Conferences

Europe and the Management of Globalization

Brigham Young University

May 24, 2008

A workshop organized by Wade Jacoby and Sophie Meunier

Sponsored by the Brigham Young Center for the Study of Europe, the College of Family, Home and Social Sciences, the David M. Kennedy Center, the Niehaus Center for Globalization and Governance, the EU Program at Princeton University, and the Council for European Studies.

Conference Administrator: Austin Walters

    Globalization – the increased flows of goods, services, capital, people, and information across borders – has been the source of many worries in Europe over the past decade. In several countries, globalization is more often perceived as a threat than as an opportunity. Some see a narrow threat to their jobs, others to their broader social welfare, and yet others to their entire way of life. At the same time, globalization promises opportunities to other European actors, especially those who can serve new markets or existing markets with cheaper inputs. This blend of threat and opportunity – combined with a sense that globalization may simply be too powerful to be resisted outright – has led many European policymakers to speak of what we term “globalization with adjectives.” Typically, the adjective injects a note of caution that suggests the embrace of globalization is a conditional one – whether globalization is to be “humanized,” “tamed,” “harnessed,” or “managed.” The phrase “managed globalization” was originally launched by Frenchman Pascal Lamy in 1999 when he was European Trade Commissioner and has been perpetuated during his current tenure as head of the World Trade Organization.

    What did this idea of “managed globalization” do for Europe? Was it only political rhetoric for domestic political consumption, or instead was it a source of real policies with an international impact? We think that the will to manage globalization has indeed been a primary driver of many major policies undertaken by the European Union (EU) in the past decade. The key purpose of this workshop is to take stock of the extent to which demands for the management of globalization have been met by the EU. What kind of management strategy have European leaders supplied, and how well are those strategies working? A central task of the Park City workshop will be to flesh out five specific mechanisms introduced in the Princeton workshop last February and to supply concrete examples from the research findings of the group.

    This workshop will explore how over the past fifteen years European policy-makers have tried to manage globalization, both inside and outside Europe, in a variety of policy areas. We argue that this concept of managed globalization, originally and explicitly developed with respect to trade and finance, has become an underlying driver of almost all the major policy initiatives undertaken by the EU in the past decade. Whether the euro, immigration, enlargement, or the constitutional treaty, all these policies have been designed, at least in part, to restore order and control in the face of challenges posed by globalization. Through papers written and circulated in advance of the meeting and the discussion during the day, the workshop participants will analyze how “managed globalization” has become a central component – sometimes explicitly and other times implicitly – of the EU’s major policy initiatives in recent years.

Workshop Program

May 24, 2008

Stein Eriksen Lodge

9:00-10:30