3. WHAT WAS THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE SOVIET
COLLAPSE FOR EUROPEAN POLITICS?
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4. WHAT MAKES GLOBALIZATION SUCH A
CONTROVERSIAL TOPIC AT THE BEGINNING OF THE 21ST
CENTURY?
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5. INTRODUCTION
• An age of globalization
• What changes have accelerated the free flow of money, people, products and
ideas?
• Postcolonial politics: the varied trajectories of former colonies—stability or
anarchy?
• What is the role of Middle Eastern politics in contemporary global affairs?
• Definitions and characteristics
• The Internet as stunning transformation of global communications and
knowledge
• New possibilities and new vulnerabilities
6. INTRODUCTION
• Definitions and characteristics
• Integration
• New political, social, economic, and cultural global networks
• New technologies, new economic imperatives, changing laws
• Information crosses national boundaries
7. INTRODUCTION
• Definitions and characteristics
• Global exchange can be independent of national control
• Economics
• Reorganization of economic enterprises from banking and commerce to
manufacturing
• International Monetary Fund (IMF)
• The International Criminal Court
• New forms of politics
8. INTRODUCTION
• The effects of globalization
• Did not necessarily produce peace, equality, or homogeneity
• No uniform, leveling process
• Obstacles and resistance
• New kinds of cultural blending, new forms of sociability
• The new stage of globalization
9. LIQUID MODERNITY? THE FLOW OF
MONEY, IDEAS, AND PEOPLES
• Money
• A transformation of the world’s economy
• Rapid integration of markets since the 1970s
• 1971: U.S. abandoned postwar gold standard
• The dollar as keystone of international monetary system
• Formal regulations on currencies, international banking and lending among countries
faded away
• Replacement: International Monetary Fund and World Bank: informal networks of
arrangements managed autonomously by private lenders and their political backers in
Western countries led by the U.S.
• Overturning economic agreements made since World War II
• Neo-liberalism: Capitalism as a political ideology not an economic ideology
• Free markets; profit incentive and deficit reduction as replacing government by consent of the
governed; freedom of speech; assembly and religion?
• Exponential growth in some countries vs. disastrous debt in other countries
• Creditors: former colonial powers: U.S>; Great Britain; France; Germany
• Debtors: former colonies in Africa; Asia; Central and South America
10. LIQUID MODERNITY? THE FLOW OF
MONEY, IDEAS, AND PEOPLES
• Money
• A network of local, national, and regional economies
• Export trade flourished
• Technological advances and high technology
• More industrial jobs in the postcolonial world
• Exchange and use of goods became more complex
• Led to a broader interchange of cultures
11. LIQUID MODERNITY? THE FLOW OF
MONEY, IDEAS, AND PEOPLES
• Ideas
• Widespread flow of information
• New commercial and cultural importance of information itself
• Proliferation of devices to create, store, and share information
• The personal computer
• New cultural and political settings
• The “global village”
12. LIQUID MODERNITY? THE FLOW OF
MONEY, IDEAS, AND PEOPLES
• Ideas
• The Internet
• Entrepreneurs with utopian ambitions
• Publishing all kinds of information quickly and easily
• Grass-roots activism
• Political struggles
• Entertainment
• Producing entertainment as well as the technology to enjoy entertainment
14. LIQUID MODERNITY? THE FLOW OF
MONEY, IDEAS, AND PEOPLES
• Demographics and global health
• Public health and medicine
• New threats and new treatments
• Exposure to epidemic diseases—a new reality of globalization
• Increased cultural interaction
• Exposure of new ecosystems to human development
• Speed of intercontinental transportation
15. LIQUID MODERNITY? THE FLOW OF
MONEY, IDEAS, AND PEOPLES
• Demographics and global health
• Public health and medicine
• Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) first appeared at the end of the 1970s
• Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) appeared in 2003
16. LIQUID MODERNITY? THE FLOW OF
MONEY, IDEAS, AND PEOPLES
• Peoples
• Free flow of labor as central aspect of globalization
• After 1945, a widespread migration of peoples
• Multiculturalism
• New blends of music, food, language, and other forms of popular culture
• Raised tense questions of citizenship
• Effects
• Xenophobic backlash and bigotry
17. AFTER EMPIRE: POSTCOLONIAL
POLITICS IN THE GLOBAL AGE
• Postcolonial relationships
• Former colonies gained independence and new kinds of cultural and political
authority
• “Postcolonial”—underlines the fact that colonialism’s legacies outlasted
independence
• Varied results
18. LIQUID MODERNITY? THE FLOW OF
MONEY, IDEAS, AND PEOPLES
• Ideas
• Bill Gates and Microsoft
• Corporate headquarters remained in the West
An Afghan Girl Weeds a Poppy Field, 2004
19. AFTER EMPIRE: POSTCOLONIAL
POLITICS IN THE GLOBAL AGE
• Emancipation and ethnic conflict in Africa
• South Africa
• The politics of apartheid sponsored by the white minority government
• Nelson Mandela led the African National Congress (ANC)
• Intense repression and violent conflict
20. AFTER EMPIRE: POSTCOLONIAL
POLITICS IN THE GLOBAL AGE
• Emancipation and ethnic conflict in Africa
• South Africa
• Mandela was released from
prison in 1990
• Resumed leadership of the ANC
• Turned toward renewed public
demonstrations and negotiation
Nelson Mandela Votes in South Africa’s First
Democratic Elections, 1994 (right)
21. AFTER EMPIRE: POSTCOLONIAL
POLITICS IN THE GLOBAL AGE
• Emancipation and ethnic conflict in Africa
• South Africa
• F. W. de Klerk succeeded Pieter Botha
• De Klerk and Mandela began direct talks to establish majority rule in March 1992
• Mandela chosen as country’s first black president in May 1994
• Defused the climate of organized racial violence
• Popular among blacks and whites
• A living symbol of a new political culture
22. AFTER EMPIRE: POSTCOLONIAL
POLITICS IN THE GLOBAL AGE
• Emancipation and ethnic conflict in Africa
• Rwanda
• Conflict between Hutu and Tutsi populations
• Highly organized campaign of genocide directed at the Tutsi
• Eight hundred thousand dead in a matter of weeks
23. AFTER EMPIRE: POSTCOLONIAL
POLITICS IN THE GLOBAL AGE
• Emancipation and ethnic conflict in Africa
• Rwanda
• International pressure
• Forced those who had participated in the genocide to flee to Zaire
• Became hired mercenaries in a many-sided civil war
• Public services, normal trade, and basic health collapsed in Zaire
24. AFTER EMPIRE: POSTCOLONIAL
POLITICS IN THE GLOBAL AGE
• Economic power on the Pacific rim
• East Asia as a center of industrial and manufacturing production
• China
• World’s leading heavy-industrial producer by 2000
• State-owned companies produced cheaply and in bulk for sale in the United States
and Europe
• Established commercial zones around Shanghai
• Cold War rhetoric in the West against Communist China dissolves; hard questions
remain
• Did “Capitalism” displace “Democracy” as a fundamental value of western nations?
• Was Democracy ever a fundamental value of western nations?
26. AFTER EMPIRE: POSTCOLONIAL
POLITICS IN THE GLOBAL AGE
• Economic power on the Pacific rim
• The “Tigers”
• Japan led the way—an “economic miracle”
• Most influential model of success
• South Korea and Taiwan
• Treated prosperity as a fundamental patriotic duty
• Malaysia and Indonesia
• Parlayed natural resources and expansive local labor pools into industrial investment
28. AFTER EMPIRE: POSTCOLONIAL
POLITICS IN THE GLOBAL AGE
• Economic power on the Pacific rim
• Boom and bust
• 1990s showed enormous slowdown in growth and near collapse of several currencies
• Japan: rising production costs, overvalued stocks, rampant speculation in real estate
markets
• Indonesia
• Inflation and unemployment
• Reignited sharp ethnic conflicts
29. ISRAEL, OIL & POLITICAL ISLAM
IN THE MIDDLE EAST
• The Middle East as crossroad
• Western military, political, and economic interests
• Deep-seated regional conflicts and transnational Islamic politics
30. ISRAEL, OIL & POLITICAL ISLAM
IN THE MIDDLE EAST
• The Arab-Israeli conflict
• National aspirations of Jewish immigrants clash with anticolonial nationalist pan-
Arabists
• Holocaust survivors and allies argued that a Jewish state in Israel was the only means
to protect Jews from another genocide
• Arab states argued that a “Jewish” state that gave preferential treatment to Israeli
Jews over Palestinians is racist
• American-mediated peace efforts in the late 1970s, Soviet leaders remained
neutral but supportive
• Anwar Sadat (1918–1981) argued coexistence with rather than destruction of
Israel
32. ISRAEL, OIL & POLITICAL ISLAM
IN THE MIDDLE EAST
• The Arab-Israeli conflict
• Sadat and Carter broker a peace with Israel’s Menachem Begin (1913–1992)
• Israel and Palestinian Arabs
• A blend of ethnic and religious nationalism on both sides
• Younger Palestinians turned to the PLO and radical Islam
33. ISRAEL, OIL & POLITICAL ISLAM
IN THE MIDDLE EAST
• The Arab-Israeli conflict
• Intifada (“throwing off” or uprising)
• Fights escalated into cycles of Palestinian terrorism
• International peace brokering
• Yasser Arafat
• Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin (1922–1995)
• The second intifada
34. ISRAEL, OIL & POLITICAL ISLAM
IN THE MIDDLE EAST
• Oil, power, and economics
• Postwar demand for oil skyrocketed
• Automobiles and plastics
• Needs, desires, and profits
• Drew Western corporations and governments to the oil-rich states of the Middle East
35. ISRAEL, OIL & POLITICAL ISLAM
IN THE MIDDLE EAST
• Oil, power, and economics
• Oil, a fundamental tool in new struggles over political power
• Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC)
• Founded in 1960
• Arab, African, and Latin American nations
36. ISRAEL, OIL & POLITICAL ISLAM
IN THE MIDDLE EAST
• Oil, power, and economics
• Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC)
• Regulating production and pricing of crude oil
• Militant politics of some OPEC leaders wanted to use oil as a weapon against the West
• 1973 oil embargo
37. ISRAEL, OIL & POLITICAL ISLAM
IN THE MIDDLE EAST
• Oil, power, and economics
• The West looks East
• Treated Middle Eastern oil regions as vital strategic center of gravity
• Constant great-power diplomacy
• The West always ready to intervene
38. ISRAEL, OIL & POLITICAL ISLAM
IN THE MIDDLE EAST
• Oil, power, and economics
• Growing energy demands of postcolonial nations
• China and India
• Violent conflict inside Middle Eastern oil-producing states
• Haves and have-nots
• Continued official corruption
• New wave of radical politics
39. ISRAEL, OIL & POLITICAL ISLAM
IN THE MIDDLE EAST
• The Rise of Political Islam
• North Africa and the Middle East
• Shared characteristics of “kleptocracies”
• Corrupt state agencies
• Cronyism based on ethnic or family kinship
• Decaying public services
• Criticism of Nasser’s Egypt
• Powerful new political movement in revolt against foreign influence and corruption
• Denounced Egypt’s government as greedy, brutal, and corrupt
40. ISRAEL, OIL & POLITICAL ISLAM
IN THE MIDDLE EAST
• The Rise of Political Islam
• The roots of the Arab world’s moral failure: centuries of colonial contact with the
West
• Sayyid Qutb (1906–1966)
• Arrested several times by Egyptian authorities, ultimately executed
• Ruling Arab elites were at fault
• Frayed local and family bonds
• Abandoned government’s responsibility for charity and stability
41. ISRAEL, OIL & POLITICAL ISLAM
IN THE MIDDLE EAST
• The Rise of Political Islam
• Sayid Qutb (1906–1966)
• Arab elites lived in the pockets of Western imperial and corporate powers
• Caused cultural impurity
• Eroded authentic Muslim faith
• Arab societies should reject all Western political and cultural ideas
• Building a new world on conservative Islamic government
42. ISRAEL, OIL & POLITICAL ISLAM
IN THE MIDDLE EAST
• The Rise of Political Islam
• Radical Islam
• Combined popular anger, opposition to Western forces, and an idealized vision of
the past
• The Muslim Brotherhood
• Put Qutb’s policies into practice
• Secretive society rooted in anticolonial politics, charity, and fundamentalist Islam
• More liberal Islamists were fragmented and easier to silence
44. ISRAEL, OIL & POLITICAL ISLAM
IN THE MIDDLE EAST
• Iran’s Islamic revolution
• An example of modernization gone sour
• Shah Reza Pahlavi—installed by Britain and the United States in 1953
• Received oil contracts, weapons, and development aid
• Thousands of Westerners introduced foreign influences
• New economic and political alternatives
45. ISRAEL, OIL & POLITICAL ISLAM
IN THE MIDDLE EAST
• Iran’s Islamic revolution
• Shah Reza Pahlavi—installed by Britain and the United States in 1953
• The shah kept these alternatives out of reach
• Denied democratic representation to middle-class Iranian workers and students
• Governed through a small aristocracy divided by religious infighting
• Secret police and campaign of repression
46. ISRAEL, OIL & POLITICAL ISLAM
IN THE MIDDLE EAST
• Iran’s Islamic revolution
• Shah Reza Pahlavi—installed by Britain and the United States in 1953
• Supported by Richard Nixon as a strategic ally
• Retired from public life in 1979 and his provisional government collapsed
47. ISRAEL, OIL & POLITICAL ISLAM
IN THE MIDDLE EAST
• Iran’s Islamic revolution
• Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini
• Returned from exile in France
• Supported by nation’s unemployed, deeply religious university students
• Joined by radical Islamists
48. ISRAEL, OIL & POLITICAL ISLAM
IN THE MIDDLE EAST
• Iran’s Islamic revolution
• Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini
• The new regime
• Limited economic and political populism
• Strict constructions of Islamic law
• Restrictions on women’s public life
• Prohibition of ideas linked to Western influence
• Attacked Sunni religious establishment and atheistic Soviet communists
• Attacked Israel and the United States
• Teheran and the hostage crisis
49. ISRAEL, OIL & POLITICAL ISLAM
IN THE MIDDLE EAST
• Iran, Iraq, and unintended consequences of the Cold War
• Iran-Iraq War (1980–1988)
• Iraq attacked Iran over control of oil fields
• Iran defeated—left Iranian clerics more entrenched at home
• Used oil reserves to back grass-roots radicals in Lebanon
• Engaged in anti-Western terrorism
50. ISRAEL, OIL & POLITICAL ISLAM
IN THE MIDDLE EAST
• Iran, Iraq, and unintended consequences of the Cold War
• Iran-Iraq War (1980–1988)
• Threats to Iranian regime came from within
• New generations of young students and disenfranchised service workers
51. ISRAEL, OIL & POLITICAL ISLAM
IN THE MIDDLE EAST
• Iran, Iraq, and unintended consequences of the Cold War
• Iraq as the new problem for the West
• France, Saudi Arabia, the Soviet Union, and the United States supported Iraq in 1980
• Coalition patronage supported the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein
• Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990
• Coalition forces conducted a six-week air campaign and then a ground war
• Iraq forced out of Kuwait
52. ISRAEL, OIL & POLITICAL ISLAM
IN THE MIDDLE EAST
• Iran, Iraq, and unintended consequences of the Cold War
• Iraq as the new problem for the West
• Results of the Gulf War
• Encouraged closeness between coalition forces
• Encouraged anti-American radicals angry at a new Western presence
53. ISRAEL, OIL & POLITICAL ISLAM
IN THE MIDDLE EAST
• Iran, Iraq, and unintended consequences of the Cold War
• Afghanistan
• Socialist government of Afghanistan turned against its Soviet patrons in 1979
• Moscow overthrew the Afghan president and installed a pro-Soviet faction
• Soviets at war with militant Islamists (mujahidin)
54. ISRAEL, OIL & POLITICAL ISLAM
IN THE MIDDLE EAST
• Iran, Iraq, and unintended consequences of the Cold War
• Afghanistan
• Conflict became a holy war
• Mujahidin assisted by advanced weapons and training given by Western powers
• Soviets withdrew in 1989
• Hard-line Islamic factions took over the country
55. WAR & TERRORISM IN
THE 21ST CENTURY
• Terrorist organizations
• 1960s: Organized terrorist tactics as a part of political conflict
• Middle East, Europe, and Latin America
• Specific goals
• Ethnic separatism
• Establishment of revolutionary governments
56. WAR & TERRORISM IN
THE 21ST CENTURY
• Terrorist organizations
• 1980s and 1990s: A new brand of terrorist organization
• Apocalyptic groups called for decisive, world-ending conflict
• Eliminating enemies and martyrdom
• Origins
• Groups from social dislocations of the postwar boom
• Radical religion
• Divorced themselves from local crises
57. WAR & TERRORISM IN
THE 21ST CENTURY
• Al-Qaeda
• Radical Islamist umbrella organization
• Created by leaders of the foreign mujahidin who fought against the Soviets in
Afghanistan
• Osama bin Laden (1957–2011): official leader and financial supporter
• Ayman al-Zawahri (b. 1951): linked directly to Sayyid Qutb
58. WAR & TERRORISM IN
THE 21ST CENTURY
• Al-Qaeda
• Organized broad networks of self-contained terrorist cells around the world
• Goals
• Did not seek territory or to change governments of specific states
• To destroy Israel and America and European and other non-Islamic systems of
government
• To create an Islamic community held together by faith alone
59. WAR & TERRORISM IN
THE 21ST CENTURY
• Al-Qaeda
• Terrorist attacks on American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998
• September 11, 2001
• Hijacked airliners hit the Pentagon, leveled the World Trade Center in New York
• Fourth plane crashed in Pennsylvania
• A new brand of terror
• Deeply indebted to globalization
• Extreme, opportunistic violence of marginal groups
61. WAR & TERRORISM IN
THE 21ST CENTURY
• Al-Qaeda
• United States’ response
• Attacked Afghanistan, central haven for al-Qaeda
• Routed Taliban forces
• Did not capture bin Laden
• Rebuilding Afghanistan
• Does nation building work unless it comes from within?
62. WAR & TERRORISM IN
THE 21ST CENTURY
• Al-Qaeda
• New arms race
• Israel: widely believed to have nuclear weapons but this has never been confirmed
• India and Pakistan
• North Korea
• Iran: does not yet have nuclear weapons but is attempting to develop nuclear
energy capabilities. Israel and other western nations including the U.S. insist on
international inspections and monitoring
• Weapons of Mass Destruction
• Biological
• Chemical
• Nuclear
63. WAR & TERRORISM IN
THE 21ST CENTURY
• Al-Qaeda
• America-led invasion of Iraq (2003)
• Hussein deposed and captured in December 2003
• No WMD found
• United States inherited complex reconstruction of broken state
64. HUMAN RIGHTS
• Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948)
• No state should have absolute power over its citizens
• Defined the crime of genocide
• Established social rights (education, work, standard of living)
65. HUMAN RIGHTS
• Citizenship, rights, and law
• International courts and organizations
• The globalization of judicial power
• Human rights and the Western political tradition
66. EUROPE AND THE UNITED STATES IN
THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
• Limits of political and economic integration
• Russians unlikely to support former satellite states aligning to the West
• Resistance to admitting Turkey to European Union
• Financial Meltdown: 2007–2010
• Rethinking of central ideas of neoliberalism
• Global failure of the largest financial institutions
• Do corporate entities need oversight by the state?
• Are profit motive and free market sufficient to safeguard individual liberties?
• Outsourcing of governmental functions to private corporations
• Military contractors not governed by the Geneva Convention or Military Code of Justice
• For-profit prisons:--as private entities are the directors and executives required to act in
accordance with Constitutional safeguards on individual liberty?
67. CONCLUSION
• Globalization: challenges and opportunities
• Triumph of global free market capitalism?
• Impact of political instability and economic crises
• Significance of interconnected global economy
68. CONCLUSION
• Globalization: challenges and opportunities
• Effect of terrorism on Western governments
• Consequences of “uncertainty” in setting national priorities
• Climate Change
• Immigration
• How limited should government be?
• When government is ineffective in meeting the needs of its citizens, does history
demonstrate that instability is the result?
• Pakistan, Guatemala, Honduras, Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan
• Are these countries examples of too much government or too little government?
• Rise of authoritarianism?
• Competing perspectives and polarization of citizens along social, religious,
economic and ethnic divides
Editor's Notes
What was the significance of the Soviet collapse for European politics?
What makes globalization such a controversial topic at the beginning of the 21st century?
Liquid Modernity? The Flow of Money, Ideas, and People
The twentieth century has often been called the century of total war. It has certainly been a century that has witnessed the wholesale slaughter of millions of people. Some historians place the number of people who died in the twentieth century as a result of war, famine, disease, and political or religious repression at more than 180 million. Only in the twentieth century, thanks to improved technology and communication, could we have been able to accomplish such a “feat” of madness. Ethnic and religious conflicts have shown no signs of abating any time soon, and certain areas of the globe—specifically the Middle East—continue to be volatile hot spots. Although decolonization resulted in the collapse of the empires of the Great Powers, it has also unleashed a powerful global reaction that has proven difficult to completely grasp.
After Empire: Postcolonial Politics in the Global Era
Together with decolonization came the concept of globalization. In general, globalization means the integration of new political, social, economic, and cultural global networks that ultimately involve new technologies, new economic imperatives, and changing laws. Personal computers, the Internet, and new networks of shared information have given the world the power to create, store, and distribute information on a massive scale. Globalization also means that goods and ideas can be exchanged independently of a single nation’s control; that is, globalization has meant the blending or blurring of national boundaries. But globalization is not a uniform, leveling process, nor does it necessarily produce peace, equality, or homogeneity.
Violence beyond Bounds: War and Terrorism in the Twenty-First Century
The rise of international terrorist cells backed by political and religious fundamentalists is evidence that our “global village” has destroyed as much as it has brought together various peoples of the world. The events of September 11, 2001, have forever altered the manner in which nations understand, and respond to, terrorist threats. One of the most significant consequences of international terrorism is the rise of uncertainty. Nations and people are increasingly uncertain about their futures, and long-term decision making is extraordinarily difficult in that context. This increasing uncertainty coupled with periods of long-term international financial instability has produced a complicated environment in which to make short- and long-term decisions.
The twenty-first century is faced with the legacy of globalization, and while it may be gratifying and constantly amazing to accept instant communication worldwide, we have perhaps opened up Pandora’s box. A revolution in information technology has not only offered fantastic vistas in human genetic engineering and nanotechnology, it has also perhaps produced the seeds of our own destruction.