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Global politics, also known as world politics, names both the discipline that studies the political and economic patterns of the world and the field that is being studied. At the centre of that field are the different processes of political globalization in relation to questions of social power. The discipline studies the relationships between cities,
nation-states A nation state is a political unit where the state and nation are congruent. It is a more precise concept than " country", since a country does not need to have a predominant ethnic group. A nation, in the sense of a common ethnicity, m ...
, shell-states,
multinational corporations A multinational company (MNC), also referred to as a multinational enterprise (MNE), a transnational enterprise (TNE), a transnational corporation (TNC), an international corporation or a stateless corporation with subtle but contrasting senses, i ...
,
non-governmental organizations A non-governmental organization (NGO) or non-governmental organisation (see spelling differences) is an organization that generally is formed independent from government. They are typically nonprofit entities, and many of them are active in ...
and
international organizations An international organization or international organisation (see spelling differences), also known as an intergovernmental organization or an international institution, is a stable set of norms and rules meant to govern the behavior of states a ...
. Current areas of discussion include national and
ethnic An ethnic group or an ethnicity is a grouping of people A person ( : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established fo ...
conflict regulation,
democracy Democracy (From grc, δημοκρατία, dēmokratía, ''dēmos'' 'people' and ''kratos'' 'rule') is a form of government in which the people have the authority to deliberate and decide legislation (" direct democracy"), or to choose g ...
and the politics of national
self-determination The right of a people to self-determination is a cardinal principle in modern international law (commonly regarded as a '' jus cogens'' rule), binding, as such, on the United Nations as authoritative interpretation of the Charter's norms. It sta ...
,
globalization Globalization, or globalisation (Commonwealth English; see spelling differences), is the process of interaction and integration among people, companies, and governments worldwide. The term ''globalization'' first appeared in the early 20t ...
and its relationship to democracy, conflict and peace studies,
comparative politics Comparative politics is a field in political science characterized either by the use of the ''comparative method'' or other empirical methods to explore politics both within and between countries. Substantively, this can include questions relatin ...
,
political economy Political economy is the study of how economic systems (e.g. markets and national economies) and political systems (e.g. law, institutions, government) are linked. Widely studied phenomena within the discipline are systems such as labour ...
, and the international political economy of the environment. One important area of global politics is contestation in the global political sphere over legitimacy. Global politics is said by some to be distinct from the field of international politics (commonly seen as a branch of
international relations International relations (IR), sometimes referred to as international studies and international affairs, is the scientific study of interactions between sovereign states. In a broader sense, it concerns all activities between states—such ...
), as it "does not stress the primacy of intergovernmental relations and transactions". This distinction however has not always been held among authors and political scientists, who often use the term "international politics" to mean global politics.


Defining the field

Beginning in the late nineteenth century, several groups extended the definition of the political community beyond nation-states to include much, if not all, of humanity. These internationalists include
Marxists Marxism is a left-wing to far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand class relations and social conflict and a dialectical ...
, human rights advocates, environmentalists, peace activists, feminists, and minority groups. This was the general direction of thinking on global politics, though the term was not used as such. The way in which modern world politics is implemented is structured by a set of interpretations dating back to the rise of the European powers. They were able to overtake the rest of the world in terms of economic and military power. Europeans, with their global supremacy, imposed their own system and views on others, through envisioning the world as a whole and defining the regions of the world as ‘modern’ or ‘backward’. They saw nation statehood as the best and highest form of political organization, therefore viewing world politics as the result of the pursuit of hegemony by competing states. The modern world politics perspective is often identified with the works, in particular their 1972 work ''Transnational Relations and World Politics''. Here, the authors argued that state-centric views of international relations were inadequate frameworks to utilize in political science or international relations studies due to the increased globalization. Today, the practices of global politics are defined by values: norms of
human rights Human rights are moral principles or normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for certain standards of hu ...
, ideas of human development, and beliefs such as Internationalism or
cosmopolitanism Cosmopolitanism is the idea that all human beings are members of a single community. Its adherents are known as cosmopolitan or cosmopolite. Cosmopolitanism is both prescriptive and aspirational, believing humans can and should be " world citizen ...
about how we should relate to each. Over the last couple of decades cosmopolitanism has become one of the key contested ideologies of global politics: The intensification of
globalization Globalization, or globalisation (Commonwealth English; see spelling differences), is the process of interaction and integration among people, companies, and governments worldwide. The term ''globalization'' first appeared in the early 20t ...
led some writers to suggest that states were no longer relevant to global politics.Matthew Horsman and Andrew Marshall, After the Nation-State, London, Harper Collins, 1995 This view has been subject to debate:


See also

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Anti-globalization movement The anti-globalization movement or counter-globalization movement, is a social movement critical of economic globalization. The movement is also commonly referred to as the global justice movement, alter-globalization movement, anti-globalist m ...
*
Global citizenship Global citizenship is the idea that one's identity transcends geography or political borders and that responsibilities or rights are derived from membership in a broader class: "humanity". This does not mean that such a person denounces or waives ...
*
Global governance Global governance refers to institutions that coordinate the behavior of transnational actors, facilitate cooperation, resolve disputes, and alleviate collective action problems. Global governance broadly entails making, monitoring, and enfor ...
*
World society In its most general sense, the term "world" refers to the totality of entities, to the whole of reality or to everything that is. The nature of the world has been conceptualized differently in different fields. Some conceptions see the worl ...
*


References

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Notes


Further reading

* Held, David, Anthony McGrew, David Goldblatt and Jonathan Perraton, ''Global Transformations: Politics, Economy and Culture'', Cambridge, Polity Press, 1999. * McGrew, AG, and Lewis, PG, ''Global Politics'', Cambridge, Polity Press, 1992.


External links


Global Power BarometerCenter for Global PoliticsBerlin Forum on Global Politics
{{Globalization, state=collapsed Cultural globalization