GNED 07: The Contemporary World
MODULE
1
Time to Learn!
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.
Example:
People are engaged in buying and selling from other places in far-away lands like the famed Silk
Road across Central Asia that connected China and Europe during the Middle Age for
thousands of years and they also invested in enterprises in other countries for centuries.
There were similarities in features of those prevailing wave of globalization before the outbreak of
the First World War in 1914 to the current wave. There is an increase cross border- trade,
investment, and migration due to policy and technical developments in the past few decades. It is in
the area of economic development that observers believe the world has entered a new phase.
Today’s globalization is farther, faster, cheaper, and deeper in compared to earlier wave of
globalization.
Example:
Since 1950, the volume of world trade has increased by 20 times and from 1997
to 1999, flows of foreign investment nearly doubled from $468 billion to $827
domestically.
In the years since the Second World War, and especially during the past two decades, many
governments have adopted free-market economic systems, vastly increasing their own productive
potential and creating myriad new opportunities for international trade and investment.
Governments also have negotiated dramatic reductions in barriers to commerce and have
established international agreements to promote trade in goods, services, and investment. Taking
advantage of new opportunities in foreign markets, corporations have built foreign factories and
established production and marketing arrangements with foreign partners. A defining
feature of globalization, therefore, is an international industrial and financial business structure.
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.
GNED 07: The Contemporary World
Prepared for: Cavite State University – Bacoor Campus
Prepared by: Analyn B. Serohijos, LPT
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Globalization is the process of integration of economies across the world through
cross-border flow of factors product and information. 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.
Globalization is an expansion, and intensification of social relations and
consciousness across world time and world space. It is about growing worldwide
connectivity according to Steger.
Further, globalization is considered a multi-dimensional process involving economic, political,
technological, cultural, religious and ecological dimensions. It suggests a dynamic process of
change that results in either positive or negative development. It leads to the creation of something
new; it involves the multiplication of social connections and various activities that transgress
traditional and political, economic, cultural and geographical lines.
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.
Example:
Brazilian World Cup: Today’s media combine conventional TV coverage with
multiple streaming feeds into digital devices and networking sites that transcend
nationally based services.
2. Globalization is reflected in the expansion and the stretching of social relations, activities, and
connections.
Example:
• Reaching of financial markets around the globe
• Occurrence of electronic around the clock
• Emergence of gigantic and virtually identical shopping malls in all continents to cater to
consumers who can afford commodities all over the world-including products whose
various components were manufactured in different countries. This process is called
social stretching.
Covered in the process of social stretching are:
• Non-governmental organization
• Commercial enterprises
• Social clubs
• Regional & global institutions and associations (UN, EU, ASEAN, Google and others)
3. Globalization involves the intensification and acceleration of social exchanges
and activities.
GNED 07: The Contemporary World
Prepared for: Cavite State University – Bacoor Campus
Prepared by: Analyn B. Serohijos, LPT
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Example:
• The worldwide web relays distant information in real time
• Satellites provide consumers with instant pictures of remote events
• Sophisticated social networking by means of facebook or twitter has become routine
activity for more than a billion people around the globe.
The intensification of worldwide social relations means that local happenings are shaped by events
occurring far away, and vice versa. This means that there is intermingling of local and global, with
the national and regional in overlapping horizontal scale.
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.
Globalization involves both the macro-structures of a global community and the microstructures 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
There are six dimensions in globalization. These include: economic, political, technological,
cultural, religious and ecological dimensions.
GNED 07: The Contemporary World
Prepared for: Cavite State University – Bacoor Campus
Prepared by: Analyn B. Serohijos, LPT
3
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
Huge international corporations (General Motors, Walmart, Mitsubishi)
• International Economic Institutions (IMF, World Bank, The World Trade Organization)
• Trading Systems
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
1. Property rights
2. Regulatory institutions
3. Institutions for macro-economics
4. Stabilization
5. Institutions for social influence
7. 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.
Example
•
•
Global cities like New York, London, Tokyo, and Singapore are closely connected
with one another than they are to various cities in their own countries.
European Union, United nations, NATO, The World Trade Organization
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.
GNED 07: The Contemporary World
Prepared for: Cavite State University – Bacoor Campus
Prepared by: Analyn B. Serohijos, LPT
4
Individualism and consumerism which are the dominant cultural characteristics of our age
and the drive for economic success stimulated by the internet and other technological devices
circulate much more easily than they did in earlier periods. In the dissemination of popular culture,
transactional media corporations play a major role which brought a sharp rise in homogenized
popular culture that is manifested in the dominance of fast food restaurant on more aspects of life
throughout the world.
Cultural diversity often results hybridization- a constructive interaction process between
global and local characteristics which is often visible in food, music, dance, film, fashion, and
language. As a result there is a scarcely any society in the world that expresses itself in its own selfcontained and authentic culture.
Media empires generated and directed the extensive flow of culture. Examples of these are
Yahoo, Google, Microsoft, and Disney. Advertisement plays an important role in this cultural flow by
featuring various celebrities in the television aside from transforming newscast into entertainment
shows.
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 themobilization of nationalist or ethnic passions, religion is certainly
central to much of thestrife currently taking place around the globe.
Jihadist globalism is a religious response to the materialist assault by the ungodly West in
the rest of the world. Coming out of what they consider a pure form of Islam, its disciples seek to
destroy all those alien influences that have been imposed on Muslim people. It applies to those
extremely violent strains of religion that convert the global imaginary into very concrete political
agendas and terrorist tactics. It is also applied to those violent fundamentalists in the West who
seek to transform the world into a Christian Empire.
Example
• Bin Ladin understands umma as a single community of believers professing faith in the
one and only God, but at the same time committedto destroying not only alien invaders
but also corrupt Islamic elites in orderto return power to the Muslim masses.
• Since one third of the world’s Muslim population lives in non-Islamic countries, the
restoration of God’s proper reign must be a global event. Hence, Al-Qaeda established
jihadist cells in various parts of the world.
Roman Catholic Teaching of Globalization
There are eight (8) principles that summarize the Roman Catholic Teachings.
1. Commitment to universal human rights
2. Commitment to the social nature of the human person
3. Commitment to the common good
4. Solidarity (The principle of Solidarity affirms that membership in the human
family means that all bear responsibility for one another.)
5. Preferential option of the poor (In the Theology of the Incarnation- Christ God
became poor for us so as to enrich us by his poverty. The poor are susceptible to
GNED 07: The Contemporary World
Prepared for: Cavite State University – Bacoor Campus
Prepared by: Analyn B. Serohijos, LPT
5
the effects of environmental irresponsibility because they live in countries where
cheap building materials and cheap labor are readily available. They regularly
work in farming, fishing, and forestry, areas which suffer environmental damage).
6. Subsidiary (The Catholic Church teaches that decisions should be made at the
lowest level in order to achieve the common good.
7. Justice
8. Integral Humanism- is concerned with whole person
Justice is divided in three (3) categories:
1. Commutative justice
This aims at fulfilling the terms of contracts and other promises on both personal and social
level.
2. Distributive justice
This ensures a basic equity in how both the burden and the goods of society are distributed
and that ensures that every person enjoys a basically equal moral and legal standing apart
from differences in wealth, privilege, talent and achievements
3. Social justice
This refers to the creation of the conditions in which the first two categories of justice can be
realized and the common good identified and defended.
According to catholic teaching, a just society is one which these forms of justice are assured
because they are required by human dignity.
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.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.
GNED 07: The Contemporary World
Prepared for: Cavite State University – Bacoor Campus
Prepared by: Analyn B. Serohijos, LPT
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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.
Chapter Test:
A. Identification. Answer the following item by supplying the correct answer on
the blank.
__________ 1. In this period the invention of writing and the wheel were great social and
technological boosts that moved globalization to a new level.
__________ 2. It is often used to legitimize certain political interests or to defend dominant
power structures.
__________ 3. This is considered as one principal driver of globalization.
__________ 4. 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
__________ 5. This results hybridization- a constructive interaction process between global
and local characteristics which is often visible in food, music, dance, film, fashion, and
language
__________ 6. This is a religious response to the materialist assault by the ungodly West in
the rest of the world.
__________ 7. The period of leap in the history of globalization.
__________ 8. 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; this is about growing worldwide connectivity.
__________ /__________ 9 - 10. These are the dominant cultural characteristics of our age
and the drive for economic success stimulated by the internet and other technological
devices circulate much more easily than they did in earlier periods.
B. True or False. Identify whether the statement is correct or not. Write True if it is
correct, False if not.
__________1. Today’s globalization, relatively, has more disadvantages in comparison
to earlier wave of globalization.
__________2. During the Prehistoric Period, globalization was severely limited.
__________3. Globalization involves the macro-structures of a global community as its
basic coverage and concern.
__________4. Media empires generated and directed the extensive flow of culture.
__________5. Social justice ensures a basic equity in how both the burden and the
goods of society are distributed and that ensures that every person
enjoys a basically equal moral and legal standing apart from differences
in wealth, privilege, talent and achievements
__________6. The Roman Catholic teaching of globalization believes that the poor are
susceptible to the effects of environmental irresponsibility because they
live in countries where building materials and labor are expensive.
__________7. Social networking, social stretching, and controlled social exchanges and
GNED 07: The Contemporary World
Prepared for: Cavite State University – Bacoor Campus
Prepared by: Analyn B. Serohijos, LPT
7
activities are among the positive implications of globalization.
__________8. People engaging in buying and selling from other places in far-away
lands is an example of how globalization works.
__________9. Globalization processes occur on an objective, material level of human
consciousness.
__________10. Process of industrialization accelerated during the Modern Period.
C. Essay
Discuss the major ideological claims of advocates of globalism, and express your
point of agreement/disagreement. (5 points each)
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.
5. Globalization furthers the spread of democracy in the world.
References:
1. searchcio.techtarget.com/definition/globalization
2. http://www.globalization101.org/what-is-globalization/
3. Thomas Friedman. (2012). International Politics: Concepts, Theories, & Issues. Sage
publications.
Edited by Rumki Basu
4. https://www.globalization101.org/what-is-globalization/
5. Cherunilam, Francis (2010). International Business: Text and Cases. 5th Edition.PHI Learning
Private
Limited. New Delhi.
6. Cited by Charles Michell (2000). International Business Culture. World Trade Press. California
7. Steger. Manfred Globalization: A Very Short Introduction Published by OUP Oxford
8. Pereira, Carlos and Vladimir Teles (2011). Political Institutions, Economic Growth, and
Democracy:
The Substitute Effect. https:// www. brookings. Edu/ opinions/ political- institutions –
economicgrowthand- democracy- the – substitute- effect/. January 19
9. Rodrik, D. (2007). One Economics Many Recipes: Globalization, Institutions, and Economic
Growth Princeton: Princeton University Press.
10. Book Review on Globalization: a very short introduction. Faculties of American Studies. http://
www.
American. Mcgill.ca/nast/; http:/ /www. American. Edu/sis /cnas.
11.(a,b,c,) Seazolts, Kevin R (2012). A Virtuous Church: Catholic Theology, Ethics, and Liturgy for
the
21st Century
12. Samuel P. Huntington (1997). The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (New
York:
Touchstone/Simon and Schuster
13. Johnston, Douglas M. Religion and Culture: Human Dimensions of Globalization. http:// indian
strategic knowledge online. com/ web/ C31 Johns. pdf
14. Seazolts, Kevin R (2012). A Virtuous Church: Catholic Theology, Ethics, and Liturgy for the 21st
Century
16. (a,b) Steger, Manfred. Globalization: A Very Short Introduction. Published by OUP Oxford
GNED 07: The Contemporary World
Prepared for: Cavite State University – Bacoor Campus
Prepared by: Analyn B. Serohijos, LPT
8
GNED 07: The Contemporary World
Prepared for: Cavite State University – Bacoor Campus
Prepared by: Analyn B. Serohijos, LPT
9