GPI takes the view that globalisation is entering a second phase. The first phase was characterised by an Atlanticist neo-liberal agenda that, with the collapse of Soviet ideology and power, was able to promote an open trading order with adherence to Western style democracy and consumerist values. The second phase now emerging suggests the rise of three regional super-powers (EU, US and China - with lesser potential major powers waiting in the wings - India, Brazil, Russia.)  Each of the three super powers have very different views and ways of working in the global system. It is probably too early to refer to this as a multi-polar world, but serious doubts are emerging as to the robustness of previous ideas of economic, cultural and political globalisation and the extension of this model on a global scale. Globalisation may involve a far larger degree of regional adaptation before a viable, and sustainable, global order is stabilised. Capitalism (based on rational decision-making criteria), political self-determination, and cultural creativity will remain common attributes across the world. But the particular forms these might take will require a far greater sensitivity by researchers and commentators to the self-organising capacities of individual and collective actors

GPI's Modernisation and Culture research programme is investigating these issues under a number of headings. GPI actively welcomes collaboration with international research partners.

1. Multiple modernities

There has been a long-standing debate about whether modernity is singular to the West, or whether other modernities could develop in parallel. These other modernities could have their own mix of institutions (of kinship, economic enterprise, law, politics, state-society relations, religion and literate culture) that, were it not for the prior rise of the West, would have evolved into a different modernity. Hence one can speak of Chinese, Islamic, and Indian civilisations as possessing distinctive features, which could yet be capable of flourishing. These potentialities have been overlaid by the predominance of the western model, structured around the institutions of property rights, rational lawfinding, the separation of the enterprise from kinship, the separation of politics from religion, scientific rationalism and the diffusion of literacy. One part of this debate belongs to historical sociology and economic history. Another part lies in social theory and philosophy over how the validity claims of contending versions of modernity are to be assessed. 
 

GPI will support seminars and symposia to encourage debate and further thinking in this academic field.

2. Regional autonomy and SE Asia

Under current conditions of globalisation, countries don't necessarily have to turn their cultures and ways of doing things inside out in order to modernise. Nor do they have to adhere to western modernisation models. With the rise of regional blocs, countries have more choice on trading partners, trading rules, and investment sources. This is particularly the case for those countries that have critical strategic resources or occupy key locations. Such countries or groupings of countries are becoming foci of trade and investment flows. By 2020-25 it is expected that some 50% of global capitalisation will be in emergent markets. Also by 2020 (on present projections) the euro, the yuan, and the rupee will have achieved reserve currency status and the US$ will no longer remain the default value standard.

The analysis of these changes involves the examination of the interface between domestic systems and the international one, and the degree of openness to the world, and to regional blocs. Each of the major blocs (US, EU, and China) have been constituted differently and have their own ways of relating to their near abroad. In addition different modernisation patterns can be analysed in terms of  enterprises types, social capital, forms of self-determination and state-society relations. These issues can be seen in SE Asia. While there are significant differences between the cultures and modernities of East and South East Asia, there are some common threads. These include high levels of social capital, complex and intimately connect business and social networks, and close links between business and the state. These features reflect cultures in which kinship and trust and hierarchies of authority remain central.  Business tends to centre on personal contact, with few negotiations involving third parties and formal contracts. Thus, business is conducted with little recourse to the legal system. As a result (for most the states concerned), the legal framework for business and corporate governance remains weak (by international standards), particularly in such areas as bankruptcy, and breach of contract. This weakness is reinforced by social networks that link state, bureaucracy, judiciary and business. This can render inconvenient laws ineffective and ensure favourable rulings.  

What might be termed 'South East Asian Chinese' business is characterised by a lack of separation between management and ownership. Even large corporations tend to be family controlled with low levels of capitalisation and complex  interlocking share ownership. And in China enterprise formation has retained elements of the commune system and party control.  There is extreme reluctance to  dilute control over business enterprises through share issues or mergers. Enterprises grow through raising capital rapidly through business networks of which family controlled banks are often a key part. Indeed, many of the major corporate groupings centre on banks, which in some cases appear to be little more than 'family treasuries'. This situation facilitates the raising of large amounts of capital at short notice without recourse to the 'discipline the market' or western style business plans. The result has been a highly opportunistic and dynamic business form. 

In its various forms East and South East Asian business remains both remarkably effective and highly resistant to penetration by the Anglo-American form. Even where the long-standing controls over foreign ownership have been relaxed - as in Thailand, Indonesia and South Korea following the 1997 financial crisis - foreign companies find it difficult to acquire controlling interests, and where they do, experience considerable difficulty in operating, excluded as they are form the vital social networks. Resistance to foreign control exists at all levels, including national leadership. This has been most clearly in the cases of Malaysia and Thailand since 1997.  However, for all the major economies, significant protection of domestic business remain in place. However, there has been major liberalisation of trade and financial regimes and this has been a major factor in both the increased integration of East and South East Asian regions and the successful regional global operation of many corporations.

GPI's research programme will continue to analyse the trend to regional autonomy, the emergence of distinctive business forms and their embeddedness in local conditions, and the implications of this for the Anglo-American commercial model.

3. Culture

The achievement of modernity in the West involved transference of the cognitive claims of religion to those of science and a secular educational curriculum. The social rationality components of religion (literacy, specialist knowledge, law, obligatory ideas of justice and community) are taken over by a secular agenda guided by the nation-state. Culture itself is modernised and subject to rationalisation. Nation-state directed modernisation still remains a viable and effective option. A dominant one language community with mass acceptance of civic standards, institutions and symbols can be created and retarding particularisms and traditions can be pushed to the periphery of society.

In this model culture and civilisation are an intangible heritage and the basis of the common understandings which bind a society together. The experience of nineteenth and twentieth century societies has shown the integrative force of the creation of a cultural nation in the process of modernisation. Yet a central feature of the global age is the accessibility of mass communication beyond state control. This is a powerful influence on change. The outside world can be delivered through a mobile phone and a villager in, for example, Baluchistan can acquire an expectation of democracy from the internet. Equally, modernisation involves the abandonment of tradition village life and migration to the city, the removal of old statuses and the emergence of new classes. The danger in the global age is the loss of cultural heritage capable of providing meaning and direction in the disintegrative process of modernisation. 

With the increasing internationalisation of law pertaining to areas such as the economy and the environment, and with ongoing attempts by the World Trade Organisation to include culture in the GATS (the mechanism for liberalizing access to services on global basis of exchange), it has become necessary to safeguard and promote independent, national policy for culture and  the diversity of expressions which is challenged by globalisation. Given the increasing value of certain cultural works, particularly the audiovisual, the struggle to control cultural markets reveals that international instruments will be needed to safeguard diversity of expressions.

The United Nations Convention, ratified in 2005, with its precise focus on cultural works insists on a greater recognition of the value of culture to the society and economy in general. There is now an acknowledgement that development is not only driven by economic, social and environmental criteria, but also by cultural phenomena. Just as we need biodiversity, so too we need diversity of expression to survive into the next millennium.

GPI will publicise and promote the UN Convention on Cultural Diversity and will be active in researching the links between culture and modernisation.

Contact Points:

1. Multiple Modernities -  s.whimster(at)global-policy.com

2. Regional blocs -  c.j.dixon(at)global-policy.com

3. Culture -  h.aylett(at)londonmet.ac.uk