Globalization and Sustainability of Small States

Abstract

Globalization is rapidly integrating markets, universalizing Western materialism, and weakening the capacity of national states to safeguard local values and institutions. While some, principally the World Bank (1999) regard integrating world markets as an efficiency‐driven process, spreading the benefits of technical innovation and information technologies around the world, many are skeptical. Skeptics include in particular social scientists writing from a Non‐Western and Islamic perspective (Ismail 1999, Rajee 2000). If globalization is indeed a threat to the Nation‐State, then it would follow that small states would be the most vulnerable. At a minimum, it is significant to inquire whether globalization threatens the survival and sustainability of small states.