As is generally argued, one of the most recent threats to globalization is COVID-19. Through significant anti-globalization changes, the pandemic is radically reshaping the world’s political and economic systems. Global economic order is being restructured into distinct, disconnected trade and business spaces created by geopolitics because of the deep political mistrust that has emerged among nations as a result of the outbreak, organized around the U.S.-China strategic divide. As the globe tries to adapt to the “new normal” in the security, strategic, political, and economic realms, technology and pandemic mitigation are likely to become defining features of a new global order post-COVID-19.
Palit’s book Globalisation Impacts: Countries, Institutions and COVID-19 is timely to help readers by yielding fresh understandings of interactions at a series of local levels. It is well-written and thoroughly footnoted, with an extensive bibliography of historical, legal, and political science sources. This wide use of understudied and unconventional sources to back up arguments also makes the work a handy guide for further reading.
The book consists of ten chapters. The introduction sets out the theoretical or conceptual framework of the study focusing on the major aspects of issues relating to globalization. The first chapter begins by analyzing the causes leading to the backlash. It addresses one of the main flaws in the widely accepted notion of globalization: the broad-brush neo-liberal assumption that higher welfare across cultures and communities will result from the dissolution of the state and the continuation of markets in production and distribution.
Having identified the problem in his first chapter, Palit begins the next by tracing a globalized response to managing pandemics and similar outbreaks in the future. Chapter 3 titled “Normative Internationalization through Globalization: India and China between Modernization, Democratization, and Authoritarian Resistances,” carefully interrogates three specific verticals of international economic law –trade and investment; labor and human rights; and judicial activism. The chapter delves into the empirical context of China and India, the two largest developing nations in the world, working on normative internationalization through globalization, as well as the modernization, democratization, and resistance processes brought about by such efforts. The next chapter “Discontent against Globalization: Reasons and Remedies,’’ of the book examines the key episodes of protests against globalization, particularly trade-related issues at the GATT/WTO. The functioning of the WTO, as mentioned in the volume, has been a key source of friction and unhappiness among its stakeholders. Given the rising trade tensions and the general lack of confidence in the WTO’s capacity to govern global trade, understanding the factors causing the displeasure is crucial for assessing the bigger picture of what a future global trade and economic order would entail. In this context, Jean-Marc F. Blanchard’s chapter provides an insightful analysis of how China has volunteered to lead the next phase of globalization. Chapter 6 titled ‘‘Geo-economics, Globalization and the Covid-19 Pandemic: Trade and Development Perspectives from Bangladesh,’’ highlighted the experience of Bangladesh, a populous and least developed country, which has successfully scaled economic and social development ladders by maximizing exports.
The next chapter, “Managing Globalization to National Advantage: The Case of Ireland,” examines the condition of Ireland, another small economy from Europe, and provides an understanding as to why globalization has not always been welcomed as a comprehensive process in many parts of the world. Objective assessment of globalization remains incomplete without reflecting on regionalism. Chapter 8 written by Jayant Menon studies these differences with respect to ASEAN and identifies the very different motivations and objectives of the two regional programs. Through a figurative comparative analysis, the author highlights that in ASEAN, the share of intra-regional trade has remained low and relatively unchanged at around 20-25 percent for almost two decades (p. 147).
Chapter 9 highlights the repositioning of regional supply chains in the aftermath of COVID-19 and explores the factors driving the urge to make them resilient. India’s challenges in this regard are viewed with respect to a strategic industry like pharmaceuticals (p. 178). Palit’s final chapter describes these contexts revisits the critique underpinning globalization’s discriminatory character among countries, regions, and societies, and reflects further on whether such a character might forcefully manifest in the emerging world order.
Comprehensively, the strength of the book is the depth of its historical excavation and the synchronization of relevant literature on globalization. It addresses the neo-liberal notion as one of the main flaws in the widely accepted process of globalization and argues that the higher welfare across cultures and communities will result from the dissolution of the state and the continuation of markets. But this book provides very limited counter on this which need to be explained in detail. Overall, it is an interesting scholarly piece, which attempts to fill the gap that scholars have rarely attempted and offers a clarifying lens for understanding this critical and multifaceted concept. Therefore, the book is an important contribution to the study of political economy and is of interest to academic scholars and policymakers alike.
