I picked up Franklin Foer’s book How Soccer Explains the World at Porter Square Books the other day, and have been enjoying it quite a bit. It’s not a comprehensive study of globalization, but it does manage to collect a whole bunch of wonderful stories and anecdotes about the ways that globalization is changing local cultures.
He does throw out an interesting idea, though, when discussing the relatively liberal past of Iran, and the attempts to pull the Middle East into the fold, as it were. Where the argument has been made that opening the states of the Middle East to globalization is going to push them toward liberal democracy, he sees a backlash. Opening those nations to global brands and global trade is one thing, but at the moment they’re only on the receiving end; the benefits of a global economy and a global culture aren’t accruing to them at all. Pakistanis and Iranians and Iraqis can buy food at Taco Bell and clothes at the Gap, but they don’t get anything back from these interactions with the global market. They give; they don’t receive.
His thought is that encouraging a little bit of the nationalist fervor that once ruled places like Syria might actually help them to move in the direction of democracy, by tempering the passions of those who see themselves being exploited by outsiders. If people align themselves with their nations — as nations, rather than marketplaces, they have a reason to want their nations to grow strong. Recent experience has shown that open markets, trade, and modernization tend to encourage national strength in ways that closed societies can’t really enjoy.
It’s an interesting idea. I don’t know that it’s convincing as presented, but it wasn’t really presented in a context that was designed to change minds. At least it’s a different viewpoint.