Glocalization of social work practice: Global and local responses to globalization

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Corresponding author: In Han Song, Yonsei University Graduate School of Social Welfare, 134 Shinchon-dong, Seodaemun-gu, Seoul 120-749, South Korea. Email: [email protected]

International Social Work53(5) 656–670

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Glocalization of social work practice: Global and local responses to globalization

Philip Young P. HongLoyola University Chicago, USA

In Han SongYonsei University, South Korea

AbstractGlobalization has become a catchword for the integration of local markets into world capitalism. This article raises social justice concerns in governments shirking their social responsibilities for caring for those who are most vulnerable to the risk of globalization. By structuring the world as a global society where both local and global responses can interact to ameliorate the conditions of global citizens, the article proposes a glocalization approach to social work practice: thinking globally and acting locally (Lyons, 2006). It argues for the formation and growth of global civil society, accompanied by the establishment of a global social policy system and sub-systems.

Keywordsglobalization, human rights, social rights

Globalization is often referred to as a market-induced process by which changes take place in capital flows, production systems, markets, and trade of goods and services (Poole and Negi, 2008). It is manifested by global changes in economic structures and the transnationalization of the world

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economy (George and Wilding, 2002). These processes involve the spatial reorganization of production from advanced industrial to developing coun-tries, the interpenetration of industries across borders, the spread of finan-cial markets, the decrease in transportation and communication costs, and the diffusion of identical consumer goods to distant countries (Lyons, 2006; Mittelman, 1996a; Yeates, 1999).

The International Federation of Social Workers (IFSW) defines it as a process of global integration in which ‘all peoples and communities come to experience an increasingly common economic, social and cultural environment’. Dominelli (1999) suggests that globalization not only pro-motes market discipline but also affects all government activities, social welfare systems and human relationships. In this respect, having knowl-edge of the linkages between the world economy and the national and local economies, and the changes in such linkages, is indispensable to understanding the social and political consequences within countries (Keohane and Milner, 1996).

Midgley (1997) introduces two opposing positions on globalization. Those who are in support of globalization believe that fostering a new consciousness of the world as an undivided entity will result in greater international collaboration, reduce ethnic conflicts and lead ultimately to a proper appreciation of the common humanity of all people. Others view the process of globalization as a destructive force that harms the local economy, undermines the sovereignty of governments, and creates unemployment and poverty.

While many international social work and social policy scholars agree that measures need to be taken to address the adverse effects of economic globalization, the views are split between resolving the problems through concerted global effort and emphasizing local activities (Ife, 1998; Midgley, 2001; Wagner, 1997). There has been little institutional development on providing systematic and formal approaches to confront global social problems like poverty, environmental degradation, unemployment caused from downsizing or relocating of multinational corporations, and other human rights issues. The major social justice concern is not that globalization is causing these phenomena, but that there is a lack of accountability in this newly emerging era of global social welfare needs.

Therefore, the purpose of this article is to portray contemporary society as the workings of both global and local forces structuring the world as a global society. In this respect, the glocalization of social welfare policy and social work practice (Harris and Chou, 2001; Hong, forthcoming; Lyons, 2006) or thinking globally, acting locally (Lyons, 2006) can help enhance the social welfare of global citizens.



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Agent–structure relationships in a global societySocial science knowledge has traditionally been locally focused and prag-matic (Shahidullah, 1998). Yearly (1996: 9) posits that ‘while claiming to be the scientific study of society as an abstract entity, sociology has in practice long acted as though society was only found in the form of nation-states’. As globalization is transforming the construction of social facts and the formation of social discourses in societies worldwide, examining present multidimensional social issues only within the bounds of nation-states will have to be limited.

However, social science was not originally born to become a national intellectual enterprise of a particular country. Rather, it was more local and global in focus before the days of nation-state development.

Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Smith, Marx, Mills, Freud, Weber and Durkheim of classical social science searched for universals in understanding of human behavior and the organization of human society. But in the wake of the rise of social science in the nineteenth century, the old boundaries of empires crumbled, a process of decolonization began, and world societies began to be divided into nation-states. Social science’s growth and expansion, then, began primarily as a part of national reconstruction and modernization in all the world societies in the twentieth century. (Shahidullah, 1998: 173)

Addressing national and local concerns in the context of globalization could form a theoretical framework that can help bridge the issues of globality and locality (Harris and Chou, 2001; Hong, forthcoming; Shahidullah, 1998).

The structuration theory suggests that states can be considered goal-directed units of action or agents by definition. This theory conceptualizes agents and structures as mutually constitutive yet ontologically distinct entities where each is in some sense an effect of the other (Wendt, 1987). The two entities are co-determined where the social structures are the result of the intended and unintended consequences of human action, just as those actions presuppose or are mediated by an irreducible structural context.

According to Wendt (1987), the structures that constitute agents can be divided into two distinct parts – external (social) structures and internal (organizational) structures – where each explains a distinct set of the causal powers and interests of agents. The external structure – or the world economy where states interact with each other – affects the internal structure of state agents, according to which states perform on the international stage. Through this process a new external structure is formed which, again, cyclically returns to influence the internal structure. This theory emphasizes the importance of



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internal organizational structures for explaining the subjectively perceived interests of agents, since they condition their perceptions and responses to social structural imperatives and opportunities.

Could individuals act as the internal structure affecting the state agent and the global external structure? Arguably, it would be important to examine where the concept of the self stands in a global society (Simpson, 1996). The features of the modern self, formulated by Mead (1934), are described as follows: ‘linking identity formation and knowing, assimilating, absorbing subjectivity, the self is a highly complex, organized, and unified reality that incorporates and represents the social relations of which it is a part’ (cited in Simpson, 1996: 117).

As an acting unit, the self is the capacity to call forth the social attitudes and social meanings that the individual’s action call forth in others. Mead (1934: 310) states that the social ideal and ultimate goal of human social progress is: ‘the attainment of a universal human society in which all human individuals would possess a perfected social intelligence, such that all social meanings would each be similarly reflected in their respective individual con-sciousness – such that the meaning of any one individual’s act or gestures … would be the same for any other individual … who responded to them’.

The viability of the Meadian self – that first, the self is a natural unified identity and second, the referential representative nature of the self is con-stituted by social relations – is criticized by Simpson (1996) in the global-ization paradigm. First, the recursive self of Mead anchored in concrete face-to-face primary and secondary relations cannot be produced at the global level. In other words, it is impossible to be situated in a network of interpersonal relations that encompasses everyone in the entire global soci-ety. Second, the universal human society envisioned by Mead where all human beings would possess a perfected social intelligence of common social meanings cannot be feasible in the sense that it depends on the acquisition of interpretive codes in common universal primary relations.

Therefore, no such unified common global society can exist for individu-als when the global Meadian self is rejected. However, Simpson (1996: 199) notes, ‘the Meadian self of family, locale, neighborhood, and community can be global actors in the sense that it can enter the global circuitry as a unit with a partial but entirely representative presence’. It is partial because of being formed in a limited milieu and representative because it can present to the world the features of that milieu.

Consequently, there is a need or ‘a mission for constructing new social actors and structures such as new communities, cities, regions, and organi-zation, which will be essentially local in spirit but global in character’ (Shahidullah, 1998: 164). In a global system of civil societies, and not of the




self, local social problems arising from increases in global interaction among nation-states can be addressed by local actors to both major players in the world system, nation-states and international organizations.

Challenges of globalizationAccording to Keohane and Milner (1996), globalization affects the oppor-tunities and constraints facing social and economic actors and therefore their policy preferences. Teeple (2000) argues that Keynesian policies, reflecting the interests of national capital in an age of late industrialization, or Fordism, had lost their meaning as a philosophy of national economic management when the internationalization of capital began to undermine the economic policies of the nation-state. Commonly found as a conse-quence are high unemployment rates, decrease in high-paying jobs and increase in low-paying precarious work, erosion of social services and fiscal attack on redistributive policies within a country (Cox, 1996).

Cox (1996) presents three main contradictions of globalization: social polarization among and within states; loss of autonomous regulatory power by states; and the decomposition of civil society. First, social polarization shaped by the structure of the global economy can take the form of a three-part hierarchy – those who are integrated into the global economy at the top;1 those who serve the global economy in more precarious employ-ment;2 and those whose superfluous labor is excluded from the global economy.3

Calvo et al. (1996) argue that large capital inflows can have less desir-able macroeconomic effects, particularly for developing nations, which include rapid monetary expansion, inflationary pressures, real exchange rate appreciation and widening current-account deficits. Sell (2003) maintains that power in international politics is exercised more by private interests than by national governments. In shaping the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) outcome, the transnational private-sector mobilization of an Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) consensus and the collapse of developing countries’ opposition were determining factors. The TRIPS agreement mar-’ opposition were determining factors. The TRIPS agreement mar- opposition were determining factors. The TRIPS agreement mar-The TRIPS agreement mar-ginalized local inventors and artists and favored multinational corporations, allowing them to expand their profits (Manion, 2005).

The second concern for globalization stated by Cox (1996) is the loss of state autonomous regulatory power. The state’s capacity to shield domestic economies from the negative effects of globalization has diminished. Mittelman (1996a: 7) further adds that ‘in a globalized division of labor, the state no longer primarily initiates action in, but reacts to, worldwide



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economic forces’. In order to realize material gain from globalization, ‘the state increasingly facilitates this process, acting as its agent’. While the cura-tive measure offered to confront this has been more globalization, no regula-tory power at the level of global economy has been provided (Cox, 1996). According to Mosley (2003), governments of developing nations are con-strained more broadly by financial market pressures than advanced nations.

Mabbett and Bolderson (1999) suggest that high welfare expenditure leads to higher labor costs, which result in lower profitability. Therefore, since mobile capital will migrate to high-profit areas, it follows that capital will migrate away from redistributive welfare states, eventually causing an economic crisis unless there is reform.

Many scholars have argued that global capitalism challenges the welfare states in their authority and capacity to protect the common or public good against market failures at the global level (Deacon, 2000; Fabricant and Burghardt, 1992; Hong, 2006; Huber and Stephens, 2001; Mishra, 1999; Mkandawire and Rodriguez, 2000; Nitzan, 2001; Rieger and Leibfried, 1998; Stoesz and Lusk, 1995; Strange, 1996; Teeple, 2000). At best, global-ization has been differentially effective in the government social welfare effort, being positive for less globalized countries and negative for more globally integrated countries (Kim, 2009).

Moreover, the globalizing process generates a new set of issues that state institutions are only partially able to handle by themselves. A document by the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (1995) stresses the point that globalization applies pressures for international migration, increases the capacity of criminals to network transnationally, generates a global drug trafficking problem and exacerbates the fluidity and lack of certainty about identity. In addition, there are problems associated with transnational corporations passing through countries unattended by state regulatory measures, at the expense of the environmental sustainability and social welfare of the citizens.

Cox (1996) presents the decomposition of civil society as the third con-tradiction of globalization. This takes the form of a fragmentation of social forces and of a growing gap between the base of society and political lead-ership, implying an alienation of people from political leadership. People have lost confidence in politicians because of widespread corruption, more specifically linked to the globalization effect, and because of a conviction that politicians do not understand and cannot resolve the major problems confronting their societies. Mittelman (1996a: 9) supports this view by stating ‘whereas in theory democracy means accountability to the gov-erned, in practice leaders are accountable to market forces, most notably debt structures and structural adjustment programs’.




Social work responses to globalizationStates have faced the dilemma of how to meet the needs of their people and at the same time stay competitive in the world market. Difficulties are even greater for developing countries since their social welfare systems are far less advanced than industrialized ones. This mismatch between the global-ization of economic activities and the continued national jurisdiction of most policy-setting and implementation may set the stage for increasing contentious conflicts among nations (Collins, 1995). As a result, social work has become fragmented, disrupted and dislocated in a postmodernist world of globalization where established assumptions and consensus about social welfare have been shattered (Dominelli, 1996). Thus, responding with global thinking and local action to deal with the unmet needs of the constituents of state agents and the global society is suggested.

Local and global civil societyIn the recent past, some developing nations have attempted to protect their domestic economy against external forces and to limit the net outflow of any surplus by adopting acts of economic nationalism (Mittelman, 1996a). This has included the nationalization of key industries, indigenization decrees, requirements for local incorporation of a portion of foreign capital and so forth. China, Burma and Tanzania are cases where a more radical course of self-reliance was professed as a means of insulation from the world system (Mittelman, 1996a). However, as Mittelman (1996a: 7) stresses, ‘there is little to commend strategies of economic nationalism or delinking, for transborder flows (migration, communications, knowledge, technology, etc.) have circumvented the globe and permeate the state’. Furthermore, such arrangements as NAFTA, the Maastricht treaty and the GATT Uruguay Round agreements have prevented states from using poli-cies to defend national or local interests.

But as liberal global economic policies have come to be adopted across the industrialized nations, and as they have contributed to the process of dismantling the welfare state and downsizing the size and role of govern-ment, one clear countertendency stands out. Teeple (2000) points to the expanding forms of coercive social control in almost every country. He maintains that in many cases police powers have been broadened, and in some cases police budgets have been increased. Even more striking is that there has been a large growth in prison facilities and inmate population (Teeple, 2000). These measures have not offered anything close to a good solution in dealing with globalization effects. As mentioned above, states are restricted from taking a protectionist approach and, in the absence of



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effective links between the state and civil society, the regime can only rely on guns and terror (Mittelman, 1996a).

In this regard, the first social work response to the effects of globalization proposed is to strengthen civil society locally and globally. Global civil society focuses primarily on citizens’ rights and democracy (Halpern and Laxer, 2003). Poole and Negi (2008: 243) define global civil society as:

a supranational sphere of social and political participation in which citizen groups, social movements and individuals engage in dialogue and negotiation with each other and with various international, national governmental and local actors, as well as the business world…. [They serve as] upholders of ethical systems on issue of social welfare and social justice applicable across nations.

Gill (1996: 225) strongly supports this idea by arguing that new concepts of collective power are needed where they can be applied not simply in the local or national contexts but also internationally. He goes further when he suggests that ‘much more important than countervailing power is the more constructive concept of power associated with the mobilization of people’s abilities to create viable and practical sets of alternatives and capacities for social choice’. It is important that avenues open up for autonomous groups to spring up nationally and voice their concerns directly to the state.

This is well illustrated in Figure 1. Where states are incapable of meeting the pressures in a globalized world economy, a new social movement is called for by forming a global civil society. Mittelman (1996a) points out that the globalization of civil society involves resistance from disadvan-taged strata in a changing division of labor. The losers in global restructuring seek to redefine their role in the emerging order. In the face of the declining power of organized labor and revolutionary groups, the powerless must devise alternative strategies for social struggle. They aim to augment popular participation and assert local control over the seemingly remote forces of globalization.

New social movements by transnational political organizations – women’s groups, environmentalists, human rights organizations, etc. – are them-selves global phenomena, a worldwide response to the deleterious effects of economic globalization (Dominguez, 2002; Mittelman, 1996a; Sassen, 2002). Global concerns, that state agents fall short in addressing, are then voiced through a channel – perhaps through international organizations – which will bring them to the attention of the international community (Kriesberg, 1997). In essence, this would be a model of political globalization, reflecting ‘changes in the global context of political processes, activities, and awareness’ (Poole and Negi, 2008: 243).




Along with the global civil society movement, there are suggestions made at the local level for a bottom-up approach to empowering clients based on unique situations of the local contexts (Hong et al., 2009). Social changes resulting from globalization directly affect individuals’ lives, and

World economy

Economic winners

Fair performers

Economic losers

Decreases inequality and impoverishment both within and between countries.Decreases vulnerability of people to social risks, such as unemployment and crime.Decreases exclusion of individuals, communities, countries and regions from the benefits of globalization.

A renewed push towards: universalism of human rights; their social dimensions; and the means by which global social rights could be more effectively realized.Provides equitable access to basic health, education, water and sanitation services, and shelter; and core labor standards.

Global social safety net

Preventive global social policy

Figure 1. A global social policy measure



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there has been an urgent need to confront the social problems individuals are experiencing. In developing countries, social and community workers will be more likely to deal with problems such as poverty and inequalities directly resulting from globalization, while social and community workers in the developed countries will tend to experience the local consequences such as unemployment due to changes in the labor market, and international migration and refugees (Lyons, 2006; Payne and Askeland, 2008).

In addition to direct social work practices that were previously dealt with, the values of traditional local social work such as human rights and local justice need to be reconsidered, because the standards and criteria may be different across the states and cultures as more interactions among differ-ent countries are expected. Traditional theories of human behavior in the social environment (HBSE) are theoretically and empirically based on Western positivistic values (Rotabi et al., 2007), and more attention needs to be paid to examine whether these are universal or culture- and state-specific.

Global social policyAnother social work response to globalization proposed in this article is the creation of a global social system. Over the past century, industrialization played a critical role in fostering the institutionalization of state welfare systems domestically. Throughout their existence of a century at most, wel-fare states have operated within national borders (De Swaan, 1994). However, as discussed above, the need to view social conditions and social welfare responses at a global level has become more acute as globalization effects have increased (Midgley, 1997).

It is evident that generous welfare states can no longer compete with those that provide only minimal, residual levels of support in an increas-ingly integrated global market. As the globalization process has shifted, both in the locus of social policymaking and the location of the issues, ‘a globalized social policy – accompanied by international organizations advocating a common set of solutions to these global pressures – is increas-ingly being called upon’ (Deacon et al., 1997: 53).

Figure 2 presents this idea proposed by Deacon et al. (1997), that is, that the global social policy could have two dimensions: preventive social pol-icy and a global social safety net. While the safety net function of global social policy regulates the flow of international capital with a perceived need to attend to the damaging social consequences of speculative capital flows, according to Deacon et al. (1997), there is now a new push to assert the universalism of human rights, their social dimensions and the means by which global social rights could be more effectively realized.




Deacon et al. (1997: 36) assert that global social policy should apply for every country and ‘will set minimum standards and will ensure that when IMF and World Bank help a country in trouble, the agreed program of reform will preserve investments in the social, education, and employment programs which are essential for growth’. They further emphasize that ‘global social policy should not be seen in narrow terms as merely the creation of social safety nets. We should see it as creating opportunities for all by investing more not less in education, employment and vital public services’ (p. 98).

Global social policy is concerned not only with the protection of national sovereignties, but also with intervention in the global economic system to improve the well-being of the world’s population (Deacon et al., 1997). The first form, supranational regulation, embraces those mechanisms, instruments and policies at supranational and global levels that seek to regulate the terms of trade and the operation of firms in the interests of social protection and welfare objectives. The second form that global social policy can take is that of redistribution between countries. The third form is that of social welfare provision at a level above that of national government. People gain entitlement to a service or are empowered in the field of social citizenship rights by international agencies acting at a supranational level.

National civil society raises issues of concern directly to each state actor.

When state actors cannot handle within national capacity, the global civil society seeks to raise issues to an international body.

CivilSociety

State State

CivilSociety

World economy

Global civil society

Each state actor responds to local civil society.

Global concerns addressed by the global civil society should be taken from an international perspective.

Figure 2. Enhancing the role of civil society



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ConclusionThis article has been an attempt to examine the world as a global society. With technological breakthroughs accelerating global transfers of capital, labor, information and knowledge, there exists a vastly increased mobility of capital, a changing hierarchy among national units and the emergence of major regional actors (Mittelman, 1996b). This structural change in the global society, namely globalization, is what has been discussed here. As the world has become more integrated, it is no longer possible to look at society separate from global forces. Hence, a sociology of globalization is called for, so as to explain the intricacies of the relationship between local and global factors.

Globalization, inscribed with an ideology to promote liberal economic policies, works in a world system, where no state intervention is desired to exist, in pursuit of creating a market utopia. However, the prospect of an open economy in which all actors compete in a positive-sum game does not look very promising for those that are left behind. Globalization is about challenges that emerge from the loss of control over economic and techno-logical flows that circumvent the globe and easily escape regulatory frame-work (Mittelman, 1996b).

The state is stretched thin by its internal outcry for state protection against new problems and the increased extent of older ones and external pressures to stay competitive in the global market. States are being forced to reconfig-ure their roles in a new era of global economy. There is no turning back in history and the globalized economic structure will stay as long as the inter-nal structures of each state are not dismantled. Two responses to this striking global phenomenon were proposed, one being a bottom-up approach to empower civil societies at local and global levels and the other being a top-down approach to devise a global social measure to give a boost to those that lag behind in the global system. When the states lack power to listen to their local civil societies then it is desirable that the global civil society reacts to its own needs and addresses them with a global mechanism where they may be taken care of by global social policy. Glocalization of social work prac-tice could advance local welfare and contribute to confronting increasingly complex, more commonly experienced global social problems.

Notes1. Included in this group are managers down to the relatively privileged workers

who serve global production and finance in reasonably stable jobs (Mittelman, 1996b: 26).




2. This category is segmented by race, religion, and gender as a result of the restructuring of production by post-Fordism (Mittelman, 1996b: 26).

3. This group consists of those who serve the global economy as a potential destabilizing force as global poverty relief and riot control.

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Author biographies

Philip Young P. Hong is Associate Professor, Loyola University Chicago, School of Social Work, USA.

In Han Song is Associate Dean and Assistant Professor, Yonsei University Graduate School of Social Welfare, South Korea.



Glocalization of social work practice: Global and local responses to globalization

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