Globalization, Inequalities and Justice

The considerable inequities and exclusions that exist in our globalized world call for a global framework to deal with them. In particular, the problem of methodological nationalism, citizenship and exclusion from the entitlement to many basic rights (both social and political) in national constitutions is stressed. The consolidation of a global institution (or network of institutions) is presented as necessary; one that, overcoming the discrimination between person and citizen, might watch over and defend fundamental rights, enabling them to become effective rights for all persons, irrespective of the place where they were born and the place where they happen to be. The aim of a just distribution not only of wealth but, in general, of the benefits that globalization has to offer requires institutional reforms that depend on a renewed perspective of global constitutionalism. This in turn demands a new approach leaving behind the confrontation between uniform universalist visions and closed multiculturalisms. Globalization is one of the most controversial phenomena of the contemporary world. Since the end of the last century, it has been regarded by some as a source of prosperity of nations; others, by contrast, see it as the origin of new inequalities between and within nations, hence as fostering global injustice. Yet others view it as a space of power, negotiation and cooperation for the construction of a new global order. We cannot conceive of the development of globalization without the scientific-technological revolution that required a redesigning of nation states, whose frontiers were being eroded as a result of the development of digital information and communication technologies (Castells 1996). These gave rise to information flows and knowledge networks that surpassed the territorial controls of states, and these, in order to maintain their international competitiveness and quotas of power in the world system, had to opt for the formation of regional blocs. Hence, the world was restructured with growing international economic interdependence and an increasing differentiation in development between regions. In the final decades of the twentieth century, the division of global power between two parts—capitalist and socialist—became a thing of the past and, although the United States has continued to exert a strong presence, other imporElisabetta Di Castro, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) OpenAccess. © 2018 Elisabetta Di Castro, published by De Gruyter. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110492415-010 tant nuclei of power have emerged. Likewise the East-West conflict took on new characteristics and was joined by a new disjunction: the North-South divide (Kennedy, 1993 and 2008). The nation states were obliged to promote the liberalization of national markets in goods and services, as well as liberalizing their financial systems, although it must be stressed that national labor markets remained within the narrow margin of each nation state. The great world power intensified its control over the arbitration of regional conflicts—with actions that on many occasions violated international law—and the nation states gave impulse to the creation of supra-national centers of regulation, such as the WTO, and strengthened others, such as the IMF. One of the consequences of the globalization process has been the crisis of the nation state, which questions the traditional significances of sovereignty and citizenship that are implicated in it and which were once a factor of inclusion and equality, present since its origins.1 While the nation state and citizenship came to be regarded as global norms (to the degree that a considerable proportion of the world’s population was living in democratic nation states), the end of the Cold War heralded the appearance of a new world order in which a hierarchy between states became manifest (Castles and Davidson 2000; Castles 2003). The hierarchy of states that characterizes this emerging world order is in accordance with the level of dependence of each in relation to the superpower, as likewise the differing degrees of power they have among themselves, which may vary considerably. Stephen Castles called this new order the ‘hierarchical nationstate system’; its structure can be understood as a set of concentric circles around a dominant superpower. In correspondence with the differing degrees of power (in cultural, economic, military and political terms) wielded by nation states, their populations are subject to a similar hierarchy of rights and freedoms —a situation that Castles refers to as one of ‘hierarchical citizenship’. In this sense, we may say that the dominant development in our globalized world is one of hierarchization, and hence of inequality and exclusion. In contrast with the liberal supposition that all citizens are equal and free persons (irrespective of their belonging to specific groups), in reality, citizenship has always been differentiated in nation states, based on criteria of origin, ethnic identity, race, class and gender. This tendency has become more acute with globalization, and in particular with the increase in international migration and  As Luigi Ferrajoli has pointed out, the changes linked to this crisis should not lead us to the advent of new types of sovereignty and citizenship as many have proposed, but rather, in the long term, to a change of paradigm—both at the international and state levels—to the extent that the concepts of sovereignty and citizenship will inevitably remain connected to relations of inclusion-exclusion in states and between peoples and persons (Ferrajoli, 1998 and 2001). 124 Elisabetta Di Castro