Polytechnic University of the Philippines

The Contemporary
World Module

Prepared by Professor Rolando Tan Herrero, CSSD

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Table of Contents
Lesson 1 : Globalization ............................................................................................................................... 4
The Nature of Globalization .......................................................................................................................... 4
There are 6 known Aspects of Globalization : .............................................................................................. 5
Brief History of Globalization ........................................................................................................................ 6
Different Perspectives of Globalization ........................................................................................................ 7
Lesson 2 : Market Globalism ......................................................................................................................... 9
The Ideological Dimension of Globalization ............................................................................................... 10
Ideology....................................................................................................................................................... 11
Lesson 3 : The Rise of Global Corporation ................................................................................................. 13
The Historic Rise of Global Corporation in Three Periods .......................................................................... 15
Global Corporations .................................................................................................................................... 15
Foreign Direct Investment .......................................................................................................................... 17
Producer-driven and Buyer-driven Commodity Chain................................................................................ 17
Quick Response QR Management .............................................................................................................. 18
BRICS Economy ........................................................................................................................................... 18
NATO Economy ........................................................................................................................................... 19
Corporate Social Responsibility .................................................................................................................. 20
Lesson 4 : Government and Citizens in a Globally Interconnected World ................................................. 22
Economic Interdependence ........................................................................................................................ 23
The European Union : A Brief History ......................................................................................................... 23
The Rise of Internationalism and Universal Principles................................................................................ 24
Lesson 5 : Globalization of Economic Relations .......................................................................................... 26
What is Economic Globalization?................................................................................................................ 27
Is Economic Globalization a New Phenomenon? ....................................................................................... 27
Convergence versus Divergence ................................................................................................................. 28
The International Monetary System ........................................................................................................... 28
The Gold Standard ...................................................................................................................................... 29
The Bretton Woods System ........................................................................................................................ 29
The Bretton Woods System and its Dissolution.......................................................................................... 30
European Monetary Integration ................................................................................................................. 31
The Cobden-Chevalier Treaty ..................................................................................................................... 31

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Multi-Nationalism : from GATT to WTO ..................................................................................................... 31
Lesson 6 : Locating the Global South .......................................................................................................... 33
The Starbucks and Shanty ........................................................................................................................... 34
Challenging the Colonial Order ................................................................................................................... 36
Lesson 7 : Globalization of the Asia Pacific and South Asia ........................................................................ 37
Asia Pacific and South Asia.......................................................................................................................... 38
An Externalist View of Globalization ........................................................................................................... 38
Generating Globalization : The Asia Pacific and South Asia as a Spring Board........................................... 39
The Anti-Global Impulse : Regional Alternatives to Globalization .............................................................. 40
Mass Media ................................................................................................................................................. 42
Evolution of Media and Globalization ........................................................................................................ 42
Global Imaginary and Global Village ........................................................................................................... 45
Lesson 9 : Religion and Globalization ......................................................................................................... 48
Secularism ................................................................................................................................................... 49
Deterritorialization and Reterritorialization ............................................................................................... 49
Transnational Religion and Multiple Glocalizations.................................................................................... 50
Global Civil Society Roles ............................................................................................................................ 53
The Weakness of Global Civil Society ......................................................................................................... 54
Lesson 11 : International Migration as the Beginning of the 21st Century ................................................. 56
Types of Migration ...................................................................................................................................... 57
Categories of International Migration ........................................................................................................ 57
Causes of Migration .................................................................................................................................... 58
Brief History of Migration ........................................................................................................................... 58
Lesson 12 : Sustainable Economic Systems ................................................................................................ 59
Stability ....................................................................................................................................................... 60
Sustainability ............................................................................................................................................... 60
Approaches to Growth ................................................................................................................................ 61
Realist Perspectives : A Minimal Role for Global Governance................................................................... 63
The Alternative Liberal Perspective and Global Citizenship ....................................................................... 63
An Emerging Cosmopolitan Order : Implications for Global Citizenship .................................................... 64
Is World Federalism Still on the Agenda? ................................................................................................... 64
Cosmopolitan Democracy ........................................................................................................................... 64

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Cosmopolitan as Imperialism ...................................................................................................................... 65
What is Food Security? ............................................................................................................................... 66
Four Key Pillars of Food Security................................................................................................................. 67
Food Security and Human Security ............................................................................................................. 67
Global Food Security – Key Trends ............................................................................................................. 67
Rising Food Prices and Poverty ................................................................................................................... 67
Population Growth and Urbanization ......................................................................................................... 68
Rising Incomes and Changing Diets ............................................................................................................ 69
Biofuel Production, Land Use Change and Access to Land ......................................................................... 69
Climate Change ........................................................................................................................................... 69
Emerging Responses to Calls for Global Food Security............................................................................... 70

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 Lesson 1: Globalization

The Nature of Globalization

According to Alec Mac Gillivray (2006), “the planet we live in now is an incredible shrinking
planet”. Geographically speaking, globalization aids in the growing interdependence of countries
across the globe. As technology continues to progress over the years, accessibility becomes the
trend to brought-about issues of cross border trade, socio-economic factors, communication,
transportation, and political services. The successful exchange of goods and services, as well
as information without barriers therefore makes our world, borderless.

Learning Objectives

1. Be able to define globalization

2. Identify the different types and forms of globalization
3. Understand the benefits and effects of globalization in our society and the world today

Course Materials (Suggested)

✓ Watch the Globalization I – The Upside : Crash Course World History #41 on
YouTube
✓ Watch the Globalization II – Good or Bad? : Crash Course World History #42 on
YouTube
✓ Read the short article of the National Geographic Society “Globalization” on Google
o An excerpt :
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 travelled these silken
strands, and have done so in greater numbers and with greater speed
than ever in the present age.1

Activities

1. Name a few products that are produced by multi-nationals. Do you think that those
products influence your lifestyle? In what way?
2. What is your reflection on globalization?
3. Do you expect that globalization is beneficial to your life and society?

1
National Geographic, “Globalization”., Available on
https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/globalization/print/

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Content

Globalization comes from the word “globe” or “globalize” which translates to the
emergence of countries and rations across the world. With globalization, the barter and
exchange of ideas, goods, and services are made possible. The advancements to technology
and transportation also stand as important pillars to making this change happen. For example,
the development of telegraphs and the Internet are ambitious drivers of a more interconnected
and globalized world. Some individual elements such as traditions, languages, cultural aspects,
norms, or values, also take turns in influencing each other.

According to Minnesota, “globalization is the spread of products, investments and

technology across national borders and countries.”

Types of Globalization
1. Industrial Globalization, Transnational Globalization
- is a process linked by interconnected cross-border production, firmness to enter new
markets, capitalization on technological organizational advantages, and to reduce
cost. It also refers to multi-national corporations and transnational corporations. For
example, Coca-Cola, McDonalds, Starbucks etc.

2. Financial Globalization
- refers to international lending institutions for capital outlay to developing countries
like IMF and the World Bank. Financial globalization allows leading business to
having more access to capital flows, technologies, and human export markets like
the IMF and the World Bank that finances developing countries are the Philippines,
Afghanistan, or Brazil.

3. Political Globalization
- refers to the worldwide political stand and relationship of countries between each
other. It also represents the increased flow of communication among countries to
further spread democratic ideas to developed and developing countries and reduce
cultural barriers across the world. Leading organizations such as the United Nations
and World Trade Organization which regulates international politics and trade are the
most common examples.

4. Cultural Globalization
- the spread of material and non-material culture across the world such as ideas,
beliefs, apparels, and values around the world to diversify and expand social
relations. This exchange can be referred to as the consumption of culture that have
been introduced by the Internet to its users.

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 5. Informational Globalization
- is a process of integration among people, companies, and governments of different
nations driven by international trade and aided by informational technology. This
allows increases in the informational flow between remote and industrialized
countries throughout the world like satellites on the past availability of cell phones
and Internet.

Brief History of Globalization

Globalization started as early as the 15th century. The first phase of globalization
favoured more the exchange of knowledge rather than the exchange of goods. This phase took
place from the 15th to 18th century in Europe where some significant events happened like the
Spanish and Portuguese discoveries of America, the introduction of the Gregorian calendar and
the discovery of the heliocentric view of the solar system.

The 18th and the 19th century are generally linked with the events of democracy,
industrialization and scientific progress. In the year 1776, The American Declaration of
Independence took place where it served as a huge factor in the spread of democratic ideals. In
the 19th century, industrialization took place. Industrialization gave the world an opportunity to a
prominent technological progress that allowed countries to experience a faster exchange
between goods, products and information.

In the second phase of globalization, it covered the period of intensive

internationalization of transportation systems, communications, commerce and science. During
the second half of the 19th century, four advancing technologies – trains, steamships, telegraphs
and postal systems planted the entirety of the Western world in a dramatic intensification of
international connectivity. At the 20th century, an opulent and affluent inhabitant of London had
access to products of foreign origins before the events of August 1914 disturbed the world of
global connectivity.

In the end of the Second World War in 1945, the third phase of globalization took place.
The period from the late 1940s to the early 1970s is called the Golden Age of Capitalism. New
international financial agreements and institutions, such as the International Monetary Fund and
the World Bank, provided a new kind of global financial stability. The Golden Age of Capitalism
ended abruptly in the 1970s. Instead of competition between countries, the neoliberal globalism
made sure to implement three important characteristics - deregulation, privatization, and
liberalization. 2

Scholars around the world concluded that globalization is just a concept, but many argued
that globalization is a process or phenomenon with a very long history. According to Thomas L.
Friedman, an American political commentator and author, globalization is divided into three
periods:

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 1. Globalization of countries from 1642 to 1800
2. Globalization of companies from 1800 to 2000 and
3. Globalization of the individuals from 2000 to present
Different Perspectives of Globalization
Aspects of Globalization Pro-Globalization
Trade The increase in trade made
both countries wealthier and
has lowered trade barriers.
Poorer nations with
disadvantaged people
improved more with the profit
collected because of the trade.
Culture Globalization allows different
indigenous voices to be heard
as well as the diffusion of
cultures. Globalization has
been a huge help in increasing
awareness of different cultures
around the world.
Transportation The advance use for
transportation makes it easier
for globalization to spread
across countries by spreading
goods and products from a
speedier transport.
Technology The help of technology for
globalization has been
beneficial to everyone. The
proliferation of new technology
and innovation elevates the
standard living of people. It
also brings people together so
that concerns, issues and
ideas can be raised and
shared.
Employment Globalization creates profound
opportunities for different
people around the world. It
helps them increase their
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Anti-Globalization
Globalization benefits foreign
corporations at the expense of
the host countries. With the
goods exported overseas, the
locally produced goods tend to
cost higher than imported goods.
Therefore, not only does it
threaten the existence of local
industries, it also results to
affluence and poverty. “The rich
becomes richer and the poor
becomes poorer”.
The use of the common language
dominates the language of
indigenous people that threatens
its existence. Also, less dominant
cultures tend to be threatened
and at risk disappearing because
of the force adaptation
globalization embodies.
The use of transportation like
ferries and airplanes continue to
harm our climate change by the
increasing carbon dioxide it
releases. Globalization becomes
detrimental to the environment as
it destroys poorer countries.
The downside of technology for
poorer countries has been a
downfall. The unequal supply of
technology divides the people
that benefits from the advantages
and the people who are forced to
be left behind in our rising,
digitizing world.
Labourers in poorer countries
suffering from injustice with their
wages and working conditions
tend to go unnoticed by those
 knowledge, skills and abilities consumers consuming their
needed to adapt to produced goods.
globalization.

Assessment

1. List your expectations from the course.

2. Write a personal definition of globalization based on what you learned.
3. What did you understand about globalization?
4. Do you think that globalization benefits everyone?
5. Analyse the impact of globalization in our country.

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 Lesson 2: Market Globalism

Introduction

The idea of market globalism is best understood using the values of discipline and social
sciences. It emphasizes the role of ideology and acts as a confirmatory figure to the existence of
global homogenization. Market globalism also uses new locales to legitimate power otherwise
political entities will be useless. Each ideology is supported around the core claims which make
them acceptable to the whole world. As a result, the world now is interconnected with various
factors such as economic, social, political, and cultural. But for the time being, market globalism
is acknowledged in this contemporary era of globalization.

Learning Objectives

1. To be able to understand the various approaches to globalization

2. To be able to analyse the different drivers of market globalism
3. Assess the impact of globalization in our country

Course Materials (Suggested)

✓ Read about Manfred Steger’s perception of globalization.

✓ Familiarize yourselves with any article about neo-liberalism.
✓ Read the article of Ideologies of Globalization – Market Globalism, Justice
Globalism and Religious Globalism : A Short Introduction on the website
www.veryshortintroductions.com
✓ Watch Political Ideology: Crash Course Government and Politics #35 on YouTube
o An excerpt:

Globalism versus globalization? Many people would think the two terms
refer to the same phenomenon. However, there are important differences
between the two. Globalism, at its core, seeks to describe and explain
nothing more than a world which is characterized by networks of
connections that span multi-continental distances. It attempts to
understand all the inter-connections of the modern world — and to
highlight patterns that underlie (and explain) them. In contrast,
globalization refers to the increase or decline in the degree of globalism. It
focuses on the forces, the dynamism or speed of these changes. In short,
consider globalism as the underlying basic network, while globalization
refers to the dynamic shrinking of distance on a large scale.

Globalism is a phenomenon with ancient roots. Thus, the issue is not how
old globalism is, but rather how “thin” or “thick” it is at any given time. As
an example of “thin globalism,” the Silk Road provided an economic and
cultural link between ancient Europe and Asia. Getting from thin to thick
globalism is globalization — and how fast we get there is the rate of

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 globalization. Of course, the Silk Road was plied by only a small group of
hardy traders. Its direct impact was felt primarily by a small group of
consumers along the road. In contrast, the operations of global financial
markets today, for instance, affect people from Peoria to Penang. Thus,
“globalization” is the process by which globalism becomes increasingly
thick/intense.

The general point is that the increasing intensity, or thickness, of

globalism — the density of networks of interdependence — is not just a
difference in degree from the past. An increasing “thickness” changes
relationships, because it means that different relationships of
interdependence intersect more deeply at more different points. At the
same time, it is important to note that globalism does not imply
universality. After all, the connections that make up the networks to define
globalism may be more strongly felt in some parts of the world than in
others.3

Activities

1. What is the impact of market globalism in your life and your family?
2. Make a reaction on the connotation “Globalization creates affluence and poverty”.
3. Do you expect globalization to be inevitable and irreversible? Why?

Content

The Ideological Dimension of Globalization

With the rise of globalization, market globalism is the idea that global markets will be
developed across borders to serve the interest of socio-economic sectors around the world.
Market globalism reflects the concepts of globalization with neoliberal values as well as a
democratic perspective in the capitalistic system.

Neo-liberalism is a contemporary term which supports free-market capitalism and reformed

policies such as lowered trade barriers which influences the movement of the state. This
ideology completely eradicates itself to selfish and individual interests and has moved away
from a centrally governed capital and built their economy to be self-regulated through supply
and demand.

American political scientist, Joseph Nye, co-founder of the International Relations Theory of
Neo-Liberalism generalized the term “market globalism” to argue that “globalism refers to any
description or explanation of a word which is characterized by networks of connections that
span multi-continental distances”.
3
Joseph Nye, “Globalism versus Globalization” April 15, 2002. Available on
https://www.theglobalist.com/globalism-versus-globalization/

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 As Malcolm Waters (2001) observes, today’s economic exchange suggests that both the
cultural and political arenas are becoming more activated and energetic. Researchers have paid
insufficient attention to the global circulation of ideas and their impact.

According to Manfred Steger, a professor at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, there are
three main types of globalism,

✓ Market Globalism – includes the definition and ideology of neo-liberalism. It also

seeks to an economic globalization with free markets, norms and neo-liberal
meanings. This ideology is preferred by many powerful individuals at it promotes
democracy and is very beneficial to everyone.

✓ Justice Globalism – unlike market globalism, justice globalism constructs the

vision of globalization based on the ideology of global solidarity and social
justice. This ideology is also envisioned by a lot of individuals for they prove
justice globalism is socially fairer.

✓ Religious Globalism – on the other hand, struggles competing between market

globalism and justice globalism as they mobilize religious beliefs and aspires for
a global and religious community to uphold superiority over their secular beliefs
and structures.

Ideology
The term “ideology” was first coined by Antoine Destutt de Tracy in the late 18th century.
It is a system of widely shared ideas and ideals, patterned beliefs, guiding norms and values
accepted as truth by parts of the society. In ideology, ideas are structured to be a working set of
legitimate paradigms or patterns. According to Freeden (1996), an ideology becomes political
based on privilege and constructed social meanings that works in relation to an exercised power
in society. Ideology offers no duplicity. As Sir Francis Bacon suggests, it always appears
upright.

French philosopher, Paul Ricoeur (1986), identified the historical elements and functions
of ideology. Drawing on the insights of the Marxist tradition, he characterized the first functions
of ideology as,

1. The Reality Dissimulation – the production of contorted images of social reality.

This conceals the contras between things to cease being envisioned in a theory
as they get accepted out on the plane of material reality.
2. Legitimation – the process of claiming legitimacy made by the ruling authority
and the belief in an authority’s legitimacy granted by its subjects as it gets
accepting in society.
3. Social Integration – plays a meditating or integrative role. It works not only
distortive of social reality, but also stabilizes society as it creates, preserves, and
protects social identities.

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Market Globalism Morphs into Imperial Globalism
Globalization being defined as a leaderless concept by the Anglo-Americans was framed
into question by the neoconservative vision of the United States following the political attack of
the 9/11 bombing. This event gave birth to the idea of using military power as a backing force to
protect the viability of their project, which would then lead to the shift of market globalism into
imperial globalism. Later, imperial globalism is referred to as the economic change “based on
the use of force through economic sanctions” and justified actions.

Manfred Steger (2005) classifies the six core claims of globalization as an attempt to
shed light to the ideological-discursive shift of soft leaderless power to the tough newly born
system of imperial globalism.

1. Claim no. 1, Globalization is about the liberalization and integration of markets.

2. Claim no. 2, Globalization is inevitable and irreversible.
3. Claim no. 3, Nobody is in charge of globalization.
4. Claim no. 4, Globalization benefits everybody (…) in the long run.
5. Claim no. 5, Globalization furthers the spread of democracy in the world.
6. Claim no. 6, Globalization requires a war on terror.

However, in his essay, Steger speaks of Claim no. 6 as contingent than the previous five
claims due to its paradoxical character. If global terror is no longer an issue, it would just be
disregarded and considered harmless to the overall coherence of globalism. But, if it were to
endure, then it would become more important over time. Imperial globalism holds a flag of
success and ideological dominance given the political issues of our time centers a favored
response in an ideology arranged on the three major conflicting political belief systems of
liberalism, conservatism, and nationalism.

Assessment

1. Define economic globalization.

2. Analyse the different core claims about market globalism.
3. Articulate your stance on market globalism.
4. What are the impacts of market globalism in our economy?
5. Draw a very simple slogan on how you understand the role of globalism in our economy.

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 Lesson 3: The Rise of Global Corporation

Introduction

Global corporations play a vital role in the development of global economies. This chapter aims
to discuss the phases of development global corporations undergo, their functions, impact to
their host/parent countries, and their social responsibility to their host countries.

Learning Objectives

1. Be able to understand the evolution of global corporations

2. Be able to recognize the different functions of global corporations
3. Analyse the social responsibility of global corporations
4. Understand how the global corporations’ function and classify what constitutes global
corporations

Course Materials (Suggested)

✓ Watch Global Corporations on YouTube

✓ Watch Foreign Direct Investment on YouTube
✓ Read the article paper of Globalization and the Role of the Global Corporation on
Science Direct on Google
✓ Watch the short video A Tale of Five Economies : How did BRICS Form and
Develop on YouTube
✓ Watch the very well explained video NATO – 10 Things You Need To Know About
NATO on YouTube
o An excerpt :

A great deal of controversy exists these days concerning the role of the global
corporations with very little agreement. Many charges and claims are made,
often unsubstantiated and contradictory. The situation is complex due to the
many different issues and points of view. This paper identifies some of the
problems, issues, and perspectives and then suggests that the key question
concerns the net effect of the global corporation. Unfortunately, the answer to
that question still depends on a person's point of view. Therefore, it is concluded
that it would be a mistake to simplify any discussion of the role of the global
corporation and that we need a generally accepted set of guidelines for ethical
behavior of the global corporation. This background is then used to introduce the
other papers in this special issue of the Journal of International Management.4

4
Ricks, Davis Journal of International Management, Volume 9, Issue 4, 2003, Pages 355-359. Available on the
website Science Direct https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1075425303000541

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 An excerpt:

BRIC's Growth in Global Dominance

In 1990, BRIC countries accounted for 11% of global gross domestic product
(GDP). By 2014, this figure rose to nearly 30%. These figures include a high
in 2010, following a plunge in value, surrounding the 2008 financial crisis.

BRIC countries were originally projected to be the fastest-growing market

economies by Jim O'Neill of Goldman Sachs in 2001. The Goldman Sachs
thesis does not argue that these countries are a political alliance, like the
European Union (EU), or a formal trading association. Instead, it asserts they
have power as an economic bloc. BRIC countries have not announced
formal trade agreements, but leaders regularly attend summits together and
often act in concert with one another's interests. It has been postulated that
by 2050 these economies would be wealthier than most of the current major
economic powers.

This growth is due to lower labor and production costs in these countries.
The BRIC initialization expanded to include South Africa as the fifth nation in
2010. Many companies also cite BRIC nations as a source of foreign
expansion or foreign direct investment (FDI) opportunities. Foreign business
expansion happens in countries with promising economies in which to invest.

Goldman Sachs, which coined the term, also created an investment fund
especially targeted at opportunities in the BRIC economies. However, it
merged that fund with a broader emerging markets fund in 2015 following a
slowdown in growth prospects for the economies.5

Activities

1. What is your opinion of global corporations?

2. Do you think that the presence of multinationals beneficial to your life and society?
3. Describe the influence of multinationals in your lifestyle.

5
Majaski, Cristina “Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC)” 2020, Investopedia. Available on
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/bric.asp#:~:text=Criticism%20of%20BRICs&text=Arguments%20include%
20the%20notion%20that,and%20South%20Africa%20are%20limitless.&text=It%20has%20also%20been%20argued
,it%20into%20a%20different%20category.

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Content

The Historic Rise of Global Corporation in Three Periods

Corporations are chartered in the early 16th century in countries like England and
Holland. A corporation is a legal entity in a form of a business corporation run by separate and
individual owners.

The First Wave of Globalization – by the end of the 18th century, Great Britain had
started to dominate the world geography, through the establishment of the British Empire by
collecting raw materials in different territories and manufactured goods to use in technological
developments and innovations like the inventions of steam power, industrial weaving machines
and more.

In 1914, the outbreak of the World War II brought about an end to everything including
the society of the West and cotton used as well as globalization.

The Second and Third Wave of Globalization – the beginning of the second wave of
globalization took place in 1870 to 1914. This phase was also called the “new imperialism”. In
this wave, countries in Europe like Belgium and Germany as well as Japan and USA were
involved as imperialism was starting to rise again and the global economy was aided by
technologies of the second industrial revolution like cars and planes. This period where global
trade is involved is starting to arise.

At the same time, a new technology arises out of the third industrial revolution, the
Internet, which connected the people around the world in an overly direct way.

In a 2007 presentation on the subject, Nayan Handa, cofounder of the Yale Center for
the study of globalization, implied that globalization has been a near constant for a thousand
centuries but that its pace was greatly restrained by the slow pace by which ideas and people
were able to move out of the world.

Global Corporations
A global company is generally referred to as a multi-national corporation (MNC) or
transnational corporation (TNC). A MNC or TNC is a corporation that operates in two or more
countries, usually third world countries, to leverage the global environment to approach varying
markets in attaining the revenue generation. As organizations, MNCs or TNCs must consist of a
parent company or home country wherein the activities are maintained, controlled and
organized. Subsidiaries are a part of a company that is controlled by the parent company to
strengthen its power.

These organizations, MNCs or TNCs, exert economic and political influences in a

country that sometimes can be a little bit overwhelming. For example, big companies and
capitals often destroy the businesses of local industries. It also affects the mentality of a
consumer, how one thinks, how one buys or how even one individual acts.

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 Though based predominantly in Western Europe, North America, and Japan, TNCs’
operations span the globe. For example, the Swiss electrical engineering giant ABB has
facilities in 140 nations, while Royal Dutch/Shell explores for oil in 50 countries, refines in 34,
and markets in 100. Offices of the US food processing firm H.J. Heinz cover six continents and
Cargill, the US’s largest grain company, operates in 54 countries. Britain’s leading chemical
company ICI has manufacturing operations in 40 nations.

Examples of global corporations include brands such as Apple, Adidas, BMW,

Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, and Domino’s Pizza.

How do Global Corporations Function?

1. International companies have no foreign investments and make products or services
only in their home countries.
2. Multi-national companies cross the FDI threshold. They invest directly in foreign assets,
whether it’s a lease contract on a building to a house service operation, a plant on a
foreign soil or a foreign marketing campaign.
3. Global companies have investments in dozens of countries but maintain a strong
headquarter in one country.
4. Transnational countries are often very complex and very difficult to manage. They invest
directly in dozens of countries and experience strong pressure both for cost reduction
and local responsiveness.

Three Structural Periods

Globalization became a prominent and controversial feature of the contemporary
landscape. Although there are myriad processes and definitions associated with the economic,
political, social and cultural dimensions of globalization, this article is concerned primarily with
the evolution of the global commodity chains. According to Gereffi, there are three known
structural periods that aid globalization.

1. Investment-based globalization – the global reach of a vertically integrated TNC dates

from the late 19th century in primary products such as oil, mining or agriculture and
automobiles from the 20th century. The international production networks were primarily
vehicles for this form of globalization. In the 1950s and 1960s, the multinational spread
of TNCs accelerated in a growing number of manufacturing and raw material industries
and the ability of global companies to try to manage the world as an integral unit.

2. Trade-based globalization – in the 1970s, there was a marked shift to export oriented
industrialization as a preferred development strategy in many parts of the developing
world beginning with East Asia but later on spreading in Latin America, Africa and
everywhere else in 1980 (Gereffi and Wyman, 1990).This shift in the national
development strategies toward exports was premised on the rapid and diversified
industrialization of a wide range of developing nations.

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 3. Digital Globalization – in the mid-1990s, the information revolution and a growing
acceptance of the Internet began to create an explosion in connectivity due to open and
almost cost-free exchange of a widening universe of rich information (Evans and Wuster,
2000).

Foreign Direct Investment

Foreign direct investment (FDI) is a long term investment made by a firm or individual in
one foreign country. Generally, FDI takes place when an investor establishes foreign business
operations or acquires foreign business assets, including establishing ownership or controlling
interest in a foreign company. FDI promotes improvement and innovation, assisting their chosen
partner to have better production.

Usually, companies find favourable business environments for investments with a

growing consumer market, abundant plantation, great source of raw materials or enough supply
of medical equipment. Foreign direct investments search for countries with the best potential. In
the other hand, they build good relationships as they negotiate. They also help their partnered
countries to generate a higher rate of employment helping a country to nourish and grow.

Fordist Management Principle

Fordism is “the eponymous manufacturing system design to spew out standardized, low-
cost goods and afford its workers decent enough wages to buy them”. It has also been
described as a “model of economic expansion and technological progress based on mass
production – the manufacture of standardized products in huge volumes using special purpose
machineries and unskilled labours”.

Major success stemmed from three major principles:

1. The standardization of the product (nothing is handmade, but everything is made

through machines and constructed by unskilled workers).
2. The employment of assembly lines, which uses special purpose and/or
equipment to allow unskilled workers to contribute to the finished product.
3. Workers are paid a higher living wage so that they can afford to purchase the
products they make.

Producer-driven and Buyer-driven Commodity Chain

Globalization has been promoted by industrial and commercial firms alike, which lead to two
established distinct types of international economic networks that have been called producer-
driven and buyer-driven (Gereffi 1994, 1999).

❖ Producer-driven chains are those in large, usually traditional manufactures play the
central roles in coordinating production networks. This is where a specific product is
manufactured, formed and controlled. It is a characteristic of capital and technology
intensive industries such as automobiles, aircrafts and computers.

17 | H e r r e r o , T C W
 ❖ Buyer-driven commodity chains refer to those industries in which large retailers,
marketers and branded manufactures play the pivotal roles in setting up decentralized
production networks in a variety of exporting countries, typically located in the third
world. These are referred to as “buyers” as they distribute the goods they have bought
from the manufactures all around the world. This pattern of trade helped industrialization
consumer goods industries such as garments, footwear, toys, housewares, consumer
electronics and a variety of handicrafts.

Quick Response QR Management

Prior to the invention of Quick Response (QR) codes, barcodes ruled the game of
inventory in the market scheme. In 1994, Japanese automaker Toyota introduced the concept of
QR codes to track their vehicles during car manufacturing.

QR codes are primarily developed as a better and more comprehensive inventory for
tracking and management. Its concepts aim to create an increased consumer satisfaction and
lead the competition from arising competitors. The idea of QR intends to reduce the initial time a
product spends during delivery and transportation, as well as increase cash flow. In the United
States, the QR system is developed as an alternative resource of survival for the global
competition with low-cost foreign companies. VICS (Voluntary Interindustry Commerce
Standards Association) is the organization that is promoting QR.

BRICS Economy6
BRICS is an economic alliance and partnership for the developing countries of Brazil,
Russia, India, and China. In 2010, South Africa joined this partnership so it was later
called the BRICS. The term “BRICS” was coined by the Jim O’Neill, the chief economist
of Goldman Sachs in 2002. Jim believes that the alliance of BRICS can be strong
enough that in 2030, China can be more advanced than USA.

As of 2010, BRICS currently holds 3 billion people or 42.5% of the world’s population.
Their combined gross domestic product is almost 16 trillion US Dollars equivalent to
almost 20% of the world’s GDP. Economists believe that the alliance between the five
nations to assist and support each other as they become dominant suppliers
manufactured goods or services respectively, while Brazil and Russia will become
similarly dominant as suppliers of raw materials.

This growth is due to lower labour and production costs in these countries. The BRICS
initialization expanded to include South Africa as the fifth nation in 2010. Many

6
Majaski, Cristina “Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC)” 2020, Investopedia. Available on
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/bric.asp#:~:text=Criticism%20of%20BRICs&text=Arguments%20include%
20the%20notion%20that,and%20South%20Africa%20are%20limitless.&text=It%20has%20also%20been%20argued
,it%20into%20a%20different%20category.

18 | H e r r e r o , T C W
 companies also cite BRICS nations as a source of foreign expansion or foreign direct
investments (FDI) opportunities.

BRICS countries were originally projected to be the fastest growing market economy by
Jim O’Neill of Goldman Sachs in 2001. The Goldman Sachs thesis does not argue that
these countries are a political alliance like the European Union (EU), or a formal trading
association. Instead, it asserts they can have the most powerful economic block with
their alliance.

BRICS countries have not yet announced formal trade agreements, but leaders regularly
attend summits together and often act in concert with one another’s interests. It has
been postulated that by 2050 these economies would be wealthier than most of the
current major economic powers.

In the other hand, as BRICS continue to emerge and develop with their partnership,
some countries like India continue to suffer the oppressive caste system which socially
immobilizes the country according to the book “India Conquest – The Chaos of Empire”.

NATO Economy7
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization or commonly known as NATO is a political
alliance founded in 1949 of 30 European and North American countries to ensure the
security and safeguard of their people using political and military means in their
territories. The quotation “One for All, All for One” can be applied with NATO as they
swore to protect, and NATO ally attacked or threatened.

NATO plays a very important role in stabilizing peace, especially with the fight of
terrorism. They are believed to have contributed almost 13,000 NATO troops to train
local forces in Afghanistan that is very beneficial especially to the threats surrounding
the country. NATO’s defence and troops are also funded well as every ally of NATO
must contribute to the infrastructure of the development of their defence. Lastly, NATO
opens a free door to any Euro-Atlantic are as long as they can meet the standards and
principles offered by NATO.

State Owned Companies

The Government-Owned and Controlled Corporation (GOCC) is a term in the Philippines
used to describe the government-owned corporations that conduct both commercial and non-
commercial activity.

Under the GOCC Governance Act (Republic Act 10149; GOCC Governance Act of
2011), GOCCs are overseen by the Governance Commission for Government Owned or

7
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) 2018. Available on
https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/126169.htm#:~:text=Collective%20defence%3A%20The%20North%20Atlanti
c,and%20territory%20of%20its%20members.

19 | H e r r e r o , T C W
Controlled Corporations (GCG). The Governance Commission is the “government’s central
advisory and oversight body over the public corporate sector” according to the official gazette of
the Philippines government.

The act or the process of transferring a public company to a private one is called
privatization. Sometimes, it is often known as outsourcing of the public services to private
services. Some GOCCs included were the National Power Corporation (NAPOCOR) that is now
known as Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corporation (PSALM), Manila Hotel,
Philippine Airlines and Manila Waterworks and Sewerage System.

More Examples of State-Owned companies in the Philippines

• Intercontinental Broadcasting Corporation

• Jaen Water District
• Laguna Lake Development Authority
• Kamayan Realty Corporation
• Land Bank of the Philippines
• Lung Center of the Philippine

General Agreement on Trade and Services

Since the WTO’s general agreement on trade in services came into force in 1995,
services have become increasingly important to the global economy. In the U.S, services
accounted for 78% of the private sector employment in 2015. However, negotiations to review
and update GATS have stalled.

To further liberalize international trade, developed countries have pursued new

neighbours. A published report from various countries regarding the Trade in Services
Agreement (TISA)’s negotiating stances revealed wide differences in offers to revise market
access for sectors including delivery services, ecommerce, energy services, finance,
telecommunications, air maritime and road transport services.

Corporate Social Responsibility

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a self-regulating business model that helps a
company be socially accountable—to itself, its stakeholders, and the public. By practicing
corporate social responsibility, also called corporate citizenship, companies can be conscious of
the kind of impact they are having on all aspects of society, including economic, social, and
environmental. To engage in CSR means that, in the ordinary course of business, a company is
operating in ways that enhances society and the environment, instead of contributing negatively
to them.

Corporate social responsibility is a broad concept that can take many forms depending
on the company and industry. Through CSR programs, philanthropy, and volunteer efforts,
businesses can benefit society while boosting their brands. As important as CSR is for the
community, it is equally valuable for a company. CSR activities can help forge a stronger bond

20 | H e r r e r o , T C W
between employees and corporations; boost morale; and help both employees and employers
feel more connected with the world around them.

Example of CSR in Action

Long before its initial public offering (IPO) in 1992, Starbucks was known for its keen
sense of corporate social responsibility and commitment to sustainability and community
welfare. Starbucks has achieved CSR milestones such as reaching 99% ethically sourced
coffee, creating global networks for farmers, pioneering green buildings through its stores,
contributing millions of hours of community service and creating a ground breaking college
program for its partners/employees. Going forward, Starbucks’ goals include hiring 10,000
refugees across 75 countries, reducing the environmental impacts of tis cups and engaging its
employees in environmental leadership.

Assessment

1. Analyse the different kinds of global corporations

2. How do global corporations’ function?
3. Enumerate some global corporations in the Philippines.

21 | H e r r e r o , T C W
 Lesson 4: Government and Citizens in a Globally Interconnected
World

Introduction

According to Manfred Steger, “globalization is one of the foremost debated concepts in

the late 20th century.”

According to Shaw, “we are now an object of the new globalization. States find
themselves in subordinate positions in new world order.” Arjun Appuadurai (1996) stated that
the “nation-state as a complex modern political form, is on in its last leg”.

Together, the government and citizens continue to globally connect in our new and
emerging interconnect world. In this chapter, the coexistence of factors facilitating the growth of
our globally interconnected world as well as the roles of individuals as a citizen of the world will
be discussed.

Learning Objectives

1. To understand the ways that globalization has partially reshaped the roles and functions
of states; and how and why in this matter
2. To be able to understand the roles of government and citizens in a globally
interconnected world
3. To understand how the unions were formed and governed
4. To analyse the role of international states
5. To know the transnational activism and new communication networks that affects the
government and states in a world of economic state interdependence

Activities

1. React on the connotation “Nation-state is on its last leg”.

2. Analyze your role as a citizen of the globally interconnected world of states.
3. Do you understand the importance of your role in the society?
4. Do you understand the impact of new media today in your area as well as to our
government?
5. What is your reaction to transnationalism in the Philippines?

22 | H e r r e r o , T C W
Content

Economic Interdependence
The famous phrase, no man is an island, is a concept that not only defines individuals,
but also countries. For countries to ensure economic growth and security, they must have global
or partner countries to rely on. Economic interdependence refers to the system by which
countries and nations across the globe become economically dependent upon each other when
it comes to strength, natural resources, raw materials, or military enforcement.

Manfred Steger argues that globalization coexists with the rising momentum of the
global free market capitalism. When it comes to free trade and neoliberal values, the state is
forced upon a choice of conforming to free market principles or being left behind.

Thomas Friedman, however, essentially claims that the states have lost an important
element of economic sovereignty and that neo-liberalism is beyond contestation. As states
continuously fine tune their competitive strategies in the world economy, national governments
deliberately place their interests of their own citizens.

Without economic interdependence, a country will suffer with trade and commerce. One
must always be interdependent in terms of trade and labour specialization. When economic
interdependence is not exercised, a country can undergo depression. For example, North Korea
doesn’t allow any alliance nor allow trade with any country across the globe which puts them on
the scale among one of the countries that suffer economic depression.

The European Union: A Brief History8

The European Union is an international organization originally made up of 28 European
countries. These countries are Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Republic of Cyprus, Czech
Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia,
Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia,
Spain and Sweden. According to the official European Union Website, this international
organization’s goals are to “establish citizenship, assurance of justice and security, and promote
economic and social progress.”

The idea of creating the EU was finalized after the World War II. EU aims to stop any
wars to cultivate between its boundaries like what happened in the former war. The six founding
countries are Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. The
abundance of economic growth started in the 1960s. With the organization made, enough food
and products were distributed to the people in membership of EU. With the agreement of trade
between their goods, they soon experience a surplus agricultural produce.

Denmark, Ireland and the United Kingdom join the European Union on 1 January 1973,
raising the number of Member States to nine. The battle against pollution took place in the

8
European Union Official Website. Available on https://europa.eu/european-union/about-eu/history_en

23 | H e r r e r o , T C W
1970s. Pollution was a huge crisis in this time, and the countries were forced to sacrifice huge
sums of money to stop the pollution. This period helped them realize that they must now pay
membership fees to support each other and later on, adapted the environmental law. The law to
protect the environment from any abuse they might suffer.

As time went by, challenges were faced by the EU. The 1990s is also the decade of two
treaties: the ‘Maastricht’ Treaty on European Union in 1993 and the Treaty of Amsterdam in
1999. People are concerned about how to protect the environment and also how Europeans can
act together when it comes to security and defence matters. In 1995 the EU gains three more
new members: Austria, Finland and Sweden.

In the recent decade (2000-present) the EU membership continues to expand. This

expansion was a challenge for the organization but with each other’s help, they contribute a lot
to the fight of poverty, environmental problems, peace and etc. The citizens inside membership
also benefited for they can live in any country inside the organization as a European citizen.

The Rise of Internationalism and Universal Principles

After the World War II, multiple universal principles were formed to avoid the chances of
war again in the future. Such principles include the International law, also called public
international law or law of nations, which refers to the body of legal rules, norms, and standards
that apply between sovereign states and other entities that are legally recognized as
international actors. The term was coined by the English philosopher Jeremy Bentham (1748–
1832).9

Another principle was the United Nations (UN)10, a name coined by the former United
States President Franklin Roosevelt in the declaration by UN of January 1, 1942, during the
Second World War. The UN is currently made up 193 member states. Its main objective was to
fight against injustices, inequalities, or disadvantages of any country. It aims to be united as one
with the countries all over the world to fight and maintain peace and prosperity.

The Rise of Transnational Activism

States as Targets

The main idea of transnational activism is to move as a collective group of actors

addressing any form of cause that threatens several issues such as environmental and human
rights. Transnational activism exhibits a boomerang pattern of influence. For example, the role
of social media shows importance with ambassadors from many countries using platforms like
Facebook and Twitter to hear opinions and thoughts of their citizens as adhering to public
democracy.

9
Shaw, Malcolm “International Law”, Encyclopaedia Britannica 2019. Available on
https://www.britannica.com/topic/international-law
10
The United Nations Official Website 2020. Available on https://www.un.org/en/about-un/

24 | H e r r e r o , T C W
States as Prospects

While in states as prospects, transnational activism is being held as a possibility for

change. Transnational activism is already becoming a fast and trending phenomenon because
of globalization. However, when local issues become international news, it becomes a common
reminder that a particular country failed to act and recognize this problem with their own
resources, so it becomes a national issue, which sometimes leads to international pressures.

Communication Networks: New Media and the State

According to Morris (2001) “the world’s digital citizens are fortunate to grow with the
Internet across the world and to have the capability to make the most of cyberspace as they
now face the inevitable to seek information and evaluating for themselves which sources are
credible and compiling enough to follow”.

According to Jamieson and Capilla (2016), “good citizenship in the global media takes
effort but the results are many”.

Assessment

1. Analyse the role of government and citizens in a globally interconnected world of states.
2. Discuss the conditions of states in a world of economic interconnectedness.
3. Explain the impact of international law and cultural principles in states.

25 | H e r r e r o , T C W
 Lesson 5: Globalization of Economic Relations

Introduction

Economic globalization constitutes two main factors: finance and trade. It refers to the
widespread mobilization of goods, services, capital, cross border trade, and information. As
industries nowadays become more globalized, economic globalization allows economic growth,
although some economists would argue that this change is still based on factors such as a
country’s socio-economic standing and development.

Learning Objectives

1. To clearly explain what an economic globalization is

2. To discuss different international monetary systems
3. To know the existing international trade and trade policies

Course Materials (Suggested)

✓ An excerpt:

The question of whether economic relations have an impact on interstate

military conflict has divided scholars and political thinkers since the Enlightenment.
Kant claimed that economic interconnectedness among states would contribute to
long-term peace in international politics, but since that time consensus has proved
illusory, and scholars have taken a diverse array of positions in the debate. Some
have claimed that economic connections foster good will and political integration,
and that states will be reluctant to risk the benefits of trade through the initiation of
conflict; others have insisted that trade has no impact on international conflict; and
yet others have argued that trade simply adds to the interstate competition that
breeds conflict and war (Maoz 2009, pp. 224-226; Kim and Rousseau 2005).11

Activities

1. Do you realize the impact of economic relations in your life?

2. React on the connotation “Convergence versus Divergence”.
3. Do you understand the impact of trade and its policies in our economy? What are your
thoughts?

11
Blankenship, B. D. (2012). "Globalization's Peace: The Impact of Economic Connections on State Aggression and
Systemic Conflict." Inquiries Journal/Student Pulse, 4(08). Retrieved
from http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/a?id=677

26 | H e r r e r o , T C W
Content

What is Economic Globalization?

According to the International Monetary Fund (2008), “economic globalization is a
historical process, the result of human innovation and technological process. It refers to the
increasing integration of economies around the world, particularly through the movement of
goods, services and capital across borders.”

According to Szentes (2003) “in economic terms, globalization is nothing but a process
making the world economy an “organic system” by extending transnational economic processes
and economic relations to more and more countries and by deepening the economic
interdependencies among them”.

Ohmae (1995) “implied that states ceased to exist as primary economic organization
units in the wake of the global market. People are consuming highly standardized global
products and services produced by global corporations in a borderless world.”

Is Economic Globalization a New Phenomenon?

Gills and Thompson (2006) suggested that globalization processes “have been ongoing
ever since homo sapiens began migrating from the African continent ultimately to populate the
rest of the world. Minimally, they have been on-going since the 16th century’s connection of the
Americans to Afro-Eurasia.”

Frank and Gills (1993) also called for a broader outlook, and located the origin of
globalization in the distant past; “the existence of the same world system in which we live
stretches back at least 5, 000 years”.

When Adam Smith wrote his magnum opus, ‘An Inquiry into Nature and Causes of the
Wealth of Nations’ (1776), he considered the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus in
1492 and the discovery of the direct sea route to India by Vasco de Gama in 1948 as the two
greatest achievements in human history.

However, the economic nationalism of the 17th and 18th centuries, coupled with
monopolized trade (such as the first multi-national corporations, the British and the Dutch East
India Companies, established in 1600 and 1602 respectively) did not favor international
economic integration.

Although economic globalization is a recurring phenomenon ever since the early tribes
learned contact through barter and trade, some still argue that this is a new phenomenon. As
Manfred Steger classifies, economic globalization started with prehistoric tribes’ settlements, the
technological advancements of the premodern period, which then led to the birth of capitalism
and Industrial Revolution in the modern period, and the era of convergence established in the
contemporary world.

27 | H e r r e r o , T C W
Convergence versus Divergence
Most traders refer to a convergence when describing the price action of a futures
contract. Here, convergence describes the phenomenon of the futures price and the
cash price of the underlying commodity moving closer together over time.
Convergence happens because, theoretically, an efficient market will not allow
something to trade for two prices at the same time.

Divergence is the opposite of convergence. When the value of an asset, indicator, or

index moves, the related asset, indicator, or index moves in the other direction.
Divergence warns that the current price trend may be weakening, and in some
cases may lead to the price changing direction.

Technical traders are much more concerned with divergence than convergence,
largely because convergence is assumed in a normal market. Divergence is
interpreted to mean that a trend is weak or potentially unsustainable. Traders use
divergence to get a read on the underlying momentum of an asset.12

World Bank (2002) claims that globalization can reduce poverty but in the contrary does
not benefit all nations. Sub-Saharan Africa, where roughly half of the population lives on less
than US $1.25 a day, has been especially marginalized by globalization.

Bairoch (1993) argues that while in the developed part of the world, industrial revolution
and intensified international relations reinforced growth and development on an unprecedented
scale (as compared to the previous era), the rest of the world did not manage to capitalize on
these processes. Reflecting upon the division of labour between developed and developing
countries in the 19th century, Bairoch claimed that “the industrialization of the former led to the
de-industrialization of the latter” (1998).

According to Wallerstein, capitalism is “a historical social system” (1983), which created

the dramatically diverging historical level of wages in the economic arena of the world system.
Thus, growing inequality, along with economic and political dependence, are not independent at
all from economic globalization.

Globalization, the product of the long process of capitalist development, is simply the
rebelling of old idea, nothing new for expert analysts (Arrighi, 2005).

The International Monetary System

The International Monetary System refers to the process of operations when it comes to
a financial perspective. This operating system provides the framework for the set of rules and

12
Ross, Sean “Divergence vs. Convergence What's the Difference?”, 2019. Available on
https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/121714/what-are-differences-between-divergence-and-
convergence.asp#:~:text=Convergence%20is%20when%20the%20price,as%20a%20signal%20to%20trade.

28 | H e r r e r o , T C W
conventions that regulate and determine how international payments, exchange rate
arrangement, and capital flows will work in a country. IMS consists of financial institutions and
multinational corporations that mainly web support to this system.

But as many people believes, the International Monetary System’s role does not solely
focus on the value of money currencies, it also reflects the status and economic power and
interest of a state, as money inherently.

The Gold Standard

The gold standard was first put into operation in the United Kingdom in 1821. Prior
to this time silver had been the principal world monetary metal; gold had long been
used intermittently for coinage in one or another country, but never as the single
reference metal, or standard, to which all other forms of money were coordinated or
adjusted.

For the next 50 years a bimetallic regime of gold and silver was used outside the
United Kingdom, but in the 1870s a monometallic gold standard was adopted
by Germany, France, and the United States, with many other countries following
suit. This shift occurred because recent gold discoveries in western North
America had made gold more plentiful.

In the full gold standard that thus prevailed until 1914, gold could be bought or sold
in unlimited quantities at a fixed price in convertible paper money per unit weight of
the metal. The reign of the full gold standard was short, lasting only from the 1870s
to the outbreak of World War I. That war saw recourse to inconvertible paper money
or to restrictions on gold export in nearly every country.

By 1928, however, the gold standard had been virtually re-established, although,
because of the relative scarcity of gold, most nations adopted a gold-exchange
standard, in which they supplemented their central-bank gold reserves with
currencies (U.S. dollars and British pounds) that were convertible into gold at a
stable rate of exchange. The gold-exchange standard collapsed again during
the Great Depression of the 1930s, however, and by 1937 not a single country
remained on the full gold standard.13

The Bretton Woods System

Approximately 730 delegates representing 44 countries met in Bretton Woods in
July 1944 with the principal goals of creating an efficient foreign exchange system,
preventing competitive devaluations of currencies, and promoting international
economic growth. The Bretton Woods Agreement and System were central to these
goals. The Bretton Woods Agreement also created two important organizations—the

13
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica “Gold Standard” Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2019. Available on
https://www.britannica.com/topic/gold-standard

29 | H e r r e r o , T C W
 International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. While the Bretton Woods
System was dissolved in the 1970s, both the IMF and World Bank have remained
strong pillars for the exchange of international currencies.

Though the Bretton Woods conference itself took place over just three weeks, the
preparations for it had been going on for several years. The primary designers of the
Bretton Woods System were the famous British economist John Maynard
Keynes and American Chief International Economist of the U.S. Treasury
Department Harry Dexter White. Keynes’ hope was to establish a powerful global
central bank to be called the Clearing Union and issue a new international reserve
currency called the bancor. White’s plan envisioned a more modest lending fund
and a greater role for the U.S. dollar, rather than the creation of a new currency. In
the end, the adopted plan took ideas from both, leaning more toward White’s plan.

It wasn't until 1958 that the Bretton Woods System became fully functional. Once
implemented, its provisions called for the U.S. dollar to be pegged to the value of
gold. Moreover, all other currencies in the system were then pegged to the U.S.
dollar’s value. The exchange rate applied at the time set the price of gold at $35 an
ounce.

The Bretton Woods Agreement was negotiated in July 1944 by delegates from 44
countries at the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference held in Bretton
Woods, New Hampshire. Thus, the name “Bretton Woods Agreement.14

The Bretton Woods System and its Dissolution

After the World War II, it was clear that no country would ever want to experience a
financial crisis if they undergo a problem in their own countries. Therefore, 44 countries sent
delegates to the first meeting conference in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire to discuss a new
financial system that will handle crises pertaining to this.

Two international organizations were made: the IMF (International Monetary Fund) and
the World Bank. The US dollar was the highest currency at that time, which led to countries
valuing their currency to dollar, while dollar was connected to the value of gold. But as time went
by, the gold reserves were slowly seeing a decrease in inventory as it was more used by the
consumers.

Finally in August 1971, President Nixon announced that the US would end on demand
convertibility of the dollar into gold for the central banks of other nations. The Bretton Woods
System collapsed and gold traded freely on the world’s markets.

14
Chen, James “Bretton Woods Agreement and System” 2020. Available on
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/brettonwoodsagreement.asp

30 | H e r r e r o , T C W
European Monetary Integration
In 1979, the European Monetary System (EMS) was introduced with the motto of
establishing a zone of monetary stability in Europe. The aim was to coordinate the
exchange rate policies and establish the European Monetary Union. In the EMS,
member countries collectively manage their exchange rates. The band for exchange
rate fluctuations was widened to a maximum of plus or minus 15%. Central banks
are allowed to intervene in the forex market to keep the market exchange rate within
the band. The Maastricht Treaty signed by the European countries was aimed at
closely coordinating the fiscal, monetary, and exchange rate policies. The treaty also
paved the way for the adoption of a single European currency, the euro.15

The Cobden-Chevalier Treaty

The Cobden-Chevalier Treaty of 1860 lowered or eliminated duties levied on goods
traded between Britain and France, and signalled a victory for liberal economic
policies. Named for its two primary negotiators, British Richard Cobden (1804–1865)
and French Michel Chevalier (1806–1879), the treaty inaugurated a period of
relatively free trade among many European nations that lasted until the early 1890s.
The treaty continued Britain's move toward lowered tariffs that had begun in the
1820s, notably through the 1846 repeal of the Corn Laws. In France, the treaty
marked a clear departure from protectionism, shaped industrialization, and
sharpened political opposition to Napoleon III, emperor of France.16

This treaty was a free trade agreement between the countries of Great Britain and
France. With this treaty in tow, duties levied on goods were lowered and eliminated
between Britain and France. The two negotiators of this treaty, British Richard
Cobden and French Michel Chevalier believed that the treaty can lower Britain’s
tariffs (as early as 1820) and mark a “clear departure from protectionism, shaped
industrialization, and sharpened political opposition to Napoleon III, emperor of
France” (as early as 1846).17

Multi-Nationalism: from GATT to WTO

The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) is a legal agreement between
many countries, whose overall purpose was to promote international trade by reducing or
eliminating trade barriers such as tariffs or quotas. According to its preamble, its purpose
was the “substantial reduction of tariffs and other trade barriers and the elimination of
preferences, on a reciprocal and mutually advantageous basis”.

15
Rajesh Kumar, Strategies of Banks and Other Financial Institutions, 2014. Available on
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/economics-econometrics-and-finance/european-monetary-system
16
"Cobden-Chevalier Treaty ." Encyclopedia of Modern Europe: Europe 1789-1914: Encyclopedia of the Age of
Industry and Empire. . Encyclopedia.com. 4 Aug. 2020 <https://www.encyclopedia.com>
17
“Cobden-Chevalier Treaty”. Encyclopedia of Modern Europe: Europe 1789-1914: Encyclopaedia of the Age of
Industry and Empire. Enyclopaedia.com, 2020. Available on https://www.encyclopedia.com

31 | H e r r e r o , T C W
 The World Trade Organization (WTO) is an intergovernmental organization that is
concerned with the regulation of international trade between nations. The WTO officially
commenced on January 1, 1995 under the Marrakesh Agreement, signed by 123 nations on
April 15 1944, replacing the GATT, which commenced in 1948. It is the largest international
economic organization in the world.

Assessment

1. Why did European countries build the “European Central Bank”?

2. Do you think it was the right decision to end the “gold standard”? Why?
3. Give an opinion with the Cobden-Chevalier Treaty. What good did it do the countries
involved?

32 | H e r r e r o , T C W
 Lesson 6: Locating the Global South
Introduction

Despite its geographical name, the global south is just an imaginary image in the map.
The main concept of the global south is to identify which nation-states stand at an economic
disadvantage or the post-cold war alternative known to as the “third world countries”.

The term “global south” is used mainly to describe countries with one side of the
fundamental “global north”. This emerging term is usually associated with countries in Asia (with
the exception of Japan, Korea, Singapore, China, Taiwan, etc.), Central America, South
America, Mexico, Africa and some parts of the Middle East. As described, “global south” and
“global north” are terms used as rhetorical anchors to represent global differences.

However, many economists are resistant to this imaginary concept. There are economic
Souths in the North and vice versa which supports the idea that the global south has no exact
location. As Lavender and Mignolo explained, the important question is not “what is global
south” but “for whom and under what conditions does the global south becomes relevant?”

Learning Objectives

1. To be able to identify what global south is

2. To understand what global difference means
3. To identify on what conditions does the global south becomes relevant
4. To analyse the rotation of the global south to globalization
5. To understand the global south as internationalism

Course Materials

✓ Watch the short clip What is Global South on YouTube

✓ Read Lisandro E. Claudio’s paper - The Starbucks and the Shanty on the website
www.course.hero on Google
✓ An excerpt

The Global South captures a deterritorialized geography of capitalism’s externalities

and means to account for subjugated peoples within the borders of wealthier
countries, such that there are economic Souths in the geographic North and Norths
in the geographic South. While this usage relies on a longer tradition of analysis of
the North’s geographic Souths­ ­–– wherein the South represents an internal
periphery and subaltern relational position –– the epithet “global” is used to unhinge
the South from a one-to-one relation to geography.

It is through this deterritorial conceptualization that a third meaning is attributed to

the Global South in which it refers to the resistant imaginary of a transnational
political subject that results from a shared experience of subjugation under
contemporary global capitalism. This subject is forged when the world’s "Souths"
recognize one another and view their conditions as shared (López 2007; Prashad

33 | H e r r e r o , T C W
 2012). The use of the Global South to refer to a political subjectivity draws from the
rhetoric of the so-called Third World Project, or the non-aligned and radical
internationalist discourses of the cold war. In this sense, the Global South may
productively be considered a direct response to the category of postcoloniality in
that it captures both a political collectivity and ideological formulation that arises
from lateral solidarities among the world’s multiple Souths and moves beyond the
analysis of the operation of power through colonial difference towards networked
theories of power within contemporary global capitalism.18

Activities

1. Reflect on “Starbucks and the Shanty”.

2. What is your understanding regarding the global south?
3. Do you think that globalization creates global inequality?
4. What is your reaction now that the global south considered as internationalism?

Content

The Starbucks and Shanty

Starbucks is the face of a very famous and successful corporation. It started as a small
shop in Washington until it developed to the most prosperous globalized brand in the entire
world. With this background, Starbucks is considered as a brand that has interconnected
markets and rich global economy.

The branch of Starbucks is widespread all over the world from countries like Japan,
United States or even in the Philippines. However, for example, when you buy a product from
Starbucks in Manila, the capital city of the Philippines, there is a huge chance that you will run
across a child beggar or shanty houses made out of recycled wood and iron sheets. While if you
buy a product of Starbucks in New York, United States, there is a minimal chance that you will
encounter a child labourer or a scrapped house as you would in the Philippines.

This is an example of the famous phrase “Starbucks and the Shanty”. The Starbucks in
the first world countries may be surrounded with huge and beautiful buildings but Starbucks
shops in third world countries will be surrounded by shanties, street children, child labourers,
beggars and homeless people. Thus, Starbucks represents the “global north” while the shanty,
represents the “global south”.

18
Mahler, Anne Garland “What/Where is Global South” University of Virginia. Available on
https://globalsouthstudies.as.virginia.edu/what-is-global-southhttps://globalsouthstudies.as.virginia.edu/what-is-
global-south

34 | H e r r e r o , T C W
 This gives birth to the idea that as much as Starbucks is a globalized brand, it still
doesn’t stop it from reducing poverty. Poverty is inherent to a country, no matter how many
global brands they shelter, because it is neither a modern problem nor is it global.

The complex situation of the global south is yet to be solved nor eradicated as one could
only describe the evolving and developing crisis the global south is experiencing.

What is Occluded When We Emphasize the State?

When discussing the state, varieties of displayed power, inequalities, and prejudices run
a long-time problem for it to be brushed off simply by debates and discussions. The state of
countries that are considered in the bracket of the global south stems from a history of
corruptions, inconsistencies, and economic depression, which should be prioritized and
resolved through planned systems of action.

The process of globalization questions the belief that poverty and inequality is
geographically bound. Although the name suggests this misconception, the global south
chooses no place or location to bring poverty.

Colonialism, Modernism, and Global Inequality

• The “global south” originated as the product of Western imagination.
• When the Spanish conquest of Latin America happened in the 16th century, it was
conceived by the world for the Christian faith. The conquest saw more the Christian
civilization and Christian believers as not only as lesser, but as minor beings.
• Later on, the French mission colonized countries to spread civilization that led to
subjugation of vast parts of Africa and Southeast Asia in the late 19th century and in the
early 20th centuries.
• In the USA, they deployed the similar logic upon colonizing the Philippines in 1898. The
Americans grounded the Philippines preventing them of their own free will believing on
an account they can take hold and assimilate the country.
• Japanese-colonized countries by spheres of dominant ideology of colonialism. It’s the
international order like movers of the institute of the International law in 1873. They
argued that barbaric races were outside the ambit of international law, but it was only in
1944 during the creation of UN did the Western powers officially abandoned this racial
discourse that eventually created the independence of many nations.
• Now, the dominant theory developed by the Americans in the 1950s was called the
Modernization Theory, a theory used to explain the process of modernization one nation
goes through as it converts from a traditional society to a modern one.

35 | H e r r e r o , T C W
Challenging the Colonial Order
There are different reactions in the present day of the global south responding to colonialism
and visions of modernity.

➢ The resistance against Spanish colonialism in Latin America and the Philippines.
➢ Social democrats like Vladimir Lenin argued for communists to construct alliance with
national elites and radical peasants to their fight against colonialism.
➢ Ho Chi Minh – the former president of Vietnam; a Vietnamese revolutionary leader.19
➢ Bandung Conference consists of 29 Asian and African countries to establish economic
and cultural cooperation amidst the feat of the developing form of colonialism led by the
former president of Indonesia, Sukarno.

The Global South as New Internationalism

The countries located in the global south usually shares the same characteristics of
being historically challenged by colonization, economic exploitation, and marginalization in the
global system. However, this dynamic is considered when countries like Greece are being
placed in a position of poverty. Among other European countries, Greece was hit by global
European crisis that eventually made Greece fall in the hands of prostitution, heroin addiction,
decrease of budget in hospital, increasing cases of malaria and poverty. Greece became a true
example of global south with this involvement which proves that the ‘global south’ is becoming
international.

The new internationalism today calls for all these factors to be accounted for and find a
way to put a leverage to the increasing poverty rate in a global scale. By recognizing the
importance of social justice, human rights, solidarity, and sustainability, more issues of the
global south are being prioritized and planned to resolve in an international context.

Assessment

1. Is the article “The Starbucks and the shanty” applicable to the Philippines?
2. What is your opinion to the term “global south”? Should it still be used to describe
disadvantaged countries?

19
Laocuture, Jean “Ho Chi Minh” Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2020. Available on
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ho-Chi-Minh

36 | H e r r e r o , T C W
 Lesson 7: Globalization of the Asia Pacific and South Asia

Introduction

Globalization of Asia pertains to the influence of the Asia Pacific and South Asia when it comes
to global economic development, culture, and political frameworks. With the region being a
subject of economic growth and technological advancement, Asia has emerged as major game
player in the global marketplace.

Learning Objectives

To discuss the development of Asia Pacific and South Asia along three trajectories

1. Region as an object impacted by globalization

2. Region as a subject pushing globalization forward
3. Region as an alternative to globalization

Course Materials

✓ An excerpt
The Asian financial crisis has provided new fuel for this debate. Prominent,
mainstream Asian thinkers from India, to Malaysia, to Japan are now pointing to
globalization as a possible threat to internal cohesion and economic health.
Commentators in the West have generally assumed that the crisis would precipitate
disillusionment with so-called Asian approaches to governance and economic
management, spurring further "convergence" with Western practices. Although there
is evidence that some Asian countries have moved in this direction, others are
drawing alternative conclusions: namely, that adherence to Western methods leaves
Asian societies more vulnerable to the ravages of global capitalism, and more
exposed to forces that corrode long-standing cultural and social norms. The
outcome of this debate will have profound implications for the region’s security
environment, and for the United States – which is seen in much of Asia as the
ultimate driving force behind globalization.

To explore Asian perspectives on globalization, and to examine how the

phenomenon is reshaping the region’s security environment, the Asia-Pacific Center
invited a group of distinguished government officials and scholars for three days of
intensive discussions. Although thinking about the influence of globalization is still
very much in its infancy, the meeting served to sharpen thinking about how relations
in the region may – or may not – be transformed in the years ahead.20

20
Report From The Conference On Globalization And Regional Security: Asian Perspectives February 23-25, 1999
Honolulu, Hawaii

37 | H e r r e r o , T C W
Activities

1. Do you think that the externalist view of globalization is beneficial to the Philippines?
2. Do you realize the impact of globalization in your life and society? How so?
3. If you are the president of the Philippines, would you go against globalization?

Content

Asia Pacific and South Asia

Although globalization in Asia has shown an increase in trade, technology, and culture
over the past decades, socioeconomic disparities between its countries continue to persist.
Some of the world’s most economically developed states are in Asia such as Japan, South
Korea, and Taiwan, but highly impoverished countries like Cambodia, Laos, and Nepal, do so
too. With this variation, concerns about inequality, sustainability, and political disputes in the
continent are being elements to the pace of Asian globalization.

Even so, with the region’s sheer size, Asia emerged as a developed continent over the
past decade. The economic growth of China and India contributed to the political force it brought
to regional and global players. Japan is also a stable country in the force of economic and
strategic growth relevance in today’s global system.

Global powers outside the region are focused on Asia Pacific and South Asia. The US
implemented a foreign shift policy dubbed the ‘Pacific pivot’ committing more resources and
attention to the region. Hillary Clinton called the shift “Atlantic century” and “Pacific Century”.

An Externalist View of Globalization: How is Globalization Pushed

into the Region?
In the perspective, globalization is seen as a process that transforms the Asia Pacific
and South Asia. The external view of globalization focuses on the external actors which
contribute to the development of global interconnectedness such as multinational corporations
and international organizations. It is an irreversible process that deals with changing culture,
upbringing, politics, economy, and social and cultural aspects of countries. For example,
multinational corporations play an important role in threading the market expansion and trade
liberalization because their goal is to access new markets and establish global supply chains
within the region.

Advantages of Globalization

1. Economic development – was introduced as a help from US, Europe and other world
powers as a phenomenon that it would be a hope for Asian and Pacific countries for
better economies.

38 | H e r r e r o , T C W
 2. Political development – is the political progress that brings to the countries as
democracy based on a very important role in the spread of globalization. Globalization
and democracy are being paired in colonized countries like Japan was forced over to
their markets after WWII.

3. Social and cultural diversity – where countries in the region allowed foreign products to
saturate in their markets which produces new culture and practices to their countries.

Disadvantages of Globalization

1. Economic Underdevelopment – it makes it difficult for local business to flourish due to

foreign companies that take over the competition.

2. Globalization primarily developed – relatively closed between the state and business
elites that favoured them to the small businesses.

3. Financial globalization – contributed to the rise of corruption wherein foreign borrowers

divert terms to their interest rather than the development of their countries. For example,
Marcos, the former president of the Philippines who left the country with a booming debt
of $150 billion.

Generating Globalization: The Asia Pacific and South Asia as a

Springboard
The Europeans did not create the spice trade (Reid, 1988). Asia was the central global
force in the early modern world economy (Frank, 1988). The re-emergence of Asia today is a
representation of how the region restored itself to a dominant position in the global economy.

Asia-Pacific is a rule player of global economy and trade. With its strategic location, Asia
Pacific and South Asia became the savior of the economies of many developed countries. From
being the source of most extortions, raw materials, and cheap labors, the region transformed as
the market of surplus goods and products produced in their own countries.

The Western nations utilized globalization in Asia Pacific and Southeast Asia as a trade
for their new form of colonialism to make it less exploitative and ethical, even promising as
economically wise.

In essence, the regions of Asia and South Asia provide opportunities for the developed
countries to further their improvement inventory. It can best be exemplified by super profits due
to cheap labour and cheap materials. They helped these semi-colonized states to contain
markets so that the surplus products will be exported to the developed countries.

Since these developed nations learned the art of semi colonization, they used
globalization as a means of pervasive penetration of the regional economies, politics and
cultures. However, globalization hasn’t been a one-way road. It is also true that the regions are
generative of many aspects. While this have some elements of truth, the region is still the main

39 | H e r r e r o , T C W
source of technological and cultural phenomena to the rest of the world. Most Asian countries
became leaders to information technology, telecommunications, and electronics which paved
the way for shaping the digital economy. Culturally, Asian films, music, fashion, and traditions
contributed to a more diversified cultural platform. Some examples range from fashion brands
like Uniqlo, electronic brands like Toyota and Lenovo, and music staples of pop like Korean-
pop.

The Anti-Global Impulse: Regional Alternatives to Globalization

A third and final paradigm to understanding the relationship of Asia Pacific and South
Asia to globalization is as a regional alternative to globalization.

One place to begin is with Japanese colonialism in the 1930s and 1940s. Japan’s
colonization of the region and the building of a supposed East Asian co-prosperity sphere
merely replicated imperial relationships in East and Southeast Asia with new masters.

Most of the propagandas during that time were centered on the idea of ‘Asia for Asiatics’
and the need to liberate the region from Europe. However, with the outbreak of the World War
II, Japan also looked beyond Northeast Asia to South and Southeast Asia. The members of the
sphere included Japan, Manchukuo, Mangjang, states of Burma, empire of Vietnam, kingdom of
Thailand, republic of China, republic of the Philippines and etc (Beasley, 2000).

A second way to look as a regional alternative was by looking through the lens of
regional arrangements. For example, the East Asia Economic Caucus (EAEC) floated as early
as 1990 and pushed as an alternative to APEC. The proposed member states were ASEAN,
China, South Korea and Japan. The United States strongly objected at the time, but Japan saw
the exclusion of the United States as a threat to their strategic partnership and effectively vetoed
for the idea.

A final way to see as a regional alternative was to explore the various local movements
that have emerged. (Hookway, 2009) “The village of Santi Tuk, Thailand; created their own
currency following the Asian financial crisis that struck the region in Thailand.” Community
currency is an example of a larger trend in self-sufficiency movements that emerged in Thailand
after the Asian financial crisis.

While the failure of co-prosperity sphere was a result not only of Japan’s loss in World
War II, but it is also the overt racism of Japan itself towards its supposedly co-members. A more
recent manifestation has been the concept of Asian values that became popular among leaders
in the region in the 1990s. Proponents of Asian values such as the Prime Minister Mohammed
Mahathir of Malaysia argued that ‘Asia has culturally distinct characteristics that make it different
from Western liberal democracies.’

Assessment

1. Discuss the significance of the globalization of Asia Pacific and South Asia.
2. Analyse the importance of globalization.

40 | H e r r e r o , T C W
 Lesson 8: Media and Cultural Globalization

Introduction

Before globalization can be mobilized across the globe, one of the most important factors that
drove this change is media. Globalization and the media are a very intertwined pair, with
globalization shaping the media landscape and the media shaping globalization in return, this
pair act in concert and cohort.

The history of media and globalization goes back to as early as 3000 BC in Ancient Egypt with
papyrus, printing presses in 800 AD, television from 1927, and social media platforms making
their way in the contemporary era. In short, it was the media that made globalization possible.
Globalization and media advanced together through time in the development of the modern
world.

Communication was also a key role in shaping global interconnectedness. Through accessible
telecommunications, more and more people feel the distance shrinking when it comes to
connecting with each other. Globalization plays out mostly with the economics, politics, and
culture, which are also the primary ways in which people interact globally.

Learning Objectives

1. To define globalization and media

2. To explain the development of media
3. To show how globalization and media proceeded together through time in the
construction of the modern world
4. To explain the life in the emerging global village

Course Materials (Suggested)

✓ Watch the YouTube clip Globalization and Media: Part 1

✓ Read the article City Research Online – Globalization and the Mass Media on the
website openaccess.city.uk
✓ Read the paper The Evolution of Media – Understanding Media and Culture on the
website open.lib.umn.edu
✓ Watch the video The Global Village Theory on YouTube
✓ Read the Evolution of Media I American Government on Google
o An excerpt:

The evolution of the media has been fraught with concerns and problems.
Accusations of mind control, bias, and poor quality have been thrown at the
media on a regular basis. Yet the growth of communications technology allows
people today to find more information more easily than any previous generation.
Mass media can be print, radio, television, or Internet news. They can be local,

41 | H e r r e r o , T C W
 national, or international. They can be broad or limited in their focus. The choices
are tremendous.21

Activities

1. Discuss the impact of mediatization in your life.

2. How do electronic media affect your life and society?
3. How would you access the role of media in economic globalization and how does it
influence your lifestyle?
4. React on the statement “No News Today”.
5. Analyze the impact of social media in the political affairs of the country.

Content

Mass Media
Media serves basic but important roles in our society. It encompasses a various means
of choices when it comes to disseminating information, entertainment, springboard, and outlets
of escapism to a wide range of people.

With media, information from around the world travelled faster. The exchange of
messages between countries can be expected within seconds to minutes. Because of this,
every country around the world developed an easier mode of communication when it comes to
real-time local and global news and information.

Media theorist, Marshall McLuhan (1964) coined the famous phrase “The medium is
message”. This phrase plays significant value in interpreting mediums and the different ways of
delivering messages. For example, some mediums like commercials played in television, fails to
emphasize the importance of a message by coating it with flashy edits and artificial lights.
Sometimes, the inappropriate use of medium serves as a barrier to the content and accuracy a
message conceives.

Evolution of Media and Globalization

The evolution of media and globalization has been intertwined with another through a
historical basis. As time went by, five periods of media were organized. Each period is
characterized by its dominant medium.

▪ Canadian professor and theorist, Harold Innis – divided media into three periods: oral,
print, and electronic.
▪ James Lull, an American social scientist and author – added the digital period to the
initial three periods making it four.

21
American Government “The Evolution of the Media” Module 8: The Media. Available on
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/amgovernment/chapter/the-evolution-of-the-media/

42 | H e r r e r o , T C W
 ▪ Terhi Rantanen, a professor and the director of the Master’s Programme in Global Media
and Communication – places script before the printing and breaks down the electronic
period into wired and wireless, making it six periods.

However, some scholars argue that only the following five time periods usefully capture the
study of globalization and media. The list includes oral, script, print, electronic, and digital.

The first time period is oral communication. This type of medium refers to how information,
ideas, and messages are being exchanged through verbal transmission. Although human
speech is an overlooked form of media, it is a fundamental form of communication since the
ancient time. When speech evolved into language, early homo sapiens used this medium to
diverge and classify themselves from other species.

Through language, communication followed a system that enabled human interaction,

understanding, and cooperation. For example, when the prehistoric tribes started to hunt, those
with the ability to form a language of cooperation were more coordinated. When humans
learned to travel, language became their most important tool (Ostler, 2005). Eventually,
language paved the way for the newly discovered markets, barter, and trade. Around 4000
BCE, humans’ first civilization was created at Sumer in the Middle East. Sometimes called the
‘cradle of civilization’, Sumer is thought to be the birthplace of the wheel, irrigation, and writing –
all created by knowledge.

The second period of media is called script. The cuneiform script was first created in
Mesopotamia, commonly known as Iraq, in 3200 BC. It is one of the earlies known systems of
writing and was first used as a system of counting and logging clay tokens. Primarily, cuneiform
script was used with clay tablets, which were done by pressing wet stylus onto clay. Before our
writing system evolved, it was first done from carvings into wood, clay, bronze, bones, stone,
and tortoise shells. Cuneiform scripts allowed passages and important scriptures to be
permanently coded. Most economic, cultural, religious, and political practices utilized script as a
medium that were passed over large geographical distances and were preserved through time.

(Powell, 2009) The great civilizations, from Egypt and Greece to Rome and China, were
made possible through script. If globalization is considered the economic, cultural and political
integration of the world, then surely script – the written word – must be considered an essential
medium.

• Cuneiform – a system of writing first developed by the ancient Sumerians of

Mesopotamia. It is considered the most significant among many cultural contributions
of the Sumerians.
• Petroglyph – is an image that is carved into a rock.
• Hieroglyph – a character used in a system of pictorial writing, particularly that form
used on ancient Egyptian monuments.
• Papyrus – is a plant of abundance, primarily in the wilds of the Egyptian Delta but
also elsewhere in the Nile River valley.

43 | H e r r e r o , T C W
 The third period of media was the printing press. In types of issue control, the printing
press standardized the information being produced, exchanged, and accessed throughout the
world. It was argued that it started the “information revolution” because of its role in
transformation of markets, businesses, nation, education, religion, and politics. All histories of
media and globalization acknowledge the consequential role of the printing press.

In 1440 at Mainz, Germany, Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press. His
invention was a movable type of media which allowed a more efficient distribution of texts.
Furthermore, it also replaced labor intensive handwritten methods and increased accuracy in
the mass production texts. Prior to the printing press, production and copying of written
documents were slow, cumbersome, and expensive. The printing press played a pivotal role in
the spread of knowledge and information of the 15th century and was utilized well by the
historical periods of time such as the European Renaissance and the Protestant Reformation.

The fourth period of media gave birth to electronic media. In the 19th century, a host of
new media would revolutionize the ongoing processes of globalization. This phase would be
then called electronic media. This medium requires electromagnetic energy and electricity to be
used such as the telegraph, telephone, radio, and television. The vast reach of electronic media
opened a new world to the economic, political, and cultural processes of globalization.

▪ Samuel F. B. Morse began work on a machine in the 1830s that eventually could
send coded messages – dot and dashes – over electrical lines. The ability to
transmit speech over distance was the next communication breakthrough like
telephone which surely contributed to connecting the world. Alexander Graham
Bell is credited with inventing the telephone in 1876.

▪ Guglielmo Marconi, an Italian inventor invented the first major non-print media
was the radio. It was very popular and was adored by a lot of people for it can be
used by wide audiences at the same time.

▪ In 1924, Calvin Coolidge’s pre-election speech reached more than 20 million

people. Radio was immediately used for advertisers, especially with the access
to a large and captive audience. An early advertising consultant claimed that the
early days of radio were “a glorious opportunity for the advertising man to spread
his sales propaganda” because of “a countless audience, sympathetic, pleasure
seeking, enthusiastic, curious, interested and approachable in the privacy of their
homes (Briggs & Burke, 2005).”

▪ The creation of the cell phone in 1973 was especially crucial in the context of
globalization and media. Radio developed alongside the telegraph telephone in
the late 1890s. The technology was first conceived as a ‘wireless telegraph’. By
early 1900s, speech indeed was being transmitted without wires. By the 1920s,
broadcast stations were ‘on the air’, transmitting music and news.

44 | H e r r e r o , T C W
 ▪ Radio quickly became a global medium, reaching distant regions without the
construction of wires or roads. Along with the telegraph, telephone and radio/film
as a potent medium. Silent motion pictures were shown as early as the 1870s.

▪ For many people, television is considered the most powerful and pervasive
medium yet created. Though television programming existed back in the 1920s,
the years after the World War II saw the explosion in the production and
penetration of television into homes around the world.

Lastly, the era of digital media took place. Digital media are most often electronic media
that stores, processes, and distributes information through digital technology. It relies on digital
codes, long arcane combinations of 0s and 1s that represent information to work. For example,
the most significant invention was the computer. The computer is the representation of digital
media, and it comes as the latest and most significant medium to influence globalization.

Digital media is a revolutionary concept that caters to the modern way of consuming
media content. Not only did it allow for expansion, but it also raised barriers when it comes to
sharing and exchanging information from across the world.

Global Imaginary and Global Village

As media continued to flourish, so did globalization. Through media, the people of the
world were more globally interconnected with each other. Because of this, societies needed to
be able to imagine the world – and imagine themselves acting in the world for globalization to
proceed.

Manfred Steger stated that media helped bring about a fundamentally rising global
imaginary the globe itself as an imagined community. Benedict Anderson claims that
imagination built up the idea of a nation and later, the global imaginary. Money is a good
example. Money or currency notes only collect value because we objectively choose to do so.
This value is almost imaginary.

According to the global village theory by Sicily Spica, “not only is the world getting
smaller, but it’s also becoming more available and more familiar to our minds and to our
emotions. The world is now a global village.” Canadian theorist Marshall McLuhan (1960) was
the first person to famously argue about the revolutionary concept that media have connected
the world in ways that created the global village.

McLuhan’s theory describes how the world is shrinking but expanding at the same time
through technological advances. For example, during the Summer Games of 2016 in Rio de
Janeiro, a record-breaking audience of 3.6 billion people watched the event. Another very good
example was the event on July 20, 1969, where at exactly 9:32 a.m. the Apollo launched into
the Earth’s orbit carrying the first man to ever walk on the moon, Neil Armstrong. At 10:56 p.m.,
Neil Armstrong stepped foot on the moon and over half a billion people were watching. The
global village acts as a means of access and connection through advance media and
technology.

45 | H e r r e r o , T C W
 Lewis Mumford also hoped for a village-like world of community and grace but watched
in dismay as media technology has been wrongfully used for capitalism, militarism, profit, and
power. He also savaged the possibility of the global village and railed against its implications.

As McLuhan and Mumford feared, the dark and dystopian world media may create
eventually happened It is divided into three key areas of economic, political, and cultural
globalization.

1. Media and Economic Globalization

The media made the economic globalization possible by building the foundations of
global capitalism and by encouraging the foundation of the world’s market economy.
Media fosters the conditions of global capitalism by making it seem necessary to
modern life, when truly it is not.

• Oligopoly

Modern media is the epitome of economic globalization. Around the

world, once small, local and regional media companies are being bought
up by a handful of huge global conglomerates or corporations, who
themselves were once small and local. These are called media oligopoly,
consolidation, concentration and governance. According to McChesny,
media oligopoly is not interested in the ideology of global village or the
evangelizing of cultural values, but only to one thing – profit. According to
Adorno and Horkheimer, “a culture industry that produced mindless
entertainment, had great social, political and economic importance. Such
entertainment, they said, can distract audiences from critical thinking,
sapping time, and energy from social and political action.”

o No News Today

Transnational conglomerates are much less interested than local media

outlets in providing news and information necessary for citizens. People
are encouraged to think of products not politics. They are consumers not
citizens.

This type of mentality offers injustice and inequality to certain regions who
are dominated by uneducated people because of the media choosing to
decline people the truth behind political and global issues. They continue
to brainwash the world that public affairs and issues are no brainers and
must be dealt with political employees only. They continue to believe that
news and political contents can upset and divide the populace, drive
away viewers and displease the authorities.

Therefore, the news around the world became fluffier, softer, lighter, and
less in-depth with space and time given over to weather, sports,
celebrities, sensation, recipes and other less weighty fares. This type of

46 | H e r r e r o , T C W
 media brushes away the opportunity for people to speak their voices and
declines the world the opportunity to be aware of the more important
news.

2. Media and Political Globalization

Of utmost importance, through media corporations are themselves powerful

political actors, individual journalists are subject to brutal and intense intimidation
as more actors contend for power.

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) estimates that on close to 100

journalists and media workers are killed in the line of duty of each year. They
usually meet an unfortunate end at war zones from car bombs. They die covering
natural disasters like hurricanes, earthquakes and floods. They die in drug raids.
Some are targeted, hunted or marked down because of their work
responsibilities.

Some scholars suggested that new media have the potential to invigorate and
transform political life in the modern world. They feel that the new media can
allow alternative voices upon different borders. They hope that the new media
will enlarge the public sphere.

But unfortunately, new media voices can be easily coerced and silenced. It is
already common knowledge that many governments continue to purchase
Internet service providers so they can choose what news is to deliver to the
people.

3. Media and Cultural Globalization

The media are the primary carriers of culture. They keep the culture moving
across the world. It generated numerous and on-going interactions among
cultures. The media are people. But, media often shapes the norms of society to
Western norms which is often facilitated by the spread of Western products and
media such as the MTV. With this happening, many less dominant cultures are
easily tampered by the Westernized ones and are now on the verge of total
disappearance.

Assessment

1. Discuss the relationship of media and globalization.

2. Explain how media connected the world.
3. Why is media the epitome of economic globalization?
4. How did media become the carriers of cultures?
5. Analyse the role of new media today.

47 | H e r r e r o , T C W
 Lesson 9: Religion and Globalization

Introduction

The social scientific study of religion is a field that has a pivotal role in shaping the
contemporary and scholarly understanding of globalization. Sociology facilitated the importance
of religion and how it works in a globalized era.

Learning Objectives

1. To explain the dominance of secularization during the 18th century

2. To identify and define globalization in perspectives of different fields
3. To know the two research agendas of the social scientific study of religion

Course Materials

✓ An excerpt:

Religion and globalisation have always shared a relation of struggle and conflict.
Globalisation has generally been linked with economic and political interdependence
which ultimately has brought people closer and effect of no event is isolated but is
felt in far-off places too. It has shifted the cultural build-up of the world and led to
formation of a ‘global culture’- a common minimum which is accepted by all.

Globalisation stands for increased and daily contact while religions are becoming
more self-conscious for themselves as being the world religions. The basic tenets of
globalisation stand against religious parochialism. By diminishing the barriers
between different cultures, globalisation lands religion in a quagmire of conflicts
which reinforce social identities as some do not accept the new realities and turn to
religion to rediscover their own identity. Religion provides a sense of belongingness
to a group in the world. Religion has stood the complexities and onslaught of the
modern world and is seen to be further intensified under the conditions of
contemporary development.

Although some groups have made religion as a weapon to both integrate and
terrorise masses, generally people have become more tolerant of other religious
beliefs and practices and have come to associate all acts of terror as anti-religious.22

Activities

1. How does secularization affect your religion and beliefs?

2. Discuss the impact of globalization in your religious practices.
3. If you are an immigrant, would you embrace transnationalism?

22
GK Today “Impacts of Globalization on Religion”, 2016. Available on https://www.gktoday.in/gk/impacts-of-
globalization-on-religion/

48 | H e r r e r o , T C W
Content

Secularism
Secularism refers to the separation of the religion and the state and the neutrality of the
state against religious beliefs. This way, religious groups would practice their affairs through
their own set of rules without interfering in the affairs of the state, and the state would practice
the same principle. Secularism practices a pluralistic approach when it comes to governance by
promoting the coexistence of religious and non-religious backgrounds through fair and inclusive
societies.

The United Kingdom officially recognizes two Christian denominations in their state – the
Church of England and the Presbyterian Church of Scotland. The Queen works as the head and
supreme governor of the Church of England, while there is no established church in Northern
Ireland. Even though Christianity is a major influence in the nation, we still have many
denominations and religions to consider, as well as those who do not practice any religious
beliefs at all. As an article studies, if Britain really were to be a secular democracy, political
structures should then uphold the principle of secularism to reflect our reality of changing times.

In secularism, religious institutions become free to practice their religious acts and
beliefs without the government butting in as long as they don’t infringe the freedom of others.
Secularism allows religious people to live without the imposition of the law, government,
employment or health structures.

Second, secularism practices the principle of equality before the law. If an individual or a
community opposes the government’s laws, then you will be judged and justified by the law and
can neither be protected by your religious institutions/organizations. However, the inequalities
that are supported inside your religion will not be used against you nor can you against the law.
So, blasphemy is not punishable.

Globalization is not a process that can easily be narrated within a single authoritative
narrative – rather than very notion of various locales coalescing into the global that promotes
the construction of multi narratives that reflect the way each group, religious or traditional,
contributed to the ‘global’.

Deterritorialization and Reterritorialization

According to Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, the term deterritorialization and
reterritorialization are used to characterize a constant process of transformation.
Deterritorialization refers to a multidimensional process of undoing or dissolving what has
already been done. An example by Slack and Wise involves articulations that were
disarticulated. Reterritorialization is the process of re-doing what has been undone to
incorporate a new system of power. When Hitler’s propaganda started to spread during World

49 | H e r r e r o , T C W
War II, he used deterritorialization by banning books and media that contradicted his values. He
then reterritorialized the country by replacing them with book relevant to his beliefs.

As Obadia argues, theorizing religion and globalization has been subject to two different
lines of interpretation,

• Globalization of religion
• Globalization and religion

In globalization of religion, the fundamental research question pertains to the spread of

religions and specific genres or blueprints of religious expressions across the globe. In
globalization and religion, the position and place of religion is problematized within the context
of globalization. This problem concerns about the relations and impacts of globalization upon
everything.

Transnational Religion and Multiple Glocalizations

There are two research agendas of the social scientific study of religion that are
particularly important for rooting out the problems of religion and globalization.

The first agenda is transnational studies. It emerged gradually since the 1990s in
connection to the study of post-World War II. New immigrants or trans-migrants who moved
from third world and developing countries eventually moved into developed first world nations.
New immigrants no longer assimilated into the cultures of their host countries but rather openly
maintained links to their homelands.

International migration theorizes the relationship between people and religion. Migration
of faiths across the globe has been a major feature of this world throughout the 20th century.
The result of migration came into two quite distinct blends, religious universalism, and local
particularism.

Religious universalism is a theological doctrine that believes all human beings will
eventually be saved. Religion becomes the central reference for immigrant communities.
Religious transnationalism is often depicted as a religion ‘going global’. For example, there is
belief that Islam would eventually overtake Christianity as the world’s most popular faith.

Local ethnic or national particularism is the principle of leaving each state in an empire
or federation free to govern itself and promote its own interests, without reference to those of
the whole. They also gain and maintain the most important place for local immigrant
communities.

Transnational national communities are constructed and religious hierarchies perform

dual religious and secular functions that ensure the groups’ survival. For example, Diasporas
might adopt cultural habits derived from the host country. A prominent example is the
‘protestantization’ of various faiths among groups living mostly in Europe or United States.

50 | H e r r e r o , T C W
 The second agenda concerns the interface between religion and culture. It concerns
with public expressions of religiosity also brings forth the relationships between religion and
culture. From within the secularization paradigm, Martin’s interpretation suggests the
employment of culture in ways that can forestall secularization’s success.

Colin Campbell has suggested that during the post-World War II era, the disenchanted
West has been re-enchanted through imports from the East. This ‘Easternization of the West’
has become a topic of debate and discussion between east and west; these are not seen as
fixed essences as the Orient and Occident of the past centuries.

Religion sheds its universal uniformity in favour of blending with locality. Glocal religion
involves the consideration of an entire range of responses as outcomes. Based on a survey
conducted for the history of Christianity, Victor Roudometof argues that it is possible to detect
four concrete forms of glocalization, nationalism and transnationalism.

1. Vernacularization – involved the first rise of vernacular language (such as Greek or Latin
or Arabic) endowed with the symbolic activity of offering privileged access to the sacred.
2. Indigenization – connected specific faiths with ethnic groups, whereby religion and
culture were often fused into a single unit.
3. Nationalization – connected the consolidation of specific nations with confessions and
has been a popular strategy both in Western and Eastern Europe.
4. Transnationalism – has complemented religious nationalization by forcing groups to
identify with specific religious traditions or real/imagined national homelands.

Assessment

1. Explain the relationship between religion and globalization.

2. Explain transnational religion and glocalization.

51 | H e r r e r o , T C W
 Lesson 10: Global Civil Society Roles

Introduction

Global civil societies have always made its appearance on national and international
intellectuals, as well as political agendas, in a major way.

The inter-related concepts of global civil society, cosmopolitanism and transnational justice have
greatly enlarged the traditional domain of political theory. In the broadest sense, global civil
society represents a network of citizens and non-governmental, non-profit organizations and
national and international levels. These networks undertake diverse ambitions such as
eradicating poverty, promoting democracy, resolving social conflict, preventing environmental
degradation, and protecting human rights.

Learning Objectives

1. Discuss and understand global society

2. Determine the significance of global city
3. In what way do global cities global
4. Analyse the life of Sydney and Melbourne in Australia

Course Materials

✓ An excerpt:

Globalisation is the most defining feature of the twenty first century. The globalised
world faces new challenges such as climate change, terrorism, poverty and
economic crisis. These challenges having no borders and cannot be solved by any
country alone. These can be resolved only by coordinated efforts at the global level.
Therefore, the world needs more effective forms of collaboration between
international organisations, governments, the private sector and global civil society.
The paper is an attempt to elucidate the role of global civil society as a means of
global governance for the resolution of many global issues. More particularly, the
aim is to understand how global civil society organisations are shaping the
processes of global governance, and what their implications might be for the quality
of governance at the international level. 23

23
Vivek Kumar Mishra “The Role of global civil society in global governance” Greater Noida, India 2012. Available
on
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/276491418_The_Role_of_Global_Civil_Society_in_Global_Governance

52 | H e r r e r o , T C W
Activities

1. In your own personal assessment, what should be the role of global civil societies?
2. What is your reaction to consumers as global citizens?
3. Would you consider yourself as part of the global civil society? Explain your answer.
4. Do you consider global activists as a part of the global civil society?
5. Enumerate (minimum of 5) some civil societies you know that exists here in the
Philippines? What are their functions?

Content

Global Civil Society Roles

To influence public policy reform, to provide social services, increase public awareness,
support marginalized populations, to promote civic values, aid in grassroots development, to
mobilize citizens, to monitor elections and human rights violations.

The theory of global civil society and its impact is based on the capacity of its actors to
network, disseminate information, and mobilize support locally and internationally. With the
continued development of information and communication technologies, global civil society
actors are able to exchange information, form alliances and respond to challenges at a greater
rate than ever before.

1. Growth of International Coalitions

a. Transnational coalitions are forming in order to advocate campaign for a specific
issue.
i. Example: International Campaign to ban Landmines; a coalition of NGOs
and individuals campaigned for a treaty, which was realized in 1997, to
ban the production, stockpiling and exportation of landmines.

2. Cooperation between NGOs and International and non-Governmental Organizations

a. NGOs are gaining more substantive involvement in the formulation and
implementation of national and international public policy.
i. Throughout the 1990s, NGOs actively participated in the UN conferences:
the 1992 Global Forum and Earth Summit in Rio, the 1993 Human Rights
Conference in Vienna, the 1994 Population Conference in Cairo, the 1995
World Conference on Women in Beijing, and the 1995 World Summit for
Social Development in Copenhagen

ii. Over 1, 500 NGOs have been awarded with a “consultative status” with
the UN economic and social council.
iii. UNDP, USAID, the World Bank, the Commission of the European Union
are just a few IGOs who are establishing civil society development funds
and awarding grants to local NGOs.

53 | H e r r e r o , T C W
 3. Citizen Action for Economic and Social Change
a. Civil society actors – individuals and organized movements –have banned
together to advocate for greater social inclusion and equality of opportunity and
fight to local repression.
i. Protests at WTO, World Bank and IMF meetings
ii. Movements against apartheid and dictatorial rules

Global civil society comprises a variety of actors who utilize diverse methods to actualize
their arms. Local organizations participate on the global sense through programmatic
collaboration with other NGOs, attendance at international conferences, advisory positions to
IGOs, and partnerships with INGOs. INGOs (including international foundations, private
voluntary organizations, committees etc) impact the local level through the development and
implementation of direct in-country operating programs through local grant giving programs.

The Weakness of Global Civil Society

1. Western Civil Society – the civil society does not represent the variety of people. Often,
representatives are self-appointed. For example, the Western society who strives to instil
their conception of civil society and democracy in non-Western societies.

2. Fierce Competitions – there are always competitions about who will be in command with
limited resources. By doing competitions, the value and number of resources are
lessened.

3. Technical Limitations – technological advancements are still limited in many parts of the
world, and thus, can exclude the participation of citizens from these areas in global civil
society.

4. Legitimacy – governments continue to hinder civil society organizations that they

perceive as challenging the state power, increasingly these organizations partner with
the government in providing social services. When the government becomes a source of
financial support for an organization, critics believe that the legitimacy of these
organizations is compromised. Instead of focusing in political and governmental issues,
the global civil society must instead focus in making changes in a local and global
perspective.

Campaigning for Human Rights: Cosmopolitan Principles and

International Law
Cosmopolitanism imagines a global order in which the idea of human rights is an
operative principle of justice with mechanisms of global governance established specifically for
their protection. It incorporates wider issues concerning peace among states, social solidarity
across borders, the efficiency of international law, and the activism of global civil society.

54 | H e r r e r o , T C W
History

• New wave of feminism in the 1970s

• Women’s groups that existed before the second world war
• Late 19th century
• Inter-war years

Feminist Groups

• Well-established women’s transnational bodies

• New feminist networks
• International council of women and international alliance of women (the renamed
international woman’s suffrage alliance)
• International federation of business and professional women and international
confederation of midwives
• Women’s international network

Post-1970 feminist groups campaign issues

• Contraception and abortion rights

• Sex tourism and violence against women

Transnational action for aid and development

• First World War

• Second World War

Two distinct forms of aid

• Aid in response to natural or societal disasters

• Long term action to overcome deep rooted poverty

Assessment

1. Define global city.

2. What are the characteristics of a global city?
3. Give some remarkable contributions made for the development of global city.

55 | H e r r e r o , T C W
 Lesson 11: International Migration as the Beginning of the 21st
Century

Introduction

Migration is the crossing of boundaries from a state, country, nation, or a region. In the 20th and
21st century, migration easily became one of the most important factors in social development
and transformation of the world. In this chapter, we will discuss why a lot of people choose to
engage in migration and its increasing popularity. Migration means crossing the boundary of a
political or administration for a certain amount of time (Boyce, 1998)

Learning Objectives

1. To understand the historical phases of globalization

2. To identify the different types of migration
3. To be able to analyse the causes and consequences of migration
4. To fully understand the impact of migration to the world economy

Course Materials

✓ An excerpt

Since the earliest times, humanity has been on the move. Some people move in
search of work or economic opportunities, to join family, or to study. Others move to
escape conflict, persecution, terrorism, or human rights violations. Still others move
in response to the adverse effects of climate change, natural disasters, or other
environmental factors.

Today, more people than ever live in a country other than the one in which they
were born. In 2019, the number of migrants globally reached an estimated 272
million, 51 million more than in 2010. International migrants comprise 3.5 per cent of
the global population. Compared to 2.8 per cent in 2000 and 2.3 per cent in 1980,
the proportion of international migrants in the world population has also risen.

While many individuals migrate out of choice, many others migrate out of necessity.
The number of globally forcibly displaced people topped 70 million for the first time
in UNHCR's almost 70 year history at the end of 2018. This number includes almost
26 million refugees, 3.5 million asylum seekers, and over 41 million internally
displaced persons.24

Activities

1. Choose one reason of migration and make a simple slogan. Explain your choice.

24
United Nations “Migration”. Available on https://www.un.org/en/sections/issues-depth/migration/index.html

56 | H e r r e r o , T C W
Content

Types of Migration
Migration can be classified into three types namely internal, external, and international
migration. Internal migration refers to the process of moving within a state, country, or continent.
It includes either rural-urban or urban-rural migration. For example, some individuals from rural
areas move to urban cities in search of better livelihood while others go from the city to
province-like settings for retirement or lifestyle choices. External migration is the moving to a
different state, country, or continent. Lastly, international migration refers to the movement from
one country to another. This type of migration includes moving across international borders.

Categories of International Migration

1. Temporary Labour Migrants – also known as the guest workers or overseas workers.
They are temporarily added to the country’s labour force but without permanently being
an immigrant.

2. Highly Skilled and Business Migrants – people with qualifications as managers,

executives, professionals, or technicians who move within the internal labour markets or
transnational corporations and international organizations who share employment
through international labour markets (special and skilled migration).

3. Irregular Migrants – also known as the undocumented or illegal migrants. People who
enter the country usually in an employment without necessary documents and permits.

4. Refugees – is a person residing outside his or her country nationality, unable to return
because of a profound fear of persecution on an account of race, religion, nationality or
membership in a particular social group or political opinion.

5. Asylum Seekers – people who move across borders in search of protection.

6. Forced Migration – people who are forced to move by environmental catastrophes or

development project.

7. Family Members – also known as family reunion or family reunification migrants

(migration to some people who have already stayed in an immigration country).

8. Return Migrants – people who returns to their countries after a period in an another.

57 | H e r r e r o , T C W
Causes of Migration
According to neo-classical economic theory, “the main cause of migration is the desperation
to maximize their income by moving from low wage to high wage economies.”

According to Stark (1991), “migration from race searches secure employment, availability or
capital, and the need to escape from lower pensions.”

According to Hugo (1994), “migration decisions are made not just by individuals, but they
also often represent family strategies to maximize changes.”

Brief History of Migration

According to Lohan (1977-1995), migration in the 15th century was due to European
nation-state formation, colonialism, and industrialization.

The history of migration can be traced back thousands of years ago when the first
people travelled across the globe in search for better livelihood, weather, or resources. The first
most significant event in the history of migration was traced back in Europe between 1840 to
1914 when 40 million people left Europe. It was considered the greatest migration in the history.

After colonialization, the industrialization in Western Europe led to landlessness and -

that encouraged improvements to other continents.

The economic growth and buildings in the United States relied heavily on immigration
which led 30 million people in US from 1861 to 1920. Another example was when Western
Europe industrializing economies made consideration for the use of migrated workers. However,
economic situations and political turmoil led to reduced migration between 1918 and 1945. In
relation to this shift, Africans congress started a law with the purpose to stop the limit scale of
immigration until 1965. France was the only country to recruit foreign workers in this period.

In the Great Depression of the 1930s, many migrants were deported and foreign
production eventually fell at half a million in 1936. After the Second World War, international
migration expanded in volume and scope.

Assessment

1. Discuss your understanding of migration.

2. In your opinion, what do you think is the main cause of migration?
3. Analyse the role of migration to the world economy.
4. Do you think migration is beneficial to the Philippine economy?

58 | H e r r e r o , T C W
 Lesson 12: Sustainable Economic Systems

Introduction

When it comes to building an economic system, sustainability works as framework to ensure

economic growth and prosperity. In the 21st century, many countries already suffered from the
uncertainty and risk of a falling economic system. This chapter aims to identify the importance of
sustaining an economic system and what happens if a nation or state fails to do so.

Learning Objectives

1. To understand the reasons that societies failed to produce enough stability and
sustainability
2. To discover the different – to market and the pluralism moral or development
3. To determine the different approaches to growth

Course Materials

✓ An excerpt :

Our economic policy discussions are nearly always focused on making us wealthier
and on generating the economic growth to accomplish that. Great debates rage
about whether to raise or lower interest rates, or increase or decrease regulation,
and our political system has been paralyzed by a bitter ideological struggle over the
budget. But there is too little debate about what it is all for. Hardly anyone ever asks:
What kind of growth do we want? What does “wealth” mean? And what will it do for
our lives?25

Activities

1. What is your assessment regarding the varieties of capitalism? Do you think that
capitalism is useful for the Philippines?
2. What is your reaction to different approaches to growth? Do you think that these can be
applicable to our country?

25
Hanauer, Nick, Beinhocker, Eric “Capitalism Redefined”, 2014. Available on
https://democracyjournal.org/magazine/31/capitalism-redefined/

59 | H e r r e r o , T C W
Content

Stability
The International Monetary Fund guides member countries on economic and financial
policies that would promote economic stability. Global economic stability is an important factor
for states to reduce vulnerability to crisis and fall to large amounts of debt, inflation, or price
fluctuation. Although these policies will encourage sustained growth and living standards, IMF
reminds its member countries on the regional and global consequences their policies may
entail. The IMF works to assist member states in making resources available and accessible as
well as a facilitate adjustment in times of payment crisis. The economic stability stabilizes the
growth of an economy and to avoid financial crises that are considered economically unstable.

According to International Monetary Fund (IMF) in 2012, “avoiding large swings in

economic activity, high inflation, and excessive volatility in exchange rates and financial
markets”.

“The overall pattern has been known at least since the analysis of French economist
Jean Charles Leonard de Sismondi in 1819. It say that within a few years every economy
moves through periods of rapid growth with rising demand, higher inflation and dropping
unemployment, followed by depression with several phenomena” (Knoop, 2009).

The Great Depression of 1929, the worst economic downturn in the history of the
industrialized world happened, it lasted for a decade (1929-1939). Almost 15 million Americans
were unemployed and nearly half the country’s banks had failed. After this, many economic
downfalls happened in the world which included the Asian financial crisis in 1997, Russian
crisis, Argentina in 1999.

This proves that economic stability is a national concern. Nations must always help each
other out in concerns of economic growth if we want the world to emerge on a different level.

Sustainability
Sustainable economic growth is an economic framework which refers to the rate of
growth maintained by a state without any other economic problems as it prioritizes long term
plans. The difference between rapid economic growth today and growth in the future is vast in
its own concept. For example, growth today may exhaust resources planned for the future and
create unnecessary economic and environmental problems such as depletion of oil stocks and
global warming.

Economic development is unsustainable when it increases vulnerability to crises. For

example, a drought may force farmers to slaughter animals needed to sustain production in
future years. The drop in prices may cause farmers or other producers to over-exploit natural
resources to maintain incomes.

60 | H e r r e r o , T C W
Approaches to Growth
In approaching growth, there are two perspectives that are intertwined with
development.

First, the mainstream approach refers to efficiency. The mainstream approach

analyses the role of free market and trade as driving forces to a country’s economic growth. The
economic growth of a country ensures that there are enough resources for the standard of
needs of their population. This approach values a linear development. In other words, there is
already a specific path of way that countries can follow to achieve development.

The critical approach, however, does not believe that development is linear. It
contends that economic development pertains to fulfilling the basic material and non-material
needs of the people. In this approach, development is considered as freedom. Communities can
practice self-sufficiency can be provided by balancing their activities with nature.

Assessment

1. Discuss the limb of economic governance that can deal with stability and sustainability.
2. Identify the varieties of economic development.
3. What are the priorities of growth? Discuss each priority.

61 | H e r r e r o , T C W
 Lesson 13: Global Citizenship and Global Governance

Introduction

Global governance is the political cooperation between nations that aims to broaden and share
help without boundaries. Examples of global governance are the IMF and the United Nations. A
lot of people already consider themselves as “global citizens”, which means they already accept
their roles in the society. But what would happen if global citizenship lost touch with global
governance? In this chapter, the realist and liberalist views of the roles of global governance will
be tackled.

Learning Objectives

1. Recreate global citizenship with international relations

2. To understand the important perspectives to global governance
3. To know the significance of cosmopolitanism to the world
4. To be able to know the role of global citizens in a globalized world

Course Materials

✓ An excerpt :

What is Global Citizenship?

A global citizen is someone who is aware of and understands the wider world - and
their place in it. They take an active role in their community, and work with others to
make our planet more equal, fair, and sustainable.

For Oxfam, global citizenship is all about encouraging young people to develop the
knowledge, skills, and values they need to engage with the world. And it's about the
belief that we can all make a difference.26

Activities

1. Analyze how global citizenship affect the political affairs of the country.
2. How can you become a global citizen?
3. Analyze the implications of global citizenship in our country and the world itself.

26
OXFAM “What is global citizenship?”. Available on https://www.oxfam.org.uk/education/who-we-are/what-is-
global-citizenship

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Content

Realist Perspectives: A Minimal Role for Global Governance

The realist paradigm interprets the architecture of the global order to be anarchic, based
upon self-help, and situated upon the sovereignty of the state. The works of Waltz (1998) and
McNeil (1994) imagine the self-interested state as the most important players in world politics.
This position leaves agencies beyond the state very minimal roles and hence deny the roles of
non-state actors, civil society, and intergovernmental organizations.

When states seek to survive and expand power through the realist paradigm, they do so
by physical force. This would lead to the international sector assuming fraught with conflict.
According to Waltz, although sovereignty makes states functionally similar, it is their capability,
or relative power, that determines the global order. As states are the central concept of this
perspective, they are the only legitimate actors that are considered in world politics. Global
governance is equated and considered to be contrived by autonomous states in their efforts to
promote and increase their relative powers when it comes to international economic
competition, influence, and competition for international status.

To maintain and balance international order, realists suggest that a consistent set of
moral principles are not applicable in the context of international politics. Instead, states must
act in ways contrary to ideas of morality and justice. Realism can also be linked to the belief that
international politics not only plays in the state of permanent or potential wars, but in specific
roles of a game, underpinned formal agreements, and fostered by diplomatic etiquette.

The Realist Theory focuses on the physical force of global governance. Over the last few
decades, the discipline of international relations already prospered. The vital role of nuclear
weapons and the partnership of military enforcement led to people believing theories of
deterrence and consideration of the “force of arms” designed specially to control and reduce
problems by maintaining “a balance of terror”.

The Alternative Liberal Perspective and Global Citizenship

Liberalists believe that understanding and cooperation between states leads to a better
and peaceful society. The alternative of implementing “force of arms”, military capacities, and
enforcements is the liberal perspective. This perspective states that with a clear communication,
peace will flourish around the world. Although maintaining peace seems like a difficult liberal
goal to achieve, some states “are liable to undertake unjust and aggressive wars”. Realists, on
the other hand, focuses on states as unitary actors. Most liberals understand this comparison
and argue that domestic politics imposes on how the government perceives and conducts
foreign policies and international public opinions.

However, the influence of liberal institutions and beliefs within states lead people
towards the perception that unity enhances and broadens the scope of global governance.

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An Emerging Cosmopolitan Order: Implications for Global Citizenship
In the contemporary era, international relations theory slowly develops into a more
diversified and sophisticated concept that is conducive to understanding a more cosmopolitan
outlook of the world. According to Alexander Wendt, the coexistence of neo-realist and neo-
liberals is provided by the constructivist approach. This approach refers out to the realist view
of states being “agents with identities, interest, and rationality”. He proposes the importance of
shared understandings, expectations, and social knowledge, as well as the economic or military
capacities in determining the interconnectedness of states with one another.

Is World Federalism Still on the Agenda?

World federalism refers to the distribution of power and roles of sovereign states in a
democratic perspective. According to the principle of subsidiarity, it means allotting certain
political institutions to deal with issues at their appropriate levels. Local decisions are for local
levels, national decisions at national levels, and global decisions at global level. However, the
idea of relinquishing power and authority to global authorities is still highly debated because
many countries fear they would lose control over their domestic affairs. Although the highest
level of governments proves to be presently lacking, it must start to take steps now to establish
a peaceful and prosperous 21st century.

Some could argue that federalism is still on the agenda. For example, in the Philippines,
according to the article written by Azer Parrocha, the presidential spokesperson Salvador
Panelo remarked that “federalism has always been on the President’s agenda”.

World federalists were divided on an issue very topical today: whether regional
integration would promote global unity, enabling regional groupings to unite eventually in a
world body, or whether European Union would prove to be a stumbling block. They were also
divided over the best strategy to adapt by either focusing on converting opinion as markers or to
mobilize popular support by registering individuals as world citizens and promoting a
representative convention.

Cosmopolitan Democracy
Cosmopolitan democracy, as elaborated by David Held, can be seen as a compromise
between federalism and confederalism. He argues about the relevance of Kantian arguments
against the practicality and desirability of what is a “single unified international state structure”.
He also notes that world federations seem to presuppose a homogenous cultural and does not
allow local diversity. Cosmopolitan democracy should be based on initial consent and people
would be bound by laws.

The concept of cosmopolitan citizenship that arises out of Held’s model is both more
complex and more attractive than the concepts arising from the Commission on Global
Governance or world federalism. The former endorses the idea of all individuals as bearers of
minimal rights and duties under international laws or self-selected individuals as active
participants in the global civil society.

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Cosmopolitan as Imperialism
Some argue about the superficial differences between cosmopolitanism and imperialism.
It works as imperialism is cosmopolitanism when it is needed, and cosmopolitanism is
imperialism when not needed. This concept arises from the desire to have it both ways and the
cultural-relative values that were originally not approved of but are in play.

However, Daniel Zolo made a vigorous case against cosmopolitanism theorists like
Bobbio and Held. He is highly critical of what he describes as western “legal globalism” leading
to “humanitarian intervention” to international courts which uses individuals and towards world
government. Much of Zolo’s argument is based primarily on a realist view of international
relations. In his own proposal, for a “weak pacifism” he diverges from a strict realist path. Zolo
identifies himself primarily with the Hobbesian model but expresses sympathy for Bull’s
“Gordien Non-Realism” and for realist interpretations of “’Regime Theory”.

Assessment

1. What are the effects of global citizenship and global governance to our society?
2. If given the chance, would you advocate global citizenship?

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 Lesson 14: Global Food Security

Introduction

This chapter deals with the effects of food security to the global economy. Food is one of the
most vital needs of people, but what happens when a country fails to supply its citizens the right
amount of nutritious and healthy food needed?

Learning Objectives

1. To explain the meaning of food security as a concept, and its connection with human
security
2. To know the different key factors affecting food systems around the world
3. To identify the different approaches that may help overcome the challenges associated
with global food security

Activities

1. In your own personal observation, what are the factors that threaten food security in the
Philippines?
2. How would you critique the policies of the Philippine government towards food security?
3. Reflect the impact of population growth and urbanization towards food security.
4. How would you correlate biofuel production, land use, and change to land regarding food
securities?
5. How would you associate El Nino and La Nina towards food security?

Content

What is Food Security?

The World Food Summit of 1996 defined food security as existing “when all people at all
times have access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active life.” The
concept of food security is defined into two notions: its availability and how accessible it is to
people. When food insecurity is met, it ranges from food secure situations to dangerous full-
scale famines. Furthermore, food security is both physical and economic. A household is only
considered as food secure when all members always have access to enough food supporting
their lifestyle and preferences.

Food security ensures that future disruptions and unavailability of food supply is well
supported by measures of resilient long-term planning. Any risk factors such as droughts,
shipping malfunctions, economic instability, or even wars will be accounted for with food
security.

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Four Key Pillars of Food Security
• Availability – food is very essential to a human body. A nation with abundant and
available supplies of food also signifies a good economy. Although there are factors
such as natural disasters, famine, pests, diseases, or improper balance of the storage of
food that affects the availability of food.

• Access – when food is made available, the consumers must have easy access to the
food.

• Utilization – there are different kinds of food. One must be able to utilize healthy and
nutritious food to its territory to ensure their well-beings.

• Stability – the supply of food must always be available; from price fluctuations and etc.

Food Security and Human Security

As the international community transitions from the Millennium Development Goals
(MDGs) to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the challenges ahead of
Member States is to build on the substantial progress made in reducing poverty and
hunger by 2015. A total of 72 countries out of 129 countries achieved the MDG 11
hunger target. Nonetheless, around 800 million people globally – 1 in 9 people on
the planet – still suffer from hunger.27

Global Food Security – Key Trends

Research proves that the growth of agriculture lessens the growth of poverty almost as
twice the original value. With the states and nations being united with each other in the cause to
secure food availability, food can always be available to everyone across the globe.

Rising Food Prices and Poverty

One of the threats posing damage to food security at both household and country level is
price fluctuations. Rising food prices directly impacts food security, especially for countries that
base most of their income on food.

According to the World Bank, the 2010–2011 food price increases pushed an
estimated 44 million people into poverty. It was found in the South African
National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey in 2012 that in the Limpopo

27
FAO Food and Agriculture Organization “Human Security & Food Security”. Available on http://www.fao.org/3/a-
i5522e.pdf

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 province 31% of households experienced hunger, with a further 27% at risk of it.
Rising food prices could increase these figures.28

Food prices cause poverty. For low-income households, rising food prices mean
increased food insecurity which leads to malnutrition, diseases, and forced allocation of income
for their basic food needs. It also contributes to poverty traps and becomes an element to
vicious cycle of poverty. Aside from eating less to cope with higher food prices, some
households who suffer low income and wage often resort to selling precious assets such as

• Household belongings
• Mortgaging land
• Signing on high-interest loans and;
• Cutting back on education and health expenses

Population Growth and Urbanization

While people are moving from place to place more and more, the world is
undergoing the largest wave of urban growth in history. More than half of the world’s
population is living in cities and this is increasing at rate of 1.5 percent. This rapid
urbanization coupled with population growth is changing the landscape of human
settlement, posing significant risks on living conditions, the environment, and
development.

Water and sanitation: The total of number of people living in cities without safe
water and adequate sanitation has continually increased because infrastructure
improvements have not kept up with rapid urbanization rates.

Slums and informal settlements: The failure of urban planning and investment in
infrastructure in the face of rapid urbanization and population growth has resulted in
the development of slums and informal settlements in cities across the globe.
Residents of slums and informal settlements suffer from poor housing, inadequate
access to safe water and sanitation, overcrowding, and a constant risk of being
removed from their homes.

Sprawl: The phenomenon of urban sprawl, a form of urbanization, can be

detrimental to both communities and the environment.

Migration: One of the main factors driving rapid urbanization in emerging

economies is rural-urban migration motivated by social, political, or environmental
reasons.29

28
K Mkhawani, SA Motadi, NS Mabapa, XG Mbhenyane & R Blaauw (2016) Effects of rising food prices on
household food security on femaleheaded households in Runnymede Village, Mopani District, South Africa, South
African Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 29:2, 69-74
29
Luoma, Katie “How does population growth impact rapid urbanization” 2016. Available on
https://populationeducation.org/how-does-population-growth-impact-rapid-urbanization/

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Rising Incomes and Changing Diets
Diets are changing with rising incomes and urbanization— people are consuming
more animal-source foods, sugar, fats and oils, refined grains, and processed foods.
This “nutrition transition” is causing increases in overweight and obesity and diet-
related diseases such as diabetes and heart disease.30

Diets are changing with rising incomes and urbanization – people are consuming
more animal source foods, sugars, fats, oils, refined grains, and processed foods.
This “nutrition transition” is causing increases in overweight and obesity and diet-
related diseases such as diabetes and heart diseases. Urban residents are making
the nutrition transition fastest – but it is occurring in rural areas too. Urban food
environments – with supermarkets, food vendors and restaurants – facilitate access
to unhealthy diets, although they can also improve access to nutritious foods for
people who can afford them. For the urban poor, the most easily available and
affordable diets are often unhealthy (Hawkes and Gillespie 2017).

Biofuel Production, Land Use Change and Access to Land

Biofuel production causes shortage in global food security when every agricultural and
rural are being assigned by the government to maintain biofuel feedstock. This practice reduces
employment for laborers that are in charge with the plantation of crops for both animal and
human consumption. The low supply of crops causes a price surge. This surge would face a
backlash from regular consumers but would still consume the products while the rest of the
laborers are left with no income. Once again, the quotation “the poor becomes poorer”, shows in
the picture.

Climate Change
Climate change impacts all four dimensions of food security: food availability, food
accessibility, food utilization, and food stability. In essence, different plants have different
requirements needed for human consumption. Some crops have their own agro-ecological
conditions (some crops need to have a pattern with precipitation, or rather be in an aqueduct, or
need this much moisture in the soil etc.) while some doesn’t.

Climate change also destroys agricultural properties which produces people without food
and livelihood specially to places or countries where fisheries and farming is the main livelihood
of the people. The effect of climate change is a direct proof of food instability. Countries all over
the food, especially third world countries, suffer from the decline of wheat, crops, rice, maize
and other common agricultural plants.

30
Hawkes, Corinna, Harris, Jody, Gillespie, Stuart “Changing diets: Urbanization and the nutrition transition” IFPRI
2017. Available on
https://www.ifpri.org/publication/changing-diets-urbanization-and-nutrition-
transition#:~:text=Diets%20are%20changing%20with%20rising,as%20diabetes%20and%20heart%20disease.

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Emerging Responses to Calls for Global Food Security
The global food crisis has affected hundreds of millions of people worldwide,
causing a surge of socio-political unrest in many countries as families struggle to
find ways to survive soaring food and fuel prices. In the United States, many families
find it harder to feed their children on a daily basis and more families are turning to
local food banks. In developing countries, the World Bank estimates that at least
100 million could fall back into poverty, swallowed by what Josette Sheeran, the
director of the World Food Program (“WFP”), dubbed the “silent tsunami” of soaring
food prices.31

“Mitigating climate change means reducing gas emissions and sequestering or

storing carbon in the short terms, and of even greater importance making
development choices that will reduce risk by curbing emissions over the long term.”
(FAOU, 2008)

Assessment

1. What is food security?

2. Discuss the key pillars in food security.
3. Explain the pillars of food security.
4. Analyse and discuss the emerging responses of global food security.

31
Stewart, Terence P. et al. “The Global Food Crisis: Urgent Need and Emerging Solutions.” Sustainable
Development Law & Policy, Fall 2008, 31-35, 71-72

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