hello I have an exercise I am asked to summarize a text by Alain Touraine (globalization: realities, ideologies and decline.) that I have attached below I have no idea how to do the summary is what you can help me with this and also you can take all the time you want thank you

Triumph and decline of globalization

Depuis la chute de l'Empire sovitique, les tats-Unis et le monde dans son ensemble se sont retrouvs dans une situation o la puissance amricaine n'avait plus d'ennemis de sa taille craindre et o, de ce fait, les proccupations stratgiques, politiques et militaires perdaient leur pertinence. importance. Au cours des annes 1990, ce nouvel accent mis sur la transformation conomique a t renforc par la rapidit et les rsultats des transformations technologiques qui ont la fois mobilis des ressources importantes et entran des changements significatifs dans nos modes de production, de consommation et de communication. On pourrait dire qu'aprs la longue priode de la guerre froide, nos socits, notamment occidentales, sont largement redevenues des socits civiles. Les faits conomiques et sociaux semblaient l'emporter partout et longtemps sur la politique proprement dite. Cela a t rendu encore plus visible par l'affaiblissement ou la crise des organisations politiques et mme de certaines institutions. Partout on constate la perte d'influence des partis politiques ; On a aussi souvent parl des syndicats et de la capacit de ngociation collective ou des pressions exerces sur les gouvernements pour obtenir une nouvelle lgislation sociale. Qu'entend-on par mondialisation, par ce mot qui domine notre exprience et notre vocabulaire depuis quinze ans et qui a souvent t laiss dans une vague dangereuse ?

Le mot dsigne certainement avant tout les transformations matrielles grande chelle. Il est vrai que, dans tous les domaines de la vie conomique et sociale, les activits se sont de plus en plus organises au niveau mondial ou du moins trs largement international et que l'on a assist au dveloppement rapide non seulement des changes conomiques, mais surtout des rseaux financiers mondiaux, en mme temps que dans le domaine de la recherche scientifique, comme dans celui de la culture de masse, les changes internationaux ou plus prcisment la capacit de diffusion mondiale des ides et des produits dvelopps dans les centres conomiques les plus puissants se sont rapidement renforcs.

But beyond this descriptive utility, the idea of globalization has had otherintentions, if not at least other implications and effects. Everywhere the idea spread that, since economic facts were organized on a global scale and political, social or cultural actors acting on a national or even local level, there was an economic rationality which was due to this difference in scales and which should make desirable and moreover necessary the liberation of the economy from all the forces of regulation or control which sought to impose logics on it. foreign to his own

clean. We can therefore say, taking the word in its most classical sense, that we have witnessed a very strong surge of extreme capitalist thought and action. We can indeed call capitalism the set of measures that free the economy from logics external to it, and we know historically that there has been no economic development, in any place or in any period whatsoever, that has not had a capitalist component. But there are also, and at the same level, strong tensions and equally necessary actions aimed at creating or recreating links between the economy and society as a whole. The history of economic management has always been one of tensions, oppositions or compromises between the capitalistic tendencyin the economy and the opposite, often called interventionist tendency. In such a way that the autonomy of the economy, but also its submission as a system of means to a certain number of ends, have always represented the two opposite sides of economic modernity. During the very long decade following the fall of the Berlin Wall and then of the entire Soviet Empire, capitalist thinking developed with extreme force, that is to say the idea so strongly expressedby the Washington Consensus, namely that modernization, well-being and even perhaps democracy, or at least freedoms, depend above all on the ability of the countries concerned to free the economy from the obstacles, interests, prejudicesor traditions that prevent it from adapting to the expansion of markets, the rapid renewal of technologies and the rational organization of production units.

Naturally, this triumph of globalisation led to strongopposition movements which, in various but rapidly converging forms, recalled the need to place the economy under the control of political and social actors, although it was not clear at what level they should intervene. Themost interesting ideas have been those which have sought to devise a global regulation of economic activities, as well as global interventions, in areas as diverse as the punishment of war crimes or the defence of the environment. At the end of this period, that is to say at the beginning of the new century, it can be said that the opposition between supporters and opponents of globalization, understood as I have just defined it, has increasingly constituted the central axis of politics and even of social movements in many parts of the world. Nowhere has the importance of globalisation been greater than in the United States, first and foremost because it is in this country that it has won its greatest success and also in this country that the main centres of decision-making have been concentrated, even though it is true that we have rightly been able to speak of a society of networks and that the image of the United States.

of the Internet has led to the belief that these networks would be increasingly centreless. We are well aware that, in most cases, this has not been the case and that the concentration of resources, knowledge and decision-making has been steadily increasing. It has even been said - and this should be qualified - that the whole world has found itself engaged in a movement to increase inequalities, or even to reinforce the forms of social exclusion which are found even in the richest countries and which lock the majority of the population in the poorest countries, in asituation where their possibility of finding an individual or collective solution is extremely low. It should be added in a more concrete way that, during this period, the major competitors of the United States experienced periods of weakness, while the United States itself experienced a strong expansion. Japan has been paralyzed by a financial crisis for more than a decade, and throughout this period Western Europe has shown both a lack of investment, particularly in research and the most modern production sectors, and an increase in the burden on the community to the benefit of categories that are closer to the State rather than those that are most likely to be affected. care to be helped to improve their situation. It should be added that, throughout this period, Western Europe, despite the decisive progress made by the European Union, has shown both a great incapacity for international action and a loss of confidence in its social models which had been called welfare states during the second half of the twentieth century.

It should be added that this predominance of economic society was associated with the maintenance of an American policy that remained relatively open to projects of integration and continental or global alliances. The United States, while pursuing a strongly unilateral policy even under the presidency of Bill Clinton, has attached the greatest importance to the development of its alliances, especially in the military order where NATO has remained, despite rather sharp conflicts between Europeans and Americans, a central instrument of American policy and we know the paramount importance attached to NATO action. that is to say, the military security forces for the countries which had been part of the Soviet Empire and which are in the process ofintegration into the European Union. The very idea of globalization leads to a certain level of internationalization since national companies and financial networks, even when their main decision-making centers are in the United States,associatewith the functioning of the globalized economic system some of the other countries or at least those whose weight is the most important in world economic life.

This situation, this triumph of globalisation and the growing importance of themovements opposing it seemed to be steadily strengthening during the last decade of the century. Even if China's transformations have been rapid without the Chinese political regime ceasing to be authoritarian, at the beginning of the twenty-first century China cannot appear as a threat to American hegemony or the wealth of the capitalist world. On the contrary, a rapidly growing part of China's population and economy has entered world markets, which hasprofoundly affected the functioning of the world economy.

And yet, in the space of a few months and perhaps even a few days, this model of society has been, if not overturned, at least covered by another representation of realitywhich has other priorities. It is too late now to emphasize the extreme speed and force of this reversal, since no one can doubt today the immense effects of the attack of September 11, 2001, of the destruction of the World Trade Center towers by suicide aerial commandos. But even before the outbreak of the war in Iraq, it had become impossible not to realize that priority had shifted to the United States, and, consequently, in the largest part of theworld, from economic problems to political, military and ideological, not to say sometimes religious, objectives. It is difficult for Europeans to comprehend the strength of the trauma suffered by the American population as a result of these successful attacks. Europeans have experienced wars, massive destruction, intense bombing on their soilboth in the West and in the East, while the United States has never been the object of a direct attack on its own territory, because Pearl Harbor reached a fleet and not symbolic buildings in the economic capital of the country. Even more important is the fact that many people from the United States came to this country either themselves or their parents or grandparents did, as in a country of refuge and a country of openness and new luck . For many emigrants, refugees or exiles, the threat now hanging over the United States has appeared to be a personal threat: where could one take refuge if the United States were no longer a land of security?

But these psychological explanations, so often rightly mentioned, cannot satisfy us, because the impact of the attacks of 11 September was farbeyond a psychological commotion or a questioning of certain priorities.

Meaning of September 11

If we accept, which is easy, the central place occupied during the 1990s by the conflict between supporters and opponents of globalization, we can put forward the hypothesis that in the United States, as elsewhere, the social categories or modesof representation and life which felt threatened by globalization were considerable. In the United States, as in Western Europe and other countries too, we are witnessing the sometimes rapid and even victorious strengthening of forces that can be called alist and populist nations, which are more often on the right and extreme right than on the left, but which also involve political and ideological groups of the left and especially of the extreme left. Almost everywhere in Europe, with the almost complete exception of Germany, movements were formed which called for the defence of local or national interests and, beyond interests, cultural and political elements which reacted against a globalisation which was also most often associated with thedomination of the United States. Isn't what is true and very visible in so many European countries also true in the United States? Although the country's economic success has been spectacular over the last decade, many countrieshave felt threatened and even more concerned by the transformations of economic life and the internationalization of decisions. There is also an America "from below" which is concerned about globalisation, the shift in activities, the ageing of many skills and the increasing difficulties encountered in finding employment by older people and those with low initial levels of education. The transformation of American policy has not only consisted in giving back, to use Robert Kagan's expressions, priority to Hobbes over Kant, force over negotiation, concentration on the internationalization of activities and decisions; American public opinion, like that of many countries, has been strongly marked by a surge in traditionalist or conservative attitudes. in particular, by the sometimes strong pressure exerted by certain religious circles. The importance ofreligious references in the speeches of President Bush, who is himself a new Christian, converted to Christianity after having deviated from it for a period has been noted everywhere. Even if the God referred to remains unclear and is never identified with Christianity so as not to create open conflicts with Jews, Muslims or representatives of other religions, this religious reference so dear to President Bush indicates the pre-eminence given to the consciousness of belonging and integrationover the will and desire for change and openness. To the

PresidentClinton, who was associated with the relative openness of the American decision-making system, who wanted to retain a role of global integration and, in particular, who sought to take account of his allies, even when relations with them appeareddifficult, succeeded that of President Bush who, not since his electoral campaign and his first months in the White House. but since 11 September, there has been a rapid victory for the so-called realists in international politics, realists, among whom a central place must be given to the Deputy Secretary of Defence, Mr Paul Wolfowitz. The so-called realists gradually won the majority in the president's entourage, until their main opponent, Secretary of State Colin Powell, was forced to bow down and even become the spokesman for the new policy within the United Nations.

The conquering spirit of the United States was replaced in a matter of moments by the awareness of the threats hanging over the country. President Bush's vocabulary is certainly not new, since the opposition of the forces of good and the forces of evil was at the heart of the Truman Doctrine in the aftermath of the Second World War, but the new President has given this analysis of the situation created by September 11 an almost extreme tone and which was to result in political changes in the aftermath of the Second World War. Deep and almost immediate. America once again felt charged with a mission to make good triumph over evil. It recognised that it alone could take on this mission and that it should not rely on increasingly hesitant allieswho had still supported it in the Gulf War against Iraq in 1991. Above all, the idea of a new world order has been imposed in ruling circles. This shows how insufficient it is to talk about an Iraq war or an Iraqi crisis. Not only after September 11 did the United States send a punitive expedition in search of Bin Laden to Afghanistan, which resulted in the destruction of the Taliban regime, but beyond Iraq other countries are targeted, North Korea most directly because of the fact that it possesses nuclear weapons, but also Iran and especially, in the background, China, which appears to American ruling circles as the great threat to the established and dominated order of the United States in the second half of the twentieth century.

The Bush Doctrine

Despite the importance of economic problems and that of immigration throughout the history of the United States, this country, since its beginnings, has been carried

to the ideas that have just found their extreme expression in the Bush doctrine. Europeans themselves have often strengthened the United States in its conviction that it is the country of the future, charged with a mission of freedom and progress that Europeancountries have become unable to assume, especially because of their suicidal intra-European wars. It is difficult in each period of American history to measure the relative importance of the appeal to the military and political state and vice versa to the forces of economic development and social and cultural diversification. But most observers and analysts agree that the unity of the nation, its patriotic and moral conscience, should be given extreme importance. Those who have portrayed Americans as a nation guided by interest have, by and large, been mistaken. This does not prevent them from resorting to the same explanations and from thinking that the reason and function of the current war is the defence of American interests in the supply of oil. On many occasions and with the most variable results, the United States has wanted to intervene for strictly political reasons, which some may call imperialist. The differences in this area between the United States and Western Europe, or more precisely the European Union, have often been rightly highlighted. The Europeans, who for so long revered reason of state and Machtpolitik, have become, since they lost their world power, more civilian than state and military, more concerned with compromises, negotiations and alliances than with direct and, in particular, military interventions. Each European country has long had a one-sided view of its role in the world, but a united Europe has almost completely renounced this representation of itself. So much so that Bernard Kouchner's courageous idea of a duty to interfere in the lives of foreign countries when human rights are seriously threatened, although it has had echoes and has had intellectual and institutional consequences, has failed to give Europeans a new understanding of their mission. n. This was most clearly seen during the bellicose decomposition of Yugoslavia under the Serbian dictatorship of Milosevic. The Europeans failed to settle an entirely European conflict, such as the one that tore Bosnia apart, and they sought to curb American initiatives during the Kosovo war.

The United States, on the other hand, for both strategic and moral reasons, has always been prepared to intervene directly, that is, directly, in the affairs of many countries. The

Latin Americans are used to these direct interventions, often very

prolonged, sometimes punched, both in Mexico during the revolution and in Haiti or the Dominican Republic or, less massively, today in Colombia and other countries, not to mention the role played by the United States in numerous coups d'tat and, in particular, in that of General Pinochet in Chile in 1973, A September 11 in this case too.

The United States today is engaged in a war against a multifaceted enemy, but one that appears to the leaders of this country and to a section of public opinion as a direct threat. This position can be criticized or rejected; One can doubt his sincerity and giveless idealistic interpretations of their conduct. The fact remains that the main logic of action of the president and his administration is political, military and ideological. The United States, like many other countries, is now facing serious economic difficulties, which were even aggravated in the case of New York by the attack of 11 September. Nevertheless, they committed war budgets of a very high volume without hesitation and very quickly, even though over the past decade Europeans refused to give themselves a common defence policy. The central object of the reflection of all observers, and of myself before you today, is to question the meaning and, increasingly, the consequences of this new policy, of this desire to create a new world order, which marks such a clear break with the long period after the Cold War. during which economic, financial or even cultural objectives appearedto be predominant. In any case, it cannot be denied that the change in American policy has been and is voluntary, decided and supported by an extreme awareness of the higher interests, material or moral, which are at stake in thecurrent international reports.

However, a number of observers oppose the interpretation I have just presented with the idea of a greater, perhaps almost complete, continuity between the policy of economic expansion andglobalisation of the 1990s and the current policy with its dominant political and military logic. These observers see in the two periods different, but complementary, forms of American hegemony which is both economic and political and which even has to be political and military in order to be able to maintain and strengthen itself economically. Such an interpretation has the advantage of simplicity, but it is illusory as is confused the idea of power or even hegemony that weuse so naturally and so often. The United States has long been, and especially since its victory at the end of the Cold War, a dominant country

and domineering in all areas. Similarly, the links between poverty, economic dependence and political subordination in many so-called Third World countries can be highlighted. But these expressions are too general to give usan explanation of the real policies and especially of their change. It is impossible that the United States, like any other country, does not take into consideration its major economic interests. But even in the Middle East, one might think that the future of Israelweighs even more heavily on American policy than oil supplies. It should also be remembered in passing that it is Western Europe, and not the United States, which is massively dependent on Iraqi oil and that it is rather on the European side that an economic explanation of the policy can be appealed to, although, in this case too, this interpretation appears to be seriously inadequate or even erroneous. I will return later in my analysis to the meaning that must be given to this return to the climate of politics. But first, to understand it, we must compare American policy with that of Western Europe.

Europe and the rejection of power

Public opinion in all the countries of the European Union has expressed itself massively and strongly enough as hostile to American policy for it to be useful and fair, before understanding this opposition, to make a more critical judgment of the conduct of European countries that takes account of the sometimes virulent reproaches made by the United States against European countries. It is true, in fact, that, in the current crisis in particular, European countries have made little voice in their criticism of the Iraqi dictatorship and, more broadly, have not presented any international policy project. Neither for the Europeans nor for the Americans should we look for an explanation for this attitude in economic interests which, in particular, would have prevented the France from transportingIraq, where it has made major economic and even military investments. But whatever one's opinion on the effects of anti-American demonstrations in Europe - and it must be made clear that these demonstrations have a significance, which I will try to show is strongly positive - one must ask whether European interventions are negative.

The European Union is not just an economic construction developed pragmatically and with analmost unpredictable approach to the outset. It is also the heir to the probably definitive weakening of the national states that had filled the history of the continent with noise and

: Realities, Ideologies and Decline

fury. This is a particularly spectacular lowering in the case of Germany, which, as an economic giant, has long remained a political dwarf and whose leaders, Joska Fischer in the lead, continue to think that the main enemy to guard against is the revival of a German nationalism that has caused unprecedented disasters. Europe was built on the rejection of state policies, of power policies. As late as 1956 we saw leaders of the British and French governmentstrying to defend their traditional position in Egypt against Nasserite nationalism and these countries cannot forget that it was the United States, under the leadership of President Eisenhower, that forced them to back down and abandon their position. their traditional positions in Egypt and the Eastern Mediterranean. This rejection of power politics, this mistrust of nationalism, is the main axis of the policy of European countries. This judgment is difficult to state because it can be given a positive expression as well as a negative expression. The positive expression is that the crises which may pit Britain against France or Germany do not seem to anyone to lead to war betweenEuropean countries. The negative expression of this observation is that Europe has consciously and continuously refused to give itself the means for an international policy.

If the state is defined in a classical way by both the currency and the army, the opposition between these two areas is clear in the history of European integration, while the creation of a common currency has been largely a success, despite the refusal of Great Britain to enter the new system of Europe. netary. Efforts to create a European defence force and thus a diplomatic capacity for the continent have met with only failure, with the Franco-German intervention force remaining the most advanced attempt to create a military instrumentof international policy and failing to maintain itself. Even today, we wonder about the meaning of the proposal made by the Giscard d'Estaing Commission to create a European Foreign Ministry,given the deep, almost complete divisions which have just torn Europe apart in the face of American initiatives. Many, especially in Britain and France, do not take their side with the country's loss of power. General de Gaulle has shown spectacularly on several occasions his desire to give the France an autonomous role in international affairs. In Britain, it was Tony Blair who, most consistently, wanted to place Britain on the side ofthe United States, but to give Britain a capacity for intervention, a

Power politics to which his imperial past does not encourage him to renounce. Many in all countries called for firmer European intervention in the various phases of the decomposition of Milosevic's Yugoslavia. Thereare also many who would have liked or want Europe, which provides very important aid to the Palestinians, to have a much greater say in political decisions affecting the Middle East and, in particular, in relations between Israel and the Palestinians, for whom it is essential to build a national state. It seems to me personally all the more important to understand the reasons and to measure the effects of the rejection of any powerpolicy and, indeed, of any international policy that I must state here my constant commitments to an active international policy up to and including military intervention, which has been necessary, it seems to me. on several occasions. Some will see in the initiatives of the current French governmentthe neo-Gaullist expression of the desire to have an independent international policy and thus to oppose American hegemony. This interpretation seems to me to be wrong. It was impossible for the French government not to know what Britain's position was and not to be informed about the intentions of Spain or the countries of the "new Central Eastern Europe". The intention of the French Government, supported by the German Government, was to oppose American unilateralism with an appeal to the international institutions and, in particular, to the Security Council, an appeal which was all the more solid because it was supported by a vast majority of public opinion in practically all European countries. This position of the French and German governments was interpreted as an attack and insult by the US government which tried to trigger a Francophobia movement in American opinion.

Nevertheless, thelengthy debates in the Security Council have highlighted the contradictions of American policy.

American contradictions

It is not a question here of recalling the vicissitudes of the debates in the Security Council until the final failureof the United States and Great Britain, which were unable to gather a majority on their new draft resolution. This is the business of historians or journalists. It is a more limited question of questioning ourselves through these eventson the nature of the American project. Almost spontaneously, I accepted President Bush's speech on his country and on his own plan, even if it meant leaving aside criticism of this policy or its foreseeable consequences. But could it have been such a

Is the debate, at least in part, useless, because one wonders whether the great American project really exists or, on the contrary, whether it is a rhetoric so far removed from describing real situations that it quickly locks itself into contradictions? As the days or hours passed, the whole world became aware of the inconsistencies in American policy and even its lack of credibility.

The main contradiction has been to conduct an active campaign in the Security Council and,at the same time, to constantly repeat that the United States would destroy Saddam Hussein and his regime regardless of the outcome of diplomatic discussions related to the Security Council. All this has highlighted much more than the magnitude of a political project that can be accepted or rejected, but which may have seemed an essential element of the foreseeable future of the whole world. Just as during Security Council meetings the United States did not provide the evidence expected of it of what threatened it, so the whole world observes that the United States has engaged in a conflict of extreme gravity without indicating how it foresees the development of the situation. From the outset, one was struck by the contradictory attitudes towards Turkey and, consequently, towards the Kurds of northern Iraq. What will happen tomorrow if the resistance of certain regions leads to the break-up of the country? Are we thinking of establishing a regime in the South that suits Iran? To what extent do they want to eliminate the elites who have ruled Iraq for the past decades? What is expected of neighbouring countries? etc. These are all elementary questions on which it is normal for the American government not to make its decisions public, but which do not seem to be posed in the public square in the United States, as if the act of war were sufficient in itself as an affirmation not of a total project, but of a total power of a hegemon whichis its own end.

The idea that politics today can be reduced to an assertion or a claim to power seems shocking at first sight, and yet it is in this direction that we are obliged to advance, since the information given by historical reality on the situation in the Middle East seems to make the official American discourse arbitrary. All the more arbitrary because, to everyone's surprise, it is not being questioned in the United States itself by the leaders and, in particular, by those of the Democratic Party. It is as if the President of the United States had invented a speech and a description of the situation for essentially internal use. This impression has been reinforced throughout the deliberations of the Security Council, where the proposals made by various countries, echoing the reactions of public opinion, have seemed much closer to the United Nations level.