Globalization & the Americanization of the world

Globalization

Definition:

Globalization is a term that highlights the emergence of a universal society in which there is a growing economic, political & cultural connection that attaches all countries together.

Globalization involves the growth of multinational corporations & international institutions that help sharing knowledge, technology, resources& ethnical values.

Yet living as citizens of a single nation, people are engaged with everyday-lives of people in other countries

Challenging Globalization:

Opposing the side effects of globalization, the Anti-Globalization Activists faced how this later can damage the planet / increase poverty, inequality & injustice. Added to that, the domination of corporations, globalization paved the way to Americanization & cultural imperialism

The movement was not anti-Globalization for it was in favor of a more humane & egalitarian sphere.

Americanization of the world:

The US is dominating the worldwide transfer of information & all the goods.

Influencing the tastes, lives & inspirations of every nation, American music, movies, televisions & even software are so dominating every country in the world.

America as a Global Village:

Being familiar with having different countries and cultures, the American way of life -as usual- continue to be as much consumer of foreign intellectual & artistic products as it has been the silhouette of the world’s costumes 

Being that melting pot of different nationalities & immigrants, the US culture has been so popular for so many other countries

At its best, American Cult. Renovate what it received from others into a culture that everyone can embrace.

How the World Was Won: The Americanization of Everywhere, by Peter Conrad

America’s dependence on foreign cultures has made the US a replica of the world yet in one country

The United States exhibited the two most important characteristics required of a candidate to champion global liberalism. First, it possessed the dominance that affords hegemony both the greatest motivation and the greatest capacity to advance globalization. As the most productive economy, it was the most likely to benefit from open goods markets and as the largest source of both supply and demand for capital it was the most likely to exploit open capital markets. Its power was used to persuade a majority of nations, compel most of the remainder, and isolate the few dissenters. Moreover, globalization involves the rise of political philosophies, based on the assumption that free markets follow a natural trajectory towards democratic and capitalistic philosophies. This argument has two key assumptions, the first being that these political perspectives represent an overall improvement on standards of living and the second being that the correlation between globalization and these principles is significant. Using these assumptions, increasing global trade increases political stability and also increases job opportunities, technological progress, and equality.

Supporting globalization's benefits focuses on how globalization leads to the increased availability of diverse products, services, and technology. Through collecting knowledge and exchanging more goods and services, domestic economies expand and benefit from technological and medical developments. 

The "Bush" Administration and 9/11 effect

Introduction

Bush’s time in office was shaped by the September 11, 2001 attacks which destroyed the World Trade Center and damaged the Pentagon. Thereafter, it caused a drastic change in America’s foreign policy. In the aftermath of the attacks, The Bush Administration aimed at reshaping the world. In fact, it turned to a unilateralist, aggressive and arrogant agenda guided by the New Grand Strategy.

The Bush Administration : Pre-emptive force :

This strategy is founded as a response to terrorism, but with a broader view about the US in the international scene. It rather steps forward to hold a unilateral position and attack “terrorist threats “. The war on terrorism was thus the fundamental cornerstone of G.W Bush’s administration. This administration fervently called for an American unilateral and pre- emptive use of force. Therefore, the US new role is of setting the rules, using force to determine the threats and meet out justice.

 The Bush Doctrine basically revolves around the US relying on unilateral power to achieve its aims in foreign affairs, on using pre-emptive force rather than negotiation in order to contain the threat of mass destruction weapons. Ultimately, this doctrine pays prior attention to promote market oriented democracies as a means of fighting terrorism.

The New Grand Strategy:

Advanced as a response to terrorism, this strategy builds the assumption that the US should exercise power and organize world order. The US steps forward to play a more unilateral role in containing & attacking terrorists.

The New Grand Strategy has five premises. To start with, it was to maintain a unipolar world in which the US is the hegemonic power. Moreover, the US should leave no room for errors in order to sustain a strong anti- terrorist’s system. It is also based on the pre- emptive and even preventive force to shrink the terrorist threats. According to this strategy, The US should have to intervene whenever possible. Eventually, The US should operate in the world in its own terms.

the Project for the New American century :

According to PNAC, the US should chiefly increase military presence and the use of force around the world. Keeping with this plan, Bush distinguished two blocs declaring countries either as cooperative or adversarial. the White House also removed the International Law as a restraint. This plan was asserting America’s hegemony all over the world due to a permanent military presence. Its main goal was to ensure the supremacy of American global capitalism by preventing any possible superpower.

September the 11^th was a turning point in America’s history for it created a new enemy justifying the continuation of a growing military budget & an emphasis on national security.

A critique of Bush administration Grand Strategy :

It was characterised by an uncontrolled power which would create a more hostile international system. The pre-emptive action doctrine creates a serious problem that other countries would adopt the same doctrine as the US. This administration tended to magnify the threat of terror through its arrogant policies. Eventually; the Neo – imperial grand strategy created the problem of keeping America a polarized power which would trap her in the self – encirclement problem.

The Spirit of the Sixties

                         The Spirit of the Sixties

I. Civil Rights Movement:

In the post Second World War, the American south where over half the 15 million African American lived the racial situation remained largely unchanged.

The initial phase of the black protest activity in the post-Brown period began on December 1, 1955. Rosa Parks of Montgomery, Alabama, refused to give up her seat to a white bus rider, thereby defying a southern custom that required blacks to give seats toward the front of buses to whites. When she was jailed, a black community boycott of the city's buses began. The boycott lasted more than a year, demonstrating the unity and determination of black residents and inspiring blacks elsewhere.

The two paramount leaders of black activism were: Martin Luther King & Malcolm X.

v Martin Luther King Jr.

Martin Luther King, Jr. emerged as the boycott movement's most effective leader. He understood the larger significance of the boycott and quickly realized that the nonviolent tactics used by the Indian nationalist Mahatma Gandhi could be used by southern blacks. Although Parks and King were members of the NAACP, the Montgomery movement led to the creation in 1957 of a new regional organization, the clergy-led Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) with King as its president.

During the early 1960s, King and the SCLC initiated a number of peaceful protests against segregated institutions. In 1963, Birmingham, Alabama, Police Commissioner Eugene “Bull” Connor unleashed police dogs and high-pressure fire hoses against peaceful demonstrators, many of them schoolchildren.  The images horrified the nation. King was arrested during these demonstrations and from his jail cell produced Letter from Birmingham City Jail, in which he argued that one who breaks an unjust law to arouse the consciousness of his community "is in reality expressing the highest respect for law". That August, African-American leaders organized the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.  Here, before an estimated quarter million civil rights supporters gathered at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, King offered one of the most powerful speeches in American history. Generations of schoolchildren have learned by heart lines from the I Have a Dream speech, in which King prayed for the day when people would “not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

v Civil Rights Act of 1964 :

The Civil Rights Act of 1964, which ended segregation in public places and banned employment discrimination on the basis of race, colour, religion, sex or national origin, is considered one of the crowning legislative achievements of the civil rights movement. First proposed by President John F. Kennedy, it survived strong opposition from southern members of Congress and was then signed into law by Kennedy’s successor, Lyndon B. Johnson. In subsequent years, Congress expanded the act and also passed additional legislation aimed at bringing equality to African Americans, such as the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

v Malcolm X :

Malcolm X, the activist and outspoken public voice of the Black Muslim faith, challenged the mainstream civil rights movement and the nonviolent pursuit of integration championed by Martin Luther King Jr. He urged followers to defend themselves against white aggression "by any means necessary." Born Malcolm Little, he changed his last name to X to signify his rejection of his "slave" name. Charismatic and eloquent, Malcolm became an influential leader of the Nation of Islam, which combined Islam with Black Nationalism and sought to encourage and enfranchise disadvantaged young blacks searching for confidence in segregated America. By 1966 many civil rights workers had rejected King's ideal of integration, and were calling instead for 'Black Power'

.  v The Black Panthers

The Black Panther Party was a progressive political organization that stood in the vanguard of the most powerful movement for social change in America since the Revolution of 1776 and the Civil War: that dynamic episode generally referred to as The Sixties. It is the sole black organization in the entire history of black struggle against slavery and oppression in the United States that was armed and promoted a revolutionary agenda, and it represents the last great thrust by the mass of black people for equality, justice and freedom.

II- The hippies:

The typical hippie of the sixties belonged to the white middle class. This movement wanted to separate from the norm. Throughout the 1950s people were urged to be the same and stay within the crowd. As the counter culture grew, fashion, music and other types of art also changed. Our youth stopped seeing the point in having a family and a house in the suburbs. Soon they developed their own values that involved peace, love, and rock ‘n’ roll. Many participants in the movement sought to fulfil their lives through spiritual and religious experiences. Since many people looked down on the way the counter culture wanted to live their lives, the hippies began protesting to injustices they saw in the conformed society. Many hippies also participated in New Left protests, specifically regarding the Vietnam War. 

III- The feminist movement:

It is a diverse social movement, largely based in the United States, seeking equal rights and opportunities for women in their economic activities, their personal lives, and politics. It is recognized as the “second wave” of the larger feminist movement. While first-wave feminism of the 19th and early 20th centuries focused on women’s legal rights, such as the right to vote, the second-wave feminism of the “women’s movement” peaked in the 1960s and ’70s and touched on every area of women’s experience—including family, sexuality, and work. Feminism changed many women's lives and created new worlds of possibility for education, empowerment, working women, feminist art and feminist theory. For some, the goals of the feminist movement were simple: let women have freedom, equal opportunity and control over their lives.

The Post-Cold War Debate : The Search For A New Role

The Post-Cold War Debate : The Search For A New Role

Introduction :

In the aftermath of the cold war, the US experienced dramatic changes in global politics. Indeed in 1989 the wall separating East and West Berlin as the symbol of the Cold War dismantled and the Soviet Union collapsed afterwards by 1991, which led to an urgent need for a total reorganization in the US ‘ foreign policy and the establishment of new strategies in Europe.
Indeed the Communist Threat was the glue that held the US system together. For years the power and privilege of the US military and the national security were directly linked to the Soviet threat. It was the Cold war that fed the interests of the military industrial complex and justified the US foreign military bases interventions in the Third World and Europe. It also used to diffuse tensions in the society between the haves and have-nots by focusing the attention on a common enemy. For all these reason the demise of the Americas greatest foe left the US without a foreign policy purpose to replace that of containing the communist expansion.

The 3 approaches that dominated the debate on the US new role in the world :

Neo-isolationism :  Isolationists have consistently argued that overseas commitments can force the United States into actions best avoided, and that institutions such as the United Nations undermine American sovereignty. They contend that excessive attention to events in other countries both distracts from important domestic priorities and needlessly involves the country in costly enterprises bearing little relation to the national interest. 

Realism (Hegemony) : the realists maintain that the US should assume a more active role in the world affairs. The collapse of Communism shows the success of the American values . As the lone remaining super power the US has an exceptional opportunity to promote its interests and free market-capitalism overseas. They also assert that the American hegemony is the only defense against the breakdown of peace and international order therefore the US must preserve that hegemony as far in the future as possible.

                           

           

Internationalism or Multilateralism : Internationalists, by contrast, favor an active role for the country in world affairs, including strong support for international institutions and a generally interventionist approach to problems in other countries. Many internationalists believe that America has a responsibility to participate in world affairs because of its unusual capacity to favorably alter global conditions. Other internationalists maintain that America simply cannot turn its back on a world in which it has become so deeply networked. 

The End of History

                                   The  End of History

I Context :

After the end of the cold war the US authority reigned supreme over the world this created a debate among many politicians and academics who tried to answer the question of what role the US play in the international arena in the post-cold war era?

As a response to such debate Francis Fukuyama, the Japanese American author of “the End of History and the Last Man” in which He Claimed that Humanity reached ”the end point of mankind’s ideological evolution and the universalization of Western Liberal Democracy as the final form of Human Government”.
In other words, humanity kept looking for the most idealistic system so the end of the cold war highlighted the supremacy and the power of the American way that stood against all its competitors from the Fascism in the West until the nationalism in the Far East.

II The Triumph of Americanism :
It’s the triumph of the American way of life and ideals such as : liberal capitalism / economic and political freedom / consumerism.
The collapse of communism meant the end of history in the sense that humanity reached the best idealistic system that of the Western/American way of life

III Fukuyama’s proposals concerning America’s new role :

·        US needs to internationalize its American values

·        US needs to help any country that aims to embrace the universality of the American idol

·        The New frontier ( to expand/ extend the limits of the American principles or values )

VI The Doctrine’s impact on the American Foreign policy

Using F. Fukuyama’s theory, Clinton Administration created the so-called the “strategy of Enlargement”

This Strategy was based on the export of the American democracy & the free market as a universal system & a unique solution for hegemony

Within Clinton’s doctrine, all countries would share inter-related economic interest

The cold war: Abroad

The cold war: Abroad

   I.        The containment strategy :

In 1946, while George F. Kennan was Chargé d’Affaires in Moscow, he sent the now- famous “long telegram” in which he displayed the aggressive nature of Stalin’s foreign policy and asserted that the US should adhere to the so-called containment strategy. This latter was a foreign policy strategy followed by the United States during the Cold War. Containment stated that communism needed to be contained and isolated, or it would spread to neighbouring countries. This spread would allow the Domino Theory to take hold, meaning that if one country fell to communism, then each surrounding country would fall as well, like a row of dominoes. Adherence to Containment and Domino Theory ultimately led to US intervention in Vietnam & Central America.

  II.            The Truman Doctrine

As Britain withdrew from the Greek & Turkish grounds, claiming that it could no longer assist those countries hence, Greece & Turkey became easy targets of the Soviet Union. Consequently, America interfered with military and economic aid in order to prevent those countries from falling into the communist threats.

The Truman speech of 1947 divided the world between two alternative ways of life, One was based on the “will of the majority distinguished by the free institutions” and the other one was on “the will of minority … terror and oppression”

In this speech, he argued that the US must free people who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities.

Subsequently to the victory of America in Greece, the Truman doctrine became the guiding spirit of American foreign policy.

III.            The Marshall Plan

In 1948, President Harry S. Truman signs the Economic Assistance Act, which authorized the creation of a program that would help the nations of Europe recover and rebuild after the devastation wrought by World War II. Named after U.S. Secretary of State George C. Marshall, the Marshall Plan aimed to stabilize Europe economically and politically so that European nations would not be tempted by the appeal of communist parties.

As an upshot to the European recovery program, the western European industrial production & investment increased. It stimulated exports from the US & ended the post second world war recession. Furthermore it reinforced anti-communist politicians in Europe & helped avoid the loss of Europe to socialism & communism.

The Cold War: At Home

The Cold War: At Home

The cold war did not only shape the US foreign policy but also the domestic affairs. Further efforts were made after the Second World War to root out communism within the United States.

Foreign events & spy scandals contributed to the anti-communist hysteria of the period. The communist victory in China & the Russian possession of an atomic bomb increased Am. suspicion of betrayal at home.

      I.            Causes:

In order to gain support for a foreign policy based on a massive military build-up, the Truman administration needed to scare the people & therefore get them out of their post war isolationism.

Americans became more & more obsessed about communist threat the national security with USSR development of nuclear weapons, the Chinese communist victory in 1949 & the North Korean invasion of the south.

Meanwhile, beginning in 1947, the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) brought the Cold War home in another way. The committee began a series of hearings designed to show that communist subversion in the United States was alive and well.  Many of "blacklisted" writers, directors, actors and others were unable to work again for more than a decade. HUAC also accused State Department workers of engaging in subversive activities. Soon, other anti-Communist politicians, most notably Senator Joseph McCarthy who was an anti-communist investigator. Indeed In 1950, McCarthy gave a speech that propelled him into the national spotlight. Waving a piece of paper in the air, he declared that he had a list of 205 known members of the Communist Party who were “working and shaping policy” in the State Department.

Moreover, many of McCarthy’s Democratic and Republican colleagues, including President Dwight Eisenhower, disapproved of his tactics. Still, the senator continued his so-called Red-baiting campaign. In 1953, McCarthy was put in charge of the Committee on Government Operations, which allowed him to launch more expansive investigations of the so-called communist infiltration of the federal government. In hearing after hearing, he aggressively interrogated witnesses in what many came to perceive as an obvious violation of their civil rights. Despite a lack of any proof of subversion, more than 2,000 government employees lost their jobs as a result of McCarthy’s investigations.

In April 1954, Senator McCarthy turned his attention to “exposing” the supposed communist subversion of the armed services. Many people had been willing to overlook their anxiety with McCarthyism during the senator’s campaign against government employees. however, their support began to wane. Almost at once, the aura of invulnerability that had surrounded McCarthy for nearly five years began to disappear. First, the Army challenged the senator’s credibility by showing evidence that he had tried to win preferential treatment for his aides. Then, came the fatal blow: the decision to broadcast the “Army-McCarthy” hearings on national television. The American people watched as McCarthy intimidated witnesses and offered evasive responses when questioned. When he attacked a young Army lawyer, the Army’s chief counsel shouted: “Have you no sense of decency, sir?” The Army-McCarthy hearings struck many observers as a shameful moment in American politics.

By the time the hearings were over, McCarthy had lost most of his allies. The Senate voted to condemn him for his “inexcusable,” “shameful,” “vulgar and insulting” conduct “unbecoming a senator.” He kept his job but lost his power, and died in 1957.

II-consequences

The anti-communist hysteria devastated the American left & torn it apart. Some communist leaders were imprisoned under the smith act of 1940 & the first amendment right of free speech was limited by the congress. Anti-communism postponed domestic reforms such as civil liberties, the end to segregations for black Americans and it even abandoned the unfinished programs of the new deal. Even believing in racial equality was viewed as being communist. So essentially, Anti-communism led to a widespread political apathy. To sum up everything that was different was at risk.