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Network Power and Globalization

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 September 2012

David Singh Grewal
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Abstract

Against the celebratory view of globalization comes the charge that globalization represents a kind of empire. But this charge requires a framework in which we can identify the power at work in apparently voluntary processes, such as learning English or joining the World Trade Organization. I advance a concept of “network power” to explain the dynamic that drives many key aspects of globalization. A network is united via a standard, which is the shared norm or convention that enables coordination among its users, such as a language that allows communication among its speakers. A widely used standard is more valuable than a less used one, simply because it governs access to a larger network of people. The idea of network power generalizes this fact to describe globalization as the rise to global dominance of standards that have achieved critical mass in language, high technology, trade, law, and many other areas. It also characterizes the rise to dominance of a successful standard as involving a form of power. While these new standards allow for global coordination, they also eclipse local standards, rendering them unviable to the extent that they prove incompatible with dominant ones. Therefore many of the choices driving globalization are only formally free and, in fact, are constrained because the network power of a dominant standard makes it the only effectively available option. It is this dynamic that generates much of the resentment against globalization and the criticism that it reflects a new imperialism.

Type
Articles
Information
Ethics & International Affairs , Volume 17 , Issue 2 , September 2003 , pp. 89 - 98
Copyright
Copyright © Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs 2003

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References

1 For a review of contemporary works on empire and American hegemony, see Anatol Lieven, “The Empire Strikes Back,”Nation, July 7, 2003; available at http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20030707&s=lieven. The most interesting of these is Michael Hardt and Negri, AntonioEmpire (CambridgeHarvard University Press 2000Google Scholar).

2 The distinction between formal and informal empire was developed in the mid-twentieth century historical studies of the British Empire. See, e.g., Gallagher, JohnRobinson, RonaldThe Imperialism of Free Trade Economic History Review 6 no. 1 (1953) 1–15CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 Weber is famously associated with the argument that domination takes the form of a command by a political superior, the “authoritarian power of command.” He recognized other forms of power, however, and his views on the subject are more nuanced than is often recognized. See Weber, MaxEconomy and Society Roth, GuentherWittich, Claus (Totowa, N.J.Bedminster Press 1968Google Scholar [1921]).

4 The social theories of Antonio Gramsci and Michel Foucault rely on such heterodox accounts of power. Foucault, MichelGordon, ColinPower/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972–1977 New YorkPantheon Books ,1980Google Scholar); Foucault, MichelFaubion, JamesPower (New YorkNew Press 2000Google Scholar); Gramsci, AntonioHoare, QuintinNowell Smith, GeoffreySelections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci New YorkInternational Publishers, 1971Google Scholar); and Femia, Joseph VGramsci's Political Thought: Hegemony, Consciousness, and the Revolutionary Process (OxfordClarendon Press, 1981Google Scholar). See also Lukes, StevenPower: A Radical View LondonMacmillan, 1981Google Scholar).

5 For foundational works in the study of coordination games and the analytic philosophy of conventions, see Schelling, Thomas CThe Strategy of Conflict (CambridgeHarvard University Press, 1960Google Scholar); and Lewis, DavidConvention: A Philosophical Study (CambridgeHarvard University Press, 1969Google Scholar).

6 Network power is explored in greater detail in my forthcoming book Globalization and Network PowerGoogle Scholar.

7 See Nettle, DanielRomaine, SuzanneVanishing Voices: The Extinction of the World's Languages New YorkOxford University Press, 1969Google Scholar), especially ch. 5.

8 See Cohen, G ACohen, G A Are Disadvantaged Workers Who Take Hazardous Jobs Forced to Take Hazardous Jobs?in History, Labor, and Freedom: Themes from Marx (New YorkClarendon Press, 1988 239–54Google Scholar. This idea is interestingly developed in Reddy, Sanjay GThe Freedom to Choose Freely (Harvard University, 1997Google Scholar, unpublished).

9 These agreements are the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, the General Agreement on Trade in Services, and the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights; available at http://www.wto.org/english/docs_e/legal_e/final_e.htm.

10 It is appropriate to consider all the WTO agreements as constituting a single, albeit complex, standard, since for any member state these agreements must all be accepted together for admission to the organizationGoogle Scholar.