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Preface During the 1980s there was rapid growth of trade in goods and
services, foreign investment, technology transfer, foreign exchange transactions and
telecommunications. Transnational enterprises were a crucial vehicle for many of these
processes. This thrust of global economic integration, along with other forms of
globalization - scientific, technological and cultural - has been reinforced by structural
adjustment policies, which themselves were a result of post-war dynamics of global
integration and the post-1973 economic crisis. However, if the areas in which
liberalization has taken place are many and varied, the countries benefiting from it are
less so. Discrimination in patterns of liberalization has tended to shrink the global role
of developing countries.
In the industrialized countries where they originated,
adjustment policies are elements of both continuity and rupture with the economic and
social policies pursued in the post-war period, while in the developing countries they
constitute a sharp break with earlier state-directed policies. In Third World countries,
the pace and pattern of liberalization show considerable variation reflecting
socio-economic structures, the severity of the crisis, the intensity of foreign pressure
and the interplay of contending social groups.
Globalization and liberalization have had wide-ranging
political and social consequences that imply shifts in power both nationally and
internationally. Internationally, during the 1980s, power shifted further out of the reach
of developing countries toward foreign creditors and investors, international financial
institutions and the industrialized countries. Globalization and liberalization have
undermined the social alliance and national consensus on economic and social goals and
policies established in the post-war period in both developing and industrialized
countries. Incidence of poverty has increased in most countries, accentuating social
conflicts world-wide.
The power of nation states has eroded, decreasing their
willingness and ability to cope with the expanding social crisis. At the same time, the
economic power wielded by the new dominant forces has not been matched by a corresponding
shift in their political and social responsibilities for global welfare. These changes
pose serious threats to political stability and sustainable growth.
This UNRISD Discussion Paper presents globalization and
liberalization as interdependent and mutually reinforcing processes, and considers their
origins, context and social consequences for industrialized and developing countries.
| October 1992 |
Dharam Ghai |
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Director |
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