This paper examines the effects of globalization on Madagascar, a periphery nation whose tropical rainforests and mineral wealth have been rapidly exploited by core-country demand. Drawing on Thomas Friedman's supply chain analyses, Immanuel Wallerstein's World-Systems Theory, and ecological research on deforestation, the paper traces how Madagascar's colonial history and peripheral economic status have made it vulnerable to industrialized resource extraction. It also explores the ecological consequences of rainforest destruction, including disruptions to secondary succession and global carbon cycles, ultimately situating Madagascar's environmental crisis within the broader framework of core-periphery economic relationships that define the contemporary globalized world.
Just as the 20th century was clearly distinguished by the rapid industrialization of urban centers — with cities developing around factories, mills, and other outlets for manufacturing and trade — the 21st century is likely to be defined as the era of collaborative globalization, with the advent of the internet connecting the planet through instantaneous communication. Globalization has come to describe the unprecedented exchange of cultural capital provided by the internet's rise to ubiquitous status in societies around the world, with an emphasis on the increase in international trade and commerce that has resulted. As defined by Conrad Phillip Kottak in his primer on the anthropological implications of globalization, the term is best understood as "the process of integration of the world's peoples economically, socially, politically, and culturally into a single world system of community" (439). Practices such as outsourcing, insourcing, offshore operations, and other controversial consequences of globalization have garnered attention from both the private sector and public servants alike, with economists and financial analysts reaching competing opinions regarding their relative efficacy and social worth.
In a pair of groundbreaking analyses on the phenomenon of globalization — The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization and The World Is Flat — respected economist Thomas L. Friedman writes with eloquent expertise to produce a bestselling analysis of globalization and its ability to level the proverbial playing field in terms of commerce and competition, for better or worse.
One of the fundamental premises underlying Friedman's progressive conception of globalization was based on the author's exhaustive quest to document the entirety of the multinational manufacturing process used to create his own Dell laptop, including an inventory listing the dozens of individual nations that contributed parts and labor to the process. The resulting web of interdependence involved in the manufacture, distribution, and sale of this simple supply chain inspired Friedman to coin the phrase "Dell Theory of Conflict Prevention," which stipulates that "no two countries that are both part of a global supply chain, like Dell's, will ever fight a war against each other as long as they are both part of the same global supply chain" (524). Friedman's experiment in sourcing the construction of a product considered ubiquitous in Western culture revealed that relatively unknown nations with minor industrial capabilities — such as Madagascar — play an integral role in the global supply chain.
This represents a novel reinterpretation of the classic World-Systems Theory, a model of global stratification first postulated by sociologist Immanuel Wallerstein, which holds that the world is comprised of an interlocking global political economy designed to redistribute resources from the periphery to the core (Kottak 357). According to the fundamental precepts of World-Systems Theory, the world has been divided into core countries, semi-periphery countries, and periphery countries. A small group of dominant core countries imposes its global hegemony on periphery countries by virtue of highly industrialized economies, extensive military presence, and strong centralized governments, while semi-periphery countries remain in transition between endemic poverty and eventual prosperity.
The small island nation of Madagascar is emblematic of Wallerstein's conception of the periphery country. The former French colony and fourth-largest island in the world has been consistently ranked as a periphery nation — along with 35 other nations — by several independent sociological studies conducted over the last three decades (Babones & Alvarez-Rivadulla 14). Due to a confluence of tumultuous historical circumstances and geopolitical transition, Madagascar endured nearly a century of colonial rule, and despite the presence of many natural resources, the country has traditionally been constrained by substandard infrastructure and an inability to properly exploit its natural wealth.
Nonetheless, the advent of globalization has spurred many in Madagascar to emulate their core-country colonizers through the rapid industrialization of the now-independent republic's economic system. In addition to the financial incentive afforded by insatiable global demand for raw timber, Madagascar's extremely rapid rate of deforestation in the era of globalization has been exacerbated by the country's continued reliance on charcoal as its primary fuel source and the spread of coffee plantations as that cash crop became industrialized.
One of the most rigorous and comprehensive research studies devoted to the subject, entitled "Fifty Years of Deforestation and Forest Fragmentation in Madagascar," concludes that "from the 1950s to 2000, the area of 'core forest' (forest >1 km from a nonforest edge) decreased from >90,000 km² to <20,000 km² ... (while) the area in patches of >100 km² decreased by more than half," representing a 40% reduction in core forest and an 80% occurrence of thinning in the remaining forest (Harper 330). Today, less than 10% of Madagascar's original forest cover remains, lost through a combination of traditional slash-and-burn farming methods and modernized clear-cutting operations managed by foreign conglomerates. In order to fully comprehend the consequences of Madagascar's globalization-fueled destruction of its ancient tropical rainforests, it is important to develop a deeper understanding of the essential role this fragile ecosystem plays in maintaining the entire planet's environmental equilibrium.
There is perhaps no richer assortment of life on the planet than that found in a tropical rainforest ecosystem, which can be found throughout the equatorial zones of South and Central America, Africa, Asia, Australia, and many of the world's island chains. Typified by monthly average temperatures above 64 degrees Fahrenheit and at least 66 inches of rainfall annually, the warm and wet conditions of the tropical rainforest ecosystem combine with relative isolation to create the most abundant repository of life on Earth. Despite its relatively small size, the isolated island of Madagascar has historically been home to many of the planet's most pristine and well-preserved tropical rainforests, comprising much of the nation's eastern coastal regions.
Research on the incredible biodiversity found in tropical rainforests has revealed the astonishing depth of this ecosystem's biotic structure, with the average hectare of land containing over 42,000 species of insect, 1,500 varieties of higher plants, and more than 300 types of trees (Newman 42). An examination of the biotic and abiotic structure of Madagascar's rainforests — including the cycle of disturbance and recovery that occurs in the wake of human intrusion — can be used to assess this ecosystem's overall function within the planet's biological balancing act.
"Industrial agriculture disrupts secondary succession cycles"
"Core countries exploit Madagascar's peripheral resources"
Kottak, Conrad Phillip. "Window on Humanity." Urban Anthropology 11 (2011): 11.
Newman, Arnold. Tropical Rainforest: Our Most Valuable and Endangered Habitat with a Blueprint for Its Survival into the Third Millennium. 2nd ed. Checkmark Books, 2002.
Wallerstein, Immanuel Maurice. World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction. Duke University Press, 2004.
Wolf, Eric R. Europe and the People without History. University of California Press, 2010.
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