Reaction Paper 4

International communication was majorly impacted by the growing trends of privatization and deregulation worldwide.

The results of the Uruguay Round, of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade that later evolved into the World Trade Organization, established a worldwide trade structure based on liberalization of the market and free flow of information, including, and most importantly for international communication, in the services sector. Free flow of information was especially important for the WTO as one of the key component for an effective communication infrastructure that would allow optimal economic growth and trade. The efforts for market liberalization and state deregulation by the WTO had the goal of opening up foreign markets to outside competition, especially in the telecommunications sector. The latter’s quality as a particularly fast-growing and profitable market made it a priority for Western advocates, which resulted in a GATS (General Agreement on Trade in Services) Annex on Telecommunications. This annex allowed private companies, generally from the West, to make investments in the private sector of developing countries. The privatization of infrastructures in developing countries meant that national suppliers had no advantage over foreign suppliers, and were to be considered in the same respect.  In short, the purpose was to establish the structure for Western corporations to be able to integrate foreign markets especially in “Southern” countries.

Trade is a major part of international relations, and a very beneficial one at that. Seeing the importance of commercial trade, it was only a given that free trade and free flow of information rules would spread out to include the services sectors, and of course the telecommunications sector, of which the importance surged at the time and continues to grow even today. In general, I do not regard privatization as a negative thing, especially when it comes as a response to state control and regulations. It also avoids creating a monopoly by the state. I also agree with the liberalization argument that competition makes for a better service and better prices for customers.

However, that only applies when there is the potential for fair competition. Often, and especially in the case of developing countries, privatization of the market means that a Western foreign competitor is able to come and dominate the sector, simply because national corporations lack the means and the infrastructure to be able to compete. In this case, the argument for better services and better prices becomes invalid as the market simply switches from state monopoly to corporate monopoly.

Reaction Paper 3

Dependency theory, originating from Latin America during the 1960s, came as a critique of the modernization theory and aimed at demonstrating the theory’s faults and the negative consequences of its practice in the countries of the region, with the United States as the main political antagonist of the region at the time due to its support of authoritative regimes.

Dependency theory argues that TransNational Corporations (TNCs), which are overwhelmingly from the West, use the practices of “modernization” to keep full control over developing countries by making their development dependent on them. These corporations make the rules for everything that has to do with the market, the distribution of resources, the production and the labor, leaving developing countries little choice in how and on what terms they might want to develop. TNCs also undermine the individual cultures of the developing countries by creating a dependency on U.S. technologies and U.S. imports of media, including entertainment programs, creating a sort of “cultural imperialism”. This latter term came to use because of Western efforts to undermine the cultural autonomy of developing countries by imposing technologies that shape their social reality, their values and their ideas according to those of the dominant country, under the pretext of simply offering them technologies that would help them join the “modern” world.

The reasons for this discourse as proposed by dependency theory is that the West, and especially the U.S., seeks to continue a form of neo-colonialism for political and military interests as well as for commercial gain.

Dependency theory in my opinion nicely encompassed everything that was wrong with modernization theory. The monopoly of the West over communication technologies and any tools for the development of a country only increased inequalities between them and the Third World, despite offering the use of those technologies. It comes at a heavy economic price at the expense of the developing countries, and makes it hard for them to develop their own technologies, which I think in the long term would sink them further in under-development.

However, I think dependency theory has many faults. Its critique of “modernization”, while justified in my opinion, is too simplistic, focuses only on the faults of another theory and fails to provide a legitimate and viable framework for international communication. Dependency theory also assumed that U.S. imports of media being consumed by Third World audiences would suffice to establish new capitalist ideas and to completely undermine local cultures, which I think is too far-reached and greatly underestimates the ability of audiences to be anything other than passive. Although media consumption is definitely a good way of effectively exerting influence on populations, I do believe that strong cultural beliefs and practices, especially those established throughout centuries, can trump any new ideologies being spread at the end of the day.

All in all, I believe that dependency theory is right in its analysis of the negative intentions behind the West’s efforts to modernize other countries. I think the cultural imperialism notion is very legitimate as well, but I think the theory fails in the fact that it completely disregards local authorities and influences, as well as overestimating the cultural impact of the West over developing countries.