GE102 lesson 1

What is Globalization?

Globalization is defined in various perspective and that is gives us more ideas and understanding how
globalization emerges, its impacts to the world economy as well as to the socio-cultural factors.
Below are the definitions of renowned authors across the world.

Globalization is the intensification of worldwide social relations which links distant localities in such a
way that local happenings are shaped by events occurring many miles away and vice versa. (Anthony Giddens)

Globalization as a concept refers both to the compression of the world and the intensification of the
consciousness of the world as a whole. (Roland Robertson)

Globalization may be thought of as a process … which embodies a transformation in the spatial

organization of social relations and transactions … generating transcontinental or interregional flows and
networks of activity, interaction, and the exercise of power. (David Held)

Globalization is a complex phenomenon that occurs at multiple levels. It is an uneven process that
affects people differently.

Most accounts view globalization as primarily an economic process. It also usually refers to the
integration of the national market to a wider global market signified by the increased free trade.
The process of globalization… as “The expansion and intensification of social relations and
consciousness across world time and across world space.” (Manfred Steger)

THE STRUCTURES OF GLOBALIZATION

Working Definition of Globalization

The expansion and intensification of social relations and consciousness across world time and across world-
space. (Manfred Steger)
- Expansion refers to both the creation of new social networks and the multiplication of existing
connections that cut across traditional political, economic, cultural, and geographic boundaries.
- Intensification refers to the expansion, stretching, and acceleration of these networks.

Globalization is the process of world shrinkages, of distances getting shorter, things moving closer. It
pertains to the increasing ease with which somebody on one side of the world can interact to mutual benefit
with somebody on the other side of the world.
Globalization means that onset of the borderless world (Ohmae 1992). We are the object or subject of
globalization. It is a process that increases either the homogeneity or heterogeneity of globalization.

There are three main bodies of theory regarding the effects of globalization on local culture:
1. Homogenization,
2. Heterogeneity or polarization
3. Hybridization

Each of these processes can be demonstrated in different parts of the world.

Homogenization
Homogenization is the name given to the process whereby globalization causes one culture to consume
another.
Homogenization theories see a global cultural convergence and would tend to highlight the rise of world
beat, world cuisines, world tourism, uniform consumption patterns and cosmopolitanism (Appadurai). Many use
the term Americanization to depict specifically the way that American culture has been exported to all corners
of the globe.
(Sameness) Homogeneity is often linked to cultural imperialism. Imperialism. It is a broad concept that
describes various methods employed by one country to gain control of another country and then to exercise
control, especially political, economic, and territorial, over that country, and perhaps many other countries.

Heterogeneity or Polarization
 Sometimes globalization can have the effect of intensifying a local culture. Heterogeneity approaches
see continued cultural difference and highlight local cultural autonomy, cultural resistance to
homogenization, cultural clashes and polarization, and distinct subjective experiences of globalization
(Varied) HETEROGENEITY can be associated with Cultural Hybridization.

Hybridization
Cultures are however rarely simply consumed. More often two cultures clash and a new hybrid culture
is formed. Hybridization stresses new and constantly evolving cultural forms and identities produced by
manifold transnational processes and the fusion of distinct cultural processes.
Glocalization- the practice of conducting business according to both local and global considerations.
Roland Robertson’s concept of Glocalization suggests that the global is only manifest in the local.
GLOCALIZATION means that ideas about home, locality and community have been extensively
spread around the world in recent years, so that the local has been globalized, and the stress upon the
significance of the local or the communal can be viewed as one ingredient of the overall globalization process
(Robertson 1995).

Example: Creolization is the process in which Creole cultures emerge in the New World.

Globalization is a complex phenomenon that occurs at multiple levels. It is an uneven process that affects
people differently. Globalization as a process refers to a larger phenomenon that cannot simply be reduced to the
ways in which global markets have been integrated.

Globalization as a process refers to a larger phenomenon that cannot simply be reduced to the ways in
which global markets have been integrated.

Dynamics of Local and Global culture

Global flows of culture tend to move more easily around the globe than ever, before especially through
non-material digital forms.

These are three perspectives on global cultural flows:

1. Cultural Differentials- Emphasizes the fact that cultures are essentially different and are only superficially
affected by global flows the interaction of culture is deemed to contain the potential for “catastrophic collision”.
2. Cultural Hybridization- approach emphasizes the integration of local and global culture.
3. Cultural Convergence- approach stresses homogeneity introduced by globalization.

Metaphors of Globalization

In order for us to better understand the concept of globalization we will utilize metaphors. Metaphors
may use of one term to help us better understand another term. In our case the states of matter-solid-liquid will
be used.

1st metaphor:
The social relationships and objects remained where they were created. Solidity also refers to barriers that
prevent or make difficult the movement of things.
(This is associated to the theory of Heterogeneity of culture of one’s country. It also refers to cultural
differential. Some countries wanted to remain and preserve their culture that they protest to the influences of
globalization. This creates collision between original cultures and the new cultures.)

2nd Metaphor:
Liquid as a state of matter takes the shape of its container. Moreover liquids are not fixed.

a) Liquidity therefore refers to the increasing of movement of people, things, information, and places in
the contemporary world.
Example of natural solid: Landforms and bodies of water, man-made barriers include The Great Wall of
China and the Berlin Wall.
(This is associated with Homogeneity. Although there are barriers against the increasing influences of
globalization but not too high to prevent its entry. Therefore, although there are some groups or organizations
who create arguments or shows indifference to globalization, still people accepts it positively and hope that it
will help their country to develop and progress; that it may uplift the poor living conditions of their people and
also to embrace the so called Modernity.)

b) Flows are the movement of people, things, places and information brought by growing “porosity” of
global limitation.

The following kinds of flows that can observe today:

• Are poor illegal migrants flooding many parts of the world?
• The virtual flow of legal and illegal information such as blogs and child pornography.
• Immigrant recreating ethnic enclaves in host countries. (Example: Chinese communities in Sta.Cruz and
Binondo, Manila)

(In the acceptance of globalization, advantages and disadvantages are likely to be expected and should
be prevented or lessen if not eliminated. Because of embracing globalization, we are also opening our
country for its ill-effects; the underside of globalization. Cultural flagging, socio-politico becomes filthy and
deceitful, socio-economic dependency to the First World, and other aspects that affects (negatively,
positively) a country’s security and sovereignty.)

Landscapes or Dimensions of Cultural Flows (Arjun Appadurai)

Appadaurai uses the suffix SCAPE to connote the idea that these processes have fluid, irregular, variable
shapes. This scapes comprises the global world.

1. Mediascapes are about the flows of image and communication.

2. Ethnoscapes are concerned with the flows of individuals around the world.
3. Ideoscapes deal with exchanges of ideas and ideologies.
4. Technoscapes refer to flows of technology and skills to create linkages between organizations around the
world.
5. Financescapes relate to the interactions associated with money and capital.

THEORIES OF GLOBAL STRATIFICATION

Just as you find stratification among socioeconomic classes within a society like the Philippines, you
would also see across the world a pattern of global stratification with inequalities.
Globalization is not a single concept. Globalization … is a concept that has been defined variously over
the years, with some connotations referring to progress, development and stability, integration and cooperation,
and others referring to regression, colonialism, and destabilization.
In 1995, Martin Khor, President of the Third World Network in Malaysia, referred to globalization
as colonization.

2. Theory of political realism

Advocates of this theory are interested in questions or 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.
Globalization has also been explained as a strategy in the contest for power between several major states
in contemporary world politics.
They concentrate on the activities of Great Britain, China, France, Japan, the USA and some other large states.
Thus, the political realists highlight the issues of power and power struggles and the role of states in generating
global relations.
At some levels, globalization is considered as antithetical to territorial states, society they say, are not equal in
globalization, some being dominant and others subordinates is the process but they fail to understand that
everything in globalization does not come down to the acquisition, distribution and exercise of power.
Globalization has also cultural, ecological, economic, and psychological dimensions that are not
reducible to power politics. It is also about the production and consumption of resources, about the construction
and communication of meaning, and about humanity shaping and being shaped by nature. Most of these are
political.

3. Theory of Marxism
Marxism is principally concerned with modes of production, exploitation through unjust distribution,
and social emancipation through the transcendence of capitalism. Marx himself anticipated the growth of
globally that ‘capital by its nature drives beyond every spatial barrier to conquer the whole earth for its market’.
Accordingly, to Marxists, globalization happens because tans-world connectivity enhances opportunities of
profit-making and surplus accumulation.
There are other relations of dominance and subordination which relate to state, culture, gender, race,
sex, and more presence of US hegemony, the West-centric culture domination masculinism, racism etc. are not
reducible to class dynamics within capitalism class is a key axis to power in globalization, but it is not only one.
It is too simplistic to see globalization solely as a result of drives for surplus accumulation.
It also seeks to explore identities and investigate meanings. People develop global weapons and
pursue global military campaigns not only for capitalist ends, but also due to interstate competition and
militarist culture that predate emergence of capitalism. Ideational aspects of social relation also are not outcome
of the modes production. They have, like nationalism, their autonomy.

4. Theory of Constructivism
Globalization has also arisen because of the way that people have mentally constructed the social world
with particular symbols, language, image and interpretation. It is the result of particular form 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 globalization 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 enter-subjective communication with others. Conversation and symbolic exchanges lead
people to construct ideas of the world, the rule 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
They conceive of themselves as inhabitants of a particular global world, class, religious and other
identities respond in part to material conditions but they also depend on inter-subjective construction and
communication of shared
Self-understanding. However, when they go too far, they present a case of social-psychological
reductionism ignoring the significance of economic and ecological forces in shaping mental experience. This
theory neglects issues of structural in equalities and power hierarchies in social relations. It has a built-in
apolitical tendency.

5. Theory of Postmodernism
Some other ideational prescriptive of globalization highlight the significance of structural power in the
construction of identities, norms and knowledge. They all are grouped under the level of ‘modernism ‘. They
too, as Michel Foucault does strive to understand society in terms of knowledge power; power structure shape
knowledge. Certain knowledge structures support certain power hierarchies.
The reigning structure of understanding determine what can and cannot be known in a given socio-
historical context. This dominant Structure of knowledge in modern society ‘rationalism’. It puts emphasis on
the empirical world, the subordination of nature to human control, objectivist science, and instrumentalist
efficiency. Modern rationalism produce a society overwhelmed with economic growth, technical control,
bureaucratic organization, and disciplining desires.
This mode of knowledge has authoritarian and expansionary logic that leads to a kind of cultural
imperialism subordinating all other epistemologies. it does not focus on the problem of globalization per se. in
this way, western rationalism overawes indigenous cultures and other non-modern life-worlds.

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, states, capital,
identity and the like.
Biological sex is held to mould the overall social order and shape significantly the course of history,
presently globally. Their main concern lies behind the status of women, particularly their structural
subordination to men. Women have tended to be marginalized, silenced and violated in global communication.

7. Theory of Trans-formationalism
This theory has been expounded by David Held on his colleagues. Accordingly, the term ‘globalization’
reflects increase interconnectedness in political, economic and cultural matters across the world creating a
‘’shared social space’.’ Given his interconnectedness, globalization may be defined as a process (or set of
processes) which embodies a transformation in the spatial organization of social relation and transactions,
express in transcontinental or interregional flows and networks of activity, interaction and power’’.
While there are many definition globalization, such a definition seeks to bring together the many and
seemingly contradictory theories of globalization into a’’ rigorous ‘’ analytical framework ‘’ and ‘’ proffer a
coherent historical narrative’’.
 Given the importance of the global market place, multi-national enterprises (MNEs) and
intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) which regulate their activity are key political actors finally,
transformationalist such as Rosenau (1997) or Giddens (1990) argue that globalization occurs as states and
societies across the globe are experiencing a process of profound change as they try to adopt to a more
interconnected but highly uncertain world’’.

8. Theory of Eclecticism
Each one of the above sex ideal-type of social theories of globalization 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 plus struggle, identity and knowledge construction, rationalism and
cultural imperialism, and masculinize and subordination of women. Jan Art Scholte synthesizes 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 monetized. 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.

For much of human history, all of the societies on earth were poor. Poverty was the norm for everyone
but obviously, that is not the case anymore. Just as you find stratification among socioeconomic classes within a
society like Philippines, you would also see across the world patter of global stratification with inequalities in
wealth and power between societies. The world is divided into two theory which they believed creates ‘invisible
gap’ between the so called First World and Third World countries.

1. MODERNIZATION THEORY
One of the two main explanation for global stratification is the modernization theory. This theory frames
global stratification as a function of technological and cultural differences between nations.
2. DEPENDENCY THEORY and The Latin American Experiences
Starting with the 1500’s European explorers spread throughout the American. Africa, and Asia, claiming
lands for Europe. At one point, the British Empire covered about one of the world. The United States, which
began as colonies, soon sprawled out through the North American and took control of Haiti, Puerto Rico, Guam,
the Philippines, the Hawaiian Islands, and parts of Panama and Cuba

THE MODERN WORLD SYSTEM

This history of colonialism inspired American sociologist Immanuel Wallerstien model of what he called
the capitalism world economy, Wallerstien described high income nation as the “core” of the world economy,
and this core is the manufacturing base of the planet where resources funnel in to become the technology and
wealth enjoyed by the western world today.
In the 1950s, the dominant theory was Modernization theory; its problem was that some countries were
not developing/ modernising as predicted – evidence did not fit the theory hence... World System Theory was
developed out of attempt to explain the failure of certain states to develop.
o Looking at Latin America, their economies could not compete, global capitalism forced certain
countries into under-development
o Trade is asymmetrical
o Poor countries are dependent on rich states

Immanuel Wallerstein (The Modern World System, 1976) states that “Globalization represents the
triumph of a capitalist world economy tied together by a global division of labor.” A world-system is a
"multicultural territorial division of labor in which the production and exchange of basic goods and raw
materials is necessary for the everyday life of its inhabitants."

Word System Theory developed out of attempt to explain the failure of certain states to develop:
 Looking at Latin American, their economies could not complete, global capitalism forces certain
countries into underdevelopment
 Trade is asymmetrical
 Poor countries are dependent on rich states
A world-system is a “multicultural territorial division of labor in which the production and exchange of
basic goods and raw material is necessary for the everyday life of its inhabitants,” States are used by class force
to pursue their interest, in the case of core countries. The idea that governments and international institutions
can make the system ‘far’ is an illusion (because they always reflect interests of capitalists).
 “GLOBALIZATION” refers to some assert new, chronologically recent, process in which states are said
to be no longer primary units of decision-making, but are now, only now finding themselves located in a
structure in which something called the “world market,” a somewhat mystical and surely reified entity, dictates
the rule”

HISTORY OF GLOBALIZATION

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) regards “economic globalization” is a historical process
representing the result of human innovation and technological progress. The oldest known international trade
route was the Silk Road - a network of pathways in the ancient world that spanned from China to what is now
the Middle East and to Europe. According to historians Dennis O. Flynn and Arturo Giraldez, the age of
globalization began when “all important populated continents began to exchange products continuously both
with each other directly and indirectly via other continents and in values sufficient to generate crucial impacts
on all trading partners”.
The Galleon Trade was part of the Age of Mercantilism from 16 th century to the 18th century. Returning
to a pure standard became more difficult as the global economic crisis called the Great Depression started
during 1920s and extend up to the 1930s.
Today, the world economy operates based on what are called Fiat currencies that are not backed by
precious metals and whose value is determined by their cost relative to other currencies.

ASPECTS OF GLOBALIZATION

Globalization affects every aspects of human life – their activities, lifestyles, ideas, religions, socio-
economic status, politico-military, and even technological facets.
1. Economic
2. Technological
3. Cultural
4. Political
5. Military
These aspects are all interconnected!