CENTER FOR GLOBALIZATION AND POLICY RESEARCH

The Center was established in the autumn of 2000 in response to the growing need for informed research and debate on all aspects of globalization, and, in particular, on the many difficult policy questions that are being raised as globalization runs its course.

Radically new forms of social, economic and political organization are being brought into being by this process, not only across nations but also within nations and within the individual cities and regions of different nations. Globalization is associated with massive increases in cross-national flows of capital, labor, technological know-how, goods and services, and it has correspondingly important effects on employment, economic development, political institutions, and social welfare. There is, too, a strong relationship between domestic policies and international competitiveness. Domestic capital market policies, labor market policies, science and technology policies, and urban and regional development policies have major influences on international flows of all kinds, and in turn are being deeply re-shaped by globalization.

Globalization thus presents major challenges to social scientists and policy makers at many different levels of scale.

The work of the Center for Globalization and Policy Research will focus upon five main areas of social inquiry and policy making, all of which have a particularly close connection to globalization. These are:

-The organization and structure of the economy, with special reference to international finance, trade, e-commerce, industrial technology, employment patterns, and local-global economic interactions.
-Processes of migration and social mobility, above all where these have important implications for labor market development and social policy.
-Systems of cultural expression and conflict, and all the more so as worldwide commerce in cultural products is creating many new problems and predicaments.
-Natural and built environments, where globalization is associated with new and exacerbated forms of degradation from global warming to air and water pollution.
-Structures of governance, including current trends to political re-scaling at the global, multinational, national, and local levels.
-The Center for Globalization and Policy Research will act as a focal point in the School of Public Affairs and in the UCLA community at large for critical investigations of these and related issues. Particular emphasis will be placed on research leading to viable public policy solutions to specific problems. The Center will serve as a clearinghouse for both individual and joint research projects, and it will host public lectures and occasional conferences on globalization and its effects.

In general, the Center will take a lead role in seeking to foster research and education at UCLA on all aspects of globalization and public policy.