25 August 2000 passed uneventfully. There were notices here and there, in a British newspaper, in a German magazine. Yet a century ago, on this very day, one of the greatest philosophers of the last millennium died. For a few years prior to his death he had become a celebrity. His books were selling in their tens of thousands. His writings were being analysed, worshipped, and vilified. The only person who did not know of his fame was Friedrich Nietzsche himself, because for the last eleven years of his life he had been bedridden, stricken with insanity and paralysis.

Since his death, the Nietzsche legend has continued to grow, and though his thought may not be the stuff of popular media, there has been an unbelievably large amount of writing on him—on his work and on his influence in the world of politics. The last is ironic, because he detested politicians, political parties, and ideology. Nevertheless, a variety of politicians, many of them with completely contrary views, have claimed allegiance to his philosophy.

It is not difficult to fathom why this is so. Nietzsche did not write with the precision of an analytic philosopher. He had instead a rabblerousing style, full of lyricism, delightful in ambiguity.

Introduction

One of the results of studying national systems of innovation (NSI) from the viewpoint of the production structure (cf. chapter 4) is that emphasis is put on the diversity of the economic system. A simplified system has few possibilities of interactive learning while a diversified system has many innovative possibilities (cf. chapter 2). This result needs some qualification but it may, nevertheless, be the starting point for an exploration of economic processes which involve changes in the degree of diversity. Such changes are at the forefront of international economics and they have indirectly been dealt with in chapters 10 and 11. However, the subject matter of the present chapter, the development and effects of international integration, is especially suited for dealing with the question of diversity. The core thesis of the chapter is that neglected but important effects of integration on innovation can be brought into focus by the approach developed in this book. The main line of argument is theoretical, but in section 12.4 some of the points are related to the competitiveness problems of EC's information technology sector.

Our starting point is the recent ‘Cost of Non-Europe’ analyses of the effects of the European Single Market (already mentioned in chapter 10) which have revitalised the age-old debates on international economic integration. As in the case of earlier debates there have been many verbal arguments on the innovative and evolutionary effects of the new increase in the degree of integration, but nearly all systematic studies neglect such arguments and stick to the productivity gains which can be obtained with the given products and processes.

Recently, after I gave a lecture in Helsinki on global labour standards, I got into a discussion with some of my audience on what if any should be the common standard for labour markets in the world. A globalized world, with one country's goods, capital, and pollution flowing into another, will inevitably need some common norms and laws. However, the discussion kept veering into questions of free trade and offshoring of work to developing countries. The discussion became animated and it was evident that this is a topic that is as emotionally charged today in industrialized countries as the topic of free trade used to be in developing countries a few decades ago.

The problem of business process outsourcing (BPO) is however a much misunderstood subject. BPO has been a source of hope and progress for many developing nations, such as India, China, and South Africa. With technological breakthroughs in electronic communication and steady increase in bandwidth, it is evident that many jobs that were done in industrialized nations, but did not really need face-to-face interaction, can be shipped out to poorer countries which have cheap labour, an educated workforce, and computer literacy. General Electric (GE) was one of the pioneers that realized the potential in this. In an interesting paper on BPO, Rafiq Dossani of Stanford University reports how GE achieved an annual saving of $340 million from the shifting of some of its back-office work to India.

Introduction

From a long-term perspective, the Mexican economy has achieved important and structural changes since 1982. From that year to date, the Mexican economy has deeply modified its macroeconomic priorities to manage economic policy instruments, the correlation between its economic determinants to growth and its external linkages to face the emerging regional and global markets. From then to now, the Mexican economy has increasingly abandoned its international low profile to develop into a more active player in the open markets; however, it must be said, not always with successful results.

In 1994, in the middle of a deep political crisis and just a few months before a new economic recession, Mexico had reached at least three significant goals related to its external sector: i) to modify the composition of its exports; ii) to start with Canada and the US the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), signed in 1992; and, iii) to join, as a formal member, the Organization for the Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

Following a severe social and political turmoil, 1994 ended with the sadly known ‘December error’ and recession ensued. The Mexican economy suffered its deepest recession with higher inflation in 1995: the annual percent change of the GDP was -6.2 and the annual per cent change of the consumer prices at the end of the year reached 52 points.

We have driven for about four hours since leaving Ahmedabad and now the highway meanders into a narrower bumpier road and the landscape is flat and stark, these being the edges of the salt deserts of Kutch. The soil has a parched white texture and the vegetation consists of the ubiquitous babul, shrub-like and spreading all the way to the far horizon. The babul, I am told, is not natural to this region. It was planted by some government officials to stop the spread of the desert. It has, ever since, been a losing battle to stop the spread of the babul. This sturdy plant has an ability to dry up the soil and has contributed to the precariously low water table of the region dropping even lower and beyond the reach of dug and tube wells. On the feeble plus side, the babul emits a gum that can be used as binding material, and its branches provide a ready supply of firewood. The gum comes in small quantities and huge amounts of time have to be spent collecting a few rupees worth of gum. For the poor inhabitants of the region this has ensured that survival depends on a life of perennial foraging-for water, firewood, and gum.

During the last half hour of our drive to the village of Jakotra, in Santalpur Taluk, Patan District, no cars cross our path.

Lamont and Harvard

Some years ago, when Amartya Sen, then Lamont University Professor at Harvard University, was on a lecture tour abroad, a journalistic write-up listing his many achievements noted that he taught at two famous American universities, Lamont and Harvard. It must have seemed a shocking mistake to all those who knew Amartya Sen or Harvard University (I cannot tell what it seemed to those who knew Lamont University). But over the last few months, ever since won the Nobel Prize in economics, reading the popular press prodigiously interpreting Sen's work and why he won the Nobel Prize makes one realize that errors of this kind, while disturbing, are the least of it. The more significant mistakes are the ones made in interpreting his work.

One source of many such mistakes is Sen himself. He has comfortably straddled two worlds, that of academic, technical economics; and that of policy and pamphleteering. Since the laity and ordinary journalist have some familiarity with the latter, it has been easy for them to jump to the conclusion that it is for the latter that Sen won the Nobel Prize. A mistake of this kind could not have occurred, for instance, with Gerard Debreu, also a Nobel laureate, because journalists would not understand any of his papers.

In Calcutta, when as children we played games and some younger kid came along and insisted on joining in, one way of handling the situation was to let the new kid play but only after whispering into one another's ears the words elé belé. An elé belé is a player who thinks he is participating but who is in truth merely being allowed to go through the motions of participation. Apart from him, everybody playing knows that he is not to be taken seriously. A goal scored by him is not a real goal.

When I was a child growing up in Calcutta, mastering the (admittedly cruel) art of elé belé was very important. When that nagging kid arrived, accompanied by a doting mother, we could by a mere glance convey to one another that the new kid would be an elé belé. What we do not always realize is how much of the adult world, especially nowadays when ‘participatory democracy‘ is the rage, continues to use this technique of elé belé. If we think hard enough, we can all recall collective decision-making situations-a selection committee, a committee for drafting rules-where some committee members were el bels. And though we may not have been aware, there have for sure been situations where we ourselves were the el bels.

Introduction: The Securitization of New Threats

Studies regarding international governance rarely dedicate room for reflection about the link between international security and governance. There are three main categories of actors that engage in the international regulation of new types of conflict: international organizations, whose best known mechanisms are UN's peace and humanitarian missions; states, especially medium and great powers, that interact in UN's multilateral forum and regional organizations such as North Atlantic Treaty Organizaion (NATO) or through unilateral or bilateral means; finally, in a third level of action, we cannot ignore the important role played by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in humanitarian operations around the world.

Security and governance structures not only face traditional forms of military conflicts existing since the Cold War period, but also ‘new wars’. War on terror, war on drugs, war on organized crime, war on hunger – all of these categories of conflicts are part of what Mary Kaldor called ‘new wars’. According to Kaldor, these are: ‘conflicts in which frontiers can not be well defined between war, organized crime and massive violation of human rights’. These wars happen ‘in a context of erosion of State's autonomy and in extreme cases of State's disintegration. Particularly, they occur in the context of the erosion of the legitimate and organized violence’ (Kaldor 1999, 4).

Abstract

The aim of this chapter is to analyze the internationalization of research and development activities carried out by transnational corporations. Based on information about U.S. transnational corporations, provided by the Bureau of Economic Analysis, this chapter seeks to assess how such corporations allocate their R&D resources abroad, comparing the role of Asia and Latin America affiliates.

Introduction

As of the 1990s, after a period of retraction resulting from the 1980s debt crisis, Latin American (LA) countries have started to attract significant volumes of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) again, especially to the largest countries in the region: Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina. From an average share of about 5.7% in FDI world flows in the period 1985–1990, LA countries reached an annual average of about US$ 26.7 billions between 1991 and 1996, and of US$ 89.1 billions between 1997 and 2000, which represented about 10% of the world total in each period.

As a result, the already high degree of internationalization of the productive structure in LA countries became even higher. Considering the 500 largest corporations in the region, the foreign companies answered for an average of about 25% of sales from 1990 to 1992. In the period 1998–1999, this percentage increased to 43%. Regarding the 100 largest LA companies in the manufacturing sector in the same period, the foreign share increased from 53% to 63% (Mortimore et al, 2001).

Introduction

Globalization cannot be merited on its right unless it realizes development by the people, and for them. Anti-globalizers are keen mostly on portraying many of its discontents; while pro-globalizers tend to emphasize the contrary (Stiglitz 2002). The ongoing debate on the global front bids for a pause and reflection about the ‘winners’ and ‘losers’ of the collapsing walls and borders leading to fast-track mobility of goods, services, benefits, costs and, notably, risks.

Development is all about ‘people’. Countries which were able to infiltrate macro-gains to the micro-local citizens are said to realize this undertaking. Some others retain a classical view pertaining to the measurement of ‘growth indicators’ that lacked focus on the ‘impact of development’ policy, program and project interventions. Democratic participation, governance and public accountability are important elements that can catalyze development impact on the grass root citizen.

Juxtaposed to an open world vulnerable to contagious hazards, a constant rise of development ‘monitoring and evaluation’ (M&E) came into being more vehemently since the early 1980s. The Arab region continues to be at the dawn of development impact measurement despite its many riches. Many aspects of governance continue to lag behind, let alone the numerous attempts to globalize, modernize its state structures and reverse gear towards extroversion (Abdelhamid 2005). Genuine interest in the cause of development monitoring and evaluation is yet to come.

This paper seeks to problematize the construction of desire, subjectivity, and enjoyment in three recent Indian (Bollywood) films in relation to the spread of globalization in the subcontinent. Hegemonic expansion of globalization requires and is dependent on ideologically defining new sensibilities and cultures of living within a globalized universe. The fact that popular culture is complicit with this process is also well known. In what follows, I adumbrate this function and agency by focusing on the way this agenda is carried out within the domain of popular cinema in India. I argue that, Bollywood participates in the ideological construction of a globalized cultural subjectivity through the construction and privileging of a new ethics of globalized living; an ethics which is in opposition to established pre-global notions of cultural subjectivity. In considering the ideological dynamics of Bollywood as a discursive site for engaging with pre-globalized cultural mores, and for the production and dissemination of a new cultural ethics, I look at how the conflict between cultural discourses of pre- and present condition of globalization are staged, charted, and delineated for the purposes of reconstituting and popularizing socio-cultural and subjective sensibilities conducive to globalized living.

Jacques Lacan, in Seminar XVII (2007), defines discourse as ‘social link’ founded on language.

Introduction

Over the last few years, the concept of global governance, invoked as a useful tool to analyse certain institutional practices of governments, has acquired a preeminent level of popularity in the academic community as well as within the discourse of international cooperation. In the field of international cooperation, the term has also been recognized as an operative expression for analyzing the reform of the state. One of the main aspects of the term global governance is that it has established state management as characterized by an comprehensive approach, covering different elements of the management of the state, from private public service concessions (such as transportation) to the administration of justice. The main objective of this paper is to analyse global governance within the scope of multilateralism and international cooperation in terms of the reform of state, focusing on judicial reform in particular. It is our contention to establish that concrete analysis of the development and evolution of international aid backing judicial reform in different countries is a good means to represent certain aspects and develop general conclusions about global governance.

The origins of international aid that focuses on improving the law and judiciaries stems from the end of the Second World War. Two main aspects supported this phenomenon: (a) the increasing and constant interest in protecting human rights and (b) the creation of the international justice courts.

A little less than half-way into Rakesh Om Prakash Mehra's Rang de Basanti (Paint it Saffron, 2006), four young men – DJ (Daljit), Karan, Sukhi, and Aslam – are almost accidentally plucked out of their urbane, metropolitan, indeed remarkably privileged Delhi university environment to play the roles of the illustrious revolutionary quartet of Bhagat Singh (1907–1931), Chandrasekhar Azad (1906–1931), Hari Sivaram Rajguru (1908–1931) and Ashfaqullah Khan (1900–1927). As the young students begin to prepare for what is to be an amateur documentary on the lives of these martyrs to the cause of national autonomy, the visual diagram of their own contemporary lives comes into contact with the ‘quaint’ lives and times of Singh, Azad, Khan and Rajguru – boys who were themselves no more than twenty-three or twenty-four when their paths intersected in the most volatile of fashions through the manner in which they chose to die. While Karan, DJ, Sukhi, and Aslam awkwardly grapple with the effort to approximate the roles of men who seem remote from them, in their lives, in their deaths and in their passions, what we view on screen in the first half of Rang de Basanti is the hesitant and stuttering encounter between two distinct visual worlds, estranged from one another by what appears to be an insurmountable chasm.

It is welcome news that flights are resuming between India and Pakistan, and a pity this did not happen a few months earlier. I had to first fly for nearly four hours to Dubai, and then back three hours to Lahore.

As I gathered my bags in my Delhi apartment to leave for the airport, I must confess to a slight feeling of nervousness mixed with excitement. I was going to Lahore to give a lecture on globalization. An American economist who knows Pakistan well told me not to be too excited about the lecture because only half my audience would be professional economists; the other half a combination of Taliban without beards and CIA agents with.

Lahore International Airport at 2 a.m. does nothing to alleviate one's misgivings. Rundown, with cavernous hallways, the clanking sound of large, rusty luggage trolleys, and a slight medicinal aroma of detergents, it has the air of a police station. The immigration officer takes my passport and the special papers that Indians entering Pakistan are meant to carry, and looks puzzled. She has never ‘handled an Indian case’. and leans over to a colleague. They confer, send for the supervisor, and then in a short while I am out of the airport.

Pearl Continental Hotel, in the heart of the city, is all colonial splendour. When I check in at 4 a.m., a wedding party has just broken up.