Since the 1980s it had been fashionable to suggest that there was little that individual countries could do in the face of global economic forces, and any attempt to pursue independent policies would be doomed to failure. ‘Even China’, it was often said, was embracing the global free market. The idea that developing countries, such as India, could promote their own developmental interests by sheltering behind exchange controls or national planning had been swept away along with the Berlin Wall. In the globalized economy of the twenty-first century, it was argued, national governments had to go with the flow of global markets. As the 2008 international financial crisis was breaking, the global strategy firm Oxford Analytica held one of its usual daily analysis sessions, but open to those attending its annual conference. The chair briefly summarised the unfolding global crisis, and then went round the table asking the various national experts to report. Despite the consensus referred to above, the reports did not paint a picture of a uniform globalised market to which each country related in the same way. The US and UK had been referred to in the opening statement, being very much at the centre of whatever it was that had caused the worst economic crisis since the 1930s. But when the expert on Brazil was called, he reported that the socialist President Lula had kept its financial sector rather independent of the global markets. Next India, and here too it was reported that it actually hadn’t opened itself up to the global market quite as much as might have been thought. Then China, where, it was reported, the Communist Party had maintained rather a firm grip.
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Handbook Chapter
In The Handbook of Globalisation, Third Edition
Edited by Jonathan Michie
- Published:
- 26 April 2019
Edited by Jonathan Michie
The Ethics of Competition
How a Competitive Society is Good for All
Christoph Lütge
Monograph Chapter
In Regional Infrastructure Systems
Colin Turner
- Published:
- 28 September 2018
Regional Infrastructure Systems
The Political Economy of Regional Infrastructure
Colin Turner
The Global Energy System
The Trans-national Strategy and Policy Interface
Colin Turner and Debra Johnson
There is a long precedent of transnational energy systems due to the spatial disparities between the locations of production and consumption. Within primary energy supply an extensive global system of distribution has emerged for primary energy sources, notably oil and gas, as many developed states have sought to ensure their energy security. As such there are strong pressures for integration within the global energy systems. These market-based pressures are also driven by other forces linked into these forces such as hegemonic power and international governance. However, there are also forces for fragmentation within the global energy system based on a mix of geo-politics, national political concerns and the uneven development of energy infrastructure.
Monograph Chapter
In Global Infrastructure Networks
Colin Turner and Debra Johnson
- Published in print:
- 24 Nov 2017
The Global Information Infrastructure System
The Trans-national Strategy and Policy Interface
Colin Turner and Debra Johnson
Arguably the global information infrastructure (GII) arguably demonstrates the highest degree of globality of all the economic infrastructures under consideration within this research. The GII itself is a modular concept consisting of a multitude of technologies. At the core of the spread of the GII is the internet. This technology has an embedded globality from its outset and access to it is seen as a key barometer of the economic development. This process has been supported by the development of an extensive oceanic cable system. However, this embedded globality is increasingly being challenged as many starts to restrict access to or movements of data. This has been shaped by the growing narratives on the so-called ‘splinternet’.
Monograph Chapter
In Global Infrastructure Networks
Colin Turner and Debra Johnson
- Published in print:
- 24 Nov 2017
Global Infrastructure Networks
The Trans-national Strategy and Policy Interface
Colin Turner and Debra Johnson
The Global Transport Infrastructure System
The Trans-national Strategy and Policy Interface
Colin Turner and Debra Johnson
This chapter investigates the main trends in global transportation infrastructure by initially examining how these state-based physical structures are adapting to global flows across the main forms of passenger and freight transportation. It is evident across each of the sectors that there are substantial forces for infrastructural integration. These are created by a series of forces, many of which lie on the soft infrastructure side of the global transportation system (such as trade facilitation, service liberalisation, etc.). As such, the forces for integration are suggestive of enabling flows to which national systems respond. However, these integrative forces are limited by variability in soft and hard infrastructure systems (both natural and man-made) which limit the fluidity of transport flows between and across NIS.
Monograph Chapter
In Global Infrastructure Networks
Colin Turner and Debra Johnson
- Published in print:
- 24 Nov 2017
Infrastructure and Territoriality
The Trans-national Strategy and Policy Interface
Colin Turner and Debra Johnson
Infrastructuring is core to understanding state territoriality. It is the provision of the physical structures that are central to understanding the control that states seek to assert over their territory. This infrastructuring strategy is contextualised in terms of a defined infrastructural mandate which identifies the multi-functional role that infrastructure plays in state territoriality. The infrastructural mandate stresses that states seek a National Infrastructure System to perform a number of functions, namely to offer territorial integration, security, control and growth.
Monograph Chapter
In Global Infrastructure Networks
Colin Turner and Debra Johnson
- Published in print:
- 24 Nov 2017