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Nayan ChandaNayan Chandaa

a Yale University, New Haven, CT, USAPublished online: 12 Sep 2014.

To cite this article: Nayan Chanda (2014) Nayan Chanda, Globalizations, 11:4, 527-538, DOI:10.1080/14747731.2014.951224

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INTERVIEW

Nayan Chanda

NAYAN CHANDA

Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA

INTERVIEWER: MANFRED B. STEGER (MS)1

MS:

Do you remember when you first heard the term ‘globalization’ and in what context?

NAYAN CHANDA (NC):

I don’t recall exactly the first time I encountered ‘globalization’, but it must have been in the

early 1990s. But I did not deal with the concept in any substantive way until 1999 when I

was the editor of the Far Eastern Economic Review. One day, at an editorial meeting, we

were debating how to feature the upcoming turn of the millennium in a special issue of the maga-

zine. What kinds of stories should we be publishing? I argued that everybody should write some-

thing futuristic about the twenty-first century—what will be happening in technology, space

travel, biotechnology, alternative energy, and so on. But this future outlook should be anchored

in a solid consideration of the past. I thought that our magazine might perhaps contribute to a

new understanding of Asia’s emergence in the twenty-first century by reflecting on the signifi-

cance of the continent in the previous millennium. The basic idea was to look back in history to

get a better sense of where Asia has come from in order to better understand where it might be

going. So I started doing some research based on a series of questions. For example, when the

sun rose on January 1, 1000 CE, what would have been the tallest building in Asia on which its

rays would have fallen? I came to the conclusion that it would have been the Borobudur Shrine in

Java, which was built in the mid-ninth century. Of course, there would have been no such thing

as ‘January 1’, because the Gregorian calendar didn’t exist in 1000. But, notionally, there would

have been a January 1 and the sun’s rays actually did fall on Borobudur main dome on that day.

And this magnificent mental image of Borobudur’s dome shining in the morning light triggered

another thought: why there was a Javanese shrine dedicated to the Buddha in the first place?

After all, Buddha was born in India, far away from Indonesia. Why, then, was such a huge

shrine carved out of an entire mountain just for the glory of Lord Buddha? Who did that,

Correspondence Address: Nayan Chanda, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA. Email: globalization@yale.edu

# 2014 Taylor & Francis

Globalizations, 2014

Vol. 11, No. 4, 527–538, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14747731.2014.951224

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why, and how was it accomplished? Taking these questions as my point of departure for my

magazine story, I began to explore daily life in Asia over the centuries. What Asians were

eating and what their work environment was like. I realized that Asians were very different

from people on other continents. They didn’t have potatoes, tomatoes, or corn. They enjoyed

a rather specific diet. And there was, of course, no Christianity, although Asians practiced

Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism. My disparate reading led me to wonder as to why a lot of

food spread to Asia from South America. And did Buddhism travel from India to China,

Korea, Vietnam, Java, and Japan? It was at this point that the words ‘globalization’ and ‘global-

ism’ started making sense to me. In fact, I consciously seized upon these terms. My working

definition of ‘globalization’ was the establishment of global connections over long periods of

time. When we published the special edition of our magazine, it was clear to me that Borobudur

Shrine had been part of an early wave of globalization in Asia. I also became interested in the

etymology of the word ‘globalization’ and found that it had entered Webster’s dictionary only in

1961. There, it was defined as a process of ‘making things worldwide in scope and action’. But

this is a very literal and abstract definition that doesn’t tell us much. If you break down the word

‘globalization’, it’s obvious that it derives from ‘globe’. But the ‘globe’ is a historical artifact, a

human creation. In the early 1490s, the German geographer Martin Behaim constructed the first

globe out of wood and paper. He called it Erdapfel—literally ‘earth apple’—and thought it

reflected quite accurately what our planet actually looked like.

MS:

But doesn’t the idea of the globe go as far back as the ancient Greeks and Romans?

NC:

Yes, in the sense of conceptualizing the globe as a spherical object. But the globe—in the

modern sense of a physical-geographic representation of our planet—was first produced by

Martin Behaim in 1492. Here at Yale University library, you can find a fantastic replica of

Martin Behaim’s globe on the seventh floor. If you check it out, you’ll notice that Behaim

painted the European continental contours very accurately. Then you cross the Atlantic and

get a blob of territory marked ‘India’. And that’s, of course, where Christopher Columbus

thought he was headed in that very same year. But the globe is also an emergent object, a

project in the making. From ‘globe’, we get ‘globalize’ and ‘globalization’. I found that one

of the first documents using the word ‘globalize’ is a United Nations brief issued in Geneva.

But the meaning of ‘globalize’ in that document is very technical. It merely signifies a totality

of numbers.

MS:

You mean it conveyed a purely mathematical meaning?

NC:

Yes. It wasn’t the sort of meaning I was after. Although I have no hard evidence for it, my hunch

is that the contemporary meaning of ‘globalization’ has its roots in the space age. As you know,

the USSR launched Sputnik in 1957, and the first satellite went up in 1959. At that point, many

geographically dispersed data could be collected in real time by the relaying of dual signals.

People living on this planet could see the Earth as a singular unit because there were people

looking at it from the outside. Of course, there are also the famous pictures of ‘Earth Rising’

taken by Apollo astronauts in the late 1960s. Humans’ venture into outer space made it possible

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for ‘globalization’ to acquire both physical and mental attributes that didn’t exist before. As a

result, from the 1960s forward, the term started making more sense as an indication of planetary

oneness.

MS:

Let’s get back to 1999 when you were an editor for the Far Eastern Economic Review. Were you

consciously trying to organize the special issue around globalization or was it more focused on

Asia’s relationship with the rest of the world?

NC:

It was definitely focused on globalization.

MS:

You approached ‘globalization’ primarily from a historical perspective. Did your understanding

of the term also include its cultural or economic dimensions? Or was it both historical and cul-

tural/economic?

NC:

Both. For me, history, culture, and economics goes hand-in-hand.

MS:

1999 was also the year of the ‘Battle of Seattle’. To what extent were you consciously linking

globalization to trade issues and the mounting challenges to neoliberalism?

NC:

For me, Seattle and the salience of global trade issues were just a outward symptom. The struggle

between the protestors and the WTO did not somehow ‘make’ globalization; it was a milestone

in the evolution of the globalization process. Again, what I want to emphasize is that globaliza-

tion was not ‘created’ by the WTO or Nike or Microsoft. These institutions and transnational

corporations are merely manifestations of globalization. I see globalization as a long-term his-

torical process and that is the reason why I reengaged with the study of history from a globaliza-

tion perspective—how wider connections had been made in history and what factors were

driving this process. Partly as a result of my rekindled interest in global history, I accepted an

offer to come to Yale University in 2001. I said to myself, ‘Here is a unique chance to delve

even more deeply into the historical dimension of globalization’.

MS:

So your historical engagement was enriched by your interest in globalization?

NC:

Exactly. I realized that human history had grown the way that it did because of the multiplication

and intensification of global connections. For me, the next big question was, why did people care

about others in the first place? Why and how did they cultivated and expand social connections?

After our species’ migration out of Africa, which lasted at least forty thousand years, people

settled down in various geographic areas. Perhaps they didn’t know that there were other

people living across the mountains, beyond the desert, or across the sea. But when people

encountered others, they realized our similarities—the basic commonality of humanity. We

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may have different skin or eye color, but love, ambition, greed—all these emotions are exactly

the same across different cultures. And that’s why we could actually interact, even though we

didn’t speak our neighbor’s language. But we could communicate by signals, indicating ‘This

is what I want’, or ‘This is what I can give you’. Thus, the communication between humans

started the long process of globalization.

But the question still remains as to why people wanted to leave their own village, or locality,

or home, and take the risk of traveling. That’s one of the questions at the heart of my book,

Bound Together: How Traders, Preachers, Adventurers & Warriors Shaped Globalization

(Chanda, 2007). I argue that all of these actors embody—in various ways—the powerful

human motivation to live a better life. It led traders to travel long distances and take enormous

risks in return for a hefty profit. Of course, humans have many motivations and they come in

countless combinations. The way I see it, curiosity is a big factor. It has fueled our desire to

find new humans, new species, new animals, and new locations. It has been a significant

driver for people to travel beyond the known and leave their home, sometimes for good. Zeal

is another factor. Preachers, for example, say, ‘I want to convert others to my prophet, to my

god, and I will take risks to achieve that ambition’. So they start off on a horse’s or camel’s

back, eager to leave their familiar place to bring the ‘good news’ to others. And let’s not

forget the desire to dominate, to control others. King Sargon of Akkad, for example, claimed

to be the emperor of the universe. He wanted to be the dominant ruler of all known lands and

control the people, animals, and resources of his vast territory and beyond. And that very

same ambition has fueled the creation of all human empires, which forced people of different

cultures and ethnicities to submit to a single ruler. The ethnic ‘global fusion’ we see today

was built, one step at a time, by the motivations of countless people. For me, these insights

came as gradual revelations and motivated my research project enormously. In fact, I collected

data for my book for nearly 5 years until I finally submitted the manuscript to Yale University

Press in 2006.

MS:

You said you accepted a new position at Yale University in 2001. Was it with the Center For the

Study of Globalization?2

NC:

Yes, although the Center was not yet fully up and running.

MS:

Can you tell me more about that?

NC:

Yale University was founded in 1701, which made 2001 a big year—its 300th anniversary. On

that occasion, President Richard Levin wanted to create a new Institute or Center that would

boost internationalization and connect Yale University more strongly to the world. Other univer-

sities already had sizeable ‘international’ or ‘global’ centers. Yale was somewhat lagging

behind. Enter Strobe Talbott, a Yale alumnus who had just finished his government service as

Ambassador-at-Large and Special Advisor to the Secretary of State in the Clinton Adminis-

tration. He and some others on campus came up with the idea to set up the Center for the

Study of Globalization. Talbott then went on to serve as the first director of the Center. I was

approached to join the fledgling Center as Director of Publications. As I said, I had already

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been thinking a lot about globalization and global history and felt it was a very nice opportunity

for me to move from the busy world of journalism to the more reflective ivory tower of the

academy.

MS:

When you joined the Center, did you make contact with other globalization researchers at Yale?

I know that your primary responsibility was to launch new publications like the popular Yale-

Global online magazine, but I was wondering if you were also trying to start new academic pro-

grams in global studies?

NC:

As you mentioned, my primary task was to set up the YaleGlobal online magazine, which we

accomplished in 2002.3 I also spearheaded major outreach efforts to promote lectures and dis-

cussions on globalization on campus and for the wider university community. At the time, the

1999 Seattle events were still dominating the public discourse. As you can imagine, globaliza-

tion was a hot topic. But it was also a very controversial subject. Normative issues—is globali-

zation a good or bad thing—dominated our discussions, but we also addressed more conceptual

and abstract dimensions of globalization. One day, our subject’s real-life importance was

brought home rather dramatically. Strobe Talbott, another colleague and myself met in our tem-

porary office to discuss various start-up related issues, when our secretary rushed in and said,

‘You guys might like to know that a plane has hit the World Trade Center’. We thought that

this sounded very odd and interrupted the meeting only very reluctantly. When we turned on

a nearby TV set, we caught the CNN live broadcast just in time to watch the second plane hit

the other tower. Can you imagine, this happened on one of the first days in the life of Yale’s

Center for the Study of Globalization!

MS:

What a beginning!

NC:

Yes, and we knew instantly that this was a momentous event and we were onto something really

big with our Center’s focus on globalization—even though 9/11 represents the dark side of

globalization.

MS:

YaleGlobal online magazine got off to a great start in 2002. But weren’t you also the driving

force behind the creation of the journal, New Global Studies?

NC:

Yes, but that came quite a bit later. I had been in touch with the retired MIT historian Bruce

Mazlish for some time. Bruce, of course, has been one of my great heroes. I really love his

books (See, for example, Mazlish, 2006, 1976). I was delighted to converse with him and to

find that we have exactly the same view of globalization. From the beginning of 2002, I

would periodically send Bruce and other friends an article on a particular aspect of globalization.

I would also attach my commentary on the article and asked my correspondents to discuss their

reactions to it online. Eventually, the number of correspondents grew until many of them urged

me to start an academic journal. This is how the idea for New Global Studies was born. And it

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was also the beginning of a wider intellectual discussion in our extensive academic network

about globalization, its dimensions, significance, and so on.

MS:

In addition to Bruce Mazlish, who are some of the thinkers that have impacted your own under-

standing of globalization as it relates to your work?

NC:

There are a number of global historians whose writings were very important for my own

thinking about globalization. For example, I appreciated the work of Jerry Bentley, the

long-term editor of the Journal of World History (See, for example, Bentley, 1993). I met

him only once. At first it was a bit awkward, because he had written a pretty severe critique

of Bound Together. He seemed somewhat embarrassed about it when we met face-to-face. I

said to him, ‘Don’t worry about it, Jerry. I’m fine with it. But let’s talk about your

reservations’. And we had a great discussion. His critique had been that my book was all

over the place; it had no clear focus. I said, ‘That’s precisely what I wanted to avoid,

because if you are looking for a single center or pivot, then you don’t get the bigger

picture of globalization’. I also wanted to make the book more accessible by introducing

four recognizable drivers of globalization. After a while, Jerry accepted my points. But I

must confess that he picked up on my struggle with how to structure the book. For guidance,

I looked back at my previous book, Brother Enemy, which was a history of emerging conflict

between Cambodia, China, Vietnam, and the United States (Chanda, 1986). Once again, I

decided to foreground various related themes and carry through the chronology within the

respective chapters rather than across the book. I think it worked very well in both books.

It makes it easier for the reader to construct a holistic mental picture of globalization. I

didn’t want to follow a chronological history, because then the particular stories would

get lost. Unfortunately, Jerry passed away recently—quite a loss for the global history

community!

MS:

Are there any other intellectual influences you can think of?

NC:

Fernand Braudel was also very influential. Indeed, he was one of the real pioneers of the study of

world history. And then, of course, I was influenced by globalization scholars like Joe Stiglitz,

Saskia Sassen, and Jan Aart Scholte. I met Jan Aart at a globalization workshop at Warwick Uni-

versity. We had great conversations.

MS:

Can you tell me a little bit more about the connection between the academic discipline of history

and the study of globalization? I’m asking because the people Paul James and I have interviewed

so far have primarily been sociologists, economists, anthropologists, and political scientists. Yet

within globalization studies—or ‘global studies’ as the new transdisciplinary field has come to

be known—history is very important. How do you see the link between globalization and

history, as opposed to perhaps a more economistic or political approach? Do you see the histori-

cal dimensions of globalization as something that requires a separate treatment? In your view,

what is the status of history in global studies?

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NC:

I’m glad you raise these important questions. I must confess that one of the reasons why I wrote

Bound Together was my sense that the historical dimensions of globalization had been neglected

in academic literature. This neglect has been one of my chief complaints about global studies as

it’s often taught at universities. But it might have been foolish of me to correct this academic

shortcoming. After all, I am not a fully academically trained historian, in the sense that I

don’t have a PhD in history. I hold an MA degree in history, and I have taught history. But I

am not an academic historian in the full academic sense of the term. So for me to undertake

this project of boosting the historical aspects of globalization might have been both ambitious

and foolish.

MS:

I’m glad you did it . . .

NC:

. . . Yes, someone had to do it. Perhaps a journalist like me was actually suited for this task,

because I was not prejudiced in any way. Incidentally, I also talk about genetics in Bound

Together. Some people might think I have no business writing about that either. But I spend

a lot of time reading about all kinds of subjects related to globalization. Like genetics or com-

munication technology. Whatever I need to know, I read up on. I do a lot of research in many

fields. That’s what we journalists are very good at. As I see it, knowledge is not something

that can be compartmentalized or put in a silo. Even if it’s an academic silo. If you break up

knowledge too much and allocate it to various disciplines, you miss out on the flow and the

bigger picture. Let me give you a short anecdote to illustrate my point. One day, I was speaking

at George Washington University on my thesis on globalization. As usual, after my talk, I asked

for questions and comments. Almost all of the questions came from one particular professor. He

said to me, ‘Your presentation was marvelously multidisciplinary. But I am sorry to ask you this

question: how can anybody be so transdisciplinary and still hope to get hired by an academic

department?’ I replied, ‘Precisely because I am not a professor, I don’t have to worry about dis-

ciplinary turf wars. But you’re right about one thing. If I wanted a faculty position in a main-

stream department, I probably would have difficulty getting hired’. This story shows that we

have created these academic silos, which, to me, is a big barrier to expand our understanding.

Essentially, globalization has been treated as an economic phenomenon and it’s still quite a chal-

lenge to convey the bigger picture.

MS:

So you think that the dominant discourse of globalization is still centered on economics?

NC:

I do. Look at the media’s preoccupation with questions of trade. Of course, trade is a very impor-

tant component of globalization. But we should not artificially separate trade issues from reli-

gion, culture, empires, and so on. I appreciate the holistic cultural approach to globalization

pioneered by some sociologists and anthropologists. I find that my own historical ‘big

picture’ perspective has more in common with anthropologists than with economists. Anthropol-

ogists hold more comprehensive and holistic views. Likewise, I sympathize with political scien-

tists—even those scholars who reduce globalization to an imperialist plot, a device to conquer

the world. But even their definition of globalization addresses important issues of political

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power. I believe that a variety of political approaches contribute to a better understanding of

globalization.

MS:

But, in your view, the virtue of global history is that it weaves together all of these strands?

NC:

Yes, because these various globalization strands are happening simultaneously, and one is influ-

encing the other. To separate out one particular strand without considering the others is proble-

matic. For example, let’s take Christopher Columbus. Why did he press to undertake this sea

venture to India? Some scholars say because he was a great explorer. For others, he was a

very ambitious navy officer who wanted to further his professional career and become an

admiral. One of the conditions that he negotiated with the King of Spain was that if he were suc-

cessful, he would be appointed admiral. Still others say Columbus was a greatly religious man

who wanted to accumulate enough money to raise an army and take back Jerusalem from the

Muslims. What I see here is a difference of perspectives and lots of contradictions: Columbus

as a deeply religious man; a greedy person; an ambitious warrior; and an intrepid adventurer.

And it’s wrong to negate any of these facets. But unless you understand all of his economic, pol-

itical, religious, and careerist motivations, you cannot understand why he did what he did.

MS:

One thing you have mentioned in passing is how some people—especially people from the

Global South—often consider globalization as imperialism in disguise. You are originally

from India, so what’s your sense of academics and non-academics in the Global South and

their attitude toward globalization? Is it different from the dominant Northern discourse? If

so, how?

NC:

This is a very complex question you’re asking. This complexity becomes apparent in many

examples. Let’s go back, for instance, to 1999 and recall all the things that were said during

and about the Seattle demonstrations. In my mind, Seattle is a classic case where Western lib-

erals were denouncing the WTO as a great exploitative mechanism eager to open its jaws and

devour the small-scale business industry, and, of course, the South. What was less publicized,

however, was that quite a lot of the participants from the Global South were actually demanding

more market access. They wanted to have the opportunity to sell their goods to the West without

dealing with prohibitive subsidies allocated by Western governments to their domestic produ-

cers. Thus, many Southern leaders accused the WTO and other international institutions domi-

nated by Washington that their countries were denied access to Northern markets in the name of

‘trade liberalization’. This obvious contradiction between the liberal slogans of Westerners and

the Southern message on the ground has continued in the ensuing decades. All the polls that I

have seen show that globalization as a concept is not well understood by most Western

people. On the upside, they equate it with a free trade, or cheap travel, inexpensive transpor-

tation, and virtually free worldwide communication. And if you present it to the Global South

in that fashion—free trade, people buying and selling freely—then overwhelming majorities

in India, China and other developing countries support that, because they feel that they have

been cut out of global markets. They actually want to join globalization—if you can use that

word in this reductionist sense—rather than shun it. It is the developed West, and mostly

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Western liberals with a guilty conscience, who suggest we should oppose market-driven globa-

lization, because it means Nike paying the workers in the Global South two dollars a day and

thus getting away with making huge profits. Of course, the Western liberals’ engagement

helped somewhat in raising wage levels and working conditions in the Global South. I appreciate

that. But it didn’t stop Nike from continuing to produce cheaply in Indonesia or Vietnam or any-

where else in the South. Hence, on the downside, ‘globalization’ understood in free trade and

market terms, is often intensely disliked in Europe, and now even in America. People in the

North see globalization as leading to their destruction, with ‘their’ manufacturing jobs going

to China . . .

MS:

. . . and outsourcing . . .

NC:

. . . Yes, ‘outsourcing’ has replaced ‘globalization’ as the most dreaded word. Again, this is

fully understandable, because these sorts of capitalist dynamics have happened many times

in the past. It’s always the same process: technology destroys old jobs and creates new

jobs; many jobs moving from one location to another. If you look at the American Industrial

Revolution, for example, it’s obvious that it got a big boost from stealing technology from

Britain. I’m sure you know that Connecticut was the area where Americans settled the first

textile mills. New Haven was once a great industrial center. And then, what happened?

Wages started rising, land prices increased, and industries started moving south. The textile

industry moved from Connecticut to the Carolinas, and from there to China. Historically,

industry has moved to places where it is easier to cheaper to produce. Indian textile industry

was dominant for eighteen hundred years. Then came the Industrial Revolution, and Indian

weavers were destroyed in a generation or two. There’s a famous cable from Lord William

Bentinck, the British Governor-General of Bengal in the late 1820s, that describes Indian

plains bleached white with the bones of weavers. These Indian weavers, who had been the

champions of globalization during that period, became the victims. Unless you take a long-

term historical view of the globalization process, you cannot understand what’s going on in

the present.

MS:

If, as you argue, people in the Global South like globalization because it means free trade and

better access to the benefits of global capitalism, then where does their fear of imperialism

come from?

NC:

Because the technology of capitalism is the white man’s technology. Capital comes to the South

from the developed countries. Imperialism, in the broad sense of the word, was always connected

with Western technology and Western political power. I am certain that in the next twenty years,

globalization will again turn into a bad word in the South. Look at the way digital technologies

are developing and taking over production. There will be 3D printing everywhere; you won’t

need any longer huge Chinese manufacturing industries run on tons of coal and steel. I

predict that China and India will be the losers in the next phase of globalization. If you’ll

take a poll in twenty years from now, you will see that market globalization will be popular

again in the West and deeply unpopular in the South.

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MS:

We have witnessed the rise of global studies in academia. Almost every university now in the

United States—and around the world—has viable global studies programs. Particularly in

Asia, there has been a flowering of global studies programs. Do you see this rapid development

of global studies as an academic fad? Or do you think that global studies will grow even further,

perhaps even threaten the existence of the disciplinary silos you were talking about earlier? Will

the rise of global studies upset the conventional academic order?

NC:

Many academics I know think that global studies is a destructive force. And often I also hear

students here at Yale talk rather disdainfully about global studies. They see it as a threat.

MS:

What do they say about global studies?

NC:

They think that global studies is superficial and that the word ‘globalization’ is a fad. Everybody

has to be global, but that word doesn’t mean anything unless one engages in deep disciplinary

studies. They say that there is nothing new in global studies and one cannot be expert in ten

subjects. Of course, that’s discouraging. Sometimes I feel that what I am trying to do in my

role as an aspiring globalization scholar—rather than an established academic—is not really

appreciated. But I’m not sure how widespread these negative sentiments are. After all,

Bound Together has now been translated into seven languages, and has gone into its third print-

ing. It appears that general readers like reading about globalization. Established scholars and

elite students might be a bit upset about the rise of global studies. But putting this negativity

aside for a moment, I think it is very important that today’s students are given—even in a

single course—a basic understanding of global history and the emergence of different cultures

and economies and how they have interacted to get us where we are today. Globalization has a

strong potential rekindle an interest in history—a global history that goes far beyond the

national framework that constrains traditional history curriculae. And my preferred global his-

torical narrative is about people’s daily lives around the globe, not the history of kings and

queens and their wars.

MS:

You mean a history of unfolding connections?

NC:

Yes, and I believe that globalization has generated an interest in this sort of history. We should

really capitalize on that. We cannot understand anything—whether it’s sociology or economics

or literature—without gaining a better sense of where we have come from. This is what global

history has to offer: conveying a broad perspective of why we are located in a particular place

and time, and how we have arrived there.

MS:

Let me ask you a final question. Do you think that ‘globalization’ as a concept is still on the rise?

It exploded in the academic and public discourse in the 1990s and is still going pretty strong

today. Or do you think it’s waning and might disappear altogether?

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NC:

I think ‘globalization’ has become quite a frightening word, because for people in the West it

now means mostly unemployment and dislocation. It doesn’t have the good ring of the 1990s

to it anymore. Of course, when you equate it with the iPhone in your hand, it might still generate

positive associations. I recently met with some anti-globalization students in Paris and told them,

‘First of all, if you don’t like globalization then throw away your iPhones, because you’re carry-

ing globalization in your hand’. Perhaps you know that the iPhone has components produced in

seventeen countries; electronics components from Germany and Silicon Valley, software from

India, assembly in China, and so on. We are benefitting from this sort of globalization every

moment of the day. Or go to the supermarket and buy blueberries from Argentina—even

when it’s winter in the United States. Europeans enjoy eating vegetables from Kenya.

Because it has become so much a part of their lives, anti-globalizers like these French students

don’t see these things as globalization, but just as ‘normal life’. When you point out to them that

this was not ‘normal’ ten years ago, they often just shrug and grin sheepishly. So they are living

globalization. And because they are living it, they don’t see it. And what they see about it in the

media, they don’t like: outsourcing, Americanization, sweat shops, and so on. No doubt, globa-

lization will continue to be a controversial word, even though globalization—the process—has

taken root and cannot be erased. What, hopefully, can be reversed are certain processes that have

gone way beyond democratic control. Uncontrolled financial globalization has brought about the

most severe economic disaster in many decades. And even less spectacular dynamics like the

globalization of food products can sometimes lead to glaring problems like the large-scale con-

tamination of foods with horsemeat that occurred recently in Europe. These are examples of

poorly managed globalization. Today, globalization requires governance more than ever,

because there are so many actors. If one actor in the chain doesn’t perform, it affects the

entire chain. Increased interdependence requires more oversight and governance.

MS:

This is also true for global climate change, isn’t it?

NC:

Sure. Globalization as a concept will always be contested. But if we realize that we are actually

part of it, we might make a stronger effort in our daily lives to contribute to more beneficial

forms of globalization. Let me close with another story. In 2001, I was invited to speak about glo-

balization in the Seattle City Hall. I was rather afraid that there might be scores of people in the

audience who wouldn’t like what I had to say. At the beginning of my PowerPoint presentation,

there was a slide that showed that there were some 39 McDonald’s outlets in Seattle, compared to

170 Thai restaurants. I said, ‘You guys must love globalization because you like Thai food so

much. You realize, of course, that every time you patronize a Thai restaurant you are promoting

market globalization, because the fish sauce that is essential for all Thai food comes directly

from—Thailand!’ People laughed and this broke the tension in the hall. It’s good that we are

free to protest globalization, but we have been living it on an everyday basis.

Notes

1 The interview took place on June 19, 2013 at the Yale University Center for the Study of Globalization.

2 For more information on the Center, see http://www.ycsg.yale.edu/

3 See http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/

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References

Bentley, J. (1993). Old world encounters: Cross-cultural contacts and exchanges in the pre-modern world. Oxford:

Oxford University Press.

Chanda, N. (1986). Brother enemy: The war after the war. New York: Harcourt.

Chanda, N. (2007). Bound together: How traders, preachers, adventurers, and warriors shaped globalization. New

Haven: Yale University Press.

Mazlish, B. (1976). The revolutionary ascetic: Evolution of a political type. New York: Basic Books.

Mazlish, B. (2006). The new global history. New York: Routledge.

Nayan Chanda is the Director of Publications and the Editor of YaleGlobal Online Magazine at

the Yale University’s Center for the Study of Globalization. Nearly 30 years before he joined

Yale University, Chanda was with the Hong Kong-based magazine the Far Eastern Economic

Review as its editor, editor-at-large, and correspondent. From 1989 to 1990, Chanda was a

Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington. From 1990

to 1992, he was editor of the Asian Wall Street Journal Weekly, published from New York.

He is the author of the bestselling Bound together: How traders, preachers, adventurers, and

warriors shaped globalization (2007), and author or co-author of over a dozen books on

Asian politics, security, and foreign policy. Nayan Chanda is also a co-editor of the journal

New Global Studies, which is the flagship publication of New Global History, a transdisciplinary

academic initiative launched and directed by Bruce Mazlish (MIT). New Global History focuses

on the latest wave of globalization that has manifested itself so vigorously in the period starting

sometime after World War II.

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