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Worktext (TCW) Chapter 1 Introduction To The Study of Globalization
Worktext (TCW) Chapter 1 Introduction To The Study of Globalization
Worktext (TCW) Chapter 1 Introduction To The Study of Globalization
GLOBALIZATION
Introduction:
“We talk about globalization today as if it's some great big new thing,
that we've all just discovered. But there's really nothing new about it.”
- Jacqueline Winspear
Learning Objectives:
Discussion:
GLOBALIZATION
Different Meanings of
Globalization:
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GLOBALIZATION as a PROCESS
SIGNS OF GLOBALITY
✔ Thickening of social linkages between people from different parts of
the world.
✔ Viewed as such, globalization has no definite and exact beginning. ---
innovations in transportation and communication technologies, and
creation of institutions of commerce.
GLOBALIZATION, as a CONDITION
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✔ Trans-planetary connectivity is the establishment of social links
between people located at different places of our planet; while ✔
Supra-territoriality is the social connections that transcend
territorial geography.
✔ In other words, globalization as a social condition is characterized
by thick economic, political, and cultural interconnections and
global flows that render political borders and economic barriers
irrelevant.
GLOBALIZATION , as an IDEOLOGY
✔ Globalization exists in people’s consciousness because it consists of
a set of coherent and complementary ideas and beliefs about the
global order.
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o According to Wallerstein, there are three division of the
world/ key structure of the capitalist system and these are
the following:
a) Core, powerful and developed centers examples are :
Western Europe, North America and Japan
b) Periphery –forcibly subordinated to the core through
colonialism or other means examples are : Latin America,
Africa, Asia, Middle East and Eastern Europe
c) Semi-periphery- states and regions that were previously in
the core and are moving down in this hierarchy or those that
were previously in the periphery and are moving up.
o Centrality and immanence of the inter-state system and inter
state rivalry to the maintenance and reproduction of the world
system.
o Does not see any transcendence of the nation state system or
the centrality of nation states as the principal component units
of a larger global system.
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o Technology and technological change are the underlying
causes of the several processes that comprise globalization.
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evoking the image famously put forth by Marshall McLuhan
of the global village.
o Cultural Theories of globalization, Focused on such
phenomena as globalization and religion, nations and
ethnicity, global consumerism, global communications and
the globalization of tourism.
o Ritzer (1993, 2002) coined the popularized term
‘McDonaldization’ to describe the sociocultural processes by
which the principles of fast food restaurant came too
dominate more and more sectors of US and later world
society.
Globalization as liberalization
Liberalization is commonly understood as the removal of barriers
and restrictions imposed by national governments so as to create an
open and borderless world economy. In this sense, globalization is realized
when national governments reduce or abolish regulatory measures like trade
barriers, foreign exchange restrictions, capital controls and visa
requirements. (Scholte, 2008)
Problem with this, Scholte explains the study of globalization within
the debate concerning the neoliberal macroeconomics policies:
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o Finally, debates about the advantages and disadvantages of
laissez faire economics have gone on for centuries without
involving the language of globalization.
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References: