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Terms
Sometimes the terms internationalization and globalization are used interchangeably but
there is a slight formal difference. The term internationalization refers to the importance
of international trade, relations, treaties etc. Inter+national means between or among
nations; hence internationalization refers to the increased importance of relations between
nations - the basic unit remains the nation. In contrast, the term globalization refers to
economic integration on a global scale, into a global economy, which blurs national
boundaries. In the extreme, globalization would mean erasure of national boundaries for
History
The word "Globalization" has been used by economists since 1981; however, its
concepts did not become popular until the later half of the 1980's and 1990's.
Globalization in its largest extent began a bit before the turn of the 16th century, in
Portugal. The country's global adventurism in the 16th century linked continents,
economies and cultures as never before. The Kingdom of Portugal kicked off what has
come to be known as the Age of Discovery, in the mid-1400s. The westernmost country
in Europe, was the first to significantly probe the Atlantic Ocean, colonizing the Azores,
Madeira and other Atlantic islands, then braving the west coast of Africa. In 1488,
Portuguese explorer Bartolomeu Dias was the first to sail around the southern tip of
Africa, and in 1498 his countryman Vasco da Gama repeated the experiment, making it as
far as India. The Portuguese Empire would establish ports, forts and trading posts as far
west as Brazil, as far east as Japan and Timor, and along the coasts of Africa, India and
China. For the first time in history, a wave of global trade, colonization, and enculturation
reached all corners of the world.
Globalization is viewed as a centuries long process, tracking the expansion of human
population and the growth of civilization, that has accelerated dramatically in the past 50
years. Early forms of globalization existed during the Roman Empire, the Parthian
empire, and the Han Dynasty, when the silk road started in China, reached the boundaries
of the Parthian empire, and continued onwards towards Rome. The Islamic Golden Age is
also an example, when Muslim traders and explorers established an early global economy
across the Old World resulting in a globalization of crops, trade, knowledge and
technology; and later during the Mongol Empire, when there was greater integration
along the Silk Road. Global integration continued through the expansion of European
trade, as in the 16th and 17th centuries, when the Portuguese and Spanish Empires
reached to all corners of the world after expanding to the Americas.
In the 17th century, Globalization became a business phenomenon when the Dutch East
India Company, which is often described as the first multinational corporation, was
established. Because of the high risks involved with international trade, the Dutch East
India Company became the first company in the world to share risk and enable joint
ownership through the issuing of shares: an important driver for globalization.
In the 19th century it was sometimes called "The First Era of Globalization" a period
characterized by rapid growth in international trade and investment, between the
European imperial powers, their colonies, and, later, the United States. It was in this
period that areas of sub-saharan Africa and the Island Pacific were incorporated into the
world system. The "First Era of Globalization" began to break down at the beginning
with the first World War, and later collapsed during the gold standard crisis in the late
1920s and early 1930s.
Modern Globalization
Globalization in the era since World War II was first the result of planning by economists,
business interests, and politicians who recognized the costs associated with protectionism
and declining international economic integration. Their work led to the Bretton Woods
conference and the founding of several international institutions intended to oversee the
renewed processes of globalization, promoting growth and managing adverse
consequences.
These were the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (the World
Bank) and the International Monetary Fund. It has been facilitated by advances in
technology which have reduced the costs of trade, and trade negotiation rounds,
originally under the auspices of GATT, which led to a series of agreements to remove
restrictions on free trade.
Since World War II, barriers to international trade have been considerably lowered
through international agreements - General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT).
Particular initiatives carried out as a result of GATT and the World Trade Organisation
(WTO), for which GATT is the foundation, have included:
The Uruguay round (1984 to 1995) led to a treaty to create the World Trade Organization
(WTO), to mediate trade disputes and set up a uniform platform of trading. Other bi- and
multilateral trade agreements, including sections of Europe's Maastricht Treaty and the
North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) have also been signed in pursuit of the
goal of reducing tariffs and barriers to trade.
The use of the term globalization (in the doctrinal sense), in the context of these
developments has been analysed by many including Noam Chomsky who states
Critics have observed that the term's contemporary usage comprises several meanings, for
example Noam Chomsky states that
The term "globalization," like most terms of public discourse, has two
meanings: its literal meaning, and a technical sense used for doctrinal
purposes. In its literal sense, "globalization" means international integration.
Its strongest proponents since its origins have been the workers movements
and the left (which is why unions are called "internationals"), and the
strongest proponents today are those who meet annually in the World Social
Forum and its many regional offshoots. In the technical sense defined by the
powerful, they are described as "anti-globalization," which means that they
favor globalization directed to the needs and concerns of people, not
investors, financial institutions and other sectors of power, with the interests
of people incidental. That's "globalization" in the technical doctrinal sense.
Measuring globalization
Goods and services, e.g. exports plus imports as a proportion of national income
or per capita of population
labor/people, e.g. net migration rates; inward or outward migration flows,
weighted by population
Capital, e.g. inward or outward direct investment as a proportion of national
income or per head of population
Technology, e.g. international research & development flows; proportion of
populations (and rates of change thereof) using particular inventions (especially
As globalization is not only an economic phenomenon, a multivariate approach to
measuring globalization is the recent index calculated by the Swiss think tank
KOF. The index measures the three main dimensions of globalization: economic,
social, and political. In addition to three indices measuring these dimensions, an
overall index of globalization and sub-indices referring to actual economic flows,
economic restrictions, data on personal contact, data on information flows, and
data on cultural proximity is calculated. Data is available on a yearly basis for 122
countries, as detailed in Dreher, Gaston and Martens (2008). According to the
index, the world's most globalized country is Belgium, followed by Austria,
Sweden, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. The least globalized countries
according to the KOF-index are Haiti, Myanmar the Central African Republic and
Burundi.[12] Other measures conceptualize Globalization as diffusion and develop
interactive procedure to capture the degree of its impact Jahn 2006.
A.T. Kearney and Foreign Policy Magazine jointly publish another Globalization Index.
According to the 2006 index, Singapore, Ireland, Switzerland, the U.S., the Netherlands,
Canada and Denmark are the most globalized, while Egypt, Indonesia, India and Iran are
the least globalized among countries listed.
Effects of globalization
Globalization has various aspects which affect the world in several different ways such
as:
World-wide fads and pop culture such as Pokmon, Sudoku, Numa Numa,
Origami, Idol series, YouTube, Orkut, Facebook, and MySpace.
o World-wide sporting events such as FIFA World Cup and the Olympic
Games.
o Formation or development of a set of universal values
Technical/legal
o Development of a global telecommunications infrastructure and greater
transborder data flow, using such technologies as the Internet,
communication satellites, submarine fiber optic cable, and wireless
telephones
o Increase in the number of standards applied globally; e.g. copyright laws,
patents and world trade agreements.
o The push by many advocates for an international criminal court and
international justice movements.
o
Pro-globalization (globalism)
Economic
Globalization advocates such as Jeffrey Sachs point to the above average drop in poverty
rates in countries, such as China, where globalization has taken a strong foothold,
compared to areas less affected by globalization, such as Sub-Saharan Africa, where
poverty rates have remained stagnant.
Supporters of free trade claim that it increases economic prosperity as well as
opportunity, especially among developing nations, enhances civil liberties and leads to a
more efficient allocation of resources. Economic theories of comparative advantage
suggest that free trade leads to a more efficient allocation of resources, with all countries
involved in the trade benefiting. In general, this leads to lower prices, more employment,
higher output and a higher standard of living for those in developing countries.
One of the ironies of the recent success of India and China is the fear that... success in these two
countries comes at the expense of the United States. These fears are fundamentally wrong and,
even worse, dangerous. They are wrong because the world is not a zero-sum struggle... but rather
is a positive-sum opportunity in which improving technologies and skills can raise living
standards around the world.
Libertarians and other proponents of laissez-faire capitalism say that higher degrees of
political and economic freedom in the form of democracy and capitalism in the
developed world are ends in themselves and also produce higher levels of material
wealth. They see globalization as the beneficial spread of liberty and capitalism. [15]
Supporters of democratic globalization are sometimes called pro-globalists. They believe
that the first phase of globalization, which was market-oriented, should be followed by a
phase of building global political institutions representing the will of world citizens. The
difference from other globalists is that they do not define in advance any ideology to
orient this will, but would leave it to the free choice of those citizens via a democratic
process[citation needed].
Some, such as Senator Douglas Roche, O.C., simply view globalization as inevitable and
advocate creating institutions such as a directly-elected United Nations Parliamentary
Assembly to exercise oversight over unelected international bodies.
Supporters of globalization argue that the anti-globalization movement uses anecdotal
evidence[citation needed] to support their protectionist view, whereas worldwide statistics
strongly support globalization:
From 1981 to 2001, according to World Bank figures, the number of people living
on $1 a day or less declined from 1.5 billion to 1.1 billion in absolute terms. At
the same time, the world population increased, so in percentage terms the number
of such people in developing nations declined from 40% to 20% of the
population. with the greatest improvements occurring in economies rapidly
reducing barriers to trade and investment; yet, some critics argue that more
detailed variables measuring poverty should be studied instead
The percentage of people living on less than $2 a day has decreased greatly in
areas effected by globalization, whereas poverty rates in other areas have
remained largely stagnant. In East-Asia, including China, the percentage has
decreased by 50.1% compared to a 2.2% increase in Sub-Saharan Africa
Area
Percentag
Demographi
1981 1984 1987 1990 1993 1996 1999 2002 e Change
c
1981-2002
East
Asia
Less than $1 57.7% 38.9% 28.0% 29.6% 24.9% 16.6% 15.7% 11.1% -80.76%
a day
and
Less than $2
84.8% 76.6% 67.7% 69.9% 64.8% 53.3% 50.3% 40.7% -52.00%
Pacific a day
Latin
Americ
a
Less than $1
9.7% 11.8% 10.9% 11.3% 11.3% 10.7% 10.5% 8.9% -8.25%
a day
Less than $2
29.6% 30.4% 27.8% 28.4% 29.5% 24.1% 25.1% 23.4% -29.94%
a day
Less than $1
41.6% 46.3% 46.8% 44.6% 44.0% 45.6% 45.7% 44.0% +5.77%
a day
SubSahara
n
Africa Less than $2
73.3% 76.1% 76.1% 75.0% 74.6% 75.1% 76.1% 74.9% +2.18%
a day
Democracy has increased dramatically from there being almost no nations with
universal suffrage in 1900 to 62.5% of all nations having it in 2000.
Feminism has made advances in areas such as Bangladesh through providing
women with jobs and economic safety.
The proportion of the world's population living in countries where per-capita food
supplies are less than 2,200 calories (9,200 kilojoules) per day decreased from
56% in the mid-1960s to below 10% by the 1990s.
Between 1950 and 1999, global literacy increased from 52% to 81% of the world.
Women made up much of the gap: female literacy as a percentage of male literacy
has increased from 59% in 1970 to 80% in 2000.
The percentage of children in the labor force has fallen from 24% in 1960 to 10%
in 2000.
There are similar increasing trends toward electric power, cars, radios, and
telephones per capita, as well as a growing proportion of the population with
access to clean water.
The book The Improving State of the World also finds evidence for that these, and
other, measures of human well-being has improved and that globalization is part
of the explanation. It also responds to arguments that environmental impact will
limit the progress.
Social
International Social Forums
See main articles: European Social Forum, the Asian Social Forum, World Social Forum
(WSF).
The first WSF was an initiative of the administration of Porto Alegre in Brazil.
The slogan of the World Social Forum was "Another World Is Possible". It was here that
the WSF's Charter of Principles was adopted to provide a framework for the forums.
The WSF became a periodic meeting: in 2002 and 2003 it was held again in Porto Alegre
and became a rallying point for worldwide protest against the American invasion of Iraq.
In 2004 it was moved to Mumbai (formerly known as Bombay, in India), to make it more
accessible to the populations of Asia and Africa. This last appointment saw the
participation of 75,000 delegates.
In the meantime, regional forums took place following the example of the WSF, adopting
its Charter of Principles. The first European Social Forum (ESF) was held in November
2002 in Florence. The slogan was "Against the war, against racism and against neoliberalism". It saw the participation of 60,000 delegates and ended with a huge
demonstration against the war (1,000,000 people according to the organizers). The other
two ESFs took place in Paris and London, in 2003 and 2004 respectively.
Recently there has been some discussion behind the movement about the role of the
social forums. Some see them as a "popular university", an occasion to make many
people aware of the problems of globalization. Others would prefer that delegates
concentrate their efforts on the coordination and organization of the movement and on the
planning of new campaigns. However it has often been argued that in the dominated
countries (most of the world) the WSF is little more than an 'NGO fair' driven by
Northern NGOs and donors most of which are hostile to popular movements of the poor.
Anti-globalization (mundialism)
Main article: Anti-globalization
Anti-globalization is a pejorative term used to describe the political stance of people and
groups who oppose the neoliberal version of globalization.
Anti-globalization" may involve the process or actions taken by a state in order to
demonstrate its sovereignty and practice democratic decision-making. Anti-globalization
may occur in order to put brakes on the international transfer of people, goods and
ideology, particularly those determined by the organizations such as the IMF or the WTO
in imposing the radical deregulation program of free market fundamentalism on local
governments and populations. Moreover, as Canadian journalist Naomi Klein argues in
her book No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies (also subtitled No Space, No Choice,
No Jobs) anti-globalism can denote either a single social movement or an umbrella term
that encompasses a number of separate social movements [29] such as nationalists and
socialists. In either case, participants stand in opposition to the unregulated political
power of large, multi-national corporations, as the corporations exercise power through
leveraging trade agreements which damage in some instances the democratic rights of
citizens, the environment particularly air quality index and rain forests, as well as
national governments sovereignty to determine labor rights including the right to
unionize for better pay, and better working conditions, or laws as they may otherwise
infringe on cultural practices and traditions of developing countries.
Most people who are labeled "anti-globalization" consider the term to be too vague and
inaccurate Podobnik states that "the vast majority of groups that participate in these
protests draw on international networks of support, and they generally call for forms of
globalization that enhance democratic representation, human rights, and egalitarianism."
Stiglitz, Joseph and Andrew Charlton write:
Members aligned with this viewpoint prefer instead to describe themselves as the Global
Justice Movement, the Anti-Corporate-Globalization Movement, the Movement of
Movements (a popular term in Italy), the "Alter-globalization" movement (popular in
France), the "Counter-Globalization" movement, and a number of other terms.
Critiques of the current wave of economic globalization typically look at both the damage
to the planet, in terms of the perceived unsustainable harm done to the biosphere, as well
as the perceived human costs, such as increased poverty, inequality, miscegenation,
injustice and the erosion of traditional culture which, the critics contend, all occur as a
result of the economic transformations related to globalization. They challenge directly
the metrics, such as GDP, used to measure progress promulgated by institutions such as
the World Bank, and look to other measures, such as the Happy Planet Index, created by
the New Economics Foundation. They point to a "multitude of interconnected fatal
consequences--social disintegration, a breakdown of democracy, more rapid and
extensive deterioration of the environment, the spread of new diseases, increasing
poverty and alienation
which they claim are the unintended but very real consequences of globalization.
Critics argue that:
Quintile of Population
Income
Richest 20%
82.7%
Second 20%
11.7%
Third 20%
2.3%
Fourth 20%
1.4%
Poorest 20%
1.2%