POL161
Assignment 2: 2000 Word Essay
Matt Benson-Parry
33553321
POL161 Assignment 2: 2000 Word Essay Matt Benson-Parry 33553321
While some critics have argued that globalisation and its effects are easy to define and
quantify, others have claimed that globalisation comprises disparate and complex forces that
are difficult to define and assess. Which side do you agree with and why?
Globalisation is central to contemporary world politics and appears to be a simple concept
while actually being resistant to a single or unitary definition. Globalisation lacks a global
hierarchical structure to ensure that globalisation is fair and equitable in its use, leading to
confusion about its principle functions and unequal impact and share of profits. Accordingly,
in this essay I will explain why I believe that globalisation comprises disparate and complex
forces that are difficult to define and assess. Much of the debate around globalisation is about
how we are to understand the term in light of existing literature and real application.
However, in a broad sense, globalisation describes a contemporary state of affairs where a
range of factors - an easy flow of ideas thanks to information technology; enmeshing and
overlapping influences of NGOs and IGOs; emergence of issues requiring international
engagement and cooperation, such as global terrorism networks and human-generated climate
change; the adoption of neo-liberalist free market principles; improvements in transportation
and communication - means that, simply put, local events have causes whose actual location
may be thousands of kilometres away, and vice versa. Globalisation is a result of state policy,
market forces, private think tanks, lobby groups and other global economic factors.
According to Hay, globalisation might be either defined as inclusive or exclusive, with
profound ramifications for IR (Hay 2013 pp 207).
There is significant disagreement amongst scholars of globalisation; at its best, it could be a
‘significant force for human progress’ (Slaughter 2015, pp387, in Devetak et al), improving
global wealth and freedom. At its worst, globalisation could be imperialism; exploitative,
faceless, environmentally destructive, eroding of democracy and benefitting only a small
minority of people (Javed 2014 pp825-827). Widespread grassroots and NGOs have
organised against globalisation. Globalisation may see the end of nation-states as the primary
unit of global politics, and a global-citizenry expecting and enacting democratic processes as
part of a worldwide polity (Brown et al 2018 pp238, Devetak et al 2015). Dryzek calls this
discursive democracy, and distinguishes from its alternatives, such as neo-conservative and
cosmopolitan democracy. Dryzek maintains that deliberative democracy requires that
communication be “first, capable of inducing reflection, second, non-coercive, and third,
capable of linking the particular experience of an individual...
