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Session 2330

Globalization of Engineering Education The case of the North American Region Raul Herrera The Ohio State University

When World War II ended, the United States emerged as practically the only superpower that had its industrial apparatus fully producing all the equipment required to reconstruct the cities and industries destroyed by the war both in Europe and the Asian Pacific region. With the help of the United States some of the European and Asian economies rapidly recovered and trade among the nations was restored in a few years. Even though the trade rules were very much the same before and after the war, it is natural to consider that the terms imposed on the defeated nations in the Second World War were not the same as those followed by the winners. Logically, most of the winner nations benefited from these policies. This picture started changing in the two decades following the war. Germany, Japan and Italy recovered their economic strength in less than half a century and took their places among the industrialized countries of the world. Even though open competition among most of the western countries was already a common practice as early as the fifties, there were still at that time protectionist policies that restricted the trade market in the western world.

With the collapse of the Soviet System most of the so-called Iron Curtain countries have joined the world trade. Healthy competition among all nations is now commonly accepted as the necessary ingredient to keep high standards of products quality and low prices. The world seems headed for a global common market in some near future. But present reality shows that the industrialized nations have evolved to form well-recognized trading blocs perhaps to keep world prices of products at reasonable levels, or perhaps to adjust world trade policies to their regional needs. It is clear that in the current world market two main areas of influence, namely the European Union and the Asian Nations of the Pacific Rim have emerged in the last 20 years. Their success in the global economy has been tremendous and the present trend is that they are going to continue economically growing.

The theory of how relations among nations have evolved throughout the history of mankind, particularly in the last decades, has been explained from mainly two international policy theories: Realism and Cooperativism 1,2.

Realism theoreticians claim that the main objective of government is to increase national power in relation to that of other nations in order to enhance security, wealth and influence in international affairs. Other factors, such as human and natural resources, industry and education, are also recognized as contributors to the power of a nation, but the followers of realism assert that the use of military force represents the critical instrument for pursuing the national interest.

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Herrera, R. (1997, June), Globalization Of Engineering Education The Case Of The North American Region Paper presented at 1997 Annual Conference, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. 10.18260/1-2--6590