What is the big question

about globalization? I guess, it's how far can it go? [MUSIC] Globalization is a
big topic. Its study involves the entire range
of human activity, from politics and economics to science and technology. And
virtually all other cultural and
social processes. It looks at all of these dimensions and the connections between
them on a global scale. Hear the word connections is what is
important, for while globalization may be about lots of things,
it is most of all about the increasing interconnectedness of people on the planet
through these various dimensions. Because globalization is so
closely associated with modern technology, it's often regarded as
a very recent phenomenon. Certainly, the idea of globalization seems
to be a fairly recent one, with the word globalization, itself, appearing only in
the second half of the twentieth century. The material aspects of globalization
are apparent in an arranged phenomena. These include flows of trade,
capital, and people. Which are facilitated by communications,
transport and financial infrastructure. These flows also feed important
cognitive aspects of globalization. Including an increased awareness
of developments on a global scale. Which means that people in one part
of the globe can often follow events occurring on the other side
of world in real time. Thanks largely to
communications technology and the thoroughly globalized media industry. With
science and technology, well a good
example of medical science I think, coming together and addressing a global
problem was the eradication of smallpox. This was a major step forward. It was
carried out through
the World Health Organization. So obviously, it's tied up with politics,
but it was medical science and technology which delivered the actual inoculations
which eventually eradicated
one of the world's most serious diseases. And there are lots of other examples of
things like that in a globalized world. Culturally Britain's imperial legacy
is probably the most significant as exemplified by the fact that
English has become the language of the global system today. International
corporations, many
international and regional organizations and institutions, most international
conferences or air traffic control. And the international
higher-education industry all conduct their business in English. People think,
often think of global culture as a kind of Western culture that has
become globalized and is manifest in things like McDonald's,
Hollywood movies, and so on and so forth. But there are cultural
flows that go both ways. One of the fastest growing
religions in the west is Buddhism, with traditional Chinese medicine and associated
health practices also
being major growth industries. So cultural flows are not
all in one direction. Politics and globalization involves
formal and informal institutions. The formal institutions
are fairly obvious, they're the United Nations and
all its agencies, a huge number of agencies operate
out of the United Nations system. There's also regional organizations. In our own
area we've got asean,
we've got APEC and so on and so forth. And these are also examples of political
organizations operating on a global scale, but they also overlap with
economic institutions. APEC stands for
Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation, and it's both a political and
economic institution. Other economic institutions
include all these so called G groups, the G8,
the G20, and so on. The World Trade Organization, the
International Monetary Fund, and so forth. Those are formal organizations
in the international sphere, but economics also include private
corporations and other entities as well. There's a huge amount of
cooperation in the global sphere. It's not just between states, although
cooperation between
states is incredibly important. It's also a cooperation between groups, say between
groups of scientists
working on a particular project, NGOs are now globalized in
a very significant way. And protest groups as well if you remember
the Occupy Movement a couple of years ago that was globally connected through
the technologies that we have. And also connected in terms of an ideology
which they were trying to promote. So all these things show cooperation and
interconnection around the globe in a way
that simply wasn't possible previously. If there's one thing that's global,
it's the environment. Each individual country can look after its
own immediate territorial environment, but when it comes to the atmosphere and
the oceans, it's a very different story. And we must treat it at a global level.
But this ties back into politics and
economics as well and science and technology. They're all tied in together so
that although we can talk about politics, economics, science, culture, and so
forth they're all interconnected, and that really is what globalization
is all about, the interconnections. [MUSIC]