Universität Kassel
 Fachbereich Gesellschaftswissenschaften
Magisterarbeit

The Discourse of Globalization -
Shifts in the Discursive Representation of Economic
Globalization in the United States-
Two Examples

eingereicht von:
Christof Dieterle

Februar 2006

table of contents

1. Introduction ... 4

2. Discourse: Theoretical and methodological perspectives  ... 6
2.1 What is Discourse ... 7
2.1.1 General Usage  ... 7
2.1.2 Structural Linguistics  ... 8
2.1.3 Habermas’ Normative Approach to Discourse ... 11
2.1.4 Michel Foucault’s Discourse Theory ... 15
2.1.4 Post-Marxist Perspectives on Discourse  ... 20
2.2 Methodological Perspectives  ... 22
2.2.1 Historical Semantics ... 23
2.2.2 Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA)  ... 26
2.3 Methodological Framework  ... 33

3. The Discursive Framework ... 38
3.1 Discursive Framework I: Economic Data  ... 39
3.1.1 Global Economic Trends  ... 40
3.1.2 The United States and the Global Economy  ... 45
3.2 Discursive Framework II: The Globalization Debate  ... 50
3.2.1 The Globalist Perspective  ... 51
3.2.2 The Sceptic Perspective ... 55
3.2.3 The Transformationalist Perspective ... 58
3.3 Summary  ... 60

4. Analysis ... 62
4.1 Discursive Events ... 62
4.1.1 The Foundation of the WTO  ... 62
4.1.2 The “Battle of Seattle”  ... 64
4.1.3 The Terrorist Attacks on the World Trade Center  ... 65
4.2 The Corpus  ... 66
4.3 General Overview  ... 68
4.3.1 Step I: General Word Count ... 68
4.3.2 Step II: Word Count Regarding Discursive Events  ... 69
4.3.3 Step III: Connotations of the Term “Globalization”  ... 70
4.4 Textual Analysis  ... 74
4.4.1 Selection of Sample Texts  ... 74
4.4.2 Text Analysis and Interpretation ... 75
4.5 Summary  ... 82

5. Conclusion ... 84

6. Bibliography ... 88

1. Introduction

The term globalization1 has gained a lot of prominence during the last two decades. First introduced into the public and academic debate in the 1960s, it has become a “buzz-word” indicating widespread changes in the realms of politics, culture and, most important, economies around the world since the end of the Cold War and the demise of the bi-polar system in the early 1990s. However, after having been discussed for more than two decades, the concept of globalization still is a contentious issue in public debate as well as in academic circles. In fact, looking at the vast amount of, often quite contradictory, literature on the topic, globalization can be regarded as one of the most controversially discussed issues in the public and academic sphere.2 Controversies not only exist regarding the question of who benefits from the, vaguely defined, globalization process, but also regarding the very basic question whether globalization really exists or is just an exaggerated view on a process which has taken place for a long time (Held et al. 1999, Hirst and Thompson 1996,Ohmae 1990).

Research Question

Given this huge continuum of different ideas and explanatory attempts from various disciplines like economics, political science, sociology, philosophy, history, etc., in this study I seek to develop a trans-disciplinary approach, combining the aforementioned perspectives with insights drawn from linguistics. From this perspective, the main questions addressed in this study are concerned with the relationship between language and the representation of the concept of globalization in a discursive context. In this respect, two main aspects are prevalent in the following chapters. First, there is the question of how the discursive representation of globalization has changed over time. In this context I limited the scope of my study to the discourse in the United States as the US economy is the largest in the world therefore the debate about globalization can be expected to be rather extensive. Given this selection it is important to note that the findings displayed in this study are not meant to represent an overall account of the discourse of globalization throughout the world. The perspective presented here is just one among many.

Coming back to my research interest, the second focal point of this study is to take a closer look at the conditions and mechanisms involved in the aforementioned change of representation. In this context, I will show that social reality plays a crucial role in the process of these changes. This is to say that discourses do not change by themselves, but that social constellations and events are involved. This then leads to the concept of power relations, which also will be discussed in relation to discursive changes.

Research Design

In order to analyse the aforementioned aspects, it is necessary to establish a theoretical and methodological framework and to find suitable data for a textual analysis. In chapter 2 I therefore give a brief overview of the prevalent theories concerned with the relationship between discourse and the social sciences with a special focus on the work of Michel Foucault. The theoretical perspectives displayed in this chapter form the basis for the methodological aspects discussed later in this chapter. Based on the different discourse analytical approaches I then construct the methodological framework used in this study.

Another important aspect in the analysis of discourses is the environment in which they are embedded which will be discussed in chapter 3. In this context I examine two aspects of this environment, namely the development of the global economy during the analysed time period and the academic debate regarding the globalization process. The framework established in this chapter together with the methodological aspects discussed in chapter 2 form the basis of the data analysis in chapter 4. Due to the fact that my main interest is in the development of the discourse of economic globalization, I selected two business magazines, i.e. The Economist and Business Week as sources for my study. The main parts of chapter 4 are a general overview of the development of the discourse of globalization in the two magazines followed by a deep analysis of selected texts. In this context, the analysis focuses on three discursive events, namely the foundation of the WTO in 1995, the “Battle of Seattle” in 1999 and the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City.

In my concluding chapter the results of the study will be summarized and assessed according to their salience within the field of social sciences. In this context, it is important to note that the main focus of this study is to establish a theoretical and methodological framework that can be used for discourse analytical studies of social processes. Quoting Foucault, the aim of this study is to provide a “tool-kit” (Foucault 1972: 48) for further analysis In this sense, the actual data analysis in chapter 4 serves as an illustration of the process, rather than producing a conclusive result.

Before turning to the different theoretical approaches to discourse and their importance for this study, I will give a brief overview of the epistemological framework this paper is based on. This is necessary, since the discourse analytical approach is based on epistemological assumptions that have to be made clear in order to avoid confusion.

Epistemological framework

The discourse analytical approach to globalization is not just a new empirical method applied to make sense of observations gathered from the “real world”. Discourses are rather perceived as both constitutional and representational elements of reality. In other words, the ways reality is talked about influences the ways in which we perceive this reality and vice versa. In this conceptual framework, there is no objective truth “out there”, which can be used as a reference point to judge the validity of a certain theory, as proposed by scholars adhering to a positivist perspective.3 Language, in this context, plays an important role in the discursive construction of reality, which will be discussed more detailed in chapter 2.

Studying globalization from a discourse analytical perspective thus implies an epistemology based on post-positivist assumptions, namely the absence of truth and objectivity.4 Associated with theorists like Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault or Jean-François Lyotard, a post-positivist positivist epistemology implies that there is no “world out there”, i.e. that what we perceive as reality is a product of construction and that this construction is, directly or indirectly, rooted in language (Foucault 1972, Lyotard 1993, Royle 2003). This basic assumption regarding the role of language in the construction of social reality is fundamental to the study of discourses. In assuming that language is not merely a “transport vehicle” for meaning but rather a constitutive element of the social, this epistemological framework allows for the deconstruction of “reality”.

Apart from the importance of language in the process of the social construction of reality, the rejection of the concept of truth is a central element of the epistemological foundations of this study. The perspective towards the concept of truth can be seen in Michel Foucault’s following statement: “If I tell the truth about myself it is in part that I am constituted as a subject across a number of power relations which are exerted over me and which I exert over others” (Foucault 1988: 33). In this sense, the notion of objectivity advocated by positivism is rejected and replaced by the concept of the discursive construction of truth and reality.

2. Discourse: Theoretical and methodological perspectives

Discourse analysis, as discussed in the introductory chapter, cannot be reduced to its methodological application as a tool for analysing and interpreting observable facts in the “real world”. Using discourses as points of reference for research also implies a critical stance towards the question of how these observable facts came into being and why they are assumed to be true. The term discourse itself has become a buzz-word since the 1960s and is often used quite vaguely and ambiguously in a variety of contexts.

[...]

1 As will be seen, the term “globalization” is referred to in a number of contexts. In this study I will use the term as equivalent to “economic globalization”.

2 Many scholars see the term globalization as a “new paradigm” replacing other key concepts such as “risk society”, or “postmodernity” in academic and public debate (Osterhammel and Petersson 2003, Waters 1995, Held et al. 1999).

3 Positivism, a term associated with theorists like Comte or Mill, presumes the naturalistic notion that any science is the study of an objectively existing reality that lies outside the discourse of science. In this paper, I cannot give a comprehensive account of positivist epistemology and its critics. For an overview of positivist epistemology, see Dahms 1994.

4 I use “post-positivist” as a comprehensive term for many different labels like postmodern, post-structuralist, constructivist etc., which differ in their respective theoretical approach but have in common the rejection of objectivity.