globalization theory essay

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Globalization

Covering a wide range of distinct political, economic, and cultural trends, the term “globalization” remains crucial to contemporary political and academic debate. In contemporary popular discourse, globalization often functions as little more than a synonym for one or more of the following phenomena: the pursuit of classical liberal (or “free market”) policies in the world economy (“economic liberalization”), the growing dominance of western (or even American) forms of political, economic, and cultural life (“westernization” or “Americanization”), a global political order built on liberal notions of international law (the “global liberal order”), an ominous network of top-down rule by global elites (“globalism” or “global technocracy”), the proliferation of new information technologies (the “Internet Revolution”), as well as the notion that humanity stands at the threshold of realizing one single unified community in which major sources of social conflict have vanished (“global integration”). Globalization is a politically-contested phenomenon about which there are significant disagreements and struggles, with many nationalist and populist movements and leaders worldwide (including Turkey’s Recep Erdoğan, Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, and former US President Donald Trump) pushing back against what they view as its unappealing features.

Fortunately, recent social theory has formulated a more precise concept of globalization than those typically offered by politicians and pundits. Although sharp differences continue to separate participants in the ongoing debate about the term, most contemporary social theorists endorse the view that globalization refers to fundamental changes in the spatial and temporal contours of social existence, according to which the significance of space or territory undergoes shifts in the face of a no less dramatic acceleration in the temporal structure of crucial forms of human activity. Geographical distance is typically measured in time. As the time necessary to connect distinct geographical locations is reduced, distance or space undergoes compression or “annihilation.” The human experience of space is intimately connected to the temporal structure of those activities by means of which we experience space. Changes in the temporality of human activity inevitably generate altered experiences of space or territory. Theorists of globalization disagree about the precise sources of recent shifts in the spatial and temporal contours of human life. Nonetheless, they generally agree that alterations in humanity’s experiences of space and time are working to undermine the importance of local and even national boundaries in many arenas of human endeavor. Since globalization contains far-reaching implications for virtually every facet of human life, it necessarily suggests the need to rethink key questions of normative political theory.

1. Globalization in the History of Ideas

2. globalization in contemporary social theory, 3. the normative challenges of globalization, other internet resources, related entries.

The term globalization has only become commonplace in the last three decades, and academic commentators who employed the term as late as the 1970s accurately recognized the novelty of doing so (Modelski 1972). At least since the advent of industrial capitalism, however, intellectual discourse has been replete with allusions to phenomena strikingly akin to those that have garnered the attention of recent theorists of globalization. Nineteenth and twentieth-century philosophy, literature, and social commentary include numerous references to an inchoate yet widely shared awareness that experiences of distance and space are inevitably transformed by the emergence of high-speed forms of transportation (for example, rail and air travel) and communication (the telegraph or telephone) that dramatically heighten possibilities for human interaction across existing geographical and political divides (Harvey 1989; Kern 1983). Long before the introduction of the term globalization into recent popular and scholarly debate, the appearance of novel high-speed forms of social activity generated extensive commentary about the compression of space.

Writing in 1839, an English journalist commented on the implications of rail travel by anxiously postulating that as distance was “annihilated, the surface of our country would, as it were, shrivel in size until it became not much bigger than one immense city” (Harvey 1996, 242). A few years later, Heinrich Heine, the émigré German-Jewish poet, captured this same experience when he noted: “space is killed by the railways. I feel as if the mountains and forests of all countries were advancing on Paris. Even now, I can smell the German linden trees; the North Sea’s breakers are rolling against my door” (Schivelbusch 1978, 34). Another young German émigré, the socialist theorist Karl Marx, in 1848 formulated the first theoretical explanation of the sense of territorial compression that so fascinated his contemporaries. In Marx’s account, the imperatives of capitalist production inevitably drove the bourgeoisie to “nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, and establish connections everywhere.” The juggernaut of industrial capitalism constituted the most basic source of technologies resulting in the annihilation of space, helping to pave the way for “intercourse in every direction, universal interdependence of nations,” in contrast to a narrow-minded provincialism that had plagued humanity for untold eons (Marx 1848, 476). Despite their ills as instruments of capitalist exploitation, Marx argued, new technologies that increased possibilities for human interaction across borders ultimately represented a progressive force in history. They provided the necessary infrastructure for a cosmopolitan future socialist civilization, while simultaneously functioning in the present as indispensable organizational tools for a working class destined to undertake a revolution no less oblivious to traditional territorial divisions than the system of capitalist exploitation it hoped to dismantle.

European intellectuals have hardly been alone in their fascination with the experience of territorial compression, as evinced by the key role played by the same theme in early twentieth-century American thought. In 1904, the literary figure Henry Adams diagnosed the existence of a “law of acceleration,” fundamental to the workings of social development, in order to make sense of the rapidly changing spatial and temporal contours of human activity. Modern society could only be properly understood if the seemingly irrepressible acceleration of basic technological and social processes was given a central place in social and historical analysis (Adams 1931 [1904]). John Dewey argued in 1927 that recent economic and technological trends implied the emergence of a “new world” no less noteworthy than the opening up of America to European exploration and conquest in 1492. For Dewey, the invention of steam, electricity, and the telephone offered formidable challenges to relatively static and homogeneous forms of local community life that had long represented the main theatre for most human activity. Economic activity increasingly exploded the confines of local communities to a degree that would have stunned our historical predecessors, for example, while the steamship, railroad, automobile, and air travel considerably intensified rates of geographical mobility. Dewey went beyond previous discussions of the changing temporal and spatial contours of human activity, however, by suggesting that the compression of space posed fundamental questions for democracy. Dewey observed that small-scale political communities (for example, the New England township), a crucial site for the exercise of effective democratic participation, seemed ever more peripheral to the great issues of an interconnected world. Increasingly dense networks of social ties across borders rendered local forms of self-government ineffective. Dewey wondered, “How can a public be organized, we may ask, when literally it does not stay in place?” (Dewey 1927, 140). To the extent that democratic citizenship minimally presupposes the possibility of action in concert with others, how might citizenship be sustained in a social world subject to ever more astonishing possibilities for movement and mobility? New high-speed technologies attributed a shifting and unstable character to social life, as demonstrated by increased rates of change and turnover in many arenas of activity (most important perhaps, the economy) directly affected by them, and the relative fluidity and inconstancy of social relations there. If citizenship requires some modicum of constancy and stability in social life, however, did not recent changes in the temporal and spatial conditions of human activity bode poorly for political participation? How might citizens come together and act in concert when contemporary society’s “mania for motion and speed” made it difficult for them even to get acquainted with one another, let alone identify objects of common concern? (Dewey 1927, 140).

The unabated proliferation of high-speed technologies is probably the main source of the numerous references in intellectual life since 1950 to the annihilation of distance. The Canadian cultural critic Marshall McLuhan made the theme of a technologically based “global village,” generated by social “acceleration at all levels of human organization,” the centerpiece of an anxiety-ridden analysis of new media technologies in the 1960s (McLuhan 1964, 103). Arguing in the 1970s and 1980s that recent shifts in the spatial and temporal contours of social life exacerbated authoritarian political trends, the French social critic Paul Virilio seemed to confirm many of Dewey’s darkest worries about the decay of democracy. According to his analysis, the high-speed imperatives of modern warfare and weapons systems strengthened the executive and debilitated representative legislatures. The compression of territory thereby paved the way for executive-centered emergency government (Virilio 1977). But it was probably the German philosopher Martin Heidegger who most clearly anticipated contemporary debates about globalization. Heidegger not only described the “abolition of distance” as a constitutive feature of our contemporary condition, but he linked recent shifts in spatial experience to no less fundamental alterations in the temporality of human activity: “All distances in time and space are shrinking. Man now reaches overnight, by places, places which formerly took weeks and months of travel” (Heidegger 1950, 165). Heidegger also accurately prophesied that new communication and information technologies would soon spawn novel possibilities for dramatically extending the scope of virtual reality : “Distant sites of the most ancient cultures are shown on film as if they stood this very moment amidst today’s street traffic…The peak of this abolition of every possibility of remoteness is reached by television, which will soon pervade and dominate the whole machinery of communication” (Heidegger 1950, 165). Heidegger’s description of growing possibilities for simultaneity and instantaneousness in human experience ultimately proved no less apprehensive than the views of many of his predecessors. In his analysis, the compression of space increasingly meant that from the perspective of human experience “everything is equally far and equally near.” Instead of opening up new possibilities for rich and multi-faceted interaction with events once distant from the purview of most individuals, the abolition of distance tended to generate a “uniform distanceless” in which fundamentally distinct objects became part of a bland homogeneous experiential mass (Heidegger 1950, 166). The loss of any meaningful distinction between “nearness” and “distance” contributed to a leveling down of human experience, which in turn spawned an indifference that rendered human experience monotonous and one-dimensional.

Since the mid-1980s, social theorists have moved beyond the relatively underdeveloped character of previous reflections on the compression or annihilation of space to offer a rigorous conception of globalization. To be sure, major disagreements remain about the precise nature of the causal forces behind globalization, with David Harvey (1989 1996) building directly on Marx’s pioneering explanation of globalization, while others (Giddens 19990; Held, McGrew, Goldblatt & Perraton 1999) question the exclusive focus on economic factors characteristic of the Marxist approach. Nonetheless, a consensus about the basic rudiments of the concept of globalization appears to be emerging.

First, recent analysts associate globalization with deterritorialization , according to which a growing variety of social activities takes place irrespective of the geographical location of participants. As Jan Aart Scholte observes, “global events can – via telecommunication, digital computers, audiovisual media, rocketry and the like – occur almost simultaneously anywhere and everywhere in the world” (Scholte 1996, 45). Globalization refers to increased possibilities for action between and among people in situations where latitudinal and longitudinal location seems immaterial to the social activity at hand. Even though geographical location remains crucial for many undertakings (for example, farming to satisfy the needs of a local market), deterritorialization manifests itself in many social spheres. Business people on different continents now engage in electronic commerce; academics make use of the latest Internet conferencing equipment to organize seminars in which participants are located at disparate geographical locations; the Internet allows people to communicate instantaneously with each other notwithstanding vast geographical distances separating them. Territory in the sense of a traditional sense of a geographically identifiable location no longer constitutes the whole of “social space” in which human activity takes places. In this initial sense of the term, globalization refers to the spread of new forms of non-territorial social activity (Ruggie 1993; Scholte 2000).

Second, theorists conceive of globalization as linked to the growth of social interconnectedness across existing geographical and political boundaries. In this view, deterritorialization is a crucial facet of globalization. Yet an exclusive focus on it would be misleading. Since the vast majority of human activities is still tied to a concrete geographical location, the more decisive facet of globalization concerns the manner in which distant events and forces impact on local and regional endeavors (Tomlinson 1999, 9). For example, this encyclopedia might be seen as an example of a deterritorialized social space since it allows for the exchange of ideas in cyberspace. The only prerequisite for its use is access to the Internet. Although substantial inequalities in Internet access still exist, use of the encyclopedia is in principle unrelated to any specific geographical location. However, the reader may very well be making use of the encyclopedia as a supplement to course work undertaken at a school or university. That institution is not only located at a specific geographical juncture, but its location is probably essential for understanding many of its key attributes: the level of funding may vary according to the state or region where the university is located, or the same academic major might require different courses and readings at a university in China, for example, than in Argentina or Norway. Globalization refers to those processes whereby geographically distant events and decisions impact to a growing degree on “local” university life. For example, the insistence by powerful political leaders in wealthy countries that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) or World Bank recommend to Latin and South American countries that they commit themselves to a particular set of economic policies might result in poorly paid teachers and researchers as well as large, understaffed lecture classes in São Paolo or Lima; the latest innovations in information technology from a computer research laboratory in India could quickly change the classroom experience of students in British Columbia or Tokyo. Globalization refers “to processes of change which underpin a transformation in the organization of human affairs by linking together and expanding human activity across regions and continents” (Held, McGrew, Goldblatt & Perraton 1999, 15). Globalization in this sense is a matter of degree since any given social activity might influence events more or less faraway: even though a growing number of activities seems intermeshed with events in distant continents, certain human activities remain primarily local or regional in scope. Also, the magnitude and impact of the activity might vary: geographically removed events could have a relatively minimal or a far more extensive influence on events at a particular locality. Finally, we might consider the degree to which interconnectedness across frontiers is no longer merely haphazard but instead predictable and regularized (Held, McGrew, Goldblatt & Perraton 1999).

Third, globalization must also include reference to the speed or velocity of social activity. Deterritorialization and interconnectedness initially seem chiefly spatial in nature. Yet it is easy to see how these spatial shifts are directly tied to the acceleration of crucial forms of social activity. As we observed above in our discussion of the conceptual forerunners to the present-day debate on globalization, the proliferation of high-speed transportation, communication, and information technologies constitutes the most immediate source for the blurring of geographical and territorial boundaries that prescient observers have diagnosed at least since the mid-nineteenth century. The compression of space presupposes rapid-fire forms of technology; shifts in our experiences of territory depend on concomitant changes in the temporality of human action. High-speed technology only represents the tip of the iceberg, however. The linking together and expanding of social activities across borders is predicated on the possibility of relatively fast flows and movements of people, information, capital, and goods. Without these fast flows, it is difficult to see how distant events could possibly posses the influence they now enjoy. High-speed technology plays a pivotal role in the velocity of human affairs. But many other factors contribute to the overall pace and speed of social activity. The organizational structure of the modern capitalist factory offers one example; certain contemporary habits and inclinations, including the “mania for motion and speed” described by Dewey, represent another. Deterritorialization and the expansion of interconnectedness are intimately tied to the acceleration of social life, while social acceleration itself takes many different forms (Eriksen 2001; Rosa 2013). Here as well, we can easily see why globalization is always a matter of degree. The velocity or speed of flows, movements, and interchanges across borders can vary no less than their magnitude, impact, or regularity.

Fourth, even though analysts disagree about the causal forces that generate globalization, most agree that globalization should be conceived as a relatively long-term process . The triad of deterritorialization, interconnectedness, and social acceleration hardly represents a sudden or recent event in contemporary social life. Globalization is a constitutive feature of the modern world, and modern history includes many examples of globalization (Giddens 1990). As we saw above, nineteenth-century thinkers captured at least some of its core features; the compression of territoriality composed an important element of their lived experience. Nonetheless, some contemporary theorists believe that globalization has taken a particularly intense form in recent decades, as innovations in communication, transportation, and information technologies (for example, computerization) have generated stunning new possibilities for simultaneity and instantaneousness (Harvey 1989). In this view, present-day intellectual interest in the problem of globalization can be linked directly to the emergence of new high-speed technologies that tend to minimize the significance of distance and heighten possibilities for deterritorialization and social interconnectedness. Although the intense sense of territorial compression experienced by so many of our contemporaries is surely reminiscent of the experiences of earlier generations, some contemporary writers nonetheless argue that it would be mistaken to obscure the countless ways in which ongoing transformations of the spatial and temporal contours of human experience are especially far-reaching. While our nineteenth-century predecessors understandably marveled at the railroad or the telegraph, a comparatively vast array of social activities is now being transformed by innovations that accelerate social activity and considerably deepen longstanding trends towards deterritorialization and social interconnectedness. To be sure, the impact of deterritorialization, social interconnectedness, and social acceleration are by no means universal or uniform: migrant workers engaging in traditional forms of low-wage agricultural labor in the fields of southern California, for example, probably operate in a different spatial and temporal context than the Internet entrepreneurs of San Francisco or Seattle. Distinct assumptions about space and time often coexist uneasily during a specific historical juncture (Gurvitch 1964). Nonetheless, the impact of recent technological innovations is profound, and even those who do not have a job directly affected by the new technology are shaped by it in innumerable ways as citizens and consumers (Eriksen 2001, 16).

Fifth, globalization should be understood as a multi-pronged process, since deterritorialization, social interconnectedness, and acceleration manifest themselves in many different (economic, political, and cultural) arenas of social activity. Although each facet of globalization is linked to the core components of globalization described above, each consists of a complex and relatively autonomous series of empirical developments, requiring careful examination in order to disclose the causal mechanisms specific to it (Held, McGrew, Goldblatt & Perraton 1999). Each manifestation of globalization also generates distinct conflicts and dislocations. For example, there is substantial empirical evidence that cross-border flows and exchanges (of goods, people, information, etc.), as well as the emergence of directly transnational forms of production by means of which a single commodity is manufactured simultaneously in distant corners of the globe, are gaining in prominence (Castells 1996). High-speed technologies and organizational approaches are employed by transnationally operating firms, the so-called “global players,” with great effectiveness. The emergence of “around-the-world, around-the-clock” financial markets, where major cross-border financial transactions are made in cyberspace at the blink of an eye, represents a familiar example of the economic face of globalization. Global financial markets also challenge traditional attempts by liberal democratic nation-states to rein in the activities of bankers, spawning understandable anxieties about the growing power and influence of financial markets over democratically elected representative institutions. In political life, globalization takes a distinct form, though the general trends towards deterritorialization, interconnectedness across borders, and the acceleration of social activity are fundamental here as well. Transnational movements, in which activists employ rapid-fire communication technologies to join forces across borders in combating ills that seem correspondingly transnational in scope (for example, the depletion of the ozone layer), offer an example of political globalization (Tarrow 2005). Another would be the tendency towards ambitious supranational forms of social and economic lawmaking and regulation, where individual nation-states cooperate to pursue regulation whose jurisdiction transcends national borders no less than the cross-border economic processes that undermine traditional modes of nation state-based regulation. Political scientists typically describe such supranational organizations (the European Union, for example, or United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA) as important manifestations of political and legal globalization. The proliferation of supranational organizations has been no less conflict-laden than economic globalization, however. Critics insist that local, regional, and national forms of self-government are being supplanted by insufficiently democratic forms of global governance remote from the needs of ordinary citizens (Maus 2006; Streeck 2016). In contrast, defenders describe new forms of supranational legal and political decision as indispensable forerunners to more inclusive and advanced forms of self-government, even as they worry about existing democratic deficits and technocratic traits (Habermas 2015).

The wide-ranging impact of globalization on human existence means that it necessarily touches on many basic philosophical and political-theoretical questions. At a minimum, globalization suggests that academic philosophers in the rich countries of the West should pay closer attention to the neglected voices and intellectual traditions of peoples with whom our fate is intertwined in ever more intimate ways (Dallmayr 1998). In this section, however, we focus exclusively on the immediate challenges posed by globalization to normative political theory.

Western political theory has traditionally presupposed the existence of territorially bound communities, whose borders can be more or less neatly delineated from those of other communities. In this vein, the influential liberal political philosopher John Rawls described bounded communities whose fundamental structure consisted of “self-sufficient schemes of cooperation for all the essential purposes of human life” (Rawls 1993, 301). Although political and legal thinkers historically have exerted substantial energy in formulating defensible normative models of relations between states (Nardin and Mapel 1992), like Rawls they typically have relied on a clear delineation of “domestic” from “foreign” affairs. In addition, they have often argued that the domestic arena represents a normatively privileged site, since fundamental normative ideals and principles (for example, liberty or justice) are more likely to be successfully realized in the domestic arena than in relations among states. According to one influential strand within international relations theory, relations between states are more-or-less lawless. Since the achievement of justice or democracy, for example, presupposes an effective political sovereign, the lacuna of sovereignty at the global level means that justice and democracy are necessarily incomplete and probably unattainable there. In this conventional realist view of international politics, core features of the modern system of sovereign states relegate the pursuit of western political thought’s most noble normative goals primarily to the domestic arena (Mearsheimer 2003.) Significantly, some prominent mid-century proponents of international realism rejected this position’s deep hostility to international law and supranational political organization, in part because they presciently confronted challenges that we now typically associate with intensified globalization (Scheuerman 2011).

Globalization poses a fundamental challenge to each of these traditional assumptions. It is no longer self-evident that nation-states can be described as “self-sufficient schemes of cooperation for all the essential purposes of human life” in the context of intense deterritorialization and the spread and intensification of social relations across borders. The idea of a bounded community seems suspect given recent shifts in the spatio-temporal contours of human life. Even the most powerful and privileged political units are now subject to increasingly deterritorialized activities (for example, global financial markets or digitalized mass communication) over which they have limited control, and they find themselves nested in webs of social relations whose scope explodes the confines of national borders. Of course, in much of human history social relations have transcended existing political divides. However, globalization implies a profound quantitative increase in and intensification of social relations of this type. While attempts to offer a clear delineation of the “domestic” from the “foreign” probably made sense at an earlier juncture in history, this distinction no longer accords with core developmental trends in many arenas of social activity. As the possibility of a clear division between domestic and foreign affairs dissipates, the traditional tendency to picture the domestic arena as a privileged site for the realization of normative ideals and principles becomes problematic as well. As an empirical matter, the decay of the domestic-foreign frontier seems highly ambivalent, since it might easily pave the way for the decay of the more attractive attributes of domestic political life: as “foreign” affairs collapse inward onto “domestic” political life, the insufficiently lawful contours of the former make disturbing inroads onto the latter (Scheuerman 2004). As a normative matter, however, the disintegration of the domestic-foreign divide probably calls for us to consider, to a greater extent than ever before, how our fundamental normative commitments about political life can be effectively achieved on a global scale. If we take the principles of justice or democracy seriously, for example, it is no longer self-evident that the domestic arena is the exclusive or perhaps even main site for their pursuit, since domestic and foreign affairs are now deeply and irrevocably intermeshed. In a globalizing world, the lack of democracy or justice in the global setting necessarily impacts deeply on the pursuit of justice or democracy at home. Indeed, it may no longer be possible to achieve our normative ideals at home without undertaking to do so transnationally as well.

To claim, for example, that questions of distributive justice have no standing in the making of foreign affairs represents at best empirical naivete about economic globalization. At worst, it constitutes a disingenuous refusal to grapple with the fact that the material existence of those fortunate enough to live in the rich countries is inextricably tied to the material status of the vast majority of humanity residing in poor and underdeveloped regions. Growing material inequality spawned by economic globalization is linked to growing domestic material inequality in the rich democracies (Falk 1999; Pogge 2002). Similarly, in the context of global warming and the destruction of the ozone layer, a dogmatic insistence on the sanctity of national sovereignty risks constituting a cynical fig leaf for irresponsible activities whose impact extends well beyond the borders of those countries most directly responsible. Global warming and ozone-depletion cry out for ambitious forms of transnational cooperation and regulation, and the refusal by the rich democracies to accept this necessity implies a failure to take the process of globalization seriously when doing so conflicts with their immediate material interests. Although it might initially seem to be illustrative of clever Realpolitik on the part of the culpable nations to ward off strict cross-border environmental regulation, their stubbornness is probably short-sighted: global warming and ozone depletion will affect the children of Americans who drive gas-guzzling SUVs or use environmentally unsound air-conditioning as well as the future generations of South Africa or Afghanistan (Cerutti 2007). If we keep in mind that environmental degradation probably impacts negatively on democratic politics (for example, by undermining its legitimacy and stability), the failure to pursue effective transnational environmental regulation potentially undermines democracy at home as well as abroad.

Philosophers and political theorists have eagerly addressed the normative and political implications of our globalizing world. A lively debate about the possibility of achieving justice at the global level pits representatives of cosmopolitanism against myriad communitarians, nationalists, realists, and others who privilege the nation-state and moral, political, and social ties resting on it (Lieven 2020; Tamir 2019). In contrast, cosmopolitans tend to underscore our universal obligations to those who reside faraway and with whom we may share little in the way of language, custom, or culture, oftentimes arguing that claims to “justice at home” can and should be applied elsewhere as well (Beardsworth 2011; Beitz 1999; Caney 2006; Wallace-Brown & Held 2010). In this way, cosmopolitanism builds directly on the universalistic impulses of modern moral and political thought. Cosmopolitanism’s critics dispute the view that our obligations to foreigners possess the same status as those to members of particular local and national communities of which we remain very much a part. They by no means deny the need to redress global inequality, for example, but they often express skepticism in the face of cosmopolitanism’s tendency to defend significant legal and political reforms as necessary to address the inequities of a planet where millions of people a year die of starvation or curable diseases (Miller 2007; 2013; Nagel 2005). Nor do cosmopolitanism’s critics necessarily deny that the process of globalization is real, though some of them suggest that its impact has been grossly exaggerated (Kymlicka 1999; Nussbaum et al . 1996; Streeck 2016). Nonetheless, they doubt that humanity has achieved a rich or sufficiently articulated sense of a common fate such that far-reaching attempts to achieve greater global justice (for example, substantial redistribution from the rich to poor) could prove successful. Cosmopolitans not only counter with a flurry of universalist and egalitarian moral arguments, but they also accuse their opponents of obscuring the threat posed by globalization to the particular forms of national community whose ethical primacy communitarians, nationalists, and others endorse. From the cosmopolitan perspective, the tendency to favor moral and political obligations to fellow members of the nation-state represents a misguided and increasingly reactionary nostalgia for a rapidly decaying constellation of political practices and institutions.

A similar divide characterizes the ongoing debate about the prospects of democratic institutions at the global level. In a cosmopolitan mode, Daniele Archibugi (2008) and the late David Held (1995) have argued that globalization requires the extension of liberal democratic institutions (including the rule of law and elected representative institutions) to the transnational level. Nation state-based liberal democracy is poorly equipped to deal with deleterious side effects of present-day globalization such as ozone depletion or burgeoning material inequality. In addition, a growing array of genuinely transnational forms of activity calls out for correspondingly transnational modes of liberal democratic decision-making. According to this model, “local” or “national” matters should remain under the auspices of existing liberal democratic institutions. But in those areas where deterritorialization and social interconnectedness across national borders are especially striking, new transnational institutions (for example, cross-border referenda), along with a dramatic strengthening and further democratization of existing forms of supranational authority (in particular, the United Nations), are necessary if we are to assure that popular sovereignty remains an effective principle. In the same spirit, cosmopolitans debate whether a loose system of global “governance” suffices, or instead cosmopolitan ideals require something along the lines of a global “government” or state (Cabrera 2011; Scheuerman 2014). Jürgen Habermas, a prominent cosmopolitan-minded theorist, has tried to formulate a defense of the European Union that conceives of it as a key stepping stone towards supranational democracy. If the EU is to help succeed in salvaging the principle of popular sovereignty in a world where the decay of nation state-based democracy makes democracy vulnerable, the EU will need to strengthen its elected representative organs and better guarantee the civil, political, and social and economic rights of all Europeans (Habermas 2001, 58–113; 2009). Representing a novel form of postnational constitutionalism, it potentially offers some broader lessons for those hoping to save democratic constitutionalism under novel global conditions. Despite dire threats to the EU posed by nationalist and populist movements, Habermas and other cosmopolitan-minded intellectuals believe that it can be effectively reformed and preserved (Habermas 2012).

In opposition to Archibugi, Held, Habermas, and other cosmopolitans, skeptics underscore the purportedly utopian character of such proposals, arguing that democratic politics presupposes deep feelings of trust, commitment, and belonging that remain uncommon at the postnational and global levels. Largely non-voluntary commonalities of belief, history, and custom compose necessary preconditions of any viable democracy, and since these commonalities are missing beyond the sphere of the nation-state, global or cosmopolitan democracy is doomed to fail (Archibugi, Held, and Koehler 1998; Lieven 2020). Critics inspired by realist international theory argue that cosmopolitanism obscures the fundamentally pluralistic, dynamic, and conflictual nature of political life on our divided planet. Notwithstanding its pacific self-understanding, cosmopolitan democracy inadvertently opens the door to new and even more horrible forms of political violence. Cosmpolitanism’s universalistic normative discourse not only ignores the harsh and unavoidably agonistic character of political life, but it also tends to serve as a convenient ideological cloak for terrible wars waged by political blocs no less self-interested than the traditional nation state (Zolo 1997, 24).

Ongoing political developments suggest that such debates are of more than narrow scholarly interest. Until recently, some of globalization’s key prongs seemed destined to transform human affairs in seemingly permanent ways: economic globalization, as well as the growth of a panoply of international and global political and legal institutions, continued to transpire at a rapid rate. Such institutional developments, it should be noted, were interpreted by some cosmopolitan theorists as broadly corroborating their overall normative aspirations. With the resurgence of nationalist and populist political movements, many of which diffusely (and sometimes misleadingly) target elements of globalization, globalization’s future prospects seem increasingly uncertain. For example, with powerful political leaders regularly making disdainful remarks about the UN and EU, it seems unclear whether one of globalization’s most striking features, i.e., enhanced political and legal decision-making “beyond the nation state,” will continue unabated. Tragically perhaps, the failure to manage economic globalization so as to minimize avoidable inequalities and injustices has opened the door to a nationalist and populist backlash, with many people now ready to embrace politicians and movements promising to push back against “free trade,” relatively porous borders (for migrants and refugees), and other manifestations of globalization (Stiglitz 2018). Even if it seems unlikely that nationalists or populists can succeed in fully halting, let alone reversing, structural trends towards deterritorialization, intensified interconnectedness, and social acceleration, they may manage to reshape them in ways that cosmopolitans are likely to find alarming. Whether or not nationalists and populists can successfully respond to many fundamental global challenges (e.g., climate change or nuclear proliferation), however, remains far less likely.

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Globalization: theory and experience

Globalization: theory and experience.’Globalization’ is a favourite catchphrase of journalists and politicians. It has also become a key idea for business theory and practice, and entered academic debates. But what people mean by ‘globalization’ is often confused and confusing. Here we examine some key themes in the theory and experience of globalization.

Contents : introduction · globalization: delocalization and supraterritoriality · risk, technological innovation and globalization · globalization and the rise of the multinationals and branding · capitalism, markets, instability and division · conclusion · further reading and references · links · how to cite this article

See, also, globalization and the incorporation of education

‘Globalization’ is commonly used as a shorthand way of describing the spread and connectedness of production, communication and technologies across the world. That spread has involved the interlacing of economic and cultural activity. Rather confusingly, ‘globalization’ is also used by some to refer to the efforts of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and others to create a global free market for goods and services. This political project, while being significant – and potentially damaging for a lot of poorer nations – is really a means to exploit the larger process. Globalization in the sense of connectivity in economic and cultural life across the world, has been growing for centuries. However, many believe the current situation is of a fundamentally different order to what has gone before. The speed of communication and exchange, the complexity and size of the networks involved, and the sheer volume of trade, interaction and risk give what we now label as ‘globalization’ a peculiar force.

With increased economic interconnection has come deep-seated political changes – poorer, ‘peripheral’, countries have become even more dependent on activities in ‘central’ economies such as the USA where capital and technical expertise tend to be located. There has also been a shift in power away from the nation state and toward, some argue, multinational corporations. We have also witnessed the rise and globalization of the ‘brand’. It isn’t just that large corporations operate across many different countries – they have also developed and marketed products that could be just as well sold in Peking as in Washington. Brands like Coca Cola, Nike, Sony, and a host of others have become part of the fabric of vast numbers of people’s lives.

Globalization involves the diffusion of ideas, practices and technologies. It is something more than internationalization and universalization. It isn’t simply modernization or westernization. It is certainly isn’t just the liberalization of markets. Anthony Giddens (1990: 64) has described globalization as ‘the intensification of worldwide social relations which link distant localities in such a way that local happenings are shaped by events occurring many miles away and vice versa’. This involves a change in the way we understand geography and experience localness. As well as offering opportunity it brings with considerable risks linked, for example, to technological change. More recently, Michael Mann has commented:

… what is generally called globalization involved the extension of distinct relations of ideological, economic, military, and political power across the world. Concretely, in the period after 1945 this means the diffusion of ideologies like liberalism and socialism, the spread of the capitalist mode of production, the extension of military striking ranges, and the extension of nation-states across the world, at first with two empires and then with just one surviving. (Mann 2013: 11)

Globalization, thus, has powerful economic, political, cultural and social dimensions. Here we want to focus on four themes that appear with some regularity in the literature:

• de-localization and supraterritoriality;
• the speed and power of technological innovation and the associated growth of risk;
• the rise of multinational corporations; and
• the extent to which the moves towards the creation of (global) free markets to leads to instability and division.

Globalization: delocalization and supraterritoriality

Manuel Castells (1996) has argued persuasively that in the last twenty years or so of the twentieth century, a new economy emerged around the world. He characterizes it as a new brand of capitalism that has three fundamental features:

Productivity and competitiveness are, by and large, a function of knowledge generation and information processing; firms and territories are organized in networks of production, management and distribution; the core economic activities are global – that is, they have the capacity to work as a unit in real time, or chosen time, on a planetary scale. (Castells 2001: 52)

This last idea runs through a lot of the discussion of globalization.

Globalization and de-localization. Many of the activities that previously involved face-to-face interaction, or that were local, are now conducted across great distances. There has been a significant de-localization in social and economic exchanges. Activities and relationships have been uprooted from local origins and cultures (Gray 1999: 57). One important element in this has been the separation of work from the home (and the classic move to the suburbs – see Putnam’s discussion of the impact on this on local social relations). But de-localization goes well beyond this. Increasingly people have to deal with distant systems in order that they may live their lives. Banking and retailing, for example, have adopted new technologies that involve people in less face-to-face interaction. Your contact at the bank is in a call centre many miles away; when you buy goods on the internet the only person you might speak to is the delivery driver. In this last example we move beyond simple notions of distance and territory into a new realm (and this is what Scholte is especially concerned with when he talks of globalization). When we buy books from an internet supplier like Amazon our communications pass through a large number of computers and routers and may well travel thousands of miles; the computers taking our orders can be on a different continent; and the books can be located anywhere in the world. The ‘spaces’ we inhabit when using the internet to buy things or to communicate (via things like chatrooms and bulletin boards) can allow us to develop a rather different sense of place and of the community to which we belong.

Not everything is global, of course. Most employment, for example, is local or regional – but ‘strategically crucial activities and economic factors are networked around a globalized system of inputs and outputs’ (Castells 2001: 52). What happens in local neighbourhoods is increasingly influenced by the activities of people and systems operating many miles away. For example, movements in the world commodity and money markets can have a very significant impact upon people’s lives across the globe. People and systems are increasingly interdependent.

[T]he starting point for understanding the world today is not the size of its GDP or the destructive power of its weapons systems, but the fact that it is so much more joined together than before. It may look like it is made up of separate and sovereign individuals, firms, nations or cities, but the deeper reality is one of multiple connections. (Mulgan 1998: 3)

Businesses are classic example of this. As Castells (2001) noted they are organized around networks of production, management and distribution. Those that are successful have to be able to respond quickly to change – both in the market and in production. Sophisticated information systems are essential in such globalization.

Globalization and the decline in power of national governments. It isn’t just individuals and neighbourhood institutions that have felt the impact of de-localization. A major causality of this process has been a decline in the power of national governments to direct and influence their economies (especially with regard to macroeconomic management). Shifts in economic activity in say, Japan or the United States, are felt in countries all over the globe. The internationalization of financial markets, of technology and of some manufacturing and services bring with them a new set of limitations upon the freedom of action of nation states. In addition, the emergence of institutions such as the World Bank, the European Union and the European Central Bank, involve new constraints and imperatives. Yet while the influence of nation states may have shrunk as part of the process of globalization it has not disappeared. Indeed, they remain, in Hirst and Thompson’s (1996: 170) words, ‘pivotal’ institutions, ‘especially in terms of creating the conditions for effective international governance’. However, we need to examine the way in which national governments frame their thinking about policy. There is a strong argument that the impact of globalization is most felt through the extent to which politics everywhere are now essentially market-driven. ‘It is not just that governments can no longer “manage” their national economies’, Colin Leys (2001: 1) comments, ‘to survive in office they must increasingly “manage” national politics in such a ways as to adapt them to the pressures of trans-national market forces’.

The initiation, or acceleration, of the commodification of public services was… a logical result of government’s increasingly deferential attitude towards market forces in the era of the globalized economy… A good deal of what was needed [for the conversion of non-market spheres into profitable fields for investment] was accomplished by market forces themselves, with only periodic interventions by the state, which then appeared as rational responses to previous changes. (Leys 2001: 214)

In other words, the impact of globalization is less about the direct way in which specific policy choices are made, as the shaping and reshaping of social relations within all countries.

Risk, technological innovation and globalization

As we have already noted, a particular feature of ‘globalization’ is the momentum and power of the change involved. ‘It is the interaction of extraordinary technological innovation combined with world-wide reach that gives today’s change its particular complexion’ (Hutton and Giddens 2001: vii). Developments in the life sciences, and in digital technology and the like, have opened up vast, new possibilities for production and exchange. Innovations like the internet have made it possible to access information and resources across the world – and to coordinate activities in real time.

Globalization and the knowledge economy. Earlier we saw Castells making the point that productivity and competitiveness are, by and large, a function of knowledge generation and information processing. This has involved a major shift – and entails a different way of thinking about economies.

For countries in the vanguard of the world economy, the balance between knowledge and resources has shifted so far towards the former that knowledge has become perhaps the most important factor determining the standard of living – more than land, than tools, than labour. Today’s most technologically advanced economies are truly knowledge-based. (World Bank 1998)

The rise of the so-called ‘knowledge economy’ has meant that economists have been challenged to look beyond labour and capital as the central factors of production. Paul Romer and others have argued that technology (and the knowledge on which it is based) has to be viewed as a third factor in leading economies. (Romer, 1986; 1990). Global finance, thus, becomes just one force driving economies. Knowledge capitalism: ‘the drive to generate new ideas and turn them into commercial products and services which consumers want’ is now just as pervasive and powerful (Leadbeater 2000: 8). Inevitably this leads onto questions around the generation and exploitation of knowledge. There is already a gaping divide between rich and poor nations – and this appears to be accelerating under ‘knowledge capitalism’. There is also a growing gap within societies (see, for example, Stiglitz 2013). Commentators like Charles Leadbeater have argued for the need to ‘innovate and include’ and for a recognition that successful knowledge economies have to take a democratic approach to the spread of knowledge: ‘We must breed an open, inquisitive, challenging and ambitious society’ (Leadbeater 2000: 235, 237). However, there are powerful counter-forces to this ideal. In recent years we have witnessed a significant growth in attempts by large corporations to claim intellectual rights over new discoveries, for example in relation to genetic research, and to reap large profits from licensing use of this ‘knowledge’ to others. There are also significant doubts as to whether ‘modern economies’ are, indeed, ‘knowledge economies’. It doesn’t follow, for example, that only those nations committed to lifelong learning and to creating a learning society will thrive (see Wolf 2002: 13-55).

Globalization and risk. As well as opening up considerable possibility, the employment of new technologies, when combined with the desire for profit and this ‘world-wide’ reach, brings with it particular risks. Indeed, writers like Ulrich Beck (1992: 13) have argued that the gain in power from the ‘techno-economic progress’ is quickly being overshadowed by the production of risks. (Risks in this sense can be viewed as the probability of harm arising from technological and economic change). Hazards linked to industrial production, for example, can quickly spread beyond the immediate context in which they are generated. In other words, risks become globalized.

[Modernization risks] possess an inherent tendency towards globalization . A universalization of hazards accompanies industrial production, independent of the place where they are produced: food chains connect practically everyone on earth to everyone else. They dip under borders. (Beck 1992: 39)

As Beck (1992: 37) has argued there is a boomerang effect in globalization of this kind. Risks can catch up with those who profit or produce from them.

The basic insight lying behind all this is as simple as possible: everything which threatens life on this Earth also threatens the property and commercial interests of those who live from the commodification of life and its requisites. In this way a genuine and systematically intensifying contradiction arises between the profit and property interests that advance the industrialization process and its frequently threatening consequences, which endanger and expropriate possessions and profits (not to mention the possession and profit of life) (Beck 1992: 39).

Here we have one of the central paradoxes of what Beck has termed ‘the risk society’. As knowledge has grown, so has risk. Indeed, it could be argued that the social relationships, institutions and dynamics within which knowledge is produced have accentuated the risks involved. Risk has been globalized.

Globalization and the rise of multinational corporations and branding

A further, crucial aspect of globalization is the nature and power of multinational corporations. Such companies now account for over 33 per cent of world output, and 66 per cent of world trade (Gray 1999: 62). Significantly, something like a quarter of world trade occurs within multinational corporations ( op. cit ). This last point is well illustrated by the operations of car manufacturers who typically source their components from plants situated in different countries. However, it is important not to run away with the idea that the sort of globalization we have been discussing involves multinationals turning, on any large scale, to transnationals:

International businesses are still largely confined to their home territory in terms of their overall business activity; they remain heavily ‘nationally embedded’ and continue to be multinational, rather than transnational, corporations. (Hirst and Thompson 1996: 98).

While full globalization in this organizational sense may not have occurred on a large scale, these large multinational corporations still have considerable economic and cultural power.

Globalization and the impact of multinationals on local communities . Multinationals can impact upon communities in very diverse places. First, they look to establish or contract operations (production, service and sales) in countries and regions where they can exploit cheaper labour and resources. While this can mean additional wealth flowing into those communities, this form of ‘globalization’ entails significant inequalities. It can also mean large scale unemployment in those communities where those industries were previously located. The wages paid in the new settings can be minimal, and worker’s rights and conditions poor. For example, a 1998 survey of special economic zones in China showed that manufacturers for companies like Ralph Lauren, Adidas and Nike were paying as little as 13 cents per hour (a ‘living wage’ in that area is around 87 cents per hour). In the United States workers doing similar jobs might expect US$10 per hour (Klein 2001: 212).

Second, multinationals constantly seek out new or under-exploited markets. They look to increase sales – often by trying to create new needs among different target groups. One example here has been the activities of tobacco companies in southern countries. Another has been the development of the markets predominantly populated by children and young people. In fact the child and youth market has grown into one the most profitable and influential sectors. ‘The young are not only prized not only for the influence they have over adult spending, but also for their own burgeoning spending power’ (Kenway and Bullen 2001: 90). There is increasing evidence that this is having a deep effect; that our view of childhood (especially in northern and ‘developed’ countries) is increasingly the product of ‘consumer-media’ culture. Furthermore, that culture:

… is underpinned in the sweated work of the ‘othered’ children of the so-called ‘Third World’. [W]ith the aid of various media, the commodity form has increasingly become central to the life of the young of the West, constructing their identities and relationships, their emotional and social worlds… [A]dults and schools have been negatively positioned in this matrix to the extent that youthful power and pleasure are constructed as that which happens elsewhere – away from adults and schools and mainly with the aid of commodities. (Kenway and Bullen 2001: 187).

Of course such commodification of everyday life is hardly new. Writers like Erich Fromm were commenting on the phenomenon in the early 1950s. However, there has been a significant acceleration and intensification (and globalization) with the rise of the brand (see below) and a heavier focus on seeking to condition children and young people to construct their identities around brands.

Third, and linked to the above, we have seen the erosion of public space by corporate activities. Significant areas of leisure, for example, have moved from more associational forms like clubs to privatized, commercialized activity. Giroux (2000: 10), for example, charts this with respect to young people

[Y]oung people are increasingly excluded from public spaces outside of schools that once offered them the opportunity to hang out with relative security, work with mentors, and develop their own talents and sense of self-worth. Like the concept of citizenship itself, recreational space is now privatized as commercial profit-making venture. Gone are the youth centers, city public parks, outdoor basketball courts or empty lots where kids call play stick ball. Play areas are now rented out to the highest bidder…

This movement has been well documented in the USA (particularly by Robert Putnam with respect to a decline in social capital and civic community – but did not examine in any depth the role corporations have taken). It has profound implications for the quality of life within communities and the sense of well-being that people experience.

Fourth, multinational companies can also have significant influence with regard to policy formation in many national governments and in transnational bodies such as the European Union and the World Bank (key actors within the globalization process). They have also profited from privatization and the opening up of services. As George Monbiot has argued with respect to Britain, for example: the provision of hospitals, roads and prisons… has been deliberately tailored to meet corporate demands rather than public need’ (2001: 4). He continues:

… biotechnology companies have sought to turn the food chain into a controllable commodity and [there is an] extraordinary web of influence linking them to government ministers and government agencies…. [C]orporations have come to govern key decision-making processes within the European Union and, with the British government’s blessing, begun to develop a transatlantic single market, controlled and run by corporate chief executives. (Monbiot 2001: 5)

While with globalization the power of national governments over macro-economic forces may have been limited in recent years, the services and support they provide for their citizens have been seen as a considerable opportunity for corporations. In addition, national governments still have considerable influence in international organizations – and have therefore become the target of multinationals for action in this arena.

Branding and globalization. The growth of multinationals and the globalization of their impact is wrapped up with the rise of the brand.

The astronomical growth in the wealth and cultural influence of multi-national corporations over the last fifteen years can arguably be traced back to a single, seemingly innocuous idea developed by management theorists in the mid-1980s: that successful corporations must primarily produce brands, as opposed to products. (Klein 2001: 3)

As Naomi Klein (2001: 196) has suggested, ‘brand builders are the new primary producers in our so-called knowledge economy’. One of the key elements that keeps companies as multinationals rather than transnationals is the extent to which they look to ‘outsource’ products, components and services. The logic underlying this runs something like the following:

…. corporations should not expend their finite resources on factories that will demand physical upkeep, on machines that will corrode or on employees who will certainly age and die. Instead, they should concentrate those resources in the virtual brick and mortar used to build their brands

Nike, Levi, Coca Cola and other major companies spend huge sums of money in promoting and sustaining their brands. One strategy is to try and establish particular brands as an integral part of the way people understand, or would like to see, themselves. As we have already seen with respect the operation of multinationals this has had a particular impact on children and young people (and education). There is an attempt ‘to get them young’.

Significantly, the focus on brand rather than the inherent qualities of the product as well as advantaging multinationals in terms of market development also has an Achilles heel. Damage to the brand can do disproportionate harm to sales and profitability. If a brand becomes associated with failure or disgrace (for example where a sports star they use to advertise their brand is exposed as a drug-taker; or where the brand becomes associated in the public’s mind with the exploitation of children – as for example has happened with some of the main trainer makers) then it can face major problems in the marketplace.

Globalization and the multinationals. While there is no doubting the growth in scale and scope of multinational corporations – the degree of control they have over the central dynamics of globalization remains limited.

In reality, they are often weak and amorphous organizations. They display the loss of authority and erosion of common values that afflicts practically all late modern social institutions. The global market is not spawning corporations which assume the past functions of sovereign states. Rather, it has weakened and hollowed out both institutions. (Gray 1999: 63)

While multinationals have played a very significant role in the growth of globalization, it is important not to overplay the degree of control they have had over the central dynamics.

Capitalism, free markets, instability and division

Amartya Sen (2002) has argued that ‘the market economy does not work by itself in global relations–indeed, it cannot operate alone even within a given country’. Yet, for some proponents of globalization the aim is to expand market relations, push back state and interstate interference, and create a global free market. This political project can be seen at work in the activities of transnational organizations like the World Trade Organization (WTO), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), and has been a significant objective of United States intervention. Part of the impetus for this project was the limited success of corporate/state structures in planning and organizing economies. However, even more significant was the growth in influence of neo-liberal ideologies and their promotion by powerful politicians like Reagan in the USA and Thatcher in the UK.

A new orthodoxy became ascendant. In the USA a Democrat President renounced ‘big government’; in Britain, the Labour Party abandoned its commitment to social ownership. The ‘markets were in command’ (Frank 2002: xv). The basic formula ran something like the following:

Privatization + Deregulation + Globalization = Turbo-capitalism = Prosperity

(Luttwak quoted by Frank 2002: 17)

As various commentators have pointed out, the push toward deregulation and ‘setting markets free’ that so dominated political rhetoric in many northern countries during the 1980s and 1990s was deeply flawed. For example, the central tenet of free market economics – that unregulated markets ‘will of their own accord find unimprovable results for all participants’ has, according to Will Hutton (1995: 237), ‘now proved to be a nonsense. It does not hold in theory. It is not true’. Historically, free markets have been dependent upon state power. For markets to function over time they require a reasonable degree of political stability, a solid legal framework and a significant amount of social capital . The push to engineer free markets has contained within it the seeds of its own destruction.

The central paradox of our time can be stated thus: economic globalization does not strengthen the current regime of global laissez-faire . It works to undermine it. There is nothing in today’s global market that buffers it against the social strains arising from high uneven economic development within and between the world’s diverse societies. The swift waxing and waning of industries and livelihoods, the sudden shifts of production and capital, the casino of currency speculation – these conditions trigger political counter-movements that challenge the very ground rules of the global free market. (Gray 1999: 7)

Capitalism is essentially disruptive and ever-changing – and takes very different forms across the world. While it produces wealth for significant numbers of people, many others have suffered. The gap between rich and poor has widened as global capitalism has expanded. For example, David Landes (1999: xx) has calculated that the difference in income per head between the richest nation (he cited Switzerland) and the poorest non-industrial country, Mozambique, is now about 400 to 1. ‘Two hundred and fifty years ago, the gap between richest and poorest was perhaps 5 to 1, and the difference between Europe and, say, East or South Asia (China or India) was around 1.5 or 2 to 1’ ( op. cit. ).

The development of markets, the expansion of economic activity, and the extent to which growing prosperity is experienced by populations as a whole has been, and remains, deeply influenced by public policies around, for example, education, land reform and the legal framework for activity. Economists like Amartya Sen have argued that ‘public action that can radically alter the outcome of local and global economic relations’. For him the:

… central issue of contention is not globalization itself, nor is it the use of the market as an institution, but the inequity in the overall balance of institutional arrangements–which produces very unequal sharing of the benefits of globalization. The question is not just whether the poor, too, gain something from globalization, but whether they get a fair share and a fair opportunity. (Sen 2002)

Strong markets require significant state and transnational intervention. To be sustained across time they also require stable social relationships and an environment of trust. Moreover, they can be organized and framed so that people throughout different societies can benefit.

One commentator has argued that there is a very serious case not against ‘globalization’,

… but against the particular version of it imposed by the world’s financial elites. The brand currently ascendant needlessly widens gaps of wealth and poverty, erodes democracy, seeds instability, and fails even its own test of maximizing sustainable economic growth. (Kuttner 2002)

The gap between rich and poor countries has widened considerably. However, as Sen (2002) has commented, to ‘see globalization as merely Western imperialism of ideas and beliefs (as the rhetoric often suggests) would be a serious and costly error’. He continues:

Of course, there are issues related to globalization that do connect with imperialism (the history of conquests, colonialism, and alien rule remains relevant today in many ways), and a postcolonial understanding of the world has its merits. But it would be a great mistake to see globalization primarily as a feature of imperialism. It is much bigger–much greater–than that.

For example, while the reach and power of multinationals appears to have grown significantly, neither they, nor individual national governments, have the control over macro-economic forces that they would like. Ecological and technological risks have multiplied. Globalization in the sense of connectivity in economic and cultural life across the world, is of a different order to what has gone before. As we said at the start, the speed of communication and exchange, the complexity and size of the networks involved, and the sheer volume of trade, interaction and risk give what we now label as ‘globalization’ a peculiar force.

All this raises particular questions for educators. Has the process of globalization eroded the autonomy of national education systems? How has it impacted on the forms that education now takes? What is the effect of an increased corporate presence and branding in education? What response should educators make? We examine these and other issues in globalization and the incorporation of education .

Further reading and references

Gray, J. (1999) False Dawn. The delusions of global capitalism , London: Granta. 262 pages. A spirited and well argued polemic against the effort to create a global free market. Includes a very useful overview of debates around globalization. Highly recommended.

Landes, D. (1999) The Wealth and Poverty of Nations. Why some are so rich and some are so poor , London: Abacus. 650 + xxi pages. A fascinating overview of the development of the world economy – and why significant differences occur between countries and regions.

Mann, M. (2013).  The Sources of Social Power: Volume 4, Globalizations, 1945-2011 . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. The final part of Mann’s influential exploration of social power, this volume examines the globalizations that occurred since the Second World War via the major macroinstitutions of society: capitalism, the nation state, and empires.

Stiglitz, J. (2002) Globalization and its Discontents , London: Allen Lane. 282 + xxii pages. Important book arguing that the west – acting through the IMF and WTO has seriously mismanaged the process of privatization, liberalization and stabilization. As a result many southern countries are worse off.

Beck, U. (1992) Risk Society , London: Sage.

Beck, U. (1999) What is Globalization? , Cambridge: Polity Press.

Beck, U. (2001) ‘Living your life in a runaway world: individualization, globalization and politics’, in W. Hutton and A. Giddens. (eds.) On The Edge. Living with global capitalism , London: Vintage.

Castells, M. (1996) The Rise of the Networked Society , Oxford: Blackwell.

Castells, M. (2001) ‘Information technology and global capitalism’ in W. Hutton and A. Giddens. (eds.) On The Edge. Living with global capitalism , London: Vintage.

Chossudovsky, M. (1997) The Globalization of Poverty. Impacts of the IMF and World Bank reforms , London: Zed Books.

Cogburn, D. L. (1998) ‘Globalization, knowledge, education and training in the global world’, Conference paper for the InfoEthics98, UNESCO , http://www.unesco.org/webworld/infoethics_2/eng/papers/paper_23.htm

Foreign Policy (2002) ‘Globalization’s last hurrah?’, Foreign Policy , January/February, http://66.113.195.237/issue_janfeb_2002/global_index.html

Fox, J. (2001) Chomsky and Globalization , London: Icon Books.

Frank, T. (2002) One Market Under God. Extreme capitalism, market populism, and the end of economic democracy , London: Vintage.

Gee, J. P., Hull, L. and Lankshear, C. (1996) The New Work Order. Behind the language of the new capitalism , St. Leonards, Aus.: Allen and Unwin.

Giddens, A. (1990) The Consequences of Modernity . Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Giroux, H. A. (2000) Stealing Innocence. Corporate culture’s war on children , New York: Palgrave.

Held, D., McGrew, A., Goldblatt, D. and Perraton, J. (1999) Global Transformations – politics, economics and culture , Cambridge: Polity Press.

Hutton, W. and Giddens, A. (eds.) (2001) On The Edge. Living with global capitalism , London: Vintage.

International Monetary Fund (2000) Globalization: threat or opportunity, International Monetary Fund , corrected January 2002. http://www.imf.org/external/np/exr/ib/2000/041200.htm#II

Kellner, D. (1997) ‘Globalization and the postmodern turn’, UCLA , http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/courses/ed253a/dk/GLOBPM.htm

Klein, N. (2000) No Logo , London: Flamingo.

Kuehn, L (1999) ‘Responding to Globalization of Education in the Americas — Strategies to Support Public Education’, Civil Society Network for Public Education in the Americas – CSNPEA , http://www.vcn.bc.ca/idea/kuehn.htm

Kuttner, R. (2002) ‘Globalization and poverty’, The American Prospect Online , http://www.prospect.org/print/V13/1/global-intro.html.

Leys, C. (2001) Market-Driven Politics. Neoliberal democracy and the public interest , London: Verso Books.

Mann, M. (2013).  The Sources of Social Power: Volume 4, Globalizations, 1945-2011 . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Monbiot, G. (2000) Captive State. The corporate takeover of Britain , London: Pan.

Mount, F. (2012).  The new few: Or, a very British oligarchy . London: Simon & Schuster.

Morozov, E. (2013).  To Save Everything, Click Here: Technology, solutionism, and the urge to fix problems that don’t exist . London: Allan Lane.

Mulgan, G. (1998) Connexity: Responsibility, freedom, business and power in the new century (revised edn.), London: Viking.

Ritzer, G. (1993) The McDonaldization of Society , Thousand Oaks, CA.: Forge Press.

Romer, Paul M. (1986) ‘Increasing Returns and Long-Run Growth’, Journal of Political Economy 94(5), pp.1002-37.

Romer, Paul M. (1990) ‘Endogenous Technological Change’, Journal of Political Economy 98(5), pp. 71-102.

Scholte (1997) ‘Global capitalism and the state’, International Affairs , 73(3) pp. 427-52, http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/scholte.htm

Scholte, J. A. (2000) Globalization. A critical introduction , London: Palgrave.

Sen, A. (2002) ‘How to judge globalization’, The American Prospect Online , http://www.prospect.org/print/V13/1/sen-a.html

Shaw, M. (2001) ‘Review – Jan Aart Scholte: Globalization. A critical introduction’, Milleneum. A journal of international studies , http://www.sussex.ac.uk/Users/hafa3/scholte.htm

Stewart, J. (1992) ‘Guidelines for public service management: lessons not to be learnt from the private sector’, in P. Carter el. al. (eds.) Changing Social Work and Welfare , Buckingham: Open University Press.

Wolf, A. (2002) Does Education Matter. Myths about education and economic growth , London: Penguin.

World Bank. (1999) World Development Report 1998/99: Knowledge for Development . Washington: World Bank. [1999, 9 August]. http://www.worldbank.org/wdr/wdr98/contents.htm .

World Bank Research (2002) ‘Globalization, Growth and Poverty: Building an Inclusive World Economy’, The World Bank Group , http://econ.worldbank.org/prr/subpage.php?sp=2477

The American Prospect – special segment on globalization : helpful collection of articles and links.

Development Gateway Foundation : Useful set of pages on the knowledge economy + plenty of other resources.

Global Policy Forum. Useful set of resources and links that explore the nature of globalization.

No Logo : website linked to Klein’s book with bulletin board and various resources.

World Bank Research on Globalization . Collection of topic papers and reports.

Acknowledgement : Photograph – ‘Globalization’ is by Frederic Poirot – reproduced under a Creative Copmmons – Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 Generic licence [ http://www.flickr.com/photos/fredarmitage/3544394623/ ]

To cite this article : Smith, M. K. and Doyle M. (2002) ‘Globalization’ the encyclopedia of informal education , www.infed.org/biblio/globalization.htm .

© Mark K. Smith and Michele Erina Doyle 2002, 2013

Last Updated on October 19, 2019 by infed.org

Globalisation Theories: World System, Modernisation, Dependency

Introduction – What is globalisation?

International trade has been around for centuries and while globalisation may feel like a modern concept, changes across borders have happened ever since. Silk and spice trade routes in East Asia, which originated in the first century BCE, brought diverse civilizations and linked various nations’ economies. In the 1500s, the British and Dutch import and export empires followed suit in this regard. The development of technology improving transport and communication has facilitated the growth of globalisation which includes sharing of language, culture, wealth and products. There is a large amount of information that is shared between peoples of different cultures and political, social or geographic backgrounds. Economies today are more interdependent than ever which further enhances the process of globalisation.

Globalisation is a word that is commonly used today, but its meaning is sometimes unclear, even among people who use it. Globalisation can be defined as the compression of the world in an attempt to strengthen the consciousness of the entire globe as one, based on a foundation of interdependency.

More than simply products and services are swapped as international trade evolves to become faster and more prevalent. Cultural traditions and ideas are also passed amongst different groups from group to group, which we know as a process termed diffusion. It’s a descriptive term for when material moves from areas of high concentration to areas of low concentration. Ideas and practices spread from locations where they would be well-known to regions where they are new and rarely noticed. Exploration, military conquest, missionary work, and tourism were formerly used to facilitate the exchange of ideas, but technology has dramatically accelerated the rate of diffusion. There is debate on whether globalisation should be seen as a never-ending process as some scholars suggest the possibility of future historians calling the period we are in the ‘era of globalisation’. This would indicate that there is a start date to the globalisation period, the end of the Cold War being a popular option for most.

The Three Globalisation Theories; Explained with Examples

World system theory.

World-systems theory emphasises the significance of the entire globe as a whole instead of individual nations. The world is divided into three regions: core nations, periphery countries, and semi-periphery countries. Countries in Western West Europe and the United States of America are examples of core countries. These countries have a powerful central government that is well-funded through taxes. They are economically diverse, industrialised, and largely self-sufficient. They have a sizable middle and working class, and they prioritise the manufacture of finished commodities above raw materials. Periphery countries generally refer to nations in Latin America and Africa that have unstable governments. They often rely on a single economic activity, which is more often than not, raw material extraction. There is a large proportion of impoverished and illiterate individuals, as well as a small elite class that controls the majority of the economy. As a result, there is a significant disparity in the population. Core nations and transnational firms have a significant impact on these countries. This has the potential to impair the peripheral nations’ future economic prospects.

Semi-periphery states such as India and Brazil fill the gap between the Core and the Periphery. They are not always influential in international commerce, but their economies are broad and advanced. These semi-periphery countries might arise from either Periphery countries climbing up to the modernised Core countries or Core countries descending to Periphery status. The World-Systems Theory is a fluid model, but it has been criticised for being overly focused on the economy and the Core nations, overlooking culture and even class conflicts inside individual countries.

            The United States (core nation) reaps disproportionate gains from economic and political interactions with Brazil (semi-peripheral nation) and Kenya (peripheral nation). The United States has a large, successful economy that is backed by a stable government whereas Brazil has a wide economy but is not an important international player in global trade activities. Meanwhile, Kenya only has the raw materials to offer to both countries and since they have no other buyers, they have to make do with the minimal prices offered by the USA and Brazil.

Modernisation Theory

According to the Modernization theory, all states follow the same route of transition from a traditional to modern society. It implies that traditional countries, with some assistance, may evolve into contemporary countries in the same manner that the modern nations of today emerged in the first place. Modernisation theorists examine the country’s internal factors affecting its progress (eg: economic policies of the country) as it adapts to new technology, as well as the socio-political changes that arise. One myth that modernisation theorists hold onto is that every population is on the path of modernising and that it is always desirable. This ignores the consequences, such as the weakening of bonds within the wider family, rising urban unemployment, and the fragmentation of the country’s current economic structure, and as a result, many ‘underdeveloped’ nations may see modernity in an adverse manner. Modernisation theory’s core argument is that with economic growth and development, any country can become advanced, industrialised and follow the footsteps of Western democratic countries in their goals. There is a strong focus on internal factors within the modernisation theory so much so that they do not consider external influences as a reason for the failure or success of a certain country’s economic progress. Although this theory focuses a lot on a single country, the understanding of this through the lens of globalisation is that modernisation expects developed countries to aid other countries in reaching their economic goals to bring them closer to a modernised society.

            Although there is ample debate on the modernisation theory, there is one commonality between the arguments for and the critique against it. Both sides use Japan as an example. Some regard it as proof that a totally contemporary way of life is possible in a non-Western civilization. Others claim that as a result of modernisation, Japan has grown noticeably more Western.

Dependency Theory

Dependency theory was developed in response to modernization theory, and it employs the concept of Core and Periphery nations from the World-systems theory to examine disparities between countries. Essentially, it is the belief that the poorer periphery or third world nations export raw resources to the rich core or first world countries. This occurs not because they are at a lower stage of development, but because they have been absorbed into the global system as an underdeveloped country. They have their unique structures and traits that are not found in industrialised countries, and they will not become a “core” nation at a rapid pace no matter the amount of external aid received. They are, more often than not, in an undesirable economic situation, which implies they have little potential to progress or develop. The Dependency theorists maintain that underdeveloped nations, if this model continues, will remain poor and dependent on wealthier nations.

Initially, dependency theory was connected mostly with Latin American countries that were embedded in the capitalist system. Resources tend to move from the periphery, or impoverished and undeveloped countries, to the core, or prosperous Western world. This is due to the fact that poorer nations on the periphery tend to offer natural resources and inexpensive labour for items created and sold by corporations in the wealthier, core countries. As time passes there have been various hegemonic cores that have emerged, like the US or previously Britain and before that the Netherlands which then for a period dominated the capitalist system. It’s not necessary that rich countries exploit poorer ones but capitalists exploit workers. For both dependency theorists and world systems theorists, wealth disparity is caused by the global capitalist system as a whole, and the answer for all structuralist thinkers is some kind of communism. Beyond that, import substitute industrialisation or ISI is an example of a suggestion to end dependency between nations. This term translates to something like the ‘Make in India’ movement that is gaining traction today.

            The Philippines embodies the same fundamental reality as other Third World countries. This is the reality of dependent and uneven development, which enriches global corporations and their local partners while impoverishing the poorest people. The omnipresent MNCs, or multinational companies, are the best example of this form of growth.

Benefits and Drawbacks of globalisation

These are just a few theories of globalisation. There are numerous interpretations and perspectives surrounding this process and through these, there are always an increasing number of benefits and/or drawbacks that are realised.

Benefits of globalisation:

• Increased efficiency in the use of resources
• Makes goods and services more accessible
• Promotes collaborations which boost the rate of modernisation
• Enhances Foreign Direct Investments (FDIs) which allows for increased development
• Assists in bringing populations above the poverty line
• Makes people aware of cultures and traditions from other part of the world
• Enables free flow of trade removing all restrictions and barriers
• Sharing of scientific and technological advances is made easier

Drawbacks of globalisation:

• Outsourcing labour reduces employment in the host country
• In countries with large human resources, machinery acquired through globalisation will cause large-scale unemployment
• Ill effects on the environment due to increased travel/traffic and overload of factories
• Processes of Globalisation might not have the same effect on all countries, resulting in economic inequalities
• Labour and Human rights are not kept in focus
• Cultural issues can arise when one culture dominates the other
• Allows Multinational Corporations (MNCs) too much power and liberty

The growing economic disparity between high-income and low-income nations is a cause for concern. And the amount of people living in abject poverty throughout the world is very concerning. However, it is incorrect to conclude that globalisation is to blame for the gap or that nothing can be done to alleviate the situation. On the contrary, low-income nations have taken longer to integrate into the global economy than others, partly due to their policies and partly due to causes beyond their control. Efforts are to be made to prevent globalisation from unfairly aiding the development and prosperity of advanced nations alone either by reevaluating the guidelines for international trade or by simply forcing core countries to foster development in underdeveloped nations.

Shaun Paul is a student at Symbiosis School for Liberal Arts doing a 4 year honours course. His major is International Relations and minors are Political Science and Sociology. He has been writing articles and reports since the age of 12 and has always found solace in researching, on most topics under the sun, and wishes to showcase this passion in his time at the Sociology Group.

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Globalization by David Atkinson LAST REVIEWED: 18 November 2020 LAST MODIFIED: 02 March 2011 DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199743292-0009

Globalization is one of the most vibrant, contested, and debated issues in modern international relations. The process is subject to a wide-ranging number of definitions, but most scholars and observers agree that it represents a global process of increasing economic, cultural, and political interdependence and integration, with deep historical roots. It is a process fostered by liberalized international trade and innovations in information technology and communication, which has been promoted and managed to a greater or lesser degree by international institutions, multinational corporations, national governments (especially the United States), international nongovernmental organizations, and even individuals with access to the Internet. The field is particularly subject to the vagaries of events, and as such it is a dynamic literature that is constantly in flux. Nevertheless, the basic outlines of the field are clear. Economic interdependence remains the most obvious and significant manifestation of globalization. Nevertheless, scholars have increasingly turned their attention to the myriad additional symptoms of this process; in particular, challenges to the state’s primacy, migration, global security concerns, culture, crime, the environment, and technology. It remains a controversial process that has engendered both withering critiques and staunch defenses, while other scholars debate whether the process is irresistible, irrevocable, reversible, or even whether it represents the global reality at all.

Scholars of globalization are well served by a number of excellent general introductory texts. These overviews provide an indispensable entry point for new students, yet they are rigorous enough to provide new insights, approaches, and methodologies for graduate students and experienced scholars. Osterhammel and Petersson 2005 is a brief historical primer that emphasizes globalization’s deep historical antecedents. It is an indispensable guide for those seeking to explore the context of globalization’s most recent iteration. Ritzer 2010 offers an excellent orientation for those seeking a textbook-style introduction to the theory, debates, critiques, and scope of modern globalization. Similarly, Steger 2009 provides a concise but effective introduction to the myriad issues inherent in the subject. Scholte 2005 also provides an accessible overview of the major debates and themes, while stressing the overarching concept of superterritoriality. For those ready to delve into the often eclectic issues and implications raised by globalization in the modern age, Lechner and Boli 2007 presents a diverse assortment of essays and articles that run the gamut of opinion and methodology. Held and McGrew 1999 is an older but nevertheless excellent introduction to the major themes and debates facing globalization scholars. Once oriented in the theory and issues, new researchers will find Friedman 2000 and Greider 1998 excellent introductions to the often vigorous debates regarding the inevitability, impact, and sustainability of political, economic, and cultural globalization.

Friedman, Thomas L. The Lexus and the Olive Tree . Rev. ed. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2000.

Popular journalistic account. Sees the process of globalization as inexorable and irrevocable; posits tension between consumer desires and traditional attachment to community. Insightful anecdotes illuminate the argument, but are increasingly outdated. Often betrays bias toward US-led free-market solutions, and its contrived jargon may grate. Lively introduction, best read in conjunction with Greider 1998 .

Greider, William. One World, Ready or Not: The Manic Logic of Global Capitalism . New York: Simon & Schuster, 1998.

Engaging polemical journalistic treatise against unfettered economic neoliberalism in particular and unregulated global capitalism in general. Sees globalization as a recipe for exploitation and severe economic inequity. Advocates global labor reforms, corrective tariffs, and capital reform. Unashamedly biased toward the left; best read in conjunction with Friedman 2000 .

Held, David, and Anthony McGrew. Global Transformations: Politics, Economics, and Culture . Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1999.

Somewhat dated, but nonetheless an extremely well organized, thorough, and largely objective introduction to globalization and its many facets. Includes well-researched and historically grounded sections on historical precedents, violence, trade, finance, corporations, migration, culture, and environmentalism. Highly recommended to beginning undergraduates and graduate students, who should nevertheless bear in mind its age.

Lechner, Frank J., and John Boli, eds. The Globalization Reader . 3d ed. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2007.

Exceptionally rich collection of essays on various aspects of globalization. Impressive roster of contributors, ranging from esteemed academics to distinguished practitioners, along with statements from international nongovernmental organizations. Offers something for every researcher, from novice undergraduates to experienced scholars. Highly recommended, albeit eclectic, introductory text.

Osterhammel, Jürgen, and Niels P. Petersson. Globalization: A Short History . Translated by Dona Geyer. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005.

Translated from the German original (2003). Short, accessible primer on globalization’s deep historical roots. Brief introductory chapter on theory and concepts, but major focus on historical trends including imperialism, industrialization, emergence of global economy, and modern challenges to globalization. Especially suited to undergraduates and beginning graduate students.

Ritzer, George. Globalization: A Basic Text . Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010.

Thorough, extensive, and coherent introductory textbook. Particularly appropriate for undergraduates and new researchers. Effectively outlines contemporary theories, debates, criticisms, and issues. Includes chapters on historical antecedents, economics, culture, technology, the environment, migration, crime, and inequality.

Scholte, Jan Aart. Globalization: A Critical Introduction . 2d ed. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.

Highly praised theoretical introduction to globalization. Clearly presented and well-organized overview of major debates and concepts. Adopts superterritoriality as its organizing theme. Excellent bibliography provides readers of all levels with directions for future research. Suitable for use in the classroom, while experienced researchers will also benefit.

Steger, Manfred B. Globalization: A Very Short Introduction . Rev. ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.

Recently updated text from a popular series of introductory readers. Wide ranging and instructive despite its brevity. Thematic chapters on historical antecedents, economics, politics, culture, ecology, and ideology. Evident bias toward “compassionate forms of globalization,” which may irritate readers seeking a wholly dispassionate account. Nevertheless, an illuminating brief introductory text.

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Globalization, Its Effects and Theories Essay

Introduction, effects of globalization, marxist theory, realist theory, references list.

Globalization can be defined as a process of redesigning the earth in terms of integrating the economic, political and cultural systems at a global level. It may also be described as an intensification of the knowledge of how the world is through increased consciences. With globalization, integration of economies, cultures and societies have been achieved through diverse means such as communication, trade and transportation (Steger, 2010).

Various factors i.e. technological, political, biological, social, economic and cultural in consolidation make globalization a reality (Dierks, 2001).

Globalization deduces the present events globally in terms of economic, social, political and cultural developments (Reyes, 2001). Some of the trends that indicate globalization include vigorous communication systems, economic growth in terms of global financial reach, and trade at an international level.

Globalization has led to many nations relying on international forms of trade, communication and finance. Today, the world has become more integrated in the way they carry out their transactions. Globalization has enabled the world become like a village in that reaching any part of it has become more cheap, easy, deep and fast through the amalgamation of technologies, markets and governments.

These trends have not been witnessed in the past and are things of the twentieth century up to date. It is with globalization that the social and cultural constraints across geographical boundaries have drawn back and all human activities have been coined to the globe as the focus.

Various theories exist such as the Marxist, realist and liberalist all of which attempt to explain the concept of globalization. Two of the above-mentioned theories are discussed below in order to bring out the meaning of the term explicitly.

This is a theory that was first formulated in 1848 by a socialist theorist Karl Marx. He expressed how territories have been integrated and his explanation was a great fascination to his colleagues. To him, capitalism is crucial as it enabled bourgeoisie flexibility in the sense that they settled, established connections and located all over the globe (Scheuerman, 2002).

Capitalists are ever in the race of gaining competitive advantage over each other by a means of accelerating gains while lowering costs. This possibility is made real by the expansion of markets through liberated flow of goods and services.

Marx incorporated the idea of historical materialism in which history is a chronological event whereby, economies of higher production eradicate those of low production through a natural process (Chatterjee, 2001). Marx heavily focused on capitalism, which is the system with high production whose detection was by use of an economic lens. According to this theory, capitalism has two classes, that is, the capitalists and the proletariat.

Capitalists are those who own production means and the proletariats are those who survive by offering labor for pay. Because of this division, capitalism is seen as contradicting in that understanding the two groups by determining the position and role of each of them play in the society led to class struggle theory (Rupert and Smith, 2002).

According to this theory, the two classes are not in terms whereby the proletariat takes up the role of production from the capitalists eventually leading to communism.

The Marxists see globalization as a realization of predictions by Karl Marx. Marx’s predictions have become true because history goes through stages whereby the current advanced production processes replaces the old ones.

In his theory, Marx elaborates an advanced capitalist society in the sense that the bourgeois continuously improve their production with an aim of getting a cheaper, quicker and proficient means of raising their capital. In order to reach a wider market for their products, the bourgeois have to stretch all over the globe.

Capitalism has to be in a continuous change whereby the competition between the capitalists is expected to create products, advance the old ones and thus improve on the consumer’s intake (Callinicos, 2009).

Capitalism is an international concept in that, firms compete with both the foreign and the local ones and a chance for selecting which products to buy and who to buy from is available; this is very common in the industrialized world. With increased production advancement, no country in the third world can be left without a chance to advance its economy (Robinson, 2008).

With capitalism, there remains a choice for the countries to either join or be left out in the struggle for the advancement of their economy.

All are seen as consumers irrespective of their ethnicity though this does not imply that they have to transact with the international market but it has a bearing that these countries are capable of making payment of which they do. This conversion of their ability into money makes them consumers (Ervin & Smith, 2004).

Nationality and ethnical backgrounds are not to hinder transactions in what so ever. In capitalism, it doesn’t matter whom or which country based on such differences such as religion, culture or language a transaction is carried out with, provided it is carried out well and the goods and services required are obtained (Callinicos, 2009). Classes with common interests merge and this leads to healthy competition in the markets.

According to Marx theory, all must pass through capitalism, which in itself is a dictatorship over the proletariat (Callinicos, 2009). Unlike the other theorists, Marx saw capitalism as a costly and destructive system but he more concentrated on the creativeness this destruction causes.

Capitalism is the final stage in the society which gave a basis for socialism in two major ways; firstly by introducing the technology that could be used to ensure maximum production and secondly, by creation of human beings responsible for supervising this technology.

Marx explains capitalism as a crucial stage that human beings must pass through it. This is because destruction deals with the abolishment of the old in order to attain the new systems of production (Steger, 2011).

In his theory, Marx states that today’s globalization is a form of capitalist imperialism through which the globe continues to experience both economic and social crisis because of the continuous exploitation of the natural resources I order to maximize on the profits (Ervin & Smith, 2004). Globalized capitalism is not sustainable, as it cannot meet the environmental and human needs in sustainably.

Capitalism is anchored on gluttony and profit and therefore, there is need for another societal system that will cater for the environmental and economic factors ensuring sustainability and equity (Robinson, 2008). From a Marxist point of view, Global capitalism is because of dictation from the IMF and World Bank through integration of the financial structure.

Realist theory became entrenched and well understood after the Second World War; where most states embraced formal discipline (Booth, 2011). As the countries strived to pull resources together, it was vital to enhance unity and peace.

Unlike other globalization theories, realist theory endeavor to focus on addressing national security over ideology. This school of thought perceives globalization as power politics.

According to this perception, there is no single actor above the state and therefore the state should always focus mainly on issues that promote national understanding and cohesion. By extension, the two stimulates factors operating within the country and beyond.

The realist theory is founded on six main principles, which are that first human nature is self-seeking, and power inclined (Booth, 2011). Secondly, it is based on an autonomous sphere action, which is purely engraved on politics and its demands. The third principle is differing country interest that stems controversy and other misunderstandings (Booth, 2011).

Fourth principle is conflict that emanates from private morality and political ethics, escalation of the public morality stir misunderstanding and potential unrest. The fifth principle is the political realism that states that no single state has the jurisdiction to govern the entire world.

In addition, no single state has the discretion to transcend its geographical boundary and impose rule upon another. Finally, the six principle is the statecraft; the state of being sober where individuals acts within the stipulated limitations (Chatterjee, 2004).

According to (Chatterjee, 2004) realist theory is built on prevailing peace on the global arena. Despite the importance of peace, it is worth understanding that peace is not the panacea for all problems.

On the same note, globalization does facilitate mobility of factors of production and resources but does not generate solution to all problems. Besides helping in mobilizing generation of wealth, globalization has also been blamed for causing huge economic and social disparities among nations.

According to Niccolo Machiavelli as discussed by Chatterjee (2004), rulers should strive to rule with an iron rod. He further argued that since the world was anarchic in nature only ruthless leadership world bring the world together.

On their side classical realist suggested that the world operated in the state of lawlessness. However, the situation was somehow different with domestic politics where the rule of law as practiced. In larger perspective, political instability has really inhibited globalization due to constant wrangles and differences.

Erwin and Smith (2004) suggested that the problem of hard power is responsible for the recurrence of war and tension in the international arena. They further assert that hard power is used by countries to achieve national interests as well as projecting them to cover international world.

Conflicting interests held by each country cause most of these conflicts. At some times, lack of irreconcilable and differing interests has caused worst political nightmares. For instance, the conflict between the Ancient Greek and Athens was characterized by such disagreements, which could not be dealt with.

According to liberal realists, norms and interest have lead to development of peace and stability in many countries. Their perception reveals that despite emergence of major political unrest, the international society will persist. With this approach the international society that is founded on peace will always strives to focus on existence of such understanding (Booth, 2011).

In conclusion, globalization is a concept that brings integrates political, economic and cultural aspects in order to make more and more profits. In it, the globe has become accessible at a very easy, cheap, deep and efficient means.

This is seen through the intensification of transport and communication systems whereby information is passed across through in seconds without much stress. Trade and finance have been made international and all the activities of a country are carried at a global perspective.

Booth, K. (Ed) (2011). Realism and World Politics. London: Taylor & Francis.

Callinicos, A. (2009). Imperialism and Global Political Economy. London: Polity.

Chatterjee, A. (2004). International Relations Today . New Delhi: Pearson education.

Dierks, R. G. (2001). Introduction to Globalization: Political and Economic Perspectives for the New Century . Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield.

Ervin, J. & Smith, Z. A. (2004). Globalization: A Reference Handbook . Linworth: ABC- CIO.

Reyes, G. E. (2001). Theory of Globalization: Fundamental Basis . Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh.

Robinson, A. (2008). A Marxist- Leninist Theory of Globalization . Perihelion. Web.

Rupert, M. & Smith, H. (2002). Historical Materialism and Globalization . London: Routledge.

Scheuerman, W. (2010). “ Globalization “. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (summer 2010 Edition) . Edward N. Zalta (ed). Web.

Steger, M. (2010). Globalization; a Brief Insight. Illinois: Sterling Publishing Company.

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• Marxist Theory and Social Classes
• Marxists’ Critique of Crises With the Capitalist System
• Karl Marx's Economic Philosophy
• China’s Great Proletariat Cultural Revolution
• Marx’s and Engels’s Communist Manifesto
• Understanding of Contemporary Labor Market by Marxist Concept of Exploitation
• Should we be realist or non-realist towards religious claims
• The Marxist Theory on Class Struggle: The History of Human Relations has been one of Class Struggle
• Marxist Critique of Capitalism: Expropriation of Surplus Value
• The Principles of Political Economy
• Globalization Negative Effects: Developed and Developing Countries
• Competition in the Market
• Globalization and the Study of International Security
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Home — Essay Samples — Sociology — Globalization — The Place of Globalization Theory in Education System

The Place of Globalization Theory in Education System

• Categories: Education System Globalization

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Published: Jul 17, 2018

Words: 1115 | Pages: 2 | 6 min read

Globalization Theory

Works cited.

• Giddens, A. (1990). The consequences of modernity. John Wiley & Sons.
• Kearney, M. (1995). The local and the global: The anthropology of globalization and transnationalism. Annual Review of Anthropology, 24(1), 547-565.
• Lechner, F. J., & Boli, J. (Eds.). (2012). The globalization reader. John Wiley & Sons.
• Ohmae, K. (1995). The end of the nation state: The rise of regional economies. Simon and Schuster.
• Robertson, R. (1992). Globalization: social theory and global culture. Sage.
• Steger, M. B. (2009). Globalization: A very short introduction. Oxford University Press.
• Sutcliffe, B. (2017). Education, globalization and the nation-state. Palgrave Macmillan.
• Tomlinson, J. (1999). Globalization and culture. University of Chicago Press.
• Wallerstein, I. (1974). The modern world-system I: Capitalist agriculture and the origins of the European world-economy in the sixteenth century. Academic Press.
• Waters, M. (1995). Globalization. Routledge.

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29 Globalization Theories

Rajnikant Pandey

Introduction

1.  Globalization: Definition

2.  Theories Of Globalization

2.1 Economic Globalization

2.3 Political Globalization

2.3 Cultural Globalization

3. Anthropology and Globalization Theory Summary

LEARNING OUTCOME

• understand the theoretical perspective on globalization
• use globalization as theoretical construct shaping the human socio-cultural life
• differentiate between globalization as idea and practice
• assess the impact of globalization theories on ethnographic research
• investigate the role of anthropologist in understanding globalization as process
• investigate the role of anthropologist in understanding globalization as idea
• define globalization for anthropological purpose
• challenge the notion of local global divide

Globalization is a buzzword today. There is extraordinary interest and concern over the globalization in academics. David Harvey claims that the word globalization was ‘entirely unknown before the mid-1970s’ and then it ‘spread like wildfire’. Globalization has attracted the attention of the mass media and general public as well and everyone is trying to grasp and define the phenomena in their own possible ways. Given the complexity of the topic, it is no wonder that there are plenty of controversies on what “globalization” means, and on the theoretical and methodological approaches for studying it.

Globalization as a socio-cultural phenomenon has been investigated by several disciplines and has attracted attention of anthropologist as well. Anthropologists have inquired the impact of globalization on the subject of their inquiry and its relation to traditional anthropological topics. And at the same time anthropologists have formulated theories of globalization which can inform the ethnographic practices and understanding of the socio-cultural life of humanity across the world.

The globalization as a process has influenced the lived reality of world today and subsequently changed the ideas about living in such a global world. These changes in ideas have taken shape in the form of theories of globalization which is highly interdisciplinary in nature. This chapter focuses on the formulation and discussion of anthropological definitions, modes of theorizing, and research methodologies in the field of globalization as well the emerging synthesis in the form of globalizing theories which has potential to influence ethnographic research in the world today.

1.   GLOBALIZATION: DEFINITION

During 1990s the term gained utmost prominence and there were hardly any social science talk and texts without mention of globalization. Anthropologists were also influenced by this dramatic upsurge of globalization as idea and practices in academic world. The anthropologist started to engage with globalization in two ways:

a) Understanding globalization as process and its impact on socio-cultural life

b) Understanding globalization as an idea and its theoretical propositions

The books and journals started to appear in mainstream anthropology to capture the nuances of globalization. Mike Featherstone edited a significant book titled Global Culture (1990) to set the agenda for Globalization studies in anthropology. The most prominent works which followed were Ulf Hannerz’s Cultural Complexity (1992), Jonathan Friedman’s Global Identity and Cultural Processes (1994) and Arjun Appadurai’s Modernity at Large (1996).

George Ritzer who is authority on theories of globalization define “globalization as a transplanetary process or set of processes involving increasing liquidity and the growing multidirectional flows of people, objects, places and information as well as the structures they encounter and create that are barriers to, or expedite, those flows ”.

Ted C. Lewellen in his book The Anthropology of Globalization (2002) define “contemporary globalization as the increasing flow of trade, finance, culture, ideas, and people brought about by the sophisticated technology of  communications and travel and by the worldwide spread of neoliberal capitalism, and it is the local and regional adaptations to and resistances against these flows”.

Both the definitions are similar and prioritize the flows and connections of different kind and at the same time barriers and resistance which exist at global scale to counter these flows. The later aspect has been emphasized by anthropologist to understand globalization as a process leading towards disconnection, dispossessions, exclusions, and marginalization for many in the world.

Globalization old or new

The most contested issues in theorizing globalization is whether it is old or new process. The people who think that globalization is new emphasize the pace and nature of global connection which exists today is unprecedented and has never been seen in the human past. The supporters of old globalization have provided evidences of global network of trade commerce, pilgrimage and migration in at least 5000 year human history. Some even suggest that first human being walking out of Africa was first step towards globalization. The historical evidences suggest that human being have maintained strong network of places and people in the past as well and which have only intensified in the present time. Many suggest that globalization can be thought of as the outcome of imperialism, colonization, development and subsequent westernization and Americanization of world set in motion in recent past.

2.   THEORIES OF GLOBALIZATION

The globalization studies have emphasized the importance of role of free market and transnational capitalism in global changes. However there are clear depictions of legal, political, social and cultural aspect of human life being influenced by global economic flows. There is prominence of theories which give significance to techno-economic understanding of globalization and other aspect of globalization as extension of economic sphere. For the purpose of our understanding we are following George Ritzer (2011) who has discussed the theories of globalization in following headings to understand it separately. But there is always overlap between one and other processes of globalization and they cannot be separated as neatly as it seems in the following discussions.

The global markets of money, labour, capital, goods and services are basic features of globalization theories.

Most of the economic theories of globalization are neo-liberal and neo-Marxian in its approach.

Neo-liberalism: Neo –liberal theories which emerged in 1930s to put forth the ides of free operation of market, opposition to state interventions and individual liberty shaped the processes of economic globalization and thinking about it. Milton Friedman and set of Chicago economists are major economists who gave neo-liberalism an ideological face. William Easterly and others favors the free market and market fundamentalism as basic virtue of economic success. There is strong faith in global expansion of capitalist system and its inherent virtue to trickle down to all participants. Deregulation, privatization and free trade are basic necessity. Spending on welfare by state should be curbed and limited government intervention is required for global outreach of capital.

Neo-Marxian: Leslie Sklair takes a new Marxian approach to the understanding of globalization. He proposes that there are two kinds of globalization 1) capitalist globalization and 2) socialist globalization. The spread of transnational capitalism is an important factor behind capitalist globalization. In capitalist globalization  transnational capitalist class made up of four set of capitalists. The socialist globalization is coming forward as resistance to these different set of capitalists.

Another very important theoretical approach was developed by neo-Marxists Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri’s in their work Empire (2000) and Multitude (2004). They use the metaphor of empire to present a postmodern Marxian understanding of globalized economy.

The thinkers from different field like Giddens a sociologist, Harvey a geographer, etc emphasize the compression of time and space as important factor of economic globalization. Rapid communication and transportation have compressed the space and structured it into a single global time. Manual Castelles proposed the idea of network society which characterizes the present day global economic order. The multicentered networks of capital information and power rule the world through the help of highly mobile managerial elites who are the dominant actors in the flows.

2.2 Political Globalization

Political scientist and sociologist have given attention to the global play of power by new agencies in the present economic world. The discipline called international relation has emerged as specialist set of knowledge to study these developments. The scholars are discussing the decreasing significance of nation state and national identity. Denationalization is dominant theme in theories of globalization across the discipline.

David Held a British sociologist theorizes the global challenges to nation state and national sovereignty as mainstay of globalization. He believes that political decision making international legal frameworks for rights and duties and cultural contact are responsible for weakening of nation state. The role of United States and Civil society organization in promoting universal declarations on several political agenda is posing threat to role of nation state in these matters. However several nation states have maintained sovereignty in relations to human mobility and finance.

Ulrich Beck differentiates between “globalism” and “globality” to discuss the globalization. The globalism model prioritizes the economic flow and reduces everything else as subsidiary of it. Instead he advocate for globality which give equal importance to ecology, culture, civil society and politics in theorizing globalization. Beck believes globality is are making nation state illlusiory and is important in founding of global democracy.

The cultural globalization discusses the issues of flows of culture and how it impacts the human life in the world today. Jan Nederveen Pieterse (2004) has identified three major paradigms in theorizing the cultural aspects of globalization, specifically on the centrally important issue of whether cultures around the globe are eternally different, converging, or creating new “hybrid” forms out of the unique combination of global and local cultures. It has developed and discussed by George Ritzer as major way of looking at cultural globalization and its potential implications for economic and political globalization as well. The three type of cultural globalization are

• Cultural Differentialism
• Cultural Convergence
• Cultural Hybridization

Cultural Differeentialism: This mode of thinking emphasizes the stubborn nature of culture and its retaining capacity to diffrences. This also tends to focus upon the core of the culture which remains unaffaected by the  processes of globalization though surface structure may change because of global connecettedness. The most famous example of this theory is Clash of Civilization thesis proposed by Samual P Huttington. He uses the world civilization to describe the coherent cultural identities which exist in the world and identifies eight such cultures in the world today. He proposes a historical argument to predict the clash of these different civilizations in future.

Huntington is concerned about the decline of the West, especially of the United States. He sees the United States, indeed all societies, as threatened by their increasing multicivilizational or multicultural character. For him, the demise of the United States effectively means the demise of Western civilization. Without a powerful, unicivilizational United States, the West is minuscule. For the West to survive and prosper, the United States must do two things. First, it must reaffirm its identity as a Western (rather than a multicivilizational) nation. Second, it must reaffirm and reassert its role as the leader of Western civilization around the globe. The reassertion and acceptance of Western civilization (which would also involve a renunciation of universalism), indeed all civilizations, is the surest way to prevent warfare between civilizations.

Cultural Convergence: Cultural convergence focuses upon the systematic homogenization and similarity of cultures across the globe. There is increasing sameness in the cultures in the world today because of the local cultures assimilation in dominant cultures. This similarities in culture is leading towards prominent changes in local cultures, however local realities are surviving in one way or other ways.

Cultural imperialism is an idea which reflects upon the influences of dominant cultures on local cultures being imposed consciously or unconsciously. This may result in complete transformation of local culture or in most of the case partial changes in one or other dimension of culture. The cultural hegemony of north countries on south is clearly visible today and many local cultures are threatened or being destroyed because of cultural imperialism. This view celebrates the formulation of new global culture replacing all local cultural deficiencies.

The related idea of Detrritorialization emphasizes the decreasing significance of place or geography in cultural experiences. The events and innovations in other parts of world have impact today in local everyday lives. The role of media and communication technology is significant in cultural imperialism as well as deterritorialization.

World Culture idea of cultural convergence highlights the structural isomorphism throughout the world. There is surprising amount of uniformity which exists today because of spread of similar models of politics, education, business, family etc. Advocates of this idea pursue the aim of bringing a homogenized world culture which will be enabling and empowering for people all across the world. The world culture approach looks at the positive side of singular global culture and suggests the models to bring changes for achieving this goal. Standard, guidelines and protocols are being devised to guide the establishment of one World Culture.

McDonaldization as a global homozenizing idea was proposed by Sociologist George Ritzer. He clearly outlines the principles which govern the McDonald fast food restaurant’s successful functioning. These principles are efficiency, calculability, predictability, control, and ironically the irrationality of rationality. He believes that these principles of McDonald have taken over not only on the ways which fast food industry is organized but also the various sector of life like education, NGOs, Church etc. across the world have started functioning.

Globalization of Nothing is another important contribution of Ritzer in the theories of globalization which emphasize upon the affinity between Globalization and Nothing. From nothing he means empty forms which are devoid of distinctive contents against something which is full forms rich in contents. He proposes that there is increase of these empty forms because they are easy to reproduce and transported. The world wide spread of  these similar empty forms like shopping complexes, tourist sites etc. is leaving world without any diversity and content. This he calls globalization of nothing. He believe that the imperialistic tendencies of powerful nations, corporations and international organization and their desire motivated by economic growth and profit to impose themselves throughout the world is responsible for the increasing nothingness. He calls this growth motivated globalization as grobalization.

Cultural hybridization: It is about production of new and unique hybrids because of the mixing of cultures. In this sense globalization is creative process leading to new cultural realities. Roland Robertson has coined a term ‘Glocalization’ to refer to the process of interpretation of global and local resulting into new outcomes in different geographical locations. Hybridization itself is a term which refers to making of cultural hybrids with mixed traits. Creolization refers to the mixing of language and culture into unique acceptable forms.

Arjun Appadurai in his Modernity at large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalizations proposed the idea of global flow and disjuncture within it. His contribution is central to the anthropological understanding of globalization. He elaborates his understanding of global flows against five scapes of globalization.

ethnsocape is the scape of identity with people and community in any geographical area. This scape is in flow because of people are highly mobile and their community identity is not fixed in place. They may recognize cognitively with the place of origin but living realty as tourist, migrants, refugee, expatriates etc. detach them from any fixed territory. Those who cannot move live with imagination and fantasies of movement.

technoscapes represents the flows through information and transportation technology at global scale. The technoscapes have changed the

finanacescapes are the rapid flows of huge sum of money across the world at unimaginable speed. The stock exchange and digital transfer of money have changed the way economies are connected and exchange are made.

Mediascapes involves the images and information created by media and the way it is electronically communicated within no time. The power of media to influence the mode of thinking and imagining is also very important in living in a global world.

Ideoscapes are political ideas and propaganda which are propagated by state and it spreads and engulf the thinking about political possibilities. The counter ideas to stae also are part and parcel of ideoscape having equal effect in channelizing anti state sentiment.

These multiple scapes are disjunctive and they are flowing in different direction and at different speed. The way we experience these flows are fragmented and it leads to the creation of hybrid forms in cultures.

3.   Anthropology and Globalization Theory

The anthropologist used the idea of globalization and its theories to understand the changing landscape of locations in which they conduct fieldwork. The anthropologists who were traditionally focusing on bounded local communities unaffected by outside influences were challenged by globalization thinkers to look for the outside influences including their own on the ethnographic practices. The theoretical tools were designed and borrowed to inform the new realities of local in a global world.

The globalization itself has provided opportunities for anthropologist to have easy and frequent access to the field. Availability of writings of native anthropologists can build a tradition of multi vocal understanding of the field. At the same time some anthropologists have taken this opportunity to celebrate the local and challenge the global onslaught on culture and tradition of remote people. The barriers across region have not necessarily been erased and some anthropologists have carved new ethnographic regions, for instance, South Asia to represent the people living in a landmass.

However the globalization approach in anthropology is not altogether new. The early thinkers of Political Economy and World System approach were emphasizing the impact of dominant core on recessive periphery. Ande Gunder Frank and Historian Immanuel Wallerstein set the agenda for understanding the underdeveloped economy crumbling under the developed west. Eric Wolf and Peter Worsley followed the trend in anthropology and criticized the Global capitalism and its impact on local people. These theories are looking at unidirectional flow whereas globalization is about the multidirectional influence, at least in principle.

Jonathan Friedman has coined his neologism Global Systemic approach to address the global in anthropology. He distinguishes his approach from globalization theories in anthropology. In his approach the global and local or at same plane and there is no higher global place floating above the local. Though local is always part of global but it does not mean that local is produced by global. The global is arena of interaction among the localities and global systemic is the study of logics of such interactions and the processes that emerge from such interactions. For him the globalization theory is empiricist and looks at apparent surface phenomena of flow, movement, media and networks instead of the underlying structure which makes this phenomenon apparent. Global systemic approach calls for a transdisciplinary study of these underlying structures of social reproduction and history of human species.

The Globalization theory in anthropology is represented by the work of Ulf Hannerez, Arjun Appadurai and Cultural Sociologist Roland Robertson. Ulf Hannerez, A Swedish anthropologist is prominent name in theorizing about globalization in anthropology. He considered Globalization as Global aspect of modernity rather than all-encompassing Global Village approach. He proposes to redefine culture signifying flow, process and partial integration instead of bounded integrated static whole. He emphasizes the understanding of intermixing of cultures and making of new forms and called it ‘cultural creolization’. According to his view global processes has impact on local life and culture. Generally the local resist and come out with innovative creative forms of hybrids in this process. Arjun Appadurai who has been discussed above is another name to shape the ideas of global culture and its local entanglements.

French Anthropologist Marc Auge wrote a seminal work Non-Places to question the future of anthropological notion of place, culture and community in the time of flux and global changes. He argued that stability of place can no longer be taken for granted in this disembedded world. The Actor Network Theory a specialty in Science and Technology Studies propounded by French Anthropologist Bruno Latour is also an approach fit for doing fieldwork in globalized world of science and technology. His theory talks about the processes of translation and networking in various shifting contexts of material and nonmaterial realities.

The major theoretical argument in anthropology developed as a critic of globalization. It critiqued the one way process of globalization and its role in perpetuating the global inequality. The critics have termed it as new imperialism and a catchy metaphor to mask the threat it poses for losers of globalization from the winners. The globalization theory is nothing more than diffusionism where Euro American West is new Egypt.

Whatever the critique may be the anthropologists are encountering hybrid cultures and life forms in their field which are mix of local national and global. The identity of anthropologist has also been shaped by these realities  of mixing and making of new forms. The globalization theory provides important insight to look at these new realities of human life and culture.

The module is focused upon the theoretical framework to understand the Globalization and how globalization itself provides the approaches to understand the changing dimension of society and culture in present time. The globalization theory has been discussed in terms of three major dimensions economic, political and cultural. In anthropology globalization theories have been utilized to decontextualize the local and free it from the boundedness in time and space. The cultural globalization and its theoretical nuances are important for apprehending the global-local binaries which informs the human realities today.

References:

• Eriksen, Thomas Hylland and Finn Sivert Nielsen, 2014, A History of Anthropology, Pluto Press.
• Barnard, Alan 2000, History and Theory in Anthropology, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Nederveen Pieterse, J. 2004. Globalization and Culture: Global Melange. Rowman and Littlefield.
• Stiglitz, J. 2002, Globalization and its Discontents, Allen Lane.
• M. Featherstone (ed.) 1990, Global Culture: Nationalism, Globalization and Modernity, Sage.
• Arjun Appadurai. 1996 Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization, University of Minnesota Press.
• George Ritzer 2011, Globalization: The Essentials, John Wiley & Sons.
• Ted C. Lewellen , 2010, The Anthropology of Globalization, Rawat Publication.
• Robbins, R. 2008. Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism, Prentice Hall.
• M. Kearney 1995, The Local and the Global: The Anthropology of Globalization and Transnationalism, Annual Review of Anthropology Vol. 24: 547-565.
• Jonathan Friedman 2007 Global Systems, Globalization, and Anthropological Theory in Ino Rossi edited Frontiers of Globalization: Theoretical and Methodological Approaches Springer.

ENCYCLOPEDIC ENTRY

Globalization.

Globalization is a term used to describe the increasing connectedness and interdependence of world cultures and economies.

Anthropology, Sociology, Social Studies, Civics, Economics

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Globalization is a term used to describe how trade and technology have made the world into a more connected and interdependent place. Globalization also captures in its scope the economic and social changes that have come about as a result. It may be pictured as the threads of an immense spider web formed over millennia, with the number and reach of these threads increasing over time. People, money, material goods, ideas, and even disease and devastation have traveled these silken strands, and have done so in greater numbers and with greater speed than ever in the present age. When did globalization begin? The Silk Road, an ancient network of trade routes across China, Central Asia, and the Mediterranean used between 50 B.C.E. and 250 C.E., is perhaps the most well-known early example of exchanging ideas, products, and customs. As with future globalizing booms, new technologies played a key role in the Silk Road trade. Advances in metallurgy led to the creation of coins; advances in transportation led to the building of roads connecting the major empires of the day; and increased agricultural production meant more food could be trafficked between locales. Along with Chinese silk, Roman glass, and Arabian spices, ideas such as Buddhist beliefs and the secrets of paper-making also spread via these tendrils of trade. Unquestionably, these types of exchanges were accelerated in the Age of Exploration, when European explorers seeking new sea routes to the spices and silks of Asia bumped into the Americas instead. Again, technology played an important role in the maritime trade routes that flourished between old and newly discovered continents. New ship designs and the creation of the magnetic compass were key to the explorers’ successes. Trade and idea exchange now extended to a previously unconnected part of the world, where ships carrying plants, animals, and Spanish silver between the Old World and the New also carried Christian missionaries. The web of globalization continued to spin out through the Age of Revolution, when ideas about liberty , equality , and fraternity spread like fire from America to France to Latin America and beyond. It rode the waves of industrialization , colonization , and war through the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries, powered by the invention of factories, railways, steamboats, cars, and planes. With the Information Age, globalization went into overdrive. Advances in computer and communications technology launched a new global era and redefined what it meant to be “connected.” Modern communications satellites meant the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo could be watched in the United States for the first time. The World Wide Web and the Internet allowed someone in Germany to read about a breaking news story in Bolivia in real time. Someone wishing to travel from Boston, Massachusetts, to London, England, could do so in hours rather than the week or more it would have taken a hundred years ago. This digital revolution massively impacted economies across the world as well: they became more information-based and more interdependent. In the modern era, economic success or failure at one focal point of the global web can be felt in every major world economy. The benefits and disadvantages of globalization are the subject of ongoing debate. The downside to globalization can be seen in the increased risk for the transmission of diseases like ebola or severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), or in the kind of environmental harm that scientist Paul R. Furumo has studied in microcosm in palm oil plantations in the tropics. Globalization has of course led to great good, too. Richer nations now can—and do—come to the aid of poorer nations in crisis. Increasing diversity in many countries has meant more opportunity to learn about and celebrate other cultures. The sense that there is a global village, a worldwide “us,” has emerged.

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