How the World Really Works: Busting the Myths of Globalisation (11147.1)

For decades, scholars, politicians, entrepreneurs, and futurists have heralded 'globalization' as an inevitable, irreversible force for good that would bridge cultural differences, create and spread wealth, and in doing so bring the world closer together. But after decades of globalization the world remains in a paradox: never before have humans been more interconnected, and yet humanity is riven by widening divisions. Some scholars suggest that this paradox is a new thing. A closer examination suggests that it is not.
In this unit, we seek out the answer to a central question that is at the heart of most debates around globalization: has the world been coming together, or has it actually been falling apart? We begin our investigation in 1945, when the world counted its losses at the end of the Second World War and when it seemed like there was a chance for the world to come closer together. Over the course of the semester, we will understand how we got to where we are today. We will examine the origins of some of the most important political, military, cultural, and economic conflicts around the world. We will map the key forces and events that have shaped our world, and how their legacies continue to define our societies, our institutions, and our ways of thinking. Most importantly of all, we will see how the world since 1945 has been, as the political theorist Benjamin Barber put it, "falling precipitately apart AND coming reluctantly together at the very same moment."

Learning outcomes

After successful completion of this unit, students will be able to:
1. Explain key global processes and their historical context;
2. Critically analyse claims made about 'globalisation' and its impacts; and
3. Interrogate the nature of contemporary events, by contextualising them in relation to relevant global processes.

Graduate attributes

1. UC graduates are professional - employ up-to-date and relevant knowledge and skills
1. UC graduates are professional - communicate effectively
1. UC graduates are professional - use creativity, critical thinking, analysis and research skills to solve theoretical and real-world problems
1. UC graduates are professional - work collaboratively as part of a team, negotiate, and resolve conflict
2. UC graduates are global citizens - think globally about issues in their profession
2. UC graduates are global citizens - adopt an informed and balanced approach across professional and international boundaries
2. UC graduates are global citizens - behave ethically and sustainably in their professional and personal lives
3. UC graduates are lifelong learners - be self-aware
3. UC graduates are lifelong learners - adapt to complexity, ambiguity and change by being flexible and keen to engage with new ideas

Skills development

How the world really works: Busting the myths of globalisation

It is frequently claimed that the cause, or agent, responsible for many contemporary social and cultural developments is a force called ‘globalisation’. For this reason, we are told, these developments are ‘inevitable’ and ‘irreversible’. In an attempt to sort myth from reality, this unit examines claims about globalisation with a critical eye. By examining key global developments in their historical context, it will help you to develop an intellectual framework for detecting bogus claims about ‘globalisation’, and making sense of contemporary events and processes at both the global and local levels.

We live in interesting times. Most of our students have grown up through a period in which neoliberalism provided the global ‘commonsense’ about such things as the relationship between ‘the state’ and ‘the economy’, the idea of ‘free markets’, the place of ‘competition’ in social life, the nature of money and debt, and so on. These ‘commonsense’ ideas are now dissolving: old elites are losing legitimacy amidst the rise of new (so-called) ‘populisms’ around the world.

The key purpose of this unit is to equip students with some capacity for understanding the times that they live in – in particular, by providing them with some key historical context. History provides critical leverage, as it shows that things accepted now as commonsense were, in the not too distant past, thought to be preposterous, outrageously unjust, and so forth.

The unit attempts to show that current developments make sense, when placed in such a framework of historical processes. Indeed, many aspects of the students’ lives and societies can be made intelligible in this way: but also simultaneously problematised by this very process (because it shows that there is nothing ‘natural’ about it; after all, we used to do things very differently).

Prerequisites

Students must have passed 24 credit points.

Corequisites

None.

Incompatible units

None.

Equivalent units

None.

Assumed knowledge

Basic understanding of issues related to cultural diversity.