Understanding International Relations Essays

Understanding International Relations Essays Understanding International Relations Essay Understanding International Relations Essay Additionally, globalisation has not been experienced everywhere to the same extent. In fact, it is probably only applicable to a small percentage of humankind. For instance, only a small minority of the worlds population can connect to the WWW and most people probably never even made a telephone phone call in their lives. Phenomenon such as electronic mail has been mainly concentrated in the so-called North of the world. It could even be argued that globalisation only applies to the developed world. It is very easy to overestimate the scope of globalisation.In the famous book World On Fire by Amy Chua, she notes that in several countries, there are market-dominant minorities- small ethnic groups which control the wealth and the economy. These include the Chinese in the Philippines, the Indians in east Africa, or whites in South Africa. Too often, free market reforms in these countries simply allow the market-dominant minorities to accumulate even more wealth, widening the poverty gap. Anti-globalisation movement claims that integration leads to growing inequality within countries, with no benefits going to the poor.Some see it as the latest manifestation of Western imperialism and capitalism. The forces that are being globalised are conveniently those found in the Western world. Thus, globalisation creates losers, allowing the more efficient exploitation of less well-off nations, all in the name of openness. Contemporary capitalism, driven by Western countries in Europe and North America, has established rules of trade and business relations that do not serve the interests of the poorer people in the world.Ecologically, globalisation has caused phenomena such as global warming, greenhouse effect, ozone depletion and a decline in Earths biological diversity. Rises in carbon dioxide emissions caused mainly by industry is expected to rise ten per cent every twenty years. This owes largely to globalisation. If it indeed does make lives better, how can one explain for the widespread poverty that still exist today? The per-capita income in the richest twenty countries is 37 times greater than that in the 20 poorest7. Accordingly, globalisation cannot, and does not, serve interests of all countries in the world.To conclude, globalization refers to a process in which the world is in many respects becoming a single place. It has in one way or another encompassed every sphere of social life. It brings people together as well as promoting higher economic growth and lower cost goods and provides much wider opportunities and choices at the same time. The advocates say globalization brings the first real chance of prosperity to the impoverished corners of the world whilst the opponents say globalization is the cause of growing poverty and inequality on the planet.However, globalization definitely is not a panacea. It does not hold the answer to universal equality, prosperity, peace and freedom as some had presumed. Poverty is still rampant in the contemporary globalizing world. Human-induced ecological degradation has never been worse. Numerous major armed conflicts were underway and globalization has not provided a formula for increased democracy either. Yet, it lowers costs, broadens choices, delivers more capital and opens more markets, giving the individual more power to control his or her destiny.As the Asian economies demonstrate, globalization can build economies through trade and investment and spur development in even the worlds poorest nations, but it can also bring economies down overnight. Namely, used properly it can be used to massively reduce poverty worldwide and to reduce global inequality. In this light, it seems that globalization itself is neither good nor bad. However, used properly it can bring about many benefits; used hastily it can seriously damage an economy. It must be seen as something to mold, shape and manage. The reality is that globalization is here to stay whether we like it or not.With 1. 2 billion people still living below the poverty line, the foremost challenge is to encourage greater global cooperation in order to provide g collaboration and coalitions to handle the risks emerging from this connected world. There is a need to balance local forces with international forces. A country must carefully choose a combination of policies that best enables it to take the opportunity while avoiding the pitfalls.BIBLIOGRAPHYBaylis, J. and Smith, S. , (2001) The Globalization of World Politics (3rd edn), Oxford University Press Brown, C. (2001) Understanding International Relations (2nd edn), Palgrave.