Political conditions for economic growth: Globalization and developing countries

Compared to the flood of studies covering the causes of economic globalization in general, their consequences for the macroeconomic and social steering capacity of nation states, the functioning of democracy and the cultural identity of societies and the necessity to partially replace lost state capacity by new forms of global governance, specific studies on the effects of globalization on developing countries have remained somewhat rare. Relevant articles in disciplinary journals and popular beliefs stress (a) the negative distributional impact of globalization on marginal regions, countries and social groups (b) the continuous restriction of already moderate governmental latitude in developing countries by the increasingly sharp competition for international investors, (c) the cultural invasion of private media from the West into developing societies (UNCTAD 1997; Deutscher Bundestag 1999; Gruppe von Lissabon 2001; Kozul-Wright and Rayment 2004).