Network Power: The Social Dynamics of Globalization

by David Singh Grewal

For all the attention globalization has received in recent years, little consensus has emerged concerning how best to understand it. For some, it is the happy product of free and rational choices; for others, it is the unfortunate outcome of impersonal forces beyond our control.  It is in turn celebrated for the opportunities it affords and criticized for the inequalities in wealth and power it generates.   David Singh Grewal’s remarkable and ambitious book draws on several centuries of political and social thought to show how globalization is best understood in terms of a power inherent in social relations, which he calls network power . Using this framework, he demonstrates how our standards of social coordination both gain in value the more they are used and undermine the viability of alternative forms of cooperation. A wide range of examples are discussed, from the spread of English and the gold standard to the success of Microsoft and the operation of the World Trade Organization, to illustrate how global standards arise and falter. The idea of network power supplies a coherent set of terms and concepts—applicable to individuals, businesses, and countries alike—through which we can describe the processes of globalization as both free and forced.  The result is a sophisticated and novel account of how globalization, and politics, work.

Genres: Economics, Politics, Nonfiction, Business, History

416 pages, Hardcover

First published April 28, 2008

Reviews

[Shannon · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good friend's son wrote this book. This is a good book. Much like reading a text book so be prepared to think and take your time reading it. It is not a quick read like The Post-American World. The take on globalization has a different focus -- how some can get shut out of networks, others adapt to become part of the network...

[N · Rating 1 out of 5]

Grewal mistakes the mechanism for the origin.
Yes, network effects explain how a standard becomes entrenched, but they don’t explain why that standard arose in the first place, nor why certain groups had the power to impose it globally.

It’s not a coincidence that the dominant standards—English, neoliberal economics, IP law, Western-style education—originate from the most powerful capitalist nations. These weren’t neutral emergent outcomes of global coordination—they were seeded, spread, and reinforced by the economic, political, and cultural hegemony of the West. Globalization doesn't passively favor certain networks; it actively conditions the environment so that deviation from dominant standards (e.g., speaking a minority language, using a non-Western educational system, or following alternative development models) is not only inefficient but also backward, provincial, or unconnected.

Network power might explain how the system sustains itself. But the initial conditions were never equal, and ignoring that lets power off the hook.

[Chris Bronsk · Rating 2 out of 5]

Grewal gives some useful insight into the network society and is right to want to move globalization debates beyond the predictable dualisms. But his claim to view network power as a theory of structuration may be more ambitious than fully realized in this study, especially given that he often works with hypotheticals watered down, one could presume, for undergraduate lecture halls. Crucially, his account of power lacks complexity as does his treatment of identities. Even more problematic, I find, is his discussion of English as global language, or, as he terms it, a network standard, because it is drawn almost exclusively from Crystal. While Crystal is an expert on the English language, his viewpoint is hardly uncontroversial and is certainly only one of many. Nevertheless, Grewal provides an accessible entry into current globalization debates with some compelling conceptualizations of contemporary network power that, if nothing else, will provoke needed thought and debate.

[John Hanacek · Rating 5 out of 5]

A powerful conceptual lens for navigating the world

Read this. You will come away with a scalable model of hegemonic power inherent in networks and a useful new conception of standards. These will allow you to stuff off abstractions and specifics to arrive at a deeper conception of why the global world functions the way it does.

[Paul · Rating 1 out of 5]

Garbage. Simplistic analysis and baseless suppositions in awkward, bloated writing.