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Globalization

Call it globalization, mondialisation, globalizacion or Globalisierung

Globalization Journals, Globalization Abstracts, Bibliography, Syllabus, Globalization Books

The globalization process is seen as driven by the growth of international capitalism and involving the transformation of the culture and social structures of non-capitalist and pre-industrial societies.

Globalization is marked by the expansion of the size and power of multinational corporations. A world-wide process of the internationalization of communication, trade, human resource and economic organization.

The globalization process in the economic sphere can be seen in international trade agreements and the enormous increase in the volume of international trade and growing economic interdependency between countries.

Most people today refer to the time in which we live as the age of globalization. I prefer the term interdependence, because it makes it clear that the nature of the world today and our connections are far more than economic, and because it makes it clear that the consequences of those relationships can be both negative and positive. Interdependence simply means we cannot escape each other. We have to recognize that we cannot have a global economic system without building a global social system. - William J. Clinton

Challenges to Globalization

The radical transformation of economic structures and the metamorphosis or alterations of geo-political alignments has not only created new opportunities, but has also brought in new challenges on various fronts.

Are the politicization of "traditional" identities and the resurgence of nationalism a response to Western culture and the increasing dominance of liberal capitalism?

How has rapid and often unregulated economic transformation exacerbated ethnic and social tensions?

If many of these reactions have been defensive in nature, and are often at odds with democratic principles, neo-liberalism is being increasingly contested by popular democratic forces, including social movements and new transnational networks of civil society organizations. These movements have challenged neo-liberal policy prescriptions and their modes of implementation as anti-democratic and harmful to the poor.

The dismantling of the welfare state in the West and the retrenchment of the state and public services in the developing world have been fiercely resisted. Market forces are as such increasingly at odd with democratization, especially in the developing world.

The empowerment of subordinate groups and the increasing vibrancy of civil society that has accompanied democratic transitions has also, in many instances, triggered demands for more substantive outcomes, including greater equity and new challenges to the dominance of market forces.

Broad definitions of 'globalization'.

For Scholte, globalization is 'a transformation of social geography marked by the growth of supraterritorial spaces', though he recognizes that 'territoriality and supraterritoriality coexist in complex interrelations.'

Globalization as Internationalization. Globalization, viewed 'as simply another adjective to describe cross-border relations between countries'. It describes the growth in international exchange and interdependence. With growing flows of trade and capital investment there is the possibility of moving beyond an inter-national economy, to a 'stronger' version - the globalized economy in which, 'distinct national economies are subsumed and rearticulated into the system by international processes and transactions' (Hirst and Peters 1996: 8 and 10).

Globalization as Liberalization. In this broad set of definitions, 'globalization' refers to 'a process of removing government-imposed restrictions on movements between countries in order to create an "open", "borderless" world economy' (Scholte 2000: 16).

Globalization as Universalization. In this use, 'global' is used in the sense of being 'worldwide' and 'globalization' is 'the process of spreading various objects and experiences to people at all corners of the earth'.

Globalization as Westernization or Modernization. Here 'globalization' is understood as a dynamic, 'whereby the social structures of modernity (capitalism, rationalism, industrialism, bureaucratism) are spread the world over.

Globalization as Deterritorialization (or as the spread of supraterritoriality). Here 'globalization' entails a 'reconfiguration of geography, so that social space is no longer wholly mapped in terms of territorial places, territorial distances and territorial borders. Anthony Giddens' has thus defined 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. (Giddens 1990: 64). David Held et al (1999: 16) define globalization as a ' process (or set of processes) which embodies a transformation in the spatial organization of social relations and transactions - assessed in terms of their extensity, intensity, velocity and impact - generating transcontinental or inter-regional flows and networks of activity'.

Globalization as Deterritorialization, offers a clear and specific definition of globalization. The notion of supraterritoriality (or trans-world or trans-border relations), Scholte argues, provides a way into appreciating what is global about globalization.

There is no need to replace the 'internationalization' by 'globalization' where it refers to a growth in interaction and interdependence between people in different countries. This process of internationalization has been going for centuries - and it adds nothing theoretically to describe it as globalization.

To describe the process of breaking down regulatory and other barriers to trade as globalization is similarly flawed. 'The liberal discourse of "free" trade is quite adequate to convey these ideas' (Scholte 2000: 45).

The notion of globalization as universalization also fails to provide new insight. The move towards universalization is a long-running one - and so little or nothing is added by substituting the notion of globalization.

The understanding of globalization as westernization has developed particularly in the context of neocolonialism and post-colonial imperialism. It is, again, difficult to see what advance the notion of globalization provides as against the discourse of colonialism, imperialism and 'modernization'.

Important new insight can, however, be gained from approaching globalization as the growth of 'supraterritorial' or transworld relations between people. It allows for us to explore deep-seated changes in the way that we understand and experience social space.

The proliferation and spread of supraterritorial... connections brings an end to what could be called 'territorialism', that is a situation where social geography is entirely territorial. Although... territory still matters very much in our globalizing world, it no longer constitutes the whole of our geography. (Scholte 2000: 46)

The first four approaches are all compatible with territorialism, the fifth is not. Within a territorial orientation 'place' is identified primarily with regard to territorial location. However, we have witnessed a fundamental change. There has been a massive growth in social connections that are unhooked in significant ways from territory.