CONSTITUTIONALIZING ECONOMIC GLOBALIZATION

Abstract

The contemporary world appears unsettled, coming together and falling apart in a state of continual convulsion. The fall of the wall in 1989 and the subsequent collapse of the Soviet empire kicked into gear processes of seemingly interminable change. Events precipitated by 9/11 have hastened this changing global landscape. Distances contracted, time compressed, and world-interconnectedness ever widening are the characteristics often associated with the term “globalization.” Much contemporary thinking about globalization is preoccupied with this sense of newness, heterogeneity, and fluidity. The mantra is that the “old word has fallen apart” (Ohmae 1995: 7) and it is being replaced by a newer and faster one where geography is immaterial, global actors improvise, and economic, political, and cultural forces are capable of being unleashed from the yoke of parochialism. Borders, Beck maintains, “have long since ceased to exist.