Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF

GLOBALIZATION

Introduction:

“We talk about globalization today as if it's some great big new thing,
that we've all just discovered. But there's really nothing new about it.”
- Jacqueline Winspear

Progress is not new, so as globalization. Tracing back the old time

where the ancient people were living, there are already manifestations of
progress, it transpires from one group to another group. As the world ages,
more undeniable improvements had been made; whether the change we
want to see or the people’s worst nightmare. Industrial revolution had boom
out and it has made our life easier. Today, the world continues to change
and let us see what the world will become as the days will pass.

Learning Objectives:

At the end of this topic, learners should be able to:

1. Compare and contrast the competing concepts of globalization.

2. Explain the underlying philosophies of the varying definitions of
globalization.
3. Create a working definition of globalization for the course.

Discussion:

GLOBALIZATION

Different Meanings of Globalization:

 Giddens defines globalization as

intensification of worldwide
social relations which link distant

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 localities in such a way that local happenings are shaped by events
occurring many miles away and vice versa.

 Interconnectedness of human beings in Technological changes,

Modern Transportation, Communication Technology.

 Robertson states that globalization refers both to the compression of

the world and the intensification of consciousness of the world as
a whole”

 Harvey on the other hand states that globalization is the

compression of time and space and the annihilation of distance.

 Sunny Levin Institute defines globalization as process of

interaction and integration among the people, companies, and
governments of different nations, process driven by international trade
and investment and aided by information technology.

 Group of globalization scholars meanwhile does not subscribe to

the sociological viewpoint , they argue that internationalization and
multinationalization are phases that precede globalization
because the latter heralds the end of the state system as the nucleus
of human activities.

 End of the nation-state

Economic Viewpoint of Globalization

 Dominated by economic activities like the

neoliberal regime, reduction of tariffs, creation of
transnational corporations, and improvement of
multilateral trade organizations.

Existence of competing definitions of GLOBALIZATION

 Historians are more interested in determining whether globalization is

really a modern phenomenon; while
 Economists look into the changing patterns of international trade
and commerce as well as the unequal distribution of wealth; on the
other hand
 Political Scientists focuses on the impacts of the forces of
globalization, such as the international NGOs, and international
organizations, on the state and vice versa.

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 GLOBALIZATION as a PROCESS

 Viewed as a multidimensional set of social

processes that generate and increase “worldwide social
interdependencies and exchanges while at the same
time fostering in people a growing awareness of
deepening connections between the local and the
distant.
 Globalization is about the compression of time
and space brought about by changes in technology
and the political, cultural, and economic aspects of
human existence.

SIGNS OF GLOBALITY

 Thickening of social linkages between people from different parts of

the world.
 Viewed as such, globalization has no definite and exact beginning. ---
innovations in transportation and communication technologies, and
creation of institutions of commerce.

GLOBALIZATION, as a CONDITION

 also referred to by scholars as GLOBALITY

 social condition characterized by trans-planetary connectivity and
supra-territoriality.

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  Trans-planetary connectivity is the establishment of social links
between people located at different places of our planet; while
 Supra-territoriality is the social connections that transcend
territorial geography.
 In other words, globalization as a social condition is characterized
by thick economic, political, and cultural interconnections and
global flows that render political borders and economic barriers
irrelevant.

GLOBALIZATION , as an IDEOLOGY

 Globalization exists in people’s consciousness because it consists of

a set of coherent and complementary ideas and beliefs about the
global order.

SIX(6) Core Claims of Globalization as an ideology:

1. Globalization is about the liberalization and global integration of

markets.
2. Globalization is inevitable and irreversible.
3. Nobody is in charge of globalization.
4. Globalization benefits everyone in the long run. Free trade and free
market, globalists believe, will bring wealth and prosperity to
everyone. (Jack Ma, founder and CEO of Alibaba, one of the most
successful and pioneer online-based businesses in China).
5. Globalization furthers the spread of democracy in the world.
6. Globalization requires a global war on terror. i.e. 9-11 Attack.

THEORETICAL PARADIGMS ASSOCIATED WITH GLOBALIZATION

1. World Systems Paradigm

o Immanuel Wallerstein –principal proponent
o views globalization not as a recent phenomenon but as virtually
synonymous with the birth and spread of WORLD
CAPITALISM
o The appropriate unit of analysis for macro-social inquiry in the
modern world is neither class, nor state/society, or country, but
the larger historical system, in which these categories are
located.
o This paradigm adheres to the idea that capitalism has created a
global enterprise that swept the 19th century leading to the
present time.
o Globalization is not at all a new process but something that is
just continuing and evolving.

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 o According to Wallerstein, there are three division of the
world/ key structure of the capitalist system and these are
the following:
a) Core, powerful and developed centers examples are :
Western Europe, North America and Japan
b) Periphery –forcibly subordinated to the core through
colonialism or other means examples are : Latin America,
Africa, Asia, Middle East and Eastern Europe
c) Semi-periphery- states and regions that were previously in
the core and are moving down in this hierarchy or those that
were previously in the periphery and are moving up.
o Centrality and immanence of the inter-state system and inter-
state rivalry to the maintenance and reproduction of the world-
system.
o Does not see any transcendence of the nation state system or
the centrality of nation states as the principal component units
of a larger global system.

2. Global Capitalism Paradigm

o Treat globalization as a novel stage in the evolving system of world
capitalism --- CAPITALIST GLOBALIZATION.
o Focus on new global production and financial system, both are seen
to have superseded earlier national forms of capitalism
o SKLAIR in his theory of the global system –which espoused the
transnational practices (TNPs) as operational categories for the
analysis of transnational phenomena. His theory argues that the
TCC has emerged as a new class that brings together several social
groups who see their own interests in an expanding global
capitalist system: the executives of transnational corporations;
globalizing bureaucrats, politicians , and professionals and
consumerist elites in the media and the commercial sector.
o ROBINSON (2003, 2004), have advanced a related theory of global
capitalism involving three planks:
a) Transnational production
b) Transnational capitalists
c) Transnational state

to which he asserts that Globalization creates new forms of

transnational class relations across borders and new forms of
class cleavages globally and within countries, regions, cities and
local communities.

3. Network Society School of Thought

o Does not subscribe to the contention that capitalism fuels
globalization.

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 o Technology and technological change are the underlying
causes of the several processes that comprise globalization.

4. Space, Time and Globalization

For Anthony Giddens, the conceptual essence of

globalization is “time-space distanciation”. Intensification of
worldwide social relations which link distant localities in
such a way that local happenings are shaped by events
occurring many miles away and vice versa, -social relations
are lifted out from local contexts of interaction and
restructured across time and space.

For David Harvey, globalization represents a new burst of

‘time-space compression’ produced by the very dynamics of
capitalist development.

5. Transnationality and Transnationalism

For Saski Sassen --- wrote THE GLOBAL CITY (1991),

world cities; she viewed the world-class cities as sites of
major production, finances or coordinating of the world
economy within an international division of labor, and more
recent research on ‘globalizing cities’.
Led by New York, London, and Tokyo – transnationally
mobile capital

For Roland Robertson, GLOCALIZATION

Ideas about home, locality and community have been
extensively spread around the world in recent years, so that
the local has been globalized.
The stress upon the significance of the local or the
communal can be viewed as one ingredient of the overall
globalization process.

6. Global Culture Paradigm

o Theorists emphasize the rapid growth of the mass media and
resultant global cultural flows and images in recent decades,

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 evoking the image famously put forth by Marshall McLuhan
of the global village.
o Cultural Theories of globalization, Focused on such
phenomena as globalization and religion, nations and
ethnicity, global consumerism, global communications and
the globalization of tourism.
o Ritzer (1993, 2002) coined the popularized term
‘McDonaldization’ to describe the sociocultural processes by
which the principles of fast food restaurant came too
dominate more and more sectors of US and later world
society.

GLOBALIZATION VS. INTERNATIONALIZATION

 Globalization human activities that do not require reference to a

state’s national borders. i.e. exchanges of romantic words in a social
media platform such as Facebook between a Filipina in the PHL and a
German residing in his country fall within globalization that do not
need their respective government’s permission to do so; while

 Internationalization, activities by entities such as corporations,

states, international organizations, private organizations, and even
individuals with reference to national borders and national
governments.

Globalization as liberalization

Liberalization is commonly understood as the removal of barriers

and restrictions imposed by national governments so as to create an
open and borderless world economy. In this sense, globalization is realized
when national governments reduce or abolish regulatory measures like trade
barriers, foreign exchange restrictions, capital controls and visa
requirements. (Scholte, 2008)

Problem with this, Scholte explains the study of globalization within

the debate concerning the neoliberal macroeconomics policies:

o On one side of the debate are academics, business executives

and policymakers that have supported neoliberal policies of
liberalization, privatization, deregulation, and fiscal restraint
would in time bring prosperity, freedom, peace and democracy
for all.
o On the other side, the critics in the so-called anti-globalization
movement have opposed neoliberal policies, arguing that a
laissez faire world economy produces greater poverty,
inequality, social conflict, cultural destruction, ecological
damage and democratic deficits.
o In addition, misconception carries with it a political implication-
that neo-liberalism is the only available policy framework for a
truly global world.

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 o Finally, debates about the advantages and disadvantages of
laissez faire economics have gone on for centuries without
involving the language of globalization.

Globalization as universalization and westernization

o Universalization denotes a process of spreading various objects,

practices and experiences to the different parts of the planet.
Hence, there is globalization when things, values and practices
have spread worldwide.
o This interpretation of globalization entails homogenization of
culture, politics, economy and laws.
o As homogenization progresses, globalization destroys several
indigenous cultures and practices.
o If western modernity spreads and destroys local cultures, this
variant universalization is known as WESTERNIZATION, neo-
colonialism, Americanization, or McDonaldization.
Issues arising from these misconceptions

 Universalization is not new feature of world history.

o Migration of human species that took place a million years ago
is one great example of globalization in the ancient times.
o The continuous spread of the major religions like Christianity
and Islam since their foundation constitutes another instance of
globalization which is not confined to contemporary period.
 As shown by the studies on oriental globalization Westernization is
not the only path that can be taken by globalization.

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References:

 Coronacion, D.C., et.al. (2018). Convergence: A College Textbook in

Contemporary World. Chapter 1: Introduction to the Study of
Globalization pp. 3-17. Books Atbp. Publishing Corp.

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