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INTERNATIONALISATION

INTERNATIONALISATION

Activities that occur between nation-states are international. Inter-
nationalisation suggests an increasing occurrence of such activities, but
unlike globalisation, it does not imply that the nation-states are
losing their control or their influence over flows of information and
financial capital. Rather, the existence and autonomy of nation-states
seem assured by the fact that international processes are only made
possible by the complicity and consent of national governments.
Paul Hirst disputes that globalisation is taking place. For him,
globalisation assumes that economic adjustments ‘are not thought to
be the subject of policy by public bodies or authorities, but are a
consequence of ‘‘unorganised’’ or ‘‘spontaneous’’ market forces’
(Hirst, 1996: 2). However, economic adjustments do not occur
automatically but as the result of government policy, domestic
expenditure and changes in political-economic power. ‘The world-
wide international economy has been determined in its structure and
the distribution of power within it by the major nation states’ (Hirst,
1996: 3).
Paul Krugman, in his book Pop Internationalism, also warns against
overstating the advent of globalisation by pointing to historical
international relations. Prior to World War I, Britain’s overseas
investments exceeded its domestic stock capital, ‘a record no major
country has ever come closer to matching since’ (1977: 207).
Krugman also points to the Statue of Liberty as an important reminder
that migration was once welcomed and encouraged by nation-states
that are nowimplementing oppressive policies in order to close their
borders to refugees.
For David Held, Hirst’s Globalisation in Question (1996) offered
useful and important dismantling of the rhetoric of globalisation and
its deployment in making the processes of neo-liberalism seem
inevitable and indisputable. However, he asserts that the problems
associated with globalisation, such as environmental and economic
interdependency, cannot be solved at the level of the nation-states.
Asserting that little has changed in international political structures
does not offer newways forward (Held, 2002). It also ignores the
popular uptake of international and global traffic, which national
governments certainly seem minded to manage as best they can, but
which they clearly do not control.

See also: Anti-globalisation, Globalisation, New economy

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