Globalization destroyed the nation-state

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The discussions of globalization have become topics which are in the great demand. Especially with the development of information and technology and the form of global economy, the global affairs have become more and more complicated. It is hard to distinguish the internal affairs and external affairs. People found that the distances between different countries are shorter than before. After the Cold War, a great amount of countries publish their economic policies to develop their economies. Take American 11th September for example, 11th September is an event that New York America attacked by the terrorists. However, the global aviation, finance, technology all has been affected as well as the international business. Even the central banks in mostly countries have taken the action of decreasing the interests to make the effects of 11th September not to be so serious. Those phenomenon show that globalization has growth rapidly, and has deeply influent the development and vicissitude of the situation of global politics and economy. To observe it deeply, different countries and institutions have different influences. As the matter of fact, it is to some extent a relationship of gain and lost. Whatever the existence of globalization or the debates of scholars on globalization, those all illustrate that globalization is a development of process. However, the importance of globalization has already drawn the attention of countries.

This essay will be divided into three sections. Firstly, the definition of globalization will be analysed. Through the compare of different definitions, a clear sense of globalization will come out. After that the process of globalization will be briefly introduced from some aspects, the geography and time period, the global economy and culture and politics. Secondly, nation-state will be discussed. In this section, five aspects will be analysed. This section includes the definition of nation-state, the influence of politics, economy and culture on nation-state. Moreover, the role of media in global condition will be discussed. Thirdly, this essay will discuss if globalization destroyed the nation-state or not. Then finally a conclusion will be made.


What is globalization?

Globalization could be argued to be a process, which the flow of substances and spirit products destroy the area and the boundaries of countries, and effect the people's life around every corner of the earth. The globalization also includes the immigrations.

It could be seen from the table, it is not easy to define what globalization is. It is a phenomenon which influenced people's life. Based on Busch (2009), globalization is a continuing process of intensity not only the economy, but also culture, social life and politics. From the definition above, it could be argued that the definition of globalisation could be analysed into two parts. The first one is the space. As the Busch's and Water's view, globalization means that the boundaries of countries are being decreased. Although this does not mean the compression of geography, it is the economy and culture make the distances between different countries decreased. Secondly, it is something about relationships. Robertson (1995) indicated that the conflict and unity of homogeneity and heterogeneity make globalization. The globalization makes the people from all over the world getting more and more close in culture, economy and politics. The countries are more relied on each other.

The process of globalization

Basically, the process of globalization could be divided into three moments. The first one is in geography filed. The first emergence of globalization could be dated back to 1492 A.D. according to Butzer (1992), the European encounter discover the American continent. Then after a period of time, Britain colonized India, the world has changed from a large scale to small size. The second moment, Holton (1998) indicated that from 1960s the advent of globalization has more developed. The words "globalization" and "global village" are newly added into the dictionary. Take American foe example, in the post-1945 ear, American constructed a hegemonic order (Ikenberry, 2007). To some extent it could not be denied that the hegemonic order of America pushed the economic globalization within the global condition. The third moment is after the history steps into the 21st century more opportunities are produced to people, so that the people flow cross the countries to seek more comfortable life. However, this might be harmful to some of the countries. For instance, the U.S. was the most opened country in the world before 10th September 2001. On 11th September 2001, the U.S. has been attacked by terrorists. After that America's border was quite closed (Alden, 2008).

The widely discussions of globalization is the global economy. Based on Wills, Samli and Jacobs (1997), the world economy is trending globally. And there are three major economy regions in the world, the European Union, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Pacific Rim (Bennett, 1995). The economic groups indicated that the economy in each country has more closed. Culture and politics globalization are also notable. Take American culture for example, because of the development of technology, the communication within the world is getting easier and easier. Movies which are made by Hollywood are very famous among the countries. Now Hollywood movies are trying to absorb the actors from different countries to gain more global audience (Robertson, 1995). However, politics are more closed with economy. The hegemonic order which constructed by America, the policies which published, most of them are aims to support the development of economy.


What is nation-state?

According to Grossberg (2006), nation-state could be argued to provide some securities for people, such as economic, social and physical. Grossbegy (2006) went further that nation-state also means that the sovereign is under control of its own leadership or people, but not under control of some other external aspects. It could be identified that nation-state is a political community. Within the nation-state, the country has the power to set up its own laws to make sure its territorial autonomy is integrated and political sovereignty is not encroach by some other countries else. The social cohesion within a nation-state has its unique society. Moreover, the people in a nation-state share the same culture, religion language and so on.

The influence of politics on nation-state.

Politics has great influences on nation-state. Politics is an activity and relations. Politics could be seen as the treatment of the relationship between people. Vitally, politics could influent the nation-state economy. Without a steady, health condition of political atmosphere, the economy will not be developed. Take Japan for example; in the years of Meiji era, the government gave the great support for the economy. Therefore, Japan became richer and richer. At that time, the government encouraged people to develop the economy; the policies the government made were more concentrate on economy. Many companies have grown fast. As Ikenberry (2007) indicated after the World War ?, the leaders of America made many efforts to rebuild the trade, investment and currency. Although those politicise helped America to construct is hegemonic order; it could not be denied that those policies made the American economy quickly recovered. Moreover, the governors should fully understand the economy. If the government misunderstand the economy, the politics they made will destroy the economy. For example, if a country import a foreign product at a very low price, even lower than the internal price, many people in the same filed within the nation-state will lost their job.

The influence of economy on nation-state.

The economy influenced the nation-state as well. As the matter of fact that the nation-state economy influent the politics and culture within the nation-state. As Grossberg (2007) indicated that the nation-state has more concentrate on the sovereign and territorial autonomy. However, the economy is the basic construction which could decide if people within the nation-state have a better life or not. Altschull (1997) argued that there are four basic patterns which influence media ownership; one of the four patterns is commercial aspect. From here, it could be seen economy has influenced each part in the nation-state. Economy also influences the national culture. There was an old saying in Chinese culture "only you have enough food, you could have time to pay attention on your behaviours". People have enough food; they could do their jobs well or not resist the government. If a scientist is hungry and no food to eat, he would probably not continue doing his research. If a litterateur does not have enough food to eat, he has to do some physical work, such as cultivation. He would probably not write those literatures. Without the development of economy, the society members have to cultivate themselves, the society, even the nation-state could not be developed.

The influence of culture on nation-state.

Culture could be argued as the spirit of the nation-state. People in the same nation-state share the same history, religion, language and so on. It is said that, for a person, his fortune is decided by his personality. The culture could be compared with the personality of a country. Thus, culture could by the actions and response when a country faced some problems. Culture could affect people's lifestyle (Evans, Jamal, and Foxall, 2009). Take Japan for example; according to Lebra (1974), the spirit of Japanese culture is to respect the person who is perfectly capable. They do not have any sympathizes for the wreakers. Therefore, if one wants to get some respect from other Japanese, the first thing to do is to become stronger. It could not be denied that become strong so as to gain identify of the world. Apart from the correct or incorrect of this spirit in the ethic field of Japan, only concentrate on the development of the nation-state is beneficial to Japanese society. Under this culture, Japan could become more and stronger. Culture could be inherited. Therefore; culture would influence the idea of a nation. A perfect culture passed on generation by generation, the later government will become strong and well developed.

The role of media in the erosion of nation-state.

Media actually helped globalization to shock the national culture, however the globalization of media make the distances of countries shorter and shorter. Firstly, the globalization of media threatens the national culture. As Doyle (2002) indicated that the trends of international media id expansion and the press are controlled by large companies. Sreberny (2000) argued that after American hegemonic order, American values are now stepping into to the hearts and minds of the Third World countries. Take Hollywood movies for example; as it mentioned in previous sections, Hollywood movies have now employed more people with different nationalities to act and produces the movies so as to attract more audiences for outside the U.S. However, the American do not full understand other countries' cultures, there always have some misunderstandings in the movies to make other countries people feel uncomfortable. Moreover, with the development of technology, televisions are widely spread. Satellite television could receive hundreds of channels. Young people could learn another culture from the television; but for their own culture, it might be fade. However, the globalization of media makes the distances of countries shorter and shorter. As mentioned above, the development of technology, more families have television. Through television programs, people could learn more things. Especially after the invention of computer and internet, all the information from each country could be checked from them. This made people's life more comfortable.

Has globalization destroyed nation-state?

Globalization has not destroyed nation-state.

Globalization brings numerous benefits to the world. Some people believed that globalization helped poor people from developing countries out of the poor conditions. Because globalization helped the developing countries opened their markets. Ikenberry (2007) pointed out that after the World War ?, American leaders have promoted to recovered the economy by publishing a series of policies to set up an open system of business, investment and currency. The price of labour in developing countries is much cheaper than developed countries. Therefore, many multinationals have been set up, and provided more job opportunities to the local people. Take China for example, the expending of employment in multinationals have helped many poor Chinese out of poverty. According to Bardham's (2006) research people who live in the rural areas whose daily living cost under $1 per day were decreased from 79% to 27% in China from 1981 to 2001. China is a socialism country, but introduced capitalist business methods in 1987 (Bennett, 1995), and opened its markets to other countries to developed its economy. The capitalist business methods have made great achievements to China. There is another good example from Bangladesh; Barfham (2006) did an interview of a woman call Rahana Chandhuri who works in garment export factories. She said there are many women work in the garment export factories. Although the job is not fair, compare with other people, she still earns much money. A research shows that 86% of women work in the garment industry and their average monthly income are more than their neighbourhoods (Bardham, 2006). Globalization weakens the barriers of geography, but closes the link between different countries. Slagnt, Harben and Pallant (2006) argued that all the countries could share the materials all over the world. People in different countries could buy whatever they want in the local supermarkets and the materials for industry used also could be import and export easily. Fro example, Chinese students who studies could buy Chinese cooking ingredients in Tesco, and in U.K.'s stores, it is not hard to find any products which said made in China. In addition, the development of transportation makes the distance of different countries shorter and shorter. For instance, in the past it might take years to travel from China to Britain. However, now from Beijing to London, it only takes less than 10hours by direct flight. Globalization of economy bring many benefits to the countries within the world, so as the culture. Still take Hollywood movies for example,, many people with different nationalities work together to produce movies suitable for the audience from all over the world.

Globalization has destroyed nation-state.

Globalization also brings many disadvantages to the nation-state. Firstly, for example, after the multinationals enter the developing countries, it could not be denied that human is greedy, in order to make more money, the owners of export and import factories even hired children work for them. Based on Bardham's (2006) research, in Bangladesh, the garment export factories used to hire children to work for them; because children is much cheaper than adult labours. If the owners of those factories employed children work for them they will gain more profits. In 1993, the U.S. has banned on importing products using children labour, the garment dismissed about 50000 children. However, only few of them went back to school, most of them went to stone breaking or even child prostitution. Secondly, the economy of developing countries was helped by large international organisations such as economic groups. Those developing countries need to change something in order to fit those economic groups. It could be easily lost the autonomy of those countries. China enter WTO in 1999, nine hundred laws would need to be changed to adapt the world economy (Nolan, 2001). This might be the biggest challenge to Chinese retailers, for they have using the original laws for a long time, the changing of laws might make some of the small retailers go bankrupt. Moreover, changing laws could make China loose the autonomy in charting the complex path of economy reform. Thirdly, the globalization of culture destroyed local culture. Islam culture is a unique culture, and different from western culture. Turner (2007) argued that the development of global mass communication has influenced the Islam world. It is an extension of westernization, and will weaken the local culture. With the American hegemonic order, the Americanization has appeared many places all over the world. For example, many Chinese students or even adults are huge fans of NBA, a basketball association in America. Those fans even look down upon their own countries basketball association. Another example, McDonalds are in every part of China. Children like this American fast food than Chinese dishes. Fourthly, English is using wildly; people could travel to any other countries whose native language are not English; however, English is still workable there, the same as Chinese. Since the English and Chinese are widely use all over the world, some language whose native speakers are really few will be endangered. When a language disappeared, the culture will soon disappeared, and could only be finding in the books.


This essay is aiming to discuss if globalization has destroyed nation-state or not. This essay was divided into three parts. The first part focuses on globalization. There were many definitions of globalization; they are defined from different aspects. From compare different definitions of globalization given by scholars, then an idea of definition of globalization is being cleared. Globalization is not only a pheromone within the world of politics, economy and culture, but also a process. The earliest emergence of globalization could be dated back to the year of 1492. In recent times the construction of hegemonic order of America pushes the speed of the globalization. The second part was concentrated on nation-state. Globalization is a kind of process; the nation-state is more focus on the political sovereignty and territorial autonomy, social cohesion and culture. Politics, economy and culture all have the influence on nation-state. Media has two sides; it has erosion on nation-state, but also makes the distance of countries shorter. The third part discussed if globalization destroyed nation-state or not. Globalization is a sword with two sides. For one aspect, the globalization made the developing countries out of poverty. People in those countries lived in a more comfortable life. Globalization also weakens the barriers of different countries, and makes the links of different countries. The distances of different countries are getting closer. However, globalization made some destroys of nation-state. For example, in some developing countries the factories owners hired children. Some developing countries have to change their laws to enter the economy groups to make more profit, so that those countries will probably loose their autonomy. The widely spread of American culture and English language will make some local culture and language endangered. As mentioned above, globalization is a sword with two sides, if the nation-state makes the proper polities and protections of culture, the benefits of globalization will make the countries become stronger.


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