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Nye, Joseph S., Jr., and John D. Donahue, eds. Governance in a Globalizing World. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2000. Index, 368 pp.; hardcover $47.95, paperback $18.95.
Explaining and dissecting the phenomenon of globalization is a highgrowth industry. Amid the mountains of studies available in this genre, this is one of the few that deserves a place in the personal library of anyone interested in this most controversial of subjects. Few of the important dimensions of globalization are left untreated: national and international security, communications, cosmopolitanism, legal issues, transnational NGOs, international institutions, culture and identity, information policy, environmental issues are all covered in individual chapters. All the contributors are drawn from Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government. Their collaborative effort has produced a most insightful volume, which usefully contradicts many (unsubstantiated) assertions that one hears or reads in the media-and indeed in much scholarly work.
One of the biggest myths concerning globalization is that it is irreversible. Far from it, say most of the collaborators here. The process, after all, hinges as much on deliberate political decisions as on technological trends. And the increased volatility and uncertainty that appear to be associated with increased integration may lead to a powerful backlash with serious policy ramifications. As Joseph Nye and Robert 0. Keohane warn,
chaotic uncertainty is too high a price for most people to pay for somewhat higher average levels of prosperity. Unless aspects of globalization can be effectively governed, it may not be sustainable in its current form. (p. 1)
The introductory chapter makes the useful analytical distinction between globalism ("a state of the world involving networks of interdependence at multicontinental distances"), globalization (an increase in globalism) and deglobalization (a decrease in globalism). The distinction is more than a semantic flourish, for it allows us to speak with clarity about the phenomenon of global interdependence-avoiding the old Humpty Dumpty trap in which something means "what I say it means." It also reminds us that globalization is not new. While today's phenomenon differs in some qualitative respects, other periods of history have witnessed periods of increased globalism. In the search for verbal exactitude and analytical clarity, a step forward would be made if the academic community made more widespread use of the terms globalism...