IGOR PESSÔA RIBEIRO MONTARROYOS Nº USP-13638169

UNIVERSIDADE DE SÃO PAULO

PAPER – “THE INFLUENCE OF GLOBALIZATION AND ECONOMY IN

SOVEREIGNTY, DEMOCRACY AND LAW”

NEW THEORIES OF LAW: BETWEEN SOCIOLOGY, ECONOMY,

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS AND TECHNOLOGY
PROFESSOR RAFAEL DINIZ PUCCI

SÃO PAULO
2022
CONTENTS
I. INTRODUCTION 3
II. THE BEGINNING OF THE PROBLEM 3
III. GLOBALIZATION AND SOVEREIGNTY 4
IV. ECONOMY AND DEMOCRACY 6
V. CONCLUSION 7
VI. BIBLIOGRAPHY 7
 I. INTRODUCTION

The purpose of this article is to work on the ideas of democracy, sovereignty,

globalization, economy and law, making a comprehensive analysis of how the first
four influence the last.
There is an intense link between law, politics and society. If we look closely, these
form a cycle. Society, through democracy, interferes directly in politics. Politics,
through the legislative process, directly interferes in law. And the law, through state
sovereignty, interferes directly in society.
To talk about law without mentioning these other two points is to make an incomplete
analysis of law. That was Kelsen's proposition. Conceiving law as a science isolated
from the others, where there would be no interference from other spheres in the
sphere of law, which works for didactic purposes, but not in a practical way.
The idea of this article is to show how the economy and globalization have provoked,
respectively, a crisis in democracy and sovereignty, and how these crises influence
and are given through law.
Studying law is above all realizing the interdisciplinarity present in it, keeping your
eyes open to other branches of study and applying them to law.

II. THE BEGINNING OF THE PROBLEM

According to Karl Marx, the capitalist mode of production, which aims to accumulate
capital and exploit labor, has generated and continues to increase social inequalities.
Marx looks at society and sees that in that way the rich would always become richer
and the poor poorer.
We are currently living in the most glorious phase of capitalism and nothing has
changed much since Marx's studies. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the world
became “globalized”, with practically all countries adhering to neoliberalism, which
values the reduction of state interference in the economic sphere. If Marx saw
neoliberalism, he would be desperate.
The changes that occurred in the economy forced the right to change and develop,
evolve, as we live today in a democratic State of law, in theory.
The democratic state of law is one in which everyone is subject to the law, including
the state itself. The law controls the actions of the State, preventing it from violating
the fundamental subjective rights of the population.
However, we see a certain clash between neoliberalism and the rule of law, as the
former seeks to reduce the influence of the State economically, which leads to a
decrease in certain social areas, such as labor rights and people's dignity. In fact,
neoliberalism even modifies the concept of democracy as we know it. Democracy,
etymologically, means “power of the people”, but today the people are only the
richest classes of society, those who have the power to invest in political campaigns
and make their ideals elected. The real people, miserable, marginalized by the State
itself, its protector, cannot impose their will on the minority of the richest and middle-
class people who believe that restrictive measures of social reforms do not affect
them.
In this sense, with the advent of neoliberalism and the breakdown of representative
democracy, we have a threat to the subjective rights of citizens, to the fundamental
rights provided for in the constitutions and in the booklets of organizations with a
universal vocation, such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of the United
Nations. .
Furthermore, at the international level, the globalization that has taken place across
the globe, together with technological innovations, generates a global production
chain that privileges the richest States, placing the burden of production on poorer
countries that have less taxation of industries. and low value of labor.
This new form of colonialism is what the psychiatrist and philosopher Frantz Fanon
works so hard on in his writings. Fanon exposes the fact that the most powerful
nations, when evicting African countries, for example, took with them all the
development, all the method that that now independent country could use to improve
its economy and the quality of life of its citizens. Today, the former settlers return with
the premise of bringing jobs and thus improving people's condition. They even bring
jobs, but with very low incomes and workloads that are often analogous to slavery.

III. GLOBALIZATION AND SOVEREIGNTY

Globalization is a process of integration between the countries of the globe that has
reduced distances and the way they interact. According to many authors, the process
of globalization began with the discovery of America in the 15th century. Others
consider that it actually started with the industrial revolution that facilitated
transportation between different parts of the world. And there are those who consider
that globalization began with the end of the Soviet Union, when, in theory, all
countries on the globe adopted the same economic system, abandoning socialism.
The truth is that each of the views will be correct depending on the situation. For the
situation we intend to study here, we will adopt the latest vision of globalization.
The globalization that took place in the 1990s, after the Soviet Union, generated a
certain standardization of the economic model that should be adopted across the
globe. With the Washington Consensus, several countries adopted the measures
proclaimed by the United States with global monetary institutions, such as the MIF
and the World Bank, to be able to participate in a globalized economy based on a
supposed cooperation between countries.
The truth, however, is that the economically stronger countries started to subjugate
the weaker and emerging ones with the measures, not explicitly, but because the
Consensus measures were elaborated under the neoliberal economic bias.
Returning to Marx, neoliberalism linked to globalization created a great global
society, where the richest became richer and the poorest continued to be poor. There
were countries that achieved a differentiated status through neoliberal policies,
however sacrificing the population. What's the point of growing without public
policies? In these countries, the pie grew, but it was not shared. The majority of
workers remain in misery while those who had the opportunity to exploit them
continue to get rich.
We saw this phenomenon in the South Korean film “Parasite”, which reveals the
incredible social inequality of South Korea, a country that became very rich after the
spread of neoliberalism.
Globalization has generated several difficulties for the law in adapting its concepts.
Dalmo de Abreu Dallari says that the countries of the world live today in a global
anarchy, because there is no idea of a sovereign State among them. Kelsen even
deals with international law in some writings, but the idea of globalization creates a
problem in the fundamental norm, since it is clear that there is an International Law,
which regulates relations between countries, that is, there is an international order,
but not it is simple to know what the fundamental norm of this order would be.
Sovereignty is seen as the effectiveness in ensuring its ordination in a given territory,
and can thus be conceived in each State, but not in International Law. In international
law there is, in theory, no sovereign. The idea of transferring this sovereignty to the
UN is flawed, as it is often contradicted for four main reasons: respect for the
sovereignty of each state; the right of veto of the permanent members of the Security
Council; the lack of effectiveness of its decisions; and lack of own resources.
In that sense, the chair of global sovereignty is vacant and we often see problems
caused by this. Today we have the Ukrainian War as an example. Virtually no one
approved it, but no one was able to stop the Russian invasion either.

IV. ECONOMY AND DEMOCRACY

Neoliberalism, in addition to promoting globalization in the way it was done,

generating the problems that Marx exposed on a global scale, intensified the process
of social stratification within each State.
Joseph Stiglitz, in his book “People, Power and Profits” reveals how money
influences democracy in the United States and how this is harmful to society and
transcends the limits of democracy. As you read, you can see that the democracy so
acclaimed by the land of freedom has become an aristocracy, where the richest have
the power to influence politics and, therefore, the law.
Returning to the cycle presented at the beginning of the text, we know that politics
influences the law through the legislative process and that society influences politics
through the vote. What to say then when parliamentarians do not proportionally
represent society? How is the idea of representative democracy? Lost yourself. While
more than half of the Brazilian population is made up of women and blacks, we have
in Congress only 10% of women and 25% of blacks.
If we investigate the school issue, the situation is just as glaring. While only 21% of
Brazilians have a degree, practically 80% of congress have a degree.
Stiglitz points out in his book that this reality is caused by the force of money in
political campaigns, where the richest people invest in politicians, donating millions of
dollars to campaigns, so that their interests are fulfilled.
In this way, the congress will always continue to misrepresent society, which
generates a dismantling of representative democracy, so criticized by Rousseau in
his social contract, for believing that popular sovereignty through the general will is
inalienable. However, Rousseau himself later states that his model of the social
contract would never work in large societies, as it would be difficult to extract the
general will. With that, we remain with democracy as it is today, hoping that nothing
goes wrong.

V. CONCLUSION

From the above analysis we see how economics influences law through politics. The
law should never be looked at individually, as it requires the inclusion of other areas
of study so that it can be exercised, and it certainly suffers a lot of influence from
these areas.
I sought to show the influence of economics on law in the world after the fall of the
Soviet Union, how the neoliberal vision modified the pretensions and jeopardized
fundamental rights and guarantees of a large marginalized part of the population that
cannot insert themselves politically, as they are subjugated by the powerful. , who
become increasingly rich through the use of politics to modify the law, out of step with
society.
VI. BIBLIOGRAPHY

FARIA, José Eduardo. Democracia e Governabilidade: os Direitos Humanos à Luz

da Globalização Econômica.

STIGLITZ, Joseph E. People, Power and Profits.

DALLARI, Dalmo de Abreu. Elementos de Teoria Geral do Estado.

https://www.sabedoriapolitica.com.br/products/a-democracia-em-rousseau1/

https://www.camara.leg.br/noticias/550900-nova-composicao-da-camara-ainda-tem-
descompasso-em-relacao-ao-perfil-da-populacao-brasileira/

https://www.metropoles.com/dino/ocde-aponta-que-21-dos-brasileiros-possuem-
ensino-superior

https://g1.globo.com/pernambuco/vestibular-e-educacao/noticia/2012/11/professor-
explica-desigualdade-social-partir-da-visao-de-karl-marx.html