A Pedagogical Inquiry into the Social Conflict Inherent in “Grassroots Globalization”: The Case of China
Colette Mazzucelli and Jeri Ekdahl
An Emerging Pedagogical Focus: “Globalization from Below”
The study of international relations in the post Cold War era is increasingly subject to the anxieties and, we assert, the social conflict inherent in diverse local experiences of globalization in our 21st century world. New York University professor Arjun Appadurai identifies the term “globalization from below” or “grassroots globalization” to define “a worldwide order of institutions” including
“…NGOs (nongovernmental organizations) concerned with mobilizing highly specific local, national, and regional groups on matters of equity, access, justice, and redistribution. These organizations have complex relations with the state, with the official public sphere, with international civil society initiatives, and with local communities. Sometimes they are uncomfortably complicit with the policies of the nation-state and sometimes they are violently opposed to these policies. Sometimes they have grown wealthy and powerful enough to constitute major political forces in their own right and sometimes they are weak in everything except their transparency and local legitimacy…Although the sociology of these emergent social forms – part movements, part networks, part organizations – has yet to be developed, there is a considerable progressive consensus that these forms are the crucibles and institutional instruments of most serious efforts to globalize from below.” [1]
During the early years of this century, it is the unequal distribution of power resources that captures the attention of analysts, like Joseph S. Nye, Jr., who reflect on the future role of the United States in the world. [2] In thinking about world order, the fate of the nation-state is as critical today as in decades past. [3] One of globalization’s key drivers today is the ways information technologies and social networks impact on interactions among the state’s elites and society’s masses. The speed at which change occurs for that minority percentage of the global population that is served intensifies within those areas where history accelerates. This reality stands in stark contrast to the context for the majority of human beings in our world, particularly within future stakeholders of the global system, China, India, and Brazil. For that majority, illiberal politics and conflict is more likely to persist within large areas and among broad segments of the society, which remain, in Fukuyama’s words, “stuck in history.” [4]
Yet, if our experience of international relations reveals anything since the systemic transformation that ended the Cold War, general theories, which provide in Hoffmann’s words, “a set of answers,” particularly realism, [5] are confronted with the plurality that is rooted in the internal, local particularities, the diversity of specificities, which call our attention repeatedly to domestic, intra-state level, or “microcosmic” analyses, rather than “macrocosmic,” clashes among civilizations. [6] This empirical reality has significant implications for the United States as its leadership assesses “the rise of the rest,” [7] especially given persistent challenges in its own political system, namely, the evolution of “corporate democracy” [8] in federal-state relations and the “core weakness” Zakaria identifies as the “gap between the savvy cosmopolitan elite (the Davos people) and the myopic popular majority that drags the country down.” [9]
Imagining the Study of Conflict in International Relations
One of the assets the United States maintains is its capacity for innovation, particularly the application of new technologies and social networks to education in forward looking ways. The potential to teach Americans about, and implicate the general population in, the world of the 21st century is still unimagined on a broad scale. There are those scholars who argue that such trends in networks should be dismissed as irrelevant to the longer term structural features that shape politics among nations. Others have long argued that at the level of general theory the best social scientists can do “is to project into the future a limited number of possible trends, and rank them conditionally (“other things being equal…”).” [10] We realize that the impact of the communications revolution on international relations as a profession is scarcely analyzed in the literature [11] although the influence of information and social networks grows exponentially each day. This phenomenal network evolution, in its constructive and destructive manifestations, shows indications of altering the ways international relations are conducted.
One of the opportunities offered by the technology revolution with implications for our experience of global affairs has been analyzed as “cognitive surplus” by NYU Professor Clay Shirky. [12] In pedagogy, one of the challenges we face in education as a result of the surplus phenomenon is the experience in learning of cognitive overload. Education is increasingly infused with media content, which, in addition to the surplus, the untapped talents and resources technology can release, also distracts students by leading them into too many conflicting directions at once, potentially discouraging their commitment to any one path. Teaching international relations as we utilize technologies like Skype to bring diverse areas of the world into our classrooms is a commitment to our growth as human beings in a world in desperate need of humanity during a time of moral crisis. [13]
Unlike centuries past, we bear witness simultaneously to the cooperation integral to the development of the Ushahidi platform in emergency crisis response and the conflict dynamics of cyber insecurity in the case of the Stuxnet worm. Closer to home, the opportunities the general American population has to gain insights about even those remote areas that remain in the grip of authoritarian regimes, like China, Iran, and North Korea, can interject a different sense of realism, which underpins what Nye defines as “a new narrative about the future of U.S. power.” [14] Imagination in pedagogy to create communities learning in classrooms without borders [15] can offer hope for a future in which recognition to mitigate nationalism’s politics of exclusion as well as justice to address neo-liberalism’s striking inequities figure prominently.
For this reason, we imagine the choices we have to create a pedagogy that inspires critical inquiry in the American society, particularly regarding the agenda between China and the United States. In the international relations literature, this bilateral relationship continues to animate scholars, particularly realists like Mearsheimer, who fears potential Chinese hegemony in Asia, and Huntington whose concern “is that the United States will…stumble into a war with China without considering carefully whether this is in its national interest and without being prepared to wage such a war effectively.” [16]
Utilizing Technology in the Classroom to Discover China’s Potential for Conflict
The literature indicates the extent to which forecasts of interstate conflict between the United States and China have readily become discussions du jour among scholars debating the implications of China’s rise. Meanwhile, there is an unusual dearth of pedagogical dialogue about the potential drivers of conflict within the borders of a nation that has been officially recognized as being the world’s second-largest economy. Indeed, the question of China’s internal stability or lack thereof appears to have gone largely overlooked, as pundits and academicians alike persistently focus on macro-level questions such as China’s intentions of establishing itself as the regional hegemonic power in Asia. Some analysts prefer to engage in lengthy suppositions elaborating the details of numerous other scenarios designed to portray China as an aggressor nation bent on supplanting the United States and becoming the world’s number one superpower.
While these types of arguments raise worthwhile points about the validity of the impending “China threat,” allegations of China’s seemingly sinister intentions to disrupt U.S. national security via cyber-attacks on highly sensitive network systems or to engage in other types of ill-intentioned behavior are misguided in that they fail to pinpoint another critical side-effect of China’s rise. That is, while select geographical segments of urbanized/industrialized “China” have indeed been experiencing unparalleled economic growth and expansion, upon closer examination, China still remains “stuck in history” to a certain degree. As current domestic tensions continue to be fueled by the exacerbation of socioeconomic inequalities, the challenges presented by societal destabilization in China will only continue to increase.
A continually widening urban-rural income gap has sparked a mass migration from rural areas to urban centers such as Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, and others. According to figures released by China’s National Bureau of Statistics, the per capita urban-rural income gap is now the largest it has been since the government’s launch of the “Reform and Opening” policy in 1978. [17] Young university graduates numbering in the tens of thousands have flocked to the aforementioned cities in pursuit of a sort of “Chinese Dream,” the ever-popular myth that city life is brimming with hope, opportunity, and most importantly, employment. While the government has indeed been lauded for its success in lifting millions of its citizens out of poverty, there is still a widespread lack of middle-class jobs to satisfy the demand from droves of newly-educated youth. Having been christened the “Ant Tribe,” [18] this younger generation faces the stingingly harsh consequences of globalization with Chinese characteristics. Many are forced to accept extremely low-paying jobs, most of which offer little or no social benefits to accompany a typically six to seven-day work week. In a country where legally recognized concepts of worker’s rights and labor unions remain ill-defined, China’s youth unfortunately face a future that is filled with discontent, rather than promise. As social tensions of this nature continue to percolate and spread throughout China’s urban population, the chances of internally-driven conflict will continue to increase.
Learning about Social and Economic Marginalization via Information Networks
On the flipside of the coin, the social and economic marginalization of the rural population must also be taken into account when attempting to assess the complex nature of globalization in modern China. A seldom-noted statistic is worth reiterating at this juncture: residents of China’s cities currently earn three and a half times as much as inhabitants of the countryside, which translates into the highest urban-rural income gap in the entire world. [19] Since ownership of private property remains a largely unknown concept in the majority of rural areas, bitter and protracted disputes over land rights will most likely continue to shake the foundations of social stability in the near to medium-term future.
In December 2010, a disturbing photograph of the body of Mr. Qian Yunhui became an overnight sensation on Chinese blogs and online forums. Since he had been a longtime village leader who actively organized protests against illegal land seizures in Zhejiang province, Mr. Qian’s sudden and untimely death led to widespread allegations from netizens that he had been the target of local government officials’ ongoing attempts to quash outward signs of discontent regarding an issue that has been particularly factious among the Chinese public at large. [20] With a still-nascent civil society sector and an generalized absence of alternative fora for voicing dissent, a large number of its citizens have turned to the Internet in order to disseminate information pertaining to news of socioeconomic inequalities that erupt in periodic shockwaves throughout multiple layers of China’s social classes. As Harvard Professor Dani Rodrik has argued, the future economic progress of China “depends in no small part on whether it manages to open its political system to competition, in much the same way that it has opened its economy. Without this transformation, the lack of institutionalized mechanisms for voicing and organizing dissent will eventually produce conflicts that will overwhelm the capacity of the regime to suppress.” [21]
In Toffler’s view, “The Internet is an important tool that may be used to fight against poverty in China.” [22] Not only does it function as an outlet for the cognitive dissonance of netizens, but in a refreshingly positive development, the Internet also has the potential to help alleviate the difficult problem of rural-urban income inequality by enabling the spread of online peer-to-peer (P2P) microfinance platforms. Since the vast majority of China’s rural inhabitants lack access to the traditional banking sector, microfinance institutions (MFIs) have stepped in to supply rural entrepreneurs with access to much-needed capital. This in turn will help spur the growth of small business, thus improving the socioeconomic standing of a large number of citizens in the countryside. Wokai, a U.S.-based NGO, is one such MFI, while CreditEase, a successful Chinese P2P microfinance platform, was founded in 2006 and continues to provide rural farmers with small loans to fuel the growth of micro-enterprise. [23]
Final Thoughts
Our analysis concludes that an emerging research focus on “globalization from below” makes the introduction of technologies in the classroom particularly relevant to our understanding of social conflict in China as transformations occur inside the country. In this environment, the question of whether “300 million Chinese netizens have become any less Chinese since they first logged on” [24] to the Internet is not as significant as the ability of those outside the country to comprehend the pace and scope of change, especially in the more remote areas, those rural villages, impacted by 21st century globalization. The study of international relations is, first and foremost, an inquiry into the dynamics of war and peace. In our time, educators and students cannot ignore the impact of communications and social networks, which allow us simultaneously to imagine new constructs in pedagogical design and to encounter the specific context of social change inside the rising power likely to challenge established theories of world order.
*Jeri in Nanjing Skype Audio Track
Colette Mazzucelli (MALD, Fletcher School (Tufts); PhD, Georgetown) has taught on graduate faculty, Center for Global Affairs at New York University, where she is Adjunct Clinical Associate Professor of Global Affairs, since 2005. She is also Adjunct Associate Professor of Political Science in the Department of Political Science at Hofstra University’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences where she teaches in the Honors and Distance Learning Programs. Professor Mazzucelli has offered courses in comparative politics, international relations, Europe in the 21st Century, and ethnic conflicts at the millennium. She is introducing an India regional course to the MSGA curriculum in 2011. Dr. Mazzucelli is particularly interested in the integration of mobile phone learning in the global affairs curriculum. Her research in this specialization is conducted at Teachers College Columbia University. Presently, she is a WFI Fellow at Citizens for Global Solutions. In addition, she participates as a member of the Board of Directors, Center for War/Peace Studies and of the UN Chronicle Advisory Group at the United Nations. Her 2009-10 syllabi are featured in a Faculty Spotlight online in Foreign Affairs Classroom webpages. Dr. Mazzucelli’s biography appears in Marquis Who’s Who in the World 2011 and Marquis Who’s Who in America 2011. In 2010, she was profiled in the Council on Foreign Relations Educators Bulletin. In Europe, Professor Mazzucelli toured for the United States Information Service (USIS) with speaking engagements in France, Germany and Poland. A participant in the Robert Bosch Foundation Fellowship Program for Future American Leaders, she assisted with the ratification of the Treaty on European Union (‘Maastricht’) in the Federal Republic of Germany, 1992-93. Dr. Mazzucelli is the author of France and Germany at Maastricht Politics and Negotiations to Create the European Union. She has contributed numerous chapters to edited volumes in European affairs and transatlantic security.
A Fort Collins, Colorado USA native, Ms. Jeri Ekdahl lived in southern California and eastern Spain before moving to New York City in 2007. As an undergraduate student at Colorado State University, she focused her studies on various international aspects of Political Science, including research on transnational mining corporations, the effects of globalization on economic development in Mexico, and the plight of Palestinian refugees in the Middle East. As a MSGA candidate in the Center for Global Affairs at New York University, she specialized in the study and research of US foreign policy regarding China and East Asia. In June 2008, she traveled to China for the first time to participate in a study program at NYU’s Shanghai Center. Ms. Ekdahl first became involved with nonprofit organizations and charity work in 2006, when she was employed as a counselor at a summer camp for underprivileged children from poor neighborhoods in New York City. In 2008, she completed an internship at a high school in Queens, where she taught a class designed to encourage international students to become more aware of current events in world affairs. In 2009, she began to volunteer with World Federation of UN Associations, an international NGO that operates near the UN in New York. After she received her graduate degree in global affairs from NYU in May 2010, she moved to Nanjing, China, to begin working for a private company in order to assist high school students during the process of applying to universities in the USA. After her arrival in Nanjing, she began to volunteer with the local chapter of Wokai microfinance. She is presently in charge of volunteer recruitment and public relations. Ms. Ekdahl speaks fluent Spanish, basic French, and studies Chinese. In her spare time, she enjoys reading books and meeting new people.
Endnotes:
[1] Arjun Appadurai, “Grassroots Globalization and the Research Imagination” in Globalization ed. Arjun Appadurai (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2001), pp. 16-17.
[2] Joseph S. Nye, Jr., “The Future of American Power Dominance and Decline in Perspective,” Foreign Affairs, Volume 89, Number 6 (November/December 2010): 2.
[3] Stanley Hoffmann, “Obstinate or Obsolete? France, European Integration, and the Fate of the Nation-State,” in The European Sisyphus Essays on Europe, 1964-1994 Stanley Hoffmann (Boulder, San Francisco & Oxford: Westview Press, 1995), p. 71.
[4] Richard K. Betts, “Conflict or Cooperation? Three Visions Revisited,” Foreign Affairs, Volume 89, Number 6 (November/December 2010): 187.
[5] Stanley Hoffmann, Contemporary Theory in International Relations (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, Inc., 1960), pp. 29-39.
[6] Albert L. Weeks, “Do Civilizations Hold?,” The Clash of Civilizations? The Debate Samuel P. Huntington et al. (New York: The Council on Foreign Relations, 1996), p. 53.
[7] Nye, p. 12; Fareed Zakaria, The Post-American World (New York and London: W.W. Norton & Company, 2008).
[8] Russell Hardin, “Transition to Corporate Democracy?” in Building a Trustworthy State in Post-Socialist Transition János Kornai and Susan Rose-Ackerman, eds. (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), pp. 175-97; Robert de Neufville, “The Dangers of Corporate Democracy,” Big Think, February 22, 2010, http://bigthink.com/ideas/18777
[9] Betts, p. 193.
[10] Hoffmann, Contemporary Theory in International Relations, p. 43.
[11] Charli Carpenter and Daniel W. Drezner, “International Relations 2.0: The Implications of New Media for an Old Profession,” International Studies Perspectives, Volume 11, Issue 3 (August 2010): 255-272.
[12] Clay Shirky, Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age. New York: Penguin Group, 2010.
[13] Colette Mazzucelli and A. Nicholas Fargnoli, “Teaching Ethics and International Relations in Today’s Classrooms without Borders,” Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, July 14, 2010, http://www.carnegiecouncil.org/education/001/ ethics/0004.html
[14] Nye, p. 11.
[15] Colette Mazzucelli and A. Nicholas Fargnoli, “Teaching Ethics and International Relations in Today’s Classrooms without Borders,” Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, July 14, 2010, http://www.carnegiecouncil.org/education/001/ ethics/0004.html
[16] Betts, p. 193.
[17] Jing Fu, “Urban-Rural Income Gap Widest Since Opening Up,” China Daily, 2 March 2010, http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2010-03/02/content_9524530.htm
[18] Andrew Jacobs, “China’s Army of Graduates Struggles For Jobs,” New York Times, 11 December 2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/12/world/asia/12beijing .html
[19] Yang Yao, The End of the Beijing Consensus,” Foreign Affairs, February 2, 2010, http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/65947/the-end-of-the-beijing-consensus
[20] Xiyun Yang and Edward Wong, “Suspicious Death Ignites Fury in China,” New York Times, December 28, 2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/29/world/asia/ 29china.html
[21] Dani Rodrik, “The Myth of Authoritarian Growth,” Project Syndicate, 10 August, 2010, http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/rodrik46/English
[22] Xiudian Dai, “Towards a Digital Economy With Chinese Characteristics?” pg. 141, New Media Society, 2002: 4, http://nms.sagepub.com/content/4/2/141.abstract
[23] Karen Yip, “To Boldly Go Where No Big Banks Have Gone,” 29 December 2010 China Daily, http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/business/2010-12/29/content_11769372.htm
[24] Ian Bremmer, The End of the Free-Market New York: Portfolio, 2010, p. 14.