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NETWORK POWER AND GLOBAL STANDARDIZATION: THE CONTROVERSY OVER THE MULTILATERAL AGREEMENT ON INVESTMENT
Author(s) -
Grewal David Singh
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
metaphilosophy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.475
H-Index - 35
eISSN - 1467-9973
pISSN - 0026-1068
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9973.2005.00359.x
Subject(s) - globalization , standardization , power (physics) , investment (military) , capital (architecture) , political economy , political science , economic system , sociology , economics , law and economics , epistemology , law , politics , philosophy , history , physics , archaeology , quantum mechanics
This essay examines the controversy over the attempt to establish rules governing global capital flows in the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI), which became a target of “antiglobalization” activism. Making sense of the activists' concerns about the MAI requires understanding how the emergence of transnational standards in contemporary globalization constitutes an exercise in power. I develop the concept of “network power” to explain the way in which the rise of a single coordinating standard for global activity can be experienced as coercive, as it eclipses alternative standards and abrogates the genuinely free choice among different conventions. Using a network‐power analysis, I reinterpret the controversy over the MAI as a concern about the processes by which neoliberal globalization is being brought about.