Globalization, Political System and Law

Globalization can generally be defined as a worldwide process accelerated by information technology revolution, in which the economic, socio-cultural, and political systems tend to be integrated. It means that each system is not independent anymore; they depend on, affect and are affected by other system. Such interdependency among systems and countries, leads to the alteration of all matters of human life.

In political system, we acknowledged some fundamental changes from the Modern State in 19^th century, Welfare State in 20^th century, and Post Welfare State in 21^st century. In each period, the political system, in this case the role of government and private sector and civil society, was totally different. In the Modern State era, there was a notion that market could be managed without state’s intervention (laisze faire). What society need was a minimum state because market’s mechanism, so called invisible hand, could govern the society effectively. In fact, however, market showed some failures; and it led to a verdict that the government’s role and power should be improved to handle the problems.

At this point, state had justification to regulate the market / society under the reason of “increasing public welfare”. Unfortunately, to some extent, state couldn’t make good performance as market system had realized. Democratization values, for example, had a propensity to be poorer during the era of Welfare State. Once more, the relation between state and market need to be reconsidered. In this latest form, command system should be condensed, and market’s role is supposed to be wider. Therefore, the state’s role is smaller than, or at most equal to, the markets. The main point of the Post Welfare State or the New Market Order is to balance the responsibility of state, business or private sector, and civil society as three actors of governance. This proportional role of actors, in turn, constitutes the precondition for promoting democratization / human rights, civil society, and good governance as well.

In such political changes, law becomes a crucial aspect in order to harmonize the relation between state and society, and to promote the dynamics of economic life. To do so, it is essential that “rule of law” should be put in the constitution of the state. There are, at least, four benefits that might be reached from such constitution. The following is those possible benefits or advantages:

·           There is a legal warranty concerning the respect to the basic human needs / rights.

·           There is an agreed pattern of governance model such as relation between executive and legislative power, judiciary and rule of law system, and local autonomy or decentralization.

·           There is a clearance of governance mechanism or principle applied such as community principle, market principle, or command principle.

·           Economic or political changes may take place without negative or counter productive impacts.

From other perspective, it can also be implied that another function of law is to make synchronization between global governance as a consequence of globalization and local popular governance as a grass-root demand. In other words, the Rule of Law is very important not only in anticipating the unexpected impacts of globalization as a general phenomenon, but also advocating the process of “social globalization” or “global socialization”.

May 28^th, 2002