Kroc research project examines impact of globalization in urban and rural contexts

How is globalization changing patterns of violence around the world? To address this question, the Kroc Institute has initiated a global, inter-disciplinary study of the links between globalization and violence.

The two-year project was launched October 3, 2001, with a day-long brainstorming conference at the Kroc Institute. Participants included Paul Collier (World Bank), William Reno (Northwestern University), Jean Comaroff (University of Chicago), and several Kroc Institute faculty fellows. The project, which is also being supported by the United Nations University, will draw on the work of field researchers and scholars from the regions under study.

“Instead of resulting from large-scale clashes between competing states, contemporary violence is increasingly sub-national and is manifested in local struggles for resources, power and protection,” notes Senior Fellow Raimo Väyrynen, director of the project and Professor of Government and International Studies. Accordingly, researchers will look closely “at the local context of this violence” and at the ethnic, religious, economic and political factors in various regions.

“We have always defined the world as divided by national boundaries,” said Väyrynen. “States are real and they (still) matter,” he continued. But international corporations, NGOs and technological developments — especially the Internet — have made virtually all nations and cultures more accessible to one another.

Political boundaries or borders have receded in importance in the face of a new, global reality. “Whether you are a poor person somewhere or a university professor, you realize that you are part of a larger whole,” Väyrynen said. “We can’t have isolated lives any more.”

The project will consist of two research tracks. One track will analyze the impact of globalization on urban violence in several major metropolitan areas, including Karachi, Bombay, Johannesburg, Sao Paulo, St. Petersburg and Baku. A second track will examine its impact on rural violence in four, or possibly five, African nations, said Kroc Fellow Patrick Gaffney, C.S.C., Associate Professor of Anthropology.

“Africa is perennially under-represented in international discussions,” reported Gaffney, explaining the rationale for the Africa focus. He will be overseeing the work of on-site scholars in Kenya, Uganda, the Congo, Nigeria and perhaps Botswana.

“Anthropology comes to this from a different perspective,” he added. “The unit of study is the local community, the town, village or a series of clans.” The dynamics of violence seen on that lower level of cultural complexity will be vital input for the books the study hopes to produce.

Still, analyzing study findings will be a challenging job, contends Väyrynen. “It’s a complicated chain of influences,” he maintains. “Changes in world economy do create pockets of discontent, and that creates a possibility of reacting against grievances that people have been feeling.”

“But grievances aren’t enough to create violence. You must have people or a group of people benefiting from the situation. For instance, there’s a social and economic background behind the local violence of Sao Paulo, which is the most violent city in the world.”

The project ultimately hopes to contribute to national and international economic policy decisions. Through its comparative approach, the project will identify how particular policy choices regarding integration in the global economy interact with local factors to either foment or mitigate.

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