'A Sample Position Paper\r'

'A SAMPLE typeset PAPER Globalization: A enactment to What? barber, Benjamin R. trigger to inter stir of matteral jihad vs. Mc homo (New York: B eachantine Books, 1996) Kobrin, Stephen J. â€Å" covert to the Future: Neo gothicism and the Post new-made Digital field Economy,” Globalization and plaque (London: Routledge, 1999. After the damn clashes mingled with anti- orbicularisation protesters and the police in Genoa, globalization is once again on the servicemans order of communication channel and it is here to stay.\r\nA dream to virtu each(prenominal)y and a nightmargon to others, globalization is a widely debated issue among journalists and scholars, among intellectuals of all profiles, business people and decision-makers akin. Benjamin R. groom, Walt Whitman professor of governmental science, and Stephen J. Kobrin, professor of multinational man whilement, twain break the discussion, each giving his own slew of what the post- new(a) future of this glob alized universe of discourse strength way like. In â€Å" jihad vs. McWorld” Barbers fragmented and at the same time integrated humans is â€Å"terminally post-democratic” (20).\r\nIt is pulled apart by ii opposing major powers: disintegrating ethnic hatreds and unifying mechanisms of global economy, n integrity of which cargons much for civic confederation and obliging liberties. In Barbers terminology jehad stands for the blind parochialism of any kind, save chiefly for tribal instincts that tear countries apart and catch bloody wars. McWorld epitomizes the land of consumerist capitalism incorporated by commerce, entertainment and consumerism that knows no borders. Although jehad seems like a more apparent threat to democracy, McWorld is no less(prenominal) unsafe because both are enemies of the sovereign nation states and of democracy.\r\nBarber warns that democracy office be collateral damage from the confrontation between globalization and paroch ial fragmentation. darn Barber is primarily interested in the requisite of democracy, Kobrin gives a great deal of tutelage to the problem of state sovereignty in the progressively integrated world. In â€Å" clog to the Future: Neo gothicism and the postmodern Digital World Economy” the key issue is the pass judgment transformation of state sovereignty into new-sprung(prenominal) forms of political loyalty. Kobrin argues that sovereign state as we know it-firmly delimitate within genuine territorial borders-is about to change profoundly, if non to wither away.\r\nNational markets are in any case small to be self-sustainable which challenges the meaning of territorial boundaries between states. Both authors acknowledge that sovereignty, defined as unambiguous ascendency, is threatened. Whereas Barber finds that alarming, Kobrin takes this as a historical inevitability; modern state system, based on mutually exclusive jurisdiction, may be an unusual person rathe r than a historically interior form of political organizations. Kobrin argues that we should look at the medieval world for the answers to how the future might look like.\r\n knightly analogy offers a world of overlapping multiple governing and absence of fixed boundaries. It is a world of multiple political loyalties-to emperors, to the pope, to feudal lords-which are complex rather than linear. Kobrins modern analogy is European Union, with its overlap of national, regional and supra-national authorities. The medieval metaphor seems attractive, precisely Kobrin forgets that the world of the centre of attention Ages was highly decentralized rather than unite, and in that sense radically polar from our own.\r\nMedieval feuds, as economic units, were self-sufficient and isolated-everything that modern markets are not. Kobrin himself argues that the integrated economy requires a strong central empowerment, perhaps not yet in the form of world government but certainly through and through stronger international organizations such as WTO. Clearly, this is a different kind of authority than a pope or an emperor might have had in medieval world. Is medieval analogy applicable at all? If we follow Kobrins reasoning, it appears that the new world pass on require more rather than less authority.\r\nNation-states sovereignty may be eroding, but, as a result, we have an increasing supra-national authority instead of a loose authority of the medieval type. Barber, on the other hand, may be launching an artificial wave-particle duality. While McWorld sounds like an apt metaphor for globalization, Jihad seems to be a superficial, emotionally aerated term with multiple meanings. Barber draws on Yeats and Mary Shelly to define this â€Å"heritage of race,” the force of tribal instincts, ancient hatreds, and fundamentalism. Although doubtless poetic, the idea of Jihad, as described by Barber, is confusing.\r\nHe takes a few examples of ethnic conflict, such a s Bosnia or Rwanda, and declares they are but a manifestation of the tribalisation phenomenon, but he does curt to support his thesis. Did Bosnia real fall apart because of ancient, tribal hatreds? Barber overlooks the fact that peoples of Bosnia have been living peacefully with one another much longer than they have waged wars. Reducing complex conflicts to an oversimplified, under the weather defined phenomenon such as Jihad helps Barber support his shaky Jihad-McWorld dichotomy but does little to persuade the proofreader that Jihad subsists as such.\r\nBarbers and Kobrins views seem diametrically opposite whereas it may simply be that they are pictureing different issues. There is little common ground between them in terms of problems they are interested in. They both take McWorld for granted, though. Neither challenges globalization nor tries to count on the world as something other than globalized, digital, and integrated. rase Barber who laments over the destructivene ss of Jihad admits that McWorld is the success in the long run. Although they have different agendas, they are telling essentially one and the same thing-the future belongs to McWorld.\r\nWhat with democracy, Barber asks? Everyone ordain be a consumer, but what lead happen to citizens? For Kobrin, however, the problem does not exist; just as we have obliging societies within states today, in the future they ordain be replaced by global civil society with its mixture of state and non-state actors, NGOs, transnational movements. Are Barber and Kobrin debating at all? Their visions of the world in the future are not mutually exclusive. Barber comes up with a bold notion that not even nations constitute main players today, but tribes.\r\nHis description of balkanization, tribalization and awakening of throwback(prenominal) forces among peoples evokes images of immorality Middle Ages. Barber warns that our acculturation is beginning to resemble medieval outgoing in which the worl d consisted of warring fiefdoms unified by Christianity; in our world, Bosnian Serbs and alike wage their ethnic conflicts while both the aggressors and the victims eat the same BigMacs, wear jeans and hold MTV. It seems that he is also looking at the world through medieval prism, albeit from its dark side. It is precisely the dark side that Kobrin avoids confronting.\r\nHe is intentionally focused on the practicalities of managing the world in the future so he lefts out of the picture the unpleasant details. atomisation is one of the issues that he chooses not to consider although he acknowledges that some authors, such as Kaplan offer a less starry-eyed vision of the world torn by refugee migration, insular armies, collapse of nation state and civil order with it. Kobrins only result to this grim prophecy is little more than hope: â€Å"One hopes that such an age is not part of the neomedieval metaphor, hat a new and more terrifying minor is not on the horizon” (183). Walled communities and private security forces that he admits appear increasingly today could be, Kobrin still hopes, only â€Å" temporary products of a world in novelty and not a permanent feature of the postmodern era” (183). Barber, Benjamin R. Introduction to Jihad vs. McWorld (New York: Ballantine Books, 1996) Kobrin, Stephen J. â€Å"Back to the Future: Neomedievalism and the Postmodern Digital World Economy,” Globalization and Governance (London: Routledge, 1999.\r\n'