Tamborini, Roberto (2000) From Kuwait to Kosovo: what have we learned? : reflections on globalization and peace. UNSPECIFIED. (Unpublished)

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Abstract

Sir John R. Hicks, Nobel laureate in economics, once said that an economist who is only an economist is not a good economist. In times of high specialization and segmentation of knowledge, this view is probably out of fashion and regarded as dangerous. Moreover, economics and its clerks are generally considered prone to "cultural imperialism" by other social scientists. Since I regard John Hicks as a master of thought, but also disapprove of the imperialistic grasp of economics on all aspects of human life, I accepted to contribute to this conference as a valuable opportunity to investigate problems and exchange ideas outside the high walls of the economic citadel, in the spirit of a citizen of the world engaged in the search for more equitable, prosperous and peaceful human relations. Hence I have limited the "professional" economic part of my paper to the first two sections, where I outline the issues related to the so-called "globalization" of the world economy in order to provide the background to further considerations on international order and peace. These considerations are developed in the second part of paper, where I try to extract from the dramatic events of the 1990s a pattern of regional political wars which in my view is at variance with other patterns of international disorder predicted by current globlization analyses. I then conclude with reflections on the predominantly political-institutional crises underlying the wars of the 1990s, followed by an outline of the "institutions for peace" that ought to be placed on the agenda at the outset of the new century.

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