an international economy, to a
stronger version- the globalized economy in which, distinct national economies are subsumed and
rearticulated into the system by international processes and transactions.
b. Globalization as liberalization
— Globalization refers to a process of removing government-imposed restrictions on
movements between countries in order to create an “open”, “borderless” world economy.
c. Globalization as universalization
— Globalization is used in the sense of being “worldwide “and globalization is the process of
spreading various objects and experiences to people at all corners of the earth. A classic
example of this would be the spread of computer, television etc.
d. Globalization as westernization
— (especially in an “Americanized” form) - Globalization is understood as a dynamic; hereby
the social structures of modernity (capitalism, rationalism, industrialism, bureaucratism,
Criminology Instructor:
MILEOUDA C. FORTOS, M.S. CRIM UNIVERSITY OF ANTIQUE
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etc.) are spread over the world, normally destroying pre-existent cultures and local self-
determination in the process.
e. Globalization as deterritorialization- Globalization entails a reconfiguration of geography,
so that social space is no longer wholly mapped in terms of territorial places, territorial
distances and territorial borders.
Threats on Law Enforcement brought by Globalization:
1.Increasing volume of human rights violations evident by genocide or mass killing.
2.The underprivileged gain unfair access to global mechanisms on law enforcement and
security.
3. Conflict between nations.
4. Transnational criminal networks for drug trafficking, money laundering, terrorism etc.
Opportunities for Law Enforcement brought by Globalization:
1. Creation of International tribunals to deal with human rights problems.
2. Humanitarian interventions that can promote universal norms and link them to the
enforcement power of states.
3. Transnational professional network and cooperation against transnational crimes.
4. Global groups for conflict monitoring and coalitions across transnational issues.
Law Enforcement in a Global Arena
How can the police or law enforcement agencies safeguard life and human dignity in a global
scale?
The system and norms are codified in a widely endorsed set of international undertakings,
like:
1. The “International Bill of Human Rights” Universal Declaration of Human Rights, International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and
2. International Covenant on Social and Economic Rights; phenomenon- specific treaties on war
crimes
3. Geneva Conventions, genocide, and torture; and protections for vulnerable groups such as
the UN Convention on the rights of the Child and the Convention on the Elimination of
Discrimination against Women.
4. International dialogue on human rights has produced a distinction between three
“generations” of human rights, labeled for their historical emergence.
5. Security rights encompass life, bodily integrity, liberty, and sometimes associated rights of
political participation and democratic governance.
6. Social and economic rights, highlighted in the eponymous international Covenant, comprise
both positive and negative freedoms, enacted by states and others: prominently, rights to
food, health care, education and free labor.
With this is a creation of an international regime to enforce this UN declarations, bills
and other international standards. We may call it Universal Declarations”. However, the very
Criminology Instructor:
MILEOUDA C. FORTOS, M.S. CRIM UNIVERSITY OF ANTIQUE
MODULE ǀ Comparative Models in Policing Page |3
process of globalization blurs distinctions among categories of law enforcement due to racial
differences and states own standards of laws.
Analysts on crime control have identified of psychological, social, economic and political
patterns that put societies “at risk” of law and other violations. These generally include
authoritarian government, ethnic war, strong ethnic cleavages, weak civil society, power
vacuums, critical junctures in economic development, and military dominance. Above all, the
study of human rights teaches us that human rights violations usually reflect a calculated pursuit
of political power, not inherent evil or ungovernable passions.
Effects of Globalization on Human Rights
The effect of globalization on state-based human rights violations will depend on the type of
state and its history. In newly democratizing countries with weak institutions and elite controlled
economies (Russians, Latin America, and Southeast Asia), the growth of global markets and
economic flow tends to destabilize economic forces but increases crime, police abuse and
corruption.
General mobility and information flow generally stimulate ethnic mobilization, which may
promote self-determination in responsive states but more often produces collective abuses in
defense of dominant-group hegemony. On the other hand, the same forces have produced slow
institutional openings by less fragmented single-party states (like China and Mexico). In much of
Africa, globalization has ironically increased power vacuums, by both empowering sub-state
challengers and providing sporadic intervention, which displaces old regimes without
consolidating new ones. Some of the most horrifying abuses of all have occurred in the trans
nationalized Hobbesian civil wars of Sierra Leone, Angola, and Congo.
In general, analysts of globalization find that states’ international integration improve security
rights, but increases inequality and threatens the social rights of citizens. However, neither
economic development nor economic growth in and of themselves improves law enforcement
capabilities and human rights performance. In addition to globalization and growth, findings on
the effectiveness of international pressure on state human rights policy suggest that target states
must be structurally accessible, internationally sensitive, and contain local human rights activities
for linkage.
Challenges of Globalization in the Field of Law Enforcement
In the law enforcement and security sphere, states respond with increased repression to
fragmentation, transnationalized civil war, and uncontrolled global flow such as migrants and drug
trafficking. Transborder ethnic differences help inspire civil conflict, while the global arms trade
provides its tools.
Even extreme civil conflicts where state deteriorate into warlordism are often financed if not
abetted by foreign trade: diamonds in the Congo and Sierra Leone, cocaine in Colombia. While
non-state actors like insurgents and paramilitaries pose increasing threats to human rights, state
response is a crucial multiplier for the effect on citizens. Since all but the most beleaguered states
possess more resources and authority than rebels, they can generally cause more damage-and
human rights, monitoring in a wide variety of settings from Rwanda to Haiti attributes the bulk of
abuses to state (or state-supported) forces. States also differ in their ability and will to provide
protection from insurgent terror campaigns (like that in Algeria).
Criminology Instructor:
MILEOUDA C. FORTOS, M.S. CRIM UNIVERSITY OF ANTIQUE
MODULE ǀ Comparative Models in Policing Page |4
Global economic relationships can produce state policies that directly violate social and labor
rights and indirectly produce social conflict that leads to state violations of civil and security rights.
While global windfalls of wealth may also underwrite repressive and predatory state, as in Angola,
where oil revenues have fueled repression and civil war (Harden 2000). It is stated that it largely
determines labor rights and security response to labor dissidence; states also regulate
multinationals, certify unions, and form joint ventures with global inventors.
The challenge now is on how every state pursues a strong relationship in the area of policing
these global wrongs.
Criminology Instructor:
MILEOUDA C. FORTOS, M.S. CRIM UNIVERSITY OF ANTIQUE
