Globalisation or ‘glocalisation’? Networks,territories and rescaling

This paper argues that the alleged process of globalisation should be recast as a process of ‘glocalisation’. ‘Glocalisation’ refers to the twin process whereby, firstly, institutional/regulatory arrangements shift from the national scale both upwards to supra‐national or global scales and downwards to the scale of the individual body or to local, urban or regional configurations and, secondly, economic activities and inter‐firm networks are becoming simultaneously more localised/regionalised and transnational. In particular, attention will be paid to the political and economic dynamics of this geographical rescaling and its implications. The scales of economic networks and institutional arrangements are recast in ways that alter social power geometries in important ways. This contribution, therefore, argues, first, that an important discursive shift took place over the last decade or so which is an integral part of an intensifying ideological, political, socioeconomic and cultural struggle over the organisation of society and the position of the citizen. Secondly, the pre‐eminence of the ‘global’ in much of the literature and political rhetoric obfuscates, marginalizes and silences an intense and ongoing socio‐spatial struggle in which the reconfiguration of spatial scale is a key arena. Third, both the scales of economic flows and networks and those of territorial governance are rescaled through a process of ‘glocalisation’, and, finally, the proliferation of new modes and forms of resistance to the restless process of de‐territorialisation/re‐territorialisation of capital requires greater attention to engaging a ‘politics of scale’. In the final part, attention will be paid to the potentially empowering possibilities of a politics that is sensitive to these scale issues.     

Transnational Islamist Networks: Western Fighters in Afghanistan,Somalia and Syria

Abstract

Western Muslims have joined jihadi groups in Afghanistan/Pakistan, Somalia and Syria to defend Islam from its perceived enemies. Transnational Islamist networks have played a pivotal role in bringing them to conflict zones by fulfilling three functions: radicalisation through mosques, radical preachers, and the Internet; recruitment which can be conducted either physically or digitally; and identity formation that provides the radicalised recruits with a larger cause to fight for as members of an imagined global community. Transnational Islamist networks are multifunctional entities on the rise.     

Global Credit Markets,Political Violence,and Politically Sustainable Risk Premia

How do international financial conditions affect civil unrest? Existing studies examine the domestic economic roots of political violence but say little about the role of external financial conditions. We explore the interactions between international lending, government policy, and domestic unrest. In particular, we note that because of sovereign risk and defensive lending dynamics, credit ratings and interest rate premia are endogenous to expectations about civil violence. We test these claims using instrumental variables techniques and daily data on sovereign bond yield spreads, credit ratings, and episodes of civil violence in 59 developing countries from 1990 through 2004. After correcting for endogeneity, we find that exogenous increases in the price of foreign capital are robustly associated with increased odds of civil conflict. Primary commodity dependence, low economic growth, and poverty can also increase the odds of civil conflict by reducing access to foreign capital.     

Boomerangs and Superpowers: International Norms,Transnational Networks and US Foreign Policy

The complex relationship between international norms and transational networks of non-state actors is gaining increasing attention in international relations theory. This paper argues that transnational networks of non-state actors gain greater access to and influence over states when they identify with international norms that the states themselves have formally accepted--even if that formal acceptance did not initally reflect any serious intention to implement or monitor the norm in question. This process has been called the 'boomering effect'. The resulting redefinitions of state interests raise the diplomatic salience of the norm in question, and thereby increase its effectiveness. The article illustrates this process with a study of changes in the US foreign policy towards Soviet and Eastern European compliance with the human rights norms of the Helsinki Accords in the mid-late 1970s.     

Globalisation,Universities and Professors

Globalisation has an increasingly profound impact on a broad range of human activities in political, economic and cultural areas. From the perspective of higher education, globalisation raises a number of challenges and concerns, particularly in preparing students--our future leaders of commerce and politics--to adequately address the demands of an ever-increasing global interdependence. Colleges and universities worldwide are responding to this challenge with an array of exchange programmes and curricular initiatives, and a recent international survey of the academic profession indicates that professors worldwide support these efforts. However, this support is considerably weaker among teachers than researchers. This has implications for policies and programmes that focus on developing more globally minded university teachers, in order to prepare our youth to adequately meet the challenges of globalisation.     

Online Political Debate,Unbounded Citizenship,and the Problematic Nature of a Transnational Public Sphere

Citizenship has always been a dynamic notion, subject to change and permanent struggle over its precise content and meaning. Recent technological, economic, and political transformations have led to the development of alternative notions of citizenship that go beyond the classic understanding of its relationship to nation states and rights. Civil society actors play an important role in this process by organizing themselves at a transnational level, engaging with issues that transcend the boundaries of the nation state and questioning the democratic legitimacy of other transnational actors such as international and corporate organizations. They also allow citizens to engage with “unbounded” issues and to construct a transnational public sphere where such issues can be debated. It is often assumed that the Internet plays a crucial role in enabling this transnational public sphere to take shape. Empirical analysis of discussion forums and mailing lists developed by transnational civil society actors shows, however, that the construction of such a transnational public sphere is paved with constraints. To speak of a unified transnational public sphere is therefore deemed to be problematic. It cannot be seen or construed without taking into account the local, the national, and enforceable rights in order to materialize the ideas and hopes being voiced through civil society.     

Political Violence and the Illicit Economies of West Africa

This comparative analysis draws on field research in several West African countries to illustrate the dynamic relationships between political violence and organized crime in this sub-region. These relationships are often transactional, and almost always on a temporary basis. While some alliances of convenience may be forged, in other cases an adversarial relationship exists between organized crime and terrorist networks. In some cases, key actors within West African governments have benefited from these relationships. We then examine recent policies and strategies pursued by the U.S. and the international community that, in the name of combating terrorism, seek to constrain the illicit economies of the region, but in doing so may do more harm than good. The article concludes with some policy recommendations based on this analysis.     

Transnational Networks and Policy Diffusion: The Case of Gender Mainstreaming

How can we account for the global diffusion of remarkably similar policy innovations across widely differing nation-states? In an era characterized by heightened globalization and increasingly radical state restructuring, this question has become especially acute. Scholars of international relations offer a number of theoretical explanations for the cross-national convergence of ideas, institutions, and interests. We examine the proliferation of state bureaucracies for gender mainstreaming. These organizations seek to integrate a gender-equality perspective across all areas of government policy. Although they so far have received scant attention outside of feminist policy circles, these mainstreaming bureaucracies—now in place in over 100 countries—represent a powerful challenge to business-as-usual politics and policymaking. As a policy innovation, the speed with which these institutional mechanisms have been adopted by the majority of national governments is unprecedented. We argue that transnational networks composed largely of nonstate actors (notably women's international nongovernmental organizations and the United Nations) have been the primary forces driving the diffusion of gender mainstreaming. In an event history analysis of 157 nation-states from 1975 to 1998, we assess how various national and transnational factors have affected the timing and the type of the institutional changes these states have made. Our findings support the claim that the diffusion of gender-mainstreaming mechanisms has been facilitated by the role played by transnational networks, in particular by the transnational feminist movement. Further, they suggest a major shift in the nature and the locus of global politics and national policymaking.     

Rethinking the Relationship between Inclusive Institutions and Political Violence

Abstract

In this paper we empirically reexamine the debate over the conflict reducing properties of inclusive political institutions. We examine the purported violence reducing effects of proportional representation (PR) electoral systems, parliamentarism, and federalism, conditioning their effects on ethnic fractionalization and whether a country is conflict prone. In other words, are these institutions more effective in countries that have already experienced major conflict or are they more effective in preventing conflict in countries that have not experienced major conflict? Using a data set that includes a sample of 81 countries and 2488 observations from 1973 to 2018, we test the conditional effects of proportional representation electoral systems, parliamentarism and federalism conditioning these by ethnicity and whether the country has experienced a major conflict (i.e., civil war). We find that these institutions have little effect on reducing the number of riots or political deaths, but PR electoral systems reduces ethnic violence when ethnic fractionalization is high. On the other hand PR electoral systems and parliamentarism reduce ethnic violence in conflict prone countries, but federalism increases the likelihood of ethnic violence. We discuss the implications of these findings with regard to arguments regarding inclusive power sharing arrangements and violence in post conflict environments.     

Fueling the Fire: Violent Metaphors,Trait Aggression,and Support for Political Violence

The recent concurrence of violent political rhetoric and violence against political targets in the U.S. and abroad has raised public concern about the effects of language on citizens. Building from theoretical foundations in aggression research, I fielded two nationally representative survey experiments and a third local experiment preceding the 2010 midterm elections to investigate support for violence against political authority. Subjects were randomly assigned to view one of two forms of the same political advertisements. Across all three experiments, mild violent metaphors multiply support for political violence among aggressive citizens, especially among young adults. Aggressive personality traits also predict support for political violence in both national studies. This work identifies dynamic roots of violent political orientations and reveals for the first time surprising interactions between this elite discourse and personality traits in citizens.     

The Coevolution of Networks and Political Attitudes

How do attitudes and social affiliations coevolve? A long stream of research has focused on the relationship between attitudes and social affiliations. However, in most of this research the causal relationship between views and affiliations is difficult to discern definitively: Do people influence each other's views so that they converge over time or do they primarily affiliate (by choice or happenstance) with those of similar views? Here we use longitudinal attitudinal and whole network data collected at critical times (notably, at the inception of the system) to identify robustly the determinants of attitudes and affiliations. We find significant conformity tendencies: Individuals shift their political views toward the political views of their associates. This conformity is driven by social ties rather than task ties. We also find that political views are notably unimportant as a driver for the formation of relationships.     

Making and Mobilizing Moderates: Rhetorical Strategy,Political Networks,and Counterterrorism

Studies of counterterrorism have argued for the importance of bolstering, or “mobilizing,” moderates in the confrontation with violent extremists. Yet the literature has not elucidated when states seek to mobilize moderates and marginalize extremists, how they do so, or when they prove successful. The received wisdom is that states should cultivate and strengthen moderate allies by reaching out to them. This approach, however, fails to grasp the political challenges confronting potential moderates, whose priority is to build and retain legitimacy within their political community. Inspired by network approaches, we maintain that moderates can more easily emerge when their political interactions with the authorities are relatively sparse. We further argue that the state's strategies, including crucially its rhetorical moves, can bolster the moderates' local legitimacy. At times, this will entail not reaching out to moderates but isolating them. Before moderates can be mobilized, they must be made, and the state's criticism, more than its love, may do much to help moderate political forces emerge. This article explains why mobilizing moderates is critical, when it is difficult, and how authorities can nevertheless play a productive role in moderates' emergence. We establish our theoretical framework's plausibility by examining two cases—India's ultimately triumphant campaign against Sikh extremists and Spain's gradual marginalization of Basque extremists. We then suggest what lessons these campaigns against ethnonational terrorism hold for the so-called War on Terror.