Fourth Blog Post

In How Soccer Explains the World, Franklin Foer uses soccer as an international phenomenon to display different aspects of globalization. In the chapter How Soccer Explains the Black Carpathians he uses the Ukrainian soccer clubs importing Nigerians to keep their teams competitive to relate a central feature of globalization, various states going overseas to bring in foreigners they believe can perform a certain job better. While there are certainly some advantages to this feature of globalization, I believe it is overall a negative, as it creates an identity crisis for the state in question, in this case Ukraine. Foer gives several examples of this problem throughout the chapter.

            In lecture and mostly in discussion we identified the “winners” and “losers” of importing jobs in globalization. Along with large corporations who we felt benefited most from globalization, we established individuals with desirable skills who are able to leave their current state for a better life due to globalization among the winners. Chiefly among the losers however we listed those losing jobs to this process. Displaying larger issues using soccer as a model, Foer writes, “Why not invest the money spent on Edward [the Nigerian import subject of the chapter] into the development of young Ukrainian talent?” (Foer 157) This illustrates the “loser” aspect of globalization. Due to the ease of international trade and travel with globalization, instead of attempting to develop talent within a certain state, that state is more likely to import when it is the easier route. In Foer’s example, the “losers” are those ten Ukrainian players the captain claims they could have developed for the price spent on importing Edward. (Foer 157) More specifically, players on the team whose spots Edward and other imports taken are now out of a job, as almost always takes place in this type of situation. This is very clearly a problem for citizens in a global society losing jobs to foreigners that corporations feel will get the job done more efficiently.

            In addition to this aspect of globalization creating clear-cut losers of globalization, this process also creates a loss of cultural identity within a state. This loss of cultural identity typically works to lower the morale of citizens. This loss of morale tends to be very widespread, and is a large problem for leaders of a state, more so than simply specific losers identified earlier. Foer explains this problem clearly, stating “Ukrainians imagined that they were once a great soccer nation. Now they needed Nigerians to become great again. This fact couldn’t be read any other way: It was a humiliation.” (Foer 157) With soccer being one example of this phenomenon, this humiliation and loss of identity could be paralleled to any instance of a state importing foreigners for a certain job they feel their citizens cannot perform as well. It is simply natural that citizens will begin to feel uneasy with a large amount of foreigners taking jobs once possessed by natives of this particular state. As a backer of constructivism I believe cultural identity is very important and there is no doubt that this process can gradually erode cultural identity.

Depending on the job in question, this loss of morale could be very significant and even cause citizens to feel some animosity towards leaders of the state making these decisions to import. One aspect of a state being successful we identified a few weeks back is a manageable relationship between state citizens and leaders. There is a possibility that the importation of foreigners becoming more and more commonplace in modern society can make this relationship worse. I simply believe that the risks of the drastically increased importation of foreigners due to globalization becoming too widespread far outweigh the advantages in certain areas that leaders feel they can gain.