Periodizing Globalization: From Cold War Modernization to the Bush Doctrine

Abstract

We address here how the U.S. neoliberal policy regime developed and how its reconstructed vision of modernization, which culminated, under the rubric of globalization, was neutralized by 9/11 and neoconservative geopolitics. We analyze the phases in the rise of neoliberalism, and provide a detailed map of its vision of global modernization at its high tide under Clinton. We also address how the Bush Doctrine's unilateral, preemptive polices and the consequent War on Terror and Iraq War eroded U.S. legitimacy as the globalization system's hegmon and shifted the discourse from globalization to empire. Cold War modernization theorists, neoliberal globalization advocates, and Bush doctrine neoconservatives all drew on an American exceptionalist tradition that portrays the U.S. as modernity's “lead society,” attaches universal significance to its values, policies, and institutions, and urges their worldwide diffusion. All three traditions ignore or diminish the importance of substantive equality and social justice. We suggest that consequent U.S. policy problems might be averted by recovery of a suppressed side of the American tradition that stresses social justice and holds that democracy must start at home and be spread by example rather than by exhortation or force. Overall, we explore the contradictory U.S. role in an emergent post-Cold War world.

Citation

Antonio, R.J. and Bonanno, A. (2006), "Periodizing Globalization: From Cold War Modernization to the Bush Doctrine", Lehmann, J.M. and Dahms, H.F. (Ed.) Globalization between the Cold War and Neo-Imperialism (Current Perspectives in Social Theory, Vol. 24), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 1-56. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0278-1204(06)24001-5