A state that loses its sovereignty does not survive as a state; a society that loses its identity fears that it will no longer be able to live as itself (p. 154)
With the advent of globalization, the question of state sovereignty has become crucial. The book under review attempts to analyse the many reactions that the commencement of global culture has elicited, from panic to joy. It investigates global culture’s influence on the degree to which the newly independent states retain their cultural sovereignty.
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The book opens with an introduction that discusses the theoretical underpinnings and contestation about cultural globalization and whether it tends to erode the identities and culture of societies or not. Vivek Mohan Dubey starts the theoretical discussion with the ‘Traditional School of Thought’ on globalization by taking the ideas of scholars like Samuel P Huntington, for whom ‘global culture’ remains a myth. While there is considerable dissemination of information and technology which is shrinking the global space, at the same time there is intensification of a sense of distinctiveness in the people of the same culture. The second in discussion is the ‘Transformationalist School of Thought’ which outlines a neutral stand on globalization; for them there is no denial of the cultural changes brought about by globalization, but they desist from anticipating any future trajectory. The last in consideration for analysis is the ‘Globalist School of Thought’, which holds that globalization is reducing the function of states and leading to the denationalization of economies.
After setting a theoretical base, Vivek Mohan Dubey initiates his ideas by discussing the foundations of global cultures in two separate chapters. Here, in scrutiny, is the evolution of global culture not just in terms of contemporary changes but its historical evolution, which is why it becomes essential to take cognizance of temporal and spatial evolutions. Dubey links Time space compression and the proliferation of global culture. Starting with ancient societies and taking the example of the Greeks’ Homos Mensura, which translates into ‘Man is a measure of all,’ things started eroding after the beginning of Industrial Modernity. Industrial modernity and machine-based Time space compression started in the 15th and 16th centuries based on these numerous preceding successes. It changed human history and technology. Steam and the circumnavigating compass started contemporary Time space compression. Steam power accelerated and became compass guided. The mix of both made physical distance, nature’s most formidable challenge, surmountable. The Voyages of Discovery created a staggering amount of information about the globe that had to be digested and processed. This marks a starting point of the proliferation of cultures. Later, this proliferation was reinforced by technology, either through Television or Internet, which compressed time and space and led to the evolution of an entirely different environment. Nonetheless, the concept of progress and modernity entails the supremacy of the western world due to the belief that the West is the mother of modernity. Not only does the West personify the concept of development, but it also assumes the moral task of bringing the rest of the world into the contemporary era and making it more progressive. Since the inception of industrial modernity, the burden of being the torchbearer to build a civilized world, the West has tried to homogenize the idea of being human by advocating pure reason and discarding everything that does not fit the scientific logic of pure reason. The attempts to homogenize societies in the modern era have sparked interminable wars in which individuals strive to maintain their cultural traditions and customs.
To substantiate his claim that globalization’s sweeping transformations have contributed to rising tensions between societies, in the third chapter, Dubey identifies the three most significant expressions of global culture, each reshaping national identities and providing crucial indicators of globalization. The first in discussion is ‘Deterritorialization’ wherein Dubey elaborates that the phenomenon is directly connected to the rise of a global culture. As new technologies make it easier to communicate and move around the world, social, economic, and political activities are becoming increasingly deterritorialized, meaning they are no longer tied to or limited by national borders. Traditionally, culture and territory have been linked; people have thought that there is a natural link between the uniqueness of a society or culture and the geographical space in which it exists. However, this ‘Deterritorialization’ has pushed societies towards a discontinuity of traditional cultures, and the idea of discontinuity always marks the initiation of the theory of contact, conflict, and contradiction between cultures and societies. The second in the discussion of manifestation of a global culture is ‘Cultural Hybridization’, which starts with the idea that it is not an entirely new phenomenon and has always been a part of history. To substantiate his idea, Dubey quotes William H McNeill’s book Polyethnicity and National Unity in World History (p. 83), where he claims that war, trade, epidemics, and imitation were the main reasons for intercultural interactions, and these reasons seem to persist in the present as well and are not only a part of the past.
When individuals engage in these activities, it becomes more challenging for them to maintain their ethnic identity while living far from home for an extended period. Interaction between different groups is no longer considered abnormal. The disintegration of individual identity has directly resulted from the cultural mixing brought about by globalization. As Dubey tries to capture within a few questions raised by James Rosenau, questions like—Where do you come from? Where do you belong to? (p. 86) become a difficult thing to answer because of intergenerational migration pattern, which has produced cultural hybridity among societies. The last point taken up by Dubey is ‘Global Multiculturalism’, whose basic premise relies on the idea of respecting cultural diversity. However, it remains a crucial question as to whose culture influences whom, and the challenges the newly independent states face. Global multiculturalism is being influenced by western culture; the newly independent states always had a fear of the loss of their identity in the setup of a global multicultural world. In these places, more and more people, concerned about the loss of what they inherited from their predecessors and cherished with love, are on the verge of collapsing due to the proliferation of global multiculturalism. Huntington’s clash of civilizations theory expresses this. In his view, culture and cultural identities—civilization identities—shape post-Cold War cohesiveness, dissolution, and conflict.
Dubey projects his ingenuity and thoughtfulness to perceive and explain global culture. He wonders about the inner workings of the gleaming buildings that serve as symbols of progress and affluence. What price has prosperity incurred? When a country’s natural resources are ruthlessly tapped for economic development, how does it affect the surrounding environment? In contrast to other academics, Dubey defines global culture in terms of the worldwide amalgamations, migrations, and massive transcontinental and global mobility that have resulted in a global imagination encompassing the ecological, political, and economic. Hybridization, homogenization, and resistance result from cultural contacts, each generating its own transnational and supra-territorial space and normative ethos. To sum up his ideas in the last chapter, Dubey expounds that hybridization and homogenization are leading to resistance in the newly independent states. Several subjectivities of the West have been captured in the last chapter, and the anxieties of the Global South have been marked under the factors on which the Global South hinges. Several assertions on which the identity of the Global South hinges are linked to the following questions: How dehumanizing is western culture? What message do Madonnas and Jacksons give to the rest of the world? How lusty are their men? How open are their women? How torturous is modernity?
Postcolonial nations have the same legal rights and freedoms as all other countries in the international system. However, the big powers control, judge, and get into their economic and to a large extent, their political system using soft power or cultural means. Through this book, Dubey attempts to highlight the impact of globalization on ‘culture’ within the perspective of International Relations and Political Science. However, at certain places the book appears to be highly incoherent. It appears to be explaining more of theories of physics which seems like divergence and delinks the subject matter in understanding how global culture has impacted national identities and could have been handled more efficiently.
Mohammad Imtiyaz is a doctoral candidate at the Department of Political Science, Jamia Millia Islamia University, New Delhi.