Introduction to

the Study of
Globalization
Chris Jezrel B. Barleta
Part-time Instructor, LSPU-SPCC
 Intended Learning Outcomes

Identify the underlying

philosophies of the varying
definitions of globalization;

01 02 03

Differentiate the competing Agree on a working definition of

conceptions of globalization; globalization for the course
 Targets/ Objectives
Identify and
Describe the
Define the explain the
prevailing
concept of important
perspectives on
globalization; dimensions of
globalization;
globalization.

Discuss the
Identify and
importance of
explain the
studying the
different drivers
concept of
of globalization;
globalization;
 Learning Guide Questions
What do you think are the
advantages and
What do you think is the
disadvantages of
importance of defining
homogenization of culture?
globalization?
How about
heterogenization?

Do you agree with the idea

that the contemporary Has globalization facilitated
world is characterized by or obstructed greater labor
high liquidity? Why or why migration?
not?
 Table of Contents

Introduction to the study of Globalization

1. Definition of globalization
2. Drivers of globalization
3. Phases of globalization
4. Three perspectives on globalization
 Introduction

CFR Education (2019). What Is Globalization? Understand Our Interconnected World |

World101 CFR. https://youtu.be/wLNp3kgBuuQ?si=oq0nqCJWGaqxh1OH
 Introduction

Human beings have encountered many changes over the last

century especially in their social relationships and social
structures. Of these changes, one can say that globalization is a
very important change, if not, the "most important" (Bauman,
2003).

So, what is globalization? Many scholars gave and tried to

formulate its definitions. This resulted in different, sometimes
contradicting views about the concept.
 Introduction
Some view globalization as a positive phenomenon.
• "the process of world shrinkage, of distances getting shorter,
things moving closer. It pertains to the increasing ease with
which somebody on one side of the world can interact, to
mutual benefit with somebody on the other side of the world"
(Thomas Larsson, 2001)

Some see it as occurring through and with regression,

colonialism, and destabilization.
• Martin Khor once regarded globalization as colonization
The Task of
Defining
Globalization
 The Task of Defining Globalization

The literature on the definitions of globalization revealed that

definitions could be classified as either:
1. broad and inclusive; or
2. narrow and exclusive.

"globalization means the onset of the borderless world” (Ohmae,

1992).
• broad and inclusive
 The Task of Defining Globalization

"the characteristics of the globalization trend include the

internationalizing of production, the new international division of
labor, new migratory movements from South to North, the new
competitive environment that accelerates these processes, and
the internationalizing of the State... making States into agencies
of the globalizing world" Robert Cox
• narrow and exclusive
• better justified but can limiting
 Manfred Steger
“the expansion and intensification
of social relations and
consciousness across world-time
and world-space. It is a multi-
dimensional phenomenon
involving economics, politics,
culture, ideology, environment,
and technology”
 Immanuel
Wallerstein
"globalization represents the
triumph of a capitalist world
economy tied together by a global
division of labour."
Anthony Giddens
“Globalization can thus be defined as
the intensification of worldwide social
relations which link distant localities in
such a way that local happenings are
shaped by events occurring many
miles away and vice versa.”
 "...the deepening widening, and speeding up of
worldwide interconnectedness in all aspects of
contemporary social life, from the cultural to the
criminal, the financial to the spiritual."

—David Held, Anthony

McGrew, David Goldblatt, and
Jonathan Perraton
David Henderson
“…free movement of goods, services,
labour and capital thereby creating a
single market in inputs and outputs; and
full national treatment for foreign
investors (and nationals working abroad)
so that, economically speaking, there are
no foreigners.”
Eduardo Aninat
“Globalization can be defined as the
increasing interaction among and
integration of diverse human societies
in all important dimensions of their
activities—economic, social, political,
cultural, and religious.”
 "Globalization is a process that encompasses the
causes, course, and consequences of transnational
and transcultural integration of human and non-
human activities."

—Nayef R.F. Al-Rodhan and

Gerard Stoudmann
George Ritzer (2015)
"globalization is a transplanetary
process or a set of processes involving
increasing liquidity and the growing
multidirectional flows of people,
objects, places, and information as
well as the structures they encounter
and create that are barriers to, or
expedite, those flows..."
 “Globalization is composed of two directional
tendencies that include increasing global connectivity
and increasing global consciousness.”

—Roland Robertson and

Kathleen White
 The Task of Defining Globalization

The concept is complex and multifaceted as the definitions

deal with either economic, political, or social dimensions.
• 67 of 114 definitions refer to economic dimension.
• definitions include political and social dimensions as well.

The debate about what can be done about globalization and

what it is are similar. (Kumar, 2003).
 The Task of Defining Globalization

First, the perspective of the person who defines globalization shapes its
definition.
• "globalization is a 'world of things' that have 'different speeds, axes,
points of origin and termination, and varied relationships to
institutional structures in different regions, nations, or societies’”
(Appadurai, 1996).
• definitions suggest the perspective of the author on the origins and
the geopolitical implications of globalization. (Al-Rhodan, 2006)
• For example, seeing globalization as positive or negative
 The Task of Defining Globalization
Second, to paraphrase the sociologist Cesare Poppi: Globalization is the
debate and the debate is globalization.

Third, globalization is a reality. It is changing as human society develops.

Overall, globalization is a concept that is not easy to define because in

reality, globalization has a shifting nature.
• "attitudes toward globalization depend on whether one gains or
loses from it" (Ritzer, 2003)
• The fact that we experience globalization should give one the
interest of engaging in the study of it.
Metaphors of
Globalization
 Metaphors of Globalization
Solid
• The social relationships and objects remained where they were
created (limited mobility)
• Solidity also refers to barriers that prevent or make difficult the
movement of things

Examples:
• Natural solids
• man-made barriers

They have the tendency to melt.

 Natural solids

Peaks of the
Pyrenees
mountains:
Boundary of Spain
and France
 Natural solids

Alps: French-Italian
Border
 Natural solids

Mekong River:
Boundary Between
Laos and Thailand
 Natural solids

Great Lakes:
Boundaries US and
Canada
 Man-made Barriers

Great Wall of China

Man-made Barriers

Hadrian’s Wall in
England
Man-made Barriers

Berlin Wall
Man-made Barriers

Nine-dash Line
 Metaphors of Globalization
Liquid
• the increasing ease of movement of people, things, information, and places
in the contemporary world.
• today's liquid phenomena change quickly and their aspects, spatial and
temporal, are in continuous fluctuation.

Examples:
• In global finance, changes in the stock market are a matter of seconds.
• Videos uploaded on YouTube or Facebook are unstoppable once they
become viral.

Liquids made political boundaries more permeable to the flow of people and
things (Cartier, 2001). It "tends to melt whatever stands 'in its path (especially
solids)."
 Metaphors of Globalization
Flows
• the movement of people, things, places, and information brought by the
growing "porosity" of global limitations (Ritzer, 2015).

Examples:
• foreign cuisines
• global financial crises (effects of American financial crisis on Europe in 2008)
• poor illegal migrants flooding many parts of the world
• the virtual flow of legal and illegal information
• immigrants recreating ethnic enclaves in host countries
• Filipino communities abroad and the Chinese communities in the
Philippines
Dimensions of
Globalization
 Dimensions of Globalization
Economic Globalization

A complex global process of expanding the market economic system all

throughout the world. The market economy gives freedom to
entrepreneurs to control productive process to pursue profit. It is a
corporate-driven process of enhanced transnational exchange of
products, services, technologies, and capital, creating an increased
interdependence of world economies (Shangquan, 2000).
• Trading
• Capital Movement
• Movement of People
 Dimensions of Globalization

Political Globalization

The enlargement of the international political system and

its establishments, where inter-regional dealings, including
trade, are managed (Modelski, Devezas and Thomson,
2007). Political decision-making can transcend the
boundaries of nations.
 Dimensions of Globalization

Cultural Globalization

The increasing “contact between people and their cultures–

their ideas, their values, their ways of life” (Kumaravadivelu,
2008). It is also linked to globalization of lifestyles such as
music, media, fashion, food, as well as globalization of
knowledge, science, and technology.
 Dimensions of Globalization

Five Conceptual Dimensions or ‘Landscapes’ by Arjun Appadurai

Ethnoscapes
• shifting populations made up of tourists, immigrants, refugees,
and exiles

Technoscapes
• development of technologies that facilitate the rise of TNCs
 Dimensions of Globalization

Financescapes
• flows of global capital

Mediascapes
• electronic capabilities to produce and disseminate information

Ideoscapes
• ideologies of states and social movements
 Drivers of
Globalization

Globalization is not new.

 Drivers of globalization

Thomas
Friedman,
described
contemporary
globalization as
“farther,
faster,
cheaper, and
deeper.”
 Drivers of globalization

Marginal Revolution University (2019). Avengers: The Story of Globalization (episode 1).
https://youtu.be/PPZZQ0fmI2Y?si=g_sfqq83YW4iHXUH
 Drivers of Globalization
First Wave
• from 1870 to the start of World War I
• stimulated by advances in transport and reductions in trade barriers
Second Wave
• started after World War II and lasted until 1980
• removal of barriers to the flow of goods, people, and investment
between countries
• adoption of free-market capitalism
Third wave
• started in 1980
• spurred by a combination of advances in transport and
communications technologies
 Drivers of Globalization

1. Technological drivers
• transportation technology
• microprocessors and telecommunications
• Internet

2. Political drivers
• Liberalized trading rules and deregulated markets
 Drivers of Globalization
3. Market drivers
• global expansion

4. Cost drivers
• sourcing efficiency and costs vary from country to
country

5. Competitive drivers
• global inter-firm competition increases
Three
Perspectives on
Globalization
 Three Perspectives on Globalization
The Hyper Globalist View
• globalization is a positive process of economic growth
and increasing prosperity for the majority and the spread
of democracy.
• adoption of neoliberal economic policies

Golden Straight Jacket

• deregulation, fewer protections for workers and the
environment, privatization and cutting taxes
 Three Perspectives on Globalization
Hyper Globalism: Supporting Evidence
• increased international trade has generally resulted in
improved economic and social development for most
countries
• More cultural globalization has led to more tolerance and
more global events such as the Olympics.
• There is more democracy and freedom as a result of
globalization
• There are more global cities today.
Three Perspectives on Globalization
More
international
trade is good

Hans Rosling's
200 Countries,
200 Years, 4
Minutes - The
Joy of Stats -
BBC Four
• https://youtu.be/jb
kSRLYSojo?si=FGF
MqE9fp9deLv45
Three Perspectives on Globalization
 Three Perspectives on Globalization

The Pessimist View

• globalization is a form of Western, American Imperialism.
Ha-Joon Chang
• neo-liberal policies actually benefit
rich countries and corporations
more than poor countries.
• refers to the World Bank, the IMF
and the WTO as the ‘Unholy
Alliance’
Jeremy Seabrook

by definition, globalization makes all

other cultures local, and, by
implication, inferior.
 Three Perspectives on Globalization

Supporting Evidence for the pessimist view of globalization

1. Increased trade has had unequal benefits.
2. TNCs pollute, extract resources from and exploit cheap
labour in the developing world.
3. Americanisation
• Cocacolonisation and Dysnification
• Mcdonaldisation
The.Cola.Conquest
.Part 3 Coca-
Colonization
France
• https://youtu.be

/DxjMqrZ6psw?s
i=ks3mT25qZMy
T9IRZ
McDonaldization
Theory of George
Ritzer

• https://youtu.b
e/Fdy1AgO6Fp
4?si=GaaJ0Je2
WxT4-lkj
 Three Perspectives on Globalization

Supporting Evidence for the pessimist view of globalization

4. Sport may be increasingly globalized
5. The spread of U.S Military power
6. the spread of massive media firms presenting a pro-
American view of the world.
7. that global cities are best described as ‘fortress cities’
• developing world cities are places of huge
inequalities
 Three Perspectives on Globalization
The Transformationalist View
• globalization is complex two way process and that it can
be reversed.
• the flow of culture is not one way

Glocalization
• people in developing countries select aspects of western
culture and adapt them to their particular needs
 Three Perspectives on Globalization

• cultural diversity and pluralism will become the norm.

• global communications systems and social networks can
assist local cultures to rid themselves of repressive
political systems.
Anthony Giddens
• one consequence of globalisation is
detraditionalisation
• cultures are much less stable and
less predictable than before
globalisation
Ulrich Beck
• a fundamental feature of
globalization is the development of
a global risk consciousness
• widespread culture of fear and
increasing anxiety
• new global international
movements and agencies have
emerged
 Three Perspectives on Globalization
Supporting evidence for the Transformationalist view of
globalization:
1. Trade has many complex formations
2. The transformationalist view of Transnational
Corporations
3. There are many examples of cultural hybridity
4. Political Globalisation
5. The spread of global media
6. Detraditionalisation
Thank You for
Listening!
Chris Jezrel B. Barleta
Part-time Instructor, LSPU-SPCC
chris.barleta@lspu.edu.ph