Article Critique: International Political Economy
Walter LaFeber (p. 1) argues that empire and imperialism generates the process of globalization and that fragmentation is an almost always inevitable consequence of the emergence of a sole superpower capable of hegemonic action. LaFeber (p. 2) suggests in his article that fragmentation of the political economy had taken place prior to the terrorist attacks on the United States of September 11, 2001. These attacks are seen by LaFeber (p. 2) as a climax of the globe's growing fragmentation with the U.S.-led response indicative of how great states attempt to reimpose needed order.
LaFeber (p. 18) concludes his discussion of these relationships by referencing the potential that the American government led by President George W. Bush may elect to overthrow Sadaam Hussein and to assert a uniquely American political economy. It is anticipated that the post-September 11th world will be less shaped by the globalism, unilateralism, and fragmentation that helped produce that world. Finally, LaFeber (p. 18) maintains that the question to be answered is not whether America has acquired an empire or what kind of empire it is, but what kind of democracy America will bend her efforts toward creating. LaFeber (p. 6) also suggests that the September 11th attacks utilized some of the technologies of globalization to climax a decade of rapid globalization and thereby threatened to bring globalization to a standstill.
Critical Examination of Issues and Arguments
Among the important issues discussed by LaFeber (p. 1) is the relationship between Progressive imperialist ideology and the more recent twenty-first century imperialism which began with the new technologies of the 1970s and the "American triumphalism of the late 1980s and 1990s." In both instances, LaFeber (pp. 1-2) argues that globalization was crucial in making it possible for America to enjoy a high level of autonomy and he...