Introduction to

Globalization
 Globalization
 Has been a buzzword throughout the world since
early 19th century
 Popularized through former Harvard Business
School Professor Theodore Levitt’s article entitled
“ The Globalization of Markets”
 Refers to the existence of free exchange of
goods, services, culture, and even people,
between and among countries.
NECESSARY
IMPLICATIONS
 Countries have discarded taxes on imported
goods (tariffs) and opened their doors to highly
skilled workers and professionals.
 People became more interested to travel, learn
new languages, and immerse themselves into
new cultures and lifestyles.
 Caused the increase number of McDonald’s and
Jollibee outlets across the globe.
Note:
 Globalization has transcended its being an
economic term and has become a phenomenon
whose impacts have altered social, cultural, and
political landscapes in an international scale.
 It has spurred interconnection, and yet, at the
same time, is pointed at as the cause of the
widening gap between the richest and the
poorest of the world .
COMPETING CONCEPTIONS OF
GLOBALIZATION
 A “contested concept”
 Manfred Steger remarks that since its
earliest appearance in the 1960s, the term
‘globalization’ has been used in both
popular and academic literature to describe
a process, a condition, as system, a force,
and an age.
 The United Nations Conference on Trade and
Development (UNCTAD) defines economic
globalization as the “closer integration of
national economies through trade and financial
flows as well as cross-border migration of
people”.
 As national economies ‘open up” and lower their
external barriers, they become more exposed-and
more vulnerable-to global forces and influences.
The definition cited earlier covers the
European Union calls as the “four
freedoms”.
Free movement of goods or
products, services, capital or
investment, and persons.
 Free movement of goods or products is
facilitated by liberalization or the abolition of tax
on imported goods (tariff), while the free
movement of capital or investment is
implemented through deregulation or the lifting
of strict banking and financial regulations aimed at
encouraging investors to invest more and retain
their ability to pull out their investments at any
time with ease.
 Free movement of persons is achieved through the
loosening or abolition of visa restrictions and barriers
to migration.

 Liberalization and deregulation are economic processes

that typically require special laws and/or policies.
 Thus, political power and political systems are
necessarily affected by and are also drivers of
globalization.
 Historical Roots of Modern
Globalization
 Jumpstarted on 30 October 1947 by 20 nations that signed
General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) which
primarily aims to regulate international trade.
 In 1995, it was formally supplanted by the World Trade
Organization (WTO) through the Marrakesh Agreement
signed by 124 nations.
 The WTO describes itself as “ the only global international
organization dealing with the rules of trade between
nations… negotiated and signed by the bulk of the world’s
trading nations and ratified in their parliament…
 Tohelp producers of goods and services,
exporters, and importers conduct their business.
 Thomas Friedman: Globalization involves the
inexorable integration of markets, nation-states, and
technologies to a degree never witnessed before,
and in away that is enabling individuals ,
corporations, and nation-states to reach around
the world farther, faster, deeper, and cheaper
than ever before, and in a way that is … also
producing a powerful backlash from those
brutalized or left behind by this new system.
British Broadcasting Corporation
(BBC)
 Globalization is the process by which the world
is becoming increasingly interconnected as a
result of massively increased trade and cultural
exchange which has increased the production of
goods and services and has been taking place for
hundreds of years, but has speeded up enormously
over the last half-century.
 GLOBALIZATION
JOURNALISTS/POLITICAL ACTIVISTS DIFFER
VIEWS FROM ACADEMICS SCHOLARS

Usual Definition:
usually refers to the integration of the national
markets to a wider global market signified by the
increased free trade.
Manfred Steger on Globalization:

Process as the expansion and

intensification of social relations and
consciousness across world-time and
across world-space.
Expansion refers to both the creation of new
social networks the multiplication of existing
connections that cut across traditional
political, economic, cultural, geographic
boundaries. Connections occur at different
levels (eg. Social Media, NGOs).
Intensification refers to the expansion,
stretching, and acceleration of these
networks.
Steger argues that globalization processes do not
occur merely at an objective, material level but they
also involve subjective plane of human
consciousness. People begin to feel that the world
has become a smaller place and distance has
collapsed from thousands of miles to just a mouse-
click away.
 He said that his definition of globalization must be
differentiated with an ideology he calls globalism.
 Globalization represents many processes that
allow for expansion and intensification of global
connections, globalism is a widespread belief
among powerful people that the global integration
in economic markets is beneficial for everyone,
since it spreads freedom and democracy across the
world.
NOTE: WHEN ACTIVISTS AND JOURNALISTS
CRITICIZE GLOBALIZATION, MORE OFTEN
THAN NOT, THEY CRITIZE THE
MANIFESTATIONS OF GLOBALISM.

GLOBALIZATION IS NOT JUST ABOUT

GLOBAL MARKET INTEGRATION
ARJUN APPADURAI, AN
ANTHROPOLOGIST ARGUED THAT
different kinds of globalization occur on
multiple and intersecting dimensions of
integration that he calls “SCAPES”
“Ethnoscape” refers to the global movement of
people.
Mediascape is about the flow of culture.
Technoscape is circulation of mechanical goods and
software.
Financescape is on global circulation of money; and
Ideoscape is the realm where political ideas move
around
Thus, we employ multidimensional
understanding of globalization.