Globalisation's Influence on World Politics and National Sovereignty

This report examines the multifaceted impact of globalisation on international relations and world politics. It begins by outlining how globalisation has fundamentally altered political decision-making processes, fostered economic interdependence among nations, and influenced the evolution of political ideologies. The report further explores the challenges globalisation poses to national sovereignty, particularly in the context of economic and cultural domains. It highlights how the rise of multinational corporations, the influence of international trade, and the spread of global culture and social media affect the autonomy of nations. The report provides examples such as the formation of the European Union and the role of the United Nations to illustrate these shifts. The analysis concludes by emphasizing the complex interplay between global forces and national interests in the contemporary world, and the need for governments to navigate these dynamics. This report provides a comprehensive overview of the challenges and opportunities that globalisation presents in the realm of international politics and national sovereignty.

INTERNATIONAL
RELATIONS

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Contents
INTRODUCTION.................................................................................................................................2
Globalisation changing the shape of world politics...........................................................................2
Challenges to the national sovereignty..............................................................................................4
CONCLUSION.....................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES......................................................................................................................................7
INTRODUCTION
World politics has changed a lot in the past centuries. Globalisation has played a very
crucial role in giving shape to the politics all around the world. The bigger outlook of it is

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that globalisation is not only changing the political decision making but it is fundamentally
changing the shape of the global politics (Haynes, et al., 2017). As globalisation is considered
as process through which organisations develops an international relationship where the
whole world acts as a global village. All the factors those are responsible for globalisation has
impact on the politics also. This can be attributed by the fact that due to globalisation every
country is getting more and more dependent on the each for their economic and social
stability. This is both a challenge and support to traditional forms of national sovereignty but
on the larger note it acts as a challenge. This report highlights the way globalisation
fundamentally changing the shape of the world politics as well as its impact on the traditional
form of national sovereignty.
Globalisation changing the shape of world politics
Globalisation has impacted on the various aspects of nation and so is its political ideological
thinking process. The interdependence of country on each other has made a greater impact on
the politics of the nation. This can be understood by the fact that previously politics of any
country was mostly on the national factors and the problems that exist within the nation
(Feniger, Livneh and Yogev, (2012). This gave better chances to the regional politics to rise
and become a new kind of ideology. The difference in the thinking helped especially the
countries that are democratically electing their governments.
A much larger perspective of it needs to be evaluated that globalisation did not allowed the
political thinking or ideologies to be pure. This can be illustrated through the fact that the
communist ideology which was declined towards the rights of deprived has also started to get
mixed with the capitalist ideology. This can be seen in the examples of China and Russia
which was sometimes back a communist country but today they are the greatest evangelist of
capital markets (Nousios, Overbeek and Tsolakis, 2012). In the countries like India where the
social disparity was deep, the socialist ideology which was once a main political base line has
now adopted economical thinking. This has got possible due to the fact that world politics
have changed and it has become necessary for the nations to give these changes an at most
priority.
What globalisation has done is that it has influenced the contemporary international
relationship among various nations. This relationship has become so deep that it has
influenced the performance of various organisations inside the nation irrespective of the
sector they belong to (Wenman, 2013). This type of inter-dependence has influenced the

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politics to adjust themselves in such a manner that they make healthy relationship with each
other. There are many companies in almost every country that has passed the borders and are
doing business in various domains. Politics has also taken the shape in that particular manner.
International trade and exports have also been affected by it. Governments are taking their
decisions as per the requirement of the international allies they have (Bull, 2012). Today
politicians are also under pressure of the international community to take decisions that are in
the benefit of the whole world. This is due to the fact that the interdependence of each and
every country on other for their stability has increased. Before globalisation it was seen that
mostly a country was affected by the political changes in their neighbouring countries but
after globalisation political changes in any corner of the world has its effect on the other part
of the world.
Political shaping can also be accounted to the fact that there are social changes going on in
various parts of the world (Mohammadi, 2012). These changes are reflected back in the
political aspect of the nation. Since the people all over the world are getting influenced by
modern societies hence the politics have also changed accordingly. The interdependence of
economy and politics has made the change more significant.
The prime example such a shift can be seen in the Europe where there is formation of
European Union where the policies are almost same. This has also effected decision making
of political parties in various countries inside Europe. The reason why it is called a shift is the
fact that these were the only countries which fought the two world wars due to difference in
ideologies (Wills, 2013). When the economic conditions of the countries became weak and
they needed the support of each other in stabilising themselves in spite of their different
political opinion they formed such Unions. This union helped them in terms of free trade.
This has made the political systems more complex where the political parties need not only
have to think about the implication of decision in their national boundary but also they can
see what its global significance is (Munck, 2013). For example the decision made by the UK
government of making exit out of EU has not only affected the UK but has also affected the
trade and businesses all across the globe.
A very different aspect of it is the fact that these days due to technological advancements the
decisions made by the government in any country get published in other parts at that moment
only. This has forced the governments to check out the decisions twice before implementing

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it even for a week. In a broader perspective migration of people in the globalised era from
one region to another region was also one of the prime reasons of politics taking different
shapes.
The United Nations which is a subject of globalised world is one of the prime examples
where every country did not get equal representation (Talani, 2011). The countries which
were rich got more control over the policy making of the UN. This was not good for the
international politics. The effect of such differentiation of power where everyone’s concerns
should have been heard is not good for the international politics. But it has also emerged due
to the fact that UN also needed money, of which the major part was provided by these rich
nations.
Challenges to the national sovereignty
There are several challenges that are posed by this kind of political shift. One of the prime
matters of concerns is that Globalisation has negatively impacted the traditional forms of
national sovereignty (Baylis, Smith and Owens, 2017). In the above part also, it can be seen
that today the interdependence of countries have taken different deep roots. On answering to
the statement that whether national sovereignty is at stake or not the example of European
Union is very appropriate. This is due to the fact that the countries in the European Union
cannot take economic decisions as per their choice rather they became highly dependent on
each other. This is a challenge to economic sovereignty of the country. This makes the
situation more complex as the political parties at these places cannot take decisions as per the
requirement of their own nation and neglecting its effect across boundaries. Even after the
fact that making of EU was a good decision for smaller countries, it somehow challenged the
national benefits of economically developed countries like Britain.
Because of presence of so many multinational companies in the modern business era, the
economic sovereignty of the country has also been challenged. Business houses have started
to control the political policies in many countries and more or less they have made it all same.
Globalisation has empowered many of the small countries to make their mark in the world
but on the greater note they have taken the independence on economic affairs (Haynes, et al.,
2017). This can be seen in the case of American continent where the countries around United
States are more or less dependent on economic policies made by U.S. On the broader context
this can be justified with the example of countries like India and its neighbouring countries or
the china and its neighbouring nations. In these regions the decision made by the government

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of the smaller nations are always made according to the demand of the bigger nations. No
smaller country wants to upset the bigger nations as they are highly economically dependent
on the bigger countries. On the global perspective it is seen that the countries which under the
burden of the loans by other countries always tends to put their national sovereignty on line
(Acharya, 2011). This can be seen in the example of the China and Sri-Lanka where the Sri-
Lankan Government has allowed china to use their port for trading and other military
purpose.
Globalisation has its biggest effect on the social dimension of the nations. This is due to the
fact that people have started to adopt almost same kind of cultural aspects like the fashion,
eating habits, living style etc. This is a serious threat to the originality of the country’s own
cultural diversity (Higgott, 2012). This is evident from the fact that eastern countries have
started to adopt the western clothing. This fascination created by the globalisation has
resulted in commonness in the wearing habit. Due to this reason, many of the traditional
wears have lost their market. The new generation which is coming up is more effected by the
effects of globalisation. Cultural variance is one of the major elements through which one
country differentiates itself from other. If the unanimity in this field comes then it is a serious
threat to cultural sovereignty of the nation. Bigger organisations brings there culture within
the nation which tends to destroy the original culture of that place. Corporate cultures effects
the local culture on the larger scale as they change the lifestyle of the people that are working
under them (Clapton, 2011). For example multinational companies do not celebrate regional
festivals and generally do not provide holidays. This reduces the value of local believes
which is again not good for the sovereignty. These multinational companies celebrate the
festivals that are of their parent country hence these festivals starts to get importance.
The traditional forms of national Sovereignty are also at stake when the torch bearers of
Globalisation like Social media spread a particular kind of mentality. At many instance it is
seen that political, economic and traditional ideologies are spread on such networks and the
people that agrees with it in other nations adopts it (Root and Zhang 2016). Some researches
claim that the homosexuality which was not present in the societies like India and China gets
to emerge due to a globalised sharing of thoughts. Most of the time market drives the society
choices and hence destroying the original ethos of the nation. The spread of Valentine day in
the nations of South East Asia or Arabic world is due to the market. All these destroy the
original taste of the culture that is present in the nation. Today the colonisation is not defined

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in the military terms rather imposition of particular kind of thought is also an example of
bondage. This is a slow poison to national sovereignty of any nation.
CONCLUSION
From the above based report it can be concluded that globalisation has changed various
aspect of nations. Globalisation had one of the most serious effects on the International
politics. These days decision made by the government in any part of the world is made as per
the demand of the international market. Globalisation has made economic ideology to more
powerful than any other political ideology. Socialist and communist ideologies are losing
their grounds in many parts of the world. Globalisation has not only affected the economic
and social sovereignty of the country but it has made deep rooted impact on the cultural
sovereignty of the nation. The traditional form of cultural and economic sovereignty of any
nations has been directly influenced by the globalisation and the factors associated with it.
REFERENCES
Acharya, A., (2011) Dialogue and discovery: In search of International Relations theories
beyond the West. Millennium, 39(3), pp.619-637.

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Baylis, J., Smith, S. and Owens, P. eds., (2017) The globalization of world politics: an
introduction to international relations. Oxford University Press.
Bull, H., (2012) The anarchical society: a study of order in world politics. Palgrave
Macmillan.
Clapton, W., (2011) Risk in international relations. International Relations, 25(3), pp.280-
295.
Feniger, Y., Livneh, I. and Yogev, A., (2012) Globalisation and the politics of international
tests: the case of Israel. Comparative Education, 48(3), pp.323-335.
Haynes, J., Hough, P., Malik, S. and Pettiford, L., (2017) World Politics: International
Relations and Globalisation in the 21st Century. Sage.
Haynes, J., Hough, P., Malik, S. and Pettiford, L., (2017) World Politics: International
Relations and Globalisation in the 21st Century. Sage.
Higgott, R., (2012) The international political economy of regionalism: the Asia-Pacific and
Europe compared. In Regionalism and Global Economic Integration (pp. 52-77). Routledge.
Mohammadi, A., (2012) Islam encountering globalisation. Routledge.
Munck, R. ed., (2013) Globalisation and migration: new issues, new politics. Routledge.
Nousios, P., Overbeek, H. and Tsolakis, A. eds., (2012) Globalisation and European
integration: critical approaches to regional order and international relations. Routledge.
Root, H. and Zhang H. (2016) Globalisation’s Broken Promise. [Online]. Available at:
https://www.usnews.com/opinion/economic-intelligence/articles/2016-03-07/globalization-
has-had-political-consequences. [Accessed on: 2nd May 2018].
Talani, L.S. ed., (2011) Globalisation, Migration, and the Future of Europe: Insiders and
Outsiders. Routledge.
Wenman, M., (2013) Agonistic democracy: Constituent power in the era of globalisation.
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Wills, J., (2013) Place and politics. Spatial Politics: Essays for Doreen Massey, pp.133-145.

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