Book Review: Roland Bleiker, Popular Dissent, Human Agency and Global Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000, 289 pp., £37.50 hbk., £13.95 pbk.)
| DOI | 10.1177/03058298000290030904 |
| Author | Boris Holzer |
| Date | 01 December 2000 |
| Published date | 01 December 2000 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Book Reviews
931
Roland Blei ker, Popular Dissent, Human Agency and Global Politics (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2000, 289 pp., £37.50 hbk., £13.95 pbk.).
James H. Mittelman, The Globalization Syndrome: Transformation and
Resistance (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000, 286 pp., £30 .00 hbk.,
£11.50 pbk.).
Globalisati on can hardly be deemed an understudied phenomenon anymo re. Many
commentato rs already think that it is almost impossible to say anyt hing new abou t
the topic. Hence, it ne eds j ustification to prod uce yet more books that claim to
contribute to the debate. The books by Roland Bleiker and James H. Mittelman
warrant cl oser inspection bec ause they focus on some hitherto neglected aspects of
globalisat ion. Both of the m address the t opic from the perspectiv e of less priv ileged
groups in t he global system. Th eir common objective is to asses s the potentials and
actual processes of resista nce in and against the current global system. Yet they
pursue this lin e o f investigation in different ways, hav e their distinct areas of
interest and, most importantl y, they are based on ve ry different epistemologie s.
Mittelman ’s book puts together several new chapt ers an d a serie s o f revised
articles which all revo lve around the question of how globalisa tion affects the less
privileged parts o f the world and how people react to the probl ems generated by
them. Mittelman draws on extensive field studies and a vast amount of empirical
material. By v irtue of its truly global outl ook, his bo ok ex emplifies how
globalisat ion ca n be more than just the o bject of inquiry. His main p oints of
reference are Southern Africa and Ea st Asia, two region s whose fate in the wak e of
post-war gl obalisation could not hav e been more different. The individual chapte rs,
which discuss issues of povert y, gender, marginalisation and development i n the
two regions, d o not aim t o provide a coherent e xplanation of the different
develop ment pa ths. Yet they succee d in elucidating at least so me of the compl ex
interaction s of local, nation al, regional and glo bal processes.
In so doing, Mittelma n employs what he consi ders the most appro priate
analytical tool for understanding the global system: the concept of a ‘global
division of lab our and power’ (GDLP). M ittelman posits a ‘three-stage historical
sequence in theo ry a nd practice’ (p. 54): first, the clas sical division of labour
theorised by Smith and Ricardo ; second, the so-ca lled ‘new international divisio n of
labour’ whi ch accounted for t he increasing integ ration of developin g countrie s into
the g lobal producti on system; third , the GDLP which a ddresses the more intricate
picture of di stinctive regional processes with in a global capitalist system. The
GDLP thus stre sses the dimension of reg ional integratio n, e.g. thro ugh new
transnation al political an d economic entities suc h as t he European Union or
NAFTA. Furthermore, it incorporates aspects of migrati on in and between these
regions and the i mportance of global commodity chain s and cultural networks.
Yet this focus on issue s of labour and production does not bege t a n overly
economisti c picture of globalisation. Rather, Mittelman builds on Karl Polanyi’s
analysis of the Great Tra nsformation in order to concep tualise the reaction of
societal forces to these market-driven d ynamics. In particular he seeks to e xplain
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