Globalization:

Conceptualization,
Origins, and History

1
What is Globalization ?
Planetary process(es) involving increasing
liquidity and growing multidirectional flows,
as well as the structures they encounter and
create.

2
Term closely related to Globalization
Transnationalism – processes that interconnect
individuals and social groups across specific
geopolitical borders.
Transnationality – the rise of new communities
and formation of new societies and relations that
cannot be defined as nation-states.

3
Difference between Globalization and
Transnationalism
Transnationalism is limited to interconnections
that cross geopolitical borders, especially those
associated with two or more nation-states.
Globalization includes such connections, but is
not restricted to them, and encompasses a far
wider range of planetary processes. Further,
geopolitical borders are only one of the barriers
encountered, and often overcome, by globalization.

4
Conceptualizing Globalization
Globality: Omnipresence of the process of
globalization.
Metaphor: Use of one term to help us better
understand another.
Solidity: People, things, information, and places
“harden” over time and therefore have limited
mobility.

5
Conceptualizing Globalization
Liquidity: The increasing ease of movement of
people, things, information, and places in the
global age.
Flows: The movement of people, things,
information, and places due, in part, to the
increasing porosity of global barriers.

6
Conceptualizing Globalization
“Heavy” and “Light”
“heavy”; that is, characterized by that which is
difficult to move
“lighter”: that is, characterized by that which is
easier to move
“weightlessness”: clearly moves far more easily

7
Conceptualizing Globalization
Economic globalization: Growing economic
linkages at the global level.
“Heavy” Structures that Expedite “Flows”
“Heavy” Structures as Barriers to “Flows”
Subtler Structural Barriers