Download Globalization

HIST 207
MODERN HISTORY
KOÇ UNIVERSITY
PROF. ZAFER TOPRAK
www.ata.boun.edu.tr
Globalisation is international integration. It can be
described as a process by which the people of the
world are unified into a single society.
Globalization refers to a multidimensional set of
social processes that create, multiply, stretch, and
intensify worldwide social interdependencies &
exchanges while at the same time fostering in people
a growing awareness of deepening connections
between the local and the distant.
Globalization is an uneven process, meaning that
people living in various parts of the world are
affected very differently by this gigantic
transformation of social structures and cultural
zones.
One defining characteristic of the process:
Movement towards greater interdependence &
integration.
This process is a combination of economic,
technological, socio-cultural and political forces.
“Globalization compresses the time and space
aspects of social relations.”
James Mittelman
“Globalization can be defined as the intensification
of worldwide social relations which link distant
localities in such a way that local happenings are
shaped by events occurring many miles away and
vice versa.”
Anthony Giddens
Scholars not only hold different views with regard to
proper definitions of globalization, they also disagree
on its scale, causation, chronology, impact,
trajectories, and policy outcomes.
The word "globalization" has been used by
economists since 1981; however, its concepts did not
permeate popular consciousness until the later half
of the 1990s.
Various social scientists have tried to demonstrate
continuity between contemporary trends of
globalization and earlier periods.
Globalization is viewed as a centuries long process,
tracking the expansion of human population and the
growth of civilization, that has accelerated
dramatically in the past 50 years.
The global integration of humankind had its
beginnings under Portuguese auspices in the 15th
century.
The process of globalization had its origins in
Europe, through the Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch,
French, and English territorial and maritime
expansion into all habitable continents, and included
the discovery and colonization of the New World.
Proto-globalization
Early forms of globalization existed during the
Roman Empire, the Parthian Empire, and the Han
Dynasty, when the silk road started in China,
reached the boundaries of the Parthian Empire and
continued onwards towards Rome.
The Islamic Golden Age is also an example, when
Muslim traders and explorers established an early
global economy across the Old World resulting in a
globalization of crops, trade, knowledge and
technology; and later during the Mongol Empire,
when there was greater integration along the Silk
Road.
Globalization became a business phenomenon in the
17th century when was established.
The Dutch East India Company is described as the
first multinational corporation,
An important driver for globalization: Sharing risk
through joint ownership
Because of the high risks involved with international
trade, The Dutch East India Company became the
first company in the world to share risk and enable
joint ownership through the issuing of shares.
Liberalization in the 19th century is sometimes called
"The First Era of Globalization", a period
characterized by rapid growth in international trade
and investment, between the European imperial
powers, their colonies, and, later, the United States.
An Era of Colonization - Imperialism
It was in this period that areas of sub-saharan Africa
and the Island Pacific were incorporated into the
world system.
The decades preceding the outbreak of World War I
witnessed an era of extensive globalization.
The first era of globalization during the 19th century
was the rapid growth of international trade between
the European imperial powers, the European
colonies, and the United States.
Belief in the superiority of their own nation
[nationalism] has supplied the mental enery required
for large-scale warfare.
The enormous productive capacities of the modern
state [nation state] have provided the material means
necessary to fight the ‘total wars’ of the last century.
The "First Era of Globalization" began to break
down at the beginning with the first World War, and
later collapsed during the gold standard crisis in the
late 1920s and early 1930s.
The Dark Age for humanity due to world wars.
After World War II, globalization was restarted and
was driven by major advances in technology, which
led to lower trading costs.
Globalization in the era since World War II was first
the result of planning by economists, business
interests, and politicians who recognized the costs
associated with protectionism and declining
international economic integration.
Their work led to the Bretton Woods conference
(1944) and the founding of several international
institutions
intended to oversee the renewed processes of
globalization, promoting growth and managing
adverse consequences.
These were the International Bank for
Reconstruction and Development (the World Bank)
and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
It has been facilitated by advances in technology
which have reduced the costs of trade, and trade
negotiation rounds,
originally under the auspices of General Agreement
on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which led to a series of
agreements to remove restrictions on free trade.
Since World War II, barriers to international trade
have been considerably lowered through
international agreements - (GATT).
The Uruguay round (1984 to 1995) led to a treaty to
create the World Trade Organization (WTO), to
mediate trade disputes and set up a uniform platform
of trading.
Other bi- and multilateral trade agreements,
including sections of Europe's Maastricht Treaty and
the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)
have also been signed in pursuit of the goal of
reducing tariffs and barriers to trade.
The dramatic creation, expansion, and acceleration
of worldwide interdependencies & global exchanges
that have occurred since the early 1970s represent
another quantum leap in the history of globalization.
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Particular initiatives carried out as a result of GATT
and the World Trade Organisation (WTO), for which
GATT is the foundation, have included:
Promotion of free trade:
a) Reduction or elimination of tariffs;
construction of free trade zones with small or no
tariffs,
b) Reduced transportation costs, especially from
development of containerization for ocean
shipping,
c) Reduction or elimination of capital controls,
d) Reduction, elimination, or harmonization of
subsidies for local businesses,
Restriction of free trade:
a) Harmonization of intellectual property laws
across the majority of states, with more
restrictions.
b) Supranational recognition of intellectual
property restrictions (e.g. patents granted by
China would be recognized in the United States)
The nature of these developments has been criticized
by many including Noam Chomsky who states
“... That enhances what's called "globalization," a
term of propaganda used conventionally to refer to a
certain particular form of international integration
that is (not surprisingly) beneficial to its designers:
Multinational corporations and the powerful states to
which they are closely linked.”
In the decades following World War II, even the most
conservative political parties in Europe and the United
States rejected the laissez-faire ideas and instead
embraced an extensive version of state interventionism
propagated by British economist John Maynard Keynes,
the architect of the Bretton Woods system.
By the 1980s, however, British Prime Minister Margaret
Thatcher and US President Ronald Reagan led the
neoliberal revolution against Keynesianism, consciously
linking the notion of globalization to the ‘liberation’ of
economies around the world.
Concrete neoliberal measures include:
1. Privatization of public enterprises
2. Deregulation of the economy
3. Liberalization of trade and industry
4. Massive tax cuts
5. ‘Monetarist’ measures to keep inflation in check, even at
the risk of increasing unemployment
6. Strict control on organized labour
7. The reduction of public expenditures, particularly social
spending
8. The down-sizing of government
9. The expansion of international markets
10. The removeal of controls on global financial flows
The new neoliberal economic order received further
legitimation with the 1989-91 collapse of communism in
the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.
Since then, the three most significant developments related
to economic globalization have been:
a) The internationalization of trade and finance
b) The increasing power of transnational corporations
c) The enhanced role of international economic institutions
like the IMF, the World Bank, and the WTO.
Effects of globalization
Globalization has various aspects which affect the
world in several different ways such as:
a) Industrial
b) Financial
c) Economic
Industrial (alias trans nationalization) - emergence
of worldwide production markets and broader access
to a range of foreign products for consumers and
companies
Financial - emergence of worldwide financial
markets and better access to external financing for
corporate, national and subnational borrowers
Economic - realization of a global common market,
based on the freedom of exchange of goods and
capital.
However, the following problems are noted:
Poorer countries are sometimes at disadvantage:
While it is true that globalization encourages free
trade among countries on an international level,
there are also negative consequences because some
countries try to save their national markets.
The main export of poorer countries is usually
agricultural goods.
It is difficult for these countries to compete with
stronger countries that subsidize their own farmers.
Because the farmers in the poorer countries cannot
compete, they are forced to sell their crops at much
lower price than what the market is paying.
Exploitation of foreign impoverished workers:
The deterioration of protections for weaker nations
by stronger industrialized powers has resulted in the
exploitation of the people in those nations to become
cheap labor.
Due to the lack of protections, companies from
powerful industrialized nations are able to force
workers to endure extremely long hours, unsafe
working conditions, and just enough salary to keep
them working.
The abundance of cheap labor is giving the countries
in power incentive not to rectify the inequality
between nations.
If these nations developed into industrialized nations,
the army of cheap labor would slowly disappear
alongside development.
With the world in this current state, it is impossible
for the exploited workers to escape poverty.
It is true that the workers are free to leave their jobs,
but in many poorer countries, this would mean
starvation for the worker, and possible even his/her
family.
Shift from manufacturing to service work: The low
cost of offshore workers have enticed corporations to
move production to foreign countries.
The laid off unskilled workers are forced into the
service sector where wages and benefits are low, but
turnover is high. This has contributed to the
widening economic gap between skilled and
unskilled workers.
The loss of these jobs has also contributed greatly to
the slow decline of the middle class which is a major
factor in the increasing economic inequality in the
United States.
Families that were once part of the middle class are
forced into lower positions by massive layoffs and
outsourcing to another country.
This also means that people in the lower class have a
much harder time climbing out of poverty because of
the absence of the middle class as a stepping stone.
The rise of contingent work:
As globalization causes more and more jobs to be
shipped overseas, and the middle class declines, there
is less need for corporations to hire full time
employees.
Companies are less inclined to offer benefits (health
insurance, bonuses, vacation time, shares in the
company, and pensions), or reduce benefits, to part
time workers.
Most companies don’t offer any benefits at all.
Even though most of the middle class workers still
have their jobs, the reality is that their buying power
has decreased due to decreased benefits.
Job security is also a major issue with contingent
work.
Weakening of labor unions:
The surplus in cheap labor coupled with an ever
growing number of companies in transition has
caused a weakening of labor unions in the United
States.
Unions loss their effectiveness when their
membership begins to decline.
As a result, unions hold less power over corporations
that are able to easily replace workers, often for
lower wages, and have the option to not offer
unionized jobs anymore.
Political Globalization
Political globalization refers to the intensification
and expansion of political interrelations across the
globe.
These processes raise an important set of political
issues pertaining to the principle of state sovereignty,
the growing impact of intergovernmental
organization, and the future prospects for regional &
global governance.
Humans have organized their political differences
along territorial lines that generate a sense of
‘belonging’ to a particular nation-state in the last few
centuries.
This artificial division of planetary social space into
‘domestic’ and ‘foreign’ spheres corresponds to
people’s collective identities based on the creation of
a common’us’ & unfamiliar ‘them’. [demonizing the
images of the ‘other’. ]
The modern nation-state system has rested on
psycological foundadions & cultural assumptions
that convey a sense of existential security and
historical continuity.
The origins of the modern nation-system can be
traced back to 17th-century political developments in
Europe.
The Peace of Westphalia in 1648 concluded a series
of religious wars among the main European powers
following the protestant Reformation.
Based on the newly formulated principles of
sovereignty & territoriality, the new model of selfcontained, impersonal states challenged the medieval
mosaic of small polities.
[with local and personal political power but still
subordinated to a larger imperial authority.]
[transnational character of vast imperial domains]
The Westphalian model gradually strengthened a
new conception of international law based on the
principle that all states had an equal right to selfdetermination.
The unified territoral areas constituted the
foundation for modernity’s secular & national
system of political power.
Absolutist kings in France and Prussia
Constitutional monarchs and republican leaders of
England and the Netherlands,
The centuries following the Peace of Westphalia saw
the further centralization of political power, the
expansion of state administration, the development of
professional diplomacy, and the successful
monopolization of the means of coercion in the
hands of the state.
States also provided the military means required for
the expansion of commerce, which, in turn,
contributed for the spread of the European form of
political rule around the globe.
The second half of the 18th century a “double revolution”
ushered in the “modern world”:
The Industrial Revolutution starting in England about 1760
The French Revolution of 1789 introduced a new age of
political order initially in Europe and later throughout the
world.
The industrial revolution required more than a century to
affect all the areas that are productive industrial countries
today.
However, The dynamics of state-building and preindustrial
colonialism fueled an early era of globalization.
Durign the early modern period, the Europeans
managed to take control of the world’s seas, although
no one Europan power held a dominant positition
over its competitors.
The Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, English, ad
French, and even multinational pirate crews were far
superior to every other sea power.
European naval supremacy extended to all branches
of high-seas navigation: exploration, commerce, and
warfare.
The ties between naval power and commercial
shipping were closer in Europe than they had ever
been in any civilization in history.
The role of navies acquired a completely new
dimension as instruments of the early modern state.
Much of Europe’s innovative talent was spent o
perfecting naval & navigation techniques and in
establishing and running such complex organization
as the British East India Company, and the Royal
Navy.
Once Europe ahd secured control of the high seas,
the stage was set for the rise of the most dynamic
economic sector in the 18th century.
Moreover, shipbuilding & shipping became
important economic sectors each in its own right.
At first, military branch of seafaring was subordinate
in importance to commercial shipping
Around the middle of the 18th century, the military
branch emancipated itself from its supporting role
and became an instrument of a form of politics
unknown until then.
The strongest adversaries considered the entire world
to be a theater of war.
Large infantry units were shipped overseas. Britain
pioneered this new strategic concept.
British forces drove the French out of Canada, fouth
them and their indigeous allies in India, & attacked
Manila and Havana, two of the wealthiest cities in
the Spanish colonial empire.
The same phenomenon repeated itself in the larger
conflicts between Britain and revolutionary, later
Napoleonic, France, from 1793-1815.
Britain occupied many strategically vital ports in the
wake of Napoleonic Wars, including Gibraltar,
Malta, the Cape of Good Hope, and Singapore.
The British completed their military conquest of
India.
Attempted for the very first time to establish
diplomatic relations with China.
In 1788, Australia became the destination of the first
British penal transports – turning the continent into
another colony.
As a “fiscal military state” Britain was capable of
mobilizing a greater amount of financial resources at
home than were the “absolutistic” monarchies of the
Eurasian continent.
The improved capacity of naval warfare was one of
the results of British efforts to rationally organize the
state’s policies of taxation and debt financing.
France and Russia quickly copied the British model.
The concentration of power in the Atlantic region
was one of the most imqportant reasons for the great
crisis of the Western Hemisphere.
In the 1760s both the British state and the Spanish
crown attempted to strengthen their respective holds
over their American colonies.
Response: Thirteen British colonies declared their
independence in 1776 and fought against the British
and defeated them in 1783.
In the Spanish colonies the first attempts by the
Creole elite to free themselves proved too week,. But
they finally succedded in becoming independent as
the Spanish monarchy fell apart in the wake of
Napoleon’s invasion.
By 1825 the Spanish colonial empire had
disappeared altogether from the American continent.
A third war of independence started in 1791 by the
mulatto planters and black slaves in St. Dominique –
the most importannt sugar producing area of the
world.
Civil war – French & British intervention =
independence in 1804 under the name of Haiti, the
first black republic in History
The crises in the Atlantic between the Old and New
Worlds from about 1765 to 1825 were the result of
intense processes of integration in this maritime
region.
Paradoxical consequences in the long-term.
The revolts of settler and slaves destroyed some of the
existing links.
Once its sugar-exporting economy collapsed, slavefree Haiti dropped out of the global economy
In the USA the political elite directed the nation’s
attention westward, away from the Atlantic. Great
adventure of settling the North American continent
began.
The new republics of South and Central America
wanted to have as little to do with Spain as possible.
New international links were forged between the two
sides of the Atlantic.
In place of Spain, Latin American countries
established new economic relations with the leader of
globalization, Britain.
The economic, social, and cultural relations between
the USA and the Britain survived the political split
and developed over time into the “special
relationship”.
Napoleon’s global repercussion: The invasion of
Egypt in 1798.
Alarmed the entire Muslim world
Spurred British imperialism on to furtthur
expansion in Asia
The mature expression of the modern nation-state
system at the end of World War I:
US President Woodrow Wilson’s ‘Fourteen Points’
based on the principle of national self-determination.
All forms of national identity should be given their
territorial expression
Enshrining the nation-state as the ethical & legal
pinnacle of his proposed interstate system.
Extremely difficult to enforce in practice
Wilson lent some legitimacy to those radical
ethnonationalist forces that pushed the world’s main
powers into another war of global proportions.
The League of Nations.
Yet, Wilson’s commitment to the nation-state
coexisted with internationalist dream of establishing
a global system of collective security under the
auspices of a new international organization, the
League of Nations.
The United Nations
His idea of giving international cooperation an
institutional expression was eventually realized with
the founding of the United Nations in 1945.
While deeply rooted in a political order based on the
modern nation-state system,
the UN and other fledgling intergovernmental
organizations served a catalyst for the gradual
extension of political activities across national
boundaries,
thus undermining the principle of national
sovereignty.
As globalization tendencies grew stronger during the
1970s, it became clear that the international society
of separate states was rapidly turning into a global
web of political interdependencies that challenged
the sovereignty of nation-states.
In 1990, at the outset of the Gulf War, US President
George H. W. Bush pronounced dead the
Westphalian model by announcing the birth of a
‘new world order’.
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conceptual boundaries & cultural lines of
demarcation.
.
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Hyperglobalizers
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modern social life but have also
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evidence
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Question:
Is it really true that the power of nation-state has
been curtailed by massive flow of capital, people, and
technology across territorial boundaries ?
Political globalization is the creation of a world
government which regulates the relationships among
nations and guarantees the rights arising from social
& economic globalization.
Politically, the United States has enjoyed a position
of power among the world powers; in part because of
its strong and wealthy economy.
With the influence of globalization and with the help
of The United States’ own economy, China has
experience some tremendous growth within the past
decade.
If China continues to grow at the rate projected by
the trends, then it is very likely that in the next twenty
years, there will be a major reallocation of power
among the world leaders.
China will have enough wealth, industry, and
technology to rival the United States for the position
of leading world power.
Informational globalization
Increase in information flows between
geographically remote locations
Cultural globalization
Growth of cross-cultural contacts; advent of new
categories of consciousness and identities such as
Globalism
Globalism which embodies cultural diffusion, the
desire to consume and enjoy foreign products and
ideas, adopt new technology and practices, &
participate in a “world culture”.
Greater international cultural exchange
Spreading of multiculturalism, and better individual
access to cultural diversity (e.g. through the export of
Hollywood and Bollywood movies).
However, the imported culture can easily supplant
the local culture, causing reduction in diversity
through hybridization or even assimilation.
The most prominent form of this is Westernization,
but Sinicization of cultures has taken place over most
of Asia for many centuries.
Ecological globalization
The advent of global environmental challenges that
can not be solved without international cooperation,
such as climate change, cross-boundary water & air
pollution, over-fishing of the ocean, and the spread
of invasive species.
Many factories are built in developing countries
where they can pollute freely.
Social globalization
The achievement of free circulation by people of all
nations.
Greater international travel and tourism
Greater immigration, including illegal immigration.
Spread of local consumer products (e.g. food) to
other countries (often adapted to their culture)
World-wide fads and pop culture such as Pokémon,
Sudoku, Numa Numa, Origami, Idol series,
YouTube, Orkt, Facebook , and MySpace.
World-wide sporting events such as FIFA World Cup
and the Olympic Games.
Formation or development of a set of universal
values.
Imperialism
Scholarly opinion split into two camps:
Radical / Marxist Camp
Verus
Liberal / Conservative Camp
One camp: Radical intellectual drew on Marx and
Lenin;
linked 19th-century imperialism to the development
of industrial capitalism.
The process of capital accumalation generated
internal contradictions that found expression during
the last quarter of the 19th century in new and allencompassing forms of imperialism.
The struggle for control of the world was not
confined to the acquisition of colonies: it culminated
in WWI.
Imperialism, like capitalism, knew no frontiers:
economic integration created colonies as well as
“semi-colonies”.
liberal-conservative camp:
Grouped around a liberal-conservative banner,
rejected Marxism,
elaborated a range of alternative accounts of empire
and imperialism.
Against mono-causal economic analysis was ranged
a multiplicity of diplomatic, political, social, and
cultural, as well as economic, explanations of
empire-building.
Against the determinism of impersonal forces was set
the role of individuals and chance.
Eurocentric versus Ex-centric
Eurocentrism was countered by the ‘ex-centric’
thesis,
shifted causation to the periphery by emphasizing the
role of sub-imperialists, or men-on-the-spot.
Debits versus Benefits
The claim that imperialism was explotative provoked
alternative exercises in historical accounting to show
that it brought benefits.
The 19th century was a period of unparalleled
imperial expansion.
Extraordinary voyages of discovery in previous
centuries had enabled cartographers to inscribe
other continents on the map of mankind.
Parts of the world, notably the Americas and the
Indies, had already experienced European conquest
and rule.
Europeans, in turn, had been influenced by what
they read and by what they consumed.
Colonial imports had brought the exotic to the Old
World.
– from spices to silver, from potatoes to tobacco, from
sugar to tea –
A fascination with distant lands – Defoe’s Robinson
Crusoe (1719)
Petentartive capacity of Europe in the 19th century.
the applicationof science, especially new technology,
to the means of production, communication, and
coercion, gave Europe a penetrative capacity far in
excess of anything available to merchant venturers
and conquistadors.
It became posible to convert mastery of the sea to
ascendancy on land in new and decisive ways
&
to move the frontiers of Eurean influence deep into
the still-uncharted interior of vast continents.
Exploration – Partition - Occupation
By the close of the 19th century, exploration had
been overtaken by partition and partition, in turn, by
occupation.
Spheres of influence
Large segments of other continents had been
annexed, and ‘spheres of influence’ established over
much of the Middle East, the Far East, and Latin
America.
Expansion and Imperialism
The terms ‘expansion’ and ‘imperialism’ are often used as if
they were interchangeable.
To do so is to lose a valuable distinction.
Europe’s expansion overseas is an inclusive term:
If imperialism is removed for separate study, expansion can
be reserved for international movements (whether of people,
trade, or ideas) that were not imperialistic.
Imperialism
Imperialism can than be used to refer to a particular
form of expansion, one marked by inequality and
subordination, and by the intergration of a client or
satellite state into more powerful host or ‘mother’
country.
Empire versus Nation State
The integration is always incomplete: an empire
remains a multi-ethnic conglomerate; if it assimilates
subject peoples fully, it becomes an enlarged nation
state.
Imperialism can exist without an empire being
created.
The criterium:
Whether the sovereignty or independence of the
recipient was effectively and significantly diminished
- Argentina & the Ottoman Empire.
Subordination to imperialism
Subordination to imperialism does not, of itself,
entail one result, and the result that applies at one
moment may well alter with the passage of time.
Three vantage points: 1815, 1870, 1914.
A marked contrast in the picture ‘before’ (in 1815)
and ‘after’ (in 1914)
The global order that existed in 1918 showed distinct
signs of change after 1850.
By 1870 the manifestations of these changes were
readily apparent.
By 1914 they had transformed the world.
The Eurepean empires in 1815
The long and debilitating conflict between Britain and
France was a struggle for the mastery of the world as well as
Europe.
Following the Peace of Paris in 1763, France had been
excluded from the two greatest prizes: North America and
India.
Under the aggressive leadership of Napoleon Bonaparte, the
French had attempted to reclaim and extend their lost
position.
Britain’s triumph at Trafalgar in 1805 delivered
supremacy over the oceans.
Waterloo effectively levelled France on the continent
of Europe and kept it there long enough for the Pax
Britanicca to become an entrenched reality for the
greater part of the century.
Meanwhile, London replaced Amsterdam as the
commercial and financial capital of Europe.
An imperial quiescence / rest with free trade era ?
Or Anti-Imperialism ?
There was a growing trend away from empire from
the late 18th century provided the basis for the view
that the ensuing era of free trade was essentially
anti-imperialist.
Much of the 19th century was a period of imperial
quiescence / rest.
Sudden renewal of imperialist rivalries during the
last quarter of the century.
It is impossible to accept the proposition that there
was a long period of anti-imperialism between two
phases of empire, one old and one new.
Britain’s record after the loss of American colonies is
scarcely that of an anti-imperial power.
The first half of the 19th century saw substantial
formal additions to the British Empire.
Overseas expansion also increased Britain’s informal
presence and influence.
1838, a free-trade treaty with the Ottoman Empire:
Safeguarded the position of European settlers,
Subjected tariffs to external control,
Emilinated state monopolies.
The treaty was followed by a package of modernizing
reforms: Tanzimat Reforms
After a show of force, a similar free-trade treaty was
signed with Persia in 1841.
Britain fought two wars with China in 1839-42 and
1856-60.
Gained Hong Kong and a string of Treaty Ports that
were intended to promote British trade with the
largely untapped interior.
But the greatest scope for creating an informal
‘empire’ lay in Latin America.
The idea was to shape the newly independent
republics through trade, investment, and the export
of British liberalism.
A whole range of notable extensions to Britain’s
effective presence in non-European world during the
first half of the 19th century.
The most influential explanation focuses on the
Industrial Revolution.
Industrialization distinguished Britain’s economic
development from that of other European states.
It can also account for Britain’s much greater
success overseas as well.
New industries grew up within the protection of
mercantilist restrictions, which most manufacturers
were anxious to cling to for as long as possible, and
free trade was not established fully until 1850,
following the abolition of the Corn Laws in 1846 and
the Navigation Act of 1849.
Clear signs of systematic connection between the
process of industrialization and imperialism date
from the 1830s and 1840s.
Triumph or Difficulties
A manifestation not of the triumph of industry but of
its emerging difficulties.
The staple exports (especially cotton goods) were
suffering from overproduction and falling profits and
needed new markets, which could not be obtained
readily in protectionist Europe.
Population growth and Unemployment
Population growth was outstripping domestic food
supplies
and
rising unemployment was generating a challenge to
civil order.
Mercantilism versus Liberalism
The decision to abandon mercantilism was an
experiment designed to provide new markets for
manufactures and new sources of food for the urban
population.
Finance and Service Sector
The place of the Industrial Revolution exagerrated.
Attention needs to be shifted to the development of
finance and commercial services, symbolized by the
rise of London as the pre-eminent center of world
trade an by the emergence of the pound sterling as
the leading international currency.
LONDON and the CITY
London: major center of service-sector employment;
the City generated vital overseas earnings.
Considerable influence in political circles.
Warehouse versus Workshop
Imperial expansion was designed not only to solve
industry’s problem but to maximize the City’s
earnings,
&
make Britain the warehouse of the world rather than
its workshop.
Defence and the Navy
Considerations of defence to be given prominence in
accounting for Britain’s overseas expension.
The small, offshore island had long been obliged to
give the highest priority to the need to protect itself
against larger and more powerful neighbours, first
Spain annd then France.
The main strategy was to develop the navy.
Naval strength was supported by mercantilist
policies;
wealth created by seaborne commerce generated
valuable foreign earnings and a degree of
independence from land-based predators.
The first half of the 19th century was a period of
markedly uneven development in Europe’s relations
with non-European societies.
Once great empires were in retreat or had collapsed,
Britain alone was creating new frontiers of
expension, formal and informal, overseas.
By maximizing its comparative advantage in finance,
shipping, and commerce, and by creating reliable
political allies abroad,
Britain hoped to bring into being an international
regime that would support its own emerging liberal
economic and political order.
From 1870 onwards
The period of intense imperialist competition that
characterized the years leading down to the First
World War.
Major economic, political, and cultural trends began
to emerge from about the middle of the century.
By 1870 a number of interlocking economic and
technological changes had begun to transform the
landscape of continental Europe.
Industrialization had spread in a slow and patchy
way from the early years of the century.
By the last quarter of the century, particular regions
of Germany, France, and Belgium had sizeable
industrial sectors.
Germany, the most advanced of the continental
powers, was starting to pioneer the products of the
second industrial revolution, such as chemicals and
electrical goods.
Steam power
The aplication of steam power, which was
fundamental to improvements in manufacturing
productivity, enabled striking gains to be made in
transport efficiency.
Railways
Railways were built from the 1830s.
Transoceanic steamship services began in the 1850s.
These developments cut the cost and speeded up the
movement of goods and people dramatically.
Electricity
Another miraculous innovation was electricity.
It had a similar effect on information flows following
the invention of the land telegraph in the 1840’s and
the submarine cable in the 1850s.
War Technology
Improvements in technology also transformed the
means of destruction, making possible large and
more powerful navies
and,
through the invention of automatic loading and
mobile field guns, brought the prospect of total war
nearer.
These innovations impringed on the overseas world
very soon after they were adopted in Europe.
During the 1850s regular steamship services began
to ports in sub-Saharan Africa, railway construction
started in India, Australia, and Latin America and
the first transatlantic telegraph cable was laid.
Railway-building in most of Asia and Africa awaited
the coming of European rule at the close of the
century.
Engineering skills
New engineering skills enabled the great canals of
Suez (1869) and Panama (1914) to part four
continents.
Modern weapons
They had the considerable merit of enabling the few
to dominate the many.
Modern weapons arrived even sooner.
Enfield rifles to deal with the Indian Mutiny in 1856
Gatling’s machine guns from 1862.
Maxim’s much improved version of machine gun in
1889.
These engines of destruction were labour-saving
devices: the cost of coercion diminished.
Wolume & value of trade
These developments greatly strengthened the
connection between Europe and the rest of the world.
The volume and value of trade expanded to reach
unprecedented levels.
More significant:
Changes in the structure of the international
economy:
Increasing specialization produced the classic
pattern of exchange:
Unequal
Europe exported manufactures and the rest of the
world concentrated on produciding raw materials
and foodstuffs.
The growth of export enclaves across the world:
cereals, vegetable oils, cotton, jute, coffee, cocoa,
rubber, silk, timber.
Carried by steamship to the ports of Europe in
exchange for;
The staples of the great manufacturing centers:
Notably textiles and metal goods.
The mining revolution
Rich deposits of gold and other minerals, such as
diamonds, copper, and tin were found on distant
frontiers.
It was at this point, in the second half of the century,
that the Industrial Revolution began to have an
important effect on economic relations with the
world beyond Europe.
Export of capital - Financial flows
The expansion of world trade was closely associated
with the export of capital and the movement of
people.
After about 1850, financial flows from Europe were
of growing importance in funding development in the
rest of the world.
At first, capital was directed mainly to governments,
to assist classical structures, like the Ottoman
Empire,
or
to modernize or to help entirely new states, like the
Latin American republics, to come into being.
Private venture
From 1870’s, a growing proportion of finance was
raised for private venture, above all for railways.
With increasing scale and specialization, a new set of
large banks and complementary commercial and
shipping firms emerged to manage the international
economy.
The integration of commodity markets was matched
by the integration of capital markets.
Financial crisis in the United States in 1873
Transmitted to the other industrializing countries
and, via them, to the exporters of primary products.
The Ottoman bankrapcy – The foundadion of the
Ottoman Debt administration in 1881.
The opening of new frontiers generated a fresh
exodus from Europe.
Emigration was fuelled by population growth,
unemployment, and political instability.
New opportunities grew and the cost of taking them
fell.
About the middle of the 19th century the large-scale,
enforced movement of Africans across the Atlantic
was finally halted and was replaced by a flow of free,
desperately poor, migrants:
English, Scots, Welsh, and Irish settled in Nort
America;
Spanish and Italian emigrants went to Latin
America.
The other colonies of settlement: the Cape, Australia
and New Zeland began to fill out.
These flows expanded greatly during the last quarter
of the century.
The movement of peoples between and within the
other continents:
Increased numbers of Chinese found their way to
Singapore and other parts of south-east Asia.
Indian settlers and transient workers expanded their
age-old ties with East Africa and extended them
south to the Cape.
Africans, Vietnamese, Malays, and many others
travelled long distances to work in mines and on
plantations.
Taken as a whole, what was happening globally by
1870 was the movement of one factor of production,
labour, funded by another, capital, to take up
opportunities on a third, immobile factor, land.
The effort to convert souls travelled in harness with
the effort to transform economies and societies.
By 1870, there had been a revival of missionary
energy and activity that continued down to 1914,
especially in Africa and Asia.
The information gathered from these diverse sources
and places was processed in new or expanded ways.
Increasing literacy, combined with growth of the
popular press, brought news of the wider world to a
non-specialist audience.
Fact and fantasy were mixed to produce malleable
representations and misrepresentations of other
societies.
By the turn of the century, the colonial novel had
become a well-recognized literary genre.
Images of distant lands, typically mixed with imperial
and patriotic thems, found many other popular
outlets.
Scholarship also played its part in conveying ideas
about the non-European world.
Geography, geology, oceanography, anthropology,
botany, zoology, tropical medicine, and history were
among the academic disciplines that were generally
stimulated by overseas expansion.
Empire, its heroes, and the values they exemplified
also entered into the training of the young, especially
in Britain, through the education system, sport, and
youth organization such as Boy Scouts and Girl
Guides.
Imperialism became an increasingly prominent item
on the political agenda after 1870.
This was a time of intense imperialist rivalries.
The whole of Africa was partitioned and
subsequently occupied, principally by Britain and
France.
Other European powers, old and new, shared in the
spoils.
The spread of informal influence and the creation of
informal empires.
Although Latin America, the Middle East, and China
did not become European colonies, their
independence was significantly compromised.
A number of Latin American republics, headed by
Argentina, were dominated by British finance and
trade, and their political elites were beguiled /
attracted by British liberalism.
The Ottoman Empire fell increasingly under the
control of Britain, France, and Germany after
defaulting on its external debt in 1875.
The Ottoman economic and financial structures
integrated into the European and world economies in
the 19th century.
In this process, the essential factor was the rapid
growth in trade between the Ottoman Empire and the
leading countries of Europe.
During the three-quarters of a century following the
free trade treaties, signed first with Britain in 1838
then with other European countries,
total Ottoman exports increased more than five
times,
while imports measured in current prices expanded
six and a half times.
The Ottoman economic structure witnessed a deepgoing commercialization in the wake of Napoleonic
wars.
Although a number of bilateral trade and
commercial relations between the Ottoman Empire
and Europe predated the Tanzimat reform of 1839,
the proclamation of the reform edict, greatly
accelerated Ottoman integration into the world
economy.
Both the reforms of the Tanzimat era and the
growth in foreign trade had a positive impact
on internal trade.
The injection of money through foreign trade
dismantled the self-sufficient, closed economic
circuits.
Britain and Russia divided Persia into spheres of
informal influence in 1907
China resisted foreign incursions until prised /
forced open by the rising power of Japan after the
Sino-Japanese War of 1894-5.
There followed a scramble for concessions and
influence that resulted in large segments of China
being partitioned informally between Britain,
France, Russia, and Germany.
The question to be addressed:
Why was expansion converted into imperialism (and then
into empire) at certain times and in certain places.
This outcome was not inevitable.
Britain exported manufactured goods, capital, and people to
the United States on a large scale in the 19th century, yet it
ditd not attempt to re-annex its former colonies or to turn
them into an informal empire.
French capital and expertise played a significant part in
modernizing Russia’s economy and army at the close of the
century without making the Tsar a pawn of Paris.
The explanation:
The relationsihp between parties was one of
approximate equality; it was not possible even if it
were desirable, for one to dominate the other.
For expansion to become imperialism and for
imperialism to be translated into empire, two
conditions had to be met:
The motive had to be strong enough for the attempt
to be made.
The inequality between expanding and the receiving
states had to be sufficiently large to make the
prospect of domination practible.