the new globalism: opportunities and dilemmas. global challenges shift from cold war bipolarism to...
TRANSCRIPT
THE NEW GLOBALISM:
Opportunities and dilemmas
GLOBAL CHALLENGES
• Shift from Cold War bipolarism to new “decentralized” threats:
PollutionPopulationPoverty
1980s: THE AGE OF NEO-LIBERALISM
• The Welfare state in question
• Thatcher reshapes political culture
• Stemming industrial decline through monetarist policies and supply-side theories – the “the trickle down” effect
• Cutting income taxes, attacking trade unions, pruning state subsidies
• Thatcherism saved by the Falklands war
THE REAGAN REVOLUTION AND ITS AFTERMATH
• The “Great Communicator” and the “moral majority”
• Reaganomics: massive reductions in federal spending
• …and huge military budgets to counter the Soviet arms buildup of the 1970s
• Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) – “Star Wars”
THE COLLAPSE OF SOVIET COMMUNISM
• Breakup of the Soviet empire in 1989
• Pulled apart by communications, international trade and democratic movements
• Rebellion in Poland: the rise of Solidarity
• Stagnation and deteriorating standards of living: food shortages and lack of basic household supplies
MIKHAIL GORBACHEV’S REFORMS
• World War II hardliners and other veterans passing away – end of the Old Guard or “gerontocracy”
• Perestroika: “restructuring” the Soviet economy
• Glasnost: “openness” or “publicity”
• Impact on foreign affairs: scaling back missile production
END OF SOVIET HEGEMONY IN EASTERN EUROPE
• 1989-1991: frequent, popular and peaceful demonstrations in Eastern Europe
• The “Velvet Revolution” in Czechoslovakia• November 1989: Berlin Wall opened• December 1989: N. Ceausescu executed
in Romania• Spring 1990: Baltic states announcing
secession from the USSR• October 1990: Germany reunited
CIVIL WAR IN YUGOSLAVIA AND BREAKUP OF SOVIET UNION
• Nationality groups demanding political and cultural autonomy
• Ethnicity – effective political slogan for ambitious politicians
• Yugoslavia: “ethnic cleansing”
• The Soviet Union: Yeltsin’s corrupt political allies and civil war in Chechnya
THE FRENCH AND GERMAN PATHWAYS
• French and German stagflation: why?
• Trying to maintain the welfare state in place
• High unemployment rates and xenophobia
• New public buildings in Paris and Berlin
• Rampant anti-globalism
GLOBALIZATION AND ITS DISCONTENTS
• Globalization builds the economic future?
• Destruction of local agricultures?
• Perils of global migration?
• Guarding the nation from global mixture?