Legal Commentary

Paul Krugman had an interesting Op-Ed piece in the New York Times -- The Great Illusion.  In it, he questions whether the international economic crisis might lead to the end of globalization.  He does this by reminding readers of a prior era when globalization existed only to be undone by nationalism (leading to WWI).  His conclusion is that "things can fall apart again."  It's an interesting article. Yesterday, Peter Spiro over at Opinio Juris commented on it.  Peter is skeptical of Krugman's conclusion, suggesting that globalization is "different this time around" and will not be a causalty of the economic crisis.  He ends saying that at least there's agreement that "the economy - and not terrorism - is now the biggest security threat."

While I  tend to think that de-globalization is unlikely, it certainly seems true that the economic crisis will impact world politics.  The more useful insight perhaps though is not whether this age of globalization is remarkably different or more resilient than earlier ages of globalization, but that earlier globalized times have existed.  It is common in legal scholarship to attribute many changes that have occurred in law and society to globalization, without any serious assessment as to whether the two have the assumed causal relationship.  

Spiro's post and Krugman's piece also raise another interesting question.  Having international law and politics focused on the territorially-defined nation state was a way to constrain rampant nationalism. Now that globalization means not just international trade and investment, but also greater interconnectedness among peoples, groups, networks etc., globalization is often described as undermining the territorial state itself.  It may well be that traditional nationalism then is much less a threat to global peace and economic prosperity than the rise of various non-state actors that through their interconnectedness have a greater chance, on the margins, of destabilizing the existing system. 

Sorry, no great insights here (or at least not in this short post).  But as more details of the economic recession unfolds, I suspect there will be renewed interest on the topic of globalization and nationalism.