Globalization is generally perceived as a fundamental change in human interactions, but precisely what has changed and how it has changed are matters of contention. Some maintain that the changes are mainly related to the emergence of transnational economic and political organizations, while others emphasize the role of dramatic improvements in communications—with the Internet, mobile phones, and satellite networks shrinking space and time. Although some argue that globalization is economically driven, its political, cultural, and technological processes are equally important. Globalization is a complex, contradictory process that simultaneously involves increased diversity and homogenization, fragmentation and integration, and localism/regionalism and internationalism. This brief illustrates some of these contradictions as they have emerged in the areas of democracy, social capital, and social movements in developing countries, emphasizing their relationship with poverty and food security.
Democracy is important for food security in a number of ways—it helps ensure a government’s commitment to famine prevention, for example. India’s success in conquering its vulnerability to famines has been attributed to two key elements: a vigilant press (to disseminate information about impending food crises) and free elections (to ensure the government’s accountability to its electorate). Recent research has also documented the positive impact of democracy on declines in child malnutrition.
Democracy has made remarkable progress during the past 30 years, especially in the developing world—a change that has been strongly influenced by the evolution of global communications. Authoritarian regimes, based on control of information, have no future in a framework of open communication: access to information helps citizens gain greater awareness and enables increased participation.
But not all information is equally helpful, nor do all actors have equal access to information resources. Consequently, different groups of people have different opportunities to mobilize and to make their voices heard. Information technologies mainly are designed for developed countries, making it hard for poor people in developing countries to benefit from them because they lack the necessary literacy and live mostly in rural areas, where telecommunication facilities are far less available than in urban areas. Poor women benefit even less than poor men. Such exclusion means that the poor are at risk of being cut off from the global conversation.
There is also increasing concern that the new wave of democracy might face reversals, as indicated by the recent rise of populism in some countries in Latin America and Asia, and the persistence of single political parties in parts of Africa.
Social capital is a type of social organization based on networks with common norms and mutual trust that pursue common goals. Studies in different developing countries show that societies with strong social capital tend to do well economically and can reduce their poverty levels. In addition, several studies on rural development have shown that indigenous or locally created associations can be essential for growth as well as food security. Globalization affects social capital in multiple ways, and the question is whether societies gain or lose from increased exposure to external forces and ideas. Some societies may lose traditional values, norms, and networks without making further progress. In other societies, new practices brought by globalization may transform “dysfunctional” traditional groups into more productive ones.
A study of an industrial sector in Kerala, India, illustrates the successful establishment of new social capital influenced by global ideologies such as democracy at both the macro and micro levels. At the macro level, the state government transformed the traditional vertical political structure into a more horizontal network and encouraged social mobilization by creating strong and effective legal systems. With this governmental support, the power of the lower class at the micro level was strengthened through labor unions and class mobilization. This contributed significantly to transforming traditional relationships with the local elite and improving the welfare of the poor.
Another example of an effective social network is the Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA), which operates in Gujarat, India. SEWA began by organizing textile workers, then applied and modified the lessons learned to mobilize women in the informal sector, helping them achieve some power over their work situation. Its efforts bring together three movements: the labor movement, the cooperative movement, and the women’s movement. SEWA’s philosophy vis-à-vis globalization is pragmatic, supporting trade liberalization in some cases and opposing it in others, depending on whether the effects are beneficial or damaging to the poor.
In the case of SEWA and similar initiatives, the availability of the Internet and other new communication technologies has played a crucial role in promoting effective participation of the poor. These experiences show that there are ways of putting the new technologies to work for the poor. Grameen Telecom, a branch of the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, provides another good example. Founded in 1996, Grameen Telecom has sought to make telephone service available throughout Bangladesh. It does this by loaning money for the purchase of cellular phones to women recruited from among the Grameen Bank’s borrowers. After the women purchase a phone on credit, they make telephone service available to an entire village, charging villagers for phone use. The project helps the rural poor of Bangladesh not only by providing better access to information, but also by offering low-income women good opportunities for income generation.
Environmental changes, fluctuations in the global economy, and developments in global technologies do not respect the boundaries of nations. Nations remain powerful, but because of global forces there are large gaps opening up between their governments and citizens. This makes sovereignty a fuzzy concept.
Much of the current debate on globalization and social movements focuses on the concept of a global civil society—a society in which networks and movements provide a voice for individuals in the global arena. Referring mainly to independent nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and to social movements that operate across national boundaries, the concept and the forms it embodies are viewed by some as the necessary response to a more globalized world.
The term civil society is often associated with the ability to control the circumstances in which individuals live and the substantive empowerment of citizens. But do these new global forms of organizing allow the poorest countries—and, more importantly, the most marginalized and vulnerable groups in a country—to have equal participation in civil society? Globalization offers conflicting opportunities to social movements. On the one hand, it provides them with significant new possibilities and resources for influencing both state and nonstate actors. On the other hand, to the extent that globalization appears to reduce the ability of states to act within their own territories, it means that social movements must direct resources toward international linkages and partnerships that may diminish their autonomy or their effectiveness in their home country. Some would argue, for example, that small NGOs supporting poor communities in developing countries need to work on very specific local issues—that they have neither the time nor the resources to engage in more global concerns.
The difficulty of shaping a common agenda that respects the needs and interests of all participants in transnational movements is also an important issue. In the women’s movement, for example, there have been notable difficulties in developing a shared global perspective on economic change. Tensions result from the fact that the economic interests of women in developing countries can conflict directly with those of women in developed countries. Acknowledging the complicity of women in the North in the suffering of women in the South has been a challenge: the preservation of women’s consumption standards and employment in the North, for example, results in environmental damage or loss of women’s labor rights in the South. Similarly, during the protests in Seattle, the wide range of civil-society organizations that were represented—trade unions, environmental activists, farmers’ associations, women’s groups, campaigners for social justice—often had very diverse views and aims. Moreover, the NGOs present came predominantly from the North, while civil society from the South was underrepresented.
More inclusive methods of mobilization are needed to ensure greater participation by developing countries—an outcome that might result in a different way of tackling social and environmental conditions. The use of a common label (“civil society”) should not obscure the heterogeneity of interests and objectives across groups and countries, and the need to deal in a democratic way with those differences.
Globalization can provide the poor with opportunities for mobilization, for strengthening democratic institutions, and for making their voices heard. But it does not come without risks, perhaps the greatest of which is the potential for marginalizing the poorest and most vulnerable segments of society. The outcome will depend, to a great extent, on developments in civil society and the ways that can be found to promote greater accountability and global responsiveness to the needs of the poor in developing countries.
For further reading see L.J. Camp and B. Anderson, “Grameen Phone: Empowering the Poor through Connectivity,” IMP: The Magazine on Information Impacts (December 1999) (http://www.cisp.org/imp); J. Dreze and A. Sen, Hunger and Public Action (Oxford University Press, 1991); F. Fukuyama, “Social Capital and Civil Society” (http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/seminar/1999/reforms/fukuyama.htm [1999]); A. Goetz, “Lobbying for Economic Justice: Women’s Movements and the World Bank” (Institute of Development Studies, Sussex, UK, 1999); P. Heller, “Social Capital as a Product of Class Mobilization and State Intervention: Industrial Workers in Kerala, India,” World Development 24 (1996); M. Kaldor, “‘Civilizing’ Globalization? The Implications of the ‘Battle in Seattle’”(http://www.lse.ac.uk/Depts/global [2000]); and Self Employed Women’s Association website (http://www.sewa.org).
Marzia Fontana (m.fontana@cgiar.org) is a research analyst and Yukitsugu Yanoma (y.yanoma@cgiar.org) is a senior research assistant in the Trade and Macroeconomics Division at IFPRI.