SOC101: Introduction to Sociology

Week 7

Selim Reza, PhD

Associate Professor of Sociology
Department of Political Science and Sociology
School of Humanities and Social Sciences
 Globalisation in a Changing World
• What is globalization?
 Some definitions......
 Globalisation in its current phase has been described as “an
unprecedented compression of time and space reflected in the
tremendous intensification of social, political, economic, and cultural
interconnections and interdependencies on a global scale.” (Steger,
2002p. ix)

 Globalisation is a process of forging international political,

economic, religious, and socio-cultural interconnections
The Shrinking Globe
An English princess with an Egyptian boyfriend crashes in a French tunnel,
driving a German car with a Dutch engine, driven by a Belgian who was drunk
on Scottish whisky, followed closely by Italian Paparazzi on Japanese
motorcycles; treated by an American doctor using Brazilian medicines.
 Try again!
My current presentation is being shown to you by a laptop and
projector using American Apple technology, and my laptop uses
Taiwanese chips, Chinese metal body and a Korean motherboard,
assembled by Vietnamese workers in a Singaporean plant,
transported by Indian lorry-drivers, unloaded by Sicilian
longshoremen, and trucked by Mexican migrants, sold in an Australian
shop…
 Finally.....
• Globalisation is the act or process of globalising with the compression of
time and space where the global nations are interconnected through rapid
transportation systems and technological innovations in order to speed up
their trade, economic ties and cultural exchanges for mutual benefits.

• Interconnectedness + Interdependence
 Global village
• The whole world into one village
• Relations: Economics and Social Sciences
• Role of media and technology
• Digital age
• Social media
• Interactions
• Communications
• Digital community
• No distance
• No isolation
• Abolishing space and time: Greater personal connections
• Electronic nervous system (media)
• Wireless communications
• “The medium is the message”
• GLOCALISATION?
Marshall McLuhan
(1911-1980)
 New international division of labour
• Large-scale movement of skilled workers and jobs across countries
and continents

• Growing numbers of skill- intensive jobs are being outsourced from

developed to developing countries

• Large numbers of skilled workers are moving from developing to

developed countries, often from elite institutions of higher learning

• Reduced importance of distance and geographical location for

production due to technological progress

• Technological and organisational developments that enabled

complex production tasks to be broken down into basic steps,
permitting even unskilled labourers to learn the steps quickly

• Essentially limitless supply of cheap labour in developing countries

4 characteristics:

a) Global market

b) Manufacturing production: No longer confined to a relative handful of

industrialised countries/cheap labour in China, Korea, Indonesia, Thailand,
Mexico and Bangladesh. Exports from poor countries have increased

c) Flow of capital across the globe: Foreign exchange transactions; MNC/TNC

d) Increased mobility of people in search of work: Remittances/improved

economy and household consumption/GDP
• Global markets
• Consumption of similar products
• Similar kinds of advertising
 Theoretical perspectives on globalisation
a) Globalists/hyperglobalizers: Optimistic vs. pessimistic
Optimistic: spread of capitalism, world economy, new technologies, productivity level,
positive for developing countries-‘fruits of progress’ (Ohmae, 1995)

Pessimistic: Form of Westernisation/Americanisation, MNCs, new form of

colonialism/imperialism, negative for poor and marginalised-lack of access to technology,
limited influence of global decision making (Amin, 1990)
State’s role is reduced

b) Global skeptics:
Unprecedented, growing internationalisation, state’s role is strengthened (Hirst and
Thompson, 1999)

c) Transformationalists:
Middle ground between globalists and skeptics, globalists exaggerate, some
interconnections, state’s role in not reducing but changing