Читать книгу Sociology - Anthony Giddens - Страница 201

Second-wave arguments are rooted in the sceptical view that globalization is overstated. Most globalization theories, say sceptics, amount to regulatory systems that stepped in as ‘lender-of-last-resort’ to protect their own economies. National governments remain key players because they are involved in regulating and coordinating economic activity, and some are driving through trade agreements and policies to promote economic liberalization.

Sceptics agree that there may be more contact between countries than in previous eras, but there is insufficient integration to constitute a single, global economy. This is because the bulk of trade occurs within just three regional groups – Europe, Japan/East Asia and North America – rather than in a genuinely global context. The countries of the European Union, for example, trade predominantly among themselves, and the same is true of the other regional groups, thereby invalidating the concept of a global economy (Hirst 1997).

As a result, many sceptics focus on processes of regionalization within the world economy, including the emergence of regional financial and trading blocs. Indeed, the growth of regionalization is evidence that the world economy has become less rather than more integrated (Boyer and Drache 1996; Hirst et al. 2009). Compared with the patterns of trade that prevailed a century ago, the world economy is actually less global in its geographical scope and more concentrated in intense pockets of activity. In this sense, hyperglobalizers are just misreading the historical evidence.