Core-periphery exploitation is not a new phenomenon, as the history of colonialism makes evident; it is a product of the globalization that has been going on in the world since at least the 17th century.41 With the end of the Cold War and the advent of the information age, however, the relationships of dependencies and the populations that are affected have been deterritorialized and redefined by a core of unified global actors, classified in terms of capital ownership and political access. Thus, it is no longer useful to attach the description of rich and poor to countries. This overly simplified model fails to take into account the extraordinarily high living standards enjoyed by very few in the upper echelons of power in the developing world, as well as the deteriorating situation of the poor in the global North. In both locations, however, the poor lack voice, a key characteristic of citizenship (see also chapter 13).
Migration from Latin American, and the potential exploitation that it entails, is closely tied to trade. While it is not the “poorest of the poor” who migrate, those who travel northward away from their cultural roots and their families do so to satisfy the North’s demands for cheap labor42 (see section 8.7 on trade and immigration). On the other hand, globalization also has seen the embrace by the South of neoliberal economic policies. The expansion of markets in the South has also affected citizenship as it has “reconfigur[ed] … popular culture and … introduc[ed] … new consumption standards bearing little relation to local wage levels.”43 Ironically, while the North increasingly tries to close borders to the human migrants on whose labor it so greatly depends, it works exhaustively to facilitate the cross-border movement of goods, capital, commodities, and information—a reality incorporated in the NAFTA in 1994 and embraced by the aspiring FTAA.44
The migration is ultimately the result of the expansion of markets into peripheral, nonmarket, or premarket societies, and the disruptions that occur in the process.45 The diametric opposition with which we regard the transmigration of cultures through the migration of individuals across national borders, as juxtaposed to the integration of world markets, is affecting the very right of citizenship. Indeed, with no shame, former Mexican President Vicente Fox actively encouraged emigration, and called for a fully open border within ten years to ensure a continuing flow of remittances—“the third largest source of revenue in Mexico’s economy, trailing only oil and manufacturing”—a record of thirteen billion dollars in 2003.46 Moreover, Fox also worked to change the law so that former Mexican citizens living in the United States, even if naturalized, could continue to vote in Mexican elections. This move is indicative not only of the transnationalization of citizenship but also of the impact of globalization on the very institutions of citizenship.
Fox’s legal change rewards those who send remittances home and makes them feel that they still have a home—that they are still full citizens. It is significant because of another linkage with citizenship: according to one author, “Migrants remain active in their homelands because they are unable to achieve full social membership in the United States.”47 To be sure, the climate in the United States is that new migrants will seldom become completely accepted as full citizens—as “American”—because they “often experience blocked mobility, racism, and discrimination.”48 Thus, these migrants, even those who are naturalized citizens, live in two spaces and experience two partial levels of citizenship simultaneously—one in their spiritual homeland in which they no longer live and another in their migration geography where they live but do not fully belong—and constantly strive to bridge the gap between the two. Another author suggests that “persons in the sending and receiving societies become participants in a single social unit. To [engage] this [notion of citizenship], researchers must boldly sever their concept of society from their concept of national territory.”49
One author observes that the new center and periphery of dependency in the context of globalization is not based on geography, but instead on economics and politics.50 The core has been transnationalized through the affluent elites, regardless of geographical location. This “core-periphery conflict persists as a form of interaction, but it occurs mainly between social sectors within both developed and less-developed societies.”51
In the context of both trade and human rights, the regional integration that has occurred “serves both as a mechanism to protect disparities that have arisen within the world-system, and as an ideological mask and justification for the maintenance of these disparities.”52 Thus, some claim that NAFTA, CAFTA-DR-US, GATT, and other similar integration initiatives are actually not so much about free trade as about protectionism, and not of workers so much as the profit interests of multinational industries such as the pharmaceuticals companies. They also instigate wage competition among Latin American countries, to see who would produce goods for the U.S. and Canadian consumer markets for the lowest possible wages.53 This is a major economic component of the “race to the bottom”—the competition between states that, in order to attract investment—that is, to improve the state’s competitive advantage—results in increased deregulation of, among other things, labor and the environment, which, in turn, results in lower socioeconomic conditions and erodes the social safety net.54
The process of integration has facilitated core-periphery exploitation and the accumulation of corporate wealth on the backs of the working class who travel North for employment opportunities.55 Those who engage in Northern migration, the Latin American diaspora, have mainly, through the continual stream of remittances, become deterritorialized dual citizens who facilitate the core-periphery exploitation and are not full citizens in any location.
At the heart of this core-periphery, North-South relationship is the increasingly powerful corporate entity. With globalization, the transnational corporation’s power has multiplied; it increasingly affects governments and governance, such as in creating the ubiquitous race to the bottom. Yet, as a private actor, its actions are not fully transparent and it is not fully accountable. The corporation’s new influence over global social and political systems endows it with innovative citizenship status.
5.5 The Transnational Corporation and the Rise of Economic Citizenship
Any discourse on globalization and citizenship is incomplete without consideration of what the idea signifies for the corporation—undoubtedly a powerful and influential global actor central to the trade regime. The emergence of the corporation, and its growth as an economic superpower capable of exerting great influence on individuals, communities, and even governments and public policy, creates yet another layer of analysis with respect to the already complex concept of citizenship. Traditionally, the association of citizenship was between individuals and their country. It has been extended, however, to juridical persons. Thus now, corporate entities, with great economic power, and with their citizenship rights, can have more influence on the state than the average individual citizen. Such powerful citizenship, emerging from globalization, is having an impact on the citizenship discourse.
Saskia Sassen engages in an in-depth analysis of corporate power on the institution of citizenship.56 After reviewing the particular “combination of conditions that had to crystallize for citizenship as we know it to emerge,” she deploys the notion of economic citizenship as a construct to destabilize the “linearity” of history. As she poignantly observes: “Economic globalization has transformed the sovereignty and territoriality of the nation state.” But her take has a “twist”: economic globalization has eroded the environment in which the idea of citizenship evolved, particularly “social rights.” Consequently, Sassen urges that there is a need to develop the idea of economic citizenship to include the “rights to economic well-being and to economic survival,”57 which includes the right to work for a living. Sassen concludes that there “exists a reality today that represents an aggregation of economic rights that one could describe as a form of economic citizenship in that it empowers and can demand that governments be held accountable in economic matters.”58 The holders of such economic citizenship, however, are not individuals but “global economic ‘actors.’” Thus, such economic trappings of citizenship need to be extended to individuals (see section 8.9 on corporate abuse of labor rights).
The basis for the economic citizenship demanded by Sassen is the impact of the increasingly global capital market on economic policy and hence governmental policy.