Global Integration, State Policy and the Media

Abstract

There is no doubting that important aspects of both the global economy and society are becoming more integrated. The epoch of autarchic national development, most clearly embodied in the former USSR and Mao’s China, but present to a greater or lesser extent in many other societies, is certainly over. The successors of those two states are today deeply engaged with the global market and their citizens enjoy much greater freedom of international movement than in the past. There is, perhaps, one outlier, North Korea, that still tries to maintain the old ways intact, but in the overwhelming majority of cases the idea that the state could and should direct every aspect of economic life, insulate itself from the world and subordinate everything and everyone to the tasks of national defence and economic development has been abandoned. The dominant orthodoxy today, spurred by the enormous economic growth of China, is that it is only through integrating closely into the world market can any country hope to escape the traps of poverty and stagnation.