UNIT I INTRODUCTION TO GLOBALIZATION
Globalization Concepts, Meanings,
Features, and Dimensions
Globalization is the process in which
people, ideas and goods spread throughout
the world, spurring more interaction and
integration between the world's cultures,
governments and economies
Globalization is a process of
interaction and integration among the
people, companies, and governments of
different nations, a process driven by
international trade and investment and
aided by information technology. This
process has effects on the environment, on
culture, on political systems, on economic
development and prosperity, and on human
physical well-being in societies around the
world
Globalization is about growing
worldwide connectivity.
One principal driver of globalization
is technology. Economic life is dramatically
transformed by advancement in information
technology. All sorts of individual economic
actors like consumers, investors, and
businesses which are valuable new tools for
identifying and pursuing economic
opportunities, including faster and more
informed analyses of economic trends
around the world, easy transfers of assets,
and collaboration with far-flung partners are
provided by information technologies.
Globalization is the process of integration of
economies across the world through
cross-border flow of factors product and
information (5). According to the
International Monetary Fund (IMF)
globalization is the growing economic
interdependence of countries worldwide
through increasing volume and variety of
cross border transactions in goods and
services and of international capital flows
and also through the more rapid and wide
diffusion of technology.
Attributes, Qualities or Characteristics of
Globalization
Globalization has four characteristics or
qualities. These are:
1. It involves both the creation of new
social networks and the
multiplication of existing connections
that cut across traditional, political,
economic, cultural, and geographical
boundaries.
2. Globalization is reflected in the
expansion and the stretching of
social relations, activities, and
connections.
3. Globalization involves the
intensification and acceleration of
social exchanges and activities.
4. Globalization processes do not
occur merely or an objective,
material level but they also involve
the subjective plane of human
consciousness. Without erasing
local and national attachments, the
compression of the world into a
single place has increasingly made
global the frame of reference for
human thought and action.
5. Globalization involves both the
macro-structures of a global
community and the micro-structures
of global personhood. It extends
deep into the core of the self and its
dispositions, facilitating the creation
of multiple individual and collective
 identities nurtured by the intensifying
relations between the personal and
the global. They differ from each
other by acceleration in the speed of
social exchanges and widening of
geographical scopes.
Historical Periods of Globalization
1. The Prehistoric Period (10000
BCE-3500 BCE)
In this earliest phase of
globalization, contacts among hunters and
gatherers – who were spread around the
world – were geographically limited. In this
period due to absence of advanced forms of
technology, globalization was severely
limited.
2. The Pre-modern Period (3500
BCE- 1500 CE)
In this period the invention of writing
and the wheel were great social and
technological boosts that moved
globalization to a new level. The invention of
wheel in addition to roads made the
transportation of people and goods more
efficient. On the other hand writing
facilitated the spread of ideas and
inventions.
3. The Early Modern Period
(1500-1750)
It is the period between the Enlightenment
and the Renaissance. In this period,
European Enlightenment project tried to
achieve a universal form of morality and
law. This with the emergence of European
metropolitan centers and unlimited material
accumulation which led to the capitalist
world system helped to strengthen
globalization.
4. The Modern Period (1750-1970)
Innovations in transportation and
communication technology, population
explosion, and increase in migration led to
more cultural exchanges and transformation
in traditional social patterns. Process of
industrialization also accelerated.
5. The Contemporary Period (from
1970 to present)
The creation, expansion, and
acceleration of worldwide
interdependencies occurred in a dramatic
way and it was a kind of leap in the history
of globalization.
Dimensions of Globalization
1. Economic Dimension
This refers to the extensive
development of economic relations across
the globe as a result of technology and the
enormous flow of capital that has stimulated
trade in both sources and goods. Major
players in the current century’s global
economic order
The result of these powerful forces
resulted in the wide gap between the rich
and the poor countries.
- Major Sources of Economic Growth
across Countries (9)
- Property rights
- Regulatory institutions
- Institutions for macro-economics
- Stabilization
- Institutions for social influence
- Institutions for conflict management
Economic institutions have decisive
influence on investment in physical and
human capital, technology, and industrial
productions. It is also important for resource
distribution.
 2. Political Dimension
This refers to an enlargement and
strengthening of political interrelations
across the globe.
Political Issues that Surface in this
Dimension
1. The principle of state sovereignty
2. Increasing impact of various
intergovernmental organization.
3. Future shapes of regional and global
governance.
The globalization rendered almost
powerless any political efforts to introduce
restrictive policies affecting individual states,
with the results that the world in many ways
turned into a borderless world.
Governments often seek to restrict the
migration of peoples, especially those
coming from the poor countries in the global
South.
In the development of supra-national
structures and associations held together by
common concerns and mutually agreed
upon norm, the most obvious is political
globalization.
On the part of the involved parties, informal
structures which are considered binding,
bring together world power centers due to
common interests.
3. Cultural Dimension
This refers to the increase in the amount of
cultural flows across the globe.
Cultural interconnections are at the
foundations of contemporary globalization
4.Religious Dimension
Religion is a personal or institutionalized set
of attitudes, beliefs, and practices relating to
or manifesting faithful devotion to an
acknowledged ultimate reality or deity. It is
the most important defining element of any
civilization as contrasted with race,
language, or way of life. As such, it is also
portrayed as a defining element in future
conflicts. Whether the root cause of a
particular conflict or merely a vehicle for the
mobilization of nationalist or ethnic
passions, religion is certainly central to
much of the strife currently taking place
around the globe.
5. Ideological Dimensions
Ideology is a system of widely shared ideas,
beliefs, norms and values among a group of
people. It is often used to legitimize certain
political interests or to defend dominant
power structures. Ideology connects human
actions with some generalized claims
(14a).Globalization is a social process of
intensifying global interdependence while
globalism is an ideology that gives the
concept of neo-liberal values and meanings
to globalization.
Major Ideological Claims of Advocates of
Globalism
1. Globalization is about the
liberalization and global
integration of markets.
The problem with this claim is that
liberalization and integration of markets
happen through political project of
engineering free markets by interference of
centralized state power, and it is in contrast
to the neoliberal ideal of limited role of
governments.
2. Globalization is inevitable and
irreversible.
Globalists believe that spread of market
forces driven by technological innovations is
inevitable in globalization. Neoliberals use
this claim to convince people to adopt the
natural discipline of the market if they want
to prosper, which implies the elimination of
government controls over the market.

3. Nobody is in charge of
globalization.
This claim seeks to depoliticize the public
debate on globalization and neutralizing anti
-globalist movements.

4. Globalization benefits everyone.

Globalists talk about the benefits of market
liberalization such as rising global living
standards, economic efficiency, individual
freedom, and technological progress. But
the reality is that the opportunities of
globalization are spread unequally and
power and wealth are concentrated among
a specific group of people, regions and
corporations.

5. Globalization furthers the spread

of democracy in the world.
For the globalists democracy and free
markets are synonymous.
The neoliberal explanation of globalization
is ideological because it is politically
motivated and contributes to the
construction of particular meanings of
globalization which stabilize existing power
relations. Globalism tries to create collective
meaning and shape people’s identities.