What are the principle advantages of third wave globalisation theory? Illustrate your answer with examples

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Politics of Globalisation

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What are the principle advantages of ‘third wave’ globalisation theory? Illustrate your answer with examples

This essay will be examining the question, what are the principle advantages of the third wave globalisation theory and illustrating the answer with examples.

It will firstly begin with giving an overview awareness of the first two theories put forward by academics and political literature. These are the globalist approach and the sceptical approach respectively.
The essay will then explain and seek to give examples of advantages for the third wave view in real terms of actions and events for today (2009).
It will then discuss and analyse that the advantages of the third wave theory are very similar to that of the sceptical view and that the transformationalists are taking an intermediate approach on the idea of globalisation rather than having a concrete or new  idea on the changes occurring globally.

Let’s begin by looking at the idea of first wave globalist theory.

We have witnessed an inexorable, accelerating and homogenising tide of globalisation , levelling a once differentiated and contoured terrain to reveal the flat expense of a ‘borderless world’ supported and sustained by a genuinely global market place.

The first wave of globalisation can be attributed to the theories advocated by hyperglobalists such as Ohmae (1990), whom believe that globalisation is an inevitable process, uncontrollable by human intervention and causes homogenisation of culture and a loss of national soverigntiy. It is considered that contemporary developments of social processes have, over the twentieth century, been affected greatly by the intensification of free trade and free movement of capital the liberating effects of new technology on human communication and interaction. Global interdependence has made national boundaries less important, submerging them into one uniform economic, cultural and political playing field as boundaries are removed. Globalists argue that there simply is no other alternative than the causal trajectory of globalisation and neo-liberalism illustrates the way ways in which contemporary globalisation connects communities in one region of the world to developments in another continent.

In this borderless economy , national governments are relegated to little more than transmission belts for global capacity or, ultimately , simple intermediate institutions sandwiched between increasingly powerful local, regional and global mechanisms of governance

First wave theorists see the world as culturally homogenised, economically integrated with the benefits of free trade being felt amongst the global economy (for the purpose of this essay so as not to detract from the third wave, it will not distinguish between positive and negative globalists) The most significant find here is the erosion of the nation state and the decreased need for state intervention or regulation. Neo-liberalist thinking enlists a global economy rapidly growing through international trade and investment. Open free trade and market forces will prevail and the increased mobility of capital and labour are believed to be rendering national economies outmoded and undermining the soverienty of the state whose life span is now threatened with demise. A global future is envisaged.

Let us move onto the second wave, or as it is often referred to, as the sceptical view. As the name suggests, it is a polarised view to that of the first wave and is borne out of the ideology that globalisation is a discourse as opposed to a causal process. The main authors of this understanding are academics Paul Hirst and Grahame Thompson (1996, 2000) who cite that in spite of increased growth and economical prosperity, the associated gains are actually not occurring at unprecedented levels and are definitely not globally encountered. They argue that globalisation is merely a myth and a new concept for an internationalised world economy where regional blocs and trades are centred around the triad of the G3, Europe, North America and Japan. Trade and economic rewards are only centred around the triad of countries, therefore how can economic advances be a global trend? This postmodernity view is the denial of the certainties of the modern world where the only certain thing was that the old forms should no longer be considered fixed reference points. The processes behind globalisation label have been at work for many decades and in fact there was an even higher level of interdependence before the First World War therefore nothing much is new. Hirst and Thompson claim that between the periods of 1870-1914, the world economy experienced internationalisation at much higher levels and those genuinely transnational companies (TNC’s) are relatively rare. Hence, the increased flows of information, with the increase in internet based communications and stretched social relations happening in the modern world, are merely a continuation of established patterns which actually don’t represent a global revolution.   TNC’s are located within their home countries and trade multinationally on the strength of a major tendency towards the growth of truly international companies. In addition, second wave theorists refute claims that the end of the nation state is near. National markets, policies in education, infrastructure and training remain of considerable importance, throwing doubt on the claim of decline of the nation state. Far from the government being passive by-standers of economic and cultural change, it is on the contrary architects of internationalisation.

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Now lets look at the important question of the third wave theory and what it entails.
The major theorists of this component in globalisation are Colin Hay and David Marsh (1996, 2000)

We ask not what globalisation (as a process without a subject) might explain, but how the insertion of subjects into processes might help to explain the phenomena widely identified as ‘globalisation’.

Hay and Marsh, along with other academics, stress that the unprecedented nature of current economic, political and cultural flows and levels of global interconnectedness as a result of the combined forces of modernity and therefore not ...

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