Globalisms

Facing the Populist Challenge

By (author) Manfred B. Steger Professor of Global Polit

Publication date:

01 October 2019

Length of book:

240 pages

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Dimensions:

239x158mm
6x9"

ISBN-13: 9781538129449

Rather than reaching the “end of ideology” predicted only three decades ago, we find ourselves in the throes of an intensifying ideological struggle over the meaning and direction of globalization. Noted scholar Manfred B. Steger introduces readers to the clashing political belief systems of our time: market globalism, justice globalism, and religious globalism. He shows how these “globalisms” have developed and how their competing ideas articulate and legitimize particular political agendas. He focuses especially on the ways this battle of ideas has been extended through the unexpectedly powerful surge of antiglobalist populism, an ideological contender that stands in tension to pluralist values of liberal democracy. Explaining the origins, impacts, and consequences of the recent populist challenge, Steger considers the future prospects for the established globalisms in what promises to be a tumultuous decade—as global problems such as climate change, pandemics, transnational terrorism, financial crises, and cyber-warfare threaten humanity’s collective future.

Preface

Acknowledgments

1 Ideology and the Meaning of Globalization

2 The Academic Debate over Globalization

3 The Dominance of Market Globalism in the 1990s

4 First-Wave Challengers in the 2000s: Justice Globalism and Religious Globalism

5 Second-Wave Challengers in the 2010s: Antiglobalist Populism

6 Globalisms in the 2020s: Three Future Scenarios

Notes

Guide to Further Reading

Index

About the Author

In this new edition of Globalisms, Steger (Univ. of Hawai’i at Manoa) rejects “end of ideology” hypotheses, instead viewing the current era as a “teeming battlefield of clashing ideologies" (p. 5). His analysis centers on the dominant ideology, market globalism, and its three major antagonists: justice globalism, religious (jihadist) globalism, and anti-globalist populism. If market globalism advances economic freedom and growth as its core values, the others extol, respectively, social and environmental justice, religious faith, and reactionary, authoritarian nationalism. Market globalism seemed incontestable, even inevitable, in the 1990s, but events such as the 1999 anti-WTO protests, the 9/11 attacks and subsequent terrorist outbreaks, and the 2008 financial collapse and ensuing backlash against runaway inequality (compounded by the perceived erosion of national identities) have given rise to the opposing perspectives. Steger concludes by considering three possible scenarios: the anti-globalists consolidate power with effects similar to those suffered in the 1930s and 1940s, reformed market globalists are able to rebound, or a prolonged stalemate ensues. Occasional esoteric terminology does not detract from the vitally important issues illuminated in this seminal work. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readership levels.