Transition from Nationalism to Internationalism to Globalism

* Article: Glossop, Ronald (2017) "Meaning of the Twenty-First Century: From Internationalism to Globalism," Comparative Civilizations Review: Vol. 76 : No. 76 , Article 15.

Available at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/ccr/vol76/iss76/15

Description

"The industrial revolution greatly changed not only the way that goods are produced but also the kinds of goods that get produced. New means of transportation (bicycles, trains, airplanes, automobiles, and jet planes) changed the distances people could and would travel. New means of communication (telegrams, telephones, radios, films, television, the internet, and cell phones) changed the ways people communicate with each other. As is often said, "Modern technological developments in transportation and communication are making the world smaller every day.” These changes brought about by the new products of industrialization are in turn producing changes in ourselves and in our society as we move from the internationalism of the 20th century to the globalism of the 21st century.

I want to call attention to the cultural shifts taking place in three areas:

(1) how we think of ourselves,

(2) how we communicate with each other, and

(3) what kind of political commitments we make, that is, where our political loyalties lie."

Discussion

The Transition from Nationalism to Internationalism

Ronald Glossop:

"Just as the transition from an agrarian society to an industrialized society didn’t occur everywhere at the same time, so the transition from nationalism to internationalism hasn’t taken place everywhere at the same time. Internationalism came to Europe much earlier than to the United States. The first international governmental organization was the Central Commission for the Navigation of the Rhine, created by the Europeans in 1815; and the second was the European Commission of the Danube created in 1856. The first worldwide international organization was the International Telegraphic Union. It was established in 1865 and incorporated into the International Telecommunication Union in 1932. Its work and that of other international functional organizations created about the same time was much more important in Europe than in other parts of the world. The formation of the European Union in the last part of the 20th century is moving Europeans toward internationalism, but there is still much nationalistic restraint on that effort toward integration. The nationalism in Europe is being overcome to a large extent by the feeling that European integration is necessary to compete with the United States, Japan, and China, but the use of many different national languages is a major obstacle to unification.

The United States, separated by oceans from both Europe and Asia, tended to view internationalism as a matter of U.S. domination of Latin America as proclaimed in the Monroe Doctrine of 1823. The intent of the Monroe Doctrine as originally expressed was to warn the Council of Europe powers not to support Spain in any effort to reconquer their Latin American colonies. It is the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine (1904) that represented a certain degree of US domination of Latin America. One indication of the extent to which nationalism has remained the prevailing outlook in the United States is the fact that it is one of only three countries in the world (the others are Burma and Liberia) which still does not use the International System of Units (the metric system of measurement), despite the fact that Congress adopted a law in 1866 saying that no contract using the metric system can be invalidated by a court plus the fact that other more recent laws declare it to be the preferred system of weights and measures in the United State. Despite some movement toward internationalism, nationalism is still a very powerful force in Europe as well as elsewhere. Nations continue to compete with each other economically and for status in all areas (science, entertainment, sports, art, literature). The two world wars were motivated by struggles for status between Germany and Britain, between Japan and China, and between Russia and Germany while the Cold War was a struggle for status between the Soviet Union and the United States. Similar struggles for status are now developing between nations such as the United States and China as well as between India and China. Nationalism is hardly a spent force."

(https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/ccr/vol76/iss76/15 )

The Transition from Internationalism to Globalism

Ronald Glossop:

"Now let us look at the transition from internationalism to globalism. The difference between these two outlooks is one of viewing the world as made up of a collection of nation-states as contrasted with viewing it as a single planet where national boundaries are relatively insignificant. The appropriate image for internationalism is a map of the world or a traditional globe where the different countries appear in different colors, each one bordered by a solid black line. The appropriate image for globalism is the photo of Earth from space where there are no national boundaries and the unity and solitariness of the planet in space are most evident. The word “internationalism” comes from Latin and means “between” or “among” nations. In this framework people do not relate directly to each other as individuals but usually interact with each other as citizens of different nations and in formal settings by means of national representatives. Crossing a national boundary usually means getting inspected, being subject to different laws, using a different language, and using different money. Although it is not possible to point to some single moment when the transition from internationalism to globalism begins, it seems that a significant event relevant to this transition was the photographing of the Earth from space which was done in the late 1960s and early 1970s. We are living in the age of globalization. That term “globalization” is usually taken as applying to the domination of the global economy by transnational corporations, and that shift certainly is a major factor in the way that the global society is changing.

It is these corporations more than any other institutions that are operating in a world where national borders are more and more irrelevant. But we are also witnessing globalization, that is, the progressive diminution of the importance of national borders, in all facets of human life: disease (avian flu, HIV/AIDS), the internet, music, science, education, athletics, tourism, crime (drug trafficking, smuggling people and weapons across national boundaries, pirating patents and copyrighted material), and so on. Consider how a growing proportion of people are even marrying across national borders. Is there anyone who doesn’t know at least one such couple? Another indication of globalism is the growing concern for preservation of the environment of the whole Earth. When we think of problems such as global warming, depletion of the ozone layer, the growing disparity in the average standard of living in different countries, and unrestrained consumption of non-renewable resources, it is obvious that national governments focused on limited geographical areas and acting separately in terms of national interest are not likely to deal successfully with these problems which are global in scope."

(https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/ccr/vol76/iss76/15 )

Patriotism vs Humatriotism

Ronald Glossop:

"Patriotism (loyalty to the nation-state) is not eliminated, but it is subordinated to humatriotism (loyalty to all of humanity). Even now some individuals may have a greater commitment to the welfare of the global community as a whole than to their own national government, but until the political institutions are changed, such global citizens are likely to face many obstacles as they try to act in accord with that commitment. They can try to work through various non-governmental organizations, but they often find it difficult to get around the restraints placed on them by the national governments. National governments typically require primary loyalty to themselves, and they will be reluctant to relinquish that requirement until they decide to become part of a larger political unit, as occurred in the United States when the U.S. Constitution replaced the Articles of Confederation and as is now occurring in Europe as the various countries there agree to become part of the European Union. Globalism will be fully implemented only when the idea of unrestricted national sovereignty is abandoned[9] and the various national governments of the whole world are integrated into a democratic world federation, just as the U.S. state governments have been integrated into the United States of America."

(https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/ccr/vol76/iss76/15 )

More information

Books on (one) 'world government':

• Peter Singer, One World , pp. 4-5, 8, and 144-149. As Singer says (on page 148), “A global ethic should not stop at, or give great significance to, national boundaries.”

Other books arguing for the need to move beyond unrestricted national sovereignty to a world federation include,

• James A. Yunker, Political Globalization: A New Vision of Federal World Government (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2007) and

• Strobe Talbott, The Great Experiment: The Story of Ancient Empires, Modern States, and the Quest for a Global Nation New York: Simon & Schuster, 2008. For him a “Global Nation” means having a government for the whole world just as we have national governments for nations. "