The Contemporary

World:
Globalization
The World Made Closer
Look in your bag, at the tags on your clothing, your cell phone, etc.  List down at least
eight objects. Identify where the objects were made. Where is the company based?
Do some research about this object. Chart your discoveries on a piece of paper.

•What do we know about each of the countries/regions where these objects

were made?
•For those not made in the country of origin of the company, why do you think
these objects were made overseas?
•What does it have to do with the topic of globalization?
Although globalization is a term that has become familiar only within
the last decade or so, the process of globalization has been occurring
over the past forty years. The reality and omnipresence of globalization
makes us see ourselves as part of what is referred to as “global age”.

How?
Through the Internet and mass media
Over the years, globalization has gained many connotations pertaining
to progress, development and integration.
To some, it is viewed as a positive phenomenon:
• Thomas Larson, a Swedish journalist - “the process of world
shrinkage, of distances getting shorter, things moving closer. It
pertains to the increasing ease with which somebody on the one side
of the world can interact, to mutual benefit with somebody on the
other side of the world.”
Some see it as occurring through and with regression, colonialism and
destabilization.
Approaches to Globalization
• Globalization as Economic Process

The expanding economic activity is identified as both the primary aspect of

globalization and the engine behind its rapid development.

Manuel Castells, sociologist: the process of financial globalization accelerated

dramatically in the late 1980s to 90’s as capital and securities markets in Europe
and the United States were deregulated. The liberalization of financial trading
allowed for the increased mobility among different segments of the financial
industry, with fewer restrictions and a global view of investment opportunities.
What could be the catalyst?

With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989 and the end of the 
Cold War in 1991, the world became more interconnected. This is
because the communist bloc countries, which had previously been
intentionally isolated from the capitalist West, began to integrate into
the global market economy. Trade and investment increased, while
barriers to migration and to cultural exchange were lowered.
Most of the growth occurred in the purely money-dealing currency and
securities markets that trade claims to draw profits from future
production. Aided by new communication technologies, global rentiers
and speculators earned spectacular incomes by taking advantage of
weak financial and banking regulations in the emerging markets of
developing countries. However, currently… (US-China Trade War)
Another important economic development of the last three decades that involves the
changing nature of global production: powerful transnational corporations (TNCs) with
subsidiaries in several countries.

Consolidating their global operations in an increasingly deregulated global labour market,

enterprises like Wal-Mart, General Motors, Exxon-Mobil, Mitsubishi, and Siemens belong to
the 200 largest TNCs, which account for over half of the world's industrial output. The
availability of cheap labor, resources, and favorable production conditions in the Third World
enhanced both the evolving structure mobility and the profitability of TNCs. Their ability to
‘outsource’ manufacturing jobs – that is, to cut labor costs by dispersing economic production
processes into many discrete phases carried out by low-wage workers in the global south – is
often cited as one of the hallmarks of economic globalization.
Watch:
https://www.nytimes.com/video/world/asia/10000000220815
7/divided-over-bangladesh.html
• What responsibility do Western companies have to ensure the health
and safety of the workers who manufacture the clothing they sell?
• Which response is better: the Walt Disney Company’s decision to stop
manufacturing in Bangladesh or Loblaw’s decision to stay in
Bangladesh and push for tougher safety standards? Why?
• Do we as consumers have any responsibility for the workers in other
countries who make our clothing? If yes, how do we exercise that
responsibility? What should or can we do?
Approaches to Globalization

• Globalization as Political Process

• What are the political causes for the massive flows of capital, money,
and technology across territorial boundaries? Second, do these flows
constitute a serious challenge to the power of the nation-state?

• These questions imply that economic globalization might be leading

to the reduced control of national governments over economic policy.
• Kenchi Ohmae, business strategist:
Projecting the rise of a ‘borderless world’ brought on by the irresistible
forces of capitalism, seen from the perspective of real flows of economic
activity, the nation-state has already lost its role as a meaningful unit of
participation in the global economy. In the long run, the process of
political globalization will lead to the decline of territory as a meaningful
framework for understanding political and social change. No longer
functioning along the lines of discrete territorial units, the political order
of the future will be one of regional economies linked together in an
almost seamless global web that operates according to free-market
principles.
• Globalization is fueled by a mixture of political and technological
factors.

• John Gray: Globalization is a long-term, technology-driven process

whose contemporary shape has been politically determined by the
world's most powerful nations.
Approaches to Globalization
• Globalization as Cultural Process
Does globalization make people more alike or more different?

• Tomlinson (1999: 28): defines cultural globalization as a ‘densely

growing network of complex cultural interconnections and
interdependencies that characterize modern social life’. He
emphasizes that global cultural flows are directed by powerful
international media corporations that utilize new communication
technologies to shape societies and identities.
• Culture no longer remains tied to fixed localities such as town and
nation, but acquires new meanings that reflect dominant themes
emerging in a global context or interconnectivity caused by cultural
globalization.

• Referring to the global diffusion of American values, consumer goods,

and lifestyles as ‘Americanization’ – a form of ‘cultural imperialism’
overwhelming more vulnerable cultures.
• Barber: the cultural imperialism of what he calls ‘McWorld’ – a
soulless consumer capitalism that is rapidly transforming the world's
diverse population into a blandly uniform market. For Barber,
McWorld is a product of a superficial American popular culture
assembled in the 1950s and 1960s and driven by expansionist
commercial interests:
• ‘Its template is American, its form style … [m]usic, video, theater,
books, and theme parks …are all constructed as image exports
creating a common taste around common logos,advertising slogans,
stars, songs, brand names, jingles, and trademarks.’
What is the perfect example for this?

• ‘McDonaldization’

- term used to describe the wide-ranging process by which the

principles of the fast-food restaurant are coming to dominate more and
more sectors of American society, as well as the rest of the world.
• Globalization to new forms of cultural diversity

• Contending that cultural globalization always takes place in local

contexts, Robertson predicts a pluralization of the world as localities
produce a variety of unique cultural responses to global forces. The
result is not increasing cultural homogenization, but ‘glocalization’ – a
complex interaction of the global and local characterized by cultural
borrowing.
Activity
• 1. Browse these sites about Mcdonald’s:
• https://www.mcdonalds.com/us/en-us/about-us/our-history.html
• http://corporate.mcdonalds.com/corpmcd/about-us/history.html
• http://corporate.mcdonalds.com/corpmcd/about-us/around-the-worl
d.html
• 2. Then explore National Geographic’s Vanishing Culture:
• http://web.archive.org/web/20080612000034/http://magma.nationa
lgeographic.com/2000/culture/lost/main.html
• 3. Form groups of four to five. Then make a four-column chart with
"American culture" in the left heading, "European culture" and
"Japanese culture" in the middle columns, and "Indigenous cultures"
on the right. Define indigenous cultures as cultures like the ones you
saw on the "Vanishing Cultures" site.
• 4. List all the impacts they think globalization might have on these
cultural groups. List both positive and negative impacts and write a
plus or minus sign next to each one.
• 5. Answer these questions as a group:
• What might be the pros and cons of globalization for the world's
cultures?
• Do you agree with the statement that "globalization will give us new
ways not only to appreciate other cultures more, but to look on our
own with fresh wonder and surprise"?
• Do they think globalization will have the same type of impact on
indigenous cultures?
• Compare and discuss