Globalisation is often seen as a linear integrative process. Critics, especially from francophone countries, stress disintegration and discontinuity in the notion of mondialisation. They show how cultural identities are generated which are antithetical to dominant trends associated with the Washington consensus ('anti-sociétés').

Propositions

1. Globalisation is a social phenomenon as well as a historical trend. As a historical trend it is old, and it could even be argued that the world was more globally integrated in previous times. As a social phenomenon it is part of a dominant set of interests, assumptions and values known as The Washington Consensus, stressing the rapid expansion of capital and commodity markets under free trade arrangements through immediate and world-wide communication networks [for review of definitions see O'Neill: 32-39]. No scientific agreement exists on the nature and extent of globalisation, nor definite proof on the assumptions underlying the Consensus, like the value of open markets [see Bergstein 1996, Edwards 1998 vs. Krugman 1994, The Economist 1998 (March 21)]. Until recently theoretical models were unable to link trade policy to faster growth, and lack of data on factor productivity; this seriously limited the analysis of the connection between openness and productivity growth. [Edwards 1998: 383-384].

2. Mondialisation has in the francophone literature a more critical meaning. It stresses historical analysis [Defarges 1993], cultural discontinuity [Perrot 1997], social disintegration [Droz 1997] and the need for a political response to free-market development ['La dimension africaine demeure l'espace privilégié de la mondialisation économique et de l'action collective, par le biais de chaque État.' Baniafouna 1996: 347]. Authors argue in favour of state-intervention to safeguard the public good and cultural diversity to promote creative responses. As a counter-ideology, the francophone notion aims at providing voice to those suffering the negative results.[Rist 1997, for an anglophone African view see Hountondji 1997].

3. Forced migration (and mass refugee movements) is increasingly tied to globalisation of commodity and capital markets. First, through a declining capacity of states to keep security and succumb to civil war. Second, through the emergence of aggressive counter-identities, be they ethnic or religious. Third, through increasing income disparities between central and peripheral regions. The result is the sudden increase in refugee streams, primarily in the South, but with a small through-flow to the North [Monnier 1997, Chossudovsky 1997, Commission on Global Governance].

4. European policies for international co-operation are ambivalent towards globalisation and its consequences, leading to confusion among its constituencies and its 'partners'. Regarding trade, Europe largely follows the WTO-Washington consensus. This leads to the elimination of restrictions on the free flow of capital, commodities and information [Solignac Lecomte 1998]. Regarding aid it follows a (weaker) DAC-Paris Consensus, which stresses poverty eradication through public investments in the social sectors. This is partially aimed at preventing mass migration from the South [Koulaïmah-Gabriel 1997]. Regarding environmental policies, Europe is in a position to set strict standards within the Union. Beyond the Union the policies are ambivalent and do not 'bite' yet [Robins 1997].

5. Transnational Companies (TNCs) are principal actors, sustained by the Washington Consensus. A substantial part of world trade happens not anymore within political 'empires' (as was indeed the case till World War 2), but within business empires. Current US policies and thinking aim at the generation of a world in which English is the common language; communication, security and quality norms are American, and radio or television programmes are American as well [Rothkopf - In Praise of Cultural Imperialism- see Schiller 1998]. The US is more and more likely to forego international agreement within or without the UN [Gresh 1998].

6. States in North and South are therefore increasingly faced with their incapacity to deal with global migration, leading to emergencies. Emergency aid is eating away the dwindling aid budgets, especially if security assistance will be included. States nevertheless will remain in the medium term the basic actors responsible for human security at the global level [Soros 1998; UNRISD 1997].

7. Public interest groups (PIGs) have shown an increasing capacity to act, and fill the void left by the States [O'Neill 1998: 45]. This is illustrated by case studies on the Multilateral Agreement on Investments (ATTAC), the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, and the International Crisis Group (ICG) ['Lexington' 1998; Shawcross 1995]. PIGs are effective means of public interest articulation at a global level provided they are locally rooted and globally linked to provide pressure on states or their interstatal organisations.[Fowler 1998]

8. Electronic information management will be the single most important factor in determining the success of public interest articulation, as indeed it has been for private interests. The confrontation between the US and the EU is likely to be just as violent over normsetting regarding the Internet as it has been over cultural products under the WTO. A case in point is European privacy norms that are in conflict with US ones. [Schiller 1998]

Networking between public interest organisations is a valid response as the case study on the Euforic Co-operative shows. This is the first European-Southern co-operative, with NGO and state membership, organised as a classical co-operative.

References

ATTAC. 1998. ATTAC s'organise. Le Monde diplomatique, 45(533): 2. [Brief description of a Net-based public interest group doing advocacy against the Multilateral Agreement on Investment; in a few weeks time it had 1500 members. Website: http://attac.org]

Barber, B.R. 1998. Culture McWorld contre démocratie. Le Monde diplomatique, 45(533): 14-15. [State sovereignty has vanished in the face of American global culture, generated and transmitted through international business and international organisations. Civil society, the traditional interface between public good and private gain, is loosing ground thus weakening the notion of citizenship.]

Baniafouna, C. 1996. Quelle Afrique dans la mondialisation économique? Entre le coeur et la raison. S.l.: Ligue.

Bergsten, C.F. 1996. Competitive liberalization and global free trade: a vision for the 21st Century. (APEC Working Paper 96-15). Washington: Institute for International Economics. [Eloquent statement of the Washington consensus on free trade, arguing in favour of global free trade by 2010]

Cassen, B. 1998. Démocratie participative à Porto Alegre. Le Monde diplomatique, 45(533): 3. [Description of a grassroots initiative in participatory budgetting by the Brazilian Workers' Party, which is affecting power distribution in other cities as well]

Chossudovsky, M. 1997. The globalisation of poverty: impacts of IMF and World Bank reforms. London: Zed Books. [In chapter on The global cheap-labour economy, author reviews labour mobility].

Duclos, D. 1998. Naissance de l'hyperbourgeoisie. Le Monde diplomatique, 45(533): 16-17. [Emergence of a new transnational class replacing existing national bourgeoisie]

Economist. 1998. Mort v Goliath. The Economist344(8026): 51. [Description of the International Crisis Group (ICG) and its leader Mort Abramowitz. Aim: to stop refugee crises from happening, through pre-crisis intervention by global public interest groups like ICG, on the basis of independent analysis and assistance. See also: Shawcross 1995].

Economist. 1998. Much ado about openness. The Economist, 346(8060): 94. ["The connection between trade and growth rates has also been hard to prove empirically [...] isolating the impact of lowered trade barriers is tricky".]

Edwards, S. 1998. Openness, productivity and growth: what do we really know. The Economic Journal, (108): 383 - 398. [Pathbreaking article indicating relation between policy-induced openness of the economy and growth on the basis of new data for 93 countries, suggesting that "open countries experienced faster productivity growth."]

Fowler, A., and B. Pratt. 1998. How can non-governmental organisations make a bigger difference? ID21 Research.

Gresh, A. 1998. Guerres saintes. Le Monde diplomatique, 45(534): 1. [A recent editorial showing how the US provokes young muslims into Holy War through its own Civilisation War against terrorists]

Hountondji, P.J. 1997. African cultures and globalisation: a call to resistance. D+C Development and Cooperation,(6): 24-26. [ Linguistic dominance of European languages needs to be resisted through a coherent local policy to promote local languages; scientific and technological dependence needs to be countered at the same time]

Koulaïmah-Gabriel, A. 1997.The geographic scope of EC aid: one or several development policies? (ECDPM Working Paper 42). Maastricht: ECDPM. [Surveys EC development cooperation in general and Lomé in particular]

Krugman, P. 1994. The myth of Asia's miracle. Foreign Affairs , (November-December): 62-78. [First general questioning of the miracle, with remarkable foresight and implications for other policies following the Washington consensus]

Monnier, L. 1997. Migrations: à nous la liberté? Mobilité réelle, fiction de l'emploi et de la sécurité. In: La mondialisation des anti-sociétés: espaces rêvés et lieux communs, G. Rist (dir.). (Nouveaux Cahiers de l'IUED 6). Genève: IUED: 65-84. [Linkage between notions of globalisation and migration, indicating that 100m persons live away from their home country. Growth in migrant numbers is 2-3% per year. Freedom of movement is a fiction since frontiers are increasingly closed, except for certain categories of migrants.]

Moreau Defarges, P. 1993. La mondialisation: vers la fin des frontières? Paris: Ifri. [General introduction, which differentiates rather unclearly between mondialisation (spatial integration processes), globalisation (problem integration processes going beyond geography, referring principally to the results of internationalization of enterprises; p.68). Good treatment of cultural and political dimensions of globalization.]

O'Neil, H. 1998. Globalisation, competitiveness and human security: challenges for development policy and institutional change. In: Globalisation, competitiveness and human security: challenges for development policy and institutional change, E. Petitat-Côté (ed.). Geneva: EADI: 21-49. [Excellent review of globalisation, its effects and development policy implications.]

Pardo, C. 1998. Résistances zapatistes. Le Monde diplomatique, 45(533): 11. [Use of modern information and communication media to generate support for a local movement among Mexican indigenous people.]

Perrot, M.-D. 1997. Du vrai/faux au virtuel: mondialisation culturelle et néo-utopie. In: La mondialisation des antisociétés: espaces rêvés et lieux communs, G. Rist (dir.). (Nouveaux Cahiers de l'IUED 6). Genève: IUED: 41-63.

Rist, G. 1997. La mondialisation des antisociétés. In: La mondialisation des antisociétés: espaces rêvés et lieux communs, G. Rist (dir.). (Nouveaux Cahiers de l'IUED 6): Genève: IUED: 23-39.

Robins, N. 1997. Making soft policies bite: lessons from EC efforts at environmental integration for affecting development coherence. Paper presented at the ECDPM seminar on "Coherence and Cooperation: how to improve the coherence of EU development policy", Maastricht, the Netherlands, 20-21 February 1997. London: IIED. [Surveys the integration of EU environmental policies since 1972; calls for a more strategic institutional approach.]

Schiller, H.I. 1998. Vers un nouveau siècle d'impérialisme américain. Le Monde diplomatique, 45(533): 1,18-19. [Reviews US policies and practices in international normsetting regarding electronic communications, quoting recent articles in Foreign Affairs and other publications.]

Shawcross, W. 1995. A hero of our time. The New York Review of Books, (November 2).[Reference to the work of the International Crisis Group.]

Solignac Lecomte, H.-B. 1998. Options for future ACP-EU trade relations. (ECDPM Working Paper 60). Maastricht: ECDPM. [Three options in the trade negotiations are presented, among which a radical WTO compatible one: removing trade from the Lomé Convention.]

Soros, G. 1998. The economy: toward a global open society. The Atlantic Monthly, (281): 1. [Pleads among other things in favour of a less ambiguous role of the state and a definite role for international cooperation, in line with the arguments of D.Rodrik.]

UNRISD. 1997. Report of the UNRISD International Conference on Globalization and citizenship. Geneva: United Nations Research Institute for Social Development. [Very stimulating report of an international conference on the topic, also dealing with cultural dimension and with global migration of labour.]

World Bank. 1998. The Dakar Leader's Forum. Washington: World Bank. [Eloquent statement by Bank and African Heads of State, showing the application of the Washington Consensus on globalisation and its effects on Africa. Includes an interesting self-analysis of the Bank's 'disappointing record' in Africa.]