Topic 1:
Introduction to Globalization
Studies
Concepts and Theories
Themes:

What is Globalization?

How can we conceptualize globalization?

What are the distinctive processes of
globalization?
Key Concepts of Globalization

Postmodernism（後現代主義） was the concept of
the 1980s, while globalization was the concept of
the 1990s and the new millennium.

David Harvey: the word “Globalization” （全球化）
was first used in mid 70s by American Express.
Key Concepts of Globalization

The term then spread out quickly in the financial
and business press.

It replaces the term “internationalization”（國際化）
and “transnationalization“ (跨國化).
Caution!
They are
different
concepts!
Key concept to remember!
Internationalization:
• increasing interwovenness （相互
交織）of national economies
through international trade.
– nation state（民族國家）
Key concept to remember!
Transnationalization:
• the increasing organization of production
on a cross-border basis (以跨境作為基礎的)
by multinational organizations. – crossing
nation-states
Globalization:

Nation-state is no longer important.
Globalization is not equal with the
geographical integration of national
economies, but making of new spatial
scales.
Key concept to remember!
Anthony Giddens'
conceptualization:

Globalization can thus be defined as the
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.
Anthony Giddens
Famous person!
Please remember him!
Anthony Giddens'
conceptualization:

What happen in a local area is not only
closely related to the outside world, but
intensively affected each other.
Anthony Giddens'
conceptualization:

This is a dialectical process (辯證過程)
because such local happenings may move
in an obverse direction from the very
distanciated relations that shape them.
Key concept to remember!
Time/ Space Distantiation

Anthony Giddens: Local transformation is
as much a part of globalization as the
lateral extension (橫向擴張) of social
connections across time and space.

Anthony Giddens: Time /space distantiation (時空
遠距化)
Key concept to remember!
Time/ Space Compression

The most important concept suggested by
David Harvey: time/space compression (時
空壓縮).
David Harvey
Famous person!
Please remember him!
Globalization:


The shrinking of the world to a “global
village” (地球村)- a virtual disappearance of
space through time.
Today people can have social relations and
even organized community relations
regardless of space.
Globalization:

Roland Robertson: new experience as
“global consciousness” (全球意識).
Globalization

Manuel Castells: a new age of “network
society” (網絡社會) or “global informational
society” (全球信息社會).
Manuel Castells
Famous person!
Please remember him!
Globalization:

It allows the emergence of "imagined"
communities, cultures and even systems of
authority and social control that cross
borders.
Globalization:

Elements of globalization: transborder
capital, labor, management, news, images,
and data flows.
Globalization:

The most common features: the
transnationality of production, commerce,
consumption, socio-cultural reproduction
（社會及文化的再生產）, and politics.
Globalization:

Other features: increased instability of
market; organizational decentralization of
firms, flexibility of production (彈性生產);
privatization (私有化) of public finance; and
increased social inequality and social
exclusion (社會排斥).
In Short:

Globalization is a compression of time and
space which privileges the capitalist
economies (資本主義經濟體系) over noncapitalist and socialist societies(社會主義社會).
In Short:

After all, globalization is first and
foremost a political contest (政治競賽) - not
an equal game on an equal basis.

Yet, it is a never complete (永不完整)and
contradictory process（矛盾過程）- an
uneasy correlation of economic forces,
power relations and social structures.
Key concept to remember!
Modernization Theories

Modernization Theories
progress to be modern
(現代化理論):
linear
Modernization Theories

Backdrop: the fear of socialism (社會主義)
and the liberation of colonialism (殖民主義
的解放) in the time of cold war (冷戰).
Modernization Theories

U.S. President Truman (杜魯門) in his
inaugural address of 1949 announced the
Point Four Program of Development Aid.

It became the policy of the US to aid the
underdeveloped countries.
Modernization Theories

Every country becomes western countrieswestern oriented model
Modernization Theories

Universalizing value: measured objectivelylevel of education, occupation, income,
wealth, information and capability of
consumption.
Modernization Theories

The world is divided into First World and
Third World, or developed countries and
developing countries.
Modernization Theories

Economic and Technological Support is not
enough

Political, Social and Cultural Barriers have to be
cleared off

Politically- undemocratic political systems

Socially- traditional sexual division of labor

Culturally- traditional culture is not aggressive
Modernization Theories

There is a call for comprehensive social and
cultural change.

Modernization is a social process to
incorporate all kinds of countries into the
same model of western countries.
Key concept to remember!
Modernization Theories

It believes that all societies at different
speeds, are moving towards the same
direction, that is the path of modernity.
Modernization Theories

Modernization is very ideological (意識型態的),
and is criticized as Euro-centric (以歐洲為中心的
).

Modernization, after all, is an attempt to
preach American or western way of life.
Dependency
and World System Theories

Dependency theories (依附理論) criticized
the modernization theory.

It brings the structure of unequal
relationships between rich and poor
countries back into the picture.
Key concept to remember!
Dependency
and World System Theories

The main argument: capitalist development
actually created greater gap between First
World and Third World countries, making
them further dependent on First World
countries for survival or development.
Key concept to remember!
Dependency
and World System Theories

Countries develop at an uneven pace in
relation to one another.

And even inside the backward countries
themselves, advanced and primitive features
of economy and society co-exist.

The original version of dependency and
underdevelopment theory is then further
developed by Gunder Frank and many
others.
Key concept to remember!
Dependency
and World System Theories



The dependency theory has been a world
system approach, and the distrust of a global
capitalist system:
a. The subordination of the local economy to
the structure of advanced capitalist
countries. -- only produced primary goods for
the industrial West.
b. External orientation -- an extreme
dependency on overseas markets, both for
capital and technology sourcing and for
production outlets.
Long History Perspective

Gundar Frank: globalism as fact of life
already existed since at least 1500 for
the world.

The perception of a major new
departure is (mis)informed by a
Eurocentric point of view.
Long History Perspective

We are mis-guided into thinking that our
world is only just now undergoing a belated
process of “globalization”.
Long History Perspective


Globalization in Question:
globalization is not a new
social or historical force.
In reviewing the historical
evidence of world trade
and capital flows, the level
international economy in
the present era is not
unprecedented (不是前所未有
的).
Long History Perspective

1. In terms of amount of good and services
that cross frontiers-- The percentage of all
goods and services that are produced worldwide reached 33% in 1913. Today it is about
31%.

2. In relation to total world output-- the
percentage share of world production subject
to transnational corporate control has
remained relatively stable in the past one
hundred year.
Long History Perspective

3. In term of global reach of world capitalism
over the five continents-- the percentage of
two continents, Latin America and Africa, in
world trade and foreign capital flows had
actually been declined.

The expansive phase of capitalism is over:
only a phase of deepening, but not widening
capitalist integration.
Key concept to remember!
Distinctive Processes of
Globalization
Key concept to remember!

1) as a spatial and economic process:
whether contributed to the end of
geography and the rise of a borderless world
(無邊界的世界) or not;

2) as a process of political economy (政治經濟
學): something qualitatively new, or the
process had been happened five hundred
years ago
Distinctive Processes of
Globalization
Key concept to remember!

3) as a socio-cultural process: whether
leads to social polarization (社會兩極化),
social exclusion, community fragmentation
(社區零碎化), consumption homogeneity and
identity crisis (身份危機).

4) As a cultural critique: whether as a neoliberal ideology (新自由主義意識型態) or a myth
of market power.
Question:

** Is globalization merely a catch-all
buzzword, an overstated process or
merely an ideology (意識型態)?