globalization definition essay

ENCYCLOPEDIC ENTRY

Globalization.

Globalization is a term used to describe the increasing connectedness and interdependence of world cultures and economies.

Anthropology, Sociology, Social Studies, Civics, Economics

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Globalization is a term used to describe how trade and technology have made the world into a more connected and interdependent place. Globalization also captures in its scope the economic and social changes that have come about as a result. It may be pictured as the threads of an immense spider web formed over millennia, with the number and reach of these threads increasing over time. People, money, material goods, ideas, and even disease and devastation have traveled these silken strands, and have done so in greater numbers and with greater speed than ever in the present age. When did globalization begin? The Silk Road, an ancient network of trade routes across China, Central Asia, and the Mediterranean used between 50 B.C.E. and 250 C.E., is perhaps the most well-known early example of exchanging ideas, products, and customs. As with future globalizing booms, new technologies played a key role in the Silk Road trade. Advances in metallurgy led to the creation of coins; advances in transportation led to the building of roads connecting the major empires of the day; and increased agricultural production meant more food could be trafficked between locales. Along with Chinese silk, Roman glass, and Arabian spices, ideas such as Buddhist beliefs and the secrets of paper-making also spread via these tendrils of trade. Unquestionably, these types of exchanges were accelerated in the Age of Exploration, when European explorers seeking new sea routes to the spices and silks of Asia bumped into the Americas instead. Again, technology played an important role in the maritime trade routes that flourished between old and newly discovered continents. New ship designs and the creation of the magnetic compass were key to the explorers’ successes. Trade and idea exchange now extended to a previously unconnected part of the world, where ships carrying plants, animals, and Spanish silver between the Old World and the New also carried Christian missionaries. The web of globalization continued to spin out through the Age of Revolution, when ideas about liberty , equality , and fraternity spread like fire from America to France to Latin America and beyond. It rode the waves of industrialization , colonization , and war through the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries, powered by the invention of factories, railways, steamboats, cars, and planes. With the Information Age, globalization went into overdrive. Advances in computer and communications technology launched a new global era and redefined what it meant to be “connected.” Modern communications satellites meant the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo could be watched in the United States for the first time. The World Wide Web and the Internet allowed someone in Germany to read about a breaking news story in Bolivia in real time. Someone wishing to travel from Boston, Massachusetts, to London, England, could do so in hours rather than the week or more it would have taken a hundred years ago. This digital revolution massively impacted economies across the world as well: they became more information-based and more interdependent. In the modern era, economic success or failure at one focal point of the global web can be felt in every major world economy. The benefits and disadvantages of globalization are the subject of ongoing debate. The downside to globalization can be seen in the increased risk for the transmission of diseases like ebola or severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), or in the kind of environmental harm that scientist Paul R. Furumo has studied in microcosm in palm oil plantations in the tropics. Globalization has of course led to great good, too. Richer nations now can—and do—come to the aid of poorer nations in crisis. Increasing diversity in many countries has meant more opportunity to learn about and celebrate other cultures. The sense that there is a global village, a worldwide “us,” has emerged.

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Essay on Globalization for Students and Children

500+ words essay on globalization.

Globalization refers to integration between people, companies, and governments. Most noteworthy, this integration occurs on a global scale. Furthermore, it is the process of expanding the business all over the world. In Globalization, many businesses expand globally and assume an international image. Consequently, there is a requirement for huge investment to develop international companies.

How Globalization Came into Existence?

First of all, people have been trading goods since civilization began. In the 1st century BC, there was the transportation of goods from China to Europe. The goods transportation took place along the Silk Road. The Silk Road route was very long in distance. This was a remarkable development in the history of Globalization. This is because, for the first time ever, goods were sold across continents.

Globalization kept on growing gradually since 1st BC. Another significant development took place in the 7th century AD. This was the time when the religion of Islam spread. Most noteworthy, Arab merchants led to a rapid expansion of international trade . By the 9th century, there was the domination of Muslim traders on international trade. Furthermore, the focus of trade at this time was spices.

True Global trade began in the Age of Discovery in the 15th century. The Eastern and Western continents were connected by European merchants. There was the discovery of America in this period. Consequently, global trade reached America from Europe.

From the 19th century, there was a domination of Great Britain all over the world. There was a rapid spread of international trade. The British developed powerful ships and trains. Consequently, the speed of transportation greatly increased. The rate of production of goods also significantly increased. Communication also got faster which was better for Global trade .

Finally, in 20th and 21st -Century Globalization took its ultimate form. Above all, the development of technology and the internet took place. This was a massive aid for Globalization. Hence, E-commerce plays a huge role in Globalization.

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Impact of Globalization

First of all, Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) increases at a great rate. This certainly is a huge contribution of Globalization. Due to FDI, there is industrial development. Furthermore, there is the growth of global companies. Also, many third world countries would also benefit from FDI.

Technological Innovation is another notable contribution of Globalization. Most noteworthy, there is a huge emphasis on technology development in Globalization. Furthermore, there is also technology transfer due to Globalization. The technology would certainly benefit the common people.

The quality of products improves due to Globalization. This is because manufacturers try to make products of high-quality. This is due to the pressure of intense competition. If the product is inferior, people can easily switch to another high-quality product.

To sum it up, Globalization is a very visible phenomenon currently. Most noteworthy, it is continuously increasing. Above all, it is a great blessing to trade. This is because it brings a lot of economic and social benefits to it.

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Effects of Globalization

Definition of globalization, drivers of globalization.

Globalization is defined as interaction among different countries in order to develop global economy. It entails political, technological, cultural and political exchanges which are facilitated by infrastructure, transport and communication. Some of the traditional international theories of globalization include Ricardian theory of international trade, Heckscher-Ohlin model and Adam Smith’s model (Scholte, 2005).

For globalization to take place, it must be driven by certain factors. The first factor that drives globalization is competitiveness in the market, which focuses on aspects such as global competitors, interdependence among countries and high two-way trade. The second factor that drives globalization is the government.

The government drives globalization through regulation of marketing activities, provision of technical standards that are compatible and elimination of restrictions imposed on trade and investment procedures. The third factor that drives globalization is cost.

Cost in globalization deals with efficiency in sourcing activities, world economies and emerging technological trends. The fourth factor that drives globalization is market, which covers ordinary needs of customers, channels of world markets and marketing techniques that can be transferred to different regions.

Globalization is associated with both positive and negative effects. Its first positive effect is that it makes it possible for different countries to exchange their products. The second positive effect of globalization is that it promotes international trade and growth of wealth as a result of economic integration and free trade among countries.

However, globalization is also associated with negative effects. Its first negative effect is that it causes unemployment. Since companies compete with their rivals in the market, sometimes they are forced to sack some of their employees in order to reduce salary costs and instead maximize profits. This is common in developing countries, where large numbers of unemployed people live in urban areas.

The second negative effect of globalization is that it promotes terrorism and criminal activities because people, food and materials are allowed to move freely from one country to the other. Individuals with evil intentions take advantage of this freedom and carry out terrorism activities and other crimes (Negative Effects of Globalization, 2013).

Negative Effects of Globalization. (2013). Web.

Scholte, J. (2005). Globalization: A Critical Introduction. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

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IvyPanda. (2023, November 21). Effects of Globalization. https://ivypanda.com/essays/globalization/

"Effects of Globalization." IvyPanda , 21 Nov. 2023, ivypanda.com/essays/globalization/.

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IvyPanda . 2023. "Effects of Globalization." November 21, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/globalization/.

1. IvyPanda . "Effects of Globalization." November 21, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/globalization/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Effects of Globalization." November 21, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/globalization/.

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World History Project - Origins to the Present

Course: world history project - origins to the present   >   unit 7, read: introduction to globalization.

• READ: International Institutions
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• READ: Goods Across the World
• BEFORE YOU WATCH: Globalization I - The Upside
• WATCH: Globalization I - The Upside
• BEFORE YOU WATCH: Nonviolence and Peace Movements
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• READ: Population and Environmental Trends, 1880 to the Present
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• Global Interactions and Institutions

First read: preview and skimming for gist

Second read: key ideas and understanding content.

• What late twentieth-century trends, according to the author, led people to create the term “globalization”?
• What are some historical trends that accelerated globalization before the late twentieth century?
• What are some impacts of globalization in terms of migration and economics?
• What are some positive impacts of globalization, according to the author?
• What are some negative impacts of globalization, according to the author?

Third read: evaluating and corroborating

• What does globalization look like from your perspective? How does it affect your family and community? Do you think it has been a good thing for you? Why or why not?
• Globalization looks very differently studied through each of the three course frames. Pick one of the three course frames and describe the effects of globalization on your home town or neighborhood using only that frame narrative. How would your results have been different if you had chosen a different frame?

Introduction to Globalization

What is globalization, globalization’s effect on communities and economies, the pros and cons of globalization, want to join the conversation.

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Globalization

Covering a wide range of distinct political, economic, and cultural trends, the term “globalization” remains crucial to contemporary political and academic debate. In contemporary popular discourse, globalization often functions as little more than a synonym for one or more of the following phenomena: the pursuit of classical liberal (or “free market”) policies in the world economy (“economic liberalization”), the growing dominance of western (or even American) forms of political, economic, and cultural life (“westernization” or “Americanization”), a global political order built on liberal notions of international law (the “global liberal order”), an ominous network of top-down rule by global elites (“globalism” or “global technocracy”), the proliferation of new information technologies (the “Internet Revolution”), as well as the notion that humanity stands at the threshold of realizing one single unified community in which major sources of social conflict have vanished (“global integration”). Globalization is a politically-contested phenomenon about which there are significant disagreements and struggles, with many nationalist and populist movements and leaders worldwide (including Turkey’s Recep Erdoğan, Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, and former US President Donald Trump) pushing back against what they view as its unappealing features.

Fortunately, recent social theory has formulated a more precise concept of globalization than those typically offered by politicians and pundits. Although sharp differences continue to separate participants in the ongoing debate about the term, most contemporary social theorists endorse the view that globalization refers to fundamental changes in the spatial and temporal contours of social existence, according to which the significance of space or territory undergoes shifts in the face of a no less dramatic acceleration in the temporal structure of crucial forms of human activity. Geographical distance is typically measured in time. As the time necessary to connect distinct geographical locations is reduced, distance or space undergoes compression or “annihilation.” The human experience of space is intimately connected to the temporal structure of those activities by means of which we experience space. Changes in the temporality of human activity inevitably generate altered experiences of space or territory. Theorists of globalization disagree about the precise sources of recent shifts in the spatial and temporal contours of human life. Nonetheless, they generally agree that alterations in humanity’s experiences of space and time are working to undermine the importance of local and even national boundaries in many arenas of human endeavor. Since globalization contains far-reaching implications for virtually every facet of human life, it necessarily suggests the need to rethink key questions of normative political theory.

1. Globalization in the History of Ideas

2. globalization in contemporary social theory, 3. the normative challenges of globalization, other internet resources, related entries.

The term globalization has only become commonplace in the last three decades, and academic commentators who employed the term as late as the 1970s accurately recognized the novelty of doing so (Modelski 1972). At least since the advent of industrial capitalism, however, intellectual discourse has been replete with allusions to phenomena strikingly akin to those that have garnered the attention of recent theorists of globalization. Nineteenth and twentieth-century philosophy, literature, and social commentary include numerous references to an inchoate yet widely shared awareness that experiences of distance and space are inevitably transformed by the emergence of high-speed forms of transportation (for example, rail and air travel) and communication (the telegraph or telephone) that dramatically heighten possibilities for human interaction across existing geographical and political divides (Harvey 1989; Kern 1983). Long before the introduction of the term globalization into recent popular and scholarly debate, the appearance of novel high-speed forms of social activity generated extensive commentary about the compression of space.

Writing in 1839, an English journalist commented on the implications of rail travel by anxiously postulating that as distance was “annihilated, the surface of our country would, as it were, shrivel in size until it became not much bigger than one immense city” (Harvey 1996, 242). A few years later, Heinrich Heine, the émigré German-Jewish poet, captured this same experience when he noted: “space is killed by the railways. I feel as if the mountains and forests of all countries were advancing on Paris. Even now, I can smell the German linden trees; the North Sea’s breakers are rolling against my door” (Schivelbusch 1978, 34). Another young German émigré, the socialist theorist Karl Marx, in 1848 formulated the first theoretical explanation of the sense of territorial compression that so fascinated his contemporaries. In Marx’s account, the imperatives of capitalist production inevitably drove the bourgeoisie to “nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, and establish connections everywhere.” The juggernaut of industrial capitalism constituted the most basic source of technologies resulting in the annihilation of space, helping to pave the way for “intercourse in every direction, universal interdependence of nations,” in contrast to a narrow-minded provincialism that had plagued humanity for untold eons (Marx 1848, 476). Despite their ills as instruments of capitalist exploitation, Marx argued, new technologies that increased possibilities for human interaction across borders ultimately represented a progressive force in history. They provided the necessary infrastructure for a cosmopolitan future socialist civilization, while simultaneously functioning in the present as indispensable organizational tools for a working class destined to undertake a revolution no less oblivious to traditional territorial divisions than the system of capitalist exploitation it hoped to dismantle.

European intellectuals have hardly been alone in their fascination with the experience of territorial compression, as evinced by the key role played by the same theme in early twentieth-century American thought. In 1904, the literary figure Henry Adams diagnosed the existence of a “law of acceleration,” fundamental to the workings of social development, in order to make sense of the rapidly changing spatial and temporal contours of human activity. Modern society could only be properly understood if the seemingly irrepressible acceleration of basic technological and social processes was given a central place in social and historical analysis (Adams 1931 [1904]). John Dewey argued in 1927 that recent economic and technological trends implied the emergence of a “new world” no less noteworthy than the opening up of America to European exploration and conquest in 1492. For Dewey, the invention of steam, electricity, and the telephone offered formidable challenges to relatively static and homogeneous forms of local community life that had long represented the main theatre for most human activity. Economic activity increasingly exploded the confines of local communities to a degree that would have stunned our historical predecessors, for example, while the steamship, railroad, automobile, and air travel considerably intensified rates of geographical mobility. Dewey went beyond previous discussions of the changing temporal and spatial contours of human activity, however, by suggesting that the compression of space posed fundamental questions for democracy. Dewey observed that small-scale political communities (for example, the New England township), a crucial site for the exercise of effective democratic participation, seemed ever more peripheral to the great issues of an interconnected world. Increasingly dense networks of social ties across borders rendered local forms of self-government ineffective. Dewey wondered, “How can a public be organized, we may ask, when literally it does not stay in place?” (Dewey 1927, 140). To the extent that democratic citizenship minimally presupposes the possibility of action in concert with others, how might citizenship be sustained in a social world subject to ever more astonishing possibilities for movement and mobility? New high-speed technologies attributed a shifting and unstable character to social life, as demonstrated by increased rates of change and turnover in many arenas of activity (most important perhaps, the economy) directly affected by them, and the relative fluidity and inconstancy of social relations there. If citizenship requires some modicum of constancy and stability in social life, however, did not recent changes in the temporal and spatial conditions of human activity bode poorly for political participation? How might citizens come together and act in concert when contemporary society’s “mania for motion and speed” made it difficult for them even to get acquainted with one another, let alone identify objects of common concern? (Dewey 1927, 140).

The unabated proliferation of high-speed technologies is probably the main source of the numerous references in intellectual life since 1950 to the annihilation of distance. The Canadian cultural critic Marshall McLuhan made the theme of a technologically based “global village,” generated by social “acceleration at all levels of human organization,” the centerpiece of an anxiety-ridden analysis of new media technologies in the 1960s (McLuhan 1964, 103). Arguing in the 1970s and 1980s that recent shifts in the spatial and temporal contours of social life exacerbated authoritarian political trends, the French social critic Paul Virilio seemed to confirm many of Dewey’s darkest worries about the decay of democracy. According to his analysis, the high-speed imperatives of modern warfare and weapons systems strengthened the executive and debilitated representative legislatures. The compression of territory thereby paved the way for executive-centered emergency government (Virilio 1977). But it was probably the German philosopher Martin Heidegger who most clearly anticipated contemporary debates about globalization. Heidegger not only described the “abolition of distance” as a constitutive feature of our contemporary condition, but he linked recent shifts in spatial experience to no less fundamental alterations in the temporality of human activity: “All distances in time and space are shrinking. Man now reaches overnight, by places, places which formerly took weeks and months of travel” (Heidegger 1950, 165). Heidegger also accurately prophesied that new communication and information technologies would soon spawn novel possibilities for dramatically extending the scope of virtual reality : “Distant sites of the most ancient cultures are shown on film as if they stood this very moment amidst today’s street traffic…The peak of this abolition of every possibility of remoteness is reached by television, which will soon pervade and dominate the whole machinery of communication” (Heidegger 1950, 165). Heidegger’s description of growing possibilities for simultaneity and instantaneousness in human experience ultimately proved no less apprehensive than the views of many of his predecessors. In his analysis, the compression of space increasingly meant that from the perspective of human experience “everything is equally far and equally near.” Instead of opening up new possibilities for rich and multi-faceted interaction with events once distant from the purview of most individuals, the abolition of distance tended to generate a “uniform distanceless” in which fundamentally distinct objects became part of a bland homogeneous experiential mass (Heidegger 1950, 166). The loss of any meaningful distinction between “nearness” and “distance” contributed to a leveling down of human experience, which in turn spawned an indifference that rendered human experience monotonous and one-dimensional.

Since the mid-1980s, social theorists have moved beyond the relatively underdeveloped character of previous reflections on the compression or annihilation of space to offer a rigorous conception of globalization. To be sure, major disagreements remain about the precise nature of the causal forces behind globalization, with David Harvey (1989 1996) building directly on Marx’s pioneering explanation of globalization, while others (Giddens 19990; Held, McGrew, Goldblatt & Perraton 1999) question the exclusive focus on economic factors characteristic of the Marxist approach. Nonetheless, a consensus about the basic rudiments of the concept of globalization appears to be emerging.

First, recent analysts associate globalization with deterritorialization , according to which a growing variety of social activities takes place irrespective of the geographical location of participants. As Jan Aart Scholte observes, “global events can – via telecommunication, digital computers, audiovisual media, rocketry and the like – occur almost simultaneously anywhere and everywhere in the world” (Scholte 1996, 45). Globalization refers to increased possibilities for action between and among people in situations where latitudinal and longitudinal location seems immaterial to the social activity at hand. Even though geographical location remains crucial for many undertakings (for example, farming to satisfy the needs of a local market), deterritorialization manifests itself in many social spheres. Business people on different continents now engage in electronic commerce; academics make use of the latest Internet conferencing equipment to organize seminars in which participants are located at disparate geographical locations; the Internet allows people to communicate instantaneously with each other notwithstanding vast geographical distances separating them. Territory in the sense of a traditional sense of a geographically identifiable location no longer constitutes the whole of “social space” in which human activity takes places. In this initial sense of the term, globalization refers to the spread of new forms of non-territorial social activity (Ruggie 1993; Scholte 2000).

Second, theorists conceive of globalization as linked to the growth of social interconnectedness across existing geographical and political boundaries. In this view, deterritorialization is a crucial facet of globalization. Yet an exclusive focus on it would be misleading. Since the vast majority of human activities is still tied to a concrete geographical location, the more decisive facet of globalization concerns the manner in which distant events and forces impact on local and regional endeavors (Tomlinson 1999, 9). For example, this encyclopedia might be seen as an example of a deterritorialized social space since it allows for the exchange of ideas in cyberspace. The only prerequisite for its use is access to the Internet. Although substantial inequalities in Internet access still exist, use of the encyclopedia is in principle unrelated to any specific geographical location. However, the reader may very well be making use of the encyclopedia as a supplement to course work undertaken at a school or university. That institution is not only located at a specific geographical juncture, but its location is probably essential for understanding many of its key attributes: the level of funding may vary according to the state or region where the university is located, or the same academic major might require different courses and readings at a university in China, for example, than in Argentina or Norway. Globalization refers to those processes whereby geographically distant events and decisions impact to a growing degree on “local” university life. For example, the insistence by powerful political leaders in wealthy countries that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) or World Bank recommend to Latin and South American countries that they commit themselves to a particular set of economic policies might result in poorly paid teachers and researchers as well as large, understaffed lecture classes in São Paolo or Lima; the latest innovations in information technology from a computer research laboratory in India could quickly change the classroom experience of students in British Columbia or Tokyo. Globalization refers “to processes of change which underpin a transformation in the organization of human affairs by linking together and expanding human activity across regions and continents” (Held, McGrew, Goldblatt & Perraton 1999, 15). Globalization in this sense is a matter of degree since any given social activity might influence events more or less faraway: even though a growing number of activities seems intermeshed with events in distant continents, certain human activities remain primarily local or regional in scope. Also, the magnitude and impact of the activity might vary: geographically removed events could have a relatively minimal or a far more extensive influence on events at a particular locality. Finally, we might consider the degree to which interconnectedness across frontiers is no longer merely haphazard but instead predictable and regularized (Held, McGrew, Goldblatt & Perraton 1999).

Third, globalization must also include reference to the speed or velocity of social activity. Deterritorialization and interconnectedness initially seem chiefly spatial in nature. Yet it is easy to see how these spatial shifts are directly tied to the acceleration of crucial forms of social activity. As we observed above in our discussion of the conceptual forerunners to the present-day debate on globalization, the proliferation of high-speed transportation, communication, and information technologies constitutes the most immediate source for the blurring of geographical and territorial boundaries that prescient observers have diagnosed at least since the mid-nineteenth century. The compression of space presupposes rapid-fire forms of technology; shifts in our experiences of territory depend on concomitant changes in the temporality of human action. High-speed technology only represents the tip of the iceberg, however. The linking together and expanding of social activities across borders is predicated on the possibility of relatively fast flows and movements of people, information, capital, and goods. Without these fast flows, it is difficult to see how distant events could possibly posses the influence they now enjoy. High-speed technology plays a pivotal role in the velocity of human affairs. But many other factors contribute to the overall pace and speed of social activity. The organizational structure of the modern capitalist factory offers one example; certain contemporary habits and inclinations, including the “mania for motion and speed” described by Dewey, represent another. Deterritorialization and the expansion of interconnectedness are intimately tied to the acceleration of social life, while social acceleration itself takes many different forms (Eriksen 2001; Rosa 2013). Here as well, we can easily see why globalization is always a matter of degree. The velocity or speed of flows, movements, and interchanges across borders can vary no less than their magnitude, impact, or regularity.

Fourth, even though analysts disagree about the causal forces that generate globalization, most agree that globalization should be conceived as a relatively long-term process . The triad of deterritorialization, interconnectedness, and social acceleration hardly represents a sudden or recent event in contemporary social life. Globalization is a constitutive feature of the modern world, and modern history includes many examples of globalization (Giddens 1990). As we saw above, nineteenth-century thinkers captured at least some of its core features; the compression of territoriality composed an important element of their lived experience. Nonetheless, some contemporary theorists believe that globalization has taken a particularly intense form in recent decades, as innovations in communication, transportation, and information technologies (for example, computerization) have generated stunning new possibilities for simultaneity and instantaneousness (Harvey 1989). In this view, present-day intellectual interest in the problem of globalization can be linked directly to the emergence of new high-speed technologies that tend to minimize the significance of distance and heighten possibilities for deterritorialization and social interconnectedness. Although the intense sense of territorial compression experienced by so many of our contemporaries is surely reminiscent of the experiences of earlier generations, some contemporary writers nonetheless argue that it would be mistaken to obscure the countless ways in which ongoing transformations of the spatial and temporal contours of human experience are especially far-reaching. While our nineteenth-century predecessors understandably marveled at the railroad or the telegraph, a comparatively vast array of social activities is now being transformed by innovations that accelerate social activity and considerably deepen longstanding trends towards deterritorialization and social interconnectedness. To be sure, the impact of deterritorialization, social interconnectedness, and social acceleration are by no means universal or uniform: migrant workers engaging in traditional forms of low-wage agricultural labor in the fields of southern California, for example, probably operate in a different spatial and temporal context than the Internet entrepreneurs of San Francisco or Seattle. Distinct assumptions about space and time often coexist uneasily during a specific historical juncture (Gurvitch 1964). Nonetheless, the impact of recent technological innovations is profound, and even those who do not have a job directly affected by the new technology are shaped by it in innumerable ways as citizens and consumers (Eriksen 2001, 16).

Fifth, globalization should be understood as a multi-pronged process, since deterritorialization, social interconnectedness, and acceleration manifest themselves in many different (economic, political, and cultural) arenas of social activity. Although each facet of globalization is linked to the core components of globalization described above, each consists of a complex and relatively autonomous series of empirical developments, requiring careful examination in order to disclose the causal mechanisms specific to it (Held, McGrew, Goldblatt & Perraton 1999). Each manifestation of globalization also generates distinct conflicts and dislocations. For example, there is substantial empirical evidence that cross-border flows and exchanges (of goods, people, information, etc.), as well as the emergence of directly transnational forms of production by means of which a single commodity is manufactured simultaneously in distant corners of the globe, are gaining in prominence (Castells 1996). High-speed technologies and organizational approaches are employed by transnationally operating firms, the so-called “global players,” with great effectiveness. The emergence of “around-the-world, around-the-clock” financial markets, where major cross-border financial transactions are made in cyberspace at the blink of an eye, represents a familiar example of the economic face of globalization. Global financial markets also challenge traditional attempts by liberal democratic nation-states to rein in the activities of bankers, spawning understandable anxieties about the growing power and influence of financial markets over democratically elected representative institutions. In political life, globalization takes a distinct form, though the general trends towards deterritorialization, interconnectedness across borders, and the acceleration of social activity are fundamental here as well. Transnational movements, in which activists employ rapid-fire communication technologies to join forces across borders in combating ills that seem correspondingly transnational in scope (for example, the depletion of the ozone layer), offer an example of political globalization (Tarrow 2005). Another would be the tendency towards ambitious supranational forms of social and economic lawmaking and regulation, where individual nation-states cooperate to pursue regulation whose jurisdiction transcends national borders no less than the cross-border economic processes that undermine traditional modes of nation state-based regulation. Political scientists typically describe such supranational organizations (the European Union, for example, or United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA) as important manifestations of political and legal globalization. The proliferation of supranational organizations has been no less conflict-laden than economic globalization, however. Critics insist that local, regional, and national forms of self-government are being supplanted by insufficiently democratic forms of global governance remote from the needs of ordinary citizens (Maus 2006; Streeck 2016). In contrast, defenders describe new forms of supranational legal and political decision as indispensable forerunners to more inclusive and advanced forms of self-government, even as they worry about existing democratic deficits and technocratic traits (Habermas 2015).

The wide-ranging impact of globalization on human existence means that it necessarily touches on many basic philosophical and political-theoretical questions. At a minimum, globalization suggests that academic philosophers in the rich countries of the West should pay closer attention to the neglected voices and intellectual traditions of peoples with whom our fate is intertwined in ever more intimate ways (Dallmayr 1998). In this section, however, we focus exclusively on the immediate challenges posed by globalization to normative political theory.

Western political theory has traditionally presupposed the existence of territorially bound communities, whose borders can be more or less neatly delineated from those of other communities. In this vein, the influential liberal political philosopher John Rawls described bounded communities whose fundamental structure consisted of “self-sufficient schemes of cooperation for all the essential purposes of human life” (Rawls 1993, 301). Although political and legal thinkers historically have exerted substantial energy in formulating defensible normative models of relations between states (Nardin and Mapel 1992), like Rawls they typically have relied on a clear delineation of “domestic” from “foreign” affairs. In addition, they have often argued that the domestic arena represents a normatively privileged site, since fundamental normative ideals and principles (for example, liberty or justice) are more likely to be successfully realized in the domestic arena than in relations among states. According to one influential strand within international relations theory, relations between states are more-or-less lawless. Since the achievement of justice or democracy, for example, presupposes an effective political sovereign, the lacuna of sovereignty at the global level means that justice and democracy are necessarily incomplete and probably unattainable there. In this conventional realist view of international politics, core features of the modern system of sovereign states relegate the pursuit of western political thought’s most noble normative goals primarily to the domestic arena (Mearsheimer 2003.) Significantly, some prominent mid-century proponents of international realism rejected this position’s deep hostility to international law and supranational political organization, in part because they presciently confronted challenges that we now typically associate with intensified globalization (Scheuerman 2011).

Globalization poses a fundamental challenge to each of these traditional assumptions. It is no longer self-evident that nation-states can be described as “self-sufficient schemes of cooperation for all the essential purposes of human life” in the context of intense deterritorialization and the spread and intensification of social relations across borders. The idea of a bounded community seems suspect given recent shifts in the spatio-temporal contours of human life. Even the most powerful and privileged political units are now subject to increasingly deterritorialized activities (for example, global financial markets or digitalized mass communication) over which they have limited control, and they find themselves nested in webs of social relations whose scope explodes the confines of national borders. Of course, in much of human history social relations have transcended existing political divides. However, globalization implies a profound quantitative increase in and intensification of social relations of this type. While attempts to offer a clear delineation of the “domestic” from the “foreign” probably made sense at an earlier juncture in history, this distinction no longer accords with core developmental trends in many arenas of social activity. As the possibility of a clear division between domestic and foreign affairs dissipates, the traditional tendency to picture the domestic arena as a privileged site for the realization of normative ideals and principles becomes problematic as well. As an empirical matter, the decay of the domestic-foreign frontier seems highly ambivalent, since it might easily pave the way for the decay of the more attractive attributes of domestic political life: as “foreign” affairs collapse inward onto “domestic” political life, the insufficiently lawful contours of the former make disturbing inroads onto the latter (Scheuerman 2004). As a normative matter, however, the disintegration of the domestic-foreign divide probably calls for us to consider, to a greater extent than ever before, how our fundamental normative commitments about political life can be effectively achieved on a global scale. If we take the principles of justice or democracy seriously, for example, it is no longer self-evident that the domestic arena is the exclusive or perhaps even main site for their pursuit, since domestic and foreign affairs are now deeply and irrevocably intermeshed. In a globalizing world, the lack of democracy or justice in the global setting necessarily impacts deeply on the pursuit of justice or democracy at home. Indeed, it may no longer be possible to achieve our normative ideals at home without undertaking to do so transnationally as well.

To claim, for example, that questions of distributive justice have no standing in the making of foreign affairs represents at best empirical naivete about economic globalization. At worst, it constitutes a disingenuous refusal to grapple with the fact that the material existence of those fortunate enough to live in the rich countries is inextricably tied to the material status of the vast majority of humanity residing in poor and underdeveloped regions. Growing material inequality spawned by economic globalization is linked to growing domestic material inequality in the rich democracies (Falk 1999; Pogge 2002). Similarly, in the context of global warming and the destruction of the ozone layer, a dogmatic insistence on the sanctity of national sovereignty risks constituting a cynical fig leaf for irresponsible activities whose impact extends well beyond the borders of those countries most directly responsible. Global warming and ozone-depletion cry out for ambitious forms of transnational cooperation and regulation, and the refusal by the rich democracies to accept this necessity implies a failure to take the process of globalization seriously when doing so conflicts with their immediate material interests. Although it might initially seem to be illustrative of clever Realpolitik on the part of the culpable nations to ward off strict cross-border environmental regulation, their stubbornness is probably short-sighted: global warming and ozone depletion will affect the children of Americans who drive gas-guzzling SUVs or use environmentally unsound air-conditioning as well as the future generations of South Africa or Afghanistan (Cerutti 2007). If we keep in mind that environmental degradation probably impacts negatively on democratic politics (for example, by undermining its legitimacy and stability), the failure to pursue effective transnational environmental regulation potentially undermines democracy at home as well as abroad.

Philosophers and political theorists have eagerly addressed the normative and political implications of our globalizing world. A lively debate about the possibility of achieving justice at the global level pits representatives of cosmopolitanism against myriad communitarians, nationalists, realists, and others who privilege the nation-state and moral, political, and social ties resting on it (Lieven 2020; Tamir 2019). In contrast, cosmopolitans tend to underscore our universal obligations to those who reside faraway and with whom we may share little in the way of language, custom, or culture, oftentimes arguing that claims to “justice at home” can and should be applied elsewhere as well (Beardsworth 2011; Beitz 1999; Caney 2006; Wallace-Brown & Held 2010). In this way, cosmopolitanism builds directly on the universalistic impulses of modern moral and political thought. Cosmopolitanism’s critics dispute the view that our obligations to foreigners possess the same status as those to members of particular local and national communities of which we remain very much a part. They by no means deny the need to redress global inequality, for example, but they often express skepticism in the face of cosmopolitanism’s tendency to defend significant legal and political reforms as necessary to address the inequities of a planet where millions of people a year die of starvation or curable diseases (Miller 2007; 2013; Nagel 2005). Nor do cosmopolitanism’s critics necessarily deny that the process of globalization is real, though some of them suggest that its impact has been grossly exaggerated (Kymlicka 1999; Nussbaum et al . 1996; Streeck 2016). Nonetheless, they doubt that humanity has achieved a rich or sufficiently articulated sense of a common fate such that far-reaching attempts to achieve greater global justice (for example, substantial redistribution from the rich to poor) could prove successful. Cosmopolitans not only counter with a flurry of universalist and egalitarian moral arguments, but they also accuse their opponents of obscuring the threat posed by globalization to the particular forms of national community whose ethical primacy communitarians, nationalists, and others endorse. From the cosmopolitan perspective, the tendency to favor moral and political obligations to fellow members of the nation-state represents a misguided and increasingly reactionary nostalgia for a rapidly decaying constellation of political practices and institutions.

A similar divide characterizes the ongoing debate about the prospects of democratic institutions at the global level. In a cosmopolitan mode, Daniele Archibugi (2008) and the late David Held (1995) have argued that globalization requires the extension of liberal democratic institutions (including the rule of law and elected representative institutions) to the transnational level. Nation state-based liberal democracy is poorly equipped to deal with deleterious side effects of present-day globalization such as ozone depletion or burgeoning material inequality. In addition, a growing array of genuinely transnational forms of activity calls out for correspondingly transnational modes of liberal democratic decision-making. According to this model, “local” or “national” matters should remain under the auspices of existing liberal democratic institutions. But in those areas where deterritorialization and social interconnectedness across national borders are especially striking, new transnational institutions (for example, cross-border referenda), along with a dramatic strengthening and further democratization of existing forms of supranational authority (in particular, the United Nations), are necessary if we are to assure that popular sovereignty remains an effective principle. In the same spirit, cosmopolitans debate whether a loose system of global “governance” suffices, or instead cosmopolitan ideals require something along the lines of a global “government” or state (Cabrera 2011; Scheuerman 2014). Jürgen Habermas, a prominent cosmopolitan-minded theorist, has tried to formulate a defense of the European Union that conceives of it as a key stepping stone towards supranational democracy. If the EU is to help succeed in salvaging the principle of popular sovereignty in a world where the decay of nation state-based democracy makes democracy vulnerable, the EU will need to strengthen its elected representative organs and better guarantee the civil, political, and social and economic rights of all Europeans (Habermas 2001, 58–113; 2009). Representing a novel form of postnational constitutionalism, it potentially offers some broader lessons for those hoping to save democratic constitutionalism under novel global conditions. Despite dire threats to the EU posed by nationalist and populist movements, Habermas and other cosmopolitan-minded intellectuals believe that it can be effectively reformed and preserved (Habermas 2012).

In opposition to Archibugi, Held, Habermas, and other cosmopolitans, skeptics underscore the purportedly utopian character of such proposals, arguing that democratic politics presupposes deep feelings of trust, commitment, and belonging that remain uncommon at the postnational and global levels. Largely non-voluntary commonalities of belief, history, and custom compose necessary preconditions of any viable democracy, and since these commonalities are missing beyond the sphere of the nation-state, global or cosmopolitan democracy is doomed to fail (Archibugi, Held, and Koehler 1998; Lieven 2020). Critics inspired by realist international theory argue that cosmopolitanism obscures the fundamentally pluralistic, dynamic, and conflictual nature of political life on our divided planet. Notwithstanding its pacific self-understanding, cosmopolitan democracy inadvertently opens the door to new and even more horrible forms of political violence. Cosmpolitanism’s universalistic normative discourse not only ignores the harsh and unavoidably agonistic character of political life, but it also tends to serve as a convenient ideological cloak for terrible wars waged by political blocs no less self-interested than the traditional nation state (Zolo 1997, 24).

Ongoing political developments suggest that such debates are of more than narrow scholarly interest. Until recently, some of globalization’s key prongs seemed destined to transform human affairs in seemingly permanent ways: economic globalization, as well as the growth of a panoply of international and global political and legal institutions, continued to transpire at a rapid rate. Such institutional developments, it should be noted, were interpreted by some cosmopolitan theorists as broadly corroborating their overall normative aspirations. With the resurgence of nationalist and populist political movements, many of which diffusely (and sometimes misleadingly) target elements of globalization, globalization’s future prospects seem increasingly uncertain. For example, with powerful political leaders regularly making disdainful remarks about the UN and EU, it seems unclear whether one of globalization’s most striking features, i.e., enhanced political and legal decision-making “beyond the nation state,” will continue unabated. Tragically perhaps, the failure to manage economic globalization so as to minimize avoidable inequalities and injustices has opened the door to a nationalist and populist backlash, with many people now ready to embrace politicians and movements promising to push back against “free trade,” relatively porous borders (for migrants and refugees), and other manifestations of globalization (Stiglitz 2018). Even if it seems unlikely that nationalists or populists can succeed in fully halting, let alone reversing, structural trends towards deterritorialization, intensified interconnectedness, and social acceleration, they may manage to reshape them in ways that cosmopolitans are likely to find alarming. Whether or not nationalists and populists can successfully respond to many fundamental global challenges (e.g., climate change or nuclear proliferation), however, remains far less likely.

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What is globalization anyway?

Let's find out what is globalization Image:  REUTERS/Nicky Loh

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Stay up to date:, financial and monetary systems.

Globalization – a phenomenon that has defined the world's economy in recent decades – is under pressure. As Donald Trump prepares for his tenure in the White House, he talks of dismantling a whole history of globalized trade that he sees as having had a catastrophic effect on the global economy.

His strategy so far has involved tearing up established trade agreements, such as NAFTA, and burying others that are yet to get off the ground. One of these is the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which he has slammed as “a potential disaster for our country”. The incoming president's pledge to "make America great again" is based partly on challenging countries such as China by limiting imports and boosting exports.

But the backlash against globalization is not confined to the United States. In the United Kingdom, the Brexit vote saw a majority of citizens prioritize immigration controls over membership of the world’s biggest trading bloc. Those who wished to remain in the EU accused those who wished to leave of being protectionist, even racist – but much of the concern over immigration stemmed from fears (real or imagined) over the number of new people arriving on British shores and what it would mean for jobs, the economy and British life as they knew it.

If globalization is facing a fundamental threat, perhaps now is a good time to remind ourselves of exactly what it is.

How globalization works

In simple terms, globalization is the process by which people and goods move easily across borders. Principally, it's an economic concept – the integration of markets, trade and investments with few barriers to slow the flow of products and services between nations. There is also a cultural element, as ideas and traditions are traded and assimilated.

Globalization has brought many benefits to many people. But not to everyone.

What is globalization - economic angle

To help explain the economic side of globalization, let's take a look at the well-known coffee chain Starbucks.

The first Starbucks outlet opened its doors in 1971 in the city of Seattle. Today it has 15,000 stores in 50 countries. These days you can find a Starbucks anywhere, whether Australia, Cambodia, Chile or Dubai. It's what you might call a truly globalized company.

And for many suppliers and jobseekers, not to mention coffee-drinkers, this was a good thing. The company was purchasing 247 million kilograms of unroasted coffee from 29 countries. Through its stores and purchases, it provided jobs and income for hundreds of thousands of people all over the world.

But then disaster struck. In 2012, Starbucks made headlines after a Reuters investigation showed that the chain hadn't paid much tax to the UK government, despite having almost a thousand coffee shops in the country and earning millions of pounds in profit there.

As a multinational company, Starbucks was able to use complex accounting rules that enabled it to have profit earned in one country taxed in another. Because the latter country had a lower tax rate, Starbucks benefited. Ultimately, the British public missed out, as the government was raising less tax to spend on improving their well-being.

How did globalization happen?

We might think of globalization as a relatively new phenomenon, but it’s been around for centuries.

One example is the Silk Road, when trade spread rapidly between China and Europe via an overland route. Merchants carried goods for trade back and forth, trading silk as well as gems and spices and, of course, coffee. (In fact, the habit of drinking coffee in a social setting originates from a Turkish custom, an example of how globalization can spread culture across borders.)

Have you read?

Globalization and the us election: we need to take the voices of the discontented more seriously, the fourth industrial revolution disrupted democracy. what comes next, populism is spreading. this is what's driving it, what drives globalization .

Globalization has speeded up enormously over the last half-century, thanks to great leaps in technology.

The internet has revolutionized connectivity and communication, and helped people share their ideas much more widely, just as the invention of the printing press did in the 15th century. The advent of email made communication faster than ever.

The invention of enormous container ships helped too. In fact, improvements in transport generally – faster ships, trains and airplanes – have allowed us to move around the globe much more easily.

What's good about it?

Globalization has led to many millions of people being lifted out of poverty.

For example, when a company like Starbucks buys coffee from farmers in Rwanda, it is providing a livelihood and a benefit to the community as a whole. A multinational company's presence overseas contributes to those local economies because the company will invest in local resources, products and services. Socially responsible corporations may even invest in medical and educational facilities.

Globalization has not only allowed nations to trade with each other, but also to cooperate with each other as never before. Take the Paris Agreement on Climate Change , for instance, where 195 countries all agreed to work towards reducing their carbon emissions for the greater global good.

This chart, however, shows that global attitudes towards globalizing forces aren't all that good. It shows that, in fact, in all but a couple of countries polled, people believe life was better in the old days.

What's bad about globalization ?

While some areas have flourished, others have floundered as jobs and commerce move elsewhere. Steel companies in the UK, for example, once thrived, providing work for hundreds of thousands of people. But when China began producing cheaper steel, steel plants in the UK closed down and thousands of jobs were lost.

Every step forward in technology brings with it new dangers. Computers have vastly improved our lives, but cyber criminals steal millions of pounds a year. Global wealth has skyrocketed, but so has global warming.

While many have been lifted out of poverty, not everybody has benefited. Many argue that globalization operates mostly in the interests of the richest countries, with most of the world's collective profits flowing back to them and into the pockets of those who already own the most.

Although globalization is helping to create more wealth in developing countries, it is not helping to close the gap between the world's poorest and richest nations. Leading charity Oxfam says that when corporations such as Starbucks can legally avoid paying tax, the global inequality crisis worsens .

Basically, done wisely (in the words of the International Monetary Fund ) globalization could lead to "unparalleled peace and prosperity". Done poorly, "to disaster".

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In This Article Expand or collapse the "in this article" section Globalization

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Globalization by Raju J. Das , Robert Bridi LAST REVIEWED: 19 December 2016 LAST MODIFIED: 29 October 2013 DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199874002-0018

Globalization is one of the most widely discussed topics in geography and other social sciences. It refers to intensified geographical movements across national borders of commodities, people seeking employment, money and capital investment, knowledge, cultural values, and environmental pollutants. It also refers to the increased interdependence among nation-states and supranational institutions and to increased connectivity among people’s movements for a more democratic and humane society. Globalization has economic, political, cultural, spatial, and environmental aspects. Causes and impacts of globalization are hotly debated. Some claim that we live in a historically unique globalized world, with a single world market, where national boundaries (including nation-states) are more or less meaningless, and distances have little impact on economic and social relations. Accordingly, globalization affects everyone and all places, and nation-states are powerless to control hypermobile capital, so it is futile to resist it. Others (“internationalists”) accept some aspects of globalization but are skeptical of the view that it is unprecedented (compared to the early part of the 20th century). They emphasize the importance of international companies headquartered in specific national territories, i.e., multinational corporations 9 (MNCs, rather than “footloose” companies or transnational corporations (TNCs). They point to the limited mobility of labor vis-à-vis capital. They say that most of international economic flows are concentrated within the triad (United States, Japan, and Western Europe) and that the emergence of supranational trading blocs (e.g., the European Union) is indicative of regionalization rather than globalization. So, globalization is a geographically uneven process, and nation-states and national cultures are still important factors. These scholars support antiglobalization movements, nationally regulated international processes, and protection of national welfare benefits. Still others, including Marxists, accept the globalization logic of capital and argue that capitalism has always had a tendency to be a global process, as attested by colonialism, which is based on the global search for markets and cheaper raw materials. Competition leads to the monopolistic production of goods and services globally. Capital flight has always been a constraint on governments seeking to control business. Globalization is (at least partly) a new phase of Western imperialism in which national governments are acting as agents of monopoly capital. Marxists’ intellectual-political opposition to the globalization of business activities is a part of their fundamental opposition to production for profit as such. This article introduces some of the main texts on globalization from the growing international literature on the conceptual as well as the empirical aspects of globalization.

Globalization: A Research Guide to Resources in the Princeton University Library provides useful information, statistical and otherwise, on globalization. Allen and Hamnett 1995 provides a geographical perspective on globalization, tackling such issues as multinational corporations (MNCs), global pollution, tourism, global cities, and annihilation of space by communication technologies. Herod 2009 competently summarizes early-21st-century debates on globalization, from a geographical angle, and shows how globalization actually works. Sassen 1998 is a collection of essays dealing with topics such as the “global city,” gender, globalization of labor, information technology, and new forms of inequality. The International Forum on Globalization (IFG) provides information on economic as well as noneconomic aspects of globalization. Cox 1997 speaks to the skeptical view of globalization, arguing that scales below the international (e.g., national and sub-national scales) continue to have wide economic and political significance. Dicken 2003 is a classic text for classroom use as well as for scholarly research on economic globalization. It explores economic globalization from the standpoint of transnational companies (with their national rootedness) and labor and consumer groups. Held and McGrew 2003 is a collection of articles pursuing a variety of views—all more or less skeptical of the view of capital having been footloose—and unpacking economic, political, and cultural aspects of globalization. World Trade Organization (WTO) provides information on world trade and barriers to trade, and is a good source for those who favor capital mobility and free markets. Yale Global Online provides various publications on globalization, including multimedia presentations. The website also includes a section on security and terrorism that highlights the importance of this issue since the 11 September 2001 attacks on New York City and Washington, DC.

Allen, John, and Chris Hamnett, eds. A Shrinking World? Global Unevenness and Inequality . Vol. 2 of The Shape of the World: Explorations in Human Geography . Edited by the Open University Course Team. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995.

A part of the series of human geography undergraduate texts published by the British Open University, it provides a geographical perspective on globalization. It addresses issues such as MNCs, global pollution, tourism, global cities, and annihilation of space by communication technologies. It includes excerpts from key readings on the topic.

Cox, Kevin R., ed. Spaces of Globalization: Reasserting the Power of the Local . New York: Guilford, 1997.

Cox’s collection brings together the work of well-known geographers on globalization. A central argument of the book is that alongside economic globalization, localization of economic life is still important, which has implications for labor organizing. For those interested in an advanced text on a critical view of globalization, this is a useful reading.

Dicken, Peter. Global Shift: Transforming the World Economy . 4th ed. London: SAGE, 2003.

Dicken’s text is a geographical classic on economic globalization, which is useful for students and scholars. It has many diagrams and tables of data. The author provides a comprehensive explanation of economic globalization, examining the role of transnational corporations, states, labor, and consumers.

Globalization: A Research Guide to Resources in the Princeton University Library .

This website provides a wide variety of resources including literature and statistical data on the topic.

Held, David, and Anthony McGrew, eds. The Global Transformations Reader: An Introduction to the Globalization Debate . 2d ed. Cambridge, UK: Polity, 2003.

This fifty-chapter collection on economic, political, and cultural dimensions and consequences of globalization represents the views of a wide variety of writers. The environmental aspect is missing though. The text has an associated website . An excellent text for advanced undergraduate and graduate students and for university teachers.

Herod, Andrew. Geographies of Globalization: A Critical Introduction . Critical Introductions to Geography. Chichester, UK: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009.

Herod provides a detailed and critical summary of early-21st-century debates on globalization, from a geographical angle. It discusses how globalization really works, unevenly in space, and how it is responded to by labor. A good text for advanced undergraduate students.

Sassen, Saskia. Globalization and Its Discontents: Essays on the New Mobility of People and Money . New York: New Press, 1998.

Sassen combines perspectives of cultural studies, feminism, political economy, sociology, and political science, and creates a framework for understanding inequality between metropolitan business centers and low-income inner cities. The author critically discusses common misconceptions of globalization.

World Trade Organization .

The World Trade Organization (WTO) is a forum for governments to negotiate trade agreements that facilitate free trade. The website’s Documents and Resources section provides access to the official documents of the WTO, legal texts (WTO agreements), and a host of other resources, such as trade statistics, videos, audio, and photos.

Yale Global Online .

This website provides publications including reports, essays, books, multimedia, and related websites that analyze various aspects of globalization. Topics include: economy, environment, gender, health, labor, politics, science and technology, security and terrorism, society and culture, and trade.

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What Is Globalization?

The U.S. has supported globalization for decades

• U.S. Foreign Policy
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• Ph.D., American History, Oklahoma State University
• M.A., American history, Oklahoma State University
• B.A., Journalism, Northwestern Oklahoma State University

Globalization, for good or ill, is here to stay. Globalization is an attempt to abolish barriers, especially in trade. In fact, it has been around longer than you might think.

Globalization is an elimination of barriers to trade, communication, and cultural exchange. The theory behind globalization is that worldwide openness will promote the inherent wealth of all nations.

While most Americans only began paying attention to globalization with the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) debates in 1993. In reality, the U.S. has been a leader in globalization since before World War II.

End of American Isolationism

With the exception of a spate of quasi-imperialism between 1898 and 1904 and its involvement in World War I in 1917 and 1918, the United States was largely isolationist until World War II changed American attitudes forever. President Franklin D. Roosevelt had been an internationalist, not an isolationist, and he saw that a global organization similar to the failed League of Nations might prevent another world war.

At the Yalta Conference in 1945, the war's Big Three allied leaders --FDR, Winston Churchill for Great Britain, and Josef Stalin for the Soviet Union--agreed to create the United Nations after the war.

The United Nations has grown from 51 member nations in 1945 to 193 today. Headquartered in New York, the U.N. focuses (among other things) on international law, dispute resolution, disaster relief, human rights , and the recognition of new nations.

Post-Soviet World

During the Cold War (1946-1991) , the United States and the Soviet Union essentially divided the world into a "bi-polar" system, with allies either revolving around the U.S. or the U.S.S.R.

The United States practiced quasi-globalization with nations in its sphere of influence , promoting trade and cultural exchanges, and offering foreign aid . All of that helped keep nations in the U.S. sphere, and they offered very clear alternatives to the Communist system.

Free Trade Agreements

The United States encouraged free trade among its allies throughout the Cold War . After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the U.S. continued to promote free trade.

Free trade simply refers to a lack of trade barriers between participating nations. Trade barriers typically mean tariffs, either to protect domestic manufacturers or to raise revenue.

The United States has used both. In the 1790s it enacted revenue raising tariffs to help pay off its Revolutionary War debts, and it used protective tariffs to prevent cheap international products from flooding American markets and prohibiting the growth of American manufacturers.

Revenue-raising tariffs became less necessary after the 16th Amendment authorized an income tax . However, the United States continued to pursue protective tariffs.

The Devastating Smoot-Hawley Tariff

In 1930, in an attempt to protect U.S. manufacturers trying to survive the Great Depression , Congress passed the notorious Smoot-Hawley Tariff . The tariff was so inhibiting that more than 60 others nations countered with tariff obstacles to U.S. goods.

Rather than spur domestic production, Smoot-Hawley probably deepened the Depression by hobbling free trade. As such, the restrictive tariff and counter-tariffs played their own role in bringing about World War II.

Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act

The days of the steep protective tariff effectively died under FDR. In 1934, Congress approved the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act (RTAA) which allowed the president to negotiate bilateral trade agreements with other nations. The U.S. was prepared to liberalize trade agreements, and it encouraged other nations to do likewise. They were hesitant to do so, however, without a dedicated bilateral partner. Thus, the RTAA gave birth to an era of bilateral trade treaties. The U.S. currently has bilateral free trade agreements with 17 nations and is exploring agreements with three more.

General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade

Globalized free trade took another step forward with the Bretton Woods (New Hampshire) conference of World War II allies in 1944. The conference produced the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). The GATT preamble describes its purpose as the "substantial reduction of tariffs and other trade barriers and the elimination of preferences, on a reciprocal and mutually advantageous basis." Clearly, along with the creation of the U.N., allies believed that free trade was another step in preventing more world wars.

The Breton Woods conference also led to the creation of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The IMF was intended to help nations that might have "balance of payments" trouble, such as Germany had paying reparations after World War I. Its inability to pay was another factor that led to World War II.

World Trade Organization

GATT itself led to several rounds of multilateral trade talks. The Uruguay Round ended in 1993 with 117 nations agreeing to create the World Trade Organization (WTO). The WTO seeks discusses ways to end trade restrictions, settle trade disputes, and enforce trade laws.

Communication and Cultural Exchanges

The United States has long sought globalization through communication. It established the Voice of America (VOA) radio network during the Cold War (again as an anti-Communist measure), but it continues in operation today. The U.S. State Department also sponsors a multitude of cultural exchange programs, and the Obama administration recently unveiled its International Strategy for Cyberspace, which is intended to keep the global Internet free, open, and interconnected.

Certainly, problems exist within the realm of globalization. Many American opponents of the idea say it has destroyed many American jobs by making it easier for companies to make products elsewhere, then ship them into the United States.

Nevertheless, the United States has built much of its foreign policy around the idea of globalization. What's more, it has done so for nearly 80 years.

• The Protectionist Smoot-Hawley Tariff of 1930
• The Globalization of Capitalism
• The Postwar World After World War II
• What Is the Meaning of Globalization in Sociology?
• The Relationship of the United States With Russia
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• The Relationship Between U.S. and Great Britain After World War II
• How US Foreign Aid is Used in Foreign Policy
• 5 Things That Make Capitalism "Global"
• The United States and Japan After World War II
• Regionalism: Definition and Examples

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Globalization: A Very Short Introduction (3rd edn)

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‘Globalization’ has become one of the defining buzzwords of our time — a term that describes a variety of accelerating economic, political, cultural, ideological, and environmental processes that are rapidly altering our experience of the world. Globalization: A Very Short Introduction has been fully updated for a third edition, to include recent developments in global politics, the global economy, and environmental issues. Presenting globalization in accessible language as a multifaceted process encompassing global, regional, and local aspects of social life, this VSI looks at its causes and effects, examines whether it is a new phenomenon, and explores the question of whether, ultimately, globalization is a good or a bad thing.

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✍️Essay on Globalisation: Samples in 100, 150 and 200 Words

• Updated on  
• Oct 25, 2023

Globalisation means the combination of economies and societies with the help of information, ideas, technology, finance, goods, services, and people. It is a process where multinational companies work on their international standing and conduct operations internationally or overseas. Over the years, Globalisation has had a profound impact on various aspects of society. Today we will be discussing what globalisation is and how it came into existence with the essay on globalisation listed below.

This Blog Includes:

How globalisation came into existence, essay on globalisation in 100 words, essay on globalisation in 150 words, essay on globalisation in 200 words.

For all those unaware, the concepts of globalisation first emerged in the 20th century. Here are some of the key events which led to the development of globalisation in today’s digital world.

• The ancient Silk Route as well as the maritime routes led to the exchange of goods, ideas and culture in several countries. Although these were just trade routes, but later became important centres for cultural exchange.
• Other than this, the European colonial expansion which took place from the 15th to the 20th century led to the setting up of global markets where both knowledge and people were transferred to several developing countries. 
• The evolution and exchange of mass media, cinema and the internet further led to the widespread dissemination of cultures and ideas.

Also Read: Essay on the Importance of the English Language for Students

Globalization, the interconnectedness of nations through trade, technology, and cultural exchange, has reshaped the world. It has enabled the free flow of goods and information, fostering economic growth and cultural diversity. However, it also raises challenges such as income inequality and cultural homogenization. 

In a globalized world, businesses expand internationally, but local industries can suffer. Moreover, while globalization promotes shared knowledge, it can erode local traditions. Striking a balance between the benefits and drawbacks of globalization is essential to ensure a more equitable and culturally diverse global community, where economies thrive without leaving anyone behind.

Also Read: Essay on Save Environment: Samples in 100, 200, 300 Words

Globalization is the process of increasing interconnectedness and interdependence among countries, economies, and cultures. It has transformed the world in various ways.

Economically, globalization has facilitated the flow of goods, services, and capital across borders. This has boosted economic growth and reduced poverty in many developing nations. However, it has also led to income inequality and job displacement in some regions.

Culturally, globalization has resulted in the spread of ideas, values, and cultural products worldwide. While this fosters cultural exchange and diversity, it also raises concerns about cultural homogenization.

Technologically, globalization has been driven by advances in communication and transportation. The internet and smartphones have connected people across the globe, allowing for rapid information dissemination and collaboration.

In conclusion, globalization is a complex phenomenon with both benefits and challenges. It has reshaped the world, bringing people closer together, but also highlighting the need for responsible governance and policies to address its downsides.

Also Read: Essay on Unity in Diversity in 100 to 200 Words

Globalization, a multifaceted phenomenon, has reshaped the world over the past few decades. It involves the interconnectedness of economies, cultures, and societies across the globe. In this essay, we will briefly discuss its key aspects and impacts.

Economically, globalization has led to increased international trade and investment. It has allowed companies to expand operations globally, leading to economic growth in many countries. However, it has also resulted in income inequality and job displacement in some regions.

Culturally, globalization has facilitated the exchange of ideas, values, and traditions. This has led to a more diverse and interconnected world where cultures blend, but it can also challenge local traditions and languages.

Socially, globalization has improved access to information and technology. It has connected people across borders, enabling global activism and awareness of worldwide issues. Nonetheless, it has also created challenges like cybercrime and privacy concerns.

In conclusion, globalization is a double-edged sword. It offers economic opportunities, cultural exchange, and global connectivity, but it also brings about disparities, cultural tensions, and new global challenges. To navigate this complex landscape, the world must strive for responsible globalization that balances the interests of all stakeholders and promotes inclusivity and sustainability.

Related Articles

The movement of goods, technologies, information, and jobs between countries is referred to as globalisation. 

Globalization as a phenomenon began with the earliest human migratory routes, or with Genghis Khan’s invasions, or travel across the Silk Road.

Globalisation allows wealthy nations to access cheaper labour and resources, while also providing opportunity for developing and underdeveloped nations with the jobs and investment capital they require.

For more information on such interesting topics, visit our essay-writing page and follow Leverage Edu ! 

Malvika Chawla

Malvika is a content writer cum news freak who comes with a strong background in Journalism and has worked with renowned news websites such as News 9 and The Financial Express to name a few. When not writing, she can be found bringing life to the canvasses by painting on them.

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Globalization Definition

Introduction.

Globalization influences the international business to a greater extent. Globalization is used in a context such as processes, perspective and more so in outcomes. It is expressed in various dimensions e.g. from political, economical and socio cultural points of view. (Gultang, 1997).

The study of globalization and internationalization examines its ubiquitous nature basing on the economical point of view. Globalization has a different meaning when the expression is made in conjunction with higher education where globalization concerns with the convergence of the educational systems which is directed catering for the needs of world knowledge (Smith, 2000).

Definition of globalization

Globalization has been defined in various ways by different economists. In economic terms, it refers to the progression of incorporating different isolated national markets of capital, labor and commodities into a single world market in which different investors across the globe can exchange ideas. It is vital for quick flow of information. It also refers to the integration of diverse countries and economies in which global pressures have a major impact on the international business operations (Mike, 1998).

With the introduction of globalization, international business is becoming increasingly popular. Organizations which operate across borders are more successful and have larger market share. Organizations that operate in the national markets must have strategies that can encounter challenges that can arise due to diversity in culture and languages

The integration of diverse countries and economies can occur through acquisition, joint ventures, contractors, partner led growth.

Acquisition

Businesses can sometimes decide to start their business services in the international market while others can decide to acquire already existing business premises or enterprises. This might be due to a lot of capital that is needed to establish new business. There are problems associated with acquisition such as mismatch of culture

Joint ventures

Small firms which cannot establish on their own in the foreign market might explore joint ventures with other small firms which may either be of the same capacity or more superior than them. The firms with similar interests and needs may form a partnership with foreign firms to raise substantial capital to gain a competitive advantage. The partnerships firms are also faced with a lot of challenges such as risks of divergent corporate cultures (Geoffrey, 1997).

Contractors

Lack of security in most nations has posed a lot of challenges to firms that have the intention of investing in the international markets. Security concerns in most parts of Africa and the Middle East have made it difficult for most international firms to invest in these countries. The international firms prefer hiring a contractor who resides in the foreign country to stuff projects with staff from the same country (Geoffrey, 1997).

Partner-led growth

In this form, partnering firms opened up offices in new geographical places. They then hire the native staff whereas the outside partners retain the new offices till the local firms become the partners and are in position to operate the offices on their own. This model has a limitation in that it takes a longer time to implement (Emmeriji, 2003).

Globalisation and Its Many Forms

The integration of different isolated national markets takes variety of forms as it tries to distinguish it from phenomenon or outcome. Some economist postulated that globalisation is relativistic in nature as it takes variety of forms. Its history has also depicted features that are related to mythical stories as current global economy is considered.

European Union which is a form of regionalisation of global zones has the features of globalisation such as integration and harmonization of diverse regions. Strategies have been put forward by many nations to eradicate dissent in the international business operations while promoting consensus. This indicates that economic and like minded leaders can respond positively to matters concerning nation-state autonomy. Leaders should be positive towards operation of international business and loosen their policies and regulations for the mutual benefit of diverse nations who have integrate to do business together. The regional global zone, EU has attracted other international organizations found in the Central and Eastern Europe. The impositions that EU has had on members’ qualification are another pressure on the global business operations.

Some scholars e.g. Cerny has different perspective on globalisation. They view free trade and economic rationalism as the basis for globalisation and that evolutionary advancement in the economic sector aids globalisation. The economy of nations is the basis of efficient globalisation across the globe. Globalisation has been further viewed at face value hence perceived as failing to measure up to the aggregate of logical communal power and applied economics. It is criticized to negating the activities and efforts of undeveloped countries which are currently facing high rate of inflation and rising unemployment. The multilateral agencies are in the front in designing international regulations that are governing international business operations. Some of the major agencies which greatly influence the international business operations and globalisations are World Bank, International Monetary Fund and World Trade Organization (Casson, 1998).

These organizations are designed to protect the economies of nation states and other inter-governmental regions. These agencies have stipulated regulations and leaders whose responsibility resembles that of head of most nation states. The institutionalization of international regulations is quite paramount and that most nations should comply with these in order to enhance efficient globalization (Casson, 1998).

Globalisation and Its Dimensions

Theories which have been put forward clearly indicate that international politics and its effects on the international business carry certain features that are same as that of postmodernity.. Some researchers stated that computer networks, sociational opposition and modes of citizenship are some of the contemporary networks that have had a lot of impact on the process of globalisation. Some researchers stated that computer networks, sociational opposition and modes of citizenship are some of the contemporary networks that have had a lot of impact on the process of globalisation. Some of scholars have also postulated that there exist a link between the economic dimension of globalisation and capitalism and development. It is summed up that culture dogma of consumerism dominates the economic undertakings; global development can be achieved effectively (Barber, 2000).

Social democracy is far much better than capitalism if efficient globalisation is to be achieved. Intrinsic nature of human agency and the norms they have adopted over time has to modified if globalisation is to be efficient in the national markets and this calls for constant changes in the policies that are used in day to day business and that stakeholders should at all times accept the change of identities.. Some of the early analysts such as Thurow suggested that capitalism cannot implode in the same manner as communism but that success and prosperity of global business depend on a shift from consumption to builders’ ideology (Barber, 2000).

Cultural perspective of globalization is contrary to the views of some analyst. Globalisation is greatly affected adversely by modernization and the inability of most nations to adopt the culture and economical style of the Western countries. This forces most multilateral organizations to adopt protectionist strategies due to the forces of fragmentation (Peter, 2001).

The intellectual difference, then, of forces such as globalisation and disintegration make it difficult for much of the world to incorporate into a particular, homogenized world. In most cases, such resistance is healthy and encouraged.

Benefits of Globalisation

Many economists have argued that globalisation has positive impact to economy and especially to international business investors. The major positive impact of globalisation is that it has lead to liberalization of international trade. Expansion of FDI has also been enhanced and cross border financial flow has been made possible. The fact that there is enhanced flow of ideas across border has leads to intense competition in the international markets. The combined efforts of different countries in the national markets have resulted in good relations among diverse cultures. These in turn lead to greater competition. Policy decisions concerning diversified cultures have also been achieved through globalisation and this has enhanced reduction in national barriers that may hinder international economic transactions. Cost is the major concern of all business organization. Globalisation is effective in the sense that flow of information has been made possible hence cost of moving information has been vastly reduced. Flow of goods and capital across the glop has reduced dramatically. This has ease transactions in the national markets (Gultang, 1997).

Cost reduction is the main benefit that companies derived from participating in shared efforts. Companies also benefit from more efficient compliance efforts that aid in the efficiency of the company which in turn increases the revenue. The efficient compliance of efforts has enables most companies to incur less costs in production due to reduced head count. Globalisation has also lead to improved quality controls in the organizations (Peter, 2001).

Issues and challenges of globalisation

Globalisation as a process is sometime hectic to implement due to challenges that firms face. These challenges are discussed below.

Difficulty in aligning the culture

The major problem faced by many firms as they globalize is the difficulty in maintaining the original corporate culture. Maintenance of the cultural identity in the global markets is quite difficult. Firms which are globalizing through joint ventures and partnership led firms are forced to adopt the culture of the native and cultures of the diverse people where their clients operate (Finnermore, 2000).

Unreliability of qualified staff

Firms face a great challenge when expanding internationally due to difficulties in acquiring the qualified native staff that can carry on the operations of the company efficiently. Native who are well conversant with the geographical patterns of the native land are suitable but they are not effective because they lack appropriate skills or consulting experiences (Cerny, 2001).

Limited transferability of management networks

International firms are faced with the problem of uncertainty on the extensibility of their business strategies and management networks. They are also faced with the problem of inability to solve problems that concerns project in the new areas (Barber & Jihad, 2000).

Impact of globalisation on economic performance and international business

Globalisation has a lot of impact on the economic performance in countries which are participating in the international business. Living standards of the people is affected directly due to changes that occur in economic performance in the region. Some of the impacts of globalization are:

• There is increased competition, new technologies, intensive innovation which accompanies changes in technology and specialization in efficient industries.
• The economic growth which had stagnated especially in most undeveloped countries gets to a point of economic transition.
• There is rise of global elite resulting from widening of income gaps due to inability of other countries to attract FDI]

In general, globalization and international politics affects every aspects of human living. Factors that enhance globalistion are broadly classified into four major categories. These categories are macro- economic factors, technology factors, political factors and organizational factors.

The impact of international politics on international business

The concept of international politics and globalisation is two issues that are controversial in nature when political scene is considered. Some liberalism school observed that globalisation is the same as internationalization and that social labour division in global business environment is quite imperative in most competitive environments. On the other hand pragmatism school considers globalisation will give rise to closer interdependence of universal social relationships. This leads to building up of relationship between economy and international politics. For effective international business operations to be achieved, it is compulsory that close relationships should exist between foreign affairs and domestic affairs. The diverse expressions of the relationship between economy and the international politics does not have any effect on the strategies that international investors should take to ensure smooth running of the business operations (Gultang, 1997).

Globalisation and international politics are becoming core issues as it determines international relationships that are necessary for international business operations. Different author have tried to give different interpretation of the implication of globalised international politics which have a lot of impact on the international business. Some points out that international politics and international relations bring impacts on global business operations (Barber & Jihad, 2000 ).

International politics have great influence on the operations of international business. The influence of any political change on international business is no less significant that the influence that are attributed to the individuals. Politics affects the operations of international business (Daniels, 1996).

International investors ought to be careful when dealing with long term assets in the global markets due to the risk of expropriation of these assets whenever there is a change in government. The impact is also felt when the existing government make a lot of changes it’s toward foreign investment. Currency has been a challenge to international business. Currency conversion is so hectic if global markets do not adopt one currency conversion method. The idea behind the inability to convert local currency into hard currency has posed a lot of challenges to international business. All these are in the hands of the government at any given time. The stance toward hard currency transfer in a nation might be influence the proper business operations (Cerny, 2001). Political changes that follows transition of government leads to shortfall in the national currency exchange. New government might introduce laws that lead to changes in currency transfer hence infringing the normal business transaction in the national markets (Corbridge, 1999).

International politics affects international business through sanctions that some other states might impose on other countries. It is in relation with this that most developed countries impose sanctions on the third countries in the international markets. Political violence that accompanies national elections affects international business operations. This depends on the site of business operations. If in case sites where international business operations are affected by internal conflicts of the country, then there are chances that the facilities are damage leading to interruption of normal business operations. This is sometime abrupt that no measures have been put in place to offset such crisis. These are very dangerous to international companies as it can lead to stoppage of business operations if substantial resources are damage during the time of violence. The place where the national markets are located should be a country of political stability to foster efficient and effective business operations. The diversity in the political structures that are presented by different countries also affects international business operations (Corbridge, 1999).

International politics can also affect international business operations by imposing sanctions on the new market entrances for new business organizations that are still venturing on new markets. The amount of capital that a company should have at hand for it to participate in the international markets hinders new entrance in the international business. Most companies are not in position to participate in international business due huge capital that should have. These lead to reduced competition in these international markets hence few companies enjoying monopoly which might leas to exploitation of consumers (Barnet, 2000).

International traders are at all time cautious on their business operations. International politics has a lot of limitations that has a far reaching influence on their operations. Doing business with international countries can lead to downfall of the operations due delays by most governments to settle bills in time. When a government is a buyer, there are a lot of inefficiencies associated with it. United Nations influence international business operations of a country i.e., it can impose an embargo on countries. This limits their ability to import goods hence markets for the global market goods are reduced. If for example a trader had exported goods to a government, but he later realized that embargo has been impose on that government, it has no option other than to cancel the export license of that trader (Corbridge, 1999).

Globalisation and international politics affects international business operations. Some of the impacts are very important and fosters the international operations while some other impacts act as an obstacle to business operations. Policies that are made by political leaders can either be positive or negative. Globalization is very useful in reshaping the economic landscape. Globalisation has contributed greatly to economic growth of some countries which have the stable economic base. There are adverse effects of globalization to countries which are still developing as inequality and unbalanced economic growth dominates the economy (Casson, 1998).

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Is globalization in retreat? Here is what a new study shows

Sebastian franco bedoya.

The debate is raging: Is globalization in retreat or not? If yes, to what extent, and what are the implications for global prosperity and poverty reduction? These aren’t easy questions to answer, largely because there are different definitions of globalization, which give rise to different ways of measuring it. Recent research at the World Bank, based on a new definition, suggests that globalization is alive and well.

But first, some context. For more than 50 years, globalization has been a catalyst for economic development, trade integration, and prosperity building. It has helped lift more than 1 billion people out of poverty. Since the 1990s, it has become a pathway for businesses in emerging economies to enter global value chains and nearly double their share of exports. Breathtaking advances in communications, transportation, and information technology have made it easier and cheaper for countries on opposite sides of the world to transact business, tap into each other’s markets, and share resources, knowhow, and technology. On the other hand, some critics in advanced economies blame globalization for the loss of manufacturing jobs, and others point to it as a source of greenhouse gas emissions.

Recently, the COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine, and China-US tensions have led countries and companies to rethink global strategies. But to what extent is globalization actually retreating?  Some studies find little systematic evidence that it is, while others conclude that “trade openness” has recently fallen in some regions, coinciding with a slower pace of trade reforms and posing a threat to growth. This isn’t just an academic exercise. Accurately measuring globalization is necessary to understand the impact of the current challenges on the world economy. Economic policy cannot risk either overestimating deglobalization or underestimating the costs of such a scenario. For this reason, we need a clear definition with precise empirical applications that can guide economic policy.

The trade-to-GDP ratio — which calculates the relative importance of a country’s imports and exports to its economy — is one way to measure “openness” to trade  . This ratio steadily rose until 2008, then suffered a sudden drop in 2009 following the global financial crisis. By 2011 it had recovered, but it lacked the same vigor as before the crisis, suggesting to some that globalization was waning.

Some economists continue to the use trade-to-GDP ratio as a measure of openness, although many others argue that it is an inadequate yardstick and doesn’t necessarily imply that high trade barriers exist. Instead, it could reflect factors such as the size or structure of the economy or its geographic proximity to trading partners.

So globalization is better understood as an extension beyond national borders of the same market forces operating at all levels of economic activity. Using this definition, we measured the intensity of globalization as the growth of international trade relative to domestic trade. For instance, automakers sell some cars in the domestic market and export the rest. Comparing the evolution of the exports of cars with domestic sales offers a better measure of globalization dynamics than the trade-to-GDP ratio.  The model used to capture the relative dynamics of international and domestic trade is what economists call a structural gravity model. It allows for comparisons across countries and over time, capturing more intuitive globalization dynamics than the trade-to-GDP ratio. Among other factors, the reduction in trade barriers and advances in information technology make international trade grow faster than domestic trade, with the world becoming more globalized and with greater economic connectivity and cooperation among countries.

Based on this research, there is no evidence that the world economy has entered an era of deglobalization.  China’s trade-to-GDP ratio, for example, has trended downward since 2006 and is now below both the world average and the level in 2001, when China entered the World Trade Organization. Yet even considering recent trade tensions with the United States, it would be difficult to argue that the Chinese economy is drastically less “open,” as the trade-to-GDP ratio would suggest. A better explanation is that trade has become less important to China’s GDP as its domestic economy has boomed.

A globalization analysis consistent with economic theory requires the study of sector-specific dynamics. For instance, manufacturing has traditionally been a more trade-intensive sector, but information and communication technology (ICT) advances seem to be making services more tradable, pointing to more globalization opportunities in the future. Figure 1 plots the main results of our research. It shows that globalization dynamics in manufacturing were already strong in 1965, while agriculture and services “took off” in the late 1970s and 1990s, respectively. There is no sign of a deglobalization trend post-2008.

Figure 1. Globalization took off at various times, depending on the sector and country.

Figure 1 (b) investigates manufacturing dynamics across countries. These results uncover differing dynamics, situating China as a globalization leader starting in the 1980s, outperforming the world economy significantly during the entire period. This story is different from the one told by the trade-to-GDP ratio. Other results also offer deep insights by illustrating how countries like India, while lagging in manufacturing globalization, have outperformed the world economy in services.

The debate on globalization uses various terms --  slowbalization, deglobalization, reglobalization. Each tells a very different story about changes in the world economy. Our research contributes to these debates by offering a globalization toolkit to understand where the world economy stands today  and helping us to prepare for future dynamics.

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