When most people think of revolutions, they imagine the overthrow of political orders. By contrast, most of what we see today in globalization’s continued expansion is not violent political revolution, but rather unsettling socio-economic revolution. Yes, when existing political orders cannot process that change -- and the angry populism that typically accompanies it -- they can most definitely fall. This is what we have seen in the Arab Spring to date. But more often this populism leads to political paralysis in countries both democratic and authoritarian. A case in point is the recent controversy in India over Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s plan, since scrapped, to allow multinational retail chains like Wal-Mart, Carrefour and Tesco to mount joint ventures with local firms in direct retail sales operations. The public uproar showed that at times, globalization is simply too much change, too fast..
Read the entire column at World Politics Review.
Monday, December 12, 2011 at 9:36AM 
Reader Comments (1)
An Indian intellectual once described India as an "open society with a closed mind" and China as "a closed society with an open mind". The description is apt, seeing how these two immense nations tackle globalisation. China has been more successful and has adapted more quickly and more successfully to globalisation than India has (hint: check Chinese female literacy rates and participation of Chinese females in the labour market).
India has a much more serious problem over the next few decades than China - i.e. its rapidly expanding population. 1.5 - 1.6 billion people will strain the resources of the Indian sub-continent (whatever the experts say) and unlike the Chinese government, the Indian Government has no coherent plan to deal with these issues. The large number of unemployed and unemployable youth (there is no indication that the supply for vocational education in India has caught up with demand), could very easily DESTROY India's democracy.
India's problem is neither too much nor too little democracy, it is the challenge of effective governance. India has had that problem since Nehru and there is no indication that adding more democracy to the mix will mitigate it.