Drezner: Globalization and Policy Convergence

Drezner, D., 2001. Globalization and Policy Convergence. The International Studies Review, 3(1), 53-78.

“Globalization is the cluster of technological, economic, and political innovations that have drastically reduced the barriers to economic, political, and cultural exchange” (53).

“An implicit assumption of most policy analysts and some academics is that globalization leads to a convergence of traditionally national policies governing environmental regulation, consumer health and safety, the regulation of labor, and the ability to tax capital. Convergence is the tendency of policies to grow more alike, in the form of increasing similarity in structures, processes and performances” (53).

The author believes that globalization is a phenomena that, because it broadly affects so many different aspects of life, is tackled differently, and potentially redundantly, but different disciplines. The author explores to what degree globalization is effecting the ability to gather taxes, and regulatory frameworks, specifically those of labor and the environment. “Two conclusions follow. First, theories of policy convergence diverge on whether the driving force is economic or ideational, and whether states retain agency in the face of globalization or are dominated by structural determinants. These divergences mirror the divisions among international relations paradigms. Globalization therefore has not led to the development of new theories of international relations, but merely transported existing theories to new issue areas of the global political economy. Second, the evidence on policy convergence across multiple issue areas suggests that the structurally based theories lack support. Globalization cannot be reduced to a set of deterministic forces. This suggests that the transnational economic and ideational forces commonly cited are not as powerful as previously suggested” (54).

“Most discussions of globalization stress two facets. The first is the magnitude of private economic forces such as capital flows and traded goods. The second is the deterministic quality of the phenomena; once states decide to lower their barriers to exchange, a Pandora’s box is unleashed that cannot be reversed. A review of the policy convergence literature suggests that both claims have been exaggerated. Although globalization has increased the size of transnational economic flows, it has not forced a race to the bottom in regulatory standards. Ideational forces have played an equally significant role in determining the rate and location of policy convergence on labor and environmental standards. Where harmonization has occurred, it has been a conscious choice of states made under the aegis of an international organization” (75).

“Globalization has led to the emergence of new issues to be analyzed by international relations scholars; it does not imply that new paradigms are needed to explain these issues” (78).