International Social Work, Globalization and the Challenge of a Unipolar World

This summer, two international social work organizations--the International Federation of Social Workers (IFSW) and the International Association of Schools of Social Work (IASSW)--will again host their regular biannual conferences. IFSW will meet in Munich, Germany in July while IASSW will meet in Santiago, Chile in August. These meetings will bring social workers from many different countries together to share ideas and experiences, and to discuss issues of common interest. Social workers have been meeting under the auspices of these two organizations for more than seventy years and today both organizations play a vital role in promoting cooperation among social workers around the world. As is customary, both conferences will be organized around core themes. The IFSW's conference theme is A World out of Balance: Working for a New Social Equilibrium while IASSW will focus on Growth and Inequality. While these themes have been chosen by the conference organizers to give structure and form to the meetings, they also reflect issues of wider interest to the profession. For example, the decision to highlight the problem of inequality at the IASSW meeting in Santiago reflects a renewed interest in the topic. Although inequality has been neglected in economic and social policy debates since the 1980s on the ground that inequality is of secondary importance to the goal of promoting rapid economic growth, it is clear that economic growth over the last twenty years has not brought prosperity to all. Indeed, in many parts of the world, growth has been accompanied by stagnating incomes for many ordinary people. On the other hand, those with high incomes have experienced unprecedented gains. It is highly appropriate, therefore, that the issue of inequality and growth should serve as the theme of the IASSW conference. International issues and concerns such as these have engaged social workers at different times in the profession's history. At the time of the First World War, Jane Addams' pacifist campaigns were supported by many social workers involved in international activities. Similarly, in the 1950s, when rapid industrial development and economic modernization was believed to offer the best hope of achieving prosperity for the newly independent countries, some social workers urged the export of Western social work theories and methods to the developing world believing that this was compatible with the modernization process. These ideas were vigorously contested in the 1970s by social workers from the developing countries who called instead for the adoption of indigenous approaches they believed were appropriate to the social and cultural realities of non-Western societies. Although few social workers at the time were actively involved in these international debates, the profession has benefited from addressing these and other international issues. Over the last decade, globalization has been a major topic for discussion in international social work. Articles on the subject have appeared in many social work journals and the issue has featured prominently at international gatherings. Like much of the social science literature on the subject, many social work scholars have offered a very pessimistic analysis of globalization. Many have argued that it has created unemployment, weakened traditional family values and community solidarity, created pressures on governments to cut social expenditures and undermined their ability to implement social welfare policies and programs. A more optimistic school of thought that stresses the opportunities provided by globalization for enhancing international collaboration, promoting peace and increasing understanding between the world's different peoples and cultures has also emerged. Social work proponents of this view stress the multifaceted character of globalization, pointing out that it not only involves economic but demographic, social, cultural, political and other dimensions. …