Director of Publications at the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization Nayan Chanda, spoke Tuesday in a lecture entitled, “The Challenge of Global Governance: from Customs to Quarantine.” Chanda traced the progress of globalization using historical examples and dispelled the myth that globalization is a modern phenomenon.
“Take for example, coffee,” Chanda said. “The aroma of coffee is the aroma of globalization. It might come from Colombia or from Brazil, but it came originally from Yemen in the 17th century.”
Importantly, Chanda described how the term “globalization” was only coined in 1960, yet it has already become a cliché. The Economist magazine has even labeled it “the most abused word in the 21st century.”
Outlining globalization’s historical origins, Chanda described the four main actors who pioneered and continue to advance the process: traders, preachers, soldiers, and adventurers. Different motivations drive each: the trader seeks prosperity, the adventurer seeks the unknown, the preacher proselytizes, and the soldier seeks new territories. Chanda commented that these actors are still relevant in the modern world.
“You can see a parallel between Alexander the Great and George W. Bush,” Chanda said. “The two men are connected by their desire to establish a global hegemony.”
According to Chanda, four aspects challenge global governance: the domestic responsibility of the nation-state, the growing influence of corporations in political processes, international law’s threat to state sovereignty, and finally the unfamiliarity with which most people approach the interconnected and interdependent “global village.”
“The concept is very foreign,” Chanda said. “Each and every action has repercussions on another person in another place. In this vastly interconnected world, individual responsibility is much more than we realized.”
According to Chanda, while globalization has operated throughout time, only recently has it become a scapegoat for societal problems.
“It has become in vogue to use globalization to account for all the ills in the world,” Chanda said.
He offered an explanation for this tendency to condemn globalization, which was to increase global awareness as a result of the internationalization of media.
“Image has a huge impact on people’s awareness,” Chanda said. “When the World Trade Center fell, the whole world knew about it almost immediately.”
At the same time, Chanda noted that global awareness has led to a demand for global governance to regulate the spreading process. Despite the increasing global efforts to create transnational governing bodies, Chanda argued it would take some time before a coherent global governance could come into existence, although he remained optimistic for the future.
“The International Peacekeeping force has worked in many places,” Chanda said, offering Cambodia as an example. He also pointed out the success of the Ozone Treaty in cutting back the production and emission of chloroflorocarbons across the world.
“But global governance will not work unless the authority of each state is willing to surrender part of the sovereignty to [these] agents of global governance,” he said.
Chanda was also unfazed by the homogenization effect of globalization on culture. Instead, he maintained that information technology, especially the Internet, allows a unique preservation of culture.
“People are afraid to lose their own culture and would try to maintain their roots,” he said.
Chanda disagreed with the common notion that globalization is inevitable.
“Inevitable is not the word, because it seems to convey the idea that globalization is not driven by human motive,” he said. “Globalization is the result of human desire for better and greater things.”
Ernesto Rodriguez ’08, a history major who attended the lecture, praised Chanda for his insight into the history of globalization.
“I like his reference into the historical evidence that shaped the international terrain, the figures and discoveries that have allowed the expansion of globalization process,” Rodriguez said.
Chanda’s visit was sponsored by the Project on Global Change, a University movement which holds seminars bringing together Wesleyan faculty from different disciplines to explore themes related to global change, particularly issues pertaining to globalization, democracy, armed conflict, and international crisis.
Leave a Reply