ABSTRACT

Technological advances in products and processes – particularly in the fields of communication and transport technologies, that is to say the Internet and the digital revolution, global air traffic, and the containerization of cargo transport – are viewed alongside economic, demographic, and political processes as primary causes of present-day globalization. Today, 90 per cent of the world’s trade is carried out on the seas (North 2016: 293). Yet, as the late maritime historian Frank Broeze noted: ‘Although globalization has become a household word, there is little recognition that our world could not function without the complex system of maritime transport sustaining intercontinental and regional trade’ (Broeze 2002: 1). The formation of transport infrastructures, thus, rarely plays a role in the multifaceted, often contentious debates on the positive and negative effects of globalization. This means that efforts at blocking or at least imposing stricter regulations on globalization are largely directed elsewhere, such as policies on trade, financial markets, and immigration.