The contemporary world

Lesson 1

Contemporary means “modern” or “present” so basically contemporary world means our modern world
today. Refers to circumstances and ideas of the present age it deals with problem and issues.
Globalization had been given different meanings
- It is an inevitable phenomena that brings countries around the world closer.
- Interconnected in terms of economy, trading, culture, language, politics and the environment.
- globalization is the process of interaction and integration among people, companies, and governments
worldwide.
“The expansion and intensification of social relations and consciousness across world time and world space.”-
Manfred B. Steger
“…globalization means the onset of the borderless world…”- Kenichi Ohmae
“…all those processes by which the peoples of the world are incorporated into a single world society.”- Martin
Albrow
“Globalization can thus be defined 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.”- Anthony
Giddens
Different Conceptions about Globalization
Through the years, different scholars have argued about globalization.
1. Globalizers - Globalizers argue that globalization is a profoundly transformative set of social processes that is
moving us into a new chapter of human history (Albrow, 1997; Held and McGrew, 2007).
2. Sceptics - They emphasize the limited nature of current globalizing processes. Prominent sceptics Paul Hirst
and Grahame Thompson (2001) claim that the world economy is not a truly global phenomenon, but one centred
on Europe, East Asia, and North America.
3. Rejectionists - Rejectionists contend that existing accounts of globalization are incorrect and exaggerated.
There are many rejectionists among historians.
What are the dimensions of globalization?
1. Economic dimension
It deals with the intensification and stretching of economic interrelations across the globe. In addition to the more
traditional factors of production, labour and land, economic globalization includes gigantic flows of capital and
technology that stimulate trade in goods and services.
2. Political dimension
This refers to the expansion and acceleration of political relations and interdependencies across world-time and
world-space. These processes raise important issues pertaining to the politics of the modern nation-state and the
international states-system.
3. Cultural dimension
The cultural dimension of globalization influences the use of language, the shape of world religions, global media,
food, fashion, films, literature, music and numerous other aspects of global public life.
4. Ecological dimension.
This signifies the compression of our natural environment. Ecological globalization highlights the increasing
interconnections across national boundaries. Ecological problems are transnational in nature, requiring global
collaboration and global solutions.

Lesson 2 Ideology
An ideology can be defined as a system of widely shared ideas, patterned beliefs, guiding norms and values, and
ideals accepted as truth by a particular group of people.
Ideology connects theory and practice by orienting and organizing human action in accordance with generalized
claims and codes of conduct.
‘Market globalism’ is a hegemonic system of ideas that makes normative claims about a set of social processes
called ‘globalization’.
globalism - an ideology that endows the concept of globalization with neoliberal values and meanings.
Social imaginaries are deep-seated modes of understanding that provide the most general parameters within
which people imagine their communal existence. Social imaginaries are neither theories nor ideologies, but
implicit ‘background understandings’ that make possible communal practices and a widely shared sense of their
legitimacy.
most scholars of globalization have defined their key concept along those lines as a multidimensional set of
social processes that create, multiply, stretch, and intensify worldwide social interdependencies and
exchanges while at the same time fostering in people a growing awareness of deepening connections
between the local and the distant.
Core Claims of Market Globalism
Claim 1: Globalization is about the liberalization and global integration of markets
Like all ideologies, globalism starts with the attempt to establish an authoritative account of what the phenomenon
is all about.
Claim 2: Globalization is inevitable and irreversible
The second mode of decontesting ‘globalization’ turns on the adjacent concept ‘historical inevitability’. In the
last decade, the public discourse on globalization describing its projected path was saturated with adjectives like
‘irresistable’, ‘inevitable’, ‘inexorable’, and ‘irreversible’.
Claim 3: Nobody is in charge of globalization
The third mode of decontesting globalization hinges on the classical liberal concept of the ‘self-regulating
market’.
Claim 4: Globalization benefits everyone (… in the long run.)
This claim lies at the very core of globalism because it provides an affirmative answerto the crucial normative
question of whether globalization should be considered a 'good' or a "bad' thing.
Claim 5: Globalization furthers the spread of democracy in the world
This globalist claim is rooted in the neoliberal assertion that free markets and democracy are synonymous terms.
Claim 6: globalization requires a global war on terror
Instructive examples of the logical inconsistencies inherent in Claim 6 abound. Take Thomas Barnett’s article
‘The Pentagon’s New Map’, first published in the March 2003 issue of Esquire magazine, and subsequently
expanded into a bestselling book bearing the same title.

Lesson 3 The global economy

What is economy?
An economy is the system according to which the money, industry, labor and trade of a country or region are
organized.
Global Economy - Refers to the interconnected worldwide economic activities that take place between multiple
countries.
IMMANUEL WALLERNSTEIN - We are now living in a modern world system.
Capitalism is an economic system in which private individuals or businesses own capital goods.
Gary Gereffi The global changes are attributed to how the global economy is organized and governed.
Developed countries (global north) and developing countries (global south)
The Macro Economy - Are international organizations and regimes that establish rules and norms for the global
community.
- World Trade Organization
- International Monetary Fund
- World Bank
- International Labor Organization
- European Union
- American Free Trade Agreement
The Meso Level - The key building blocks for the global economy are countries and firms.
The Micro Level - There is a growing literature on the resistance to globalization by consumer groups, activists,
and transnational social movements.
Tripartite Structure - The development of a world trading system over a period of several centuries helped to
create the core, semi-peripheral, and peripheral economic areas.
Division of Labor
The specialization of workers in different parts of the production process, usually in factory setting.
COMPONENTS OF AN ECONOMY
The following are the four major components of an economy.
● Goods - these are the products that will be sold
● Service - work done or duties served for another person
● Producer- a person who makes products
● Consumer- the one who buys products
● Law of Supply and Demand - The law of supply and demand is a theory that explains the interaction between
the sellers of a resource and the buyers for that resource. The theory defines the relationship between the price of
a given good or product and the willingness of people to either buy or sell it.
● Scarcity -Scarcity is having fewer resources that are needed to fill human wants and needs. In simpler terms it
is the state of shortage.
What is economic globalization?
Economy is one of the major dimensions of globalization. Specifically,economic globalization is the system
of trade and industry across the world in which countries' economies have been developing to operate
collectively as one system.
Emergence of globalization can be compared to the transformation of solid to liquid.
Why is economic globalization important?
Integration of economies worldwide started because of scarcity thus the intensification of trading happened.
Scarcity is having fewer resources that are needed to fill human wants and needs. In simpler terms it is the state
of shortage.
Rarely can one region or nation satisfy all demands of its people. This forces regions and nations to trade goods
and services.
A brief history on how economic globalization emerged
Due to scarcity or the unequal distribution of resources in the geographical lands and waters of each country,
nations exercised trading.
The first wave of trading happened through the oldest known international trade route, the Silk Road. Silk Road
spanned from China to Middle East and to Europe. (130 BCE- 1453 BCE) It is called the Silk Road because the
most profitable products through this network was silk. The silk road was international but not global because it
had no ocean routes that could reach the American continent.
Galleon Trade
From 16th century to 18th century, Mercantilism happened. This is where countries competed with one another
to sell more goods as a means to boost their country's income. They imposed high tariffs, forbade colonies
to trade with other nations and restricted trade routes. The most prominent trading system that happened in East
Asia was the Galleon Trade.
For the past 333 years we have been colonized by Spain. Galleon Trade is a trade agreement during the Spanish
colonization from 16th to 18th century. It happened during the Mercantilism age.The Spaniards closed the ports
of Manila to all countries except Mexico. Manila became the center of commerce in the East.
The Bretton Woods System
After two world wars, world leaders sought to create a global economic system that would ensure a longer
lasting global peace. The Bretton Woods agreement was created in a 1944 conference of all of the World War II
Allied nations. This was created to promote peace among nations.
1. World Bank
The world bank is an international agency with 189 member-countries. It is formed in 1944 to finance the
reconstruction of war-torn countries brought by the devastation of World War II. At present, it provides low-
interest loans, interest-free credit and grants. It focuses on improving education, health, and infrastructure.
2. International Monetary Fund
IMF is responsible in supervising exchange rate system, and international payments. It reflects on the amount
owed by a country from another country.
It also indicates the economic operation like what it produces, consumes and buys with its money.
3. General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade
GATT is a legal agreement between many countries, whose overall purpose was to promote international trade
by reducing or eliminating trade barriers such as tariffs or quotas.
Neoliberalism
In the 21 st Century, the concept of free trading is called neoliberalism wherein government intervention is
lessened. The capitalists have higher opportunities to gain more profit since quotas and tariffs are either
eliminated or lessened.
Planned Economy vs Free Market
Our economy had obviously developed from being a planned economy to a free market economy.
Planned Economy
A planned economy has Trade Protectionism as its policy. Trade Protectionism is a policy that protects
domestic industries from unfair competition from foreign ones. The four primary tools are tariffs, subsidies,
quotas, and currency manipulation.
Tools of Trade Protectionism
Tariffs - A tariff is a border tax that needs to be paid before a good can be imported in a country. Normally the
buyer, not the seller, pays the tariffs. Governments impose high tariff rates to protect our local products. As
tariff goes higher, the price of the imported good increases as well, discouraging people from buying it.
Qoutas - Quota, in international trade, government-imposed limit on the quantity, or in exceptional cases the
value, of the goods or services that may be exported or imported over a specified period of time.
Subsidies - A subsidy is a direct or indirect payment to individuals or firms, usually in the form of a cash
payment from the government or a targeted tax cut.
Free Market
A free market has trade liberalization as its policy.
Trade Liberalization, or free trade, is a policy to eliminate discrimination against imports and exports. Buyers
and sellers from different economies may voluntarily trade without a government applying tariffs, quotas,
subsidies or prohibitions on goods and services.
Lesson 4 Market Integration
Market is a place where exchange takes place and a market comprises a group of buyers and sellers, who can
interact with each other to by sell goods and services.
Market integration is a term used to identify a phenomenon in which markets of goods and services that are
related to one another being to experience similar patterns of increase or decrease in terms of the prices of those
products.
Global Corporations
Multinational companies MNCs place multiple production facilities in multiple countries under the control of
a single corporate structure multinational corporations consist of separate companies (called subsidiaries) in
different countries, all of which answer to a central office located in the firm’s home.
Transnational companies are more complex organizations which have invested in foreign operations, have a
central corporate facility
industrialized countries - manufacture goods
non-industrialized countries - raw materials
Offshoring is when production operations are performed in another country by the same company.
Outsourcing in which part of a product's manufacture/process are performed in more than one country or more
than one company.
Advantages
Increased choice, great potential for growth, greater employment opportunities
Disadvantages
Increase the gap between the poor and rich, lack of opportunities for the poor, exploitation of workers and growers
Lesson 5 The Global Interstate System
Arjun Appadurai (1996) argued that “the nation-state, as a complex modern political form, is on its last legs”,
Kenichi Ohmae (1995) claimed that economic interdependence and global communication had rendered the
nation-state a “nostalgic fiction”.
(Shaw, 2000) emphasized how new sources collaboration in world politicsrevolved around states. The early
years of the twenty-first century have shown us that globalization, at least in the short run, has not displaced
the state.
Nation – state
- Coercive authority over specific territories (Max Weber)
- Independent political communities with governments(Hedley Bull)
- An imagined political community (Benedict Anderson)
Origins of the nation-state
The Peace of Westphalia (Germany) was package of treaties that ended the 30 years European wars of religion
(1618-1648). These European states include the Holy Roman Empire, Spain, France, Sweden and the Dutch
Republic – agreed to respect one another& territorial integrity.
The three (3) core points of the Westphalian Treaty are the following: (1) the principle of state sovereignty, (2)
the principle of legal equality of states; and (3) the principle of non-intervention of one state in the internal
affairs of another.
The Birth of Liberal Internationalism
Immanuel Kant (1795) stated that “for states in their relation to each other, there cannot be any reasonable way
out of the lawless condition which entails only war except that they, like individual men, should give up their
savage [lawless] freedom, adjust themselves to the constraints of public law, and thus establish a continuously
growing state consisting of various nations which will ultimately include all the nations of the world.”
Jeremy Bentham (1748 – 1832) however argued that “The end that a disinterested legislator upon international
law would propose to himself would … be the greatest happiness of all nations take together.”
US President Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924) contributed to the discussion with his statement that nations were
subject to the universal laws of God, which could be discovered through reason.
The League of Nations was founded in the 1919 Paris Peace conference after WW1 which aimed at
maintaining world peace through international arbitration.
The Socialist International (1889-1916) (Karl Marx)
- “Workers of the world unite”
- “The proletariat has no nation”
- Marxist anti-nationalism: affinity to the nation retards the worker’s struggle
- Organization of labor and socialist parties, mainly in Europe
- Achievements: 8-hour working day, International Women’s Day, May 1
- Its parties became major players in the electoral politics of Europe
- Collapsed in 1916 as its member parties supported the war efforts of their respective states
2. Communist International (Comintern),1919-1943
- Product of the Bolshevik victory in Russia
- Lenin’s tool to promote revolution
- Central body for all Communist Parties across the world
- Dissolved in 1943 to appease Allied Powers
Lenin: “Monopolies, oligarchy, the striving for domination and not for freedom, the exploitation of an increasing
number of small or weak nations by a handful of the richest or most powerful nations — all these have given birth
to those distinctive characteristics of imperialism which compel us to define it as parasitic or decaying capitalism.”
Ho Chi Minh: “ You must excuse my frankness, but I cannot help but observe that the speeches by comrades
from the mother countries give me the impression that they wish to kill a snake by stepping on its tail. You all
know today the poison and life energy of the capitalist snake is concentrated more in the colonies than in the
mother countries… Yet in our discussion of the revolution, you neglect the colonies, while capitalism uses them
to support itself, define itself and fight you.”
3. Fascism
- Hitler saw both variants internationalism as an attack on the nation
- Fascists believed in the primacy of ethnic majorities
- Fascists believed in regional spheres of influence

The United Nations (1945- present)

The UN was created to preserve peace after the war and reinforce principles of sovereignty and non intervention.
It reflected the postwar balance of power. The UN took over the duties of the League. It grew larger than the
league because ofdecolonization (2015, 193)
Decolonization after the war
- Imperial powers were in ruin and could not maintain colonies
- Wartime defeats exposed the weakness of imperial powers
- Wartime heroes in the colonized world became prominent
After WWII, Cold War divided the world

First world: NATO and the Western Alliance

Second World: Communist countries
Third World: Those caught in between the superpowers
The Bandung Conference (1955)
The speech of Indonesian President Sukarno represented the core points of the conference: “We are often told
Colonialism is dead.
Legacies of Bandung
1. Third world solidarity
2. Cementing the emphasis on national development against “neocolonial
intervention.”
3. Regionally-driven internationalism
international institutions (IMF, WB,ADB, UN)
1, international monetary fund
2. world bank
3. Asian Development Bank
4. United Nation
Lesson 6 Contemporary Global Governance
The United Nations is an international organization founded in 1945. It is currently made up of 193 Member
States. The mission and work of the United Nations are guided by the purposes and principles contained in its
founding Charter. such as peace and security, climate change, sustainable development, human rights,
disarmament, terrorism, humanitarian and health emergencies, gender equality, governance, food production, and
more.
WHAT DOES UN DO?
1. Maintain International Peace And Security
2. Protect Human Rights
3. Deliver Humanitarian Aid
4. Promote Sustainable Development
5. Uphold International Law
Ideational Roles of the United Nations in the 21 st Century according to Thomas G. Weiss and Ramesh
Thakur
1. Managing Knowledge
- Addressing a problem that goes beyond the capacity of the state
- Collect data about the nature of the problem
- Idea – mongering (originates and deals in ideas)
2. Developing norms
- Helps to solidify new norm of behavior, often through summit, conferences and international panels and
commissions
▪ Essential for the functioning and existence of society
▪ Norms must be integrated to national /domestic standards
- Ex. HIV – AIDS Awareness Campaign,
Anti- Human Trafficking, Climate Change

3. Institutionalizing Ideas
- Every problem has several global institutions
working on significant aspects of solutions
- Institutions oversee the implementation and monitoring of norms
- Ex. Civil society, IGOs like UN, EU, WB, IMF