THE NEW GLOBALISM:

Opportunities and dilemmas

GLOBAL CHALLENGES

• Shift from Cold War bipolarism to new “decentralized” threats:

PollutionPopulationPoverty

1980s: THE AGE OF NEO-LIBERALISM

• The Welfare state in question

• Thatcher reshapes political culture

• Stemming industrial decline through monetarist policies and supply-side theories – the “the trickle down” effect

• Cutting income taxes, attacking trade unions, pruning state subsidies

• Thatcherism saved by the Falklands war

THE REAGAN REVOLUTION AND ITS AFTERMATH

• The “Great Communicator” and the “moral majority”

• Reaganomics: massive reductions in federal spending

• …and huge military budgets to counter the Soviet arms buildup of the 1970s

• Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) – “Star Wars”

THE COLLAPSE OF SOVIET COMMUNISM

• Breakup of the Soviet empire in 1989

• Pulled apart by communications, international trade and democratic movements

• Rebellion in Poland: the rise of Solidarity

• Stagnation and deteriorating standards of living: food shortages and lack of basic household supplies

MIKHAIL GORBACHEV’S REFORMS

• World War II hardliners and other veterans passing away – end of the Old Guard or “gerontocracy”

• Perestroika: “restructuring” the Soviet economy

• Glasnost: “openness” or “publicity”

• Impact on foreign affairs: scaling back missile production

END OF SOVIET HEGEMONY IN EASTERN EUROPE

• 1989-1991: frequent, popular and peaceful demonstrations in Eastern Europe

• The “Velvet Revolution” in Czechoslovakia• November 1989: Berlin Wall opened• December 1989: N. Ceausescu executed

in Romania• Spring 1990: Baltic states announcing

secession from the USSR• October 1990: Germany reunited

CIVIL WAR IN YUGOSLAVIA AND BREAKUP OF SOVIET UNION

• Nationality groups demanding political and cultural autonomy

• Ethnicity – effective political slogan for ambitious politicians

• Yugoslavia: “ethnic cleansing”

• The Soviet Union: Yeltsin’s corrupt political allies and civil war in Chechnya

THE FRENCH AND GERMAN PATHWAYS

• French and German stagflation: why?

• Trying to maintain the welfare state in place

• High unemployment rates and xenophobia

• New public buildings in Paris and Berlin

• Rampant anti-globalism

GLOBALIZATION AND ITS DISCONTENTS

• Globalization builds the economic future?

• Destruction of local agricultures?

• Perils of global migration?

• Guarding the nation from global mixture?