Passive Globalization and the Failure of the European Union’s Lisbon Strategy, 2000-2010: Some New Cross-National Evidence

Abstract

The current paper investigates the cross-national relevance of dependency theory and world systems theory for eight dimensions of development. The main emphasis is on indicators of sustainable development, and our essay comprises in all 36 main dependent variables. They are part of the dimensions of democracy, gender justice, high quality tertiary education, economic growth during the outgone economic cycle until 2008 and projected economic growth after 2009, the environment, human development, employment, and social cohesion on a global scale by a new. Our 175 nation analysis, using 20 main predictors of development tries to confront the very basic pro-globalist assumptions of the “Lisbon process”, the policy target of the European leaders since the EU’s Lisbon Council meeting in March 2000 to make Europe the leading knowledge-based economy in the world with a “globalization critical perspective”. A realistic and politically useful analysis of the “Lisbon process” has to be a “Schumpeterian” approach. We analyze the “Lisbon performance” of the world economy by multivariate, quantitative means, looking into the possible contradictions that might exists between the dependent insertion into the global economy and other goals of the “Lisbon process”. Lowering the comparative price levels and increasing the dependency from the large, transnational corporations, as correctly predicted by Latin American social science of the 1960s and 1970s, emerges as one of the most serious development blockades, confronting Europe. It also emerges that failing to develop Europe’s own MNC headquarter status in the global economy has very negative effects on development performance. The increase in military expenditures, proposed in article 42,3 of the new EU Lisbon Treaty, is another stumbling block against development. We also present a concluding factor analytical perspective, which again re-iterates the importance of avoiding a “race to the bottom” as an “alternative” in Europe. Key words: Lisbon process, European Union, Latin America, Dependency theory