Marketing and Public Policy in a “Runaway World”: A Commentary

In Runaway World, Giddens (2003) describes how globalization affects everything we do, propelling us into a “global order that no one fully understands,” but makes its effects felt on all of us (p. 7). Globalization is not even-handed or benign in its consequences. As Giddens writes, “there is a new riskiness to risk,” in that we do not know the risk level and may not until it is too late (p. 28). While global consumers lead local lives, their lives are entangled, affected by, and affecting that global world. Numerous examples illustrate this dynamic, including September 11, the COVID-19 pandemic, and Brexit. Moreover, the pace of technological change and reach outpaces our adaptive capacity, exacerbating globalization’s force (Friedman 2017). On February 24, 2022, Russia began a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Within days, 2 million Ukrainians became refugees. By week three, Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy had 16 million Instagram followers, illustrating technology’s rapid global reach. The immediate transformation in this example characterizes contemporary consumers’ “glocal” lives. Because market and policy choices have potentially significant and disproportionately distributed effects, they have international implications. Consider how the flow of consumption-related waste in the developed world creates pockets of disparity in less developed countries. A local community that cannot afford to recycle washes plastic up elsewhere (Bauman 2004). The fast fashion industry, considered by the United Nations as the second most polluting industry, behind oil, creates waste that blankets Chile’s Atacama desert, polluting oceans with microfiber and the air with toxins (Duong 2021). Facing these challenges, policy makers must not only safeguard their markets’ interests but also monitor the impact of conditions and practices in other markets on their citizens. Research in public policy and marketing—identified in the Journal of Public Policy & Marketing’s (JPP&M’s) scope as ecology, ethics and social responsibility, regulation and deregulation, security and privacy, and health and nutrition —offers evidence of the international implications of marketing practices or policies developed in a given market. We highlight findings related to ecology, regulation, and security and privacy.