Is Globalization a Peace Producer?
Globalization is defined as upspring of a global society in which political, cultural, economic, and environmental circumstances in one part of the globe have particular significance for people in other parts of the world. (Globalization; Salzman, 2008). The globalization refers to rapidly growing connections between nations, economies, and societies (Barbieri and Schneider, 1999:387). Several literatures or studies have evaluated globalization in the context of international politics and social security to ascertain whether it is a peace producer or not (Blanton and Apodaca, 2007).Of course, most of the literatures have different views on the subject matter. This paper examines globalization in terms of liberalism, realism, social, economic and environmental factors. It draws from different sources to expound the concept of globalization and how it determines the peace or not in the global setting.
Driving Forces for Globalization
Weede (2004) even painted a better picture of the factors that drive globalization. It defined globalization as an instrument that generates the expansion and integration of the market, as well as the universalization of capitalism. This also pointed out factors such as the explosion of inexpensive, fast and reliable communication and transportation system that is technological innovation that results in falling costs and increasing speed of inter-continental communication and transportation. It also encompasses political decisions in different countries of the world whether rich or poor; tariff and non-tariff restrictions or barriers to trade. Consequently, it makes gains from their trading with customers in different parts of the world. Globalization can be observed as an economic evolution in which families move from subsistence farming or providing resources only for the household to providing for the entire large market. (Salzman, 2008; Soysa, and Fjelde, 2010; Weede, 2004).
Despite these arguments and understanding of the factors stimulating globalization, the important question to answer is this: is globalization a peace producer and to what extent does it produce or limit peace? If globalization is a peace producer, then why does tension seem to exist between the United States and China even with the free trade existing between them? Moreover, if globalization is not a peace producer then, what is the factor responsible for the peace and free trade existing between the democratic allies of the United States of America? These questions can be effectively answered by making a holistic study on this field. More so, internationalization or globalization has effects on the environment, social equality, and economic growth are still largely debated (Barbieri and Schneider, 1999: 387). In addition, Pyun and Lee (2009) pointed out that dependency theorists and neo-Marxists opine that the exploitation of natural resources by senior partners can be triggered by asymmetrical independence. The results of this would be the threatening of national autonomy of the junior partner (Barbieri and Schneider 1999; Soysa, and Fjelde, 2010).
Globalization and Its Effects on Peace
The world has already become largely globalized (Gartzke and Li, 2003:563). In a broad sense, globalization can be observed as an umbrella encompassing economic interdependence and, on the other hand, it may also be defined as economic interdependence. This definition streams from the fact that with globalization, different economies and countries of the world tends to depend on each other for survival. Hence, this definition streams from the theory of comparative advantage that holds that nations of the world should specialize in goods and services which they have a comparative advantage over others. Comparative advantage generates efficiency because it brings in division of labor (Featherstone, 2007; Gartzke and Li, 2003).This explains why Weede (2004:166) pointed out that the globalization gives birth to the division of labor. Of course, division of labor is necessary for multidimensional efficiency in production and otherwise.
The Benefits of Bilateral Trade
According to Pyun and Lee (2009), one of the most wonderful benefits of bilateral trade is that it deters military conflicts. In fact, some individuals would be willing to lobby in order to steady the conflict and to ensure the seamless trade in a bilateral trade setting. Pyun and Lee (2009) examined the impact of trade integration on military conflict using a data set of about 290, 040 country pair observation taken from 1950 to 2000. This was observed that the probability of inter-state military conflict between two trading partners is greatly reduced with an increase in bilateral trade interdependence. The study further found that an increase in bilateral trade volume by 10% in the context of the world mean value would cause a corresponding decrease of about 0.1 % having military conflict between mutual trading allies. This figure is predicted from mean probability provided that other variables are kept constant.
More so, the peace promotion impact of bilateral trade integration is quite higher for contiguous countries that are likely to experience more conflicts. For such countries, the 10% increase as presented above would not cause an increase as small as 0.1 percent but can result to up to 1.9% increase. This is remarkable and shows the great effect that globalization has on peace in contiguous states.
Furthermore, Weede (2004) showed that the risk of war between two nations is reduced when bilateral trade takes place between them. He points out two reasons behind bilateral trade between nations that prevents war from taking place between them. Firstly, war would likely disrupt the ongoing trade existing between the countries. In fact, the cost of the trade disruption would be determined by the degree of the trade going on between the nations. Secondly, moral capital can be easily achieved or maintained by commerce, and this can help citizens to become civilized or greatly pacify statesmen.
Global Trade Openness Promotes Peace
Global trade openness promotes the peace to a remarkable extent (Pyun and Lee, 2009). This can be easily understood because with an increase in global trade openness brings the reduction in military conflicts. Therefore, bilateral trade would be increased which tends to increase globalization and internationalization. In addition, if multilateral trade openness causes bilateral dependence on a given country, the result would be that the countries having more open to global trade may probably have a higher chance of dichotomy or dyadic conflict. Ultimately, this would result to the reduction of opportunity cost of military conflict. Pyun and Lee (2009) found that a nation would less likely have a conflict with its bilateral trade partner with the increase in multilateral trade openness. In fact, multilateral trade and bilateral trade openness added together would go a long way to helping in reducing the occurrence of conflict between the nations involved. Statistics shows that with an increase in global openness by about 10% from the world mean value comes a corresponding decrease in the probability of dyad's military conflict by about 2.6% from its world mean value.
The analysis of data and statistics presented above would verify it to be obviously true. This is obvious because no country would want to trade with a country known for conflict and war. Investors would rather invest in peaceful than chaotic countries. Interestingly, an open global trading system will go a long way to preventing states from initiating war against any trading partner because trading partners in other countries would rather prefer to do business with peaceful countries. Thus, bilateral trade would be reduced by global trade openness. On the other hand, open states would most likely be more peaceful simply because political freedom and democracy can easily exist in such states. Studies make it apparent that with the increase in global trade between countries of the world over the years, military conflicts have greatly reduced (Pyun and Lee, 2009).
Research conducted by the Harvard University Center for International Development in 1999 shows that over the past 20 years developing countries with open global economies grow up to 4.5 percent per annum. Whereas those with closed economies grow by only 0.7% per year. This simply means that such countries with open global economies double in size every sixteen years whereas closed ones have to wait for 100 years to double in size. A country that can be cited as a good example of this is Korea in which absolute poverty has been reduced to 5 percent. In addition, the literacy rate from the mid-1950s till the present time has been increased from 30% to 95% as a result of the openness of their economies. Other countries with open economies that have also experienced its corresponding dividends include India, Poland, Slovenia, and Slovakia (Marquardt, 2005:128). Furthermore, he went further to state that globalization has resulted to good governance and democracies in countries like Bangladesh, Mexico, Ghana and many other countries of the world. It can be proved that countries with very low globalization are probably the poorest countries of the world. The problem in poor countries like Sudan, Cuba, Burma, North Korea and so forth is not too much globalization but rather too little globalization. The difference is clearly reflected in North Korea and South Korea. After the separation of North and South Korea, the North held better resources than the South but the reverse is now the case. This can be clearly explained with the fact that whereas North Korea refused and resisted globalization, South Korea rather embraced and accepted it (Bezemer and Jong, 2013; Marquardt, 2005).
Democracies Seldom Fight Each Other
During the Clinton era, officials and analysts on globalization rap up the fact that democratic states do not fight each other. It states that "free trade would make all nations rich, and that being rich they would become democratic and being democratic they would become peace-loving because democracies don't go to war with each other” (Pretowitz , 2013). This shows how effective globalization can be in steadying probable conflicts that might exist between two countries. Most remarkably, globalization helps to decrease or prevent bilateral conflicts between states. In other words, this can be predicted that bilateral trade decreases bilateral conflicts.
Even though it is obvious that democracies rarely fight each other, and it is not true that democracies fight fewer wars than others. In fact, democracies fight more wars with autocracies than autocracies fight with each other. A good example of this is democratic US allies and autocratic US allies. Whereas democratic US allies do not fight each other, autocratic US allies fight each other and also fight democratic US allies. Since globalization promotes democracies, it would obvious promote peace harmony because democracies do not fight each other. Global integration as it is evident today is the important factor that has largely restored peace in the world owing to the increase in democracies. This is the factor that led Norman Angell to write in his book entitled “Great Illusion” that the war was madness and archaic. That is because of the degree of global economic integration, and there would probably be no winner in wars (Pretowitz, 2013). The statement by Angell turned out to be true by taking a look at the World War I, which went a long way to devastate the world and take globalization and economic growth backward. Irrespective of Angell’s statement and its corresponding proof, it did not deter the nations of the world in going into World War II and subsequent war. In general, it can be found that the development of democracies would go a long way to foster global peace (Bezemer and Jong, 2013; Pretowitz, 2013). More so, a democracy is promoted by prosperity or high income per capita (Weede, 2004:168).
The bottom line of the discussions above points hands to the fact that globalization and free trade promote peace. A study conducted by Blankenship (2012) showed that the trade decreases state aggression, whereas both trade and FDI decreases aggression as well as average conflict hostility at the systematic level. Nonetheless, the study pointed out that states with greater levels of inward and outward FDI tends to be more likely to initiate conflict. Furthermore, Blankenship (2012) developed a model that can be used in ascertaining conflicts taking place between states. Such models include the fear of economic penalties such as sanctions that tends to make countries heavily dependent on international trade from going into conflict with other countries. It can be found that FDI has a positive impact on state's aggression as it goes a long way to reducing conflict and promote democratization besides promoting peace and prosperity. (Burhan, et al. 2014; Weede, 2004). It has been argued that democracy promotes peace, but such peace can only be fully established in a democratic territory. The democratization of a state surrounded by autocratic state will only pose a risk of war with the autocratic states (Weede.2004:168).
Protectionism and its effect on Peace and Globalization
Protectionism simply refers to governmental policies that favor domestic products over imported goods. It is opposed to free trade that provides a favorable ground for both domestic and imported goods. The debates by globalization critics assert that neoliberal policies produce inequality, greater poverty, cultural destruction, social conflict and environmental change (Bezemer and Jong, 2013; Globalization).They however assert that most developed nations of the world such as Japan, Germany and the United States of America succeed because of protectionism and subsidies and not by free trade. In addition, they further state that recently successful economies such as South Korea, China, and Taiwan follow strong strategies that do not support neo-liberalism. The above statements by critics are quite contrary to the assertion by Weede (2004:167) that the protectionism leads to less wealth and more war. The report also showed that protectionism would not benefit any nation but would rather do more harm than good. When globalization is employed, and protectionism avoided, the result is usually all round benefit of the economy. Of course, the economy is not only benefit but it carries alongside with it security benefits as well.
Prosperity is not an absolute answer to peace
It would be wrong to conclusively state that prosperity and free trade which results from globalization and free trade is an absolute answer to peace. Of course, Blankenship (2012) clearly mentioned that states with greater levels of inward and outward FDI tends to be more likely to initiate conflict. This is the case irrespective of their prosperity and in fact, the greater the prosperity, the greater the chance of this being the case. Prestowitz (2013) reported that America has chosen as the main feature of its foreign policy, "pivot to Asia." This has ensured a Trans-Pacific Partnership Free Trade Agreement with the purpose of assuring Asia of U.S commitment to them but China is excluded. On the contrary, Washington is now challenging China's right to Air Defense Identification Zone in the East China Sea irrespective of the maintenance of such zones by Korea and Japan. This shows that the U.S may be seeing China as a threat to them.
Conclusion
The paper studies globalization and its effect on the global peace as well as on the economies of different countries of the world. Globalization is observed as an important promoter of peace especially in open economies. Different studies and literatures proved that most poor countries of the world are not economically open. Globalization, as opposed to protectionism, is important not only to ensure peace and prosperity but also to promote security. With the increase in bilateral trade, there is a corresponding decrease in bilateral conflict. Consequently, a combined increase in bilateral trade and multilateral trade results to an even greater decrease in conflict. FDI was also pointed out as a very vital factor to fostering democratization, peace, and security. However, it is imperative to evaluate that prosperity may not rule out conflict in toto to some extent.
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