Availability without access? Globalization and socio-political cleavages in emerging economies

ABSTRACT

Scholars argue that globalization is reconfiguring socio-political cleavages. No longer do class divisions dominate. Rather, the argument goes, societies are increasingly divided between ‘cosmopolitans’ (who welcome globalization) and ‘communitarians’ (who do not). While that may be the case, studies generally consider the impact of globalization on cleavages in advanced, rather than emerging, economies. Here, we address the latter context. By exploring the impact of liberalized healthcare and education on societal structures, we argue that globalization is encouraging social stratification that could underwrite the development of a cosmopolitan/communitarian cleavage in emerging economies. Specifically, we argue that an expansion of trade into new markets is increasing the availability of goods, services, and ideas, but the high cost of new products means that access is often restricted to local elites. Thus, while elites are connecting to global networks, non-elites are increasingly disconnected – which is an arrangement that could foster a cosmopolitan/communitarian cleavage.

KEYWORDS:

• Globalization
• socio-political cleavages
• emerging economies
• cosmopolitanism and communitarianism
• globalized healthcare
• globalized education

Acknowledgements

We thank Michael Bloomfield, Jane Knight, Ivan Manokha, and anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this study. Any unintended errors, omissions, or misrepresentations are, of course, our own.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

John Gledhill http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4275-2556

Richard Dolan http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3610-3189

Jeremy Snyder http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8236-2923

Notes

1 This argument also echoes claims made by Frances Stewart in her explanation of the development of collective grievances alongside ‘horizontal inequalities’, which are social structures that provide differential access to political and socio-economic opportunities for members of distinct social groups (Stewart, 2002, 2005).

2 A list of countries that host ‘emerging and developing economies’ is provided by the IMF: http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2015/01/weodata/groups.htm (Accessed 31 May 2018)

3 A related arrangement is sometimes known as an ‘International Joint University’ (IJU). This is an institution that is founded through collaboration between foreign education providers and host country institutions (Knight, 2017). We follow common practice by referring to all institutions we cite as IBCs.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

John Gledhill

John Gledhill is Associate Professor of Global Governance in the Department of International Development, University of Oxford.

Richard Dolan

Richard Dolan is a DPhil candidate in the Department of International Development, University of Oxford.

Jeremy Snyder

Jeremy Snyder is Associate Professor in the Faculty of Health Sciences, Simon Fraser University.