The following seminar to which I have been invited seems very
interesting for several of us in ECCO (Nick, Erden, John...). If
anyone is particularly interested to participate, let me know, and
I'll ask the organizers whether their invitation could be extended to
some of my colleagues...
Francis
Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 12:59:56 -0800 (PST)
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: Francis Heylighen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Paris seminar
Dear Professor Heylighen:
I attach herewith an invitation to a Paris seminar, next October, on "Globalization as Evolutionary Progress", and a statement of the aims of that project.
George Modelski
Dear Professor Heylighen:
I am glad to be able to report that the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation of Lisbon has decided to fund a research seminar on "Globalization as Evolutionary Process", to be held in Paris, October 27-29, 2005. The co-directors are Professor Tessaleno Devezas, of the University of Beira Interior, Portugal (that is sponsoring this event), and myself.
This seminar is intended to bring together a small group of scholars with a view to assessing the state of the field, with special emphasis on conceptualization, on causation, and periodization, and examining the feasibility of modeling, and simulating, globalization. By separate attachment I am sending you a statement of the project.
I should be delighted if you were able to contribute to this enterprise, by presenting a paper, and participating in the discussions. If you accept this invitation you will let us know the title of your contribution, and your preferred session. The deadline for the abstracts (that will be sent out to all participants) will be May 31, and for the completed paper, September 1.
Our grant will make it possible to cover the costs of an APEX return ticket, together with your accommodation and meals in Paris, if you are unable to secure support from other sources. Will you please send me a reply within a couple of days to let me know that you have received this invitation and, I very much hope, that you will be able to come and participate in this event.
Sincerely,
George Modelski
Professor Emeritus, University of Washington
Website: The "Evolutionary World Politics" Home Page at
http://faculty.washington.edu/modelski/
GLOBALIZATION AS EVOLUTIONARY PROCESS:
Modeling, Simulating, and Forecasting Global Change
Tessaleno Devezas and George Modelski
May 2004
Globalization is currently the preferred term for describing the post-Cold War era in world affairs. It is the currency of contemporary economic and political debates and, at the start of the new millennium, it is the fashionable concept in the social sciences. A survey of recent library acquisitions shows that books published in the past few years and whose titles include 'globalization" number in the hundreds; on the Internet, a Google search yields millions of results in response to that term. It has taken hold rapidly in the last decade because it evidently taps the widespread feeling that far-reaching change is underway, and that such change needs to be better understood if only because its effects are not just global but also national and local.
What is globalization?
One authoritative survey of recent debates declares, "no single universally accepted definition of globalization exists" (Held and McCrew 2000:3).
Given the wide-ranging nature of these debates, that is hardly surprising. But there is also widespread consensus on certain essential features that might be attributed to this phenomenon. For one, it is universally referred to as a process, that is as a sequence of events over time; despite a strong showing in its economic aspects (economists tend to adopt a narrow conception, as concerned basically with markets; see e.g. Bordo 2002, or Garrett 2000), it is also widely viewed as multi-dimensional; it is moreover held to be long-term in character, with a strong historical component; and finally, it is seen as clearly transformational.
For present purposes it suffices to define "globalization" as (the process of) "emergence of institutions of planetary scope". By organizations we also mean networks so that in respect of global economic change we would focus on the rise of world (commodity, labor, and financial) markets as well as on the activities of transnational enterprises. In political restructuring we would trace the rise of nation-states, as well as the role of coalitions, and international organizations. Democratization and the impact of social movements might be viewed as establishing the potential for global community formation. The increasing salience of learning, knowledge, and information networks is laying the foundations for an informed world opinion (cf. Modelski 1999, 2000:34). This makes it plain that globalization is a process of emergence that is multi-dimensional, that is historically significant, and obviously basic to understanding global change.
Can we explain globalization?
While the literature on globalization is wide-ranging and profuse, much of it describes the characteristics and the consequences of that process.
The problem of explaining globalization, on the other hand, is far from being resolved. What is more, an explanatory lag also makes more difficult the task of forecasting the future course of that process.
One line of explanation, associated with an early argument of Anthony Giddens, maintains that "modernity is inherently globalizing" (in Held and McCurdy 2000:92). This amounts to saying that "modernization causes globalization". Seeing that we live in the modern age, the emergence of planetary arrangements would therefore seem to be basically unsurprising. Such a position might appear reassuring, and gratifying to supporters of this process, and those who regard it basically as "westernization", but its analytical power is limited and does not tell us much about "modernization" either. We need to know more about conditions and mechanisms of these processes.
The other line of explanation privileges economic factors. It is more explicit about conditions and mechanisms and it is linked to world-systems analysis associated with the writings of Immanuel Wallerstein. It proposes that the modern "globalizing" world system is the product of the "capitalist world economy" that arose in the Europe in the 16th century and has now spread worldwide. In effect, "capitalism causes globalization". That position sits more comfortably with the critics of globalization, and those who fear the workings of unfettered markets or the power of multinational corporations and who advocate "alternative" world orderings. But it, too, posits a strong association between globalization and "westernization".
Both lines of explanation ask to be strengthened by way of modeling, testing, and/or simulation, and by being embedded in a larger framework. As one recent critic, Jan N. Pieterse (in Lechner and Boli 2000:100-1; see also Hopkins 2002) points out, in either conceptualization, be it centered on modernity or on capitalism, globalization emanates from Europe, and the West, and raises problems associated with Eurocentrism, and a "narrow window on the world"; in other words, with an approach that is historically "shallow". If, as some view it, globalization is "an intensification of world-wide social relations", then it also presumes the prior existence of such relations "so that globalization is a conceptualization of a phase following an existing condition of globality" and part of an ongoing process of the formation of world-spanning social connectivity. In Pieterse's words: "The recognition of historical depth brings globalization back to world history".
What we need for a better understanding of globalization is a deconstruction of the complex mechanisms that produce modernity (and/or capitalism) because we do not subscribe to the notion that these are unimportant questions that are better left concealed in the mists of time. We need to identify the processes of which globalization would be a phase.
An evolutionary approach
Given the plethora of writings currently underway, and persuaded that we are asking questions not about a passing fad but a long-lasting shift in cultural orientations, what it that we can contribute to it that is novel and valuable?
One promising line of inquiry, outlined in a recent paper by Devezas and Modelski (2003), relies upon an evolutionary epistemology. It implies a vision of globalization as a manifestation (or phasing) of a multidimensional cascade of worldwide evolutionary processes. What might be the chief characteristics of such an approach?
1. The unit of analysis for the evolutionary study of globalization is the human species viewed diachronically, since the dawn of history (c. 3500 BC), as a complex adaptive system but also as a community of common fate that in the past millennium generated the process of globalization.
2. The metric of evolutionary time is the generation (or generational turnover-time) that computes the rate of global change. The emergence of the world system is the product of fewer than 300 generations.
3. The basic conjecture proposes that global evolutionary change is in form a nested and synchronized set of (logistic-type) learning processes composed of successive ("bolero"-like) iterations of a Darwinian-type algorithm (variation, selection, cooperation, amplification). These universal learning sequences inhere in the shaping and reshaping of the social organization of the human species (this Dawkins/Plotkin "universal Darwinism" is distinct from, and must not be confused with, biological determinism).
4. Guiding such an inquiry is the "minimalist" insight that complex systems obey simple rules, and that learning algorithms might constitute a set of such rules because they involve both repetition, and nesting.
5. A program composed of simple rules is fully compatible with a multidimensional view of world system evolution, and of globalization in particular, as products of a cascade of evolutionary processes.
6. Predictions made on the basis of these conjectures need to be tested against real world evidence drawn from world history of the past 5,000 years (for instances of such testing see Devezas and Modelski 2003, and Modelski 2003b).
Note two important implications of this evolutionary approach. For one, there is reason to believe that an analysis drawing on evolutionary theory lends itself to modeling, simulation, and forecasting. Secondly, such an approach allows us to view globalization as an enterprise of the human species as a whole. This "big picture' line of analysis highlights long-term perspectives, draws upon the history of the human species, and selects, for analysis, certain identified processes, but it does not purport to depict, model, or simulate all of world history. It focuses on the analytical problem of global change and asks about the rules governing those changes. The emphasis is not on broad-based accounts of the course of world affairs but, selectively, on processes that reshape the social (including economic, political, and cultural) organization of the human species, processes such as urbanization, economic growth, political reform and world organization, and the making of world opinion, and the innovations that animate these developments.
More specifically, we believe that we can contribute to this burgeoning field in the following ways:
1. by spurring the construction models of globalization that reach for higher analytical power, depth in time, and in the context of the study of complex systems;
2. by exploring the possibilities of simulation of these basic processes,
3. by essaying methods of forecasting global change.
Modeling global processes
As far as we can judge from our survey of the large literature, modeling global processes is not among the principal interests of recent scholarship on globalization. More familiar is the construction of dynamic accounts of e.g. the rise and fall of empires (most recently, the multidimensional model of Turchin 2003). Most accounts of globalization are descriptions of recently observed phenomena, and evaluation of their effects, favoring the narrow conception of this phenomenon (as in Garrett 2000).
Simulating global processes
There are two possible approaches to simulating global processes. The systems dynamics approach is "top-down" in character (so-called because it views the system from above, as a whole) and uses differential and/or difference equations. Its dynamics (that is the study of the world system over time, or diachronically) is defined via the change of its organization (or 'state') as described by the system's equations. Such top-down analyses are suitable for describing systemic regularities (such as four-phased collective behavior in Devezas and Modelski 2003), or the system's emergent properties.
The other approach (not so far been used in global analysis) forms the new sub-field of "computational sociology" (also known as "artificial life") that uses so-called "soft computing" models of complex systems that encompass several methods of simulation and is best characterized as a "bottom-up" approach. Theoretically and methodologically this makes possible the construction of models from the level of processes that are immediately and empirically observable, namely the local interactions of single units governed by local rules. Some experts view such models as better suited for modeling social change but others argue that they need to work in combination with "top-down" models capable of capturing the emerging properties of systems of interacting units.
Formal mathematical models developed in the past two decades and most often used are: cellular automata (CA), Boolean nets (BN), artificial neural nets (NN), evolutionary algorithms (such as the genetic algorithm, GA), and network analysis. We also have some recent models of multiagent systems, using for instance replicator equations to simulate the dynamics of learning (Sato and Crutchfield, 2002; Hofbauer and Sigmund, 1990). In the present state of our knowledge no one can be sure which method is best suited for purposes of global analysis. We need to bear in mind that simulation analysis is performed at several levels, at the minimum, "top-down", and "bottom-up". We do have however the example of climate models that employ both local data and that document trends extending for thousands of years.
Forecasting global change
Satisfactory global models could of course help to forecast the trajectory of selected processes. The one extant instance is the "Limits to Growth" family of World Models sponsored by the Club of Rome in the 1970s. Focused on the interaction of population and resources, it raised awareness of the "global problematique", and especially of the need for sustainable development. While a landmark in futures studies, their analyses were criticized by economists as excessively technocratic, and their predictions of early resource exhaustion seemed premature. An evolutionary model would, of course, be oriented more directly to a more rounded set of social science (including economic) variables.
The Seminar
The aims of a three-day Seminar on "Globalization as evolutionary process" may be defined in the following terms:
1. to essay a survey of the current status of globalization studies;
2. to review an evolutionary approach to globalization;
3. to assess the feasibility of a simulation of globalization;
4. to explore a possible course of research for the future.
More specifically we might envisage the following program:
1st day:
afternoon:
2nd day:
afternoon:
3rd day:
afternoon:
This proposal implies a substantial agenda that cannot be fully accomplished in one conference. Provided the first meeting yields satisfactory results, the holding of a follow-up seminar in two-three years time could also be contemplated.
Significance
In recent years, the Gulbenkian Foundation sponsored three general conferences on the broad subject of globalization. The proposed seminar might be regarded as an _expression_ of the Foundation's continuing interest in this topic, possibly the key concept that defines our age. But this seminar is not intended as an international conference or symposium but rather a forum for advanced level, intensive discussions between qualified experts from different research sectors, focusing globalization on a narrower scientific perspective.
Most generally, the projected seminar would highlight the fact that, as a concept of considerable generality, globalization is multidisciplinary in character and extends to forms of global change that concern all the social sciences. What is more, a social evolutionary analysis brings into focus a cascade that spans the social sciences and brings under observation an entire range of social evolutionary processes. The study of globalization is therefore a practical example of the necessity to keep in view the big picture of human society. In effect it implements the recommendations of the Gulbenkian Commission Report on Restructuring the Social Sciences ("Open the Social Sciences", 1995) by promoting multidisciplinarity, and by adopting a holistic view of global social organization, and of the changes it is subject to. As the report also noted: "the conceptual framework offered by evolutionary complex systems as developed by the natural sciences presents to the social sciences a coherent set of ideas that matches long-standing views of students of society" (1995:64).
In recent years, the concept of a "clash of civilizations" has come to be closely linked to that of globalization. That is a concept that highlights the role of cultural and in particular religious factors in sparking conflict in world affairs. An evolutionary approach to globalization would contrast it with the idea of the human species as a "community of common fate", obviously subject to tensions and clashes but also demonstrably composed of individuals capable of learning to live and work together. (Modelski 2003a). Globalization denies that 'civilizations' are "the largest aggregate of identity" (in Mozaffari 2002:1- humankind is) and it traces the trajectory of this community over time, asks about, and elucidates, its origins, and raises questions about its futures, questions that are the task of all the social sciences.
The value of a testable and therefore verifiable long-term account of the contemporary world trends would be to provide an acceptable framework for the understanding of their origins and trajectory. Convincingly mapping the evolution of the "community of common fate" that is the human species is a worthy goal of large significance. It could serve as a framework of world history, and possibly also as a teaching tool in a globalizing age.
An immediate product of such a meeting would be a report on the seminar, possibly a soft-cover publication that would include conference papers, abstracts of all presentations, and a closing text drawing a résumé of the most significant discussions and conclusions about the recommended future course of research on globalization.
References
Bordo, M. et al. (2003), Globalization in historical perspective, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Devezas, T. and George Modelski (2003), "Power law behavior and world system evolution", Technological Forecasting and Social Change 70(9): 819-859.
Garrett, G. (2000), "The causes of globalization", Comparative Political Studies 38:441-491.
Giddens, A. (2000), Runaway world: how globalization is reshaping our world, New York: Routledge.
Gulbenkian Commission (1995), Open the Social Sciences: Report of the Gulbenkian Commission on Restructuring the Social Sciences. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Held, D., and A. McGrew (2000), The Global Transformations Reader: An introduction to the globalization debate, Cambridge: Polity Press.
Hofbauer, J. and K. Sigmund (1990), The Theory of Evolution and Dynamical Systems: Mathematical Aspects of Evolution, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hopkins, A.G., ed. (2002), Globalization in World History, London: Pimlico.
Koffman, E., and G. Youngs, eds. (1996), Globalization: theory and practice, London: Pinter.
Kohler, G and E.-J. Chaves, eds. (2003), Globalization: critical perspectives, U.S. Nova Science Publishers.
Lechner, F. J. and J. Boli, eds. (2000, The globalization reader, Oxford: Blackwell.
Lo, F. and Y. Yeung (1998), Globalization and the world of large cities, New York: United Nations University.
Luard, E. (1990), The globalization of politics, New York: New York University Press.
Modelski, G. (2003a), "Civilização Humana como Projecto de Aprendizagem" ("Human Civilization as Learning Project") at pp.101-118 of Fundação Calouste Gulbekian, Globalização: Ciência, Cultura, e Religiões, Lisboa.
Modelski, G. (2003b), World Cities: -3000 to 2000, Washington DC: Faros 2000.
Modelski, G. (2000), "World System Evolution" in R. Denemark, J. Friedman, B. Gills, and G. Modelski, eds (2000), World System History: The social science of long-term change, New York: Routledge.
Modelski, G. (1999), "Globalization" at pp. 370-375 of World Encyclopedia of Peace, 2nd ed., Vol.II, New York: Oceana.
Mozaffari, M., ed. (2002), Globalization and civilizations, New York: Routledge
Nanda, P. K. and S.M. Shahidullah (1998), Globalization and the evolving world society, Leiden: Brill.
Pieterse, J.N. (2004), Globalization and culture, Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield.
Sato, Y. and J.P. Crutchfield (2002), Coupled Replicator Equations for the Dynamics of Learning in Multiagent Systems, arXiv:nlin. AO/0204057, v. 1.
Turchin, P. (2003), Historical Dynamics: Why states rise and fall, Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Urry, J. (2003), Global Complexity, Cambridge: Polity Press.
Vayrynen, R. (1998), Globalization and global governance, Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield.
Waters, Malcolm (1995), Globalization, New York: Routledge.
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Francis Heylighen
"Evolution, Complexity and Cognition" research group
Free University of Brussels
http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/HEYL.html
Francis Heylighen
"Evolution, Complexity and Cognition" research group
Free University of Brussels
http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/HEYL.html
