Contemporary World

Francine Angelika C. Tañedo

SBAC-1B

 How globalized is the Philippines using the Index of Globalization?

Globalization has been very effective in the Philippines. There have been major changes in the
economy since 1995 when the Philippines took part in signing agreements with World Trade
Organization. There have been changes in the country such as more labor and more companies that
have emerged to help the economy. Globalization has been rapidly developing in the Philippines ever
since the influence of the United States during World War II. MANILA - The Philippines is the second top
globalization destination in the world this year, according to global strategic advisory firm Tholons. The
2018 Services Globalization Index saw the Philippines rising to the second spot of the "Top 50 Digital
Nations" after placing third last year. India continues to dominate the list while Brazil follows the
Philippines at third place. "Most of the services will get commoditized for the biggest leaders in services
globalization like US, UK, Canada, Europe, India, Philippines, East Europe, and Latin America," the index
report stated. Business process outsourcing is an economic lifeline in the Philippines with over 1.15
million Filipinos working in the industry. BPOs told to invest in 'brain power,' new services to survive
digital shift The industry, along with remittances from overseas workers, remains one of the top 2
earners of foreign exchange for the Philippines. The rest of the Philippine cities included in the list all
saw an improvement in their respective rankings. Close to the top 10 is Cebu City, which ranked 11th
from 12th last year, while President Rodrigo Duterte's hometown Davao City went 10 notches higher to
the 75th spot from 85th last year. Santa Rosa City in Laguna rose to the 87th spot from 100th last year
while Bacolod City climbed to the 89th spot from 97th in 2017. The Visayan city of Iloilo, meanwhile, is a
newcomer to the list, landing at the 92nd spot. The index evaluates and ranks countries and cities based
on availability and quality of talent in the area, business catalyst or the level of industry-related activity
and organizational support, cost of doing business, infrastructure, innovation, and risk and quality of life
among others.

 Theories of Globalization
All theories of globalization have been put hereunder in eight categories: liberalism, political realism,
Marxism, constructivism, postmodernism, feminism , Trans-formationalism and eclecticism. Each one of
them carries several variations.

1. Theory of Liberalism:
Liberalism sees the process of globalisation as market-led extension of modernisation. At the
most elementary level, it is a result of ‘natural’ human desires for economic welfare and political
liberty. As such, transplanetary connectivity is derived from human drives to maximise material
well-being and to exercise basic freedoms. These forces eventually interlink humanity across the
planet.
 They fructify in the form of:
(a) Technological advances, particularly in the areas of transport, communications and
information processing, and,
(b) Suitable legal and institutional arrangement to enable markets and liberal democracy to
spread on a trans world scale. Such explanations come mostly from Business Studies,
Economics, International Political Economy, Law and Politics. Liberalists stress the necessity of
constructing institutional infrastructure to support globalisation. All this has led to technical
standardisation, administrative harmonisation, translation arrangement between languages,
laws of contract, and guarantees of property rights. But its supporters neglect the social forces
that lie behind the creation of technological and institutional underpinnings. It is not satisfying
to attribute these developments to ‘natural’ human drives for economic growth and political
liberty. They are culture blind and tend to overlook historically situated life-worlds and
knowledge structures which have promoted their emergence. All people cannot be assumed to
be equally amenable to and desirous of increased globality in their lives. Similarly, they overlook
the phenomenon of power. There are structural power inequalities in promoting globalisation
and shaping its course. Often they do not care for the entrenched power hierarchies between
states, classes, cultures, sexes, races and resources.

2. Theory of Political Realism:

Advocates of this theory are interested in questions of state power, the pursuit of national
interest, and conflict between states. According to them states are inherently acquisitive and
self-serving, and heading for inevitable competition of power. Some of the scholars stand for a
balance of power, where any attempt by one state to achieve world dominance is countered by
collective resistance from other states.

3. Theory of Marxism:

Marxism is principally concerned with modes of production, social exploitation through unjust
distribution, and social emancipation through the transcendence of capitalism. Marx himself
anticipated the growth of globality that ‘capital by its nature drives beyond every spatial barrier
to conquer the whole earth for its market’. Accordingly, to Marxists, globalisation happens
because trans-world connectivity enhances opportunities of profit-making and surplus
accumulation. Marxists reject both liberalist and political realist explanations of globalisation. It
is the outcome of historically specific impulses of capitalist development. Its legal and insti-
tutional infrastructures serve the logic of surplus accumulation of a global scale. Liberal talk of
freedom and democracy make up a legitimating ideology for exploitative global capitalist class
relations.

4. Theory of Constructivism:

Globalisation has also arisen because of the way that people have mentally constructed the
social world with particular symbols, language, images and interpretation. It is the result of
 particular forms and dynamics of consciousness. Patterns of production and governance are
second-order structures that derive from deeper cultural and socio-psychological forces. Such
accounts of globalisation have come from the fields of Anthropology, Humanities, Media of
Studies and Sociology. Constructivists concentrate on the ways that social actors ‘construct’
their world: both within their own minds and through inter-subjective communication with
others. Conversation and symbolic exchanges lead people to construct ideas of the world, the
rules for social interaction, and ways of being and belonging in that world. Social geography is a
mental experience as well as a physical fact. They form ‘in’ or ‘out’ as well as ‘us’ and they’
groups.

5. Theory of Postmodernism:

Some other ideational perspectives of globalisation highlight the significance of structural power
in the construction of identities, norms and knowledge. They all are grouped under the label of
‘postmodernism’. They too, as Michel Foucault does strive to understand society in terms of
knowledge power: power structures shape knowledge. Certain knowledge structures support
certain power hierarchies. The reigning structures of understanding determine what can and
cannot be known in a given socio-historical context. This dominant structure of knowledge in
modern society is ‘rationalism’. It puts emphasis on the empirical world, the subordination of
nature to human control, objectivist science, and instrumentalist efficiency. Modern rationalism
produces a society overwhelmed with economic growth, technological control, bureaucratic
organisation, and disciplining desires.

6. Theory of Feminism:

It puts emphasis on social construction of masculinity and femininity. All other theories have
identified the dynamics behind the rise of trans-planetary and supra-territorial connectivity in
technology, state, capital, identity and the like. Biological sex is held to mould the overall social
order and shape significantly the course of history, presently globality. Their main concern lies
behind the status of women, particularly their structural subordination to men. Women have
tended to be marginalised, silenced and violated in global communication.

7. Theory of Trans-formationalism:

This theory has been expounded by David Held and his colleagues. Accordingly, the term
‘globalisation’ reflects increased interconnectedness in political, economic and cultural matters
across the world creating a “shared social space”. Given this interconnectedness, globalisation
may be defined as “a process (or set of processes) which embodies a transformation in the
spatial organisation of social relations and transactions, expressed in transcontinental or
interregional flows and networks of activity, interaction and power.” While there are many
definitions of globalisation, such a definition seeks to bring together the many and seemingly
contradictory theories of globalisation into a “rigorous analytical framework” and “proffer a
coherent historical narrative”. Held and McGrew’s analytical framework is constructed by
 developing a three part typology of theories of globalisation consisting of “hyper-globalist,”
“sceptic,” and “transformationalist” categories.

8. Theory of Eclecticism:

Each one of the above six ideal-type of social theories of globalisation highlights certain forces
that contribute to its growth. They put emphasis on technology and institution building, national
interest and inter-state competition, capital accumulation and class struggle, identity and
knowledge construction, rationalism and cultural imperialism, and masculinize and
subordination of women. Jan Art Scholte synthesises them as forces of production, governance,
identity, and knowledge. Accordingly, capitalists attempt to amass ever-greater resources in
excess of their survival needs: accumulation of surplus. The capitalist economy is thoroughly
monetised. Money facilitates accumulation. It offers abundant opportunities to transfer surplus,
especially from the weak to the powerful. This mode of production involves perpetual and
pervasive contests over the distribution of surplus. Such competition occurs both between
individual, firms, etc. and along structural lines of class, gender, race etc.

 Contesting Ideologies Behind Globalization

‘Ideologies of globalization: market globalism, justice globalism, religious globalisms’ investigates the
ideologies underlying globalization, which endow it with values and meanings. Market globalism
advocates promise a consumerist, neoliberal, free-market world. This ideology is held by many powerful
individuals, who claim it transmits democracy and benefits everyone. However, it also reinforces
inequality, and can be politically motivated. Justice globalism envisages a global civil society with fairer
relationships and environmental safeguards. They disagree with market globalists who view
neoliberalism as the only way. Religious globalisms strive for a global religious community with
superiority over secular structures.

Marketing globalization is a synergistic term combining the promotion and selling of goods and services
in an increasingly interdependent and integrated global economy. It makes companies stateless, without
walls, with the internet an integral marketing and cultural tool.

Justice globalism refers to the values that are related to social justice movements, and envisions the
creation of a new world order in which wealth and power are redistributed globally.

Religious globalisms are ways of understanding the global environment as expressed through specific
religious world views. The literature tends to see a dichotomous relationship between religious and
secular globalisms, with the former in opposition to the latter.

 Trajectories of Globalization
 In the future, we propose to determine the trajectories of political globalization: the degree to
which the multicentric international system has moved toward centralization, integration, and
hierarchy.