Globaliseringen - En vän eller fiende? : En studie kring globalisering och utveckling i fallet Brasilien

Sammanfattning: How the current globalization process should be looked upon and handled has been a major concern for development thinkers’ world wide. There are many different answers to this question. Some would say that it is the natural evolving of our society while some say that it is a plague that needs to be rid of to achieve a sustainable development. This debate has been a central figure in the current development debate and a major concern. Even if it does achieve good sustainable economic development there is always social factors that come into play. Globalization has since the early 90’s been referred to as an enormous force that can not be stopped and that whilst some might not like it, it is here to stay.   This essay is concerned with investigating the different economic and political theories surrounding globalization. Three different theories and three different key thinkers in the respective schools have been examined to illuminate key arguments within their theories of globalization. These schools of thought are: The liberal school and Martin Wolf, the reformist school and Joseph Stiglitz and the radical school with Naomi Klein as their key thinker.  Selected works by these three authors selected to further represent the different schools have been critically assessed to find key arguments concerning the conceptualization about globalization and how it should be looked upon and to see how they differ between amongst each other and how the theories cope when applied on a specific case, namely Brazil.   This study shows a deeply mixed result where it is made clear that all theories have valid points in their arguments but also faults in their arguments. There is no outstanding theory in this study that over shadows its’ adversaries. However the study shows that left-wing thinkers in general put more emphasis on social justice and social development whilst more right-wing thinkers put emphasis on development though economics and solid growth. There is little chance of sustainable development if these divided groups continue to work against each other. Therefore there is a great need for a middle ground that sees both the social and the economic aspects to help form a globalized world where real development is achieved