The process of globalisation suffered intense setback owing to the rising graph of populist policies of frontline political leaders of the developed world particularly America and the robustness of the process was seriously dented though its underlying strength was widely expected to ensure its sustenance.
The globalisation also had to face the onslaught of Covid pandemic that played into the hands of xenophobic socio-political elements in many parts of the world further eroding the process but again its advantages were expected to overcome its disadvantages. How much it has gained back its former aura is yet to be observed but the assessments are, at best, mixed and it cannot be said with certainty that globalisation may be as enthusiastically viewed as it was just a decade before. Many analysts fear that the process might have been irretrievably damaged though this view is widely discounted particularly the circles that believe in the efficacy of living in a liberal international environment.
One aspect that is often quoted in favour of the sustenance of globalisation is the essence of globalised politics that is described to be intrinsically plural. This is considered a good omen for global interaction as pluralism is now conceived to be the ideal way forward for governance both within states and outside of them. During the 1970s, when globalisation began to shape the world and when decolonisation was completed both history and anthropology incorporated the perspective of politics with respect to plurality. This perspective on plurality also challenged the mono-dimensional vision that had been promoted by developmentalism a decade earlier that was widely considered as self-serving and ultimately self-defeating in the shape and form it was then pursued. It was pointed out that politics covered several meanings that are changing along historical lines and according to specific cultures and this evolution is probably unending as this subject is exhaustive in nature.
The meanings derived from this process are viewed as being constructed as human actors encounter different kinds of events, challenges or goals and as they are rooted or embedded in different sorts of economic and social structures. It is therefore quite natural that that this evolution is treated as a normal and natural course of action and that it would be pointless to interpret it differently.
It is also pointed out that global politics can be properly defined only when the definition includes the meaning that the social actors usually give to it. This cultural background implies a huge empirical investigation, which is all the more difficult since the observer tends to view things through his or her own concepts, which are obviously culturally oriented. The risk, therefore, is high to consider as universal a cultural vision of politics, which shapes the paradigm of empirical political science.
Many observers concede that it is quite difficult to convey through interpretive methods such as translation the deep cultural gap that really implies two competing visions of politics. After all it is the cultural push that is considered predominantly to act as an impetus to devise and determine the only way of going ahead and it is often suggested that it is preferable to deepen the cultural and linguistic investigations in order to identify distinctive features of each conceptualisation of politics. This is quite obvious that globalised politics entails a minimal universality of its own concepts and contain the risks of misinterpretation and this tendency should always be kept in check to ensure that nothing dangerous occurs. For it to be properly understood it requires to be viewed in connection with history while retaining in a universalist framework with a view to positioning it in the context of the subject it is required to address.
This dilemma is revived and even stimulated by the globalisation of the world. In the new global order, politics is no longer limited or contained by the territoriality principle. It becomes reinvented beyond the classical coexistence of sovereign cities. Politics cannot be conceived as a simple addition of social contracts, as it was in the Westphalian paradigm. This challenge is first posed to the realist theory of international relations, questioning the absolute opposition between inside and outside or domestic politics and international politics. The latter is no longer confined to the dialogue of sovereigns and has destroyed the traditional categories and criteria of politics.
After all, is there a global covenant as that totally reshapes the construction of politics. The hypothesis that competition among nation-states can be understood as parallel to that within nation-states supported the extension of the concept of politics to the international sphere.
The idea of power politics was projected into the international arena in order to stress that international politics. States, like political actors, were competing according to their own interests and were primarily concerned with their ability to dominate other states, or, at least, to contain the power of the others.
Morgenthau defined international politics as the struggle for power, power as the control over the minds and actions of other men and political power as the mutual relations of control among the holders of public authority and between the latter and the people at large. Although this conception is clearly rooted in a Weberian approach to politics, it does not belong only to the past. But it neither covers nor exhausts all the political issues at stake in the new configuration of the international arena.
To begin with, it is now believed that as sovereignty fades, the proliferation of trans-national actors no longer restricts international politics to a juxtaposition of territorial nation-states. Second, power and coercion are losing their efficiency as influence and social relationships are getting more and more performance oriented. Third, globalisation and the growing international social community are shaping common goods, creating a kind of community of humankind; human beings are then creating a political dialogue that can bridge their differences without having to suppress them or obliterate them.
What is observed here is the realisation of an age-old claim that men need each other for their own survival. Nevertheless, no one would assert as yet the complete achievement of an international society or an international community. International politics remains an unstable combination of references to power politics and to international social integration. It then confronts the vision of politics as coexistence among diversity.
It goes back to the idea of harmony, but without a completed contract, to the hypothesis of a global city without a central government, to the assertion of common norms without binding measures. This combination is at the core of the English School of international relations that refers to the anarchical society. But it is also close to the French vision of an international solidarity.
In the end, global politics gets closer and closer to a functional vision of managing social diversity in order to make it compatible with the need for survival overcoming all difficulties states find in harmonising the globalised behaviour in its entirety.
It is certainly not an easy matter to achieve and requires consistent and earnest efforts to keep things on track irrespective of the impediments faced. It would be worthwhile to keep on reviewing relevant efforts in this context and to alter the course of action whenever felt imperative.
