Page 70 - Contemporary Political Sociology Globalization Politics and Power

56 Politics in a Small World

According to Giddens, the dynamism of modernity leads inexorably (if
unpredictably, since there are always unintended consequences in social
life) toward the globalization of its institutions: capitalism, industrialism,
and the administrative surveillance and control of the means of violence
which are concentrated in the nation - state. In Giddens ’ s view, it is the
importance of the rise of the nation - state, and now of the nation - state
system of global governance, which is neglected in Marxist accounts. He
agrees with Wallerstein that capitalism is inherently expansionist, but he
argues that the concentration of power in the nation - state enabled the
mobilization of social, economic, and military resources far beyond those
available to pre - modern systems and that this, combined with capitalism
and industrial production, is what has made the expansion of the West
irresistible (Giddens, 1990 : 62 – 3). Giddens sees the nation - state as retain-
ing its importance in globalized modernity insofar as there is no area of
the Earth ’ s surface which is not under the legitimate control of a state
and insofar as states continue to have a successful monopoly over the
means of violence within their territories. However, the modern state has
always been involved in a dialectic in which it trades control over practices
within its territories for more global infl uence by joining with other states.
Working through international agencies, a state may gain control over
military operations, for example, which do not depend solely on the
control it exercises within its borders; at the same time, it loses a degree
of independence of action through that cooperation. In late modernity,
given increased time - space distanciation in all areas of activity and the

resulting flows across territorial borders, there is a tendency toward a
greater degree of cooperation and a consequent diminishing of autonomy
for the nation - state.
As Giddens sees it, then, we are still within modernity, albeit a radical-
ized modernity which has many of the features others attribute to post-
modernity. He sees radicalized modernity as characterized by
disenchantment with teleological models of history involving the progress
of some intrinsic human capacity or activity, such as reason or labor, and
also by the dissolution of foundationalism in which the absolute and
fundamental grounds for truth or morality are sought in reasoned refl ec-
tion (Giddens, 1990 ).
Giddens has developed one of the most pertinent accounts of cultural
politics in relation to globalization. He compares the “ emancipatory poli-
tics ” of modernity, including Marxism, liberalism, and conservatism, with
the “ life politics ” of the contemporary period of late modernity in which
both the political end, and the means, are the transformation of the self.
He gives rather a sketchy account of emancipatory politics as concerned