Transcript Globalisation and European Political Identities

Globalisation and European
Political Identities
Alistair Cole
Globalisation as a material reality?
• Globalisation is, for the most part, used to signify a
series of objective material shifts bound up with the
increasing mobility of capital, the trans-nationalisation of
production processes, shifting patterns of trade,
technological changes…that all facilitate world-wide
economic interaction.
• The concept is used to refer to the spread of neo-liberal
policy norms, the retreat from Keynesian welfare state
and social democracy.
• The prevailing interpretation sees globalization as either
a structural fact or a set of policy preferences.
• globalization makes powerful truth claims, requiring neoliberal responses.
• There is dispute about the extent of novelty of
globalization and the extent to which it is actually
occurring. International exchange has always occurred;
the terms of international trade do not offer equal
opportunities to all nations or continents.
Globalisation and
Europeanization
• The EU literature presents globalization in terms of being an
external shock, a change from outside. Outside changes have
strengthened the role of the EU as a stable governance system.
There are a number of versions of this external argument:
• The neo-functionalist one, espoused by Sandholtz and Zysman
(1989) whereby external economic change affected the preferences
of business actors, who lobbied political authorities for the Single
market and currency.
• Other accounts focus on the impact on national states (Schmidt) and
the loss of economic sovereignty brought about by the integration in
processes of global governance
• Others focus on the impact of global change on domestic
constituencies (Moravscik, Milner).
• Each of these sees rather mechanical effects. Europeanisation then
emerges as a west European effort to develop policies to cope with
the anarchy of the globe.
Globalisation as discourse
Too much emphasis given to the empirical verifiability of globalisation,
not enough to the saliency of globalization in contemporary policy
processes. Globalisation is interesting in its ideational dimensions,
how it structures political discourse.
• WE can not simply treat globalization as a matter of exogenous
change. The social construction of globalization determines whether
it will be contested or embraced.
• Globalisation as discourse can signify the irresistible triumph of neoliberal solutions. It can also be used to delimit the range of available
strategic opportunities.
• There is an widely diffused belief in the spread of globalization as
economic liberalization across the globe. In the hands of politicians,
economic globalization has become distorted and vulgarized, in the
sense of there is no alternative (Blair and new Labour)
• globalisation has adopted a harder edge. For Leon Brittan, for
example, globalization represented European level regulatory
competence and neo-liberal policy options. This version sees
globalization as an opportunity, rather than a threat.
• But there is a large degree of dispute about what globalization
requires; there is normative dissonance.
Adapting to globalisation: the UK
• British Political discourse has framed globalisation as
opportunity. Adapting to globalisation is inevitable and
facilitates shifts from a manufacturing to a service and
financial based economy
• Adapting to globalisation; the advantage of setting a
superior order to that of the European Union, recalling
the imperative of global governance (UN, WTO, etc)
• Globalisation a useful discursive tool to legitimise
domestic change and to attract footloose capital (nonDoms)
• Globalisation: primarily an economic framing of what the
EU is for and its limitations.
Managed globalisation: the case of
France
• French political elites from left and right have argued in
favour of a managed globalisation (mondialisation
maitrisée).
• One source close to the Villepin government defined
mondialisation maitrisée as a demand for rules for
international and European economic governance,
tougher regulation of the environment, a defense of the
cultural exception and support for linguistic diversity.
• Gordon and Meunier (2001) identify the core features
managed globalisation as: maintaining the state, building
a stronger Europe, managing international trade and
creating new rules for governing the international
system.
Managing Globalisation
as an argument for European integration
• Managed globalisation relies above all upon a Europe that is strong
enough to regulate international capitalism, and whose social model
is an inspiration to others.
• By its nature, globalisation produces external turbulence and
uncertainty, hence justifies the argument for European consolidation.
• As the largest single market in the world, the EU matters and ought
to use its weight accordingly. Europe must act as a model for the
rest of the world, in matters of social and environmental protection,
labour regulations and democratic values.
• Europe has a duty to protect its nations, to prevent social dumping,
to demonstrate solidarity in WTO and other arena..
Trade policy
• Managed globalisation also implies a tightly steered
trade policy that defends European interests in
international trade negotiations (Kresl and Gallais, 2002).
France fought hard during the 1986-1993 Uruguay GATT
round to keep services, intellectual property and culture
off the international trade agenda (Webber, 1998, 1999).
• Upon France’s insistence, the Treaty of Nice then
enshrined the principle of the cultural exception in EU
law. France has thus far been able to resist strong
pressure from the Commission to introduce QMV to
trade in services and intellectual property issues.
WTO
• France was a strong supporter of creating the World
Trade Organisation in 1995 as a tougher international
trade organisation with binding arbitration mechanisms.
France has consistently tried to broaden the scope of
trade negotiations to include areas of workers rights, the
environment, health and food safety.
• Its stance on agriculture and the unconditional defense
of farm subsidies brought French governments into
conflict with EU trade Commissioners during the on-off
Doha round launched in 2001
• European divisions were in part behind the failure of the
most recent Geneva Talks in July 2008 to revive Doha.
Fortress Europe?
• Quite apart from agriculture, France tends to align with
the more protectionist wing of the EU, especially in
relation to China. Thus, when in 2006 the end of the
multi-fibre agreement meant free flowing Chinese textiles
imports into Europe, France and Italy headed the
resistance and pressurised the Commission into
renegotiating a bilateral agreement with China.
• The French position towards the Doha round (2001- )
produced many acerbic exchanges with EU trade
Commissioner Mandelson, suspected of wanting to sell
short European positions in agriculture against uncertain
gains in opening goods and services on behalf of
developing countries.
• Economic globalisation at Doha, versus WSF
A Rules-based global governance
• A rules-based approach to global governance?
• In 1999, France argued that NATO military intervention in Kosovo
required a UN mandate.
• In 2003, foreign minister de Villepin spectacularly confronted
Washington in the UN General Assembly, arguing a second UN
resolution was essential in international law to allow the US-led
coalition to invade Irak.
• French governors have made a powerful claim for recognizing the
role of international organisations as the appropriate institutions for
managing global governance, whether in foreign policy,
international trade, environmental standards, food safely or
international justice.
• Arguing for binding multilateral structures is an obvious challenge to
the US, which has ratified neither the Kyoto convention on climate
change, nor the International Crimes tribunal. But it resonates well
with French public opinion, in Brussels and within the broader
international community.
European Identity and globalisation
• Problem of ‘methodological individualism’.
• What is identity and how do we measure
it?
• What do we do when we ask questions
about globalisation? Can we expect a
coherent response/
• European Values survey and
Eurobarometer
Europeanisation of identities?
• Accession to the EU: does this produce a
Europeanisation of identities?
• French and Dutch referendums. What
were these measuring?
• Multiple identities
• Permissive consensus
• Conceptions of globalisation. How
constructed? Global governance? Or
delocalisations?
European political identity and
globalisation
• The EU itself acts as a legal order that embeds democratic
institutions in its member-states – however much one might criticise
the democratic deficit within the EU itself.
• The new accession states of 2004 and 2007 countries had each to
meet strict criteria – the Copenhagen criteria of 1993 – to be able to
join in the European Union.
• This provides a very good example of diffusion: of the imposition of
norms of good practice and respect for human rights on members
wanting to join the club.
• EU a strongly normative agenda, as well as a market.
• Values of human rights, good governance, anti-corruption,
democracy, diversity… citizenship.
• Framing as democracy – soutehrn Europe, CEE – or as markets
and regulatory stability – UK, nordic states..
A Christian Club?
• But deeper issues of identity: such as
religion, cause conflict/division at the
European level.
• Turkey, Romania, Bulgarian all pose
specific contemporary challenges
• UK accession in 1973: brought in a
protestant member.