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Network Power: The Social Dynamics of Globalization
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Product Description
For all the attention globalization has received in recent years, little consensus has emerged concerning how best to understand it. For some, it is the happy product of free and rational choices; for others, it is the unfortunate outcome of impersonal forces beyond our control. It is in turn celebrated for the opportunities it affords and criticized for the inequalities in wealth and power it generates.
David Singh Grewal?s remarkable and ambitious book draws on several centuries of political and social thought to show how globalization is best understood in terms of a power inherent in social relations, which he calls network power. Using this framework, he demonstrates how our standards of social coordination both gain in value the more they are used and undermine the viability of alternative forms of cooperation. A wide range of examples are discussed, from the spread of English and the gold standard to the success of Microsoft and the operation of the World Trade Organization, to illustrate how global standards arise and falter. The idea of network power supplies a coherent set of terms and concepts?applicable to individuals, businesses, and countries alike?through which we can describe the processes of globalization as both free and forced. The result is a sophisticated and novel account of how globalization, and politics, work.
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #606691 in Books
- Published on: 2008-04-28
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Binding: Hardcover
- 416 pages
Editorial Reviews
Review
"This is a major, learned and wide-ranging contribution to our understanding of the processes of globalization. Grewal, whose knowledge of sociological theory is thorough, studies globalization as the development of a complex and often contentious civil society across borders. He focuses on the diverse forms of network power and on the conflicts among conceptions of cooperation (particularly in the world economy). He also pays attention to the battle between this civil society of multiple networks, and the political sphere of multiple sovereignties that have not abdicated their traditional powers. An indispensable work."-Stanley Hoffmann, Harvard University
Review
"A splendid book. Grewal''s account of network power is elegant and compelling, and his approach to debates on globalization is bold."?Jedediah Purdy, author of For Common Things and Being America (Jedediah Purdy )
"In Network Power, David Grewal offers a unifying lens with which to view a set of otherwise disparate and confusing phenomena, thus helping us to understand better the underlying dynamics of present day globalization."?Sanjay Reddy, Barnard College and School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University (Sanjay Reddy )
"This is a major, learned and wide-ranging contribution to our understanding of the processes of globalization. Grewal, whose knowledge of sociological theory is thorough, studies globalization as the development of a complex and often contentious civil society across borders. He focuses on the diverse forms of network power and on the conflicts among conceptions of cooperation (particularly in the world economy). He also pays attention to the battle between this civil society of multiple networks, and the political sphere of multiple sovereignties that have not abdicated their traditional powers. An indispensable work."?Stanley Hoffmann, Harvard University (Stanley Hoffmann )
"If globalization brings us closer together?to exchange goods and share ideas?why does it also make us feel less free? David Grewal gives us a fresh and illuminating take on globalization and the challenge it poses for democratic politics. Of the mountain of books on globalization, Network Power stands out as one of the most original and insightful, a splendid synthesis of economics, philosophy, and political science in the grand tradition of moral and political economy."?Michael J. Sandel, author of Democracy''s Discontent (Michael J. Sandel )
"Grewal''s analysis, presented in admirably clear, jargon-free prose, not only identifies the nature of power that characterizes the contemporary form of globalization but also proposes some of the means to counter that power and its structures of domination in the interest of a more free and democratic globalized world." ?Michael Hardt, co-author of Empire and Multitude (Michael Hardt )
"An ambitious and original new work of social theory. . . . Grewal wants to keep people and cultures from being flattened by the power of global networks."?George Scialabba, Boston Sunday Globe (George Scialabba Boston Sunday Globe )
"In this ambitious and broadly erudite work . . . Grewal seeks ''to avoid the bloodshed'' that followed earlier eras of globalization by focusing on what he terms ''network power''. . . . The book deepen[s] and enrich[es] the globalization debate in important ways. Essential."?Choice (Choice )
About the Author
David Singh Grewal is a member of the Harvard Society of Fellows and an affiliated fellow of the Information Society Project at Yale Law School.
Customer Reviews
Seminal work
Perceptive analysis of global social and political networks; elegantly written and closely reasoned. Essential reading for any serious student of politial philosophy or economics.
A theoretically intense but innovative take on globalization
This engaging book presents the remarkable positive potential of social networks in wielding power, but also exposes the darker side of such power as it inexorably moves to a collectively self-inflicted conformity that can constrain choice. As a Harvard doctoral student in political science (or "government" as people in the old yard like to call it), the author is clearly well-versed in all the theoretical literature on the topic. While the book is written in a fairly accessible narrative, occasionally some rather cerebral passages make their way as well that may put off a casual reader of globalization.
Grewal is particularly concerned about globalization in its darker context since he believes that "everything is being globalized except politics". He is referring to our tendency to move towards common norms on language, dress and other harmonizing influences of globalization.
Coming from a multi-ethnic family with roots in America and India, he is perhaps personally influenced by this constant challenge between positive conformity and cultural dilution.
Grewal gives examples of the historical dominance of the gold standard and the growing dominance of English as a language to make his point. He also considers other areas where network power has encountered difficulties such as the failure of global trade talks in 2008. He does not have much sympathy for the collapse of the Doha Round of trade talks because the network power generated by this kind of system would have required a "suppression of democratic politics at a national level".
However, Grewal is perhaps too sanguine about the triumph of national politics, given various other challenges that confront us on a planetary scale. Environmental governance necessitates making connections across intrinsic ecological networks that are endowed by nature and often influenced negatively by anarchic human behavior. This is where making as many connections between individuals and societies in a systems-oriented approach to politics is so vitally consequential.
Grewal clearly has a bright future ahead as a scholar, and his voice will assume more clarity in years to come -- for a first book this is a commendable achievement.
First of its kind and very readable
Network Power is the first detailed, published analysis that I have read on how globalization works. The author explains a very complicated subject in a very readable way. It is a must read book for those who teach or study sociology, economics, business, political sciences or in business.
