"The reconfiguration of the political landscape has been going on for 30 years now and it has a lot to do with that process of transnational transformation we call globalization." Professor Raffaele Marchetti, LUISS professor of International Relations and International Public Policy at the Department of Political Science, has no doubt regarding the influence that globalization has had on contemporary politics. He has written a book on the topic, The Politics of Globalization, which was recently published by Mondadori Education.
The book has a dual purpose: on the one hand it clarifies the new mechanisms of global governance, those that “have an increasing impact on individual lives and at the national and local level as well," in such a way as to offer a guide to the complexity of our socio-economic system. On the other hand, it "maps out the principal positions of the world today and orients the citizen and policy entrepreneur in their public actions."
The basic hypothesis of the book is that a conceptual framework needs to focus on the phenomenon of globalization in order to best interpret the current political situation. "It is through looking at political positioning on questions of policy that are central for globalization (such as the integration of markets, the delegation of sovereignty, and the participation in regional organizations), that we can best understand today’s political divisions, the field on which the political game of this era is being played."
Marchetti superimposes a new fracture on the traditional divide between left and right: for or against globalization, and, in that it regards us more directly, its regional correlate between Europeanists or anti-Europeanists. "We have to distinguish between a globalist right and a localist right, just like we have to distinguish between a globalist left and a localist left. This double distinction helps us understand the political hegemony of globalism over localism, and why today centrist governments and large globalist coalitions against localist oppositions are becoming so popular."
One of the clearest examples that can help us understand this repositioning comes from the results of the latest European elections in May 2014, in which “the Euroskeptic or Euro-critical parties got considerable backing thanks to an opposition campaign with respect to the parties that have always been in favor of European integration."
In this context, the economic crisis of the past few years undoubtedly figures prominently, having accentuated and accelerated this type of polarization. But, as Marchetti underlines, "the crisis is itself a phenomenon that goes beyond national borders, beyond what the famous German sociologist Ulrich Beck calls methodological nationalism. It is a phenomenon connected to regional and global processes of integration."
The Politics of Globalization was written with the intention of drawing up a framework of political thought and action in a world in which "we have gone beyond the classic left-right dichotomy, as is demonstrated by the composition of the three most recent Italian governments." A framework that requires us to learn to "play effectively within a stratified and increasingly transnational landscape of political opportunities in the contemporary world."